FEBRUARY 27, 2024

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Welcome to The Tilt, a twice-weekly newsletter for content entrepreneurs.

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Your Second Career

Carl Landau and Bernie Borges host podcasts that speak to “second acts.”

In the I Used To Be Somebody podcast, Carl speaks to people who retired from one career and pivoted to new and sometimes surprising careers. It’s what Carl did – starting a podcast after retiring from his magazine and event businesses. He even refers to himself as “unretired.”

In The Midlife Fulfilled Podcast, Bernie speaks to people who have had a lightbulb go off and transformed their lives to do what they love. Bernie’s doing that with Midlife Fulfilled while still working a demanding 10-hour-a-day marketing job.

In all those interviews and personal experiences, they have learned a lot about career pivots and post-retirement. Now, they share what they’ve learned for expert creators interested in a “second career” in content entrepreneurship.

As you go on your entrepreneurial journey, examine all aspects of your life.

Bernie developed a pillar strategy – five areas of reflection to understand where you are now and where you want to go. These encompass health, fitness, career, relationships, and legacy.

“As we age and our lives unfold, we evolve in so many ways. Our values change. What was important to you in your 20s may not be as important to you in your 40s. The relationships you had in your 20s may be different than in your later decades,” he says.

“What do you value most now? Is it money? Title? Awards? Popularity? Family time? Improved health? Benchmark your values against each of the five pillars to determine your level of fulfillment in each pillar. Don’t expect to be 100% fulfilled in each pillar,” Bernie says.

Also, expect your strategy to evolve as you age and progress through different levels of fulfillment. “It’s one reason that at the end of each podcast episode, I say, “If you’re 80% fulfilled, you’re doing great!”

Quitting your career cold turkey and starting a successful content business isn’t likely to happen.

“It takes a long time,” Carl says. “You don’t start something new, and the next day it's great.”

Just as you did early in your traditional career, it takes time to get people to pay attention to you and your work and return your emails and phone calls.

That can be tough for overachievers who have been successful in their careers for a long time. “You have to give time to it and be patient with it,” Carl says.

Recognize you’re now a beginner. He tells of a recent podcast interview with a former district court judge who is now a singer-songwriter. She went from bossing everybody around to standing on a stage on open mic nights, waiting for the audience’s response. “She was terrified by the whole thing … All of a sudden, you’re a neophyte. You’re the person that doesn’t know anything.”

That’s when a lot of entrepreneurs give up (or never start.) The successful recognize they need to learn what they don’t know and be vulnerable in the process.

In managing your expectations, Carl also advises you to avoid comparisons. “You are the only one that judges how well you're doing. Don't judge yourself by what other people are doing. It's much more personal satisfaction and working at your own rate of how you feel good about it,” he says.

Carl wrote a blog article last year with lessons he learned after spending three years in unretirement. Here are some excerpts:

• Sleep matters. With less stress in my life, I sleep so much better. I used to sleep on average about 5.5 or six hours a night. Now I get my full eight hours of sleep plus a short afternoon nap sometimes. Sleep is so important for overall health.
• Exercise matters. I play pickleball four days a week now. And I walk 10,000 steps a day on the non-pickleball days. I've lost about 8 pounds this past year. I stretch/meditate (with my cat Felix) 20 minutes every day and love it! I feel much better physically and mentally.
• Friends matter. I've reconnected with several friends from my childhood and 20s and visited them. Since my career took me out of town a lot, I didn't have much time to meet people locally. Now I've got more local friends than I've ever had. Just joining a pickleball club gave me a dozen new friends that I see all the time. As you get older, an active social life makes a huge difference in your state of mind.
• You matter. Learn how to say NO. I simply avoid negative people and things I don't want to do. No more endless Zoom calls and I've stopped doing online presentations. (Do people really want to watch three talking heads on a YouTube video?) I spoke at a live, in-person conference last month in New Orleans and loved it. I don't want to live in an only-virtual world. I want to make real connections with inspiring people, and I don't need to do it only online.

The Midlife Fulfilled Podcast guests, to a person, have some fear when they take a leap of faith to start their own business, yet they also possess confidence.

As Bernie explains, “They have shed the constraints that were on them previously, flying free like a bird without a safety net. And the journey alone is exhilarating to them, so they keep going. Work no longer feels like work at this point. They define their own success without caring what others think about them because they are aligned with their values.”

– Ann Gynn

Supported by:

ChatGPT hacks for business professionals

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Entrepreneur: Claire Bartholic

Biz: Planted Runner​

Tilt: Running and plant-based nutrition

Primary Channel: Podcast (30K+ downloads) Instagram (56.5K)

Other Channels: Website, newsletter (6.3K)

Time to First Dollar: 3 months

Rev Streams: Customized running/race plans, one-on-one and group coaching, book, podcast, newsletter, event

Our Favorite Actionable Advice

• Get paid to learn. Claire worked part-time as the host of the Run to the Top podcast, where she learned most aspects of the medium before launching her own.
• Focus on a single social marketing platform. Instagram is her channel of choice. It helped propel her to earn six figures in just nine months.
• Recognize the real value of a book. Claire wrote her book to position herself as an expert, not to earn a lot of revenue.
• Find what works for you. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Claire uses a third-party app to host her community, so she doesn’t have the tech upkeep and maintenance required if she created it.

– Marc Maxhimer

​Read Claire Bartholic’s story.​

Join Claire at CEX this May to learn how Instagram helped propel her to six-figure revenue in just nine months. RSVP today!​

• Learn how to promote your book with earned media opportunities, book signings, public speaking, and collaboration with fellow creators. (Publish & Prosper)
• An important piece of advice from David Bowie gets us talking about if we are really taking enough risks and getting uncomfortable enough with our content to be successful. (Content Inc.)
• It's been a crazy two weeks for artificial intelligence. (This Old Marketing)
• Let’s chat at 12 p.m. (EST) Tuesday at Tilt Your Business: A Weekly Mastermind for Content Entrepreneurs.
• ICYMI: 5 Most Profitable Revenue Streams for Creator Entrepreneurs​