How to pivot in your mid-life, Jo Glynn-Smith, The Ascent Associates

0:00Jo Glynn-Smith:The thing that is hardest is self-confidence and self-belief. It's frustrating if you're somebody who's quite good at lots of things, but not amazing at one thing. When you're exposed and you suddenly run a business, there's nowhere to hide anymore. Jo Glynn-Smith is a coach who specialises in leadership growth, career transition and personal transformation, working with people to navigate change, which, whether we like it or not, is coming for us all. Alongside her coaching practice, she hosts the Midlife Entrepreneur podcast, which explores the shift from corporate life to entrepreneurship. So she's perfectly placed to guide us through how to pivot in midlife and address how listeners might honestly assess whether they are ready to do the same.

0:42So keep listening to hear Jo's take on how to pivot in your midlife. For full disclosure, I've known Jo for 20 years in our various different roles and we were made Battersea Park Walks to stomp out our frustrations about what to do in our businesses. She has become a closer and closer friend over the years and it's actually her post on Instagram saying I want to start a podcast but I don't know how to that inspired me to create our podcast training course. She was our first ever client in this service and her podcast is often ranked in the top 50 of Apple. Jo, I'm so excited to have you on How to Start Up because I've known you not only for years but admired you and your career for years as well.

1:25This episode is all about how to pivot in your midlife and it's something that many, many people will want to do but also have to do. So I wanted to chat to you about your career and your midlife pivot if you could give us a little bit of a background to your story.

1:41Jo Glynn-Smith:Thank you so much for having me Jules, it's really great to be here. So 25 years in the fashion industry with lots of different roles within that. Started in comms, went into event production, then went into publishing and magazines. Then there was a big switch into marketing. And I worked as VP of marketing for a global jewellery brand. And then from that, I then went into this crossroads phase in my late forties and changed my career entirely. So I'm not a stranger to changing and I have taken some brave decisions. Actually, I was thinking about self-advocacy the other day, thinking, have I advocated for myself?

2:18Jo Glynn-Smith:And I think I have. I think I've taken opportunities. I've said no to things that weren't working. I've left things that didn't serve me. But the big one was at the end of my 40s. And that was kind of what's inspired all the work that I do today. So that was a long period where I really didn't know what I was going to do. But I really knew that what I was doing was no longer something that fulfilled me. And so that was a big moment. Well, what was that precise moment that you knew you had to change and leave the big world of big salaries behind as well. I know we've talked a lot about that. We both come from big Bond Street brands and well-known jobs and big ticket salaries, which is a hard thing to walk away from.

2:55And what did you do in that first 72 hours?

2:58Jo Glynn-Smith:It's difficult to say because honestly, I got made redundant and the first 72 hours were a bit of a blur. I just was just trying to breathe normally, to be honest. You and me both. It was a real shock and I genuinely was shocked it came out of the blue for me. I suppose with hindsight, it shouldn't have come out of the blue, but it really felt like that in the moment. So the first 72 hours, I honestly don't remember. I'm going to say the first 72 days. All I knew, because I kept, it's really weird. As soon as people know words on the street and you're in a senior role, headhunters come knocking at the door.

3:33Jo Glynn-Smith:We were also in COVID. So it was a very weird time. So, you know, but despite the fact that we were kind of locked in and it all felt really odd. I also had conversations happening and there are all sorts of conversations about really big marketing jobs because Pandora, where I had worked, was a massively successful business and we'd been really successful as a team. And I was just really underwhelmed by the jobs on offer. I wasn't feeling excited. And so I guess the moment that you're describing was a moment when I realized, crap, I don't want to do that. But what the hell am I going to do? Because I have to work, I need to earn money.

4:09Jo Glynn-Smith:But something inside me, I don't know whether it was because of the weird time that we were in, was just pulling me away from saying, yes, I just couldn't say yes to anything. And I had quite a few interviews and I just didn't care about them. Your gut was saying no. My gut was just like, every cell in my body was saying, this isn't the right direction for you. And maybe it never was. I'd taken the job because I'd been offered it without interview. and it was a great opportunity. Publishing has really become a very challenged industry. I knew I had to get out and this was a great opportunity to learn and grow and have a big budget and work with a big team.

4:45Jo Glynn-Smith:And I loved every second of it. So that was an exciting kind of jump off a cliff moment. I quite like those moments, but this was jumping off in a much more like a slow-mo version because I knew that if I wanted safety and security, I could go and start the interview process and the chances are post COVID and being locked down and everything that I would get something and it would be a good salary in a reputable company and I'd have a team and I'd be able to do it but in my mind my age was a big factor and I was thinking hang on you've got a good 20 odd years of work left in you what do you want to do with that time and I honestly didn't know the answer I didn't know the answer but I just knew it wasn't what I was doing.

5:27Jo Glynn-Smith:So that was scary and kind of exciting, but scary. And I talk about this a lot. In fact, weirdly, I've just recorded a social post about this. I spent a lot of time crying because I was so frustrated that I couldn't work out what it was. I remember saying to friends, you know, there's people who have those kind of vocations in life that they have to follow and they've done it and they're doing it. And they're like, you've just got to find your passion. You just got to find your purpose. And I have lots of things I like. But it's easy if you know what it is. You just go after it and get it and you do it and you're good at it.

5:58I mean, seeing people in there calling, it's so obvious, but it's really very frustrating when you don't know what that is.

6:04Jo Glynn-Smith:I think it's frustrating if you're somebody who's quite good at lots of things, but not amazing at one thing. And so I definitely put myself in that camp. I was always quite good at lots of stuff, which is why I was able to kind of move through various different types of roles because I could apply my experience and my skills and stuff. So that was the challenge. And then eventually I worked with the coach because I really needed to find some direction. And I knew time was running out. You know, I didn't have endless amounts of time to work out what this was going to be. I have responsibilities.

6:34Jo Glynn-Smith:So I worked with the coach and really my goal with the coach was I need to find the thing that I'm going to do. I just need to get onto the path. And once I'm on that and pointing in the right direction, I can do the rest. And that was the work and the journey that I went through. But it took at least, I'm going to say at least seven months to do that. and with a lot of frustration, I mean, so much frustration, I can't tell you. I mean, I would spend hours really thinking about, you know, what do I want to put my time and effort and energy into? And I sort of knew I wanted to have my own business and I definitely had a high value in variety and freedom.

7:07Jo Glynn-Smith:So those are two things that I kind of identified through this process. I also identified that the thing that I'd loved most about every part of my career was lifting other people up, being part of that journey. So it wasn't purely, you know, it wasn't a kind of a charitable thing. It was like being in the picture as well, but being past that energetically, I really wanted to do that. So basically we finished the coaching. I hadn't decided I was going to take this coaching thing further. In fact, I was actually opposing it. I was like, there's no way I'm doing that because everybody's doing that.

7:37Jo Glynn-Smith:And it felt a little bit like, you know, riding the wave with everybody else. I left it with the thing that I want to do is find a way to help other women mainly, but people, I want to make them feel amazing. I want them to help them find confidence. I want them to feel really clear about how they're going to do whatever it is that they want to do. And I kind of left it with that. And about a few months after I finished the coaching, I remember phoning Simon, my coach, and saying, I think I'm going to do a coaching course. And he said, I knew you'd get there eventually. Oh, as every good coach says.

8:11Jo Glynn-Smith:So he never said that I should do it. You know, obviously that's not his job. But I realized I needed a qualification, actually, if I was going to do this. I probably didn't have the confidence to just go out and do it. I needed something that qualified me to be able to do what I wanted to do. And so therefore I signed up for a year long course. Career pivots in 40s and 50s carry a different weight to them than say if you're 23. Mortgages, dependents, aging parents are being stretched in both directions. If you have children as well, there's that moment in that pivot where the income from the old life is not there, but the income from the new life is also not there yet.

8:44And I say yet because everyone tells me be okay with that financial roller coaster. And it's been six and a half years for me. And I'm still so grateful when a client pays on time. But that finance part, how should listeners tackle that scarcity moment? Is there anything you tell your clients that they should set up before they take that leap?

9:03Jo Glynn-Smith:Oh, 100%. I mean, I'm not there to make people take huge risks. It's big enough changing career and it is really difficult. If you're going to change career, if you're going to start a business, They're both really significant moments in your life anyway. I mean, they're huge and they require a lot of energy. But the last thing you need is to have the financial pressure. Some people, and look, everybody's different. So it's really difficult to give you one way of doing things because there are some clients who just will literally run off that cliff and go, I don't care, I'm just going to do it.

9:32Jo Glynn-Smith:And you're like, okay. Well, it helps when you're made redundant. I was also made redundant. I didn't feel I had a choice because it was COVID and I just thought I'm not going to be able to get another job. So within my 72 hours, I'd founded the business and put it on LinkedIn. So I couldn't back out and I'd look back and go, that was really rash. Don't do that. But also who cares? Who's looking? No one else cares but me. Go for it. And I also didn't have kids. I had my mortgage and I was just determined not to lose that roof over my head. So for me, that was my driver. But is there practical steps people should take?

10:01Yeah.

10:01Jo Glynn-Smith:So I would say to any client, if they're in work and it's no longer serving them or they're just feeling completely burnt out or demotivated, or they've got something they've always wanted to do and they're scared that time's running out and they want to try it. So I do get them to do the exercise of looking at that kind of financial runway basically. And everybody's situations are different. So if you've got, for example, if you're living with a partner, is it possible that your mortgage and your bills and whatever other responsibilities you have are covered in the time it might take for you to start something new?

10:32Jo Glynn-Smith:And I always say that time is at least two years. And I know that sounds like a long time, but it may be that you've been doing something as a side hustle and you're ready to launch in which case the runway is shorter but it may be that you're retraining i've got clients who've retrained a psychotherapist that's a four-year course so you've got to work out how are you going to do that and work or do you have enough financial support to be able to do that and not work maybe you could do it quicker so it really depends on your circumstance some people have savings some people don't. Some people have, I've worked with people who are coming into pension and they've got some money coming in as well.

11:09Jo Glynn-Smith:Have your children left home? Do you still have children that you're kind of paying for on a day-to-day basis? So every single person's situation is different. So I asked them to spend time looking at their financial runway and what is possible for them. So then once we've got that in terms of timing, like I could last a year without any income, or I could last six months or I could last two years. Once we've got that, then it's like, okay, now we know what we're playing with. Then we can work backwards from that and see what is possible. So depending on that, and if it's a retrain, I chose coaching partly because I knew I had two years where I didn't need to make an income, partly because I got very well compensated through my redundancy and I had some savings.

11:52Jo Glynn-Smith:And because we're in COVID, we weren't spending nearly as much as we would do normally. I knew that I had this time and I used every single penny of the savings that I had in that two years to set up my business. And then I was off and making money, but it wasn't as much as I had before, for sure. Like you said, it's a rollercoaster. So once I knew that, then I was like, okay, well, if I'm going to do a qualification, what can I do that's going to fit in that time? So there's no point saying I want to do a four year degree or course if you've only got a year. So you're going to have to work around that, or you're going to have to look at the job that you're currently in and change your mindset around that job.

12:29Jo Glynn-Smith:So rather than saying this job no longer fits me, I hate it. If it's a relatively stable job, could you look at it as that's the foundation that's allowing you to step into your next career and do the job, but maybe make a little bit more space for you to retrain in your spare time. And that will allow you to springboard off, but I'd never recommend to a client that they just sleeve and then think about it. So knowing your numbers both in time and in money. So the number one thing is knowing your numbers, right? So knowing what you've got to play with. The number two thing is doing some research.

13:01Jo Glynn-Smith:So you need to do the self-awareness piece. So for example, if you're saying, I hate this career that I've been in for 25 years, I just can't do it anymore. What is it about the career that you can't do anymore? Because you'll probably find that it's like 50 % of things you don't enjoy and 50 % you still do. Like a lot of people say to me, oh, I love the people. I love working, you know, with the energy of the people. And I love this part, but I just hate this part of my job. And so I get them to do lists, like what isn't serving you, i.e. what should we avoid in the future? Or could we do less of in the future?

13:33Jo Glynn-Smith:And what really does still serve you? And maybe we could do more of that, or maybe that's an important part and non-negotiable of what you do next. so if you really love people and working in teams i would suggest that maybe being an entrepreneur is not a great way to go unless you've got a business partner or a co-founder because you might find that really lonely and difficult to do you and i know it's a very lonely business working by yourself at the beginning so there's it's looking at that so finance and then doing your research and doing the self-awareness piece really working out what it is that you think you want more of what you'd like to leave behind so what drains you what energizes you all of those exercises.

14:11Jo Glynn-Smith:And then the research piece after that, which is about speaking to anybody who is doing something that you think you want to do. So if you want to become a yoga teacher, if you want to start a gym, if you want to start a drinks business, if you want to go into wine and you've been in finance, whatever it is, find some people to talk to and get as much information out of them as possible. And what we find is that everybody is happy to offer some advice when it comes to talking about themselves. So that's not difficult to do, but don't just second guess and don't spend a lot of time talking to the robots thinking that that's all your answers.

14:44Jo Glynn-Smith:We need to speak to real people doing the jobs. What was their experience? What were their challenges? What do they love about it? What could they do with more help? And just really gather your insights and all of that you can do while you're still employed if you have that opportunity. If like us, you're made redundant, then it's a much faster, it's a much faster process and you may be responding to, you're sort of triggered by what's going on and you're responding quickly. But if you're in employment, then you've got the luxury of that. So you don't have to do anything. And then you might get to the end of that process.

15:15Jo Glynn-Smith:Sometimes I get to the end of that process with a client and they're like, I think I'm just going to get another job. You're like, great. And you've discovered what you need to do. Well, at least you're sure of it then as well. And I think that is so interesting you say that because I often thought it's like, why have I ended up in communications? I just don't think I fit here. And I rebelled and pushed against it, but kept doing it and doing it well and getting promoted but now it's an integral part of my business and it's now led me into podcasting so if I shunned it completely I'd have missed out on this whole spectrum of amazing work I get to do now but I kind of learned by doing and I wish I'd learned by working with a coach instead who kind of put it in a nice structured way because I think learning by doing is difficult because you're not ever sure until after the fact but on that how does somebody work out what transferable skills they have from their old world that they can take into their new world.

16:03Jo Glynn-Smith:So once you've done those exercises, particularly the one around research, you might think you want to go and do something that is so different to what you've been doing. And certainly I interview and work with people all the time who are going from one extreme to another. But you actually find there are some basic, particularly when it comes to running a business, there are skills that are totally transferable, whether it is back to your communication skills, that's vital, whether it is that you're brilliant at running a P &L or that you're really good at new business or you're really good at setting up processes, they can be applied to a number of things.

16:35Jo Glynn-Smith:If you're going from city finance to yoga, then you might have to retrain, you know, but it means that you are also capable of probably setting up a really good small business, reaching out to the right people, making sure your numbers work, knowing how many people you need signing up for your classes. So there are so many skills that you can transfer. There are some things that you might have to learn. And anyway, our culture nowadays, if you want to be a successful leader, we're continually learning because with AI, we've got something new we could learn every single day. We can't stop. So I think for that transition, we have to also adopt a mindset of growth and learning anyway.

17:17Jo Glynn-Smith:So, but your skills are never, ever void. I mean, even I've worked with somebody who was a stay at home mom for 25 years and then set up a business in her late forties. And she had the same question, like, what do I know? But she's been budgeting a house. She's been running her kids' diaries. Yeah. I mean, she's been doing all of that stuff. She's been navigating all of these things, moving house many times you know and all of those skills are still transferable into something else so she's not going to be a doctor at that point unless she retrains but she can certainly run a basic pnl and organize things and have organizational skills and be successful at that well enjoy using them once you know what your skills are it's sort of and you know you're on the right path it's actual pleasure to go i'm doing the right thing with the right people at the right time and you can take pride in you're not wasting time and you're not wasting energy But I would say you're right.

18:09Jo Glynn-Smith:But I would also say that the thing that is hardest is self-confidence and self-belief. Oh, my God. Yes. I would say it's not really the skill. We can learn anything. You can learn anything. You may be good at some things and not so good at others. You may have preferences in certain areas and not in others. We all have that in every job that we do. In a large organisation, most of us are slightly shadowed by being weak in certain areas because we can hide behind other people. When you're exposed and you suddenly run a business, there's nowhere to hide anymore. And so you have to lean into doing things that you perhaps would delegate.

18:44Jo Glynn-Smith:So, you know, the things that you delegated are often the things that you didn't want to do yourself, right? And you take on the things that you enjoyed. When you run a business, you can't do that anymore. But self-confidence, self-belief, if you don't have any, or if you've come out of a situation where that has been dramatically eroded, as with some of my clients. So let's say they've gone through a very difficult exit process, or let's say they've left through the fact that they've been bullied off the board or they've been bullied out of their job those things are really low and so that's when it does really help to work with the coach so we can build that back up again rooted in your experience rooted in the facts around your previous successes and hopefully help them face things with an element of shoulders back well i like that because you're building it up based off fact it's not sort of someone going yeah you're great it's actually look at what you've achieved this is why you're great and this is why you can to it because I think a lot of people the founder world is very glamorized and it's a lot of sort of beating on your chest of like I'm a founder I'm an entrepreneur it's like you're actually a business owner and actually Thea Brooke from episode two weeks ago saying this is like I'm trying to make being a business owner sexy again because that's that's what matters but you need to have that self-belief and that self-confidence because if you don't believe in your business no one else is going to so that resilience piece is huge which no one ever talks about when you start a company but having that support in place and actually on that we're always told to follow our passion and do something that you'll love and if you're going to become an entrepreneur or founder or business owner we should be doing something we're deeply passionate about and for me it was teaching founders how to do their own pr or teaching people how to produce their own podcast and passing that skill on is something that excited me but also seeing the joy in client's eyes as well as thrilling but how as a coach who has built your business and doing your passion where does that advice fall down and what is the most honest framing you could give your clients around that we're taking a quick 30 second break from this episode to ask are you thinking of starting your own podcast if so this is great news because we run a course that will train you how to produce your own podcast yourself this course is for people who do not want to outsource and pay someone else to do it you want to learn how to do it yourself we teach you everything that you need to get up and running with your own podcast show and so much more just dm us at hello at fallowfield mason to book your spot so i go back to the ikigai model every time because i think it works the best really so it's what you love what the world needs what you can get paid for but what you're good at because what you love and what you're good at not necessarily the same thing i I might love gardening because it gets me out of the house and away from all the noise, but I wouldn't say I'm that good.

21:26Jo Glynn-Smith:Actually, the same with running. I love running because I love being outside and I love getting away from everything and be able to run. And, you know, but I'm rubbish at running, really. I just like doing it. So that's really critical, I think. And I think women don't like talking about money. And it was a really interesting exercise, actually, when I was training, coaching training, and we would get put into these groups, support groups. and I would be very focused on how I was going to make money out of this. And everybody else was very vague. And I said, guys, come on, you've got, this is a business.

21:57Jo Glynn-Smith:We're going into business. You've got to work out what is the minimum amount you need to make in a week to survive? Like, otherwise, what's the point? And people were really underplaying what their value was. And I went in quite strong from the beginning because I knew I had so much value to give my clients. Anybody with a marketing comms background has so much value to give people because we have such a multiple of skills when you've done that kind of work. Even when I've worked with clients in engineering or in the city where I felt a little bit intimidated by getting one of those clients, what I found was my creative thinking and all those skills I've pulled from my past, they just thought it was amazing because of course it helps them think and it allows them to move forward really quickly.

22:38Jo Glynn-Smith:So I think that's the model I always go back to. Like, yes, it's great if you can find something that you really love that was always your passion but most people have to get paid for it so you've got to also serve the world with something they need why are lots of business owners terrible about talking about money because for me i thrive for p and l profit and loss sheet i love looking at numbers i'm fascinated with our margins and because we're service-based business how much we can charge what the market dictates we should charge and that's why i obviously can struggle with pr sometimes because nobody wants to pay for it but everybody wants it.

23:13But why are typically British people bad at talking about money?