498 Gail Zelitzky and Catherie Marienau:

One of the biggest predictors of success for a startup founder is a natural curiosity and openness and willingness to constantly learn.  And women in their 70s, 80s and 90s are showing us that anything is possible – including growing and scaling new businesses much later in life.

MELINDA

I’m Melinda Wittstock and today on Wings of Inspired Business we meet two inspiring entrepreneurs who are shining a spotlight on female founders above the age of 70 taking on new challenges in businesses and creating a powerful – sometimes world-changing impact.

Gail Zelitzky built two multi-million-dollar businesses before creating GEARSHIFT, a fast track coaching program. Also founder of the Wonder Women Mastermind, Gail recently joined forces with Catherine Marienau to launch the Women Over 70 – Aging Reimagined podcast. Catherine is an educational entrepreneur who has founded and directed innovative undergraduate and graduate programs and created cross-sector forums for community engagement. She teaches, writes and consults in the areas of women and aging, women and integrative health, and neuroscience and adult learning.

This episode is a must listen for all women who worry they are over the hill by 40 or 50 … listen on to learn why your golden years will be many of your best.

As co-hosts of the weekly podcast, Women Over 70-Aging Reimagined, Gail Zelitzky and Catherine Marienau shatter the myth that women are invisible as they age. Interviewing women in their 70s, 80s and 90s, they’ve come to see that women can and do accomplish major things in business – many launching profitable businesses, writing significant books, and more.

Everyone is on a different timeline in life, and it just so happens that women tend to have “awakenings” later in life – healing themselves in significant ways and then offering that talent to others. I can’t wait to introduce you to Gail and Catherine!

Melinda Wittstock:       Catherine and Gail, welcome to wings.

Gail Zelitzky:                 Thank you. We’re happy to be here.

Catherine Marienau:    Yeah, thank you.

Melinda Wittstock:       Well, I’m excited to speak to both of you because you’re such an inspiration. Women over 70 can and are doing amazing things, and yet there’s an invisibility. Sometimes women talk themselves out of thinking, oh I can’t do that. We talk ourselves out of things. What made you decide to get together and found Women Over 70?

Gail Zelitzky:                 Well, this is Gail. Catherine was my faculty mentor and that’s how we got together. I got my degree late in life, and she was a professor at DePaul University. So I got my degree and then we continued to talk. After that, we then started meeting for dinner and all. We became really good friends. The idea of starting a podcast came to me during one of my son, Steve Olsher’s New Media Summit in which he was promoting podcasting in a big way. I thought it would be really great to interview 70 women over 70.

Gail Zelitzky:                 So Catherine and I started to talk about this and we decided that we would love to do it together. 70 Women over 70 became Women over 70, Aging Reimagined.

Melinda Wittstock:       That is just so inspiring. I love this. It’s such a classic founder’s story where you have two people or three people or whatever. They get together, they have a shared interest and they see an opportunity and an unmet need in the market. What are some of the things you’ve learned from interviewing all these women?

Catherine Marienau:    Hi, this is Catherine. There are many themes that have come across from the women that we’ve interviewed. We’ve so far talked to with over 45 women, and some of the themes are that they are constantly open to learning new things. It doesn’t matter whether they’re 70, 80 or 90. So they’re open to learning, they’re very curious, they continue to want to make a difference in the world. Some of that is in terms of local activities. Others have much more global ambitions.

Catherine Marienau:    They are very oriented to relationships, family, community. Gail, do you want to add more?

Gail Zelitzky:                 They were pioneers in social justice when they were younger and they continue to be pioneers in social justice. They’re very active, they’re artists, they’re poets, they’re lifelong learners, they’re educators, they’re the women starting organizations like Transition Network and the Villages. They really are people who just inspire you every time we listen as to what they are doing and how they are thinking.

Melinda Wittstock:       It’s fascinating to me because I see a pattern that women tend to really step into entrepreneurship a little bit later in life, They do the whole corporate thing, we get all these credentials, we do all these things, we have children. Married, maybe divorced. All these things kind of happen. I’m seeing a real renaissance from about late 40s into the 50s and 60s, and now too over 70, of women stepping up and being very innovative founders and leaders. We’re wired very differently from men, aren’t we?

Catherine Marienau:    We seem to be. This is Catherine. Many of our women are entrepreneurs, starting their own businesses, but it might be they become healers. They have had awakenings in their own lives, so they have healed themselves in important ways, and now they are offering that talent to other people. We’ve had women who are 75 before they found what they say is their true calling. Others make that pivot when they’re in their late 40s or 50s as you suggest, many of them moving out of corporate life into something that’s more relationship oriented and more involved in healing or supporting other women in their own growth and development.

Gail Zelitzky:                 We interviewed a woman the other day who was 91 years old.

Melinda Wittstock:       Wow.

Gail Zelitzky:                 She spent 32 years in the Christian ministry in Lebanon and Jordan. She just, a few years ago, wrote her own [inaudible 00:06:55] book and recently, after she turned 90, wrote another book that was published about memories that she has, thoughts she has as she turns 90. So, that’s the kind of inspirational women we speak with.

Melinda Wittstock:       It’s really inspirational. Everyone’s on a different timeline in terms of when they, and hopefully they do, really get into alignment with why they’re here in an “earth suit” just in this particular moment in time. What particular skill or special talent, or special insight or whatever that they have, that they can actually express meaningfully in a business or in a social mission impact or in art or any of these ways. What do you think it is that women have to kind of get over, I guess in a way, before they can kind of really step into that power.

Gail Zelitzky:                 Well, there are three things that I think women need in order to step over that power, into their own power. One is that they have to believe in what they feel. It seems it takes women a lot longer to come to the realization that they can believe in what they feel and that they can follow their path. As Catherine said, so many of the people we talk to are healers and they have come to their healing practices through an awakening that they’ve had. It may have taken them years to get there and, as you said, they were in corporate America or they were other types of entrepreneurs and they realized that they have this message to say.

Gail Zelitzky:                 They finally gain the courage to stand in their own power and let it out.

Melinda Wittstock:       I am fascinated by how you both perceive how women have changed relative to society changing as well because I know, certainly when I started out as an entrepreneur, I was the only woman in the room, and the only role models I had were men. So, there was tremendous pressure to act like a dude, but I’m not a dude. It’s inauthentic, and I think society has changed enough and women have changed it enough as well, that we can actually have license to succeed I guess on our own terms.

Melinda Wittstock:       I’m curious, Gail, in your evolution in particular as an entrepreneur, as you perceive those changes, what’s different now compared to what it was like when you were starting out and as you were building your multi-million dollar businesses?

Gail Zelitzky:                 Yes. So remember when it was okay for us to think if a man said, “Wow, you’re as powerful as a man,” or “You ask questions like a man.” We were so excited to feel like, gee, they saw us just as tough as they were. When I think back on those days, because I was in the liquor business, and in the liquor business there were no women. When I entered it, you could count on one hand the number of women in a room. They were not in high positions. So, as president of a national franchisee organization that we franchised independent retail liquor stores. I had a lot to do with all the distilleries, the wineries, the breweries, the advertising agencies, people who were high up.

Gail Zelitzky:                 It wasn’t easy. As you say, it was really, really difficult at that time to get your voice heard and to be seen for what you were capable of. Today, I think that there are still some issues like that, but we have come so far. My whole coaching practice is centered on helping women stand in their own power, helping them to find their voice and to be who they were meant to be. When I look around and all these women that we interview on our Women Over 70, Aging Reimagined podcast, they have always been doers and active. So entrepreneur women today, women own four in 10 businesses today. They’re like 51% of all privately held companies, which I think is 39% of all businesses. So women are making strides and it’s really great to see.

Melinda Wittstock:       I’m curious what you think too, Catherine, about our power when we’re standing in our more feminine power, when we’re really leveraging all the things that are quite unique to most women. This more of a collaborative approach, leveraging our empathy or intuition. These are all kind of archetypal characteristics. Men can have these too, but we tend to have them more. Do you think we’re more powerful when we’re really in that feminine zone as opposed to trying to replicate the way men lead?

Catherine Marienau:    I would say a resounding yes, because we’re being authentic. As Gail said, we’re really believing in what we feel, acting out of what we intuitively know is effective ways to be in the world and be with other people. We put a lot of trust in relationships and building relationships, as you said, collaborating. I think those approaches have stood the test of time now pretty well in business and in other arenas. So I think that today women are much more accepting of their own strengths and willing to put them out there and act on them.

Melinda Wittstock:       One of my early role models was my aunt. She was Canada’s first female stockbroker. You imagine her starting out in the 60s, very, very difficult. She was often asked to go get the coffee and do all those things as you’d expect. But she was very entrepreneurial and she realized that she couldn’t compete head on with the men, so instead, she created her own market. She started educating women about investing in stocks and she built her own market within this, became the top producer. She carried on working until she was 85 and she would have gone further, but for the fact that she got a cold or something and she was off work for the first day in her life, and someone looked into her records to figure out how old she actually was. So she had to stop, because Canada’s mandatory retirement age was 65, which is crazy. That doesn’t work for women because women are still really powerful and doing great things at age 65, 75, and in her case 85. Top producer at 85.

Melinda Wittstock:       So I saw this kind of first hand. You see it with women who become leaders in politics and this sort of thing as well. Do you think we’re just kind of late bloomers in a way, that just because of the seasons of our lives and having children and all these sorts of things, that we’re actually really in our prime as we age?

Catherine Marienau:    This is Catherine. I do think that women, as we age, are in our prime. Women historically, and even today, have played so many roles that are sometimes in competition with one another.

Melinda Wittstock:       Right. One of the missions of this podcast is really to encourage women to collaborate.

Catherine Marienau:    Well, to collaborate and also that are just the various roles that we play. We’re in charge of the domestic scene. We’re supposed to be … We’re trying to be high achievers in whatever our work world is. We’re trying to do well by our communities. We have many, many important roles on our plate, and part of what can happen is that we get fragmented. So, I think as women age and figure out what is it that really is most important to them, what’s most meaningful, what’s my sense of purpose. We hear that a lot, my sense of purpose, that they can begin to shed some of the should’s that have governed their lives.

Melinda Wittstock:       Yes.

Catherine Marienau:    And they can say, I’m going to say yes to these things. I’m going to say yes because it matters to me. They matter to me because it feels like things are more integrated, and I can make a more powerful difference.

Melinda Wittstock:       I love what you said about fragmented, because that’s a great word for it. The other way that we often talk about it on this podcast is women, we’re all sort of convinced we have to do it all, to have it all.

Catherine Marienau:    Right.

Melinda Wittstock:       And we don’t. If you’ve ever scaled a business, you really understand the concept of leverage and delegation because you can’t grow a business without knowing that. But it’s something that I think entrepreneurial women kind of understand a little bit better than most.

Melinda Wittstock:       What is that moment generally in the women that you’ve interviewed where they … at what age or at what point where they just like, okay, enough of this. I’m going to double down on one thing or two things, and I’m going to just ask people to help me with the rest.

Gail Zelitzky:                 This is Gail. I’m not sure that they actually ever get there. I think what happens is that life happens. So it could be a health moment, it could be a spouse dying or a partner dying, it could be losing children. We interviewed a woman who was in her late 80s who is from Switzerland, and she had several tragic losses in her life. Her husband died in a helicopter crash.

Melinda Wittstock:       Oh gosh.

Gail Zelitzky:                 And her son died in some other tragic way. I may have that backwards. Then she got really, really frail and sick. What did she do? She had a spiritual awakening. She realized that, in her life, she should be a healer. She heard God talking to her, she should be a healer. Another woman that we interviewed lost … Her father was dying and realized that they were going to have an afterlife communication. The father and the daughter were going to have an afterlife communication. So she became an author late in life because he wanted her to write a book.

Gail Zelitzky:                 Literally, they wrote this book together. So we hear these kinds of stories, which say that it’s not that they grow into being a certain way. It’s that life happens as you age.

Catherine Marienau:    This is Catherine. I think many of the women that we’ve talked with have said they sort of arrived at some of these by accident, as Gail said, by life happened to them, by events. Then learned to take hold of that event or that transition and create something wonderful out of it, and this notion of can you have it all, that’s part of what the women’s movement has helped us understand I think is that we’re supposed to have it all and that we’re supposed to have it all at the same time. Now it’s more, yes you can have it all, but probably not all at the same time or at least not immersed in everything at the same level at the same time.

Melinda Wittstock:       Yeah, there’s a big difference too between having it all and doing it all.

Gail Zelitzky:                 Yeah, right.

Melinda Wittstock:       So on this podcast, we talk a lot about scaling a business and what it takes to do that. In some cases, it’s very contrary to women. There’s only three percent of women business owners that make it to $7 million or more in their businesses. It’s very, very hard for women to let go of the doing and being all parts of the process. To some degree, we’re kind of wired in that way. Just because we can, we think we have to. So I have a theory that our brains are wired a little bit differently. We can see all parts of the process. We can see where things connect. We’re a little bit more systems thinkers, and men are a little bit more linear.

Melinda Wittstock:       Again, that’s a generalization, but just because we can do it all doesn’t mean we have to. I see a lot of women in their 20s, 30s, 40s burning out on that kind of treadmill.

Catherine Marienau:    Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:       As you say, there’s usually some sort of tragedy epiphany, an issue with health, some sort of business setback, a divorce, I don’t know, something where it’s, wait a minute, this is just going to change everything, and now I’m kind of free to just be who I am and not try and fit into people’s boxes I guess, not be as wired to be always seeking other people’s approval.

Gail Zelitzky:                 Because what happens is they realize that isn’t working for them.

Melinda Wittstock:       Right.

Gail Zelitzky:                 It just isn’t working to try to be all things to all people, to fit yourself into a box that someone else expects you to be in then and try to live your life that way. It turns out they’re not happy. They have breakdowns. They’re just not able to sustain that kind of approach to being a woman business owner or being a business owner and growing and scaling and using what their gifts are and letting everybody else use what their gifts are.

Melinda Wittstock:       It sounds to me like what you’re describing, once women hit 70, maybe a little bit before, hopefully before, but 70 and beyond for sure, there’s this new freedom. It doesn’t matter. You can just be whoever you want. After a while, you stop caring what other people think of you. You’re just going to be yourself. Is that really what powers this in a large degree?

Catherine Marienau:    Well, this is Catherine. I think we do hear that a lot among most of the women that we’ve talked with, and I think Gail and I talk about it for ourselves as well, that part of it is there’s only so much time left when you’re … We only have so many decades left. We’ve already spent many parts of our lives pleasing others. Not just out of obligation but because we wanted to. But it becomes a time when it’s, if I don’t do this now or if I’m not making commitments that I care about now, when would I do it? This is their time. I think people … We know about as people mature, as they age, they become less defined by what others think. They’re more able to break out of some of those social norms, especially the stereotypes and the myths about how women are supposed to be, especially about aging women. So it’s like, no, I’ll be me.

Gail Zelitzky:                 This is Gail. In the businesses that I’ve coached and all of the business owners, and I only work … I work exclusively with business owners. They get to the point where they want so much more and they realize that they just can’t get it the way that they’ve been working. So how do they grow a business? It isn’t going to be if they want to micromanage every single thing that everyone is doing. That doesn’t work.

Melinda Wittstock:       It doesn’t. You have to get over the perfectionism gene I think that we all have. I see this being such a huge issue for women, that someone said there should be an AA for perfectionists.

Gail Zelitzky:                 Yes, I think you’re right.

Melinda Wittstock:       I was like, we all have to let go of that. But I don’t know how early … I’m curious, Catherine, your perspective on this, how early that starts for girls. If you go into a classroom and the little girls are making their notes look really neat, and the boys are running around and they’re not even really caring about that.

Catherine Marienau:    I think girls are very much socialized at a very early age to be compliant toward perfectionism. The boys tend to be given more free reign. Let them explore, let them experiment. Clearly things are changing for our young females now, but when we think about the influence of our early socialization, how we were brought up as women in the 50s and the 60s, then we’ve got a lot of kind of unlearning to do.

Melinda Wittstock:       Absolutely. There is a huge business niche though that you two have seized on here because there are probably a lot of women in their 70s that have amazing skills and an understanding of a market that is sizable, growing and has a lot of money, and has specific challenges or problems that can be served that’s like the perfect … When you think of it from an entrepreneur, there are so many businesses that can be created to solve specific issues or problems faced by women over 70. Do you see that there’s going to be … On the cover of Entrepreneur magazine, there’s going to be someone who’s founded a business at age 80? Is this possible?

Gail Zelitzky:                 Absolutely. This is Gail. Absolutely it’s possible, and we want to be the active voice of aging. So that’s what we’re hoping to do is to let everyone, the world see that women over 70 have a voice, are creating new businesses. Who knows? Maybe Catherine and I will be on that cover.

Melinda Wittstock:       Absolutely. Why not? I think that we have to really reframe, in many cases, what we think is possible because what’s possible to any individual is what they can conceive, what they can see. If they can’t see it, it’s not possible. So how to reframe that so that women feeling under all this pressure at age 30, like I haven’t created my billion-dollar business yet. Oh my God, I must be a failure. Really kind of understanding and seeing that their time may be a little bit later in life or that somebody who has something, a really good solution for something, doesn’t talk themselves out of it. [inaudible 00:31:05].

Catherine Marienau:    When I was listening to some of your podcast episodes, I was struck by how many of the ideas, the businesses that women have created have come directly out of their own experience.

Melinda Wittstock:       Almost always.

Catherine Marienau:    Almost always. So women’s experience has not been … because it’s largely been, over the decades has been, within the domestic sphere. So that hasn’t been revered all that much, but that’s where the needs are. That’s where the creative ideas are coming, out of our own experience. We see what’s missing, where the gaps are, what could be made, what could be improved. So I think that’s where a lot of women are taking their entrepreneurial energy.

Melinda Wittstock:       I was part of an accelerator group some years back as a technology entrepreneur called Springboard Enterprises. I remember, at Springboard, this was back in 2011 I think, I went through that program. It was fascinating because the businesses that women came up with tended to be formed as a result of the domain expertise that they acquired working within corporations and seeing how things could be done differently, trying to disrupt from within, not being able to, getting fed up, leaving, but then creating a business that wasn’t linear.

Melinda Wittstock:       It was a business that connected a bunch of dots and invariably got the response from male investors that went something like this. Well, if only you could focus.

Catherine Marienau:    Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:       The women, all of us because we all had these different sort of business models that were much more holistic in a way. The connecting the dots kind of systems type business, in which case we were all like, I am focused. It was sort of like the men and women were talking past each other. Women were having a difficult time raising money from venture capital. Still are. It’s still only about 2% of the available funds. These are for businesses that actually qualify for venture capital, businesses that could become billion-dollar unicorns that they have an inherent scalability to them.

Melinda Wittstock:       That still goes on a little bit, because our brains are just, I guess, wired differently and a lot of it is also socialization. How do you see women getting past that and reworking it? Should women in their 70s create a couple venture capital firms? What are some of the things we can do to better support and understand that women are really at their best entrepreneurially later in life?

Gail Zelitzky:                 This is Gail. So that’s exactly what’s happening, right Melinda? Women are creating venture capital firms. Here in Chicago where we’re from, there are numerous funds that women have started that are giving female entrepreneurs at least seed money, if not more, and helping them get that first round or second round that is going to enable them to continue to scale and grow. So many of the women enterprises here have taken advantage of tech incubators and other kinds of innovative entrepreneurial programs that allow them to scale fast.

Melinda Wittstock:       Yeah.

Gail Zelitzky:                 You talked about collaboration. We see that women are realizing that they have to collaborate. We’re holding these Zoom sessions with our podcast guests and other … We hope to entice women from all generations to be interested in this project that we’re doing, so we’ve invited women of all ages to participate in these Zoom sessions. The key aspect is collaboration. The women are stepping up and providing resources, providing support, and helping each other find the avenues they need in order to be successful at what they’re attempting to do.

Melinda Wittstock:       Oh, absolutely. Also, there’s so much wisdom that older people have just by virtue of living, just experiential which, in our society that’s been so youth focused for so long, gets lost. Where in other cultures, older people are revered and utilized for their expertise. Do you see that shifting in our culture?

Gail Zelitzky:                 It’s slowly shifting.

Melinda Wittstock:       Slowly, right, slowly.

Gail Zelitzky:                 Very slowly. Older people are still not seen as viable workers. They’re the first to be let go in traditional corporations. So finding their way to their own businesses is certainly helpful because a lot of older women cannot afford to sit and take advantage of just social security.

Melinda Wittstock:       Well yeah, it’s going to have to shift when you just look at the numbers of the debt and the deficit and whatnot, and longer lifespans and all of that. Social security or just a pension or whatever isn’t going to cut it. By the way, women have very active brains and are very active. As you were saying, we began the interview with 10 to be lifelong learners.

Gail Zelitzky:                 Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:       So that’s a massive shift that’s coming, but it requires a lot of structural shifts in the way our society operates as well.

Gail Zelitzky:                 No question. That’s right.

Catherine Marienau:    I wanted to comment, this is Catherine, that our very first episode was with a woman who’s in her mid 70s and she’s still working full-time and she’s the director of learning at a major out placement firm here in Chicago. She talks in that episode about the need for our society and for business to recognize and value the experience and wisdom that older people bring to the workplace. That’s one of the missions that her organization has taken on as they work with people who are being downsized or otherwise moved out of their positions and how to help bring them into … continue to be involved in meaningful work.

Gail Zelitzky:                 This is Gail. Chicago has an organization called Chicago Innovation. They have … First of all, they’ve been helping tech companies grow and prosper over many years already, but they started a new not for profit called Ageless Innovators. What they do is they pair an older person like myself with a younger person, and we co-mentor each other.

Melinda Wittstock:       Oh, beautiful.

Gail Zelitzky:                 It’s beautiful. So the younger people have an opportunity to teach the older people, and the older people have the advantage of wisdom and many years to help mentor the younger person.

Melinda Wittstock:       I think there’s so much scope in that, and I think it’s impossible to do a podcast interview these days without mentioning coronavirus because it feels like the virus has a message for all of us. It’s shining a spotlight, a very bright one, on all the things that are broken.

Gail Zelitzky:                 That’s right.

Melinda Wittstock:       All the things that need fixing in our society, in our own lives. It’s reminding people that our time here is finite. So you may as well do the thing that you really always wanted to do. Now meantime, there’s a lot of people sitting at home and maybe waking up to the fact that the job they had they didn’t really like that much, or the business they’re in, maybe they don’t like it or maybe they’re being forced to pivot their business, or maybe it’s finally that time to do something with that side hustle. They could be of any age. How is it impacting, do you think, the older generation, women over 70, who are in the risk group, one of the risk groups? Is this a time that could conceivably energize more people, generally and also in that age group, to go and turn that side hustle or that interest into something significant?

Gail Zelitzky:                 This is Gail. The social activists among our guests are very busy recreating what it is that the society can do. They’re being asked to participate in think tanks and collaborations in order to be sure that we are moving in the right direction and that we don’t go back to, as you say, a broke society. There were so many aspects, there are so many aspects of our society that do not work.

Melinda Wittstock:       Yeah, like going back to normal would be a bad thing, actually.

Gail Zelitzky:                 Yes, right.

Catherine Marienau:    Some of the women, especially the social activists, are reaching to younger generations and working very diligently to create pathways where younger women can be involved in more male dominated fields to find ways to help young women get involved in the political landscape. So they’re very intentional about, yes, sharing their wisdom to keep society try to resurrect itself and also to bring younger women along with them.

Melinda Wittstock:       What do you think is going to change the most as a result of coronavirus?

Gail Zelitzky:                 The way people work is definitely going to change. This has brought technology to the forefront and so many people who were avoiding it are going to be using technology to reach out to perspective clients, to start new businesses, to get online and bring value to the greater society. Every one of the people, well certainly every one of the people that I coach, they all need to be thinking differently, and they need to be thinking about what the new normal is going to look like, which is what you’re asking. It’s going to look different, but it’s going to be good I think in many, many ways in that people won’t have to do these long commutes. They’re showing value by working at home. Lots of things are changing.

Melinda Wittstock:       Absolutely.

Catherine Marienau:    Kind of building on that technology but bringing it into education. I’ve worked in programs for the last 25 years that have been doing online learning as one of the delivery modes, and now all education is being delivered that way, now and probably through the summer. So, I think that there will be more attention given and more resources given to online learning in a way that makes it as pedagogically effective as possible. So I think that’s a real possibility, and people are developing new skills in terms of how they learn, because I serve students, people who are in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, some of whom are kind of uneasy about technology and they love the social aspect of coming to a class and being with people like them.

Catherine Marienau:    I just finished a Zoom class this morning with my graduate students and we are finding ways to create community and social closeness and learn with each other in a very interactive way. So I think this is going to be really helpful for how higher education … for improving access to higher education.

Melinda Wittstock:       I have a 16 year old and a 13 year old. I watch them. They’re actually really delighted right now with the way their education is going.

Catherine Marienau:    Oh.

Melinda Wittstock:       They’re doing better. Their grades are higher, they’re more focused, they have time to do all the other things that they really want to do. They’re super happy actually with this. I think my daughter, who’s in 11th grade, it’s going to be difficult to get her to go back to school. But I watch them and they’re very self-directed. They’re almost learning entrepreneurial skills about creating their own kind of work environment, their own … It’s going to be really interesting to see how education changes. There are so many opportunities in that, so many opportunities in healthcare obviously. What a broken system. So many opportunities in many, many industries.

Melinda Wittstock:       I could talk to both of you for a very long time. We’re going to have to have you come back on again. I think this is fascinating work and I am just so inspired with what both of you are doing.

Gail Zelitzky:                 Thank you Melinda.

Melinda Wittstock:       I want to make sure that people can find you and work with you both and get involved if they’re over 70 or even if they’re under 70 and they can recruit their moms or whatever. I’d love that, so what’s the best way?

Gail Zelitzky:                 So our website is womenover70.com, and you can reach us through email at info@womenover70.com. We also have a Facebook group. We’re on Instagram, and each of us has our own pet projects that we’re working on as well. I have Wonder Women Mastermind, which is a mastermind for women business owners exclusively. You can find that by going to GailZelitzky.com.

Melinda Wittstock:       Wonderful. Well, I want to thank you both for putting on your wings and flying with us.

Gail Zelitzky:                 Thank you.

Catherine Marienau:    Thank you so much.

Gail Zelitzky:                 Pleasure to be with you.