When women lead the way, other women notice.

That’s why it’s so important for us to light the way and lift each other up!

The following list includes awesome futurists, authors, educators, coaches & consultants, thought leaders, and more that have inspired me throughout my decades traversing these fields and specialties.

I invite you to explore this list and get inspired by these remarkable trailblazers!

I’m sure I’ve left out key categories and absolutely must-add women. If you have other women to suggest I add, let me know by commenting below!

Aging, Health & Wellness, & Longevity

Ana João Sepulveda President of Age Friendly Portugal

Anna A. Tavis, PhD Clinical Professor at NYU

Anna Pereira CEO of The Wellness Universe & the Chairwoman Soul Ventures

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox Gender expert & CEO at 20-First

Barbara Waxman MS, MPA, PCC Founder of Odyssey Group Coaching

BARBARA O’CONNOR Emeritus Professor at CSU, Sacramento

Bonnie Marcus Gendered Ageism experts & host of Badass Women At Any Age Podcast

Bernadette Melnyk VP for Health Promotion & University Chief Wellness Officer

Carin Upstill is a Business Consultant-Project Manager, CVS HEALTH

Debbie Marshall Managing Director of Silver Marketing Association, UK

Debra Gibson, N.D. Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine

Dr. Tracey Gendron Chair for the Virginia Commonwealth University Department of Gerontology & the Executive Director of the Virginia Center on Aging

Elizabeth Isele Founder & CEO of Global Institute for Experienced Entrepreneurship

Esther (Semsei) Greenhouse, M.S. CEO of Silver To Gold Strategies, ​​Environmental Gerontologist & Longevity Economy Strategist

Heather Evanson Brooks is an aging specialist in Senior Housing & Aging inPlace Specialist

Helen Hirsh Spence keynote speaker, longevity literacy coach & trainer. Created Top Sixty Over Sixty, Greater Ottawa, Canada.

Jacynth Bassett anti-ageist activist, Founder of Ageism Is Never in Style & The Bias Cut, United Kingdom

Jacquelyn James Co-director, Center on Aging & Work at Boston College

Jane Silk CMO of Silver Marketing Association, UK

Janine Vanderburg Consultant on reframing aging & creating age-friendly workplaces

Jamie Gilbert Strategist in operations marketing & gerontology

Jean Galiana MASM Gerontologist

Jeanette Leardi Social Gerontologist, Public Speaker, Community Educator

Katy Fike Ph.D. Co-Founder of Aging 2.0

Maddy Dychtwald Autho, speaker on aging & the global economy

Nancy Griffin Founder of SeniorTrade

Paula Marie Usrey, M.S., CPRC Founder of Boomer Best U

Sharon Solomon Rose Social Gerontologist working to foster intergenerational companies & communities

Sheila Callaham is the founder of Age Equity Alliance, Braga, Portugal

Sky Bergman Photographer & filmmaker, showing people 75-100+ living their best lives

Stella Fosse Gendered ageism Author

Susan Flory Broadcast media consultant, creator of The Big Middle podcast

Susan Williams Author of Booming Encore

Wendy Green Host of Hey Boomer Live & Transition Coach

Wendy Mayhew Author and experienced entrepreneur advocating for and assisting entrepreneurs at any age with the knowledge and resources to help them become wise entrepreneurs.

Femme Futuristas

Here is my list of must-follow Femme Futuristas:

These are authors, speakers, educators, entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and of course, Futurists, who are leading us into a greater future for ALL generations.

Amy Webb Quantitative Futurist & author

Anne Boysen Speaker & futurist

Amy Zalman Global Security Futurist | Deloitte | National War College | World Future Society

April Rinne Keynote speaker, futurist, & author

Ashley Mosaic Dickinson Executive Coach & Strategic Advisor focusing on Human Potential, Societal Shifts, & Emerging Tech.

Cindy Frewen, FAIA, PhD Architect, urban futurist, adjunct professor, & writer

Dr. Claire A. Nelson One of Forbes 50 Female Futurists, a sustainability engineer, consultant, & a White House Champion of Change

Duena Blomstrom  Author, keynote speaker, & the founder of CPO

Elatia Abate Forbes Female Futurist & a global keynote speaker

Emma Pezzack Co-Founder of the Femme Futurists Society

Erica Orange EVP & COO of The Future Hunters

Heather E. McGowan Futurist, keynote speaker, corporate strategist, author, & a partner at ImpactEleven

Joyce Gioia, MBA, CSP, CMC, FIMC Strategic business futurist

Julie Friedman Steele CEO and Board Chair of the World Future Society, an entrepreneur & investor

Mimi Stokes Futurist, with an emphasis on sustainability &the teachings of Greek Drama

Nancy Giordano Co-Founder of the Femme Futurists Society, futurist, keynote speaker, & author

Patricia Lustig CEO of LASA Insight & a board member of the Association of Professional Futurists

Riane Eisler President at Center for Partnership Systems, author, futurist, speaker, & consultant.

Robin Champ Chief of the Enterprise Strategy Division for the U.S. Secret Service & a Strategy and Foresight Leader

Sari Stenfors iFuturist & strategist who has founded over 20 new businesses

Wendy Schultz Director of Infinite Futures, CoFounder of Jigsaw Foresight and faculty at MS in Strategic Foresight, University of Houston

Future of Work

Below is my list of must-follow thought leaders in the fields of DEI, Executive Leadership, Professional Development, and the Transformation of People & Culture.

Adrienne Shoch is a consultant to leadership, teams & organizations with expertise in Presence Leadership and more.

Anna D. Banks, is CEO of THRIVE Leadership Institute, Inc. for entrepreneurship.

Annalisa Enrile, Ph.D (USC) is a game changer professor, program lead of the first Phd program focused on practitioners vs. academic tenure track graduates, and writer.

April Gorelik is a Human Resources Manager working side by side with executive leadership to push the business.

Betsey Upchurch is the Principal at P4 Consulting, LLC; Certified Presence Based Coach focused on creating successful, sustainable organizations that fully support the people in them.

Brigette Hyacinth is the author of Leading the Workforce of the Future and a keynote speaker.

Carol Gorelick Ed.D, MBA is a consultant, professor, author, practitioner, and mentor in creating learning communities of change and organizational transformation.

Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. is a speaker on Leadership Presence and Body Language and an author.

Dr. Anastassia Lauterbach is the Managing Director for The ExCo Leadership Group, a writer, speaker, and leadership coach.

Elsie Maio is Founding Principal @ Humanity, Inc/SoulBranding℠ Institute | Strategic Foresight

Janice Gassam Asare, Ph.D. is an anti-racism educator, DEI consultant, speaker, trainer, workshop facilitator, and writer.

Kelly Swingler is psychologist, executive coach, speaker, and author.

Marti Konstant is a workplace futurist tracking emerging trends.

Marie Cini is a higher education leader and innovator, President of Univeristy of the People.

Maureen Metcalf is the CEO of the Innovative Leadership Institute, a speaker, author, and radio host.

Michele Gibbons-Carr, Ph.D is a psychologist, coach, professor, and organizational consultant.

Wendy White is Founder and CEO Continuum Consulting Services and specializes in the human component of making business and organizations successful.

Coaches & Leadership

Jennifer Germaine is a consultant teaching leaders and organizations how to be present, engaged & serve from a higher perspective around their impact.

Ursula Reeg is a corporate trainer.

Laura Goodrich is consultant on innovation & future of work.

Jennifer Hough is an author, speaker, and trainer on the subject of flow & fulfillment. Founder of TEDX Asheville

Barrie Barton is a Speaker’s coach & trainer; founder of Stand

Joanne Wright is a Team Building Coach

Career Trajectory & Job Search

 Hannah Morgan is a job search strategist, speaker, and trainer.

Helen Harkness PhD is a career consultant, coach, and owner of Career Design Associates, Inc.

Joan Learn is a career and job search consultant and retirement coach.

Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI)

Deborah Levine is a Forbes D&I Trailblazer, award-winning author, founder/editor American Diversity Report, and Cognitive Diversity inventor.

Janice Gassam Asare, Ph.D. works to promote anti-racism in the workplace, is a DEI Consultant, TEDx Speaker, and Forbes Senior Contributor.

Neivia Justa is a Communication, Culture, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Leader.

Netta Jenkins, MBA (As Seen on Forbes) is a diversity and inclusion executive, author, and Co-Founder of Dipper.

Luminaries

Below is my list of must-follow philanthropists, journalists, and other luminaries who explore topics like Women & the Future and Transformational Psycho-Spiritual Development.

Philanthropists

Barbara (Hessekiel) Waxman MS, MPA, PCC Leadership coach, gerontologist, speaker, author, and an aging & longevity angel investor

Melinda French Gates Co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the founder of Pivotal Ventures, & author of The Moment of Lift

Media & Journalists

Arianna Huffington Co-founder of The Huffington Post, the founder and CEO of Thrive Global

Dorie Clark Strategy consultant, executive coach, & keynote speaker

Katie Couric Journalist, presenter, producer, & author

Michelle Goldberg Journalist, & op-ed columnist for The New York Times

Mika Brzezinski Journalist, talk show host, political commentator, author, & co-hosts MSNBC’s show, Morning Joe

Rachel Maddow Host of the Rachel Maddow Show

Women & The Future

Carole Hyatt Founder and president at Mission: Getting to Next & multiple book author

Gloria Feldt Leadership speaker, author, co-founder/president of Take The Lead, & a gender parity and diversity/inclusion expert

Gloria Steinem American journalist & social-political activist. Nationally recognized leader of the second-wave feminism.

Suzanne (Braun) Levine author and editor, who writes about women and their place at the table.

Diana (Dunbar) Place founder of the 333 Collective & Quest conference for Women 50+

Transformational Psycho-Spiritual Exploration/Development

Anna Ivara Facilitator and teacher, specializing in Personal Development and Alternative Therapy

Carolyn Conger, PhD Owner of Conger Seminars. She is a consultant and teacher, focusing on psychological growth and spirituality

Marion Woodman (deceased) was an author, poet, analytical psychologist, and women’s movement figure

Sidra Stone is co-founder with her husband, Hal Stone (deceased) of Voice Dialogue International and an independent professional training and coaching professional. She has co-authored and authored multiple titles. My favorite is Shadow King—a must read for all teen girls and women.

Visionaries in Leadership & The Future of Work

Frances Hesselbein (deceased) is the former CEO of the Girl Scouts of the USA, the president and CEO of the Frances Hesselbein Leadership Forum, and was my dear friend and long-time mentor.

Give them a follow and let me know:

Who’s on your list?

Feel free to drop them in the comments!

Everyone wants long term success. But it is elusive for most.

Long term success is dependent on knowing where you are now and where you are headed. Then closing the gap. Frequently. Continuously.  Whether it’s your business, your career or your life at home., it’s easy to get off track, lose touch or get buried under. Without a true sense of where you are in the moment, it is impossible to realize your dreams or be a leader in your field.

Re-calibrate your profound knowledge

The only way we can take 100% responsibility for sustaining our success is to keep re-calibrating-in every aspect of our lives and organizations.

Key to successful recalibration is to acquire what my dear departed mentor, Dr. W. Edwards Deming, coined as Profound Knowledge. This umbrella phrase emphasizes understanding change and how to measure it, being aware of emerging trends and shifts, and learning how to apply this knowledge to leading and sustaining long term success.

Bottom line: If we don’t acquire Profound Knowledge we cannot know how to prepare for and leverage coming change, thus how to sustain our success long term.

Understanding change means understanding shifts in our personal world as well as tracking trends that capsize us, overtake us, or cause us to flounder.

Learning the Hard Way

Unfortunately one of my Gen X male clients learned this the hard way. A rising star in his field and recently married, he was planning far a great future for his kids, tons of time for fun and all the trappings of success. As if out of the blue, the rug got pulled out from under him. His “Happy Homemaker” wife fled, saying I’m out of here!

Somewhere along the way there was a breakdown or perhaps many small fissures below the surface. Had they been recalibrating an checking in with each other, communicating the truth of what was so for each of them…perhaps they could have saved their marriage…or at least ended it with love, grace, and forgiveness.

Even in the most secure relationships, unexpected change happens to ruffle our plans. A recently returned to work mother of teenage kids reported that her new career is now going gangbusters and she no longer worries about the empty-nest . But, the new ripple in her life is that her once very successful husband, in his late 40’s, now faces an unknown future. Surprised by the shifts in his industry, “suddenly” he and his business partner are facing the probability of closing their doors. What once appeared to be the sure path to their dreams, is no crumbling beneath them.

Change is inevitable. If you can learn what Profound Knowledge is and apply it you can avoid these same pitfalls and NOT LEARN THE HARD WAY!

What steps are you going to take to future cast your long term success?

I’ve talked before about the ongoing trend of women leaving the corporate world to start their own businesses. This is no surprise considering the glass ceiling is still unbreakable in many companies throughout Corporate America.

Many women, especially women over 50, who have spent their working lives climbing the corporate ladder are faced with the difficult choice between leaving to start their own businesses or staying with their company and striving to be one of the exceptions, perhaps fighting to change the system from the inside, like such notable women as Virginia M. Rometty, IBM’s next chief executive, or Anne Mulcahy at Xerox, Indra Nooyi at Pepsi, Peggy Foran at Pfizer, and Sarah Teslik at Apache Corporation, who led their companies to sign the Aspen Principles, by which companies, investors, and corporate governance professionals agreed to commit to long-term value creation over short-term profits.

The question is, with the Great Recession and the worldwide Occupy protests against corporate greed, fraud, and environmental destruction, will we soon see a shift? Will we collectively force the hand of Corporate America to recognize that transformation begins with visionary leaders who understand how to do good while doing well? Are we on the verge of seeing the collapse of the old corporate culture, and if so, will we also see fragments of that glass ceiling among the debris?

Some would say only time will tell, but that view discounts the power we have to change our own future. Time may tell us what has worked, and what hasn’t, in the past. (For a fascinating and timely look at the past and present of corporations, I highly recommend the film The Corporation). Time may tell us when we are repeating history, and what we can learn from how we have reacted or responded to epochal change in the past—conservative and restrictive, wild and revolutionary, consciously evolutionary, or downright transformative.

But time doesn’t tell us everything. Time doesn’t have a voice. We do. We can’t predict the future, but we can lead the way toward creating alternative futures that transform the world as we know it.

Whether you are a career professional or a new or seasoned entrepreneur, you cannot afford to ignore the opportunity we have right now to step up amid the chaos and lead the way to a greater future—not just for women, but for the world. Protesting is powerful, but it’s not enough. We can’t just decry the problem. We have to step in with solutions.

Now is the time to listen to that visionary voice inside you. No doubt the world chaos has stirred her. The world is literally crying out for creative disruption of the status quo, for new ideas to change business so that it reflects our values, honors our responsibility to each other and to our planet, and capitalizes and strengthens the interconnected global society we have become.

How do you want to see the future of business, big and small? When you envision the ideal marketplace, what do you see specifically? What are you going to do today to start making that vision a reality?

All over the world, people are working past the usual retirement ages. In some cases, this is due to the minimum age rising, and in others, people need or want the income, the security. But, as I’ve discussed before (e.g., The Retirement Age Myth), many people are continuing to work because they want to, because being 65, 70, 80, even 90 is not the same today as it once was. The idea of retiring at 65 today often feels as foreign as it would feel to a 45-year-old.

This trend is not going to go away, especially as more and more boomers approach and pass retirement age, whatever that age may end up being.

All over the media, we see constant discussion about the possible growing rift between the generations as younger people are (or simply feel they are) being edged out of the workforce by the over-65 crowd. Many take for granted as fact that every person who chooses not to retire is essentially taking a job from a younger person.

Yet this is not always true.  A  Bloomberg article quotes Eric Thode, senior expert at the research institute Bertelsmann Stiftung, who points out that countries like Germany and Sweden, which “have high rates of senior employment[,] also have high rates of youth employment. . . . Other countries fail both groups.”

Experienced workers are also filling positions that younger workers are not qualified for simply because they haven’t had the time to build the necessary skills, experience, and specialized knowledge. On the other hand, there certainly is a growing trend in hiring people over 60 for retail and similar jobs because of the perception that they will be more responsible than a younger employee. Even if they require a higher wage, the savings in training costs alone, a problem plaguing high-turnover service jobs, can be worth it.

But even with all of this in mind, focusing on ways to get more people to retire, under the belief that this will free up jobs for subsequent generations, is a mistake. Even if it were realistic, which it’s not (as I note above—eschewing retirement is a trend that will only continue to grow), increasing the numbers of people receiving retirement benefits would offset the possible gains in youth employment.

So what can we do about this situation, particularly about the possibility of increasing conflict and distance among generations over perceived and real job competition?

First, we need to communicate with each other about it. This seems obvious, but how often do the generations really talk about this situation with each other? It tends to get talked about through politicians and the media rather than in collaborative, hands-on, deliberately multigenerational conversations.

These conversations are crucial not only to get our fears and perceptions out in the open but also to clear up the misconceptions that can lead us all to make decisions based on incorrect information or assumptions.

Second, we need to explore alternative solutions together based on the probable future, not the past. Yes, social security was an effective solution to many problems that stemmed from the Great Depression, and it continues to be a necessary element in our economy, but pursuing ways to once again push millions of post-65 people out of the workforce is not going to work. Being 65 today is not even close to what it was in that era.

Third, we should look at generational partnerships, such as job sharing/mentorship arrangements that enable two people to be employed instead of one, enable training costs and salary to combine, stretching a company’s dollar and quickening the pace at which younger employees can gain the skills, knowledge, and some of the experience they need to be more valuable to that company and in the marketplace. These could work with a shifting percentage of time, starting with the mentor working 3/4 of the job, then gradually decreasing to 1/2, then 1/4, with an ultimate shift into mentoring another employee or into a consultant arrangement.

Which brings me to my fourth and final point (in this post, anyway). We need to encourage people over 60 (and in fact over 40 and 50) to remain employed by starting their own businesses. These could be simple solopreneur operations or larger operations that would not only remove the competition for the same job between two generations, it would generate employment.

As I’ve talked about many times before, the future of the marketplace (and the world) lies in the rapidly growing values-based business model. More and more people are spending their money consciously, choosing to buy from companies who are making a difference in the world over those who aren’t, and more often than not, these are small women-led businesses.

People, organizations, and governments need to focus on encouraging experienced professionals and executives, especially women, to start businesses with a strong focus on the Triple Bottom Line—people, planet, profits. In this way, we can solve or at least ameliorate multiple societal problems simultaneously through the specific social missions of these companies as well as their effect on the job market, offering a way for all generations to make a living and a difference, and to secure their future and that of the world for generations to come.

Amazon #1 Best Seller Author of 11 books including The Ageless Way, Gray is the New Green, Visionaries Have Wrinkles, The Greatness Challenge and more.

Midlife crisis. It is a term bandied about, which can conjure images of sports car purchases, new gym memberships, flirtations/affairs/divorces, botox and bikinis. Midlife is, for many, a time of transition, including whether or how to retire. It can be a time of more questions than answers, a time in which you feel less steady as you review and revise who and what you find most meaningful, valuable, and worthwhile. Some changes are desired and welcome, while others feel forced or unavoidable.

I believe, as I share in my upcoming book, The Ageless Way, that  “Those of us who are entering, in the midst of or, like me, leaving our rich middle years, are well poised to use such times of transition as opportunities to tap more deeply into our reservoir of innate soulful greatness – what I refer to as our Signature Greatness DNA. As history has shown, change makers and world shakers always deepen their culture and leave a legacy for future generations by confronting the difficulties of such times with invention, insight, and transcendent understanding.”

It is at these times that many people choose, whether out of desire or necessity, to begin a second (or third, or fourth…) career, which is often referred to as an encore career. There are different reasons people choose to pursue an encore career, such as: financial security; personal fulfillment and meaning; the desire to give back to the local/national/global community; flexibility; work/life balance; learning new skills and utilizing those that have been acquired over decades; sustaining social connections; pursuing a long-held dream…

Regardless of the reason(s) for selecting an encore career, those in their middle and later years have garnered personal and professional experience and wisdom which they can offer to employers and clients. In addition, Boomers and Matures (members of “The Silent Generation”) grew up in eras which inspired active, organized involvement in response to diverse current events, such as WWII, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and the fights for civil and women’s rights. As a result, these workers are often valued for their efficiency, sense of responsibility, loyalty, hopeful attitude and strong work ethic.

The trend toward an increasingly older and diverse workforce creates multiple opportunities for building successful intergenerational office environments. Encore career professionals offer a variety of abilities and knowledge to enhance the capabilities of the younger generations and benefit, in return, from their colleagues’ perspectives and talents with new work aspects like technology. Such mutually supportive business cultures ensure a more solid future for everyone, from those engaged in encore careers to the generations yet to come.

There is even a movement afoot to support those choosing or hiring for encore careers. Encore.org’s mission is “building a movement to tap the skills and experience of those in midlife and beyond to improve communities and the world.” It seeks to engage the vitality, wisdom and talents of those in the third and fourth stages of life while emphasizing social purpose. Seeing an aging society as a solution to, rather than creator of, problems, Encore.org connects generations in diverse ways, including hosting an annual conference and offering The Purpose Prize for people over 60 who integrate their passion and experience for the betterment of society. Created in 2005, the prize aims to “showcase the value of experience and disprove notions that innovation is the sole province of the young. It’s for those with the passion to make change and the experience to know how to do it.”

I mentioned the term encore career in a blog posted earlier this week, “Second Time Around” , in which I wrote about Barbara Beskind who is now in her third year of work as an inventor, a lifelong dream she achieved just shy of her ninth decade. Additionally, I have met/worked with diverse women and men who have chosen (are choosing) to embark on an encore career. One 51-year-old woman hot shot media executive left her job to pursue what she always wanted to do as a teenager — she went back to school to become a social worker. Another high flying 62-year-old woman left an intense demanding sales executive post to return to the beloved art career of her youth. A 63-year-old retired teacher became a published author. In her January 16, 2015 New York Times article, Older Job Seekers Find Ways to Avoid Age Bias, Kerry Hannon shares the story of a 66-year-old man who was laid off from a high-powered position. After undergoing the unease of transition, questioning his purpose and averting age discrimination encountered in interviews, he ultimately ended up teaching part-time, making money, and feeling valued. And I am one among many who have found fulfillment in an encore career by creating their own business.

Encore.org and the AARP  are just two of the organizations offering programs, resources and information for those embarking on an encore career. In the short term, this transition may require additional investment of education and retraining (including working with a certified professional career coaching and strategy-creation coach). The rewards, however, can be infinite. Following your passion while giving to others can be stimulating, enlivening and offer adventures which demonstrate that, despite pleasurable memories, the best is still yet to come.

When musicians are called by an audience to perform an encore, a demand for more, it is surely a sign of success. Whether you choose an encore career out of need or want, in honoring and utilizing your skills and knowledge you are the one whose success is to be celebrated. Bravo!!

What’s your encore career story?  Please share your experience below.

Ageism can involve assumptions about, or preferential or discriminatory treatment of, someone based solely on their age. Although the word can apply to people of all ages, the negative stereotypes of aging speak to a sense of deterioration or impairment and, though not based in truth, often become part of our sub- or unconscious and accepted as fact. This kind of dismissiveness of anyone is unfortunate for everyone.

Some ageist attitudes include “jokes” or comments mocking those “over the hill” or asserting it’s impossible to find love or have an active sex life over 40. Or the phrase “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” despite there being centenarians who are learning computers or taking up a new language. Has a doctor ever brushed off your query about a medical issue with the attitude that it’s just part of growing older and, “well, you aren’t 20 anymore…”? Or told you, as a 40+ woman, that you should have a hysterectomy to remedy a problem without asking if you wanted any more (or any) children? Do you know anyone over 40 who was passed over for a job or promotion despite being the most qualified candidate? Certainly, some people will be more capable than others. But this is true no matter what a person’s age. If you take 20, or 100,000 people, whether they are 18 or 90, or any other age, each is an individual and will have unique needs and challenges which should be considered accordingly.

Though ageism happens on many levels, all too often when we hear about such discrimination it regards the workplace. Age-based professional bias still happens – a lot — despite the fact that there are federal and state laws meant to prohibit such discrimination. In 2014 alone, there were over 20,000 charges filed under The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA, eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/enforcement/adea.cfm). The ADEA is a federal law created in 1967. It protects individuals ages 40 and older, making it unlawful, for example, for an employer “to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual or otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s age.” (www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/adea.cfm; More workplace fairness information can be found on sites like www.workplacefairness.org).

In a Forbes.com article, “The Ugly Truth About Age Discrimination,”  Liz Ryan discusses how being older and having more experiential wisdom can work in your favor. She provides this tip regarding job interview preparation; “Here’s the flip side of the age-discrimination challenge: if you know what business pain you solve and can talk to hiring managers about that pain, they can’t afford to care how old you are.” Ryan further explains that “Job-seekers who use their interview air time to ask questions about the processes, the obstacles in a hiring manager’s way and the thorny problems they’ve seen before in similar situations vault themselves to a higher level of conversation than the ones who don’t.”

For those of you who know you have much to contribute, yet no longer want to work for another boss, the statistics are in your favor. In fact, as I talk about in my #1 Amazon best seller book, The Ageless Way, the 40+ market is perfect for a new encore entrepreneurial start-up, the opportunity to change ageism into Age-Friendly while making a profit. Rather than staying in repressive, stultifying positions with a silver ceiling looming, more and more workers (particularly women who have endured long-standing conflated ageism AND sexism) are standing in their own shoes and starting their own businesses, often as solopreneurs.

Regardless of where we are in our professional lives and whether we work for someone else, are our own boss, or do not currently work, we can all play a role in pushing the edge of the envelope. We can all work toward exposing and eradicating embedded fundamental ageism and make positive change happen by turning the aging paradigm inside out.

Those of you familiar with my work will recognize my clarion call to unite and create a new story of our AGE. Your story about who you are in the world can determine your choices and whether your journey will lead to action or inaction, stagnancy or movement toward greater fulfillment. And there’s no need to agonize over what that means or make the simple more difficult. If you trust in life’s dynamic process, it will all continue to unfold as you age, and learn, and keep refining that story.

As Julie Andrews sang in The Sound of Music, “Let’s start at the very beginning — A very good place to start…” Words will always be at the root of your story, whether right now or in the future. Starting today, pay close attention to the words you use to describe yourself and others, consciously changing them, if needed. For example, whether thinking about shifting something in your professional or personal life, just replace the cultural stereotype of “It’s too late for you. You’re not credible unless you are young and beguiling!” by confirming your personal awareness that “My experience, my talents and intelligence, and my unique perspective, make the timing perfect for me to act now. I know how to focus on what really matters. All great visionaries have wrinkles.” Hopefully, though this will be only the first step of many, taking it will ensure that the next step will be that much easier.

What ageism have you experienced or witnessed in life? Was it ignored or addressed? Please share your stories in the comments below.

Warren Buffet’s article in Fortune could not be more spot on about why women and men should both care about gender equality in business.

No manager operates his or her plants at 80% efficiency when steps could be taken that would increase output. And no CEO wants male employees to be underutilized when improved training or working conditions would boost productivity. So take it one step further: If obvious benefits flow from helping the male component of the workforce achieve its potential, why in the world wouldn’t you want to include its counterpart?

Fellow males, get onboard. The closer that America comes to fully employing the talents of all its citizens, the greater its output of goods and services will be. We’ve seen what can be accomplished when we use 50% of our human capacity. If you visualize what 100% can do, you’ll join me as an unbridled optimist about America’s future.

Add to this the evidence that women in leadership and on boards increase profitability and gender equality is clearly a no-brainer.

So why on earth do we still have such a wide gender gap in the workforce, not only in pay but in numbers of women in leadership, in politics, in male-dominated fields, such as STEM?

Part of this is the time it takes for systems to change, even when the majority is on board with making the change. But an even larger part is that these systems don’t exist in a vacuum. They are part of a larger culture in which women are still objectified and considered less than.

Women are still blamed for being raped. Politicians continue to assault women’s rights to their own bodies and even to their own right to live. Sexism and misogyny are so ingrained in our patriarchal culture that even women raised to believe in their own equality and worth can’t escape the self-doubt that stems from an endless barrage of cultural messages telling them otherwise.

So even when we get our own businesses shipshape, operating at 100%, those businesses still float in the larger sea of our culture, where the waters are rough and women are still too often afraid to make waves.

We need to fight for and implement practices that equalize the workplace, especially in our own businesses, but let’s not kid ourselves that our work stops there. We need to fight for equality in politics, in our communities, in the very language we use when we talk about women, about ourselves.

We need nothing short of a sea change.

In what ways do you act in your life and work to change our culture for women?

By now, you’ve probably heard of and perhaps read Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. In her book as in countless articles, women are advised to do this or do that to close the various gender inequalities in the workplace—in promotions (particularly to executive and board positions), in pay, and in treatment.

There is no short supply of advice for women to close the various gender gaps, but what about advice for men? For organizations themselves? That women are overwhelmingly the ones responsible for fixing the inequalities that disadvantage them is itself an inequality.

Organizations and the men in them need to take more responsibility for changing the obstacles only women face in the workplace, especially when they themselves are the obstacles. I’ve written before about the McKinsey & Company report on how men and companies perpetuate gender inequalities even with programs in place to address them. Working on changing the culture and one’s mindset is an important step more men, particularly those in leadership, need to take.

In other words, it’s high time women expect their male colleagues and their organizations to do some leaning in toward them. The alternative? What more and more women, particularly those 40+, are doing every day—lean out.

Start your own business, aligned with your values and designed to fulfill your own definition of success, whether that be building a legacy, having time to pursue multiple interests and strengthen relationships, making the money you need to live the life you want while making a difference in the world—or all of the above and more.

Not only do we have the power to create the workplace we want to work in, we have an opportunity to do so in ways that provide a model to the world of the change we want to see in mainstream corporate America, academia, and government.

Women have already begun this modeling, demonstrating a faster rate of growth in their businesses than men as well as showing that having women on boards leads to higher profits.

Ideally, we need more of both—men leaning in and women leaning out. The business world is changing. We can shape the direction of that change by collaborating and by creating the change we want to see.

Perhaps we should drop the label “senior” or redefine it. Clearly this term has helped to embed ageist stereotypes into our societal psyche. It used to be, as David Wolfe, author of the pioneering books Serving the Ageless Market (1990) and Ageless Marketing (2003), wrote,

“Senior is not an inherently negative term…Being a senior used to connote a superior standing in every context but aging.”

Sure, many don’t mind enjoying the “senior” discounts. And for those who do retire—fully or partially—the advantages of having more free time, fewer demands, and less stress overall are additional perks.

But of course we don’t have to wait until we retire to create this kind of lifestyle. We don’t have to retire at all.

In fact, many characteristics of the stereotypical senior citizen don’t really have much to do with age at all. Or at least they don’t have to be related to age, even if we as a society have somewhat arbitrarily decided they

One of the most important tasks we have together, all generations, is to change the story we tell one another and ourselves about aging.

These characteristics can include retirement, volunteer work, adapting our lifestyle to physical changes, having more control over our time and environment. All of these are choices we might make at any age.

So if we strip away other people’s definitions of what it means to age, what it means to be over 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100…where does that leave us? How do we define ourselves as protagonists in our own aging story?

We all have different comfort levels with various terms. Some shy away from “elderly” but don’t mind being seen as an “Elder.” Some don’t mind being called “older” but feel uncomfortable being called simply “old.” Yet another person might get fed up with euphemisms and actually demand to be called “old,” dammit!

I’ve always relished the term “Crone,” the idea of taking back its original meaning of wise old woman. Some, including those who have chosen not to have children, prefer to be seen as grandmother. In ancient times, the Crone was valued and revered as a wise and prophetic goddess in her own right. Traced back to pre-history, societies that are thought to have been the first “partnerships” between women and men lasted for about 20,000 years. Then as Riane Eisler describes in her underground classic, The Chalice and the Blade (1988), these early societies “veered off on ‘a bloody 5,000-year detour’ of male domination.” Along with these partnership societies, the Crone and all images of the positive feminine were devalued, leaving only the Divine Feminine (e.g., Mother Mary) as the preferred universal Mother image to survive intact into our modern day.

Fortunately, today’s twenty-first century women are resuscitating the whole panoply of feminine archetypal goddesses, like those we have buried way below our consciousness carrying the powerful energy of the Black Madonna, the flip side of Mother Mary (e.g., Mary Magdalene, Sophia, Kali Ma, Kuan Yin, and more), so that we can reclaim our fullness by embodying the whole range of our womanhood.

I’ll tell you a secret. Every time I write—for my blog, for a workshop or keynote, for a book or article—I have to stop yet again and consider this issue: What do we call ourselves? Elders? Do I avoid the word “old” or use it unabashedly? Do I refer to us as aging or stick to euphemisms or numbers, like post-50? Maybe the over-sixties? But what about including 40-plus? Boomers…and older? Matures? How do we distinguish between the early and late Boomers, who are as different as the Brat Pack is from the Beatles? At what point do generational labels lose their usefulness?

Amazon #1 Best Seller Author of 11 books including The Ageless Way, Gray is the New Green, Visionaries Have Wrinkles, The Greatness Challenge and more.

A colleague of mine, another coach and consultant, recently talked about why people so often do not take that next step and act on their vision. He said they are fearful, and those fearful thoughts bring them nothing but things to fear. There is some truth to this. Perhaps you’ve heard it phrased another way, made popular recently by The Secret (although the concept has been around for much, much longer): Our thoughts create our reality.

The truth, of course, is much more nuanced than this—and much grander.

For one thing, the universe is a pretty big place. Earth alone, although infinitesimal in the scale of the universe, is itself an elaborate and complex entity. Did my thoughts create the increasing hurricanes, earthquakes, and tornadoes sweeping the globe? That’s a little arrogant, don’t you think? Billions of people on Earth, and my thoughts are producing large-scale weather events?

On the other hand, our collective actions have certainly contributed to the climate changes that have led to these events. Their general occurrence was predictable (and predicted), even if the specific times and places were not. Not to acknowledge this would also be a little arrogant.

Our actions are a direct result of our thoughts, and even small actions can have a large effect. The Butterfly Effect is alive and well—one small action, the flapping of a butterfly’s wings, can cause a chain reaction of other small actions that build up into monumental events. Consider this as well: The absence of those flapping wings also has an effect. That particular chain reaction doesn’t happen, but another one does.

In other words, even our inaction has an effect on our world.

We all have a visionary inside us, but for some, it lies dormant in its chrysalis while their lives go on quietly around it. Imagine what the world would be like if we all completed our personal transformation, broke free from the chrysalis, and allowed ourselves to fly? What kind of chain reaction could we start with thousands, even millions of visionary wings flapping? Even the small steps we take toward reinventing our lives to have more meaning and impact could have a significant effect on our planet.

I think my colleague and The Secret have it half right. Our thoughts do create our reality. But we are complicated beings, with multiple voices giving rise to an elaborate web of thoughts. Before we start thinking our vision into existence, we need to make sure it’s the visionary within us who is dominating the conversation. Even then, all the visionary thoughts in the world do not produce change if we simply sit around thinking and waiting for change to come to us. When you think over all you’ve accomplished in your life, you know this is true. Your attitude and thoughts played a huge role, but you couldn’t have done any of it without one thing—action.

What keeps many of us from awakening that visionary voice and listening to it is that we are unsure of the actions we need to take. We want to make such a monumental impact on our lives and on the world that we can’t help but think every step must also be monumental—and that’s a little overwhelming. But that is where we’re wrong. Those first steps must be meaningful, but they can be as small as the flapping wings of a newly emerged butterfly. The results, if you just keep flying, can be nothing short of world-changing.

You are not alone in wanting to fulfill your purpose on Earth. The more of us who flap our wings, the bigger the effect we can have on our lives, the lives of our families and communities, and ultimately the world.

Amazon #1 Best Seller Author of 11 books including The Ageless Way, Gray is the New Green, Visionaries Have Wrinkles, The Greatness Challenge and more.