These women come from all different walks of life — teachers, accountants, doctors, chefs, musicians, athletes. Yet they all have one thing very much in common. As their lives advanced past age 60, they did not retire to revel in their glory days. Their most glorious achievements continue to this very day.
By refusing to accept the limitations that society puts on women of a certain age, these movers and shakers have embraced their age, challenged the status quo, and continue to be an inspiration to women around the world, proving that your passion for life and ability to contribute to society doesn’t end when you turn 60. There is so much more life left to live.
01. Judith Boyd
Judith Boyd has always had a passion for fashion. During her career as a psychiatric nurse, Boyd would spend her spare time visiting vintage clothing shops. For a time, she owned her own hat shop in Denver, Colorado. While her husband, Nelson, was battling a rare form of terminal cancer in 2010, Boyd launched her style blog, stylecrone.com. “He was my photographer,” she says. “It was our project. It was such a devastating and painful time, and the blog was a source of levity.”
After her husband’s passing, Boyd continued blogging and modeling on Instagram in his memory. Now 75, Boyd’s Instagram feed has more than 40,000 avid followers and has connected her with fashion fans around the world. For Boyd, in addition to the personal connection she has created with other enthusiasts, fashion continues to be an extension of her mindfulness and personal health. “Each outfit is its own meditation,” Boyd says. “It involves all of my senses to find something that excites me. Wherever I travel, it’s really exciting to meet new friends through Instagram or the blog. As we grow older, we become invisible, and there was no way that I was going to allow myself to become invisible.”
02. Wendy Ida
Wendy Ida didn’t think she would live past age 43. As a survivor of domestic violence, Ida escaped her abusive marriage and the East Coast to start a new life in California with her two young children. Noticing that many other Californians were physically active, Ida began exercising as a way not only to cope with her struggles, but to set an example for her children. “When I went to the gym, a whole new world opened up for me,” Ida says. “I still have goose bumps thinking about it. After a few weeks, other people noticed my body changing before I did.” Ida lost over 80 pounds and made fitness her new career, leaving the world of corporate accounting behind.
When Ida turned 57, she entered her first bodybuilding competition. Now 66, in addition to being a bestselling author, life coach, and television host, she is the winner of eight national bodybuilding and figure championships and the holder of two Guinness World Records in fitness. Ida knows the struggles older women face to become fit because she has lived that struggle herself. “The first thing you need to do is jump-start your brain,” she says. “The more you sit, the more you want to sit. You have to put one foot in front of the other. You don’t need any special equipment or outfit. Once I started moving my body, it changed my mind.”
Ida emphasizes that as you get older, you have to put yourself first. “We don’t put ourselves in our own calendars, because we don’t think we are that important,” she says. “Make a playdate for yourself to go hiking or bicycling. Have a reward for yourself and make it fun. It’s never too late to take back your life.”
03. Diana Nyad
At age 30, Diana Nyad set a world record by swimming 102 miles in open water from the Bahamas to Florida and became an overnight celebrity. But she was so burned out from years of training in the pool that she decided to give up swimming to pursue broadcasting. “At the time, you couldn’t pay me a million dollars to swim another lap,” she said.
When Nyad turned 60, her mind came back to a dream that had never died. When she was 29, she tried and failed to make the swim from Cuba to the United States. Could she battle ocean currents, box jellyfish, and even sharks to do it now? “Turning 60, I never had a problem with age,” Nyad says. “I never worried about the cosmetic aspect of aging. But it hit me like an existential angst. What little had I done with my life? I became choked up with how little time was left.” Nyad went back to grueling training sessions, spending 13 hours at a time training for her impossible dream. After four failed attempts, on the fifth try, at age 64, Nyad completed the 110-mile swim from Havana to Key West, something no other swimmer has been able to accomplish.
Now, at 69, Nyad travels the world as a public speaker, inspiring others to pursue their impossible dreams. And though she fulfilled her dream of swimming from Cuba to Florida, she has decided to dream even bigger.
In 2016, Nyad created Everwalk, a walking initiative aimed to get more than 1 million Americans walking to improve their health. “I have a vision of turning America from a sedentary society into a nation of walkers,” Nyad says. “At this age I’m a lot closer to the end than the beginning and I am in phenomenal shape. The question people have to ask themselves is, what do you want to do with these last vital years of your life? You may not be a CrossFit athlete or an Ironman triathlete, but today you can walk. And tomorrow, you can walk farther.”
04. Janice Lennard
As an 8-year-old, the Louisiana native Janice Lennard would dance around her house so often that her mother sent her to ballet school. As an adult, when Lennard moved to California, she never stopped dancing, continuing to study alongside the Russian ballet dancer Alexander Godunov and the legendary Hollywood actress and dancer Cyd Charisse.
Later in life, a curiosity about other forms of movement inspired Lennard to take yoga and Pilates classes. After several years of practice, she was ready to help others learn. “About 15 years ago, I went to a class and thought to myself, ‘You know what, I could probably teach this class.’ So I went and got certified and I’ve been teaching ever since.”
Now 75, whether it is yoga, dance, or Pilates, Lennard teaches six days a week throughout Palm Springs, California. Many of Lennard’s students have been training with her for years, but she is equally happy to see a new face in her class.
“I’ve always loved moving, and I love teaching very much,” she says. “When a new person will come to class and say ‘I’ve never done this before,’ I tell them never to worry about it. You do what you can do. Eventually, you will catch up to everyone else. I never believed in pushing people into yoga positions. You don’t know what issues people are having. Everything good that comes from this just takes a little bit of time.”
05. Ruth Bader Ginsburg
At 85, the Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg maintains a steady workout regimen that puts people half her age to shame. Following two battles with cancer, Ginsburg became a devoted fitness fanatic in her late 60s to help strengthen her body and increase her bone density.
Ginsburg, who often wears a shirt that says “Super Diva” during her workouts, keeps a frenetic workout pace for one hour, twice per week, with her trainer, Bryant Johnson. In his book, The RBG Workout: How She Stays Strong … and You Can Too!, Johnson describes the strength training that Ginsberg does, which includes squats, push-ups, planks, and chest presses. Though there may be times when Ginsburg doesn’t feel up to giving her best effort, Johnson says she has never bailed out on a workout. After undergoing surgery for early stage lung cancer in December 2018, she resumed working within days. According to Johnson, “she is a living example of what she stands for, including the fight for equal rights and women.”
06. Alice Waters
For over four decades, Alice Waters has been at the forefront of the sustainable agriculture movement. As the executive chef, founder, and owner of Chez Panisse Restaurant in Berkeley, California, Waters changes her menu daily, focusing on seasonal courses that feature organic ingredients. When she opened the restaurant, in 1971, Waters began to create a network of local farmers so that she could use only the most local ingredients. “When you have the best and tastiest ingredients, you can cook very simply,” Waters writes in her book The Art of Simple Food, one of the 16 books she has authored. “The food will be extraordinary because it tastes like what it is.”
A proponent of the slow food movement, the 74-year-old Waters continues to make educating people about the importance of organic food a priority, especially when it comes to children. With the Edible Schoolyard Project, Waters works to make healthy school lunches available to all students in her community. “Teaching kids how to feed themselves and how to live in a community responsibly is the center of an education,” she has said.
07. Esther Perel
Every day, Esther Perel embraces life. Her mother and father were both the sole survivors of their respective families from Nazi concentration camps. As she describes on her website, “They wanted to embrace vibrancy and vitality — in the mystical sense of the word, the erotic. I owe them much of my perspective on life, as well as my belief in the power of will, the search for meaning, and the resilience of the human spirit. To me, there is a world of difference between ‘not being dead’ and ‘being alive.’ I owe this understanding to my parents.”
As a psychotherapist and bestselling author, Perel helps people around the world gain better understanding of their most intimate relationships. “Couples therapy is probably the hardest type of therapy to be in and to practice; and I have been on both sides. In my work as a therapist, I see despair, entrenched patterns, loneliness in the presence of another, contempt, violence, lack of any physical touch; so many couples come to me way beyond their due date. The great thing about being a therapist is that I don’t have to worry about ageism and boredom. It’s not like keeping up with technology: As long as my brain works, I can practice until I drop — and I certainly intend to.”
08. Louise Cooper
As a two-time breast cancer survivor, Louise Cooper has spent a lifetime erasing boundaries in her mind. She is an ultramarathon runner and Eco-Challenge competitor, and she has climbed the highest summit on each of four different continents.
“I’m very visual, and I visualize myself doing these things,” Cooper says. “I could always look at something on television or hear about something, and say, ‘Oh, I want to do that too.’ I guess if there is a fear, it’s a fear of missing out on something.”
Just five months after completing chemotherapy for breast cancer in 1999, Cooper finished the “world’s toughest footrace,” the 135-mile Badwater Ultramarathon, which begins 279 feet below sea level in Death Valley, California, and ends at an elevation of 8,360 feet.
At age 65, Cooper continues to teach kindergartners, and is the chief inspiration officer of Project Athena, an organization that helps women who have had medical setbacks get on their feet again. “The founder, Robyn Benincasa, and I, we’ve both had medical setbacks in our life, which we didn’t allow to stop us from pursuing whatever we wanted. We saw how sports and having a goal really helped with the healing process. Project Athena encourages people who’ve had setbacks to find a new athletic goal. We train them, we coach them, and we give them a team experience. Doctors heal your body, but we try to heal your soul.
“My biggest thing is trying to help people break down the barriers they have created for themselves. If people are willing to step out of their comfort zone, there is a world out there that is life changing.”
09. Maria Shriver
You could say that public service is in Maria Shriver’s DNA. She is the niece of the U.S. president John F. Kennedy and U.S. senators Bobby Kennedy and Ted Kennedy. Her father, Sargent Shriver, was the driving force behind the formation of the Peace Corps. Her mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver founded the Special Olympics.
Despite her amazing pedigree, the 63-year-old Shriver has not lived in anyone’s shadow. She is a pioneer female journalist, having interviewed heads of state around the world as an anchor for both CBS News and NBC News. For seven years, she served as First Lady of the State of California, working on behalf of families who were living in poverty.
When her father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, Shriver created the Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement, a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness about women’s increased risk for Alzheimer’s and educating the public about lifestyle changes to protect brain health. “Today I hope you spend less time worried about what you’re not doing and more time imagining what you, and only you, can do with your time here on this earth,” Shriver said. “Don’t let it run out. Make it count.”
10. Bonnie Raitt
For more than forty-five years, Bonnie Raitt has been entertaining audiences with her unique mix of blues, folk, rock, and country music. At age 69, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer continues to tour the country, playing hits from her 20 albums. Once vulnerable to an alcohol addiction, which troubles so many rock stars, Raitt gave up alcohol in the late 1980s, and began to discover her greatest commercial success as an artist. Throughout her career, she has also been a devout political activist, championing many environmental causes for four decades as a founding member of MUSE (Musicians United for Safe Energy). Raitt often provides tickets for her shows to local nonprofit organizations that work on issues related to environmental protection and social justice. In 2019, the 10-time Grammy winner will tour the United States with James Taylor.