NLS 028: Is It Too Late to Reinvent Myself with Connie H. Deutsch
Today we have back one of the most popular guests we've ever had, Connie H. Deutsch. Her last episode How to Discover the Meaning of Your Life is in the top 5 most downloaded episode. In this conversation Connie and I discuss what is reinvention, breaking through fear and how to connect with your higher-self.Below is an article Connie wanted to include in this post. Enjoy.Is It Too Late to Reinvent Myself?It seems like eons since I first heard the concept of reinventing yourself. I guess that fits the theory expressed by the famous guru, Paramahansa Yogananda in his book, Autobiography of a Yogi that if you don’t like your life, change it. If you don’t like your karma, change it.This doesn’t precisely go hand in hand with reinventing yourself but it’s a good starting point.What does reinventing yourself actually mean? When I tried to find out, I got numerous answers from numerous people. I heard one person say, “Connie has reinvented herself hundreds of times.” Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, I wouldn’t even know how to start, let alone know where I was going.To my way of thinking, it means that a person is willing to walk away from everything he has been doing and is taking on a new persona. I’ve known a few people who have done this, especially people who have emigrated to America. During the Cuban missile crisis, many physicians were denied the right to practice medicine in this country unless they had graduated from a medical school in this country. To my way of thinking, a human body in Cuba is no different from a human body in America. If you have a valid degree from a foreign medical school and can pass the necessary exams, you should be allowed to practice medicine in any country. The laws don’t change about anatomy whereas they do change in the legal field or the real estate field. I remember talking to some of the Cuban doctors who told me they were forced to find employment in other fields when they came to America. One of them took a job as a janitor just to put food on the table. Another took a job as a cook in a small restaurant. These people knew the meaning of the phrase reinventing yourself. They literally had to give up their former life and find a new career.I, on the other hand, never had to give up anything. I merely added to what I already had. When I was thirteen, I worked as a volunteer working with Cerebral Palsy children. Some years later, I worked as a volunteer teaching the children of migrant workers how to read and evaluate the accuracy of the IQ tests which were badly flawed. In later years, I worked in the medical field and some years later, I designed health programs for people around the world. But my official career started with me being a business consultant and personal advisor for people around the world and that has never changed. Through the years, I kept adding to the things I was already doing. To my way of thinking, the articles and books I had written were just extensions of what I was already doing. The same with my publishing company and my newspaper column that I had for sixteen years until the publisher sold the newspaper. I had my own radio program for a year and a half and I did my counseling as part of my newspaper column and radio program. When I was invited to speak on various radio programs and a cable television show, it was still an extension of what I had been doing. The same holds true about the talks I gave at various colleges. When I wrote the scripts for a financial television program, it was an extension of my business consulting work. So, looking back through the many decades of my career, I can’t say I ever reinvented myself; I just kept adding new projects to keep me from being bored. It’s also why I make a radical change every two years. It’s now two years later and just as I...