Manifesting Optimism - We're Trying E47

Rick Denton  0:00  
don't feel old and Yes, anybody that's younger than 30 No looks at me and thinks I'm old. I get it, but I don't feel it. Yet there are times that my body decides to remind me, but you are.

Clancy Denton  0:10  
This is the loud quiet, living the empty nest. Hey

Rick Denton  0:15  
buddy. Welcome back to the loud quiet. This is episode 47. Here we are approaching 50. Like a lot of well, a lot like a lot of empty nesters are or have are approaching 50 So our episodes are creeping up closer and closer to our actual ages.

Clancy Denton  0:33  
As I said, we've already crossed Are you one of us has crossed 50

Rick Denton  0:37  
Oh, I like you're hanging on to that. Okay,

Clancy Denton  0:41  
I am Austin. I am right. I am 50 right now. So I guess I am technically technically crossed. 50 But whatever. I don't that stuff doesn't bother me.

Rick Denton  0:52  
No. And that's why it's easy to joke about in our house for sure.

Clancy Denton  0:55  
So yeah, so here we are. 47 it's um it's been a ride this these past few months. I guess now that we're now approaching August. You know, last week we were excited and we got our groove mDNS group back and then of course this week we about killed ourselves. Getting Taylor's apartment ready for him. He's on his way home two days,

Rick Denton  1:27  
on his second day of his drive home. And to be clear in the killed ourselves. This was not well, I guess there were a few emotional moments. But this was physical.

Clancy Denton  1:36  
That's what I'm talking. I

Rick Denton  1:37  
know. I'm really point of, okay, I don't feel old. And yes, anybody that's younger than 30 know, looks at me and thinks I'm old. I get it. But I don't feel it. Yet. There are times that my body decides to remind me, but you are.

Clancy Denton  1:52  
Well, and thank goodness, we hired movers. You know, I mean, there would have been no way

Rick Denton  2:00  
let's drop that brand name and yeah, because they were spectacular. No sponsorship again, but I think Dallas and Austin. Okay, maybe other placement afforded to Einstein movers. Yes. Holy, excellent. x rayed experience from purchasing the move to the post purchase brilliant.

Clancy Denton  2:16  
I mean, they had yes, they had the things moved to the truck wrapped down at tears apartment. They came they showed up here at 830 they were unloaded to his apartment by 11 o'clock I mean it was an

Rick Denton  2:30  
even things like the they we were introduced to our movers by name ahead of time had a bio written about that this company is clearly trying to make some sort of change. So this is not the episode about moving but it's very good so and we had even for a half a second said well you know I got a truck we can move stuff. You

Clancy Denton  2:49  
did. Okay, I

Rick Denton  2:50  
did not. Well, it was only a holy cow. There's no way that dresser could have gotten up that steep. incredibly narrow stairway

Clancy Denton  3:00  
I couldn't have gotten it down RS which is curved.

Rick Denton  3:04  
So many opps even though these guys that are strong, had some trouble, I heard some some F bombs.

Clancy Denton  3:12  
So if you are in an area that you need to move for that they were excellent Einstein movers so. But yeah, we were discussing as we usually do what we wanted to talk about this episode. And we were tossing some things back and forth and we came to realize that maybe we need to talk about optimism. And I love this. I love this picture of the optimism. The trapeze elephant is getting caught by a tiny monkey and the monkey does do so that's that you know what, that's actually a good little you know, there's times where one or the other has to push on the optimism side but Oh, between you and me Yeah. But this I like because they're probably both in tune with. I'm gonna catch that's right big elephant. That's monkeys got me you know. So that's actually a good kind of there's you know, this is we're not going to get a therapy session early

Rick Denton  4:21  
manifesting or that kind of stuff but there's so much truth to your own personal belief and optimism as to how it affects the actual reality that comes about and I'm not talking about some esoteric it you know, if you're optimistic about it, a lot of times you'll put the belief and actions towards making it happen. And

Clancy Denton  4:41  
I that I think has actually become a bigger focus for a lot of people now. And you know, I know a lot of people you know, say if you put it out into the universe, which you know, we consider our universe putting it out to God. But whatever your spiritual beliefs are, I do agree with you. I think that if you want something, and you know, I believe in manifestation, I think that you need help from others and from a higher power. But I do believe that if you change that mindset, it you can achieve it.

Rick Denton  5:28  
Yeah, I don't and see, I hesitated because there's some of the podcasts that I listened to as well, that talk about that quite a bit. And I'm not all the way there because, okay, even they will be the first to say why manifesting a cheeseburger. And of course, you know,

Clancy Denton  5:42  
it's not everything. However, there's

Rick Denton  5:44  
physical proof in the athletic world. When golfers talk about No, I visualize the entire course. And I'm imagining success on every hole, a batter's imagining hitting the ball of all the sport. And so there is something about tuning and honing yourself and your mentality towards a positive bent, which, okay, it's an emptiness podcast. That's really important. We talked about we talked about inside out, too, I mentioned that I thought that one of the emotions that should show up is, you know, I can't remember what I call cynicism. cynicism. Yeah. Well, optimism is the antidote to cynicism.

Clancy Denton  6:24  
Yeah. And I do think our minds, just the way they're wired, whether that be from an outside source, or was geared towards the negative, I think, you know, I think

Rick Denton  6:39  
it's something in our evolution in that, okay. There's all this positive stuff around me in the savanna. But there's the one negative thing, so I need to focus on that because it's going to eat or kill me. There was it's funny, we're talking about, we didn't plan this. On LinkedIn. Yesterday, yesterday, someone had posted about how why is it that we focus on the negative and someone does all of his like talks? And he puts for simple multiplication, one times three, one times four, one times five, one times, and he gets one of them wrong by design. And he says, okay, so what you'll notice about that 100% of the people point out the negative, not the fact that he got 75% of them, right.

Clancy Denton  7:19  
It reminds me here, I'll, I'll dumb it down a little bit. Because, you know, no, I mean, you went to like a business podcast. I'll take it to Fraser because I just always think of him on razors.

Rick Denton  7:32  
One of those intellectual

Clancy Denton  7:35  
TV show, as my life always goes back to TV is when he's riding the bike, and he doesn't know how to ride the bike. He's in the middle of the huge street, but there's that tree and he is so focused on that tree. And what does he do? He slams right into the tree.

Rick Denton  7:55  
Oh, my gosh, I hope I find that clip.

Speaker 1  7:59  
Sycamore, it's got a magnetic Hold on. That's because you keep focusing on it. Whatever you do, put it out of your mind. The more you think about it, the worse it gets.

Clancy Denton  8:08  
I mean, even you know, what meme did I send Tanner when we were going down to you know, move his get his apartment ready was, you know, the pivot seen from friends? Which thank goodness, again, we didn't have to pivot with that couch. But yeah, so you know, we just thought that we'd talk about optimism, because this, this has been the bummer summer. It has been a it has been Tuesday. For us people we know. I mean, you on top of I got sick, you got sick, you got pinkeye this week. I mean, it's just

Rick Denton  8:50  
I manifested the ultimate. Let's see, let me try to get a sickness that I haven't had since elementary school. I

Clancy Denton  8:59  
mean, it's just been an Ashley and I. I told her that I said it's just the summer of death almost. And it's not even all physical death. But your mom passed our friends that we talked about in several podcasts ago, their child went missing, their college aged child went missing. They have now discovered that yes, he he had a tragic death. That, you know, they had to wait for four months to get some sort of closure. And the way that I've seen both them and the grandmother who happens to be very good friends with my parents handle it on Facebook is where I've seen their optimism blows me away. They're they're turning this into a way to do help other people. It's just been incredible. Our neighbors are going through something right now that no one. No one would want to be going through a guy. I mean, it's just yeah, it has been just a bummer summer. And so yesterday, I was like, we need some just, and not everything has been bad. We had a great time. Oh my gosh container. outside

Rick Denton  10:22  
in. Yeah. We had a fantastic summer times. And that's I think that goes back to the mentality that we were talking about. And that is, it's what do you choose to focus on? And we're talking about our personal life or the things that intersect us as persons. I, I find myself that I have to take a news diet. I've always loved the news. Heck, in college, I was the kid that got the New York Times thrown at his college door, right. And so I I'm finding myself that I have to take a news fast and people talk about social media fast, because it sells I get it. So much of what you read there is negative because you don't report the positive news. Yeah, a dog was found today. That's not news. And so it's what you choose to sort of ingest and what's been experienced, what you are experiencing around you, just as the natural occurrence of life seems to have been very weighty.

Clancy Denton  11:14  
I think that goes back to what you said. What did you say it's been the evolution of our Oh, yeah, just mentality is that we don't always like it when other people when good things are going on for other people will be wrong. I know. But But that goes back to why is the first story on the newspaper. Something horrible, tragic, instead of the dog being found, you know, if it bleeds, it leads. What is the highest rated podcast genre? True, true crime? I mean,

Rick Denton  11:50  
I don't I don't listen to that. But yeah,

Clancy Denton  11:53  
I don't either. I've listened. I listened to a couple of them because they had to do with things in our area. But I don't. But that would be a very interesting study on where did that shift happen that way we got so wound up in wanting other people to fail, in spite of lifting each other up. Yeah, I don't I don't know. I just be. I'm

Rick Denton  12:20  
frozen. I don't I don't have an answer for Well, I guess

Clancy Denton  12:24  
that's if anyone out there has the answer. Please let us know why. Spotify

Rick Denton  12:28  
has comments now. So please put your comments there on the YouTube channel. Why do people hate people? Yeah. It's an Depeche Mode.

Clancy Denton  12:39  
So that is why we wanted to focus on let's get some optimism flowing some good just

Rick Denton  12:46  
well, and to the point of what do we choose to focus on? I will say that, man, it's an emptiness podcast. I don't want to always talk about the kids. But that's what we did the last week was getting his apartment. And yes, what we actually lead with even talk about the apartment, we lead with my gosh, we're so exhausted with it physically worse out, as opposed to, let's talk about what we did yesterday, after we finished, I pulled you beside me, put my arm around you briefly until we're both like way, there's way too hot, but had my arm around you. And I said, Let's just look at this. Let's just enjoy this for a moment because it looked so neat. And we were excited to know that this has been prepared as as a sort of a welcome back, and a chance for Tanner to start his next chapter in his life, that we didn't lead with that. And so that's the it's a choice. And I think it's important. I think it's important all throughout life. I think it's especially important as an empty nester because you have so much life lived, that you can look back and do you choose to recall the negative or do you choose to recall the positive and use that to feed the optimism of what you're focused on right now?

Clancy Denton  13:54  
That's an interesting question. Let me say, you know, we're both Yes. So excited to show Tanner's apartment because it it we're just really excited for him. That's an interesting question. When you recall things do you recall good thing or, you know, or it's those negative emanates those? It's the little balls and inside out the negative balls? Oh, let's kick that out of here. But then they pile up.

Rick Denton  14:26  
I don't know that. If you're asking me Rick or the gym? I don't know. Like speak to the general you but the me Rick part? It depends. It really depends a lot of times, and it didn't used to be this way. And this was perhaps a little longer point that I'm getting to. But a lot of times when people talk about no when I when I think about trips, I think about the memories I think about the positive I think about the great meals I think about the great views I think about the great things that we saw did experienced felt. I really do focus on the positive but I know But that wasn't always the case. Because frequently what do people when you ask them? How was your trip? Oh man has a great trip. Well, you wouldn't believe how long our flight was delayed. Why don't care about your flight? Yeah. What was your meal? Yeah. And so in that case, when it comes to things like perhaps jobs, or other aspects of life now maybe I may find myself trending more towards the negative. I remember the end of a job at JC Penney, perhaps more so than I remember the absolute delight that I still can visualize it sitting there in the pool at the Intercontinental in Hong Kong thinking to myself, Oh, my gosh, I'm in Hong Kong because of a job.

Clancy Denton  15:41  
Yeah. Yeah. So that's just what about you saying, all right, I'm gonna but first of all, I've just checked I have to do this. There that goes. You can leave that in because that right there shows? No, oh, okay. Yes. Sorry. lined up with the one

Rick Denton  16:00  
that will mean anything to y'all and audio.

Clancy Denton  16:03  
The microphone was in the wrong there are little prop mic that our nephew gave us was in the wrong spots. I had to fix it. And that's just reminds me of yesterday when you know, I'd gone. Oh, my gosh, done everything. gotten all the little decorative pieces put where I wanted. I went into his bedroom. I said, who moved this little succulent? Yeah, it's in the right spots, like, No, it's not.

Rick Denton  16:30  
And I can assure you, here's what I did. I lifted plant up in the air with my right hand. In my left hand, I had the wipe, I wiped it when I set the plant

Clancy Denton  16:41  
on the same spot. Anyways, we're not gonna get it, but we did survive that meeting. So I don't know, I think probably like you It depends on the situation. You know, there's definitely memories that pop up that make you feel you know, but and I think of myself as a I think of myself as a positive person, but I don't know, maybe. Maybe I'm I'm definitely the cynicism word definitely has infiltrated my our lives. Even more. So in the past, I'd say a year. Right. So I don't know, I probably need to work on that a little bit and be a little more

Rick Denton  17:33  
I will tell you that those are elements that are conversations that are part of my therapy conversations is trying to understand what is it about me that wants to have this sort of perfect picture in place? And what is it about me that, you know, needs to have all that that, that, Oh, that little piece of negativity or whatever is where the focus is. So there's elements there, so

Clancy Denton  17:54  
speak it thinking about the different aspects of the summer Tanner is dealing with, you know, he just left his home for for that he's been for four years. And that is probably in some sense like a Duff. He's grieving that life has ended. And now he is getting ready to start the next chapter. But he did. To spin it into a very nice loving, He's he sent us this text at again.

Rick Denton  18:32  
What are you about to do for about the negative of it? Okay.

Clancy Denton  18:36  
It was 420 in the morning. Luckily, Hey, y'all spin it. I was already awake. I had been for a while.

Rick Denton  18:47  
So he just he had said and yes for 17 AM. I apologize for texting this early for y'all. But I just page to the picture book. Tegan made me for made for me before I started at ASU and I'm genuinely sobbing. I love this family. So so so much. And it hurts to leave my full family. I've made an Arizona but I can't wait to see y'all.

Clancy Denton  19:07  
So that was just that was a very nice text to receive. And just, it's nice to be appreciated by your children. Absolutely.

Rick Denton  19:18  
And that's the exactly that of those are the things to focus on. Those are the memories that we could spend our energy around. You know, you and I have certainly grumbled end to end about the insanity of it seems like if the drivers out there, well, maybe I should stop focusing on that. And just remember that I've got a family that seems to love each other really, really well. And that's not a given. And I'm so thankful that we have that and

Clancy Denton  19:48  
yesterday, we the parents made a little Oh. And so we had to let her have a security officer. Let us Send a Tanner's apartment,

Rick Denton  20:01  
we'd left the clicker, I'll just say, so we're trapped.

Clancy Denton  20:06  
You know, and we were telling him where his parents were helping. And he even said, man, it's so nice to see good parents helping their kids out. Yeah. You don't know his story. You don't know anybody's story. So when even the guy checking me out at home with like, I was asked for your, you know, place and I said, Oh, no, we're, you know, getting our son's apartment furnished. And he, you know, he even say said, Man, that's so awesome that y'all are doing that. And I said, Well, I said, He has made us want to do that. If if I don't know that I would be doing all of this for a child who wasn't necessarily

Rick Denton  20:54  
Oh, sure, if they weren't appreciated, or if they were part of. So you would, you would approach that differently. And even even as difficult as it was, this is sort of where we realized how we do have a great family unit, in that. Even when we were dealing with the security aspect of it, you and I both thought, My gosh, we're having to go through such hoops where his parents, and everyone who was one of us had the epiphany of Well, wait. He's an adult. Now, we know that we have a positive relationship with this adult child of ours that wants us in the apartment. What's this doing that? Not necessarily? There's a lot of kids that are just young adults or adults. So be like, Hell, no, don't you let my parents in my apartment? And as

Clancy Denton  21:39  
inconvenient as it was for us? We were glad to see. Okay, good. There is it is high security to be let in. So

Rick Denton  21:50  
yeah, I would say so. You know,

Clancy Denton  21:51  
though, and I just had a thought, as we were talking, as I was talking about the positive reinforcement we've gotten from random people. I think getting a little bit of judging us from people that I that I know, about. You're doing this all, you know, it's so it's interesting. I just had that thought that these random people that I don't even know think that it's great, and that we're so loving and kind and then people that I do know, our are being a little judgy about it.

Rick Denton  22:29  
Is it because they think that we're stunting his independence?

Clancy Denton  22:34  
I don't know if it's that as much as we are setting him up nicely. I'll just say it that way.

Rick Denton  22:44  
Well, you know, and first of all, it's nobody else's business. Right? Oh,

Clancy Denton  22:48  
what did they say on your own? Luggage your own paper?

Rick Denton  22:52  
I've been I've I've had similar thoughts about that. Are we are we over indexing on setting them up too? Well, are we over indexing on not? We're doing it not him that sort of stuff? I for me, it definitely comes back to he just physically wasn't here. And there's not the time. And so there's either either we do it, or he somehow stumbled into law school without an apartment. So I've come to that comfort level. Regardless, that's a discussion between you and me. Right. So nobody else needs to know. offer their opinion well enough. Are there? Yeah.

Clancy Denton  23:27  
I don't have to listen. I just had that thought. That's an interesting.

Rick Denton  23:33  
Are you gonna stay optimistic about it?

Clancy Denton  23:34  
I'm totally optimistic. I can't wait for him to see his apartment and how it is I? I would move into that apartment right now.

Rick Denton  23:42  
What are you saying?

Clancy Denton  23:49  
I would move into that apartment with

Rick Denton  23:51  
Oh, thanks. nicey. Nice. Well done. klancy. There was a lot of delight. No, I don't want to talk about it too much more. But there was a lot of delight and in your eyes, with the shopping and the buying the things and setting it up and making sure that yes, that succulent was in the I can't I can't even say the word. I don't even know what a succulent is. These days? Yes.

Clancy Denton  24:13  
Yeah. But it gave us a chance. Again, when you're in a smaller space with one person for eight to 10 hours in the day gave us a chance to start talking about some things and talking about where you see our future

Rick Denton  24:31  
as well. And that's it. So we've spent a lot of time here over the last few weeks. I'm not kids. Well, that's because it's summer they've been around and the transitions that were a part of. We've also we talked about getting the group back we also in less than a month we'll be back to there's only two people in our daughter's cat living in this house. And yeah, He's around here somewhere. I think. That's where we started talking about. Do we want to do something like we started this podcast as a way to just stay connected Well, something that people do. And you can hear the hesitation in my voice, it's our trepidation is what if we went into business together? And there's a couple of business ideas, that one, one thats related to what I do today. And it's been kind of helping events and conferences, amplify their experience through podcasting. And so I'd be the podcaster there. Well, there's a need to have people work with that as well, not just the person behind the microphone. Well, there's the thought of having you play a part in that. And you and I go into business together with this event, podcasting idea. And then there's this podcast itself and what that could look like and how we might be able to, to grow some things to be able to help other people, like legit help not just be entertained, but legit. Here's how to navigate this emptiness, life, and specific elements of it together as a business. And so, yeah, we're thinking about that as the next phase of going into business with each other. You better have a lot of optimism.

Clancy Denton  26:04  
Most businesses fail anyway, apartment will come in handy for one fail,

Rick Denton  26:09  
and then introducing the marriage component to it. This one though, we've got a there's a lot different thought behind it. Yeah.

Clancy Denton  26:17  
I mean, I we are at that stage right now. I don't, it's not really a fork in the road, but it's maybe downplaying certain things and elevating others. And

Rick Denton  26:38  
a fork, I think it comes down to something that we've woven through a lot of these conversations, and that is the desire for something new. Yeah.

Clancy Denton  26:45  
And, and since we are not physically going anywhere, anytime soon. I think you and I are just ready to focus our brain power on something new. Because we have enjoyed doing this so much. And you already enjoy doing you know, Rick has had his own podcast for thrash coming up on three years. And

Rick Denton  27:15  
we've already crossed that threshold. It's meant Yeah, so he's,

Clancy Denton  27:21  
I think we found the thing that we enjoy, we're just trying to figure out how can we make it work for us and and in the future, and we just need to and

Rick Denton  27:34  
work together and stay married?

Clancy Denton  27:39  
Well, we've done we've done this, okay. Unlike I alluded to earlier, we did just basically furnish a home together and didn't kill each other. So that included a key attribute and that included hanging curtains which you hate. So that included several add home trips, which you hate us. Well. I think we did. We did a good job. But

Rick Denton  28:04  
can we end on optimism, but that's what Well, I'm about,

Clancy Denton  28:07  
you know. So one thing that we did kind of get a little excited about or it was an interesting thing that happened a few weeks ago that you were reached out to on LinkedIn and by website. Oh, that's

Rick Denton  28:27  
right. Yeah. And so Baby boomer.org Baby Boomer Yeah, baby boomer.org And folks, we're not overstating this this isn't a sponsorship. There's no monetization here.

Clancy Denton  28:34  
And we are not baby boomers. Yeah, to be very good. We're not out of

Rick Denton  28:39  
the blue reached out by this organization. And it's a website out there. It's got a lot of resources for baby boomers. Hey, we'd like to feature your podcast on our podcast page. We are not the only one there are dozens maybe even hundreds of other podcasts there. But it just made me and then by extension when I was able to share that with you us feel good about okay there's something here were

Clancy Denton  28:59  
someone noticed. Yeah. Which always feels nice in any aspect of life and so

Rick Denton  29:04  
yeah, we'll put baby boomer.org down there in the link you're already listening you're already subscribing already telling your friends so there's

Clancy Denton  29:10  
our you know your your faces full on their little minds cut half

Rick Denton  29:14  
will have to work on their their graphics there

Clancy Denton  29:18  
Yeah, but our little our little podcast lives on their page which is nice. So

Rick Denton  29:24  
it's one of those that I didn't really have actually when I first got it we get all this a little bit behind the curtain jaw sorry maybe skip forward if you don't care that much about this but we get all sorts of emails and messages around Hey SEO promote your podcast you

Clancy Denton  29:41  
love your content I can help you build well and it's we crash trial of

Rick Denton  29:46  
your content the allowed it is so nice to hear your last episode title. And so I thought this was something suspect. It turns out it was real and it's nice to just be noticed and and I appreciate Being able to cross links with baby boomer.org

Clancy Denton  30:02  
it we had already been in discussions about trying to make this toolkit up. Okay, there you go. And I didn't want to use the word elevated again. But so this was a nice little okay, maybe there is a place for us to really.

Rick Denton  30:24  
And I started to not even about the monetization I gotta I want to be very clear about that this is about is there an opportunity to for us to engage with a community with an audience that has already started by y'all. For us, to learn from them and them to learn from us and to build a community together around the loud quiet so that all of us can live this emptiness in a way that is great,

Clancy Denton  30:47  
I think at age 51, and 50. We have found what we really enjoy doing. And as I nod and now that we are empty nesters, we have a little more freedom to explore what we have found that we really enjoy and

Rick Denton  31:06  
explore and get better. And maybe we suck at it.

Unknown Speaker  31:11  
I don't know what we do.

Rick Denton  31:12  
I can tell you that. Well we do as compared to what it'll look like 40 What are we 47 more episodes after this. We Episode One was we're not professionals. We're still not and I don't think we ever will be. But let's we're going to get better because we're having fun.

Clancy Denton  31:32  
And we'll see where it goes. And we love for y'all to come along on the ride with us.

Rick Denton  31:36  
Tell us where to go kindly with Optimus. Let's

Clancy Denton  31:40  
just keep keep sharing our podcast as many of you do. And just we do this for us as much as we do it for y'all too. So we

Rick Denton  31:52  
definitely started it for us. We've enjoyed making it beyond the US.

Clancy Denton  31:58  
There Yeah, we'll see where it goes. And we're going to be optimistic about it. Yay. This has been another episode of the loud quiet living the empty nest

Transcribed by https://otter.ai