Achieving Your Goals in Midlife

An American named Charlie Whittmack recently completed a remarkable feat; the longest triathlon ever undertaken.

Firstly, Charlie swam the whole length of the River Thames up to London (he didn’t swim the London stretch due to the amount of river traffic and the dangers involved). He then swam across the English Channel to France.

Having completed the swimming section of his triathlon, he then got on his bike and cycled across Europe, into Asia and right up to the foothills of the Himalayas – an incredible distance of 10,000 miles!

After a break for medical attention following a road accident, Charlie then set out on the ‘running’ section of his triathlon – although in this case, it was more ‘climbing’ than ‘running’. Charlie climbed Mount Everest!

This is a truly amazing feat of endurance, stamina and willpower.

How did Charlie achieve this magnificent feat? When asked that question, he said ‘Every day I got up and (when I was swimming) put one hand in front of the other. That’s all I thought about – the next step.

What a lesson this is for the rest of us. Almost all of us are unlikely to complete a triathlon, let alone consider anything the size of Charlie’s effort. Yet we all have our own challenges to face which sometimes appear very daunting.

Why not follow Charlie’s example? While he was focused on achieving his goal of reaching the summit of the world’s highest mountain, he managed that in his mind by thinking about what he needed to do in the ‘here and now’ – what he needed to do next. To put one hand in front of the other.

So don’t be frightened or overawed (or depressed) about the challenge facing you, think about what needs to be done next, in the context of the overall goal.

Little by little, if you keep positive, retain momentum and stay on course you will reach your goal. It’s very easy to throw in the towel if you concentrate solely on the size of the final goal.

Much less likely to throw in the towel if you’re concentrating on putting one hand in front of the other!

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Rob Horlock has established The Mid Life Opportunity (www.midlifeop.com), a community for people in Midlife. Advice and Guidance is available from The Mid Life Coaching Panel. It’s free to join - click here

Anti Establishment Joke of the Week... A DEA officer stopped at a ranch in Texas , and talked with an old rancher. He told the rancher, "I need to inspect your ranch for illegally grown drugs." The rancher said, "Okay, but don't go in that field over there.....", as he pointed out the location. The DEA officer verbally exploded saying, " Mister, I have the authority of the Federal Government with me!"

Reaching into his rear pants pocket, he removed his badge and proudly displayed it to the rancher.

"See this badge?!  This badge means I am allowed to go wherever I wish.... On any land!! 

No questions asked or answers given!!  Have I made myself clear......do you understand?!!"

The rancher nodded politely, apologized, and went about his chores.

A short time later, the old rancher heard loud screams, looked up, and saw the DEA officer running for his life, being chased by the rancher's big Santa Gertrudis bull...... 

With every step the bull was gaining ground on the officer, and it seemed likely that he'd sure enough get gored before he reached safety 

The officer was clearly terrified. The rancher threw down his tools, ran to the fence and yelled at the top of his lungs.....              

(I just love this part....)

"Your badge, show him your BADGE! !"

Customer Perceptions

The windows of most homes in cooler climates have double glazing. It is one of the best investments that a homeowner can make – a significant percentage of a house’s heat loss goes out through single glazed windows. Twenty years ago, the majority of houses had single glazing and upgrading to double glazing was big business.

So double glazing was a great product, providing a genuine benefit that was in high demand. A dream job for a double glazing salesman, you might think.

Why, then, did double glazing salesmen have such a dreadful reputation? (for those of you who aren’t familiar with this, in the past two decades the reputation of the average double glazing salesman has been significantly below the position in which bankers and politicians find themselves today.)

Not great.

The reputation of the double glazing salesmen highlights everything that is wrong with selling:

• Not listening to the customer
• Not understanding the customer’s requirements
• Knowing better than the customer
• Annoying the customer
• People didn’t want double glazing salesmen in their house because they were concerned that they’d never get rid of them unless they signed a contract.

Why am I highlighting this? Because we all need to learn the lessons of the double glazing salesman. Whether you are employed by an organisation or self employed you have customers (internal and external). In order to succeed, you must listen to your customers, understand their needs and attempt to satisfy them. Not think that you know best and carry on regardless. Your perception of the solution and your customer’s perception of the solution may be poles apart.

Sounds obvious? Yes, of course. But like many of the topics that I write about it’s obvious to all of us but do we actually practise what we preach? 

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Rob Horlock has established The Mid Life Opportunity (www.midlifeop.com), a community for people in Midlife. Advice and Guidance is available from The Mid Life Coaching Panel. It’s free to join - click here

Mamils

Yesterday I met a very nice man called James who told me that he was a Mamil.

‘A Mamil?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ replied James, ‘I’ve become a Mamil – a Middle Aged Man in Lycra!’

James is a very keen cyclist, spending his weekends out in the country, lycra clad, cycling around the highways and byways, thinking nothing of riding 30 miles or more. Apparently, this is a growing trend.

Research by Mintel shows that there has been a surge in the number of middle aged men like James who are forsaking their ‘midlife crisis’ sports cars, designer jeans and younger women and buying a bicycle instead. According to Mintel, the past few years have seen the rise of the ultra techno, full carbon fibre, sexy looking road bike. The market for these bikes is expanding rapidly, helped in no small part by the Beijing Olympics and some smart marketing. And Mamils are leading the way.

It’s a very healthy option, I’m sure. Not an inexpensive one, though. James has spent nearly £4,000 on his bicycle and accessories - his new lycra wardrobe, cycling helmet, gloves etc have set him back another few hundred pounds. He loves the look and loves the freedom of the open air and mixing with other Mamils.

As a spokesperson for people in midlife, will I be joining James? Er, probably not. I think I’ll stick to riding my mountain bike to the pub occasionally, on sunny days and leave the lycra to the Mamils!

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Rob Horlock has established The Mid Life Opportunity (www.midlifeop.com), a community for people in Midlife. Advice and Guidance is available from The Mid Life Coaching Panel. It’s free to join - click here

Mid Life Happiness – the 3 Basic Rules

There are 3 basic rules to ensure midlife happiness:


Rule 1: Be happy in your own time
Some people find it hard to accept that they are growing older, they seek perpetual youth.

Some have facelifts, botox injections and other cosmetic surgery to try to keep the ravages of time at bay. This may look very attractive for a time but often ends with the person looking a parody of his or her previous self. ‘Trout pout’ anyone?

Some wear clothes that would look much better on their children (rule 1a – If you are old enough to have worn it when it was in fashion last time around, don’t wear it this time!).

Some people in midlife decide to start again with a younger partner – ‘Cougar’ women take a toyboy, midlife men might opt for a 20 something female with long legs. Whilst this might seem attractive in the short term, once the initial excitement has died down, the couple find themselves living together with little in common. They watched different TV programmes when they were children, they grew up listening to different music and they wore different styles of clothes – they come from different ‘times’ and unless they are very fortunate, they are very unlikely to feel comfortable with each other in the long term.

Rule 2: Be happy in your own skin
We are all born with the hand of cards that we are given. Some will grow up as beautiful people, others won’t. Some will become thought leaders in their spheres, most won’t.

‘Show me the boy and I will show you the man’, a popular saying that rings very true. Most of us don’t change greatly as we get older, we play the hand that we were dealt.

Many people, though, are not happy with the cards that they were dealt and call ‘foul’. Most women are not happy with some aspects of their looks. Some go to great lengths to change their appearance with nose jobs, boob jobs, tummy tucks and all kinds of plastic surgery. This goes far beyond trying to keep their youth (see Rule 1) and is an attempt to change their looks, to give themselves characteristics that they wished they’d been born with.

Whilst some attempts at remodelling your looks can be beneficial, particularly for self-esteem and confidence, it is important to draw the line.

A midlife crisis is often triggered by a person not being able to come to terms with living in their own skin.

Rule 3: Be happy in your own life
Many people feel that they need to ‘fit in’, that they need to conform to a norm with which they aren’t really comfortable. Teenagers, in particular, feel that they must be part of a crowd and fall victim to peer pressure. Their friends all have tattoos, so they feel that they should have tattoos, even if they don’t like them (and will regret having them in later life, particularly if they include someone’s name!)

Midlifers are less inclined to worry about peer pressure but the ‘green-eyed monster’ of jealousy is a very real part of the life of many people in midlife. We all lead different lives and however happy we are, however well off we are, there will always be people who seem to be doing better than us. Some of them will indeed be doing better than us, either because they were dealt a better hand at birth (see Rule 2) or because they work harder than we do (often both).

The grass always seems greener in somebody else’s life. However, when the green-eyed monster rears its head, take a few moments to consider the other aspects of the person’s life – these may not be quite so rosy. Your rich friend may be doing very nicely in the big house, driving the expensive car but behind closed doors their relationship may be falling apart. Their kids might be taking drugs and mixing with the wrong ‘friends’.

Don’t try to ‘keep up with the Jones’ out of jealousy, to make yourself look better or more acceptable to your friends. You may find yourself deeply in debt if you overstretch yourself unnecessarily.

To be happy in your life, accept what you have – but don’t let that stop you from striving to achieve greatness. There is a difference between making the most of your life and trying to live your life imitating someone else.


What do you think? Please leave a comment. Thanks, Rob

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The Mid Life Opportunity (www.MidLifeOp.com) is a community for Mid Lifers. Advice and Guidance will soon be available from The Mid Life Coaching Panel. It’s free to join so what are you waiting for?

If you would like some help now with aspects of your life, contact Better Life Coaching: www.betterlifecoaching.co.uk

Your brain is at its peak in Mid Life

Review by Maureen Callahan - New York Post

Given the subject matter, the title of science writer Barbara Strauch’s new book feels limited: In it, she examines and explores new scientific research that shows the human brain, at mid-life, is at its most nimble, agile, and best. It’s not so much that the middle-aged mind has surprising “talents” — it’s that new scientific study is demanding an entire re-assessment of what it means to get older, and almost all the data is positive.

Strauch doesn’t so much define what middle age is as by what it isn’t; given our lengthy life spans, she considers someone like Nora Ephron, 68, still in the middle.

Some of the science isn’t new. For several years now, we’ve known that the brain doesn’t lose cells as it ages, as previously believed, but can and does generate new ones, along with new connections and pathways. We also know that older people tend to have more perspective, experience and wisdom than younger people, but neuroscience has just begun to quantify this common-sensical idea. (Strauch cites the actions of hero pilot Chesley Sullenberger as a quintessential example of the older brain’s ability to call on vast reams of synthesized information in order to make a series of swift, correct decisions under pressure.)

Strauch makes a strong argument for the notion that minor, intermittent forgetfulness — misplacing your keys, the inability to remember an acquaintance’s name — are not signs of a diminishing brain. We forget things like this in our 20s, too, but because we are in our 20s, we don’t read them as signs of impending dementia. She also points to studies that show that picayune details may elude the aging brain because it is soaked with more information and has a denser neural infrastructure than a younger one.

“The middle-aged brain is a contradiction,” she writes. “Some parts run better than others . . . [but] despite a misstep now and then, our cognitive abilities continue to grow.”

Among the many exciting recent discoveries: Your brain is at its peak in middle age, so much so that scientists are re-evaluating whether there is such a thing as a midlife crisis (the thinking now is that isolated individuals already prone to depression tend to be depressed in middle age.) But the middle-aged brain seems designed to filter experience and information positively, that it regulates emotions with great control, and that both hemispheres suddenly begin to act in concert, allowing greater facility with ideas and logic.

Also: There are people who live with advanced stages of Alzheimer’s and never show any symptoms. These individuals are rare, and they tend to be highly intelligent and social, but they exist. (Monkeys, by the way, do not get Alzheimer’s.) These same kinds of people are also far more likely to suffer less damage in sustaining a traumatic brain injury. Their creativity actually increases, because we make more interesting and disparate connections and are more prone to daydreaming and wandering thoughts (like, where are the keys?). In short, neuroscientists believe that through our own efforts — reading, exercising, proper nutrition, staying engaged with the world — and future scientific innovation, we can and should expect our brains to function highly long into our dotage.

Strauch’s greater, larger point — one that she could have made a bit more forcefully, but that exists nonetheless — is that the culture needs to shift its preconceived attitudes about the inexorable decline and diminishment of neurological function as we age. “Our current vision of middle age is new,” she writes. “In fact, the study of middle age is so new, as one scientist told me, ‘It’s like researching nuclear physics, something that simply did not exist before.’ “

The one ironic flaw in Strauch’s thesis: She often repeats the same information over and over, as though she’d not mentioned it several times before, in slightly different ways, as if she’s presenting it for the first time. But as she so comfortingly puts it, we all must cut the middle-aged brain some slack. Or, in the words of William James, who she quotes here, “The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.”

The Secret Life of the Grown-up Brain

The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind

by Barbara Strauch

Viking

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The Mid Life Opportunity (www.MidLifeOp.com) is a community for Mid Lifers. Advice and Guidance will soon be available from The Mid Life Coaching Panel. It’s free to join so what are you waiting for?

If you would like some help now with aspects of your life, contact Better Life Coaching: www.betterlifecoaching.co.uk

What is a Mid Lifer?

Simplistically, we might conclude that a Mid Lifer is someone between the ages of say, mid thirties to late fifties. Mid Life, though, is a state of mind as much as a physical age. So you may be older (or younger) and still consider yourself to be a Mid Lifer.

Typically, many of your habits will be set – you know what you like to drink, the type of holidays that you enjoy, the clothes that you wear and your hobbies, for example. These won’t be set in stone and may change as you grow older but by and large, you know who you are and you know what you want.

Some Mid Lifers may have young families as they have delayed parenthood whilst enjoying their youth. Others may have a young family with a second partner. At the other end of the family spectrum, some Mid Lifers will have seen their children leave home and this may lead to life changing decisions – moving house, reviewing their career, taking early retirement for example.

Mid Lifers may be carers for their elderly parents or they may have experienced the trauma of their parents passing away.

Many Mid Lifers spent their youth swearing that there would never be a generation gap between them and their children – then finding themselves wondering why their offspring listen to ‘such mindless music’ and have such odd hairstyles.

Some Mid Lifers will feel that they’ve reached the top of the ‘bell curve’ and it’s all downhill from here. These are the people that often experience a ‘mid life crisis’ with all the negative aspects that this holds for them and their family and friends.

This will be the future for some Mid Lifers but it doesn’t have to be. As Henry Ford once famously said ‘Whether you think you can, or whether you think you can’t, you’re usually right’. So mid life may be a time of retrospection and review and your conclusion may be that your best days are behind you. More positively, you might conclude that the experience and learning that you’ve gained in your younger years provide you with the springboard to greater things in the second half of your life.

Life is always full of opportunities – the trick is in recognising them for what they are.

The Mid Life Opportunity highlights all of the positive aspects of Mid Life whilst also recognising that not everyone is in this happy place.

If you have issues with your career, finances, relationships or your health you will be able to find Advice and Guidance from experts in their field. Experts who can help you to see that your coping skills, experiences, maturity and accumulated wisdom can increase your confidence and show you the way through your current crisis to a brighter future.

Thanks for your interest in The Mid Life Opportunity and do please join the community and add your voice.

The Mid Life Opportunity – www.MidLifeOp.com

The Mid Life blog: http://MidLifeOp.blogspot.com

What happened to We? What became of Us?

Most of us Mid Lifers will recall eating  meals together as a family and then sitting down to watch a TV programme together. Perhaps we still do. Our parents will remember the days before TV when they might have gathered round the piano to sing songs, play card games and enjoy other party games as a group.

In many, perhaps most, households today these scenes are unrecognisable. Children eat meals at different times from their parents and often in their bedroom. They watch different TV programmes on different TV sets in different rooms. They may catch up with missed programmes on an iplayer on their laptop. They will certainly be using the internet, talking to virtual friends while the rest of the family are doing their own thing. In some cases, the parents may be sitting in the same room watching different programmes on their laptops or surfing the web using headphones.

What has happened to family interaction? What are the consequences of this breakdown in family gatherings? The members of the family may all be fine in themselves and the family may be a strong unit but how will this ‘individualisation’ affect people’s lives in the future?

We are already seeing a growth in the ‘I’ culture. People think of themselves first, others second. The concept of neighbourliness and helping others is fast disappearing. When the great names of the Industrial Revolution made their fortunes they ploughed much of it back into their communities – building civic buildings, improving the housing of their workers or setting up Foundations to help the poor escape from poverty. How many of today’s high earners think the same way? Not so many, though, as always, there are notable exceptions.

When you travel on public transport or walk down the street, how many people do you see wearing earplugs, listening to music? How aware are they of the ambient noise around them? They have very little interaction with others, content to move along in their own private worlds.

People are becoming more focussed on their own world, real and virtual and less concerned about the effects of their actions on others.

It is ‘Me’ not ‘We’ and ‘I’ not ‘Us’.  Discuss …

The community for Mid Lifers: www.MidLifeOp.com and the associated blog: http://MidLifeOp.blogspot.com

Mistake-Proofing Your Start-Up Business – advice for Midlifers & others

Mistake-Proofing Your Start-Up Business 

By Jay Arthur

With so many people out of work, or afraid of losing work, it should come as no surprise that many are thinking about starting their own businesses. So how can entrepreneurs mistake-proof their start-ups? All it takes is a little time using free online tools and search engine research with Google.

Mistake 1: Not Listening to the Voice of the Customer

Many start-ups fail because they didn’t understand the “voice of the customer.” First, figure out where the crowds of customers are going and then get in front of the crowd. In the old days, this would involve lots of market research, focus groups and money. Today, these answers can be easily found on the Internet for free with Google’s key word tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal.

Mistake 2: Not Speaking Your Customer's Language

Customer language can differ from our own. When naming your business, don't paraphrase; use the customer's exact words. Then check website domain name availability. If it's available, register it; if not, try adding other key words likely to attract customers.

Mistake 3: Not Making Your Product or Service Better, Faster and Cheaper

Too many entrepreneurs try to enter an already crowded market. Search the Internet to find out how many competitors are out there. Customers want you to be better, faster and cheaper than the competition. Ask, “What is the competition? What can we do differently?” If you can’t answer these questions, neither can your customers. When customers can't distinguish one business from another, they default to the familiar or low cost one.

Mistake 4: Not Testing the Business Concept

To test your business or product concept, Google Adwords offers another powerful tool. Google makes its money by putting ads around its search results. Many entrepreneurs use Adwords to test business and marketing concepts before they throw a lot of money at it. All of this research might take a few weeks and a few hundred dollars, but it’s a lot cheaper than wasting your hard-earned money on a doomed startup.

Mistake 5: Not Bootstrapping the Business

Entrepreneurs don’t always need a lot of money to get started. If the business is a product, don't make 10,000 of them. Put up a Web site; bake a few in your kitchen and sell them online or give away free samples to test the response. If the business idea is a service, print some business cards (with your keywords) and pass them out. This is how entrepreneurs bootstrap businesses that grow. It's also how they avoid sinking huge sums of money into bad ideas.

If the first business idea doesn't click, try another one. Walt Disney went bankrupt several times before succeeding … but then again, he didn't have Google. Good luck with your start-up!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jay Arthur, the KnowWare Man, works with companies to fire up their profits with Lean Six Sigma. Jay is author of "Double Your Profits: Plug the Leaks in Your Cash Flow." He spent the last 20 years helping organizations maximize revenue through the "Lean Six Sigma System," a collection of audio, video, books and software. Jay is also the author of "Lean Six Sigma Demystified" and the "QI Macros SPC Software" for Excel. To plug the leaks in your cash flow, sign up for free Lean Six Sigma lessons online at: http://www.qimacros.com/freestuff.html or call (888) 468-1537.

Advice and guidance for Mid Lifers - The Mid Life Opportunity: www.MidLifeOp.com and the Mid Life blog: http://MidLifeOp.blogspot.com