Boomer Banter: Aging Well with Wendy Green

[Uncle Marv]
Hello friends, Uncle Marv here with another episode of my Unhealthy Podcast. And no, that's not how it sounds. It's a podcast about life, but it's about fixing all the things that are unhealthy, whether it is part of our diet, our exercise, our mental well-being, relationships, or pretty much anything that we can do to make our lives more enjoyable.

And I've got a lot of topics that we go over today. I have kind of, I guess, a new topic. And I have a new friend that I met recently at the PodFest conference that I've told you guys about in Orlando.

And I have with me, Wendy Green, host of the Boomer Banter Podcast. Wendy, welcome to the show.

[Wendy Green]
Marv, I'm so glad to be here. And it was so nice to meet you at PodFest. Thank you.

[Uncle Marv]
Yes, yes. It was good to meet you too. Good to chat with you a little bit, hear your story.

And listen, we're going to talk about some stuff and I should let the listeners know that we're going to talk about everything from a boomer perspective, which do you realize that about a year ago, I called myself a boomer and somebody had to reach out to me and say, Marv, you're not a boomer yet.

[Wendy Green]
I don't know when you become a boomer, if you weren't born in that time frame.

[Uncle Marv]
Well, and that's the thing, I didn't, I just assumed anybody over, you know, the age of 50 was a boomer, but that's not correct.

[Wendy Green]
We're happy to have you.

[Uncle Marv]
So let's talk about this. So you started a podcast, but it's interesting, the way that you started it is not the way a lot of us start podcasts. A lot of us just think, oh, well, I've got a great idea.

Let me figure out how I can share my voice and make money at it. But you came at it from a very different perspective.

[Wendy Green]
Yeah, I really did. I really did not know what a podcast was when I started this. That was about five years ago.

So I had had a career in first computer science, customer support, training and development, life coaching, and all of that. And I was back in the training arena when COVID hit. And of course, everything shut down.

And I was 66 at the time. And I thought, okay, I have Medicare, so I'm not worried about my insurance. But I knew that a lot of people in my age group, Marvin, were going to be hit so hard by this.

Because, I mean, as you know, once you're over a certain age, trying to find new employment gets harder and harder and harder. And if these people were going to be out of work for any length of time because of COVID, getting back into the ballgame was going to be really tough. Because of my training background and because of my experience speaking in front of groups I thought, what can I do to help?

I'm going to start a Facebook live. That was all I knew.

[Uncle Marv]
A lot of people did that during the year of our COVID.

[Wendy Green]
Yeah. So I was also responding to what I found derogatory, the okay boomer. And said, you know what, we have been a very active group of people, at least the boomers that I knew.

And I wanted to encourage people that we could still be active, involved, relevant, make a difference. We still had a lot left to give. So I called a couple of friends.

I said, would you be guests? I'm going to start this little thing. And it's grown from there.

I found out about Streamyard, which is what we're using now, which lets me simultaneously go live on Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Because I started live, I had to stay live, right? And then I found out, oh, I can download this audio and figure out how to put it in a podcast and send it out to Apple and Spotify and all this.

And so it's really been an incredible journey in many ways. But it certainly was not, I had no idea about monetizing it.

[Uncle Marv]
So when you started the podcast, or the Facebook live, we should say, I understand that that was a period in time when a lot of us were doing stuff, didn't quite know what we'd do with it. But when I listened to your show, when I've gone back and did a little bit of research there, it seems as though your podcast has this mission to help listeners feel re-energized, purposeful, I guess would be a good word. And the community offers encouragement, both in the personal growth area and just, I don't know, exploration of life in later years.

Does that sound right?

[Wendy Green]
Yeah, it's evolved, right? So at first, I was just talking to anybody that I thought had a good story. And over the years, I figured out there are really four areas to focus on to do what I call aging well.

And I think we have to address all four of those areas to have that foundation. And that would be financial literacy, relationships, health, as you said, mental and physical health, and purpose. And so I do topics, monthly topics, and I talk to experts, and I share my insights, and sometimes they're just stories.

So it gives people things to think about. It gives them inspiration, like you said. It helps you develop your own sense of confidence that you too can age well.

If this person is doing it, and this person is doing it, and Wendy's doing it too, then why not you too? So that really is the mission. It's also to build a community.

I have a couple of community groups that meet regularly, and we all support each other. Aging well is not a solo endeavor. It takes a community, I think.

Right.

[Uncle Marv]
Now, I imagine for you, well, let me ask it this way. When you had the situation with being laid off from your job, how long did it take for you to kind of re-engage and start focusing on this?

[Wendy Green]
Yeah, that's a great question. And here in technology, I mean, you understand that technology has its ups and downs, right? And every time there's a downturn, who loses their job?

Training and development, right? That's an overhead. Yeah.

And so I have been through this several times of, oh, we're cutting the workforce. Wendy, thanks for your help. We'll see you later.

So I have learned how to process that and recover from that. So when it happened this time in 2020, I did walk around the house for a few days going, oh my gosh, not again, what am I going to do? And I had my mother five years ago, she was 89.

You know, I can't get back there. I've got to stay well enough so that I can be there for her if she needs me. And I finally said to myself one day, you know, what do you want to do?

I mean, create what you want. And I was like, okay, well, what I want is to inspire people. I want people to know we're not done.

How am I going to do that? I'm going to do a Facebook Live. So that's kind of how it happened.

It was just a lot of self-talk, you know, like you're not going to just sit here and do nothing. What are you going to do? You're locked in your house.

So that's kind of how it happened.

[Uncle Marv]
Did you find that there were a lot of people that were in similar situations where they were looking for a new purpose or were kind of lost?

[Wendy Green]
Yeah, no, I didn't do any research. You know, I just felt motivated. I felt like I was kind of in touch with people in my demographic.

I had been life coaching. I knew about career coaching and how difficult finding a job was after 50. And I just, I mean, you know, we were home, right?

I couldn't just sit around and read a book. I had to do something. And this was really self-help for me in a lot of ways, Marv.

You know, it was good for my mental health. I felt like I was doing something that was purposeful, that was meaningful, and supportive. And hopefully people would listen and hopefully people would find it because I was reaching out to my friends and said, tell your friends.

I think probably my first couple of listeners were the person that was on the show and my mother. It was like I seriously had no idea what I was doing. And it just evolved.

It became a passion. It truly became a passion because I loved, like I had this thing on my wall, you know, once I kind of got going a little bit that people would start finding me and saying, oh, I want to be on your show because all I was doing was calling up people. Would you like to be on my show?

And the first time that happened, when somebody reached out to me, I was like, oh my God, it's working. And that person was from England. Like amazing.

So it was really cool how it just kind of started to develop a life of its own. And, you know, I have some coaching and with nurturing it, it's been great therapy for me. I've learned so much too.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. So you mentioned the four pillars that you focus on. Which one came first?

Because in my mind, I am thinking it might have been the mindset. Purpose came first.

[Wendy Green]
Because that was a lot of what I had been coaching about anyway, that you have to have a reason to get up in the morning, especially when you retire, right? So I was working with people that were retiring or looking at retiring. And, you know, we all have this idea that retirement is this nirvana place that we're going to go.

And we're just going to be happy all the time. And what happens, surprisingly, is that we are so used to having a schedule and having things that we're responsible for and knowing what's coming next that when we suddenly have all of this unscheduled time, people really flounder. And they don't know what to do with 16 hours in the day when they're awake.

And they're not going to work. And so a lot of my work had been around, okay, let's find your purpose again so that you can feel good about yourself again. And, you know, not just get depressed and sit on the couch and watch Dr. Phil or daytime soap operas or whatever, you know. And so purpose definitely came first.

[Uncle Marv]
I would imagine because that has got to be the hardest thing when you're right. People are used to doing stuff. Most of the time it's either at the direction of a boss or a job.

And then once that's gone, I know that the men that I've known that have, you know, gone up there and retired thought, you know, I'm just going to golf every day. And you can only do that for so long.

[Wendy Green]
That's right. That's right.

[Uncle Marv]
Before the spouse or significant other is like, no, you need to spend some time with me or we need to do something else. Or you just get bored of that.

[Wendy Green]
You get bored with it.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah.

[Wendy Green]
You do. I mean, I have a good friend who a lot of what he does is golf. He loves golfing.

But he also volunteers at his church and he's the treasurer over there. Because he was a CFO, right? So it's particularly people that had very responsible jobs.

And they didn't take the time to find what else they're interested in. They struggle with what to do with that 16 hours a day.

[Uncle Marv]
So I know that your shows, kind of like mine, are a little bit all over the place because there's so many areas when you talk about, you know, caring, you know, isolation of loss and grief. You've talked about finding vitality, staying healthy. What's probably the one thing that surprised you the most about a particular topic or thing that you've had on the show?

[Wendy Green]
You know, I was thinking about that before I came on. And I actually want to mention three things.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay.

[Wendy Green]
I did a series on estrangement. I had no idea what a big problem that is in our country. You know, we have this idealized vision of family.

And it is so far from that in many cases. With children absolutely cutting their parents off and saying, “You are toxic, I will not speak to you. And there's a lot of gray areas in there.

You know, like, was the parent really abusive? Or is the child not getting what they want? And so they're hearing different ways, you know, the word toxic is used a lot in our vocabulary these days.

And does it really mean I should cut you off? Or does it mean we should try and talk this through and gain some understanding? And when you are estranged from a child, it's so devastating.

And the same for the child when they're estranged from their parent. It's so devastating that you don't want to talk about it. You don't tell people.

So we don't realize what a big problem that is. So that was one area that just shocked me completely when I did that series. I think another thing was, you know, I mean, I don't focus a lot on particular handicaps or illnesses or whatever.

But I did a series on hearing loss because that is a big thing that it affects your ability to be in relationship and communicate well. It affects your ability to, you know, listen to music and so other social events. And it can also have an impact on what people perceive as dementia because you're missing so much.

And so they think, mm-mm, she's losing it. And I had these two women on that had serious hearing loss. And they had written a book about it.

And my mother has always had hearing loss, and I never realized this. It is so exhausting to struggle so hard to hear what's being said at a table. It takes so much energy for that person to try to be engaged and not just kind of phase out or not be embarrassed, just, you know, to be feeling shame that they can't participate.

It was a real awakening for me to recognize that that is quite a challenge for people and how to be more empathetic, but also to be able to say, it's okay. You know, if you can't hear, what will help? You know, should I sit here in front of you?

Do you want me to speak louder? Is it one side or the other? So I think it's important.

It's a topic, another topic that we don't like to talk about, right? Nobody wants to admit. Going to have to have hearing aids?

Nobody wants to admit that.

[Uncle Marv]
Wow.

[Wendy Green]
Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
So both of those seem to be pointing to a way that our culture deals with the aging in our society. We know that in other cultures, you know, families actually are coming together at that time because, you know, the elderly live with their kids. We don't really do that here.

[Wendy Green]
No, we don't.

[Uncle Marv]
And I know that you're not a psychologist, you're not a big study of behavioral health and stuff, but are you finding that a lot of times that, you know, our culture misses the point sometimes?

[Wendy Green]
You know, you've probably heard a lot of people talk about ageism.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah.

[Wendy Green]
It goes both ways, of course, right? Sometimes young people have that held against them. Oh, you're not old enough to understand or to do this work.

But I do think that there is a tendency in our society to think that, you know, the older people are not as productive. It takes longer to grasp new technology. I'm not going to deny that, you know, but that doesn't mean it's not possible.

It just may take longer, right? I mean, I'm a technological person, and I find that some things that I have to go over it a couple of times. Okay.

But I do think that the ageism is internal as well, right? That we will say to ourselves, oh, I just can't get that. You know, I'm too old.

I can't learn that again. And I think that works against us as well. I also think there's this idea that we are such an independent society, at least in the U.S., that we have told ourselves, and we probably got this from our parents, you don't want to go live with your kids. You don't want your kids to have to take care of you. You've got to be independent. You've got to take care of yourself, you know.

Don't think that your kids are going to take care of you. Make sure that you've got enough money, and you've got friends that will take care of you, and you've got a place to stay, and all of this stuff. And so there's no sense that families may be there and say, sure, Mom, let me help you move into assisted living.

But rarely are they going to say, oh, sure, Mom, come move in with me. It's a different mentality in our society than I think in particularly Eastern societies.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. So I was going to also add you mentioned independence. Well, I was going to say convenience as well, because it is so much more convenient to put our parents in assisted living than it is to have them stay with us in the spare bedroom.

[Wendy Green]
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's not easy.

It's not easy. I mean, I had my mother staying with me for a few months before she moved into her apartment in a continuing care community, and it's not easy.

[Uncle Marv]
No, it is not. I had my sister and my nephews living with us for a month while she was in a transition for a job. It wasn't anything major.

It was just, you know, she didn't have a place yet, but she had to start her job, and it was near enough to us that they stayed at our house, and it was interesting.

[Wendy Green]
That's right. That's right, because you and your wife have your routine, and suddenly it's interrupted, and there's all these other people, and they were fairly independent, I'm sure.

[Uncle Marv]
Yes.

[Wendy Green]
They didn't need you to make sure they were fed and cleaned and all of that.

[Uncle Marv]
So it's different. I want to make sure I give you the chance to go back and finish. I think you said there were three things, and I stopped you in the middle of two.

So you said estrangement and hearing loss. Do you remember the third?

[Wendy Green]
Yeah. Yeah. The third was a woman who wrote a book about depression.

Depression hates a moving target, she said. And this was an inspirational story, right? She had been struggling with lifelong depression, in and out, up and down.

But she was in a real funk, and she was in her 60s, and she heard about the Couch to 5K program. She saw a friend was doing that, and she thought, okay, maybe I'll try. And she was super embarrassed, because she felt like she was kind of overweight and frumpy, and she took her dog out for a little walk around the park, and it was exhausted.

But she got to where Marvin. She was finding that she loved it, and she started to get training, and she has since run marathons. And just the story that she told was so inspirational that even with this severe depression, she was able to find a community, first online, because she wasn't ready to go and be person to person.

And then finally, in her community, and then getting to where she ran marathons, I mean, that's the kind of stuff that I love to hear. If she can do it, I'm not a runner, but I can do other stuff. It's that kind of stuff that I love to have on my show that inspires you to find your thing, find your person, find your group, find your thing, and it will lead you from there, like podcasting has done for me.

[Uncle Marv]
Yep, there's a thing I was going to say. So she found running, you found the podcasting. How many stories do you think are out there of people that just simply had to find a new goal or a new dream and just needed some encouragement?

[Wendy Green]
Hundreds and thousands of them. Hundreds and thousands of them. I've had many of them on the show.

I have one coming up. Do you remember Solo Climbing, the guy that, Honnold is his last name, that climbed El Capitan without any ropes or anything, and he's world famous? His mother climbed El Capitan with him in a day, up and back, when she was in her late 60s.

She took up climbing in her 60s. And her story as to why she got there, I mean, it's that kind of stuff that you're like, whoa, okay.

[Uncle Marv]
That must be a way in the, I haven't gotten back that far.

[Wendy Green]
No, that's a new one. Is that a new one?

[Uncle Marv]
Okay.

[Wendy Green]
That's going to be in March.

[Uncle Marv]
Ah, okay. I've been checking out your shows. I hadn't seen that on there.

[Wendy Green]
Yeah, no, that's coming in March. You'll love it. It's an amazing story.

Yeah, so it's that kind of stuff, you know, like we don't all have to do that, right? Some of us may plant a beautiful garden, and some of us may work as volunteers in Meals on Wheels, but we have to find our thing. That's really the foundation, that purpose, you know?

When you find that thing, so much else falls into place.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah, well, speaking of finding that thing, we should let people know where to go. So Boomer Banter is the name of the podcast, and for those of you that found this one, you should be able to find that one in your favorite pod catcher. You can also head over to kboomer.biz, and that is how it sounds, H-E-Y-B-O-O-M-E-R dot biz. And the website's there about you, about the podcast, and you also have a blog there. And again, it talks about a lot of the same things that you talk about on the show. The last article up there is about feeling stressed.

Not alone. And then you talk about...

[Wendy Green]
I have a newsletter that comes out once a week. You can sign up for that on the website.

[Uncle Marv]
So here's kind of a tricky question. How do you balance talking with people about things like ageism, just the challenges that come with it? How do you balance where a lot of people probably are in that depressed state or in that lost state?

What do I do now? Why am I here? How do you balance that with helping them be optimistic and you staying optimistic yourself?

[Wendy Green]
Well, can we stay optimistic 100% of the time?

[Uncle Marv]
Truthfully, no.

[Wendy Green]
Right. Truthfully, no. So I think that's how you balance it.

You just have to be honest with them and say, you know what, we all feel down sometimes. How do you pick yourself back up? I periodically will remind myself of Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning.

Do you know that story?

[Uncle Marv]
I've heard it, but I don't know it, I'll be honest.

[Wendy Green]
Okay, so he was in a concentration camp. And he did survive and he ended up teaching, coming to America and teaching at Harvard. But he wrote this book, Man's Search for Meaning.

And the point is, even in the most awful situation, like a concentration camp, all he has control of, the only thing was his mind, his thoughts. They couldn't take that away from him. And so when I feel down, sometimes I'll be like, okay, well, why are you down?

Maybe you need to be there for right now, but you have control of your mind and your thoughts. And how are you going to turn that around so that you can be back in the role that you want to be in, helping people, inspiring people, and helping yourself. It's really, I hate to use the word selfish, but it's not a bad word, you know.

Selfishly, I am getting so much out of this too. And when I get feedback from people about what they're getting, it just makes it that much better. But we have control of our mind.

It's not easy.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah, nothing wrong about being selfish from time to time. You've got to. That's the whole point of self-care, isn't it?

[Wendy Green]
That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So Boomer Banter and your subtitle, I love, Real Talk About Aging Well.

[Wendy Green]
That's it.

[Uncle Marv]
Especially with this knowledge that we are living much longer, and obviously our goal is to stay healthier the longer we live. So that's kind of one of the things I want to have as, you know, one of the pillars of my show is that even as we get older, hey, we got to, you know, live healthy and be happy.

[Wendy Green]
That's right. And I think of aging well as an action word, an action phrase. You know, it doesn't just happen.

You have to make it happen by, you know, thinking well, eating well, moving well, having your friendships, your people that are there for you, and finding your thing. You find your thing.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Well, at that point, I want to say we should probably go ahead and end off here. And I know we've hinted at this in our initial conversations and stuff, but I already am having the feeling that I'd like to ask you to come back and talk about some of these topics.

I know I'm asking this on the air. So if you say yes now and then tell me no later, I understand.

[Wendy Green]
I love talking about this, Marv, and I'm going to have you on my show too. So I'm looking forward to putting you on the other side of the microphone.

[Uncle Marv]
Even though I'm not a boomer?

[Wendy Green]
Yes, but you have a story, right? You have a story about health and aging. And you called yourself a boomer once.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah, it works. All right. Wendy, thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

Wendy Green, boomer banter, heyboomer.biz. Check out her show. And listen, like me, even if you're not a boomer, there's stuff out there that you can learn. I mean, I mentioned some of the topics.

Listen, you can learn about financial stuff to think about as we get older. You know, don't wait.

[Wendy Green]
We're all aging.

[Uncle Marv]
Don't wait until it's too late to deal with things like your Medicare and some of your financial planning.

[Wendy Green]
That's right, that's right. We're all aging if we're lucky, right?

[Uncle Marv]
It's true.

[Wendy Green]
Marvin, this has been a pleasure. I've really enjoyed talking to you. Thanks.

[Uncle Marv]
It's been fun talking to you. And like I said, I'm going to ask you back, and we'll talk about that after we're done here.

[Wendy Green]
Okay.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Folks, thank you for downloading and subscribing and listening to this show. And to stay in touch, find us in your favorite pod catcher and sign up and follow along with us on the social medias.

And you can find me on LinkedIn and the Facebook and the website unhealthypodcast.com. And the goal of this is to help us all live better and be happy. We'll see you next time.

Allah.