About

What does it mean to grow old gracefully?

The attitudes conveyed in popular media about growing older range from pity to condescension to trite stereotypes. Mention “aging” and many people slither into denial.

And yet there’s no denying: Every seven seconds, another person turns age 50.

In just a few short years, close to 30% of the US population will be made up of people 55 and older, and even the median age of Americans in the work force will rise to 42. Growing old in the modern world poses new, uncharted challenges. Join us as we wade through these waters ourselves by talking to people who have compelling perspectives on the changes.

Gracefully aims to show, through the stories we share, that while aging is inevitable, how we deal with it is a choice.

Lisa Napoli

Host/Producer

Lisa grew up in Flatbush, Brooklyn, back when it was a working-class outpost of the city, not the hip, hipster paradise it is today. She’s never taken for granted the career she’s been fortunate to make in various media: from covering technology for the New York Times at the dawn of the Internet, to her on-air work at MSNBC and the public radio show Marketplace. For the last four years, Lisa served as arts correspondent for KCRW in Santa Monica, all the while writing a book about the late philanthropist Joan Kroc to be published in the fall by Dutton. Her first book, Radio Shangri-La, is about her accidental invitation to the Kingdom of Bhutan to help start a radio station at the dawn of democratic rule. She loves hearing other people’s stories and helping to tell them. She also loves to help. In addition to serving on the board as an advisor to a refugee-led media group called the Bhutan Media Society, she leads a cooking group that feeds homeless women on Skid Row in Los Angeles.