Renaissance Man Steve Hoffman explains to Carl how you can truly have it all.  Steve has figured out how to divide his year between a successful business and his creative life. He is a tax preparer and also an award-winning food writer that has been featured in Food & Wine, The Washington Post, Artful Living magazine and many more. He is also the author of the memoir that's a real eye-opener if you've ever thought about living in foreign country and bringing your family along with you, "A Season for That, Lost and Found in the Other Southern France".

Steve grew up in the "Twin Cities" of Minnesota in a traditional suburban family. "It was a fairly boring, staid existence," he tells us. As a teen, Steve was obsessed with tennis and basketball and dreamed of becoming a professional athlete. He went on to St. John's University and then a trip to Paris, France changed everything for him.

Steve married and had a family and also ran a successful tax preparation business. He likes to say that he knows the names of all of his 500 customers. But tax work is seasonal, and he realized he could live out his dream of living in France part of the year. In 2012, Steve brought his wife and family along with him, which proved challenging beyond his initial expectations. "You know, you have this image of swimming in the ocean on the coast and then having a glass of Rose'. The blue collar, dusty, hot winemaking village where we could afford to live was not like that."

The culture shock was very real. Carl points out that many people talk about living in another country for a while, but rarely actually do it. In his memoir, Steve tells us how his family needed him to step up and be a leader for them and not just live in a dream, practicing his French in town. The family decided to give up their expectations, stepped back and let the experience and the village opened up to them.

Steve always kept journals, yet never imagined he would one day become a prolific food writer. And then his first article about his French adventure won him a National Food Writing award. Steve's wife, Mary Jo also explored her creative side during their stays and became a photographer. 10 years later, they both came out with a new book at the same time! Steve is also the recipient of the 2019 James Beard M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award. He now lives on Turtle Lake in Shoreview, MN with Mary Jo, their elderly and entitled puggle and roughly 80,000 honeybees.

Steve's (Un)Retirement Advice:

•  "Accepting that part of being a creative person in this economy in this time in history means you gotta have a boring, semi-lucrative job that pays you a little more than you need and that buys you more creative freedom in another part of your life."

• "Write a five-year plan. There's incredible magic in writing down what you want to do."

•  "Think of your life in decades. Your 3rd act, which is the culmination of all your life decisions that came before, will become richer for it."

• "It's okay to understand this part of life (unretirement) is about editing and taking things away, so you're focused on the core of things that mean the most to you."

• More about Steve Hoffman

• Steve's Book A Season for That

• Sponsored by How to Retire and Not Die

• Sponsored by Capital Advantage

• I Used to be Somebody World Tour

Diana Landau is the Content Wrangler for Pickleball Media After 15 years in corporate marketing, in 2012 she pivoted to write and wrangle content for Niche Media's weekly blog. She now manages the "I Used to be Somebody" blog 

Tags:    blog   unretirement   food   wine   creativity   five year plan   memoir  

The Best Kind of Road Map

Carl had a fun chat with Dan Blank, CEO of WeGrowMedia this week. Although Dan isn’t retiring any time soon, the focus of his work is helping people in their (un)retirement to achieve their goals. Before founding WeGrowMedia, Dan worked in publishing and digital content development, and was in the perfect spot when those worlds collided. Just as he became even more successful, Dan took the bold step into launching his own business—during 2010! “I felt the recession was a great time to start a company, there were no expectations. I sort of wanted to see who wanted to hire me.” Over a decade later, Dan's company has helped thousands of writers and other creatives to launch their own successful projects.

“I was the art kid growing up,” Dan tells us.  Always the entrepreneurial family, Dan, his older brother and parents started a baseball card collector business on weekends, traveling the tri-state area, meeting people, sharing stories about their favorite players and cards. “I think my family's values of working hard, pursuing the creative and encouraging entrepreneurship had a big influence on me.”

In college, Dan had many ideas but wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. He always had side gigs however. He was a DJ and a cartoonist for the college newspaper, then went on to publish a music "zine" in the 1990’s. “I did it for the love of doing it,” Dan says. He profiled new CD’s in the zine and eventually had the opportunity to interview the members of Oasis and other bands he idolized.

After college, Dan began his career in publishing and eventually ran digital content for over 40 magazines. He started an internal newsletter for co-workers—the beginning of a weekly practice he has done for over 15 years now. “I have so many ideas, I can’t imagine not sending it (the newsletter) out!” In 2009-2010, his company diversified and his division was sold off. Dan was one of the last employees. He figured he had a network of his own because of his blog and newsletter and decided to leave the corporate life and launch his company, WeGrowMedia, using his knowledge and experience to help others achieve their goals. 

If you are in (un)retirement and working on your memoir, Dan can help you create a website, develop your marketing strategy and even plan the book launch. "For writers, I encourage people to listen intently to two things: 1) Your inner voice and taking action on those things you feel compelled to create, and 2) Learning about your readership, the folks you hope will be moved by your words. Both of these actions require a lot of empathy, and listening more than talking---like any good marriage!"

Dan Blank’s advice for starting a new Second Act in (Un)Retirement:

• Communication: “What do you want your day to look like? What’s your purpose? Be really aligned with what you want it to be. If you have a partner, make sure that’s aligned too."

• Collaboration: “As we get older, we get more and more fearful of failure. If you have a new idea for a venture/novel/project, talk to other people about it. Talk with your friends and colleagues and spitball ideas.

• Clarity: “Keep doing what you love. Everything I do is because of who inspires me.”

For more about Dan Blank: https://wegrowmedia.com/

Diana Landau is the Content Wrangler for Pickleball Media. After 15 years in corporate marketing, in 2012 she pivoted to write and wrangle content for Niche Media's weekly blog. She now manages the “I Used to Be Somebody” weekly blog.

Tags:    blog   interview   Dan Blank   author   publishing   unretirement   memoir   entrepreneur