Today on Open Web Conversations, Cami MacNamara and Bob Dunn sit down with the challenges and opportunities of aging in the fast-paced world of technology. They discuss how adapting to new tools, managing information overload, and balancing curiosity with established routines shapes their experiences in the web industry.
Through stories from tech conferences and reflections on generational differences in communication and learning, Bob and Cami show that success and growth in tech can happen at any stage of life. Whether you’re navigating new technology or seeking inspiration for your own journey, this episode encourages listeners to embrace change, stay open-minded, and make choices that fit their unique path.
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Takeaways
- Embrace Ongoing Learning, but Set Limits: Both Bob and Cami discuss their curiosity and willingness to explore new technology, even as they become more selective about what to adopt, showing that continuous learning doesn’t mean chasing every trend (03:57, 04:22).
- Routine Can Be Comforting, Not Restrictive: They highlight that having a routine or sticking with effective processes isn’t necessarily being in a rut; it’s about comfort and reliability unless it becomes a source of dread (32:11).
- Intergenerational Learning Adds Value: Cami enjoys taking trainings from younger professionals, and both find value in learning from those who have different approaches, reinforcing the benefit of diverse perspectives (15:16, 33:49).
- Age Is a Mindset, Not a Limitation: Bob emphasizes that perceptions of age are often more about attitude and mindset than actual years, as illustrated by his interactions at conferences and his own late career pivot (08:40, 18:45).
- Technology Overwhelm Is Universal: They note that the overwhelm from rapidly evolving technology affects all ages, not just older generations, and managing it requires intentional boundaries and habits (23:31, 37:31).
- Pivoting Careers at Any Age Is Possible: Both share personal stories of starting web and tech careers later in life, underscoring that changing direction is feasible at any stage (18:45, 21:31, 22:34).
- Boundaries with Technology Are Essential: Cami describes the importance of setting boundaries, like not answering clients on holidays and limiting text communication, highlighting the need to protect personal time (26:37, 30:23).
- Attitudes Toward Technology and Aging Affect Interactions: Bob and Cami share anecdotes about how attitudes—grumpy or open—impact not only their own well-being but also how they’re perceived and how they relate to others regardless of age (10:45, 16:03, 36:39).
- Life Is Finite—Make Choices Consciously: Experiencing loss made Cami more aware of time, prompting her to overcome fears (like public speaking), reminding listeners that awareness of life’s limits can motivate positive change (35:14).
Questions This Episode Answers
Q: How do Bob Dunn and Cami MacNamara cope with feeling overwhelmed by the fast pace of technology changes in the web industry?
A: Both Bob Dunn and Cami MacNamara acknowledge feeling overwhelmed by how quickly things change but emphasize the importance of focusing on what matters most to them. Bob Dunn tries to be selective about what new developments he engages with, while Cami MacNamara sets aside dedicated time to explore new technologies at her own pace, without feeling pressure to constantly adopt every new tool or trend (02:27, 04:43).
Q: Is it ever too late to pivot to a new career in technology or web design?
A: According to Bob Dunn and Cami MacNamara, it’s never too late to make a career change. Bob Dunn started in web and tech at age 50, and Cami MacNamara launched her business in her 30s, showing that age does not have to be a barrier to entering or pivoting within the technology field (18:45, 21:31).
Q: What mindset helps older professionals stay engaged and relevant in the web industry?
A: Staying curious, maintaining an open mind, and being flexible are key attitudes highlighted by Bob Dunn and Cami MacNamara. They stress the value of learning from younger people, participating in diverse tech communities, and adjusting habits as needed without feeling pressured to keep up with every new trend (15:17, 16:19, 29:24).
Q: How can interacting with younger professionals affect your outlook and growth in tech?
A: Both speakers find that connecting with younger professionals can be energizing and provide fresh perspectives. Bob Dunn mentions that being around younger people helps him stay young at heart, while Cami MacNamara enjoys learning new approaches from her younger colleagues and friends (15:16, 16:20).
Q: What are the advantages and disadvantages of sticking to familiar tools and routines in a fast-moving industry?
A: Cami MacNamara notes that sticking to familiar tools allows her to manage her workload and avoid unnecessary disruptions, especially with many client commitments, but she still enjoys exploring new things in a controlled way. Bob Dunn adds that routines can be comforting and effective as long as they’re not causing unhappiness or stagnation; the label of “being in a rut” is only a problem if you’re not enjoying your current workflow (06:11, 32:11).
Q: How do the hosts suggest dealing with the pressure to always be accessible in today’s tech world?
A: Cami MacNamara recommends setting boundaries, such as not responding to clients during personal or holiday time unless it’s a true emergency. She highlights the importance of unplugging and not being at everyone’s beck and call, even when technology makes constant accessibility possible (26:31, 26:50).
Q: What practical ways did Cami McNamara mention for using technology to improve her business processes?
A: Cami MacNamara talks about leveraging AI for onboarding documentation and process improvements, using it as a second set of eyes to spot redundancies or areas for efficiency. She also dedicates specific time to experiment with new tech, such as using Python for her website, but is mindful not to overhaul tools just for the sake of novelty (04:22, 33:10).
Timestamped Overview
- 00:00 Balancing work, podcasting, and learning
- 05:09 Dealing with social media overwhelm
- 08:20 Talking about aging and perceptions
- 13:25 Discussing age and perception
- 14:27 Learning from younger generations
- 18:45 Discussing life pivots and InMotion’s services
- 21:50 Pivoting to web design for flexibility
- 25:12 Adapting to new technology
- 29:32 Balancing modern communication preferences
- 31:21 Embracing technology and routines
- 35:08 Dealing with loss and fears
- 38:32 Wrapping up with life philosophy
Episode Transcript
Cami MacNamara: Hello everyone. I am Cami MacNamara. I’m with you today and with my dear friend, Bob Dunn, who I haven’t seen in a while. Bob, I’m so happy that you’re here and that we are going to talk about something near and dear to both of us, and that’s how we’re aging in the world of the web. So how’s it going today, Bob?
Bob Dunn: Good. It’s going good. Even though I’m an old man, you know, it’s really going good.
Cami MacNamara: It’s going good.
Bob Dunn: That’s great, right? Yeah, another day. So, you know, we’ll talk about it. That’s pretty much, it doesn’t matter what your age is.
Cami MacNamara: Another day. You have to just focus on all the good things that happen and think about the right now. That slows it down a little bit, right?
Bob Dunn: Yeah, yeah, it really does. It’s always, you know, everybody, I think, takes it a day at a time. And, you know, yeah, you think about tomorrow, you think about all this other stuff. But yeah, we’re just lucky to be here today. And really, anybody’s lucky to be anywhere today.
Cami MacNamara: Right. Keep on trucking. Like, that never goes away, right?
Cami MacNamara: So anyway, well, I’m just thrilled, thrilled that we’re finally back on schedule. We haven’t talked to each other in a while, and things have changed. Things change every day in our tech industry kind of world. I think, I feel like it’s so fast, and I know that I am making time in my schedule to try to keep up with it. You know, are you doing that too? Are you exploring all those new options and opportunities and tools and, you know, things that are out there?
Bob Dunn: Yeah, what I’m doing is I’ve noticed that, I don’t want to say I have less interest in it, but, for example, you know, this consumed my life, this particular podcast or the podcast network. And I learned a lot from that in itself, just, you know, ’cause I’m not always on it, but I’m always editing. So I listen to all the episodes, and I find that having gone out of, you know, web building, which I did many, many, many years ago, I’m not trying to stay on top of as many things as I used to. And it’s just by nature of how I’m working right now. I’ll always be curious, so I want to learn new things, but I don’t feel that I just have to wrap around them with the current state, you know, and what I do with my work and my life. And I try to really pick and choose what I do take time to consume, especially news or anything. So it’s, it’s, it’s still overwhelming because whenever you drop on something like, you know, some social media platform or something, it’s like, well, okay, you know, I’m done. But yeah, that’s kind of how it’s been for me. How about you?
Cami MacNamara: Well, I’ve been, I’m always trying to make it easier to run my business. That’s part of it. And I have kind of come to the place where I’ve stopped, you know, jumping from tool to tool. I am not going to change a bunch of my tools from this point going forward, but I still want to learn new things. So, recently I had an idea for something that would be interactive on my website for a lead magnet, and I turned to AI, and I installed Python on my computer for the very, very first time. I’m a designer, not a developer. That’s not how my brain works. And every Friday afternoon, I am spending a couple hours working on this idea. And I have found that I’m looking forward to Friday because it’s like I’m going to a class, and I’m really enjoying what I’m learning. And I just have to be careful that I don’t get too into it and it takes away from my work that I still need to do, right?
Cami MacNamara: But, so far, I feel that overwhelm that you’re talking about, of, you know, you get on social media and you go down a rabbit hole and everybody’s telling you you need to do a different thing. If I hear that WordPress is dead one more time, I’m just like, it’s not dead, you know? And you just kind of hear and see those things, and everybody’s doing something in a different way now, where we all kind of had a collective path that we were on. Everybody’s exploring new things. And, you know, me being older and a little more set in my ways and established with that, I’m not gonna switch all 200 clients in my care plan to something different. I don’t have the bandwidth for that. So while it’s fun to explore and do new things, there’s never gonna be kind of a switchover that is going to be a complete switch for me going forward. It just isn’t worth it. It’s like back in the day when I decided to set up client portals for my clients, and I did all this work, and like 2 of them logged into the client portal, and it was like, what did I do that for? I could have spent my time doing something else. So I think kind of sitting back and, you know, learning when it’s fun, but if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? Kind of mentality with a lot of things.
Bob Dunn: Yeah. And I think it’s a natural transition. I mean, people age differently, and some people just, you know, look forward to just mellowing out completely. I’m away from work. And a lot of times they were maybe in jobs for several years that just, yeah, it’s done, it’s ready to be over with. And they need a change, or they need the break. And yeah, there’s so many things that I think of, especially if I’m watching conversations and different things in different places, is that the assumption, first of all, let me first of all say, you know, whenever somebody calls something a Boomer thing, Boomer fill in the blank, you know, it’s that stereotypical thing.
Cami MacNamara: I’m Gen X, and I watch a lot of YouTube, right, these days. That’s where a lot of my learning that I am, you know, I’m tuning in to folks on YouTube that are, you know, building websites or providing automations or, you know, things that I’m interested in, in building with AI. And I heard a millennial talk about feeling old, and I’m like, oh no. I am totally the ’80s, you know, Gen X kind of, that’s my formative years were in the ’80s. And when I hear a millennial that feels like they’re feeling older, that shocks me, you know? Yeah.
Bob Dunn: Yeah. It’s that aging process. I mean, everybody, we’re gonna see our friends or people we know, you know, I just hit 30, or I just hit 40 or 50, all those milestones. And yeah, you can’t really conceptualize what it’s gonna be like in 20 years for you. I mean, I get a lot of people at WordCamps, and I’m never, you know, I’m not ashamed of my age or anything. And we’ll get into a conversation, and they will, maybe they’re kind of, they pause a little bit, but they want to ask, you know, how old are you? Maybe because of something we’re talking about, and I’m going way back, and we’re talking about something, you know, maybe from the ’70s. And I’ll tell them, and a lot of them say, wow, you know, they don’t realize my age. And I don’t think it has anything to do with my looks, but it’s just frame of mind. It’s how your mind is, what’s going to wrap you up into either being what people perceive as old, or people are going to be surprised.
And there’s a lot of people I see that, you know, when I talk to people at conferences and stuff like that, no matter what age, there’s never this step back. Like, I don’t want to talk to this person because they’re older, or I don’t say, oh, well, you know, I can’t relate to young people anymore, which a lot of it I can’t relate to, but I still have wonderful conversations and learn a lot.
So there’s one story. I was at a conference. It was for people that don’t know WordPress, it was called WordCamp, and it was a specific, smaller local conference. So it’s like citywide, it was regional. And I went into a break room or something, and there was, I think it was maybe a happy hour that one of the companies was putting on. And there was these 3 men sitting at this table, and they were all, you know, I thought, wow, they’re around my age, and I can just go ahead and sit down with them. I didn’t know any of them, and I was just kind of curious why they were at the conference, and we got talking, and they were kind of the, what do you want to say, the stereotype, get off my lawn type thing. The minute I sat down, they were just kind of pissing and moaning about everything.
And I was looking at them, and there was one point one of them brought up something about his age, and they looked like they had weathered the world quite a bit and stuff. And I was thinking when I sat down, I thought these guys are, you know, as old as me or maybe older. And it turns out we went around and they were all like 8 to 10 years younger than me.
Because then when I said my age, it just kind of went, you know, just kind of paused and looked at me. But it was that stereotypical. I mean, I didn’t even enjoy sitting and talking to them, you know, because they were just kind of moaning and groaning. Grumpy old men. Yeah, grumpy old men.
Cami MacNamara: Yeah. Oh, Walter Matthau.
Bob Dunn: And it would just, I mean, that little bit opened my eyes. And I’ll just tell one more story, I don’t mean to keep going in, but these all have something to do with it. I was at a conference in Seattle, years and years ago. I don’t know if you remember those conferences Chris Parello did. They were called something, but they were very nerdy conferences. I mean, very tech nerdy stuff. And he had a few of them for several years. And I was there, and I was again at, you know, I think it was like an afterparty or something, a gathering. And there was this very young kid that was standing over against the wall with his drink and just kind of looking around. And, all I could think of is, oh, I get it, you’re young, you’re probably new to a conference like this, and the social, you know, you’re not really into being very social, or you’re just not comfortable with that. And so I usually typically try to walk up to somebody like that, and at least start a conversation, and I sense if they don’t want to, you know, I’ll leave them alone. But he was into it. So I went up and introduced myself, and we got talking back and forth for quite a while. And I would say his age was probably early 20s.
And so I said, how are you enjoying the conference and this afterparty? And he says, you know, it’s kind of freaking me out. And I said, really? I said, what’s the problem? And he said, there’s so many, everybody’s so old around here.
And I just chuckled, and I said, first I just jokingly said, we don’t bite, you know, type of thing. But it was his comfort level. He just felt like they were too old. And it wasn’t because he was thinking, oh, I don’t want to talk to a bunch of old people, but they, he might not be able to relate to them, or they might look down on him as, yeah, you’re just a young guy, you don’t know anything or something. And so we had a very good 30-minute conversation, and we just talked about stuff, you know, but, when those kinds of things happen, it always makes me think about, you know, how people perceive age, how they perceive somebody.
And it can be flipped, you know, how older people perceive younger people, like, oh, they haven’t learned anything yet, you know, they think they know everything. And we’ve all been there, and we’re all going to be there. It’s a thing.
Cami MacNamara: I love learning from people that are younger than me, right? Because they have taken maybe a different approach than I took in my path for my business. So I have signed up for trainings from people that are younger than me, just because I am open to change, even though I’m not open to changing everything all at once, right? But I feel like that 20-year-old or 20-something in one of our conference settings, I get that, because remember when you were young and your parents would have a party? There was like nothing worse than having to stay at home and have your parents have their friends over, and you’re just like, ugh, you know, like, what am I doing here? I want to be out with my friends. It’s just kind of that same feeling, right?
Bob Dunn: Right. Yeah. And another thing, one of the things that you mentioned is, you know, you enjoy learning from young people. Yeah, we both probably enjoy learning from anybody, you know, age isn’t anything that comes into play. But also I feel, and this is because of going to so many tech conferences over the years, is that being around people that are younger helps you to stay younger. You know, you don’t get into the trap. I mean, when I thought of those 3 guys there, and I thought, you know, if I hung around, and not every, you know, they were very stereotypical of what somebody thinks, like you said, of the grumpy old men, but if I hung around those kind of men all the time, it would absolutely drive me nuts, or I’d become a grumpy old man. Yeah, birds of a feather. So it’s again that, yeah, who you’re around and keeping an open mind, and knowing, like I said, all been there.
Cami MacNamara: Right, exactly. And at the conferences, I have to say the most fun I have is hanging out with my, you know, younger friends, right? So when I was a GoDaddy Pro Ambassador, and I went, and I’m on the GoDaddy team, and I’m in my early 50s, and I’m hanging out with 25 to 30-year-olds, and I couldn’t stay out as late as they could, but I had fun. Hey, I made sure I enjoyed every minute of it. And those people are still my dear friends, and, you know, I see them growing and having families, and, you know, it’s all in your head, right?
Bob Dunn: Yeah. It is. Yeah. And they accept you for who you are. I know that it’s at some conferences, as time went by, you go to, you know, maybe the event afterparty, and then you’d go with a group of people and go somewhere else. And then they would want to go to the after, after, after party. And I remember being around a group, and they were, you know, it’s like 11:30 at night or something. And they’re saying, okay, now what are we going to do now? And they all decided they’re going to go out and have some more drinks and go to this restaurant that specializes in wings, you know, just go and eat a bunch at 11:30 at night, go drink some more. And they were all saying, hey, how’s everybody feel about that? And somebody looked over at me and said, you’re not going, are you, Bob? I said, no, no, no, you know me too well.
Cami MacNamara: This is my cap right now.
Bob Dunn: You know, I’ve made it this far. You’re lucky.
Cami MacNamara: Right, right. Yeah, the YOLO ends at like midnight. Yeah, yeah.
Bob Dunn: It’s like, nope, that’s not gonna happen, bud. So, for those that don’t know, I’ve been in the WordPress space a long time, and I had a business before that. And when I branded myself as Bob WP, which I used in the early days, I used that brand for many, many years. I was at the age of 50, so I actually didn’t start even getting into web design or any kind of technology till that age.
And that’s been 19 years. And so, again, when people talk about, oh, you know, I’m at this age, is it time to pivot, or should I do this or should I do that, you know, I don’t think where you are age-wise matters at all. It’s gotta be more your frame of mind, what works for you, you know? And, of course, you’re not gonna say, well, I’m gonna start becoming an Olympic athlete at the age of 75 or something like that. If somebody wants to do it and go for it, I say go for it. But, you know, there’s also realistic parameters around what you might decide to pivot to.
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Cami MacNamara: Well, I think that can be really inspirational to somebody that’s young, right? So you started in the WordPress space. Did you say at 50?
Bob Dunn: Yeah.
Cami MacNamara: Yeah. And so I started learning web design at age 32, and I started my business at 35. And I don’t want to, yeah, I’m doing the math here, next year is my 25th anniversary, so I’m having a big birthday next year.
And, but I think it’s great that you don’t have to, you can know that you can pivot into something later. So I worked in corporate retail, up until I had a kid. And when I had a kid and decided to stay home, that’s when I discovered web design, ’cause I still wanted to do something. And, you know, listening to other, like the Women of WP podcast that was on for a long time, almost like a lot of the women had that same story. Like I was doing something else, and then I pivoted to this ’cause I wanted to be a working person, but still have flexibility to take care of the kids, whatever.
And so right now, with all these changes and the worries, and the people that we told to go learn code, and now suddenly they’re having a hard time finding a job because AI is coding, it’s good for them to learn that there are pivots that they can make later in life. You don’t have to do a path, you know, like my husband works for Boeing. He started at Boeing in his 20s, and he’s still at Boeing, right? You don’t have to have that linear path in that same career your whole life. You can pivot.
Bob Dunn: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it’s interesting. And it’s just like when we were first talking about this, or you talked about it, was being at a certain age and maybe feeling overwhelmed with the speed that things are going. I mean, you know, look at AI and stuff, and everybody’s kind of, I think a lot of this is going way too fast. That’s personally, and I don’t want to sound like some old fart complaining about the good old days, but I just announced about a week ago on this podcast, I created a podcast that I’m calling Open Signal.
Cami MacNamara: Open Signal.
Bob Dunn: I decided to make that my own commentary, because I thought there’s so much that I’ve learned, and, you know, I have my opinions, and opinions aren’t coming from the good old days when it was easier. But there are certain things sometimes I sit down and think maybe I want to pull out a pencil and write on paper and keep a little pad next to me and write down notes instead of always typing them into some app.
Cami MacNamara: Always having the phone out. No, I get it, Bob. I’ve read 2 books this summer, and when I read before bed, I sleep way better than if I’m TikToking before bed and just scrolling. And even if I’m enjoying it and laughing or whatever, ’cause I have curated quite the hilarious TikTok feed, but if I’m reading an old-fashioned book and I read a couple chapters, like, I am sleeping through the night. So there are times when it’s better to just go old school with things.
Bob Dunn: Yeah, yeah, it is. And I think, unfortunately, everybody in different generations don’t have the experience of when it was like this. So they can’t compare it. They will just say, I don’t see how somebody can do something like that because it’s so time-consuming, or it just doesn’t make sense. You know, what we’re doing right now, I would never want to do it that way. But it’s basically because a lot of people haven’t grown up with that, or it hasn’t been part of their life, and they can’t really compare and say, okay, I’m sitting here doing something on the computer, boy, it sure would be nice, I remember I used to do it like this, or I do something different and you just pull yourself away from the tech and say, you know, I enjoy this, it just works better. And maybe it’s also how we’re wired, our brains.
Cami MacNamara: Well, and just leaving the house without your phone. Like, I have forgotten my phone and then I’ll be out driving around and think, wow, I don’t have my phone. But I spent a very large portion of my formative years growing up with no phone with me all the time. No parent could track me, right? Like you had freedom from, you know, you weren’t gonna get a phone call over the holiday weekend. I had more than a few clients reach out over the holiday weekend. And I didn’t reply to any of them, because it was Labor Day weekend, right? And there has to be some off time, especially, I mean, whatever somebody does in the tech world, you have to not be at everyone’s beck and call all the time. And so, you know, shutting that off, but it’s like going for a bike ride, you go for a bike ride now, you have your phone, because you’re like tracking where you’ve been and everything else. Well, when I was a kid, we hopped on our bikes and, you know, nobody in the world knew where we were except us. And, and it’s, you know, with the flock cameras, and we’ve got all this stuff happening where surveillance, and just like leaving the house without your phone for a couple hours is a very big, it’s an eye-opening experience.
Bob Dunn: Yeah, it is. And I have, unfortunately, I have the habit where I’m the least attached with any technology is my phone. I mean, half the time I don’t know where I’ve left it, I’m walking around and Judy will go, what are you looking for? Oh, your phone again. And I said, yeah, I don’t know, I picked it up for some reason, but I don’t even remember where I put it. But I’ll take it out when we go out, just if I had to like, yeah, you know, some emergency or phone something. I mean, I have very few things that I’m attached to that I’m not pulling out all the time, you know. And that’s one part of technology, I’m glad it’s there, I’m glad it has the features it does, but I’m just not glued to my phone like some people are. And even when I go out, in fact, I go out and that’s one of the things I’ve always noticed when I’ve gone to conferences is I even do less. I miss messages. You know, I go back and say, oh, I was gonna take a few photos, and I look and I have like 3 photos. And it’s just because I’m in that real life situation, and the phone becomes just a thing that’s tucked away, you know, my backpack. Or in something I’m carrying, and I’m not pulling it out at all. And I’m enjoying more just talking to people face to face.
So it’s, it’s, again, it’s personal too, it’s your own habits. I don’t want everybody thinking we’re just like, you know, Bob’s just a grumpy old man. And on the other hand, you know, certain things when I’m working, things that just fascinate me that I embrace, maybe not everything I embrace, you know, I think, well, that’s cool, somebody could really use that, but I’m not gonna get it. So it’s not, you know, I still have an open mind. I always feel like the 2 things that have helped me is to always have an open mind and to be flexible, you know?
Cami MacNamara: Yeah, you can’t get stuck in your ways, right? Like, there’s kind of a happy medium between, you know, I don’t know, you stay true. So, like, I’m the opposite. I take pictures the whole time I’m out, because I want to remember everything. But that goes back to me being the editor of the yearbook in high school and being the person who took like tons of pictures for the yearbook and everything. And I’m always in that mindset, like I want to have these memories, but that is just a personal preference. Now, as somebody who has a lot of clients that reach out to them, I will say that I think the younger business owners in my field tend to like to have their clients text them, and I despise that because it’s another way for them to get to me. And I only wanna hear from them on text if it’s a dire emergency, you know, their website’s down. That’s, that’s like the red phone. Otherwise, if it’s not in my email box, then it’s not on my task list, and there’s kind of a process that I have. But I do know that a lot of younger business owners, that is how they have been communicating the whole time. They don’t ever use the phone for phone calls, they communicate with texts, right? So there’s something that’s a little bit different.
Bob Dunn: Yeah. And I think a lot of this is habits, it’s personal preference. It’s not because you’re a certain age that you’re doing something, you’re doing something because it’s what works for you. If you don’t, you know, embrace some technology, hey, that’s your right. Doesn’t mean you’re not open to hearing about new things or learning new things, it just means that particular thing is going to be set aside. So, and I think one of the other things that I always have to laugh at, and I think people learn this as they move on in life as well, is what some people might describe as being in a rut. And this is both in personal and business. You have a routine, and some people get very upset when they find they have a routine and have been doing it time and time again, versus, you know, just being comfortable with it. I mean, I have some routines that I just don’t want to change, and it’s not because of anything, but they work, and I don’t feel like I need to mix it up. And do something different because it hasn’t become dull to me. It hasn’t become boring, it hasn’t become routine, it’s just part of the life, you know? And I don’t think anybody should ever think, I’m in a rut, they should instead think, well, why am I even asking that? I obviously am not enjoying this routine I’m doing if I’m calling it a rut. Versus, yeah, versus just being comfortable with what you do.
Cami MacNamara: Right, right. There, those are 2 different things, right?
Cami MacNamara: If you have dread every day, then you probably need to switch things up. If you’re perfectly happy, you don’t. I have been running some of my processes through AI, so like onboarding documentation and things like that, and asking for another set of eyes to look at what I’m doing and saying, well, where am I repeating myself? Or how could I improve this? What could make my life easier? And even though I might think what I’m doing is right, it’s always good to have that second set of eyes. And I think that’s where the new technology can really be helpful for people who are, you know, maybe just unable to see beyond what they’re doing themselves.
Because we kind of get tunnel vision in our own setup. And that’s where, like I said, I like taking trainings from people who are probably young enough to be my kid, and they’re selling a kind of a way they do my job. And I find that to be just incredibly helpful because, you know, just a new perspective on everything.
Bob Dunn: Yeah. Yeah. And I always tell people when they ask me, oh, you know, how do you feel at your age? I don’t think about it a lot. I don’t sit around and think, okay, today I am still this age, or think of what I could have done, or do I have time to do this or whatever. Literally, I think anybody anywhere can think those questions, and it doesn’t have to even be a matter of age, because, hey, you never know what’s going to happen the next day or the next minute. So it’s human nature, I mean, really, right? You see people, they get to 50, and they’re like, oh, I feel like I haven’t done the things I want. It’s just human nature how they do it, right? And it just changes as things go on.
Cami MacNamara: Yeah. For me, the little, like, it didn’t start to get my attention until my parents died. And when my parents died, that was like, oh, okay, so that’s going to happen to me. And the distance between when that’s going to happen to me and the before time when I had parents, suddenly you realize that the clock is shorter. You just, you do have that feeling. And I did have that feeling like, oh, gosh, I need to travel, I need to do this, I need to say yes to more things. And one of the biggest things that happened after that was I was terrified to speak in public. And even though I had been in a BNI group and everything else, and I always wanted to talk at a WordCamp, but I was afraid to do it. And my parents died, and I applied to speak at WordCamp Phoenix. And I applied to speak at WordCamp Vancouver. And I just decided I’m no longer afraid of this. But it took that realization, like, oh, this is a temporary situation I’m in, so I better do what I want to do and just stop telling myself that I’m afraid of it. So much of it is just the narrative that we’re giving ourselves. So if you’re giving yourself a narrative that I’m an old grumpy guy, like the 3 guys that you saw, then that’s what you’re gonna live. And if you give yourself the narrative that like, I’m maybe older and wiser, but I’m still vibrant and fun, that’s what you’re gonna get, right? That’s what you’re gonna get though in that situation. So it’s kind of a confidence that you muster, knowing that, like, if you filled out one of those 4,000-week calendars that they have, you know, you’d be like, wow, okay, I’m like down in the bottom third. So.
Bob Dunn: Exactly. Yeah. Well, this is an interesting conversation, and I think it could go off in so many directions, and we went off in some directions, because it’s, you know, that overwhelming technology that we’re all experiencing right now. I don’t think anybody is necessarily overwhelmed because of their age, or overwhelmed because of what’s happening. And we’re all kind of going through it. And one of my favorite sayings is, we’re all headed in the same direction.
Cami MacNamara: And it just makes you realize that so much of what holds us back is just our internal voice that is telling us we can’t do something, and you totally can. You can do anything. If I really wanted to walk around the outside of the Space Needle like one of my friends did, I could do that. Now, generally, I don’t want to do that, but physically and mentally, if I really had that desire, I could do it, you know. But I don’t. There are some things that are just a bridge too far, right?
Bob Dunn: Alrighty. Well, this has been very fun. I enjoy these talks. I enjoy kind of opening up this podcast to more bigger picture and just, yeah, life philosophy, how we think about things. And it all relates to everything we’re doing in technology and with our jobs and stuff. So really enjoyed this. Alrighty. Well, I hope everyone out there got something out of this, or at least a little bit of food for thought, thinking about things no matter what age you are and what you have to look forward to. Yeah, really, at any age you are.
Cami MacNamara: Any age.
Bob Dunn: Yeah. So, and like I said, I’ll end up with it again. We’re all headed in the same direction.
Cami MacNamara: So. That’s right. It’s inevitable. Yeah.
Bob Dunn: Well, thanks so much, Cami. It’s always a pleasure. And until the next time. Okay.
Cami MacNamara: All right. See you next time, Bob.






