By MELISSA BEAL Special to the Palisadian-Post Several years ago Wesley Hein arrived at the front door of a close friend’s home. When his friend’s wife answered the door she casually mentioned that her husband was ‘having a midlife crisis.’ Hein laughed off the accusation and expected to find his friend sporting a new hair color and bragging about a new sports car–the stereotypical markers of a midlife crisis. Instead, Hein found his friend sitting calmly in his den unable to pinpoint exactly what was wrong, contemplating how he could spend more time with his family, dedicate more time to new projects at work and get back into activities like basketball and working out without missing out on anything important. He wanted to change. He just didn’t know why or how. Hein also found something more: the necessity for a resource guide to help and inform people about midlife issues. Based on that need and the idea that ‘everybody ages,’ Hein, a 19-year resident of Pacific Palisades, co-founded and launched LifeTwo (www.lifetwo.com) in 2005 with his friend and colleague, Greg Yorke. LifeTwo is a media company and online resource/community that provides information for people in their mid-30s to early 60s on issues unique to middle age such as career changes, balancing child care with elder care, retirement planning, menopause, brain health, and living life to the fullest. LifeTwo now appears in the top 10 Google rankings for many key topic searches associated with midlife issues. ‘Unless you’re in some extreme case of denial, you recognize that aging is inescapable and change in your life is inescapable so it’s better to take a proactive stance,’ Hein said in an interview, pointing out the need for such a resource. In order to supply the LifeTwo audience with a wealth of pertinent information, Hein, Yorke and a small staff read newspapers, online articles, academic papers, studies, books and whatever else they can find on the subject of midlife. ‘We have transcended the information age to the data age where we’ve got an abundance of knowledge and decreased understanding,’ Hein said. In order to combat that problem, he and his team translate academic and scientific sources into plain language and post them in an easy-to-navigate forum, allowing users to quickly find and understand issues that concern them. One key aspect of LifeTwo is not to treat the audience as old. ‘We carry a rock- and-roll attitude in the way that we share information,’ said Hein, who founded Enigma Records in 1980 and worked with bands like Poison, Motley Crue and Red Hot Chili Peppers. ‘People who loved rock-and-roll then and today are the same people interested in reading about midlife issues.’ Hein, 47, pointed out that these issues are not exclusive to baby boomers, noting that the first Gen X-ers are now turning 40. ‘You’re either in our demographic or you’ll be in our demographic or you just left our demographic and you’re reminded of aging every day.’ Traffic on the Web site ‘has been growing 30 percent month over month since we launched,’ Hein said, and has been tracked to all parts of the world including the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia and Iran. ‘It indicates that the midlife experience is pretty universal,’ said Yorke, who worked previously as a business consultant for technology and entertainment companies. He and Hein worked together at Enigma Digital and Blackbelt TV, where Yorke was chief financial officer. He currently lives in Redondo Beach. Though a global company, LifeTwo’s heart is in Pacific Palisades. ‘This is a very rich environment for an entrepreneur,’ said Hein, whose headquarters are based in his home in Rustic Canyon. His second office can be found at Starbucks on the corner of Swarthmore and Sunset, where he holds several meetings each week. He also likes to meet people at Mort’s Deli and Dante’s. In the past, Hein has commuted to work in Burbank (when he was executive VP of Disney’s Hollywood Records division from 1990-1994) and Sherman Oaks (where he worked at Cinebase Software, another company he co-founded). Now he’s quite happy to transact most of his business close to home. ‘Why would I want to leave Pacific Palisades when it’s dark and return in the dark just for people to tell me how nice it was during the day?’ he said. When Hein isn’t working, he can be found spending time with his family (wife Laura and seven-year-old twins, Alex and Mira), swimming at UCLA, biking in the mountains or contemplating the list of things he wants to do before he dies. He has already checked off goals such as swimming across San Francisco Bay, completing an Ironman triathlon, and creating a successful Internet company on his own terms. Still on the list: teaching, writing a book, giving a speech in front of 5,000 people, coaching one of his kids’ sports teams, and biking across the United States. ‘Planning is as fun as daydreaming,’ said Hein, whose Web site encourages people to make a list of various things they would like to accomplish in life, and provides resources and advice for achieving those goals. ‘I find things constantly to add to my list.”
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