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This Awesome New Book Contains The Gripping Stories of 50 Retirees
This Awesome New Book Contains The Gripping Stories of 50 Retirees with Richard Haiduck
What plans do you have for your retirement? Some don't want to retire and some can't afford to. Some want to play golf, other travel. This book tells the story of 50 different retirees and what their story has been in retirement. Some have ended well and some have not. Some are happy stories and some could be happier. What will your retirement look like? Check these out.
About Richard
After an executive and mentoring career in life sciences, Richard Haiduck is not pursuing an active retirement. His days are filled with mentoring social entrepreneurs, regular hiking and biking, reading, family time, and a recent relocation to Pacific Grove. His most recent project was writing Shifting Gears; 50 Baby Boomers Share Their Meaningful Journeys in Retirement.”
www.richardhaiduck.com
www.AGEUcational.com
Full Transcript Below
This Awesome New Book Contains The Gripping Stories of 50 Retires with Richard Haiduck
Fri, 8/20 6:15PM • 47:35
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, stories, book, interview, life, couple, age, retirement, read, Richard, fun, retired, worked, turned, hear, climb, learning, brain, diplomat, career
SPEAKERS
Terry, Richard, Roy Barker
Roy Barker 00:06
Hello, and welcome to another episode of AGEUcational This is Roy, this is Terry. We are the podcast that brings you information on aging chronicling our journey and, you know things that we're bumping up against as well as our parents things that, you know we run into that may be odd or trying to put as much information out there about this process to help people out. And every now and then we do have guests on from time to time and professionals in their fields, authors, all kinds of people that can speak to different topics around aging, and today is no different. Terry, I'm gonna let you introduce Richard.
Terry 00:39
Yeah, after an executive and mentoring career in life sciences, Richard Haydock is not pursuing an active retirement. His days are filled with mentoring social entrepreneurs, regular hiking and biking, reading family time and a recent relocation to Pacific Grove.
His most recent project was writing Shifting Gears: 50 Baby Boomers Share Their Meaningful Journeys in Retirement at age seven, he was sure he wanted to be an author. Now 66 years later, that dream has become a reality. Richard, thank you so much for coming to the show. Welcome. Well, thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to this. This will be fun. Yeah.
Roy Barker 01:22
So tell us a little bit about about your new book. Well, first off, tell us about your journey just a little bit, you know, how did you get here? And what was able to give you the the time, the energy, I would say that the energy, you know, to, to write a book. And you know, the other thing is, you know, overcoming that page, you know, the blank page that typically mocks you or I don't know, I get so excited I got I'm gonna write something get down and get maybe three sentences like who were at all heard all those great ideas. I have go to delve a little bit about that journey.
Richard 01:57
I cheated.
Terry 02:00
All right, there we go.
Richard 02:01
So I never had to face a blank page. Well, how can you write a book without having a blank page? You interview people, and you get transcripts? So I interviewed about 75 people. They told some amazing stories. I intentionally let them talk. I didn't lead the witness. I'd ask questions like, Oh, really? Oh, tell me more. Oh, why is that? And so they went on and on and on. And at the end of the interviews, I had 800 pages of transcripts. Wow.
So I never faced a blank page, what I faced was too many pages that I had to now cut down to one of the really great stories. But backing up. Yes, I did cheat on this. But it still was a lot of work. I never had that kind of writer's block experience. But I had a lot of other challenges along the way. But some of my friends had told me some stories about what they were doing. And things people I'd known for quite a long time. And I didn't know you were doing that. That's really cool. One of my buddies had been in the Senior Olympics, and then won medals, and had been too modest to tell me about it.
Once he opened up on the story, it was an amazing story. And this guy, he was into fitness. And he was in several different events. And it was just a fascinating story. Over the next couple of weeks after that, I heard a couple of other friends tell me something interesting they had done. I, at one point, had this kind of eureka moment of saying these stories are terrific. They need to be told. And I'm in the ideal position to do that. I had recently retired, I had the time to do it, I had the interest to do it. And the question was, was there enough material out there to do it with and that turned out to to be the easiest part of all, having plenty of material was was really easy.
Terry 04:09
Yeah, and I mean, really the older generation, and then they give you the best lessons and they have the best stories and recall of and it just is so meaningful, to sit and listen and and just hear about their childhoods and, and their professional life. And, you know, so many times people talk about their grandparents and it's like, sometimes they don't talk about really what they did as a profession. All the time. We just recently had a guest who, who was talking about the modern grandparent, and she she talked a lot about that as well. So I can imagine so many of these, I wouldn't have been able to narrow it down. That must have been really hard. You know, just to change thing to narrow it down to all his stories because I'm sure you've learned so much from all of them.
Richard 05:06
Yeah, it was I hired, experienced professional editor to work side by side with me. And she was like my conscience on a lot of these things. I do i'd transcript i'd edit it down into a story and we'd call and she'd say, I don't get it. I What, what's the point of this story? And it's like, Well, wait, what do you mean, you don't get it? I looked the guy in the eye. And he said, this is I didn't look into the eye. I just read the words on the page. I don't get it. So I had a conscience. With her, I had my own desire to not duplicate. So some of the stories overlapped with each other. And I just, you know, I can't have multiple stories, telling the same learning experience. Yeah.
Roy Barker 05:57
Well, that may be that may be a harder challenge than the blank page, because now you've actually heard this, you've interacted, it's like, well, which piece of this? Do I have to cut off? Or, you know, whose Are we going to take? So that probably makes it a much more difficult decision?
Richard 06:12
After you've looked someone in the eye? Yeah. And they've shared some deep experience, it's emotional. They're connected to it, they engaged me in that conversation. And as you just said, saying, okay, that's not going to be in the book. Right?
Roy Barker 06:30
So, did most of your get most of the people that you interviewed were? I mean, did you kind of start with that, you know, friends and family, the closed circle and then go out? Or was there a method to who you actually talk to?
Richard 06:44
It started with with people that I knew. And then almost like traditional networking, at the end of each interview, I would say, who else should I talk to. And pretty soon, I just had a heavy flow of candidates to interview. And so that turned out to be a pretty easy process. And then in the tail end of it, I started identifying some things that I was missing. And I went out and sought those out. I wanted someone who had a good experience and independent living.
And I found this 102 year old lady living independently, and feisty and fun loving and active and does all sorts of different things. But I, I picked a geography that I didn't have yet, which was Memphis. And then I just identified independent living centers. And I contacted them. And I said, I'm about to write a book about this, do you have someone in your facility that you think would be fun to interview? So that when I saw it out, and I had a few others where I had a method to finding the person?
Roy Barker 07:58
I think it's a, well, I think it's great that you've, you've done this, and we always encourage people that, and this is a good time, if you've got your health, of course, if you if you're not healthy, then it's a challenge at any age. But, you know, this is such a good time that the kids are grown in on their own doing their thing. Because we're in a little low because, you know, we were starting to accumulate grandkids so that, you know, that will be some time away. But the freedom, I guess the the, the confidence and the experience in life is that you know, we will brave just about anything.
That sounds adventure. So we're not I don't think we're, we're not parachuters or bungee jumpers yet, but jumping, I just feel like this is such an awesome time, you know, for me anyway, to be this age. And there's so much available so much that we want to do and get out there. So it's it's encouraging. You know, the book, hopefully, it'll encourage others that it's not a time just to stop laugh, but really, it's a time to begin live a different life.
Richard 09:03
Yeah, exactly. And a lot of the stories are educational in an inspirational kind of way. Or you say, Wow, if that person could do that, think of what I could do. Donna was was someone I interviewed, a complete stranger. I'd never met her before. She had four surgeries on her legs in three years. She had two hip replacements, two knee replacements. She was on a cane for three years. And then she said, Now I got almost all new parts. I can get myself fit again.
I want to do something really tough. And she said to her boyfriend, let's go climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. 19,000 feet of climbing over six days. And her girlfriends and her buddies are saying Donna, you're crazy. You couldn't have done that when you were 20 years old. She said, You don't understand, I'm going to do this. And she said about training, she said about learning about what she had to do to get fit for it. And I want to give away the ending of you know how those six days turned out. But this was one very determined person.
Who, when, when you read her story, and you hear about what she did, if you're sitting on the sofa, saying, should I go take the dog for a walk, you know, you just can't, you just can't have an excuse for that anymore. It's like, I can do more than I'm doing. If Donna can climb Kilimanjaro, I can take the dog for a walk.
Terry 10:39
Well, and I remember seeing her looking at your website, I remember seeing her picture on there. And I that is such such an amazing thing. And then what, which other one was, I think, and about Tom, who created the tacky Tavern tour to entertain? What can you tell us about him?
Richard 11:04
Yeah, this is a guy who has always had a good sense of humor. And he said in my retirement, I'm going to take it to a higher level, I'm going to test my limits. And so he has parties and in get togethers and things that are unusual, and kind of challenge the norms. So he gets a group of people together to go to on attacchi Tavern tour.
And that is to identify a series of taverns that normally you wouldn't dare go into. And they go in there as group. And it sounds like it could be snobbish, but it's actually the opposite. They actually go in and they immerse with the crowd. And they have like a social connection with the people that are in that bar. And, and they have a lot of subtle laughs, they have a great time with it. And we've actually been on one of the tacky Tavern tours, and it was something I will remember the rest of my life, it was just an amazing experience. So whatever the taverns that we're attacking is probably an understatement.
Roy Barker 12:15
Every interest we find with restaurants, sometimes that's the best, you know, the one that you are scared to go into ends up being probably some of the best food out there. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So which one of these stories was your biggest surprise from and I know that they're all awesome, or they wouldn't have been included? But you know, which one is the one you sat down and started interviewing and then said, you know, this is gonna be, you know, an average story that just turned out to be incredible.
Richard 12:48
Boy, that's a couple of them really stand out to me. One couple decided they'd had a good life. Life had been good to him. They were pretty well off financially. And they felt they wanted to do something to give back in their retirement that give back financially, but give back with their time. They decided to volunteer to teach anger management, in a maximum security prison. Wow. Yeah, that, and it's like, wait a minute.
And they said, We're going into this knowing that most of the days we go in there are going to be a failure. We're going into this knowing that most people wouldn't want to do this kind of volunteering. Because they get ended, they end up being shouted out ended up, you know, having confrontations. And they go back. They've been going back every week, almost every week for 17 years. Wow. So when someone shouts at them, they say, I understand that you don't agree with what I've said, Let's, let's both think about it. And we'll be back next week. And the person kind of says, when when I just screamed at you, and you're coming back next week. And, and they go through this, this cycle, and they said their success rate is low. It's terribly low.
But when they have a success, they've changed a life. And I just I thought about doing that for 17 years. They retired early. And the the, the wife and the couple, they would often separate in the present go to different parts of the prison. She'd go into, you know, different places where she was alone. And there was a guard maybe up on the fence looking down. And I said why don't you terrify? And she said, No, I really wasn't, I was there. I had a reason for being there. None of the volunteers and the president ever harm, never been a problem. And she said, Sometimes when I look up to see if the garden was still up there, if the guard wasn't there, I'd feel a little twitchy.
But she said, I knew I was there for a reason. And I was going to try to accomplish it. That was that was a really special story to me. I just, I couldn't imagine failing that often, with a sincere effort. And that was a big part of it for him. They said, as giving back, I don't want to give back something easy. I want to give back something that will be really tough for me. Wow, pick the good one.
Terry 15:37
Sure, very challenging.
Roy Barker 15:39
And they, you know, and to keep going back for 17 years. that's a that's a huge commitment.
Terry 15:45
And then did they in their, in their professional life? Did they have anything to do with anger management in any particular way? Or did they just,
Richard 15:56
they both both adopted kind of Buddhist meditation principles. And that was an important part of their calmness of their life, they can deal with difficulty, personally very well. Bruce, is a terrific softball player, and he's still playing softball. He's almost 80 years old, still playing in a softball league, they went to a national championship. And he said, the joy of the softball, and the challenge of the prison experience, kind of balance each other out.
I love playing softball, and every time I go out, it's a good day. The prison experience, most days are not good. But then I go out and play softball the next day. So they really figured it out. And they've been very thoughtful about it. And she's very active in doing some things with young kids in a in a preschool. And again, that that's positive almost all the time. So they've got this kind of life balance that they've consciously figured out.
Roy Barker 17:05
Cool. So we're all of the interviewees in the US.
Richard 17:12
I had one that was in most part in the US pretty well, geographically distributed around the US. I had one in the UK, who was referred to me. And a really interesting guy, Steve had a career actually worked for IBM. He'd done analytical stuff all of his life. A lot of data analysis kind of stopped very quantitative stuff. And he got very good at it. And then he said, but I never got to use my right brain. I never got the creative side, I was always in these kind of analytical things, and I have all these spreadsheets and I do all this stuff. I'm going to do a right brain retirement, I'm going to turn on that other side of my brain and see if it works.
See if it's atrophied during this time, we're doing our left brain stop, or if there's anything left of it. And so with, with the help of his wife, who had some skills in those areas, he started doing some painting. He then posted it on Facebook to see if anybody liked what he was doing. And of course, you know, he got a lot of positives, whether those were real, or just people being nice, who knows. But it but it turned it turned the switch on from this is all they love what I'm doing, they love what I'm doing. So then he had an opportunity to paint a sign for an art studio in exchange for them letting him do a show there.
And so his first show, he sold about 20 paintings, and drawings, and he made about 1500 bucks. And he said, I never imagined it was really funny at this. He says I never imagined people would like what I was doing. So he Steve went on to actually start singing solo in, in Greece, you know, it's kind of a karaoke bar. And he said, again, that's right brain stuff. So he really transformed himself. Well, the other the other point I want to make, it's easy to gravitate towards the inspiring stories. Whenever everybody in the book is not inspiring, some of the people are going through a rough patch. They're going through a patch of uncertainty or difficulty.
There's two kind of late life divorces in the book. And how did they How did they deal with that? How did they come back from that? There's some incomplete stories in the book, where we took a snapshot in time. The interview occurred they told me where they were at In this in a couple of cases, I don't know what I'm going to do next. And one of the first reviewers of the book said, you got to give the answer. You can't just give the question that I said, No, you don't understand.
This is a cross section, I want people to be able to identify with a lot of different things that happen during the stage. And to say, everybody climbs Kilimanjaro just isn't right. There are people who are really having a tough time figuring out something that they need to think through and they need to deal with in a certain way.
Terry 20:39
Are there any of those incomplete stories that stick out to you that? I mean, I, I can imagine that you're probably going to want to maybe follow up with them on the next one. But or is there any particular story that kind of tugged at your heart and made you think a little bit about how it maybe transferred to your life or might help somebody else or somebody could help them? Yeah,
Richard 21:15
I think, Well, let me answer the question in two ways. Let me answer a question a little different than the one you asked. And then I'll come back to the one that you asked. We're getting together on August 28, to have a reunion of everybody. And to hear kind of what happened next. Some of them some of them I've stayed in touch with and I know.
But we're all going to get together someone zoom some in person, and over half of the people in the book are going to be part of this. And we're going to say Okay, so what happened? What happened since then, how did this story and what are you doing now? How have you changed. And I'm just I couldn't be more excited about those things. On those where I don't know what happened next. So we'll have that kind of an experience.
22:05
I think
Richard 22:09
the one story that I think is kind of a typical one. This is a guy who had been the fire chief. And when I interviewed him, he'd been retired for about three months. And this was in Northern California, where fires are just a terrible, terrible thing now. So this guy's work, life had been very stressful, very challenging, very different than it was very different in the last few years of his working career.
And so when he retired, he said, he still gets calls from the station, he still gets people saying, What do I do about this? Or there's a fire burning here? What do you know about the kinds of trees that are up in that part of the town? And he said, They call me chief. And he says, I'm not the chief. I'm retired. And then he but then he said to his wife, he says, You know, I don't know if I've retired or not. He's on my mind is still in my previous job.
So I think for a lot of people, there's this time in which they're sorting out, and he had some very specific plans on what he wanted to do next. But at three months into it, he was still getting a lot of phone calls, saying, hey, Chief, what do I do? So So I think, I think that's kind of a prototype of several of the people where they hadn't quite let go, they hadn't quite engaged with what was next. Now
Roy Barker 23:41
that you may have answered this with the gentleman that went from left brain, right brain, but one thing I was going to ask was, what was the biggest flip from, you know, their career or early life to maybe what they were pursuing in retirement.
Richard 24:02
One of the guys I interviewed had been an international diplomat. And he worked mostly in developing countries. He worked in Singapore, he worked in a lot of places in Africa. And at age 50, he was offered an early retirement from the diplomatic corps. And you know, as a diplomat, you've got this whole aura around you of you know, you're very pristine, you always got a necktie on you always got to be on your best behavior, all that sort of thing.
And what Chuck said to himself was, I want to use the skills that I've learned as a diplomat of managerial skills, but I don't want to hang around Washington, I don't want to be a lobbyist. I don't want to do any of that kind of stuff. I want to disengage completely from being a diplomat. So what he decided to do was form a bird Watching a company in Africa, where he would take tours out of people who were interested in seeing exotic birds throughout Africa.
He said, because he had worked in several parts of Africa, and was a bird watcher when he was there, he said he had a lot of relationships with people who could be tour guides, and people who knew where the birds were hanging out that sort of thing. And he said, I wanted to reinvent myself totally. And being the CEO of a bird watching company seemed quite a bit different from being a diplomat.
Terry 25:36
Exactly. That's awesome. Well, I like I also like the quote that you have on your website, that from the quotes, quotes from retirees stories, retirement is a state of mind. It doesn't, it means I don't have to do anything. But I can if I want, right? So yes, exactly. Exactly. Expanding on that with all of those stories. Oh, what a wonderful, wonderful project you have put together here.
Richard 26:06
I think for a lot of people, the there's this set of things where you're going to do something dramatic, or inspirational or major and all that, you still got to be able to kick back and watch a football game, you still be able to just sit back and read a book and just enjoy your leisure time. And find the blend that is right for you. And that might be doing a lot of those kinds of things. Because you've earned it, you can you can do what you choose.
And I tried my very best to make sure there was a balance in the book between people of varying levels of intensity in this next stage. One of my very close friends said to me, You know what, some of these stories are boring. And I said, What do you mean, he says they're boring, he says, I just don't connect to them. I said, well then turn the page. And he says, You're right, the next page, there's always another great story. But some of them just I don't connect with. And my point wasn't to say, I'm going to please all the people all the time, my point was to say, here's a cross section of people doing different things. And you as a reader will connect, if you don't connect with any of them, your brain dead.
I mean, I convinced you that if you read all these stories, and say none of them apply to anything I care about, then then I feel sorry for you. But nobody is going to read all the stories and say I connect all of them, or I even like all of them. The 102 year old lady living and independent living, I think it's an amazing story. But for some people, it's not at all, you know, it's it's like, well, that's what she does.
Terry 27:57
And, and was she the oldest person that you spoke with? Yesterday was Yes, I was gonna ask you. And
Richard 28:05
so the young between the youngest and the oldest, there's a factor of two. So there's, there's a couple of 50 year olds in the book, who chose to do something that they referred to as retirement and might might still be very active. But it wasn't it wasn't paid employment in their normal way. One guy had a very good career in the high tech business in Silicon Valley, and decided it was time to make more social impact. And so he resigned from his technology job, and started mentoring social entrepreneurs around the world.
And the neatest part of his story, he has daughters who are kind of college aged daughters. And he said, the conversations with my daughters now are completely different. They said, Dad, what you're doing now matters. You're taking care of my generation by doing something to help the world instead of going to work at some company that's making a profit out of that. This is one of you got to have that too. You got to have companies making a profit, you got to have an ability to make a living, all that sort of thing. But yes, I do feel differently about my career, my working career and my social enterprise kind of activities that I'm doing now.
Terry 29:41
Yeah, I bet that makes a huge difference with his relationship with his daughters. Because that age, I mean, my my daughters as well. It's like they really want to make a social impact. They don't quite know how to do that and then make a living as as well. So the fact that he was able to do that and and show his daughters? Yes, Yun is is an amazing feat.
Roy Barker 30:09
So So what about the difference in? You know, he said there was kind of a mix between not every story is in a happy place right this moment. But what about the mix between making that decision to retire step away maybe being forced out, and being able to do the things that you want to do versus being able or being forced into doing things that you need to do for survival? Did they fall fall out in any of those categories? Yeah,
Richard 30:46
I think there's you touched on earlier and one of your other questions to kind of preconditions here, you know, I'd call it health and wealth. You don't need to be enormously fit. But if you've gotten major health problems, it changes the range of choices that you have. Some of the people in the book have had some health problems. And adapted to them. The same thing with wealth, you use the word wealth, there's a there's kind of a minimum amount. And it's not even a very large amount, where you get by you can you're not worried about food on the table, you're not worried about, you know, making the rent payment.
But it doesn't need to be much more than that. But if you've got enough wealth, and enough health, then your choices are so dramatically different. And the health one is kind of the card you're dealt, I mean, if you've tried to keep yourself fit that that obviously helps. But a lot of people who have kept themselves fit, you know, still had health problems, the wealth problem is hard to come back from it's hard to retire at a certain age and be broke and say, well, I'll do something that will get me back on my financial feet, those choices are just really limited.
Roy Barker 32:16
Yeah, and that's something we talk a lot about here is not outliving our health, you know, and that's something that we, you know, we're trying to make some changes because you know, you can or not your outlive your health, but outlive your wellness, you know, and just not doesn't make for a very easy or fun, enjoyable time.
And sometimes we don't have a choice, you know, once we get there, but that's why we encourage people that you know, if we can start that conversation, make those better decisions earlier in life, it will make our later life much more enjoyable, and maybe allow us to make these choices because I know they're, you know, there's some people that are confined to either homes or institutions that they can't, you know, they couldn't go out and walk down the street, much less go climb a mountain,
Richard 33:08
right. Now, one of the actually a couple of the people I interviewed had a to do list that had two columns, the to do list of what can I do now when I'm fit and healthy? And then what are the things that are would still be fun to do, but I can do them you know, when my knees have given out a little bit or not feeling so good or even even if I'm in a wheelchair, you know, you can you can do certain things and they've they're the ones that require them to be healthy they're doing them now
Roy Barker 33:43
Yeah, you know my I had a great I guess a great great grandmother somebody that was you know, really really old when I was young and that was the probably the better advice that she gave me then because she you know her body had given out she was confined to to a rocking chair most of the time but she's like, you really need to learn to enjoy reading because when you get to a point when you can't do anything else, you know it really gives you something to keep your mind younger and clear and help you to take those journeys and be in those places which was good advice. I'm not a good reader I'm it puts me to sleep I can read about three pages and
Richard 34:24
if you write if you read shifting gears make sure you pick the stories that you like, because no don't pick one of those boring ones. You'll be asleep at no time.
Roy Barker 34:33
Well, I'm kind of dozed out for a minute Terry's like, what did you read like a paragraph? No, and
Terry 34:40
I'm on like, I wish I'd taken the speed reading course you know, a long time ago, which I didn't but I do. I do like to kind of challenge myself and time myself where we you know, I can read like 30 to 40 pages, 40 pages every hour. And it just kind of depends on what kind of book it is. If I'm trying to Soak in every word or if I'm just trying to get the gist of it. So I challenged myself to do that I'd love to read I, it's just something that I don't do as often as I'd like to anymore. Yeah, yeah. So
Roy Barker 35:18
no, we, we encourage people to document and there's so many great ways to do that now, you know, writing it down, getting an interview, you know, or giving an interview, videotape. But, you know, I think that's probably a byproduct of this is that all of the people that you got to interview, even the ones that may not have been included? They've all got some documented evidence of their advice, their of their life that they can pass down, you know, to their kids and grandkids.
Richard 35:50
Yeah, one of the things I was surprised about is a handful, the people say, I'm going to just write something for no audience, it's for the audience of my family, or my grandkids, or whatever. And I'm just going to put my thoughts down. And maybe it's a diary every day, or maybe it's even a short book. But documenting became something that was important to write.
Terry 36:16
Yeah, and they, I mean, both of us, I think we we got both of our moms. There, there was a subscription to a service that would put together a book for a loved one, anybody, but we sent it to our moms and they sent they emailed a question a week, you know, and you could choose the questions or just kind of randomly choose to have them choose them. And you know, just anything like what was your grandparent and grandmother?
Like, what were you like, when you were 40? What, who was the best boss, you ever had your first job, you know, anything. And so we did that for a year. And you know, at the end of the year, they get this bound book, and you can add photos to it and things like that. So it was really kind of a neat thing that, that I'm glad that we were able to do. So but I did it, but I did have to I had to call her and interview her and and do it for her, you know, because she's not very techie as I am, I am not either, but I could do that part of it, then put it together and put her answers in and everything. So it was cool.
Roy Barker 37:34
All right, Richard, well, anything else that you want to leave us with? Before we wrap this up?
Richard 37:41
I just wanted to make a comment, I think what you're doing is is very neat, I think there's a need to think about the educational part of aging. You know, we're doing it all for the first time. We know what we're doing, you know, and we need to learn from things like what you guys are describing and the guests that you're bringing in. And getting people to just say, this is a learning experience, you don't automatically know what to do.
And learning through the stories learning through the, through the podcast learning through a variety of ways. People can reinvent people can recast themselves, if they get the influences, right if they get the kinds of things that you guys are doing to change their outlook to change their their pattern. So thank you for doing that. I'm sure you've got a lot of people really admiring what you're doing.
Terry 38:44
Well, thank you for the appreciate that. That's That's very nice. And you know, just community, it's all about community, it's all about sharing, and you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Somebody has done this before you some or something like that, you know, when you can talk to them and read whatever, you know, wherever they are Instagram, Facebook, read your book, you just anything there. There are resources out there, and it's just trying to get those into the hands of the people that really need it. It's important. Yeah, I'm
Roy Barker 39:17
kind of encouraging that it's, you know, we may struggle a little bit because like you said, we haven't done this before. So so we're learning but you know, to try to have the courage to try the the new things and just because you get a certain age doesn't mean you can't you know, climb a mountain or go be a kickboxer or whatever you put your mind to, we may not be not speak for me, you know, we may not be at the elite class, like we might have been in our 20s but at least we can do something enjoyable and have some fun. So
Terry 39:49
age is just a number really, yeah, it really is. and youth is wasted on the young right? I mean all those things.
Roy Barker 39:59
Well, Richard Taylor Before we get away a couple things, first off, is there a tool or a habit that you use in your daily life that you feel is very important, and it could be related to aging or just anything but a tool or habit, something you do every day?
Richard 40:22
Maybe it's not a daily habit, but I think being introspective and saying, is this going the way I want it to? Is this what I was hoping for at this stage and kind of constantly reexamining Matt. It just another short story, one of my friends, we've recently relocated to Pacific Grove, California, after living in one place for 18 years. And one of my friends said to me, would you have done that? If you had not interviewed all those people for your book?
And I had to say to them, I've never thought of that. But I think you're right. I saw all these people doing all this stuff. They weren't taking no for an answer. My wife and I have always wanted to live near the ocean, we always wanted to have a kind of lifestyle where the beach was right there. And we said, why not? So letting the example of others inspire us? We had this conversation, we said, let's do and let's go and it was turned out to be a move. That was been everything we had hoped it would be.
Terry 41:28
That's good to hear. Yeah. And Pacific Grove. What a What a beautiful place.
Richard 41:33
Oh, we love it. It's just great.
Terry 41:36
Where did y'all live before?
Richard 41:38
a place called Woodside, which was kind of near Palo Alto near Stanford. That's up in the redwood forests.
Terry 41:45
Yeah. Oh, another beautiful place
Richard 41:48
is a beautiful place. We lived in an isolated way, when we were in a redwood forest, we couldn't see a single neighbor. And our lifestyle was not very communal. We had a lot of friends. But they we would go to their house or they'd come to our house. In our new place. We made a conscious effort to say we want to be part of a neighborhood or sitting in our backyard and I heard the phone ring I want to go answer it turns out was a neighbor's phone. That's when we that's what we knew we were in a communal kind of.
Roy Barker 42:22
Yeah, and a couple ideas. And I'm trying to get some support from Terry here because the beach is one thing we've thought about. And you know, we would like to do that eventually. But the other thing I'm thinking about is the van they call it the van life you know, you trick out a little Airstream or van and you just mobile just like nomads pitch your tent wherever you are that night. And I think that would be I think that'd be so cool. Now have we got her on board
Terry 42:48
there or a time limit on it? You know, I might think about doing it for a couple of months. But yeah, but but I need I need to be stationary. As long as you take me to a beach. I don't care. I don't care.
Richard 43:03
So I can't remember what where it is in the book, but go to the one of AMD because Andy has the he and his wife decided to do the RV life. And they love it. They just they've it's really changed their lives and in a positive way.
Terry 43:19
Well, and yeah. And we've talked to a couple of guests who have done the same thing and they love it. They've just got their little Airstream and they just go wherever they want to. And they do everything virtually. So yeah, it were
Roy Barker 43:34
rad. I'm gonna get some support going here. cards, cards and letters. All right, Richard. Well tell us again. Well, before I even ask you to tell us about the book is there going to be the second 50 is that kind of on the list or the first 51st 50 and done or a new 50
Richard 43:57
there's a couple of different ways I could go on that right now. I'm I'm just enjoying being out there with the book, we've just released an audio book which takes which adds a dimension to this as well. So I'm having fun with it now. I don't know what I'm going to do next I there's plenty. Because of the things that I've been doing with social media. The number of people who have shown up on my doorstep with these stories is unbelievable.
And the sequels of the stories that I've got, there's some really interesting ones too. But I just don't know if I want to put my energy into it at this point. I haven't really decided and I'm doing some other things that I'm enjoying very much working with social entrepreneurs as well. And that's that's that's been really fun. So I don't know if I if I've got it in me to do another one. Yeah.
Roy Barker 44:54
Hey, but you climb that hill. So kudos to you for doing that.
Terry 44:58
Yes. You're an awesome Holy cow. Well, what's fun?
Roy Barker 45:03
Yeah. So tell us about Shifting Gears: 50 Baby Boomers Share Their Meaningful Journeys in Retirement, where can we find it? How can people reach out? You know, to your website? Things like that.
Richard 45:17
So, yes, the book is Shifting Gears: 50 Baby Boomers Share Their Meaningful Journeys in Retirement. It's available on Amazon and the other major online booksellers. There's an audio book that's available now. I have a website in which there's a lot of support materials, a lot of blogs that I've done. I've had some guest bloggers Come on that. And that's Richard Haiduck.com. And that's, that's turned out to be something people have really enjoyed as well.
Roy Barker 45:52
All right, cool. Well, we'll put all that in all the information in the show notes as well. So y'all run out pick up shifting gears. Sounds like a lot of great stories we haven't. We're ours is on the way, and we can't wait to read it and see what we can learn from it and make our later life and retirement much more exciting. Oh, yeah.
Richard 46:13
So you have to make the you have to make a promise to me. Okay, after you both read the chapter about the RV. Tell me if anything changes.
Roy Barker 46:24
Yeah.
Terry 46:28
That'll be fun. Richard, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Enjoy me. We're looking forward to enjoy the book. I just I love hearing stories.
Roy Barker 46:38
Such a great project. It really is really great fun.
Richard 46:41
I couldn't have had more fun doing it. So thank you both very much. This has been a fascinating discussion. I've enjoyed it.
Roy Barker 46:49
Well thank you very much. that's gonna do it for another episode of AGEUcational Of course, I am Roy. Terry, you can find us at www.AGEUcational.com we're on all the major podcast platforms, iTunes, Stitcher, Google Spotify. If we're not on one that you listen to reach out, I'd be glad to get that added.
We're on also on all the major social media networks, we probably tend to hang out on Instagram a little bit more than others. Reach out we'd be glad to interact with you there. capa excuse me a video of this interview will go up on YouTube. When it's published. You can reach out there see this interview in its entirety as well as some of the past interviews that we've had. Until next time, take care of yourself and take care of your health.
www.richardhaiduck.com
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This Awesome New Book Contains The Gripping Stories of 50 Retirees with Richard Haiduck
What plans do you have for your retirement? Some don't want to retire and some can't afford to. Some want to play golf, other travel. This book tells the story of 50 different retirees and what their story has been in retirement. Some have ended well and some have not. Some are happy stories and some could be happier. What will your retirement look like? Check these out.
About Richard
After an executive and mentoring career in life sciences, Richard Haiduck is not pursuing an active retirement. His days are filled with mentoring social entrepreneurs, regular hiking and biking, reading, family time, and a recent relocation to Pacific Grove. His most recent project was writing Shifting Gears; 50 Baby Boomers Share Their Meaningful Journeys in Retirement.”
www.richardhaiduck.com
www.AGEUcational.com
Full Transcript Below
This Awesome New Book Contains The Gripping Stories of 50 Retires with Richard Haiduck
Fri, 8/20 6:15PM • 47:35
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, stories, book, interview, life, couple, age, retirement, read, Richard, fun, retired, worked, turned, hear, climb, learning, brain, diplomat, career
SPEAKERS
Terry, Richard, Roy Barker
Roy Barker 00:06
Hello, and welcome to another episode of AGEUcational This is Roy, this is Terry. We are the podcast that brings you information on aging chronicling our journey and, you know things that we're bumping up against as well as our parents things that, you know we run into that may be odd or trying to put as much information out there about this process to help people out. And every now and then we do have guests on from time to time and professionals in their fields, authors, all kinds of people that can speak to different topics around aging, and today is no different. Terry, I'm gonna let you introduce Richard.
Terry 00:39
Yeah, after an executive and mentoring career in life sciences, Richard Haydock is not pursuing an active retirement. His days are filled with mentoring social entrepreneurs, regular hiking and biking, reading family time and a recent relocation to Pacific Grove.
His most recent project was writing Shifting Gears: 50 Baby Boomers Share Their Meaningful Journeys in Retirement at age seven, he was sure he wanted to be an author. Now 66 years later, that dream has become a reality. Richard, thank you so much for coming to the show. Welcome. Well, thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to this. This will be fun. Yeah.
Roy Barker 01:22
So tell us a little bit about about your new book. Well, first off, tell us about your journey just a little bit, you know, how did you get here? And what was able to give you the the time, the energy, I would say that the energy, you know, to, to write a book. And you know, the other thing is, you know, overcoming that page, you know, the blank page that typically mocks you or I don't know, I get so excited I got I'm gonna write something get down and get maybe three sentences like who were at all heard all those great ideas. I have go to delve a little bit about that journey.
Richard 01:57
I cheated.
Terry 02:00
All right, there we go.
Richard 02:01
So I never had to face a blank page. Well, how can you write a book without having a blank page? You interview people, and you get transcripts? So I interviewed about 75 people. They told some amazing stories. I intentionally let them talk. I didn't lead the witness. I'd ask questions like, Oh, really? Oh, tell me more. Oh, why is that? And so they went on and on and on. And at the end of the interviews, I had 800 pages of transcripts. Wow.
So I never faced a blank page, what I faced was too many pages that I had to now cut down to one of the really great stories. But backing up. Yes, I did cheat on this. But it still was a lot of work. I never had that kind of writer's block experience. But I had a lot of other challenges along the way. But some of my friends had told me some stories about what they were doing. And things people I'd known for quite a long time. And I didn't know you were doing that. That's really cool. One of my buddies had been in the Senior Olympics, and then won medals, and had been too modest to tell me about it.
Once he opened up on the story, it was an amazing story. And this guy, he was into fitness. And he was in several different events. And it was just a fascinating story. Over the next couple of weeks after that, I heard a couple of other friends tell me something interesting they had done. I, at one point, had this kind of eureka moment of saying these stories are terrific. They need to be told. And I'm in the ideal position to do that. I had recently retired, I had the time to do it, I had the interest to do it. And the question was, was there enough material out there to do it with and that turned out to to be the easiest part of all, having plenty of material was was really easy.
Terry 04:09
Yeah, and I mean, really the older generation, and then they give you the best lessons and they have the best stories and recall of and it just is so meaningful, to sit and listen and and just hear about their childhoods and, and their professional life. And, you know, so many times people talk about their grandparents and it's like, sometimes they don't talk about really what they did as a profession. All the time. We just recently had a guest who, who was talking about the modern grandparent, and she she talked a lot about that as well. So I can imagine so many of these, I wouldn't have been able to narrow it down. That must have been really hard. You know, just to change thing to narrow it down to all his stories because I'm sure you've learned so much from all of them.
Richard 05:06
Yeah, it was I hired, experienced professional editor to work side by side with me. And she was like my conscience on a lot of these things. I do i'd transcript i'd edit it down into a story and we'd call and she'd say, I don't get it. I What, what's the point of this story? And it's like, Well, wait, what do you mean, you don't get it? I looked the guy in the eye. And he said, this is I didn't look into the eye. I just read the words on the page. I don't get it. So I had a conscience. With her, I had my own desire to not duplicate. So some of the stories overlapped with each other. And I just, you know, I can't have multiple stories, telling the same learning experience. Yeah.
Roy Barker 05:57
Well, that may be that may be a harder challenge than the blank page, because now you've actually heard this, you've interacted, it's like, well, which piece of this? Do I have to cut off? Or, you know, whose Are we going to take? So that probably makes it a much more difficult decision?
Richard 06:12
After you've looked someone in the eye? Yeah. And they've shared some deep experience, it's emotional. They're connected to it, they engaged me in that conversation. And as you just said, saying, okay, that's not going to be in the book. Right?
Roy Barker 06:30
So, did most of your get most of the people that you interviewed were? I mean, did you kind of start with that, you know, friends and family, the closed circle and then go out? Or was there a method to who you actually talk to?
Richard 06:44
It started with with people that I knew. And then almost like traditional networking, at the end of each interview, I would say, who else should I talk to. And pretty soon, I just had a heavy flow of candidates to interview. And so that turned out to be a pretty easy process. And then in the tail end of it, I started identifying some things that I was missing. And I went out and sought those out. I wanted someone who had a good experience and independent living.
And I found this 102 year old lady living independently, and feisty and fun loving and active and does all sorts of different things. But I, I picked a geography that I didn't have yet, which was Memphis. And then I just identified independent living centers. And I contacted them. And I said, I'm about to write a book about this, do you have someone in your facility that you think would be fun to interview? So that when I saw it out, and I had a few others where I had a method to finding the person?
Roy Barker 07:58
I think it's a, well, I think it's great that you've, you've done this, and we always encourage people that, and this is a good time, if you've got your health, of course, if you if you're not healthy, then it's a challenge at any age. But, you know, this is such a good time that the kids are grown in on their own doing their thing. Because we're in a little low because, you know, we were starting to accumulate grandkids so that, you know, that will be some time away. But the freedom, I guess the the, the confidence and the experience in life is that you know, we will brave just about anything.
That sounds adventure. So we're not I don't think we're, we're not parachuters or bungee jumpers yet, but jumping, I just feel like this is such an awesome time, you know, for me anyway, to be this age. And there's so much available so much that we want to do and get out there. So it's it's encouraging. You know, the book, hopefully, it'll encourage others that it's not a time just to stop laugh, but really, it's a time to begin live a different life.
Richard 09:03
Yeah, exactly. And a lot of the stories are educational in an inspirational kind of way. Or you say, Wow, if that person could do that, think of what I could do. Donna was was someone I interviewed, a complete stranger. I'd never met her before. She had four surgeries on her legs in three years. She had two hip replacements, two knee replacements. She was on a cane for three years. And then she said, Now I got almost all new parts. I can get myself fit again.
I want to do something really tough. And she said to her boyfriend, let's go climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. 19,000 feet of climbing over six days. And her girlfriends and her buddies are saying Donna, you're crazy. You couldn't have done that when you were 20 years old. She said, You don't understand, I'm going to do this. And she said about training, she said about learning about what she had to do to get fit for it. And I want to give away the ending of you know how those six days turned out. But this was one very determined person.
Who, when, when you read her story, and you hear about what she did, if you're sitting on the sofa, saying, should I go take the dog for a walk, you know, you just can't, you just can't have an excuse for that anymore. It's like, I can do more than I'm doing. If Donna can climb Kilimanjaro, I can take the dog for a walk.
Terry 10:39
Well, and I remember seeing her looking at your website, I remember seeing her picture on there. And I that is such such an amazing thing. And then what, which other one was, I think, and about Tom, who created the tacky Tavern tour to entertain? What can you tell us about him?
Richard 11:04
Yeah, this is a guy who has always had a good sense of humor. And he said in my retirement, I'm going to take it to a higher level, I'm going to test my limits. And so he has parties and in get togethers and things that are unusual, and kind of challenge the norms. So he gets a group of people together to go to on attacchi Tavern tour.
And that is to identify a series of taverns that normally you wouldn't dare go into. And they go in there as group. And it sounds like it could be snobbish, but it's actually the opposite. They actually go in and they immerse with the crowd. And they have like a social connection with the people that are in that bar. And, and they have a lot of subtle laughs, they have a great time with it. And we've actually been on one of the tacky Tavern tours, and it was something I will remember the rest of my life, it was just an amazing experience. So whatever the taverns that we're attacking is probably an understatement.
Roy Barker 12:15
Every interest we find with restaurants, sometimes that's the best, you know, the one that you are scared to go into ends up being probably some of the best food out there. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So which one of these stories was your biggest surprise from and I know that they're all awesome, or they wouldn't have been included? But you know, which one is the one you sat down and started interviewing and then said, you know, this is gonna be, you know, an average story that just turned out to be incredible.
Richard 12:48
Boy, that's a couple of them really stand out to me. One couple decided they'd had a good life. Life had been good to him. They were pretty well off financially. And they felt they wanted to do something to give back in their retirement that give back financially, but give back with their time. They decided to volunteer to teach anger management, in a maximum security prison. Wow. Yeah, that, and it's like, wait a minute.
And they said, We're going into this knowing that most of the days we go in there are going to be a failure. We're going into this knowing that most people wouldn't want to do this kind of volunteering. Because they get ended, they end up being shouted out ended up, you know, having confrontations. And they go back. They've been going back every week, almost every week for 17 years. Wow. So when someone shouts at them, they say, I understand that you don't agree with what I've said, Let's, let's both think about it. And we'll be back next week. And the person kind of says, when when I just screamed at you, and you're coming back next week. And, and they go through this, this cycle, and they said their success rate is low. It's terribly low.
But when they have a success, they've changed a life. And I just I thought about doing that for 17 years. They retired early. And the the, the wife and the couple, they would often separate in the present go to different parts of the prison. She'd go into, you know, different places where she was alone. And there was a guard maybe up on the fence looking down. And I said why don't you terrify? And she said, No, I really wasn't, I was there. I had a reason for being there. None of the volunteers and the president ever harm, never been a problem. And she said, Sometimes when I look up to see if the garden was still up there, if the guard wasn't there, I'd feel a little twitchy.
But she said, I knew I was there for a reason. And I was going to try to accomplish it. That was that was a really special story to me. I just, I couldn't imagine failing that often, with a sincere effort. And that was a big part of it for him. They said, as giving back, I don't want to give back something easy. I want to give back something that will be really tough for me. Wow, pick the good one.
Terry 15:37
Sure, very challenging.
Roy Barker 15:39
And they, you know, and to keep going back for 17 years. that's a that's a huge commitment.
Terry 15:45
And then did they in their, in their professional life? Did they have anything to do with anger management in any particular way? Or did they just,
Richard 15:56
they both both adopted kind of Buddhist meditation principles. And that was an important part of their calmness of their life, they can deal with difficulty, personally very well. Bruce, is a terrific softball player, and he's still playing softball. He's almost 80 years old, still playing in a softball league, they went to a national championship. And he said, the joy of the softball, and the challenge of the prison experience, kind of balance each other out.
I love playing softball, and every time I go out, it's a good day. The prison experience, most days are not good. But then I go out and play softball the next day. So they really figured it out. And they've been very thoughtful about it. And she's very active in doing some things with young kids in a in a preschool. And again, that that's positive almost all the time. So they've got this kind of life balance that they've consciously figured out.
Roy Barker 17:05
Cool. So we're all of the interviewees in the US.
Richard 17:12
I had one that was in most part in the US pretty well, geographically distributed around the US. I had one in the UK, who was referred to me. And a really interesting guy, Steve had a career actually worked for IBM. He'd done analytical stuff all of his life. A lot of data analysis kind of stopped very quantitative stuff. And he got very good at it. And then he said, but I never got to use my right brain. I never got the creative side, I was always in these kind of analytical things, and I have all these spreadsheets and I do all this stuff. I'm going to do a right brain retirement, I'm going to turn on that other side of my brain and see if it works.
See if it's atrophied during this time, we're doing our left brain stop, or if there's anything left of it. And so with, with the help of his wife, who had some skills in those areas, he started doing some painting. He then posted it on Facebook to see if anybody liked what he was doing. And of course, you know, he got a lot of positives, whether those were real, or just people being nice, who knows. But it but it turned it turned the switch on from this is all they love what I'm doing, they love what I'm doing. So then he had an opportunity to paint a sign for an art studio in exchange for them letting him do a show there.
And so his first show, he sold about 20 paintings, and drawings, and he made about 1500 bucks. And he said, I never imagined it was really funny at this. He says I never imagined people would like what I was doing. So he Steve went on to actually start singing solo in, in Greece, you know, it's kind of a karaoke bar. And he said, again, that's right brain stuff. So he really transformed himself. Well, the other the other point I want to make, it's easy to gravitate towards the inspiring stories. Whenever everybody in the book is not inspiring, some of the people are going through a rough patch. They're going through a patch of uncertainty or difficulty.
There's two kind of late life divorces in the book. And how did they How did they deal with that? How did they come back from that? There's some incomplete stories in the book, where we took a snapshot in time. The interview occurred they told me where they were at In this in a couple of cases, I don't know what I'm going to do next. And one of the first reviewers of the book said, you got to give the answer. You can't just give the question that I said, No, you don't understand.
This is a cross section, I want people to be able to identify with a lot of different things that happen during the stage. And to say, everybody climbs Kilimanjaro just isn't right. There are people who are really having a tough time figuring out something that they need to think through and they need to deal with in a certain way.
Terry 20:39
Are there any of those incomplete stories that stick out to you that? I mean, I, I can imagine that you're probably going to want to maybe follow up with them on the next one. But or is there any particular story that kind of tugged at your heart and made you think a little bit about how it maybe transferred to your life or might help somebody else or somebody could help them? Yeah,
Richard 21:15
I think, Well, let me answer the question in two ways. Let me answer a question a little different than the one you asked. And then I'll come back to the one that you asked. We're getting together on August 28, to have a reunion of everybody. And to hear kind of what happened next. Some of them some of them I've stayed in touch with and I know.
But we're all going to get together someone zoom some in person, and over half of the people in the book are going to be part of this. And we're going to say Okay, so what happened? What happened since then, how did this story and what are you doing now? How have you changed. And I'm just I couldn't be more excited about those things. On those where I don't know what happened next. So we'll have that kind of an experience.
22:05
I think
Richard 22:09
the one story that I think is kind of a typical one. This is a guy who had been the fire chief. And when I interviewed him, he'd been retired for about three months. And this was in Northern California, where fires are just a terrible, terrible thing now. So this guy's work, life had been very stressful, very challenging, very different than it was very different in the last few years of his working career.
And so when he retired, he said, he still gets calls from the station, he still gets people saying, What do I do about this? Or there's a fire burning here? What do you know about the kinds of trees that are up in that part of the town? And he said, They call me chief. And he says, I'm not the chief. I'm retired. And then he but then he said to his wife, he says, You know, I don't know if I've retired or not. He's on my mind is still in my previous job.
So I think for a lot of people, there's this time in which they're sorting out, and he had some very specific plans on what he wanted to do next. But at three months into it, he was still getting a lot of phone calls, saying, hey, Chief, what do I do? So So I think, I think that's kind of a prototype of several of the people where they hadn't quite let go, they hadn't quite engaged with what was next. Now
Roy Barker 23:41
that you may have answered this with the gentleman that went from left brain, right brain, but one thing I was going to ask was, what was the biggest flip from, you know, their career or early life to maybe what they were pursuing in retirement.
Richard 24:02
One of the guys I interviewed had been an international diplomat. And he worked mostly in developing countries. He worked in Singapore, he worked in a lot of places in Africa. And at age 50, he was offered an early retirement from the diplomatic corps. And you know, as a diplomat, you've got this whole aura around you of you know, you're very pristine, you always got a necktie on you always got to be on your best behavior, all that sort of thing.
And what Chuck said to himself was, I want to use the skills that I've learned as a diplomat of managerial skills, but I don't want to hang around Washington, I don't want to be a lobbyist. I don't want to do any of that kind of stuff. I want to disengage completely from being a diplomat. So what he decided to do was form a bird Watching a company in Africa, where he would take tours out of people who were interested in seeing exotic birds throughout Africa.
He said, because he had worked in several parts of Africa, and was a bird watcher when he was there, he said he had a lot of relationships with people who could be tour guides, and people who knew where the birds were hanging out that sort of thing. And he said, I wanted to reinvent myself totally. And being the CEO of a bird watching company seemed quite a bit different from being a diplomat.
Terry 25:36
Exactly. That's awesome. Well, I like I also like the quote that you have on your website, that from the quotes, quotes from retirees stories, retirement is a state of mind. It doesn't, it means I don't have to do anything. But I can if I want, right? So yes, exactly. Exactly. Expanding on that with all of those stories. Oh, what a wonderful, wonderful project you have put together here.
Richard 26:06
I think for a lot of people, the there's this set of things where you're going to do something dramatic, or inspirational or major and all that, you still got to be able to kick back and watch a football game, you still be able to just sit back and read a book and just enjoy your leisure time. And find the blend that is right for you. And that might be doing a lot of those kinds of things. Because you've earned it, you can you can do what you choose.
And I tried my very best to make sure there was a balance in the book between people of varying levels of intensity in this next stage. One of my very close friends said to me, You know what, some of these stories are boring. And I said, What do you mean, he says they're boring, he says, I just don't connect to them. I said, well then turn the page. And he says, You're right, the next page, there's always another great story. But some of them just I don't connect with. And my point wasn't to say, I'm going to please all the people all the time, my point was to say, here's a cross section of people doing different things. And you as a reader will connect, if you don't connect with any of them, your brain dead.
I mean, I convinced you that if you read all these stories, and say none of them apply to anything I care about, then then I feel sorry for you. But nobody is going to read all the stories and say I connect all of them, or I even like all of them. The 102 year old lady living and independent living, I think it's an amazing story. But for some people, it's not at all, you know, it's it's like, well, that's what she does.
Terry 27:57
And, and was she the oldest person that you spoke with? Yesterday was Yes, I was gonna ask you. And
Richard 28:05
so the young between the youngest and the oldest, there's a factor of two. So there's, there's a couple of 50 year olds in the book, who chose to do something that they referred to as retirement and might might still be very active. But it wasn't it wasn't paid employment in their normal way. One guy had a very good career in the high tech business in Silicon Valley, and decided it was time to make more social impact. And so he resigned from his technology job, and started mentoring social entrepreneurs around the world.
And the neatest part of his story, he has daughters who are kind of college aged daughters. And he said, the conversations with my daughters now are completely different. They said, Dad, what you're doing now matters. You're taking care of my generation by doing something to help the world instead of going to work at some company that's making a profit out of that. This is one of you got to have that too. You got to have companies making a profit, you got to have an ability to make a living, all that sort of thing. But yes, I do feel differently about my career, my working career and my social enterprise kind of activities that I'm doing now.
Terry 29:41
Yeah, I bet that makes a huge difference with his relationship with his daughters. Because that age, I mean, my my daughters as well. It's like they really want to make a social impact. They don't quite know how to do that and then make a living as as well. So the fact that he was able to do that and and show his daughters? Yes, Yun is is an amazing feat.
Roy Barker 30:09
So So what about the difference in? You know, he said there was kind of a mix between not every story is in a happy place right this moment. But what about the mix between making that decision to retire step away maybe being forced out, and being able to do the things that you want to do versus being able or being forced into doing things that you need to do for survival? Did they fall fall out in any of those categories? Yeah,
Richard 30:46
I think there's you touched on earlier and one of your other questions to kind of preconditions here, you know, I'd call it health and wealth. You don't need to be enormously fit. But if you've gotten major health problems, it changes the range of choices that you have. Some of the people in the book have had some health problems. And adapted to them. The same thing with wealth, you use the word wealth, there's a there's kind of a minimum amount. And it's not even a very large amount, where you get by you can you're not worried about food on the table, you're not worried about, you know, making the rent payment.
But it doesn't need to be much more than that. But if you've got enough wealth, and enough health, then your choices are so dramatically different. And the health one is kind of the card you're dealt, I mean, if you've tried to keep yourself fit that that obviously helps. But a lot of people who have kept themselves fit, you know, still had health problems, the wealth problem is hard to come back from it's hard to retire at a certain age and be broke and say, well, I'll do something that will get me back on my financial feet, those choices are just really limited.
Roy Barker 32:16
Yeah, and that's something we talk a lot about here is not outliving our health, you know, and that's something that we, you know, we're trying to make some changes because you know, you can or not your outlive your health, but outlive your wellness, you know, and just not doesn't make for a very easy or fun, enjoyable time.
And sometimes we don't have a choice, you know, once we get there, but that's why we encourage people that you know, if we can start that conversation, make those better decisions earlier in life, it will make our later life much more enjoyable, and maybe allow us to make these choices because I know they're, you know, there's some people that are confined to either homes or institutions that they can't, you know, they couldn't go out and walk down the street, much less go climb a mountain,
Richard 33:08
right. Now, one of the actually a couple of the people I interviewed had a to do list that had two columns, the to do list of what can I do now when I'm fit and healthy? And then what are the things that are would still be fun to do, but I can do them you know, when my knees have given out a little bit or not feeling so good or even even if I'm in a wheelchair, you know, you can you can do certain things and they've they're the ones that require them to be healthy they're doing them now
Roy Barker 33:43
Yeah, you know my I had a great I guess a great great grandmother somebody that was you know, really really old when I was young and that was the probably the better advice that she gave me then because she you know her body had given out she was confined to to a rocking chair most of the time but she's like, you really need to learn to enjoy reading because when you get to a point when you can't do anything else, you know it really gives you something to keep your mind younger and clear and help you to take those journeys and be in those places which was good advice. I'm not a good reader I'm it puts me to sleep I can read about three pages and
Richard 34:24
if you write if you read shifting gears make sure you pick the stories that you like, because no don't pick one of those boring ones. You'll be asleep at no time.
Roy Barker 34:33
Well, I'm kind of dozed out for a minute Terry's like, what did you read like a paragraph? No, and
Terry 34:40
I'm on like, I wish I'd taken the speed reading course you know, a long time ago, which I didn't but I do. I do like to kind of challenge myself and time myself where we you know, I can read like 30 to 40 pages, 40 pages every hour. And it just kind of depends on what kind of book it is. If I'm trying to Soak in every word or if I'm just trying to get the gist of it. So I challenged myself to do that I'd love to read I, it's just something that I don't do as often as I'd like to anymore. Yeah, yeah. So
Roy Barker 35:18
no, we, we encourage people to document and there's so many great ways to do that now, you know, writing it down, getting an interview, you know, or giving an interview, videotape. But, you know, I think that's probably a byproduct of this is that all of the people that you got to interview, even the ones that may not have been included? They've all got some documented evidence of their advice, their of their life that they can pass down, you know, to their kids and grandkids.
Richard 35:50
Yeah, one of the things I was surprised about is a handful, the people say, I'm going to just write something for no audience, it's for the audience of my family, or my grandkids, or whatever. And I'm just going to put my thoughts down. And maybe it's a diary every day, or maybe it's even a short book. But documenting became something that was important to write.
Terry 36:16
Yeah, and they, I mean, both of us, I think we we got both of our moms. There, there was a subscription to a service that would put together a book for a loved one, anybody, but we sent it to our moms and they sent they emailed a question a week, you know, and you could choose the questions or just kind of randomly choose to have them choose them. And you know, just anything like what was your grandparent and grandmother?
Like, what were you like, when you were 40? What, who was the best boss, you ever had your first job, you know, anything. And so we did that for a year. And you know, at the end of the year, they get this bound book, and you can add photos to it and things like that. So it was really kind of a neat thing that, that I'm glad that we were able to do. So but I did it, but I did have to I had to call her and interview her and and do it for her, you know, because she's not very techie as I am, I am not either, but I could do that part of it, then put it together and put her answers in and everything. So it was cool.
Roy Barker 37:34
All right, Richard, well, anything else that you want to leave us with? Before we wrap this up?
Richard 37:41
I just wanted to make a comment, I think what you're doing is is very neat, I think there's a need to think about the educational part of aging. You know, we're doing it all for the first time. We know what we're doing, you know, and we need to learn from things like what you guys are describing and the guests that you're bringing in. And getting people to just say, this is a learning experience, you don't automatically know what to do.
And learning through the stories learning through the, through the podcast learning through a variety of ways. People can reinvent people can recast themselves, if they get the influences, right if they get the kinds of things that you guys are doing to change their outlook to change their their pattern. So thank you for doing that. I'm sure you've got a lot of people really admiring what you're doing.
Terry 38:44
Well, thank you for the appreciate that. That's That's very nice. And you know, just community, it's all about community, it's all about sharing, and you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Somebody has done this before you some or something like that, you know, when you can talk to them and read whatever, you know, wherever they are Instagram, Facebook, read your book, you just anything there. There are resources out there, and it's just trying to get those into the hands of the people that really need it. It's important. Yeah, I'm
Roy Barker 39:17
kind of encouraging that it's, you know, we may struggle a little bit because like you said, we haven't done this before. So so we're learning but you know, to try to have the courage to try the the new things and just because you get a certain age doesn't mean you can't you know, climb a mountain or go be a kickboxer or whatever you put your mind to, we may not be not speak for me, you know, we may not be at the elite class, like we might have been in our 20s but at least we can do something enjoyable and have some fun. So
Terry 39:49
age is just a number really, yeah, it really is. and youth is wasted on the young right? I mean all those things.
Roy Barker 39:59
Well, Richard Taylor Before we get away a couple things, first off, is there a tool or a habit that you use in your daily life that you feel is very important, and it could be related to aging or just anything but a tool or habit, something you do every day?
Richard 40:22
Maybe it's not a daily habit, but I think being introspective and saying, is this going the way I want it to? Is this what I was hoping for at this stage and kind of constantly reexamining Matt. It just another short story, one of my friends, we've recently relocated to Pacific Grove, California, after living in one place for 18 years. And one of my friends said to me, would you have done that? If you had not interviewed all those people for your book?
And I had to say to them, I've never thought of that. But I think you're right. I saw all these people doing all this stuff. They weren't taking no for an answer. My wife and I have always wanted to live near the ocean, we always wanted to have a kind of lifestyle where the beach was right there. And we said, why not? So letting the example of others inspire us? We had this conversation, we said, let's do and let's go and it was turned out to be a move. That was been everything we had hoped it would be.
Terry 41:28
That's good to hear. Yeah. And Pacific Grove. What a What a beautiful place.
Richard 41:33
Oh, we love it. It's just great.
Terry 41:36
Where did y'all live before?
Richard 41:38
a place called Woodside, which was kind of near Palo Alto near Stanford. That's up in the redwood forests.
Terry 41:45
Yeah. Oh, another beautiful place
Richard 41:48
is a beautiful place. We lived in an isolated way, when we were in a redwood forest, we couldn't see a single neighbor. And our lifestyle was not very communal. We had a lot of friends. But they we would go to their house or they'd come to our house. In our new place. We made a conscious effort to say we want to be part of a neighborhood or sitting in our backyard and I heard the phone ring I want to go answer it turns out was a neighbor's phone. That's when we that's what we knew we were in a communal kind of.
Roy Barker 42:22
Yeah, and a couple ideas. And I'm trying to get some support from Terry here because the beach is one thing we've thought about. And you know, we would like to do that eventually. But the other thing I'm thinking about is the van they call it the van life you know, you trick out a little Airstream or van and you just mobile just like nomads pitch your tent wherever you are that night. And I think that would be I think that'd be so cool. Now have we got her on board
Terry 42:48
there or a time limit on it? You know, I might think about doing it for a couple of months. But yeah, but but I need I need to be stationary. As long as you take me to a beach. I don't care. I don't care.
Richard 43:03
So I can't remember what where it is in the book, but go to the one of AMD because Andy has the he and his wife decided to do the RV life. And they love it. They just they've it's really changed their lives and in a positive way.
Terry 43:19
Well, and yeah. And we've talked to a couple of guests who have done the same thing and they love it. They've just got their little Airstream and they just go wherever they want to. And they do everything virtually. So yeah, it were
Roy Barker 43:34
rad. I'm gonna get some support going here. cards, cards and letters. All right, Richard. Well tell us again. Well, before I even ask you to tell us about the book is there going to be the second 50 is that kind of on the list or the first 51st 50 and done or a new 50
Richard 43:57
there's a couple of different ways I could go on that right now. I'm I'm just enjoying being out there with the book, we've just released an audio book which takes which adds a dimension to this as well. So I'm having fun with it now. I don't know what I'm going to do next I there's plenty. Because of the things that I've been doing with social media. The number of people who have shown up on my doorstep with these stories is unbelievable.
And the sequels of the stories that I've got, there's some really interesting ones too. But I just don't know if I want to put my energy into it at this point. I haven't really decided and I'm doing some other things that I'm enjoying very much working with social entrepreneurs as well. And that's that's that's been really fun. So I don't know if I if I've got it in me to do another one. Yeah.
Roy Barker 44:54
Hey, but you climb that hill. So kudos to you for doing that.
Terry 44:58
Yes. You're an awesome Holy cow. Well, what's fun?
Roy Barker 45:03
Yeah. So tell us about Shifting Gears: 50 Baby Boomers Share Their Meaningful Journeys in Retirement, where can we find it? How can people reach out? You know, to your website? Things like that.
Richard 45:17
So, yes, the book is Shifting Gears: 50 Baby Boomers Share Their Meaningful Journeys in Retirement. It's available on Amazon and the other major online booksellers. There's an audio book that's available now. I have a website in which there's a lot of support materials, a lot of blogs that I've done. I've had some guest bloggers Come on that. And that's Richard Haiduck.com. And that's, that's turned out to be something people have really enjoyed as well.
Roy Barker 45:52
All right, cool. Well, we'll put all that in all the information in the show notes as well. So y'all run out pick up shifting gears. Sounds like a lot of great stories we haven't. We're ours is on the way, and we can't wait to read it and see what we can learn from it and make our later life and retirement much more exciting. Oh, yeah.
Richard 46:13
So you have to make the you have to make a promise to me. Okay, after you both read the chapter about the RV. Tell me if anything changes.
Roy Barker 46:24
Yeah.
Terry 46:28
That'll be fun. Richard, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Enjoy me. We're looking forward to enjoy the book. I just I love hearing stories.
Roy Barker 46:38
Such a great project. It really is really great fun.
Richard 46:41
I couldn't have had more fun doing it. So thank you both very much. This has been a fascinating discussion. I've enjoyed it.
Roy Barker 46:49
Well thank you very much. that's gonna do it for another episode of AGEUcational Of course, I am Roy. Terry, you can find us at www.AGEUcational.com we're on all the major podcast platforms, iTunes, Stitcher, Google Spotify. If we're not on one that you listen to reach out, I'd be glad to get that added.
We're on also on all the major social media networks, we probably tend to hang out on Instagram a little bit more than others. Reach out we'd be glad to interact with you there. capa excuse me a video of this interview will go up on YouTube. When it's published. You can reach out there see this interview in its entirety as well as some of the past interviews that we've had. Until next time, take care of yourself and take care of your health.
www.richardhaiduck.com
www.AGEUcational.com