891: A SUCCESSFUL retirement (and managing life transitions for high-achievers) w/ Elizabeth Zelinka Parsons

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Hey, what is up?

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Welcome to this episode of the Entrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

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As always, I'm your host, brian LoFermento, and I'll tell you what.

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We're joined by an incredible entrepreneur today, who is going to be talking about things that I think most of us want to ignore as part of our entrepreneurial journeys, which is retirement.

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I'm going to say that in air quotes because we don't really know or think about what retirement looks like for so many of us in our professional journeys, and today's expert is not only a fellow entrepreneur, but she's also an accomplished attorney.

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She's also someone who has been in consulting for a long time, and she's someone who's helped so many incredible executives, thought leaders and professionals navigate these waters with so many different considerations from her own personal career path, as well as her own personal experiences.

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So let me tell you all about today's guest.

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Her name is Elizabeth Zelenka Parsons.

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She's the founder of Oncoraco, which is a coaching and consulting company that focuses on helping high achieving entrepreneurs, professionals and executives design a plan for their lives for when they quote, quote, unquote retire from their current endeavors.

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Elizabeth and her team have guided hundreds of founders, lawyers, doctors and executives as they prepare for and navigate retiring from an intense career.

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Her first book, encore, a High Achiever's Guide to Thriving in Retirement, will be released in September.

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Elizabeth, like I said, she's not only a fellow entrepreneur, she's not only someone who helps people navigate these waters, she's also a lawyer, a speaker and consultant.

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We're all going to not only learn a lot from her today, but we're going to have so much food for thought, so I'm not going to say anything else.

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Let's dive straight into my interview with Elizabeth Zelenka Parsons.

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All right, elizabeth, I'm so excited that you're here with us today.

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Welcome to the show.

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Thank you, I really appreciate being here.

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I appreciate it a lot.

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Heck, yeah, like I said in the top of this episode, I don't think we like to talk about this topic very much in the world of entrepreneurship.

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But before we get there, I want to hear about what led you to this path, because you have over 15 years of experience as a consultant.

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You've been an entrepreneur for so long now.

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But take us beyond the bio.

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Who's Elizabeth?

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How'd you start doing all this stuff?

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Yeah, no happy to and it's actually, I think, fairly relevant to the work I do, the sort of path that took me here Sort of as I've alluded to both in my book title but in the client base I tend to work with.

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I get the high achiever type, because that's very much who I am too, and I always share this story.

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I remember being in fourth grade, you know, watching the highest achieving fifth grader that year, you know, win some award for the best grades in the class, and I was like that's going to be me next year, you know, and I mean I just had a death grip on achievement since I was a tiny kid but I sort of did that repeatedly, you know, valedictorian of high school and summa from college and then magna from my JD program, while working full time and going to school at night and all of this.

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So I was a very intense high-achieving type who hadn't really stopped very much along the way to ask myself what I wanted.

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It was more about making sure that I was living up to what I thought the world wanted of me.

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So when, 10 years into a very successful run at a pretty elite law firm, I finally hit the wall in terms of trying to balance motherhood in this 80 hour a week intense career that I was in, I decided that I needed to change everything and really switch my life up.

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So at that time I was living in Washington DC, working an impossible number of hours and trying to be, you know, a superstar mother of two tiny kids, and I finally decided the career had to go, and this is the interesting part that has a lot to do with what I now do professionally.

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This was obviously a very dramatic decision and confused the heck out of pretty much everyone who knew me, because I'd worked so hard to get where I was and I was just literally going to pitch it out the window, but I'd always landed on my feet.

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You know, I'd always been able to pull a rabbit out of a hat when I needed to, and I thought what I mean?

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I'm going to totally nail this, it's going to be great.

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So I left Washington DC, moved my family to, you know, a smaller, less expensive market, tucson, arizona, which is where I still live, and I just thought I had this whole thing figured out and the way I explained it to myself and everybody else was oh, don't worry, I'm just front-ending my retirement.

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Like you know, this is not a problem.

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I have this figured out, I've got enough money for the moment, so I'm going to borrow against my future, not just economically, but I literally had this idea that retirement was an explanation for this nirvana lifestyle that we all somehow wanted and were working for right.

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So we work really hard for decades, save our money, and then we arrive in this sort of wonderful place, I suppose, where we get to do whatever we want whenever we want.

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We call the shots on our lives, we no longer have to work for money.

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And that was the full extent of my understanding of what it was I was doing, the full extent of my understanding of what it was I was doing.

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And I only say that to say it held such a mythological power for me that I really thought I didn't need to figure anything else out.

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So, of course, I come to Tucson, you know, and once the euphoria wore off, I realized that I had completely destabilized my entire life, my entire identity, my life structure.

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I had no community, I had no way to apply the skills that I was using in an elite international law firm in this town I'd moved to.

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I was completely lost.

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I mean I was thrilled to have more time with my kids, but, honestly, the rest of who I was went missing and it took me a number of years to piece it all back together and rebuild an identity and a structure for my life that made any sense at all, you know, and I frankly lost a lot of my confidence along the way, you know, trying to re understandunderstand myself and figure out what I had actually done.

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So all of that later came together to form the foundations of this program that I offer to other high achievers when they are about to go through this enormous inflection point many of them call retirement, with the grand warning that I am here to tell you you need to plan for more than money.

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So that's.

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There's a little more to my story than that, and obviously I resumed my law practice eventually as well.

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So I also do that.

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But I it was messy.

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It was messy for me as a human being, and you know, I think we've all seen negative examples of people when they retire, that they sort of go off a cliff in certain ways.

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Luckily, I went off my cliff at 35.

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And I was able to rebuild, you know, a better understanding of myself and my life as a result of that.

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But yeah, it's a topic that most people don't think about or talk about, or even begin to embrace, until they're right on the verge of it, and that's when they come to me.

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Yeah, gosh, elizabeth, I love that overview for so many reasons, but especially because that real life story that you shared with us about your own major transformation and life change.

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That illustrates perfectly how deep these roots are that we're building in our lives and in our careers, whether that's through our own business or through being an executive at other businesses.

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I think about all the incredible entrepreneurs I've interviewed over the years that you know.

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I think of one guest that he sold a business for $100 million in his early 40s and he thought he was going to retire, and I think so many of us think money, having an excess of money, means we're going to retire.

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But these roots you said it right there very transparently for us, it impacts our identity.

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We are married to the things that we are building, which is what makes us such effective builders.

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We're fueled by that, even for you going all the way back to fourth grade.

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You are fueled by achievement, by accomplishment, and I love your disclaimer of this, isn't?

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We're not just talking about money here today, and what you help people with is not financial planning, it is really that structural planning.

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Talk to us about those different elements, because a lot of people in business calling out all of us entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs.

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They think the target is money, but you've experienced it from a life perspective.

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What are these elements beyond money that people don't realize when it comes to these transition moments?

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Absolutely.

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Yeah, thanks for the great question, because it is so, so huge.

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I mean and I don't mean to diminish that money matters and we need it right to make our lives work.

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So I don't mean to diminish it, but let's assume you've got it figured out and in general, the clients who come to me do so.

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What they're grappling with are issues around first of all.

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I mean, these are some of the key things that matter.

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When you set down, you know a business that you've built because you've sold it, or perhaps you have a succession plan and you're letting others take it forward, but you leave that business or you retire from an executive career or a profession, one of the blind spots that people have is what we've already alluded to, but it has formed a crucial part of our identity and when you set this thing down, part of our identity and when you set this thing down because we tend to be most connected to the parts of our identity that help us categorize ourselves and belong in places and belong with other people it really can feel like we've been like literally kicked out of a tribe.

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When we do that and you know we have these two aspects to identity, we've got categorical aspects.

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Which are these categories we belong to, like parent or spouse or friend or, you know, entrepreneur or founder or lawyer or doctor, you know, and they're the ways we introduce ourselves in the world.

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Those are the things we tell people about ourselves, and so they're hugely, you know, definitional for us and that's the stuff that, when it goes away, can make it feel like we've lost who we are.

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But there are these other existential parts of our identity that continue and have been there our whole lives, but they're so baked into us that we don't often consciously connect with them.

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So that's one of the things that in our work we do with people is help them reconnect with these existential aspects of themselves and then help them figure out how to deploy them in new, exciting, challenging, interesting ways.

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So identity is a big issue.

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Another one is the structure of your life.

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So, as we know, if you run a business or have a demanding career of any type, it provides the architecture of life.

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It is the primary sort of scaffolding of life.

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And of course, we do other things in our lives.

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If we're lucky, we have friendships and relationships and hopefully a hobby or two, and maybe we actually squeeze in reading a book now and then, but we tend to jam it all in around the edges of this huge endeavor that we're focused on.

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That most often has to do with the way we earn our living and the security, the way we're creating security in testing and challenging ourselves in life.

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And when you just pluck it right out of the middle, right, you just pull the primary scaffolding away from your life.

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Again you feel aimless and lost because all of that structure has disappeared almost overnight.

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And people will say to me, who come to me after they've retired, I find myself trying to live the same patterns that I was living because I don't have new patterns to live.

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But that means I just go and sit at my desk and doom scroll for 14 hours because I don't have emails flying at me anymore, I don't have things to react to that I had before and I don't remember how to be the creator of my own experience.

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So we really help people design, you know, an approach to the day, the week, the month and even the year that's coming up, and give them a way to think about the rhythms that serve them, because it is very hard to start creating that stuff from scratch when it's just all shaken up overnight.

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You know, another big thing we we highlight for people is that the scale of this change is enormous too.

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You know, there's there's this whole concept of the comfort zone, which we've all heard that term.

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But our comfort zone is where we feel secure and masterful and competent zone is where we feel secure and masterful and competent.

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And if you get pushed out of it too quickly, there is a psychological reality where we can enter the panic zone where we freeze, flee or fight, you know, and any of those is bad, because we are in a defensive psychological posture and it's really hard to be expansive and creative from there.

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It's hard to learn, it's hard to grow and face challenges when you're in that zone.

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So we really emphasize to people build a pathway.

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You need a roadmap that is gradual enough that you don't get overwhelmed with the scale of the change and end up literally in a psychological panic.

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Yeah, elizabeth, there's so much to unpack there and obviously it's such at the core of what you help people with in your work.

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But what I'm hearing from you, it really brings a smile to my face Because as an entrepreneur, obviously when people ask me, you know what are you going to do when you retire, which I'm a few decades away from retirement age as we traditionally talk about it here in the US.

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But for me I almost look at it as the anti-retirement.

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I don't want to, proverbially, go to a beach in Florida and just sit on a chair under an umbrella.

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To me that's not where I get that fulfillment out of and it's also not what I'm hearing from you today.

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You're not suggesting that we do that.

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You're openly acknowledging the structure that has built a life that we thrive off of and continuing that.

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Talk to us.

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Are there different models of what retirement looks like?

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Because I guess societally we always I mean we kind of glorify that image of people just relaxing.

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But how long can you relax?

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For, elizabeth, I'm sure you're like me where we can't relax for very long.

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What are those models of retirement look like?

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Yeah, great question.

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So you're spot on.

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First of all, we've been sold a little bit of a bill of goods that pure leisure is the grand thing we're all hoping to finally arrive at, and nobody wants 365 Saturdays in a row no, thank you, at least not the people I work with.

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That's terrifying and it's not rewarding.

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I mean, the truth is that people who build businesses, people who work hard at, you know, learning things and giving back and those kinds of things building, you know, professions and careers are fueled by accomplishment and growth and energizing new challenges, and that really never stops, right, I mean, as long as we're alive.

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You know, as human beings we need worthy goals to aspire to.

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You know, leisure only has meaning when it's intention, with work or effort, and so if you just have nothing fresh that energizes you and excites you, it really you just quickly end up in a state of stagnation and again, it's just not a place anyone really thrives.

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So when we talk to people about what this next chapter can look like, what's interesting is the big shift most people want to make is that, for the first time, they're going to have way more control over their lives maybe than they've ever had.

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Because you know.

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Look, if, if you're living through middle adulthood, whether you've got a family or not, there are many, many things that are calling upon you and you've got to be reactive too.

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You've got to build around.

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You know whether it's a team.

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You manage a job.

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You've got a family you're raising, but you've got a lot of those responsibilities and they're really worthy ones, and we all want to be there for those things.

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It's all perfect.

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But what a lot of people are looking for is just a little more self-direction and the ability to decide what they want to do, when they want to do it and who they want to do it with.

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But the paradox there is that requires you to be the author, it requires you to make choices, and that's that muscle can get a little weak when you aren't the one who's been driving all of that for maybe decades.

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So you know, part of what we try to do is fire up that imagination muscle and fire up that question of what do I really want?

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You know, what do I want to feel more of?

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What do I want to be doing?

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Who do I want to be helping?

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And so, first of all, we want all of what comes next to be motivated by somebody's inspiration.

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But beyond that, what we usually also see is people want more of a mosaic, and that's the term we tend to use.

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Most people when they hit this moment, in this inflection point, they are looking for more of a, a collection of energizing areas to invest time and energy and purpose.

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So people will fire up, you know, creative projects or talents that they've ignored for a long time, alongside, maybe, some sort of business endeavor where they play a much smaller role than they had in the past.

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Maybe they will found a nonprofit or get heavily involved in a cause they deeply care about.

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They'll start adding, you know, more travel, more time with friends and family, but they can see it as a sort of a mosaic of things that fit together in a sensible way.

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They're choosing the way they spend their time, they're choosing the cycles of work and leisure, and it puts them in the driver's seat.

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You know, no one wants to feel aimless.

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So that's a great model that we work with people on, but you know, a lot of it just has to do with with those human beings and what it is.

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Because by that, by the time you've hit this moment, you've got a lot of facts in your life you actually have to contend with, to write real issues you have to deal with.

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So so some of this is just about shaping life so that it's just as optimal as it can be in a chapter when you ought to have the best opportunity.

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Maybe you've ever had to create what you want.

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Yeah, elizabeth, as a visual person, I really love that visual that you give of the mosaic and I can't help but notice the words that you tie to it are meaning and purpose and I'm going to pick on you with your lawyer hat on is that I presume that you are amazing at asking the right questions to get to the relevant facts, and, having read so many incredible testimonials of the work that you do with high powered executives and people who are entering that phase of life, is that it sounds like you have an incredible ability to get at the root of that.

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And so, when we talk about meaning and purpose, if you ask someone what's the meaning of your life, what's the purpose of your life, that's a hard question to ask.

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So shed some light on, or a hard question to answer.

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Shed some light on the types of questions that you ask to really help people get at the root of that.

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Absolutely so.

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That's one of my favorite parts of our work is, you know, one of the goals we've got.

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And let me clarify we do this work in groups to varying degrees, but a lot of we also do a lot of work one-on-one, so we're going very deep with one individual person, over even a two-day period sometimes.

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So the work is pretty deep and intense.

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But one of my favorite pieces of this work is to help people identify what it is that thematically runs through their most rewarding moments when they're working with people.

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And so I will always start with this question, which is to tell me a story about a time when you were in your sweet spot, like you're working in a really deep strength of yours and it's something you absolutely love to do.

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You know you would do it for free, it's just, it's just your thing, and you can see or perceive that some third party is getting a benefit from this and that reward loop comes back to you and you just get that sense of you know, man, I am in my sweet spot right on purpose, doing what I'm here to do.

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And what's interesting is, when I ask that question, people get wistful.

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I mean, they almost always have stories, but they've never thought of them that way, because they aren't putting themselves at the center of the story.

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When they're doing that work right, they're putting themselves, they're working for someone else, they're doing something that benefits another person, so that person's at the center of the story.

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But the minute they put themselves at the center of the story, they connect with that sensation of you.

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Know, this is what I, this is my zone of genius and I love doing it and I love that somebody else is getting help from it.

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And so, as they tell me the story, I am listening for the themes and I can usually nail it.

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You know, get a sentence.

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It's a sentence that's right to the point of this is what I do.

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And when it happens, I know I've got it because I can see them read it and go.

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That's the thing I love doing, that.

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And when we find that, that's when it gets exciting, because the next fun question is okay, what are all the new ways you're going to go do this?

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And it doesn't have to be 80 hours a week anymore.

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But there were thousands of ways to do this in the world, this thing we've just found.

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So let's get creative and start brainstorming all the spaces and people and ways you might bring this alive, because what I believe is, until the day you draw your last, people and ways you might bring this alive, because what I believe is, until the day you draw your last breath, if you're doing this in some form or fashion, you're going to be happy, you're going to feel like you are engaged in a way that matters and that's what we need.

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You know it benefits the world.

00:22:41.184 --> 00:22:48.592
I mean, my favorite part of the work is that these amazing people go off and do new things that are actually contributive to the world.

00:22:48.592 --> 00:22:54.830
I mean, and that feels like an honor to be maybe part of helping people find those pathways.

00:22:55.519 --> 00:23:02.211
Yeah, I love that answer, especially because my answer to people when they ask about my own retirement is I always say I don't want to retire.

00:23:02.211 --> 00:23:04.362
I always picture I pick on college professors.

00:23:04.362 --> 00:23:06.450
I think that's the perfect retirement gig.

00:23:06.450 --> 00:23:12.107
Gosh, I would just get to mold young minds and encourage more entrepreneurs to pursue their dreams.

00:23:12.107 --> 00:23:17.648
I think that that's the dream and it's what I'm hearing from you and so much of your answers you talk about.

00:23:17.648 --> 00:23:23.106
I'm going to bring it back to a few elements of what we talked about earlier, which is you talk about 80 hour weeks.

00:23:23.106 --> 00:23:25.332
You talk about 365 Saturdays.

00:23:25.332 --> 00:23:29.631
You talk about when you moved to Arizona and you were like I think I have it figured out, but we'll see.

00:23:30.221 --> 00:23:43.373
I think it's fascinating to pick the minds of incredibly brilliant people like yourself, elizabeth, that you have a tendency or you have the skill to manipulate time, and I always point to high performing athletes.

00:23:43.373 --> 00:23:48.271
If you watch Roger Federer play tennis, that man has more time on the court than anybody else.

00:23:48.271 --> 00:23:51.593
I don't know how he creates it, but time is an essential ingredient.

00:23:51.593 --> 00:23:58.689
The way that we socially construct that time can either limit the way we view our lives and businesses or it can enable it.

00:23:58.689 --> 00:24:02.282
So talk to me about some of that time manipulation in this.

00:24:02.282 --> 00:24:07.103
I'm going to forever put it in air quotes now, in this quote unquote retirement period of our lives.

00:24:07.103 --> 00:24:08.586
What does that look like?

00:24:08.586 --> 00:24:16.534
Because someone like you, you clearly love structure, but how does structure marry with really you know, no sort of time structure in retirement.

00:24:17.180 --> 00:24:24.054
Yeah, you know that is very insightful, that question, because it's a huge blind spot.

00:24:24.054 --> 00:24:28.825
You know, certainly it was for me and it is often for the people I work with as well.

00:24:28.825 --> 00:24:47.050
Just to take it back one step most of us in middle adulthood, who are in the middle, the thick of right career or business ownership or whatever the thing is we're doing raising a family, time scarcity is our constant companion, right?

00:24:47.050 --> 00:24:49.842
It's the one thing we never have enough of is time.

00:24:49.842 --> 00:24:51.425
Literally it is.

00:24:51.425 --> 00:24:54.613
I cannot tell you how often I hear that from people.

00:24:55.401 --> 00:25:12.708
And the challenge is, you know, if you take the mindset of time scarcity forward with you into a chapter where actually you have an abundance of time to do with as you wish with, the really funny thing is all we can think to do with it is kill it.

00:25:12.708 --> 00:25:14.406
It's like, how do I kill all this time?

00:25:14.406 --> 00:25:15.924
I mean, it's the one thing I hear from everybody when they come to work with us is kill it.

00:25:15.924 --> 00:25:16.244
It's like how do I kill all this time?

00:25:16.244 --> 00:25:19.827
I mean it's the one thing I hear from everybody when they come to work with us is I'm scared to death.

00:25:19.827 --> 00:25:26.231
I'm just gonna have hours of free time stretching ahead of me, and it's almost like it's a scourge.

00:25:26.231 --> 00:25:28.702
You know, like how would I, would I ever deal with this?

00:25:28.702 --> 00:25:33.371
Because I only know how to function If I'm under an enormous pressure.

00:25:33.731 --> 00:25:51.996
That's how my life works and that's how I understand how to be in this world, and so you know what we say to people is you have to begin using structure to make sense of time until you get more comfortable realizing you're the source of time.

00:25:51.996 --> 00:26:01.246
Everything you experience comes from you, and time is a thing you perceive, and so it's not separate from you.

00:26:01.246 --> 00:26:11.794
It feels separate from you when it feels like your master and especially, for example, if you're someone like me, a lawyer who sells time literally right for a living.

00:26:11.794 --> 00:26:31.173
So it can feel like this thing that is separate from you, but the truth is you and it are the same thing, and so you know, to me, the beginning of getting this figured out is to continue using structure, like a calendar, to manage the way you work inside of time.

00:26:31.173 --> 00:26:47.894
And so, because most of us let our calendars drive our lives, keep doing that, except you're going to be the author of your calendar now and you're going to begin designing the way your day looks, because you're going to identify when am I mentally sharpest and when do I like to be engaged that way?

00:26:47.894 --> 00:26:52.689
When do I like to be physical, when do I prefer to be social, and how often.

00:26:53.259 --> 00:26:57.010
You know what are the rhythms of a day that really works well for me.

00:26:57.010 --> 00:27:08.585
And then you're going to build that architecture and you're going to start experimenting with it and figuring out which days are fabulous, days that you could live again and again, which not so fabulous, and why.

00:27:08.585 --> 00:27:18.252
But you're going to begin to almost be like an artist, you know, with clay in your hands and treat time like something that you control.

00:27:18.252 --> 00:27:20.102
And you do control.

00:27:20.102 --> 00:27:21.104
You really do.

00:27:21.104 --> 00:27:29.094
But it really takes actual practice when you've been living in a life where time runs you and not the other way around.

00:27:29.094 --> 00:27:41.912
So I don't know if that fully answers your question, but it's the way we begin, trying to help people experiment with it differently, because nobody ever comes to us feeling like free time makes sense to them.

00:27:42.759 --> 00:27:43.121
Gosh.

00:27:43.321 --> 00:27:56.211
Elizabeth, I didn't expect to go here with you today, but you triggered something in my mind that brings up chess, and I'm a firm believer that everything we do in life is just a microcosm of life itself, and so in chess, there are three phases of a chess match.

00:27:56.250 --> 00:28:14.925
There's the opening, which is when you get your pieces out onto the board so that they're in an advantageous position to do something with the middle game, which is where you actually do something with the pieces that you've previously put in place, and then the end game is where you use those pieces to actually achieve your goal, and hearing you talk about this, I'm like you're almost playing.

00:28:14.925 --> 00:28:26.150
The chess game of life is that you are very strategically and intentionally putting the pieces where they need to go, which leads me to my next question, which is when do we start?

00:28:26.150 --> 00:28:32.020
Because a lot of people, when they start learning chess, they practice checkmate patterns and they practice the end of the game.

00:28:32.020 --> 00:28:42.487
But the truth is, when you actually sit down to play a match, you don't get to those checkmate patterns unless you've played an extraordinary middle game, and your middle game is not going to be good unless you've done the right opening.

00:28:42.487 --> 00:28:44.392
So, elizabeth, working backwards.

00:28:44.392 --> 00:28:46.945
When the heck do we start thinking about this stuff?

00:28:47.928 --> 00:28:51.583
What a great question, and I love the chess analogy, thank you.

00:28:51.583 --> 00:28:57.192
I may borrow that, but so I think you ask a fabulous question.

00:28:57.192 --> 00:28:59.060
So this is a common refrain I hear.

00:28:59.060 --> 00:29:20.046
So let's say, you know, the people I'm working with, for the most part now, tend to be sort of between 55 and 65, let's say, because many of the professional realms people are working in now are really putting pressure on people to retire sooner, you know, than maybe they did 10, 20 years ago.

00:29:20.046 --> 00:29:27.425
So they really do have a chapter ahead of them before they necessarily consider themselves old.

00:29:28.868 --> 00:29:38.931
So, but even that said, I can't tell you how many of these people have said to me I wish I had started doing these things that you're recommending when I was 40 or 45.

00:29:38.931 --> 00:29:41.994
I wish I had thought about these things.

00:29:41.994 --> 00:29:52.126
And so I think you raise a great point, which is that the entire approach that we are helping people take is really about being intentional.

00:29:52.126 --> 00:30:06.770
It's about sitting down and taking some time to ask yourself or we facilitate these questions, which is sometimes easier for people, but if you've got to do this on your own, the question really is what is ideal for me?

00:30:06.770 --> 00:30:22.712
And it doesn't mean you're going to get there 100%, but the very fact that you ask that question and start to pretend you could have it that way leads you to begin making choices that actually do get you closer to that ideal.

00:30:22.712 --> 00:30:32.306
And what I see with so many people who've been working hard for a long time is they've stopped asking that question a long time ago, if they ever asked it.

00:30:32.306 --> 00:30:34.193
In fact, I made the point about myself.

00:30:34.193 --> 00:30:35.519
I never asked it, you know.

00:30:35.519 --> 00:30:48.092
I just was on the achievement ladder, if you will, and I was just climbing like a mad woman, you know, until I finally got to the last rung, I could grab and said this is not, I can't do this anymore.

00:30:48.680 --> 00:31:08.242
So what I would say to people, no matter where you are, is intentionality is the name of the game, and a lot of what we're just helping people do when they hit this huge inflection point is learn to be intentional and then start filling in those blanks, and then they're going to have to live their way to the actual answers.

00:31:08.242 --> 00:31:09.145
We're like we all do.

00:31:09.145 --> 00:31:20.691
But until you know what direction you're moving in, until you have a way to start, it is extremely difficult to take the first step, because where are you headed right?

00:31:20.691 --> 00:31:31.516
It's you inertia, stronger than the effort it takes to begin moving forward unless you have some sort of intentional sense of why you're moving forward.

00:31:31.516 --> 00:31:41.708
So I would say that the number one thing that people could start to do at sort of 10, 15 years away is just begin to be intentional about.

00:31:42.088 --> 00:31:44.374
You know, what are the things you most love?

00:31:44.374 --> 00:32:03.292
If you could dispense wisdom in some area one day, what are the areas that most light you up, what are the areas that you find yourself being drawn to constantly, that you would deepen your knowledge in, and don't just call those hobbies, you know, call those pillars of of the future for you.

00:32:03.292 --> 00:32:08.632
And then think about your structure, think about the way your day works.

00:32:08.632 --> 00:32:11.163
Are you really optimizing that?

00:32:11.163 --> 00:32:13.866
Are you really physical at the times of day you want to be?

00:32:13.866 --> 00:32:24.673
You know, are there ways you can shift your schedule so that you're more energetic, so that you know you're serving yourself better and therefore serving everyone else better?

00:32:24.673 --> 00:32:29.652
You know these are not questions that most of the people we work with have ever asked themselves.

00:32:29.652 --> 00:32:50.145
And so you know, even if you can't get it all lined up exactly the way you want, because third-party forces are what they are, the very exercise of beginning to work toward intentionality to me would be if there's one thing you want to work on practicing, it would be that Whoa listeners.

00:32:50.240 --> 00:32:57.823
There's always a point in these conversations where I feel like that is profound wisdom and insights that we all need to re-listen to.

00:32:57.823 --> 00:33:07.239
So go back and listen to Elizabeth's answer there once again, because, elizabeth, those questions that you rattled off, I totally agree with you we don't ask ourselves that.

00:33:07.239 --> 00:33:19.047
For a lot of us I'm including myself in this that's going to be the first time that someone has forced that level of intentionality on us and given us permission to say, hey, hold on a minute, let me ask myself these, let me actually explore these things.

00:33:19.047 --> 00:33:22.528
And those are real, tangible questions that you shared with us here on the air.

00:33:22.528 --> 00:33:26.765
So incredibly insightful knowledge there, and I so appreciate that, elizabeth.

00:33:27.026 --> 00:33:44.561
But it also means I don't know how you're gonna outdo that answer for my last question, which is what's that actionable takeaway, knowing that we're talking to a worldwide audience of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs that, as you said, they're all different phases, not only of their business but of life?

00:33:44.561 --> 00:33:47.588
So I guess you can answer this question either with your entrepreneurial hat on or your subject matter expertise hat on.

00:33:47.588 --> 00:33:49.173
But what's that takeaway?

00:33:49.173 --> 00:33:53.501
What's that one thing that you hope everyone, after listening to all the great things you shared with us today.

00:33:53.501 --> 00:33:57.972
What's that one thing you hope they walk away and actually do in their lives and in their businesses?

00:33:59.420 --> 00:34:14.313
You know, I think what I'd zoom out, even one level further than maybe everything we've talked about, and I would say this Look, every single one of us faces these moments in life that feel incredibly difficult.

00:34:14.313 --> 00:34:21.806
Usually they involve change, usually they're terrifying, and we don't want to tell anybody how scared we are.

00:34:21.806 --> 00:34:23.951
You know, it's just normal, right?

00:34:23.951 --> 00:34:28.710
We don't want to show up that way, especially if we are successful and we have been successful.

00:34:28.710 --> 00:34:55.028
And what I would say I've learned over this last, you know, 15 years of working with people, and certainly through my own journey as well, is that there was so much strength in just admitting you don't know what's coming and it's scary and realize the minute you do that then you can actually get on with looking for the opportunity that's hidden in this big scary change that you have to face.

00:34:56.521 --> 00:35:10.474
So I would really encourage people, people tell somebody else you trust and just get some other brain power Flowing with you, but don't get isolated and don't get afraid and don't think that nobody else goes through this.

00:35:10.474 --> 00:35:20.193
Everybody goes through this over and over again in life and, frankly, these are the moments where all the growth happens, where all the opportunity lies.

00:35:20.193 --> 00:35:23.784
So just, whether it's a professional or a good friend.

00:35:23.784 --> 00:35:32.155
Just go get some brain power flowing with you and admit you just need to figure out some new things.

00:35:32.155 --> 00:35:34.344
And you know, don't shrink away from it.

00:35:34.344 --> 00:35:49.864
Because there's nothing that thrills me more than watching somebody go from really worried and scared that the next chapter of their lives is just going to be like a slow decline to realizing no, I mean, I've got the most exciting ride on the river waiting for me and I'm going.

00:35:49.864 --> 00:35:51.387
And what do I have to lose?

00:35:51.387 --> 00:35:51.929
Let's do it.

00:35:51.929 --> 00:35:54.423
You know that to me, is what life's about.

00:35:55.226 --> 00:36:03.402
Gosh, elizabeth, that's one of my favorite answers to that question in almost 900 episodes of us having these conversations, so you absolutely nailed that one.

00:36:03.402 --> 00:36:14.244
It really is actionable advice that, no matter where we are, I think somehow, elizabeth, you frame so much of today's conversation into a way that applies to every single entrepreneur, even early on in their journey.

00:36:14.244 --> 00:36:15.768
So I so appreciate those insights.

00:36:15.768 --> 00:36:20.360
And the good news is, listeners, if you're thinking, elizabeth has given us all a lot to think about.

00:36:20.360 --> 00:36:24.641
She has so many resources out there from her free guide that you're going to find on her website.

00:36:24.641 --> 00:36:27.690
Her book is launching very soon, which I'm super excited about.

00:36:27.690 --> 00:36:36.630
So, elizabeth, with all that in mind, where can listeners go to find so much more of all the brilliance that you're sharing with the world and all the great stuff that you're up to with Oncoraco?

00:36:37.972 --> 00:36:38.932
Oh, thanks for asking.

00:36:38.932 --> 00:36:48.356
Well, you're welcome to connect with me on my LinkedIn page, which will also take you to the Oncoraco LinkedIn.

00:36:48.356 --> 00:36:50.902
My law firm page is also connected there.

00:36:50.902 --> 00:36:56.514
Oncoracocom is where you'll find lots of material about the retirement programs we put on.

00:36:56.514 --> 00:37:02.762
So any of those places you can certainly find me, and I love connecting with people who are interested in this work.

00:37:02.762 --> 00:37:07.072
So, you know, I hope to hear from any of you who are curious.

00:37:07.940 --> 00:37:09.726
Yes, listeners, you already know the drill.

00:37:09.726 --> 00:37:16.909
We are making it as easy as possible for you to find all of Elizabeth's links down below in the show notes, wherever it is that you're tuning into today's episode.

00:37:16.909 --> 00:37:20.840
Her business website is at Oncoracocom, you don't have to remember it.

00:37:20.840 --> 00:37:24.483
You can scroll right on down and click through to her website, as well as her personal LinkedIn.

00:37:24.483 --> 00:37:29.961
You can download her free guide right now on her website, so don't wait if you want to go deeper into this stuff.

00:37:29.961 --> 00:37:36.012
Otherwise, elizabeth, on behalf of myself and all of our listeners around the world, thanks so much for coming on the show today.

00:37:36.813 --> 00:37:37.755
Thank you, brian, I loved it.

00:37:38.641 --> 00:37:44.989
Thanks hey, it's Brian here and thanks for tuning in to yet another episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

00:37:44.989 --> 00:37:48.936
If you haven't checked us out online, there's so much good stuff there.

00:37:48.936 --> 00:37:55.858
Check out the show's website and all the show notes that we talked about in today's episode at thewantrepreneurshowcom.

00:37:55.858 --> 00:37:58.184
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00:37:58.184 --> 00:38:06.960
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00:38:07.021 --> 00:38:09.005
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00:38:14.108 --> 00:38:25.047
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00:38:25.047 --> 00:38:33.547
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00:38:33.547 --> 00:38:34.864
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00:38:34.864 --> 00:38:39.507
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00:38:39.507 --> 00:38:40.931
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00:38:40.931 --> 00:38:50.333
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