The Encore Project Podcast
The Encore Project Podcast features thoughtful conversations and practical insights for senior men navigating retirement, purpose, health, relationships, and personal growth in the digital age.
This podcast is an extension of The Encore Project — a platform created to encourage men in life’s second half to remain engaged, curious, reflective, and connected.
Each episode explores the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions of aging with intention. Through stories, reflections, and guided discussions, we examine what it means to move beyond simply “retiring” and instead reimagine the years ahead as a time of renewal and contribution.
Topics span ten core areas central to a fulfilling later life: coping with grief and loss, creative pursuits, faith and fulfillment, financial empowerment, health and wellness, inspiration and personal growth, relationships and companionship, retirement reimagined, tech-savvy living, and travel and adventure.
Rather than offering quick fixes or generic advice, The Encore Project Podcast invites thoughtful exploration. Episodes are designed to feel warm, conversational, and reflective — like sitting across the table from a trusted friend who understands both the challenges and opportunities of aging.
Many episodes draw inspiration from deeply researched written pieces, allowing us to distill essential ideas into accessible, meaningful conversations. Others focus on storytelling — highlighting resilience, rediscovery, and quiet transformation in the lives of senior men.
At its heart, this podcast exists to affirm a simple truth: growth does not end at retirement. Purpose does not expire. Curiosity does not age out. The second half of life can be one of depth, clarity, contribution, and renewal.
Hosted by The Encore Project.
The Encore Project Podcast
Latest Episodes
Where Men Belong — The Third Places That Keep Us Alive
In this episode, Bill Leighty takes us back to Vinnie’s patio — a backyard in Tulsa where real estate men gathered every weekday at five o’clock for a decade, grilling steaks, telling stories, and doing something the researchers now know is as ...
What Chronic Pain Teaches You Over Time
In this episode, Bill Leighty shares something he rarely talks about — five decades of living with degenerative disc disease, COPD, arthritis, and the other quiet companions of a life lived hard and well. This isn’t a medical episode. It’s a co...
The Moment Everything Changed — One Question, Thirty Seconds, A New Life
In this episode, Bill Leighty tells the story of the moment he sat down at his computer, typed a complicated question into ChatGPT, and watched everything change. He was in his late seventies. He had no tech background. And he had just discover...
Finding Your Song: Retirement Reimagined
There’s a word Bill Leighty doesn’t use about himself: retired. In this episode, Bill traces the thread that runs from a fiery Op-Ed in a Tulsa newspaper to a planning commission chamber to fifty years at the lectern — and finally to The Encore...
The Spiritual Work the Estate Plan Doesn't Cover
Most men have done the legal work — the will, the trust, the beneficiaries. But there is another kind of preparation that most men leave unexamined: the spiritual texture of their departure. In this episode, Bill Leighty reflects on what it mea...