#32 – I Used To Be Somebody With Carl & Diana Landau

Ryan Dooley [00:00:22]:
In the first part of our lives, we’re busy working toward a career, and then we’re busy doing it. I mean, by the time we’re done, we’ve gotten pretty good at whatever it is we do, so it can be intimidating to try anything else. I mean, what if we’re terrible at it? Well, Carl and Diana Landau want all of us to embrace the idea of being a beginner. It’s okay. As co authors of the Amazon bestseller Pickleball for Dummies and the team behind the I Used To Be Somebody podcast and newsletter, they dedicate themselves to helping people take on new retirement challenges. That is, when they’re not on the pickleball court. Rather than fear the unknown, why not welcome the opportunity to try something new and maybe even more meaningful? But don’t take my word for it. Listen to Carl and Diana.

Ryan Dooley [00:01:09]:
Okay? Okay. You used to be somebody, but now you can be somebody even better. Do you ever wonder who you’ll be and what you’ll do after your career is over? Wouldn’t it be nice to hear stories from people who figured it out who are thriving in retirement? I’m Ryan Dooley. After working with the Retire Sooner team for years and researching and writing about how they structure their lifestyles, I know there’s more to be learned. So I’m going straight to the source and taking you with me. My mission with the Happiest Retirees podcast is to inspire 1 million families to find happiness in retirement. I want to learn how to live an exceptional life from people who do it every day. Let’s get started.

Ryan Dooley [00:01:55]:
Okay, folks, we are so lucky today to have Carl and Diana Landau. No relation to Martin Landau, unfortunately, but possibly even better, they’re the co authors of the Amazon bestseller Pickleball for Dummies. They have also teamed up to produce the popular I Used to Be Somebody podcast and newsletter where Carl hosts and Diana does the content wrangling. And I really want to find out more about that dynamic. And they’re also part of I Used to Be Somebody world tours, which is kind of, I’m assuming, part of the podcast or spun off from it. So, Carl, Diana, thanks for coming on the show.

Diana Landau [00:02:30]:
Thank you for having us.

Carl Landau [00:02:32]:
Thanks, Ryan. It’s a real honor. We listen to your podcast. Love it. So it’s awesome being here.

Ryan Dooley [00:02:38]:
Well, thank you. I was looking over what you guys do, and it was great. It seems like we have some similarities in what our mission is. I mean, you’re trying to inspire people, 50 plus, who, like, don’t want to retire, but they. They’re in that middle zone, right. And they want, like, an UN retirement.

Carl Landau [00:02:59]:
Right. So it’s. It’s. You know, we actually serve two audiences. One people think about retiring the same as yours, and then the other one are people that recently retired. They’re trying to figure out, what the heck do I do now? So that’s really who the audiences are. But we do. We say, we don’t want to retire.

Carl Landau [00:03:18]:
We want to do something new, something more fun, something more meaningful. So that’s the idea behind the podcast in the newsletter.

Ryan Dooley [00:03:26]:
And so you host and Diana’s out there, like, trying to grab people for the show. Is that how it works?

Diana Landau [00:03:34]:
Well, I mean, I help him find guests occasionally, although he’s an expert networker, so he finds a lot of his guests. But I do more of the blogging and helping with the newsletter and content wrangling. I always like to say he’s dyslexic, and I won the spelling be. So we make him great.

Ryan Dooley [00:03:54]:
That kind of says it all right there. Okay. And so neither of yourselves consider yourself retired, which I. You know, I’ve talked about this with some other guests. The. The word is kind of outdated, so it’s hard to sometimes define it or define the new version of it.

Carl Landau [00:04:13]:
So.

Ryan Dooley [00:04:13]:
But tell me a little bit about, you know, what retirement means to you and why you don’t consider yourself retired.

Carl Landau [00:04:19]:
Well, you know, we use the term unretirement. I know there are a lot of different words, but that sort of says what we do, because the word retirement, like, I remember when I sold my last company, and we can talk a little bit about it, but I’ve had several companies, and the first thing people say to you is, that’s great. You’re retired. And to me, that’s like, you’re done. They just say, okay, you’re done. You did a great job, and here’s the gold watch. And it’s like, that’s sort of crappy, you know, especially the fact that people are living longer and longer. So what do you got to do for the next 30 years? And a lot of people don’t really think about that until they’re in the middle of it.

Carl Landau [00:05:00]:
And sometimes they’re not so happy what they’re doing.

Ryan Dooley [00:05:04]:
Yeah, that’s what we found. I mean, we’ve done research and trying to talk to as many happy retirees as we can to see what they’re doing so we can help people emulate that. But most of them are very busy, at least the ones that I’ve talked to. And so it makes sense. Like, they’re not. They’re not just sitting on the Barca lounger, like, that’s not the way to happiness, you know?

Carl Landau [00:05:27]:
No.

Diana Landau [00:05:29]:
I look at it, too, as an opportunity to reinvent yourself again, because you. You kind of have to do that through life. You know, there’s a lot of pivots and twists and turns, and it’s just sort of fun to see what’s out there and what’s next.

Ryan Dooley [00:05:43]:
Yeah. And Diana, we talked to her a little earlier, and I feel like that might be a theme for you is the reinvention. Do you want to elaborate a little bit? You’re really using this as a chance to do that.

Diana Landau [00:05:56]:
Well, yeah. I mean, I think if you’ve had a long, successful career and sometimes a lot of friends from that, and I mean, for example, on the pickleball court, nobody cares what you used to do. Nobody even knows what you used to do. You know, every once in a while I’ll say, hey, what did you used to do? Oh, I was an emergency room nurse or. Oh, I was, you know, a lawyer or whatever it is. But it’s. It’s just a whole new opportunity to try new things and just see where you can go with it, what you’re capable of.

Ryan Dooley [00:06:26]:
Oh, completely. And it seems like for Carl, I’m sure that’s part of it too. But Carl, you. You mentioned the word freedom. Is that a big thing for you?

Carl Landau [00:06:36]:
Well, yeah, it is, because especially I was a entrepreneur since I’ve been 25, and that’s a lot of responsibility. And you’re raising kids and doing all that sort of stuff. And it’s sort of funny. People say entrepreneur. Wow, you’re free to do whatever you want. Well, it doesn’t. You are free to a certain extent.

Ryan Dooley [00:06:58]:
Yeah.

Carl Landau [00:06:59]:
You sort of get to pick, oh, you know, what you want to do, you know, work wise and who. A little bit more who you want to work with in the style you want. But there’s a lot of responsibility like that comes with it, a lot of pressures, and I’m really glad to not have those Anymore. Really? I’m not.

Ryan Dooley [00:07:19]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It seems like if you work, if it’s your company, I mean, yes, you’re as free to. Free to do whatever you want if you’re willing to let the business go under. Right. Like, otherwise you’re not. You’re kind of locked into doing a lot of things.

Carl Landau [00:07:34]:
Yeah, yeah. Lots of times it’s like, oh, well, you know, normally someone who has a 9 to 5 job. Well, Yui, they just assumed you can do all that. I’m probably doing more than a lot of those people have the nine to five jobs, you know, and all that sort of stuff. But. But yeah, Diane was talking about reinventing yourself. I think we wrote a blog post once and I had a picture of myself in going to college and I’m 17 years old or whatever, and that I think these are your two chances to really, to reinvent yourself. Like here you were in high school and you were whatever you were, and then all of a sudden you’re in college and you get to sort of reinvent yourself.

Carl Landau [00:08:13]:
And I think you get that second chance at what we call on retirement where it’s like, yeah, this is sort of who I was and maybe these were my priorities and, and all that. But you know what? I want to do things a little different.

Ryan Dooley [00:08:28]:
Oh, absolutely. And I knew that for you the transition wouldn’t be an easy one. Right? I mean, someone who, who’s had that many businesses and probably was working around the clock, you seemed very aware of how that transition would be difficult. But you mentioned that you reject slowing down. So how do you balance that? Because you wouldn’t have retired unless you wanted some kind of change. So what’s different?

Carl Landau [00:09:00]:
Yeah, so you do need that balance. And I have a podcast somewhat similar to yours where people had all these responsibilities and all that. And now you don’t quite have all that, but you sort of have to catch yourself, especially if you were this hardworking person in your career. Like, I’ll give an example. When we started, I used to be somebody. It was right in the pandemic. That’s like, that’s we saw in March of 2020 and it was weekly and it was a newsletter that Diana did. And so weekly podcasts, a weekly newsletter, blogs, you know, doing social media and all that sort of stuff.

Carl Landau [00:09:41]:
And I realized within four months, wow. I just built myself a full time.

Ryan Dooley [00:09:46]:
Job, you know, accidentally.

Carl Landau [00:09:50]:
Well, well, yeah, but it was during the pandemic, so it’s like, what else were you gonna do anyway? So that was fine then. But at least I was able to catch myself and realize. And I took advice of people that were guest on my show where it’s like, don’t do that again, you know. So I went after about 40 episodes, I went and made it monthly. And we have a monthly newsletter and I play a lot more big ball that I do work, so.

Ryan Dooley [00:10:20]:
Oh, good.

Carl Landau [00:10:21]:
Okay. Work. Yeah. So you really have to catch yourself, though.

Ryan Dooley [00:10:25]:
Well, here. And here’s the next book title for you to. To write is how I accidentally created a successful business or something like that.

Carl Landau [00:10:35]:
Yeah.

Ryan Dooley [00:10:36]:
So, Diana, you are. This is your. These are your words, not mine. One of those annoying lifelong learners.

Diana Landau [00:10:43]:
Yeah.

Ryan Dooley [00:10:45]:
So is that. Is that a big part of what you want to do with your freedom?

Diana Landau [00:10:49]:
Oh, absolutely. And I came from the corporate world where there was no flexibility whatsoever. And so the freedom for me is the flexibility to go and do what I want, when I want and. And balance that with the work life. But, yeah, I’m the one on the hikes that, you know, makes you stop and read the plaques. I just have a lot of interests. I like to say I’m an enthusiast. And so this just means more time for me to explore all those things.

Diana Landau [00:11:18]:
And I mean, discovering the new. Like if we go to a new place or a subject I don’t know anything about, I just get all excited about it.

Carl Landau [00:11:26]:
I was saying I’m sort of the opposite. I always say, like, I’m not a thinker, I’m a doer. You know, and so. And it started too. We’re total absences. It seems to work out pretty well because some of us need to be a little bit more focused occasionally. Others of us, like, need to spell the roses a little bit.

Diana Landau [00:11:48]:
Yeah.

Carl Landau [00:11:48]:
So it all works out.

Ryan Dooley [00:11:51]:
It seems like it comes together and gels nicely. Yeah. Diana, so you are always. You knew you wanted to keep learning forever, but you mentioned that you wish you had spent more time thinking about the grand plan. You seem like someone who would because you’re so focused and organized. Tell me about that. Like, why didn’t you. What would you have.

Ryan Dooley [00:12:14]:
What do you wish you had thought of?

Diana Landau [00:12:16]:
Well, I just, you know, I was busy raising kids on my own and working full time, and I was sort of busy surviving and trying to thrive. Right. But to think 10 years, 20, 30 years into the future about what fun things I want to be doing for me, I just somehow didn’t have time for that. I should have allowed some time for that and some more reflection, but I just didn’t. And, you know, so I’m Doing it now.

Ryan Dooley [00:12:44]:
Well, I just have one 2 year old son and even with one. I know exactly what you’re saying because I find myself just trying to get through and then I’m later regretting why didn’t I honor and value that moment I had with him? Or because I was too busy like trying to get him to eat or something. Yeah, it’s hard.

Diana Landau [00:13:05]:
It’s really hard, you know?

Carl Landau [00:13:07]:
Yeah, yeah, but it’s. Yeah, it’s true. So I mean, this is a second marriage for both of us. So. So her, her life as a single mom was pretty like, involved.

Ryan Dooley [00:13:19]:
I don’t know how, I don’t. Diana, I. I don’t know how single moms do that. Like, I have my w. My wife and I team up on this one guy and that’s hard. So how did you do that?

Diana Landau [00:13:31]:
Well, I’m actually also a good networker and I have a group of close friends that were my rocks for sure. And a sign of strength is asking for help when you need it. Sometimes people try to hold it all together and hold it all in and try to manage on their own. And there are times where you just need a little more help. And it’s okay to ask for that because you do the same for your friends, right?

Ryan Dooley [00:13:56]:
Yeah, yeah, totally. And it’s hard sometimes to be. Or I find myself being harder on myself than I would be on my friends. So in that sense it’d be like if they ask me for help, no problem, but I can’t ask them.

Diana Landau [00:14:09]:
Exactly, exactly. I’d like to see too. Carl was talking about, you know, we come from.

Carl Landau [00:14:15]:
We.

Diana Landau [00:14:15]:
We’re divorced and now we’re married. Well, divorce is also another opportunity to reinvent yourself.

Ryan Dooley [00:14:20]:
Yeah, yeah.

Diana Landau [00:14:22]:
You know, reset your priorities and what you want out of life.

Ryan Dooley [00:14:26]:
You know, we’ve. So we did a big survey of, you know, 1350 retirees across 46 states and to find out what they were doing. Right. And one thing that was interesting, and I don’t think we saw this coming, was that a lot of them had been divorced. A lot of the happy ones had. Had. Well, were either still married or had been divorced once. Like.

Ryan Dooley [00:14:48]:
But we started saying, hey, everyone gets a mulligan because. Because that one divorce sometimes was a big part of the happiness.

Carl Landau [00:14:56]:
I totally agree. Is I would say for both of us, appreciate so much more what we have. When you finally have it, especially when you’re older, like when you’re young and people are young, get married, you know, you’re young and stupid. You don’t realize if you had a good. Or you didn’t recognize that you had it bad at the beginning because you didn’t know better. And I think really, I mean, for us, like, having the second chance was, like, fantastic.

Ryan Dooley [00:15:27]:
The one thing that we couldn’t figure out was Hugh Hefner had been married like three times, and he always seemed happy. So we weren’t quite sure if he was, like, the exception to the rule or something, I guess. Carl, you. So you’ve always been an entrepreneur. You published your first magazine, which was called Computer Language, when you were only 25. Then you started up to three other niche magazines and including, like, Brew, your own Brew pub, winemaker. But it seems like you kind of jumped around genres. So maybe, maybe you can talk about how it wasn’t so much what it was about, but it was that you were good at.

Ryan Dooley [00:16:00]:
The entrepreneur part. Is that kind of how that.

Carl Landau [00:16:03]:
Or figuring out, like, where the niche was. Because the name of my company was Niche Media, so it was all about figuring out niche. So this is like in the early 80s, computer magazines. And I won’t go into too many details because you lose a lot of listeners right away.

Ryan Dooley [00:16:22]:
Okay.

Carl Landau [00:16:23]:
It was a very exciting time. I mean, at the time, I got to be Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.

Ryan Dooley [00:16:28]:
Wow.

Carl Landau [00:16:29]:
Steve Wozniak and all those sort of people. So that was a great time to get into the computer magazine business and started magazine AI Expert, which was one of the first magazines about artificial intelligence, which would be amazing now when it’s actually happening. And it actually did very well at the time, but it was just way ahead of its time at the time. So anyway, I did that for about five years and sold it to a big publisher because I realized I. What I was good at was starting stuff. And that’s when I really enjoyed. And the fun part and having a small staff. But as soon as it became more than like 16, 17 people, it’s like a real company.

Carl Landau [00:17:14]:
I remember when I’m finally like, I want to do it anymore. When people. Because we never had vacation policies or anything, right. We just. It was like, get your work done. If it’s done, take it as many vacations as you want.

Ryan Dooley [00:17:28]:
Right, right.

Carl Landau [00:17:29]:
The second generation of employees, third generation that, you know, they’re like, when are the breaks? And stuff like that. I’m like, there’s no breaks here. I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Ryan Dooley [00:17:40]:
Yeah, I can see how that. It’s. Because in your world, it was like you said, do your work and then you can do whatever you Want. You don’t need me to micromanage this.

Carl Landau [00:17:48]:
No. So. So I. You have to know what your strengths and weaknesses are, you know, which is true, I guess, what we do know, you know, and just be careful about, like, habits that you had that got that were successful for you. Like, a really good thing is why people are successful. They won’t quit. You know, here’s this really tough thing, and we do it well. In the unretirement business, quitting is fine.

Carl Landau [00:18:14]:
On.

Ryan Dooley [00:18:17]:
That’s a great line.

Carl Landau [00:18:18]:
Well, because all the time, people are like, they have ideas. I want to do this volunteer job and all that. And they finally start doing it, it’s like, wow, this isn’t fun at all. You know, it’s like, yeah, a lot of zoom calls or something like that. It’s like, I’m like, cliff, this isn’t like a career. So trying new things, and it may take three or four shots at different things till you find, you know, your thing.

Ryan Dooley [00:18:42]:
Yeah.

Diana Landau [00:18:42]:
We hear a lot from our podcast guests. Just try things, you know, go down the path, see if you like it. If you don’t, it’s okay. You know, make a change.

Ryan Dooley [00:18:52]:
Yeah. And I would think that would help them to not feel overwhelmed, because they don’t think if I start this, I have to do this forever. I can just try it.

Carl Landau [00:18:59]:
Yeah, that’s. That’s someone who’s like, oh, I’ve always wanted to do this. They’ve been saying this for, like, 25 years. And then there’s a lot of pressure on you. In fact, I would recommend don’t tell anyone what you’re going to do. Just do what? And then if you like it, you can tell them what it is or whatever, you know, and all that. So. Yeah.

Ryan Dooley [00:19:21]:
Oh, yeah, completely. Well, speaking of what you like to do, Diana, so you’re a native Sacramentan. I didn’t know that that term was in use, but I do like Sacramento. So you’ve lived there your whole life?

Carl Landau [00:19:34]:
Oh, what’s that? Only five people have ever used that.

Ryan Dooley [00:19:37]:
Term, so they make it six.

Diana Landau [00:19:40]:
Well, they sacred dimension, but that’s a whole other story.

Ryan Dooley [00:19:45]:
Okay, so. But now you both live there, and. And Diana, maybe you can take this one. So tell me about your favorite core pursuits, like hobbies that. That are more than hobbies. What are yours?

Diana Landau [00:19:59]:
Well, I love to cook. I’m constantly looking for new recipes and going to classes, and I love to entertain. I like people who are guinea pigs. I love to garden. I love to read. I’m in a writer’s Group play a lot of pickleball?

Ryan Dooley [00:20:16]:
Yeah. Three or four times a week, right?

Diana Landau [00:20:19]:
Oh, probably I should be three or four. I’m more like four or five. And I swim too.

Ryan Dooley [00:20:25]:
Oh, you play more than you should. Okay. Okay.

Diana Landau [00:20:31]:
We have grandkids and I love spending time with them. And we have some older relatives and I love spending time with them too.

Carl Landau [00:20:38]:
Yeah. So, like, our age are taking care of, like, the grand, you know, not full time or anything, but the old ones and young ones. I think a lot of people listing you’re in that situation where you’re sort of that generation that’s doing all that and she, she does all that and. Yeah.

Ryan Dooley [00:20:57]:
Do you. Do you mean the sandwich generation or, or do you mean like, like taking care of your parents and the rank.

Carl Landau [00:21:05]:
Her mom. Her mom and are 93 and 90 and they, you know, it’s are like, you know, 10 and 7. So. Yeah.

Ryan Dooley [00:21:14]:
And do they all live close by?

Diana Landau [00:21:16]:
Yes, they all live within 15, 20 minutes.

Ryan Dooley [00:21:19]:
Oh, that’s nice.

Carl Landau [00:21:20]:
They’re all really close. Trust me, they’re close.

Ryan Dooley [00:21:26]:
Well, that, that was another thing that our research found was that the happiest retirees that we talked to, most of them lived near at least one of their adult children. Strangely, or interestingly enough, it wasn’t a good idea to live together always. But. But living near each other.

Carl Landau [00:21:42]:
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Diana Landau [00:21:44]:
Well. And the other four, we have five kids between us and the other four live in the Bay Area, so they’re not very far away.

Ryan Dooley [00:21:50]:
Oh, yeah, that’s easy. Yeah. Okay. So you got that covered. Okay.

Carl Landau [00:21:55]:
Ryan, I was going to ask you, though, I’d love to know the research on this because you hear so many people that end up moving, which is a big decision. You know, you do in our, our age, you know, a lot of them move to be with the Grangers. They don’t know anyone else in that city or something. I always, I always think that sort of weird, personally. Like, I mean, in the fact that the movie is like, that’s high stakes. I don’t know. I do know anything about those situations.

Ryan Dooley [00:22:26]:
I don’t have any statistics on it, but I can just anecdotally from. Or what I would think is that that could be tough because you’re now, it’s like, yeah, you’re great when you’re with the kids and grandkids, but you can’t be with them all day. So now you don’t know anybody and you’re having to restart everything. And I think some people actually don’t mind that. But like you said, that can be risky because you’re uprooting everything and kind of being like, now we’re here, so, hey, grandkids, you better. Yeah, I better be with you all the time. The grandkids might be like, no.

Carl Landau [00:23:02]:
That’S the thing. Once the grandkids are about 12, they’re like, wait, I am my old life. We’re great. I really appreciate everything you did, and we will talk to you in a year or two. I mean, it’s like, well, the grandparents.

Diana Landau [00:23:15]:
Start playing pickleball, and they will have a whole new set of friends right away.

Ryan Dooley [00:23:19]:
There you go.

Carl Landau [00:23:20]:
She’s one of those annoying pickleball people. That.

Diana Landau [00:23:23]:
Annoying pickleball.

Carl Landau [00:23:25]:
Well, I mean, in fact, I have to tell you, Ryan, when we were writing the book, Diana said to me, because we’re playing pickleball all the time. We’re writing about pickleball all the time. And it’s just on your dreaming.

Diana Landau [00:23:38]:
Dreaming about typos.

Carl Landau [00:23:40]:
Yes, well. But also pickleball shots and stuff like that. And Diane’s like, I think we need to back off from people because we’re talking to what’s pickleball? Because it’s.

Diana Landau [00:23:51]:
Anyway, they’re, like, ready to come into the room. You know, that’s not good.

Carl Landau [00:23:56]:
Right.

Ryan Dooley [00:23:56]:
Well, I know when you had. I had asked you about social groups you participate in, and I think Carl said, well, a lot of them are with pickleball. But just so you know, we’re not crazy. Some of them aren’t about pickleball. Yeah. And. But you probably have a great friend group. I’m guessing, since you’ve.

Ryan Dooley [00:24:14]:
You’ve been in that area a long time. Is that. Is that a good. Do you have a lot. That’s a very rich environment for you.

Diana Landau [00:24:22]:
It is. I mean, I have some friends I’ve known for all my life, and, yeah, it’s been wonderful.

Carl Landau [00:24:26]:
Well, but one point on that, Ryan, is, so I’m not from Sacro. I mean, I live. I’m from the Midwest and lived in San Francisco a long time and then lived in Davis and then also for a while.

Ryan Dooley [00:24:38]:
Okay.

Carl Landau [00:24:39]:
But my job was putting on. Eventually I put on conferences at trade shows that I owned, and I did that for 20 years. Well, none were in Sacramento. They were all in Denver or Charleston or Austin or, you know, places people want to go to. So. So I didn’t have a lot of local friends. And I think that’s. That happens a lot for people that particularly travel a lot for their job.

Carl Landau [00:25:08]:
And I think that’s A huge part of the successful retirement is making new friends. And not to belabor the pick ball thing is, but it is an amazing way to meet very diverse, very interesting people by joining, in our case, pickleball. But like any sort of like really cool hobby and all of a sudden you have, I mean in our case like 20 friends that we see all the time because of that. Yeah. So that’s part of the reinvention that I was talking about earlier is also reinventing like new friends.

Diana Landau [00:25:43]:
Carl’s pretty good at for sometimes for men it’s a little harder for them just to go out and make new friends, especially if they’re really involved in their careers. And he’s pretty good about reaching out to people. Hey, let’s grab a beer, let’s go have lunch. Trying to get to know people better, that kind of thing. You have to make that effort. You really do.

Carl Landau [00:26:02]:
It’s, it’s totally true. It’s like with guys, a lot of them, well, I have like my three friends I’ve had since high school. I’m good. And then a lot of their friends end up being like their wives. Yeah. Husband.

Ryan Dooley [00:26:14]:
Yeah.

Carl Landau [00:26:14]:
You know, and stuff like that. So. So. But I mean you do whatever you want to do, but I, I don’t want to do that.

Ryan Dooley [00:26:22]:
I mean it may, it may be biology going back to like, I don’t want to get too, too far flung here, but how do the animal species do it? Like maybe male apes don’t. I don’t know that it seems like.

Diana Landau [00:26:37]:
Women are much better and all the different species and it still seems like the females run things again.

Ryan Dooley [00:26:43]:
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I guess that’s just the way it is.

Carl Landau [00:26:46]:
That’s true.

Ryan Dooley [00:26:46]:
Well, speaking of different species, I’ve heard a cat meow a couple of times and I wanted to ask. So Carl was a dog guy growing up, but then he kind of switched to cats. And now your only child still living at home is a 17 year old handsome, short haired black cat named Felix who has the personality of a dog.

Carl Landau [00:27:05]:
Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Ryan Dooley [00:27:07]:
Is that he’s meowing.

Carl Landau [00:27:09]:
He very much be part of it. In fact, part of pitball and part of I think good for anyone is stretchy and all that in the morning of which I do that and I have this about 15 minute deal that I do put on music. And Felix, he is like totally part of this whole thing. He gets there, he likes his tail like big rolling and all that. And it’s like a pretty funny situation. Yeah.

Diana Landau [00:27:34]:
He sits on the floor mat, waits for Carl, like, could you go on his floor?

Carl Landau [00:27:38]:
Ready?

Diana Landau [00:27:38]:
I’m waiting.

Ryan Dooley [00:27:39]:
How cool.

Carl Landau [00:27:40]:
He’s right about eight.

Ryan Dooley [00:27:42]:
That motivates you to stretch more, I guess, right?

Carl Landau [00:27:45]:
Yeah, actually, it’s a lot of fun and all that.

Ryan Dooley [00:27:48]:
So anyway, I was going to ask, I mean, just quickly if you recommend any stretches because I’m already at a point where I need to stretch more and my, My wife just got certified as a yoga instructor, so stretching is going to become big for me. I know.

Diana Landau [00:28:03]:
Perfect.

Carl Landau [00:28:03]:
I. I would know way less in your life about it, you know, I just, I, unfortunately, and, and as you get older, especially if you do a source sports, any sports, I mean, you’re going to hurt yourself and stuff. And I had a bad back. I just went to physical therapy and they showed me these are the things you do. If you did this every day, you’ll be okay. And amazingly, I have, so.

Ryan Dooley [00:28:26]:
Oh, that’s good to know.

Carl Landau [00:28:28]:
Yeah. But stressing really is important and I’m sure based on your wife being the yoga instructor, you’re going to be doing a lot of stuff like that, which is good for you.

Ryan Dooley [00:28:38]:
Yes, I really, I’m going to make a commitment to it. I already wanted to, and now this is solidifying it. I’m going to do it. Yeah, I just, I do have two cats and so maybe one of them will be my Felix.

Diana Landau [00:28:49]:
Yeah.

Ryan Dooley [00:28:52]:
Okay. So I know that you have enough social groups. I think we’ve covered that. But what kind of goes into the same line of thinking as the stretching is do you find more or less limitations as you age? There’s going to be some pros and cons of being younger and being in your primary working years versus having more freedom and unretired. So which one do you think has more limitations and which one has less?

Carl Landau [00:29:20]:
Well, I mean, as far as limitations, I mean, for us, and one thing we talked about was freedom or whatever in the fact that, like, I mean, we are free finally to like, travel, which we didn’t really talk about, but it’s huge part of our life. And I think a lot of people our age, it is. And it’s like I did a despot traveling when I was younger. Diane didn’t travel too much, but like, we’re traveling like crazy. And my recommendation, people, is do it when you can. You know, it’s like I would say in your 60s and 70s, travel, see, you know, meet as many different, you know, people as you can around the world because you just never know. And I know a lot of people are like always sort of Waiting. And, you know, there’s always a reason why you can’t, you know, do this trap or whatever.

Carl Landau [00:30:10]:
And you can talk yourself out of a lot of different things.

Ryan Dooley [00:30:13]:
Oh, yeah.

Carl Landau [00:30:13]:
It’s like, you never know when you can’t do that. So you don’t see a ton of people in their 80s doing these exotic trips and stuff like that. So it’s like, I think, you know, if you can afford it and all that, like, do as much as you can when you can’t, you know, Right to that.

Diana Landau [00:30:34]:
We do a lot of little local trips, just take off usually during the week when it’s not crazy crowded. And there’s a lot of local places to explore, whether it’s, you know. Well, of course, Sacramento. Our claim to famous being close to the Bay Area and the wine country in Tahoe and those kinds of Tahoe.

Ryan Dooley [00:30:50]:
Yeah, yeah.

Diana Landau [00:30:51]:
But I mean, there are a lot of short, even day trips that you can take to just sort of get you out of your space, refresh your mind. And you don’t have to have a lot of money to do that.

Ryan Dooley [00:31:01]:
Yes. So a lot of our listeners are in the Atlanta area. I mean, they’re all over, but I would say that’s our biggest. And so they may not know. So I just want to tell them Lake Tahoe is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. Every time I go there, I’m like, I can’t believe this exists.

Carl Landau [00:31:18]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Diana Landau [00:31:20]:
Cool.

Carl Landau [00:31:20]:
Yeah.

Ryan Dooley [00:31:21]:
And you’re close. Yeah.

Diana Landau [00:31:23]:
Plan those little getaways. It really is. I mean, you can build that into your whole strategy, you know.

Ryan Dooley [00:31:29]:
So how often would you say you do those little getaways?

Diana Landau [00:31:32]:
Oh, gosh, once a month.

Carl Landau [00:31:33]:
Once a month.

Diana Landau [00:31:34]:
Once a month.

Ryan Dooley [00:31:34]:
Oh, that’s pretty good.

Carl Landau [00:31:36]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then part of what we’re doing now is, you know, our business has gone from a podcast. I used to be somebody to pit off for dummies. I don’t think I ever showed that. But anyway, and then we were started the I Used to Be Somebody world tour. So we are going to go country by country, and we teamed up with, like, a boutique tour company where they will do whatever tour you want in any country, basically. So we have a group of 20 people going, Our first ones in Tuscany in, like, a week.

Ryan Dooley [00:32:14]:
In a week.

Carl Landau [00:32:15]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ryan Dooley [00:32:17]:
Wow.

Carl Landau [00:32:17]:
And then we teach a couple of unretirement classes during it. And then we’re going to Portugal next year, and then every year we’ll go to a different country, and we’re even doing A pitball trip in Arizona.

Ryan Dooley [00:32:32]:
Wow.

Carl Landau [00:32:32]:
So, you know what I. When I say to people, as far as, like, what you ultimately want to do, like, our. What we did was just do one thing, the podcast, and it has led to many things, and you just have to look for what the opportunities are. So, I mean, my background is being entrepreneur, so I can’t help myself. But think of all this stuff that we could do.

Diana Landau [00:32:57]:
You know, he knows how to spot trends, obviously, with the craft brewery and the winemaking and pickleball and all of those things.

Ryan Dooley [00:33:04]:
So.

Carl Landau [00:33:05]:
Yeah. Anyway, it’s been fun.

Ryan Dooley [00:33:08]:
Yeah. I would imagine that a podcast like that would lead to a natural opportunity to network, and since you’re already really good at that, it just takes off.

Carl Landau [00:33:19]:
Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, we’re looking forward to it.

Ryan Dooley [00:33:22]:
Yeah. So the Tuscany ones in a week. Is that what you said? And then Portugal will be next year.

Carl Landau [00:33:27]:
Yeah. So by the time this is on, we’ll have already done the Tuscany trail.

Ryan Dooley [00:33:31]:
Okay.

Carl Landau [00:33:32]:
Give you a follow up on that.

Ryan Dooley [00:33:34]:
Yes. Yeah, we may need to. We may need to do that. Yeah. Maybe I can recommend. If you’re going to write. Maybe Diana’s going to write something about it. We could send people to read.

Diana Landau [00:33:43]:
Totally do that.

Ryan Dooley [00:33:44]:
Yeah. Have you been. You’ve been out of the country a number of times already, or is this. Did you say it’s the first one?

Carl Landau [00:33:51]:
Oh, no, no, no. The first of our four were hosting, but, yeah, no, we’ve been. We took an amazing trip to South Africa for three weeks.

Ryan Dooley [00:34:01]:
Oh, wow.

Carl Landau [00:34:01]:
This is great.

Diana Landau [00:34:02]:
That was in March.

Carl Landau [00:34:03]:
Yeah. We went to Portugal before that for two weeks and we both traveled separately.

Diana Landau [00:34:09]:
Before we got together.

Carl Landau [00:34:10]:
Yeah, yeah. But. But definitely, I really recommend people, like, do your international travel, though, while you’re healthy and can do it, because you can always do the easy trips, all that later.

Ryan Dooley [00:34:22]:
Right, Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s great because there’s that sort of golden time where you have time to do it and maybe the financial resources to do it, but it’s before you’re too maybe limited physically to do it. So there’s that sweet spot. Yeah, yeah.

Carl Landau [00:34:40]:
I mean, you can’t. I mean, everything we’re talking about doing, you have to have the health. I mean, that’s number one. That’s even before money. So you can have all the money in the world. If you don’t have the health, it’s not going to work out. So it’s like. I mean, that’s why pickleball or anything you’re going to do needs to be part of what you’re doing?

Ryan Dooley [00:35:00]:
Yeah, absolutely. Will you be able to play pickleball in Tuscany?

Carl Landau [00:35:07]:
It’s funny. One of the people I interviewed lives there. He’s American. He’s lived there 14 years. He’s told me he’s not seen one football court yet, but they actually have a sport in Europe that’s more popular called paddle.

Ryan Dooley [00:35:23]:
Oh, really?

Carl Landau [00:35:24]:
Yeah. Yeah. So it’s sort of. Sort of a combination of pickleball and racquetball, where there’s actually. It’s outside, but there’s walls. I actually. I’d love to play that. That’s in Europe and in South.

Carl Landau [00:35:38]:
South America.

Ryan Dooley [00:35:40]:
I did not know about that. I just. I interviewed someone who loves pickleball, and they. They had, like, an app they used to find pickleball wherever they go. So I didn’t know. It seemed like there’s definitely opportunity for it.

Diana Landau [00:35:53]:
We always. There’s a chapter in the book about always pack your paddle, and I think.

Carl Landau [00:35:58]:
We’Ll have it for time.

Diana Landau [00:35:59]:
We don’t always do that, but a lot of times we definitely have our paddles in the trunk and just. You meet locals. It’s really fun.

Carl Landau [00:36:06]:
Oh, we go to Hawaii all the time and play. A lot of people on Hawaii.

Ryan Dooley [00:36:10]:
Oh, I bet that’s a. That must be a great place to play pickleball. It is beautiful.

Carl Landau [00:36:15]:
Yeah.

Ryan Dooley [00:36:15]:
Okay, well, starting. I want to start with Diana, but I want to get some parting tips. What should people do? Maybe someone who isn’t retired yet and they are thinking about it, or someone who is retired but they’re not enjoying it. What do you recommend they do?

Diana Landau [00:36:30]:
I would say take a. Take some of your good friends to coffee and talk it out loud. Talk it through. Get feedback from people that you know and respect and listen to them and see what they say about what they think your strengths and weaknesses are or things that you might have talked about frequently that you kind of forgot. Those kinds of things. That would be a good place to start for sure. Taking classes. That’s another good way to sort of find what you’re interested in.

Diana Landau [00:37:01]:
Volunteering. I. I do that, too, and.

Ryan Dooley [00:37:04]:
Oh, you do?

Diana Landau [00:37:05]:
Yes.

Ryan Dooley [00:37:05]:
Okay.

Carl Landau [00:37:07]:
She’s a real good dealer. She’s like, man.

Diana Landau [00:37:11]:
Oh, okay.

Carl Landau [00:37:12]:
Okay.

Ryan Dooley [00:37:13]:
Well, I was gonna. Because I was gonna say our traveling and volunteering are usually the top of the list of people that we talk to. So you’ve got both. Yeah.

Diana Landau [00:37:24]:
So, yeah, you just sort of have to reach out and talk to people, find out what’s out there, find out what the opportunities are. I think sometimes you Might not even know what questions to ask. So that’s gonna, that’ll. You need to take that time for reflect, reflection, and it’s not always easy. You can get kind of busy doing things and not really take that time, that dedicated time, but you need to do that.

Ryan Dooley [00:37:48]:
Yeah, it’s. I imagine it’s hard to reinvent yourself if you don’t know what you want to be reinvented into.

Diana Landau [00:37:55]:
A lot of people say that. They really do.

Ryan Dooley [00:37:57]:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, Carl, how about you? What advice do you have?

Carl Landau [00:38:01]:
Well, I would say embrace being a beginner. That’s what stops a lot of people. So you’ve, particularly people that listen to our podcast and probably yours too, that they’ve had these successful careers and people have really admired them, they seek them out and all that. And then, and then when you don’t have the career, that all stops, that no one cares. And it really discourages a lot of people. And then they’re sort of worried about, well, here’s this new thing I’m probably not going to be good at. And well, you know what, think about yourself when you were 22, 23, your first job. Well, you probably weren’t very good at that job, you know, and so remember back then, and I say embrace being a beginner.

Carl Landau [00:38:52]:
It’s like, you know, hey, I don’t know anything about it and I’m not going to be good at this. And I think people will respect that and want to help you or whatever. But that stops a lot of especially overachiever types.

Ryan Dooley [00:39:06]:
Yeah.

Carl Landau [00:39:07]:
You know, where they’re an expert at this and all. And I’m not an expert type. So I, I, and I, Diane mentioned I’m dyslectic. I got really bad grades when I was a kid and all that. So I, I’m used to like failing a lot, so. Well, I am.

Ryan Dooley [00:39:22]:
So it doesn’t bother you? Yeah, it’s.

Carl Landau [00:39:24]:
No, otherwise I would have been destroyed as like a, you know, 7 year old who got D’s in second grade and spelling and reading and all that. So yeah, one thing I did that was new, that was really, I mean ultimately fun was I took like a stand up comedy class, a workshop.

Ryan Dooley [00:39:44]:
Yes, that was amazing to. I read that, that, Tell me about that real quick.

Carl Landau [00:39:49]:
Like, hey, so, so to start a local theater that like really one of the best theaters in Tech Mount, the B Street Theater they had. I just saw this ad where they had never done it before. This comedian who I knew, he had never taught it and there were eight of us in the class. And it was just five classes, two hours long. And your final is you do your column a stand up for over 100 people.

Ryan Dooley [00:40:15]:
Oh, wow. That’s a pretty big group for a first time.

Carl Landau [00:40:18]:
It is, it is. And so it was amazing experience. And my, my theme of it was being dyslexic, but also it was sort of an homage to my mom who was amazing herself. And so it was a unbelievable experience doing that. Really, really scary. I mean, and I wanted to quit a whole bunch of times and I didn’t. And you know, I ended up doing like a 14 minute bet, which Ollie. Which is long.

Ryan Dooley [00:40:49]:
Wait, what? The one bit was 14 minutes.

Carl Landau [00:40:51]:
My standup was 14 minutes long. So yeah, so no, it was like it was four short. Short, like the stories. And unfortunately Diana, she had to be my audience of one. It was during the pandemic, practicing so the jokes.

Ryan Dooley [00:41:08]:
Diana, did you. Did Diana heckle you? Is that how that happened?

Diana Landau [00:41:12]:
A little bit for sure.

Ryan Dooley [00:41:15]:
But you call that content wrangling?

Carl Landau [00:41:20]:
Well, actually she edits everything I do and she’s very kind about it. She always says, I think this is what you meant to say. And then she rewrites the whole thing.

Ryan Dooley [00:41:32]:
Yeah, it’s very considerate, but hats off for doing standup. I’ve done some stand up and I actually hadn’t done it in a while. And oddly enough, my father in law was retiring and having a retirement party and he asked me to get up and do some stand up at the party. So that was last week. So I’m with you. I feel your pain of getting the rust out, but yeah, ultimately, I don’t know about you, but every time I do it, even if I only get one laugh, I always feel good afterward. So I don’t know if you had that same experience.

Carl Landau [00:42:07]:
It was great. It was a really fun thing to do.

Ryan Dooley [00:42:11]:
And so the next step is getting Diana on stage.

Carl Landau [00:42:15]:
Honestly, I recommend that she does it. I know her stories and I’ve, I’ve tried to do it and for some reason she’s not interested in that.

Diana Landau [00:42:23]:
Oh, well, I find other ways. Like three years ago when we were during the pandemic, I decided to take a reentry college class. And I was terrified because it was all online, but I thought, well, I’m not going anywhere. It’s the pandemic, right?

Ryan Dooley [00:42:38]:
Yeah.

Diana Landau [00:42:39]:
So it’s all online. I have to do a project on the history of bhangra dance with two fellow classmates. All communication is text. And for this PowerPoint presentation, I’m working with precious and treasure. And we’re putting this together through text. I was like, oh, my God, I can’t believe this is happening. But I got through it and I kept freaking out and Carl kept saying, oh, you’ll be fine. And yeah, I got an A.

Diana Landau [00:43:09]:
But it was a whole new experience being online. The online learning.

Ryan Dooley [00:43:14]:
Oh, yeah. You got out of your comfort zone and you did it.

Diana Landau [00:43:18]:
I had to post on chat boards with 20 year olds. It was just wild.

Ryan Dooley [00:43:25]:
I can see how that would be so intimidating because that way of doing it is like kind of all they know. So it’s. It’s secondhand and you’re having to kind of just jump in.

Diana Landau [00:43:34]:
Oh, yeah.

Ryan Dooley [00:43:36]:
All right, well, folks, go out. I want you to buy Pickleball for Dummies. I want you to listen to the I Used to Be Somebody podcast, read the newsletter, and then go on, go to Tuscany or Portugal for the I Used to Be Somebody world tour. Just do it. All Carl and Diana are your one stop shop for being somebody and enjoying 50 plus on retirement. So thank you so much for coming on the Happiest Retirees podcast.

Diana Landau [00:44:01]:
Thank you.

Carl Landau [00:44:02]:
Thanks, Ryan. It was awesome.