Late Bloomer Living Podcast

EP 111: How Do You Climb a Mountain? with Dierdre Wolownick

Dierdre Wolonick is an accomplished woman who speaks 8 languages, is a professor, published author and speaker, plays several instruments, founded and conducted the West Sacramento Orchestra.  This is just the tip of the iceberg.  She raised 2 ultra athletes, but never thought of herself as an athlete.  Funny enough, a simple walk with her dog and conversation with her son, Alex Honnold, changed her life. At 55, she began running, and has since done marathons, half-marathons and other races. At 59, she began rock climbing, and at 66, she became the oldest woman to climb Yosemite’s iconic El Capitan. Last year, she celebrated her 70th birthday by going up El Cap again and camping on the summit. Whenever we feel that fear that’s stopping us from getting what we want we can remind ourselves that our reaction to that fear is a choice… and that we never climb the mountain all at once… we do it 3 feet at a time… Babysteps are the key to doing anything you want to do.

EP 110: How to Write the Future with Beth Barany

Welcome to Season Three of this podcast!  Today’s guest is Beth Barany, an award-winning novelist and certified creativity coach for writers.  She has an online school for fiction writers and a 12-month group coaching program to help them get published.  When she's not helping writers, Beth writes magical tales of romance, mystery, and adventure that empower women and girls to be the heroes of their own lives. In this episode Beth talks about her own journey to becoming a novelist and writing coach when she realized that she wanted more from her work than a 9-5 existence and realized she could take charge of her own destiny. 

EP 109: Provenance with Sue Mell

Sue Mell is a writer from Queens, NY.  Sue is 65 years old and started writing later in life.  She balances her writing time with being the primary caregiver for her mom.  Her debut novel, Provenance, was just released in July and won the Madville Publishing’s 2021 Blue Moon Novel Contest.  She earned her MFA from Warren Wilson, and was a 2020 BookEnds fellow at SUNY Stony Brook. Her collection of micro essays, Giving Care, won the 2022 Chestnut Review Prose Chapbook Prize, and her collection of short stories, A New Day, was a finalist for the 2021 St. Lawrence Book Award. 

EP 108: It’s Time to Get Shakin’, Sister! with Holly Totten

Holly Totten had been teaching for 30 years with no plans to retire.  She loved her work.  Life threw her some curveballs forcing her to have to make a spur of the moment decision to leave a job she loved to care for sick family members.  When you’re not prepared for a major life change it can be unsettling and leave you wondering who you really are.  With loads of support from family and friends she made it through a trying time and has emerged with a better sense of herself.  She’s returned to teaching, but it’s taken on a new form.  She’s now a writing coach with a passion for teaching people how to tell their story.  She also hosts a podcast called Teaching Yourself to Learn where she explores transitions in the 3rd half of life.

EP 107: Keep Surprising Yourself with Leslie Kain

When was the last time you surprised yourself?  It gets less frequent as we get older doesn’t it?  Leslie Kain supported her family as a single mother working in business development in AI and government Intelligence.  After her kids were grown and flown, she returned to her roots working in her first love, psychology and serving as director in nonprofits focusing on mental health. Having written technical and marketing “nonfiction” during her varied careers and with so many stories in her, she started to get curious about writing fiction. She started with short stories before she turned to novels.  Now, in her 70s, her first published novel, Secrets in the Mirror, is due out in September… Amazing right!  But what’s truly amazing is how Leslie surprised herself by simply learning the craft of writing… She was surprised by what writing opened up for her personally.

EP 106: Becoming Your Best Version with Maria Leonard Olsen

Sometimes life comes crashing down around you and you are forced to dig deep to find resilience you didn’t know you had.  Sometimes you are the driver of that change.  My guest this week is Maria Leonard Olsen and she has been on both sides of that equation.  In her 50th year she felt lost as she was going through empty nester syndrome, getting a divorce and entering into recovery for alcoholism.  That trifecta led her to therapy where she began to heal and eventually started to make active changes for a happier life.  She’s since written a book, produces a podcast and has been on the TED stage to talk about her journey in an effort to save others from thinking they are alone in their struggle.

EP 105: From Expert to Beginner with Lydia Kang

Lydia Kang is a practicing physician who started writing in her mid thirties but had to overcome some fear about even starting to write.  It wasn’t her area of expertise and she was afraid that she’d be laughed at for even trying.  Now, at the age of 50 she’s written 10 novels and her most recent novel is The Half-Life of Ruby Fielding.  Our conversation covers a lot of territory around the idea of allowing ourselves to be vulnerable in order to try something new.

EP 104: It All Starts Here with Ronnie Loaiza

Ronnie Loaiza found a passion for learning about health and wellness and decided to get certified as a personal trainer at 46.   She also realized that she wasn’t happy in her career anymore and decided to go into personal training full time where she found that she was coaching her clients on mindset.  People kept telling her she should be a life coach, so now at 57, she’s pivoted her coaching program to work as a holistic, high performance life coach.

EP 103: Beyond Sixty and Taking the Leap with Melissa Davey

At 65 years old, Melissa Davey made the decision to leave her successful corporate career and become a filmmaker. Now almost 72, Melissa’s first film, Beyond Sixty, is in distribution and she has completed filming her second film which is in post production. Her films focus on the resilience and continued relevance of older women.

EP 102: Tenacity and Gratitude with Gail Gould

Gail Gould is known as the CPR and Safety Lady.  She’s been a professional CPR instructor for over 30 years and trained 10k people to save lives. Before the pandemic she was doing it all in person and then… well you know what happened… she had to figure out a way forward.  She tapped into her sense of purpose and resilience to find a solution...  just like she did when she became a first time mom at the age of 49.