Just the other day, Sharon Cohen of the Associated Press wrote a story of Baby Boomers aged 50+ looking for long-term work. The article expressed the despair and rejection qualified candidates feel while searching for gainful employment. It evoked tough memories for me as well, when I was laid off the first time in my career, almost 25 years ago.
Ms. Cohen’s article chronicled the efforts of the job seekers – looking online, scouring the classifieds and even networking groups of other unemployed. I ran into the same issues – sending 100s of resumes to blind ads, knocking on storefronts with help wanted signs – and like many of my Boomer colleagues, I was told more than once that my knowledge and skills made me “over-qualified” for a position. The frustration and rejection can be overwhelming.
While these are traditional, classic methods, they are not the way most employers find great employees – the rules have changed and Boomers need to be aware of where to channel their time and energy. (more…)
Whitney Ferre believes that each of us in an artist, actively creating art called “life.” Despite that fact that Whitney is not some who could paint or draw as a trained artist, she opened two Creative Fitness Centers that do just that – show people how to create change in their lives through art.
According to Whitney, natural talent is not the driving factor behind creativity. Instead, it is the art making that creates the bridge from your logical, analytical left brain to the infinite, intuitive, miracle creating right brain. Her results have been so exciting that her art classes led to a published book, The Artist Within, and also an online Creatively Fit program. (www.creativelyfit.com)
The journey has not been without setbacks. Amidst opening two art centers, having three children and publishing two books, Whitney also opened and operated two wine bars with a partner. Unfortunately, the wine bars ended up in the red, which created much self-doubt. Whitney recognized the power of experiencing such kind of failure and refocused her vision on Creatively Fit. She now coaches and has an entire team of Creatively Fit Coaches across the United States, Africa, Europe and Australia.
For Whitney, there is no greater joy than creating joy in others. When her clients transform from “I can’t even draw a straight line” to creating their own art, her purpose is proven. Whitney believes that art making is a portal to your higher, infinitely creative self and there is no greater reward that helping individuals experience this.
This eight-part blog series, exclusively for www.UpsideTheBook.com, highlights the Every Woman Visionary. Each of these women, along with myself, are featured in the first-ever Spirited Woman 2012 Directory: Resources For An Inspired Life! (www.thespiritedwoman.com) set to launch tomorrow on 12/12/11. It is an exciting time for women, and the FREE magazine-style digital directory – rich with inspirational stories, resources and more – is our gift to you. Women from six countries and over 25 states participated in the directory.
Andrea Woolf wants you to have it all – the self-proclaimed “Queen of Having It All” discovered her gift of coaching others through challenges at a very young age. While other children played outside, Andrea could be found in her mother’s salon chatting with clients. Eventually, the client would reveal their personal obstacle and commit to specific action steps to resolve it by the time they left.
Andrea applied this talent to a very successful corporate career.While juggling massive projects in a high-pressure environment, she still found that helping individuals achieve their goals to be the most rewarding.When she discovered the role of executive coaching, Andrea says it was like “finding the glove that fit me.”
Her clients are fueled by Andrea’s core values of integrity, full self-expression and inspiring magnificence.She believes that all business is created through powerful and connecting communication, which quickly leads to amazing results and successes.Andrea is committed to inspiring others to own their personal magnificence by thinking and playing bigger while embracing the huge difference they make in the world.
Andrea certainly walks her talk, too.A confessed ‘recovering perfectionist’, Andrea discovered many of the tools she coaches others with as she wrote her first book, Ignite Your Life! How to Get From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be.The need to write the ‘perfect’ book almost immobilized her, but lucky for us, she overcame her self-doubt and busy mind and voila, the book is now a reality!
Her advice to others?“The only thing between you and your dreams is YOU!”How very true – that’s why in order to have it all, you must let go of expectations and doubts and embrace the possibilities.Learn more about Andrea’s inspiring work and sign up for your free chapter newsletter at www.IgniteYourLifeBOOK.com.
This eight-part blog series, exclusively for www.UpsideTheBook.com, highlights the Every Woman Visionary. Each of these women, along with myself, are featured in the first-ever Spirited Woman 2012 Directory: Resources For An Inspired Life! (www.thespiritedwoman.com) set to launch on 12/12/11. It is an exciting time for women, and the FREE magazine-style digital directory – rich with inspirational stories, resources and more – is our gift to you. Women from six countries and over 25 states participated in the directory.
It would be easy to learn Vicki Lickorish’s story and just wonder how she gets out of bed in the morning. But, if you meet Vicki, her enthusiastic and loving attitude would never reveal the challenges and heartbreak she’s faced. She has rechanneled that energy into being an unstoppable force of encouragement and empowerment in helping others achieve their dreams.
Vicki’s first obstacle occurred upon discovering that her lifelong career goal of joining the police force was not possible due to being “vertically challenged.” Not long after, she met the love of her life, who didn’t care that she is short, and they began planning a family. Fate intervened once again. A miscarriage left her body infertile, and Vicki felt as though not only was she denied her career dreams, now her dreams of a family were dashed, too.
Being the unstoppable woman Vicki is, she and her husband pursued IVF and were ecstatic to learn she was pregnant with quadruplets. After a very difficult pregnancy, the babies were born but only lived a few hours. Although heartbroken, Vicki and her husband tried again, and 5 months later were pregnant with twins. Not long after, Vicki lost one of the twins but the other survived. On March 19, Vicki and her husband become proud parents of a healthy baby boy.
A year went by before Vicki learned the unthinkable – her husband, best friend and emotional rock was diagnosed with inoperable cancer. Within a year, she lost her soul mate and at 31 was widowed and a single parent. To top it off, Vicki underwent a hysterectomy to stabilize her challenged health. For Vicki, this tremendous time of challenge was an opportunity to recreate her life – a rebirth of sorts. And that’s what she did.
With unconditional love as her guiding star and core value, Vicki studied how our emotions shape and influence our lives. She works with individuals to help them let go of past events, emotions and beliefs to achieve their goals and dreams. And if anyone is qualified to do this work, it is certainly Vicki Lickorish!
Her advice to others: “Never plan too far ahead!” Vicki believes that life is meant to flow and that when we set unrealistic goals, we miss out on the wonderful opportunities along the way. Vicki’s coaching work empowers people to follow their dreams by letting go of our self-limiting thoughts and negative relationships in our lives. She won’t promise you an easy path, but she does believe the results are worth the journey!
This eight-part blog series, exclusively for www.UpsideTheBook.com, highlights the Every Woman Visionary. Each of these women, along with myself, are featured in the first-ever Spirited Woman 2012 Directory: Resources For An Inspired Life! (www.thespiritedwoman.com) set to launch on 12/12/11. It is an exciting time for women, and the FREE magazine-style digital directory – rich with inspirational stories, resources and more – is our gift to you. Women from six countries and over 25 states participated in the directory.
My perception of the simple life changed dramatically after my recent trip to the countries of Namibia and Botswana in Africa.
In my US workshops, I often ask people to determine what are the things in their life that contribute to happiness. The subsequent discussion with attendees usually includes how to lead a simpler life and be happy.
In my travels through Africa, my observations about the simple life caused me to reflect once more. For Africans, access to basics like water and electricity are minimal. Cooking is simple, done outside over a wood burning fire. This is the extreme in simple living. Walking five miles a day for water is a normal activity for everyone. Transportation to anywhere is limited to donkey carts or hitching rides.
I’ve read about these living circumstances but seeing it first hand, is monumental. I didn’t do any surveys on happiness but children playing without toys seemed very happy. Our guide said that “when you don’t know any other life it is easy to accept your circumstances and be happy with what you have.”
We can’t compare our US lives to African ones but we can take on their attitude of being happy with what we have—which is ten times more than any individual living in the African villages.
When asked in a recent radio interview on happiness what I was thankful for it was easy to reply—clean water out of a faucet. What are you grateful for that contributes to your happiness?
Now that summer is unofficially over with the start of school, I’m exhausted – and I didn’t have anyone to send back to class! Nope, my slow burn is the result of not taking any time off and trying to cram in all the last-minute requests, wrap up loose ends and finalize major projects started mid-summer. Ordinarily, this is no problem. This year, however, I feel more burned out than ever… (more…)
Economist and best-selling author Juliet Schor has a new video describing the new American Dream: http://vimeo.com/26573848. The film shows why economic and job-related strategies from the past that don’t work in today’s economy. It depicts, in her words, “what a post-consumer society could look like, with people working fewer hours and pursuing re-skilling, homesteading, and small-scale enterprises that can help reduce the overall size and impact of the consumer economy.”
In our book Upside, we talk about the need for creating your own career crystal ball of the future. This film is an excellent example of our concept: taking advantage of emerging job opportunities based on the needs of the future. It also takes into account the need to pay attention to our dwindling resources as that affects job opportunities, too. (more…)
While attending a recent conference, I heard an interesting definition of the difference between confidence and arrogance. Confidence is the belief that you are 100% skilled in the situation, event or project you are about to undertake; arrogance is the belief that there is absolutely nothing else you can learn in or about a situation or topic.
We all know arrogant people, either at work, home or in the general public. What struck me about the definition for arrogance is the predisposition that there is nothing to be gained from new ideas or information — that resistance to an opposing point of view, which sends the message that “I’m right and you’re wrong.” (more…)
Last night I had the honor of addressing a truly remarkable group of women. The Executive Women International (EWI/ www.executivewomen.org) chapter in Birmingham, AL asked me to be their after-dinner speaker for their annual awards banquet. It was a festive, heartfelt event that reminded me of the power of gratitude.
EWI sponsors a scholarship program for women “off the grid.” These are not traditional students; most are moms going back to school to make a difference in the lives of their family and community. Called ASIST (Adult Students in Scholastic Transition), the program awards four women scholarships from $1000 to $5000. The women who won are truly inspirational – and these are their stories… (more…)
Traveling for work means I spend a lot time in airports, which is a great way to catch up on reading. Earlier in the week, somewhere between Alabama and North Carolina, I read a quote that really rocked my world: “How you spend your day is how you spend your life.”
Read that again — How you spend your day is how you spend your life. I don’t know about your day, but mine is often filled with nominal tasks that don’t add up to much while other long-lasting goals wither from lack of attention. Perhaps the assumption is that there is always more time, another day, to get to the big goals, which creates a bit of apathy. When I read that quote, a new sense of urgency emerged.
It wasn’t urgency from a fear that I don’t have time left to get to these goals – things like spending more time with friends and family, writing that best-selling novel and taking cooking classes in Italy. It was more the need to make sure I don’t waste opportunities to at least reach for these goals. Instead of filling the day with mundane tasks that only make a brief impact in your life, why not use that same time to take baby steps toward the goal that makes your heart sing?
That single phrase has been a huge motivator – a kick in the behind if you will. I’m amazed at what I’ve accomplished in only two days since I look at the idea of living my “dreams” everyday instead of waiting for enough time to pursue them in full.
What about you? What are the tasks or activities that consume your time and ultimately do not bring joy to your life? When you look back, do you want to remember a life filled with “to-do” lists, or a life filled with “tah-dah”?
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