Dr. Brandon Croud spent over 20 years leading corporate underwriting teams. He thought he was doing what he was supposed to do. Then the mortgage market collapsed, his team shrank, and he was laid off.

What happened next was not what anyone would have predicted. A catering company. A food truck. A son born at 39 who cracked him open, helping him remember childhood experiences and energies he had suppressed. A PhD in Metaphysics he had started years earlier and never finished. And a crystal called Moldavite that started his writing journey.

Brandon is now the founder of The Awakened Croud, a business consultant, intuitive energy guide and author of Alden and the Light That Blinked Back, a children's bedtime story about light and intuition.
He also hosted over 350 episodes of a nationally recognised NASCAR podcast.

In this episode Brandon explains metaphysics in the clearest way I have ever heard it. He talks about the danger of sharing your excitement with people who do not understand it, a tarot card he pulled the morning of our recording, a blindfolded warrior taking a shot without knowing where it will land, and the analogy that stopped me in my tracks:

Stand in front of a mirror and demand it to smile first. You will be waiting a very long time. You have to smile first.

If you have been waiting for the right moment to write your book, Brandon has something very direct to say about that too.

Guest Links:
Website: theawakenedcroud.com and brandoncroud.com
Social: @awakenedcroud on all platforms
Book: Alden and the Light That Blinked Back — 📕 Click here to check out my book
The Awakened Croud Podcast: 🎧 Click here to listen to my podcast

Favourite Books:
Steven Pressfield — The War of Art
Elizabeth Gilbert — Big Magic
Jen Sincero — You Are a Badass

Join the free Skool community: okleaf.link/LateBloomer

The Late Bloomer Author newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/the-late-bloomer-author-7461846836018974720/

Wendy's books: mybook.to/Ultimate-retirement | mybook.to/Ultimate-retirementWB

#LateBloomerAuthor #BrandonCroud #TheAwakenedCroud #WriteYourBook #SelfPublishing #Over40 #NeverTooLate #PodcastLife #NonfictionAuthor #YoureRightOnTime #LateBloomer #Metaphysics #SpiritualAwakening #TrustYourJourney #StartNow

Rob McPhun spent 34 years in the UK police force. Every single day, difficult conversations. The kind most of us spend our whole lives trying to avoid.

In a wonderful full circle moment, Rob was also Wendy’s coach during her property investing days.

Now here they both are, authors, helping other people find their voice.

Rob left the police and became a property investor, then a coach, then an author. His first book was published at 60. He now has four books in various stages, all built around his Perfecting Conversations model, a framework developed from three decades of learning what actually happens when human beings talk to each other honestly.

In this episode Rob and Wendy talk about the excuses that keep people stuck, why getting out of your comfort zone means giving things up not just adding things, the traffic light system he used to write his first book in 31 days, how his second book took just seven days to draft, and why the word author suggests authority, whether you like it or not.

He also reveals the plot of his secret fiction novel. A terminally ill police officer who decides to convict the people the justice system keeps letting off. Think Dexter meets The Equalizer. It is called Terminal Conviction. You heard it here first.

And he answers the question directly: what would you say to someone who has a book inside them but keeps talking themselves out of it?

His answer might be the most honest thing you hear this week.

💜 Join the free Late Bloomer Author Skool community: https://okleaf.link/LateBloomer

🎙 Subscribe to the podcast, new episodes every Sunday

You're not too late. You're right on time.

💬 Quotes

🗣 From this episode:

"Getting started is the hardest bit of anything. But if you don't start, in five years you will be exactly where you are now."

— Rob McPhun, Episode 13

✍️ This week's writing inspiration:

"The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying."

— Steven Pressfield

🔗 Links

💜 Free Skool community: https://okleaf.link/LateBloomer

👤 Guest: Rob McPhun

Website: perfectingconversations.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rob-mcphun-1b263920

Free discovery call: find him on LinkedIn

Rob's books: search McPhun on Amazon

📱 Social Media:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendy-s-williams/
https://www.facebook.com/wendymuppit/

https://www.instagram.com/the_late_bloomer_author/

https://www.tiktok.com/@latebloomerauthor

#LateBloomerAuthor #RobMcPhun #PerfectingConversations #WriteYourBook #SelfPublishing #PodcastLife #NonfictionAuthor #YoureRightOnTime #LateBloomer #AuthorLife#JustStart

Some links in this description may be affiliate links. If you purchase through them I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only ever recommend tools and resources I genuinely use and love. Thank you for supporting the show! 🧡

Noel Guilford has been a chartered accountant for over 50 years.
He started his career as a partner at Deloitte's. He knows exactly what a conventional, successful practice looks like. And then, in his sixties, he made a decision most people in his position never make. He sacked some clients. He gave others away. He rebuilt around the work that actually helped people, the ones who were awake at night, not drawing enough from their business to fund the life they wanted.
What came next was deliberately small, deliberately lean, and deeply intentional.
A one-person advisory practice built around meaning, monthly virtual board meetings, and a methodology he calls Business Alignment, asking clients the two questions most accountants never ask: why are you in business, and what is your relationship with your numbers?
He also wrote four books. The first one in 2018, at the age of 65.
In this episode Noel and I talk about:
• Why he made his business smaller in his sixties, and what that actually felt like
• The Business Alignment Method and the 12 questions every business owner should answer
• The one-person business model and why one person with a laptop can now run a sophisticated business
• The difference between AI-generated and AI-assisted, one of the clearest explanations I have heard
• Why age is a genuine advantage when writing a book
• His book writing method: clear outline first, then write one section at a time
• Why you should write the introduction last (not first)
• His new book The One-Person Advisory Practice, out September 2026 Plus a genuinely funny moment about the mentor character he created in his first book who was, in his words, considerably better looking than him.
Noel also offers a free call for anyone thinking about starting or realigning their business. No charge, just a genuine conversation.
Link below.
If you want to write a book AND build something meaningful around it, this conversation is for you.
Guest Links:
Website: guilfordaccounting.co.uk
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/noelguilford
Free call: https://calendly.com/noelguilford
The One-Person Advisory Practice is out in September
Favourite Books: Steven Pressfield — The War of Art
Elizabeth Gilbert — Big Magic
Jen Sincero — You Are a Badass
Join the free Skool community: okleaf.link/LateBloomer
The Late Bloomer Author newsletter: [LinkedIn newsletter link]
Wendy's books: mybook.to/Ultimate-retirement | mybook.to/Ultimate-retirementWB
Timestamps: [add manually from YouTube playback]
#LateBloomerAuthor #NeverTooLate #NoelGuilford #OnePersonBusiness #WritingPodcast #Over60 #LateBloomer #BusinessFreedom #AuthorLife #WriteYourBook #TimeAndFinancialFreedom #AIForBusiness #SoloPreneur #MeaningfulWork #BookAt65

My very first guest on The Late Bloomer Author podcast, and what a way to start.

Fiona Leitch grew up in working class South London. Not the kind of place, she'll tell you herself, where people become novelists. Her parents weren't discouraging, creativity just wasn't really a consideration. You went to school, you got a job, you got married, you had kids. That was the path. And for a long time Fiona followed it, office jobs, accountancy courses, all the sensible things she was supposed to do.

But she was always creative. Her teachers saw it. She saw it. And eventually she found her way into screenwriting, a sideways step toward what she actually wanted.

Then a friend read one of her scripts and said: that would make a really good novel.
Fiona had never thought about turning a screenplay into a novel. Fifty thousand words felt completely daunting. But she already had a fleshed-out outline, she just hadn't realised it. She sat down. She started writing. She loved it. Three weeks later she had a book.

That book, Dead in Venice, became a finalist for the Audible Crime Grant. She found an agent. The paperback followed. And now Fiona writes the Jodie Parker cosy mystery series for HarperCollins. Thirteen books published. Book 14, No Way to Die, out this September. A brand new series, The Travelling Detective, launching in April next year.

In this conversation we talk about growing up where the creative life felt out of reach, finding your way to the thing you actually want, what the publishing journey really looks like from debut to HarperCollins deal, writing across genres and pen names, and why she thinks writers genuinely come into their own later in life. We also talk about her mum, who Fiona thinks she gets her writing from, and who may now be inspired to write her own book.

Oh, and there's the small matter of being (unjustly) thrown out of a TV studio by John Craven in the 1980s. Fiona has never quite forgiven him.

If you've ever told yourself your story isn't interesting enough, or that the window has closed, or that people like you don't write books, this episode is for you.
💜 Join the free Skool community + The BLOOM System: https://okleaf.link/LateBloomer
📖 The Ultimate Retirement Guidebook: https://mybook.to/Ultimate-retirement
📖 The Ultimate Retirement Workbook: https://mybook.to/Ultimate-retirementWB
📖 Find Fiona's books: Search Fiona Leitch on Amazon
📷 Follow Fiona on Instagram: @fionaleitchauthor
👥 Follow Fiona on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fionakleitch
▶️ Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@wendywilliams-Late-Bloomer
🎙 Subscribe — new episodes every Sunday

You're not too late. You're right on time.

QUOTES

🗣 From this episode:
"I had the screenplay, so it was like I had this really well fleshed out outline already to work from. I sat down, I started writing, I loved it. It took me three weeks." — Fiona Leitch, Episode 11

✍️ This week's writing inspiration:
"Start before you're ready." — Steven Pressfield

Ten episodes. Ten Sundays. And you're still here, thank you.

I genuinely wasn't sure I could do this when I recorded Episode 1.
I sat at my microphone talking to nobody, hoping someone would listen. And here we are. Episode ten. So before we look forward, I want to look back, because a lot has happened across these nine episodes and I don't want to rush past it.

I reflect on the journey so far: the seven-day sofa challenge with Chris that started everything, Sue the butterfly who never wrote her book, why I stopped writing my next book and built a community instead, memoir writing and the five ways to structure your story, and the AI mini series that I hope changed how you think about ChatGPT for good. Because using AI isn't cheating. And your book is waiting.
I also talk about something that's changing on this podcast.
Guests are joining. I have some incredible people lined up, most of them late bloomers who started writing in their 40s, 50s and 60s, and I cannot wait for you to meet them.
The format stays the same. Warm, practical, real. But now with other voices alongside mine.

And before next week's guest arrives, I want to ask you something. What's your biggest question for an author who started later in life? What do you wish someone would just answer, once and for all? Comment below, or come into the Skool community and post it there.
I read everything. And your questions will shape who I invite on and what we talk about.
As for next week, my very first guest. She grew up in South London, in a place where, she will tell you herself, people like her didn't become novelists. At 48 she stopped negotiating with herself. She took a screenplay and turned it into a novel. She now writes a bestselling series for HarperCollins. Thirteen books. Book 14 out this September.

I'm not going to tell you who she is. But I think you're going to love her.

💜 Join the free Skool community + The BLOOM System: https://okleaf.link/LateBloomer

📖 The Ultimate Retirement Guidebook: https://mybook.to/Ultimate-retirement

📖 The Ultimate Retirement Workbook: https://mybook.to/Ultimate-retirementWB

🎙 Subscribe — new episodes every Sunday

You're not too late. You're right on time.

🗣 From this episode:
"There's no point at which you should say it's too late or I'm too old. Because you're not. And it isn't." — Wendy Williams, Episode 10

✍️ This week's writing inspiration:
"Creativity is a gift. It doesn't come through if you're busy managing everyone else's opinion of you." — Steven Pressfield

FAVOURITE BOOKS

• The War of Art by Steven Pressfield — on overcoming resistance and just starting
• Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert — on creative courage and showing up anyway
• You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero — for anyone who needs permission to back themselves
  
  #LateBloomerAuthor #WriteYourBook #SelfPublishing #Over40 #NeverTooLate #BookWritinge #NonfictionAuthor #YoureRightOnTime #IntentionalLiving #SimplyRetired #RetirementLife #LifeAfter60 #PodcastMilestone #WomenOver50 #AgingGracefully
  
  DISCLAIMER
  Some links in this description may be affiliate links. If you purchase through them I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only ever recommend tools and resources I genuinely use and love. Thank you for supporting the show! 🧡
  
  
  
  

Chris is back. And this week we're doing something a little different.

The last three episodes have been all about using AI to write your book. Today we're stepping back and asking a different question entirely: why would you write a book in the first place? Because the answer might surprise you, and it might be very different from what you think.

I share the story of how my Ultimate Retirement Guidebook started as something I needed myself, a guide to the identity shift of retirement that I simply couldn't find anywhere else. And how that one book snowballed into a workbook, a free resource toolkit, a YouTube channel, a newsletter, a podcast, a Skool community and an entirely new brand. Things I never planned. Things I never even imagined.

I didn't know what a podcast was six months before I started one.
Chris tells a completely different story. He started the same way we all did, a seven-day challenge on the sofa, a bit of competition, a first book published. Since then he's written about chickens, cats, procrastination, AI security and even started two novels. But his latest book, AI-Powered Cybersecurity: Defend Against Tomorrow's Threats Today, wasn't written for fun. It was written to establish professional credibility. To open doors. To give added value to the clients and companies he works with. And it's done exactly that.

Two stories. Two completely different reasons for writing a book. Two completely different outcomes.

But one starting point. A sofa, a challenge and a decision to just do it.
Because you don't know where your book is going to take you. A therapist could write about their specialism and end up running Zoom sessions worldwide. Someone who's overcome chronic pain could write their story and help thousands of others through it. You just have to be open to where it leads.

The book is just the tip of the iceberg. And there's only one way to find out what's underneath.
💜 Join the free Skool community + The BLOOM System: https://okleaf.link/LateBloomer
📖 The Ultimate Retirement Guidebook: https://mybook.to/Ultimate-retirement
📖 The Ultimate Retirement Workbook: https://mybook.to/Ultimate-retirementWB
📖 AI-Powered Cybersecurity by Chris Williams: https://mybook.to/aicybersecurity
🎙 Subscribe — new episodes every Sunday

You're not too late. You're right on time.
QUOTES

🗣 From this episode:
"The book is just the tip of the iceberg to that next step, wherever it takes you." — Chris Williams, Episode 9

✍️ This week's writing inspiration:
"It's not the writing part that's hard. What's hard is sitting down to write." — Steven Pressfield
FAVOURITE BOOKS

• The War of Art by Steven Pressfield — on overcoming resistance and just starting
• Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert — on creative courage and showing up anyway
• You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero — for anyone who needs permission to back themselves

#LateBloomerAuthor #WriteYourBook #SelfPublishing #Over40 #NeverTooLate #BookWriting #PodcastLife #RetirementLife #LifeAfter60 #Reinvention #AuthorLife #StartNow #BookJourney #AIWriting #LateStart
DISCLAIMER
Some links in this description may be affiliate links. If you purchase through them I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only ever recommend tools and resources I genuinely use and love. Thank you for supporting the show! 🧡

Welcome back to part three of the AI mini series. If you've been following along you'll already know that AI is not cheating, and you'll have a title, a book description and a full chapter outline ready to go. This week we fill in the chapters.

Because this is where most people get stuck. The blueprint is done. The outline is ready. And then you sit down to actually write, and the blank page wins again.

I'm going to show you exactly how to use ChatGPT to start filling in your chapters without losing a single word of your voice. And I promise, this is where the magic actually happens.

I walk you through the difference between a weak prompt and a strong one (they produce completely different results, I read both out so you can hear it for yourself), how to add your own personal stories and experiences so the chapter sounds like you and nobody else, the three mistakes people make when using AI to write their book, and a simple chapter checklist you can use to quality-check every single chapter before you move on.

And yes, everything is free. You do not need a paid ChatGPT account. You do not need any special software. Just a free account and the right prompts.

All the prompts and ChatGPT responses from this mini series,
Episodes 6, 7 and 8, will be inside the Skool community so you can read them, copy them and make them your own.

TIMESTAMPS
00:01 Hello and Welcome
07:13 The prompts will be in my Skool
09:50 Add personal stories
12:19 Change to suit your topic
16:54 Not what I expected
21:39 Let AI help your chapters flow
23:54 Here is a checklist
27:40 Using AI is not cheating
29:29 Just make a start
31:58 Summary and Goodbye

FAVOURITE BOOKS

• The War of Art by Steven Pressfield — on overcoming resistance and just starting
• Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert — on creative courage and showing up anyway
• You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero — for anyone who needs permission to back themselves

HASHTAGS
#LateBloomerAuthor #ChatGPT #AIWriting #WriteYourBook #SelfPublishing #Over40 #NeverTooLate #AINotCheating #BookWriting #PodcastLife #NonfictionAuthor #YoureRightOnTime #IntentionalLiving #SimplyRetired #RetirementLife #LifeAfter60 #WriteWithAI #BookBlueprint #StartNow #AITools
Next week Chris is back — we're talking about what happens after the book. Because your book isn't just a book. It could be the beginning of something much bigger than you ever imagined.

💜 Join the free Skool community + all the AI prompts: https://okleaf.link/LateBloomer
📖 The Ultimate Retirement Guidebook: https://mybook.to/Ultimate-retirement
📖 The Ultimate Retirement Workbook: https://mybook.to/Ultimate-retirementWB
🎙 Subscribe — new episodes every Sunday

You're not too late. You're right on time.

QUOTES

🗣 From this episode:
"AI is the scaffolding. You are the building. You are everything else in there. And that's the most important thing to remember." — Wendy Williams, Episode 8

✍️ This week's writing inspiration:
"The amateur tweets. The professional works." — Steven Pressfield

DISCLAIMER
Some links in this description may be affiliate links. If you purchase through them I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only ever recommend tools and resources I genuinely use and love. Thank you for supporting the show! 🧡

Last week Chris and I talked about AI, what it is, what it isn’t, and why using it is absolutely not cheating. This week I want to show you what it actually looks like in practice.

We’re using ChatGPT, which is free, and we’re using my Ultimate Retirement Guidebook as the live example. Real prompts. Real responses. Exactly the kind of thing I used when I was building the book myself.

By the end of this episode, you’ll have everything you need to create a complete book blueprint, a title, a book description and a full chapter outline with transitions. That’s further than most people ever get. And it takes minutes, not months.

I walk you through four steps: finding your title (and why the right title matters more than you think), writing your book description for Amazon, building your chapter outline so your book flows like a journey rather than a list of topics, and chapter transitions, the sentences nobody talks about that make a reader want to turn the page.

I also talk about something important. ChatGPT didn’t write my book. Every word in the Ultimate Retirement Guidebook is mine, my experience, my voice, my stories. But ChatGPT did the grunt work. It gave me the skeleton. And without the skeleton, building the rest is so much harder.

AI is the scaffolding. You are the building. And that’s exactly how it should be.

All the prompts I used in this episode will be available inside the Skool community, free to copy, paste and make your own. And if you haven’t got a ChatGPT account yet, I’m putting together a short mini workshop on how to set one up, that’ll be in the community too.

Next week, part three. We’re going to start actually building chapters without losing your voice. Don’t miss it.