Your Second Act After 50

I just finished the HBO Max series Julia about Julia Child and the start of her TV career.  I am a foodie, so this series was right up my alley. If you have not seen it, you owe it to yourself to binge watch on this show. 

In this series, you see how Julia Child navigated a man’s world of tv and became successful at creating a wonderful cooking show on public television at the age of 50. This was her second act.

The thing I liked mostly about this series, was how they showed her going through life experiencing the things a woman her age would such as discovering she was in menopause.  This was 1963 and if we are just now getting comfortable with the topic of menopause, imagine how much less information there was then?

Her journey through these unchartered waters did not come without doubt and fear. Today, women of a certain age are more and more discovering their second acts instead of being complacent with what they have always done.

I got into coaching as a second (maybe third) act because I knew my corporate career had run its course, and I knew I had more to offer to this world.  Julia Child did the same thing by piggy backing off her cookbook to make a successful tv show that lasted for 10 years. 

This is the time in our lives that we get to choose if what we have always done is still right for us.  Everyone will not change their career after 50.  Some will retire and stay retired but if you are not done with offering a part of you to the world, dig deep to figure out what your second act looks like. 

Without giving too much of the show away, Julie Child was confronted with some negative feedback from someone she respected, she took it to heart and felt she was done with her show after one season. She had made plans to just walk away. Her husband had to remind her what a badass she was at 51 years old and how much she had accomplished and how much more she had to give.  I loved this statement he made to her…… “let’s drop dead someday saying YES” to encourage her to keep moving forward. 

What does your second act look like?