Three3rds of Life

Mentoring Older Men

[blox_column width=”1/1″][/blox_column][blox_heading title=”‘I need a mentor.’” size=”h3″ style=”style5″ animation=”none”][/blox_heading][blox_text animation=”none”] Anyone associated with young people has probably heard those words before, particularly in a business or organizational context or in working with disadvantaged youth. Mentoring is a powerful tool for helping young people develop. But from a 65 or 70 year-old? Wouldn’t that seem a …

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Mentoring Fatherless Men

[blox_column width=”1/1″][/blox_column][blox_heading title=”‘I know you’re not the man who birthed me…’” size=”h3″ style=”style5″ animation=”none”][/blox_heading][blox_text animation=”none”] “…But I need a man I trust to give me some fathering, as my father was absent from my life. And now, I’m also a father, who needs some guidance. Will you be that with me, for me?” Those who …

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Mentoring Across the Three3rds of Life

[blox_column width=”1/1″][/blox_column][blox_heading title=”Several months ago I held a beautiful baby boy.” size=”h3″ style=”style5″ animation=”none”][/blox_heading][blox_text animation=”none”] He was just weeks old. Uniquely, when his 30 year-old mother was his age, I also had the privilege of holding her within her first year of life. Her 63 year-old father is a stellar business leader whom I’ve mentored …

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Be Fully Alive…To The End

[blox_column width=”1/1″][/blox_column][blox_heading title=”Way back in the last century…” size=”h3″ style=”style5″ animation=”none”][/blox_heading][blox_text animation=”none”] …when we were kids growing up on farms in Arizona (Judy…currently 72) and Oregon (Wes…now 74) it was the custom to have parties to celebrate couples, friends of our parents, who had been married 40, 50, 60 years. Being the last-born in our …

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Creating a Legacy Obituary

[blox_column width=”1/1″][/blox_column][blox_heading title=”The ink was not even dry…” size=”h3″ style=”style5″ animation=”none”][/blox_heading][blox_text animation=”none”] …on the clerk and recorder documents, the BOLD CAPS emblazoned “Letters of Testamentary”. Ralph C. Wilson (not his real name) ascended into heaven right on schedule, according to the Father’s calendar not ours. He left behind a pile of property to distribute. It …

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How Do You Spell S-u-c-c-e-s-s?

[blox_column width=”1/1″][/blox_column][blox_heading title=”I am 54 years old…” size=”h3″ style=”style5″ animation=”none”][/blox_heading][blox_text animation=”none”] …husband to Kim, father to Chelsea and son-in-law James, and Grandpa-to-be for baby Evelynn. The answer to this question on success has radically changed over the past several years. As has the meaning of fully living my unique life in all 8 Dimensions, as …

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Realization, Realize, Real

[blox_column width=”1/1″][/blox_column][blox_heading title=”The start, and heart, of our Middle Third.” size=”h3″ style=”style5″ animation=”none”][/blox_heading][blox_text animation=”none”] Realization… …this word is a noun, with a simple definition from Merriam-Webster: the state of understanding or becoming aware of something: the act of achieving something that has been planned or hoped for. Realization characterizes the start of our Second3rd of …

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A View of Life from an Emerging Adult…

[blox_column width=”1/1″][/blox_column][blox_heading title=”…The Decade from 20-30″ size=”h3″ style=”style5″ animation=”none”][/blox_heading][blox_text animation=”none”] (In all my 74 years of life, in my own decades of having lived through my own bits of joy and tumult personally and in our world, I need to clearly state, with deep thanks to our Creator, that from across the globe I am having …

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Who are you?

[blox_column width=”1/1″][/blox_column][blox_heading title=”Have you explored this question?” size=”h3″ style=”style5″ animation=”none”][/blox_heading][blox_text animation=”none”] (In all the decades of life one may be granted, that first decade is crucial for life-long development in all of the 8 Dimensions of the Circle of Life. Therefore, faithful grandparents have written about the value of life-enhancing mentoring of those kiddos in …

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Why Look at Life in Three3rds?

[blox_column width=”1/1″][/blox_column][blox_heading title=”Good friends for decades.” size=”h3″ style=”style5″ animation=”none”][/blox_heading][blox_text animation=”none”] The morning this is being written we, my wife and I, are in the home of these “good friends for decades” kind of friends: for over three decades now (but not the family in the picture above). This couple, now in their 60’s, live close …

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The First Decade of Life

[blox_column width=”1/1″][/blox_column][blox_heading title=”Zero to 10…” size=”h3″ style=”style5″ animation=”none”][/blox_heading][blox_text animation=”none”] That’s not the description of a very slow car at a drag race. It’s the crucial years of a child’s first decade of life. Mentors and other leaders, who are familiar with Leadership Design Group, know we view life in terms of decades: 0-10; 10-20; 20-30; …

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Generations of Influence

[blox_column width=”1/1″][/blox_column][blox_heading title=”We all want to live in wisdom.” size=”h3″ style=”style5″ animation=”none”][/blox_heading][blox_text animation=”none”] This allow us to be good mentors to others. To live in wisdom, we must learn from our elders, gleaning all that we can from their experiences. We also need to consider what the younger generations can teach us. Otherwise, our learning …

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Elderly woman with camera

The Advantages of Growing Older

[blox_column width=”1/1″][/blox_column][blox_heading title=”So Wes, why did you choose me to write about the advantages of growing older?” size=”h3″ style=”style5″ animation=”none”][/blox_heading][blox_text animation=”none”] After all, I’m young and getting younger by the day! OK, so the years are adding up, but that doesn’t mean I can’t choose to be younger. I also work with older people all …

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How to Remain a Person of Influence in Your Later Years

[blox_column width=”1/1″][/blox_column][blox_heading title=”“Younger people just don’t want to listen anymore.”” size=”h3″ style=”style5″ animation=”none”][/blox_heading][blox_text animation=”none”] That lament was voiced to me by a relatively successful retired businessman several weeks ago. “They are all just off in their own worlds doing their own thing. How come you seem to have so many younger folk talking with you?” …

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Stormy weather graphic

Coming Alongside the Elderly: Allowing Grief to Be Your Mentor

[blox_column width=”1/1″][/blox_column][blox_heading title=”I recall a seminary student in a dilemma.” size=”h3″ style=”style5″ animation=”none”][/blox_heading][blox_text animation=”none”] I was his professor, assigned to oversee his mentoring experience. The student sought my help. His elderly mentor had been diagnosed with a terminal illness and would be unable to “make do” on his commitment. I knew this mentor. He was …

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Elderly couple walking

Three Life Lessons from my Aging Parents

[blox_column width=”1/1″][/blox_column][blox_heading title=”My Father will turn 100 in eight weeks…” size=”h3″ style=”style5″ animation=”none”][/blox_heading][blox_text animation=”none”] …at least that’s the best guess we have of his age. They didn’t do nice, tidy birth certificates in the 1915 Ozarks. Mom is 91. All nine siblings and I have had the privilege of walking with them through the Third3rd …

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Man stretching

Staying Alive, No Matter What

[blox_column width=”1/1″][/blox_column][blox_heading title=”Two ings will help you stay alive!” size=”h3″ style=”style5″ animation=”none”][/blox_heading][blox_text animation=”none”] If you are thinking at all, then I know you will be able to come up with more “ing” words than I am going to talk about here. In fact, let me know what you come up with…all thoughts on “ings” are …

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Stars in space

Live While We Are Alive

[blox_column width=”1/1″][/blox_column][blox_heading title=”Our concern must be to live while we are alive…” size=”h3″ style=”style5″ animation=”none”][/blox_heading][blox_text animation=”none”] …to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a façade designed to conform to eternal definitions of who and what we are. Wise words from Elisabeth Kubler-Ross As we begin to take some …

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Two hands making the shape of a heart

Legacy is a Four Letter Word

[blox_column width=”1/1″][/blox_column][blox_heading title=”…an interview with Gary and Jorie Gulbranson” size=”h3″ style=”style5″ animation=”none”][/blox_heading][blox_text animation=”none”] It was late summer of 1973 when my wife, Judy, and I met Gary and Jorie Gulbranson.  They were newlyweds.  We had been married for over six years.  Gary and I were beginning grad school in Denver, and both of we couples …

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Woman walking

Who I Want to Be When I Grow Up

[blox_column width=”1/1″][/blox_column][blox_heading title=”When I grow up I want to be _________.” size=”h3″ style=”style5″ animation=”none”][/blox_heading][blox_text animation=”none”] I watched as a room full of rowdy 8th graders took the stage. An adventuresome, excited presence filled the room as each kid glided across the floor as their name was called to be given a diploma and a “congratulations …

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