{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Build Your Own Boat","title":"How Rachel Cohen Built Aging Dynamics: Turning 30 Years of Social Work and Urban Planning Into a Midlife Consulting Business","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2519,"description":"EPISODE SUMMARY\nRachel Cohen spent nearly three decades working across urban planning, social work, public health, and nonprofit housing before launching Aging Dynamics, her own age-friendly community consulting firm, in her 40s. In this episode, she explains how a career built on curiosity and cross-sector fluency became her competitive advantage — and how she overcame the guilt many women feel around charging for their expertise.\nCohen and host Janine Vanderburg dig into the real, unglamorous mechanics of starting a solo consulting practice: landing a first client through a single genuine conversation at a conference, surviving a \"no new socks\" first year, and learning to price based on value instead of hours worked. They also talk candidly about facing ageism from both directions — being dismissed as \"too young\" early in her career and \"too old\" once she started her own business — and what it took to build a firm that has now marked its 10th anniversary while staying true to its social-impact mission.\nKEY TAKEAWAYS\nCross-sector experience is an advantage, not a liability. Rachel Cohen's fluency across social work, urban planning, public health, and housing lets her translate between industries that normally stay siloed — a skill she describes as her \"unfair advantage.\"\nNew clients often come from relationship-building, not selling. Cohen landed her first Aging Dynamics contract after several honest conversations with an executive director she met at a one-day conference, not from a sales pitch.\nUndercharging early on creates resentment and erodes your value. Cohen learned to check in with herself — \"Would I feel cheated at this rate?\" — before pricing every project, and now prices based on the value she delivers rather than hours worked.\nTemporary or part-time gigs can convert into long-term contracts. Cohen turned a short-term public health role into a client relationship that has lasted more than ten years by proposing the shift directly to leadership....","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/bQsbNia0IsmMmK-_EAZWTPLH0_5ooXLhZABkhXi9Cis/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS8zMjY3/NTllZmQ4ZTljNzVj/NTZmNzZiZTMzMmIy/ODBlNC5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}