Late Bloomer Living Podcast

The Late Bloomer Living Podcast is going on an unexpected break.

Life has been throwing some curveballs lately and I need to focus on my family for a bit. I hope to be back soon. 

If you're a regular listener, thank you for being here over the years.

There are over 280 episodes in the back catalogue that you can go back to.  The content is evergreen, so please explore the older episodes.  

You can visit latebloomerliving.com/podcast and search by topic and key words if there's anything particular that you're looking for. 

I hope to continue my weekly livestreams of the Salty Sisters Show every Friday at 3:00 pm ET.  You can find those at https://www.youtube.com/@latebloomerliving/live

I’m 58. I broke my arm last fall, and I’m rebuilding my strength one five-pound curl at a time. So when Cat Corchado and I went live for Salty Sisters on International Ageism Awareness Day, I brought all the questions I’ve been quietly googling.

Cat is a 20-year Air Force veteran, a former bodybuilder, and the founder of Small Space Pilates, and she doesn’t sugarcoat anything. We cover whether it’s ever too late to start (spoiler: it isn’t), how heavy “heavy” really is, why you don’t need a gym, and what strength training does for your bones, your balance, and your brain. Along the way she retires the pink dumbbells, calls out the washboard-abs ads, and explains why she’s a vintage 1975 purple Porsche.

This one isn’t about getting skinny. It’s about getting up off the floor, opening your own jars, and carrying your own groceries at 90.

Want to move with Cat? Her next free 11-Minute Challenge runs November 9 to 13 at smallspacepilates.com, and her free brain health symposium is streaming October 12 to 16 at 7pm ET.

🌻 If you’re feeling inspired, I’d love for you to share your thoughts about this episode. Please leave a review.

 🌻 Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode!

Somewhere around 40, I started catching my reflection and thinking, "Wait. Who is that?" It wasn't a curious question. It was more of a flinch. Eighteen years and a lot of unlearning later, I mostly like the woman looking back. That took some work.

And yet…. Even after all these years, I’m not immune to wanting to look younger.  This episode starts off with my own confession. 

Kat Miller knows that flinch, too. When she was younger, she picked herself apart: the chin that never quite showed up, the neckline, the knees that bumped out. Now people tell her how pretty she was back then, and her answer is perfect: "I never saw it, so it was completely wasted on me."

I'm Yvonne Marchese, and on this Salty Sisters replay, Cat Corchado and I talk with Kat. She has been a counselor for nearly 40 years, and she's a TEDx speaker, a Wonderment Catalyst and the founder of Age Freely. She's writing a book about what she calls declines and expansions. She doesn't sugarcoat the declines. Things slow. Things sag. But she's convinced something grows alongside every loss, and we miss it because we're staring so hard at what's slipping away.

We get into why Kat sees life after 60 as a developmental stage full of invitations, what a slower brain might be handing us, and who makes money keeping us afraid of getting older. I also blurt out an opinion about "cute" old people, and Kat calls it ageist. She's not wrong.

And somewhere in the middle, I admit that I've been more afraid of aging than of dying. If that one lands for you too, pull up a chair.

Connect with Kat Miller

🌻 If you’re feeling inspired, I’d love for you to share your thoughts about this episode on social media and tag me @latebloomerliving.

What if the voice telling you you're too old isn't really yours?

Cat and I have a confession. The word "self-care" makes us both cringe a little. That phrase is pushed in our faces so often that it's starting to feel like one more thing on the to-do list. So in this replay of our Salty Sisters livestream, we call it "the S word" instead, and we talk about what taking care of yourself looks like in midlife. It's not all bubble baths and spa days.

Some context: As I was planning this episode, the calendar gave me three gifts on one day. It was National Rice Krispie Treat Day, the day before National Talk Like a Pirate Day, and smack in the middle of Self-Care Awareness Month. So yes, I eat a Rice Krispie Treat on camera. Yes, we read self-care affirmations in pirate voices. And no, neither of us can do a convincing pirate. Cat does every accent except that one.

Under all the "yarrr," though, it turns into one of our most honest conversations. Cat opens up about a hard year and the things that got her through it, from ugly crying to hiding in her car in the garage playing phone games so she wouldn't snap at anyone she loved. We talk about how hard it is to take care of yourself when you're caring for someone else, and why an hour of help is worth asking for. (And please don't spend that hour at the grocery store.)

In this episode:

It's messy, it's sticky, and it's a reminder that laughing with a friend counts as self-care.

🌻 If you're feeling inspired, I'd love for you to share your thoughts about this episode on social media and tag me @latebloomerliving.

Valerie Thurston never planned to write a book when she was 78, but after the death of her husband 17 years ago, a story stayed with her until she finally gave herself permission to write it.

In this episode, Valerie joins Yvonne and Cat to talk about grief, legacy, self-publishing, and her novel Food Poisoning: A Family Saga of Love, Betrayal, and the Fight for Legacy.

This is a grounded, heartfelt conversation for anyone carrying a story, a loss, or a second chapter that has been waiting to be lived.

Nobody's ready. I'm still not ready to do half the things I do.

I'm Yvonne Marchese, and this week my Salty Sister Cat Corchado and I get into where confidence actually comes from, which is not where most of us keep looking for it. Confidence is the receipt. It's not the ticket that gets you in.

Cat learned an entire business late in life by pushing buttons until something worked. I sat on the idea for this podcast for two years before I pressed record, and the reasons I gave people were not the real reason.

A few things that came up:

Somewhere in the middle of all this we accidentally named a segment. "Have you fallen down on your diaper lately?" 😜

So what's the thing you're still waiting to feel ready for...

—

Season 7 of Late Bloomer Living is the Salty Sisters season. Every Wednesday you're hearing the audio from Friday's live show on YouTube, where you can jump in with questions while it's happening. Come find us at 3pm Eastern on the Late Bloomer Living channel.

Cat's free 11-Minute Challenge runs October 5–9. Sign up at smallspacepilates.com.

Six years. 281 episodes. And today I'm shaking it up like a snow globe.

**And hit the subscribe button while you're there!

If you've ever caught yourself thinking "I'm too old for that" — this one's for you.

After six years of hosting a podcast about ageism, I still catch myself having ageist thoughts. About myself. And I think that's worth talking about honestly — because the truth is, none of us chose these beliefs. We absorbed them. Long before we were old enough to question them, we were being taught what aging was supposed to look like, what older women were supposed to want, and when it was time to stop trying.

And when we don't question that programming? We shrink. We talk ourselves out of things before we even try. We make ourselves smaller — not because we have to, but because nobody ever told us we didn't have to.

In this Season 6 finale, I'm getting honest about the ageist thoughts I still catch myself having, why that's not something to be ashamed of, and what it actually takes to start changing the beliefs that are quietly limiting you.

Season 7 launches September 2nd

At what age are women officially supposed to stop starting new things?

According to Trish Appello, never.

At 55, Trish gave herself permission to do the thing she'd always wanted — and what followed was background work on Orange Is the New Black, a film producing certificate from UCLA at 62, and eventually creating The EffYou 50s, a comedy series about four women who decide the rules of midlife simply don't apply to them anymore.

In this conversation, we talk about what it actually looks like to start before you feel ready, how she built her way into the film industry one scrappy step at a time, and why she says her age isn't a liability — it's a superpower. If you've ever caught yourself asking "who do I think I am?" — this one's for you.

🌻 If you’re feeling inspired, I’d love for you to share your thoughts about this episode on social media and tag me @latebloomerliving.

🌻Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode! 

🌻 Need a little more FUN in your life? Come to The PLAYshop!  Sign up for the waitlist and get in on the fun! 🛼 💥

You can also join the Late Bloomer Living Community for more fun and inspiration as we navigate midlife together. Find out more at https://www.latebloomerliving.com/