Mid Life crisis – Page 6 – Disney Leadership Keynote Speaker

Simple Midlife Simplicity

Do you often feel overwhelmed? Me too.

And if you don’t, you’re either brilliant or clueless – I’m guessing anyway.

Human tendency is to complicate things. More is better. Keeping up with what others have or do. Newer. Bigger.

Here’s how I alleviate, not eliminate, the stress of our daily burdens:

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Simple. Wise. Powerful.

But there is a complexity we must break through in order to get to simplicity.

And it may take us a lifetime.

Mid Life 1980

Mid Life in 1980?

Hardly. I was 21. A senior in college, and a dreamer.

There was a movie that shaped the mid life celebration vision. A mother was videotaping herself while she spoke to her unborn child.

She was dying of cancer and would never meet her child.

She wanted her child to be able to see and hear, directly from the video tapes, what she wished for her child and what she thought her child might want to know about their mother.

It was in the following days, on the lazy, sunny, fall days in West Chester, Pennsylvania that I dreamt of writing a book for my children.

The book would contain all the secrets of life, learned through books, travels and experiences.

While the Mid Life Celebration website is two years old, the name and vision are the same, what’s morphed is Mid Life Celebration’s purpose.

And it’s more exciting than I could have ever imagined 30 years ago. Ever feel like that?

Do you have important dreams from long ago that are more exciting today than when you first dreamt them?

How did you go about keeping them alive all these years? Or, how did you go about reigniting the flames?

Why?

Mid Life Lies

Do you lie to yourself? We all do.

So?

So what are you going to do about it and when are you going to stop?

Mid Life Crisis. Mid Life Celebration. Mid Life lies.

Life is about balancing life’s big four. Life’s big four?

Yes. Life can be broken down into four basic segments:

Mind
Body
Spirit
Money

It’s simple. People think simple isn’t important. Simple is the most important of all.

That’s why no one has focused on it relentlessly.

Until 1980.

Sorry

Simplicity is an elusive goal sometimes.

Ok, simplicity is elusive most of the time.

But so are a lot of things that are important. Should that stop us from our pursuit?

There is only one, resounding answer to this question.

And maybe by tomorrow I’ll have my movie soundtrack song(s) to share with the world. This was a fun, and frustrating, exercise.

And anything but simple.

Should have seen it coming.

Same Thing Different Words

Ever heard someone say what you say, but in a different way?

How’d it feel?

Some might feel threatened, because they thought their thoughts were original.

Some rejoice because it validates their thinking and belief system.

For me, it’s the latter.

Click here to go to Brian K. Rice, and his LeadershipConnextions blog. Brian quotes some of Gail Sheehy’s thoughts on Mid Life.

The purpose here today is simple – provide you with links, offering the same thing using different words.

PS. Tomorrow, we’ll revisit yesterday’s question.