Margie Seaman
Updated: 1 day ago
Learning. Exploring. Figuring things out.
“Learning, exploring, figuring things out” has been the pattern of Margie Seaman’s life, whether she was working in retail marketing, learning computer code, building websites, studying SEO, traveling across Texas, or finally sitting down to write the books she'd been thinking about since she was a girl.
Margie says a teacher told her when she was in school, “You tell stories. You really need to write.” And she agreed. Then she procrastinated for decades!
Finally, after turning 80, Margie realized she was running out of “next years.” If she was ever going to write a book, she decided, it was time to start. She began her first book at 84. But writing was only one more chapter in a life already filled with new beginnings.
A lifelong curiosity about how things work
Margie's professional life began in retail. Her experience in marketing shaped the way she eventually approached technology. When computers began changing the retail business, Margie discovered that she liked something many people found intimidating: code. She liked looking at it, testing it, finding problems and figuring out how the pieces worked together.
That curiosity eventually led to creating websites. Today, she approaches a website less like a technical document and more like a storefront. Her question isn't simply, “Does this work?” But more like, “Will this help the business succeed?”
“People don't age. Society ages us.”
Margie has thought a lot about what happens when people get older. She has experienced age bias and knows that when people get to know her through conversation rather than seeing her age, the assumptions about age can disappear.
That, she says, is part of the problem. People assume that older adults aren't comfortable with technology. They assume they're no longer learning. They assume they're no longer interested in trying new things. Margie doesn't accept any of that.
She belongs to online communities where she sees people in their 80s earning PhDs, writing books, climbing mountains and taking on entirely new challenges. Her own life is evidence of the same thing.
She believes staying active and continuing to learn creates new pathways – and that the 1st attempt at something unfamiliar is simply the hardest one. Her advice is wonderfully direct: Don't assume you're too old. Try it.
Use the gift
There may be no better description of Margie's philosophy than the one she gives near the end of our conversation. She considers reaching 80 a gift. And if you've been given a gift, she says, you should use it.
Use your brain.
Use your body.
Learn something.
Do something.
Contribute something.
Margie's story isn't really about starting late. It's about continuing.
Continuing to learn.
Continuing to explore.
Continuing to ask questions.
Continuing to create.
And, occasionally, continuing to procrastinate until you realize you're running out of “next years.” Because Margie Seaman has a message that feels very much at home at Old People Rock: