Photo of Sue Brightman, Author and Personal CoachAs a child I sensed my life’s calling was to serve people in a way that would benefit the world in some way. I also knew I needed to experience diverse cultures and the myriad of ways humanity expresses itself. My intuition was right. Looking back on 30 years of teaching, coaching, and consulting to corporations in 40 countries around Conscious Business and Conscious Communication, I’m grateful to for the opportunities to fall in love with clients on nearly every continent, and to be expanded myself.

But there was something even more important my intuition didn’t tell me when I was younger. It came gradually through my work in leadership development with large organizations including Shell, Pulitzer Newspapers, General Motors, and Huffington Post. Studying for two years with Fred Kofman (author Conscious Business: Creating Value Through Values) Ied me to found my company Brightman Glover International in order to structure my work in a way I could add the most value to organizations and individuals.

The added “something” was listening. As I’ve reflected on the pattern of those 30 past years, my life’s deeper calling now seems obvious: I was born to listen and witness the possibilities in other people’s lives.

Through the years, I’ve listened and “possibilitized” through all avenues of my work: whether teaching or working one-on-one.  I’ve loved every minute of it.

In 2015 my career began to take a gentle turn. More and more women over 50 in career/life transitions began seeking a distinct kind of support, looking for renewed inspiration and direction. It was the same wilderness I was in: one that marks a whole new bifurcation in our lives as we face a new stage of life cultural anthropologists call Adulthood II.

Women were asking the same question I was asking: “What now?” We all seemed to be searching, often unsuccessfully, for models  of what’s possible  as the concept of ‘retirement’ seemed irrelevant, uninteresting, and/or unattainable.

My feelings of disorientation and fear at times was mixed with an edgy desire to re-purpose — as if I was in a wilderness ready to pioneer a new path forward, but without good models for what it can look like at 50, 60, 70+. And I was enthralled with stunning breakthroughs I could see women like me making at this stage, particularly cresting the age 60 mark: creative zest, liberation from serving patriarchal and other unacceptable conditioning, and courage and joy to break through assumptions about “retirement” and age.

This new arena for women grew so compelling that I launched a project to interview 100 women between the ages of 50-70+ to understand more clearly the themes, markers, and possibilities of this little-explored phase of modern life now called adulthood two or “the age of active wisdom.”

After gathering 700 pages of experience and wisdom from interviews with these women, I discerned ten principles or Declarations captured in my book A Call to Further Becoming: The New Declaration from Women Over 50. 

Through my research and distilling of 100 interviews I’ve become both inspired and empowered by the new tracks women are laying down for this stage of life 50-70+. Since 2018 I’ve reshaped my work to “listening and possibilitizing” with women over 50, individually (in my coaching programs), in groups (through workshops and Women’s Retreats), and through public speaking and teaching.

Women are rising as never before. I believe 2021 is the year of shift for women, emerging as a result of the world’s tremendous need for balance to the overused masculine.  Women I observe and work with are composing purposeful, spiritually-satisfying, love-filled paths not only in the way they’re leading their own lives, but in the benefit they’re offering the world as a result.

My work is woven together from three main threads: conscious business, personal/spiritual development, and expertise in women over 50. I’m a certified coach; master trainer and consultant in Conscious Business; past trainer of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and Principle-Centered Leadership, and am trained as a negotiator through Harvard Law School’s program on negotiation. I completed certification as a spiritual intelligence (SQ and EQ) coach through Deep Change and apply both integral theory and systems theory to my work. I’m trained as an interfaith chaplain and serve on-call for people in correctional and mental health institutions as well as periodically co-facilitating a spiritual support group for mental health and wellness. I’ve authored 23 leadership development programs including seven on change and transition. Over the last 10 years, I’ve led women’s retreats and informal groups to help women find new renewed happiness, purpose, and fulfillment.

Boulder, Colorado is now my home where I kayak near the mountains in my beloved Sea Eagle and continue to grow my djembe drumming skills.

My work is dedicated to affirming and empowering women over 50 to live and lead.