A conversation with Jane Seymour

Actress shares her top 10 goals for the second half of life By Debbie Gardner PRIME Editor You may know her as an actress, But she's also a producer, an artist, a successful accessories and home goods designer, a businesswoman and a sought-after lecturer. Busy? We haven't even taken into account her most important roles those of wife and mother of six, including ten-year old twins born when she was 45. At 55, Jane Seymour is certainly passionate about living life to the fullest. And it's that passion that prompted Monster.com founder Jeff Taylor to tap Seymour as a spokesperson for his newly-launched Boomer web site, Eons.com. PRIME was privileged to have the opportunity to speak with Jane Seymour when she visited Boston for the launch of Eons.com on July 31. Chatting with Jane PRIME caught up with Seymour by cell phone while she was sitting in a lounge at Logan airport, waiting for her flight home. She was eager to talk about Eons.com, and how she got involved with this new Boomer web site. "Basically, I've been doing a lot of the things we're encouraging Boomers to do," Seymour said of her decision to get involved with Taylor's new project, initially by sharing her "Top 10" list and down the road in the areas of art and hobbies and health. "He asked me because I was an actress and I'm still working though my career now is more about comedy and much more open," she said. "I'm [also] a speaker, I do 12 one-woman art shows a year, I've designed a home bedding and furnishing line . my show is in New York in mid-August and I've done silk scarves based on my paintings for three years. " Beyond her career and business ventures, Seymour said she's also very involved in philanthropic work, especially the "world water crisis, and the American Red Cross in Africa." "Every day, something new and exciting is coming up," Seymour said. "Jeff [Taylor] and I are very similar in many ways. We're both full of ideas and are not the kind to sit around waiting for the grass to grow over [them]." Jane's personal Top 10 One of Seymour's first acts as an advisor of Eons.com was to publically share her list of the top 10 things she'd like to do before she reaches her 100th birthday. "At age 50 it's perfectly possible that I could live to be 100 . why not live rather than wait to die!," Seymour said. On Seymour's top 10 list are the following goals: 1. Learn to meditate and take time to do it; 2. Be as healthy as I can be ; 3. Exercise consistently; 4. Break 90 in golf; 5. Take a painting course in Florence; 5. make a sustainable difference in a specific area in a third world country and in the poorest parts of the USA; 7. Follow Darwin's journey to the Galapagos Islands; 8. Learn Photoshop ; 9. Be computer savvy; 10. Go to Australia. "An attempt to break 90 in golf is one thing that I think will attract others," Seymour said of her Eons.com posting, which is interactive, allowing web site visitors to indicate if they, too, share any of Seymour's goals. The postings also have a feature that allows visitors to connect with like-minded Boomers who live in their geographic area. And Seymour has good reason to be setting such ambitious second-half-of-life goals. She shared with PRIME that her mother, who already appears in infomercials for Seymour's skin care line recently completed commercial for the "Go Red" campaign for women's heart health. "She's 91 and she's never had a face lift or Botox . someone just asked me if she would be available for [another] commercial. She has a career at 91!" Seymour said of her role model, a woman who's beaten cancer, survived the death of her spouse, and changed her life so that she "already outlived the age they said" on a longevity test. About that computer goal . "I have no excuse now," Seymour said of her public declaration to buff up her computer skills. It's a goal that's important to her especially because she lives in a household where her husband and children are all very is computer-savvy. "Everyone in my house is editing movies on the computer!" she said "Of course I'm attached to my blackberry and I'm e-mailing on the go," she said. "But I want to get more adept at Photoshop." She explained that, in the past, she did much of the design work for her accessories manually. "As we speak, I'm learning to do this on the computer," Seymour confided. "I don't have to move cut-out fish on a pretend piece of silk scarf on the floor anymore!" And, Seymour said, increasing her computer knowledge will have one more advantage for this idea-a-minute woman. "If you learn what you are doing yo can do it . but . you can also know what to ask for," she said. This will especially come in handy, she said, when she launches her own Internet business and web site to promote her new home decor line later this year. But despite her growing computer knowledge, Seymour said there's one area of technology that still has her stumped. "I haven't figured out how to download music into my iPod yet," she said. "For birthdays, and for christmas, I ask my children not to buy me gifts, but to download their playlists into my iPod." "That way I know what they're listening to, and what they're interested in," she said. PRIME thinks that's a pretty computer-savvy way to keep tabs on the younger generation. Kudos, Jane. About Eons.com Founded by Jeff Taylor, who created Monster.com, Eons.com is a spirited online community created specifically for adults age 50 and older. Eons.com challenges boomers to tackle their life dreams and adventures, celebrate their accomplishments and make the most of today. Some of the exciting features visitors will find on Eons.com include a longevity calculator developed in conjunction with centenarian expert Dr. Thomas Perls, a goals section, a "My Life" section which walks would-be writers through creating a memoir or autobiography, the "Cranky" web site search engine that "ranks" and supplies the top four web sites related to any search topic, and a searchable online obituary archive where visitors can look up the obit of any U.S. resident who died since 1934, and add comments about the person in a virtual memorial. There's also plenty of advice on money, love, health, careers, connecting with other Boomers, and more If you're 50-plus, you can check out the web site at www.Eons.com