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The Late Bloomer Living Podcast is going on an unexpected break. Life has been throwing some curveballs lately and I need to focus on my family for a bit. I hope to be back soon.  If you're a regular listener, thank you for being here over the years. There are over 280 episodes in the back catalogue that you can go back to.  The content is evergreen, so please explore the older episodes.   You can visit latebloomerliving.com/podcast and search by topic and key words if there's anything particular that you're looking for.  I hope to continue my weekly livestreams of the Salty Sisters Show every Friday at 3:00 pm ET.  You can find those at https://www.youtube.com/@latebloomerliving/live

I’m 58. I broke my arm last fall, and I’m rebuilding my strength one five-pound curl at a time. So when Cat Corchado and I went live for Salty Sisters on International Ageism Awareness Day, I brought all the questions I’ve been quietly googling. Cat is a 20-year Air Force veteran, a former bodybuilder, and the founder of Small Space Pilates, and she doesn’t sugarcoat anything. We cover whether it’s ever too late to start (spoiler: it isn’t), how heavy “heavy” really is, why you don’t need a gym, and what strength training does for your bones, your balance, and your brain. Along the way she retires the pink dumbbells, calls out the washboard-abs ads, and explains why she’s a vintage 1975 purple Porsche. This one isn’t about getting skinny. It’s about getting up off the floor, opening your own jars, and carrying your own groceries at 90. Want to move with Cat? Her next free 11-Minute Challenge runs November 9 to 13 at smallspacepilates.com, and her free brain health symposium is streaming October 12 to 16 at 7pm ET. 🌻 If you’re feeling inspired, I’d love for you to share your thoughts about this episode. Please leave a review.  🌻 Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode! 🌻 Need a little more FUN in your life? The PLAYshop is a self-guided video you can dive into anytime, whenever you’re ready to play. 🛼 💥 https://www.latebloomerliving.com/play Come hang out with us in the free Late Bloomer Living Community, where we trade stories, ideas, and a little mischief as we figure out midlife together. Join here: https://www.latebloomerliving.com/community

Somewhere around 40, I started catching my reflection and thinking, "Wait. Who is that?" It wasn't a curious question. It was more of a flinch. Eighteen years and a lot of unlearning later, I mostly like the woman looking back. That took some work. And yet…. Even after all these years, I’m not immune to wanting to look younger.  This episode starts off with my own confession.  Kat Miller knows that flinch, too. When she was younger, she picked herself apart: the chin that never quite showed up, the neckline, the knees that bumped out. Now people tell her how pretty she was back then, and her answer is perfect: "I never saw it, so it was completely wasted on me." I'm Yvonne Marchese, and on this Salty Sisters replay, Cat Corchado and I talk with Kat. She has been a counselor for nearly 40 years, and she's a TEDx speaker, a Wonderment Catalyst and the founder of Age Freely. She's writing a book about what she calls declines and expansions. She doesn't sugarcoat the declines. Things slow. Things sag. But she's convinced something grows alongside every loss, and we miss it because we're staring so hard at what's slipping away. We get into why Kat sees life after 60 as a developmental stage full of invitations, what a slower brain might be handing us, and who makes money keeping us afraid of getting older. I also blurt out an opinion about "cute" old people, and Kat calls it ageist. She's not wrong. And somewhere in the middle, I admit that I've been more afraid of aging than of dying. If that one lands for you too, pull up a chair.   Connect with Kat Miller Website: https://agefreely.com Older: A Renewable Life card game: https://www.agefreely.com/the-older-game Instagram: @katagefreely 🌻 If you’re feeling inspired, I’d love for you to share your thoughts about this episode on social media and tag me @latebloomerliving. 🌻 Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode! 🌻 Need a little more FUN in your life? The PLAYshop is a self-guided video you can dive into anytime, whenever you're ready to play. 🛼 💥 https://www.latebloomerliving.com/play Come hang out with us in the free Late Bloomer Living Community, where we trade stories, ideas, and a little mischief as we figure out midlife together. Join here: https://www.latebloomerliving.com/community

What if the voice telling you you're too old isn't really yours? On this Salty Sisters replay Cat Corchado and I talk with Wendi Knox, author of The Way of the Dragonfly: Flight Instructions to Transform the Way We Age. At 50, Wendi was the only female SVP/Creative Director at one of LA's biggest ad agencies. Then she was laid off without warning. She ended up sobbing in her backyard and asked the universe one question: am I too old to reinvent myself? She came home from a walk with her dog to find hundreds of red dragonflies swirling over her patio umbrella. She had no idea yet what it meant. Wendi spent decades making award-winning commercials for Honda and Acura. Now she's working on a harder brand: aging. She published her first book and had her first solo art show at 65. At 72, she's here to talk about her new book, The Way of the Dragonfly: Flight Instructions to Transform the Way We Age. We get into: 🌻 Edna, Wendi's inner critic, who turns out to be an inner ageist (and sounds suspiciously like someone she used to know) 🌻 Cat's answer to Edna: an inner hype woman named Queen 🌻 Gray hair, fire-engine red at 90, and why women get judged either way 🌻 Invisible woman syndrome and the leopard-loving aunt who refused to disappear 🌻 How to stay in the moment when fear of aging starts to spiral Somewhere in there I admit I've always been more afraid of aging than dying. It gets salty, it gets honest, and there's a lot of laughing. 💟 Find Wendi and her books at wendiknox.com. --------------------------------------------------- 🌻 If you’re feeling inspired, I’d love for you to share your thoughts about this episode on social media and tag me @latebloomerliving. 🌻 Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode! 🌻 Need a little more FUN in your life? The PLAYshop is a self-guided video you can dive into anytime, whenever you're ready to play. https://www.latebloomerliving.com/play 🎉 Come hang out with us in the free Late Bloomer Living Community, where we trade stories, ideas, and a little mischief as we figure out midlife together. Join here: https://www.latebloomerliving.com/community

Cat and I have a confession. The word "self-care" makes us both cringe a little. That phrase is pushed in our faces so often that it's starting to feel like one more thing on the to-do list. So in this replay of our Salty Sisters livestream, we call it "the S word" instead, and we talk about what taking care of yourself looks like in midlife. It's not all bubble baths and spa days. Some context: As I was planning this episode, the calendar gave me three gifts on one day. It was National Rice Krispie Treat Day, the day before National Talk Like a Pirate Day, and smack in the middle of Self-Care Awareness Month. So yes, I eat a Rice Krispie Treat on camera. Yes, we read self-care affirmations in pirate voices. And no, neither of us can do a convincing pirate. Cat does every accent except that one. Under all the "yarrr," though, it turns into one of our most honest conversations. Cat opens up about a hard year and the things that got her through it, from ugly crying to hiding in her car in the garage playing phone games so she wouldn't snap at anyone she loved. We talk about how hard it is to take care of yourself when you're caring for someone else, and why an hour of help is worth asking for. (And please don't spend that hour at the grocery store.) In this episode: Cat's "Cattitude Day," and why everyone deserves one, even if it's only five minutes behind a locked bathroom door The way we talk about our bodies matters. Our midlife tummies have been through a lot. They deserve better nicknames than "the pooch" or "middle earth" Feel-good playlists, dancing at stoplights, and two 60-year-old men skipping down the beach Cat's rapid-fire top five: breathing, sleep, movement, water, and food The hill I'll die on: taking care of the basics is what makes play possible It's messy, it's sticky, and it's a reminder that laughing with a friend counts as self-care. 🌻 If you're feeling inspired, I'd love for you to share your thoughts about this episode on social media and tag me @latebloomerliving. 🌻 Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode! 🌻 Need a little more FUN in your life? Come to The PLAYshop! Go to https://www.latebloomerliving.com/play to get in on the fun! 🛼💥

Valerie Thurston never planned to write a book when she was 78, but after the death of her husband 17 years ago, a story stayed with her until she finally gave herself permission to write it.   In this episode, Valerie joins Yvonne and Cat to talk about grief, legacy, self-publishing, and her novel Food Poisoning: A Family Saga of Love, Betrayal, and the Fight for Legacy.   This is a grounded, heartfelt conversation for anyone carrying a story, a loss, or a second chapter that has been waiting to be lived.

Nobody's ready. I'm still not ready to do half the things I do.   I'm Yvonne Marchese, and this week my Salty Sister Cat Corchado and I get into where confidence actually comes from, which is not where most of us keep looking for it. Confidence is the receipt. It's not the ticket that gets you in. Cat learned an entire business late in life by pushing buttons until something worked. I sat on the idea for this podcast for two years before I pressed record, and the reasons I gave people were not the real reason. A few things that came up: - We get into the "getting ready to get ready" trap. - Why eleven minutes of exercise may be the key to getting started. - How play develops your courage muscle. - And the permission slip nobody hands you: you're allowed to try a thing, hate it, and be done with it. Somewhere in the middle of all this we accidentally named a segment. "Have you fallen down on your diaper lately?" 😜   So what's the thing you're still waiting to feel ready for... — Season 7 of Late Bloomer Living is the Salty Sisters season. Every Wednesday you're hearing the audio from Friday's live show on YouTube, where you can jump in with questions while it's happening. Come find us at 3pm Eastern on the Late Bloomer Living channel. Cat's free 11-Minute Challenge runs October 5–9. Sign up at smallspacepilates.com. Not in the Late Bloomer Living community yet? It's free, and it's where this conversation keeps going: latebloomerliving.com/community

Six years. 281 episodes. And today I'm shaking it up like a snow globe. Not because it's broken. That's the part I want to talk about. For the next three months or so, Wednesdays on Late Bloomer Living belong to Salty Sisters — the live show I co-host with Cat Corchado. Same feed, same day you've always found me. There's just going to be a second voice in it now, and I think you're going to like her. Cat is an Air Force veteran, a movement specialist, and the founder of Fit for Life Alliance, which she started in her sixties. She hosts a podcast called Sisters in Service. She has the best laugh I've ever heard and she says things I would never think to say. We met on Clubhouse in 2021, ended up in the same mastermind, and figured out fairly quickly that we were more fun together than apart. In this episode I get into why I'm doing this. Some of it is about creative restlessness — six years is a long time to make anything the same way. Some of it is about the strange loneliness of making an interview show, which nobody warns you about. And some of it is about a personal project I'm not ready to talk about yet, which needs hours I don't currently have. Here's what's actually new, and it's the part I'm most excited about: we do this show live on Friday afternoons, and you can be in it. Not listening to a conversation I already finished — in it, while it's happening, asking the guest your own question. That's never been possible here before. Fridays at 3pm ET. My YouTube channel, Cat's LinkedIn, and the Sisters in Service Facebook page. Come say hi in the chat so we know you're there. https://www.youtube.com/@latebloomerliving/live **And hit the subscribe button while you're there! When did you last change something that wasn't broken?  Something perfectly fine that had just stopped being interesting? I'd love to know.

If you've ever caught yourself thinking "I'm too old for that" — this one's for you.   After six years of hosting a podcast about ageism, I still catch myself having ageist thoughts. About myself. And I think that's worth talking about honestly — because the truth is, none of us chose these beliefs. We absorbed them. Long before we were old enough to question them, we were being taught what aging was supposed to look like, what older women were supposed to want, and when it was time to stop trying.   And when we don't question that programming? We shrink. We talk ourselves out of things before we even try. We make ourselves smaller — not because we have to, but because nobody ever told us we didn't have to.   In this Season 6 finale, I'm getting honest about the ageist thoughts I still catch myself having, why that's not something to be ashamed of, and what it actually takes to start changing the beliefs that are quietly limiting you.   Season 7 launches September 2nd

At what age are women officially supposed to stop starting new things? According to Trish Appello, never. At 55, Trish gave herself permission to do the thing she'd always wanted — and what followed was background work on Orange Is the New Black, a film producing certificate from UCLA at 62, and eventually creating The EffYou 50s, a comedy series about four women who decide the rules of midlife simply don't apply to them anymore.   In this conversation, we talk about what it actually looks like to start before you feel ready, how she built her way into the film industry one scrappy step at a time, and why she says her age isn't a liability — it's a superpower. If you've ever caught yourself asking "who do I think I am?" — this one's for you.   🌻 If you’re feeling inspired, I’d love for you to share your thoughts about this episode on social media and tag me @latebloomerliving.   🌻Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode!    🌻 Need a little more FUN in your life? Come to The PLAYshop!  Sign up for the waitlist and get in on the fun! 🛼 💥   You can also join the Late Bloomer Living Community for more fun and inspiration as we navigate midlife together. Find out more at https://www.latebloomerliving.com/

When was the last time something changed in your life and you just... moved on? Didn't name it, didn't sit with it, just kept going? That's worth a second look. Kathy Mela spent 45 years in the NICU before becoming The Grief Navigator. Her take on grief will probably surprise you. Because she's not just talking about loss through death. She's talking about the grief of an empty nest, a career that ends, an identity you outgrow, a version of yourself you quietly left behind. In this conversation, Kathy breaks down why so many of us are walking around with unnamed grief and what it actually looks like to move through it.  We get into the difference between sorrow and grief, why anger and disconnection are often grief in disguise, and a framework for navigating any life transition with more self-compassion and less self-judgment.

What if the questions you're asking right now are actually working against you? Six years into this podcast, I thought I had a pretty good handle on the power of curiosity. And then Larry Robertson showed up in my inbox — through our mutual friend Lynn Borton of the Choose to Be Curious podcast — and I realized I'd only scratched the surface. Larry is an innovation advisor, Fulbright Scholar, and author of four award-winning books. His latest, Great Question: The Art of the Ask and Getting More of What You Really Want, is the result of years of research and interviews with some of the world's most original thinkers. His central argument: asking great questions might be the most underrated human skill we have. And most of us stopped practicing it a long time ago. In this conversation we talk about why jumping straight to "why" can actually shut down your thinking, what intellectual humility really is and why it matters more than we think, the specific trap that midlife sets for our curiosity, the difference between reinvention, rewiring, and renewal, and the one question Larry returns to every time he's navigating uncertainty. I also made an on air confession….  After six years of hosting a podcast about aging playfully, I still catch myself having ageist thoughts. Turns out that's not something to be ashamed of. It's just proof that the question never really ends. Larry Robertson's book is available now. Find him at lrspeaks.com.

You look capable. You hold it all together. But somewhere along the way, you started leaving yourself behind — one small retreat at a time. Vera Knight calls it the half-second exit. And once you see it, you can't unsee it. After a burnout and a cancer diagnosis cracked her open, Vera stopped managing her life from a distance and started actually living it. Now she helps high-functioning women find their way back to themselves — and in this conversation, she'll help you find yours.

Here's the podcast description: Have you ever had a role or title that felt so much like you that losing it felt like losing yourself? Maybe it was a career you'd built over decades. A relationship that defined you. A version of yourself you'd outgrown but didn't know how to leave behind. Whatever it was — when it disappeared, the question that remained was the hardest one of all. Who am I now? Dr. Kathleen Perry spent forty years as a chiropractor, acupuncturist, and functional medicine practitioner. When her husband became ill and COVID upended everything, she walked away from her practice and spent eighteen months sitting with that exact question. No rushing to reinvent. No five-step plan. Just the slow, quiet work of finding out who she was underneath the role. What she discovered — and now helps other women discover — is that the discomfort of that unraveling isn't a sign something is wrong. It might be the most important signal you've gotten in years. In this conversation we explore identity loss in midlife, what it really means to let go of who you've been, why your body knows the answer before your mind does, and how play and presence can open the door to what's next. If the waters feel choppy right now — this one is for you.

What if the biggest thing standing between you and the life you want isn't your age — it's the story you're telling yourself about your age? Sally Duplantier started her first business at 28, retired twice, went back to school in her mid-60s, earned a master's degree in gerontology, published seven peer-reviewed research papers, and is currently finishing her doctorate at 75. And she'll be the first to tell you she's not special — which is exactly the point. In this conversation, Sally breaks down the science of internalized ageism and why so many of us quietly absorb the world's low expectations for older adults without even realizing it. She draws on Dr. Becca Levy's landmark Yale research showing that a positive attitude about aging can add 7.5 years to your life — and explains why simply deciding to think differently isn't enough. The real shift, she says, has to come from action. Small, specific, sometimes terrifying action. We also get into the trap of "comparanoia" — comparing yourself not just to other people but to the younger version of yourself — the Japanese concept of ikigai as a gentler alternative to the pressure of finding your purpose, and the one scary email Sally sent at 66 that opened doors she never could have predicted. Sally is the founder of Zing and hosts free monthly Wellness Wednesdays — expert-led webinars on healthy aging open to anyone. Find her at MyZingLife.com and on Instagram and Facebook at @MyZingLifeSally. If this episode got you thinking, share it with someone who needs to hear it.