So I tracked down the credit for the actress who played her. It was Eileen Herley. That name was familiar but I was still racking my brain for the connection. Then I remembered and it was a surprising association.

Eileen Herley plays the fascinating, direct, down to earth, former carnival worker and con woman Myrtle Fargate on All My Children.

Now I’ve been watching All My Children on ABC TV ever since I was in high school and they put a tv in the Junior-Senior Lounge (which was actually the basement) at Alvernia High School. So I do remember when the character of Myrtle first arrived. I had no idea that this was the same actress who in her younger days had played mother to Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet!

Not too long ago I saw her on the show, she’s now in her 80’s and her performances are still compelling.

Her journey from Shakespeare to daytime tv is a fascinating reminder that we can reinvent ourselves, put ourselves into brand new situations, and find people willing to pay us for what we do into our 80s and beyond. So baby boomers who are trying to figure out what’s next shouldn’t feel trapped by their past work experiences or image. Instead, they can choose to revisit a childhood dream or profit from an unexpected surprise.

I had to call it an encounter, I certainly couldn’t call it a conversation. It was pretty ugly. Not that they weren’t entitled to disagree with each other, but they weren’t even listening to each other. It reminded me of all the times when I was so excited about something that I would jump in before the other person had finished speaking. Or finish a sentence when the other person had paused too long. Or talk over someone to get my own point of view across. I’m not proud of my tendencies to do this.

Now I’ve been watching The View from time to time from the time that it first appeared on daytime television. (Sometimes I’m writing at my desk and have it on as background.) As the participants at the table have changed over the years, one of the things that’s been a constant has been the consistent talking over each other. This show has actually been a terrible model for conversation. We tend to subliminally absorb what we see and assume that’s all right.

And in the competitive world of business, I personally learned that sometimes I had to put the manners I’d learned aside and force my way into the conversation during a meeting or a conference call. When others won’t wait or ask for the silent participant’s opinions, I learned to jump in and join the fray. That’s probably why I still do that, even when the professional communicator in me knows that’s not the best way to build relationships with people.

So where are you on this continuum? Do you wait to be asked to contribute and lean more to the silent side of the scale or are you constantly talking over and on top of other people?

And if you’re in a leadership role, when you run a meeting, are you conscious of being alert and managing for this human dynamic?

Sometimes just being conscious and aware is all you need to make a better choice in a specific situation.

Unless of course, someone has pushed our buttons, like Rosie and Elisabeth did to each other, and all conscious control goes out the window.

That unlikely combo was his ticket to stardom and financial success. And acting is his second career!

After he graduated with some sort of degree in mathematics or computer science, he went to work behind the scenes at Industrial Light and Magic and was very successful there. But that didn’t mean that was the only path he could take.

In my work with executives and professionals who are trying to figure out what they want to do next in their career, often it’s the unusual combo of lifelong interests and passions that give us the clue to an unusual and exciting second career that they are uniquely qualified to create.

So what about you? If you were to pull together an unusual combo of 3 of your interests and skills, what does that suggest about a potential new opportunity for a new job or a new business for you?

You can do this if you’re in your twenties and already ready for something different or if you’re close to the time for retirement, but too young to retire and not wanting to stop working completely — and ready for work to be on your own terms.