Episode 1 - Introduction to Cool Grandpa Podcast

Cynthia Covey Haller joins us to discuss the book Live Life In Crescendo, which she and her late father, Steven Covey, wrote. We discuss the idea for the book and how it came about. Cynthia shares with us how her father thought that expanding a person's life was the eighth habit that would lead to a successful life.

For those unfamiliar with the musical term, Crescendo means increasing loudness or intensity. The opposite of Crescendo is Diminuendo, which means a decrease in loudness or intensity.

It is great to hear Cynthia's story about how she and her father came to start this book together and the path it took for Cynthia to complete and then publish it. You are going to enjoy listening to the fantastic stories that Cynthia shares about everyday people who chose to live in Crescendo and not diminuendo.

If you feel stuck or have plateaued in your life, reading this book and listening to Cynthia will inspire you to look around you for opportunities to grow and grow your significance. You might feel that you are not wealthy enough or have enough influence to have much of an impact on your family, community, or a cause that you feel deeply about, but as the examples in this book point out, you need to start with yourself and the world around you.

Live Life in Crescendo calls on all of us as we reach the second half of life to look to live our lives for a larger purpose. If that task falls to you, that purpose could be to raise your grandchildren. It could also be volunteering at a local reading center or other organization that needs your unique talents and gifts.

Living a life in Crescendo also means continuing to grow yourself, your talents, and your abilities. This can be accomplished by taking up a new hobby, starting a new profession, or taking classes at your local university or community college. There are many ways to grow yourself, such as pouring your increase into the cups of those around you who need your wisdom, wit, and experience.

After you have listened to this conversation, please share it with three family members or friends who would enjoy listening to Cynthia talk about the process of writing this important book, as well as those who need to hear this message of not fading away but building from where ever they are into a Crescendo.

Links

Click on this link to order this book through Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Live-Life-Crescendo-Important-Always/dp/B09TX18ZWG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3NA2DT1OOJIHU&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.yICSUt-xo-4-hft9S3PD5zUybkrPYgmYfRfj_GaNOmN6otbNK5flEFfmYbS_ZvIrclqpZSw38ZSFHfqMKjWESms7JwaEVqTZZ7zZWpBA8wKTVICjJAcYf-P9Rth2ms6ivr-yVvY-b3h7U6DbZNbd7BnzhvUOVJPPbYCv0YXYQYxYpqKTzh9LbpSiSDO1DonZC8iCNpJvOEYTP6N3T1apTU-t-ffctGDf24y2NdzCJyM.d2Jk_iSR7rJxPWssfw5hNkjwnA_mVg_OQBsAjJr_uuE&dib_tag=se&keywords=live+life+in+crescendo&qid=1709755792&sprefix=Live+Life%2Caps%2C112&sr=8-1.

Here is the link to Cynthia's LinkedIn profile should you want to reach out and connect with her: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cynthia-covey-haller-639767238/

This week's conversation is with adolescent substance use expert Richard Capriola. Rick joins the conversation this week to discuss the University of Michigan's annual survey of adolescent use of substances. For those of you who don't know, this survey asks middle and high schoolers about their attitudes and use of drugs.

We review the latest attitudes that our children and grandchildren have towards alcohol and recreational substances. Some of the trends from pre-pandemic to post-pandemic might surprise you, including some of the newer substances that are available to adolescents. I also asked Rick about the attitudes toward Delta 8 and the risks that people take concerning fentanyl when they take drugs from unreliable sources.

As always, Rick shares his proven methods on how to bring up and discuss drug and alcohol use with youth. You will learn a lot from this conversation and the previous conversations that I have had with Rick. Those conversations can be found in the links below, along with the link to Rick's website, Help the Addicted Child. Once you have listened to this episode, please share it with a friend or family member who would enjoy learning more about the attitudes and habits of adolescents when it comes to drugs and alcohol.

Links

You can find more information about Rick and his work at Help The Addicted Child by clicking this link: https://helptheaddictedchild.com/

Here is the summary of the University of Michigan's annual study: https://cool-grandpa.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2023-Teens-drug-use.docx

Please feel free to listen to our previous conversations with Rick. EP 44: https://cool-grandpa.us/2021/08/the-addicted-child/ EP 123: https://cool-grandpa.us/2023/03/ep-123-youth-substance-abuse-information/

Jeff Williams has spent over thirty years helping professionals transition from one career path to another. Started in the 1990s as a resource to help people who were being laid off during the corporate restructuring, Jeff has grown and developed a team of experts who are now working with people wanting a second or encore career. We start this informative conversation discussing Jeff's transition from a large 6 Billion dollar organization to a 6 Million dollar family business.

With Bizstarters, Jeff and his team can walk people who are ready to start a second career or people who are beginning to ask if a second career makes sense for them to whichever path makes the most sense for them. Jeff prides himself on talking with each person who reaches out to Bizstarters to get to know them, their unique circumstances, and most importantly, their aspirations for an encore business. Jeff knows everyone has different goals for their next career, and through these calls, he can help individuals map out the course that makes the most sense for them.

We get into a great discussion about the other tools available for people wanting to start a business. One of those tools is the Bizstarter's Virtual Concept Evaluator. This Evaluator program allows you to work with Bizstarter's team to document your concept, get feedback, and decide whether to modify your idea, create another idea, or move forward to the next step in creating your encore business.

As you will hear, Jeff is an interesting and friendly person to work with who will give you solid advice and feedback on your plan. You will enjoy this conversation, and if you or anyone you know are interested in connecting with Jeff, check out the links below and reach out to him today.

Once you listen to this podcast, please do me a favor and share this great information with a friend or family member. Your recommendation is the best way to help get this and other information important to grandfathers and others into their hands and ears.

Links

Click on the following link to visit Bizstarters and learn more about Jeff and his team: https://bizstarters.com/

Jeff has created a great new course hosted on TikTok. The information for that course is below.

"The Joy of Being an Encore Entrepreneur"

A new TikTok series from Jeff Williams, Chief Coach for Bizstarters

"I am pleased to share my experience living as an encore entrepreneur for
the past 30 years.

This series of short-form videos offers three groups of useful
information:

- Business Start-Up Decisions

Each decision is taken from our Start Your Business NOW! online course.
I am presenting more than 20 key business planning decisions in the
same order you work on them in the Start Your Business NOW! program.

- Interesting Case Studies

Stories of the success and joy of graduates of the Start Your Business
NOW! program

- Inspirational "Joy" Experiences

I share the wonderful world of running a business later in life.

How to Watch the Series? Go to tiktok.com/@jeffwilliamsgo "

Daniel Grissom is passionate about helping men learn more about the Word of God and how to use that knowledge to lead their families. He is a great guy from Atlanta, Georgia, who works to develop sales leaders in his professional life and faith leaders in his ministry. We learn about the great work that Daniel is doing working with fathers to make the Bible accessible to digest and easy to live.

Sometimes, we can make things and concepts like those in the Bible harder to adopt and implement than needed. Often, that comes from a lack of understanding of how to start living a more complete life. Daniel does a great job of helping people get started by making the complex easy because his experience has taught him that if something is complex, it is rarely implemented.

You will enjoy this conversation and learn about the excellent work that Daniel is doing to help fathers and grandfathers lead themselves and their families. Once you have listened to this conversation, please be sure to share this conversation with three friends and family members. Also, be sure to check out the links and connection information below, and I encourage you to contact Daniel.

Links

You can visit and learn more about Fathers Walk by visiting their website at: https://www.fatherswalk.com/

Here is Daniel's phone number: 312.315.1591

You can connect with Daniel at LinkedIn by clicking on this link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielgrissom/

Here is Daniel's email address: daniel@dealclosercoaching.com 

This week's episode is a solo show. I just finished Ryan Holiday's The Obstacle Is The Way. This was a great book that seemed to hit at the right time. I was recently laid off from a non-profit where I had just started working. The Obstacle Is The Way is an excellent book about Stoicism.

The part of the book that hit home for me is the concept that each individual needs to have a citadel or a place within themselves that they can go to find inner peace. This citadel is where we can go within ourselves to calm our minds, meditate on the challenges that we are facing, and develop an action plan.

My take on this concept of the citadel is to expand it to a system of three-ring defenses. At the center, you have the keep or citadel that was started as a tower or a structure and placed on top of a hill. As we age and the fortification matures, the owners often add an outer wall. Within this wall, you might find stables, apartments, a blacksmith shop, and the basics that the people would occupy would need if they were attacked. The longer the structure was in place, the more often a second wall or third set of defenses was put into place to provide an even larger protection area for more soldiers, merchants, and important people.

To me, these three rings of defense can be considered the outer wall, your physical well-being, and your surroundings. The outer wall would include whether you are exercising, eating well, having a place to live, or having access to transportation. The inner wall would include your extended family network and personal and professional networks. Finally, your keep or inner citadel is your immediate family, your close friends, positive books, entertainment, positive podcasts, and other media.

When we are in a period of stability and things are going well in our lives, this is the time to repair our walls or defenses and even look to expand them. We should strengthen ourselves physically, build our personal and professional networks, and work on mending or strengthening our closest relationships.

If you want to learn more about stoicism or the concept of the inner citadel, check out the links below.

Links

Click here to go to Ryan Holiday's website and check out his books and articles: https://ryanholiday.net/books-courses/

Here is the link for an article titled, Cultivating Your Inner Citadel by Max Frenzel, PhD:https://medium.com/the-ascent/cultivating-your-inner-citadel-1036023dcd32#:~:text=The%20Stoics%20had%20a%20concept,leaders%20apart%20from%20the%20rest.

Click on the following link for a great article: What is The Inner Citadel in Stoicism? https://stoicstore.co.uk/the-inner-citadel-stoicism/

Cindy Liljedahl joins the conversation to discuss her memories of not just her grandparents but also one of our great-grandfathers. If Cindy sounds familiar to you, that is because she is half of the AdventuRetired team. Last week, we had Cindy's husband, Curt, on the show to discuss his grandfathers.

Cindy and I shared a very nice discussion centered on her grandfathers, Bill DeMoss and Bernard Twait. As I said, this conversation involved memories of all her grandparents, including her wonderful grandmothers. We talk about how Cindy has fond memories of offering back rubs to her grandpa, Twait, due to his bad back and neck. I get to ask Cindy how her relationships changed with her grandparents as she grew older, and we find out that even though her great-grandpa passed away when she was six or seven years old, she remembers playing with the toy furniture he made for her Barbies.

Of course, no conversation about grandparents would be complete without some sweet memories of Cindy's grandmother, Demoss. Cindy shares touching memories of going to her grandmother's when she was older to help clean and tidy up due to her grandmother's failing eyesight.

You will enjoy this conversation and learn as I did about the simple acts of kindness by grandparents and grandchildren that create lasting and loving bonds. Of course, it does take work and intentionality to create these kinds of relationships that Cindy talks about, but the work is light when it starts from a place of love.

Please remember to like and subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen. Your subscription and feedback help others find these conversations and the many like them. And, if you would be so kind as to share this conversation with three friends, that would be a fantastic way to help spread the word about how important this role of being a grandfather is and can be with a little effort.

Links

Click on this link to visit Cindy at AdventuRetired: https://www.adventuretired.com/

If you want to learn more about AdventuRetired, you can listen to my conversation with Curt and Cindy about their website and podcast by clicking on this link: https://cool-grandpa.us/2023/09/ep-149-adventuretired/

Click Here if you would like to support me on Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/coolgrandpa

Curt Liljedahl from AdventuRetired is back to talk and share with us his memories of his grandfathers. Curt will introduce you to his grandfathers, James Bertelson, and JM Liljedahl. We take our time getting to know each of these gentlemen's backgrounds and their lasting influence on Curt.

You will hear the fun stories of how Curt and his siblings used to roughhouse around and do things his father was not permitted to do. Curt shares a great story of going to the coffee shop/convenience store with his grandfather, and then a friend of his grandfather filled up each pocket of Curt's overalls with candy bars.

We also talk about how Curt's grandfather, James Bertelson, purchased a small lakeside resort where, for years, the family and the growing extended family have been invited to come and stay. This great opportunity allows for cousins and other family members who might not see each other regularly to reconnect.

You will enjoy this conversation with Curt, and be sure to check out the links to AdventuRetired and Curt's book, Fix the Problem: and Other Life Lessons from a Pragmatic Dad!

Once you have listened to this conversation and checked out the links below, please be sure to rate and review the podcast on your favorite podcast subscription platform. Your feedback not only helps other people find the podcast, but I take your comments seriously and use them to help me make this podcast more enjoyable.

Links

Click on this link to visit Curt at AdventuRetired: https://www.adventuretired.com/

You can click on this link to go to Amazon and purchase Curt's book, Fix the Problem: and other Life Lessons from a Pragmatic Dad!

If you want to learn more about AdventuRetired, you can listen to my conversation with Curt and Cindy about their website and podcast by clicking on this link: https://cool-grandpa.us/2023/09/ep-149-adventuretired/

Doug Sohn from Success After Sixty joins our conversation to discuss how aging people can look around and see what their age and experience make possible. We talk with Doug about how, as a father of six and a successful lawyer. Shortly before his birthday, he experienced a series of mini-strokes that caused him to re-examine his life.

Doug shares how, even though he had followed and learned from people like Tony Robbins and Earl Nightingale, he felt that he had experienced a plateau in his professional and personal life. This evaluation of where he was with his life and relationships caused him to recognize that there is societal pressure that we often listen to and that at a certain age, we should slow down. Not only should we slow down, but we should stop growing in some areas of life and stop challenging ourselves.

This conversation will inspire you, and I hope it does light a fire in you to reach for new heights in whatever areas of life you want. After you listen to this conversation, I hope you will share it with three friends who will enjoy hearing Doug's message of working and finding success after sixty. Be sure to check out the links below to learn more about Doug and join us in several different groups that Doug leads.

Links

Click on this link to view the Success After Sixty website: https://successaftersixty.org/

To join the Success After Sixty Facebook group, you can click on this link: https://www.facebook.com/successaftersixty.org

You can follow Doug on 'X' by clicking this link: https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fsohn_douglas

You can follow Doug on LinkedIn by clicking on this link: linkedin.com/in/dcsohn

Welcome to 2024! As we kick off this new year and new opportunities for learning, leading, and loving our families, I wanted to talk with you about navigating three challenges that Grandfathers experience when caring for grandchildren.

The first challenge that I think a lot of grandfathers face is what to do about disciplining the grandkids when they are in our care. I get it. As a fun and cool grandfather, you don't want to be in the business of disciplining the grandkids. However, sometimes, reinforcing mom and dad's rules is called for.

For this simple fact, when the grandkids start gaining a little independence and start testing mom and dad's boundaries, a conversation NEEDS to be had by the parents and grandparents. You need to get on the same page regarding what is permissible and what the parents consider out of bounds when it comes to course-correcting the little ones.

The second challenge that grandpas tackle is the challenge of food. I'm not talking about starving the kids or not, but rather, what are our limits for the types of foods the parents want the little ones to have? I once made the mistake of giving a tortilla chip to my grandson and quickly got talked to by his mom AND grandma. Talk about getting the old 'one-two punch.'

Parents are going to expect grandpas to play fast and loose with some of the rules when it comes to treats and sweets. But we should be having continuing conversations with our grandchildren's moms and dads about food. What do the grandkids like? What don't they like? Are there any allergies? If there are allergies, how severe are the reactions? What do we do when the kids don't eat all their carrots?

As you can guess, communication is huge here when it comes to figuring out what is and isn't on the menu regarding feeding grandkids. That doesn't mean that you can't slip the kids an extra cookie here or there...as long as it won't kill them, of course.

The last challenge I discuss in this podcast episode is about firsts. Do you remember your first....whatever it was? A lot of times with a new baby, there is a lot of stress with young parents to be around for every first. First steps, first words, first poop in the toilet, first swear word, etc.

As a grandfather, we need to be careful not to accidentally take away a first for our young parents to enjoy. Sometimes, you can't help it. The little ones do something and bang, a first has just happened that you didn't plan for. Kids are like that.

Just remember that when you are doing great activities with the grandkids you haven't done before, you let the parents know what is going on. This is so they let you know that they would either like to be part of that activity or maybe want to have that moment for themselves and their child.

If you can think of other challenges that grandfathers need to be careful to navigate, let me know in the comments below.

If you haven't subscribed to the podcast, please do so. Also, I would appreciate it if you would share this episode and podcast with three other friends who would like to hear encouraging thoughts and information that everyone can use.