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[B]OLD AGE With Debbie Weil (Debbie Weil)
Explorez tous les épisodes de [B]OLD AGE With Debbie Weil
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| 22 Mar 2019 | Karen Wickre: What You Need to Know About Networking to Reinvent Your Life | 00:28:23 | |
In today's episode, Debbie interviews Karen Wickre, an old friend and former editorial director at both Google and Twitter. Karen left Twitter in 2016 at age almost 65 - not to retire but to reinvent herself as a writer and consultant. She is the author of the new book Taking the Work Out of Networking. Karen shares tips and strategies on how to manage the transition from corporate life to what comes next (stay open!) and how that applies to using a gap year to find your next thing. She and Debbie also explore ageism in our modern culture and talk about the importance of having a network at any stage in life. Mentioned in the episode
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| 07 May 2021 | Nicholas Christakis on How the Pandemic Will Affect Your Life Until 2024 | 00:55:30 | |
When will the Covid 19 pandemic end? That’s the question on everyone’s mind. Today Debbie talks to one person who just might have an answer to that question. Nicholas Christakis is a nationally-recognized expert in three fields: medicine, sociology and public health. He’s a distinguished Sterling Professor at Yale, a researcher on the topics of social networks and human goodness, and a bestselling author, most recently, of Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live. He’s been named to TIME magazine’s list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. His fluency in explaining the science, epidemiology, psychology, sociology and history of pandemics makes this a fascinating conversation. Plus he’s got a good sense of humor:
But they end on a positive note: plagues historically bring loss, grief, confusion, and misinformation. But they also reveal cooperative and generous behavior, the best of humankind.
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| 07 Jul 2023 | Jonathan Merritt on Personal Transformation and the Complicated Intersection of Faith and Culture | 00:43:16 | |
Today, Debbie speaks to Jonathan Merritt, one of America’s most renowned writers on faith and culture. Debbie met Jonathan in the hot tub in Baja Mexico, but don’t get the wrong idea. They were both in Baja to attend a weeklong workshop organized by Modern Elder Academy. And as you’ll hear in this episode, "change and transformation" were very much on the agenda. You may have heard her talk about MEA. It’s billed as a midlife wisdom school whose core mission is to shift our negative mindset about aging. MEA is also a little bit of paradise. The campus, bursting with pink bougainvillea, sits on a wide, surf-pounded beach near Todos Santos, MX, just north of Cabo.
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Debbie and Jonathan were part of a group of about 20 in a recent workshop, pondering how to use sensory experience in the here and now to map out their futures. Debbie was intrigued with Jonathan’s thoughtful comments. She was also drawn to his Atlanta accent which she couldn’t quite place at first but which she recognized. She has a bunch of Georgia cousins. In the hot tub, Jonathan revealed a bit about why he had flown from New York to spend a week at MEA. She wanted to find out more so she invited him onto the show. And she wanted him to explain things to her, a non church-person. Jonathan is best known as a writer on the complicated intersection of faith and culture — as it applies to LGBTQ intolerance and evangelicalism — and much more. The son of an evangelical leader and a former pastor himself, Jonathan was outed as gay a decade ago. He moved to New York City and has since become an award-winning contributor to The Atlantic, a senior columnist for Religion News Service; has authored several books (including the critically-acclaimed How to Speak God From Scratch); has been interviewed on ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, NPR and PBS; is a literary agent; has ghostwritten or collaborated on more than 50 books (with several titles landing on the NYTimes, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists); speaks and teaches at colleges, conferences and churches; has just finished writing his first children’s book; and is writing a TV series about religion and popular culture. Oh, and he just turned 40. Despite — or perhaps because of — his achievements, Jonathan is working on a transformation, his own “what’s next.” He’s an old soul, he tells Debbie, so he’s approaching this with intentionality; his week at MEA was just one step. On the podcast they talk about:
As Debbie tells Jonathan, she could listen to him explain things all day — especially as they relate to religion, church, community, identity, intolerance and more. And yes, it's okay to go to church, he told her. Even if you don't believe in God, per se. She loved this conversation and hopes you will too.
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| 02 Jul 2021 | Debbie Weil on Turning 70, Mortality, and Making the Most of Growing Older | 00:39:25 | |
Debbie Weil is interviewed by her producer Julie-Roxane Krikorian about turning 70, mortality, productivity, her halting efforts to age gracefully, and Season 4 of The Gap Year Podcast. This is the last episode of Season 3. We'll be back in the fall with Season 4! As a way to finish this season on a special note, Debbie turns the mic over to her producer, Julie-Roxane. JR gets Debbie to reveal her ambivalent feelings about turning 70 and how she can't shake ageist thoughts about growing old. They talk about mortality and what her priorities are for the decades - well, maybe two decades - to come. At almost 70, Debbie figures she's got 15 - 20 years of good time left. They talk about what “good time” means and how the definition of productivity might change in your 70s and 80s. If you’ve been listening for a while, you know that one of the broad topics of the podcast is aging with acceptance, wisdom, and grace. So the dirty secret is out. Debbie is not a model, yet, for how to do this. It’s still aspirational. She continues to work on a more positive mindset as she looks ahead, as well as a more intentional way of living. In other words, "making the most of growing older." That will be the underlying theme of Season 4. Thank you so much for listening and participating in Season 3 of The Gap Year Podcast. We’ll see you back here, in the fall, for Season 4.
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| 17 Apr 2020 | Emiliana Simon-Thomas on the Science of Happiness in Times of Crisis | 00:33:53 | |
Debbie Weil talks to Emiliana R. Simon-Thomas, PhD, the science director of UC-Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center. This was a conversation the two arranged many weeks before the pandemic. It turned out to be perfectly timed. The center studies the psychology, sociology and neuroscience of well-being and teaches skills to foster a resilient and compassionate society. Kind of what we need right now as millions of Americans grapple with the realities of life defined by social distancing and with the economic repercussions. Emiliana is co-instructor, with Dacher Keltner, of the center's The Science of Happiness course which has been taken by over half a million students. It’s an eight-week online program which explores the roots of a happy, meaningful life by studying positive psychology and by learning how to create stronger social ties and contribute to something bigger than yourself. In other words, the greater good. Debbie and Emiliana discuss happiness - what it means and what it is not. Hint: it is not pleasure or enjoyment. They talk about how happiness is different from gratitude and how we can cultivate a calm mind during a time of extreme uncertainty like the one we’re living in. Emiliana shares with us what she does to stay grounded (mindfulness during her daily shower is key). And offers practical tips for more compassionate communication either while Zooming for work or connecting remotely with family and friends.
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| 26 Mar 2021 | Rene Colson Hudson on Fighting the Widespread Phenomenon of Pandemic Fatigue | 00:29:03 | |
Today, Debbie talks to Rene Colson Hudson, executive director of the Healthy Island Project on Deer Isle, Maine. The two of them delve into something that many are grappling with right now: pandemic fatigue. Or burnout or the pandemic wall, or whatever you want to call it. Debbie recently asked the question on her Facebook page: "Are you suffering from pandemic fatigue?" She was surprised by the several dozen responses she got saying, "Why, yes, I am!" Which got her to thinking. Even with vaccines becoming readily available for anyone of any age, in many states - a cause for celebration - many continue to feel weary and depleted by this long year and the sameness of our days. That includes Debbie who also admits that she is suffering from crankiness and impatience. So she went looking for a little pep talk. Rene has been at the center of COVID relief efforts on Deer Isle over the past 12 months, overseeing a lunch and dinner program that serves over 100 elderly residents every week. The Healthy Island Project is a nonprofit that focuses on improving community health and that brings together a cross section of Stonington / Deer Isle, Maine residents. The organization has grown fivefold since the beginning of the pandemic. Money has come pouring in from supporters, Rene told Debbie, and she is busier than ever. Rene moved full-time from New Jersey to Deer Isle five years ago. She is an ordained minister and has studied leadership and contemplative practices. And she offers both a practical and a soulful approach to thinking about pandemic fatigue. She reminds us to be more mindful of the little things, to practice gratitude, and to find ways to help others. As an example, the Healthy Island Project put Debbie in touch with an elderly gentleman who, without an Internet connection or a computer, needed help making a vaccine appointment. He and Debbie became phone buddies. She and Rene reflect on how gratifying such a small act can be. What they talked about:
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Note from Debbie I hope you enjoyed this podcast. Would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than sixty seconds, and it really makes a difference in attracting new listeners and upcoming guests. I might read your review on my next episode! Sign up for occasional updates and get my free writing guide at http://eepurl.com/qGTP Connect with me:
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| 22 Nov 2019 | Aging Myths and Misconceptions and How They Translate Into a Missed Market Opportunity | 00:27:39 | |
Recently this podcast was invited to co-host a Next For Me event in NYC called “Myths & Misconceptions: The Truth About 50+ Consumers." (Full disclosure: NFM is one of our sponsors.) The other co-hosts were Stria News and Silvernest. Stria News is a media platform for the longevity market that inspires cross-sector solutions for our aging society. Silvernest is an online service that pairs boomers, retirees and empty nesters with compatible housemates for long-term home sharing. The event took place at Trove Social, a social club for people in their prime, in lower Manhattan. About 50 people attended, all of whom are active in one way or another with the midlife reinvention movement. That included members of the media, marketers, entrepreneurs and consumers. The goal was to discuss, honestly and openly, the myths and misconceptions surrounding the age 50+ demographic and how this translates into a lost market opportunity. And to bust those myths. You’re probably familiar with a lot of them:
The underlying question: what if more people recognized that those 50 and up are a vast, diverse and untapped source of potential dollar revenue as well as being overlooked contributors to society? Some of us might still be having sex while others don’t. Some of us love technology and the latest iPhone while others tolerate it or ignore it. The point is that the millions of members of this age 50-plus demographic are all different. And yet we all seem to be confronted with the same ageist attitudes and the same misconceptions about who we are as individuals. In this episode Debbie chats with Jeff Tidwell, co-founder of Next For Me. This is a follow-up to Debbie's conversation with Jeff in EP8 of Season 1. She also talks to Susan Donley, founder, publisher and CEO of Stria News, and to Wendi Burkhardt, co-founder and CEO of Silvernest. PHOTO: Debbie, left, and Wendi Burkhardt of Silvernest.
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| 24 Apr 2020 | Peter Corbett on Mortality, Dying, and a New Life of Service | 00:28:37 | |
Debbie talks with Peter Corbett, a retired CEO who moved to Brooklyn from DC, sold his tech company to J. Walter Thompson (part of WPP), and completely changed his life. Peter was a young guy in his 20s when Debbie knew him back in DC's tech heyday. He was well known in DC’s tech community as the founder and CEO of iStrategy Labs as well as the convener of popular tech meetups. iStrategy Labs was one of the first digital marketing agencies, known for its creativity in bridging online and offline. The company won lots of awards and grew to have dozens of Fortune 500 clients. But after almost ten years of running the company Peter moved to New York to open an office there. Shortly after, he realized he’d had enough of the CEO life - it wasn’t who he really was. He sold the company for tens of millions of dollars and began living a completely different life. Now, at age 39, he is a Zen hospice practitioner volunteering at a hospital in Brooklyn as well as continuing his training. He also mentors entrepreneurs. Together they talk about how he found this new path, how meditation plays a crucial role for him and why he thinks it’s so important to contemplate mortality. This is not a Coronavirus episode, per se. But the virus - and the pain it’s causing for so many people - is hovering in the background. They talk about a bunch of things, including white privilege and what that means to him. It was a pleasure for Debbie to reconnect with an old friend.
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| 10 Apr 2020 | J-R & Alasdair on Living the Dream (or Winging It) in Guatemala | 00:33:48 | |
This week on the show, Debbie brings back Julie-Roxane Krikorian and Alasdair Plambeck. Last time they were on, this young couple was living in a tiny caravan in southwest France. A few months ago, they decided to ditch that life and move to Guatemala. J-R, as Debbie calls her, is the producer for this podcast. Both she and her husband are entrepreneurs doing location-independent work as podcasters, life coaches, and retreat leaders. Their podcast is named, aptly, Far Out: Adventures in Unconventional Living. The couple now live in a rental house perched above Lake Atitlan, said to be one of the most beautiful lakes in the world. They would seem to be Living The Dream, if that means running away to a warm beautiful place, away from city traffic and desk jobs, where life is simpler and quieter and more problem-free. It's certainly one of Debbie's dreams. So she felt compelled to bring them back on the show to ask, "Are you really living the dream?" Together the three of them discuss how J-R and Alasdair chose Guatemala, how they modeled a financial scenario that would work for them (they live frugally), and what their daily lives are like. Debbie and Alasdair joke about Debbie's misattributing "Wherever You Go, There You Are" to Winnie the Pooh. It was said by meditation and mindfulness teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn - the point being that your problems tend to follow you wherever you go. She picks their brains about the difference between reinventing yourself at 30 or at 60. Which is more difficult? Which is braver? J-R ultimately admits that they are "creating a life forward" and dreaming up their lives as they go. "Winging it," she admits. This show was recorded before the Coronavirus had spread to Guatemala so the pandemic is only mentioned in passing.
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| 07 Feb 2020 | Kathy Davies on Life Design As a Tool for Women's Midlife Reinvention | 00:32:05 | |
Debbie talks to Kathy Davies who teaches design thinking at Stanford and is the co-creator, with Susan Burnett of the Designing Your Life for Women workshops. The workshops grew out of the bestselling book, Designing Your Life, by Stanford professors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. They talk about how design thinking crossed over from product design to designing your life, how the workshops for women got started, and why it is so important to take that first small step - even if you are dreaming big. Debbie's experience attending a DYLFW workshop in 2018 led to a three-minute audio recording that was the prototype for this podcast. So you can thank Kathy if you’re enjoying the podcast. What they talked about:
This is a great conversation with some solid tips on how to use the process of life design to reinvent yourself - no matter what your age and applicable to both women and men.
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| 29 Mar 2024 | Lyn Slater on How To Be Old and Why She Is No Longer a Fashion Influencer | 00:38:41 | |
Debbie speaks with Lyn Slater, a writer and activist and former social media influencer. She spent her mid-60s becoming an icon of fashion, racking up nearly 800,000 Instagram followers, representing huge brands like Ilia Beauty, Kate Spade, Moncler, and Visa (among many others), speaking on fashion panels, and in general living a very public life. Her memoir, “How to Be Old: Lessons in Living Boldly From the Accidental Icon" is just out. But… and there’s a big BUT, Lyn has given up that identity and is now, at 70, a writer and hands-on grandmother. She has renounced social media and no longer offers fashion or style tips. In this episode she tells Debbie that she was unhappy at the peak of her influencer career, what she learned from her mother’s decline and death, and how we have to tell the truth about old age to young women. ////////// Don't miss the Behind The Scenes for every episode in Debbie's [B]OLD AGE newsletter. ////////// Mentioned in this episode or useful:
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| 06 Jan 2023 | Jane Brody on Life and Lessons from a Half Century at The New York Times | 00:36:32 | |
Today, Debbie talks to Jane Brody, the renowned New York Times columnist who until last year wrote the popular weekly Personal Health column. In this episode, she reflects on her 57-year career at the Times. They talk about how she moved from biochemistry to journalism and how she got hired by the Times at age 24. Instead of wilting under discouraging words from the editor who was interviewing her for a job, she responded, "Mr. Rosenthal, if I didn't think I could do this job, I wouldn't be here." Abe Rosenthal was the managing editor and later the legendary executive editor of The New York Times. Jane applied her no-nonsense style to reporting, writing with a distinctive mix of personal anecdotes, interviews with experts and scientific fact. She started the Personal Health column in 1976 (right when Debbie was starting work as a reporter). She invented the topic of personal health with the goal of teaching readers how to lead better, healthier lives. The column covered everything from common diseases to cancers to death and dying, as well as wellness, exercise, and nutrition. Jane talks about what it was like to be a woman in an almost all-male newsroom and how squeamish editors wouldn’t let her use the words sexual intercourse or penis. She changed that. She also tells us why she decided to retire at age 80 and what her new retired life looks like. Debbie hopes you'll enjoy listening to this episode as much as she did recording it. Jane Brody does not disappoint on the topic of making the most of growing older.
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| 15 Jan 2021 | Ashton Applewhite on the Ugly Heart of Ageism and How the Pandemic Has Exposed Our Prejudices | 00:33:21 | |
This podcast is about making the most of the collective gap year that we’re all living through right now. It's a topic that applies to anyone, of any age, but our focus is on those in midlife and older. So today, to kick off 2021, Debbie talks to the perfect guest, Ashton Applewhite. Ashton is an author, speaker and activist on the topic of ageism, which can be defined as discrimination on the basis of age (no matter how old or how young you are). She's been called a pro-aging radical and the "Malcolm Gladwell of ageism." She and Debbie really get into it in this wide-ranging conversation with Ashton poking and prodding at some of Debbie's assumptions. The topic of ageism (or any -ism) brings up a lot of emotion. Fear is generally at the top of the list so they talk about the fear of getting old and what that means in America. They talk about the value of human lives and why older people are often seen as less valuable or even invisible. And they delve into how the pandemic has revealed the deep well of ageism, as well as racism and ableism, in our society. They also talk about the irony of being ageist yourself, of unconsciously accepting the notion that old is ugly. (Debbie is 69 and Ashton is 68.) Ashton reminds us that studies like the U-Curve of Happiness show older people are happier. They end the conversation with Ashton offering one thing you can do to combat ageism: become aware of when you’re using the word “old” as a negative vs. “young” as a positive. Think about that while you're listening to this provocative episode.
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| 09 Jun 2023 | Best Of: Dr. Bree Johnston on Psilocybin Trips and the Growing Acceptance of Psychedelic Therapy | 00:47:05 | |
Debbie talks with Dr. Bree Johnston, a geriatrician and palliative care physician in practice for 35 years who is also certified in psychedelic therapies. This is a re-airing of an episode published one year ago. The topic of psychedelic therapy has gone mainstream in the past several years and especially in the past year. In the year since Debbie and Dr. Bree spoke, the use of psilocybin, MDMA and other psychedelics as therapy for addiction, depression and to ease fear of death has been increasingly in the news. The use of psilocybin is now legal or decriminalized in a handful of states in addition to Oregon. Dr. Bree is an especially clear speaker and talks openly about the benefits of her own psilocybin trips. She tells us she wishes she could prescribe them for her elderly patients who are anxious about dying. She explains everything you might want to know about different psychedelics, what their effects are, what to be wary of and more. As to how this topic fits into aging and reinvention, Debbie says were she to receive a fatal diagnosis from cancer or another disease, she's pretty sure she would seek a guided psilocybin trip to ease fear of dying. UPDATE on legal status of psychedelics
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| 11 Oct 2019 | A Year of Wellness with Katie Tremper | 00:33:02 | |
Debbie and Katie Tremper talk about the challenges of slowing down to take care of yourself. More recently, Katie, 56, has also been coping with a chronic illness, MS. Ironically, her diagnosis has helped her reconnect with herself. In this conversation Katie is remarkably open about why she is starting a Year of Wellness. After 33 years as a nonprofit executive in education, she is making a radical life change. But her story is about more than deciding to taking a grown-up gap year. Katie was diagnosed with MS - multiple sclerosis - several years ago. She talks about what it means to live with a chronic illness, all the ups and downs and frustrations. Her goal for her Year of Wellness is to reduce and slow her symptoms. She and her husband have downsized from high pressure San Francisco to the smaller quieter city of Davis, CA and she plans to take better care of herself in a multitude of ways: from cooking and eating more healthy foods to exercising to finding moments of joy in her daily life. We talk about the complexity of slowing down after a lifetime of working so hard. We also talk about dying and whether the horizon has shifted for her. After we spoke, Katie offered this revealing update via email about her Year of Wellness:
PHOTO: Katie posing with Debbie's husband Sam, in Baja, Mexico. Mentioned in this episode
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| 19 Sep 2020 | Season 3 Trailer: Our Collective Gap Year | 00:03:16 | |
Production team: Host: Debbie Weil Producer: Far Out Media
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Contact us: By email: thegapyearpodcast(at)gmail.com
Music credit: Lakeside Path by Duck Lake | |||
| 19 Mar 2020 | Debbie & Sam on the Coronavirus, Magical Thinking, and Aging | 00:35:24 | |
Debbie Weil interrupts regular programming to address the Coronavirus pandemic and how this evolving situation is impacting older Americans. She is joined by her husband Sam Harrington, a retired physician, and a recurring guest on the show. They talk about how they are navigating uncertainty and unknowns differently (Sam as a physician, Debbie as a non-physician but with a new hunger for charts and numbers); magical thinking about what lies ahead; and what it really means to be older (they are both 68) and to face the possibility of illness and death. This episode was recorded on March 15, 2020 so the number of positive Coronavirus cases Debbie cites is already sadly out of date. The pandemic in the U.S. continues to worsen: one of their greatest concerns, shared by many others, is that the U.S. hospital system will not have enough ICU beds for those who need them. Older Americans are worrying that medical triage of the critically ill will begin, with the elderly being passed over in favor of younger and potentially stronger patients. The conversation is not about specific guidelines or statistics related to COVID-19, available elsewhere. See Resources below. It is about the psychological aspect of the pandemic. Debbie and Sam talk about how aging and ageism are interwoven; the way social distancing might impact different age groups; and the lingering question of how best to navigate these uncertain and confusing times.
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At a time of crisis, it felt important to share a conversation between an older - yet young at heart and mind - couple. As Debbie says, there’s a lot of meaning in the words: we are all in this together. She sees a ray of hope in that phrase. Whatever we can do to comfort, to inform or even to entertain each other is useful. Podcasts are having a moment - to do just that. Which is why Debbie decided to go ahead with this episode even though it is not definitive, nor does it address everything.
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| 03 May 2019 | Four Different Decades on Transition and Reinvention (Modern Elders, Part 2) | 00:44:40 | |
Today’s episode is Part 2 of our broadcast from Chip Conley’s Modern Elder Academy, the world's first wisdom school, located at the southernmost tip of Baja California, Mexico. Debbie spent a week at this magical place recently, along with a group of 17 other compadres. Her cohort ranged in age from 42 to 78. All were there to learn how to become a modern elder - someone who reframes a lifetime of experience in order to repurpose it for something new. A new direction, a new purpose, a reinvention. In this episode, Debbie interviews four of her compadres, representing four mid-life decades from 40s to 70s.
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| 04 Jun 2021 | Bestselling Author Thomas E. Ricks on His Writing Process | 00:39:10 | |
Today, Debbie Weil talks to good friend and bestselling author Thomas E. Ricks about writing. This episode will appeal to listeners even if you're not a word nerd or put writing a book at the top of your bucket list. Tom is a military history columnist for the New York Times and author of seven books, the last five of which have been New York Times bestsellers. His best known book is "Fiasco: the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2003 - 2005," which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2007. His most recent book, published in November 2020, is "First Principles: What America's Founders Learned From the Greeks and Romans, and How That Shaped Our Country." He was a war correspondent and a member of Pulitzer Prize-winning teams covering the military for both the Wall Street Journal (2000) and the Washington Post (2002). As Debbie puts it, he's the "real deal" when it comes to writing serious books. Tom is currently working on his eighth book, a military appreciation of the Civil Rights Movement. Tom and his wife Mary Kay, also an author, are Debbie's good friends and neighbors in Maine. Today, they talk about what drives Tom to write: is it for money, for recognition, to win another Pulitzer prize, to connect with his readers, the writing itself? His answer is a good one. They address the big questions: how long does it take him to write a book, how does he choose his topics, what is his advice for would-be book writers, and more. Debbie and Tom also get into the nitty gritty of his writing process. He takes us through a day in the life of Tom Ricks which includes bringing tea to Mary Kay in the morning and making lunch most days for the two of them. Despite how prolific he is, Tom does not write for 8 hours a day. He is witty and passionate on the topic of writing, as well as being honest and revealing, and this is a wonderful conversation.
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Note from Debbie I hope you enjoyed this podcast. Would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It takes less than sixty seconds, and it really makes a difference in attracting new listeners and upcoming guests. I might read your review on my next episode! My newsletter: sign up for occasional updates and get my free writing guide at http://eepurl.com/qGTP Connect with me:
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We Are Looking For a Sponsor for Season 4 If you are interested in reaching a smart and thoughtful audience of midlife, and older, listeners, contact Debbie Weil.
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| 18 Nov 2022 | Joan Price on the Joys of (and Differences in) Senior Sex | 00:31:36 | |
Today Debbie talks about a topic that interests us all, no matter our age… sex. Given the focus of the podcast, she decided to go right to a senior sexspert, Joan Price, for a very frank conversation about all things related to, well, senior sex. Joan, who is 79, has legions of followers on her blog, for her books, DVDs and webinars. She was quoted in a New York Times Magazine cover story this year and now gets so many requests for podcast interviews that she mostly turns them down. She agreed to come on [B]OLDER after listening to the recent episode with nonagenarian author Hilma Wolitzer (Season 4, Episode 20) about writing through grief. Joan calls herself an "advocate for ageless sexuality.” The media calls her “the woman leading a sex revolution for seniors” and, her favorite, "a wrinkly sex kitten." Debbie and Joan talk about why senior sex is an embarrassing subject but, more importantly, they talk about how to expand our definition of sex and how to adjust our relationship to body image as we age. They get right into it. No words are off limits so they talk about orgasms and sex toys and more. Joan explains the different types of desire (and why that’s important to understand as you get older). After this episode we promise that you’ll know what PIV stands for... if you don’t already. Bottom line, Joan's message is that yes, sex is different after 60 or 70 or 80… but in some ways, she says, it’s better. Joan is funny as well as frank. "Spicy” is one of her favorite words. You’ll definitely want to check out her website joanprice.com for tons of resources.
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| 03 Mar 2023 | Star Bradbury on How to Successfully Navigate the Care of Elderly Parents | 00:25:36 | |
Debbie talks to eldercare expert Star Bradbury about some of the most important topics in her comprehensive new book, Successfully Navigating Your Parents' Senior Years: Critical Information to Maximize Their Independence and Make Sure They Get the Care They Need (BenBella Books, March 21, 2023). Soon after they spoke, Debbie's 92-year-old mother died unexpectedly, making the conversation especially timely. Star's book is a compendium of how to plan and care for an elderly parent - or your own care many years down the road. She covers every topic you could think of including different types of assisted living and home care, assistive robots for seniors (yes, it's a thing), living wills and advance directives, hospice and death doulas, cremation and green burials, and much more. "Expect the unexpected" is part of her message. And In my family's case, we were unprepared. We were stunned when our mom died. We had expected our dad to go first. The book is the result of her 25 years of experience in senior healthcare and senior living and her answer to the overwhelming complexity of options and situations when it comes to aging parents. Star is also speaking to those of us in our 60s and 70s (and younger) who should be looking at planning for what she calls “post-retirement."
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| 11 Feb 2022 | Suzanne Watkins on Finding Her Wings at Age 60 | 00:24:39 | |
Debbie talks with Suzanne Watkins, a friend she met several years ago, who became an international flight attendant at age 60. If you've ever wondered about the life of an international flight attendant - all those hours on your feet, exotic destinations, and constant jet lag - this episode's for you. So she applied to be an international flight attendant. She tells us about the bootcamp, a brutal selection process she survived in order to get hired by a private charter company that flies various groups, including the military, around the world. The airline industry is surprisingly open to hiring older employees, she tells us. The job is exciting but challenging. Her passengers, often military personnel, may carry semi-automatic rifles but they are always compliant, following her orders to stow them with "butts to the captain and muzzles to the rear." The disruption of her circadian rhythm is very hard, Suzanne says, as is being on call with only two hours notice to work the next flight. She sometimes works for 23 hours straight and then gets 9 hours off. Her biggest challenge is getting enough sleep. But she seems to thrive on the unpredictability. Her schedule might take her from Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria to Guam, which is the largest of the Mariana Islands in the north Pacific and also a U.S. territory. Debbie had to look that one up. They end this delightful conversation with Suzanne offering a few tips for those thinking about reinventing themselves at midlife or later.
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| 14 Jan 2022 | Tom Peters on [B]OLDLY Turning 80: His Childhood, His Passion, His Outrage, His Mission | 00:48:09 | |
Debbie talks to legendary business author and speaker Tom Peters. And if you're wondering why she's interviewing a business management guru, it's because Tom exemplifies the new name of the podcast: [B]OLDER. I.e. getting bolder as you grow older. Tom is the co-author of In Search of Excellence, published 40 years ago and considered one of the most influential business books ever written. The book makes the argument that excellent companies treat their employees with respect. They put people first. Tom is known for being brash, fanatical, even outrageous (a combination of Billy Graham and Sid Vicious as one commentator put it) and he's been haranguing audiences and readers around the world for decades with his philosophy of people first. Haranguing, because many companies are still not doing it. Although the pandemic may have changed that a bit. In 2017 he received the Thinkers50 Lifetime Achievement Award. He also coined the term Personal Branding. And he’s not stopping as he turns 80. In this conversation, he reflects on why women should be leading; passion and outrage and why they are the most important quality in a good speaker; his love for research and data and the concept of compassionomics. He also gets personal, opening up about his childhood and his mother's influence and reiterating why he is not done yet. He's as fanatical as ever (especially on the topic of women getting things done) and you’ll hear Debbie occasionally interrupting or trying to interrupt him in this conversation. Not something Debbie normally does but Tom's Director of Programs, Shelley Dolley, encouraged her to do so. Debbie met Tom almost 15 years ago when he interviewed her for his Cool Friends series, shortly after her book (The Corporate Blogging Book) came out. Coincidentally, he is married to a high school classmate of Debbie's, designer Susan Sargent. His newest book, Excellence Now: Extreme Humanism, is more relevant than ever with its emphasis on creating a humane workplace. It's his eighteenth book and it may be his last, he tells Debbie. Much of his written and speech material is available—free to download—at tompeters.com and excellencenow.com. Enjoy this spirited and wide-ranging conversation with a legendary thinker. Mentioned in this episode or useful:
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| 20 May 2022 | Dr. Bree Johnston on Psychedelic Therapy to Ease Fear of Death | 00:46:51 | |
Today, Debbie talks with Dr. Bree Johnston, a geriatrician and a palliative care physician who is also certified in psychedelic therapies. In case you haven't noticed, the topic of psychedelic therapy has gone mainstream in the past several years. Taking a guided psilocybin trip is now viewed as a highly effective way to ease fear of dying. But it's complicated. It took Debbie several months to find just the right person to interview about the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics. Her research led her to Dr. Bree Johnston who is perfectly credentialed for this topic as well as being a notably clear and wise teacher for [B]OLDER podcast listeners. She's been a practicing physician for 35 years and recently became certified in Psychedelic Therapies and Research through the California Institute of Integral Studies. They talk about: - The problem of legality (she predicts psilocybin therapy will be legal in a few years) They also explore the complexity that comes with medicalizing psychedelics as well as the ethics surrounding legalization. This is a highly informative conversation with a knowledgeable physician. Mentioned in this episode or useful:
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| 15 Jan 2019 | Trailer | 00:01:26 | |
A podcast hosted by Debbie Weil for grown-ups who believe you can step out of your default life for a gap or timeout, to find meaning and purpose, and especially when you are 50+ and figuring out what comes next. Host: Debbie Weil Special Guest: Sam Harrington Gap Year blog: Gap Year After Sixty Producer: Julie-Roxane Sponsored by Next For Me | |||
| 19 Apr 2019 | Chip Conley: Growing Wise at Modern Elder Academy | 00:24:49 | |
Debbie interviews Chip Conley, New York Times best-selling author, rebel hospitality entrepreneur and now a rock star of the mid-life transition movement. After selling Joie de Vivre Hospitality, the second largest boutique hotel brand in the U.S., Chip was invited at age 52 to work for AirBnB as an advisor to the young founders. He soon found himself to be both mentor and intern; the result was his newest book, "Wisdom @ Work, The Making of a Modern Elder." In January 2018, Chip founded Modern Elder Academy, the world's first mid-life wisdom school, in Baja California, Mexico. Together they talk about MEA's mission, which is to help mid-lifers mine their mastery, repurpose it and reset their mindset for the second half or third third of their life. They also talk about the experience of attending MEA where Debbie spent a week as a student and where she interviews Chip with waves pounding in the background. Mentioned in Episode
Note: the NYT article didn't get the story quite right. MEA is for more than tech workers and it's not just a luxury retreat; it's for those 35 to 75 seeking a next step. Support this podcast:
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Full disclosure: Modern Elder Academy is a sponsor of this podcast. | |||
| 10 Jan 2020 | Guy Kawasaki's Life Lessons at 65: Skip the Email, Find Joy, and Speak the Truth | 00:24:29 | |
We kick off 2020 with a conversation with Silicon Valley legend and all-around wise guy, Guy Kawasaki. Not surprisingly, he is funny, and opinionated in addition to being wise. Guy worked with Steve Jobs at Apple as the original evangelist for the Macintosh computer. Then he went on to a career as an author, speaker and investor. He has written 15 books, a number of them New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers (the most recent is a quasi memoir, Wise Guy). He gives over 50 keynotes a year on the topics of innovation, evangelism and entrepreneurship for brand name companies like Nike, Google and Microsoft. Most recently, he became chief evangelist for Canva, an online design tool. So how does Debbie know Guy? She met him 20 years ago when she heard him speak at a small business conference. She was so taken with his presentation that she went up afterwards to say thank you and introduce herself. He responded by scribbling a note on a scrap of paper and handing it to her: "Think digital, act analog - Guy Kawasaki. May 25, 1999." Bingo. Even back then, in the early days of the Web, that hit home. She treasures the note and has thought of Guy as one of her unofficial mentors since then. (Check the episode web page to see the framed note.) Guy is a social media celebrity with 1.4 million Twitter followers. But he's also a genuinely nice guy, respectful and responsive. When Debbie got an email from him recently announcing his new podcast, Remarkable People, she replied to congratulate him and asked if he’d come on the Gap Year podcast. He responded, “I’d be happy to!” She was a little nervous about interviewing him so she prepared a list of specific questions. Generally she likes to let the conversation wander a bit more, but this worked out pretty well. She and Guy talk about:
Be sure to listen to Remarkable People. Debbie's favorite of the episodes so far are his interviews with Jane Goodall and Margaret Atwood. Both are legends but he manages to walk the line between admiring… and fawning. Debbie hopes she's done the same in this conversation with Guy.
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| 23 Jun 2023 | Karen Wickre on Aging in Place As a Singleton After a Stellar Tech Career | 00:33:00 | |
Debbie brings her friend Karen Wickre back on the show to talk about "aging in place" and other things, including being a singleton in her 70s. They met over 20 years ago when Debbie interviewed Karen, who was editor of Google’s blog, for Debbie's book, The Corporate Blogging Book. Not surprisingly, Google was an early adopter of this new form of communication. They've stayed in touch ever since. Karen had a stellar career in tech, working at Google and then at Twitter. She retired when she was 65 (she didn’t call it “retirement” back then) and is now an editorial consultant. She lives alone in San Francisco where she's owned her apartment for over 20 years. Now that she’s completed a strategically-planned renovation, she plans to stay there to "age in place." She is the author of Taking the Work Out of Networking: Your Guide to Making and Keeping Great Connections. They talk about the power of networking, the importance of connections later in life, especially if you are a solo ager, planning ahead if you want to age in place, and what the definition of home is - beyond location - and how that might change as you grow older. Debbie shares her thoughts about what and where home is - as she looks ahead. Mentioned in this episode or useful:
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| 18 Jun 2021 | Steven Petrow on the Stupid Things He Won’t Do When He Gets Old | 00:37:11 | |
Today, Debbie talks with with Steven Petrow about his new book, Stupid Things I Won't Do When I Get Old: A Highly Judgmental, Unapologetically Honest Accounting of All the Things Our Elders Are Doing Wrong. The title says it all, as does the format of the book. The list of stupid things to avoid is offered in 43 bite-size chapters. Steven is an award-winning journalist and author who is best known for his Washington Post and New York Times essays on aging, health, and LGBTQ issues. Debbie has been following his work for a while and when she heard about his new book on old age she jumped on getting him onto the show. We've all had a lot of time to think about life - and death - during this pandemic gap year and old age is starting to get personal for Debbie (she turns 70 this year). She figured Steven's humorous approach to the topic would make it easier to get into a substantive discussion about getting old. It did and you'll find this conversation goes surprisingly deep. The book covers lighter topics like:
Debbie and Steven talk about harder stuff. When does old age actually start? The looming uncertainty of how many years - how many good years - you have left? How to make that time count? They also talk about things no one wants to talk about (like decreased libido, not wanting to use a walker, and the "smell" of old people). And they talk about how to have the hard conversations with elderly parents. You know the ones: “Maybe you shouldn’t be driving anymore” or “Maybe it’s time to think about getting more care at home” or “What kind of memorial service do you want?” Steven offers candid answers for how to address the indignities and challenges of old age whether you are encountering them through family members and friends, or worrying about yourself. This is a fun, easy listen.
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Note from Debbie I hope you enjoyed this podcast. Would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than sixty seconds, and it really makes a difference in attracting new listeners and upcoming guests. I might read your review on my next episode! Sign up for occasional updates and get my free writing guide at http://eepurl.com/qGTP Connect with me:
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| 17 May 2019 | Jeff Tidwell on Mid-Life Entrepreneurship and Work With Purpose | 00:36:40 | |
In today's episode, Debbie interviews Jeff Tidwell, a 35-year digital veteran who has worked with big brands like eTrade and WebMD, as well as with numerous startups, on product, community, marketing and user experience strategies. He’s lived and worked in New York, San Francisco and LA. About two years ago, as he approached 60, he began to feel conscious of his age in a youth-oriented industry. That’s when he got the idea for Next For Me, an online community for those 50+ with a particular interest in meaningful work. Next For Me also sponsors real life events across the country. There are numerous other online resources that address everything else for this demographic: dating, sex, travel, planning for retirement, etc. Next For Me specifically focuses on post-50 work and purpose. Mentioned in episode Jeff's columns for Forbes.com Jeff on the launch of Next For Me Startout Growth Lab for LGBTQ entrepreneurs The Advantages Older Adults Bring to First-Time Entrepreneurship by Derek Lidow Support this podcast:
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Full disclosure: Next For Me is a sponsor of this podcast. | |||
| 05 Nov 2021 | Richard Leider on Living Your Purpose Rather Than "Finding" It | 00:34:37 | |
Today, Debbie talks with Richard Leider about aging with purpose, the fallacy of "finding" your purpose, and how to practice daily. Richard is considered a pioneer of the global purpose movement. Yes, the "purpose movement" is a thing. The topic of finding meaning and purpose has come up repeatedly on this podcast. It's key to a life well-lived, we’ve been told. But how DO you live a life of purpose? Are there any shortcuts or secrets? That’s what Debbie wanted to find out from Richard. Richard Leider is the author of 11 books, many of which have been bestsellers, and recently co-authored the book "Who Do You Want to Be When You Grow Old? The Path of Purposeful Aging." He's very much on the right path for himself. At 77, he’s working, writing, and still, happily, honing his own purpose. Together, they talk about the idea of purpose in elder hood, and why it is crucial to longevity. They discuss purpose as a verb: it’s not something you find but it’s something you “do” via purposeful living. Richard shares his story of a profound encounter with author and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl in 1968 and how that unlocked his lifelong fascination with purpose. They also get into what he calls in his book the Ultimate Conversation - the one about death that you should have with your family but also with yourself. And Richard shares what he does everyday to practice being purposeful. This might be the secret, if there is one. This is a great conversation with a man who is truly living what he talks and writes about.
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Note from Debbie If you've been enjoying the podcast, please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts. It takes less than two minutes and it really makes a difference. It makes me feel loved and it also attracts new listeners. Subscribe to my newsletter and get my free writing guide: https://bitly.com/debbie-free-guide.
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| 19 Apr 2024 | Patty Ivey on Getting Breast Cancer at Age 70 and How It’s Changing What She Will Give Back to the World | 00:39:08 | |
Today Debbie talks to Patty Ivey about life changes and opportunities opening up for her after being diagnosed with and treated for breast cancer last year. Inspiring doesn’t really cover it as a way to describe Patty. Neither does [b]old, as in [B]OLD AGE. Patty and Debbie go back at least 15 years, when Debbie was a regular at Patty's Down Dog yoga studio in DC. It was always special when Patty, the owner, taught a class. Her classes were different. They offered all the benefits that practicing yoga offers beyond what happens on the mat; with Patty teaching, the class was mind-expanding. She made yoga open up new possibilities for how to live. So when Debbie saw Patty posting beautiful, bald photos of herself on her LinkedIn page, she immediately got in touch to find out how she was doing. As Patty explains it, she is using life principles from yoga, which include leaving room for what we don’t know and focusing on something bigger than ourselves, as she looks ahead. She acknowledges an identity shift that has come with cancer. Some older version of herself is no longer there, but she's okay with that. Like most women, Debbie is terrified of getting breast cancer, but with Patty as a guide (she’s also a mentor and a life coach as well as being a serial entrepreneur), it seems there could be an upside. We hope you are as inspired by this conversation as Debbie was.
////////// Don't miss the Behind The Scenes for every podcast episode in Debbie's [B]OLD AGE newsletter on Substack. //////////
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| 08 Oct 2021 | Dorie Clark on Playing "The Long Game” to Get the Most Out of Life and Work | 00:36:47 | |
Welcome back to the [B]OLDER podcast (formerly The Gap Year Podcast). Today, Debbie Weil brings author, entrepreneur, and renowned business thinker Dorie Clark on the show, a perfect way to kick off Season 4. Dorie is a 42-year-old business consultant whose life and work resonate strongly with Debbie. She was a Philosophy major in college, graduated from Harvard Divinity school, worked as a journalist (something Debbie did for two decades) and was a presidential campaign spokesperson. Then, in a very intentional way, over a period of eleven years, she became a highly respected business author and speaker. Dorie is on the Thinkers50 list, the top 50 business thinkers in the world, and has just published her fourth book: THE LONG GAME: HOW TO BE A LONG-TERM THINKER IN A SHORT-TERM WORLD. She now teaches at Duke and Columbia’s business schools and consults with clients like Google and Microsoft and the World Bank. But - and this is the part that applies to midlife reinvention - it took repeated rejection along the way for her to get to where she is today. She tells us those stories and more in THE LONG GAME. Her new book is aimed at a mid-career business audience but Debbie was struck over and over, as she read it, how Dorie's approach applies to life and work after 60 or 70. Dorie is also a documentary filmmaker, a Broadway investor, and a trained musical theatre lyricist and composer. She writes in THE LONG GAME about creating white space in your calendar, meaning give yourself unstructured time to think “differently” and to explore and experiment. She also talks about optimizing for meaning (instead of for money, usually the default) and optimizing for interesting: follow your curiosity even if you don’t know exactly where that will take you. Wow, she could be writing a script for a grown-up gap year and for optimizing a post-career, non-retired chapter of life - the focus of this podcast. Needless to say, Dorie is also a huge proponent of trying new things even if they are way outside your current area of expertise. This is a great conversation full of useful nuggets about how to think long-term and why that matters.
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Note from Debbie If you've been enjoying the podcast, please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts. It takes less than two minutes and it really makes a difference. It makes me feel loved and it also attracts new listeners. Subscribe to my newsletter and get my free writing guide: https://bitly.com/debbie-free-guide. Connect with me:
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| 24 Jan 2020 | Sonja O'Donnell on the Challenge of a Self-directed Life | 00:30:16 | |
Debbie chats with a friend, Sonja O’Donnell, about the sabbatical gap year she took traveling around the world with her husband and their then 13-year-old son in tow. Both teachers, they had stepped out of highly-structured lives as long-time faculty at a prestigious secondary boarding school in Massachusetts. Their approach to a gap year was highly organized and purposeful; they were determined to make the most of an extraordinary opportunity. Several years later, they realized that the gap year had opened up new ways of thinking and they were ready for a major life shift. Sonja, now 53, talks frankly about how they continue to adjust to uncertainties as well as new possibilities. She also asks Debbie some important questions, such as “Do you find it easy to ask for help, to ask questions, to find mentors?” Debbie doesn't answer fully on the podcast. But the answer is "No," it's not easy asking for help. What they talked about:
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| 09 Apr 2021 | Island Women Speak About Their Pandemic Year | 00:18:16 | |
One of the biggest "gaps" for Debbie this past year was the absence of Island Women Speak, the multi-generational women’s storytelling event she has produced and directed on Deer Isle, Maine. For the past three winters, on a cold January night, seven local women representing seven decades from 20s to 80s have bravely stepped on stage to tell revealing five-minute stories about their lives, in the tradition of Moth storytelling. The other half of the storytelling equation is the audience: packed into Stonington, Maine’s historic Opera House theatre for warmth and intimacy, their presence has never failed to create a safe space for storytelling. It has been a special evening that this community has talked about for weeks and months afterwards. It's meant so much to Debbie to work with these extraordinary women and to help make the event happen. Well, it was NOT to be in January 2021. So she decided to invite three past performers onto the show, representing three different decades (or teams), to get their differing perspectives on this pandemic year and to offer a taste of the intimacy and wisdom that the audience has loved in the past. In this short episode, you’ll hear from three women about loneliness and uncertainty but also about resilience and perseverance, the sturdy outlook on life that is typical of Mainers. Representing Team 30 is Amanda Larrabee who is a landscaper and mother of a teenager. For Team 50 is Becky Siebert who has served the community for decades as a nurse. And for Team 80 is Lorraine Knowlton, a retired minister. All three are lifelong residents of Deer Isle, Maine, the remote coastal community that Debbie now calls home. Debbie asks each of them a series of questions about their pandemic year: - What has been most challenging for you? - What is your NEW BEST THING that has come out of this year? - What do you want more of? - This has been a year of loss, but has it been a lost year for you? Tune into this short episode to hear three women, three generations, and three perspectives on the ways we've all experienced this past year and how we are looking ahead.
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Note from Debbie I hope you enjoyed this podcast. Would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than sixty seconds, and it really makes a difference in attracting new listeners and upcoming guests. I might read your review on my next episode! Sign up for occasional updates and get my free writing guide at http://eepurl.com/qGTP
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| 22 May 2020 | Debbie & Sam on the New Normal, Quarantines, Immunity Passports, and Masks & Gloves | 00:23:12 | |
Debbie Weil brings her husband, Dr. Sam Harrington, back on the show for an update on their evolving state of mind about the continuing pandemic. Like everyone else, they are settling into social distancing for the long haul. This is their new normal, at least for now. After two months of self-isolating in their little apartment in New Haven, CT they drove back to Stonington, ME, the remote coastal village where they live. Debbie knew they would feel much safer in Maine where the infection rate is exceptionally low. Sam is not so sure. The number of positive cases of COVID-19 in Maine is less than 2,000 and the number of deaths, statewide, is fewer than 100, with only one death in their county. Those numbers are as of mid-May 2020. But are they really that much safer? Is there really a safe place anywhere?
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| 02 Oct 2020 | Guy Kawasaki Gets Serious About His Better Normal, the American Experiment, and What History Will Say About 2020 | 00:33:27 | |
Guy Kawasaki is a Silicon Valley legend. He’s worked with Steve Jobs at Apple, he’s written 15 books, and until recently, he was traveling all over the world for speaking engagements. He's also the creator and host of the Remarkable People podcast. He was a guest on Season 2 of this podcast. On today’s episode, Debbie and Guy unpack the last few months. They talk about how the pandemic has changed Guy's life, how it has impacted his income, and what has been his ONE BEST THING during this strange time. They also dive into the upcoming November elections in the U.S. Guy gets serious about the potential failure of the American Experiment, ponders how we can each make a difference, and wonders how history will remember the year 2020. Guy also talks about his biggest lesson learned from 42 episodes of Remarkable People. Tune in for a surprisingly revealing conversation with the one and only Guy Kawasaki. Mentioned in this episode or useful:
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| 12 Feb 2021 | Encore's Marci Alboher & Aanchal Dhar on Intergenerational Collaboration and Why It’s Important Right Now | 00:33:02 | |
Today, Debbie talks to Encore.org's Marci Alboher and Aanchal Dhar about intergenerational collaboration: how it works for them as a GenX and Millennial pair and how connecting different ages can address some of the biggest issues this country is facing right now, from pandemic loneliness to the political divide to the climate crisis. Marci, Encore's Vice President of Narrative Change, is 54. Aanchal, Encore's Communications Strategist for Programs, is 39. The two have been collaborating for seven years in their work for this well-known nonprofit, which is partially responsible for the midlife reinvention movement. Encore originally focussed on the second half of life. More recently the group has turned to a focus on bridging divides and connecting generations to create a better future. That's a big goal. Encore calls it a movement. So Debbie asks Marci and Aanchal, in turn, why it's so important to bridge the demographic divide in the workplace, in communities, in our personal lives. The answer: connecting different ages, races, and genders creates value. Younger people bring a fresh perspective, seeing things for the first time. Older people have lived through crises and challenges (the unrest of the 60s, for example) and they bring a different lived experience. Together they can solve big problems. They also talk about "perennials," a term Debbie loves. It means people with a mindset of being hungry and curious and always wanting to learn regardless of age or generation. Curiosity is key to conversations with those who are different from you. And they talk about civic community, what that means, and why the virtual program Aanchal started has been so important during the pandemic. Be sure to check out the links to articles Marci and Aanchal have written, as well as to Encore's many resources and programs.
USEFUL LINKS
Partial List of Encore's Programs and Resources:
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Note from Debbie I hope you enjoyed this podcast. Would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than sixty seconds, and it really makes a difference in attracting new listeners and upcoming guests. I might read your review on my next episode! Sign up for occasional updates and get my free writing guide at http://eepurl.com/qGTP Connect with me:
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| 16 Dec 2022 | Clementina Esposito on Memoir Writing, the Ugly Truth, and the Impact of the Spoken Word | 00:36:30 | |
Debbie Weil talks to friend and exceptional writing teacher Clementina Esposito about memoir, the difficulty of sharing ugly truths, and why making meaning through writing matters. Clementina is founder of the Clementina Collective, a collaborative created to help entrepreneurs and visionary leaders advance their causes and their careers through writing and speaking. In Clementina's words: "No one writes alone, everyone values the power of a well-told story, and ugly truths become beautiful in the end.” Debbie met Clementina a half dozen years ago when Clementina coached her in a public speaking program. They've been friends ever since. Clementina has been teaching memoir writing to a group of older students (60s to 80s). She and Debbie discuss the importance of reading aloud - of performing - what you’ve written and how maybe that should be a goal instead of publication. Reading out loud builds community and intimacy. They also talk about the difficulty and challenge of finding your voice and speaking your truth and sharing it with others – especially if you think it’s an ugly truth. And they conclude by agreeing that anyone can be a writer. Even if you doubt yourself, sharing your writing is how you make meaning of your life... and help your readers do the same.
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| 21 Jul 2023 | Debbie & Sam Wrap Up Season 5: Anniversaries, Unexpected Death, God, Grandchildren, and More. | 00:28:49 | |
Today, Debbie brings her husband Sam Harrington back on the show to wrap up another [B]OLDER season. You'll hear their 11-year-old granddaughter Ruthie talking about her recent trip with them to the Swiss Alps. Definitely a high point of the season and of the past year. A lot has happened during Season 5 of [B]OLDER: Debbie and Sam celebrated their 50th anniversary while they were in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico. Then, right after that, Debbie's 92-year-old mother died unexpectedly, prompting a lot of memories, much appreciation, and a blunt reminder of life’s finitude. We re-ran episodes with some of our most popular guests who talked about psychedelic therapy and about Covid’s place in the history of plagues.
***** NEW! Read and subscribe to Debbie's Substack. *****
In Season 5 Debbie talked to new guests about cellular research on aging, about helping elderly parents plan ahead, what UNretirement is really like, and one of her all-time favorite interviews: a conversation with famed New York Times health columnist Jane Brody about what she learned from a half century at the Times. And finally, renowned writer and speaker Jonathan Merritt eloquently explained God and religion to Debbie, a non-church person. In this wrap-up you’ll hear Sam - hopefully not slurping his coffee but maybe a little - and teasing Debbie about "jumping right in." (She likes that podcast expression; he does not.) This is the finale of Season 5 of the [B]OLDER podcast. Have a great summer, thank you for listening, and we’ll be back in the fall. In the meantime, find Debbie on Substack where she writes about what it's really like to grow old(er)?
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| 08 Apr 2022 | Debbie and Julie-Roxane on Messy Conversations About Old Age and Dying | 00:49:04 | |
Debbie hands over the mic to her producer, Julie-Roxane Krikorian, for a deep dive on the conversations we need to have with ourselves and our loved ones about old age and dying. Together, they unpack the difference between theory and practice when it comes to these emotionally-loaded conversations. They talk about the challenges of becoming weaker and more vulnerable as our bodies decline, and the flipping of the dynamics of care between parents and children at the end of life. They discuss the difficulty of giving space to our aging parents all the while trying to support them with practical help. They also talk about a reframe from weakening to softening and how to become elders who lead the way into the unknown of aging and dying. Debbie shares her personal journey with this topic as a daughter, a big sister of four, and a mother of three. She even reveals what her “dream death” is. This is a real and honest account of Debbie’s experiences and, we believe, a useful conversation to anyone navigating the complex waters of aging parents and aging ourselves. Don't worry, there's plenty of humor.
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| 17 Feb 2023 | Debbie & Julie-Roxane on Different Styles of Decision-Making No Matter Your Age | 00:29:01 | |
Today, Debbie brings her producer and friend Julie-Roxane back on the podcast to talk about decision-making. When you plan ahead 10, 15 or 20 years how do you make the right decisions knowing the future is always uncertain? Julie-Roxane, 30, and Debbie, 71, discuss the challenges of decision-making, whether it’s deciding to have children or planning for old age. They talk about the concept of maximiser vs. satisficer, two different approaches to decision-making. (Can you guess which is more effective?) They end by reversing roles and giving each other advice about big upcoming decisions. Tune in for a rich intergenerational conversation.
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| 06 Dec 2019 | An Executive's Story: Taking a Sabbatical With Susan De Cuba | 00:30:28 | |
Debbie talks with Susan De Cuba, an accomplished nonprofit executive who spent the last 13 years of her career as CEO of a hospice group in Florida. When Debbie met Susan, she was at the end of her gap year. After 40+ years of non-stop work, she had decided to take a year off - but in a purposeful way. Susan is practical and she is strategic. And she had a goal - to figure out her next step. Listen in as Debbie picks her brain about:
She felt a desire to serve others and she also knew she wanted freedom and flexibility. Most important, we talk about how she remained open to possibilities, especially around money and resources, and how that led her through a rejuvenating and, ultimately, successful gap year. PHOTO: Susan dancing in Mexico at the beginning of her gap year sabbatical. Mentioned in this episode Support this podcast:
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| 05 Apr 2019 | Dr. Sam Harrington on Writing His First Book After Taking a Gap Year | 00:33:41 | |
Debbie chats with her husband, Sam Harrington, about the experience of writing a book and about being a first-time author. Yes, writing a book was on Sam's bucket list but he never seriously considered it until their gap year when he had the time and mental space to focus on it. A practicing physician in D.C. for 31 years, he realized he had deep knowledge and a strong point of view about how the elderly should make decisions at the end of life. The result is AT PEACE: Choosing a Good Death After a Long Life (Hachette 2018). Debbie is a nonfiction writing coach and editor and she asks Sam the tough questions about writing his book. This episode will be of interest to anyone who has A BOOK on their bucket list - lots of practical tips and truth-telling. Mentioned in the episode:
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| 01 Jul 2022 | Hilma Wolitzer, 92, on Writing Through Grief and Turning Domestic Life Into Art | 00:42:41 | |
Today, Debbie talks to writer and novelist Hilma Wolitzer, age 92. She’s just published a new book of short stories titled "Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket." So yes, this is someone who is "making the most of growing older." Hilma's stories of sharply observed domestic life were published in the Saturday Evening Post and Esquire in the 1960s and 1970s. She has taught writing at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, NYU, and Columbia. She's also the author of nine novels and the recipient of national awards and fellowships. Her husband of almost 70 years died of COVID in the first months of the pandemic. It was as if he vanished, she told Debbie. She and her husband Morty both got Covid in April of 2020. They were taken to separate hospitals in New York City. She never got to say good-bye. He died two days before she was released from the hospital and went home to her apartment. As she tells Debbie on the podcast: "There were his slippers next to the bed. There was a pair of his drugstore eyeglasses. He seemed to have vanished and that was the sense I tried to depict in (the final) story (of her new book). Disappearance rather than dying." She was encouraged to write through her grief, and to write this story and add it to a new collection, by her daughters: New York Times bestselling novelist Meg Wolitzer and artist Nancy Wolitzer. She titled the new story, "The Great Escape." It is as diamond sharp and perfect - and funny - as her earlier writing. There's even sex.
Note from Debbie If you've been enjoying the podcast, please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts. It takes less than two minutes and it really makes a difference. It makes me feel loved and it also attracts new listeners. Subscribe to my newsletter and get my free writing guide: https://bitly.com/debbie-free-guide.
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| 17 Dec 2021 | Oliver Burkeman on Embracing Finitude and Completing a Few Meaningful Things | 00:43:58 | |
This is the last episode before we take a podcasting break for the holidays. See you back here in January 2022! And yes, we’re trying out a new name. The focus of the podcast has become broader than the topic of “taking a gap year.” So the new name is [B]OLDER: Making the most of growing older. In other words, boldly reinventing life and work at midlife and beyond.
Debbie is always on the lookout for guests who can lend a new perspective to the concept of time and our perception of how much of it we have. So when she read Oliver Burkeman’s new book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, she knew he had to come on the show. Plus the book is terrific and it's getting lots of notice. The first sentence is “The average human life span is absurdly, terrifyingly, insultingly short.” In other words, about 4,000 weeks. Oliver is a British author and journalist who wrote a popular weekly column, This Column Will Change Your Life, for The Guardian for over a decade. He has reported from London, Washington and New York and recently moved with his wife and son from Brooklyn, NY back to Yorkshire in the UK to be near his family. He has established himself as a tongue-in-cheek expert on productivity and time management and how that does - or does not - lead to happiness. He sums up his new book very nicely in his Twitter profile: explaining that 4,000 Weeks is about embracing limitation and finally getting round to what matters. As he's 46, he's only lived about 2,400 of those 4,000 weeks himself but he tells Debbie in this episode that he may be getting closer to a better relationship with time. Debbie and Oliver talk about time and self-worth, why we are so future-oriented, the connection between time and happiness, and why it might be okay that we use social media as a distraction. Oliver is a contrarian thinker but he's truly interested in how to build a meaningful life. Debbie had a number of aha moments in this conversation and listeners will too!
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Note from Debbie If you've been enjoying the podcast, please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts. It takes less than two minutes and it really makes a difference. It makes me feel loved and it also attracts new listeners. Subscribe to my newsletter and get my free writing guide: https://bitly.com/debbie-free-guide. Connect with me:
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| 05 Nov 2020 | Debbie’s 90-year-old Dad Talks About the Most Extraordinary Election of His Lifetime | 00:17:32 | |
Debbie Weil brings Frank Weil, her almost 90-year-old father, back on the podcast to give us his perspective on the 2020 presidential election, even as votes are still being counted. Her Dad is a prolific blogger at FAWideas.com, where he regularly offers his thoughts on Democratic politics, including cogent tirades about you-know-who, whom he regards as incompetent, amoral, and dangerous. So who else to make better sense of this nail-biting week than her Dad? He lives in Washington DC with her mother, Denie Weil; they’ve been married almost 70 years. In the late 1970s, Frank was an Assistant Secretary in the Dept. of Commerce under Jimmy Carter. In the decades since, as well as before, he has been deeply involved in Democratic politics. He’s been an informal advisor to Presidential candidates, including Barack Obama. And he always has an opinion. Plenty of them. They recorded the conversation you’re about to hear in the early afternoon of November 4th. The frustration of the previous night was starting to give way to patience as key swing states and counties continued to count votes. At the time they recorded, there was general agreement that Joe Biden would prevail, narrowly, and become the 46th President of the U.S. Frank says this is the most extraordinary election of his lifetime, both in terms of nail-biting outcome but also in view of the massive turnout and unusual process of early voting and mail-in ballots. He tells us that his frustration of the past weeks and months has turned into “inspiration” as he ponders the fact that a divided government might be a good thing, because it will force Washington to compromise and therefore better represent the people. He and Debbie take a brief walk down memory lane for some of the most memorable elections of his lifetime, the first being FDR’s unprecedented third election in 1940 with Henry Wallace as his running mate, when Frank was nine years old. When Debbie was nine, she remembers waking up with excitement the morning after Kennedy was elected in 1960. There are a few things Debbie and Frank didn’t get around to specifically discussing, including the record turnout, the highest in a century. And they didn’t have enough time to go deeply into examining the divide in this country, between rural and urban, educated and less educated, and the belief in astonishingly opposing narratives. You can’t help but sense this man's optimism, despite this difficult year and despite the real difficulties that lie ahead as we try to unite a deeply divided nation. He lets us go with a word of wisdom on the importance of collaboration even with those you don’t agree with.
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| 29 Jan 2021 | Diane Feldman on Bridging the Political Divide in the U.S., the Problems with Polling, and Contributing to Your Local Community | 00:35:41 | |
Today Debbie Weil talks to Diane Feldman, an old friend and a veteran political consultant, to get her take on an issue that Debbie has been chewing and stewing over: the deep political divide in this country. After running The Feldman Group, a Democratic research & polling firm in D.C. for almost 30 years, Diane shut down her firm two years ago and retired to Jackson, Mississippi. Debbie's first question for her might sound naive: is there a message that President Biden could send that would get us to the unity he calls for in his Inaugural Address? But it comes out of her genuine perplexity about how to unify the dramatically opposing factions in this country: Democrats vs. Republicans, those who voted for Trump vs. those who elected Biden, those who believe in truth and facts vs. those who don’t seem to. This kind of polarization in America isn't new, Diane reminds us. It's been going on for a long, long time. Think back to the many who opposed Dr. Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement. What's new, she says, is that 85 million Americans were willing to stand up and vote for equity and anti-racism. They talk about this and more: the different kinds of political messaging, the Jan. 6th assault on the Capitol, white supremacy, the current echoes of the resistance to the civil rights movement, why people get stuck in their own political bubbles, and Diane’s analysis of why polling is not the strategically effective tool it used to be, which is one reason she decided to shut down The Feldman Group and start a new chapter of her life where she no longer sells her time but is finding ways to contribute in her new community. Lots to chew on. Be sure to check out Diane’s blog, The View From the Pearl, referring to the river that runs through Jackson.
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Note from Debbie I hope you enjoy this podcast. Would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than sixty seconds, and it really makes a difference in attracting new listeners and upcoming guests. I might read your review on my next episode! Sign up for occasional updates and get my free writing guide at http://eepurl.com/qGTP Connect with me:
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| 23 Oct 2020 | Kerry Hannon on Pajama Jobs, the New Age of Remote Work, and Why Older Workers May Benefit | 00:24:22 | |
Today, Debbie talks to Kerry Hannon, author of the new and well-timed Great Pajama Jobs: Your Complete Guide to Working from Home. Kerry is the author of 14 books and an expert on career transitions, entrepreneurship, personal finance, and retirement. She writes regularly for The New York Times, MediaWatch, Forbes and other media outlets, including NextAvenue.org. Kerry answers the question: will we ever return to the office or is remote working here to stay? Debbie wishes WFH (working from home) had been an accepted phenomenon decades ago when she had small children. Kerry shares some key skills that can make working from home more effective (good communication, discipline, technical literacy) as well as tips for older and more experienced workers, including the semi-retired. She makes the point that work is not just about the money. They also talk about ageism, still a pervasive issue in the workplace, and how remote work might alleviate it by focusing attention on performance and productivity. Finally, they talk about one of Kerry's favorite topics: cultivating resilience by learning new skills. Expand your brain, she says. Adopt a beginner’s mind, stay open, and take risks. Consider living and working in a foreign country that is welcoming to location-independent workers. Perhaps not compatible with our pandemic world right now, but travel and living somewhere else are often part of a gap year dream.
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A few job boards recommended by Kerry:
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| 09 Oct 2020 | The View From London: Alyson Hoggart on Coping With COVID, Speeding Up Relationships, and the Importance of Communicating | 00:23:52 | |
Note: The Gap Year Podcast is looking for a sponsor! If you are interested in reaching a smart and thoughtful audience of midlife, and older, listeners, contact Debbie Weil. More about the show here. Debbie brings Alyson Hoggart, one of her oldest and most special friends, onto the show. She and Alyson have a transatlantic friendship of many decades. They are age mates, with almost identical birthdays in the same birth year. They chat about what it’s been like in Europe during COVID, with some interesting detours into Alyson’s life as a widow, with a new boyfriend. They talk about how the lockdown has speeded up this new relationship. Alyson is a retired psychologist and one of the most insightful people Debbie knows. So she picks her brain for a few tips on how to cope, psychologically, during this period of social distancing. They chat briefly about Alyson's children. Amy Hoggart is a well-known actor, writer, and comedian who lives in New York. (Don't miss Amy's hilarious appearances on Full Frontal With Samantha Bee.) Her son Richard, a lawyer, lives in London. They also talk about Alyson's website, My Horrid Parent. It’s a site with resources for how to cope with a difficult parent, one who is especially critical or judgmental. It's aimed at the young but also the not-so-young. The topic is especially relevant right now for someone younger who may be unexpectedly stuck at home with a parent. Or for those dealing with an isolated elderly parent. It was great for Debbie to catch up with Alyson and she hopes you enjoy listening in to this conversation about life across the pond. Don't miss the bit about Richard's COVID cat. Mentioned in this episode or useful:
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| 03 Dec 2021 | Debbie and Julie-Roxane Dissect How Reinventing Your Life Really Works | 00:47:39 | |
Today, Debbie brings her producer Julie-Roxane back on the show. Or rather, the opposite. Julie-Roxane takes control of the mic to interview Debbie about her experiences of reinventing her life, starting at age 14 and continuing up to the present as she turns 70. Together they explore what life reinvention really means and how it works. It's not that Debbie is a perfect model for life reinvention. Rather, what emerges in their conversation is a surprising life pattern.
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Note from Debbie If you've been enjoying the podcast, please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts. It takes less than two minutes and it really makes a difference. It makes me feel loved and it also attracts new listeners. Subscribe to my newsletter and get my free writing guide: https://bitly.com/debbie-free-guide.
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| 02 Oct 2019 | Season 2 Trailer | 00:02:57 | |
The term gap year symbolizes so much more than taking a time out. It is a frame for examining such topics as reinvention, a new purpose, aging with wisdom, trying new things, bucket list travel, a new approach to health and well-being, and more. All the topics that relate to living well in this stage of life. My guests in Season 2 will be a mix of inspiring individuals who are taking or have taken grown-up gap years along with well-known authors and experts on all the topics I’ve mentioned. Join us on this new season of Gap Year for Grown-Ups, and let’s dive deep... into what’s next. And as always, if you’ve got ideas for future shows or guests, email us at thegapyearpodcast@gmail.com We will publish a new episode every other Friday, starting Oct. 18, 2019. (With a week off here or there over the holidays.) Debbie Weil, your host Our Media Partners
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| 10 Nov 2023 | Rona Maynard on How Adopting a Rescue Mutt When She Was 65 Made Her a Better Person | 00:33:50 | |
Today, Debbie talks with Rona Maynard, an author, writer, and former VIP, as she puts it. When she left Canada's leading magazine for women as editor-in-chief, she began looking for her next big project. Around this time, her husband suggested getting a dog. She resisted for several years, then relented. When she was 65, they adopted Casey, a two-year-old rescue mutt with an appealing personality. He left dog hairs everywhere and peed on her favorite chair the day they brought him home. But the result was an unexpected next new thing, a gradual transformation of how she is approaching life, and a lovely new book, a memoir, titled Starter Dog. ////////// Don't miss the Behind The Scenes essay for each new episode in Debbie's [B]OLD AGE newsletter. ////////// Of course, the book is not just about her dog. Rona is an extraordinary writer so it is the woven story of her life as a young woman and a young wife, her ambitions, her relationship to food (and Casey’s), getting older, and how - with Casey leading the way through her Toronto neighborhood - she began to soften and notice more. In the book she illuminates how taking Casey for daily walks ultimately made her a better person. She pulls the past and present together, and, engagingly, includes quotations from two of Debbie's favorite poets: Emily Dickinson and Gerard Manley Hopkins. Rona learns how to be kind (kindness was not stressed when she was growing up in a household full of ambition), how to befriend strangers and the homeless, how to appreciate the details of changing seasons and the outdoors (after working at a desk for so many years), how to be more patient, and how to live in the moment. Because of course while she was growing old - eight years pass - her dog was growing older. Casey is now 10, while Rona's in her mid-70s, and he’s teaching her how to embrace old age. Just take it one walk, one squirrel, one bowl of dog food (two if you’re lucky), and one day at a time. Mentioned in this episode or useful:
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| 01 Oct 2021 | Season 4 - Trailer | 00:02:46 | |
The Gap Year Podcast is back for Season 4 and our topic is "making the most of growing older." If you’ve been following the podcast since Season 1, you know that this topic has always been at the core of the podcast. But how do you make the most of growing older? What does that even mean? After three years of podcasting and 65 episodes, I’m very close to turning 70. It’s increasingly apparent to me that this “how to grow older” question really has no definitive answer. It’s a messy question, with messy answers. The simplest definition I’ve come up with is that it means reinventing life and work in what have traditionally been called the retirement years. Well, that’s what’s most relevant to me right now. If you’re anywhere near midlife, or older, you’ve probably wrestled with the “growing older” question yourself. At the same time, you may think of aging as a five-letter word - something to be avoided and even feared. Why is that? In truth, this podcast is my quest to answer my own aging and reinvention questions. But it’s also an invitation to you, dear listener, to join a conversation about what can be a difficult topic to unravel. I hope, as I fumble about, sometimes with more grace than others, I can inspire or nudge you to seek your own answers: What does it mean to make the most of growing older? We’ll delve into topics like confronting the fear of death and how that affects your life, how to create a post-career identity and make a difference, and how to find purpose, the holy grail of growing up and growing older, right?
Note from Debbie If you've been enjoying the podcast, please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes. It takes less than two minutes and it really makes a difference. It makes me feel loved and it also attracts new listeners. Subscribe to my newsletter and get my free writing guide: https://bitly.com/debbie-free-guide.
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| 22 Apr 2022 | Suzanne Carmichael on Reimagining Widowhood | 00:32:28 | |
Debbie talks to Suzanne Carmichael about navigating a new phase of her life as a widow at age 78. Becoming a widow is one of Debbie's greatest fears. But it is a reality for many married women after age 65. So she invited Suzanne, a new friend in coastal Maine, onto the show. Debbie wanted to learn more about how she is handling this difficult experience. Suzanne's husband Don passed away in August of 2020 after what she calls a 46-year love affair. The early stages of grief were awful, she tells us. But then she realized she still had a lot of energy and wanted to do something with it. Thus was born her blog, titled Aging Fearlessly. Suzanne has also created a new nonprofit, Maine Widows in Action, to support and educate widows who want to be change agents in their communities and beyond. It’s a perfect match for her background as a retired public interest attorney. This is a nuanced conversation about loneliness, pain, bravery, opportunity, and practicality. Mentioned in this episode or useful:
Note from Debbie If you've been enjoying the podcast, please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts. It takes less than two minutes and it really makes a difference. It makes me feel loved and it also attracts new listeners. Subscribe to my newsletter and get my free writing guide: https://bitly.com/debbie-free-guide. Connect with me:
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| 04 Dec 2020 | Paul Jarvis on Work/Life in the Time of COVID, Why Bigger Does Not Mean Success, and Why Simplicity Drives What He Does | 00:37:02 | |
Today, Debbie Weil brings Paul Jarvis on the show. An online tech veteran, Paul is an author and a designer of data analytics software and online courses aimed at freelancers. He lives on Canada's Vancouver Island in the Pacific Northwest and has worked with Silicon Valley startups, pro-sports athletes, Fortune 500 companies, and the world's biggest entrepreneurs (like Marie Forleo). But what’s truly notable about Paul is that even before the pandemic he was living an isolated, private, and minimalist life as a solo entrepreneur. Paul is the author of Company of One: Why Staying Small is the Next Big Thing for Business. He’s designed a number of online courses, bringing in several million dollars in revenue, he's the co-founder of Fathom Analytics, and until very recently he wrote a popular weekly newsletter, The Sunday Dispatches, that he sent to his list of 35,000 subscribers. His driving value is simplicity. As he says in this conversation, “I crave simplicity" - especially as it relates to business and work. Meaning how can you solve a business problem simply rather than adding layers of complexity. In mid-November, Paul announced in an email to his 35,000 subscribers that he was halting his newsletter after eight years and also taking a break from podcasts and interviews. He noted that he's been sharing his thoughts online for 20 years. "I don’t want attention or power or admiration," he says. "I don’t want to be a personal brand or a known dude on the internet. I just want to exist and do my work privately." So we’re lucky to have this conversation with him. Debbie hopes you enjoy it as much as she did. And that you take away a few nuggets of wisdom about work - and life - that you can apply in this time of the pandemic.
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A podcast episode with another successful solo entrepreneur: Derek Sivers on Slow Thinking, Connecting, and Intentional Living
Note from Debbie I hope you enjoyed this podcast. Would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than sixty seconds, and it really makes a difference in attracting new listeners and upcoming guests. I might read your review on my next episode! Sign up for occasional updates and get my free writing guide at http://eepurl.com/qGTP Connect with me:
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| 06 Mar 2020 | Sean Bailey on Financial Planning For a Gap Year | 00:33:15 | |
Debbie speaks with Sean Bailey, founding editor-in-chief of Horsesmouth, a New York-based company that creates educational programs on retirement planning, Social Security, Medicare, college planning, cybersecurity, and more for industry professionals. The focus of their conversation is financial planning around a gap year. Sean shares some basic practicalities: you have to create a budget, you have to assess your own situation (what money have you saved, can you dip into it now, etc.) and you have to consider the real cost of a gap year. That usually means stepping out of your current life for a period while still covering the costs of that life. Use a spreadsheet, use a whiteboard, use the back of a napkin, but force yourself to do the calculations. He talks about a concept he calls “retire at 60, or earlier... work til 70!” By that he means start thinking creatively now about your financial situation. Take advantage of opportunities to explore different kinds of work, different ways of making money and different ways to build flexibility into your life. In other words, start living your dream even before you retire or think about taking an official gap year. Sean also talks about his experience of taking a gap two years, almost thirty years ago, to join the Peace Corps. Sean and Debbie share similar values around the idea that we should pursue our dreams now, not later. But with a reasonable amount of planning.
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| 12 May 2023 | Abigail Thomas on Life at 81: Liquid Moments, Memory, French Toast and Writing | 00:38:33 | |
Today, Debbie speaks with bestselling author Abigail Thomas whom Stephen King calls “the Emily Dickinson of memoirists." Her new memoir, titled "Still Life at Eighty," is a series of loosely connected essays on the topic of aging. But it's so much more than that. Abby, as she insisted that Debbie call her, is funny and frank and profane as she talks about the good and the bad of aging. Yes, there are aches and pains. No, she doesn't mind being old. In fact, she loves it. She no longer cares what people think of her and - just for the record - she is not afraid of death. As she puts it: "Please God, let there be no afterlife." In this conversation she and Debbie talk about her writing (Debbie finds it "transcendent"), her relationship to time and memories, her longterm friendship with literary agent Chuck Verrill (who died in early 2022), and why she loves working with clay. Mentioned in this episode or useful:
"STILL LIFE AT EIGHTY is a little jewel box of a book, full of epiphanies that are comforting and merciless in the gentlest possible way. Both a series of meditations and a user’s manual about growing old, I was amazed by its clarity... Even the title, with its deliberate ambiguity, is a very cool thing." — Stephen King PHOTO CREDIT: Jennifer Waddell
Get the inside skinny on every episode of [B]OLDER: Subscribe to Debbie’s newsletter for the inside story about every episode. You will also get her 34-page writing guide: https://bitly.com/debbie-free-guide. Request from Debbie: If you've been enjoying the podcast, please take a moment to leave a short review on Apple Podcasts. It really makes a difference in attracting new listeners.
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| 21 Feb 2020 | Dr. Sam Harrington on End-of-Life, Reinvention, and Legacy | 00:28:31 | |
Debbie brings her husband, Dr. Sam Harrington, back on the show to talk about end-of-life and how that relates to the topic of reinvention. They talk about the inevitability of being forced to reinvent yourself in the last stage of your life when you gradually become disabled by disease and old age. It's a reinvention of mindset, if not of action. It’s also a glass half full vs. glass half empty kind of conversation with Debbie saying, "But Sam, I’m one of those who really doesn’t want to think about the end of life." And Sam responding, "Well, you have to." The good news is that you can think about "the hard stop," as Debbie calls it, in a positive way. If you’ve been following Debbie and Sam's conversations on the podcast you know that Sam is very practical but also pretty wise. If this all sounds like doom and gloom, it’s really not. This episode is an affirmation of the time that we have left and how we can use mindfulness around our own mortality to live better lives. What they talk about:
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| 12 Mar 2021 | Maine Poet Laureate Stuart Kestenbaum on Loss, Love, Preciousness, and Celebrating the Ordinary Moment | 00:35:19 | |
Today, Debbie Weil has a conversation with Maine’s Poet Laureate Stuart Kestenbaum. Whether or not you're a fan of reading or writing poetry, you won't want to miss this episode. Stuart tells stories in his soothing, often humorous style, including what led him to decide to become a poet and how he fell in love with Maine. They talk about listening to poems read aloud and how that slows time down and creates a moment of community. They also talk about his process of discovery when he is writing poems. The topics they touch on: community and connection, love and loss, grief and creativity are relevant to this pandemic gap year. Stuart is the author of five collections of poems, most recently Things Seemed to Be Breaking (Deerbrook Editions 2021), and a collection of essays The View from Here (Brynmorgen Press). He was the director of the internationally renowned Haystack Mountain School of Crafts from 1988 until 2015. He was the host of Maine Public Radio’s popular program Poems from Here, where each week he read aloud a poem by a Maine author. He hosted/curated the podcast Make/Time and he is the host/curator of a soon-to-be-released podcast, Voices of the Future, a series of conversations with a dozen young Maine writers about their writing and their lives. This 12-episode podcast is his last project as Maine’s Poet Laureate as his five-year tenure, sadly, is coming to an end in 2021. He also reads two of his poems on this episode, including one of Debbie's favorites, Starting the Subaru at Five Below. As former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser has written: “Stuart Kestenbaum writes the kind of poems I love to read, heartfelt responses to the privilege of having been given a life. No hidden agendas here, no theories to espouse, nothing but life, pure life, set down with craft and love.” See below for links to Stuart’s poetry collections, his podcasts, stage performances and more. He writes and speaks widely on craft-making and creativity. His poems and writing have appeared in numerous small press publications and magazines including Tikkun, The Sun, The Beloit Poetry Journal, The New York Times Magazine, and on the Writer’s Almanac and American Life in Poetry. This was a wonderful conversation.
Mentioned in this episode or useful: Poems from Here with Maine Poet Laureate Stuart Kestenbaum, on Maine Public Radio For final project, Maine poet laureate puts out podcast featuring young writers by Bob Keyes, Portland Press-Herald, March 7, 2021 Words of Gratitude From Maine, New York Times, Nov. 25, 2020 Starting the Subaru at Five Below by Stuart Kestenbaum Amen, Stuart's poem selected by Naomi Shihab Nye for the New York Times, Jan. 2, 2020 Sometime during eternity... by Lawrence Ferlinghetti Wild Geese by Mary Oliver Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking by Walt Whitman Stuart Kestenbaum's talk at Maine Live about his brother Howard who died in the Twin Towers on 9/11 Susan Webster: Stuart’s wife and collaborator on art & writing: Cadillac Mountain, Acadia National Park Haystack Mountain School of Crafts The Telling Room, Portland, Maine
Note from Debbie I hope you enjoyed this podcast. Would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than sixty seconds, and it really makes a difference in attracting new listeners and upcoming guests. I might read your review on my next episode! Sign up for occasional updates and get my free writing guide at http://eepurl.com/qGTP Connect with me:
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| 31 May 2019 | Island Women Speak: Connection, Truth and Storytelling in Maine | 00:19:20 | |
In this episode Debbie talks about the most surprising result of her gap year: she created, produces and directs Island Women Speak, a popular multi-generational women's storytelling event in Stonington, Maine, the small coastal town she now calls home. She calls it a gap year accomplishment because it's a new and unexpected thing she never imagined herself doing. She has coached and edited nonfiction writers for years but this was her first foray into coaching storytellers and producing a live stage event. To her surprise and delight, the recurring event has been a resounding success. The audience in this remote coastal community yearns for truth and authenticity, especially from performers everyone knows. Island Women Speak, inspired by The Moth, premiered at the Stonington Opera House in January 2018. Since then, twenty-two women, ages 20 to 95, have each performed five-minute stories that they've written and rehearsed. The stories were on themes ranging from falling in love and leaving home to coming out as gay and dealing with depression and anxiety. The most recent Island Women Speak, in January 2019, focused on the topic of standing up and speaking out. The theme was not meant to be overtly political but it was fitting following a year of #METOO revelations and coming on the heels of the record number of women elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. In the opening of the podcast, you will hear Lorraine Knowlton, 85, a lifelong resident of Deer Isle, performing her story about overcoming extreme shyness as a child. Debbie also interviews storyteller Amanda Larrabee about the impact of the event and why it has been so powerful for both performers and the audience. Mentioned in episode
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| 12 Jul 2019 | Marc Freedman on How to Live Forever (It's Not What You Think) | 00:34:58 | |
In the last episode of Season 1 of Gap Year For Grown-Ups, Debbie reflects on how the podcast has evolved. Initially she aimed to appeal to adults of any age seeking a timeout. But she realized that her focus was really on mid-life reinvention (50+), whether it's a gap year or a gap week, as a way to reflect, redirect, find new meaning and purpose - and find happiness. And of course that is the topic closest to her own heart. Fittingly, for this episode she invited Marc Freedman - best-selling author, renowned social entrepreneur and leading expert on the longevity revolution - to be her guest. The subject was Marc's bestselling new book, How to Live Forever, but their conversation ranges widely. They talk about aging and ageism, age segregation, the meaning of legacy, how Silicon Valley's quest for immortality is misguided, how older and younger generations are built for each other (the old want to be needed and the young want to be nurtured), how Marc is becoming an elder himself, his challenges writing his new book, and more. Marc is the founder of Encore.org, a 20-year-old ideas and innovation hub tapping the talent of those 50+ as a force for good. Encore Fellows, the Encore Prize, Gen2Gen and other programs are among Encore's practical approaches to solving the problem of the generational divide and the exploding number of those age 60+. Full disclosure: Encore.org is this podcast's newest Media Partner. Mentioned in this episode
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| 16 Feb 2024 | Kirsten Powers on Changing the Channel From CNN Political Analyst to Easeful Living and Writing | 00:34:43 | |
Today, Debbie talks with Kirsten Powers, a New York Times bestselling author, a liberal columnist and, most recently, an on-air political analyst with CNN. In 2023, after almost two decades, she left what she calls the “media circus” to pursue a different life as a writer and a life coach. Kirsten, who is 56, is [b]old by any definition. Prior to CNN she was at Fox (as a liberal voice) and before that she was a columnist for USA Today, The Daily Beast, American Prospect Online, and the New York Post. Her recent bestselling book is Saving Grace: Speak Your Truth, Stay Centered, and Learn to Coexist with People Who Drive You Nuts. Currently Kirsten writes a very popular newsletter on Substack, called, appropriately, "Changing the Channel." It's about living authentically, unlearning societal conditioning, and how to actually change your life. She published an essay recently about her plan to move to Italy with her husband because, as she put it, the U.S. is unlivable, with school shootings, the frenetic pace of life and because it’s too expensive. Somehow we are societally conditioned to accept this, as if it’s normal. But it’s not, Kirsten emphasizes. The post went viral, hitting a nerve with her many readers. Now she’s working on a book proposal. Since leaving her on-air job, Kirsten has been deliberately pursuing what she calls a "more easeful life" that is less striving and less accomplishment-oriented. It includes writing on Substack, which she loves. In this episode she also talks about her transition from evangelical christian to atheist. Kirsten is fast thinking and provocative and Debbie loved this conversation with her. ////////// Don't miss the Behind The Scenes for every episode in Debbie's [B]OLD AGE newsletter. ////////// Mentioned in this episode or useful:
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| 03 Jul 2020 | Seth Godin on Taking a Gap Year, Changing Your Mindset, and Why He Isn’t Pausing | 00:29:33 | |
Debbie Weil interviews the one and only Seth Godin. Seth writes one of the most popular blogs in the world, read by more than a million people. He’s been blogging abut marketing for almost 20 years but his topic is really life: how to live well and fully. He blogs every day, seven days a week. Suffice it to say that when Seth talks, or writes, people listen. It's hard to put your finger on exactly what makes Seth so appealing. He is generous as a person. He's full of ideas, often counterintuitive, that he gently urges you to consider. And he always makes you think. For Debbie and for thousands of others, he’s an unofficial mentor, sitting on your shoulder like Jiminy Cricket, and challenging you to think bigger, or deeper - and always, more truthfully. Debbie got to know Seth about 15 years ago. He was holding funky workshops in a walk-up space in Chinatown in lower Manhattan. They were very Seth. There were no handouts, you were not allowed to take notes, he encouraged questions by handing out prizes and he served weird (at the time) vegetarian snacks. Always, there was his insistence on authenticity and consistency. In other words, be clear about who you are and what you do and why it matters. Debbie was working on her book about blogging (The Corporate Blogging Book) and he suggested that she call herself “the Mona Lisa of Blogging.” She did, for a time! Seth has published 19 bestselling books (The Dip and Linchpin are two of Debbie's favorites). Although he may be best known as an author and blogger, in the past five years Seth has increasingly defined himself as a teacher. He’s gotten deeply into online learning through Akimbo, the organization he founded that, with a small team, is the hub of his online projects. It’s also the name of his podcast. But take the emphasis off online learning because it’s really the future of learning that he’s interested in. A future that leverages the wisdom of your cohort, the people you are enrolled with, and that requires engagement, generosity and kindness. One of his online projects is a podcasting workshop. It’s where this podcast was born and where Debbie met producer Julie-Roxane. Debbie invited him on the show after he blogged recently about taking a gap year. She figured it was a perfect chance to hear more of his thoughts about gap years, for adults or students, and how or why such an experience might be relevant right now. And to find out what else was on his mind during this unprecedented time. They talk about:
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| 22 Dec 2023 | Bestselling Author Mary Pipher on Forgiveness, Happiness, and Old Age | 00:29:24 | |
* This is the last episode in 2023. Back on Jan. 26, 2024! * More recently, she has written Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing As We Age, about women navigating the transition from middle age to old age (the topic of this podcast!). In 2022, she published a memoir, A Life in Light: Meditations on Impermanence. In her new book, just out in paperback, Mary, now 76, talks about her difficult childhood and her relationship with her parents, the importance of family and community, living in a small town in Nebraska, and what the particular challenges of getting old are. She also talks about forgiveness, about adopting Buddhism and her definition of happiness. Per the title, she’s obsessed with light, through trees, on walks, at certain times of day, in certain rooms, and in memories — and how the light makes her feel happy and complete. She says her knowledge about happiness comes from being someone who has struggled with sadness and anxiety much of her life, something that resonates strongly with Debbie. This is a great episode. Mary articulates so well what it’s really like to get old and yet still feel so alive. //////////
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| 22 Oct 2021 | Emily Moore on Vulnerability, Life, and Becoming a Cancer Survivor | 00:37:14 | |
Today, Debbie brings her 43-year-old niece, Emily Moore, onto the podcast to talk about life and death and her recent grueling course of chemotherapy to eradicate breast cancer. Emily teaches English at Stuyvesant, one of Manhattan's competitive-entry public high schools. She’s also a published poet (one of her poems was published in The New Yorker), and has a PhD in English. She lives in Brooklyn with her wife and two young children. Those of us beyond midlife are (supposedly) starting to wrap our minds around the disability of old age and the hard stop of death. So Debbie asks Emily what it was like to, unexpectedly, be forced to stare death in the face in her early 40s. But Emily doesn’t really answer because it turns out it was the wrong question. Instead she speaks eloquently about how much energy she’s put into fighting for life (she calls it putting on her "game face" despite how horrific the chemotherapy was) and how vulnerable she now feels and how that has changed her. She also talks about how she'll never be "okay" again, meaning that things won't ever really return to the way they were before her cancer diagnosis. And she compares it to our collective wish to go back to the pre-pandemic "normal" of 2019 and how that probably won't happen. Tune in to a powerful episode to hear Emily’s lilting voice and positive take on her experience.
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AULD LANG SYNE By Emily Moore April 7, 2008 Here’s to the rock star with the crooked teeth, the cellist, banker, mezzo bearing gifts, the teacher with the flask inside her jeans— those girls who made us sweat and lick our lips. To the jeune fille who broke my heart in France, the tramp who warmed your lap and licked your ear, the one who bought me shots at 2 a.m. that night I tied your pink tie at the bar. Who smoked. Who locked you out. Who kissed my eyes then pulled my hair and left me for a boy. The girl who bit my upper, inner thigh. My raspy laugh when I first heard your voice toasting through broken kisses sloppy drunk: To women! To abundance! To enough!
Published in the print edition of the April 14, 2008 New Yorker. Reprinted with permission.
Note from Debbie If you've been enjoying the podcast, please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts. It takes less than two minutes and it really makes a difference. It makes me feel loved and it also attracts new listeners. Subscribe to my newsletter for the inside story about each episode of the podcast and to get my free writing guide: https://bitly.com/debbie-free-guide. Connect with me:
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| 30 Oct 2020 | Kathleen Billings on Steering a Small Town in Maine Through COVID and a Tense Election Year | 00:29:46 | |
In this episode, Debbie talks to Kathleen Billings, town manager of Stonington, Maine, the small coastal village on Deer Isle that she and her husband now call home. Debbie wanted to talk to a local leader about the challenges of this election and pandemic year and Kathleen was the perfect person. She is matter of fact, deeply knowledgeable, and forthright. Kathleen, 56, has been Stonington’s Town Manager for almost 20 years. She tells us how the town’s twin industries of fishing and tourism have fared and how she began to prepare for COVID back in February. She and Debbie talk about the friction between People From Away (PFA) and locals and how it was exacerbated by COVID. They also talk about the political tensions that Kathleen has had to face this year and how she‘s handled them. On a side note Kathleen talks about the very real issue of rising sea levels and how the town is addressing that. They end by reflecting on the year 2020 and how Kathleen has focused on maintaining a positive atmosphere so that everyone can get through this time without being "ground under," as she puts it. She expresses gratitude for the many nonprofits on the island that address community needs. PHOTO CREDIT: Debbie Weil
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| 17 Jun 2022 | Paula Span on Ageism, Journalism, and the Art of Grandparenting | 00:42:53 | |
Today, Debbie speaks with Paula Span, a veteran journalist and the author since 2009 of the New York Times’ column, The New Old Age. The column explores, as the Times’ puts it, “the unprecedented challenges posed by a rapidly aging population.” That’s a pretty broad topic so Paula covers everything from the cost of growing older, to social security for same sex couples, to stubborn aging parents, to the evolving status of medical aid in dying (MAID), formerly known as death with dignity. In 2017, after becoming a grandmother, she added a second Times column, Generation Grandparent. She’s adapted those essays for her audiobook “The Bubbe Diaries,” released by Audible in 2021. She’s also a revered professor of journalism, having taught at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism for over two decades. She is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families with Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions,” published by Hachette. She and Debbie talk about how she explores the topic of pernicious ageism for the Times - not with personal opinion - but with research and data and expert interviews. Each of her columns gets a huge response with readers leaving as many as 500 comments. They talk about her approach to writing as a freelance journalist (always say YES, she tells Debbie, no matter what the assignment is). And they talk about her artful approach to grandparenting. She lives in Montclair, N.J., and travels to Brooklyn once a week to care for her granddaughter. This is an intriguing behind-the-scenes peek at writing for the Times from a veteran journalist.
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| 28 Jan 2022 | Carl Honoré on Being [B]older, Slowing Down, and Aging Better | 00:37:56 | |
Today, Debbie brings Carl Honoré on the show for a conversation about the slow movement and about aging and ageism. Carl has a book titled BOLDER: Making the Most of Our Longer Lives so Debbie's first question is whether he minds if she uses the word as the new name for the podcast. Carl says It's absolutely fine to use [B]OLDER. (Book titles can't be copyrighted.) As he puts it, the more fire power we can aim at the "ageist industrial complex," the better. We'll continue doing our part on this podcast. Carl is a bestselling author and speaker and is considered the voice of the Slow Movement as well as a spokesman for anti-ageism. His two TED Talks, on the Power of Slow and the Power of Aging have racked up millions of views. His first book, In Praise of Slowness, makes the point that slowing down is a better way to approach life. As he puts it: "to connect more, create more, focus more and achieve more." He’s also written a book about slow parenting. Bolder, his more recent book, was inspired by an incident on the ice hockey rink when he realized, after scoring the winning goal, that he was the oldest member of the team. That struck a chord with him (he was in his 40s at the time) and he realized he needed to reexamine his ageist assumptions about himself, as well as society’s assumptions about aging. They talk about: - How Carl moved from slowness to aging as a focus of his work. The connection is "drilling down to the stuff that really matters and focussing on that," as he puts it. - Whether the Slow Movement has really caught on in the past two decades. Carl says it has; Debbie is a bit more skeptical. - Why ageism is still difficult to root out. They discuss how changing our language around aging is hard (but we should keep trying!). And why we should consider the practice of contemplating death… lightly, as a way to remember to enjoy the here and now. This is a wonderful conversation with a highly articulate author and thinker on the topics of slowness and aging.
Mentioned in this episode or useful: Note: The subtitle of the American edition of Carl Honoré's book is: How to Age Better and Feel Better About Aging.
Note from Debbie If you've been enjoying the podcast, please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts. It takes less than two minutes and it really makes a difference. It makes me feel loved and it also attracts new listeners. Subscribe to my newsletter and get my free writing guide: https://bitly.com/debbie-free-guide. Subscribers often print it out to save.
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| 14 Oct 2022 | Season 5 - Trailer | 00:01:44 | |
[B]older is back for season 5. And we're back at it: unraveling what it means to make the most of growing older. Each episode is a frank 30-minute conversation with a best-selling author, expert, or exceptional individual on a topic related to aging. For host Debbie Weil, 70, it’s a real-time exploration of growing old. But don’t worry; she’s not embracing old age just yet. She’s still (boldly) figuring things out. She asks the hard questions about how to use this later stage of life to create, to find meaning, and to make a difference. In the podcast Debbie delves into all the current topics related to aging: the unretired life, reinventing work, slowing down, aging better, ageism, living your purpose, grownup gap years, grandparenting, intergenerational collaboration, effects of the pandemic, grief and widowhood, surviving cancer, and more. As well as other stuff that piques her interest; for example, the craft of writing. Her husband, physician author Sam Harrington, is a popular recurring guest. The Debbie & Sam shows feature his dry humor and medical expertise. Join us for another great season diving into what it means to be growing [b]older!
Get the inside skinny on every episode of [B]OLDER: Subscribe to Debbie’s newsletter for the inside story about every episode. You will also get her 34-page writing guide: https://bitly.com/debbie-free-guide.
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| 19 Jun 2020 | Rep. Genevieve McDonald on Stepping Into the Role of Fierce Female Leader During a Pandemic | 00:21:37 | |
Debbie Weil talks with Genevieve McDonald, the Maine State Representative for the remote coastal district Debbie now calls home. In addition to completing her first term in the Maine State House, Genevieve is the mother of two-year-old twin girls. She is also Capt. McDonald, lobster fishing out of Stonington, ME. Last year, at the age of 37, she graduated summa cum laude from the University of Maine. Debbie knew there was something special about Genevieve and invited her to come on the podcast to talk about stepping up during the pandemic. Genevieve has been dispensing lifeline information to the hundreds in her district out of work, steadily answering a myriad of questions about unemployment and healthcare. She also weighs in, calmly, on difficult issues like the tension between people from away and those who live in this remote corner of Maine and how the coronavirus might get here. This podcast is about reinvention as much as gap years and it is clear that Genevieve has stepped into an unexpected role during the pandemic, reinventing herself as a fearless female leader, in her words. They talk about how Genevieve answers 100 emails, calls, and text messages a day. How she does this while taking care of toddler twins with her husband Cory. She holds office hours between 1 and 3 PM, when the twins are hopefully napping. They talk about the blurring of the line between personal and professional on social media. And the devastating impact of the pandemic on the local economy in rural Maine both the fishing industry and tourism. Mentioned in the episode
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| 25 Nov 2020 | An 18-Year-Old Reflects on Starting College in Lockdown and What She Will Tell Her Children About the Pandemic | 00:18:32 | |
Debbie Weil chats with her niece, Phoebe Weil, about her experience living through COVID. While the audience for this podcast is those in midlife and older (50-plus), there is a lot to be learned from someone younger about what it’s like to handle the disappointments of the pandemic. Someone who’s been missing out on some of life’s most memorable milestones. Debbie knew just the person to tell this story: her 18-year-old niece. Phoebe missed senior spring of high school, she missed her high school graduation, and now she’s started college where she’s been in lockdown on her campus all fall. But she remains so very optimistic. Inspired by Anne Frank, she’s been keeping a journal that she hopes to share, one day, with her children. She’s hitting the books to study organic chemistry (she tells us about the advantage of attending an all women’s college as a science major). And she’s keeping up her YouTube channel, which has over 5,000 subscribers. Phoebe notes that it was Anne Frank's impulse to record history while living through it that inspired her to start writing a journal. She clarified in an email: "One doesn’t know how powerful an accounting of a historic moment can be while they’re living in it. I wanted to document my day-to-day life so that in the future I could read how I was feeling during the pandemic we live in now. In no way am I equating my experience living in COVID-19 to Anne Frank’s experience in the Holocaust." Finally, what’s Phoebe's NEW BEST THING to come out of the pandemic? Writing letters, snail mail letters. And she’s prolific. Her Aunt Debbie and Uncle Sam have received a bunch. We can all get a lift from Phoebe’s steady and refreshingly positive attitude.
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| 26 Jan 2024 | Bestselling Author Dale Russakoff on Being a Southern Woman at Harvard, Ambition at 71, and How Family Matters Most | 00:38:10 | |
Today, Debbie talks to Dale Russakoff, a veteran reporter for The Washington Post, a bestselling author, and a classmate from her Harvard/Radcliffe class of 1974. They talk about her surprising experience at Harvard as a woman from the South, her distinguished career as a journalist, and the importance of family. Debbie knew that Dale had been a reporter for The Washington Post for almost 30 years. And that she is the author of a best-selling book, THE PRIZE. But in this episode she told Debbie something she'd never heard before: what it was like to be a Southern girl at Harvard. Dale, who had a Southern accent then, said she was reluctant to open her mouth at first. She'd grown up in Birmingham, AL and when she arrived in Cambridge she learned that the Radcliffe admissions committee hadn’t admitted a woman from the South in many years, unless she had gone to a Northern boarding school. The committee thought girls who grew up and went to school in the South wouldn't have “the values" Radcliffe wanted; i.e. they would be racist. She and Debbie talk about what it was like to be a female student in the man's world of Harvard, how "ambition" fit into her college years and, later, how it related to Dale's career in journalism. They talk about the importance of family, including grandchildren. And how she feels AT. CAPACITY. (i.e. too busy) in semi-retirement, at age 71. ////////// Don't miss Debbie's Substack essay on the topic of being too busy or AT. CAPACITY. //////////
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THE FIRST TWO EPISODES IN THIS TRILOGY: Conversations with two more of Debbie's classmates from the Harvard/Radcliffe class of 1974:
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| 16 Oct 2020 | Juliette Kayyem on the Power of Twitter, Trump's Stochastic Terrorism, and Why She's an Optimist | 00:21:43 | |
Today Debbie speaks with Juliette Kayyem, a longtime national security and terrorism expert with over 160,000 followers on Twitter. She has an extraordinary resume of public and private service, starting with the Dept. of Justice as a young lawyer, and then joining the National Commission on Terrorism in 1999 and helping to write their report, published in June 2000, recognizing the growing terror threat in the U.S. She gave birth to her first child a few weeks before 9/11. She became the Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs in the Department of Homeland Security, where she handled the agency's response to the H1N1 pandemic and orchestrated the complicated government response to the BP oil spill in 2010. Later she became a Pulitzer Prize-nominated columnist for The Boston Globe and started her own consulting company. She's now a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and an analyst for CNN. She's also, importantly, the mother of three and the author of a terrific book - part memoir, part primer - titled Security Mom: My Life Protecting the Home and Homeland. Disaster is her thing, or as she puts it: "Sh*t happens." It's how you assess risk, prepare for, and respond to disaster that counts. They recorded this conversation before Trump tested positive for COVID so you won’t hear mention of that. But they do talk about the sense of anxiety in this country right now, both because of COVID and because of the current President. And about Trump’s attempts to stoke fear, and to incite violence, with his veiled but clear Tweets. She calls what Trump does on Twitter #stochasticterrorism. To her delight, it’s been adopted as a hash tag. It means random and unpredictable violence which, she tells us, is the definition of terrorism. Debbie loved this brief conversation and hopes you will too. Juliette is an optimist and endlessly energetic. She's a breath of fresh air during this anxiety-ridden period in the U.S. Towards the end of the interview, she says she has to get off the call to get ready for a CNN appearance. She's 51, she tells us, so she needs time to do her hair and make-up. The CNN segment, on which she appeared minutes later, showed her ready for primetime, Zooming in from her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Tune in to hear from an optimistic and inspiring Security Mom (a play on Soccer Mom, in case that didn't jump out at you!).
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| 20 Jan 2023 | Andrew Steele on Research at the Cellular Level That Could Slow Aging | 00:44:21 | |
Today Debbie tackles the topic of aging (better? longer??) with Andrew Steele, an ebullient British scientist, writer and author of Ageless: The New Science of Getting Older Without Getting Old. After earning a PhD in physics from Oxford, Andrew decided that aging - not cancer or other diseases - was the single most important scientific challenge of our time. Why? Because of the suffering that goes along with old age. So he switched fields to biogerontology, the study of the processes of aging at the cellular level. Andrew, 37, doesn’t advocate for immortality. As he puts it: “It’s not about extending lifespan, but rather healthspan." His interest, he maintains, is in helping humans stay healthier longer. Debbie asks Andrew what the most important biological aging processes are. He responds with a clear explanation of cell biology as it relates to aging: from senescent cells and cellular exhaustion to your epigenetic age, and more. And he explains that some of these genes and processes can be manipulated to slow or possibly reverse aging - at least, so far, in worms and mice. Andrew is exuberant and makes everything understandable.
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| 14 Jun 2019 | On Our Bucket List: Debbie and Sam Live in France | 00:32:45 | |
In this episode Debbie talks with Sam, her husband and gap year co-conspirator, about a longstanding bucket list item: to live in France for an extended period in order to practice and improve their French. Coincidentally, both have childhood ties to France. Debbie speaks semi fluently and Sam almost as well. After two weeks in Avignon, they’re back in the U.S. where they sit down to make sense of the experience. Their first week they studied in an immersion program with an excellent young teacher, Julie Gaudin. Listen to the sounds of Avignon during their second week as they wander the pedestrian-only streets of this marvelous small city, sit in cafés, and shop at the famous covered market. They also took several excursions outside the city, which meant renting a car and figuring out where to park it. They both agree you can't become a true ex-pat in only two weeks but it's enough time to adopt a daily routine and to make a friend or two at the local boulangerie and at a favorite bar serving artisanal beer. Despite their many trips to Paris and other parts of France, they continue to find French culture slightly mysterious. The solution? Go back and live in France for a year. That may or may not happen... PHOTO: Debbie and Sam in the poppy fields near Uzès. Mentioned in this episode
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| 14 Aug 2020 | Debbie and Sam on The Gap Year For Everyone, Silver Linings, Not Should’ing, and Season 3 | 00:23:42 | |
Debbie brings her husband Sam back on the show to reflect on this remarkable year of 2020 and to wrap up Season 2 of the podcast. Since the beginning of the pandemic, she has published almost twice as many episodes as the usual every other week schedule. Debbie shares with Sam how creating and producing the podcast has kept her sane. She finds comfort in knowing that this podcast was a way to maintain her sanity while also sharing the stories of others: about getting comfortable with death, about changing your mindset, about the future of travel, about stepping into a leadership role, about the science of happiness, among many other topics. In this final episode of Season 2, she and Sam reflect on the past few months of this new normal. Sam shares how routine has been the key to getting through this time for him - in fact to enjoying this time. They share a few silver linings of social distancing. And they talk about should-ing and putting pressure on themselves to accomplish things. Debbie admits that she has relaxed a little about that as the weeks have gone by. Finally, they look ahead at Season 3. The season will explore the gap year we’ve all been forced to take, collective reinvention, change and transition - along with how to figure out what’s next in midlife and beyond. And even though that is a broader topic than gap years, per se, they both decide that Gap Year should remain the title for this podcast. See you in the fall for Season 3 of The Gap Year Podcast!
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| 31 Jul 2020 | Chip Conley on the Future of Travel, the Journey Within, and Hitting Play After the Pause | 00:23:54 | |
Debbie brings Chip back on the show to discuss the future of travel, what travel means for many of us, and what the substitutions might be. Chip is a New York Times bestselling author, a thought leader at the intersection of psychology and business, and an influential hospitality entrepreneur. Recently he has become a rockstar of the mid-life transition movement, as the founder of Modern Elder Academy in Baja, Mexico. Chip was a guest on Season 1 of this podcast over a year ago, right after Debbie attended one of MEA’s week-long programs, a transformative experience. We’ve all been wondering what travel will look like in the future, whether it’s for a gap year or timeout, or for bucket list destinations. Debbie felt Chip was just the right person to talk to about this. They discuss how digital nomads might become mainstream now that remote working is becoming the norm. Chip shares his prognostications about the future of travel: what kind of travel will come back first? What parts of the industry will NOT come back? They also talk about how to reinvent yourself without travel (connect with nature, connect with yourself via mindfulness, yoga, journaling) and how to satisfy your cultural curiosity without getting on a plane. Chip shares one of his “Chip-isms” (as Debbie calls his wordplays) on the current situation and they talk about some of the silver linings of their respective lockdown experiences. Mentioned in this episode or useful
PHOTO CREDIT: Lisa Keating
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| 08 Mar 2024 | Steven Petrow on His Sister Julie, the Importance of Choice, and Medical Aid in Dying | 00:36:00 | |
In the Intro to this episode, you'll hear Steven Petrow talking about his sister Julie Petrow’s death last June 2023. After years of battling ovarian cancer, Julie, Steven’s five-years-younger little sister, chose to die in her New Jersey home by drinking a lethal cocktail. She was surrounded by her family. And it was legal. She used a procedure called MAID or medical aid in dying, which is now legal in 10 states in the U.S. plus the district of Columbia. But before she died, she made Steven, who is a bestselling author and a contributing columnist for The Washington Post, promise to write about how she chose to die, in order to raise awareness around MAID, a practice that many people don’t know about, or don’t understand, even though it was first legalized in Oregon, almost 30 years ago. So Steven did, publishing an essay about Julie and her decision in The New York Times a few months ago. It got a huge reception with over 600 comments on the NYT’s site. In this episode, Steven explains more:
////////// Don't miss Debbie's Behind The Scenes essay on Substack accompanying every episode of the podcast. //////////
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| 20 Oct 2023 | Season 6 - Trailer | 00:02:30 | |
When Debbie started this podcast almost five years ago, she was as she puts it "a mere 67." Old age seemed very far away. Now it doesn’t. So this season we’re focusing on the lived experience of old age. What’s it really like? What are the truths, both positive and negative, about moving from midlife to old age? How do you OWN being old in a society that devalues and even denigrates old people? ////////// Don't miss the BTS (behind-the-scenes) for every episode in Debbie's [B]OLD AGE newsletter. ////////// We’ll still talk about things like finding purpose and redefining retirement. But we’ll also look at the upside of slowing down; for example, "being" vs. "doing" when you’ve been driven by ambition your whole life. The point is to bring you honest and vulnerable dispatches of the ordinary and the profound. And so this little tweak in the name: it’s now the [B]OLD AGE podcast because it takes courage and [b]oldness to move gracefully from midlife into old age. We hope what we talk about here will help you on your own transition into [b]old age, wherever you are now. Maybe you're young and worrying about becoming middle-aged. Or you're in midlife and looking ahead. As always, send comments or questions to thebolderpodcast@gmail.com. And check out Debbie's new [B]OLD AGE newsletter where you can get the BTS (behind-the-scenes) on each episode of the podcast, read her personal essays, get writing tips, and more. You can leave your comments on every Substack post. Debbie promises to respond. Connect with Debbie:
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| 08 May 2020 | Kim Klaft on a Global Gap Year and Living Without Regret | 00:38:18 | |
In this episode Debbie talks to a real adventurer, a 63-year-old woman who spent 2019 on a self-organized global gap year. Kim Klaft quit a well-paid position as a nonprofit executive to travel and volunteer in 25 countries. Over the course of one calendar year she worked in soup kitchens, food banks, homeless shelters, orphanages and in hurricane relief efforts (see her list below) as she moved around the globe. She did this on her own, as a single woman, with the goal of embedding herself into cultures and communities. And because it was something she had always wanted to do.
When she told her financial planner about her proposed year, she expected him to put the kibosh on it because she had not finished saving for retirement. Instead he said, "Go! Otherwise you will always regret not having done it."
They talk about how she chose one humanitarian project after another using Google and word-of-mouth. As Kim explains it, "I researched volunteer opportunities in three ways: 1. Google searches and reading reviews; 2. speaking with people in-country when I was fortunate enough to have a connection and/or to be introduced via e-mail; and 3. meeting people along the way who were volunteering for a particular agency. I asked questions about how volunteers were treated, whether the group was true to its cause, whether it was run in a financially responsible way, etc."
They also talk about writing and why Kim decided not to write about her year while she was living it, so as to stay in the moment.
Kim is now back in Detroit and feeling lucky to have found work as a consultant for several nonprofits. She describes herself on her LinkedIn profile (convincingly) as having a heart for the under-served, a head for business and the spirit of an entrepreneur. In today’s conversation, they dig into how she engineered the logistics of her gap year and how it unfolded organically. Despite - or perhaps because of - the disparate nature of her experiences in so many different places, the trip made her life feel “in sync,” as if the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle were falling into place.
As to how Debbie found Kim, Kim sent her an email out of the blue halfway through her year saying she had just stumbled onto this podcast. She was in Budapest at the time searching for her next thing. They stayed in touch and Debbie followed up in early 2020 to ask if she would come on the podcast to talk about her experience.
At first Kim declined. She wrote in an email:
"I haven't yet had the ideal opportunity to wrap my head around: 1) What was my purpose? 2) How did that compare to the reality? 3) I knew going into it that there would be a ripple effect but the ripples were bigger and more far reaching than I would have been able to imagine proactively 4) What unexpected humanitarian efforts arose and how can we recognize those in everyday life? 5) How have I changed (or, perhaps, what about my passions were confirmed by this experience)? 6) What's next?"
Of course, Kim's email touched on all the key questions, revealing that she had indeed thought a lot about her gap year.
They recorded this conversation several months ago, before the pandemic and social distancing. So at the end Debbie checks in with Kim again to find out how she’s doing now. Living without regret (her reason for taking her gap year) has an even bigger resonance today as she looks back at an extraordinary year of travel and service.
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Kim notes: "I do realize that Puerto Rico is part of the USA but I count it separately because it was a different world!"
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| 05 Jun 2020 | Anne Fadiman on Writing: Taking Risks, Improving, and Witnessing History | 00:40:51 | |
Debbie has a conversation about writing with friend and college classmate Anne Fadiman. Anne is an illustrious - and revered - essayist and author, perhaps best known for her first book, the prize-winning The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, an account of the unbridgeable cultural conflicts between a family of Hmong refugees and their American doctors. She’s spent her whole career as a reporter and editor and for the past 15 years as an award-winning teacher of nonfiction writing at Yale University. She’s a writer’s writer and Debbie couldn’t be more excited to have her on the show. They talk about writing in the context of the pandemic we are living through. Should we all be writing about our daily lives right now as witnesses to history? Her answer is "Yes, keep a journal," just as Anne Frank did during World War II when she hid from the Nazis with her family in Amsterdam. They talk about the intimacy of Anne's work as a writing teacher at Yale, how she and her students nonetheless jumped into Zoom classes, and how proud she is of her students, a number of whom have gone on to become well-known writers. They discuss the therapeutic benefits of writing, what it really means to take risks and to become a better writer, and the importance of reading. She also reminisces about being confined to bed, at home, for eight months during a difficult pregnancy and how that was more difficult than sheltering in place during the pandemic. That's when she started writing essays.
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Photo of Anne Fadiman by Gabriel Amadeus Cooney
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| 27 Oct 2023 | Debbie & Sam on the Acceleration of Aging: Smudged Glasses, Creaky Bodies and Before It’s Too Late | 00:27:28 | |
Welcome back to Season 6! You might’ve noticed that we changed the name of the show to more accurately reflect the focus, which is to explore the transition from midlife to old age. [B]OLDER seemed a bit too general, so it's now [B]OLD AGE. Given our ageist society, it requires [b]oldness to say proudly, "I am old." This season our goal is to be even more honest and vulnerable about what it’s like as the clock ticks away. For this first episode, Debbie is joined by her husband, Sam Harrington, a popular recurring guest who is known for his dry humor. He's a retired physician and an author. They start by talking about how aging has suddenly accelerated for both of them, in their early 70s. Sam says he can see his telomeres fraying when he looks in the mirror. He notes that only a decade ago they still looked remarkably young in photos. (See photo accompanying this episode; in 2014 Debbie and Sam were hanging out in Madagascar with lemurs.) ////////// Don't miss the accompanying Behind The Scenes essay for this new episode in Debbie's [B]OLD AGE newsletter. ////////// They also talk about the long vigil of accompanying a dying parent and how that affects your own sense of old age; how health span has noticeably increased in the past 50 years; and what the stunning demographic shift to an aging society will mean. By 2030, there will be more adults over 65 than children under 18. Debbie notes the parallel between the acceleration of aging and the acceleration of global warming. At first the changes are slow and hardly noticeable. Then they happen all at once, like this past summer. But the conversation veers back to the physiological fact of aging. Sam's favorite mantra is that "80 might be the new 60, but 86 is the new 85." The current research to better understand and to slow aging may be too late to benefit them, Sam says.
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| 08 Feb 2019 | Why Gap Years Are Not Wasted on the Young | 00:27:10 | |
In Episode 1 Debbie explores the difference between student and grown-up gap years. She reminisces with her 88-year-old father about her first "gap year" when, as a 14-year-old, she was sent to school in France for one year. No, she was not allowed to go to Paris for a holiday break in the company of several 16-year-old boys. Then she interviews her three adult children who each took a gap year before starting university. It turns out that gap years are NOT wasted on the young. Mentioned in episode
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| 26 Feb 2021 | Debbie & Sam on Fasting For Five Days and Why They Were Crazy Enough To Do It | 00:27:14 | |
Today, Debbie Weil brings her husband Sam Harrington, a retired physician, back on the show to talk about fasting. One year ago the couple completed a five-day fast using a ProLon kit of dried soups and crackers. This year, after packing on the pounds during the stay-at-home pandemic holidays, they decided to repeat the fast. And this time, Debbie took notes to record the experience. If you’ve listened to the pair kibitz in earlier episodes, it will be no surprise that they experienced the fast differently. They talk about what the fast felt like day by day (it was harder for Debbie) and what the possible benefits are in addition to losing weight. A month later, both are a number of pounds lighter (about four for Debbie; eight for Sam). And they've mostly kept the weight off. Debbie finds herself eating smaller portions and neither is snacking between meals. Desserts and sweets still call to Debbie but she recognizes that the craving for sugar is not one that can be cured in five days or even a month. Both agree that the fast led to a successful reset of their eating habits. They talk about the science behind fasting and about something called intermittent fasting which means shortening the span of hours in the day during which you eat. 16 hours of fasting vs. 8 hours of "eating" is a typical ratio. That could mean skipping breakfast and eating only between 12 noon and 8 PM. And they speculate on whether fasting and intermittent fasting are merely the latest fad. If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to fast and why you might want to do it, this is a conversation for you.
Debbie's day-by-day fasting notes: DAY 1: light-headed and mentally fuzzy.
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PHOTO: Definition of crazy? Debbie and Sam's visiting grand puppy leaping into the freezing waters of a Maine winter.
Note from Debbie I hope you enjoyed this podcast. Would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than sixty seconds, and it really makes a difference in attracting new listeners and upcoming guests. I might read your review on my next episode! Sign up for occasional updates and get my free writing guide at http://eepurl.com/qGTP Connect with me:
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| 13 Nov 2020 | Daphne Merkin on Living Through the Pandemic With Serious Clinical Depression | 00:23:28 | |
Debbie Weil talks with Daphne Merkin, a highly acclaimed novelist, essayist and literary critic. She is known for writing boldly, without shame or modesty, about depression, obsession, money, sex, family, and religion. Her 2017 memoir, This Close to Happy: A Reckoning With Depression, which was 16 years in the making, got a front page review in The New York Times by Andrew Solomon, another acclaimed author on the topic of depression. Daphne's latest novel, 22 Minutes of Unconditional Love, is a powerful story about sex and obsession. And underlying those twin themes, the theme of depression. Today she and Debbie talk not about her books, per se, but about her experience with clinical depression and what that can teach us in this difficult year of COVID when many of us are experiencing deep uncertainty and anxiety. It's a topic of personal interest to Debbie who is an occasional sufferer of clinical depression. Depression is the story behind the story, if you will, of much of Daphne’s writing. Debbie and Daphne explore why real depression - sometimes called endogenous depression - is not talked about, why it is so misunderstood, and why it’s something that NEEDS to be talked about. They talk about how her creativity as a writer, cooped up in her apartment in New York City, has been affected the past few months. They talk about the pros and cons of doing therapy via Zoom. And they talk briefly about Psilocybin and the new psychedelic-assisted therapies for depression. Daphne ends the conversation with some poignant thoughts on what the depths of depression are like and how society has a long way to go to better address depression, as well as thoughts of suicide. This is a powerful conversation with a brilliant author. Be sure to explore the links to Daphne's writing below. Mentioned in this episode or useful:
Note from Debbie I hope you enjoyed this podcast. Would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than sixty seconds, and it really makes a difference in attracting new listeners and upcoming guests. I might read your review on my next episode! Sign up for occasional updates and get my free writing guide at http://eepurl.com/qGTP Connect with me:: Twitter: @debbieweil Instagram: instagram.com/debbieweil Facebook: facebook.com/debbieweil LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/debbieweil
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| 08 Jul 2022 | Debbie & Sam Wrap Up Season 4 | 00:30:10 | |
Debbie Weil brings her husband Sam Harrington back on the show for a dose of his dry humor and to wrap up Season 4. Sam shares some of his favorite episodes (see below) and they discuss several topics in the news: Medical Aid In Dying and the 100-year life. If you've listened to Sam in previous episodes, you can probably guess what he thinks about living to 100. Sam is a retired physician; friends and family affectionately call him Dr. Death. They also talk about grandparenting and what you can expect from Season 5. Sam's favorite episodes from Season 4
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Note from Debbie If you've been enjoying the podcast, please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts. It takes less than two minutes and it really makes a difference. It makes me feel loved and it also attracts new listeners. Subscribe to my newsletter and get my free writing guide: https://bitly.com/debbie-free-guide.
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| 28 Jun 2019 | Dr. Joy Dryer: Asking the Existential Questions | 00:25:45 | |
Debbie sits down with Dr. Joy Dryer, a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst who has been in private practice for 40 years. Dr. Joy (as her patients call her) works with individuals, families and couples making transitions. So the big existential questions have special interest for her: Who am I right now? Who do I want to be? And where? And with whom? These are essential gap year questions, especially for those in mid-life thinking about their marriage or other partner relationships and how they want to spend the time they have left. She has a special interest in couples and how they try to answer the big questions together. When Debbie and Sam left D.C. to take their gap year, they transitioned from essentially individual pursuits to a shared life. They found themselves spending a lot more time together and decided they needed someone to help them navigate this new shared stage in their relationship. They went to Dr. Joy looking for tools to communicate better as a mid-life couple; she was terrifically helpful. But this episode is not a therapy session. Debbie met up with Dr. Joy in her Brooklyn office to discuss mid-life and transitions, how marriages and relationships stay strong or sink, and how thinking about death can be a good thing. Mentioned in this episode Her website: Dr. Joy Dryer, PhD Dr. Joy's Acronyms:
Definition of Existential Psychotherapy (PDF) International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy at whose International Conference Dr. Joy recently presented a paper. Support this podcast:
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| 08 Nov 2019 | Nomadic Matt on travel as a way to reinvent yourself | 00:22:15 | |
Matthew Kepnes is best known as Nomadic Matt, the name of his eponymous website dedicated to traveling smarter, cheaper and longer. He tells us in the first few pages of his new memoir that he has spent more than 3,000 nights in a thousand different cities in 90 countries so Debbie figured he would be the perfect guest to talk about travel as a way to reinvent yourself. Now 38, Matt recently settled down in Austin, Texas after over 10 years of longterm traveling in Asia and other parts of the world. We talk about the emotional aspects of travel, the courage it takes to detach yourself from societal expectations (keep a steady job, stay in one place), the difference between travel and a vacation and the importance of journaling or writing while you are on the journey. Only by recording what you are thinking and feeling while in the midst of it can you look back later to truly understand the experience. Matt also shares his encounters with older travelers and the common fears that he hears in people 50 and older who want to travel on the cheap. Mentioned in the episode
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| 31 May 2024 | Podcast Finale: Debbie & Sam Reflect on Five Years of Podcasting and Ten Gap Years | 00:32:17 | |
Today is a special episode because, after five years, this podcast is ending. You’ll hear why in this episode. Debbie and her husband, Sam Harrington, talk about why it’s time for a finale, about getting old, about legacy (and how it’s different for the two of them, right now), about their life during the past decade, how it's changing even now (they're both 72), and about what lies ahead, at least creatively. Frankly, Debbie doesn't sound very happy in this episode, but that’s because this has been a hard decision. Debbie thinks it's the right one; Sam needs convincing. But there is some good news! Debbie is continuing to explore the topic of [b]old age on Substack where she writes essays, host Q&A’s, and has created a lively community of [b]old women writers, in their 60s, 70s, and 80s. And some younger women too. She invites you to join her on Substack! It's more interactive than the podcast, you'll get to know other subscribers in the Comments, and you can offer your own take on the topic of what it's really like to get old and why it requires [b]oldness. https://debbieweil.substack.com Endings are always bittersweet but you've got access to 120 past episodes of [B]old Age on Apple or wherever you listen to podcasts. ////////// Continue the conversation about [B]old Age, and what getting old is really like, on Debbie's [B]OLD AGE Substack. //////////
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| 17 Mar 2023 | Expat Bonnie Lee Black on the Pros (& Very Few Cons) of Retiring to San Miguel de Allende | 00:32:14 | |
Debbie Weil talks to Bonnie Lee Black, an author and blogger who retired in her 70s to affordable and magical San Miguel de Allende in Mexico. SMA, as it's called, has become a haven for expat retirees, especially single older women. It has been named (three times in a row) the Best Small City in the World by Condé Nast Traveler. And it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Debbie and her husband Sam spent three weeks there in February '23 and were charmed by the Spanish colonial architecture, the cobblestone streets, the tiny shops, the rooftop restaurants, the perfect weather, and of course the pink wedding cake cathedral, referred to as the Parroquia, in the main square. While they are not seriously considering retiring there, Debbie was intrigued by Bonnie's blog and her experiences as a permanente (permanent resident). Bonnie's blog post titled Watch Your Step (about the dangerously uneven sidewalks) caught Debbie's attention so she reached out to invite her onto the podcast. They subsequently became friends. Bonnie has been a professional writer and editor for more than 40 years (she's the author of five books), was an educator in the U.S., and now writes a popular weekly blog, the WOW Factor. Bonnie gives Debbie an insider's perspective on living full time in this beautiful place. First among the many pros is the low cost of living, making SMA affordable for single women living on a fixed income. And then there's the weather (yes, hard to overstate how perfect it is), the absence of ageism, the kindness of the people, the endless number of volunteer opportunities and classes to take and more. And she shares the one con for older retirees that Debbie noticed immediately upon arriving: those sidewalks. Bonnie also interviewed Debbie as part of her series on WOW (wise older women).
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| 04 Nov 2022 | Veteran Blogger Shel Israel on Reinvention, Writing, and Moving Across Country at 78 | 00:32:58 | |
Today’s episode was a chance for Debbie to reconnect with an old friend, Shel Israel, whom she met about 20 years ago… in the blogosphere. Yes, there really was a blogosphere in the early 2000's. Shel and Debbie and a bunch of others were pioneers and they all knew each other. They'd meet at conferences and promote each other’s blogs AND explain blogging to everyone else. In early 2006, Shel co-authored perhaps the first serious book about business blogging. And Debbie wrote the second one, published later that same year. Shel's book has a much sexier title, Naked Conversations. Debbie's is The Corporate Blogging Book. Debbie and Shel talk about his decision to leave California after 50 years and move across country to Florida, just in time for Hurricane Ian. Debbie asks how he fared and how he plans to make friends and become part of his new community in St. Petersburg. He’s got some surprising answers. As a tech pioneer and an optimist, he considers everyone he meets on social media to be a friend. He’s using Facebook to connect and to create a new network. And he’s even got a spreadsheet with 13 prospects on it… 13 prospective friends, that is. This is an open and honest conversation which, not coincidentally, is the hallmark of good blogging. They talk about how important writing is to Shel, why he left a lucrative career in PR. and how he approaches tech-business ghostwriting and other projects.
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| 03 Feb 2023 | Debbie & Sam on 50 Years of Marriage: Gratitude, Celebration... and Grief | 00:29:30 | |
Debbie brings her favorite recurring guest, husband Sam Harrington, back onto the show. This is a special episode because they are celebrating 50 years of marriage today, Feb. 3, 2023. They were married a half century ago, in 1973. It was truly another age, pre-Internet and so much more. They were both 21. That's an astonishing fact: they were obviously too young to get married. But they did and the marriage has lasted. They acknowledge how lucky they are and how much they have to be grateful for. They have six grandchildren, they like hanging out together, and Sam is still teasing Debbie and making her laugh. They talk about the trivial and the existential and how it's okay to feel grief when they look back at their youthful passion and how young and beautiful they were. And how now is a time to think about their mortality and to try and enjoy each present moment. Things do change in a long marriage, as you’ll hear. One thing doesn’t, however. As always, Debbie and Sam disagree about a lot of things. "But that's all good..." A phrase they've adopted after watching W1A, a very funny British TV series starring Hugh Bonneville. Mentioned in this episode or useful:
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| 08 Dec 2023 | Winifred White Neisser on Ambition, Embracing 70, and What Comes Next | 00:49:14 | |
Today, Debbie speaks to Winifred White Neisser, a classmate from the Harvard/Radcliffe Class of 1974. Winifred looks back on her career as a television executive in the all-male, all-white Hollywood entertainment industry and talks about what comes next. Both Debbie and Winifred are looking forward to celebrating their 50th Harvard reunion next year. Wini, as her friends call her, is very modest. She doesn’t think of herself as a [b]old woman. So it took Debbie a while to get her to talk about her success as an entertainment executive. She capped her 34-year career as Senior VP of Sony Pictures for Television Movies and Miniseries. Her award-winning projects include the movie A Raisin in the Sun for ABC and Call me Claus, a Christmas movie which starred Whoopi Goldberg. It’s her Midwestern upbringing, Wini told Debbie. They don’t brag or show off in Milwaukee, WI where she grew up. She was never propelled by ambition, she told Debbie. Nor did she plan out next steps as she rose to her position as a top exec. But it wouldn’t be accurate to say that her career “just happened.” ////////// Don't miss the Behind The Scenes essay on Substack accompanying this episode. ////////// This interview is a story of quiet capability and determination - and underneath, a fierce drive. Debbie was fascinated by her classmate’s story because, with one exception, it’s so different from hers. Debbie married at the absurdly young age of 21 (she was a junior at Harvard). She had her first baby at 25 and two more by age 31. Wini married much later and had her two children in her mid 30s, all the while climbing the TV executive ladder, first at NBC and later at Sony. In contrast, Debbie’s early motherhood derailed her career in journalism. She was married to a busy young doctor so someone had to hold down the fort at home. She stepped willingly into that role, but felt a good deal of frustration trying to work part-time as a freelance journalist. Underneath, she had the same fierce drive that Wini had. She just couldn’t express it, career-wise, until some years later. As the conversation continued, Debbie realized that fierce drive and determination sum up the common thread she shares with her female classmates from the Harvard/Radcliffe Class of 1974. There were only 300 women (Cliffies, as they were called) in a class of 1,500 students. So they were vastly outnumbered. They were polite about it, but they were all determined to be successful in their chosen fields — both in Harvard’s male-dominated classrooms and later in the world of work.
Note: it’s a bit confusing to explain but Radcliffe was the name of the women’s college that was part of Harvard in the 1970s and earlier, so technically the women attended Harvard/Radcliffe. Radcliffe has now been subsumed by Harvard. And the ratio of women to men in a Harvard class is now 50-50. So much has changed in 50 years. Hope you enjoy this compelling conversation with a 70-year-old (b)old woman.
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| 28 Apr 2023 | Best Of: Plague Expert Nicholas Christakis on Why the Pandemic Will End in 2024 | 00:55:56 | |
Today, Debbie re-runs the single most popular of 100+ episodes of [B]OLDER. Exactly two years ago, in the spring of 2021, she asked plague expert Nicholas Christakis, a distinguished Yale professor and author, the burning question: when will the COVID-19 pandemic end? His answer: 2024. It startled her and burst her bubble of optimism. Vaccines were widely available by then and it seemed like the beginning of the end. Surely he was exaggerating how long it would take for the COVID pandemic to wind down? No, it was only the end of the beginning, he told her. Today that makes sense. And of course, it was prescient. Tune into a re-run of one of the most fascinating episodes of [B]OLDER. (Note that Debbie refers to it as The Gap Year Podcast, the name she gave the podcast during the height of the pandemic. It's now the [B]OLDER podcast. Same podcast; different name.) PHOTO CREDIT: Evan Mann
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SHOW NOTES from the original interview with Nicholas Christakis (May 7, 2021) Nicholas Christakis, MD, PhD, MPH, and a Sterling Professor at Yale, has been named to TIME magazine’s list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. His fluency in explaining the intertwined science, epidemiology, psychology, sociology and history of pandemics - and his sense of humor - make this a compelling episode.
Debbie asks him point blank: when is the next pandemic? The answer is unnerving – sooner than you might think.
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| 21 May 2021 | Debbie & Sam on Getting Calm and Centered in Baja (Yes, Even Sam Felt It) | 00:16:41 | |
Debbie Weil brings her husband, Sam Harrington, back onto the show. A retired physician, Sam is NOT a believer in midlife-crisis camps nor in navel gazing, which is what he told family and friends Debbie was dragging him across the country to do. It took a lot of arm-twisting to persuade Sam to get on a plane and fly to Mexico’s Baja Sur, even after they had both been twice vaccinated and even after the long, dispiriting winter of the pandemic. Their destination: Modern Elder Academy. If you've been listening to the podcast, you've heard about MEA. You could call MEA a wellness retreat. It’s idyllic: simple accommodations overlook the crashing waves of a broad mile-long beach. Birdsong fills the air, water trickles from fountains, and bright pink, yellow, and orange Bougainvillea blooms everywhere. An organic garden produces wonderful meals and a dusty dirt road leads to the nearest village. But MEA is more than a wellness retreat. It’s also a school - and a community - of like-minded people. MEA tends to attract open-minded individuals from their 30s to 70s, who are on a quest to define "what's next” in their lives and who are willing to think differently about aging. Guests can attend structured discussions, there’s time for journal writing and reflection, and there are meditation and yoga classes. Debbie and Sam talk about a few of the topics that were on offer during their two-week stay, including the difference between growth vs. fixed mindsets (you can guess which one is preferable) and something called appreciative inquiry which is an expansive way of both listening and asking questions. Sam ultimately admits that he IS feeling calm and centered. Mentioned in this episode or useful:
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A gift for listeners: a Baja meditation soundtrack Debbie created a 20-minute meditation soundtrack (with help from producer Julie-Roxane) from the distinctive Baja birdsong and trickling water she heard every morning before meditation practice. Download the soundtrack.
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| 25 Mar 2022 | Nicholas Christakis With a COVID Update and the Connection Between Pandemics, War, and Climate Change | 00:55:20 | |
Debbie Weil brings Nicholas Christakis back on the show for an update on all things COVID. Their conversation one year ago was one of the most popular episodes of Season 3. Nicholas is a Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale. He's a physician, a sociologist, and a public health expert and he's the bestselling author of several books, including, most recently, Apollo's Arrow, about the coronavirus pandemic. The book is out in paperback, with a new Preface and a new Afterword. Debbie wanted to ask Nicholas where are we now with the COVID-19 pandemic, where are we going, and what does this all mean in an historical context. She could listen to Nicholas all day as he weaves together the history, the science, the epidemiology, the psychology and the sociology of pandemics, or plagues as he calls them. Not surprisingly, he's an in-demand expert for commentary about the coronavirus pandemic. Vaccines were widely available when the two spoke a year ago. Debbie, like many others, thought that meant the beginning of the end of the pandemic. Not quite, Nicholas said at the time. He was spot on in his predictions, saying that not until 2024 would the pandemic be behind us. A year later, he says we are finally through phase one of the pandemic. He expects we'll reach herd immunity several months from now. He and Debbie discuss Long COVID, whether we should still be wearing masks, the continuing importance of getting thrice vaccinated, what metric to pay the most attention to (number of deaths per day), addressing disinformation around this pandemic, and more. He notes that historically there has been a confluence of disasters associated with plagues, including war, famine, and climate change. When the war against Ukraine erupted, he was astounded but also not surprised. World War I accompanied the 1918 pandemic. This time, Ukraine and climate change are the accompanying global disasters. Nicholas ends by reminding us that plagues are not rare and may continue to become more present in our lifetime – but that we have the tools and technology to get through them. Tune in for a fascinating conversation about where we are now with the COVID pandemic.
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| 03 Jun 2022 | A’lelia Bundles on Legacy, Leadership, and Growing Bolder at 70 | 00:37:48 | |
Today, Debbie Weil talks to A’Lelia Bundles: her college classmate and friend of almost 50 years. A’Lelia, or LeLe, as her friends call her, is an award-winning journalist, author, historian, biographer, speaker and nonprofit leader. She speaks at conferences, colleges, and corporations about entrepreneurship, philanthropy, historic preservation, financial literacy and women’s and African American history. She calls herself a truth seeker. She's also distinguished by her warm and humorous style. It's infectious, as you'll hear. She and Debbie are both members of the Harvard/Radcliffe class of 1974. (Another notable member of their class is Merrick Garland, United States Attorney General.) A'lelia is the great-great granddaughter of Madam C.J. Walker, the 19th century hair-care entrepreneur, activist, and philanthropist, and the first black woman millionaire in America. She is the author of On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker, a New York Times Notable Book and the definitive biography of her trailblazing great-great grandmother. Self Made, the fictional Netflix series starring Octavia Spencer, is "inspired by" (although not factually based upon) her biography. A'lelia is at work on her fifth book, The Joy Goddess of Harlem: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance, about her great-grandmother whose parties, arts patronage and travels helped define the era. A former network television news executive and producer at ABC News and NBC News, she is a vice chair emerita of Columbia University’s Board of Trustees and chair emerita of the board of the National Archives Foundation. She is the founder of the Madam Walker Family Archives, the largest private collection of Walker documents, photographs and memorabilia. Debbie and A’Lelia talk about not retiring, the pain of writing a book, and the importance of community and friends - especially the women in their college class. They discuss the legacy she wants to leave behind as a black woman and what she is looking forward to as she turns 70. Mentioned in this episode or useful:
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| 23 Apr 2021 | Jeff Hamaoui on Changing Mindsets and Navigating the Messy Middle of Transitions | 00:28:54 | |
Debbie talks with Jeff Hamaoui, Modern Elder Academy Co-founder and Chief Education and Innovation Officer, about getting through the "messy middle" (a real term) of transitions. This time of global transformation is also a time of existential transition for many of us. What comes next - and when? And how? Especially if you are in midlife or older. The messy middle of any life transition is not easy, or comfortable, to get through. The old has ended but the new has not yet started or is not yet clear. If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while you’ve heard her mention MEA and you might have listened to her interviews with founder Chip Conley. Debbie joined MEA’s online program, Navigating Midlife Transitions, feeling she needed dedicated time and space to reflect on - and make sense of - this pandemic “gap” year. Jeff’s guidance through the program was provocative, so she called him to dive a little deeper. Jeff, and others who have studied transitions (most notably William Bridges), have identified the "messy middle" as the most challenging phase of a transition. Adopting a mindset of growth and curiosity can help you get through it. This applies equally to transitioning into midlife and beyond. What we used to call "getting old." Debbie and Jeff talk about:
At the end of the episode, listen for the sound of birdsong and trickling water as Debbie reports back from a recent real-life visit, with her husband Sam, to the MEA campus in Baja Sur, Mexico.
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| 11 Mar 2022 | Bradley Schurman on Our Aging Population and How It Could Eradicate Ageism | 00:35:02 | |
Today Debbie speaks with Bradley Schurman about the megatrend of an aging population, both in the U.S. and globally. Bradley is a demographic futurist and the author of a provocative new book: The Super Age: Decoding Our Demographic Destiny. The aging of our population represents the intersection of two other megatrends: decreased birth rates and increased longevity. The numbers are staggering: By 2030, one out of five Americans will be over 65. To put it another way, In the next two years the number of those 65 and over, in the U.S., will be equal to those under 18. So what does this mean? Well it’s complicated. Obviously it means that society needs to adapt and to change. But Debbie's question to Bradley is, will it - and how long will it take? There are so many interrelated factors. In his book he talks about the economy (the impact on social security and medicare and more), societal attitudes (meaning ageism), workplace policies, lifetime education and training, housing, geography (urban vs. rural), advertising and marketing, and the startling inequities in longevity between the well off and the poor and between races. In their conversation they focus on the workplace and the changes that will have to happen in order for businesses and the economy to thrive. Bradley is an incorrigible optimist, as you’ll hear, and Debbie so very much wants to believe him. In his future scenario older workers will be welcomed into the workforce well past retirement age, both society and government will change how older people are viewed and treated, and older people will move from the sidelines where they are now, often seen as expendable and not useful, to center stage. Bradley says this can happen in a decade. Debbie is skeptical about how fast we’ll see change. Lots to think about in this conversation and in Bradley’s new book.
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