Empty Nesters Rediscover Creativity - E71

Clancy Denton  0:00  
Someone was asking me, oh, how is it being retired? I said, I'm busier now than I was when I was working. This is the loud quiet, living the empty nest. Hey guys, welcome back. Episode 71 the loud quiet, sorry, my voice is a little it's sketchy today, or whatever you want to call him,

Rick Denton  0:19  
smoker or sexy, fancy, whichever one you want to call it. Today, I got hit

Clancy Denton  0:23  
with something on Thursday night, and I just, yeah, I don't know if it's allergies. I don't know what it is, some little bug. I feel okay. It's just, I sound horrible, but, but welcome back so and there's probably more people that are there's probably others that are suffering through this too right now. But do you

Rick Denton  0:44  
remember, like we were joking about this before we hit record the Friends episode, that it's like, you know, she's trying to be all sexy. That's

Clancy Denton  0:54  
what I just sounded like a few minutes ago, and I freaked the cat out, and

Rick Denton  0:57  
you will not see me. So in this episode, I do not think,

Clancy Denton  1:00  
but thanks for tuning in again. And as always, we would love for you to follow, subscribe on YouTube or any of the platforms that use Apple Spotify. We're just trying to gain our community and yeah,

Rick Denton  1:17  
with the purpose of learning from others, right? Because that was the idea behind this was one, to stay connected, and two, to build a community of empty nesters that can actually learn from each other and enjoy this phase of life that actually has been pretty darn fun. And I think that idea you said, Hey, would you all do something? That's actually what I think the theme of today is going to be about, is that idea of, would you do something? Because if you listen to episodes

Clancy Denton  1:44  
like we do something, maybe that's what you should say. Because we're not telling them to do something. I want y'all to do things, and I will be drinking some hot water with lemons. So just she

Rick Denton  1:54  
hasn't told us whether there's whiskey in there or not, but either way, whatever it's needing. It is a little

Clancy Denton  1:58  
honey water and lemon, that is it, and a cough drop that I just put in there

Rick Denton  2:04  
because it was making too much. We are not going to add that recipe to the show notes that you can do. I just

Clancy Denton  2:08  
came up with a new hot toddy without the alcohol. It is, you know, dry

Rick Denton  2:14  
January hot toddy, all right, so yes, well, for those that listened or watched episode 70 was all about our experience at pod fest, and almost we talked, I don't know if we said it on the show, but almost like when you go to a church retreat or like Youth Camp retreat, where you are on this high but the reality of growing your faith is well, then what do you do with it when You get back home? And that's what was really facing us when we came back. We were so inspired, we were so excited, and we had a lot of fun. Now, what? Yeah,

Clancy Denton  2:49  
and I will say, I think we did a pretty good job of not letting the enthusiasm drop and get to doing stuff, you know, I came to the office on what Tuesday, I came then we worked together on Friday, and, oh, no, I came to the office Monday, then you came home, and we worked together Tuesday, and then we worked together on Friday. And, you know, I had some appointments during the week, and someone was asking me, oh, how is it being retired? I said, I'm busier now than I was when I was working so and, but it's a good busy this, I think. And we've said this before, I think you and I have figured out that we like being in this creative space. And I don't know what has awakened in us. You, I mean, you've been in it for a while.

Rick Denton  3:45  
You know it comes to mind, as you say, that time, space winner. Forget the macro thing you're talking about, of Yeah, or, actually, no, the micro, just you and me, kind of being creative. When is someone at their most creative. What's the joke in the shower, right? Or something like that? It's when you unplug your mind, when you undo things, and suddenly you start thinking creatively. Well, I think as kids left the house, as you wound down the retirement of the your prior career, suddenly there's space to be creative, that ideas that might pop into a head and then disappear through lack of action, back to the theme of what we're gonna talk about today, pop into the head and disappear through lack of action, actually turn into action, which then creates results. Yeah, and

Clancy Denton  4:37  
I really did, like I enjoyed. I enjoyed writing papers when I was in high school college, one of my friends and I did, you know, or she did a newsletter, and we kind of contributed together for that a little bit. But my

Rick Denton  4:56  
gosh, you were before you were ahead of the newsletter. Trent now it's a. Way trend you were way ahead. I

Clancy Denton  5:01  
need I I've got to find those somewhere, and I bet Kristen has all of them. But, I mean, it was weekly, and we would collect stories, and she would lay it out, and we would mail them or hand deliver them, because it was on paper, whatever this was, like high school, like late year, probably senior year,

Rick Denton  5:22  
so early 90s, yeah, so,

Clancy Denton  5:24  
you know, and I did, I enjoyed doing that. I enjoyed writing in my class that I got to pick what I wanted to write about. I did. I enjoyed that stuff. And so I kind of, I feel like I'm revisiting that at this stage of life, and I find that I am really enjoying the creative space that we're getting back into.

Rick Denton  5:48  
Let's like almost, let's make a mark of that. And listeners, viewers make a mark of that in your head, if that's something that you've experienced here, too. Because I wonder if that's actually not just you me in the empty nest. I wonder if there's something in the emptiness that there are a lot of folks who have rediscovered their creativity. We've seen all the studies that say that everyone is born creative, and then typically it's the education system that kind of squashes it out of people and just sort of life takes that away from them. Well, I wonder if there's this rebirth that actually exist, not just between you and me, but rather empty nesters in general, find that they have this creative rebirth in this phase of life. Maybe

Clancy Denton  6:28  
I have no idea. Maybe I think a lot of empty nesters are still doing their full time, heavy duty jobs that takes up a lot of their time. We've just have been given the gift of time, that and flexibility, right? And we have, now, like we said, we are all in on this path. So

Rick Denton  6:52  
well, let's okay. So go, go. I love that. We talked about that. Hey, maybe that can be the freebie when we actually set up an email, sign up as sign up and you get copies of Clancy's newsletters from the 80s and 90s.

Clancy Denton  7:02  
No. Well, those people probably need to be protected that we gossiped about in there. There would be some. Hey,

Rick Denton  7:10  
look, if they're releasing the JFK files, can't we release your old newsletters? So we'll get everything out in the open. The idea, though, coming out of last week, was getting into action. I think that's one of the things that is the hardest to do. It can be really easy and fun to sit and think of ideas. Whether it's planning a trip or planning a business. It's the actual sitting down and doing. And I know for me, doing a lot of times is just, you hear me say this, just barf on a page. Brainstorm, everything that we learned, every idea that we had, without thought to it, and then we organized that into and this is what we're going to focus on. That's how I think did that how? How did you pivot into action?

Clancy Denton  7:58  
Well, I think, you know, at the when we got back, the first thing I did on Sunday was finally get my laptop set up that I had been sitting in the box for, you know, weeks. Oh, that you can say decades. No, weeks. I Yeah, so, um, you know, I did that so I felt like, okay, now I can get going on some of the stuff that we're, you know, getting, getting going on. And when you asked, you know, there was a particular person that we wanted to set up a meeting with, and you were like, well, do we want to I was like, no, let's get on this and do this now. And, you know, we went through everything that we had. If you saw our put one of the posts this week. I don't know if it went on. I don't think it went on to tlq, No, probably not, yeah. But anyways, miso was helping us with all of our business cards and things that we had collected from pod fest. So I think just

again, setting aside that time to really start doing these things. And you and I are pretty good of

riffing off of each other and being like, no, let's don't do that, but let's do that. And then, and we divided, you know, we went through on Friday and divided up tasks that I'm doing some things, you're doing some things. So

Rick Denton  9:23  
I think, and getting to that point, I think what was key is going through, and this is kind of what we want to talk about, is helping not just us, but helping others figure out how to go from idea to action. It really was starting with that brainstorming of get it all on the page without judgment. These are, these are the ideas that have flowed coming out of that conference. Then we went through that exercise of, what do we want to do now and then, what do we want to do near and then, what is? That's neat, but we'll do it sometime in the future. That segmentation, because that allowed for you to be able to step. In and say exactly what you said. And that is, that's a now thing, we're booking it.

Clancy Denton  10:05  
And when you said, you know, going through and putting things on a page without judgment, that's hard for me to do. It is, I know,

Rick Denton  10:14  
because we get it, we talk about that something like, no, it goes on the sheets. I

Clancy Denton  10:18  
know. But that's hard for me, because I'm like, No, we're not gonna do that. I even put it down there. And you're always like, well, but we might, and so let's put it on there. And so well, that one is one that is is hard for me, that you're but again, that's how you've worked this whole time. And now I'm coming into this world,

Rick Denton  10:36  
and the theory behind it is the stupid idea, the crazy idea, the whack a doodle idea, and I use this all the time in business facilitation back in the consulting days, is it might generate a more sane idea. And I don't think I'm gonna put our listeners and viewers through it. But there is an idea that actually worked for a power company in Canada that was originally generated by, let's put honey pots on top of power poles so that bears will shake the snow off those poles. That's a ridiculous idea. It generated a actually functional good idea. Somebody riffed off of that. And so that idea of don't reject the crazy, because it might generate an idea. It also an example, sorry, now, monologuing here for a bit, but

Clancy Denton  11:18  
that that's okay today,

Rick Denton  11:21  
because the otter transcription is gonna show 80% Rick, 20% Clancy, the

Clancy Denton  11:27  
it's real life, people, that's what this is.

Rick Denton  11:32  
Pretty Unfiltered. We're not professionals, and we're not filtered. And the other thing I think that comes out of like this brainstorm exercise exactly that if we're going to work together, it's being willing to riff back and forth and adopt these different styles. Yes, you just said that. Okay, that's the style that you've kind of come into. But there's things that you're bringing to this that I'm adapting to, that I'm evolving towards, and that's shoot we could do an entire episode probably after, after we work together for a bit of, what does it actually mean to work together as a couple? Right now, we're just converting to action, but we're going to be working together, and there's going to be agreements and disagreements, and it'll be interesting

Clancy Denton  12:11  
to see how that goes. Yeah, I Yeah. It'll, it will be interesting. And it was, you know, we were, we'll get into we were with Tanner though, yesterday, and he we were filling him in on some of the stuff, and it was so fun to see him. That is so cool. I'm so excited for y'all. I really want this to take off for y'all, some different things that we were talking to him about. And, you know, he said he his friends before at ASU, they knew we had a podcast, but he said I hadn't mentioned it to my new friends. And he said I did, and they're like, your parents are so cool, like, all right, we got cool parent points, but, but it was just fun to see him light up and really, genuinely be excited and wanting to be I mean, he even said, When can I come on? When can I be a guest, wanting to be a part of it?

Rick Denton  13:11  
And that's that whole vein there of what does the empty nest look like through the eyes of the kid that is no longer in the empty nest and watching parents. If you're the kid doing that, watching your parents, are they just going to kind of sit around? Are they going to do things? And I'm not saying either one's better or worse than the other. Sitting around is quite nice as well. We

Clancy Denton  13:32  
do our fair share of sitting around. You

Rick Denton  13:34  
know what that? Here's what this move to action has really I'm not gonna use the M word. What has resulted from this drive to action?

Clancy Denton  13:45  
What's the M word manifest? Oh, not a bad word.

Rick Denton  13:50  
It's an overused word. Okay, come on. We watched an entire series that had that word on a different definition. When you start doing things, results start to happen. And it you don't necessarily know what, but there's a reason why. When we started putting actual pen to paper and making decisions to meet with people, to call people, to contact people, that suddenly inbound leads started showing up for the other side of the podcasting CX passport, live, right? And so it's that moved action. When you're in that idea stage, you get all excited about the results. Well, that's over here. That action flow that you have to get to, to get to those results is so important, and you gotta, you gotta just start it. Yeah,

Clancy Denton  14:39  
it was really, I mean, this week was really just amazing at how many things happened and nothing has solidified, but just the interest that we got from your podcast, our podcast together. Yeah, it was just. Really, it was a really amazing week. And I don't know if that is because we are now in January, and so everyone is back, you know. And so things are starting to, you know, happen. Or if it's just, you know, we have put it out there that this is what we're going to do. And I

Rick Denton  15:25  
don't, I don't think, I don't think it's actually a binary, either or. I think it's flavors of all it is, it is that, and not to make this just about our podcast, to make it about just, if you want results pushing to action, that's what we've seen here. It is that that move from the excitement to the boring stuff. And I mean, it's boring to I don't know there's tools for this, so nobody judge me for what I'm about to say, but it's the way I work. It's boring to retype data from a business card into a spreadsheet so that you can track it later. That's boring, and it actually took me a little bit to sit down and do it. The value though, in having done that allowed us to have a conversation where, like, you call this person, I'll call this person. We're gonna reach out to this I'm

Clancy Denton  16:13  
not calling anyone, but I'm emailing them sorry.

Rick Denton  16:16  
Contact this person, and

Clancy Denton  16:21  
it would be interesting if there's any couples out there. You know, we are now really stepping into this, working together, alongside with each other. We have some big ideas that we hope will come to fruition. But you know, if there's any couples out there listening that or watching that, you work together. We'd love to hear your feedback of how you've made it work. And, you know, it could be that you started working together before you even got in the empty nest, or, you know, we have just decided to do this, stepped into the empty nest. But yes, we'd love to hear from other

Rick Denton  17:02  
what have you created together as a couple? And it can be a business like we're talking about. It can be a creative product together. It could be the trip of a lifetime together. How did y'all because that it's that could. Man, you can tell that I've got something in my brain, that conversion to action, and it's not easy. It is. It took me a little bit to get from the yay to actually typing on a sheet of paper,

Clancy Denton  17:30  
yeah, but I think we, we didn't let it linger. We We got into it, and really,

Rick Denton  17:40  
let's see where it goes. Yeah, and there's another thing, and that's the same part we wanted to talk about today, is there's another thing that is exactly you. You're triggering that thought in me, and it is, don't let it linger. And we have, we had a really fun day yesterday, which may sound weird to folks when we say this, but we've started looking at real estate to specifically to move Tanner into, as opposed to paying rent in an apartment while he continues and wraps up law school. And we haven't looked at real estate, and I mean other than apartments, but I mean as far as you know, actually looking to buy and that sort of stuff. We haven't done the whole realtor thing and all of that and and we dabbled about it a bit. And finally, it was one of those of all right, we're home. We've got a Saturday. Are we going to do this? Yes,

Clancy Denton  18:32  
yeah, pick up the phone, and again, it shows you, I'll just

Rick Denton  18:36  
go and tell folks, you're going to see a lot more jump cuts this. We're not filtering ourselves like we're talking filtered, but we're not subjecting you to snap. So thank us later. But

Clancy Denton  18:46  
yeah, it did again, show you the genius of photography, because, oh my god, first house that was the one that kicked all of this off. You know, we wanted to really see it.

Rick Denton  19:01  
We were just trolling around. I shouldn't use that word to mean something different, but just messing around in the realtor app. Saw property. Thought, huh? That looks pretty good. Good location, right sizes, right bedrooms, right bathrooms. Man, that price is pretty good, huh? I wonder why? Why has it been on the market so long? We better go take a look. Now, with that setup,

Clancy Denton  19:23  
when we walked in, we could tell why I'd been on the market so long. I mean, the layout was funky, and again, like the pictures were so pristine. I was like, okay, that wall was white. Now, there's stuff all over. There's a pile of leaves on the inside so and Taylor was like, I live here. We're like, Yeah, all right, okay, but no, so yeah, it was, it was fun, and we had a good day, you know, with him and just doing that kind of stuff. But

Rick Denton  19:57  
none of it would have happened without moving to. Doing something, and it I'm gonna ask this question. You have always been the type of person that when we say we're going to do it, you move like you. That's something you talk about, that, whether it's like we joke about painting a house, you make the decision to paint a house. Boom, I go away for a weekend and it's painted or something like that. Or pick some choice that is a choice that you want to make, and when you've made it, it goes, Is this pace surprising you with what we experienced yesterday.

Clancy Denton  20:32  
Yeah, because, and like you said, I am the one. If you're like, Hey, let's go look at cars. Okay, I want the car that day. I'm driving off the

Rick Denton  20:42  
lot. Yeah, cinnamon tummy, yeah, yeah, I've

Clancy Denton  20:46  
kind of been the one more lagging this time. And I don't know, I think, because I don't want to, we have time. He has a place to live right now, if this doesn't work out, because we were trying to do this before he started school, but we just did not have the time or bandwidth to put into it. Now we do, and it used to be that we were talking about this yesterday, we went into an open house, a couple of open houses, if there were other couples or people there, you probably weren't getting that house a year or two unless you wrote an offer right there, right so it's not the market's not like that right now. So I feel like we have time, because I want to make sure that it is the right situation for him, but also for us, because we will this is an investment property for us. So now, you know, we had seen the ones we had seen yesterday, and Tanner was with us for a couple of them, but then he had something to do, so we met back up with him, and when we showed him the one that, you know, we probably was at the top of our list. He really liked it. So yes, we're going back down there today to let him see it, because I only videoed he hasn't been in it. So I think it's just, I know that he's already in a place that we're comfortable with, yes, we're throwing away money on it, but we don't have to, but we have we started. It's January. We've started early enough that we can take our time. Yeah,

Rick Denton  22:30  
it has certainly been interesting to observe you be the slower pace. Now this is fresh off of the presses, right? I was, you know, certainly sleeping last night, or, you know, when thoughts rolled through your head in the middle of night, last night, I found myself hesitating a bit like, you know, yesterday, yeah, and not in any sort of depth, like, this is real time conversation here, folks, yeah, it was one of those of who I really don't want to rush into it, like, I don't want to make a financial mistake. I don't want to. And then, then I waffled back the other way, and sort of, you always can sell something, maybe take a loss, or whatever there is. There is, in most situations, nothing actually permanent in this world. But it was yesterday. I don't know that I was ready to write an offer, but I was thinking, this is the one and and you find yourself getting caught up in the scarcity mindset, and

Clancy Denton  23:25  
that's yeah, which is because that's how it's been, but the but it's not, but

Rick Denton  23:30  
it's not. Except, let's talk the specific thing that we are talking about here is in a town home, ish, single family home, ish, community of a dozen properties in what appears to be a great location with some great building yada yada,

Clancy Denton  23:45  
yada, oh. Tanner was very excited about the location, because it's right, okay. Henderson,

Rick Denton  23:50  
his words were, yeah, oh, I'm gonna save a ton on Uber, yeah,

Clancy Denton  23:57  
yeah. I it's,

Rick Denton  24:02  
it is very and, you know, back to the whole action thing, it is very hard to separate emotion from logic. It really and then more. So even in the real estate space, there is something so emotional about where you live and when you see something that, and at least can say this, I didn't see anything that was like, we're not walking out of here without it wasn't that everything had a con associated with it. Okay, I don't know about that. Don't know about that. Don't know that that the it's just that thought of but what if someone else gets which is such a foolish thing, because this is a massive city, there is going to be a home that is the right choice.

Clancy Denton  24:46  
And what we had to, and I had, I think more keep interjecting, was we're not living here. Yes, he's living here now. And the one that you. Know we liked you. Were like, I would live here. I was like, okay, yes, but we're not living here.

Rick Denton  25:06  
I would. And that's, you know, it's funny about that. That's the one. I was like, Hey, let's set up a bedroom for us, and just, we'll keep a key, and you're on the third floor. We'll let

Clancy Denton  25:12  
you know. I totally would do that. I mean, that's probably gonna happen. I it's funny. You say you were in your sleep, or in and out of sleep. We're thinking, I don't know, I was thinking, like, okay, that table could go there.

Rick Denton  25:26  
So that's the emotion, right, of getting that

Clancy Denton  25:28  
but I also want, I'm hoping that we get to go. There's one house on the street that we had our first home on, and so I hope we do get to go inside of it today. That would just be so and

Rick Denton  25:42  
not just the same street, the same block, yeah, it is the same block, or five houses down from the home that was the first home that Clancy and I purchased. And it would just crack me up if that analogy in the right situation

Clancy Denton  25:53  
circle moment for sure.

Rick Denton  25:57  
Maybe he can meet the people that are in the house, and he can be that guy that's like, Oh, my parents put those shows because we did, yes, we did.

Clancy Denton  26:09  
Is there a lot of yellow cock all still around?

Rick Denton  26:13  
Everybody heard her correctly, caulk, C, A, U, L, K, yeah. No, I was not the best, still not but the best at installing some of that. So there was a lot of duct tape and bailing wire that is keeping that house together. I still don't know if that doorbell is ever going to work.

Clancy Denton  26:34  
I think it's just again. You know, we're just at a phase where we have time and resources that we're trying to create some things for ourselves and our children, and, you know, it's just, it's exciting,

Rick Denton  26:51  
it is and that's that makes it easier to move to action, because this isn't like some drudgery that we are forcing ourselves to have to do this is an excitement that we're choosing. We're choosing to grow the podcast and build a community. We're choosing to find a new place for Tanner to to reside in for the next couple years, or Yeah, or or beyond. But yeah, that's certainly the target. Okay, I know we're almost out of time here. I want to ask you a question.

Clancy Denton  27:26  
You've asked me a lot of questions for someone who has a

Rick Denton  27:32  
if you're looking at somebody that's got this excitement, this energy and that sort of stuff, what do you tell them to motivate them to move to action? I question.

Clancy Denton  27:43  
Well, in the terms of Nike, just do it all right, I don't know what else you would say to that. Like, I'm not gonna say, Well, think about it. No. I mean, you just had you, I like that. You have to take the leave of faith, if you you know that was the devotional that I'm doing this week is all about your imagination. And imagine what could happen if you took the leap of faith that sometimes we're scared to do. Yeah,

Rick Denton  28:19  
I what I like about the just do it, and hopefully we don't get copyright violations for that. We were referencing them. Yada yada. Fair Use. It's fair use. There's two layers to it, because my answer to that question is more on the second layer of what you're saying, but the first layer is what you were saying at the beginning, and that is no literally, just do something. What's the best way to start writing when you're really struggling to write something? Start writing. And so what's the best way to move to action when you're excited about something but just can't get started? Just get started. I think for me, the answer that question is, think about the what the result is, let the don't let the ex. The excitement of the inspiration certainly can stay there, but that, to me, that doesn't necessarily motivate to action. It actually holds me back from action, because I'm overwhelmed with the possibilities instead, what is the end result? What does that look like? And visualize that. Get excited about that. And that is what tends to motivate me to type into the spreadsheet or to do the boring stuff.

Clancy Denton  29:29  
Yeah? So hopefully we've motivated some people. If you've been sitting on something to, you know, go do it. Jump to action. Just do it.

Rick Denton  29:38  
There it is. Yeah. Jump to action. We'll say that instead of the other. And yes, Boy, I've got this cord just flopping all over the place. Yes, tell us about that, and we'd be happy to share that story on the show so that you can motivate us, and we can be motivated by y'all, well, kiddo, all right. We motivated?

Clancy Denton  30:01  
Do we motivated? I am today. I'll get my mojo back. That's

Rick Denton  30:07  
what a couple though, is about. Like, I listen to me. I've got way too much coffee flowing through me. I'm all energized. I'm I'm excited about today, that sort of stuff. You've got a little bug Wolf and all. I'll kind of leave the energy. And you could be the one, like, dude, dial it down, and then we'll flip the rolls sometimes as well. The beauty of being a couple, that's that's really what it is, the loud, quiet, living, empty nest.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai