Sitting at the dining room table of her Plymouth, Minnesota, home, Diana Pierce still looks every part the TV personality who became a household name in Minnesota during three decades with KARE-11.

Sipping coffee from a mug gifted from a friend that reads “Why yes, I am overqualified,” she still commands a conversation, too, on this afternoon discussing everything from mentoring women leaders to helping people follow their passions to her newfound photography hobby. Life has not slowed for the former news anchor, but it has changed course, and Pierce is still very much in the driver’s seat.

“Now I get to focus my attention to the things I find of interest and for me, at this point in my life and for a lot of people past the age of 50, it’s reinvention,” Pierce says. “Now what do we do?”

Diana Pierce recently partnered with Blue Cross to tell a series of caregiving stories. Check out Diana's video on caregiving for her mother. 

At 64, Pierce is optimistic about this chapter of her life and driven to help others her age and older get the most out of each day. Drawing from her own health and wellness journey and experiences both in broadcasting and her role as a caregiver in her mother’s final years, Pierce offers up some advice and inspiration for living the good life at any age.

It’s never too late to get fit

Before the conversation starts, Pierce holds up her left wrist, encased in a camouflage cast, noting it will be with her for four more weeks. It’s the result of a broken wrist suffered in a fall during a routine step-up workout.

“I probably needed to recognize when I should have stopped and not taken another step,” Pierce says.

To someone who has exercised regularly since college, the injury is a reminder that she’s not invincible and everyone has a limit. It won’t hold her back, though. Fitness is too much a part of Pierce’s life, strengthened by years of sharing health and wellness stories and even starting her own initiatives, like Walk Wednesday, a Facebook group that encourages sharing walking experiences from locations throughout the globe.

“Health is a habit and because of my health care reporting over the years I know that if you create the habit of working out, you will create and maintain a healthy lifestyle,” she says.

Pierce has never shied away from trying new ways to stay fit, from marathon running to water exercises to aerial yoga (performed in a suspended fabric sling). She recently signed up for tango lessons with significant other Scott Bemman. But she says anyone can start a fitness regimen regardless of age, ability or budget.

“People say, ‘you’ve been doing it all your life, I can never do what you’re doing,’” Pierce says. “No, not true. It’s never too late to start.”

Staying engaged

Being sharp mentally is important to Pierce, and she maintains her cognitive health in a variety of ways. One is through performing daily brain booster exercises online from a company called BrainHQ (brainhq.com). The exercises are aimed at improving memory, intelligence, attention, brain speed and sense of direction.

Outside of specific brain activities, Pierce is a self-proclaimed lifelong learner. She received a master’s degree in leadership from Augsburg College in 2015, which she has put to use as a mentor and speaker, particularly for women in leadership.

She also stays busy with several initiatives under her Diana Pierce Productions company. A couple of those efforts include “What’s Next with Diana Pierce,” an online interview series aimed at helping people 50 and older pursue their passions.

Another is a budding photography business—Scott and Di Photography—developed from the couple’s hobby. Traveling America and beyond has been a big part of Pierce’s life in recent years, and she has documented her trips—from Mongolia to Alaska—with some stunning photos, though she credits Bemman for the instruction.

“All of this photography stuff, that’s only been in the last couple of years,” Pierce says. “I stood in front of the camera, I had no clue as to what to do behind the camera.”

She encourages others to find a new hobby, take a course—get engaged in something you love that enriches your life.

Preparing for transition

Next year, Pierce will age into Medicare, a step she embraces and is more prepared for after caring for her mother. Pierce and her two older brothers helped move their mother from California to a nursing center near Pierce’s home following a debilitating stroke in 2000.

Pierce’s transition to primary caregiver—done according to her mother’s wishes—was eye opening. She cared for her mother through deteriorating health until her death in 2014.

“I became her spokesperson for all things concerning her,” Pierce says, explaining the stroke impaired her mother’s ability to speak.

“So, we had to open a bank account together because we had to figure out where her Social Security check was going to be placed, we worked with her on her taxes. We had to make sure that all of the health care people she had—her cardiologist, her general practitioner, any of the nurses at the nursing care facility that she was at—everybody was on the same page.

The situation prompted Pierce to start being proactive about her own health, since cardiovascular disease was a part of both of her parents’ health history. Prior to the stroke, her mother had been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation.

Understanding the risk for the condition in her family and setting a health care directive became priorities for Pierce. She also developed a new perspective on life after viewing it through her mother’s eyes.

“My life lessons from that are to have respect for the other person, try to see what life is like through their eyes, give yourself and everybody involved plenty of patience,” Pierce says.

“The person who is going to be most frustrated about it is the person you’re taking care of, because their life has shifted, and in my mom’s case, quite dramatically.”

Showing up

Pierce doesn’t know whether she will go through a similar transition one day, but the experience with her mother has helped ready her for it, and to live the healthiest, happiest life she can.

For now, Pierce intends to “show up” each day, even if it’s not on camera.

“What showing up means for me now is there’s always something new, every day I get up— and I am awake and getting up. I look at that as a blessing,” she laughs. “Showing up just means there’s still a lot of living left to be done.”

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the Spring 2018 edition of thrive., a healthy living newsletter for Blue Cross Medicare members.

The full issue, along with past issues, is available at bluecrossmn.com/PlatinumBluethrive.