Metier Coaching

What Is Abundance?

2008-05-23T12:24:00.000-07:00

Coaches like to talk about achieving "abundance" in one's life. When I hear the word "abundance", I usually think of the symbol of the cornucopia, spilling over with the good things of the harvest ... or of the ads for a certain chain of Italian restaurants for whom "abundance" seems to mean ridiculously large and unhealthy portions of fatty food. It makes one a little uncomfortable, since one person's abundance is often another's shortage, and wanting more than what one needs can be, we have always been told, evidence of pure and simple Envy and Greed. And we all know that Greed and Envy are listed among the Seven Deadly Sins.

But perhaps we're looking at abundance the wrong way. Try this on for size: Abundance means having enough of a resource that you don't fear running out of it, and can bless the lives of others by giving the surplus away. The opposite of abundance, scarcity, would then mean living in the fear that you will run out of something, and not having enough of the resource to give it away without increasing your fear. Abundance is a subjective experience of tranquillity or perhaps fullness, then, and fear of scarcity or emptiness is its opposite. Envy is the resentment of the abundance of others, and Greed the desire to accumulate resources above and beyond what is needed to live in a state of perceived abundance.

Fear, Envy, Greed ... all signs of an attachment to things. And yet, one of the antidotes is to give things away. You can't give away what you don't have so everyone needs a minimal level of abundance to remain detached from things: enough to survive plus extra to give away. And one can experience abundance in other areas of one's life besides possessions and money: time, for example; and love in relationships. I can't tell you what abundance might look like for you ... but I know I've lived on both sides of the divide, and if one can't pay one's bills and meet the family's basic needs, it's hard to remain detached from the need for the things in one's life. Same with time: if one spends all his/her time working, there's no time left over to give away to the people one loves.

More Changes to Metier Site

2008-05-17T13:31:00.000-07:00

I've made a few more changes to the site; the client pages are now open to viewing. Most of the information there will be of interest to current clients only. It includes downloadable coaching forms, information on communication, and a link to pay via PayPal (still working on the latter).

Changes to Metier Site

2008-05-13T12:35:00.000-07:00

I've added an Amazon store to the site; in it, you can find my recommendations for books and other things that I think will be helpful to you. Basically, I decided to include books, software, etc. I've mentioned and recommended in this blog and elsewhere on the site in the store. Just click on the Metier Store link in the menu.

If you're really observant, you may notice the Metier Forum link is gone. It really wasn't getting any traffic so I've decided to remove it and work on setting up a Metier page on Facebook. I'll let you all know when it's ready!

Business On A Shoestring, Part Three

2008-05-08T16:46:00.000-07:00

When I decided to start this coaching practice, I had no experience as an entrepreneur, and no knowledge of marketing beyond a couple of seminars and the marketing component of my coaching training at the Institute for Life Coach Training. And I had neither capital to invest nor benefactors who could give me the money to start a business. I decided I'd do what I could with my meager resources, and do as much of the work as I could on my own. I needed: a website, internet marketing, business cards, a brochure, a business plan, education on marketing on the internet, and education on marketing in general. I also needed the forms and other things that one needs to run a business. I was willing to start small and grow the business without quitting my "day job". Here's how I did these things without a lot of financial resources.

The Website

Although I have a very strong technical background, I hadn't actually built a complete website myself. So I wanted something that was easy to use, would provide me quickly with a professional-looking site, and would also let me grow the site's content and complexity as I learned more about web design. Many designers recommend DreamWeaver, which is a very sophisticated application; however, its sticker price is $399.95, which was definitely out of my budget. So I looked at more affordable options. I found

Freeway Pro

and

RapidWeaver

; both are much easier to use than DreamWeaver. I settled on RapidWeaver because of the large number of third-party themes and plugins that are available for it, and the quality of the support forums. RapidWeaver costs $49.00; with the theme I used for this site and a few plugins, the total for web design software for the site came to just over $100. Still, a lot cheaper than DreamWeaver. The application I recommend that's closest in the Windows world is

Web Easy Professional

; it's also template driven, easy to use, and affordable ($49.95). In addition to the web design software, I wanted some images for the site to customize its appearance; $10.00 bought me four downloads at

Big Stock Photo

. A reasonably-priced hosting plan plus registration of the .com, .net, and .org versions of my domain name cost me about $37 per year at

BlueHost

. I chose them because they get consistently positive reviews, and my experience with them has been very positive. So my total initial investment in my website was about $147.

Internet Marketing

I found the thought of marketing rather intimidating. But I believe in what I'm doing with Metier, so I decided to jump in & get my feet wet. I took some free webinars on marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO); what I learned there was, you need to tweak your site content to make the search engines happy, always have new content (that's why blogs are a great thing), and get links to your site from other high-quality sites. Some of the marketing sites I've learned a great from include

Get Slightly Famous

Entrepreneur.com

Duct Tape Marketing

Small Business Trends

Bruce Clay

, and

SEOmoz

. All these sites have free resources for the entrepreneur-marketer, and there are many others out there equally good. I also relied on the RapidWeaver community forums for help with SEO as well as other aspects of designing my site (thanks, guys). I've been tweaking my site and adding new things over the past year and a half, so that takes care of the content part.

I couldn't afford experimenting with Google Adwords, or the $300 per year it costs to register my site with Yahoo's directory. So I decided to do what I could for free. I got a free listing at

Superpages

; in spite of the fact my listing was free, they called me & helped me set up the listing correctly. I submitted my site to the various search engines; I did so through BlueHost, but there are many free sites where you can submit to the search engines. In my opinion, you only need to worry about submitting to the

top search engines

. So that's what I did. I set up a Squidoo lens for Career Coaching, and set up a Facebook page. I also got a membership at SelfHelp.com and LinkedIn.com, and registered my blog at MyBlogLog. I wrote an e-book, and either uploaded it or registered it at various free e-book sites, including Publishd, Scribd, and ebookpalace.com (all of these sites are easily found with Google). I also started reading other folks' blogs and participating in them, making sure I added a link back to my site. Total cost of my marketing and SEO program to date: zero.

Business Cards, Brochure, and Forms

For most of my marketing materials, I used Apple's iWork suite (Pages, to be specific). It also provides a Powerpoint-compatible presentation program, Keynote, which was something I needed. Cost; $79. There are various places on the internet where you can design business cards online and have them sent to you, but I wanted to do it myself. I found a program for the Mac,

Business Card Composer

($34.95), which is excellent. I also use it for doing logos and other images for my website and marketing materials. You can do all this on a Windows machine with an application like Microsoft Works, or Broderbund's

Print Shop Pro

($69.99). Total cost to me: $113.95 (plus incidentals like paper & ink cartridges).

That's pretty much it; I've made other purchases since then but strictly speaking, they weren't necessary for the business. There are other things I want to get, like a Skype account and a Fax number, but for now I'm getting by without them. Total investment by me so far is therefore $260.95 (not counting many hours of my time, of course). Not bad, huh?

Business On A Shoestring, Part Two

2008-04-20T08:28:00.000-07:00

I suppose if I were to summarize what I've learned about bootstrapping to date, it would be: don't spend money unless you absolutely have to; what you make from your business, sink back into the business; and don't quit your day job until the numbers are right. As promised, here are some great resources I've found in the course of my research.

Entrepreneur.com is a must-read site for the bootstrapper. Here's a

great article

on bootstrapping your startup; be sure to follow the links he's included, which provide some helpful additional reading.

If you don't have many resources, marketing can be a challenge. This Enterpreneur.com

article

provides some creative ideas for marketing your product with little or no cash outlay. I'll cover some of the things I've been doing to promote Metier in Part Three of this series.

Bob Weinstein's

contribution

to Entrepreneur.com tells some success stories and gives his take on bootstrapping. He also provides some advice from a professor of entrepreneurship at a Pennsylvania college. A good deal of overlap with the other articles, but also worth reading (hey, another viewpoint is always worth the read).

Jeff Cornwell runs the Center for Entrepreneurship at Belmont University, and frequently blogs about bootstrapping. Put bootstrapping into the search window at his site,

The Entrepreneurial Mind

, and see what he has written on the topic. This is a great site in general for the entrepreneur.

He's selling a book, but

The Bootstrap Entrepreur

provides a number of freebies at his site that are worth the read. I can't say anything about the book, because I haven't read it but the site's worth a visit just for his tips & articles. My take on it is, if you're spending a lot of money on books, seminars, CDs, and other bootstrapping learning tools, that ain't bootstrapping. :)

This is a great

opinion piece

on bootstrapping by a CEO in the software industry. The focus here is on why bootstrap rather than the how. Definitely worth the read.

You can't have too many top 10 lists, right? Here's a list of

10 tips

for the bootstrapping entrepreneur that focuses on the home business startup.

The

Bootstrap Network

provides a fantastic networking opportunity for the bootstrapper, and has as of today 16 local chapters in the USA and India.

Finally,

BootStrapMe

is a blog that provides a lot of good articles & links for the bootstrapper.

That should get you all going. In the third (and probably final) installation in this series, I'll talk about the things I've been trying to bootstrap my business ventures.

Business On A Shoestring, Part One

2007-12-17T06:17:00.000-08:00

When I started Metier Career Coaching, I did so with zero external funding and a few dollars in my pocket that I was willing to risk on this venture. I'm not really a born entrepreneur, if there is such a thing; just a guy who wanted to start a coaching practice and didn't know how to go about doing so. Taking big risks isn't my cup of tea, but I also know that no risk = no payoff, so I've had to become comfortable with a small level of risk. Recently, I've realized there's a term for this approach to entrepreneurship: bootstrapping. Turns out I'm not the only one who's taken this approach, and there's a lot of articles out there on the internet to help bootstrappers. There are books on bootstrapping, networking sites for bootstrappers, blogs on bootstrapping, and resources for bootstrappers out there. Just google "entepreneur bootstrapper" to see what's out there. Gee, wish I'd known about this a year ago! Here are

eleven inspirational stories

of bootstrappers who made it from Bootstrapme.com to get your creative juices flowing.

In the next entry in this series, I'll do some googling myself and let you know what I found.

Entrepreneurship and Balance

2007-12-04T05:57:00.000-08:00

Jeff Cornwall posted an excellent article on his blog "The Entrepreneurial Mind" on the need for a balanced life, and the risk faced by the entrepreneur who gives his/her all to a new business venture. He writes: "...

If we are to become all that we were put on this Earth to do, we have to temper the temptation to become consumed by our work..."

Good advice. That's why in coaching client careers I focus on finding balance, and why we'll talk about all areas of your life. A person who knows only one note but plays it well will have a hard time finding harmony in his/her life. You can read Jeff's post by clicking this link.

Vasily

Thanksgiving Day

2007-11-22T10:15:00.000-08:00

Here in the Midwestern USA, it's Thanksgiving Day. The first few flakes of snow drifted by my window this morning, the days are getting shorter, and convincing myself that winter is a long way away is becoming increasingly difficult. This is a day of reflection for many of us, to count the blessings in our lives and share time with family or friends.

I'm having dinner in a few hours with several friends. The menu will be Southern USA, Turkey Roulades, Gumbo, Hominy Casserole, Sweet Potato & Rutabaga Casserole, Cabbage Pudding, Bread Pudding with brandy sauce for dessert. I was born in Virginia, and have always had a spiritual connection with the South. This is the time of year when I start feeling homesick for the South, for (as a friend of mine once wrote) "magnolias bleeding their bright seeds into the snow".

I'm grateful for many things: health, meaningful work, the love of friends. Although we celebrate thanskgiving in this country in a special way on this day, for many years I've tried to start my day on awaking with a prayer of gratitude - that I have been given another day, that I be given the grace to Get It Right this time.

May you have a thoughtful and grateful day, whether or not Thanksgiving is part of your traditions!

Baby Boomers & Retirement

2007-11-19T06:52:00.000-08:00

I've often said I'm not interested in retirement in the "classic" sense. I have too many plans to think about lazy days of fishing, golf, and volunteer activities. At some point over the past decade I've become enthusiastic about continuing meaningful work well past employment. I still haven't written the Great American Novel or developed my Legacy, and I sure don't want to spend my Golden Years living on Social Security. Plus, I plan on living long enough to start a whole new career ... or two. Here's a

great article

from Small Business Trends with some great advice for those of us who are approaching "retirement" age.

Facing Up to Failure

2007-11-18T13:25:00.000-08:00

There are a number of lists of famous "failures" on the internet, folks in various disciplines who stuck with something until they succeeded. Here's one from the Division of Educational Studies at Emory, University. Back when I was doing a lot of software engineering work, I remember reading that at the time something like 40% of all software projects fail. Improvement in software engineering disciplines has reportedly reduced that failure rate to 15% in recent years, but that still means that more than one project out of every ten software projects started will fail. And some studies continue to report high failure rates for IT projects. In fact, more than one software project out of every ten should fail.

Being able to recognize failure for what it is and accept our own failures means we can learn from our mistakes and oversights, and reduce the chance of their happening in the future. I've sometimes had people who were considering great life changes ask me, "but what if I fail?" One might ask them, what if you don't and you continue down a fruitless path without learning anything or growing from your mistakes? What if you never try and come to regret your fear later in life?

There's a time to be optimistic about our prospects for failure, and a time to be pessimistic. Martin Seligman has pointed out that we don't want the person piloting our airplane to tell herself, "I can have a couple of drinks before I fly ... the likelihood of something bad happening is low." When the cost of failure is high, we want to be careful with the optimism. Two key questions to ask ourselves when making an important life decision (career related or otherwise) are: what would be the cost if I fail? and what will be my regret if I never try?

I suppose another way of putting it would be: take risks, but take them wisely.

The Search For Meaning

2007-11-11T15:35:00.000-08:00

In Man's Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl wrote: "Man's search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life." Later, he writes that meaning in life can be discovered in three different ways:

1. Creating something of value or doing something worthwhile (our legacy)
2. Experiencing goodness, truth, beauty etc. or experiencing love for a person
3. Seeing unavoidable suffering as ennobling rather than degrading

This is strong stuff. I first read Frankl in graduate school, and my encounter with him was transformative. His little book was inspired by his experiences in the concentration camp, and the many barbaric and seemingly random experiences he had there. Where, he had to ask himself, is God in all of this? Where is the meaning of it all?

Some of you might be wondering: what does this have to do with one's career? A career can be congruent with our deepest selves, with our identity as human beings and our sense of being called to do something with our lives that makes a difference. Or, it can be something we do just because it's there, or because we've drifted into it.

I've known many people who have said to me that when they go to work it's to make money for the time when they're not at work, or to put money away so they can retire early and do the things they really want to do. They have claimed that their careers don't have to have meaning: making a decent salary in a comfortable environment is enough. Is it?

Suppose one starts work after college at the age of 22, and retires at the age of 66, with three weeks off each year. That's 44 years times 49 weeks per year times 40 hours per week. This person will spend 86,240 hours on the job over the course of his/her career; with overtime, that's over 10 years of his/her life. And it's a substantial fraction of a life to be spent in the hope of better things after the need to work for one's daily bread is done.

Frankl would say, I suspect, that one needs work that meets one or more of the criteria above so that our lives will be filled with meaning. Essayist Frederick Buechner wrote that we're called to the place where our joy and the world's need meet. Finding a career that fills us with joy and creates meaning for ourselves and others is more than a career goal: it's essential to our being human.

Trapped!

2007-11-06T15:15:00.000-08:00

Before I changed careers, I spent years feeling trapped by my circumstances. Friends told me: you have a great career, make a lot of money, why the #$*&!! are you thinking of changing careers? My former wife advised me that I needed to be thinking about retirement rather than thinking about starting a new career, and at my age, yet.

The prospect of changing careers was scary: what if I didn't make it? What if I was making a big mistake? I was comfortable, my career was a known quantity, and I was making a comfortable living at it. I felt my expertise was known and respected by my clients. Why rock the boat, and start out new in a career when I could stay where I was and have a warm and fuzzy comfortable life?

Because of passion: I wanted to make a difference in peoples' lives. I wanted to look back at my life from my deathbed and know that what I had done transformed others and helped them find their passion, too. So I did it: quit my job, went back to grad school, got an MA in clinical psych and began work at a counseling agency. It was exciting and terrifying at the same time. The day I sold the house I loved was an important one: it felt like there was no turning back.

Now, I'm working on building my coaching practice. I have a long way to go. But I'm happy: I feel like I'm following my heart, that my work speaks to my authentic self. And that's what really makes a job into a vocation.

Mindfulness and joy

2007-11-04T13:32:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking a lot about mindfulness recently: the awareness of now, of the current moment. Most of the time, we sleepwalk through life. How many times have I seen a glorious October go by like the one just past and thought, "My God, when did the leaves fall off the trees?" We're so wrapped up in resenting the past and fearing the future that we forget that this moment - right now - is all we really have: the past is a ghost, and the future a fantasy whether it be fearful or full of promise.

Kids get this, I think. Most of them lack sufficient past experiences to regret them, and anything past the next minute or two is in the far future. I believe the key to true happiness is savoring and appreciating the present moment, and being fully in it. But how, one might ask, does one plan for the future if one is living in the moment? How does one learn from the past?

It's fairly simple in concept, much more difficult in the execution: we learn from the past without being attached to its pain, we plan for the future without being attached to outcomes, whether good or bad. This fills the present moment with the possibility of true joy because the human being who has nothing to lose gains everything.

When you leave the house or work today, look around at the day: there is beauty in the worst weather, and a brightness in the darkest night. Wake in gratitude in the morning, knowing that you've been given a great gift: another day on this great planet, another day to live in its fullness, another opportunity for joy.

WSJ Tips for Online Job Hunting

2007-11-01T07:29:00.000-07:00

Wall Street Journal's CareerJournal site posted an article with several good tips for those who are submitting resumes online:

1. Use keywords in your resume. Look for job-related words in the job description that are used two or more times.
2. Position yourself in your resume for future promotions. Include skills that will help you move up the ladder.
3. Catch their attention quickly; if you don't grab them in 30 seconds, your resume will likely be deep sixed.
4. Think career portfolio when you do and post things online; recruiters may google for your name.
5. Improve your chances by contacting and (if possible) getting to know someone in the organization.
6. Holiday lulls are great for job searches; recruiters and employers will have more time for your resume.
7. Be persistent - "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" as the saying goes.

Nothing earth shattering in the article, but some pretty good and solid suggestions.

Get this blog on your cellular phone!

2007-10-28T18:34:00.000-07:00

You can now get the Metier Blog on your cell phone - click on the icon in the sidebar and enter your cell phone number. Alternatively, you can enter this URL in your phone's browser:

http://feedm8.com/metiercoaching

Path 101 and the Resume Genome Project

2007-10-28T10:07:00.000-07:00

A new startup that's attempting to create a resource that will integrate resume data crawled from around the web with information about the user (personality, etc) with information about the career paths of the people who wrote the resumes (what jobs did they actually hold). They're going to provide APIs (Application Programmer Interfaces) and encourage other sites to link to them. How exactly this will work is rather confusing and unclear at this point to me, but hey, they're a startup.

They're also live blogging their startup efforts in a sort of blog reality show, so whether they succeed or fail at their entrepreneurial efforts, the results will be out there for all to see. I wish them well, and look forward to following their efforts over the coming months.

You can check out their blog

here

Career Forum

2007-10-23T18:09:00.000-07:00

I've added a Career Forum to the Metier site; click on the link named "Metier Forum" to visit it. To return back to the Metier home page, click the button labeled "METIER HOME" on the forum page. Feel free to read the messages there, and post a comment or question (you have to create a login to post - this will hopefully reduce the amount of spam I have to deal with).

Free e-book Now Available!

2007-09-02T18:06:00.000-07:00

I've completed my e-book - it's a Guide to career transitions for the career changer: new careerist, mid-life changer, and retiree. I originally developed it for a career transition group at a church, and decided to turn it into an "official" Metier e-book. It's absolutely free; download it now by clicking on the Downloads link in the menu!

(note - I ask that you not redistribute this document - if you know someone else who would benefit from this e-book, please refer them to the Metier site)

Careers, Teens, and Young Adults

2007-07-20T12:35:00.000-07:00

The Self-Directed Search (see earlier posting) is ideal for the adult career seeker or career changer. For the younger person just entering the job market, or the high school student who is considering college majors, career coaches often use the Jackson Vocational Interest Survey (JVIS). If you are in high school or college or new to the job market, you may want to check out the JVIS web site

here

. You can take it online and get immediate results for only 14.95USD.

Hottest Careers Through 2014

2007-03-26T19:03:00.000-07:00

If you're looking at starting a career or changing to another one, knowing which careers are expected to grow the fastest over the next few years can help you focus your plans for career change. An article on the

ten hottest careers

at CollegeBoard.com provides some interesting data from government economist; the ten fastest growing careers for college graduates includes several medical and computer-related careers, which is no suprise; but forensic science technician is also on the list. Occupations projected to create the most new jobs in the next seven years are also listed for college grads as well as grads with associate and vocational educations.

Flexible Optimism

2007-03-20T07:15:00.000-07:00

A correspondent was intrigued by my statement that Martin Seligman's research suggests that the self-esteem movement is one of the root causes of the drop in the age of onset of depression in industrialized nations that we see today. So I thought I'd expand on this a bit. Seligman attributes the drop to three causes:

1. We worship individualism today, but our grandparents were connected to community, extended families, God. He comments, "Our children have threadbare spiritual furniture to sit on." I believe this leaves younger people with little reserve to rely on when life deals them (as it always will) a major loss or setback.

2. When I was a child, one of my favorite books was "The Little Engine Who Could." Today, teachers and books tell children they should feel good about themselves no matter what. In Authentic Happiness, he comments that children need to fail, to feel sad, anxious and angry: when we build up their self esteem to lessen the blow of their failures, we hinder their ability to develop mastery; and without mastery, they will fail to develop real self esteem which is grounded in a realistic view of their own abilities and limitations.

3. Everyone blames others or society or "fate" for their situations. We are breeding a nation of victims. The negative side of this is a failure to take responsibility for one's own choices and for determining our own outcomes.

Seligman suggests that the pessimist tends to see setbacks as permanent, pervasive, and due to external circumstances rather than one's own choices. The optimist, on the other hand, tends to see setbacks as temporary, localized, and due to their own choices. Pessimists are twice as likely to become depressed, and are more likely to have health and relationship problems. Seligman suggests using the pessimistic viewpoint only when the cost of failure is high, and using the optimistic viewpoint when the cost of failure is low (he calls this Flexible Optimism). That is, whether we avoid connecting with something larger than ourselves, view our abilities and limitations realistically, and take responsibility for our own choices (and hence our own success or failure), is up to us.

Are you an optimist or a pessimist? If you'd like to explore your own optimism, you can take an assessment at

Martin Seligman's web site

(look for "Optimism Test" in the list of questionnaires).

Métier Squidoo Career Change Lens!

2007-03-14T11:21:00.000-07:00

I've created a

Squidoo lens

for Métier; it includes links to recommended books on Amazon, career blog articles from various sources, and other items. It's rather redundant with this site at present, but it's a start. I plan on adding additional book recommendations and other content over time.

The Self-Directed Search

2007-03-10T08:03:00.000-08:00

The SDS is a career interest inventory developed by Dr. John Holland, whose career theory is widely used by career counselors and coaches around the world for working with clients who are pursuing career changes. People can be categorized with respect to six career types: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising and Conventional. These types are often represented as the vertices of a hexagon, and the theory says that most people have a strength in one of these areas, with secondary strengths in adjoining vertices on the hexagon. For example, I'm an IAS. The data collected from the SDS over the years suggests that people with a certain SDS three-letter code are more likely to be happy working in certain careers than in others. Your SDS report will suggest careers that you may want to consider. Note that the SDS doesn't indicate a natural aptitude for a certain career, or the possession of the skills needed to be successful in the career; it will however tell you whether a person like yourself is likely to be happy with the career in question.

You can take the SDS at

this web site

for only 9.95USD; the website also has a sample report so you can see what you're getting into before you pay for the report. Once you've identified careers you're interested in, you can investigate them further at the O*Net website at

this link

. Good luck with your search!

Too Old For A Career Change?

2007-03-04T09:11:00.000-08:00

"You can't teach an old dog new tricks!"

We've heard many messages in our lives that can make change difficult in the second halves of our lives. I've known people in their 30s who were already planning for retirement, which for many means endless rounds of golf, and a couple of cocktails before hitting the Early Bird Special at the local restaurant. Retirement becomes a kind of second adolescence: no kids, no job, no responsibilities. And yet, plenty of people choose to start a new career relatively late in life. Personally, I have a lot of energy, and the thought of "classical" retirement holds little appeal. I want to do meaningful work until I drop. When my paternal grandfather retired from his job as a machinist, he spent the last years of his life parked in front of the television. No hobbies, no meaningful activities. Sorry, that's not my cup of tea.

So, you're 50, or maybe 60, and for whatever reason you decide to start a second (or third) career. How do you keep going knowing that you probably have fewer years of life left in you than you've already lived? I don't know how it works for others but for me, I find it useful to live each day of my life as though it were the last ... and paradoxically, to also live as though I had all the time in the world ahead of me! I might drop dead tomorrow, but so what? The 25 year old next to me at work might die suddenly tonight, and I might outlive him!

Years ago, my sister was dying and my family was trying to avoid talking about the inevitable. One day, she looked up at me and asked if I thought she was dying. To comfort her, I told her that each day was a gift, and none of us knew how many days we had left. I could get hit by a car on my way out of the hospital and she could outlive me. So we need to appreciate each day we are given on its own terms. Since them, I've come to understand that this is among other things true, and that the life lived in fear is not worth living.

Do you look forward to each day as though it were a great gift, and truly enjoy it for what it is rather than for what it isn't?

The Depression Epidemic

2007-03-02T05:04:00.000-08:00

Martin Seligman's research suggests depression is ten times more prevalent than it was for our grandparents, and the average age for onset of depression in developed nations has droppped from 29.5 to 14 years old. He attributes this to our individualism and lack of connection to real community, the self-esteem movement, and a growing sense of individualism in modern culture.

At a farewell party for a faculty member at the University of Virginia years ago, the wife of the departing professor broke down in tears and said, "I'm tired of moving from one place to another every few years, and having to make another set of friends." I've often heard people since speak of their weak social networks, their sense of isolation, and the difficulty they had connecting with other people.

And yet, our isolation is by choice: it sometimes seems we value our careers and our "advancement" more than we do our connections with other people. In the 1830s, Alexis de Toqueville commented in "Democracy in America" that people in the New World would finish building a house, then immediately start looking for the next place they were going to move. Rugged individualism has always been an important part of who we are in the USA. But I have to wonder what kind of price we've paid for this aspect of our modern lives.

Seligman's research suggests to me that the antidote for the depression that is so prevalent today must include a reconnection to real community and taking responsibility for our own successes and failures. I truly believe that there is an opportunity for us in every setback we face, and that a joyful life is possible for anyone if he/she chooses to pursue it ... even in the face of failure and loss.