The Retirement Success in Maine Podcast Ep 104: Embracing Lifelong Learning and New Challenges

 

 

Transcript:

Ben Smith (00:27):

Welcome everybody to the Retirement Success and Maine podcast. My name is Ben Smith and I'm one of the co-hosts here on the show. Listeners, I hope you're all doing well today. If you want to be a part of the podcast, you can email us at benSmith@guidancepointrs.com, or you can find us on YouTube, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Just search Retirement success in Maine podcast. You can find some additional content at this time. Let me welcome the pumpkin spice latte to my iced apple crisp chai. Curtis Worcester. How you doing today, Curtis?

Curtis Worcester (00:58):

Hey, I'm doing well, Ben. I'm doing well. That's one of my favorites there with the pumpkin spice, so that's great. How are you?

Ben Smith (01:04):

Well, yeah, me too. You're in the northeast. It's getting chillier. It's like 50 degrees out. You got to warm up. That's

Anne Montgomery (01:11):

Right.

Ben Smith (01:12):

You got to celebrate fall and get warm at the same time. Well, obviously we're shell about retirement success and things that we've been talking about lately. And one of the things that, obviously talking with one of our listeners, they actually shared with us something that struck us that after they had retired from a long successful career, they'd found themselves kind of feeling unfulfilled. This listener said, I spent years looking forward to retirement, but now that I'm here, I don't know what to do with myself. I feel like I've lost my purpose. And of course, we've had that conversation with our clients as financial advisors. And of course we realize that many retirees, while they've planned carefully for their finances, even their social lives, may sometimes overlook the importance of continued personal growth.

(02:01):

So how do you find new challenges to take on when your career is behind you? How do you keep learning, growing and staying curious when the structure of a job no longer defines your days? So our goal today is to explore how embracing lifelong learning and new challenges can give you a renewed sense of purpose in retirement, whether you're already in retirement or approaching it, we're hoping this episode will provide you inspiration and practical steps to help you continue growing and thriving the next phase of life. So if you're ready to make your retirement years as fulfilling as possible, stay with us for some valuable insights.

Curtis Worcester (02:34):

That's right, Ben. That's right. And we always try to do, bring in a guest who really is an expert and well-versed in what we want to talk about today. And that's exactly what we've done. So our guest today has worked as a television sportscaster, newspaper and magazine writer, teacher author, and amateur sports official. Her first TV job came at W-R-L-T-V in Columbus, Georgia, and led to positions at WRO, CT V in Rochester, New York, KTSP TV in Phoenix, Arizona, and then ESPN in Bristol, Connecticut where she anchored the Emmy Award-Winning Sports Center. One of my favorites, I will say, she finished her on-camera broadcasting career with a two year stint as the studio host for the NBA's Phoenix Suns. So our guest today was a freelance and or staff reporter for six publications, writing sports features, movie reviews and archeological pieces. Her novels include Your Forgotten Sons, the Castle, a Light in the desert, wild Horses on the salt, the scent of Rain and Wolf Catcher.

(03:49):

Our guest today also taught high school journalism and communication skills for 20 years and was an amateur sports official for four decades, a time during which she called baseball, ice hockey, soccer, and basketball games, and served as a high school football referee and crew chief. She's also a foster mom to three sons and a daughter when she can, she indulges in her passions, rock collecting, scuba diving theater, and playing her guitar. So with that, after hearing that well diverse background, please join me in welcoming Anne Montgomery to the Retirement Success in Maine Podcast. Anne, thank you so much for coming on our show today.

Anne Montgomery (04:29):

Well, thank you for inviting me. I'm glad to be here.

Ben Smith (04:32):

Anne, of course, you have such a diverse bio and it's a lot of fun of just even hearing all the things that you've done here. We want to of course, get to know you a little bit and have our listeners get to know you a little bit here. So I know Curtis read off a little bit of yet of right of media roles from anchoring at ESPN Sports Center to hosting for the Phoenix Suns. Got to ask, what was it like to break into the world of sports broadcasting, especially as a woman in a male dominated industry,

Anne Montgomery (05:00):

And especially in the 1980s,

(05:04):

Because

(05:04):

Clearly it wasn't like it is now. I mean, today you see women's sportscasters everywhere, however, I will point out they don't get real important jobs like color and play-by-play. They're the sideline reporters, which is probably the worst sportscasting job that exists. Would you want to put a mic in the face of a coach who's down by 30 points at halftime? No, I would not, but be that as it may, when I decided I wanted to be a sportscaster, it was 1972 and looking back, I was out of my mind because there simply weren't any women doing that sort of thing. But a lot of people who get into sports journalism, I was an athlete, believe it or not, I was an ice dancer today. I would be a hockey player

(05:46):

Back then, it was before Title ix. They didn't let me play hockey. They didn't let girls do those things. So I knew very little about any sport besides ice hockey. I grew up in an arena. So I decided I wanted to be a sportscaster because I was on something called the broadcast crew at my high school. And that was where every morning we had a radio show and it was a half hour and it was when everybody's in homeroom and we did announcements. And one day, one of the hockey players, I did stats for the hockey team. He said, Hey Anne, would you go and do this announcement for us? And I went, sure. And I went into the broadcast room and I decided to pull all the sports stories just because we usually tried to keep stories grouped together. You should have heard the guy screaming, you can't read the sports, you're a girl. Oh my goodness. And I went, well, why? I mean, it didn't ever occur to me. It was strange. And the teacher who was the head of the broadcast crew came in and he said, you've got five minutes to get on the air. If fan wants to read the sports, she can read the sports. And so they had to let me do it very. And the next day I did it again and they got very angry. And so they got me some theme music and before I would go on, they would play Mission Impossible, remember?

(06:54):

And then they started calling me Big Anne with the sports and they thought I would be offended. But I really liked it. And after a while, coaches and players were all handing me notes in the hall, would you read this tomorrow morning? So when my mother approached me before my senior year and said, okay, it's time for you to pick a college. What do you want to be when you grow up? I said, I want to be a sportscaster. And my mother looked at me through her cat eye glasses and said, I'm trying to have a serious conversation with you. Don't be ridiculous.

(07:22):

And that was pretty much even all through college, my professor said, you will never ever be a sportscaster. You are a woman. Yet my senior year they allowed me to co-host a TV show, a PBS TV show. I went to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and they said, you can co-host. I said, great. And so I went to the football coach and the basketball coach and the baseball coach, and they wouldn't speak to me. They would not allow me to interview them. And so I'm like, what am I supposed to do now? And finally they said, okay, your partner's going to interview all of them. And I realized on a college campus, there's a wrestling team, a gymnastics team, an archery team, a swim team that no one ever pays attention to. So I started seeking all those teams out and they were so delighted to have someone interview them that they were happy to talk to

(08:07):

Me.

(08:07):

So even though the big guys wouldn't deal with me, fine, okay, I got out of college and it's 1977 and I couldn't get an interview anywhere. And I went to Washington DC, worked in a bar in Georgetown, which in those days, eighties, Georgetown, great fun,

(08:23):

Not

(08:23):

Wanted a real job. My parents were horrified. We sent you to college to be a waitress was basically. But then one night I went to see the Washington Capitals play with my aunt. A friend was with her and he was bemoaning the fact that there were not enough ice hockey officials for kids. He was an ice hockey official for little kids.

(08:42):

And my aunt went, well, Anne can skate. That was true. I was an ice dancer. Okay. I was not very good, but I grew up on ice skates, figure skates. So I said, sure. And I took the test and I went to the classes and they scheduled me for my first game, and that was six o'clock in the morning. And I'd done a shift at the restaurant till like three in the morning. I put on my stripes, got my whistle, and I put on those hockey skates. Did either one of you ever put on hockey skates? Yeah,

Curtis Worcester (09:06):

Not me.

Anne Montgomery (09:07):

Do you know the difference between hockey skates and figure skates?

Curtis Worcester (09:10):

I mean appearance wise, yes. And the tow cleat on the blade? Yeah.

Anne Montgomery (09:15):

Yeah, those are called toe picks. Toe picks,

Curtis Worcester (09:17):

Okay. Toe pick.

Anne Montgomery (09:18):

Alright. You get a beer on toe pick. So I grew up on toe picks and it's lazy skaters like me. You fall down, you dig your towing, you get up it, there're for jumping and they're not for anything. Hockey skates don't have them. I never noticed that I put those hockey skates on, went out. I've got like 5-year-old hockey players, the ones with their jerseys to their ankles, little sought up sticks and their helmets are crooked because they're too big. And I go out and I'm taking my first face off and I

Curtis Worcester (09:45):

Fell, oh no. And

Anne Montgomery (09:46):

I just instinctively dug my point of my blade into the ice and I fell down again because why? I had no toe picks. And I'm looking up at five-year-olds and they're just staring at me like, what's wrong with the riff? So I don't remember anymore about that game, but I do remember driving home and I remember thinking, I didn't know enough about any sport that other than hockey to report on it. I didn't have the skills to be a sportscaster. And so I decided on that ride home that I would become a certified official in the five main team spectator sports at the amateur level, football, baseball, ice hockey, soccer, and basketball. And I would do that for five years. And that somewhere I believed in the country there would be a forward thinking news director who would say, oh yeah, let's hire her. And that's exactly what happened.

Curtis Worcester (10:31):

Wow, that's incredible. And you just led right into my next question for you, Anne. I know, and you just kind of shared that origin story of becoming an official, again, we're talking those major, the five major sports, baseball, ice hockey, soccer, basketball, football. What are some of the most memorable moments that you can remember? I know you just shared one with us about that first hockey game, but yeah, what are some other memorable moments from that four decade career on the field?

Anne Montgomery (11:00):

Yeah, it is ironic that after the five years when I got my job in tv, I never quit officiating. And if you had told me I wouldn't quit officiating until 2019, I would've said you're crazy. Because being an official is not easy. I'm guessing you guys have been to games, you see how treated, it's pretty brutal. I mean, I've had my tire knife, I've had more than one police escort to my car. And today, of course, they put you on the internet if you make a bad call and

(11:26):

Tell

(11:26):

Your name. So it's a difficult vocation, but I fell in love with it. And as far as stories, one of my favorites, I was invited to umpire, not a charity game, like a preseason game, not preseason. It was between the Phoenix Firebirds and the San Francisco Giants, the Firebirds, the AAA farm team. And this was a charity event and it was going to be televised. And are either of you baseball fans?

(11:56):

Oh yeah, both of us.

(11:58):

Okay. Well, there's a problem in baseball. It's called the strike Zone. If you read what the strike zone is, it's like your armpits to your knees. But no one calls that they call these little postage size tiny things. So when I first became an official, I'm kind of anal in a way. I follow rules the way they're written for the most part. So when I was first in Empire, I started calling strike zones. They were written and people went crazy on

(12:22):

Me.

(12:23):

And I said, especially when you're doing amateur, why do I want kids to walk? I don't. But anyway, so here I am. They said, we'd like you to come and do the game. And I'm all excited and I get the plate. So I'm the plate, and here comes Dusty Baker with his lineup party. Barry Bonds is there. Oh my goodness. It's a charity event, but it's a real game. And so Barry or Dusty comes up to me, we exchange cards with the other manager, and the other manager walks off and Dusty leans in and he goes, did I mention we have a plane to catch? I went, oh, and I knew exactly what he wanted. He wanted a quick game. So I said, great. And the first kid came up and I struck him out looking at a high pitch, and I went, I'm going to call the real strike zone in this game. And oh my God, I took so much crap.

(13:11):

I bet you did.

(13:11):

Oh my goodness, I did. Here's the thing, the game was over in about an hour and 50 minutes, and it's a beautiful sunset in Arizona, and here comes Dusty. He's standing out by the third base line. And he looked at me and he nodded, and he walked back into the dugout. And for some reason, that's a game I will never forget.

Curtis Worcester (13:30):

That's incredible.

Anne Montgomery (13:31):

I realize I probably should have acted like I was a major league umpire and had a postage stamp sized stripe zone. But he had a plane to catch.

Ben Smith (13:39):

Yeah, exactly. I can just imagine Dusty baker with his toothpick rolling his

Anne Montgomery (13:44):

Mouth, he was great. He's a big man, but he was kind to me. And I have to say, people were often not kind to me as an official. And when I first started officiating, I thought it's, I'm a woman. And that was part of it. But it also was because I wore the uniform, I had the stripes, I had the chest protector, I had my mask and everything. And 50% of the people hate you 50% of the time. They don't care if your calls, they just care if it goes for their team.

(14:10):

So I took a lot of crap and then there were certainly men right up to the end of my career that wouldn't work with me. And that was no fun. In fact, every year I would get thrown off crews because they'd say, we're never going to get the five a state championship with you on our crew, a woman. And they were right. They were right. So one year in this group of 350 officials in our opening meeting, they said, anybody who wants to start a new crew, be a referee, stand up and we'll have anybody who's interested in working with you come over. And I stood up in that meeting. Now, here's a test. How many referees on a football field?

Curtis Worcester (14:42):

Six, five.

Anne Montgomery (14:43):

I'll give you a hint, it's the same at Pop Warner and the NFL

Curtis Worcester (14:47):

Referees one. Is this a technical question? Thank you.

Anne Montgomery (14:50):

Are officials, the rest are like the umpire of the back judge, the side judge, the headlines, man. So the referee is the crew chief. The referee is the one in the white hat

(14:59):

That says, I have holding number 70 offense. So I decided to be the referee, and I knew, and I stood up in that meeting that only men who could deal with me and understanding we'd never get the state championship we're going to work with me. And I ended up having guys on my crew sometimes 12, 13 years. And we were a family. And I really, because I grew up before Title ix, I never played on a team. And so this was the closest I ever got to playing on a team. And I love that idea. And you know what, today I'm retired from teaching. I'm retired from broadcasting and reporting, and I don't miss those. But boy, I miss Friday night football.

Ben Smith (15:32):

Yeah,

Anne Montgomery (15:33):

I really, really do.

Ben Smith (15:34):

I bet. Yeah. Well, I'm just kind, obviously getting the flavor of you here and just kind of this, obviously you're a person that just doesn't take no, right?

Anne Montgomery (15:42):

No,

(15:43):

I don't.

Ben Smith (15:43):

You know what you want to do and you're going to do it by gosh darn it. But I have a question. Of course. One of the things that we read in your bio was you've published several novels across different genres. So you've done, as you said, teaching, right? So you were a teacher for 20 years, you were a sports official, broadcasting, and then this piece on writing, which by the way is, I know there's journalism is writing and there's a corollary there. But can you share what inspired this writing journey again, especially around creating novels and how you decide to transition from journalism and broadcasting and teaching to becoming a published author?

Anne Montgomery (16:26):

That's kind of a long story. First of all, I taught sports broadcasting, sports reporting, and my students were always shocked to know that the most important thing you have to be able to do is to tell a story. They think that sports reporters get up there and ad-lib. We do not. It's all written. So on any given night as a TV sportscaster, I had to write dozens of stories. One might be 15 seconds long, one might be a minute and a half, but I was having to write stories. And we all do that. Even at ESPN, you get to there before SportsCenter begins, and they're 30 stories and one anchor gets 15 and the other one gets 15, and you've got to write all that stuff. So I learned to write as a sports reporter, which is really funny because I am dyslexic. Something I didn't realize until I was in my fifties.

(17:11):

And when I was a kid, I never read. I hated, I was not a good student because back then they just said I was stupid and lazy. Nobody had names for these things. And so when I started writing for television, it was not something I ever expected to have to do. Why I didn't think of that, I dunno. But yeah, you have to be a writer. So after I worked for five TV stations, I was suddenly pushing 40 and I was no longer considered pretty enough to be in front of a camera. And that is the way it is.

(17:40):

And

(17:40):

I remember saying that to a couple of my college students and they were like, that's not right. Two little girls. I said, that's the way it is. It's a visual medium. And sports is targeted at 18 to 34-year-old males. And once you're 35 as a woman, you're not hot enough anymore. Now I'm going to tell you that I took that well, but I did not. That would be a lie. I was crushed. And I left here. I left ESPN. I did a stint two years with the Phoenix Sons, but that was part-time. It was only during the NBA season. And then I found myself without a job. I couldn't get a job anywhere. I even went to a brand new sports bar opened up, and I went, oh, I went to the manager and I said, I can keep your patrons entertained even when they're sobers and I can make a hell of a cocktail.

(18:22):

And I'll never forget this. He looked me up and down and he went, I don't think so. And I realized this light bulb went off. I went, ah, he wants a 20 something in a short skirt and a pushup bra. And I didn't have any way to make a living. I was in the middle of a divorce, I was in debt, and the only thing anybody would pay me to do was officiating. So I pulled out my football gear, I pulled out my baseball gear, and I'd gone from ESPN anchoring nationally to calling Pop Warner football and little league baseball and high school games. And I didn't want to see anybody I knew

(18:55):

I

(18:55):

Did a great deal of feeling sorry for myself. And I wasted a couple years doing that. That's one of my very few regrets that I didn't get back on the horse much more quickly. But I ended up going back to college, got a teaching degree, and ended up teaching in a title one school. Now, this is actually relevant to my writing because I don't write about sports at all. None of my books have anything to do with sports. I taught in a title one school. I always thought it was going to be just this year. I'll be back in TV next year. I taught there for 20 years. And a title one school is where at least 75% of the kids live in poverty.

Ben Smith (19:29):

Gotcha.

Anne Montgomery (19:30):

And I grew up in a middle class family. Both my parents went to college, of course I was going to college. I had never been around a community where there was addiction and gangs and teen pregnancy and foster care, hundreds of kids in foster care. And neglect was big and homelessness, it was just terrible. And for me, I went in there like a raging bull sort of, I'm going to whip these kids into shape. I did not understand that. And so I go in there and I'm teaching communications, I'm teaching a TV show and newspaper, that kind of thing. And one day my students did a, they didn't do their work. They were all late. And I'm always screaming, you got to be punctual. I was on tv. I'm like, if I was one second late on tv, then the red camera light goes off and I'm not there and I lose my job. And as a referee, I can't be late.

(20:21):

I'm

(20:21):

Holding up all those people. So I'm screaming. I was really mad at the kids. And one of my kids stood up in the middle class and she said, we don't like you. We don't need you. And they all

(20:31):

Left. Oh my goodness.

(20:32):

Every kid in my class walked out and I consider myself a tough girl. I mean, I'm not going to tell you I don't cry sometimes, but I never do it publicly. And I stood in front of that empty classroom and I cried. I didn't know what to do. I thought, I'm getting them ready for the future. Why do they hate me? And another teacher came in, she said, come with me. And she sat me down and she said, have you ever considered being nicer? I said, nicer. I said, there's no nice in a newsroom. There's no nice on the football field. She said, you need to think about being nicer. Well, I thought she was being silly, but I then had a class and a young man came in late every day. I took him outside. I read him the riot act. You'll never be successful if you're not on time. And he said, I'm so sorry Ms. Montgomery, but I never know where I'm going to sleep at night. I was at my uncle's last night and I didn't know how to get on the bus. And he's looking at shoes. And I went, oh my God, the kid's homeless.

(21:21):

14-year-old homeless child. And that's when the light bulb went off that I went, I'm a jerk. I care about so many things that are not important. Am I pretty enough to be on TV anymore? Will they ever hire me back? And I changed then at that moment, and I started to see that my kids were, I'm worried about them doing their homework. Maybe they didn't eat.

(21:41):

Maybe no one came home last night and they were afraid maybe they're in foster care and they don't know what to do. And I started to look at them as individuals and think, okay, yes, I'm not going to tell you I didn't have high standards for my students, but I started to try to understand what they were going through. And the roundabout way back to my novels, most of my novels deal with societal issues, children in foster care, children in religious cults, domestic violence. I also do things on environmentalism. We have a WildHorse problem in Phoenix where I live part of the time. And so there's one called Wild Horses on the Salt about our WildHorse problem. So it, there's a lot of societal issues. And I think if I had never become a teacher, I wouldn't have written these books. And I have to thank my students for that because they made me see the world in a different way.

(22:28):

And I want to point out that while we can plan our lives, I was going to be a sportscaster until I retired. Life doesn't go in the line. You expect it to go on. There's all kinds of twists and turns. And I wish I had understood that when I went through those couple of years feeling sorry for myself or I didn't want to run into anyone I knew because I was afraid they'd say, so what are you doing now? And that all changed me. And I am a little nicer now, I think. I hope I'm nicer. But yeah, it was quite a learning experience. And I became an author quite honestly, because as a teacher, I had 10 weeks off in the summer and I would find stories that were interested me very often. They dealt with, as I said, societal issues. And then I would do all the research during the year and then I would write a book over the summer.

Curtis Worcester (23:13):

Yeah. Wow. That's just that whole thank you for sharing that journey and really the creation behind the writing in that moment where your life, you say you kind of changed to be nicer. And I'll speak for Ben. You've been very nice to us. So that's our experience. I do want to, to keep going here, Anne, and I know the theme for today. We want to talk about embracing lifelong learning and taking on new challenges. The broader spectrum here for is really transitioning into retirement. I know Ben talked about it in the beginning. For us, a lot of our listeners and clients we work with and just maybe retirees in general, they struggle with finding purpose after leaving their careers. It's the one thing or couple things they've done their whole adult lives it feels like. And in your view, Anne, why is it important for retirees to embrace that attitude of lifelong learning and taking on new challenges once they transition out of the workforce?

Anne Montgomery (24:15):

Because it's very difficult. I mean, I retired four and a half years ago from teaching. Now I'm an author. I was an author before, but that's not getting up every day at the same time and having to be somewhere and having to get dressed and go out. So while I'm an author, I don't consider it my full-time job. So I consider myself retired. It is very difficult when you have been running your whole life. And many of us have. I mean, whether I was in television or whether I was a teacher, I ran all day long. I also worked out all the time. I'm a gym rat and I was barely home. And that was normal existence. That was my normal life. And so when you retire, I mean the greatest thing to me when you're tired is get throughout the alarm clock. I hate mornings. I've never been a morning person,

(24:59):

5:30 AM that went off every morning when I was a teacher. I would get to school. My kids would be miserable first hour. I said, I'm as miserable as you are. I hate getting up. However, other than that, it's hard because all the routines you have go away. And I think human beings thrive on routines to a certain extent. And I seriously struggled. Sometimes I still struggle with it. And what I think is really important is for people who are nearing retirement, not to wait, don't wait and say, I think I'll take a painting. I always wanted to try to paint, do it first to see if that's something that really you'll stick with. I know I'll keep writing. I like to write. And I was lucky I was writing before I retired, but to put it off until I retired, I probably never would've done it because it's complicated and hard and confusing and there's so many things attached to it. I think you need to find out what you're interested in before retirement. And I feel sorry for people. I have a great deal of curiosity about things, probably why I became a reporter. I mean, I ended up also going into print reporting and I wrote about a lot of different subjects and I really enjoyed that. And I think I was curious from birth, I'm lucky I got some kind of curiosity gift, but if you're looking at retirement and you've been an accountant for 40 years before you retire, you need to go, okay, what do I want to do and what can I conceivably do?

(26:20):

It's really nice if you go, oh, I'm going to travel. But quite honestly, I've traveled extensively and it's exhausting.

(26:26):

Yeah, it is.

(26:27):

Even now, I live in the Virgin Islands now and Phoenix. So I'm Virgin Islands right now. And to get home, it's like a 24 hour day.

(26:35):

And when you're 20, that's great. You have fun. But when you're 70, it's exhausting. So people say, going to go to Australia when I'm 70, that's a long trip and it's tiring. So maybe don't wait that long, but also find things that give you a little bit of a schedule. For example, I still read the regular old newspaper every day, not online. I read a paper newspaper. And that's an important part of my day to me. And I hold onto that. And I don't know what people think they want to do, but I think they have to start planning it like we plan financially so that you can do what you want. You need to start thinking 10 years before you retire, what might I want to do and what will I be capable of doing? I'd love to still be officiating football, but I'm not physically capable anymore. I've broken so many bones and had so many surgeries. You remember when they told us sports were good for us? They lied. I have the MRIs to prove it. So I'm just saying there's some things I've had to give up, some things that I would've loved to have done in retirement. I thought I would officiate when I retired, but I can't.

(27:37):

You have to go, what can I do? What do I have the finances to do? What do I have the physical abilities to do? And how can I give myself a life that is equally as fulfilling as my job? Hopefully people had a job they loved. That will make my days, I don't know, not boring, boring as hard, boredom, sterile.

Ben Smith (27:58):

And I think that's kind of a good lead in. My next question is I think there's a lot of the concern about getting into retirement. There's uncertainty, right? To your point about what you just said about scheduling is having a schedule kind of keeps you on track and keeps things moving. And I think when you say I don't have a schedule anymore, and that there's so much uncertainty, I think the point of uncertainty is that it can be overwhelming is I don't know what to try. I can try too many things. And I think there's a concern there about, well, I could do this, I could do this, but if I commit to one thing, then it means I can't commit to these other 4,000 things I could possibly try. How would you advise someone to get that confidence to pursue new passions or skills? Because I think that is a common thing. When Curtis and I are sitting down with people, it's just they're expressing, I don't know where to get started. And I feel like if I do start somewhere that it takes away other opportunities.

Anne Montgomery (28:54):

I think again, they need to start looking at these options prior to retirement.

(28:59):

And if that means you join a club, obviously you're working, you've got family obligations. But if you start small, for example, I'm a rock collector. I've been a mineral collector my entire life. Only one of my kids is a rock collector too. And together we joined the Mineralogical Society of Arizona. What does that mean? There's a monthly meeting to talk about rocks. Don't laugh. Then in the winter months, the cool months in Arizona, we go on collecting trips. Do we have to go? No, but we can sign up once or twice a month and go with a group rock collecting. And while we're there, there's other people that have a similar passion that we do, and we go in the wilderness areas. I love the wilderness areas and we find rocks and it's a beautiful thing. So that's a passion that I have. I meet other people, I learn from them.

(29:45):

And then do I want to get more involved in that? Maybe I do. Maybe I want to join other clubs because they're new. In Arizona, we have a hundred thousand abandoned mines. Nobody would've stopped there before air conditioning if it weren't for gold, silver, and copper. So we have a lot of minds. So for me, I could get much more involved in that world if I wanted to. So start slow again. Maybe you want to try painting, you've never done that. Or art, take a class, take a community college class once a week. Fit it into your schedule somehow. I know sometimes people in the business world are like, I don't have time to take time for myself. I've got to do all these things. But then you're not going to be prepared for retirement. Find out if painting is the thing you want. Okay. Because maybe it's not. Maybe after you take that class at community college, you go, not for me. I think I'll try something else. And also, I think in retirement, we tend to lose our social context. I mean, you don't realize how much your work is your social life

(30:39):

And your friends from work or your social life. I had a lot of friends who were teachers. I rarely see any of them anymore. Well, that's not their fault. They have families and grandkids and whatever. So you're going to lose a social life. So you need to get another one. You need to find another one. And for me, if it means I meet people, rock collecting, great. My son likes to climb mountains, so he climbs with other people, and that's part of his social life. I'm just saying that you have to do this before you retire.

(31:05):

I think when you wake up, the first week's kind of fun, and then as time goes on, you feel kind of lost. It's like I told you, I worked out all the time. When I retired, I got covid and broke my leg and I, it was broken in several places. It took me eight months to walk again, and I couldn't work out. So not only had I just retired, but I broke my leg. And so I couldn't do that daily thing of going to the health club. And I had social life at the health club.

(31:31):

So it's very difficult when you're home alone. And I think a lot of retirees find themselves in that position also. How many times can you play golf? Here's the other thing, you need variety. The guys go, I'm going to play golf every day. No, you're not. You're not going to play golf every day. You need some variety. And some of that can be with other people and maybe some of that is by yourself. I played the guitar as a young person, didn't pick it up for 35 years and then picked it up again. And so I can sit around. Normally I broke my arm recently, so I can't do it now, but normally I can sit around and play my guitar and that's part of my day, and I can do that and feel fulfilled without anybody around me.

(32:08):

So

(32:08):

I think you need a combination of things because at some point, like I said, two months ago, I tripped in a pothole while walking in the morning. It's not even a good story. I don't mind broken stories if there's a good story, but that's not a good story. So I broke it in three places and dislocated it. And so I can't use it at all. My hand doesn't work at all yet. They just took the pins out two weeks ago. So the point is, I now can't play my guitar. So there's a little part of my day that went away, but I can read my paper and I can go walk in the pool. I swim in the pool at the moment, but some things will go. So you have to have a variety, I think, of things that you like to do. And I think that's maybe how we replace work a little bit. We find those few things where we can be with others and few things we can do by ourselves. And maybe the person who paints is perfectly happy to paint a loan at home, but to wait until you retire to find out what these things are, I think is a mistake.

Curtis Worcester (33:02):

Gotcha. Yeah. Anne, this is great too. I mean, you're taking us right into these questions. We want to keep asking. So at this point, we in this hypothetical, right, we've tried things, we're getting ready to retire, we've retired, we're ready to reinvent ourself, right? And that's something that you've done multiple times even throughout your career as we've talked about, your diverse background there. And I think a challenge for those who may be reluctant to not only try something new, but maybe to really embrace that new thing they've found, it has to deal with leaving their past behind. So what advice would you give to somebody on how to have that fresh start with that, whether it's the new social network or the new activity or the new hobby, but they don't necessarily want to feel like they're leaving everything in their past behind either. What is that balance?

Anne Montgomery (33:49):

Clearly you have a skill. You can do things part-time. When I retired from teaching high school, I briefly taught at Arizona State University, and I taught, I said, I just want to teach one class. So I taught one class in sports reporting. It kept me, actually, that was that right after I broke my leg, and it was the first thing that made me have to get up and put on makeup and do my hair and go out again, because that's the other problem. You get to a point where, why should I get out of my pajamas? And I don't think we talk enough about what a big change this is for people that, especially if you're fortunate enough to be financially well off, that's great, but it's not enough. It just isn't enough. Have to find a way to integrate yourself back into some society, not the same level you used to. I don't need to be around as many people as I used to be around, but you have to find things that interest you. I like theater. I was in a play in right before I retired from high school, teaching a community theater play. Hadn't been a play in 40 years. Didn't think I could do that anymore. I was horrified. I mean, I had to sing to solos and dance and stuff.

(34:53):

Oh my gosh, it was thrilling and I would love to do it again, but I can't, don't live anywhere. I live between two places and I'm never in the same place long enough. So I'd love to do that. So I encourage people to reach back into, maybe last time I was in a play, I was in my twenties. So reach back. What did you used to like to do? Maybe you could rekindle that also. Geez, volunteer. Be a volunteer at this point. I've had pets my whole life. I've had a dozen dogs and 40 cats and over the years, and I love them dearly. But now I look at it, I go, okay, I'm going to be 70, and how old will I be if I have a kitten now that cat will be, I'll be 90 when that cat could still be alive. So I have to think about that and how can I travel? Luckily one son stays at our home in Phoenix where the animals are, so we can come and go. So if you logically can't say, ah, I love animals, but I can't beat them, Jim, go volunteer at Humane

(35:47):

Society. Sure, yeah,

(35:50):

That's a social life and they need your help. There are a lot of places that need volunteers. And I think the baby boomer generation, we used to be the biggest group of volunteers. I think. Yeah, I think we're slipping. I think we're falling down. I don't know that young people volunteer that much anymore.

(36:06):

I think that's a perfect way to get at my dog when she dies. She's the last dog, and then I can't have another one, but I could certainly go and help at the animal shelter or the Humane Society. So I think there's volunteer opportunities, former teachers, they can do things everywhere. Use your skills that you have. Maybe if you're an accountant or a tax person, you can go help people do those kinds of things. So I think volunteering is a good way to make yourself get up and out. And I think that's the hardest thing, especially in that first year of retirement. Make yourself do things. Make yourself go, because you get to a point sometimes where you don't want to do things. I just don't feel like doing anything because you haven't been doing anything. It's ingrained in you to get up and go to work every day and to work out and do whatever you're doing. It's normal. When you stop doing things, it's easy to get on that. I think I'll just sit here and watch TV and you can't live like that. So I think volunteering's great. And I think if you can look at what you can offer your community, but what you're interested. I like to garden. They're community gardens in many cities. And if you have skills as a gardener, go help other people do that.

Ben Smith (37:15):

So Anne, we talked a lot about obviously the broadcasting piece, the teaching piece, the writing thing. And I know obviously we want to talk about balancing comfort and growth here in our interests. And especially learning new things can sometimes feel uncomfortable, and especially later in life, that trying new things and getting out of that comfort zone is a really tough thing. Obviously you had been a writer from, as you explained, the broadcasting side, and you talked about then you're writing about things that you're seeing thematically. And I know obviously one of the books that you had written here was Your Forgotten Sons, right? A little historical fiction, right? So here you are teaching, broadcasting, sports, getting into historical fiction, I believe around World War II and around kind of a theme there. Maybe not your bailiwick originally, right? Maybe it is.

Anne Montgomery (38:14):

Well, it is in a way, but I have six traditionally published books, and five of them are based in Arizona. Whicher. The Arizona is a beautiful state. And so my stories are based there, but this one is different. And Your Forgotten Sons came out this past June 6th. The 80th anniversary of D-Day came to me an entirely different way. My best friend called me from Georgia and said, I need you to be my healthcare power of attorney, because she had a tumor wrapped around her spinal cord, and her husband was a soldier, and he has terrible post-traumatic stress, and there was a terrible thing that happened in a hospital in Afghanistan, or one of the places he was. He can't be in hospitals. So I went to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, I met them there, and my job was to be her healthcare power of attorney.

(39:04):

And there was a good chance she was going to wake up paralyzed from the waist down. And so it was very difficult, and we were all horrified by the whole thing. And the night before the surgery, she hands me a Ziploc bag full of 75-year-old letters, and she said, whatever happens to me, I want you to promise that you'll tell Bud's story. Bud was her uncle. And even though she's my age, he was directly her uncle because her grandmother had babies like 20 years apart, mother babies, 20 years apart. So Bud was her uncle who never came home from World War ii. And because I wanted to make her feel better, I said, yes, of course, I'll write a book about Bud. And she had her surgery, she walked out of the hospital. But I had made this promise. And what I learned about Bud was that he was in the Graves registration service. And that's something nobody talks about war. We see World War II movies, we read novels. We see planes fall from the sky and men shooting each other, but no one ever says, what happens next? Somebody has to pick up the bodies and the body parts.

(40:03):

So Bud's job was to locate, identify, and bury the dead. Now, think about that. He hit the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, 10,000 dead between the allies and the Germans. They all had to be collected. They didn't identify the Germans. They buried them in mass graves generally. But the Americans and the allies had to be identified, and maybe they only had a foot. I mean, think about that. So this was his job, and this is, have you ever seen a movie or read a book about this? But everybody who goes to Normandy goes to the beautiful cemetery, right?

(40:35):

Sure. They

(40:36):

Built the cemetery. The United States has American dead in 36 countries and a couple of territories around the world today. These graveyards were built by the Graves registration service. And it was, to me, the most difficult and most harrowing job in the military in World War ii. Today, they ship bodies home. In a day or two days, they come right home. But in World War ii, they just didn't have the capacity to do that. So they're buried, and people go to Normandy, and these magnificently, graceful cemeteries were built by these men. So Bud was one of them. It was very difficult because all I had were his letters and family stories. And because in 1973, the Army's record depository burned down in St. Louis, destroying 80% of all the military personnel records of people discharged between 1912 and 1960. So his records were destroyed, which made figuring out where he was and what he was doing difficult because of course, soldiers never wrote home and said what they were really doing

(41:32):

Because of sensors, and to write home and say, gee, mom, I collected 10 bodies today. And many of them were decapitated. You just didn't do that. You said, I missed your apple pie. Right? So I was very fortunate that two things happened. One, I started paying attention to the Postmarks on the letters, and the postmarks had dates and locations, and I followed him from the beaches of Normandy to the Battle of the Bulge, to he was with Patton and Czechoslovakia. He was in Nuremberg. I followed him all over that way. And then I found one book called Crosses in the Wind, which was written by a captain who went on to become a lieutenant colonel who was in the Graves registration service in World War ii. The book came out in 1947, crosses in the Wind, and it showed me exactly what those men went through. Exactly. And I'll give you one quick example. Do you know what a Higgins boat is? They're the boats where Think Saving Private Ryan, all the guys and the back falls and all the guys went

(42:26):

Out,

(42:27):

Okay, that's a Higgins boat. And a Higgins boat took a direct shell and it flipped, and a couple guys got out, but most of them were dead. A few weeks later, after D-Day, they sent the Graves registration guys out in a boat and said, would you go down there and pick up any bodies? You find they've been in the water two weeks. There's no scuba gear, there's no snorkels. They stripped down to their skis, they hand them pitchforks and nets and say, go down, bring up what you find. This is what they did. And no one ever talks about it. So I wrote a book about Bud using the letters, using the stories from that. It's inspired by a true story. Is it out of my bailiwick? Not completely, because I was very fortunate. I'm a history buff, and I went to junior part of my junior year in Luxembourg, and we studied mostly World War ii where I could drive a little ways. I was in the middle of where the Battle of the Bulge was.

(43:22):

Sure. So

(43:24):

I had that knowledge. And the thing is, when I started writing this book, COVID Hit and I intended to go to France and follow in Bud's footsteps, and I couldn't do that. And so as a reporter, I need to see and smell and hear a story. And I was really frustrated by it till I remembered. I spent six months in Luxembourg. I had those stories in my head. So I put him in Luxembourg. I had no idea. I had no evidence that he'd been there until the book had already gone to publication. And my friend Regina sent me an obit that ran in his hometown newspaper, and it said he'd been in Luxembourg. So I went, wow, I made that up. But yeah, so yeah, I have a pretty good understanding of World War ii. So somehow that all worked out.

Curtis Worcester (44:07):

Wow. Well, I'm going to pause our next line of question for just a second and tell everybody to go into our show notes, because we're going to have links to all of your books, but specifically that one, because that entire story from your perspective of writing a book fascinated me. So I'm sure people will enjoy the book itself. So I do want to get kind of back to our line of here for you, Anne. And naturally, when we do anything in life, whether we're young or in our careers or retiring and trying to reinvent ourselves, dealing with setbacks and frustrations are certainly a part of life. And not every new challenge or new learning experience that we embark on goes smoothly, and certainly setbacks can be discouraging. So I want to ask you, how have you dealt with frustrations or failures or setbacks in your own journeys? And how can retirees, what advice do you have for people to keep moving forward despite coming into these obstacles? I

Anne Montgomery (45:06):

Mentioned earlier that we can make all the plans we want,

(45:09):

But life never goes. Exactly. It goes the way you plan. Now, I ended up being a sportscaster. I made a plan, but then that it ended without me even, I'm like an athlete who doesn't understand that at 26, their career is probably going to be over. And what do I do now? I would like to tell you, I made that transition smoothly. I didn't, because change is really hard, especially unexpected change. And I think, I don't know, maybe you have to have people around you that are gently push. I had people telling me for several years, you need to go be a teacher. You need to go be a teacher. And I ignored them. I don't want to be a teacher. So I think if you're fortunate enough to have people around you that care about you, listen to what they're saying, that can be helpful. But I don't think change is ever going to be easy. Even especially, it is especially hard if you're not prepared for it. But when it comes out of nowhere, I think it's life's biggest challenge, whether it's a job related thing or a health thing, we have to learn to adjust because life is never going to be in a straight line. I don't think it's supposed to be.

(46:09):

And what I learned was an amazing thing. When I got out of broadcasting, I explained I was devastated, brokenhearted, whatever, became a teacher, really didn't want to be a teacher. But it's a little ironic that I was unable to have any children of my own. And that used to really bother me. I wanted to have a family, but I couldn't. So I'd given up on that. And then at the end of the school year, even though they told us not to do this, I always put my phone number on the board because my kids lived in a ghetto. I mean, they lived in poverty, abject poverty, and 10 weeks of summer, they might not eat. So I always put my number and said, look, if you get stuck, you're in a problem. Call me. I'll do what I can.

(46:47):

And one summer, this 14-year-old kid called me and he said he just wanted to chat. I'm like, Brandon, is there something wrong? Can I help you? He goes, no, no, no, I'm all right. I said, well, I put you in the newspaper class next year. Can't wait to see you. See you at school. School came and he wasn't there. Two weeks went by. I called the number. It was disconnected, and I was really upset. I sensed that there was something wrong, but he didn't tell me what it was. And so short time after that, I get a phone call, it's him, and he says, Ms. Montgomery, I'm hungry. I said, what do you mean you're hungry? And he said, well, they put me in foster care and they lock up all the food in the morning. And the new school I'm at, they don't have my paperwork and they won't give me lunch. I said, okay, I'll get back to you. And I'm stomped. I'm lucky I had no kids, the classroom, because I'm swearing like a sailor.

(47:31):

And the teacher who told me to be nice, she came in, she goes, what's the problem? And I said, I told her the story. And she goes, well, if it bothers you so much, you call foster care and say he can come and live with you. And I said, don't be ridiculous. I said, I'm 55 years old. I've never had any kids. I'm not a mom. And she said, then quit complaining. And I went and got to foster care, and two weeks later, that child was on my doorstep. I have had four kids. Now, some of 'em still call me mom. I'm now a grandmother. I have a 7-year-old grandson. And I don't, I'm a mom sometimes. I'm amazed. Now, if I hadn't lost my job in tv, finally become a teacher, I wouldn't be a mom.

(48:08):

Sure.

(48:10):

So things happen and you go, oh, this is terrible. Life has changed so much, but maybe there's something better at the other end. So I can't tell you. Every time my oldest son goes, love you, mom. I'm like, oh, I'm a mom. So I love that. Yeah. Try to be open to the fact that life changes. It's supposed to change. And maybe things will get better.

Ben Smith (48:29):

Yeah. Anne, I love that and I know a lot of the things you're saying just resonate with me and just, and Curtis, I'm sure the same of from a hundred and something episodes we've done and there's a lot of, I think, awesome lessons that you're sharing here today with us. I want to ask a question though about, and this came up with I think one of our earlier episodes way back, I think in the thirties with Dr. Sarah Zeff Geber. So she is an expert in solo aging, so people that don't have kids and they're just aging themselves. And one of the things that she brought up was reinventing your network as you age is I think a lot of us, we go to work, as you said, you have the work friends, then you retire, that social network ceases. And if you don't reinvent that social network, your world gets pretty small, right?

(49:20):

Is it all of a sudden it might be my spouse, maybe I don't have a spouse, maybe I just have a friend or two and that's it. And if you lose a friend for they move away or something happens to them, then you don't have anybody. And so she kind of highlighted this need of reinventing your social network is really important as you age. So Anne, I want to ask a question. Obviously we talked about lifelong learning as a theme and exploring interests. How has that for you, exploring these interests and whether it be authorship or whether it be, again, going between the Virgin Islands and Arizona, how have you kept reinventing this network again as you've gone through each stage here?

Anne Montgomery (50:07):

I think I've had a lot of practice at this simply because I've worked, I've lived in eight states and now a territory that would be nine because of broadcasting. I moved a lot, so I made great friends. But then every two years I went somewhere else and I had to constantly be reinventing myself. So maybe I'm a ringer on this question. I don't know. I was the new kid a lot. Then when I went into teaching, I'm like, I'd never been in a room with all women, mostly women before. I'd always been in rooms with all men. So being with a bunch of teachers is very strange. But I think it's a skill. You have to learn, a skill. You have to learn. I walk into a room and introduce myself to people. I mean, as a reporter, that was just part of my gig. But I think probably shy people or people that are not used to putting themselves out there will struggle in this regard. And that's where I think you go back to increasing your social network by volunteering or by taking a class where no one really expects you to take over a room,

(51:03):

But you are with people that are like-minded people that have the hat. Maybe the person next to you is trying to learn to paint. You're all in the same group trying to learn to paint so you have a common interest and give it a try. And for people that are not accustomed to putting themselves out in public, I think you have, that's a skill. I taught public speaking to kids in high school, which still today, public speaking is the number one fear of most people in America. 25% of Americans fear public speaking more than I think it's drowning, claustrophobia, and bugs and snakes. I mean, it's ridiculous. And when I say public speaking, it means going into a room where you don't know people and just chatting. That's public speak. And so I think people need to avail themselves of opportunities where they have to go and talk. And today, where we live on our phones, that I think we are losing those skills. I mean, I want to look people in the chat with them. And I think we're losing those skills. And I think as we get older, I think we're going to be much more alone or feel much more alone because texting doesn't cut it. As far as I'm concerned. My kids tell me it does. But I think we need to look people in the eye. And I think you have to go out of your way and say, let's go to lunch.

(52:14):

Make a plan. You don't have to see people all the time. It's not like when we were young and you went out with 10 people every night. We don't do that anymore, but make plans with people like on this date, on this day, I'll meet you for dinner. And sometimes we don't want to do that. Sometimes we want to be in our pajamas and say, scrub, you don't want to go anywhere. But I think we have to make that effort. I was feeling kind of like I wasn't doing anything when I was in Phoenix back last year and I decided to take improv. I just

(52:42):

Wanted to be funny. So yeah, I just called up an improv place and they said, here's what it is. I said, fine. We got six classes. Great. So I took six months of improv. Very cool. And what reason, I don't know, but I was with young people and older people and it was so much fun. Now, I had no skills in that area. I'd never done that before. But I think we have to be brave. I think we have to say, well, I don't know if I can do that. Well try. What's the big problem? If you're a child, give it a try. If you don't like it, try something else. And I think that's the biggest thing to get yourself out there because it's way too easy to sit around. And I think we're going to have an avalanche of loneliness. And I think that's part of the problem with retirement is people get lonely. I have a partner and we don't sit in the same room all the time and do everything together, but after a while we get sick of each other. You need outside people to chat with. Once a week, he goes to lunch with his three best friends. When we're in Phoenix, that's the thing, the boys go out to lunch

(53:43):

And meets that. And I think people have to think that way. If you have a spouse, you don't have to spend every waking hour with them, let them go do something on their own. And you do something on your own. But I don't know what you do with people that don't think they're interested in anything. I had students like that. I'd say, where do you want to be in 10 years? Let's get you there. I don't want to do anything. Well, I don't know how you fix that,

Ben Smith (54:03):

Do you? No. Well, and I think that's something where if people don't have the energy and the initiation to kind of go after something, then they're not going to, and you can kind of lead them with all the carrots in the world. But if they don't want to snap at something, then it's just not going to go anywhere. But I think the point of this whole show and why we created it was like, well, let's just show you what's possible. And if you want to aspire to it, then great. And if you don't and go, Hey, I want to treat this as a binge from vocation to a binge on vacation. Well that is your right too.

Anne Montgomery (54:39):

Or food. Maybe take a cooking class, maybe go out and learn to ride a horse something. I'm just saying that we have to make those leaps even though we're uncomfortable. First time I got up in the improv stage, I'm like, holy crap, what the hell am I doing here? Right? Was I nervous? Yes. Did it matter? No, everybody was in the same boat. We're all learning at the same time. So like you say, lifelong learning. I've been back to college about five times. So I think find something that fascinates you, even if it's World War ii, whatever it is. And while there are lots of Facebook pages for all kinds of things that we're interested in, Ryan, my partner laughs at me. I look at rock Facebook pages, he calls it my rock porn. Look at this Rockwell Marine. It's 25,000 bucks. So I'm just saying it doesn't take the place of going out rocking with people.

Ben Smith (55:31):

Sure, yeah. Call it rocking with people. That's pretty. Yeah, that's great. That's great.

Anne Montgomery (55:35):

Guess. I know people laugh at me. I say, I'm a rocker and rockers know what I'm talking mean. The ones in Arizona go, oh yeah, what's your favorite mineral? They know that. But when I say it to my friends in New Jersey where I grew up, there're like, whatcha, are you talking about a rock and roller?

Curtis Worcester (55:49):

Yeah. I love it. I love it. Well, Anne, we've reached kind of the end of our show today. And I do have one final question for you. We're putting you on the spot here. So naturally the name of our show, we're all about retirement success. So we love to ask every guest, and I know you said earlier you feel like you're retired, even though you're an author, you didn't describe that as being kind of a full-time career. I want to ask you, how are you going to find your retirement success? What does that mean to you?

Anne Montgomery (56:19):

Success to me is having stories to tell.

Curtis Worcester (56:22):

I love

Anne Montgomery (56:22):

It. I am still gathering stories. And I think that when you're dying, you're on your deathbed. If you don't have stories, good stories. And if you just have regrets that, boy, I never went to Paris or I never learned to cook a souffle or I that, you're going to be bitter. But if you're dying with stories, maybe not so much. So to me is looking back and all the stories don't have to be good, but interesting stories was your life. Interesting. And I've had a very interesting life in the business world, and my job is to continue making it interesting in retirement.

Ben Smith (56:59):

I love it. Love that. Well Anne, we can't thank you enough for coming on our show. Just obviously from the diverse background you have. And I said, what I love about you is you're a storyteller in that. I'm sure we could have asked you about 40,000 more questions and it wouldn't have been repetitive at all. So I want to thank you so much for coming on our show today. I know our listeners got out a lot out of it. I know we did. We appreciate you coming on.

Anne Montgomery (57:26):

Well, thank you. I really appreciate you inviting me.

Ben Smith (57:29):

Alright, be well,

Anne Montgomery (57:30):

You too.

Ben Smith (57:30):

Episode 1 0 4, Anne Montgomery. Wow. Talk about a trailblazer, right? Is she, there's

Curtis Worcester (57:38):

A lot there,

Ben Smith (57:39):

Right? I mean, geez. Talk about e, espn, SportsCenter early days. I can't imagine what that was like. In addition to Phoenix Sun's pregame show and just kind of, again, just even the officiating part as she described was pretty fascinating. So some pretty cool stories in addition to just having this attitude about lifelong learning and embracing new challenging challenges was pretty cool. So again, I know we got a lot of it. I hope you guys did. This is the a hundred fourth episode of Return Success in Maine podcast. So you can go to guidance point llc.com/ 1 0 4. To find more about it, we're going to have links to anne montgomery writer.com, her website there. We'll have our Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, I think it's x officially LinkedIn, and also the links to her book. So again, we talked to a few of those. Your Forgotten Sons, wild Horses on Salt. So all those will be linked there. Love for you to check this out, support Anne. But we really appreciate you tuning in today and we'll catch you next time.