Do you feel like you’re the victim of ageism? Or–whether you’re 30, 40, 50, or beyond–that you are too old to make your dreams come true? In Dr. Carla’s work with thousands of people (as well as her own life journey), she has found that fears about aging can creep into our minds and cause anxiety and immobilizing self-doubt. And, as the benefits of youth are overemphasized in societies around the world, it’s easy to go down the rabbit hole of feeling unworthy, no longer relevant, or stuck. But you have the power to age well–body, mind, and spirit–by making a few positive, simple shifts in your life. Getting older doesn’t mean that you’re no longer attractive or valuable. You don’t need to be a victim of ageism or self-ageism! In fact, many find that their more mature years are the most vibrant and liberating.
In today’s episode, we’ll dive into how YOU can live your best, most joyful life at every age! Join Dr. Carla and expert Bill Webb, author of “So Much Left: Adventuring, Living, Working, Loving, and Creating Beyond 50” for an uplifting journey into the wild and wonderful journey of healthy aging. From exploring the secret to being sexy (at every age) to how movement fosters positive energy, this episode offers the “secret sauce” for loving yourself at every age. Topics discussed include aging, maturity, confidence, sexiness, movement, positivity, body-mind-spirit, yoga, stretching, photography, work, life roles, models, career, film, volunteering, exercise, walking, running, hiking, group support, support groups, friendships, support, positive change, and connection.
Please note that this episode may contain sensitive material; listener discretion is advised.
Emergency Assistance Note: If you or someone you know needs immediate support, please call your emergency services. In the US, 24/7 help is available by calling “911” or “988” (Suicide and Crisis Hotline). Support/informational links are in the show notes.
Books by Dr. Carla Manly:
Joy From Fear: Create the Life of Your Dreams by Making Fear Your Friend
Date Smart: Transform Your Relationships and Love Fearlessly
The Joy of Imperfect Love: The Art of Creating Healthy, Securely Attached Relationships
Oracle decks by Dr. Carla Manly:
Connect with Dr. Carla Manly:
Website: https://www.drcarlamanly.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drcarlamanly/
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/drcarlamanly/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drcarlamanly
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carla-marie-manly-8682362b/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dr.carlamariemanly8543
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dr_carla_manly
Books by Bill E. Webb:
So Much Left: Adventuring, Living, Working, Loving and Creating Beyond 50
Movie by Bill E. Webb:
Connect with Bill E. Webb:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bill.webb_srproductions/
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The Secret to a VIBRANT Body, Mind, and Spirit at Every Age with Expert Bill Webb
Feeling Old and Stuck? Discover the Simple Secrets to Healthy, Radiant Aging!
Do you feel like you are the victim of ageism or whether you are 30, 40, 50, or beyond, that you are too old to make your dreams come true? In my work with thousands of people as well as my own life journey, I found that fears about aging can creep into our minds and cause anxiety and loads of self-doubt. As the benefits of youth are overemphasized in societies around the world, it’s surely easy to go down the rabbit hole of feeling unworthy, no longer relevant or plain old stuck.
We’ll dive into how you can live your best life at every age. You don’t need to be a victim of issues like ageism and self-ageism. We’ll focus on this real-life question. “Please help me with two problems. First problem. I am divorced, my choice, and want to start dating, but I feel so old and certainly not sexy.”
“Second problem, I’m stuck and sort of depressed, but my kids are grown and out of the house, so I feel like I don’t have a purpose. What do you recommend?” This is the focus of this episode. Please note, as this episode may contain sensitive information, the reader’s discretion is advised. If you need support, please see the special links below.
I’m joined by a very special guest, Bill E. Webb, Author, Consultant, Filmmaker, Writer, and so much more. Bill will be sharing his expertise on living, loving, adventuring, creating, and working at 50 and beyond. Welcome to the show, Bill. It’s such a pleasure to have you join us.
Thank you so very much. It’s a pleasure to be here. I’m honored.
Embracing Life’s Journey: From Air Force to Filmmaking
Thank you, and before we launch in, I have a very interesting double question of the day or double issue. Could you tell our readers a little bit about what makes you, you?
I have been very lucky in my life. I’m very thankful. I have had 4 separate careers, all 4 of them have been exceptional and I have learned an enormous amount through those careers and through interacting with all the amazing people that I have had the chance to interact with over the years. I think that now, being older, being beyond 50, I’m able to love and to appreciate and to sit back and take a look at what’s going on. I’m very happy to be where I am. Although I’d like to be twenty years younger, but I think we all would.
I don’t know. That’s a good point. If somebody asked me to rewind my clock and go back twenty years, honestly, from my heart, I don’t think I would. This is from my perspective. I think that aging, getting older, maturing, however you want to look at it, let’s say somebody’s 30 and they go back to wipe off 20 years and being 10, could you imagine all that learning they have wiped out in those 20 years or someone who’s 50 who says, “I will go back to being 30.” Would you want to go through all of that learning again?
No. That’s always the caveat. If I could go back and still know what I know, then I would do it, but no. I’m very comfortable where I am, and I think that I’m happy. I’m happy to be where I am.
That’s why sometimes we say the little idioms like, “If I could only go back 20 years or 30 years or to my childhood.” I invite readers to think about that. If you find yourself saying, “I’m 50 or 60, I wish I could go back to my 20s.” Maybe there are people whose twenties were so trouble-free and glorious and that they do want to go back and relive them, but for those of us who have experienced many challenges throughout life, “Do I want to go back and do them again?” No.
I might wish that there were elements of, “I’m not sure I’d want to change anything,” but that’s another topic. Let’s look a little bit more about what makes you you, your background, where you are based, maybe a little bit about your work as a filmmaker, your work as an author. A little bit that will help our readers understand why you are a great expert in the area of aging.
I started out as an Air Force officer and didn’t retire. I only stayed in for about eight years. It gave me the opportunity to travel all over the world to operate in a fairly high level of government at the time due to what I was involved in. That was fun. I then had a career in big consulting. I worked for two big X firms that gave me, again, the opportunity to travel, to interact with an enormous amount of exceptionally talented, C-level people. That became something that allowed me to do quite well financially.
I went from that to starting the cybersecurity business that I sold several years ago. It was quite an experience of good and bad that, again, gave me the opportunity and enabled me to do things. When I finally sold the business, I was able to go back to my first love, which was film. I started out making fashion films because I looked down and I thought, “If that’s probably the quickest way for me to get noticed,” which oddly, the very first fashion film that I did was a short documentary called Gerro!. It won first place for a documentary at the Seattle Fashion Film Festival, and it was in small cans, not big cans that you see on TV, and in a bunch of other places, so I started making the movie.
I have written two books. One, a fiction book that unfortunately came out the week of 9/11, and because of the topic, it quickly went down the rabbit hole. I wrote a second book, which is the book you referenced about So Much Left: Adventuring, Living, Working, Loving and Creating Beyond 50. One of the stories in the book was about someone that I have known my entire life, and so I did a documentary film about him.
The shorter version of it has done quite well on the film festival circuit, but now I have a distributor and you’ll get to see it sometime in 2026. It’ll be on one of the streamers. I’m excited about that as well. All of these things allow you to grow. They allow you to think differently and outside the box. For me, it’s made me so thankful for life, for every second that I’m alive. It’s changed my attitude tremendously.
You can sit there and watch life go by, or you can choose to keep moving physically and mentally. Share on XWhat a beautiful backstory. As you were speaking, being an Air Force officer, being a consultant, having a cybersecurity firm, it sounds like you have lived several lifetimes in 1 life and “only 8 years” dedicated to our country. That alone is huge. I appreciate the wealth of experience and joy, perseverance, creativity that you bring in your book. Before I get into your book in a second, your accent. I’m hearing an accent. I can’t tell if it’s from Pennsylvania, Texas or world travel.
I have lived all over and I tend to pick up where I live. I live now in Florida, which has a more Southern twang to it, but I tend to pick up the accents of wherever I am. I live in Florida now, and so that’s probably a little of what you hear.
Where were you born?
I was born on the road on my Waycross, Georgia. My parents lived in Jacksonville and they were driving back, and the Waycross is on the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia on the Georgia-Florida line, and she had me there. I was born in Georgia, even though I have never lived there.
You were born on the road.
That probably gave me the impetus to stay on the road for a great majority of my life. That’s where I am from. I went to high school in North Carolina, and then, like I say, since leaving, I have traveled, lived, and worked all over the world. I have been very fortunate.
You’ve given us a perfect metaphor. I like the idea of looking at life as staying on the road, and thank you for that beautiful image, because many times we pull over and park our lives on the side of the road and we watch life going by, yet it’s our choice to get on that road of life. Work it, play with it, create with it.
Exploring Purpose and Confidence Beyond 50
Sure, sometimes we’ll stall out a bit. We might get stuck in the mud a bit, but then it’s our choice to find the resources to reach out to people, loved ones, whatever it might be, to help us get unstuck rather than sidelined, and it sounds like you’ve done a fabulous job and your book. Let’s move into your book. Your book is beautiful. I love the title So Much Left: Adventuring, Living, Working, Loving and Creating Beyond 50.
What would you say to our reader, to their question? I’m sensing it’s a female who wrote in, but it doesn’t matter what the gender is. What would you say? They have put two issues on the table for the purpose of this episode. We can say she to make it easy. She has two distinct problems. One, this can be something a man feels as well, but not feeling sexy in your skin. She’s divorced by her own choice and she wants to get out there and date, but she doesn’t feel good in her body. That’s question one.
Question two is, she wants some help with this feeling of purposelessness and we can surmise that maybe she was a part-time or full-time stay-at-home mom, kids are gone and she’s saying, “Now what do I do?” Probably a little too old to become a pilot in the Air Force specifically. Not that she ever told me to take private pilot lessons, but they are expensive. What would you say to her on those two fronts and tackle them as slowly as you like?
First of all, with the dating question and the body image and all that, there are several stories in my book. My book is a collection of stories of people dealing with being beyond 50, and there are several stories in there of people who found themselves single, either by becoming, because their partner died or they got divorced or whatever. The whole idea of keeping moving.
There was a neurologist in my book who told me that it’s something that I have tried to make a part of my life, and that is, you have to keep moving physically. A lot of times, people get older and you find that, you quit working out, you quit eating well. When you are younger, you are taking care of yourself, or you have the metabolism back then or you didn’t have to worry about it.
Sexy is an attitude. It's confidence. Share on XThat keeps moving physically, I find that in myself, the harder I workout, the more it pumps up the hormones and the better I feel and, conversely, the better I look. I have gone through ebbs and flows, but for the most part, now in particular, I’m in better shape than most twenty-year-olds. I have twenty-something sons and they are always like, “I can’t believe you this,” and it’s like it’s a choice.
Keeping moving physically is important for that to help you create a positive body image. Keeping moving emotionally, mentally, and spiritually is also extremely important, and it helps with that feeling of nothingness, which is the second question that she added. I have had a lot of people ask me that after reading the book, “I have been here and I have become a couch potato and I haven’t read a book or seen a movie or something in five years or something.”
The first thing I said, “Turn to that page and read what she says. She’s a neurologist, she works with aging. She gives a lot of exceptionally good advice too about things that you ought to do as you age.” The idea of keeping moving particularly physically and mentally keeps yourself on that road rather than sitting by watching life go by. That would be my first advice to anybody.
I can tell you I’m trying to live it. I go to the gym probably five days a week, I ride my bike, and I walk. I don’t run anymore because my hips won’t take it. In the book, I had another one, Chip Sigmund, who is someone that I grew up with, another person that I grew up with. He is one of the people who started specialized strength training in sports.
A long time ago, when I played football many years ago, we didn’t have specialized strength training, and in fact, there was this idea that you could become muscle-bound. There’s a good story of how he became a strength coach and he was one of the people that started it, but he works with a lot of people now over 50. He also works with world-class athletes. He used to be with the Steelers. He’s somewhere else now. He works with people over 50, men and women, and he brings them in and he works with them and he shows them what they should be doing and gives them advice.
I’m a very avid yoga. I go to yoga a couple of times a week now, particularly hot yoga, but I think that in the end, it’s your decision as it is any time in life, but particularly as you age. You can sit there and you can go, “I can’t do this or feel bad about it.” I’m not saying that the woman who asked the question that was the issue at all, but I’m saying that you have to decide to keep moving.
Starting Small: Fitness and Self-Care Tips
I’m with you 100%, and that when we slow it down for readers who might be thinking, “I don’t have enough money to have a gym membership or personal trainer,” or, “I’m too much overweight, and that seems like too much out of reach.” Everyone, baby steps. When we are starting from scratch, especially if you are not at all in shape or finances are an issue, all of those real life things, baby steps.
Start with a commitment to walk around your block 3 mornings a week, 3 evenings a week after dinner, something small, and you’ll find, I imagine you might agree with this, that when you babystep it, if you immerse yourself in that moment, instead of saying, “I have to do this because it’s good for my aging health or whatever it is, my old body,” if you shift it to, “I want to do this as a gift for myself, be with myself, time to move my body, time to take care of my body, this is a privilege and a joy.”
I can say this because this is the way I walk 5 miles walk-ish run every morning, and it’s such a commitment to me. It’s part of my body, mind, and spirit that if somebody tries to keep me from doing it like if there’s an impediment, it’s like, “No, this is my way. This is my gift to me. I give to people all throughout the day and evening. This is my time for me.” If we make that commitment, even a small one, I will stretch for fifteen minutes on the floor. Whatever it is. I will watch a ten-minute yoga video and see if I can get into it. That’s a great baby step. What do you say?
I wish I had talked to you. I wish I had known you when I wrote my book because that’s brilliant advice. Carving it up piece by piece and doing it is extremely important. It’s like yoga. When you practice yoga, you are not there to be in competition with anybody. Yoga, perfect. It’s what you and your body can do. A lot of times, particularly with physical exercise, I know people who are overweight and I have had discussions with them and you hear all the, “I can’t change this,” but I have a friend, she started out. She was very petite and she married a good friend of mine and he eventually died, but they were having problems in the relationship.
During the relationship during her marriage, she gained an enormous amount of weight three times during her little petite size that she had. She did the same thing. She was going like, “I can’t do this.” I said, “You need to do something.” It’s like Suzanne Warden in the book who somebody else I went to school with. She almost died and she decided she was going to run. I used this story when I was talking to my friend. That’s how it’s connected, and she decided she was going to run.
She went out and she started going between telephone poles or mailboxes and she would run the thing. When she first started it, she was like, “I hate this. I don’t want to do this. This is the most miserable thing that I have ever had anything to do with, but she kept on with it. In the book, it’s an amazing story, but she ended up like she runs every weekend now and she’s at least 67 or 68. She runs every weekend with her husband all over the place.
They have traveled places. She lives in Orlando, but they go and she runs and she does this religiously. She’s become like one of my physical muses because it’s amazing. I celebrate every week when she posts the new picture of herself in whatever running uniform she’s got on, but she started. She didn’t want to do it at first, and I used that with my friend. She posted a picture of herself the other day on Facebook and it’s miraculous because it’s working. She went out and she did it. It’s manageable choices, but you have to make the commitment to do it.
You are right and I love that story because we can envision it. Run between telephone poles, walk between telephone poles from one to the other, from this point to that point. I was speaking with someone and he had an injury. The recovery seemed like it would never happen. It was one exercise a day and this one and over time, that built to another and another.
You brought up yoga. I’m such a firm believer in using yoga as an image for people to see, even if you don’t like practicing yoga, it helps us see that society can create what they want. The beautiful yoga clothes that you have to wear this and you have to look like that, but that’s not what yoga is about. I’m a yoga practitioner and yoga teacher and yoga is about moving the body to keep it supple.
It is about the overall body, mind and spirit. It’s not about looking cute in your yoga clothes, although if you do that, that’s great. When you are practicing even in a room full of people who might seem to have it all down, it’s not about them. It’s about you. For our readers’ questions and all of our readers, you keep taking it back to what’s right for me, what feels good to my body. That’s why I love that you brought up the yoga piece because there are so many yoga poses and yoga stretches. You might not like hot yoga, you might not like an hour-long yoga class. Do a ten-minute yoga video that is largely a resting pose and that is a great place.
I agree with it. During the pandemic, that became a wonderful thing because I took yoga via online with a friend of mine who lived down in the Keys, but also I discovered, like anything else on YouTube, there were 1 million yoga videos. If I wanted to do it, I could. I’m fortunate I have quite a few yoga clans here. My friend that does the weightlifting. The first thing that he tells all these professional athletes is that you need to do yoga because it allows you to stretch.
I like the Zen of it as well, the whole spiritual, mental piece. I’m at the age now where I need stretching badly. Being male and older is even worse because our bodies don’t quite stretch. When I was younger, we didn’t do it. People didn’t even think about it, and it’s like now, I can’t go a week without doing some yoga. It’s amazing.
Cultivating Confidence and Feeling Sexy in Your Skin
It is very good for the body, mind and spirit. Let’s pivot for a moment because you brought up weights. Let’s pivot to the she no longer feels sexy, and I hear this a lot with my older clients. Readers also hear this a lot with my younger clients. Feeling sexy in one’s skin, although it might be harder when we are older, it’s something that comes from the inside out.
If we are feeling good and confident and comfortable in our skin, and you have brought up weightlifting, even if it means you pick up a little three-pound weight and do curls while on the phone to your girlfriend or your boyfriend or guys or family members, whatever it is. When you feel a little bit more toned by doing a few leg lifts or sit-ups or whatever it is, I believe that our ownness doesn’t have to be that we are skinny and it means that we feel good in the skin.
One of the ways to do that is to do those little exercises that make us feel like we are starting somewhere like, “I can do this. I rock a little bit.” When it comes to the sexiness piece, I know as a woman, when I look at people, I’m not a judgy person. I’m more feeling somebody’s energy. I don’t look at somebody and say, “They are old and unattractive,” or, “They are young and attractive.” I’m reading energy and I’m looking at, “Is that person smiling at me? Are they energized? Are they radiating joy?” To me, that’s what’s attractive. If you give me a handsome face or a pretty face and they are scowling or mean or cruel, I don’t find it attractive at all.
I think sexy is an attitude, personally. It’s being older has helped me come to grips with on my own, but it’s an attitude. It’s confidence. I have this conversation with a lot of women friends of mine, even though, again, with a guy, all of a sudden you wake up one day, I used to have flowing blonde hair. I look like Robert Plant from Led Zeppelin when I was younger. I had shoulder-length hair one time, but then all of a sudden, you wake up one day and it’s like, “This isn’t growing what it used to.”
As far as women go, I would tell her it is an attitude. Whatever your workout is, if it’s doing 100 hundred setups a day, and like you said, you don’t even have to have weights. You can grab something, do some curls, and get some tone, which is important. From a male perspective, I think that women probably are more sexy and desirable the older they get because they tend to have shed off all the things, all of some of the issues of youth. I won’t go way off into that.
For the most part, older women are sexy, and I don’t think it’s because I’m older, because I have talked with my sons about that. We grew up in a time when we were very lucky dating. The time we grew up in was a magnificent time for dating in particular, and for exploring and having a good time. It was completely different from the world my sons are growing up in now.
Just having the desire isn't enough. You have to take action. Share on XIt’s very funny because my younger son finds he’s attracted. He’s 27 and a lot of the women that he’s attracted to are boring, which when I was 27, I probably wouldn’t have thought of at the time. I didn’t mean that the way that came out. I find it wonderful is probably a better word to do, but I think it’s the attitude. There again, in the book, there’s a story about somebody who wanted to be a model when she was growing up. She lived in New York.
At the time, she had dark hair and dark skin at the time of Christie Brinkley and Rachel Hunter and those models, which are all blonde. She was a buyer. She married an ambassador and traveled all over the world. Now she’s one of the most sought-after models in the world, and she doesn’t dye her hair, but that’s what she was telling me. She said, “Whatever age you are, rock it. It doesn’t matter whether you are 50 or you are 60, 70, 80, or my mother is 95 now. Just go for it, whatever age you are, embrace it, and do it with confidence. Just rock it.”
I’m with you on that. Thank you for that perspective and, in particular, a male perspective. Your son sounds so precious. I think it’s natural to look at someone, whether they are a bit younger or a bit older, and be attracted to equality. It sounds as if your 27-year-old son is looking at a 40-something woman guy. I like confidence and maturity, and as you said, I like the shedding of all that stuff.
If we age well, if we age mindfully, we are all aging for a minute we are born, we are aging, but a 30-year-old who’s aging mindfully, consciously can have this gorgeous attractiveness like a 50 or 60-year-old who’s aging consciously and mindfully and embracing life. You can see somebody of any age who’s whether they are 30 or 80, hardening is not that glorious unfolding that I believe makes people attractive at every age. If they are unfolding, loving life, feeling their feelings, transforming and working the journey of life, it’s one of the most attractive things of all.
I’m with you. I agree 100%.
Addressing the Challenge of Finding Purpose
Our joint suggestions to her are about work on confidence. Work on feeling comfy in your skin, which starts with self-love, self-awareness, some self-growth, and also the part about tone your body. Watch what you are eating, take good care of yourself, and get a good night’s sleep so that you feel good in this home because this body is the one home we get in this lifetime. The more we take care of it, the more it’s going to show that plus genetics. Moving to Part B, which is purposelessness. It sounds as if she doesn’t maybe have a job outside the home. The kids are out and now she’s saying, “I don’t have a purpose. How do I fix this?” What do you say?
I put that under the heading of keeping moving. The more you open yourself up to stimulus, whether it’s reading a book or going to a movie or binge-watching Netflix as I do on more than one occasion, asking yourself, I don’t know if she’s retired or if she’s now the see empty nest syndrome and there’s no kids there to focus on anymore, I think it’s a liberating time. You can be anything you want to be. It’s like when I finally sold my cybersecurity company, I was able to do exactly what I wanted to do then, and fortunately, I was financially secure enough to be able to do it too.
You look back and I looked inward and said, “What is it I want to do?” It’s because I have had friends. They retire and they find out that after they played six months of golf, that’s it. I was like, “Is this all there is?” There are so many ways. I had a teacher who’s also in my book who began going to Africa and working with these religious organizations, building schools and wells and doing this thing.
I know other people who started working for Habitat for Humanity. I know people who have gone back and decided several times to do something completely different as long as it makes sense. By the time you are 65, going to medical school probably isn’t going to work, but at the end of the day, whatever it is you want to do, as long as it’s not something like being a commercial airline pilot, which for obvious reasons has a limit, you can do anything you want to do. Pick something and do it.
That’s the thing with the internet. The internet allows you to be whatever you want to be. If you want to learn photography, you can get on YouTube and learn how to be a photographer or videographer, edit, and do a podcast. There are so many things that you can do. Do what you want and set your own rules. Make your own rules. Do whatever you want to do.
Overcoming Fear and Defining New Roles in Life
For some people where they may be living their whole life in the present like, “I’m going to raise the kids. This is my job,” they don’t look ahead and think. They are so busy tending to the here and now, which is normal. Sometimes it’s a lot of survival mode. One day when you wake up and you are alone, whether you are 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, the idea of, “The world’s my oyster. I get that cognitively, but I’m scared.”
That’s why it’s so important. In my second book, Aging Joyfully, I call out that we wear these banners in life unconsciously. “I’m a mom, I’m a worker, I’m the dutiful daughter,” whatever it is. “I’m the provider, I’m the med student, I’m the lawyer, I’m the bad guy,” whatever they are. I love how you talk about aging as being liberating because I believe in my book, the way I approach it is, “This is the time you get to choose your roles.” Whether you call yourself old at 30, 40 or 50, pause.
Finding your tribe or your community is part of living a healthy life. Share on XLook at that banner you are wearing across your chest. It’s like the beauty pageant banner, which is how I envision it. Look at it. Is it saying what you want it to say? Is it saying it is emblazoned with all these words and roles that you took by default and/or ones that you accepted but no longer suit you, and you start creating? Literally, you can get out a piece of paper and create a new banner for yourself or fabric, but what do you want to be? By getting it concretized, it’s less scary. You might write on that banner.
This speaking to our reader. “I want to be a writer. I want to make jam. I want to be creative. I want to be a volunteer.” Write those things down. “I want to learn to relax.” Anything that is in your conscious or allowing those unconscious hopes and dreams to come forward. I love your idea of let’s join Habitat for Humanity. “Let’s go to Africa and volunteer,” but that may feel very scary, or it may seem like something so farfetched that this person might never ever imagine it. Once you become aware of some things you might like to do, what would you tell this particular reader and all of our readers? How do you get from the concept in your head and your heart? How do you go forward and do it?
I interviewed Dian Griesel who is Silver Disobedience®. She has one of the largest internet followings around. When we were talking for the book, and I was on her podcast as well. You can say I have always wanted to be a writer, for instance, but you can’t become a writer until you sit down in front of that blank page and start typing it out. Just having the desire isn’t enough. You have to sit down and take it into account. You have to have some planning. What would it take for me to learn how to build birdhouses? You have to sit down and figure it out but just thinking it isn’t enough. You have to actually do it. That’s the key. You have to have the courage to take the first step.
In parts of my life, I have had the same problem sometimes. It’s probably the banner except yours was more like, “I’m a dad, I’m an Air Force officer. I’m this or that.” Too many times, people start making banners with rationalizations and excuses as to why they can’t do something. They start playing this thing in their head that goes like, “I’d turn back if I were you.” You have to push beyond that. Maybe it’s baby steps or something small, as you suggest.
Let’s say you wanted to make films. The first thing you’ve got to do if you learn how to make films is you better understand the language of film. You need to learn how to take a series of scenes and create more. If you are going to do that, you’ve got to learn how to use the camera. You’ve got to learn how to use audio, you’ve got to learn how to light, but you don’t learn all that stuff all at one time. You pick it up. I can tell you from my film experience, from doing the documentary that’s coming out, I probably made every mistake that any human being could have made.
You sit back and you go like, “Nobody told me about this and nobody told me about that.” You have to understand that failure is normal. Unless you are some genius who at 60 sits down and finds out that you can play Elton John or something from memory on the piano and never have taken a lesson. I have met people who have done something similar to that. Unless you have some hidden talent that you don’t realize, you are going to have to work for it, you are probably going to fail or at least make mistakes and everything, but at the end of the day, by now, you should understand that none of the stuff is brain surgery. Nobody’s going to die if you make a mistake.
It’s like the yoga practice, the analogy. There are days when I can’t do the most simple balance pose, or I can do it on one side and not on the other. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. There’s nobody there grading you. There’s not going to be a headline. “Bill can’t do a crow pose.” Nobody cares. It’s for me. It’s what I’m trying to do to bring meaning. I would say know you are going to make mistakes, but know that none of it is terminal.
Building Support Systems for Personal Growth
I’d like to pause there for a minute before we start winding down because first, you talk about Dian Griesel and Silver Disobedience®. She’s lovely. I was on her podcast. She has energy, and we are talking about energy. She has this lovely, eternally youthful energy, eternally dynamic. Readers, look inside yourself, your energy, at what you want to work on energetically.
That’s the part that, as Bill’s saying, when you break down your dreams into baby steps, what can you do? Bring that energy. You can amplify that energy. You can set your fears aside, which is so important because those fears come up and they say, “You shouldn’t, you can’t do that.” Here’s what I found to be very helpful. Lean into what you are saying, Bill.
Get supporters. Get people in your court. Whether it’s your best friend, your partner, a community group that you work with, or your lone sole friend down the street, your neighbor, whatever it might be, get someone who has your back, who can be your cheerleader. I am such a believer. Sometimes, we bring a lot to the table and a lot of energy, but having at least one cheerleader in your court is so important.
As well as if you want to be a writer, sometimes you don’t want to look on YouTube, although it’s a valuable resource. There may be community support situations in your area, whether it’s a junior college, community center, writing club, or film club. Don’t underestimate the power of meeting other people who love what you do.
They are not your competitors. They are your comrades. There’s a club for almost anything. You want to learn to sew from home, make jam from home, sell cookies from home. You are going to find a club somewhere, and it might be online of people who can support you because it’s scary to start a new life on your own. Whether you are 30, 40, 50, whatever, you might be 100, get people behind you. It’s so much more fun.
I agree. Finding your tribe and community is part of living a healthy life and being able to go out and bounce ideas off of people. That’s the thing in the film community, I started, I didn’t know anybody else that made films and now I’m involved with people all over the world in exchanging ideas and bemoaning the economics of the film profession. I think that finding that tribe is important no matter what you want to do. You are right. There’s some club or connection of people about anything that you could ever dream of.
Bill’s Must-Read Book & Upcoming Movie
It’s an uplifting tribe. Those mistakes that we all make help us learn from them. They help us pivot. They help us see that we are not alone. It’s why I called my show Imperfect Love. We are all imperfect. We are all going to make mistakes. It’s how we get up and move forward that creates. Bill, are there any other final bits you’d like to offer to our readers before we wrap up?
I would like to offer my book So Much Left. If you can find it, and it’s still in print, my fiction book was called Image of the Dragon. It’s a very quick read. It came from a screenplay that I wrote a long time ago in a galaxy far away. A lot of it was based on some of my military experience in Japan when I lived there. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. I have the website for the movie Sunlight, which will now have a different name, and it’ll be considered a different movie because it’s going to be an hour and a half. That should be out sometime in 2026.
Here you have it. This is our wonderful guest, Bill E. Webb. Thank you so much.
Thank you so much. I deeply appreciate it. It was such a privilege to do it, and you are going to have to see your books as well. Send me the names of them if you would, so that I can go read them. They sounded fascinating.
Thank you. We will trade info.
I appreciate it. Thank you.
Such a joy and a pleasure, and to our readers, thank you so much for being with us. I hope this episode has been uplifting and helped you see that no matter how old you are in chronological years, you are a joyful life with so much to offer, and thank you for sharing your time with us, and this is Imperfect Love.
Important Links
- So Much Left: Adventuring, Living, Working, Loving and Creating Beyond 50
- Aging Joyfully
- Image of the Dragon
- Bill E. Webb on Instagram
- Sunlight
- NAMI
- NCOA
- Dr. Carla Manly
- Dr. Carla Manly on Instagram
- Dr. Carla Manly on Twitter
- Dr. Carla Manly on Facebook
- Dr. Carla Manly on LinkedIn
- Dr. Carla Manly on Youtube
- Dr. Carla Manly on TikTok
About Bill E. Webb
Bill Webb is a veteran, photographer, videographer and former small business creator, technology and management consultant with several of the finest large businesses in America.
His photography and writing have appeared in Japanese Playboy, Associated Press, National Review, Asia Pacific Defense Forum and more. He is a graduate of the University of Nevada-Reno and the University of Oklahoma.
His “fun, fun” jobs have included 21 dealer, radio and TV on-air talent, ski instructor, editor, dad and coach.