Rewriting the Rules of Work: Gary Nelson on Reinvention, Remote Life, and Never Really Retiring

Rewriting the Rules of Work: Gary Nelson on Reinvention, Remote Life, and Never Really Retiring

Somewhere along the way, a lot of us absorbed the idea that a career is a ladder you climb until someone tells you to stop. Gary Nelson never bought it. He walked away from jobs the moment the terms stopped making sense, built a business from a home office in 2008 when almost nobody was doing that, and at 75 he still takes on work — just without the laptop on vacation anymore. What he has to say about loyalty, ageism, resumes in the age of AI, and the quiet freedom of working for yourself is worth hearing whether you’re 35 and restless or 55 and blindsided.

My special guest is Gary Nelson

Gary Nelson is a certified resume writer and career strategist based in the Chicago area, working online at garylouisnelson.com. He spent six years in Navy aviation, traveled the world as a military photographer, and later moved through insurance and sales before landing in executive recruiting — where he discovered that the part of headhunting he loved most was translating a person’s messy, sprawling career into two pages that made a hiring manager pay attention. A referral from The Ladders convinced him to do that full time. He incorporated in 2008 and has been writing resumes, cover letters, and bios from the same home office ever since, for clients numbering in the thousands. He is a lifelong voracious reader, a guitarist since grammar school who once fronted a Chicago rock band, and a husband, father of three, and grandfather who now travels off the school calendar for the first time in decades.

“Just talk to me. It’s not me telling them how great I am — it’s listening and gathering the information from them, and making them think about things they’ve never thought about before.”

In this episode, you will be able to:

• Trace how six years of Navy aviation, a stack of unrelated jobs, and a headhunting career combined into one unmistakable skill set.
• Understand why resumes written by AI are starting to blur together — and what still separates one candidate from five hundred.
• Recognize the moment a rewritten sales contract is really telling you to leave.
• See what shifted in hiring after the pandemic, from remote-job hunger to eight-round interviews that end in silence.
• Consider self-employment as the answer when decades of loyalty get repaid with a push out the door at 55.

Why Listening Beats Looking

Gary does almost all of his client work by phone — no video, no screen share. Clients are sometimes surprised by it. His reasoning is that the conversation is entirely about them, and stripping away the visual leaves nothing to do but listen closely to what a person actually accomplished, which is usually far more than they give themselves credit for. The most common feedback he gets is some version of “I never thought about that.” It’s a method that has produced repeat clients who return years apart for updates after promotions and moves, and a long roster of people he considers friends without ever having met them face to face.

The resources mentioned in this episode are:

• Reach out to Gary directly if you are in career transition and need your experience translated onto paper — he accepts referrals from podcast listeners.
• Watch your LinkedIn feed for firsthand accounts of current hiring practices, ghosting, and job-posting scams.
• Reach out to Meg Schmitz through FranChoice to explore franchise ownership and long-term exit strategy.
• Listen to the Free Agent Podcast with Meg Schmitz for real stories of self-employment and business ownership.
• Contact Meg Schmitz to schedule a free, no-obligation call for insights into entrepreneurship and franchise opportunities.
• Use the form on the Free Agent Podcast page if you’d like to be considered as a guest on the show.

Subscribe now to our FREE Franchise Insights to get every new podcast episode delivered to your inbox! Free Subscription. No spam. Not sold to others. Unsubscribe anytime.

Click to Take the Leap into the full interview transcript of the Free Agent Podcast, Episode 8.20 with Meg Schmitz and her guest, Gary Nelson

 

Free Agent Podcast with Meg Schmitz – Guest: Gary Nelson, Certified Resume Writer, Career Strategist 

Meg: Hello everyone, and welcome to, or welcome back to, my podcast. This is The Free Agent with Meg Schmitz, that’s me. And the discussion here is all about free agency and taking control over your financial future. The mission of my show is to share inspiring conversations with real people who took the leap into self-employment, business ownership. Sometimes franchising, but always. Freedom. So, from corporate refugees and executives tired of the desk job, to entrepreneurs and investors looking to share camaraderie and inspiration through their own business journey, my podcast aims to spotlight on real people who stepped into the unknown, took control over their destiny, and became their own boss. The great thing about this conversation for you people who are listening is that this is the real and raw side of business ownership. Because my guest, Gary Nelson, and I are going to talk about ups, downs. navigational twists and turns, things that are unexpected, as business owners, and also working with people who are in transition themselves, so this should be a really good one. I’ve been after Gary for a while now to come on my podcast, and today I finally get you, so thank you, Gary, for making the time.

Gary: I love being here. Thank you, Meg.

Meg: Well, so you and I met at a really interesting time. We’ve, as you and I were just discussing, have never actually met in person, although I think it’s going to happen at some point here. We met at the beginning of the pandemic, and it was at a time when people said, you can’t create real relationships with people virtually.

Gary: Yeah. Yeah, how about.

Meg: And so that has been, not just for you and me, but this virtual component pivoting your career into the virtual has served you very well. But let’s have you talk about who you are, what you do. And how you ended up becoming self-employed.

Gary: Okay, so, well, kid… kid growing up in Chicago, And, oldest of, five. At one point, there were six of us living in a, one-bedroom apartment, the corner of Clark and Lawrence, three, on the third floor, walk up, so I got a lot of experience walking up and down the stairs. There. Finally moved further west, and, went back to school at Lane Tech, where I got an incredible education. So I find myself at Northern Illinois University as a freshman. And that was the time they were handing out draft numbers, and my number was very low. And so I had a decision to make. Should I just stay in school, you know, for the rest of the years, and then maybe get drafted as soon as I graduated? Because that was happening to people.

Meg: Yeah.

Gary: Or should I just, you know, again, as I’ve done many times, take the, bull by the horns and make my own decisions? So… I joined the, the aviation part of the Navy. The joke is, I was in the Navy for 6 years, and I was never on a ship. It was o- it was always, aviation.

Meg: Okay. And .

Gary: I even took Russian in high school, so that probably helped in my selection of jobs, because I got to pick any job I wanted, and I picked photography, and… Got to travel all over the world. And, got married in, 72. My lovely wife, we have 3 kids, all grown, they have kids, it’s been… it’s been… it’s been great, but I’ve had… Probably more jobs In my life than anybody I know. Because I would, I’ve done all kinds of things. I’ve taught guitar, I was… at 15, I was the custodian of our church and teaching guitar while going to school full-time and playing 3 sports. So… Pretty busy, did a lot of things, hauled copy machines around downtown Chicago, which is fun in the wintertime.

Meg: Oh my gosh.

Gary: You have to let them thaw out before you can demonstrate them. So you do what you need to do. And, you know, we could talk about this in a little bit, about doing what you need to do, which is something that sometimes seems to be lacking these days. But anyway, ended up, selling, moving from insurance into recruiting. And enjoyed that, got to meet a lot of great people, and met people in real life. But that led… I was a headhunter, so when you’re a headhunter. You’ve got your candidate, so you’re my candidate, I have to present you to Motorola, to Abbott, to Sears, whoever, so I have to make you look better than the other people that they’re getting, and they’re getting them from the internet, they’re getting them from their internal recruiters, they’re getting them from other headhunters, so… My skill was in, on paper, making my candidate look good enough to get an interview. And of course, you coach them and do all those things, so I’m making placements. But the writing part is something I really enjoyed. I enjoyed interviewing the people and finding out what they do and how to translate that to a two-page resume to present to, you know, a client. So, along the way, I was recruited by somebody at the Ladders. who found out about me, saw some of my work, and, started sending me business. So I incorporated, I started working from home. That was 2008.

Meg: Okay. So I was… Oh, wow.

Gary: I was working remote before it was a thing. I was working virtual before it was a thing, and I’d been in this office here at home since 2008, doing exactly what I’m doing right now, talking to people, not on Zoom, but over the phone. And… They were paying me to write their resume, cover letter, bios, all those things. And, sometimes I worked with third parties who were sending me business that they sold, but for the most part, I’ve, just done it myself. And I tell you, working for myself is great, but working for yourself means you also… don’t get a lot of time off, so I’ve written resumes, while sitting outside an internet cafe, in Santorini, while my wife was at the beach, and I’m outside with a laptop writing, writing somebody’s resume in Italy, or anywhere in the world.

Meg: No.

Gary: So, that’s how I ended up, doing what I’m doing now.

Meg: Well, number one, thank you for serving our great country. I’ve got my grandfather’s picture over there. It’s not Eisenhower, it’s actually my grandfather.

Gary: Kind of looked like Eisenhower, yeah.

Meg: That’s what a lot of people say, so I like to clarify that. He was in the Army, and I grew up not far from, Great Lakes, and so…

Gary: Oh, the Navy station.

Meg: Yeah.

Gary: Yeah.

Meg: Yeah, the Glen.

Gary: Oh, well, the Glen, that was, yeah, that was, the, Glenview Naval Air Station.

Meg: So you were up at Great Lakes, is that right?

Gary: No, I was at Glenview Naval Air Station.

Meg: That’s where my apartment is now. Yeah.

Gary: Oh, there we go, yeah.

Meg: I can feel…

Gary: It’s all gone. Yeah, all that gone, my squadron got, got, closed, the base got closed, so all my… that part of my military history’s all gone.

Meg: Yeah, when Pete was growing up, my husband, he lived in Glenview. When I was growing up, I was in Wilmette, and both of our parents used to take us over there. for the planes coming and going, which was so much fun. We… more fun than going out to O’Hare, but I digress.

Gary: exactly what I did. I was in those planes.

Meg: Fabulous. Well, again, thank you for… for your service. The… Career trajectory that you took what prompted you to go independent? You were married, you have 3 kids, so what was the incentive to go independent when you did?

Gary: Well, by the time I did that, we’d already put, all three kids, well, two of the kids, at least, through college. Okay. And we had our daughter left, and we were putting her through college, and but I’ve always wanted… I’ve always acted as if I were self-employed anyway, which is probably why I had a lot of jobs. Because as soon as something came up, you know, when you’re in sales, I was in sales a lot. Companies have a tendency of rewriting you know, the book, or the contract, and periodically, a company would rewrite the contract in a way that said, well, you gotta sell twice as much this year as you did last year, and you’re gonna make the same money. And that’s the time I would move on. And, so I would bounce around from place to place, but in doing that, I always improved my situation. And ultimately, I was leading… I didn’t know it was going to be resume writing, but I knew eventually it was going to lead somewhere where I would just be working for myself.

Meg: Well, having sent people your way, and getting to know you, my inner child, my inner artist, I should say, is a writer. When did you know that writing was your thing?

Gary: I’m a voracious reader. Always have been. Now, picture back when I talked about how I grew up. Till I was 10 years old, I’m in this apartment. There’s no backyard. It’s an apartment building. There’s no backyard. Couldn’t go anywhere. I lived on two really busy streets.

Meg: Yeah.

Gary: There’s 6 of us in there, one bed, there’s nowhere to go, so I buried myself in books. And my parents were very generous, and… what to do with me. So they would… they would buy these books, they would buy… I would read encyclopias, I would read anything. So, one of the things I can do is basically read just about anything and understand it. You know, I’ve read scientific papers, I’ve worked with scientists, I’ve worked with all kinds of people, and when I read what they do, I get it. I get it. And so I didn’t… I was doing that in terms of recruiting. at headhunting, so I was doing that anyway. I had to understand the job, I had to understand if this person could do the job, and so I put it on paper, so it really wasn’t until, chance that somebody said, hey, have you thought about doing this? full-time, and I remember I got off the phone. I was in this office, I got off the phone, I walked in where my wife was, and I said, you know, I think I’m gonna be a resume writer. She goes, okay? And that’s what I did, yeah. immediately incorporated and got certified, and just went to work. So, really, that was not on my radar as something to do. I didn’t know that was even going to be something I, you know, could do.

Meg: Yeah.

Gary: I was very confident I could do it.

Meg: probably the wordsmithing comes easy because you’re a voracious reader, but you also said something interesting, and there are a few other people I know who are reticent to join the virtual… the Zoom teams, etc. Preferring, instead, just to listen. to the other party, which, frankly, is how I like to work with my candidates in franchising. It’s helpful to see facial expressions and body language, but to really get Your brain into, who… who is this person? Kind of have to shut off the visual and just go for the… for the audible.

Gary: Well, 99% of everything I do is just over the phone.

Meg: Yeah.

Gary: So even with Zoom and that, some people are surprised we’re not meeting on Zoom, and I said, just talk to me, just talk to me. And really, what are we doing? We’re talking about themselves. It’s not me telling them everything I’m gonna do, it’s not me telling them how great I am, it’s… Listening and gathering the information. from them, and making them think about things they’ve never thought about before. I mean, that part of the process is they… the feedback I get is, well, I never thought about that. I never thought about what I did. I never thought about what I accomplished.

Meg: And it’s a competitive world out there. Do you do research into the job openings to try to get an angle? Do you do your own research into the companies, or you… tell me what your process is, and how you…

Gary: So once somebody’s…

Meg: customize.

Gary: working with me, what I have them do is send me jobs that they want to pursue.

Meg: Okay.

Gary: So then I will look at that, and if… One of the interesting things, they send me jobs that they’re really not a fit for, so we have that discussion. As well. These are things that, you know, I want to do this job. You know, and if there… and I put my recruiter hat on, I said, well, number one, how are you going to do this? This job is, you know, 50 miles away. Are you going to commute 50 miles from one end of the city to the other for this job? Let’s find something. I said, we can gear it to this job. But, you know, you’re probably not going to apply to this particular one, so if they can’t find something, I’ll find something for them that I think is a fit. And then I use that to gear what it is I’m going to do for them.

Meg: So, wordsmithing is beloved by me. I love writing my own blogs and books and articles and whatnot. Have you pivoted into using AI to clean things up, or to Recraft your work?

Gary: So, that’s one of the… that’s one of the new things that has come about. So what people are doing is they’re using AI to write their resumes. So what’s happening is people’s resumes are all starting to look alike. And it’s still not a differentiator. It’s still not… What, you know, out of the… 500 resumes I’m going to receive, now they all start looking like… like, alike, you know, and it’s still… I still don’t know how to pick you over somebody else. So, you can use AI as a… somewhat of a shortcut to maybe get some information on there, but you guys still got to go over every word, you have to go over every punctuation, and you still have to make it there, so… It’s still a lot of writing on my end.

Meg: And it’s getting back to the real work that you do, it’s getting to know the individual.

Gary: Yeah. Totally, you can’t do it without doing that. You know, and that’s why I have repeat people. You know, they’ve done the first resume, a few years later, they come back for the update. A few years later, they come back for the update. Sometimes they get a promotion, they will still want the update, they’re looking for a new job, they still, you know, need that updated, so keep it fresh, and… And, you know, I’ve been very fortunate that way. I have a lot of good friends I’ve never met in face, face-to-face. Or even seen on Zoom.

Meg: Yeah, well, that’s gotta be very rewarding. Of course, we all like it when people come back to us because we did a good job for them the first time. You’re watching people evolve through their careers and their families, and… And so when they come back, I imagine there’s more storytelling, more Flight of the Bumblebee, what was…

Gary: Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, an interesting thing happened. You and I talked… you mentioned the pandemic. The pandemic created a lot of new openings. For people, and people got the idea of working remote. That’s… that was the new thing during the pandemic. People who had no thought about changing jobs suddenly wanted to change jobs because they wanted one of those remote jobs. I have a… I have a client who bought property in Costa Rica. With the idea of moving there and just doing remote jobs.

Now, as the pandemic moved its way through. I started hearing from a lot of lawyers, especially, women. Who had enjoyed working from home, and not going downtown to the city to… to have to go to work, were doing a great job, and suddenly their law firms wanted them back in. So, suddenly, I… I’m writing all these resumes for people that I… in 20 years, I never wrote so many resumes for lawyers as I did toward the end of the pandemic, because they wanted to continue to work from home. And not go take the train downtown, or take the long commute by car. So that was an interesting phenomenon.

Meg: And there was…

Gary: We’re still looking for remote jobs, even though there’s not as many there.

Meg: And that was one of the questions that I had, is as you’re navigating now, okay, so it’s 2026, and gosh, okay, tomorrow… tomorrow is more or less when we all started to hear 6 years ago. about the pandemic, and by Monday. it was shut down. So in the last few years, now that we’ve all woken back up again, and spring has sprung, and life goes on, what do you think are some of the more significant changes in either hiring tactics, or resume writing, or what’s your finger on the pulse?

Gary: Well, two things. One, if you look at LinkedIn. LinkedIn has become a place, at least the feed I have, is a lot of people complaining about the hiring process. going through 8 interviews, and then being ghosted by the company. And there’s just example after example after example. Some of them are from recruiters, some of them are from the people doing the hiring, there’s more scams out there, people applying to jobs that don’t really exist. Because the company… the scammer’s trying to get personal information from them. I mean, it’s a… it’s become more of a minefield. Also, from the candidate standpoint, there’s a lot of unrealistic expectations. I was just talking to somebody who lives, I mean, you’re familiar with the Fox Lake area. Not a lot of jobs in that area, but the person I was talking to either wants to work remote. Or have a 10-minute commute. Now, I think about the fact I used to get up early in the morning, walk a mile to the train station, get on the train, go downtown, walk another mile to the office. I mean, it’s like nobody wants to do that anymore. They want something that’s… that allows them to work from home or have almost no commute, so I don’t know how that’s even possible.

Meg: Not in Fox Lake. That’s, the laundromat, or the fast food, or…

Gary: Yeah, it’s just… There’s no manufacturing over there that I can think of. And this is the same in various areas of the country, whether you’re in the city or wherever you happen to be, having unrealistic expectations of what, you know, of what the job is entailed. I have, one of my daughters-in-law hires physical therapists, and And she said there’s a… there’s an issue with… what they think the job entails, as opposed to what the job really entails. And I’ve heard that from a lot of people that are in a position of management.

Meg: Yo. Is it hard to work with certain people these days? Because you hear it all the time, younger people are getting to be more and more unrealistic, but is there… do you… do you see that to be… True or problematic?

Gary: Yeah, I mean, that’s a… that’s a definite case. I think that there are definitely, Unrealistic expectations of what the job might entail, or a feel that they wish the job looked a certain way, and it really isn’t. You know, they, want to deal with people that will like them, or managers that think they’re great, and constantly pat them on the back, and the reality is. feedback I get is that that’s not, you know, realistic.

Meg: Yeah, do the work. So, are you… you’re… how do you get your… How do you get your people? These days.

Gary: Well… You know, I’m semi-retired. Yeah, 75 years old, finally. My wife, last summer asked me, she said, so… why are you working? You know… I said, yeah, you know, you’re right. So, this is the first time I’ve gone on vacation without bringing a laptop. The last… since September. So this has been, this has been great. So all my… all my people now that I do do, that I do work with, are my clients, or referred by my clients, or just, you know, or found me somehow. So I’m not… I’m not marketing, I’m not spending any… any money on marketing or anything like that. I’ve just basically passively here, and… and, you know, people find me, and I keep my hand in that way, and still keep up with everybody. So, I don’t think I could fully… you know, re… you know, retire, you know, kind of thing. And there are a lot of other interests, too, so…

Meg: That’s what I’m hearing is… and I have the same… attitude, I’ll be 63 tomorrow, that’s how I remember so well, the beginning of the pandemic, it was my first.

Gary: Right.

Meg: Again, it was a Friday. And the whole world was gonna shut down, and so my family got together, it’s like, this might be the last time we see each other for a while. 63, my husband is 65, he’ll be 66. We don’t think about retirement, it’s not a word that… I just think about people like you, Chad, Leah. she just turned 70 in January. Yeah. It’s not a word that resonates, it’s keeping busy and keeping up with your craft. And that’s the beautiful thing about the business that you’ve built, is that you’ve built trust with people who… Have come to you to make them look good on paper, hireable. And they’re going to keep coming back, so you’ve developed a really nice pipeline of repeat business.

Gary: Yeah, I probably… yeah, it’s thousands, it’s in the thousands, so that’s, that’s been nice. And I do other things. I’m a musician, and so I get to spend more time doing that, so those are the fun things to do.

Meg: I didn’t know that about you.

Gary: Oh, yeah. I’ve been a guitar player since I was in grammar school.

Meg: Oh!

Gary: Had a rock band in Chicago.

Meg: Really?

Gary: Yeah, so… yeah, so I’ve been doing it, doing it at church now in two or three different places, so it’s fun. Get together with some other guys and people who play, so it’s…

Meg: For some pickup gigs?

Gary: Yeah, and then the church stuff’s pretty, pretty static, and I fill in at other, at other churches, either guitar or bass. And if I turned my camera around, you’d see all my equipment behind this monitor here. Super fun! The things I learn about people during the podcast, the, the.

Meg: It’s what makes… my job so much fun with the podcast. Everyone is so interesting and dynamic and in ways that wouldn’t necessarily think would feed into the job.

Gary: Yeah.

Meg: It’s what makes us all interesting human beings.

Gary: And so why is there a basketball behind you?

Meg: Well, so everything back here is real, and all the wine bottles are empty. I can vouch for that. The basketball is from one of my franchise attorneys. Houston Barnes is his name, and last year during March Madness, he sent a basketball to all of us loyal followers and referral partners, so I’ve got my basketball. Got my American hat here, American flag hat sequins, because it’s all about the fashionista, as you know.

Gary: Oh yeah, oh yeah, for you, yes.

Meg: Yeah, it’s all about the fashionista. So, are you doing any, say, mastermind networking events? Do you get together? No?

Gary: No, I just got off the board at our church, so I was really busy with that, and I do other things… I do other things over there. we travel a lot more. When my wife was a school teacher, so any traveling we did had to be on her schedule, so now that That, she’s not teaching anymore. We get to travel off the school schedule. So, so we’re doing a lot of that, and plus just the work I’m doing now keeps me Keeps me, you know, really engaged.

Meg: And I think the beautiful thing about this, Gary, is when you are on vacation, you said it earlier, you’re not taking your laptop with you anymore.

Gary: Yeah, that was a first. That was the first. Literally, you know, bringing that thing and sitting at a, in the lobby of a hotel in Florence, Italy. You know, you do what you have to do, to take care of people, and so now I can adjust all that.

Meg: So, you said 2008 was the year that you really broke free and… Yeah.

Gary: Yeah, I was working from home a little bit before that, but 2008 is when I incorporated. And just, that’s it, this is what I’m doing.

Meg: And it’s been a great ride.

Gary: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And, I mean, for anyone thinking about this in any way, shape, or form, I mean, you know, the people that I’ve sent you and people who have engaged with you on franchises are very happy they’ve done that, and of course, you probably talk to them more about that than I do. But, yeah, I mean, the idea of being able to work for yourself is just incredible. No.

Meg: The American dream, and it’s alive and well with younger generations. It’s… and… something that you said, and you’ve done, and I hear it so much, and I know you can really plug in when people in sales come to you with the same issue. It’s a never-ending issue in sales.

Gary: Yeah. And there’s a lot of disappointment out there. People have given their… lives to these companies. They’ve given all the… all their loyalty, they’ve… they’ve worked really hard for them, and then somebody new comes in and just… you’re nothing. You know, you’re nothing. You’re out of… you’re… we’re gonna make your life miserable, so you quit, or we’re just gonna figure out a way to get rid of you. And that’s the thanks you get, and sometimes these people are 55 years old. And, you know, now they have to figure out where to go from, you know, from here.

Meg: And that’s… there’s an intersection. You’ve hit it, and so have I. There’s an intersection when you’re old enough, stable, and experienced enough. your kids are older, or you’re not taking the same kind of financial risks. You’re able to take more financial risks because they’re more settled, and you’ve got You just have a different level of wisdom and experience. that plays into… Unfortunately, the ageism that’s out there becomes a benefit for people who end up coming to me, because they’ve… done what you’ve done. You got kicked around, you had your plan changed, you have so much skill, which is what I see, too. How often do you run into people Who are facing that, and you say, you know, why don’t you go hang your single shingle and do your own thing?

Gary: Yeah. Oh, it’s… yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and they’ve never thought of it. They just think about trying to get their next job. Unfortunately, then, some people haven’t taken care of business along the way. Now, I’ve always used to more risk, because as a salesperson, you know, most of your compensation was based on results.

Meg: Right.

Gary: So, you know, to… Put my trust in myself. To get those results was not as… As, hard to do, maybe for some people who have to, you know, have to be told what to do, or, you know, have never had that kind of experience.

Meg: Will you… as you were talking about your upbringing and then the Navy and other life experiences, you’re… you’re… Fiber, your moral fiber, your integrity, your work ethic. was groomed at such an early age, and being a voracious reader, really, the world is your oyster when you’re reading like that. So you, with your listening capabilities and the people that you’re talking to, probably get a much different story than another resume writer would, because you’re… naturally curious and extracting these details about what makes somebody different from… well, this is why it’s called the free agent, because we’re all out there fighting for the same position, so what makes you any different? You should get that job. that’s the beautiful thing about what you do, is… because I’ve worked with people who’ve worked with you, and in our networking groups, your ability to extract Important details that highlight how different somebody is versus anybody else applying for that position. You’ve got a special gift.

Gary: Well, I appreciate that. It, you know, you think it doesn’t come… didn’t just pop into my head, you know, it was, I had a long, you know, period of time before I got to that point. You know, obviously.

Meg: Well, you encourage…

Gary: You do, you use everything you do, if you use everything you do. If you use your whole life, and the fact that I would place people at a company where I had to learn what the company did so I could place people there. Well, that just keeps expanding your knowledge. It keeps expanding. I have a library sitting over here. I’ve got instruments over there. I mean, this is like my little hub here of things that I like to do.

Meg: I’ll have to come and check it out someday.

Gary: Well. See the office, yeah. Yeah.

Meg: The… that… that is the interesting thing, as I’m looking around my own office. this is mostly the professional side of me, but I put things back there just to elicit conversation. from people about, oh, like, you asked about the basketball. I don’t know where that’s gonna go, necessarily, when people start to ask about the background, but I like that your office is a beautiful shade of blue, and…

Gary: Do you know what this is? This is Santor… we call it Santorini Blue. You know the domes?

Meg: Yeah.

Gary: I have a big poster over there from Santorini that, that we just love that color, and so when we decided on… on this, what would be acceptable, that we did it this blue, yeah.

Meg: You mentioned Florence earlier. I have the distinct pleasure of going to Florence again in April. We’ll be there for about… 6 days. Yeah, we’re… Pete graduated from the University of Chicago. And so the Alumni Association has a board of visitors, and so wherever the student programs are overseas, they pick one place every year where we get to go and meet with the students and the professors and get backdoor access to libraries, basilicas, and if I showed you the list of everything that they’ve given us as optional activities. Six days isn’t enough to do everything that we’re going to be able to do.

Gary: Well, just make sure you hit the leather market and buy yourself a new purse.

Meg: No kidding, a great leather jacket. Yeah.

Gary: Yeah. Yep.

Meg: Will do. Well, Gary, thank you for making time for me today. I wanted to get finger on the pulse of what’s going on. AI, of course, is on the top of people’s minds, and the churn of the machine continues to happen. If someone were to listen to this podcast, would you… would you take them on as a referral?

Gary: Sure, of course. Yeah, why not?

Meg: Why not? Well, you’ve got all the skills, you’ve got all the words and the vocabulary, and you know how to mastercraft a resume, so I can confidently say to anyone listening to this, if you’re in motion, and you’re in flux, and you need someone to make you look good on paper, Gary’s your guy.

Gary: Well, I appreciate that. I appreciate that. And of course, I’ll be referring those people to you that, are appropriate.

Meg: Thank you. Well, I appreciate it, Gary, and, again, thank you, and I’ll let you know when this one is ready to launch.

Gary: All right, thanks a lot.

Free Agent Podcast with Meg Schmitz – Guest: Gary Nelson, Certified Resume Writer, Career Strategist 

Meg: Hello everyone, and welcome to, or welcome back to, my podcast. This is The Free Agent with Meg Schmitz, that’s me. And the discussion here is all about free agency and taking control over your financial future. The mission of my show is to share inspiring conversations with real people who took the leap into self-employment, business ownership. Sometimes franchising, but always. Freedom. So, from corporate refugees and executives tired of the desk job, to entrepreneurs and investors looking to share camaraderie and inspiration through their own business journey, my podcast aims to spotlight on real people who stepped into the unknown, took control over their destiny, and became their own boss. The great thing about this conversation for you people who are listening is that this is the real and raw side of business ownership. Because my guest, Gary Nelson, and I are going to talk about ups, downs. navigational twists and turns, things that are unexpected, as business owners, and also working with people who are in transition themselves, so this should be a really good one. I’ve been after Gary for a while now to come on my podcast, and today I finally get you, so thank you, Gary, for making the time.

Gary: I love being here. Thank you, Meg.

Meg: Well, so you and I met at a really interesting time. We’ve, as you and I were just discussing, have never actually met in person, although I think it’s going to happen at some point here. We met at the beginning of the pandemic, and it was at a time when people said, you can’t create real relationships with people virtually.

Gary: Yeah. Yeah, how about.

Meg: And so that has been, not just for you and me, but this virtual component pivoting your career into the virtual has served you very well. But let’s have you talk about who you are, what you do. And how you ended up becoming self-employed.

Gary: Okay, so, well, kid… kid growing up in Chicago, And, oldest of, five. At one point, there were six of us living in a, one-bedroom apartment, the corner of Clark and Lawrence, three, on the third floor, walk up, so I got a lot of experience walking up and down the stairs. There. Finally moved further west, and, went back to school at Lane Tech, where I got an incredible education. So I find myself at Northern Illinois University as a freshman. And that was the time they were handing out draft numbers, and my number was very low. And so I had a decision to make. Should I just stay in school, you know, for the rest of the years, and then maybe get drafted as soon as I graduated? Because that was happening to people.

Meg: Yeah.

Gary: Or should I just, you know, again, as I’ve done many times, take the, bull by the horns and make my own decisions? So… I joined the, the aviation part of the Navy. The joke is, I was in the Navy for 6 years, and I was never on a ship. It was o- it was always, aviation.

Meg: Okay. And .

Gary: I even took Russian in high school, so that probably helped in my selection of jobs, because I got to pick any job I wanted, and I picked photography, and… Got to travel all over the world. And, got married in, 72. My lovely wife, we have 3 kids, all grown, they have kids, it’s been… it’s been… it’s been great, but I’ve had… Probably more jobs In my life than anybody I know. Because I would, I’ve done all kinds of things. I’ve taught guitar, I was… at 15, I was the custodian of our church and teaching guitar while going to school full-time and playing 3 sports. So… Pretty busy, did a lot of things, hauled copy machines around downtown Chicago, which is fun in the wintertime.

Meg: Oh my gosh.

Gary: You have to let them thaw out before you can demonstrate them. So you do what you need to do. And, you know, we could talk about this in a little bit, about doing what you need to do, which is something that sometimes seems to be lacking these days. But anyway, ended up, selling, moving from insurance into recruiting. And enjoyed that, got to meet a lot of great people, and met people in real life. But that led… I was a headhunter, so when you’re a headhunter. You’ve got your candidate, so you’re my candidate, I have to present you to Motorola, to Abbott, to Sears, whoever, so I have to make you look better than the other people that they’re getting, and they’re getting them from the internet, they’re getting them from their internal recruiters, they’re getting them from other headhunters, so… My skill was in, on paper, making my candidate look good enough to get an interview. And of course, you coach them and do all those things, so I’m making placements. But the writing part is something I really enjoyed. I enjoyed interviewing the people and finding out what they do and how to translate that to a two-page resume to present to, you know, a client. So, along the way, I was recruited by somebody at the Ladders. who found out about me, saw some of my work, and, started sending me business. So I incorporated, I started working from home. That was 2008.

Meg: Okay. So I was… Oh, wow.

Gary: I was working remote before it was a thing. I was working virtual before it was a thing, and I’d been in this office here at home since 2008, doing exactly what I’m doing right now, talking to people, not on Zoom, but over the phone. And… They were paying me to write their resume, cover letter, bios, all those things. And, sometimes I worked with third parties who were sending me business that they sold, but for the most part, I’ve, just done it myself. And I tell you, working for myself is great, but working for yourself means you also… don’t get a lot of time off, so I’ve written resumes, while sitting outside an internet cafe, in Santorini, while my wife was at the beach, and I’m outside with a laptop writing, writing somebody’s resume in Italy, or anywhere in the world.

Meg: No.

Gary: So, that’s how I ended up, doing what I’m doing now.

Meg: Well, number one, thank you for serving our great country. I’ve got my grandfather’s picture over there. It’s not Eisenhower, it’s actually my grandfather.

Gary: Kind of looked like Eisenhower, yeah.

Meg: That’s what a lot of people say, so I like to clarify that. He was in the Army, and I grew up not far from, Great Lakes, and so…

Gary: Oh, the Navy station.

Meg: Yeah.

Gary: Yeah.

Meg: Yeah, the Glen.

Gary: Oh, well, the Glen, that was, yeah, that was, the, Glenview Naval Air Station.

Meg: So you were up at Great Lakes, is that right?

Gary: No, I was at Glenview Naval Air Station.

Meg: That’s where my apartment is now. Yeah.

Gary: Oh, there we go, yeah.

Meg: I can feel…

Gary: It’s all gone. Yeah, all that gone, my squadron got, got, closed, the base got closed, so all my… that part of my military history’s all gone.

Meg: Yeah, when Pete was growing up, my husband, he lived in Glenview. When I was growing up, I was in Wilmette, and both of our parents used to take us over there. for the planes coming and going, which was so much fun. We… more fun than going out to O’Hare, but I digress.

Gary: exactly what I did. I was in those planes.

Meg: Fabulous. Well, again, thank you for… for your service. The… Career trajectory that you took what prompted you to go independent? You were married, you have 3 kids, so what was the incentive to go independent when you did?

Gary: Well, by the time I did that, we’d already put, all three kids, well, two of the kids, at least, through college. Okay. And we had our daughter left, and we were putting her through college, and but I’ve always wanted… I’ve always acted as if I were self-employed anyway, which is probably why I had a lot of jobs. Because as soon as something came up, you know, when you’re in sales, I was in sales a lot. Companies have a tendency of rewriting you know, the book, or the contract, and periodically, a company would rewrite the contract in a way that said, well, you gotta sell twice as much this year as you did last year, and you’re gonna make the same money. And that’s the time I would move on. And, so I would bounce around from place to place, but in doing that, I always improved my situation. And ultimately, I was leading… I didn’t know it was going to be resume writing, but I knew eventually it was going to lead somewhere where I would just be working for myself.

Meg: Well, having sent people your way, and getting to know you, my inner child, my inner artist, I should say, is a writer. When did you know that writing was your thing?

Gary: I’m a voracious reader. Always have been. Now, picture back when I talked about how I grew up. Till I was 10 years old, I’m in this apartment. There’s no backyard. It’s an apartment building. There’s no backyard. Couldn’t go anywhere. I lived on two really busy streets.

Meg: Yeah.

Gary: There’s 6 of us in there, one bed, there’s nowhere to go, so I buried myself in books. And my parents were very generous, and… what to do with me. So they would… they would buy these books, they would buy… I would read encyclopias, I would read anything. So, one of the things I can do is basically read just about anything and understand it. You know, I’ve read scientific papers, I’ve worked with scientists, I’ve worked with all kinds of people, and when I read what they do, I get it. I get it. And so I didn’t… I was doing that in terms of recruiting. at headhunting, so I was doing that anyway. I had to understand the job, I had to understand if this person could do the job, and so I put it on paper, so it really wasn’t until, chance that somebody said, hey, have you thought about doing this? full-time, and I remember I got off the phone. I was in this office, I got off the phone, I walked in where my wife was, and I said, you know, I think I’m gonna be a resume writer. She goes, okay? And that’s what I did, yeah. immediately incorporated and got certified, and just went to work. So, really, that was not on my radar as something to do. I didn’t know that was even going to be something I, you know, could do.

Meg: Yeah.

Gary: I was very confident I could do it.

Meg: probably the wordsmithing comes easy because you’re a voracious reader, but you also said something interesting, and there are a few other people I know who are reticent to join the virtual… the Zoom teams, etc. Preferring, instead, just to listen. to the other party, which, frankly, is how I like to work with my candidates in franchising. It’s helpful to see facial expressions and body language, but to really get Your brain into, who… who is this person? Kind of have to shut off the visual and just go for the… for the audible.

Gary: Well, 99% of everything I do is just over the phone.

Meg: Yeah.

Gary: So even with Zoom and that, some people are surprised we’re not meeting on Zoom, and I said, just talk to me, just talk to me. And really, what are we doing? We’re talking about themselves. It’s not me telling them everything I’m gonna do, it’s not me telling them how great I am, it’s… Listening and gathering the information. from them, and making them think about things they’ve never thought about before. I mean, that part of the process is they… the feedback I get is, well, I never thought about that. I never thought about what I did. I never thought about what I accomplished.

Meg: And it’s a competitive world out there. Do you do research into the job openings to try to get an angle? Do you do your own research into the companies, or you… tell me what your process is, and how you…

Gary: So once somebody’s…

Meg: customize.

Gary: working with me, what I have them do is send me jobs that they want to pursue.

Meg: Okay.

Gary: So then I will look at that, and if… One of the interesting things, they send me jobs that they’re really not a fit for, so we have that discussion. As well. These are things that, you know, I want to do this job. You know, and if there… and I put my recruiter hat on, I said, well, number one, how are you going to do this? This job is, you know, 50 miles away. Are you going to commute 50 miles from one end of the city to the other for this job? Let’s find something. I said, we can gear it to this job. But, you know, you’re probably not going to apply to this particular one, so if they can’t find something, I’ll find something for them that I think is a fit. And then I use that to gear what it is I’m going to do for them.

Meg: So, wordsmithing is beloved by me. I love writing my own blogs and books and articles and whatnot. Have you pivoted into using AI to clean things up, or to Recraft your work?

Gary: So, that’s one of the… that’s one of the new things that has come about. So what people are doing is they’re using AI to write their resumes. So what’s happening is people’s resumes are all starting to look alike. And it’s still not a differentiator. It’s still not… What, you know, out of the… 500 resumes I’m going to receive, now they all start looking like… like, alike, you know, and it’s still… I still don’t know how to pick you over somebody else. So, you can use AI as a… somewhat of a shortcut to maybe get some information on there, but you guys still got to go over every word, you have to go over every punctuation, and you still have to make it there, so… It’s still a lot of writing on my end.

Meg: And it’s getting back to the real work that you do, it’s getting to know the individual.

Gary: Yeah. Totally, you can’t do it without doing that. You know, and that’s why I have repeat people. You know, they’ve done the first resume, a few years later, they come back for the update. A few years later, they come back for the update. Sometimes they get a promotion, they will still want the update, they’re looking for a new job, they still, you know, need that updated, so keep it fresh, and… And, you know, I’ve been very fortunate that way. I have a lot of good friends I’ve never met in face, face-to-face. Or even seen on Zoom.

Meg: Yeah, well, that’s gotta be very rewarding. Of course, we all like it when people come back to us because we did a good job for them the first time. You’re watching people evolve through their careers and their families, and… And so when they come back, I imagine there’s more storytelling, more Flight of the Bumblebee, what was…

Gary: Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, an interesting thing happened. You and I talked… you mentioned the pandemic. The pandemic created a lot of new openings. For people, and people got the idea of working remote. That’s… that was the new thing during the pandemic. People who had no thought about changing jobs suddenly wanted to change jobs because they wanted one of those remote jobs. I have a… I have a client who bought property in Costa Rica. With the idea of moving there and just doing remote jobs.

Now, as the pandemic moved its way through. I started hearing from a lot of lawyers, especially, women. Who had enjoyed working from home, and not going downtown to the city to… to have to go to work, were doing a great job, and suddenly their law firms wanted them back in. So, suddenly, I… I’m writing all these resumes for people that I… in 20 years, I never wrote so many resumes for lawyers as I did toward the end of the pandemic, because they wanted to continue to work from home. And not go take the train downtown, or take the long commute by car. So that was an interesting phenomenon.

Meg: And there was…

Gary: We’re still looking for remote jobs, even though there’s not as many there.

Meg: And that was one of the questions that I had, is as you’re navigating now, okay, so it’s 2026, and gosh, okay, tomorrow… tomorrow is more or less when we all started to hear 6 years ago. about the pandemic, and by Monday. it was shut down. So in the last few years, now that we’ve all woken back up again, and spring has sprung, and life goes on, what do you think are some of the more significant changes in either hiring tactics, or resume writing, or what’s your finger on the pulse?

Gary: Well, two things. One, if you look at LinkedIn. LinkedIn has become a place, at least the feed I have, is a lot of people complaining about the hiring process. going through 8 interviews, and then being ghosted by the company. And there’s just example after example after example. Some of them are from recruiters, some of them are from the people doing the hiring, there’s more scams out there, people applying to jobs that don’t really exist. Because the company… the scammer’s trying to get personal information from them. I mean, it’s a… it’s become more of a minefield. Also, from the candidate standpoint, there’s a lot of unrealistic expectations. I was just talking to somebody who lives, I mean, you’re familiar with the Fox Lake area. Not a lot of jobs in that area, but the person I was talking to either wants to work remote. Or have a 10-minute commute. Now, I think about the fact I used to get up early in the morning, walk a mile to the train station, get on the train, go downtown, walk another mile to the office. I mean, it’s like nobody wants to do that anymore. They want something that’s… that allows them to work from home or have almost no commute, so I don’t know how that’s even possible.

Meg: Not in Fox Lake. That’s, the laundromat, or the fast food, or…

Gary: Yeah, it’s just… There’s no manufacturing over there that I can think of. And this is the same in various areas of the country, whether you’re in the city or wherever you happen to be, having unrealistic expectations of what, you know, of what the job is entailed. I have, one of my daughters-in-law hires physical therapists, and And she said there’s a… there’s an issue with… what they think the job entails, as opposed to what the job really entails. And I’ve heard that from a lot of people that are in a position of management.

Meg: Yo. Is it hard to work with certain people these days? Because you hear it all the time, younger people are getting to be more and more unrealistic, but is there… do you… do you see that to be… True or problematic?

Gary: Yeah, I mean, that’s a… that’s a definite case. I think that there are definitely, Unrealistic expectations of what the job might entail, or a feel that they wish the job looked a certain way, and it really isn’t. You know, they, want to deal with people that will like them, or managers that think they’re great, and constantly pat them on the back, and the reality is. feedback I get is that that’s not, you know, realistic.

Meg: Yeah, do the work. So, are you… you’re… how do you get your… How do you get your people? These days.

Gary: Well… You know, I’m semi-retired. Yeah, 75 years old, finally. My wife, last summer asked me, she said, so… why are you working? You know… I said, yeah, you know, you’re right. So, this is the first time I’ve gone on vacation without bringing a laptop. The last… since September. So this has been, this has been great. So all my… all my people now that I do do, that I do work with, are my clients, or referred by my clients, or just, you know, or found me somehow. So I’m not… I’m not marketing, I’m not spending any… any money on marketing or anything like that. I’ve just basically passively here, and… and, you know, people find me, and I keep my hand in that way, and still keep up with everybody. So, I don’t think I could fully… you know, re… you know, retire, you know, kind of thing. And there are a lot of other interests, too, so…

Meg: That’s what I’m hearing is… and I have the same… attitude, I’ll be 63 tomorrow, that’s how I remember so well, the beginning of the pandemic, it was my first.

Gary: Right.

Meg: Again, it was a Friday. And the whole world was gonna shut down, and so my family got together, it’s like, this might be the last time we see each other for a while. 63, my husband is 65, he’ll be 66. We don’t think about retirement, it’s not a word that… I just think about people like you, Chad, Leah. she just turned 70 in January. Yeah. It’s not a word that resonates, it’s keeping busy and keeping up with your craft. And that’s the beautiful thing about the business that you’ve built, is that you’ve built trust with people who… Have come to you to make them look good on paper, hireable. And they’re going to keep coming back, so you’ve developed a really nice pipeline of repeat business.

Gary: Yeah, I probably… yeah, it’s thousands, it’s in the thousands, so that’s, that’s been nice. And I do other things. I’m a musician, and so I get to spend more time doing that, so those are the fun things to do.

Meg: I didn’t know that about you.

Gary: Oh, yeah. I’ve been a guitar player since I was in grammar school.

Meg: Oh!

Gary: Had a rock band in Chicago.

Meg: Really?

Gary: Yeah, so… yeah, so I’ve been doing it, doing it at church now in two or three different places, so it’s fun. Get together with some other guys and people who play, so it’s…

Meg: For some pickup gigs?

Gary: Yeah, and then the church stuff’s pretty, pretty static, and I fill in at other, at other churches, either guitar or bass. And if I turned my camera around, you’d see all my equipment behind this monitor here. Super fun! The things I learn about people during the podcast, the, the.

Meg: It’s what makes… my job so much fun with the podcast. Everyone is so interesting and dynamic and in ways that wouldn’t necessarily think would feed into the job.

Gary: Yeah.

Meg: It’s what makes us all interesting human beings.

Gary: And so why is there a basketball behind you?

Meg: Well, so everything back here is real, and all the wine bottles are empty. I can vouch for that. The basketball is from one of my franchise attorneys. Houston Barnes is his name, and last year during March Madness, he sent a basketball to all of us loyal followers and referral partners, so I’ve got my basketball. Got my American hat here, American flag hat sequins, because it’s all about the fashionista, as you know.

Gary: Oh yeah, oh yeah, for you, yes.

Meg: Yeah, it’s all about the fashionista. So, are you doing any, say, mastermind networking events? Do you get together? No?

Gary: No, I just got off the board at our church, so I was really busy with that, and I do other things… I do other things over there. we travel a lot more. When my wife was a school teacher, so any traveling we did had to be on her schedule, so now that That, she’s not teaching anymore. We get to travel off the school schedule. So, so we’re doing a lot of that, and plus just the work I’m doing now keeps me Keeps me, you know, really engaged.

Meg: And I think the beautiful thing about this, Gary, is when you are on vacation, you said it earlier, you’re not taking your laptop with you anymore.

Gary: Yeah, that was a first. That was the first. Literally, you know, bringing that thing and sitting at a, in the lobby of a hotel in Florence, Italy. You know, you do what you have to do, to take care of people, and so now I can adjust all that.

Meg: So, you said 2008 was the year that you really broke free and… Yeah.

Gary: Yeah, I was working from home a little bit before that, but 2008 is when I incorporated. And just, that’s it, this is what I’m doing.

Meg: And it’s been a great ride.

Gary: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And, I mean, for anyone thinking about this in any way, shape, or form, I mean, you know, the people that I’ve sent you and people who have engaged with you on franchises are very happy they’ve done that, and of course, you probably talk to them more about that than I do. But, yeah, I mean, the idea of being able to work for yourself is just incredible. No.

Meg: The American dream, and it’s alive and well with younger generations. It’s… and… something that you said, and you’ve done, and I hear it so much, and I know you can really plug in when people in sales come to you with the same issue. It’s a never-ending issue in sales.

Gary: Yeah. And there’s a lot of disappointment out there. People have given their… lives to these companies. They’ve given all the… all their loyalty, they’ve… they’ve worked really hard for them, and then somebody new comes in and just… you’re nothing. You know, you’re nothing. You’re out of… you’re… we’re gonna make your life miserable, so you quit, or we’re just gonna figure out a way to get rid of you. And that’s the thanks you get, and sometimes these people are 55 years old. And, you know, now they have to figure out where to go from, you know, from here.

Meg: And that’s… there’s an intersection. You’ve hit it, and so have I. There’s an intersection when you’re old enough, stable, and experienced enough. your kids are older, or you’re not taking the same kind of financial risks. You’re able to take more financial risks because they’re more settled, and you’ve got You just have a different level of wisdom and experience. that plays into… Unfortunately, the ageism that’s out there becomes a benefit for people who end up coming to me, because they’ve… done what you’ve done. You got kicked around, you had your plan changed, you have so much skill, which is what I see, too. How often do you run into people Who are facing that, and you say, you know, why don’t you go hang your single shingle and do your own thing?

Gary: Yeah. Oh, it’s… yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and they’ve never thought of it. They just think about trying to get their next job. Unfortunately, then, some people haven’t taken care of business along the way. Now, I’ve always used to more risk, because as a salesperson, you know, most of your compensation was based on results.

Meg: Right.

Gary: So, you know, to… Put my trust in myself. To get those results was not as… As, hard to do, maybe for some people who have to, you know, have to be told what to do, or, you know, have never had that kind of experience.

Meg: Will you… as you were talking about your upbringing and then the Navy and other life experiences, you’re… you’re… Fiber, your moral fiber, your integrity, your work ethic. was groomed at such an early age, and being a voracious reader, really, the world is your oyster when you’re reading like that. So you, with your listening capabilities and the people that you’re talking to, probably get a much different story than another resume writer would, because you’re… naturally curious and extracting these details about what makes somebody different from… well, this is why it’s called the free agent, because we’re all out there fighting for the same position, so what makes you any different? You should get that job. that’s the beautiful thing about what you do, is… because I’ve worked with people who’ve worked with you, and in our networking groups, your ability to extract Important details that highlight how different somebody is versus anybody else applying for that position. You’ve got a special gift.

Gary: Well, I appreciate that. It, you know, you think it doesn’t come… didn’t just pop into my head, you know, it was, I had a long, you know, period of time before I got to that point. You know, obviously.

Meg: Well, you encourage…

Gary: You do, you use everything you do, if you use everything you do. If you use your whole life, and the fact that I would place people at a company where I had to learn what the company did so I could place people there. Well, that just keeps expanding your knowledge. It keeps expanding. I have a library sitting over here. I’ve got instruments over there. I mean, this is like my little hub here of things that I like to do.

Meg: I’ll have to come and check it out someday.

Gary: Well. See the office, yeah. Yeah.

Meg: The… that… that is the interesting thing, as I’m looking around my own office. this is mostly the professional side of me, but I put things back there just to elicit conversation. from people about, oh, like, you asked about the basketball. I don’t know where that’s gonna go, necessarily, when people start to ask about the background, but I like that your office is a beautiful shade of blue, and…

Gary: Do you know what this is? This is Santor… we call it Santorini Blue. You know the domes?

Meg: Yeah.

Gary: I have a big poster over there from Santorini that, that we just love that color, and so when we decided on… on this, what would be acceptable, that we did it this blue, yeah.

Meg: You mentioned Florence earlier. I have the distinct pleasure of going to Florence again in April. We’ll be there for about… 6 days. Yeah, we’re… Pete graduated from the University of Chicago. And so the Alumni Association has a board of visitors, and so wherever the student programs are overseas, they pick one place every year where we get to go and meet with the students and the professors and get backdoor access to libraries, basilicas, and if I showed you the list of everything that they’ve given us as optional activities. Six days isn’t enough to do everything that we’re going to be able to do.

Gary: Well, just make sure you hit the leather market and buy yourself a new purse.

Meg: No kidding, a great leather jacket. Yeah.

Gary: Yeah. Yep.

Meg: Will do. Well, Gary, thank you for making time for me today. I wanted to get finger on the pulse of what’s going on. AI, of course, is on the top of people’s minds, and the churn of the machine continues to happen. If someone were to listen to this podcast, would you… would you take them on as a referral?

Gary: Sure, of course. Yeah, why not?

Meg: Why not? Well, you’ve got all the skills, you’ve got all the words and the vocabulary, and you know how to mastercraft a resume, so I can confidently say to anyone listening to this, if you’re in motion, and you’re in flux, and you need someone to make you look good on paper, Gary’s your guy.

Gary: Well, I appreciate that. I appreciate that. And of course, I’ll be referring those people to you that, are appropriate.

Meg: Thank you. Well, I appreciate it, Gary, and, again, thank you, and I’ll let you know when this one is ready to launch.

Gary: All right, thanks a lot.

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