Barbara Traynor

Barbara Traynor, author of Second Career Volunteer:  A Passionate & Pennywise Approach to Retirement, spends six months of every year volunteering at an organization of her choice in exchange for room and board.  

One year she worked at a small college in Alaska.  (See photo, above, of Barbara kayaking with some new friends in her free time.)  Another year she worked at a wildlife refuge in Florida.  This year she’ll be volunteering at Russell Cave National Monument in Alabama. 

Not bad for a woman in her 70s who depends on Social Security for her entire income and never thought she’d be able to retire, let alone travel all around the United States.

 This week I interviewed Barbara on “Ageless” and hosted her for the night at my place.  After she went to bed, I read her entire book from cover to cover.  It’s filled with inspiring stories of other volunteer careerists and a wealth of resources for anyone interested in exploring this lifestyle.  

Although the book is geared to retirees living on a fixed income, the financial crisis has made its content relevant to a much broader swath of people—recent college grads who can’t land a job, midcareer professionals who’ve been laid off, even affluent retirees who’ve grown weary of playing golf and want to give back.  

As Barbara herself says, “My volunteer lifestyle enables me to live within my limited…income without effort, travel to places only dreamed of, and network with an incredible group of people.  It does not get better than that!"

No Time Like the Present

Reading about Steve Jobs’ death tonight at the age of 56, I feel a renewed sense of urgency to seize the moment.  I’ve already lived a year more than he did.  With that in mind, today I’ve chosen to re-run a post I published on February 10, 2008.  When I wrote this, my friend Laurie’s husband Jim had just died of a brain tumor.

A memorial celebration was held yesterday for Jim McKennan, the husband of my friend Laurie Gordon. He was only 54 years old and the father of four school-age children. Over 700 people came to the service.

I was fortunate to be able to spend some time with Jim the last few weeks before he died. On each occasion, I left with the conviction that our connections with others nourish and sustain us as much as our dreams.

Throughout his life, Jim’s priority was his loved ones. He was enormously successful in business, the creative genius behind the Wendy’s campaign that featured founder Dave Thomas. But he almost never left his house before nine in the morning and tried to be home by six each night. He didn’t want to miss seeing his children off to school and hearing about their day when they returned.

Walking Through Fear

I'm in the middle of a whirlwind of guests, speeches and travel, and too busy to keep up with my regular, weekly blogging.  Until my life calms down again, I'm going to be reprising some of my favorite posts from the past.  This one is from October 21, 2006.  In hindsight, I'm happy to report that I wasn't crazy to try my hand at fiction.  Even if my novel still isn't ready for prime time, I wrote my way to the end and had an incredible time immersing myself in the creative process.  And, yes, every day I still practice walking through fear.  

We’re all afraid.

If we’re not anxious about getting senile or going broke, we’re worried that our children will start using drugs or that we’ll end up as one-hit wonders.

It doesn’t matter how accomplished, brilliant and beautiful we are. Fear comes with the territory of being human. And the better we are at navigating through it, the more comfortable we feel in our skins and surroundings.

Facing fear also goes hand-in-hand with realizing our dreams. That’s why for the past six years, beginning the morning I got the inspiration to write my first book, I’ve been trying to do one bold thing a day. Anything that scares me, that makes my stomach go up and down or causes my breath to catch in my throat, qualifies. Cold calling a radio producer, speaking before a large audience, saying no to an unwelcome invitation—I count them all. I’ve even given myself credit for trying gorgonzola cheese. (The smell alone frightens me!)

61-Year Old Swimmer Holds Head Up High

Yesterday, in a stretch of sea half-way between Cuba and Key West, 61-year old marathon swimmer Diana Nyad abandoned a dream.  

Ms. Nyad's quest was to complete the 60-hour, 103-mile journey without a shark cage.  For two years she had been in training, swimming 12 hours every other day and lifting weights in between.  Years before, at the age of 29, she had set a record for the longest ocean swim:  102.5 miles from Bimini to Jupiter, FL.  Now she was determined to set another.  She wanted to show people that life isn’t over at 60.  “People  my age must try to live vital, energetic lives,” she told Don Van Natta of the NYT.  "We're still young.  We're not our mothers' generation at 60."

The Longevity Paradox

I'm worried about aging.  There, I said it.  I might be the Defying-Gravity gal, but I'm as afraid as the next person of outliving my money, my loved ones and perhaps even my usefulness.

Keep in mind that I'm luckier than most--a member of an all-too-exclusive group of people who have investments, health insurance and an extensive, multigenerational support network.  An alarming percentage of my close friends lack at least one of the three, and I can't even count the number of my acquaintances for whom retirement is not even an option.

What I'm getting at is that as much as I believe in letting our passions guide us as we segue from one stage of life to another, I realize that heroic reinvention is still the exception rather than the rule.

Part of the problem is that boomers are caught in a longevity paradox.

The Hero Within

In light of recent events in the Persian Gulf and Japan, I want to mention once again how important it is to make a habit of being courageous. 

(I’m saying this as much for myself as I am for anyone else.)

Who, in other words, doesn’t long to speak out against injustice? And if, heaven forbid, a flood rises around our house or a building crashes at our feet, who wouldn’t prefer to be the one who reaches out and lends a hand rather than the one who ignores others’ pleas and saves only herself?

But just as our "bold muscles" need to be exercised in order to attain our dreams, so too do we have to continually practice doing the right thing when the stakes are small if we are to have any chance of doing it when lives are on the line.

Which reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?   ~Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Photo Credit:   Reuters/Aly Song  

A Profile in Courage

Some people are born daredevils, risking life and limb without breaking into a sweat.  Others are born chickens, plagued by so much self-doubt that even when they desperately long to to take a leap in their lives, they can't.

And then there are those who are just as afraid as the non-leapers, yet jump anyway.  George VI of Britain, nicknamed “Bertie” by his family and played to perfection by Colin Firth in The King’s Speech, was just such an individual--or so the film would have us believe.

Trying to overcome a debilitating stammer as he ascends to the throne, the future king struggles mightily, but doesn't give up.  When speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) says to him, "Bertie, you're the bravest man I know," the audience understands exactly what he means.

How can the rest of us cultivate this kind of courage?  The film provides a roadmap:

The 29-Day Giving Challenge

Pain, whether physical or emotional, is one of those things that either brings out the best in us or beats us to pulp.  Some people turn to religion. Others immerse themselves in activity. Still others retreat inside.

What most Americans would not do, I venture to say, is consult a South African medicine woman--which is exactly what 36-year old Cami Walker did.

Diagnosed four years ago with multiple sclerosis, Ms. Walker suffered from depression. Her illness was putting a strain on her new marriage. For a time, she even lost the use of her hands and vision in one eye.

That’s when she turned to holistic healer Mbali Creazzo.  “You’ve got to stop focusing on the problem,” Ms. Walker says Creazzo told her. “You’re feeding the disease.”

Creazzo’s prescription? A month of giving. 29 gifts in 29 days.

How to Stay the Course

Even the biggest names in literature struggle to put words on the page—that’s the moral of a recent Wall Street Journal story entitled "How to Write a Great Novel."

Not surprisingly, the headline is a tease.  None of the 11 top authors interviewed for the article, including Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel (pictured above, courtesy Writers Pictures), actually tells how to write a good book, let alone a great one.  They all, however, talk freely about the challenges involved and how they deal with them.

Between the lines, the article shows that writing a novel is not all that different from pursuing other passions. Among a host of hurdles, these authors struggle with procrastination, fear of failure and the ever-present lure of the Internet.

Sound familiar?

The bottom line:  To write a novel, thousands of hours of hard work are required with no guaranteed payoff other than random moments of intense exhilaration and the satisfaction of having achieved a dream. 

Which, at least to my way of thinking, is (almost) compensation enough.

Enjoying the Moment

I'm out of the country this week and too busy to blog at length, but I wanted to share a snippet from a letter I recently received from my husband's cousin Mary (pictured above in her hot tub last week) who, like me, is in her 50's.  Last spring she was diagnosed with uterine cancer, which has now spread to other organs.  Throughout the entire ordeal, she's somehow managed to remain upbeat, yet realistic. 

Here's what she says: Don't put off any physical issues, get them checked, and don't put off any fun you'd like to have.  You never know what lies ahead.  This still seems surreal to me.  I never in a million years dreamt that I'd get cancer.

Tony Melendez

Talk about defying gravity! Born without arms, Nicaraguan Tony Melendez learned how to play the guitar with his feet. Watch this 1 min. 49 sec. video of him performing “Let It Be":


Make sure to watch--or scroll--all the way to end.

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.

Seeing Setbacks as Stepping Stones

The daughter of a friend of mine was rejected last week from both her first and second-choice law schools. She was wait-listed from the third and hasn’t heard yet from the fourth. Understandably, she was demoralized. She’d been dreaming of living in Chicago next year and eventually, law degree in hand, working for the FBI.

Her dad asked me to give her a call, so I did. First, I commiserated. Then I tried to buoy her with platitudes. (“When one door closes, another opens,” I said.) But I have to admit that other than assuring her that she’s loved no matter whether she gets into law school or not, I doubt I helped much.

A few days later I was chatting with another mom who had also contacted my friend’s daughter. This woman had a radically different approach. She said to the girl, “What’s your game plan? How are you going to move forward?” The woman then suggested that the girl contact the one school she was wait-listed from and ask what she could do to increase her chances of acceptance. She also advised being proactive and writing a letter to the school she hadn’t heard from yet, updating the admissions committee on any accomplishments she’d had and awards she’d earned between when she’d originally applied and now. And finally, the woman said, “Look at your alternatives."

Exercise of the Week: Turning Obstacles into Opportunities

When doctors implanted a pacemaker in 79-year old flight attendant Evelyn Gregory's heart a few years back, thereby grounding her forever, I phoned her to see how she was faring. A true people lover, she had told me several times over the years how much she loved her job. It was a calling for her, the fulfillment of a childhood dream. I expected her to feel depressed, or at least deflated, but she was in good spirits. "Don't worry about me, Prill," she said. "I'm the kind of woman who sees obstacles as stepping stones to greater opportunities."

I thought of Evelyn this morning as I was flipping through my Georgetown alumni magazine. In an article titled Out on the Hilltop: LGBTQ Experiences at Georgetown, I came across a profile of a man named Wes Combs who graduated a few years before me. He told the interviewer: "I have dedicated my life to not letting sexual orientation or gender identity be a barrier but instead an opportunity." Today he is the co-owner of a marketing and public relations firm that helps Fortune 500 companies develop and implement strategies to reach the LGBT consumer market.

Keeping Evelyn and Wes in mind this week, here's an exercise you might want to try: Choose an obstacle that is coming between you and your dreams and examine it from all angles. Then ask yourself: "Is there anything I can do to turn the situation to my advantage?"

Note: The obstacle I plan to examine this week is my writer's block. (The blue file box at left contains research for the novel I'm working on; the document on top is the first draft.) I'll let you know what happens.

Exercise of the Week: Worry Once and Do It Well

This week's exercise was inspired by an article I read yesterday in the Jobs section of the NY Times. Business writer Phyllis Korki speaks with clinical psychologist Margaret Wehrenberg, author of The Anxious Brain, about how to quell financial anxiety. (Click here to read the full piece.) Wehrenberg's advice to "worry once and do it well" has all sorts of applications to late blooming. Here's a brief snippet of the conversation:

PK: What...can you do to tame anxiety?

MW: If you're going to fret, be systematic about it and get it over with. If you're concerned about your finances, for example, meet with a financial planner and decide what steps to take to protect assets the best you can. If you're worried about losing a job, update your resume and lay all the other initial groundwork for a job search. Then focus on the job you still have; that is something you can control, as opposed to some horrific future scenario that may never occur.... Say to yourself, "Stop. I already worried," then pull yourself back to your work.

So if you're anxious about something this week, at a minimum make a list of practical steps you can take to alleviate the situation. Then, time and energy permitting, start to address them one by one. Easier said than done perhaps, but great advice.

Special Note: Congratulations to Barbara Techel (who frequently comments on this blog). Her book Frankie, the Walk 'N Roll Dog was just named a winner in the Picture Book Non-Fiction softcover category for USA Book News, National Best Book Awards 2008.

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.

Quote of the Day

www.nataliedutoit.com

In 2001, South African swimmer Natalie Du Toit lost her left left at the knee after being struck by a car as she left a training session. Three years later she won five gold medals at the Paralympics in Athens. In May of this year, she qualified for the able-bodied Olympics, ultimately finishing in 16th place in Beijing. The following poem, a paraphrase of a Benjamin E. Mays quote, hangs on her wall:

The tragedy of life does not lie
in not reaching your goals;
The tragedy of life lies in not
having goals to reach for.

My humble goal for tonight is to make dinner from scratch--maybe a garden-vegetable lasagna with some salad and garlic bread.

Laughing at Ourselves, cont.

If you know you shouldn't take life so seriously, but aren't sure how to lighten up, watch this 1 min. 32 sec. video of my hard-of-hearing, 85-year old mom talking about how she learned to laugh at herself. (I've written a lot about this in previous postings.) In this grim economy, laughter is a great skill to cultivate.

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."

Late Boomer John Federoff

Below are excerpts from an inspiring article I came across yesterday (9/3/08) in The Electric New Paper, Singapore. Click here to read the story in its entirety.

Late Bloomer Goes From Being Cabby to Multi-Millionaire Boss

By Karen Wong

FROM driving a taxi to running a multi-million dollar company. Mr John Federoff might just be the perfect definition of a late-bloomer, having gone back to complete his studies when he was 39.

Six years later, when he was 45, the father of three graduated with two degrees and a Master of Business Administration.

Now at 60, when most people may be making retirement plans, Mr Federoff considers himself at the peak of his career. He is expanding his mining equipment business, making plans to hire more people and seeking new clients and new markets. . . .

Looking back, Mr Federoff said, the most frustrating part of his life was being in a 'rut'. His family was poor and he was caught in the vicious cycle, he said.

'I had to make a concerted effort to break the hold. I did it for my children, or the cycle will never end. . . . '

Of his achievements, Mr Federoff, who revealed that he has assets worth over US$5 million, said: 'A person's future depends on his mindset. Determination, hard work, sacrifice and a positive attitude can raise most people above their circumstances.'

Photo Credit: ABC News/Gary Rivett