I’ve talked before about presence, what it is and why it’s important to develop, (see “Unwrapping Your Presence”). The first steps in developing this presence are asking the right questions, then opening yourself up to listening to the answers from the visionary voice inside you. These answers (or more and better questions) might come from within, but they can also come from messengers and symbols in your outer world that resonate with that voice. The important thing is that you open up as many conduits for that voice, for these messengers and symbols, as you possibly can, preferably with guidance from other visionaries. (Read more about this in “Stop, Look, and Listen.”)

This process is holistic, bringing together your body, soul, and mind in synchronicity. Presence is itself visceral. It isn’t a head trip but a physical embodiment of your Soul Speak. Even the visionary within resides in your body, connecting soul with its vessel. When you start hearing that voice and seeing messengers and symbols all around you, don’t be surprised if you feel the truth of what you’re receiving deep in your belly. There’s a reason for the saying “I feel it in my gut.”

That’s the inner feminine rising within you, the intuitive wisdom that your visionary voice embodies. Women and men have this aspect, but in women, it’s closer to the surface and often easier to access. But the inner masculine plays a role in this process as well, supporting the inner feminine, again for both women and men. (For more information about these aspects and archetypes, see Carl Jung.) As you work on asking the right questions and opening your soul and body to the answers, to that visionary voice, you can take the next step and start opening up your mind, gathering the knowledge that will feed the insight you gain.

Begin doing your homework, the research in the outer world that your inner world needs to process for you to ultimately make your vision reality. If you are focusing on your career or business, research the market, emerging trends, new business models and practices, technology, visionary leaders and companies, and gaps in what the world needs that business has yet to fulfill, or fulfill adequately.

If you are focusing on reinventing retirement, research what others are doing and where, flexible arrangements with companies or nonprofits that enable you to focus your energy and time the way you want, or entrepreneurial opportunities that would enable you to fulfill your soul’s purpose and make a difference, while still making a profit.

If you are seeking to make changes in your personal life—a move, a renewed focus on relationships, more travel, or more time and energy devoted to new or neglected meaningful pursuits—research places, social opportunities, logistics, and personal growth resources (such as this blog!). For all of the above and more, consider what skills you will need to learn and develop to make the most of whatever opportunities you will eventually pursue.

Now is not the time to draw definite conclusions or make decisions. Not just yet. The purpose of this information gathering is to give your visionary something to work with and to fine-tune the messengers and symbols you receive. Continue the inner work of asking questions and developing conduits for your visionary voice. By consciously getting your inner feminine and inner masculine to work together, you are on the path to creating a future that works—for yourself, your community, your world.

What knowledge do you need to gather to feed your visionary voice?

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.

I have discussed the importance of strengthening and creating intergenerational relationships, but usually, I’m talking about the relationships between boomers and the younger generations, the X’s and the millennials. One important connection, however, for boomer women in particular, is with the generation of matures, those women who are in their 70s and 80s right now, many of the first feminists who are also among the first to transition from work to “retirement” and to benefit from our increasing longevity.

How are they making this transition? What can we learn from those who are happy and healthy in their 70s and beyond?

I recently heard about the website 70candles.com, run by Ellen Cole (75) and Jane Giddan (76), as a place for women around 70 (approaching it or past it) to share their experiences, their hopes and fears and insights—their stories. What have they found to be the common factors in the lives of those most happy with who they are at 70 and beyond?

• Acceptance: Women who accept who they are, age and all, are far more likely to feel happy and fulfilled. This is a challenge for boomer women, who are from a generation obsessed with youth. But to accept who you are instead of longing for the past is an essential step—at every age, really—toward finding happiness in the moment. This doesn’t mean resigned to who you are. It means celebrating the wisdom, experience, and freedom of being an older woman—even reveling in being an old lady, or being one of my favorite terms, a Crone. Taking back the original meaning of the term, which was not a witch or a hag but a wise and powerful woman living above age, and helping others at the various crossroads of life.
• Connection: Without exception, the happiest women are those with a strong social network. As we age, we lose people—friends, spouses, colleagues. This makes it even more crucial for us to create and strengthen our connections with other people, of all generations, as much as possible. Also key is to connect with other women in your generation so that you can share experiences, hopes and fears, with people you know will get you completely, and so you can see all that is possible by mentoring and supporting each other into the Third and Fourth Ages of life.
• Action: As I’ve discussed on this blog and in my talks many times, the idea of “retiring” is an antiquated concept. And this is not just the view of boomers heading into the traditional retirement age in an economy that won’t allow many to retire. The generation ahead has already discovered this secret, that regardless of the economy, true fulfillment in your 60s, 70s, and beyond comes from continuing to live, to be active. This doesn’t necessarily mean working a full-time job. It can mean part-time work, consulting, community activism and volunteering, or starting a business on your own terms. It can and should be adapted to who you are specifically, not who you are supposed to be. But whatever “it” is for you, keep doing it!

What are your secrets to happiness and fulfillment as you age? How about the women you admire who are blazing this trail ahead of you? If you imagine yourself at age 70 and 80 and 90, what does that look like? Who are you and what are you doing?

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Let us try to see things from their better side: You complain about seeing thorny rose bushes;
Me, I rejoice and give thanks to the gods That thorns have roses.  

~ Alphonse Karr

Have you ever heard the phrase “Where attention goes, energy flows”? Where we choose to focus our thoughts can impact the quality of our lives. Though I think denying reality under the guise of “staying positive” can be damaging, and I do not believe positive thinking, on its own, will magically change everything, I do believe that our mindset and approach can offset negativity for ourselves and those around us, particularly when grounded in reality and tempered by intention.

A 2012 New York Times article, Older People Become What They Think, A Study Shows addressed this concept in regards to how we age. Among its assertions? “When stereotypes are negative — when seniors are convinced becoming old means becoming useless, helpless or devalued — they are less likely to seek preventive medical care and die earlier, and more likely to suffer memory loss and poor physical functioning, a growing body of research shows. When stereotypes are positive — when older adults view age as a time of wisdom, self-realization and satisfaction — results point in the other direction, toward a higher level of functioning. The latest report, in The Journal of the American Medical Association, suggests that seniors with this positive bias are 44 percent more likely to fully recover from a bout of disability. For people who care about and interact with older people, the message is clear: your attitude counts because it can activate or potentially modify these deeply held age stereotypes.”

So how do we shift ages-old culturally ingrained stereotypes about aging? How do we find resilience even when facing downsides to growing older like physical problems or disabilities, issues with illness, grief from increasing losses, and other tender life occurrences? My feeling is that Positive Aging must be rooted in authenticity, a genuine grasp of the up sides and down sides of aging and of yourself, as well as a conscious choice to discard what is not true for you and to embrace both what is true and what is possible. Often, it is precisely those of us over 40, who have garnered the kind of knowledge that can only come with time, who are best poised to face life’s challenges with a deeper, authentic sense of hope, optimism, and fortitude.

I never see what happens to me as tragic. And I’ve surely had my share of challenging times. I always find the silver lining and some positive rationale as to what my takeaway is going to be. So what kinds of benefits come to mind when I consider a more positive aging experience? For starters, as we age, many of us no longer are held back by the same all-consuming self-doubt of earlier years, so we are freer to be true to our inner nature (and in times when we do doubt, we are more aware of available resources for re-visioning our old self-stories).

~ Those of us who have lived through a multitude of experiences often find we know how to be more optimistic.

~ We may have fewer regrets as we learn to be less judgmental and have a broader context within which to examine and assess all that happens in the world.

~ We may tell our truths more courageously given a more solid sense of self.

~ With something learned from every experience and a deeper sense of self-trust, we value that each of us has deep wisdom and are able to be more discerning in our choices, what we share, and with whom.

~ We often feel less self-conscious about exploring and expressing our playfulness and creativity and are more capable of showing up with full presence to ourselves and each other. (Quick Aside: I am excited to share more detailed descriptions of these and other beneficial aspects of aging with you when my new book, The Ageless Way, is published).

Rather than seeing growing older as a reason to be discounted, let’s acknowledge and honor the beneficial aspects of aging so we can move into the future with the sound knowledge of our place in attending to, thus ensuring, a thriving, more alive, realistic and inter-connected (hence healthier) self, community, and world.

What realities of aging are you currently contending with and what benefits of aging are allowing you to find the silver lining in, and work through, your experiences?

In 2017 surveys showed a large majority of Boomers planning to continue working past retirement age, some by necessity and some by design. But now we can see signs of economic recovery with over 50 percent of Boomers born in 1946 saying they are now fully retired.

Does this mean that Boomers are headed for “Retirement as usual”? I highly doubt it. All this means is that necessity is becoming less of a driving force, enabling more and more of us to design the Third and Fourth Age of our lives.

As more and more employers recognize the need to capitalize on their experienced workforce before losing them, we should see an increasing emphasis on flexible work arrangements—part-time work, consulting, and job sharing, just to name a few. This in turn will provide more visible options for Boomers to consider beyond the false dichotomy of retiring or not retiring.

Forward-thinking companies have already begun this shift, but far too many are not looking past their own noses and preparing now for the coming wave of Boomers making pivotal choices about how to design their lives. For many businesses, the planning for a changing workforce won’t happen until the sheer numbers of Boomers on the precipice of leaving reach a critical mass.

This is a huge mistake for these businesses, of course, but this lack of foresight does not have to extend to the rest of us.

We all have the opportunity, no matter our age or stage, to design our futures starting today. You don’t have to wait for your company to provide options for you. Now is the time to develop your own game plan, to think BIG about the next stage of your life, and to then create your own options to make that big vision happen.

This may mean going to your employer and laying out your plans and what you need from them to make those plans happen in ways that are advantageous for both of you. Or this may mean laying out a succession and exit strategy that takes you into your own business, your chance to combine profit and purpose, to make a living and a difference while enjoying more flexibility to work where and when you want.

I suspect that future surveys of Boomers will demonstrate far more variety in working arrangements as well as many more Boomerpreneurs on the horizon. This will be not only a result of economic recovery but also a stimulus toward economic growth and sustainable success for individuals, our nation, and the planet.

Have you figured out What’s Next for you as you head into your Third or Fourth Age?

In decades of work as a leading GeroFuturist aiming to transform the story around our culture’s approach to aging, I have often spoken and written about this issue. I continue to assert that a large and vital part of our new boldly vibrant story is dependent upon the language we use to define and describe growing older — to ourselves and others, and by those who serve and market to us. When we change or redefine the terminology we use in those descriptions, we change the perception, truth, and dynamics of getting older across the lifespan (for twenty-year-olds, as well as centenarians – and everyone else in between…).

It may sound simple, but it’s not easy. So how do we integrate individual and cultural mind shifts in order to change the “languaging” around adult development and growing older? Something has to give! A perfect example of misplaced, yet commonplace, labeling as we grow older is referring to Baby Boomers as “seniors.” I can assure you that those of us over 40 don’t relate to that at all. In fact, it makes us cringe and run in the opposite direction. Yet, “senior centers” across the country continue to bemoan and wonder why Boomers aren’t banging down their doors for “senior” services and community-building.

We clearly need new terminology to help shift the paradigm. We need a full expression of the affirmative, powerful, and even juicy aspects of aging. Old dismissive stereotypes do not consider the reality of those of us entering or beyond midlife as capable of being fully active physically, socially, mentally and professionally (to say nothing of the fact that the over-40 crowd is the largest adult consumer demographic and, thus, worthy of priority marketing and product development focus). Manifesting such transformation, as with all vital historic movements, will take patience, determination, effort, awareness, intention, time and acceptance.

As is the case with so much in life, there is not just one way to think about growing older or the terminology around that process (a process which will happen to all of us lucky enough to live “to a ripe old age”). My vision for the new story of our times is rooted in an approach toward aging that is “Ageless.”  At this juncture, this word may mean different things to different people.

A retired literary professional recently shared with me that when she hears the term “Ageless” she thinks of it as dismissive of aging, since it seems to infer wanting to avoid looking or growing older. I see the term in a different way, as being age-affirming. Ageless, Ageless Aging, Agelessness (and timeless) to me are all about transcending age at any age… all while owning our chronological age …whether 30, 40, 70…101. Agelessness involves not being defined nor limited by our chronological age at the same time as welcoming/embracing whatever age we are.

Agelessness is about transcending our limited, dismissive and insufficient attitudes toward aging so that we see ourselves and each other as whole and precious parts of a larger evolution with many births, rebirths, endings and new beginnings…no matter what our age or life stage. This does not mean we deny our aging. Instead, being Ageless and embracing The Ageless Way is evidence that we, at every age, own the vitality of life within us and our value, and remove the limits culturally placed on our youth and our elderly.

I feel so strongly about the importance of boldly shifting our definition of the word Ageless (as it applies to Ageless Aging) and proclaiming it as central to our new story of what it means to grow older, that I have titled my upcoming book The Ageless Way.

So, together, let’s re-cognize the abilities inherent in growing from youth to midlife to becoming an elder. Rather than seeing Agelessness as working against the fulfilling life all of us can envision for ourselves, our communities, our world, we will move forward with that word as a testament to our ability to surpass the heretofore ingrained and perceived limitations of aging. Will you join me on that journey?

What does being “Ageless” mean to you and what is your reaction when you hear that word? What are some words associated with growing/being older which no longer have any bearing on the NEW story of our age?

Futurists, coaches, sustainability advocates, gerontologists, and many others have a vested interest in understanding and shaping change in ways that impact the future for the better. Yet there is a trend in these fields and many others that seems decidedly stuck in the past: an antiquated notion of professionalization.

Experts and experts-in-training understandably want to ensure that their field has credibility and the potential to make a living. I agree that both are important. In my new book Gray is the New Green, I am wholeheartedly in support of making money from doing what we love and getting beyond the shame so many of us hold about valuing profit. Without profit, we cannot make a difference in the world. It’s that simple.

But the trend I’m seeing seems to neglect the most important part: futures that matter. Professionalization just for the sake of earning a credential and making money goes hand in hand with the outmoded view of education as a means to an end, rather than a means in and of itself. Futurists, for example, are talking about bringing more of academia into the field, building programs that more clearly (and more narrowly) define what a futurist is for the sake of earning credentials and therefore a living. But credentials do not equal profit. There’s an enormous gap in that equation—the people we serve.

In a world increasingly recognizing the value, even the necessity, of holistic thinking, I think it’s a mistake to focus on narrowing our field rather than broadening it and seeing where it intersects with our other skills, gifts, and experience. Further, focusing on professionalization is a focus on ourselves when the problem with our field lies with a lack of focus on the needs of the people we serve.

Credentials are a valuable way for people to distinguish among individuals in a field, and I absolutely support the idea in theory. But in practice, if those credentials are simply built upon another floor atop the ivory tower, they will distance us even further from the people who need us most.

When people tell me that they don’t really understand what a futurist is, answering with a list of futurist jargon does not really answer their question. What people really want to know when asking what “futurist” means is “What does a futurist mean to me and my organization or business? Why should I care or champion professional futurists?”

That is the question we should be answering as professionals, and it applies to every field. Simply replace “futuring” and “futurist” with the field relevant to you and see how well you and your colleagues are answering the right questions.

If we can’t teach others what futuring means and why it matters, we can have as many acronyms as we like at the ends of our names. They won’t matter, and neither will futurists.

Do you see similar trends in your field? What can you do to refocus the conversation?

Featured image by Dollar Photo Club

Jack Levine subtly set the tone for our time together in his opening invocation’s succinct prayer, likening the conception of our movement to bringing seeds to loaf. The seeds we were able to plant in this conference alone were too numerous to recount here, but I would like to share some that are continuing to grow in my own body and soul.

PAC 7 Seeds of Wisdom

The conference rocked from the engaging opening by Tom Esselman, followed by Katrina Rogers, President of Fielding Graduate University, the leading institute for adult learners in human and organizational development, our host from 2010 to 2013, and that year’s co-host.

Passing the PAC Master of Ceremonies baton to Tom Esselman, President and CEO of the Institute for the Ages, Katrina created a vessel for what was to come by sharing the “4 Principles of What It Means to Age Well”: positive aging rests upon creativity, community, life transitions, and wellness. Dipping deeper ever so briefly, but profoundly, Katrina deftly wove together the themes of this year’s conference, Positive Aging Transcends, when she anchored us by sharing that “one aspect of transformation is transcendence” and closed by cajoling us with a caution: “Aging is not all happy talk.”

I was, and am, deeply appreciative that Katrina held the dark side of aging up to the light of transcendence around the conversations we have about aging positively.

Katrina ushered us on to an always enlightening keynote speaker, Marc Freedman, who explored “The Generativity Revolution: A New Movement of Americans in the Second Half of Life.” Marc shared his apt observation that a new myth of America is emerging, one not based “on the notion of eternal youth,” but one that “appreciates the true value of experience.” Here, here, we clapped. But what remains in my recall still today is Marc’s pronouncement that “Stages of life are fiction, not a fixture!”

Throughout his keynote, Marc referenced many of the early voices of human and adult development and aging. He discussed how the visionary Mary Catherine Bateson’s “Active Wisdom” was a pathway to social innovation. Memories flooded back from when I had been a post-graduate student in gerontology and adult development.

I had been blessed to take probably the one and only Aging Literature course given anywhere. What a gift! I didn’t realize till hearing Marc mention Bateson’s writings what an imprint that literature course had left on me. I had been exposed to all the visionaries and pioneers in our fields from way back to modern times. Like Marc, I’ve seen the truth of their groundbreaking work and words as positive aging reaches its tipping point. Marc also had a few urgent recommendations for public policymakers: Create new public policy such as a gap year for adults and new educational opportunities.

Our second day together started over breakfast, with Victor Strecher sharing findings that “declaring one’s life purpose is a driver for changing behavior and giving life meaning.” To all of us in life planning and all genres of coaching, counseling, education, and positive psychology, this is not a surprise. Rather, it’s a welcome affirmation and confirmation of why we do what we do.

In between plenary sessions, many of the best of the field’s pioneers and newbie innovators conversed about new approaches to positive aging, life and retirement planning, reinvention, and eldering as well as elder care. We discussed the importance of declaring purpose to our wellness; spirituality and dementia; intentionality in older adults; second-half adulthood; the challenges of the coming Alzheimer epidemic; multigenerational dialogue versus discord; aging and technology; and so much more.

Harry (Rick) Moody spoke about “Voices of Older People.” Demonstrating the passing of the baton as part of our legacy-making years ahead, Rick introduced and later interviewed the newest generation of NPR journalists on aging, including the highly popular Ina Jaffe, who shared her recordings of wonderful vignettes of older adults’ life stories.

Rick carried this subtheme forward as he interviewed Connie Goldman, the first NPR reporter covering older people and aging back in the seventies, who is also a prolific writer on caregiving and caregivers. My personal take on Connie in the short moments I’ve shared with her this year and last is that she is one of the warmest, most engaging wise women I’ve met in a very long time. Connie is so present and authentic; she is a gift to know.

For the first time, I heard Nancy K. Schlossberg, EdD, Founder of IFA, Board Chair, Professor Emerita at University of Maryland, author of Revitalizing Retirement, speaking on “Mattering Matters,” and then responding to Rick’s questions. Nancy, who is deeply honest and provocative, queried back, “Do we have an adult development story? How do you want to do this adult development story?”

To my surprise, Nancy asked a similar rhetorical question to the one I had posed in my session on the first morning of the conference. I had challenged my fellow attendees to take with them the questions of What story am I in? and What positive aging story do I want for myself, my employer or organization, my work and career serving 50-plusers? as they moved through the conference, in both their storytelling and conversations with colleagues.

Most important, I challenged them to take the questions home afterward, when they returned to their communities and life routines. Instead of putting them aside on a bucket list, bring these questions back home and keep asking them so we continuously improve how we serve and are served.

The mission of the annual conference is to sound the clarion call for positive aging. It was spreading organically, certainly not intentionally structured. Or was it? We were spreading the seeds from the opening till closing, when they emerged as a rising loaf!

On the next to last morning, I was drawn to hear and meet Juanita Brown, PhD, and David Isaacs, Co-Founders of the World Café. They were co-leading a short-form breakout session. As an advocate for creating multigenerational solution-finding conversations to make Ageless Futures the norm, I was magnetized just by the title alone, “Wiser Together: Partnering Across Generations for the Common Good.” I was not disappointed. It made me feel like I was coming home to my kin, other professionals who share a similar mission, a mission expressed in simplest terms by Juanita “to enliven across generations and be a catalyst for collaborative action.” How cool is that?

Karen Sands, MCC, BCC

Phone: 203.266.1100
Email: karen@karensands.com
Website: www.karensands.com
Address: PO Box 43 Roxbury, CT 06783-0043