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**The information provided on this podcast does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice; instead, all information, content and materials available on this site are for general informational purposes only. Information on this podcast may not constitute the most up-to-date legal or other information. This podcast contains links to other third party websites. Such links are only for the convenience of the reader, user or browser.
Speaker 1:
Start this podcast off with a little bit about me, so those of you who don't know me can kind of get a sense of this voice and this person behind meeting a moxie after 50. I guess I'll start off with just some general things about me, sort of more the credential side of things. If that makes a difference to you, I know as I get older credentials mean less and less to me really, but it gives people a context. I've been a teacher my life, my adult life, pretty much at every level the primary, secondary and adult levels. I was a high school teacher, social studies high school teacher for 22 years in the public school system and I currently teach at the college level. I've been teaching at the college level for I'm an adjunct professor at our local state college for about 12 years still there. But I've done some other different types of teaching, even taught ballet to little ones, which was not very good, I wasn't very good at that. I've taught parent education as and I was younger in my 30s taught women in transition people, women who were leaving job or had been at home and either had been leaving jobs or had been at home and wanting to go back to jobs, just helping them update their resume and change course, and that was a really fun thing to teach. And then I currently also teach yoga and I teach yoga off and on, probably been doing that for the last I don't know 15 years or so give or take. So that's a little bit about some of the educational side of me, if you will.
Speaker 1:
People asked me about when I started writing books. I started writing books and I really, when I started, I really thought it would be a one-and-done kind of thing. It was back in 2013, actually, when I left the public school classroom teaching high school kids. You know you're constantly having conversations with them about moving forward and graduation and words of wisdom and things to remember, and so over the years I had been writing things down. The conversations kept repeating themselves. I started writing things down like what I was saying to the kids and I thought you know this, this would make a good book to at some point. So I started putting those ideas together, hence the name things to remember as you fly from the nest and it's in. It became just sort of like a workbook and a compilation of those different conversations I was having with students and my own kids and their friends and nieces and nephews who were moving into, you know, leaving the nest and moving into young adulthood. I really thought it was a one-and-done kind of thing, as I mentioned. And then I had a couple situations arise where a topic for children's books came up, and so I've written two children's books and really they were just inspirational and just kind of fun projects. So that's sort of how I got into the author world, if you will, and so I play in that and do different things there, do author visits at schools and so on, which is always a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:
I'm married. I have been married to my college sweetheart for 39 years. Can you believe that? I can't even believe that. It seems just like a moment ago really. So we're coming up on 40, maybe gonna have a big shindig here, don't know, but we're thinking about doing something special. So my college sweetheart and he's still my sweetie and we've raised two wonderful, amazing kids now in their 30s who are off also doing really cool things, very proud of them. So that's sort of my home life.
Speaker 1:
And then, as far as podcasting goes, I got into podcasting. You know, I really had had it in the back of my mind a couple for a couple of years that would be really cool to do a podcast, but I didn't really know how to do it. You know, it didn't really take form for a few years. And then I stumbled upon kind of a workshop in a class that was teaching how to do it, and it really resonated with me, and so I thought, you know what, I think this has dropped in my lap here for a reason and I'm going to pursue this, and so I took this amazing podcasting class that has sort of you know and has an amazing community around it as well, and here I am launching this podcast now.
Speaker 1:
And then a lot of people asked me about meeting Amoxi and how I got the title meaning Amoxi. It sort of came to me pretty easily. It was one of those that I just knew right away. Oh, that's the name and title, and I chose the word Moxie as a tip of the hat to my mom, who, at her funeral in 2017, at her celebration of life, I was privileged enough to give the eulogy and I talked about her Moxie-ness and because I just felt like that to me symbolized what her essence, and so one of the lines I said at the end of the eulogy was maybe I'll carry on her Moxie-ness, and so when I was thinking about a title, that just kind of popped forward and here we are with meeting Amoxi after 50. So definitely a tip of the hat to my mom.
Speaker 1:
The other motivation for this podcast is really I'm looking around you know, I'm a good decade after 50 now myself 61, to be exact and I'm looking at friends my age and others my age and just really thinking about this next chapter of my life and watching the next chapter of others' lives as well. And with this podcast I'd really like to challenge the whole retirement. I don't even really like the word retirement. You'll probably hear me say that in the podcast. I don't. I think there's a lot of negativity around that word for people certainly is for me in some respects. So I think it is more of like a refinement what are you going to do next?
Speaker 1:
And I challenge the paradigm of you know we go to school a certain percentage of our lives and then we work, work, work a certain percentage of our lives and then we're supposed to play after that, which is well and good. But I don't think that that next third chapter is all about play. I think it's also about education and it can also be about work, but hopefully it's about choosing the things that we want to do that light us up, that give us passion and help us grow. So that whole concept of the leisure is that retirement is just about leisure and I'm supposed to go off and play shuffleboard or whatever for the rest of my life is not very empowering to people who have been engaged in careers and been very productive per se people in their lives and then all of a sudden that all comes to an end and I'm not sure that that's a positive thing for people.
Speaker 1:
I definitely see that playing out and people feeling like they're in a rut and not really sure what to do next. So that's one of the things that I want to challenge with this podcast is to get people thinking about things that really light them up and things that they want to do next. You know, so many seminars on retirement are about financial advice and they don't really get people thinking about what's next and the whole concept is I'm leaving something, but what am I moving toward? And I think there's a big gap there for people and we could do a better job with the preparation of this next chapter for a lot of folks I see, friends and others sometimes getting caught up in their routines, their doctor's appointments, their chores, the different day-to-day maintenance of the house and things like that, and not really. You know, that's easy to do.
Speaker 1:
We can get in our little comfort zone doing that kind of stuff, because that's a lot of what we've done through our adulthood and so challenging that as well. Watching too much TV, maybe, being online too much, maybe playing mindless games on our phone or on the computer and you know, things that aren't really helping us grow, maybe even relying too much on family or our kids for our social life. That can put a strain on relationships, for sure. So what would it be like to live life on our terms, to live life around our core values and to live our life more authentically to who we are, you know, making a difference due to passions that we have, volunteering in that respect, not because we feel like it's our duty, but because we are passionate about a particular cause per se, but generally just sharing our gifts in a whole new way because we maybe have the time at this point. So thinking about how that would feel and I know I think about that all the time and I'm constantly reevaluating that all the time, and so really it's feeding the fire of meaning and moxie in our lives.
Speaker 1:
So as we move into this new year 2024, I know we're all kind of maybe thinking about new ideas, what we want to do for this new year. I know for me, I'm thinking about how can I be less defended and more open to life. I'm also thinking about how making beauty and nature more of a priority every single day I know that always helps me feel so balanced and then letting go of my self-consciousness and being bolder with my choices. And, of course, for me personally, launching this podcast. That's a big step out for me, allowing myself to be seen in a whole new way. So definitely going to help me grow this year.
Speaker 1:
But anyway, so that's just a little bit about me. Kind of wanted to kick things off, giving you some background and where I hope to go with this podcast. So I hope that you will listen and there is going to, like I said, there's going to be a podcast launching every week and I hope that you'll find some platform where you can subscribe and catch them as they come out. So thank you for engaging with me, thank you for for just being here. All right, take care, we'll talk soon. Bye now.