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What Does The Back Forty Bring to Conferences?

Live Events

Recently, The Back Forty went to their first conference where they participated as an exhibitor. Scroll through the images below to get a feeling of what it was like in our booth and what we brought to the conference.

Curious about what we learned at the event? Check out our previous post about our experience by clicking HERE!

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4 Steps to Peacefulize in a Stress Test

“The components of anxiety, stress, fear, and anger do not exist independently of you in the world. They simply do not exist in the physical world, even though we talk about them as if they do.”

-Wayne Dyer

Times are interesting for sure.

Is there any more fuel for stress today than there was last year, last decade, or last century?

Who knows? We don’t compile that data. Not here anyway.

One thing for sure, the more stress that gets expressed, expanded and elevated, the more seems to show up.

For example, putting aside the incidences of terrorist attacks that seem to have become a part of living in our modern world, the amount of random acts of violence for the most innocuous reasons—a relationship breakup, being cut off in traffic, a layoff—have seemed to rise. Or, is there simply more tension in the general air that have those events just catch our attention more?

Either way, left unchecked, tense times appear to bring about more tense times…for each of us individually and the world as a whole.

I recently noticed that the political climate has had my “guard up” for the last several months. Even though I believe in my mind that I can separate the mood brought about by this climate from my work, my relationships, and my being and interacting in the world, I realized that I’m fooling myself. The general mood I find myself in in one area can’t help but put a pale or cloud over another area.

We’ve all heard that “Wherever you go, that’s where you are.” So, realizing that bracketing or separating out the moods in one area from others won’t just happen on its own, I’ve become more vigilant about stemming the tide of tension.

We are living in times of high-potential stress. It’s what we each do with that potential that makes a difference. The potential either gets expressed, or it gets transmuted by our individual efforts.

Given that muscles are only built from resistance, perhaps this is a perfect time to build muscles around stress…because the world’s resistance to being at peace is all around us.

We can either add to the escalation in our responses and reactions, or peacefulize events and environments through intentional workouts.

Simon Sinek says “We live in times of high stress. Messages that are simple, messages that are inspiring, messages that are life-affirming, are a welcome break from our real lives.”

We seek to do that each week here, in our Back Forty messages and efforts.

What messages can you send out today, whether initiated or in response, to turn the tide toward peace?

Here’s a few ideas to help you Peacefulize in a Stress Test.

Observize

First, it’s important to just notice the resident vibe in which you’re operating.  I say “resident” because it kind of lives in us.  It may be an unwelcomed visitor, but if it’s a negative vibration that snuck in and is living in your basement, it’s smelling up the whole house.

So, first, begin to notice what’s lurking in the unseen. Are you irritable? Are you punchy? Are you easily rattled or thrown into concern or argument? Notice how you respond to the natural flow of life each day and see if you can be an observer to yourself.

Is that person happy and content, from an observer’s point of view, or might they have something going on behind the scenes or under the hood?

Get good at noticing your resident mood…and what might be going on that has you in that mood.

Empathize

Have some empathy for yourself, realizing that you’re not wrong for any reason you may be punchy or irritable, and understand that most people would be operating the same way you are.

You’re only human, and stuff happens that throws the majority of humanity into fear, concern and stress.

Realize

Realize that you have a choice, each and every moment, as to how you’ll be. Will you side with the majority, and be the average person handling stressful times in an average way, being just as argumentative and committed to being right as the next person…or will you be different?

Look, you’re not “right” for choosing to be different, for choosing to find a different way to operate than the majority, but just realize that you do have a choice.

Peacefulize

If you do happen to be one of the minority who choose to take the road less travelled, find ways to bring peace instead of more dissension and tension into every event or environment in which you find yourself.

General tension in the air means that most people will be at a heightened level of blowing off steam.  See, in every situation, how you might be someone who cools down the steam so that, as water, it can flow easily down the path of least resistance, which water tends to do.

Sure, “count to 10” if you need to resort to basics…but, beyond that, how might you serve yourself and others by bringing out the possibility or perfection of every situation vs. buying into the problem that everyone else will be focused on? Be inventive. Be creative. Be different.

“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.”

-William James

In The Back Forty, we say you have yet to do what you came here to do.

If you’re here to play a yet bigger game – no matter what you’ve accomplished thus far – it will take you being different than the rest of the crowd and bringing out ALL of you in a NEW way.

We created The Back Forty Re-NEW-ALL Program for just this reason: to support you to go against the grain of how the majority would view challenges and potential stresses and actually have them serve you to be who you came to be and do what you came to do. Those “stress tests” are really your best friend, helping you get there, if you approach them powerfully.

Check out A Back Forty Re-NEW-ALL Program here, to ReNEW the ALL of YOU.

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20 of the Best Articles to Shift Your Midlife in the Right Direction

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When working our way through midlife, it is easy to feel as if everything is going wrong.

Your kids or moving out, or even worse, they’re not. Your parents are getting older and need more help. Your job is feeling stale but the stability makes you feel as if you couldn’t possibly leave. Your personal style is non-existent. Everything just seems so serious!

The list goes on and on, and with all of these changes, no wonder why people in midlife tend to feel as if things are not the way they should be, or at least are not the way they want them to be.

Therefore, I want to give you a list of some inspirational articles to help you shift your personal midlife experience in the right direction for you. I have 20 articles for you to explore and 7 topics to embrace. Enjoy!

1. Embrace Your Age

2. Find Your Style

3. Don’t Forget About Your Brain!

4. Save More Money

5. Believe in Yourself

6. Make Life Easier

7. Know That You Can Laugh About It

Now that you’ve made your way through my seven topics and 20 articles, I hope that you feel a little lighter, a little more beautiful, and way more inspired!

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How The Back Forty Inspired Joy and Passion at the CWC

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About a month ago, The Back Forty took part in the California Women’s Conference (or CWC). Building up to this event we frantically worked to create the perfect presence. We finalized our first online course, published our first Back Forty journal, and created countless banners and flyers. We didn’t know what to expect walking into that exhibit hall, but we had dreams of the contacts we would gain through our raffles and giveaways, the books we would sell, and the contacts we would make.

Little did we know that another aspect of our booth would be the most rewarding.

At our booth, we had a small recording studio set up. We were thinking that we would interview a few people about the passions they discovered while traveling through midlife. We had no idea how big a role this would end up playing at the conference.

We were thinking that we would complete 15-20 interviews each day, lasting about 5 minutes each. What we weren’t expecting was to be so inspired by the stories of finding one’s passion and the joy of sharing that passion with others.

We ended up conducting about 30 interviews over the two-day conference, but the average video ended up lasting 15 minutes. Suddenly, our expected 3 hours of content became over SEVEN AND A HALF HOURS.

Walking into the event, we had no idea the type of passion and joy we would find in those we interviewed. Now, not only have we had the chance to interview amazing people, but we have been given the opportunity to share these inspiring stories with the world. We have decided to turn these inspiring interviews into an online program aimed at inspiring others to create their second half of life as their best half. Now, this course is not ready to be released yet, but I have put together a short video with some excerpts from our two days of interviewing.

Enjoy!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7mnZfk513I]

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4 Tips to Telling Someone Something That Matters

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“Telling someone how you feel is honestly the hardest thing ever.”

-Unknown

Many of us have been shaped by the self-made-man or self-made-woman motif.

There’s a lot of John Wayne swagger in our images of being successful and together.

And yet, if you dig underneath the neatly coiffed outward appearances, all people experience personal and growth challenges.

One downfall is keeping what’s inside to ourselves.

Too often we find out stuff was going on with someone only after they’ve removed themselves from the conversation.

I recently attended a memorial service for a friend of a friend, and the huge temple was packed and overflowing with mourners.

This man was so lovingly regarded by so many, and yet—though people had been somewhat aware of his depression—nobody knew it would go to the depths it did, having him take himself out… unexpectedly, in the twinkling of an eye.

He had a long reputation for being the cheerful and jovial one. Apparently that personae remained in place until the very end.

If we tell our own truth, others often sense the safety to do the same. The rub is for both ourselves and others to be willing to get outside the standard ways of acting and being with each other.

Not like wearing all our insides on our sleeves, and yet putting the masks and guards down as part of our full repertoire can create a safe space of openness.

In many respects, telling others serves our greater good.

Want to realize that you’re just like everyone else? Tell someone what’s going on with you.

Want to find voices more supportive than those in your head? Tell someone what you’d like to achieve.

Want to be sure you achieve what you say? Tell someone and ask them to hold you accountable.

If we only ever simply capitalized on this last action, which flies in the face of our supposed “independence”—choosing to make ourselves accountable—how much more might we live in life when we have someone holding us to our word of how we want to live it?

What can you tell someone today to plug into resources outside of your own?

Here’s a few tips for telling someone something that will move you forward.

Bare

Want to see if someone is there for the long run with you? Show them the real you right away.

A wise man once said that, if you want to see if a relationship has stickability, put your worst foot forward.

That doesn’t mean actually try to sabotage anything, but most people are always trying to look their best and show up all “together”.  If you can reveal your warts as well as your wonders, you can see what wart-bearing capacity is over there early on.

Share

When you’ve tested the wart-bearing waters—or as another way to do so—share something with someone that you most don’t want anyone to know.

In the world of romantic relationships, it’s a great way to start to really get to know someone beyond the “looking good” phase of initial dating. On each successive date, share the one thing you most don’t want them to know. Ideally, for the game to work, they do the same.

If you start at your deepest “most don’t want them to know” then, on each successive date, you’re working your way up. After a month or so of dating, talk about learning that someone can be with you warts and all.

Sure, it takes trust…but you have to first be the change you want to see, yes?

Dare

Ask someone if you can trust them enough to reveal to them your big dream.  Will they be supportive? Will they empower you?

Asking is a good first step because you don’t want to throw “pearls before swine”.

Then, tell them.

Care

If you really care enough to have that big dream fulfilled, ask them if you can make promises to them about what you’ll do by when you’ll do it to activate that dream.

Ask them to hold you to account for doing what you say by when you say you’ll do it.

Ask them if you can schedule times to check in with them on your progress.

Ask them to be bold and supportive in pointing out to you when you’re not being who you said you’d be or doing what you said you’d do.

The degree to which you commit to empowering them to hold you to account is the degree to which your dream will be realized.

“Tell the truth, or eventually someone will tell it for you.”

-Stephanie Klein

In The Back Forty, we say you have yet to do what you came here to do.

If you’re here to play a yet bigger game – no matter what you’ve accomplished thus far – it will take baring, sharing, daring and caring…to bring out the ALL of you in a NEW way.

We created The Back Forty Re-NEW-ALL Program for just this reason: to have you saying what really matters, and getting over and beyond the challenges that have held you back from realizing it. Those challenges are really your best friend, helping you get there, if you approach them powerfully.

Check out A Back Forty Re-NEW-ALL Program here, to ReNEW the ALL of YOU.

4 Elements to Powerfully Starting Over

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”

-Seneca

What’s the big deal about starting over?

There’s a cultural stigma that says, if you have to start over, you somehow failed on the first attempt.

Yet, every new day offers a new opportunity to take a new look at what’s in front of us…even if it’s patterns, projects and processes that may been going on for a while.

We recently completed a big push towards a conference that pretty much held our focus of attention and finances for the better part of a year. The conference itself turned out to be a bust. Yet, it was holding onto the regrets, couldas, wouldas, shouldas and other forms of making ourselves and others wrong in the aftermath that impeded moving on to “Next!”

This got me thinking that this whole phrase of “starting over” should not be limited to last-ditch attempts when gasping for air before finally going under. What if starting over were a way of life?

Perhaps it’s the ability to see newly what’s already in motion, to come from “beginner’s mind” even when things have been proven to work (or not), that is a practice we want to develop.

Of course, seeing this in hindsight around our year-long initiative doesn’t change anything in the past. But does anything ever change anything in the past…other than learning and moving on with greater awareness?

There’s only moving forward, and I’m thinking that a good forward-moving strategy is to start over continually…and to be proud of saying so.

An intention to grow invites change. Change invites constant transition. Constant transition invites starting over…again and again.

How empowering would it be if we could all get comfortable with a casual response to the common greeting “How are you today?” with “Great! I’m starting over!”

Where can you choose starting over today…even if nothing is broken?

Where can you choose starting over today…especially if you feel something IS broken?

For this reason, we created The Back Forty Re-NEW-ALL Online Program.

If you’re up to playing big games, you’ll always be in constant flux and transition. And if you’ve been dealt what seems like a blow from life, it’s only because you’re on the disempowered side of the Bigger YOU that this transition is bringing with it.

The Back Forty Re-NEW-ALL Online Program shows you how to turn lemons literally into GOLD (forget the lemonade).

You’ll discover:

  • How an attitude of openness to the NEW is part of constant growth
  • A change-based mindset and strategy for playing Big Games
  • Why approaching transition a certain way leaves you more powerful
  • What curiosity and learning to play again offer to a New You

Enroll HERE to ReNEW the ALL of YOU and learn these 4 Elements to Powerfully Starting Over.

Transition

It’s a way of life, and you’ll either adopt a strategy for engaging in it powerfully or you’ll get constant bag-of-brick bruises upside the head that you’ll put all your attention on.

Just like I tell clients around job search and career transition, if you don’t have an ongoing career management strategy, you’ll always be caught off guard.

By learning a strategy to take any of life’s transitions – around relationships, finances, business, health, loved ones, career, etc. – and become more powerful out of them, you set yourself up for unimpeded growth and development.

Blessings

Behind, back-of, inside-of, and underneath all supposed “bad things” that happen to us there are blessings. We rarely want to look at those in the midst of the muck.

However, by turning our attention away from our victim-ness and onto the unseen blessings, all of a sudden they begin to grow in our awareness and activate our next level of growth.

Curiosity

On the other side of the chasm of transition, there are new territories to be explored and new skills and abilities to be developed.

So many of us resist change when we see it coming, and yet there’s nary a one of us that can’t claim some new understanding, skill, capacity, awareness, knowledge or personal improvement on the other side of any change.

Getting clear on the opportunity to grow one’s curiosity becomes a lucky life gift on the far side of yucky life rifts.

Play

Every change brings with it NEWness: of ourselves and the playing fields we then enter.

Learning to give ourselves the freedom to open up and play again – without the need to have it all figured out – brings a breath of fresh air into what might have become a very standard, staid, and typically normal life.

In The Back Forty, we say you have yet to do what you came here to do.

We all think normal is to be sought after, but if we’re really here to play a yet bigger game – no matter what we’ve accomplished thus far – it will take us breaking normal, taking risks again, and learning to have fun in the process.

Enroll HERE to ReNEW the ALL of YOU ) and incorporate these 4 Elements to Powerfully Starting Over into your own radical Back Forty of play, passion and purpose.

“Maybe it’s not always about trying to fix something broken. Maybe it’s about starting over and creating something better.”

-Unknown

4 Steps to Choosing Alternative Energy

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“The energy of the mind is the essence of life.”

-Aristotle

According to current perceptions, the evidence is in.

They are or it is definitely wrong, screwed up, off track, and whacked.

The question is, what choice are you going to make as to how that “fact” affects you?

It’s difficult to balance out what seems to be the very real, tangible, hard and fast proof of our “rightness” with the completely invisible impact of energetic vibrations because the seduction of vindication is juicy.

Yet, more often than not, the impact of unseen negative vibes has costly ripple effects that show up in apparently unrelated yet powerful ways.

The boss levels what appears to be criticism in the morning, and the cat gets kicked at home in the evening.

A business partner leaves you feeling slighted, and all of a sudden there are issues with your power steering.

In The Back Forty, we say that you have yet to do what you came here to do, so playing bigger (not smaller) is the way of your future…no matter your age or what you’ve already accomplished in life.

We all can relate to the archetypal crotchety old man or woman – either because they were part of our immediate or extended family or, if nowhere else, from fiction and movies – who has enough grudges, judgments, opinions, or scars to share for everyone.

Though none of us can see ourselves being that type of person, if left unobserved, an undercurrent of our own un-redirected bitches and moans can build toward that future.

If we plan to be and do yet greater and bigger things all the way until we are up and outta here (vs. society’s message of down and outta here), we will need to be playing, increasingly, with even more folks to bring those things about.

Jean Paul Sartre said “Hell is other people.” Sharing our big game with the world, participating in organizations, joint venturing our businesses, enrolling other in our mission or message…all involves relationships with others. And relationships with others naturally brings about many positive or negative energy choices.

We can’t control what others do. We can only control our response to what they do.

Watching our energy flow like a hawk and making conscious choices as to which direction we will drive it (vs. it flowing the path of least resistance, like water) can have the cat and car much happier…not to mention ourselves, in the long run.

Here are 4 steps to choosing appropriate alternative energy.

Catch the Wave

Become alert to the thoughts you’re thinking at all times, and especially in times of challenge or desire for redress. Often we have undercurrent feelings that begin driving us a particularly negative direction without our being aware. We just “somehow” end up in a bad mood, irritable or melancholy.

Develop the muscle of internal energy awareness. Begin to hear the voice in the head determining what it all means.

Ride the Wave

Before letting yourself default into an old pattern or natural flow of standard reaction, take a moment in your mind and ride the wave of energy you’re feeling in the direction it wants to go and see where it takes you.

Will that direction serve you in the end?

Wayne Dyer says that the ultimate question to ask before all action – and definitely in re-action – is “Will this bring me peace?”

Ask yourself: “Though the ‘rightness’ of my position may seem juicy in the moment, will going this direction bring me peace in the end?”

Wave Goodbye

When taking the long view, if the answer to the above question is no, then consciously choose to let that path go and choose another which will bring you peace.

Make Waves

Get to work on directing your energy towards what will, in the long run, attract to you more and more good, even in the face of whatever you perceived as “bad” that just happened. Plain and simple, you get more of what you think about.

Thich Nhat Hanh offers several ways to redirect and choose the alternative energy, and undoubtedly you know from even everything you were taught in Kindergarten some simple ways to get happier and move towards peace.

“There are many ways to calm a negative energy without suppressing or fighting it. You recognize it, you smile to it, and you invite something nicer to come up and replace it; you read some inspiring words, you listen to a piece of beautiful music, you go somewhere in nature, or you do some walking meditation.”

-Thich Nhat Hanh

The point is watch, observe, redirect and always choose the alternative energy that will serve you best.

“Negativity…it can only affect you if you’re on the same frequency. Vibrate higher.”

-Unknown

4 Steps to Up Your Active Re-Intention

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“Intention leads to behaviors which lead to habits which lead to personality development which leads to destiny.”

-Jack Kornfield

Many great and creative minds say it’s all about intention.

“Our intention creates our reality.”
-Wayne Dyer

 

“Let the power of intention lead the way.”

-Sharon Salzberg

 

“All that counts in life is intention.”
– Andrea Bocelli

 

“A good intention clothes itself with sudden power.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

And many also say a good intention and $1.85 will get you a cup of coffee.

“Many of our intentions die after we have put their harness on.”
-Henry S. Haskins

 

“Men with good intentions make promises. Men with good character keep them.”
-Ronald Oliver

 

“It’s not intentions that matter. It’s actions. We are what we do and say, not what we intend to.”
-Kristin Hannah

 

“There is always a gap between intention and action.”
-Paulo Coelho

For those who haven’t already resigned themselves to no possibility (which many have, whom we can’t reach anyway), we can wax eloquently on the potential for our lives, careers, dreams and purposes for being on the planet.

Yet, concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary question, the unasking of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans.

“Will you really? But really really??”

Often the closer we actually get to a dream’s or goal’s fulfillment, the more a myriad of forces come alive to make that last yard truly the longest. It’s far easier to talk about the goal “one day” being realized than to close in on it, see beneath and beyond the mental and subconscious tricksters that come to bargain us away, and actually get it done.

Steven Pressfield addresses these sly forces in “The War of Art”, classifying them all as “resistance”. They show up in what’s commonly known as “the fear of success” in forms such as perfectionism, doubt, distractibility, irritability, confusion, procrastination, etc.

In The Back Forty, with a lifetime of making and unfulfilling on so many intentions already, it requires a real leaving of the past in the past to get up the courage to again intend with a vengeance.

That’s why we’re here in this journey together. We look at the past as simply R & D, research and development, for who we came here to be and what we came here to do. So, any intention play we’ve done before was simply practice, not carving our inability into stone.

Here are 4 ways to up your practice of Active Re-Intention in your second half/best half of life.

Clean Up

You don’t want to put icing on a cake of poop, so first get real, down and dirty about where you’ve spoken bold intentions before…and didn’t git ‘er done.

You might make a list for yourself and then ritualize the letting go of that past pattern by burning it. Or, you might check in with people who knew you when you were playing big for something and then saw you disappear.

People are forgiving, and we all love redemption stories. However, with yourself or others, cleaning up the mess from previous intentional misfires can help you listen to your Self with fresh ears.

Buck Up

Get your bold on…with measured sobriety.  Be willing to make some big demands on the Self you are now, stake some outrageous claims on your possibilities, and have some unrecognizable declarations pass your lips.  

Then ask people if you’re crazy, or if it can be done.

For those who say you’re crazy, ask them why. For those who say it can be done, ask them specifically how and why.

Measure the responses, then ask those you trust to measure the responses, and choose your friends wisely. Your producing the result in the face of no agreement is always possible, and yet your ability to enroll others in your intention and have a world pulling for you and holding you to account is a more powerful approach.

Buddy Up

Don’t do it alone, yet again, just like you’ve always done, with your Lone Ranger, maverick, Rebel Without a Cause, self-made man/woman, “I’ve got this” false confidence.

Get a buddy. Commit to specifics and by whens. Put your ass on the line. Agree to pay money if you don’t meet your milestones. Give yourself big rewards when you do.

The greatest single key to delivering on your intention is having someone to be accountable to beyond yourself.

Show Up

For your Self. Use your buddy and your commitments to them (and your Self) to let this be the time you actually did what you said you’d do by the time you said you’d do it.

There’s so many forces that will come up here to slow you down, turn your head to one side or the other, or convince you it wasn’t a smart or worthy idea in the first place.

Go Nike on yourself.  Just do it. Take the actions required by the intentions. Again, and again. And when you don’t, go back to Clean Up and start all over.

“Take action! An inch of movement will bring you closer to your goals than a mile of intention.”
-Dr. Steve Maraboli

3 Questions for Healthy Backstep

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“In any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or step back into safety.”

-Abraham Maslow

There’s two different cuts we can take at stepping back.

The first is when we revert to the comfort zone in the face of the challenges and contortionisic stretches required to play bigger, express broader, and adventure into new territories.

The other is when we move away from the machine so as to get a bigger picture than the next rung on the rat wheel.

We can all fall prey to working in our career vs. on our career, in our business vs. on our business, awash in our life vs. perspective on our life.

For example, it’s great to have that current job or business, especially if you love it and feel your highest self-expression pouring forth. Yet, we all know that nothing is guaranteed and, according to standard business wisdom, if you’re not moving forward, you’re moving back—there is no standing still.

Also, there may be personal or business practices, tried and true, that we engage in without thinking anymore of whether they are working.

Therefore, stepping back from the activity to get the bigger picture is a wise, forward-focused practice.

The same goes for the progress forward of our relationships, health, finances, personal mission and overall sense of well-being. Nothing stands still. It’s forward or back.

Alexandra (my partner in Back Forty crime) and I recently took a 911 weekend away. We cancelled all appointments and booked a last-minute hotel and unplugged, unscheduled, and unwound. Yes, we relaxed, and yet we began some meaningful (but not significant) conversations about how we want to design our Back Forty from the long-view perspective.

That weekend, and the inquiry thus begun, has produced ongoing ripple effects which have shaped our consistently upgraded views on many aspects of our work, mission, and enjoyment of life. Good thing! We figure that, with us being the forerunners, scouts and pioneers of creating a radical second half of play, passion and purpose, we are to live it to prove it’s possible!

From the bigger picture, all of us can see what’s working and what’s not…and put in the pieces we don’t see when up close and personal.

Incorporating healthy backsteps into your dance, to catch that bigger perspective, can make for a far more workable final choreography.

Here’s a few questions to ask from our own exploration:

Sustainable?

Sometimes, it’s necessary to look at the State of the Personal Union to see if how we’re living, how we’re working, how we’re relating is actually sustainable over the long term.

Sure, there are some crunch times in everyone’s life. Yet, you can’t really sustain crunchtime. Over the long term, you tend to get crunched.

ReFrame-able?

Consider the impacts of machines running on High all the time – they wear out, burn out, or at least don’t perform at their highest productivity.

Is the career, business, life you’re running safe and sound at the pace or peace it’s going? Is it worthwhile to re-evaluate and re-frame what’s really important and what’s really working (and what’s not)?

Unchainable?

We may think, at first blush, that everything is tied with a bow as it is and there would just be too much upset caused by rethinking and reorganizing the pieces.

Yet, that’s simply not the case. Were something major to happen in your world today, truly, all bets are off. So, what can we let go, mix up, or do differently?

In the 80’s, there was a Fram Oil Filter commercial with a famous tagline: “You can pay me now, or you can pay me later.”

Today’s Back Forty question is: where can you step back from the trance to enhance the workability of your own dance?

“Often stepping back you see more, don’t you?”

-David Hockney

3 Thoughts to Help ReThink

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“Change can be frightening, and the temptation is often to resist it. But change almost always provides opportunities – to learn new things, to rethink tired processes, and to improve the way we work.”

-Klaus Schwab

What if A didn’t necessarily need to precede B…or what if there was a way to get to Z by circumventing the linear alphabetic song.

In other words, we often set up rules in our minds as to “the way things need to go” in order to get from A to Z. And, by establishing such rules — consciously or (for the most part) unconsciously — we create a reality. Change becomes prescribed to take place a certain way.

We often can’t imagine a result we’re committed to having in our life, our career, our business, our relationships simply showing up. That’s what’s called “magical thinking,” and we all know we have to work for it.

So says the industrial mindset, and we can all agree that simply saying it or waiting for it doesn’t have it appear.

And yet, somewhere within that rigid and calculated “truth”, if there were the slightest crack of radical possibility that things may not be so fixed as how we see them, what might have a chance to happen outside the rules?

There are philosophies that say the results that come to us are not so much a function of what we are doing as who we are BEING: the general outward expression of our most deeply held truths.

There are yet other philosophies which tell us that it is the thoughts that we hold predominate in our conscious mind which attract to us our experience. Plus, we all know that those thoughts we hold in our SUB-conscious mind are huge factors or culprits in our life, depending on what we’re attracting.  

Let’s not throw out our earnest-strategy babies with the bathwater. Coming up with our plans and directions to pursue are healthy and give us confidence (e.g., “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”).

Yet, perhaps there’s value in making room for unexpected and unforeseen fortuitous factors to creep in.

Here are a few thoughts to consider:

Rules

Pick an area of your life where you’d like to see results you’re currently not experiencing.

Is it in the area of relationship? Maybe dating? Or how about the area of career?

Look to see what “rules” you’ve created about the way things need to go in order to have that result.

For example, I need to be on 4 dating sites and go out with 3 first dates each week.  Or, I need to get my resume in perfect shape and then start looking for openings by reviewing online job boards.

Just look beneath your assumptions and outline the steps and processes you believe must take place for it to happen.

What If?

Begin to ask yourself some simple questions that take you outside of those rules.

What if I were to get a call today from a friend who wanted me to meet someone? What if I actually looked around me today and created some casual conversations? What if I were to hear about a new company or meet a new person who turned me onto to a new opportunity?

Seems simple, but we don’t often just allow ourselves to ponder what it would feel like if what we seek were simply to come.

Allow

Allow yourself to keep doing what you think you need to do, yet allow yourself also to expect the unexpected.

Simply seeing how our rules have blocked us into a reality that must seemingly go a certain way can allow the unforeseen and unexpected to arise.

Here’s the big question: what do you have to lose by simply pondering some what ifs outside of your rules?

“Alice laughed. ‘There’s no use trying,’ she said: ‘one can’t believe impossible things.’

‘I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.'”

-Lewis Carroll, Alice Through the Looking Glass

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