Take 2 minutes - less, even - and follow along with James Adams in another of his popular Meditation Minutes, here on The Art 2 Aging.

Become still. Become calm…

Happiness.

We talk about it often on The Art 2 Aging for a number of pretty obvious reasons.

First, life is a lot easier and more fun when we’re happy, especially as we grow older.

Second, happiness doesn’t fall from the heavens. We have to create it within ourselves. Especially as we grow older.

And third, creating our own happiness can be difficult. It doesn’t come easily in the 21st century.

That’s why this week’s guest is unique. Dana Hilmer is a trained positive psychologist, executive coach and mentor.

She’s the founder of Wiser and Free, designed to help people live lives with happiness, purpose, and freedom.

But she’s way more than that.

She’s one of those rare human beings who walks her talk. Even when it’s painful to do so.

What makes this interview so special is how Dana shares honestly and openly her own issues and how she still manages to create happiness in her daily existence.

I will guarantee that you cannot help but be moved by her words.

Here is a link to Dana’s free workbook with content and resources to help anyone become happier.

If you are enjoying the content here on The Art 2 Aging, we would love you to become a paid subscriber. You get access to our entire archive of content along with our mid-week features like POV (Point of View) and Body and Soul. It really helps us to continue to generate meaningful information for older adults. Thank you!

We all want to control our lives.

We want to know in advance what’s going to happen if we go through Door #1, 2, or 3.

We want to know ahead of time if we should take that job despite a longer commute and more pressure.

We want to know before we dive in whether to marry that person or not - especially if it’s not our first marriage rodeo.

Wayne Lehrer, our resident sage at Body and Soul, offers his thoughts this week, in his latest Fortune Cookie.

Enjoy…

This episode first aired in 2024. We are recreating it as an Encore Experience.

So, you’re 53 years old and you get fired without warning. What do you do? Well, if you’re Gail Mercer-Mackay, you don’t panic. You go to Arizona to play golf for two weeks and do some serious journaling as well.

What Gail discovered (besides still having a slice) was that she wanted to be a writer. Long story short, she did become a writer and founded a content creation company in the process.

Today, the company routinely earns revenue in the millions and at the age of 69, Gail is still going strong. Hear her story this week on The Art 2 Aging.

If you are enjoying the content here on The Art 2 Aging, we would love you to become a paid subscriber. You get access to our entire archive of content along with our mid-week features like POV (Point of View) and Body and Soul. It really helps us to continue to generate meaningful information for older adults. Thank you!

The Art 2 Aging is thrilled that happiness expert, Kathie Donovan, is joining our Body and Soul content series.

Kathie walks her talk. So when she talks about getting happy and staying happy, she’s talking from her soul. She’s living it. She’s being it.

And her approach to becoming happy, is simple and clear. Like happiness itself!

For our paid subscribers

Older adults continue to have a tough time getting their resumes in front of employers.

There’s this thing called AI that has become yet another obstacle for those older folks who are trying to return to the workplace – either out of need or the simple desire to remain productive.

Heap AI on top of ageism and you have a formidable barrier to overcome.

Well, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, as the old saw goes.

Paul Chaney is 70 years old and he is a solo entrepreneur. He uses AI every day and is making a very nice living for himself as a content creator.

His views on AI, how companies should be using it and how those of us who are older can leverage it are enlightening and offer hope.

Paul is our guest this week on The Art 2 Aging and our conversation kicks off a series of discussions with others about AI in future episodes.

If you are enjoying the content here on The Art 2 Aging, we would love you to become a paid subscriber. You get access to our entire archive of content along with our mid-week features like POV (Point of View) and Body and Soul. It really helps us to continue to generate meaningful information for older adults. Thank you!

When we think about marketing or its close cousin, advertising, we often think Madison Avenue in New York and the famous TV series, Mad Men, about the men and women who populated the early days of mass marketing and advertising.

That series had liberal doses of sexism in each episode along with heavy smoking and drinking, all of which was perfectly accepted and tolerated back then.

What it didn’t have was any reference or after thought to ageism. It was a time in America when the vast majority were still young and becoming upwardly mobile.

But, as populations began to age, marketers often failed to realize the golden opportunity in front of them.

And, in many ways, they still fail to realize it.

This week on The Art 2 Aging, I talk with veteran marketer and product innovator, Costas Papaikonomou to get his thoughts on where marketing is right now and where it could be heading in a world of older consumers.

Costas ran his own agency, Happen Group, which was acquired by Accenture in 2019, and his clients ranked among the biggest consumer goods companies in the world. That makes his insights noteworthy.

If you are enjoying the content here on The Art 2 Aging, we would love you to become a paid subscriber. It really helps us to continue to generate meaningful information for older adults. Thank you!

In the Gospel of Matthew, we find this statement: “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

For many of us older adults, we have been carrying resentments big and small for a long time and the notion of loving those around us can be a tall order at times.

Wayne Lehrer, author of The Art of Conscious Aging, recommends what he calls a reconciliation - a balancing of the scales through which we first forgive ourselves before we can truly love ourselves, and only then do we have the capacity to fully love those around us.

This is the first of Wayne’s Fortune Cookies, as he calls them, for Body and Soul on The Art 2 Aging.