The Runway Decade

They Call Me Poppi

In this episode of the “The Runway Decade Podcast”, hosts Bill Bush and Pete Bush, advisors at Horizon Financial Group, talk with guest Tom Bouchie, who shares about his career journey, his life in the ’50s, and his retirement plans.

‍

Episode Highlights

  • 01:00 – Tom works for ‘Novo Nordisk’ he's worked there for 17 years as a Senior Diabetes Specialist. He's also a Councilman in ‘Pineville Louisiana’.
  • 04:57 – Bill enquires, when did Tom first get interested in the broadcasting kind of thing?
  • 06:32 – Bill asks Tom if his first job out of college was broadcasting.
  • 08:12 – Tom says, the greatest thing was he is going to be moving on to another city and all that weekday anchor.
  • 10:19 – Tom mentions, that now he’s the voice of the Menard Eagles for the last five years and getting ready to start year six.
  • 12:18 – Tom’s parents have always pushed them to be their best.
  • 14:58 - There are a lot of close friends, but they haven't kind of gotten that back since the pandemic, says Tom.
  • 16:00 – Bill wants Tom to share about his cool family tradition which he would take off on one weekend while working with him at KLAX
  • 19:57 – Bill asks Tom, what has changed mindset-wise once he turns 50?
  • 20:26 – Tom highlights, that the other thing his grandfather told him was, always keep your house payment 1/4 of your take-home pay, and you’ll never worry about making a house note.
  • 22:16 - There are these events that happen to a lot of folks when they're in their 50s and some of those things are true page-turners meaning life once we flipped over that page is different than before, states Bill.
  • 28:06 – Tom’s father was handling his own business, and he was very active in the church. He gave his time, talent, and treasure to the church.
  • 30:26 – They started driving back and came upon the accident so that kind of startled, and then they realized that they still have something to live for.
  • 32:23 – Tom’s mom and dad tried to save as much as they could and his grandfather was a saver as well and so that's been ingrained in him.
  • 34:32 – Tom mentions, that Cindy’s dad told him if he needed to put at least 10% away in her 401K
  • 36:15 – Bill enquires if Tom can learn one skill today that he currently doesn’t have, what would it be?
  • 38:00 – Tom states, that if he had a time machine, he’d probably go back to December 5, 1987, and relive their wedding day with Cindy.

‍

Three Key Points

  1. Tom states – he doesn't know what it's like to be high on drugs. But the high he gets sitting on behind the microphone and watching the games and calling them he doesn't think that drugs could match it.
  2. Tom shares about his family tradition - They all said they want to keep this bachelor party going. They want to keep it together and so they moved it to October the first Saturday in October for squirrel season. They started it called the Annual and made it a father-son camp out.
  3. Tom's goal after retirement is to get his realtor’s license, sell some real estate here locally, and then do more play-by-play, but he has a lot that he wants to do. He wants to get more involved in the City Council or some committees that he has been asked to serve on that he can't do because of the time of day that they meet and he is out of town working somewhere else and driving anywhere from 2000 to 3000 miles a month just wears on the body as one gets older. There's stuff that he wants to be free to do.

‍

Tweetable Quotes  

  • “I was making the comments before the commentators were making the comments.” – Tom Bouchie
  • “I got into pharmaceutical sales and to start making some money.” – Tom Bouchie
  • “We both said this is not enough. We got to be close to family.” - Tom Bouchie
  • “You came to work together with me at KLAX and said Hey, man, love to be the weekend guy but there's just one weekend I got to have off and I was like what’s going on and it was this family tradition.” – Bill Bush
  • “We moved the dates now between October and November so that we could get cooler weather.” - Tom Bouchie
  • “He said you never make any money until you pay off your house.” - Tom Bouchie
  • “I decided on Poppi. Originally, I wanted to be a grandpa and they said it was too boring. I'd have to agree.” - Tom Bouchie
  • “Your runway is pretty short to retirement. You're close to moving on.” – Pete Bush
  • “I've just been trying to pick the right day to call it quits and then be able to go explore some other things because I think there are some other things that I can accomplish.” - Tom Bouchie
  • “I was making like $15,000 a year and putting 10% in there. And then that money I was able to roll over to an IRA with my sister-in-law.” - Tom Bouchie.

Resources Mentioned

‍