Life Coaching and Career Coaching

How long do you want to live? What do you want to achieve in your life time?

The two most important questions that you can ask yourself.

Do you have answers for your life?

JanusLifeCoaching.com is founded on the principle and belief that our lives are judged by our actions. Success  and failure are determined by how well we use the time and talents we have been granted.

I have lived long enough now to have witnessed a number of funerals. Regardless whether rich and famous or poor and lonely,  one question comes through in celebrating the deceased’s life . The celebration focuses on what was accomplished and what might have been accomplished had things been different.

In our 21st century youth oriented culture, we tend to focus on and try to perpetuate the youth phase of our life-cycle  and to ignore or hide the fact that we are aging. Medical science and medicine are giving us the tools to perpetuate the allusion of youth. Our pharmaceutical companies offer wondrous new creams, pills, dyes, and gels, to slow down, hide or reverse the appearance of  age.  Our commercial culture bombards us with images and products celebrate that wondrous youthful phase — 20 - 30 when we are/were young and healthy enough to do anything and old enough for society to allow you to do it.

But in today’s emerging global society, age and longevity are real issues for society, government, families and individuals. Technological and demographic changes are disrupting the established order. Cultural chasms are breakout and separating generations. They are breaking the traditional chain of growth and transitions in society and its parts. A growing, aging population threatens to overburden the health care system in many of the advanced nations, while a population explosion in the developing world threaten the very core of traditional cultures and institutions.

Life Expectancy at birth (years)

Life expectancy at birth (years) world map including:
1) 191 United Nations member states (all except Montenegro)

2) Republic of China - Taiwan

3) Western Sahara territory

4) 27 non-sovereign entities marked with a white hyphen (-) or a black asterisk (*):

- 23 dependent territories

- Hong-Kong and Macau: Special Administrative Regions of the People’s Republic of China.

- Occupied Palestinian Territories: West Bank and Gaza Strip.

There is not much anyone of us can do to change the tide of global development nor the evolving human impact on the planet. However, we can have a impact on that small piece of the universe which is under our personal control. For example, How we will treat those around us? How we will will treat our body? How we will use our talents and gifts, i.e. our minds? How we will use our spirit and energies? These are under our person control –IF we are willing, on the personal level, to responsibility for HOW we will use the time we have on this planet.

The Janus Lifecycle Strategy is based on the idea that, like the Roman god Janus, each of us is one body (head) with two faces. One face is looking back at the past as we perceive it and the other in looking into the future as we envision it.

The past and future are in the moment from Janus point of view

In this moment, you and I have an opportunity, as we have always had, to influence how long we each will live and what we can accomplish in the time reexamining to us. But to do so means taking responsibility.

How do I take responsibility?

Janus says

Start by taking  proactive control over your life today, by asking the question — how much time do I have left?

And once you have answer that question for yourself, take stock of where you are in your life and what you have accomplished and what you want to accomplish.

What one sees and does not see will often surprise you. This story came via an email that was sent out to several hundred on a mailing list. I almost ignore it as a piece of political xenophobic reactionary propaganda, so common in these times.

But for some reason I took the time to read through it. I was both amazed and yet surprising not surprised by the lesson it  teaches about the modern Homo americanus urbana.

….something to think about…

Washington, DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007. The man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approx. 2 thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After 3 minutes a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule. 4 minutes later: the violinist received his first dollar: a woman threw the money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk. 6 minutes: A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.

10 minutes:

A 3-year old boy stopped but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. Every parent, without exception, forced their children to move on quickly.

45 minutes:

The musician played continuously.  Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace…  The man collected a total of $32.

1 hour:

He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before Joshua Bell sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.

This is a true story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people’s priorities. The questions raised: in a common place environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

Janus says

One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this:  If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made…. How many other things are we missing?

How long is your life cycle?

Knowing your estimated longevity is critical for taking control of your life. The Janus Life Cycle Strategy is based on  knowing where you  are currently in your life cycle and your estimated length of  life.

On a piece of paper write down the following:

The average life expectancy of an American is ____78.5____

How old am I?   (write down your age)          ___________

How long do I have to live?    (78.5 - age)        ___________

This is a rough estimate of your longevity. Your individual life expectancy may vary significantly from the average.

Knowing what you have accomplished, and what you have done to yourself so far in your life, defines who you are TODAY. This identifies the risk group you should be compared to when determining your average life expectancy.   This will give you a more accurate estimate of the time you may have to:

(1) accomplish what you set out to do with your life; and more important,

(2) take charge of your life and maybe extending your life by changing your risk group.

Remember that today is the first day of the rest of your life. That is true today and it will be true tomorrow.

When you REGISTER with Janus Life Coaching, you qualify to have FREE access to a wide range of resources to assess your risk group and begin to manage your life cycle and your life. We continue to assemble and make available resources to help our members manage their lives.

Longevity Explained

Your life cycle is the period between your conception (birth) and your death.  Normally, and the insurance industry depend on this, you will live a normal (average) life span for a person with your characteristics. Some individual life cycles are cut short by accidents or disease.  This is the tragedy of war, accidents, disease and violence.

Your normal characteristics are your genetic potential (heredity), your behavior (lifestyle), and your activity (risk exposure). Insurance companies spend a lot of money to refine their knowledge of each of these categories to determine the differences within and between categories. They then use this information to “value” the risk that you will make it average age for your classification.

Life Insurance and You

That’s what insurance companies do — they offer you the opportunity to bet against yourself living as long as is normal for people just like you. And, when you buy the contract, you are betting against yourself. You are betting that you will die before the others just like you do. They profit from this information, why shouldn’t you?

This is the financial side to knowing why the length of your life cycle is important.

Personal Responsibility and You

On the personal side, knowing what your life expectancy can be wonderful and frightening. Wonderful because it would allow you to plan your life and have greater control over how you invested and spent your time.  Frightening because knowing with certainty the time you will die would imposes  tremendous responsibility and burden on you.

Luckily, neither you nor the  insurance company know exactly how long your life cycle will be.

But wouldn’t it be helpful to know, in general terms, just how much time you have left. Wouldn’t it make you stop and consider what you are doing now with your life?  Wouldn’t it make you ask, “What do I want to accomplish in my remaining time?

People, who come through a near death experience, report themselves asking.

“What if I had died?”

“Why did I survive?”

“What have I accomplished in my life time?”

“Would I be leaving my loved ones better or worse off without me?”

Asking such questions can lead to significant changes in one’s outlook on life and behavior. You don’t need to survive a near death experience in order to ask yourself the same questions.

Janus says

By  answering these questions for yourself, you can take responsibility for you life today .

YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE — IF YOU WANT TO!!!

REGISTER TODAY

Why is a life cycle approach a powerful tool for evaluating and planning your life experience?

A recent news story ,  “Recession might make young investors gun-shy”, reports on studies that show people who start their investing or continue to invest in their retirement plans today in the depressed stock market stand to gain in the long term while those who invested at the height of the markets stand to loss if they withdraw today.

I can relate to this. Years ago I had the opportunity to be employed in an organization that offered a retirement program. I contributed to it regularly and stayed there long enough to become vested in the program. The small personal investment I made through my contributions were doubled when I became vested.

Over the next 30 years this initial investment grew. And while I have not contributed to the plan since leaving the organization — today that plan has accumulated enough value to provide me with a cushion in my retirement.  Had I started investing 5 years ago, or even 10 years ago, I would not have weathered the recent economic meltdown.

Just as investing at the right time can make a big difference in later retirement or family plans, any decision we make will have a differential playoff depending when we start or stop some action or activity.

Taking up golf when you are in high school or college will open opportunities that starting at 50 will be closed to you. Waiting to have children until your late 30’s or early 40’s will produce a different experience and challenge than having your children at 15, 25, or 30.

The choices you make, and when you make them, strongly impact your life course and your chances for success and failure.

Sometimes it seems like we are in control.  Other times, it seems like fate is in control. We exploit our opportunities. We withdraw or defend ourselves against threats. Our hopes and  fears are made real by what, when and where we exercise our choices.

We are always making choices in our daily lives. More often than not, these are made in the spur of the moment and with not much thought about the longer term consequences. This is our habituated behavior. This is not only natural, but it has had survival value for our Homo sapiens ancestors as well as the modern shopper.

But not today, not in the emerging global economy and cybernetically networked virtual world of  human/machine interface.

An event that once traveled slowly over relatively short distances, now travels instantaneously globally. Choices made in a moment of passion or despair and soon forgotten, now become sealed in the global memory forever, or at least until someone pulls the plug.

The life you want to lead and the life you live are determined by how you use your time and when you use it.

I speak from personal experience. If we are not aware of the natural cycle our life is following — we risk losing out on many of the joys and challenges that life offers.

When we say that YOUR LIFE IS YOUR BUSINESS, this what we mean. Your life up until this moment is a record of what you have done — it is your balance sheet in the game of life.  Do you know your score?

Have you taken the time to check your balance sheet?

Janus says

Maybe it is TIME that you did.