Over-50

"Dallas Buyers Club" - Work heals, provides dignity

Lowlife rodeo hanger-on Ron Woodroof is diagnosed with HIV in 1985.  Through his search for effective treatment he becomes an entrepreneur, setting up the "Dallas Buyers Club."  In the process he adds seven years onto the amount given by the medical establishment, helps others, and develops a sense of self. 

Some claim this film is about resilience.  I don't agree. I see in this true story the old American theme of the redemptive power of hard work. Way back to Puritan times, when folks got themselves into a pickle, they were told to get busy and work hard.  

This lesson is very timely for us Baby Boomers who may be riding a roller coaster staying in the workforce.  When I was at bottoms in restoring my once-lucrative business, I would grab a job, any job.  That would get me busy, working.  Soon enough I put together the marketing plan which brought in new business for my communications boutique.

SuperAgers: WarrenBuffett, Rupert Murdoch, Betty White as role models

The SuperAgers don't try to come across as young.  In fact, one of them - Betty White - leverages aging as her personal branding.  Warren Buffett and Rupert Murdoch have taken on none of the protective coloring of youth.  Their positioning and packaging are all about getting results, having influence, and throwing thunder bolts of smart strategic and tactical moves.

Those roles are open to us.  To take them on we have to embrace that the past is over and the present is full of opportunity.  The trick is to identify those opportunities and figure out how to go after them. 

One tactic that's working for me is to present myself to prospects and clients as the voice of experience, mixed with comprehensive understanding of current trends in my field of communications.  That leads their attention away from "She's Old" to "Hey, she can get results for us."

Another tactic is to dump anything which is draining energy.  Executive coach Henry Cloud hammered the importance of that in his breakthrough book "Necessary Endings." That mandates we become brutal about cutting ties which are no longer emotionally nurturing or professionally useful.

A third one is to frame a bad day as just that.  Setbacks, disappointments, criticism don't mean that our best days in our field are behind us. Those kinds of whacks to the ego mean that we are still playing the game.  On the bench, no one gets hit. 

 

 

 

Success! Baby Boomer migrates from sweat-shop deli work to full-time job, with benefits at brandname supermarket

Eight months ago this Baby Boomer was a down-and-out unemployed male with child-support payments overdue.  He had to make money.  And that he did through just-in-time work for a local deli. The tasks were not only sweat-shop.  They were also back-breaking.  Those included unloading gigantic shipments and then stocking the shelves.  

His attitude was extraordinary.  Even the Machiavellian owner, who had gone through tons of employees, noticed. The man got a lot of hours but not enough to qualify him for benefits.  The hourly pay remained low.

Today I ran into him on the elevator at the complex where we both live. He was wearing a shirt and tie.  He looked taller.  I asked him where he had been.  He told me about his full-time job at a brandname supermarket.  Yes, he is a member of the union and receives benefits.  The powers that be are training him to head a whole department.  

I asked him if he felt that his work in the deli had given him the edge in nailing this opportunity.  He answered that he didn't want to look backward, only at the present.  He added that he was grateful for what was now in his now.

 

Revenge of the Late Bloomers: Perks of getting older

Who doesn't ask themselves the question: Why do some make it big, at least relatively speaking, and some just about make it?  And since we are living longer we have many more years to keep pondering that.

For me, that question shifted around 2006.  University of Chicago professor David W. Galenson published his research in the form of the book "Old Masters and Young Geniuses."  What he found was that there were two kinds of accomplishments.  

One is done early in life by the Mozarts.  They find their direction and talent and that's that.  The other is by those who keep experimenting.  It isn't until they are 50 or 60, like Frank Lloyd Wright, that they can put it together in a way that leads to success. 

More and more of us Baby Boomers are finding ourselves in the second category.  No, we weren't failures before.  It's that we are hitting our stride now.  A reason might be that society pays less attention to us.  The pressure is off.  We can finally try out things.  We can absorb and use our failures in private.  We have the strength to say "no" to this and that in order to focus on our work.

My work is being a ghostwriter/speechwriter.  It's like being an actor in that I take on other people identities.  There were times when I made a very good living.  However, my talent still hadn't really developed.  Now, at age 68, I have entered a fresh, no pun intended, phase of my career.  Clients are, well, wowed.  I feel like a "master," the term Galenson uses.  

Yesterday, I received the assignment to ghostwrite a second book in a short time.  I also have been accepted into the Motley Fool stable of business writers.  My client in Canada, who I am guiding in how to promote herself in the academic niche, said she "loved" the new strategy I proposed.  On Monday I start with the online tutorial for writers and data, funded by McGraw-Hill.  I was awarded a free spot in that program.  Like, everything is about data now. 

Where can this all lead?  The nice thing is that I can do it my way. No one is watching.  No one cares.

Baby Boomers: We don't have to be cool, actually never had to

One of the gifts of aging is that there is no pressure to be cool.  Most of us become invisible so, what the hell, we don't have to pretend to be anything but the uncool people we might have been from grade school on. 

But, as we calm down, at least about what we demand of ourselves, we realize that we really didn't have to be cool back then either.  So many of my colleagues, college friends, and even family members who weren't cool have been doing fine all their careers.  And continue to thrive.

Cool really was an abstraction.  It hovered over those of us who were insecure.  After all, the really cool didn't think about being being cool.  That's why they were cool.  

My abstract notion of coolness was being thin, invited to weekends in the Hamptons, and having a talk show even if it was on local access cable.  Had my definition of being cool been becoming recognized for my writing/ghostwriting ability, providing homes for abandoned animals, and making a good living at age 68, I would know that cool wasn't an issue.  I was just fine just as I was. 

Farm to Fork: Aging blossom playing in the dirt

"The return on my time investment isn't too good."

That's what one of the new urban farmers in New Haven, Connecticut told me today.  But he was beaming.  Clearly he was proud about how he had learned to farm in his 60s, was now eating peppers from his plot of land, and was taking care of another plot of land for a blind neighbor.  This has been the happiest I have seen him since he moved into this senior citizen complex.

He has lots of company in this farm to fork movement among the urban aging.   A whole section of our 1,400 unit development has been set aside for growing whatever.  There is the raw charm of homemade scarecrows.  Those with mobility problems still manage to get the water their vegetables need to grown.  Sometimes they lug water cans. Sometimes they wait their turn for the hose hooked up to Building E.  They are engrossed in each other's tips for how to eek out the best harvest. 

Geronotology researchers should come here to Bella Vista to assess how much healthier the farmers are than the non-farmers.  How much longer they live.  And how much better they treat their neighbors. Farming could be a game-changer in graceful aging.

Murdoch, Buffett, White Going Strong, Our Neighbors Babbling

Why are some among the aging still having an upward professional trajectory and others babbling, long out of the game?  We witness Rupert Murdoch, Warren Buffett, and Betty White enhancing their brandnames and earnings.  The first two are in their 80s and the last one is in her 90s.

The answer to that riddle is presented in book "The Scientific American Healthy Aging Brain" by Judith Horstman.  The reality is that people age differently and at different rates.  The man who needs a knee replacement might not have to undergo that surgery until he is in his late 80s.  Another man may die at 101 without having experienced one health problem, including extensive short-term memory loss. 

The book also reinforces the notion that there is such a thing as the late bloomer.  That is, someone whose genius emerges after 50.  University of Chicago professor David W. Galenson had done extensive research on that phenomenon.  In 2006, he published the book "Old Masters and Young Geniuses."

Baby Boomers: Our generation didn't turn out to be a Greek tragedy

As the economy improves so are our professional options.  We Baby Boomers have proved to be resilient.  No, we who changed the world with the CounterCulture aren't playing out the plot lines of a Greek tragedy.  Our hubris didn't do us in.  That's because we have been able to drop the arrogance and the ego in order to survive economically. 

The soul searching had been brutal during the darkest days of The Great Recession.  We questioned every value that we had acquired in our young adulthood and middle years as successful corporate employees and entrepreneurs. Some of us turned to executive coaches.

Now the money is rolling in again.  The price of gas?  We don't have to fall apart any more.  Getaways?  It's possible to buy them now.  A good night sleep?  More of us are getting 'em again.

We are a generation who could change.  Maybe that will be our legacy, one other generations - X, Millennial, Matrix - will study when they run into their own economic buzzsaws. 

Leonard Marsh aka "Mr. Snapple" - Another late bloomer

Leonard Marsh, who created the off-beat beverage Snapple, struggled for the big time for decades.  In 1992, he got there through bringing his company public. Then in 1994, he sold it to Quaker for $1.7 billion, reports Stephen Miller in THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.  Marsh died on May 21st, at age 80.  He could become an iconic role model for all of the rest of us late bloomers. 

In his book "Old Masters and Young Geniuses," University of Chicago researcher David W. Galenson documents that there is such a phenomenon as the late bloomer. Unlike the Mozarts of the world, they don't find a way to express their talent until late in life.  Until then they keep experimenting. An example is Frank Lloyd Wright who didn't start Falling Waters until he was 60 years old.

Now that the economy is improving, more of us Baby Boomers can go for what for us will be the big time.  During the worst of times during The Great Recession we learned plenty.  For example, I finally nailed down that was standing in my way of success was me.  In the next few years the media could be reporting on how we Baby Boomers are bursting into bloom.

Baby Boomers: Remember our classmates who peaked too soon?

Jennifer Haigh, author of the 2005 novel "Baker Towers," has a lot of insight into the young who peak early.  In high school they are the cheerleaders, class president, prom queen and king, and winner of the appointment to West Point.  Then there was the rest of us. 

It took me until my late 50s to find myself, then after that I found a way to get professional attention on my own terms.  University of Chicago professor David W. Galenson studied our kind.  He documented there really is such a thing as a late bloomer. Frank Lloyd Wright didn't design Falling Waters until he was around 60. 

Some years ago I attended a reunion of members of my high school class.  The former student president bored us with talking about the satisfaction he derives from teaching back at our same high school.  The one who was known to have the highest IQ (homerun teachers took to boasting) had a conventional career in the helping professions.  The kid who had achieved national fame on television through a spelling bee contest had hung himself in college.

Me? Those attending probably still labeled me a loud, overweight loser.  Yet, at the time I was operating a thriving business in executive communications, one which I got going again in the past 8 months.  Those who had dominated social life in the past continued to that day.