Hello friends!
I had a realization the other day. I think it might have come because I’ve been getting a great influx of data. I can peek at the stats on my website and Facebook pages, and I ran a recent reader survey to get know my readers better. As I went through all this data, I had this moment where I realized…
My readers are me!
My demographics and yours are very similar. The majority of my readers are within a few years of my own age. (The second largest group are the age I feel.) We like a lot of the same television shows, enjoy the same hobbies, and a lot of us, a whole lot of us, are spiritual, philosophical, positive minded people.
My readers are my tribe.
The things most on our minds are our families. Our kids. Their kids. (That’s the group who are my age, rather than the age I feel.) 🙂 We are in love with our pets. We know who we are, and we like who we are, and yet, we have no intention of settling for who we are. We are constantly growing. Many of us (me included) are in the most intense growth spurt of our lives.
For me, this current growth spurt began when I parted ways with my publisher and was kind of shoved off a cliff into my own business two years ago. (Almost exactly. The big break happened on March 1st 2014.) To be honest with you, I was terrified and pretty sure my writing career was over.
It wasn’t. It was only just getting started, but I had a lot to learn. Because instead of just writing my stories I now had to write them, package them, price them, publish them, market them and more.
So I set to learning. I started taking business courses, marketing courses, courses on finance, and courses on staying sane, which I thought I didn’t need at all and learned I needed more than ever.
What I found was that I loved learning all these new skills! Who’d have thought that at this point in my life, with my daughters all adults now, I’d be learning so many new things, expanding my brain and my mind in so many new and exciting directions?
These past two years have been the most thrilling, the most lucrative, the most rewarding, educational, FUN years ever!
Many of us in this tribe of ours are finding ourselves at 40-something and 50-something, feeling as young and vibrant as we ever did. But smarter. Way, way smarter than we ever were. We’ve gathered immense quantities of knowledge and more importantly wisdom. And we’re hungry for even more.
There’s a saying; “Youth is wasted on the young.”
The way I always interpreted it is that when we’re young, we’re strong, we’re beautiful, we have boundless energy and enthusiasm. But we don’t necessarily have the wisdom to know what to do with it. Then we get older. We accumulate all that wisdom and knowledge we didn’t have then, but now we’re old and tired and weak and our health is fading, so we don’t have the energy to apply it.
But I’m here to tell you, that old saying is no longer valid. (And probably never truly was.)
We no longer have to take to the rocking chair the minute we turn a certain age.
We still have the curious, seeking minds we had in our youth, and we’re still young. There is no reason anymore for us to grow weaker and less active and less energized. We know how to take care of ourselves now. We know simple things we can do to stay vital and energized, and now we have the wisdom to know what to do with that energy!
Whoever said life begins at forty (fifty?) was right. This is our prime, my dear ones. This is our time. This is the time when we can learn how to live for us.
I have a homework assignment for my tribe of beautiful grown up women, and it will be the beginning of the brand new Maggie's Bookclub! I want every single one of you to grab a copy of Dr. Christiane Northrup’s book, GODDESSES NEVER AGE. It’s only $1.99 E! ($!5.84 in print.) It is a gift you can give to yourself. A gift you must give to yourself. You are worth that much to you, aren’t you?
The information in this book is priceless. It will improve your health and it will improve your life. It will make you stand up and cheer.
I’d love for us to read it together—as the very first selection in Maggie's Bookclub! In fact, let’s meet back here next week to discuss the first chapter!
Tell me in comments if you’re in. I promise, this book will make you younger, healthier, and more in love with yourself and your life.
I’m going to write a bookclub post every week until we finish this fabulous book, and if it goes well, we’ll move on to another book when we’ve finished.
And I’m going to duplicate all these posts in my Facebook Group, Maggie Shayne Readers, so we can carry the discussion there too. Meet you there. Or back here. Either way!
Let’s do this together. And let’s talk about it as we do.
PS: If anyone says they can't afford the print book and doesn't have an E-reader, remember you can download the Kindle app FREE right here for your phone, tablet or computer. Also, yes, I only posted the Amazon link, but you can also get the book at BN or Kobo or Google. Just go to your favorite bookstore site and type in Goddesses Never Age.
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