Barbara Waxman
Barbara Waxman, founder of The Odyssey Group, is a highly sought-after longevity and leadership advocate, advisor, master coach, keynote speaker, and author. Barbara’s body of work—at the intersection of coaching, leadership, adult development, and longevity—translates cutting-edge science and collective wisdom into practical frameworks. Her mission is to help people—and the institutions that serve them—understand and act on the dynamics and potential of an aging world.
Barbara’s leadership as a gerontologist in the coaching field has culminated in the transformative coaching model Entrepreneurship Turned Inward™, the evidence-informed Seven Lifestyle Levers Assessment™, and the Longevity Lifeplan™—a framework that helps people and organizations align today’s decisions with the futures they want to create. She popularized Middlescence as a modern life stage and is advancing the Third Span™, longevity’s next frontier. Her TEDxBoston: Unlocking Longevity 2025 talk explores how we can make longer lives fully lived lives.
Barbara serves as an advisor to the Stanford Center on Longevity, Stanford Lifestyle Medicine and is a board member of ExtraFood.org. She is an Advisor and Master Faculty at MEA (Modern Elder Academy). Her insights have appeared on CBS This Morning and in outlets including the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Thrive Global, Next Avenue, Marin Magazine, to name a few. Barbara is the author of The Middlescence Manifesto and contributed the chapter “How to Avoid Burnout, Provide Exceptional Care, and Enhance Work-Life Integration” to Springer’s The Successful Health Care Professional’s Guide. She holds master’s degrees in Gerontology and Public Administration from the University of Southern California, is a graduate of Colgate University, and earned coaching certifications through the International Coach Federation and The Hudson Institute.
Barbara Waxman website: https://barbarawaxman.com/
TEDxSonoma: The Myth of the Mid-Life Crisis
