I experienced my own mid-life crisis at 33 and for the next 15 years transitioned from entrepreneur to college student to helpmate and homemaker to entrepreneur to unemployed to employed to unemployed to commissioned sales to employed to unemployed to NOW. Quite a circuitous route!
Yes a plan helps, but sometimes meeting our future takes a leap of faith. I started a blog as a leap of faith, and I wanted a career change. Did I know for a fact that there were thousands of men who might benefit from my experience in the trenches? No, but my senses told me that many men wished that they were better understood. Men often are misunderstood, lack support for their decisions, and go unnoticed for their contributions to family and community.
When I “retired” from the advertising world, I remembered thinking, “Now I know why men die after they retire.” I lost my moorings. Even though closing my business was a conscious decision, I was so identified with a fast-paced, competitive world that I lost my sense of self.
Five years later, I launched a small-press publishing company and thought that I had finally found my calling. That venture aborted...