By Rebecca Wiessmann

In a recent Foresight TV episode, Steve talks with two guests who are trying to poke a stick at one of society’s most stubborn blind spots — ageism.

His guests were Paula Ledbetter and Angela Lyonsmith from Mather, an 84-year-old nonprofit with a long-term vision that’s both simple and ambitious: change the way society views aging.

The Campaign That Refuses To Whisper

Mather’s “Older Is Bolder” isn’t a brochure. It isn’t a “10 steps to thriving after 70” listicle. It’s a public statement — literally.

Lyonsmith described the origin story as an image-first idea: enormous portraits of older adults placed where they can’t be ignored — moving through Chicago on CTA buses and trains and displayed at major rail stations. The goal was to interrupt the default mental picture people carry when they hear the words “older adult.”

The execution is big-city bold: a mobile art installation across Chicago featuring 10 “Boldmakers” — real people with real stories — paired with a QR code that takes commuters to short videos where each person tells their story in their own words.

That “in their own words” part matters to Lyonsmith. She argues that storytelling changes people faster than statistics do. And she wanted the kind of imagery that forces a second look — because invisibility is one of the quietest forms of ageism.

Aging Well: Not “The Way,” but “Ways”

Steve has been thinking about aging differently lately. He turned 70 in 2025, and he joked that once your age starts appearing on car-rental contracts, it gets harder to pretend you’re not in the club.

He also admitted something many people won’t: even older adults carry ageist reflexes. He described playing golf behind “two old guys,” only to realize later they might have been his peers.

That set up one of the most important themes of the conversation: aging well isn’t a universal formula.

Ledbetter put it plainly — at Mather, they talk about wellness as personal. It looks different to everyone. That’s why the campaign intentionally focuses on “ways to age well,” not “the way.” The Boldmakers don’t represent a single ideal. They represent possibilities: purpose, heart, service, love, community impact — expressed in wildly different forms.

For a marketing professional, Steve notes, that’s almost heresy. Marketing loves a single promise: Do this one thing and your life changes. But the point here is the opposite: the options are endless, because people are endlessly different.

Is Older-Adult Invisibility Imposed … or Chosen?

Steve pressed Lyonsmith with a provocative question: Do older adults become invisible because society erases them — or because they choose to disappear?

Lyonsmith doesn’t offer a tidy answer, and that was the right move. She emphasizes there’s no monolithic “older adult experience.” Culture matters. Developmental stage matters. Personal history matters. She recalls a conversation at a senior living community where someone raised an important nuance: what “bold” means at 65 might look nothing like what “bold” means at 80. Sometimes boldness is outward — activism, leadership, movement. Sometimes it’s inward — reflection, meaning-making, generativity.

In other words, “bold” can be loud … or quietly defiant.

A Story About Joy, Service, and a Pocket Full of Viagra

Then Steve did something that makes his interviews feel like real life instead of a panel discussion: he told two stories that complicated the whole idea of “aging well.”

First: a friend in her late 70s/early 80s — a retired principal with a big heart, already volunteering in multiple ways — told him she wanted to give back even more, but didn’t know what to do next.

Second: a talkative 79-year-old seatmate on a flight who described a life of traveling to see girlfriends, pulling a Viagra out of his pocket mid-conversation to prove a point. The man sounded happy. He also didn’t sound like he was making the world better — at least not in the ways Steve values.

His tension was the question underneath both stories:

Is living well about feeling good … or about mattering?

Lyonsmith didn’t moralize, but she made Mather’s point of view clear through examples: the campaign amplifies people whose lives spill outward — service, coaching, mentorship, artistry, community-building. One Boldmaker she mentions is a Senior Olympian, but what makes him “bold” isn’t just athletic achievement — it’s using that platform to coach youth and open doors that change the trajectory of their lives.

Measuring Success Like Grown-Ups

This wasn’t just a creative project. It’s also research-backed.

Ledbetter explained that Mather chose high-traffic placements (like Roosevelt station) to maximize intergenerational exposure and impressions. And they’re measuring whether it’s working by surveying commuters — before, during, and after the campaign — to see whether attitudes about aging shift.

That’s notable in a world where “awareness campaigns” often stop at vibes and billboards. Mather is trying to find out whether the needle actually moves.

What Senior Living Can Steal (In the Best Way)

Late in the conversation, Steve turns the lens toward senior living operators watching from the sidelines, thinking, “This is cool… but what do I do with it?”

Lyonsmith’s answer wasn’t a packaged program — it was an invitation: start with storytelling, because humans have always used it to build meaning and connection.

She suggested that senior living communities could adapt the “Older Is Bolder” frame in dozens of ways: spoken-word nights (“I’m 89 years bold, and here’s my story”), podcasts, exhibitions, photography projects, bookmaking, performance art, creative engagement programming — anything that elevates identity over age and replaces “decline narratives” with real human stories.

Steve adds his own dream: senior living as a place where older adults don’t just “move in”… they gather strength and purpose — and then change the world for the generations behind them.

Where To See the Boldmakers

If there was one consistent call to action, it was this: go listen to the Boldmakers themselves.

The campaign’s home lives online — stories, videos, and an invitation for others to share their own “bold” word and bold age.

And the deeper invitation — especially for senior living leaders — is to stop treating aging as a problem to manage and start treating it as a story worth rewriting in public.

Watch the full Foresight TV livestream “Older Is Bolder: Rewriting the Story of Aging” HERE.