Disney Leadership Keynote Speaker
Five daily blogs about life's 5 big choices on five interconnected sites.
Snapped this photo while parked at Chick-fil-A. The competition between Publix Supermarket and Whole Foods, the traffic at a major intersection, the weight of unfulfilled dreams – intense. This tension can ignite into a midlife crisis. We should be thankful for this milestone opportunity to question ourselves, everything, deeply.
Next Blog
Why would a Vietnam veteran and Baby Boomer, at 61, tryout for a college football team? Why would anyone at midlife put themselves out there against younger and stronger competition? Because in this Boomer’s mind, impossible is nothing. Like this example.
Next Blog
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.
“Because it is less structured than work, leisure time leaves workaholics at a loss for what to do. Workaholics practically climb the wall when they can’t work”. — Marilyn Machlowitz
This is “painful” to read. Why? Because I felt particularly guilty this weekend.
While I did do a decent job of carving out time with our son, work occupied a better portion of the weekend. It was predictable.
It isn’t leisure that leaves a loss for what to do. It’s quite enjoyable, almost nirvana, doing nothing. But the work starts to pile up. So much to do. So little time.
Yes indeed, so little time. Our nine-year old will be driving before you know it. And then it will be too late.
“It is an old ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way”. — Rollo May
I’m tempted to question myself. Why? Because many I talk with, think I’m crazy to believe that people will want to change if the right recipe comes along.
There is a secret recipe. Everyone knows it. But because we ignore it, it remains a secret.
The secret is, “work hard and find your purpose”.
Most people don’t want to do either. I certainly didn’t. Most of my life was, “Work hard, play hard”. That’s a catch phrase for, “Hurry up, we’re lost”.
Then I regained consciousness and started looking around. There’s much work to be done. The harvest is great, the workers are few.
Next Blog