Don't Die Before You're Dead

Many years ago young people would say that they were "going to find themselves." According to Merriam Webster Dictionary this mean to learn what one truly values and wants in life. This is not the purpose of my tour. I am not looking to find myself but I did discover some things about myself. Being gone for 4 weeks gave me some experiences provided some insights into my psyche. Some thin...

Quite often when we speak to others, we find that life doesn't always journey in a linear fashion. For some, it takes many years to find exactly what it is that we believe we are meant to do. Frances Hickmott is no exception. She calls herself a late bloomer as she has journeyed through various experiences. This relates in her recently published Journey to Joy .  While telling her story Franc...

This was to be the summer of Don't Die Before You're Dead tour. Due to Covid many things changed as did my tour. No longer was I able to secure sponsorship or speaking engagements or book signing events. So much uncertainty left us all unable to make those kinds of decisions. No one knew where we would be at any given time or what we'd be able to do. So instead of this summer being...

Get out of the 9-5 rut! Expand that box...or break out of it! Retirement isn't about "stopping." It's about finding what truly makes you happy and doing what you want for the rest of your life!  This is what Jacquie Doucette of Beyond Retirement is all about.  Having retired from the military  way too young to be retired, Jacquie reentered but this time as a  civilian. She knew...

Single?  Trying to find the "one" online with all the multiple dating sites? Frustrated? With so many it's hard to know where to turn. Does wading through the possibilities only to be disappointed or worse yet be scammed? Then meet CEO Linda Miller of Misty River Introductions and find out how an offline matchmaker works.  Linda shares what it is she does to first meet and understan...

AS an English teacher I taught John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men   and for those of you who know the story, the key line is ... "the best laid plans of mice and men". We often have plans whether they be super crucial or just simply a task list. Either way, when things go awry, we need to adjust. So my question would be, just how flexible are you? What do you do when your day falls ap...

Alison Pena  - aka The Bad Widow - hails from New York. She lost her husband to pancreatic cancer in 2016 and faced the same brokenness that many of her clients face. The first year took its toll as she mourned much of the things that she and her husband used to do together.  Like most widows, she was tunneling in and avoiding people as she was maneuvering the wasteland of grief. Alison called upo...

So what are you going to do?  This is what I am getting asked all the time seeing as how Covid had locked us down and I can't head out on my cross-Canada tour on May 10th as planned. There are many options: cancel the tour, postponed till next year, do part this year and the rest next year.  All except cancelling the tour are under discussion with me, myself and I.  My camper is in build mode...

Trav Bell is a Bucket Listologist. Since the age of 18, he has always carried around with him in his little blue book, a list of things "to do" before he dies.  On the list was becoming a personal trainer and when he did he was one of the first in Australia. Trav built a sizable business in the brick and mortar world until it became too overwhelming for him and he got caught in a downwar...

When faced with those big decisions, many people find it somewhat fearful and anxiety producing. They readily agree that it takes courage to face change and enter into transitions. Maybe it will be changing careers, or moving to a new location or perhaps going into retirement. All of these come with a measure of risk needing courage to implement. But where does the courage come from? How can it be...

Would you agree that we are exactly where we are based on the cumulative effect of all the choices made in our life? Some were made for us and others were made by us.  When it comes to the choices that you made, what did you apply as your decision making tool? If you were just deciding what to have for breakfast, it would be quite easy and probably based on fast experiences. The difficulty comes w...

Most of us hear about the need to arrange our finances for when we retire and we are no longer working for our income. However, there is more to it than just finances. Are you prepared to have the long hours, days and weeks with no routine? Will you have the necessary inventory for any hobbies you might wish to pursue? How about doing all the prep work now? Plan ahead. Look for a balance of physic...

Many people don't want to retire. Some want to work in different ways and others can't afford to retire because they fear they will outlive their money. How can you be aware and intentional as you plan "what's next?" Dr. Dorian Mintzer is a retirement transition coach who helps people find their way into the next chapter of their lives. She has authored a guide called 10 K...

We wouldn't dream of driving down the highway keeping our eyes fixated just on the back bumper of the vehicle in front, would be?  We know that for our safety and the safety of those who ride with us or beside us, we need to keep our eyes continuously roaming.  It is critical that we are totally aware of our surroundings. What about our lives? Are we living with our eyes wide open? Are we con...

The last episode introduced us to Neil Dunsmore who challenged himself to walk the 531 kilometers from his home to Ottawa.  He shared with us the details about why he felt called to do this and then how he went about training for such a vigorous endeavor. Twenty-two days in September 2020, Neil walked. In this episode he tells of the times when he felt almost defeated and wanted to call it a day....

Neil Dunsmore did the unthinkable to raise money for Mental Health in his community. He walked from Elora Ontario to our nation's capital Ottawa. He knows only too well the distance is 531 kilometers and even more he knows it is over 170000 steps. Over the course of many months Neil trained for this walk that took him 22 days to complete. As a former prison guard, he was used to training but...

There are studies where people indicated that they were dissatisfied with their lives but didn't want to make any changes for fear of having to start over from scratch. The reality is that no one has to start from scratch. We are always the sum total of the lessons we've learned along the way, the experiential knowledge we've acquired or the network of supports we've gathered....

Are you like most people who tend to put things off till later thinking later is just around the corner? Do you get caught up in your day to day routines believing that the things you put off won't be a problem? Then you might be a procrastinator.  Veronica Hislop is a transformation strategist who specializes in helping women to stop procrastinating. She knows that putting things off is just...

My son was telling me about a colleague at his place of work who made the choice not to do something, when he said, "Now that is a regret in the making!"  It got me thinking about what that would have looked like to that colleague. What would it look like to me if I were the one making the choice?  This episode is an exploration of how our daily routines can, if not considered carefully,...

A startling question stopped Genevieve Piturro in her tracks. It made her realize that her life was less than fulfilling. She felt she had spent far too many years climbing the corporate ladder to become a top marketing executive.  However, she realized that she had missed so much doing so.  Like she shared with Oprah, CNN, the Today Show and others, Genevieve wanted her life to have more meaning...

Today Merri Macartney explores the value of looking for those moments of silence in order to find that still small voice that lives within us all. Where can we find the quiet? What do we  want to ask ourselves? Better yet, what do we hear when we listen? In today's crazy busy hectic world of the hamster wheel, Merri says that we often can't hear ourselves think. There is little time to f...

Shawn Tegtmeier has an amazing life story. As she tells it, you can't help but admire how she made a major life change one step at a time. Shawn's life now as a personal trainer and accomplished marathoner, is the end result of her asking the question, "Is that all there is?"  The author of the book Running with Walt tells of how she made the journey. It tells of where she bega...

As the new year settles in, and we look to the future with hope, we can also look to the many things that we have enjoyed in the past. What was it that you loved to do in your youth? Did you love to go bike riding, canoeing, hiking or camping? And how long has it been? Why not go back and enjoy those things again? No one said that there was a certain age when we had to give it up. If you're l...

Gillian Bogden's foray into nutrition came as a result of volunteering at a food bank for low income community members. Her passion was ignited when she realized that she could empower others to take control of their own health through food. Listen in as Gillian shares her story of becoming a certified nutritionist and how it changed her life. Let her lessons become yours and take charge of y...

As a researcher a professor at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Dr. Scott Lear has achieved much success in the academic field. Many of 160 research papers have been published. However, Dr. Lear wanted to reach out to the world in general not such those who attend the institutions.  On his blog, (drscottlear.com) he says, "much of my research has been published in medical journals...