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Matt Feret (00:02):

Hello everyone. This is Matt Feret, author of the Prepare for Medicare book series, and welcome to another episode of The Matt Feret Show, where I interview insiders and experts to help light a path to a successful retirement.

(00:16):

Come say hello at themattferetshow.com for show links, notes, websites referenced, quotable quotes, and the complete show transcript. You can also check out prepareformedicare.com and my new site, prepareforsocialsecurity.com. Both support the books, Prepare for Medicare and Prepare for Social Security. I also offer Social Security consulting access on the prepareforsocialsecurity.com website, as well as a searchable database of every Social Security office in the country. Sign out for my monthly newsletter on either website and you'll get free Medicare and Social Security checklists, which you can also do on the show's homepage, themattferetshow.com.

(00:58):

Wondering about your second act? How about your third? Diane Gilman is 77 years young and celebrating her most successful years yet. Inspiring women for decades, in 2020, she surpassed $100 million in sales of her signature DG2 Jeans at the age of 74. Her book, Good Jeans, is a self-help book for women with advice on aging joyfully and productively. Her latest book, Too Old to Be Young, is another on conquering life's challenges to live a third act filled with fulfillment. In this episode of The Matt Feret Show, we'll give you an insider's guide to how she did it and how her life continues to be an inspiration for all. Enjoy.

(01:43):

Diane, welcome to the show.

Diane Gilman (01:45):

Hi, Matt. Thank you so much for having me.

Matt Feret (01:48):

I'm thrilled you're here. So tell everybody what you do, how long you've been doing it and how you help people.

Diane Gilman (01:54):

Oh, forever. So I was one of those people born with purpose. First purpose was designing fashion for women. That was my goal in life and my total passion. But my light bulb moment, the moment that totally changed my life, came out 60 years old when I was widowed, overweight, unhappy, middle age, and I had dressed rock and roll stories in my 20s going into my 30s, and I supplied them with all kinds of outrageous denim items. And I couldn't get into denim anymore. I couldn't wear a jean. Created one for my chubby, middle-aged body and totally repurposed my life. My career shot to a hundred million dollars a year, became the number one fashion personality for QVC & HSN and wrote my first book, Good Jeans, and my second book, Too Young to Be Old, about being an aging female in this society.

Matt Feret (03:06):

That's a whole lot in one soundbite, which is great. Tell the story. So how did you get into fashion? Talk us through the years, talk us through the decades, and then bring us up to that moment at age 60 where you kind of had an aha.

Diane Gilman (03:24):

I was somebody so born with a purpose and a destiny that even as a toddler, I picked up a crayon and drew a stick figure with a dress and punched in polka dots. It's all I ever wanted to do, being raised by older parents who thought women should not work, period. You got married. You had children. You kept a house. I didn't even play with baby dolls. I took all my friends' baby dolls and made little wardrobes for them. I had one purpose in life, and that was to become a career woman before the word career woman was even terminology.

(04:17):

So I had to leave home early because my parents were very against that, against me doing what was going to really wind up being my destiny and my nature. It was LA in the mid-'60s and it was music heaven, and I met Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix and the Jefferson Airplane and The Doors, and I made denim for them. I had painted it, I jeweled it, I slashed it, I patched it, and I had a blast. So until I got into mid, late 20s, I followed the music scene from LA up to San Francisco, and one day I said, "Wait a minute. You're about to be 28 years old. The party is fun, but it can't go on forever."

(05:15):

And I remember I was thinking that. I was at a Rod Stewart birthday party, and I had made him an outrageous pair of leather jeans that were all hand painted, and he was wearing them for the birthday party, and I'm thinking, "Great party, but guess what? You're going to wake up in a couple of years and you're going to be too old for this, and what are you going to do?" And I thought, "I'm going to move to New York." I only knew one person there. He wound up being my boyfriend for years.

(05:49):

So I came to New York. Nobody would hire me. My parents would not let me go to design school so I had no education. I only had a belief in myself. I knocked on a million doors and got a million pocket fulls of no, not interested. Took a job at night at the infamous Max's Kansas City as a cocktail waitress, worst cocktail waitress in the history of waitressing. And during the day, I applied for a job at Bloomingdale's and I got it, but they put me in the old lady's girdle and bullet bra department. It was so depressing. I really thought like this is the end of my life. What is in store for me, working here, selling girdles to bitter old ladies for the rest of my life? And then one day, I recognized her, the fashion coordinator came in and said, "This department is ugly, and no matter what we do, it's not making any money and we got to change everything." And nobody wanted to help her, and I said, "I'll help you. And oh, by the way, I'm a designer."

(07:10):

So long story short, she probably heard that a zillion times. She gave me an appointment. And I sewed my whole collection on a little Singer sewing machine. She loved the collection, bought a hundred-

Matt Feret (07:24):

So you got a shot and someone said, "Yeah, we'll put it in the store." And you went to work on a Singer sewing machine.

Diane Gilman (07:30):

No, no, I did the Singer sewing machine, showed it to them, thinking, okay, well, they'll buy 10 of something and I'll be able to sew it, but they didn't. They bought a hundred thousand dollars' worth and I couldn't produce it. She said, "Why do you look so upset?" And I said, "I never in a million years thought you'd buy this much. I have no money to pay sewers." Bloomingdale's funded me. They bought all the fabric, paid for all the labor, gave me all the windows of the store and two double trunk Sunday Times' full page ads. And that was the beginning of my career. It was totally luck, happenstance.

(08:18):

So I went on and I had this partner and that partner. Obviously, I was always over ... I was never overcompensated and always underfunded. Got some powerful partners who wanted to take my name public on the Hang Seng Index. We introduced washable silk to America. I was in every department store in America, Diane Gilman, washable silk department. And coincidentally, they weren't paying me, and so I started a lawsuit, which was completely stupid. I had no money. They had all the money, but I in the meantime could not work.

(09:03):

One day, the phone rang. This was 1983, 1984 ... No, no, no, 1994. A woman at the other end of the phone said, "Hi. Are you Diane Gilman?" And I'm thinking, "Oh my, God, another lawsuit, or it's a bill collector and I'm almost broke from all these legal bills." And I said, "Yeah." And she said, "Hi. I'm a talent recruiter from QVC and we'd like to have you on live television." And I said, "Okay, who is this? This is a joke, right?"

Matt Feret (09:41):

Right.

Diane Gilman (09:43):

But it wasn't. And I said, "Well, tragically, I can't do that for you because I can't put my name on a label." I was still fighting the lawsuit. And she said, "That's no problem. We'll just call you Diane." And then it turned out that another, this was a cosmetic queen, was in a similar kind of lawsuit, couldn't use her name. She was on air. She was doing great. They just called her by her first name.

(10:16):

So 1994, in the fall, I debuted on QVC. I did that for about a year. And then HSN called me up and said, "We'll give you total creative freedom and a lot of shows to get you known to the public." For a creative person like me, it was heaven. So that is how it all began. I shot to number one. I actually hired an opera singer to bring my voice down 10 octaves. It can get pretty screechy. I hired a talent coach to show me how to do it in front of a camera and really be sincere and sell it. And then I built a fan club of 650,000 women who loved what I finally got a chance to create. I started with washable silk. And then when I was 60, I started at 47, turning 48 on TV, and at 58-

Matt Feret (11:27):

Yeah. I was going to ask that. You had a career change. You went from fashion designer to the ... Well, denim designer to the stars into taking a massive chance and going to New York and through circumstance, hard work, luck, all that stuff, and then TV star, and that was in your late 40s. That's not-

Diane Gilman (11:47):

Yeah. And I hated ... I was someone who never wanted a picture taken of me, never liked my image, so it was actually really hard for me, and very big case of stage fright too. But long story short, I went into middle age. I gained a ton of weight. It all went in the wrong places. I couldn't wear a jean anymore. I was the cool girl on the block always. So because I've hung out with rock and roll stars for so long, I thought this has got to be the worst part of aging. I don't recognize my body, wearing hide me clothes when I'm a real look at me kind of girl.

(12:33):

So I went on a quest to find a jean that fit. There were no jeans that fit a middle-aged body at all. And I said, "Wait a second. We're baby boomers. We're like the spending power of America. How can an industry this huge ignore us?" Well, I never found that jeans from any other brand. So one day, I thought, light bulb, "You've got a sewing room, you've got professional sellers. Go out and buy some denim. Take your measurements, customize, make your own jeans." So I did, and it changed my life.

(13:15):

People started treating me like I was younger and relevant and hip and with it. And I thought, "Wait a minute. If this one jean is doing this much for me and my sense of rightness about growing older as a female," which is very tough to grow older as a female, "wouldn't it do it for millions of women?"

(13:41):

So we had just gotten a female CEO at Home Shopping Network, and I pitched the idea to her. She is very pro helping women, and she said, "Okay. Do you think women would buy a completely impossible to wear fitted garment off television with no way to try it on or touch it or hold it up?" And then I said, "Yeah, I think I can do it." She was not a fool by any means. She did not want to put me on primetime and lose $300,000, $400,000, $500,000. So I premiered my Diane Gilman DG2 Jean at 5 AM on a cold, dark, raw February Sunday morning when nobody is up at 5 AM. And guess what? We sold out 5,000 jeans in three minutes.

Matt Feret (14:38):

Wow.

Diane Gilman (14:39):

The hunger was there, and then I really totally understood my talent and my purpose coming together to be the champion for my generation and middle-aged women and make them feel better about themselves. Again, never looked back. Once I understood it, never looked back and was on air for 30 years. Just said goodbye December 2022, and now I'm on social media, and I'm really having fun, being a Silverella influencer, all things for older women. So yeah, totally new, still kind of the same purpose, just pivoted to a new medium and loving it.

Matt Feret (15:36):

I love that story. Take me back a little bit to, you said you started at Home Shopping Network and QVC at 47, which for most people would be ...

Diane Gilman (15:45):

The end of television era for them. Yeah.

Matt Feret (15:50):

And that would be it, and they would say, "Gosh, look at me. I've got a fan club of 600,000. I'm on TV. I'm being paid reasonably well." This is a wonderful career transition in middle age. And you didn't stop there. You went further. So take me through what happened in your brain or what happened in your life that said, "I'm doing this. I'm making money. I've got validation. I've got a fan club. I enjoy what I'm doing, but there's still something." How did you get that drive, even at that level of success, to parlay that into something else? Where did that come from?

Diane Gilman (16:25):

My whole drive, it's baked into me. It's who I am. It's why when I walked away from live television recently at the age of 77, I said, "I don't think I'm going to like this retirement thing. I think I want to do something where I'm visible and I'm useful and I'm purposeful and I leave a legacy."

(16:54):

The whole thing with developing the middle-aged jean, the DG2 Jean was so explosive where most people that participated on air, a talent like me, were doing one show a month, I was doing 25 shows a month. I was never home. And then on top of it, I said, "Okay, wait a minute. This is all about hormones. Women all over the world, when they go through that hormonal change, the same thing happens. So why aren't I selling this in other countries?" So I went to QVC and I said, "Take a look at my numbers from HSN. And I want to go on air in Canada, Australia, the UK, France, Italy and Germany." And they said, "Okay, we'll try you in"-

Matt Feret (18:03):

5 AM. Right?

Diane Gilman (18:03):

... "the UK." Yeah.

Matt Feret (18:03):

5 AM, again the weak ... Yeah.

Diane Gilman (18:08):

And boom, went straight up. So every country, I took it to the philosophy. It connected with the female audience. Immediately, they realized that they had been living without something they didn't even know they needed or wanted. And it was like, "Oh my, gosh." And women would call in and say, "I've got 150 of your jeans and I love you." So I was really doing something for the aging female.

(18:40):

And then I think it gets to a point in your life where at least for me, I said, "Okay, I could do this forever. A lot of changes happened in between. I got breast cancer. I got over that. Then the minute I got over that, COVID happened and we all had to do remote." So I'm always dealing with something, learning something new, trying to keep the audience alive. And then last year, I just thought, "Okay, you're going to turn 78. Is this what you want to do for the rest of your life because you can, or do you want to challenge yourself?" And I thought, "What were you when you were a young woman?" I was determined. I was more than willing to be an explorer and carve a whole new path for myself. I was adventuresome. I was brave. I didn't necessarily listen to outside extraneous noise. It was like, "La, la, la. I'm just going to do it." And I thought, "Why are you not that now?"

(19:54):

So I think I had done it for 30 years, and I just thought there's got to be more, and could I now take my communication skills that I learned off of television and go more modern and a broader point of view than just fashion? So where I was helping women, who had unruly and difficult bodies like mine, to dress and deal with and look good and look sexy, I realized I was interested in everything about aging, taking care of yourself, your diet, how to customize your exercise routine, how to research and bring in products that could make your life better as an aging female, but male too. And I just thought, "Why don't you just put on that bungee cord and take a chance and jump off the Empire State Building and see if the cord sticks?"

(21:05):

And so that's what I did just several months ago, just three and a half months ago. I almost immediately got offered my own weekly podcast. And then people started coming to me and saying, "Oh, we'd love you to represent our product." So what I would say to anybody out there, who may be doing something that they're good at but it's been a long time of sort of simmering, bit of discontent, isn't there more? Couldn't I do something exciting again? This sounds so corny, but people always said to me and I wanted to say, "Oh God, don't tell me that." "You know, Diane, when one door closes, another one opens." But guess what? They were right. When I closed the door to tele-retail, it was amazing, a whole world opened up of just getting to meet new people and getting to be on podcasts like yours and learn and, wow, so revitalizing. I'm really having a blast.

Matt Feret (22:20):

It sounds like you are and it looks like you are.

Diane Gilman (22:22):

Yeah.

Matt Feret (22:23):

So tell me about, you've obviously taken a lot of chances in your life and you've already just gone-

Diane Gilman (22:28):

Big time.

Matt Feret (22:29):

Yeah. You've said you've listened to the naysayers and blocked them out and you've just gone ahead and forged your own path. There are a lot of dates out there in the US for women and for men, 62, you can take Social Security, oh, Medicare 65. There seem to be these points in time where people are starting to get that message, you're old. Your time is gone. Your time is waning. You didn't listen to that. How did you put that aside? What type of ageism or how did you rebel against that thought of, well, you're in your 50s, you're in your 60s, you should be winding down and thinking about a rocking chair perhaps. How did you combat that in your head or did you have a support group of people and friends around you?

Diane Gilman (23:14):

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I had no support group around me at all. My parents and my entire family actually never forgave me for having a big time career. My own sense of purpose and my sense that every moment of your life should be spectacular, I felt my life was comfortable but not spectacular anymore.

(23:47):

And the other thing too was I had to go through breast cancer alone. I have no children, faith and my choice. My husband passed away when I was 48, a year after I went on air from cancer. So getting cancer myself was terrifying because back when he got it then he passed in 1997, there were no cures for anything. It was just barbaric. So just to show you what I'm made up of, I was diagnosed Christmas Eve. Naturally, Diane, go for the dramatic. Don't just have an ordinary day when you can be diagnosed. Do it on Christmas Eve of 2017. I got back home. It really took my breath away. I remember thinking I'm just going to stay in the house for a week. I've got to absorb this. And then I thought, wait a minute.

(25:02):

I had a friend who was a senior editor of the Palm Beach Post. She had written a couple of spectacular stories about me and the brand. I called her up and I said, "I've got stage three breast cancer in both breasts." I said, "This is going to be a real journey, and this is not a dress rehearsal. This is the real deal. Want to write a book with me about the journey?" I'm not an ordinary human being.

Matt Feret (25:32):

Yeah, you turned a horrible diagnosis into a learning opportunity, not only for you but others.

Diane Gilman (25:40):

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And then I turned out I went to a great center called the Dubin Center, which was a drop in breast cancer center at Mount Sinai. I had just moved into an apartment on Fifth Avenue that happened to be five blocks away from Mount Sinai. So I guess my other self, my inner self must have known that this was a good place to live. And we went for it, and I made purposeful dialogue out of every day. I think I took a very different attitude than most women took when they went for treatment. I promised myself I would never shed tears.

(26:27):

As a matter of fact, I went into my hair salon that was a hair salon of the rich and famous. I used to have long dyed red hair. And I said, "Okay. I'd go for my first chemotherapy treatment tomorrow. Shave it off." My hairdresser burst out in tears. He had his tears streaming down his face. And I said, "Go in the hallway. Get yourself together. And when you're done crying, come back and shave my hair off." I want that control over this treatment.

(27:01):

That was the steps I took along the way, was I'm going to be proactive. I am not going to be a victim. I am not going to feel sorry for myself. I'm already 72, 73. I'm going to take this as my new job for a year. I'm going to take this as a limited time deal from illness to wellness. And that's what I did. I never shed a tear, not once, not once. I didn't have time. Why use the energy when you need to use the energy for healing yourself?

(27:46):

I learned many very valuable and beautiful lessons from breast cancer. I would never give up that opportunity to rebrand myself, reimagine myself. It really prepared me for walking into what I call my third act or what you would call your third wind, your second wind, your third wind. And then that became part of the basis of my second book, Too Young to Be Old.

Matt Feret (28:26):

I love that title, by the way. Yeah, tell me about the book.

Diane Gilman (28:30):

Oh, thank you. So the book is all about just that. When I came out of breast cancer and I lost all my hair, my eyelashes, everything, and that was one of the worst things, but the doctors all said that's the one thing that affects females so much, losing their hair. I have hidden behind my hair. I have big hair. It's big again. People started treating me a little differently with white hair, and I thought, "I'm too young to be old. I'm not going to let people treat me that way. I'm going to have to become even more vivacious, show my energy and purpose and my drive even more."

(29:19):

And so the book is about how many obstacles I had to overcome to get my fashion career and how illogical it was to have my best fashion idea at the age of 60 and zoom straight to a hundred million dollar year brand. And I thought, when you really look at my entire life, I've climbed Mount Everest 500 times, so what? So I'll climb Mount Everest again as an older girl who wants to defend all of her sisterhood. I think so many of us women think ... My mother used to tell me, "As a matter of fact, at 30, your life is over with as a female. If you don't get married by 30, if you don't have children by 30, you're worth nothing. Your life is over with." So a big part of the book is about my childhood and not listening to any of that. But at the same time, recognizing from observing older parents, I was born in 1945 to a mother that was 45. Unheard of. I did not want to live out those latter years the way my parents did. My father retired very early. He retired at 50, 55. They would cut out coupons and then go shopping with the coupons. And I thought, "That is never going to happen to me," which it didn't.

(30:53):

And so there's a lot of guidelines in here. I list 25 rules for women who hate living by rules like me, but that will help you ease into the age you're at and love it and want to repurpose yourself. So I did always think retiring was a giant void. So I knew that wasn't going to be good for me. But I also recognized along the way, especially after going through all the breast cancer treatment, that things were different. My body was different. And if I was going to do what I wanted to do and have an active, purposeful life, I was going to have to go into what I call the age of customization, customize my diet, customize my exercise routine because there were things I couldn't do anymore. And then COVID hit and you couldn't go in and join a gym, but I couldn't anyway. Nobody wanted a 74-year-old in their aerobics class.

(32:09):

And so I really think my purpose and my goals are almost to give women permission to be their new self. I'm not going to say, "Oh, 77 is the new 60." It's not. But 77 is the new 77, and nobody knows that better than me because I waited forever in a career until I was 60 years old to become a star designer. That's unheard of. So I grew up and into a super age-ophobic and kind of misogynistic set of careers, television, where most television stars who are females and film stars, your career is over with at 40. You hit a brick wall. And fashion where everything is about young and fast, young and fast, young and fast.

(33:14):

So to find my niche, to actually invent a new niche in fashion at the age of 59, 60, unheard of. So I'm kind of used to doing things where nobody ... But here's the best part. Nobody sees you coming. Nobody expects you or expects me at 77, 78 to look the way I do, to have the energy level I have, to constantly be making forward future plans and trying to populate them with the right moves. They never see you coming. They treat me like, oh, you nice little lady. And it's like, yeah, okay. So actually, I find this period of life pretty great.

Matt Feret (34:12):

That's wonderful. So if someone is listening and they're thinking about their next stages, I don't know, let's go 45, 55, 65, somewhere in there where maybe they've been working a job in corporate America and wondering what's next or if this is it or they've always had that idea, but either didn't have the time or didn't have the money and like you, retirement, that's a bad word.

Diane Gilman (34:36):

Yeah. Not good for me.

Matt Feret (34:38):

Yeah. What's your advice for those folks around mindset and being purposeful and really, is it to sit down and make a list of goals or what's your advice for people in their brain to start thinking about making a change?

Diane Gilman (34:53):

Well, you know what? I'm a big list maker. So what I do is just draw two lines and a cross, and it's everything you like about your life, everything you dislike about your life and what are you going to do about it? That's one set of goals. When I had to grow my hair out again, and it is a big deal to me. My hair is a huge part of my public persona. I knew it was never going to be red again, didn't want to put formaldehyde next to my brain after breast cancer. So I said, "Okay, my hair was about half an inch long. No one knew what to do with it, least of all me." And I said, "What did you love about your hair?" It was big. It was an attention getter. It was dramatic. It said a lot for me. And at the same time, it was its own fashion statement.

(35:53):

So as I grew my hair out, those were the guidelines I brought with me. We're still working on it, but we're doing it. Now, I have women will walk up to me all the time on the streets of Manhattan and say, "I just have to tell you. You're so fabulous with white hair. I love your hair." Now that makes me feel great. That makes me feel like maybe there's ... And those women will say, "You know what? You gave me the chance to see it done right. I'm going to grow out my hair now." So I'm not the only one. I'm usually the only white haired lady in a restaurant or a play. We need more of us.

(36:40):

But the other thing I would tell you is go where your heart takes you because you put heart energy into something, you can't fail, and go where you are appreciated. In other words, for me, even doing a hundred million dollars a year in fashion sales, if I went to a big corporation and said, "I can make you a fortune in fashion. Let me design a line or be the consultant or be the head consultation designer," they would look me up and down and their thought would be, "What? She's too old. Fashion is all about the young." So I would say, first of all, don't go for a corporation past 55 years old, unless you're Jeff Bezos or something. They're never going to appreciate you. They're going to just see you and think to themselves, "I could hire someone half her age who is half is expensive and get double the work out of her." They don't ever think about all your accrued knowledge.

(38:05):

For me, I developed a whole area of fashion for baby boomers that had really never been there before. The minute I sold my name and my brand, first thing out of their mouth was, "We don't want to dress old ladies." They immediately changed the philosophy. So I would say don't go for a corporation if you want to reimagine yourself. Try for a much smaller, much more direct touch kind of business or go for something you love.

(38:41):

And I'll tell you a very quick story. So I was reading some research on older women and what they do with their lives, especially after their husbands die because 80% of us will outlive our mate and live our latter years out alone. So a woman lost her husband. She was just really bereft, and he had been in the hospital for a long time, and she was an avid gardener. So to cheer him up, she would bring bouquets of flowers in season and really, I think he was in and out of the hospital constantly. And one day, the nurse said, "This bouquet has been sitting here for a few days. Do you mind if I bring it down to the children's floor? There's a little boy down there or little girl. I really think this beautiful bouquet would cheer this kid up." She said yes.

(39:44):

Then her husband passed, but she had already started bringing bouquets and dropping them off at the nurse's station on the children's floor. And then one day, the hospital came to her and said, "Your bouquets are so beautiful. Could you bring five to 10 a week and we'll put them in our gift shop?" And now she's got a national business doing that for children's hospitals.

Matt Feret (40:17):

Oh, that's wonderful. Obviously, the examples you gave, and even in that example, the idea is to be open to ideas, be open to the change, be open to something that could seem small or insignificant-

Diane Gilman (40:31):

And that's okay. Yeah, that's okay. Know that these are the really truly precious years in your life. I don't believe ... Oh, my earring just fell off. Oh, well. It's actually my AirPod, but I've still got another one.

(40:48):

Be open to the idea that maybe this isn't going to make you a lot of money, but it's going to give you a lot of heart satisfaction and it's really going to help others. And with that, you're set to go. And if you're someone like me that carves her own path as she goes, you don't need a corporation holding you down or telling you what to do. Be your own boss in this period of your life. And if what you are is telling you that you just want to learn how to enjoy life, I worked seven days a week, 24/7. The idea of people all said to me, "Oh, why don't you just kick back and watch the flowers grow?" I was like, "What? Who are you talking to?" Listen to your inner self, your inner voice. You will give yourself the best advice.

Matt Feret (42:02):

What if that inner voice is fearful? You're very brave. You've done a million things and even as an older adult and just blasted right through ageism. You've blasted right through. I'm too old to start a hundred million a year company. How did you get past a fear of failure or did you see failure as one step?

Diane Gilman (42:27):

Oh, no, I'm terrified of failure. There's nobody more scared of failure than me. Yeah. Even now, just going on podcasts, I'm a maniac. I want to do the best job and say the best things. I've lived with fear of failure and stagefright, quite frankly, my whole life. I used to be terrified before I did TV shows. I would curl up in a ball in bed and say, "Oh my, God. What if I fail? What if I fail?" You could get past all of that.

(43:06):

And if you've got something that truly fascinates you, you've got something where people around you appreciate it. Maybe you make the best chocolate chip cookies for the church bake sale. Maybe that's your path. It can be big. It can be small. It can be high. It can be low. But if it touches your heart and makes you feel good about yourself and maybe makes other people who satellite around you feel good then you're achieving your purpose.

(43:40):

I don't know. I know I have to do this. I know I have to be a defender and a cheerleader and have a megaphone for any women who are over 55, I think, because I was always in front of a camera as an older woman and so I was very aware of my image and how to manipulate it and look better. I think that's not most females' lives. And so I just want to bring all the information, everything I can to make aging females have a soft landing in this last and most precious period of their lives.

(44:33):

It's a purpose. I don't know. One thing grew out of another for me. I went from designing outrageous clothes for rock and roll stars to really becoming a national brand and then becoming an international brand and then saying, "Is this all there is? No, let's do more, Diane. Let's step away from this, which is comfy and cozy and so well known, and let's just jump into the blue." But you know what?

(45:10):

I think part of staying young and staying healthy as you get older is constantly realizing where you're at. I thought for me, and I told my doctors this during chemotherapy, I was always cheerful and I always was laughing and telling jokes to the nurses, so that everybody actually looked forward to me coming in for my treatment. And I told them, "I think that that was a big part of my success with my treatment, is I never allowed myself to be sad or depressed, and I made everybody else around me happy so that aura would be constantly positive." It may sound crazy, but it worked.

Matt Feret (45:59):

Well, it sounds like it's worked throughout your very interesting and successful life, is that-

Diane Gilman (46:05):

Thank you.

Matt Feret (46:05):

... mental outlook and that approach. I know it's not easy to do, especially since you've been so successful, and thank you so much for spending the time with me today.

Diane Gilman (46:17):

Oh, so much fun.

Matt Feret (46:18):

And you've got a book. If you were to leave someone listening with one last piece of advice, who is considering what's next, either in their career or as their career winds down or maybe they're already in retirement and they're going, "Oh, this isn't what I thought it was going to be." What's some advice?

Diane Gilman (46:36):

Listen to your inner self. And everything people said to me like, "Oh, you're going to travel all the time now." Wrong. I traveled. I would say 85% of my professional life, I was never at home. I used to have three suitcases packed at once. I'd come home for 20 hours, take the second suitcase, go to Paris, do TV in Paris, come back, get the next suitcase, be in Toronto. So what people want for you is not necessarily right. Know yourself. Be really honest with yourself. People say, "Oh, I thought you were going to Japan for the cherry blossoms." No, I started my own podcast. That's what I really wanted to do. I'm starting my third book. That's what I really enjoy doing.

(47:38):

And the other thing I would say is beyond being really honest and truthful with yourself is understand. I'll give you an example. If you're a young kid, let's say you're five, six years old and your parents are still passionate enough like me to watch cable TV. What would you think old age was? All you would see are advertisements, commercials for diabetes, terrible diseases, horrible conditions, painful stuff going on in your body. Don't buy into it. Customize your life.

(48:23):

And just as an example, I went to the GP about nine months ago and she said, "Oh my gosh, your cholesterol, you're going to die. I'm going to give you statins and all this stuff." And I said, "No. Give me nine months to get my diet ... I've been eating like an animal like I was five years old. Give me nine months to correct my body." I went back last week. No cholesterol, zero, blood pressure, perfect, blood sugar, perfect. So don't necessarily buy into old age it's all about illness, infirmity, terrible decline. Guess what? Customize your life. Oh, there's millions of things I would love to eat, but I won't because I value my health and my mobility more than I do eating some junk food.

(49:26):

So know that this is a time of your life when you absolutely, this is not you, this is not childhood. This is a very particular period of life, and you've got to treat yourself differently and you've got to believe in yourself. And quite frankly, what have you got to lose? You have everything to gain.

Matt Feret (49:52):

I love it.

Diane Gilman (49:53):

That's me.

Matt Feret (49:54):

I love it. Diane, what questions should I have asked about you or about your life or about what you're doing right now that I didn't?

Diane Gilman (50:05):

Hey, I think you asked every question. I think it's probably hard to question somebody like me because my life purposely is so different. But I think that those of us, like you and I, who are natural communicators, we want to get the message out there. I had a hunger for fashion design. There must have been a lot like being an obsessive surfer. You know when you've caught the right wave. It's everything. And that's what design was for me.

(50:49):

And now getting my message out there to live better, live more purposely, live with more sense of dignity, I feel that same kind of hunger. So I know me, so I know that I'm on the right track, and I know when you put the energy out there, you will get it back. Customize your life. I always thought of my third act. What would my third act be? Well, it's the end of the story, but I'm going to do my third act as a Broadway play and it's going to be a big musical. And the real number is going to be in that third act, the showstopper, and everything is going to come together in the third act, the storyline, the plot, the mystery, the answers, the best music. That's me. That's how I want this period of my life to be. So make your list, be honest with yourself. You asked all the right questions, and thank you so much for this opportunity.

Matt Feret (52:06):

Well, you've designed a beautiful and wonderful and exciting life, and your advice of designing it and customizing it in your second and third act is really wonderful. Thank you so much for your time today, Diane.

Diane Gilman (52:21):

Thank you. Thank you. My pleasure.

Matt Feret (52:24):

Thanks so much, Diane. Don't forget to pick up a copy of Good Jeans and her latest book, Too Young to Be Old. Make sure to hit The Matt Feret Show website for links to those books and show notes. Until next time, to your wealth, wisdom and Wellness, I'm Matt Feret and thanks for tuning in.

(52:45):

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(53:34):

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