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?

In another post, I answered one of the most common questions people ask of me: What is a futurist? I also touched on what the phrase Everyday Futurist means. I mentioned that I combine futuring and coaching in all my work, one-on-one, with groups, and in my writing.

Which brings me to the second most common question I (and most coaches) get asked: What kind of coach?

Since I first began coaching nearly 40 years ago, the profession seems to have exploded into a thousand different subspecialties and labels—career coaching, executive coaching, corporate coaching, leadership coaching, business coaching, relationship coaching, and so on. When I describe my holistic approach, incorporating futuring and coaching, addressing work, business, and life issues and goals, I often get this response: “Oh, you’re a life coach!”

In fact, the first person to call me this was a senior editor and journalist writing for Dr.Koop.com back in the early eighties, and I don’t think she ever did get credit for coining the term! At the time, I disliked it so much that I did not think twice about it, until the nineties, when it became a trendy form of coaching.

I still avoid using the “life coach” label for myself, and I’ll tell you why. First, let me say that many excellent coaches refer to themselves as life coaches, and many of them have solid skills, experience, and certification. We share many of the same approaches, perspectives, and theoretical bases. On the surface, my holistic approach does indeed appear to be that of a life coach.

One of the reasons it applies to me, however, is that the term is so broad as to encompass many different kinds of coaches. This makes it less useful as a title telling you specifically what I can do for you, and it also unfortunately leaves the field wide open to interpretation—and abuse, such as the life coaches involved in the despicable, bigoted gay conversion organizations, now being rightfully sued for false claims and emotional, mental, and physical harm (see, e.g., “Gay ‘Conversion Therapy’ Faces Test in Courts”).

Now, please don’t get me wrong. Every profession has some bad apples, and those who abuse the life coach title are not representative of the field. The problem is in part that life coaching and many other kinds of coaching don’t have certification programs and certifying boards. Certification can help weed out the bad apples, ensure competence (and even excellence), and provide people with more confidence when choosing a professional whose guidance could affect major decisions in their life and work.

Providing the people I serve with this assurance and confidence is one reason I chose to become an ICF Master-Certified Coach (MCC) and a CCE Board-Certified Coach (BCC). I am certified not because I want to impress you with my titles but because my purpose is to give you the best possible information and guidance I can—and not just through my fee’d services but in this blog, in my reports and ebooks, and in workshops and presentations.

Part of genuinely serving my tribe means developing and constantly refining the expertise that underpins everything I write and say, rather than expecting people to just take my word for it that I know my stuff. That’s why I have taken the time to earn certification, and why I maintain that certification through constant learning and staying up-to-date on developments in my field.

Similarly, one of my specialties is in mentoring entrepreneurs, especially boomerpreneurs, to create sustainable success. I also work as an expert consultant to those serving the 50+ market, not because I just decided one day to call myself an expert but because I have devoted significant time and thought to developing this expertise, in my work, research, and education. I am a certified gerontologist and have decades of experience as a pioneer working with entrepreneurs to create rock solid businesses based on making a difference and meeting the triple bottom line (people, planet, profit).

My holistic approach to coaching means addressing the whole person (not just work or just personal issues) because everything interconnects, and this is very much like the common definition of a life coach, but I believe my role as a coach has more to do with finding the right questions to ask than simply dispensing pat answers. And this means listening to our intuition and checking it against the evidence.

I enlist my clients to use their strengths in business or their careers to support what truly matters to them—not only to achieve self-mastery and self-actualization, but to reach beyond personal transcendence to heed the call to fully awaken the visionary leader and change agent they are meant to be . . . around the boardroom table as well as the kitchen table.

In other words, don’t just take my word for it, or anyone else’s, when it comes to deciding what guidance is best for you and what path you will take. The answers are within you (intuition) and without (evidence). All a good coach does is guide you to connect the dots, within and beyond the box, so that you can stay ahead of the curve of change to make your future work.

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.

One of the most common questions I get asked is, what is a futurist? (And the corollary, of course—what is an Everyday Futurist specifically?) Some people hear the word and think of psychics and crystal balls, but a professional futurist is not a psychic.

Futuring involves a set of strategic, scientific, and intuitive skills that anyone can learn to forecast the future, spotting trends and critical shifts in your own life as well as in the world.

Being a futurist does not require having a gift to predict certain future events; in fact, professional futurists never predict because no one can predict the future. Rather, a futurist forecasts and backcasts the future using analytical tools and intuition to track, evaluate, and respond to change in measurable ways, creating alternative futures—so that the people they serve can use their gifts to meet change at the leading edge.

Many futurists work with corporations, forecasting trends to help with strategic planning. Other futurists apply their skills within specific fields or in their writing, both fiction and non. You might recognize the names of such notable futurists as Arthur C. Clarke, Carl Sagan, Gene Roddenberry, George Orwell, and my favorite, Alvin Toffler.

I combine futuring with coaching—for professionals, executives, entrepreneurs (especially boomerpreneurs), and businesses—because the combination of the two is the most powerful way to guide individuals and businesses to stop reacting to what has happened and start creating what will. Every single one of us can make every day matter by applying the wisdom of tomorrow.

In other words, we can all learn to be Everyday Futurists. You can learn futuring tools and strategies. With coaching, you can learn how to apply the knowledge and wisdom you gain in your everyday life and work in ways that make every moment matter while simultaneously moving you toward accomplishing your greatest vision yet, no matter what age or stage of life you are in.

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.

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.

I’ve written a lot about the visionary voice we all have inside us, the qualities of a visionary and how that voice can guide us toward making a difference in the world while simultaneously achieving sustainable, meaningful success in our lives and work.

Many of you are no doubt aware of this voice. Maybe you’ve had to reawaken it at various times in your life—most of us have to do this—but you know it’s there.

Some of you, on the other hand, might not see yourself as ever being a visionary. Visionaries are other people, not you. You have ideas, but you don’t see them as earth shattering. You want sustainable, meaningful success, sure, but nothing you’re planning will transform the world.

And that’s okay. Your definition of success, of what matters most to you, is yours and yours alone. But if at any point in your life you’ve felt that you were meant for more, that there’s a bigger purpose inside you yet to be realized, then you are selling yourself—and the world—short by not uncovering that purpose, by not doing what you can to awaken your visionary voice.

This is especially crucial if your reasons for not doing so are that you think it’s too late for you, or that you are not smart enough, rich enough, confident enough, creative enough . . . that you are simply not enough to lead change.

It is never too late to be a visionary. On the contrary, many of us can’t be true visionaries until we have the experience, wisdom, and willingness to focus only on what matters—qualities that tend to ripen with age. You don’t have to wait until you feel you are enough. Awaken the visionary voice inside and you will find that your doubts become insignificant in light of a vision you will be driven to pursue, with passion, purpose, and, yes, even profit.

And that brings me back to those of you who do not feel driven to uncover your larger Soul’s purpose, to discover how your personal and professional success can run parallel to making a difference in the world. Consider this: The more turmoil our world undergoes—economic, environmental, social—the more everyday people choose to spend their money on products and services that in some way go toward healing our planet. In other words, when given a choice between two companies with essentially the same offering, consumers are increasingly choosing the one that goes that extra step toward making a difference in the world.

Think about where this trend is going. People and businesses that find a way to combine a larger visionary purpose with their business model will be the most profitable. More people and businesses will follow their lead until visionary business practices will become the norm. Not riding this trend now not only means missing out on a larger market, more money, and greater impact—it could make your ideas and your business ultimately obsolete.

No one can know the future with certainty, of course. Things can change on a dime. But you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by at least listening to what your visionary voice has to say. That’s all. Just listen.

Have you always felt that you were meant for more? Have you discovered your large purpose, your visionary voice?

Yet our mindset about what it means to be 30, 40, 50, 60, and beyond tends to remain the same. Although we all tend to see ourselves as 15 years younger than we are, as a society, we still see people in general as over the hill past 40. At 50 and beyond, people are seen as increasingly irrelevant, out of step, invisible, elderly, even useless. It doesn’t matter that, as Seth Godin (“Fifty is the new thirty”) has pointed out, “fifty year olds are living, acting and looking more like thirty year olds every day.”

But this mindset is changing dramatically. The boomer generation is redefining everything—from careers to entrepreneurship to what it means (and doesn’t mean) to be post-50. Now the generation that originated the idea of not trusting anyone over 30 is far beyond 30. This attitude still exists among millennials, but probably not for much longer.

The Kauffman Foundation discovered that the most successful startups are those founded and run by people over 55. More and more people post-50 are, by necessity or design, choosing flexible career arrangements, consulting, and entrepreneurship, reinventing retirement or abandoning the idea altogether.

As we choose work that is more meaningful, and develop the habit of approaching it in continuously innovative ways, “retirement” ceases to have any meaning. We don’t retire from being leaders, innovators, visionaries. We simply move on to what’s next for us and continue to adapt to our changing circumstances, just as women (and more and more men) do when they start families. The new way of working has nothing to do with age—beyond making it irrelevant.

This generation is also transforming the marketplace. Post-50 women in particular have more financial clout than ever, controlling three-fourths of U.S. wealth and making 95% of the purchase decisions in their households. Marketers, businesses, and organizations that are still youth centered are missing an enormous opportunity.

None of us can afford to ignore this market. Nor can we stereotype the post-50 generation based on generations before. They have different tastes, values, lifestyles, and goals, and they need to be marketed to as people who see a future full of new adventures, new life and work paths, and new opportunities for making a difference while making a living—just as 30-year-olds see their future.

The key difference, however, is that the inner psyche and development of the post-50 crowd does coincide with age. So a 50-year-old who looks and acts like a 30-year-old also has the earned wisdom and experience of her full 50 years.

Recognizing that 50 is the new 30, 60 the new 40, 70 the new 50, and so on, is not about vanity or denying that we all are aging. It simply means that we are taking one more step to bust another societal stereotype that holds us all back—just as we needed to combat sexism and misogyny and racism to remove the self-imposed limitations that prevent us all from reaching our full potential as humans, as visionaries, as people with the power to transform the world like never before. Who we are inside is ageless.

We are more than our gender, more than the color of our skin, and more than just a number. Don’t act your age. Act your potential.

Image credit: Photograph by Maira Kouvara.

Although men were most affected by job loss in the Great Recession, during the recovery, while men are gaining jobs, women are actually losing them by the hundreds of thousands. Even women at the top aren’t safe: Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, fired, criticized for characteristics that no one would bat an eye at in a man; Wall Street maven Sallie Krawcheck, known for her integrity and directness, first “restructured” out of Merrill Lynch, then fired from Bank of America, where she had headed the Global Wealth & Investment Management division.

They had managed to rise above the glass ceiling only to have it shatter beneath their feet. For other women, this ceiling has gotten impossibly low.

Predicting where these facts are leading us is a no-brainer—the number of women-owned businesses will likely increase at an even faster pace. Add to this group the people hitting the silver ceiling, especially in this economy, and we can see that the future for many women, over 50 especially, will be in entrepreneurship.

Women mean business.

According to the Center for Women’s Business Research, “If U.S.-based women-owned businesses were their own country, they would have the 5th largest GDP in the world, trailing closely behind Germany, and ahead of countries including France, United Kingdom and Italy.”

Think about what this means, about the impact we can have on the world simply by following our own lead, standing in our own shoes, and building our businesses on the visionary voice we all have inside us. Now is the time to leverage change to our advantage, to reinvent ourselves and our world through innovative and conscious businesses that hit the Triple Bottom Line: People, Planet, Profits.

Now is the time for women to lead the way into a greater future for all of us. For we women—at every age and stage—are the visionaries we’ve been waiting for!

Image credit: PhotoXpress

It was an ad for Cindy Crawford’s wrinkle-erasing skincare line.

False beauty, false youth, false advertising, really. I don’t know if I could think of a less meaningful definition of beauty if I tried.

Now, I’m not going to pretend that I have always embraced the changes in my appearance as I entered midlife and beyond. Looking in the mirror and seeing those first fine lines, then the deepening of those lines into wrinkles, along with the sagging and other changes in my aging body was never easy. The person I saw in the mirror didn’t match how I felt inside. That isn’t me. And if that isn’t me, who am I?

Who am I if I’m no longer young?

And that gets to the heart of what the anti-aging industry, from skin creams to face lifts, is really promising. A reprieve from having to ask that frightening question. The chance to be who we think we are for just a little bit longer. To be noticed, relevant, visible.

Yet answering that question for ourselves, figuring out who we are when we’re no longer young, can be the most meaningful, liberating, and life-affirming step we ever take. It can lead us to fulfilling our purpose on this planet, to awakening our visionary and creating the legacy we were always meant to create but couldn’t until we’d reached this point where experience, wisdom, and the search for meaning all coalesced. But we can’t create this future if we are focused on living in the past.

The anti-aging industry doesn’t offer meaningful beauty. It delays or even stops us from ever finding it.

There is a difference between wanting to enhance our beauty and wanting to change who we are to feel beautiful. I love finding flattering clothes or getting a new hairstyle that makes me look and feel great while expressing my personality. I am not going to pretend that I don’t. In fact, I am totally drawn to the promise of smoother skin, fewer wrinkles, and a more youthful looking body. This is not a condemnation of that desire or of the women who act on it. I think we all have it to some degree and always will. We all struggle with where to draw the line between enhancing our appearance and accepting ourselves as we are.

But let’s not pretend that we are going to find meaning in that jar of eye cream. The less time and energy we spend distracted by the promise of holding on to our youth, the more we can focus our time and energy on what really matters to us, to the people we love, to the world. The more we make the effort to find actual meaningful beauty in ourselves, in who we are now, the closer we get to fulfilling our greatest vision yet.

After all, how clear and grand can our vision be if we don’t even see ourselves in the mirror clearly?