Well, hello and welcome to Boomer Banter, the podcast where we have real talk about aging well. My name is Wendy Green and I am your host. And with many years of aging well experience and many more to come, I am here to tackle all the uncomfortable, unexpected, and hopefully life affirming questions that you have been pondering to help make the journey of aging well a little less rocky and a lot more fun. So if you want to age well, you are in the right place.

And today is episode 200. Oh my gosh! Four and a half years ago I started this show and here we are at the 200th episode. So I have a question for you.

Do you like roller coaster rides? You know, the anticipation as the car is moving up the incline, the anxiety and the excitement lodged in the back of your throat, and suddenly you're looking over the edge, holding on tight as the car goes careening down and whipping around the curves.

Until you start to climb again. What if you experience this feeling month after month, quarter after quarter, year after year? It would be exhausting and exciting and motivating and scary and creative and stimulating.

And this has been my life as a podcast host, coach, and community builder for the past four and a half years.

And I love it. Here we are at episode 200, and what a journey it has been. I have been reviewing journals from the past four years to review the history of Boomer banter. And I am excited to start this history lesson with you, and to start with you. The first roller coaster climb. So let me take you back to March 20th, 2020. It was a week after the company I was working for shut down because of the pandemic. The idea of Hey Boomer, which was the original name of the podcast first came to me on March 20th. You know that saying, when one door closes, another door opens, Well, that really has always been what I have experienced. And so when the door got shut because of the pandemic, I started to think, what could I do? I have always been a person that teaches and inspires, that encourages.

I've always been somebody that needs to feel a sense of purpose to feel fulfilled, but I didn't know how I was going to do that. in isolation and I sure did not know about podcasts.

So I started to think, well, maybe I could do something like an online magazine that we could include written content and video because I knew from my past coaching experience, I knew that finding a job after 50 is not an easy thing and that so many of us We're going to be negatively impacted by this pandemic, shutting everything down, that I wanted to find a way to reach out to people and encourage them that we still matter. We're still engaged. We still have so much left to give. So that was my thinking in March. Of course, when you're coming up with something new. That can be exciting. There's also all of those fears that start talking to you, like fear of failure. What if nobody was really interested in what I wanted to talk about? What if I couldn't even figure out what I was going to talk about? All kinds of self doubt started coming into my mind. But then I wrote in my journal, and I was so happy to see this, I wrote in my journal, and I But

the biggest failure would come from not trying. So on April 13th of 2020, I launched the very first show of what was then called Hey Boomer as a Facebook live.

And that's where I introduced my thoughts of what I was going to talk about What my goals were for this, this show I was putting on. Now the roller coaster is starting to gain momentum. So June 8th, two months in, and I love doing the show. And it brings me great fulfillment and meaning in my life. I feel creative. I feel encouraged by the support of friends and guests. Two months in, maybe it's time to think about monetizing the show. Okay. That was probably not very realistic at the time, but you know, what did I know? I didn't know anything about these shows and what I was putting together. So I thought, well, okay, how am I going to do this? I had heard about the buy me a coffee. website where people could make a contribution to the creative work that you were doing. Maybe I'll try that. I thought about, maybe I should write a book. Wasn't exactly sure what I was going to write the book about, but it was a thought. I thought, Oh, maybe I should pitch the show to NPR or iHeartRadio. Okay. So here we are four years later, and I'm starting to think about that idea again. But back then, two months in, Um, probably not very realistic, but hey, I give myself credit for dreaming and thinking about what was possible. Here we are at the end of June 2020, and I thought, I'm going to build a community around this whole idea of Boomer staying engaged. And I wrote,

being part of the Hey Boomer community means that you see yourself as relevant As involved, as curious, and interested in life and other people. The idea of community is about belonging to something.

Fellowship, caring, and sharing. Oh yes, we're definitely going to build a community. Okay, so let's move along. We're still climbing the hill of this roller coaster, and now we're four months in. It's August 7th. And I woke up with the word purposeful in my thoughts. Hmm, must be time to define my purpose with this Boomer community that I'm creating. You know, like when you start a new business, you're supposed to have a mission and vision statement. So I needed a purpose statement. So I wrote, my purpose with Hey Boomer is to bring stories of relevance, importance, and inspiration to my community. My purpose with myself, to myself with Hey Boomer, is to learn to grow and provide myself with an income while also being fulfilled by the work I'm doing and the people I am meeting. If I look at that purpose statement today, I think we still do a lot of that. We build, we bring stories of relevance, importance, and inspiration to this community. And it brings me a lot. of fulfillment and I am meeting the most incredible people and now four and a half years in we're starting to see a little bit of income come in so we're on the way but now it's early September five months in the roller coaster of podcasting is now starting to reach that point on the ride where you wonder if it was really a good idea to get on the ride there's lots more work than anticipated. At this point, five months in, there's still no money coming in. Growth seems kind of slow. How come I don't already have 10, 000 listeners? Well, this, I have learned, is the point where many podcasters quit. In fact, a majority of shows that get started Quit after 10 episodes because they are not seeing the growth and the monetization that they originally thought they would but I really did love what I was doing and what I was learning some of the things I was learning was I had gone from the first couple of shows. as just a Facebook live to streaming live on Facebook and YouTube and now also on LinkedIn. In five months, I had learned about sound and I got a professional microphone. I'd learned about lighting and setup. I developed a process. Processes, let's say for scheduling guests, finding guests for writing the, the script and the show notes for promoting the show to do a tech check before every show to make sure that my guests can log on and everything looks good to downloading the recordings to editing to distributing. There were so many pieces to this. And I developed a process and I learned that I had to increase my internet speed to handle live streaming.

Ready to careen down the roller coaster hill and whip around some curves? Now we're picking up speed and we're in 2021.

The pandemic is still raging. I was feeling the pain of isolation and wanted to find a way to be more engaged. And I still, even to this day, want to grow the show. So I signed up for coaching through the Podcast Marketing Academy. I am still a member of that organization and I learn something from them every day.

There is more to learn about podcasting than I will probably master in a lifetime.

I also started to host events, and these allowed us to be outside and socially distanced. The first event that we did was a forest bathing event, and this was because of a guest that I had. And what we learned in forest bathing was how to be present. as you're walking in the woods or the forest. You experience everything with all of your senses, your sights, the sound, the smells, the, the touch of the different textures in the forest. It's an amazing experience. to take your time to walk through the forest. Another event that we did was we went to see the organic garden at Furman University. One of our guests talked about sustainable housing and sustainable gardening and at Furman they had a southern living home that had been built as a home and their garden. So that was a tour that we took. We also had a guest who produces some organic liqueurs. And so I took a group of people to visit their farm and we got to see all of the different herbs that they were growing to make the liqueurs. They took us through the process of distilling the herbs into the final liqueurs and the packaging of it. And then we got And also in 2021, I tried The, um, experience of what I called walkabouts where I would meet once a month or once a week with a follower of the show. And we would go on a walk and it was an opportunity for them to learn about me, for me to learn about them. And then I would write a blog about it. Most of them were local. A couple of them were not local. And we actually, Walked in different locations, but talked over the phone. I enjoyed it a lot. Um, just, you know, it kind of burned itself out. And so that was another attempt. And you know, like with any new business, new endeavor, you're always trying new things to see what works, what is engaging and what doesn't work that you need to let go of. I also began the tradition of taking July off. To regroup, refresh, and recharge. definitely something that I needed to do. In 2022, Road Scholar came on as a sponsor and offered me the opportunity to host a Road Scholar trip. That was an amazing and exciting opportunity, and I was able to take 10 people with me to Costa Rica. Hopefully we will do another trip like that soon. I also began coaching. I had written a program for a six week program, taking people through the transition from leaving their current state of employment to what are they going to do next when they retire? So much better to kind of have a plan before you get there. And so I took on some coaching groups and some coaching individuals in 2022. And then in March, again, the questions start coming up. It's the work I'm doing. Does it matter to anyone? I don't see you. I'm behind the microphone. Who's listening? This is a common dilemma for podcasters. I hear it a lot in the groups that I'm in. Most people listen to podcasts while they're driving or walking or exercising or doing something else. Stopping to leave a comment, Or a review is not always convenient.

One of the joys of having a live version of the show is when my viewers leave comments, even if it's just to say, hello, I love knowing that what I am sharing is interesting enough to bring you back time after time.

And I thank you for that. So some of my, Oh, no moments from the past four years. There was the interview where I was talking to a gentleman and it was, well, I was really kind of struggling with this interview, pulling things out of him when all of a sudden he said to me, well, I got to go, and he disconnected. We were about 20 minutes into the show. That was a total surprise. I had one guest from California. And, and for those of you who watch live, you know that I do this live at one o'clock, every Monday at Eastern time. And I always get on a little early so that I can get my guest on and we chat a little bit and get comfortable. Well, she wasn't there and she wasn't there. And about four, I think it was about four minutes before the show, I called her. I said, where are you? And she said, well, the show's at one. I said, one Eastern. So she hurried to put some makeup on and get ready. I started the show before she joined and trying to stretch out my intro a little bit. And she finally got on and we had a great show. There was a time I lost my voice. Oof. That was a tough one. But I asked a former guest, I said, look, I write all my questions out. I don't always follow them, but I write them out. You know, could you do this for me? I'll do the intro, scratchy throat and all. So we started and then my internet went down and, and I knew he was just asking questions. He wasn't doing any follow on or anything. So I quickly picked up my phone, got on the text. I'm saying, I'm trying to get on, you know, keep going. Ask a follow up, ask this, ask this. Fortunately, finally my internet came back on and. We managed to get going again. So that was, whew, that was a tough live experience. I did have one show where I couldn't go live. That was my guest from Australia. The time difference was just too great. So we ended up recording that show. I did start it out live, played the recording and ended it out live. But, um, Yeah, we couldn't find a time for Australia to do a live show some of the great highlights. Okay, so when I started this show, I put a flip chart on the wall where I listed out some of my goals. I do this every year, but that very first year, one of the things on my flip chart said one of these days, somebody is going to reach out to me and ask to be on my show instead of me always having to try and find somebody to be on the show. And it happened. It happened towards the end of that first year. I was ecstatic. It was like, Oh my gosh, somebody found, I was, I just can't even tell you. I was so excited. And now that happens quite a bit, you know, I'll have people reach out that hear about the show or, um, book publicists will reach out and tell me about some new book that's out there. So now it happens. More often, but, um, there's still a lot of searching for, for the right guests. I've also changed locations several times. I've started, um, delivering the show from my living room. Then I moved to my dining room. Then I moved to my kitchen. And now I'm in my office. And I really like Being in my office, I like the pictures behind me. I like the colors on the walls. So, another thing is over the years I added opening music and I have changed that a few times. And then this past January we rebranded from Hey Boomer to Boomer Banter, real talk about aging well, and that's been a good change. It gives people a better understanding of what the show's about should they find it. on, the podcast apps.

Before I get to the next section where I'm going to talk about what I've learned about myself. I just want to take a little pause here to talk about our sponsor road scholar.

let's see things I've learned about myself. Whoa, boy, I'll tell you, there's a lot of learning about yourself when you are putting together a show on different topics with different guests. And one thing I have learned is To be more accepting of it's good enough. It doesn't have to be perfect. I spent hours trying to make everything so perfect. And I was, I was burning out. I was really, it was stressing me out. And so I have learned to put together, What I think is a really great show with great guests and wonderful insights. And it's not always perfect, but it's always good enough. I am still learning how to deal with being overwhelmed. Sometimes there is more to do than I feel like I can possibly get done. And that's when I have to. Kind of step away for a few minutes, walk around, walk outside, walk around the house, depending on the weather and cut and reorient my priorities, you know, what is going to happen if I don't get this done or if I don't get that done and figure out what's the most important to do and then be okay with that again, doesn't have to be perfect. I learned about courage and taking a risk. Remember I said the biggest failure would be not to try. I learned and I'm still learning about technology and tools for podcasting. I learned and I'm still learning about what makes a good podcast opening. An opening is You know, when you listen live, when you listen to a podcast and you don't see anybody, it's got to grab you right away. You want to know that it's going to be worth your time to stay and listen to the rest of the show. So. Tell them a good story about what you're going to talk about right at the beginning. And I learned and I'm still learning about interviewing. I am learning about being vulnerable and sharing some of my fears and concerns and excitements and traumas and all of that stuff. And I'm learning to let go of what I cannot control. And some of my guests and followers sent in I was hoping that I would get a bunch of questions to answer for you for the show. And I did get some. And one of these How do I find my guests when I don't know them personally? Courage. That's the only thing I can say. I go on LinkedIn a lot and I look for specific topics that might have people that are interested. professionals around those certain topics, caregiving or relationships or different medical issues. And I, I see what they have posted. I see who they're connected to and then I'll just reach out and I'll say, I have a show and here's what it's about. And I wonder if you'd be a guest. And to my wonderful surprise, nine times out of 10 people have said yes, they would love to be a guest. So that's been a great learning for me that, you know, if you just ask so many times, people will say yes. I had another question from Janine, who was a former guest. Janine has a organization called changing the narrative. And she asked me, how can we organize podcasters as a force to overcome ageism? So I started to think about that. I was like, Hmm, let's see, how have we overcome other things in the past? And the thing that came to mind was smoking, how we have cut down smoking in this country. And I think the way that has happened is because we have heard over and over so many times. about how bad smoking is for us. And so I thought, well, if we hear over and over so many times, About ageism and internal ageism and how we can overcome that the more we become aware of it. So what if I got together a group of other podcasters that talked about similar things about aging, well, about overcoming ageism, about health as we age. And we form a group where we co promote each other's show. So if you like what you're hearing here, you might also like this other show. And if you start to listen to that show too, you're hearing a different perspective, another way of thinking about getting older. And a positive outlook and it's helping us overcome our own internal biases that stop us that say, Oh, I'm too old. I can't learn things as quickly. I don't really, I'm afraid to try. You know, I can't physically all the excuses that we make about aging. The more that we hear, you know, things are possible. Sometimes we have to adjust. We have to learn, but we have so much wisdom already about how to, how to be resilient, how to adjust to changes. And so the more we hear it, maybe the better we'll be at stopping our own internal ageism. Another question I had was from Josephine and she said, if you didn't do a podcast and you were not on the podcast platforms, What would you do instead? That was an interesting question. And I, I really thought about it because if I look back at my journals before I started this, I was not happy in the work I was doing. I was I was not fulfilled. I was, uh, I was not in the right position really for my skills and talents. And so as I was getting close to 65, 66, I was thinking, well, you know, just be done and, and stop trying to work so hard in the corporate world. What if you do something that's easier? And one of the ideas I had was I'm just going to buy an RV and start traveling across the country. Another idea I had was, well, I like gardening. Maybe I'll go work at the garden center at Lowe's. Or I think I'll go work as a barista at Starbucks. Would those have fulfilled me? Well, I don't know, maybe, but the door closed on my job due to the pandemic, which meant that the door closed on the retail options I was thinking about. And it turns out I was not confident about RVing as a solo woman, mainly because I knew I didn't have the skills to fix something that might break in the RV as I was out on the road. You know, no doubt. I could have learned a lot of those skills, but it really wasn't something I was ready to take on at the time. So my resilience muscle. Then DeGearan imagined a community where we felt engaged and meaningful, and I guess boomer banter was meant to be. The last two questions were, one was from Autumn, where she says, what have been some of the best aha moments you have had in interviewing this diverse group of guests? And the second one was, what have you learned from your guests, That you have implemented in your life. So I'm going to answer those two kind of back to back because I think they go together in a lot of ways. Aha moments to me mean inspiring moments, and there have been so many. I've had many inspiring guests on my show, women talking about overcoming breast cancer, and then becoming activists to defeat breast cancer. Poets who are able to get to the essence of our feelings. People who had a dream and went for it regardless of how old they were. I learned a lot from all the guests I've had on that have spoken about Alzheimer's. We've talked about it from the aspect of beautiful questions. We went through the book by Dr. Carlowish, The Problem of Alzheimer's about the history of Alzheimer's and how we lost research time because of the loss of some of the Jewish doctors who were working on this. When Hitler came into power. We have talked with the Alzheimer's Association about their walk to end Alzheimer's and we've talked about Alzheimer's from a caregiver perspective. So there have been a lot of ways we've looked at it and I find all of them inspiring and I've learned from them. But to follow on what have I learned from the guests that I've implemented into my life? I would say forest bathing is one of the things I used to go on a hike to get from A to B. Now, I go on a hike to be present in the woods. And to experience all of the sights and sounds and smells and feelings and everything that is around me and to appreciate it at a much slower pace and a much more satisfying pace. I also thought back to the episode that we did on the Mother's Day movement, where they say instead of buying flowers for your mother, if you donate to the Mother's Day movement, you are donating to a specific charity a year that is providing care, or education, or food, or clean water, or whatever. To a whole community of mothers to provide them a better life and their Children a better life. And that episode was very meaningful to me and I continue to contribute to their efforts. I did a show with a man named John Weiss. He is a former police chief, retired police chief, who then moved into art and writing and cartooning in the beginning of his retirement. And now he is Um, really spending a lot of time on photography and writing very thoughtful, uh, newsletters. And so I've been inspired to subscribe to his newsletter, as well as to several other newsletters of guests that I've had. I've done a couple of podcast episodes relating to travel. and Road Scholar and single women traveling and grandparent traveling. But for now, my grandchildren have outgrown the grandparent trip. Oh well, that doesn't mean I've outgrown travel. I'm still going to travel and hopefully with Road Scholar. And then I'd have to think about diet and exercise. So at first I resisted doing episodes about diet and exercise because I thought it was all about advocating programs just so we could maintain our youthful figures. And I never bought into the idea of wishful thinking about various diet programs. When I talk about aging well, it is not only about how we look. It is about how healthy we are. Once I found people to talk about diet and exercise from a health perspective, I was off and running. We have had five guests over the last year or so that have talked to us about health and wellness. And then after my last physical, some of my numbers were not what they needed to be. My doctor wanted me to go on medication. I wanted the chance to work with a coach on a health and wellness program. So I signed up to work with Kim Rahir. Kim was the episode where she talked to us about being diagnosed with MS and She started on this diet and exercise program, and she has since won several weightlifting championships in the European market in her age group. So I'm not going for any championships. I just want to bring down my numbers without medication. We've been working together remotely. Kim is in Spain for five weeks, and I have to tell you, I am really seeing a difference. I'm seeing a difference in how I feel. I have lost a few pounds. But building strength and it's all about a new way of eating and not just, uh, it's not a diet, you know, it's about how we eat and how we think about eating. So it's been a great experience. So to wrap up some of my questions that I've been asked and what I've learned and how I'm implementing it, I take my time in the woods being more aware. I continue to support the Mother's Day movement. I've subscribed to several newsletters that my guests send out. And I look forward to seeing what they're thinking about. I'm continuing to travel when it is possible. And I'm excited to be working with my health coach, Kim, and happy to share her information with you if you are interested. So here we are, episode 200, and mostly it's about you. I am so appreciative. that you take the time out of your busy schedule to listen weekly to the Boomer Banter Show. Without you, I would just be talking to myself. You give me meaning and purpose, and I thank you so much for that. If you would like to reach out to me, you can email me at wendy at heyboomer. biz. You can also go to the website, heyboomer. biz, and click on connect with us, and then you'll be in the loop. Every time there's a new show, a new thought, a new activity, a new blog, um, I encourage you to do that. So next week for episode 201, we're going to explore the management of an estate after a loved one dies. It is crazy the amount of paperwork and steps and research and phone calls that are required to close out an estate, even when you think you have all the paperwork in order. My guest next week is Adam Zuckerman, and he is the founder of an online platform called buried in work. They specialize in estate planning and organization, end of life tasks, and estate transitions. And Adam founded this company because of his experience trying to manage his father's estate after he passed, and they truly thought they had everything in order. So I hope you'll tune in for that.

Each episode of Boomer Banter is an invitation to listen, learn, and apply the wisdom gained to your own life. I hope tonight, today's episode has been full of wisdom and insight into the life of a podcaster and into the history of Boomer Banter. Boomer Banter is a supportive community, so join us as we age well together. The Boomer Banter podcast is produced by me, Wendy Green, and the music comes from Purple Planet Music. Thank you all. I will see you next

week.