Guest Post

Only ten months have passed since we left MEA and we meet again.

A man for whom I have a great deal of respect offered me a simple comment in passing at an MEA event. He said, “I’ve found it helps a lot when I take full responsibility… for everything,” placing a strong emphasis on “everything.”

Once upon a time, there was the younger version of you.

I was listening to an interview of Franciscan mystic Richard Rohr (https://bit.ly/493V9pi), where he was describing one of his favorite ideas, Carl Jung’s two halves of life:

Chip recently asked in a blog, "How do you ask for help when you're embarrassed to do so?" It's been a week of reflection for me. For I too used to resist asking for help. That was my identity. I built a remarkable career with that trait. I was the "essential one" – key to winning the biggest-of-big pitches, a magnet for press interviews, the one who C-suite clients were drawn to.

Dating at any age is fraught with challenges. Dating in your fifties (and beyond), however, has its particular issues. And I’m not talking about the usual complaints about the size of the male pool versus the number of available females, or the “age-appropriate” question.

No matter where we are on the wealth continuum, money plays a huge role in our lives – as a means to an end or as an end in itself. We know that money doesn’t buy happiness – or do we? We live in a culture dominated by making and spending money, and it is difficult to escape the feeling that we always need more – that buying that dress or taking that trip is what we need to feel good. And often it does – for a while. But soon the pursuit of more distracts us from feeling satisfied with what we already have.

When I attended my first MEA informational Zoom, Kari Henley (now Kari Cardinale) introduced us to the “polishing the pearls of wisdom” gesture, and tongue-in-cheek called it “a little cultish.” Sometimes that notion comes back to me, especially when I try to explain MEA to others. How do you explain a program that has such a loyal following of people who say “that was the workshop I didn’t know I needed” or “I feel such a sense of deep belonging with the community”?

Meet Unicorn, a Diné Churro (four-horned sheep) traditionally cared for by native peoples in New Mexico.

Radiant Chip caught my eye in the sky in Jan 2019 Something sparkling on that magazine cover made me love him.