Growth | Career | Dreams

At Age 50 Studied Computers. At Age 77 Speaks Around the Whole World. The Amazing Story of Linda Rising.

It’s never too late to start. Based on my interview with an amazing woman.

“We are older at any point than we have ever been. We can never change that. But we can change our mindset. It’s all in the mind — whether we think it’s too late or not too late to start something.” — Linda Rising

Missouri. Mid-1970s.

A single mother, about 35 years of age, who got herself enrolled for a master’s degree, found herself in an emotionally challenging position.

As she was walking against the cold winter, wind gushing against her face, her mind was stuck on the cash that she was carrying.

A few minutes before, she was faced with the harsh situation of not having any money to buy groceries. With a heavy heart, she coaxed her 7-year-old daughter to lend the money the child received as birthday gifts.

For the next few years, this woman focussed on bringing up her only child and studying mathematics. She mostly delayed all kinds of gratification like personal luxuries, travelling and holidays.

And today she travels all around the world as an international speaker and consultant in software development! That also at the age of 77!

(At the time of this interview, she was 77. Today she is 81 and is as active as she was then).

Linda Rising is one of the most inspiring, motivated and enthusiastic persons I have ever met. She is also one of the firsts in the world who studied and applied agile, lean and scrum philosophies in software development which today have been embraced by both successful start-ups and established organisations.

From a working woman to a single mother to a student

Linda started as a biochemist but dropped out as killing animals in the lab repulsed her.

Always academically inclined, she wanted to study mathematics but when she became a mother she gave her career a break and focused on her family.

The falling apart of her marriage provided her the window to look into her career again. Linda reignited her interest in math and enrolled herself for a master’s in the subject. During that time, she supported herself mainly by becoming a Teaching Assistant.

She went on to do her PhD in mathematics but towards the end of it, she started losing interest in the subject. Additionally, she realised that there were not too many jobs in math that matched her interests and strengths.

Those days computer science was its nascency. Some people told Linda about it and that got her all excited. She felt it could be an ever-growing field and thus applied for a master’s degree in computer science.

By then, she was already in her early 40s!

Everyone thought the woman had gone crazy

Her friends thought it was crazy for her to start everything from scratch again.

It’s scary when I think about it.

Her career was still floating around without any solid definition to it. Was she a biochemist? Or a mathematician? Or a teacher?

She had crossed half of her life and still did not have a proper career in any field. And then she dived into this brand new world of computers which very few people in the world had inklings about.

Linda toiled. Like nobody’s business.

Along with her master’s classes, she also had to study the undergraduate course so that she could make some heads and tails of what was going on in her master’s classes.

She again donned the role of a Teaching Assistant to meet her financial needs. She was still a single mother then.

Linda took a year more than her peers to complete her master's but it was all worthwhile as she was able to land herself jobs as a software developer in the corporate world.

After working for a few years, Linda went on to do her PhD in computer science and completed it at age 50.

All her professors, except two, were younger than her!

A new adventure

When she moved to Denmark, in the early 2000s, with her second husband owing to the latter’s job, Linda was invited to an event to talk on software development.

The ever-curious Linda jumped at the opportunity.

She never imagined that that jump at age 60 was going to throw her into an exciting new adventure in life that was to last forever.

Since then, Linda has been speaking and consulting with companies all over the globe and is one of the most loved and respected figures in the world of software development.

You will soon see her travelling adventures in the following sections.

How did she make it? What about all the pressure with a child to raise?

“I had support. I had both internal determination and external support. It’s very difficult to achieve your dreams without any support.” — Linda Rising

Linda feels lucky that she had the support of family, professors and peers, especially her second husband, Karl Rehmer, who supported and motivated her to go after her dreams.

The wonderful man agreed to be the primary bread-earner for 3 years so that Linda could complete her PhD in computers. He still supports her in various ways so that Linda can continue doing what she loves.

Was she not scared of failure in a fast-changing younger world?

She was. And she still gets the butterflies before a new talk. And things still go haywire sometimes.

But she says that the choice is simple.

If you want to grow, you got to face failures, bang past them and come out a winner or a learner on the other side.

“You have to have beginnings. If you do not have beginnings, that means you are only going to do the same thing over and over again.” — Linda Rising

So, what motivates Linda to carry on even at this age?

Linda does her exercise regularly, takes care of household chores and gets 8 hours of good sleep every day.

And then she does this at her age.

In 2018, at age 76, she travelled for talks to Athens (Greece), Bangalore (India), Budapest (Hungary), Charlotte, Edinburgh & Glasgow (Scotland), Krakow (Poland), London, Madrid (Spain), Minneapolis (twice), Phoenix, Prague (Czech Republic), San Diego, San Francisco and Washington D.C.

In addition to this, Linda and her husband Karl, direct two performing groups of recorder orchestra (picture below — first from left in red). They have taught all the group members to play the recorder and usually give about 12 performances a year.

So, what is it that motivates her apart from her natural curiosity and enthusiasm?

It’s PURPOSE.

And it has nothing to do with software or computers.

Linda’s purpose today is to send out two key messages to the world.

Her primary message is to live with purpose. This is especially targeted towards retired people.

Living in a retirement community in Nashville to be closer to her daughter, Linda has observed many retired people, including previously highly successful people, feeling valueless in society. They feel they are no more important. They feel they do not have much say in anything. Their confidence goes down and so does their cognitive abilities. For many, this leads to early death.

Linda believes that, excluding absolute physical and mental limitations, this is not how one should live in their old age. They should do some work, not necessarily for money per se, but for some purpose; for something that they care for which can make them feel important and a valuable member of society. Linda hopes that her active life will influence people to do the same.

“I will never retire. Till my body allows, I will never retire”. — Linda Rising.

Her second message is mainly for women. Although it has rubbed on men like me as well.

“I am not from Harvard or Stanford. I am not a genius. I graduated from standard universities. I am very ordinary. So, if I can, you definitely can”. — Linda Rising.

Remember, this is coming from someone who became a “woman in tech” long before this term found its way to the present times’ media pages.

Finishing it off.

Linda mentioned something that has remained stuck in my head. She said that she loved engaging with young people and being valuable to them.

I observed this trait when I first saw her at an event. Coupled with this, the prompt replies with smileys that she gives to my emails, the absolutely friendly way she talked with me, and the way she bade me goodbye by giving me thumbs-ups with both her hands at the end of our Skype interview left me thinking.

And at that point, there is something else I figured out that day which also probably helps her keep going.

Linda Rising is inspiringly and refreshingly still very young at heart.

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Note: This is based on a face-to-face interview taken by me in 2019. It was originally published on LinkedIn. My objective was that people in their 30s, 40s 50s or 60s, INCLUDING ME, didn’t think that time had run out to go after their dreams.

My second purpose for this interview was for people like my Dad — who was 81 when I wrote this piece and had always been active — who could believe that they could still do something valuable to keep themselves busy and well. He fell sick 2 weeks after I wrote this piece and passed away three months later.

Linda still travels the whole world. During COVID, she was seen speaking at various online agile meet-ups and conferences.

For D&M.