Welcome back to The Corporate Escapee podcast. I’m thrilled to bring you something a little different today. Recently, I had the privilege of being a guest on the What’s Next GenX podcast with Nicole and Anne Marie. These two are all about helping Gen Xers like us figure out what’s next in our careers and lives.

In this episode, we dove deep into the journey of leaving corporate life and building a career on your own terms. We talked about the tipping point that led me to escape corporate, how I discovered there are countless ways to monetize your experience, and the surprising role TikTok played in growing my mission to help 100,000 Gen Xers find freedom. We even touched on how small businesses and solo entrepreneurs can thrive in today’s world, leveraging their skills and embracing the new opportunities AI brings.

What’s Next GenX podcast: https://www.whatsnextgenx.com/podcast

Takeaways

• Brett Trainor is on a mission to help 100,000 Gen Xers escape corporate life.
• The transition from corporate to solo work can be liberating and fulfilling.
• TikTok has become a powerful platform for connecting with Gen X professionals.
• Many Gen Xers feel trapped in the corporate ladder and seek alternatives.
• The importance of community support in navigating career transitions.
• Fear of leaving corporate jobs often holds people back from pursuing their passions.
• Entrepreneurship allows for a more flexible and purpose-driven life.
• Collaboration among Gen Xers can lead to greater opportunities.
• The corporate world often stifles creativity and personal growth.
• Designing a life that fits personal values is possible outside of corporate structures. Multiple income streams are essential for financial stability.
• Small businesses often need foundational help rather than advanced solutions.
• AI presents both challenges and opportunities for small businesses.
• Gen X professionals have valuable experience to offer in consulting roles.
• It's important to focus on the problems you can solve for clients.
• Overthinking can hinder progress; taking action is crucial.
• Understanding what you truly want from your career is vital.
• Networking and giving back can help build confidence and connections.
• Testing ideas while still in corporate can ease the transition.
• Structure and routine are important for managing a freelance career.

Sound Bites

• "I'm on a mission to help GenXers."
• "I realized I don't want to climb anymore."
• "It's not as scary as it looks."
• "Multiple revenue streams are the key."
• "Done is better than perfect."
• "What do I want to work?"
• "It's not you, it's me."
• "You can test it without going all in."
• "Your future is yours to create."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the Escape from Corporate Life

03:10 Brett's Journey: From Corporate to Consulting

05:52 The Power of TikTok: Connecting with Gen X

09:09 Redefining Success: Beyond the Corporate Ladder

11:52 The Surprising Freedom of Entrepreneurship

15:04 Overcoming Fear: The Transition from Corporate to Solo Work

18:10 Building a Community: Supporting Each Other in Transition

21:03 Collaborative Opportunities: The New Way Forward

22:47 Exploring Multiple Income Streams

29:18 Identifying Problems to Solve

34:20 Testing the Waters Before Transition

36:58 Embracing Change and Future Opportunities

Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of what's next. Gen X. I'm Nicole. And I'm Anne Marie and what's next. Gen X is a podcast for Gen X by Gen X. And we like to say that we bring together the Gen X community so that we can provide information and inspiration to help you level up your career, life and impact, or so that you can find your what's next. All right, Nicole, I'm excited for today's show. Who do we have?

Well, we are more than excited because this is somebody we've been trying to get out for a minute. And so it's finally happening. Today's episode is all about making that big bold move to escape the nine to five grind. And we couldn't have a better guest for it. So our episode is all about, as you all know, we love a good song title. So today's episode is titled Shout, inspired by the classic Tears for Fears anthem, because that's exactly what Brett Traynor is doing. He's shouting out his mission to help Gen Xers break free from the corporate world.

and take control of their lives and careers. So Brett is the founder of the Escapee Collective, a thriving community dedicated to helping Gen Xers find their what's next and transition to solar entrepreneurship. After 25 years in corporate life, Brett made his own escape and has been on a mission to help 100,000 Gen X professionals. Yes, you heard me, 100,000 Gen X professionals replace their corporate income through fractional work, consulting, and solo ventures.

So with his business strategy, insights and passion for empowering GenXers, Brett is all about creating a roadmap to freedom. He even shares those stories and more in his own podcast, The Corporate Escapee. So get ready for an inspiring conversation that will help you want to shout because today Brett Traynor is out here to show us how to break out of the corporate mold and create a future that's truly our own. So with that, let's welcome our guests, Brett Traynor.

was awesome. Thank you. I hire you to come be my intro person. We can be your intro person, your hype person. We'll do it all. I'm already hyped. I love that you use the movie intro. I was telling you offline that I've been binging your podcast and it's awesome. And I love this song, tying the song into it. I never would thought of Shout because the one I've been thinking about that I use occasionally is Bon Jovi's It's My Life. yeah, that's a one.

Shouts good. I I'm one of the huge fans of Tears for Fear, so that was... That's right. know. That's awesome. I'm glad you like it. Yeah. Like, we keep thinking about all these song lyrics and occasionally Nicole and I text each other back and forth and we're like, oh my gosh, we have to use one. And we're totally digressed. All right, Nicole, what was the one yesterday that you were like, we have to use? Let me see. What was the one yesterday? Was it... No, it wasn't I'm Every Woman. It was Beastie Boys. Oh yeah. Well, I'm still trying to figure out a way to incorporate Brass Monkey, so...

I'm not sure I told her I'm like, listen, maybe not this week, Nicole. I'm not saying no, just saying maybe not right now. it out. I'm gonna figure it out. All right, so back to Brett and shouting. listen, Brett, like you had an amazing career and we know a little bit about your story, but like what was the moment that made you just finally decide to shout and let it all out and leave the nine to five grind and sort of set this out and create your own path?

Yeah. I wish I could say it was one moment in time. It was kind of a buildup, right? I had 25 plus years, maybe closer to 30 years in corporate. And it was wrapping up what I thought was going to be my last corporate gig. I'm like, you know, 50, I just don't want to do this corporate grind anymore. So what do I do? I go into management consulting because that seemed like the logical choice at the end of the course. But my, my, my logic of it, at least the time was, all right, I've got a short attention span. It's project based.

Right. I knew at the time B2B and digital transformation, these older companies were really struggling. This was only seven, six, seven years ago. So I knew there was a market for it. And so I went into consulting and, you know, kind of convinced a firm that, I can head up this, you know, digital transformation for B2B. And, know, a year and a half later, I was still an army of one and kind of what it taught me one that I was done with corporate, right. And is there a company that can decide how they want to run things?

But part of it was, all right, I'm sourcing clients, I'm selling clients, and then I'm delivering on clients, but yet I'm only getting paid half of what they're billing me out at. I'm like, huh, something's wrong with this equation. We just got to the point where you guys probably really early in your career, you'll say your piece and you move on because it's your boss's choice. I got to the point where I just couldn't accept that. Like you can make the wrong choice and agree to disagree and.

you know, parted ways and I kind of went in solo without a plan and went into solo consulting, cause that's what I was doing. So it seemed natural. I was selling for the first time, even though I worked with sales teams forever, kind of figured that out, but realized I don't like the consulting, right? It's project plans tracking down, virtual stakeholders and then kind of fell into fractional leadership.

I didn't, it really wasn't call for action at the time, but I started working with a couple of companies in a part time providing leadership roles. And then through advisory, I did some reselling and, all said and done, I kind of figured out there's at least probably a dozen ways you can monetize your corporate experience. And then I kind of put two and two together. I'm like, there's got to be other GenXers out there like me and corporate that are done, but think you have to start a company if you left or there's nothing out there.

And when I started the corporate escapee, it was probably a year ago in January, so we're coming up on two years. And for the first nine months, crickets. I rebranded the podcast to this. I'm like, there's going to be a big audience. I'm going to connect with all these people. I had a few one-off people that still follow me to this day, but there was nothing there. And so I was at the verge of shutting that down because I'm like, well, maybe I am alone in this thought that there's got to be something else out there.

But then I had the one faithful day when I decided November of last year, almost just about a year ago to get on TikTok. And my three daughters are like, Hey, you're an idiot. is not going to end well, I'm like, know what? Short attention span platform. I really didn't know anything about it. And so I kind of just started doing these short rants about corporate and

You know, fast forward to today, I think I just passed, you know, 61,000 followers on TikTok. Yeah. TikTok of all the platforms. Yeah. Really amazing to me is that 80 % of those 61,000 are over the age of 40. So it was the ideal audience. was who I was trying to connect with on LinkedIn, but LinkedIn wouldn't necessarily put me in front of those folks. All of a sudden I got in front of a ton of, people that

felt the same way as I did all of a sudden, like, this is exactly what I've been looking at, feeling the same way. So. Right. Can I ask you a quick question? I've experienced, had you done research before just to kind of see if Gen X was running TikTok? Or you're like, I'm just going to gamble and go for it. I was just going. And when I, again, when I started offering, cause I didn't have any programs, there was no coaching, there was no community, there was literally nothing. And so the only thing that I was offering is it was kind of blowing up a little bit was a free 20 minute.

mini strategy session, right? Is there life outside of corporate for you? And I was connecting with these really high level people at Google, right? And we had Dell, some really big companies that I was shocked. Again, I thought it was going to be the 20 somethings that have been in corporate for two years and they're tired and they're like, no, it was the exact opposite. And so, no, there was, I wish I could tell you it was this big grand plan that I've got this strategy. was no. Like you knew the digital metrics and you're like, no.

It just took a flyer and all of sudden it just, like I said, it just started to take off. And what was some of the feedback that you were getting that you're speaking to me, right? You're inspiring me. This is exactly how I'm feeling. didn't know that, you know, I've been thinking about this for a while and didn't want to do it. And I think at least for me, when I left for the first couple of years, I was all alone, right? I didn't tell anybody that I was leaving corporate and that was a huge mistake in hindsight, but I didn't know. don't know if it was just the way we were conditioned that right.

corporate for a long time. It's just what you do. It's the safe path. And so I think it was just resonating with people. And the one thing that kind of occurred to me and love to get your perspectives on this is I think when I was done in corporate is when I stopped chasing and climbing a corporate ladder, right? Earlier in your career, there was that next promotion. was, you know, can you get to the C suite? Cause that's honestly the folks that get paid and you never have to worry about anything, but there's so few of those seats.

And I think it was right around when I get 48, 49 that I realized I don't want to climb anymore. Right. It's just, that's just not, still thought I knew the money was important, but I didn't realize that were important. And once I stopped climbing and that's kind of the feedback I'm getting from folks, once you don't, you're not chasing something. They're like, what the hell am I doing in this? For me, if there's not an end goal. Yeah. For me, it was always that illusion of I wanted to create my, you know, create my seat at the table. Right. It was that whole idea.

a seat at a table. And then, you know, it got to the whole thing of like, well, create your own seat. So was like, I'm going to create my own seat. But then it was like, it was like, I was already doing the work, if you will, my last company, but even though I wasn't technically sitting at the table. And then I started looking at these other people and I'm just like, why am I trying so hard to be one of you when I'm already doing the work, but not getting paid for it, which I'm sure a lot of people feel like that. So then it was kind of like, you know what, how about I just do my own thing, create my own seat, my own table and all that. mean,

I was in the mix before I got laid off and it was just like, I don't want to be here every meeting. I remember, remember Anne-Marie and I talked about this so many meetings we'd be sitting at going, I do not want to be here. Like I had just have nothing else to give. Well, and I think for probably for you as well, Brett, like there's this struggle because as a GenXer you were taught, right? Go to college, which, know, hashtag blessed, go to college, right? Get out of college, get a good job, right?

work for a years, get your MBA, right? Get a ABP title, get a VP or TA or managing director, whatever it is, right? And you continuously move, move, move, move, move. And then you get to a point where you're like, like you start getting to the top and you start looking around and the view is not what you want. And you're like, why am I doing this? Like for me, one of the things the big tells was I was sitting in a meeting, just sitting in a meeting, like sitting there and my heart rate alarm went off on my watch.

And I'm like, why is my heart rate 127 just sitting here? I'm like, I can't do this. And I know you have a story about that too, from your management consulting days where you were just like, I'm unhealthy, I'm miserable. Like, what am I doing? Yeah. Yeah. As my wife said, what the hell was the matter with you? Right? Yeah, exactly. People on the surface are like, well, you got a good job. They're paying you well. The kids are healthy. Everything looks good, but I didn't know at the time what was wrong. And

You know, and I tell people when I left, was purely to replace income. knew I could make more money. know. I I thought it could make more money, at least control my own destiny. But over time, the time has become more important, right? And what I do with it and where I spend it and you know, the purpose again, if I would have told you this, or you would have told me this four years ago, but my life would be purpose driven in the sense, Hey, how do we help more Gen Xers and all this? I'm like, you're crazy. That's not me. That's right. But hell, it turns out it actually is. Yeah.

And that's where I get the, energy from it. But I do want to go back and read the one thing you talked about with early, right? The corporate, was in my family. I was the first one that went to college, right? So I didn't know what this was. My goal when you'll laugh when, before I went to college was I'll be a game warden up in Wisconsin, right? You sit on the lakes all day. You're out. Then you get in, in Gen X, right? It's cliche, but we did play outside all the time. We didn't have boxes. There was no one bailing us out.

All of sudden you get into this corporate box and when it starts in the early days you're like, why can't I do this? We should do this. We can't have been over the time. It just starts squeezing, squeezing. And all of sudden you just play by the rules, don't rock the boat. And 25 years have gone by and you're like, whoa, what happened, right? I wouldn't trade my corporate experience because it paid off, but I probably would have tried to figure out an exit strategy earlier knowing what I know now if I would have known that a little bit earlier. Yeah, absolutely.

So what's been the most surprising part, right, is, and you mentioned time, and I think this is, like, if you think about many of us in corporate, and I'm sort leading the witness here, but many of us in corporate always thought it was the title and the money, right, and maybe the corner off, the cliche corner office, right, but what's been the most surprising part of you transitioning from your corporate life to your solo printer show? Yeah, I think the biggest thing was the switch. Again, looking back, it's easier now in the process. was just everything just kind of moving.

was everything was built around my corporate life, right? The family vacations, school schedule, soccer games, volleyball, whatever it was, the job was there and then we built our life around it. Now having the ability to kind of build work into the life, I didn't know we could actually design the life that we want and people are not there, they're still sitting in corporate like, that's not possible. It is possible, right? Cause most of us, again, I don't know your background's that deep, but you know, it's not like we're.

I'm gonna say superheroes, where we did something unbelievable, right? We just had good corporate careers where we accomplished a lot, we're able to build a lot of things, but now we're able to figure out how to transition and build that life where work still fits into it. So that's the biggest change that I'm still getting used to, be honest with you. It's interesting that you said that because I think that Gen X fear is a real thing. For years, I would have friends who would go off and do their own things. And I'd be like, you are nuts. mean, it's nothing like having that safety net that

that paycheck, whether it was weekly, biweekly or monthly. And, but that fear can definitely hold you hostage until you either, you know, fired or laid off or just for health reasons. I mean, I went through a period too, where my blood pressure was just through the roof. I was stressed and I kept thinking, you know, I'm working out more. I'm jogging and, you know, trying to figure out what's going on, but it was just good old fashioned work. It was a lot of it. I mean, I just remember having a panic attack because I just, I could not do this anymore.

But that fear is so crippling for us because we've always been taught to do the right thing. And the right thing was to go to work, make the best of it, suck it up or whatever. That's why we talk about the group behind us. I got to give my props to the millennials in Gen Z because they're like, I want work-life balance. taking advantage. I'm going to take advantage of my PTO. And if I don't like something, I'm going quit. And I wish I could have done that even in my 30s as far as like,

the idea of just wanting to do something or go to another company that really appreciated me. No, I think that's so true. And it's funny because once you get out of that, then you realize it's not as scary as it looks. It does look scary. But when you think about, especially as a GenX, trying to find your next job. And I hear you guys talking on the podcast, the ageism is absolutely real. And when you're looking for a job today in corporate,

Is it the job you really want? Is it the work you want to do? Are you settling for what's open that you may have a contact that can get you in there? And is it going to be, plus I started to think, I don't know about you, I don't have any plans on retiring, but I do want to do what I want to do as long as I want to do it. Am I going to work in corporate for another 10 years? One, we've got an expiration date in corporate. It's common whether we like it or not. So even if you're afraid to take that step, you're going to have to take that step.

Right. There's going to be no other option unless you're going to take an entry level job in corporate somewhere, which again, if that's what you're comfortable with, I don't blame or judge anybody, but I think people over, you're right. They make it, you know, I say the people think they're walking on a tight rope, right. Across a canyon. If I'm doing this solo job that I fall and it's a no, the tight rope is six inches off the car. Right. If this can work, you look for the next one and the next one. And even if that you figure out it's not for you.

You can go back to corporate. There's nothing keeping you from going back. just so, so Brett, you're, you're on a mission to help 100,000 Gen Xers. where did it's bold goal come from? And then, you know, just, you know, what motivates you to be like, Hey, I'm going to help 100,000. I mean, was that just even a number that you had just thought about, or is it as you, you know, kind of getting started as far as like, this is, this is what I want to achieve.

It kind of evolved, right? Cause when I got started, I'm like, ah, there's more people like me. And one of the benefits, cause what we didn't talk about was I ended up, I started the community just as a place to put people as I was meeting with them, right? We'll figure out what we can do together later once that's down the road. But then I realized that, you know, it's one of those no asshole policies. I have not yet to have a conversation with anybody and I've probably been close to 500, at least 500.

that I didn't like or didn't connect with, right? So it all good people. And so having those conversations, so I'm like, all right, this, the more of us we can get together, the more we can control this. And so there really wasn't a goal when I started, but then I'm like, you know what? I'm going to be ambitious. Let's go 10,000. Well, then TikTok took off and I realized that I've already kind of touched at least 60,000, whether I've helped them. It's a great area. can hold me to that. But I'm like, why not go for a hundred, right? There's, there's a great, not too long ago called

you know, 10 X is easier than two X. And it's a great book because it just kind of talks about it. If you want to two X your life, you got to work twice as hard. But if you want to 10 X, you got to rethink the way you do things. And so I'm like, all right, so yeah, I can probably get to the 10 X by incrementally working and continue to outreach. But how do I get to the a hundred thousand? That kind of got me to think differently about that, that entire process. So.

Yeah, I mean, it's still kind of arbitrary, but it seems like if we can get 100,000 Gen Xers that weren't thinking about exiting corporate control their own destiny, how cool would that be? Plus there's what, 65 million of us. I'm sure you can do that. Exactly. And if we can work together, that's the biggest thing, right? That's it. Support each other. Yeah.

Yeah, we, um, you know, as you start to think about like, how do you support other GenXers? Right. And it's the idea of like, not only just like hire a GenXer, right. It's the idea of like, what else can you do? Can you provide advice for them as they're starting their new journey? Can you say like, oh, we'll start to think about this in a different way, or even some of the tech stuff. Like before we started the podcast, we were all talking about different tech things that we've been using. And it's like those kinds of conversations just help to accelerate your process. Yeah. And I would say we're in a group that.

We're so resilient. so, you we can do 10 different things because we grew up with this. This is kind of, you know, that's what we do. Not saying that we don't ask for help, but we could do a better job. Yeah. Because we've all been hitched around and I'm kind of like doing my own thing and, know, but it's kind of like now we're heads up and we're all looking at each other and it's kind of like, okay, we got to start this over again. I think we could do a better job in our generation as far as like asking for help and just kind of be like a little bit more vulnerable as far as this shit is hard.

of these conversations because we're always so used to like just, I mean, that's why we're in the middle, right? That's why we help the boomers and millennials because they know they can count on us, but we get burnt out too. Right. No, I think it's so true. And again, that's the way we grew up. There's nobody here to bail you out. So you're going to have to it out. But that was kind of definitely one of the enlightening things of going through this is even just having, being able to have conversations with the two of you, right? It's going to help me either from an energy level, bouncing ideas off of.

the support side of it. And quite honestly, the one thing that has become even more clear is the networking aspect. where in corporate, right, it was every person for themselves, right? Everybody's fighting back emotion. You may have some friends, but they probably weren't in the same area as you, because you were probably jockeying for whoever was going to get that next. But here, I mean, we've got great examples in the community. There's two women in marketing who, if you looked at their resume on paper, almost the exact same. They both

worked in industry for 15 years and then management consulting and then exited. So chief marketing officer material type thing. instead of looking at each other's competition, they got introduced by a common contact. It's like you two should work together. what fast forward today, what they do is they each have their own solo businesses, but for bigger opportunities, they partnered it together and go after it. And what's happened is if one's got capacity, the other doesn't, they'll share.

That's awesome. Opportunities with each other because they have the same shared values. They know what they can do and they're happy to try. So that's what I tell people is you're not competing. There's so much opportunity and we as small businesses, we don't need that many clients. There's more, there's what 33.6 million small businesses. Yeah. That we can work together on everything. Even if you've got the exact same skillset and job title, there's more cooperation opportunities than there is competition.

Yeah. Well, Brett, that was a good example. Do you have any other ones of folks who kind of gone through their transformation that kind of stand out to you since you started your community? Yeah. know, what's interesting is because one thing I, and you guys were aware of this, there's a lot of different communities for solos, right? You can get fractional is growing really quick. There's solo. so any kind of really path you want to focus on, you can go. And that's what I encourage people, but I've taken more of the

you know, monetize your corporate experience and there's multiple ways to do it. And again, it's getting outside of that corporate box and say, Hey, if the customer or the prospect you're working with has a problem, there's more than one way to craft a solution. If you can solve it, right? Fractional may be it, but there may be other ways to think out of the box. And so it's just getting people to start thinking about that differently and working together. Right. So I'm

right to go help a client and then back out. You just don't mention it. So you wouldn't see that corporate. wouldn't see that. But to me, it just makes sense. So I didn't really answer your question, Nicole, but it's kind of that. That's where it's emerging, where it's evolving into. So one of the things that you spoke about, which is something that I think is a little bit of an aha moment for life outside of corporate, is that in corporate, you're used to effectively getting your paycheck.

Right. So you're making your own bonus and stock and all that other stuff, but it's one income stream. So, and one of the things that you brought up is that when you're starting to think about life outside of corporate, it's the idea of multiple income streams. Give us a little insight into that. Yeah. And again, it took me a while to get to this too, right? Cause I thought, well, if I'm a consultant, all I can do is sell consulting. have to sell project based plans. And then when I was fractional, the only thing I can do is fractional.

But then starting to realize that yeah, multiple revenue streams are the key because I think it was one of your, I forget who the guest was, was talking about, right? You're always having to market and do these types of things because the engagements aren't reoccurring revenue. Well, what if you could set up a business? And the example I give that I've really am working with folks now is whatever you're doing in corporate, if somebody's paying you to do a job in corporate, there's a small business that needs that help.

It just may not be as a full-time equivalent. You could set it up that say, and what I found with small businesses, they need more foundational help. They don't need level two, level three type of stuff. They just need help with the basics. And so what if you could structure a deal with a small business and let's just use, you know, IT as an example that you could, yeah, you can come in there as their director of IT, run everything. What if you set that up as a service program that on a monthly basis, you'll meet with the team for an hour to do a strategy session review.

you do all their reports and you update and upgrade everything else. And for this monthly, you know, it's $2,500 a month. It just becomes recurring versus a fixed fee project or hiring me as a, you know, a fractional employee. so businesses are open for this. Just think about how much, cause I tell people you're going to save them time, money and reduce the risk. That's I think that's part of the challenge folks in GenX are like, well, I don't know how to sell.

Well, I love it. I'm from the Deion Sanders School of if you're good at seven things, get paid for all seven things. I'll give you full credit for it, but I like that. So the other thing you mentioned about small businesses, and this is what I've been seeing sort of in the tech startup world too, right? So everybody's talking about AI and particularly talking about AI and fear based, right? Is that jobs are being cut because of AI. We're all going to lose our jobs to AI. But what's fascinating is that small business is that

that I'm saying that are using to develop new products with AI are getting to their minimum viable product much faster. Right. But what that means is to your point, is they're not, they don't have that foundation of business of how do you create that? And that's where there's a huge opportunity for these, you know, contractual as a service consulting businesses. And you just have to start thinking about how do you apply your corporate skills to those roles?

Yeah, no, think it's spot on. It's one of the things that I've got some content that's going to come out in the not too distant future is like we're at the perfect storm right now for for where AI, I think AI is going to take down some big companies, right? We were talking offline that, you know, corporations are using AI as an excuse to cut people. I've been in those companies. There's no way those silos with operating budgets are getting efficient across. It's just not happening.

And I don't think it will. So what happens if you take a small mid-size company with good product, right? Good customers, no idea how to scale, partner that with a gen-exter that's been doing it for 25 years and AI or some other automation that helps you accelerate and automate some of those processes. Cause your point, the small business owner isn't going to know how to use AI or isn't going to have the business sense around it. But you've got somebody that's been doing this for 25 years in the trenches that now can know strategy tactics.

everything you marry those all of a sudden, it's a really powerful combination. And I think, you know, another thing I heard you talking about Gen X is well positioned. We've got the most experience to offer. We've been through three different technology evolutions or revolution. You want to do it. So, so yeah, super excited to that. We being the collective Gen X is well positioned for this and it's

The one thing that still frustrates me about people, and again, we learn it in corporate is overanalyze, overthink, overthink. 100%. The people that are winning are just doing. Take action. Nothing's going to go wrong. Even if you're a corporate, reach out to a business, you think you can help them, you structure it the wrong way, or you don't get paid enough, it's okay. You learn it for the next one.

Exactly. And you move on. But yeah, I had a one of my management consulting buddies used to tell me all the time, he's like, Brett, done is better than perfect. You got to stop overthinking. This was when I was in consulting where you tend to really have to for perfect. Yeah, when I came solo, it was a fundamental mind shift that I'm like, okay, then once you know, over time, I've gotten used to the fact that you don't have to over complicate, you don't have to oversell. They just want their problem solved. And if you can

kind of get to their language, it's so much easier. So you doing, and so I'm weirdly passionate about this too. I'm like, don't care if it's perfect, just get it out, right? Just get it, like start. You have to start before you're ready. Given that, what would be the first step that you, if somebody's listening to this and they're still in corporate, what is the first step that they should take if they're thinking about preparing to leave corporate?

Can I give you two instead of one? You can give me a thousand if you want to. we might have time for a thousand, but yeah. The first one is really think about what you want, right? Because when you're in corporate, you're thinking about that next job and where does it get me, but it's not really where do I want to work? What's the type of want to work I want to do? Where do I want to be? know, who do I want to work with? I know this is focused on work, but you know, do you want to live in the mountains? Do you want to do? And then you can start to think about, all right, what type of work do I need to do this?

And then second part is really think about what is the problem that you want to solve and that you're good at solving. everybody wants to default. Well, I'll be the IT director and like, well, small business doesn't care. They really don't. have no idea. What is that problem you want to solve for that small business? Is it helping them set up an infrastructure, help them with their privacy? What is the problem the business is having and how will you solve it? And that's where you can get into how you solve it differently.

You know, that helps you get around the sales question, right? Cause you're a problem solver and there's a fee to solve the problem. It's just, you know, when you start changing that around. those are the two things. One, think about what you really want because do you need to make twice the money you're making or can you make, you know, three quarters of it, but yet only work 50 % of the time. And that was just foreign thinking to me. And I didn't do that for like, until I started to look back and that's what I'm trying to share with people is, Hey,

keep this in mind upfront and you may scoff at and say, no, there's no way that I can do fractional work and only work out the time. Like, yes, you can write. There's plenty of use cases that show this now. So you just touched on something and it just, it just made me, I was just like the hairs in my arms stood up because we talk about this all the time. You just talked about as far as that it director, we get caught up in titles, right? Instead of breaking down as far as, okay, that's great. You're it director or CTO or CFO, whatever, but all that aside.

Let's break down your skills. Cause like you said, a small business, wherever you're helping, they're not going, Ooh, I need an IT director. They're like, I need somebody to help me with blah, blah, blah, blah. And if you can do that, just do it instead of worrying about, but I'm this. Um, do you find that's a kind of one those challenges that you see? a hundred percent. Right. Cause it even ties to what companies do when they lead with solutions. Right.

This is, these are our solutions. Like the customer doesn't care about your solution. They care about, you going to solve that problem? And it's hard, right? Cause this has been our identity for decades. And now to have to shed that and just say, Hey, I can help you solve this problem. It's one, it's freeing once you get there, but it's, it's, it's hard to, make that trend. And I hadn't really thought about it in that, but you're, you're absolutely right. That's where we get caught.

Again, even people just getting started and even some that I work one-on-one with, they'll come back and they're like, well, I'm thinking of what do you think about this title of, you know, like COO for small businesses? I'm like, awesome, but a small business isn't going know what that is. That's right. I'm saying, hey, I lead strategic projects for small businesses, right? I help business owners think through, all right, I've got six things that I'm working on. I can help you prioritize those things, organize those and help you execute against them.

That doesn't have a job title, but if you can have that conversation one on one, that's where that's where you again, I say the word sell, but that's how you start to solve those problems. Yeah. And it's one of those where I always tell people, I'm like, have to think about instead of coming back from your corporate career where you had a job description, no matter what your level was, you had a job description and probably a job, you know, job level 48 blah, blah, blah, blah, right? Whatever it was. Right. And the idea is not like you can't think in the terms of what you've done.

Right? Like, I led strategic projects for this. Like, no, it's what can you do for this company? Right? I can solve your problem. I can help you to get accelerate. I can help you to increase sales. And it's that general, like once you see the light bulb go on in somebody about the idea of what you can do for them, they're like, my gosh, my entire LinkedIn profile and resume and everything, all the materials put together is, just backwards. It's the old phrase and Nicole and I were talking about this last night. It's.

Remember the phrase like, it's not you, it's me. Like, and now you have to think about that in a good way where it's literally not me, it's all about you. And so like, like you have to figure out it's about them and what you can do for them. Yeah. It almost sounds like it's GeneXtors and I'm sure you both would agree. The one thing that we're fighting is our mindset because you know, we don't want to be forgotten because technically we are forgotten. You know, we talk about this all the time.

Anne Marie has shown ads where people have said they've gone from boomers, millennials and Gen Z. Like we literally, it's like, hold on to the identity. We hold onto those things because we just don't want people to forget us. You know? No, I think that's absolutely right. And I think that can be our superpower too, right? Cause we're talking about going back to the way we were raised and grew up and the kind of the freedom that was there. And I mean, I think in one of the,

It's all about money. But now I'm like, no, there's the emotional piece of this, the mental piece, right? How do we get this, the health? There's just so many other pieces that we're better off that just got to get people unstuck, get out of that mindset. Just test it. Even if you're in corporate, you can test it without going all in. Okay. So I'm going to on that line. So if somebody is in corporate and they're listening to this, probably at their launcher on their commute or whatever, right. But they're hesitant to make a change. What's the advice that you would give them?

testing. think it's just that one thing about what's really important in your life, right? Is it the time or is it the money or is it the stability? Look, if there's some reason why you need that insurance or that I'm not going to argue with, there's ways you can get around it. But if that's, I would never argue with anybody. Correct. But so if you're beyond that, you're like, yes, there is more to do. know I can, I'm more than what I'm doing right now. It's that figure out what

the problem you want to start with the problem you want to solve because even what I tell people, even if you're in a corporate job, they're locked down and they don't allow you to go do unspeaking engagements and all these things. You can start offering the 10 things that I've learned in my 20 years as an IT director. Just start targeting, I'm giving back, I'm giving back, I'm giving back because what I found even with all my content, give it all away for free. mean, it's, it's a whole nother episode.

But you're starting to get back. Your company can't say anything about this because you're just sharing with others what they should know and helping small businesses that didn't. So even if you start connecting with some small business owners and you've got a conflict, you can't talk to them, you're just giving free mentoring. That way you're having a conversation. You're sharing your knowledge. You're starting to see, now I can start to see how I can apply this versus.

just be in some black hole out there and if I quit, then I've got to go all in, I've got to figure out these things. No, start having these conversations now, figure out how you can get back. And then two, the other folks, if you got caught up in one of these layoffs, there is no excuse for you not to test this. You may find it's not 100 % fine, but I heard you say, well, if you're applying for 30 jobs, you're not going to get that job, right? I don't know what else, maybe you said, but.

It's absolutely true. So if you've got this time, use it to start networking and connecting with folks. And again, use the communities, right? Fractional you think go connect with Fractional. If you're just getting started, come talk to us. We've got people that'll share their stories, but test it. You may find you get a couple of customers like, man, this just isn't for me. I don't want to control my own time. I'd rather just fade into the sunset and corporate. At least you know, right? There's no doubts.

you're not gonna go wonder what if, I wonder if that was the path. Cause I think I get that more from anybody. They're like, whoa, yeah, this isn't easy. This is my hard, right? It's not somebody else's hard. All right, so Brett, I wanna circle back to you. I wanna know not only what have you learned about yourself in this process, but then what's next for work for you, for the escapee collective? Yeah, that's a great question. Like I said, I've learned, I think what I've figured out is, know, life is.

too short. know it sounds again cliche, but it really is. And it even drives my wife. Not sometimes because I do have a such a better outlook. But I am literally like, that's nice, but just take out the trash. don't know these zippity doo dah. I'm like, it's not zippity doo dah. It's just, I'm in such a much better place mentally knowing what I can control. And what I'm doing is, is not just going through the motions and helping.

how, like I said, we've got 1,400 people in the community. I think we've got maybe 30 % are super active in it. So how do I provide more services to get these people more engaged? Because we do, they come back and forth and when they're ready, they're there. So it just tells me there's more opportunity that we could be providing more services or something to help that. And where does it go?

I don't know. think there's, you know, we talked about the AI. I think there's a component to build the AI into this. I know nothing about AI than what I'm doing with my own chat GPT, but you know, maybe, you know, as they say, drink your own wine, eat your own dog food is when we talk about small businesses. Can I apply some of these things? So, and the last thing I'll say, I'll be quiet is now I want to, I'm figuring out how to unleash, you know, what

centuries of experience that we have in the community into the small businesses. Because still one of the biggest hangups people have is, how do I get customers? And they're looking for job boards for fractionals. like, we don't want that, right? It's got to be the networks. There's a whole networking thing. We've got to get people a little bit smarter and confident in that process. But then there's also, why can't I start now taking all the experience I have into the small business community and say, hey, partner with us, right?

And the angle I'm kind of taking with that is before you make that first or make a big expensive hire or invest in this, where come talk to one of our mentors or our guides. I think we're going to position them as guides because it's not really a coach. It's not really a consultant, but we've been there. We can help you make decisions. So come talk to one of our guides. They'll help you unbiased, right? We have, we don't have a horse in the race to lead you to buy one or another. So will that work? I don't know. I'm going to, I'm going to test it. think there's value to it, but.

You know, we will, we'll find out. That's awesome. So, but so where can I find more about you, the corporate escapee and follow your journey? Of course you've got Tik Tok you mentioned, but where else? Yeah, I think the biggest one is LinkedIn. I still use LinkedIn as coming in corporate. That's one of the things we didn't talk about was the transition from your job resume to more of who are and what you're doing. So LinkedIn for sure. And if anybody's Gen X and curious that the free community to Slack community is there, just the corporate escapee.

The best thing I ever did was I don't know if you guys use a link tree. It's the best. Oh yeah, where it has all of them. I'm like, why didn't I discover this sooner? It used to say, well, you can go to my website here. I'll give you my link tree. You can find all the free resource. Perfect. Yeah, I would love to connect with anybody that's doesn't think that they can do it. know, Gen X and they don't think they can do it outside of the corporate. Happy to chat with you.

Yeah, because there is a transition community. mean, all the different channels that you have. And we've met some really great people in that community and people that we still talk to. So I just kudos for you for just coming up and, you know, not thinking about just yourself as far as how can I help other people? I appreciate that. And yeah, too, I've got to figure out as we're going through this today, I'm like, I got to figure out how to get you guys on the podcast and with some frequency because

I think there's definitely a lot of overlap, not overlap, you guys are doing your thing, but it's commonality. Yeah. Yeah. You would add a ton of value to my audience too. So we'll figure that out. We'd love to, we'd love to talk and we love to. So as you know, right, there's, there's, there's a whole thing. And I do feel like there are certain topics, like every time we talk to you, we're like, hold on. We didn't talk about this section. We didn't talk about this section. We didn't talk about this section. Cause there is, there's the first thing like, Oh, you're, you've got the inkling of thinking about leaving.

And then how do you transition to all of your content? How do you start repositioning yourself? And then how do you get clients? It's always the big fear. Like, what do you do? Who are you serving? Right? What's the problem you're solving? There's a process through that. And there's also your confidence. Cause oftentimes one of the things we didn't talk about, which I am nerdy passionate about is that it fires me up when I see someone who's had an incredible career and they're, they've either gotten a layoff because of whatever dumb reorg, right? Or whatever happens and they take a hit in confidence and like,

you don't know how much you know, right? You don't realize how valuable you are to somebody else out there right now, just because this company did this to you. And it's sort of bringing that confidence back. by talking to others, hopefully we can get that confidence reinstilled in individual GenXers and whatever you are, because it's just, it's so disheartening to see. Yeah. I think it's so true. yeah, you talk to folks and like, but you've

run one of the biggest companies or division of a large company. You can go get your own small business custom. Like you're insane. And I try to do my best way possible. If you can get yourself into a corporate job, you can find customers. I like said, I did a post the other day. He'll all die on is it's easier to find your first customer than it is your next job, especially if you're a So yes, it tested, tested. It won't hurt you. You might actually make some more money and you may actually find you like it. So, right.

That's scariest part for us, right? We might like it. Exactly. Let me tell you the biggest change I went through, and I know you got to wrap up, was wept through corporate, right? Our schedules are kind of set. had 30-hour meetings a week, and then you kind fit in the objectives they were doing. All of sudden, when you're free, you've got all these hours. And the one thing that I did initially was

It was chaos. was a mess. I'm like, all right, I got to get organized because there was no routine. There was nothing. Then I over-indexed and said, all right, this half hour, this half hour I'm doing this. I'm like, holy crap, that doesn't work either. That's not me. So I finally settled on, know, like my creative, my hard work is like six AM to nine AM. I like to get up early, do this. And like nine to 11 is client work or follow up. And then the afternoon schedule for whatever. And that works so much better. But if you come into this thinking, it's going to be laid out for you.

It's not, it's not a good problem, but it's something to think about that you do have to put some structure, even if it's a little bit into your life in order to manage this. So yeah, that's awesome. so we can't wait to talk to you more because I do feel like there's a whole bunch of things that like we've just scratched the surface on and Brett, you are, you've been such an amazing partner and inspiration to us. So, so we love it and we love to see how else we can collaborate. Follow us.

Awesome. Well, folks, thanks for tuning into What's Next Gen X. Brett's story reminds us that the path to freedom and fulfillment is within reach, but sometimes it takes the bold move to shout it all out and go for it. So whether you're ready to leave the corporate grind or just beginning to imagine your next chapter, remember your future is yours to create. Keep pushing forward, stay curious, and let's keep redefining what's possible. Until next time, thank you so much. And again, thank you, Brett. Thanks, Brett. you. I enjoyed it. Thanks.