LifeTwo's Interview With Susan Crandell, Author of "Thinking About Tomorrow" ... and "Life Entrepreneur"

When Susan Crandell walked away from her dream job as editor-in-chief of More magazine to become a freelance writer, she wondered if she would really find the better life she sought. Combining her newfound freedom and knowing that she wasn't the only middle aged person thinking about changing their life, she set off to investigate what she calls "life entrepreneurs" -- people who act on their vision of a "richer, fuller" future for themselves.

The result is "Thinking About Tomorrow," a look at forty-five people who reinvented themselves at midlife -- and the lessons they learned along the way. These weren't just career changes: these transformations encompass spirituality, education, and taking in the world. In turn, Crandell learned a lot about what goes into a successful midlife makeover.

She generously shared her insights with us in this email interview..

(Click to see it at Amazon!)

LifeTwo: How did the people you talked to begin their renewals? Was it the classic "midlife crisis," a triggering event, a gradual realization that they needed to make a change ...?

Susan Crandell: Among the Life Entrepreneurs in Thinking About Tomorrow, Illness or death was the most frequent trigger—could be a friend struck with breast cancer, a sibling lost to a traffic accident or the early death of a parent. One of those “life is too short,” or “if not now, when?” moments.

You talk about "the doldrums" -- a state where someone is dissatisfied with their life but doesn't know what to do about it. You recommend that people in the doldrums build a personal motivational map. Have you run across other methods that people use to zero in on what changes they should make in their lives?

It takes reflection and real honesty. Not what you think you should want but what you really do want. How to dig down to that level? Oddly enough, yoga or meditation can help, because it trains you to focus the mind and eliminate static.

People should remember that they don’t have to leap into the deep end of the pool. You can wade into a new life by trying a hobby. If you truly love painting or ice skating, it may fill that void without shaking up your life. And if you do need a bigger change, you can still try it on for size. Substitute-teach if you think you might want to teach, ask to shadow a friend who owns a small business if that’s a reinvention you’re considering. The New England Inns Association even has an Innkeeper for a Day program that lets people discover what it’s like to run an inn.

In a recent article in More, you said we focus on the foothold we've got rather than the handhold up there waiting for us (which seems a more comforting metaphor than "leap into the unknown!"). How do people decide to go ahead and actually make that "dynamic move," where they push away from the old foothold in order to gain a better handhold?

We all should have as our mantra, “Look forward, not back.” It’s so easy to get stuck worrying about the things that you’re going to give up. You know what they are—all too well. But you might not be able to imagine all the riches that lie in store when you start changing your life. I never figured on all the adventure travel that’s become part of my new work life.

Step one is to understand that every change involves loss. Say you get the promotion you’ve been working toward for two years—more money, status, recognition, what’s not to like? Maybe it’s loss of free time, the stress of a higher degree of accountability, or even the loss of business friends you can no longer buddy around with.

Step two is to put in the time to actually visualize our new future—plan it out, don’t just lurch toward it. Before George Oldenburg bought a small-town zoo in Louisiana, he ran the numbers with care, really knew what he was getting into. Getting as familiar as you can with tomorrow can help you get comfortable with change.

What were the major obstacles your life entrepreneurs faced?

Money was certainly an issue for some of them. Holly McCamant had to work full-time when she went to college at 47, because she still had two children at home, one with Down Syndrome. But she managed to do it and still pull all As. When Steve Weiner launched a small business building Porsche race cars, there were times in the early, lean years when he had to decide whether to buy groceries or pay the rent. But he stuck with it and developed the business.

The biggest obstacle for many people is what you alluded to in the previous question, fear of change. You have to do everything you can to get comfortable with a new life: use trusted friends as a sounding board for your ideas; investigate and research the new venture, whether it’s going back to school or changing careers. Knowledge is power. And power is confidence.

Susan Crandell

Were there types of midlife reinvention that surprised you -- that you didn't expect when you started the book?

Cindy Butler, who became a cave diver, Paula Holmes-Eber, who biked around the world, Mary Senft Hanson, who built an airplane—these were all enormous undertakings. They are my heroes, and I try to remember them when I’m stuck on the verge of a change myself.

You wrote that "all the successful life entrepreneurs ... had one thing in common: they shared a strongly held conviction that their new path was right." Why do you think they were so confident? Were there other common themes you saw?

I think there’s a process of natural selection here. I chose to focus on success stories—plenty has already been written about people mired in midlife crisis—and the people who succeed are the ones who believe in themselves. They may not have started out that way, but as they’ve honed and executed their new vision for life, they developed the confidence to make it happen. I talk about the techniques for doing this in my book.

Many of your "Life Entrepreneurs" seemed to make their jump at about fifty. What advantages did their age and experience bring? Did they have regrets at not making the leap earlier?

Big birthdays are often a cattle prod. Turning 40 or 50 is a natural time to take stock of life, and to do something about it if you’re not satisfied. Steve Weiner said he wished he’d launched his business sooner, but most people were so happy to have found a satisfying new incarnation that they weren’t wasting time on regrets.

Many said the change couldn’t have come any earlier: they didn’t have the discipline or seasoning to make it in their thirties, whether it was Louis Licari running the Hawaii Ironman at 51, or Helen Hand, a psychotherapist who became president of a university in her early 50s.

You talk about midlife transformation being "another social revolution" on the scale of the 1960's. Why now and not a generation ago?

For better and for worse, we boomers are unique. Some call us self-indulgent, others call us ingenious. Probably we’re both. We are certainly bitten by the youth bug, and are going to do everything in our power to stay in life’s spotlight as long as we can—staying fit and healthy, pursuing meaningful work, helping others. It’s the Peter Pan feeling of agelessness combined with unprecedented affluence that has permitted us to reinvent middle-age.

Do you think this is a permanent change in the course of people's lives? Do you expect your daughter's (Gen X?) generation to go through the same midlife transformations?

Wow. Fun to imagine what our kids will be doing at our age--things we can’t even imagine, no doubt. Just as gen X women moved into the workplace, taking the advances boomer women had made for granted, I’m sure our kids will automatically think of midlife as a healthy, vital time. That will be their starting point, not a goal they struggle toward, and who knows how high they can fly.

Will we one day look back on "midlife crisis" as a relic of an era where one was expected to assume the same roles their entire adult life? Will Gen X and Gen Y have midlife crises?

As long as there’s aging, we’re going to worry about it on one level or another. Just this week, my mother, who’s 80, lost a cousin and a good friend. It can’t be fun to be her right now. But I hope if “midlife crisis” is step one, that there will be a step two—answering and addressing it with a meaningful life change.

You wrote of your position at More that "it was hard to imagine a more desirable job, but I could certainly imagine a better life." You knew the tradeoffs you'd have to accept -- several years on, has anything surprised you?

What’s surprised not just me, but my family, is that it has actually changed my personality. When I ran MORE, I was a woman with a plan. My entire week was carefully choreographed, with no room for slippage. Now, I’m more relaxed, more contemplative. I was describing this to a newspaper reporter the other day, and when I put down the phone, I asked my daughter whether it was really true. “Absolutely,” she said. And “Hallelujah.”

If you had had "Thinking About Tomorrow" at hand four (?) years ago when you were thinking about leaving More, what lessons or stories would you have found most useful?

For me, the most interesting question is how you find the courage to punch the “go” button, because it was so hard for me. If I had been able to read all the inspiring stories in Thinking About Tomorrow, I probably would have made the change sooner—and with a lot less fear.

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Click here to see "Thinking About Tomorrow" at Amazon

You can read the first chapter of "Thinking About Tomorrow" here at her publisher's website.

This earlier LifeTwo post lists some resources Susan recommends. Her blog is here -- send her your own midlife transformation story for possible use in a future book!