Archive for the Book Reviews

My colleague Eileen Williams is the creator of a blog and radio show called, The Feisty Side of Fifty. Love that name. And it suits her. She’s high spirited, sassy, and definitely living her second half with a vengeneance. (Check out her psychedelic T-shirts)

Eileen’s has finally packaged her twenty years’ combined experience as a job search specialist, career/life transition counselor, university instructor, and writer into career counseling session in work book form. It could not have come at a better time. I asked her to talk a bit about her new book and wondered if there are any bright spots on the horizon for midlife job seekers in this current–and eternal I think– youth obsessed  age.

What follows are Eileen’s thoughts.

Midlife With a Vengeance is all about wellbeing and thriving as we age. Gregory Anne consistently provides us with a wealth of information to keep our bodies and minds active and energetic. In truth, radiant health should be at the top of each of our lists. However, even if our bodies are healthy and strong, it’s hard to feel our best if we’re unemployed and feeling discouraged about future job prospects.

Day after day, we’re bombarded with depressing news: the job market is described with words such as “bleak,” “slow to recover,” and “with limited prospects.” This, we’re told, is especially true for the older applicant.

Despite what we hear, this is NOT the case. Older workers have plenty to offer: great experience, highly developed skills, a mature work ethic, and a substantial network of coworkers, clients, and customers. Nevertheless, older jobseekers do have certain challenges in knowing how to market themselves in today’s competitive job market. The job search has changed tremendously over the past several years and, if you’re not up on the latest, you’ll be left in the dust.

As a job search specialist with twenty years’ experience assisting thousands of midlife applicants find work, I wanted to help. So I wrote a book sharing key insider techniques that will make a huge difference in getting a job. Following the suggestions in Land The Job You Love: 10 Surefire Strategies for Jobseekers Over 50, now available on Amazon, is guaranteed to save you time, money, and loads of frustration.

Remember the good news—the workforce is aging. Workers over fifty represent one of the fastest growing labor groups in the country and you’ll fit right in. But to stand out as the candidate of choice, you’ll need to know the Surefire Strategies:

•              The proven formula to best articulate your skill sets and back them up with winning examples of you performing your work at its best.

•              The most effective method to use personal contacts to network your way into targeted organizations where you’ll build key alliances in your search.

•              The very best resume format for older applicants and how to highlight critical skills and accomplishments so that they literally leap off the page.

•              How to prepare for and ace the interview: the all important first impression, knowing how to answer questions to peak the interviewer’s interest, handling behavioral style questions, and getting the job offer.

•              The strategies to negotiate a win/win deal.

Armed with the right information, job search strategies that really work, and a winning attitude, you’ll be amazed at how quickly your search will progress. So don’t get discouraged by the news—take action! Before you know it, you’ll be telling your friends just how you landed the job you love!

Mary Eileen Williams, M.A., NCC has twenty years’ combined experience as a job search specialist, career/life transition counselor, university instructor, and writer. She also has a popular blog and radio show called, Feisty Side of Fifty. Get your copy of Land the Job You Love on Amazon.

The more I read from some of the best researchers in the country who dare to look at things differently the more frustrated I get. One cause for concern is the conventional wisdom that a low fat diet is a panacea for all that ails us. (The cholesterol myths make me nuts too, you can read about that here.)

In Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes, which one reviewer said is “Easily the most important book on diet and health to be published in the past one hundred years.” Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Bright Sided and Nickel and Dimed said, “Taubes tackles the subject with the seriousness and scientific insight it deserves, building a devastating case against the low-fat, high-carb way of life endorsed by so many nutrition experts in recent years.”

Look, I live by the idea that we are all biochemical individuals and there is no one prescription for eating that works across the board. But based on hours of research it is becoming more clear that loading our plates with grains–whole or otherwise–while at the same time lowering fat to torturous levels is having a deleterious effect on our health–and our waist line.

The seed for this idea was planted in 1976 at the “Diet and Killer Disease” hearings. By 1982 the proposition that dietary fat caused cancer was considered so likely true that a govt report encouraged Americans to lower fat consumption to 30% or less. In 1984 the American Cancer Society jumped on the band wagon and sealed the deal. Interesting though are the many observations from around the world that refuted the findings.

The National Cancer Institute and the NAS decided to make funding available to test the hypothesis. (Hypothesis is loosely used as the dietary fat/cancer link was being reported as fact)

Walter Willet, a Harvard epidemiologist, was called upon. He lead the Nurses Health Study which began tracking diet, lifestyle and disease in 89,000 nurses in 1982. The bottom line? After 4 years the nurses who reported the lowest fat intake had the highest rate of breast cancer!

The National Cancer Institute reviewed the study and said it was  good study but not the only one and continued to recommend a low fat diet. 8 months later reports Taubes, NCI researchers themselves published a study albeit from a smaller group suggesting “that eating more fat and more saturated fat correlated with less breast cancer.”

After 14 years of observation by Harvard, the research still pointed to lower fat diets resulting in higher breast cancer rates. “The data still suggested” writes Taubes, “that eating fatty foods, (even those with copious saturated fat) might protect against cancer. For every 5% of saturated fat calories that replaced carbohydrates in the diet, the risk of breast cancer decreased by 9%.”

So what do we do with this information? Sweep it under the rug so we can continue as we are with thousands of women getting breast cancer while feeling deprived, not enjoying the full spectrum of flavors and nutrition in foods? I can’t do it.

I’ll be looking for more data to support this theory and there are plenty of posts here talking about the dangers of too little fat and too many grains. I’m not talking about doing a low carb diet. I’m suggesting that having a health amount of fat and a healthy amount of beans, whole grains–not processed into chips, cereals, and bread products–and a wide range of all lean proteins and vegetables is not only the way to eat for health and weight maintenance but for disease prevention.

So many women at midlife are involved in some kind of caregiving. It could be for an aging parent or two, a spouse or significant other with an illness, or helping to get a friend through an illness.

B. Lynn Goodwin is a woman who knows what it’s like and she’s become an expert in self care for caregivers. The stress without relief can be deadly. She’s written a book titled, “You Want Me To Do What? Journaling for Caregivers” that I thought some of you might benefit from.

The rest of this post is from Lynn, some advice for all of us. According to Lynn, Making Time to Write Saves Lives.

 ”Are you a caregiver for a spouse, parent, child, special needs child, or yourself? If so, you are probably a multi-tasker and a nurturer who spends hours driving to appointments, stopping at the pharmacy, cooking, answering questions, paying bills, and controlling the resentment that can rise up when you have no time for yourself.

 Why write about it?

 Writing gives perspective and restores sanity. Writing is a lifeline as well as a record. Writing saves lives. Do not underestimate its power.

 How do caregivers make time to write?

 Some people write as soon as they get up in the morning. Some write while they are waiting for the coffee to brew. Some write during a lunch break. Others write before they go to sleep at night.

 Some disappear into the bathroom with a notebook tucked into their pocket and emerge fifteen minutes later feeling less stressed. Some people jot down a few ideas while they are waiting in line at the grocery store or pharmacy. Others write while they wait for their children to get out of school or while their loved one naps. Making time to write even a few words will help clarify your thoughts and feelings. More always comes up once you start the pen moving across the page.

 Journaling allows you to vent, delve into issues, and untangle messes. It lets you analyze or celebrate. It allows you to finish a thought without interruption. Journaling releases mental toxins and deepens awareness. It enables you to strip away the daily stress and let the strong, sane, safe, healthy, hopeful parts of you emerge.

 What do you do if you have nothing to say? Try using sentence starts. All you need to do is finish the sentence and keep going. Go wherever the writing takes you. Explore fearlessly. Don’t worry if it’s not related to the topic, because topics are only suggestions.

 Ready to give it a try? How would you finish a sentence that started “Today I feel…”?

 Let the writing take you wherever it wants to. Feel free to make leaps. Trust yourself and trust the process. Write as much or as little as you want.

 Here are some additional sentence starts for you to try:

Ø    Today I believe…

Ø    Today I want…

Ø    Today I am…

 Start where you are. Start with the mood you are in. Start with what you see and hear. Start with what needs to spill out.

 Writing is therapeutic. It saves lives. Carve out a niche of time and just do it. Your truths are eager to come out. I’d love to hear about the doors that journaling opens for you.”

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B. Lynn Goodwin is the owner of Writer Advice, www.writeradvice.com and the author of You Want Me to Do What? Journaling for Caregivers, which contains encouragement, instructions, and over 200 sentence starts to help you journal any time.

What the heck does that mean you may be asking and what has it got to do with midlife? 

Science has discovered that the genes we are born with are not a static bunch of cells that doom or bless us with our height, health, disease, and jean size. Far from it. And that includes the idea that at the very least genes determine height, frame, eye color. Science cannot explain from a genetic point of view why tall kids are born to short parents. The assumption that it’s better diet has been ruled only one possibility as the younger generation of Phillipinos is growing shorter despite better economic conditions.

In truth there are at least 20 genes that determine height. And science now can’t even decide whether height is 90% gene directed or only 20%!

These facts and so many interesting others come from Deepak Chopra’s newest book, Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul.How to Invent a New You. I’ve long been excited by the science of epi-genetic control–the science of genes and how they turn on and off–and Dr. Chopra’s book is full of wonderful examples of how this works in real people’s lives and the science behind it all. 

So what’s this got to do with you and midlife? Right around the middle, for many women, our bodies really start to change. Hormone production is erratic, systems that allowed us to beat them up with no consequences are speaking up, and the diseases associated with our lifestyle choices start to show their symptoms. Add to this that many of us have stories that include reasons for our weight, our illnesses, and our levels of happiness or discontent as being “genetic.” Here’s where it gets really good. You don’t have to tell that story–or have results you don’t want–anymore.

When you were born your genes began adapting to how you thought, felt, and acted. The genes of 70 year old twins looked wildly different than they did when they were born–no longer even close to identical. Life–how we think and feel as well as the environment we choose for ourselves–turns genes on and off. 

Translation, you don’t have to have diabetes because it “runs in your family.” You don’t have to gain weight at midlife because it happens to all the women in your family. 

“Genes are the most complicated thing about the body. Yes there is simple truth behind them, which is this: you can change your genes, and therefore you can improve them. You are talking to your genes when you do simple things like eating and moving” so says Dr. Chopra in chapter 4. Could there be more of an incentive to eat foods that heal and support healthy aging and get some exercise? Not to mention that you feel better when you do but come on people. We have the power to create our second half with a vengeance. We are not victims to the familial gene pool.

If you want an easy to follow version of this science–with some exercises to help– I recommend Deepak’s book. If you want to hear Dr. Bruce Lipton on the subject, he’s sort of the designated voice of epi-genetic control, use this link to see a 6 minute video. It’s just fascinating.