Aging In Place Directory

#71 - From “What Now?” to Purpose: Planning, Movement, and Mindset for a Fulfilling Retirement

• Esther C Kane CAPS, C.D.S.

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What if the most meaningful years aren’t behind you—but waiting for you to design them? We sit down with nationally recognized therapist and author Faust Ruggiero to reframe retirement from a vague “end” into a focused, energizing next chapter. Instead of chasing a perfect plan, we explore how tiny, consistent actions—moving daily, learning a skill, joining a group—unlock purpose, community, and confidence.

Faust shares a clear framework: pair one steady long-term goal with a few short-term goals, each backed by concrete action steps. That grid keeps you moving without overwhelm and aligns with how the brain actually changes: repetition over time. We dig into “I over E”—intellect over emotion—to help you pause, think, and respond rather than react. You’ll hear how teaching what you know accelerates your own growth, why comparison is a trap, and how giving back restores a powerful sense of being needed.

We get practical about the pillars that make everything else possible: exercise you’ll stick to, consistent sleep, simple nutrition, and a daily schedule that respects your energy. We also talk about tech and AI from a senior vantage point—why you don’t need to “keep up” to be valuable, and how your lived experience creates a niche younger generations can’t fill. From turning a yoga habit into a class to building a second career around your hard-won skills, this conversation offers concrete steps to make the next decade the most intentional one yet.

If this resonates, subscribe for more grounded strategies on purpose, health, and aging well. Share the episode with someone planning retirement, and leave a review to tell us the one small step you’ll take this week.

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SPEAKER_00:

Hello everyone. Welcome to the Senior Safety Advice Podcast, Aging in Place Directory Podcast, or the YouTube channels for either one of those. Wherever you're watching this or listening to this, welcome. I'm Esther Kane, retired occupational therapist, aging in place specialist, and certified dementia care specialist. And before we begin this interview, I want to take a quick moment for an introduction and a small apology as well. So today I had the pleasure of speaking with Faust Ruggiero, and he is a nationally known and recognized therapist, researcher, and an author of six books. I have all six right here. Check them out on Amazon. Just look for Faust Ruggero. It's R-U-G-G-I-E-R-O. Very Italian name. He is the creator of the Process Way of Life, which is an empowering framework that he uses to help people find emotional balance and to live with purpose. And his career has spanned over 40 years in in just about every setting, in clinical, in corporate, and even in correctional settings. He is he covers his books are in the fixed yourself empowerment series, is what he calls these six books, and they cover everything from anxiety, depression, relationships, aging, addiction, and and more. So you'll see, you know, you I'll have links to them in the show notes for the podcast and in the description for the YouTube channels, but I do encourage you to go on to Amazon, to go onto his website at faustruggero.com. I'll have a link to that as well. Now, a quick confession before we jump into the actual interview. So I wanted to do this video to introduce him properly and to you know let you know of his credentials and the amazing work that he's done. And when you see the interview, you'll see the passion coming through about his work because he doesn't just talk about it, he also lives it. And I think that says a lot, you know. People can talk, can say anything they want, but it's what they do that really tells the story. So even with that little hiccup of not hitting the record button, this conversation was full of incredible insights and about you know emotional wellness and self-growth, self-gratitude, and living, truly living a meaningful life, which is so important for all of us no matter what age. Now, because the because I am in the senior niche, let's say, you know, that is my that's my jam. Um I wanted to focus on or I focused on many of the questions on retirement and how to adjust in the process, uh, you know, how to plan for retirement, how to adjust through the process of retirement. I don't know about you, but so many of my friends have recently retired and they seem a little lost. They're having a very difficult time adjusting to this new pattern of life. But Faust, you know, explains very well what needs to be done in order to make that a smooth transition, a purposeful, uh, you know, to lead a more purposeful and just really an amazing life in the next 20, 30, 40 years that you have in retirement. So, without further ado, here's my interview with Mr. Faust Ruggero. Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

And that's what we want to do. We want to be able to say, this is my new life. I get to do what I want to do, and I'm going to go do that. Sometimes there are limitations. Maybe we're caring for someone else, or or we have some things we need to do, but we certainly can be able to say, yeah, it's my time now, and I want to chase some of those dreams.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. Um, but I find from most of my friends is that they are not sure what their dreams are.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, you know what? People will say that to me, and and uh and you don't have to know. The the key is just to stay active. Be active. What you don't want to do is say, all right, you know, I'm retired, I'm gonna take some time off, I'm gonna get up at 10 o'clock in the morning, I'm going to watch some television or movies, maybe I'll go on a walk or something. You know, the key is to stay active, doing anything. If you do that, your mind stays engaged, your body can continue, everything continues to flow, and then plugging into something, it will happen. You'll you're you you will you want to do something? The routine will get old and you'll want to do something.

unknown:

It's true.

SPEAKER_00:

I've had several friends who've retired, and after two, three months, they they're antsy, they don't quite know what to do, or they they seem quite depressed, you know, they're um haven't adjusted. So, how important do you think the whole concept of planning, you know, not waiting for it to happen, but planning for it to happen?

SPEAKER_02:

You know, I do uh employee assistance program for corporations and and when people are getting ready to retire, I always uh we always ask the people to come and see me for a session or two, exit interviews, if you will. And that's the first question. I say, okay, fine. First of all, it's two questions. Are you ready? Yeah. Really want to do this. Uh and that doesn't mean do I like my supervisor or do I like getting up? Do you still are you at a point where you're done? I don't want to do this work anymore. If the answer is yes, the second question is always, okay, what's your plan? Yeah. And you don't have to have the plan that that becomes active tomorrow. It's a plan. You may say, I'm gonna take a couple months off. God bless you, go do it. But then have the next step. Where are you going next?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And and that's not something you plan in the last month before you retire. You that should be something a year ahead of time you're starting to flow into, and you start to create the foundation for that. And if you haven't done that, then that's okay. Get active, exercise, get uh be socially active if you can uh read, uh, do things to engage your mind. Everything will can follow from that point, but don't get sedentary. That's the key.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely, absolutely. I think learning, um learning something new is a very important factor. Do you find that most people just shy away from that? They're you know, they don't want to do that.

SPEAKER_02:

Some people do, you know. We're not a species that loves change. And I always tell people, it doesn't have to be a big change, make it a small change. But uh by all means, the new things are fun. You know, I uh when I hit my 60s, I said, Am I gonna write a book now? Well, I said, Yeah, I'm gonna try this. And before I did that, I didn't just get in and you know hit the computer and and and start running. I knew basically what I wanted to write about. Then I took about almost a year and I really uh learned the publishing industry first. So there was my first step. I didn't have to step right in and write. Uh I again I knew what I wanted to write, but let me learn about formats and agents and publicists and publishing houses and all the various things you need to do so that when I started, I didn't get overwhelmed and say, Oh my god, I didn't know about this. So I did that. Now writing the book was much easier. I talked to people who had written, I talked to the pros who help people. There are people that help people get into the into the uh the whole business of writing. So I needed to learn how to uh go from a good writer to a writer for publication. That's a very different concept. So once I did that, and if you're in retirement and financially you're okay, maybe you have a pension or you have your social security or what it may be, you know, you were gonna spend that time doing nothing anyway. So no, why not spend it learning? Go to a community college, go online, take courses, right? Do you know you can take a course in doing something and learn that within six months, and before you know it, you're now doing something that you've always wanted to do. And you're and you're getting paid to do it because you've earned that money.

SPEAKER_00:

That's right. That's right. And now I think, you know, with so much online, you know, it doesn't matter where you live. You could be in a rural area, you could be in a college town. I mean, I get it. I understand going to to a uh college, be it a community college or stakeholders, whatever. I mean, I get it. You know, you're in the environment and that's that's amazing, but you can't always do that. And not every class or every lecture or what a topic is going to be taught in your physical area. But I love the idea of just finding anything online, which you can these days, but then taking that information. I find some friends are very big into um self-help books or anything like that. And those are great. I mean, I'm I'm a big advocate of those. I call them the counselor on the shelf, and I think that they're great, but it's one thing to sit and read them, but it's another thing to take the next step and actually do them.

SPEAKER_02:

And you know, when I when I started writing, I again one of the things I did was a literature review, and I said, look at all this fantastic information, and it's there's a ton of it. And then I said, just what you were alluding to, it doesn't tell anyone what to do with it. I know. So there was the niche. So all my books are written as small chapters, seven or eight pages, and then there are a half a dozen action steps. Okay, we're covering this problem, you need to do this. That's what people come back and say, finally, someone said, here's the information. It wasn't presented in 30 or 40 or 50 pages, and then went on to the next chapter. It was seven or eight pages. I got the facts condensed, I understood it. Now you said, do these things.

SPEAKER_00:

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, and I get a and I and you know, when we published, I said, Well, what's your what's your target audience? And I really didn't want to have one because books are written for anyone. Um uh and but they said it'll probably be women, and they'll be between oh 25 and 40. If I can tell you how many seniors read my books, they weren't supposed to, and not only women, men. I love it. Men and women together are reading things because uh, you know, it's it's it's all the topics that we go through every day, right? You know, you know how many of us as as seniors didn't set our boundaries too well with our kids, for example, and now we're paying the price. Well, there's boundary setting chapters and how to defend those, you know. So, you know, it it's it's a we now have the time to do what we want to do, right? But you have to define what it is. And the other thing, real important thing is so we're older, made of spakes or pains or whatever. Don't surrender to that. Don't don't surrender to I'm I'm weaker now, or I'm not as smart, or I can't keep up. Don't go there, right? So it's the old thing that where the old man knocks at the door and we're locking them out. Uh that's not who we are. We are not old people who are finished living. We are people who ended a career, are a little older and wiser, and we have the mental power to move forward and be as powerful as we want to be. We have to do it though. We have to believe in ourselves.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. I mean, mindset is so important, so important. And uh I think I think you're absolutely right. I love that the chapters are small. I love that there's the action steps. And I think that to, I mean, personally, I think taking that information, and like you said, we're older, we're wiser, we're more comfortable with ourselves, you know, we're not so concerned about, I mean, hopefully what others think or others do. We're in our zone. We're in our and it's it's a beautiful thing, really. I I love it. But I think taking that information and like you're doing the next step, teaching it, you know, because you learn so much when you teach. And I don't care if it's consulting or volunteering, speaking to support groups, um, or you know, uh in you know, um, being a guest at a college class, I I don't care, whatever it is, take that skill, all that you've learned, be it with family life, be it with work, be it whatever, and teach it. Because not only does that bring in the socialization factor, but I think it also gives you know you a goal and it it forces you in a way to learn more, um, to engage more, to um, and look, we all learn from the students that we teach, right?

SPEAKER_02:

We do we should.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, probably we should. You're right. You're right. But I I love that that concept, and I try very hard to tell that to my um, you know, share that with my friends and family. But I find it interesting. I find the men are more akin to that, and the women are I don't know, you know, they want to do more of the social things.

SPEAKER_02:

Our generation is still, you know, role-oriented. So a lot of times women would take a second seat, and I always tell them, you don't need to do that. I have a woman that came in and uh retires at the age of 65 from a sewing factory. So really her job was to get up every day. She took care of her home, two kids, her husband, wonderful family. Uh, and uh, but she said, Well, what do I have to offer? You know, I was domestic, I was home, I went to the factory, I didn't make a lot of money, but it helped us, you know, to get by. What do I have to offer? I said, Are there do you have any hobbies? Well, she said, uh just two. Um, sewing and and yoga. She was doing started the yoga. I said, Well, yoga, let's take yoga for example. Uh you learned it. Do you are you're pretty good? Well, I've been doing it for four or five years, yeah. I said, Have you thought about taking classes to become an instructor? I don't know how good I am with people. I said, Do you go to the classes? Yes. Seven or eight women there, probably. Yeah, and a few guys. Okay. Do you participate? Yes. Do you talk? Yeah. Every now and then you take a little bit of the spotlight. Yeah. I said, well, the training helps you to take more of the spotlight. She now has was hired by this uh instructor that she uh was taking classes from to do a class, one class a week. She loved it. She's now taken her second class. Having that second class, she's just doing the same thing she was always doing. She expanded the role and the and the change. That little risk was I'm gonna be in front of the class, telling them to do the things we learned how to do anyway. Right. And so now she's going back to become more advanced in the program. And uh she's now had an offer because the woman uh was teaching the class, was getting ready to retire. She said, Well, I don't know if I want to retire. Are you interested in coming into the business with me? So now we have the 66-year-old woman who was saying, you know, it's not she there's not much of a buy-in. She rents the place, it's just gonna be her and I doing some things. I have to put a little money in to cover expenses, and we're gonna have our business and we're gonna keep going. Now domestic worked in a factory, high school education, wasn't someone who thought she could go out and influence anyone, and you know, you're a yoga teacher, not just teaching those moves, there's a philosophy, there's a a whole uh mental and spiritual part of that, if you want to get into it. Now she's advising just a little bit.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, she's changing lives, so she's expanding, she's expanding. Expanding that one skill into into others, yeah, diversifying and expanding, and it is amazing to me how one thing can lead to another, lead to another, and so on, if you're open to it, you know. I think there's opportunities around us all the time, and we just have to be open to it. And like you said before, I I know that people are traditionally not um, you know, they they don't like change. That's that's true. Um, but at the same time, life is change. That's all it is. It never stops, it never stops, it's constant. And I think learning to accept that. Is that do you think that that's the basis of a happy life throughout life? It is accepting that change.

SPEAKER_02:

What happens with people is they get overwhelmed because they think of this is where I am, that's where I have to be. Look at the the big change I have to make. And I keep telling people there is no such thing as change, unless you're traumatized. There's nothing, there's no change that occurs in leaps and bounds. It's small incremental movements. Don't plan the goal. That's your goal. Plan your action steps one after another. But first, I need to do this, then I need to do this. I mean, that's the way we set goals up. I I was telling you that when I uh decided to write, I didn't jump right into a book. Many, many people have. My my incremental forward movement, those little steps were learning the business, learning what I had to do, getting the proper computer programs, etc. All those things, when it was time, I cut a lot of the work out. So if you're gonna move forward, just think of the steps. Set a goal for today. I'm gonna do this today. When tomorrow comes, well, I'll do this for my program today. You know, you mentioned uh I'm the most interviewed self-help author. I'm seven, I'm gonna be 71. You know, what? You look amazing. Well, thank you. But you know, that's what happens when you stay engaged, right? And another thing I tell uh seniors is please don't just sit. Exercise. Yes, go to a YMCA or a club or even get some things in your house. You're talking a half hour a day, right? And I know a retired person has a half an hour a day.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

Get your body healthy. So when you get up and your mind wants to plug in, your body's coming along with you.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. Movement is so important.

SPEAKER_02:

It is.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, um, I myself, after my husband passed away, I moved into a community that's very walkable. So every day I can walk to the park, I can walk to the shops, I can walk, you know, it's very walkable. So every day it's 30 to 60 minutes of getting out and walking, and and and you know, on top of everything else, on top of all the usual household movement kind of things.

SPEAKER_02:

But but yeah, what you're doing should inspire people. Your husband has passed away. Many women would say, Okay, well, no, I have to get a little place where I'm gonna go live with so-and-so, or what and they're not they're not doing the next step. Yeah, you should be it, you're an inspiration. They should look and say, Look what Esther's doing. Her husband passed, she retired, and she's got this whole new career. And it isn't that people like you and I are uh people that are doing what we're doing, have anything more than any of the rest of us.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

We just decided to do it. That's all. That was the first decision. I'm not sitting, I am going to do something. I am going to say, I could be around 20 more years. Well, you know, what do I want that to look like? Do I want to get up and watch television? What's on television?

SPEAKER_00:

You know, right. Well, it's working backwards. You know, you have the goal and now you work backwards. I have a friend of mine whose goal was to retire and to be on a board, you know, of a company, nonprofit kind of thing, whatever. That's his goal. So he knew that in order to do that successfully, he needed to be a CEO of something. In order to be a CEO, he needed to be a VP. In order to be a VP, he needed to be head of whatever department. And he, you know, he started off in marketing and he just progressed because he had this goal, this final goal, and he took those steps, but he went backwards. You know, what could what do I need to do to get to this? And every he was amazing. Well, he is amazing. Every January he would review those steps and those goals. What was he able to do? What couldn't he do? What's the next thing if he had to change something? And sure enough, he made it, became CEO, uh company, and now he's retired and he's working on two boards.

SPEAKER_02:

And that's the way it works, right? Or right, you you look at it and say, okay, what did I have to do? And but the next step in that process is to look and say, okay, this is how they did that, or maybe even I did some of it. That they they were back there and they wanted to come forward. Here are all the steps. Well I use that philosophy now. I'm not looking at a you know a 40-year career. I might be talking about the next 10 years. What do I want to do now? What are those little steps I have to make? I'm gonna do this now.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

It doesn't matter. You're not, we're not conquering the world, we're just embracing our own. That's all. That's what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Even with exercise, you know, if you're not a very um active person, you know, start off with um, you know, 20 steps. And you know, you know, next week you're gonna do 40 steps, and then so on and so on, you know, whatever it is, you know, whatever number you can you give it. But the point is to your goal is uh 10,000 steps, then go backwards and start working towards there. And plus that also gives you a timeline. It does, you know, then you know, three months, four months, I'll be there kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02:

In the first book, the the Fix Yourself Handbook, I actually do a chapter on goal setting, and I uh and and and actually actually had seniors in mind when I wrote it because you know I I tell them you have to have a long-term goal that stays constant pretty much. Then you have a few short-term goals. Two or three of those. Those help you get to the long-term goal. Under every short-term goal are three action steps. So now, if you do that, the neat thing about the program is, and you actually set up your grid. It I showed them how to set up a grid so they can write it down. Because we seniors like to write things down. So you write it down. Well, when I I I accomplish that action step, I'll replace it with another one. So I keep it going. And if you look from top to bottom, it says, There's my goal, maybe to to be that um that instructor, that yoga instructor. Well, here's what I have to do. That's my long-term goal. Well, what do I have to do? Maybe I have to uh uh take a course in in communication. I have to take another course in in my program, and then under those are action steps. Maybe I need to I need to raise some money to do that, maybe I need to uh upgrade my computer to do that. Uh what now, those are your action steps, and it and your action steps are the only thing you're really focusing on, right? You know, if you do the action steps and you keep consistent with those, you get to the long-term goal. You can't miss as long as you stay consistent. Right. It's a very simple program. And I teach that when I counsel, and they say, This is ridiculous. It's easy. How come no one else? I don't know why no one else taught it. It's really very simple. It's what I use every day, you know, and and I'm one that I might have two or three long-term goals, but that's me.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02:

If you have one and you're working it, and you have your short-term goals and your action steps, it's so easy to do. So you're not plugging into a long-term goal that's overwhelming. You're plugging into your short-term goal. The other thing about, and it's a huge piece of advice for seniors, is do not compare yourself to anyone else.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, so true.

SPEAKER_02:

You're absolutely down. The very fact that you chose to compare yourself, you already started by saying, I don't measure up. Don't do that. It's their program is their program. You set yours, right? You compare to no one. If you don't know something and you need to ask for advice, by all means go ask for advice if you know someone knows who knows it, or you can get it online. But never envy and never compare. You it's it's it's it's it's a shot. You'll kill yourself with it. It's a wormhole, you don't want to go down. It's true. We have to consider ourselves worthy, we have to consider ourselves intelligent, capable people, and we have decades of experience that young people don't have. They have energy and they're bouncing off the walls with it. We don't have to do that, right? We know where the pitfalls are, and we go out and we and we are intelligent people.

SPEAKER_00:

That's how I I'm sorry. I worry about that with the younger people because they're so tied into Instagram and TikTok and comparing themselves with the influencers, be it real or fake or whatever, out there. And I wonder if they're going to be able to get out of that think think thinking the way they think.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh they will. We talk about the world evolving. You know, I remember uh my grandparents looking at us and saying, My God, you this is going so fast, and with a snail's pace compared to the way it changes today, and with AI coming in, they're just going to plug in and go faster and faster. And that's just the way it is. That's them. And the neat thing about it, people say, Oh my god, I can't catch up with that. We're not supposed to. They left the niche that we now have. We actually have more room to do things because even the 40-year-olds, they're out doing all that stuff. Computers have been with us for over 30, 35 years, whatever it is now, you know. So they're in that we have a niche that has been vacated in all the world to maneuver in the world if we just decide to stay active.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. Exactly. I mean, what we can contribute to these changes, I think, is it's huge. It is it's huge.

SPEAKER_02:

We have the history. We we we have the understanding and the knowledge to move forward. And the bottom line is the only time you are no longer in the game is when you quit. So if you never quit, you're in. And so what? Go make mistakes. The other thing I tell people, you're going to make mistakes. That doesn't mean you're not intelligent or you can't do it. That means you're active. Active people make mistakes.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02:

People that aren't active don't make any mistakes, they don't go anywhere either. And then you like you said, anxiety and depression and and loneliness, that all sets in. Be active, make mistakes. And when you make the mistakes, say, okay, let's go figure out where I where I went wrong here and pick myself up and go again.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

Every day.

SPEAKER_00:

It's never what happens to you, it's how you react to it. That's right. That's right. Yeah, absolutely. Do you think AI will change how retirement happens or what people do in retirement?

SPEAKER_02:

I don't think it's going to change us too much. Um, because it really um it's for the people, it's for the world as it's moving forward. It's um, you know, they'll they'll look at us, and I I'm very comfortable with them saying, Oh, you're dinosaurs, so that's just fine. I don't have a problem with that. That's your opinion of me without looking any deeper, and I'm okay with that. Uh, it's good, it's good, it's gonna be a young person's game. Those of us that are, you know, in in this life bracket, if you will. So it'll affect us somewhat. But not as much as it's going to touch their lives. They're in the thick of it now.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And they're and the key is they're embracing it. If everyone stopped embracing AI, it would go away because no one would use it. That's true. Okay. They're embracing it, they love it. Plus, this whole uh information way of living life and all the fast-paced, it's addictive to them, so they can't stop. Right. We're not in that addiction.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

We're not involved in that. So we have, we actually have more freedom than they do.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, we can take the information, we can reflect on that information and use our experience, you know, as older. We've been through so much of them. My sister and I, she's nine years older than me, and we were talking about that, you know, what life was like in the 60s, how change was happening then, and how change is happening now. And, you know, we were comparing, you know, issues and and how things happen. I mean, obviously, as you said, now it's so much faster. And it is an addiction at this point. It really is. So many friends. I mean, how many times do you go out to a restaurant and you see three, four people at a table and they're not talking to each other? Everybody's on a phone, which you I don't even understand.

SPEAKER_02:

But um we've we've mastered the skill of slowing down. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So we and when you slow down, you pause, that gives you a chance to look and say, let me look at everything going on. And then you pick and choose what you want to go into and what you don't. And as you say, we've made the mistakes, we we have been through the grind. So, you know, we know where the landmines are. We're not going to step on that. Right. When it gets too fast, the young people are accelerating their bodies. This this accelerant, that that caffeine product, whatever it may be. And when we start to get accelerated, we say, We got to a threshold, we need to back up now and rethink.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

That's an advantage that part of the world doesn't have. We have that. They need us. And that's the other part I tell we're not archaic. This world needs us. We have to embrace that concept. When they when we realize how much they need us, we become important to ourselves.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. Absolutely. And look, there's 10,000 plus people a day turning 65 until 2030, and then the next generation picks it up. So, you know, using that knowledge base, using the skills and everything that that demographic has to offer just makes sense. It just makes common sense, but it only makes common sense, I think, if, as you say, you stop, you listen, and you observe. And you actually take the time to stop, listen, and observe versus constantly being fed whatever it is that you're being fed.

SPEAKER_02:

And you know, and they're being fed at at such a fast pace that they don't take some time and become critical thinkers about what they're what's coming in. They just, I mean, you can go on social media, they're they're going at each other with anger and aggression, and they just follow along. They're not even people came in and they talked about influencers. And I said, Well, who's the influencer you're following? Yeah. And they didn't know. And I said, Well, what exactly is the end game? And they didn't know. I said, Then why are you following? It's sort of like, you know, you're following someone leading the parade, and you don't know where the parade's going. Somewhere along the line, you have to say, Let me slow it all down and make some decisions. And the other thing they're not good at that we're very good at is getting information. Yeah. They go fast and we say, wait a minute, okay, that was posted there. Uh this is a routine for me. If I see something posted on Facebook, what now I go and I do a search. Is this really happening? Right. Nine out of ten times it isn't, but they're all following that.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

We don't. We have we have the humility to keep on learning, and we have the wisdom of the years. And you put that all together, we make sound judgments. We are still able to control a huge part of the program, but we can't take a step back because we think we can't.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. I mean, I think critical thinking and analytical thinking are two skills that um younger adults or maybe the education system, or I don't know, is just not being taught or not being encouraged, or not, I don't, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02:

When I was in college, we we called ourselves, you know, the the uh the more enlightened age, we would listen to everything, you know, and um uh and but but they but they presented all different signs. When I talk to students coming out of college now, you know where the professor stands, and that's what the professor teaches, but they don't teach that one. So we there's this divisional kinds of thing, you know, left over right versus right, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, whatever, right? And you know news sources the same way. Growing up, you know that the journalists presented the facts, and then we made up our mind. They don't do that anymore, they prepare the dialogue that leads in a particular direction. So these people are all being led. Uh, you know, and and the more that happens, the less you think. You allow your you give your mind over to someone else.

SPEAKER_00:

So exactly. And it's gonna be interesting to see how that this generation, the younger generation, converts over when it's time for their retirement. You know, it's gonna be very interesting to see that transition. I I I hope I live long enough to see that. Um I think yeah, I think we're in a great uh time, you know. I mean, it it is scary because change is so fast and things are happening so fast, you know, every in every which way, economic, uh, political, uh, technology, it's like everything is just happening all at once, it seems like. But at the same time, as you say, if you can, if you can um connect into that, if you can step into that a little bit with the skills that you have, then it's not so scary. It's not so overwhelming if you put it into bite-sized pieces, you know, like atomic habits, you know, that book Atomic Habits broke everything down into tiny pieces and it made it more manageable and not as overwhelming and frightening.

SPEAKER_02:

And that's the way we we have to approach things. The other thing is we have to be willing to do the work. Our generation was taught this is how you do it. And by the time we were 16 or 17, they expected us to be grabbing that. 18, we could be leaving the house, and you know they're home till the in their 30s. You know, um, because they're just not capable, and they blame it on the economy, or they blame it on this. It's it's everything outside of themselves that that's the problem. And we didn't do that. We looked at it and said, okay, this is what I have to do, and I need to go out and do it. We we were willing, uh, you know, to get in there, get in the mud, so to speak, and and and and do what we had to do. They're picking and choosing, and and they believe they're entitled to some things. Yeah, we don't and again, that's why I say we're so important. We don't have that entitlement thing. We're still willing to work. Yeah, we just have to have a plan, a decision that, yeah, I'm gonna do something. Now let me get a plan. Doesn't have to be anything that's uh world uh world shattering, just a plan. Get up every day, and at the end of the day, when I lay my head down, I say, okay, this was a good day. I was happy, uh, did some nice things, accomplished some things that I felt were good about, and I had that little plan that I'm working on, and I did some things with it. If you can say that in retirement, you're in a great place.

SPEAKER_00:

It's true. That is very true. If you can say that every day, you're in a great place. Do you think companies will change how they look at older um employees?

SPEAKER_02:

I think they already are. The young people are so unwilling to work. I, you know, I have a lot of companies that I work with that, first of all, people are staying longer. Uh, you know, that they're, I mean, you know, before I remember in in my parents' age, you would retire, maybe you were 60. You were good, you were done. Uh, Social Security has been pushed back to at least 62, but full to 67. Uh, so you know, they're looking at those numbers, but then they're also realizing that, you know what, I can still go. We're healthier, we're uh than the previous generation. Uh and we are still plugged in, you know, and and wanting to do things. Absolutely. I just think we we just have to go, just get get down, get in the get in the mix and go. Do it every day. I get up every day with a little plan. I may even write it down the day before. I've got five or five or six things I'm going to do tomorrow. My I write it down on a little piece of paper, and as I get them, as I do them, I scratch them off. At the end of the day, I have two minutes, three minutes of review time in my own mind before I go to bed. And I say, okay, how did I do today? And I don't have to conquer the world, as I say, but I had that list. Some of those things are just mundane things. I had to go out and, you know, it's we're shutting things down here in the northeast. So I had to get some things done outside. Some of them will be in my program. I'm doing a podcast today. I'm doing uh, I have to write something for an uh a magazine article. I have those things that I'm getting ready. At the end of the day, I say, okay, did I have time for myself? Did I relax? But that I engage, that I do those things, and that process keeps me plugged in. That's what I want to do.

SPEAKER_00:

I love that. So, what is your five-year plan?

SPEAKER_02:

For me, you know, we're um I'll continue writing. Uh we have six books in in the program and it's ten. Uh we're doing a documentary um on uh trauma. Uh it's a possible series. Uh production company has it. Um they're gonna they're shopping for a host for the show now. It's uh a show about uh recovering from trauma. Uh and uh we're we're starting with um the uh shooting in Las Vegas.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

And we have a survivor who um spent eight hours running in and out of that bullet all the bullets and and re and rescuing people, but then went down in his own trauma afterward and took himself, I think, two or three years to recover and come through it through all the PTSD. So it's gonna be about him. Um it looks like there's a lot of interest, if that's the case, then we'll we may make a series out of it, and uh and then whatever else life presents me. I say if you stay active, something comes your way. It just does. It does, absolutely out there. Yeah, you can't, you know, it's the old Cinderella story. You can't stay in the house and the prince comes to you. You've got to go to the ball. So I tell people all the time, get out there, doesn't matter where you go, just be active. Walk, uh whatever you get out of your house and and and and join, join a club. Join, I don't care what you do, but be with other people being active.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Are there any specific groups that you encourage people to join? I mean, I know AARP has a lot of programs available, um, YMCA, um, Lifetime Gym, I think it's called Lifetime Gym. Um there's a lot of places.

SPEAKER_02:

Great places to start. I always tell people if you can get yourself into the into the YMCA or or a health club or whatever, go in and again don't compare yourself. The muscle guys are over there, you're not competing with them. Right. Get on a uh a treadmill or an elliptical trainer or go in the swimming pool and just be active and and set goals for yourself. Try to get a little better at the program. Maybe you know you went in and you can go on the on the treadmill for five minutes. If you that's all you could do, you maxed out. Right. Maybe tomorrow you do five and a half. And what you'll find is at the end of the month, you're probably doing 15 minutes on that. Right now, all right. Then maybe you might say, I'm gonna set the speed just a little faster. I'm gonna put that incline up just a little bit, make it just a little harder. I have friends that are early 70s and they ride bikes at 10 miles a day, you know, uphills even. And we were just with them last night. And I, you know, and I have it for me, again, I'm 71. I have a gym in my basement. We have basements here in the northeast, and we have a 10 machines, and I go down an hour every day and I work out. It's part of the program, right? You know, watch your diet. You know, we get older, we have a tendency to say, well, I wasn't gonna have an extra glass of wine, or we and then we go do it. Stay away from the alcohol. You know, it's a rut you don't need to get into.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. Um, one of the articles that I wrote on, because I didn't I couldn't find much information. You know, I have I have a website, seniorsafetyadvice.com, that I started in 2018 because my plan was that when I did retire and at 67, then I was going to do that full-time. Um, of course, that ended up sparing other projects, but that's what started it. But I planned it back then and I knew that it would take time to build it and all of that. But because of that, I got into a lot of the, you know, looking at a lot of websites about, excuse me, caregiving and senior care and all of that. You know, my history as a notee working in um neurologic, um, you know, at geriatrics with neurological impairments, you know, just gave me that skill. And I figured it, you know, I want to share it. Um, what one I know. And the um I couldn't find, if any, I couldn't find information on older adults' um alcohol and the effect in humble caregiving for aging parents who are alcoholics or addicted in some way to or have problems with alcohol, maybe well, I guess if you have a problem, you're an alcoholic. But I wrote an article on that, and I get so much feedback on that from people saying, oh, finally, there's some information here that I can use that can help me. So, I mean, I'm gonna write more, but there's not much information out there on that topic.

SPEAKER_02:

No, there isn't. You know, a lot of people kind of um look at retirement the same way they look at a vacation. Oh, I'm not working anymore. I'm gonna relax, I'm gonna have a good time. And then they're eating more, they're less active, they're drinking more, they're if they're socializing, maybe it's a little here, a little there. Uh socialization time is go out to eat. It's all around that kind of stuff. Yeah, and I I and there's nothing wrong with doing some of that. Have fun, enjoy by all means, but you know, uh take care of your body. Right, get enough sleep. Another very important part, I I I omit it, is have a schedule for yourself. You know, I'm again, I'll be 71 at the end of the year. I still get up the same time every morning, I still go to bed the same time, I make sure I get enough sleep because that is huge for some years to to uh to go forward and be healthy and and and keep your mind uh where it needs to be. So sleep, eat the right kinds of foods, uh, you know, right amounts, keep your weight where it, you know, keep it keep it down, uh watch the medications, you know, that you don't have to take the drinking. There's some very simple steps, very healthy steps. Live a healthy physical life. That's where it starts. Then you're you you now have prepared yourself for that next step. I want to do that because a lot of times I'll hear people say, Well, I'd like to do that, but you know, I was just so tired today. And I said, Oh when I hear that, I said, You have all the energy in the world if you just learn how to tap into it. You're preparing your body for retirement. Stay healthy. Engage your mind.

SPEAKER_00:

Why do you think it's so difficult for so many people?

SPEAKER_02:

I think uh they began to the slide be long before they retired. They started looking to retirement. I don't want to do this anymore. I'm tired of this. They started looking at retirement as an end game.

SPEAKER_00:

Like they didn't like senioritis.

SPEAKER_02:

You got it. They didn't say, okay, that's the end of this. And I I always actually I I I ask them to kind of pull that word, the end, E N D, out of your word. Okay, this is going to change. Make that change now. I will stop working, I will make a change into the next part of life and pick what you like to do. But as soon as you say it's the end game, you're done. Now what do you do? And I have so many friends that you know, I'll say, What did you guys do? Oh well, we we're gonna go to this uh we meet for breakfast. You know, uh and then we're gonna hang out at this guy's garage and we watch the sports. And I said, Okay, you're doing all those nice things you wanted to do, but what else are you doing? Let by all means go socialize, relax, have a good time. Get a get a a a functional schedule, get something to look forward to every day, be productive. This could be the most productive time of our lives if we want it to be, because we get to do what we want to do, and if we pick something that you know uh makes us feel good, increases our own our own empowerment and gives back, because that's the other part of uh this uh part of life. We feel we're not we're not productive, but we're also not needed anymore. Yes, we are. Yeah, we need to give back so we well because when you give it, then you see it out there, you you you see it come alive out there, right? That's a big part of all of this, right?

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, it is so fulfilling to me when I get wonderful comments uh, you know, from people from our YouTube videos or articles or whatever. Oh, this really helped me. Thank you so much, you know, um, or your question, anything at all. It's it's so fulfilling. And I mean, I get a lot of, I don't know about you, about your friends, you know, they give you a lot of um not feedback, but a lot of pushback, you know, about Esther, why don't you come out to lunch with us? So why don't you do this? I said, well, I'm working. Um you're always working. You know, it's like I have things to do, you know, and I can't go play bridge or whatever it is that you're doing. I mean, you know, have fun, do it. But um, I I get a lot of pushback. Do you find that you almost have like two sets of friends, you know, people that are productive like you are, and people that are absolutely, you know, and I don't care what they're doing.

SPEAKER_02:

I thought we were out with friends last night and they're retired, and they do a you know, they they do a lot of going to their family grandchild uh kids' games, but they ride bikes and they exercise and they're involved in some community things where they give back, involved in the church. Those are all good things. They don't sit at home doing nothing.

SPEAKER_00:

Awesome.

SPEAKER_02:

They get up and go. So you don't have to be uh doing a podcast, you don't have to be writing books, you don't have to be doing some something that's big. You have you should be saying, Yeah, let me go be productive, let me see how I can still give to this world, right? So that I I can see it. There's that reciprocity, that's me getting something for me, and I'm giving something. You still feel useful. Some people are of the mind that's I've been giving all my life, I'm tired of giving. Uh, you know, and and I say, Well, just rearrange how you're giving. That's all. Decide how much you want to eat, but get out there and and and you know, and and we can be influencers, you don't have to be influencers on on a global level. You might influence five people. Go influence those people, make their lives a little bit better, yours in the process.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. Exactly. I love that lesson. I think people who work, excuse me, who work with you are very fortunate.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, you know what? So I'm I'm fortunate in that. I've been the, you know, I always say I I'm the kid that uh grow up, grew up doing what I think I was meant to do. I'm the I'm the I'm the older person who never went to work one day in his life and in the meantime worked 12 and 13 hours a day. Uh and and and and I'm the older version of that who's engaged and still doing things. I don't get up at any on any day and say, Oh, here we go again. I say, Lord, let's go, you know. Right. So, you know, it if you're willing to do that, you can, you can. It's right there. It's a mindset. You've got to get up, positive energy, and here I go.

SPEAKER_00:

It really is a mindset. At the end of the day, your mind controls everything.

SPEAKER_01:

It does.

SPEAKER_00:

My uh my late husband was a psychologist, and after that, uh he left that and he became a uh physician assistant, a PA, where he worked in family practice. And he would often come home and he would tell me, you know what? Majority of people aren't coming in to see me for this. They're coming in to see me for this.

SPEAKER_02:

They're done right, they are.

SPEAKER_00:

He said, This is like affecting this. He said, Oh my goodness. I mean, he was fortunate that he had training in both and skills in both, and the doctors he worked for loved him because he had that. But I mean, was he was able to see in the patients, you know, and it's it it's true, your mind can control just about everything. But it takes work, it takes work to get that going.

SPEAKER_02:

But love the work. I uh when I'm when I working with people, regardless of of what I'm working with, I say if you decide to make change in your life a chore, you will hate it and you will run away from it. Yeah, but if you embrace it and have a good time with it, yeah, like anything else, you will stay with it.

SPEAKER_00:

That's true.

SPEAKER_02:

It's as simple as that. You don't look at this part of life and say, Oh my god, here I am. You know, what do I do now? You say, Okay, here I am, I'll tell you what I'm gonna do now. That's the way it depends on how you look at it. And you know, people I'm sure will listen to this and say, Well, yeah, but you don't know what my life's like. And I say, you know what? I'm sure there are challenges. Yeah. But the bottom line is regardless of what your life is like, you have two options. You either decide to embrace it and run into it, or be overwhelmed and run away from it. We have people who don't have legs, and I I just went to um uh in the summertime, we went to um uh it was a Christian kind of a big uh production in in Philadelphia, and and I forgot the man's name, but he has no arms and no legs, and they put him on a table, and he is a motivational speaker and travels around the world and now makes big bucks to do all of this because he said nothing is going to stop me. Now, his thing is if I have no arms and legs, and here I am in front of you, and I'm willing to do this, are you really gonna tell me that those little challenges that you have, and I look at them as little, he said, that's what's holding you back? I can't embrace that concept. And that's what I say to people. Are they cutting off your legs? Are they what what's going on? Well, I'm just so stop making excuses. Right, go get scared, go go go be overwhelmed and then work your way through it. And if you need help, then go get help. Yeah, that's the other thing. Hey, I'm having problems with this. I don't good, I'll be glad to help you out.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. That's the other factor that I find several of my friends or family have trouble with is they don't go seek the help that they you know need um or could use. You know, I don't know what is uh perception or you know, I don't care if it's a you know a counselor or a psychologist or psychiatrist, I mean, whatever it is, you you need someone to help you through the process. We all need each other to help through the process. But I wonder, you know, if it's you know, words are so important to me. I think words are I think words frame our mindset, words frame our thought patterns, everything. So is it just the pattern of words we're used to telling ourselves? Is it how do we switch that?

SPEAKER_02:

You know, the new book I wrote is called is the Ficture Internal Language Handbook and the Way We Talk to Ourselves. And you know, people don't get help because they've talked themselves right out of the fact that they have there'll be some work and they have to be accountable to themselves. We all have to understand we are accountable to ourselves. We don't get help because someone's gonna say, Well, we got all the information, do this, and then they go, Oh, I have to do what embrace it. It's not work, it's fun once you once your mind embraces that. But the way we talk to ourselves, you know, I always tell people in that first three seconds when something happens, the decision you make will uh will tell you how you're going to address it. So if if if you respond emotionally and go you're already gone. But if you hear it and say, Well, let me take a step back and think about this, now you engaged your mind. So engage your mind or engage your emotions.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

And and I have a little concept I call I over e, and intellect over emotion. Get your emotions out of the game first, get your brain engaged so you can decide what to do, yeah. Then bring your emotions in so they're emoting over facts and and and the right information.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Simple emotion. Very simple thing to do. But you just have to every time something happens, instead of reacting and getting angry or or afraid, or just say, wait a minute, let me just take a step back here. Right. As soon as you did that, what you did is you flipped the switch and got your brain in the in the mix. That's what we're that's what we need.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, right. And and you're absolutely right about emotion. I think it's, and I don't mean to be stereotypical, but I think especially for women, it's very difficult to step back away from. I mean, the first reaction I usually you know hear from my female friends is emotional. It's like, what are you talking about? You know, and then of course they're talking from their emotion, from what they're feeling. That comes up first. But as we were saying earlier, you need to stop, you need to think and listen, and really stop, think, and listen. But um it, yeah, it may seem easy, I think, but not it's not for everyone, I think. They they really have to learn to do it. It's a shame it's not taught in school, you know, high school, elementary school, whatever, all of that should be taught at that point because it takes that long to develop it.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, we have to understand that learning, it when we talk about learning, we we are retraining our brain. That's what learning is, and learning is always a function of repetition over time. Yeah, the more we repeat the process, yeah, the more positive energy we put into it, the faster we get to the goal, and the more concrete that goal becomes. It it gets solidified. Yeah, we don't do that. Well, we we we do something for a little while and say, it's not working, and then we stop because we don't want to we don't want to keep committed to it. If we just stay, if you stay with uh a program to change, you will make the change. That's the way that's the way the brain is. And people say, Well, I that's hard for me to understand. And I say, Okay, let's go through all your negative habits. Did they just show up? You've been doing it all these years. So you did a negative training program on your brain. That is the proof that your brain learns over time. Repetition over time is but you did it negative. Right. How about if you do it positive? How about if you uh uh apply repetition over time with positive energy? Do you think you'll be happier? Yeah, you've proven to yourself you can do it. You just have to do it this way now. That's all true.

SPEAKER_00:

Have you done a TED talk yet?

SPEAKER_02:

I haven't. Uh and that's just about time.

SPEAKER_00:

Put that on your list.

SPEAKER_02:

We may, you know, those are the things where again, my my I I thought I would retire and I'm gonna have more time. And I took on what the practice is here, and I'm writing and I'm interviewing, and I'm not this. Documentary and those meetings, and it's just I don't haven't had the time yet. But you know what? That's okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

When I look at it, that's one of the things we talked about. Um, will it be necessary? I don't know. I have a couple people that wanted to do one with me. Let's let's do one together and we'll see.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, yeah, that's a good way to start. It's a fun I like that idea also of doing things initially in a group. Absolutely. And then if you have to do it solo or want to do it solo, you can learn from the group and move up. Yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, I've been doing this now uh since 2019. So we're I'm into six, seven years, and I remember starting to do podcasts at that time, and you know, you're learning it. And now some a bunch of us of 10, 15 of us who kind of cut our cut in together are now becoming a little bit on the influencer end, if you will. And now we I go, we I was talking with one of them, she interviewed me on her on her podcast again, and she said, Um, do you remember the first time we did this? I mean, we were fumbling around trying to figure out it had about three views, you know, and but we were laughing as it because here was the learning process, and so many of the other people kind of fell to the side because they didn't see the results they wanted right away. And here we are still doing this, and her podcast now has something like 10,000 people every time she does one, you know, and you know, and she is how I mean I think is 74, something like that, and still going, you know, what is her podcast once a week, you know, and you you just keep doing it, it's fun, and now you go back and see those people that stuck with it, right? And you think, ah, old friend, how are you?

SPEAKER_00:

That's right. I mean, for 25 years I did internet marketing. After OT, I went into internet because I was doing all continuing ed courses and it got me in the internet, and that was fascinating, whatever. But um, I can't tell you how many small businesses you know would close down after six months, eight months, a year. It's like, no, you I know it takes three years or more to just you just have to keep going, but you have to plan for that, of course. You know it's not gonna do much in the first two, three, four years, whatever. Take your time, it will happen, but you have to persevere.

SPEAKER_02:

And and and enjoy it. Don't make this a chore. Yeah, these are I always said now we're we're I'm suddenly how many years am I gonna have? Do I want to put drudgery into my life? Do I want to put uh depression? Get up every day and say, oh gee, I don't know. I want to for I'm hoping to be around for 30 more years, you know. That that's my plan.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I hope so too. That'll be awesome.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, but but if that's the case, I want to enjoy every second. You know, that I always say the Lord gave me all these seconds in my life, and I want to maximize every one of them. That's kind of that's my view on it. And get up with that kind of energy and and be able to say that uh, you know, these are moments of my life. I have control over a reasonable amount of this. Whatever I can control, I'm going to. What I can't, that's okay. Exactly. But I can, I want to make sure I'm doing the right things there and enjoying it.

SPEAKER_00:

That's true. The act of letting go is yet another factor. Letting go of, like you said, the negative thoughts, letting go of what other people think of you, uh, letting go of failures or what you perceive as failures. You know, letting go is very, very important. Looking forward instead of looking back.

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely. To me, a failure is nothing more than okay, I didn't have it all, I didn't have all the right information there. So based on that, I have to push that out and I gotta include some other things in there. Now I'm gonna try again.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. It's just a learning to me, it's a learning thing. I mean, how you know, I am deep into all the new AI technology, you know, uh, you know, prompt uh engineering and AI agents and learning all of that so that I can teach it, you know, to the members of the directory. I mean, my you know, members there get marketing webinars every week. So I have to learn it to teach it, to give it to them. And yeah, I mean, I get I don't I say at the very beginning, I am no expert, I'm learning along with you, let's learn it. And then if I learn something new or I did something wrong, then you know, I I send something out saying, hey, let's try it this way. I think it's better. Um, but then I always welcome everyone else to to say, if you learn something, tell me. I want to know. It's a group, right? It's a group learning thing, it has to be. Um, you know, who am I? It has to be. Oh, Mr. Ruggiero, I so enjoy I love your name, Ruggiero. It gives me the uh opportunity to use my little Italian. That I know. So my parents were extremely Sicilian. I always say I grew up in America, but in my house, it was Sicily.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, that's how we are. My whole town is italian. Oh it was a little town of Pennsylvania called Rosetto, Pennsylvania, which came uh which was named from the immigrants that came out over in uh Italy. It's Rosetto Valfatore, Italy. So it became Rosetto, Pennsylvania. All Italian uh govern, you know, we governed that way. Yeah, doors were opened, every family was in each other's homes. It was the old way of living, right? And uh it was so much fun to live it in that type of a culture. And you know, every you know, everyone you knew was Italian, or you know, that's just what we did. So it was a lot of fun, you know, you know, and uh it's changed now, but you know, it's still it's still what's inside.

SPEAKER_00:

Of course. I mean, you were fortunate enough to have that experience, and I think you growing up that way, it I think that embedded in you the ability to be able to now now you can share that absolutely, and you know, you can see what's lacking, you know, because you you grew up with that uh Italian Ozzy and Harriet kind of life. So, how do people hire you? How do people get in touch with you to use it?

SPEAKER_02:

Is my website, it's uh my name, fostergerald.com. Uh, everything about me is there. The books uh excerpts from the books are there, media interviews, all that kind of stuff. And there's a contact link. And uh by all means, for anyone, be you know, uh contact me if you'd like to. I do get back to people, and not one of these people. That's it. Contact me and that's all get back to people.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's very important to keep in touch. I mean, that's one of the most important things in social media and in anything, you know, email especially. I spend at least an hour, hour and a half every day on email answering back and forth. And and yeah, I could use AI to do that, but it's I'm I'm not there yet. I think it's very I think it has to be personal at this point.

SPEAKER_02:

Me too.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Well, that's what we get from our knowledge of being older.

SPEAKER_02:

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

I love it. Oh, Mr. Rieto, thank you so much. I did record it late, but I'm going to add information to it, introduce you, and um and get this out there. Again, it's going to be on multiple podcasts, two podcasts, two YouTube channels, and then I'll also create shorts and get that out on LinkedIn and Facebook and Pinterest and all the places people tend to go to.

SPEAKER_02:

And when we get the link, we will put it on my social media linking back to you. So some traffic your way.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you, Mr. Ruguero. I am so on it. Thank you so much. I so look forward to that TED Talk. I think I'm gonna go on um the site now and order every single book and I will talk to you later. Have a beautiful day.

SPEAKER_02:

You too.

SPEAKER_00:

All right, sir. Thank you. Ciao.

Contributor

Esther C. Kane, CAPS, C.D.S.

Host