Feeling stuck after a sudden job loss or career shift? Get inspired by a real-life story of resilience, reinvention, and the pursuit of purpose.

On this episode of Looking Forward Our Way, hosts Brett Johnson and Carol sit down with Randy Robertson, who candidly shares how he navigated an unexpected end to his 30-year corporate journey and found new meaning as a regional storyteller at Special Olympics New York.

From managing global creative teams to rediscovering his early love for writing, Randy walks us through his step-by-step approach to tackling unemployment, overcoming self-doubt, and building an authentic new career path.

Learn firsthand how Randy harnessed the power of networking (both online and in person), leveraged learning platforms and job resources, and turned personal experiences—including those with his adult daughter living with autism—into a powerful storytelling platform that helps others. You’ll come away with real strategies you can use, no matter where you are in your career journey.

If you like this episode, please let us know. We appreciate the feed back, and your support of offset costs of producing the podcast!

Key Takeaways:

• How to approach sudden job loss with resilience and a proactive mindset
• Practical tactics for networking, using LinkedIn, and making coffee chats count
• Embracing new skills and staying technologically relevant at any age
• Leveraging personal experience and unfinished business in creating a meaningful career pivot
• The value of community support, volunteering, and purpose-driven work

If you’re facing a career crossroads, feeling stuck, or hunting for inspiration to reignite your professional life, this conversation is a must-listen.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Randy Robertson and what is his role at Special Olympics New York?

Randy Robertson is a regional storyteller for Special Olympics New York. He previously worked for 30 years in global creative services for a business consulting firm, and now shares stories about Special Olympics athletes and events, focusing on the special needs community 00:20, 29:44.

What role did networking and LinkedIn play in his career transition?

Networking—both direct outreach on LinkedIn and personal connections—was crucial. Randy Robertson messaged hundreds of contacts and found many were receptive and willing to help.

How did Randy Robertson approach learning new skills and technology?

He used online resources like LinkedIn Learning, took targeted courses (such as SEO and WordPress), and embraced new tools relevant to his evolving career goals.

What is Randy’s blog “Life with Mary” about, and how does it support the special needs community?

“Life with Mary” is Randy’s Substack blog sharing stories about daily life with his daughter Mary, who has moderate autism. The blog provides insights for families with special needs children and raises awareness for both those inside and outside the autism community 19:13–21:17, 31:03–41:33.

What advice does Randy Robertson offer older job seekers facing a career pivot?

Focus on networking, don’t hesitate to reach out to contacts, use job boards for research (not as your only strategy), and be open to reimagining what fulfilling work might look like in your next chapter.

We would love to hear from you.

Give us your feedback, or suggest a topic, by leaving us a voice message.

Email us at [email protected].

Find us on Bluesky and Facebook.

Please review our podcast on Google!

And of course, everything can be found on our website, Looking Forward Our Way.

Recorded in Studio C at 511 Studios. A production of Circle 270 Media® Podcast Consultants.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/

Copyright 2026 Carol Ventresca and Brett Johnson

Mentioned in this episode:

Listener Disclaimer

The views and opinions expressed by the experts interviewed on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the podcast hosts or any affiliated organizations. The information provided in these interviews is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered as professional advice. Listeners are encouraged to consult with qualified professionals for specific advice or information related to their individual circumstances. The podcast host and producers do not endorse or guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information provided by the experts interviewed. Listener discretion is advised.

We are Looking Forward Our Way. Hi, this is Brett. Carol and I

have worked with adults going through career transitions for many years now.

Many of us who are a bit older and in the midst of a job

change quickly discovered the challenges and hurdles to find that next great

career adventure. Today we're happy to talk with Randy Robertson, who

is zooming in from New York City. Randy is a new

regional storyteller for Special Olympics New York. After many

years in global creative services for a 100-year-old business

consulting firm, we're going to hear about his recent career journey.

Randy, thanks for joining us. Hi, Brett. Hi, Carol.

Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to our discussion today. Sounds great.

Randy. Thank you again for all of your time and

effort to help us put this together. And

first and foremost, we have to talk about our good friend

Ken Lazar, who is the CEO of Ability

Professional Network here in Central Ohio. Ken had heard

your story and thought it really would be a great

example of older adults successfully

transitioning to new career paths. So let's give a shout out to

Ken for connecting you to us. We really appreciate that. He's

a great guy. He's terrific. Yeah, absolutely. So

before we get started on the career journey that

you are taking now, let's talk about that big transition.

Your education began at San Jose State University, an

MBA from DePaul, you were a sports writer in

California. I have to say, as many people as I've met in my world, I

don't think I've ever met a sports writer. So that's always a good,

you're my first. But your journey across

the United States led to this 30 year

profession in what you call creative services. Give us

more on this leap from your sports writer time

to managing a team of 100 graphic artists,

supporting organizations literally around the globe.

Yeah, that's right. It absolutely was a huge leap.

As a teenager, I quickly realized that I was not going to be a

professional athlete. I just didn't have that. I had the passion

but not the ability. And at the same time, I was in

an English classes and I was doing terrific with anything to do

with writing. And so I thought, you know, maybe

I'll give journalism a try and go for it. And so I went to San

Jose State, got a journalism degree, became a professional sports

writer in the mid-1990s and worked

for four years in that profession, had a great time, really

covered U.S. open lots of fantastic events, Major

league baseball, football, basketball, you name it, I was living the life.

Newspapers, print newspapers were not doing so, well,

they were disappearing every year and it was really a

tough way to eke out a living. So at some point I

decided, you know what, this is maybe not the best option

for me long term. The, you know, the

Internet was around and becoming super popular by the

late 90s, and I said, maybe there's a way to pivot to a

different career where

I can utilize some of these skills. And I went to a

job coach, a job placement agency,

and I expressed my ability to lay out and

design newspaper pages. And they said, oh, we've

got graphic design jobs. That sounds like it'd be good for you. Do you want

to give it a shot? And my wife and I had recently moved to

Chicago for her job. So I said,

yeah, let's check it out. What do you have in mind? I said, there's something

called PowerPoint which every

kindergartner almost uses these days. But in the late 90s,

it was a hot new thing. So they couldn't

find enough people to do PowerPoint those days. So I

bought a book about this thick, 3 inches, 4 inches thick.

Learned PowerPoint over a weekend, and by the following Monday I was

taking a test and got a job working in Consulting

doing PowerPoint. It was a three month temp to perm

and I lasted with the company for 30 years.

I quickly realized I didn't really want to stare at the screen doing PowerPoint.

So within a year I moved up to a shift coordinator. Then I was

supervising the team in Chicago, then leading the team in the

United States. At that point, they recommended I

get an MBA. It was paid for. So I went to DePaul University

in Chicago, got an MBA in operations. I

graduated. They said, congratulations, we need to build a team in

India. Everybody's building overseas. So I end up

developing an overseas team in India and

became the global Creative Services

supervisor, manager, Director over the years, and we

gradually added hubs in places like Prague and

Dubai and Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Shanghai.

So I was able to really travel the world. I had a really

fun time. It was a. It was definitely the

corporate treadmill, the hamster wheel, super busy,

hot deadlines. And over time, as

PowerPoint became more common, we got into more advanced

deliverables as well. Doing videos, websites,

business papers, white papers, using all kinds of

Adobe Creative Studio applications.

So. But even at the end last

summer, we were still doing almost 75% of our work was in

PowerPoint. It's just, just that the ask had become

so much greater than when I had started. So

along the way we had been Also leveraging

AI within the, within Microsoft, within

Adobe, within other applications. So I was getting

pretty savvy with using AI,

arranging workshops for my team, the graphic designers.

It wasn't always 100 at one time we had a few as 50.

We had built up to 100 by the time I left in September.

But we were using AI. I was scheduling workshops to have

designers who did something in AI take 30 minutes and share

how they did it with other members of the team. Then

our training team was finding out about this and they were then

asking me and my team to present these to the rest of

the firm. So things were going great and

you know, things are going great until they're not, I guess.

But that was really the leap. It was all just about a guy

in journalism who loved writing, didn't like the way the industry was

going, pivoted to more of the layout and design, and

then found out I was actually pretty good at managing

teams. And you know that your step to learning how

to lay out the page of a newspaper, you do things

like that, what seems to be a different task or a

smaller task than what you're normally doing and not realize how

pivotal that learning opportunity

becomes in your next career

steps. Absolutely. It's all about acquiring

skills, adding to your toolkit, or as

my young adult boy, say, having a deep bag.

I a lot of abilities in your bag to reach in and pull out for

different requirements as needed. So for me,

the fact that I was laying out and designing a newspaper on a tight,

tight deadlines, you know, at 10, 11 o' clock at night. Oh, guess

what? In the consulting field, doing PowerPoints, laying out,

you know, under tight deadlines at night was super valuable also.

Exactly. Yeah, right. So your job loss was

sudden. After that shock, what did you focus on

to ensure you could make good choices in your career move? I mean, did you

have challenges financial or even emotional? How'd you develop

a mindset to keep on track? Great

question, Brett. There definitely were plenty of challenges. The first was

just the feeling of self worth and

the shock was really like wait

almost 30 years in and in a 12 minute phone call,

it was over. So fortunately

I had a lot of things working in my favor. One is

that my wife continues to have a pretty good job

and we were able to shift all of our medical benefits from my

job to hers. So I never had to worry about

that because that's actually a big deal for everybody. So. So that was never a

concern. Also, my company gave me some severance, so I was,

I knew I was Going to get. I was let go in September of

2025, so I knew I was going to be getting paid into

2026 a little bit. So I didn't have to find a job in a week

or two weeks or whatever. I had a little bit of time, so

those helped me. The other thing that is interesting is that

consulting in and of itself, people tend to come and go

all the time. It's a, a challenging

profession and people get into it. It's not right for

everybody, or they're really good at it and they get plucked

by clients and they go off into the private sector.

So I looked at my LinkedIn and I had connections

all over the world in all different industries. I knew a

lot of different people. Some were alumni of my former

firm and some were still with my former company. So I

said, I know a lot of people. I'm just going to reach out one by

one and direct message 500 people and

say, I'm looking for another

opportunity. My initial mindset was,

I've been doing this for 30 years, keep doing it. I've been told

every annual performance evaluation, you're doing great,

you're running a profit center, your team is happy, keep doing it. So that, oh,

I'll just keep doing this somewhere else, right? Why not?

And so I reached out to direct messaging, 500 people

that in my LinkedIn connections. And probably

half responded, maybe half, never did.

Some, hey, I'll keep you in mind. Others actually

got back to me, said, hey, let's have a call.

I did probably 15 or 20 coffee chats,

virtually some of them I barely knew.

It was really wonderful, heartwarming

that connections and colleagues that five, 10 years before,

I barely knew. But I'd say, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to message

them anyways. What have I got to lose? If they ignore it, they ignore it.

And some of them got back to me and took One guy was

so awesome. He shared his screen. He showed

me how to contact people on LinkedIn to

send direct messages. Searching through a company to find people you might have

connections with. He didn't have to do this. It

was really wonderful to see that, just

that empathy, that kindness. And

he's an alumni. He wasn't even working with the company anymore either,

so. And there were others that I had chats with. I maybe knew a

little better that it was easier to reach out to. So my

first guidance would be, if you are out there looking for work

and you're on LinkedIn, because not everybody is, but a lot of people

are reach out to your former

colleagues, your connections, even if you don't really

know them. You'll be surprised how many get back

to you. Some sent me links to their new companies,

job classified web pages, things like that.

Like I said, some set up 1530 minute phone calls. We just

chatted. What are you looking for? What you know, things like that.

Some of them are just like, hey, you're good, you have talent. I'm seeing

this in a lot of industries right now. It's, there's a lot

of turmoil, a lot of turnover due to AI.

People are being let go. And even

at the time we're recording this,

they don't always necessarily have a plan how they're going to use the AI. These

companies know that they need to use it and it's expensive.

So maybe they cut by letting people go or

not replacing positions, whatever. So there's just a lot of turnover in the industry,

in many industries. And that's what I got caught up in. And here I was,

I was doing fine. Suddenly I was let go. So

contacting those LinkedIn connections, also people

in the neighborhood, people at church, people in

my wife's running group that I'm friends with in the

Knights of Columbus, people I know just through

society, people in the grocery store that I've seen so

chit chatting with people. A few of them were actual real

coffee chats where we actually did meet at a coffee

shop. Most of them were just virtual, but

doing so for me was a way to

get my, not my story out, but just to talk to people and

hear that AI wasn't the only person going through

this right now. A lot of people like, yeah, I'm having an issue or

my, my cousin just went through this or my next door neighbor just got laid

off. It's something that happens and you don't

really realize how devastating it is till it happens to

you. Because so much of our identity is tied up in

your job. And it's even just a little simple comment like you run into somebody

at the store like how's your work going? Or what are you doing these

days? Oh, I'm unemployed. Like it's

tough. Like it's because I haven't done that, I haven't said that in 30

years more because I had a job before that. So

I think losing your identity is probably the hardest step.

And I've said this, even with retirement, not having a

title, when you've had a title your whole life, your whole work life

is really tough. This is really leading into my Next

question. When we're talking about or thinking about

how somebody goes through a career, career transition,

particularly when it's a sudden change, you really need to

reinvent yourself to be ready to go

into those next steps. You have to think about, what did you

accomplish, what do you want to continue doing,

what skills you have are strong, what you might need to

update and to focus in on

what you want to do and what industries are coming, companies are of

interest. And that whole step of talking to people

probably helps you do that because it's hard to sit there

and talk to yourself. Talking to other people helps you kind of

clarify for yourself what you want to do. So

what was the next step in this self discovery and what

resources were available to you?

Right. So, Carol, it's interesting. Uh, I

was in this mindset for the first six to eight weeks that I had to

do the same thing again. As I mentioned, that was my, my,

my first goal. I'm good at this. I'm gonna keep, keep doing this.

Running a global team in consulting, I

wasn't getting anywhere. I probably submitted 50 to 60

applications, resumes that just. I never got any sort of

reply or I got a standard, thank you for applying. You're not

advancing to the next round. It gets very demoralizing.

It gets very humbling. I fortunately had a family

and my wife to pump me up. I'm a pretty positive guy, to

be honest, anyways, but it's tough. And so

you do have to kind of say, you know, what do I want to

do? Like, what do I have to do that? And it was

just the most random thing. But nothing's random, right?

Nothing in life is random. So my wife listens to a

podcaster named Mel Robbins. And Mel is pretty popular.

So my wife gets home one day from work and she says, hey, I was

listening to this podcast and the topic was, do you have unfinished

business? And it was, maybe you're in your late

30s or 40s and you're in your middle of your career, but

you don't like where it's going. Or you thought you wanted to do xyz, but

you don't really like it, but, but you're making money. It's hard to

change midstream. Or maybe you're like me in your

50s or late 40s, 50s, and you

still want to work, but for some reason you're out of

work and now you have to find something else and you have

unfinished business. And when my wife said this to me,

I immediately said sports writing. And

Debbie looked at me she's like, sports writing. I said, yeah,

I don't even know where that came from, but it just came out immediately.

So, Carol, you said, reinvent yourself. I think

in this case, I was rediscovering myself that

I had kind of put in a drawer 30 years ago and

said, okay, I'm not writing anymore. I'm designing. Focusing

on those skills and the team leadership. And then the idea was

writing okay. A gazillion people want to get paid to

write. Like, it's not easy to get paid to write. So my

wife said, don't worry about getting paid. You're still getting paid by your other

company. Just start writing. What do you. What. How could you do

it? I said, well, there's blogs I could do. Yes,

go for it. So all I needed was that spark

to rediscover myself and what was. I was

passionate about. And, you know, for some people, it might be working

on cars or gardening or

something with their church or whatever

their community board. Like, there's so many different ways you could get

involved. For me, it happened to be writing. So I said, well,

I mean, I was pretty happy with utilizing

AI. I said, okay. I asked ChatGPT,

I want to start writing a blog. What are the three most popular

places to do that? Boom, boom, boom. And it's okay. Most people are

using this one called Substack. All right. I want

to write about my daughter Mary. She's got special needs. I wrote a book

called finding Mary in 2010. Family and friends

have been asking me for 15 years, when are you going to write a sequel?

Well, I'm busy. Like, I'm raising my family. I've got this other

job. So now all of a sudden, I have more time. I said, well, maybe

I don't write a book right now, but maybe I'll write a.

A substack blog a couple times a week

about my life with Mary. So I call it Life with Mary.

So I just. I just. Through ChatGPT, I asked it a couple of

questions. How should I set it up? What kinds of things should I do? Blah,

blah, blah. And I didn't use everything that it gave me, but I. It gave

me a good sense of direction. So I went on to Substack,

created this. And within a month,

this was in November of 2025. And within a

month, I had over 100 subscribers and more than a dozen

were paid subscribers. Mostly family, but

some of them former colleagues, friends, that. And it's not enough to

make a living, but it was enough to say, oh, there's people that

are supporting me, that are putting a little bit of money towards

me to say, hey, I investing in you, I believe in you.

And then all of a sudden I would Write something at 100, 110.

Now it's 120. They're reading this. It's

incredible. So I'm sure with this

podcast, it's super rewarding for you, Brett and Carol,

when you see how many listeners you have each time,

it's like, okay, I actually am adding value somehow. So

all of a sudden I had my self worth was coming back.

I was flexing a creative muscle that had been kind of dormant for

a while and it was with an audience.

And what I didn't realize at the time, but quickly

became valuable was that I had a URL, I had a

website, I had a substack address. So now I'm

applying for these positions. I'm no longer thinking about

running a global team, creative services. I'm

thinking about writing related jobs, corporate

communications, different types of

writing related jobs. And oh, guess what, they all want to

see a portfolio of your work. And I don't have to go back to

1996, 97, whatever. I can

use fresh new blog stories from

last month, last week. So I have this URL.

So ultimately my mindset really

shifted after this first couple months to I want to

write and I want to, you know, do this

blog and look for opportunities to write for an organization

that I will feel good about working for.

And then the last thing I'll just mention is that a few years

before, I had read a book by Bob Buford, B U F

O R D called Halftime. And

it's a little bit of a sort of religious book, but

not really about religion. It has to do with as you get

into the middle of your life and maybe you've had

a successful career, you've achieved a lot. What do you want to do in the

second half of your life? The first half of your life a lot of times,

and I've read this years ago, so I'm sort of going off my memory. But

to sort of summarize, what that book told me was that the first

half of your career maybe

raising kids, if you're blessed to have kids, probably paying for

a house or a mortgage, things like that, putting kids through school.

But then you have this time in your 50s, 60s and 70s, if you're

fortunate, maybe you've gotten past a lot of those big

expenses and you're able to contribute to society in some

other ways through charitable works. Through

volunteerism, things like that. So I started

thinking, oh, maybe there I could do work with a non profit,

something like that, where I could utilize my writing skills

to their betterment. And if I can get paid to do it,

obviously that's better. I still have bills

and I'm in my 50s, I'm not 70. Like, I still do do

want to have a paid career for a little while longer,

but it sort of shifted from how do I

make every last possible dollar to

how can I make enough money to pay my bills but

also do something that I believe in, has

more value. And it was the special

needs community was where this blog was kind of pulling me.

Well, it sounds as though our next question was talking

about the negativism and technology skills.

It sounds like maybe you inadvertently skipped some hurdles because

you just dove in with this new.

You just did it. You asked the Internet,

where's the best way to create this blog? That sort of thing. It's

taking those chances of now maybe you're kind of set up that,

you know, this job search challenge is not so much fighting

younger candidates. It's one of those. You've gained this experience already

by doing what you did that you can showcase. Yeah, my life started in

PowerPoint. PowerPoint's somewhat ancient, but it's still being used. But

now I'm, I'm writing blogs. I've got. Can you give some

advice or maybe some insights about how that felt that

you're building up this, this skill set

that you didn't realize you were even doing? Absolutely,

yeah. I realized as I was still in the PowerPoint

world there, that you had to continue evolving

and learning more and reinventing. So I always

pushed that in my previous work about adopting more

tools and keeping my team relevant.

But then when I was out on my own, I said, okay, what are the

tools that people are out there? There's, you know, three or four very

famous job boards that everybody goes to. And

then LinkedIn is a very powerful tool, but

you get sucked into scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and seeing

the same jobs over and over. It's like everyone that looks good, oh, 100 have

already applied. Are they bots that are applying? Are they people that

are actually applying? So it, you get,

it's almost addicting scrolling through this either on the laptop

or. So I said, all right, well, I decided I would pay

for the premium LinkedIn for three months and do some of the

LinkedIn learning courses. So I did, like SEO,

search engine optimization, how to write for search

engines, because that seemed like it was on almost all the job

requirements. WordPress, how to

do basic website, setting up a basic website

and doing updates on a website. A lot of jobs I was looking at

wanted you to have WordPress skills. So

those were some of the things I did. There's a lot of people that will

say you don't need the premium LinkedIn. But

yeah, that's I think an individual decision. I wouldn't do it

probably long term, but for me a few months there were

some things I wanted to do. I also would say that Ken Lazar.

You mentioned Ken earlier on this podcast.

Ken invited me to a networking group that

meets every, I think it's every Tuesday.

I was on there for about eight or 10 weeks and

a guy named Joey Himmelfarb. H I, M E L F A R

B and wonderful guy, very funny,

just runs a really chill, just fun

group of. Is that a lot of people? The Tuesday tune up?

Yes, that's it. Yeah. And the first time I got in

it kind of sheepishly like hey, how's it going? But then you realize that

people come and go all the time and there's some people there there

every week and some pop on, they pop off. So

it's just a chance that there's a topic and you get to hear

your, you get to tell your five minute, well two or three minute story

and hear others and then you've, you just talk and you

connect with each other on LinkedIn and it's just,

it's a way to, you know, put on a button shirt and

brush your hair and feel like hey, I've got a meeting this week. Right?

When you apply to so many jobs and you don't even get interviews. So

like all right, well I have this networking call to look for forward to.

So what Ken started and Joey's continued has been really

awesome. I think those guys are wonderful for

providing that because they probably don't even realize what a.

I don't use the word crutch but what a, a support

mechanism it is at a time when many of us are

drifting and we have talent and we have

abilities and we have things to offer but it's just not

apparent yet. And for me

the job I ended up taking is with the Special Olympics as a writer,

storyteller. But I. And it was part

time. If I saw that job opening in

September when I was let go, I wouldn't have even looked twice because I

wasn't looking for necessarily a non profit. I had

respect, like everybody respect I think loves the Special

Olympics and what they do, but it didn't occur to me to work

for them. I didn't even know I was the right fit.

And I was looking for full time work, not part time. And I wasn't

even sure I was ready to be writing all the time yet. But

over the process of several months and then getting on

the networking calls, connecting with people on LinkedIn, having coffee

chats, working on some of my Skill building on LinkedIn,

I'm starting to put pieces together and realizing that,

you know, what with some adjustments in our,

you know, our budgeting, I could probably do part

time and oh, you know, one of son just graduated

from college, I don't have that tuition to, to worry about anymore. He got a

job out of college last year, so he's paying his own

rent. Like wow, this is amazing. You know, like having a pay

raise. So like there was a little more

flexibility. So all of a sudden now I'm getting confidence on these

Tuesday tune up calls and I

see the job opening for part time Storyteller

at Special Olympics and one of my first thoughts was that's a

pretty cool job title Storyteller. That, that sounds great.

I love to tell stories, so I jumped into

that. Let me just get a note to our audience.

We always talk about and put down resources

for each of our podcasts and audience. We are going to do that

and we're actually going to hit a lot of different topics in

this resources list. Not just how you work

through a career transition, but also some

resources for families that

may have a special needs child going to the, to the career

resources. You mentioned LinkedIn learning,

which for Central Ohioans we have that

free through our Columbus Public Library card, which is

a phenomenal opportunity for tens of

thousands of classes that you could take for free. So that, that's one

thing that I want to make sure that we

do get across. And we'll also mention these books that you

have discussed too, that could be of interest

to our audience. We've talked a lot about

Mary and how you've started, you know, talked

about her life when you've done this

substack. And I realize it hasn't been for that many months, but have

you felt that the writing that you're doing on your

blog has made changes in your own life or the life of your

subscribers? Have, have people said that to you? Oh

yeah, 100%. And I'm not sure if I said it directly

or not, but Mary has autism. She's 24. So when I

talked about writing about life with Mary and my book with Mary. It has to

do with. The book was about when she was younger and how

we sort of overcame the challenges of autism at a young age to, to get

her sort of in the right schools and so forth.

And the blog is now okay, she's an adult, she's out of the school system.

And what is everyday life like with

autism in the family? And I usually use the word

moderate autism. You'll see in the autism community

there's different labels for. It's such a spectrum

from the very, very, very high functioning that are maybe just a little socially

awkward, but are running companies and doing all

kinds of amazing things to the very, very low functioning and

need an extreme amount of help with everything. So Mary's kind of in the

middle, right? So she will probably always live at home with us.

Maybe at some point she will be independent, but

she is able to in terms of toilet training,

hygiene, getting dressed, putting herself to bed,

eating, she helps with cooking. So she actually is

capable. She reads, she's verbal, so

she's just sort of, I say, stingy with her words.

So she's not super social, but she'll talk.

So she's kind of in the middle. Like she needs help with a lot of

things. She's anxious at times, she gets upset about things

she needs to know in advance. You know,

schedules, planning, things like that. So that's a little bit more

about Mary. And then in terms of the, the blog, it has to

do with me being the voice for Mary a

little bit in terms of, you know, when we, we went on an airplane, what

was it like traveling? Because I've had friends tell me, oh, we will never

take our, our son on the plane that's too stressful or

going out in New York City with a child with autism.

Wow, you guys are so brave. And like,

we just do it. My wife and I, there are two sons,

they're all the kids. As of this taping, my daughter

Mary's 24, Charlie is 23 and

Marty is 19. So they're all within five years.

They're all young adults now. So the boys have always

helped, really support us. And, and so I thought, yeah, let

me just explain to the people who read this blog

what it's like to go through life.

And I just, it tends to be positive,

but I also throw in some challenges as well

so that people will see also some challenges.

So, you know, when we were flying for Christmas and we went

to visit family in Dallas and

she had a meltdown in the airport in Dallas, coming home and

through A tantrum. And the police came, and

they were very nice, but we got taken to a special

room where they gave Mary time to sit in a comfortable

chair and calm down. And we missed our flight. And

we stayed an extra night in Dallas. It wasn't a big deal. Guess what? We

flew again to months later, because we already had a

vacation plan to go hiking in Zion national

park, which I highly recommend, by the way. So

you have setbacks. And so people I know would read the

blog and say, oh, my gosh, like, this sounds so

challenging at the airport. Like, that must have been horrible. And,

I mean, it wasn't fun, but it's life and

you have to get through things like that. And, yeah,

I hope it never happens again. But at the end of the day, nobody was

hurt. I mean, it just, it was a super inconvenient,

stressful. But. So anyways, I, I, so

I wrote about that. I didn't try to hide it. I, I just, I let

people know. I didn't. I don't share every little personal detail.

It's not, it's not about ever

embarrassing Mary or airing every last bit of

dirty laundry or whatever you want to call it, but just say, hey, we're human.

And maybe you're going through something like this as well,

or that's maybe more of an extreme one. Another more

interesting one is on the first of the month, Mary takes down all

the holiday decorations. So on November 1, all

the Halloween stuff comes down, and then all the

Thanksgiving stuff comes out. She knows where the plastic tote bins are in

the basement. She spends a half hour to an hour going through the

whole house, top to bottom, inside, outside, changing all of it, and it

stays there until November 30, December 1,

it all goes away. Out comes the Christmas stuff. So

just really how she's so

fixated on the calendar. And so

people were like, this is so fascinating. Like, you couldn't just do

it on Saturday. It wouldn't be more. Well, yeah, it might have been more convenient,

but that was the 29th. She waited till the 1st. Right. So

just these kind of letting people who have autism in their

family say, wow,

we have. We're dealing with so many similar things just like that. We're not alone.

Like, this is comforting to see that. Right? You know,

when you think about that, I was a caregiver for my dad, and it's

been over 20 years, and at that point in time, I didn't know anybody

else. Well, I knew a few folks who had parents

with dementia, and they were Dealing with caregiving issues.

But my dad luckily did not have dementia, but

needed full time care and there was nobody to talk to

at the time. The aging agencies

had a lot of information, but they only served clients who were

eligible for the services, which we weren't. So it was

difficult. And I remember he wanted to take a trip, which I thought to myself,

oh, this is not going to work. But who had I talked to? And

I contacted the local

agency that does wishes for children for

travel, and I didn't hear from them for months,

number one. So it was way past the time when I would have needed the

information. But the second thing was they didn't answer my

questions and I told them right out, I'm not looking for help.

I'm more than willing to pay you for any information you give me. I'm just

looking for information. And their comment back to me is, we only work with children.

We don't have anything to do with older adults. So they never answer my question.

So since that time, because I knew how hard it was to get

information, I've always tried to give people information

and resources that they need in taking care of older adults

because it's not always evident. So kudos to you to

use your blog that way. I hadn't thought about that, but it really is.

It's a sharing of resources, not just a story.

Absolutely. I mean, there's some websites out there with information, but so much of

it is about networking and parents talking

to other parents while their kids are playing soccer.

I mean, it's the same in the typical community as well.

Obviously I have two boys who do not have autism and

parents talk there too and network, but they talk about different

things. And in the autism activities

they talk about. Did you know that there's a show on Broadway next

month where there's an autism friendly performance? Oh, wow. So we

took Mary to go see Hell's Kitchen and I wrote about going to Broadway and

what the amazing job they did putting together this show

where kids stood up and screamed for no reason or

laughed at inappropriate times. That's okay. Like,

the actors were super cool about staying on track

and the parents, you know, we don't get to go to Broadway too often. So

for me, being in New York City and getting a chance to go see

this Alicia Keys massive production with Mary was

great. She loved. And she was great, by the way. But we didn't know that.

So we've done a number of those. So that's definitely part of it then.

The other part of it is those people Family and friends who

don't have autism, necessarily in the family,

but they're curious because they know us or they know about us.

It's like, wow, really? She's. She does that

or. That's interesting. I've always wondered why she does that, and

now I understand. Oh, she. It's

88 degrees, but she's wearing pants because it's

May 27th and she doesn't get out her shorts

until June 1st. That's.

I'm being serious. It could be 60 degrees on June 1st, and she'll

wear shorts because June, July, and August are when she wears

the summer clothes. So May

27, she's wearing pants, even if it's 98. So

it's like, you can't. Why does the brain work that way? I don't

know. It just does. So I would say that I

was really moved and rewarded about

one month into my writing, and we go to a Catholic

church, and we are members of a special needs mass that we

started 15 years ago, once a month. And a woman came up to

me after church, and she sort of grabbed me by the wrist in a

friendly way, and she had tears in her eyes, and she just

said, I've been reading your life with Mary Blogg, and I

think it's so wonderful what you're doing. Giving a voice

to people like Mary is so powerful. Please, please

continue writing. And I was like, wow.

I was really moved. It made me feel good.

I don't know. I just. I just felt like, okay, I'm. I don't know what's

coming, but I'm going in the right direction. Clearly, I'm.

I'm able to add value in a way that I. I was adding

value in a different way before in my job, but maybe I'm being pulled

in a different direction. I just had to see where that was going

to take me. And when you really think about it, Mary was

one of the resources for you through your job transition.

1,000%. Isn't that amazing? That's great. No question

about it. Yeah. Thank you.

Well, when that position of regional storyteller with the Special Olympics opened, it

seems it was the perfect position for you, just like we talked about. And

not only the dad of a special needs child, Mary had participated

in Special Olympic programs. And you've been a volunteer. How did all those

pieces come together for your candidacy? Were there any issues about

the position you needed to address, like benefits or scheduling

before taking it on? A little bit,

sure. It's funny because when I saw the job

posting, I Said to my wife, I said, look at this. I said, if you

drew one of those Venn diagrams with like the three circles

and one circle was journalism and one was special needs

and one was sports, that little area in the middle where they

intersect, that's me. Like I'm, this is perfect. And

I was telling a friend also, and he goes, make sure you use that in

the interview. So I said, well,

it's authentic, because I did come up with it myself. But yeah, you're right, Brett.

It did seem kind of tailor made for me.

And it was interesting because I

thought for months that I wasn't getting called back or interviews

because of maybe my age, that companies

wouldn't come out and say, no, we're not interested in you because you're 56,

we don't want that. But I think they could see my, my 30

years of experience. I was a director, I,

my photo on LinkedIn. I'm clearly in my 50s, not my

20s. So although nobody ever said, no, we're not

hiring a 56 year old. I felt maybe that was

working against me. But I said, I'm going to be authentic.

I'm gonna do what I'm gonna be myself. So with Special Olympics,

it was almost like the coin was flipped the other way. And

there was this sense that, hey, we have a lot of people in

their 20s already working for us. I mean, they have all age ranges

obviously, but they have plenty of young people. But

hey, this is the guy who can write and he's a

parent and he's the same age as many of our

coaches, ages of many of our sponsors.

I think even one of the, as I went, finished the interview

once I was hired, one of the, the people told me later, yeah,

I could just tell from the beginning that, you know, you would be a perfect

person to go up and just talk to the coaches and the, the, the, the

trainers and people because, and the parents because, you

know, you're more closer to age. So to them

and you would probably have a comfort level that many other younger people

wouldn't. So

it can kind of work both ways. Right. So this wasn't a criteria of

the job, but it actually worked in my favor that

I was of an age that was

relevant to what a lot of the coaches and parents of the athletes would

be. So that was, that

was the, a big help. But maybe to

more directly answer your question, what was a concern,

Brett, was, and they told me in the interview, we think

your, your writing is probably going to be spot on, but can you do the

Social media part. And I said, well, for my blog, I've been

doing LinkedIn posts. I've been, I, I was on LinkedIn

since 2014. I saw the same photo but going, going through

this process, I had updated my LinkedIn, updated my photo.

Starting the blog Life with Mary, I started putting

it. Twice a week I would put a posting on LinkedIn.

I got pretty good at choosing photos for LinkedIn and Facebook,

writing a short, snappy little attention getting

sentence or two to get people to click on it. So I

thought, okay, I can use LinkedIn and Facebook pretty well. But I

haven't done video editing. Even though my team did it at my

old job, I wasn't doing, I was managing the people who were doing that

work. So I said, I will

make a doubly concerted effort if I get

this position to learn whatever video editing program

you want me to use. I will be able to edit videos on my

own time within two weeks. I promise

I'll make it a priority on my own time. I found out what

the, the software was. It's a popular one people use

all the time and I'm not a master at it, but I,

I've put over a dozen posts

for Special Olympics with video

and they're getting a little bit better each time. So

that was really something. I had to further expand it.

To me, it was exciting. Like I'm, like I'm 56 and

I'm being challenged to learn new things and I'm talking to

different people, I'm learning different software.

I'm, I'm obviously pretty comfortable on the computer and learning

software, but I hadn't used video editing before. Now I'm editing videos,

right. I'm doing text overlays, I'm adding audio to them,

I'm fading in and out things. So I

was actually happy to learn it and they

were willing to take a chance on me because that wasn't the whole job, it

was a piece of it. So I had to be willing to

not say, listen, I already know what I'm doing. This is what you get. If

you want me, this is what you get. That wasn't going to work.

I had to say, I think I can do probably 80%

of what you're asking me to do, maybe 90%. The other

part, give me a little bit of time, I'll work even

on my own time to bump

up those skills. And I think

six months from now they'll be significantly better than they are today.

Yeah. Because, well, practice makes perfect and done is

better than perfect. Too. So you just gotta. As long

as those that you're working with are patient in that learning curve with you. And

it sounds like they are, they're wonderful. Yeah, that

makes a big difference, too. But for

those of us in the baby boomer generation, when

employers would kind of push the issue of baby

boomers can't do technology, I would always look at the employer and

say, baby boomers invented technology. We've probably forgotten

more than you know. But if somebody is

willing to learn a skill, you're going to learn it

at some level. Like you said, it may not be perfect, may not be the

do all to end all, but you're going to do it enough to get the

job done. It's the notion that you're willing to

try that's half the battle. That's exactly

right. And I knew that it was an organization that

appealed to me for many different reasons, both because of

my daughter and just for what they do for families. Honestly, all

over the world, I wanted to be a part of it. And

the way they embraced me from the beginning and said,

we'll help you learn. And the feedback on my

writing already has been so positive. It's just.

It feels like. It almost feels like this was

inevitable, but I didn't know that. Six,

eight, nine months ago, I was lost. I had to go through that

whole process of talking to a lot of people,

taking a chance on a blog, sort of

rediscovering us and not reinventing, but rediscovering myself

and saying, what unfinished business did I have? And, oh, it was. It was writing.

And it. I. I actually am doing some sports writing with other types of

writing mixed in as well. So it's interesting how it

all really has come together and continues to evolve

because it's only been three months, like, I'm still a newbie. So during your

career change, you were able to take advantage of so many different

resources, including, as we mentioned, Ken Lazar and the Ability

Professional Network. What advice do you have for older job seekers?

Listening on utilizing employment placement resources, community

resources, and other programs. And also, do you have

any tips on how to efficiently utilize your network?

I really do think that LinkedIn is a piece of

it. It's not everything. I think that.

I think the networking part of it was interesting. I think

that you have to be willing to reach out to a lot of people because

as I reached out to people through LinkedIn or, like I said, through the church

or the neighborhood or just in the community,

people were willing to help. Like they're Willing to listen. They'll

say, I'll keep you in mind. So I would say if it's

a professional type of job at all, where LinkedIn is relevant,

I would definitely use it. And I would direct message people

that you have worked with or that you've connected with, even if you don't

know them. Because some of them, I was like, I didn't remember this person, but

I connected. At some point. We decided to connect with each other. So

I see I got nothing to lose. So I direct message all

them. Very, very brief. Just, I'm looking for work

and I'd love to talk sometime. Keep me in mind if you hear anything.

So that was one of them. And then also just the idea of

coffee chats, either virtual or in person in the community,

again, they don't have to be your best friends, but just people

that you know that might be of some help to you.

There's a tendency to think, well, maybe I'm bothering somebody or

they'll tell you, or they'll ignore you, or they'll just tell you no, so

you're better off asking. And if they don't have time or they

blow you off, well, you didn't really lose anything. But

I was amazed how many people did. Give me 15

minutes, 30 minutes, whatever.

And I just think that you have to be careful not to get sucked into

the job boards because it does get depressing.

I never got depressed, but it's challenging

because you do see so many jobs on there. It's like, look at,

there's thousands of jobs. But then you realize the same

jobs are there week after week after week after week after week.

I don't even know why they're there if they're not hiring, because they're just, they're

there. So you don't want to beat yourself up by saying

there's so many jobs and why can't I get one? Well, maybe they're not even

hiring. Maybe they were hiring at one time or the job is frozen

or who knows? Or they're looking for internal candidates

but required to post a job. So don't get sucked in.

The job boards have a value, so I don't want to

disparage the job boards. They do have value

and it might help you kind of look and see what skills

companies are looking for. And even if you're not applying to

those jobs, okay, this one's looking for search engine optimization. Maybe I

should take a course on that. How to write first search engines. Or

this is. They're. They're asking for WordPress. I've been

on different websites, but I don't know that one. Like, that's

a super popular one. So job boards have

values. I don't want to come here and disparage them, but you just can't

get sucked into that three, four, eight hours a day, which

might sound ridiculous, but when you're looking for a job and

you're getting, I would say desperate, but you're, yeah, you

want something, so you start scrolling and scrolling and

scrolling and I think it can get unhealthy after a while. So

use the job boards. Again, this is just one man's opinion.

Use them as a resource. See if you how you stack up against

what companies are looking for. But don't fall into the

trap like I did at times of spending many, many hours per

day on those boards. Same thing with LinkedIn.

Some people will tell you you've got to be posting two or three times a

day for the algorithms and this and that. And then

I, I go on, I see people posting stuff, I'm like, what,

what is this? It's like a post, just post again,

I think that I don't want to disparage them either because

they're obviously looking for work, trying to get the name out

there. I think there's a value in posting. But

yeah, I think like most things in life, like moderation, like job

boards are fine in moderation. Posting on LinkedIn, in my opinion,

is helpful in moderation. Finding that Tuesday tune

up with Joey Himelfarb. Very valuable

if you, if you can reach out into your community,

look online, ask, you know, Google or

other search engines or chat, GPT or other AI. What are some

networking opportunities that I might be able to

join online, where I can join it, you know, So I was invited by

Ken to this particular one, but I'm sure there's probably many

others out there just because it gives you that

something to have on your calendar. I think that what

you said is the absolute most important thing

for any job seeker, and whether it's a resource or a

coffee chat or a networking event or whatever, is that

none of those are going to hand you a job,

but they are going to give you information you need in your job

search. And so oftentimes the

most important skill you need to have is to listen

well so that you catch that information that you need.

Those job boards are showing you what employers are looking for

in that particular job category. Not that

you're going to necessarily get it, but you're going to help yourself get

to the point of being a great job

candidate, that's the whole process of job

searching is you have to get to the level of being a good job

candidate. Yeah. And I think there's also. That's all

very, very true. And I think there's also just the whole concept of,

you know, depending on where you are in your life. If the.

I made the reference to halftime and I'm not pushing that book. It's just there's

other books that just happens to be the one that I read.

But there are you at a point in your life where you can

switch gears. Maybe you've done XYZ corporate job for a

certain amount of years, but you've always kind of wanted to

open a bakery or work in a

clothing store because you love fashion or you've

always thought you might maybe want to run for office but weren't sure

how to even get started. Maybe start asking those kinds of

questions again. Some people will have financial

situation where they 100% need full

time, certain number of dollars or whatever to live.

And I get that. And there may be others that have a little more

flexibility and they can pivot to a job.

Sort of a second half type of a career with a non profit

or through the church or through the

community board or something that maybe is not full time.

And you know, originally my job I was going to be working

10 hours a week. I probably wouldn't have even applied. I wouldn't have

applied for that back in September. But I

said let me start there because I can still work somewhere

else the other 30 hours a week. Well, I get in 10 hours a

week. I was still looking then I did a couple of articles for the Special

Olympics and now all of a sudden they asked me to go to 20 hours

a week. So within six weeks now I'm doubled my

hours and I don't know what's coming next.

I'm willing to do more. I'm also. We'll see what they

need. Right? But you just got to get

started, get your foot in the door somewhere and if

it's rediscovering or maybe it is reinventing.

But what do you want to do in that second half? And

I saw something online recently that said that most people think that

the second half starts at 50.

Not that many people actually live to 100. Like the second half

actually starts more like 38 to 40.

That's actually for most people is the half. So

if you're in your early 40s, maybe

this guy's talking about something 10 years from now, maybe, but maybe not.

Again, it depends. If you're 41 and your kids are

6 and 5, maybe you do have to maximize

your earnings right now for a certain amount of time.

But maybe you're 45 and you had kids at a young age and

your kids are 18 already and you have more flexibility than

you did. So everybody's in a different place. Age

doesn't necessarily apply to everybody the same. But

as you get into your 40s and definitely by your 50s, you probably are into

that second half. And maybe you do have an

opportunity to expand your search a little bit and

say, I don't have to do what I was doing the last

20, 15, 20, 25 years, even if I was good

at it. And maybe you still want to do. I

did for a while, but once I switched. Now

I don't have any negative feelings towards it, but I've sort

of been there and done that and now I'm in a different place

in a different direction. Well, with this new direction

and you've been at Special Olympics for a few months now,

is there anything on your wish list that you would like to be able to

do with them or. I don't want to put them and you on a spot.

We also have to give a shout out to sports Special Olympics for being an

incredible organization. I'm

blown away by just how much they actually do. I had no idea the number

of events they do and the way when

as we're taping this right now in the very end of June, there's summer games

going on in Minneapolis and I've done a bunch of stories

previewing different athletes that are there, real sports

type stories. And the athletes, they

fly out there at no cost. They stay no cost in

whether it's dorms or hotels, whatever, their meals

donated by different large companies.

I'm getting a little bit out of my lane here, but

it's such an impressive organization and

how much of that is going to the athletes and the opportunities.

And they have a great relationship with law enforcement. Across

all different types of law enforcement, police and sheriffs and

just all state troopers, they come to the events, they

do torch runs, they put the medals on

the winners of the different events.

So law enforcement, it's a wonderful

relationship that Special Olympics has with law enforcement. So

as I've gotten to do a lot of sports related stories and profiles of

athletes, it's been really rewarding. I brought

maybe some of my old newspaper experience into it with a little

bit longer types of articles, what they had been doing a lot of I

noticed was social media with maybe link to a couple of

paragraphs. So I'm having a little bit longer stories so I have to adjust

and get them not quite so long, but

adding sort of a more of a storytelling aspect to it than just a quick

hit post with the basic information. So that's been

rewarding and the feedback has been good. So I would love to get to do

more stories on athletes. Yes. But also

some of the maybe the sponsors who really make these games

work, they don't happen without the sponsors, the coaches who

volunteer their time to be there every Saturday, every Tuesday,

whatever. So I don't know in terms of the number

of hours I have some flexibility. So who we'll see what

happens. But I just want to continue expanding my

the types of writing that I'm doing and keep improving

my, you know, my video editing and my social media

skills because I feel like there's

every week I write a story and I get three more story ideas thrown at

me and I've got this spreadsheet going with jobs

in progress and in the queue. So there's so many

more stories to be told. And I'm really excited to be part of

the future for Special Olympics and I'm

excited that I've landed on my feet somewhere. That feels good

and it feels like it was meant to be all along. I just had to

go through a bit of a process to get there that took six months, but

ultimately that six months was worth it and I am

super happy to be where I'm at today. Randy, thank you. Yes,

thank you. So many thanks to our expert guest, Randy Robertson, a creative

writer as well as regional storyteller for Special Olympics New York, for

joining us today.