Disney Leadership Keynote Speaker
Five daily blogs about life's 5 big choices on five interconnected sites.
All Mid Life Celebration posts from 2008 – 2014.
Can anything be sadder than work unfinished? Yes, work never begun. – Christina Rossetti
Everything takes longer than you think. This is most often the reason work goes unfinished.
Sadder still, is fear of the journey, the unexpected, the hard work, the ridicule.
These are the ingredients for never starting.
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“If people only knew how hard I work to gain my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful after all.” – Michelangelo Buonarroti
Michelangelo Buonarotti, the Renaissance sculptor and painter, is considered one of the world’s greatest artists. He was born in Tuscany in 1475. Working alone, he took four years to paint more than 400 figures on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
Never give up.
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Happy Halloween and Happy Sunday.
Just another day in paradise, eh?
Our days come and our days go.
Time marches on.
We find ourselves being amazed by stories of people who never gave up. Some of them come to us via the TV news, the Internet, email, personal conversation, and newspaper headlines.
And some just show up on our doorstep.
This is the 2,996 blog post at Mid Life Celebration, LLC.
If you click through all five posts today, you’ll get to the 3,000 blog post.
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From the recent archives:
1. Tell us about yourself (provide your name, job, background and any other information you feel is important). What’s your dream and how are you working towards it?
Hello everyone, jeff noel, professional speaker here. I give speeches to change the world, never giving the same speech twice. My boss calls me audacious.
I’m aggressively unfancy, a professional antagonist, and it brings considerable satisfaction to make people uncomfortable through compelling insights.
But more than anything, I believe if your goal isn’t impossible, you’re not reaching high enough.
My goal in life is to become the kind of person my Dog thinks I am.
2. Describe a “gray” (lost, unfulfilled, challenging) time in your life. How did it stand between you and your dreams? How did you overcome it?
The day that changed my life was the day that I realized my greatest desire was to become a Father. This was also the same day my wife and I realized it probably wasn’t going to happen.
It was the peak on a mid life crisis. “How did I get here. And what am I supposed to do now?”
Couple this with an unfulfilled desire to be the captain of my own ship ( a business owner), a series of epiphanies were revealed.
First, surrender. I surrendered my fate to God. Not long thereafter, Cheryl got pregnant.
Second, I incorporated a business, Mid Life Celebration, turning a crisis into an opportunity.
3. What fears have you faced as you chase your dreams?
Of course, the classic fear of failure. Plus the underrated and overlooked fear of success.
The fear of being all talk.
4. What inspires you to keep pushing forward when the going gets tough?
Everything. But mostly the simple fact that this is not for me, it’s for our son.
5. If you could give one piece of advice to someone else who is struggling to move beyond the gray and follow a dream, what would it be?
Do it for someone else. Be prepared to work harder than you ever have. Be prepared to commit to it for a lifetime. Or as Tiger Woods told me last year, “Out work ’em.”
(Don’t forget to mention any blogs, web sites, books, articles, etc. that you’d like to plug.)
Erika, if visitors to your site would like to read any of the crazy things I say, they may start at Mid Life Celebration Links to the other four blogs can be found there.
Guest Blogger, Lorie Sheffer:
Several years ago my friend told me about advice her mother had just given her. We had to laugh at the harshness of it. After pouring out her heart over coffee and strudel, her mother simply looked at her and asked, “Why should you be spared?” A pity party would have been nice. Soothing words would have been welcome. Instead she got five words- no nonsense, old-fashioned German wisdom- that must have felt like a bucket of cold water in the face.
The last five years of my life have been chock full of some real doozies. While I was in my doctor’s office for a regular check-up, she asked how things were going. I gave her a partial list, and her eyes got wide and her jaw dropped. She asked if I was OK. “Well, it’s been rough, but why should I be spared?” I answered.
We all know that bad things happen. People get sick. We lose loved ones. There are times when the economy is rough. (Remember waiting in lines at the gas station in the 70s?) Nobody wants it to be his or her turn at the tough stuff, but if not you, then who? It’s not like the other guy deserves it, either. There are times when, no matter how much we try to prevent it, we can be doing everything right and we just happen to draw the short straw.
Ever notice how, when times are good and life is calm and serene, you rarely hear “Why me?” If you do hear someone ask why he or she deserves such a good and happy life, those around them will jump right in to assure them that their good fortune should be enjoyed. “Why should they be spared” happiness?
There are things we can do to contribute toward our economic security or good health or happy marriage. Wise investments, a good education and careful saving can mean financial stability. Eating a healthy diet, exercising, not smoking and getting regular preventative care can stack the odds in our favor when it comes to our physical well being. But there are some things that just happen. Sometimes life can seem like a crapshoot of sorts. We read about people who dropped out of school and went on to become multimillionaires. I had a great uncle who drank heavily, smoked and was grossly overweight and lived to be well into his nineties. My husband, on the other hand, didn’t smoke, drank in moderation and exercised like it was his job, yet he had a massive stroke when he was forty-four years old. My best friend was a wonderful and loving wife and mother, yet after thirty years of marriage her husband left her for another woman. Perhaps the bad things in life happen as a way for us to have a greater appreciation of the good things. The sun is always brightest just after the storm has passed. That first warm day of spring is so joyous after a harsh winter, as is the first crisp fall day after a sweltering summer.
I have always been a person who has to know the answer. I feel more secure if there is a reason why. I suppose I rationalize that if I can find a reason why, then I can figure out how to stop the same thing from happening again. It gives me a sense of control. It’s hard to accept that sometimes, bad things happen to good people. And yet, I find strange comfort in Maria’s words. She was being kinder than it seemed. Sometimes the answer is simple. “Why should you be spared?”
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