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?

Estate planning to achieve these goals can be complicated. The typical “all to my spouse, then equally to the children” estate distribution does not work with blended families. That is because there is always the risk that the surviving spouse will disinherit the decedent’s children and pass the assets to his/her children. In addition, the competing interests of potential beneficiaries can lead to discord resulting in an ugly and costly court battle.

It is for these reasons that it is recommended that blended families use trusts. Specifically, revocable trusts with QTIP provisions. QTIP renders the trust irrevocable upon the death of the settlor. (the person who established the trust).
When a person is getting married for the second or third time it is important to consider the implications of the new relationship, including the need for an updated estate plan and beneficiary clauses. In other words blended families need to be careful. And being diligent can prevent potential complications and keep familial harmony even in the trying times of a passing.

Do you have any experience you could share?

About the Author

Attorney Bahrawy has 39 years experience as an Estate Planning and Elder Law Attorney. He represents individuals and families in both simple sophisticated estate planning strategies. He also advises families with special needs, whether children or adult, on estate planning matters.
Attorney Bahrawy represents elders and caregivers to plan for future or, in some circumstances, an immediate need for institutional medical care. In this regard Attorney Bahrawy assists elders in applying and qualifying for Medicaid, making or adjusting estate plans such as Wills, Trusts and Advance Directives, estate administration, fiduciary litigation, Will contests, guardianship of elderly persons, and elder abuse. Attorney Bahrawy believes that that lawyers serve their clients best by planning ahead rather than solving problems after they occur.

Attorney Bahrawy is a member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys. He hosted and produced a television program called Your Money. Your Life – a show dedicated to educating the public on issues particularly relevant to people over age 50 such as estate planning, elder law, elder services, financial planning. Life style issues and medical care. He currently appears as a speaker on elder issues at local senior centers, social organizations and legal forums. Mr. Bahrawy has also appeared as a guest on various radio programs in Massachusetts, New Hampshire , Florida, North Carolina and Utah.

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.

If you think you’re too small to make a difference, you’ve never been in bed with a mosquito.

-Anita Roddick

We are not here merely to make a living. We are here to enrich the world.

-Woodrow Wilson

Whether you are extraordinary at something, or everything, I bet you strive to be the best in whatever you do. Or at least you want to believe that of yourself. (if you don’t, why not?)

You’re inspired by people who add value to life and work.

In fact, if all of us were to add value all the time, it would be nirvana on this plant.

Oh well. Not yet. I keep envisioning it and working towards it anyways.

It works both ways. If we want to receive value, then we must also add value.

When we do, you get far more returned than we ever dreamed possible. So what does this have to do with riding? More than we dreamed possible. So what does this have to do with riding a dead horse? It’s pretty simple really. If we get stuck riding dead horses, we cant possibly be contributing to the optimal value. And if we aren’t, then we can’t even get onto the Trail of Greatness.

The time is ripe for those who want take a went to leap in every aspect of their life. Go from Doing Great to Leading with Greatness.

Greatness is resident with each of us.  Each moment is the opportunity for greatness.

For all too many of us, we miss these moments because we are sound asleep with the TV running, the ping of the incoming emails…a new lullaby… and the cell phone on 24/7.

We all have to wake ourselves up now and again.

The surest way to do that is to ask yourself if you are always adding value.  Or are you riding a dead horse?

Most of us, me included, have had times in our lives where we found ourselves riding a dead horse or two. So, it’s critical for both outstanding performance and having a great life that we take a hard look at our current conditions- ask ourselves if we need to ride a new horse or just change saddles. And then we need to consciously renew our vows with our life and how we lead it.

Whatever task we choose offering perspective, renewed passion and commitment the outcome is significant improvement in results and quality on every level.  That translates into prosperity.

Where will you start in your journey from Great to Greatness?

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

“Human beings have a very limited ability to accurately predict or even imagine the needs of their future self. It is especially true when that future contains scary possibilities.”  ~ Dr. Bill Thomas

I lost my mom before she died. I could no longer deny that her Alzheimer’s was full-blown. She had early onset of the disease when I was a teen. Now suddenly, at 28 and a young mom myself, I had to face that she was really gone. There was no retrieving her. She was only 59!

Mom went from living alone independently to needing constant supervision and professional care in a nursing home that specialized in Alzheimer patient care.

As a family, we’d never talked about how we would care for our parents or what provisions were to be made for their eventual passing. My older siblings, far more astute on these matters than I (having faced Long Term Care — “LTC” — needs of other family members), sprang into action and garnered the help from an array of trusted advisors we needed to sort out the best care for Mom.

Let’s face it, it’s never easy to work out complex logistics and quality of care concerns. But I guarantee you it is far more overwhelming and devastating when done in crisis mode intervention, which only exacerbates stress and intolerable grief. However difficult, it’s wise to plan for LTC sooner rather than later.

I assumed this waiting till it’s too late modus operandi was attributable to my family’s dynamics. Over time, however, I learned that this is more prototypical than not. In fact, when I asked Activist-Philanthropist Elly Guggenheimer, then age 86, during our interview for my book, Visionaries Have Wrinkles, “Do you talk to your children or do they ask you about your plans for your end of life?” she responded, “No, absolutely not. I never sit down and say to my children, ‘Let’s talk about my end-of-life planning.’ ”

What a pity that so many of us don’t have these conversations with our kids (much less our spouses or partners) long before we reach a crisis point. Instead, we wait until it’s too late.

This has all hit home for me this spring as I am recuperating from an old injury thrown out of whack by an unrelated surgery at the beginning of 2015. Albeit temporarily, this has put me out of commission physically for several months. I’m an independent woman and my freedom is paramount to me. Yet, during my recovery I have had to rely on others to drive me anywhere and everywhere, prepare my meals, and much more. I even had to move my “office” from a room requiring staircase access to my main floor living room. All of these “inconveniences” have caused me to wonder how this would be if it happened when I was a lot older. Or, what if my adoring husband of almost 40 years wasn’t able to care for me or wasn’t with me any longer … how would I manage?

While machinating on LTC, I received a report from Senior Care entitled, “America Has a Major Misconception on Aging.” I highly recommend you take a moment and download it for yourself, your health care providers and your family. I’m pretty savvy on aging and the adult life course, but the stats reported are a wake-up call I can’t ignore, nor should you. For instance (this was a shocker for me!) — what would you guess is the percentage of Americans who will need LTC (e.g.: nursing homes, assisted living, home health care, informal caregiving)? Apparently only 37 percent of us think we will need LTC. In actuality, that number is closer to 69 percent (approximately 2/3 of us).

But the royal Holy Cow for me was discovering that 75 percent of Americans have not had LTC discussions with family members! This lack of pre-planning can result in greater emotional and financial strain, as well as less control over and/or fewer choices regarding preferred care.

So I ask you, have you had a serious conversation with your loved ones? It will never be a “good time,” but I assure you now is a better time than later.

(Note: June is Alzheimer’s & Brain Awareness Month. Find out more at: Brain Awareness Month)

(Image Credit: Langholz by Wolfgang Staudt, flickr.com)