Wiser with Rob Bialostocki
Wiser: Honest Talk for Midlife and the Second Half of Life
Wiser is a podcast for anyone navigating midlife - your 50s and 60s - and looking to build a second half that's clearer, freer, and genuinely your own.
Hosted by Rob Bialostocki, each episode is a relaxed, honest conversation about the real stuff of this stage of life: grief and loss, friendship, identity, purpose, relationships, and what it actually means to grow wiser rather than just older. No spiritual fluff, no gurus, no "10 hacks to reinvent yourself" — just grounded ideas backed by real psychology, lived experience, and 25+ years of coaching, delivered like a chat with a trusted friend.
If you're feeling the shifts of midlife — a career plateau, a changing identity, questions about what's next — and want some honest company for the journey, this is that podcast.
New episodes weekly. Subscribe, and come say hi at robbialostocki.com.
Episodes
29 episodes
Ep 28 - Where'd You Go? Find Yourself Again in Midlife
Using the film Where'd You Go, Bernadette as a jumping-off point, Rob looks at how people quietly lose touch with themselves — not through one big decision, but through years of reasonable choices that add up to living a life built for other pe...
Ep 27 - Whatever Life Throws: Surviving a Brutal Stretch of Midlife
When faith, marriage, family and health all fall apart in the same few years, how do you keep functioning? Rob shares a genuinely relentless stretch of his own life — questioning a decades-long faith, separating after 29 years of ma...
Ep 26 - Change Happens to You in Midlife But Transition Happens Within You
Most people confuse change with transition, but they're completely different processes. Change is external—you move cities, lose a job, get divorced. It's the obvious shift from point A to point B. Transition is the inner psychological journey ...
Ep 25 - Learning From Nature in Your Second Half
Why Nature Always Wins: Life Lessons from a Fallen Tree That Will Change How You See Control, Humility & Your Place in the WorldDuring a routine morning dog walk, I noticed something I had walked past many times before. But th...
Ep 24 - Midlife Direction: Why 'Follow Your Passion' is Poor Advice (And What Actually Works)
Are you interested in finding your passion? Well, the problem is popular advice to "find your passion" doesn't work; it's fundamentally flawed and can be very frustrating. Research shows that over 80% of adults don't know what their...
Ep 23 - The Oyster-catcher: Turning Down the Noise in Your Second Half
In this episode, I talk about my trip to Great Barrier Island, about 95km from Auckland, visiting friends who ditched their corporate lives in their late 50s for a simpler existence. No TV, no news, no social media, and definitely no traffic no...
Ep 22 - Midlife Dogma Detox: How Fixed Mindsets Limit Your Second Half
Personal growth advice often presents a single "right way" to approach life's challenges, but there are actually multiple valid paths for everything from relationships to career development to self-improvement.Key Points
Ep 21 - Healthier Relationships in Your 50s and 60s: You go first
If you’re a human being - and I’m guessing you are - then you have lots of relationships. And while many might be healthy, enjoyable and good chances are there are one or two that have some kind of stress, or are not as good as you’d like. Mayb...
Ep 20 - Happiness in Your Second Half Depends on Alignment
Do you feel discontent in your relationships, career, or daily life at times, despite outwardly having what you want? The answer often lies in a values problem - a misalignment between what we truly value deep down, and how we actually live. Wh...
Ep 19 - Life is like a pile of blankets: Second Half Freedom Comes from Taking Some of Them Off
As we go about life we inevitably move to a script, a narrative, an identity. You would think that this identity is consciously decided. But after many years on the road, the reality is that we’re shaped by the influences and expectations we ha...
Ep 18 - If You're Over 50 Your BestYears Are The Ones Ahead.
Have you ever wished you were younger again? Many people do. However, in my case, that would NOT be a good idea. Because where I’ve gotten to now has been hard-won by time, experience, and masses of learning and change. I do not want t...
Ep 17 - Navigating Your Midlife: Life is Neither Straight Nor Narrow
We discuss the reality that life can be rugged, rough, surprising and wonderful. It's not straight and narrow and we shouldn't expect it to be. Instead, learning to navigate whatever comes with clarity, courage and determination is a much bette...
Ep 16 - Wanting the Best for Everyone: Opening Your Heart in the Second Half
We humans automatically categorise people as safe or not, friendly or not, ‘us’ or ‘them.’ While this helps us feel more secure and like we belong, it also puts up barriers where there may not need to be any. Rob calls us to consciously try to ...
Ep 15 - Being mindful in midlife and beyond
Every day is precious, filled with possibilities like a blank whiteboard ready for the pen. Like an empty stage ready for the dance, or a lump of clay ready to be molded. For whatever art you want to create. Because your life is your art. But, ...
Ep 14 - Freer After 50: Accepting Your Limitations, Adjusting Accordingly
Life has phases as we grow. If we don’t adapt to the requirements and capabilities of a new phase, we can get pretty frustrated. To flourish in our second half, we need to accept there are things we can’t do anymore. But that’s actually really ...
Ep 12 - Reflecting in Your 50s and 60s: What’s your note to Self?
While I don’t advocate planning everything in your life out to the nth degree, I do think it’s wise to reflect on the past and distil a few key lessons and guidelines for the future. I mean, who wants to repeat the same mistakes or poor choices...
Ep 13 - Conscious Aging: Are we growing up or just growing older?
There is a world of difference between someone who continues to grow as a person throughout their life and someone who gets stuck psychologically or emotionally and just grows older. Rob discusses the difference and suggests three ways to consc...
Ep 11 - Life lessons from my grandfather’s very tough life
Rob shares a more personal episode, talking about the experiences of his grandparents who were forced out of their Polish estate, sent to the Gulags, and then relocated to New Zealand. But the key insight is that while externals can be stripped...
Ep 10 - It's Time to Change Your Pace After 50: Deliberately Walk Slowly in Your Second Half
Life is extremely busy, and it will periodically overrun us if we don't actively find ways to deal with it. Rob explains what happens in your brain and body when you rush, and discusses how we can practically manage these feelings of overwhelm....
Ep 9 - How to radically improve your listening skills
Developing your communication skills is one of the best ways to gain more influence, develop better relationships, and create presence and impact. However, most people think they’re pretty good at communicating. But in my experience of 10 years...
Ep 8 - Neuroscience, engineering, and intentional growth
Today, let's dive into a powerful concept from the world of engineers, programmers, and data experts — forward modelling — and explore how it can boost your personal development.While many are familiar with the idea of priming (...
Ep 7 - Midlife Advice for Living a Life That Matters: Don’t let other’s opinions shape your life
Everyone has an opinion.That's because it's the way we are made.But not all opinions are useful, or even downright correct.So, we can deal with that by:Setting our compass - deciding what's important to us<...
Ep 6 - Growing Up in Your Second Half: Letting Go of the Control You Don’t Have
This episode is mostly about getting real and, as a result, feeling and being more free."Don't ask for things to happen as you would LIKE them to. But wish them to happen as they ACTUALLY DO, and you will be alright."Epictetus s...
Ep 5 - Connection is better than content
In this content-saturated world, we think we're connected to others but it seems we're merely connected to a version of them that isn't fully real.In this episode, we talk about the following:Research shows that connection m...
Ep 4 - WhenYour Children Turned Out Differently: Reflecting In Your 60s
Most people raise their kids to become something like what they have in mind for them. But then they turn out differently. Rob discusses how to navigate this, especially if they turned out very different to what you expected. And, in the proces...
