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 often wonder…how would I bring up my grandkids today? Certainly differently than their parents when they were growing up in the 1970s and 80s. I parented them with optimism because the future showed so much promise and possibility. Only later on did I come to realize that I did my kids a disservice by not preparing them for the derailing truth that we citizens can’t always trust what our elected representatives say, much less those we trust the most.

As (grand)parents, we want to protect our kids’ innocence and teach newer generations to emulate leaders and ideal citizens…those who know what’s real and what’s not, who will stand up for what’s “right” and just, freedom, equality and opportunity for all – the basic tenets of the American way…

I clearly remember the day my son told me “I’ve seen the Wizard (of Oz)!” I knew instantly that his innocence was gone. Even as he brings up his young family now, he too carries the torch of hope and possibility for them but knows not to trust wizards.

And so it goes, we keep keepin’ on. Until one day when the Wizard is thrown out of the magical castle for being a fraud! It’s time we cleaned out all of our castles and towers. Don’t you agree?

A few weeks ago New York Senate’s Dean Skelos and his son were arrested on corruption charges.

In another notable failure of integrity and leadership, look to J. Dennis Hastert, the former elected official who, for eight years, held the title of Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (third in line to the presidency, I might add). This current Washington Lobbyist was said to be an upstanding role model, yet has just been indicted by federal prosecutors on charges that he violated banking laws (and lied to authorities) in order to pay $3.5 million to an unnamed person to cover up “past misconduct.” Though innocent until proven guilty, reports suggest this was hush money paid to a man Mr. Hastert is alleged to have sexually abused decades ago.

Then there’s the unraveling FIFA disaster and the final shoe dropping with FIFA president Sepp Blatter resigning as its head after a 17-year career. That career has ended in infamy due to a U.S. Justice Department corruption investigation for wire fraud, racketeering, and money laundering.

The congressional castle is truly turning my stomach these days. It’s past time to vote out all the self-serving wizards choosing hatred and power abuses above actual leadership and democratic representation.

In late December, before heading into surgery, I heard the tiny news snippet that twisted up my insides: how at the 11^th hour the Arizona senators had slipped a mickey in our holiday drinks so those in congress and the country wouldn’t even notice their trickery.

Arizona has the second-largest Native American population in the U.S. with 22 sovereign Native American communities inhabiting nearly a quarter of the state’s land. As the longest currently serving member of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Arizona Senator John McCain is said (on his own website) to have “tirelessly supported the bedrock principles of tribal sovereignty and Indian self-governance and self-determination.”

If I took those words at face value, I would automatically believe that this elected politician was an admirable American role model. A leader enabling the “American Dream.” A hero rectifying the wrongs done to a people who were the country’s original citizens who taught the “founding immigrants” how to survive and thrive on this land before being systematically undermined and devalued by those very same newcomers they had welcomed.

But actions speak louder than words.

As it turns out, Mr. McCain is one of several politicians whose behaviors have included sneaky actions that continue stripping Native Americans of sacred lands, areas of our planet they have sustained for centuries with reverence and care. Lydia Millet shares the latest abomination in her NY Times opinion article, “Selling Off Apache Holy Land.”

In December 2014, Congress promised to hand the title for land in Arizona to a private, Australian-British mining concern owned by the company Rio Tinto, who has coveted the area for the high-value ores beneath the land. “A fine-print rider trading away the Indian holy land was added at the last minute to the must-pass military spending bill, the National Defense Authorization Act. By doing this, Congress has handed over a sacred Native American site to a foreign-owned company for what may be the first time in our nation’s history.” Who slipped the giveaway language into the bill? Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake of Arizona. At the 11th hour.

Millet further suggests “It’s worth noting that Rio Tinto affiliates have been McCain campaign contributors, and that Mr. Flake, before he made it to Congress, was a paid lobbyist for Rio Tinto Rössing Uranium” (a huge uranium mine in Namibia of which, according to The Huffington Post, Tehran owns a 15 percent stake). And, apparently, Rio Tinto “has been called out in the past for environmental devastation.” Taking local citizens’ lands and livelihood to personally benefit from a foreign-owned company with ties to Iran? Degrading the environment, which has unhealthy repercussions for us all?

I’m outraged, horrified, and ashamed. Who are these elected representatives representing?

One last word on words… Corrupt political-speak isn’t the only way in which falsehoods are propagated. In my work transforming how we approach aging, I often address the language we use to describe being and growing older (e.g.: past blog posts Language Matters, Deactivate Office Ageism, and Words are Power). It’s important that our actions match our words. Just as essential is knowing that what we say and how we say it matters.

I’m stymied about what to do to reverse the rider other than venting and spreading the word. Do you have any ideas on how we can make this happen?

We know it’s not all bad news…what examples of integrity (and situations in which carefully chosen words were followed by matching actions) have you recently witnessed or been a part of?

However, from the vibrating heart of our dissipating structures comes the promise of our true greatness: a greatness of awareness and action that will change the world. From the midst of the evolving Great Transition, we leave the Great Recession and the uplifting Obama era behind us as we enter an unknown, unchartered new cycle of populism and extreme radicalism ripping our valued democratic tenets to shreds and putting each of us on the line.  This Great Shift demands that we each unlock our potential for greatness which lives in each of us, and we are being called to make a difference. That is the premise of The Greatness Challenge, in which I offer a template for embracing and embodying our unique Signature Greatness DNA^SM to unleash our personal and collective greatness.

The Greatness Challenge is a manifesto for the growing wave of us who want to add value in all we do and who are being called to personal and collective evolution—from dentists to doctors, executives to engineers, artists to teachers and visionary leaders and futurists who are looking to redesign their lives so that every moment counts . . . for those of you who seek work that not only fills your bank accounts but your “values” bank as you yearn to do well doing good . . . for leaders who seek a pathway to visionary leadership, so the impact you have is of the greatest benefit for all.

To be one of the first to hear about The Greatness Challenge when it releases join us in the Secret Facebook Group here.

“Only challenge produces the opportunity for greatness. Given the extraordinary challenges the world faces today, the potential for greatness is monumental.”

 James M. Kouzes/Barry Z. Posner

Challenge is the Opportunity

For Greatness

Our Challenges are the Call to Greatness

For so many of us, the last few years have been personally and collectively challenging. Calling forth all our strength, demanding we dip/g deep into our spiritual well and hone our emergency tool kits so that no matter what chaos touches us, we return to center. The greatest gift of these times of epoch change has been the call to our greatness. Sometimes the call is so silent, it is barely perceptible except to the trained ear. Other times it shakes us up like a cacophonous horn blowing for all the world’s souls to come to attention.

All of history shows us that true greatness emerges in times of crisis and transition.

When we ask folks to us who they think of when they think of greatness, the first answers are always the most notable…President Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, Winston Churchill, Golda Meir, JFK, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela…the list goes on. All were called to meet the challenges of their day…each rose to greatness.

Whatever the triggering event(s): a major catastrophe or the normal ebb and flow of this cycle of life; a loss of a friend of 40 years to cancer; unexpected divorce after 25 years; falling off the career track or being toppled from the tower of power at 50…each event thrusts us into transition and presents us with a life-changing challenge for us to meet. Like the mythic Sumerian Goddess, Inanna, who must first descend to the underworld so to disrobe to her potentiated queen of the Overworld, or Odysseus who must resist the call of the siren on his obstacle-laden journey home—each of us blessed with these challenges will come face-to-face with our own greatness.

It is we who are entering, in the midst of, or leaving, our rich middle years who have the responsibility to be the new trailblacing visionary Leaders for the 21^st Century  …the messengers, teachers, and transformers co-creating a better tomorrow… today.

Will you answer the call? Have you heard it?

Karen Sands, leading GeroFuturist, is the author of 11 books including recently released, “The Ageless Way: Illuminating the New Story of Our AGE”.

These are the best of times and the worst of times~ Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens

Many of us in the U.S.A. are grieving the election of Donald Trump and his emerging alt right plutocracy and cronyism, on top of rampant extreme violations of our U.S. Constitution and Bill of rights to flagrantly marginalize and bully critics and dissenters.

But last night, I found an unexpected source of solace listening to Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s interview with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. I found myself in nodding in agreement with Ms. Lynch’s perspective on the long term impact of our current political upheaval into the hands of the far right. I’ll paraphrase her statement, “…we have to remember that history is a much larger evolving story than our current political backwards shift. Progress moves far slower than many of us activists prefer, but it always moves forward. She added a caveat worthy of remembering when the going gets tougher,  “ all progress for all time, faces push back after each move forward, then progress moves onward again.

The Big Shift, the Great Turning, the Great Transition, . . . whatever you choose to call it, we are already deeply in it. It’s no longer in future tense, that’s for sure. The ground is shifting in dramatic upheavals, upending everything we thought we knew was so.

Like a flock of deer in headlights, everyone I speak with is truly unable to grasp the full prospect of the alt right’s taking over the people’s government, marginalizing most of us, all while putting plans into motion to rape of our Mother earth all over again, only now more aggressively.

But as Anne Galland of Moveon.org offered recently, “…the final stage of grief in this case isn’t acceptance—it’s organizing.”

As soon as I heard about the Women’s March in D.C. on January 21^st, I proclaimed that I was going! Now that reality has settled in, I’m sadly reconsidering my physical presence.   I’m told that it is expected to be the largest march ever in D.C. (No kidding:) 

With the recent warning signs of a coming of rule of law (

There’s no doubt in my mind that we are being given another chance to restore, and re-story, our possible futures across all five generations and into the eons ahead.