Mid Life Celebration on You Tube

Mid Life Celebration.  It’s the antithesis of mid life crisis. Same thing, different outlook.

Attitude makes all the difference, doesn’t it?  Whether it’s personal or professional, attitude is a way to excel in anything.

jeff noel (that’s me), founder at Mid Life Celebration, was traveling through Columbia, South Carolina a few days ago and noticed this airport hallway billboard.

To be excellent once, or maybe twice, is a huge accomplishment. But to do it eight straight years, well, unbelievable.

But that’s exactly what Lexington Medical Center has done. Here’s the one-take-You Tube video with my commentary:

You know what watching this video does for me? It reminds me that attitude is everything and also that much can be gained by reinforcing simple principles like this. Ya with me?

Mid Life Distance

“Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.”Victor Borge

Hope you enjoyed the rare Mid Life Celebration blog post yesterday.

Rare?  Yes.  In fact, it was probably the first of it’s kind. A joke.  And it brought joy to post it.

I have it in me.  Really, I do.  Every one has a sense of humor, even me, and laughter is good medicine.

Just yesterday, I was in the Atlanta airport heading to Dallas, and asked a couple with grown children, “Any advice on raising boys”?

With the husband still thinking of an answer, the wife instantaneously responded, “Have a sense of humor!”

What are the odds?

Single Most Important Tip

Things you can do to prepare for a Mid Life Crisis, before it happens.  Click here to read the article from Everyday Health.

However, here’s the single most important tip you will ever get from anyone about preparing for your midlife crisis or, as I like to say, your mid life celebration.

Focus on Life’s Big four:

MIND

BODY

SPIRIT

MONEY

And by focus, I mean proactively, in advance, as best you possibly can. This will keep you ever mindful of that elusive concept called “Balance”.

More on this later, maybe as soon as tomorrow.

Food For Families

Central Florida volunteers gather at a local High School every Thanksgiving Day morning to pick up and deliver boxes of food to needy Families.

Tomorrow will be our tenth year of this Thanksgiving Day family tradition.

A decade ago, and even before Cheryl was pregnant, I suggested to her that we find a way to show our children that we are here to serve and not to be served.

This is a simple, and seemingly insignificant act of kindness influences our thinking, and our actions, all year long.

A Publix Grocery Store Produce manager started Food For Families many years ago.  With help from Central Florida Churches, Schools, and community members, needy Families are identified.

The Central Florida Community also delivers Food for Families on Christmas morning and Easter morning, providing us opportunities to put others first on three special days where we traditionally didn’t.

Mid Life Creativity

Do you ever have moments, seasons, or even longer stages of life where you question many things? Or maybe you find yourself lost and confused. Or, overwhelmed.

Mid Life creativity is critical in moving from a mid life crisis to a mid life celebration.  Several times yesterday, I thought about it being Monday. Monday is “Twistee Treat Day”.  And so is Friday.

Seemingly insignificant, or trivial, at first glance, isn’t it?

You see, as a mid-life father of a nine-year old, in many ways, I was a “fish out of water” when our son was born.

What to do, right?  Well, it seemed like a good idea to find small ways to create lasting memories (traditions).

Perhaps the main reason this is challenging for me is because, when I tried to recall these things with my Dad and my Grandfather, I was coming up empty.  Both men loved me and I loved them.

I just simply don’t remember any special things that we did together.

Tomorrow I’ll share a creative mid-life list of some of the things that are so simple, and yet so significant, that they will last  life time.  Who wouldn’t want that?