Tag: life advice

Career coach and TEDx Talk speaker says to reinvent and believe in yourself

Boomer reinvention coach, John Tarnoff (Photo/Travis Price)

For the majority of his life, John Tarnoff says he “was all over the place.” Growing up in New York, he thought he wanted to be an architect, a journalist, a lawyer, until one summer he ended up working as a production assistant after his freshman year at Amherst College, and it captured his imagination.

In the 1990’s, he worked as a film studio executive and producer for MGM, Columbia, New Line and Warner Bros. He then transitioned to technology. Tarnoff co-founded a startup which used computer animation to make online avatars for customer service applications for clients such as Sprint.

“Coming out of that, I hit a wall – that’s where the reinvention comes in,” says Tarnoff.

Reinvention has been part of his brand ever since then. During the unstable economic times of the early 2000’s, Tarnoff decided to go back to school for a masters in spiritual psychology. He was 50.

Today, at 63, he is a professional development coach, a graduate professor at Carnegie Mellon, and in the process of writing a book called ‘Boomer Reinvention: How to Create Your Dream Career After 50,” coming out in 2016. He is also a speaker about issues facing generations and has more than 24K Twitter followers.

Tarnoff, who ended up dropping out of grad school, because he was eager to work, highly recommends going to school later in life.

“Older generations sometimes feel like they are too old, but it was better than going to school at 20,” says the coach and educator. “You are doing it for the right reasons. You are going because you know exactly what it is you want to do.”

Why did he decide to study spiritual psychology?

“Because you learn to find the answers inside you,” he says. “It’s an approach of psychology that stresses personal responsibility and getting out of the blame game. I think we all need to get help and support, but the primary motivator in any direction in our personal life and careers needs to start deeply inside ourselves. What is it that we can do to make a difference?”

Tarnoff jokingly said in his 2012 TEDx Talk, that he’s had 18 jobs over 38 years – moving around every 2.1 years (from film production to education), and he’s been fired 39 percent of the time. But none of that time has been a waste. He says each of his jobs has only gotten better.

“My favorite job is the one I’m doing right now…I live a pretty virtual life,” says Tarnoff, about his typical day at his home base in Los Angeles. “I just got back from Atlanta speaking about how the world has changed since just 20 years ago. I’m back and forth from my home office and Carnegie Mellon office, always looking for places to write.”

He says writing his book and engaging with his students is really inspiring him right now.

“I love engaging with them each year with the launching of their careers in the entertainment business,” says Tarnoff. “They have so much energy and so much to offer. Then, I also work with people who are 30 to 40 years older. They’re at a stage which used to be the end of their career. Today, things are different. Not only are there economic differences, but spiritual issues – they are wanting to continue to live fulfilling lives and being engaged in the economy and society. I think for my generation, the idea of retiring and separating yourself is largely over. Even for people who have saved enough money, they don’t want to slow down or stop. You’re seeing more of these people engaged in encore careers and social entrepreneurship. I think that’s fantastic!”

He says one of the most common challenges his clients face is figuring out what they want, or should be, doing next.

“Many times, we figure out there are many things we are going to do and life is an evolution,” says Tarnoff. “I think this is particularly true for millennials. Businesses are changing too fast…Now the problem is how figuring out how can we contribute – how can we help someone out, help solve a problem? We can figure out what we’re good at by trying to help others out. I tell my grad students, all you have to offer is your willingness to learn and willingness to serve. Having a service mentality will lead you to discover what it is you’re good at.”

What is one piece of important life advice that you would give your younger self with the wisdom you have now?

“Believe in yourself more. Particularly in those moments that you really want to just give up. In your deepest darkest moment, that’s when you have to double down and believe in yourself and take the leap of faith. ‘Leap and the net will appear,’” says Tarnoff. “I think young people are thinking, ‘I can’t do that. What if I make a mistake?’ You should be making mistakes regularly. Fail often, and fail big. When you’re older, you can still make mistakes and recover well. Life is all about lessons.”

November 10, 2015
From L.A. Gangs at 11 To Poet Laureate at 60

Poet Laureate of Los Angeles Luis J. Rodriguez (Photo/ Arlene Mejorado)

Growing up in poverty in South Central and East Los Angeles, Luis J. Rodriguez says he found himself so emotionally empty that he joined a gang at age 11. He started abusing heroin by 12, and by 15, he was put in juvenile hall and later prison. It was his love for books, however, which turned his life around.

At 60, Rodriguez is now an award-winning poet, author, and founder of a cultural arts center which helps youth in the San Fernando Valley stay away from gangs. This month, he was chosen by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to be the city’s second Poet Laureate, succeeding Eloise Klein Healy.

“I thought they’re probably not going to pick me,” says Rodriguez, who was one of approximately 30 applicants. “I was quite amazed. I also understand the responsibility. I want kids to recite poetry. I’ll do anything to get poetry exploding in Los Angeles.”

Rodriguez will be getting an office in the same Central Library where he had once found refuge from the gang world four decades ago. The same peaceful place where he’d escape gunshots, and spend hours upon hours reading, will now be where he writes poems for his city.

“In the end books saved my life,” says the man who has written 15 of his own, including his most recent memoir, “It Calls You Back: An Odyssey Through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing,” a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Rodriguez remembers before he was aware of the power of books, the most eminent force in his life were the gang members who surrounded him.

“They were tough. Everyone was scared of them. They had heavy tattoos,” recalls Rodriguez. “I wanted to be part of that. I thought being a part of that, people would respect me.”

However, in the late 60’s and early 70’s, he says soldiers began returning from the Vietnam War wounded mentally, and there was heroin everywhere. That’s when he says what he thought about gangs began to erode.

“You used to be able to trust your homies, but I realized you couldn’t trust an addict,” says Rodriguez. “I was becoming just like them. When guns come in to the picture, people start killing people. It wasn’t this homey and loving relationship. It wasn’t a place where people could relate and hang. By the time I was 19, I had lost 25 friends, I was addicted to heroin, my family threw me out.”

Rodriguez spent time in county jail for some misdemeanors, where he started writing little stories, but once he was out, he decided he wasn’t going to go back. He opted to return to school instead and even went to night school to better his English.

“I started doing gang intervention,” he says. “I tried helping my neighborhood, and I actually got shot at by one of the gang members because of my work.”

However, Rodriguez remained steadfast, after equipping himself with the power of books. He went on a 35-year mission of gang intervention around the world, which he still makes time for, and founded Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural and Bookstore, with his wife, in 2001.

“This has helped a lot of kids,” says Rodriguez. “Gang kids show up, and they’re welcome. They are young people that need a relationship to options. The option can’t be, ‘I’m going to prison,’ or ‘I’m going to be a heroin addict.’ They need to know they have gifts and callings. That’s what they need to tap into. That’s the work that I do – tap into their own capacities – build them up from there, so they don’t feel like they’re trapped in their crazy life.”

On November 1, Rodriguez will be one of the award-winning authors to speak at the 15th Annual Los Angeles Latino Book & Family Festival – along with three other poets from Tia Chucha. He says it’s very important for him to give back to his community, because it was the same community which helped get him back on his feet.

What is the one piece of advice he would give his younger self with the wisdom he now has?

“The one thing I had was my imagination,” says Rodriguez. “All young people are filled with imagination, but with all the trauma of life and on the streets you lose it. You’re stuck trapped. Don’t lose your imagination.”

October 29, 2014
70-year-old nurse practitioner, and teacher, remembers her most humbling moment

Beth Farren (Photo/Richard Posey)

Beth Farren, 70, continues living her life doing what she loves most – nursing, teaching, and fitting in the time to play tennis.

Originally from Chicago, she has lived in Dallas for the past 33 years, where she volunteers as a nurse practitioner at a nearby clinic, teaches nursing online at Texas Tech, and sits on the board of the North Texas Nurse Practitioners – where she helps raise money for social causes.

“I have lovely days,” says Farren, in her kind, soft voice. “Some days, I diagnose and treat women’s health – pelvic exams, breast exams, pulmonary exams…I also work in the neurology clinic and dermatology clinic. Both have specialty doctors, and I’m their nurse.”

Farren says she started teaching way before she became a nurse practitioner – a career which requires advanced coursework and clinical education beyond that required of a registered nurse.

After getting her bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Farren says she started to think about getting a masters.

“The new dean of the nursing program called me and asked me if I wanted to come teach,” she remembers. “I told her I only had a bachelor’s degree, but she told me they didn’t have enough people with master’s degree, so she was asking those with bachelor’s degrees to do clinical teaching.”

So Farren made an arrangement with her then husband where he helped with their little boys in the morning.

“I started, and I loved it,” says Farren about her first teaching experience. “I taught for them for 10 years.”

During her time in Tennessee, she also worked with women who didn’t have access to prenatal care.

“They were just learning about premature births at that time,” says Farren who took a course in working with premature babies. “I learned that some babies would not have been premature if the mom had just had good prenatal care. I began to be passionate about it.”

So while working on her master’s, she decided she was more interested in prevention and taking care of patients that would benefit from education.

“I mentally left the hospital and pursued courses,” says Farren. “Nowadays, practitioners have a great variety of roles, but when I became a nurse practitioner, we worked outside of the hospitals trying to prevent people from going to the hospital.”

After earning her master’s degree, she moved to Texas for a job opportunity, and there she also earned her doctorate degree.

“I always volunteered one night a week, when my boys were older, at the free clinic,” says Farren. “I’m nothing special. They were just opportunities I had.”

Some of those opportunities included going to Poland and Romania, who were moving away from communism, to teach standards of practice; as well as working at a Cuban refugee camp in Wisconsin one summer.

“In the early ‘80s, Fidel Castro let a bunch of people from psychiatric facilities in Cuba come to America, and all these people showed up in Miami on boats and rafts, and the Army started taking them to different bases to try and take care of them,” says Farren. “The fort I was in was considered a family camp with a lot of pregnant women and children…a number of my patients told me they had been in prison, and I strongly believe a lot of them were political prisoners.”

Perhaps the most impactful moment of her long career, she says, was the moment she thought she might lose her son.

“About 15 years ago, my son had a very serious emergency, and I wound up taking him down to the county hospital here in Dallas,” recounts Farren about her son’s gastric bleed. “One of my students was in the emergency room. She looked up and saw me, and said, ‘Dr. Farren, I’m going to take care of this.’ I realized in that moment that I was able to tell her how much blood he’d lost, and she was able to believe me, because she knew who I was.”

The next day, she says another one of her students took care of him.

“It’s just one of the most humbling things,” says Farren about the whole experience. “I had just done my job to teach these girls, and there they were when I needed them. It wasn’t anything special I did – just the rhythms of life.”

She says her piece of advice to the younger generation is:

“Remember to do what you love, and trust that it will all be ok,” says Farren. “We all worry so much, thinking, ‘Can I make a living doing this?’ ‘Is it even doable?’ I got my doctorate as a single mom, while I worked full-time and did part-time jobs on the side, and nobody in their right mind told me it was a doable thing, but it was.”

September 10, 2014
How to take control of your life
When you are dealing with a challenge in your life, do you feel that you have control over the outcome, or do you believe that you are a victim of outside forces?

If you believe that you have control over what happens, then you have what psychologists refer to as an internal locus of control. If you believe that you have no control over what happens, and that external circumstances are to blame, then you have what is known as an external locus of control.

People with an internal locus of control:
- Are more likely to take responsibility for their actions.
- Tend to be less influenced by the opinions of other people.
- They do a better job when they are allowed to work at their own pace.
- They usually have a strong sense of self-efficacy.
- They work hard to achieve the things they want.
- They feel confident in the face of challenges.
- They tend to be physically healthier.
- They are happier and more independent.
- They often achieve greater success in the workplace.
People with an external locus of control:
- Blame outside forces for their circumstances.
- They often credit luck or chance for any successes.
- They don’t believe they can change their situation through their own efforts.
- They frequently feel hopeless or powerless in the appearance of difficult situations.
When people feel that they have no control over their situation, they begin to behave in a helpless manner.

The Locus Control Theory says that you feel positive about yourself to the degree to which you feel you are in control of your own life, and you feel negative about yourself to the degree to which you feel that you are controlled by some external force, or influence.

Most stress, anxiety, tension, and psychosomatic illnesses come about as the result of the person feeling out of control, or not in control, of some important part of his/her life.

If you feel that your life is controlled by debts, or your boss, or ill health, or bad relationships, or the behavior of others, you will suffer stress. Stress will manifest as irritation, anger, and resentment. If you don’t deal with it will progress to insomnia, depression, or illness of various kinds.

You can have either and internal or external locus of control. That is, you can feel that you are in charge of your own life, happy, positive, and confident, or you can feel controlled by others and feeling helpless, trapped, and much like a victim.

Well how can you take control of you life?

Taking control of your life begins with your thoughts.

How you think about the situation determines how you feel, and your feelings determine your behavior. Self-discipline, self-mastery, self-control all begin with you taking control of your thinking.

There are two ways you can get control of any situation:
- You can take action, and do something to change it.
- You can simply walk away and regain control by letting go of a person, or situation.
It is so important for you to know exactly what you want, because the self confidence that comes from feeling in control is why a person with a clear purpose, and a plan, always edge over someone who is vague and unsure.

Dr. Josefina Monasterio is a certified life coach, fitness expert, and nutritional counselor based in Vero Beach, Florida. She holds a PhD in Adult Personal Development from Nova University and a Master’s Degree in Education from Boston University. Dr. Josefina is also a certified Yoga Therapist from the World Yoga Society of Calcutta, India, and host of Healthy Power TV’s “The Dr. Josefina Way.”
August 11, 2014