Repurpose Your Career | Career Pivot | Careers for the 2nd Half of Life | Career Change | Baby Boomer

Description: In this episode I am speaking Steph Silver who is the author of the book Anywhere, USA: A Memoir. This will be a bit of a different kind of episode. I have known Steph for many years and I had no idea that she had an upbringing with an incredible amount of upheaval. I want you to hear a bit of the story from the book, the process of writing her memoir, and what she got out of the book from a personal growth perspective. Read Steph's bio: Steph savors the little things wherever she goes—like flowers in a field, sunlight through the trees, or sounds of laughter. Moving over thirty times before she was seventeen, traversing between campgrounds, fully furnished homes, and homeless shelters, Steph used her optimism and grit to rise to a place of comfort, peace, and personal success. She is now on a mission to enhance as many lives as possible and to help humans thrive. Her first book, Anywhere, USA is a memoir that reveals some dark sides of a turbulent childhood while shining light and optimism at every turn. Despite close calls with disasters, both natural and man-made, Steph believes that if she is good enough, strong enough, or works hard enough, one day she'll become worthy of the love and security she seeks. Who she ultimately chooses to become and if she'll transcend her circumstances are questions Steph must answer for herself more than once in this gripping coming-of-age story. Steph founded VINE Collective in 2018 after parting from a branding agency she helped grow over 12 years. Through individual and team coaching, retreats, public speaking, and brand work, VINE cultivates meaningful and memorable experiences that bring forth the most exceptional versions of each person and/or brand. Steph also uses her desire for human connection, authentic experiences, and profound growth to train, educate, and amplify leaders and businesses who live through their mission, vision, and passion as host of MVP Business Podcast. She's deeply driven to build relationships and help people authentically grow, succeed, and connect. When she's not managing her team, visiting with clients, or connecting with friends, Steph can usually be found cooking, gardening, dancing, or mountain biking with her two sons. After listening to this episode, I want you to think about friends and colleagues. How well do you really know them? I have known Steph for over 10 years and she is a really together person but after I read her book, I wondered how did she survive her childhood to become the person she is today. Many of us had very difficult childhoods and not everyone is here today but people like Steph can be an inspiration for all of us. This episode is sponsored by Career Pivot. Check out the Career Pivot Community, and pick up my latest book, Repurpose Your Career: A Practical Guide for the 2nd Half of Life Third Edition. For the full show notes and resources mentioned in the episode click here.

Description: In this episode I am speaking with Mauro Guillén who is the author of the book THE PERENNIALS: The Megatrends Creating a Postgenerational Society. This is a topic that you need to be paying attention to as we are in the later stages of our careers. There are some big megatrends that many companies, governments, and people are not paying attention to but many of us will still have to deal with. This will affect our work life, family life, and retirement. Read the author's bios: Mauro F. Guillén is one of the most original thinkers at the Wharton School, where he is Professor of Management and Vice Dean for the MBA for Executives Program. An expert on global market trends, he is a sought-after speaker and consultant. He combines his training as a sociologist at Yale and as a business economist in his native Spain to methodically identify and quantify the most promising opportunities at the intersection of demographic, economic, and technological developments. His online classes on Coursera and other platforms have attracted over 100,000 participants from around the world. He has won multiple teaching awards at Wharton, where his presentation on global market trends has become a permanent feature of over fifty executive education programs annually. He is the WSJ bestselling author of 2030: How Today's Biggest Trends Will Collide and Reshape the Future of Everything. I have been interested in generational change for many years. We have a lot of generational change in our society that I think Mauro discusses in his book. He does not say how to solve it but spells out the megatrends in an easily digestible way. This episode is sponsored by Career Pivot. Check out the Career Pivot Community, and pick up my latest book, Repurpose Your Career: A Practical Guide for the 2nd Half of Life Third Edition. For the full show notes and resources mentioned in the episode click here.

Description: In this episode I am speaking with Mitchell Clionsky who is the co-author with his wife of the book Dementia Prevention: Using Your Head to Save Your Brain. This is a topic that many of us will have to deal with. It may be an aging parent, a spouse, or yourself. It is a fascinating topic on what you can be doing now to prevent getting dementia. Let me read the author's bios: MITCHELL CLIONSKY, Ph.D., is a board-certified neuropsychologist who specializes in evaluating and treating patients with cognitive impairment, dementia, ADHD, and traumatic brain injury. EMILY CLIONSKY, MD, completed residencies in internal medicine and in psychiatry and is a diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. She specializes in the care of patients with cognitive impairments. They have a combined 70 years of professional and clinical experience in medicine and neuropsychology and have treated 20,000 patients. They partner at a private practice, Clionsky Neuro Systems, Inc., based in Springfield, Massachusetts. They are experienced public speakers, podcast guests, and workshop presenters for general and professional audiences. This is a topic that has touched my life. My mother died in her mid-80s with dementia and her last few years were not pleasant due to the dementia. My son's mother-in-law started showing signs of dementia about a dozen years ago when she was in her late 50s. She is now in her late 60s and requires full nursing home care. This a debilitating condition and for some this is preventable. This episode is sponsored by Career Pivot. Check out the Career Pivot Community, and be sure to pick up my latest book, Repurpose Your Career: A Practical Guide for the 2nd Half of Life Third Edition. For the full show notes and resources mentioned in the episode click here.

Description: In this episode, I speak with Mike McNatt, a test and compliance engineer who continues to work contract jobs well into his 70s. He was introduced to me as the guy who has got this gig work down and that is not working for Uber. This is a rebroadcast of one of the best episodes of 2022. You may be asking why I am doing a rebroadcast at this time. As my long-time listeners know I live in Ajijic Mexico just south of Guadalajara. My wife and I have some major decisions to make in the coming weeks. My wife needs to have what I hope will be non-invasive heart surgery. I will be putting my focus on whether my wife has the surgery performed in Mexico where we have no insurance but dealing with healthcare is much easier or do we return to the US where we are covered by Medicare but we will have to deal with the US healthcare system. Just to be clear, my wife feels fine and has not been told to reduce her level of activity. This came as a complete surprise, and we feel blessed to be dealing with healthcare here in Mexico. Making the appropriate appointments with world-class medical specialists can be done in days and not weeks or months. That is where my focus will be in the coming weeks and not producing content for this podcast. Back to the introduction of the episode. My good friend, Marti Konstant, who is a workplace futurist and career coach, said I needed to have Mike on this podcast. Mike has worked contract engineering jobs and has developed a strategy to stay fully employed. Mike is an engineer who was interviewed for Forbes called, Working In Tech At Any Age–This Engineer Tells You How. He also produced multiple LinkedIn posts on his strategies which I will include in the show notes. Back in the 1980s, when I worked for IBM, I helped lead a mechanical design support group. Our internal customers hired a lot of contract engineers for 12-to-24-month contracts. What I learned was they would work a contract, then take a few months off and then find the next. They were completely comfortable with this lifestyle. Here we are 30-40 years later, and this is a new way of working. Mike has become comfortable with this, and I want you to listen to his story. This episode is sponsored by Career Pivot. Check out the Career Pivot Community, and be sure to pick up my latest book, Repurpose Your Career: A Practical Guide for the 2nd Half of Life Third Edition. For the full show notes and resources mentioned in the episode click here.

Description: In this episode I am speaking with Kevin Kelly who is the author of Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier. On his 68th birthday, Kevin Kelly began to write down for his young adult children some things he had learned about life that he wished he had known earlier. To his surprise, Kelly had more to say than he thought and kept adding to the advice over the years, compiling a life's wisdom into these pages. When I read this book, I was smiling the entire time. Here is the short version of Kevin's incredible biography: Kevin Kelly is Senior Maverick at Wired magazine. He co-founded Wired in 1993 and served as its Executive Editor for its first seven years. His newest book is Excellent Advice for Living, a book of 450 modern proverbs for good living. He is co-chair of The Long Now Foundation, a membership organization that champions long-term thinking and acts as a good ancestor to future generations. And he is the founder of the popular Cool Tools website, which has been reviewing tools daily for 20 years. From 1984-1990 Kelly was publisher and editor of the Whole Earth Review, a subscriber-supported journal of unorthodox conceptual news. He co-founded the ongoing Hackers' Conference and was involved with the launch of the WELL, a pioneering online service started in 1985. Other books by Kelly include 1) The Inevitable, a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, 2) Out of Control, his 1994 classic book on decentralized emergent systems, 3) The Silver Cord, a graphic novel about robots and angels, 4) What Technology Wants, a robust theory of technology, and 5) Vanishing Asia, his 50-year project to photograph the disappearing cultures of Asia. He is best known for his radical optimism about the future. This episode is sponsored by Career Pivot. Check out the Career Pivot Community, and pick up my latest book, Repurpose Your Career: A Practical Guide for the 2nd Half of Life Third Edition. For the full show notes and resources mentioned in the episode click here.

Description: In this episode I am speaking with Bruce Feiler. Bruce is the author of seven New York Times bestsellers, including LIFE IS IN THE TRANSITIONS, THE SECRETS OF HAPPY FAMILIES, and COUNCIL OF DADS. We are discussing in this episode his latest book, THE SEARCH: Finding Meaningful Work in a Post-Career World. As you will hear me say during our discussion, this is the most actionable book on this topic I have read and I have had a lot of authors of books on this topic on this podcast. Here is a bit of Bruce's bio from his website BruceFeiler.com BRUCE FEILER is one of America's most thoughtful voices on contemporary life. He is the author of seven New York Times bestsellers, including LIFE IS IN THE TRANSITIONS, THE SECRETS OF HAPPY FAMILIES, and COUNCIL OF DADS. His three TED Talks have been viewed more than four million times, and he teaches the TED Course HOW TO MASTER LIFE TRANSITIONS. His latest book, THE SEARCH: Finding Meaningful Work in a Post-Career World is a bold new roadmap for finding meaning and purpose at work, based on insights drawn from hundreds of life stories of all vocations and backgrounds. Employing a firsthand approach to his work, Bruce is known for living the experiences he writes about. His work combines timeless wisdom with timely knowledge to encourage people to live with more meaning, passion, and joy. LIFE IS IN THE TRANSITIONS describes his journey across America, collecting hundreds of life stories, and exploring how we can navigate life's growing number of life transitions with purpose and skill. "One of those books that are so profoundly aligned with the zeitgeist that you end up underlining the whole book," Arianna Huffington wrote in Thrive Global. "Bruce Feiler is the perfect person to lead us on this journey." The book was a Top 10 New York Times bestseller. For two decades, Bruce has explored the intersection of families, relationships, health, and happiness. His book THE SECRETS OF HAPPY FAMILIES collects best practices from some of the country's most creative minds. The book was featured on World News, GMA, and TODAY and excerpted in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Parade. THE COUNCIL OF DADS describes how faced with one of life's greatest challenges, he asked six friends to support his young daughters. The book was profiled in PEOPLE, USA Today, and Time, and became a CNN documentary hosted by Dr. Sanjay Gupta and an NBC drama series. A longtime columnist at the New York Times, Bruce now writes the popular newsletter THE NONLINEAR LIFE. He has appeared in numerous publications, including The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, and Gourmet, where he won three James Beard Awards. He is a frequent commentator on radio and television. A former circus clown, he has been the subject of a Jay Leno joke and a JEOPARDY! the question and his face appears on a postage stamp in the Grenadines. A native of Savannah, Georgia, Bruce lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Linda Rottenberg, and their identical twin daughters. This episode is sponsored by Career Pivot. Check out the Career Pivot Community, and pick up my latest book, Repurpose Your Career: A Practical Guide for the 2nd Half of Life Third Edition. For the full show notes and resources mentioned in the episode click here.

Description: In this episode, I am speaking with Laurel McDowell, who is the Project Coordinator for Manpower's Mature Worker Program which focuses on job connections for tenured job seekers. This is a program that targets mature workers, who primarily want to work project work, part-time, remote, or some combination of all of the above. Please read Laurel's bio: Laurel McDowell is Project Coordinator for Manpower's Mature Worker Program which focuses on job connections for tenured job seekers. Laurel retired in 2019 after a 27-year career in the field of Manpower in Management and Project Teams. Manpower Executive Management, in their wisdom, realized that there was a wealth of knowledge about to walk out the door forever, and so to continue to benefit from Laurel's knowledge, expertise, and ideas they found a way to retain Ms. McDowell in a position that was relevant to her, interested her and met her needs and preferences at this stage of her life. As an "unretiree," Laurel can relate to seasoned talent and works to connect them with opportunities that fit their skills and goals. Prior to Manpower, Laurel excelled in a 25-year career in Retail Management and also originated, and was the President of, a hospitality corporation. She holds a bachelor's degree from Edinboro State University as well as other specialty certifications. Currently, she is a contributing participant of the Living, Learning & Earning Longer AARP-sponsored international consortium, and a member of the Encore Network. Representing the Program, she has been featured by Fox News, Wall Street Journal, AARP, Business Insider, SHRM magazine, and other publications and podcasts. This program primarily targets workers who have retired or are planning to retire but want to continue to work. This includes a wide range of industries and positions and as you will hear Laurel and her team are in high touch. They will help you along in your journey. This episode is sponsored by Career Pivot. Check out the Career Pivot Community, and pick up my latest book, Repurpose Your Career: A Practical Guide for the 2nd Half of Life Third Edition. For the full show notes and resources mentioned in the episode click here.

Description: In this episode, I am speaking with the Eanes, who has been on the podcast pre-pandemic. Russ has pivoted from religious publishing to being an author, walker, bicyclist, guide, travel educator and a few other things that I cannot remember right now. The point is Russ continues to adapt and takes advantage of opportunities as they arise. Russ is a writer, walker and cyclist from Harrisonburg, Va., a freelance publishing consultant and a travel coach and guide. His goal in living is to inspire others to more meaningful, peaceful and less consumptive lives. He is also an avid traveler, with a love of culture, cuisine and history, especially of Europe and Latin America. Russ is a former member and successful graduate of the Career Pivot community. I first interviewed Russ in episode 143 after he published his first book The Walk of a Lifetime: 500 Miles on the Camino de Santiago. I later published an updated episode in February 2021 about how Russ was adapting to the pandemic. Russ continued to make adaptions throughout the next couple of years including spending one year working full time for GetSetup as a travel instructor. Russ recently published his latest book, Pilgrim Paths to Assisi: 300 Miles on the Way of St. Francis. We discuss in this episode how he got to where he is today and that he is not done yet. Russ's story was highlighted in an article in the New York Times by my friend and colleague Mark Miller, no we are not related, called How a Solo Gig Can Give You a Stronger Retirement. I recommended Russ to Mark for this article. This episode is sponsored by Career Pivot. Check out the Career Pivot Community, and pick up my latest book, Repurpose Your Career: A Practical Guide for the 2nd Half of Life Third Edition. For the full show notes and resources mentioned in the episode click here.

Description: In this episode, I am speaking with the legendary Fritz Coleman who went from being the weathercaster for NBC in Los Angeles from 1982 to 2020 to co-hosting Media Path Podcast with Louise Palanker in 2020. Fritz has an inspiring story to tell that you need to hear. This is from his Wikipedia page: After growing up in Radnor, Pennsylvania, he attended Salem University in West Virginia and Temple University in Philadelphia where he studied radio, television, and film. Like many popular weather anchors, he serves as a reporter instead of a meteorologist since he doesn't have a degree in meteorology. He worked as a comedian and disc jockey for several years and as radio personality "Jay Fredericks" at WBEN and later WKBW in Buffalo, New York. He left Buffalo for Los Angeles in 1980 to work as a stand-up comic. In 1982, he began work as a weekend weatherman at KNBC and became the weekday weatherman in 1984. He also hosted or appeared on a number of other KNBC shows, such as "It's Fritz" (1988-1990) and "What a Week" (1990 – 1991). He has written and performed two one-man theater acts, titled The Reception and It's Me! Dad! He received the 2004 EMA Community Service Award for his involvement with KNBC's 4 Our Planet, a children's program. He appeared in a supporting role in one of Raymond Burr's last Perry Mason television films, The Case of the Telltale Talk Show Host, in 1993. He received a "thanks" credit on the film Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie, an "alternate film" companion to Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. From 2009 to 2011, Coleman also did the weekday weather (in addition to KNBC) for San Diego's NBC affiliate, KNSD. On June 17, 2020, Coleman announced that he would retire on Friday, June 26 after almost 40 years at KNBC. I think you will find Fritz's story quite entertaining and more importantly inspiring. This episode is sponsored by Career Pivot. Check out the Career Pivot Community, and pick up my latest book, Repurpose Your Career: A Practical Guide for the 2nd Half of Life Third Edition. For the full show notes and resources mentioned in the episode click here.

Description: In this episode, I am speaking with my good friend Steve Harper. Steve is a serial entrepreneur, professional speaker, author, and leading business strategist; Steve Harper has successfully uncovered the secret to creating powerful and long-lasting connections and their impact on one's personal and professional life. Steve is the ultimate connector and does amazingly well despite being a big-time introvert. After having Kurt Schmidt, the author of the little book of networking, in episode 315, I wanted to bring Steve Harper on to discuss the art of building relationships. Here is Steve's bio from his website: A serial entrepreneur, professional speaker, author, and leading business strategist, Steve Harper has successfully uncovered the secret to creating powerful and long-lasting connections and their impact on one's personal and professional life. Over his thirty-year career, Steve has maintained a unique focus on developing strong, long-lasting connections with his clients, prospects, employees, and friends. He's honed his unique ability to foster relationships into a strategy for achieving solid business success. That strategy, represented in his book The Ripple Effect, is the backbone of his signature 8 Minute Ripple events, speaking, podcasts, courses, coaching, and online communities. Steve's unique and refreshing approach to how and why individuals, organizations, and even our society must reach outside the box to connect; is changing lives and impacting corporate bottom-line dollars. This episode is sponsored by Career Pivot. Check out the Career Pivot Community, and pick up my latest book, Repurpose Your Career: A Practical Guide for the 2nd Half of Life Third Edition. For the full show notes and resources mentioned in the episode click here.

In this episode, I am speaking with Joanne Lipman who is the author of the book Next!: The Power of Reinvention in Life and Work. If you would like to know the details about what it takes to reinvent yourself in life and work, this is a great book. Joanne details the stories of lots of people who have reinvented themselves and how they did it. Here is Joanne's bio: Joanne Lipman is the bestselling author of NEXT! The Power of Reinvention in Life and Work and the No. 1 bestseller That's What She Said. A pioneering journalist, she has served as Editor-in-Chief of USA Today, USA Today Network, Conde Nast Portfolio, and The Wall Street Journal's Weekend Journal, leading those organizations to six Pulitzer Prizes. A frequent speaker and television commentator, she is an on-air contributor at CNBC and journalism lecturer at Yale University. She was also named the inaugural Distinguished Journalism Fellow at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study. Dubbed "star editor" by CNN and "innovator in chief" by The New York Times, Lipman began her career as a reporter at The Wall Street Journal, ultimately rising to Deputy Managing Editor, the first woman to attain that post. There, she created Weekend Journal and Personal Journal, and supervised coverage that earned three Pulitzer Prizes. She subsequently was founding Editor-in-Chief of Conde Nast Portfolio and Portfolio.com, which won National Magazine and Loeb Awards. In 2015, she became the first Chief Content Officer of Gannett. There she was Editor in Chief of its USA Today and USA Today Network, encompassing the flagship title plus 109 metro newspapers including the Detroit Free Press, the Cincinnati Enquirer, and the Arizona Republic. In that role, she oversaw more than 3,000 journalists and led the organization to three Pulitzer Prizes. Lipman is a frequent television commentator, seen on ABC, CNN, NBC, CNBC, CBS, MSNBC and PBS, among others. Her work has appeared in publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Time, Fortune, Newsweek and Harvard Business Review. She is also co-author of the critically acclaimed musical memoir, "Strings Attached." Another fun fact is Joanne and I went to the same high school in New Jersey however, I was about 5 years ahead of her. I think you will find our conversation to be quite fascinating. This episode is sponsored by Career Pivot. Check out the Career Pivot Community, and be sure to pick up my latest book, Repurpose Your Career: A Practical Guide for the 2nd Half of Life Third Edition. For the full show notes and resources mentioned in the episode click here.

Description: In this episode, I am speaking with Howard Waldstreicher. He is the author of Facebook's Oldest Intern: How a 60-year-old fitness trainer reinvented himself with the most unlikely of companies. This is a fascinating story of how Howard, who was totally screwed in the pandemic as a gym owner and fitness trainer, picked himself up and revived a previous career, and got hired at Facebook at the age of 60. Here is how Howard describes himself on his Amazon author page. Call him what you will - a gadfly, a shortie, or a squeaky-voiced Texas cowboy. But I had a blast working for Ross Perot. At age 26, this Queens-born boy got his first real job as a computer programmer for Perot's Electronic Data Systems in Plano, Texas. I liked the structure and the dress code: wingtip shoes, blue and grey suits, short haircuts, and conservative ties. In fact, if you dared to visit the bathroom without your jacket it was grounds for termination. These days, things are a little bit different. At 60 (61 now), I stumble out of bed, throw on some sweatpants, and meander to my desk. Nobody cares if I've brushed my hair or if I've showered, or if I'm wearing pants. After all, I work at Facebook. Wait, it's Meta now. Well, that's what the millennials tell me, anyway. They've helped me with a lot of stuff I don't know since I'm the oldest employee at the office, definitely top three. Thing is, despite the fact that it's the alter universe from Perot's clean-cut company, I absolutely freaking love it. I landed the job after a 20-year hiatus from the information technology world, during which time I ran a fitness center, was a tennis instructor, and had a family. So, not only did I leave my field, but I left the world of having to answer to a boss - at all. My adult kids thought my new gig was cool. No other employer would even speak to me about a job at my age. This episode is sponsored by Career Pivot. Check out the Career Pivot Community, and be sure to pick up my latest book, Repurpose Your Career: A Practical Guide for the 2nd Half of Life Third Edition. For the full show notes and resources mentioned in the episode click here.