Today we’d like to introduce you to Anne Goldberg.
Hi Anne, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I had a very successful career as an executive recruiter for 25 years. I gave it up in 2000 to raise my kids. In 2007, I decided to recruit again and before I knew it, 2009 reared its ugly self and I was out of work. Over the next four years I took one job after another for a paycheck. I hated each one, so I would leave or get fired. One day in October 2013 I got fired from yet another job I never should have taken. I was 61 years old and out of answers. I was at a crossroads. I could bemoan the situation, or I could take a different path. I came home that day and declared out loud, “I surrender! I don’t know what I can do that people would pay me for, that I would love to do. I surrender it all. I will stop looking for a job and help my friends. (Which I did.) I’ll be looking for the signs, I promise.”
I went about my business. But something was brewing because in the next ten days, I received six phone calls from senior women who each said approximately the same thing. “I don’t remember who told me, but I understand you teach computers to seniors. Can you help me?” By the sixth call, I looked up and said, “Thank you. Message received. I now know what I’m supposed to do. I’m supposed to teach seniors how to use computers” and I was off and running. I created Savvy Senior Services LLC shortly after. The next day, I made my first call to an Independent Living residence and immediately got hired. Other clients followed fairly quickly and with little effort. It has been almost twelve years since that fateful October afternoon. I don’t feel like I work for a living. I get to do something I love that helps other people. And, I’m making a living. What could be better?
Because of this auspicious beginning, I feel Divinely guided in this work. It’s my passion to help seniors to use their phones. But, it is also part of something much bigger. It is so much more than just tech talk. My purpose is to inspire my students—whose average age is 85—to embrace the truth that age is never a limit to what we can learn or achieve. We are the same person we’ve been our whole lives and our value does not diminish with the years. After all, we are …old enough to have a past and young enough to have a future… tm I want to help them live into that future with their cognitive skills intact and using technology daily is extremely good for the brain.
The Book.
After eleven years of teaching tech to seniors, I began to hear a voice in my head that kept saying, “Write the book!” It went on for a few months. I didn’t ignore it, I just couldn’t figure out the book’s point of view. One day though, my beloved and I watched a free webinar from a book coach who offered some very valuable advice; “Make sure you have a great title. Even if your book is mediocre, a great title will get a lot of attention.” About three or four weeks later, when talking with a dear friend about writing a book, the words spilled out of me. “Seniors just want to take their phone and shove it! And it struck me like a lightning bolt. That was my title and I was off and running.
My Passion and Purpose
As someone who has suffered from procrastination for my whole life, I found myself in new territory with the book because I was compelled to write. I couldn’t put it off. I couldn’t NOT write. I gave up appointments and marketing and lunches so I could write. I put in at least five to six hours daily. Time passed quickly. I felt I was living my purpose in creating this manual on smartphones for seniors. Sixty-five thousand words later, the book was done. It took a solid eleven months to write, and almost as long for editing and graphic design, what brings us to the present moment. I am expecting to launch Take This Phone And Shove It! A Frustrated Senior’s Guide to Smartphones in late September. I could not be more excited!
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
There were two situations that challenged me. The one I’d like to share with you was about the signature characters in my logo and within the book. I had hired a graphic design company in Miami in the summer of 2024. After a few iterations that I rejected, suddenly I got sketches of the perfect characters. I loved them. I requested a full body version and I got it. I paid for the design work and paid separately to own the intellectual property. Sometime in February 2025, I found my characters on a site that sells rights to images! What??? Who the? What the? With certainty of my ownership, I emailed this company only to ultimately learn they uploaded those characters a year before I paid for them. The characters were plagiarized and the company was bought by someone else. The new owner tried to help, but had no power in the situation.
What was I going to do? The book is nearly completed, the logo has been advertised for six months or more, the cover has the characters! But somehow, in spite of it all, I remained calm because somewhere within me, I knew the situation would resolve itself in a good way. I wasn’t worried. About two weeks into it, a thought popped into my head. “Find out who did the original artwork”. I didn’t do it immediately, so the next day I heard, “Find out who did the original artwork”. Unable to ignore that voice, I did some Internet research, made a few calls and found a customer service agent at another company that was selling rights to the artwork. He was a kind man. After hearing my sob story about this 73 year old woman (me) getting swindled, he searched and found the email address of the artist, Denis Vasiluev. To make a long story short, Denis was also outraged at the way I was taken advantage of and granted me full and complete global rights to the characters. It was nothing short of a miracle. I followed my inner knowing and it led me to the perfect outcome.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I have to admit it, I’m a nerd. I love learning how things work. Always have. In my fifties, smarthphones posed a challenge to me and I was determined to meet it. When I got my first Samsung in 2009, I went through every setting, learning how the device worked. I loved learning it. I naturally began helping my friends in their sixties, seventies and eighties. I learned something else too. I learned that I had a gift of explaining technology to older people. I could help them when no one else could. I use humor, stories and nostalgia to foster a welcoming and fun atmosphere. Lessons are broken down into understandable bits. Laughter is a regular part of the curriculum.
Typically, I am not a patient person, but when I am faced with a senior who doesn’t understand, I have endless patience to sit with them. I’m 73 and I truly understand how confusing a smartphone can be to an 80 or 90 year old. I have deep compassion and respect for them and their life experience. The best part of my job is seeing he light of understanding illuminate them when they ‘get’ it. It’s a revelation to them and I am filled with joy. I am also incredibly blessed when my students come to me at the end of the class and rave about how much they loved it and how much they learned. And it happens after almost every class.
I am proud of myself for having created a successful career from an inspiration, a thought, and I absolutely LOVE what I do! When I completely surrendered control and let go of any expectations, I found my purpose. I got what I asked for on that auspicious October day. I get get paid to do something I love.
What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
Without a doubt, the quality that is most important to my success is my sense of humor. I am always making jokes and saying funny things about the phone and what a pain it is. I keep my humor even when I have a crabby person in the room. And, there is typically at least one person who falls asleep in each group class. (It’s only a problem if they start snoring!)
There are other qualities, though, that have equally helped my career and that is compassion and respect. I have so much of it for these octogenarians and nonagenarians who come to my classes. They feel it. They know I only want to help them and encourage them to learn and to live happier.
To learn more about me, visit my website: TakeThisPhoneAndShoveIt.com
Pricing:
- Group lessons are $200/hour
- Private lessons are $75/hour
- The book will be $40
Contact Info:
- Website: https://TakeThisPhoneAndShoveIt.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/takethisphoneandshoveit/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61567529462634
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annegoldbergthesavvysenior/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@takethisphoneandshoveit
Image Credits
They are all taken by me, Anne Goldberg.
