Virginie Glaenzer moderates four guests discussing aging and life transitions. Donna Koren runs Empty Quester for women in the empty-nest phase. Roxanne Darling, 66, runs Beach Walks with Rocks on YouTube. Linda Rossetti and Jim Spivey frame aging as opportunity and personal transformation.
Chapters
Before we start this conversation, let's begin as we always do with what I call the tour de table and have each of you tell us your name, what you do, and why you're interested in this topic. Please try to be brief and keep your comment to about a minute. So why don't we begin with Donna?
Thank you, and thank you for having me join you here. So my name is Donna Koren, and I publish a website and blog called Empty Quester for empty nesters on a quest for their bold next chapter. And that's one of my passion projects that I do, this exploration of what happens in this next chapter of 50-plus when kids have left the house and they're looking to explore for new opportunities. And separate from that, I have a business that in 2020 will be completely women-owned, women-run, and will create business opportunities for people who are looking for second careers who are in that next life stage.
Great, thank you. Linda? Yes, my name is Linda Rossetti. Thank you so much for having me, and I'm honored to be with the rest of the crew here. I am a serial entrepreneur and an expert on transitions, right? My work in the last decade has all been about adult transitions and their impact on not only on individuals but on organizations as well. I consult one-on-one with individuals, and I work with companies who've gone through mergers and acquisitions and trying to help them kind of figure that all out. I really think that this topic is fascinating because ageism is another transition. You know, aging is a transition that we all go through, and my work and research tells me that we really misunderstand transition as a society. So, I'm excited about this conversation because I think there's an enormous amount of richness that is resident in all of us that we can bring out at any time and at any age. So I'm really excited to be here. Thank you for including me. My pleasure. Thank you, Linda. Roxanne?
Hi, my name is Roxanne Darling. I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I'm 66 years old, and I too am a serial entrepreneur. I have a degree in marine biology from UC Berkeley. I was then a ballet dancer. Mind-body fitness pioneer. Worked for the last 20 years in a company with my life partner who's 14 years younger than me, and that is a technology company. We do marketing, web, everything, everything internet basically. And my big claim to fame, my most favorite part of my career, is I had a YouTube channel. It's actually still up. Beach Walks with Rocks, 2.5 million downloads, that we started in 2006 as a technology experiment, but connected we with millions of people around the world, and I absolutely love that.
Great, that's impressive. Thank you, Roxanne.
Jim.
My name is Jim Spivey. I live in Houston, Texas. My background has been as a business executive in technology for 20 years. An executive coach and life coach for 20 years. And now I'm in the new frontier for me. Uh, the business I'm in now is Mazzi Partners. I'm a partner with a 3-person firm and our work is about awakening and transformation starting with our own. And we have a great mentor and author that we love by the name of Peter Block who once said, if you want to change imperialism, good luck with that. But if you do your own work and make it available for others, it could change the world. And that's my belief as it relates to an attitude towards aging, is to do my own work and then make that available where it could change the world.
