Aging Well: Finding Beauty in the Gray
Aging Well: Finding Beauty in the Gray is a podcast for everyone in or approaching the retirement years. There’s a lot to unpack here apart from the financial planning component, and we’ll do just that. We’ll explore new interests, priorities and goals and finding purpose for ourselves and in our relationships. Join me each episode as I share stories and chat with guests learning to live their best next act, lives. Have a question or comment? Please reach out to me, Hugh Willard, at [email protected] or via any of the social media links at the top of this page.
- Update frequency
- every 6 days
- Average duration
- 30 minutes
- Episodes
- 108
- Years Active
- 2022 - 2024
The Voices of Our Elders: Becky Stone and Her Life in Stories
Among Becky's many talents, her storytelling was discovered one day while reading to her children at the local library. From there, she was sought after by the Chautauqua Society of Gre…
Making Music and Teaching Tail-waggers: Dr. Kirk Ridge and Living Legacies
Dr. Kirk Ridge has walked two parallel professional paths over the past 40+ years. While supporting students, teachers and institutions around students' writing, he also has been a musi…
Amanda and Darrel May: Planting and Growing a Legacy of Life and Love
Amanda and Darrel are recent retirees and the heads of their four-generation deep family. They are also bloggers, hosting their website AnDweplant.com containing a bevy of blog posts, s…
In Search of the Fountain of Aging Well: Jody and Mark Rollins and Retirement Transformed
Jody and Mark Rollins were living their best career and family lives before uneven closings into retirement. While looking forward to their retirement years following successful careers…
Best Selling Author Diane Chamberlain and the Quest for Balance and Community
New York Times, USA Today, and The Sunday Times bestselling author of 28 books, Diane Chamberlain has maintained a powerful pace with her rich and varied novels over her 30+ year (secon…
Our Furry Friends: Susan Kurowski and the Pets for the Elderly Foundation
Susan Kurowski parlayed her lifelong love of animals along with her business acumen into her work with the Pets for the Elderly Foundation beginning in 2006. In 2009, she was named the …
"This is Our Time" Leanne Le Cras and her Cresting the Hill blog
Leanne Le Cras has lived the length of her life in Western Australia. It is there that she and her husband raised their two children. It is there that she steadfastly worked for many ye…
Dr. Mia Yang: The Rectangularization of Aging
Dr. Mia Yang has a deep love for seniors that was born of her early years with her grandparents in China. Out of lifelong formative experiences that included quality of care decisions f…
Mary Ann Reilly and Patrick O'Dell: Double Cousins Reconnecting in the Canadian Rockies
Mary Ann and Patrick grew up with mothers who were sisters and fathers who were brothers. Mary Ann's family lived in upstate New York save for a 5 year stint in Texas and Patrick's fami…
Fun and Games, and Silver Arts Too!!! Lynn Harrell and the Senior Games
Lynn Harrell started college with the goal of working as a camp director for children. That is until a required project wherein she went to help with the North Carolina Senior Games ope…
Gwen Buchanan: Making Memories in Hokas and New Hips. My Journey on the Appalachian Trail
Gwen Buchanan has packed a lifetime into her 50+ years. Two life threatening accidents resulting in both hips being replaced, and numerous personal challenges only served as renewable e…
Hugh Willard takes time to reflect on Independence Day in the USA, and what we are called to consider at this challenging time.
We take a brief pause from sharing the stories and expertise of our guests on this week's show to reflect on the current and substantial challenges facing the United States today. What …
Carrie Knowles Shifting Forward further into family and the next plain of life
Author Carrie Knowles joins us again this week to share from her latest book Shifting Forward: Fifty Reflections on Everyday Life. Carrie is a prolific writer and author having publishe…
The Last Childhood. Author Carrie Knowles and her family's journey through her mother's Alzheimer's disease
Author Carrie Knowles was awarded a North Carolina Arts Council grant to write her memoir in 1994. The Last Childhood: A Family Story of Alzheimer's recounts her arduous (is there any o…
Peter Popovich: The Particulars of the Pickleball Party. Everyone's invited.
Pickleball is a racquet/paddle sport that has risen from its humble beginnings in Bainbridge, Washington in 1965 to becoming a veritable tsunami sport of passion and play and community …
Dr. Peter Balsamo: A "true-line" for service and education in retirement
Dr. Peter Balsamo has spent the length and width of his life in higher education and service to the greater community. His story has an interesting turn in that he became a father in hi…
Dr. Stevan Jackson: "Til I can't" Redirecting in the later years.
Dr. Stevan Jackson is a ethnomusicologist and folklorist. Having taught at several universities over the course of his career, he now spends much of his time writing and performing. He'…
Dr. Jessie Piper: Grandparents Raising Grandchildren. Blessing or Burden?
Out of her own family trauma and into being raised by her grandmother, Dr. Piper followed a natural path into her study and research as a gerontologist and Assistant Professor at the Ce…
Dr. John Dempsey: When It Comes to Retirement, What's More Important: Math or Enthusiasm?
Dr. John Dempsey is coming to the close of a long and distinguished career. He started as a young naval officer in VietNam during the war, followed by a brief stint in the Carter Admini…
Nancy Ruffner: Inside the Kaleidoscope. Just When You Think It's Coming Into Focus, It Will Change.
Nancy Ruffner was a legal and financial specialist with a global EAP company for many years before facing the kaleidoscopic experience of her own parents' aging issues. Out of this, she…