Over-50

Rational Suicide Enters Mainstream Thinking

From 2004 until late 2008, network television fictional series "Boston Legal" played out what actual human being Sandra Day O'Connor is enduring. That's the loss of a fine legal mind.

More comedy than drama, "Boston Legal" captured the eccentricities of a bunch of winner lawyers in a New England boutique firm.

Each is off in his or her own unique way. That's why even lawyers kept tuning in, despite knowing that the plot twists and turns didn't mirror accurate legal practice. 

The most compelling character had been Denny Crane.

His ego was beyond big.

But with that was a undertow of tragedy. He called his memory lapses his "Mad Cow Disease." Although the disease progressed, he frequently managed to win cases, usually through flamboyant gestures.

However, Crane was aware that he could be slipping totally into the abyss. That's why he asked his best friend at the firm Alan Shore to shoot him if and when he crossed that line.

During the last episode of the series it was obvious that Crane had crossed the line. Devoted fans were spared what the aftermath would be.

That was 10 years ago.

Today, a smart guy like Crane who was also a decent human being wouldn't have asked Shore to do his dirty work. Of course, what Shore would have done would have landed him in legal hot water, perhaps including prison.

Now what is entering the mainstream is the concept of "rational suicide." The subject is especially brought up in what the aging encounter.

At the top of the list of those maladies is the beginning of dementia. While the victims still have the cognitive ability to put together a self-deliverance plan, they can do that. Here is an article on all that in The New York Times section on The New Old Age.

Should the aging want to end their lives but lack the temperament to do it, there is help in other nations. Switzerland is among them.

Last May, 104-year-old scientist David Goodall went there for that purpose. He decided that aging had stolen from him his ability to enjoy life.

In his homeland of Australia, assisted suicide is not yet legal. When it becomes legal in Victoria in June 2019, only those who have six months to live are eligible. Goodall breathed his last listening to Beethoven.

 This blog does not suggest that former SCOTUS justice O'Connor should consider rational suicide. That option does not align with many people's value systems. Hers may be among them.

What this blog post on the agony of progressing dementia does intend to do is this: Raise awareness that even mainstream thinking is looking at suicide as a solution for dementia. The New York Times article explicitly mentions it. 

Last week, a blue-collar delivery man, in his early 60s, and I discussed just that. Several days before, his friend, after being diagnosed with a form of dementia, killed himself with a gun.

No, we didn't form a suicide pact but both committed ourselves to self-deliverance if memories transitioned from expected senior moments to losing major chunks of whatever. Of course, we wouldn't ask each other's help. Friends don't ask friends to kill them.

No, I am not optimistic that the state laws on assisted suicide in the U.S. for non-terminal people will be changed in time to preserve the dignity of members of my baby boomer generation.

On this one, we are on our own. Government won't pitch in and help.

I informed the delivery man I was already saving my pennies for "Suicide Tourism" to Switzerland. 

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

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Thank You for Not Sending Holiday Greetings

During the past several years, Bob Dilenschneider publishes his reflections on every major public holiday in third-party media.

The next will probably be a placement in establishment media for Thanksgiving. 

One would probably assume that the objective of so much effort is selling his services, at least partly. After all, resources are invested in that outreach. Resources represent a business expense.

However, Dilenschneider is not alone.

Beginning in mid-December, just about everyone I had purchased a car, house, or computer services from will be expressing holiday sentiments to me. Of course, more and more of us dread that glut of good wishes. 

In this over-communicated/media-surplus era, publishing anything is not often in the public interest. Neither are all those emails, phone calls, and texts.

Most of us need a hug rather than one more article on whatever or a message from any medium. In addition, if someone wants my business, rather than simply emailing a copy of a published article, attach a five-buck gift card for coffee and sweet. 

Anyway, in his 2017 reflections on Labor Day, Dilenschneider got a fact wrong. That was saluting America as having the most productive workforce. Actually, in 2017, according to the OECD, the U.S. ranked fifth. Lack of fact-checking does not help the public interest.

Dilenschneider founded public affairs firm The Dilenschneider Group. Given his expertise, the odds are he knows what he is doing in leveraging holiday greetings as possibly a selling platform.

But, my gut, seasoned by coaching sales, raises the question: Has the tactic of holiday greetings become a counterproductive kind of outreach in reaching and bonding with prospects? 

Here is what I know: A growing number of my clients, colleagues, and close friends have the fantasy of fleeing the rat race and taking up residence in a secluded cabin.

The only difference of opinion among them is whether that refuge should be on or off the grid. Those favoring the latter indicate they are willing to search the location for a hotspot to link to the internet. 

In short, America's new signature trait could be mutating from universal gregariousness to the status symbol of being able to be left alone. That could be the emerging meme in advertising: You can and will be left alone.

More of us who can't pull the plug on an over-communicated society, at least not yet, are making it our business to stock the moat with alligators and pull down the drawbridge. The technology of gmail, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter assists in that.

Often the epiphany comes that the more folks we block, unfriend, and delete the less bleak our little lives seem. Believe me, those wanting to purchase our services or products have no trouble finding us. And, aside from a few stimulating colleagues and caring friends, those are the only other humans I want to hear from. The film "Alpha" killed it because it created a sci-fi explanation of how wolves evolved into man's best friend. 

This holiday season, please remove my name from the emails, phone lists, and texts. I will be off the grid in a cottage near Lake Erie. Two two-legged friends and one four-legged one will help me snatch pure joy from the meaning of Christ's birth and the start of a new year.

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

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The Northeast - Yes, You Can Finally Flee the Scene and Still Have a Wonderful Career

" … getting the hell out of the Northeast" is part of the headline for Moneyish. Here is that article. 

Once the go-to place for a career, the Northeast is becoming a tarnished brand.

It's not unthinkable that BigLaw firms will have to shut down their headquarters there and establish a presence where folks are migrating. Those locations range from Texas to Florida.

United Van Lines found that the three Northeast states losing the most population are New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. 

As Catey Hill points out in the Moneyish article, there are three reasons for that:

Cost. To make ends meet for a growing number of people entails going into debt. So, common sense dictates that to exit debt means fleeing that scene.

For example, even a modest lifestyle in CT requires property taxes of about $21,000  on a house in Trumbull, ongoing property taxes on automobiles (a real ouch on newer cars), high car insurance, big nut to pony up for the commuter ticket to Manhattan on Metro North, and possible five-figure annual tuition for private schools. 

Horrendous Weather. The winters have been becoming colder - and with more snow. During one of the polar vortexes, it was tough to land a spot in the WalMart parking lot in New Haven, CT. What took most of the space were the several-foot piles of snow. In addition, just like parts of the southeast coastal areas, New Jersey has been hit over and over again with hurricanes such as Sandy. If climate change exists, there will be more of those.

Jobs Being Shipped to Lower-Cost Locations. Yes, the world of business is getting smaller, thanks to digital. Business owners and developers of startups have run the numbers. They get it that they can significantly lower the cost of doing business by heading west on I-95. That means the good jobs go with them.

For example, about 400 miles from New York is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is evolving into a hub for tech. Although that is inching up the price of housing, overall that metro area remains affordable. 

In April 2014, after decades of operating several enterprises in the New York Metro area, I headed to the southwest. Do the math:

• Rent was one-half what I had paid in Central CT (not even part of the Gold Coast)
• No property tax on my relatively new car
• Car insurance was one-half
• Gasoline was a few bucks less a gallon
• Hair styling and coloring were one-third
• Only one-tenth the car washes needed (without snow no worries about getting rid of the salt on the undercarriage)
• Dental procedures were one-third through dental tourism to Northern Mexico
• Vet bills were about half (with no upselling).

In the 27 months I bunked there I paid off the car loan and credit card balances. Because there were so many jobs I picked up three part-time ones to learn the technology such as CRM "on the company." I even socked away enough to begin investing again. 

Business demanded I parachute into Eastern Ohio in September 2016. There, surprise surprise, the cost of living is even less than that of the southeast. 

Meanwhile a client who is a lawyer in CT has to put semi-retirement on-hold. Once GE announced it was pulling up roots in Fairfield, CT for Boston, houses in his suburb stopped selling, at least at the price he needs to cash out. He is dreading his energy bill this coming winter. He has a hunch it won't be his last in the northeast.

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

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"They" Really Did Cast Spells - From Polio Epidemics to Funding Retirement

There was no online WebMD.

As yet, the masses hadn't begun to become college-educated. So they were unable to think in a scientific manner about the causes of diseases. That was very different from the current analysis of acute flaccid myelitis - AFM - in Scientific American. 

Everywhere, from the elite boarding school the late newspaper editor Ben Bradlee attended to the hood where I grew up, the severe after effects of polio were obvious.

So, no surprise, superstition ran wild among parents in the 1940s and 1950s, concerned their children would develop polio. 

The brand of voodoo had been primitive. It reconfigured summertime, when most cases seemed to develop,  from funtime to a spreading list of restrictions. 

Don't go into a public pool, and you will be safe. Eventually not many public pools opened in those brutal summers before air-conditioning became standard. In the hood the "they" turned on the hydrants.

Stay indoors from noon to three P.M. when the heat was the worst.

Don't run. 

Despite those precautions, when school reopened there would be tales of classmates who had "caught" polio. Most we would never see again. They were "being treated." In St. Boniface Roman Catholic parish school in downtown Jersey City, New Jersey, for a few weeks the nuns would lead us in prayer. Then that would be that. 

Those who did return to the classroom, usually with a limp or even mobility contraptions, became grassroots celebrities. For those of us who craved attention, polio seemed a blessing. We hoped that we might become lucky next summer and also become stars.

Then one day we were told to go to the nurse's office for the Salk vaccine.

The collective consciousness shifted to how we would prepare to get into and succeed in college.

That was a whole different type of angst, but also permeated with superstition. Few of our parents had gone to college. The terror was more horrific than that which hung over the polio epidemics. 

The next rounds of voodoo for baby boomers were all the guidance inflicted on us about our white-collar careers by a new industry: the advice experts. Do this. Never do that. 

For most of us those spells cast in our youth and middle age have only be broken by the wild professional ride we have been on in a global economy driven by digital.

Any of us who didn't get it that we have to think for ourselves - and in a harsh capitalistic way - aren't working any more. Not working, just like polio, can be crippling. In America, the headquarters for capitalism, we are what we do to earn income. I actually tell off anyone who mandates I comply with the standard tribal beliefs about success and failure. 

The journey from the 1940s and 1950s to the 21st century could have been fun. But, as during the polio epidemics, that had been snatched away, at least for those who passively accepted what the self-appointed witch doctors were foisting on a new generation.

Reflection: Currently the witch doctors take the form of financial services pros who warn us that anything less than $5 million socked away for the days of semi-retirement or retirement will render us homeless.

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

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It Isn't You - In 42 States in America Cost Of Living Higher than Media Income

It's official. 

GoBankRates documented that most of us can't afford to live where we are living.

In 42 states, it found, the cost of living was higher than the median income.

The two major reasons for that were stagnant wages and rising housing costs. Regarding the latter, as every renter has noticed, leasing isn't cheap any more. Landlord Nation can jack up the teaser first-year rate at lease renewal time.  Here are more details from the Daily Mail. 

So, no surprise, becoming an expat is increasingly attractive.

And not just to retirees.

Members of younger generations who can operate their own businesses in a foreign country or receive a work permit have also been researching leaving the U.S.

For some, though, this is nothing new.

Mexico, for example, has long been a magnet for those who wanted to live cheaply and flee the extreme success ethos of the U.S. The healthcare system, including dental, is high quality and low cost. Also, there are detailed reports of crime locations to avoid. 

When I was living in southern Arizona, I crossed the border to Mexico often for dental procedures (dental tourism). The fee for service was about one-third what it would have cost me, even with dental insurance, in the U.S. The waiting rooms were packed with American families. The staff spoke fluent English.

In addition, I discovered that there are thriving communities of diverse kinds of expats in Mexico. Just about anyone can find a group whose members are simpatico. 

Other low-cost locations becoming popular are Ecuador, Belize, Costa Rica, the Philippines, and parts of southern Europe.

International Living is a good source to begin researching migrating from the U.S.

The next step would be to use vacation time-off to visit in-person. That's essential. Clients of mine in their late 50s are making those visits at least annually. 

The film "The Best Marigold Hotel" plays out the horror which can happen when the relocation is done, site-unseen. 

Full Disclosure: I have been researching becoming an expat for six years. The number-one choice has shifted from Ecuador to Mexico. Spain, where I had lived and worked in my 20s, has become relatively expensive.

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

Free consultation janegenova374@gmail.com

 

The Most Hardening Experience in Business

Among the most soul-wrenching experiences in professional services is this: Pulling out all stops to serve the client and then getting stiffed.

That could happen to law firms representing bankrupt coal companies Westmoreland, Mission Coal, and Tonawanda Coke.

As Brian Baxter reports in Law.com, as yet, those have not paid $2.1 million in legal fees to law firms Holland & Hart and Davis Graham. 

Among business people it is well known that litigation is a wild card. That's one of the reasons most lawsuits are settled before they reach a courtroom.

What those same businesspeople might not realize, though, is that the whole business of practicing law is, in itself, a wild card. Lawyers get stiffed just like many of the rest of us in professional services. They put in the all-nighters and then stare in to the abyss when those clients they worked so hard for don't pay.

That emotional blow can be worse than the one to the pocketbook. I know.

About 17 months ago, I was a contractor to Rodney Burrell's BMG in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Burrell's client was Romeo Spino's Stratas Corporation, Virginia Beach, Virginia. Here is the story. The experience of having to go through a collection agency for payment truly does seem to produce the unique form of PTSD. 

If I were teaching a course in Business 101, the first lesson module would contain:

• Be prepared to be stiffed
• Options for payment, including small claims court, department of labor, collection agencies, and litigation
• Strategies to prevent non-payment. 

Reflection: Not being paid for work well done is a brutal rite of passage in professional services.

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

Free consultation janegenova374@gmail.com

Remembering When We Felt We Had Power

It's a very dark day for Sherwin-Williams.

And its stock price reflects that. The shorts could move in.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review Sherwin-Williams' conviction in the Santa Clara, California public nuisance class action lead paint trial.

That leaves the conviction intact. And that means that the paint company which once manufactured and marketed lead paint is wide open territory for copycat lawsuits - both throughout CA and the rest of the nation.

Those lead paint lawsuits, at the state level, could be, if won, a windfall for government. Both the plaintiff bar and defense lawyers could enjoy a rush of new business. Plaintiff law firms such as Motley Rice can be hired by the prosecution on contingency to assist with the litigation against those sophisticated lawyers from white shoe large law firms such as Jones Day. 

In Bloomberg, Greg Stohr reports:

"The U.S. Supreme Court rejected appeals from Sherwin-Williams [Sherwin-Williams v. California)  and Conagra Brands Inc., leaving intact a ruling that requires them to pay more than $400 million for lead-paint remediation in California."

The carnage extends beyond lead paint. Now so many other industries could be perceived as sitting ducks for public nuisance lawsuits. They include BigPharma for how it marketed opioids. A grim book about that is "Dopesick" by Beth Macy. It is 1,311 on Amazon. Here it can be ordered.

In Ohio, where the opioid epidemic can't be contained, the attorney general had already filed a public nuisance lawsuit about pharmaceutical companies. It's being settled. More states may also take that legal step.

Other industries targeted for public nuisance litigation range from energy (blamed for climate change) to firearms (the theory that guns are primary cause of violence). 

It's interesting to note that business trade associations and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had been busy bees in composing and submitting amicus briefs. They huffed and they puffed and they couldn't blow public nuisance away.

That says a lot about the power of public nuisance. Even the top court of the land rules not to intervene in a conviction against two major corporations. In addition, it bears witness to the reality that they have to change how they lobby. 

Earlier, the CA appeals court upheld the conviction. And the CA Supreme Court refused to even review it. 

America, despite the intense conservative movement, could be returning to the era of consumer and worker protection. That was when litigation against tobacco and asbestos thrived. At the level of the individual, Ralph Nader mobilized not only the courts but the grassroots through his Nader Raiders. New versions of Naderism can sweep the land, mobilizing Everyman and Everywoman. 

To resurrect the counterculture meme: Power to the People. 

Full Disclosure: I had blogged the Rhode Island lead paint public nuisance class action litigation (2005-2006). Then and now I question the effectiveness of the public relations agencies officially in the loop. Are they operating in the 20th century?

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

Free consultation janegenova374@gmail.com

 

Working - We Are Back to a Hunter Society

Since the 1970s, the "What Color Is Your Parachute?" job-search guide has been a must, for all phases of a career.

Overseen by Richard N. Bolles, it documents that the job offer frequently goes to those best at pitching themselves, not necessarily the most qualified.

In addition, the good jobs usually aren't advertised. You find them through networking, the right kind of cold-calling, and being at the right place at the right time. 

All that hasn't changed. Bolles labels those who open doors to the hidden marketplace "bridge people."

The way we build relationships with them is the "Parachute Way." Among the ways to reach out to them is through the LinkedIn professional network. Also, your presence on social media is your business card. As Bolles puts it, Google is your new resume. 

Because the formula remains the same, no surprise, the 2019 edition ranks 1,253 on Amazon. Here you can order it. 

What has changed is that Bolles is emphasizing the importance of knowing who you are. To find that out, he even provides a mini workbook in the front section of the guide. 

Self-knowledge, according to Bolles, is essential in navigating a labor market which keeps changing, where positions have shorter shelf lives, and that it takes longer to find a job or contract assignment. Knowing who we are gives us direction in what we go after. And prevents our getting worn out or embittered chasing after what's not the right fit.

Obviously, that chase probably won't result in paid work. Also, because we don't fit, we likely won't last long. And, that horrific ordeal could burn us out or even kill us. 

What used to thought of as a "career" has mutated into a continual search for paid work. Nobody should ever ditch the job-search mindset, even when enjoying a great job with great benefits. Soon enough the hunt could be back on.

Bolles doesn't use this analogy but we really are back to a hunter society. 

According the Parachute Way, hunters must know their strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes. Given those, they must then find out the best kinds of work situations for themselves and where.

In a sense, the Parachute Way puts those looking for work in a position of strength. Yes, we may always be hunting but the process can seem "normal," rather than a "punishment" for not doing a job right. 

The new edition has a section for the self-employed. Gig economy players should think of themselves as self-employed. 

Full Disclosure: During the late 1970s, I read in "What Color Is Your Parachute?" how requesting "informational interviews" can lead to job offers. I was struggling to make ends meet working for a non-profit.

I got up the courage to compose snail mail asking those in communications at local corporations for 10 minutes of their time for career guidance. Within three weeks, I had an offer from a global energy company. My annual salary more than doubled. Even better jobs in Corporate American opened to me. 

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

Free consultation janegenova374@gmail.com

 

The New Smugs - Retirees/Semi-Retired Who Seemingly Have 2 Dimes to Rub Together

The world of the aging has divided into two.

That's what I first bumped into but didn't understand around 2014.

It was then that I had circled back with my seemingly more financially well-off classmates from Seton Hill's Class of 2017. They ranged from Kathleen Huebner to Irene Nunn.

For instance, Huebner, although not married to a successful man, has made the right professional moves. She purchased a house in an Oro Valley, Arizona upper middle class retirement complex. A creative bohemian and risk taker, my career had not been linear. It still isn't. And, the rollercoaster ride suited my creative metabolism just fine. 

Back then in the early years of the 21st century, I was struggling, financially, emotionally, and socially.

The shock of becoming older had grabbed me by the neck, shook me hard, and threw me to the ground. Lesson Number-One: Never reach out when vulnerable.

I only came to connect the dots on my former classmates' behavior - I coined the phrase "The New Smugs" to capture their essence - this summer.

That's when a lovely couple relocated to our residential complex from 1,000 miles away.

Of course, they had interesting stories to recount of how it had been where they had been, why they moved, and what they think of their new home.

We were all ears. Storytellers cast spells.

Then something familiar happened: The conversation seemed to shift to what they had which they assessed we didn't.

For example, The New Smugs kept hammering that they owned a getaway several hours from their rental here.

Of course, they were going to invite us all to stay. As yet, not one of us has been invited.

Oh, the getaway is real. (One hat I wear in my communications/coaching career is investigator.)

Also real, though, is that the gateaway seems to be positioned and packaged as much as a status symbol as the beach house in the Hamptons which our bosses and clients back in the New York Metro area used to boast about, promise to have the office over, and never did. 

Currently, I am not in the limbo I had been in 2014. Things are actually good.

There's that emerging adage among the aging: The first 50, 60, 70, or 80 years of my life hadn't been too hot. However, there are definite signs of a turnaround. 

But financially I am not among the 1%. And after embracing The New Minimalism or Enoughness I have no desire to have more than I have.

Somehow I got lucky and was able to leave the Hunger for More in the 20th century.

However, it still annoys me to have those my age seemingly continue to indulge in those games of youth in which making others feel less-than had been necessary for their sense of self.

From the hood in Jersey City, New Jersey (pre-gentrification), I perceived myself having been tormented by many of my classmates as well as  professors and the members of the administration at Seton Hill. 

Perhaps "annoy" is an understatement. The correct phrase might be to apply that phrase executive coach Henry Cloud made famous: Necessary Endings. Here, his book by that title can be ordered from Amazon. That is Lesson Number-Two: Prune and keep pruning the tree of life. 

Although I did not understand the phenomenon of how those from the past can have negative effects in the present, I dumped those members of the Class of 1967 in May 2014. That was one month after I had relocated myself, my two businesses, and my four-legged son from Connecticut to Tucson, AZ. I was based about a 25-minute ride from Huebner's house.

That radical purging (of Huebner et al.) response came from something intuitive inside me.

It was that same inner psychic which helped me navigate off the dangerous streets of my hometown to something different. Different does not necessarily mean "safe," at least not emotionally and socially. Hahaha. No wonder smart young people have no goal to leave the housing projects in the inner city. For decades I have wondered if I would have suffered less in life had I stayed in Jersey City.

Currently, I have made enough progress on the learning curve with The New Smugs to exit that toxicity without extreme disruption.

For example, when they bring up a future invitation to Paradise, I just smile and go my way. Of course, the Jersey City kid in me is tempted to respond: Inviting folks to a vacation home had been the plot line in one of those serial-killer crime shows. Might have been "Criminal Minds." Then, run off laughing like a fiend. 

In addition, I am not all ears about what neighbors have come to say about The New Smugs. That sort of gossip simply mirrors the ethos of our insecure youth of meanness.

Lesson Number-Three is to forgive oneself for not sizing up the situation accurately faster.

Only now, 53 months later am I able to do that. When stuck, it's wise to lay low. We put alligators in the moat and pull down the drawbridge. From the top of our tower, which represents our little lives, we evaluate what is both safe and useful to let in. Only then we make a move. 

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

Free consultation janegenova374@gmail.com

Middle Age Becomes The Hanging Times

Extreme success. A New Yorker. Middle-Aged. And, struggling with clinical depression.

Lawyers, if that profile fits you, your colleagues, and/or your loved ones, then recognize that these are The Hanging Times.

In New York City, there has been the third hanging.

High-profile clinical psychologist, best-selling author of "Brave Girls," and animal-rights activist Stacey Radin took her life yesterday. It was by hanging, just like the recent suicides of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain. Both Spade and Bourdain were middle-aged.

Radin was 52. She reportedly battled clinical depression. Here are more details from The New York Post. 

There seems to be a copycat phenomenon in play. Hanging is a relatively  slow, painful way to die. Also, it's not usual for women to take that route of self-deliverance.

According to the website Lost All Hope, suicide by hanging:

Is effective (leads to death) only 89.5% of the time. That means that a botched job could result in permanent brain or physical injury. In contrast, a gun shot to the head is effective 99%.

The process requires 7 minutes. Those can be a period of both physical (difficulty breathing) and mental (reflection on one's life) agony. In contrast, death by a gun requires only 1.7 minutes.

On a scale of 100, the amount of distress is in the 25.5% slot. When using a gun, that's at 5.5.

Clearly, the method of suicide can provide one of the dots on what might have been the mood at the time this decision was made.

Was the person so lacking in hope at that moment that the act was one of impulse? The mindset could have been: I can't take this one more minute. There's a way I can hang myself right here. In a support group, I have heard that line of thinking often.

Was the person full of self-loathing? In clinical depression there is a tendency to turn on oneself. 

And, was the act, in its theatricality, a kind of rebuke to others? There is the thinking that all suicide is homicide. Those committing it are sending a message to those whom they perceive let them down.

A member of my nuclear family left an unfilled bottle of blood pressure medication on the kitchen table. My sister found her in the nearby bedroom dead of a massive heart attack. Some interpreted that as a passive suicide - and act of rage.

Lawyers in all locations, not only New York City, have to recognize the pull power of the hanging ethos in these chaotic times. It is difficult to hold on to anything - a nest egg in a portfolio. a high-powered job, looks when hitting middle age, trust in relationships, and a doable plan for semi-retirement or retirement.

Recently, I asked a 53-year-old colleague who sensed he was going to be forced out of a job, if he planned to kill himself. Maybe because he was stunned, he answered "yes." I made the appointment for him with a cognitive therapist who specializes in displaced professionals. And, as a coach I am helping him navigate the search for how to make a living. He was on the money: He had been forced out. He blamed both his age and that his boss had been fired. 

Full Disclosure: I have been clinically depressed since age 11. What I have observed is that the mood can become so dark that it shifts into psychosis. It took relocating from the New York Metro area for me to finally get the upper hand in battling this monster. OF COURSE, I had sought out many traditional modes of treatment. I could teach a course at Harvard Medical School on all that and more. 

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

Free consultation janegenova374@gmail.com