Podcast #163 - Marc Interviews Jeff Tidwell and Carole McManus, founders of NextforMe.com

Description:

Next For Me was founded by Jeff Tidwell as a catalyst for change. This organization celebrates potential through new work, a new purpose, or a new social contribution.

Jeff began his career with alternative newspapers and then moved online; he has since worked in Silicon Valley and New York overseeing online communities and user experience for E*TRADE, WebMD, Oncology.com, MarketTools, Chirp Interactive, and many startups. Today, he’s the CEO and Co-Founder of Next For Me. He has been a featured speaker at TechInclusion and is a regular contributor to Forbes “Chronicles of a 50+ Entrepreneur”; Jeff is also a regular guest on podcasts and ‘longevity economy’ conferences and events. He is the author of “Next For Me: A Guide to Startups for Dreamers“.

Carole McManus, co-founder and Editor in Chief, is a marketing and social media strategist with a history of building some of the most successful online communities on the Web, including Yahoo! and BabyCenter. Her former clients include Frito-Lay, Del Monte, Johnson & Johnson, E*TRADE, HBO.com, Edmunds.com, and Oncology.com. She is currently the Director of Digital Marketing for CatCon and on the Board of Directors of the WELL, which Wired Magazine called “the world’s most influential online community”. Carole and Jeff have worked together for nearly 20 years.

Repurpose Your Career Podcast Survey

The 2020 Repurpose Your Career Podcast survey is available. I am looking for your feedback about what you liked in 2019 and what you would like to see in 2020. Please click here to take the survey.

For the full show notes click here.

Podcast #162 - Marc Interviews Joanne Webb, Author of Desire the Skies - The First Book Every Aspiring Flight Attendant Needs to Read

Description:

Joanne Webb has been a flight attendant for nineteen years. As she pursued this career path, she also took some miss-steps along the way.  She applied to become a flight attendant a few different times after graduating from college.  She was rejected, and based on that feeling, stopped pursuing the one career that truly made her feel excited. 

In the summer of 2000, Joanne wandered into a hat store in New York City after calling on a client.  The woman working there, Tricia, was about fifty at the time.  She mentioned she was going to Paris that night and that she was a flight attendant for Continental Airlines, which is now part of United Airlines.  Joanne told her she had applied three years before and they didn't want her.  Tricia assured her that was not necessarily true - she just needed some coaching. Joanne reapplied at Continental and is now a nineteen-year flight attendant at United (United and Continental merged). 

Joanne also spent two years volunteering with immigrants in Denver with employment services.  In doing this, she learned about resumes and interviews, as well as about the general workplace from a different angle. Joanne has taken knowledge from the airline industry and from employment counseling and has created two online courses, does private interview coaching, and has written a book called Desire the Skies: The First Book Every Aspiring Flight Attendant Needs to Read.  Many of her clients are doing a Career Pivot.

Repurpose Your Career Podcast Survey

The 2020 Repurpose Your Career Podcast survey is available. I am looking for your feedback about what you liked in 2019 and what you would like to see in 2020. Please click here to take the survey.

Next week, I have the founders of NextforMe.com, Carole McManus and Jeff Tidwell to talk to us about their online community and their book by the same name.

Now on to the podcast…

Prescription for Change: From Pharmacist To Flight Attendant - Secondactstories.org

Joanne explains that people who are interested in becoming flight attendants in the 2nd half of life are often those who wanted to do this earlier in their lives but did not pursue it.

Airlines Catagories

Regional Airlines

• Mesa
• Endeavor
• PSA
• Commute Air

(Doing business as United Express, Delta Connection, or American Eagle.) 

Low-Cost Airlines

• Ultra-Low-Cost
  • Allegiant Air
  • Spirit
  • Frontier
• Low Cost
  • Jet Blue
  • Southwest

Legacy Airlines

• Hawaiian 
• Alaska
• Delta
• United
• American

For the full show notes click here.

Description:

In this episode, Marc talks about life as an expat in Mexico after 18 months. He gives you an update on:

• Healthcare
• Health Insurance including Medicare
• Voting from Abroad
• Shopping and Safety

Repurpose Your Career Podcast Survey

The 2020 Repurpose Your Career Podcast survey is available. I am looking for your feedback about what you liked in 2019 and what you would like to see in 2020. Please click here to take the survey.

Key Takeaways:

Repurpose Your Career: A Practical Guide for the 2^nd Half of Life, 3^rd edition is available on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, Powells.com, BooksaMillion.com, and many other fine online retailers. I am working on the audio version of the book but this is taking longer than planned. Look for this to be out in February of 2020.

Next week, I interview Joanne Webb, author of Desire the Skies, the First Book Every Aspiring Flight Attendant Needs to Read. Many more of my readers than I ever expected want to be a flight attendant, and yes, it is possible.

For the full show notes click here.

Description:

Brenda Bernstein, award-winning Certified Executive Resume Master, Certified Master Resume Writer, and accomplished editor and LinkedIn trainer, holds an English degree from Yale University and a J.D. from the NYU School of Law. Her signature presentations on How to Write a KILLER LinkedIn Profile have been attended by thousands of job seekers and other professionals seeking to establish a professional image on LinkedIn. Over her 15 years as Senior Editor at The Essay Expert, Brenda has coached hundreds of professionals and companies to write resumes, essays and other materials that result in sought after job interviews, admission to top schools, and measurable business success. She has written three highly-acclaimed books: How to Write a KILLER LinkedIn Profile, How to Write a WINNING Resume, and How to Write a STELLAR Executive Resume.

Repurpose Your Career Podcast Survey

The 2020 Repurpose Your Career Podcast survey is available. I am looking for your feedback about what you liked in 2019 and what you would like to see in 2020. Please click here to take the survey.

If you would like to financially support this show please go to Careerpivot.com/donate to make a donation. You will find this link at the top of the show notes. As I stated in previous interviews, I have cut costs in producing this show and if you would like to see me continue on a weekly basis please consider making even a small donation.

Key Takeaways:

Repurpose Your Career: A Practical Guide for the 2^nd Half of Life, 3^rd edition is available on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, Powells.com, BooksaMillion.com, and many other fine online retailers. I am working on the audio version of the book but this is taking longer than planned. Look for this to be out in February of 2020. 

Next week, I will be reporting on what it is like being an expat in Mexico. I will be giving an update on health insurance and healthcare, shopping, and safety.

For the full show notes click here.

Description:

Alexandra Gordon is the owner of HouseSitMexico.com. Alexandra retired with her husband 10 years ago in Mexico, but a few years ago she had the opportunity to buy the domain "housesitMexico.com" and is now working on turning it into a thriving business. It is a fascinating story of someone in the 2^nd half of life turning on their entrepreneurial juices.

If you would like to financially support this show please go to Careerpivot.com/donate to make a donation. You will find this link at the top of the show notes. As I stated in previous interviews, I have cut costs in producing this show and if you would like to see me continue on a weekly basis please consider making even a small donation.

Key Takeaways:

Repurpose Your Career: A Practical Guide for the 2^nd Half of Life, 3^rd edition is available on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, Powells.com, BooksaMillion.com, and many other fine online retailers. I am working on the audio version of the book but this is taking longer than planned. Look for this to be out in February of 2020. I should say this episode will sound a little different than previous episodes. We recorded this session in Alexandra’s living room on my Zoom H4N audio recorder. This is one of my few in-person interviews.

Next week, I will be interviewing Brenda Bernstein, author of the best selling LinkedIn book How to Write a Killer LinkedIn Profile.

For complete show notes please click here.

Description:

Jonathan Rauch, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute in Washington, is the author of six books and many articles on public policy, culture, and government. He is the contributing editor of The Atlantic, and recipient of the 2005 National Magazine Award, the magazine industry’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. His latest book is The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50.

Marc is asking for your financial support for the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Please donate at Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer to support this Podcast.

Key Takeaways:

Welcome to episode 158 of the repurpose your career podcast. My name is Marc Miller and I will be your host every Monday for a discussion on what it is like to repurpose your career.

If you are new to the Repurpose Your Career podcast I want to welcome you to the show.

I am running my annual Repurpose Your Career podcast survey. If you would be so kind to go to careerpivot.com/podcastsurvey that is one word and take my annual podcast survey. I will collect some minor demographic information and if you could let me know what was your favorite episode of 2019 and give me some feedback on what you would like in 2020.

Click here to take the survey.

We are back on a weekly publication schedule and I have a lot of great episodes scheduled in the coming months.

Next week, I will be interviewing Alexandra Gordon who is the owner of HouseSitMexico.com. Alexandra retired with her husband 10 years ago in Mexico but a few years ago she had to the opportunity to buy the domain housesitMexico.com and is now working on turning it into a thriving business. It is a fascinating story of someone in the 2^nd half of life turning on their entrepreneurial juices.

Repurpose Your Career A Practical Guide for the 2^nd Half of Life 3^rd edition is available on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, Powells.com, BooksaMillion.com and many other fine online retailers. I am working on the audio version of the book but this is taking longer than planned. Look for this to be out in February of 2020.

For complete show notes please click here.

Description:

Thea Kelley is a job search and interview coach based in the San Francisco Bay Area and serving job seekers nationwide. Her book, the Amazon best-seller Get That Job! The Quick and Complete Guide to a Winning Interview was hailed as Excellent on Forbes.com. For state-of-the-art job search tips and a free gift, subscribe to Thea’s blog at www.GreatJobSooner.com. For one-on-one services to help you get a great job sooner visit www.JobSearchAndInterviewCoach.com. Marc is asking for your financial support for the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Please donate at Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer to support this Podcast.

Key Takeaways:

Marc wishes everyone a happy new year and I hope everyone had a great holiday season. I recorded the interview for today's episode in late November and I am recording the rest on January 2nd. I am just about to get started on the recording of the Repurpose Your Career 3^rd edition book as I record this. I have spent much of the holiday season doing my annual website and podcast audit. If you would be so kind as to go to careerpivot.com/podcastsurvey that is one word and take my annual podcast survey. I will collect some minor demographic information and if you could let me know what was your favorite episode of 2019 and give me some feedback on what you would like in 2020.

Click here to take the survey.

I recorded many episodes in December with more planned for early January including interview of the owner of the website housesitmexico.com, Brenda Bernstein author of the best selling LinkedIn book How to Write a Killer LinkedIn Profile, another can Phil repurpose his career series, I am sure I will call him Phil, Danielle Kunkle Roberts from Boomer Benefits to explain Medicare at 50, not Medicare for All but Medicare at 50 and much more. My plan was to publish only 2 episodes in January but if all goes well I will be back to a weekly publication schedule this month. Therefore, next week will be an encore episode with the most popular episode in the last 2 years, which was episode 78 when I interviewed Jonathan Rauch, author of ​The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50. This episode has been downloaded close to 2500 times since it’s release in May of 2018 and continues to get 15-30 downloads per month. It is a fascinating interview.

For complete show notes please click here.

Description:

Less than 2 years ago, Jordan and Maddie quit their careers in the US and sold nearly everything they owned to travel through Mexico. With no prior video-production experience, they started making videos about their travels, and today their YouTube channel has more than 100,000 subscribers. This will be only the 3rd time in over 3 years where I am speaking with Millennials. However, Jordan and Maddie are doing what many of you would like to do - travel and make travel pay for itself.

Marc is asking for your financial support for the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Please donate at Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer to support this Podcast.

Key Takeaways:

Marc welcomes you to Episode 156 of the Repurpose Your Career podcast. 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.

Repurpose Your Career: A Practical Guide for the 2nd Half of Life Third Edition is available at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, Powells.com, BooksaMillion.com and many other fine online retailers.

This will be the last episode for 2019. I will publish the next episode with Thea Kelly on creating a career pivot resume on January 6th. I will likely only publish 2 episodes in the month of January but resume a weekly publishing schedule in February of 2020. I have episodes scheduled all the way through April.

Now on to the podcast...

Why did Maddie and Jordan start to travel? They were both unhappy in their careers. Maddie had health issues largely caused by the food available in the U.S.

Originally, they were bloggers on Steemit.com. This a platform where you can make money with upvotes by readers and be paid in cryptocurrency. They noticed that hardly anybody was adding videos to their blog posts with the crash of cryptocurrency and the monetization of YouTube channels.

How long did it take to start making money? It took 6 months to earn enough to cover their monthly expenses for living in Mexico. They used these other sources of income:

• YouTube ad revenue
• Patreon
• Sponsorships - Tried this but found it is a lot of work
• Affiliate marketing

YouTube commenters say both good and bad things. The vast majority are positive. Focus on the good comments and block/delete the bad ones. The number one reason people quit being a YouTuber is the comments. Maddie and Jordan talk about how these comments get under their skin. They have developed a thicker skin but it is still hard.

They had a plan which they deviated from after 3 months and never went back to their original plan. They had to be flexible. Maddie had to learn to be flexible. They determine where to go next by flying via Scott's Cheap Flights website. Do they find living in Mexico to be dangerous? They feel safer in Mexico than in Arizona where they came from. They did a video called The REAL DANGERS of MEXICO.

They also did a video called HOW ON EARTH We Afford to Travel FULL TIME.

For a Baby Boomer traveler's perspective, check out my interview with Barbara Weibel - Inspiring Story from One of the Top Baby Boomer Travel Bloggers [Podcast].

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. 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.

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.

Please support the Repurpose Your Career podcast by going to Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer. This link is also at the top of the show notes.

You will find the show notes for this episode at CareerPivot.com/episode-156. 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 and on Pandora!

Description:

Teresa Sansone Ferguson built a career in marketing and public relations while working at state associations, technology consulting firms and law firms. She also worked at KUT public radio in Austin for more than 20 years, where she produced and hosted KUT's Femme FM (a music show featuring female artists) and the Austin Music Minute. Teresa now serves as executive director of non-profit organization AustinUP , which was formed as a result of the Mayor's Task Force on Aging – based on the fact that the Austin area has one of the nation’s fastest-growing populations of older adults. AustinUP works with local and regional business and civic leaders, entrepreneurs, non-profit service organizations, boomers, seniors and caregivers on issues related to the future of aging in Austin. Marc is asking for your financial support for the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Please donate at Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer to support this Podcast.

Key Takeaways:

Marc welcomes you to Episode 155 of the Repurpose Your Career podcast. 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. Repurpose Your Career: A Practical Guide for the 2nd Half of Life Third Edition is available at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, Powells.com, BooksaMillion.com and many other fine online retailers. The book has 30 reviews on Amazon platforms. Marc thanks everyone who has taken the time to review it. I will publish only 2 episodes in the month of December. In two weeks, I will interview Maddie and Jordan from Tangerine Travels. "Less than 2 years ago, Jordan and Maddie quit their careers in the US and sold nearly everything they owned to travel through Mexico. With no prior video-production experience, they started making videos about their travels, and today their YouTube channel has more than 100,000 subscribers." This will be only the 3^rd time in over 3 years where I will be speaking with a millennial. However, Jordan and Maddie are doing what many of you would like to do, travel and make the travel pay for itself.

Now on to the podcast...

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AustinUp is a 501(c)3 that was formed as the result of the Austin mayor's task force on aging in 2010 after it was discovered that Austin had one of the fastest-growing populations of older adults.

Jobs for older adults were identified as a key component. Older adults are typically over 50 years of age but increasingly agism is creeping into younger age groups.

Employer expectations - Home healthcare and call centers want over 50+ workers.

Austin is #6 on the baby chaser index. 

AustinUP still working on the diversity of employers.

The types of people who come to the 50+ job fairs:

• There are those that are just curious
• Those that tried going on their own but are now applying at Home Depot
• Those that want a flexible work schedule where they can take time off to travel
• Unfocused job seekers who have a wide variety of skills
• The online job seekers who have looked online unsuccessfully

Businesses in Lakeway are starting and closing due to so few candidates.

Working in retail can be a good choice if you are looking for flexibility. 

High tech and manufacturing have not caught on. Caroline Valentine of Valentine HR said that high tech is the diehard and Teresa is working to get them to see the light.

The message is not to hire older workers but conveying the importance of creating a multi-generational workplace.

Volunteering is a great way to develop new skills and a great networking opportunity to learn a new community.

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.

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.

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. Please come back next week when Marc will interview Maddie and Jordan from Tangerine Travels [35:43] Please support the Repurpose Your Career podcast by going to Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer. This link is also at the top of the show notes. You will find the show notes for this episode at CareerPivot.com/episode-155.  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 and on Pandora!

As a career coach, author, and speaker, John supports individuals and teams in making more effective career choices and more sustainable career plans. John works across generations, from graduate students looking to land their first jobs, to GenX and Boomer workers over fifty looking to redefine and sustain their careers beyond traditional retirement. Starting with the notion that our ideal career is already inside us, John advocates a more personal-growth approach to career development, vs the traditional HR skills-based paradigm.

John has a new LinkedIn Learning course, Connecting with Your Millennial Manager. Marc and John discuss the inevitability of your working for a Millennial as you age in the workplace and how you can make it a positive growth experience.

Marc is asking for your financial support for the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Please donate at Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer to support this Podcast.

Key Takeaways:

[1:38] Marc welcomes you to Episode 154 of the Repurpose Your Career podcast.

[1:51] 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.

[2:10] Repurpose Your Career: A Practical Guide for the 2nd Half of Life Third Edition is available at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, Powells.com, BooksaMillion.com and many other fine online retailers. The book has 30 reviews on Amazon platforms. Marc thanks everyone who has taken the time to review it.

[2:36] After three years of doing the Repurpose Your Career podcast it is time for a change. Marc talks about the financial concerns around the podcast and Marc’s Career Pivot business. Marc’s business now focuses on the Career Pivot online membership community to help the most people at a lower cost to the people he helps.

[3:15] 2018 was the year the Millers became expats living in Ajijic, Mexico, which greatly reduced their living expenses and helped finance the restructuring of the business. Career Pivot needed to be financially viable.

[3:33] In 2019 the Career Pivot website was attacked. For the first time, the website traffic for the year declined from the previous year, though very slightly.

[3:47] Marc recently posted about “A Redesigned and Refocused Career Pivot After Attack.” He discussed the website and why he recently changed it.

[3:58] Because the business no longer supports the costs of production, Marc is making changes starting with the next episode. Marc will eliminate the time-stamped podcast show notes with a detailed write-up of the show. About half of Marc’s listeners read the show notes. Marc will provide dramatically reduced notes.

[4:30] Marc acknowledges the production work of Podfly Productions, as he transitions the Repurpose Your Career podcast to in-house production. Marc recommends using the Podfly.net team if you want to start your own podcast!

[4:54] Marc will move to scheduling an episode every other week instead of the weekly schedule he has kept for three years. If Marc gets ahead on episodes over the next few months, he may revert to a weekly schedule.

[5:07] Marc will not publish an episode the week of the U.S. Thanksgiving and will produce two episodes in December. On January 6th, 2020 Marc will start the regular biweekly schedule.

[5:22] If you would like to financially support this show, please go to Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer/ to give. This link will be at the top and bottom of the show notes at CareerPivot.com/episode-154.

[5:34] Next week’s episode will be an interview with Teresa Ferguson, Executive Director of AustinUP, a community alliance committed to making Central Texas a place where older adults live full and engaged lives. Teresa has a unique view of the fifty-plus employment world.

[5:57] This week, Marc interviews returning guest, John Tarnoff. John just published a LinkedIn Learning Online course, Connecting With Your Millennial Manager. Marc thinks it is incredibly well-done. We may all work at some time for a Millennial Manager. Marc hopes you enjoy this episode.

[6:24] Marc welcomes John Tarnoff to the Repurpose Your Career podcast and introduces John to the listening audience.

[6:33] John has a new course on LinkedIn Learning, called Connecting with Your Millennial Manager. Marc comments on how well-done this course is. It is divided into short modules with a quiz after each one. If you miss a question it tells you how to find the right answer.

[7:13] John gives credit to LinkedIn for ushering him through the process of designing an instructional course.

[7:28] LinkedIn approached John a year ago about setting up a course on age-related issues. Managing Someone Older Than You came out in February 2019. John asked them about the “companion piece” of an older worker needing to relate to a younger, probably Millennial boss, and they agreed. That course came out in October 2019.

[9:13] The first module is “Everyone’s Getting Younger.” John explains that means in the workplace. If we have children, they are probably Millennials. Boomers often perceive Millennials as entitled slackers. They change jobs often. However, this is also related to the economy being much different than the economy in which Boomers started working.

[12:02] Statisticians are finding that by the time a Millennial is promoted to a managerial position, it’s because they are very committed, on top of their job and their responsibilities, and are likely a top contender to work for.

[12:28] Millennials are working in a very different economic climate, with colossal student debt and depressed wages. Home ownership is harder for them to achieve than it was for Boomers. They don’t see getting to the American Dream.

[13:29] In Marc’s Multi-Generational Workplace workshop, he talks about the Millennials being the echoes of the Boomers.

[13:52] Ashton Applewhite was a guest on this podcast. She talked about our natural tendency to self-segregate by age group.

[14:30] Marc gave a talk on ageism last year. Afterward, a Boomer walked up to him and said he had volunteered for the Beto O’Rourke for Senate Campaign. He said, “Boy, did my attitude change about the Millennials!”

[15:09] John’s course covers common-sense business relationship-building practice. Look at working for a Millennial as an opportunity to be of service. Be ready to mentor; support the work that they do. You will have a lot more fun in your job, find your ‘fit,’ and inspire a closer working relationship with this younger person.

[16:32] The course section, “Working for a Millennial Boss,” discusses being of service. One of the keys to mentoring is that it’s not teaching. It’s listening openly and offering suggestions for how that person can figure out how to do it for themselves in their own way.

[17:13] As a mentor, you don’t want to tell someone how you did it; you want to listen to what they are going through and have them list the specific problems and tactically offer up possibilities for them to consider. Give them alternatives, perspective, and context. Let them come to the conclusion.

[17:54] When you first come to your Millennial boss, be a really good listener. John quotes Steven Covey: “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” Be humble. The world is really different. Younger people have an understanding of how the pace of change is affecting business and technology is affecting management communication.

[19:03] Stuff still gets done but now we talk of lean process, agile management, and design thinking. These are new trends in the past decade. A diligent Millennial Manager is going to be working overtime to understand how these processes can benefit their team. There’s a lot we have to learn to be part of that team. We also have a lot to offer.

[19:57] Marc takes a break from the interview with John to talk about the Career Pivot Membership Community, which continues to help the approximately 50 members who are participating in the beta phase of this project to grow and thrive.

[20:10] Marc reads a member testimonial from community member Scott: “There are multiple online Mastermind groups each week as well as experts speaking to the group on a regular basis. Better yet, the content is recorded in case you have other plans that day. If you are debating LinkedIn Premium or Career Pivot, go with Career Pivot.

[20:33] “You get tons of access to Marc and the wisdom of the tribe. You’ll be glad you joined.” Marc hopes you liked what Scott had to say. Marc would like to highlight that the key piece is the wisdom of the tribe.

[20:48] This is a paid membership community where Marc offers group coaching, special content, mastermind groups, branding sessions, Slack channels, and more importantly, it’s a community where you can seek help. Please go to CareerPivot.com/Community to sign up to learn more.

[21:13] What makes us in the second half of life an asset to today’s workforce? John says it’s the wisdom and experience. We come up with methods that just work, based on what we already have done. Our neural pathways have become well-worn in this area and we come up with answers quickly. It’s not just experience but also context.

[23:14] Don’t tell people how to do it, or what worked “in my day.” Never say, “in my day”! Always be in the present. Don’t invoke your experience. Talk about your suggestion on its merits. Justify your solution based on present conditions.

[24:04] Marc shares an anecdote from his days at IBM in the 1990s, when he was training technical support people. They found that when you solve a problem in a specific domain, the next time you see a similar problem in a similar domain, you will solve it sooner.

[24:32] Marc gave the technical support people opportunities to work with technology when the product was still immature, so they would encounter more problems quicker. Marc has things he learned in college as an engineer apply today when he fixes his car.

[25:05] John warns to be careful about invoking past solutions just because they worked once in a different domain. The solution can be offered as an approach if it will work today. If it works, and your manager asks where the idea came from you can then admit that you’ve been doing it that way for years. Millennials are suspicious of the past.

[26:14] The past is not relevant. Think about the solution in terms of what’s going to work today. Don’t use past success as your authority for a current application.

[26:43] John wants the course to give people confidence about reporting to a younger person. Almost 60% of people over 55 are reporting to someone younger. As Millennials age into these positions of responsibility, someone two generations below you will manage you.

[27:37] John also says we need to spread the word that reporting to someone younger can be very enriching and liberating. If you develop a good working relationship with someone who is 30 years younger think of how that will enrich your perspective and cultural influences. We stay young by the diversity of connections we make.

[28:39] The more we spend time with people of varied backgrounds and ages, the more our lives are enriched and the more we discover inside ourselves we never knew was there, or that we had lost. It enriches our lives. Put aside the nostalgia and embrace new experiences. Continue contributing to work, life, and culture.

[30:25] Boomers and Millennials are very compatible. They have the same activist tendencies for meaning, purpose, and social justice. There is a lot to be gained by forming close relationships with Millennials, especially in the context of work.

[30:59] From developing these courses, John learned that his initial hypothesis was correct that the more time Boomers and Millennials spend together, the more they get from each other. All the research points in that direction.

[31:43] John cites a study by Dr. Karl Pillemer at Cornell that says the more generations spend time together, the more age bias withers away. Familiarity breeds harmony, cooperation, and understanding. We just need to spend more time hanging out with, working with, people of different generations. That is the future.

[32:27] Marc talks about the multi-generational families where he lives in Mexico. Marc notes that in all the ‘Blue Zones’ where there are more centenarians, a common trait is that there are multi-generational families.

[32:53] Multi-generational family living keeps your brain growing because you are constantly learning and experiencing life with people that are not ‘like you.’

[33:23] You can take John’s course on LinkedIn Learning (originally, Lynda.com). Find him at JohnTarnoff.com. Find John on LinkedIn, or Facebook. A Google search brings up some of his links on the first page.

[34:25] Marc thanks John for being on the Repurpose Your Career podcast.

[34:37] Marc hopes you enjoyed that episode. Marc was impressed with this thought-provoking interview.

[34:50] 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.

[35:05] 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.

[35:20] 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.

[35:35] Please come back next week when Marc will interview Teresa Ferguson, Executive Director of AustinUp!

[35:43] Please support the Repurpose Your Career podcast by going to Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer. This link is also at the top of the show notes.

[35:58] You will find the show notes for this episode at CareerPivot.com/episode-154.

[36:08] 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 and soon to be on Pandora!

Jayne Mattson is a career management expert and author with deep experience in corporate and private business sectors and accomplished facilitator, trainer, and coach. Jayne is known for inspiring and motivating individuals to explore career options and to help them build sustainable confidence. Jayne helps with mid-career professionals, providing guidance and services that help them take charge of their careers. She partners with the Boston Young Professional Association, writing articles for their blog on career-related topics. She is a frequent writer/contributor on career-related topics to CareerBuilder, Monster, CIO, Mashable, and other sites as well as print publications, including The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.

Jayne recently published a book, You, You, Me, You: The Art of Talking to People, Networking and Building Relationships. A strong believer in giving back, Jayne volunteers as a confidence coach with the Budget Buddies, a Massachusetts-based non-profit organization, focused on improving the financial literacy of low-income women.

Marc is asking for your financial support for the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Please donate at Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer to support this Podcast.

Key Takeaways:

[1:14] Marc welcomes you to Episode 153 of the Repurpose Your Career podcast.

[1:28] 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.

[1:47] After three years of doing the Repurpose Your Career podcast it is time for a change. Marc talks about the financial concerns around the podcast and Marc’s Career Pivot business.

[3:04] A couple of weeks ago, Marc posted about “A Redesigned and Refocused Career Pivot After Attack.” He discussed the website and why he recently changed it.

[3:17] Because the business no longer supports the costs of production, Marc is making changes. Marc will eliminate the time-stamped podcast show notes with a detailed write-up of the show. About half of Marc’s listeners read the show notes. Marc will provide dramatically reduced notes.

[3:43] Marc acknowledges the production work of Podfly Productions, as he transitions the Repurpose Your Career podcast to in-house production. Marc recommends using the Podfly team if you want to start your own podcast!

[4:04] Marc will move to scheduling an episode every other week instead of the weekly schedule he has kept for three years. If Marc gets ahead on episodes over the next few months, he may revert to a weekly schedule.

[4:27] Marc will not publish an episode the week of U.S. Thanksgiving and will probably produce two episodes in December. On January 6th, 2020 Marc will start the regular biweekly schedule.

[4:44] If you would like to financially support this show, please go to Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer/ to give. This link will be at the top of the show notes at CareerPivot.com/episode-153. Marc received the first donation this week — a one-time donation of $60.00 that will cover three months of podcast hosting services. Thank you!

[5:13] Next week’s episode will be an interview with returning guest John Tarnoff. John just published a LinkedIn Learning Online course, Connecting With Your Millennial Manager. Marc thinks it is incredibly well-done. We may all work sometime for a Millennial Manager.

[5:43] In this week’s episode, Marc interviews Jayne Mattson. Marc shares her bio. Marc hopes you enjoy this episode.

[7:06] Marc welcomes Jayne Mattson to the Repurpose Your Career podcast.

[7:47] Jayne gives the background on how she decided to write You, You, Me, You. As a career management consultant, she determined that she needed to focus on teaching people how to build relationships rather than how to network. People were not learning about the other person. She started to teach the principles of you, you, me, and you.

[9:25] People who are in transition or looking for another job need relationships. Relationships are more about the other person. Also, in the world of selfies, Jayne suggests you focus away from yourself and focus more on other people. These concerns provided Jayne the impetus to write a book about them.

[10:21] Marc’s networking goal is to start with the attitude, ‘How can I help other people?’ If he can help them, that’s great. He expects nothing in return. Jayne notes that people often expect networking to provide contacts, but contacts are earned, not given carelessly. There are many aspects of true relationship-building.

[11:16] Marc also notes that when you focus on the other person, you are more likable. In her book, Jayne refers to a couple of individuals who were influential in her career: Dale Carnegie and her father. Jayne’s father gave her Dale Carnegie’s book when she was 15. He told her, “If you read this book, you will always be successful.”

[11:55] Because of her father, Jayne read How to Win Friends & Influence People every year. Dale Carnegie’s principles are all about making the other person feel more special than you. Jayne has practiced that throughout her life and she has been successful.

[12:27] Jayne explains and role-plays the ‘you, you, me, you’ conversation in a networking situation. The point is to show that you are more interested in the other person than in your own interest. Show appreciation of their time, say why you are there, then close by thanking them for their time and looking forward to staying in touch.

[14:30] Networking is about soliciting help from other people along the way who are going to help you in your career endeavor. You want to be memorable to them when they think about a job opening.

[15:05] Most people in Austin have moved there. Marc would always ask “How did you get to Austin?” Everyone had a story. Marc would keep digging down with questions until he found something they had in common. Marc used standard questions that revealed a pattern.

[15:53] Jayne shares a networking experience she had with an introvert who read Jayne’s book before meeting her and came prepared with questions about what she had read in the book so she showed her interest. Always be curious and genuine. Don’t sound like you’re checking questions off a list. It will show.

[16:52] As you ask questions you will find commonality and ease your way into the conversation. If you show you are willing to help them, they will also be willing to help you.

[17:20] The ‘you, you, me, you’ concept is about building relationships. Jayne talks about the different stages of relationship-building in the book: Initiating it, developing rapport, and establishing the relationship. The most important concept is sustainability. Stay informed and connected to them, through LinkedIn or even hand-written notes.

[18:49] As you build relationships, practice the steps in the book with people with whom you are already comfortable. Eventually, it will become a habit and you will see people reacting to you in a more genuine collaborative way. It will be a connection of the heart.

[19:30] Marc’s friend, Thom Singer, a public speaker, suggests writing a hand-written card and sticking your business card in it.

[20:03] Jayne recommends, especially to young people, to get personalized stationery. When you send a note, your name will always be at the top, to remind them who you are and how you met. You want them to remember your name.

[21:32] Jayne says, no matter how bad your handwriting is, people will notice that you took the thought and effort to send a personal note.

[22:36] Jayne makes a point of explaining the ‘y’ in her name. It makes her memorable.

[23:13] Marc takes a break from the interview to talk about the Career Pivot Membership Community, which continues to help the approximately 50 members who are participating in the beta phase of this project to grow and thrive.

[23:27] Marc reads a member testimonial from community member Cleo: “I joined the Career Pivot Community as a frustrated over-60 job seeker looking for some support and I did find that in this group.

[23:40] “Marc is wise in the ways of self-analysis, job search, and small business and is able to help encourage and poke group members to find meaningful work. I have improved my online presence and reputation, found freelance work, established a path to future employment that makes sense.

[24:00] “You get out of the community what you put into it. If you engage regularly, you will find people with a wide range of skills who are more than willing to support and advise other community members and you can gain inspiration seeing what they achieve.” Marc wants you to see that it’s not just Marc, it’s the community.

[24:25] This is a paid membership community where Marc offers group coaching, special content, mastermind groups, branding sessions, Slack channels, and more importantly, it’s a community where you can seek help. Please go to CareerPivot.com/Community to sign up to learn more.

[24:45] Marc asks Jayne about sticky situations, such as not knowing how to extract yourself from a conversation. Work with how you feel about people, in general. If you look at them unfavorably, you may unthinkingly dismiss someone rudely. If you remember that everyone has a story to tell, you may be more gentle breaking it off.

[25:54] Jayne suggests a positive script for bringing a long conversation to a close when you need to move on. Treat people with respect and dignity. Make sure not to offend. You never know how this person will come into your life again.

[27:08] Jayne gives an example of a person who needs to develop a rapport with a client but also needs to let the client know that what they did was inappropriate. You need good communication skills while developing and maintaining a relationship.

[27:51] Jayne talks about the reach of social media. Practice the same principles on social media. On LinkedIn, you can like someone’s post, comment on it, and share it. That is giving back to the person with whom you want to build a relationship.

[28:35] Jayne talks about how she connected with Kerry Hannon on LinkedIn and is maintaining a great online relationship with her after first hearing and admiring her on Marc’s podcast.

[29:05] On Facebook or Instagram, as you connect with people, don’t make it just pitches about you. Make sure you have something valuable to say. Jayne also encourages people to spend less time on social media and pick up your phone for a conversation with someone. When you post on social media, help others.

[30:06] If you live near someone, invite them offline to meet in person.

[30:22] On LinkedIn, Jayne answers requests for connections with a request first to know more about what that person does. Jayne does not want clicks, she wants a personal introduction that can start more of a relationship.

[30:54] Marc talks about his book team. His co-author, Susan Lahey, now lives in Porto, Portugal. His book cover designer, MamiSerwaa, now lives in Ghana. They do most of their talking over the phone through Facebook Messenger. Marc calls them from Mexico.

[31:32] Younger generations may not know what to say on the phone. You start by finding common interests. Jayne is planning a local “Conversation Saturday” for middle schoolers of how to have conversations over the phone or in person, instead of by text. We are human and we need socialization.

[33:21] Marc includes some advice from his Multigenerational Workplace talk. If I want you to listen to me, I have to adapt to your preferred communication style. Boomers liked to be talked to. Millennials like to be texted.

[34:30] Jayne follows Lindsey Pollak on LinkedIn. Lindsey Pollak wrote Remix: How to Lead and Succeed in the Multigenerational Workplace on this topic. It is important to be adaptable and resilient. The ‘you, you, me, you’ concept is memorable and easy to use for any generation.

[35:39] Jayne’s closing advice to the audience is we, collectively, have a responsibility to each other, to the people around us, not to use our cell phones while we are with someone. Be with the person in front of you. Jayne wrote this into her book, and she recommends that you buy the book for young people. Don’t lose the human touch.

[36:55] Jayne wants us to come back to face-to-face conversations. Use the ‘you, you, me, you’ concept to build relationships. Look people in the eye. Say, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

[37:45] You can reach Jayne Mattson on LinkedIn. She doesn’t connect with people who just send a request. Tell her why you want to connect with her and tell her about your relationship-building skills. You can follow Jayne Mattson on Instagram.

[38:16] You can order You, You, Me, You: The Art of Talking to People, Networking and Building Relationships on Amazon in paperback, ebook, and in 2020, in Audible.

[38:37] Marc shares that he is about to produce the third edition of Repurpose Your Career in audiobook. Marc thanks Jayne for being on the Repurpose Your Career podcast.

[38:56] Marc hopes you enjoyed that episode. Marc has known Jayne for a number of years. Jayne is passionate about networking and helping people.

[39:08] 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 has just brought in a cohort and he is recruiting new members for the next cohort.

[39:23] 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.

[39:36] 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.

[39:48] Please come back next week when Marc will interview John Tarnoff, author of the LinkedIn Learning course Connecting with Your Millennial Manager!

[39:47] Please support the Repurpose Your Career podcast by going to Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer. This link is also at the top of the show notes.

[40:13] You will find the show notes for this episode at CareerPivot.com/episode-153.

[40:21] 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 and soon to be on Pandora!

This episode is a replay of Marc’s visit to the Second Act Stories podcast. Andy Levine and Marc explore Marc’s many career pivots, and how they led to the publication of the third edition of Repurpose Your Career: A Practical Guide for the 2nd Half of Life. Marc tells of the impact of his nearly fatal bicycle accident on his career choices. Marc shares information about the various ventures he runs, from the Career Pivot website, the blog, the podcast, the books, and the online community.

Before the interview, Marc also makes an important announcement. Please listen in for all the details.

Marc is asking for your financial support for the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Please donate at Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer to support this Podcast.

Key Takeaways:

[1:09] Marc welcomes you to Episode 152 of the Repurpose Your Career podcast.

[1:21] 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.

[1:39] Marc reviews the three-year history of the Repurpose Your Career podcast and announces a big change. The time-stamped show notes with a detailed write-up of the show will be eliminated. Marc will provide dramatically simplified and reduced notes.

[3:10] Marc acknowledges the production work of Podfly Productions, as he transitions the Repurpose Your Career podcast to in-house production. Marc recommends using the Podfly team if you want to start your own podcast! You can find more information about Podfly at Podfly.net.

[3:39] Marc will produce an episode every other week instead of the weekly schedule he has kept for three years. If Marc gets ahead on episodes over the next few months, he may revert to a weekly schedule. In December, Marc will record his audiobook.

[4:00] Marc has a lot of people lined up to interview and is looking to partner with other podcasts, including Second Act Stories with Andy Levine, as featured in this episode.

[4:11] Marc will not publish an episode the week of U.S. Thanksgiving and will only publish one episode in December. On January 6th, 2020 Marc will start the regular biweekly schedule.

[4:28] Marc does not like giving things up or ending relationships. He recommends reading Necessary Endings, by Dr. Henry Cloud. Marc decided to leave his home city of 40 years, Austin, Texas, and move to Ajijic, Mexico after reading this book.

[4:57] If you would like to financially support this show, please go to Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer/ to give. This link will be at the top of the show notes at CareerPivot.com/episode-152.

[5:13] Next week’s episode is still up in the air. Marc has several interviews scheduled this week that he thinks you will enjoy. Stay tuned!

[5:22] This week’s episode will be a replay of Marc’s interview on the Second Act Stories podcast. The host, Andy Levine, is a great guy with a very big heart. He is a podcaster with whom Marc wants to partner in the coming year. Marc hopes you enjoy this episode.

[5:48] Andy shares a few moments from the interview when Marc answers the question, “What should you do if you are really unhappy in your current work?”

[6:32] Andy Levine welcomes you to the Second Act Stories podcast and introduces Marc Miller. They are meeting at the Princeton Public Library in New Jersey.

[8:11] Marc is a multipotentialite. He gets bored after three years of doing something. When he worked at IBM, he was happy to change positions often. At the time, IBM wanted to develop generalists. That world has changed. When Marc left IBM in 2000, he started a journey of half-step career changes aided by relationships.

[9:03] Marc explains the term Multipotentialite. There is a TEDx talk on it. Multipotentialites have lots of interests and are not driven by one thing.

[9:30] Marc talks about his head-on bike vs. car accident and how it changed his life’s path. At the time, he was at a fading startup and his job was ranking people to layoff. He began to question his career choice.

[11:15] Most of us act in roles in our careers. Marc wanted to stop playing a role that was not natural for him. While he was on bed-rest, he had a lot of time to ask himself why he was doing what he was doing.

[12:47] Marc shares the beginning and history of Career Pivot, starting with his joining Launchpad Job Club. Marc started at LifeSize Communications as the Great Recession was starting. At that time the meetings “exploded” at Launchpad Job Club up to 400 people every Friday, all older workers.

[13:48] In 2009, Marc asked who was caring about folks of this age who were looking for work? He found the book Don’t Retire, Rewire! by Jeri Sedlar and Rick Miners. The stories featured people who had pensions to cushion their time to return to work.

[14:24] In Mexico, Marc sees a lot of economic refugees, who can’t afford to live in the U.S. Marc wanted to help that class of individual who wants to keep working and make an income, but probably not in a traditional job. That’s a hard mind-shift to make.

[15:01] How is a pivot different than a change? A lawyer won’t go directly to be a pastry chef. What kinds of incremental changes are needed? Think of a basketball pivot.

[16:23] A successful career pivot takes flexibility, openness. Changes never turn out quite the way you expect them. Walk down that path and be willing to be surprised.

[17:01] Marc has a person in his Online Community who started driving for Lyft and through her contacts, got several contract gigs. Marc wrote about it in a blog post, “Synchronicity and Serendipity Can Be Essential in Life”. You have to put yourself out there for good stuff to happen. Find support people to get you outside of your head.

[18:05] We have belief systems that are made up. Get out and talk with people about your plans and get feedback on your idea. Marc tells how he explored the idea of something like Career Pivot with career specialists. Overwhelmingly, they persuaded him not to get a coaching certification.

[19:06] Marc asks people in his career assessment process to consider when they were the most miserable in their career and when they were the most fulfilled in their career. This is to help them understand what makes them happy and what makes them miserable. The environment and the team are more important than the job they do.

[20:09] It is important to know yourself and what you want before a job search. Find a position that doesn’t require you to play a character strange to you. Know how to take care of yourself in a job where you have to act out a role. Marc recommends reading Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, by Susan Cain.

[21:22] We’re paid more to be extroverts but half the world are introverts. Marc is a really good public speaker and an introvert. When he’s done, he’s exhausted. Marc doesn’t get energy from speaking. He learned to be a geek than can speak. Susan Cain speaks of restorative niches in her book. Schedule things in your day that restore you.

[22:23] Gallup polls show that a lot of people are unhappy in their jobs. Marc shares his advice to them on the first thing they should do before changing jobs. Marc says don’t run away from your current job, run to what you want to do. Marc shares how he invited Elizabeth Rabaey just to go try different random things before choosing.

[24:31] Marc often asks people what they couldn’t get enough of doing as a kid. Kids don’t have filters. Marc used to love to do jigsaw puzzles. He learned that he is a pattern matcher.

[25:11] Marc has just released the third edition of Repurpose Your Career: A Practical Guide for the 2nd Half of Life. Marc talks about the evolution of the book from 2011 to 2019. The third edition is more aspirational than tactical. Marc talks about creative destruction. AI and robotics are going to affect you! There is a chapter on ageism.

[26:27] If you want to work into your 70s, you have to plan for it in your 50s. It’s a mindset shift. Many will need to work for the money and it won’t look like a full-time job. One of the common themes of Marc’s online community is that everyone wants freedom to work on what they want when they want, and how hard they want to work.

[27:17] We don’t want to conform anymore. When Marc worked as a teacher, he found that schools don’t want people like Marc, because they don’t do what they’re told.

[27:52] Marc shares his contact information: go to Careerpivot.com, sign up for Marc’s Career Pivot Insights email, check out the CareerPivot.com/Community, find the book, Repurpose Your Career on Amazon and other fine online sellers. Find the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Podbean, or at Careerpivot.com/podcast. Andy is a big fan of it!

[29:39] Marc hopes you enjoyed that episode. Andy does a great job with the Second Act Stories podcast and Marc highly recommends that you subscribe to it.

[29:50] 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 has just brought in a cohort and he is recruiting new members for the next cohort.

[30:12] 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.

[30:25] 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.

[30:42] Please come back next week when Marc will have another great interview!

[30:48] Please support the Repurpose Your Career podcast by going to Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer. This link is also at the top of the show notes.

[31:00] You will find the show notes for this episode at CareerPivot.com/episode-152.

[31:07] 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!

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.

Key Takeaways:

[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!

Marc lays out his experiences during his recent tour for the third edition of Repurpose Your Career. He shares the places he visited, the people he met, and how he had to meter his energy and leave time for self-care to avoid depression. He found the trio exhausting although he met most of his objectives on the trip.

Marc is asking for your financial support for the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Please donate at Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer to support this Podcast.

Key Takeaways:

[1:24] Marc welcomes you to Episode 150 of the Repurpose Your Career podcast.

[1:35] 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.

[1:53] This is Episode 150 and the third anniversary of the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Marc just finished the book tour for the launch of the book Repurpose Your Career, Third Edition. Marc is recording this episode in Austin, a bit on the exhausted side.

[2:14] For the last month, Marc has been speaking, promoting the book, and meeting with people. Marc is a closet introvert while appearing to be an extrovert, so he is tired.

[2:29] After recording, Marc and Mrs. Miller will start their drive back to Ajijic, Mexico. This week, Marc will keep the intro and outro simple and he will take you through his experiences of the last month on tour. Marc hopes you enjoy this episode!

[3:00] On the afternoon of October 14, 2019, Marc is in Austin, Texas four weeks after leaving Ajijic, Mexico. On September 16th, Marc had pushed the ‘publish’ button on Repurpose Your Career, Third Edition. On September 17th, the Millers made their way to Austin, where they had lived for 40 years.

[3:35] This trip started with emptying their storage in Austin, then a visit for Mrs. Miller to the clinic for a year’s supply of medicine not available in Mexico, then Marc’s high school reunion and book tour. Marc talked at a couple of Austin job clubs.

[4:14] Marc was in Austin for a week before he headed up to New Jersey to visit his brother, present four talks at job clubs around New Jersey and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and go to his 45th high school reunion. Then Mrs. Miller joined him to go to Washington D.C. Marc also did meet-and-greets and with his online community.

[5:17] In D.C. the Millers visited their son and daughter-in-law and combined the book tour with the trip for tax purposes. Marc tried out some new presentations on the tour and did some brand building. All told, the trip went well.

[5:56] On this trip, Marc was around a lot of people. Although Marc spent years honing his public speaking skills and is good at it, he is an introvert, not an extrovert. He behaves like an extrovert but he gets his energy by being alone, not from being around people. Marc expected the trip to be exhausting and it was.

[6:49] Marc flew to Newark, New Jersey Monday evening, spoke to a job club in Somerset, Tuesday evening and in Princeton, NJ on Friday morning. A planned visit with Richard Eisenberg of Next Avenue fell through. Also on Friday, Marc was interviewed by Andy Levine for the Second Act Stories podcast.

[7:48] Marc found he had to meter his energy. He took some time visiting Princeton alone. On Saturday was Marc’s high school reunion. Marc didn’t enjoy his childhood or high school days. Marc had only been back to Central New Jersey once in 45 years, to stop in at his 25th high school reunion.

[8:31] With some trepidation on Saturday night, Marc walked into a reunion of 150 strangers he had not seen for 45 years. Earlier in the day, Marc had run a meet-and-greet in Metuchen, NJ at a Whole Foods. One person had come but that was fine with Marc.

[9:49] In a class of 800 graduating, Marc hadn’t made many friends, except with his Track teammates. Most of those friends didn’t show up at this reunion. Marc stayed to the end of the party, and when a bunch of people went out afterward, Marc went back to his hotel. He had had enough of people.

[10:35] The uncertainty around who Marc was going to meet at his high school reunion caused Marc to experience certain symptoms of depression. Marc has learned over the years to spot the physical signs of depression before he gets depressed. All week, Marc was watching for the signs.

[10:58] Sunday, rather than going out for brunch with some classmates, Marc drove around Central New Jersey, exploring places he hadn’t seen in decades — his high school and grade schools, in the East Brunswick neighborhood, the house he grew up in. Many things had changed, but not everything.

[11:45] Marc spent a lot of time observing how he was reacting to being around people. He recalls how he behaved at his nephew’s wedding in May. He had switched back and forth between how he wanted to behave and how he had been trained to behave, as a “geek that could speak.”

[12:25] Mrs. Miller joined Marc and they drove to King of Prussia, Pennsylvania; that evening Marc spoke to a jobs club in Philadelphia and the next morning to a group in King of Prussia. Marc was exhausted and was experiencing anxiety and frustration.

[13:40] Marc got through the jobs club presentations pretty well and then he crashed, “big-time.” That afternoon, they turned in the rental car and got on a relaxing train ride to D.C. to find their hotel. Throughout the week, Marc had to meter his energy and stay away from people. He spent a lot of time alone.

[14:46] Many of us have to act in our careers. Marc was paid pretty well to act differently than his introverted nature would have preferred to act. It exhausts him.

[15:06] Marc recounts some problems on the trip, including misplacing his credit card and needing to get it replaced. His author copy books from Amazon KDP were going to be a week late. So Marc canceled that order and ordered retail copies to ship to the various job clubs he was going to visit.

[18:13] All during this time, Marc was careful of his self-care. His reunion experience with people he used to know a bit was stressful and different than he had expected.

[19:09] In D.C., on Saturday, Marc held a meet-and-greet with six or seven people from the Career Pivot Online Community. Marc talked to Kerry Hannon, with whom he has co-operated on a few articles. Kerry was a guest on CareerPivot.com/episode-141. Marc and Mrs. Miller spent two days with their son.

[20:02] This trip has been an emotional roller coaster ride, being around all the people, in spite of how kind people are when he speaks at events. Marc donated 10 books to each event, with the proviso that they sell the books to their members for a donation. When you pay for a book, you will read it.

[21:13] The Millers flew back to Austin on October 13 for orthodontist and audiology appointments, shopping for tall and thin clothes sizes they don’t find in Mexico for Marc and will have driven back to Ajijic starting the afternoon of October 15, to Laredo and then to Matehuala on October 16. Wandering livestock make night driving difficult.

[23:51] The Millers like to stay at the Las Palmas Midway Inn before leaving the next morning for Ajijic on October 17.

[24:27] This is the third anniversary of the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Marc talks about the experience of the last 18 months of living in Mexico. The trips back to the U.S. are very interesting, although exhausting, as Marc observes who he is now. He has left behind his work persona and does not want to behave anymore as he did at work.

[25:15] Marc wants you to think about what you have made yourself into, what you want to do in the second half of life, and what it will take to get you there.

[25:33] Marc hopes you enjoyed that episode. Many of you may be able to see yourselves in Marc’s experiences on tour.

[25:48] If you are interested in the Career Pivot Membership Community, please go to CareerPivot.com/Community.

[25:56] 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.

[26:11] Please come back next week! Marc will be back in Mexico!

[26:19] You will find the show notes for this episode at CareerPivot.com/episode-150.

[26:32] 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 and a lot of other places!

Marc explores the creative destruction of industry, starting with the invention of the phonograph which eventually replaced the piano in the home, to the invention of the iPhone, which rapidly replaced many communication and entertainment functions and created an array of new industries. Marc gives solid advice for keeping your career ahead of the creative destruction wave that is sweeping all areas of employment. This material comes from a presentation Marc has given several times during the recent tour for the third edition of Repurpose Your Career.

Listen in to be prepared for changes that are only accelerating.

Marc is asking for your financial support for the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Please donate at Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer to support this Podcast.

Key Takeaways:

[1:21] Marc welcomes you to Episode 149 of the Repurpose Your Career podcast.

[1:34] 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.

[1:51] Marc’s expenses to put this podcast on are about $400.00 a month. After nearly 150 episodes, Marc is grateful for his growing audience. It’s clear that the stories from experts and people like yourself on this podcast have had an impact.

[2:25] Marc is asking for direct listener support. Marc needs help continuing to provide entertaining content, mindful of your time. Marc asks you for a donation of $5.00 a month but you can contribute as much or as little as you like. Every penny counts.

[2:40] If the Repurpose Your Career podcast is a part of your week and you like 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-149.

[3:06] Repurpose Your Career, Third Edition, is now available! The book tour has launched and is almost complete. Marc is recording this podcast introduction and ‘outro’ from a hotel room in Washington, D.C. When this episode of Repurpose Your Career is released, Marc should be in Austin, preparing to drive back home to Ajijic, Mexico.

[3:26] Marc thanks everyone who’s made this tour a success. Marc is tired and looking for some downtime!

[3:35] Marc has yet to decide what the subject of next week’s podcast episode will be. It will be Episode 150 and Marc is approaching three years of doing the Repurpose Your Career podcast!

[3:48] This week, Marc is giving an abbreviated version of one of the talks he has been giving during the book tour, called “Embrace Creative Destruction or Be a Turkey. It’s Your Choice.” Marc hopes you enjoy this episode!

[4:03] Marc has given this presentation multiple times during the past month and thought it would be a good topic for the Repurpose Your Career podcast. You can find a blog version of it at CareerPivot.com/surviving-creative-destruction and the PDF version of the presentation can be found at https://careerpivot.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Embrace-Creative-Destruction-podcast.pdf

[4:30] Marc starts by defining creative destruction as industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, destroying the old one and creating a new one. It has been going on for many centuries. One technology destroys a previous one. Jobs are destroyed and jobs are created.

[5:01] Creative destruction is accelerating. Understand it, or become a turkey. Nassim Taleb said, in Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, “A butcher feeds a turkey for 1,000 days. Every day, the turkey’s life remains constant and confirms the surety of his current existence. This is the way it goes. This is the way it always has gone.

[5:39] “This is the way it will always go. All his data confirms that butchers love turkeys. The turkey can rest confident in this idea because he has 999 days of benevolent treatment to back it up. Then, a few days before Thanksgiving, everything in his worldview is upturned.”

[6:02] This is what Taleb calls a Black Swan Event. All the evidence proves it can’t happen — until it does.

[6:14] In 1905 there were 400K pianos made and sold. If you wanted music in your house, you bought a piano. In 1877, the phonograph was created but it didn’t destroy pianos. In the 1930s, radio came about. In 1919, phonographs had a revenue that was three times that of pianos.

[6:50] It took from 1877 to 1919 for phonographs to start taking over for pianos. By 1933, two-thirds of all households had a radio. In 2013, 30K pianos were sold. Steinway, the major piano manufacturer stopped making pianos in WWII and made coffins.

[7:21] What came out of the demise of the piano is the music industry of today, whether online or radio. It took 50 years for the changeover to happen.

[7:51] Kodak was in the business of film, not cameras. In the 1990s, Marc worked in an IBM briefing center when Kodak came in for a briefing. Kodak knew they had a problem with the coming digital revolution. They were not sure how to make the transition. Kodak created the first digital camera in 1975.

[8:58] The problem was, Kodak didn’t see why anyone would want to see their pictures on a TV screen. So they didn’t do anything with it. By 2001, 26 years later, Kodak was number two in the digital camera market. Marc had one of those Kodak digital cameras. Kodak lost $60.00 on every sale. Kodak declared bankruptcy in 2012.

[9:44] The digital image revolution was the creative destruction that took down Kodak in less than 40 years.

[9:55] There are all kinds of things that happened as part of the digital image revolution and the demise of the photographic film industry.

[10:10] Adobe, Canva, JacquieLawson.com, Steve Coyle Photography and many more are examples of companies created by the digital image revolution.

[11:19] Amazon was founded in 1993. Amazon’s business was selling books. It took 18 years to put Borders Group out of business. Things are accelerating. Amazon introduced Prime in 2005. Marc has a Vitamix blender. One Sunday morning Marc broke the glass container. He had a replacement by 5:00 pm from Amazon.

[12:27] Amazon is having incredible impacts on all retail. Sears, JCPenney, and JoS. A. Bank are three examples of companies hurt by Amazon. The number accelerates. Fulfillment by Amazon allows anybody to sell online. Last week, Jean LeFebvre explained her offering, Wardrobe Jazz, on Episode 148 of the podcast.

[13:11] Marc has a friend who has two products he sells on Amazon. One is a set of gym gloves and the other is a wrist strap for weightlifting. He sources all of his products out of China.

[13:59] OnlineSellingExperiment.com is a competitor to the Amazing Selling Machine. They teach how to sell on Amazon. Marc learned about Online Selling Experiment from Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income podcast. Online Selling teaches retail arbitrage for buying things on clearance and selling them competitively online.

[15:33] Amazon has created all kinds of opportunities, besides destroying retail.

[15:47] Marc takes a moment to talk about the Career Pivot Membership Community, which continues to help the approximately 50 members who are participating in the beta phase of this project to grow and thrive.

[16:06] Marc reads a member testimonial from community member Mark: “Wondering what’s next? You want meaningful work and more freedom to pursue what matters most to you in your second half of life? Since joining the Career Pivot Community, I’ve found like-minded people in a similar path.

[16:25] “Marc Miller is a master at creating community and meaningful connections. This has been encouraging and informative and a confidence booster. If you want to go further and faster, join Career Pivot.”

[16:39] This is a paid membership community where Marc offers group coaching, special content, mastermind groups, branding sessions, Slack channels, and more importantly, it’s a community where you can seek help. Please go to CareerPivot.com/Community to sign up to learn more.

[17:00] The iPhone was created in 2007. We used to buy cameras, maps, and newspapers. We used to search for keys. Marc uses the Tile to find his keys. We used to have to carry insurance cards. Now, Marc has his State Farm app on his phone.

[17:48] You used to have to buy a TV and buy cable. Now you can get TV directly on your phone with services like SlingTV. Also, Marc can answer all the questions his wife asks him just by “Googling.” We used to have phones on the wall. We now have Skype on our phones.

[18:20] We text one another. The most-used app among Marc’s gringo expats is Whatsapp, which is an app for calling and texting without connecting to a phone network. The iPhone and smartphones have changed the world so much.

[18:50] Think of the number of products that have been destroyed. Think of the service jobs that have been lost. Now you can order your Big Mac® on your phone. New industries are being created. Social media brings interconnectedness. We now have the Internet of Things, including the Tile and the Ring doorbell camera and connected apps.

[19:52] You can now create audiobooks and other forms of audio. You can have a podcast like Marc, on iTunes (Apple Podcasts). Marc will use ACX to make an Audible audiobook from Repurpose Your Career, third edition.

[20:22] All of this has accelerated. Are you scared or excited? This will affect you. What can you do about it? 1) Attend an industry conference every year. 2) Listen to industry podcasts. 3) Get online training.

[21:16] Marc has attended the National Career Development Association Conference, several Birkman Conferences (because he is a Birkman consultant) and Podcast Movement. Marc plans to go to the 2020 Podcast Movement conference. Why attend conferences? You need the face-to-face contact with people to keep up with trends.

[22:07] Marc either stays at the conference hotel at a discount or at a hotel within walking distance of both the hotel and a Whole Foods store where Marc picked up dinner and the next day’s breakfast of yogurt and fruit.

[22:47] Podcasts are a wonderful way to keep learning. There is usually a podcast for your topic of interest. If there really isn’t, why don’t you start one? There are many places to listen to podcasts. Marc’s two favorite financial podcasts are Roger Whitney’s The Retirement Answer Man and Alworth Financial’s Money Matters.

[23:58] Marc also listens to Buffer’s The Science of Social Media, Problogger, and Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income podcast.

[24:16] Online training is not expensive. Marc gives examples such as MOOC.org, and EDX.org, Udacity, General Assembly, Skillcrush, LinkedIn Training, Coursera, Skillshare, and Udemy. Anyone can put up a course and sell it on Udemy.

[25:21] You need to be attending industry conferences, listening to podcasts, and taking online training. If you do not, you could very easily find yourself in a career disaster area. Marc wrote an article on Living in a Career Disaster Area based on two clients who saw their careers blow up in under five years.

[25:54] When you start looking at career pivots, look for jobs that have ‘legs.’ Ask yourself if industries will survive because creative destruction is killing so much. Listen to Episode 143 with Russ Eanes. Russ got hit with a double whammy in the business of religious publications. Religion is in decline, and publishing is in decline.

[27:08] Russ got really tired of laying people off. There are just so many times you can lay off a friend before it really takes a toll on you.

[27:30] Hopefully, you now understand that have to manage your career, your skill sets, and where your industry is going. Creative destruction will continue to accelerate. Where is your career going and where is your industry going? If you can’t answer those questions clearly and confidently, the chances are you will be a turkey!

[28:20] Pick up the book Repurpose Your Career third edition and this presentation is essentially found in one of the chapters in it. Marc hopes you enjoyed this episode.

[28:45] The Career Pivot Membership Community continues to help the approximately 50 members who are participating in the Beta phase of this project grow and thrive.

[28:52] This is a community where everyone is there to help everyone else. Marc is recruiting members for the next cohort. If you are interested in the endeavor and would like to be put on the waiting list, please go to CareerPivot.com/Community.

[29:13] 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.

[29:24] Please come back next week! Marc will be back in Mexico!

[29:32] Please support this podcast by going to Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer.

[29:43] Marc thanks you for listening to the Repurpose Your Career podcast. You will find the show notes for this episode at CareerPivot.com/episode-149.

[29:56] 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 and a lot of other places!

Fashion is what you see in the magazines and stores. Personal style is how you make your fashion. Jean LeFebvre is a certified personal color and style consultant who has spent more than 35 years dressing clients ages 9 to 90, sizes 0 to 26. Her first career was interior design. Then she discovered she preferred working with the architecture of the body and conducting seminars and writing about fashion and style. Now she has added Amazon entrepreneur to her list of careers. Seeking out clever, hard-to-find wardrobe helpers that make getting dressed easier and more fun.

Marc is asking for your financial support for the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Please donate at Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer to support this Podcast.

Key Takeaways:

[1:49] Marc welcomes you to Episode 148 of the Repurpose Your Career podcast.

[2:01] 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.

[2:31] Marc is recording this podcast introduction on October 1st in Totowa, New Jersey. When this episode of Repurpose Your Career is released, Marc should be in Washington, D.C.

[2:48] Marc’s expenses to put this podcast on are about $400.00 a month. After nearly 150 episodes, Marc is grateful for his growing audience. It’s clear that the stories from experts and people like yourself on this podcast have had an impact. Marc needs help continuing to provide entertaining content, mindful of your time.

[3:30] Marc is asking for direct listener support. Marc asks you for a donation of $5.00 a month but you can contribute as much or as little as you like. Every penny counts.

[3:44] If the Repurpose Your Career podcast is a part of your week and you like 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-148.

[4:08] Repurpose Your Career, Third Edition, is now available! The book tour has launched. Marc had a great first week. There are almost 30 Amazon reviews. Marc is in Philadelphia, early this week and D.C., later in the week. Marc would love to meet his readers and listeners.

[4:22] Marc has a meet-and-greet this Saturday at the Friendship Whole Foods Market in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Please go to CareerPivot.com/launch to find out more.

[4:35] Marc has yet to decide on the subject of next week’s podcast episode will be. It will likely be an interview Marc had with Mark Anthony Dyson on The Voice of Jobseekers podcast, but depending on how things go, it could be something different.

[4:48] This week, Marc is playing the audio from a webinar Marc did with Jean LeFebvre for the Career Pivot Membership Community. Marc shares Jean’s bio. This is the third time Marc has had Jean talk to the Career Pivot Community about her journey into becoming a Fulfillment by Amazon entrepreneur. Marc welcomes Jean to the podcast.

[6:21] Jean tells how she got started with Fulfillment by Amazon. Two sets of friends had started a successful course on selling on Amazon. Several of Jean’s friends joined the course and had a good measure of success. Jean was looking for something that would allow her to have an expanded income without as much hourly work.

[7:00] Jean consults people on their wardrobes. She helps them clean out their closets and takes them shopping for new clothes to match their style, according to a personal color analysis. Marc went through this process. Marc is an ‘Autumn.’

[7:35] Jean took the course Amazing Selling Machine. One of the first things Jean learned was how to select a product. It took Jean a year to select her product. First, she tried a product that was unrelated to her experience. It turned out to be wrong for her. She finally chose to sell a product that matched her existing audience.

[9:54] Most people do not start with a large following. Jean did, which is a built-in market for her. Jean hopes if you have something you are already good at, with product potential, don’t disregard what you know or who you know.

[10:35] Jean’s product is an earring lifter back that “makes earrings sit up pretty.” They give a youthful look. It’s an easy sell.

[11:30] Jean has learned that you don’t have to be the number one vendor for your product to make a profit. You will likely move into more than one product. Having a line of 10 or 20 products is common. Don’t leave all your eggs in one basket.

[12:27] Jean sources the product from China. The course taught her to use Alibaba, a group of Chinese manufacturers that are vetted by Alibaba. They have rankings and gold is the top ranking for manufacturers who have been with Alibaba for more than two years and have been investigated on fulfillment and good reviews.

[13:25] The manufacturer ships  a moderate quantity of the products to Jean and she has laser-printed labels that she attaches to the package. She has the labels printed inexpensively at FedEx while she listens to an audiobook. Jean ships them to Amazon.

[14:17] The first earring lifter backs that Jean ordered were formed in a shape that somebody else was in the process of patenting in the U.S. After a day on Amazon, the patent holder complained and the product was removed.

[15:52] So Jean hired a patent attorney who had a patent searcher. They learned that the patent violation was a design patent violation, not a use patent violation. After some research, she ordered them in a different shape that was not patented so she could sell them in the U.S.

[17:10] Jean also learned that the name she had been using for her consulting company was not eligible for a trademark. There were too many companies already using that name, Panache Images. Jean came up with the name WardrobeJazz, which she uses now for both for the earring lifter backs and her consulting practice.

[17:47] WardrobeJazz says more about what Jean actually does, so she likes the name. She applied for a product trademark for that name and expects approval soon. The approval can take six months to a year.

[18:01] Marc takes a moment to talk about the Career Pivot Membership Community, which continues to help the approximately 50 members who are participating in the beta phase of this project to grow and thrive.

[18:22] Marc reads a member testimonial from Jean: “I’ve been a member of the Career Pivot Community for many months now and have been delighted with the support and guidance that I’ve received. This isn’t a group and Marc isn’t the type of person that makes ridiculous promises or puts you under pressure to get a lot of quick results.”

[18:39] “Results come from making incremental changes regularly but they do come. Marc helps each of us to grow in our own way. The community is a comfortable, safe place to discuss our common problems and to work toward long-term improvement.”

[18:57] This is a paid membership community where Marc offers group coaching, special content, mastermind groups, branding sessions, Slack channels, and more importantly,  it’s a community where you can seek help. Please go to CareerPivot.com/Community to sign up to learn more.

[19:28] Back to the interview — Jean went to Fiverr to get bids to have a logo made. Jean selected a graphic designer she liked, who gave her five concepts. Jean chose one of them and with a couple of adjustments, it was exactly what she wanted. The logo cost her $65.00.

[20:51] Marc notes he had a Membership Community training with former member Jim Addams, who explained how he used Fiverr.

[21:09] Jean launched the product again and went through a refining process. She learned how to market. She started with Facebook ads, which were too expensive for the results she got. Over months, she changed the wording of her listing, changed the title and bullet points and paid for keywords. She included professional photos.

[22:25] The image stood out beautifully. Then, in two weeks, 10 other sellers copied the style of her image, so they all look similar. This is an example of how you need a thick skin to sell online. You get knocked down and you have to get right back up.

[22:55] Sooner or later you will get the progress you want. It’s not for wimps.

[23:16] Jean notes that a lot of people price too low and then their competitors buy their product for resale. When you have a special deal you must set a restriction that the quantity is limited to one or two.

[24:00] Jean has run Amazon ads, and that is the next step she wants to master. She will not go back to Facebook ads, for now. She sees more value in Amazon ads.

[24:33] Jean’s audience is people from 35 to 65. A lot of women in their 60s are still working and are a market for earring lifter backs.

[25:38] Jean’s biggest challenge has been keeping her chin up. The business is not easy. Having the community with Amazing Sales Machine helps when Jean needs answers. Having experienced mentors helps. Jean’s next goal is to have this product produce enough income to justify adding another product and then another.

[26:29] Marc has marketed his book with Amazon ads for a couple of years and now is going to Facebook ads. Marc took an Ads For Authors course from Mark Dawson. Mark talks about a formula: test, measure, test, measure, test, and particularly with Facebook ads that work for a while and then stop working. When you figure it out, it will change.

[27:28] Jean likes the category of fashion and wardrobe helpers for her next product. You could buy them in the notions department of a fabric store. People who need these things are often too busy to go looking at a fabric store. People like the convenience of buying on Amazon.

[29:08] The Amazing Selling Machine has videos on how to select products. Their advice is to pick something that’s not too popular but still a known product. The next point is to choose for weight, size, and price. Shipping large objects takes longer than shipping by air.

[29:35] Jean didn’t realize at first how smart she had been to pick a product less than an ounce, that ships by air. She can restock in two weeks with no problem.

[30:24] Jean’s advice: Don’t quit your day job. Don’t do it on your own. Get some training and find a supportive group that understands the technology of what you are doing. There is a learning curve.

[31:44] Marc is in Mark Dawson’s Self-Publishing Formula Facebook group because he bought the Ads for Authors course. Whenever Marc has a question, people in the group answer it for him. You can also search the previously asked questions.

[32:26] Marc also uses the Facebook groups for Mexico expats. That’s how he found the shoe repair man, Umberto. His only website is on Facebook. Marc suggests you should find your tribe.

[33:15] Marc thanks Jean and he hopes you enjoyed the episode. Jean didn’t sugar-coat anything. This takes perseverance. Marc will continue to follow Jean’s progress through the Career Pivot Online Community and this podcast. Link to The Amazing Selling Machine and WardrobeJazz to learn more. All sales help Jean.

[34:05] The Career Pivot Membership Community is a platform to provide both inspiration and practical help in creating changes in our lives and careers. It continues to help the approximately 50 members who are participating in the Beta phase of this project.

[34:14] This is a community where everyone is there to help everyone else.

[34:19] Marc is recruiting members for the next cohort. If you are interested in the endeavor and would like to be put on the waiting list, please go to CareerPivot.com/Community.

[34:35] 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.

[34:49] Please come back next week!

[34:56] Please support this podcast by going to Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer.

[35:08] Marc thanks you for listening to the Repurpose Your Career podcast. You will find the show notes for this episode at CareerPivot.com/episode-148.

[35:24] 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 and a lot of other places!

Paul Taylor Vogelzang is an award-winning blogger, podcaster, writer, and producer, known for his down-to-earth accessible reporting and advice for men and women in the fifty-plus age community. Paul was one of the founding editors of MommyCast and MommyCastLatina, the wildly popular, very first Momcast in audio and video, and he was its producer from 2004 to 2009. MommyCast has been featured in the Hollywood Reporter, Washingtonian, Businessweek, Variety, USAToday, and The Wall Street Journal, along with others. Paul’s current award-winning podcast, The Not Old — Better Show, launched in 2014. Paul continues to share vibrant, focused, entertaining content on the show and writes frequently about the subjects of fashion, grooming, entertainment, technology, and relationships for those in the fifty-plus age community.

Marc is asking for your financial support for the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Please donate at Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer to support this Podcast.

Key Takeaways:

[1:33] Marc welcomes you to Episode 147 of the Repurpose Your Career podcast.

[1:46] 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.

[2:04] Marc’s expenses to put this podcast on are about $400.00 a month. After nearly 150 episodes, Marc is grateful for his growing audience. It’s clear that the stories from experts and people like yourself on this podcast have had an impact. Marc needs help continuing to provide entertaining content, mindful of your time.

[2:48] Marc is asking for direct listener support. Marc asks you for a donation of $5.00 a month but you can contribute as much or as little as you like. Every penny counts.

[3:01] 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-147.

[3:25] Repurpose Your Career, Third Edition, is now available! The book tour has launched. Marc had a great first week. There are almost 30 Amazon reviews. Marc will be in New Jersey, and Erie, Pennsylvania, the week of September 29th and D.C., the following week. Marc would love to meet his readers and listeners.

[3:54] Marc has four events planned for New Jersey and Pennsylvania and a meet-and-greet in D.C.. Please go to CareerPivot.com/launch to find out more.

[4:10] Marc has yet to decide on the subject of next week’s podcast episode will be. It will likely be an interview Marc had with Mark Anthony Dyson on The Voice of Jobseekers podcast, but depending on how things go, it could be something different.

[4:28] This week, Marc interviews Paul Vogelzang, a career pivoter who, after being laid off from one of the big tech giants in his late 50s, is now a successful podcaster. Paul has The Not Old — Better Show, on which Marc has guested, twice. Mar gives an introduction for Paul and welcomes him to the Repurpose Your Career podcast.

[6:24] Marc and Paul are fans of each others’ work. Paul has worked in the private sector, technology, healthcare technology, and in the government. His passion is in the area of communications. All along the way, he has held communications roles. Now, in his ‘second act,’ he is doing communications again.

[7:39] Paul is the host, editor, and ‘chief cook and bottle washer’ of The Not Old – Better Show. Paul is grateful for the chance to talk to many people and learn from guests that have done interesting things. Paul has always been excited about learning. Paul continues to do communications work for the federal government.

[8:27] Paul hosts podcasts for The Smithsonian, the National Institutes of Health, NASA, and has done some work for the Department of Defense.

[8:40] Paul’s work focuses on telling stories. Paul is passionate about helping other people share information about what they’ve done, how they’ve done it, and where they’re going.

[9:04] Paul is a multipotentialite. Marc is one, too. Marc has a blog post on multipotentialites. Marc has tended to change career areas every three years.

[9:51] Paul explains how he became a podcaster. In 2004, Paul was the producer of Mommycast, the very first mom podcast. Paul’s wife, Gretchen and her friend, Paige Heninger, the co-hosts.

[10:36] Paige and Gretchen had a lot of success telling stories to moms and families. They had a lot of wonderful guests. The podcast lasted about seven years. Paul worked, full-time in the federal government while he produced the podcast, part-time.

[11:11] Paul eventually moved into the private sector, working for a large technology company. Paul refuses to give them publicity here. He was laid off at age 58. He desperately needed to do a career pivot, to use Marc’s term. Paul decided he was going to continue to work in technology, in communications.

[12:08] The company that laid Paul off had a significant outplacement service. Paul went on close to 100 interviews but never was offered a position. Technology was booming in the D.C. area where Paul lives, but in 2015, no one was looking for workers with his experience.

[13:09] Paul had a lot of energy to put to work. He had a lot of interests and personal, career, and financial goals. He was not in a position to retire. He enjoys working and he needed to continue.

[13:39] Paul started writing on LinkedIn. Some of the things Paul was writing about his interview process got a lot of reactions. Paul would return optimistic from an interview with ‘a great young person’ and then hear nothing. So, he wrote about it. As his writing took off, he decided to return to podcasting, this time, as the host.

[14:58] He planned to talk to some of the people who had written back to him about their stories of applying for jobs and finding the technology sector was unusually harsh for those of us over the age of 55. Some of the stories were gut-wrenching. This is what Paul turned into The Not Old — Better Show.

[15:38] As Paul developed the show, he started talking to authors and to people in the entertainment sector. He did some occasional work for the federal government that led to some introductions to government agencies for which he now produces podcasts. It has been a circuitous path with a lot of support from others. He wants to give support.

[16:41] After more than four years, The Not Old — Better Show is doing great! Paul has had a lot of fun, and he has a lot more to do.

[16:58] As a former federal employee, Paul enjoys supporting government agencies tell really great stories with their podcasts. Paul shares how he worked with guest interviews on NASA’s story of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo Moon Shot. Most of Paul’s audience is of an age to appreciate these stories from the past.

[18:26] The Smithsonian offers programs throughout the United States, along with the National Park Service and others. Paul explains some of the work he does with experts, authors, scientists, and others about their work for the Smithsonian Institution. Paul believes those are really important stories.

[19:13] Paul talks about the podcasts he does for the National Institutes for Health and the National Institute on Aging, which are related to physical and mental fitness in the years over age 55.

[19:43] Paul posts his podcasts everywhere his audience is found. His podcasts are on Next Avenue, and podcast directories like iTunes and Google Play, Soundcloud, Mixcloud, and even Facebook and LinkedIn, depending on the topic of the show.

[21:15] Marc takes a moment to talk about the Career Pivot Membership Community, which continues to help the approximately 50 members who are participating in the beta phase of this project to grow and thrive.

[21:36] Marc shares a testimonial from Vickie: “The Career Pivot Community has been a strong support system for me, the past year. Having a sharp, supportive group with diverse career backgrounds and experience to use as a sounding board has been invaluable, particularly when I felt isolated and doing battle with negative self-talk.”

[21:59] Vickie continues: “Members provide a perspective that I would have never considered on my own in helping me move forward when I felt stuck or lost.”

[22:11] This is a paid membership community where Marc offers group coaching, special content, mastermind groups, branding sessions, and Slack channels. More importantly, it’s a community where you can seek help. Please go to Careerpivot.com/community to learn more.

[22:38] Paul reveals the secret to making money podcasting! He didn’t make money when he first started. Paul has been doing three shows a week for almost five years. He does video, as well. It has taken a long time to ramp up an audience, and enough topics and expertise of his own. He has improved his ability to interview and to tell stories.

[23:39] Paul has progressed with his podcast audience. Over the course of about two-and-a-half years, and mostly over the last year, with getting top-name guests to appear on the show, Paul has started to produce interest from potential advertisers.

[24:29] Paul works with healthcare companies, health insurance companies, and technology companies. The hurdle has been that advertising agencies are taking a while to “get” this audience in the second act of their lives. But those over 50 represent a large, affluent market that interests advertisers.

[26:15] Paul sells ads on the podcast. He has prepared a marketing document he sends to advertisers when they show an interest. When they get back to him they work out an advertising package.

[26:45] Some companies call Paul to do voiceover work for their brands. Some people have called him to do guest hosting of other podcasts, such as the Smithsonian podcast and the healthcare-oriented podcasts he hosts.

[27:10] Paul has had to be creative in terms of making money from the podcast. He gets income from a few different sources.

[27:45] Marc notes that the podcasting business has a very long tail. It takes a while. Marc guested on Paul’s show a couple of months ago. Paul has eight-to-ten times the downloads that Marc has. He is also two or three years ahead of Marc. Persistence is required.

[28:25] Because Paul is a former federal employee, which helped pave the way to get in the door for opportunities like hosting the Smithsonian and other agency podcasts. Paul knows the shorthand of government communications and he understands what the government can promote and what they cannot promote.

[29:16] Paul’s podcasts for the government are not selling books or products but are spreading awareness. Federal communications personnel have confidence that Paul will not step over a line but will represent them appropriately in a journalistic style with fact-checking and being prepared for his guests.

[30:29] Paul’s first story-telling work was for NASA. He was interested in the role of women at NASA after seeing Taraji P. Henson in Hidden Figures. He approached NASA to help them tell their story behind getting the motion picture made. Paul interviewed Taraji P. Henson and also the author of the book Hidden Figures, Margot Lee Shetterly.

[31:32] It took some patience to get in the door, some understanding of the environment within the federal government, and making sure the agency was comfortable with him so they could turn over bits and pieces of the story to Paul, confident that he would tell the story fairly and properly. It took persistence. It helps that Paul lives near downtown.

[32:36] When Paul approached NASA, they did not have a budget for promotion or advertising. When Paul offered to tell their story, it appealed to them and they were happy with the result. He was in the right place at the right time. Paul spends a lot of time editing the audio to be as good as possible technically. Marc talks about editing.

[34:35] Paul says there are going to be a lot more of our age group coming up.

[34:51] Marc hopes you enjoyed the episode. Paul is hitting a home run with his podcast. It is very difficult to make any money from podcasting. Paul has eight-to-ten times the downloads that Marc has, and he’s just now getting to the point where he has sponsors. Marc needs donations because he is a long way from getting sponsored.

[35:30] The Career Pivot Membership Community is a platform to provide both inspiration and practical help in creating changes in our lives and careers. It continues to help the approximately 50 members who are participating in the Beta phase of this project.

[35:39] This is a community where everyone is there to help everyone else.

[35:44] Marc is recruiting members for the next cohort. If you are interested in the endeavor and would like to be put on the waiting list, please go to CareerPivot.com/Community.

[35:58] 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.

[36:08] Please come back next week!

[36:15] Please support this podcast by going to Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer.

[36:25] Marc thanks you for listening to the Repurpose Your Career podcast. You will find the show notes for this episode at CareerPivot.com/episode-147.

[36:37] 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.

Jon works with startup business founders and early-stage company CEOs and management teams to help them set clear, growth-oriented goals and get the best possible outcomes. He serves on several advisory boards and speaks regularly about the role of technology and innovation in healthcare; he helps entrepreneurs who are 50-plus. He is the author of SLAM: Build your startup idea or early stage business with the Startup Launch Assistance Map,

Marc is asking for your financial support for the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Please donate at Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer to support this Podcast.

Key Takeaways:

[1:40] Marc welcomes you to Episode 146 of the Repurpose Your Career podcast.

[1:54] 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.

[2:13] Marc’s expenses to put this podcast on are about $400.00 a month. After nearly 150 episodes, Marc is grateful for his growing audience. It’s clear that the stories from experts and people like yourself on this podcast have had an impact. Marc needs help continuing to provide entertaining content, mindful of your time.

[2:50] Marc is asking for direct listener support. Marc asks you for a donation of $5.00 a month but you can contribute as much or as little as you like. Every penny counts.

[3:05] 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-146.

[3:31] Repurpose Your Career, Third Edition, is now available! The book tour has launched. Marc will likely be in Austin when you hear this episode, the week of September 22nd. Marc will be in New Jersey, the week of September 29th and D.C., the following week. Marc would love to meet his readers and listeners.

[3:50] Marc has two events planned for Austin, four for New Jersey and a meet-and-greet in D.C. Please go to CareerPivot.com/launch to find out more.
[4:03] Next week, Marc will interview Paul Vogelsang, a career pivoter who, after being laid off by one of the big tech giants in his late 50s, is now a successful podcaster. He has The Not Old — Better Show, which Marc has been a guest on, twice.

[4:22] This week, Marc interviews Jon Warner, author of SLAM: Build your startup idea or early stage business with the Startup Launch Assistance Map. Marc shares Jon’s bio and welcomes Jon to the Repurpose Your Career podcast.

[5:20] Jon shares his purpose for writing SLAM. Jon had been using the Lean Business Model Canvas. He found it to be transformational for startups, but he started noticing a few issues people struggled with in using it. Jon started annotating and making up ways of compensating for those issues.

[5:56] Jon started keeping notes for himself about the issues and developing adjunct materials of his own. He saw he was re-engineering the process and wrote an article a couple of years ago about it. The article seemed to resonate. It became the idea for the SLAM model book.

[6:29] The SLAM model gives startups an exploratory grid to help them navigate the typical risks that happen in startup life.

[6:51] Jon answers how the SLAM model can apply to those over 50. The challenge in entrepreneurship is to ‘de-risk’ what you are doing, as much as possible. The risk is greater for those who are in the second half of life. Jon focuses on the healthcare realm. He is very interested in innovation and technology for older adults.

[8:31] Marc refers to the podcast Episode 136 with Diane Mulcahy, author of The Gig Economy: The Complete Guide to Getting Better Work, Taking More Time Off, and Financing the Life You Want. Diane has a section in her book on how to de-risk.

[9:00] Jon uses a real case study of 50-plus food truck owners to illustrate the SLAM model in his book. Jon teaches two models. The first is a validation process consisting of an eight-step pathway to think about scaling a startup or a side hustle. Validation is the most important process to see if you have the potential to execute your startup.

[10:38] The second model is the execution template. Jon has an acronym for it: GRAND, starting with Goals. Putting the two models together gives you the GRAND SLAM and the success you want.

[11:08] Both models are designed as exploration templates, giving people a framework to ask questions to which answers need to be discovered, ideally, in the eyes of the customer you are most focused on serving.

[11:32] The SLAM process has eight steps. Step 1: Drill into the unmet need of the customer tribe, which Jon calls the ‘hair on fire tribe.’ Step one can take months or years to gather enough data to validate the need. Step 2: Identify the key team you need to solve the problem for that tribe of customers.

[13:07] Step 3: Develop the Value Proposition to solve that problem for that tribe. These three steps are the ‘Product-Market Fit.’ Step 4: Corroborate that the hypotheses around the product and the market fit are accurate in the eyes of customers. Step 5: Determine that the market is large enough for you to achieve what you want to achieve.

[13:57] Step 6: Develop a go-to-market strategy. Where does the tribe hang out and how do you reach them? Identify the channels carefully. Step 7: Monetization. What does the business model look like? What is the tribe willing to pay to solve that particular problem or pain point?

[14:16] Step 8: Map the Business Ecosystem. Jon explains what this involves.

[14:50] Marc emphasizes the importance of Step 1. Don’t make stuff up. Marc shares from his experiences developing curriculum in 40 countries. No matter who he thinks the audience is, he’s always wrong!

[15:18] Jon Quotes Steve Blank that “No plan survives first contact with a customer.” You can’t just build it and expect that they will come. A small sample is a problem. The pain points of a few friends do not give enough credentials to start a business. Get valid feedback from real customers to see if you can scale a solution for them.

[16:25] The SLAM model doesn’t distinguish between product or service businesses, or business size. It is going to be more useful at an earlier stage of a business. By the time a business has institutional capital, it is usually beyond this process.
[17:16] The SLAM model is aimed at people who are ideating about a business idea, or have a side hustle going they want to scale, or have taken the first steps and are a few months into their business startup and have bootstrapped it.

[17:58] Jon talks about the steps where he sees people make the biggest mistakes: assuming they know the unmet need they are solving, and getting into ‘product build’ too quickly. People like to start with the minimal viable product right out of the gate before they know if it solves the market pain points.

[18:56] These mistakes may require either re-engineering the product, or throwing it away at a waste of time and money.

[19:16] Marc asks about service-based businesses. Jon points out that service businesses can be very different from product businesses, and the intended scale is very important. The process of validating the business potential is the same, requiring answers to the same questions.

[20:19] Jon specifies that customer discovery is a very separate activity from product research. Discovery is finding out from customers what keeps them up at night and what they are doing about it right now as a temporary solution, and listening hard to them.

[21:11] Marc talks about a member of the online community building a service-based business helping small construction companies, and a bad assumption that he had.

[21:43] Jon says a lot of books will give broad ideas for business you could start. Jon mentions businesses jumping onto Shopify as an ecommerce solution. Don’t look at general ideas. Dig in and find the tribe, pain point, and a unique solution you can provide.

[22:55] An older entrepreneur will learn from the book SLAM that there is a pathway they can follow. They have a lot of world experience, but Jon notes that what they have done in the past doesn’t necessarily apply to what they want to do next. The book helps them deconstruct their bad assumptions and mental traps to avoid.

[23:44] SLAM will encourage the older entrepreneur to test everything and assume nothing. Assumptions are the enemy of a successful startup if they’re not corroborated at scale. The book is an exploration grid. It helps individuals to tip their thinking upside-down.

[24:25] Jon’s advice for the older entrepreneur: Spend as little money as possible from the beginning and engage deeply in research about the sector they’re thinking about. Avoid building a product. Go and talk to customers. It’s scary at first, but hugely valuable to talk to 25 or 30 members of the tribe you want to serve. Look for patterns.

[25:40] Another tip is that the smaller you make your beachhead markets, the more likely you are to be successful. When you tailor your offering to a particular need, your chances of getting traction are better and you can dominate that sector quickly. Then look at adjunct sectors a step at a time, and scale slowly.

[28:00] Marc shares a big mistake he sees. People either want to have a traditional business with employees or they want to do it all themselves. They forget about virtual assistants that you pay with 1099s. Marc talks about his background with IBM and Lucent Technologies. Those are not the models to follow.

[29:03] Jon refers back to Step 2, the Key Team. This can be made of a co-founder or two and several virtual assistants, consultants, and advisors. Digitalization has helped us get a team that can be dispersed internationally.

[31:04] Marc’s co-author is in Portugal and his book designer is in Ghana, while Marc is in Mexico. They talk to each other on Facebook.

[31:18] Jon shares his book and contact information: SLAMProcess.com, Jon C. Warner on LinkedIn, JonCWarner on Twitter, and SLAMProcess on Facebook.

[31:28] Marc thanks Jon for being in this episode of the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Marc hopes you enjoyed the episode. Marc brought Jon into the Career Pivot Membership Community group to discuss the entrepreneurial mindset. Marc may use that fascinating discussion in an upcoming episode.

[31:50] The Career Pivot Membership Community is a platform to provide both inspiration and practical help in creating changes in our lives and careers. It continues to help the approximately 50 members who are participating in the Beta phase of this project.

[32:00] This is a community where everyone is there to help everyone else. They have been hovering at about 50 members for a while. Members are experiencing successes like going back to work, starting new businesses — even someone buying a franchise. Some leave the community when they’ve found success, while others stay.

[32:23] Their legacy stays with the community as they have built an extensive library of forum entries and discussions. Marc will be publishing shortly testimonials of what they got from being part of this community. There are successes in just about every week. It’s all about perseverance and mutual help.

[32:44] Marc is recruiting members for the next cohort. If you are interested in the endeavor and would like to be put on the waiting list, please go to CareerPivot.com/Community. The members of the initial cohorts help set the direction of the endeavor.

[33:06] This is a paid membership community with group coaching, mastermind groups, and special content. More importantly, it’s a community where you can seek help. Please go to CareerPivot.com/Community to learn more.

[33:24] 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.

[33:42] Please come back next week, when Marc will interview podcaster Paul Vogelsang.

[33:50] Please support this podcast by going to Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer.

[34:02] Marc thanks you for listening to the Repurpose Your Career podcast. You will find the show notes for this episode at CareerPivot.com/episode-146.

[34:13] 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.

When this episode is released, on September 16th, Marc’s book, Repurpose Your Career, A Practical Guide for the 2nd Half of Life, Third Edition,  co-authored by Susan Lahey, will be available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback versions. In this episode, Marc reveals the process of writing the book, from leaving the corporate world, to branding himself as a career transformation expert, and working with a professional writer to produce a guide for Baby Boomers as they move from a traditional career to creating networks, finding opportunities, and digitally rebranding themselves. Boomers are preparing to work into their 70s. The Third Edition focuses more on reinvention and less on job searching. Marc explains some of the obstacles he faced and the successes he found in his book publishing journey. Listen in for ideas, and some motivation to buy the book.

Marc is asking for your financial support for the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Please donate at Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer to support this Podcast.

Key Takeaways:

[1:22] Marc welcomes you to Episode 145 of the Repurpose Your Career podcast.

[1:35] 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.

[1:54] Marc’s expenses to put this podcast on are about $400.00 a month. After nearly 150 episodes, Marc is grateful for his growing audience. It’s clear that the stories from experts and people like yourself on this podcast have had an impact. Marc needs help continuing to provide entertaining content, mindful of your time.

[2:36] Marc is asking for direct listener support. Marc asks you for a donation of $5.00 a month but you can contribute as much or as little as you like. Every penny counts.

[2:48] 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-145.

[3:14] Repurpose Your Career, Third Edition, is now available! Marc thanks his co-author, Susan Lahey, his book cover designer, Mami Serwaa, the great review team, and all of the people on the Career Pivot Membership Community, who supported the launch. As of September 9, Marc has well over 100 pre-orders.

[3:40] Marc has recorded many podcast guest appearances and continues to record them. Some of which have already been published with more to come. Go to CareerPivot.com/launch you’ll find all the links of all the podcast episodes.
[4:01] Marc will be in Austin the week of September 22nd, the New Jersey area the week of September 29th, and D.C., the following week. Marc would love to meet his readers and listeners.

[4:12] Marc has multiple events planned for Austin, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Marc will then have a meet-and-greet in D.C. You can find the events on CareerPivot.com/launch.

[4:41] Next week, Marc will interview Jon Warner, author of SLAM: Build your startup idea or early stage business with the Startup Launch Assistance Map.

[4:53] This podcast episode will release on September 16th, when Repurpose Your Career, Third Edition is published in paperback. In this episode, Marc takes you on the journey of how he created this series. Marc started telling the story in CareerPivot.com/episode-25. This time he will go deeper.

[5:14] Kindle and paperback versions have been released. The Audible version will release in January of 2020. A minor update will be published at that time.

[5:26] Marc’s journey to create the Repurpose Your Career series started in 2006. Marc had just come out of a year-and-a-half of teaching and joined Launchpad Job Club.

[5:53] There, he found a room of people that looked like him, in their late 40s and older, many spit out by the tech industry, like IBM, Dell, Freescale (Now NXP Semiconductors), Motorola, and others. Many of them were lost. That’s when Marc came up with the Career Pivot concept and Repurpose Your Career.

[6:23] Marc went to work in the nonprofit sector and that lasted a year. Marc then started working for a tech startup, Lifesize Communications, just before the Great Recession. Marc joined the board at Launchpad in late 2006. By 2009, the Friday meeting attendance at Launchpad was from 300 to 400 people.

[7:04] Launchpad members look like the people who listen to this podcast – older, spit out by their former employer, and needing to go back to work. When Marc quit at Lifesize in January 2011, he started figuring things out. He started the CareerPivot brand in February of 2012. He also met Susan Lahey at that time.

[7:32] Marc and Susan put together a whitepaper, “Don’t Retire... Even if You Can: A Boomer’s Manifesto.” That whitepaper became the seed for the first Repurpose Your Career Book. Marc provided Susan with 15 or 20 blog posts and asked her to take the manifesto and blog posts and turn them into a book. That was enough for a small book.

[8:12] Marc also had a friend Gudjon Bergmann, who had published a book, The Author’s Blueprint: Successfully Write a Non-Fiction Book, Conquer Procrastination and Never Get Writer's Block Again. Gudjon has published many books. Gudjon told Marc, “When you write, particularly your first book, write a book, not the book.”

[8:44] Marc first put the book out as a PDF to a bunch of friends. They liked the book but their big complaint was that all Marc’s career pivot stories were from his own experience.

[9:01] Gudjon had suggested Marc add action steps at the end of each chapter. Marc also created a resource center of the action steps in Word documents. Marc learned that in order to get a binding, a book needs at least 131 pages. They picked a font style and size that got them to a little more than 131 pages.

[9:44] Marc published the book in early 2013. The goal was to update it about every 18 months to two years. The book sold about 2,000 copies in six years and still sells a copy or two, every few months.

[10:23] Susan went on to other projects and Marc tried working with three different writers, none of which stayed with him. He published his next book, Personal Branding for Baby Boomers: What It Is, How to Manage It, and Why It's No Longer Optional, as a 60-page ebook. It has only sold a couple of hundred copies.

[10:50] Marc got back with Susan in 2016 and they started working on the Second Edition of Repurpose Your Career. Marc discovered that a lot had changed in the employment world. It was not going to be friendly to Boomers. Marc planned for three new chapters: Career Failures and Recoveries, Make Stuff Up Disorder, and Weak Ties.

[11:52] Weak Ties was accidentally cut from the book and never made it back in. So, Marc made it into a major new chapter in the Third Edition of Repurpose Your Career.

[12:05] For the Second Edition, Marc added a lot of stories, based on the experiences of the many clients he had worked with since the First Edition was written.That was the biggest update to the book. They released the Second Edition in 2017. His time, Marc put the book up for pre-order and bought Amazon ads.

[12:42] Marc paid a narrator for the Audible version of the original book. Working with a narrator was too much work, so Marc read and edited the Audible version of the Second Edition, himself. The Audible version came out later and was more successful. The Second Edition has sold about 2,000 copies in two-and-a-half years.

[13:40] When Marc and Susan started the Third Edition, they found the world had continued to change. Marc also had started the Career Pivot Online Community. Baby Boomers are aging. Gen-Xers are now coming into their early 50s and are running into the same problems.

[14:13] ProPublica ran an article claiming that “If You’re Over 50, Chances Are the Decision to Leave a Job Won’t be Yours,” and 90% will not recover. In the online community, many will work into their 70s and later because they have to but probably not in a traditional full-time job. Older workers don’t want to work for a boss.

[15:09] For the Third Edition, Marc and Susan pulled out some chapters that related to tactical job searching and put them in the Resource Center. They have added chapters on ageism, creative destruction, creating opportunities and stopping reacting, life as a square peg, and planning how you are going to work into your 70s.

[15:53] The last two new chapters are about a playbook for strategic relationships and building weak ties, which was left on the floor for the Second Edition. A lot of the book is devoted to creative destruction and what you need to do to keep yourself viable. The world has changed and how we look at our careers and make money has to change.

[16:23] The book cover changed to an image with women’s shoes. Mrs. Miller suggests putting both men’s and women’s shoes, walking to a sunrise.

[17:11] Much of the material in the book comes from disparate sources, including blog posts. They used a copywriter who used to be an editor at the Austin American-Statesman. For the Third Edition, Marc and Susan pulled together the voice and the strategies into a coherent thought thread. They got most of the way there.

[17:54] Marc will make some minor updates in January, when they release the Audible version. For example, he will point out that the strategies and weak ties that you use for job searching, you can also use for client search in an entrepreneurial realm. This will be a much more aspirational than a tactical book.

[18:39] We all have to get to the place where we are willing to take control. We will not be looking for that job and waiting for that layoff to happen. We will have a mixture of things to earn our income. Marc included stories of people who are doing that — reinventing themselves, creating their businesses; things that don’t look like a job.

[19:21] Russ Eanes is an example, from the episode of two weeks ago, CareerPivot.com/episode-143. Marc will soon have on the podcast his image consultant, Jean LeFebvre, who has started a Fulfillment by Amazon business in her early 70s. Jean’s first Amazon product is a pierced earring back for sagging earlobes.

[20:00] This being Marc’s fourth book, he is getting better at launches. He had a very large review team, for which he is very appreciative. The quality of this book is the best that Marc and Susan have produced, largely because of the review team’s great work.

[20:39] A subset of the review team will be writing reviews on Amazon, by the time this podcast is released. Marc thanks everyone who has pre-ordered the book. That helps tremendously in the Amazon rankings. Marc is also putting a lot more material in the Resource Center.

[21:44] Marc hopes this book will funnel people into the Career Pivot Online Community. Most of us will need help to reinvent ourselves. It is hard to do alone.

[22:08] This is the first time Marc has had a platform behind the book. Marc is really excited about what the online community can do for people. It is a place for you to go and get help. There are links in the book to the community.

[22:39] The idea is to give you the resources such that you know you are not alone.

[22:47] The Third Edition is about 180 pages. Marc and Susan plan to update it in 18 months to two years. It’s an evolving process. Marc hopes you read the book, write an honest review, and let Marc know what you think. Marc is really proud of it and he wants to know how it helps you.

[23:52] Marc hopes you enjoyed this episode. The third edition of Repurpose Your Career is a milestone that Marc is quite proud of.

[23:59] The Career Pivot Membership Community is a platform to provide both inspiration and practical help in creating changes in our lives and careers. It continues to help the approximately 50 members who are participating in the Beta phase of this project. Look for an announcement for a formal launch, this Fall!

[24:24] This is a community where everyone is there to help everyone else. They have been hovering at about 50 members for a while. Members are experiencing successes like going back to work, starting new businesses — even someone buying a franchise. Some leave the community when they’ve found success, while others stay.

[24:46 ] Their legacy stays with the community as they have built an extensive library of forum entries and discussions. Marc will be publishing shortly testimonials of what they got from being part of this community. There are successes in just about every week. It’s all about perseverance and mutual help.

[25:05] A good example is Russ Eanes, the podcast guest from a couple of weeks ago on CareerPivot.com/episode-143.

[25:11] Marc is recruiting members for the next cohort. If you are interested in the endeavor and would like to be put on the waiting list, please go to CareerPivot.com/Community. The members of the initial cohorts help set the direction of the endeavor.

[25:31] This is a paid membership community with group coaching, mastermind groups, and special content. More importantly, it’s a community where you can seek help. Please go to CareerPivot.com/Community to learn more.

[25:49] 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.

[26:02] Please come back next week, when Marc will interview Jon Warner, the author of SLAM.

[26:10] Please support this podcast by going to Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer.

[26:20] Marc thanks you for listening to the Repurpose Your Career podcast. You will find the show notes for this episode at CareerPivot.com/episode-145.

[26:33] 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. Marc will add to this list soon as he is finding new places to listen!

David wanted his daughter, Nikki, to be raised to overcome the obstacles of life. When Nikki was young, David wrote a series of books full of inspirational messages for her. Now that Nikki has a young son of her own, she felt it was time to put these stories she loved as a child into circulation for other children to enjoy with their parents. Nikki painted the illustrations and designed the book and working with resources in Thailand, where she lives with her family, she was able to produce them affordably. The best part for them is that the Yeagers donate 100% of the profits from each book to Kids in Need of Defense, working with children separated from their parents at the American border.

Listen in for their story and their plans for books to come.

Marc is asking for your financial support for the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Please donate at Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer to support this Podcast.

Key Takeaways:

[1:38] Marc welcomes you to Episode 144 of the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Career Pivot is the sponsor of this podcast; CareerPivot.com is one of the very few websites dedicated to those of us in the second half of life and our careers. Check out the blog and the other resources delivered to you, free of charge.

[1:51] 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.

[2:10] Marc’s expenses to put this podcast on are about $400.00 a month. After nearly 150 episodes, Marc is grateful for his growing audience. It’s clear that the stories from experts and people like yourself on this podcast have had an impact.

[2:57] Marc needs help continuing to provide entertaining and mindful content. 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.

[3:19] 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-144.

[3:40] When this podcast releases, on September 9th, it will be seven days from the formal launch of the next edition of Repurpose Your Career, and days away from the soft launch on September 12th.

[4:00] On September 12, the Kindle edition will be available for $.99. On September 16th, the paperback version will publish, but you can pre-order it now! On September 16th the paperback version will sell for $14.97 and the Kindle edition will go to $8.97. Marc will be lowering the prices on previous editions.

[4:28] Go to CareerPivot.com/Launch to find all the links to order your book.

[4:34] Marc has recorded many podcast guest appearances and continues to record them. Some of which have already been published with more to come. Go to CareerPivot.com/launch you’ll find all the links of all the podcast episodes.
[4:51] Marc will be in Austin the week of September 22nd, the New Jersey area the week of September 29th, and D.C., the following week. Marc would love to meet his readers and listeners.

[5:04] Marc has multiple events planned for Austin, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Marc will then have a meet-and-greet in D.C. You can find the events on CareerPivot.com/launch.

[5:16] Next week, Marc will take you on a journey on how he created the Repurpose Your Career series. Marc is a recovering engineer, not a writer. If Marc can do this, you can, too! Marc discussed part of the journey on CareerPivot.com/episode-25 but this time, he will go deeper. This new episode coincides with the release of the 3rd edition.

[5:42] This week, Marc interviews Nikki and David Yeager on the podcast. Nikki is David’s daughter. Nikki wrote to Marc about her father’s decision to donate 100% of his children’s book proceeds to KIND, an organization that offers pro bono legal services and policy education to help families who have been separated at the U.S. border.

[6:18] Nikki lives in Thailand. Her dad lives in Florida. Nikki is illustrating the books that her father wrote when she was a child. You can hear more at DavidYaygrrBooks.com. There is also a link to it at CareerPivot.com/episode-144

[6:50] Marc welcomes you to the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Marc introduces Nikki and David Yeager and the DavidYaygrrBooks website.

[7:49] Nikki and David recently self-published a children’s book, Nikki Durant and the Terrible Can’t, together. David originally wrote the book when Nikki was “a little baby.” Thirty years later, with a child of her own, Nikki drew the illustrations for the book. When it was ready, Nikki worked to “get it out into the world for him.”

[8:38] David saw tremendous value in sitting with his daughter and reading books to her. As he was doing that, he came up with stories of his own to tell, that he thought would be worthwhile, educational, and inspirational, not only for Nikki but also for other children. He wrote multiple books, over time.

[9:57] Nikki explains the story of Nikki Durant, who overcomes all the obstacles in her way to get to a place called “There.” David wrote the story as an example and a message for his daughter, Nikki.

[10:58] David intended the story as a means of opening a dialog with Nikki about not being intimidated by the challenges of life.

[11:20] Nikki had started a company with her mother and brother a few years ago and David had started working at the company. Recently, they sold the company and David retired. With more time and energy on their hands, Nikki and David had time to dedicate to the project, including Nikki’s work to illustrate the book.

[12:05] With Nikki’s son being four years old, and being fascinated by books, Nikki felt now was the time to get it done. Nikki also wants her son to be raised to overcome any obstacles that come his way with a strong sense of self-advocacy, so she is glad to have the book in his hands.

[12:57] The Yeagers are donating 100% of the profit to Kids In Need of Defense — KIND, that works to provide legal services to children who have been separated from their families at the U.S. border. They also provide representation for children who would otherwise be showing up before judges alone.

[13:49] KIND also advocates for changing the laws that impact children coming into the U.S. and being separated from their parents.

[14:18] David was a stay-at-home dad while his wife pursued a career. David became a foster parent, as well, to do something positive for others. Over several years, they fostered four children at different times. David learned how traumatic it is for children to be separated from their parents, even when it is necessary to protect them.

[16:14] David wants to help, in whatever way he can, to mitigate some of the damage and contribute to helping the people working to lessen the negative impacts of some of the policies and practices in place, separating children from families.

[16:43] There are different ways to communicate with children. Sometimes it can be through books and discussions more than just trying to explicitly teach somebody a lesson.

[17:10] Nikki is living in Bangkok, Thailand with her husband and son. They have been there for about a year.

[17:27] Nikki started illustrating the book about 10 years ago. She stopped after three pages, having lost interest in illustrating “other people’s books.” She put it away until very recently. Nikki painted in acrylics. She finished all the pictures, redoing some of them. Then she scanned them all to a computer and did the layout electronically.

[18:05] Publishing books is very affordable in Bangkok. Production costs in the U.S. are much higher. For the next run, production costs, with shipping, will be less than $1.00 per book. At a selling price of $10.00, they will donate almost $9.00 per book sold. The first production run came to about $3.00 per book.

[19:00] David wrote a lot of books. There will be quite a few more to come. Nikki drew the pictures for another one, many years ago, that she is considering redoing, and there is another she may start illustrating soon. Nikki’s goal is to have a second book done in the next six months.

[20:00] David is 65. This experience is a reinvention for David and a time of discovery. Both David and his wife retired at the end of 2018, so they are exploring how to use the time available to them, including working with his writings of the past.

[20:59] It was a joy for David to see the book become real that had always been in his head.There is a real sense of satisfaction that Nikki, the child David was trying to teach and inspire, is now a part of the process of completing the book, for others and her own child.

[22:11] Nikki tells how she could tell her usually unexcitable father was excited on first seeing the book.

[23:16] Nikki had the story in an email sent from David. Nikki had to break it into pages and come up with the images based on the words on the page. Besides the interior illustrations, she designed the cover, using illustrations from the book.

[24:57] Nikki tells how it came to pass that she illustrated the book. She had gone through a vocational art program. Once or twice David had hinted that it would be nice if Nikki or someone she knew drew the pictures for the story.

[25:31] It’s nearly impossible to get a children’s book publisher to pick up an unknown author. There are so many children’s books, already. To pay someone to do high-quality illustrations is extremely expensive, so it’s hard to recoup those costs. Nikki always considered that she had the capability to do it and she really loved David’s books.

[26:02] It almost felt to Nikki like an obligation to do the illustrations for the books she had loved from her childhood, so that’s how she came around to it.

[26:14] Marc has a good friend through Leadership Austin who aged out of the foster care system. Marc also knows people in organizations at the border and he lives in Mexico, so he feels connected to the Yeager’s story in several ways.

[26:52] Nikki talks about the distribution of the book. They also created lesson plans that go along with the book and they plan to do read-alouds in schools, with activities for teachers and classes.

[27:31] Nikki and David are working very hard to get more reviews and word-of-mouth. Nikki invites listeners of the Repurpose Your Career podcast to spread the message.

[27:48] Find the book on DavidYaygrrBooks.com. The Yeagers get the most money to donate if you buy from their website. The book is also on MagicBeans Bookstore, which donates books to children in need. You can also buy it at Back in the Day Books in Dunedin, Florida, where David lives.

[28:46] David also appreciates the help any of the listeners can give in getting the book out there. It’s nearly impossible for a new author to get a book published, no matter how worthwhile it is.

[29:26] When Nikki approached Marc, he felt this was a cool story to share on the Repurpose Your Career podcast.

[29:49] Marc thanks Nikii and David Yeager for being on the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Marc hopes you enjoyed this episode. Marc had a bunch of fun talking to Nikki and David.

[30:41] 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. The community has moved on to the next phase where community members who have experienced success get to share their successes and teach others.

[30:57] This is a community where everyone is there to help everyone else out.

[31:02] The community is about to go to a formal launch. Look for more on the online community as Marc launches a new version of the Career Pivot website toward the end of September or early October.

[31:18] They have been hovering at about 50 members for a while. Members are experiencing successes like going back to work, starting new businesses — even someone buying a franchise. Some leave the community when they’ve found success, while others stay.

[31:37] Their legacy stays with the community as they have built an extensive library of forum entries and discussions. Marc will be publishing shortly testimonials of what they got from being part of this community. There are successes in just about every week.

[31:57] Marc is recruiting members for the next cohort. If you are interested in the endeavor and would like to be put on the waiting list, please go to CareerPivot.com/Community.

[32:05] This is a paid membership community with group coaching, mastermind groups, and special content. More importantly, it’s a community where you can seek help. Please go to CareerPivot.com/Community to learn more.

[32:22] 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.

[32:35] Please come back next week, when Marc discusses the journey of writing the Repurpose Your Career series.

[32:42] Please support this podcast by going to Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer.

[32:53] Marc thanks you for listening to the Repurpose Your Career podcast. You will find the show notes for this episode at CareerPivot.com/episode-144.

[33:04] 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. Marc will add to this list soon as he is finding new places to listen!

Russ Eanes enjoyed a long career as a publishing executive for the Mennonite church in the U.S. and Canada. With the disruption of the publishing industry and the decline in church membership and attendance, Russ found himself downsizing staff and merging locations until he was exhausted by it, so he downsized himself and took a sabbatical, including a walk on the Camino de Santiago. On that sabbatical, he found a new purpose. He is now publishing the story of his walk and starting a journey of teaching other walkers how to self-publish books chronicling their experiences.

Marc is asking for your financial support for the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Please Donate monthly at Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer to support this Podcast.

Key Takeaways:

[1:32] Marc welcomes you to Episode 143 of the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Career Pivot is the sponsor of this podcast; CareerPivot.com is one of the very few websites dedicated to those of us in the second half of life and our careers. Check out the blog and the other resources delivered to you, free of charge.

[1:59] 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.

[2:17] Marc’s expenses to put this podcast on are about $400.00 a month. After nearly 150 episodes, Marc is grateful for his growing audience. Marc needs help continuing to provide entertaining and mindful content. 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.

[3:27] 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-143.

[3:55] Marc has uploaded the manuscript of Repurpose Your Career, Third Edition to KDP Amazon, the self-publishing arm of Amazon.com. Proof copies of the paperback edition are in the hands of the volunteers of the Repurpose Your Career release team to review for fit and finish. The soft release of the book is days away, on September 12th.

[4:24] On September 12, the Kindle edition will be available for $.99. On September 16th, the paperback version will publish, but you can pre-order it now! Go to CareerPivot.com/Launch to find all the links to order your book, now.

[4:45] Marc has recorded many podcast guest appearances, some of which have already been published with more to come. Go to CareerPivot.com/launch you’ll find all the links of all the podcast episodes.
[4:58] Marc will be in Austin the week of September 22nd, the New Jersey area the week of September 29th, and D.C., the following week. Marc would love to meet his readers and listeners.

[5:13] Marc has multiple events planned for Austin, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Marc will then have a meet-and-greet in D.C. You can find the events on CareerPivot.com/launch.

[5:26] Next week, Marc will interview Nikki and David Yeager on the podcast. Nikki is David’s daughter and she wrote to Marc about her father’s decision to donate 100% of his children’s book proceeds to KIND, an organization that offers pro bono legal services and policy education to families who have been separated at the U.S. border.

[5:59] Nikki lives in Thailand. Her dad lives in Florida. Nikki is illustrating the books that her father wrote when she was a child. You can hear more at DavidYaygrrBooks.com. Marc was really touched by the story Nikki shared. Marc is way too familiar with what is going on at the border, having lived in Texas for many years and now living in Mexico.

[6:44] This week, Marc interviews Russ Eanes. Russ is a member of the Career Pivot Online Community who left his job more than a year ago at the age of 60. Russ suffered a double whammy: both his industry and his career path were disappearing.

[7:04] Come listen to his story of getting lost and finding his way to writing a book and starting a business to help others self-publish. Marc hopes you enjoy this episode.

[7:16] Marc welcomes Russ Eanes to the Repurpose Your Career podcast and invites Russ to relate what he did in the first half of life.

[8:01] Russ worked in ministry for several years in the Mennonite Church. Russ also has worked many years in publishing, which is his “real love.” Russ has also been a University administrator. He has explored several career paths. He is most interested in publishing, writing, editing, and anything literary.

[8:29] Most recently, Russ was at the top of his career, Executive Director for MennoMedia, the publisher for the Mennonite Church in the U.S. and Canada. They publish books, curriculum, music, and magazines. It required a lot of work and contact with the constituents, managing a sizeable staff at multiple locations in both countries.

[9:03] The publishing business and churches today are going through tremendous changes. Churches are decreasing in number. The publishing industry has been disrupted over the last few decades. A church publisher is at the nexus of that decline. After 11 years of downsizing, Russ was worn out and downsized himself, at age 60.

[10:53] Marc talks about his first tech startup being bought by Lucent and then spun out as Agere Systems. Marc was on the team picking who would be laid off.

[11:32] Russ needed a sabbatical. His wife suggested he take a year off and live on savings before getting back to work. Russ visited his son in South America, then biked across the UK. He fulfilled a long-held dream of walking the Camino de Santiago across Spain. He used that walking time to set a new pattern and pace for his life.

[13:24] Russ completed the walk in May of 2018 and then went home. He had an idea to start a business to help people self-publish. However, he felt that he no longer fit into the fast pace of American culture. He decided to write a book about his experiences walking on the Camino.

[15:00] During his walk on the Camino, his love of writing had re-awakened. He wrote letters home, emails, and social media posts. When he started his book, the writing poured out of him; it wasn’t like work. He had never wanted to write a book but now it came naturally. He worked with an editor and developed a style of writing by narration.

[16:16] He chronicled the journey of 500 miles over six weeks, telling of his experiences at different stages of the journey.

[16:51] For over 20 years, Russ had kept meeting people who had walked the Camino, and that created in him a desire to walk it, also. On the Camino, the unexpected happens, all the time. There are no schedules and no lists. You just take your bag and guidebook and walk about twenty-five kilometers a day.

[18:13] As a young man, Marc talks about the five weeks he took off, to hike Colorado and Utah. He hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. It took Marc almost two weeks to lose track of the day of the week, and not care. Russ never had any idea of the day of the week on the Camino, but he did have a calendar.

[18:36] Russ only kept track of the day his wife was going to meet him — Friday, April 27.

[19:00] Marc has found, by living in Mexico, that there are a lot of things that used to be important to him that are no longer interesting. He is uncomfortable in the U.S.. Russ notes that everything you need is in a 16-pound pack on your back. Russ missed family on his trip, but the only material possessions he missed were books.

[19:29] Whenever Russ would stop and spend the night, if he found a book in English, he would devour it. He carried only a guidebook and a book on the history and culture of the towns on the Camino.

[20:06] After Russ started the book, with an editor, he was surprised by the amount of rewriting he needed to do. He ended up working with two editors. They kept pointing out patterns in his writing. After nine months of writing, by the time Russ started the last chapter, he had weeded out most of his bad writing habits.
[20:46] Russ found that writing is tough mental work, and it exhausted him to write day after day, after day.

[21:01] Marc worked with Susan Lahey, who also worked with Russ. Marc says, “It doesn’t make any difference what you think — it’s what your readers think.” You have to get outside of your own head. A good editor will point out inconsistencies, redundancies, and problems that you don’t notice.

[22:00] Russ is publishing the book himself under the imprint he created, the Walker Press. He hopes to do more books and also help others through the process of self-publishing books about walking. Russ will publish the book on Labor Day. He is opening it on Amazon and IngramSpark, the main self-publishing channels in the U.S.

[22:31] Russ is working on promotional ideas, advertising, and a few events. Russ loves talking about his walk on the Camino. He took about 3,000 pictures, so he shows pictures when he makes a presentation.

[22:54] Russ has started working with the first few clients for self-publishing and hopes to find his capacity of how many people he can work with at a time.

[23:06] Russ has learned that he has a lot of fun in writing. It is a tremendous creative process. When Russ finished a chapter, he sent it out to a team of readers for their feedback. About 25 readers have given Russ excellent feedback, which was very valuable. Russ is very happy he has been able to fulfill a dream.

[24:11] Russ has also learned how much longer it takes than you might imagine. He originally thought he would have the book published five months ago. Russ has had to learn how to be his own boss and obey his boss. He realized that to get serious work done, he had to leave the house to escape the distractions of home.

[25:02] Russ went to a local coffee shop, three days a week, and hunkered down for several hours. Russ found it was a good atmosphere for writing.

[25:40] Russ chose readers from among his friends and family and from posts he put on Facebook, and on a forum for people who have an interest in the Camino de Santiago. He found a dozen readers who had walked the Camino. Russ says these are his best readers because they know the experience exactly.

[26:50] Marc says a lot of people don’t get started writing because they are not willing to go get feedback. They don’t want to hear that their writing needs work. Feedback is very important.

[27:24] Russ asks you, if you give feedback to a writer, to try to frame it in a positive way. The authors are writing about themselves! Russ’s wife is ruthless in marking grammar and punctuation errors and striking out words! Sometimes an editor or a reader is off, but mostly they are right.

[28:03] Russ set the publishing date of Labor Day, September 2, 2019, because he has a trip planned for the end of September to do a two-week walk between Rome and Florence in the Umbrian Mountains, with his wife, for their 40th wedding anniversary. Russ wanted the book out of the way to get ready for the walk.

[29:31] To learn more about Russ and his projects, go to RussEanes.com or TheRustyWalker.Wordpress.com, or see the book, The Walk of a Lifetime: 500 Miles on the Camino de Santiago.

[30:30] Russ has been in the Career Pivot Online Community for about six months. He has found a lot of people like him, who hit the second half of life and are ready to take life and work at a different pace and try something different. Some have tried several different things. You discover you’re not alone. It gets Russ out of his own head.

[31:58] Marc thanks Russ for being on the Repurpose Your Career podcast and for being in the Career Pivot Online Community. Marc hopes you enjoyed this episode. Russ is on an interesting journey that is not over. If you are interested in his book or other projects, go to CareerPivot.com/episode-143 for the links to his book and website.

[32:35] 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. The community has moved on to the next phase where community members who have experienced success get to share their successes and teach others.

[32:51] This is a community where everyone is there to help everyone else out. They have been hovering at about 50 members for a while. Members are experiencing successes like going back to work, starting new businesses — even someone buying a franchise. Some leave the community when they’ve found success, while others stay.

[33:13] Their legacy stays with the community as they have built an extensive library of forum entries and discussions. Marc will be publishing shortly testimonials of what they got from being part of this community. There are successes in just about every week.

[33:44] Marc is recruiting members for the next cohort. If you are interested in the endeavor and would like to be put on the waiting list, please go to CareerPivot.com/Community.

[33:59] Those who are in these initial cohorts set the direction. This is a paid membership community with group coaching and special content. More importantly, it’s a community where you can seek help. Please go to CareerPivot.com/Community to learn more.

[34:22] 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.

[34:39] Please come back next week, when Marc interviews Nikki and David Yeager from David YayGrr Books.

[34:49] Please support this podcast by going to Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer.

[35:02] Marc thanks you for listening to the Repurpose Your Career podcast. You will find the show notes for this episode at CareerPivot.com/episode-143.

[35:18] 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. Marc will add to this list soon as he is finding new places to listen!

This episode covers some of the specific benefits the Millers have found by moving to Mexico. Besides saving money on food and rent, they enjoy the beautiful surroundings, they walk more, hike regularly, eat local food, live like locals, and take local transportation. They have lost weight, they are healthier, they have less stress, they have made many friends, and they are happier.

Key Takeaways:

[1:22] Marc welcomes you to Episode 142 of the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Career Pivot is the sponsor of this podcast; CareerPivot.com is one of the very few websites dedicated to those of us in the second half of life and our careers. Check out the blog and the other resources delivered to you, free of charge.

[1:51] 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.

[2:09] Marc has uploaded the manuscript of Repurpose Your Career, Third Edition to KDP Amazon, the self-publishing arm of Amazon.com. Marc has ordered multiple proof copies of the paperback edition, to send to the volunteers of the Repurpose Your Career release team to review for fit and finish.

[2:31] The release team is moving from reviewing the book to getting ready to write reviews. Members of the review team who have committed to writing a review on Amazon after publication, and are willing to spend $.99 for the initial Kindle version, will get a PDF version of the book to read before the publish date, and later a paperback.

[2:53] Marc plans a soft launch of the book on Thursday, September 12, and a hard launch on Monday, September 16, followed by both a virtual and a real book tour starting Monday.

[3:14] If you are interested in joining the review team, please go to CareerPivot.com/RYCTeam.

[3:24] Marc has recorded many podcast guest appearances, some of which have already been published with more to come. Go to CareerPivot.com/launch you’ll find all the links of all the podcasts.
[3:38] Marc will be in Austin the week of September 22nd, the New Jersey area the week of September 29th, and D.C., the following week. Marc would love to meet his readers and listeners.

[3:51] Marc has multiple events planned for Austin, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Marc will then have a meet-and-greet in D.C. You can find the events on CareerPivot.com/launch.

[4:09] Next week, Marc will interview Russ Eanes. Russ is a member of the Career Pivot Online Community who left his job more than a year ago at the age of 60. Russ suffered a double whammy: both his industry and his career path were disappearing.

[4:25] Come listen to his story of getting lost and finding his way to writing a book and starting a business to help others self-publish.

[4:35] This week’s episode will be Marc’s one-year reflection on being an expat. Marc and his wife have lived in Ajijic, Mexico for a little over a year. He will reflect on what he has learned and how the Millers have changed in the last year.

[4:59] You will find all the posts and podcasts on becoming an expat at CareerPivot.com/Expat.

[5:17] Marc introduces his reflections on the first year of living in Mexico as an expat. He recorded this episode on August 19, 2019.

[5:28] The Millers arrived in Ajijic on June 23, 2018, after a three-day drive from Austin, Texas. Their planned three-month experimental trip turned into four months and while they were there they decided to sign a lease. It has been 14 months since they left Austin, Texas. The Millers have lived in Ajijic for about 12 of those months.

[6:00] The one-year lease on the casita the Millers are renting is running out and they are signing another one-year lease. During this next year, they will decide whether to rent or to buy something. Marc has written a large number of blog posts and podcasts on their move to Mexico and they are found at the Expat link above.

[7:00] On June 21, 2108, the Millers drove the four-hour drive from Austin to Laredo, Texas and spent the night. Fairly early the next morning, they crossed the border and met Juan Pablo Chavez, who guided them through the immigration process and started driving them to Ajijic, on the North Shore of Lake Chapala. 

[7:36] Lake Chapala is the largest lake in Mexico, about a 40-minute cab ride from the Guadalajara Airport in Guadalajara, the second-largest city in Mexico. It was a two-day drive from the border. They stayed overnight in Matehuala, which is where they always stay when they drive back and forth.

[8:05] The drive down was pretty easy. Mrs. Miller kept the two very large cats company in the back seat. They drove about seven hours each day. The Millers have since made the trip, multiple times by themselves.

[8:31] When the Millers first arrived, they rented a one-bath, one-bedroom house, outside of Ajijic, in Riberas del Pilar, a bedroom community, booming with expats.

[8:53] The Millers spent the rainy season summer in Riberas and looked for a rental for January. It turned out they had to take action sooner than January. Just as in Austin, everyone is moving there, real estate prices are going up, the old gringos don’t like the new gringos, locals are being priced out, and there is a lot of gentrification.

[9:59] Earlier than planned, the Millers started looking for a rental, and signed a lease for the casita in Ajijic starting September 3, 2018. The casita is half a block from the plaza, which puts them right in the middle of things. It’s kind of loud, but not as loud as Austin.

[10:26] When the Millers moved in, they had a special seven-foot-tall cat tree made by a retired local named Nacho (Ignacio) for a third of what they would have paid in the U.S. They scheduled to go back to Austin for six weeks at the end of October and clean out their condo for rental.

[11:08] It was a nice three-day drive back. The cats were well-behaved and the roads are almost entirely toll-roads between Guadalajara and Laredo, except for around 10 miles at Lagos de Moreno. The truck traffic on the highways is amazing.

[12:02] Back in Austin, the Millers discovered six weeks was not enough time! They had rented a five-by-ten-foot storage room in South Austin that they filled up. They got rid of almost everything they owned. They had planned to process their resident visa applications in Laredo. They canceled the appointment when they ran out of time.

[12:52] The first week in December, the Millers traveled back and spent Christmas in Mexico. The owner of a restaurant they frequented invited them to her home for a Christmas Eve party! Parties in Mexico extend into the early morning, so they didn’t stay that long.

[13:43] The Mexican people take Christmas and New Year’s very seriously, with a lot of celebration.

[13:51] The Millers traveled back to Austin in late February for a speaking engagement Marc had in early March. They found some friends in Ajijic to house-sit and watch their cats for this three-week trip. The Millers stayed with friends in Austin.

[14:20] One of the things that stands out to the Millers every time they go back to Austin is how noisy Austin is and how little they enjoy it, contrasted with Ajijic. In Mexico, there are always fireworks (cohetones) exploding, music blaring from cars, and festivals. It is loud. But the U.S. seems to have a constant “white noise” of traffic, machines, etc.

[15:28] Americans ask if the Millers feel safe in Mexico. Marc contrasts Ajijic to SWAT Teams across the street from his condo in Austin and various problems that just don’t occur in Ajijic.

[16:31] Before the September trip, Marc and his wife had taken a hike up the nearby mountain. Marc calls Ajijic Paradise with an average temperature of 72°. The lake, about four blocks away is at 5,000 feet. The mountains behind them go up to about 7,000 feet. They hiked up to a waterfall and it was not a hard hike.

[17:11] Since the Millers returned to Ajijic in December, Mrs. Miller hikes up into the mountains just about every day for one, two, or three hours. It’s beautiful.

[17:30] Because of frequent walking, Mrs. Miller has lost significant weight. Marc has lost enough to be the same weight now as when he graduated from college. On their Spring trip to Austin, they bought new clothes to fit better.

[18:09] Mrs. Miller can shop in Mexico but Marc is 6′4″ so it is very challenging to find Mexican clothes to fit him. He buys some things from Amazon.com.mx. The Millers have found that they still eat out too much, as it is very inexpensive to eat out in Mexico and the food is so good.

[18:48] For the equivalent of $25.00, the Millers can eat entrees, wine, and split an appetizer at a fine Italian restaurant. The same meal in Austin would have been over $100.00.

[19:04] The Millers are eating well. They have lost weight. They are living, as much as possible, like locals. This year, they started taking Spanish classes from the Lake Chapala Society with many other gringos. They have an amazing teacher, Berta, who is getting her teaching certification. She is really good with gringos!

[19:53] The Millers have gotten into a regular rhythm of things they do. Mrs. Miller goes to Yoga two or three times a week. Marc goes once a week. Mrs. Miller hikes almost every day.

[20:11] Marc hikes on Fridays with the Ajijic Hiking Group, which is a bunch of organized and friendly gringos. There are a variety of hikes of different difficulties available to interesting spots and ceremonial grounds.

[21:23] The rainy season runs from June through October with about 30″ of rain. It only rains at night. The rest of the year is pretty dry. How long will it stay a Paradise? There are lots of folks moving there, so it’s hard to say.

[22:03] The Millers are living on about $2,500 a month. Mrs. Miller turns 65 in September and they have just enrolled her in Medicare and Social Security, over the phone with the U.S. Consulate in Guadalajara. They could have done it online. They are maintaining a U.S. address in Austin.

[22:42] Both Marc and Mrs. Miller have changed. Their stress levels are way down. They are learning Spanish slowly. Almost every establishment they visit speaks some English, so it’s easy to get by with only English.

[23:06] Marc asks gringos in Mexico. “Will you go back?” For many, and for Marc and Mrs. Miller, they just don’t see themselves going back.

[23:22] Marc counts it a big benefit that he doesn’t get TV in Ajijic, especially not cable news! Marc subscribes to the Austin American-Statesman newspaper and Apple News on his iPad. Being a news junkie, Marc has turned a lot of the news off.

[23:45] The Millers are happier and healthier. They are associating with the local population more and more. They are surrounded by businesses and restaurants. They have American friends who have been in Ajijic for years. They all lose weight because they walk everywhere.

[24:23] If you live like the locals, eat like the locals, and transport like the locals, you’ll live longer, healthier, happier lives. If you want to live like a gringo, you can, and packaged food is available, but it is more expensive, and not as healthy.

[25:16] A lot of expats, particularly the Canadians, come for the winter, from December to April. During Holy Week, there was a huge shift this year with all the Canadians disappearing and many Guadalajarans moving into their vacation homes.

[26:20] April and May is the hottest time of the year. It gets up to 90° and 65° at night. The humidity is 10% to 20%. Marc always wears a hat and long sleeves to protect from burning.

[27:13] The Millers know how much money they are spending. Last week they drove into Guadalajara to go to Home Depot and Costco. Costco carries American products that aren’t available elsewhere in Mexico. They sell VitaMix, a favorite of Marc’s.

[27:58] The Millers are making a trip back to Austin for the book tour and combining that with a trip to New Jersey for Marc’s 45th high school reunion. On this trip, the Millers plan to empty their storage room. Except for the condo they are renting out, this will free them up from their ties to Austin.

[28:28] With Mrs. Miller on Medicare, she will not need health insurance in the States, but Marc will buy a temporary health insurance policy for about $7.00 a day. Mrs. Miller already has doctor’s appointments set up. The medicine she takes for thyroid is only available in the U.S. She gets a year’s prescription at a time. Other expats do the same.

[29:18] To learn more about the medical aspects of being an expat, please listen to this podcast episode: CareerPivot.com/Episode-131. To learn about the financial challenges and the technology, please see these blog posts: How to Move Abroad — Banking and Making my Business Location-Independent.

[30:08] Marc does not plan to move back to the States until he is on Medicare, more than a year-and-a-half from now if he ever moves back.

[30:31] Marc hopes you enjoyed this episode. If you have any questions for him, please leave a comment at the show notes at CareerPivot.com/episode-142.

[30:46] 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. The community has moved on to the next phase where community members who have experienced success get to share their successes and teach others.

[31:04] This is a community where everyone is there to help everyone else out. They have been hovering at about 50 members for a while. Members are experiencing successes like going back to work, starting new businesses — even someone buying a franchise. Some leave the community when they’ve found success, while others stay.

[31:26] Their legacy stays with the community as they have built an extensive library of forum entries and discussions. Marc will be publishing shortly testimonials of what they got from being part of this community. There are successes in just about every week.

[31:52] Marc is recruiting members for the next cohort. If you are interested in the endeavor and would like to be put on the waiting list, please go to CareerPivot.com/Community.

[32:03] Those who are in these initial cohorts set the direction. This is a paid membership community with group coaching and special content. More importantly, it’s a community where you can seek help. Please go to CareerPivot.com/Community to learn more.

[32:22] 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.

[32:39] Please come back next week, when Marc interviews Russ Eanes on his journey of getting lost and finding a direction.

[35:30] Marc thanks you for listening to the Repurpose Your Career podcast. You will find the show notes for this episode at CareerPivot.com/episode-142.

[33:00] 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. Marc will add to this list soon as he is finding new places to listen!

Kerry Hannon is a nationally-recognized expert and strategist on career transitions, entrepreneurship, personal finance, and retirement. She is a frequent TV and radio commentator and is a sought-after keynote speaker at conferences across the country. Kerry has dedicated her work to making a difference in people’s lives to give them confidence and the tools to succeed personally, professionally, and financially. She offers her audience and readers a can-do expert’s advice on the best ways to empower themselves. She has spent more than two decades covering all aspects of career, business, and personal finance and is a columnist, editor, and writer for the nation’s leading companies, including the New York Times, Forbes, Money, U.S. News & World Report, and USA Today. Kerry’s work also regularly appears on Kiplinger’s Finance and the Wall Street Journal, among other publications.

Key Takeaways:

[1:05] Marc welcomes you to Episode 141 of the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Career Pivot is the sponsor of this podcast; CareerPivot.com is one of the very few websites dedicated to those of us in the second half of life and our careers. Check out the blog and the other resources delivered to you, free of charge.

[1:34] 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.

[1:54] Marc and his co-author Susan Lahey are working on the final draft of Repurpose Your Career, Third Edition. If you’d like to get some pre-release chapters, go to CareerPivot.com/RYCTeam and you’ll receive the chapters Marc has already released and updates on the launch.

[2:17] Marc plans a soft launch of the book on Thursday, September 12, followed by both a virtual and a real book tour starting Monday, September 16. Marc has already recorded many podcast guest appearances, some of which have already been published. Go to CareerPivot.com/launch you’ll find all the links of all the podcasts.
[2:52] Marc will be in Austin the week of September 22nd, the New Jersey area the week of September 29th, and D.C., the following week. Marc would love to meet his readers and listeners.

[3:04] Marc has two events planned for Austin and four in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Marc will then have a meet-and-greet in D.C. You can find the events on CareerPivot.com/launch.

[3:17] Next week will be a one-year reflection on being an expat. Marc and his wife have lived in Ajijic for about a year. They will reflect on what they have learned and how they have changed in the last year.

[3:39] This week, Marc interviews Kerry Hannon, author of Never Too Old to Get Rich: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Starting a Business Mid-Life. 

[3:53] Marc introduces Kerry and welcomes Kerry to the Repurpose Your Career podcast.

[5:23] Kerry was a guest on the podcast almost three years ago and that episode, Careerpivot.com/episode-6, still gets 30 or 40 downloads a month!

[5:47] A number of years ago, Kerry wrote, What’s Next? Follow Your Passion and Find Your Dream Job, after traveling the country for three years meeting with people who had shifted to completely different jobs after working 20 to 30 years in one field. Most of them started small businesses in their second act. Kerry loved their spirit.

[6:25] Kerry started recognizing a trend in people over 40 starting their own businesses. Kerry wanted to share their stories. She also saw studies showing that people over 50 are the fastest-growing demographic of entrepreneurs in the U.S. and globally.

[6:57] Women, in particular, are starting businesses in the second half of life. With longevity growing, we are going to see more people starting businesses later in life.

[7:16] In the book, Never Too Old to Get Rich, Kerry profiles 20 winning entrepreneurs, because we learn from winners. She presents their stories, challenges, and rewards, and gives readers a playbook of actions for how to accomplish similar successes.

[7:41] Part 1 of the book is about turning a passion into a business. Sometimes hobbies are better as hobbies but studies show that people who can turn their passion into a business are often more successful than other entrepreneurs. They know their customer; they are their customer.

[9:00] Kerry interviewed people who started businesses in filmmaking, coffee, scooters, woodworking, and more, all building on passions. Kerry shares some stories about them.

[12:14] Part 2 of What’s Next deals with building a winning Senior-Junior partnership. There is a great synergy in building a business “that has legs,” not for the next five years, but for the next 20 years or more. You have the experience and the network of someone who’s been through it, and the tech skills and enthusiasm of youth.

[13:25] One of Kerry’s favorite stories from the book is about a mother-daughter team, Bergen and Morgen Giordani, who started One Hot Cookie with their cookie-baking skills and built retail outlets in Ohio and Pennsylvania. They are now franchising.

[14:18] The daughter is the expert at social marketing and store design. The mother is the big-picture business planner. The mom kept her full-time job for a long time before stepping all the way into the business.

[15:56] In this section, Kerry has a story about Paul Tasner, who has been a guest on the podcast in CareerPivot.com/episode-125. Paul started his company PulpWorks in San Francisco and paired up with somebody a couple of decades younger than him.

[17:21] When you make a shift to being your own boss, you need to do an inner MRI to find your skills, weaknesses, and strengths. Look for others who can partner with you and balance you in launching your business. It’s understanding who you are and what it is you truly want to do and what you can do.

[18:00] Part 3 of the book is the path to social entrepreneurship. Kerry found that at this point in their lives, many people may have experienced a health crisis or a loss, or may be wondering if there is more to life than what they have done. They wonder how they want to make a difference to the world.

[18:47] Social entrepreneurs have a vision of making the world a better place by using their skill sets to launch a nonprofit or something that has the ability to touch lives. Kerry shares a couple of examples. One, Jamal Joseph, started a nonprofit, IMPACT Repertory Theater, in NYC. Kerry met him through Encore.org.

[19:28] Jamal started this group to help young people in Harlem find a purpose through repertory performance and encouragement to study, to find a way out of poverty to succeed.

[19:57] Another example is Bernadette’s House, an after-school program for disadvantaged girls, started by Carol Nash in Baltimore.

[20:33] Doug Rauch, former President at Trader Joes, went to Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative to learn to solve big social problems. He went on to start Daily Table in the Boston area to provide food at a lower cost. Marc compares food supply practices in Mexico and the U.S.

[22:33] besides the Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative, other schools are offering similar initiatives to urge people to start in social entrepreneurship. Stanford, Notre Dame, and the University of Texas are a few schools offering such initiatives.

[23:33] Daily Table offers cooking classes for people who are not accustomed to healthy foods.

[24:01] Part 4 of the book is Winning Strategies for Female Entrepreneurs. Female entrepreneurs are the fastest-growing cadre of entrepreneurs, world-wide. Women make good entrepreneurs and also good investors for a few reasons. Women do their homework. They take their time when they launch a business. They are idealists.

[24:53] By laying this groundwork, women set themselves up for success. Women are willing to start a business as a side gig, keeping their full-time job. Women have the ability to understand where their weaknesses are. They admit it and ask for help. They ask for directions. Women often partner up with other women who can fill in the gaps.

[25:29] Women tend to be very collaborative. Entrepreneurship is a team sport. Women understand that entrepreneurship is a marathon and not a sprint. Women are patient.

[26:04] Rachel Roth started Opera Nuts in New York, combining her love of nuts and opera. Now she sells them online as well. It’s a true passion for Rachel. She was able to find tech help at Senior Planet classes in entrepreneurship and tech and from young tech mentors.

[28:04] Ginny Corbett started a healthy juice business, Salud Juicery, in Pittsburgh, after going to school to learn about nutrition related to eating issues.

[29:49] Kerry wants people to walk away with a message of hope, possibilities, dreams, and knowing that it is never too late to start doing work around your passion. Every person Kerry profiled told her about the inner richness of doing work they love, with people they love, that has meaning in the world.

[30:49] Marc recalls an earlier podcast guest, on CareerPivot.com/episode-127, author Andrew Scott, author of The Hundred-Year Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity and author of the article “Is 75 the New 65? How the Definition of Aging is Changing” on Next Avenue. What are you going to do with your extra 10 years?

[31:50] The importance of working at this stage of life is it fulfills us, it may be a financial necessity or safety net. At 60, you have at least 15 more years ahead of you where you could do something totally different. You might need to add some more skills, by apprenticing, moonlighting, or volunteering before you launch on a new path.

[32:32] There’s no ideal starting point; you just need to get started. Marc plans to work until he’s 90!

[32:48] You can learn more about Kerry at KerryHannon.com, on Twitter at @KerryHannon, on Facebook at @KerryHannon and LinkedIn at Kerry Hannon. Kerry would love to hear from you and hear your entrepreneurial stories!

[33:23] Marc thanks Kerry for being on the Repurpose Your Career podcast.

[33:29] Marc hopes you enjoyed this episode. Kerry is passionate about helping our community who are in the second half of life. Marc hopes everyone is inspired by her latest book.

[33:40] 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. The community has moved on to the next phase where community members who have experienced success get to share their successes and teach others.

[33:57] This is a community where everyone is there to help everyone else out. They have been hovering at about 50 members for a while. Members are experiencing successes like going back to work, starting new businesses — even someone buying a franchise. Some leave the community when they’ve found success, while others stay.

[34:19] Their legacy stays with the community as they have built an extensive library of forum entries and discussions. Marc will be publishing shortly testimonials of what they got from being part of this community.

[34:34] Marc is recruiting members for the next cohort. If you are interested in the endeavor and would like to be put on the waiting list, please go to CareerPivot.com/Community.

[34:45] Those who are in these initial cohorts set the direction. This is a paid membership community with group coaching and special content. More importantly, it’s a community where you can seek help. Please go to CareerPivot.com/Community to learn more.

[35:07] 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.

[35:25] Please come back next week, when Marc reflects on the last year of being an expat.

[35:30] Marc thanks you for listening to the Repurpose Your Career podcast. You will find the show notes for this episode at CareerPivot.com/episode-141.

[35:45] 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. Marc will add to this list soon!

Alexander Buschek has been an IT professional for many years. He is passionate about digital transformation and the opportunities it will give businesses — especially SMBs. He is convinced that every business has to embrace digital transformation in one way or another, in order to survive. The sooner a business starts its digital transformation, the better. To support this process, spread awareness, and share experiences, he started The Digital Transformation Blog.

Alexander was, at the time of this interview, the CIO of Cherry GmbH, well known for their excellent keyboards and MX switches, who hired him because of his profound knowledge of digital transformation and digitalization. Alexander has since moved on to Gartner Group, where he is Senior Director, Analyst of Midsize Enterprises.

Key Takeaways:

[1:19] Marc welcomes you to Episode 140 of the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Career Pivot is the sponsor of this podcast; CareerPivot.com is one of the very few websites dedicated to those of us in the second half of life and our careers. Check out the blog and the other resources delivered to you, free of charge.

[1:48] 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.

[2:07] Marc has released five chapters of the next edition of Repurpose Your Career to the Repurpose Your Career review team. Sign up to be part of the review team at CareerPivot.com/RYCTeam.

[2:22] You will receive new chapters as they become available. Marc is looking for honest feedback and would love to get an honest review on Amazon.com after the book is released.

[2:32] Marc plans to release the book in mid-September and do both a virtual and a real book tour. Marc has already recorded multiple podcast guest appearances, some of which have already been published. Go to CareerPivot.com/launch you’ll find all the links of all the podcast episodes.
[2:57] Marc will be in Austin the week of September 22nd, the New Jersey/Pennsylvania area the week of September 29th, and D.C., the following week. Marc would love to meet his readers and listeners. 

[3:09] Marc has many events planned. You can find them on CareerPivot.com/launch.

[3:20] Next week, Marc will interview Kerry Hannon, author of Never Too Old to Get Rich: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Starting a Business Mid-Life.

[3:30] This week will be an encore episode from Episode 72, when he interviewed Alexander Buschek. Marc finishes the episode with a short update discussion that he recorded last week with Alexander. Marc shares Alexander’s biography.

[4:51] Marc introduces Alexander. Alexander talks about being desperate, looking for a job before working with Marc. He sent applications everywhere and didn’t get answers. He also had a difficult bio, being self-employed for more than 24 years, then became the CIO of one of his customers. He decided he needed help and he found Marc.

[5:58] Marc started Alexander through the rebranding process. Alexander shares the roadmap he followed.

[6:06] The first step for Alexander was the Birkman assessment to find out who he was; what were his strengths and weaknesses. He learned new things about himself. Marc encouraged him to have a blog, videos, and write a book. He’s still working on the book.

[7:00] The roadmap was about getting to know himself and writing a white paper, as a preliminary for the blog. Then he started writing the blog and became the thought leader in digital transformation. Then his visibility started. People asked him to speak at conferences, which was a great experience for him.

[7:34] Marc frequently told Alexander to be bold. At first, Alexander didn’t see himself as bold. Then he found out that he was bold. He was not reluctant to speak up and do the things he thought were necessary.

[8:24] Marc was blown away by Alexander’s resume. Alexander didn’t see himself as a hot commodity, however. He had to learn to understand his achievements and tell people about his experience.

[9:38] Alexander’s white paper was about cloud technology. He had been working with InFor ERP systems and they wanted to access the Cloud. In Germany, many were reluctant to even look into it. So he thought, at least he needed to look into it. He figured out that cloud technology is the future.

[11:05] Alexander used Dragon Naturally Speaking (Now Nuance Dragon) to write. You just talk and you see it written in Word. It was very helpful. This is an easy way to write a blog post if you write the way you speak.

[12:22] While Alexander was networking as the CIO of Protego he approached Autodesk to ask if CAD systems could be based in the cloud. Autodesk invited him to the Hannover Fair to look at how it was being used at the time, including Fusion 360.

[13:18] After a conversation with one of the managers there, they invited Alexander to be part of a panel discussion by the Financial Times in Berlin in cooperation with Autodesk.

[13:36] The panel was on digital transformation, in English. Alexander used it for his blog with great success. He found that personal branding is making sure people get the impression of you that you want them to have.

[14:40] After being on the Financial Times panel, Alexander started writing his blog posts. He spoke at another event for Autodesk. His speaking career snowballed.

[15:53] Alexander spent the Christmas holidays in 2016, shooting videos about digital transformation, based on his conference presentations. Headhunters started to approach him. He expanded his LinkedIn network significantly.

[17:32] Doing videos helped Alexander’s presentation skills a lot.

[19:20] Making a video requires one hour or more of effort for every minute of finished video. Alexander explains his process for making a video.

[20:46] Alexander is proudest of getting his new job. It is a challenging job. He is proud that he was asked, rather than sending in his application. He branded himself doing what he loved to do and showing his expertise, with the goal of getting a new job.

[21:41] Alexander was passionate about digital transformation. His previous job had given him no opportunity in that area. It is present or will be present in every company. Alexander became an expert on it, after a lot of work. If you want to rebrand your life, there is no way around a lot of hard work with a lot of discipline.

[24:21] Alexander credits Marc with inspiring him to push forward, in steps. Marc gave Alexander small steps, such as a whitepaper, a blog, and videos, to do one at a time that really kept him going. The next step is to write the book.

[25:54] Alexander’s advice to anyone who wants to rebrand themselves: You can do it! However, you need to be patient and put a lot of effort into it. With the effort comes success. Be bold. Be patient. Get some advice and get a job coach. Reading a book alone does not usually provide the motivation.

[28:25] Alexander looked off into the future and positioned himself in a niche of digital transformation for SMBs. Alexander can be reached at DigitalTransformationBlog.com. Alexander answers comments. Or email Alexander at Alex@Buschek.info.

[29:37] Marc hopes Alexander has inspired listeners to be bold!

[30:12] Alexander first contacted Marc by LinkedIn after reading Marc’s book, Personal Branding for Baby Boomers: What It Is, How to Manage It, and Why It's No Longer Optional. When Alexander contacted Marc, he had 70 LinkedIn contacts; today he has 1,200 or so.

[30:57] Marc brings Alexander back on the podcast for an update interview. Alexander started as the CIO at Cherry at the beginning of 2018. He had previously been interviewed four times to be an IT Analyst at Gartner. Recently, the Gartner recruiter sent Alexander a LinkedIn message asking if he was still interested in a position.

[32:57] Alexander had wanted to work for Gartner in the first place, so he was happy to meet with them. After a series of interviews and a two-hour writing exercise, on his way back to the airport, he got an email (he was in a limousine, not driving) from Gartner congratulating him on getting the position.

[34:32] Since March 1st, Alexander is a Senior Director Analyst for Mid-Sized Enterprises. Alexander helps MSE CIOs make the right decisions when it comes to digital business transformation and cloud strategy. He feels very comfortable in this job. He also writes research notes on leadership.

[35:51] Marc thanks Alexander for being on the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Alexander invites you to contact him for advice on rebranding or digital transformation. Alexander’s path was hard work and really rewarding. Reach him at Alexander Buschek on LinkedIn.

[36:52] Marc hopes you enjoyed this episode. Alexander was a real joy for Marc to work with a few years ago. He continues to prosper in his career. He took a lot of risks and did a lot of hard work to rebrand himself.

[37:08] 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. The community has moved on to the next phase where community members who have experienced success get to share their successes and teach others.

[37:26] This is a community where everyone is there to help everyone else out. Marc is recruiting members for the next cohort.
[37:33] If you are interested in the endeavor and would like to be put on the waiting list, please go to CareerPivot.com/Community. When you sign up you’ll receive information about the community as it evolves.

[37:47] Those who are in these initial cohorts set the direction. This is a paid membership community with group coaching and special content. More importantly, it’s a community where you can seek help. Please go to CareerPivot.com/Community to learn more.

[38:09] This Fall, the community is moving out of the beta phase into full production.

[38:20] 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.

[38:39] Please come back next week, when Marc will interview Kerry Hannon, author of Never Too Old to Get Rich: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Starting a Business Mid-Life.

[38:48] Marc thanks you for listening to the Repurpose Your Career podcast.

[38:52] You will find the show notes for this episode at CareerPivot.com/episode-140. 

[38:59] 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.

In this chapter, Marc explains the meaning and importance of strategic relationships and gives instructions on how to create, build, and cultivate them. Marc categorizes the people you should have in your tribe, and how you can fill the missing spaces in your tribe. Marc recommends you have a tribe of 100 to 150 people. He gives recommendations for strengthening relationships by giving value more than asking for help. He gives a plan for reaching out to new connections and what you should talk about with them. Listen in for your playbook for building strategic relationships.

Key Takeaways:

[1:17] Marc welcomes you to Episode 139 of the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Career Pivot is the sponsor of this podcast; CareerPivot.com is one of the very few websites dedicated to those of us in the second half of life and our careers. Check out the blog and the other resources delivered to you, free of charge.

[1:46] 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.

[2:05] Marc has released five chapters of the next edition of Repurpose Your Career to the Repurpose Your Career review team. Sign up to be part of the review team at CareerPivot.com/RYCTeam.

[2:20] You will receive new chapters as they become available. Marc plans to release just one more chapter before releasing the book. Marc is looking for honest feedback and would love to get an honest review on Amazon.com after the book is released.

[2:36] Marc plans to release the book in mid-September and do both a virtual and a real book tour. Marc has already recorded multiple podcast guest appearances, three of which have already been published.
[2:49] Marc was interviewed on the iRelaunch podcast, the Not Old, Better Show podcast, and the As We Get Older podcast.

[3:06] Marc will be in Austin the week of September 22nd, the New Jersey/Pennsylvania area the week of September 29th, and D.C., the following week. Marc would love to meet his readers and listeners.

[3:18] Marc has two events planned in Austin, four in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and is working on a few more. He doesn’t have anything scheduled for the D.C. area, but will probably do a meet-and-greet there.

[3:30] Reach out to Marc at Podcasts@CareerPivot.com if you’d be willing to give Marc some advice on venues or groups who’d be interested in hosting an event.

[3:39] Next week, Marc will be do an encore episode from when he interviewed Alexander Buschek. Marc finishes the episode with a short update discussion that he recorded last week with Alexander.

[3:53] This week, Marc will read the preview chapter from Repurpose Your Career: Playbook for Building Strategic Relationships. Marc hopes you will enjoy it!

[4:09] Strategic networking does not happen at networking events. People build strategic relationships after events, when they meet one-on-one and get to know each other and find common ground.

[4:44] With whom should you build strategic relationships? The first are connectors — people who know a lot of people and enjoy connecting them. They are always introducing people to each other, in person, or by email or social media. Marc is a connector.

[5:15] Don’t wear out your relationship by relying too much on one connector. You need several connectors in your network. Connectors create connections for many people who matter to them, not just for you. They will expect you to help people they introduce to you. Be sure to provide help as well as receiving it.

[5:53] The recruiter is a special class of connector. Recruiters are very busy. They are ‘people people.’ When you engage with them, do so with a purpose that you have stated clearly to them.

[6:13] Mentors guide you. As a Boomer, Marc started his career at IBM in the 1970s. He knew he needed people who could advise him about his career, who knew their business, and were not ‘jerks.’ Seek out people you can learn from and cultivate formal mentoring relationships. Marc now has multiple mentors in different subject areas.

[6:52] Look for industry or company experts. Be very selective in choosing whom in your industry or company you need to know. Make sure they know who you are and what value you bring to the table. You do not need to form a bond with them, but you need to be on their radar screen.

[7:14] Marc shares an example from a client who escaped downsizing by seeking advice from a person of importance at his company. They had had a working relationship for several years.

[7:45] Peers may need your help. Seek them out. It’s important to help others and expect nothing in return. Be that person people know they can turn to when they need help.

[8:03] Locate the LinkedIn profile of someone you know who could be part of your tribe. You may want to build a spreadsheet and categorize each contact: Connectors, Mentors, Company of Industry Experts, and Peers.

[8:20] It may take you a week or more to think of very person and categorize them. It will give you an idea about the strength of your network and how to build it strategically. What role does everyone play in your success? What strategic relationships are missing? What are the categories or skill areas where you need more people?

[8:58] Make a list of people you would like to meet. Who in your network knows them well enough to make an introduction? Marc always wants an introduction to a new connection. In sales, this is a warm lead.

[9:13] Strategic networking means building your tribe. Do you have a tribe — people you can go to for a favor and expect it to be granted? Dig through your email contacts, LinkedIn connections and Facebook friends. Identify people you’d feel comfortable asking for help.

[9:34] This may be a short list. This is not people who would help you move. It might just be getting together for a coffee to discuss strategies for infiltrating a company you want to target for employment. Not everyone is in your tribe. You may have thousands of followers or connections, but how many of them do you really know?

[10:02] The number of relationships you can maintain is known as Dunbar’s Number. It is around 150. That number turns up often in our society. The Amish break up communities when they reach 150.

[10:34] Your tribe are people who understand what you’re aiming for and are in your corner. If they meet someone who needs what you’re offering, they’ll make an introduction. They want to know how it’s going in your life, career, or job hunt. They’re not being polite. They will also turn to you when they need help, advice, or a referral.

[11:01] A tribe is like a barn-raising, where you show up with your tools to help a neighbor build his barn, knowing he’ll show up to help you build yours. Marc recalls struggling with being a novice high school math teacher after being an expert in his field.

[11:33] Every three weeks Marc sent an email to a list of about 100, documenting his experiences and difficulties. His readers looked forward to his emails and gave encouraging feedback. Marc received lots of advice and help, but more importantly, he received love and support. He would not have made it through the year without his tribe.

[12:14] If you don’t have 100 people in your tribe, you have work to do! If there is an area where you have few connections, leverage your network to help you develop strategic relationships. Once you have an introduction, schedule a coffee meeting, or a phone call. If you make one outreach a week, your tribe will grow naturally.

[12:45] You have to cultivate your tribe like a garden. Occasionally, you will weed it of people with whom you have no connection. You will water it, when there’s no rain. You may need to apply fertilizer. You can’t neglect it. It needs regular ‘TLC.’ It needs to be part of the way you think and live or it will wither.

[13:16] One of the easiest ways to provide TLC for your tribe is to stay in touch. At least once a month, Marc looks through his contacts to find someone he has not heard from recently. He sends an email message to check in with them and see how they are and shares his news. He asks for a meeting over coffee. He usually gets a friendly reply.

[14:09] Cultivating is all about building relationships. Messages are helpful but there’s no substitute for a face-to-face meeting where you get to shake hands and read body language. Marc likes coffee meetings first thing in the morning. Sometimes Marc meets a new contact for a morning walk instead of coffee. What time works for you?

[14:44] Schedule regular times to meet face-to-face with someone in your network. Make it a habit.

[14:51] When you meet, make sure you are building a relationship rather than killing it. People frequently make one of three mistakes: spending all the time talking about themselves, asking questions that the other person isn’t comfortable answering, or squandering the meeting and forgetting their primary objectives.

[15:18] How you present yourself furthers your personal brand. If you make one of the three mistakes, you show your personal brand to be self-centered, unprofessional, or scattered. If you are focused, clear, and appropriate, that’s what the person you meet is going to remember.

[15:41] Marc gives an example of looking for a position. After doing your homework on the company and getting an introduction to Natalie, the person in charge of the position, ask her for AIR — Advice, Insights, and Recommendation. Marc explains simply how to do this and how you could direct the conversation with very open-ended questions.

[17:06] In your meeting, talk about yourself only when asked. This is all about building a relationship. Asking for advice, insight, and recommendations is a great way to initiate and cultivate a lasting relationship.

[17:24] You have not asked for help to get a job. You have asked for help to understand the organization, and for further networking opportunities. You are networking to build relationships, not to find a job. The opportunity to interview for a position will come later, after you have established relationships.

[17:45] Natalie will likely introduce you to at least one person, if you made it clear you are interested in her insight and perspective. You can then ask for AIR from each person Natalie introduced you to. When each of these meetings is complete, send Natalie an email and let her know how it went and if you received more introductions.

[18:16] People love to know they are helping and that the time they spent with you had some value. They also appreciate knowing that you’re grateful and recognize the time and effort they contributed to your career search.

[18:30] If a position opens up at a hot startup, Natalie will think of you if you’ve made a favorable impression. She might even call you before the position is posted. That is how Marc was hired at his last two tech startup jobs.

[18:46] Include recruiters in your tribe. Recruiters like dealing with people, and like helping people. In general, they are very nice people. They change jobs frequently with the ups and downs of the economy. They are the first to be laid off when things get bad and the first to be hired when things turn around.

[19:20] Recruiters connect with almost everyone in the organization. They carry those connections from company to company. They have large networks. A recruiter is often the person between you and the hiring manager. You want to share your personal brand with recruiters.

[19:40] When you locate a company that looks like a good potential employer for your services, you should go to a LinkedIn search, and look on the title field for recruiter, talent, talent acquisition, human resources, or HR. Identify recruiters and send them connection requests that state why you want to connect.

[20:21] Marc gives a sample connection request.

[20:40] In your invitation to connect, ask if you could set up a time to talk about the organization.

[20:50] The recruiter will likely respond by looking at your profile, accept your invitation to connect, which will put you as 2nd connections to their network, and, if they like your profile, they will reach out to you for a short email or phone conversation. They may forward you on to the recruiter that handles the positions you are looking for.

[21:46] If they don’t connect, try another recruiter at the same company. If the recruiter does connect, call them. Marc shares suggestions for what to say when you call. Be persistent. Repeat this procedure in a few days if you don’t get a response.

[22:22] If you connect, but you never hear from them, send them an email or a LinkedIn message. Recruiters need you as much as you need them. They are looking for referrals. When you talk to them, always be polite and courteous. Always complete the conversation asking how you can help them.

[22:43] Recruiters move around. Keep track of their career moves on LinkedIn. Be helpful to them when you’re not looking for the next gig. Marc stresses that building long-term relationships with recruiters will pay long-term dividends.

[23:03] Marc’s last tip about recruiters: Recruiters usually use a company email address on LinkedIn. From their address you can see how the company formats email addresses, i.e., jane.doe@company.com or jdoe@company.com. This helps you guess the addresses of other employees you might want to contact.

[23:28] Make strategic networking part of your career strategy. Are you ready to cultivate and manage that relationship strategically? If you strategically manage your network, and cultivate the right relationships, you will stay employed at a company where you want to be for the rest of your career.

[23:49] You now have a playbook for strategic networking. Are you ready to execute the plays? Action steps: Make a spreadsheet of people you consider to be in your tribe. How many are connectors, peers, industry experts, or recruiters?

[24:06] Are you missing anyone from your tribe? Begin connecting with people from the categories where you’re missing connections. Cultivate your tribe by working to build relationships. Schedule times each week to reach out to the people in your tribe and ask how they are. Offer help or ask to meet for coffee or a walk.

[24:29] Marc hopes you enjoyed this episode.

[24:31] 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. The community has moved on to the next phase where community members who have experienced success get to share their successes and teach others.

[24:48] This is a community where everyone is there to help everyone else out. Marc is recruiting members for the next cohort.
[24:55] If you are interested in the endeavor and would like to be put on the waiting list, please go to CareerPivot.com/Community. When you sign up you’ll receive information about the community as it evolves.

[25:08] Those who are in these initial cohorts set the direction. This is a paid membership community with group coaching and special content. More importantly, it’s a community where you can seek help. Please go to CareerPivot.com/Community to learn more.

[25:29] This Fall, the community is moving out of the beta phase into full production.

[25:34] 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.

[25:52] Please come back next week, when Marc will have Alexander Buschek back on.

[25:57] Marc thanks you for listening to the Repurpose Your Career podcast.

[26:01] You will find the show notes for this episode at CareerPivot.com/episode-139. 

[26:09] 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.