Author Archives: Darrell Gurney
Author Archives: Darrell Gurney
We invite you to enjoy our holiday playlist below as you go about your festivities!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0XOmgJc2cE&list=PL9ffyEuOu_F0T4iLL-yY2S-GH9YxO7Z1e
Regardless of if you feel you are in the middle of a midlife crisis or not, let’s face it, midlife is full of obstacles.
Between children, parents, work, and finances there are endless pitfalls that seem to spring up out of nowhere. These “crises” are going to happen and anyone who tells you that you can avoid them is delusional.
Many people find themselves victimizing themselves over past challenges they have endured. How many times have you even blamed something in your present over what has “happened to you” in your past? By victimizing yourself, you are actually holding back your true potential.
This concept is also true for hardships that you currently find yourself in the midst of. Instead of feeling like a victim of these (guaranteed) changes, try to see them as opportunities to change for the better.
Come back next week for Pro Tip #6 and remember that the only person who can decide if you are a victim is YOU!
Click on the video below to listen to my top 30 songs to get you into the holiday spirit!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0XOmgJc2cE&list=PL9ffyEuOu_F0T4iLL-yY2S-GH9YxO7Z1e
Or, if you would like to find the music on your own, here is a list of the 30 songs included in the above playlist.
It’s that time of year again, the time of year when you are buying gifts for your loved ones. But then, there’s the wrapping.
When I was a child, my mother instilled in me the importance of wrapping presents beautifully. She said that by wrapping something well, you were showing that you cared about the receiver of your gift.
For years I frustratedly learned the art of wrapping the perfect package, all the while wishing that I could just wrap the gifts quickly and throw on a pre-made bow or (gasp!) put a present in a gift bag like my father and brother often did. But now that I am grown I find myself appreciating the knowledge that my mother passed down to me. These days I feel that well-wrapped presents under the tree are accents that are just as important as all of the other decorations around my home.
So today I will share my knowledge with you and teach you the art of wrapping the perfect present and, even more importantly, the elusive perfect bow!
You will need your gift in a box, wrapping paper, a pair of scissors, tape and ribbon.
Unroll your wrapping paper and set your gift on top of the unrolled paper. There is a trick for cutting the perfect amount of paper. Roll your box across the paper 4 times (one time for each side of the box). This will give you the perfect amount of paper for the front and back side of your package. For the sides, make sure you have about 3/4 of the height of the package worth of paper on each side of the square.
Cut your paper to the correct size. Once you have your paper ready, turn your package upside down so the back of the package is facing up.
Fold over the edge of your wrapping paper that will be on top when wrapping to make sure that you have a clean edge showing instead of your ragged cut edge. Fold the paper and hold together with a piece of tape.
Now for the sides. The trick is to crease all of your edges (I use the back of my fingernail against the ground and corners of the box). First, fold down the top and crease the sides. Then repeat the same on the sides and then the bottom. Fold the bottom up and secure with a piece of tape (or two).
The bow is a bit more complicated so I created the below infographic for your convenience. Grab your ribbon and let’s get started!
Somewhat similarly to last week’s tip (Take Stock of Your Gifts & Talents), I have a question to ask you. When was the last time you actually sat down to think of your values?
I seriously doubt that anyone in midlife can say that they hold the same values as they did in their 20s, or even their 30s. Taking time to clearly lay out your values that have shifted as you have gained more life experience will make it possible for you to succeed at whatever you choose to do next.
If you hold onto values simply because that’s what you’ve always believed, you are setting yourself up for failure by relying on obsolete belief systems.
In many ways, life helps us discover our current priorities by using our most recent values. Therefore, don’t let your current and future opportunities and priorities be sabotaged by sticking to outdated priorities.
Come back next week for Pro Tip #5 and remember that you control where your life goes next!
Today I bring you some amusement from the past.
Nearly 35 years ago, in 1982, this game graced the board game shelves. Its tagline was “can you survive your mid-life crisis without cracking up, breaking up, or going broke?”
The game was produced in California by The Game Works, Inc in 1982 and was re-released in 1993. According to an article in The New York Times from 1993, the original version of the game sold 700,000 copies. I’m not sure when it went out of production, but it definitely is not easy to find today. It takes about an hour to play, requires 4-6 players, and is only intended for people over the age of 18.
The objective of the game was simply to make it through your midlife with more money, less stress, and fewer divorce points than the other players, and (most importantly) to avoid having to declare a mid-life crisis where you go broke, get divorced, or crack up before the game is over.
To start the game, each player is given a score card and a pawn to place on start. Each player starts the game with a career, $25,000, 500 stress points, and a marriage. To play, each player rolls the die, moves forward the respective number of spaces, and follows the direction on whichever space they land on. Each space can either add or subtract stress points, award or take away money, add or subtract divorce points, or have you use a crisis card or zap card.
An example of a Zap Card:
“PANIC – Your period is late. Go to Doctor and SUBTRACT $1,000 or have the child and ADD 300 STRESS POINTS.”
Basically, crisis cards are things that happen to you and zap cards are things you can make happen to other players. There are also special spaces including career spaces, retreats, and passage spaces.
An example of a Crisis Card:
“Your spouse keeps telling the kids that you are going through the change. Deny everything, talk about personal growth and self exploration. ADD 200 STRESS POINTS.”
When you land on a career space, you must pay the designated amount of money to the player who has that career. Retreats are the 3 big spaces in the middle of the board and they are the spaces you are sent to if you lose your mind, get divorced, or go broke. If you have over 1,500 stress points, you are required to go to Crack-up Ranch for “therapy”. If you get 3 divorce points you have to go to Divorce Gulch to attempt to reconcile with your spouse. If you go bankrupt, you must go to Bankrupt City where you basically become a homeless person begging for change.
The passage spaces are spaces that you cannot skip over. If you roll a 5 and there is a passage space 3 spaces ahead, you must stop there. These spaces make it possible for other players to force a crisis onto you.
The winner is the person with the most money. Each zap card, 100 stress points, or divorce point is equal to $1,000 that you must deduct from your total amount of money at the end of the game.
Do you find yourself still searching for the perfect holiday gifts? Are you realizing that Christmas is less than a week away and getting worried?
Don’t fear, I’ve taken the time to do a little research for you. I found something for everyone on your list. Look through the list below and find your perfect gift!
Everyone has gifts and talents. But when was the last time you actually took the time to take stock of those gifts and talents?
As you have been growing older, you have also been building skills and discovering talents that you didn’t possess when you were younger. Some of your talents were created by conscious planning while others you developed through a necessity.
By taking stock of those new gifts and talents that you have built, you have the chance to find new areas of interest and exploration that you didn’t even realize were an option before.
By the time you find yourself in midlife, you probably have far more skills that you have learned through unplanned exposure. Either you were forced to build the skill for a job or for your family and maybe one of those skills have become a passion or interest of yours.
You’d be surprised at how many possibilities exist for a person to reinvent their life focus. By discovering all of your gifts and talents, you make it possible to purposefully choose the direction you want to head towards next. Take some time and discover what your second half of life has to offer!
Come back next week for Pro Tip #4 and try discovering your newfound gifts and talents that have the potential to reshape your future!
“A more peaceful way to live is to decide consciously which battles are worth fighting and which are better left alone.”
– Richard Carlson
I’m sure I’m the only one who has sat on a customer service line for 30 minutes or more to correct a billing error or get a refund. NOT!
My most recent experience had me realize I was spending $300 worth of my time to save $30. Insanely bad time management.
Some of us are smarter about this than others. Until recently, I fell into the not-so-smart.
Perhaps there’s some ingrained “stand up for justice” orientation that was ingrained from my childhood experiences or, on the other hand, some self-appointed, Corporate Correction Czar-ness that I picked up in early adulthood, whereby customer service and experience became my torch (thank you Tom Peters). Or, maybe I just blindly want to save a buck.
Yet, the price of the discombobulation that the energy and friction endured to reach that justice-for-the-right, in-search-of-excellence reset, or extra buck is often not worth it.
New awareness, patterns and ways of being are always called for if we’re going to keep growing, and especially in The Back Forty. We can’t keep doing things the same old way if our charge is to free ourselves up to play the Big Game we came here to play.
If the first half of life was only R & D, research and development, for us to now do what we came here to do, we want to be getting lighter, not more entrenched in nitter natter. We should (me, myself, and I) consider letting go of things that aren’t so valuable for those that are. Like peace.
There are people and events in our lives and workplace, businesses we frequent, and family and friends we spend time with during holidays that seem to always stick something in our craw.
Do we grab every opportunity to be right and support the justice of humanity? Only if we want to be a wreck.
‘What price peace?’ is a good question to keep asking ourselves in living every day as our best day, and especially in the lightening up process of gearing up for our Big Game Back Forty future.
Am I encouraging rolling over all the time? Perhaps not. Perhaps there’s a battle that must be fought. And yet, not every single one.
It’s been said that sometimes we need to lose the small battles in order to win the war.
Perhaps sometimes we need to simply let go of the small battles to enjoy peace of mind, body and spirit.
What battle can you release and forego today for the pricelessness of your Back Forty peace?
“Don’t let something that doesn’t matter cause you to lose something that does. ”
– Anonymous