Is 40 the new 30 & If it is What can we learn from it ?

I turned 40 last week and it felt like a real milestone. As my birthday happens to be around the new year period it happens to fall during a 'contemplative time'. I would have to say that this was my first contemplative birthday.

I remember my Dad turning 40 and 40 just seemed so grown up. It also seemed like an apt time for reflection. So I hit 40 with a few things I (and others) thought I would or would not have.

I have a full set of hair, I have two beautiful kids, I am single, I still have a six pack, my business is established and I am doing something I love, I have an intimate group of friends, a home that I love, very few wrinkles, energy to do the stuff I love to do. And in the name of lightheartedness I asked my Mom to bake me a BOB the Builder cake for my birthday. She complied.

One of the gifts that I received was a book by Malcolm Gladwell called Outliers. Yesterday, on a flight to melbourne I had a read of it.

The book challenges the premise of success, how it is both created and defined. What I loved about it was that it stirred my own creative juices.

I have been fortunate to create a business that centres itself around creating success, creating an optimal life and a life that works. While exercise and wellbeing are an important piece of that pie they are only a piece. And the pie itself is multifaceted and totally integrated and intertwined.

In that integrative context we do the following at evolution. All our evolutionaries (lead trainers) buddy up with each other. They are then given a very basic goal setting structure that has 6 categories that essentially incorporates their whole lives. The aim is to create three specific actions in each of the categories. The structure is loosely based around that advocated by Stephen Covey in his book 7 habits of Highly Effective people (which to date has sold in excess of 30 million copies)

The categories are

1/ Work within evolution. 3 things I am up to as an evolutionary

2/ Work/finance outside of evolution. what am I doing and creating

3/ My health and wellbeing

4/ My friends and family

5/ My greater community

6/ Self/spirit/awaerness development

The goals need to follow the classic SMART Framework

S = Specific

M = Measurable

A = Achievable

R = Realistic

T = Timebound (within a specified timeframe)

Doing that in our own lives enables us to do that in the lives of our evolutionites (clients) and other people in our world for whom we can make a difference.

So while its a simple process it is also incredibly empowering especially when Buddies hold each other to account.

My buddy is Brett who happens to also be my closest friend of 20 years. At my 40th party in lieu of a speech he composed a poem about us which he read out. As a 40th birtday gift he created a 7 minute DVD that tracks our friendship in video and images while the poem is reading the background (check it out at http://www.vimeo.com/18946092 if you like)

Gladwell makes the same point over and over again in his book. To be great at something (anything) takes persistence, commitment, passion and lots and lots of practice. SO I feel like having hit 40 I have had lots of practice at this thing called life.

I have had ups and downs, highs and lows and many obstacles to climb over. I have fallen hard many times but I have always gotten up. And I have learned some key lessons the most important of which is probably this:

"Do what you say you are going to do"

Be your word, be accountable to what you say. It makes you clear. it makes you trustable. It makes you accountable. It makes you believe in yourself and it grants you enormous power

I am not sure if it is possible to know that lesson at 30 but I know at 40 that I have a spring in my gait and my waist is still the same size it was when I was 30. I laugh with more ease then I did at 30 and I am clear that I know alot less.

I am more forgiving of myself and others and less likely to debate. I listen more and talk less. I need less sleep. I read as much but not as widely. I have forgiven God and I have found my own way. And I am surrounded by many people that I love.

I have some great possessions but I know they come and go and I have a vocation that I love.

And I am looking very forward to the next ten years and am planning on meeting them as a present and open man who knows that whatever this is - it to shall pass.