Pebble in Your Shoe Podcast

Jessica DeKoninck, 70 years old, is a mother, grandmother, retired attorney, poet, author, and long-time Montclair, New Jersey resident. At age 50, Jessica went back to school for her M.F.A. from Stonecoast at the University of Southern Maine. It took her years to call herself a poet, but a poet she is. A winner of the 2023 Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Contest, her work has been featured in the  Writ...

Michele Maize is a 46-year-old mother, wife, and sober traveler from Orange County, California. She struggled with addiction for many years of her life but is now over three years sober. Even though she failed many times, sobriety is now the most important thing in her life. Without it, she wouldn’t be writing, traveling, and living the fulfilling life she does now. It took her many rock bottoms t...

Author Ann Richardson, age 82, is American-born but has lived in London with her English husband since her mid-20s. They have two adult children and two teenage grandsons, with whom she is very much involved. Ann has a Ph. D. from the London School of Economics and has had a prestigious professional career as a Qualitative Researcher in health and social care. In her later years, she has written f...

Rashidah Cartwright is 45 years old and the proud mother of four beautiful children, two of whom are living with autism. Besides working a full-time job, Rashidah is also the host of a weekly podcast called “Autism for Badass Moms.” She started this podcast as a beacon of hope and encouragement for autism moms to share their experiences, insights, and advice. Besides her podcast, Rashidah has over...

Linda is 72 years old. While she grew up, lived, and worked in California, she moved to Montana almost thirty years ago. After being kicked out of high school, she returned to school at age 50 to pursue a dream career, becoming a psychotherapist at age 59. She survived a couple of bad marriages, a terrible fall, and the death of her only brother. A life-threatening brain tumor caused her to scale...

Mike Mauren, 63 years old, is the Owner and CEO of the Rational Boomer. He’s been a DJ, a traffic reporter, a production director, and almost any radio-related job. In retirement, he transitioned into talking about politics on TikTok, where he currently has 308,000 followers, plus 294,000 on YouTube and another 10,000 on Facebook. His message is that he’s one of many rational boomers whose voices...

Dr. Leslie Faerstein, 73, knew from a young age that she never wanted to retire. She had a career and education plan, and she worked it! She has a long history in nonprofit administration and mental health. In the mid-1980s, she founded and served as Executive Director of the first New York State licensed nonprofit mental health clinic specializing in Eating Disorders. She has worked as executive...

Denise Stensland was born a Moon Child in 1965 in New Jersey and is a mother of two AMAzinGly successful BeautiFULL humans. She's also a wife of 34 years and married her high school sweetheart (do the math...a lifetime together!) She needs to do everything for everyone else and tends to leave her own needs to wait in the wings. She finds GreaT joy in trying everything Art related once... usual...

Niki Fielding is the founder and president of Digital Brand Expressions, based in Princeton, New Jersey, which provides high-level search engine optimization for large companies and pioneers search strategies for AI chatbots. Not only does Niki enjoy her work at DBE, but she also cares a lot about transforming business culture to be more productive, less stressful, and more life-enhancing. This de...

Neera Mahajan, 62 years old, hails from southeastern Australia and is an accomplished career woman and a later-in-life writer. In four years, Neera's written five books in English, even though English is not her native language. She founded a publication on Substack called, "Everything is a Book," which is a go-to source for writing inspiration, information, and self-publishing books...