Age is a Relative Term

We had a chance to go see Bruce Springsteen,  "The Boss," in concert this week.  It was one more event that reminded me that age is so relative.  The night he performed was two days before his 60th birthday, yet he was performing and dancing as if he were in his 30s.  Since this was the first time that I had seen him live, I did not know what to expect.  We waited for an hour for him to take the stage without any warm up band or music to speak of and evidently that is one of his trademarks.  Even though I was impatient and people were yawning in the audience (because most people were my age or older), he was worth waiting for!

Springsteen was like a magnet as he left the stage and wondered through the floor audience.  People could not get enough of him.  People closest to the stage were often shown on the full-size screen singing all of the words to his songs.

But a highlight was when he went into the audience and brought a woman on stage from the front row.  They were dancing on the stage and he lifted her up and carried her to center stage and they sat down.  You could watch them talking and then he escorted her off saying to the crowd, "Eighty-four is the new 60!"

We were having so much fun watching him dance with this woman with 84 years of life experience wearing a Bruce Springsteen t-shirt.  He could not have planned that any better.  She will now add this to her life experiences!  In fact, the whole band looked as if they were having so much fun. 

I've noticed that musicians who have decades of experience play longer encores.  Both Paul McCartney and Springsteen played song after song even even after they thought the concert was finished.  My theory is that they are so grateful their careers have lasted this long and they are so appreciative that people still come out to hear them.  I think they love it when people are singing along with them so loudly.  When Springsteen first came out, he sang a familiar song and just held out the mic so that people could just sing their hearts out.  Everyone was happy and Springsteen looked so thrilled to be there performing. 

We should all hope to dance as well as Bruce at any age!

Jann's Note:  Age is all relative.  As long as we keep growing and learning and don't buy into some of the aging myths from the media, life will be good. 

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What does it mean to be big?

Since I am interested in sage-ing (or positive aging or aging gracefully), then I am also interested in aging--but aging in a way that we grow in wisdom.  So I watch, listen, and read everything through the perspective of my sage-ing lens. 

I have blogged before about the movie Cocoon where people have a chance to not age, but to stay the age they are at that moment in time.  Several of the people in the movie decide they would rather grow in life experience because of the experiences they would miss out on if they did not continue to age naturally. 

The other day I caught the end of another older movie, but one of my all time favorite movies--BIG--with Tom Hanks.  Hanks was a thirteen year old who was shorter than the girls his age.  So to a carnival wish machine he wishes to be "big."  The next day he is a young adult.  Josh (Hanks) lands a job in an advertising firm and finds that he excels because he does not take himself too seriously.  Since he sees everything through the eyes of a thirteen year old, he knows what the target market wants and how to reach them.  But Josh is so attractive because of his innocence. 

A classic scene from BIG:

In fact, one of my favorite scenes in the movie is when his adult "girlfriend" says to her old boyfriend that she is attracted to Josh because he acts like a grownup.  When in reality she is attracted to Josh's honesty, creativity, and wholesomeness.  Josh reminds us to be a kid when we are a kid, but that we don't have to lose our sense of playfulness and joy for life.  We can try to enjoy ourselves and to be enjoyable to be around. 

Google is one firm that tries hard to nurture a culture of creativity and enjoyment.  They believe this kind of culture supports what they are trying to achieve while attracting and retaining employees.  We don't have to buy into the model that says we have to be grumpy grown ups.  Perhaps we would all have more fun at work, at home, and in our communities if we kept our childlike perspectives.

Image via CrunchBase

If the world needs new ideas and new solutions to old problems, we need to encourage and cultivate creativity and innovation.  Why is this so hard for leaders to recognize? 

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The Meaning of Work

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Since my passion is about leading, living, and learning,a recent sermon by our pastor on Labor Day weekend caught my attention.  Pastor Jim referred to the Presbyterian writer Frederick Buechner saying that a vocation is what God calls you to do. "It’s the kind of work:

• that you need most to do and
• that the world most needs to have done...the place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."

To illustrate what Buechner means by this, Pastor Jim used an example by Robert Fulghum, the author of Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Jack Perry is the driver’s education teacher at a local school. In terms of status, the driver’s education teacher is a rather low-status job on the pecking order, but the kids love and hold great respect for him. When Fulghum interviewed him, Perry said Drivers Training was merely his job title.

Image via Wikipedia

Perry went on, “I guess this sounds presumptuous, but I think of myself as a shaman—I help young men and women move through a rite of passage—and my job is getting them to think about this time in their lives. Most of them are almost 16. They know a lot more about life and sex and alcohol and drugs and money than their parents or teachers give them credit for. And they are physically pretty much what they are going to be. But we don’t have any rituals to acknowledge they’re growing up. There’s no ceremony, changing of clothes, or roles or public statements that says, ‘This isn’t a kid anymore—this is a young adult.’

 

The only thing we do is give them a driver’s license. Having a car means you move out of the backseat into the driver’s seat. You aren’t a passenger anymore. You’re in charge. You can go where you want to go. You have power now. So that’s what we talk about. The power.”

 

Fulghum ends by saying, “He will never see his students grow up. Few teachers do. But from where he is and with what he has, he serves a vision of how the world ought to be.”

 

Pastor Jim reminded us that is what we mean by vocation. "How we make a living and what we do for a living are two different but interlocking things. We may hold what seems like the lowest job on the pecking order in terms of how we make a living. But what we do for a living has the possibility of serving some vision of how the world ought to be.”

 

Since I am interested in the "third chapter" of life, or "second half of life," or the next phase, or in "sage-ing," this simple example made me think.  What is the meaning of work?  What am I doing?  What difference am I making?  What do I want to do with the third chapter or am I doing it?

 

How are you making a living? 

How meaningful is your work? 

 

There are a lot of needs in the world right now. 

Where does your deep gladness meet the world's deep hunger?

What is a Grownup?

Since I have been focused on positive aging or what I like to call sage-ing, one of my favorite magazines is AARP.  I read it from cover to cover because it is full of great information to keep us thinking, creating, dreaming, learning. 

Image via Wikipedia

One article was on how to know if you are a grownup.  The author asked some of his friends and here is what they said.  You're a grownup when ...

• You know there are many things much more important than yourself.
• You're willing to say "I was wrong."
• You're attentive to the footprint you will have left on the world.
• You forgive the carelessness of the young, regret the thoughtlessness of your own youth.
• You finally realize you have no one to complain to.

The author reminds us that growing up is a choice and that the journey begins with the simplest of steps:  identifying our values and then acting accordingly.  But the goal is to get focused in the right direction and to start moving.  "The alternative is to have a life that has a beginning, a middle, and then just ends."

So many of the responses below reflect sage-ing concepts.  So I started to think about my answers to that question:

• You know that life is part of death and death is part of life.
• You start thinking more about legacy than how high you are climbing the career ladder.
• Your parents have failing health and are no longer living.  You are the elders in the family.
• You find people seeking you out for advice and wisdom.
• You answer many of your own questions by listening to your inner wisdom.

My list could go on, but I am interested in how you know if you're a grownup?

How would you answer this question? 

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Blogging as Legacy Work

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Legacy work is an important component of positive aging or sage-ing.  Thinking about what we are leaving to the people we love and to our communities is vital to growing in wisdom.  So many times retirement planning is about financial planning and legacy is about distributing our financial assets.

The legacy work to which I am referring has to do with values, dreams, purpose, making a difference.  Part of helping us do the kind of internal exploration needed is journaling.  The process of journaling helps us reflect on our life experiences and supports our ongoing growth.  It can take on many forms--whatever is best for you.  In workshops, I often recommend writing your life story for families.  With the emergence of self-publishing, people can write their own books to be passed on for generations.

This leads me to blogging.  Someone asked me the other day why I was blogging and I even surprised myself with my response.  "In case I die, I want my sons to know what I was thinking, doing, and how I was feeling about various topics that usually include leading, living, and learning." 

I continue to warn my sons and my students about cyberspace and how we have to be so careful about what we post. The October issue of Vanity Fair says "Every search, every posting, every text message or Twitter, leaves a cyber footprint."  Or as someone told me, "Getting something off of the Internet (Facebook, email, Twitter) is like trying to get pee out of a swimming pool--impossible." 

Image via Wikipedia

But now I am thinking about this all differently.  I am blogging about things that I want to be "out there" long after I am gone. Oprah has her column in every issue called "What I Know For Sure" so that we know what she knows for sure.  Just as I try to read every book by one of my heroes, William Sloane Coffin, because I want to know what he thought about different issues.  And my husband is a Warren Buffet follower and reads every book by and about Buffett in order to understand his thinking and philosophy on investments. 

So if something happens to me, regardless of the number of people who are reading my posts (Sounds like Julie in Julie and Julia, doesn't it?), I am writing these posts knowing that whatever I am writing will probably outlive me.  This is what I want the world to know about ...

So if you are reading, please tell me what you are thinking.  Challenge me.  Let me know if you agree.  But if I don't hear from you, I will keep thinking, reading, and sharing.  Blogging is part of my legacy work. 

Rethinking Retirement

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I am on a mission to retire the word "retirement."  What does it mean to retire something?  According to the dictionary, it means "withdrawn, reserved, secluded, quiet ..."  Is this how we are going to see ourselves when we are ready to leave our careers?  I don't think so. 

So much of retirement planning is based on financial planning.  No doubt, this is important.  But once we have our basic needs met, there is so much more to a quality life.  As Richard Leider says, "What is our reason for getting up in the morning?" 

It is time to retire this word and replace it with other more appropriate terms that reflect how we need to think about our lives in this next phase.  We need to:

• rethink what we want to do
• revise our agendas and calendars
• redefine who we want to be
• rediscover what we enjoy doing
• reinvent ourselves in meaningful ways
• redesign how we spend our time
• re-imagine the future that is NOW
• recast the norms for people our age

We need to take our sense of curiosity, courage, and wisdom with us wherever we go and change the world in ways that benefit all of us.  There is much work to be done.  And the future needs us!

What else should I be thinking about on my journey to "retire retirement?"

Jann's Note: There is no retirement on the journey to becoming a Sage.  It is a life long path based on life experiences.  The more experiences the more opportunity for wisdom if we reflect on what we are learning along the way.  We just need to keep going.

Got Talent? It May Not Matter

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This summer I read a book that I could not put down.  Maybe because it is directed at those of us who work hard, but are not necessarily born with a great deal of natural talent.   Geoff Colvin, author or Talent is Overrated:  What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else, concluded that performance is not all about being talented and gifted. 

He discovered there are principles that can make us better at whatever we want to do in work and in life.  

How many times have we watched great athletes, musicians, or performers and thought to ourselves "they were born with talent" and that is why they are at the top of their profession? What Colvin discovers is that it is not about talent--talent is overrated. 

Colvin concluded that high performance is based on "deliberate practice."  This is not practice makes perfect, but we need to deliberately practice tasks and skills at which we need improvement.  Most of us would prefer practicing what we like which is also things we are good at doing.  Another key to deliberate practice is receiving honest feedback from a coach who identifies the areas which need work. 

We are comfortable knowing and accepting that even someone such as Tiger Woods has several coaches to guide his performance, but why is this not commonly accepted for leaders?  It only makes sense that leaders should also have coaches.  While the field of executive coaching is becoming more common, it should be the norm. 

How many of us have worked for leaders who would benefit from candid feedback, but never really asked?  Or never sought out feedback because they probably did not want to hear it?  Plus a natural instinct is get defensive and to not listen.

World class athletes, musicians, and performers want to be the best and they hire coaches and teachers to help them reach the highest levels. 

Why wouldn't leaders want to do the same?

What do you think? 

What is holding back leaders from wanting to be the best? 

Why wouldn't organizations invest in their people so they could have the strongest teams working for them?

If talent is overrated, we can all become better at whatever we want to do with deliberate practice guided by the honest feedback of a coach!  Go for it!  Just do it! 

But are we willing to work that hard? 

More about Yoga and Leadership

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

This summer I have going to "yoga in the park" with about 100-250+ people.  This free one hour of outside yoga has been sponsored by The Parks and Recreation Department and certainly has been well received.  It has been a wonderful sense of community to be with all of these people of varying degrees of experience.  We are out by a lake under the blue skies and breathing fresh air.  

Every time I go I am struck by the correlations between the language used for yoga and that of leadership.  Even though the instructors change weekly because they are donating their time, there are common themes among them.  They remind us to:

• get grounded
• make an intention for the day
• be in the moment
• find your balance 
• let go of expectations and judgments
• do what is best for your body
• increase your flexibility and 
• remember to breathe

Some organizations that are committed to spirit at work are integrating practices such as yoga into the workplace to relieve stress and to enable relaxation and focus. 

Plus I always amazed at how great yoga is for strengthening the muscles.  After yoga, I find sore muscles that I did not even know I had!  I am also thinking about how yoga is an activity that one should be able to practice longer than jogging and some other exercise that pounds our knees and other joints.  

The bonus is how it is so wonderful for the mind, body, spirit connection.

What are your thoughts on yoga?  How do you think the practice would benefit leaders?

More about Yoga and Leadership

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

This summer I have going to "yoga in the park" with about 100-250+ people.  This free one hour of outside yoga has been sponsored by The Parks and Recreation Department and certainly has been well received.  It has been a wonderful sense of community to be with all of these people of varying degrees of experience.  We are out by a lake under the blue skies and breathing fresh air.  

Every time I go I am struck by the correlations between the language used for yoga and that of leadership.  Even though the instructors change weekly because they are donating their time, there are common themes among them.  They remind us to:

• get grounded
• make an intention for the day
• be in the moment
• find your balance 
• let go of expectations and judgments
• do what is best for your body
• increase your flexibility and 
• remember to breathe

Some organizations that are committed to spirit at work are integrating practices such as yoga into the workplace to relieve stress and to enable relaxation and focus. 

Plus I always amazed at how great yoga is for strengthening the muscles.  After yoga, I find sore muscles that I did not even know I had!  I am also thinking about how yoga is an activity that one should be able to practice longer than jogging and some other exercise that pounds our knees and other joints.  

The bonus is how it is so wonderful for the mind, body, spirit connection.

What are your thoughts on yoga?  How do you think the practice would benefit leaders?

Are you crazy? Maybe you should be.

Innovation and creativity are supposed to be the key to growth.  But how can people be creative in this kind of economic environment where people are being let go left and right.  If we are to innovate our way out of this mess, how are we going to do it when people are fearful and scared to take risks--apprehensive about thinking outside of the box?

These are the questions I think about as I hear, read, and witness decisions being made in most companies.  How will things turn around without the best, brightest, and most creative people using their talents?

Then I saw this ad by Apple.  Maybe we should just get crazy. 

What do you think?  What are the answers?

Here's to the crazy ones...
The ones who see things differently...

They invent. They imagine. They heal.
They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy...
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

- Apple Computer's Think Different ad