Is it important for you to be inspired in your work?   Whether one finds great meaning in one’s work, or one works to provide creature comforts for ones’ family and oneself, or both, work itself is a paramount force in the lives of most Americans.  Statistics abound documenting the dramatic increase in number of days on the job for Americans workers over not only the past several decades, but even over the past ten years.  

When my daughter was between two and three years old, I wouldn’t say we suffered through the typical tantrums of the terrible twos.  But surely we lived with a child whose answer to every question was “No!”  I quickly learned the art of providing options.   

For example, at bedtime I never asked, “Stephanie, are you ready for bed?”  Instead, I’d pose, in the most cheerful, inquisitive voice I could muster without her seeing through me,  “Tonight, do you want to put on your red or your blue jammies?’

Worked like a charm, every time.  She’d be so thrilled with the ability to make her own decision, that she would forget that she didn’t want to go to bed, and instead, put her jammies on, brush her teeth, and head right into the sack!  Who was being taught the lesson?  That would be moi – a lesson in the art of options.

Tonight ushered in one of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve seen on Cayuga Lake.  That’s saying A LOT.  Whether you’re a west sider, who favors the sunrise, or an east sider, who prefers to watch the sun go down, everyone around here is pretty smug about our window on the sun god’s glorious retreat into the horizon.  Another perk of living in the Finger Lakes – nice big vistas and gorgeous sunsets over rolling hills.

The glory of this particular sunset made me smile, realizing that we often refer to our “golden” years as the sunset of our lives.  Smile, because, just as the sun falls below the horizon, its rays permeate the heavens with the most radiant shades of salmon, orange, and red, only to fade to night before us, and a new day to those on the other side of the world, as well as a new dawn for us only hours later.

I was perusing Norm Brodsky’s blog on the Inc. Magazine online edition, and read an article close to my partner Michael’s and my hearts. It was actually written in August of 2007, about when we began telling many business owners who were  emotionally ready to leave their businesses, but still waiting for the “best time”, to “Sell!”  Funny, that’s the title of Norm’ s article. 

What he said then is even more salient now.  It was back in 2007 that Michael was telling anyone who would listen that multiples were the highest they’d be for years to come, maybe ever.  He also predicted the impending implosion of the real estate bubble and the tumbling of the financial house of cards built by hedge fund managers bent on reaping obscene rewards from financial shell games played within the loopholes of financial regulation.

Midlife offers us an often unsolicited opportunity for personal transformation.  As every one of us can testify, either from our own experience, or vicariously, many adults in America are handed this chance-in-a-lifetime through circumstances that are less than optimal. 

I’d like to suggest looking at this life passage with a glass half full – as a mid-life prospect – instead of half empty –  as a time of crisis.  The quickest way to make the turnaround from empty to full is with a change of perspective.  Nothing is more invigorating to personal transformation than inspiration.
My partner Michael and I have recently begun collaborating with a couple of dynamic consultant/personal coaches, Mary Boardman and Ravi Walsh, whose titles I’ve morphed to personal enrichment therapists.  Together we are working to blaze some new trails in the business landscape, to introduce tools to help individuals fully integrate the spiritual element into their work lives.

Given the fast approaching Lansing Harbor Festival , it seems natural to begin my series of business articles on a theme that has been close to my heart and a running theme in our business philosophy and practices: community.

Unless you've been sequestered away on a Rinzai Zen retreat, you've been witnessing what David Korten calls the "Great Turning." In his book, The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Economy, Korten helps us understand why the current political, social, and financial institutions are tumbling and efforts to rebuild on the same foundations will continue to be less than successful. And also, the importance, no, the necessity, of community, in all of our present and future endeavors.