iRetire4Him Show 143:

Jim Brangenberg: Your retirement years can be 30 years of purpose driven, fully funded ministry, years of making impact in ways and places you never imagined.

Martha Brangenberg: Welcome to iRetire4Him. We are your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg.

Jim Brangenberg: When a man retires, his whole life really changes. Everything that is defined his being has been stripped away and all he is left with is himself and a whole lot of time. So do men and women look at retirement differently?

I think we do! For three shows in a row we're gonna interview a newly retired couple. Last show we sat down with Donna Smith from North Carolina. This week we talk with Donna's husband, Rodney, about his perspective on retirement. Then on the next episode, both Rodney and Donna will be back to share their perspective, share a little dirt, I'm sure too, and really give their perspective as a retired couple.

So what will we learn today from Rodney that will differ from Donna's perspective shared in the last episode? And how will it help all of us as we approach or live out our years in retirement? I have no idea what this is gonna be like, but Rodney Smith, welcome to iRetire4Him.

Rodney Smith: Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here.

Jim Brangenberg: So Rodney, we always like to do this with every first time guest on any of our shows. Tell us your Jesus story. Where did Jesus first intersect your life?

Rodney Smith: Junior high school, seventh grade, youth group. My oldest brother actually professed his faith and it was like, that's a good idea kind of thing. And for me, it wasn't as immediate. It was like a six month process that I guess you'd say I said the prayer, spoke the words, and then that continued to turn in me for months and months until then, it was like six months later and actually one night in a youth group that I was like, I get it. And that was, yeah, that was when I accepted Christ and had the full understanding what he did for me.

Jim Brangenberg: That's right about the time your wife started to check you out. You were seventh grader. She was in the college and career group. (laughter)

Okay. All right. Okay.

Martha Brangenberg: No, she wasn't paying attention to the neighbor boy that to what not come. All right.

Jim Brangenberg: Okay. Okay. I am forever going to give her a hard time about that. Okay. Alright.

Martha Brangenberg: So we asked Donna this question and we wanna ask it of you too. What do you believe is your calling on your life? Separate from your, necessarily your career, but God probably used your calling in your career. What has God gifted you to be as a person?

Rodney Smith: I've always been easy to talk, communicate. So I just speak to people. I like giving a smile, opening opportunities for conversation. Felt like I did that pretty good at work through my career. And now a little more involvement in the local community, doing some stuff.

Jim Brangenberg: But wait. Wasn't your career in forestry? So you're saying these conversations you were having were with trees? (laughter)

Rodney Smith: When I wanted a sane conversation, it was with a tree sometimes, (laughter) but yeah, I traveled all over the country in my career. I did what was called wildland firefighting.

And I started out immediately, I missed my first three anniversaries after taking it, 'cause we got married and I took this position before we had our first anniversary. And the Forest Service already had me on the road, my very first anniversary. And that was only a what? Two months after I think we got married.

No, it was only three weeks after we got married. Anyway yeah, and I was already on the road with my job. But traveling, the different people all across the, like I say, the country. I don't know. It is just like I said I just tried to be a good person and have, what I call wholesome conversations, 'cause trust me, I've heard plenty of non.

Martha Brangenberg: So in your working years then you had opportunity, God probably used that ability to talk with people when you would just show up somewhere and you wouldn't know anybody, but you needed to work with them and be able to relate to them. Is that kind of what you're saying?

Rodney Smith: Yes.

Martha Brangenberg: Okay. All right. So tell us, because we should have done this with Donna and we'll have to do it when they're both on there, so tell us exactly what your career path kind of was like. You started out in forestry, you're fighting fires all over the country. Is that what you were doing?

Rodney Smith: I started out of college. I worked at a local mill, as their forester.

Jim Brangenberg: For the rest of the country, mill is what he was trying to say.

Martha Brangenberg: With an accent. (laughter)

Jim Brangenberg: Mill is what he was actually trying to say. Okay. Now he wasn't eating all of that. His first thing he described was a meal.

Rodney Smith: Lumber mill, yeah. But I actually found a opening when I was looking at government timber for sale on the local national forest here, and I had never really paid that much of a attention to it. Although I was born and raised in this area I had the benefit of having private land to always hunt and fish and recreate on. And so we never utilized the public lands.

And so I found this position and or found out about the position and I thought we'd come home, talk to Donna, thought well, let's throw my name in the hat. And a long time it takes, the wheels turn very slow. But yeah, it ended up with the job in 1992 and up until three and a half months ago.

Martha Brangenberg: Wow. That's amazing. Okay, so a fun fact for everybody. You had quite a highlight towards the end of your career. What did you get to do at Christmas a couple years ago?

Rodney Smith: Yeah, I considered it a great honor that I was chosen to be the actual Sawyer for the capitol Christmas tree in 2022, where I got to actually cut the tree up. Typically you cut a tree down, but this was the only tree I've ever cut and it went that way. (points up) So they have a crane attached to it.

Martha Brangenberg: Oh my . So it doesn't smash.

Rodney Smith: Yeah. They pick it straight up. They had the tension on it. We had a crane operator on radio direct, close by. And we were in communication as far as how my progress and what they were doing and everything. So they had put a certain tonnage lift on the tree itself and a 10% pull away from me. For my safety, the tree would go up and go away from me.

Martha Brangenberg: Wow.

Rodney Smith: And it did.

Martha Brangenberg: So once you accomplished that, then you were like, okay, I'm good, I can retire now? Or how did you prepare for your retirement?

Rodney Smith: We have a date, being that it was a federal position, so you have a date, you have to be so many years of service with a certain birth date. And for me, I had to have at least 30 years of service and had to be 56 and eight months old, was my date. And so I met that date. And being the good employee I was, I gave them one more day and worked past.

Jim Brangenberg: You're so generous. So generous. 56, 8 months and one day.

Rodney Smith: Yes. Anyway I had 33 years in exactly.

Martha Brangenberg: Well, that's pretty exciting. So how did you then, so that prepared you for what you were retiring from. You wanna talk about that after we do a mention, Jim? Okay. So hang on to that thought for just a moment.

Having resources to change your perspective on retirement can be very valuable. IRetire4Him is a valuable resource, as a podcast, an email, and as a book. So you can order your copy of the book today at iwork4him.com/bookstore.

Jim Brangenberg: And you can get it as an ebook. You can get it as an audiobook. You can get it with the cool ink and cover and sniff the pages book - any way you want. IRetire4Him. And you get it at iwork4him.com/bookstore.

Alright, Rodney, everybody knows what they're retiring from. You retired from 33 years of working for the government in the forestry division. But how did you prepare yourself for what came after that last day, after 56 years, eight months and one day?

Rodney Smith: We, Donna had retired already, had been retired for a period of time, and so we had plans of things to do. I had a short list of catch up, I guess you might say. Around the house, things to do. And I've continued to work on those. But we talked about getting involved in our local community and working with both - we have the pleasure of having both of our parents, all four parents are still alive. And so we've been greatly involved more so with her parents than mine, but still with mine as well, just doing for them too.

Martha Brangenberg: So what are we at now? Like three months? Has it been three months since you retired?

Rodney Smith: Three and a half. Almost three and a half months.

Martha Brangenberg: Not that he's counting, but he knows - almost three and a half months. What has surprised you so far about retirement?

Rodney Smith: My wife is very routined and a scheduler and she does very well and I've used this line for many years, is that she's the reason I show up on time to places and I'm the reason she has fun. And it works. It has worked very well. And she is my scheduler. Even when working and now, she will receive a text with a date, what's going on?

And she'll have it back to me usually in a matter of seconds and everything. But inside of that routine, her being retired a couple of years before I came home, I've heard that a few times and that surprised me a little more than I thought it would.

Jim Brangenberg: Was you screwing up her schedule?

Rodney Smith: I'm getting in the way a little bit, yeah. And not bad. And it's been more of a little bit of a joke thing. There's no animosities or anything.

Jim Brangenberg: She told us off the air that she's going through counseling because it's been so traumatic for her. (laughter)

Martha Brangenberg: You're terrible. It's a real reality that you're dealing with, because you probably had a very strict schedule in a lot of ways within your work environment, and there's a part of me that thinks that, okay, I wanna experience what life will be like to not have to set an alarm and to not have to show up somewhere when I have to and see what that feels like.

And so that balancing that, trying to figure out how to dance in a new way is a reality that I would imagine a lot of our listeners either have already experienced or they have it to look forward to. So just figuring that out. But I think it's good to draw that out because it's a reality, is that you're just living life in a new way and trying to figure out what that looks like.

Jim Brangenberg: All right. So talk to us about God and your retirement. So it's only been three and a half months, as you say, but how do you envision how God's going to use you in your retirement that's different than maybe what you expected?

Rodney Smith: God's always out there ahead of us. In all of my plans I've had through the years and thought I was pulling things together, I get to my personal little finish line and he's standing there waiting on me and and he was there. So through many years, we love our community and we've been involved with little things, minor things, but did not realize the contacts we were making with some of the local organizers of the soup kitchen and some other assist programs for homeless and the needy in the community. And actually the contacts have turned into friendships that we have now that we're on first name basis with a lot of these people, or mainly two that we are gonna have the opportunity to be even more involved in.

And I'm looking forward to that, again, being the individual that does not mind to talk to people. I'm really looking forward to getting into the community a little bit more and helping out. And as I think Donna said in her segment that she'll have it well organized. And so that's the thing is I show up, I'm the mouthpiece and she's, I'm ready to go.

Jim Brangenberg: It's a good dance partner.

Rodney Smith: Yeah, that's it. I'm more of the heavy lift is the way I refer to it a little bit.

Jim Brangenberg: She mentioned that, kinda like the lead weight or something. (laughter) heavy lift, that was something like that was like, yeah. Okay. All right.

So what have you learned about who God created you to be in retirement? It's only been three and a half months. It's still very fresh. But what have you learned about who God created you to be? It's a whole different world. You had 33 years at the Forest Service. You got, you have between 30 and 40 years left of your life. What do you think? Who did God create you to be and how's it look different in this next phase?

Rodney Smith: One thing that has been a continual thought process of late, and actually focusing on it a little bit more, of what am I supposed to be doing, prayerful thought, is involvement and not being reserved, being a little more available, even more so than I typically am. And I don't know, just increase my accessibility to people that have a need or just a conversation. A lot of people just like to get things off their chest. And so try and be a better listener. I've got talking down pretty good, but I could do better job of listening. (chuckling)

Jim Brangenberg: Hey, you might wanna consider becoming a chaplain at your local fire department. That is a great place to learn to listen. It's phenomenal. Speaking of listening, we'd love for you guys, everybody listening to this podcast, to invite us to your local retirement group. Whether you're in a retirement community, somewhere around the country, or you're got a small group, or even a large group at your church, Martha and I love to talk to retirees or those people preparing for retirement to talk about truly retirement planning, not financial planning, but what are you retiring to?

We'd love to have the opportunity to come to speak to your retiree group. We try to make it as reasonable as possible for you to get us there. Email me, Jim@iwork4him.com, and let's chat about making this happen.

Martha Brangenberg: Okay, Rodney, so the moment we've been waiting for, to have this conversation and wonder how you feel retirement is different for a man than for a woman. What's your perspective on that?

Jim Brangenberg: Careful! She's in the room. (laughter)

Rodney Smith: That, I haven't really thought about that a lot, to be honest with you, as far as the difference. Again, I'm a little more active, out there, willing to go do and whatnot. I think that will be, and maybe that's more for Donna and I than just male female kind of thing. But right now we stay very busy with her folks primarily, but as well, mine. I don't know if she mentioned, I went as recently as earlier today to clean the gutters out for my parents. And so there's certain things that were catching up on and doing for them that I have the time to do now.

And that's, I don't know. I guess the only difference is like I said, for me it would be a little bit more looking forward to it, especially more involvement. Some of our men's groups in our church where we attend I'm looking at being a little more involved in that as well.

Jim Brangenberg: Yeah. The problem is those men's groups, they meet at 6:00 AM. What is wrong - with who wants to get up at 6:00 AM? (laughter)

Rodney Smith: And I remember this from you, you brought this out in Donna's, but they also meet at Brewsky's. A good cup of coffee. (Jim laughing)

Jim Brangenberg: Drinking "coffee." A good coffee at Brewsky's.

Martha Brangenberg: Okay, so I wanna know, how are you doing on - you had an expectation probably of your to-do list that you said, catch up things. Do you feel like you're making progress or is it just keep getting longer?

Rodney Smith: Yes! (laughter) i'm getting things done. I'm actually happy with that. But at the same time, as my son pointed out, you got the rest of your life to do it. So, I'm also taking that easy. We have set more on the front porch and intentionally - beforehand you did things when you had a chance. Now there is a conversation of, Hey, let's go sit on the front porch together. And we sit out there and we catch up on things. We may be on our phones independently, but we're together and we just enjoy it. And so I really like that.

But I'm slowly turning the curve on the to-do list. Some of it was, I retired in late winter so I didn't check everything off my list that requires a little bit of colder weather. I don't wanna disturb the snakes or have them disturb me, either one. I'm wanting to go back to some stuff come November.

Martha Brangenberg: Yes, you're smart man. That's why he's had this career of preparations, how to handle things and when to handle them.

Jim Brangenberg: It wasn't just the trees you were talking to, it was the snakes you were talking to as well.

Martha Brangenberg: He doesn't wanna be a snake whisperer.

Jim Brangenberg: That's right. So for those listening and they're preparing for retirement, what kind of words of wisdom do you have for them or encouragement do you have for them?

Rodney Smith: Take advantage of it as soon as you can. I've thoroughly enjoyed it thus far. We had a lot of discussion. Again, Donna's retirement was a little more abrupt the way it happened, but at the same time, we were ready for it. And she had semi-retired anyway, so she was home a lot. But we had a lot of conversations about things and ready for this and be prepared for that and be thinking about this. And so make sure you keep a good, open dialogue of what's going on and the expectations. But if you can financially retire and take care of yourself, i'm all for it. I'm lucky. I feel blessed, extremely blessed to be retired at my age already and so far I'm having a blast.

Jim Brangenberg: That's awesome. Rodney Smith, thanks for sharing a little bit of your story. We look forward to hearing you and Donna together on our next episode. But thanks for taking time to be with us today.

Rodney Smith: Thank you so much. It was a pleasure.

Jim Brangenberg: You've been listening to iRetire4Him with your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. Remember that retirement's a state of mind and it's a stage of life. So say it with us and mean it: iRetire4Him.