#361: Your Second Act — Moving From Freelance Success to Significance

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia. Hey there. Welcome to another episode of the High Income Business Writing Podcast, the number one podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to earn more and less time doing work they love for better clients. With over 1.3 million downloads from listeners just like you across 101 countries, I want to open this up with a story of a freelance copywriter. Let's call her Kelly, that's not her real name. Who was earning over $230,000 a year in income. Now, that's net before taxes, so that's pretty much after her expenses. She wasn't outsourcing any of the work. She was doing it all herself. And Kelly had everything she thought she wanted. She had great prestigious clients, steady work, fantastic income. But sitting in her home office one evening as she stared at another pile of client briefs, she realized something was missing. The work that had excited her 12 years ago now felt hollow. And she was really kind of at a crisis because this is everything she wanted. 12 years before, had she seen herself at this enjoying this level of success, she would have been thrilled. But here she was enjoying everything she had described. She wanted out of her business, and she just wasn't feeling it. I'm seeing more of what Kelly is experiencing than I ever have in my nearly 20 years of being fully self employed. And if you're in your 50s or 60s, even in your 40s, especially late 40s, there's a good chance you're feeling something similar right now. I found myself personally at a crossroads in my own life and my own career. Been really grappling over the past few years with feelings of resistance and really pondering what might be next for me. This journey and these questions started a little late in life for me. I'm in my early 50s and this started about two years ago. And I remember, I remember some of the triggers, some of the signs that it had actually been there a little bit longer, but I wasn't paying attention. One of the biggest triggers for me was losing my right hand person. So my operations manager, who had been with me for over 13 years, left abruptly and it was personally very hurtful and really started making me wonder in what was going on in my business and realizing that there were some deeper issues at play. My business had actually been booming for well over two years by this point, and that just wasn't enough to make up for the cracks that I started seeing. I had been feeling that I needed a change of pace and direction since about late 2019, early 2020. But I kept resisting out of fear and just self induced busyness. I don't know if you've ever felt this way, but you know, you kind of mask issues that are happening in your business and in your personal life by staying really, really busy and staying distracted. These nudges for me were really about hitting the pause button in which I was resisting. So the pause button was key. And it was key because deep down inside I knew I needed to step aside and take a closer look at what I was doing. And I just wasn't listening to that voice. So when my operations manager left, all this kind of came crashing down on me. It all came to a head. And even then, even after stepping aside and looking at this a little bit more critically, honestly, I just wasn't sure what to do. I did start a very helpful process of self discovery with my own coach and that started giving me some serious clarity. Now I'm going to fast forward a little bit to about a year ago. So this is early 2023. I had made some headway, I had gotten some clarity. But someone recommended a book to me. And this was somebody who didn't really know what I was going through at the time, as somebody who didn't really know me that well, in fact, somebody who didn't really know me. This is at an online forum and I was asking a totally unrelated question and they recommended a book that they thought would help me on a very specific question and frankly was about retirement and investing. And my interest really on this topic was more academic and based on a personal curiosity about the subject. But this person's recommendation sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole. The book that he recommended is called Moving from Success to Significance and it's by the author, Bob Buford. And this concept of halftime is a metaphor, it's a sports metaphor, referring to a pivotal midlife transition where individuals just start shifting their focus from external success to deeper personal fulfillment and significance. And this is meant to be. Halftime is meant to be an intentional pause. And it's different, markedly different from a mid career crisis because a crisis feels reactive and powerless. But this halftime concept that Buford was describing was very different from that. It was really more of a proactive and purposeful process where you're in control. So what does this have to do with what we do and why would this matter specifically for freelancers? Well, I believe that and I have seen because I've been at this for about 20 years now that solo workers don't have a roadmap or organizational guide for this kind of transition. The burden and the freedom of direction is entirely ours. We get to make these choices, which is wonderful, but because we're completely on our own and we get to chart our own course and really decide everything about what we do, that can be a burden as well. There's no career path, there's no nothing kind of defined for you. You have complete choice as to what that is. Now, I've been seeing this idea in some of what I just described again, play out in the freelance community over the past few years. And frankly, it's been the softening of the economy that seems to have been the biggest catalyst. Again, I think when times are good, it's very easy to stay busy. It's very easy to just kind of dive into the work and not take the time to really pay attention to those cracks in the foundation that I mentioned earlier. But as the economy has slowed down, I find that many higher earning writers and marketers are starting to ask themselves a different set of questions. They're starting to reevaluate their paths and they're starting to seek deeper fulfillment. Fears of AI taking over a work is also deep seated. Although I still believe these are overblown for reasons I've discussed in this show before, but it's certainly a factor here. I've talked to writers in their late 50s, early 60s who said, Ed, I just don't have the energy, I don't have it in me to, you know, go through a big pivotal transition like that and start learning something completely new. And I mean, I don't really blame them. Now, it shouldn't take a big disruption in the market for many of us to wake up. But you know what? We're human. And that's typically the kind of thing that will wake us up. Some sort of life or business disruption. So whether it's the economy, whether it's AI, whatever it might be, sometimes, even though we see these things as in a negative light, sometimes it's precisely these events, these moments, these disruptions, what we actually need to wake up, to step aside, to call time out and realize that maybe things haven't been the way we thought they were, that maybe there are cracks in the foundation that we need to pay attention to. Now, this is a huge topic. Type in something I want to talk more about over the next year. But in this episode, I just want to open this discussion, invite you to start thinking about this idea more Freely, I don't want you to feel bad or guilty. If what I have shared with you resonates, if you found yourself feeling the same way, if you've been kind of ignoring it, or if you feel a certain way right now about your business or where you are in your path, it's okay. Whatever it is, wherever you are, I would encourage you to just trust your intuition because it's nudging you for a reason. And if you've been ignoring that intuition, it's okay that don't feel bad about it. It's never too late to pause. And if, after what I share here with you today, you'd like to explore this idea further, at the end of the episode, I'm going to briefly share how I may be able to help you in this journey. So I want to focus our discussion today on three core pillars for engaging in a successful halftime journey. And again, if we kind of stick with a sports metaphor, and you know, you don't have to use a sports metaphor, I'll give you another one here in a minute. But the idea of halftime is you've been playing a very demanding game, and you've been playing for a long time in that first half. You have to have halftime. There needs to be a point where you go into the locker room, you take a break, you detach yourself from the situation, you look at it differently, you ponder, you analyze, you strategize, and you think about it from a totally different point of view because you're not out there in the middle of the field under all that pressure. And based on those decisions, you can come out to the playing field and play that second half of the game. Another metaphor, if you don't like a sports metaphor, could be that this is the process of an intermission, and you're going to go back out there after some serious reflection and go live your second act. So whatever it is, I'm going to stick with halftime here today just so I don't have to go back and forth. But the. The main idea here is that there needs to be some sort of pause, that we all get to a point where we need to hit that pause button so we can step aside and reflect on where we are right now. So the core pillars that I'd like to focus on today, there's three of them, and they're all about engaging in this journey of. Of taking a pause. The first pillar is that success without significance is ultimately unfulfilling. And I want to start this discussion on pillar number one by emphasizing that this halftime idea is a process and a journey. It goes beyond a planning session or weekend retreat or reading a book, for that matter. The whole process can actually take months, so you shouldn't rush it. But the idea is to enter that locker room, if you will, and create a safe space or safe container for you to put everything on the table and be honest about what you're seeing in your business, in your career, in your craft, in your personal life. That's the journey that I've been on over the past year or so, and it's been a very rewarding journey. So the main idea is really to see it as a process and a journey and not an afternoon affair or an exercise. First, I want to talk about the problem with chasing success alone, because I think many of us are very driven. If you listen to the show, you probably are goal oriented. You probably have goals and intentions that you're chasing, and I think it's all great. But success without a deeper connection to purpose can feel hollow, as seen in the story that I opened up with today from Kelly. Or maybe your own journey. It's funny, I've heard this concept for years, this idea that success without a deeper connection to purpose is. Can feel very hollow. But I always glossed over that because these ideas didn't resonate with me at all. Not because the idea is flawed, but because for a long time, I wasn't at a point in my life where this concept of significance really made sense. You know, I was just really busy making a living, trying to support a family. And that's okay. I mean, you're supposed to do that. That's playing the first half of the game. I'm now 53 years old. I have a young teenager in the house. My oldest is still in his early 20s. So one of my key jobs over the past 30 years has been that of family provider. And I took that job very seriously. So, yes, achievement and financial success were super important to me, and they still are to an extent. But as I've entered my 50s, in my role as family provider is no longer as critical. A different set of values and ideas are resonating with me differently, and that that's to be expected. So, you know, part of it is maturity. Some of these ideas that I'm sharing with you now didn't resonate with me at a certain point in my life because I hadn't reached a certain level of maturity. But a lot of it just has to do with the phase of life that you're in at the moment. So what Are the signs that maybe it is time to start going into halftime, into the locker room? Well, there are several of them. But looking back, I can now start connecting some dots and I'll start with the most obvious. Burnout. Burnout or fatigue. And especially if you're feeling burnout and fatigue despite achieving your goals or even exceeding your goals, you know, when you start asking this question, what is all this for? Right. When that starts popping up, when you look at what you've achieved and the period of feeling thrilled or ecstatic about what you've done is now much shorter. Where now it just, you get kind of a quick high that lasts five minutes. And then reality kind of sets in about, well, I'm not really excited. This doesn't really mean that much to me anymore. Then those are clear, clear signs. A lack of joy or creativity in your work, maybe if you don't care for it anymore. A coaching client confessed to me last year that content marketing just doesn't make the world a better place. And that content was creating all kinds of internal conflicts for her, just as she created it for clients. Because she thought in her mind this felt like something that was actually making the world worse. And you know, my first reaction when I heard that was, well, and I didn't say this to her, but she's really lost perspective here. But it didn't take me long to realize that she had a point. I'm not saying she's right or she's wrong. It's really about how she's feeling about this. And this is clearly someone who is just hitting a wall and needs to start taking a different look at what she's doing and might need to start entering that halftime process. Let's talk about a word that I mentioned a little earlier. Significance. You know, I talked about how we come to a point where significance starts becoming much more important than financial success or material success. So let's talk about how I see significance. Just so we're on the same page, in the context of what we do, I would define significance as being in a place where you're creating work that aligns with your core values and leaves a meaningful impact. Now, you don't have to make this a huge thing in your mind. It doesn't have to be about starting a nonprofit foundation or going on a, you know, six month mission trip to a third world country or something along those lines. It doesn't have to be that massive and it doesn't need to be a movie. But I want to give you a quick reflective exercise that you can work on. And I'm actually going to give you a few questions and prompts and exercises here in this episode, because I want to make some of this actionable. I don't want to just talk about it, but I want you to, or I invite you to identify one or two moments in your freelance career when your work felt meaningful. Not necessarily deeply meaningful, but maybe there was a level of significance in the work that you weren't used to that just kind of triggered something in you, made you feel really good. Okay? So take a moment to think about that, and if you need to pause this recording, please do. But I want you to think about it, and I want you to ask yourself what made those moments stand out. So in terms of additional practical steps, here again, in terms of recognizing its success without significance is ultimately unfulfilling. You may want to start asking yourself, what are your top core values? You know, what matters most to me in my life right now? And by the way, values can and should change and evolve over time. So if maybe it's been a while since you've revisited your actual, most important values, let's say your top three core values, it might be time to revisit that. Because values change as your phase in life changes and as you evolve. As I mentioned earlier, you know, now that my kids are growing up and one of them is out of the house and the other one's much more independent, things have shifted, and they will continue to shift. The other thing I would invite you to do is to revisit your purpose, why your business exists beyond making money. I like to call this your big why. Something that connects your work to a bigger purpose or a bigger idea. Okay, so start thinking about other than making money, why do I do the work I do? And you know, the answer needs to be something that's meaningful to you. There's no right or wrong here. And then finally, something else I might be looking at here would be to take some time, and this is a great time of year to do this. Take some time to conduct a career audit to assess what's bringing you fulfillment and what isn't. So not just your work, but every aspect of what you do, every aspect of your business, your clients, your schedule, how you present yourself, how you show up, your work, life balance looks like how that changes and fluctuates throughout the year, and just keep going down that list. But this is a great time to do that audit. All right, moving on to pillar number two. Pillar number two is the idea that your first half of Your work, life or career built the foundation, but your second half should really build your legacy. The skills, the networks, the experiences from your first half are invaluable assets. And you need to recognize that you can still and should leverage all of those in your second half. Half time, in the process of taking this time, this intermission, halftime, whatever you want to call it, isn't about starting over, is just really about leveraging everything you've built to this point to now figure out your next chapter. You have a whole set of powerful tools that you can apply differently now. So if part of your fear or worry is that, gosh, I've spent decades just building this up, am I supposed to just kind of walk away from that? Not at all. In fact, it's about applying all those tools a little differently. And also, I should mention, when I say the next chapter, I want to be clear about something. I'm not necessarily talking about retirement, especially as we have traditionally defined retirement. That's the topic for a whole nother episode, by the way. But I'm referring to the purposeful design of a life and business that's much more closely aligned with what your higher self is calling you to focus on. It could be a combination of things. It could be a combination of client work. You know, maybe your next chapter is doing different types of work with different types of clients. It could involve some passion projects, it can involve more time off. It could involve some very specific volunteer work and more. I mean, there's all kinds of possibilities, but this is an opportunity for you to really get creative in be more true to yourself and what's calling out to you because you're in a position and you don't have to do this overnight, but you want to create a situation where you're able to make those choices, even if it takes 10 years to build an on ramp to get to the ideal state in all of those areas or to the right combination. So this is not necessarily an overnight thing. And it could be a very unique combination of things that are personal and unique to you. Let's talk about another word I've mentioned here that I think needs to be defined and addressed, this idea of legacy. So what does that mean? Legacy, as it pertains to freelancers, in my mind, is about leaving a lasting impact through work that's meaningful to you, not what you think others would find meaningful or what would look impressive or sound good. This has got to be about work that really resonates with you no matter what anybody else thinks. And it's about Creating systems, relationships and ideas and work that outlasts you. Okay, so how could you start building your legacy again? This is not an overnight thing. Well, I think it really starts by envisioning your second act or the second half of your life, of your career, of your work, you know, and asking yourself a different set of questions. So, for example, what kind of work or clients would feel like a legacy for you? What would that legacy have to come from your traditional work? Or could you somehow leverage your core gifts and talents in some other way? You know, I think we take our skills and our abilities and our talents for granted. We do this work for so long, whether it's copywriting or content marketing or content strategy, whatever it might be, public relations, we do it. We do it well. In fact, the better you do it, the more you take it for granted. That's been my experience. And we only think about applying those skills in one single focus way, meaning, hey, I just do this kind of work for tech and healthcare companies, you know. But those skills can be applied in many, many different ways in many other industries and settings and situations. So this is really about thinking about your skills very differently. Here's another interesting question. If constraints were completely removed, how would you structure your business, your career, your work? And again, I don't want you to misinterpret what I'm saying here. You don't have to retire in order to make these shifts. But I'll say this. One of the saddest things I've seen is I've met retirees, especially over the past two to three years, is talking with those who had no plan for this chapter of their lives. This chapter meaning, you know, just like retiring from work, their main work altogether. And I've seen different iterations of this, but in some examples, they ended up volunteering in roles that simply didn't leverage their unique gifts, which meant that not only did they get bored, but they also felt unappreciated, underused. And it's very sad. Like, you see the disappointment in their face. I don't want you to be there. You know, I. I think this world is designed to prepare us for maybe the financial aspect of a second or third act in our lives, but it does a really, really poor job to help prepare us for how we're going to live meaningful lives in the second, third and fourth act of our lives. So just some food for thought there. You don't have to retire in order to make these shifts. I see this as an off ramp or an on ramp, depending on how you look at it, where, what you do, how you do it, with whom you do it evolves little by little by little. You don't have to wait until you're completely retired, so to speak, in order to make these shifts. In fact, I think that's a huge mistake. This overnight shift, it's too much. Again, I've seen it over and over again. I've paid particular attention over the past couple of years. That overnight shift creates more chaos and disappointment and depression than you would imagine. I would also urge you to start thinking about new models in your current business, and that's something you can start exploring now. So, for example, diversifying your income streams, you know, creating maybe products or creating workshops or teaching or coaching, many different opportunities in those areas. And it doesn't have to be in this market. You don't have to do this for other writers. You could do this for other people, other groups, other industries. So I just wanted to open that up and get you thinking about that a little bit more. Building a team or a collaborative structure to amplify your impact, or shifting your focus to projects with either social or community or industry significance. You know, these are things you can start thinking about right now in maybe testing at a small scale because not only is that lower risk, but you may not have the time to make something really big or invest in something completely new right now in terms of time and financial resources. But you can certainly start thinking about it and you can start experimenting. You could start putting some feelers out there. So what might that look like? You know, what could you do? Where do you even start? So let me give you a reflective exercise here. I want you to try and write your legacy statement for the next decade. And I want you to keep this very, very simple. You can just play around with this. You could do a little bit of brainstorming. One way to do this would be to complete the sentence a dozen times. In the next 10 years, I want to be known for helping audience get outcomes. So in the next 10 years, I want to be known for helping, you know, think of an audience and then think of what outcomes you might help them with. And I just. Great way to brainstorm this again. It's just I want you to write out the whole sentence stem with different answers for each of those blanks or placeholders. Do it 12 times and see what comes up. So for instance, in the next 10 years, I want to be known for helping mid career professionals and healthcare transition into leadership roles where they can drive meaningful change through coaching and workshops. I'll guide them in leveraging their expertise to advocate for better patient care, work, life balances, systemic innovation. Doesn't have to sound that fancy, by the way. Here's another example. In the next 10 years, I want to be recognized as a champion for small business owners and underserved communities. I want to help them access resources, develop growth strategies, and build resilient businesses that uplift their local economies. My goal is to create programs that equip them with the tools and confidence to thrive in competitive markets. Now, obviously, these examples didn't follow the format I gave you exactly, but you know what? Here's how this works. You write it out very simply the way I gave it to you 12 times. And then out of that, I bet that one or two are reeling in a call out to you, one or two sentences, and then from there, you can flesh them out a little bit more into the examples or something resembling the examples I just gave you. Okay? So start there. You may not have all the answers right now, but all these big moves, all these shifts, start with just taking some time to pause and just reflect and get clear with yourself and just see what comes up. All right? Moving on to the last pillar, pillar number three, which is that this isn't about starting over. It's about leveraging everything you've built in a more meaningful way. So it really builds on pillar number two, which, again, was that the first half built a foundation, but your second half is focused on building the legacy. Halftime isn't a full restart, okay? The halftime process doesn't erase your first half. It's not intended to think badly about your first half, to feel any kind of shame, to feel that you're doing things the wrong way. No, it's a very, very good chance that you were doing exactly what you were meant to do. During the first half, you were in a different place in life and different roles, different situations, different circumstances. You probably did your very best, you know, and that's okay. But we all reach a point where we again, have to step off the field and do a little bit of reflection. And when you do that, it doesn't mean that you look back with shame and embarrassment at your first half. Quite the opposite. You look for ways you can build on that foundation that you've built, okay, that you've created. Your existing skills, experience, and your network are your launchpad. So we're not talking about a complete overhaul of what you might be doing today. We're talking about thinking about these assets differently. One idea here would be to think about shifting from purely reactive freelancing, which is really about taking whatever comes in to more intentional, values aligned work. Okay, again, not something you have to do overnight. Look, we all have to keep the lights on, right? We all have to pay our bills. But I think many times we use that as a crutch. I think many times we go ahead and take on clients and opportunities by convincing ourselves that, well, you know, I have to be responsible and this is what I have to do and I have to say yes, when in reality you don't necessarily need to say yes. And this is why it's so important to take the time to get clear on these things, because that's what's going to give you direction and help you make better decisions and you don't have to make these changes again overnight. When I said shift, I meant that shifting gradually from purely reactive freelancing you more intentional, values aligned work. You can experiment with different business models, niches, or personal projects. You could also and should start thinking about adding a layer to your life of other more meaningful work outside your business. Who said you can't take. I love the 10% rule, by the way. It's a rule that I share with many of my coaching clients who are facing similar situations. I say, look, if you feel called to try something different, carve out 10% of your work week and or of your month and dedicate that 10% to this new idea. You know, you're limiting by doing 10%, you're allowing yourself to play in the sandbox with constraints with guardrails because many times if you don't create those guardrails, so you could quickly go from 10 to 80% and this thing is not yet paying your bills and you're sacrificing or you're stealing from the resources and the time and the energy that you should be applying toward things that are actually paying the bills. Okay? So you can start experimenting, create whatever guardrail makes sense for you, 10, 20% of your time and resources to explore different models, niches, personal projects, things outside of your traditional business, your core area of business. I've seen some freelancers even scale back their businesses a bit so they could do some very specific volunteer work that they felt called to do. And again, they put guardrails around it and they were rewarded in ways they never even expected. Others have started a side hustle based on a hobby or something that was particularly meaningful to them creatively. I've seen others who have chosen to become much more purposeful and mindful with their family and they've even scaled back their work in order to spend more time with aging parents or with their kids and their grandkids, but in a very deliberate and focused way, not in terms of making just a couple of trips per year. Okay, so again, I. I don't know what's going to be right for you. Only you would know that. My point here is to recognize that you or may not be in high earning mode or in chasing after something mode like you were before. Maybe the chase needs to shift. Maybe you're at a point and you've conditioned yourself for so many years to operate in a certain way that you haven't realized that you no longer need to operate exactly that way. You can dial things down, you can change things, you can adapt. And you might very much need to start adapting and start evolving. So along those lines, I want to invite you to embrace experimentation, start saying yes to small projects that align with your legacy goals. You know, when you find yourself in conversation with somebody who brings something up that you might be able to help with, and they didn't even think about that you could help, but in the past, you would have glossed over it and you would have just listened to them. You know, catch yourself feeling that nudge inside you that says, hey, that sounds like something I might be able to get involved with. And you don't have to commit to your friend, but maybe the next move there would be, hey, tell me more about that. So what are you doing with that organization? How are you involved? What are you guys trying to accomplish? So probe a little further. When situations come up, your intuition is telling you you might want to learn more about. Listen to your intuition also start to gradually phase out work that drains you or feels misaligned. And again, I know what might be coming up for you when you hear that. It's like, well, Ed, that sounds. You know, that must be nice that you could do that. But I can't afford to do that. Listen, I get it. I get it. You still have financial responsibilities. Sometimes you have to say yes to things that you don't want to say yes to, but you got to keep the lights on. I get that. That's why I use the word gradually. Gradually and intentionally phase out work that drains your feels. Misaligned. I'm telling you, that excuse if I got to keep the lights on, I totally respect. But you know what I don't respect? Is telling yourself that you can't ever start moving in a different direction. With enough time, careful planning, and solid strategy and a little bit of courage. Anyone can start phasing out of work that trains them. It could take months, it could take years. But it's about starting rather than putting it off until you can make a big drastic overnight change is my point. Also, build in margin in your life. Very important that you create space for reflection and exploration. If indeed you recognize that maybe it is time for the locker room, that it's time to go into halftime and to explore that intermission. You have to create that space. You have to make that time, you have to carve it out. You have to make it a priority. It depends on how you want to look at it. You could create quarterly vision days to reevaluate your goals and your progress. Or you could plan a semiannual personal retreat in a remote location for a couple of days where you plan ahead and you give yourself some really good questions and food for thought to explore and to unpack over those two days. Prioritize Joey. That would be another really important piece of advice that I would give you. So one example would be reviving passion through personal projects. A freelance content writer, for example, decides to set aside one morning per week to create a newsletter focused on a personal interest like sustainable living or travel writing, and she finds that this project allows her to explore a topic she loves without client constraints and allows her to showcase her unique voice and creativity. Over time, this project leads to connections with like minded clients and opportunities to monetize a newsletter. That's not why she's starting it. She's starting it because she feels a nudge. She's listening to her intuition and it's something that as she thinks about it, she realizes she's been wanting to do for a long time, but she is not giving herself permission to do it because she had to be the provider. Because she had to chase big goals, big numbers, big income achievement. Okay, this. However, when she takes the time when she makes it a priority, she limits it with guardrails to again that 10 to 20% of her time and resources. And she slowly phases into that lets her reconnect with the joy of, in this example, storytelling in writing on her own terms while opening the doors to new possibilities she's not going to be married to what exact possibilities those will be and specific outcomes she's willing to allow serendipity into the room. Here's another example. Collaborating with clients who align with your personal values. For example, say a content marketer shifts his focus to working exclusively with mission driven businesses such as environmental nonprofits or companies in the wellness Industry. He gradually and over time starts reducing his time spent on higher paying but uninspiring clients, and then dedicates that time to building relationships with clients whose values align with his own. And this deliberate shift brings excitement and purpose back into his work days. So this is great because, you know, he probably finds that by aligning his client base with personal passions, he can now create an energizing and meaningful work environment without completely overhauling his business, especially overnight. Okay. Does it take courage? Yes. Does it take a vision? Yes. You know, will it happen overnight? Now? But you have to start somewhere. Okay. Along the joy, the topic of joy, the theme of joy. I want to give you a reflective exercise. We need to do a quick audit. I want you to take a moment to think about your current clients or projects and ask yourself which one brings me the most energy and excitement. At the same time, I want you to ask yourself which one feels the most draining or uninspiring. Next, I want you to identify one small action you can take this week to bring a little more joy into your work. So, for example, maybe spend an hour brainstorming ideas for a passion project or maybe reach out to a client or prospect whose mission excites you. Yeah. Are some of these things going to be scary? Probably. But again, we have to start somewhere. It's going to require even the small actions. The small steps are going to require some courage. And then I want you to block out 30 minutes in your calendar within the next week to revisit this exercise and use that time to come back to your notes, come back to what you wrote down and this audit and these commitments for these small actions you were going to take. And I, I want you to ask yourself, what can I start doing to align my work more closely with what energizes me? Just leave that as an open ended question and see what comes up. Okay, so let's recap a little bit as we close. Success without significance is ultimately unfulfilling. And there is a point in your life and in your journey where we really should focus on production, where we have to be the provider, where, you know, numbers and income and achievement are important. And for some people more than others, it depends on your wiring. And that's all great and we shouldn't look back at that and be embarrassed or ashamed. But there comes a point, especially again, if you're in your late 40s or in your 50s or 60s, where this starts coming to a head. And if you haven't spent the time or the energy thinking about this, you Risk some serious burnout. So wherever you are in this journey, if this is resonating with you, I want you to remember that, you know, success without significance is ultimately unfulfilling. If that's not resonating with you right now like it wasn't resonating for me 10 years ago, for example, that's okay. That's okay. Maybe come back to this in a couple of years. Come back to this episode and see if maybe you're at a point where this is resonating more. Another key point that I want you to remember is that our focus and priorities in life should change as we age. I just talked about that. That's natural. It should happen as you move through different phases of life. Your first half built a foundation. Your second half builds the legacy. And finally, this is not the halftime process. The intermission that I've been talking about here isn't about starting over. This isn't about scrapping everything and rebuilding. It's about the opposite, actually. It's about leveraging everything you've built, but in a more meaningful and purposeful way. Purposeful in that it's now aligned with where you are in life. It wasn't that there was no purpose before. Is that your purpose? Your values have all changed, and you've been so busy just making things happen that you haven't realized that you needed to make those shifts in your life and in your business. Now, before I sign off, I have an invitation for you. If you find yourself at a similar crossroads, struggling to find your way forward, I might be able to help. I'm about to coach a small group of solo professionals who are seeking a renewed sense of purpose. They're seeking a clear path ahead and the confidence to make a real breakthrough in their business, in their work, in their lives. And starting in January and over the course of eight weeks, I'm going to provide a supportive environment where you can engage deeply with your professional challenges. Together, as a small group, we're going to tackle tough questions that are going to help you discover the answers you need to confidently navigate your future. So we're going to enter, in a way, this intermission. We're going to start entering this halftime process. And this experience is unlike anything I typically teach. This is not a business building seminar. We're not going to be discussing prospecting or marketing or pricing or similar topics. That's what I've been really doing for a long, long time. That's what I'm known for, you know, as a business coach. And that's all Great stuff, but that's not stuff we're going to be discussing here. Instead, we're going to embark on a journey of exploration in self discovery. We're going to engage in deep work that delves into the core of what drives your professional life. And you're going to step into a place where the best answers will begin to finally surface for you. Answers that are unique to you. So I'm specifically looking for individuals who meet the following criteria. First, they're prepared to meet themselves differently. They're also ready to engage in deep self reflection. They know that they're going to be the ones who are going to have to do the work and that's going to require a deeper self reflection than maybe what we normally do during the day because we're so busy. Also, I'm looking for people who are committed to uncovering the best solutions and direction for their unique challenges. So not somebody who's looking for answers on a silver platter. I'm looking for people who understand that they're going to have to do the work and unpack things on their own with my guidance and leadership, so that the right solutions, ideas and direction will emerge for them. I'm looking for people who are willing to confront tough questions and explore underlying issues and who are open to discussing their challenges, their fears, their aspirations, candidly and authentically with me and a very small group of like minded peers. People who are at the same stage of life, going through the same challenges and issues. They're all going to be unique, of course, and you know what specifically they're dealing with. But at the core we're all going to be in the same phase of life. I'm looking for people who are friendly and coachable. You know, this is an eight week journey. I don't know about you, if, if you were to take a road trip for eight weeks, traveling from one end of the continent to the other, you probably want friendly people with you, right? People you want to hang out with. And that's what I want. I see this as a journey. It's very much a journey. And I want people who I resonate with and who resonate with me who are not coming into this as a skeptic, who are coming into this with a very open mind. And lastly, I'm looking for people who are at least in their late 40s, mid to late 40s and 50s and 60s, and only because the challenges and solutions that we're going to be discussing, as you probably see, are much more relevant for those of us in this phase of life. So nothing against those of you in your 20s and 30s, but this is really an experience that's designed for those of us who are ready for and maybe even way overdue for this halftime process. I'm calling this experience From Chaos to Clarity an eight week journey for freelancers seeking peace and direction in their career. I've opened registration already and I got a few spots left. If what I've shared here today is resonating with you, if you're finding yourself at a crossroads in your career, this might be exactly what you've been searching for and I'd love for you to consider joining us. I don't have a sales page for this. I'm keeping this relatively low key, but I have a PDF that I can send you with all the details and if you want that, just Simply email me ed2b launcher.com Put clarity in the subject line and I'll reply with that PDF. Okay? No pressure, no expectations. I'm not going to hound you. So you know this is resonating with me. Let me know and I'll reply with all those details. Now there is an application process. You know, if it resonates with you, chances are that we might be a good fit for each other. I just want to make sure through the application that everything aligns. We start on the first full week of January, but I'm going to give you some prep work to do over the holidays. Again, I'm keeping this group very small and intimate, so if you're interested, don't delay because there's a good chance we're going to sell out. So that's it for today. I hope you found these ideas useful and thought provoking and I hope you and your family have a wonderful holiday season. Take care of. Well, that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed the episode and just a quick reminder to grab your free copy of my latest book, Earn More in Less Time. The Proven Mindset, Strategies and Actions to Prosper as a Freelance writer. You can get your free copy@b2b launcher.com or you will also find the detailed show notes to this and all my other episodes. Enjoy and have a great day.