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for October, 2009.
By Gwen
When you were a kid and you came home from school with your report card and your grades were an “A”, two “B’s”, a “C” and an “F”…what did you parents spend the most energy on?
How does that relate to your happiness today?
“You grow most in your areas of greatest strength.
“It sounds odd, but you will improve the most, learn the most, be the most creative, be the most inquisitive, and bounce back the fastest in those areas where you have already shown some natural advantage over everyone else — your strengths. This doesn’t mean you should ignore your weaknesses. It just means you’ll grow most where you’re already strong.” –Marcus Buckingham
When I was a kid, I was constantly told that who I was, wasn’t ok. I was an only child after my 3 older…much older siblings left to go in the Navy and get married by the time I was 4. I was too loud! I had too much energy and too much enthusiasm! I was constantly being shhhhh..ed! I always wanted to do more, go places, do things…make my voice heard and my life bigger than it was. As I grew up I’ve done alot of that for myself but I still have an internal voice shhhhh ing me every now and then. I wonder what would have happened if my parents would have known to focus on my strengths?
What happened at your house? I’d love to hear about it. Gwen
Email me at discoveryourdharma@gmail.com for your FREE 30 minute consultation
By Gwen
Jeanie Linders wrote a musical about hot flashes that took America by storm. She’s using the profits to help other women.
No matter how many people tell you no, if you have an idea
you believe in, keep going. And never look down the road too far.
Instead, make sure what you’re doing today is important.
“It’s taken over my life,” Jeanie Linders says, laughing. Did this former Florida-based ad agency owner have any inkling that the lyrics she wrote poking fun at hot flashes would generate a theatrical empire? “Not a clue.” Yet now, four years after it opened on a small stage in central Florida, more than a hundred thousand people — mostly women in their 40′s and 50′s — are seeing Menopause The Musical every month, worldwide. And it’s changed women’s lives on both sides of the footlights.
It all started one evening ten years ago when Jeanie was about to attend an NAACP ball in Orlando. “There I was in my gown, ready to leave, when I had a ferocious hot flash. I was standing in front of the refrigerator, fanning myself with both doors, singing Rod Stewart’s “Hot Legs,” only I was singing “hot flashes.” Though she’d never written a play, the idea of creating a musical based on menopause just clicked. Jeanie pinned cards listing menopause symptoms on a bulletin board, bought a pawnshop record player for $10, got out her old 45′s and started writing new lyrics for old favorites. “Chain, Chain, Chain. Chain of Fools” became “Change, Change, Change. Change of Life.” “Staying Alive” became an insomnia lament, “Staying Awake.” “I would email the lyrics to friends, and they’d write back, “That’s funny, send more.”" When she had enough material, she sent her play, featuring four women shopping at Bloomingdale’s and singing about hot flashes, mood swings, and weight gain, to a theatrical lawyer, who told her that nobody would produce it.
But she couldn’t let go of the idea. “I just knew it would work,” she says, and so she produced the play herself. It opened on March 28, 2001, in a 76 seat theatre she built in a former Orlando perfume shop. “The actors had to climb thorough a hole in the wall to their dressing rooms in the shoe store next door.” The show is lovably dorky, with the four actors wearing goofy outfits and doing 1970′s disco moves; critics sneered but audiences ate it up. Women flocked to the show, they brought their friends, and everybody howled. The musical moved to West Palm Beach, then opened off-Broadway, where it’s still running 3 years later. The cast members are all over forty, all over size 10. This brand of reality theater really strikes a chord with midlife women. “Walk down any street in America and you will not find four desperate housewives who look like those women on TV,” Jeanie notes. “Hollywood says you’re young, you’re thin, you’re hip. My audience is not. I always say, there are five girlfriends at the show — four on stage and one is the audience. If she gets up and dances at the end, we’ve done our job.”
Jeanie receives a constant flow of emails from women thanking her for taking menopause out of the closet. “Most of our parents went through the change, retired from their jobs, had grandkids, and waited to die. It’s not like they started whole new lives.” Not so for us boomers. “Our generation had a president killed, a war in which the guys we were engaged to were dying, our parents were divorcing — all of a sudden, things were upside down. With nothing to hold on to, we’ve been reinventing our lives all along.
“Menopause is not just a physical change,” she continues, “Not only can we no longer reproduce, but our parents are passing away and suddenly there’s this reality that we’re not going to live forever. What happens then is that all the people we’ve paid attention to our whole lives — husbands, children, bosses –take a backseat. Our inner voice is saying, Excuse me, it’s my turn.”
As she rode the crest of seemingly unstoppable success, and her ad agency morphed into a single-show theater production company, Jeanie’s inner voice told her to take the money and do some good. She launched a nonprofit called Women For Women Foundation that makes grants to women over forty. W4W provides mentoring and financial support to women’s service organizations, grants scholarships in the arts, and serves as a clearing house for information on issues that affect women at midlife. She’s also launched the If Only Award. “I call it the Make a Wish Foundation for living women with dying dreams.” Jeanie says. “This is not, ‘I want to meet Brad Pitt,’” These wishes are the stuff of life reinvention — going back to school, starting businesses, seeing the world.
Jeanie may have a soft spot for struggling women because she’s known failure herself. “In 1986, I tanked totally,” she says, with typical candor. “It rained and nobody came to a jazz festival I created.” She was on the line financially, and when she lost her business, she lost her identity, too. Suddenly, she was no longer “Jeanie Ad Agency”‘ as just plain Jeanie Linders, “I spent 5 years trying to figure out who the hell that was.” She had produced events her whole life, from a fine arts mall in a derelict shopping center to multistage music festivals. “I’ve done all these bizarre things — worked for Michael Jackson, ran Francis Ford Coppola’s resort in Belize, taught high school in Jamaica.” But now she wanted to do work that was truly meaningful.
When she saw three hundred women in an off-Broadway theater standing and clapping, shouting, “That’s me, that’s me,” she knew she’d found the vehicle to change people’s lives. She’ s grown her company by extending opportunities to the women around her. “At first, I was running this whole production out of my back bedroom,” she says. “the phone would ring at two in the morning with people reserving tickets. Menopausal women don’t sleep.” Now she has twenty people working at an office in Orlando, and additional staffers in each of the thirteen cities with long-running productions. One is her former cleaning lady. “She’s my production manager and she’s fabulous. She just needed that hand up.” Another is a friend of 25 years, who advised Jeanie to forget about producing this show. “She’s now my advertising director,” Jeanie says.
Getting rich isn’t the plan; adding richness to life is. “Somebody wrote a newspaper article saying that Jeanie Linders is making a mint. That’s not true. I finance all my own shows, and when we make enough money, we open in another city. Souvenir sales benefit the foundation.” Jeanie, who is single, adds, “I can only spend so much money. For the first 50 years of my life, I lived on $35,000 a year.”
When she went through those tough times, her friends told her, “You’re a survivor, you’ll make it.” And despite raging arthritis that has already meant multiple operations, including two knee replacements, Jeanie is optimistic. “Sometimes I feel like C-3PO. But no matter how much metal they put in your body, you have to choose life. When I was sixteen, I wrote Jeanie’s Beatitude: Cursed are they who live to exist but fail to live while existing. I never want to just take up space.”
Where will she be in five years? “No idea,” Jeanie, who’s now fifty-six , says. “I never look down the road that far. My biggest concerns are taking care of my employees, and getting the show in front of as many women as I can.”
Susan Crandell
Thinking About Tomorrow:
Reinventing Yourself at Midlife
By Gwen
10 Reasons for Becoming a Baby Boomer Entrepreneur:
1. Baby Boomers are healthy with many years ahead of us.
2. Baby Boomers want to stay involved and engaged.
3. Baby Boomers enjoy generating extra income.
4. Baby Boomers get to build a business around something we enjoy and are passionate about.
5. Baby Boomers have a full Rolodex and 20-30 years of experience to back us.
6. Baby Boomers want the independence and flexibility that comes from working for ourselves.
7. Baby Boomers have confidence and experience, and know what we’re good at.
8. Baby Boomers may already have a pool of money saved to help finance our business.
9. Baby Boomers can do business from home, using the Internet as our storefront.
10. Baby Boomers won’t be discriminated against because of our age.
Baby Boomer Magazine April 2009
7 Traits of Entrepreneurial Baby Boomer Women
The first wave of Baby Boomer women, now in their 50s and early 60s, are evaluating the idea of striking out on their own as entrepreneurs. Many are looking for an “encore” career where they can pursue what they care about and generate an income for the second half of life.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines an entrepreneur as a person “who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise.”
Since job opportunities can become more limited at this life stage, starting a business with limited risk can make sense. It’s not for everyone. Many women in midlife who become inspired to take an entrepreneurial path have 7 traits in common. This holds whether they plan to launch a business that grows to be big, or they plan to keep it small – possibly as a solo-entrepreneur and home-based.
1) Autonomy Entrepreneurs have a strong desire for autonomy. Women at midlife often lose patience playing by corporate rules and want to call their own shots and put their own values first.
2) Resilience Entrepreneurs have the ability to bounce back from setbacks. It takes resilience to get through the roadblocks that will inevitably show up. At midlife and beyond, women have learned to be resilient as they’ve weathered life’s ups and downs.
3) Initiative Entrepreneurs are self-starters. The most successful entrepreneurs also keep the momentum going after the initial burst of energy.
4) Confidence Entrepreneurs believe in themselves and get others to believe in them too. They have the confidence to find the resources they need and the ability to ask for help and support.
5) Intuitive Entrepreneurs have good business instincts. They use left-brain rational thinking to analyze problems, but they also trust their intuition, which is often correct. Women tend to trust their intuition in business more often than men.
6) Decisive Entrepreneurs are action oriented. They make decisions and take the actions required to get them to their desired results. Midlife women have had a lifetime of experience to fine-tune their decision-making ability.
7) Connects Entrepreneurs build relationships. They build networks and thrive on seeing opportunities for connections for mutual benefit. At midlife, women have well-developed networks, which is an advantage in starting and sustaining a business.
This is not the definitive list, but you might find its perspective helpful. How enrepreneural are you?”
One common theme of women at midlife is the desire to create greater meaning in their work and their lives.
Amy Grossman May 2009
By Gwen
YOU ARE VALUABLE
You’re here to make
your unique mark on the world
—–12 Weeks of Life Coaching for 1/2 Price!—–
“Something More isn’t a fancier car, a
bigger house, or a designer dress.
Something More is what we need to
fill our spiritual hunger.”
“You don’t WANT Something More, you
NEED Something More. You feel deep
within that something crucial is
missing. You’re constantly looking for it,
but since you don’t know what it is,
the best you can hope is that if you run
across it, you’ll recognize or remember it.”
In defending your life you might say,
“I know I should be happy. I am, really.
Don’t misunderstand me. I’ve got a great
husband, fabulous kids, we’re all healthy,
a good job, wonderful friends, finances are ok
and we are scheduled to go on
a cruise to the Bahamas in the Spring.
So why do I feel so empty?”
–Sarah Ban Breathnach
Let me help you discover your “something more,” your life purpose…. your dharma.
In celebration of my 52nd birthday and 22nd anniversary this month, I’m offering 5 – 12 week coaching packages for 1/2 price! (*A $1,200 value for ONLY $600!)
All you have to do is be a BOOMER woman, register your email on my website requesting your FREE REPORT (and BONUS Daily ENCORE AH-HA’s) http://www.discoveryourdharma.com, and…
Once you’ve registered your email you will be eligible to be chosen for this birthday special.
Just SEND me an email at gwen@discoveryourdharma.com telling me WHY you think you would benefit from Discover Your Dharma Life Coaching. (Feel free to refer your friends!! Remember, only boomer women who have signed up & received the FREE REPORT will be eligible). The email must reach me by Tuesday Oct 13, 2009.
According to the Law of Attraction I’ve created a list of qualities of the boomer women who would match my most perfect client — someone that I know I could provide the most benefit to and someone who I would have the most fun working with! FIVE (5) women will be choosen. DON’T LET FEAR STOP YOU! YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT CRITERIA IS ON MY LIST, SO… GO FOR IT! It very well may be YOU!
NOTE: You will receive a FREE 30 minute consultation just for responding!
I look forward to talking to you soon! Remember, my dharma is helping you discover yours!
Make it a great day!
Gwen
*Must be paid for by Pay Pal at least 24 hours prior to first scheduled session. Deadline for 1st session Oct 31, 2009.
By Gwen
Thoughts of not enough abound in life. We don’t have enough… time, enough sleep, enough money, or enough energy. We are not smart enough, thin enough, educated enough, we don’t know enough, or charge enough. When working with my clients I hear words like, “If I had enough money I would…”; or “I never have enough time to…”, and “I never have enough energy for…”
The interesting thing is, so often when I ask my clients to define what “enough” is for them, to be specific with the dollar amount of enough money, the number of hours enough time would be or the amount of energy that would be enough – they don’t have the answer.
So, what is enough?
To me, enough is that point where we have just what we need for (x) to be achieved. I emphasize need here because it is very different from want. To be in business, I needed a fee structure, a method to work with my clients and materials to get my clients started. I wanted a website, many resources and an established network but I could be in business without them at the beginning.
What if you already had enough and didn’t even know it?
Most often we breeze past the point of enough as if it’s not even there because we really don’t know what it looks like. To know your “enough” you have to define it. Calculate the amount of money it will take to do, be or have what you most want. Decide how much time it would take for you to enjoy activities you love. Know what it feels like to have just the right amount of energy throughout the day. When you have something tangible to shoot for instead of an elusive “enough”, when you have a clear vision, you are more likely to take your first steps in achieving it instead of always waiting for the “right time”.
What if you believe there will never really be enough?
What does that say? Does that mean, if we can’t or won’t define enough, that we are forever on a perpetual race to a finish line that does not exist? Are we saying that no matter what we have or do, it will never feel good?
What would it be like if we perceived the world as one in which there is enough and we are enough? Think about how different your life would be if you had appreciation for what is already there. If you freed yourself from the chase to acquire more in order to feel you have enough and it becomes an opportunity to make a difference with what you already have. There is nothing wrong with wanting more, but…
What would it be like to be going after more from the place of already having enough?
–Stefanie Zizzo, October 2009
"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."