To Live List
What’s on your To Live List®?
I realized there was something missing in my life—not another to-do, and definitely not a bucket list. Because what happens when you check off every box and you’re still here?
To-do lists are useful, sure. But they’re about getting things done. And then what? Just another list.
A To Live List® is different. It’s about how you want to live—through the highs, the lows, and everything in between.
On this podcast, we explore what it means to truly live—and to be fully present in your own life. Come along for real conversations and a fresh perspective on how to shape your life.
To Live List
Living the Plot Twist: How Marne Dunn Reinvented Her Life
What if your next chapter wasn’t about slowing down—but about stepping up into a life filled with passion, purpose, and new adventures? Meet Marnie Dunn, a powerhouse from Southern California who’s flipping the script on what retirement should look like.
Born into a rich and complex family history, Marnie’s journey is one of resilience and reinvention. From breaking generational cycles to rewriting the financial narrative for herself and future generations, she offers a deeply personal and wildly inspiring take on life transitions.
Marnie isn’t just talking about change. She’s living it. From financial wisdom to hands-on community impact, she’s proof that retirement can be the most liberating and purpose-driven phase of life.
🔗 Tune in and rethink what’s possible for your next chapter!
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Hey, everyone, welcome to is the Live List. Hey don't want to miss this.
Delia:Hey everyone, welcome to the Live List. I'm your host, Delia Grenville. In today's episode, I'm sitting down with Marnie Dunn, who's in the middle of an exciting life transition Retirement. But don't let the word retirement fool you. Marnie's approach to this next chapter is anything but slowing down. She's been reflecting on her journey and, trust me, she's got some fascinating insights about life, work and how to navigate big changes. We're going to talk about what it really means to step into this new phase, not just financially, but mentally and emotionally. This conversation will get you thinking about your own life, whether you're years from retirement or right on the edge of it. So grab your favorite beverage, get comfy and let's dive in. All right, so I think we can always get going whenever you're ready. I'm ready to go. I think we're comfy now. I like how you're sitting. Do you do yoga?
Marne:I do yoga yes, Various poses, sometimes in a consistent fashion, Like when I get up I used to do four or five, maybe six different poses specifically for my back and mobility in my lower back and my hips. I don't practice. Years ago I practiced Bikram and I haven't practiced in a really long time, but I practiced Bikram for about 10 to 12 years, which was really helpful when I was running. I haven't gotten back into it.
Delia:Well, I mean, I think you're going to have a chance, but before we launch into a huge discussion, maybe I should introduce you. Hi everyone, this is Marnie Dunn. She hails from California, on the call, but we'll talk more about herself and her life and her journey and some interesting things that she's just about embarking on. I snatched Marnie up before she even had a chance to think about her. What next? Well, she has some what next? But I was like let me go before them because I'm really really eager to have a conversation.
Delia:You're one of two people that I know who is retiring this year and not retiring like we see in that commercial with the two older individuals. And you know they're playing Bonnie and Clyde with Daisy. There's some company that has them and they've got their little cotton tops and it's him and his girlfriend, you know, and they're having a good time, but they're in their 70s or 80s, right? I'm talking about retirement. You know, like in the whole freedom 50 sort of stage which a lot of us have aspired to or hoped for and maybe dreamt up but didn't do enough towards it, and you and another friend of mine are there. So I just think it's really cool to have a conversation with you now and then, hopefully maybe in a year or two from now, talk again. Talk about how the whole thing's been going.
Marne:Absolutely. Yeah, that would be lovely. I'm very excited to be here today on my first podcast speaking in this space of being retired. Yeah, absolutely.
Delia:So for your first podcast, then tell us a little bit about yourself. What do you want us to know?
Marne:I like you to know Well. So I was born and raised in California, in Southern California specifically I was born to. I'm the first child of my mother, not the first child of my father, who is 17 years older than my mother when they were together. My mother is of Dutch-Irish descent and my father is Black or African-American, born and raised in Southern California, and they didn't stay together and so I didn't have the opportunity of growing up with my father. My mother remarried when, I think I was about two, two and a half in there, and she remarried an Englishman who had four children. Then they later had my brother.
Marne:So there were, at one point in time, six of us all together and I was you know jokingly I say this the black sheep of the family. But I was the one who was, you know, was different. You know which of these things is not like the other. Who was, you know, was different. You know which of these things is not like the other? That was me. My little brother, when he was born, had blonde hair and blue eyes. So very different, very different than me.
Marne:But my mother didn't stay married. There was some physical abuse and lots of domestic violence in the relationship. It's really fascinating in that, you know, I had this experience of being with my mother and having her. You know, something had happened. She had been hit multiple times and she had grabbed my brother and I and and left and went to her mother's, my grandmother, my maternal grandmother, who abruptly, you know, called my brother's father and said come, get your wife Right. And so just being in this, uh, this time of you know that is your husband, and sending him back, sending her back, versus having having the sense of protection, uh, physical protection, uh mental protection.
Marne:Was it grandma who called, yes, grandmother, yes, my maternal grandmother. So her mother, yeah. So very interesting. And as I, you know, grew up I, you know, I learned, I, I. One of the things that struck me kind of going through this journey of thinking about the women in my family is the, what was handed down from the, from the. You know my, my grandmother being Dutch, you know from the Dutch side, you know of the family, good and bad, and what things that happened in her marriage, that she was physically abused, and then my mother was, you know, physically abused and that fortunately stopped with me. I haven't been in a relationship like that, but just really interesting to think about those things that get passed down generationally through women, right, and how does that shape who we are?
Delia:The maternal line, so just hang on for a quick second there. So you explained to everyone so far that your mom and dad didn't stay together and your dad's African-American. Did you know him at all?
Marne:I didn't know him as a child or an adult, I think I, cause I don't have any memory of him. So what I do know is I am now close with my siblings from from where we share a father, and so I've learned things, cause they're much older than me and so I've learned from them, like what you know, kind of what was happening and that I, I have a niece who's also older than me. When I reconnected with her on Facebook, she said I used to hold you all the time when you were a baby, like you know, I used to play with you. And I actually have a nephew who is like my cousin because he's four months older than I, am three or four months older than me, and we graduated from high school the same year, right, but I, you know, I grew up not, you know, not knowing him. I didn't get to know him until until, gosh, until I was in my forties. Honestly, so Wow.
Delia:So I'm just trying to catalog this for people, because I know we started off saying that we're talking about retirement. We're just giving you some of Marty's background. Marty's background and, as you can see, from the beginning I think in the beginning of retirement or actually even preparing for retirement, as you said you know there's been a lot of self-reflection and processing to try to figure out whether or not you're ready for this move. I think that's where some of the energy and some of what you're shared with us is coming from right, because you seem as though you've gone through a lot of reflecting and sewing of the thread of how things sort of fit together. Sewing of the thread of how things sort of fit together, and so maybe step us back a little bit around.
Delia:You know retirement comes up as a possibility. Was it always out there as a possibility for you? Is it something? I know there was a forcing function. We both work at the same place. We used to work at the same place. You're retired, so yeah, there was that forcing function.
Delia:But how long has this possibility been there for you as a reality? You know how long have you been sort of working through this? I think that would be one thing to help us to understand, because I think what we want people to do is, you know, not just idealize the fact that you're retired, but also talk about some of the realities as we go through this conversation today about what that actually means. We all know about the financial preparation and we can go to Chase or something, or any bank or institution of your choice to find out that kind of information, but what does it really mean? So, this journey about women, we can get back to that. I don't want to take you off of that and it seems like that was part of it's contributed right to taking advantage of this event retirement event but walk us through it. Walk us through some of your thinking.
Marne:I think the thing about to think about retirement and to go back and to think about what we thought retirement was or what I thought retirement was or might look like when I was a child and you talked about that, jay-z. You know that commercial these people in their seventies, you know, when we're children we look at our grandparents we think, oh gosh, my grandparents are old. Well, I didn't have the experience of seeing my maternal grandparents working. My, my, my grandfather was away from me. I knew that he was working, but he was away and my grandmother hadn't worked. She worked for like Pacific Bell. You know Pac Bell right Way, way, way back in the day. You know she worked, of course, during World War II.
Marne:She worked a little bit after that, but she was a housewife and worked in the home and then she had a stint from what I understand as a, as an interior decorator, and so, looking at my maternal grandparents, there was something there about my grandmother not working outside of the home and there was something about the fact that my grandmother and my grandfather also didn't have a traditional relationship. So my grandmother lived in Glendale, california, when I was a little girl and my grandfather I always knew that my grandfather lived in Texas, he lived in Austin, and so we would go and you know, spend Thanksgiving with him. You know some years and so when they weren't divorced until probably till I was in high school, is when they went through and got a divorce, but they weren't legally divorced, but they had lived apart. For I feel like all the time that I remember going to my grandmother's house in Glendale, that my grandfather was not there. It was always my grandmother. So let me stop you for a second.
Delia:Because it's interesting, right, because we're talking about in Glendale that my grandfather was not there. It was always my grandmother. So let me stop you for a second. Because it's interesting, right, because we're talking about retirement. We've gone pretty deep so far and I don't care. I think this is great, I love this, but it's interesting that retirement is bringing up all of these lifestyle configurations. It's because I'm not retired. I haven't thought about retiring yet.
Delia:But it's just interesting to me that all of these lifestyle configurations bubbled up for you right? Yes, grandma's here, but grandpa lives over there, and you know they're in two separate homes but they're still married. They're not quite divorced.
Delia:Mom doesn't stay with dad, mom marries someone else, they split up goes to grandma and then grandma makes a decision and says come and pick up your wife, like someone forgot their luggage to go and get his wife Right. And I mean, it's just, I'm thinking as you're, I'm listening to this, it's new information to me, right, and I'm a little bit floored because it makes me wonder if that's why sometimes people avoid retirement Right Cause, cause you can't be the only one who's had this experience. Well, and we're framing this.
Marne:So we're framing this around what we know and what did it mean to us. So that's kind of where my story. I tend to go back where I'm like when did I start to think about what retirement might look like and what were some of those experiences that I had? And my mother was in and out of employment after she divorced my brother's father and she at some points in time she would stack up and have money and have retirement and other times she didn't. So when she went through periods of unemployment, there was, you know, eating through the savings or I don't know if she had a 401k or whatever and kind of went through that to where there was nothing. And so financial security as a young person became very important to me and one of the ways I knew that I could get to financial security was going to be, you know, going to school and just working right.
Marne:Joining the corporation that I worked for in 1996 and immediately being advised by a dear friend that we just met with the other day who said put 10% right off the bat, the max you can put into your 401k was 10%, the max you could do for stock was 10%. And he said do it now that's 20% of your income. You're not going to. You didn't have it before, you're you know, you just put it away, and so that became something to kind of just do. Working at this corporation. I started to think, probably seven years in, like this is very hard. Number one it's very hard work. Number two it's not 40, 45 hours a week you get working on these projects and these programs.
Marne:I remember 2006,. We launched a brand and the product in the same year big new brand, and I was working 90 hour weeks for that year. Right, so that's really significant. And so I remember having this conversation with my brother about what would it be like just to get to what was called the rule of 75. Right, so it's. You know, your age plus your years of service, and when that equals 75, you can retire.
Marne:And our discussions were about, not about once we figured out what all came with that, what were we eligible for. Our discussions then turned to what it would allow us to do, that it would allow us to go work a job that was just 40 hours a week or that was just 35 hours a week. So even, you know, even when we thought about hitting that and for me hitting that I was 51 years old when that happened for me 51, 52-ish, and I'm 52 now, but I'll be 53 this year. So I think no, I think I was 51. I don't need to. I don't have the need to retire. I still want to do something. I know I have a purpose here and what would it look like for me to be working in that purpose but not have that dependency of? I have to have this level of income, a really high level of income to support my family, to support my family, so you're one of the fortunate ones, right?
Delia:I mean, I try to instill it in my kids. You know my daughter. I had given her some money when they started to learn around the stock market at school. Not a lot of money, but something for her to experiment with. I want to get this cool. I want to get this clear with everyone.
Delia:You know definitely in the hundreds of dollars, and, but something more than clear with everyone. You know definitely in the hundreds of dollars, and but something more than what she had. You know she could probably go buy four shares or something if that's what she wanted to do. And she said mom, I know I want to be an educator and the only thing that I should take care of for myself because they give them the financial literacy like they take financial literacy as the seniors here in Oregon I don't know what California does in its jurisdiction and she goes the only thing that I really need to do, mom, is, uh, put money in a 401k or some other fund I can't remember what they're called right now Roth and she goes I need to put money in a Roth fund because I better start saving today if I want to be able to retire and I thought that was funny. That was her only takeaway as a 16 year old. I want to be an educator and I need to have a Roth IRA.
Marne:That's good thinking, though, and if I could tease out a little bit, some of what that thinking was was not just investing in an individual stock, but investing in, like a mutual fund, so something that looks at different areas of the market and combines them and bring them together. But the other thing this whole idea behind an IRA or a Roth IRA is that that's tax protected, right, because I've already paid the taxes on the money. So I actually really love that kind of thinking in such a young age to think about what I need to be doing based off of where I'm going.
Delia:I was a little bit disappointed because I thought, well, she could like mimic the stock market. I think she was doing it in the class. And I was a little bit disappointed because I thought, well, she could like mimic the stock market.
Delia:I think she was doing it in the class and I was like I have some of your money that you could do with it and she was like listen, let me tell you what I need to do with this money. She goes. That's a class, this is real life. She's the most practical person I've ever met. Like she is practical at 18 years old. You know one?
Marne:of those kinds of people, Sort of like all right, well, whatever. You do, you Whatever makes you happy.
Delia:She was like that will make me happy.
Delia:A statement that says, deposited in here so, but you know, I think having that financial literacy young is important. I know that folks in our communities often don't have that. And I say our communities, I'm going to be really broad here. One is women and two are, you know, people of color and you know those are two sort of. Well, you know we're still coming up on the progress path for all of the opportunities that were there, and so to get that advice early and to actually take it and to have the income to take it, kudos for you.
Marne:Yes, I was very grateful to this individual and he's very savvy, very, very passionate. We just met with him. My husband and I just had coffee with him last week, and the reason why we did is because I retired and we wanted to know, hey, what are the things that we should be paying attention to? And he gave us a couple of tips, things that we weren't even thinking about to go back and go. Oh, okay, let's, I need to learn more about that.
Marne:Treasury bills was one of the things that came up right now, because the interest rate is, of course, higher than a savings account If you're looking to be more cautious with your money, given the volatility of the stock market.
Marne:But it's just really interesting.
Marne:I think that, as I've navigated children, that sometimes it's been difficult for my daughter to understand it, and she's seen my working as wanting to earn money, earn money, earn money and money was the most important thing versus money being that financial security, that financial security that I didn't have as a child and that was that was clear right To be in a position where you know the the electricity was cut off or the water was going to be cut off or to be getting those you know pink notices.
Marne:They're not necessarily red, but they're like pink notices Right and to to watch my mom kind of play this game of like, well, I can pay the water bill because it's past due and not pay the electricity bill, and then, you know, just swap them Right. So one gets to be, you know, kind of stretched out. She actually gave me control over the checking account when I was in high school so I could go and like do the grocery shopping once I had a driver's license and could drive, and that gave me an understanding too of like how little money there was there right, but she seemed like she was the master of the billing cycle.
Marne:Oh, yes, yeah, I can tell you some stories about the way that my mother stretched a dollar. That I mean still. Just, they were really annoying when I was a child. But, like you know, to look back on it now and just go, that was freaking genius.
Marne:We live near Bunny Love, which was um carrots I don't even know if they're around anymore, but we grew up in a kind of an agricultural area and you could get 150 pounds of carrots from bunny love for a dollar 50. And think of this back in the late 70s, early 80s, right, but think of what 150 pounds of carrots looks like. And to spend days cleaning them, peeling them, canning them so that we could have them for later. But that's what we did, going to area farms where you could, I remember sometimes they would let you just come in for free and whatever you picked you could take home. So, whether that was canning, whatever that was, if it was peaches, canning peaches or plums making jellies and jams, right, my mom stretched a dollar, could stretch a dollar like you would not believe. And that came in handy for me prior to coming to the corporation that you and I both worked for.
Delia:Well, I also think too right this sort of idea that if it's not pre-made and out there for me, I can basically go farm it myself. Because I think you're taking off the hands of the farmers, like they don't want to have the crop rot. They take whatever they're going to pick. Then there's going to be, you know, pests and whatever that will come to ravage the rest and, as opposed, you know if you live near a farm. I guess that makes a lot of sense to try and go and get some of that stuff. And then I didn't know you could can carrots. So the more I listened to you, the more I learned, thanks to Marnie's mom, but apparently can your carrots and other vegetables. I mean, a lot of people don't have the proximity to that, but there's something in there in terms of a nugget of going and looking at your surroundings and seeing what it is you can do to leverage those surroundings. So your mom seems to have had a has a lot of that ingenuity in her.
Marne:She did. I think there's some other things that kind of came into play for me too. So beans and rice like a staple. And I remember in the seventies there was a public health cartoon and you know commercial, and it was about beans and rice. Beans and rice like and how healthy they were for you. They are so inexpensive, right, but it takes prep. Like you soak the beans, right, you know you don't just open a can and but right, you know. So.
Marne:So these things that that take prep, and I remember that was something I grew up with, just remembering that type of the beans and rice jingle.
Marne:And then, you know being well, when I got older, when I was in college, I got pregnant with my daughter before I graduated and so I was actually on WIC and I remember having these check-ins they're paying you out a certain amount of money and they're giving youified cereal and for cheese.
Marne:And I remember thinking that, you know, when I was going back, you know, to these check-ins and these women that weren't using their ones for beans and some of these, and I remember wondering why and thinking, especially in the Black community, are we not cooking anymore, like what's happening here? So, so I don't want that, because I actually don't know how, I don't know what to do with these beans or peas was the other thing. And these are dried peas, right? So if you don't know what to do with these things, you can't actually take advantage of of the service offering. And it just was really interesting to me to think about the way in which we eat and the way in which we've been programmed to eat because of not maybe, over time, not having those examples in our home anymore of cooking.
Delia:So and my mind's going a lot of different places because I'm thinking, when we get off this call, we're probably going to have more on your list for possibilities of what you're going to do with this time, this expansive amount of time that you have to contribute to our world.
Delia:So I think you know the issue around WIC and the kinds of things that you pack up at the food bank. I know I've been to the Oregon Food Bank and done volunteer work and we're packing up beans and peas and all of those kinds of things. But if people don't know how to cook them, then that's an issue, right. And then, as you said, they take a long time, like you have to soak them, right. So that's another part of you know. Another part of I don't want to call it food, well, well, yeah, food insecurity right, because you know you're challenged because you're not purchasing the food you probably you can't if you pick canned and prepared food foods. That's not as healthy. You're dependent on different systems and services and now you have to soak your beans but you're between two shifts and you haven't had a lot of sleep.
Delia:And so, and who's at home while these beans are soaking and prepping? Like you don't probably have meal prep day in your life. That's like a whole prep privilege. So it's you know, you're making me, or you know, just in this conversation I'm starting to think about, wow, there's a lot of things that you know, just big things and little things that time couldn't be dedicated to, to actually helping and ensuring that.
Delia:You know, we are making progress in different stratas of society and it's not a lot like you know, maybe it's an online video class that helps people understand how to really leverage what they get in their WIC bag. Yeah, and that's a lot different coming from you who made it to retirement in early fifties and working for a huge corporation, et cetera. Then someone also and you know I'm not putting anyone down, but someone who who maybe hasn't had those career accolades Right and cause, I think a lot of times, when we provide these social services, people feel shame around them, you know, or they meant to feel sort of shame around them, or sadness or something, and and you hear you are talking to us and you're pulling all these life lessons from all of these places Like it's just part of life, right, and there's a, it's an opportunity and it just depends, and even though it's tough, it can still be looked at as an opportunity. That's what I'm trying to say, I'm sure. Yes, yeah, yeah.
Marne:I do, I absolutely do. I think part of it too. I think about this big, what I call the responsibility gene. Right, I'm an Enneagram two, I'm a helper, and so often I'm in these places and situations having an experience, and wondering if the people that are also alongside of me having the same experience and if they're not having the same experience, why what is it that's missing? Right, like you were saying, time, right, if I have multiple children in multiple different grades and I'm focused on getting them to and from school, and then I'm going to one job and then I'm going to another job, where is the time that I have to do that? Food prep, right? The other is that know-how. Is it a know-how? Is it something that wasn't passed down?
Marne:And, interestingly, you touched on something else which has to do with the shame, and I know people will say often, marnie, you just come with stuff. You're just an open kimono and sometimes I use it as a Honestly, it can be used as a weapon, right? So I've been part of conversations where people are talking about people on welfare, people that are using these services and they don't work and they don't do this, and I have to ask the question do I strike you as someone that's ever been on welfare. Well, no, marina, you've never Like, yeah, I have, not only as a child, but also as an adult, after the birth of my first child. And you know, one of the things that we tend to forget is that, for those of us that have worked at any period in our lives, we've paid into these systems. They're here for us, they're here to help us.
Marne:I didn't stay on it and and and. We know that in certain aspects of our society, there are, you know, generations that have stayed on assistance, and we have to look at what is happening in that environment, in that dynamic, what is missing in those communities that enables that. It's not that the people are lazy and don't want to work, right, and so those are the types of conversations that I like to have, to kind of begin to break down those barriers, because if you can see me and not see someone that's been on public assistance, then you can see others that are that look like me, others that don't look like me, and and and see them as people that could be your neighbors, right? Versus someone that lives, you know, somewhere away from you, right? It's that othering that we tend to do, right.
Delia:I totally agree and I think we have. You know, there's several celebrities that have been on assistance and talk about it. You know, there I mean many who have lived in their cars, and you know, and absolutely in.
Marne:Tiffany Haddish comes to mind.
Delia:Yes, exactly, I was thinking about her and Wendy. I mean a lot, of, a lot of people have had, you know, or Jim Carrey writing himself this check, for I don't know, was it a million?
Delia:dollars when he was just, he didn't have anything like that money. When he was just, he didn't have anything like that money. Steve Harvey, there's a lot of people who you know make it to celebrity status and who have been on assistance or been down and out or whatever. And I'm careful about those stories because I know, you know, there's also other magic behind them in terms of that person's opportunity. You know there's also other magic behind them in terms of that person's opportunity, but it doesn't have to be anything as grandiose. To sort of, as you said, we have these systems in place so that we can have a functioning society and that everyone can have an opportunity to have food, to have shelter, to have education, because the society is not just made out of its elite or whoever. Each one of us makes a contribution and we just never know who is going to be the next inventor of whatever it is that we need as a society. It can come from everyone anywhere. It's completely randomly distributed, right. So it's important to be able to nurture everyone.
Delia:I fully believe in that. I think this is a sort of an apolitical belief, because when you talk to people American politics aside, just about you know their inner feelings about their, you know, their next door neighbor, or the person who goes to their place of worship, or the person in the grocery store, or little kids are going up with their kids. There is a general kindness that I find in all Americans, regardless of their affiliations, colors, beliefs, whatever you know. There's this general kindness and I think that comes from the American dream that, you know, all things should be possible here and, and I think that in the spirit of the country, that is believed. You know, people do believe it and it does happen. That's why we know all of the mythical hero stories really really well. But there's, you know, it's interesting, because I didn't know where this conversation was going to go, but it's interesting that all of these things came up as you were coming to a place or making a decision about stopping work, and yet you wouldn't have the financial insecurities of stopping work.
Delia:Do you know what I'm saying? So it's, isn't it? So? And I get, and that's why I want to go back to the fear factor Like cause. I want to say can I retire? I possibly could retire, but I haven't.
Delia:I didn't go in, go in depth in the process that you've gone into now already, but I can tell you, listening to you, that there's a part of me who knows those triggers would be there and the wall is built up already.
Delia:You know what I'm saying. And it's not, it's not purpose, it's just the fact of and it was not premeditated, but it must be something innate. That is there that says, wow, you'll have to deal with what life is like when you don't have the regulated paycheck system, all of those things happening, and that's kind of like free falling in some ways, because this is what I'm feeling and hearing when I'm listening to you. It's kind of free falling in that way, and then it kind of makes your mind go back to any time that's happened in the past. Some might be good, like birthday party money, but some might not, and you kind of have to resolve that in order to be comfortable in the retirement, or because we're both coaches and we know this, or you have to use busyness to cover up all those emotions. So you're going to be retired, you're going to be so busy that you're not going to be triggered by all the things that the actual retirement phase brings forward.
Marne:And I have some of that now. Right, that busyness, I have some of that now. There's an aspect I mean I'm really early into this. I mean this is the. You know, two weeks into tomorrow would be a day where I would get a regular paycheck right. So that would be my first regular paycheck that I'm not getting right.
Marne:I think for me the start of thinking about this retirement and walking away came almost two years before I hit rule of 75, because I was really struggling at work and there were some things that were happening. And I was having this conversation with my husband about just walking away and I had said to him I won't be retired, but I won't be retired because I hadn't hit the rule of 75. And that was an interesting conversation because I got to explore. He said to me why is that important to you? What is so important to you about retiring and for me it's going to sound seem really silly is the company that I worked for. When you retire and you go out into the community and you volunteer, those volunteer hours are matched with dollars, and money that I donate on a regular basis also match. So as a retiree, that's the same thing. So that's what I was working towards, like to still be able to make a monetary impact, not just my volunteer time and services, but a monetary impact on the organizations that I support, and that's that's what it working to rule of 75 came to became for me. And and you know, I am not in a single single parent. You know household. I am remarried, my husband retired in 2016 and didn't have to go back to work right, so financially I'm in a very different place. But I tell people when I think about finances and even having that conversation with him, I said to him you're going to have to show me we are going to have to sit down with pen and paper, and you're going to have to show me why I could walk away and it would be okay if I didn't go back and do a corporate job. And he showed me the numbers and I had to keep going back to that piece of paper every time. I would think it's not possible. When you're in that situation where you can look on paper and you can see that it's possible for you to walk away from a corporate job, then working becomes something different. You're there because you want to be. You're there because you're making an impact. You're there because right For me it was all this. Why am I here? Why am I still here? There was still more for me to do.
Marne:What I had noticed the last probably 18 months of my career is that I think I stayed in the job that I was in for too long and I needed to shift. And when I started looking and I started kind of putting my hat into these different roles, I realized I don't really want to do that Like I'm putting my hat, my name in the hat, for this role, and then a role would come up I'd interview it and the one of. In one situation the role was offered to me and I and I had to turn it down as a. It was a horrible feeling to let this person down. I felt like I was letting them down and I'm so sorry. They came into the meeting very excited and I knew I couldn't take the role and had to say no and kind of going through this process of thinking and reflecting and understanding and thinking about what is it that I really want to be doing, how do I really want to be spending my time and in a time where I feel like the corporation needed certain things from me those are not the things that I wanted to do, and I realized that, gosh, it might be time for me to go.
Marne:I remember taking a Korn Ferry assessment and was looking at where my strengths were and where the strengths were aligning. And strategy was a big deal, a really big topic, and the gal who was doing my interpretation said you know what, marnie, this is really reflective of the role that you're in right now. So maybe your scores are low in strategy because the role that you're in doesn't require you to be strategic. And I said out loud, as I normally would oh no, it does. I'm just not doing that right now. And that was very telling for me, right, to be able to say that out loud and be honest that no, this is a part of my role and I'm not doing it because I'm doing these other things. I'm doing group coaching, I'm doing professional development workshops, I'm doing women's leadership workshops, and those were the things that were, of course, bringing me joy. However, they weren't, you know, they were a small portion of my role, right. And so, just thinking about that, I was having a conversation with an old friend of mine who lives in Kenya, is executive in Kenya, and we were talking about this corporation and we were saying, you know, he was talking about how it's changed and it's changed, it's not the place that we used to be.
Marne:And I just said to him we changed, we've changed. I'm not the person that I was in 96 when I joined right. I'm not even the person that I was 10 years ago, the employee that I was 10 years ago, right. And so there's something to be said about looking at that and saying, okay, is this the place? This organization is a place that enabled me to have four careers, so I was able to move around, and move around, and move around and try different things and to grow and to learn in these new areas. And then it was time for me to go.
Delia:Yeah, and I think that you know it was time for me to go yeah. And I think that you know, because I'm listening and all the elements are coming up from the retirement perspective is also facing your own change and your own evolution and where you are versus where you thought you might be and who you are, and a lot of times we never even thought about who we might be. I know, at least for me, I'm Enneagram three, achiever and success and all those kinds of things. And you know, hitting milestones or you know, and getting to the milestones really important, but knowing how you're going to feel when you get to the milestone, that really is not always in my head and I know a lot of people are like that as well, not because of the Enneagram, but just because that's how they are and I also think it's a lot too in the society that we've grown up here in the US and North America. I'm Canadian. For me we are achievement focused. We are, you know, get to the milestone and you know, hit the checklist, get that done. And you know, hit the checklist, get that done. And you know, move to our. You know, get through our, our to-do list, hopefully get through our bucket list and, as you know, the name of the podcast is to live list. But the things that we want to do to live, to be happy, those are not the things that we're really being, that we're really tuning into Right, and it's not something that we're encouraged to do. So it's interesting that the you know, this whole retirement journey has gotten you to exam, to really examine what does Marnie need to do to live Like and living, you know, not in sort of a you know the base of the Maslow's triangle, kind of surviving kind of aspect, but to live for the self-actualization, for the purpose, for the making a contribution, part to her soul, for whatever the universe called, or she called the universe to be here for, to be here for and I'm hearing that and you know what I think is was really touching was this continual theme that flows through any conversation that I have with you, which is around how do I give back, how do I help and you said it's even in your Enneagram how do I ensure someone who doesn't know but could know finds out? And we never talked about the way that we met, as I want to talk about that a little bit.
Delia:So this wasn't in the nineties, because this was in mid to late 2000s we were in a group of employees working to get computers to out to the diaspora, right Developing nations, black and brown, and you know there weren't a lot of mechanisms within the company to do that. So a bunch of us got together, phone call after phone call after phone call after phone call, to talk about how we could get small devices into the hands of places where they would need them. Sometimes there would maybe be four and five for people to share amongst 20 or so students, but it would give people access to the internet and computing and help to level off some of the differences that were out there. So Marnie and I used to be the only two women on the call. To my recollection Maybe there was another woman, but we definitely the two that talked the most. We have a lot of opinions and then the rest were gentlemen, marketing, finance, people who are peers, engineering types, et cetera. So ultimately, I remember we came up with a scheme where we had to donate money out of our pockets to get some of those early devices that the company was making with other companies out to Costa Rica. That was one place and I think we went another place in Africa.
Delia:But that aside, I had never met you so fast forward. I've been on the phone with Marnie for like two, three years. I've never met her, to my knowledge, and I'm. We're in Nashville, tennessee. We're at NSBE 50. So I'll look that up, whatever year that is NSBE's 50th anniversary and we're both, I guess, been tagged to be volunteers for working with students, et cetera, to attract them to NSBE and our company and NSBE.
Delia:We're doing something together and I'm like behind a wall and I hear this voice. I was like I'm already done and I know I came around the corner like a crazy woman used to be, like I would have known the voice, like coming from the heavens, because we had, I mean, we gave those gentlemen. I would have known the voice like coming from the heavens Because we had, I mean, we gave those gentlemen. You know we had them lockstep like things that need to be done. Yes, we agree. No, we don't agree. We're having a separate meeting. This has to happen. We have to accomplish something, you know, and kudos to them Because I mean obviously it wasn't all us right, but you know the women's voices are, you know, in the industry that we come from.
Delia:You remark that, and you also remark another woman on the call who has your back right, and we always had each other's back, so I really enjoyed that. But I met you in a volunteering context, right, not in your context. I can't even, quite frankly, know. I didn't even know what department you worked in. You know, I met you in a volunteering context, that's my point. And now you're here and work quote, unquote is over and you're still talking about volunteering. Yes, and I wanted to say that to you because I think that is when I said you said you already know your purpose. I think it's becoming obvious to us as well.
Delia:As you're talking, you know you haven't said anything out loud definitively says I want to tough out the last 18 months because I want to make sure my volunteer hours are matched in money for the organizations I support. That says so much about who we are, and I'm chatting for a little bit here because I hope that some students will listen to this at some point. You know young students will listen to this at some point. You know young people will listen to this because I think it's easy to get caught up in that narrative, right, that everything about life is this job you go to and in this job you go to. You know there's a lot of these TV shows and you know I don't even know if they have BuzzFeed anymore, but TikToks or whatever that might make you believe that. You know you get all the life sucked out of you and there's no time to do the things you want to do or the things that you're here for. But I would say, as you look through your life, you see that you've probably been doing them all along.
Marne:Yeah, yeah, it's so funny. The volunteerism is just was part of my life for fairly early on, when I was a child. There is an organization that's called Cogenerate that used to be Encore, and so Encore Cogenerate is an organization that works with corporations as people are retiring to put them into positions with nonprofits and there's typically a stipend involved. So the corporation pays the nonprofit and the nonprofit pays the employee. And I was filling out my application. I had to fill out my application before my last day at this company and I just had a meeting with co-generation and they were talking about how one of the questions was around well, what inspires you to go volunteer now? And it's like, oh, I've always volunteered, this isn't a new thing for me. Like, I've always volunteered. Like it's not a this isn't a new thing for me. And I talked about my earliest experience as a Red Cross volunteer with my mom when she worked. She, of course, was a volunteer working with the Red Cross, but she used to run CPR classes and I was from a time I was probably nine or 10. Like, I was a runner for that. And like, cleaning out the you know the dolls and moving them from place to place wherever they, you know, needed them and stocking whatever was needed in the class. But I was always there and I was ever, you know kind of present and it's just volunteering has kind of always, you know, always been there, and it was really interesting to be filling out this application and having them ask me as if I had been working all of these, you know, 26 plus years without, without volunteering, Exactly Like I'd have, I'd had these, these, these blinders on, as if this, this wasn't you know kind of a part of my, my life. And it was just. It was such an interesting thing to kind of think about that. It is that way for some people they leave working in an organization and then that becomes part of their for and I did Habitat for Humanity and I went to the nursing homes and they'd have us bring pets to the nursing homes and sit and speak with the people whose families couldn't visit, and I don't know. It's just always been there, it's always been part of my life.
Marne:Earlier in my career, one of the things I realized is that one of the things I realized is that volunteer opportunities helped me in my career and helped to increase my skill sets in different areas, being able to go in and kind of understand what's happening in this environment. Okay, how can we help? How can we understand more? You know what this population needs.
Marne:I worked with an organization called Women's Empowerment since gosh. 2005 was when I first started working with them and really trying to understand what is it that they are doing with these women? How can we supplement what they're learning in these other classes so that it's threaded together, so it's not seen as something that's completely foreign, just because we're talking about digital literacy, right? Um, how do we bring these things together? And I had so many wonderful and beautiful opportunities learning from others and and then things that just struck me is how do you show up in a class and and try to learn something when your world is falling apart? You know, like I, I had taken a, taken a woman aside one time cause I just she just was sitting at the computer and she just started crying and I said, hey, let's walk outside, you know, and she would just give me a little bit of.
Marne:You know, if you feel like you want to share kind of what's going on, and I'm going to give you space to that and and and and, let's just get it out. Let's feel, feel to that and let's just get it out. Let's feel that and then we're going to walk back in and we're going to get through the next 90 minutes and just being able to be part of that number one, the trust that that woman had to be able to share what was happening with her, to be able to cry in front of me and then to be able to say you know what? Okay, take a couple breaths, hug and walk back in.
Marne:She could regroup you know she could regroup, you know, to be a part of that and to think about that.
Marne:That's needed. Also, I tend to have a warmth about me where I I may, you know, be walking around and put my hand on someone's shoulder and recognize when a woman was triggered by that and go, oh my gosh, marnie, you didn't ask, hey, can I touch your shoulder? Right, and understanding, hey, I come from a little bit of that violent background and what it felt like for you and to be back into that space again. There's so many opportunities to help and to get back into that space again. There's so many opportunities to help and to get outside of ourselves and what's troubling us at any given time and to help others, which is not to say neglecting the things that we're going through, it's to say that we don't hang out there, right, we want to feel these feelings that we're having. We don't want to continue to replay these negative scenarios that happen in our heads over and over again and sometimes it takes us working with others and helping others and assisting others to not have that replay of that, those negative experiences that we've had in our lifetimes.
Delia:So I know we're coming up on time and I kind of want to say some things that are coming up for me after this conversation. I don't know what I thought we were going to talk about about this retirement.
Delia:Oh my gosh, I have no idea. Wow, I'm like a little bit overwhelmed because I'm saying what were we going to talk about in this retirement? I thought I was like, oh, I'm retiring and blah, blah, blah blah. But this idea that retirement brings up something for people, right, it brings forward something that you have to examine, or I don't want to say have to. You must choose to examine. And whether or not you choose to examine it will determine your experience. That's my feeling, right From what you're saying. Whether or not you choose to examine it will determine your experience. And I'm saying that from my own experience. Like, why don't I retire? You know rule of 75 standing my way right now, but I'm not that far away from it. So, dealing with that, right.
Delia:And then this idea, as you said, there will be markers in your own life journey, that, whether or not you wanted to or not, you may or may not have replicated, et cetera. But the retirement being in that big open field of time, right, because usually we're not looking at time that way. This is one of the things that I kind of heard when you were talking. You know, we're usually not looking at time that way. We're going to work, we're coming back, we're taking care of a kid, but then all of a sudden we get a chunk of time that we have to look at like time endless, until end of life, you know. And it's just sort of like if you haven't thought through all of those things, they're going to start imprinting on you. You're going to start feeling them Just kind of like how you said on that.
Delia:You go around and touch people on their shoulder. It becomes that kind of shoulder touch, right. And I'm saying this I'm talking to you could be talking to myself Also because I'm like you should see like how the floods of people in my parents' generation, my granny's generation, people in my generation are coming up to me and I'm thinking about how some of them did well with retirement and some of them didn't. And you're kind of talking about a vector that I hadn't really thought about before. But as I kind of overlaid on some of these narratives that I know, I think, oh, aha, aha, aha moment. You know, retirement and that, well, I guess we're going to have to. This might be the title of the podcast, but retirement is triggering.
Marne:It is, and I think that it's also something that we have to reassess. When I started talking about, you know, leaving like a couple of years ago and I was explaining, you know that, issues that I was having at work and going oh my, I don't know if I can stay here Like I don't know if I can keep doing this that I was having at work and going, oh my, I don't know if I can stay here Like I don't know if I can keep doing this it reminded me to think when have you thought about retirement and what did you think it was going to be? And it took me back to a decade before having that conversation with my brother of what does rule of 75 mean and what do we get for it? Right, we don't, you know, year in and year out, think about well, where, hmm, what, what would it look like if I were to retire? And it's a conversation I had with my spouse too, my husband like what are the things that we're going to do? Right, we're going to go. We're going to work out together three times a week. We're going to work out together. We're going to travel together. We're going to job. Those are given given things. What are the other things we're to do? Like our kids and your kids are grown, I'm like what else are we going to do? Like what else is our life together? What are the things that we we want to do as humans? We're not static beings and so we're constantly, like you know, evolving. But there are things that are important for us.
Marne:I don't there's no one that I talked to that retirement to them is them in an easy chair, you know, with a cup of coffee, or eating bonbons, watching soap operas. You know what I mean. Like I don't know anyone that's like that. They're hiking more, they're biking, they're doing it right. There's something going on, but we all have a different idea of what retirement is or what it's going to look like for us or what are the things that are that are going to entail. But if we want to keep growing and developing, we need to be learning and having new experiences. So how are we going to do that If it's not coming from our work, if that's what?
Marne:Like I, one of the big things that struck me is I have met more people through working at this corporation for half of my life than I ever would have if I was, say, you know, working at home business, you know, probably, right, like, because you work day in and day out with the people on your team, they become your friends. Right, there are people that you do things with outside of work, you spend time with them outside of work. So where am I going to get that Right? So I'm thinking about, like, what are the communities that I'm a part of? Right, I'm, I'm, I work with my local ICF chapter in Sacramento and they kicked off a program called Ignite which is pro bono coaching for particular, you know, organizations.
Marne:So I just raised my hand like I, you know I want to do that. So I'm starting to get to know the coaches that are part of that. You know community, of course I have people that I left the corporation with, that I'm, you know my friends and my colleagues and you know I'll still connect with them and, you know, spend time with them. But how am I growing that, that circle? Do I want to grow that circle?
Delia:I know it's also interesting listen. I'm so excited for you and obviously we talk like forever about so many things like I don't even think we kind of even touched on the majority of the list, like I know. But having said that, you know, I think it's going to be interesting to find out where you are like a year from now, when this has had an opportunity to settle in. But what you've done for this community of listeners for sure is given us an inkling about why it's important to be thinking about not our to-do list, not our bucket list, but the things that we need to live our lives and you know, and to be satisfied and content. And I just like the fact that, as you shared with us, you know if we were to get this from a soap opera or reality TV, et cetera. You know, it seems like it's so one thing happens and then another it causes another thing to happen, so very cause and effect. But it's so evident from stuff that you shared in your processing that there's always stuff sort of bubbling up underneath the layers of our everyday selves and who we are, and that's what's going to sort of fit in to how we utilize the time that we have available that doesn't require us to do something for a paycheck, whether that's like full retirement or whether that's. I take six weeks off to do something because, you know, go out and do some kind of volunteer work. You know, whatever that bundle of time is, it's not only just going to be the time, it's also going to be all of the things that we thought about how that might be the positives and the negatives, and it's also going to be all of the things that we thought about how that might be the positives and the negatives. And it's also going to be what we saw other people do when they didn't have money coming in regularly. And if your parents or situation was wealthy, you know, that might be one set of things, and if it wasn't, that might be one set of things, and if it wasn't, that might be another set of things.
Delia:And I've heard from other people as well, marnie who didn't have any financial problems. But you know, in their world they saw role modeled when there wasn't any regular work, et cetera. Infidelity became a thing, you know you mentioned. Violence was a thing, you know. So it's so weird to me because I haven't had, you know, I haven't had a chance to think about this at all in my own life, but I can see why we're guarded towards it in a way that I never understood before. I thought it was because we didn't want to get old right Before talking to you, but I think it's also because we have to face the openness of life right, and there's a validation too, right?
Marne:um, I am in kind of signing off of of of one of the things I had written in linkedin was somebody asked me what I was going to be doing and I said, right now I'm focused on. Who am I without this corporation? Right, there's a. Who are we as not part of this working body and this working engine? I don't get up and go to work Monday through Friday, right, anymore. That's very different and, depending on kind of where you are in your life, that could be very, very jarring because it's a huge part of your identity and that part of your identity is no more. And so that's a big piece of what we haven't, you know, kind of what we haven't talked about.
Marne:That infidelity piece that you brought up is interesting to me as I think about things from this perspective of validation. What validation external validation was I getting from being in the, you know, being in the office or being at work or you know? And now that I don't have that, if I'm not getting that from my spouse in a way, you know, I'm looking externally for that to be replaced, because internally I don't know how to deal with it and I may not even have the wherewithal to understand that that's what's happening, right. So that's also something that's very interesting to me, and we think about these different roles that we have. You know, mother, sister, you know daughter, wife right, we're not employee, that's not a, that's not, that's not one of the hats that I wear now, right, and so there's a shift and a change. So when I talked earlier on about this is really early for me, like it is very early, like this is the first cycle I'm going through without having that check and wandering through. What does that do for my place in the home?
Delia:yeah, as well, right, I don't have that there well, you said validation, I think, is an important word, but even though without employee as an identity, you're still a contributor, so maybe that, I think, is something too, maybe. And you, when you were saying about the we, volunteerism and how do we get people to understand how everything fits in? I think we call them individual contributors at work, but we don't actually talk about what it is to make a contribution and the fact that contributing is a life cycle in some ways, and the fact that contributing is a life cycle in some ways, and so in the life cycle of contribution, when you retire, it doesn't invalidate you because you brought up the word with validation. It just means you're in a different place in the contribution life cycle. Right aha moment for me around how can we help contribute to people's notions of who they are and realize that this your, your, your growth as a contributor hasn't stopped. You're just in a different phase.
Delia:Um, with infidelity. I I'm glad you pinged on that because Esther Perel always said but who you know? She always says the famous psychologist. Who are you having the affair with? Oftentimes, it's not that you're cheating on your spouse, it's you're having an affair with an idea of who you were, another you who you liked better, right, and I think retirement for some people becomes a risky place for that, because they're seeking another them that they like better, and it's not really about the partner that they're with or the partner not validating them or whatever. It's really a thing that's happening you versus you in an image that you're trying to reconcile. Um, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about being the black sheep in your family we had to deal with that some other time.
Delia:you know there's so many other topics that I wanted to touch on, but I think it's important at the beginning of the year that you know to talk to you about. I think it's important at the beginning of the year that you know to talk to you about retirement, because it's such an item that a lot of people are like in 2041, I'm going to be right there, bam, at this moment and I think part of what we were able to do today is to help people go deeper in the processing of what that moment could be than the discussion you and your brother had, which would have been kind of the discussion any one of us would have had if we didn't get prompted or to go deeper, and also the financial discussion which you've had, which, of course, was very important, help to put you in this place but still didn't prepare you for the depth that you shared with us today. So thank you for honoring us with that and giving us the opportunity to learn more.
Marne:Thank you, Delia, it was my pleasure.
