Video Transcript: Golden Years Introduction (Dr. Raimondo)

Hi, I'm Dr. Anthony Raimondo. And I will be your instructor, your coach in this  particular class that I call the golden years, and it's specifically designed for  those of you like myself, who are retired. Now, I've had three careers in my  lifetime, which I will talk about later on in this video. But for now, let me just  share with you a little bit about myself. I'm retired 10 years. And for the last five  years, since 2015, I've been taking classes here at sea C, L, I. I've accumulated  something like 61 credits, I am also a platinum donor. Because I like what CLI  offers students, a free education. Therefore, I invest some of my seed money  into that into this program to help students get some form of education. As a  result, Henry gave me a call and asked if I would be willing to teach a class. And I accepted. Because I see that it's something that is beneficial for people, like  yourself, like myself, that are now retired. The most precious thing we have is  time. No billionaire can buy a minute of time. Where would you go? Who would  you go see? Would you go to God and say, Hey, God, I got a billion dollars, can  I buy a minute of time? I want to extend my life one more minute, can I do that?  You and I both know you can't do that. So we have a very precious commodity.  It's called time. And as we all know, that when you're working for someone, what you're doing is your pay, you're asking someone to pay you a specific dollar  amount for your time at doing a task. That's what you're paid to do, you're paid a wage for the time you will spend on doing a task. So time is a currency. So we're going to look at how we're gonna spend our time in this class. Now, another  area that we're going to be looking at is talent. We all have a talent. Some of us  have different kinds of talent than others, but we all have a talent of some kind.  Some people have a talent of playing an instrument. Some people have a talent  of being able to paint or sculpt. Some people have a talent for organization.  Some people have a talent for numbers, and how to keep them in a ledger and  properly in the right place. Everyone has a talent regardless of what who you  are, or your gender for that matter. And even your age, so we all have time and  a talent. Now what are we going to do with that time and that talent? Also, some  of you may have had a talent all your life. But were working at something else.  Maybe you love to taking pictures with your camera. Or maybe love to paint or  maybe you like to write but you weren't a professional photograph.  Photographer. You weren't a professional writer, you weren't a professional  artist, or sculptor, or maybe a amateur athlete, you played baseball with the  guys on the weekend, or the girls, whatever. But those were your hobbies or  things that you did on your spare time, it wasn't necessarily your job. So, all  these years, you might have been developing a talent, working a talent that you  never earned any money from. Now, on the other hand, some people, God bless them are fortunate that they do make money, or they do earn money, I should  say, for their talent, there are artists that do make a considerable amount of  wealth, for their talent of painting. There are those who have a talent for music  and songwriting and singing. And they make a living at that as well. There are 

those who have a talent for acting and drama, and writing, and they make a  living at what their talent is. God bless them, they were blessed to have those  opportunities to share their art, their talent, with others. And that's what we're  going to be looking at in this course, because now, there is a statistic that people who retire and do absolutely nothing. die sooner than those who do something.  Now, I kind of look at that as basically saying that you become stagnant. And if  you become stagnant, you're useless. And if you're useless, then God has no  reason to keep you here. Or you become feeble minded, because you haven't  used this, to do anything. So it's also healthy, to find something to do afterwards. Now, I'm going to share with you a story that I believe comes out of Matthew, but I'll post it up. And we'll see it in a minute of the parable of the talents. Now, when we read that story, in Scripture, we know that Jesus said, shares this parable  that a rich man, a wealthy man who had employees working for him servants,  and he said to one servant, he says, Here's a five pound bag of gold. I'm going  to leave you with. And then he less leaves another one with a two pound bag of  gold, and another one with a one pound bag of gold. And he goes off on his  journey. And when he comes back, he calls his three servants and he says to  them, I What did you do with the talents I gave you? And the first one said, Well,  you know, you gave me you gave me a five pound bag of gold. And I doubled it.  Here. You're gonna have 10 Oh, you're a great servant, because of what you  did. I'm going to give you more responsibilities. Terrific. God bless you. You're  fantastic. You did a really great job. And I'm paraphrasing, I'm adding to the story then he says to the next guy. He says, Well, what did you do? And the next one  says, Well, you gave me two talents. And I took those two talents. And I doubled  them. I made it into four and here they are. Oh what a wonderful servant you  are, I'm gonna give you also more responsibility to do and I'm gonna give you a  raise. How's that? Again, I'm paraphrasing. And now he goes to the third guy. He says, What do you do with the bag of gold? He says, Oh, you gave me that.  That one talent. He goes and I know you know you are a very industrious  person. You're an entrepreneur, and I didn't want to lose your money. So I buried it. Because your what? You said buried it, you know, I put it, I put it someplace  where you know, it wouldn't get lost. You stupid ignoramus Don't you know, you  could have put it in the bank? You could at least got interest on that, you wicked  lazy servant, for that you're fired. Get Get out of here. Again, amen to the story.  But what's the moral of the story? And why are we talking about it in this class?  Excuse me? Well, God gives you a talent, maybe gives you two talents. Maybe  he gives you the talent of imagination, and the ability to paint. Now you have two talents. God gave you two talents, imagination, and ability to paint. Now, what  are you going to do? According to this parable, according to what Jesus is  teaching we're to take those two, and double it? Well, how do I double  imagination and painting? Well, if I add teaching to that, I added another one.  And if I teach someone else to paint, well, now I've doubled my talents. If I know 

how to repair car, and I also have some engineering skills, when I can't find the  part, I'm able to make and adapt something to it. I have two talents. Well, what  can I do with those two talents? Well, maybe I can, the part that I developed, I  can manufacture that, or I could find someone to invest in me, and help me  manufacture that. And now I'd have a new part. Also, I could teach people to  make this part or install this part. And there I've doubled my talents. So you see,  that's what that parable teaches. It teaches us that we're always to develop and  grow from what the Lord shows us or teaches us. So now let's keep that in mind. And I'm going to post that parable up so you know the location in the Bible in  case you want to go and read it for yourself and meditate on it. Now, I'd like to  share with you how one talent sort of leads into another when I was 14 years  old, my father who was Italian from Italy, who migrated to the United States  legally. And the custom with Italians and maybe with other nationalities, as well  is to learn a trade and set it aside. So my uncle was a barber. My mother's  brother was a barber. And my father says you got to go to your uncle's and learn a trade. Learn how to cut hair. Okay, so here I am 14 years old after school and  on Saturdays working in a barber shop when I rather would rather be doing  something else. playing ball with the guys whatever. At any rate, by the time I'm  18 I'm a licensed a full licensed Barber. And I go to college. And what ends up  happening is I pay my way through school because now I had a trade that I was  able to do and work even while I was going to school, like I had done when I  was in high school. And one of the things that I learned besides cutting hair and  getting really very good at it was talking to customers chatting with them while  they were on the chair. So indirectly I was developing a skill at public speaking.  One on One One, a one person audience at a time, well, I got married, I was  going to school, working as a barber while I was in college, and I get done with  my BA degree, and it's not getting me anywhere. So I'm still working in a barber  shop, I'm still cutting hair. And I start working on a master's degree thinking  maybe that's going to be better. Well, I go from my uncle's shop, and I'm working for somebody else at this point in time. And what ends up happening, the  business gets the businesses getting poor, the the barber, I'm working for is  elderly, and he decides he's going to retire and quit. And so I find myself now out of a job. And I, for some reason, I decided to go into sales I've been selling,  technically, so I go into sales. And I enter into selling building materials. My  father used to work as a carpenter. So and I used to do some things as a, on  occasion, helping my dad, so I knew something about the business. And I had  also studied architectural drawing. So I knew a little bit about that. So I mean,  here I am selling building materials. And I'm doing rather well selling windows  and doors. As a salesperson, well make a long story short, I'm in a, I go to a job  site with my boss, the owner. And he asks me what if they want us to cut our  costs are our percentages, our cost of our profit down to 5%. So we could sell  this million dollar deal. I said, Well, if you do that, you You're making a big 

mistake, because if we ship one bow window, one bay window, and it's  damaged, we're going to lose money. While he doesn't listen to me, and what  ends up happening, the people who bought a million dollars worth of business  go bankrupt. Now, it starts a domino theory, a domino effect, we go bankrupt  because they go bankrupt. So here I am out of a job again. And I, at this point, I  have a master's degree, my wife has been teaching. And she says, Why don't  you go into teaching the very place I didn't want to go. And that's important,  because sometimes God has a plan for you that you may not want to do. But  God is going to close doors, he's going to block your path until he gets you  where he wants you to be. So here I am now, out of a job. My wife says why  don't you become a teacher, the very thing I didn't want to be, or do. So now I  have I have a master's degree. So they're willing to let me work as a teacher,  under a provisionary license that I go to school and get 18 credits in pedagogy  so I can get a legitimate teaching license. And that's what I do. So here I am, I'm 42 years old now, getting paid at the lip first step of a teaching career as if I'm  24, 25 years old. So now I want to advance myself. So to do that, while I'm  getting the 18 credits, I'm just keep on going. So I have a second master's  degree that pays me at the doctorate level. I'm at the doctorate level. And I  decide, well, you know what, I'm in this business, I better learn everything I can,  I might get my PhD. And here's the method I'm using to teach. Well, I know how  to talk to I know how to talk to salespeople. I mean, I know how to talk to  contractors, I know how to talk to customers. So I know how to talk to my  students. I don't have, I'm really good at it. But because I learned how to cut hair in a barber shop, and as an apprentice, the Master Barber or the master  plumber, or the men, they don't necessarily tell you what to do, like you're in  school. It's basically what my dad calls you got to steal it, which really means  you got to watch. Look at what he does. And adapt it for yourself. You got to take it. They're not going to teach it to you got to take it. So my teaching style was  that. Watch what I do see what I do and take it for yourself. And at the same  time, because I'm a teacher now I'm also trying to draw it out of them.  Something I wouldn't get from. My uncle was a barber. But what I want you to  see is the progression of my talent as it's being developed. My talent over time  is being developed. I'm not realizing that I'm developing a talent for public  speaking, but I am. But that's what's happening. Other talents are being  developed as I do that. So what I would like you to do now, before we proceed,  is, I would like you to examine your past, I would like you to look at your growth.  Look at from the time you entered work, the workforce, till your retirement, what  are all the things you learned along the way? What are sort of the talents that  you've developed along the way? What talents do you develop that you didn't  even realize that you developed? Sit down and actually make a list of all the little talents that you have, you may be surprised that you have a lot more talents  than you actually think of now, I'm not asking you to write a resume. I'm not 

asking you to look at duties and responsibilities. I'm asking you to look at what  things did you learn what skills that you learned that developed a talent and  create a list? See if you can create a list of 20-25 talents that you might have  learned over the years that you've been working. Maybe you don't have that  many, maybe you only have 12 or 10, however many that you can find that you  have learned over the course of your working career. And then look at which one of those would you like to see developed in someone else? Because now what I want you to look at, and we're going to talk about this in the next video. The next lesson is seeds. Planting seeds. So now are you, do you plant corn? Are you  going to plant tomatoes? Are you going to plant squash zucchini? Are you going  to plant flowers? What do you what talent Could your talent be? As a seed? So  until next time, think about what your talents are. And God bless