Welcome to the first quarterly episode of Big Blend Radio's "Life Lessons" Show focusing on lessons from Baby Boomers. After all, August is Boomers Making a Difference Month! in case you're wondering, Baby Boomers are preceded by the Silent Generation and followed by Generation X. So. people born between 1946 -1964 during what is known as the mid-20th century baby boom. This show features a panel discussion plus a solo expert interview segment.
FEATURED GUESTS:
- Travel writer and photographer Jo Clark https://www.haveglasswilltravel.com/
- Organizational trainer & author Rita Sever https://supervisionmatters.com/
- Author and editor Clifford Garstang https://cliffordgarstang.com/
- Parenting author Jeff Nelligan https://www.nelliganbooks.com/
- Travel writer & author Lisa Evans https://writerlisa.com/
- Vocalist & composer Johnny Schaefer https://hearjohnny.com/
This episode is featured on Big Blend Radio's "Big Daily Blend," "Quality of Life," and "Success Express" Podcast Channels. Follow our Big Blend Radio Network of Shows, here: https://www.podbean.com/podcast-network/bigblendradionetwork
Welcome to Big Blend Radio where we celebrate variety and how it adds spice to quality of life. Welcome everybody to Big Blend Radio's quality of life show where we're actually starting a new series on this platform called life lessons because life lessons are good. Sometimes we find out those life lessons just in person it happens but sometimes we can actually learn from others and that's what we're going to be talking about today so that maybe we don't make those same mistakes sometimes we still make them and that's okay too because every lesson is a lesson every failure I say failure leads to success right? Failure is not a bad thing and to stumble and fall and pick yourself up and then find out that you learned something that's a good thing so that's what we're going to talk about today but we're going to do it talking about lessons from baby boomers because the month of august is boomers making a difference month and today we're recording this on august 17th which happens to be baby boomer appreciation day so I think we're pretty with it right now so glad to have everybody here and we have some great guests joining us so I'm going to introduce them all on and we're going to talk about that wonderful era of baby boomers that are between the silent generation and then followed by my wonderful group which is generation x I don't know why we get to have the x but we mark the spot and maybe we own twitter then who knows so anyway let me bring some guests on and you probably heard them on our big blend radio shows before let's start off in south carolina with travel writer and photographer joe clark you can keep up and follow her at haveglasswilltravel.com she is on our show every second sunday with her joe goes everywhere podcast because she does and maybe she learned that from a boomer who knows but welcome back joe how are you i'm great and i am a boomer you go girl are you a baby boomer or a boomer did you go boom when you came into the world she's like boom here oh i came in nice and quietly at nine o'clock on a saturday night on valentine's day i didn't interrupt dinner good girl good girl well i came in and apparently i disturbed nancy watching the exorcist at a drive in and she finished the exorcist went to the hospital and when i was born apparently i was talking when i came out go figure i know you all think that's like unusual right um stop laughing joe it's your turn jolly shapers here is a award-winning singer and songwriter and you can go to here jolly.com not here is jolly but here jolly.com welcome back jolly how are you i'm doing well thank you so glad to be here and celebrate yes we got to talk about the baby boomer generation things that make you go boom right no sorry i'm just in that mouth now but yeah i mean i'm excited to have you here back on the show jolly is on our big daily blend show as a co-host every first sunday and september first is the next one and that is all about back to school are you ready for that jolly like actually talking about back to school and even thinking about being in school did you like school i i if the different different parts of it i loved high school in your high school i hated high school i loved well i can't wait to talk about it tomorrow we're gonna have fun about that we also have author and editor clifford garstein back on the show we love cliff you go to cliffordgarstang.com his last book is called the last bird of paradise you must get it in fact go get all his books it's gonna be like the best way to end the rest of the year like go read one of his books every month i'm just saying so welcome back cliff how are you i'm doing great and that sounds like awesome advice thank you very much lisa i think i learned that from a boomer what do you think nancy was just saying she goes you know cliff is like one of the best writers she loves your writing and she's just you know so she'll be back on a show with you soon and um everybody stand back because you know things that make you go boom she's one of them but she's a firecracker but she loves your writing and she's like everyone needs to read his books the short story collections and onto the novels as well so i that's a good advice what do you think yeah it's good i think it's awesome advice yes yeah so cliff you're getting ready to travel to Dublin like you were talking about on our last happy hour show are you getting excited i am i am i'm making plans um finding out that i am already too late to make reservations for some things but that's okay there's lots to do so um so it's going to be great johnnie you're getting ready to go out that way too this fall right to double yes we'll be there the first two weeks of october and you're all going to come back and report well what we'll do is we'll set up a show with the two of you back on so we can have a full report we need reports you know when people travel overseas we need to know what are they doing right compared to us for a role we want the report but we also have travel writer and author lisa evans back on the show you can go to writer lisa.com she also wrote the book about coastal Mississippi it's like 100 things to do before you die in coastal Mississippi well you don't have to die in coastal Mississippi but you know sounds like a good place to do it but welcome back lisa how are you i'm doing good i'm glad to hear everybody else seems to be as well that's that's a good thing how's the weather out in coastal Mississippi hot okay very very hot heat indexes and like 105 109 range and of triple digits straight up air temp is like high 90s so yeah it's it's august in the south and that means you need to go to the beach and also get yourself a drive through decory as far as i there you go there you go that's some good advice from a boomer that i you know i just know that someone is saying that to me in my ear but also we have organizational trainer and author reader sever back on the show she comes on our shows and talks about human resources workplace stuff that you know is so important about leading a good team and uh she is awesome we first met her with her book supervision matters and now she has another book out leading for justice and um you've got to keep up with her go to supervision matters.com so welcome back Rita how are you hi Lisa and nice to meet everyone else i'm doing great i'm out in california and we're having a warm but not hot day so everything's good and you're by those beautiful redwoods aren't you yes yes i'm in a wine country and redwood tree country so yes not not bad not bad so um when we talk about boomer advice right advice from baby boomers life lessons i do want to just touch on this before we get into everything with everyone about the workplace because it's it's a very interesting era that we're in where baby boomers are having second third maybe fourth and fifth careers and at the same time we're seeing like hey we've got to have some balance in the workplace and respect right and respect your elders in the workplace but then you know everybody's different so we've got like multi-generations working in a company it's just like planning a multi-generational family getaway right but this is work so maybe it's not the same but do you see that a lot in the work that you do that um there's got to be a balance of the age groups to make everyone happy i assume you're asking me right yes Rita you're the work you're the work person in this group um yes i see um that when there are a variety of ages that it's like any kind of differences we get a synergy at its best where the different perspectives come together and make a some greater than the parts of course if they don't get along then as with any other kind of division it causes problems and concerns and that actually relates to my little tidbit of advice if you want me to just dive into it go in you go girl okay so um i am a baby boomer and my advice i've i'm gonna share a short version of it and then some background to it so my um takeaway here is the old adage of count to ten um before you respond but the background and the perspective that i bring to it both at work and in every other part of your life is the bottom line is to remember that people see the world differently so part of that is our generation our gender our culture our social class you know are we introvert extrovert all the many ways we're different it's important to remember that we see the world differently and when i do trainings i actually give people sunglasses that have different colored lenses to really get a sense of this and so when you remember this then it is crucial when something happens the key to remembering this is when you think that doesn't make any sense that's a sign that the other person is seeing the world differently than you are and so i have trained myself when something like that happens to take a step back take a breath and remind myself they're seeing the world differently than i am how do i want to respond that just takes a few seconds but it stops you from just reacting from your lens you know a boomer might say you're being disrespectful or stopping and subordinate at work i don't like that word i don't like that that's trying to just make the situation so much worse so instead taking that little pause and then coming back and if you don't have anything else to say you can say let me think about that or i'll get back to you about that but maybe you'll say you know well that's hard for me to hear but i want to hear more about it when i'm ready to hear it can we schedule time to talk tomorrow i love that so i have to do that to each other i love that pause and saying we're going to get back to this because you're taking you're in that communication you're running people and i hear you want to say you want this is important to you but i want to be able to give you my full attention and we have to do that because our business is crazy it's dingbat i mean because we're all over see that's a generational term dingbat right i feel like arching funders here any second but um but it is it's like ding ding ding we're here there and everywhere and everything has to be organized and it's it's like organized chaos and it's beautiful and fun but right and like she can't come and say hey i want to talk to you right now is we're about to air a podcast right can you do that i want to sit down and like if i interrupt her when she's making a video i could blow her whole concentration and thought pattern of something cool and creative so it's respect yeah you know at work sometimes there is something clear like you know i think you have an important point that i need to hear and you can't yell at me and work so it doesn't mean you just concede everything you still hold your boundaries but the pause helps you do it in a responsible way i like taking the emotion out of it too which is hard i mean i think everything you've said right now is a hundred percent awesome but i think it is actually difficult it's not that easy to do until you start making a habit of it you know and the start is taking that pause for sure okay Rita and you're right you learn as you go along as you said at the beginning sometimes you make mistakes and you learn from them absolutely i i love the pause i like that you know it's um yeah you know we used to do that as you know as a band where you say take a pause for the cause and here's the tip again that's the tip jar around but right you're really right about that is taking that breath um and in a workplace i want to go to cliff on that because cliff i know that you have a legal background international legal background working also with the world bank and travel and you know travel internationally like it can you can you really can't um lose it you can't lose the cool so do you agree with the pause so yeah i i i did learn a long time ago probably after i left my last job that patience is important to in just about everything uh and in international travel being an american you know the ugly american abroad is a stereotype for a reason um and uh it's great just to to keep your cool and and not react when things are not going the way you um you want them to i i do have to say that in my in my work uh in the law firm and also in the world bank i was not patient i was just under so much stress i don't think i managed that process well so there was conflict from time to time wow and i could have i could have used this if i spent and i can't even imagine you having like any kind of impatience it's so chill and cool like really yeah but we all have that moment i i totally have a quick short like especially if someone's like you know mess with me a few times and i've given them like i've given them so much grace way like here you you know i'm letting you know i'm letting you know i'm letting you know then i lose my impatience like i lose my patience let's just say lose it and that will be that and once it's out it's out i need to go back to read his advice i like that because it's well everyone learns at a different speed and time right absolutely and it doesn't mean there won't be conflict or you don't get angry but again just the pause helps you express that anger maybe with an i statement instead of just yelling at them well let's take this musically because johnny having the pause is part of dynamics to a song right if you don't take those pauses for your breath or for that song because even just in listening you need the pause you need to have a point yeah then you have the silence is as important as the notes because uh you know it creates it's part of the phrasing and and it um it creates breaks and and everything has to breathe including music and so uh there's always that ebb and flow and yeah i just piggybacking off you know off of what Rita said it's i i think that when i was in the workplace i there were so many different kinds of people and and it always frustrated me when the people in charge expected everyone to think the way they did and i had bosses that loved the diversity and loved different kinds of perspectives and and seemed to be very much at ease with different kinds of personalities and others that were so rigid that they just shut it down if someone didn't think like they could and those were very stressful work environments for me so uh i appreciate you know you know what you're saying and and when you shut it down fast you actually lose creativity and that's what you know is the leader wants to have people that think differently you should always want to talk to people that think differently than yourself that's how you broaden your mind um on taking a pause i'm going to go to lisa evans here because of coastal mrs cp him is could say she's going to say come to the beach y'all and go to a blues bar right Lisa that's a way to take a pause that is definitely a way to take a pause but um i have to say Rita is i'm sitting here you know muted nodding my head everything she said makes so much sense i know lisa you know this i am a travel writer and an author but i still because i'm not quite too i mean i'm on the cusp of that whole baby boomer thing i'm not quite to the retirement age app but um so i still have a day job and in that day job in my department i have two young girls and it's some days very very very difficult i love the pause thing i'm gonna i'm gonna have to i mean i do implement it to a point but um it's generational so much and it kind of rolls into one of the things that i was going to say and and i i hope i i assume there's other people on this call that uh the work ethic today of i'll call them kids is entirely different from what i grew up in and what was instilled in my head so that's kind of one of my you know my lessons are kind of all rolled in and around the whole stay in your lane stay and you know stay focused on what you do best and let others do what they do best yeah if that makes sense but um you know you never know who you're going to run into down the line i mean there's been many many instances in my life that you know i i meet someone and you know either i was young and idiotic and was not necessarily very nice to them and then five years later down the road here they are in surprise you know but you need them for something and they're so remembering that you might not have been very nice to them oh um so you know it just it's but everything that read us that is just so so true in the workplace with generational and and having to you know you have to take a step back and say okay and realize that not everybody does the things the way you do them and have been taught to do them the generations after me were not taught the same the same kind of i don't know fx i guess is what i'll say it's just it's a shift in in ways of life too i mean nancy and i've been talking about this especially i wish he was on the show today and we're just on crazy deadlines right now and um we were talking about how it's shifted now that we have ai so even there's new careers being created every day in ways that we're going like what the heck how's that like what's that like this term didn't even exist when i was growing up you know so things are it's a very interesting time and so i think read as pause part is really crucial if i want to go to joe on this too because she also is a teacher but before i go there when you talked about you never know who you're going to meet on the other side at some time right in life not on the death side again but no no no but i wanted to tell you this fun story because nancy would tell you she was on the show so she had this important meeting to get to and it was when she had her magazine in south africa and she was in stuck in traffic and then she had to haul right and there was this guy that was really annoying her like a driver and she eventually flipped in the bird right you guys all know nancy right you know she would do this and she got so mad at him and she's like oh yeah well and um that's you don't do it nowadays you could get shot right and this was well that's true africa and you could still get shot then she gives this guy the bird and then finds out they were both racing to the same meeting and that is the person she was to sell advertising too so there you go oh yeah that's that's a that's a tough one i i mean you you just gotta i mean i've learned and and y'all know i'm from new york originally so down here in the south down here in the south i've had to learn very much that pause in my responses to two certain things and how you know and that's on everyday life whether i'm writing whether i'm at my day job it doesn't really matter but you really have to stop and think because the south you can say all you want but it definitely is a different culture than the northeast so things that i could get away with saying or doing in the northeast are not at all acceptable in the south so culturally speaking that takes a big a big uh you know you have to keep that in mind as well you know that's a thing um yeah if just we have to be present in the moment i think that's the big lesson of it all but going to joe you're a teacher so now you know why she is you know have glass will travel i listen i give a hats off to all teachers and i think everyone on this podcast is a teacher in a way right so and read it as cliff you are through your books or everything you do johnny you are because when we do these podcasts we are in some way just sharing our perspectives so that hopefully others learn from them right so joe um teacher joe um is that why you like wine so much that's the way to take a pause isn't it it is yes i definitely you know every night i always said grades improved with wine that's it that's it but as a teacher did you have to take a pause and keep reactions under you know yeah because you know you can't throw things and you can't do the bird you can't flip the bird that's right that's right yeah you had to kind of keep things under control but yeah you know and again everybody's mentioning work ethics yeah baby boomers we had work ethics we had role models and um in school i would have different types of principles every few years the principle would change and i really the ones that i love the most were the ones that they they said expectations and then they left you alone they knew you knew what you were supposed to be doing and you would do it i didn't need somebody looking over my shoulder um i didn't care if they walked people would get all upset because the principal or somebody from the school district would come and open their door and walk in and stay in the back of their classroom for 10 or 15 minutes and they'd say i didn't know what to do i tried to i tried to think of what i should be talking about while they were in there and i go i just ignore them i'm i've got a class to teach and i just keep on teaching i'm doing my job to the best of my ability and they either see it or they don't i'm not going to change what i'm doing because my principal walked in yeah because you have to be who you are too right and if you're if you're you know that's not good leadership when you say every day and Rita you you are the person who says like you've got to there's a transparency and work right um of being a leader and and then if you're leading by fear you're not going to get i mean okay i don't want to get into politics i'll behave that was a good lead in there i couldn't help it but leadership by fear is terrible you don't know anything again it may get short term results but it's not going to get long term satisfactory results right and and you're not in there to perform you know it's not a dog and pony show you're not just putting on a performance for those 10 minutes when somebody walked in to observe you should have been doing the right thing and say in the right things and teaching your class all along it should not matter when they walk in and that was always my attitude i want to i want to say that at the end of this podcast this panel discussion um we have a clip coming up with jeff nelligan who's a parenting author and um you're going to hear from him but um we love having him be part of our big win radio you know expert family here because he talks about parenting um of you know the boom of generation through to now and he is of the same look of what you're saying of being a teacher like hey this is you know this is what your expertise is and Lisa what you were saying too this is my lane you know i i keep trying to tell all the truckers like this is my highway but apparently it's not working when i drive but it's um in other words he talks about when you over parent to the point of your kid cannot actually become themselves it's like your your is there's that term the helicopter parent helicopter mom and all of that i'm not trying to point fingers and all that stuff but you do need to go out on the world on your own and discover who you are so you can be strong at it and you do need to fall down and so i know he'll be talking at the end but i think that goes the same in careers right it's like oh and you can still learn new things and you can jump in other lanes too but it's how you do it right and it should be that you learn from each other when you have good people with different ideas that's how things get created and new stuff happens so it's an interesting conversation this but um yeah you should be able to be left alone to do what you do well there's a level of trust because right Joe if you don't do your job you're gonna get fired period that's it yep that's that's the way i always look at it yeah well it's weird because nowadays apparently there's a huge rate of parents taking their kids to the job interview and sitting in on the job interview like that would not have happened with me at all no are you kidding me that's just hilarious that's hilarious to even picture it well no i could tell stories on that but um yeah then it happened with Nancy in South Africa you know no she fired one guy and then the mom came and yelled at Nancy for firing her son like son didn't do any work you know he didn't do is no no same well that's why you have a door and then you know you say go fetch and close the door like god you know no that was bad but that's an interesting i think my generation i think i'm generation x you know i don't know whatever it is i'm not good at this who's a millennial who's this and all of that um i think we're like in this interesting state show is just kind of younger than me where it started get wonky and i don't know what happened in regards to like your parents doing everything for you and we certainly i think we were the latchkey kids where you had to teach yourself but there was that level of you know you've been taught right from wrong and you know when you did something wrong you know you did it and if you get caught you know what's going to happen so that was kind of how i was raised and it's just different now i think and yet at the same time kids are born with a phone in their hands so it's it's a little i don't know what the life lessons are of today wow i don't know but Rita that's a good balance and i think you give us pause and and um i want to go over back to Joe what is your life lesson uh i thought about this all week what am i going to say what kind of wine am i going to refer to you all to a good one that's one of my that's one of my life lessons that i put down never stop learning never stop moving you've got to walk you've got to do yoga you've got to do breathing exercise you've got to keep moving and life is short believe it or not i mean here we are us baby boomers do you look in the mirror every morning and think who is that i don't even recognize that face um life is short so take the trip drink the good wine use the good dishes and eat dessert first eat the cake yeah and if the meal is bad eat two desserts don't even eat the meal so i'm okay that i had breakfast uh yesterday's breakfast with pizza yeah it's fine and say i love you every chance you get mmm very nice love it yeah life is short that's awesome that's that's awesome i love that i love that you got to write it down you shouldn't like put in like a poem kind of like that's i love that you do yoga on the beach by the way i talk about you every time i do a podcast with dr jackie every um second wednesday she does heart health and especially for women because it's the number one killer of women and men by the way above cancer right yeah so um she talks about it and with women it's so hard because as she says we present differently and i'm like what do you mean present are we going to do a show like here i've got a heart attack you know she's like no different symptoms of and it's very difficult to see when a woman is having a heart attack and it's so misleading you get like oh i'm gonna go throw up oh that means you're having a heart attack now oh you know it's it's just very interesting and anyway so we always talk about wellness tips and no matter what every single time i'm like well i got this red joe she goes to Myrtle beach and she sits on the beach and does yoga every morning and she's the happiest person i know and at the end of the day she does have her wine and i'm not gonna say it's the one glass or the two but she does have her wine and she's happy as heck so and in the days i don't do yoga i'm now walking three and a half miles on the beach so every other day i'm i'm either walking or i'm doing yoga every day and it it helps with mental sanity of course being retired also helps with mental sanity walking is one of the best things we have a hashtag one our walk um group on facebook and i need to get back in it like right now my walking is with a greyhound you do not want the greyhound to go loose you will be running um and you can't do that walking dogs is one of the best things on the planet and they show you things that you didn't even know existed that would be my one of my biggest lessons is walking one of our good friends he's since passed jimosic he was a retired earth science teacher and he was one of the most inspiring people i've ever met or known in my life and it would we only knew him for you know a few years and he i mean he inspired so many of his students he went out and he cycled the perimeter of the country in his 60s mid 60s going to 70s um he walked across the country from loose beach Delaware and i know i'm not saying that right all the way to point rais i'm saying that correctly uh in california loosely following the american discovery trail and he's hiked the entire pacific crest trail majority of the portion of the apple action trail he's written about it he's written about quality of life for parks and i encourage people to go look him up just jimosic i know he's passed but his life lessons from observing nature and being out there and not to put the number of years as a negative you know i couldn't believe it he died so young and so and healthy you know i'm like i am having that second glass of wine if he was healthy and young and then right after he died another good friend died and he was healthy and young i'm like that's it i'm having my second glass of wine and i am that's it i'm not i'm not and i'm not over drinking but i will have that second glass of wine i will um but they lived and so those are the people that you know they say the good die young but i really hate that term they really had this way of life and it was total quality and also to push yourself beyond and and i think that's what jim left us was this lesson of don't listen to what people say either if it's good or bad in in a way everybody listen to this podcast okay don't unsubscribe subscribe listen but don't listen to naysayers use that as a challenge be smart about it take healthy risk but push yourself beyond that extra step i mean to walk across the country at his age in the heat yeah amazing across the desert and what he found was he had more trail angels than you'd ever think you know we we look at the country in the world being divided and all these arguments and everything but when you travel like a lot everybody on the show travels right you will find more people are there to help than actually hurt and that's what he found no matter what he did it is pretty beautiful and to just push yourself that extra step when you think oh i can't do it anymore take one more step and see if you can always go that extra step that extra step is a difference between going home or going on the great adventure and seeing how far you can go as a human being it's really cool that's a big lesson so Cliff what's your lesson well first let me react to um Joe's because uh walking is a tip that i use for writers whenever i get stuck on something if i'm having a problem being the fiction that i'm writing one of the great ways to loosen up my creativity is to get outside and take a walk and inevitably something breaks loose and and i come back and i've solved the problem so oh i love that advice and and likewise the never stop learning is something that i take to heart in fact i've gone back to school several times uh which is kind of amusing to people um but also you know i study languages and and it just keeps me learning and and interested in uh getting up in the morning but my big advice is uh not to be afraid of change so i've i've managed to startle people several times when making a big change when i was young i uh was in graduate school and pretty suddenly joined the Peace Corps and ran off to South Korea to teach English and people were especially my father people were shocked by uh that huge upheaval but it was an important change for me it gave me a different perspective on what i was doing and what the world was like so that was that was my first big change but then i was later i was working in a law firm i was a partner in law firm and i was really interested in in a shift in my career so i quit my job and i went back to graduate school to retool to work in a different uh area international development still in law but uh when i left my law firm uh people were pretty shocked by that and then a huge shock when i left the World Bank uh to start writing fiction that one really gave people a pause because there's a lot of difference a lot of difference between the money i was making at the World Bank and the money i'm not making as a fiction writer so that's that's really a lesson that i think is important to learn not to be afraid of change and it's it's really interesting i was having a conversation recently with a professor at my alma mater Northwestern University and he is teaching a class to these undergraduates in the university about planning for big changes not to expect to have one career your entire life but to think about the flexibility that that change gives you so that you're not going to get stuck necessarily being an engineer or a lawyer or something you can you can change if you if you want to so i think it's great that that young people can think that way because i don't think when i was in college we did i think we expected to have a career that would last forever yeah you're going to be at the company store right from day one till the end right and it's like and and then that's the thing in history the company store always sells you out i mean i've gone through all the towns the company store towns there are towns that are completely gone and it it's part of the history it's like you know it's always the the industries of extraction that hey yeah we're here we're going to invest in your schools while we do this and we're going to we're going to do all this and make it all look good while we're you know destroying you know you know what i mean is this balance of um yeah it's like a jekyll and hide thing and so people had that mindset of oh i'm going to do this and maybe the best at it and i'm going to stay and their loyalty went into a company so strong and you know then it flipped on them so many times in our history and that's something to look at to always be a wrong change you know it's i feel like our our resume should be about us and our life not um oh i did this i did that yes yes it's all part of it but even if you're in a happy career who are you that's who it should be it's like who you are as a person are you they're waiting ready for change are that kind of thing not just here's all the accolades right it should be who you are as an individual are you able to you know get along with different people are you able to do these certain things you know that should be part of it and you are not the company that you work for you know what i mean it's kind of interesting when we think about that um cliff i wanted to ask you do you know of Julia Cameron she was the the book the artist way absolutely yeah and another one um that followed that one sure yeah she was on our show um back in 2017 wow august 20 21st hey this is kind of trippy and her book is called life lessons 125 prayers and meditations it was really cool interviewing her of course she got huge uh you know notoriety for the artist way for everybody in the creative world but she talked about the power of walking and i think that's when we were starting getting i think we were into the walking group or started it after that and she talked about the power of writing and walking first thing in the morning those two things must happen early soon as you open your eyes that's when everything comes and she was really strong about that about walking first thing and writing first thing and i can't and i remember asking her what comes first and she answered and i have no clue i can't remember but she did discuss that on that podcast so everyone i will link that in the episode notes because i think it goes really a lot with what we're talking about today so let's go to you johnnie what is your life lesson and anybody any of what i love comments hold on one second anybody have comments for cliff on that or questions okay well i was actually going to talk about what he said i i would i love about this conversation is that this week when i was thinking about what i wanted to talk about everyone has touched on things that came to mind through this whole you know through each person so far that that's fine and with with cliff when you're talking about uh you know taking a walk when you're stuck uh i heard an interview an mpr years ago and i wish i i need to look up what the book was but it was an author who wrote who interviewed a bunch of Pulitzer and or a Nobel prize winning op um um scientists and all different kinds of people and and ask them questions about their process and what it was that that you know led them to their big moment of discovery and almost all of them said well it was when i was playing catch with my kid or when i was running on the beach or so it is very consistent that that when they have their breakthrough they weren't sitting at a desk trying to work things through that it came doing other things and so that was uh very interesting to me that you brought that up because that was one of the things that i had thought about and then on the whole theme of education um you know the five most influential boomers in my life were high school teachers of mine and interestingly i'm friends with all of them on facebook now after 45 years and many of my of my fellow students are as well and we all talk about what an influence they had my band director my choir director so many phenomenal musicians came out of my high school uh manchi high school in portable california and many have gone on to be music educators themselves many of us have gone on to become professional musicians and then also to cliff note about um you know changing careers i took my perception of my life is that i took a detour for 30 years i always wanted to be a singer son writer since i was four years old but i felt like i was supposed to do you know everyone's supposed we need to have a you know something to fall back on and so i kind of fell back and i committed myself to the corporate world and played that game and worked 14 hour days and in the end it they did not appreciate it and i missed out on so many wonderful moments with family because i was working and doing something that i didn't hate but i didn't really love it like i do music and then in the end i got pushed aside in a in a corporate you know when a new CEO came in he got rid of all the executive team and and so then i just said you know what i'm going to do the music that i always wanted to do my whole life and so i threw myself into it and you know education doesn't stop when you graduate hopefully your your teachers give you uh tools to continue to educate yourself and to stay engaged and keep learning and every day i learned something my husband is wonderful at learning and teaching himself he taught himself how to be a video editor and he's incredible at it and he did it through watching tutorials on youtube so the the importance of education so everyone you know collectively i guess is or these are all things uh you know that i learned from boomers i guess i'm on the cost by i was born in the end of 61 so right you know before it switches over to generation acts but um but i would say that i learned a passion for life and a passion for for learning hmm that's cool that is cool and i mean that's what i love about doing podcasts i learn from all of you every single day i'm in permanent college that's awesome and then combined with travel you're always learning and it's like i don't know but i won't talk about how i'm starting to get wrinkles anyway like doesn't matter how much you learn you still get those and your hair changes color and whatever and then you go who cares that's really what you learn so much you really just don't care i don't i don't care um i i want to go back to lisa um your your life lesson i know you touched on it when we're talking with rita um but you want to touch on some more yeah i mean basically um i'm i'm loving listening to all of all of these different viewpoints because you know as you said it's all kind of one great big theme and people have repeated themselves but um i i just jotted down a few things of course i touched on a little bit um one one thing that is always be on time i don't care whether you're going to the grocery store or whether you're going to your job or whatever it you have to be on time and in my head if you're if you're on time you're late actually but that's that's just me um and you just got to keep going you you just got to keep going regardless of what you've been through um you know whatever hardships whatever and don't compare yourself to somebody else i mean you are who you are and it took me a very very long time to reach that you know what i don't i i don't care anymore i am who i am and you know i don't want to be compared to somebody else because i'm not that person nor will i ever be or vice versa i mean i i think comparing yourself is just uh the biggest is i i don't know it's just one of the most horrible thing you can do for yourself because not well there's there's no two people that are ever ever alike and and i just actually it's funny a little bit ago i just saw something on facebook i have these memes and it just kind of fits in i'm just gonna um it said i'm proud of the woman i am today because i went through one hell of a time becoming her um i mean you just you go through so much in your life and especially as you get older and it's funny i can look at these you know younger people and go oh yeah honey ben there done that but you know they some of them want to learn and others and then they want to fumble on their own so and i think everybody has to learn on their own like somebody else said earlier you can't you know you can't teach them to be like little robots so no no that's what ai is for there's robots school too and you can go take yourself to some hotels like there's one in silicon valley i think it's the a one hotel and the robot will bring you your cocktail i don't know that's it's fun but like i want someone to talk to when i have a cocktail and say thank you and you know laugh or something you know and learn you can you can learn from that nice little cocktail waitress and and you know whatever whoever she is i mean it's so interesting that's one of the things i love when i travel and when i you know when i'm writing about it is to meet people and i mean i've met some incredible people through my travels i mean one of my trips last year i went to canada and i had i i was scheduled on a on a tour with the first nations with the first nations representative and it was just fabulous listen i mean in his story is just wild but it was so enthralling to sit and listen to him and just you know just learn i mean because you know i would never have you know from again going back to the culture thing i love listening to and learning about other people's cultures i think that is you know you don't you know you can sit back and and say hey you know why do they do that but then if you sit and listen to them they'll explain it and it's really kind of cool i agree that's travel i mean and you'll find out that you are connected in some way some way we're all connected right we all are exactly i mean we're connected to trees too trees have human DNA and we have three dna and us i know it's tiny but i always think that's important i'm just saying reader is next to redwood trees so she knows she she gets to hug redwoods don't you read it it's true i i walk them on the redwoods every day do you really i know yes no one's that would be cool that is cool and then cliff you've got trees out in your area don't you you've got trees yeah fell down in the recent hurricane so oh i'm sorry yeah yes that's we you're okay though you're safe yeah good good i mean the last few hurricane things like i'm just going to say y'all climate change is real we do have to make some changes i'm just going to say it it is it is and please go read the book by david libski the parrot and the igloo everyone should read that book i'm just saying everyone oh you're you're 100 right climate change is very real and and if people can't can't see that with what's happening around them then they have blinders on yeah yeah and that's a good lesson right there take the blinders off really and and that's the hard thing is sometimes actually um you know getting uh don't let other people cloud your vision rita you talked about wearing different glasses right like rose colored glasses sung glasses wearing different glasses so you can understand where people come from i interviewed a musician recently his name is t bear he tours with vulture travel you know just amazing musician so check out t bear be ar and um he he was like the manager working crew for carly simon and all kinds of people i mean his his music history is insane but he kind of disappeared for a couple decades to clean up basically he you know let's just put it in the back in the day addiction was easy in the drugs and drugs and alcohol and everything for the music industry was pretty prevalent and a lot of good people got trapped into that and but he he is an incredible musician and incredible songwriter and during the interview he talked about one of his songs was about this guy and i wish i would know and and cliff is probably one person who knows what i'm talking about um but i'm not going to say it right so he probably won't but he was talking about this writer who talked about and i think it became a movie or something but every time you wear a different pair of glasses you see a different story and it was a way of storytelling like put this glass these glasses on and you'll get a new story so it kind of really prompted me to when you talked about it it was like that was so i went right to that what he taught me it was like wow you know it's so easy to change up the story change the narrative you can do that yourself and cliff your time about the power of change it is that because that is inevitable that is the one thing we are all guaranteed in life change happens period but the the idea of these sunglasses gave you a different story like you could just pick a different you know the guy would go to antique store and buy people's sunglasses so that he could see different stories it's pretty cool i wish i knew what i'm i have to go back and find it because cliff i know you're gonna know i'm just not telling it right i'm not a good storyteller on that level but um how cool is that go to an antique store and buy up glasses to see if you get a new story like it's great i mean yeah i like it yeah and i think it's just as important to understand what our story is so it's both parts and i loved all the stories that everyone told today that i love that thing what you see it's been great well thank you all for joining us i have one thing to before you go we always like you know and and endings that are happy right um i have to be careful i think i do so each of you if we look as we move forward right um in the future here and you look at your life right now okay and think about the next five years which anything could change right anything can happen but the next five years give me one word about the next five years it could just be a feeling that you have right now but it's a quick word so let's start with you cliff what is a word book well done and go to cliffordgarstang.com for them there it is um what about you lisa travel mmm joe one i knew it are you kidding me well i want to send travel but lisa just said travel um sorry i'm gonna bring glasses to like sunglasses to the next meeting here uh johnnie what about you love mmm very good rita uh connection mmm lovely i love it i love it might as happy just happy be happy now put all those words together in a sentence and and put that that'll be the tag line yeah exactly exactly um now i feel like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich i have no idea why but i do uh a really good one a really good one thank you all so much everyone again the links are always in the episode notes from everyone who's on the show every show we do but i want you to know go to half glass will travel.com if you want wine and travel that's where to go if you want to hear good music go to here johnnie.com read good books go to cliffordgarstang.com if you want to go around the world too and read good stories and even get a book and go to coastal mrs sippy go to writer lisa.com and if you want to get better in your workplace as a leader or just even as an employee right not just i didn't mean it that way but really no matter where you are in your workplace career go to supervision matters.com thank you all so much thank you to meet all of pleasure bye-bye so in keeping up with our life lessons from baby boomers we have jeff nelligan here uh jeff is an author and he's got quite a resume so go to his website nelliganbooks.com he was on our show about a month and a half ago talking about his book four lessons from my three sons how you can raise resilient kids so jeff welcome back how are you hey lisa it's great to be back and boy what a great topic you guys have all happened upon here well i think it's baby boomers month or baby boomers appreciation month august is and so before we end the month we thought we better skid in here with some good lessons and um our panel discussion was really fascinating going into just some real values that sometimes i think we may lose and also talking about the value of change so what is your lesson when it comes to life lessons from the boomers you know the whole idea of looking at boomers it's such a great one there are so many of us you know it was the largest generation up to that time 76 million individuals in that generation 46 to 1964 now only exceeded by gen z at around 79 million but what i think the biggest takeaways is i look around at all my peers and colleagues in that age group is that most of them in terms of the ones that i was around just had this propensity to grind it out whatever they were doing and this goes from when i was in elementary school in junior high and high school all the way through now let's say 40 years later 45 years later in the workforce the individuals i was around men and women just had this incredible ability to grind through things to get over obstacles and setbacks sometimes large sometimes small and that is you know one of the one of the results of that of course is it's where the wealthiest generation ever in the history of mankind in terms of you know asset value property and incomes and holdings so if i look at the one lesson is just that determination and discipline and not not all but most of the many the hundred maybe thousands of boomers that i know to from an early age to today and that's that's i think the biggest lesson that that i can draw from it i think you know you're really right i you know it's so it's kind of like get on with it you know and and maybe not panic too when situations arise it's like okay problem solve and go to the next hurdle and i think there was an understanding that you're gonna fall down and i think that sometimes we forget that now in in today's world that failure is part of success it really is and stumbling is not a bad thing um it sucks at the time and you're allowed to say well this sucks but here you are right but but then you you've got to kind of move on and i think that's something you know what i've learned too is that i think it's goes to that topic we talked about when you first came on the show is resiliency and and that's about keep going when you talk about grind it out it's keep going right correct and you know resiliency's a great word you know and when we spoke earlier i talked about the fact that kids and adults no one gets a free ride everyone hits a setback in an obstacle that they have to get over or get around and then move on i also think that that sense of resiliency was learned from our parents our parents were the greatest generation truly and you know myself like every every colleague and everybody that i knew from elementary school on our dads had served in world war two and prior to that they'd been in the Great Depression and my own my own father you know uh was 15 years old working in a vanadium mine um in the Sierra Nevada mountains that that was his summer job a mile below the the surface of the earth and then when he turned 17 and a half he was drafted and went into the navy and that at age 18 was participated in the invasion of oak and owl and then had to come home in 1946 not having seen his family for nearly two years to take care of his father so we learned firsthand how tough our parents had had it and my mom's story is very much the same so i guess that that example of strength was part of our own lifetimes growing up and maybe that contributes as you as you noted earlier to that resiliency and your dad fighting in Okinawa is the bloodiest battle man that was that was a hardcore battle we just had a podcast on it and i was like wow and people forget that battle too it's kind of like the korean wars also kind of forgotten i think sometimes and and when we talk about wars and and battles um they just kind of get swept under the rug but they were hardcore man your dad was a binder yeah okay now is 12,000 american dead now can you imagine that can you imagine that figure today yeah but that's that's what it took so if your father and your has been through something like that and prior to great depression then you're learning from a man who's seen just about seeing it all yeah exactly most if not all of my peer my friends growing up male and female and fathers who had done that same thing and moms who had lived through great depression so you get that inner strength by looking at the model that your your parents have provided it's interesting too because through the boomer generation there's a lot of changes that also came about and you also think you know here's this military side right and then you've got the hippie side and then all the hippies with communes and then all the communes closed down and they went and made a bunch of money and IBM and all kinds of things right well come on it's kind of true right and you know so there's all these these changes too social changes you know the culture change pop culture like gosh I mean look what was going on with music and so all these different belief systems were invading at that time and so there was a lot of experimentation and all kinds of things not just drugs but you know there was a lot of different new ideas and it's just an era of change I think that you know you've got to think about what boomers have also seen over the years I mean you know back in the day you know remember phones that you had to actually turn to make the numbers you know go around and now we're walking around with you know google on a phone I mean it's kind of crazy you know people going up through the moon I mean you know before that and now look what's going on we're looking at space tourism so you know when you think about that to now it's pretty epic and it's like wow and that just proves the world is never going to stop changing so it's up to us there's another lesson of you know you're going to have to change you're going to have to change with it or it'll change you for you the technological advances that you just pointed out so well you know 1967 we 69 we land on the moon and they're doing most of the engineers at the time and I grew up in Los Angeles which was a huge aerospace area most the engineers are working with slide rules and now as you perfectly know we walk around with a supercomputer in our pockets and we take and we start to whine when we're only getting you know 3g instead of 5g so that technological change is really you know brought a new perspective on what we think is you know a serious problem versus what people put up with let's say even 35 years ago yes I agree yeah and it's I think I'm so glad we're doing this show because I think it's lessons that right now we have to kind of go back to some lessons are you just you know the life and the world may change but some lessons and some basic you know you know values of character and how we handle things those things you know you could have a different circumstance but it's how you're handling yourself those things don't have to change you know me unless you improve unless you're improving right we want you to improve we all want to improve right but you know what I mean there's just you know whether it's a World War 3 another depression I mean we've been you know hanging on to the way the economy is is like let's hang on two strings everybody and swing around and hope we keep going so it's good to look in history too of how people were resilient through such devastating and hard times you know right it's hard times will always come around right but our hard times today are nothing you know during your depression you had families that you know majority of families the United States that more than 50 percent of their daily intake was bred and today you know you can look at the bottom 20 percent of the population you know in perhaps let's say 11 percent of people are in poverty but take that 20 percent they have a higher standard living than the average the average citizen in Europe from everything from being having air conditioning and a car to the living space being triple the United States for the bottom 20 percent than it is for the average person in Europe so you know our our sense of what is really a catastrophe has is just kind of eroded over over the years and with that great wealth that I just that I discussed earlier that we boomers have accumulated has become has come real complacency and then again that that immediate automatic reversion to complaining about things like the 5G is too slow rather than 60 percent of my diet is bred yeah really really it's such a big deal good stuff Jeff always good to have you on the show I'm excited because we're gonna be doing more with you everyone Nelligan books.com is the website to go to he's even got political books in there because Jeff knows about politics isn't this a fun time to be alive this year it certainly is it's interesting that's for sure so everyone again go get four lessons from my three sons how you can raise resilient kids check that out again by Jeff Nelligan thanks so much Jeff. Hey thank you for having me Lisa. Thank you for listening to Big Blend Radio. Keep up with our shows at bigblendradio.com
