Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Welcome to Make Your Passion Pay, hosted by LuAnn Buechler, a seasoned leader with a master’s degree in Hospitality Administration and a recipient of the TLC Award for Leadership. This podcast is designed for business owners who have left toxic environments to create their own thriving workplaces but find themselves struggling with team building and mindset. Join LuAnn as she shares insights and strategies to help you cultivate joy and a positive mindset in your business and personal life. Drawing from her experience working with renowned leaders like Dr. Ivan Misner, LuAnn guides you in building a supportive community and mastering the art of people management. Each episode offers practical advice and inspiring stories to empower you to transform your work environment into one that reflects your values and passions. Tune in to discover how to lead with joy, foster meaningful connections, and truly make your passion pay.
Welcome, everyone, to the Make Your Passion Pay podcast today, where we talk about the six Cs in the playbook to make your passions pay, and those would be clarity, connection, community, collaboration, creativity, and commitment. And I have with me today Dr. Susan Meyer. Dr. Susan is a life architect, a transformational coach who helps women create a meaningful, purpose-driven life. We talk about purpose all the time. Her passion is for interviewing women and sharing their stories, which led to 50 Over 50: Wise and Wild Women Creating Wonderful Lives. And you can't do her first book, which featured 50 women who have created exciting life paths, and it served as a springboard for her new book, which I just learned about and was so excited to hear about, called Champagne Ladies: Effervescent at Any Age. We love that title, which was published in March of 2026, and it tells the stories of 38 women over 70 who are still rocking it in the world. I remember being on her book release Zoom call through some mutual friends. That's how Susan and I met, and it was all women over 70, and I was totally inspired by the conversation. As I turn 65 this year and looked at all these women still rocking it over 70. And what did you say, the oldest one is 95, Susan?
(00:05:16.776) Susan R Meyer: Yep. And she's writing a poem or song lyric every day and she still is actively a cabaret singer.
(00:05:28.676) LuAnn Buechler: Oh my gosh, how wonderful that is. And it's excellent. Is she in the book?
(00:05:35.176) Susan R Meyer: She didn't want to—well, yes and no. She didn't want to actually do the interview. She had too many things going on, but she did contribute a poem, which is at the very front of the book. It talks about aging, her feelings about aging.
(00:05:54.976) LuAnn Buechler: I love that. That is excellent. So Susan, have you always been a transformational coach? Is that your career for your lifetime?
(00:06:05.476) Susan R Meyer: No, I didn't know that coaching existed until about 1980. I had been a coach probably my whole life. I began giving people advice and telling them what they should be doing, you know, that kind of thing. But it wasn't until 1980 that I discovered it was actually a profession. I was in staff development and training and organizational development for a number of years. And I've taught everything from preschool through graduate school.
(00:06:40.076) LuAnn Buechler: Wow. so, a teacher at heart like myself,
(00:06:47.376) Susan R Meyer: Yeah. And isn't coaching after all the form of teaching,
(00:06:50.776) LuAnn Buechler: I absolutely believe that it is. Yeah, it took me a while to come to terms with that and say that out loud, but I do believe that's it. So, I've never taught in a school the way that you have. I have been an adjunct professor at my university and always love to be in front of the room doing coaching and training, so yes, it really took me a while to own that coaching word.
(00:07:21.176) Susan R Meyer: Any of us, I think you'll find several people in the book who were doing it long before they realized it was a thing.
(00:07:32.476) LuAnn Buechler: So tell us about some of the people in the book, their unique careers and entrepreneurial choices.
(00:07:40.776) Susan R Meyer: Okay, I'm trying to think of who. It's so hard. I love all of them. Elizabeth Sullivan, who wrote the poem that's in the front of the book, was one of the oldest people in the book. Five of her children are musicians.
(00:08:00.676) LuAnn Buechler: Wow.
(00:08:03.176) Susan R Meyer: And she often performs with her daughters, Heather and Katie. And so, they go on cruises together, and Katie Sullivan and Elizabeth do the smaller room, and Heather does the larger room. They get people that they know, basically, to sign up for the cruises. So Katie, who I also interviewed, described it as a big sorority party.
(00:08:33.876) LuAnn Buechler: Oh, how much fun is that
(00:08:36.776) Susan R Meyer: she was? Yeah,
(00:08:39.376) LuAnn Buechler: The cabaret singer.
(00:08:42.976) Susan R Meyer: Um, well, Heather, who was not in the book, Katie, and Elizabeth Wright, cabaret singers,
(00:08:50.676) LuAnn Buechler: and
(00:08:51.176) Susan R Meyer: The other daughter, whose name I can't remember, sings opera, and one of her sons is a folk singer.
(00:09:00.076) LuAnn Buechler: Oh, fantastic. So they get paid to enter on the cruise.
(00:09:06.176) Susan R Meyer: Yes
(00:09:06.776) LuAnn Buechler: they get to go on the cruise. They don't work 24/7, so they get to enjoy and relax
(00:09:14.076) Susan R Meyer: on the
(00:09:15.176) LuAnn Buechler: cruise. What a lifestyle that is amazing.
(00:09:19.276) Susan R Meyer: It's there. So there's so much fun in Katy just showing in the Algonquin room, the room where, what's your name? Dorothy Parker's Circle used to meet.
(00:09:35.876) LuAnn Buechler: okay,
(00:09:36.876) Susan R Meyer: Algonquin Hotel and she does that pretty much every month. So she's got a following and it's just like, you know, a class reunion. Wow. So all of her longtime fans are there, so that's fun. And then, you know, the other direction is Phyllis Campagna, not Phyllis Haynes, who we both know. And Phyllis, when she was younger, she and her husband decided that they were going to quit their jobs and take off and travel around the country. So they got a van and they did that. They got to Las Vegas.
(00:10:28.676) LuAnn Buechler: Okay.
(00:10:30.476) Susan R Meyer: And her husband wanted to go to the Grand Canyon first. She said, I don't want to go to the Grand Canyon. I don't want to see, I want to go to Vegas. I want to have fun. So he finally won. They got to the Grand Canyon. She gets out of the van. Five minutes later, she turns to her husband and says, we're staying. Okay, we can stay a couple of nights. She says, no, you don't understand. We're staying. By the end of the day, at that point, she was an accountant. By the end of the day, she had jobs for both of them and housing for both of them, and they stayed there for three years. They wouldn't have left except she was having a difficult pregnancy, and they would have had to airlift her out. So fast forward any number of years later, she and her second husband decided they wanted their perfect retirement home. She's been an executive coach for a number of years. Her husband does group coaching. And so, they bought one of those little mini almost van things because they didn't want to be going around the country sleeping in the van. They found a house sitting organization, Trusted House Sitters. They're on their third journey across country now. They want to find the perfect place to retire to, and the only way they feel they can do that is to be in the community for a period of time. So now they're digital nomads and they have a blog about it and sponsors for the blog, and they're just having a great time.
(00:12:22.476) LuAnn Buechler: I was gonna say, just I'm I met Phyllis at a cam conference, I believe.
(00:12:28.276) Susan R Meyer: Oh
(00:12:28.476) LuAnn Buechler: Conversation Among Masters, the CAM conference.
(00:12:31.676) Susan R Meyer: I can't believe we never met each other there.
(00:12:34.176) LuAnn Buechler: Well maybe we did and we just don't
(00:12:36.376) Susan R Meyer: well I only missed one and you might that might have been the one that you went
(00:12:39.976) LuAnn Buechler: To. As part of the event planning staff on two or three of them. The last one in Baltimore is the one I can remember the most anyway, but yes, and doesn't fill us all. So have a book about that journey.
(00:12:59.476) Susan R Meyer: She does not, she hasn't had time to write a book. She's been too busy with the traveling and the blog and getting her doctorate, which she did just a few years ago.
(00:13:12.376) LuAnn Buechler: And what age bracket? What's she roughly now?
(00:13:16.376) Susan R Meyer: Um, we over 65. Yeah, I'm pretty sure she's over 70.
(00:13:23.976) LuAnn Buechler: Yeah,
(00:13:24.676) Susan R Meyer: yeah.
(00:13:25.376) LuAnn Buechler: So right, we talk here in Make Your Passion Pay about, I believe that when you're following those things you love the most, following your passions, that you can make money doing anything. Right. And what you've just described is another proof of that.
(00:13:44.776) Susan R Meyer: right? Absolutely is
(00:13:47.476) LuAnn Buechler: and traveling across the country. I mean you just gave me a new idea for my next career.
(00:13:56.476) Susan R Meyer: And Phil would be glad to give you advice about it. She's very open to talk to people about this journey. She should put it out there; everybody will be calling her. But yeah, it's amazing how people discover something, and they just can't let it pass them by. They know that's what they should be doing; they know that's what they're called to.
(00:14:26.376) LuAnn Buechler: That's the language that they're called to write, often a calling and a very deep emotional feeling. And I just need to go do it, and when you get into the flow of something like that and you're enjoying it so much, well, why would you stop? I mean, retirement is not a word I use in my language. There's no plan for retirement. One day, I will work until the day that I can't get out of bed.
(00:14:58.076) Susan R Meyer: That'll be retirement. Either I'm incapable of moving or just passed on to the next realm, and who knows, maybe they need coaches there too,
(00:15:07.376) LuAnn Buechler: You know, and when I gave up the word retirement and set that aside, I looked up what it meant.
(00:15:13.576) Susan R Meyer: and
(00:15:14.376) LuAnn Buechler: And the definition is no longer of useful service.
(00:15:20.576) Susan R Meyer: Oh my goodness, you know.
(00:15:22.176) LuAnn Buechler: And so truly, I will be at the state of no longer. It's supposed to service today that I am called retired, or sometimes I say I'm retired retired and living the dream.
(00:15:35.976) Susan R Meyer: Yeah, yeah. That's true. Stephanie Rapala, who is an author of a number of books, got tired of the term crone to describe people our age and she invented a new term, creatrix.
(00:15:56.876) LuAnn Buechler: Okay. Define
(00:15:58.076) Susan R Meyer: Creatrix are, instead of being like crones who are kind of withered, not doing anything, people who are consistently creating. She said that we're very often most creative later in life. And yeah.
(00:16:19.176) LuAnn Buechler: And you think that's because you have freedom of time and money at that stage in life.
(00:16:24.276) Susan R Meyer: Yes. Yes. I do believe that's a big part of it. You know, if you have children, by the time you've got the last kid out of the house and you can finally breathe for a little while, it occurs to you there are all these other things that you love. And she's an author, she's on Substack, and she's written several books. And I love that word.
(00:16:50.576) LuAnn Buechler: I love that word too.
(00:16:52.376) Susan R Meyer: And
(00:16:53.076) LuAnn Buechler: It made me think of some other people that I know that's exactly what's happened. So they may have retired from an initial career but continue on creatrix. In fact, in the story, the book The Passion Test, which my work is based in, The Passion Test, and Marci Shimoff talks about her father, who retired from dentistry, and they really, using The Passion Test, got down to what is it that he loved about dentistry. And they identified that it was intricate work with his hands.
(00:17:31.776) Susan R Meyer: See. Yes,
(00:17:32.576) LuAnn Buechler: He became a world-class needlepoint artist.
(00:17:37.076) Susan R Meyer: Oh wonderful. Wonderful
(00:17:39.376) LuAnn Buechler: Years old.
(00:17:41.976) Susan R Meyer: See, I was thinking he became a jeweler that would have been another career that might have been of interest to him.
(00:17:49.676) LuAnn Buechler: It might have been right. That's intricate work as well. That's what she did in a brick and mortar and needlepoint. You can do from your home, you know, lining. So I love that story. So tell me other factors that define what you call champagne ladies.
(00:18:07.776) Susan R Meyer: Okay, and I have to cheat. I've got my little piece of paper because I learned that I can never remember seven different things, and technically there's eight. Okay, the first one is resilience, and I want to talk about that a little bit because people seem to have this notion that resilience is bouncing back. It is not bouncing back, it is learning and growing from what has happened in life. And so there's actually eight components to that: competence, confidence, connection.
(00:18:50.576) LuAnn Buechler: There you
(00:18:51.276) Susan R Meyer: Go, right? There we go: character, contribution, coping, and control.
(00:19:02.776) LuAnn Buechler: You are going to have to send me that list because
(00:19:06.076) Susan R Meyer: it's all
(00:19:06.676) LuAnn Buechler: Another bunch of c words that all apply, and I love that you put that under the nest of resilience. When I think of the word resilience, I think of resilience and being able to be silent. And as you said, learn, investigate, maybe be creative, like what is happening in this moment. Um, what did you say in there? Another one.
(00:19:36.776) Susan R Meyer: Oh, connection was one that seemed to really hit home for you.
(00:19:40.676) LuAnn Buechler: Connecting in, right? Not just connecting out, but connecting in.
(00:19:45.076) Susan R Meyer: yes.
(00:19:45.476) LuAnn Buechler: And Oh, the ability to adjust to situations. I don't remember what word you used though,
(00:19:54.776) Susan R Meyer: Cool? I don't remember. But there's more on the list, so we may come back to it with the rest of the list. The second one is curiosity, restlessness, and openness to new things. The fourth one is one of my favorite words. I bought a very expensive book simply because it had that word in it. Pretty collage.
(00:20:23.176) LuAnn Buechler: Hi. Okay. You don't have to explain that one to me.
(00:20:25.176) Susan R Meyer: I have to explain it all the time, I love it and you'll love it. Once you know what it is, it is taking different things and putting them together to create a new idea or a new thing.
(00:20:39.276) LuAnn Buechler: Absolutely love it
(00:20:40.476) Susan R Meyer: and such a fancy word for it. I love it.
(00:20:43.876) LuAnn Buechler: Say the word
(00:20:45.676) Susan R Meyer: Again. For collage.
(00:20:47.076) LuAnn Buechler: Rica collage
(00:20:49.876) Susan R Meyer: Yes. And the way you say it suggests that it probably has a French origin, but I believe that dealing with fear, that's the next one. Do you deal with fear? Creating a legacy and having fun. That was so connected with everyone and that speaks right to you. You were talking about passion? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And the last one, these are from the original book, was connection. Then in this book, I discovered that it's sort of hidden in that list but not explicit: attitude.
(00:21:32.576) LuAnn Buechler: Oh yeah.
(00:21:34.776) Susan R Meyer: Yeah,
(00:21:35.276) LuAnn Buechler: positive attitude.
(00:21:36.676) Susan R Meyer: Yeah. And someone that we both know and love exemplifies everything on the list, and that would be Minx. Born, okay. May have met her at CAM. I don't
(00:21:56.276) LuAnn Buechler: remember. So, tell us about her.
(00:21:57.876) Susan R Meyer: Yeah, Mick started. I don't remember where she started out, but she spent a fair amount of time in the food industry, and that came in handy when her son developed asthma. So she started taking courses and learning about a particular way of cooking and good nutrition. She said she changed his diet. The asthma went away. When he went to summer camp, she prepared or put together dishes for 30 days and had them shipped to the camp so that he would not have any nutritional issues, and he had a lovely month at camp. From that, she got involved with someone who was teaching nutrition and was asked to join that woman and do some training, which she hadn't done before. At the same time, she was creating some sort of groups for women just to get together and do things, and a friend ever said, you know, that's coaching. Oh, okay. So she went and got her coach certification and continued to coach. She's involved in groups with elders, groups with women. She teaches at Florida State University. She has overcome two major diseases by changing her eating habits around them. She too writes every single day, and she has a lovely, lovely newsletter.
(00:23:58.076) LuAnn Buechler: Oh, fantastic. Love to share that newsletter. Can we get a link for that newsletter?
(00:24:03.976) Susan R Meyer: Yeah.
(00:24:05.576) LuAnn Buechler: Because we'd be happy to share that. Maybe I should get her on the show, on the podcast for a conversation. But what I heard and what you just described too is wisdom,
(00:24:19.276) Susan R Meyer: Yes,
(00:24:19.476) LuAnn Buechler: Women have acquired wisdom that they have to share, and I was at a women's business group today, and we were talking about sharing your voice. Share your voice in the world, you have wisdom, you have experience, you have knowledge. And so be out there sharing your voice in the world. We want more women's voices to be heard in the world.
(00:24:46.776) Susan R Meyer: Yeah. During the group. I don't always have all 38 in my head. Unfortunately, she's left this realm, but Alice March. Ellis, you've met, you probably have run across her someplace. Alice started out as a housewife and had, I think, two or three marriages and I forget how many children, became a well-known weaver in California. And then one of her sons said, I think you should get involved in this thing. It was trying to save PBS in California. So she became involved with him and went all over the place speaking. She'd never done that before. And she came from one of those old-fashioned households, where, you know, it was children should be seen and not heard. She became a speaker. She actually was instrumental in keeping Mr. Rogers on the air.
(00:26:00.476) LuAnn Buechler: Well,
(00:26:01.276) Susan R Meyer: And then she moved to New York and she had this—she said she woke up one morning and just saw the word 'attention,' and it was just like over her head and she had to do something with that. So she created something called the Attention Factor and ran groups in New York. Moved to New York City. Ran groups here in New York for a number of years. Wrote a couple of books about it. She was working on a proposal for another book when she died. And she was—talk about passion.
(00:26:49.276) LuAnn Buechler: Some.
(00:26:50.476) Susan R Meyer: She would stop strangers on the street and talk to them about the attention factor.
(00:26:56.576) LuAnn Buechler: I love it. I love it. Excellent.
(00:27:00.476) Susan R Meyer: Excellent.
(00:27:01.276) LuAnn Buechler: And so again, back to that word retire, right? Even if people have used it all their life, have left a career under that terminology, there's still a whole world of opportunity out there. And you can make additional income speaking, coaching, sharing your wisdom, writing, being an author, even submitting poems, writing a blog, sharing that knowledge. There's so much there to think about, and I typically feel like my listeners are the young solopreneurs. But, you know, I hope that some women are out there listening to us today, Susan, and remember to keep on going. I mean, life is so much more fun when you're doing things you love, right?
(00:27:54.176) Susan R Meyer: It absolutely is. I mean, Putting together, this book was such a joy. I have to admit editing this book was not quite so much fun, but when I wrote the first book, I only used quotes from people in the book. And it broke my heart to not be able to tell their whole stories.
(00:28:18.176) LuAnn Buechler: So
(00:28:19.376) Susan R Meyer: This book instead is primarily story with a little bit of advice thrown in.
(00:28:25.376) LuAnn Buechler: awesome
(00:28:26.476) Susan R Meyer: At the beginning and the end, and because I think that each person's story is valuable and obviously personal, they all had the right to edit their portion of the book before it was published.
(00:28:50.276) LuAnn Buechler: So it
(00:28:50.976) Susan R Meyer: And luckily, a number of them said this is perfect. This is fine. Go with it. I did have one who said, probably a world record for rewrites. I will not mention her name and I will not tell you how many rewrites, but my publisher was getting a little nervous.
(00:29:18.576) LuAnn Buechler: That's right. That book is out. It's been published.
(00:29:21.576) Susan R Meyer: It's published, it's out, and I have to say my publisher is also in a new career. From where she started, she thought she was going to be a teacher. But when she finished college and got ready to teach, we were in the midst of the Vietnam War, so all the teaching jobs were going to men who wanted to avoid the draft.
(00:29:51.876) LuAnn Buechler: My goodness.
(00:29:52.476) Susan R Meyer: And she couldn't get a job, so she ended up doing what ended up being public relations for some small computer company. I can't even remember; they were doing something unrelated to anything she knew. She grew that into a business, and it grew into a bigger business, and a bigger business. She moved to New York and had a major marketing and PR agency.
(00:30:25.376) LuAnn Buechler: Wow, that's awesome.
(00:30:26.876) Susan R Meyer: And she got this notion. She saw people don't pay attention to women over 40. She felt like they were invisible.
(00:30:38.776) LuAnn Buechler: Interesting.
(00:30:40.276) Susan R Meyer: So the book begins with a group of very attractive older women in a bar, and the bartender is being, you know, gracious and nice to them until a group of very young women comes in and sits down at the bar. Then, you know, they could have stood on their head and he wouldn't have noticed them anymore. So she wrote a book called Can You See Me Now? about that. But that jumps ahead in the story. She started a newsletter because she saw advertisers were not paying attention to women over 40 either. So the newsletter, called The Three Tomatoes, was written for women of a certain age and has articles and ads for things that are of interest, you know, and fashion stories and cooking, a little bit of everything in it. She was doing it for the fun of it until her husband said, why don't you turn it into a business? So that's how The Three Tomatoes got started. Now it's in three or four cities: it's in Miami, it's in San Francisco, and one other city that I can't remember, and possibly going to be in London. They have annual events. This Friday is the Renewal Summit.
(00:32:17.276) LuAnn Buechler: He said online?
(00:32:18.176) Susan R Meyer: No, no, you have to come to New York next year.
(00:32:22.776) LuAnn Buechler: Okay, okay. Well, yeah, I'm in.
(00:32:25.776) Susan R Meyer: because
(00:32:26.676) LuAnn Buechler: Um, I don't remember what's her name.
(00:32:29.876) Susan R Meyer: Cheryl Benton.
(00:32:31.976) LuAnn Buechler: Cheryl was on the Zoom call when we released your book.
(00:32:35.176) Susan R Meyer: She was, she was, and I don't know whether you can see these.
(00:32:40.076) LuAnn Buechler: Yeah. Yeah.
(00:32:42.876) Susan R Meyer: Okay, I got these for Cheryl and me, champagne
(00:32:46.276) LuAnn Buechler: glasses
(00:32:47.676) Susan R Meyer: And we were with them for that. We were at the book party, the live book party that we had, but she's created this empire.
(00:33:01.676) LuAnn Buechler: Well, she has, right? Not just the newsletter.
(00:33:04.476) Susan R Meyer: She's a publisher. She's got over 80 books. Two of them are mine.
(00:33:09.576) LuAnn Buechler: I was going to say, did she publish yours?
(00:33:11.976) Susan R Meyer: Of course she did.
(00:33:13.176) LuAnn Buechler: Yes. Awesome. I, in fact, had reached out on their website. I thought that very day because I'm looking for a publisher and I wanted to talk to The Three Tomatoes, so I will do that. I will talk to The Three Tomatoes and again there's another potential guest on the show. So my audience, watch for that in the future. We'll talk more about publishing for women over 70. Right. Let's end with a conversation about, again, how do we remain effervescent over—I love that word, I just want to say it—over 70.
(00:33:55.176) Susan R Meyer: All right, it is attitude. I have friends, and you, I'm sure you do too, who have just sort of, oh well, I'm past 65, I'm retired, and, you know, you're not retired. You're like a treadless tire at this point, you know, and I don't really—not worth anything. So it begins with an attitude that there's something out there for you. And then, yeah, absolutely, and exploring. Just keep doing things. Something is going to grab you.
(00:34:33.776) LuAnn Buechler: Curiosity was the word you said earlier than
(00:34:37.076) Susan R Meyer: others
(00:34:37.576) LuAnn Buechler: That I really like, and I want to tell my audience one more quick story before we need to wrap it up today. I did the Passion Test workshop in a 55 and over club for years, and women who had retired from their corporate positions would come in and they were lonely and sad and looking for meaning in their life. The Passion Test is a great tool to help people. So if you want to reach out to me and have that conversation, if you want to get curious about what's my next phase in life, then let's have a conversation. I have a free consultation on my website at luannb.com. Be sure to learn the lessons from the Champagne Ladies: Effervescent at Any Age book. Go get yourself that book so it can inspire you the way the group of women did on this own call for me already, and we will make sure that there's a link to the book—it's on Amazon.
(00:35:41.576) Susan R Meyer: It's on Amazon.
(00:35:43.376) LuAnn Buechler: We'll make sure there's a link to the book on Amazon, and I got a Facebook link for Susan and her LinkedIn page. We'll put those in the show notes. So if you've enjoyed this conversation and want to reach out to Susan, or for digital conversation, we are open to that for sure. Susan, thank you for following your passion and doing the work you're doing in the world. It is inspiring to other women and we appreciate you.
(00:36:15.076) Susan R Meyer: Well, thank you for inviting me. This has been just delightful.
(00:36:18.576) LuAnn Buechler: Wonderful. All right, everybody, go out and make your passion pay and have a great day.