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Feisty, Fabulous and 50 Plus: 21 Women Share Their Candid and Compelling Stories
Feisty, Fabulous and 50 Plus: 21 Women Share Their Candid and Compelling Stories
Feisty, Fabulous and 50 Plus: 21 Women Share Their Candid and Compelling Stories
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Feisty, Fabulous and 50 Plus: 21 Women Share Their Candid and Compelling Stories

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Feisty, Fabulous & 50+ is a collection of 21 ‘warts and all’ stories written by women navigating their way through their 50s and beyond.

The stories are inspirational, frank and uplifting as each woman tackles her own set of challenges – from financial insecurity and discrimination to life-threatening illnesses – all recounted with humour, insight and self-deprecation. A true testament to understated strength and resilience.

The idea for the book came to Julie Ankers after she decided to semi-retire to the Blue Mountains 23 years after managing her own business in Sydney. Planning to work both as a volunteer and locally one or two days a week, the frustration she experienced finding part-time work and stepping back from her longstanding business resulted in her thinking that many others could be experiencing the same. Indeed, how were other women at this stage of their lives managing? So she decided to invite 21 randomly selected women over 50 from her contacts around Australia to share their stories.

Each contributor was asked to be open and honest about her ‘third age’ experiences. It is interesting that many of the women talked about coming ‘full circle’, choosing to start their story from the beginning of their lives, feeling that they were the sum total of their lives’ experiences. Like Julie, some of the women also had their own businesses and spoke about this aspect of their lives in some detail. It was also interesting that many of the book’s contributors had experienced cancer and other serious illnesses and their stories spoke movingly about their thoughts and reactions after diagnosis and treatment.

Julie’s objective in compiling Feisty, Fabulous & 50+ was to encourage readers to reflect on their own lives. Some readers may feel a sense of contentment that their lives have gone to plan and they have been successful in overcoming obstacles along the way. Some might be inspired to make some changes to their lives. Others may wish to share this book with others and encourage discussion about what they would have done differently. What is clear is that all readers will find something of value in the amazing stories these women have shared.

While Feisty, Fabulous & 50+ focuses on the experiences of women over 50, it can also be seen as a passing of the baton to younger women.

Julie found that many of the women she approached asked, ’Who, me?’ or ‘Why me?’ Many asked why more ‘famous’ women weren’t included in the book as their stories may have been more commercially viable. Julie’s answer was that she was interested in women who weren’t necessarily famous but were quiet achievers and champions of their own lives! As Julie says, ’Strength of character and resilience comes through time and time again when I re-read the stories. I wanted women that everyone could identify with. I wanted the book to reflect that our common denominator is that we are all women together and we do the very best we can with what we are given. We don’t all emerge unscathed. Many of us are battle-scarred but we carry those scars proudly even if privately at times.’

The candid and compelling stories in Feisty, Fabulous & 50+ provide an opportunity for women of all ages to reflect on their own lives, while honouring and congratulating women everywhere who may think their lives ordinary, unaware of the ripples they are sending around the world.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateSep 30, 2016
ISBN9781925529258
Feisty, Fabulous and 50 Plus: 21 Women Share Their Candid and Compelling Stories
Author

Julie Ankers

Julie Ankers is an entrepreneur with a passion for promoting and developing people, which is why she started a speakers and trainers bureau 24 years ago as well as a company focusing on retaining mature age workers and building effective age-inclusive workforces. This kick-started her interest in the over 50s, especially women who have been disadvantaged by age and gender. It also led to her taking on leadership roles in organisations such as Women Chiefs of Enterprise International (WCEI), National Foundation for Australian Women (NFAW), Economic Security 4 Women (eS4W) and Zonta International.Three years ago Julie decided to make a tree change and currently lives in the Blue Mountains. She divides her time between 2 x 2-hour radio programs, her various board/committee commitments and writing – yes, she has already started her second book, this time on the lives of men over 50. Not forgetting her obsession with beautifully designed hand-crafted jewellery, her love of a good book with a glass of red, theatre, cinema and the exquisite beauty of the Blumos.

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    Feisty, Fabulous and 50 Plus - Julie Ankers

    Julie Ankers

    I now talk to the trees

    The girl from Sutherland Shire

    I’m a girl from the Sutherland Shire – Caringbah, to be exact. While my sister Karen, who I adored, fitted snugly into the family nest, I felt like the cuckoo with slightly bewildered sparrow parents. I was creative, an aspirant writer and a closet introvert with a reputation at high school as somebody who might be trusted to run things.

    I left home around 19 or 20 and had a series of jobs, including working briefly in a small ad agency and the record library of the ABC. Records? Yes, vinyl. I also studied a 3-year advertising course which I didn’t complete, but learnt enough to become a regional radio copywriter in my early 20s.

    There were stints in a small ad agency again and the opportunity through a client to take over a tourism publication. My first but not last leap into business.

    Then a move back to Sydney and the hyper world of recruitment for the ad industry followed by the lacquered confines of French skincare, cosmetics and perfume with a spin at sales management.

    Recruitment again, and a spell in direct sales as a Pan-Pacific Training Manager – so lots of Asian travel. French fragrance and Swiss skincare this time. The company reached its expiry date a few years later, as they do, and there I was – single, unemployed and with freshly signed mortgage papers on a little Rozelle terrace.

    I didn’t have a clue as to my next move but a motivational speaker who had worked for our company suggested I start a speakers bureau. The rest really IS history … a 23-year roller coaster ride – from making lots of money to eating Vegemite sandwiches to studying for a Masters Degree to selling the business and buying it back again! After all this – with apologies to Cher – the beat was well and truly not going on and I needed either a fresh cover version or archiving. I chose a tree change.

    What to do next?

    I moved to the Blue Mountains in 2013 because I was tired of what I had been doing for the past 23 years. I wanted to reinvent myself as an interesting and still relevant semi-retiree with a portfolio career. What that meant for me was working one or two days a week on my existing business while looking around to replace that with an engaging paid part-time role and community work. I did not want to become invisible.

    I was (and still am) the owner/manager of my small speakers and training consultancy which meant talking to clients, speakers and consultants all day … every day. In one word, ‘selling’ either myself as a bureau chief and service provider or one of the many many people we represented. By ‘we’ I mean my fabulous ‘right hand’ man Geoffrey J, lauded hero to all who know him, and me. Others have come and gone, which is the nature of business, but Geoffrey has remained with me staunchly for over 15 years.

    During my final years in Sydney I had become increasingly disaffected. Boredom had set in. I had previously attempted to alleviate the situation by studying for a Masters Degree. To be honest I wasn’t disengaged all the time because I was too damn busy to indulge myself. Very often there were moments of pure joy but as they dwindled away I could see what was probably painfully obvious to others. I needed to find a new direction, a different challenge.

    I discussed all of this ad nauseum with the long-suffering Geoffrey who fortunately didn’t run screaming from the room. To do or not to do was the question. Interminable weighing up of the pros and cons. I needed to downsize, take the weight off the bank account and give myself time to think and plan.

    Where to start?

    The first thing I had to do was either rent out or sell our business premises in Pitt Street, Sydney. Not an easy thing to do in the economic climate of 2011/2012. Our office was attractive and open plan with a small board room which was ideal for interviews. It was also well situated. But small business owners were either opting to work from home or serviced offices.

    Anyway, I sold the office at a remarkable loss and moved the business to my home in Randwick. Overlooking a reserve with only birdcall for backdrop it was soothing if not stimulating. Geoffrey and I continued with the bureau for a further eighteen months from this address.

    I then had a flash of inspiration. Why not move to the Blue Mountains, embrace a new lifestyle and continue to run the business? At this stage I was feeling burnt out. As the driver/promoter of the business I felt overwhelmed and demotivated. I thought changing environments would help because in an odd way I still loved the business. It was comfortable. I had started it in May 1992. It was my baby. I knew the business but just needed to coast for a while. So I moved to the upper mountains while Geoffrey fielded calls from his home in Sydney and visited at regular intervals.

    Let me just say that the process wasn’t as cut and dried as it appeared to be. When I moved to the mountains I thought that everything would just fall into place. I could keep the business going while I reinvented myself. An easy solution! After all, wasn’t I an entrepreneur? So did I do any homework before I made the move? All I knew was that it was possible to continue running the business until we made the decision to close the doors. We just needed an IT person to keep an eye on our network, Geoffrey in Sydney to take any incoming calls on his mobile, and it would be business as usual until further notice.

    This strategy worked for a while during which time I continued to meet with the occasional client. But we weren’t as proactive as we used to be, so while some clients remained staunchly loyal, enquiries and new business dropped off.

    I realised that you can coast for a while but not forever, and I needed to make a decision. So I did. I decided to oversee the business but leave the day-to-day running to Geoffrey, while I explored other options.

    What has been the fallout? Nothing at this stage as it has been a deliberate strategy. I wanted to downsize and had.

    This didn’t mean that I wasn’t thinking about the future. During this time I had more time to think about what I would do next … and then the depression set in.

    What next?

    What could I do? I thought that what I needed was a part-time job where I didn’t have any responsibility except what I was employed to do. After over 23 years of intense decision-making and responsibility as a business owner I wanted ‘time out’ – a holding pattern until I decided what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

    Then reality set in. For starters there weren’t any part-time jobs for somebody my age, especially in the mountains. The only jobs available were in hospitality and aged care and I did not have the credentials or energy for either.

    Did I mention depression? What I realised after a period of soul-searching was that I was going through the bereavement process. Fortunately I had studied this earlier in my career when I thought I’d be a welfare worker! In this instance, nobody had died except the person who I thought was me. I had identified myself with the business for such a long time that I couldn’t work out who I really was and where I belonged. I had always thought of myself as the woman who runs that speakers and trainers bureau and suddenly here I was facing the spectre of not being that person anymore.

    Yesterday’s hero, today’s feather duster. My ego felt outraged!

    Anyone who has experienced the grieving process will know that one minute you can be angry, the next depressed or bargaining with yourself for reprieve. There are quite a few grieving stages and they never happen sequentially, which can be a pain for friends and family. They literally don’t know what to do with or for you as you appear to be completely irrational.

    However on the surface I appeared reasonably calm and in control. I joined the board of a local network of creatives, I was already the National President of a women’s international entrepreneurial organisation for a second two-year term, I was helping organise an exhibition of contemporary jewellery, I was on a committee for the local cultural centre, I was judging the odd art exhibition, and I was going to yoga once a week and attending meditation meetings. I already had a portfolio career, including my downsized business, but wanted to transition to an active part-time role working for others.

    True, compared to many, I was in a reasonable financial position. I had my own house and reasonable superannuation if I lived sensibly. However at this time of my life I didn’t want to live ‘sensibly’! I had spent the last 23 years of my life doing just that.

    There was also the point that being paid to work carries a certain cachet and I was too young to retire. We are all living longer and I knew I still had a lot to contribute. The plan was to work part-time and keep building my super, retire comfortably at 70 and spend lots of time still doing volunteer work and travelling. The baby boomer’s dream. Except there were not any part-time jobs.

    So what was I going to do? Always a great one for advising others on career and life choices, I was devoid of inspiration.

    Weighing up the good with the other

    I knew my strengths and weaknesses. I was good with people but I wasn’t necessarily a team player. I loathed office work. I was creative, a good promoter and writer.

    However I hadn’t kept up with social media – social media stuff came under the heading of ‘office work’ and we all knew that I loathed it. Right? I was the girl who said to a colleague that email wouldn’t catch on. I was a complete Luddite with all things technical. I know the basics but have always left anything more complicated to Geoffrey.

    I always knew what I wanted as an outcome but just didn’t quite know how to get there, so became dependent on Geoffrey who knew a lot more than I did about this brave new world. I was also defensive about my lack of knowledge or interest.

    There was, however, one thing that I loved to do, and that was write.

    A flash of the obvious

    Like many of us, I have a chequered work history. But mine had two themes running through it – writing and promoting people – often using the former to do the latter. So it was like a flash of the bleeding obvious. I would reinvent myself as a writer. Marc Freedman, CEO and world-recognised social innovator of US-based Encore, talks about ‘reintegrating’ as one gets older rather than ‘reinventing’ – and I suppose that’s what it was. Synonyms include words like reconstruct, reconstitute and rejuvenate which describe the process perfectly. Like my father I had always been involved in community activities so nothing had changed when I moved to the mountains … but now writing would take precedence. But what to write?

    The answer was clear. I would write a book. It also seemed obvious to write a book about women of my age who were caught in my predicament.

    I initially thought that I would record interviews with women but rejected that as I couldn’t find the right technology. I did research but was unimpressed by what was on offer. I then decided to ask various women who I knew to write their own stories of navigating their ‘third age’. I was delightfully surprised by the response and also by their frankness and writing talent!

    However I realised that if the book was really going to be a help to women who were 50+ it needed not only inspirational stories for motivation but a roadmap of what to do. So I thought I would include my own story and slowly unpack what I did – hence this chapter!

    During the early days of compiling the stories I approached a book coach. One of the first things she wanted to know was whether the book was going to be a one-hit wonder or a marketing tool for a business? A good question which took me by surprise. Once an entrepreneur then always one. Without missing a heartbeat I answered that it was probably the basis for a business – a writing business, as I wanted to write more books.

    Now let me step back a bit.

    I am passionate about our age group and those coming before and after. We baby boomers are still the flower children of the ’70s … surprised that life can be cruel and that the world won’t provide for us just because we campaigned against the Vietnam War and loved Gough Whitlam. Those before us were made of sterner stuff, those after look at us with bemusement. We are often not able to handle the truth which is called ageing. We often don’t know the slightest thing about enduring guardianship, powers of attorney or budgeting on a pension. We thought we would live forever fuelled by hope, the Beatles and Indian mysticism. Did we ever really listen to Eleanor Rigby? We probably did but thought that meant somebody else.

    While running the business from home my social conscience was alive, well and living in Randwick. I have always been an intuitive soul who has backed up my ‘hunches’ with research (I sometimes tell fibs). I had ‘hunched’ that Australia and many other countries were ill-prepared to cope with their ageing citizenry (hello baby boomers!).

    And I was right. Well-meaning articles appeared spasmodically both offline and online, but it wasn’t until I attended a lecture by Susan Ryan, Age Discrimination Commissioner, that I was galvanised into action. Third agers were doing it tough. It was almost impossible to get a job if you were over 50. The usual waiting time seemed to be around 12 months. Job agencies and HR departments were maligned for being age discriminatory and it seemed as though jobs for the mature-aged were disappearing. So I started a sideline company called Third Age Initiative which was an advocate for the mature-aged worker.

    There were other organisations that were working effectively in this space with government funding but then the Coalition came to power and the funding changed. $10,000 was offered to companies hiring mature-aged workers who had been looking for a job for 12 months or more. Did it take off? In a word: NO.

    The policy remains, but I have moved on from working on the corporate to the personal. I was now prepared to work on behalf of the individual. So you can see that my choosing to publish a book for 50+ women is a case of certain worlds colliding. Quantum studies would show that this event wasn’t serendipitous but a case of the planets aligning.

    To begin with my foray into this field of advocacy on behalf of the ageing started slowly but passionately. My instincts were right although the vehicle needed fine tuning. And Third Age Initiative? I’m still not sure about that name.

    So, returning to the question asked by the book coach …

    I believe this book is important both as a standalone guide and as inspiration to women navigating the third age of their lives. But I also see it as the basis for a business – a writing business, as even as I have been putting this book together I have had ideas for other books. I have already started on my second book!

    Unpacking the process

    The purpose of this book is both inspiration (and the women’s stories are inspirational!) and a roadmap of what to do. It’s easy to gloss over the process and present a fait accompli. So here is a mix of what I have done/am doing and what I advise on my local community radio show, Love What You Do.

    The pros and cons of moving

    I moved to the Blue Mountains because I was feeling burnt out and no longer enjoying what Sydney had to offer. I craved a change. I had visited the Blumos many times and loved it, and had often thought of moving there. But I had never lived there, so what would I know?

    You need to ask yourself why you are considering a tree change or sea change. What are you running away from or to? Running away from boredom, for example, is NOT the answer as it’s easy to take your boredom with you! I think I had mistaken running on empty for boredom for so long, and this led to ‘burnout’.

    To alleviate the situation I had started another business and taken on committee activities. While I loved it all, it dissipated whatever energy I had left. I also hadn’t had a proper holiday for a long time so perhaps it was an easy-to-swallow rescue remedy.

    If you are going to make a move you need to research the area you are moving to and what your expectations are. For example, it can take longer to make new friends. Do you expect your old friends to visit? They will for five minutes and then talk about how it’s too cold or hot or humid and has too many frightening marsupials or hikers or tourists … get the picture? They don’t love it as much as you and may visit one or twice and then the novelty is over. Or they want to move in with you. And suddenly YOU start to notice the climate, marsupials, tourists, etc. and forget why you moved there in the first place. And remember you downsized and it’s SO expensive to move back!

    On another note, visit your new utopia in all weathers. In the rush of resettling enthusiasm everything seems paradisiacal … for about six months. Dig deep. It will be cheaper in the long run.

    What work will you/can you do?

    Do you intend to keep working? Will you take your business with you? Can you service your clients in the big smoke from Quirindi Heights? Are there computer boffins to be had? As one who has experienced so many techo type disasters, find out from some of the local businesses which techos are actually reliable AND competent. VERY IMPORTANT! And don’t forget about the need for reliable internet and wi-fi connectivity. Of course NBN will change all that … we hope!

    If you are not going to be self-employed, will you be looking for paid work? Read the local papers and see how many and what jobs are advertised. Not a tree lopper or barista?

    The reality is that often areas like the Blue Mountains or other tourist havens have a drifting population that needs to work to fund its travel. These ‘blow-ins’ will happily take on hospitality-type roles but can prove to be unreliable. If you are a local you will need these jobs just to stay alive so you need training, experience and stickability.

    These tourist/resettlement areas also have a high ratio of senior citizens so if you are qualified in aged care you will rarely be out of work. However these roles can also be labour-intensive and you need energy. Let’s face it, not everybody over the age of 55 wants to work in aged care.

    I’ve found that all other jobs seem to be geared to a younger demographic. So where does that leave the ‘older’ end of the spectrum? Basically this is what happened to me, which added to my frustration. In my thirties I had augmented my income as a struggling entrepreneur by telemarketing kitchen renovation appointments and cleaning offices between 5 pm and 8 pm every other night. I even cleaned a friend’s pub and used to scoot to The Rocks every morning at 4 am in my red sports car …

    I had energy and belief in myself and never thought I would be 55 let alone 65! It does creep up on you.

    And so we come to the concept of reinvention. Many baby boomers do not have enough superannuation to fund their current lifestyles or how they would like to live for the next 20 to 30 years. If you have worked in advertising or any of the other image industries your used by date arrives remarkable quickly. It’s like being an old rock’n’roller … it’s only great if you’re Mick Jagger. I think women have it even harder.

    The upshot is that we live in an age discriminating society. Although many other countries are experiencing the same, Australia doesn’t seem to know what to do about it. The government wants us to remain productive but doesn’t have jobs for us to do. Any government incentives offered don’t seem to cut the mustard. So what are we going to do about it?

    The answer is we can reinvent ourselves – and more and more people around my age are thinking seriously about doing just this.

    How YOU can reinvent yourself

    Want to reinvent yourself into another job? Think about what you like to do and are good at. We all tend to self-criticise so discuss the options with someone who will be honest, pragmatic and possibly good at lateral thinking. There are also a number of psychological profiles or tools you can use which will help you determine whether you are suited to pole dancing or statistical analysis.

    Ask yourself if there are many jobs available in the area you are suited to and what it will take for you to be eligible. Certain jobs or professions require very attainable certificates of achievement that can be had without signing your life away. And there may be jobs aplenty in areas like aged care, hospitality and other service industries, so long as you have the stomach, stamina and enthusiasm for them.

    So ask yourself if these roles are labour intensive and suited to your level of fitness. Can you see yourself doing this just for

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