Ep69 Transcript: Get Outside – Top Takeaways from Dierdre Wolownick

Get outside. It’s no surprise that that is my top takeaway from my interview with Deirdre Wolownick, the oldest woman to have climbed El Capitan at age 70. We’ll dive a little bit more into some of the top takeaways from her episode.

Hello Dreamers. Welcome to the Late Starters Club, giving you the inspiration mindset and tools you need to start something midlife and beyond. Remember, it’s never too late to follow your dreams.

I loved interviewing Dierdre Wolownick, and it is no surprise that she is just passionate about having people get outside and really understand what they are capable of. She doesn’t want people just sitting at home watching screens, and I agree completely.

Whenever I’m feeling a little bit down or I need a lift or I feel like I need some inspiration, I am definitely getting outside as well. But I love what she was really talking about was just how these messages come into us. If we’re watching screens, we’re consuming, we’re not out there creating and living when we are just watching our screens.

So the other thing I think is a huge thing for me is just the messages that we take in when we’re watching screens, and sometimes it is just really out of our control because there’s commercials or somehow we end up watching a video that we didn’t necessarily mean to watch, or we just keep binge watching a series and we’re taking in these messages that are not necessarily good for us, especially in midlife. I know that I watch a lot of commercials that end up telling me that my neck isn’t good enough, that I shouldn’t have any wrinkles or that, you know, Whatever. My eyebrows aren’t aging right, or whatever it is. It is very frustrating to be, taking in some of those messages when we don’t want that and it makes us feel bad.

So getting out there and exploring, helps take us away from those messages, but it also can give us so much empowerment to get out there and, do something super active. She was talking about how she had never climbed, she just started climbing like only I think it was like 12 years prior to when we had the interview.

And that’s just amazing that she was then able to climb El Capitan. She had never done a pull-up before in her life. And if you listen to her episode, She really, you know, doesn’t seem to feel like there are obstacles, just things that she hasn’t learned yet, things she hasn’t learned how to do yet, and she just goes and studies them and learns them.

She doesn’t have this programming that is saying, well, I’m not a climber so I can’t do that. Or I’m not strong so I can’t do that kind of thing, or I need to be careful, or whatever message that might be happening in her brain. just doesn’t seem to be there. She just goes out and does it, and she just tackles it in a very systematic way by learning about it, being curious about it, and then going out and doing it.

And I think that is just a beautiful thing to do at this time of our lives and at any time of our lives. there’s no obstacles, just things we haven’t learned yet.

And of course one of her big messages was to just go out and try new things. Just try something and see if you like it. she was publishing her book and that publisher fell through, so she just learned what she needed to know and she had never published anything before, but she just tried it and learned about it and did it.

So that was so inspiring. And if you have not gone and listened to episode 68, I highly encourage you to do that now.

Hope that was helpful, and make sure you grab the free guide. Top Tools for Late Starters on the website at latestartersclub.com, and let’s turn dreaming into doing.