As I sit in the audience of over 900 people, I marvel at the magnetism of the short, gray haired, motherly lady who is enrapturing the mostly 50 plus female audience who have come to participate in her extremely funny, lively, afternoon workshop on Creating The Life You Will Love. After the workshop is complete, Barbara Sher, having just traveled to San Francisco from New York, still shows no signs of jet lag. She speaks animatedly to each and every person who would like to talk with her individually.
Barbara Sher, best selling author of “It’s Only Too Late if You Don’t Start Now: Creating Your Second Life After 40” is fond of saying “La vida es corta, pero ancha” Spanish for “life is short but it is wide”. Barbara speaks from experience. Turning 70, Barbara’s life has indeed been wide. She has impacted millions of people with her phenomenally successful books, workshops, and television appearances. Prior to publishing her first book at age 44, Barbara was a therapist, a career counselor and a welfare mother.
Barbara says that there is far more time in your life to do a large variety of exciting things than you may think. To illustrate her point, Barbara designed a simple, fun exercise for you to complete.
Ask yourself if you had five more lives to be you (the you as you are now) what would you do with them? We are talking about five more opportunities to explore your different talents, interests, or lifestyles.
Once you have listed your five lives, you have the material for five new fascinating life goals. You can then design a five-year life plan, using these lives as inspiration. Just ask yourself what you love about each of those lives in shaping new exciting goals. You can accomplish these life goals simultaneously, sequentially, or in alternating fashion. Do this exercise every five years and you will indeed live a wide, multi-faceted adventurous life!
Since I have been on Barbara’s five-year plan, I have reinvented myself many times over. I plan to celebrate each five year birthday 55, 60, 65+ landmark with a tremendous five-year celebration. I love the idea of having one big birthday celebration every five years, with my yearly birthday a much smaller milestone.
Barbara has so inspired me to create and live my own second mid-life, that I am now a Barbara Sher registered Success Team Leader. I have facilitated her workshops for hundreds of mid-life women. It is incredibly exciting to see women’s lives transformed by new dreams: creating meaningful new businesses, starting new and renewed relationships, and pursuing satisfying new passions of all shapes and sizes.
Each month, I will share with you the real life tips, strategies, and insights from this phenomenal group of women on creating wide, varied and most interesting lives no matter what your age or circumstances. So, hold on, you are in for one fabulous ride!
