Category Archives: Blog Post

Clinic Care Experiences

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I recently had an unsettling experience with Dr. Yoo at the Cary Endocrine & Diabetes Clinic. Dr Yoo prescribed testosterone replacement therapy. Suddenly, several months later, I was informed by a phone message that Dr. Yoo had changed her mind and would not renew the prescription and was withdrawing my patient treatment. The distressing part was her decision seemed based, not on science and medical ethics but on her emotional stance shifting to “I don’t feel like treating you any longer,” I was told to find another healthcare provider.

The clinic’s administrative process also left me baffled. They accepted a referral without first obtaining Dr. Yoo’s authorization, even though she usually treats patients with testosterone replacement therapy. Furthermore, her staff physician, Dr. Weir, prescribed testosterone replacement therapy under Dr. Yoo’s signature. Later, I was told Dr. Yoo regretted allowing this to happen. Both of these errors occurred due to poor leadership and inadequate staff direction.

The abrupt cessation of testosterone replacement therapy, particularly for a patient with hypogonadism like me, isn’t just a matter of changing medication. It impacts the body significantly, leading to a host of physical symptoms. More than that, the mental anguish, fear, and confusion caused by such a sudden and unexplained withdrawal of medical care has been extremely distressing.

I have been ghosted in my requests for copies of all medical records and now require legal action to obtain records for a referral.

I urge potential patients to be cautious and ensure clear communication when seeking care at Cary Endocrine. My experience speaks to the importance of patients advocating for their health and ensuring their doctors are aligned with their best interests.

To bring awareness to your experience at the Cary Endocrine & Diabetes Clinic, leave a comment.

 

Escape Pretirement Become a Zoomer

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How I escaped pretirement to become a zoomer at heart began by implementing one of the first commandments recited as a 5-year-old in order to attend kindergarten, “Stop, Look, & Listen, before you cross the street.”

Now, to stop has not been one of my strong suits. I am more often, ready, fire, aim.

Rather than enshrining myself with some label, I accept and encourage my tendency to be easily distracted by shiny objects arising in my field of vision. That has always been my source of wonderment for what might lie just around the next bend in the road. Perhaps it’s part of why some folks don’t care what is on TV, they just want to know what else is on TV.

Rather than stop, however, the best I can do is slow down. A productive way for me to slow down is to go for a long drive down some back-country roads while I think. I always feel I am accomplishing something while I am conjugating life. Rolling past fields and woods with little traffic while I think releases some creative potential otherwise not seen by sitting in quiet contemplation. This eyes-wide-open meditative state while taking in scenery has led to many aha insight moments that simply astonish me as to their source.

So, before I stepped off to cross the street in this pretirement journey, I drove and thought for hours and hours. I recorded unabashed thoughts on my cell phone and transcribed them. It became a formidable collection of thought snippets, scribbled napkins notes, quotes from books, messages from friends, and at least a gazillion favorite webpages carefully stashed by topic. Add to that, hundreds of created word documents with poignant titles sorted simply by month and year as well as copious journal posts, blogs, letters to myself and messages to friends. Other writers have confided to me that they too cast a cacophony of notes on a wall and then search for some melody of meaning.

The desired outcome was to arrive at a destination with a cadre of recorded history that would outline just how I had gotten to this point in my adventure. I wanted to look back to determine what goal and activity had led to my success that would benefit other baby boomers determined to reroute their potential.

My goal, in the beginning, was to simply look and listen. To look and listen to how I had gotten to this crossroad in my life. Endorsing that my past was merely a part of where I’m headed, while extracting the good and the bad, knowing that it took both to create the journey thus far. The subsequent goal was to then attempt to predict the best direction forward, making this part of the journey the best adventure of my life to date.

Looking back with 20/20 vision, I can now confidently say I have reached a condition in my life that I consider the best I have ever experienced or even imagined.  That comes with some weight because the result I have today is, to a large extent, the payback from the work in applying three words that have formulated much of my life; Clarity, Focus and Concentration.

Initially finding clarity meant deciding what I wanted the next stage of my life to look like. It meant answering the question “what if”. What if the future could start with a clean slate? What if small steps could take me to a destination I had only dreamed of?

I knew for sure I would never find out if I didn’t try. My initial onslaught to a new beginning required taking a break from the daily habits that keep us numb to change. To move forward demands we answer the question, who are you and what do you want?

Have you knowingly stepped off in a totally new direction that required you to identify some part of your potential and then redirect your focus?

Escaped Pretirement to Zoomer

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How I escaped pretirement to become a zoomer at heart has been an evolving process.  It began with a written description of my vision for the future over five years ago. Repeating successful goal setting techniques from the past, I began to take the steps to make the next part of my life-journey the most incredible yet. It is said that if you want to change your life, you must change your life.

The last five years have certainly been life-changing. By the time you reach the seventh decade, change has become a welcome friend whether you like it or not. My perspective on change was highlighted by one life-lesson experience.

Many winters ago, after surviving several hours of white-knuckle, zero-visibility, night driving conditions, I discovered a secluded motel in the mountains of upstate New York that resembled something out of a Psycho vintage movie scene. Of course, like the movie character, I was oblivious to any life-altering moments that might lie ahead. I was finally just able to feel some relief; relax my shoulders, stretch my fingers, and proclaim OK, I’m going to be safe, warm, and dry.

While unpacking only enough to support collapsing into bed exhausted, I ignited the rabbit-eared screen in the corner to glean some local weather conditions. I was amused that the preordained channel happened to be a B&W TV movie.

The scene was a man and woman who had not seen each other in many years. She is saying that he looks the same after all these years and she thinks she has barely changed herself. She then asks if he thinks he has changed. His response was one of those quotes that ring true for all the years to come. He simply said, “Change is the only evidence of life.”

I recall being stuck with the importance of the moment and writing down that message. Since then, I have referred to it repeatedly over the decades and chimed it many times to my kids.

Change is the only evidence of life!

For the first four decades of my life, I welcomed change. I couldn’t wait to grow up, get a driver’s license, get out on my own, travel, have kids, have kids grow up and leave home. The older I got, however, the more rigid I found myself becoming.

I discovered that I had boxes and boxes of “shoulds” tarnishing my thinking. People should think and behave this way. The world should get better. Younger folks should treat older folks a certain way. On and on it went. I found myself reenacting my parent’s mantra of “the good old days”.

Now, I’m a positive guy. My kids refer to me as Mr. Positive, half with respect and a half with OK, DAD. How I managed to hold that outward appearance and feel like an imposter inside is a whole other story. What I came to surmise, however, after I decided to stop “Shouldn” myself, was both enlightening and encouraging.

I came to a fork in the road. One direction was going to take me down a well-known prescribed route that would resemble the archaic pathway many elders advocated.

The other fork would take me to uncharted, I have little to no idea what is going to happen territory. I am so grateful I made the decision to be bold.

What decisions have you made after retirement that have taken bold steps to begin? What one thing can you look back on and say, I am so glad and proud that I did that? It has brought much happiness.

Brian Tracy Interview Outtake 1

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I was introduced to public speaker, author, business and personal development expert  Brian Tracy in 1986. Since then Brian has published some eighty-four books and numerous business courses that have been translated into many languages around the world.

Brian and I sat down in the Boomer to Zoomer studio recently to discuss three broad topics of interest to baby boomers; What Brought You Here? What’s Here Like? Where Are You Going? This is an outtake from that interview that covered such questions as; What part of your youth are you proud of? What would you go back to change? How has resistance been an asset to a lifetime of development?

Leave a comment on how Brian Tracy’s insights have impacted your thinking and any questions you have as a baby boomer wanting to move forward and take new directions in life after normal retirement age, what many are calling “pretirement”.

Job Hunting for Young Adults – Five Hacks to Make the Most Money.

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Job Hunting for Young Adults

Five hacks to make the most money.

Using:

Kindergarten Circles and Third-grade Math.

I want to talk to you about the most important job you will ever have in your life, You Inc.

  • How many of you think you work for yourself? Either you will work for your goals, or you will work for somebody else’s goals.
  • How many of you think you are in sales? How many want to drive your parent’s car? How many of you want your own car? How many want to stay out later than your parents allow? How many have ever asked for a date? Then you are in sales. Sales is the transfer of your belief in yourself to someone else.
  • By working for You Inc, you are the product. You are the president. You decide on the business plan for your success. You decide on the job description. You decide on the bonuses.

I want you to treat goal achievement like your most important job in your life and take it seriously.

The reason I know that these will help you earn more income and have a happier supervisor or boss is because I had to learn these hacks on my own in high school and used them to reach my goals. I was forced to develop these because I started in the half of the class that made the top half possible. Even if you are not now, you can still finish high school in the top 10% by applying these simple techniques and hacks.

Dreams without goals are simply wishes. It is the burning desire that changes a wish into a goal. As a teenager, I didn’t want to be in a classroom. I wanted practical knowledge that would earn money. Money meant freedom to me. Freedom meant that I could come and go as I pleased. It meant owning a car. It meant I did not have to ask my parents for money.

In my junior and senior year, I finished school each day at noon. I owned my car. I always had money in my pocket. I always had gas money to take my friends places in my car, so we could play see and be seen. I worked nights in a hospital that gave me three credits each year towards graduation and I got paid for it. You see, that was my dream and I achieved it through setting goals and developing the hacks to make my goals materialize.

Goals

Webster says a goal is: “the end result toward which effort is directed”

Most people have three top goals:

  1. Health goal – not to run longer, sleep less, but to look better, feel better, be lighter, have bigger muscles, to not have skin problems and to look good in clothes.
  2. Money goal – Most young adults want to earn enough to buy a car, have a new phone or a fashion watch, cool shoes, cool hair, money to flash on a date. I wanted to live on my own, without my parents, brothers and sisters.
  3. Relationship goal – Is your goal to have; a girlfriend, boyfriend, any friend, respect from others, your parents to express that they love you? Most teenagers often just wish someone would love them.

Action Circle

Keep goal achievement as simple as possible. It starts with drawing a kindergarten circle.

Action Circle: GAREW

Why are you doing what you want to do?

What are your Goals to reach your why?

What Action steps are you going to take?

What are the Results from your Actions?

Evaluate your Results to achieve your Why

To begin the process, break into the circle at the Why. What do you want tomorrow to look like when you wake up? What does your bedroom look like? Your bathroom? Your kitchen? Your car? Your house? Your yard? Your office? Your bank accounts? What are you wearing? Who are your friends? Your spouse?

The Trilogy of goal success.

Brian Tracy, best-selling author when it comes to goal achievement repeatedly writes that the trilogy of goal success is found in Clarity, Focus, and Concentration.

Here is why.

  • You must take responsibility to make your own goals. No one knows enough about you to decide other than you. Only you can be clear on what you want.
  • Remember the importance of words. Words are concepts. Clarity of concepts provides clarity of words. Words provide the clarity for focus and concentration.
  • Clarity provides measurable results. What gets measured gets done and improved.
  • Clarity helps you decide which of the 50,000 thoughts per day that go through your mind are the important ones.
  • You have only so many attention units or bandwidth with which to deal with daily events. Clarity reduces stress of not knowing what to do next.
  • Taking responsibility gives you focus on what needs to be done each day. You are the president of your own company: You Inc. The buck stops at you. You may hire yourself out to the highest bidder. If you want to earn more income, make yourself more valuable by offering better service. Learn more, learn faster, and make a lot of money.
  • Once you have clarity and focus, concentrate on the next thing that needs to be done today and do not do anything else until that is complete. Either you achieve your own goals or you work for someone who has you achieving their goals.

The measurement of success is how well prepared to win you are, not your desire to win.

  1. Clear goals give you focus

Applying effort to an unclear goal is like aiming an arrow with your eyes closed. Even if you are prepared and apply the best effort the chances of hitting your target are very low if you do not have a clear target. It becomes pointless and uses up attention units for no results. You can have all the potential required and still end up frustrated.

  1. Clear goals are measurable

Happiness is the progressive realization of a worthwhile goal. To determine success, we need to measure the progress. How far away is the goal? How close are we to completion? Some goals are measured in dollars, some in time, some in a level of contentment. A journey of a thousand miles in twenty hours means going fifty miles an hour. Each hour means we are getting closer. If you had no watch or speedometer, you would have no idea if you had time to stop for fuel or food. So rather than panicking every minute, measure the time and distance to be prepared for all the things that life can throw at you to distract and disrupt your accomplishment. Having a measurement gives you options and choices.

3.Clear goals avoid distractions

It is called the shiny object syndrome. Have you ever seen a fishing show where they film the fish looking at a lure and about to strike when suddenly the fish is presented with another lure just slightly off in another direction? What happens is this fish stops and become indecisive. It does not know which one to go after. I once had an Army supervisor give me instructions on what he needed to have done. Shortly after I started, he returned to say stop working on that project and start working on this project, so I did. Several minutes later he came back in and gave instructions to work on a third project. I simply put down all the projects and waited. It wasn’t long before he returned with the newest instructions. He realized he had sown confusion and said, wait until I get clear directions and then I will be able to give you clear instructions. Once the goal was clarified, I could apply focus and concentration to complete the assignment in record time. Like the fish, my mind could not complete the tasks until it was clear from distractions of all the other things that could be done but were not the most important. Setting clear goals with focus gives you mental boundaries.

  1. Clear goals motivates to get started now

When you look at two tasks, your mind will automatically be attracted to the one that looks easiest. When all the ducks are in a row it takes less effort to start. Less effort means easier to get started, which means less procrastination. So, the task for the goal that is clear and in focus, will get started sooner. Clear goals defeat procrastination. Goals need to have a daily “most important think”. In other words, what you think about gets done. When you have a daily “MIT”, it is more enjoyable and you finish faster, and, have a better feeling for your accomplishment. Each accomplishment builds higher self-esteem and leads to more tasks being completed in a day. Use the affirmation: What’s the best use of my time, right now?

  1. Clear goals supply the force for motivation

All goals need to be tied to reasons. Without a reason, you are in for a season, some say. The results of your action on a goal need to be measured against the reason, or objective, or value that you want to achieve. A game needs a goal post. That post in life are the values you hold most dear to your mind and heart. The reason provides the motivation. It is the discipline that takes the effort.

Hack Exercises:

  1. What do you want? Exercise for students. What do you want? What do you really, really, want?
  • Write down every single idea you have, no matter how big or small.
  • Always carry a notebook.
  • Find a list method that works for you. Doodles, bullet-points, charts, send yourself a text or email, record your thoughts, what suits you best?
  1. Make a list of small, manageable tasks to complete every day
  • Mark off every completed task you’ll find making each tick very satisfying – The feel-good dopamine hormone is released every time you complete a task and check it off your list. Make it a habit of creating and checking off items on a list.
  • Make your goals measurable so you know if your plans are working
  • Set far off, outlandish goals. What do you want to have achieved by 2020? How about 2050?
  • Include personal goals in your lists, not just business or career
  • Share your goals only with others who can aid in your achievement. You can help inspire each other further. Do not share with those who ridicule or discount your goals. You have enough negative thoughts in your own head. You do not need any help criticizing your ambitions.
  • Find positive role models – peers-plus. Find those who have done what you want to do and learn from their steps.
  1. Take Action!
  • Any action! You just need an idea to act upon. A journey starts with a single step.
  • Are you moving in the direction of your goal, or the opposite direction?
  1. Measure results
  • Celebrate your successes then make new lists of new goals as you measure against what you wanted.
  • Continue your education. Learn from what did not go the way you expected. Try another direction, rather than give up. Remember; goals in concrete, plans in sand.
  1. Set new goals
  • What do you want to see from this job; training, advancement, stepping stone, leadership?
  • Ask your boss for input as to how to provide the best service to them and the company, that is in alignment with your goals? Give them a report of what you have accomplished each week and ask for help in areas you think need improvement.
  • Make sure all goals aline with your values and ideals.

If you have questions, leave a comment. I will respond.

Hyco Lake Magazine

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Having both time and money has been a major focus of my business career. The reason being is that I love to sit in an Adirondack chair on the bank of a lake and enjoy the clouds passing by. A recent article, written by Meredith Bernard, describes the life purposes that can materialize from being able to relax and think about one’s future.

Pretirement – Is it Real?

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Baby boomers take pretirement by storm. Is it real?

Since 2011 10,000 baby boomers have turned sixty-five every day. This has caused the landscape of our social fabric to change dramatically. It is becoming increasingly clear that boomers do not want to act their age. They may not know exactly what they do want, but what they don’t want, is to be called “old” or “senior”, or even “retired”. Terms like, “reinventing” “second act” are being heralded as descriptions of the activities that baby boomers use to spend their time.

Pretirement seems like a better term to describe this period between when adults stop contributing to their retirement plans through deductions and yet have not started to draw down on their savings on a regular basis. This is a new state of adult life that marks the transition from a profitable occupation to a profitable avocation.

Many economists and financial planners see pretirement as a conflict that must be surmounted.  Pretirement to them means:

  • The act of planning for early retirement and
  • Planning to avoid probate
  • Planning for long-term care
  • Making sure your money lasts as long as you do

Ok, then what? Let’s face it, financial planning should not take more than a few hours out of each year to stay up to date.

Others are looking more at the social implications of the pretirement years and how a new mosaic of priorities and time management emerge. In all of these, rethinking is a common requirement.

Pretirees are really saying, hell no, this is not another time in my life that I am must drudge through to get to retirement. I don’t want to surmount this. I want to actively enjoy this.

They see pretirement as a period when the kids are, mostly, on their own – man is the only animal that lets the young back in the nest. They have done the twelve-hour work day when you include transit time and dealing with kid’s activities. For too long, they have sacrificed for others. It is finally their time. Once the kids are out of the house, they are ready to enjoy life again. it’s like when the last family dog or cat goes to animal heaven and you decide, I have picked up enough poop and changed enough kitty litter for one life.  Many boomers just don’t want to be home by a certain time anymore to look after pets. They want to enjoy their new-found freedoms.

Pretirement is the time to move past the reflection of what have I accomplished, and on to where can I make the biggest difference with my talents, and expand my horizons of creative life and lifestyle.

The sheer number of baby boomer pretirees transitioning into the next state of existence has led to an entirely new financial economy with tremendous entrepreneurial requirements, the “longevity economy”.  Many of this newly defined cohort are actively looking to expand their contribution to society as well as exploit their wisdom to work for themselves. Pretirement is a time for a second career for many of those leaving the workforce, with one-third of new businesses being started by those over the age of fifty, per the research by the Kaufman Foundation.

The advantages that the current pretirees, the baby boomers, bring to the table to start a business career after leaving an employment career are multi-faceted Including confidence, experience, wisdom, financial security, basic business acumen, clear goals, and the ability to work with others, just to name a few.

One thing is for certain. The pretirement baby boomers are itching for new input on many intellectual fronts. They are staying curious and looking for answers to problems they see in the world. They want information and they want to learn. They see their next 20-30 years as a great adventure and they want to participate to the fullest.

If you are in that cohort of baby boomers who are creating a new beginning, we want to know what has driven you to begin again? What has inspired you? Where, and how, have you gotten new skills that you needed to create your new raison d’etre? Not only do others need to hear your story, others will be inspired by your challenges and successes. Remember, leave the woodpile higher than the way you found it.