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From Grief To A Second Act With Harper Law · The Elsa Kurt Show

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_04: Our guest today is Harper Law, an author whose work spans quite a range from memoir and literary fiction to technology, climate, geopolitics, and the human experience.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_04: But today we're focusing on two books that, in very different ways, look at the passage of a life.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_04: On Her Street begins during one of the most painful chapters imaginable, caring for his wife of 57 years as she neared the end of her life.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_04: But it's also about what happened afterward when grief, an unexpected friendship, and eventually travel opened a door Harper hadn't expected to find.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_04: His other book, The Nine Stages of Man, takes an even wider view, looking back across the different seasons of a man's life and asking what each one teaches us about who we become.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_04: And underneath both books is a fascinating question.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_04: How much of life do we really understand while we're living it?
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_04: And how much only makes sense when we look back?
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_04: Let's welcome Harper to the show.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_05: Well, hello there, and welcome to the show.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_05: It's so nice to meet you.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's a pleasant to meet you as well.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you very much.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_05: I'm so excited to talk to you.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_05: Your story, it just it just touches my heart, and I suspect it has and will touch so many more hearts.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_05: So uh um I love that you wrote this.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_05: Um we're starting, of course, with on her street.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_05: And the first thing I want to know about, tell me about your wife, the person that she was and what she meant to you.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, besides being my wife of 57 years, she was also my best friend.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh probably the most authentic form of friendship that I can imagine.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: Something that transcends love, if you will, uh, or romantic love.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's it's it's singular.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I I don't know how else to say it.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um other than she made me a better person.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um I hope I helped a little bit in making her a better person.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think it was a great combination of the two of us.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and I think that's reflected also in our two children, our two surviving children, um, both of whom are professionals, a doctor and a lawyer.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think they probably inherited most of her DNA and very little of mine.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Certainly their perceived perseverance, their intellect.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think I have to credit her for that.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: Plus, I have to credit her for my own development over the years.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: She was a management training type of person.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: She taught me how to be a better manager that I could take into my career on Wall Street.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, she encouraged me to finish my school at night, uh, Fordham University, and to go on to law school and earn my law degree.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, always her support while she was taking care of the children.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um I just don't know how to thank her enough uh for doing this for me, but it also contributed greatly to not only focusing on the loss of someone uh that important to me, but it also, I think, paved the way to prepare me to reinvent myself.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: And that really came within probably within six weeks of her death, that I had this insatiable appetite to just write.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I started with a three-book memoir, um, which sort of tells our story over time.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um and most of my books basically rely on um observations, uh, meditation, revelations, um, things that you know, eight decades of living sort of bring along, whether it's comments on society and what's happening in our country as well as the Western world, or the rest of the world really, uh, as well as um very specific areas like friendships, relationships.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then of course, as you mentioned already, a lot of the geopolitical stuff that really interests me.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um it forgets every time I watch the news, something new pops up, and I instantly go and I write, start writing, and I'll write for hours on end until I get it off my chest, whatever it is bothering me in this world.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I really have to credit uh Celia Francis really um for pointing me in that direction.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh she herself was quite the intellect, uh, master's degree in history.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I get a lot of I think my social political outlooks, I think, from her.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um so, in a sense, you know, she continues to be there with me as I pursue my writing career.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_05: She sounds like a absolutely spectacular woman.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_05: What a what a blessing, what a blessed life.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_05: I'm sure that you could share that.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_05: It wasn't always easy, right?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_05: But you it sounds like you chose each other every single day.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_05: And and I think that is the you know the beauty of of an enduring love and marriage, right?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_05: Yep.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, both sort of from strong cultural backgrounds, uh, excuse me, many, many generations Virginian, um uh actually going all the way back to England.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean originally the Cromwell family.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I am uh probably three, four hundred years of German uh just uh expand just German origin, I should say.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um all the way from Austria to Germany when the uh when the uh bishop of Salzburg chased out the Protestants out of Austria.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um and one of the Fredericks uh took him in in order to repopulate East Germany, uh East Prussia when it was hit by a plague.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so he took a lot of uh the Protestants that were fleeing essentially from Austria and took them into East Prussia.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: And my family's been there for since the 1700s, really.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: And her family is extremely old, even older than that.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: So we have a lot of tradition to fall back on, um, which hopefully we've passed on to our children as well.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: And that's also one of the reasons why I am deeply in love with the country of Georgia, which she's mentioned in many of my books.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: It even comes out up in the On Her Street book, uh, because it's so steeped in tradition, in culture.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's one of the oldest civilizations.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: It certainly has the oldest wine-growing region in the world.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_03: Really?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: 8,000 years, it goes back to the first uh wine that was produced in Quivery.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, there's a lot to learn there.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the reasons I spent five months of last year uh in solitude in Tbilisi, Georgia, was really sort of to make an assessment of myself.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: Where I've been, where I'm going, what's left.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I retired now I'm rewired.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_05: I love that.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_05: You mentioned earlier that um this this desire to write came after your wife's passing.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_05: So before that, you were not you were not a writer before that?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: The only writing I did before that was I did a lot of supervision manuals on Wall Street, um policy manuals, and that level of writing, which is quite different.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, very different.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_05: Sure.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_05: When you were writing your memoir, was did you find it easy to put it all on paper, or did you find parts were more difficult because it was obviously very fresh after your loss.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_05: Um did you feel it was cathartic to do the writing?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was very cathartic.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: I think if I had waited any longer, it probably would not have been as easy.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: It probably would not have been as raw and as emotional as uh as it is, I believe.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um so yeah, I think it was very helpful to get it off my chest to face the reality of what has happened.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, it's taken me several years since then to really uh deal with it.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, you can never get over it, but I think you can adjust uh and learn to live with it.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: And uh her former caregiver, who's become one of my best friends, uh since then has been instrumental in just being present.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really the lack of a presence that I still feel to this day.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I live all by myself in a big house since the kids are grown up, my wife is gone, and even if somebody's just down the floor in a room, that is meaningful.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: That has real meaning.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it's that knowing that that presence is there for you if and when you need it.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: That that's very important.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it's different from love, it's not the same as loneliness.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's extremely meaningful, and and she's essentially there if I need her.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um and hence uh you know the whole book about on her street is really a reflection of in many ways of how she has contributed to help me deal with my grief, um, to help me reimagine where I want to be in life, even at 80 or 21.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I'm not stopping.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I have this tremendous um desire to keep on traveling uh all over Europe, uh uh to go to the theater several times a week or to the opera or to restaurants, and I have someone to share that with all these cultural events, which is uh it's a blessing.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_05: Did it come as a surprise to you to be able to move into this phase of life with such hope and even dare I say excitement, because I I I feel I listen to you and I feel this excitement for all the possibilities that are still to come.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_05: And I think that's such an encouraging thing to hear for anyone who is get simply getting older as we get older.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_05: I know there's so many people who go into the giving up phase, and you know, you've really started, you know, a new act of life, right?
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm really sort of hopeful that enough people will uh focus and purchase my books because many of them are essentially all about how to not retire, but how to rewire yourself for a second act, get ready for a second act.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, to me, going out to pasture is not the way to go.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um I want to keep on living, I want to keep on learning, I want to keep on sharing my own experiences with others.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: I want to, many of my books, uh they're not dystopic, but but they're they're hopeful in the end, but they're also uh very analytical in terms of what I believe may have gone wrong over the centuries, uh, or over this last century, especially in Western societies.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the age of optimism, the Ballot Pac, is gone.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: The wars took care of it, policy decisions took care of it, um, bad politicians took care of it.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I'm I don't know that it's how soon it's coming back, but I leave my books with the dedication to my grandchildren and to all grandchildren in this world to hopefully have time to fix what my generation may have destroyed for them in some shape or form, through our own decisions, uh through our votes, through whatever.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um just you know, by what happens uh it's uh in in history.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and and that troubles me a lot.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of it has to do with uh with uh technology and the rapid changes of technology um at a speed that I think is very difficult for people to comprehend, to adjust to, and it forms a form of displacement, if you will, yeah, with a lot of individuals.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I really worry about the younger generations um you know, who at this point, and most young people, they'd be very, very fortunate if they can have as good a life as their parents had.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: The way things look right now.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm hopeful that that's not the case.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: I hope they will have a better life.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: I hope new technologies will bring new opportunities uh for them.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but who knows?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_05: It's ironic, I think, that the more connected we seem to be via technology, the less connected we feel to each other as as human beings.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_05: So it's you know, it's almost ironic, isn't it?
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's the theme of my book, The Distance Between Us.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Which is all about uh technology and what it has done to our society.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: It takes you from the days when I was a child, and you know, you had one telephone, maybe two or four telephones in the entire house, but it was an effort that you made a conscientious effort that you made to go down, sit by the phone, pick up the phone, dial it, and call somebody and actually talk to human beings.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's the iPhone, it's a text, it's an email, it's like the contact is no longer there.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the same level of contact.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it's very different.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_05: We have, we have, and it's sad.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I like to share those experiences in my books with people just so they can reflect and compare and contrast what they had, what we had, what they're having, and maybe they can find another way of uh rekindling the kind of connections I think that some older generations have had the pleasure to uh enjoy.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, they that younger generation laughs at us when we say things like we had to walk uphill both ways to school.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_05: But you know, and and that's our you know, joking way, but you know, all of the things that that are that are very universal for us, our older generations, you know, the going home when the street lamps came on, sitting down at the table all together for dinner, you know, all of these things that that these new generations, these latest generations, they have no experience in.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_05: And it's you know, it's it's sad.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_05: It's just sad to me.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_05: And and I love that you you reflected on these things.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_05: Do you find that as you've gotten older, you've become more reflective in in just the world and all of these things, or has that always been a passion of yours?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_05: I know you said your wife was very interested in that.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but did you share that interest, or was it kind of adopted more as you got older?
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: No, I think I was a shared interest.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I've I think I've always been a little bit of a loner as I grew up.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I think I've had a total of four true friends in my life.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: One of them my wife, the other one is my Georgian friend, and I have one other living good friend, a former neighbor who's actually a brother in Greece.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: He lost his young daughter just shortly after we lost our first daughter.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so yeah, I've I I always contemplate what is next, uh, what could be next, what has been.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: I reflect on the lessons I think that I've taken from my parents, my own parents, or my grandparents, sure, you know, who lived through some horrible times.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: First World War, Second World War, uh, the horrible uh Nazi regime.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um and you know, a lot of I learned a lot from that.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think a lot of my reflection comes from that.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um I tend to meditate a lot.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um one of the things I learned earlier in life, from I think it was from my religion teacher in third grade, was that you know you should go home at night and before you go to sleep, think about the day and think about what you could do better the next day.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think that was that was a terrific lesson.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I always think about stuff.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe too much.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_05: Us introverts tend to do that.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_05: That's kind of our thing, right?
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_05: Take me back a little bit to, I believe her name is Anna, your Georgian friend, yes?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of she actually helped me with a number of my books about relationships and friendships.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: She has a thing called the Frenemy Spider on her Instagram that hopefully she'll publish someday.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think it's a great reflection on what the difference between true or authentic friendships and sort of the by uh friendships, transactional friendships, let's call it that.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's deep, it's uh very experience-based, as my most of my work is very much based on personal experience.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um I can relate to that a little bit better than just dream of themes or topics, um, other than the ones that I find on the news.
• 17:40
  unknown: Yeah.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: That always triggers something.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_05: Sure.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_05: Or is there anything about your friendship that surprised you?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's something that actually I think grew over the three.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: I kept her on.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, let's see, my wife died in January 23.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: I kept her on until last August.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: To get me over the initial phase, then she stayed up stayed around.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I just I think over that time period, just sitting around, talking, being around each other, doing all these cultural events that I mentioned, um, we just grew to become extremely good friends.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: I met her family in Georgia, her extended family.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we met again uh during the Euros in 24, where I took her over to Germany uh for the Georgia Games, and her family had come to Germany to watch the games.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's it's it's a really, really deep friendship.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's it's something I didn't expect, quite honestly.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you start out as employer-employee kind of relationship, and uh, but we got past that.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's a true what's the word for I'm looking for I guess it's a true platonic relationship.
• 19:00
  unknown: Yeah.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Friendship.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I know I know a lot of people who go through a loss like you've gone through.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, uh again, 57 years is a long time.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_05: Um, a lot of people experience feelings of resistance to uh developing uh relationships, and not I don't mean necessarily romantic relationships, uh deep.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_05: This is this is a very special friendship, it's very deep.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_05: Um, did you experience any of that, or was it just such a natural, easy thing to to move into?
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: It was pretty natural to move into it, although it was very much almost like my initial years with my wife.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we had our disagreements, we had our fights, we had, I mean, it felt like family in a sense.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we got over all of that.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we put that aside, and you know, we have joint interests, um, which is important, but we also appreciate each other's individuality and each other's freedom and liberty, etc.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I and that's very important, and I have the same relationship with my wife.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, sometimes I actually wonder to what extent, probably shouldn't say this, but to what extent there's a little bit of a transference that goes on.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um because you know, I can't help but miss my my wife.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I will always miss her.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: And just to have somebody else around that understands me and who I am, with whom I share similar tr um traditional views or cultural views, uh, is extremely important to me.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's really what edgs me on, what keeps me going.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, if it wasn't that for that, I'd probably be tired of Florida and play golf.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: Which would be a complete waste of my time.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_05: I I just I just love and admire your zest for life and and to keep living.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_05: And, you know, of course, I didn't know your wife, um, but I would imagine that she would want for you to live, to just live life and and enjoy it.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm so glad you're doing that because it's I to me, I think it's such a tragedy to just to just let life go past you, you know, when you're when you're sad.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, we're not we're not designed, I don't think, to be alone.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_05: We are designed to have companions, to have a partner, to, you know, to just live a full life.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_05: So it it brings me a lot of joy to know that you're you're doing that.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: And part of that I'm sorry, we used to kid each other about who goes first.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: And we promised each other that we would keep on living.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: Whoever, whoever stays, you're gonna keep on living.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna keep on enjoying.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and and the the one thing I promised that I could never do is go into a very serious romantic relationship with anybody else.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's the one thing that sort of that's going.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: The line.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: It was no better than what I experienced.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_05: I completely relate to that.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_05: I completely understand that.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_05: That's so beautiful.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_05: So beautiful.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_05: And you honored your promise tour, which is just doesn't get more perfect than that, honestly.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_05: The thing that gets me the most with your story is your willingness and your ability to share it with strangers because it's such a personal journey.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_05: Lost is so personal.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, all of those things, and and I think it's it's such a treasure that you were willing and able to share that story with the world.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_05: So thank you for doing that.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: Let people know that there's always another life to be lived.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, absolutely.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_05: Tell me about, because this sounded very, very joyful and amazing.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_05: Tell me about your recent trip to Georgia.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_05: Uh Tbilisi?
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_05: Is that how you pronounce it?
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_05: Tbilisi.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_05: Tbilisi, thank you.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, back in uh 23, seven months after my wife had died, um, I decided that I would take a lock of her hair and take it to Sisi in Italy, where she ten years earlier had taken a lock of her favorite dog's hair and dropped it into St.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Francis's uh um what do you call it, uh where St.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: France France uh St.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: Francis is buried.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: And since her first name was Francis, you know, it was only appropriate that I go back there and do the same with her hair.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: And uh Anna, Marianne, decided um that if we're over in Italy, why don't you let me show my country to you?
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: Since it's only a short flight.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: So we ended up doing that, and that's when I met her family.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we had one of their traditional supers at one of her aunt's birthdays.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um instantly sort of merged in with the family.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it was great fun.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: And she took me all over Georgia, you know, Batumi, Paspegi, and the wine regions and the to the Black Sea.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: She showed me all those places.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: I totally fell in love with the place.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it's interesting, I just read that uh our current president is building the tallest tower in the entire country.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: 72 stories in Tbilisi.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and I believe Tbilisi is sort of the future um place for lots of tourism.
• 24:32
  unknown: Yeah.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: It is that's just gorgeous.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: The history, the museums, the art, they have a little bit of everything.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and and they've survived invasion after invasion, after invasion over the years, and most importantly, they're part of the Silk Road.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_05: Mm-hmm.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: So it's all there.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_05: I in um in preparing for our interview, I was I was looking at pictures uh of Georgia and Tbilisi, and it looked so beautiful, absolutely gorgeous, almost to the point where I almost want to say, don't tell anybody about it.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_05: It's so beautiful.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_05: Keep it secret, it's so beautiful.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm afraid the secret is out.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_05: Too late.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: Too late.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: The year over year increases in tourism is pretty much remarkable.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I also made my sixth book, Hans Adler Water series, actually starts out in Tbilisi.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, no.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because Georgia has some of the largest fresh water reserves in the world.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Small country, but lots of reserves.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I begin so water becomes the new oil.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's a becomes a political weapon.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then throughout the sixth series, I take it around the world and I discuss uh the impacts in on the Mekong Delta, on the Colorado River basin, you know, seven countries sharing a um diminishing resource of the Colorado River, um, to the point of um Deadpool in uh Lake Mead.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um all of which relates back to policy decisions that are being made.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um just bad decisions being made over the years, reliance on a hundred-year-old uh compact between the states that didn't anticipate the growth of uh Las Vegas or the growth of Phoenix, or you know, and the usage was um overusage of the water, which is creating all the problems they have out west.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then I take it to the Antarctic and to the Arctic, and then of course Greenland had to fit in there somehow because our president decided he wanted to buy Greenland.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: So um that became a very timely thing to write about.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: It sure did.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I meant earlier.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I see the news and all of a sudden something clicks in my head.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_05: Mm-hmm.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_05: What is um w which one is was easier for you?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_05: Fiction writing or nonfiction writing, if one is easier than the other.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think any one is easier than the other.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_05: No.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: I really don't.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know the the the nonfiction in the sense of the memoirs was pretty easy because it's fresh on your memory.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: And there are a lot of individual experiences as you write, you keep rewriting and reading because stuff pops into your head.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the memories that that keep coming coming into your head.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: As does travel.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you travel around the world and you can't help but reflect on, gee, how my wife would have loved this.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, sure.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: How my children would like this.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's uh you just can't get away from it.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: And and I I actually enjoy it.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: I've learned how to appreciate it and how to enjoy it, even though it does bring sadness along with it.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: But that's life.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_05: That is life.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_05: That is life.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_05: That's so true.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_05: And it's, you know, I I think our nature is is to run from grief.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_05: And I think the answer is actually to just go ahead and and embrace it.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: No, I totally agree with you.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_05: Tell me about um your the other book we're going to talk about, The Nine Stages of Man.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_05: This is another deeply reflective book, yes.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me how this is.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: That was almost done on a walk.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: Marian, as well as one of my other friends, said, Why don't you write about yourself?
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: I said, What's the to write about myself?
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I then decided, well, was to basically think about in terms of where have I been as I grew up.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I took it through the various different principal stages, from early childhood into the teenage years, into the time when you start thinking about having a relationship, building a family, starting a career, um, and all of the things that are involved in getting to that point, the considerations, the concerns, um, raising a family, losing a child, um losing your parents along the way.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, all of those are um impactful um events.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um that I think at some point in time most people, or most men in this case, I think have to face and go through.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I try to reflect on and uh sort of meditate a little bit about it, and even maybe even be a little philosophical about it.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then, you know, as you move on and then you're establishing your line of work, and uh slowly but surely you approach the time when you have to hang it all up.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: In my case, uh you know, I retired in 2011 to take care of my wife, uh, to start to take care of my wife.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um and um that took me then eventually to 78 and then 79 and then 80.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so now I can write as an attitudinarian.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_05: How about that?
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: And teach a little bit.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, how does that 80?
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: Do you feel 80?
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: Not at all.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think in my heart and my mind, I'm almost childlike.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um in terms of in the enjoyment that I still have and you know going to a great opera or to the watching Dudemel um conduct the New York Philharmonic.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, stuff like that really turns me on.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: Finding a great restaurant with great company.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, as long as I can still afford it, why not, right?
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_05: What do they say?
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_05: You can't take it with you, so you better enjoy it.
• 30:55
  unknown: Exactly.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: So in that respect, I'm I'm I feel that I'm uh much younger than my actual age.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's a sense that I have.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's the way I approach most everything um in life, the this day and age.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I did even when my wife was died.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we do a lot of this stuff together ourselves.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we always traveled by car up and down the East Coast because she wouldn't fly anymore.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um and we enjoyed that.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: We did the kind of things that we did in our youth, if you will, and continue to do that throughout.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_05: I love that.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_05: That's so beautiful.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that would be my advice for anybody else.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's you know, don't don't go to a retirement village.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: Don't do it.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: Don't do it.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: You can't wait to have much faster there.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_05: It's so true.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I you know, I I think you just I think you kind of shared this the secret really, which is, you know, you said you feel childlike inside, like your your mind, you still feel young inside your thought process, your your dreams, your ideas, um, all of those things.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_05: And and I think there's the line between people.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_05: There are people that hit a certain age, whatever that certain age is for them, and they think I'm old.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_05: And that's the loop in their head, right?
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_05: Well, well, I'm old, so I can't, you know, I'm too old to blah, blah, blah.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_05: But I think people like you really have, you have the secret, the not so secret secret.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_05: The number's a number, it's how you feel.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_05: And if you're gonna keep telling yourself that you're old or too old, that's what you're gonna be, right?
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, one of my experiences with uh Mariam, uh, which I think I mentioned in the book on her street, was that many, many, many, many, two, three years ago, we were watching um television together, some movie about a relationship between an older man and a younger woman, or older woman, younger man, I forgot which it was, and I made some comment, and she said with quite a amount of disdain, when I said age is just a number, she said, Oh no, age is not just a number.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how she felt.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: And after I came back from five months in spending in her country, while she was spending the time over here in my country, which was kind of ironic, um, we were sitting at uh The Leopard in New York two days before it closed, however, having dinner, and she leans across, maybe it was maybe it was Ubani, the Georgian restaurant.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: She leans across all of a sudden and says, you know, age is not just a number.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: So she came around, uh, and part of it was because she was describing to me how a number of her friends were commenting on all this stuff that we were doing, you know, two times a week to the theater, the restaurants, and all uh we went to one of these velocity driving courses down in South Jerusalem.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: Where you drive in a Lamborghini or in a McLaren at 150 miles an hour around the track.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I went ballooning.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: Stuff that normally you don't do at age.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, right.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: Very true.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: Once her French pointed it out, she came to the conclusion that age is indeed not is only a number.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_05: That's right.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_05: Good.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_05: I'm glad she came around to your way of thinking.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_05: Is there a stage of man's life that you think we understand least of all?
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: Probably a teenage field.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_05: Hmm.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, tell me why.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's a time of I think youthful rebellion.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um the crowd is not a right at that point.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um I had that experience especially with my daughter.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh she's the one who's a doctor.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: Until she went to college and was on her own in college.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um we didn't understand each other all that well.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but then when she came home after college, all of a sudden it clicked.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think the appreciation grew.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think her understanding grew.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, of what she needed, what drove her.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I went through the same with my son, the only difference being that I spent a lot more time in his developmental years.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: He was an ice hockey player, so I did the prime thing, you know, every weekend on the travel games and seeing him everywhere.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: In college, I attended every one of the home games at the University of Maryland.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: My wife and I, we would go on every one of the teams uh road trips or weekends.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so it was a great time together.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: So there wasn't quite the same uh difference or distance, if you will, that I experienced with my daughter growing up.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it's as she has aged and I have aged, it's reversed.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's sort of come back together and then um so I think that's a very important part.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um the other part is I think as you build a career, depending on what your career is, obviously.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: Mine involved a lot of travel all over the world, Asia, Europe.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um so the being absent from and having to rely essentially on your wife to hold the family together.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think that's a very important part of it.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it's one for which I will be forever grateful because I think they are the people they are, my children it is, because of her.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: Not because of me, because I wasn't around to do a lot of raising.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_05: Which, by the way, you know, by the way, is very traditional.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_05: That is that is a very traditional um household upbringing.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_05: That's just the way, you know, it's the way I was raised.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_05: It was the way I it was the only way I was kind of the way I raised my kids, too.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_05: I was a stay-at-home mom, I took care of the kids, he was the breadwinner, you know, it's very, very traditional.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_05: And um, I don't think there's anything wrong with that, by the way.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_05: So um I happen to love it, actually.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_05: I I I love tradition, so I I admite I think you had the more difficult job of the two.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: As I believe I had the easier job of the two of us.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, what can be more important than shaping young lives?
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the mother generally has the biggest task to perform in that process.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_05: Yep.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_05: We get all the blame too if it goes sideways.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's all our fault.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's why it's the toughest job in the world.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_05: Yep, can't win, man.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_05: Oh talk to me about so uh, you know, uh you're very current on world events culture, the culture today, everything that's going on in the world.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and we are living in a time where i it there is an awful lot of conversation about what masculinity is supposed to mean.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_05: Now, after looking across the entire male lifetime for this book, what do you believe actually makes a good man?
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: Someone who is respectful, someone who is trusting, um, who appreciates the individuality um of their partner or their friends for that matter.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: Umone who is not afraid to show emotion.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's extremely important.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think a lot of the you know tough man kind of stuff, um, I I think those people are kidding themselves, essentially.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um they haven't they don't know each other.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think the very most one of the most important things is to know oneself.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh where know where you're coming from, know how to address issues as they arise, um and to be straight about it.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um not to be afraid to let your views be known.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think those are all important.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm sure there are many more that I can't think of the top of my head, but um, no, those are great.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_05: I think the the young men and boys of today aren't necessarily getting the the messages that they should be getting.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_05: That, you know, it's first of all that it's okay to be masculine, that there's nothing wrong with being masculine and and a man and uh and a male, you know.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_05: Um so yeah, no, I think those are are great, great while at the same time expressing your feelings.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, yes, which is actually manly, you know.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_05: I think that's a a false um lesson in itself, right?
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_05: That to be man, you know, being a man is bottling up all your feelings.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think the other important one other important aspect that comes to mind is is not to not to bypass history, to be aware of history, to understand that it does repeat itself, that we do need to reflect on it and learn from history.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so that w we don't repeat our mistakes.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think that's just a lifelong lesson that one sort of learns.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness, yes.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because the mistakes are all over the place.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, things that started out with the right intentions that over time get turned into something that was never intended.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you take the League of Nations, or you take the United Nations, what they've done to it, where they've been, where they want it to be, where they are, in fact, uh the demarketization of the United Nations.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's so much stuff.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: This whole immigration stuff that's going on all over the world.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's absolutely disgusting.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, we we need to understand what's happening.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: We need to hopefully um direct our attention in correcting some of those things and embrace embracing the different nationalities, the different cultures and traditions.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think you know they all contribute to us being better people.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's the kind of stuff that occupies my my little head.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's a little bit.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_05: There's a big brain.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_05: There's a big brain in there.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm drinking with age.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I'm talking about.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_05: Listen, when you have more and more thoughts, you know, it's just the way it is.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_05: Um when you look back over those different stages, particularly as you're writing, as you were writing the book, of course, were there things that seemed, you know, especially important when you were younger and then turned out to be, you know, not so important to matter a whole lot less.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_05: Like, can you reflect back on something that you thought was so important when you were younger?
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_05: And now when you look back, you're like, I made a big deal out of nothing.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think family was always a major issue.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, a major positive in my life as I grew up.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: Very tight-knit family.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think that continues as I created my own family.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: So that was a very valuable lesson.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think what was a little less so was the early days, early stages of my professional development.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um where a lot of people um I think were being very obsequious, they were sort of um, you know, the boss can't be wrong, the boss is always right.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um tell him what he ever wants to hear.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I got past that very quickly, actually.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think one of the reasons that I had a relative some success in in uh on Wall Street was because I was one of the few people who dared to tell uh the the original founding and managing partner in those phase, which is in the early 70s, um, what he couldn't do.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: What he thought, and everybody else would just let him do whatever he wanted to do, whether or not or not it was legal.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: And even if our counsel didn't have the nerve to tell him you can't do this, so I became the poor schmuck to tell him you can't do that.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, the interesting thing about it is that uh was right around the time when our first daughter died, and he brought me to his office, made me a vice president.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because I was the only one who should strike with him.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: So he appreciated that.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that was an extremely important lesson.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: Also as I developed.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like being the yes man, I'd rather being the person that's truthful, um, and is not afraid sort of to stand up for what's right.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that's an important lesson that I also think left with my ch my children.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it's a great lesson.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_05: Very valuable.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_05: Definitely.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_05: Now, when when I look at your two books that we've been talking about, and of course there's so many others that that you've done.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_05: But when I look at these two, you know, my first thought was, oh, they're they're so different.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_05: But the more I I look at them together, the more connected they they actually seem, right?
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_05: Because one looks back across the stages of a man's life and the other one demonstrates that even very late in life, something completely unexpected can happen.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_05: And I love, I love the journey through both of them.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_05: I think is is so powerful and impactful and and thoughtful.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_05: Um has writing these books changed the way you think about aging itself.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think it has encouraged me to keep on doing what I'm doing, really.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think you know there's so many frontiers to explore.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um yet, and as you correctly point out, not only in these two books, but I think in almost all of my 42 titles, there is a common threat that runs through all of them.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: Either it has something to do with age, by making some of the characters an older person or an older woman or an older man versus a younger woman or a younger man.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um it has some social issue involved in it, like the immigration, for instance, uh kind of stuff.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and a lot of it touches on my own life.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why it's so most of my books are experienced based on my own personal observations and experiences.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um and sometimes I try to weave in experiences that I've learned or heard about from friends of mine that they've related to me, and I try to merge uh those and find commonality or differences in it and try to explain those.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_05: I like that.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_05: What would you say, a young man in his, I don't know, 30s, 20s, 30s, ask you for advice?
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_05: What would you tell him?
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's a very good question.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_01: I I guess it it would be sort of try to say stick to your guns, but um it's really, you know, set set your sails and be true to your direction.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that's not necessarily easy, especially this day and age.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, where it's tough for people, even highly educated people, to find a footing in the economic world, uh very difficult.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I love that though.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um Well a great great mentor helps.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: Having a good mentor really helps in pointing you in the right direction, or at least pointing out the choices that you might have.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then once you set your sale, stick with it.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_05: Mm-hmm.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_05: Definitely.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_05: Will you do me the favor of telling everyone where they can find your books?
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: On Amazon.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_05: I love Amazon.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_05: Where else?
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_05: Come on, people.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_05: Exactly.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I've been fortunate enough to uh after having done several titles uh on my own on KDP Self-Publish, I finally hooked up with Callahan Publications, and uh they've really been very helpful in getting most of my newer books out there, and hopefully they'll also provide the marketing that I need.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um with you will help also.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_05: Wink wink.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_05: Give you a little week there.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think that's the most difficult thing for any author is really to uh get the brand out there and and to be successful at marketing.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: I love just the writing itself.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so for me it hasn't been the mo the main motivation has not been to make money, although I think it will turn into that to hopefully to hopefully get something out of it.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I just simply the ability to share one's life experiences and hopefully encourage others to not give up early in life, but to realize there's always more life left to be lived.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_01: That is absolutely I think important.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, yes, and you are you are a testament of all of that.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_05: You are so inspiring.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I I'm so excited for my audience to to meet you, to see you.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, there's gonna be someone out there, and hopefully more than one someone out there who who recognized that that need.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_05: Um, or or I don't know, it's you spark that desire in them to not just feel like this is the end of the road.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_05: This is just another another potential journey, another potential adventure you can be on.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_05: So um I'm I'm looking forward to everyone seeing this.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_05: I thank you very much.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_01: I hope I can read that spark.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_05: I think you will be.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you so much for joining me today.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Ralph.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_05: Absolutely.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_05: All right, my friends, as always, the links will be in the show notes to be able to click right on it, go right to the books and purchase them.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_05: So we will see you all in the next episode.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_05: Take care.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: Pleasure to meet you.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_05: Pleasure to meet you.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: Bye-bye.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 49:26
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• 49:27
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• 49:30
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• 49:32
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