Late Bloomer Living Podcast

Bruce Wilhelm was in his late twenties when he was given the responsibility of running a successful tree service business that his father had built. He took on the challenge even though he didn’t feel ready.  After successfully growing the business he’d been given for many years, he made the decision to sell the business when he was 42.  He struggled with that decision, because he felt responsible...

Jessica Abel is an award-winning cartoonist, illustrator, and writer, and is the chair of the  Illustration program at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.  In the past few years, she has evolved to become founder of the Autonomous Creative where she works with ambitious mid-career creative pros and businesses to help them stop grinding and carve out the deep focus needed to finish—and launch—the ga...

Julie Holly started off her career as a public school teacher after graduating early from college.  She thought she had it all figured out and was on her way to a “successful life”, until life threw some “smack downs” her way.  She pivoted to a real estate career for some time before deciding that she really wanted to pursue a childhood dream.  Allowing herself to pivot and follow her instincts ha...

Wendy Deacon is a master of PLAYtime!  She left a successful corporate career and took some time to think about what she truly wanted to do next.  She ended up writing a book which has since led her to establish a company called DestinationU with the mission of empowering women to identify and create the lives they truly want to live.  She also leads the Inspiring Your NEXT Community! which is a c...

Deena Baikowitz started doing stand up comedy when she was 50 years old! As a coach, she helps professionals develop new business and career opportunities through strategic networking, branding, and marketing.  Deena brings her signature fireball energy to every space and every audience. Her happy place is in a room full of people – both virtual and live.  A turn of events during the Covid shutdow...

At 51, Julie Carrick Dalton has finally found her stride.  Her debut novel Waiting for the Night just launched in January as a Most Anticipated 2021 Book from CNN, USA Today, Parade, Newsweek, and Buzzfeed, and was an Amazon Best Book of the Month. She’s also a brand new organic farmer.  She bought a tract of forest that was in danger of being timbered and developed and managed to preserve 92 acre...

Broc Edwards has some questions about mastering midlife, starting with how do you do it?  At the age of 50 he started a new podcast called, “Midlife Mastery” to explore that question and look for answers.   In this conversation we talk about the quest and what it means to age with purpose and curiosity.

Stephanie Mojica wanted to travel for the longest time.  She had a career as an award winning reporter, but after some time in that career she realized she wanted more control over her life and her schedule.   She started several side hustles to explore what else she might do, eventually establishing an online business coaching people to write their own books as thought leaders.  Once she had a so...

It’s been a year!  This is episode 52.  That’s 52 weeks of midlife reinvention stories out in the world!  For this special episode, I’m talking to John Flaherty, my husband.  John is a classically trained actor who is slightly obsessed with Shakespeare, music, motorcycles and classic cars.  He teaches theatre and directs the classical productions at Sacred Heart University, and is also the Operati...

Mike Morawski is a 30 plus year real estate investment veteran. He is an entrepreneur, author, real estate trainer, public speaker, and personal coach with strong personal resilience and a deep desire to help others live an extraordinary life. He has coached hundreds of real estate investors to fulfill their dreams while staying connected to their values.  Mike has always believed that transparenc...

Vanessa Joy Walker is a Life [After Crisis] Strategist and coach who has shared her story of hope, perseverance, and joy with thousands of people worldwide as a featured speaker.   Her life experience is vast and includes; seasons of abandonment, betrayal, cancer, infertility, and grief.  As she says, “It’s the ragged edges that actually make a difference.”  We talk about how our crisis and pain i...

Michelle Widmeier is a chiropractor and acupuncturist who has been studying and working in the field of holistic medicine for over 20 years.  The Covid shutdown was, of course, a massive roadblock for her private practice.  Her response to the shut down was ingenious.   She chose to entirely rethink her business and reinvented it with the new name, Ground Control Wellness.  She created a mobile ch...

Rich Companik had a long, successful and storied career as CFO and eventually CEO of a talent management agency in New York City, but in his fifties he decided to leave that behind him and follow a new path selling real estate.  He had a passion for it and he was curious to see if it would be a good fit.  He's someone who had an extremely successful career and was able to walk away from it when he...

For Intermittent Fasting Coach and Author, Laurie Lewis, menopause dealt a crushing blow -- brain fog, lack of balance, memory loss, and the sudden gain of 50 pounds of stubborn hormonal fat. She tried everything she knew to feel better, and the methods that worked in the past made no difference. After four years of struggle, Laurie stumbled upon Intermittent Fasting and started fasting that very...

Jack Perez is a fixer.   A few years ago, Jack was hit hard by menopause and when she went looking for information realized that there wasn’t a place to find what she needed.  She saw a problem and decided to do something about it… for herself and for other women.  In 2017, Jack founded an online platform called Kuel Life where she champions change, redefining modern midlife for women through cura...

At 51, Debi Robinson had a total hip replacement and she understands what it feels like to be what she describes as “handicapped, broken and sad”.  She had been a very active person before an injury to her hip that left her in chronic pain for years before her surgery.  This experience inspired her in 2014 to get certified to teach Yoga for Osteoporosis.  She has since helped many people strengthe...

Yael Gilboa has been on a life journey that I would call an unveiling of her truest self.  She’s someone who follows her instincts, but she didn’t necessarily start out that way.  She’s an artist, a dancer, a filmmaker, a speaker and a wellness mentor.  At 35, she went back to school to study filmmaking leaving behind a secure career that was leaving her unfulfilled.  That was her first step into...

Sherry Huss is all about creating experiences, connecting community, building tribes and having a bit of fun while she's at it!  She’s the co-founder of Maker Faire which she helped grow into a global brand in her forties.  Having grown up in Northern Ohio all she ever wanted was to leave home, but home tends to stay with us, doesn’t it?  It turns out that her childhood experience of the local cou...

Mike Folie is an award winning playwright, actor, and monologist who spent 25 years working as both a playwright and a freelance speech and business writer for senior executives at Fortune 500 companies while happily married and raising 2 children.  In his late fifties, he was faced with an abrupt and awful change when his wife, Frances, died suddenly.  After her death he stopped all artistic acti...

After being diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of forty-two, Dara Kurtz left her twenty-year career as a personal banker and financial advisor to focus on writing, speaking, and podcasting.  She found herself transformed by the experience and found a new purpose in helping people strengthen their relationships and create more happiness and joy in their everyday lives. Today her personal blog,...

Kenneth Ruthardt was 46 and minding his own business when the acting bug bit him. He did not know anything about the craft but jumped in and started figuring it out. That was seven years ago and since then he has performed in 15 plays, nine TV shows, four movies, and even flew First Class once. At 6’4” he is the World’s Tallest Apache and is developing an acting workshop to help other Natives acro...

Rachel Strabley, a lifelong learner, wife and mother of 3 originally from the UK was feeling isolated and depressed after moving to a new town in her late 40s. Her husband was suddenly absent as he traveled for work, leaving her to shuttle 3 kids with busy schedules and no support system since she was in a new town.  She had shuttered her previous business and was feeling stuck.  She started explo...

Kamilah Reid-Burrell is a 44 year old woman working on getting unstuck.  On the advice of her coach she decided to start a personal project interviewing women in their 40s, 50s, and beyond about five key themes - career, parenting, aging elders, relationships, and showing up. Through the project she’s learning to embrace risk, rediscovering the value she has to offer, and helping other women in th...

In the 1980’s, Mariann Aalda was a television trailblazer as one of the first African-American daytime soap opera heroines.  She played criminal attorney, DiDi Bannister, on ABC’s EDGE OF NIGHT along with many other television appearances on shows like Designing Women.  When Mariann turned 50 her thriving career came to a halt… as it tends to go for older women in Hollywood.  But, She didn’t just...

At the age of 53, Barbara Bradley Hagerty was experiencing chronic vocal cord pain along with losing her voice.  It was hindering her work as an on-air reporter at NPR.  Other life experiences also had her thinking she might be headed for a midlife crisis.  As any good reporter would do, she decided to follow the story and spent the next couple of years examining that stage of life called “midlife...