Mary Jo Hoffman (00:00):

Think about practicing for retirement long before you get there. So, we had tabled our creative ambitions for someday when we retire [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah]. Anyways, it was like, this is the time to start practicing. So, Steve started writing, this was 2012 and Steve started writing, and I started a one a day photo creative challenge of found nature.

[Music Playing]

Stephanie McCullough (00:31):

Hey, dear listeners, we need to let you know that Kevin and Stephanie offer investment advice through Private Advisor Group, which is a federally registered investment advisor. The opinions voiced in this podcast are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations to any individual. To determine which strategies or investments may be suitable for you. Consult the appropriate qualified professional prior to making a decision. Now, let’s get on with the show.

Stephanie McCullough (01:06):

This is Take Back Retirement, the show that’s redefining retirement for women. Retirement is an old-fashioned cultural concept. We want to reclaim the word so you can make it your own. I’m Stephanie McCullough, financial planner and founder of Sofia Financial, where our mission is to reduce women’s money stress and empower them to make wise holistic decisions so they can get back to living their best lives.

Kevin Gaines is my longtime colleague with deep knowledge in the technical stuff: investments, taxes, retirement plan rules. He’s a little bit giggy and quantitative, I’m a little bit touchy-feely and qualitative. Together, through conversations and interviews, we aim to give you the information and motivation you need to move forward with confidence. We’re so glad you’re here.

Stephanie McCullough (01:55):

Coming to you semi live from the beautiful Westlakes office park in suburban Philadelphia this is Take Back Retirement with Stephanie McCullough and Kevin Gaines of Sofia Financial and American Financial Management Group. Say hello, Kevin.

Kevin Gaines (02:07):

Hello, Kevin.

Stephanie McCullough (02:09):

Today’s guest is coming from an actual beautiful place unlike the Westlakes office park, and she is going to share with us her story of following a creative passion and project. Mary Jo Hoffman is an artist and photographer, renowned for her unique and personal engagement with the natural world.

Stephanie McCullough (02:28):

She’s best known for her multi-year ongoing project, Still. Every day she composes natural objects found near her on a white background. Then she photographs and shares it on her blog and Instagram, which she’s going to tell us all about.

Stephanie McCullough (02:42):

And she was an aeronautical engineer. So, we want to hear the story of how this transition happened, how she took up the project, and what it has brought to her life at these ages that you know we all are all in. So, she’s been doing it 12 years. It’s a really fascinating story and perhaps inspiration for some of us to get creative right now. Let’s dive in. Mary Jo Hoffman, welcome to Take Back Retirement.

Mary Jo Hoffman (03:13):

Thank you, Stephanie and Kevin. I’m delighted to be here.

Stephanie McCullough (03:17):

When we heard your story, we just felt that it was such a good fit for the stories that we try to bring to our audience because you’ve been through an interesting retirement journey.

Mary Jo Hoffman (03:29):

Well, pre-retirement, I turned 60 this May. So, yes, it is an interesting story and people are finding it inspiring, so I’m happy to be here to share it.

Stephanie McCullough (03:38):

Yeah. So, tell us about this idea you had with practicing retirement.

Mary Jo Hoffman (03:43):

Okay, so in our mid-40s, my husband and I, first of all, well, we have two kids married 35 years. I have an aerospace degree, a master’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Okay]. And for 17 years I worked corporate research and development, corporate R&D in the aerospace industry.

Kevin Gaines (04:04):

So, you’re a rocket scientist?

Mary Jo Hoffman (04:06):

Exactly. I am, actually. I actually truly am. Okay. So, for 17 years I did that. Loved it. Series of circumstances, corporate takeover, family planning. It made sense for my husband and I to switch roles. He’d been stay-at-home dad with our first born, and then we were having trouble having the second. So, we quit changed roles, and he became the primary breadwinner.

Mary Jo Hoffman (04:34):

So, we went from corporate income to self-employed income. He was doing property management at the time. He got a real estate broker license and eventually got into taxes, doing taxes, which my mother had done for 25 years.

Mary Jo Hoffman (04:52):

And so, she was getting ready to retire and was ready to hand off clients. And so, my husband and my brother started taking her clients. So, now they’re tax preparers and have been doing it 25 years, and now my brother’s son is doing it. So, it’s a family business.

Stephanie McCullough (05:07):

Nice.

Mary Jo Hoffman (05:09):

It’s a very interesting business because it’s intensely seasonal [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yes] You know. It goes from late January to past April 15th, obviously. But essentially, you’re putting a year’s worth of hours into five months [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yup]. So, it’s not really you know— you make a nice professional income in those five months, but you’ve put in 2000 hours of work, totally. You’ve done seven days a week for 12 weeks and [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah]…

Mary Jo Hoffman (05:40):

But it is intensely seasonal, and so it does open up opportunities for the rest of the year [Stephanie McCullough overcross: hm hm], after you’ve had a chance to rest. So, in our mid-40s, my husband and I decided to … our kids had gone to French immersion school, a public school here in St. Paul, Minnesota [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Cool].

Mary Jo Hoffman (06:00 ):

And they were coming out of it reading French, understanding French, but not really speaking French[Stephanie McCullough overcross: Got it]. Because I had been the one driving them across town to go to this French immersion school. I really wanted them to be fluent in French. I wanted a return on my investment of time [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah].

Mary Jo Hoffman (06:18):

And so, I suggested we go to France and put the kids in school for a semester. And because we are self-employed, that was doable, right. It’s essentially a sabbatical. So, we had to put those self-employed businesses to sleep if you would [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Okay]. Or hire a property manager and hire a handyman and all those things that we were doing ourselves.

Mary Jo Hoffman (06:41):

And because of the seasonality of my husband’s work, it was a fall semester. So, we went you know August through January, and then came back and started another tax season. And ah, while we were in France. So, we’re now in our mid-40s. We have school age kids. They’re in school from nine to four [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah]. And it’s the first time well, in my entire life since I was probably 13, that I hadn’t been working.

Mary Jo Hoffman (07:07):

I mean, I put myself through college, worked 30 hours a week all through college and went straight into a corporate job, so I’d never not worked [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah]. And suddenly I’ve got kids in school nine to four and six months of time. So, I had- at the time I was into personal finance. So-

Stephanie McCullough (07:30):

You were?

Mary Jo Hoffman (07:31):

Yeah. Yeah. We’re weirdos. We’re weirdos over here. If I get into a subject, my husband’s the same way. My son is exactly the same way. We just go all in.

Stephanie McCullough (07:43):

Dive in.

Mary Jo Hoffman (07:44):

We dive in. So, I was reading everything there was about personal finance at that time [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Ah huh], and this would’ve been well, 20 or 12 years ago. So, anyways, I just read all the books, right?

Stephanie McCullough (08:00):

Yes. The ones on my shelf.

Mary Jo Hoffman (08:01):

Right. The John Bogles and the Rich Dad Poor Dads and the Black Swans and the Random Walk Down Wall Street, and you name it, I read it. And a nice little stack of 20 books. I just– My process is I keep reading until the message is getting repetitive, until I’m reading the same thing over and over, and then I stop [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Got it]. That’s how I do.

Mary Jo Hoffman (08:27):

And all of those books, before I quit reading,ah  only one of them, this is a while ago now, and you guys are an example of how things are changing. Only one of them talked about the non-financial part of retirement, right. The fulfillment, meaning, purpose. They made nods towards community. And you may not retire, but you may do something different that’s not paid, like volunteering or something.

Mary Jo Hoffman (09:00):

But there was some nods towards that discussion, but it wasn’t a heavy emphasis. These were all on maximizing your earning years, being smart about where you put your money and then that preparing for financial independence [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah, yeah].

Mary Jo Hoffman (09:16):

And so, only one of them said something about this idea of practice for retirement. And it came from a book. And for the life of me, I can’t find the book that mentioned it. And I want to, because people are fascinated by it.

Mary Jo Hoffman (09:31):

But it said, “You can’t just walk out of the office one day and know what you’re going to do the next day.” That’s going to cause a lot of anxiety [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yes]. And so, it said, “Start practicing for retirement years before you retire.” [Stephanie McCullough overcross: hm hm] Not months, but years [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah].

Mary Jo Hoffman (09:51):

So, my husband and I, we married young and in our young 20s, early 20s, and both had creative ambitions. He always wanted to be a writer. I was a good amateur photographer, but I dabbled in all the visual arts, collage and mark making and all the visual arts.

Mary Jo Hoffman (10:12):

And so, we as a young, newly married couple dreamed of someday you know living in what we call a u-shaped house, right. So, in the middle would be hearth and kitchen and family room. And then on the two wings would be one wing for my creative, an art studio for me. And the other wing, a writing a writing room for him [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah].

Mary Jo Hoffman (10:37):

And so, this was our dream, a u-shaped house with a terrace in the middle, south facing. Maybe a lemon tree. We live in Minnesota, so maybe a fig tree or a lemon tree. Anyways, that was the dream.

Mary Jo Hoffman (10:52):

But of course, you need to make an income. The kids come along, you buy a house and suddenly those dreams get put on hold. And so-

Kevin Gaines (11:00):

Life gets in the way.

Mary Jo Hoffman (11:01):

Life gets in the way, right. And so, now we’re in our mid-40s, we’re in Southern France for six months, and I’ve just finished reading a pile of personal finance books. And one of them says, think about practicing for retirement long before you get there. So, we had tabled our creative ambitions for someday when we retire [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah].

Mary Jo Hoffman (11:23):

Anyways, it was like, this is the time to start practicing. So, Steve started writing, this was 2012, and Steve started writing and I started a one a day photo creative challenge of found nature. And we just started doing these projects.

Mary Jo Hoffman (11:43):

And then, well, social media had been around for a little while, but we joined social media because sharing your work is part of the creative process [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah]. And by the time we got home, those two little projects had gotten traction. And so suddenly, a modest amount of attraction.

Mary Jo Hoffman (12:04):

My husband sent some of his journal writing off to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and they published it as Letters from France. And then six months later, those pieces win a writing award [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Nice], a national writing award.

Mary Jo Hoffman (12:24):

And then I start this blog called Still where I’m posting my one image a day. It’s very stylized, very modern, very graphic on a white background. And within six months, Martha Stewart Living Magazine called and said they wanted to do a feature.

Mary Jo Hoffman (12:39):

So, crazy right?

Kevin Gaines (12:40):

Yeah.

Stephanie McCullough (12:42):

Put your stuff out there.

Mary Jo Hoffman (12:42):

Yeah. It’s just the internet, right. Crazy and we’re newbies. Well, first of all, we’re middle aged. I’ve been offline, if you will, in corporate America for 17 years you know. I didn’t know what a blog was, I didn’t know what Instagram was. I didn’t even care about those things, right.

Mary Jo Hoffman (13:00):

And so you know, we’re just experimenting with these things that we don’t even understand. And then suddenly you know, word of mouth and one thing leads to another, we get these calls. And so, suddenly this practicing for retirement turned into not second careers. They’re still not second careers because they still don’t pay our son’s college tuition.

Stephanie McCullough (13:23):

Yes.

Mary Jo Hoffman (13:27):

But they were, they became substantial enough that — it is with hobbies or second careers or side hustles, whatever you want to call it, if you get momentum [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah], it’s very hard to stop and then restart. So, and you know who knows, here we are in our mid-40s, we still have a lot of child raising to do [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah]. And a lot of college tuition to find. And– But yet these things have momentum, and we don’t want to stop.

Mary Jo Hoffman (13:55):

So, here we are 12 years later, and my husband and I are both publishing books on those projects we started during that sabbatical when we were practicing for retirement. And it’s a crazy story. And so, now I just turned 60 and on the brink of retirement, and we have these full-fledged creative careers now we can carry into retirement and do for the next 20 years.

Kevin Gaines (14:22):

So, you say you have these creative careers, how do you at this moment in time, view these careers? It’s like, “Oh, it’s something to occupy my time that I’m going to get a couple bucks out of as a bonus.” Or are you thinking, “Hey you know, this actually is a career that I’m going to devote all of my work time,” if you will, focusing on this?

Mary Jo Hoffman (14:51):

Yeah, it’s a good question. So my, we have a expression called self patronage. And so, because my husband’s a tax preparer and that’s intensely seasonal, he’s still doing taxes. He’s has to still do taxes for at least four or five more years.

Mary Jo Hoffman (15:09 ):

We do have two children and our youngest is in college. So that’s, he’s got to continue to work. And we’ve chosen not to put the pressure on this hobby, if you will, these creative hobbies. I don’t even know what to call them. Yeah, I’m using all sorts of different language.

Mary Jo Hoffman (15:28):

But by self-patronizing our creative hobbies with the tax practice and so that we don’t have to make money at these hobbies. So, just to take the pressure off of them. And the whole idea is that these are creative careers, creative paths, creative routines, whatever that are meant to be enjoyed.

Mary Jo Hoffman (15:54):

So, once you start having to put financial pressure on them sometimes sucks the joy out of them.

Stephanie McCullough (16:02):

Yeah. That’s the thing.

Mary Jo Hoffman (16:03):

Yeah. And so, we are choosing to … my husband would love nothing more than to stop doing taxes in rightful time. But we also know that until we financially can afford to do that, if we were to stop that now and put pressure or income earning pressure on those creative practices, it would suck a lot of joy out of those creative practices.

Mary Jo Hoffman (16:26):

Even though with two books coming out, we do have platforms now. We are established in those fields, and we are making a little bit of money at them. You know what I mean? And enough that it would be reasonable to say, “Well, we could double our efforts,” you know what I mean? And make more money.

Mary Jo Hoffman (16:46):

But then take writing, for example, you end up writing articles for money [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah]. And it’s not necessarily what your passion is. So, we’ve decided to keep that creative stuff a little bit protected, if you will, and not muddy it with the need for it to spin off any extra income, even though it is starting to [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Got it].

Kevin Gaines (17:09):

Yeah. My wife loves to cook, and she says she would love to have a restaurant, but she’s terrified or convinced that the moment she has to start doing it, has to come up with the menu and all of that stuff, all the stuff she enjoys the cooking for, she isn’t going to get to enjoy anymore.

Mary Jo Hoffman (17:32):

Oh! Right. I mean, my husband actually is a food writer. So, we have lots and lots of chef restaurant owner friends. And right now, what’s sucking all the joy out of their careers is staffing [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Oh Yeah]. It’s absolutely sucking the joy out of it.

Mary Jo Hoffman (17:48):

So, it’s those kind of things. You love food, but you’re spending your entire day dealing with staffing problems. So, yeah, we chose to keep it a little bit separate and sacred, but it’s a tension and it’s hard to decide when to make that transition. Right?

Stephanie McCullough (18:04):

Yes.

Mary Jo Hoffman (18:08):

Yeah and we talked about. I mean, I listened to your podcast and your last two guests have been you know phenomenal about caregiving, I mean, going from we’re at age 60. We had our kids a little late. Because I was working corporate and enjoying doing that, we had our kids a little late. I still have one in college and I’m also the primary for my mom.

Mary Jo Hoffman (18:29):

And so, you go, I have a– I’m an empty nester technically, my son’s off at college, but the minute he went is when the minute I became my mom’s primary. You know what I mean [Stephanie McCullough & Kevin Gaines overcross: Yes]? Like there hasn’t been this letting up of time and money like. I don’t know like, we thought there would be. Things have changed. I mean, part of it is having kids later, yeah. So, I’m

Stephanie McCullough (18:59):

So, what has having this creative outlet through the challenges of raising kids and now both having kids and being a caregiver, has that helped you having the creative outlet alongside and were there times when it was difficult to keep it going?

Mary Jo Hoffman (19:19):

Oh! that’s a really good question. So, that would be a really great question for my kids. They’re 20 and 26. I would say, in my case, I–which is a photo a day project that I intended to do for one year. And I haven’t stopped. It’s been 12 and a half years. 4,000, 600 images and I haven’t stopped.

Kevin Gaines (19:41):

Wow.

Mary Jo Hoffman (19:41 ):

So yeah , it’s interesting that in itself is an interesting story. But when I set up the project, I had quit working corporate to be home with my kids. So, I set up the project in a way that it fit around family life. Because I gave up a lot right to be part of that family life, right. And I didn’t need another excuse, especially an unpaid excuse to distract myself from family life.

Mary Jo Hoffman (20:14):

So I didn’t, I set up the project so that it fit within the family life. And so, for me, it was not hard to fit it in and make it part of family life.

Mary Jo Hoffman (20:26):

And also, I’m photographing found nature, and so the kids got super involved, right. I had to find a subject every day to photograph. And it’s essentially a treasure hunt, right. And everybody in the family got involved and it became a fun thing that I still composed the photos, photographed them, edit them, posted them.

Mary Jo Hoffman (20:50):

But the finding, the arranging, the identifying, all of that became this fun part of our family routine. So, in my case, it was easier. Writing’s a little harder because it requires solitude, right?

Stephanie McCullough (21:05):

Yeah. Chunks of time.

Mary Jo Hoffman (21:07):

Chunks of time. And it really– And that was a little bit harder. And I would say my husband, that was a tension that would nod at him because we have– our youngest is a boy. He wanted to fish with his dad. Dad had a manuscript deadline. So, there was that unfortunate tension.

Mary Jo Hoffman (21:31):

But you make it work. You hope you’re setting an example. And I think the kids understand, and I think they saw us doing creative work that we were passionate about. Instead of exchanging our time for money in a way that we weren’t passionate about. And so, I think overall it was a benefit, but yes. Compromises get made. There’s only 24 hours in a day.

Stephanie McCullough (21:585):

So, you’re role modeling doing it through life as opposed to postponing it until “retirement,” right, which I think is a huge value.

Mary Jo Hoffman (22:06):

I think so. I think so, you know. They’re 26 and 20, so you’ll see the jury’s out. I think they got a lot out of it. Actually, my daughter went into creative field. She’s very, very happy at what she does. My son’s the 20-year-old, you know, he’s the one still trying to decide what he’s going to do.

Stephanie McCullough (22:23):

Yeah. But did it help you to have like, you knew you were going to have your creative time in the middle of the can’t find the sneakers and got to get to school or whatever the stuff was, to get out the door and drive across town to school?

Mary Jo Hoffman (22:39):

I would say that, yes.I think that– I mean, that’s why I started the project, right, because here I’d been working corporate, by the time I left, I was director of an R&D lab with 120 employees in four continents. [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Wow]. I was used to a certain amount of-

Kevin Gaines (23:00):

Chaos

Mary Jo Hoffman (23:01):

Yeah. Well also you know, intellectual stimulation and challenge and-

Stephanie McCullough (23:06):

Adult conversation.

Mary Jo Hoffman (23:13):

Yeah. Right. Exactly. And suddenly I am driving to parent pickup across town. And so, I started the project to give myself a creative challenge. But, So, yes, during those years when you’re just heads down and you are just packing lunches and getting kids to piano practice to have that special thing that I was doing, no matter how small, no matter how much people didn’t understand what I was doing. Because not everybody understood what I was doing.

Mary Jo Hoffman (23:39):

But it was mine and it gave me fulfillment and it gave me a yeah a little something that was just mine, right. That was important to me. I would’ve needed that. I think had I not started doing that project, I might have gone back to work part-time. And the irony is, creative work is solitary. It’s very solitary. And I still, to this day, I’ve been not working for as long as I worked.

Mary Jo Hoffman (24:09):

And I miss being part of a high functioning team like, a group, a small group of really smart people exchanging ideas and each person contributing what they’re best at. I still to this day miss that, like. I really, really miss that.

Mary Jo Hoffman (24:27):

I kind of got that with the book process. My editor and my designer, we formed this you know really high functioning team, and it was ba-da boom, ba-da bing and every day. So, I got a taste of that, and I was reminded exactly how much I enjoy that [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah]. But I’ll never stop missing that. I mean, I did enjoy that.

Stephanie McCullough (24:51):

So interesting.

Kevin Gaines (24:52):

This may be a hard question, but is there anything you would’ve done different in developing this hobby/career? Or is there– for somebody starting out that’s going, “Hey, I probably should start doing something now.” Is there any learning event that you had that you could say, “Hey, yes, this worked great for me, but think of doing it this way.”

Mary Jo Hoffman (25:21):

Yeah I think, that’s a good question. There’s not a lot I would do different, but the advice I would give is start now, start soon. And it doesn’t even matter what age you are [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah]. If there’s something you think you want to do in retirement, I don’t care if you’re 10 years away, five years away, or five months away.

Mary Jo Hoffman (25:45):

Whatever you, that thing is you think you’re going to want to do, start doing it now in a small way, right. Don’t try and start a second career here while you’re winding down on the current one. In a small way. So, you know, whatever it is, if it’s a creative thing, these one a day challenges that I did are extremely powerful, and they work excellent.

Mary Jo Hoffman (26:07):

If it’s volunteering, find those groups you want to volunteer with. Because you’re probably going to have to try three or four before you find your people. If it’s mentoring, start doing that sooner, but mentor just one, one student at a time.

Mary Jo Hoffman (26:24):

And if it’s teaching at the local community college, talk to them while you still are vice president of sales-

Stephanie McCullough (26:34):

With a paycheck.

Mary Jo Hoffman (26:36):

Yeah. Because you’re going to be far more interesting to them than when you’re the retired vice president of sales. So, start those things now. So, that would be one bit of advice.

Mary Jo Hoffman (26:46):

The other thing that I did, we did, and again, this gets back to the financial aspect of it, which was we lived below our means for a lot of our young adulthood. And that gave us the cushion to– we needed to not have to make those creative careers make money [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah]. So, we had built up a kind of, I would say margin and not really a safety net, but a like some margin. Ahh–

Stephanie McCullough (27:23):

Wiggle room.

Mary Jo Hoffman (27:25):

Yeah. And so, to the extent you can give yourself, live below your means a little bit and give yourself margin or wiggle room so that when you start tapering down on what you’re currently doing and maybe starting up on something there’s some, I will just use the word margin in there [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah].

Mary Jo Hoffman (27:45):

But start now. Start now. Even if you’re in your 40s, honestly, I’m not saying, for example, take classes. That’s an obvious thing. I’m not anti-class or instruction. But I do say in the case of my husband and myself, our naivete about what we were doing worked to our advantage [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Ahuh!.

Mary Jo Hoffman (28:08):

Steve started writing articles. He wasn’t a journalist. The first few articles he submitted to newspapers and magazines are in hindsight hilarious. Because they were so not in the journalistic style and so long, so out of the norm of what they publish, and yet those editors saw a new voice. So, anyways, I have mixed feelings about classes. For sure, I’m all about finding the right teacher at the right time. But sometimes you can get in the trap of taking classes forever and never doing either.

Stephanie McCullough (28:48):

Yes. It’s a place to hide.

Mary Jo Hoffman (28:50):

It’s a place to hide. Right. So, my advice is start doing. Start doing and then take the classes.

Stephanie McCullough (28:57):

Had you taken photography classes? You said you were kind of an amateur photographer earlier on?

Mary Jo Hoffman (29:01):

Yeah, I had been given a camera as a college graduation gift. And I had a roommate in college who was an artist, and she introduced me to photography. And so, I used to bum around with her. And so, when I graduated college, I got a camera as a college graduation gift. So, I was a pretty good amateur photographer [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Hm hm].

Mary Jo Hoffman (29:23):

So, when I by my 2o–40 —That would’ve been age 20, 21 when you graduate college. And by the time I was in my 40s, I had been 20 years of an amateur photographer, and I’d taken classes on and off. So, when I wanted to start my daily creative challenge, I thought about other things. I thought about a watercolor a day, collage a day, other things.

Mary Jo Hoffman (29:46):

But a photo a day of found nature made the most sense for my lifestyle. Remember I said I wanted it to fit within the family [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Right] ah routine. And we are nature people, so it fit the most naturally. So, that’s why the camera. Yeah.

Stephanie McCullough (30:05):

Okay. Because you could bring it with you. You’re out in nature anyway.

Mary Jo Hoffman (30:09):

Yeah. And honestly, if I’d have said a watercolor day or collage day, I wouldn’t still be doing that. Those [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Right] are a little bit harder. A photo could be done quickly. And so, there is some power in whatever you choose, make it be.

Mary Jo Hoffman (30:23):

I say make the minimum requirement to not break the chain, the daily practice be easy, [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Right]. So, there are days when I spend two or three hours making a composition to photograph, but there are also a lot of days where I spend, what, two or three minutes. Because life just happens. Right! So, the minimum to not break the chain should be able to be done in minutes. Yeah. And then I have this book, which is with Monacelli Phaidon, the world’s biggest art book producer. It’s absolutely gorgeous, stunning.

Stephanie McCullough (30:58):

Did they come to you? Did you search out a publisher?

Mary Jo Hoffman (31:01):

Well yeah, that’s interesting. An agent came to me on Instagram [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Okay] and in direct messages said, “Do you have a book in you?” And I wrote back and said, “I would love to, it makes sense. I’ve been doing this so long, I have this large portfolio, but I don’t have a concept yet. And I don’t want to do just any book. I want it to be as artful as my art.”

Mary Jo Hoffman (31:25):

You know what I mean? As intentional as my art. So, I put her off for like two years, and every six months she’d send me another direct message, “Have you thought about that book? Have you thought about that book?”

Mary Jo Hoffman (31:38):

And so, finally I said, yes. And what happened is COVID, of course [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Right]. And so many of our stories these days go back to their being seeded during COVID. Right?

Stephanie McCullough (31:50):

Yeah. Yeah.

Mary Jo Hoffman (31:51):

So, anyways, I had time over COVID to mockup a concept for a book on, I just used PowerPoint and I liked what I saw. So, I sent her a message, saying, I’m ready, yeah. So, an agent reached out to me, and then you write a book proposal and then you pitch it to publishers, yeah. In my case, the first publisher we pitched to bought it, which I got really lucky.

Mary Jo Hoffman (32:16):

I got the world’s best publisher. I just am so thrilled with my whole experience. But—

Stephanie McCullough (32:23):

And if you hadn’t been playing in traffic as this one person we know says, right. Like putting your stuff out into the world, that wouldn’t have happened, right. I can see-

Mary Jo Hoffman (32:33):

There’s no way it could have happened. Yeah.

Stephanie McCullough (32:35):

Yeah, yeah. And that wasn’t the goal, but yeah, it brings you more — does it bring you more joy and fulfillment to have these commercial opportunities than if you were just doing it for your own pleasure?

Mary Jo Hoffman (32:50):

Yes. In that, I mean, it’s external validation, right [Stephanie McCullough and Kevin Gaines overcross: Yeah, hmm]. I mean, that’s what it is. I’m someone who doesn’t need … a weirdo, I think. In that I don’t need a lot of external validation, you know.

Mary Jo Hoffman (33:07):

I’m just over here doing my thing. Nobody pay attention to me. I’m happy over here. So, I need less of that. But it is validation, it is motivating. The collaborations usually push you in a direction that you maybe wouldn’t have gone naturally.

Mary Jo Hoffman (33:21):

So, there is a creative back and forth when you collaborate that’s usually productive. So, yeah. It’s being out there—Yes I think it’s more impactful, more meaningful to me and more fulfilling to know that it’s being received on the other end, right.

Mary Jo Hoffman (33:38):

Now this book, the book I just published, the response to it has been so varied and in a good way [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah]. But the book’s been wildly popular, but the reasons people are responding to it are just beyond my– anything I could have imagined. I mean, people are reacting to the book.

Mary Jo Hoffman (34:04):

I knew it when it’s–my story about one a day project, super simple fits around the family. I knew that’s inspiring to anyone who wants to do a creative practice or start a creative practice. I knew that. So, I knew the book would be inspiring for a certain number of people.

Mary Jo Hoffman (34:20):

But then people are finding so much more in the book. And it just keeps coming back to me, mostly through DMs and Instagram.

Mary Jo Hoffman (34:28):

But what people are getting out of it. So, here’s you know an example, the reason I’m bring that up is I just made this thing a book and put it out into the world. And now it is almost having its own life. You know what I mean? Like, It’ is people are reacting to it in ways I never, never would’ve expected. And that’s thrilling. Really, honestly.

Stephanie McCullough (34:50):

Can you give us an example?

Mary Jo Hoffman (34:52):

Yeah. I mean you know, well, they’re kind of heartbreaking. So, my images are float on white. They’re very spare. I’m getting lots of people telling me that it’s bringing tears to their eyes. Now, I would say they’re bittersweet tears of like people have a lot of nostalgia around nature.

Mary Jo Hoffman (35:13):

Like, I remember the Blue Jays in my grandma’s backyard, or I remember the peonies that were always by the front step, you know [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah]. So, there’s nostalgia, there’s tears of joy, there’s a longing for connection to nature.

Mary Jo Hoffman (35:27):

But one woman just said to me, and this is super sad story, she said, “My daughter recently died, adult daughter.” And she said, “Everybody gave me these books for grieving on grieving. They were books with words in them. I couldn’t read. I was gutted. I could not concentrate to read. I got your book and I suddenly, I just– I had a space to grieve.”

Stephanie McCullough (35:55):

Wow.

Kevin Gaines (35:55):

Wow.

Mary Jo Hoffman (35:55):

“All that white space you have in your images, you just focus on one thing. It’s very spare, it’s very calm.” So people are, that’s–, she just happened to share that last week, but I’ve gotten that multiple times now. So, grandparents sharing it with children, it’s just– the response to it has been very interesting.

Mary Jo Hoffman (36:19):

And so, yes, you get that by sharing your work, right. And that thrill, I couldn’t have manufactured, you know, that’s a thrill that I couldn’t have come up with inside me [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Right]. It exceeds just the joy of creation that exceeds that even.

Mary Jo Hoffman (36:40):

It’s been an interesting, and I feel you know, here I am at 60-years-old, on the threshold of retirement, we have these, I don’t know — I got to find a better word, but careers now we can carry into retirement absolutely indefinitely [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah].

Mary Jo Hoffman (36:54):

And that can taper down as we get more tired, right. [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah. As you choose].

Mary Jo Hoffman (37:00):

They can amp up or taper down as we desire. And the other thing that’s neat is they can travel with us, right. They’re not dependent on place. Yeah.

Stephanie McCullough (37:12):

Yeah. That is really cool. Do you really do a photo every day? Or do you ever cheat and do like 12 photos one day that can like take you through vacation?

Mary Jo Hoffman (37:19):

I get asked that all the time. And everybody’s surprised. I do one every day.

Stephanie McCullough (37:22):

That’s cool.

Mary Jo Hoffman (37:23):

I have to tell you, I have not made today’s photo and I don’t know what it is, although there’s daisies everywhere right now, probably daisies. But I did– in the early years, I put a folder in the corner of my iMac that said just in case. [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Okay]

Mary Jo Hoffman (37:37):

And so, I would make ahead two or three photos and put them in there. And what I found was, and it’s just like running, right, it’s easier to just do it every day than to stop and start [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah]. And so, the stopping and starting was actually harder than the just doing it every day. And because the minimum requirement to not break the chain is can be very, very simple then it’s easier to just to just do it every day. I haven’t had a just in case folder in eight years.

Stephanie McCullough (38:10):

That’s cool.

Mary Jo Hoffman (38:11):

Yeah.

Mary Jo Hoffman (38:12):

The project I started; it was a one-year challenge. So, these creative challenges and they work really great no matter what you want to do. Matter of fact, writers can do them too with 500 words a day, right. A watercolor a day.

Stephanie McCullough (38:24):

I’ve heard songwriters.

Mary Jo Hoffman (38:26):

Yes. Right. The don’t break the chain actually comes from a Jerry Seinfeld quote. Has he– The story is, he was approached by a young comedian who said, what’s your advice to a young comedian? And he said, “Here’s what you do. Get yourself a great big wall calendar with the big squares, you know. And you put it on the wall and every day you write down one joke and you put an X in the calendar, and you don’t, and you never break the chain.”

Mary Jo Hoffman (38:53):

And so, comedians, one joke a day, writers, 50 words, or a hundred words a day, or 500 words a day. So, people do these, they’re very powerful. When I started mine, it was supposed to be a one-year project, and I committed to one calendar year. And then what happened is I didn’t want to stop.

Mary Jo Hoffman (39:11):

And so, essentially the attentiveness required to find a subject every day put me in, essentially it became a mindfulness practice, right. Because I had to be so present every day, and I had to be present wherever I was.

Mary Jo Hoffman (39:27):

So, suddenly parent pickup, which I’d been doing for eight years right across town, suddenly became a new … Like,  I was in foreign territory you know, I just landed in another country and was driving roads I’d never seen, because suddenly I’m on high alert looking for something to photograph that day.

Mary Jo Hoffman (39:49):

And I found that living in that heightened state of attentiveness, awareness or presence essentially became a mindfulness practice that I didn’t want to stop. And so, that’s what happened is I didn’t want to stop, I didn’t want to cheat, I didn’t want to give myself days off.

Mary Jo Hoffman (40:07):

I wanted to do my 15 minutes of mindfulness practice. Like, I wanted to do that the way real runners, which I don’t understand, but real runners-

Stephanie McCullough (40:16):

Me neither.

Mary Jo Hoffman (40:17):

Want to do, you know what I mean? They want to go running [Stephanie McCullough overcross: right]. I wanted to spend my 15 minutes present with the natural world, so-

Stephanie McCullough (40:27):

Do you ever pull over on the side of the road, like in the middle of traffic to-

Mary Jo Hoffman (40:33):

All the time, all the time. I did yesterday, I did yesterday. Oh!  Yeah. I actually live now in the community that I grew up in and I grew up here. And yet I can since I started this project,Like, I can probably name every tree between my house and my mom’s house.

Mary Jo Hoffman (40:52):

Like, I know exactly right now where the vetch is blooming, where the clover’s blooming, where the daisies are blooming, where the false sunflowers are blooming. I, like I have a mental map of my place here [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah]that is so detailed and so nuanced. And so, for me, fulfilling and rewarding, that’s been the joy of this project.

Mary Jo Hoffman (41:17):

And it took this project —You, I don’t think I could have wake up and said, “I’m on autopilot most of the time. I’m just, I’m going to try and be more attentive.” That wouldn’t have worked. I needed motivator of not breaking the chain. And it’s a super simple motivator, but it works. And I don’t want to break the chain now. It’s a great way to live.

Stephanie McCullough (41:38):

I love it. I love it.

Kevin Gaines (41:38):

Do you think you would’ve started this had you stayed a rocket scientist?

Mary Jo Hoffman (41:45):

I wouldn’t have had time to do a one a day project. I couldn’t have committed to it. Aerospace is a international business. And so, I was traveling all the time. And hence the family planning you know aspects. Aerospace is interesting in that even at a national level, it’s intentionally dispersed for national security, right.

Mary Jo Hoffman (42:11):

If you look at where all of our aerospace companies and production and locations are, they’re intentionally on different coasts and different locations so for national security. So, the point is, I was traveling all the time, [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah] all the time. And that was just national. And then there’s, it’s really an international business.

Mary Jo Hoffman (42:30):

And so, honestly, I wouldn’t have had time. I don’t think I would’ve come to it. I would’ve had to wait for retirement to start because of that travel. I loved my job, but the travel was hard, and it was-

Stephanie McCullough (42:44):

Not much found nature in the airport.

Mary Jo Hoffman (42:46):

No. Although, I have done potted plants [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Okay]. But that’s an exception. And I don’t want to do that very often.

Stephanie McCullough (42:57):

But you could probably structure it differently, right if that was your life, you could have—-

Mary Jo Hoffman (43:01):

With all that travel, there is a lot of downtime. So, yes. That’s a really good point. I could have done a daily challenge and fit it in while I was an aerospace corporate executive. But I would’ve had to fit it in in those wait times in airports [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah], right and hotel rooms [Stephanie McCullough overcross: right], and security lines.

Mary Jo Hoffman (43:27):

So, I would’ve had to have structured it different and wouldn’t have been found nature [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah]. Because I wouldn’t have been outside walking the dog every day [Stephanie McCullough overcross: right]. So yes, I could have, it would’ve had to have been different. Well, I could have done collage. That’s interesting.

Mary Jo Hoffman (43:40):

You can do that on the little tray table of an airplane [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah]. All you need is a little glue stick in your purse. Yeah. So, that’s a good question. I think it’s curious, would I have evolved to that? Because I just had this desire for creatives, visual creative arts.

Mary Jo Hoffman (43:58):

I possibly would’ve. I was you know, I carry what’s called a visual journal, so I carry journal, but it’s mostly sketches and collages and stuff. I don’t write dear diary. I’m not a writer. I was that—By then, even when I was an executive, I was carrying my journal with me. That’s a good question. I think, yes, in hindsight I could have fitted in. It just would’ve looked different. Slightly different.

Kevin Gaines (44:25):

Yeah.

Stephanie McCullough (44:26):

My daughter for a while was doing like a little sketch a day before she went to bed. Just a little tiny you know drawing in her little book.

Mary Jo Hoffman (44:31):

Yeah, you can do it on a post-it note [Stephanie McCullough overcross: right]. Just a sketch a day on a post-it note. And the minimum to not break the chain is you can literally like write your name or make an X and you’ve made a sketch on a post-it note and then you know, don’t break the chain.

Mary Jo Hoffman (44:50):

And it’s so powerful because at the end of a hundred days or 365 days, if you take the five best of those, you’ll be impressed. You’ll have something [Stephanie McCullough overcross: right].

Mary Jo Hoffman (44:59):

The process creates the results. Almost like, takes the pressure off the results and all you’re committing to is not breaking the chain [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah]. And then at the end of it you realize you created some really good stuff, yeah. And so, by shifting the focus to not breaking the chain, it takes all that perfectionist pressure off the creation that trips so many of us up. Right?

Stephanie McCullough (45:22):

Yes.

Mary Jo Hoffman (45:22):

I can’t just make any old sketch, right. I got to make a good sketch. Well, if all you’re committing to is not breaking the chain, then any old sketch-

Stephanie McCullough (45:33):

Is fine.

Mary Jo Hoffman (45:33):

Is fine. And then you’ll be surprised because some of those little sketches you tossed off as fine end up being your favorite [Stephanie McCullough overcross: that’s cool]. It’s because you shut down that inner critic and you’ve just [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah] … yeah. It’s super powerful. It has a ton of magic. I love it. I can advocate for it. These simple one-year challenges enough, if what you want is to do a little something creative.

Stephanie McCullough (45:59):

Yeah. I love that.

Mary Jo Hoffman (46:01):

And I think a lot of people do do want to do that retirement, right. Do you see that with your clients? They you know want to go back? Good music, I mean writing.

Stephanie McCullough (46:11):

Yeah. I mean there’s a lot. We featured Claire Waite Brown, who has a podcast called Creativity Found. She’s in the UK and she interviews people who have gone back to creative pursuits after life got in the way for a period of time. And just the joy it brings them and the fulfillment, whether it’s hands-on pottery or writing or all kinds of different things.

Stephanie McCullough (46:33):

And I feel like we have seen it kind of modern life doesn’t tell you that that’s a valuable way to spend time. So, people have kind of shut down those urges. And I—

Mary Jo Hoffman (46:46):

Can I ask you a question?

Stephanie McCullough (46:48):

Of course.

Mary Jo Hoffman (46:48):

You guys see a lot of people transitioning to retirement. Other than travel, what is the next most popular thing people want to do with that time? Is it just grandkids and travel?

Stephanie McCullough (47:06):

No.

Kevin Gaines (47:08):

It’s all over the place. There is a lot of grandkids. There is a lot of travel. But it’s also generically, I would say hobbies, not necessarily creative, but it is, I get to do what I want to do now.

Stephanie McCullough (47:22):

I think what I see is people wanting to get engaged and give back in a different way, right. Maybe use other parts of their skillsets-

Mary Jo Hoffman (47:32):

Mentor, volunteer.

Stephanie McCullough (47:32):

Yeah. Or start a different type of business or enterprise or volunteerism or somehow being connected and fulfilled, but also opportunities for learning and I’m missing the word I’m trying to come up with, engaged. But also, a way that they feel like they’re adding value. All the things that they’ve brought to—they’ve learned along the way, how can I give back? I feel like that’s what I see.

Kevin Gaines (48:04):

Stuff with meaning.

Stephanie McCullough (48:06):

Yeah. Yeah. Mary Jo, thank you so much. This has been a delight to hear more about your story and thanks for being so generous and sharing it.

Kevin Gaines (48:13):

Really appreciate your time.

Mary Jo Hoffman (48:15):

Yeah. I loved it. This was really fun. Thanks so much.

Stephanie McCullough (48:17):

How can people find you if they wanted to follow?

Mary Jo Hoffman (48:20):

Yeah, well I’m on Instagram.

Stephanie McCullough (48:24):

With your name?

Mary Jo Hoffman (48:24):

Yeah. Mary Jo Hoffman at MaryJo Hoffman on Instagram. And my blog is called Still and if you type in Still blog or Still MaryJo Hoffman, you’ll find it. And that’s the only two places I hang out. I’m not on Facebook or TikTok or anything.

Stephanie McCullough (48:41):

And the book.

Mary Jo Hoffman (48:42):

Ohh the book– Thank you. My publisher will appreciate you. It’s called STILL:The Art of Noticing by Mary Jo Hoffman. And it’s available worldwide. It’s globally, it’s on Amazon. I’m super proud of it. It’s an absolutely gorgeous book and it’s doing very well in the market. Yeah.

Stephanie McCullough (49:01):

Love it. Love it. Thanks so much for being with us.

Kevin Gaines (49:05):

Appreciate it. Thank you.

Mary Jo Hoffman (49:06):

Yeah. Thanks so much.

Kevin Gaines (49:12):

So, little inside baseball for everybody here. So, as we’re doing these interviews you know, Stephanie and I and as well as our guests, you know, we’re on camera so we’re looking at each other. But Stephanie and I will occasionally take notes.

Kevin Gaines (49:26):

And I’m sure it’s happened before, but this was the first time I noticed that at the exact moment Mary Jo said something, I just happened to glance up at the camera and I saw Stephanie writing as well. So, I think this resonated with you, Stephanie, process creates the result.

Stephanie McCullough (49:44):

Yes. Hm hm

Kevin Gaines (49:45):

I mean that’s something we talk about with our clients and on this podcast a lot is doing stuff. And it’s not necessarily like our topic here of oh yeah, you just keep playing in traffic and stuff will happen. But even in the planning process, just going through the process in and of itself can yield some insights or inspirations for our clients.

Stephanie McCullough (50:13):

I think maybe I took it a slightly different way in that if we are trying to do something creative, like I write newsletters to folks, we come up with podcast ideas, right. Instead of worrying about it being so good, just doing something on a regular basis will inevitably — some of it has to be good.

Stephanie McCullough (50:35):

And also, I love how she was saying it changes how she sees and experiences the world now, right. She’s much more conscious because she’s looking for nature or found nature, things like that.

Stephanie McCullough (50:47):

But whatever it is you are focusing on and as part of your active creativity, it can’t help but change the lens with which you view your environment and your environment surroundings. And it’s going to bring you new insights, which I don’t know, that always feels fresh and exciting and new for me.

Kevin Gaines (51:06):

Well, I mean, and it actually create … well we’ll see if it actually sticks with me or not, but just getting out there doing something.

Stephanie McCullough (51:15):

I love her message to start wherever you are in life, whatever’s taking up the majority of your time, we can all find something, some once a day challenge, some once a day practice. Really, it’s the process, the practice of doing it that’s going to bring us fulfillment.

Stephanie McCullough (51:34):

I’ve been trying to meditate. So, I use an app and it shows me my streak. Don’t break the chain, it gives me a check mark on the days I’ve done it and no check mark on the days I haven’t. And that motivates me to do it. So, I like the one a day challenge idea. I think it can be molded to shape a variety of situations, right.

Stephanie McCullough (51:56):

She molded hers to fit around her family life and look what it’s led to. I mean, who knows? And you don’t have to feel like it wasn’t a success if yours doesn’t last 12 years and results in a book, but it brings something to your life. And we’ll link back to our podcast with Claire Waite Brown in her experience talking to people about how creativity enhances their later years.

Kevin Gaines (52:23):

Right. So, there’s this idea of you know taking this one a day challenge, explore your interests or what you might be interested in because as we make that transition from having to work, you know we want to know that we’re going to fill this time. But the question is how, and that’s not always what you think it’s going to be. So, exploring this stuff is really going to help you feel more confident about making that transition.

Stephanie McCullough (52:55):

Back to the idea of practicing retirement. Have a little a trial run. We had another guest which we’ll link to, like, she’s moving around the world, not just around the country and trying different places she might want to live.

Stephanie McCullough (53:08):

We’ve talked to clients who might want to move to Arizona. Why don’t you practice by renting a place for a month and see if you actually like it. So, I do like the idea of practicing.

Kevin Gaines (53:17):

Because at the end of the day, you don’t have to stick with your decision. You make a decision and it’s not working for you, or you think there might be something better then make the switch. It can be that simple. You’re not locked in.

Stephanie McCullough (53:33):

That’s the beauty of “retirement.” And life really, although there are other forces at work. Okay. Thanks so much for being with us. We hope you enjoyed the conversation. We’ll talk to you next time. It’s goodbye from me.

Kevin Gaines (53:47):

And it’s goodbye from her.

Stephanie McCullough (53:51):

Be sure to subscribe to the show and please share it with your friends, show notes and more information available at takebackretirement.com. Huge thanks for the original music by the one and only Raymond Loewy through New Math in New York. See you next time.

Voiceover (54:04):

Investment advice offered through Private Advisor Group, LLC, a registered Investment Advisor. Private Advisor Group, American Financial Management Group, and Sofia Financial are separate entities. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual security. To determine which investments may be appropriate for you, consult your financial advisor prior to investing. This information is not intended to be substitute for individualized tax advice. Please consult your tax advisor regarding your specific situation.