Keynote speakers

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 “We talk about the prime of life. What is that? When is that?… We continue to mature and develop, especially emotionally and spiritually, until we die. Imagine if we could not wait to get old, like a child can’t wait to be an adult? Imagine if we looked at each day as another opportunity to deepen, mature, grow, develop, become an elder? How stunningly shortsighted, then, to view aging as decline! Aging allows us to keep writing the poem we call our life.” 

  “The traditional view of aging thinks of it in terms of work: measured by whether work is present or absent. I prefer instead to think of Aging in terms of music: life has four Ages, Stages, or movements, just as a symphony does. So, of course, Aging as music, Aging as poetics, is long overdue for discussion.” 

  How do we care for ourselves as we age? Gender intelligence is essential so that women and men can cope with stress because men and women have different strategies. If caring for him would be a stress for her, that would be a stress for him, and he'd rather be left alone. Men don't recognize how important it is not to not complain to their partners about what they have to go through to provide support. That can immediately negate her ability to ask for support. 

What is the difference between custodial and relationship care? Often expectations are higher in relationship care, "You should do things because you love me and because I have spent a lifetime of supporting you." Therefore resentment can be higher than with custodial care. However, even with custodial care, there is still a massive gender blindness that pervades, where men do not know how to provide the correct support for women. Women do not know how to provide the correct support for men. On top of that, there is a lack of emotional intelligence that pervades an older generation, where the importance of communication about feelings and freedom to ask for what you want and ways to do it are not taught or trained. Here we have have an entire generation that is already at a disadvantage due to declining mental capacity. Add to that an inability and lack of training on how to validate ones s needs and ask for one's needs in a way that is effective and that works, rather than burying the needs and complaining.

  “Your heart tells a different story”…discover how having a heart attack can influence career and living. Stories and metaphors will be shared related to living well and the importance of “hope” as a foundation for all aspects of career development – self reflection, self-clarity, visioning, goal setting and planning, implementing and adapting.

  Try It, You Might Like It.Throughout our whole lives we should be experimenting with ways to increase our happiness and satisfaction.

  “Our society has a set of blinders on that negates our individual and collective ability to see the deeper meaning of what is called dementia and Alzheimer’s disease and the deeper meaning behind the aging process. We urgently need to expand the horizons of what forgetfulness can mean beyond loss, to challenge our normative conceptions of forgetfulness, dementia, memory, personhood, aging, and time.”