Step Out. Step Up.
Aspiring, newly minted and experienced entrepreneurs rejoice! This week I happily devoured a second smart and engaging book to help us lead the life we want.
In my last post, I ditch Tony Robbins for Chris Guillebeau. (That was so easy!) Gurgling about the inspirational messages in Guillebeau’s book, “The ART of Non-Conformity: Set Your, Own Rules, Live the Life You Want and Change the [...]
AARP would do well to pay Chris Guillebeau big bucks to be a spokesperson for their 50-something crowd. Chris won’t be eligible to join AARP for about 20 years, but so what? His writing is sharp, his message has guts, and his passion is contagious.
Chris Guillebeau has strong opinions about life, work and travel. [...]
Drama intersperses regular life unexpectedly. I’ve had my share of drama moments.
Like the time I (who walked the straight, narrow and confining path of “good girl”) entered the home of my parents while they were away camping to find my younger brother rolling joints at the kitchen table.
What are YOU doing?!!!!
What does it look like?
Get that out of here! [...]
A raft of new research suggests spending money on an experience will make you happier than those new shoes or a Borsalino Super Fino Montecristi Men’s Fedora ($950).
“We’re moving from a conspicuous consumption – which is ‘buy without regard’ – to a ‘calculated consumption,’” says Marshal Cohen, an analyst at the NPD Group, a retailing [...]
I’m disappointed. I expected the reviews on the new movie, Eat, Pray, Love, to be better. They’re not so hot.
“… be warned that you are diving into a movie with the spiritual and emotional depth of a birdbath.” – St. Louis Suburban Journal.
“A bloated monster of a movie. … gargantuan running time.” – Cinema [...]
Do you know who Gary Shteyngart is? I did not.
Not until I got to the last page of the mid-July issue of the The New York Times Book Review. There, an essay by Gary Shteyngart titled “Only Disconnect” poured forth the real life dilemma of our techno-world. The writing is brilliant. It is a prose [...]
Yesterday, I tested out one of the recommendations on how to detach from the office suggested in the Wall Street Journal article, Why Relaxing is Hard Work, June 15, 2010. ”Try something new,” was the first suggestion for how to make sure your time away from the office is truly time detached from work.
Try something new. Learning something [...]
My Kindle edition of “168 Hours” by Laura Vanderkam just whooshed into my Home Page.
A lifetime, if calculated from week to week, is “simply 168 hours, back to back, repeated again and again,” according to Ms. Vanderkam. Subtract 56 weekly sleeping hours (eight a night) and 50 for work and you still have 62 unscheduled [...]
“It got too much water but it’s gonna be all right, Miss Barbara,” says Roth, my landscaper, smiling while his shaven head glistens in the July sun. “Just be patient.”
Patient, my petunias. I’d throw one of those Bluestones he’s unloading in his direction if it weren’t so heavy.
One half of the new sod placed in my front [...]
Dead wrong? I’m overstating it a bit. At least half of us in mid-life are happy. In fact, we’re happier than we’ve ever been.
The other half of Boomers? Suicidal and making good on it.
That’s a brutal reality for the largest and richest generation in history.
The results of the latest Centers for Disease Controle and Prevention study [...]
There may be nothing more powerful to get you off your procrastinating toadstool than listening to stories of other people’s 50-year slog through life until – bingo – they get it right! While the first step may be negotiating that sabbatical you want or changing careers, let Jane help you.
Relegated to the last 20 minutes [...]
So far this week I counted my blessings twice and neither time lasted longer than it takes to scroll down my home’s digital thermostat so I can be cooler.
Sunday night’s bedside reading about the dire straits of Haitians 6-months post earthquake (The New York Times, cover story, July 11,2010) regurgitated Monday night by Katy Couric on [...]
Forget the backpack and walking sticks. Ditch the health goals. To set your eyes on a place or thing is all it takes for an extraordinary sabbatical experience.
People returning from a career break often talk about the impact of the expereince by describing something they saw, not something they did.
What they carry back into the real world [...]
Last month I spent a week on a walking tour in the Northern Lakes District of England with poet, David Whyte. In community with 21 others, I experienced the pastures and mountains, villages, locals, cuisine, pubs and sheep (lots of sheep) of the region. The treks were challenging; so is life. No matter your age, title, or size of [...]
Presented as “deep thoughts” for 2010 graduates who are poised to make decisions and take action about their lives, this conversation between CBS Sunday Morning contributor Ben Stein and his shrink is astounding and crystal clear. No matter what date is on your diploma, read it. It could change the direction of your life.
Ben Stein’s segment (CBS [...]
Johnny Paycheck’s 1977 hit went platinum. Don’t know what tune you’re humming, but the research tells us that Paycheck’s song is on the lips of many:
Better not try to stand in my way,
As I’m walking out the door.
Take this job and shove it.
I ain’t working here no more.
In February, the number of employees voluntarily quitting surpassed the [...]
Sabbaticals should be designed as memorable journeys. Start now by carving out 15 minutes of silence.
You might have a 3-, 4-, or 10-week break from your career that’s either being offered up by your employer or one that you’re doing on your own. Picture that time filled with nothing as of yet. Now, think of the [...]
Maybe you never thought of writing an ode to your sabbatical experience. This kind of lyric poem often praises people, the arts, natural scenes, or abstract concepts (or most any common thing, as you will discover).
Having just read 25 odes – one a night for the last month – I propose that instead of telling your [...]
No matter that I’m in the midst of a frantic pace of checking off a long to-do list of work items before I start to pack. A precise collection of words can make me pause. This one did.
“I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the [...]
Yesterday my husband and I celebrated our 29th anniversary. It makes us both laugh wildly to think we’ve been together this long. We could never have imagined it.
While the Atlanta rental properties we bought together, the time-share we agonized over, and my moving into his bachelor house after we married proved to be terrible choices, choosing [...]
Julia Roberts grew up in Smyrna, Georgia. Since I was part of the school system that raised her (I was a middle school counselor for 10 years), I can say that she never knew a moneyed lifestyle. There was no affluent side of Smyrna at that time (and I don’t think there is now.)
Watching [...]
Toward the end of dinner last evening, the three couples I was among discovered our ages spanned 36 years – from a 38-year-old to a 74-year-old. While our conversation had included what everyone did for a living and what one might do should their employer ever offer them a sabbatical (a dog sled adventure, ballroom [...]
Two herons breakfast each morning in Santa Rosa Sound 75 feet away from the terrace where I gulp coffee on these gorgeous summer days. We’ve named them George and Stretch. They languish near the shore and don’t appear worried about their future.
So, I’ll worry about it for them.
Oil is now 50 miles offshore from us here in Pensacola. We’ve [...]
Honestly, I don’t know why I’m writing about this latest research on vacations, since most of you don’t take them anyway. But, this may explain why we choose to leave vacation days in the bank. Turns out we don’t get no satisfaction from our vacations.
Sabbaticals on the other hand, according to the research, offer up [...]
The number of workers who voluntarily quit a job surpassed the number who were laid off or discharged in February 2009, according to the the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Before February, the BLS had recorded more layoffs than resignations for 15 straight months. That’s not a surprising turn of events.
In fact, it may be [...]