Turning: The Magic and Mystery of More Days

Hello and welcome to the Living to 100 Club Podcast and another premium episode. Thanks to all of our dedicated listeners for tuning in. I'm your host, Dr. Joe Casciani, and here's today's episode. Well, good day to everyone. I'm Joe Casciani, your host for the Living to 100 Club Podcast. Our conversations are all about aging well and doing what it takes mentally and physically to live longer and healthier. Our guests share insights and recommendations about successful aging, stories of perseverance, and inspiration about our future. Today's program more than fits the bill. Our guest for today's podcast is author, geriatric nurse, and positive aging advocate Becky Blue. Becky's latest book, Turning, reflects her vision for a fresh outlook on aging filled with serendipity and surprises. We discuss some of the usual challenges of aging and the ways to combat the ageist attitudes that we still see around us. How can we best spend the remaining third act of our lives? And what wonder lies ahead when we turn outside of ourselves? Stay tuned as we discover the secret to welcoming rather than dreading the turning of the years. So just a little mini bio first on Becky. Our guest caught the writing bug as a bell-bottom-wearing high schooler, and she's been putting pen to paper ever since. A professional career in geriatric and faith-based nursing only strengthened that passion as her work sharpened her skills as a writer, teaching her to observe, listen, and question. Now in retirement, the connections between faith and health have appeared on her blog, Made with Words. Turning: The Magic and Mystery of More Days is Becky's second book following Made with Words. This book was inspired by her love of gathering friends and family in her kitchen. Okay, well, welcome Becky to the program today. Thanks for being on our show.

Thank you so much. It's great to be here.

Great. Yeah, I always like to open by asking our guests to tell us a little bit about the journey that brought you to where you are today. I covered some of it in the bio, but tell us a little bit about the highlights.

Sure. Well, I was born in South Dakota on a farm, and I was raised by a farmer and an English teacher, and, uh, I ended up deciding to be a nurse. And so that path actually took me often to get to work with older adults, and I really fell in love with geriatrics. And so I focused on that in my graduate school studies. And then I also had the opportunity as my last gig, so to speak, as a nurse, was to work in the area of faith community nursing, which fits my, just my really holistic approach to caring for people in body, mind, and spirit. And along the way, I really picked up the writing bug. Yes, as my publicist said, I had bell Autumn's done in high school, I guess. But yeah, they get pretty colorful. But I also, during a lot of my nursing positions, had the real fun work of writing grants. And I think by being a grant writer, it really helped me hone my writing skills and to focus and to write very clearly and concisely. So then once I retired, I started writing a blog, which was very fun, called Made with Words. And then I came upon this inspiration to write this book as I was about on the cusp of turning 60, about 3 years ago now already.

Yeah. Wow. So the book is due out anytime. Is it out this month? I think you said.

Yes, actually it came out on Tuesday. Ah, on Amazon, Barnes Noble, and on at Target. And so it's just been kind of a fun week, just sort of watching how that all works and seeing where I'm seeing where I'm in the rankings and all that. I mean, this is stuff I just never have experienced before, so it's fun.

That's exciting. Well, congratulations. Yeah.

Thank you.

So your work as a geriatric nurse obviously brought you into contact with older adults. How did that affect your views on aging? Would you say any, any particular insights that you developed?

Yeah, well, I think it made me realize that it can be a real precarious part of time of life, or it can be a real rewarding and exciting time of life. And oftentimes the determinants there seem to be how people chose to age and how they looked at themselves and how they maybe had been conditioned to look at aging. And I, you know, the word hope sort of jumps in my mind and positivity. And, you know, I saw people at all levels of function and I really, you know, truly realized that age is just a number, right? And so, you know, you would come across the 93-year-old who still wanted to have joint replacement surgery or the 63-year-old who just didn't think they could even, you know, get down on the floor to take care of the grandkids anymore. So, I think that's part of our problem is we tend to just lump them all together. Once you reach retirement age, well, okay, you're a senior citizen or you're elderly or whatever, and this must be how you think, act, and live.

Yeah. Yeah. I agree 100%. I think we have some real parallels in how we view this because it is a lot of our attitude about aging and advancing years, and how do we interpret this time in our life. And, you know, do we see it as a time of opportunity or as a time of slowing down and retreat? And we'll talk more about that in a little bit. But I agree that it's unrelated to our age, right? I mean, age is only a number. I say that all the time. Yeah. So we still have these ageist attitudes, stereotype negative views about getting older. We're What do you think about this? I mean, how does that affect our own future outlook?

Well, I think it limits us. I think it puts us into a box, or it puts us on kind of a horizontal line that we think that we— okay, we have, you know, we've had our kind of growing up years, and then we've had our working years, and now we have our resting and dying years, you know. And so I think we need to think of it as a new rhythm and that it can be more, you know, what I want to say, more in a wave or circular where we might come in and out of some of those same patterns that we've had throughout our lives. You know, we might choose a new career when we're 60, or we might— you might find yourself being caring for small children at that age. You know, it just all changes. It can— anything is possible. And I think when some of these really wonderful opportunities come in front of us, it's easy to just say, well, no, I can't do this, I'm such and such an age. But rather, how exciting it would be to just be open to those possibilities and, and be willing to say yes to some of those things.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And to not be so influenced by others' opinions. I, I had a guest on my program just last year, and she, she had retired and she wanted to do some things, uh, different things in her life. And she said, I'm gonna run a marathon, and everybody was saying, no, Mom, you can't do that, or sis, you shouldn't be doing it. So she was determined, she trained, and she ran the marathon. Then she said, I'm going to write a book, and people were, you know, poo-pooing it. And then she said, I'm going to go back to school and get a master's. So the more she heard the negative opinions, the more it inspired her and kind of motivated her to go after these things. So you're right. We don't want to let others influence us.

Exactly. And I think those of us who are in this field, so to speak, we need to really call out those negative stories and those stereotypes. I always say that kind of like the only ism that seems to be politically correct anymore is ageism. And I think that it's, you know, we see that with our president or, you know, certainly lots of other people. It's easy to jump on people just because of their age, you know, or to erase them or make them invisible. And I think those of us who are sensitive to that need to be willing to call it out and say, no, age is just a number.

Sure, it's not true. It's not true. The old stereotype was that, you know, as advancing years came along, we did slow down and retreat and Eventually, we become dependent on others and frail and all of that. And that ain't the story anymore. We know that that's such a small, tiny, tiny percentage of the older adult, maybe less than 5%, we say. So, again, we have to spot that and let go of those old— and unfortunately, I think it's still around and we still see these stereotypes. And movies and television and TV commercials and attitudes. And we do have to combat it, right? We do have to step up and say, no, that ain't the— that's not the picture anymore. That's not, that's not the accurate picture. It's really a time to celebrate our years rather than dread them, right?

It is. And I use the phrase in the book— I don't think it's my original phrase— but that narrative is currency. And so if you're able to tell your story, that is such a gift and such a blessing, whether you're just telling, as in the example of the woman you said who was talking to her kids about wanting to run a marathon. I mean, hopefully it got some coverage on the TV or whatever, you know, I mean, it need— those kinds of stories need to be told. One of my pet peeves, and I don't know if you have any grandchildren, but whenever they kids reach the 100th day of school, then they're encouraged to dress up like a 100-year-old person, right? And that happens in our area anyway. And oh my gosh, of course everything comes out, the gray hair and the walkers and all these things. And my dream is that someday, if whenever grandchildren of that age, that they put on a tracksuit, yeah, jogging shoes, yeah, you know, carrying a bottle of water and just being healthy and moving around, you know, because even centurions now can just blow away all those stereotypes.

Sure. Yeah, I read about this, um, this woman that started weightlifting at age 92, and she did it for 5 years, and then she eventually set a Guinness World Record for lifting 150 pounds in her age group at age 96. And, um, well, her name was Edith Merway, by the way, and what she loves the most about this is the applause that she gets from the audience. So good for her, right?

That's no different than a, you know, a 10-year-old, you know. I mean, we all love to be loved and applause, and fabulous. You go, girl.

That's great. Yeah, I'll say. I'll say. Yeah, so tell us about your book. I love the title, Turning: The Magic and Mystery of Moore Day. So why did you use the term turning?

Well, Turning was really inspired originally from that old song, Pete Seeger, you know, do everything turn, turn, turn. There is a season, turn, turn, turn. So my original title had turn, turn, turn in it. And then my publisher said, nah, I think that's a little bit too plagiaristic or whatever the word would be. So then I decided to do Turning. And so it's a little bit of play on the word turning, like I'm turning 60, but then also just turning, turning outside of ourselves, looking outside of ourselves and seeing what the world needs from us. And then the subtitle, The Magic and Mystery of More Days. I did have something possibly in there about aging, but I find that that word kind of makes people's eyes roll back in their head. They don't really want to hear that word. And so I came up with this idea of more days, and I'm really liking it that I feel like I mean, that's really no matter if we're 3-year-old, 3 years old or 90 years old, if we have more days, we are aging. But there is magic and mystery in that. It's just, it's a gift to have more days. There can be, as you've said, the surprise and the serendipity that can come with it. So I really like the name as well. Thank you. I spent a lot of time deciding that, and I think it's resonating with people.

Yeah, it does create this curiosity and kind of like, come on, time to open some new doors. Yeah. You know, when I first was learning gerontology and geriatrics and, you know, reading some of the early books, they talked about the increased use of introspection with old age and looking inward rather than, you know, staying focused on the external world. And you're kind of suggesting the opposite. You're saying let's stop this introspection and let's be aware and connect more with the external world. Is that what you're saying?

Yeah. Well, you know, I think you— I do believe that you kind of naturally become more introspective as you get older. And I think sometimes you can kind of let go of some of that other peripheral stuff that just doesn't seem to to matter. I think what I would say is that I think the older you get, you like things that matter. You like maybe some depth of conversation, so some relationships that maybe challenge you, some good conversation. But my idea with looking outside yourself is really putting other people's needs before yourself, you know, and Certainly we want to take care of each other, but I think this is often where a lot of my faith, my personal faith comes in, and in my Christian faith, that's what we are to do. We're supposed to love on our neighbor. What does my neighbor need? It's not that, oh boy, I better stay home today because I have a little ache in my back. Sometimes it's just that act of thinking about someone else or calling someone else, calling someone on the phone or saying yes to that lunch date, it really kind of helps to get our minds off of some of maybe the more trivial things that we are experiencing.

Okay, okay, I see what you're saying.

That makes sense.

So that's turning outside of ourselves, and you're really touching on the themes of compassion and gratitude and kindness and not just dwelling on what's going on with me, but being aware and really wanting to reach out to others. That's, that's what you're getting at, it sounds like. Yeah.

Yes, absolutely.

So what's the main message, would you say, for your readers in the book? Is there an overarching message?

Well, what I really wanted with this book is for people to have an experience with it. And I always say, once someone gets this in their hands, it's not my book, it's their book. And so I would say the overarching message is to look for that magic and mystery every day. And I'm actually putting together a journal to go with this. It's not ready yet, but I'd really encourage the people who read it to either write somewhere in this book or get a notebook and kind of document some of those magical moments in a day or something kind of mysterious that happened. You know, sometimes people use little terms like, oh, what a coincidence that was, or let me tell you about this. Well, you know, there's some magic in each of our days. Yesterday, I, I can specifically say I made a new friend because this woman helped me with my puppy who I couldn't quite manage with my coffee and the downtown and, and the leash and everything. So we start, you know, we had a conversation. We spent some time together. And to me, that's just kind of the magic of life. It would have been easier to— easy to maybe not engage in conversation or turn the other way, so to speak. But I think the more you kind of document that and the more you kind of name it, then it's like, okay, why can't I have some of this in each of my 4 days?

Sure. Yeah, I really like that, the magic and the mystery. Um, these events take place in our, in our world, right? And I even read about some research recently that showed people who live longer tend to be more gregarious socially, and they make these connections with other people at the restaurant or in the checkout line, and they do extend, you know, a greeting. And that's what you're talking about, what happened to you yesterday, make a new friend. Who knows where what develops from these contacts. But the more we can kind of extend that social connection, just to speak up to someone, you know, it makes their day too, right? We always like to be acknowledged by other people, so it's two-way.

Yeah, yeah. I spend a little time in, I think, the relationship chapter or whatever, talking about loneliness and our current surgeon general talks a lot about that, and he has a great book. I can't think of the name of the book right now, but, you know, loneliness, it's just really an endemic or epidemic for all ages. So, you know, and it can really impact our physical health, our emotional health, spiritual health. And so that idea of kind of not turning into ourselves and isolating ourselves as we age, but to really get out and meet people, maybe some of the connect with a friend who you haven't seen for a long time. I mean, I know it's people will probably say, oh, it's easy for you to say, cuz you sound very extroverted. And I am, I love meeting new people, but there is definitely a connection to your overall health. And just as you said, your longevity. And if your goal is to live longer, to enjoy life with your family and your friends, then these kinds of activities are really just as important as taking whatever prescription your doctor has ordered for you to take.

Sure. Sure. That's right. Reaching out and making that call to the cousin you haven't talked with for a long time, or sending a birthday card and, or writing a hand, you know, handwritten letter to somebody. That kind of reaching out has a really powerful influence on our own wellbeing. And of course the person who receives it. Sure. Yeah. So the journal you're thinking about and asking people to kind of record these events or kind of track them. You do have discussion questions in your book now at the end of each chapter, I see. So, what's your thinking there? What's the goal?

Well, I really, you know, besides just having this book be like for an individual to read, my hope with the book also is that it kind of starts a conversation on what this 60+ life can look like. And I thought, well, what better way to have a conversation than to add some questions at the end of each chapter. And so I've already had locally here several book clubs start and use this book, and they find the questions at the end to be— at the end of each chapter— to be very intriguing and really great at starting conversations. And, you know, we start kind of easy. There's about 3 questions at the end of each chapter. The first one's kind of real comfortable, and then it kind of gets deeper as you get to that third question. I mean, we talk about things like, who are your role models for Aging. There's a chapter on grief which really encourages you to share some of those kinds of experiences. There's the chapter on invisibility which I really like, and I think that's something that we often face once we hit a certain age. We feel like we're invisible. So to just those questions, and so if you, you know, decide to read this with a friend or a book club or a Bible study, or I think it'd also be super interesting to read it intergenerationally, so invite son or daughter or granddaughter to read it with you. It could be very, very rich, I think. And especially once the journal comes out, to actually be writing down your answers to some of those questions and, you know, leaving it for whoever would find it later.

Yeah, no, that's a great concept, a great model, that notion of starting conversation, not just to read and absorb it internally, but to actually process it with other people. Share your thoughts about it and see what they think about your, your reactions. That again creates more growth and more kind of connectedness with others. I can see that. Sure, especially for book groups, you know, reading clubs. Yeah, that's perfect. That's perfect. You mentioned Bible study groups. Um, so let's talk about your faith and how that's influenced your perspective on getting older. Share your thoughts.

Yeah, well, thanks for asking. My faith has always been pretty central to who I am, and I think within that there's just kind of, for me anyway, just this kind of freedom that I'm enough the way I am and that I can kind of— it's almost like that Frozen movie, you know, let it go, let it go kind of thing. And so I try to not get burdened with regrets or feelings that I think I did something wrong because I know that I have forgiveness and that I have the gift of eternal life. And so to me there's just kind of this freedom and so it gives me some confidence and just, you know, going up and speaking to someone new or trying a new thing in my life that I might fail, you know, I think it just gives me a confidence to just go about life however I want to, really, whatever I'm capable of. Yeah, sure. So for me, and I also use the concept of, you know, what is your heart pinned to? And I think sometimes we pin our heart or our hopes on things that maybe don't have really a lot of meaning. You know, it's easy to pin our hearts to an old regret or to pin our hearts to maybe a bad choice that we've made once upon a time, or just things that we kind of get addicted to, whether it be shopping or telephones or whatever, that I think we need to pin our hearts to a higher being, knowing that we're free to really live a very abundant life.

I've never heard that, that phrase, where do we pin our hearts to? Is that a focus or kind of a— I won't say obsession, but strong connection with past or something more?

Yeah, and I actually, I'll be honest with that, that I stole that concept from Dr. Stephen Paulson, who's a theologian in the Lutheran Church, which happens to be my faith tradition. And so I think it is something that can that when we confess our sins, you know, I think that's that time where we kind of let that pin go.

I see.

And then what we're really pinned to then at that point is just the love of God.

Okay. Yeah, we let go of those limiting memories or beliefs or criticisms or whatever they are and be open to what's next. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I'm always kind of curious how this sort of intertwines. I can hear you as a psychologist kind of thinking How does this even make sense?

No, it, it, you know, it reminds me of my, one of my favorite lines from Dan Sullivan, a motivational speaker. Our future should be bigger than our past. Ah, and you know, it's like so many people live in the past. We have great memories, you know, family and holidays and growing up and all kinds of get-togethers and everything going on with life. Um, and we live back there, unfortunately, sometimes because they're so pleasant. So I say it's great to have these memories, but let's not get stuck there, and let's, let's be open to today and tomorrow and what, what opportunities we have ahead of us. That's, that's our future. Yeah.

Yeah. I share a story in the book about my father-in-law who was turning 75. This was 15 years ago now, but I had purchased a book for him about wooden boats because I knew he had built a small wooden boat as a young man. So I gave him this book thinking, oh, it'll be a coffee table book that he just looks at while he's sitting in his chair. Well, not my father-in-law. When he looked at this book, he thought, well, I'm 75, but I'm gonna build another wooden boat. So that's what he did. He built a replica of a, I don't know, 1940-something Chris-Craft wooden boat, full size, full-size boat. And so he told me, and this really I'm so glad he had told me this. It means so much to me. He said, you know, Becky, I would have never thought that those 3 summers that I worked on this boat when I was, you know, 76, 77, 78, could be the best summers of my life, but they were.

There you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And being willing to try something new, stepping out of that comfortable We call it a comfort zone. It's safe and cozy. And stepping out, we don't know what's out there. We don't know what, what's behind that door. And it offers more opportunity and I think more excitement, more energy, you know.

Oh, absolutely. And for those of— I think for most of us, as you talk about introspection, I think the other thing that gets important to us is, you know, what's my legacy going to be? And so now when I think of my father-in-law, and when I think of my sons who look at Grandpa and had this, had this role model who built a full-size boat when he was 76 years old. I mean, what a legacy to give to your family.

Yeah, we see instances of this all the time, right? People doing just remarkable things and getting away from the, the usual, the whatever I did in the past or whoever I was or whatever my identity was in the past. I'm going to redefine myself. It's wide open. It's wide open what lies ahead. I mean, there are some constraints, of course, reality. We can't be a professional basketball player, but there are so many things that are available to us. Yeah.

And as you say that, it kind of reminded me of one of the chapters I talk about, uh, the flowers and wild forgiveness. And so I think for some people, they are just kind of weighted down by certain things that keep them from moving forward or trying something new. And so I really like that chapter because it talks about kind of letting go or really looking at the power of forgiveness in restoring relationships. And I, when I used to work as the geriatric clinical nurse specialist on a geriatric assessment team where we would take one client and several different specialists would look at them throughout the day. I remember one client who it was— it really became clear that the burden they were feeling was this need for forgiveness. And so I think that can just be a really important gift. Yeah, it's that gift of forgiveness.

Yeah, especially when we're holding, you know, some finding fault or, you know, having some regrets of our own about our past. And, you know, I was always saying to patients, look, you, you can't change what happened in the past. That for whatever reason you did what you did or you said what you said, and you can't change it. If you had it to do over, it might be completely different today. You might do something or say something different. But all you can change is your perception of it. And you can let go of that fault or guilt or remorse and, you know, free yourself up and change your perception of it. Yeah, at the time it was the best I could do, and maybe I'd do it differently today, but we can change our perception of that. So that, that concept of forgiveness is so important because it lightens that, that burden, it lightens that load. We throw away that baggage. Sure. Yeah, yeah. The other point you brought up when we talked earlier was this whole notion of organ recital. I love that term. Tell our listeners what you mean by that and where does that get us.

Yes, well, I would say we probably all know someone who gives good organ recitals, or maybe we even do it ourselves. And I'm not talking about the organ that you play in church. It is that tendency for when you maybe call someone on the phone and say, how are you doing? You get the organ recital, right? You get how your, you know, how's your stomach today? How's my back feeling? How are my, how's my eyesight? All those things. And I'm not saying we shouldn't share our pertinent medical problems or challenges, especially with good friends and family. That's important to have that discussion. But I think it's easy to fall into that organ recital mode mode when someone asks, how are we? And that to me is sort of the ultimate of being turned in on ourselves. I mean, literally, it's like your eyeballs are just like turned in and looking at every part of your body. Okay, taking an inventory today, rather than turning your head out and looking all around. Maybe you're gonna— maybe you see the neighbor kid who's walking outside without a coat, and you can think, you know, gosh, maybe he needs a Maybe I should go buy this kind of coat or whatever, you know, it's just really changing your, your view.

Yeah, sure. Yeah. I love that term, work and resettle.

Yeah. Well, feel free to use it anytime you want.

Thanks. So many changes. And yeah, again, we have a lot of medical events going on and physical decline and vision and hearing and the arthritis and all of that. And yeah, it's true. And If we focus on the negatives, we lose sight of the positives too, right? If we are just looking at what's wrong, it's important to see what's right. It's important to see what's still going well and what the strengths are. And talk about residual strength— there's always some good things even though we see a lot of the bad things or the negatives. Let's, let's not lose sight of the good things too. Sure. Yeah. So we talked about We're just about out of time here, but I have to ask you this question. How do we find out what the world wants from us in our later years?

You know what I think helps is to kind of get some of that noise out of your head, you know, whether it be from the drone of the television or that you're always, you know, just talking to the same 3 people every day or week. It's I kind of use the phrase of, you know, opening your ears and, you know, just paying attention. And this certainly gets back to my faith as well, in that I like to put good things into my ears, you know, whether it be some good music or maybe I'm reading scripture, maybe I'm just being quiet in the morning with my cup of coffee. I think writing can be really a wonderful gift, just jotting down a few things just to kind of clear your head. I feel like there is so much noise in the world today that the easiest response is to just keep doing the same thing every day. And then sometimes you'll hear people say, I just feel stuck. Well, if you're feeling stuck, then you, you know, you can't do the same thing every day again. You know, just making small changes. Maybe it's changing your morning routine. Maybe it is calling that cousin who you haven't talked to for a while, or saying yes to an invitation to go to a, you know, a new theater production or something like that. I'd like to use the concept of really using all your senses. And I think sometimes we don't do that enough, whether it just be our vision or ears, but even our sense of taste, you know, take some, you know, get a new experience at a new restaurant and a new food. Um, and then it's those new experiences that then will lead you into these magical and mysterious moments where the world needs you. You know, you might discover a new place to volunteer, or at the very least make a new friend, which would be a super wonderful gift for anybody.

Yeah, that's such an important point about clearing our head because we are bombarded with so much stimulation, external events, news and music and our online services and texts and all that. And it's hard to think clearly. So when we can step back and be free of all that, that's where some of these other insights surface, or the passions or the energies start to come to the surface. Yeah. And that's when we can find out what, what the world is asking of us, so to speak.

Yeah, exactly. And, and again, I think it's okay to do something good for yourself too. And I like to use the image of what's kind of waiting in the wings, what's been kind of sitting back there, like stage left behind the curtain or whatever, that you haven't, haven't said yes to, you know, because certainly we all have a limited number of days on this earth. And if there is some new— something you've always kind of wanted to do, or someone you've always wanted to reconnect with, then you probably should do that today or tomorrow.

Yeah, that's some of the good stuff. Like, I bought myself a set of drums last year. Never played the drums before. These are electronic drums. I mentioned this on my show before, so they're not acoustic drums, and I can you know, put the headset on and nobody else can hear it, but it sounds very real electronically. And, um, it is— it's something that I've kind of put off. And I love to watch good drummers of any kind of music. I just love to watch drummers. So I'm still learning. But yeah, that's— I think that's important to pay attention to what's there and what's— what some of those impulses are and what some of those desires are. And, you know, get a little taste of it. Yeah, like building that wooden Chris-Craft boat, you know, whatever, whatever it is, right?

And I think whenever you do those things, you playing drums or my father-in-law building that boat, it's energizing, right? Yeah, I would think.

Yeah. Oh, for sure. Yeah.

And so then it impacts the other parts of your life, you know. It's all— that's that whole mind-body-spirit looking at the whole you know, you change something with, with your body, like what you're going to do with your hands, and then it changes your emotions and it changes your faith in the world that we live in. It's, it's also interconnected, and we are all interconnected.

We are, we are.

But the only way we really see that is by looking outside of ourselves.

Yeah. Well, great conversations, great conversations, Becky. Thanks so much. Before I wrap up, I, I just wanna remind our listeners to visit my website, livingto100.club, and sign up for my email list and download a free copy of my 9 Tips to Make Living Longer Enjoyable. And while you're there on the website, be sure to peruse our library of blogs and podcasts. And also on the website, you'll find my email address and an option to set up a brief call. I'd love to hear your thoughts about these podcasts and let me know what you're thinking. And finally, if you're interested, reach out to me to schedule a presentation for your group in person or online. I think there's real value in helping older adults feel inspired about their future. So, Becky, thanks so much for being a guest on our show today. For those who might want to contact you, how can they best do that?

They can contact me through my website, which is Becky Blue Writes.

BeckyBlueWrites.com, and they can see a description of your book and purchase your book there on your website. Perfect, perfect. Okay, well, thanks again for being a guest on the program, and thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. Hope to see you next time.

Hey everybody, Jared Sylvester here, host of Retire Repurposed. This podcast is dedicated to help people transition into fulfilling and purposeful retirements. Retirement is a big life change. In fact, the two most dangerous years of a person's life are the year they were born and the year they retire. Few people could just flip the switch from working a career 30 or 40+ years, retiring on Friday, without methodical steps to living what we call a repurposed retirement. To listen now, search Retire Repurposed on your favorite podcast platform, Senior Resource, or Life Audio.