Late Bloomer Living Podcast

EP 50: Vanessa Joy Walker - Make Room for Joy

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 is what uniquely qualifies us to make a difference for other people and she encourages us to get real about pain while cultivating joy in the middle of life's most complicated seasons.

EP 49: Michelle Widmeier - The Power of Resilience

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 chiropractic, acupuncture and wellness clinic designed to respond to the needs of her patients.  What does that mean?  It means she bought a van and outfitted it for the safe treatment of her patients.

EP 48: Rich Companik - Live Like You Mean It

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 realized it wasn’t a good fit for him anymore.  We talk about the courage it takes to change careers in midlife. We so often stay in situations beyond the time that’s healthy for us because we’ve invested our time and effort and money and might be considered crazy for walking away.

EP 47: Laurie Lewis - Intermittent Fasting

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 same day. The menopausal fog lifted in less than one week, she had more energy and felt more “like herself.” She lost 51 pounds in 15 months and has kept it off for years! Now, at 57-years old, Laurie has turned her personal success into the premier thriving Intermittent Fasting coaching business.  As a certified health coach she combines her knowledge of nutrition with deep research and practice of Time Restricted Eating. Laurie guides her clients with a dream come true -- eat the foods you love and enjoy the rest of your life feeling vibrantly well.

EP 46: Jack Perez - Redefining Modern Midlife for Women

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 curated content and women-driven brands.  She is an example of how a person can find themselves needing something, figure out that other people need the same thing, make a decision to provide that to other people and end up enriching their own life.

EP 45: Debi Robinson - Aging Gracefully

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 strengthen their bones, bodies and minds through yoga therapy.

EP 44: Yael Gilboa - The Inspired Life

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 the unknown.  When she was 37 a friend invited her to a belly dancing class.  She loved it so much, she stayed with it and eventually began performing and teaching belly dancing in her forties.  At 50 she started a video business.  And now in her 60s she’s started a mission based online business to teach women how to do mandalas.  Her mission is to bring joy into women’s lives, and empower them to unleash their creativity using Mandala art and dance so they can connect to their inner spirituality and lead inspired lives.

EP 43: Sherry Huss - Making Community

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 county fair was elemental to the design of the Maker Faire and a constant influence now that she’s moved on from Maker Faire and is building a worldwide community of artists through her work with the Imaginary Places design studio and Freeman Events.  She doesn’t allow age to stop her as she keeps exploring with purpose and surrounded by community.

EP 42: Mike Folie - If Not Now, When?

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 activities for two years to focus on his children and his own grief.  When he began writing again he found himself writing autobiographical one-person plays.  He has since written and performed two, award winning solo plays titled 3 Men and My Dead Wife.  Mike is 69 and going strong, happily remarried and is now working on a memoir that he describes as being autobiographical-ish.

Episode 41: Dara Kurtz - Redefining Success

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, Crazy Perfect Life, reaches over 190,000 followers. Dara is the author of three books, Crush Cancer: Personal Enlightenment from a Cancer Survivor, Crush Cancer Workbook, and the most recent, I am My Mother’s Daughter.