I can identify with what is being said, probably Liz hit closer to my circumstances. I host a website that averages 1000 readers a day, write a blog that is posted unto three different formats, work part-time mostly to pull myself into the social world, but I enjoy it also. The best part of my job, is seeing all the children and babies. This world is producing some incredible kids.

I wrote a book, but for now pulled it from the way I had published it. I do what I enjoy. I work with cancer patients and others, doing energy work. When the docs say they are done, that is usually when I get the contact, but there are miracles and only one that I have worked with passed from this world. Where it might all lead in life, I am not sure. I write a newsletter a couple times a month, when I am able to pull it together and put my mission statement always on the back page. I believe that it takes a village at times to bring your desires into reality. I live having faith in who I am, and what I do. All the rest seems to take care of itself.

Namaste’

I think a person needs to think in terms of being the CEO or art director of their own life.

It isn’t expensive to have a regular kind of website, I know people who are making over $100K a year with a free e-Blogger or Word Press site, a Lulu.com storefront, and Paypal. Of course they have a well thought out plan and really work it, too. My site is nearly free [$100. a year] it isn’t elaborate but it is a ‘storefront’ for what I do: online PR for wineries and wine festivals: http://web.mac.com/frenchheart/

I started that because as a result of being at UCLA writing my novel, which is set on wineries in Aix-en-Provence, France and Santa Barbara, I did a great deal of research on winery operations for the book at the same time that interstate trade laws changed, and Internet online sales exploded. So this lead to new work that will eventually help my book, too, because I have a huge database of wine industry connections as a result. 

I have the FrenchHeart.com domain, which is the title of my novel, but haven’t yet added it to the site, yet.  I worked so hard [and with so much help at UCLA] and completed and had the novel professionally edited and ready to go, but put it aside when my brother died.

In the last 9+ months I’ve cried infinitely more than in my entire life, and never sleep, so I recently decided that on the one-year anniversary 7/23 am going to the spot where he died, leave tons of white potted flowering plants, and then burn all the black clothes I’ve worn since his death, then will get back on the book activities, which have seemed too frivolous in view of what happened to him, and which has been foremost on my mind the last 10 months.

But in thinking of reinvention today, none of us are alone in that.

One of my clients was the founder of the #1 Chardonnay’s in the US which he sold for $140M, he used to have a $14M ski house. Paid off his investors, bought new land for new vineyards, lost his entire first stored vintage in a fire, his wife is divorcing him, and his winemaker—one of the best known in the business and who had been with him for decades—died last month at age 54. The message is that this is a man who did everything right Harvard MBA, etc.

So all of these things have made me seriously reevaluate, and I have a very vivid picture of where I want my life to be within another year. 

I recently made the acquaintance of a woman whose incredible story relates to recreating life.

Her name is Teri Love and she had a handsome 22-year old son whom she idolized. He loved Italy, loved speaking Italian and attended school there….a very vivacious young man. They lived in Malibu, and also has a ski house in Telluride [I believe].

After 30 years of marriage, Teri’s husband informed him her he didn’t want to be a husband or father any longer, and walked out after nearly 30 years of marriage. Shortly thereafter while reeling from that immense shock and life change, her son, Tyler, was riding his Italian scooter on Pacific Coast Highway along with his best friend. They were on their way to meet companions for dinner. A car suddenly made an illegal U-Turn across the very busy lanes. Tyler didn’t have time to stop….he and his friend were killed. This was  3-years ago.

Teri has eloquently expressed all that happened as a result, but she so strongly felt she must honor her son’s spirit and moved from Malibu to the Santa Ynez Valley and became a winery owner. [She is not a client]

I am blown away by how she recreated her life from this immense tragedy. She is an enormous light, and proceeds from the sale of her wines fund a foundation that honors, Tyler, by offering student study abroad [Italy] grants at his former HS for study. The student’s write an essay, from which she makes the decision. She is awarding the first scholarship June 2nd.

I wanted to share this because she is so amazing to have done all of this in response to the very worst thing that can happen to a mother. 

BTW, Teri is [I may have this wrong] I believe is 61, and she is a new grandmother.  She reminds me that in this month of May through July in 1429, 17-year old Joan of Arc saved fallen France during the 100-year old war when no one else could. She did it for her love of France, and Teri has been able to transcend the worse kind of grief also because of love. So I think….doing the things we love are perhaps the best way to transform a life.

Here are pictures of Tyler and Teri’s must see video for those who are interested: http://www.gioiawine.com/ 

A major Napa winery advertised for a 6-month temp position that paid $10K a month, including transportation, benefits, luxury housing, and a PDA, laptop, etc.

Today people have to really think about their top skills, and not just react, be very aware of what is going on, and determine where one’s top skills/interests intersect with market needs.

Fear and worry are very debilitating and blinding and ‘filling’ time is a waste of a life to me. I think in terms of value, and have my ‘test’. I know the one moment in time I’d choose to live with in eternity, and pretty much measure all decisions against that. Is what I am doing going to get me that quality of value.

I’m in the middle of reinventing myself too. After 35 years of being a publisher, I hit the wall, didn’t even want to think of another book to do. At the same time I have to make money. So I returned to another little diversion I’d been into years ago… working on the internet, trying to accomplish something or help someone or myself. I haven’t the patience for spending time on Facebook, Myspace, Twitter or the rest. Wowowow is the only place I pause, read, enjoy and sometimes speak.

But I’ve found the way to help people who are hanging about wondering what to do, worrying about how to pay the rent or just wanting to help someone too. I actually like spending time on the internet, making websites, placing ads, answering email from three email accounts. When things are moving along, I really feel good when someone signs up and moves along with me. 

I attended a large conference this aftersoon here in Tucson. It was about all the advantages we have to grow new businesses and to find new opportunities that weren’t there a year ago. It’s about making money, and there was so much information, I came away with my eyeballs whirling around and the feeling of being overwhelmed. I think I’ll just stick to the sure things I have going now. I’m too old to compete like that. It makes me tired just thinking about it. But I’m not ready to quit either. Not when I can help other people make money as well as myself. 

This is odd. I’m turning into a left brain person when I’ve always been a right brain artist all my life. I just realized it. hmmmmmmmm.

Life itself is a constant reinvention … as all of us have found that we find surprises — some of which that are not pleasant at all (to put in mildly) around every corner.  We then have choices.  We can sit on our sofa, feel sorry for ourselves, do nothing.  OR - as some one of us do - we consider the twists and turns on the road of life as challenges.

No, if we have "body blows", of course we have to stop and re-group.  Tears must be cried out as "the stiff upper lip" comes to haunt us later.

But how do we begin?  For me in the last week - and through another WOWer actually, we have copyrighted a company name and have a SUPER idea that we have not seen "out there".  That is a start … and as we are creative, this is going to be fun to start from scratch, working together.  So - THANK YOU - WoW!.

But do you want to start over, or go off in a new direction?  I find that getting out your door, letting friends know what thingS you might be interested in persuing, and using the computer to find what doors you might put your foot into.  I know someone who began with Habitat with Humanity as a volunteer, and contacts made on site made this into a full-time job elsewhere.  An example — but the idea is opening up to as many people as you can in the fields you wish to explore. 

In mid-life, we often find we do go in other directions - and do it well.  I find that co-writing, ghostwriting was ONE of my cups of tea.  Yesterday one of my books I worked on came out and is on Amazon — just YESTERDAY!

KEEP YOUR BELIEF IN YOURSELF, YOU MIND BUSY, AND YOUR FEET OUT THERE WHERE THE PEOPLE ARE and each day becomes an adventure.  And - an adventure?  We don’t know where the road can lead, but our days are interesting, our minds partially off our problems, and how can that be anything but good!!!

Everyone morning I wake up and say "I’m still here" with delight.  I’ve had to reinvent myself.  I had a heart attack at age 60.  I had to change my life to accommodate my reduced energy and side affects from the medications. I even had to sell my house and move.  I was living in the mountains of Colorado at 8200 feet and my body was not re-adjusting to the altitude after living at that altitude for 14 years.  Now I’m living in Denver at 5200 feet and it has made all the difference.  I have more energy and a new take on our precious time on earth.

But then I reinvented myself many times during my life at age 25, 35, 40 and 47.  I think ‘reinvention’ is a valid, necessary process to gracefully move through life and keep growing intellectually, spiritually and socially. 

These next six weeks are among the most exciting and eventful of my life.  I am 50.  I spent years being an unhappy wife of a small town funeral director.  I made some changes. 

Tomorrow I go to Rwanda as part of a humanitarian trip sponsored by Women For Women International.  We will visit genocide memorials, hear stories of survivors, spend two days at the school attending classes with the women we sponsor, visit an orphanage (this will be hard) and spend two days on the mountain with the gorillas. 

Then - when I come back, I spend time in New York where a play I wrote about being a small town funeral director’s wife is having it’s premiere at The Richmond Shepard Theater.  

Then - I fly to LA where someone is interested in a screenplay I wrote on the same experience.

Man, life just gets better and better the older we get, ladies!