All posts by Jim Selman

Going For It

Don and Steve are executive coaches who specialize in working with clients approaching their “second half’ to create what is next in their lives. Sometimes this takes the form of starting new business ventures. Sometimes it has to do with preparing for post-retirement transitions. Now I know that ‘coaching’ has become a term all kinds of folks are selling (and not always with sufficient education or experience) but these guys are among the best. Don will be contributing to this blog in

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Hopi Wisdom

Some words of wisdom here shared over at Blog Disease from the Hopi Nation:

You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour.
Now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour.
And there are things to be considered:
Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.
It is time to speak your Truth. Create your community. Be good to

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Emptying the Nest

By Marilyn Kentz
Bio

Every time one of my kids left home, it broke my heart. But when the baby goes—the last one—it’s just so-o-o-o empty.

In
my case, the last to go was the vasectomy-reversal baby. That’s right.
I asked my husband to get a vasectomy, then I changed my mind. I was
38, and my first midlife crisis was beginning. At that same time, my
boys were just about to become nasty teenagers. So, when I was 38, I
successfully pushed my little daughter into this busy world and bought
myself 18 more years of motherhood.

We had an extra special
bond. I think it’s because I taught her to be just like me—shallow.

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I’m Your Man

I recently saw the film I’m Your Man, an acknowledgement concert for Leonard Cohen with a lot of great singers singing some of his best songs interspersed with an interview with the man himself. A nice tribute that gave me a bit more of a sense of him as a human being and the full extent of his contribution. One of the best parts of the film was his sharing that, for him, there were few or no regrets and very little concern or self-congratulatory thinking about what he has accomplished.

Not everyone

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My Father in His House of Logs

I was in a conversation the other day with some friends. It wasn’t long before we were bemoaning the ‘state of the world’. We moved from politics in Washington DC to global warming and the Middle East, then took on the environment, the media and the latest brouhaha about China shooting down a satellite. In a few minutes, we were feeling a bit of despair at the seemingly endless list of intractable problems, most of which are threatening our quality of life—if not the future of our

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Learning from Older People

I am thinking about all the things older people told me over the
years—don’t worry, relax, smell the roses, live life in the moment,
learn from your mistakes, and, above all, love other people and
yourself. Much of my life hasn’t been spent practicing these gems from
my predecessors. It’s been about struggling to do it right, doing it my
way, resisting anything I didn’t like, and (in one way or another)
controlling myself and other people.

Love,
when it appeared, was like a fleeting

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Who are you speaking with?

Throughout this blog, I have shared the idea that we can look at age
and aging as a conversation—it is what we say about ‘the way it is’
when we get older—and how we ‘observe’ it affects how we act and,
ultimately, how we experience our age. The power of viewing age as a
conversation is that it allows us to distinguish between our age and
how we relate to our age and the world. It allows us to create meaning,
purpose and possibility regardless of

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Conservative or Liberal

This has been a tougher-than-usual posting to write. I am not in any way agreeing with the President’s decision to send more troops to Iraq, nor am I attempting to silence the voice of those who oppose or disagree with his policies. I need to make it clear I am writing to my fellow Americans because George W Bush is our president and we live under our current Constitution. I am advocating that unless and until we can learn to embrace and align ourselves with our leaders within our system of

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What Do Boomers Want?

I had lunch yesterday with a great friend of mine who is about my age and one of the ‘most alive’, talented and eclectic people I know. She is interested in everything and everyone and is as passionate about life as one can be. As a cancer survivor, she has been through a lot in terms of health challenges, yet is clear that she is not her body. She has never been more enthusiastic about her future and is an inspiration to all that know her.

We were talking about this blog site and my vision

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