I sat down for pizza with my daughter and her friend, opened GoDaddy on my phone, and bought the domain before we finished lunch. That’s how Susan Dabbar describes the moment PROVOKED went from an idea to something real, and it tells you almost everything about how she moves through the world.

Susan has designed nuclear submarines, run brand campaigns for Disney and Nestlé, played professional poker in Moscow, built and sold half a dozen businesses, and at sixty-five, launched a media company for women who refuse to be told their best chapters are behind them.

What struck me most in this conversation is that none of it happened alone. Every pivot, from her college consulting business to PROVOKED itself, was carried forward by a mentor, a daughter, a friend at a café table who said the right thing at the right moment.

A few things I took away from our conversation:

• Reinvention is never a solo act. Susan credits mentors, family, and community at every turn, even in careers built on individual expertise like naval architecture and poker.
• Poker taught her more about business than she expected. Reading people and making decisions on incomplete information turned out to be the exact skill she needed for every pivot that followed.
• Paying every writer, even first timers, is nonnegotiable for Susan. It says everything about how she wants PROVOKED to treat the women who trust it with their stories.
• Passion alone is overrated. Susan's advice to anyone rebuilding a career is to look for the opportunity first, then match it to what you are good at and what you have the resources for.
• Everyone has a story worth telling. Susan's advice for anyone who does not think of themselves as a writer is simple: start with a few sentences on a scrap of paper and let it grow from there.

Susan and her digital magazine PROVOKED can be found here:

linkedin.com/in/susandabbar

https://provokedmagazine.com/

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An opportunity to test drive the Follow Up system I recommend by checking this presentation page - you won’t regret it.

AND … Don’t forget to connect with me on LinkedIn and be eligible for my complimentary LinkedIn profile audit – I do one each month for a lucky listener!

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Welcome back to Relationships Rule. My guest

today has, believe it or not, designed submarines, played

professional poker, run brand campaigns for Disney and Nestle,

and built and sold half a dozen businesses. But two years ago,

she did something new. She launched, and yes, she she did

all these things. I want you to be be aware of that. She

launched a media company for women who refuse to be told

their best chapters are behind them. Susan Dabar is the founder

and editor in chief of Provoked Magazine, and today we're

talking about what a lifetime of reinvention teaches you about

people and why she believes storytelling might be the most

powerful form of appreciation there is. Welcome to the show,

Susan.

Oh my gosh! Hi, thank you so much. I'm excited

to be here today, and let's have this conversation.

Susan, did I get your last name right? Dabar is

did I say it right. Yeah,

Debar. It's perfect. Debar.

Okay, Debar. Okay, as in Debarge. That was a

long time ago. Yeah, like

I'm going to the bar, but in front of it. So

you know, picture someone meeting you for the

first time. They'd probably have no idea they were talking to

someone who once designed nuclear submarines? I mean, I

was blown away when you said that to me. How do you introduce

yourself these days, and has that answer changed over the

years?

Oh, that's a great question. I usually don't lead

with that because that was almost gosh, four four and a

half, almost five decades ago now. Fair enough. I graduated

with a degree in naval architecture, and I did go to

work in the early '80s and design nuclear submarines and

aircraft carriers. But when I meet people today, I have such a

story of reinvention. I have 4040 years. We talked about this

40 decades of pivots, and I. It depends on who I'm meeting and

and what how much I want to. Sometimes it's like, oh Susan,

don't don't give them the mother load, you know, in in like in

one breath, in one run-on sentence. Yeah, yeah. Daughter

has said, Mom, don't don't lay it all out there in like your

first breath. Like just you know, you know, get the

audience's feel first and figure out, you know, do they really

want to hear all of this? But I start with what I'm doing right

now, which I'm most excited about. Honestly, it's the most

personal pivot and and the most exciting and the most risky.

Honestly, so

yeah, tell me why. Tell me why it's the most

risky.

Well, most risky because I'm spending real money

and the most money that I've ever spent on a venture. Several

of my most of my previous ventures were I started with a

laptop and there was no capital investment. My educational

consulting firm I built out of I had a computer that was my my

only capital investment, and we were actually moving overseas.

So that's another part of my thread and my geographic

location kind of weaves in and out of my pivots because a lot

of the geography was oh gosh another move what am I going to

do now or my client base is over here in Houston but now we're

moving to Kazakhstan or we're moving to Russia these were not

easy moves these were not moves to like oh I'm going from you

know DC to Alexandria no I'm going from Houston to Kazakhstan

or from New York City to Moscow or you know

so what yeah yeah yeah so so what I'm finding

interesting about that though too is that in all of these

moves and let me just clarify when you're doing this have your

kids grown up, or are you doing it with kids as well?

Oh no, with kids as well. I started my first my

first business that I my first entrepreneur business that I

launched. I was it was pre children. It was you know okay

so and so have you always because I'm have you

always needed or wanted to work?

Yes. I to me

that's the interesting piece there because

you you know probably could have just gone and enjoyed the new

culture and figured it out, but that's another level.

You know, yeah. I mean, it's the way I'm wired. I

grew up in a home. Both my parents were very hardworking.

I'm very blue collar. I don't even know if that's a word that

people use anymore. Yeah,

yeah. Well, I know what you mean. Yeah,

I mean, my dad was a commercial fisherman. My mom

was did not go to college, and I wanted out. I grew up in New

Jersey. Nothing wrong with New Jersey. I still love

it,

but I just wanted there had to be something more

for me. And my mom, who I have a complicated relationship, one of

the things, though, that she like ingrained in me was, you

can do anything you want, like get out of here, fantastic, do

it, and and I've I really I really took that to heart from

the you know from 10 years old on, and I was kind of that

naivety and fearlessness at the same time.

Fantastic. So a lot of people think. When people

reinvent themselves, that it's a solo act, something that you

know you push through, you white knuckle it alone. Was that your

experience, or did you lean on people more than it might look

from the outside?

No, I really never. It was never a solo act,

and I never go into it that way. I always surround myself with

people that are smarter than me that know the space. I do a lot

of I do a fair bit of due diligence before I make a

decision, especially a decision like launching Provoked magazine

or launching my consulting business, which was my most

significant enterprise that I founded prior to Provoked, and I

ended up running that consulting business for 15 years, and I I

immediately build a network because networking is is is so

important. You can't. It's very hard to build in in you know in

isolation. Right. Yeah.

So tell me about the moment that provoked went

from an idea to something real. Who were the first people who

believed in it before you had any proof that it would work?

Well, first I had to convince myself that I was

ready for a big pivot. It was right around my 60th birthday,

and well, actually, was about two years after my 60th. My 60th

birthday, I sold my consulting business, and I took about two

years off doing the normal things, you know, moving, moving

again, and planning a wedding, and then another wedding, and

you know, all all the wonderful things that you know I had the

liberty of doing. And then I kind of sat down, and

everything's quieted down, and the dust literally settled. And

I looked around, I'm like, okay, Susan, like tapping my nails,

like what do I do? My inbox is empty. Like like panic, my phone

isn't ringing. My inbox is empty. You know, I don't know

how to cope in this kind of world. And so I started looking

for the white space. Where are the opportunities? You know, and

and and taking a step back and doing a lot of like self

awareness checks on what am I good at? What do I still like to

do? What do I want to do? What do I still want to learn? And

then I I went out for the network right. So then I started

leaning into Facebook groups and other women groups and going on

LinkedIn and finding like, hmm, what are what are women talking

about? Women accomplished women over 50. What are they talking

about? What what is trending right now? What's missing in our

world, and it all roads came back to media that there isn't

specific media that that really honors women our age with their

wisdom and their storytelling, and so that's what I started to

lean into. So the moment came, and I started like noodling this

around and listened in a lot of rooms and a lot of Facebook

groups. Women over 50, women over 60, cool retired women,

retired women, reinventing women, all of it. And I was my

daughter and my husband. My husband is you know we've been

married 45 years, 40 almost 45 years. So he's always always

supporting my ventures and has always been a great partner. And

my daughter, who's brilliant and now in her 30s, and she's kind

of my my muse. And she gives me the kind of the litmus test,

like, Mom, you know, I'm going to tell you this as gently as I

know, but this I don't think this is a good idea. But with

this idea, she was like, "Go for it, Mom. This sounds like a

perfect culmination of all of your experiences and what you

love, what you love to do. And I think that you have a lot to say

and a lot to offer, you know, and and building a community and

building a media platform that hasn't been done before. So I

literally was, you know, sitting in a. There was a moment at a

cafe, and I was sitting with my daughter Skylar and her friend,

and I opened up GoDaddy, and we picked the name, and I bought it

at lunch over pizza, and I went home that night, and I told my

husband, "This is what I'm doing. Get ready.

That's fantastic. Why provoked?

Well, provoked because I wanted to make sure

that the the name and the brand that I was building, and I have

some background in branding. I used to teach at UCI, and I've

built brands. Had immediately you knew that you were in for

something a little different. That it wasn't, you know, the

problem with the tropes that women over 50 or the media has

for us now is that we're we're we're shrinking, we're

invisible, we're down in you know we're down sitting on a

rocking chair in Florida. Nothing against Florida, but

crocheting or knitting beige cardigans, and you know the the

the flame is gone. You know that's it. Well, I didn't want

that. I wanted something that was had some sizzle that had

some that had some pushback that where there was tension. Again,

where we lean into our stories, but we also say like, really,

like WTF? Like how did that happen? You know, and so the

word provoked came up. It was my daughter's friend at that lunch

that was like we were batting around ideas, and she was like,

"Susan, you're you're the one of the most provocative people I

know. What about what? Let's play with the the word provoked.

And it was really her that that gave me that idea.

Yeah, it has edge to it. It really does, and. And

it has it has like life to it, right? It's it's yeah.

It's it's got energy in it. Immediately you

like raise an eye. I can't you know an eye and like huh? What

is what is this? Okay, spoke me. You know yeah yeah. I've always

been known to ask questions, and you know that goes back to

relationship building and networking, right? Because when

you meet someone, it's like you know, you ask questions, you you

show interest in what they're doing, you you know, you have a

banter, you know, and that's what we try to do on Provoked is

we try to kind of light the match and get the fire going,

and then we we we encourage our community to come in and poke,

you know, and you know, and poke and throw some fuel on the fire

in the comments, and and they do. They show up and they do.

Oh, that's great. So you've built your masthead

around paying every writer, even the first timers coming through

your Dear Reader program. Where did that value come from?

Well, I've always been an independent thinker when

it comes to women and working, and women should be compensated

for their work, and women should certainly be compensated at an

equal rate as men. And it kind of still flabbergasts me that

you know women can go even to this day can go into jobs and

have the same exact grade and same job title, and they find

out in secret that the guy sitting right next to them is

making 20% more than they are. You know, and and again, not to

get into that whole debate, but I women should be paid for their

work, and oftentimes women because we're because we're

givers, because we're trained to be that, and because many of us

are, and we're like, oh, I'll write an article for free if you

just like, you know, let me have my name at the bottom. Like

you're asking for some huge paper, you should be paid. So I,

when I set up Provoked, even though it's it's a huge part of

my budget, is content writing, and I wanted to make sure that I

was bringing in both high level writers and also having a door

for other writers to come in that are either my audience or

maybe they only have one story in them, and I think everybody

should be paid. And I'm, I've done you know videos about that.

That there are a lot of sites out there where they don't pay

their writers, and I don't. No, that's great.

The thing, the thing that I that I'm curious

about. I think it's something in the notes that I saw that that

you know how important you say that storytelling matters, and

it does definitely. But the person that tells the story

matters even more, and I love that because I'm all about

relationships. And so, when you find when you get a new writer,

or you've just started with a writer, and you start to see

their work, when does that come to light for you? And how does

it? How you know? Do you build relationship with those writers?

And that's you see people change. You see, people when

they get to publish their work, they change anything like that.

Like I just feel like the fact that you know being able to put

your your stories in in print is one thing, but what does it you

know what does that do for you? Because I'm not a writer. I'm a.

I don't think I'm a writer. I'm a I'm a talker, right? Yeah.

Well, it's interesting because I don't

really classify myself as a writer either, but I have

written a few pieces for Provoked, and my team keeps

telling me you are a writer. Stop saying not a writer.

Yeah.

But it, you know, it's just a label. So we all

tell stories, and many of us can tell can can tell a story

verbally.

Yes.

And this almost tracks back to my my consulting

days when I was a college admissions consultant, which is

the business that I did, and which means that meant that I

worked with young adults and helped them develop their story

for their college admissions essay, which is in you know in

the U.S. a really important 620 word essay, and it was about

telling your story, and they would just freeze. They look at

the blank computer and they freeze. And I said, "Okay,

forget about writing this. And I would press record, and I would

say, "Talk to just tell me your story.

Yeah,

I would record it, and then literally after the

meeting, and they'd be like, "Okay, now, now where do I

start? And I said, "Okay, just hang with me for one second, and

I printed it out, and I turned the computer around, and I

showed them like, "Here's your story. Here's your essay. Now

let's just go edit it. And it was the most remarkable. And to

see their work in words, and it's it's really the same way.

Not not as much for my experienced writers, but going

back, women are not a monolith, right? We don't all have the

same story that would be horrible world, and sometimes

the women, even my my experienced writers, come in and

they don't because Provoke we have a very unique voice, and I

really want them to braid their personal story even into a

service piece, which is a little different than the norm. And you

know I'm trying to pull the story out of them, and it's

uncomfortable at first. But after we're done, and this goes

for my dear readers that come in as well, they they sit back and

they do kind of like, huh, wow, like that's that's that's cool,

you know, like it kind of takes my breath away that that's there

is my story now, like in writing, and and I'm allowing

other people to see it.

Yeah, yeah. I I I would imagine that some of them,

some of the writers coming and you going through that process

with them, they're looking for something, but they just don't

know how to find it themselves. So you become that coach in a

way to bring that out of them, and that would be really

rewarding. I think.

Yeah, I think I hope so. I think I know it

worked well in my consulting business, and so far, you know,

knock on wood. I think, especially with the writers that

aren't that don't see themselves in write as writers and aren't

experienced and are dear readers, which is really just a

marvelous program that we have, and it helps us again build that

community. And I've met so many amazing women, you know, through

that door that come in who have been lurking and you know

reading us, and they're like, "I have one story to tell. And some

of the stories are breathtaking. Give me an

example. Give me an example of something that

kind of floored you in that respect from the dear readers,

if you

can. I just read a piece that we're working on

right now, and she's a a caregiver for a a special needs

child, and it took my breath away, and it still does when I

even think about it at that burden of care that she has and

how she's so worried for her daughter with the infrastructure

or lack of infrastructure that we have, as her daughter's

getting older now, in her 20s, in her 30s, and and the mom, the

writer, is getting older, and she just wanted to tell this

story so badly, and so we, you know, we're helping her just

form this story so that because burden of care is something that

I'm very interested in, and I'm actually launching a vertical

because I think that it's affecting so many women, whether

or not it's a a child that has special needs, or parents that

we're now taking care of, or or a spouse or a partner, all of

it. Yeah.

So that's

just you know medical conditions, women women

that have survived, you know, massive heart attacks or cancer.

Women who are estranged. We had one woman come in who was

estranged from her children unexpectedly, which is also

unfortunately a trending theme now. And she she took her pain

and opened up, started a Facebook group, and so the the

essay was kind of about how she took that pain and pivoted into

community, you know, back into community and to help, you know,

sometimes you know, misery loves company share that pain and how

other parents are coping with the same situation. So a lot of

the themes that come through are are pretty heavy, more memoir

esque than maybe some of the articles that we run, you know,

from our my regular masthead writers.

That's yeah, that's cool. I I think that it

sounds as though the magazine-it's all online, right?

The magazine is all online. That the magazine is is serving a

much larger purpose than maybe you thought it would in the

first place, just based on on who's being attracted and what

they're writing about, but it's there for a reason.

Yeah, thank you. I think that's very nuanced of you

to like to pick that up. I I've started a lot of businesses, and

whenever you start a new business as an entrepreneur,

things you know, things unfold that you don't expect or what

weren't in your initial vision. Like you can't you know think

that far out. And I'm pretty good at now at like kind of

projecting like where is this going to go? What's the next

step? But but you really hit on something. I had no idea that we

were I was going to be nurturing this kind of storytelling, and

and and giving a platform for so many women to tell their stories

that have really don't have a platform at all. So yeah, it's

been very very rewarding and unexpected.

That's cool. So okay, I have to hark back though

to one of your previous careers that I'm fascinated to know more

about, and that's being a professional poker player. I

have to ask about that because I've played poker in Las Vegas

and been petrified about it. At the same time, I've also been

fascinated when I'm sitting. You know, I'm just a a tourist who's

in there playing poker because I like to play poker and it was

fun and learning from the old guy sitting beside me who knew

every you know every what do you call it like the

combination or play hand that too

but just the the names for the. Each card and the

river, and also talking to me about about tells. So, so I I

want to know how this how you got into this and and to what

extent and what you learned from being a professional poker

player.

Wow,

has nothing to do with now. And if you don't want

to talk about it, you don't. No,

no, not no. I love talking about playing poker. I

think it's it's so instrumental in like where I am today.

Really, it was one kind of the coolest, like edgiest pivots I

did, but it also has informed everything coming after

it. Okay, so it

it has was really it. You know, a lot of people

say like it's kind of my best story. Sometimes I going back to

your initial question. Sometimes I lead with, well, I played

professional poker in summer, you know. Yeah, and people guys

go like, wait, what?

Stop. Yeah, yeah.

So playing poker is decision making, like like

like speed dating. Your speed decision making. You're you know

you're playing a hand. You're getting dealt cards. You know,

every there. I played tournament Texas Hold'em.

Okay.

The reason I started playing was because we

had moved to Moscow, Russia. We've lived all over it. We've

had it. I've had an interesting life on top of it. As I said, we

lived. We lived in Moscow, Russia. We had been there a

couple of years. I had given up a very big job working for

Disney, and I was kind of lost. And I was, you know, you know,

itching to work, itching to do something, and we were limited

in what we could do. So the women, the expat women, would

get together and they would have coffees and they would have

bunko nights, and I just like sat there and I'm like, like so

not for me. I'm so type A, like hell yeah, yeah. And so you

know, I I just kind of ventured out, and there were a lot of

very like well maintained kind of safe poker rooms in in Moscow

and the city center, and I had a security person with me, and it

was it was all totally good. And I was I played poker. I grew up

with brothers, and I went to an almost all male college, and so

I I played poker and I knew the basics. I had never played, you

know, tournament poker or profession poker. Anyway, turned

out that I was quite good at it. I'm good with numbers. I have an

engineering background, and where where the where the real

significance comes in is it's decision making. It's reading

people. You go back to when you said the gals. Women have that

high emotional intelligence. Women are patient, so there you

have to wait in a tournament. You have to wait the hand, but

the decision making is is the most important because in poker

you're making decisions on incomplete information, and as

you are making pivots or you're reinventing, you're making

decisions on incomplete information, and so you have to

kind of measure your risk tolerance, right? Trust

yourself. I have a, I have a, like I'm, you know, I have a

high risk tolerance and an insatiable appetite, almost for

risk, and and a little bit of chaos. I and that's unusual,

right?

Yes.

But and then being underestimated at the table that

you're sitting at, which is a theme for women, you know, in

boardrooms, whether it was Nestle or Disney, both companies

I've worked for, whether it was sitting across from, you know,

in any scenario, women are typically underestimated, and

that is a real advantage in poker. So I sit down. I'm an

expat woman. I'm playing with most either very wealthy CEO

type expat men or Russian, and the Russians are very good poker

players. A lot of them on the are on the World Series circuit,

and they completely think that I'm like like my drop in. Oh, we

found a pats in here. Yeah, I

sit there quietly and shuffle my chips and wait

for the hand and yeah, so that's how it started and and I was

good at it. So I did it for four or five years and I was very

good at it. Yeah.

Oh, I love it. Yeah. So yeah, interesting. Very

interesting. So my husband loved to play poker, and I think

that's when I started to sort of get into it. We used to go to

Vegas a fair bit, but we weren't big spenders or anything. But

but then we started to play bridge, and it's a completely

different game and a very interesting game. I love bridge,

but he started to play it like he was a poker player, and you

can't do that in bridge, right? It's about communication, and

it's about yeah. So we've learned a lot about that, you

know, the transition. Yeah. So so, but I love cards. I grew up

with cards too. So

the other thing I just wanted one thing about

poker that might resonate with you know your audience that the

thing about poker playing that it it taught me, which is has to

do with discipline, which is also very important when you're

you know running a business, is that with poker, if you make a

bad decision, if I end up holding on to my my card, my two

aces, because I'm just in love with those cards and they're

really hard to put down. And the flop comes, which is the first

three cards, and I don't hit anything. And somebody is

betting heavily, and I go all in on my. All I have are two

fences,

and and I blow it, and I lose my chips, and I might even be out

of the tournament because I couldn't put those cards down.

It's being able to get back in half a minute later, 30 seconds

later, on the next hand, without letting that emotion attack you

and and and build in you, because if you go on, we call it

in poker on tilt. That means that you're you're completely

going like you're crashing and burning.

Yeah,

you can't win a hand in that in that state,

right?

Right.

So you learn to make decision after decision

after decision, and you know, in poker you win what 20% of the

hands, so you're making a lot of bad decisions, you know, or it

just didn't go your way because there's luck and and talent in

poker. So you're you begin to train yourself and discipline

yourself on how emotional you get and pick yourself back up

afterwards, and that's a really important skill that I've

learned along the way.

That's huge. I mean, I I also think of how do

poker players or any kind of gambling kind of situation where

how do people remember the or learn the percentages? Like,

okay, so you know, the you got the two aces, you you got the

two aces, and you're hanging on to them, but you see what's on

the the on the board, and and you see what what's showing, and

and you don't you know there's only one more nine out there or

whatever. Like, how do you get the percentages? Because I where

is it? I think it's even in bridge. I remember hearing

people saying that they learn those numbers, yeah, yeah, you

do. I mean,

it's it's a skill. It's it's playing professional

poker. You learn it like it's your job. Yeah, and some people

it's but it's wrapped in in it's wrapped with with a wrapper of

intuition around it, right? Because there's a lot of other

sensory things coming in. It's all it depends on who you're

playing against. It doesn't

depend

because there's the bluff, right? It doesn't,

and how far you know with my two aces now, I've got to bluff my

way through the end and hopefully push all my chips in

and make it look like I'm I I caught the flop. I caught it.

Yes,

there's at least another ace on the table. You

know, whatever it is.

Yeah,

and so you're betting against your other

players. You're betting against how they bet before the flop

came. There's a lot of intelligence that comes in, but

still not everything. And then you take all of that and you

process it as quick click click click because it's like 30

minutes, and you've got it. I mean, 30 seconds to am I going

to go or am I going to lay my cards down? And you make that

decision. So the numbers are one thing, but you're taking in and

and just like in a business decision, although in business

decisions you have more time, right? You can do your batting.

You can get as much of the information as you can. You have

time to have a pity party afterwards. But at the poker

table, you have none of that. It time is there is no time,

and you have to be disciplined. So disciplined

in so many ways, right? So and not chase your money, not chase

the cars, all of that.

It's a great training ground. It really is.

It's like almost every entrepreneur should go off and

play a little soap, you know, for a stint before they hit.

Yeah,

yeah. Although it's not for the. Yeah, my

father was a was a compulsive gambler, so I saw it from

different. Once we knew that, that's

yeah.

It's different. Yeah, it's you know. But anyway,

okay. So we were all about relationships here. So can you

think back to a relationship, maybe a mentor, a colleague, or

even a rival that changed the direction for you in one of your

pivots, one of your careers, in a way that you didn't expect?

Yeah. So starting my educational consulting

business, I I had we had just moved back from Russia. We moved

to Houston. I was getting my kids settled in high school, and

I was ready again, exploring like what am I going to do? What

am I going to do? And I my kids were in a in a my daughter was

in theater, and we hired a speech coach for her. And the

speech coach, you know, we got to know each other, and it turns

out that the speech coach was helping students write their

essays. You know, write essays, tutoring them, and and giving

you know interview lessons. And I got pulled in, and we got to

know each other. And she was she became my mentor. She. She said,

"You know, you're you're really good at this. You have a great

way of provoking. You know, young adults telling their

stories, and you have a. You know, you you get. They trust

you immediately, and that's that's hard to do, especially

with a high school, you know, student. Yeah,

for sure.

And you should try your hand at this. And so I

became kind of a ghost writer for her, ghost editor, if you

will, for some of her students. And she was very instrumental in

in terms of having a you know a mentor. And then as I I entered

the field and I I said, oh my gosh, this is like a real thing.

This is a real business. Like this could be a substantial

business. Which is what I did. I built a substantial business. I

joined an association, and it turns out there's an entire like

the education, professional educational, you know,

independent educational consulting association. I grew.

I joined committees. I rised up to be leadership in those

committees. That network was so instrumental in the growth of my

business and my authority and my brand and getting picked up for

you know press interviews. I would have had none of that if I

had worked in isolation. None of

it. It's you know what's fascinating to me when

you tell that story is it reminds me it's silly but it

reminds me that we don't know anything about a certain. You

know, it could be an industry, could be just. I'll give you the

silly example that I was thinking of. So when when I was

younger, my best friend's grandma used to go and play

bingo all the time, and so we'd go with her once in a while, to

the bingo hall, and play bingo. And when we went to play bingo,

every person that was the you know the the lifelong bingo

player, they set up shop. Right, they've got their different

colored daubers, they called them, and they've got their good

luck charms, and they've got everything set up. And there's a

whole like mini industry in the bingo world that I knew nothing

about, and it's the same with any institution or any any

industry that you think you know is very small. But like you

said, there was this thing that fanned out to all the different

associations and things that that made it grow, and you could

see how it how it works. I I find that so fascinating. It's

probably the same with the but with the poker players, right?

It's like there's a whole thing.

Yeah, there's a whole there's a whole world

there. Yeah, maybe a little speedier, but yes, there is.

Yeah, and there is a bridge too, as a matter of

fact. So, yeah,

with with with my college consulting in

particular. So I got so good at it, and the network grew. And

then I got called to be an instructor at University of

California UC Irvine because they needed instructors to

teach. There, it started the business really started picking

up. This is way before COVID, because I did this for 15 years,

and I was teach. I was now teaching. I was now a college

instructor, and like never in my wildest dreams, you know,

because my earlier pivots and my earlier enterprises were in

completely disparate kind of you know enterprises. They had

nothing to do with this, and this is a business I didn't even

know existed.

Yes. So

goes to show you that there is there's there's a

lot of opportunity out there, and you don't always know when

it's going to kind of it's going to present itself. You just have

to be able to know when it does present itself. Like, oh, maybe

there's something here. Yeah. Maybe this is maybe this is the

tentacles have to start working. Yeah. Yeah. So a

lot of, you know, there's a lot of my listeners these days who

are reinventing themselves, who are rebuilding something, or

they're leaving corporate, or you know, and they've left

corporate and they're trying to make it on their own, but maybe

it's not working. Maybe they need to do something else,

whether it's a business or just a sense of who they are, right?

Because especially women, we really need to feel that you

know we're we have a place, right? Other than at home, I

think for lots of us. So, what's one thing that you would share

with them that maybe you wish someone had told you before you

first, your first big reinvention, or or even talking

to the women that you talk to, you know.

Yeah. Well, I have one kind of big one, one like

mantra that I hang my hat on. And when I'm coaching women, and

I do some of that now, and we talk a lot about reinvention on

In Provoked, is there's all this there's this word passion,

right? Go find your passion. You know, women that are retired,

it's like they're told, go find your purpose, go find your

passion, and I'm just like, ew,

like

no. First of all, purpose is great, right? We all

need you know purpose serve your community, build a network, you

know, make money, whatever, right? Like, but but treat

purpose with lowercase p, not like there isn't this one big

maybe there is, but for most women there isn't,

right? So,

but passion and this this this was really like

if you could I could remove one word from the college admissions

lexicon because kids are set always ask what's your passion

and it's such bunk for you know for college kids as well they

don't

they're no idea

they have no idea you know maybe they like playing

basketball because you know they're on their to yeah

whatever and and it's a trap it's a trap for women as well

what I what I've learned in the second half of my. My an

entrepreneur journey, and now I'm into my third third because

now I'm cutting it from the pieces smaller. Yeah, look for

the opportunity, look for the white space, and then marry that

with what you like to do and what you're good at and what you

have the resources for. Right? There's more than just passion

because passion doesn't get you to the end to the end

successfully. It's those other. So that's what I did with

provoked with my college admissions. It was I was still

on the end where the opportunity presented itself, and I was

smart enough to say I don't know anything about this, but she

said I'm good at it, and I don't need any resources, and I'm on

my way to move across the world. So maybe I give this a try,

right? And I I like to talk to kids. I like to write. She says

I'm Bill Troy, you know. So I'm going to do this, right? Big

jump off the cliff, and I did it, and and I it worked. Yeah.

With provoked, there were you know I looked for the white

space. There wasn't any media that was serving us. I have an

armful of resources now. I'm building a network. You know,

even 15 months into this, I'm continually building my network

because there are a lot of things I don't know about media.

I've never been in media. My first line of defenses: I have

no idea what I'm doing, and yet I'm.

But

I know how to build businesses. I know how to build a team. I

know how to build trust. I understand business. Here I am.

Yeah, that's fantastic. All right, last

If someone is sitting on a story that they've never

told, maybe because they don't think of themselves as a writer,

what would you say to them?

I would tell them to journal. If they don't

journal, they should probably start journaling and write write

it down or write it down in snippets because writing a whole

story is very intimidating for people who aren't writers. But

oh, it doesn't have to be a fancy journal. It could be the

back one. I I write on I write on pieces of loose paper and

they're all over my desk, like all over, like a mad scientist.

And I write in pencil, old school pencils. This is like I

have fancy journals too. Yeah, but I love. But I break them out

for like the special occasion. Make notes. Write down what

you're thinking. Maybe it's the end of a long day, and you need

three sentences, and then start putting them together. And if

you have something and you're willing to share it, I'm I'm

willing to hear it. Like submit it to me, and there are other

places that you can submit it as well. Or maybe you've got the

makings of a memoir. I mean, so many women are self-publishing

these days, and sometimes even just self-publishing is maybe

there's something you need to get off your chest. Maybe it's

maybe it's survival for you. Maybe it's healing. There's a

lot of different reasons why writing can be so lethargic,

right? Or not not lethargic. I'm sorry, that's the wrong word.

But like so healing, so so useful, and so yeah. I mean,

there's there's a lot of different reasons, and like

follow follow that feeling and and let it go.

Yeah, that I think that's great advice. I

think that it's he it is healing to write it down. I don't do it

very often myself, but I I feel as though there's in this part

of my life. I think I need to do some of that. Mainly for me, I

think of capturing things for my grandchild that, that you know,

I may not be able to tell her later on when she's older,

because I won't be here anymore. So things like that. I mean,

gosh, when my mom became a grandma, she was 45. You know,

when I became a grandma. I was a lot older than that, and you

know it's just not the same anymore. Kids are, you know. But

anyway, so this has been delightful. I'm going to ask you

one last question because I want to talk to you about it further

when we get off air because we talked about it when we were

talking the first time. When you read, do you read real books? Do

you listen audible books? Do you have e-books? What do you like

to do? Because I know you like to read, and I

know I read mostly nonfiction.

Yeah,

unless I'm in a book club. I'm in a couple of

different book clubs, and we're just kicking off our own book

club. And occasionally I'll read fiction, especially if it's

trending and I feel like it's something that dips into what I

need to know about provoked or what is this. I do both. I

prefer reading when I'm reading something. A lot of the

nonfiction books I read are pretty heavy. They're you know

they're deep dives and they're technical, or they're they're

you know everything from stoicism to dying to AI to the

you know 1929 crash to right now I'm reading moral economics. I

mean they're pretty they're pretty heady books, and and I do

a lot of mind mapping. You know when I'm when I'm reading them

and I'll. Sketch out, you know. Oh, this is an idea that I want

to take, and now I want to write write a big idea about this.

Yeah,

audio books. I whenever I'm I'm getting ready in the morning, I

have I have different kinds of books that I keep on audio, and

I just so I can listen to a chapter or listen to, and I have

so if I'm loading the dishwasher, whenever I'm walking

around the house, whenever I'm doing anything, there's a

there's a book going, and I have my little collection there. And

then when I'm actually like resting at night, if I still

have like 30 minutes before my eyes are shutting, I read and I

read in the morning. So

that's yeah, it's fantastic. This has been

delightful. I so appreciate your time and your stories, and I

want my audience to my audience to know where they can find you

and where they can find your magazine. So I can put it in the

show notes, but go ahead and just share that for

us. Yeah, it's provokedmagazine.com. That's

where you can find us. We have a free newsletter that we send out

every Thursday. I would love for you to subscribe. That's the

best way to make sure that we publish four articles a week,

and that Thursday newsletter basically dumps those four new

articles every week. And usually we cover there's a wellness

article, there's either a money article or a humor article,

there's usually a culture article, and then there's always

one dear reader piece, and if you're if you're a reader or

you're an audience member and you want to dip your hand into

you've got something that you want to say, go to the footer of

our website and it'll say submit a pitch and just click on that

and will it has all kind of the the process if you have

something that you want to share with us. I read all of them

personally. It is a competitive program. You can also find me on

Instagram, but my Instagram handle is Provoked by Susan, as

opposed to Provoked Magazine, and that's where I share my hot

takes. I do a lot of reels. I talk about a little provocative,

a little more provocative on Instagram than I might be in

some of my articles, so there's lots of ways to find me. Thank

you so much,

and so I encourage you to check out

Susan's magazine, Provoked, and to if you're a writer thinking

about doing something, check out her Dear Reader program and give

it a give it a go. So thank you for being here, Susan. Thank you

to my audience, as always, for being here. And remember to stay

connected and be remembered.