Welcome back to our month on navigating relationships. In our first Toolbox episode of this month, we took a step back and we talked about dealing with uncertainty and relationships in general. Then we examined navigating a leadership role at work and those four tasks we need to do from the start of day one. We also ended that episode with a question that we get many times. How do I find new friends after I move to a new city? In the second Toolbox episode of this month, we talked about going into a committed relationship and maybe even moving in together and some of the ways in which to talk about finances with your partner and why this is so important. Lastly, we gave some tips on how to deal with romantic relationships that are growing apart. In today's episode, we're going to talk with David Romanelli. In 2017, David began a series of events he called drinks with your elders. In those, he brought the younger generation as well as people in their 80s, 90s and even 100s together and gave the elders a stage to share their stories and life experiences. Out of this came a best-selling book, Lessons from the Oldest and Wisest. In that book, he shares the wisdom that they shared with him at these events and in interviews. That book combines almost 2,000 years of life experience. We're so excited to have you join us here today, David. Thank you. Great to be with you guys.  Why did you choose to talk to your elders? It goes back to my last surviving grandparent. She was in an old age home, a really nice old age home in LA and I saw that it felt like we put her out to pasture. She was disconnected. She didn't have a voice in popular culture. She was lonely and yet she had so much wisdom, so much to share. I started to realize, hey, there's this huge disconnect here and why are we not more connected with the oldest and wisest in our communities? Your book combines 2,000 years of life experience. Who doesn't want that knowledge? We were talking just before on our way over here today. We see elders in certain cultures being revered, like in Native American Indians and Asian cultures and we just don't have that here in America and it's a shame because of course you're going to learn a lot and this is why we were so excited to be talking to you today. Thank you. Yeah, it's like you turn on the light for people and we have these Instagram stars with huge followings and we look to them for wisdom and then there's like the 97-year-old Holocaust survivor who's sitting alone at the old age home and it just feels like there's a disconnect and a conversation to kind of fire up. And it's fun for us because normally we talk about how to connect and relate to people who are of your generation, who are your age. That's what most of our audience wants to do but when we think about a lot of the anxiety that drives our feelings and emotions now in our youth is around things that honestly our elders have lived through, experienced, moved well beyond and could probably let us in on a little secret that it's not that big of a deal, right? The perspective that that generation, I mean you talk to somebody who fought in World War II, talk to somebody who survived the Holocaust and sometimes people have stories about the Great Depression and it's like puts everything in perspective. Right, you talk about, you know, hashtag first world problems and the things that we stress about, right, no Wi-Fi, the wires are crossed, oh there's buzzing in my headphones, right? These are things that the greatest generation laugh at as how could this be a struggle. Well I think that's where the issue is, like it was yesterday I had saw an article where this Instagram models account had been deleted and she had posted a new one and she was crying because she didn't know what to do with the rest of her life and you know imagine this that she's going to ask her 90 year old grandmother what to do in this moment and her grandmother's like laughing like listen it's not a big deal you're gonna get over it's like grandma's is not getting it okay like forget her I can see where that disconnect will lie because there's not going to be much empathy for your Instagram account getting deleted when she had just rolled through the depression or whatever it might be, right? Yeah and it's not to take away I mean our problems are real and you know the headaches are real it's not to take away from from our problems but to sit in a room and actually listen to somebody who went through that stuff and give them a chance to share their story you never forget it it's much different than watching the history channel or reading it in a book so and I mean talk about resilience right living through some of those tragedies builds a level of resilience that a lot of us just haven't had the life experience even built yeah and that's why I think the intergenerational mix I mean because it's not just learning from their resilience but the older people they need our energy and they need our attention they need our help so it's a great exchange and I think what's so fascinating is you you look at both ends both generations and here with the youth they're feeling more and more disconnected and more lonely and technology is fueling a lot of that and you look at our elders and much like that family member of yours right they're often an old age home typically by themselves they don't have their partners have not survived with them their friends have passed away and they're sitting there in loneliness and taking some time to bridge that gap I think it's just so key yeah the loneliness is I mean it's an epidemic if you know there's I think there's a statistic like it's like when you're really lonely it's the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day and every most everyone I know has some kind of loneliness spending 10 hours a day looking at a screen and you can get away with it I mean for days and weeks at a time you just kind of burrow into your screen we go from one screen to the next and we forget how good it feels to have a human experience and for some of these people that you had a chance to down have a conversation with you know how connected do they feel to their family members into their community are they truly as isolated as we think it depends I mean more often than not they're sort of at the inflection point where it could go either way I think that's what you commonly see but sometimes you see somebody who has incredible vitality and usually they're part of like a community like one guy who's 101 goes to his synagogue like five five days a week and engages with the children engages with the community and then there's people who I met in New York City who feel invisible to the world even though they're in the busiest city in the world so it really varies and I think it with that idea of being part of community can fuel that vitality can fuel that youth and I feel like as we move to more and more loneliness depression creeps in and that's really when your health starts to wane yeah I mean it's it's a big issue that's becoming a bigger issue and I think it's it's important right now you know with all the technology becoming more efficient and more integrated we have to take a stand in some way where we we bring more human interaction into our lives well if you pulled most people would say that they they would want community and they would interact in a community that they would share their interests but when the actuality is and we've experienced this when you present a lot of people with this opportunity they're like yeah I'm busy this week because you know leaving the house and have to meet new people and being intimidating it's intimidating and we've you know we we're trying to make these experiences as as least jarring as possible I mean but it's always for all of us when we put ourselves in these situations even for us last week doing something for the first time going to do the Tough Mudder once you're in it you're like thank God and left the house you're in it yeah no I mean when I do these drinks with your elders events it's like pulling teeth to get people to do something that's different to go come and talk to their elders it's like why would I do that you know I can just watch TV tonight that's so much easier so putting yourself into a new situation is not easy but it's so rewarding when you hear stories from a completely different era that you're not going to hear about when you're hanging out with your friends in our society segregated by age and we need to shuffle the deck on that I would think when you tell most of the people about this you know oh we're doing this thing it's drinks owner oh that sounds amazing you're like oh well it's tomorrow night eight o'clock oh yeah well I got something going on is it the pistons on tonight yeah that's exactly what happens it's not it's like I was saying I got come from the yoga world in 20 years ago we were promoting yoga in the community it was hard to get people to come to yoga class and now you're promoting come listen to your elders and it's it's hard to get people to show up but I do believe that our society's trending and people are gonna want more connection with the elder generation now I think for a lot of us myself included when I think about the elders in my family there is a little bit of intimidation around this age gap and how do I navigate that and how do I spark conversation did you feel intimidated when you started sitting down with elders especially elders you didn't know I still do it's like you know I'm I'm married now and I don't I don't go to bars and and you know have that lifestyle but when I approach an elder for the first time it's almost like that kind of shyness and I don't know if they're gonna engage with me so it's almost still a little bit awkward but after a maybe an awkward moment they're also they're so grateful and so appreciative that a younger person took the time to engage to ask them how they're doing because most of the time younger people see older people as obsolete taking up space they wouldn't have anything interesting to share it's just the stereotype unfortunately yeah and to Johnny's point you know I think as we've moved as a society we have come to a place now where we're not seeing our elders move back in with us and and be nurtured in their old age but instead we're leaving that to professionals we're parking them in Boca Raton we're putting them somewhere else and then you know we get the occasional visit but outside of that occasional visit they're not really getting the communication certainly not someone sitting down to listen to those stories yeah it's not it's not in the kind of the fabric of American culture you know it's like we're very about individuality and everyone's gonna follow their own path and coming together bringing the extended family together is not really the way that we do it but people pay the price I mean there's a lot of loneliness and a lot of separation and we can do better we have to do better and one of the most common questions we get asked here and obviously social media is fueling this is how do I stop comparing myself to others and you got a great story some advice from an elder that I thought was pretty poignant yeah there was this lady Linda Jones and her dad was the iconic illustrator Chuck Jones who created a lot of the Looney Tunes and when she was Linda Jones was young she felt badly because she wasn't kind of keeping up with her father's success so she wrote him a letter because back then they wrote letters and he wrote she wrote him a letter and said dad I feel badly about myself I'm not keeping up with your success and and he wrote her back and he said Linda get the fuck off my mountain you have your mountain to climb I have mine and she said she snapped into place and realized you know it wasn't her destiny to try to keep up with her father I thought it was such great advice you know to follow your own path and don't compare yourself to everyone else yeah look at it as your own mountain and we're all to that matter and different places on the mountain right someone else's mountain top is going to be different than your own and I think that's really powerful yeah you know another interesting thing when I talk to a lot of old people you almost never hear them brag about their accomplishments in life you know it's like the greatest accomplishment is not what you have to show for yourself but who's showing up for you and that's really refreshing to hear that they didn't they don't talk about how much money they made in the mountains they they climb they talk about the love that they have in their life and the relationships they cultivated so that's what's really important yeah and there was a very powerful moment in one of your videos where you were sitting down with a gentleman and he basically was the only survivor out of his friends and family members and you asked him how that made him feel knowing that his friends have passed his spouses passed and he said he feels lucky and you know I found that so striking because I feel you know a lot of us would look at that perspective and say like oh he must be really sad he must be really lonely and hear him say no I feel lucky you know I'm here I'm talking to you I'm having a great conversation like that was really powerful yeah I think that's one of the things that goes into living your very old age is that there has to be a sense of gratitude and appreciation because if you wake up in a lousy mood all day chances are you're not going to live as old as you potentially could yeah yeah carrying that stress definitely damages your health and physiology and you know I feel that one of the greatest lessons that we could learn from our elders is is truly how to be happy I think everyone is searching for happiness we all we've talked about happiness on the show and how important purposes what were some of the lessons around happiness that that you picked up from the elders I think the greatest lesson I learned was from this lady she was 111 so yeah that's that qualified her as a super centenarian so of the 7 billion people on the planet there's only about 60 people who are 110 or older quite the club yeah it's a special club they're hard to find and I asked this lady what were your secrets to health and longevity in and she said sex vodka and spicy food so that the joie de vivre is common in the oldest of all that they do something each day that allows them to loosen their grip and enjoy life right to really maximize that fulfillment instead of taking those small things and holding on to them you know I cruising on social media I always stumble upon I think that there was the one African American World War two that who had passed away he was about 107 and he was smoking cigars and drinking beer up until it's like right on yeah yeah and you know the funniest the oldest lady ever her name was Jean Calmont she lived to be 122 and she ate two pounds of chocolate a week which isn't cigars but still you a lot of chocolate absolutely a lot of chocolate the secret to longevity here we go you know I was it was that video that we were just discussing and then she had also been married five times and you know Johnny goes my first thought was hell no and I I grew up in a family my mom had been married twice my dad I'm sorry three times and my dad twice and so like this is to me when I see what train wrecks were going on I my whole life has been avoiding this whole disaster and however you know she had mentioned of her life and being happy and you had a nice anecdote to the end of it which was and if I get it wrong please help me here but it was that bad things don't happen you can do it better just so just to clarify the 111-year-old lady she was she also was very resilient because she'd been married five times and so what I say is that it's not that bad things don't happen to happy people but happy people happen to bad things so you know everybody gets knocked down I mean everybody gets their ass handed to them well my first thought in that is how do you make it to 111 if you've been married five times each one of those relationships had to had to take a toll yeah absolutely now we know Johnny's you point on marriage that's take ten years of well there's another 15 off out of my life imagine how old she would have been and she stayed single I think that that's secret fact in there she did not have children so that probably added on a lot of spicy food it sounds yeah oh yeah spicy food now we're all about giving value to other people and we define value as attention appreciation and acceptance and I think going back to your point about the elderly and our elders is that a lot of times they are invisible in society they're not often walked up to and chatted up we don't pay attention to what they're up to so you know I feel that for a lot of us we think about okay I gotta make sure I get this person's attention because they're in a position of power or I want to impress this person but you did get a very powerful piece of advice from Antonia around how to show that acknowledgement to everyone so they can feel really good yeah it was this lady who was happily married for many years and she said this just great piece of relationship advice when somebody you care about walks in the room that she always makes eye contact with them and I just don't think we do that anymore you know someone walks in the room you you're probably looking at your computer your TV screen but to actually let someone know that you see them and you acknowledge them it's the best piece of the easiest relationship advice I've heard in a long time so powerful yeah it's certainly after reading that I was like oh hell yeah I mean the what you send to that room and to and to everybody there with just that's that small task is immense yeah yeah I mean doesn't take any effort barely but you know it can be a struggle he's coming back from Atlanta today and there are she travels back and forth for work and there are weeks where she'll come home and you know I'm so in work I'm not staring at the screen and I'm sure she's feeling that so that that's such a powerful tip of just you know for a second someone you cared about walked in the room drop what you're doing and just look them in the eye yeah I mean that's what it's one of the best questions to ask older people who are happily married is just like what's the advice that you have for staying in this relationship because you know and the things that they say are are worth their weight in gold so valuable so I know for myself I'm curious what are the pieces of advice for those who are in relationships who unlike Johnny want them to be successful and add years to our life well you know I think the most powerful story was a guy who just had lost his wife and he spent he was telling me this story about he sat by her bedside as she lay dying and he held her hand and they relived some of the greatest memories from their marriage surfing and or going swimming in Waikiki and going golfing in Banff Canada and their first date they had watching jazz and he said he relived all these moments and you know it was exceptionally sad but it was a special to be able to share that and it made me think you know everyone's going to have a day where they have to say goodbye to the one they love or they'll say goodbye to you and God willing you'll be holding their hand and it makes you think about are you really appreciating the person that you spend your days with I think we tend to take our partner for granted you know you just wake up next to him every day and gets it they annoy you and they have the habits that drive you crazy but if you had to say goodbye to them imagine how you would feel and to look through the lens of an elder looking back and just really wake up and appreciate the person that you spend all your time with and think about those moments that you do have together to be fully present you know going back to that device uh how many times are we on our vacation with that loved one and we're still on our device not present not there and when you look back on your deathbed or sadly on their deathbed those are the moments that you're going to be holding on to and cherishing those experiences together yeah and so it sounds so dark to talk about the deathbed but just to have a wake-up story like my best friend my age and her husband 46 years old great shape it wasn't feeling good checked himself into the emergency room a few weeks ago 30 minutes later he was in a coma and septic shock and just like you know been in ICU for 30 days I mean this stuff can happen and you know we have to live for today and if you love someone let them know you love them today it sounds so cliche until you go through that and you don't want to go through that well it's certainly I mean we've all heard the you know a lot of times people within their life they talk about you know not wanting to have regrets and of course uh make trying to get squeeze out as much time with their loved ones as possible for us you know we certainly don't want to have many regrets left on the table so we're putting it all out while we're here uh and the one that's the more difficult is spending time with loved ones especially if they're across the country you know yeah I know for me when my dad passed you know we weren't on the greatest of terms our relationship was frayed due to my decisions to start the company and and move out here and looking back you know there is an immense amount of regret that I didn't have those moments to just be honest and say I love you I appreciate you all the support you given just kind of took for granted that oh we'll still be arguing next week we'll still be arguing next month but it doesn't always work out that way it doesn't work out that way and I mean I think you have to that's why another great reason to talk to people who are older and ask them their regrets and ask them how what they what how you can learn from their mistakes it's not just the things that they did right and that that'll wake you up as well now for a lot of us when we think of our elders we think of them as pretty accomplished having reached a level of success that maybe we're yearning for we wanted to get to that point do you have any advice for our audience and how to turn these elders into mentors who can help guide us and shape us I mean I think we just have to recognize that there are older people all around us all the time you know and and you're gonna see maybe there's an older person living next door if you're lucky enough to have a grandparent the guy sitting alone at the airport waiting for his flight the person behind you in line at Starbucks and to take a moment to stop and engage it's not as hard as one might think and nine times out of ten they'll love the opportunity to talk with you and that's it can all come from just that initial hello yeah and it starts with eye contact right that simple acknowledgement so if you're listening acknowledge our elders who may be struggling in the grocery line or struggling to get across the street and hit the crosswalk button I mean those are great opportunities to just stop and acknowledge them I and certainly I think a lot of young folk have an assumption that older people don't want to be bothered that they're busy they don't have time or that's for their family members to share those stories with they don't want to be so honest and vulnerable exactly yeah I mean what I always like to say is and put yourself in the shoes of an older person you know I mean there's a loneliness that they might have lost their spouse they've lost a lot of their friends you can't just go to yoga class or go on a run because you know you're older and spend a lot of your time sedentary just sitting at home so for a young person to knock on your door and engage with you it's so incredibly refreshing and they don't have many outlets left they're desperate for some kind of connection something that can wake them up and make them feel alive and it has a family a family member with older family members myself like to say oh it's just up to their family to hear those stories I've heard those World War II stories 20 times at Thanksgiving it's time for them to share it with a stranger someone who may not have heard that story yeah and the stories are unbelievable I mean I can reel off a hundred stories but once you engage and they start telling you it's from a different time in history and as I mentioned it's so it's such a different experience to hear it from somebody firsthand then to watch it on TV or read about it in a book and I would think it helps you with your listening it helps you with your patience you know we saw some of the technical difficulties you had with some of your interviewees right where you struggled at times to understand each other but that patience and being an attentive listener goes a long way towards building those social skills yeah it definitely requires slowing down you're not going to get the quick sound you're not going to get the quick sound bite you know if I want to post a story on social media it takes me a long time to kind of assemble and assimilate and digest everything and there's one story that I'd love to share with you where I asked this 93-year-old lady if she could send me a picture so I could share her story and she said oh yeah I'll put it in the mail you know it's like the mail it'll take a week can you just email it to me so she said okay my granddaughter has email so I'll write down your email address and it took me literally five minutes to share my email address and at first I was really impatient and getting annoyed I didn't have time for this and there was a certain breaking point where I just said okay this is funny and this is a generation gap and this is on me not her so you might want to listen or share that one why wait wait a minute what okay no no no why like the letter y okay why then e like eat y e a like apple okay h like hat okay d like david pardon d d like david I got y e a yes then an a like apple a like apple the at symbol the afro sand the what you know the at symbol the afro sand the a with the circle around it like you have an email addresses it's like oh you know how they are an a any okay I got an a at like yeah yeah and then mac.com so it's m like mom mom.com no no no mac.com so it's m like mom yeah then a like apple wait a minute you gave me an a before okay let me tell you what I had I had y e a hd what are you laughing at I'm it's just funny trying to trying to do this because email is is not your generation so it's so funny the I know I'm an old fart that is wonderful yeah yeah yeah so you know we all have those experiences what's funny is I sense there's patience both ways in that right she's being patient with you exactly exactly now we're there situations I do feel a number of our audience members encounter this with their elders where you were intimidated someone had received a lot of accomplishments they obviously have had a very successful life where you went into the conversation feeling a little intimidated you were laughing earlier if we were intimidated by Kobe Bryant did you experience those conversations with elders I haven't I've shied away from the people who have the big followings and who are famous there's so many of them who are not known and deserve to have their stories told so I've really kind of gone in a different direction now maybe I eventually will be star struck by somebody but so far I haven't kind of like digging into the shadows it seems to me to your point earlier that a lot of our elders are just pretty humble and were there moments of surprise where you weren't expecting to hear that type of story or accomplishment from someone you're talking to the surprises interestingly enough for people who said they don't have anything important to share but then they you know they were like a single mom who raised put five kids on her own through college and just had great advice like she said I was tough and strict as hell and I never stopped telling them how much I loved them you know and as a parent with the young children you need those kinds of those kinds of nuggets of wisdom are so meaningful yeah absolutely and let's talk about raising children obviously the elders have a wealth of knowledge around raising families not only supporting their spouse what were the lessons you learned as a parent that you could impart on our audience raise each child differently don't have like their the parenting package that you wrap around all your kids raise each child differently you know the kids don't necessarily care that you spoil them with the nicest things they just want to feel the love they want to you know this one's mother who could never make it to her kids practices because she was always working she said that you know she'd get home from her waitressing job and sit at their bed and rub their head and just be with them for two hours and they knew that she loved them and they knew that she was loving them the best she could when she could and now she has a great relationship with them in their in their adult life and so you know those are the things I mean if you have kids like it's hard raising kids and you you know don't always feel like you're doing it right and you have some bad days and some good days and you know and the bad days suck so it's great to hear like okay I can do this you know I can do this this is a formula that's manageable well with you know anything when you're dealing with people I mean it's it comes down to art and parroting it's is its own art form and you know the the suggestion I'm not raising your kids all the same like raise them individually you know that's that's certainly going to go a long well in a long way and allowing them to feel as an individual rather than you saying well listen this worked for your older brothers is going to work for you I was gonna say yeah that definitely led to some strife in my household oh and in mine being treated exactly the same as your sibling can be very difficult yeah yeah so that was some great some great wisdom and listen for every story that I tell about positive elders you meet some grumpy resentful worried elders and you learn a lot from them too what do you think are the biggest differences that lead to that I think going back to our earlier point you know everyone wants to be happy we're all seeking happy but you know there are a significant number of us who are going to get to old age and not be happy who are going to be grumpy and what were your lessons from the grumpier more negative elders I mean I think the biggest thing is like if you're a worrier when you're 32 you're going to be a worrier when you're 42 and a worrier when you're 62 and these conditions follow us it's like just like with happiness if you're attaching you're saying I'll be happy when my kids get into school and I'll be happy when I lose weight and I'll be happy when you know my show gets picked up and those conditions follow you and your whole life so at a certain point there has to be a moment where you make a change and you bust loose from the conditions that you attached to your life yeah so instead of I'll be happy when it's I am happy right it's changing it because when you when you add the win I will be happy when that's fleeting a large portion of society looks at a lot of things in that manner and to only know that not only are they not going to clear up the those patterns and pathways are only going to be even more hardened by the time you're 65 75 so no matter what age you are now time to get to work and let's talk about regret you know I'm I'm not quite an elder like Johnny but I I do have my share of regrets what were some of the biggest regrets you heard from our elders that could help us get on the right path I think a lot of them were taking the partner for granted and then they die you know a lot of people and they're especially when you get into their 90s are almost all of them are widows or widowers and I think there's a lot of regret that you never think your partner's gonna die and then they die and it's a tragic thing and there's a lot of grief and they would they wish they could have those years back so I think that's a big that's a big that's a big deal I mean I think with health you know there's that there's this saying in the western circumstance where you spend all your wealth to you spend all your health to gain your wealth and then you have to spend your wealth to regain your health that's a common theme is that you know you wish that you took a little bit better carry yourself when you were younger because you pay the price when you're older yeah and I think there's a lot of relationships with children that go awry and they lose contact for many years and then you know when you're old you need you need people to show up for you you need to you and you want to be surrounded by people that love you and if you didn't invest in your relationships when you were young and they're not showing up for you when you're old it's it's no fun yeah and was there any advice around how to rekindle you know I know I've had strife in my family and I currently even have some family members that aren't talking and I feel like every family goes through those struggles was there any advice that the elders had on how to you know repair those broken relationships or mend those fences before that moment there was one lady I met who had a near-death experience she died for literally 20 minutes and she was in Egypt and she was telling me the whole story she was like her face was blue her eyes were dilated they're like she's done there's nothing we can do and she shared the whole thing where she went through the the tunnel and you know it was the whole crazy experience that people talk about and she said she came out of that with the revelation that honesty is everything and honesty is just to be as honest as you possibly can be with the people that you care about and that was what she said was very healing there has been a lot of research with people getting it to retirement age and then when retiring and then moving on and then feeling a bit useless after that point or that they're they're they don't have that their purpose is gone their purpose is gone and with that did you get much advice on for the seniors who move beyond that and who move beyond that healthily and happily well that's a big deal you just mentioned I have a neighbor who's in his 60s and he's got plenty of money but he's worried sick because he can't get a job just to keep him busy he doesn't need a job to make money and he's worried sick that he's going to be bored the rest of his life so what you're talking about right now and the ageism and how people are squeezed out of the workforce is it's a big deal and it's a big struggle for people so there's a lot of chatter about that right now but it is a big issue yeah I mean you you look at centarians and mega centarians and super centarians and 120 I mean the retirement age is 65 yeah 70 most of us will be retired so that's still a lot of years left a lot of mileage left to try to maximize it's like a lot of people feel like oh listen just give them a set of golf clubs I don't learn how to golf and that's what I'll do for them it's like no that's that's that's not purpose right it's a hobby oh yeah the retirement system the kind of the template that we have where you retire when you're 65 when you go golfing the rest of your life I mean that's a flawed system I had a saw a lady in Starbucks who's an elder and she said that all of her friends who followed that program they're all dead now so you know you have to stay engaged and you have to find a purpose and feel challenged yeah I think the problem is that daydream is good while it's a daydream but then when it's actually upon you I know when my great uncle retired he was itching to get back to work and do something yeah like that little honeymoon of retirement we had a big party in his garage and he was all excited talked about all this work he's going to do on the cottage and you know he got through some of the work he's like okay I gotta get back to work I gotta do something yeah he went back to driving trucks and we're like you're retired this is what you worked and and grind it out for for these moments he's like no I need to get back behind the wheel my dad's been retired for a good while now and he still puts in 10 hours a week doing it work for friends and just just to stay busy just to have that going on and there's also the social component to that of course right I feel like retirement for a lot of us does lead to that isolation even if you may not have purpose in work you have co-workers that you can talk to and socialize with and you know I know for us that's one of the biggest reasons we've been running this bootcamp for 12 years is even now even the youth are isolated and they don't get social interaction so imagine how isolating it is you know when you're retired and you don't have those opportunities yeah and for entrepreneurs who are listening there's tremendous opportunity to create businesses that engage the aging population 10,000 people are turning 65 every single day so the population's getting older and the baby boomer generation they're not going to stand for the isolation and you know being treated put out to pasture they're not going to stand for it I saw a really interesting article actually that all of the boomers who built these beautiful mansions on golf courses and reached this level of success they're now selling those houses because they can't get up the stairs they can't take care of it it's just too big and none of the millennials want to buy them they don't want to be so isolated they don't want to be in the golf course they don't want a palatial mansion they want something a little bit more modest a little bit more minimal so we're now seeing all of this aging boomer population look at some of their life choices and realize you know maybe this wasn't for me and now they're lacking in purpose and and certainly a lot of those the homes in healthcare at that age is it's certainly expensive and I had I'd just seen an article where there was a guy who managed to stay in a motel because it was cheaper than going to an old age home did you see this article no he stayed at Best Westerns I want to believe because he averaged it out it was about $60 a night and he said the difference is that in a hotel they treat you like a customer so they get you the paper it's always hot coffee they're nice and bubbly when you're checking in oh mr so and so here's your room he's like you go to a retirement home and you're a patient that's a different type of service yes so he's like I didn't want the bedpan and I didn't want all of that medical stuff around me so he traveled the country staying in hotels and it ended up being cheaper than if you were to go to a retirement home that's interesting and the whole retirement home system is so wackadoodle because you know there's these dead spots in our communities I mean you drive by retirement homes and we wouldn't ever stop to knock on the door and see how people are doing you know they have thousands of years of history in those places but they're completely isolated from the rest of the community so that has to change there's a powerful form of meditation that you do at your drinks with elders events that I think even would inspire our audience and can you share what this meditation is yeah so it's just a visualization if if you want to try it with me just take a moment and close your eyes and imagine I'm just going to go way forward in the future and imagine you're older a lot older and you just had your 90th birthday and so your friends and your family your grandchildren maybe you had a few great grandchildren they came over they celebrated you had a great cake and then everyone leaves and you sit down after a long night and a little bit of loneliness starts to set in you because you're 90 you recently lost your partner of many years and you pick up the phone because you want to say hi to your friends but a lot of your friends have passed away by the time you're 90 and your kids don't they don't live in the same town so you won't see them for a while your your grandchildren you might not see them for months and so you start to feel this kind of this loneliness you can't just wake up and go on a run the next day because you're you're a lot older now you can't just run the yoga class and so the loneliness can sometimes be very oppressive and you're not sure what to do who to call where to go and then you get a knock on the door and it's your neighbor who's in their 30s and they they show up and they want to ask you to share your story and they want to invite you over to to share with their friends and you can imagine how refreshing that is in the situation that you're in so just to sometimes put yourself in the shoes of and what it's like to get older and I believe a lot in karma and how how you treat people when they're older will say a lot about how you're treated when you're older it's a powerful exercise to really think about that I think a lot of us are so in the here and now and our devices and nowhere I'm going on vacation it's even difficult for us to visualize that far into the future yeah and I think we we don't think about it but sometimes there's a lot of fear and aging and you look at someone who's older and it's scary you don't want to have to think about it but it is part of life and with technology and medicine a lot of us are going to live to be very old so I think it's important to understand what that's like and to have empathy when you're young and start to nurture those connections now so that you keep that going as you get older and feel like you're integrated in the community now I know with my dad's passing and and my grandfather's passing one of the the most difficult parts in their lives were their loss of mobility my dad had an injury to his neck that he lost feeling in his arm and I do feel that for a lot of us as we age mobility is going to become an really important factor in in our quality of life obviously you practice yoga was there anything that you learned from our elders who were limber and who were in great shape that could help us maintain that physical side of things so that we can have the movement be able to to live a long happy and fulfilling life I mean there's certain kinds of exercise that'll just crush you I mean running is so hard on your body you know and most of the time you don't see people that live to be very old who were runners now I have my in-laws are runners and if they're hearing this they're probably like it's bullshit but the pounding is just so intense right so intense and you know you have to think in terms of longevity the stretching is much healthier and then you want to be agile you know I mean I think the yogis say you can tell how healthy somebody is not by the shape of their body but by the agility of their spine and I think that really carries into old age yeah your ability to pick things up as you get older totally comes down to exactly that and for a lot of us we're not thinking about those things right yeah I mean like having a bicep the size of your head I mean what's the practicality of that well it's great if you're an influencer like Johnny but that fades so you're going to want to be able to move you're going to want to be able to hang out with your grandchildren and actually get on the floor and get up and pick things up and and that is something that wanes as we get older yeah and I think even more than the physical health is the mental health and how you exercise your mind and you know like just gratitude there's this leading researcher on gratitude and he says that gratitude you have to be a badass to be grateful because gratitude is morally and intellectually demanding you know it's easy to wake up and fixate on all the stuff that you got to get done and it's hard to wake up and shift your focus to everything that's good in your life and so just mental strength is really important as well yeah and when you're in a state of gratitude you can't have any other emotional feelings you're strictly in gratitude unlike you know multitasking I can be afraid I could be angry but when you're focused on gratitude and being grateful that's the only state that you can be in well it yeah and the whole thing about it shifting on focus of of what you have rather than what you don't have and it's certainly it is a shift and it does it does take patience and it does take work to be able to do that I certainly know when I had learned about appreciation and started practicing it I know that not only did my thoughts about where I was in life changed but how I woke up and approached every day changed yeah it's I mean it's an everyday practice it's so easy to focus on what you need and what you don't have one of my favorite quotes is this to think you need something you don't already have as a form of insanity and I think it's true I mean your whole life you could be searching for the things you don't have and how are you going to appreciate the things you hope to have in the future if you can't appreciate what you have right this moment so and I think for a lot of us taking a step back and thinking about where we were you know as a kid where we were just five years ago allows us to actually find that stuff to be grateful for yeah because a lot of us are present forward looking thinking about the future and what we don't have in time in time again we just have to take a step back and realize well you know four years ago I couldn't run this fast I couldn't lift this much weight I couldn't talk to this many people I didn't have this level of confidence at work so it is looking backwards to see just how far you've come to find that gratitude and we love the five minute journal I don't know if you're I have it yeah that's great it's a fantastic practice morning and evening a few prompts you fill it out every single day and it really reinforces the gratitude and it does it's been scientifically shown to lift your mood and change your mental health which I think is huge as we get older it's huge and like I was trying to paint the picture when you're 90 and you may not have the agility to get around but if your mind is fit and strong that's that's really important because you're going to be spending a lot more time with your thoughts and if you have beautiful thoughts it's going to be a beautiful life if your thoughts are going down a black hole it's going to be a struggle well and certainly we were just discussed and you were mentioning if that's if you were a worrier at 40 imagine what that was going to look like at 65 so it's no time like the present then they get positivity training and getting that fixed that why I mean fixed out change is difficult transforming yourself we're actually gonna it's going to be an upcoming theme month for us transformation but transformation is hard change is very hard a lot of us are set in our ways what was the biggest transformation you saw or witnessed from an elder who just in their youth were one way and then as they age they they changed oh wow that's a good question I have to think about that one I didn't I didn't write a lot about the elders that transformed I think the more interesting part was looking through the lens of an elder and seeing their perspective looking back over their life and what they see as the important moments that stood out across 80 90 100 years and I mean what you know everybody over that span of a lifetime goes through hell that you hit rock bottom you go through hell not all the elders ever bounce back from that that's a decision that you have to pick yourself up and bounce back a lot of them they stayed down for years and that usually manifested as some kind of illness or disease so that the the wherewithal to pick yourself up and keep trucking that's an important one I mentioned just the value that you place on relationships and community is really important if you spend a lot of alone time it tends to to wear on you as you get older so it's really like looking through from the lens of an elder looking back on their life another interesting thing that I learned is I would always ask if they're scared of death because when you're 80 90 100 years old any breath could be your last right and honestly not one time did they say they were scared to die and most of the time they said they welcomed it and I thought that was really really interesting because death is a scary subject in our culture yeah I definitely feel like just thinking about it that it's scary for me as I sit here so I can't imagine getting that place but you know that's just it that resiliency and understanding how to be grateful for the life that you have and all of the things you've been able to accomplish I would assume allows you to get there yeah and also you know in yoga the the shavasana is like the most wonderful part of yoga it's the the corpse pose or the death pose and learning to just relax into that peace is the feeling that you kind of sense is what happens when when older people are approaching the end it's not this scary anxiety-ridden thing but it's like a a sense of peace now one last question before we go we had author Charles Duhigg on a few months back and he did a lot of research on habits and we asked him all of this research everything you learned how did it change your behavior what lessons did you take from the elders that you applied directly to your life and changed behavior whether it was in your parenting your health any of that when I get in a fight with my wife we end it I mean just like we got a quick conflict resolution like it's not worth it taking taking it a step further than that so we end it right away I just try to show up for my kids and be present with them as best I can and sometimes you know I get down on myself that I'm not getting them like the fanciest things or taking them the fanciest places but I think some of the greatest moments are just just being there and letting them know that I'm there with them I see them I hear them I feel them and I think more than anything it's just that happiness is what you can find in this moment and not looking to some future moment or some complicated for a formula you apply to your life because those things make it really make it hard so just keeping it simple and realizing that I'm blessed and just to appreciate my life as it is right this moment and not hoping it it changes for some future moment and what are your conflict resolution tips with your spouse to own the issues that I have in the moment to but be willing to apologize and not have a lot of like pride in my relationship defensiveness ego yeah and a play as a team you know I love the phil jackson's book 11 rings and he talks about like tribal relationship stages of the tribal relationship and you know family is a team and learning to play as a team and get on the same page and check my ego at the door and just have honest communication and and not take it to bed not take that the fighting to bed with us well thank you so much for joining us thank you for taking the time to speak to our elders and write this fantastic book thank you so much it's such an honor to be with you guys I appreciate it's great haven't you is there anything that you want to plug on the show or yeah so the if you go to david romanelli.com you'll see I have a new slate of drinks with your elders intergenerational events coming up soon and my book is called life lessons from the oldest and wisest it's a great read for any age whether you're 15 or 95 and it's got something for everybody you can get it at amazon get it from my website barns and nobles thank you so much right and we're gonna be checking out one of your drinks with elders yes Johnny might be on stage love it Sharon Smith though


Hey everybody, David Chang here with the art of thinking smart glad you can join us Where we're gonna learn to live smarter think smarter and make smarter decisions and this week I am excited to have as a guest Don Chapman who's the former editor of midweek and Actually through Don. I got my start in journalism by writing a weekly article. Don. Thank you so much for coming really excited for you to be here and and Just to give a little background I want you to kind of explain you know You were the former editor of a paper that you took from 300 to 500,000 readers the largest weekly paper in the state of Hawaii and You actually started the seminary students So can you explain a little bit about that in that jump over there? Frank to Lima have the same background. Oh, wow. Okay. All right. We've talked about that I'd written for papers in high school and college and when it came time to quit the seminary for Several reasons that are personal I a good pal of mine Who I'd worked with in high school papers and he got on to Oregon journalism school was was working for the Philly Enquirer And I said well, I can do what he's doing and so I went back to Oregon to journalism school and and that Started the process. Got it. So then then you started working. You said in California Then moved here to Hawaii 1879 has been writing ever since that 13 years as a daily columnist at the old advertiser and then 22 years as the editor of midweek Until the 1st of August and I'm now officially retired. Well, congratulations on that But but I guess you could see you already have a lot of different ideas from our other conversations And so today's show I want to talk about thinking smart when it comes to your career and what you've seen Since you have become an editor of a large paper all the stories you've covered all the people you've had to hire Just you know what I think of an editor in chief I think of chief Perry on Superman who's out there making decisions with all this stuff. I Before we go into the career advancement because you little tell us a little bit about as an editor What was your day-to-day? You know the stories would pop up How would you balance that out with events current events? No two days are the same Because things things change day to day You could be working on a story that you're going to put to bed on a Friday But which is a deadline day at midweek, but something suddenly happens on a Wednesday We what we can get this this story in if we hustle so so things are always changing and and there's a story schedule But it's never written in stone. Got it got it and and I guess with all the writers that you have press You get the final say on the stories More or less I had a boss right on front right But it was definitely a team got it the team effort on that And what would you say is one of the reasons why you were able to get the readership within your tenure? Our founding publisher Ken Berry had had a great saying he said midweek should have as many common common denominators as possible And so you might only pick up the paper to read Bob Jones's column You might only pick up the paper to get the ad Got it, but we want you to look at something else along the way as well. Got it got it So I like that so common denominators so that people are constantly the habit of and that's I think a Thinking smart tactic is that in our lives looking at the common not nominators of What we can do in and working with other people now so going into the career advancement portion So you're been editor for over two decades and you started from the ground up And you talked about you want to talk about six things that you think that Even if you're mid-stage early stage or even maybe in retirement like yourself The things that that we need to do in today's society and so if we could start with number one What would you say is the first thing that people need to do for their career advancement education? Okay simple is that? I look for people who were trained as journalists that doesn't mean that we didn't have people who were just like an English major for but You look for someone who's had some kind of training professionally got an education Schooling you mean so you definitely you believe that in today's world Getting higher degrees is essential in today's market. Yes. Okay. Got it. And then so After education, what would you say is the next one? Experience which is kind of a catch-22 if you're young you're just coming out of college One thing I always told young journalists is right for your college paper right for your high school paper And and then you've got some clips that you can come show to an editor. Got it. So So, how would you okay? So now? Let's just say somebody who's young doesn't have the experience yet. How would you encourage them to get? Experience you talked about writing for college paper. What if they're not in college? What would you say? How do you kind of look look in that direction? I a great great example Was I was doing a book book signing years ago at the old boarders at it Which are called white Kelly and this young woman came to me and said I want to write for you And I said you got any clips and she goes well. No, not really. I said come come talk to me when you got some clips It was about a year later. I heard from her. She she had been blogging Writing online and and had some clips and it was great stuff and we hired her as a columnist Okay, got it. You're talking about your book signing that's tell me a little bit about that So you publish your books? I've had two published locally by what you're called mutual publishing And then I published I think five or six on my own through amazon Okay, guys, so self-published books and regular books. What were the general topics of those? Oh golly. It goes everything There was one it was the story of Abraham who I think is most important person in the bible because Okay, he's he's the father of judeism christianity and islam There was a Historical novel on alexander cartwright the father of baseball who lived most of his life here. Oh, okay And and and it wasn't double day. It was cartwright Who who was the father of baseball interesting side graduate from west point and ad mere double day graduate from west point So we are taught that the founder of baseball was a west pointer, but you're saying it's cartwright So that's interesting. Okay. I want to definitely read about that and and going off the you know Talk a little bit about the publishing side Do you self publishing is a lot more common nowadays? What what do you think of that versus going through the traditional publishing route versus self publishing? There are arguments both ways This one this way if If you're self publishing you've got total total control on the package. Got it I am my own editor rather than a publishing house editing for me and I've had a couple of bad experiences with that I see um The positive of going through a publishing house is they've got the marketing and Whereas now I've got to do my own marketing guy in the publishing house. They own the rights to the book essentially, right? Okay, so you do have that pros and cons on that side So, okay, we've talked about um education is important and even if What would you say to somebody who is maybe midlife crisis? And they want a career change and especially with the millennials You see the polls showing that millennials switching jobs every one or two years How have you experienced that being an editor and and what what do you recommend if they're saying? You know, I've been in the engineering or finance field. I want to jump in the journalism How would you talk about that when it comes to education experiences? They don't have it I know you talked about trying to write for it, but uh, what would you say on the career transition side? Well, I I I did that from the church school right journalism So I would say just just go for it Just have have a plan in mind too. Just don't jump blindly. Okay. Okay. What would you mean like a plan? I would say if if you're in Say if you're an engineer and for some reason you think you're not making enough money I can't imagine You know what you suddenly want to be a teacher Got it something. Well, well, then you've got to go get some education. Sure. Sure. Uh on a quick side of What would you say makes a good journalist? Curiosity Oh, okay curiosity And it's that ability I guess to continue to just learn or continue to fact find And I I was always aware that I wasn't telling my story. I was telling that person's story. Interesting Okay, so you're telling a Story of someone else and try to convey that to other people Okay, well and uh, and I guess now I want to move on but I'm curious to know What would you say it makes good writing? Because you see so much out there online blogs Um, and I actually probably spend hour to two hours a day Combine reading different articles blogs all this kind of stuff. What would you say? Would you say this is a good article or a good writer? Whether it's written or a shoe telling me a story. It's a story And and and it's good storytelling. Okay, got it. So that's this that's simple good writers are good storytellers God, okay. All right. So we like education experience. What would you say is a third one for career advancement positive outlook? Okay And I couple that with the willingness to work. Okay Um, we had several young people on on the staff at midweek, uh, who were still there And we we made it a very positive work Environment, okay, so so it was a place that they wanted to be got it And and when you positive outlook you say, okay positive work environment for the person itself And I think it's kind of tough Would you say that they have to be Obviously passionate about their work in order to have that outlook But is it also outlook on their personal careers or their profession of choice? What would you How do you look for that positive outlook in somebody? That's a good question and and you're trying to do this in one or two job job interviews Um It it just shows david. I mean the first time I met you This is a positive guy got it. Okay.  We were very lucky. We had some good hires There was a couple of people who it became Apparent to both them and us that this was not working out and they just found found something else to do got it got it. Okay, so then That positive outlook is important and you couple that with that willingness to work and and and team teamwork again Okay, it comes back to that if somebody's on vacation and then somebody gets sick and it's a relatively small staff somebody's got a pitch in and and and at the paper at midweek We were very lucky because everybody pitched in when they needed to got it So just on a curious note maybe in curious when you first started we didn't have computers like we had today No, can you think a couple minutes? I'm always I always enjoy this In the early 80s, how did you guys set the paper out versus today? When I was at the advertiser writing writing a daily column from 79 through through 82 Um We typed on funny paper that would get scanned. Okay, and and and as I recall this is a long time ago Uh, it was like a duplicate thing. Okay And at some point we had some rudimentary computers. This this would have been in the early 80s, but but Early early 80s. We were still typing on paper and scanning really that's interesting Well, we'll be right back and thank you so much for joining us and we'll be taking a short break Aloha, I'm Richard Emory host of condo insider A weekly thursday show at three o'clock that goes all summer long talking about issues living in a condo association Each week we bring experts to talk about the rights and obligations of owners and boards of directors to successfully run their condominium It's a great educational show answers a lot of questions. We hope you'll visit us sometime. Aloha Looking to energize your friday afternoon. Tune in to stand the energy man at 12 noon. Aloha friday here on thick tech hoy Hey, how you doing? Uh, welcome to the bachi talk. My name is andre landing. I'm your co-host And we have a nice program here every friday at one o'clock on thick tech studios where we talk about technology And we have a little bit of fun with it. So join us if you can thanks. Aloha All right, so now I'm excited again to have Don Chapman here the former editor of midweek And we've been talking about career advancement whether you're starting off new or Want to change careers and we're seeing a lot of the younger generations Change your careers every two to three years. Not sure if it's good or bad But we've talked about so far five things out of the six The first one you're saying is education and if you don't have it get the education Experience and nowadays anyone could blog or write for other folks if they need to we talked about positive outlook We talked about teamwork And then the fifth one was hard work a hard work, right? Okay, so That's important. So now let's look at the sixth one. What would you say is the next one needed that you look for? And you also believe it's crucial for advancement Okay, simple as that whether you're a little league coach or you're helping with a food drive Or if it's some professional group or or or or an ethnic group Volunteer some somehow I I just did a story On two gentlemen who are architects they they put on the biggest trade show for the construction industry here Architects and and they've been doing this for the last 17 years They they said that it's been personally fulfilling and it has helped their careers. Okay. God. And so how okay What would you say to somebody? Is it just to go down the list of nonprofits volunteer? How would you encourage somebody to move along? Into that area That's something I'm going through now David because I've got time time on my head All right I do some volunteering now working with the student newspaper at what you're called moana lua high school Oh, this is the third year. I've been doing that But I do have some time and I'd like to be on a board So I'm starting to look around at things that that interest me. Okay. What are things that interest you? Things that have to do with children and education If it benefits kids some somehow okay, and what in your line of work This is something that I read somewhere that The newspaper is written that A third or fourth graders able to read right so you have your journals and everything It in your opinion volunteering at these schools How are our our kids set up for success in the future? Um The kids that I'm dealing with are so smart. That's great Um, and every time I leave the school I go. Well, that was fun Right right and and and so I'm there to teach them But but at the same time I'm learning from them. Interesting. And so when you teach journalism Uh, I'm assuming okay. You got your normal grammar. You're you're normal But you're teaching them to tell a story like you mentioned correct and to um identify A story what what is a good story? Okay. What what is a good story? He has perfect. Um What interests you okay? And and and and if you're as a writer interested in the story, you've got a much better chance of making it readable and interesting to A reader got it.  You know students uh to become journalists are good writers for that. Oh my god at this level I've just spelled the names right right right. It's the one thing I tell them We each have one thing. It's our name and and get get that right details um and and and and we talk about active writing not just um A ball hits you in the head. Okay, but You but but but tell it more actively. Okay, so active voice versus passive voice And and for those that are listening Uh, you could google it if you have questions on what that is too In the military we're actually taught Not to use passive voice because people think that they sound smarter when they do that But you're right. I think that's important I I and so I really like it. So education experience the positive outlook teamwork hard work And and in volunteerism I want to talk about the teamwork. How are the dynamics in a newsroom? You know in your mind you see on tv everyone's moving quickly because they gotta meet these deadlines But when I went to visit your office, it seemed like everything was running very smoothly. People were on top of it How how how were the dynamics that you created the company culture? Um, first I would say that the midweek office is rather different than the daily paper office Okay, uh, because they're cranking out of paper every single day Right in a sense. We were too because there was midweek. There was midweek kawai We did four neighborhood papers called the voice And so it was almost a daily operation in the sense that we're doing a publication just just about daily Organization you've got to be organized and planned Got it and and it planned me all the time got it because stories can fall through Okay, I so so I you have a story lined up with the source And and I got a question on that because you're always here. Okay. Hey, there's a whistleblower and there's going to be Uh, that's what does that law say? I'm just curious Can you reveal your sources or or have you ever been in that situation? Sure, and it's pretty well spelled out. Um, if a person comes to me and Says that a crime was committed against them, right? I I'm just not going to write that Okay, first I've got to go to the police and file a cop report and then we report on that Ah, I see I see so you have to make sure to vet it through before it actually gets to you guys So one of the questions I want to ask and I think this is a debate that I've heard now with the invention of the iPad and the digital tablets versus hard copy and We've had a lot of newspapers the past, you know, since the Great Recession go belly up and and What do you think the future is and if you were 30 years younger Would you still be in the same industry? Uh, and if you were what would you look at future success? um Every year the uh journalism kids take a tour of our our office at the daily paper and and the one thing I always told him was the world is always going to need somebody who can tell tell a story Well who can dig out the facts who can present it? So whether the format is a paper or if it's on a tablet Uh, those skills will will will always be valued One one interesting thing david j. J. Hartwell who is the faculty advisor at the uh student paper kaleo There was a national study done a couple of years ago that he shared with me And college students it found out that they might might have phones and tablets and this and that But when it comes to their own school paper, they want to hold the paper right right, right? I like holding books. I read a lot like one or two books a week. That's my goal A lot of it through audible a lot of it through kindle tablet But you're right when I can just feel the the paper I could write notes on the side or highlight I I definitely agree and so for you You talked about curiosity being very very important Where do you go to do your research or I don't know we could all just google it but as a journalist Uh, you know, there's a lot of stuff out there just googling it wouldn't wouldn't suffice How would you tell a good journalist to say this is This is how far research and details you need to go into Googling is great. You can find a ton of stuff in like that But but it's people you need to talk to people Okay, and that's what part of being a people person you say is important then One of my ideas for a midweek story in the 22 years that I was there Was it we might be writing about politics? We might be writing about business We might be writing about sports, but it's always a people story God, it's a people story What would you say was your most favorite maybe most memorable moments At midweek stories you've written or Or moments that you had there a couple come to mind At first and the first one really put midweek on the map because it was kind of a little shopper When I became the editor in 94 January 95 I flew over the big island and interviewed Larry may have Names it means a lot to many people In fact, I ended up doing 16 hours of One on one with Larry. I was the only print media guy that he ever trusted So he passed last winter. I'm now in negotiations with his family to do a book on Larry. Wow, okay So sort of the other end of the spectrum and Larry was a great guy And the stuff they said about him is not true most of it most of it And and on the other end it would be the Dalai Lama Wow, who I've gotten to cover several times His last visit here. I think that was in 2012. He actually shook my hand twice. Wow That's that's great. So you've got to write a story about him and and how often because you know You know, I used to write for you. You have multiple writers How often would you actually write a story in midweek in the early days? I was writing everything I would write a cover story in a column and a newsmaker and an old friend feature In more recent years. I became more of a manager and was just writing When I had something to say basically, okay Would you read every article? Oh, yes So so you're you're looking for typos grab or all that type of stuff and for content every story every story I would I would laugh some sometimes I get a call from an angry reader. Did you read this? I said, yeah Yeah, I did actually twice What would you say are the Memorable articles that you got the most response from people on Bob Jones, okay. All right. Jones.  Well, thank you very much So I know that you had local writers and then syndicated. Yes. How does that work? The syndicated guys are great for papers because we may pay like 10 bucks a column Oh, wow, I see for a Patrick Buchanan column. Okay, but but but if using 400 papers Yeah, I see that so that's how he makes his money and and so that's another way somebody can get career advancement is really just through networking and just kind of finding out other Small papers you're in Hawaii, but you can still write for a part of small paper in another state Given today's technology then. Yes, exactly. Interesting. And so kind of Coming back and just summarizing it We see that right education is important and And does it degree now? Let's just say that they did have a degree But you could see they've got the experience or they are able to Write well tell a good story What would you still say to that? Would you still encourage them to go back to school? Some kind of continuing education. It may not be a formal classroom But but but to keep educating and it just could could be reading got it You are a prime example All right, right, right, right. Just continue to self-educate it and then continue to get Degrees and thankfully our line degrees are readily available and some and even our major schools are doing it So then we talked about education We talked about experience and trying to get experience anywhere And I guess you're saying have a portfolio of your work. Absolutely hand to hand to people How would you say to to reach out to somebody? You mentioned you were writing a book and someone came to you and says hey, I wanted to Write for you. Would you recommend people just cold call or cold email and editor? How would you say? They should approach people like you when you were the editor.  There's no time to be shy. Got it.  Okay, so you will you know when you're going to be rejected the more time just like sales It's not about how many times you get nodes how many times you go out there and get those yeses So just encourage them to not be shy and everything that we talked about hard work teamwork a positive outlook and then volunteering and and kind of what I see on the volunteer side You're talking about have adding value. I guess to society Not just trying to take something from somebody or some organization But I think Any person that you know who does any kind of volunteer work will tell you that they get more out of it than they give Got it got it and and I had a mentor tell me Because there's so many organizations you could join Don't join an organization just to see what you can get out of it But make sure that it's an organization that you want to be able to add value to to help and then Things kind of like a dominant effect. Well, uh, uh, don't don't go in there Look you for something but what you can provide and give something that you believe in got it Well, hey Don, thanks so much. Appreciate it. We're excited and I again a very honored that we had Don Chapman editor former editor of midweek here And I look forward to seeing you on our next show


It's back bro, wait chat. It's back. It's back. It's back. It's back. It's actually back And it feels so good. It feels so good. I'm just gonna hold. I'm just gonna hold. Here it comes here it comes Any second now


We can complain about the mainstream media all we want, but the fact is that there's more sources of information, of data, of analysis, of points of view available to all of us today than in any point in human history. I mean, I said this many times. I don't listen to any television news, any. I never watch CNN or CNBC or MSNBC or Fox News or Fox Business or anything. I just don't. And yet, I'm better informed than 99% of people out there because I read and I check up on my sources and I go read commentary. And I read more from this perspective or more from that perspective and I read the left and I read the right. And I read economists that I admire and thinkers I admire whether I agree with them on everything or not. That's the only way to do it. And people don't do that. And people are afraid and people get conflicting information. And they're scared. And again, when you're scared, when you're scared, you look for leadership, you look, but you're right. There is absolutely no plan. And the only plan they had before was shut down or keep everything open.  There's no thinking. There's no strategy. There's nothing. And the same, you know, somebody asks, what do you make of Texas being the first state to reopen its economy? Well, is it really reopening its economy? And is it the first state, a bunch of states that never closed the economy? Or just reading the South Dakota. South Dakota, the governor says, not my job to close the economy. People should make a decision about whether they want to go to work or not. I recommend social distancing. But people should make a decision about how much they want to social distance. I mean, in South Dakota, they haven't, North Dakota, a number of other states, they have not closed down the economy. So Texas might be the first state to reopen, but what's the plan to reopen? How are they going to reopen? And so maybe I'll say a few things about reopening the economy. Again, there's no plan. I don't see a plan in Texas on how to reopen the economy. If there are a lot of infections in Texas, they're going to reopen the economy, and if a lot of people get infected, will they close it again? How are they going to prevent new people from getting infected? How do they prevent the hospital is going to be overloaded in July or in August, or if it's seasonal in October and November? What's the plan? Now, Texas have an advantage that it's going into the warm season. And there's some reason, although it's not clear to think that the virus is seasonal and during the warm season hot and humid in Texas, it won't spread quite as much as it does in cold weather. But what if that doesn't work out? Is there a plan? Now, my view is you've got to have a plan. And the plan goes back to what we should have done initially. We should have never locked down the economy to begin with. The plan should have been straightforward, and I've been saying this for two months. Test, trace, and isolate on a massive scale. Again, instead of a $2 trillion stimulus package, which was caused by the fact that these idiots locked down the economy instead of that. You could have, if the government has to do it, you could have scaled massively on testing, used private companies, but used government dollars on a massive scale to test, then used the money to hire thousands and thousands and thousands of people who would then use whether it's technology or whether it's just the old fashioned way of interviewing people about tracing where they went, who they met, who they saw, who they might have infected, going to those people and testing them, and then creating facilities where you can isolate people, whether it's hotels, or you can try to get people to isolate themselves at home, but if they don't live up to that, you put them in a hotel and you say, you can't leave for two weeks, you can't leave. That's completely legitimate. That is the role of government. Instead of all of us being imprisoned in our homes, imprisoned those who have the virus, because those who have the virus are threatened the individual rights of others, and that's completely legitimate role of government to isolate them. So as states open up, what they should be doing is opening up with a staff of thousands to test, trace, and isolate, and at the same time give clear guidance about social distancing, about who's at risk, we're still afraid to say, and I still get resistance even from people who follow me, this is a virus that threatens old people by orders of magnitude more than it threatens young people. So to the extent that we're going to isolate anybody, isolate old people.  Open the schools, let people back to work with the idea of social distancing, with the idea of wearing masks, with the idea of washing your hands, with the idea of don't touch your face, and 65-year-olds and above don't go to work anyway and they don't go to school anyway. So what's the problem? Just keep them isolated, and that should be done voluntarily. It's not that hard. People should care about old people. Old age homes and different facilities for old people should be isolating them, which they are, but they don't need a government to tell them that, that they're responsible to take care of their population, and this is what they should do. So opening up the economy, now it's going to be very difficult to open up the economy, because even if everything goes right, first of all, we don't have the testing, and we don't have the isolation, and we don't have the tracking. So what is going to happen? People are going to get infected again, and you're going to go through the cycle of infection and non-infection and warm and cold weather, and on and on we go for two years until there's a vaccine, and who knows if in two years we'll have a vaccine. And now to be crippling to the economy, because you won't be able to project, is the economy going to be open next month or is it going to be closed? What sections are going to be open? What sections are going to be closed? It's just a disaster from an economic planning perspective, and therefore from an economic perspective. People in the economy, for the economy to thrive, need to be able to plan ahead. And what's going to happen? The government's going to keep printing money to keep people employed. But the stimulus packages, for example, incentivize people not to go back to work, because they get more money for longer under unemployment insurance, because of what the stimulus package has increased unemployment insurance. Many people will get 116% of their salary. Why would they go back to work? They can stay home or work in the black market and make more money. And a lot of restaurants, let's say now you have social distancing. Let's say you have social distancing. Well, how do you do that in restaurants? So restaurants now have to spread out the tables more and they have to take in less customers. Well, if they're taking in less customers, they have less revenue. But their expenses are about the same because restaurants have a lot of fixed costs. How are they going to make a profit? How are airlines ever going to become profitable again? Well, prices are going to have to go up significantly if you're going to keep middle seats open in all airplanes. If prices go up, demand will go down. Airplanes are going to have to shrink and our ability to travel is going to be reduced. Every way you look at this, the long-term consequences to economy are negative. There is no silver lining. There's nothing positive about this. I mean, every industry that is being touched by the coronavirus is going to stay touched as long as we don't get rid of it. And the only way to get close to getting rid of it, testing, tracking and isolation. And you do that, you build this infrastructure up and you keep it there for months. But that is the least intrusive and people say, oh, privacy, we're going to have to trace people. Of all the solutions to this that do not involve mass death, intrusiveness of tracking, particularly if the tracking is done by companies like Apple and Google or by other tech companies, is the least of your worries. I'm happy for them to track my phone if they leave me free otherwise. And if I can disable the app once this thing is over. Somebody says, the solution to this is hydrochloroquine.  Hydro, hydroxy, whatever, hydroxy something might help. It's not a miraculous cure. It's thousands of people are right now being treated with it in hospitals. There's a massive supply of the drug that's gone out that this is the malaria drug that in combination with, with, with, what do you call it? Antibodies, antibiotics is being used in thousands of hospitals. Yeah, and it might relieve some symptoms and it might be a good cure for some people, but it's not magic.  I'm glad you listen. You follow one doctor. That's good. One doctor. Good for you. That's the way to get objective information about it. This is being used on thousands of people and it's not curing anywhere near the kind of percentages that people claim it is. Unfortunately, I wish it was. Now, I'm not against it. I'm against doing more, using it more, testing it more, but it's not a cure. What we need today, what I call the new intellectual would be any man or woman who is willing to think. Meaning any man or woman who knows that men's life must be guided by reason, by the intellect, not by feelings, wishes, women's or mystic revelations. Any man or woman who values his life and who does not want to give in to today's cult of despair, cynicism and impotence and does not intend to give up the world to the dark ages and to the role of the collectivist growth. Using the super chat and I noticed yesterday when I appealed for support for the show, many of you step forward and actually supported the show for the first time. So I'll do it again. Maybe we'll get some more today. If you like what you're hearing, if you appreciate what I'm doing, then I appreciate your support. Those of you who don't yet support the show, please take this opportunity, go to Iranbrookshow.com slash support or go to subscribe star.com Iranbrookshow and and make a kind of a monthly contribution to keep this to keep this going.


Thanks for checking out this movie review video. So this is for the 2020 film the reckoning It's a shutter exclusive and it's coming shutter on Thursday, May 13th So yeah, when I first heard the title of this film before I got my screener from shutter I was like, oh no, it's gonna be another one of these paranormal ghost haunting Possession one of those types of things and I because that's usually what's something like the reckoning means Thankfully it really wasn't and I was very very very thankful for that I'm not saying that I completely love the film. There's some good and some bad with this film But overall I would say I can see some people really enjoying this But I'm about to break down for you without spoilers the good and the bad of this film No spoilers because it's this reviews coming out before it hits shutter and because it's a new film That's gonna be going to shutter. So this one's directed by Neil Marshall That's one of the other things that perked me up when I started doing my pre-research For watching it Neil Marshall who's done dog soldiers and the descent Which two very good films? I don't own dog dog soldiers, but back here somewhere I do have the descent which I made my wife watch in the theater and she was like terrified So she remembers the descent. I brought it up to her. I was like, oh, do you remember the descent? She's like, yes, I remember the descent Anyway, he also did doomsday Centurion and the 2019 hellboy film. So because it's Neil Marshall it looks good and and Marshall wrote it along with Charlotte Kirk and Edward ever Swindell who Charlotte Kirk had not done anything else, but ever Swindell had done dark signal, which I have not seen don't know about it, but And like I said to reiterate coming Thursday May 13th now the quick synopsis of this is that it's set It's a period piece. So you have to be okay with horror period pieces So some people may just love it for the fact that it is a horror period piece because I know some people who just love watching period pieces regardless now it takes place during the black plague and the whole idea behind it is a woman who ends up losing her husband who gets accused of witchcraft and That's where I'm gonna leave it. So the backdrop is important The events are important. Now. This is something that's that's come up in films more recently and there's kind of like I was gonna say a subtext to it, but it's really not subtext. They do kind of like beat you over the head with it That's very applicable to now, but I'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute But like I said the film looks really good That's the establishing thing looks really good nice camera work nice cinematography nice directing for the most part The acting is quite nice as well. I Do have some problems though. I'm gonna talk about them Those like I said period piece know this it's period piece They talk differently because of that there are accents because of that So some people may not like that. I'm fine with it It's really bleak And it sets this very bleak tone very early on so when I was watching it initially I was like wow, this is just really depressing and dark like right out of the gate and It doesn't really turn around much for a long time in the film It's it's a lot of dark depressing type stuff But I felt like it was gonna keep going much further and really take you down a really dark depressing path but it doesn't like it kind of Stays where it starts in a sense But moves the story forward Unfortunately at a slow pace. I will say that's one of my biggest issues. The music is over the top in this That's one of my big problems just in general like Over dramatization is kind of a problem in this film for me personally some people are totally cool with that It's a big score. There's a big score for this film and Along with that big score It's math matched with some big cinematography Big big exaggerated camera movements and some big exaggerated performances at times too So there are times where I felt like From a filmmaking standpoint I was being screamed at by Neil Marshall and I was just like I get it like I know what you're doing here Please please calm down. Please calm down. So that's one of my biggest problems is the over dramatization of a lot of stuff I feel like I like it better with stories like this where you kind of just play it Way more restrained because then it's more of a kind of like lower level unsettling as opposed to this High-level dread that they're trying to do that just kind of becomes a little ridiculous because I because of the over dramatization personally There are some moments of camera work. That's a little bit too shaky. This is something that bothers me But it didn't maintain it was a little bit in the beginning of the film in a few scenes and then either I got used to it And it wasn't that big of a deal or it stopped. So just so you know There are some really good performances in this like I said the acting is good for the most part But there are some very satisfying performances in this and I would just say kudos to the actors in general They did a nice job There's an important scene about 30 minutes in that comes off as a bit ridiculous Because they're too forward in telling you what's going on. This goes with the over dramatization problem where in the scene they're getting to what the what is happening like this important thing and then they like Literally in dialogue tell you Which I hate that type of thing this goes back to the whole writing thing with scripts and with books of Show don't tell, you know, don't explicitly tell someone with dialogue or with your words What is going on show it show people what's going on and they'll get it and I got it like and Everyone in the audience will get what's going on and where they're headed with this particular scene But then just at towards the end of the scene They just like say it and you're just like okay Nobody needed that not a single person needed that and it came off as just being stupid and ridiculous In my opinion, so then I thought is this supposed to be funny?  So it was just a bad moment in the film that I did not appreciate There's a great outfit that briefly gets used in this film from the time now I'm not gonna say what it is to leave it as a surprise But some people may be able to figure out what that is. It's a favorite outfit of mine from the time Between the music camera work and acting it feels pretty over the top overall I wish they would have toned it down a bunch. It would have been more unsettling already talked about that basically There is one character that is particularly intriguing in this film And that's because this type of character has never been in a film like this before at least that I've seen So that is one aspect of this that was very new to me that really did perk my in our peak Interest in the film because I was like who is this character? This is a very new character for me, and I'd love to see where this character goes That said I think they could have done a lot more with that character That character ends up having a decent role in the film and I was good with it But I think that character could have been used a lot more and should have been used a lot more Because that was the interesting thing that was the particularly different aspect of what was going on here and I just felt like they should have gone down that road a little bit more Just my opinion There's one. Oh, I literally just read that my goodness. I'm tired There's a good gore scene that I quite enjoyed in this film and it was also kind of a cathartic moment So I guarantee a lot of audience members are gonna feel the same thing It's always a nice payoff when you're just like ah a nice gore scene And it's this cathartic like someone's getting it type feel I do have to give credit to having for having plenty of low light and dark scenes in this film and you never have a Difficult time seeing what's going on that is a big thing for me So from a visual standpoint, they did a great job with their lighting on this and their cinematography Because there are so many films I watch where it's either scenes that are lowly lit or in the dark And I can't see what's going on or there are particular things I want to make sure I'm seeing but I can't Len I have to like put my face on the screen basically But I didn't I mean lots of low lit and dark scenes in this No problem. No problem seeing anything. So tech from a technical standpoint. They really killed it There is a pretty good kind of uh-oh moment toward the end of the film like very close to the end of the film That I quite enjoyed that they threw in there where as an audience member you are kind of like uh-oh So it that kind of told me that the story pulled me in enough and that and that's good Because I was actually reacting to what's going on. So it it can immerse you in what's going on Solid ending but the path to get there was too long and not engaging enough in my opinion at least to you know To to have you feel like it's not too long Like it wasn't engaging enough for you to feel like the time was going by much faster It's I mean it's close to a two-hour film like it's an hour and 50 some minutes with credits and For what the material is and for where the story goes. It's way too much time for what it is It really did need to be edited down a bunch in order to keep the pacing good because there are pacing issues because of that And it just feels long it just feels long and there are plenty of times where you're just like are we going somewhere or what here? Just saying They use historical events to relate to current societal issues Showing that even though times and circumstances have changed the underlying issues and motivations are still with us at the moment so the point of why they're doing this type of story and The subtext because it's very in your face and not really subtext It's good. It like it plays well. It makes sense But I just once again like all the overdramatization We say we would have kind of pulled it back a little bit made it a little bit more subtext But still a good parallel in my opinion so overall I'd like the film enough But there were a bunch of issues for me So I feel like out of five stars. I got to just give it two and a half stars. So That's how I feel about it now if you've seen the film and you're watching this or you're going to go ahead When you're done watching it put some comments down here spoilers are fine. Go ahead spoilers in the comments We'll talk about it. I'd love to hear people's opinions on this one because I have a feeling they're gonna I mean like all films they're gonna be people love it people hate it people are in the middle and they're like So we'll see but do me a quick favor hit that subscribe button because that is your way to repay me for doing this Video or any video that you've ever enjoyed on my channel and hopefully you've enjoyed at least one so yeah, so pay me back with that and Also hit the notification bell button because that way you'll know when I'm putting up new kind of no spoiler videos review videos like this or that my more in-depth analysis Spoiler filled review videos or haul videos or any it any of that type of stuff But regardless I do thank you for taking your time to watch this and until next time keep it