Episode 1: The Origin Story and Where We're Headed

Welcome to Late Bloomer Living!

I’m so excited to finally be starting this project I call Late Bloomer Living!

I’ve been thinking it over for more than a year, but I put it on the back burner while I focused on growing my photography business. The thing is… I just can’t wait anymore!  You know how it is when you have a big scary project you want to work on and you keep telling yourself you’re not ready yet? Well, this is where I draw a line in the sand!

This podcast will mostly be interviews with people who have in some way, shape or form reinvented themselves in MidLife.  I’ll be telling these stories in the hopes that it will inspire anyone who’s feeling stuck to take their own next steps towards their big dreams.  Let me rephrase that… I’m really talking to you!  I’m talking about you taking on your next big adventure, your next chapter… So this first episode is going to be a little different… It’s just me… No guest… which by the way, scares the crap out of me!  But, I want to give you a sense of what to expect and where I’m coming from.

Doing something new in midlife comes with a host of issues… expectations, fear, excitement, anxiety… Being a beginner at something is a natural thing when you’re young and everything is new.  When we were young we were in a constant state of being a beginner, and we developed muscles that helped us navigate new situations.  We didn’t know any better and there was no other choice other than to accept being a newbie and just take the steps necessary to learn that new thing.  As we get older, we work those beginner muscles way less often, so when we try doing something new it can seem like an overly heavy lift. 

One of the shows that originally inspired me to create a story based podcast is the show This American Life headed up by Ira Glass.  He has a great quote about being a beginner that I revisit often….

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”