We recently connected with Greg Gerber and have shared our conversation below.

Greg, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

When I shut down my business in 2019, I was left without a sense of purpose. Those feelings of uselessness were magnified during the isolation of COVID lockdowns. As a result, I was angry and depressed without any hope for a better life.

Fortunately, in 2021, a mentor noticed something was wrong and offered to chat about it. After baring my soul to him, he suggested a lot of people, especially men, feel the same way. They retire or are pushed out of jobs they enjoy and find themselves without purpose.

Without purpose, everybody else’s business becomes their business and they transform into grumpy old men. Two Hollywood films, A Man Called Otto and On Golden Pond, masterfully portray that syndrome.

Men in particular are susceptible to those feelings because their entire identity is often wrapped up in work. When two men meet each other, one of the first questions they discuss is “What do you do for a living?” Not having purpose can be embarrassing.

In 2009, I moved to Sun City, Ariz., which, in 1960, was the first planned retirement community in America. In the city of 60,000 residents, there are eight golf courses and eight recreation centers. Although many people dream of retiring from jobs they’ve held for years and sitting back to just do nothing, they quickly discover that a life centered around leisure and recreation is unfulfilling.

Soon, they are in trapped in a rut of getting up early, eating breakfast, playing a round of golf, coming home for lunch, taking a nap, then doomscrolling through endless negative news stories and social media posts, or watching silly videos just to pass time. After an early dinner, to get the senior discount, of course, they fall asleep watching television. That is no way to live!

I had registered the domain www.forwardfrom50.com a few years earlier, but didn’t know what to do with it. When my mentor suggested developing a platform to help men and women over 50 to live more purposeful lives by pursuing things they were passionate about, I knew what my own purpose would be moving forward.

When I posted the idea on Facebook, I had more than 20 responses from people who were willing to share their stories about pursuing a different direction for their lives after turning 50. People really resonate with those features. My readers find them inspirational and motivating. Many times, they are challenged to pursue something they felt drawn to years earlier, but abandoned the calling to pursue more practical jobs.

As a Christian, I firmly believe people were created with at least one natural talent. Throughout their lives, they consistently learn or develop new skills. Either by choice, fate or by accident, they are put in situations that give them unique experiences as well.

Finally, after dutifully supporting their families for years, both men and women often reach a point, after their 50th birthdays, where they have all the financial resources they need and more time on their hands to pursue their long-dormant dreams.

Even if they don’t have all the resources they want to fully retire, people realize they’d rather be working at something they enjoy instead of remaining trapped in joyless, dead-end jobs.

Although society wants to push these seasoned citizens out the door of business and to the sidelines of life, the world desperately needs their accumulated wisdom earned through many, often painful experiences.

It is my mission today to help people over 50 to identify something they can get passionate about, and then take those vital first steps toward pursuing that dream.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Prior to launching Forward From 50, I spent nearly 20 years serving as a journalist covering the recreation vehicle industry. First I served as the editor-in-chief of a business-to-business magazine. But, when that publishing company was blindsided by the internet’s ability to deliver news instantly, I started a magazine of my own that featured an online component.

Unfortunately, that publication, which launched during the Great Recession in 2007, died in early 2009, a few months before my 49th birthday.

With the help of an business friend who shared his email list of 3,500 professionals working in the RV industry, I started another publication that was 100% online. My goal was to gather all the information I could find every day that pertained to RV dealers, manufacturers, suppliers, campgrounds and RVers. Then, at 4 p.m. Eastern, I would send out an email newsletter to my subscribers that contained brief snippets of news stories with links to read more, if desired.

When I was just starting out, it was rather funny that several people told me there wasn’t enough news in the RV industry to warrant a daily publication. Yet, within six months of my launching RV Daily Report, every one of my magazine competitors had started daily newsletters as well.

With all three of my daughters out of the house and beginning lives of their own, I escaped Wisconsin’s wicked winters and moved to sunny Arizona. Then, in 2014, I purchased a motorhome and hit the road traveling to all 48 lower states at least once during a three-year period. I also started the industry’s first business-related podcast for which I interviewed industry executives and and other influencers. It was a great way for them to tell their stories, their way in their own words.

My business remained at or near the top of RV industry publications for many years. However, during my full-time RVing experience, I was exposed to a very ugly side of the RV industry. I discovered many of the products were poorly made, expensive campgrounds were overcrowded and often had limited availability, and it was very difficult to get my RV fixed.

After a state RV association sent out a press release congratulating itself for successfully defeating a lemon law that gave RV buyers more rights in contending with poor-quality RVs, I wrote a series of editorials. Called the RV Industry Death Spiral, the eight articles tackled a specific segment of the industry. I pointed out what was wrong and what needed to change if the industry wished to remain viable 20 years later.

However, those editorials angered some very influential executives at the industry’s largest companies. Those firms orchestrated an advertiser boycott by threatening not to use or sell my advertiser’s products as long as they supported RV Daily Report.

Eventually, the job became an unprofitable daily grind and offered no joy. I completely shut down the publication in June 2019 when I was 59 years old.

It was that experience which opened my eyes to the plight of people over 50 who suddenly found themselves without meaningful purpose for their lives. I had to endure that situation in order to develop empathy for others who knew they had the ability to do more with their lives, but lacked understanding of how to get started.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Here are two of the best business books I have read in the past year:

The Wealth of Connection, by Vincent Pugliese, explains how people can build strong businesses and powerful networks by simply being generous with others.

Too many entrepreneurs make the mistake of starting at the creation stage and then trying to market their products or services without an audience. But, by adopting a strategy to help others first, then by the time you’re ready to release your book or platform, you have a literal army of supporters willing to promote you to their successful networks.

There are four other stages that people must clear before they should explore creating anything. They include:

1. Character. When we are focused only on achieving our personal goals, we tend to be self-absorbed. But, when we first work to bring value to others, we achieve our goals, too.

2. Curiosity. As a journalist, I was always curious enough to ask lots of questions. People love to talk about themselves. Engaging in mutually-beneficial conversations with people works to develop their trust. Being curious often opens our eyes to new opportunities, which opens doors to help people with a problem.

3. Connection is powerful. It’s not what you know but who you know that helps make you successful in a job or business. People who befriend others on LinkedIn and social media only to spam them with marketing messages right out of the gate actually hurt themselves. When people of character express curiosity about others in their spheres of influence, along with a genuine desire to help those folks achieve their own goals, building an extraordinarily powerful network is inevitable.

4. Collaboration. Vincent describes collaboration as the fertilizer that allows everything you do to spread. When we build trust with others, who are then willing to introduce us to people they trust, doors open in areas we never imagined or even thought possible.

By the way, Vincent was the mentor who helped me formulate the idea for Forward From 50. He runs a hugely successful mastermind group called Total Life Freedom. It is made up of other motivated and generous entrepreneurs who are either starting businesses, expanding them or enjoying the fruits of time, money and location independence.

The other book was The Prosperous Coach by Steve Chandler and Rich Litvin. The authors explain in great detail how to guide people through powerful coaching experiences where lives are transformed in the process.

With 69 short, easy-to-read chapters, Steve and Rich explain how to set up a coaching business without using gimmicks, but also not selling yourself and your services short. I have never highlighted a book so much in my life!

In addition to the two books, the Platform Launchers mastermind led by John Stange has been influential in helping me develop new ideas to implement in my business.

The whole purpose of that group is to show people how to take a passionate idea and create dozens of income streams around it. Best of all, simply pitching a business idea to the group often generates a great deal of valuable input and perspective. It’s like having a board of directors helping me to guide my business.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

For me, the key to building Forward From 50 and establishing myself as an expert was to be vulnerable and transparent regarding my own struggles.

Too many social media “influencers” depict an idyllic life where everything is absolutely wonderful. But, in reality, it never is. People don’t identify with perfection. In fact, many times it’s a turnoff because perfection is impossible to achieve.

Yet, when people see possibility, rather than perfection, that’s were the light bulbs come on. When people see someone else, who is just like them with fears and insecurities, stepping out on faith to pursue their dreams, then they know it is possible to do it as well.

I want people to understand that struggle is part of the experience. Only by coming through that struggle can we then help others who are trying to tread water in the same situation.

I also try to be honest with people. All of us believe lies. Thankfully, some people thought enough of me to challenge the attitudes, mindset and self-talk I used to reinforce untrue agreements I accepted about my abilities. I want to challenge people to realize that, regardless of age, there is much more for them to do in forging their legacy.

Purpose ALWAYS involves serving other people in some way. Without serving, it’s just a hobby you do for your own enjoyment.

Take fishing, for example. If you go fishing every day, then it’s a hobby. But, when you teach someone else to fall in love with fishing by showing them the right equipment to use and tactics to actually catch fish, then you’ve turned a hobby into a sense of purpose.

It’s that kind of honesty which changes lives and allows people to influence others in ways they didn’t think possible.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.forwardfrom50.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/greggerber99/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greg.gerber.7
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-gerber
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/forwardfrom50
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@forwardfrom50
• Other: https://www.pinterest.com/forwardfrom50 Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/forwardfrom50

Image Credits
Judy Denu Photography Elizabeth Wegner Photography