Transcript:

Intro (00:01):

Do you struggle with what it means to be successful in your retirement? Trust us, you're not alone. Welcome to the Retirement Success in Maine podcast. Here you'll go in depth with guidance point advisors, investment consultants, to hear stories about how retirees in Maine are navigating a successful retirement, get insight into the inevitable challenges of aging, and define what a successful retirement looks like.

Ben Smith (00:26):

Welcome everybody to the Retirement Success in Maine podcast. My name is Ben Smith and I'm one of your co-hosts here on the show today. Listeners, I hope you're doing well. If you'd like to join the conversation, you can always email us at benSmith@guidancepointrs.com. You can find us on YouTube, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Just search Retirement Success in Maine podcasts. You can find more of our shows, kind of more of our snippets, things like that in. I also like to introduce the partner to my winning hand, Curtis Worcester. How are you doing today, Curtis?

Curtis Worcester (01:00):

I'm doing well, Ben. I'm doing well. How are you?

Ben Smith (01:02):

Good, good. Well, I know today's episode we're going to talk a little bit about keeping our mind sharp and staying socially connected in retirement, and that's something we've talked a lot about, especially in Maine. It is tough to stay connected to people, especially during these long winters. And we're going to look at a little bit of a classic game that offers both of those things. Bridge, so bridge, keeping your mind sharp and staying socially connected. So I know again, as we said, many retirees are looking for ways to stay mentally engaged, prevent cognitive decline, and find meaningful ways to connect with others, especially during these long isolating winters here in New England. And that's where bridge is going to come in. Studies have shown that playing bridge regularly can improve memory, strengthen problem solving skills, and even reduce the risk of Alzheimer's. And it's not just about Brain Health. Bridge is also a social game that fosters friendship and community, whether played in person or online. So our guest today is a professional bridge teacher and co-founder of The Bridge Teachers, a company that helps people of all ages, especially beginners, discover the joy of Bridge. Whether you've never picked up a deck of cards or you're looking for a new way to challenge your mind, today's episode will show you why Bridge might just be the perfect activity for your retirement.

Curtis Worcester (02:22):

That's right. That's right, Ben, again, you just said it. Our guest today is a Los Angeles based bridge teacher and co-founder of The Bridge Teachers, a company dedicated to making bridge easy and accessible for everybody. Our guest journey with Bridge started in college where he developed a passion for the game. He quickly realized that Bridge wasn't just a pastime, it was a tool for lifelong learning, cognitive health and social connection, which is everything we are looking for. So together with his wife, our guest has built a bridge education platform designed specifically beginners, helping people who have never played before, feel confident at the table. His innovative teaching style has been featured in the Bridge documentary, the Kids Table, and he's on a mission to modernize the game and introduce it to a new generation of players through online courses, social media and engaging content. Our guest is proving to me that bridge is not only fun, but also a powerful way to stay mentally sharp and socially engaged, especially as we age. So with that, please join us in welcoming Brian Reynolds to the Retirement Success in Maine Podcast. Brian, thank you so much for coming on today.

Brian Reynolds (03:36):

Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited to talk with you today.

Ben Smith (03:39):

Well, yeah, so Brian, I know, and we did a little pre-chat, and again, this is something where Curtis and myself, we are not bridge players, so we don't know this. And again, we're interested to learn again, you hear about Bridge Clubs and you hear about all these pieces and it's like, I have no idea what even all that means. So I'm anxious to hear all about that from you and learn all about Bridge. But of course, with any of our shows, we want to dig into you a little bit more and your background to obviously just kind of paint you as their expert. So love to just hear a little bit about the journey from just College Bridge player to full-time educator. Can you tell us a little bit how you got into the game and what drew you to teaching it?

Brian Reynolds (04:20):

Sure. Getting into the game was easy. A girl was involved. Oh, that's

Ben Smith (04:25):

Beautiful.

Brian Reynolds (04:26):

I met this girl, we were friends for about a year, and she went away for the summer, and when she came back, I asked her out on a date and she said, sure, but you have to learn to play Bridge. She wanted a quid pro quo. And my exact thought, and thank goodness I didn't say this out loud, there's nothing quite as confident as someone who doesn't know anything about the subject they're thinking about. But in my exact thought was, well, how hard can that be? And I quickly found that it was extremely hard. It was extremely difficult to learn to play Bridge. And the reason why it was so difficult is because there was basically no resource for someone who had never played before. This was coming out of the seventies, eighties where in the seventies, bridge was the most popular game in the world, not just the most popular card game, the most popular game.

(05:19):

So there was sort of this cultural idea or cultural thought that everybody plays bridge, you know how to play bridge. It was just sort of like a given baseline. So there was no real focus on, you've never touched a deck of cards before. How are you going to learn this amazing game? And this is before the internet. I didn't have an email address. I was a bit unusual amongst my classmates. And then I did have a personal computer. So every book that I could find in the library on Bridge was very advanced, didn't understand it, and it was a lot trying to learn a language by reading Duma in the original French. It's not a way to learn a language, which brings me to how Samantha and I decided to start teaching, which is as we played for fun and we played in tournaments and at the club as a way of interacting, as spending time together, I realized that there were lots of people who wanted to learn, or if they knew the basics, they wanted to be better. And there wasn't anyone who really focused on beginners. And I am basically trying to make it so no one has to go through what I went through, which is four years of trying to teach my friends to play, even though I didn't really know how, not knowing how to get better, no resources out there for beginners. And then I actually fractured my leg in a sword fight on a national tour of Romeo and Juliet

(06:55):

And I couldn't walk for six months. And two things happened. One, there was a new website where you could play bridge online, and Samantha found a bridge club that was giving free lessons and that was aimed at beginners. And so those two things combined gave me an opportunity to play Bridge eight, 10 hours a day. There wasn't anything else I could really do. And that's when I really fell in love. Samantha and I both really, really fell in love with the game. So for us, when we take a look at Bridge, I do not think that bridge is difficult to learn if you are given access to good information that's presented. Clearly, we're not the only people doing that, but that is our focus. Samantha has a video, I think she's even put it up on YouTube now, learn to play Bridge in nine minutes and nine seconds. So understanding the rules does not take that long. And then the question people always ask is, well, how long does it take to get good? To which my response is, define good. I'm pretty mediocre at Bridge. I'm an excellent teacher, but I'm always quick to correct people. If people say I'm an expert Bridge player, I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

(08:16):

I played against world champions. I am not an expert player. I'm an expert teacher. That's a big, big difference. So for us, it's really about, it's a wonderful game. We're very passionate about it, and we want to make the entry point, the entry process for people to try the game to be as painless as possible so they can really focus on enjoying themselves.

Curtis Worcester (08:41):

I love that, Brian. And I think fast forwarding or present time now, obviously you have the website, your business, the Bridge Teachers, which again focuses on helping complete beginners really learn. I know you just shared a little bit of what got you to that point of wanting to do that. So maybe I'll ask the flip side of what's been the most rewarding part of teaching Bridge to these new players every day?

Brian Reynolds (09:08):

There's two aspects, which is most of my students when I was starting came from social groups where there were groups of retired people usually, and let's say out of 10 people in the group, seven of them or eight of them played bridge. And there were these two people who were sort of left out of that part of the social group. They were included in everything else, but were off to play Bridge. Oh, you don't know how to play. So allowing people access to that world is amazing because if you like bridge, you're going to love Bridge. It's a game that people get very passionate about. So giving people that access is incredible. And I've also had much younger students. One of my favorite pairs was a grandmother wanted to teach her grandson. So it was a 6-year-old kid

(10:05):

Learning

(10:05):

To play bridge, and it was a way for the grandmother and the grandson to bond and spend time together. I mean, that was beautiful because there's the old trope or there's the old cliche of, now, honey, you've got to spend time with grandma. And the kid is like, oh, but grandma's boring or whatever,

(10:25):

Right? Yeah.

(10:27):

So to see a grandchild actually super excited to go to grandma or to play bridge with grandma or to go to the bridge club with grandma and spend time with their elder family, that's beautiful. And that's how I grew up. My grandmother played games with me just since I can remember. I can't remember a time where she didn't. So that's beautiful. And then the other side of it is bridge is two phases of the bridge of game. There's the auction and there's the play. The auction is learning a language, and the play is learning chess. It's like learning moves, the strategy strategy. So basically you're learning a language and you're learning how to solve little puzzles. So those aha moments where people understand how to say what they want to say, or, oh, I know how to solve this puzzle, that's really great. That's a jolt of dopamine for me to see someone get it or to feel like, oh, I've made progress and I'm very much a positive base coach. I feel that the more the student is focusing on what they're getting, the faster they learn and also the more enjoyable it is. I'm not a big, you did that wrong, you did that wrong kind of guy. So seeing people's face light up.

Curtis Worcester (11:53):

Yeah, of course.

Brian Reynolds (11:54):

I actually kind of require, I mean, I have a few students on phone, but I kind of require people to be on Zoom.

Curtis Worcester (12:01):

Oh, so you can see. Yeah.

Brian Reynolds (12:02):

Yeah. So I can see them go, oh, and it's like that's the moment for me that I just love teaching in that moment. That's awesome.

Ben Smith (12:11):

So Brian, so obviously as I kind of told you Curtis and I being complete just unaware of the game and just kind of understanding it, I think it'd just be helpful. I know as you said, your spouse having a nine minute, nine second introduction to it without going through nine minutes and nine seconds maybe in a 60 second version of it. So just talk about what the game is, and again, it sounds like it's a two person game, but also from a, how do you know you've won and how long does it take to play a game? Just kind of the basics.

Brian Reynolds (12:46):

Great question. So the first thing I'll say is Bridge is a partnership game. So it's you and your partner playing against two other people. So there's four people sitting at a table, even if it's a virtual table online, and you and your partner are competing against these two people, there's two phases to every bridge deal. Everybody's dealt a hand, so regular deck of cards, ACEs are always high, twos are always low. You can't make ACEs low. Even if you want to,

(13:13):

Nothing added, nothing taken away. So 52 cards, everybody's dealt the cards. So you have 13 cards, and now there's two phases to a bridge deal. The first one is the auction. The auction is just like if you were to go bid at an estate sale and you wanted to buy a lamp, everybody's bidding on the lamp. So if somebody bids $5, you got to bid more than $5 and the auction is over when three people in a row say, I'm not bidding anymore. So just like an auction going once, going twice, sold. So same thing. In fact, originally it was called auction bridge, now it's called contract bridge. There's some slight rules differences. So they changed the name. So then after the auction you have,

Ben Smith (13:59):

Can I pause you for a second, Brian? Of course. What are we bidding on? So there's an auction and am I bidding on I want the ace, what am I trying to

Brian Reynolds (14:08):

Get? You're bidding on a contract. So what you're saying is, I am going to commit to taking a certain number of tricks. Let's put a pin in the word tricks for a second. I'm going to take a certain number of tricks. If I succeed, I'm going to score points. And if I don't succeed, if I don't take the necessary number of tricks, I'm going to lose points. And it's you and your partner. So we will win points or lose points.

(14:34):

And as a result of committing to this contract, you get to choose what's called the Trump suit or the absence of a Trump suit. Okay? So that's what you're bidding on. You're bidding on the contract and you're bidding to take a majority of the tricks. So there's 13 on every hand. Again, we're going to talk about tricks in a second, but you're bidding to take seven or more depending on the level of your contract. So now the auction's over, there's a contract and the person to the left of what we call the declare makes a lead, they can pull any card they want out of their hand. Breach is a bit of an outlier on a lot of card games in that there's a lot of freedom on what you get to do. So the opening leader can choose any one of the 13 cards in their hand

(15:21):

And

(15:21):

They put the card face up on the table, and then every hand has to follow that suit. So if I leave the ASA clubs, everyone has to play that club. Okay, highest card of suit, that's led wins just like war. If you've played war. Okay, great. So the person who wins, they lead to the next trick. They can choose any card they want. They don't have to stay in the same suit they can and they don't have to a high one. They can lead a low one, they can lead a middle card, whatever everybody follows suit, highest card of the suit that led wins. At the end, you'll have 13 tricks divvied up between the two sides. One side will have taken seven or more, and one side will take six or less, and now you'll figure out whether the offense made the contract or went set, didn't take enough tricks to make their contract. Now the one caveat to the play of the hand, which makes bridge really, really interesting, is there's something called a Trump suit. Let's say during the auction phase, it's decided that diamonds are the Trump suit, and now the opening leader leads the ace of clubs, but the person playing the hand doesn't have any clubs. They have zero clubs in their hand. They're not required to follow suit because they can't follow suit, can play any card they want. And because diamonds are the Trump suit, the lowest diamond beats the highest club. So the two of diamonds will beat the As clubs.

(16:51):

So if you're in the auction phase and you have a lot of hearts, let's say you have seven hearts, you want hearts to be Trump because now your Trump cards gain value that they wouldn't have if the opponents choose the Trump suit, let's say they have a lot of spades, for instance. So you're buying or you're bidding the right to name the Trump suit, but every level you go up if you start at one, but if you'll go up 2, 3, 4, you're saying, I'm going to take another trick. I'm going to take another trick, I'm going to take another trick. And there's only 13. So by the time you get to six clubs or six hearts or six diamonds, you're saying, I'm going to take every trick but one trick. And if you miss your poems, get the points instead of you getting the points. So I mean, we can talk about the life lessons that bridge has taught me, but risk reward ratios is at the top of the list.

Ben Smith (17:48):

Interesting. Very cool. Yeah. So Brian, with that then, so obviously you just explained this to us in kind of that 10,000 foot view, but you kind of talked about in the beginning you're researching yourself and you're trying to find kind information to play Bridge.

(18:05):

I could see where again, I am, maybe there's nobody in my network immediately that's playing bridge that I know of. Maybe I don't know it, maybe they are. But part two is a lot of people relocate as they go to a new place and they're trying to make friends. And part of this is I join clubs and I go, Hey, there might be a bridge club, and I'm trying to get into this. So talk to me a little bit about your approach to it. I could see where you're like, oh, I'm intimidated. I'm joining club. I don't know what this game is. People could see him as advanced. Talk about how you look at that and try to make it easy and accessible for beginners to get into the game.

Brian Reynolds (18:41):

Sure. The first thing I would say is there's a reason Samantha has over 450 hours of video on our website, and she's adding content all the time. And it starts with step one. This is a deck of cards. I mean, literally she has a lesson on this is the deck of cards. Because if you're trying to learn this game, you need a thorough grounding in the basics, the fundamentals. And I don't necessarily mean even fundamental strategy, I just mean this is an ace. If they're black and around they're clubs, if they're pointy at the top, they have spades. And

(19:16):

We can internalize stigma about, wow, you don't even know what a club is. And for us, we really want to empower people, right? You're not stupid, you're not dumb, you're not unintelligent. This game isn't beyond you. You're simply inexperienced or you simply have never been exposed to this knowledge before. So I would say let's say someone's coming in from brand new, never touch a deck of cards, but they want to give this game a try. Well, we have a YouTube channel, other people have YouTube channels. We tend to be sort of the go-to for I know nothing about Bridge, but yeah, you start with an understanding, not of strategy, but of how does the game function. I'm a big believer in that if I show somebody how the game works, they figure a lot of stuff out on their own. There's plenty of things I could say about Bridge that I never have to say because people go, oh, so this is true. And I go, yes, that is true. Very good. Right? Gotcha. I think just from a learning standpoint, letting people discover for themselves is a superior way for them to understand. But I would say, okay, I moved to, I've retired to Maine, and actually I once did a stunt workshop at a place called the Celebration Barn in Maine, which was about four hours north of Boston by bus. So I am familiar with the hinterlands of Maine.

Curtis Worcester (20:43):

Yeah,

Brian Reynolds (20:45):

I think there was a general store, but I never saw it.

Curtis Worcester (20:48):

I was out a single stop sign. Is that about it?

Brian Reynolds (20:51):

I don't even know if they had a stop sign. Maybe they were getting a stop sign in later that year. I love that. And so now I want to learn to play Bridge or I want to connect with my community. I would say that the first thing is if there is a Bridge Club, just call them because Bridge Clubs will be so happy to hear from you. They don't care. You don't know how to play. They don't care that you've never played before. When I first moved to Los Angeles, I did a lot of odd jobs at the Barrington Bridge Club, and one of my jobs was to be standing by at 1215 because if someone came in and wanted to play in the 1230 game, didn't have a partner,

(21:29):

You'd

(21:29):

Sit down across the table from me.

(21:30):

Yeah, cool.

(21:32):

So I guarantee you, if you call your Bridge Club and they don't have a partner for you, you will be playing with the owner of the club. That will happen, right? Because they want you to come in. And then I would say the other thing is bridge base.com, BAS e.com. I am not affiliated with them. I don't have an affiliate link. I don't get paid for. If you sign up, you can go on right now, you can create an account for free and you can play Bridge 24 7 if you're not comfortable playing with people yet. You can play with robots. I think it's like $4 to rent a robot, set a robot for the week, but otherwise you can play for free 24 7. Even the online tournaments I think are like five bucks for two hours. That's the other thing I love about Bridge is it's insanely cheap as a hobby. It's insanely cheap. I have friends who are getting into golf, you don't need to tell us about that. Not cheap, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. How much did your new club cost? And they're like, yeah, but it's got a graphite face head. And I'm like, okay, cool. Awesome. Show yourself. It's like, I'm going to go play Bridge with my wife for six hours. It's going to cost me electricity and the internet connection.

(22:46):

And so that's the first thing. The second thing is even online, even where you're playing with say random people or you're being matched up with random people, you build social connections. It's especially true when it comes to the bridge. I have played in Bridge Clubs on four different continents, and it's awesome to walk into a bridge club. It is really funny because especially when I was even younger than I am now, I'm still usually the youngest person in a Bridge club. But it's really funny because the first thing they asked me is, have you ever played Bridge before? And I just say, yeah, I've played before. I'm like, okay, we'll match you up with Joe or Sarah or whatever. And I'm like, cool. And I go and play with Joe and Sarah for a couple hours. So just to dial down to your question, just make it really, really

(23:27):

Simple.

(23:28):

I want to learn to play Bridge. I don't know what to do. Number one, check out our website. Check out our YouTube channel. We will get you from zero to a fundamental understanding of the game bridge

(23:38):

Base.com.

(23:39):

Go online play, learn by doing, and acb.org, American contract bridge league.org. Go on there. They have a finder. Find a club in your area, find a teacher in your area, find a tournament that you can go to. A lot of times tournaments have beginners like I've never played before. They have beginner events. So those are the ways that I would approach learning the game. I

Curtis Worcester (24:04):

Love that. Thank you so much for that entire buildup there from you and your No, no, I mean that seriously and getting to where we are, and I think I'll pause before I dive into the next segment we want to discuss and just say for everybody listening, we will have both of those links that Brian just read off. We are going to have their Brian's YouTube channel, Brian's website. All the resources for you will be in our show notes like we usually do for all of our guests. So if you want to pause right now and go there, that's perfectly fine too. So Brian, I know we've kind of shared with you our focus here on retirement age. So we really want to get into Bridge and the aging population. And again, there's kind of a through thread, I think in a lot of our shows, and it's that sense of community that you were just talking about that I think Bridge can help build. But the other side of bridge that I want to ask you about, we tease a little bit in the intro, is kind of the brain health here. There's a lot of research out there showing that playing bridge can help keep the brain sharp and even reduce the risk of Alzheimer's. Can you just talk through some of the cognitive benefits that you see firsthand playing bridge?

Brian Reynolds (25:12):

Oh, absolutely. So the first thing I'll say is it's 75% in the studies that I've seen that were vetted the longitudinal study in Scotland. And also I think there was a Harvard medical school study. People who play Bridge regularly say once a week, 75% less incidence of Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia. That's awesome. It's even been shown to retard the development of the disease. I don't think it's ever been shown to recoup lost cognitive function. Unfortunately, Alzheimer's is a terrible, terrible disease. I've experienced both a friend and a family member losing them to that disease. For me personally, I find it absolutely terrifying. There are many, many ways that the human body can fail, and I would say my mind failing is probably the scariest thing I can think of. So understanding that the brain is a muscle. When I grew up, we were told, you get the brain, you get and starting at age two, you start your brain cells start dying and you're never going to get 'em back. And what they've found is that's absolute garbage. That's not true. There's a very famous study of the London cab drivers in, they have to take this test called the Knowledge.

(26:26):

And the knowledge is every single street in London. And if you've ever driven or been, you do not drive in London, but if you've ever been in a cab in London and gone in any appreciable distance, it's an incredibly insane, there's always construction. Streets are changing. It was one way one week, and they have to know the entirety of London. It usually takes 'em like two years to study of hard study to be able to learn the knowledge. What they found is London cab drivers have larger hippocampus by mass. Their brains have literally more brain matter than the average person. So if you want bigger biceps, you go to the gym and you do curls. Well, if you want a more effective brain, you put it under pressure, you ask it to do tasks under pressure just like you ask your muscles to move underweight. So bridge is incredibly challenging to the brain in a lot of different areas. It challenges the language centers, it challenges the logic centers, it challenges the focus centers, it challenges the memory centers. It challenges adversity response because bridge is a game of mistakes. So Bob Hammond, who's the greatest player who ever lived, and he's still winning tournaments at age 88 or something like that. He's been a world champion for six decades. He says that the best players in the world make a mistake on every hand.

(27:59):

Now I think Bob's exaggerating a little tiny bit because Bob, he's from Texas. He's a big storyteller, great guy, phenomenal guy, but he's close. You know what I mean?

(28:10):

Sure.

(28:10):

So it's like bridge and that's another thing I love about Bridge is the human experiences. Oops. Now that's the human experience. The human experience is I'm perfect all the time. The human experience is, Ooh, I did something wrong. How do I recover from where I'm at? I mean, I'm sure that in your profession, a lot of times people come to you and they're like, I haven't been thinking about retirement for 20 years. And you're like, you probably should have. That's probably something you should have thought at before today, but how do we deal with the situation in front of us? That's what Bridge does. So bridge just challenges your brain in so many ways.

Ben Smith (28:50):

So Brian, I think that's a really great analogy again from our end is, hey, the goal is to say how do we make tomorrow better? Not just mourn yesterday. So it's like if we are always looking forward, and obviously that sounds what the game is doing a lot of, I think that's really important, especially for, again, kind this then the theme of looking forward again, I think all of us are better people when we're looking forward to events and people and things that we're doing next.

(29:21):

And that's just a challenge I think a lot of retirees face when we say social isolations of thing, look, we're going to have I think another four or five inches here tomorrow in terms of snow. So all of a sudden, and we had a client come in this weekend that was like, well, if it's snowing out, I just know I don't go out. It's like, well, what if there's several days in a row that you're not going out? Or what if your driveway can't get plowed and you just can't actually physically leave your home until maybe somebody's able to help you with that? Those are legitimate challenges that's preventing people from going. What would be great for me is if I could go to physically see people and go to the community center, go to the library, go to a bridge club, go to wherever and be able to have those connections. But my question to you is about using Bridge and as you said Brian, about, Hey, if I have electricity and internet, I'm kind of plugged in and for a very inexpensively, we're kind of scratching the social part. So can you talk a little bit about that, about just social isolation, especially I'm sure all of us are in Covid had that experience

Brian Reynolds (30:34):

And

Ben Smith (30:34):

Then maybe what Bridge meant for you during that timeframe?

Brian Reynolds (30:37):

Yeah, man, I was actually in New York about to go to London the day they shut down Broadway and Morgan and I knocked on Morgan's hotel door. I just found out Broadway had shut down. We were supposed to see a show that night. I said, I don't think we should go to London. And we flew home the next day. It was supposed to be a two week trip, and we were gone for 23 hours and I didn't leave my house for seven months, and I'm a very much creature, a social creature, and I was just trying to find ways to stay connected. I would have all my actor friends on Zoom, we'd do readings. We actually ended up doing a reading of one of my scripts that we made into a movie that we're currently in talks for distribution of, but it was how to stay connected. And Bridge is an amazing conduit for that because if you're not on Zoom, even if you're not on the phone or FaceTime or whatever, you're still interacting with someone in a pretty significant way. When I play Bridge with Samantha, we've been playing together for 30 years now. When I sit across the table from her, I say maybe a tournament, I'd say maybe 10 words in three

(31:48):

Hours,

(31:49):

But I am connected to her way more than any vocalization would.

(31:55):

So there's that aspect. I think there's also something really important about the idea of this is what I do. This is the thing, and nothing gets in the way of it. Every day I get online and I play Bridge from 10 to one and I have my partners or I don't, whoever I play with. I think there's something so important about that because it gives you a grounding in your life. Yeah, I've played Bridge and there's some pretty unusual situations. I had a client from back east and I was at the gym at five in the morning and the client texted me, he is like, I really want to play Bridge. Can you play in the eight 10 game? Now, the eight 10 game in New York is the five 10, and I'm at the gym with my lifting partner. I said, sure. So I fired up my iPad and I'm literally doing pull-ups and I'm looking over my iPad. I'm like, Hey, can you press the Jacka Clubs for me because my gym partner doesn't play Bridge. They're like, what are you doing? I'm like, someone wants to play Bridge. Just

(32:56):

Go with it.

(32:58):

So I think that when it comes to whether you're isolated because of the weather or you're isolated because of physical reasons, I did a video, I think it's on our YouTube channel of how you can play bridge if you can't use a mouse and a keyboard where you can literally just use your voice to play bridge, because I want to make it accessible for everybody. I think that being able to do something that connective and that challenging I think is really important.

Curtis Worcester (33:23):

Yeah, no, I absolutely agree. And I think Ben is agreeing as well here. And I think just that, again, that source of kind of community, again, I don't care if you're 15 or you're 95, these people are waking up looking forward to this game, again, centered around our show. Again, I'm picturing the nursing home retirement community, and that's maybe the only thing they're doing today is waking up to play that game of bridge. So I think it's really cool that you, you're really diving in and embracing that community aspect to the game. I want to pivot a little on you. It's something that you just brought up with your story of being able to play on an iPad or you just said right there at the tail end of your question about accessibility and using your voice. So again, your company, the Bridge teachers, and again, we're going to link all your info here for everybody in the show. You've really embraced online learning, social media, trying to modernize bridge education and playing Bridge. Can you just talk a little bit about the digital opportunities again for retirees or really anybody that's learning to play Bridge online? Again, I know the story you just told of being able to say, use your voice instead of a mouse and keyboard or whatever it may be.

Brian Reynolds (34:35):

That actually came out of talking to someone with Parkinson's who wanted to learn to play Bridge, and I was talking to them and they're like, I want to play Bridge, but I got to tell you, using a mouse for that long, it's not going to, that's the non-starter for me. And it was really a call to action for me. It was a really challenge for me because my whole thing is I want to make Bridge accessible, and I had never thought about it from a physical standpoint before because Bridge is minimally physical.

Curtis Worcester (35:03):

Sure.

Brian Reynolds (35:05):

Just a real quick, Samantha suffers from migraines, and there's been a couple of times, I'm thinking of one particular tournament where were trying to make the, we were playing in the regional finals and trying to score a trip to a national finals event, and she got a migraine, like two or three boards into a 36 board match. And when Samantha gets a migraine, she goes completely blind and she starts throwing up. And we didn't have a substitute, I don't think, even legally we could have had a substitute. So when she got back from the bathroom, she had to have somebody whisper in her ear, all of her cards, and then we had to announce all of our bids in our cards, and she basically had to play blind for about five hours. And my wife is the most intelligent, strongest, incredible person I've ever met in my entire life. Her taste in men is terrible, but other than that is incredible. But she played great. That's awesome. Without missing a beat. So when someone says to me, I don't feel I can play Bridge, I instantly want to know why, because I want to solve it for

Curtis Worcester (36:20):

Me. I'd say it's a challenge for you to

Brian Reynolds (36:21):

Solve. By the way, if you please put up in your show notes, my email is brian@thebridgeteachers.com. You don't have to be a student, you don't have to be a subscriber. If you feel, if you're like, I have hit a bottleneck, I've hit a roadblock, I can't learn this game, email me directly. We're a small company. It's just the three of us. So we're very about personal connection with our fan base or subscriber base. But yeah, so this person with Parkinson's says, I can't use a mouse that long. I said, okay, I did some research and there's software baked into your computer. You don't even have to buy anything. You can literally just set it up and now you can play bridge with your voice. I don't think there's anyone who can't play bridge. I've played bridge against people who were blind. I've played privilege against people who were in wheelchairs who really couldn't move and had a caretaker who had to play their cards for them. It doesn't matter. And so anything we can do to make that happen for people, we want to do that.

Ben Smith (37:24):

So Brian, so that's really great. I know just want to kind of take another kind of lens at Bridge here and as you're saying, it's you and your spouse is teaming up and in here you are in tournament and all that. So obviously it just highlights that bridge is a game of partnership and teamwork. It's like you can't just go in alone. You got to be working side by side with somebody here. So talk a little bit about how just obviously this game is something that's able to help strengthen communication, relationship skills, just even outside of the game itself, because I don't want to just give us a little background here. We hear a lot of people that they're saying, Hey, I'm retiring, or I just retired. I haven't spent this much time with my spouse, maybe ever. We were all working, we're all binging on career, we're worried about all the other family stuff that we were doing, and now here we are, we're looking at each other, we're both retired, we're sitting here and what are we going to do to connect? How do we work better? How do we strengthen this? So a little bit, again, we want to be enjoying our time together. So I want to just give you that backdrop

(38:44):

Because I think it's important of, again, outside of Just Bridge, but how is this kind of strengthening communication relationship skills?

Brian Reynolds (38:52):

Totally. Yeah. You're talking about both the inside the game and sort of outside the game, the meta game surrounding the game. We've already talked about the inside of the game where if you're not a good partner, if you're not thinking about your partner's problems and trying to solve them, but let's talk about outside the game, the meta game. I don't know anybody who performs better when a person on their team is making them feel bad.

(39:19):

Sure.

(39:19):

I'm just not a big fan of the coach or the player, the teammate who screams and yells and throws a fit because someone made a mistake. I don't see that as being productive. I think people who think that is productive I think are sort of fooling themselves the whole, oh, it's tough love. It's like, eh, I think there's other ways to communicate that information. And I think that I tell people that Bridge made me a much better husband. I don't mean a little bit. I mean, I don't think without Bridge, I would be a very good husband at all. I would even say that without Bridge, I'd probably be a pretty bad husband because Bridge taught me so much about being a good

(40:00):

Partner,

(40:00):

And one of the first things that taught me is when your partner makes a mistake, when they screw up, they already feel bad. No one takes an action thinking, oh, this is terrible. I'm so glad I'm doing this right. We all try and act from a place of doing our best all the time. We can't help it. It's human nature.

(40:22):

If you don't believe me, try to do something, you're good at poorly. It's like just give it a shot. So when your partner makes a mistake, they're already doing the thing where they feel bad. You need to do the thing where you show love and support, and I don't care if you're dating them or not. I mean, the girl who said I had to play Bridge, we've been together for 33 years now, and I don't care if you're dating your partner or if they're a random person online or whatever. I mean the word love, you have to show love towards another human being in their time of adversity. And if you don't want to, if you just, that's not in you, that's fine. I don't have no judgment on that, but let me just talk to the very selfish people out there. Your partner will play better, you'll score better and you'll win more. If you at least fake showing them love, fake it. Pretend you, you're mad, you're seething, you want to throw something at them, just pretend. So Bridge taught me that. Bridge taught me that to be a good partner, when your partner is going through their worst, that's when you have to be your best.

(41:31):

And it's not enough for your best has to be better tomorrow than it was today, just 1%, but it has to be better tomorrow than it is today. And that made me, I didn't really think about it until all of a sudden I turned around. Samantha, I've been together for 15 years and I went, oh, I'm a much better husband than I used to be.

(41:53):

I love

(41:53):

That because the Bridge team, that's the other thing about Bridge is Bridge doesn't care about you. If you think you're going to step up to Bridge and tell Bridge how it's going to work and what you want to do, bridge will crush you. You have to give yourself over to Bridge to understand how Bridge works, and you have to perform in ways that is optimal for Bridge, right? So Bridge is excellent training. If you don't understand return on investment, you're not going to be very good at Bridge. And if you get very good at Bridge, you'll inadvertently understand return on investment. I

Ben Smith (42:30):

Love it. I love it. Well, Brian, I want to make a quick point of, because one of the things that you said kind of triggered me a little bit, and one is just kind of this whole relationship and building relationships, and we actually had, one of our shows is around how can grandparents build better connections with their grandkids is because there end up into Fortnite, and I am not into Fortnite or Minecraft or things, but a lot of times it's not. What they can talk about was what the guest was talking about, Chris McLaughlin. He was saying, it's not about just what you're talking about with 'em, but sometimes what you're doing with them and relationships a lot of times are based on doing things together and to say, here's the people that I want to have more relationships with or deeper relationships with. So I just was, you were making that point about relationships and being a better husband and being a better person and cheering for your teammate here. But you also say, alright, well just kind of things that were being brought out was what about, hey, if I want to have a better relationship with my grandson who's 12

(43:33):

Or he's 15 or she's 17 and we're like, we don't really have a whole lot to talk about and they're into close and they're friends and I'm not those, but I'm not her parent. So maybe there's a safe way we can be doing something and creating a relationship where I'm not their parent. And we can talk about things too. So I can see where if you're spending a lot of time together and doing something that you're having fun, that other parts of that come out as well.

Curtis Worcester (44:01):

And I think you saw that too, Brian. I think you shared a story at the very beginning about you had I think a 6-year-old you said who

Ben Smith (44:07):

Was learning

Curtis Worcester (44:08):

To play with his grandparent. So I

Brian Reynolds (44:10):

Mean

Curtis Worcester (44:10):

You're seeing that right in live action.

Brian Reynolds (44:13):

It ties in both to inside the game and outside the game. One of the most important meta skills, and by meta I just mean something that sort of transcends any one particular moment is anticipating your partner's problem in solving it. So I don't have grandkids, but if I did, if I had an 8-year-old boy coming over to spend time with year old grandpa, because a bridge has taught me to anticipate my partner's problem, I would be thinking about my grandchild's experience coming to my home or coming to spend time with me. I am eight, my brain is going a million miles a minute, and my body is designed to run around for nine hours a day even without sugar. Well, grandpa needs a nap. I'm sorry,

(45:04):

It's two.

(45:05):

I'm putting my head down for 30 minutes. You know what I mean? Shout out to naps. Who doesn't love a good nap? Right when I was eight, you tell me I need to take a nap, I run away. I'm just going to go for a quick run for six hours. So when we games like Fortnite are great example. Fortnite is extreme mental stimulation at an incredible level. That was not really possible prior to this era. The last 20 years, 15

Curtis Worcester (45:39):

Years, hundred percent.

Brian Reynolds (45:41):

So these battle royale games or video games, and by the way, I love video games. Samantha and I love video games. We play video games together all the time. So I'm not bagging on video games, but what I'm saying is if you've got a child who likes Fortnite and they're coming over to your home, your home isn't Fortnite. So how can we mentally stimulate this person? How can we make the experience engaging for them? And if they puzzles that they bridge, bridge is actually incredibly physically stimulating or sorry, mentally stimulating. It's incredibly mentally stimulating from the outside it looks like nothing's happened. I promise you, if you watch me play Bridge, you'll think you're watching Paint Dry. I am doing a lot up top. Sure. So if your child, I keep saying if because let's be honest, let's just be totally honest, okay? If 10,000 people listen to this podcast and say, I'm trying bridge, I'm going to try Bridge for two months, only about 25% of them will actually bridge enough to keep going with it

(46:42):

Just because

(46:44):

Some people don't like card games, some people don't like puzzles. Morgan our partner, she knows how to play Bridge. We won an event, a side pair game at a national one year. She doesn't play bridge. She just finished a 200 kilometer hike through Spain and she took photos the whole time. She's a photographer. So I'm not saying your grandkid's going to like Bridge, they might not,

(47:10):

But if they like bridge now you got it easy. I'm going to the tournament with grandma, we're going to play together. And then now you get the really fun experience of you make a mistake. I was talking about this with someone else and I was saying that I'm really into bowling. I love bowling and I was practicing and I was bowl next to a father and a son and the father's Bul grown man, pretty big guy, actually just big, just throwing the ball so hard. I was like, okay. And his son, his son, I'm not good with kids' ages. He was somewhere between seven and 10, somewhere in that range. But the ball was almost bigger than he was, right? And his son was a good bowler, but he's clearly doing it differently. And great dad, shout out to the dad. Amazing. He was coaching him very beautiful parenting, great to see, loved to see it. When you play bridge with your child or your grandchild, the odds are really good. They're going to be better than you quickly. So now you can have an equal partnership instead of, oh dad, you're so much stronger than me, or my uncle never let me win at basketball. Ever one-on-one, never let me win. Which my uncle's a great guy. He wasn't being a jerk, but he was like, earn it. Earn it, right?

Curtis Worcester (48:31):

Yeah.

Brian Reynolds (48:33):

But I always beat him at chess. Yeah,

Curtis Worcester (48:35):

Well you level the playing field almost. Yeah. And

Brian Reynolds (48:38):

I love

Curtis Worcester (48:38):

That.

Brian Reynolds (48:38):

Yeah. So it gives you something that if the person in your life that you want to connect with more, doesn't matter. Spouse, old, young, family member, friend. We have bridge nights where our friends come over and we just play bridge and we talk the entire time we catch up. So we're playing cards and we're talking about the new job or whatever. But yeah, it is an awesome way to expand the experience of being with someone.

Curtis Worcester (49:05):

Yeah. No, that's fantastic. So we're closing in on the end of our conversation here, Brian, I have a couple questions left for you. The first one, so it's kind of a one shot only question for you here. So you have to give one piece of advice to somebody. Let's say somebody in retirement considering giving bridge a try for the first time. What's the advice?

Brian Reynolds (49:29):

Commit?

Curtis Worcester (49:29):

I love that.

Brian Reynolds (49:30):

Don't say you're going to try Bridge and then one lesson or one week and you like we have a saying, my family, which is Burn the Boats at the waterline. And so if you're going to try something, if you're really going to try something, give Bridge three months, play at least once a week. Study, try to learn.

(49:49):

If

(49:50):

You have a bottleneck, email me, say, I don't want to do three months, but I committed. Help me, I'll help you,

Curtis Worcester (49:57):

Help you out. You made me do this for three months. I'm here.

Brian Reynolds (50:00):

I was at the bowling alley practicing. I got a phone call from someone, not a subscriber, not a student. And they're like, Hey, I'm lost about this. And I talked to 'em for a couple minutes. I said, here's the solution. They're like, oh, thanks. And they hung up. Cool. But commit. If at the end of three months you're like, this isn't really for me, then I will agree with you a hundred percent. But if you come to me three weeks later and say, I don't really think Bridge is for me, I'll be like, did you give it a shot? Did you really give

Curtis Worcester (50:28):

It a shot? A

Brian Reynolds (50:28):

Bit?

Curtis Worcester (50:28):

All right. No, I like it. That's fair. That's good. You got it. Alright, last question for you again. First, this one, I'm guessing it's going to involve Bridge, but I think probably a little different angle. So first off, I just want to say thank you for coming on the show teaching. I know Ben said it a couple times. I had heard of Bridge, no idea how to play it, how it worked. So thank you for providing that knowledge. So the question again, the name of our show, retirement Success in Maine. So we have to ask you a retirement question. So my question for you, Brian, is how are you going to find your personal retirement success when the time comes? What's that going to look like for you?

Brian Reynolds (51:10):

Well, that's a tough question. I'll tell you why. Because to a certain extent, I already think of myself as retired. I teach Bridge. I mean, I'm still making money. So I guess if you're saying when I reached a point where my revenue streams aren't necessarily are more investment based, but I still make money, but I make movies, I teach Bridge, I'm getting my drone pilots license. I bowl in tournaments. I'm studying singing pretty seriously. So I would say that for me, retirement is when I get to do things rather than have to do things.

Curtis Worcester (51:53):

Yeah, love that. And it sounds like you're there, like you said, I'll echo that. That's awesome. That's great.

Brian Reynolds (51:58):

I have a beautiful life. I don't know how I ended up, actually, I do know how I ended up here, Samantha, everything, the answer is always Samantha

Curtis Worcester (52:07):

Because she made you learn Bridge. That's the

Brian Reynolds (52:10):

Result there. Yeah, no joke. No joke. I mean, we moved to LA and I didn't know what I was going to do. I didn't want to wait tables anymore. I was tired of it. And we were at the Bridge Club and this one woman kept coming up and asking me questions and I had to answer her. I was like, I think this or that and the other thing. And one day she says to me, Hey, would you give me a private lesson? I said, sure. And I gave her a private lesson and then she says, Hey, my four friends want to take lessons from you. Sure. And a year later I had a waiting list and I was like, what happened? It was not intentional. So yeah, I mean, my wife, we could do a three hour podcast and I wouldn't even begin to scratch the surface of how amazing my wife is. So yeah. Thank you. That's awesome. Thank you,

Ben Smith (52:53):

Samantha. That's incredible. Well, Brian, as Curtis said, thank you for coming on our show. This is a lot of fun just to again, learn about another area that again, we hope that those out listening, maybe they're going like, I don't know, bridge either. And this is kind of like, I think we have enough people that go, this is the time to try things. This is the time to experiment, this is the time to reinvent. This is the time to kind of think about all the things that I could be and want to be and try out new things. So again, I really what you brought to us today of just giving that introduction and getting maybe peaking the interest. So if you're out there listening, you can say, Hey, Brian really got some really great points of it and I would love to give this a try. And that sounds really great. So thank you so much for doing that. I think that was really successful in accomplishing what we want to get out of it today. So again, as Curtis said, we'll put the show notes in. But again, thank you so much for all you did for us today.

Brian Reynolds (53:51):

This was an amazing opportunity. So I really, really appreciate you folks having me on and having such an amazing conversation with me about something that I'm really passionate about. So thank you. Awesome. Of course.

Ben Smith (54:03):

Alright, Brian, well very great to meet you and maybe we'll catch up down the road. Appreciate it. Great. Thank you. Take care.

(54:10):

So again, really great to have Brian Reynolds on and again, talking about why you should give Bridge a chance in retirement. Yeah. Again, I didn't know anything about Bridge. Again, I've heard about Bridge Clubs and things like that. But yeah, just fascinating to kind of hear a little bit about it and kind of p some interest and hopefully you out there understood and heard a little bit about that, that made you want to give it a try. But we will post all the things that Brian was commenting about and links and the resources, as he said, his email address, we'll give that to you if you go to blog dot guidance point llc.com/ 1 1 0 for episode 110. And yeah, you can kind of find all that there. Again, we kind of learned a lot today, so I'm really, really excited that we got to kind of experience that a little bit. And I hope you did too. We appreciate you tuning and we'll catch you next time.

Outro (55:07):

Ladies and gentlemen, you've Just listened to an information filled episode of The Retirement Success in Maine Podcast. While this show is about finding more ways to improve your retirement happiness guidance point, advisor's mission is to help our clients create a fulfilling retirement. We do financial planning so that people can enjoy retirement and align their monetary resources to their goals. If you are wondering about your own personal success, we invite you to reach out to us to schedule a 45 minute listening session. Our advisors will have a conversation with you about your goals, your frustrations, and your problems. Make sure you check out guidance point advisors on our blog, Facebook and LinkedIn, and you can always check out more episodes of this podcast on iTunes and Spotify, and of course, keep on finding your retirement success.