Aging with Purpose and Passion

Melissa Davey: Embracing Passion and Transformation Through Filmmaking After 60

Beverley Glazer Episode 112

This week, Melissa Davey joins us to share her remarkable journey of transformation from a corporate executive to an award-winning filmmaker, all beginning at the age of 65. Her story is an inspiring testament to resilience and the power of pursuing one's passion, regardless of age.

Growing up with frequent relocations, Melissa developed adaptability and resilience, traits that would later fuel her bold leap into filmmaking. Despite a lifelong love for film, she initially followed a more traditional career path in nonprofit work and legal services. Discover how a serendipitous moment behind the camera in Washington, D.C. inspired her to leave her corporate career behind and chase her dream of storytelling.

Melissa's debut film, "Beyond 60," highlights the often-overlooked stories of ordinary women over 60, proving that compelling narratives exist beyond celebrity life. Her journey underscores the importance of surrounding yourself with encouraging people while navigating new directions in life.

From leveraging her team-building skills to overcome technical gaps to winning awards at film festivals, Melissa's story is one of patience, perseverance, and triumph. Listen as she discusses her mission to empower women through film as she shares insights on living a life full of purpose and passion. Stay tuned for details on her available films and how you can connect for further updates on her inspiring adventures.

Thank you for listening, Have you enjoyed this episode? Please drop a review and send it to a friend.

Aging with Purpose and Passion redefines ageism one bold story at a time. If you've liked this episode, you may also like Boomer Banter - a podcast providing tips on Financial literacy, Mental & Physical health, relationships and aging with purpose.

Resources:
Melissa Davey
melissajdavey@verizon.net
http://www.melissadavey.com
@melissadavey, @BeyondSixtyDocumentary, @climbingintolife @gettingoldbutwhocares, @beyon60project, @climbing_into_life Linkedin.com/in/melissa-davey--16484b6
X @DaveyLissa

 Beverley Glazer
Bev@reinventImpossible.com
https://reinventimpossible.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/beverleyglazer/
https://www.facebook.com/beverley.glazer
FACE BOOK GROUP
https://www.facebook.com/groups/womenover50rock
https://www.instagram.com/beverleyglazer_reinvention

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Aging with Purpose and Passion, the podcast designed to inspire your greatness and thrive through life. Get ready to conquer your fears. Here's your host. Psychotherapist coach and empowerment expert Beverly Glazer. Psychotherapist coach and empowerment expert.

Beverley Glazer:

Beverly Glazer. What if the life you've always dreamed of starts at 65? Welcome to Aging with Purpose and Passion. I'm Beverly Glazer and I help women to overcome adversity in life and business, and you can find me on reinventandpausablecom. Meet Melissa Davey. She was a corporate executive who ran a multi-million dollar business and became an award-winning filmmaker without any experience at all, at 65, when many of us were thinking of slowing down. Melissa just got started. Well, if you've been wondering if it's too late to pursue your dreams or jump into something new, you how determination, vision and courage can transfer your next chapter into the greatest journey of your life. Welcome, melissa.

Melissa Davey:

Thank you so much. It's great to be here.

Beverley Glazer:

You are so welcome. My goodness, at 65, you made quite a transition. Yes, terrific. You moved as a child 13 times, like that's a lot for a young child, you know. Moving twice and leaving your friends how come? What was going on in your life? How come so many times?

Melissa Davey:

My dad. Well, in the beginning he was in the army, so there was a little bit of that. But I realize now he died very, very young, at age 51. But in my younger years watching him, he was always interested in the next thing and he was always you know. I kind of figure I got a little bit of that from him. He was always curious about what the possibilities were for next. So he would start new businesses, land new jobs and we would move. We moved a lot. It was pretty crazy actually.

Beverley Glazer:

How did you, as a child, how were you able to manage that? There go your friends. There goes a new school.

Melissa Davey:

How did you do that? Yeah, I was okay with it in that after the second or third time I realized, okay, this is a thing that I have to, you know, create new friendships and figure out where I fit into the neighborhood, et cetera. And these were all different states and cities and towns and whatnot. So I got really good at, you know, rolling into the new house with the moving van and while my parents were unpacking, I would go around the neighborhood knocking on doors saying, hey, do you have any kids? You know I introduced myself and do you have any kids that I could meet? I did it.

Melissa Davey:

It became like my mission every time I made a change was I needed to figure out where did I fit in and who were the people around me that I wanted to hang out with. So I took it sort of as a challenge and it actually became fun. And I think of my older brother. It was not fun for him, it was not easy for him. You know two different personalities. But I look back and I see that for most people I think it would be kind of daunting and, you know, a little scary.

Beverley Glazer:

Oh, yes, for sure, but you were a real gutsy kid I think so. For sure. When did you fall in love with movies?

Melissa Davey:

Oh, when I was about nine is when I really started to pay attention. I always went to the movies, starting at a very young age, but at nine, when we lived in Connecticut, I was in walking distance to the theater and it was back when it was, you know, saturday matinee was 25 cents that's how old I am but we could go with our friends so we could grab a group of little kids and go off by ourselves to the movies, because there was no, you know, nobody was worried about people lurking in the bushes waiting to take away their children. It was, you know, much more free society then. Take away their children. It was, you know, much more free society then. So I would go to the every Saturday matinee that I could possibly get to.

Melissa Davey:

I went to, and across the street from the movie theater was a bookstore and in that bookstore there were books about movies and directors and I would go in there and read. I would sit on the floor and just, you know, immerse myself in reading about the films, to the point where the owner of the bookstore asked me what I was doing and I said, hey, I was nine. How can I get a job here? Because I like the books. So the guy hired me for, you know, I don't know, 50 cents or something. I would come in and dust the shelves and just make sure things were straightened out and I would get to read all these books about film, which was you know. So it was always there that I love movies. Love, love, love.

Beverley Glazer:

Yeah, love, love, love for sure, and you were lucky to be able to be nine years old.

Melissa Davey:

Yeah.

Beverley Glazer:

And able to do that.

Melissa Davey:

Yes, absolutely.

Beverley Glazer:

But you didn't go into the arts.

Melissa Davey:

No, no, because that it seemed like a fantasy, you know, and and back then in the fifties and sixties, it's like I don't think there were any parents suggesting to their children not many, that I knew gee, you should be an artist, or you should be a filmmaker, or you should, you know, just follow your artistic, you know abilities. It was always. You know, this is what you should do, or what society expected people to do. So I never even thought about it, I never even considered it. I thought that only certain people became filmmakers and I was happy with that and I was happy to watch their films, you know, and take what I could from each of those films.

Beverley Glazer:

So what did you choose?

Melissa Davey:

What did I choose? Oh, I choose early marriage, early children, early divorce you know all those bumps in the road as well as a nonprofit. I started out in the nonprofit world. First I thought I was going to be a teacher, but it wasn't quite for me and I ended up in legal services representing poverty individuals before the Social Security Administration and the Department of Education. So I did that for a good number of years, training attorneys and paralegals in the world of Social Security, became a little bit of an expert and then after 12 years in that I was recruited to a for-profit company in Pennsylvania that's where I am now to come and build a for-profit arm of their company and had a very robust, large corporate career and it was great.

Melissa Davey:

I mean, I moved a lot with my jobs. I was always on the road. I was, you know, which is that's me. I think I need to be moving and that was instilled in me at a very young age. But I had offices around the United States so I was constantly going to those different offices, had great staff, great opportunities and no ageism in the company. So I didn't have to leave. You know, I could still be there today at 74 if I wanted to be.

Beverley Glazer:

But you didn't, nope, nope, did you take that leap?

Melissa Davey:

through that rodeo two or three times before, and it takes a significant amount of work for all the executives to get everything together, for the bankers and whatnot. So the CEO came to me and said this is happening again. What do you want to do? He knew I was 65. And I was sitting at my desk at that same moment saying to myself oh my gosh, I'm 65. And why am I still here? And what haven't I done? And I was making lists of all the things that I had dreamed about as a young person that I had never done, and just really asking myself, well, why not? Why didn't you do it? And I would come up with you know all these crazy answers. And then the CEO came to me and said that and I thought, hmm.

Melissa Davey:

And then I ended up in DC at a congressional meeting for Social Security that I would go to on a regular basis, and I remember sitting there feeling like, oh my gosh, this is like deja vu. Every time I come to this meeting it's the same year in and year out, and I remember that feeling of I am done with this. I was feeling a little bit done at work. I knew we were being bought out. I was looking at the calendar, I knew what my age was. I went to this meeting and said and that's when I really started to pay attention to that list that I made, and coming to the top of the list of the fantasy list for Melissa Davey was filmmaking making and that one was, you know, it had. I had a happy face next to it with laughter tears coming out of, like, really, could I really do this? Just to give you an idea, one of the other things was play the saxophone and be in a band. And you know why didn't I do that? Well, I don't read music. So I kept moving that one down lower because I thought I'm never going to be able to learn how to read music plus learn how to play in a short period of time. And I kept coming back to it. Well, I think maybe the film part would be the easiest thing for me to do, but but I just sort of let it sit there.

Melissa Davey:

Then, that day that I came back from DC, I left early and I leaned over to a friend after I did my piece and I said I'm you know, I'm not going to stay today, I'm going back, I'm done. So I came back here, did not go back to work, and instead hooked up with a friend that I hadn't seen in a while and she said you need to come with me to pick up her daughter and drop her off at the horse barn. Now I live in Chester County, pennsylvania. If anybody knows where that is, it's about 24 miles due west of Philadelphia. And so I went with her and we went up the dirt road to drop Grace off at the horse barn. And she said to me you know I come here every day and I think they're making a movie over there.

Melissa Davey:

And I looked over and she was right there were lights and you know all the things that you would see on a set. It was outside, it was kind of a spooky day and it was all craggly trees, going down a long driveway to an old farmhouse. And I thought to myself, I thought I knew who it probably was. So we dropped her off, came back, sat there by the side of the road and she said how could you possibly know who it is? And I said well, think about it. It's Chester County, pennsylvania. Looks pretty spooky. I'll bet you it's M Night Shyamalan.

Melissa Davey:

So I pulled up my iPhone, opened it up, put in his name went to a website and up popped a picture of where we were sitting at that moment. So I said well, it looks like it's him and you know the long driveway with the craggly trees. He had taken a picture of that and he put it on his website. So we were sitting there and on the website there was a little red button that said charity buzz. I didn't know what it was, so I hit it and it said win a day on the set with M Knight Shyamalan and all of the proceeds will go to his educational foundation. So we're sitting on the side of the road reading all this and she was like, oh, you have to do this. You love movies, you need to do this. So I started bidding that day and it ended up.

Melissa Davey:

A couple weeks I was bidding against a dentist in New Jersey. He'd go up, then I'd go up, then he'd go. And I was starting to get nervous because I thought, okay, this is getting really expensive. But I kept justifying it by saying, but it would go to a great cause, plus, I'd get to go see how this is done. So anyway, short story, I win the day on the set with M Night Shyamalan. And a couple of weeks later I was at the 30th Street Amtrak station in Philadelphia where he was filming that day, and I spent I don't know eight to 10 hours there with him, no idea what was going to, you know, transpire, but he had me behind the camera with him talking to me the whole time. He was doing what he does so wonderfully asking me what I thought, listening to my questions, answering my questions. I was beyond excited, like I hadn't. You know, I was 65 years old. I hadn't been that excited in a very long time. And then we sat down at lunch and he said to me what do you do?

Melissa Davey:

for work, because he had never done Charity Buzz either. I was the first one that showed up and he was like this was a real crap shoot. And I'm sure glad it was you and not some young person with a script in their hand that wanted to give it to me. And I said, oh no, no, I just want to watch and soak it all up. And so he said what do you do for work? And I tried to explain this corporate job to a guy who'd only been a filmmaker his entire life. He looked at me kind of quizzically and he said ugh, what do you really want to do? And I said oh, I want your job. And he said well, you better hurry up. And as I sat there and he said that he was kidding around, it hit me like I could feel it in the pit of my stomach. He said you better hurry up.

Melissa Davey:

So all of these things that I just told you happened all at the same time Me making the list, the company you know making a change that would definitely require me to re-up for another five years. And I kept thinking, my God, I'll be 70. That's really old. Now I'm 74. And I kept thinking, my God, I'll be 70. That's really old. Now I'm 74. But anyway, you know, and then the DC thing that led me to go on this detour with a friend and end up behind the camera with him, like totally kind of an out of body experience. And I realized, okay, all the planets have lined up for me and there is a message here. You do have this interest. Why aren't you doing it? And why don't you hurry up and just do it?

Melissa Davey:

So that day I said that's it. I am going to try and the word is try to make a film, because it was too exciting not to, you know, to put it at the bottom of the list any longer. And I came home and I you know my husband was waiting was late at night and he was like, how was it? I'm like, oh, my God, it was amazing, like the most amazing experience. And, john, I'm going to quit my job and I'm going to make a film.

Melissa Davey:

And I remember his look at me, you know, I mean he knows me. But he just said, oh, okay. And the next day I didn't sleep that whole night because I started thinking, okay, I said it out loud Now I'm going to do it, how do I approach this. So I went to work and I gave a year's notice because I thought that was the prudent thing to do financially. And you know I couldn't. I had built the division of this, you know, my unit for the company, and I needed to mentor someone to take it over. And I needed to mentor someone to take it over and I figured, by doing that for a year I would also have time to start planning how I was going to do this film.

Beverley Glazer:

And that's how it got started and how did you plan it? You knew nothing. No, you knew nothing about technical. You knew nothing about writing. What plan?

Melissa Davey:

Well, you know, I was very aware at age 65 of what I was good at and what I was not good at, and I was very aware of what I don't know. So it was not, you know, it wasn't that torturous feeling that you have when you're 35 and you don't want to admit that you don't know something. I was like, oh, I'm going to put it all out there. I don't know this, this, this and this. So what is the logical thing to do? Go find somebody that can help you. And that is no different than any job you've had where you were responsible for building a team. You know, I always brought in people smarter than me in certain areas of my work, so that we had a great team, so that everything ran smoothly and that we were profitable. You know that was the. You know the way that we would measure things. So I was very clear that I needed to get in touch with people in the film industry that could help me set my direction and plan. I was also very clear that I wasn't going to write a script. I wasn't going to. You know, I was going to do storytelling, which I did that every day of my life in my jobs. That's what I was good at. I could help tell stories. So I figured okay, what kind of stories? Well, what about me? What about women like me, 65, 60, 70, 80, whatever? They have a boatload of experience and stories to tell, and the only ones that I'm hearing are Oprah and Jane Fonda, and I didn't want to do a film about celebrities that already have films out there about them. There's enough coverage. So why not the ordinary woman that you would pass on the street, not even consider having a conversation with her, never knowing what her story might be? So I thought, well, that will be a good jumping off point. I will start curating, you know, a group of women that I can interview, and that's how Beyond 60 was born.

Melissa Davey:

I went out and I found a production company in Philadelphia that loved the idea, loved it, and I thought they were just going to introduce me to different people. But they're like we want to do this with you. So I hired them on and for the next almost three years it took from beginning to very end we did the film Beyond 60. That highlights the stories of nine women, their life stories, just to show that they're still relevant, that they're still doing cool things and they're talking about how they feel about aging, and I bookended it with young people to talk with them about how they viewed aging, to talk with them about how they viewed aging. So it was a wonderful collaborative experience and it took a long time.

Melissa Davey:

When I sat with them, they said, well, what's your timeline? I said, well, a year, one year. And they looked at me. They started to laugh. They said, oh, documentaries on average take three to five years. And I'm like, oh no, I said, but I'm old, so I need to do this more quickly. And I worked in a for-profit company. Everything was due yesterday. So I was used to doing fast-paced work and I was ready to do that. But then I realized, ok, I need to learn patience and slow this down and do it the way it should be done. And we finished the darn thing. We finished the film, and that was my goal. Could I even make one that looked like a film? And then the next goal can you get into a film festival? And we did. I got into eight with Beyond 60 and won some awards. And you know, it's been out there streaming now since 2021 and doing very well. So that was my foray into filmmaking.

Beverley Glazer:

So how did you even get them into a festival?

Melissa Davey:

There is a program online called Film Freeway, and all of the international and US, canada, all film festivals are in there. And you go in and you know you become a user, you upload all your films, all your detailed information, your budgets, everything, and then there are rolling times that you would apply to different film festivals. So you go in. There are thousands of them, so you have to research the ones that you think will be woman-centric, aging, anything that would be relatable to women's stories, and you try to at least curate a group that you're reasonably familiar with them and you want to see if you can possibly get in, and they're taking between 1% and I think it's 10% of submissions. So it's a real crapshoot to be able to get into them.

Melissa Davey:

But we got into eight with the first film and I thought, okay, now it's being seen by audiences and so then it started feeling. That's when it started to feel real, and then really real when the distributor picked it up in 2021 and got it out on all the streaming platforms. So you know and that will be out there for another 10, 12 years that people can, you know, find beyond 60 and get inspired and hopefully do something really cool. So that's how that got off the ground. That's amazing.

Beverley Glazer:

How has your perspective changed with aging?

Melissa Davey:

My perspective has changed, in that I do not limit myself anymore in beliefs or thoughts of what is possible or not possible.

Melissa Davey:

I've been able to, and I think that comes with aging. I think that if you're open enough and daring enough to dare yourself, to have discussions with yourself about your age and what is possible, that you can open up to many, many possibilities. And another thing that has come with age for me and going through this process of making films is I'm more patient than I used to be and I really appreciate that, because I've always lacked patience. I want things to happen very quickly, and sometimes they do and sometimes they don't, and it would definitely affect my mood when things were taking too long. But this has given me like permission to slow down a little bit and to do it right and just to do it for myself, and then, when it's done, others will see it and others will be moved or not moved by it, and that's good enough. You know there's something about aging, patience and acceptance of who you are patience and acceptance of who you are.

Beverley Glazer:

What advice would you give to a woman who's considering a major career change after 60?

Melissa Davey:

Do it, definitely do it, or think about it. I mean, be mindful of what it means. Be ready to have hard conversations with partners about finances. Because for me, you know, I was doing very well financially in my job and I was quitting it, you know, and that means that all of that income and benefit and anything associated with it would go away. So you have to plan that. But it was worth planning it, it was worth making concessions on things. It was worth going from two cars to one.

Melissa Davey:

You know to be doesn't seem to relate to what they ever did before. They get too scared. You know it's too scary, but I'm here to tell you the fear is just. That's normal.

Melissa Davey:

Yes, I was feeling a little nauseous myself, you know, jumping into things, thinking what am I doing, but then I would have the conversation with myself. You know exactly what you're doing and you want to do this, so why would you not? And you need to surround yourself with people that will shore you up and that will give you positive feedback. Stay away from the naysayers, because they'll be there. There will be naysayers that will say you can't do that, you weren't trained to do that. What if you use up all your money. I mean, I heard those things and I quickly just closed the door on those because if I listened to it seriously, maybe I would have not done what I did.

Melissa Davey:

I don't know, but I listened to all the people saying you can do this, of all the people we know you're going to be able to do this. You know, let us help you. What can we do? How are you doing? How are you feeling? You know there were people checking in all the time and we need to do that, you know, with our friends, we definitely need to do that on a regular basis. And you know, women, supporting women, is a beautiful thing, it's really an amazing thing, and that's not to leave men out of the mix. But I have focused my stories on women's stories and I'm focusing, you know, that feeling of the support you get, the groundswell of women who are excited for you, is an amazing feeling and it's needed, it's necessary to, you know, to keep you going.

Beverley Glazer:

It absolutely is. I'm going to ask one last question why women? Why do you have to tell our story?

Melissa Davey:

I'm telling them because I don't think there are enough of them. You know, when I started to research before I did Beyond 60, I was trying to find women's stories. You know, I interviewed 80 to 100 women on the phone during that year to find the nine that I chose and they all had fascinating pieces to their story, all of them. So in that process I started to realize that, wow, people are missing out on these stories. You know there's plenty of stories about. I found more about men like older men. Men like older men. They're revered you know, the CEO or whoever it might be revered in the storytelling. And I couldn't find those same stories for women, unless they were celebrities. So I really thought, boy, we're missing out here.

Melissa Davey:

And when women hear the stories of other women and hear what they went through and hear how they may have made change and move forward, they get inspired. And I've heard this over and over again. Now I have two movies and I'm hearing it over and over again. I saw your movie and I heard this. So the next day I decided to do this. Yeah, and you know, they're just like. We need more of these stories.

Beverley Glazer:

Absolutely yeah, and this is the reason and purpose for this podcast.

Melissa Davey:

It's stories.

Beverley Glazer:

It's stories of us and we empower each other Absolutely Hearing that thread right through it. We don't have time and go with your gut If you feel it, it's worth it, Right? I really want to thank you, Melissa.

Melissa Davey:

Thank you.

Beverley Glazer:

Melissa Davies is an award-winning filmmaker whose mission is to bring older women's voices to the forefront, normalizing their significance and contributions to our society. Her first film Beyond 60, can be seen on most streaming platforms like Apple TV, prime Video, vudu and YouTube TV, and her second film is Climbing Into Life, which is making the festival rounds right now as we speak. Where can people find you, melissa?

Melissa Davey:

The best place to find me is on my website, wwwmelissadaveycom, and it's M-E-L-I-S-S-A-D-A-V-E-Y dot com and everything is on there the trailers to the two films. People can sign up just to get info as we move along in the process. The next festival's in Chattanooga, tennessee, in January. So if anybody's down there, just holler January. So if anybody's down there, just holler. And we're all over social media, both Climbing Into Life and Beyond. 60 are on Instagram, facebook, twitter. They're everywhere. So or me, melissa Davey, you can find me.

Beverley Glazer:

That's awesome, and if you didn't catch that, all the links are going to be in the show notes, and they're on my site too, which is reinventandpausablecom. If you've enjoyed this episode, you may also like Boomer Banter, a podcast that focuses on financial literacy, mental and physical health, relationships and purpose as well, and so check out that in the links below as well. And now, my friends, what's next for you? Are you just going through the motions or are you really passionate about your life? My weekly self-coaching tips will help empower you through your journey, and that link will also be in the show notes below.

Beverley Glazer:

You can connect with me, Beverley Glazer, on all social media platforms and in my positive group of women on Facebook that's Women Over 50 Rock, and if I can help you find your purpose and passion in your life, please schedule a quick Zoom. And where do you think that will be? That link will be in the show notes below. I want to thank you for listening. Have you enjoyed this conversation? Please subscribe so you don't miss the next one, and send this episode to a friend, and always remember that you only have one life so keep aging with purpose and passion and celebrate life.