About

Guest Co-host:  Bill Hughes:  w.hughes@verizon.net Transcription:Kris Parsons00:03Welcome to changing the rules, a weekly podcast about people who are living their best life and how you can figure out how to do it too. Join us with your lively host Ray Loewe, better known as the luckiest guy in the world.Ray Loewe00:15Good morning, everybody, and welcome to changing the rules. The podcast that's designed for the luckiest people in the world, and showcasing other of the luckiest people in the world who do a really good job of dealing with rules. You know, all through our lives were handed a series of rules by people that kind of want to exert control over us for some reason. early in life, we get our parents who make us rules, then the schools make us rules, the church makes us rules, our jobs, make us rules. And you know, one of the problems with rules is that they're necessary. But when you're living your life under somebody else's rules, you're not living your own life. So the luckiest people in the world are really good at dealing with rules, and changing them and making them work for us. So today, we have a little different kind of program, we're gonna introduce Bill Hughes in a moment. And Bill is going to be our co-host for the month of October. And he's going to help us bring in some interesting guests to showcase as the luckiest people in the world. And Bill did something. He's going to put my back up against the wall today because he decided that he was going to interview me, and I have no idea how the heck this is gonna work but Bill Hughes say hello, hello. Okay. And Bill Hughes is a longtime friend. He's been on our podcast many, many times. And he is a coach and has been a coach for a long time, I've known Bill for 30 plus years, he's been a mentor to me, He always comes up with great ideas, and he's had great insight into life and the meaning of life. So Bill, how do you want to do this? Well, I guess the best way to do it is just simply to start and that's to open it up, I actually want to kind of go through a few areas, I don't know, I believe we're going to probably end up splitting this up a little bit. Because again, interviewing the host of a show is a little bit different than interviewing a attendee or somebody who had who is part of the subject matter of changing the rules.  But by the way, Bill behave because I'm going to get even with you. Yeah, I'm sure you will, I'm sure you will. But that, you know, we can deal with this, we can deal with it. So in looking at, at what this whole process or what this whole program attempts to do, and how it does it, the thing that attracted me to it originally was the fact that I agree, I think that people should control their own lives and have some direction in that. And I know that there's a great deal of reticence about doing that simply because everybody's got responsibilities and things that holds them back from doing what they really want to do. And ultimately, they get to the end of their life and hopefully they've done it. And if they haven't done it that I guess the regrets are profound. And hopefully, by participating in this community, that Ray has set up, we can attract people that believe that they have something in them, but don't know where that is. But to do that, I think that I'd like to examine a little bit further, exactly how Ray got started. Because if we go back over the years, when did you realize this was the direction that you wanted to take your focus? Well, it took a while and I'm not. You know, I guess what you're saying is when did I become conscious of what I want to do, and uh it occurred over a period of time. And this is true by the way of most people who consider themselves lucky because the answers don't occur immediately. So I started as a financial advisor I worked for 45 years in my own firm and dealt with a lot of great people. And the problem is that when we solve we're not just money problems. I mean the basic goal here was to have enough money to get kids through college and then have enough money to put away retirement money so that you can retire the way you want. And it's this comment the way you want that I think is the critical piece because One of the things that we found is that most people had problems of visualizing the future of visualizing a period of time after work when they were going to live life. And I think the way we were told this by our parents is these were supposed to be the golden years. And that meant that you had to have enough gold to be able to live life the way you want. But how do you know what that is? How do you put together this concept of, of what you want your life to be? Well, I guess the other question that always seems to come up is, is you may have some fantasy about what that might be. But other things seem to get in the way. I mean, folks have families they're responsible for, they've got jobs that they're engaged in, they have there just seems to be this, this notion that you can't break inertia, you know, you're kind of stuck on a glide path. And before you know it, 10 years have gone by. So is there is there a particular event that you've found that has or occurs in someone's life that that causes them to take pause? What would what would that? What would that look like? Yeah, actually, there are a couple of them. And that's a good question. So going back to my financial advisory life, okay, one of the things I noticed is that we found many, many people who had successfully put away money, they had a lot of money. And they, they complained every time we met them, that they hated their job, and yet they wouldn't leave. And the question was why? And I'm not going to answer that right now. Which is, it's there seem to be this disconnect, I hate what I'm doing. Okay, but and I have the money to be able to do anything I want but I don't. Okay. So somewhere in there, there's an indication that there's a comfort level, that people are comfortable with their past, they know what it is, you know, there's something about getting up every morning and going back to your work about hanging out with the people that you know, are there, as opposed to saying, I'm going to break from this and go into new. There's a second event, and this one really hit home. And this event didn't occur until about five years ago, by the way, and I'm a swimmer, I went to our National Senior Games, I did my swimming thing. And I met a guy by the name of John. And John was over on this Chinese carrying around this whole batch of metals. I think there were six of them. And five of them were gold, and one was silver. And so I went up to him because he looked older than me and I said, John, when did you win your medals? And how'd you do this? And I later found out in the course of things that john won his medals in the 100-104 age group, okay. And his medals that he won at 103. By the way, we're in the shot put, the discus, the hammer throw, you know events that I can even imagine doing. And yet, here's this guy, 103 years old. And by the way, one of his medals was silver. He got beat by a crummy, 101-year-old and one of his events. So so so the whole thing, when you look at this, and you start to think about this, is here's a guy at 103, who's living his life to the fullest, he's out winning medals and celebrating with his friends. And then your vision, the other group of people that if they're lucky enough to reach 100, are starting in a wheelchair in a nursing home somewhere. And I started thinking about, okay, so how did this occur? Where do you want to be? And how, how do you help people get here, where they're active, and they're involved? We don't know that we're going to live to the 100. But many of us are, okay. It's not a bad goal to aspire to, as long as you're not in that wheelchair, you know, and you're out doing things. The second thing that really occurred to me here, Bill was, you think about this if you're lucky enough to live that long. What are you going to do with all these bonus years that you get? You know, my parents lived into the early 70s. My father did. He didn't have a lot of time after he retired to make decisions and to enjoy life. But today, many of us are going to live longer and how are you going to utilize that life? What are you going to do with it? Are you just gonna sit around and play cards all day and wait to die? Or what's going to happen? Well thinking back about your swimmer? Did you ever have a chance to talk with him in any depth as far as when he started doing this and why this became a passion for him that carried him into his, I'd say years that go well beyond scheduled retirement? Well, I think um the answer to that is really know that I am an end-up discussion, no, but it did have enough of a discussion to realize that this was just part of his life. He, he just decided it long ago that he wanted to stay physically fit, that he didn't want to sit in a wheelchair somewhere or sit in a chair and let life go by. He wanted to be active. And the second part and this was obvious, he had a whole lot of people who knew who he was. So he had a friendship based around this. And in other words, this was just a piece of his life that he thought that was important. And he followed it. And I think I think that's the key is to understand what the piece of this life is for you. And then to follow it.  Okay so, I know you've the other thing that that's come up on a number of these calls, maybe not a whole lot, but a couple of them that stand out, in my mind, are people that hit a life event. Maybe they have a mild stroke, or they have a close brush with death, is this the thing that needs to happen for somebody to finally wake up and say, Hey, you know, yeah, the sands in the hourglass are going to run out. And if they do, and I haven't done what I wanted to do, I'm going to die with my song in me. You know, unfortunately, for many people, that is what has to occur, they don't move until some event occurs that says, hey, I have to take action. And the advantage of the people who are truly lucky is that they're able to sit down and do a little planning and a little bit of visualization and decide where they want to go on what they want to do. You know, there are so many things that you can do with life. And for a long part of our lives, work gets in the way work eats up 8, 10, 12 hours a day, five days a week, and it inhibits you from doing a whole lot of things that you might want to do. The key is to be able to visualize what are some of these things that you might want to do. And if you can't visualize them, to go on off and try to try different things, and get a feel for what you might want to do. And let your life expand. I think the tendency is for people to stay put to stay in a comfort level until an event occurs. But the lucky people don't do that they don't have to. But is the luckiest person a perception of somebody else looking at the results that you've gotten from some venture or some excursion that you've taken that turned into something a little bit more involved? Or is it really truly luck. I mean, I think in many cases, you make your own luck. And so the luckiest person to me is more of a perception it's me looking as an outsider into the results that they're getting from something that they discovered and decided to pursue. So how would somebody that's following a normal path, like you follow the normal pathway of being engaged in financial services? That was your that was your thing. That's the passion that you had, and you had a number of, of areas that were areas of focus. But during that time, there was something else that you were doing along the way that kept you engaged in something that allowed you to stay passionate. And ultimately, even as a financial advisor, I often looked at you as someone who was the luckiest person just by virtue of the results that you got there.  Yeah, let's, let's answer this in two pieces over here. So I think the first piece that you have to answer is what do we mean by lucky? You know, there are a lot of people who say, you know, I won a million dollars in the lottery is a lucky person, okay. That's not what we're talking about uh, but we're talking about is how people feel. there's a feeling here that makes you feel lucky. It's when all of a sudden your life is taking form that you feel like you're making progress. You're enjoying every day you're moving in a direction that makes you happy. And that's what we're really talking about. Now, now two if you can rephrase the question that you asked me I'll actually try and answer. oh boy, that now you're gonna have to try to remember something? Again, you're engaged in life activities, it's raising kids, it's making an income, it's paying bills is doing all these things. So what are you looking for during the course of those actions that allows you to stay engaged in a way that's, that's compelling and gratifying? Well, again, I'm one of the luckiest people in the world here, uh my old job being a financial adviser was to work with some of the greatest people in the world. These were, these were people that motivated me every day, when you sit down and you look at people who are dealing with all these problems that you're talking about, they're dealing with kids, they're trying to pay for college, they're trying to figure out how to make enough money to do things. But among the people that I happen to deal with, these were people that had some insight about what they wanted in life, and what was important to them. And, and, you know, although a lot of people would say, Gee, I want to travel, I can't wait to get my kids up to a certain age, the luckiest people incorporate their kids into their life in the future to they're part of their life, and they're always part of their life. But I think the difference is that they sit down and they start to think about what are the things that fascinate and motivate them? Okay, if you think about this Bill, wouldn't it be great to be able to wake up every morning and have on your calendar, things that you really, truly enjoy doing that fascinated and motivated you, and allowed you to expand your horizons allowed you to grow in life, as opposed to having your life become smaller and smaller and smaller?Bill Hughes16:58I think a lot of people listening to this might be thinking, so I make a list or what do I do? How do I go through the self-discovery to maybe reorient my path? Ray Loewe17:12Yeah, you  do make a list, among other things. So there are a couple of things and by the way, we have a book that we just completed writing it, it will not be out for a couple of months yet. But the book talks about the luckiest people in the world. And there's a planning process and there that talks about how the luckiest people get lucky. So I think one of the things that you do, first of all, is you sit down and you say what are the things that are working in my life, the things that I enjoy doing that work? And the idea is that you want to keep those going. And then you look at the things in your life that aren't working. And you say how do I stop doing these? How do I not have to deal with each anymore? And there's not a tried and true method of doing this. I just think if you work at it, it happens. Okay? This concept of lists and visions is absolutely critical to and, and probably even more important than that is whatever your list is, and your vision is now you need to constantly expand that and look for how do I keep it going. And you do that by talking to other people.Bill Hughes18:34One of the things I've noticed about a lot of folks that we've interviewed over time, is that they all seem to have one attribute that really sticks out in my mind at least anyway and that is they seem to have a gratitude for things or where does that play a part in this?Ray Loewe18:49Well, yeah, you have to understand you know, if you're going to do things that make you happy, I think gratitude is a natural part of it. But you have to take the time to make sure that you understand that you're lucky when things work for you and that you should be grateful to other people and you should be grateful for those gifts that you've been given. And the fact that you are just makes you feel happier and happier and happier and more and more grateful and it just grows it snowballs. So how would you build something like that into your process? Well, you tell me, what do you do? What? I'm going to turn the tables on you here. I figured it was only a matter of time. So what do you do? What do you do? Every day that makes you appreciate your day and makes you know when you're making progress in your life and when you're not what do you do?Bill Hughes19:48Well, again not to get not to stray too far. Because I think that at some point we will be breaking this into the next section which gets into a lot more depth. I think as far as precisely how to do that. But for the individual, I think that it's really an attitude thing, it's being able to look forward to things getting out of even getting out of bed in the morning, and looking around and realizing that you got a fresh slate, you got a chance to make a difference in something. And being able to, to, I guess, embrace that perspective. So how does Ray get out of bed in the morning? And what do you look at when you first get up?Ray Loewe20:30Okay, so you just hit a key point right there. And the key point is, basically, what are you doing to make life better for other people, okay. Because if you're totally selfish about this whole concept of being a luckiest person in the world, you're not going to go anywhere, you have to make a difference. And, and I think that I've seen too many people that I would not call the luckiest people in the world, who generally are content, they're generally happy. They're ambling through life, they're busy. But they're not doing anything that's meaningful. They're not doing anything that's driving them. One. One of the reasons why we're doing this podcast right now is that I get excited every week when I get to talk to a new and different person, and I find out what they're doing. And all of a sudden, I become energized. And I think the people that we interviewed become energized. And we find out that there are a lot of people out there that just aren't sitting on their duff. They are out there, trying to do some things for other people, and they get joy and happiness out of doing that. Just like they do get joy and happiness out of taking a cruise. So So part of this then has something to do with being a little bit more observant in life than just self-focus. You've got to be and you do this pretty well, in the sense that you're you seem to always have your eyes open for interesting people. Yeah, uh you know I've always felt this way I, you know, I've used an expression, a lot of Hey, Bill, you're an interesting person. You know, now in some ways, that's a backhanded compliment, okay. But the difference is I mean it, if I need somebody that interests me, or fascinates me, I want to know more about that person. And I'm going to keep digging into that relationship until such time as it goes the other way. And then you kind of phase-out of the relationship. And the whole key here is to continue to meet people that expand your horizon that make you think about things you want to do and make you excited about life. You know, when we're gonna have to break in this podcast a little bit, because we're getting near the end of our time, but we're gonna continue this next week. And when we continue this, one of the things I want to do is, is to talk about some of the mindsets that the luckiest people will have. Cause they are interesting, and they're unique. And they differentiate what I think the luckiest people are from others that are not. Sounds like a plan. Good so so let's, let's end this podcast right now. We're going to be back next year. Next week. Excuse me, I'm Bill Hughes is going to continue this interview. And we're going to probe into what makes the luckiest people lucky. And how can you I think we're going to expand a little bit and get into how can you join the community of the luckiest people in the world that can help you do this?  Sounds good. Okay, so Taylor, let's end this session. And we'll be back next week with another changing rules episode. Kris Parsons23:51Thank you for listening to changing the rules, a weekly podcast about people who are living their best life, and how you can figure out how to do that too. Join us with your lively host of Ray Loewe, better known as the luckiest guy in the world.