This is the occasion of the release of Repurpose Your Career: A Practical Guide For Those in the 2nd Half of Life, Third Editions. Mark Anthony Dyson, the host of The Voice of Job Seekers podcast, has Marc on as a guest and this is the interview that was shared on that podcast. Marc shares some of the highlights of the book. Mark asks about ageism, necessary skills, and necessary mindsets for getting work that has meaning for you and will provide income in the second half of life. Listen in for sound advice for job seekers.
Marc is asking for your financial support for the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Please donate at Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer to support this Podcast.
[1:24] Marc welcomes you to Episode 151 of the Repurpose Your Career podcast.
[1:36] If you are enjoying this podcast, please share it with other like-minded souls. Subscribe on CareerPivot.com, iTunes, or any of the other apps that supply podcasts. Share it on social media or just tell your neighbors and colleagues. The more people Marc reaches, the more people he can help.
[1:55] Marc’s expenses to put this podcast on are about $400.00 a month. At 151 episodes, Marc is humbled by all the positive feedback and reviews.
[2:14] Marc is asking you for a donation of $5.00 a month but you can contribute as much or as little as you like. Every penny counts.
[2:20] If the Repurpose Your Career podcast is a part of your week and you love what Marc is doing, please support the podcast today. Go to Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer/ to give. This link will be at the top of the show notes at CareerPivot.com/episode-151.
[2:41] The Repurpose Your Career podcast is entering the fourth year. Marc is back in Ajijic, Mexico and getting back into the groove of being home. Marc has lots of new guests planned.
[2:56] Next week’s episode will be a replay of Marc’s interview on the Second Act Stories podcast. It is a worthwhile podcast for Marc’s audience.
[3:10] This week is a replay of Marc’s appearance on The Voice of Job Seekers podcast with Mark Anthony Dyson from September 10th. Marc hopes you enjoy this episode.
[3:20] Mark Anthony Dyson welcomes his regular guest Marc Miller to The Voice of Job Seekers in recognition of the release of Repurpose Your Career: A Practical Guide for the 2nd half of Life, Third Edition.
[3:53] Marc talks about the evolution of his book, starting in 2012 after the Great Recession when many Boomers started to realize they weren’t going to retire like their parents but would have to keep working.
[4:58] The Second Edition of the book, in 2017, addressed the concerns of GenXers, who found themselves in much the same financial circumstances as the Boomers.
[5:15] In 2019, we are in “full employment.” Everybody who wants a job has a job — except for those over 50, who are experiencing unemployment as high as 13 to 14 percent. Many of us will work into our 70s and it will take some planning. It’s probably not a full-time job.
[6:13] Marc hears from his online community that people want the freedom to work on what they want to do, when they want to work, and how hard they want to work. We are realizing the only safety there is in employment is in ourselves. An employer is not going “to take care of us.” Marc worked for IBM for 22 years. He thought he would finish there.
[7:04] The world doesn’t look the same as it did when Marc started at IBM.
[7:12] Mark says looking at the three percent unemployment statistic should not tell you that you should be able to find a job. We don’t read statistics correctly. We need to parse them out into their age brackets. The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not measure underemployment, either.
[7:47] If you’re older and you want to go back to work, you are not going to go back to the same gig you had before. Mark knows a former VP of a college who just retired from Starbucks. Starbucks has great benefits, but it’s not being the VP of a college.
[8:29] We are going through tremendous creative destruction and disruption. Marc tells people who switch industries to make sure that industry ‘has legs.’ Stay away from retail, education, and other industries that are being disrupted.
[9:08] Marc talks of people whose careers fell apart in five years. One was in marketing real estate. Marc got her into the HQ of Keller Williams to talk to Jay Papasan, who co-authored The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results with Gary Keller. He was the only person over 50 in the company.
[9:53] Marketing today is all clicks and analytics. Marc was in high-tech marketing in the ’90s. The marketing practices he followed no longer exist. In the ’70s and ’80s, people in marketing didn’t need to know any math. Now marketing is all analytics.
[10:27] Mark wrote on this subject for The Financial Diet. Talking about your 20-plus years of experience is the beginning of the death of your employment possibilities. 20 years of experience is less significant now than it has ever been.
[11:10] Marc has a chapter on ageism in his book. He uses a metaphor of trading in a 2003 vehicle to a dealer. It will be downgraded because it is old and doesn’t have the features of a new vehicle. It has wear-and-tear on it. Today, you need to be very aware of the skills that you need to acquire for today’s jobs.
[12:17] Boomers grew up with employers who kept us up to date and trained us. That’s not the case, anymore. Marc tells people to listen to podcasts. There’s a podcast for everything, including chameleon breeders. Stay up-to-date on your nickel.
[12:41] When you start marketing yourself, your next job, if you are over 50, is going to come through relationships. Much of your network that made you successful may have died or retired or changed roles. So you need to continually rebuild your network outside of your comfort zone.
[13:19] Marc interviewed Ashton Applewhite in CareerPivot.com/episode-118. Ashton talks about how we self-segregate. She recommends networking with people who are much younger. Marc has a friend who volunteered for the Beto O’Rourke campaign, which completely changed his view of Millennials.
[14:23] We need someone to tell us that people don’t do what we used to do, or think the way we used to think. Mark talks about his CTS Cadillac 2005. Newer cars have more functionality. Unless you upgrade your skills, employers are not going to pay for your functionality, except for simple things, and not for very long.
[15:37] Mark and Marc had to learn to edit audio and video, put it online, and make sure it makes sense to any audience. These were new skills and functionalities they had to learn. There are things any older worker is going to have to learn to do to be employed.
[16:21] Even if you don’t have all the new skills, Know what they are. Marc talks about image consultant Jean Lefebvre of Austin. At age 71, Jean has started a Fulfilment by Amazon business where her first product is earring lifter backs under the brand name Wardrobe Jazz, for women with sagging earlobes.
[17:34] Marc also helped a guy who was doing retail arbitrage through Fulfilment by Amazon. He became a certified vendor and bought clearance items through box stores and shipped them to Amazon to ship out. It’s not for everybody, but he enjoys doing it. This is a business model that didn’t exist five years ago.
[18:37] Marc is publishing his fourth book, running Amazon ads and Facebook ads. Over the last six or seven years, Marc has sold over 5,000 copies of his books. It’s a side income that fosters other pieces of his business.
[19:17] Marc shares some of the stress involved with working with a book cover designer, MamiSerwaa, living in Ghana.
[20:10] Older workers are still thinking that you have to be in person to make traction. You have to get used to making traction online and virtually. You need to be able to work with people anywhere in the world. If you communicate so that the borders are seamless, you can make strides in the 2020 gig economy.
[21:19] Marc has a virtual assistant, Stephanie, who lives in Florida. Marc found Stephanie by putting a request on LinkedIn looking for a virtual assistant.
[21:51] Hannah Morgan was a recent guest on Repurpose Your Career. They met online and have not met face-to-face.
[22:04] Marc and Mark have never met face-to-face, but they’re very comfortable talking to one another.
[22:22] The world of work has changed and it’s going to continue to change.
[22:31] Marc hopes you enjoyed that episode. Mark Anthony Dyson is a dear friend of Marc’s who has helped Marc’s podcast and has also been an inspiration to Marc. The Voice of Job Seekers is entering its seventh season! Give it your support!
[22:50] The career Pivot Membership Community continues to help the approximately 50 members who are participating in the Beta phase of this project to grow and thrive. This is a community where everyone is there to help everyone else. Marc is recruiting new members for the next cohort.
[23:05] If you are interested in the Career Pivot Membership Community and would like to be put on a waiting list, please go to CareerPivot.com/Community.
[23:19] Marc invites you to connect with him on LinkedIn.com/in/mrmiller. Just include in the connection request that you listen to this podcast. You can look for Career Pivot on Facebook, LinkedIn, or @CareerPivot on Twitter.
[23:30] Please come back next week when Marc replays his appearance on the Second Act Stories podcast.
[23:36] Please support the Repurpose Your Career podcast by going to Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer. This link is also at the top of the show notes.
[23:51] You will find the show notes for this episode at CareerPivot.com/episode-151.
[23:58] Please hop over to CareerPivot.com and subscribe to get updates on this podcast and all the other happenings at Career Pivot. You can also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, the Google Podcasts app, Podbean, the Overcast app, or the Spotify app!