Today's guest post is by Tamara Elizabeth, author of the self-help book Fabulously Fifty:

Moving Forward Through a Midlife Transition 

In the first 50 years of my fabulous life, I wore many hats in different styles, sizes and colors.  All were neatly stored in the hatbox called motherhood.  I have raised a total of seven children and have loved every moment.  I wouldn’t trade any of them for a paid career.  But at the midpoint of my journey, with all my children grown and gone, I found myself asking one simple question: “What do I want to do when I grow up?”

Most of us have made the mistake of attaching our worth to others at some point in our lives, and I am no different.  Now I felt stuck in my journey - one of my dainty size 7 stilettos firmly planted in the past and the other cemented right in front of me.  How could I move forward?

As I "shopped for one" in the fruit section, I reflected on my worries.  Suddenly, I imagined myself as an orange, that amazing miracle of Mother Nature which grows on a tree with a face full of sunshine.  I decided right then and there that my life was no longer just a pile of orange pieces--some full of pits that choked my desires and goals; others as dry as cardboard because I hadn't drunk enough from the abundance this wonderful universe had provided me.

Harry Bernstein & Me

Having put enough distance between myself and the feedback I received on the latest draft of my novel to pick up my pen again, I'm once more sitting at my favorite desk in the Thousand Islands, writing away.

Even if the book never makes it to the marketplace, I'm thankful that persistence comes so naturally to me. Whether I learned it from my parents or it's simply a manifestation of my innate stubbornness, I can't say. Whatever the case, I count it as one of my blessings.

Lest you think I'm crazy for persisting, consider the case of another late-blooming author, Harry Bernstein. For decades, Bernstein tried unsuccessfully to eke out a living as a writer. He ended up editing a construction trade magazine instead. In 1981 he finally published a novel, but it was a flop. He joked that he knew he sold at least one copy because a reader sent him a letter.

See a Problem, Summon a Life

Follow your dreams or be practical?—that’s the question WNYC host Brian Lehrer (photo below) posed on-air yesterday to the Class of 2011.

This either/or approach works great for talk radio, but not so well for everyday life.  Who says you can't have a paying job and pursue a passion on the side, that being practical means your dreams must be deferred?

Perhaps a better question would have been: "Is it reasonable to expect young people who've just graduated from college to know what their calling is?"  

As NYT op-ed columnist David Brooks (photo below) says in a piece titled  "It’s Not About You":

[V]ery few people at age 22 or 24 can take an inward journey and come out having discovered a developed self.  Most successful young people don’t look inside and plan a life.  They look outside and find a problem, which summons their life.

That’s certainly what happened to me with Defying Gravity.  I was looking for a way to inspire my community college students to stay in school and stick with their dreams.  I saw a problem--a high drop-out rate--and discovered a calling.  Mind you, I was in my forties at the time, not my twenties.

Brooks ends by saying, “The purpose in life is not to find yourself.  It’s to lose yourself.”

Credits:  Brian Lehrer photo: MarcoAntonio.com.  David Brooks photo: Josh Haner/NYT

The Elevator Speech

Madison Avenue types know that an elevator speech—a snappy description of a product or service presented in the time span of an elevator ride— can help seal the deal if you’re pitching something.  But did you know that crafting an elevator speech can also help you clarify your goals?

Being able to quickly and succinctly sum up what you’re doing in a way that excites others can be a fundamental step on the road to achieving your dreams.  To begin, you only need three essential elements:

Launch Pad

Civic Ventures, the non-profit think tank on boomers, work & social purpose that coined the term “encore careers” and sponsors the Purpose Prize, has started another contest called Launch Pad aimed at “helping people over age 45 turn creative ideas for solving problems in their communities into working solutions.” 

Online voting for the twenty-five finalists began yesterday.  The contest ends February 25th.  The five winners, who will be announced in early March, will each receive $5,000, plus resources and support from the larger Encore.org community.

Click here to vote.   Even if you don’t care to select a winner, consider taking a moment to skim the following list of finalists and their pet projects.  You never know.  Maybe one of their ideas will spark one of your own.

Robin K. Blum - In My Book®

Every product has a story behind it, a person who dreamed up the idea and made it a reality.

When I spotted this charming, pen-and-ink bookmark/greeting card for sale in the Westport Public Library, I already knew a snippet of its history, recognizing the card as the creation of one of my Facebook friends, a woman named Robin K. Blum (above) from Brooklyn, NY. 

Curious to learn more, I emailed her.  Not surprisingly, I discovered that Robin’s overnight success was more than ten years in the making.

Although Robin has worked in the creative sector since ’72, spending her early career doing stage lighting for a variety of dance companies and most of the 90’s being a jack-of-all-trades at children’s book publisher Kane/Miller, she had never run her own business until In My Book®.

Like many late-blooming entrepreneurs, Robin started small.

Elita Sohmer Clayman

TSo you think you can dance?

“Of course you can!” says Elita Sohmer Clayman, a 75-year old ballroom dance enthusiast from Baltimore, Maryland.

Thirty-two years ago, on November 2, 1977, this elegant elder and her husband Jerry took their first dance class together, hoping to be able to do a respectable waltz and rumba at an affair they were putting on for their son’s 13th birthday.

Little did Elita know when she walked into the studio that day that her life was about to change forever.   "The first thing I saw on the shelves were some trophies some of the students had won," Elita writes in an e-mail to me.  "Then and there, I knew that was what I wanted on my shelves."

Today Elita's shelves are full, her first series of ten lessons having led to a grand total of 58 trophies and medals.

Introducing L Diane Wolfe: Overcoming Obstacles with Spunk

Today I'd like to welcome fellow blogger L. Diane Wolfe, author of the Circle of Friends series of novels and the just-released Overcoming Obstacles with Spunk: The Keys to Leadership & Goal Setting.

I love this woman! She doesn't believe in the word impossible and is willing to do whatever it takes to spread her message of hope.

Her Circle of Friends series, described as “encouragement personified," is set in the South and aimed at a young adult/adult audience. The intertwining stories focus on friendship, overcoming obstacles and pursuing dreams. (Now you know why I'm interested in her work.) Diane's newest book, her first foray into the non-fiction arena, outlines what it takes to become an effective and dynamic leader.

Here's some Q&A I recently did with her:

Staying Focused

A little less than a year ago, my husband’s mom moved into an graduated-care facility in Northern Virginia, leaving behind a two-bedroom home filled with thirty-five years of memories and a lifetime of possessions.

Last week my sister-in-law Mary and I traveled to Camden, South Carolina to clean out the place.  Needless to say, it was a big job.

To add to the enormity of the task, my mother-in-law collects nick-knacks the way nylon collects lint. Every room was crammed with tchotchkes and trinkets.

If we’d had unlimited time, perhaps we could have packed without a plan, but we only had three days.  But rather than getting overwhelmed, Mary and I stepped back and asked ourselves: “What categories of items are taking up the most space?” We figured that if we could identify a few areas and divvy them up, we'd make quick, visible progress.

We also decided to reward ourselves each evening with a pitcher of margaritas.

Doing a quick walk-through of the house, we determined that books, linens and clothes were the largest groups of items. I took on the first two; Mary tackled the latter. The knick-knacks were easy to deal with once we’d emptied the house of everything else. (The photo at the top of this posting is of the living room after all the major stuff had been removed. The two smaller photos are of Mary and me in the living room once we'd finished with it.)

As Mary and I boxed and bagged, it occurred to me that our triage technique not only prevented us from getting mired in minutiae but could be replicated to achieve almost any dream or goal.

Margaritas are optional.

Penny Pearlman on the Importance of Showing Up

For the past two years, I've been watching my dear friend Penny Pearlman conceive, gestate and birth her first book: Pretty Smart: Lessons from Our Miss Americas.

After traveling all across the country interviewing 22 former Miss Americas (including Phyllis George and Gretchen Carlson of Fox & Friends), Penny has much wisdom to share about going for a dream. In a future posting, I'll tell her wonderful story in greater depth, but here's a quick taste from her own blog:

Earlier this week I gave a talk before a group called the Passion Project here in Connecticut. Each month the moderator (my dear friend and fellow author, Prill Boyle) invites a woman to share her journey and her passion.

As I thought about what I would say and listed the seminal moments in my life, I realized that the thread that ran through my various travels towards achievement, around obstacles and through my own self doubts is that I showed up. I showed up when opportunity presented itself. I showed up when I was looking for a new path. I showed up even though my knees were quaking.

Dreams Matter

The inauguration of America's first black President on the heels of Martin Luther King Day attests to the fact that no matter how far our economy sinks, how difficult our lives become, our noblest hopes and dreams will continue--as they always have--to try and steer humanity to a brighter future.

Five years after publishing Defying Gravity, I still stand by these words from my introduction:

Kelly Moore

I always say, "Dream big and follow through."

Take 50-something Kelly Moore. For years Kelly was a sideman for bands and studios, eventually becoming a solo artist. At the same time, he was also performing in nursing homes and prisons, longing not just to make music, but to make a difference. Whenever he saw major athletes or rock stars doing great deeds, he dreamed of following in their footsteps.

Then one night the phrase "Music For Mankind" literally popped into Kelly's head. He immediately knew he was onto something big.

In 2007 he acted on the idea, creating the Music for Mankind® benefit concert series, the proceeds of which go to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and other international humanitarian organizations for disaster relief. With his new ensemble Emerald Dreams, Kelly has already performed 13 concerts that have helped feed over 31,000 people.

Sharpening Your Tools

"Whatever tools you need to accomplish your dreams should be finely sharpened before you begin," my friend Rozanne Gates said the other day. How right she is. If you’re getting ready to market a book, for instance, you'll probably want to have a well-designed website up and running long before your book hits the stores. Or if you're launching a business, chances are good that you'll want to set up a great record-keeping system prior to ordering supplies. As any carpenter will tell you, having the right tools for the job is half the battle.

Photo credit: ThisOldHouse.com. (Click here to access the page from which the above picture was taken.)

My Election Day Dream

No matter who wins tonight, I hope that the next four years will be filled with less rancor than the ones of our recent past. Instead of demonizing those who don't believe as we do, I dream that we will turn to one another and, hand in hand, build a brighter future.

To Everything a Season

Here's a column I wrote last month for the Nat'l Assoc. of Baby Boomer Women that has some relevance to our current financial climate:

Cultivating Resilience

I love all four seasons.

No matter how bleak the winter has been, by April my hydrangeas are budding, the copper beach and pin oaks are leafing out, and the lilies of the valley are once again poking their stems through the earth. Not all my plants make it through the winter. My Connecticut soil is less than ideal, for instance, for growing lavender, and every few seasons I have to replace mine. But each year, most of my garden survives.

We human bloomers, late or otherwise, are a resilient bunch as well. We have to be for the seeds of our dreams to germinate and multiply. The winter of our adversity ultimately strengthens our resolve.

Think of Christopher Reeve, the actor who became a quadriplegic after a riding accident. In the movies, he played Superman, but in real life he became someone much larger: a down-to-earth role model who epitomized the power of persistence and hope. Yes, like my lavender, he eventually succumbed to the elements, but while alive, his blooming was abundant.

Or consider surfer Bethany Hamilton, who was attacked by a shark in 2003 and lost her left arm below the shoulder. No sooner had she recuperated than she was back on her board again, making the best of what she still has. She, too, is a role model for anyone who feels defeated by misfortune.

No athlete wants to lose. No entrepreneur wants her business to fail. No writer enjoys receiving a rejection letter. But many of the people we most admire have experienced repeated setbacks along the way to achieving their long-term goals.

University of Pennsylvania psychology professor Angela Duckworth calls this combination of perseverance and passion “grit.” Grit, she says, is the one characteristic shared by prominent leaders in every field. And guess what? According to Duckworth’s research, older individuals often measure higher in grit than younger ones. Our advancing age, in other words, might actually be an asset when it comes to late blooming.

Six months ago, the dried-up stalks in my flower beds looked as if no life would ever come from them. If I didn’t know better, I would have yanked them from the ground. Now after a summer of glorious blooming, my plants once again are starting to fade. Next spring, the cycle will start anew.

Note: The photo of my fading hydrangeas was taken two weeks ago.

Michele Albano

Like Jenna in the movie Waitress, Michele Albano has turned her childhood passion for pie making into a thriving business.

This morning, this warm-hearted and determined woman spoke to an overflowing crowd at an organization I run called the Passion Project. (In a later posting, I'll tell you more about this group.) Her whole life she's been making pies, but she never thought seriously about pie making as a career until she saw a show on the Food Network about America's top 10 pie companies and said to herself, "I can do this!"

Dissatisfied with her real estate job, she eagerly began to research the business. Her plan was to start selling her pies--chocolate pecan bourbon, apple cranberry crumb, you name it--at farmers markets. But right away, she hit a snag. To sell food in Connecticut, one has to be licensed; and with no access to a commercial kitchen, she couldn't move forward.

Her solution? To go to Vermont, a state that has fewer health regulations than Connecticut, and begin her pie-making business there.

Working out of her tiny Killington ski condo, filling every available surface with pies, she baked five days a week, shuttling back and forth between Vermont and Connecticut, selling both pies and houses.

Then she started entering her pies in contests, winning first place in several. (My mom swears that Michele's blueberry-peach is the best pie she's ever tasted.)

Just before Christmas last year she opened Michele's Pies in Norwalk, CT. The line was out the door. She's already outgrowing the space.

Back in 2006, sitting at her grandmother's deathbed, Michele made a vow to herself that someday she would make her grandmother's pies famous. A few months ago, not long after her store opened, five of her pies won blue ribbons at the 2008 National Pie Championship.

As she was winding up her talk this morning, Michele told the group that she's been lucky every step of the way. I piped up and reminded her that she's had enormous obstacles to overcome. "It's not all luck," I said. "Most people would have given up when they couldn't get licensed, or collapsed from exhaustion as they juggled two careers."

Michele acknowledged that perhaps I was right. "I love what I do," she said with a big smile. "That's my secret."

Exercise of the Week: Imagining Your Legacy

This exercise answers the question: "How do I want to be remembered?" When I was teaching, I assigned it in tandem with my "Imagine You're Ninety" exercise. (See my 8/18/08 posting.) In essence, you're writing your epitaph. Sound morbid? Just try it. I think you'll find it an enlivening challenge.

Instructions:

• Once again, imagine that you're 90, taking your last breath.
• What would you hope to have inscribed on your tombstone?

Here are some examples my students came up with:

• Honesty - Integrity - Humanity
• A Teacher to the End
• Pioneering Scientist & Physician
• A Friend to Nature & All Living Things
• Loving Husband - Caring Father - Loyal Friend

What's the objective? Whatever you set out to accomplish in life, you don't want to lose your humanity in the process. This exercise helps you keep focused on what's most important to you.

Note: Pictured above is my dad's tombstone.

Nothing Happens Unless First a Dream

Three Saturdays this August a stretch of New York City's Park Avenue was closed off to cars and trucks.

As a little girl, looking north from a window on the 14th Floor of 230 Park, the spire-topped jewel where my father's engineering firm was located (in the photo above, it's the building directly in front of the MetLife Building), I never imagined that someday children would be able to ride their bikes in the street below.

But obviously someone did.

Photo Credit: Andrea Mohin/The New York Times. To read the accompanying article ("Hitting the Asphalt for a Final Car-Free Saturday"), click here.

Exercise of the Week: Imagine You're Ninety

I created this exercise in January of 2000 for a writing course I was teaching at Norwalk Community College in Connecticut. I wanted to inspire my students to become bolder in their lives and braver with their dreams. "Our most important creation is ourselves," I said to them. "Each moment our stories are being written whether we write them or not. So why not take up your pen? Why not make your story the story you want?"

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Imagine you've just died and lived the life of your dreams. Pretend you’re the journalist or loved one who is writing your obituary.

2. Describe your dream life in the past tense, as if it had already happened.

3. Using the 3rd person (“she” or "he" rather than “I”), recount what you achieved and what kind of person you became. Be as vivid and specific as possible.

4. Don’t worry about being ridiculous. Just let your imagination run free.

5. As you write, follow these four guidelines:

Imagine living to be at least 90. When you allow yourself the possibility of living almost a century, all sorts of things you thought you were too old to do suddenly seem worth attempting. Just turned forty? Want to learn the violin? By the time you’re ninety, you’ll have been playing fifty years!

Go for what gives you joy. No sense fantasizing you’re a nuclear physicist if you hate math. On the other hand, if you love wild animals, why not envision going on an African safari?

Don't shy away from pursuits that take a long time to pay off. Mastering a difficult skill or earning an advanced degree is not as daunting as it sounds when you take it step by step. Even if you have to pass several levels of remedial math and English before enrolling in a single class for college credit, it’s still only a matter of putting one foot in front of the other.

Don't let a lack of money (or anything!) come between you and your dreams. There are all sorts of ways to raise cash or circumvent the need for it. You can take a second job, get a loan from a bank, or barter your skills. It's even possible that some distant relative will die and leave you the exact amount necessary to fund your endeavor. Stranger things have happened.

Although this exercise comes with no guarantees, doing it myself (as a model for my students) awakened my desire to be a writer. Four years later I published my first book.

Note: I've previously published this exercise in the National Association of Baby Boomer Women's monthly newsletter as well as in For the Children, an annual publication edited by radio host Jordan Rich to raise money for Children's Hospital in Boston.

Speaking About Potential...

Here's a video that my son Ev Boyle submitted for the CNN/YouTube debates last summer. He poses the question: Is peace possible? Although he doesn't say this in the clip, and perhaps wouldn't even say it if pressed (his triteness radar is fine-tuned), his question implies that to be able to harness the energy and resources necessary to attain a dream, one must believe in its potential for being realized.

Note: After the debate, Dennis Kucinich personally responded to Ev's question.