Normal 40: The Podcast with Lon Stroschein
Episode 3: The Trade
Lon: [00:00:00] Hi, this is Lon Stroschein, and congratulations on finding the Normal 40 podcast. If you found me. Well, it wasn't by accident. This just might be the first day of the rest of your life. And I'd be honored if you join me on my journey. Or better let me join you on yours. Dude, if you're here, then it's clear we're going to be good for one another. And let's face it, the price is right for both of us. I'm going to see you on the next page, boss.
Adam: [00:00:48] Welcome back to Normal 40, The podcast. My name is Adam Eaton. I am one of your co-pilots and I am joined by the lead pilot, a dude you need to know. His name is Lon Stroschein, and Lon is the founder of Normal 40. Lon, welcome back in to your own show, frankly. Glad to have you back.
Lon: [00:01:06] Well, I'm glad to be back. Hey, if I ever am uninvited, can you let me know?
Adam: [00:01:11] Yes. You'll be the first one to know that you are uninvited from your own show. It'll be awkward, but I have a feeling you can take the feedback Lon. And I know that because I read your stuff religiously. So if you found this show, you've probably found it because you've had some interactions with Lon, maybe on LinkedIn, maybe on his website. Maybe through some other means. You've heard Lon, maybe in other shows. And if you read Lon, if you talk to Lon enough, he says one phrase a lot that I really want to dive into on today's episode. Lon, you talk a lot about the trade and making the trade. There's affording the trade, there's living the trade. You talk a lot about the phrase the trade, and I want to spend today's episode diving more into what the trade really is, what it means and how you came up with it. So let's just start at the very basic sort of zoomed out view. What the heck is a trade? What do you mean by the phrase, The Trade? What is that?
Lon: [00:02:11] Oh, man, I'm so glad you brought this up. First of all, I thought you were going to say, when there's a word I always use, I thought you're going to say, dude, but.
Adam: [00:02:17] Episode four, check back for that.
Lon: [00:02:20] All right. The trade. Yeah, man. So I came across this kind of by accident. There again. Look, I'm telling you the story of me. So if you're listening and I'm in your head and you're back because something's resonating, all I'm doing is sharing my story with you. And it happens to be the same. And there's thousands of you. So normal 40. The trade for me. I'm 48 now. When I was 44, I started to show up to work and I would ask the quintessential question that we all wrestle with at some point, is this it? You know, and we've talked in the past about the emotions and the feelings and all of that and why you don't take an action and why you just show up again tomorrow like you did yesterday. All those things, we talked about them and they're all real. And we're going to continue to talk about them because they happen if you're listening to this, chances are better than 90% it's exactly what you're feeling. And so what you want is you want what happens next in your life to be something similar to what has already happened in your life. You want to be sitting in your office doing good work, leading a good team, and your boss come in or a headhunter to call you up and say, Hey Adam, we think you'd be great at X. We want to pay you more, to do more, to have a bigger title, to have a bigger team. And congratulations now you're a upper management.
[00:03:46] And then five years later, Hey, Adam, guess what? We want you to do a little bit more. We love the work you're doing. We want you to be an executive in our company. And so in there, just there are things that come to you and you didn't really have to trade anything for them. You just did them. They were the next thing, the next promotion. Maybe you switched companies, but you're probably doing the same thing. But they just were things that happened and they didn't really require a trade. At least not one that you ever thought of intentionally. Oh, I got to give something up. It was like, hell yeah, man, this is what I'm supposed to do next. I'm going to make more. We're going to have a bigger house. I'm going to drive a nicer car, I'm going to take better vacations. I'm on. And so you go. But Normal 40 is different. What you're feeling now isn't that. It isn't that. And it's for different reasons. But one of them is, the off ramps are fewer. As we age the number of opportunities because we're higher in companies. Plus our experience is let us do a certain place. The number of new opportunities goes down.
[00:04:56] So the number of off ramps from the life you have start to go down. And so you don't have that steady cadence of every five years having a new opportunity or new challenge. So you just kind of show up, you keep showing up and eventually you hit autopilot and you get to this place where you still have the stress, you're still doing good work, but you're feeling like you're on autopilot. It's like, I know, I know. For me, I was 45. I'm like, I know the best years in my life are still in front of me. I know my core gifts have so much more to give than I'm using them now. And I know that I have wonderful, wonderful opportunities to change the world. And I know I can't do it sitting in this desk. I know it. But for me to do something about it required me to give something up. It requires you to leave something behind. And these will be the hardest things you can imagine to leave behind. Here's a few of them. Probably pay. For me I went from embarrassingly good pay to zero, fact. Number two image. I went from public company executive to a dude on the Internet, fact.
[00:06:28] Three, title. I went from executive director of mergers and acquisitions to a guy who writes LinkedIn posts, fact. I mean, these are the things I'm surrendering as I'm walking out the door. I left a cushy fifth floor corner office for my living room, fact. So, here's my point. Why a trade? Because if you don't look at it as a trade and you think, well, maybe I can get both. Maybe I can carry out this mission to help 1000 dudes write their second half story and be a public company executive. Guess what? You never do. You never get on a mission. You never get a mission. You can do it for a while. And you know, if it's possible for you, you should. You should transition over time and start building before you quit if you can. I didn't. I don't regret it. I traded. I traded it in the moment because I knew if I would have stayed, I never would have went all in. I had to trade it.
[00:07:38] So I used the word trade because it's a non-negotiable. And when you think about that. You can't do a half trade. You're all in. You trade it. And I use the term to prevent my readers, the people who are wrestling with shit from feeling like they can have it both ways. As much as I would love for you to do that, as much as I would love to have had that [], it doesn't work that way. At some point you will make a trade or you won't. And so I use black and white gloves off terms like trade, so that you realize at some point you're in control. You are in control. I was in control of my life. You are in control of your life. That doesn't make it easy. In fact, it makes it hard. It makes it even harder because it's your life and it's your trade and it's your image and it's your income and it's your family. It makes it harder when it's your trade. But it is a trade and you own it. That's the other term I use a lot, you own it. I can sit here and coach you all you want. You can hate your boss all you want. You can love your boss all you want. You can hate your company and love your company. You can love your job or hate your job. You can love the project or hate the project. The fact of the matter is, it is in your control. The options might not be great. But you own the trade. You'll trade to stay or you'll trade to go. But you own it.
Adam: [00:09:09] You said something that I want to get back to. You used a phrase in that that I think was really interesting. You called it being on mission. And I think about a trade. You trade in baseball cards when you were a kid or you trade maybe on a madden video game or fantasy football or whatever. And trades about value. It's about getting value back when you're five and you're trading baseball cards with your cousin in the driveway, you don't care. You just want more cards. You want the big names, right? You don't really know what value is. But when you get to the spot where normal 40 something you're thinking about, the value is important. So, you know on one side of what you're trading for, you mentioned all that. It's the fifth floor office. It's all that stuff. But the other side is an unknown. And I think that's what's interesting is you talk about being on mission and I got to think Lon and correct me or kind of help me understand this, being on mission, I think is a big part about understanding whether or not that's a trade you want to make or that's trade you can make at that point in time, because trading for nothing probably isn't the best proposition. But explain to me more about what being on mission means and how it relates to making the trade overall.
Lon: [00:10:18] Absolutely. So I'm going to start with there again, connecting the listener with what they're feeling, if I were to guess. You've reached this point in your life. You're doing good work, you're making good money, probably better money than you ever expected. And you're working around people who've taken a risk on you. You're leading people who have also taken a risk on you and you've taken risks on them. You're doing the work that you set out to do ten years ago. You're living the life you set out to create for yourself ten years ago, and you're having success at it. But at the same time, you have this calling, and I don't know what else to call it other than a calling. You've got this feeling and it's not a head feeling. It's top of mind. It's not the same part of your brain that's worried about that and is also worried about the memo you haven't completed yet today that your boss wanted. Now that's different. It's in your gut. It stirs. It's what wakes you up. It's that fricking feeling in your stomach that wakes you up and you don't know how to name it. You don't know what to call it. You just feel it and it's annoying and you just survive it. And you go back and you go get back into your head and you go finish the fricking memo before your boss calls. That's how it works.
[00:11:29] So you're at that point. You're at that point, you got the success and you get to this point, it's like this feeling in my gut is calling me. I feel like my best days are in front of me. But they're not here. The job I'm doing won't allow me to unlock them. So you get to this point where money is no longer the primary motivator. And when you get to that point and you can look me in the eye or look your wife in the eye, or look your friend in the eye, or look yourself in the mirror and say. I would trade it. I would trade all of this. I know I would. I would trade my image. I would trade my income. I would trade my title. I would trade my office. I would trade it. If I only knew what I was going to trade it for. I don't know what I'm going to trade it for. So, you know, this is where so many dudes find me. They're like, Yes, I feel this. Your words are in my head. I've got all these feelings, all these feelings that you talk about the discontent, the guilt, feeling alone, the fact that sometimes when I want more, it feels so selfish. Why wouldn't I just be happy with what I've got? I'm angry at myself. I feel that, I feel lost. This isn't my place. All those things. And I've got a list of 58 others that dudes have told me sitting right in front of me. All these feelings that you have.
[00:12:54] You've arrived at this place where you've reckoned with the fact you're willing to trade it. And don't underestimate how fricking awesome that is. Think about it. Your last ten years mission, which was to just achieve success. You're willing to trade it and that is something. Just dwell on that. Okay fine. Now the most frustrating thing in the world happens. What in the hell am I going to trade it for? Who am I? How do I not know this? How do I not know what it is I'm wired to do with the rest of my life? I'm a fricking public company executive. What the hell is this all about? Who doesn't know this? Well, just about everyone, in fact. And it's what the normal 40 is. Everybody listen to this podcast. I would suspect 90% of you, I just flicked you in the forehead and you're like, Holy shit, man, this dude is exactly right. I would trade it if there was only something that was not about the money but was on mission. If it put me in the mindset where I used to feel like I was crushing it when I used to have the energy that I knew I was doing good work for good things. And I was growing and I was helping and I was moving things forward. All of the things when I felt that way, if I could just get that feeling back, I would trade. I would trade my money to make less, to have that feeling back if I could only get on mission.
[00:14:26] But I'm telling you, it took me years, years, years, years, years. Listen to that. It took me years from the moment I felt exactly what I just described to you. To figure out what my mission was. It took me four years. Now I didn't do it right. And we can talk about that. I didn't do it right, but it took me four years to get on mission. And once I was man, once I was. The easiest thing in the world for me was to make the trade. I had an offer. It was fully negotiated. I spun the piece of paper back around and I said, You've been spectacular. I couldn't be a bigger fan of this company. My future isn't here. I got a mission and I'm going to go carry it out.
Adam: [00:15:13] Well, I'm curious. Any good interview would have to follow up with. You said you made some mistakes. What are those? What are those mistakes Lon? What are those things that, you know, you look in the rearview mirror now and you say, I see the potholes. I kind of ran over on this journey.
Lon: [00:15:26] I did all the classic mistakes that probably there. Again, 90% of the people listening are doing right now. They're feeling it and not socializing it. They feel it. Either in post or in the last 10 minutes, have just described 80% or 90% of what you're feeling. And I would ask you right now, in your mind, write a list of people who know exactly how you feel. My guess is there's one name on the list for half of you. For 25% of you there's two. For the other 25% of you, there's none. And I know that because I interview people, I have statistics that back that up. So you know how you feel. You've articulated that you might not be with your company in five years from now. In fact, you probably don't think you will be because you got there's something brewing. Your best years of your life are in front of you. You know that. You're here because you feel that. You're here listening to this podcast because goddammit, the best years of your life are just right in front of you. But then you balance all of that with the frustration of not knowing what mission is.
[00:16:43] Well, who the hell do you tell that to? Who do you say, Hey, I don't really know what I want to do, but I'm going to leave my job in a few years and I'll figure it out. Maybe you can tell your wife and hopefully you can, because that's super important. But usually you don't. So mistakes I made. I waited way, way, way too long to bring my wife into the conversation. And it got remarkably better the moment I did. Because here's why, man. The least surprised person in the world. When I told her how I was feeling about a job I loved and a boss I loved and co-workers I loved. But there was a calling in me, the least surprised person in the world about me just trying to dance around this delicate conversation with my wife. Maybe my work here is done. Maybe I want to go launch my own business. She was the least surprised person in the world. She knew how I felt because I would come home grumpy. I would work weekends. I was always on answering emails. This was not a surprise. What was a surprise is that I finally had the courage and the vulnerability to talk about it. That was the surprise. And once I did that, I wish I had done that earlier.
[00:18:00] The second major, major mistake is that's where I stopped. I didn't talk to people who had done it. I didn't I didn't reach out. There are hundreds of people probably in my own community I could have reached out to and said, Hey, man, I got to tell you, I love my job. I love what I'm doing. But hey, if I wanted to start my own business, what advice would you give somebody who's making money and has to take a step down and you know, what are some things I should be thinking about? I didn't do that. You know what I did? I went and I paid thousands and thousands of dollars to go get an executive coaching certification from one of the best executive coaches in the United States. And why did I do that? Yeah, I wanted to be an executive coach. I wanted to help people, but I wanted to figure myself out. I spent thousands of dollars instead of a free conversation over coffee to figure myself out.
[00:18:57] And as much value as I got out of executive coaching it slowed me down by years because I didn't talk to someone. I went through the process of self diagnosis because that's what dudes do. I didn't want to tell anybody how I was feeling. I'll self-diagnosis, I'll fix it. I got this. I'm a fixer, I'm an executive. Look, watch me fix this. Well, I did. But the trade, three years.
Adam: [00:19:28] As I hear you talk about that, I think one of the things that comes up a lot is it's identifying when you want to make that trade. And I think that becomes obviously the biggest challenge, right? That's why we're all here to figure out when we're ready to make that trade. And I think as I think through that, I harken back to some of my own history and my own journey. And for me, I'm going to use the phrase masking. And I'm curious if you've seen this before from others, you start to mask what the real issue is with other issues. So for me, my journey, I lived in one area of the country for most of my life and I got moved to a new area of the country for a job. And I was living out there for a couple of years. Things were going great. And I think you describe that first feeling. I think those were those first feelings. But, you know, when I did Lon, I said, you know what? I just don't want to live here. I want to move. I need to get back home, right?
[00:20:18] So I put my nose to the grindstone. One of my least favorite words you said it earlier is grind. Grind just has such a negative connotation to me. But I put my nose to the grindstone. And guess what Lon? I found an opportunity, got myself back closer to home and I was there. I won. Like I'm on the mountaintop. I'm celebrating. And a few months in I go, You know what? I don't still got that feeling. But you know what it is? My boss. I just really don't jive with my leader right now. This is just a tough leadership. I don't think I want to be a part of that. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to make a change. That's the problem. It's the boss, right? You go back, you grind, you find the new opportunity. And it wasn't until like three opportunities later that I said, you know what, man? I know what the problem is now, and it's the guy looking in the mirror. But I masked it for so long with location, with title, with leadership, not realizing all along the issue was really me and not an issue, I guess. But the the calling, the problem was me. And that's when I sat down and said to myself, Now to use your words, where is the trade? Where can I make a trade at this point? But I feel like similar to you, I gave up so many years of not knowing that I was in that space to make the trade. I was in the space to start thinking through that. And I'm curious if you see that a lot or if you experience that on your journey, just masking those feelings, hiding them, attributing them to something else that has nothing to do with the reality, which is there is one thing that changed and that was you, my friend.
Lon: [00:21:49] Yeah. Oh, man. But I think you nailed it. So the old adage, no matter where I go, dammit, there I am. I mean, it's so true, but. I think, and I'm sure there's know I'm not a doctor, I'm not a Ph.D., I'm not a psychologist, blah, blah, blah. But I talked to a lot of dude's men, and we go through something. Something happens in the middle part of our life. And there's usually some consistencies. When the number of heads in your house are closer to going down, then going up. In other words, your kids are getting old and they're about ready to move out. Something happens. When you start doing. And I think that's the biggest driver. And then you start doing this math and my guess is that there again, a vast majority of the people who are listening have a spreadsheet. I had one, the spreadsheet of, when do I have enough? When can I quit this shit, man? How many more years? And here's what you'll do. Do you want me to tell you what your spreadsheet is? I could build it. I bet I would love it if people would pull up their spreadsheet. Here's what you did. Here is my net worth. Insert number. Here is how much money I make. Insert number. Here's how much of that money I make that I'm going to invest. Here's my number. Here's how many years I'm going to be able to make that investment. Here's my number. By the time I'm seven years older than whatever age you are right now. How much will I have? And is that enough? And that's just the math you do. And that's part of the process we go through. But I think there's something clinically, physically, mentally that just changes it in us. And what we care about isn't the success. It isn't the next promotion. That's why we quit volunteering for some of the high profile opportunities in the company. I did. I quit volunteering for him. I get asked to him and I thought I did a pretty great job, but I quit saying, Hey, I'll do that.
[00:24:11] That's a sign, man. That's a sign because I didn't need that success anymore. That wasn't what was fueling me. But what was starting to fuel me is the things that made me feel like I was helping people, things that made me feel like I was having an impact. Things that made me feel like because of me, I helped. Things are better. Somebody has a better life. Those were the things that were starting to drive me, which is where I started down this path. Now back to masking. At some point, you've got to decide which of these masks either you want to keep wearing or you want to shed. And obviously the easy answer is we'll just shed the mask. Yeah. Okay, Right. You wouldn't be listening to this podcast if you have that ability to just do that.
[00:25:09] So just think about that. And it's hard. It is really, really hard. But at the end of the day that's ultimately what you want, because the only way you're going to live the life you want. And I'm not talking money. I'm not. I'm not talking the financials. I'm talking about the feeling in your gut, the feeling that you're after. The only way you do that is to live in your mission and to know what it is and to trade for it. And that is not easy.
Adam: [00:25:45] Well, you said, you say make the trade and it sounds easy, but I know it's not. What are the myths about making the trade? As I imagine there are some people who have grandiose thoughts about it. They have negative thoughts about it as you think about making the trade. What are the things that you find true about making the trade? What are the myths also about making the trade?
Lon: [00:26:07] Yeah, I think a lot of people feel like, you know, I shouldn't want to make a trade. And there's myths and flawed assumptions about it. And some of the flawed assumptions are, you know, gosh, I'm alone. I'm going through this alone. There Again, I'm going to use me because I'm here and I have my permission. Who would leave their job as a public company executive? Without a single client and say, I'm going to figure out how to help 1000 dudes write their second half story. Who would do that? So, the assumption is I'm alone. That's a flawed assumption. The fact that there's more than two people who will listen to this podcast will tell you you're not alone. I think there's a flawed assumption about a spouse, that your spouse doesn't want you to trade.
[00:27:05] I think you assume when you get home, your job is to be as happy as you can be, even though that's you're still going to be kind of pissy and grumpy because that's your M.O. and you'll be kind of quiet and you'll put on your best face, especially for your kids, more for your kids and your spouse. Face it. That's how it works. But you have also there's this assumption that my wife really doesn't want to hear about the shit I'm going through. And that is a flawed assumption. And the other thing I would say is we assume that the life we live to provide, the lifestyle we have is what your family expects. And I think if you're operating under that assumption and you don't know what your family really wants. You're going to make some bad decisions about where you spend your time and how long you stay in places you don't want to stay. Because my guess is when you have the conversation with your wife, with your kids and your best friends and you say, Here's what I'm doing and it's really great, but here's what I want to do and here's what I think I can do with it. And here's what I think it would do for people. And by the way, this would make me feel significant, so make me feel admired.
[00:28:32] Oh, isn't that such a bad word? I want to be admired. Bullshit. It's a wonderful word if you're doing it for the right reasons. And I think the flawed assumption is that you shouldn't want those things. When the reality is those things are beautiful if applied right. And you need to attack them and be okay with them. And those are just a couple of the flawed assumptions that I think people have when they're thinking about the trade. Is this my time? Isn't my time. You have to own who you are. You have to own who you are. And there's a really good chance that you spent the last ten years of your life becoming who you aren't. You didn't get it wrong. You didn't do it wrong. You didn't. Your ladder's not against the wrong wall. All that stuff people talk about. It's just that you make decisions at 35 that are different than the decisions you make at 45. And that requires you to do the math, do it differently, and it requires you to follow who you are. And that's the trade.
Adam: [00:29:40] It's also sounds like what you're saying is that you have to give yourself the permission to evolve. You have to give yourself the permission to say it's okay if I'm not me at 35, it's okay to be me where I am right now. You know, there's that old phrase, you know, be where your feet are. If my feet are right here at 45. And this is what I'm thinking, it's okay to do that. And I think for some folks, there's a lot of stigma in that. There's a lot of stigma about saying, well, this is how it's always been. This is how it's supposed to be. It's how I saw my granddad do it right or whatever that old chestnut might be. But it's almost like you need to give yourself permission to evolve. And for some reason why is it so hard for men specifically to give themselves permission to feel? I feel like at its core, that's one of the biggest challenges that when I read the stories. And some of the folks who have reached out to me is giving themselves permission to have feelings, giving themselves permission to say, I'm not the same person I was. And you know what? That's okay, too.
Lon: [00:30:43] Yeah, you nailed it. And I think I talked about it. What you're feeling is if I quit my job, there again we're talking about me. I did quit my job. And I would think, what are people going to think of me? And here is where that conversation in my head started. People are going to think I couldn't hack it. I quit. I couldn't hack it. People are going to think I didn't get a job offer. I didn't get an offer to stay. So he's out, I got canned. Poor bastard. Sorry about his life. People are going to think I flamed out. I couldn't. It was too much, flamed out. They're going to think I did something wrong and got canned. They're going to make up and I would think through all of these things that people must be thinking about me. And those things are important. I mean, we're dudes and we spent the last ten years of our lives building that and the image and the ego that goes with that, the ability to get meetings and have conversations just based on our title. Those things are real. And you have to lay them down. You have to lay down the title, to lay down pay, you have to lay down your image, you have to lay down your your office. You lay them down.
Lon: [00:32:07] And what are you taking on? What are people saying about me? They're going to think I flamed out. They're going to think all these things. But what you realize is it doesn't matter, man. It doesn't matter. It goes back to when you were on a mission. Here's what's going to happen. All those people who said I flamed out, couldn't hack it, the 70 hour week got to him, blah, blah, blah, Those are the same people who in the first six months after you leave are going to send you an email. And say, Hey, can we go for coffee? I'd love to hear how things are going again. I'm thinking about doing something similar. I'd love to have a few minutes of your time. That's how my whole business started. I did it, I wrote about it. And then people came out of the woodwork saying, Hey, shit, don't tell anybody. But I feel the same way. Can you help me figure out how to do this? And that's how normal 40 came to be. But yeah, it's all those things you got to lay down. All those things you got to pick up and then to have the courage to stand in it. But when you're on mission, it is remarkably easy.
Adam: [00:33:19] Can somebody ease into the trade? I imagine there's somebody out there who's thinking, okay, I feel these things. I recognize I'm at that point. But they're not quite comfortable laying down the things you're talking about. And my suspicion is, this is just a guess. This is no research. My suspicion is compensation and pay are probably one of the bigger hurdles to lay down and to make the trade. But maybe someone wants to ease into it. I'm going to ease into, I'm going to do something part time, I'm going to take on a couple of hobbies, I'm going to try to do something else. Does that work? Can you ease into the trade? Does it have to be full jump into the deep end or can you dip your toe in that shallow end and just wade your way through the water?
Lon: [00:34:00] Yeah, so here's where I want to start that conversation. I don't accept. I wouldn't tolerate and I absolutely loathe quite quitting. I think it's criminal. I think it's fraud. I don't think It's anything you should consider. Quite quitting for me, my interpretation is I've already quit. I'm just going to quit doing work and I'm going to continue to get paid and go over here. So let's start there. I do not support that. But I do think, look, we put in all the time we need to get work done. Nobody who's listening to this podcast is half assed in it. You wouldn't be listening. The things I say wouldn't even resonate with you. You're not a half answer. You're here because you're a doer. You get shit done and you have lived a good life by the book. You've done good things and you've surpassed your own expectation. Okay, that's the audience. Welcome. You're not going to quite quit anyway. So you've been working all of these hours. You can dial back from 65 or 70 hours to 60 or 65 hours. That's not quite quitting, dog. That's prioritizing. That is a place where you quit giving up more of your freedom. And you're taking that back and you can deploy that on a Thursday evening instead of doing work memos. You can deploy that into what I call learning and investing.
Lon: [00:35:40] And that is just exactly what you said. Hey, is there a board I can get on? Is there a coffee I can have in the next few weeks? I think I want to do X. I think I want to become an executive coach. Who's a coach I can go talk to about? What that looks like? What help is out there that exists? All of those things. And that is a wonderful way to just dip your toe in the water to get some sense of, okay, what would be possible? And then do I like it? Do I like the conversation? What are my possibilities? And absolutely you can start on the side for me. Before I was formally gone, I had a client. I had a paid client. Guess what? It was 2 hours a week. It didn't impact one iota my work that I was doing for the company. And it allowed me to get so much clarity on what I did and didn't like about coaching, the type of business I did and did not want to create. And it gave me courage to make the trade when the time came.
Adam: [00:36:48] Let's talk about the timing of the trade. I think that's a huge part of this, too. I imagine you've seen this on both sides, people who are ready to make the trade and don't. And people who aren't ready to make the trade and then do. Both of them in my opinion, I'm curious your perspective equally as dangerous when is it not the right time to make the trade? Who's out there that's thinking, all right, I'm in, man. I'm making the trade. I'm doing right now. I'm calling somebody. That you'd go, Whoa, slow down, boss. Like you're you got to get some ducks in a row here. When's a good time to not make the trade? Because I feel like there's people who probably think that they're ready, but they're really not ready. What are those warning signs?
Lon: [00:37:31] Well, I guess these are probably going to be super obvious. If you really have not even a month's reserve and you really don't know what on mission looks like for you, you're just not ready. Now you're not ready to actually trade, but that doesn't mean you're not ready to start the plan. I mean, you could plan for this for like I said, it took me four years, maybe even longer. If I really went back to when I really started sketching out, Hey, what is this? What's in me? When I really started to get curious, it was at least four years. So It might not be your time to trade where it's like, Hey, I'm out. Here we go. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm out. It might not be that time, but man if you are feeling that there might be a trade, there's no reason, zero reasons to not start giving it your curiosity. Because let's face it, shit happens. I showed up every day and I had a job. But there could have been any day especially as you grow in your job. In this world the higher you get, sometimes the easier you are to clip. So having some time into consideration, having a plan to have a plan is even a plan.
Lon: [00:39:04] Having making your first call, the first time you talk to me, that is an action. Those are things that are free. They're available. They're here. They're now. And they're progress. And so while the trade is, it's going to look different, feel different and come across different for every single person. And it's never going to feel like a good time. Never, ever. It's always going to be the hardest decision you'll ever make, no matter what. I promise. The trade is going to feel like tomorrow will be better. One more bonus will be better. One more paycheck will be better. Man, if I just make it to a year end, I think we're going to hit a big bonus. One more set of stock options. All that bullshit. All of it is going to make the trade easier tomorrow. But there will be a day when the trade day comes and you'll do it. But preparation for the trade, that can start today no matter what. You can be 23 and start thinking about all right, well, what does this look like? Let's put some time into this. You don't have to and you shouldn't wait until you're like, I've had enough. I'm out now I've got to figure out what mission looks like.
Adam: [00:40:15] Well, it sounds like the key takeaway. The trade is not a singular moment. It's not a Tuesday, a 2:30 p.m., I'm making trade. It sounds like what you're saying that the trade is a journey. The trade is an evolution. It's not a singular moment in time. While there may be, the decision point comes down to one day where you actually say the words out loud and make the actual tactical move. But it sounds like maybe one of the myths that people might hopefully don't take away from this is that, the trade is not a singular moment. It's not a moment in time. It's a journey through time.
Lon: [00:40:48] Oh, you're so right. The actual action of doing the trade. Yeah, man, that takes time. But the process that takes a long time. The process to feel like you know what you're going to trade it for, even though it's unclear, even though you don't know how it's going to pay the bills, even though all those things. You won't do it in less than six months. I've never met anyone yet who goes from, I'm starting to feel this way. Maybe I should give it some thought to knowing in six months. I haven't seen it. So plan on some time. It takes time. It takes preparation. And like I said, find somebody who's done it. If ever there's a place to spend money man, if ever there's a place, wouldn't you think that maybe how to live your second half of your life where you're in control, you've got freedom, you're you're happy, you want to be around your family, they want to be around you and you're on mission? Don't you think that's a place that maybe you should throw a few bucks? There's people who help you. There are people. That is what they do, and you should do it.
Adam: [00:42:03] That's a powerful message again Lon and we should probably end on that note there. But before we do, other people that are willing to help you as somebody like yourself, tell the folks out there listening more about the Normal 40 mission. And where they can connect with you and find more information about what you're doing and the resources you're providing.
Lon: [00:42:20] Yeah, man. So I'm pretty easy to find because I'm not in a ton of places. LinkedIn, you can follow me, Lon Stroschein at LinkedIn. You can follow a Normal 40 on LinkedIn, but most of my stuff is on my personal page. And then I've got a private group inside of LinkedIn. It is free. I put a little bit more content in there, but the people in that group, those are the people listening to this podcast. Those are the people who are wrestling with the trade and they're trying to get prepared for it. And they're doing the work and it takes work. And then normal40.com is another place that you can find me. And we're going to continue to put more and more and more materials there. And then of course, there's this podcast that you're putting together Adam. That's right here and we hope that you subscribe. And we love your feedback. And I want to say one more thing man, this podcast is for you. Who's ever earbuds this is flown into. If you're not getting value out of this, tell us what would give you value? What is the question that we should be taking on? That's the podcast I want to do. So take a moment. Send us a note. Drop us a line. Share it with a friend and help us take on the challenges that you're going through. Because that's my mission. My mission in my lifetime is to help 1000 dudes write their second half story. I'll know when I'm successful, when I have 1000 keys, 1000 notes from 1000 people. It might be the dude. It might be the spouse, might be a kid, might be a parent, might be a sibling. 1000 notes saying, my life changed, my spouse's life changed, my friend's life changed the moment they got clarity about mission. That's why I show up here. So help me provide content that does exactly that.
Adam: [00:44:12] If you keep showing up, we'll keep showing up here as all. This is Normal 40 the podcast.
