December 16, 2020 - JOLT - Free Excerpt to Help Your Staging Into 2021! - CareerGuy.com

December 16, 2020 – JOLT – Free Excerpt to Help Your Staging Into 2021!

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

Dec 16

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
-Søren Kierkegaard

A Holiday Gift of thinking differently…

about your past year, your year to come, and your remaining years ahead.

Here’s a free excerpt from the introduction to The Back Forty: 7 Essential Embraces to Launch Life’s Radical Second Half, my newest book available for pre-order for one more week at https://publishizer.com/the-back-forty/

This excerpt speaks to the supposed limitations of our past (2020) as well as the higher possibilities of our future (2021 and beyond) when we approach life from a point of view of “staging” for our bigger game ahead of us.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the blog, where you can also read the excerpt in its entirety here.

Below is an excerpt from The Back Forty: 7 Essential Embraces to Launch Life’s Radical Second Half
The Lay of the Land

The Back Forty is a metaphor with a double meaning. It is a creative allusion to the second half of life, whether that second half will actually span thirty, forty, fifty, or even sixty years to come. It is also a reference to the farming term that means an uncultivated forty-acre patch of land with infinite growth potential that lies in a remote, back area of the farm.

Regardless of your particular age, you might call your first half of life “The Front Forty.” In that first half, you’ve experienced uniquely individual events with “stuff” happening to you that may have fostered a mindset of limitation shaping the way you see your life moving forward.

The Back Forty proposes that your Front Forty, first half of life, is all about research and development (R & D) and that you don’t, and even can’t, begin your true purpose until you’ve completed that R & D. 

Further, The Back Forty asks you to embrace the concept that nothing that has ever happened to you could limit you in any way from being who you came to be or doing what you came to do in this lifetime. It asserts that your Front Forty has been absolutely perfect and exactly what you needed to have happen to put you on the path of your own unique, individual and radical second half.

This bold attitude—that absolutely nothing that has ever occurred in your life has any negative bearing on what is to come—is, indeed, a radical way to live. It is in direct opposition to society’s cultural conversation about aging and defies our conscious and subconscious belief systems, which have been shaped by a subtle, societal depiction of a bell-curve model of life. Society asserts that we gradually rise and supposedly peak at some point of “the best life has to offer us” (and that we have to offer life), and then we begin a slow decline. This viewpoint I call the “Down and Out Model.”

As we age, this “Down and Out” belief system forecasts that we become less creative, less vibrant, less bold, less risk-taking, less vital, less energetic, less entrepreneurial, less playful and all around less (not more) of who we truly are.

Problems abound with that picture. Inside that anti-climactic model, we are left disappointed and depressed when we realize, only after the fact, that our prime came and went without notice or celebration because we weren’t even aware of when we had supposedly “peaked.” A second problem is that the assertion is actually not true, but simply a bunch of BS (belief system) that covertly shuts down the greater Self-expression still available within us.

In contrast, The Back Forty says life is not an eventual decline but rather a shooting out the top in a radical, contrary “Up and Out Model.” The Back Forty asserts that all the creativity, vibrancy, boldness, risk-taking, vitality, energy, and playfulness of your past was only the warm-up and precursor to your future. . .with no final peaks assumed.

Mind you, I’m not simply throwing out warm and fuzzy motivational or Pollyanna ideas. What if, truly, your biggest game is still ahead of you, no matter what your age or what you’ve been through? That is exactly what The Back Forty way of thinking proposes, which many are beginning to align with. The Back Forty says no matter what you have or have not accomplished your growing number of years on the planet serve a function of staging rather than aging.

In the world of theatre, staging is the carefully planned preparation for a production. The Back Forty proposes that, just as in theatre, everything in your life is constructed and laid out for the big “play” yet to be performed. This dynamic is occurring continuously with yesterday supporting today and tomorrow. Using another metaphor, in the field of rocketry staging refers to the in-flight separation of sequential stages (pieces) from a multi-stage rocket. Each stage does its job to propel the rocket. Similarly, the more the previous stages of your life do their job and drop away, the higher you’ll fly. This Back Forty adventure will reveal that the past has done its job and now you can shoot upwards without any previously perceived weight.

What would staging gracefully versus aging gracefully be like for you? I don’t know specifically, but I do know that it would definitely include your stepping up and into greater possibility.

For those of us coming into the second half of life with perhaps few victories or not much of a foundation under our feet (those of us truly beginning right now), the idea that literally anything is possible from here on out is hugely exhilarating. And, even if you’ve already amassed so many accomplishments and such abundance of wealth and satisfaction in your life that you don’t need to do a damn thing in your remaining years, what might be possible if you actually believed that the first half was simply a prelude to your truest Self-expression yet to come? Could you envision an even bigger game still to be played?

Radical thoughts! Thus, the idea of a “Radical Second Half.”

[The above is a copyrighted excerpt from The Back Forty: 7 Essential Embraces to Launch Life’s Radical Second Half, available for pre-order with free bonuses until Dec 22, 2020 at https://publishizer.com/the-back-forty/.]

Check out the valuable pre-order bonus specials now — including a FREE 3-part masterclass, online programs, and one-on-one consultations with me — and let’s adopt a powerful, alternative mindset to designing life in the year, and years, to come. It won’t happen naturally. But it can happen with an intentional staging mindset for our greater games ahead.

Radically yours,

Darrell
CareerGuy and Back Forty Freedom Flier

Got staging for 2021?

“Our world is not shaped by those who think similarly, but by those who dare to think differently.”
Rashida Rowe

About the Author

DARRELL W. GURNEY, Executive/ Career Coach and 20-year recruiting veteran, supports people at all levels to make fulfilling and profitable career transitions. His first book, Headhunters Revealed! Career Secrets for Choosing and Using Professional Recruiters, was winner of the Clarion Award for Best Book by the Association for Women in Communications and was reviewed in Publishers Weekly. His newest book, Never Apply for a Job Again: Break the Rules, Cut the Line, Beat the Rest, has been endorsed by bestselling thought leaders such as Harvey Mackay, Keith Ferrazzi, and Dr. Ivan Misner. A personal and business brand strategist, Darrell’s Stealth Method of networking has helped folks expand their reach within both careers and new client circles. He speaks, leads workshops, and is a media expert on subjects such as recruiting, networking, and finding one’s passion. He was recently named Networking Expert for BeyondB-School.com and offers webinars and programs that get MBA students and working professionals out, connected, and landed.

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