Change

How many actual books do people read these days? My study wall, which is my backdrop for Zoom calls, is lined with them, but lately I read on my laptop and on my phone more often than I pull a hardback or paperback off the shelf.

If ever there was a time in our lives when we needed to shed our baggage, this is it. The mammoth changes we’ve had to make in every aspect of our lives has left most of us feeling like we’re running one long continuous, never-ending marathon. And it’s only been a few months.

Rituals are important, especially when it comes to the pivotal moments in our lives. They provide a “rest stop for the soul” and a community-sanctioned show of support for those in transition. It’s interesting that high school graduation is crowned by a “commencement speech,” which serves as both an ending and a beginning.

I’m thrilled to have author Diane Cardwell join me today for a 20-minute video interview about her new book about how she learned to surf at gritty, eccentric Rockaway Beach in NYC as she was confronting a midlife crisis that she pivoted into a calling.

Time and turbulence are natural teachers. Church-going folk are now drawn to their preachers. Nature is my balm for sublime uncertainty. The ocean, my habitat for divine convergency.

Here’s the situation We have never lived this long. Today, there are more of us entering this transition into later life with twenty years or more ahead of us than at any other time in history. Let’s use this opportunity to make new choices.

This is the second day of our interview with New York Times bestselling author Bruce Feiler’s whose new book just launched this week. The premise of “mastering change” is core to our MEA philosophy and a fundamental skill that Bruce articulates in the book. Bruce, you believe “lifequakes” shake us enough to ask the question, “What is it that gives me meaning and how does that influence the story of my life?” How has that question influenced you?

Chip: One benefit of being at the sweet nexus of writing, leadership, and psychology is that I get to meet the most interesting people including Bruce Feiler who’s crafted six consecutive New York Times bestsellers including “Walking the Bible” and “The Council of Dads.” His new book came out this week called “Life is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age.”

My first book, which I gestated for ten years, was called “The Rebel Rules: Daring to be Yourself in Business” and chronicled the qualities of the new business rebels of the 20th century from Steve Jobs to Oprah Winfrey.

I once had my astral chart done by a wise man in Nepal. He predicted that I would have a child in my late thirties and publish a book and become a serious writer in my fifties. He was off by a few years. I had my son at forty-four years old, after multiple miscarriages.