Think about what you do at work currently, and then consider what you feel called to do. Do these two correspond? One feature, Taking the Money, from October 24th New York Times, showcased people in midlife who took buyouts, with their best in mind. For some boomers, careers come alive in mid-life, through aspirations they’d always dreamed of.

“Phil Bonfanti, a regional sales manager for Ford, took a buyout for his family’s sake.

Bobbie Battista, a CNN anchor, did not like the direction the company was going in.

For Doug Vance, a Delta pilot, it was the least damaging choice in a situation he could not control.

Enrique Rosselli, who took three buyouts in four years, saw the third as a sign to find a new line of business.

And for Betsy Werley, it was an early push into a career move that she wanted to make later if not sooner.“

For people who want more from mid-life, it’s simply a matter that an end of one career - looks more like an opportunity for a new start. Whatever the reason, one leg in their lives ended. In each case, the human brain kicked into high gear to create changes later in life. Shifts that bring new beginnings, unavailable to them in their youth. How so?

Folks who believe the best is still out there, tend to launch new foundations with tips and support from lifelong friends in a field they admire. These friends tell other friends. Ideas from new places prime their career-minded pumps. Encouragement from people they know goes a long way toward successful career moves yet to come.

If you’ve seen yourself locked into a mold lately, that’s merely collecting mold … why not plan to start again. Los, a character in William Blake’s poem, Jerusalem, said it best … “I must create a system, Or be enslaved by another Man’s (human’s). I will not reason or compare, My business is to create.”

Los likely speaks to every mid-lifer who senses the best is yet to come. Downsizing or retirement can kick start your brain for the career you’re really called and gifted to launch. Is the best visible in your future?

Victim or adventurer – which way is yours? The human brain is capable of casualty or quest - in even the most ordinary day, and what you do decides how the plasticity in your brain wires for or against you.

One boomer I know took photographs last week of a Porsche Racing Event, and plans to submit these for fun and profit. He’s looking forward to seeing several people he knows from the race, flashed across the media … in response to BBC’s invited perspective to publish more of what folks think can happen as they age.

Adventure for this retiree, is woven into the art and science any day can bring because he’s leaving home with wonder and expectation in mind. He admits he’s not much of a photographer, and yet equipped with a new camera, he’s off to capture news he feels proud to submit. His muse might lead Gerry to chat with project leaders, sip hot coffee near the site, research a new addition to digital pictures, or jot down captivating quips to go with digital images he snaps of cars on the fly.

Another boomer I know described a day like this… “I got up late, looked out at the rain, thought about two friends who didn’t call back last week, and decided to stay inside. He watched TV, ate too many carbs and slugged up his brain until it seemed to all of us, as if the song Worms, was written to describe his mournful state. Have you ever lived these words as this man wired his brain through victim choices…?

“Nobody loves me, everybody hates me,
Think I’ll just go eat worms.
Big fat juicy ones, Eensie weensy teensy ones,
Watch how they wiggle and squirm.”

Adventurers look more to inner motivation … while victims, on the other hand, see themselves as more vulnerable than the rest of us, and live their day around that belief. That’s pretty much how the brain rewires through what a person does in a day.

People alive to adventure inspire the rest of us to see similar visions of hope. Like lighthouses they flash…beam … flash … beam … beyond life’s choppier waters, so emotional problems look like mere challenges to call them deeper.

Any adventure for you today? The human challenge is simply to make career choices that count, and the brain’s work is to steer those choices in.

Do low test scores from your youth limit how you view your capabilities today? You’ll be happy to know that testing is much more subjective than they told us previously. In fact, I discovered fascinating new options, when I wrote a book in 2005 to research how testing can become more accurate for adults, when we test a wider scope of intelligences.

If your life is more shaped by low grades you pulled through mismatched tests in your youth, this article will help you to revalue your brain, from a brighter … more accurate … perspective. You’ll be glad to see, for instance, how you can recover more positive results for a successful high-performance mind, in your later years.

No wonder Einstein often reminded people that he flunked out of high school math, and that his teacher called him a bonehead. Interestingly, she went on to become a bit of a bonehead, without any recognized name, while Einstein created the Theory of Relativity. He attributed his intelligence and achievement more with curiosity than with test scores. He also attributed his success to the fact that he simply stuck with problems longer than most people stick around to find solutions.

There are increasingly contemporary examples of intelligence – that reach beyond test scores, to show brilliance. Do you know people who admit that tests let them down on one hand but inspired high end achievement on the other? It’s a good thing that world famous psychologist, Robert Sternberg, neither forgot nor limited his life choices, by the low IQ scores that marked his youth. Sternberg’s interest in the question, How does aging affect people’s ability to use their intelligence to adapt to everyday life?

Some tests call deep up to their Do you see your strengths in spite of weaker areas you’ve had to overcome or poor test scores? Remember, new research points to more and more evidence that the tests simply got it wrong. In Sternberg’s case, for example, the limitation was in the IQ test itself, and narrow IQ test scores limit many intelligent people today.

Check out Sternberg’s theory of successful intelligence, and you’ll find amazing brain power possibilities that tends to draw from creativity and from lived experiences.

Dr. Sternberg lives his belief that IQ shows only part the story of human brainpower, in how he welcomes other people’s potential into his circles. At Tufts University, where he serves as college dean, Sternberg offers tests for others forms of intelligence. With an emphasis on creative capabilities, and real life ability, people who take the tests seem to shine with different intellectual acumen, that go unnoticed in IQ tests.

If you were to live today - past limiting test scores results from your youth, what would you schedule new into your calendar over the coming week?

Your brain is a storytelling sage. It leaps onto the stage of your words in response to curiosity, and finds you new ways to engage people at deeper levels by spotting and sharpening words. It’s actually quite magical, if you take advantage of the novelty-seeking property of the human brain to facilitate your stories.

You can benefit from the fact that the last 40 years we have learned more about the human brain than in the previous 400 years. Neuroscientists now show how we literally change the brain – so that neurons become more responsive and rewire to improve your stories, when stimulated in a sustained way. Throw a title on paper and let the wiring begin to reboot your brain for a thrilling yarn….

Stories develop your brain into a better storyteller much like the piano produces prize winning melodies. Neurons act like pianos, as they respond to patterned and repetitive, continuous stimulation. Why is this important for storytelling?

Write the words… “I paint landscapes,” you are using one neural system – let’s call it call it #1.

Add a related concept – let’s say “I paint pastoral scenes” – and a slightly different, but interconnected neural set -#2 – jumps into action to help you out.

Throw in a vignette: “My aging mother, at her darkest moment, when art seemed to fade from her canvass, sat deep in the despair. Suddenly a pastoral scene returned to her personality, and she whispered for me to paint her childhood farm,” yet other related neural systems are active – call them #3 and *4.

Interrelated neural systems reboot your brain daily … when you simply write and make changes … which create memory for storytelling in your brain, across all of these neural systems (1, 2, 3, and 4).

Why not weave a brief yarn today to keep your brain alive. It doesn’t take grueling effort to grow your storytelling intelligence. Your brain grows dendrite cell connectors each time you change what you write, and new neuron pathways add zest to stories you create. Ready to rewire adventures you live into stories you tell…? If so – stay tuned for more mental possibilities for story telling, at the Brain Boomer site.

By the way, I’m still rewiring my own smarts for adding images to my blogs in this new system and am getting closer daily … so expect a bit of visual zest soon, here too.