Still Wondering What You’ll Do With Your Life?

Hitting your 40th, 50th, 60th or 70th birthday can be frightening. There is no question that things are different in midlife and beyond. But if you fear it’s too late for your big dreams, you have some reading to do — because it’s not. In fact, most dreams will become easier to achieve now.

This is our eleventh Barbara Sher book club, a chance to read one of Barbara Sher’s books, do all the exercises, and discuss them with book club members all over the world. For 16 weeks, as you read and work through this exciting and unusual book, you will share what you’re learning about this new stage of your life with others who are having similar experiences. Fresh insights will come as others in your group share their experiences and you’ll open a deeper understanding of how it all applies to you. The combination of exciting reading and the chance to meet regularly to discuss it will make this book club a wonderful experience.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? But where will you find the time?

That’s the blessing of an online program: you’ll discover the convenience of attending class whenever you want, in whatever you’re wearing, with no travel time or traffic to contend with.

You’ll experience this life-changing book in a new way, and make friends with fascinating men and women from all walks of life. Do the exercises when you have time, never rushing or hurrying.

But will you have the same kind of closeness as an in-person book club could give you? Hard to believe if you haven’t done it, but the answer is yes — perhaps even more. Why? Because you can comment whether you’re shy or outgoing. You can ask questions about anything you don’t understand. You’ll be able to help your new friends. You’re going to love it.

Join us for this next book club, starting on February 8th. For sixteen weeks, we’ll share Barbara Sher’s guide to living a life you love after 40, It’s Only Too Late If You Don’t Start Now: How to Create Your Second Life at Any Age. Together, we’ll read every word. We’ll do all the exercises. And we’ll share it with each other on password-protected, members-only web pages.

Your Guide: Patty Newbold, Sher Success Teams Director

Patty has been a Success Teams Leader since 2004 and director of the Sher Success Teams program for the past four years. She helped Barbara launch her WriteSpeak program and worked side-by-side with her at three WriteSpeak retreats and online since 2015. If you’re a member of Hanging Out, you know her as Webmaster, the MIT alum who figures out all the techie stuff Barbara hates being bothered with. She’s a full-blooded Scanner who’s had a great Scanner career and lots of hobbies, and thanks to many of her MIT pals, she really gets Divers, too. And she celebrated her 40th birthday over 25 years ago.

Here’s what people said about Patty’s role in our book clubs for I Could Do Anything and Refuse to Choose:

By the way, Patty…I want to give you the highest praise I know…you so often sound so much like Barbara! It makes me get a huge smile on my face and then I imagine Barbara getting a huge smile on her face when she reads what you have written and then that makes me have an even more huge smile on my face. —LisaMancelyn

“Welcome back, Patty:) I’ve missed knowing you’re out there, — processing, responding, and CARING so much about all of us. —Amy M.”

I also want to say that with each of these exercises that I work on being honest with myself and devoting time, energy and thought I can feel myself understanding (finally!), growing emotionally, and changing inside….Thanks a million to Barbara for designing them, to Patty for her support and to everyone in the Club for reading, or just for being there. —Alicia

The It’s Only Too Late If You Don’t Start Now Book Club

We begin on Thursday, February 8, 2018. If you don’t sign up by 11:55 pm NY time on the 7th, it’s likely to be a year or two before your next opportunity. We’ll read part of the book and do the exercises in it every week for sixteen weeks. We’ll finish up on Wednesday, May 30, 2018.

We’ll meet here on this website, discussing in written form each chapter and each exercise. You can choose how often to check in each week, how much you want to participate and when.

We expect a lot of members, but everyone will be assigned to a discussion group of 35 members or so, which turns out to be the perfect group size. If you bring in your friends to join at the same time you can be in the same group. (But don’t wait until the last minute, as the last group could be smaller or larger than the others.)

You will need a copy of It’s Only Too Late If You Don’t Start Now to work from. Choose the hard cover, the paperback or the Kindle edition, whatever suits your reading style. You’ll receive an email (optional) each Thursday with a reminder of the week’s assignments, or you can look them up in your Member Profile on this site. To share in the comments left by the other members of your book club group, you can subscribe to be emailed each comment as it appears. Or, you can choose to visit each week’s pages and read them all at once.

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Register by February 7th

No one admitted after 11:55 pm February 7th (NY time)

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It’s Only Too Late If You Don’t Start Now: How to Create Your Second Life at Any Age

Is this the right book club for you?

• YES if you’re a coach or want to be one. Barbara Sher knows more than almost anyone in the world about living a life you love after 40. You cannot get the tools and perspectives in this book anywhere else.
• YES if you’re approaching or past your 40th birthday and trying to figure out how to craft a life that you love or still looking forward to going after more of your dreams.
• YES if you got distracted from actually finishing It’s Only Too Late If You Don’t Start Now or putting into practice what you learned the first time you read it.
• YES if you are drawn to help others who are older than you and facing different challenges.
• YES if you get more out of exercises when you do them with other people.
• YES if you are isolated and don’t know a lot of other over-40 dreamers like you.
• NO if you are still hoping to have kids or more kids or take your current career to greater heights.
• NO if you believe a positive attitude is the best way to real results. (If you ever went to school, held down a job or raised a child, you know the reality: you did it with whatever attitude you woke up with each day.)

What can you expect to gain from the It’s Only Too Late If You Don’t Start Now book club? Well, here are what members of our I Could Do Anything and Refuse to Choose Book Clubs said:

This has really been an eye-opening week for me. I hadn’t realized how engrained many of these messages were inside of me. And how many of them still play out to this day….It’s tough work, but I feel so much more motivated doing this as a group than being a lone, unsupported wolf. I love reading what all of you have to share. —Angela

“I never would have completed the exercises without this book club!” —Beverley Anne

I’m so glad the book club was started, because I wouldn’t have done the exercises either & I find they are super helpful. The book stand alone is amazing but I think the transformation is in the exercises and doing them in your head when you are reading & calling it done like I do with soooo many books — doesn’t really cut it. —Aeryn

As a first step (also prompted by this book club – I must add), I have four events planned per month at my house for the next six months. The flyer went out two weeks ago with a reminder email a couple of days ago….Thanks Barbara for writing this book. I am in ACTION! —Ruth

Hi…i am wow’ed. I wish I could take time off and do nothing but CATCH UP…darn it! I now want to read and participate in this terrific club and its members 24-7!!!!!! —Maria-Franziska

I am a “little behind” the rest of the group. But – it’s for a good reason. It has – OMG wow …. amazing … yowsa … have I been having some epiphanies! I am literally having some Good weeping moments here. I have done several (as I’m sure many of the group has) “self-help”/introspective programs. Nothing touches this. —Pat

“Thank goodness for this book club. I’m inspired by the stories and visions of others here to find out and do something about it.” —Christine

This course is proving invaluable in not only making me appreciate how blessed I am but also how much I can do to refine and further enhance my life – and connecting with this group is wonderful <3 … THANK YOU for creating this book club. —Stephanie

Many of the things I’ve written here I’ve never told anyone else in full, as the context wasn’t available (as in therapy, other workshops, or even in a journal). The questions by Barbara Sher are so well formed that it pulls our insights out and enables us to more see the whole and make more sense of. Loving it too! —Patricia

This is your chance. The doors close at 11:55 pm EDT on February 7th and the Book Club begins on February 8th. Patty’s ready to introduce you to a lot of great people and take you through the entire book. And the earliest we can possibly offer this again is 2019. Sign up now and start changing your life. You owe your gifts to the rest of us. We owe you the support you need to find those gifts and do what you were born to do next.

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Register by February 7th

No one admitted after 11:55 pm February 7th (NY time)

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