We were lucky to catch up with Kim Kane recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kim, appreciate you joining us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

I have always loved to tell and listen to story telling. I learned early on it is a great way to engage in conversations and bringing home a point in a non-invasive or pushy way. As a young child we moved many times. As a result I learned to use story telling or story gathering as a way to make friendships. Most people, even very young people, enjoy talking about themselves. The key is to ask the questions to illicit continued conversations. I enjoyed learning about others and listening to their stories connected to a variety of topics I would bring up. It is no wonder I entered my college learning career within the counseling department.

As I grew within my career in education and working with students, my developed skillset as a listener was very helpful. Listening and guiding people in ways to make changes or finding resources, spilled into my personal life. As I worked, I continued to have wonderful poignant stories swimming around in my mind and many ideas, resources and general life guidance ready to be shared with others. But how would I share all of my stories and lessons learned both personal and professional? How could I be a better link for people?

I knew I enjoyed speaking with others, however, I found myself starting to wonder if speaking to larger groups in professional settings would become even more helpful. I also knew that speaking in front of people was something I was nervous to do…something like I’d rather have pink eye! Yet, I also wanted to make an imprint with others by giving information, and speaking to large groups. Public speaking seemed to be a perfect vehicle to do just that.

So I took a risk. I started letting others know I would love to gain experience with speaking more and asked for the opportunities. Even saying the words out loud of wanting to speak in public sent me into panic mode. It’s one thing to speak with friends or people I knew even a bit, but an entirely different experience to speak in large groups of people in which I knew no one.

Luckily someone took me up on the offer to share job related research with 50 staff members. The number could have been 5000 for all the angst I felt. I remember wanting to appear professional and organized in spite of profuse sweating and having to use the restroom right up to the moment of presenting! It turned out to be a wonderfully terrifying experience…and I knew I wanted to do more of this.

I have been lucky to have traveled across the US and Aruba and Mexico as a speaker on a variety of topics. It was a risk I am so glad I took. I continue to meet people and listen to their stories and antidotes to life’s trials and experiences. Adding to my wonderful basket of life lessons to be shared. I currently speak primarily on aging and finding ways to stay in gratitude. I still love story telling….especially the ones that make us laugh!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am an award winning author, speaker and coach for women and the aging process. I see myself as someone who encourages women in particular, to live not only the length of their life but also the width. Women in particular have not been encouraged to shift out of our lanes. We tend to believe there are certain expectations for us and unfortunately, most of us have acquiesced to those expected societal norms. Women often find themselves fulfilling their needs second to others. Often this leads to the sense time is running out and as a result, so are our opportunities to run outside the lines with our ideas, trying new things and truly embracing all of who we are. So we push our desires to the back of the closet

How the negative messaging on aging affected me is the impetus for my deciding to write a book about women and aging. Once I turned 50 I was pretty sure things would begin to turn downwards for me, including all of my ideas daydreams falling away. I was straddling the worlds of my children and my parents all while balancing my own work and day to day functions. It was hard and became harder. Not only was I trying to manage Alzheimer’s care for both parents and changes my kids were entering into, I was also changing physically, emotionally and spiritually. I noticed hairs sprouting in places I would prefer they not; noises coming out of me when getting up from sitting and the strong desire to eat earlier and go to bed soon after., to name only a few And I needed to know I was not alone!

So I gathered over 200 women over 50 years old in age in smaller groups for interviews. I asked all of the women age-related questions. These small groups were one of the best things I did to gather information about aging. I thankfully learned, indeed, I was not alone! Yay!

These interviews, along with my own stories were shared in my book ‘Sparkle On…Women Aging in Gratitude’. The book’s success propelled me into speaking to hundreds of women in a variety of groups. It was intoxicating how connected we all felt as I shared stories and lessons learned on how to age not only in gratitude, but also in positivity. Each presentation included loads of laughter and often times tears shed from the shared sense of angst some of us feel in aging. There is nothing like women coming together in a shared experience.

From my speaking came personal requests to help women gain a truer sense of who they are and who they would like to become. I decided to develop a guidebook and individual sessions to delve further into how to normalize aging and see this time in our life as an opportunity. In addition, in order to help the larger group of women as a whole, I organized a Facebook group, 50+ and Fabulous; which now has over 6000 members.

The true driving force for me is I know I have lived more than I will. I truly want to live the width of my life…and I want to share and build opportunities with other women who have either walked before me or are to come. There are no secrets rules to aging. You live a good life, you have a good life.

For more information on how to order my book (makes for a great gift!) or resources I offer, I invite you to check out my website https://www.kimkaneandgratitude.com

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

The answer to this is pretty fresh. It is about taking care of two parents suffering from Alzheimer’s and using all of my resources of time, money, emotional support and physical endurance to care for them. My whole world took a wild turn trying to address all of the needs coming at me like an avalanche. While their official diagnosis came approximately 8 years ago, there were a few years of suspicion.

I would love to say I was able to manage working full-time, parenting three (mostly adult) kids, all while properly caring for my parents who seemed to be changing right before my eyes, but I cannot. It was, one of the hardest and emotionally wrecking experience I have ever gone through. I will offer trying to manage your own emotional and physical health is almost not possible. There is no common agenda to follow when dealing with a person who is afflicted with Alzheimer’s, thus there is no strategy to implement self care at a designated time, this included the basics of regular sleep and eating. Plainly stated, there is no life outline to follow.

So with my parent’s needs becoming front and center, I needed to pivot. I retired from my full-time career as an educator, stepped away from my speaking and coaching responsibilities and went head on into the world of caring for not one, but two people afflicted with Alzheimer’s. Insert deep breath.

I could write a whole book on the affects of Alzheimer’s for both afflicted and those who love and care for them, and maybe I will, But the punchline is all of it changes you. I won’t assign a negative or positive for these changes. To be honest, it would absolutely depend on for each day whether I slept or not, whether I ate healthy or not, whether I could step away from watching Alzheimer’s or not.

While there are many stories to tell, descriptors to give, I will wrap up this pivot story with my mom recently passed away. She died not knowing many faces, places or past life experiences. Yet I believe in my heart she died knowing she was loved. For that, I would not want to change a thing I did to have that happen.

My stepdad is still alive, however has moved to another state alowing his biological children a chance to be with him in his last days. For me this is still another loss. And my life is beginning to pivot again. I am returning stronger and more determined to support women live not only the length of their life, but also their width.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I needed to unlearn believing the older you get the less you can do.

Of course there are certain things aging gets in the way of. For example, I should not walk across a roaring waterfall on a skinny plank. Or, run a marathon with little practice beforehand. The point being I wouldn’t do these things anyways, so why would I do them now? (Insert possible laughter-groan).

Of course I have another point to this and that is we can be or do whatever we want to, whenever we want to. We may become more limited and accommodations may need to be made, but we can still have a fair shot. It will always boil down to are we willing to do the work to get where we want to be?

I am lucky enough to have been very close to my great-grandmother, Grandma Graham. She died into her 101st year of life. And she was a bright light until the end. She worked as a live-in house keeper into her early 90’s and always had pride in her work. She is my inspiration when I start to believe ‘I’m probably too old to (fill in blank)’.

We all have voices talking to us in our head, at least I hope others do, that tell us we can either do this or we can’t. Learn to tell the one that says you can’t to step aside and Watch Me!

Contact Info:

• Website: HTTPS://www.kimkaneandgratitude.com
• Instagram: @kim.kane.gratitude
• Twitter: @aging_gratitude