At 60, I Stopped Saving the Life I Wanted for Later
Written by Laura McCann, Founder & CEO of Auratherapy
Laura McCann is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Auratherapy. A 30-year Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) and tech founder, she’s building a modern movement at the intersection of scent, energy, and self-mastery, turning daily rituals into transformation.
What if the business you are building could make room for the life you keep postponing? In my sixties, entrepreneurship has become a way to explore unfinished ambitions, keep learning, and create experiences I once imagined saving for later. It has also made me confront how I spend the time I have.
For years, I had a familiar category of ambitions: the things I would do after.
After the business was more established. After the next launch. After there was more time.
I wanted to transform a property, create an iconic product, host people in a community space, write, and live in different places. I wanted to keep designing and learning. I also wanted more travel for pleasure, after years of traveling primarily for work.
In my sixties, I began looking at that list differently. If I was going to continue putting so much of myself into building a business, could it become a place where some of those ambitions came to life?
Today, Auratherapy, the company I lead at the intersection of aromatherapy, aura and chakra experiences, and retail, is becoming a map of the things I still want to learn, create, and experience.
Turning a business into a personal bucket list
I have always wanted to take a property and turn it into something. A substantial project that would let me think about the space, its purpose, and what people might experience there.
Aura Sanctuary, the property I am developing in Asheville, gives me that opportunity. It also creates possibilities for the business: a place for education, events, and community. A personal ambition and a business opportunity can support each other.
I have also spent years exploring Moodzee, a scent product I wanted to bring into the world. Creating something iconic has long been an ambition of mine. I cannot decide whether a product becomes iconic; that belongs to the people who encounter it. But I can give the idea the work and attention it deserves.
Designing stores, developing products, and exploring textiles and lifestyle pieces draw on skills I have used across fashion, sourcing, technology, and retail. These projects let me use that experience while discovering what else I can do.
The business has become a playground in that sense. There are responsibilities and financial realities, but there is also room for experimentation, imagination, and pleasure in making things.
Making room for partnership and place
Working with my partner was another thing I wanted. Jim and I have now worked together for eight years, and we wrote a book together, Auratherapy: A Guide to Adoring Yourself, Your Chakras, and Your Aura.
That experience matters to me beyond the finished book. It is something we created together, through a working relationship that has become part of our shared life.
I wanted to live in two places and enjoy different climates. Having stores in Miami and Asheville helps support that possibility. Each place gives me a different environment, rhythm, and community.
I have always wanted to host events and invite people into a space. Through Vibe & Glow, and eventually Aura Sanctuary, that desire has a home within the business too.
When I look across these projects, I can recognize the life I wanted taking shape inside the work I am doing.
What does your personal brand mean after 60?
There is another question underneath all of this: What is my brand at this stage of life?
I think about that as a founder, but also as a person. What does the way I spend my days say about what I value? Is there room for the parts of me that have had less attention? Am I still making choices that fit?
I love teaching and helping people grow, although I have never wanted all of that work to take the form of a coaching or mentoring practice. Hiring people, building teams, and developing their capabilities give me a way to use those skills every day.
Writing gives me another kind of pleasure. I have written a book, contribute articles, and am interested in developing a Substack where I can share more stories and observations.
At 62, I have decades of experience to draw from and plenty I have yet to understand. My personal brand is still developing because my interests and ambitions are still developing. I want my work to make that visible.
Staying curious in a changing world
Building a brand requires me to keep learning how people discover products, shop online, and connect with ideas. Understanding digital channels is something I wanted to learn, and owning a business gives me a practical reason to keep going.
AI, social media, and cultural trends are part of that education. I have to ask questions, experiment, and sometimes admit that something familiar has changed.
I enjoy having a reason to pay attention. It keeps me interested in what people are making and how they are thinking. It also puts me in situations where experience helps, but does not supply every answer.
There is pleasure in discovering that you can still become absorbed in something you did not know how to do. That feeling belongs in later life as much as it belongs in youth.
Why later feels different as our parents age
I am fortunate to still have my parents, who are in their eighties and nineties. Watching them age changes how I think about the years ahead.
Dementia is part of my family history. I do not know what my own future holds, but that uncertainty makes the idea of waiting feel different. I want to enjoy my ability to learn, create, travel, and be present while I have it.
Family roles are changing too. I am a mother and grandmother, and I am also a daughter thinking about how to support aging parents. Sometimes the people who need more of my attention are my parents, even while I wish for more time with my children and grandchildren.
A full life includes those responsibilities and relationships. Spending time with someone I love belongs on the same list as the projects I am excited to build.
I cannot schedule every possibility. I can be more conscious about what I repeatedly push into an unspecified future.
The cost of filling your life with work you love
There is a difficult part to this story. I work long hours. Sometimes I work constantly because there is a need, and sometimes because I can see another thing to do and keep going.
I do not see family as much as I would like. I do not move my body enough, and the aches and pains make that harder to ignore.
Enjoying the work does not remove its costs. A business that contains so many of my interests can become especially difficult to step away from. There is always another appealing project alongside the necessary work.
That means I have to keep asking whether the business is helping me experience the life I wanted. If I make space for every creative idea while repeatedly postponing movement, rest, and family, the map needs adjusting.
I am still working on that balance. It deserves as much honesty as the parts of entrepreneurship that excite me.
Living with fewer things left for later
I do not know how to guarantee a life without regrets. I do know that I want to question the habit of postponing things that matter to me.
My starting point is simple: If I can, why not? Then come the practical questions. Does this fit the business? Can we support it? What will it require from me, and what else needs that time?
You do not need to own a company to ask what you are saving for later. It might be a creative project, a course, a place you want to spend time, or a relationship you want to give more attention. The question is whether some part of it can begin now.
My bucket list keeps changing as I learn. Completing one project often introduces an interest I could not have anticipated. I expect that to continue.
At this point in my life, I want to keep creating, enjoy what I have built, and be available to the people I love. Those desires all need space on the calendar.
The business is a map of many things I still want to do. The work now is to make sure I have time to live them.
Read more from Laura McCann
Laura McCann, Founder & CEO of Auratherapy
Laura McCann, a former child star, France-raised creative, NY fashion alum, and tech entrepreneur, now leads Auratherapy as Founder & CEO. With 30 years as a founder across CPG and tech, she’s bringing luxury and innovation to functional fragrance through breathable, essential oil-based Aroma Perfumes and water-based aura sprays. Auratherapy pairs this with data-driven aura and chakra diagnostics that translate energy into personalized rituals. Her mission is to help people reclaim their breath, remember they are vibrational beings, and transform through the practice of adoring themselves.
