I didn’t set out to write a book.
I was trying to answer a question I could no longer ignore:
Is it still possible to flourish in the final third of life?
This book is for anyone asking: What now? What next? Can this chapter be the most meaningful of all?
I’m Gordon Parry—author, coach, and fellow traveler in the “final third” of life. (You can learn more about me here.)
I’d love to share occasional insights and updates about thriving, transition, and legacy in the later seasons of life.
Subscribe and receive those updates and an announcement when my book, Along the Road: The Art of Thriving in the Third Period of Life is released.
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Reflections from a Wisconsin Barn
As I put the finishing touches on Along the Road, I’ve found myself reflecting on the place that helped shape so much of its thinking. These essays were written for Hesly Center, but they share many of the same ideas explored throughout the book, so they seemed right at home here as well.
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Recent Insights
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Is it possible to flourish in the final third of life?
Too often, aging is framed only as decline—marked by limitations, losses, and endings. This book challenges that narrative.
Blending research in positive psychology, neuroscience, and well-being with practical tools and lived experience, Along the Road reframes the final third of life as a season of growth, meaning, and contribution. It offers frameworks for navigating life’s later chapters, exploring how mind, body, and soul can remain sources of vitality. It provides practical approaches to cultivating generativity, resilience, optimism, and wisdom—while crafting a lasting legacy and achieving a fulfilling end.
The book is both roadmap and companion: a guide for anyone entering—or already in—their mid to later years who longs not just to endure but to flourish.
“Live fully. Contribute wisely. Leave a legacy.”
Gordon Parry is an author, consultant, and coach dedicated to helping people flourish at every stage of life. A graduate of Penn’s Master of Applied Positive Psychology program and co-founder of Authentic Impact and founder of The Hesly Center for Leadership Development, he blends research and practice to unlock human potential. MORE ABOUT GORDON
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Omaha, NE 68164
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Recent Posts
Better Together in the Third Period of Life
How Relationships Help Us Age Well The third period of life, roughly our sixties and beyond, invites a more searching set of questions. Less about achievement. More about endurance. Less about independence. More about interdependence. One of the most powerful...
Everybody Loves Betty: Courageous Acceptance, Holland, and a Life Lived Beloved
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The Transformative Power of Turning the Other Cheek
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