In previous blogs I have talked about going back to school (it was truly one of the best things I ever did, to go back and get my MBA from NYU!) With the continuing weakened economy, and global demand for higher levels of skills and education, adults are re-enrolling in college campuses across the nation and online. The stats are convincing:[1] studies are showing that 75% of future jobs will most likely need some type of certification or licensure, and those professions that demand a BS or BA will grow 50% faster than the national average. So a college degree looks more and more a necessity and a good investment.

You think, go back to school- not at my age! But by going back, you’d be one of huge numbers: recent statistics from the U.S. Department of Education[2] are revealing that adult students are now the fastest growing demographic in the educational arena, with those numbers increasing steadily.

Baby Boomers know they will be living longer, and demand more from their lives. They want fulfillment, not just a job. More DARE-ing women aged 55 to 79 are deciding what they want to do in their next years. A report from The American Council on Education, entitled, Framing New Terrain: Older Adults & Higher Education, shows more that with older adults returning to college in record numbers, they are DARE-ing to pursue new career ideas, found new businesses, and create their lifelong dreams.

DARE MUSCLE: go back to school with your learning MUSCLE!

In this blog-post, we’re focusing on why it’s good for you and never too late to: 1) take up new physical activities, 2) engage in new social activities and 3) pursue new intellectual challenges that can make a positive difference in your well-being – for the short-run and in the years ahead.

If you happen to be job-hunting over the age of 40, after many years of being firmly entrenched in the same company, industry or location,  you’re probably feeling that’s a  DARE-ing project in and of itself – which it is.  In that case, PLANT something new that takes care of your innermost self and boosts your confidence and sense of control while you’re grappling with change.   PLANT something that improves your physical health, ramps up your intellectual power and unleashes beneficial brain chemicals that contribute to your well-being.  Here are just a few of the reasons experts advise you should PLANT new SEEDS now, especially if you’re dealing with added stress.

1. If Your Sneakers Are Moldy, Your Brain Will Get Oldie. Before last year, the only weight I ever pushed around came from the sound of my own loud mouth.  A year later, and dozens of pounds lost, I can attest that exercise saved my life, improved my well-being and enhanced my intellectual focus.  Here’s why it would work for you:

• Dr. John Medina, a developmental molecular biologist, says in his book, Brain Rules, that “a lifetime of exercise can result in a sometimes astonishing elevation in cognitive performance, compared with those who are sedentary.” Medina asserts that exercisers outperform couch potatoes in all sorts of brain metrics tests, such as those that measure long-term memory, reasoning, attention, problem-solving, even so-called fluid-intelligence tasks – which refers to how you put to use the information that you learn.  One of the biggest surprises is that you don’t even have to exercise that long or hard to reap these benefits!  Did you know that even walking several times a week will benefit your brain? The ideal is doing two to three bouts of aerobic exercise for at least 30 minutes  – which can reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s by 60%!

• Exercise improves your mood because it stimulates the release of three “feel good” chemicals in your brain. Called neurotransmitters, their medical names are serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine.  By stimulating the release of these hormones, exercise has been proven to help lower depression and anxiety.  So, get out there and walk off the stress, or go for a bike ride, or – if you’re not the outdoorsy type – put on some music and dance like a fool in your own home.

2. If the only laugh lines you have are from watching late-night “Seinfeld” reruns on TBS, you need to get some real friends. When was the last time you had a conversation with a friend who made you laugh? More importantly, when was the last time you actually felt you could cry with a good friend who wouldn’t judge you?  If you don’t have friends like that, maybe now’s the time to consider going beyond your current circle of friends (or all those online LinkedIn “connections.” Would you ever want any of them to see you with streaked mascara?  I didn’t think so.)   Additional tips:

• Be proactive about cultivating, engaging and caring about people you really want as friends, and weed out the ones who don’t feel that way about you. In this day and age it’s too easy to rationalize that there are many other things we need to be doing work- and family- wise rather than spending time with friends.  Yet, connections with true friends and family members are what matters to our well-being.

• According to psychoanalyst, educator and author, Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D., positive social interactions are a powerful mechanism for controlling stress. As women talk with other women about worrisome occurrences in their lives, their stress levels fall because oxytocin (the maternal friendship and bonding hormone) levels rise.  Even during non-stressful times, having solid friendships has been proven to improve health and extend one’s lifespan.

• If you’ve been a mom for most of your adult life and your circle of friends is tied to your children, now might be the perfect time to expand your circle of friends. Getting involved in organizations other than your children’s school or church expands your perspectives.

3. Unchain Your Brain, Train Against the Drain. Learning a new language, researching the competition before starting a company or learning to play a musical instrument are all exercises to unchain your brain.  To PLANT or SEED something new, challenging and fulfilling while waiting for the next big thing to take SEED, it’s a good idea to engage in an activity that is not related to a work situation or family demand. Following are few reasons why:

• Taking up new intellectual activities stimulates different neural regions and develops new pathways within the brain.  This helps to re-energize the brain against the dreaded “brain-drain” many women complain about in middle age, and helps you see problems in a different light.  As Dr. John Medina writes in Brain Rules, “What you do and learn in life physically changes what your brain looks like – it literally rewires it.”

• The more you stimulate the neural regions and pathways, the more adept you become at the new skill or activity you’re learning. It’s that fluid intelligence thing again. One of the other major benefits of taking up new intellectual activities is that it increases your self-confidence that you can, indeed, learn new things.

• There are nine different kinds of intelligence, but most people neglect to explore, let alone develop, those outside their comfort zone. Conversely, we all know of artists, musicians, business-owners and scientists who did their best work after the age of 40, 50 or even 60.  By developing different facets of their intellectual capacity, they surpassed the creativity and productivity of their youth in ways they never would have DARED or imagined earlier in their lives.

Those are just a few of the reasons why PLANTING something new – physically, socially or intellectually – can be beneficial both in the short run and over the long haul, even in times of stress.  Next week, in Go DARE, we’ll provide a list of ideas for what to PLANT or SEED.  There’s no limit to why, what, where and how you can grow by DARE-ing yourself!

Maybe you feel that once you’re 40 or 50 or 60, you’ve become a “subject expert” in so many things it would be hard to find, let alone select, any skills or topics you don’t know enough about from first-hand experience.

In fact, how you view and assimilate the experiences of your twenties and thirties in the second half of your life affects not only your continued personal development but your capacity to guide, coach, mentor, and teach others.

Before I decided to earn my MBA at New York University several years ago, I had worked in marketing services firms for twenty-five years, about half of that as a senior manager responsible for diverse teams of professionals.

There were fundamental lessons I couldn’t, didn’t, or wouldn’t absorb until I was in my forties, when I finally realized I still had a hell of a lot to learn, and it had little to do with becoming smarter about marketing or coming up with yet another so-called Big Idea.  I realized how much I could and needed to learn from the very people I was responsible for “managing “especially about how not to lead.

Guess which lessons were more rigorous? More humbling? More valuable?

Embracing the role of COACH, MENTOR, GUIDE, LEADER, TEACHER, or PATRON, formally or informally, so that others can learn from your experiences and develop their own Big Ideas, is a D A R E -ING move.

While it might seem that you’ve reached the pinnacle of your career because an org chart or your boss or your business card declares you the leader or chief something, not so fast (how about never?) do you become the Empress of Everyone.  The people above you, below you, around you, and in back of you (especially in back of you) will see to that.

They’ll DARE you to prove you’re worthy of their respect, admiration, and loyalty.

In September, I entered a classroom at NYU once again.  Only this time, it was I who was at the front of the room as the instructor.  What I really want my students to learn about marketing is this:  The first brand they need to know how to market effectively is themselves, and that’s about more than just demonstrating their technical expertise or Big Ideas.

If they can’t with confidence and compassion convince a decision maker that they possess the personal empathy, experience, competence, and commitment to help him or her solve a problem that literally keeps him or her awake at night, they will never be able to interest the leader in their technical expertise or persuade the leader to buy into and champion their Big Ideas.

Almost anyone can get book-smart or tech-savvy or quant-driven.  It takes defeat plus determination, it takes humiliation as well as humility, it takes resolve and resilience, to deal with and DARE accept the fact that some of our worst experiences are also those that teach us so much we become experts.

And, who is more expert at that than women over 40?

 to figure out what you’re smarter at than anyone else. DARE to declare yourself an expert. DARE to guide others with what you’ve learned. And, DARE to admit what you don’t know but are willing to learn from the very people you DARE to LEAD or GUIDE or COUNSEL.

It’s really true that in order to be considered an expert in a subject, skill or topic, you have to have learned it so well that you could teach it.   I’m still learning, and I hope all of you are too.