I'm currently starting my 4th year of what we call (Un)Retirement. And maybe I've learned a thing or two I can share to help you...

Actually do it and retire! I thought about it many times. Exactly when should I cut the cord and stop working the crazy hours and dealing with the pressure of running my own business for 40+ years? The best advice I give people about (Un)Retirement is do it sooner rather than later. I wish I had sold/quit 5 years earlier. The last couple of work years were a drag on my mind, body and spirit. And I didn't realize it until I stopped.

Hire a pro to create a financial plan. The reason I felt comfortable in stopping the job/career is that I had been working with a great financial planner for several years in anticipation of the change. That person is Ian Castille at Capital Advantage and I consider him a good friend at this point.

I talk to so many people that have/had successful careers and have created wealth that they manage themselves. Or at least they try. This is crazy. What do you truly know about the financial market? I'd rather pay someone that studies the market all day to make my decisions. I sleep so much better at night because of this.

Avoid the temptation to go back! You are an expert with experience and it's so tempting to go back. I was in the live event biz for the past 20 years. I know that business back and forth and have seen so many opportunities to return. But, every time I return to my senses (also with the wise counsel of my wife Diana who had to put up with my totally-consumed-working-self for many years). Now I focus on where I'm going!

Do something new. Use the skills you already have, except in a new way. After working for decades, we all have developed incredible insights into organization, management, writing or whatever. Just use that toolbox in some new and cool endeavor.

Hire someone to do the shit you don't like to do or aren't good at. When I first was launching our podcast and newsletter I was going to hire an assistant. But my friend Bekah said I should consider hiring a virtual assistant company. I did that 3+ years ago. I hired a company Monkey Creative. It was one of the best decisions I ever made. No employees for me to worry about and I only pay for what I need done. I get to do the writing and they handle the graphics, e-marketing and all the other stuff I don't want to do/not good at.

Just start and see what happens. I didn't have a plan beyond starting the I Used to be Somebody podcast and newsletter. Then I took a leap of faith. Perhaps it would lead to something else? It lead to me interviewing 80 incredible people that I would never have met in a million years. Many I now consider my friends. The podcast and some pickleball talk led to Diana and I co-authoring (with our instructor and friends Mo and Reine) the Amazon best-seller, Pickleball for dummies. Most recently, my new path has led to leading vacation tours around the world for our podcast audience. You never know...

Tags:    the carl diary   unretirement   pickleball   Best decisions   second act   pickleball book   I Used To Be Somebody   Podcast  

I just went past my 3-year mark of what we like to call (Un)Retirement. It's about no longer having the big job and now you have the time to freestyle and figure out what you want to do with the remainder of your life. There are just a few times in your life that you can naturally reinvent yourself. The biggest opportunities for that are; 1) after you graduate from high school or embark on a career path, and 2) life after the big job, aka NOW (for some of us).
 

The normal benchmarks for success previously come to us as annual reviews at work or if you're an entrepreneur, it's a profit/loss company statement. At this post-career stage of life, those metrics don't apply anymore. Not a all! It's a total self-examination that's completely wide open and even a bit challenging. Don't compare yourself at this point in time to your friends and peers. You can be totally subjective and it's all up to you if you want to evaluate how you're doing.

The one universal thread that rings true (and I know it might sound obvious) is we all need purpose when we wake up in the morning to get out of bed. It doesn't matter what that purpose is-- whether it's spending time with a grandchild, starting a new company, volunteering for a cause you are passionate about or playing a sport like pickleball. You've got to have that drive. And for extra credit, if you create a diverse set of passions, all the better!

What I've learned
It takes time to figure out this (Un)Retirement thing. Like most people, it's not so easy in the beginning. Getting used to this sort of wide open yet vague new world is weird! I spent the first year worrying that I should be doing more things and in the back of my mind, I felt like I was forgetting something from my work. I was so used to running a business for my entire adult life that it was ingrained in me that I always had to be super busy.

 

Work PTSD
Once I slowed down, I realized that I actually suffered from some sort of PTSD from the event business I ran for 20 years. For years I would have bad nightmares about the event I was working on. I think it was from the pressure of getting enough attendees to sign up for the events. And my recurring nightmare was that we aren't ready for attendees, lots of scrambling. It makes no sense because we were always ready. But, it took me two full years until the nightmares finally faded away. 

New Stuff
What I really enjoy doing is creating new projects and businesses. I started my (Un)Retirement during the pandemic. I love listening to podcasts and I decided to start working hard to create a new podcast business with me as the host. On a whim, I called my new company Pickleball Media (because l also love pickleball) and our target audience is Baby Boomers who are at the forefront of the (Un)Retirement AND pickleball wave! 

When I started researching the pickleball industry, I realized that there were incredible business opportunities. There were no real business-to-business conferences or a tradeshow in this emerging sport. Maybe I could seize the opportunity and make a ton of money and get that high from creating another new event. But, instead.......

Learning to say NO 
I said "no" to the pickleball opportunity because it would have taken me right back to where I already had been. I decided to move forward into the new with my life and not go back to the stress and anxiety of the event business (remember the nightmares). So now I have a new rule for my (Un)Retirement. "If it sounds like so much work, I don't want to do it." I'm not afraid to work hard. But I don't want to be consumed by work ever again. I've moved past that now.

 

Changing course
During the first year of (Un)Retirement I started the I Used to be Somebody podcast and newsletter every week. I truly love doing it. But after 10 months I realized that this weekly schedule felt like real work again (see above rule #1). I used to fill out my Google calendar with all the interviews and deadlines for the podcast and newsletter and if I had any extra time available, I'd play some pickleball.
 

Once I noticed this trend, I reversed my work / play agenda. I went to a monthly podcast and newsletter and would first fill my calendar with pickleball 4 times a week, and then fill in the fun things with friends and family and what was left over time-wise went to work. I reversed my priorities......and I'm so much happier!

Getting out of your comfort zone
Probably the most difficult yet satisfying thing I've done so far in (Un)Retirement is to take a stand up comedy class and perform before 100 people. I've always been interested in stand up and saw a new class taught by a very talented comedian Jack Gallagher, here in Sacramento. I saw an ad on Facebook and signed up immediately for the workshop without even discussing it with my wife or anyone else. I was afraid if I told someone and thought more about it, I'd chicken out.

We've all seen stand up comedians. It looks easy. Trust me, it's not easy! Not only do you write your own material but you need to deliver it as well. (Which are entirely different skills, btw.) I have so much respect for comedians now. We only had five classes, two hours a week and then on the sixth one, we performed live before a big audience. The last thing I wanted to do was embarrass myself and bomb. I took the whole thing very seriously. I probably practiced my set 80 times. (Just ask my wife.)

Jack's goal was for each of us to do a five minute set. My set ended up being 12 minutes and I fully expected Jack to cut it down at the end. At our dress rehearsal one week before the show, I asked Jack what I needed to cut out. He said, "No cuts. It's great! You're going to do it all."  At the show, I nailed it. It was one of the highlights of my life! Carl's 12 minutes of Comedy Gold. 

Taking risks reaps rewards
So the decisions I've made so far in (Un)Retirement have given me a new perspective on what matters most: 

• Sleep matters. With less stress in my life, I sleep so much better. I used to sleep on average about 5 1/2 or 6 hours a night. Now I get my full 8 hours of sleep plus a short afternoon nap sometimes. Sleep is so important for  overall health.

• Exercise matters. I play pickleball 4 days a week now. And I walk 10,000 steps a day on the non-pickleball days. I've lost about 8 lbs. this past year. I stretch / meditate (with my cat Felix) 20 minutes every day and love it!  I feel much better physically and mentally.

• Friends matter. I've reconnected with several friends from my childhood and 20's and visited them. Since my career took me out of town a lot, I didn't have much time to meet people locally. Now I've got more local friends than I've ever had. Just joining a pickleball club gave me a dozen new friends that I see all the time. As you get older, an active social life makes a huge difference in your state of mind.

• You matter. Learn how to say NO. I simply avoid negative people and things I don't want to do. No more endless zoom calls and I've stopped doing online presentations. (Do people really want to watch 3 talking heads on a Youtube video?) I spoke at a live, in-person conference last month in New Orleans and loved it. I don't want to live in an only-virtual world. I want to make real connections with inspiring people and I don't need to do it only online.

I think the biggest thing I've learned so far is not to worry so much about stuff.  Most of our worries aren't something that we can control or influence in any way. Somehow I've developed a new mindset that allows my worry quotient to go down. 

Of course, I don't have all the answers to my life all figured out yet. But, after 3 years of (Un)Retirement, I feel like I know some of the questions and I like the newly reinvented me.

Tags:    the carl diary   unretirement   comfort zone   pickleball   stand up comedy   second act   reinvention  

In this last episode of 2021, we flip the podcast-- and Diana, Carl’s wife/content wrangler/blogger interviews the host. As she interviews Carl, they do a bit deeper dive into his childhood, his parent's divorce, the family barrel business started by his grandfather, his late-blooming teens, and his college years.

After a few marketing jobs post-college, Carl moved out to San Francisco in his early 20’s, landing a sales position with Miller Freeman, a B-to-B publishing giant (at the time). While working with exciting magazine titles like “World Coal”, Carl realized he could launch a magazine of his own. It also happened to be the early 1980’s in the Bay area, as coding and computers took off. At 26, he launched his first magazine, “Computer Language.” He then launched a magazine a little ahead of its time, “AI Expert.” (Artificial Intelligence)

After selling those magazines and taking a couple of years off in his first (un)retirement, Carl identified the craft beer and wine homemaking trends and launched “Brew Your Own”, “Brew Pub” and “Winemaker” magazines. After selling those magazines in the early 2000s, Carl saw that the magazine industry conferences seemed to be only for the big titles, when 95% of the magazine market was smaller, niche titles. (Think Concrete Today, VegNews, Backyard Poultry)

Carl launched the Niche Magazine Conference in 2007 producing hundreds of niche magazine seminars and conferences nationwide. He sold that company in 2019. As our audience knows, Carl started a podcast in 2020 during the pandemic, making himself the guinea pig for a show about people who had big-time jobs and now wanted to do something new in their Second (or Third or Fourth) acts of life. He also offers some insights into what it was like to launch the podcast and some news about the new future of the I Used to be Somebody show. Listen in to find out!

Carlism Trivia:

What question does Carl NOT ask podcast guests?

1. What was the worst job you ever had?

2. Can you summarize your (un)retirement in four of five words?

3. What is your pickleball experience?

4. How much did you weigh as a baby?

5. What was your childhood like?

Email your answer to podcast@pickleballmediahq.com for a chance to win a free Pickleball Media hat.

• More about Carl Landau and the Pickleball Media Team

• Sponsored by Capital Advantage

• Sponsored by LoveMyHeartStudy.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   unretirement   carl landau   anniversary   second act   podcast  

We started our company Pickleball Media at the beginning of the pandemic. A weird time to start anything. But, I decided that I had to do something since I had just sold my business and came up with the idea of creating a podcast about Second Acts. I would be the guinea pig for this second act idea. To complicate the idea more, we wanted to incorporate our new love for the game of pickleball into the show. It all made no sense whatsoever but amazingly has worked out.

I enlisted my pickleball instructors Mo Nard and Reine Steel to help. Which one does???

Mo co-hosts my episode segment "Pickleball Life Lessons with Mo" and Reine created an amazing website for us (which she does in her real life).

Our segment "Pickleball Life Lessons with Mo" has been a huge hit. The funny thing is that people that don't know anything or care about pickleball love this part of the show. I just wanted to share 10 great segments. It's a fun listen. You can hear the friendship between Mo and I grow from week to week. Keep in mind it all began during the pandemic. We'd be 15 feet from each other on the end of the tiki bar each week. Oh, and we finally figured out how to use the microphones / recorder after about 20 episodes.

10 "Life Lessons with Mo"

• We're here to confuse you

• Mo wants to bring recess back in our lives

• Are you feeling lucky?

• Partner Up!

• The life and times of Mo Nard

• Mo'see up to the Line

• Unwanted Advice!!!

• Mo is Drunk!

• Under the Lights!

• Mo Likes to Hit People

If you want to hear all of the entire episodes just go here!

• Sponsored by: lovemyheartstudy.com or call (866) 955-1594

• Sponsored by The Monkey Creative: themonkeycreative.com

Carl Landau is the Creative Genius here at Pickleball Media. He is the former Grand Poobah at Niche Media. 

Tags:    blog   interview   mo nard   pickleball   life lessons   website   second acts  

When you meet Susan Stewart, you think right away that you must be friends. She really cares about people. A former golf prodigy then pro, a colleague along the way saw her promise and helped her build her resort merchandising career. Then in 2017, tired of corporate life, she risked it all (her wife was very supportive) and started her own retail store in 2017. Strapping sells funky, kitschy, relevant, irrelevant, unusual items and it’s been a big hit with two stores and a thriving online business.

Susan has a successful business in a neighborhood in a transition with a long history but no surprise--she has become a community leader and advocate. She's advocate for everyone! She just opened in her second store during a pandemic—and she’s excited about it! (You’ll see in the podcast episode.) She is inspiring and inspires others with her infectious energy.

This budding yet savvy entrepreneur grew up in Hudson Valley in New York. Her parents were chefs and eventually the family moved to Palm Springs. As a child, Susan loved golf. After high school she had a job with Paramount Studios as a runner, meeting Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope and one of her golf heroes, Arnold Palmer.

A couple of careers later, Susan decided to go for it. “In January I had the idea, in February I found the space, in March I got the key and in April I opened!” she says. “I’m a doer. I think most entrepreneurs are. You jump in with both feet!” Now she is a successful shop owner who really views her business as a way to be an integral part of the community. Susan is hoping to hire some extra management and play a little more golf, looking for that sustainable life balance.

Susan’s advice on becoming an entrepreneur in your Second Act:

• “Failure is okay, it brings you to where you are.”

• “People always ask me; how did you pay for this? Be prepared that banks aren't going to loan you the money.”

• “Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. You have to be adaptable. You have to really see your failures and grow from it.”

• “You don't know that you don't know something until you (eventually) know something!”

• More about Susan Stewart and Strapping Store: https://www.strappingstore.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   susan stewart   interview   unretirement   golf   retailer   lgbtq   second act   third act   entrepreneur