Moving Forward From Fifty with Greg Gerber

Jen Hardy [00:00:10]:

Welcome to the fabulous over 50 podcast where we encourage, inspire, and empower women to find their fabulousness and live the life of their dreams. I’m your host, Jen Hardy, and this month, we’re going to be doing that by interviewing men, men over 50 who are going to share their perspective because men and women are different. Regardless of what you may hear in the news. Oh my goodness. There are things that hit us differently as we age. And there’s questions that I have for for men. Like, what do you value in your wife as you age? And Do you see her differently with her body changes? And what are ways that we can more effective effectively what are ways that we can more effectively communicate as men and women in our relationship as a marriage or as friends or whatever. And so I thought that I would include you in on these conversations. So I’ve reached out to some men that I know many of them in the podcasting world because that is where my friendships are. And so today, I’m going to be speaking with Greg Gerber and his podcast and his whole everything is forward from 50. And when I saw that, and he saw me doing fabulous from 50, we knew we had to collaborate. So he’s interviewed me, and I’ll have a link to that interview in the show notes so that you can hear that as well. And then I’ve interviewed him here and just talked a little bit about what is it like to get older and why is he doing what he’s doing and why is that important? Different ways of looking at things. So I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. We talked for over 2 hours, but I’m only sharing part of that with you here. You can hear the rest on his show. Like I said, links below, and thank you for listening. Here he is.

Greg Gerber [00:02:15]:

Thanks for joining me today, Jen. I really appreciate it. You know, it’s kind of fun that we have similar platforms. You know, fabulous over 50 and forward from 50. So I thought it’d be great if we had a conversation together.

Jen Hardy [00:02:28]:

So I have a question for you. This is something that I’ve noticed in the women that I’ve talked to who are over 50. There one beautiful thing that happens right around between 5055 is that we really stop caring what other people say in general. Now to some degree, we do, like, as far as, like, wrinkles and face lifts, but but as far as what we do, it’s just that we’re over it. Do men feel the same way?

Greg Gerber [00:02:51]:

Absolutely. I I could care less anymore what people think. You know, it’s just like if you’re gonna if something needs to be called out, I’m gonna call it out. And, you know, I just they call us grumpy for a reason. Went. That’s speech speak our mind. And people people aren’t used to that. You know, we’re used to people saying everything is fine and You know what? I don’t care. And then eventually you realize that, no. I do care. And you’re asked — Yeah.

Jen Hardy [00:03:19]:

—

Greg Gerber [00:03:19]:

and I’m going to tell you. And something that you didn’t even ask, and I’m going to tell you.

Jen Hardy [00:03:24]:

It’s still gonna tell you. Yeah. But I’ve I’ve learned I have learned that a lot of people in younger generations do not wanna advice. They don’t want it. They could agitate it. And but sometimes I have things. I’m like, I but you need this. You need this information. So I’ve learned that if I say Can I please give you some unsolicited advice? Mhmm.

Greg Gerber [00:03:43]:

And

Jen Hardy [00:03:43]:

if they say no, I won’t do it. But a lot I’ve had so many people say, you know, thank you for asking. And because you asked me, I will listen. And so that’s the secret right there. Because, you know, there’s things that people are and we’ve been there. We’ve done it. I don’t understand why you don’t wanna hear. You might not wanna follow my advice, but why don’t they listen? I don’t know. It’s it’s frustrating.

Greg Gerber [00:04:05]:

My mother-in-law was excellent in that regard. You know, she had something that she saw that was a deficiency in our relationship or in things that we were doing. And she said, I’m only going to say this once, and she never brought it up again. Or she asked if we could get she could give advice and listened, and that was the way to do it. It was asking first rather than just harping and, you know, saying expressing your mind, you know, because some people people aren’t going to accept advice when they’re not ready to hear it. Right? You could preach all day. And if they’re not if they don’t think there’s a problem, they could care less. But I think we still have an obligation, especially based on our lifetime of experience saying, I think if you continue down this road, you’re not going to like where you end up. And I think we have an obligation to people to tell them that. And whether they listen or not, that’s their choice. But yeah.

Jen Hardy [00:04:58]:

And whether they like or not yet. Some but sometimes, you know, we’ve we’ve put something there. We’ve put a little something, whether they wanna listen, and and that’s okay. Mhmm. They can make their own mistakes just like we did. I just hate watching people make the same mistakes.

Greg Gerber [00:05:11]:

It’s painful, especially when it’s child. And you you see that you know the pain that you went through and what you had to overcome. And you see them walking down or tiptoeing along that same direction. And that’s like, no. No. Come over here. Come here. This is not good. Would dragons be there? You know? Right.

Jen Hardy [00:05:30]:

You know? And and there’s things that, you know, I told my kids, if these things were fun, I would encourage you to do it. I have rules against it because later, it’s gonna be a problem. You don’t re you don’t see it now. I know you don’t see it now, but just trust me. You know?

Greg Gerber [00:05:44]:

Like what you said about the average person having 0.9 friends. And I heard long ago that men need 6 friends in their life. And people could buy 6. And it’s like there’s 6 handles on the coffin. And if you don’t have 6 friends to serve as pallbearers, your wife will have to hire them. And, you know, it’s it’s kind of funny, but I see a problem of people getting older and their friends die. Or they move away. I live in Sun City, Arizona, which is a retirement community. So a lot of people leave the northern states and move down here. To Sun City. And so they’re leaving their lifelong friends wherever they belong. They come here, and they start making new friends. And eventually, they die as well. So I think we have to constantly be making friends.

Jen Hardy [00:06:35]:

Yeah. Yeah. And it’s it’s not easy. It’s, you know, it’s uncomfortable, but you have to be willing to get up and go outside of your house. And that’s, you know, I think in the last few years, that’s something that people have lost a little bit? You know, it got a little uncomfortable because we kinda forgot how to it’s amazing to me how fast everybody’s attitude changed —

Greg Gerber [00:06:55]:

Mhmm.

Jen Hardy [00:06:55]:

— about doing things we really need to get back out there. It’s so important.

Greg Gerber [00:06:59]:

You know?

Jen Hardy [00:07:00]:

It’s so important.

Greg Gerber [00:07:01]:

Other problem that I see is that people don’t really treasure their friends, and they’re easy to abandon them or ghost them or unfriend them over the pettiest of things. You know, I you made a political post. I didn’t like it, so I’m going to unfriend you. You know, and we are of the age where we’re losing our friends through natural causes. We we should be retaining them and investing our relationships in them, time in those relationships, not getting upset over petty things and just abandoning all this. Half century worth of friendship because somebody ticked you off.

Jen Hardy [00:07:43]:

Exactly. And and, you know, this social media post thing. I don’t know. I don’t you know, my we I had a one parent that was a Democrat and one that was a Republican, and we had great conversations at the table and with their friends because it was all these different people with different views. And in my family, it was just seen as something beautiful and educational to have discussions with people who thought different things, and no one ever raised their voice or got upset or stopped heaven forbid, stopped talking to each other. And it just blows my mind that that’s That’s where we are right now.

Greg Gerber [00:08:15]:

Mhmm.

Jen Hardy [00:08:15]:

You know, I mean, there’s certain things. Obviously, if somebody’s doing something really creepy, but in general, yeah, no one I I’m with you. It’s it’s just really sad. So what made you move to Sun City?

Greg Gerber [00:08:26]:

I got tired of the Wisconsin winters.

Jen Hardy [00:08:29]:

Oh, okay.

Greg Gerber [00:08:29]:

A long, long, long ago. When I was in the military, I was stationed in Harlem Air Force Base, New Mexico, which is in Eleam Agordo. And I’ve just fallen in love with the weather and the climate and all of that. And I was dragged back to Wisconsin kicking and screaming in 1980, and I hated every winter that came up. And as soon as my youngest moved out of the house and, as life went in a different direction, I moved to Arizona. And I haven’t looked back.

Jen Hardy [00:08:58]:

That’s pretty incredible. And you’ve had a pretty interesting career yourself. Yeah. Tell me about your journalism career.

Greg Gerber [00:09:04]:

It was it goes back to high school. And I I could not understand English. It was not my subject. I did not understand grammar. And I got into high school 11th grade English teacher. His name was Keith Larson, and he saw something in me that I did not know existed. And he met with me his his free period coincided with my study hall. So I he would often let me come to his office where we could talk about grammar, and he would drill me on these things over and over and over again. And one day, I remember it all clicked I could identify what a noun was and adjective and adverb and how excited I was. And I spent the rest of the day reading my other textbooks in class and identifying, that’s the noun, the subject, the adverb, all that kind of stuff. It was kind of neat. But after he said, when I I mastered that, he said, now I want you to become more creative, and he introduced me to a thesaurus, and he really challenged me to improve my writing. And I fell in love with writing because of that man. And so when I first wanted to be a police officer and did that for a couple of years, but decided, it wasn’t for me. So I joined the military and asked to be a journalist, and I was assigned to that Air Force Base as the editor of the the paper, and I just fell in love with writing stories about people and reporting on things that they were doing and taking pictures and Eventually, I turned from newspapers into magazines and then magazines into blogs, and here we are today.

Jen Hardy [00:10:41]:

It’s so exciting. Well, thank you for your service, for

Greg Gerber [00:10:44]:

sure,

Jen Hardy [00:10:44]:

because that’s that’s a big deal. But and what led you to you do your podcast?

Greg Gerber [00:10:49]:

For I first did my first podcast was in 2014 when I was an journalist covering the recreation vehicle industry. And I went to interview a couple who had a very good podcast back then in 2014, and it was called, living the RV dream. And there is a big RB rally in quartzsite, Arizona, which isn’t too far from me, and I spent a couple of hours and went over there to meet with them. And I talked to him and interviewed him. And when the interview was done, one of them turns to me and says, Greg, why don’t you have a podcast? I’m like, Hey. What? And I had no idea. They talked about it. And I said, alright. I’m gonna look into it. And I got training, and I attended a conference. And I got set up, and I started interviewing people. And after just a couple of interviews, I’d like, I really like this. For the reasons I talked about before. It allows people to tell their own stories their way in their words. And so I started interviewing executives in the RV industry. And I did that the entire time that my business was open. And when I shut it down, a couple of companies hired me to do podcasts for them, Then when I started forward from 50, I created my own just because there are so many interesting people to talk to. Everybody stories, and people love hearing stories. They don’t need to be preached at. They just love to hear that other people had to struggle and they overcame it because many times they feel the same way or dealing with the same problem. So that’s why I started that, and forward from 50 has got, 20. I’d have to look it up and see. It’s it’s, no, it’s quite a few more episodes than I’m I’m thinking. I can find out right here in just a second. There are 28 episodes that we’ve done already for forward from 50, but my RV industry podcast was about 200 So we’ve been doing it for a while.

Jen Hardy [00:12:48]:

Mhmm. That’s so exciting. 2014. Yeah. It was it was a baby then.

Greg Gerber [00:12:52]:

It was. Yes. Absolutely. It was just coming out, and people were saying podcasting was going to be the future. And here it is today, and everybody has a podcast.

Jen Hardy [00:13:02]:

Yeah? Yeah. I’m loving it.

Greg Gerber [00:13:05]:

If you had to start over again, is there anything you do differently in your life, especially after turning

Jen Hardy [00:13:11]:

50? Well, I would have done a lot of things differently in my younger life. But I think two things that I would do differently, and the and that would have would have set the course. Although, I’m very happy where I am right now. In my life. But I think I would’ve somebody just asked me if you could tell your seventeen year old self, what would you tell yourself? And it was stop judging yourself because I think that was a big thing. And, don’t think that you need a man. To the point that you go with the wrong one. I think that’s really important advice. And so I made decisions based on those things. But here, Everything’s good. I I think, you know, I’m really, really happy with the way things have turned out. And, you know, those things, those decisions that we that we really beat ourselves up over when we’re younger because, you know, I mean, we all make mistakes. And and, you know, like you were saying, everyone has questions and everyone has thing that they need to talk about or whatever. And we’re sometimes afraid to because we think we’re the only one. We’re almost never the only ones. There are tens of thousands of people that have made the same mistake we’ve made. And, you know, if you start talking about it, that’s something that I’ve learned on my podcast. Sometimes I talk about things that are hard for me. And that’s when I get the most response for my viewers. And they’ll say, oh my gosh. I needed to hear that. Thank you for so much. I thought I was the only one. Because, you know, we we’re human. And, you know, understanding the humanity, I think this is something that comes with being older as well. We can give ourselves a little bit more grace, maybe.

Greg Gerber [00:14:52]:

That’s an excellent point to be true to yourself. It’s something I tried to instill in my kids when they were going to school. You know, they were all concerned about wanting to be liked by the popular kids or to be one of the popular kids. And I’m like, oh, no, honey. You be yourself. And you just do what you want to do and you like what you want to like because there’s so much conformity in middle school and high school to get kids to abandon their own identity and adopt the group culture and things like that, that, leaves people unhappy, and they’re miserable on the inside. And you see the social media is just like poured gasoline on that. It’s all about the likes and, you know, kids post something. And if they don’t have a 100 likes within a couple of hours, They just think they’re losers, and it’s just so sad to see, but then adults are doing the same thing as well. They’re not pursuing what they want to do. Because they’re afraid of offending somebody else. And it just, once you get to that age where you don’t care, just quote and do it. So — Exactly. What would I tell my seventeen year old self? I would say, take risks because we were so worried about making the wrong decisions that we didn’t take make a decision that came down from my parents. My mom was very much adverse any kind of risk taking at all, and she kind of instilled that in me, and I made some decisions that were safer than they probably needed to be. And I wonder what would happen to my life if I had gone in a different direction and then be true to yourself. You know, I I kind of walked to a different drummer and was ostracized a little bit in high school because of that, but I’m very happy that I did it because, you know, so much We just celebrated our 45th class reunion last week. I wasn’t able to go to it up in Wisconsin, but We’ve when we’re in high school, our friends are everything to us. Everything, you know, just nothing without them, and we do everything with them. And then we graduate, and they go in different directions, and you never see them again. So the people that were the most important to you in high school college, even as young adults, you know, they everybody just grows up and moves away or goes in different direction. And you need to be true to yourself because they’re not gonna be around you.

Jen Hardy [00:17:16]:

I think that is such good advice for any age, isn’t it? Mhmm. Because I feel like even now I don’t know. Even now, it’s the same way. It’s it’s been a beautiful thing where, you know, because I had this self judgment. I was raised in Los Angeles and, you know, out there in in where I was surrounded. The people I was surrounded by, it might not be everywhere. In it was the eighties. Right? You can never be too rich or too thin. And, you know, there was these standards that were ridiculous as especially as a woman growing up, you know, a teenager growing up. And, yeah, it’s it’s so nice to live here. I live by the beach here. But it’s a different thing. I got eighty year olds and bikinis here, and they’re very happy. And it’s it’s so low key. It’s just a very and I can just be myself And it’s the first place where and I know you’re supposed to have that inside you, but it’s hard to be like that inside you and most of the people around you, or a different way. You know? And so here, everyone’s just kinda chill, and I just can be me, and I can be my fifty year old body or fifty five year old body on the beach and not be self conscious. And, it just feels so good to finally just relax.

Greg Gerber [00:18:28]:

It really isn’t fair that women are held to such ideals. I mean, there’s applied so much pressure that starts at a very young age. I mean, even in high school, right, that you’re approved. If you don’t do anything sexually and the minute you say, you do that, you become a select. And it’s just Oh my gosh. There’s no more ground. It just it’s just incredible and very painful for a lot of women who have had to endure that kind of treatment. And, you know, on behalf of all men, I apologize for that, but, yeah, I probably contributed to some of that myself, if I were honest.

Jen Hardy [00:19:04]:

It’s interesting, though, because with guys, you’re applauded for that. Right?

Greg Gerber [00:19:08]:

Yes.

Jen Hardy [00:19:08]:

But who are you supposed to be doing it with? So

Greg Gerber [00:19:12]:

Right.

Jen Hardy [00:19:12]:

So Yeah.

Greg Gerber [00:19:13]:

It’s it’s

Jen Hardy [00:19:14]:

it’s a it’s a really interesting culture. And I think, you know, I think we’re kind of swinging in my opinion way too far the other way. Like, in a different direction, but I my hope is that it’s gonna come back into the middle. You know? And, you know, because I think body acceptance is one thing, but I think pushing people to be £300 is a whole other thing. But but I think we are, at least as a culture, having conversations about making things somewhat more, you know, I never understood. My mom was you know, she was fighting the fight in the sixties with the bra burning and, you know, all that stuff. And I, you know, I think my formal rebellion was to be a stay at home mom who homeschooled. That was mortifying to her. But in my mind, if you’re gonna say women should have the right to do whatever they want, then what they should have a right to do anything they want, which should include being home. Or homeschooling or not or going to work or doing all the things. You know? It does blow my mind a little that things are still It’s still unbalanced. I don’t know. But I like that we’re having the conversation. I think, you know, that’s the only way it changes for a long time. I mean, even like me, like, there was a lot of women who didn’t understand there was a situation to talk about. And and now we now we do. But I I think, yeah,

Greg Gerber [00:20:28]:

That’s right. And it is kind of sad that, you know, we put so much emphasis on pushing women out of the home and into the workplace that the kids suffered starting in the 1970s. You know, and the the divorce came, and they were raised by single moms, and dads were out of the picture as a general rule. I know mine was. And it just, a bad situation for kids all around. And I just saw the movie Jesus Revolution. I don’t know if you’ve seen that. And it talks about, it was out a couple of months ago, and it talks about the revolution that took place in Los Angeles with the church over there. That the hippie movement started coming to church, and it was just, kind of, weird experience for people who were in the church already. They saw the hippies as being dirty, carefree, you know, not really Christian, etcetera, and, just the character in the movie, the main character, was saying that the kids are looking for something. They don’t know what it is, but they’re looking in the wrong places. And I think we’re seeing that right now. So eventually, I agree with you that he this will turn around and come back, and people find their true spirit, their true identity. I probably hopefully with god, because that’s the best way to do it. But, There are many options for people to pursue. And right now, a lot of people are taking the wrong option. You know, my daughter is just going through, kind of what you were talking about. She is in her thirties, she has 2 young kids, a three year old, that they adopted and a two and a half year old that they had naturally. And she has made the decision that she is not going to work because of financial necessity. They actually crunched the numbers and realized that if we have to put the kids in daycare, I would work full time to bring home

Jen Hardy [00:22:36]:

$400

Greg Gerber [00:22:37]:

to $500 a month. So what can we cut from our budget that would allow me to stay home with the kids. And they’re gonna do the same thing. They’re going to do the homeschooling and, and try and keep the kids as protected as they can for as long as they can.

Jen Hardy [00:22:54]:

Yeah. It’s a it’s a beautiful thing. I it really is. And I I don’t think It’s for everyone because people always think, well, you do that. Do you think everyone? No. I don’t. But if you can, I think it’s beautiful? And, you know, along the lines of of family and talking about family, I think this is a really good question. I don’t usually get to ask my guests because they’re women. But as a man, I think You know, we’re talking about the seventies eighties and how things have changed. The way that the media so it puts a physical thing on women Right? That we have to be perfect and skinny and whatever. But for men, I feel like when my kids growing up my older kids in the nineties in the early 2000s, they didn’t get to watch a lot of the cartoons. And the reason isn’t even because of the cartoons. It was more the ads. Because they were so anti authority. And in the cartoons and the ads, men were idiots. Any dad was an idiot and whatever. And do you think that that affected you at all?

Greg Gerber [00:23:52]:

I didn’t see that when I was growing up because, you know, we I grew up with Mayberry R FD and Andy Griffith’s show and father knows best and things like that. And the TV shows that I grew up with, the father was revered. He was the the central figure of the family, but that changed. You’re absolutely right in the eighties nineties, and it’s not just the ads and the cartoons. It’s the television shows all the way around. I mean, it just

Jen Hardy [00:24:18]:

— Well, yeah. Now it’s it’s everything.

Greg Gerber [00:24:21]:

Everything. Right.

Jen Hardy [00:24:21]:

I just think I think it’s so sad.

Greg Gerber [00:24:24]:

Mhmm. I agree. You know, we grew up with, a little house on the prairie where PA Ingalls was, you know, just the ideal dad that nobody else could ever live up to. Right?

Jen Hardy [00:24:35]:

He was MacGyver before MacGyver was here.

Greg Gerber [00:24:37]:

That’s right. Exactly. But it is unfortunate because men are lost. They’re being told that they’re too toxic, too masculine. And if they step out and they actually be they they’re They step out to be the leaders. They are meant to be. They’re told that they need to shut up, but, you know, they’re mansplaining everything. And it’s just unfortunate. So the guys do that. They just shut up, and they withdraw. And I think we’re seeing the results of that now in our country. Because we lack leaders in every realm of our society today. And It’s not to say that women can’t be good leaders because many of them are, and they’re just they have great ideas and things like that, but men have a role to play as well. And it’s unfortunate that so many of them are retreating into self medication with pornography and drugs and alcohol and just wasting their time watching television on the couch because they like purpose in their life. They are I I wrote a blog on that once, long couple of years ago that men are tired of enough. They’re sick of enough. They’re told they’re not doing enough at work, at home, at church, the place of business, if they have a business, if they’re sports teams, anything. They just they’re being pulled in a 1000 different directions, and everywhere they’re being pulled, they’re told they’re not doing an And it’s it’s hard for men to live in that kind of environment with those kind of expectations.

Jen Hardy [00:26:14]:

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And you had some heart wrenching statistics about men and how important it is that men do have purpose.

Greg Gerber [00:26:23]:

Oh, yeah.

Jen Hardy [00:26:24]:

Because, you know, and I think that’s something that, you know, women, we I think we kind of and I can speak for my because I didn’t realize what I was doing either. We idealize this idea of retirement. And, oh, my husband can be there and hold my hand and do all the things that I do during the day, but those aren’t all the things that maybe our husband had in mind to do when he didn’t have to go to work 8 to 5. And he doesn’t want to sit there and tag along to your lunch club or whatever. He wants he needs something else. What is that thing that he needs?

Greg Gerber [00:26:57]:

Purpose is one thing for sure. Absolutely. I reminded of a funny cartoon that I’d seen a while ago. And a man had just retired, and he was coming home for the first time. And he was addressing his wife, and he had a clipboard in his hand, and he was saying that now that I’m home, now that I’m retired, there are some things that I’ve found that you’re doing that’s inefficient in running the Oh, and she’s holding a cast iron skillet in her other hand. It just came in. So, yeah, but men absolutely need purpose. And we are when they retire, many times they’re working at jobs, they cannot stand. They’ve they’re only doing it because it provided the money to do it. So they endured that and they dream of retiring and relaxing and finally doing what they wanna do. And So they moved to places like Sun City, Arizona, where there are 8 recreation centers and 8 golf courses in this community of sixty thousand people. And so they devote their life to recreation, and they realize that that isn’t enough. They get bored, you know, waking up in the morning, going golfing, coming home, and, you know, checking their email and watching the news in the afternoon, taking a nap, and, dooms growing through the news, I guess not just watching it, but and social media and all of that, there’s no purpose to their life. And what happened is that the Social Security Administration found that people who retire at 55 have an 89% greater likelihood of dying before they reach their 65th birthday. And then the National Center of Biotechnology information found that men who retire at 65 are often dead before they reach 68. The reason for that is because when they were working, their entire identity was tied up in what they did. In fact, you two men meet on their streets. One of the first questions they have is, so what do you do for a living? You know, they’re everything they’ve done. Everything about them is tied up to that. When it is taken away because they are ushered out the door and said, thank you for your service, but your time is up, or it’s, you know, taken away because they’re too old, and they can the company realizes that if they get rid of the old people, they can hire 2 new younger people who work for less and work longer hours, or whatever it is. Taking away that purpose just destroys men. I know that my business as a journalist in the RV industry, kind of dissolved in an unfortunate situation. I wrote some things that were true about the industry, and its products and the services that it was providing, but it irritated some people in very high places, and they orchestrated an advertiser boycott. That was successful, and it took the fine, the profit out of what I was doing. And so the job became a real chore rather than a joy. And so I shut it down. But when I shut it down, I had nothing to do because being a journalist had been my identity for 20 years. So I went through a very dark period where I didn’t have enough energy basically to get out of bed or to get out of bed and when I did, all I would do is watch television, or like I said before, don’t scroll through the news, getting angry, depressed, feeling hopeless, until finally, a mentor came alongside of me and said, you know, something’s wrong. I don’t, you know, it looks like you’re off. A little bit. What what’s going on? And we talked a bit, and he said, Greg, I think there are a lot of people your age who suffer from that same thing and it’s a lack of purpose. So what have you made your purpose about helping other people find theirs? And that’s like, wow. What a great idea. Ironically, I had registered the domain forward from 50 years earlier. So I had already come up with that idea, but never pursued it. And it just so once people retire, They kind of cool off and they recreate for a little while, but they discovered that they need a purpose for their life. And without that purpose, They usually give up. Men often wind up dying because they want to because they don’t see a purpose for their life. Does that make sense?

Jen Hardy [00:31:13]:

It absolutely does. So let’s say for someone who’s listening on the fabulous over 50 side, and they’re thinking, oh my gosh. I don’t want that to happen to my husband. How can a woman encourage their husband or help it? Because I know sometimes we come up if if your wife says you need to get out there and find a purpose. Well, then you’re not gonna because that doesn’t sound like what you wanna do. Right? So how can we gently encourage our husbands to find a purpose or help them without seeming? Like, we’re just adding one more thing to that to do list.

Greg Gerber [00:31:45]:

Right. That that’s a good point. I think that many ways know what they’re husbands have been passionate about the kinds of things that kind of excited them. Maybe when they were first married or when they were younger, they’ve always talked about someday they’re going to do this or whatever the case might be. You know, they just want to learn something, but don’t feel that they have it in them anymore to do that, or they don’t see what the point is to learn about woodworking, for example, you know, and how to do that kind of thing. I think women should encourage their husbands to try different things. They go back to what it was that got them so excited many years ago in Omaha. Boys grow up wanting to be firefighters and astronauts. And when you’re fifty five, sixty years old, that’s probably not gonna happen. But, you know, if you’re interested in you know, space was something that I was really interested in as a kid and a young adult. You know, maybe you could join an astronomy club in your community or whatever, just to give you that sense of purpose or teach kids about astronomy. You know, we need so many adult mentors for kids today. I just I that can’t be stressed enough. There are so many kids that are out there that are lost. They don’t know what’s going on. Many are being raised by single moms who are doing their very best to do what they can do to raise kids, especially boys, but masculinity can never be bestowed by femininity. It’s got to be passed on mant man, man to boy, etcetera. So if there’s a way that you could encourage your husband’s who get involved in things that they’re really passionate about and maybe service teachers to help express that or to help push, move that passion to other generations. I think that would do a world of good for a lot of people.

Jen Hardy [00:33:43]:

That is okay. I love that. That’s really good advice.

Greg Gerber [00:33:45]:

Thank you.

Jen Hardy [00:33:46]:

Yeah. Because because those numbers, those numbers are just astounding.

Greg Gerber [00:33:49]:

It is sad. It is very sad to see. And I see that here all the time in Sun City. It’s just men hanging around waiting to die. You know, Ben Franklin talked about that. Many men, many men die when they’re 30 and wait until they’re 65 till their body catches up with them. Right? It just it’s sad to see because we all have so much more to contribute. And the reason we’re kept alive is because we are here for a purpose, and that purpose, a purpose always includes helping other people. So when you say my purpose is to go fishing every day, your hobby is to go fishing every day. But is that really your purpose? Now a hobby can become a purpose. If you really like fishing, bring some guy out with you who’s never gone fishing and help him fall in love with the sport. Teach him about the equipment that he needs and the bait that he needs and how to identify a fish. I could catch a fish out of a lake, and I none would not have a clue what kind it was. You know, so you can turn your hobby into a purpose relatively easily. And many people benefit when you do that.

Jen Hardy [00:34:59]:

That is that that’s so great. That’s an interesting way to look at it because I never really thought about like that. It’s, you know, it’s it’s your hobby. Yeah. If that’s what you do. By yourself, whatever. So you help people find their passion?

Greg Gerber [00:35:09]:

Is that — That’s right.

Jen Hardy [00:35:10]:

So you do that you’re finding their purpose.

Greg Gerber [00:35:12]:

Forward from 50 is all about helping men and women over the age 50 to live more purposeful lives by pursuing things they’re passionate about. And sometimes they just need to be reminded a little bit about what trick their trigger many times it was years ago, and they were told they were crazy for even considering it, but it’s always been in the back of their mind. What if I had pursued that? And so this is the time to actually go out there and do it.

Jen Hardy [00:35:38]:

Yeah. Yeah. And that’s, you know, it’s interesting because we both have the same general idea in in different ways and different yeah. But it’s —

Greg Gerber [00:35:45]:

That’s right.

Jen Hardy [00:35:45]:

— I love it. I love it. And I don’t I don’t think there can be too many of us. I really don’t. I think, you know, the world needs and that people who are older need people standing up saying, hey. You know? You are valuable. You are worthwhile. You are so important.

Greg Gerber [00:36:00]:

We all have a story to tell. Every single one of us has endured something in our life that we have overcome that has threatened to take us out or actually did take us out. For me, I grew up in a home, without a dad. And it was just people back then, people thought, ah, the kids, they’re young. They’ll get over it. They don’t. They don’t get over it. They take that feeling of abandonment, internalize it, and bring it with them their entire life. And it just it’s sad. So we need people to step alongside others and help them through the things that we struggled with, because We are not alone. You had mentioned that before. We are not alone, and we have a duty and an obligation to the younger generations to help them get through what we’ve already overcome.

Jen Hardy [00:36:51]:

I love that. What about you? Mic drop moment.

Greg Gerber [00:36:54]:

Do you have any any advice for people over 50 till them identify or pursue their passions?

Jen Hardy [00:37:00]:

See, I would the same thing. It’s, you know, looking back, if you can’t figure it out now, Right? Look back to what you wanted. Or and another thing that we’re thinking about doing is actually because we have a very high retirement population here because, you know, we’re in Florida. So you and I are a little bit in the same boat in that. And one of the things we wanna do, because we have the younger kids at home, my husband’s a gamer. So our kids are gamers is teaching grandparents how to play video games with their grandkids, which sounds silly but it’s what your grandkids like to do. Mhmm. And so we figure if we could teach grandparents how to do that. Number 1, I think they’re grant we’ve talked to a of kids about this. And every child is like, oh my gosh. If my grandma or my grandpa played Minecraft with me, that would be the coolest thing.

Greg Gerber [00:37:45]:

Mhmm.

Jen Hardy [00:37:45]:

And so I think you know, even something like that. Like, get yourself a video game. Even it’s not something that I would have considered in the past, but if I have grandkids, if I had grandkids, which I don’t, I think it’s definitely something that I would think about. Plus there is no end of, I don’t know, learning about that. That would keep you going. And as an an older adult, if you learned it, it could become a purpose because you can go teach other adults how to play with their grandkids because this is it’s It’s one of those things where I think, you know, when we were growing up, our parents thought it was a fad, these video games, you know, with pong and all that frogger, but it’s not a fad. And it’s, like, what away. And if your grandkids are gonna do it hours a day, you might as well just jump in there. So that’s one of the things that, It’s a passive thing, but especially for grandparents that aren’t, you’re not you’re not able to take your your grandkids out maybe to, like, amusement parks and go do all those things. For whatever reason. It’s something that you could do that would be very engaging and surprise the heck out of the rest of your family.

Greg Gerber [00:38:48]:

That’s right.

Jen Hardy [00:38:48]:

And so I think, you know, and like you said, find something that your passionate about that you can help other people with because, unfortunately, with the rise of these tablets and phones, and all these things that are amazing and do amazing things, there’s a lot of kids whose parents are so addicted. They don’t get any attention at all.

Greg Gerber [00:39:07]:

That’s right.

Jen Hardy [00:39:08]:

And having older, you know, my parent my children didn’t really have grandparents that were active in their lives. My dad passed early, and they’re people that were left weren’t into that sort of thing. And, so finding other children like people, who you can pass your knowledge on to because there is a there are a lot of kids that are hurting and need attention and knowledge, and they’re missing out on all of that.

Greg Gerber [00:39:36]:

I agree.

Jen Hardy [00:39:36]:

So I think that’s, you know, like you said, finding finding other people you can share your knowledge with. That’s, you know, and there’s a joy that comes with that that you just you can’t find anywhere else.

Greg Gerber [00:39:47]:

I like the idea of learning to play the kids video games and things like that, but I would temper it and say that the kids get a lot of screen time, so learn to play Minecraft But in addition to that, they’ll say I’ll play 30 minutes of Minecraft with you, but you gotta play 30 minutes of a game that I like. Whether it’s checker or a board game or something like that that does not require the screens, and people can have the conversations while they’re playing as well. Because when they’re playing online, you know, they’re so focused on things happening on the screen that they can’t have the conversations. But I remember, you know, hanging around or doing family board games and just the conversation, even card games that went along that. One of the people I interviewed does that already. She will invite a teenager over to her home, and they put together a puzzle. You know, they just sit there and put together a puzzle and have a have a snack or a light meal or whatever the case might be, but it’s the conversation that takes place where the older woman is able to mentor the teenage girl. And it just it’s great because all of my kids grew up with an older woman that they could turn to for advice beyond mom and dad. And, you know, it’s important for mom and dad to have those older people in their lives as well. My kids grew up without a grandfather. My dad died when I was nineteen. My ex wife’s father drowned on a family camping trip when she was twelve. So they didn’t know what a grandfather could do. And I think, you know, they missed out a little bit as a result of that. One of my favorite movies on golden pond. Have you ever seen that?

Jen Hardy [00:41:29]:

A long time ago.

Greg Gerber [00:41:29]:

A long time ago. But if you’ll remember, the premise of that is a thirteen year old boy comes to live with the thors or not. I forgot their last names, whatever, what the Henry fond of is the this the main character. And through the course of that summer, Henry taught the young boy how to fish and how to do Partcheesy and think and how to read the old classic books, and the kid’s life was changed forever because of that experience. So, yeah, I’ll I agree with you in the learning how to play the games, but to do other things with them as well.

Jen Hardy [00:42:09]:

That is that is the perfect thing because then that’s that’s a big thing in my house is playing board games because before I married my husband, my kids weren’t allowed to play video games. And I’m a big anti screen person. And so it’s been a very interesting balance finding experience. With the 2 of us. But, and and our kids are only allowed 1 hour of screens a day because it can get overwhelming. If you don’t set a boundary, Right. But and we do. We play so many games, and there’s some really new funny interesting games as well as the classic. So, that’s a good thing. So when we start doing that, I think that is a good thing. We’ll tell the grandparents, here’s the deal that this is is what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna surprise them and have fun. And then, yeah, it’s a fiftyfifty deal.

Greg Gerber [00:42:53]:

Exactly.

Jen Hardy [00:42:54]:

And and I think you know, that’s something that a lot of kids these days don’t have to do is compromise.

Greg Gerber [00:42:59]:

Right. Because it’s all about them. They’re taught that they’re the most important things in the world and where their feelings and their opinions and all that kind of stuff are predominant. And you just — Right.

Jen Hardy [00:43:11]:

And then they grow up and they return 18 and move out in real life. And then they’re shattered.

Greg Gerber [00:43:16]:

Right.

Jen Hardy [00:43:16]:

You know? And if I hear the word triggered one more time, I’m gonna be triggered. So, yeah.

Greg Gerber [00:43:22]:

I agree. How can people get in touch with you if they want to connect with you?

Jen Hardy [00:43:27]:

Jennhardy.net. It’s my website, and everything is right there on the front page. They can find it. It makes it easy. And what about you?

Greg Gerber [00:43:35]:

Forward from 50.com. We’ll get them to to what I’m doing now, and I think that’d be great. And people can access both of your podcasts from Jen Hardy.net. Yes. Wonderful. Super. Well, this has been fun, John. I really appreciate the time. We’ve had a great discussion and, love what you’re doing with fabulous over 50, and I wish you the best of luck going forward.

Jen Hardy [00:43:56]:

Thanks, Rick, and forward from 50. I mean, yeah, this is so amazing. So thank you so much, and I look forward to doing this with you again sometime. Greg is such a sweet guy. And if you know a man who’s really — at the middle of the road where he’s at right now. He’s over 50, and maybe he’s struggling a little bit. Doesn’t know what he wants to do, or he’s just unhappy with his job and tired of being that way. Have him reach out to Greg. He can help him out. He really is does amazing things. I’ll have the links for all things Greg Gerber in the show notes and on the website. Next week, we are going to have another fabulous man sharing his insights with you, and I know you’re going to love it. So stay tuned and stay fabulous.