🚀 From Google Podcasts to Moon FM in No Time: Your Hassle-Free Migration Guide
👉

Gap Year For Grown-Ups

Debbie Weil

A podcast for those who believe you can take a timeout to reinvent your life, to explore, to find meaning and purpose and - yes, happiness! - especially when you are 50+ and figuring out what comes next. Yes, grown-ups can step out of their default life for a reset, for change and for bucket list adventures. But it's a bit more complicated than it is for students who only have to sling a backpack over their shoulders. Host Debbie Weil talks with guests about the money question, decision-making, the process of change and the pursuit of happiness. MEDIA PARTNERS: Encore.org, Modern Elder Academy and Next For Me. SEASON 2 coming fall 2019!

  • 40 minutes 12 seconds
    Author Sarah Fay on Healing Her Own Mental Illness and Applying Less and Less of More and More to Life and Substack

    Today, Debbie talks with Sarah Fay, a 52-year-old award-winning author, writing teacher, and mental health keynote speaker whose work has been featured on NPR, Oprah Daily, Forbes, The Los Angeles Times, and more. Her journalistic memoir Pathological: The True Story of Six Misdiagnoses (HarperCollins, 2022) was an Apple Best Books pick and was hailed in The New York Times as a “fiery manifesto of a memoir.” Her sequel, Cured: The Memoir, tells the story of Sarah’s full recovery from serious mental illness and how recovery is possible for everyone.

    She writes for many publications, including The New York Times, The Atlantic, Time, and The Paris Review, where she was an advisory editor. Her essays have been chosen as a Notable Mention in Best American Essays and nominated for Pushcart Prizes. As a teacher, she’s on the faculty at Northwestern University and runs Writers at Work, a weekly publication with workshops to help creative writers produce their best work on Substack and get paid (very) well to do it. Her master plan is to make Substack the literary center of the universe. 

    They talk about the parallels between Sarah’s journey of recovery from misdiagnosis to curing her own serious mental illness and her work teaching Substack writers to think big (and get paid for it). Debbie wanted to know if Sarah’s journey to mental health was connected to her success as a writer AND to her ability and desire to help other writers. The answer is yes. They touch on emotional literacy, the prerequisites for healing from mental illness, how to deal with anxieties as writers, what Substack is and who it is for, and what Sarah loves most about helping other writers. 

     

    //////////

    Don't miss the Behind The Scenes for every episode in Debbie's [B]OLD AGE newsletter. 

    //////////

     

    Mentioned in this episode or useful:


     

    Connect with Debbie:

     

    Our Media Partners:

    • CoGenerate (formerly Encore.org)
    • MEA and with thanks to Chip Conley
    • Next For Me (former media partner and in memory of Jeff Tidwell)

     

    How to Support this podcast:

     

    Credits:

    10 May 2024, 6:00 am
  • 39 minutes 8 seconds
    Patty Ivey on Getting Breast Cancer at Age 70 and How It’s Changing What She Will Give Back to the World

    Today Debbie talks to Patty Ivey about life changes and opportunities opening up for her after being diagnosed with and treated for breast cancer last year. Inspiring doesn’t really cover it as a way to describe Patty. Neither does [b]old, as in [B]OLD AGE. Patty and Debbie go back at least 15 years, when Debbie was a regular at Patty's Down Dog yoga studio in DC. It was always special when Patty, the owner, taught a class. Her classes were different. They offered all the benefits that practicing yoga offers beyond what happens on the mat; with Patty teaching, the class was mind-expanding. She made yoga open up new possibilities for how to live. 

    So when Debbie saw Patty posting beautiful, bald photos of herself on her LinkedIn page, she immediately got in touch to find out how she was doing. As Patty explains it, she is using life principles from yoga, which include leaving room for what we don’t know and focusing on something bigger than ourselves, as she looks ahead.  She acknowledges an identity shift that has come with cancer. Some older version of herself is no longer there, but she's okay with that. Like most women, Debbie is terrified of getting breast cancer, but with Patty as a guide (she’s also a mentor and a life coach as well as being a serial entrepreneur), it seems there could be an upside. We hope you are as inspired by this conversation as Debbie was. 

     

    //////////

    Don't miss the Behind The Scenes  for every podcast episode in Debbie's [B]OLD AGE newsletter on Substack.

    //////////

     

    Mentioned in this episode or useful:

    Connect with Debbie:

     

    Our Media Partners:

    • CoGenerate (formerly Encore.org)
    • MEA and with thanks to Chip Conley
    • Next For Me (former media partner and in memory of Jeff Tidwell)

     

    How to Support this podcast:

     

    Credits:

    19 April 2024, 6:00 am
  • 38 minutes 41 seconds
    Lyn Slater on How To Be Old and Why She Is No Longer a Fashion Influencer

    Debbie speaks with Lyn Slater, a writer and activist and former social media influencer. She spent her mid-60s becoming an icon of fashion, racking up nearly 800,000 Instagram followers, representing huge brands like Ilia Beauty, Kate Spade, Moncler, and Visa (among many others), speaking on fashion panels, and in general living a very public life. Her memoir, “How to Be Old: Lessons in Living Boldly From the Accidental Icon" is just out.

    But… and there’s a big BUT, Lyn has given up that identity and is now, at 70, a writer and hands-on grandmother. She has renounced social media and no longer offers fashion or style tips. In this episode she tells Debbie that she was unhappy at the peak of her influencer career, what she learned from her mother’s decline and death, and how we have to tell the truth about old age to young women. 
     

    //////////

    Don't miss the Behind The Scenes for every episode in Debbie's [B]OLD AGE newsletter. 

    //////////
     

    Mentioned in this episode or useful:

     

     

    Connect with Debbie:

     

    Our Media Partners:

    • CoGenerate (formerly Encore.org)
    • MEA and with thanks to Chip Conley
    • Next For Me (former media partner and in memory of Jeff Tidwell)

     

    How to Support this podcast:

    29 March 2024, 6:00 am
  • 36 minutes
    Steven Petrow on His Sister Julie, the Importance of Choice, and Medical Aid in Dying

    In the Intro to this episode, you'll hear Steven Petrow talking about his sister Julie Petrow’s death last June 2023. After years of battling ovarian cancer, Julie, Steven’s five-years-younger little sister, chose to die in her New Jersey home by drinking a lethal cocktail. She was surrounded by her family. And it was legal. She used a procedure called MAID or medical aid in dying, which is now legal in 10 states in the U.S. plus the district of Columbia.

    But before she died, she made Steven, who is a bestselling author and a contributing columnist for The Washington Post, promise to write about how she chose to die, in order to raise awareness around MAID, a practice that many people don’t know about, or don’t understand, even though it was first legalized in Oregon, almost 30 years ago. 

    So Steven did, publishing an essay about Julie and her decision in The New York Times a few months ago. It got a huge reception with over 600 comments on the NYT’s site. 

    In this episode, Steven explains more:
     

    • What the term medical aid in dying means and what it is exactly (it used to be called physician assisted suicide, but a physician is NOT present)
    • Why he thinks only 9,000 people have availed themselves of the procedure since it first became legalized
    • Why it’s mostly used by educated whites (for one thing, the cocktail of lethal drugs cost $700 to $900 and is NOT reimbursable)


    This is simply a fascinating episode and Steven is a lovely guest, eloquent, respectful, and informed. It was such a pleasure to have him back on the show. As always, see below for links to his articles and books, including the NYT article, and a link to the first time he was on the show almost three years ago.  

     

    //////////

    Don't miss Debbie's Behind The Scenes essay on Substack accompanying every episode of the podcast. 

    //////////

     

    Mentioned in this episode or useful:


    Connect with Debbie:

     

    Our Media Partners:

    • CoGenerate (formerly Encore.org)
    • MEA and with thanks to Chip Conley
    • Next For Me (former media partner and in memory of Jeff Tidwell)

     

    How to Support this podcast:

     

    Credits:

    8 March 2024, 7:00 am
  • 34 minutes 43 seconds
    Kirsten Powers on Changing the Channel From CNN Political Analyst to Easeful Living and Writing

    Today, Debbie talks with Kirsten Powers, a New York Times bestselling author, a liberal columnist and, most recently, an on-air political analyst with CNN. In 2023, after almost two decades, she left what she calls the “media circus” to pursue a different life as a writer and a life coach. Kirsten, who is 56, is [b]old by any definition.

    Prior to CNN she was at Fox (as a liberal voice) and before that she was a columnist for USA Today, The Daily Beast, American Prospect Online, and the New York Post. Her recent bestselling book is Saving Grace: Speak Your Truth, Stay Centered, and Learn to Coexist with People Who Drive You Nuts.

    Currently Kirsten writes a very popular newsletter on Substack, called, appropriately, "Changing the Channel." It's about living authentically, unlearning societal conditioning, and how to actually change your life. She published an essay recently about her plan to move to Italy with her husband because, as she put it, the U.S. is unlivable, with school shootings, the frenetic pace of life and because it’s too expensive. Somehow we are societally conditioned to accept this, as if it’s normal. But it’s not, Kirsten emphasizes. The post went viral, hitting a nerve with her many readers. Now she’s working on a book proposal. 

    Since leaving her on-air job, Kirsten has been deliberately pursuing what she calls a "more easeful life" that is less striving and less accomplishment-oriented. It includes writing on Substack, which she loves. In this episode she also talks about her transition from evangelical christian to atheist.

     Kirsten is fast thinking and provocative and Debbie loved this conversation with her. 

    //////////

    Don't miss the Behind The Scenes for every episode in Debbie's [B]OLD AGE newsletter.

    //////////  

    Mentioned in this episode or useful:

     

    Connect with Debbie:

     

    Our Media Partners:

    • CoGenerate (formerly Encore.org)
    • MEA and with thanks to Chip Conley
    • Next For Me (former media partner and in memory of Jeff Tidwell)

     

    How to Support this podcast:

     

    Credits:

    16 February 2024, 7:00 am
  • 38 minutes 10 seconds
    Bestselling Author Dale Russakoff on Being a Southern Woman at Harvard, Ambition at 71, and How Family Matters Most

    Today, Debbie talks to Dale Russakoff, a veteran reporter for The Washington Post, a bestselling author, and a classmate from her Harvard/Radcliffe class of 1974. 

    They talk about her surprising experience at Harvard as a woman from the South, her distinguished career as a journalist, and the importance of family. 

    Debbie knew that Dale had been a reporter for The Washington Post for almost 30 years. And that she is the author of a best-selling book, THE PRIZE. But in this episode she told Debbie something she'd never heard before: what it was like to be a Southern girl at Harvard. Dale, who had a Southern accent then, said she was reluctant to open her mouth at first. 

    She'd grown up in Birmingham, AL and when she arrived in Cambridge she learned that the Radcliffe admissions committee hadn’t admitted a woman from the South in many years, unless she had gone to a Northern boarding school. The committee thought girls who grew up and went to school in the South wouldn't have “the values" Radcliffe wanted; i.e. they would be racist.
     

    She and Debbie talk about what it was like to be a female student in the man's world of Harvard, how "ambition" fit into her college years and, later, how it related to Dale's career in journalism. They talk about the importance of family, including grandchildren. And how she feels AT. CAPACITY. (i.e. too busy) in semi-retirement, at age 71.

    //////////

    Don't miss Debbie's Substack essay on the topic of being too busy or AT. CAPACITY. 

    //////////

     

    Mentioned in this episode or useful:

     

    THE FIRST TWO EPISODES IN THIS TRILOGY:

    Conversations with two more of Debbie's classmates from the Harvard/Radcliffe class of 1974:

     

    Connect with Debbie:

     

    Our Media Partners:

    • CoGenerate (formerly Encore.org)
    • MEA and with thanks to Chip Conley
    • Next For Me (former media partner and in memory of Jeff Tidwell)

     

    How to Support this podcast:

     

    Credits:

    26 January 2024, 7:00 am
  • 29 minutes 24 seconds
    Bestselling Author Mary Pipher on Forgiveness, Happiness, and Old Age

    * This is the last episode in 2023. Back on Jan. 26, 2024! *

    Debbie talks to Mary Pipher, a psychologist and bestselling author of 11 books including the ground-breaking Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls.  She was the first psychologist to recognize and articulate why life was difficult for adolescent girls and why so many of them felt bad about themselves.

    More recently, she has written Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing As We Age, about women navigating the transition from middle age to old age (the topic of this podcast!).

    In 2022, she published a memoir, A Life in Light: Meditations on Impermanence. In her new book, just out in paperback, Mary, now 76, talks about her difficult childhood and her relationship with her parents, the importance of family and community, living in a small town in Nebraska, and what the particular challenges of getting old are. She also talks about forgiveness, about adopting Buddhism and her definition of happiness. Per the title, she’s obsessed with light, through trees, on walks, at certain times of day, in certain rooms, and in memories — and how the light makes her feel happy and complete.

    She says her knowledge about happiness comes from being someone who has struggled with sadness and anxiety much of her life, something that resonates strongly with Debbie.

    This is a great episode. Mary articulates so well what it’s really like to get old and yet still feel so alive.

    //////////
    Don't miss the Behind The Scenes essay on Substack accompanying this episode
     //////////

     

    Mentioned in this episode or useful:

     

    Connect with Debbie:

     

    Our Media Partners:

    • CoGenerate (formerly Encore.org)
    • MEA and with thanks to Chip Conley
    • Next For Me (former media partner and in memory of Jeff Tidwell)

     

    How to Support this podcast:

     

    Credits:

    22 December 2023, 7:00 am
  • 49 minutes 14 seconds
    Winifred White Neisser on Ambition, Embracing 70, and What Comes Next

    Today, Debbie speaks to Winifred White Neisser, a classmate from the Harvard/Radcliffe Class of 1974. Winifred looks back on her career as a television executive in the all-male, all-white Hollywood entertainment industry and talks about what comes next.  Both Debbie and Winifred are looking forward to celebrating their 50th Harvard reunion next year.

    Wini, as her friends call her, is very modest. She doesn’t think of herself as a [b]old woman. So it took Debbie a while to get her to talk about her success as an entertainment executive. She capped her 34-year career as Senior VP of Sony Pictures for Television Movies and Miniseries. Her award-winning projects include the movie A Raisin in the Sun for ABC and Call me Claus, a Christmas movie which starred Whoopi Goldberg.

    It’s her Midwestern upbringing, Wini told Debbie. They don’t brag or show off in Milwaukee, WI where she grew up. She was never propelled by ambition, she told Debbie. Nor did she plan out next steps as she rose to her position as a top exec. But it wouldn’t be accurate to say that her career “just happened.”

    //////////

    Don't miss the Behind The Scenes essay on Substack accompanying this episode.

    //////////

    This interview is a story of quiet capability and determination - and underneath, a fierce drive. Debbie was fascinated by her classmate’s story because, with one exception, it’s so different from hers. Debbie married at the absurdly young age of 21 (she was a junior at Harvard). She had her first baby at 25 and two more by age 31. Wini married much later and had her two children in her mid 30s, all the while climbing the TV executive ladder, first at NBC and later at Sony.

    In contrast, Debbie’s early motherhood derailed her career in journalism. She was married to a busy young doctor so someone had to hold down the fort at home. She stepped willingly into that role, but felt a good deal of frustration trying to work part-time as a freelance journalist. Underneath, she had the same fierce drive that Wini had. She just couldn’t express it, career-wise, until some years later.

    As the conversation continued, Debbie realized that fierce drive and determination sum up the common thread she shares with her female classmates from the Harvard/Radcliffe Class of 1974. There were only 300 women (Cliffies, as they were called) in a class of 1,500 students. So they were vastly outnumbered. They were polite about it, but they were all determined to be successful in their chosen fields — both in Harvard’s male-dominated classrooms and later in the world of work. 


    So much has changed for women in the past 50 years so this conversation with Wini is the first of several Debbie is planning with these [b]old women, her 1974 Radcliffe classmates. 

    Note: it’s a bit confusing to explain but Radcliffe was the name of the women’s college that was part of Harvard in the 1970s and earlier, so technically the women attended Harvard/Radcliffe. Radcliffe has now been subsumed by Harvard. And the ratio of women to men in a Harvard class is now 50-50. So much has changed in 50 years.

    Hope you enjoy this compelling conversation with a 70-year-old (b)old woman.

     

    Mentioned in this episode or useful:

     

    Connect with Debbie:

     

    Our Media Partners:

    • CoGenerate (formerly Encore.org)
    • MEA and with thanks to Chip Conley
    • Next For Me (former media partner and in memory of Jeff Tidwell)

     

    How to Support this podcast:

     

    Credits:

    8 December 2023, 7:00 am
  • 34 minutes 1 second
    Best Of: Debbie and Sam Go Back to France

    Updated with a new introduction, this is a replay of an atmospheric episode from 2019 when Debbie and Sam studied French in Provence in an immersion program. They planned to go back in 2020 but of course the pandemic intervened. Now, they’ve just completed another week of immersion in Avignon with their favorite French teacher, Julie Gaudin.

    /////////////

    Don't miss the Substack essay accompanying this episode: Behind The Scenes With "French Debbie"

    /////////////

    In the episode you'll hear accordion music and a few snippets recorded in a cafe where Debbie speaks French. Both she and Sam have a special relationship with France from their adolescent years. And they both have a longstanding bucket list item: to live in France for an extended period in order to practice and improve their French. They both agree you can’t become a true ex-pat in only two weeks but it’s enough time to adopt a daily routine and to make a friend or two at the local boulangerie and at a favorite bar serving artisanal beer. 

    Despite their many trips to Paris and other parts of France, they continue to find the French language and French culture both mysterious and alluring.  

     

    Mentioned in this episode and/or useful links for visiting Avignon and Provence

    • Séjour linguistique means staying with a teacher (or prof) in their home for language immersion.
    • Julie Gaudin's immersion program in Avignon
    • A list of other French immersion programs via  FrenchToday.com Note: in the episode Debbie mistakenly refers to the site as FranceToday.
    • Pithiviers is a town south of France where Sam lived on a farm when he was 18. It was also the site of the infamous Pithiviers internment camp during the Second World War.
    • Collège Cévenol in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon is where Debbie went to school for a year when she was 14.
    • Alliance Française in Paris
    • L’Atelier de Belinda (wonderful tiny restaurant in Avignon)
    • Les Halles, the famed covered market in Avignon filled with magnificent displays of fish, meat, vegetables, fruit, cheese, olives, bread, lavendar honey, wine and more. Sam discovered “les bulots”: whelks or large snails best eaten alongside raw oysters and with a glass of white wine.

     

    Connect with Debbie:

    How to Support this podcast:

     

    Our Media Partners:

    • CoGenerate (formerly Encore.org)
    • MEA and with thanks to Chip Conley
    • Next For Me (former media partner and in memory of Jeff Tidwell)

    Credits:

     

    24 November 2023, 7:00 am
  • 33 minutes 50 seconds
    Rona Maynard on How Adopting a Rescue Mutt When She Was 65 Made Her a Better Person

    Today, Debbie talks with Rona Maynard, an author, writer, and former VIP, as she puts it. When she left Canada's leading magazine for women as editor-in-chief, she began looking for her next big project. Around this time, her husband suggested getting a dog. She resisted for several years, then relented. When she was 65, they adopted Casey, a two-year-old rescue mutt with an appealing personality.

    He left dog hairs everywhere and peed on her favorite chair the day they brought him home. But the result was an unexpected next new thing, a gradual transformation  of how she is approaching life, and a lovely new book, a memoir, titled Starter Dog.

    //////////

    Don't miss the Behind The Scenes essay for each new episode in Debbie's [B]OLD AGE newsletter. 

    //////////

    Of course, the book is not just about her dog. Rona is an extraordinary writer so it is  the woven story of her life as a young woman and a young wife, her ambitions, her relationship to food (and Casey’s), getting older, and how - with Casey leading the way through her Toronto neighborhood - she began to soften and notice more. In the book she illuminates how taking Casey for daily walks ultimately made her a better person. She pulls the past and present together, and, engagingly, includes quotations from two of Debbie's favorite poets: Emily Dickinson and Gerard Manley Hopkins.

    Rona learns how to be kind (kindness was not stressed when she was growing up in a household full of ambition), how to befriend strangers and the homeless, how to appreciate the details of changing seasons and the outdoors (after working at a desk for so many years), how to be more patient, and how to live in the moment.

    Because of course while she was growing old - eight years pass - her dog was growing older. Casey is now 10, while Rona's in her mid-70s, and he’s teaching her how to embrace old age. Just take it one walk, one squirrel, one bowl of dog food (two if you’re lucky), and one day at a time.

    Mentioned in this episode or useful:

     

    Connect with Debbie:

     

    Our Media Partners:

    • CoGenerate (formerly Encore.org)
    • MEA and with thanks to Chip Conley
    • Next For Me (former media partner and in memory of Jeff Tidwell)

     

    How to Support this podcast:

     

    Credits:

    10 November 2023, 7:00 am
  • 27 minutes 28 seconds
    Debbie & Sam on the Acceleration of Aging: Smudged Glasses, Creaky Bodies and Before It’s Too Late

    Welcome back to Season 6! You might’ve noticed that we changed the name of the show to more accurately reflect the focus, which is to explore the transition from midlife to old age. [B]OLDER seemed a bit too general, so it's now [B]OLD AGE. Given our ageist society, it requires [b]oldness to say proudly, "I am old." This season our goal is to be even more honest and vulnerable about what it’s like as the clock ticks away.

    For this first episode, Debbie is joined by her husband, Sam Harrington, a popular recurring guest who is known for his dry humor. He's a retired physician and an author.

    They start by talking about how aging has suddenly accelerated for both of them, in their early 70s. Sam says he can see his telomeres fraying when he looks in the mirror. He notes that only a decade ago they still looked remarkably young in photos. (See photo accompanying this episode; in 2014 Debbie and Sam were hanging out in Madagascar with lemurs.)

    //////////

    Don't miss the accompanying Behind The Scenes essay for this new episode in Debbie's [B]OLD AGE newsletter.

    //////////

    They also talk about the long vigil of accompanying a dying parent and how that affects your own sense of old age; how health span has noticeably increased in the past 50 years;  and what the stunning demographic shift to an aging society will mean. By 2030, there will be more adults over 65 than children under 18. 

    Debbie notes the parallel between the acceleration of aging and the acceleration of global warming. At first the changes are slow and hardly noticeable. Then they happen all at once, like this past summer.

    But the conversation veers back to the physiological fact of aging. Sam's favorite mantra is that "80 might be the new 60, but 86 is the new 85." The current research to better understand and to slow aging may be too late to benefit them, Sam says.

      

    Mentioned in this episode or useful:

     

    Connect with Debbie:

     

    Our Media Partners:

    • CoGenerate (formerly Encore.org)
    • MEA and with thanks to Chip Conley
    • Next For Me (former media partner and in memory of Jeff Tidwell)

    How to Support this podcast:

    Credits:

    27 October 2023, 6:00 am
  • More Episodes? Get the App
About Gap Year For Grown-Ups
Links
Listeners Also Subscribed To
© MoonFM 2024. All rights reserved.