Purpose, Direction, and Community for Senior Men

The Encore Project is where men 65 and older find honest resources, real stories, and genuine community — for everything that comes after a career ends.

Retirement isn’t about golf and grandkids — though those are fine. It’s about figuring out who you are when you’re not what you did. That’s harder than anyone tells you. The Encore Project is built around exactly that question.

Resources, stories, and community — built for men 65 and older.

Meet Men Who Get It

Real stories, honestly told — no highlight reels

Bronson Dorsey spent decades hiding what he felt — until a letter to his father, and years spent rescuing Texas’s forgotten buildings, changed that.
David Blatt speaking at a microphone during his years leading the Oklahoma Policy Institute
David Blatt built Oklahoma’s most respected policy institute, then left the state — and the country — at the height of his influence. A story about knowing
butch giving the peace sign

In the spring of 2023, a doctor in Kansas City received the kind of news he had spent thirty years delivering to other people. The diagnosis was

Find What Speaks to Where You Are Right Now

10 focused areas covering everything that matters in this chapter

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Coping With Grief And Loss

Finding your footing after profound loss
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creativity

Creative Pursuits

Rediscovering expression, craft, and artistic life
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inclusion

Financial Empowerment

Protecting and growing your financial future
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faith

Faith and Fulfillment

Exploring meaning, purpose, and inner peace
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exercise

Health And Wellness

Physical and mental vitality after 65
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collaboration

Inspiration & Personal Growth

Staying curious, motivated, and alive to possibility
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Relationships & Companionship

Love, friendship, and human connection
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reinvented

Retirement Reimagined

Redefining this chapter on your own terms
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settings

Tech Savvy Seniors

Navigating the digital world with confidence
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travel

Travel And Adventure

Going somewhere while you still can
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Real Stories of Senior Men

Authentic senior men’s stories of resilience
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Recent Perspectives

New articles, stories, and insights

A sport coat hanging on a valet stand in a warm, softly lit bedroom at dusk.
Bill Leighty on the financial shame many men carry in silence — and what research into that silence, and his own life, has taught him
Open photo album and framed black-and-white photographs on a moving box in a sunlit living room.
Bill Leighty on the emotional side of downsizing a longtime home — what letting go really means, and what it doesn't.
A handwritten, heavily revised manuscript page with a fountain pen resting on top.
Bill Leighty on the lifelong instinct for precision he's learning to unlearn as a writer — and why a rough draft isn't a mistake to

Why I Built This

After thirty-five years in real estate, I found myself sitting on a park bench in Gillette, Wyoming, wondering what came next. A road trip had gone sideways. The career was behind me. And nobody had a map for what followed.

My wife Bonnie said: ‘Think of it as an encore.’ That word opened everything up.

The Encore Project began with that moment — and a single belief: men my age aren’t relics. We’re resources. And we still have something to give.

Bill Leighty
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