Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to the Midlife Happiness project, where we share inspiring stories to bring some happy into your life.
Okay. I am here with my friend Dane, and he's a creative. He's had worn many different hats, done many different things, and I will let him speak to that.
And he has both a daughter and a son, and he's done something kind of interesting as of recently, we came to know them and him and his wife in California, and they've just moved to a totally different state. So that in itself is pretty exciting, but I think Dane is going to be talking about something different. His thing that he's embracing now that his kids are out of the house and he's an empty nester. And Dane, what would that thing be?
[00:01:03] Speaker B: Well, thank you for teaming it up. I'm just excited to be in this season of life, and I've decided to lean into coaching more, and coaching means different things to different people.
You can put some framers around it, like executive coaching or advising, but I leaned into it as something that really brings me a lot of joy. And it's different than managing, it's different than mentoring. And I find that it's a really unique relationship. So in this season of my life, I really leaned into it and have taken on specific types of clients that I get to really focus on just who they are and allowing them to become the best version of themselves.
[00:01:51] Speaker A: Okay, so, I guess my question to you would be, which is something I ask all our guests, is this something, this training, this thing that has really added some real happiness to your life as of late? Since becoming an empty nester, is this something that you sought out? You were looking for something, or did this sort of find you?
[00:02:23] Speaker B: Great question.
I'll have to go to first. When I was being coached, and it came from a transition where I had actually was transitioning out of being at a company, and I was looking for my next step. So I was looking at transition, and I had received coaching myself, so I had that reference point. But being an empty nester and transitioning across the country, moving, and then also realizing that I was seeing that myself, I was transitioning to a new company, invited this idea back into my life. And so I didn't know, am I the one that needs to be coached, or should I actually use some of my experience now, 1015 years later to actually go through the process? And so I sought out several coaches and spoke to a community of coaches, and that's what turned me on to the idea. And I realized I fell in love with it. I realized that I had gained a lot of joy over the years mentoring and coaching individuals in my organization. But I did it from the posture of a manager. And what I realized is that coaching is different. Coaching is a unique relationship. It's something that doesn't have the bias of being a manager or have the bias of being a dad where you the best for your kids. You just get to create this unique relationship around allowing someone to be the best version of themselves, and you can see the tangible progress. And so I just started to create these training wheels on the process. I got certified and took on one client and then two, and it turned into about seven. And that's about as much as I wanted or needed. But I absolutely love it. So I love the diversity of those that come into my life, from founders of entrepreneurs to designers to there's a nonprofit executive director that I get to work with. And so it's just so wonderful to be able to just listen.
I found that I've become a collector of questions, and that's been really great in this season, where I can see that they show up and they have a particular challenge or something going on in their life, and I'm able to help them get through it.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: Well, I think what really occurs to me about this is essentially what you're doing is giving back. You have this wealth of experience and knowledge, and really what's making you happy. This is what I'm taking from what you're saying. What's really making you genuinely happy is bringing joy to other people, seeing that they're getting their life together. And that in of itself is rewarding to you.
And I think that's really, really interesting.
[00:05:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
And it's also, it keeps me sharp at the same time. So in another part of life, I had a chance to teach, and they said, if you want to teach something, it keeps you sharp, keeps you honest about teaching. And I'd say coaching is the same way. And if we were in a coaching session together, I wouldn't be doing a lot of talking. I'd be doing a lot of listening. And by taking that in and becoming a more active listener and focused on that individual is very rewarding for me because it makes me better, makes me a better listener in other parts of my life. But also I get to see, week over week, the work that they do and the insights that they have heard and when they play back something that we've talked about, and I see that progress on how it's helped them. It is.
It gives you a lot of joy, and you realize that, you know, for a lot of probably those that are empty nesters in that season of their life, they've stored up a lot of experience and stored up a lot of things that they skills and insights that they may not know that they have. So it's, I think, really valuable and useful to be able to put that to work.
[00:06:53] Speaker A: The other thing is that, and I'm sure you have this experience with your friends, that there's this idea that if you've been successful in your life and you're in a position where you can retire, ultimately the goal is to stop working. Right. And so you're bringing this other idea to the table, which is not only are you not retiring, you're actually bringing more, you know, work into your life, you're inviting it, and so you're giving more depth and more layers to your life where there's, there is this idea that we should be sort of shedding things, simplifying our life, and you're actually enriching it. You're not afraid of taking on more things, which I think is really interesting because we know a lot of people, as I'm sure you do, that again, they've set up their whole life that if it all works out at 60, 65, they're going to retire and they just pull the plug on it. And then they sort of find themselves saying, oh, well, now what am I supposed to do?
[00:08:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I like the way you frame that. And I think the alternative to doing nothing is to, you know, a lot of people talk about philanthropy, but it's usually associated with giving money.
You can also give your time. And when I connect with different people, and I realize that you build, you build trust with them over time. And even though these aren't, my clients, aren't anyone that I socialize with necessarily, but they become these degrees of separation, and they allow you to connect better with who you are and how you're growing. And so it is one of these unique things that it keeps the dynamic relationship of pushing your creativity, your knowledge, and it challenges you, and it really allows you to, in a way, give back in a way that you may not know the full implications, but you're seeing them in a serial way over time. And being able to see that arc of progress is really rewarding. And so I just, whoever's thinking about, like, what you take in versus what you give out, this, for me, has been, like, just totally ticks so many boxes of being able to put forth, and I try to be the coach that I would want to have if that makes sense.
[00:09:55] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:09:56] Speaker B: And I think that being able to understand how someone wants to be challenged or being able to be honest with them, it takes time. And so at the end of it, I think I have a lot of frivolous conversations throughout my week, and then I have meaningful conversations. And one of the reasons this brings me joy is that the meaningfulness of these conversations, to be able to get to the heart of problem solving and get to the heart of what maybe someone might be going through, is a way to access and help someone. And so, granted, I enjoy it. It keeps me sharp, but it also brings me a lot of joy just to see all these different challenges that I get every week, but also to see the progress that they're making.
[00:10:51] Speaker A: And I love what you said right there, as opposed to it being philanthropic in terms of money.
It's your time. And again, circling back to this idea that you are, in fact, giving back, you're in a position that you have so much to offer.
Also, I was thinking maybe you could speak to specifically what your type of coaching is. I know for some of our listeners, I think people are familiar with life coaching, and that can be extraordinarily broad.
If you could just sort of describe the coaching that you provide.
[00:11:32] Speaker B: So mine would be characterized as executive coaching. It's almost entirely focused in the business context. And so a lot of the people that come to me are trying to work through who they are in a professional context and who they want to be. And so, you know, I also, my significant other, my wife, she's a therapist. And so one, we always talk about where does coaching begin and therapy end.
But interesting one difference is, I don't do a lot of origin work or thinking about childhood or looking back, I think a bit more about who you are currently and the person you're becoming. So we do a lot of work around future self North Star. We think about who you might be in the first year from now. And then what are some key things that you might work on to achieve that goal or that version of yourself in a year? And is that lining up to that North Star? And so I like to coach the whole person, and I also like to coach them in the context of large transitions. You know, like I mentioned before, and transitions are very broad, but it turns out that, you know, life events like having a kid or life events like empty nesters are significant, have huge impact professionally as well. And, you know, COVID certainly rocked a lot of people's worlds and allowed them to rethink where they wanted to be and how they wanted to work made them take stock and, you know, climbing a ladder versus building a career quilt and collecting experiences. And so we talk about all the things that make you you, and where does that sit within the context of who you are and who you thought you wanted to be or who you want to be. And we just explore that a lot. And so we end up authoring and writing together that North Star statement, and then we author and work on that one year statement. And sometimes it changes because we'll be working on something, and then, you know, there'll be a tech layoff, or they'll be, we're gonna have a baby, or we decided to move or whatever it might be. When I work with founders, you know, their transitions are different. We're going to get acquired, or we're running out of money or, you know, whatever it might be that are the on ramps or off ramps to that big transition.
[00:14:09] Speaker A: And so, and all while you're going through your own transitions right at this point in your life so you can appreciate it.
[00:14:20] Speaker B: That's right. One of the hardest things to design in life is a mirror, because you want to allow people to see, see reflections of themselves. And so to be able to allow them to do the work and to fill in the blanks, but also be their guide and also be able to build enough trust that they can have an accountability partner as they're going through this and say, hey, this is a stated goal. This is something that you said that was important to you. Sounds like you're neglecting that in whatever part of your life you're doing that. And so coaching the whole person through these big transitions is a really fascinating place to focus on.
[00:15:04] Speaker A: And you had mentioned that your wife is a therapist, and what I'm hearing from you is that there's definitely, like, a therapeutic component to this. And so by you embracing this new thing into your life, has it brought you and your wife closer because you sort of have this shared experience?
[00:15:30] Speaker B: Yeah. And it definitely also allows me to respect, you know, I think there are distinct differences in the training and in the tools between executive coaching, what I do, versus some of the deep work in therapy. And I think it's allowed us not only to come closer in those conversations, but also understand and respect the professional boundaries that she holds in her practice and also things that I can focus on with my clients. But also she helps educate me on the things to certainly create those guardrails that if we are getting to some of that territory, how I can speak through that and surface it for the client to say, hey, we're getting into some terroristory. That's probably, I'm less trained in. And actually this is probably more appropriate for someone like a therapist.
[00:16:29] Speaker A: And so both you and your wife, I know you've, as I mentioned, you guys have relocated, and, you know, it took a lot of courage in chutzpah to actually make that happen. And I did want to mention that because I do feel like this is something that so many people I know who are in our age and stage speak to in that they want to shake it up, they want to do something different, be it professionally, personally. It could be everything from getting into some exercise regime to traveling more. Whatever it is, they want to embrace some sort of change. And you guys really went all in and moved to a different state. And really, that is something that I think, again, our listeners would love to hear about. Just if you could just sort of speak to what made you want to make such a dramatic change to your life.
[00:17:42] Speaker B: You know, when you take stock of leading up to any transition or having a big transitional event happen to you, I often think of it as, you know, being reactive or being proactive. And, you know, just, it helps make me be a better coach when I realize that a lot of the decisions that we've made require courage, require commitment, require a perspective of both gratitude as well as the facing of failure. And if you were to put coaching into a context of why I love it and why it brings me joy is that I've had to face potential failure.
And there's a lot of potential self doubt that probably gets in the way of making a big move. And for my wife and I, what we loved is this idea of leaning into the possibility of making that change and not being necessarily afraid of what failure would look like, but knowing that if it did, we could plan and control a way out of it or way through it together. And we made several changes when we became empty nesters, but we felt in charge. We felt like we had agency in control of it, and we realized that on the other side of it that we would actually be better to help others through it. Certainly she was on the therapy side. Part of the outcome of me going through it allowed me to discover or realize that what I had been doing most of my life and our life together was similar, proactive changes like this.
And so although we had moved at some point eleven times in ten years, at one point of our career, which was a lot, we were pretty seasoned at making changes. And so to be able to look back on that as a portfolio of decisions. Some were good, some were bad. We realized, wow, there's a lot that we could help others into that transition.
[00:20:11] Speaker A: Absolutely. And the word that you've used, which I think is really key here, is transition. Right. You can never just stay in one place. You're either moving forward or moving back, but you're never staying stagnant in one place. And so this idea that life really is just a series of transitions, some are good, some are bad, but life is sort of a state of impermanence. It is always changing, always evolving. And rather than allow that to scare you, you embrace it. It's inevitable. So you kind of roll with it and make the best of it, which is such a huge lesson. I think, that a lot of people, they put off sort of having certain experiences, you know, certainly as it, you know, pertains to retirement. Oh, I've always wanted to do this when I retire or when I'm this old, when this happens, then it'll come together, then I'll make it happen. But the reality is there is a distinct possibility that if you keep pushing it back, it never happens. So by all means, you know, there are things that stand in the way from just getting on a plane and traveling the world, of course, but there are certainly things you can do every day over the course of your life, regardless of your age, that can contribute to your happiness and excitement and joy. And I would, you know, clearly, you're all about seizing the moment and not putting things off. And I really think that's that's a huge thing and is very, very inspiring for people. Dane.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: Well, thank you. And so, in my day job, I'm a designer, so most of my posture is looking forward, and I frame a lot of questions in such a way that there is possibility for a hypothetical future. So on most days, I'm an optimist trying to design a better future. And so in order to do that, you have to acknowledge that you're moving from one state to another state, and that requires the acknowledgement of the loss of what's behind you. So I just wanted to mention it because it's often not recognized. But it, you know, a lot of credit and training from my wife, who deals with grief and loss in a professional context.
When you put it into the context of an empty nester, you have to actually realize that you, by definition, have to create a new stage. You have to become someone new.
[00:23:09] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:23:09] Speaker B: So your way through that has to acknowledge the grief, but look forward to that possible future. So transitions can be big or small, but they follow a lot of the same characteristics. And so the big part I mentioned a second ago is the mourning and the loss of what you're moving away from.
The real positive side of it is having the agency or control and the proactive part of being able to look towards that future and where you're heading with it. And you're absolutely right. You may not know what the outcome is, but most people can't even get through the first part, which is imagining the loss. And they feel like they've lost something rather than what they have potentially to gain on the other side.
[00:24:02] Speaker A: And since you yourself have lived it, that just makes you qualified even more to just be this fabulous person that people no doubt love to talk to and feel heard. And obviously, you're a great listener, so I have no doubt you're thriving in your new role on top of your other job.
Well, thank you, Dane. I really appreciate you talking with us, and I know a lot of people can relate to what you're saying, but again, I really, really appreciate you being on the show. You've been wonderful. Thank you so much.
[00:24:42] Speaker B: Thank you for having me.
[00:24:47] Speaker A: I thought my discussion with Dane was really refreshing.
As a fellow artist, he's obviously very creative. He's also very driven. He has a lot going on in his life, and it would be easy for somebody like him to just sort of, now that he's an empty nester, go full throttle into his one career.
But interestingly enough, rather than free up more time for himself, he actually has chosen to invest more in his career and add sort of extra layers and textures by adding on this executive coaching part of it, which is, I think, just really refreshing to hear a little bit about executive coaching. I don't know. For those of you guys out there, I think a lot of us know kind of this idea of a life coach. But, and I'd heard of this executive coaching, but I didn't know too much about it. So I did a little research. So here's what I came up with.
There is an international coaching federation that defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential. And clearly, Dane is this person.
He's very empathetic. Clearly, he's a great listener.
I think he referred to. He's a collector of questions. He really enjoys the company of people. But over and above everything else, I think it's a really good fit for somebody like Dane. Because he likes people. Yes. But he also likes to share his own personal experience and his expertise. And I think a lot of people listening might be able to relate to this.
You know, you have your career, and when you think about maybe being an empty nester or entering into that phase of your life where you may be considering retiring, the fact of the matter is a lot of people don't just want to pull the plug on the person they were and the skills they had and they've sort of collected over the years. You have this expertise.
Why not use it for something else? And that's exactly what Dane is doing. Anyway, back onto the coaching.
The number of coach practitioners over the last five years has increased significantly, as a matter of fact, by 54%. So now it's guessing to be about 109,000 people are coaches currently all over the world.
There is no one place that you get certified to become an executive coach. There's all different kinds of avenues. They're offered at universities.
There are training centers that offer this certification, but it can be achieved through many, many different ways.
The other thing I wanted to point out, which is kind of a key point in my conversation with Dane, was this idea of transitions. And that really appealed to me because we all talk about sort of these chapters in our life, and that's fine and well, but sometimes when we think of it that way, visually, we move on to a different chapter and we leave the chapter before that part of our life behind. And I prefer to look at it like it is a continuum. And so this notion of a transition, it's not that you're saying goodbye to a particular part of your life. In this case, let's say as an empty nester, your kids leave. It's not then you become a totally different person with a totally different set of interests, but rather, you just transition. You're still who you are. It's just embracing all those skills and knowledge that you have of a particular thing and using it in a different way. And I really, really like this idea of transition. And I just thought that that was really compelling.
And then, you know, again, last but not least, with regard to Dane, clearly he's a great listener. He loves this idea of coaching and sort of giving back. And I think this is really inspiring for anybody out there who's sort of in a place in their life where they really think they have something to offer and they're without, without question, people that would love some guidance, some inspiration from people who have a story to tell, who have information to share. And I think that that can really resonate with a lot of, a lot of my listeners. So on that, I guess I will see you next time. Thanks for listening close.
