Coffee with Age Buster founder Stefania Meditti
Stefania Medetti
Age: 51
Journalist and founder of Age Buster
UK - Italy Zoom coffee chat
Introduction
What I love about Stefania’s quote is that it gets to the heart of both one of the challenges and potentially one of the most exciting parts of rethinking your career in your 50s.
For many of us, our 30s and 40s are about accumulation - husband / wife, kids, pets, house and rooms full of stuff. And that’s just the physical things. We’re also adding a whole lot of mental and emotional goods - new skills, new roles, major achievements and a few setbacks too.
And then maybe sometime in your 50s, life slows down enough for you to stop and think "Well... how did I get here?", cue David Byrne’s singing “Once In A Lifetime”
And you may ask yourself, "Where does that highway go to?"
And you may ask yourself, "Am I right? Am I wrong?"
And you may say to yourself, "My God! What have I done?"
So yes, there are some existential questions…
But also some practical matters that require you to clear the house and start sorting things into piles. Figuring out what is important, what was once useful and is no longer required and what was never helpful.
And, what I find so interesting about this process, is how often it leads back to the interest or activity that has alway animated and maybe even defined us but along the way got neglected or put aside.
For me this was exercising my creative muscle more, committing to continued learning (rather than dabbling) and getting clear about what I am good at and how I can help others.
Has this been your experience? I’d love to hear.
In the meantime, I'm really excited for you to read my interview with Stefania and once you’re done definitely go and explore her Age Buster site - it’s an eclectic and fascinating treasure trove of ideas and insights.
In two or three sentences briefly describe your career path and what you are doing now? future.
I'm Italian. I was born in a little town in the middle of nowhere, where nothing really happened. I always had the feeling I was suspended in time. There wasn’t even much to look at either, no mountains, no hill, no forest. So, not surprisingly, the thing that I wanted to do most was to leave. My initial escape was through books. I just spent hours reading - sometimes, it felt like all I did was reading for days and days in a row.
When I was old enough, I finally left. I lived and worked in Uk, Germany and the US. Upon my return I entered university and moved to Milan. And it was fantastic. I was working in the opera to pay for my studies which I loved and I had a black bicycle that took me everywhere.
In retrospect, I realize that growing up as a woman in the 1970s and 80s, meant that nobody taught me how to have ambitions, so I was like a cork in the sea, going with the flow. I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I had pretty solid ideas about what I didn’t want to do.
It was a stroke of luck that I started working as a journalist in the media business and then moved into mainstream media, writing for major magazines. Journalism was the perfect destination for me, because I like people and stories, and journalism has both in abundance.
Once I had kids, my partner and I decided to move to Thailand and we never looked back. Of course, it’s a risk because it means living far from our country and without a salary. But it also means we don’t have to ask permission - we get to decide every day what we want to do with our time. It’s liberating and empowering.
How did you start Age Buster?
I started it for two reasons - one professional and one personal.
I was 48 at the time. Professionally, the decertification of Italian media meant that there was less work. As I am used to looking at the half-full glass, I thought it was an opportunity to explore new avenues.
The second reason relates to a chance encounter I had with an older woman. I was driving down a little countryside road and passing in the opposite direction, was a lady driving a motorcycle. She was very old, the motorcycle was very old, the road was very narrow and my car was very big so I had to slow down. And because I slowed down and I was able to really look at this lady and she was beautiful. It was my a-ha moment when I realized that aging can be beautiful and that how we think about aging is not always true.
I just let this thought sit for a while and one night, when I was out walking the dog, the name The Age Buster came to my mind. I wanted to create a vehicle to explore new ways of looking at aging and decode old ways and it seemed the perfect fit.
Our ideas of aging are like a puzzle made of millions of pieces scattered around. I'm trying to collect them and piece them together. It’s been a life-changing journey for me.
What decision / experience proved to be the most helpful to your (new) career? This could include a failure that set you up for later success.
I never trusted my intuitions or my ideas - with Age Buster I did it for the first time. And I did it in the same way you raise a child, understanding that a child knows instinctively how to learn to walk, to fall down and get back up. There's wisdom inside things. And you just have to show up every day and be supportive and encouraging.
There is no failure, you always learn something. But people don't see their own seeds bloom because they stop watering, and you have to water every day.
And this is the main thing I discovered, the thing that I love the most, is that if we show up and do the work, the seed will grow into something beautiful.
Sometimes you just need to let things happen without opposing or resisting. And often when you do it, it leads you somewhere you didn't expect, to something that you didn’t even know you needed.
So be willing to take a step back, allow things to happen and enjoy the process. But water your garden every day.
What advice would you give your 20 year old self knowing what you do now? Or what advice would you tell her or him to ignore?
Change is the only constant. So embrace change - it is so liberating. Be willing to change and change your mind, always have different ideas because that’s how we grow.
Also, don't wait for other people to recognise your talent. Trust yourself. Because people won’t invest in you, if you don’t know and recognise your own worth first.
In the last 5 years what new belief, behaviour or habit has most improved your working life (or your approach to creating your post 50 life)?
Finding space for myself.
I discovered that waking up at sunrise and going for a run makes me feel good. It sounds crazy to wake up so early in the morning but that’s what I do to have the mental clarity to approach my day.
Then, I can take care of the family, my work, the house, the dog, the cats, and everything else but I treasure this time in the morning. Finding my space is like having my own source of fuel.
Where or to whom do you look for inspiration?
It’s always books.
The book that most inspired me is by Viktor Frankl and it's called Man's Search For Meaning.
Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor. He wrote this book based on what he learned living in a German Camp and losing his family. He thought that you could find meaning even in the most horrific of circumstances. His belief was that meaning comes not so much from what you expect in life but from what life expects from you. The way we respond to the challenges we are presented with, is the way to create our personal meaning.
When you are feeling stuck or uninspired, what actions do you take or questions do you ask yourself?
I don't do anything. I just observe the way I feel in a detached way. Maybe I meditate or go for a run or I just sit and drink some water, but I don't get taken away by the feelings because I know the moment I’m living is going to bring me something or take me somewhere. I see it as a chapter in a book and I guess it is because of my travel and subsequent relocation in South East Asia.
In the West, we always want to get a screwdriver and fix things but sometimes we just have to wait and see what it's going to bring, because as I said before, change is the only constant. It's a transformation perspective. Observe things in life without thinking it's an emergency.
If you could put one quote or piece of advice on a big billboard for everyone over 50 to see what would it be?
We grow by letting go.
Like the snake that outgrows and sheds its skin. Sometimes we need to get rid of all the things that are not necessary, so we can see better what's inside ourselves and in front of us, in our lives.
We have our own internal compass. But it's covered under a mountain of things, old beliefs, regrets, and resentment. And our job, especially after the age of 50, is to get rid of all these things and thoughts that cover it. So yes, getting rid of everything, even physical objects, allows us to access our internal compass and trust it anew.
What book or podcast do you most recommend for someone grappling with aging, identity and the workforce.
The Viktor Frankl book we talked about earlier.
The latest book by Connie Zweig - she’s a retired psychotherapist and Shadow expert. Her book is titled The inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul and she provides exercises to approach aging better, because for some people it is very difficult dealing with one's mortality.
Also, my friend Leah Friedman wrote beautifully about living in old age. Amongst other titles, she’s the author of The Unexpected Adventure of Growing Old.
