Maxine Clark: Build-A-Bear Mega Founder Turns to Social Entrepreneurship

(upbeat music) Pickleball media presents the I Used to Be Somebody Show, produced live at the Landau Tiki Bar in Sacramento. Here's our host, Carl Landau. - Welcome to the Landau Tiki Bar in the I Used to Be Summit Show. We have a true celebrity guest sighting on today's episode. I'll explain in a minute. I wanna thank our sponsors for today's show. A big thank you to Capital Advantage, the best financial advising company you can hire, specifically for people thinking about or recently retired. Thank you to our newest sponsor, Mike OMB, from Compass Real Estate. Mike's the best realtor and an expert and help you downsize and even find multi-family living situations. And finally, thank you to Gary Sarac, who wrote a wonderful book called How to Retire and Not Die. Following today's show is another fun segment from Monard, Pickball Life Lessons with Mo. Today we learned about how to hit the reset button during your Pickball game. And on today's Unretirement Wisdom with the Bros Guys, we discovered some of the new fun things people are doing in Unretirement. We have a true celebrity on today's show. I've gotta thank Doug Villhardt for introducing me to Maxine Clark. You may not recognize her name, but everyone listening has either been in one of her stores or has heard the experience of love one that has visited a build a bear workshop. She has an amazing story. She wasn't an entrepreneur until she was 48 years old and very quickly became one of the first women to successfully take her company public. But most important is the impact she's had on millions of children and adults from their build a bear experience. Amazingly, perhaps, her biggest accomplishment is what she's doing now in her 70s. She has dedicated her life to social entrepreneurship programs and invest in Manry Women in Minority Businesses. I'd encourage everyone to take a look at her project, Delmar Divine. She helped raise $100 million for this project. She took a dilapidated and abandoned house full that was built in the 1800s as transposed as Isoar in a beautiful campus filled with office space for some of the top nonprofits in St. Louis. This area, St. Louis, was called the Delmar Divide. It was a rough area town that divided the white and black part of St. Louis. It's been transformed into the beautiful and wonderful Delmar Divine. Hold on your seats while you listen to a true dynamo and adhere to so many, Maxine Clark. (upbeat music) - I got to spend time with my next-door neighbor, kids, and I would pick them up after school. And this was the time of the Beanie Baby craze. Katie was 10 and Jack was seven. When we saw sign on the toy store in our neighborhood that said, "We have beanie babies. "We went into the store 'cause they loved them." And they were none. And that's because parents took all the fun out of it. They trolled the stores to find it during the day. And that's why the craze went away because there was no discovery for the children. Katie just said, "Really, in a way, these are so easy, "we could make these." Well, I heard what she said, but I heard something much bigger. (upbeat music) - Hi, Maxine. Welcome to the "I Used to Be" summer show. How you doing? - I'm great. Thanks for having me, Carl. - Cool. So are you in St. Louis right now? - Yes, I'm in St. Louis. - Okay, so I really like St. Louis because of our mutual friend, Doug Villhard, I got a chance to visit St. Louis several times. It's not too big, not too small. And I've always really enjoyed the people I'd met there. - I'm not going to enjoy it yourself. It's a great city. I'm not from here, but I moved here for business and met my husband and state. So I've grown to love it too. - I just want to do a short introduction to the audience. Maxine Clark is one of the true innovators in the retail industry. She spent nearly 20 years in various divisions in the May Company Department stores. She was president of Payless Shoes and at the age of 48 founded "Build a Bear Workshop." She took the company public in 2004, one of the first women to take the company public. Today, there are over 500 "Build a Bear" workshops around the world. And she led the organization to sell, and this is amazing, 225 million stuffed animals. And her third act is serving on many boards and she is a social entrepreneur, investor, and women in minority businesses. So I tried my best as far as the bio. It could have been like five times bigger, but did I do okay? - Yes, it's perfect. - Okay. So we're going to talk about all that and more. But first on the I used to be somebody show, I'd like to play an icebreaker game. So are you willing to play the game? - Sure. - Okay, prices are amazing, Maxine. So the neighbor company is Pickball Media, Maxine, what is your Pickball experience? - I have never played Pickleball, but I've been noticing all around St. Louis. How many new Pickleball courts are being built? And my friends, I have a lot of high school friends that live in Miami and we communicate with each other a lot, and they're all into Pickleball. So I know that much about it. - Yeah, actually, St. Louis is a hotbed. We're going to have a professional team here. - Yeah, anyway, I know a lot of people in St. Louis that play and it's really active community. So it's always fun for the audience to get to know the background of each week's guests. So where did you grow up? - I grew up in Miami, Florida. Coral Gables to be exact. - And tell us about your family, size of family, where you're rich or poor. What was your family life like or anything you wanna share? - Yeah, my father was an electrician. My mother was an educated social worker. She was a volunteer. She did get paid to do. So I'm in the work that she did. But during World War II, my mother worked for Eleanor Roosevelt. She was one of her traveling secretaries. - Really? - Yes, and when Franklin died, Eleanor basically commanded all the women that worked for her to go out and start a nonprofit or an organization that would help one of the inequities that they'd seen along their travels. And my mother had seen young children with Down syndrome. It's called Mongoloidism then, really living terrible lives. And she and three of her friends got together and opened to school in Miami for children with Down syndrome. But again, it wasn't called that. So they worked really hard, policy and advocacy wise to get rules and names changed to make the community of children with Down syndrome much more able to grow up and have a normal life. - Oh wow. So I mean, knowing what's happening in your life, that probably have big impact on what you eventually wanted to do. - It did, but I actually did not want to do that. My mother was anything, she was not a capitalist and I wanted to be a capitalist. I wanted to make money and not worry about whether our lights were turned on. You asked whether we were rich or poor. We were probably in the middle in those days. Some days we had more than others. My dad was a wonderful guy, but he was a gambler. And he, you know, sometimes thought his ship was going to come in and the horse didn't so to speak. You know, so he loved the racetrack. And he was just a little bit of a loose cannon when that came to gambling. So sometimes we had enough to be really comfortable and other times we had not so much. - That's gotta be rough. Although as a kid were you pretty aware of that? I mean. - Yeah, I was aware. I was the oldest. My sister was younger than me and I was aware and I could hear my parents disagreeing about money and things like that. But I didn't want for much. You know, like I don't, you know, it was the 50s. I was grew up in the 50s and the 60s when all kinds of wonderful things were happening in the world and we lived my father bought our house for $11,500. - Right. - And he was called Naples Florida on the GI bill. He couldn't afford the $15,000 version which had an extra room in it. But we lived a wonderful life. We had wonderful neighbors and friends and you could walk anywhere. You could ride your bike anywhere. Your dog didn't have to be on a leash. You know, it was a very idyllic growing up and I only knew how I lived. But when I came to St. Louis and I talked to people who grew up here in St. Louis, they had similar memories just in their neighborhood. - Yeah. So doing some research about you, you obviously have an incredible, curious mind for new things and to figure out new trends and ideas. And so where do you think that came from? - Hmm. I don't know. My mother was very creative. She had to be because she had to run a house on a very small budget and she also worked to help her school grow and raise money. She was a very large fundraiser of the times. And so she would do all kinds of things that no problem couldn't be solved. And I think if you're working alongside of children who have a, who are differently able as Down syndrome children where you realize that anything's possible for them. You know, there was nowhere to go but up. And so I kind of look at the world that way myself and I'm always looking to see what solutions could we find. I don't think anything is impossible. I look where I am today. And I think that I wish that all children can see themselves in a world of possibility. - Yeah, no, that'd be a wonderful thing. And I'm just wondering, how would you characterize personality or what you were like exactly as a young vaccine? - Yeah, I was always an outgoing child. I was the oldest and my mother and father had close relationships with both. My mother was a night person. My father was a morning person. So on weekends I would get up early and go out with my dad to whatever he had to do. And my mom was a night person and I'd sit with her and we would talk about, you know, my mother was creative. So she was making something. She was either making it in our clothes or she was making some decorations for a table, Fred. donation event or something and we were talking in but my mother also wasn't a person who would you know if you came home said mommy I had this hard homework will you help me nope go look at the world book you know go figure it out for yourself I already finished school I got my grades and my mother was very very smart she graduated from high school at 14 because you could take those regents exams in New York and kind of grade out of your school so she went to work for Eleanor Roosevelt in New York when they were the she was the governor's wife early on just really when most kids would be still in middle school my mother was already graduated from high school so she was a very smart and very curious and she also was a great writer she could write anything she also did in those days what was known as shorthand you know she would write in shorthand so she could take notes and type very very fast wow that's amazing about her in the whole can I show you the Eleanor Roosevelt yeah that's wild so did you have a clue what you want to do when you're up yes I did have a clue I I knew that I wanted to make money and I wanted to be successful whatever that to me was at the time and I wanted to be a lawyer I was a debater in high school I loved that way they did debate in those days and they gave you a problem and you had to be able to debate both sides of it be confident on either side and I love that and I loved government I loved history I love politics I you know always was running for office in my school so I wanted to be an attorney that was my goal I went to college and study journalists I was also editor of my high school newspaper but I went to college to study journalism because you had to write and then I was going to go off to law school somewhere in Washington DC that was the path that was the way I was gonna go no matter what nobody was gonna talk me out of it except I talked myself out of it you really had incredible career in retail arising from the ranks and in the leadership position at the make of me by the way you work through the ranks at the make and be for quite some time and then and then I read that for four years you were president of paella shoes which is a huge position and I'm just wondering what possessed you at 48 years old to give up the security and the money from that position to become an entrepreneur yeah that's a really great question I think that timing is everything in life the Bay Company own pay less shoe source at the time that I went to be the president of it and I was there from 1992 to 1996 so it was a really important time in American innovation especially around the internet and the May Company did not believe that this was going to be the future and they actually would only let us email internally and we weren't allowed to attach any documents it was just a kind of a wacky system they weren't really prepared for the future so the when when the May Company decided to spin off pay less as a public company I had the opportunity to leave to take my money and run and I decided that I wanted to go back to St. Louis and I was going to start my own business because it was time for the internet to be part of the retail landscape now this is in 1996 way before Apple had a store and that we even knew what I think we we might have had the iPod but I'm not even sure that was invented yet and I decided that I was going to go back and sort of get my kid think back on I love being a child I loved school I always wanted to be in class I loved it and I love learning so I came back to St. Louis I don't have any children in my own but I got to spend time with my next door neighbor kids and I would pick them up after school and this was the time of the beanie baby craze Katie was 10 and Jack was 7 when we saw sign on the toy store in our neighborhood that said we have beanie babies we went into the store because they loved them and they were not and you know that's because parents took all the fun out of it they trolled the stores to find it during the day and that's why the craze went away because there was no discovery for the children Katie just said really innocently these are so easy we could make these well I heard what she said but I heard something much bigger she thought we should go home to my house and do a craft project which is what we usually did but I heard the idea in a much bigger way because I've been in factories where stuffed animals were made I knew how they were made I knew how to set this up I mean I'd set up so many departments at so many stores that weren't mine so I went upstairs they went downstairs I went to my computer and I was net-scaping that's the time it's you remember that yeah and I was looking for businesses I could buy that made stuffed animals that I could buy because a lot of people that I was already talking to about my next business enterprise was we're telling me maybe you could buy a business and you could reinvent it and I was thinking about that as an interesting opportunity and when Katie came up because she was looking for me she was what are you doing I told her and she well I didn't mean that and I said I know you didn't but I think it's an idea and I found a couple of businesses in the United States that were factories making stuffed animals for Matt Teddy bear and there was a company in California called the Basic Brown Bear Factory and they were selling they were making bears for other people and they were giving tours while they were there so you could go on a tour but they didn't let you make them you know they were doing it and I thought I tried to buy both of those businesses I talked to people they thought I was crazy they said it would never work and so I went and did it myself you know it is like I told Katie and she said we could do this and I said how we could and nine months later we opened the first Builder Bear Workshop store at the St. Louis Galleria nine months so you talked about nine months from when you had that conversation and you open the store with customers nine months later yes that is like unbelievable I mean it's like how did that happen well I knew how to do that I mean I'd opened up shoe stores all around the country I'd opened up apartments within department stores all over the country so I knew you know I knew how to do that and I had resources I had all the people I worked for the main company so if I needed something I called them who do you recommend for this we also had a great mall of an A plus mall right in near our house and I knew the owners so I went to them with my I did write a business plan I wrote really really really fast a real business plan not a PowerPoint I wrote a real business plan I had real financial projections and I went out talking about it to the local land that was the only one I would have opened in and when they found a space for me it was ago and my husband's to get out of the house go get an office and start work you know going to work on this so I did and I I had a woman who worked with me and a lot of projects at the main company she was an independent consultant Adrian Weiss she's a phenomenal creative person and I called her and she said oh this would be fun let's let's get going so we were playing with names I also had a marketing firm that we used for pay less and to Piquey Kansas and she said let me put some names out in front of kids we have this system where we can you know test names really fast and so the one that came up the strongest was build a bear workshop they were talking about vaccines bear workshop and Max's workshop and all kinds of things but the one that came up the strongest even though we weren't only going to have bears the bear is the teddy bears the quintessential stuffed animal we had the space so we knew we had the space really quickly which a lot of times people don't have that you know right away a lot of the words not going to give you the space that easily if you don't even have a business but these people knew me and they knew they love the idea and they wanted unique things at the Galleria Mall so we went going and I would fly out to Arizona where they were making our fixtures and we opened on October 26 1997 on time I knew the vendors I knew who to make the product with you know I had those people in mind and everybody was so excited about a new idea that you know they they weren't worried about when I would pay them or you know they were more happy to help me get something done yeah so did you have a plan as far as opening multiple locations and all that I did yes I had a 10-year plan and you know we had plans to have a lot of stores I'm such a detailed plan that we had this was 1997 and by 2002 we would open up our hundredth store because it would be the hundredth anniversary of the teddy bear and it would be at Roosevelt Field which was Teddy Roosevelt sort of inspired the teddy bear right enough our hundredth store was at Roosevelt Field in 2002 we had a big celebration for the birthday of the teddy bear so I'm pretty good at planning and I'm pretty good at execution also and I had a vision you know when you have a vision you can and I I could sketch it in my I could see clearly my head but it could also I had people that helped me sketch it out so I could show it to people and therefore our first store opened in St. Louis the lines were out the door and everybody was hearing about it and coming to see me and wanted us to open up at their mall and we had a plan of the next year we would open up four stores and then we would open up ten more we had a strategy and we knew what we that would cost to do and we wanted to plan to do it wow I mean that that's incredible and you know I just the whole idea behind it I mean it's so unique and also it's like I mean such a nice thing you know and it's so different than other things than that would be in a mall anyway it's unbelievable stories the one thing that I like to hear about is you really had a unique company culture built a bear and if you could explain some of the stuff you guys did I was open to other people's ideas like originally in the summer that before we opened I took the bears over to our friends house for a barbecue and one of my friends who's an artist had mexine these bears are so adorable but they need a heart right Sarah that's a brilliant idea and I called the factory and we we had hearts made to bring into the store and then we got the store opened one of our associates was a teacher he worked part time and we the store called me and said we need more hearts we're running out of hearts I said what do you mean you're running out of hearts we haven't sold we sold x amount of bears and we had 50,000 hearts you know no you have to come over and see and I ran over to the store and this part time salesperson had turned the heart putting the heart in the bear into a ceremony so if there was five or six people in the family they would all put a heart in the bear and if there was a birthday party they would all put a heart in the bear so we were used the heart was becoming such an important part of our business I got to expand that we had so many other stories I could tell you about that came from the associates of our company came from our customers because I was always I was listened to and I know what that felt like to feel like your opinion mattered and I always was listening to others and I also worked for a company the May Department source that valued the customer and even though we didn't have the ease of you know email to customers to get to you We if I ever had a letter that was from a customer. I made sure I answered it And so that was the same way I was doing here I was listening to our customers. I was answering emails right and left Sometimes it was just are you gonna bring a build a bear to Myrtle Beach are you gonna bring a build a bear to land but many times it was could you make this or could you make that and we had so much Input to our business that we probably still haven't made all the ideas that customers came up with even in the early days I'm building it. Yeah, it's amazing. I mean just for any owner out there like just to listen to your employees and also listen to your customers is so important and Unfortunately a lot don't it's such a waste because your customers have if they love you which they love build a bear They only want to give you good ideas and they don't know whether you've thought of it or you haven't thought of it and how you handle that is also important I was so lucky that people fell in love with our concept and we're willing to share with me Yeah, so it's somebody the other cool. I'm a marketing guy. So I love some of the ideas you guys did like Cinea birthday card each customer But I really think Cinea birthday card to each of the animals is like genius. Yes. Well birthdays are really special Even though we didn't have a lot of stuff in our house and we didn't have a lot of toys Our birthday was always special and so I know how important a birthday is to a child And we made that even special for the stuffed animal we wanted you to celebrate your stuffed animals birthday too That still is a very important part of build a bear is the child's birthday at build a bear and celebrating alongside of them Well, you've given incentives to them to come back to the store, you know and all that which is sort of genius Also, didn't you like put chips in each animal in case they got lost? No, we had a barcode one of our vendors part of the barcode was you scanned it and you put part the small part of it in the bear When you went to the birth certificate station and made a birth certificate you scanned that code Now we had your name and address so if your bear was ever lost we could return it to you. Yeah, we've returned thousands and thousands of bears thousands We'll be back in a moment after a short break Picking a financial advisor is one of the biggest decisions you need to make in retirement It's really easy for me to recommend capital advantage I've been a super happy client with Ian and Donna in the entire capital advanced team for five plus years They specialize in working with soon to be or recent retirees who want a protect and grow strategy Just for I used to be somebody listers capital advance is offering a free no obligation complete financial evaluation Just go to capital advantage dot com slash podcast Welcome back to the show You went public in 2004 what prompted that and I'd love to know what that experience was like because I know it's not an easy one No, it was really an incredible experience though. It's kind of the American dream You can build a company that you could go on the New York Stock Exchange. I pinch myself. I still pinch myself thinking about it But no we had investors. I was the first investor and before we even opened our first store We had a investor here in St. Louis who was a wealthy business owner and he called me up and wanted to know me and Invested very quickly with a very small amount of equity loss He didn't want to own the company. He wanted me to own it But he wanted to be a part of its growth and he owned a cruise ship company And so he cared about customer experience so he wanted to make sure I always had the money to deliver the customer experience And of course he he loved our customer experience. Yeah, he loved animals. He was an animal lover himself So he saw a connection to stuffed animals as well And then we took on other investors as we grew and they wanted they they're only in there for so long You know you either buy them out yourself or you go public or somebody buys you right and the opportunity in 2004 It was still less complicated to go public. I could still run the company and We needed the money to pay off our shareholders Including myself. I mean, I was able to also monetize my investment pretty substantially Even though I didn't sell it all right away. I was able to set put some of it out there And so it was a really well thought out decision. We had a plan We you know had great bankers Everything about our IPO was very much build a bear from the S1 that you have to put out Which I convinced them to let us put pictures in it and talk our bear And they didn't want to do it, but they did it now other people do that too Not their bear speak, but they put pictures of their company and sure We had a very successful IPO in 2004 October of 2004 which was almost Seven years to the day of opening our business, which is pretty fast to take a company public Yeah, you stepped down from CEO position in 2013. Is that right? Yes, it's a what prompted you to make the change Well, I sort of have always looked up to Walt Disney and his company went on long after he was gone And I wanted to make sure that build a bear did plus I had other things I wanted to do And I was nearing 65 and I wanted to think about having the time to do those things So I told the board and the board wanted to move forward and we hired a fantastic CEO Sharon Price-John who is still the CEO today and she's done a great job She said her ups and downs every new person has to figure it out and we're great friends and I'm still a board member You know, it's just been a wonderful to watch how how successful she's been and how she's had you know again There's always ups and downs, but now she's been able to grow the company and the profits of the company and make it even more technologically unique and add so much value to the company including expanding on our entertainment. We did a couple of animated specials in ah four and five and six those were really successful and she's taken it done more and has a much more interest in entertainment And I think you'll see more things coming from build a bear around entertainment Everything about it was right. I was a little hard to kind of step back But mostly the hardest part about About unretirement which I really wasn't retired for very long was how slow everything moved I was used to a very fast pace and making decisions and then tomorrow you could change your sales You know we could go to a store and change a display and tomorrow we would see how that impacted the business But when you're working with other entrepreneurs as an investor or as a mentor or in the non-profit space It doesn't move that fast so you have to really get used to a different pace and that not everybody is going to be able to do what you want them to do And unless you're going to throw money at it which wasn't my intention and again as an entrepreneur I wanted those entrepreneurs to be successful on their own right not on my right And I wasn't wanting to take any equity for them. I didn't need any more money I just wanted to be able to help them be successful And so you know have some skin at the game But I didn't have to have a lot of skin at the game and I wasn't absolutely wasn't in the trying to steal equity or take any amounts of equity from them but introduce them to other people and you know my experiences were We're very unique and very positive not everybody has those those experiences And then I see in the you know, I'm definitely a I can spot trends when I see them and When in 2014 The world came to sort of a really fast change when we started seeing these young black men killed in cities across America And you saw the power of this and I was doing a lot of work in our African-American community here in St. Louis with schools and education And I know the talent that exists and I wanted to inspire those kids to think about what products and services are missing in your community that you could create And you could bring to the market and how can I help you and so I've built an amazing relationship with young African-American entrepreneurs And that's kind of where Doug and I actually met in his class because he has all these entrepreneurs Take his class and he brings me in to teach them and do it and I can't help but I become friends with them and we have a wonderful relationship And Delmar divine which is the name of the project Can you explain the significance of that name because yeah, obviously most of people listing enough from St. Louis Yes, so St. Louis and many cities have a dividing line usually the line that that is east or west or north or south that divides it The rich and the poor the black and the white or the Hispanic I'm from Miami. We didn't have as many divisions as they have in St. Louis But we did have them as well But I didn't I didn't know until I was an adult went back to Miami to see how things had changed So St. Louis it was Delbar a street called Delmar that ran all the way from downtown St. Louis all the way out to the suburbs And the streetcar used to run on Delmar that brought people from those places downtown And when the streetcar is went away the transportation on Delmar even though there was mass transportation It just wasn't as simple or so it seemed but at the same time people were moving because of pollution They were moving because they had the money that the GI bill they can build a house There was shopping centers being erected people wanted to live near shopping centers They want a new school districts, right? I don't think St. Louis realized that people would actually leave the city I think they thought this is where the cardinals are this is where we have football This is everything's in the city But they did and this neighborhood north of Delmar became Much poorer much more segregated than it ever had been before Buildings were closed up people let their houses fall apart they abandoned them Developers might have bought them with an intention of someday doing something but they hadn't neglected them So there's all what I call meet me in St. Louis houses from the movie meet me in St. Louis all over the place But with fallen roofs and fallen porches and next to a really nice house that somebody did buy and develop So there was an opportunity here and I As an optimistic person I see opportunity in many places that no one else does I think that has to do with my height I can see up You know and around and I was kind of a point guard playing basketball and I was a kid in the neighborhood Because I can get around everybody so I see things and it And I also have the wear with all, not just the financial wear with all, but the connections and the people. And I don't have to do it all myself. I have a friend who was in the construction business and I went to him and I said, could you look at this building and see if we could save it? And he came out here with his engineering crew and he said, yeah, we can save it. And I'm gonna help you with it. - Wow. - Things like that. So I think it's my reputation, but it's also my heart. And I'm a good salesperson, but I think people could see from the drawings that we created the way we did. So we just changed the D and the divide. We just took out the D and we put an N in there and we capitalized it. The N stands for investment, innovation and inclusion. But it stands for a lot of other things 'cause we play on that in a lot because we want you to come in. We want you to be included. We want you to be part of the solution. So it stuck. It was really a working name, but the neighborhood loved it. And because it's a predominantly black neighborhood when I told them about divinities, well, don't you know that all the black sororities and fraternities are called the divine nine. It's a great name. - Yeah. Yeah. So just in case someone missed it, that area was called Delmar Divide in Delmar Divine, which is awesome. - And actually it was made famous by the BBC, not by S and St. Louis. When Michael Brown was shot in 2014, they did a documentary on St. Louis and Delmar and they called it the Delmar Divide. It picked up like wildfire. It made me crazy. Why would you pick up a negative name when you could pick up something positive? So we have changed it. Now I rarely hear anybody talk about the divide. They talk about the divine. - We'll be back in a moment after a short break. Are you thinking of downsizing your home or looking for the ideal second home? I've got the perfect Reelder for you. It's Mike Owen B from Compass Real Estate. I've personally worked with Mike on four real estate deals and loved the experience. He's knowledgeable not only about the process, but you're also working with a local expert. He's a certified senior specialist in downsizing and multi-family living situations. He serves the Sacramento and Sonoma Napa areas. Google Mike Owen B, o-w-n-b-e-y.com. I want to give a shout out to Gary Syract, a friend of the podcast. Gary's written and inspiring and entertaining new book called "Hunter Return and Not Die." People think retirement is all about the money, but it's so much more. Gary teaches you three Ps that are the key to successful retirement, passion, purpose, and planning. You can buy this book on Amazon or for I used to be somebody, Listers. Contact Gary directly at GarySyract.com. That's GarySIRAK.com. And he will personally sign your copy up how to return and not die. Welcome back to the show. Let's talk on retirement, okay? We've got 20 unretirement strategies on the Pig Ball media website. So I picked out a bunch to discuss with you. So number two, writing a business plan for your second act, be accountable. What do you have to say about that? - Well, I did do a business plan. I remember I told you one for Build a Bear, which was very successful. And so I wrote a business plan for this project, a case for this particular project. And because I had to convey, I say this to all entrepreneurs, social or for-profit entrepreneurs. First person you have to convince is yourself. And if you can't convince yourself, then you can't convince a banker, you can't convince a developer, you can't convince anybody else. So the purpose of a plan is that, is to lay out as many details as you can. And I always tell people, dream the dream supreme and figure out how to do it on a Ford budget. You know, the Cadillac or the Rolls Royce. - Right. - You can put it on a Ford budget. Then once you know what's possible, you'll figure out a way to make it happen because you'll already convince yourself, you need to do that. And that it needs to be part of your start of your business so that you're giving the customer every chance to make you successful. - Yeah. - You know, that's the deal. - Number eight, making new friends and rekindling old ones. - Yes. This is a really true one. I've made so many new friends in doing this work in the community, but I've also been able to rekindle old friendships. So this is a crazy story, but I went to a high school of 1,000 kids in our senior class and over COVID, one of our friends decided to do a, we always went to my reunions, but they decided to do a Zoom union. And so we did one and everybody loved it. We started doing them every couple of weeks. And so I have been reconnected to some of my childhood friends that I hadn't talked to since, only talked to at reunions. And we sit and have these really intelligent conversations. We find things about each other that we didn't know 'cause we're just kids, you know. We actually ask these weird questions and it's an hour conversation every couple of weeks. And it's absolutely fantastic. And I find that it has endeared me to my roots even more. And also made me realize that, when you're a kid, you just aren't thinking about all this stuff. You know, like you still had it in common, but you never asked each other 'cause it wasn't the cool thing to do. And you just don't have any of those barriers anymore. - Yeah, no, it's a whole new thing. In fact, going to reunions, I've only gone to a couple of mine, when I didn't think of leaving one, but I enjoyed doing it. And it's so funny how all the things you cared about when you were, you know, teenage or whatever, like you said, you don't have those concerns and you can really talk to people on a whole different level than you did when you were a kid. So, number 11, do you new stuff? - Yeah, I do new stuff all the time, but I don't cook, I never bake, but I have done a whole bunch of new things. I've learned about the criminal justice system. I've learned about the challenges for immigrants in our community. I've learned about the education system. I've learned about reading, you know, what the challenges are with teaching kids to read. I have gotten into some things that who would have ever thought that I would be considered even informed on let alone an expert, but, you know, I get into it and I dig in and I say, okay, we have to figure this out. And I don't do it myself. I bring the experts together to the table, but I'm always at the table 'cause I wanna keep the conversation going. I wanna keep the solutions moving forward. And so I feel like I have to know about it. I went to a session on reading, I guess it was in 2018 or 19 maybe even, I went into the session on brain science and I just got caught up in this issues of children reading and what's in the way of kids learning to read. And I can't think, what if I didn't read? I don't know what I would do if I didn't read. I mean, I've been everywhere in the world through books and, you know, reading and poetry and all these things that I've enjoyed in my life and every child should have the opportunity to do that. So that's one of my passions is working hard on that here in St. Louis. Opening up the doors for other people to have the joy that I've had and this is joyful work. I walk in here every day in this building and I sing Mr. Rogers and it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Actually, we've created a neighborhood within a neighborhood. You know, this project was big, but it doesn't have to be this big to be successful, but it has been really very, very good. - Yeah, in last one, number 20 health. What do you have to say on health? - Well, I've been eating better. I've been walking a lot. This is a big project. I walk a lot of steps every day. But when you're happy and I am very fulfilled in my life, when you're happy, I think you are, have a likelihood to be healthier. I mean, obviously I've always gone for my checkups and done all that, but I've also very much aware of the health inequities in our system. I'm working on that too so that not only I'm healthy, but the community that surrounds me is also healthy. - Yeah. Maxine, what advice you have for our audience? Our audience has had successful careers. They want to do something new, something more fun, something more meaningful. So what final words of advice you have for them? - I would say that look around at what really does interest you. You can take a course in it. You can go find a nonprofit agency or a for-profit company that does that and just meet people around that network. I mean, I have a much bigger network today than I used to have a retail, strong retail network. - Right. - You know, when I was in retailing, always talking to people in the retail business. But now I have a much broader network. People in the healthcare business. People in the entrepreneurship. And I didn't know Doug Valard. I would never have known him. You know, and people that he's introduced me to, we both were in New York a few weeks ago with Washington University alumni entrepreneurs. We had a great time. You know, it just, you know, you can be paid for these things too, but I would say, you know, your experience is so valuable to somebody else. And whether you're an accountant, you're a lawyer, you're an author, you're a publisher, you're a bus driver. There's always something that you can do that will strengthen your community. And you just need to find it, whether it's in your church or your grandchildren's school or, you know, the local neighborhood school. Somebody might say, "Oh, we don't need you right now. "We'll call you back." And they never call you. Don't give up. Just keep fighting. You'll find something. But I would say that a lot of people's volunteer work, whether they're not retired or they are retired, comes from something that they were passionate about. Because there was an illness in their family or a societal problem that plagued them when they were children. And they wanted to help other people not have that problem. There's a million ways to contribute in your community. And sometimes I say, "Use your kid thing. "Go back to when you're a kid." And think about what bugged you then. And what you wanted to do differently that maybe you haven't done yet. You can still do it. - Yeah. Anyway, that's all great advice. I really appreciate it. So, Maxine Clark, I can't thank you enough for all the wonderful things you're doing for the world. And for being our guest this month, I used to be somebody's show. - Oh, it's wonderful. I love the theme of it. And I've listened to several of them. And I'm gonna listen to the rest of them. (upbeat music) - Unretirement wisdom from the pros. - I'm excited to have our Unretirement pros with us today. It's Gary Syrac from Syrac financial services and Ian Castillo with Kepple of Vance, Wealth Management. So, one of the favorite topics we cover are some of the interesting unique things things people are fine need to do in retirement. So let's start with Gary. Gary, what are some of the new things people are doing in retirement? I've had a couple really interesting ones in the last few weeks. A client of mine was in, we're having their review and I said, so what do you guys up to? And she looks at me and she says, Gary, we're having so much fun. I said, well, what are you doing? She said, well, we're going to historic hotels throughout Ohio. Uh-huh. And I said, I don't know what a historic hotel is. And she said, well, when you look them up, you'll find out there's a lot of them. But I guess you can make your hotel historic. And she said, we've been traveling to all these towns in doing historic hotels. I said, well, how many of you done? She said, well, probably 10 already. And I said, well, how many of you actually said amazing mounts? Yeah, there are. I mean, and you can always see there's always a placard in front of them when you go to them. And I've been to a lot and they are really are interesting. So do they have any idea how many there are around the country? She didn't give me that number. She just said it will take them. She figures two years to do Ohio. And then so here's the follow up to this. I have another client of mine, his thing. And he's a huge baseball fan. He's been a baseball fan as long as I've known him, which is probably 50 years. So he and his wife always went up and watched the Cleveland Indians, now the Guardians play. And they were sitting there one night and said, you know what would be fun? Let's go do to every minor league baseball stadium that the Cleveland Indians, Cleveland Guardians play in. So they're starting at the lowest level of the minors and they're going to all these little towns, these stadiums and they started knocking them out. And they're going to travel to all the other away games that they have this whole plan out. So I approached them. I said, well, you should look at staying in historic hotels. And the lights went on in there. So excited. So they're looking up historic hotels in Jamestown, New York and all these other places. It's kind of fun. I've kind of a lot of minor league games and it is really fun in some of those towns like you would never go to otherwise. So I think those are great examples. So that's awesome. So Ian, can you top Gary for crazy retirement ideas? Of course, as a long term board member of the Alameda County Community Food Bank, I think I'm legally required to say that the most interesting and most unique thing to do is to volunteer and furthermore donate to the Alameda County Community Food Bank. That tops the list, I think. Other than that, though, the thing that I think is the cool is something I would like to do. Time permitting is taking advantage of the adult education courses, which are usually free or very, very low cost. Right. A number of my clients have chosen to pursue creative writing courses, all kinds of art programs and then even joining music. So not just learning to play an instrument, but joining a local men's course, for example, that travels around the country is something that I thought was a cool hobby to pursue. I think that's great. I live very close to Davis, California, University of California, Davis. I don't think it's part of the university, but they do offer adult classes and they really are great. I have a couple of friends that are actually teaching them. And that's something interesting to do is to teach those classes as well. It's really a great way to keep going and pursue some interest that maybe you had a long, long time ago that you've forgotten about. So I think those are great examples of Gary and Ian. Thank you so much for sharing your ideas today on Unreterbred Wisdom with the Pros. Pickleball Life Lessons with Mo. We're back in the Tiki Bar, the land of Tiki Bar for another Life Lessons with Pigwatt Life Lessons with Mo. I'm excited. How's it going today? It is really great. There's new life outside. Getting a little sunshine. Yeah, it's a little vitamin D. It's exciting. Let's talk about resetting. I'm just going to use this example. I had a friend and this happened to them. The first three points in the game. They missed the first serve. Oops. Okay. And then on the return, they hit the ball on the net. And then the next return, they hit it long. So serve a Pigwatt trifecta. That's unfortunate. Yes. So I know you talk a lot about resetting. So that's a mental reset when you start making a bunch of errors. So we always talk about it like if you're wearing a baseball cap, there's a little button on top. That's your reset button. Just hit your reset button. Try to let everything go, put it in the past. But there's also a reset in the point. If the point starts to get chaotic, you need to reset it for yourself. So hit a short, small shot, a nice little dink, drop shot, change it for yourself. So you don't want to be chaos. You want to control the point. And a lot of times that helps in your mental game as well. You're like, "Oh, I'm in control." And you'll start to build confidence from that. This is one thing I do. I'm just the intermediate average player. But what I'll find my partner and I, and it often happens as partners where you freaking can't hit anything in. It's either it's in the net or it's long. And I just say to my partner, let's just hit the ball over. Let's not even worry if it's a good shot or not, because we're shooting ourselves up here really bad. And let's just hit it over. And it's amazing that can turn things around really quickly. Yeah, you can just get it over the net and hope that your other team, the opponent makes a mistake. Yeah, because sometimes they've seen all these mistakes I've made. And maybe when they're like, "Wow, I wonder what that's like." It looks like it hurts. But sometimes if you just hit one more ball, just get one more ball over, they'll make the mistake. That's your, you won the rally. But you just gotta get it in and hit conservatively. If you're missing your targets, make your target bigger. Get it away from the lines, go for the middle of the court if you're really missing. And just hit conservatively. Yeah. And if you think about life, sometimes things aren't going your way that day. And maybe it's something simple that sort of turns things around. Yeah, find a way to make it easier. Say you're driving on the freeway and everything's going nuts. Well, get in the right lane, go a little slower, get away from everybody, get conservative a little bit. Let them make the mistakes. Yeah. I have no interest in being in their accident. Right. Okay. Well, for obvious reasons, drivers out there, I think you learned quite a bit. Oh my God. Speaking of which, I could never do that. Oh, be a driving instructor. Yes. I mean, I was terrible with my daughters. It was, it was terrifying because at least as a student driver, like a real one, you get the little break thing on your side. Right. Yeah. There's no break thing. All you can do is yell a lot and scream and cry, you know, when you're teaching like a loved one. My mom taught seven kids to drive. I'm like, that's a miracle. I don't know how she didn't just go gray right off the bat. I mean, I really respect her. Driving instructors are not paid enough. I can I know that. Do they still do all that? Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. You see all those cars out there that stay stay student driver? Yeah. I usually like, you know, try to screw around with them. That's really punk. Yeah. Cut them off. No, they're not going fast enough. They cut them off. He got to work harder at it. All right. Well, I think everyone's learned about student driving and how to reset for a big wall on life lessons with mom. Thank you so much for listening to today's show. I'm so glad that I got to meet and spend some time with Maxine Clark. First thing I want to thank our awesome sponsors, Capital Advanced Financial Advisors, Mike Owen B. Accompas Real Estate and Gary Srirac, who wrote the book, "Hudder Retire and Not Die." Thanks to the talented Monard and the Unruir Retirement Wisdom with the pros guys. And thank you to our star of the show today, Maxine Clark. She is a true inspiration to the millions of people she has touched. And a final thank you to my boss is Diana Beccah. Thank you for letting me keep my job one more month. We'll see you all next month in Lands out T.E. Bar for a brand new episode of "I Used to Be Someday." My hello.