Older Women Leading Extraordinary Lives
Mar 08, 2021
In honour of International Women's Day, this week I'm sharing the story of 3 incredible older women leading an extraordinary lives:
Emily Kimball
Emily calls herself ‘The Aging Adventurer’. In her 40s she decided to take an outdoor job, and fell deeply in love with the great outdoors. She began to explore thousands of miles by foot and bicycle. She’s hiked over 2,000 miles along the Appalachian Trail, cycled 4,700 miles across the US and trekked 192 miles across northern England… all after her 60th birthday.
Emily is now the owner of Make it Happen! A lifestyle consulting firm dedicated to challenging people to achieve their dreams. She tours the US speaking as an expert on creative aging, risk taking, and overcoming obstacles.
Emily: “My advice to older women is to take risks, try new things, and don’t let failures get you down. Learn from them and then move on. You’re not over the hill. You have twenty or more good years left for the things you put off in the busy middle years!”
Zoe Ghahremani
Zoe Left behind a two-decade long career in dentistry to become a full-time writer at the age of 50. In 2000, she sold her dental practice, quit her teaching job, and relocated from Chicago to San Diego.
She is now the author of two award winning novels, Sky of Red Poppies and Moon Daughter. Born and raised in Iran, Zoe writes in both Persian and English, using fiction as a means to examine the experience of Iranian women. Hundreds of her short stories and articles have appeared in publications in the United States and she is a prolific public speaker.
“One day when I was 50 years old, I was driving to my practice. I had a very successful practice with about 5000 active patients. I was listening to the radio and somebody quoted the famous saying ‘if you have always wanted to do something then do it’ this is a cliche, but I felt like I was hit with a ton of bricks. Why am I going to my dental office?
At that time, I had a tape recorder hanging from my rear-view mirror and during my commute I would dictate Sky of Red Poppies, my first novel, and send it to my secretary to transcribe it. Now I'm thinking, ‘what are you doing? you no longer have to be a dentist’ and so that was the day I put my practice up for sale. My secretary said to me ‘What happened doctor, what happened?!’ I said ‘nothing, I've just decided’.”
Stephanie Young
A well-known New York magazine writer and editor, over close to 30 years, Stephanie worked her way through the publishing ranks of more than six major publications from transcriptionist at Mademoiselle to columnist at Glamour and then as health and fitness director at both Self and More. During her career in publishing, she was a pioneer for the writing on women's health that’s now so abundant in modern media.
Then, in 2007 at the age of 53, Stephanie left publishing well behind entering medical school and pursuing a career as a doctor.
“I was with my best friend from the sixth grade. She lives in California and I live in New York, but she was on a business trip to New York and we went for a walk. As we walked through Central Park, she was telling me that her company had brought in a life coach to meet with her team. The coach asked them – ‘if money was not a concern and failure was not a concern what would you do with your life?’
My friend expressed that she was disappointed because she couldn't come up with an answer. She then turned to me and asked ‘What would you have said? Would you have had a good answer?’ and I turned back to her and said, ‘Oh yes, of course, I’d quit my job and I’d go back to medical school and I’d become a doctor’ and we both just looked at each other and I said, ‘Oh my God, that's what I have to do’. It was not premeditated; it was just a spontaneous expression of what I really wanted, and she said ‘Yes - that's what you have to do’.
I chose these 3 women’s stories because all 3 of them refused to follow what was expected of them as ‘women of a certain age’. Proof positive that that we can CHOOSE who to be and what we want to experience regardless of our age or gender.
#internationalwomensday #steppingforward
A HUGE thank you to Lisa Congdon for curating the stories of these (and many more incredible women) in her beautiful book A Glorious Freedom.
Suggested Listening
#097 - The Opportunities Beyond the Stereotype with Corina Goetz
