 By Jim Selman | Bio
There is an amazing website called The Brave Nation
that is showcasing people who’ve made a difference. Many of these
examples of human vision, commitment and perseverance are boomers who
challenged ‘the system’ in the '60s and '70s and are now sharing their
experience with the current generation of ‘change agents’. It is
inspiring to remember and reconnect with the idealism of our youth and
perplexing to wonder what happened to so many of us who have drifted
into complacency about (or in some cases complicity with) current
events.[ Read More]
Written by admin at Wisdom in Action
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Over the past couple of years, I have been growing in my appreciation
of just about everything and everyone in my life. I am living most of
the time in an almost sublime state of acceptance and gratitude. Fears
about the future have somehow disappeared. My work is more satisfying
than at any time I can recall and, by all accounts, is more impactful. When I began this inquiry about aging almost 30 years ago, my vision
was that the end of life should have as much possibility as the
beginning—that age didn’t mean anything in terms of the quality of our
lives or what we accomplished. Today that vision, at least for me
personally, has become a reality.[ Read More]
Written by admin at Fearless Aging
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It’s been said a lot of different ways that life is not a destination,
but a journey. A lot of homespun wisdom and formal philosophy attempts
to clarify ‘the purpose of life’ or various other questions about what
we’re doing with our lives and why we do it. A good friend was recently
seeking my advice about his relationship to money. He was somewhere
between perplexed and depressed that he hasn’t been able to produce the
financial results in his business that he wanted. This man is a very
well educated, experienced and competent businessman. He had been
successful working in other companies, but is still in the process of
getting his own business off the ground. I mention this because I think
a lot of us are at that point in our lives where we begin to take stock
of where we are, what we’ve accomplished and what we have in mind for
the next phase of our lives and career. The conversation with my friend
revealed three distinctions I think are generally relevant to anyone
and are worth noting.[ Read More]
Written by admin at Personal Empowerment
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I am always a little disoriented between the seasons when I travel to
Argentina or Brazil. When it is autumn in Canada, it is spring in
Buenos Aires. It is a beautiful and refreshing time of year. I am
thinking about the clichéd parallel between the seasons and the phases
of our lives—this being the autumn of my life. Yet as I travel, I can
see how fluid and changeable the seasons can be depending upon where
you are standing. This is an apt metaphor for living every moment creatively—consciously choosing a frame of mind that says each day can
be the first day of spring (if we look at that way). I wonder…[ Read More]
Written by Jim Selman at Fearless Aging
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I was having a cup of coffee with a very good friend of mine the other
morning. He was feeling down—actually, he said he was feeling a little
‘crazy’. On one level, his life has never been better, his work is
satisfying and, best of all, according to him, he has a new Porsche
that is requiring he move to the next level of performance in driving.
Life is good. Yet, amidst all his success (which includes a loving, happy marriage
and new grandkids), he was in a deep ‘funk’. I say funk because he
wasn't quite depressed, but wasn't feeling well either. He’d spent the
better part of the last month trying to psychoanalyze himself to find
the source of his malaise and achieved not much more than the usual
circular reasoning that we get into when we become trapped in our own
psyche.[ Read More]
Written by Jim Selman at Personal Empowerment
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 Perspective really is everything. When Barb and Jim tell friends
they’re ‘out of town’, they’re not necessarily where you might expect
them to be. They may actually be just down the street or in a
neighbouring community in the cosmopolitan city in which they live. To
this retired couple, being ‘away from home’ translates into days or
weeks spent in someone else’s home, soaking up the ambience of the
neighbourhood, re-creating days spent in foreign cities, immersing
themselves in the local culture while they take care of pets, plants
and possessions.
[ Read More]
Written by Shae Hadden at Wisdom in Action
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Don and Steve are executive coaches who specialize in working with clients approaching their “second half’ to create what is next in their lives. Sometimes this takes the form of starting new business ventures. Sometimes it has to do with preparing for post-retirement transitions. Now I know that ‘coaching’ has become a term all kinds of folks are selling (and not always with sufficient education or experience) but these guys are among the best. Don will be contributing to this blog in coming weeks. All three of us have noticed a shift that occurs as people mature in their careers and approach retirement—a change from looking for ‘productivity and status’ to looking for ‘satisfaction and contribution’. It turns out this isn’t as easy as it sounds. Whether one is in corporate management or working in a home environment, most of us have mastered organizing our lives around the needs and wants of others. In fact, most people are hooked on ‘doing’ and don’t have a lot of practice or support for learning to just ‘be’ themselves, which is what satisfaction is all about. [ Read More]
Written by Jim Selman at Retirement
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I had lunch yesterday with a great friend of mine who is about my age and one of the ‘most alive’, talented and eclectic people I know. She is interested in everything and everyone and is as passionate about life as one can be. As a cancer survivor, she has been through a lot in terms of health challenges, yet is clear that she is not her body. She has never been more enthusiastic about her future and is an inspiration to all that know her. [ Read More]
Written by Jim Selman at Retirement
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I was speaking with a woman today, probably in her late 20s, who works for the Public Service in Canada. She is a graduate of one of top colleges and presumably someone the government doesn’t want to lose. She has a both a big vision for change and a seriously self-limiting conversation about what she is and is not able to accomplish in a big bureaucracy at her age. In the absence of a change in her internal conversation about her future, she will probably leave the Public Service early and we’ll lose a potentially very strong leader. [ Read More]
Written by Jim Selman at Personal Empowerment
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