Redefining Success: GenX, Freedom, and Second Chances with Tom Clement

Brett Trainor (: 00:01

Hey Tom, welcome to the Corporate Escapee Podcast.

Tom (: 00:04

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Brett Trainor (: 00:07

My pleasure and looking forward to this conversation. first came across you LinkedIn and your content and you were writing passionately about Gen X and finding, you know, super simplified work like mouse. Cause if anybody follows your content, you provide a, a lot of details. So, yeah, so this has been a long time coming. I wanted to have you on the podcast just to, just to have a discussion. Cause I think we've got some shared values of what we want to see from folks.

So I'm looking forward to it. But before we get into that discussion, if you don't mind, why don't you share a little bit with the audience what your journey was and maybe how you kind of developed the passion for helping GenXers, you know, kind of find this path as well.

Tom (: 00:48

Well, I'm a proud Gen Xer born in 1971, January of 71. So pretty early on there. So I'm definitely in the Gen X demographic in that, that, in that sort of space. I have had a very unusual path through life. grew up in a very blue collar family. My father was in the contracting business. He was plumbing, plumbing and heating guy. And so I grew up around that business as a kid.

taking inventory on Saturday mornings and doing all that kind of thing. Really didn't want to get into that business with him. And he actually discouraged me. He had a partner and his partner also had kids and he knew that that was going to be a hard, how do you divvy this up? You know, that sort of thing. And I think he really wanted to see me go out and do something on my own.

Brett Trainor (: 01:41

yeah.

Tom (: 01:45

So I actually went and got my undergraduate degree and unusually when I got done, I graduated out of a little while and I ended up starting a motorcycle dealership. was a was a Yamaha Kawasaki and Polaris dealer. Not all at one time, but we sort of added franchises as it it grew because I'd always been a motorhead, you know, always ridden motorcycles and snowmobiles and all that kind of stuff as a kid.

Brett Trainor (: 01:55

No, no, kidding.

Tom (: 02:13

And I was under the delusion that all you need to run a business is to be an enthusiast. And that's probably one of the worst reasons to run a business because it quickly turns from an enthusiast to work. mean, this is the real thing. And it was a very low profit margin business and very seasonal.

Brett Trainor (: 02:19

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 02:28

Yeah.

Tom (: 02:41

you know, very reliant on, especially in the winter time, you know, on, on snow and all that sort of thing. And we sort of hit the beginning of the whole El Nino La Nina thing where you didn't get a lot of snow and, and it was rainy and not very, not very great for snowmobiles. But that being said, what's that?

Brett Trainor (: 02:56

And by the way, where were you located?

Tom (: 03:01

It was in Grand Forks, North Dakota, which is my hometown, which is only, yeah, it's way up North only about 50 miles from the Canadian border. Uh, most people are probably familiar with Fargo, North Dakota and Grand Forks is about 72 miles North of Fargo on interstate 29. So, um, that was where we started. We started off with Yamaha. added Kawasaki after about a year and a half, and then about a year and a half before I sold the business, I added Polaris.

Brett Trainor (: 03:04

I thought it was up north.

Brett Trainor (: 03:16

No kidding, okay.

Tom (: 03:30

And I'm actually glad I did that because it increased the overall value of the of the business. And. I'd sort of whispered in a few people's ears that I might be interested in selling the business. And this was after about six years. And almost literally one day, somebody walked into my showroom and said, hey, you're interested in selling. And the rest was history with that business. I was out of it in in less than six months.

but as we'll probably talk about later, and this was the beginnings of this, I had absolutely no plan. What I wanted to do next. I'd only ever worked for myself and my father. and I just was completely clueless. I was rudderless. I didn't know what to do. I knew I had to make a living for my family. You know, the party was over as far as being self reliant on that aspect.

And I thought, you know, maybe I'll go out and get a job. And one of the first things I noted about that was I didn't do any networking when I was a business owner. Normally, when somebody sells a business like that, your phone is ringing, you know, five minutes after you sign the paperwork, people wanting you to come work for them, you know, hey, come run our business or hey, come be a consultant or whatever. I got none of that because I didn't do any networking. I never put myself out there.

Brett Trainor (: 04:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tom (: 04:55

I was always very introverted and shy, still am, believe it or not. And I just didn't put myself out there. So I mean, I give a lot of talks to my students about networking and how important it is and putting yourself out there. So anyway, I went back to school because that's what people do and they don't have a plan. They go back to school and my undergraduate degree was not in business. And I kind of wanted to tie in those loose ends that I'd learned in business.

Brett Trainor (: 05:15

about right.

Tom (: 05:23

So I went back for my MBA at my alma mater, University of North Dakota, which is where I got my undergraduate from. And one semester into that MBA program, they asked me to teach an entrepreneurial finance and accounting class because I'd done really well in my accounting courses that I took because of course I learned all that stuff the hard way. Yeah, the long, the long way, the long and winding road is the Beatles would say.

Brett Trainor (: 05:45

Hard knocks way

Tom (: 05:54

It just, there's something clicked with me. never fancied myself a teacher, but when you're a business owner with employees, you kind of are by default because you're training your employees and trying to show them the systems that you use and show them the ropes, so to speak. And I just really loved being in the classroom. I remember my first couple nights teaching, hanging around after class, talking to some students. It was a night class and the class got over at nine o'clock and

Brett Trainor (: 06:04

Right.

Tom (: 06:22

I looked up and it was 1030 and I was still standing there, you know, talking to two or three students about business and entrepreneurship and their business ideas. And it was a lot of fun. And so that turned into a, I call it my 22 year detour. Um, because I, yeah, I, I never ever imagined, uh, ever doing that as a career, you know? So I finished my MBA.

Brett Trainor (: 06:39

Short, short twist in the fate, right?

Tom (: 06:50

I took a couple of corporate jobs in between. worked for progressive insurance for a little while. I worked as a textbook salesman, which was one of the worst jobs I've ever had, just because I wanted to see what else was out there. Knew I didn't want to work in the corporate space after those two experiences, just because of all. Yeah, it's, I people talk about bureaucracy being related to government and public sector type stuff.

Brett Trainor (: 07:02

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 07:09

smart you figured it out early that that wasn't the right path.

Tom (: 07:18

There's so much bureaucracy in corporations. It's not even funny. It's just a different kind of bureaucracy. You know, it's, it's different, but, um, and then I committed myself to academics completely. So I kind of flailed around again, trying to figure out if I wanted to do this full time. Did it got my PhD done in, I can't even remember what year 2012, I think it was 2013. And here I am.

So what brought me to Arizona where I am now was I was, I, my job was always in four year university settings. very heavy academics, research, you know, all that kind of stuff. That's why I got my PhD so I could keep my job. And I just realized I just wasn't very happy in that space. I like to teach. I like to be in touch with my students. I don't mind doing research, but it's not my favorite thing to do.

And then this opportunity popped up in Arizona where we have grandkids and other family of working with prisoners, teaching incarcerated convicted felons who want to earn an associate's degree and try to better themselves. And I started digging into that program. called the Second Chance Second Chance Pell Grant program is what the name of it is. And I started digging into the statistics on it and the recidivism rate.

For people who don't have any education versus those that do the numbers are incredible They go from like 60 % repeat offender down into the 20s So it's it's pretty amazing and and let me look there's a lot of people and I'm even maybe partly this way of sort of the lock them up and throw away the key thing, you know that for depending on the different Crimes that they've committed but it's clear in general what we're doing is not working

Brett Trainor (: 08:56

Interesting.

Tom (: 09:16

And it's costing us a fortune to incarcerate these folks. So. I took a huge pay cut doing this. I mean, I took a 38 % pay cut. Going from where I was at at my four year school before to this job, and I've never been happier. This is the happiest I've ever been. In academics, except for maybe the first few years when I was just an adjunct instructor, just teaching and getting by.

Brett Trainor (: 09:20

Right.

Brett Trainor (: 09:43

Yeah.

Tom (: 09:45

which was really fun because it was exciting and new. And this is exciting and new again. I work 90 % from home. My wife is right on the other side of the house in her office working from home. It's just me and her and the dog. it's, it's in the grandkids up the road and her mom is up the road and she's, you know, close by and loves our dog. So if my wife and I want to go play hooky for a couple of days, you know, we dropped the doggo off at her house and everything's good.

Brett Trainor (: 09:59

Yeah, and the grandkids in the area now.

Tom (: 10:15

It's great.

Brett Trainor (: 10:16

Awesome. And I think that's part of what drew me to some of your content was this, you were speaking about finding that balance and I've shared this story many times on the podcast that my goal when I left corporate was to make money on my own. was repays money. But as time went on over the last four plus years, I realized one getting time back was a much bigger deal to me than the money. Money is still important. You gotta pay the bills. There's no way around that.

then started to realize the wellness and getting outside and finding all that stuff that for 25 years in corporate, had just taken for granted and built my life around that corporate job. And it wasn't until I started to get out and you taste a little bit of that freedom that then, like I said, used to be core was how do I replace money, which is still important. You got to figure out how to break the shackles, if you will, to get out.

But then it's like, all right, what's next? Now we get to live our life. You almost get to define it a 2.0. You for you, you went to Arizona, where family, grandkids, you can, you had a new challenge teaching. And I think that's one thing I think people in corporate really underestimate. I did is what's out there and how important and maybe you can talk about too, how your life changed. You talked about it. Obviously at some point you started writing about it as well. So it must've had that impact. So.

So maybe unpack that a little bit. Was it something you got to Arizona, you knew it was going to fundamentally change or was it just a roll of the dice that you came down? Maybe, maybe share a little bit of, you know, kind of what your process was.

Tom (: 11:52

I've come full circle. mean, I was a go to the office guy. I mean, I'm not ashamed to admit I have ADHD, which I don't really particularly think is all that rare among a lot of people. I mean, a lot of us have attention issues and I didn't think I could ever work from home. There's just too many distractions. got my guitars hanging behind me. You I got whatever. mean, there's a million different things. I'm I'm actually a licensed contractor, which is a whole other story.

I did it for flipping homes and it was part of my upbringing, obviously, but I mean, I could go out in my shop and work on a project. There's a million things I could do other than work. So I never thought that I would ever do that. And COVID, like so many other people, COVID is what turned me around on that. It made it possible for me to do that, to be able to work from home.

Brett Trainor (: 12:25

Right.

Tom (: 12:44

And now I don't know if I could go back to a go to work every day kind of job. It's it would be. I just would miss the freedom, and there's a lot of freedom in academics. I want to be clear. Academics is a great lifestyle as far as the flexibility is concerned. It's not like your traditional corporate job where you're required to be there from eight to five or whatever every day. It's very, very flexible and.

Brett Trainor (: 13:02

All right.

Tom (: 13:12

But I I've said to I said to my wife a couple of times over Christmas break here and to a few of our other family members, I I have to I literally have to pinch myself some days. I can't believe that they're paying me to do this. And that doesn't mean I don't work hard, but it's just the freedom and the lifestyle that I have now compared even to what I had before. And again, the jobs I had before were far more flexible than most people's jobs.

Brett Trainor (: 13:30

Yeah.

Tom (: 13:42

But this is just different. And it was a part of my background and I'm not a financial planner or anything like that, but I taught accounting for 10 years and I've always taught entrepreneurial finance. So I'm a big time value of money guy. And I talked to people and in fact, I've put posts up on LinkedIn and there's been a few people that have gotten their noses bent out a joint, you know, and given me sort of the, that's easy for you to say.

Brett Trainor (: 13:45

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 14:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tom (: 14:12

You know, I can't take a 35 % pay cut. That's easy for you to say. And I absolutely disagree with that. If you look at all the things in our lives that we waste money on, and I'm just as guilty of it as anyone, you know, you'll go sit in a drive-through line at a coffee shop in the morning for a $6 iced coffee that probably has eight ounces of coffee in it.

Brett Trainor (: 14:36

if you're lucky.

Tom (: 14:37

You know, when you could be buying your own coffee on, on Amazon, like I do, drink Tim Horton's coffee out of Canada and I buy a two pound or three pound cans of coffee on, Amazon. And I make my own coffee in the morning, but just all those little things. If you add all those things up and you run sort of the time value of money calculations on it, almost everybody can take a sizable pay cut to do something that they enjoy.

Brett Trainor (: 15:03

Yeah, I think that's such a really good point. when you look at

How much, again, I look at it from the time spent in corporate. I'll even give you a different example. We had somebody on the podcast, Tom Van Dyke, a couple episodes ago. He was a pastor in a church and as he explained, it was a really big church. So it mirrored corporate in a lot of ways, right? It had some flexibility, but it just wasn't for him. And when I started, again, many Gen Xers, depending on where you are, you may have some parents you're looking out for. You have kids, you may have college. In my case, three daughters. I've still got two weddings left.

You got to manage, but I just took all of that for granted. And maybe a shame on me when I was in corporate that I didn't budget and think about, you know, what's, what's the exit plan with this, right? I'm just going to keep working in corporate. And when you start flip my mindset from, uh, the corporate salary paycheck benefits to cashflow and how much cash you need and where you're expensive, you just pay more attention to some of these things. And then you really start to figure out.

what's important and where you want to spend your time. So I, I agree with you that you can, but you got to decide what's important. Some there's going to be folks out there that I just need X money, money, money, Again, I still think this is the path for you because you can make more money than you can incorporate or right. Just as a full-time professor, those types of things. So it opens up with, with cash, but it's something I didn't do probably till two years out, which is really sit down and think about what do I want? What's going to make me happy? Right. I never thought about happiness.

Tom (: 16:21

Right.

Brett Trainor (: 16:35

If you had success, you're going to be happy. If the family was good, you'd have happy. But it's a very much an underappreciated process as you're going through it is to think what not just what you want, but your case, your wife, my wife, your family, friends, whatever it is, don't skimp on that as you're starting to think through this.

Tom (: 16:56

Well, and you talked about the budgeting part of it. put a post up, I think it was two weeks ago about, you know, when I was in the motorcycle business back in the late nineties and early two thousands, that was pretty much Harley Davidson's healthy on days. Baby boomers were going out and buying Harley's something they'd always wanted to own as a kid, but couldn't afford or when they got married, they sold their bike to put their kids through school, whatever. And so they were going on and buying these bikes and Harley dealers had a waiting list for motorcycles.

Brett Trainor (: 17:08

yeah.

Tom (: 17:24

And they were getting a thousand dollars plus over retail price for these bikes because they were in such high demand. And most of the dealers took that thousand dollars and spent it, you know, on improving their stores or whatever. And there was a select group of Harley dealers that understood that these things go in cycles. So they started taking that thousand dollars premium that they were getting and squirreling it away.

Brett Trainor (: 17:41

Yeah.

Tom (: 17:54

in various investments. And then 2008 rolls around, the economy goes to heck. All these baby boomers are aging out. They all have bad knees, bad hips, whatever, and they're not buying motorcycles anymore. And all of a these Harley dealers have a couple million dollars sitting in the bank because they put that money away. So I'm a big systems guy. I talk a lot about systems in my content and sort of having a savings system set up.

Brett Trainor (: 18:13

Great.

Tom (: 18:22

way to create that buffer and it doesn't take as long as people think that it does You know, I always encourage people who's I'm kind of a real estate side hustle guy You know when you go buy your first house as a couple or as an individual go buy something you can add some value to Go buy a house that needs some paint some TLC whatever sell that house in a few years and make money on it and put that money away in an investment

Brett Trainor (: 18:28

Agreed.

Tom (: 18:47

That's how you start to build wealth over time and that's how you put yourself in a position and I'm not wealthy by any means But it is how you put yourself in a position to make good life choices Where you can put your family and your personal priorities above your paycheck? Every single day and there's just too many people that are just handcuffed to their paycheck

Brett Trainor (: 18:47

Thanks

Brett Trainor (: 19:07

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 19:11

The golden handcuffs as they say, right? No, and we'll get to that there's an expiration date for all of us in corporate, whether you want to believe it or not. the other thing I think people, and again, I'm not, this isn't a get rich quick scheme. You're not going to drop out of corporate or do an RV do. also, and you've just got revenue streams popping up all over the place. But I did find over the course of the four or five and almost five years, right? I've been able to monetize in nine different ways, right? A lot of it's tied back to my corporate experience.

Tom (: 19:38

Thanks

Brett Trainor (: 19:40

And it probably took me a good two years to realize you can make money, right? I'm comfortable now after two years, I was probably comfortable that I didn't have to go back. figured out how I can make money and it's not rocket science, right? As we go through this, it's not, again, I'm not pitching overnight, you know, e-commerce success. And if you want to go that path, but even you just indirectly had mentioned, you know, the side hustle on real estate you do, can do contract work.

That's what I'm seeing with a lot of these Gen Xers now it's, Hey, I encourage you to figure out the least, the path of least resistance is probably monetize your corporate experience. Cause there's businesses that need your help. know how to do this, but I do see a lot of folks, you know, like the, the escapee thing for me came out of not nowhere. It was kind of a passion thing that grew, but the teaching piece I'm finding a lot of the Gen Xers also find they like the teaching aspect. And so I just like the

multiple revenue streams and doing different things that you like and it's just it's everything corporate taught you not to do right overanalyze everything stay in your box don't make mistakes here you can you know you can try that contract you did that project didn't work you didn't make the money you wanted you learned from it move on and try something new right

Tom (: 20:58

Well, and there's a reason why I'm convinced there's a reason why the trades in this country are growing rapidly. And the easy reason is because we emphasized four year degrees too much and now we don't have enough trades people. But you know what I think the other reason is trades is relatively drama free in the trades. You typically create your own drama, right? You, you, you screw up a measurement or whatever.

Brett Trainor (: 21:24

Yeah.

Tom (: 21:27

you don't always have people creating drama for you. I found the trades to be relaxing. That was how I relaxed. I literally worked with academics who didn't even know what end of a screwdriver to use. And I would tell them that I built a house and I built five houses from scratch myself. And I did 99 % of the work myself. And they just look at me kind of with that cocked dog head look, like, are you crazy?

But that was my relaxation. You you, deal with a very bureaucratic public sector position all day long. I mean, I always joke with people. feels really therapeutic to go hit something with a hammer, for a few hours at night. And I enjoy that. And that was how I developed those skills. But you look at the handyman business that's taken off. It's just exploded. it doesn't matter what market I go to. have people telling me, man, if you started a handyman business,

and you just return people's phone calls, you would have all the work you could possibly handle. And there's good money to be made there and it's relaxing in its own way. And it's just a different environments. Like you said, you can either make money with your corporate skills, or if you've been one of these sort of armchair handy, handy men for awhile, working on projects and things like that and developing your skillset, or maybe you got a garage full of tools. that's another avenue, you know, and, and

Brett Trainor (: 22:30

Yeah, agreed.

Tom (: 22:54

I think the problem is, and this is where this whole work-life balance nonsense comes in, people can't imagine themselves without their corporate job. They can't envision themselves in that space. You know, I've got a sister-in-law who admits she can't walk into a house that's unfinished and envision how it's supposed to be. She doesn't have that gift for that vision.

Brett Trainor (: 23:05

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 23:23

Right. Yeah.

Tom (: 23:25

I think that can be developed over time, but I think people need to develop that about their lives. They need to look at their sort of unfinished life, if you will, and imagine what it's going to look like in a different space. know, when you sort of, I'm metaphorically speaking, paint the walls a different color or, you know, remodel their life, basically, what is that going to look like?

Brett Trainor (: 23:41

Yeah.

Tom (: 23:52

It's really amazing because it's a societal thing. I mean, I talk about this all the time because I used to teach creativity and innovation. And as kids, we're extremely creative, very creative. We're constantly making forts out of boxes or Afghans or playing dolls or playing doctor or whatever it is we're doing. We're very creative, very imaginative, very make-believe-ish, right? And then all of a sudden at a certain age, and I'm not even certain what that age is,

Brett Trainor (: 24:04

Yes.

Tom (: 24:22

We sort of shame that out of kids. And then we get set on the straight and narrow path. It's this lockstep walk that we go through through life where you need to go to school and you need to graduate and you need to get a job and you need to stay in that job forever and ever. And you need to buy one house and stay in that house. We just don't have that mindset anymore in general.

Brett Trainor (: 24:43

I you're 100 % right. I did, again, over the course of this journey, start thinking back to, yeah, as we grew up, and I know can be cliche, but it is true, right? Nobody's really bailing us out. didn't have, friends and I, we invented a couple of our own games in the backyard, right? It's kind of cross between baseball and kick. We had the imagination to do this. And my theory is many of us that went into that corporate

Tom (: 25:06

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 25:12

went into corporate, right? I, you, my parents were blue collar, right? So I had no idea what business was, right? We're going to go to school. When am going to school? My goal was to be a game board when I graduated, right? Go out on the lakes of Wisconsin and be outside. But at some point it was drilled while, you got to do the right thing. You go get a job in corporate and kind of that same path. ended up getting my MBA because I knew my undergrad. I didn't, I wasn't prepared for what that will, but in the bigger picture, I think you just get into that bubble.

Tom (: 25:19

Right.

Brett Trainor (: 25:42

And over to early in your career, probably, it may be a little bit different, probably the same things. We just took chances. I'm like, why, why do we do this? Why is there not a distribution center in this place? That doesn't make sense. We just ask why a lot. But then over the course of the year, when you get pounded for making a mistake or it's just, you got to get into this box because this is what it is. And you overanalyze, you don't want to make mistakes. And we completely got away from what, where we were happy and successful. And I think just.

Tom (: 25:54

Yep.

Brett Trainor (: 26:10

more and more the folks I talked to, especially the folks who have been out at least a couple years, are getting that back, right? It's the, again, freedom to go figure out what you want to do. And one point I'll add onto that is, right, even if you wanted to be your handyman and or the service, you don't need a hundred customers for this to be successful. That's the whole thing. Everything we do,

you only need a handful of people in order to generate the revenue you probably need for your lifestyle. Now, if you want to build a big business, I know a few folks that, hey, I want to go, I want to go build the $10 million, have at it. But make sure that's what's going to make you happy. So it took us down a rabbit hole. But I just think your point of where we grew up to what the right thing to do for 30 years was. Now we're

Tom (: 26:45

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 26:56

at a crossroads right with healthcare and medicine, everything we could live long healthy lives we could have another 30 years. What are you going to do if you don't think about it?

Tom (: 27:04

Right. Well, I don't want to generalize across all corporations, but I know I was reading a LinkedIn post this morning while I was doing my LinkedIn stuff that a person posted that the company that they were working for passed a policy in the company that you were not allowed to have a personal LinkedIn page anymore. You know, because they didn't want people, they didn't want individuals branding themselves.

So they started putting it in their employment contracts that you were not allowed to have. I'm thinking, even me as cynical as I can be, was thinking, are you kidding me? But that's unfortunately the way it is. There's a lot of companies that are so afraid that not only somebody is going to brand themselves to the point where they leave, but they may say something that's controversial about the company that they're working for.

Brett Trainor (: 27:41

Yeah.

Tom (: 28:00

it's really unreal. And to somebody like me that never really worked a lot in that space, I just shake my head at that. But what I've come to realize is that's, that's just the way it is with some companies.

Brett Trainor (: 28:11

Yeah. And I don't know what their end game is. That's why I don't think like this. And I talk a lot on TikTok about the forest RTO has returned office mandates and like you're people were unhappy and you make them drive back to the office. They don't want to be at the resentment's going to go through the roof. They're going to be on happier. I don't know what you're again. My theory is they're trying to get people to quit, if they

Tom (: 28:32

That's my theory too.

Brett Trainor (: 28:34

But if they're not, then I just don't know. mean, this thing, you're not allowed to write on you what you want. There's actually somebody in our community that, she's still employed, not allowed to have speaking engagements outside of, right. Her what's in the box of what they say and it's got to be approved. I'm like, it's just, we don't live. That's not the world we live in anymore. Or if you do write, there's, you have options.

Tom (: 28:56

And see, that's one area where academics is so different than corporate in that that's part of how we're compensated. We're encouraged to go to conferences and speak and publish articles and, you know, maintain a presence out in the public space. because that's how we sort of, I don't like to use the word proof, but it's sort of how we prove our worth as, as, as academics, whereas corporations take a completely different slant on that. And.

Brett Trainor (: 29:20

Yeah.

Tom (: 29:25

And I think it's really interesting. It's that chicken or the egg argument that I talk about sometimes with people. It's like, what came first? People being disloyal to their employers or the employers being disloyal to their employees? You know, and I think the two things sort of go hand in hand.

Brett Trainor (: 29:40

saying it's the employer first, but they do, we could get all started. actually wrote something not long ago that, mean, the difference is the pension, right? Because boomers had pensions, not everybody, but that was, you worked, you gave your time and loyalty to the company. And guess what? They take care of you for the rest of your life. Event, it's what, in eighties, early nineties, they switched that to 401Ks. can...

Tom (: 29:46

That's a whole other, yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 30:06

is a benefit to the employee. can manage your own funds and we'll match, but guess what? A 401k is a fixed fee where if you quit or retire and you live for 10 years, you're probably fine. But if you retire and you got 30 years, you're out of luck, right? just, so I think we blindly followed boomers into this. think the other interesting thing I'm seeing is like the millennials again, not to over generalize, but they're much more skeptical. They're starting to realize it.

Tom (: 30:13

Right.

Brett Trainor (: 30:32

Whoa, where is this going? Right? I can't do this for another 20 years. And where am I going to go after this? Where Gen Z is like, this is a transaction, man. You hire me a job in corporate, I'll do the job and work the eight hours and then I'm done. I'm out. So I think we're just, it's really an interesting dynamic. And that's what I try to encourage Gen X is find this path now because a lot of people are heading down this path. So you might as well.

get out first. I mean, it's not even an early mover. And like you've been out and I've talked to a ton of people on the podcast who have been out longer, but it's not the exception anymore. think it's become more of the rule.

Tom (: 31:07

Well, and I really see, and this isn't anything too revolutionary what I'm about to say, but I see an entire economy of 1099 employees or 1099 basically subcontractors running around. And it makes a lot of sense. mean, look at all the companies for all those years like Sears and

Chrysler and all these companies that built these enormous skyscrapers. You have the Sears tower, now the Willis tower just down the road from you in Chicago. And they were like this edifice for their success or whatever you want to say. Well, they're not around anymore, at least not in the form that they were at the time. And we're trying to get smarter about how we do business. And yet, you know, you still have some of these companies that have these massive corporate campuses with.

20 acres of office buildings or whatever out in the middle of a burb somewhere, you know, and it's really interesting to see that transition. I mean, not again, not up far up the road from you. There's a little town in Wisconsin called Kohler, Wisconsin, which is right north of Milwaukee. That was a company town. That town was built and named to support the Kohler Manufacturing Company.

Brett Trainor (: 32:12

yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 32:20

faucets, right, the plumbing right company.

Tom (: 32:22

Yeah, plumbing and all kinds of stuff. And there's other towns like that, like Hershey, Pennsylvania, and all these different company towns. I mean, just imagine that everybody living executives, workers, everybody sort of living in this little bubble for their company. mean, I can't even imagine that happening today. But that's how far we've come as a working society, as a working world from where we were, you know, back in the 1800s.

Brett Trainor (: 32:37

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 32:41

No, I think.

Tom (: 32:52

1920s, whatever. It's just all changed so much.

Brett Trainor (: 32:56

I 100 % agree and I just did another little research on, people are estimating and I say people, think people that do this for a living, by 2027, we could see up to 50 % of the workforce being solo businesses. So we're heading to this. It just makes way too much sense. The industrial revolution forced everybody into offices for...

you know, the scale, accountings of scale, again, all that stuff made sense. But a lot of the knowledge work, all this does not require people to be side by side. And you hear people at force back to the office that are on Zoom calls with other people, not even in that office all day. it's just outdated. So I know we're going through this process and I think it's going to get us closer.

Not being a true historian back to the pre industrial revolution, where if you were a baker or a farmer or a blacksmith, your work and life were kind of dinner 20, it's just who you were. It's what you did. But then they, like I said, we started pushing everybody into offices and well factories, then offices. Now we're like, we don't want to go back to offices. So I said, I think we're in a super fascinating time. Um, and to see where this goes, but again, I think that's where Gen X.

again, can play advantages, right? Because we do have a bunch of experience. We live through technology, evolutions, revolutions, whatever you want to call. And there's folks that need this help. like I said, before we go too far down that path, let's circle back to kind of what's your advice or what is your recommendation to folks that you come across for the first time that not happy in their job looking for that life balance? Kind of what's

Like I said, I know you write a lot about it, so I'm asking you kind of synthesize it a little bit to say what's your approach to this.

Tom (: 34:40

So I would say one of the very first things that I would recommend and I would actually speak to both genders, but especially the guys, because we tend to bottle things up more. Talk about it with your family. If you are unhappy in your profession, you're not fulfilled. You are not getting what you want out of it. Or, you know, conversely, maybe you're scared.

Maybe you see your industry changing and you're afraid that you're going to get your pink slip one day and, you know, escort it out to your car as they've so delicately do nowadays. Talk about it. Tell your wife or your partner, your kids, sit down and have a family discussion and just tell them what you're feeling. Because again, part of that mindset for years and years and years was

my job is to go to work every day and work nine to five and I'm not allowed to feel unfulfilled. And there was also this gratitude and loyalty thing where you're, you know, I'm supposed to be grateful for this job. Well, okay. But are you supposed to be grateful for being miserable every day? And there's a lot of miserable people working. So I would say number one, have that conversation.

Brett Trainor (: 35:56

Right.

Yeah, 100%.

Tom (: 36:05

And number two, make a plan. Don't wait until that layoff comes or don't wait until the economy goes down the tubes or whatever, or don't wait even more importantly until you're completely burned out and totally miserable. Make a plan today. If you're starting to feel the inkling that this is just this just isn't doing it for me anymore. That's the time that you need to start making a plan.

to get out and that includes a financial plan, develop some systems for yourself. What are things that you can cut out of your life that are, I hate to use the word frivolous because it's all relative, but things you don't necessarily need. Because at the end of the day, I mean, this is the thing, I put this in my posts on LinkedIn a lot. I call it the deathbed scenario. Who's gonna be standing with you at your deathbed?

Brett Trainor (: 36:47

Right.

Tom (: 37:02

Is your job going to be standing with you at your deathbed? No. Is that, you know, iced coffee going to be standing next to you at your deathbed? No. So, I mean, the only people that are going to be there for you are your family and maybe your friends. And that's it. And those are the memories. In fact, most people, when they get on their deathbed, they remember their work. They remember their life's work, what they did, what they accomplished. They don't remember jobs necessarily.

Brett Trainor (: 37:05

Hell no.

Tom (: 37:32

So that's what needs to be in that plan is what's most important to me. And I would like to think that would be family and yourself. And I I laughed when I was going through grad school. I mean, I was in my 30s already, mid to late 30s already. And I mean, our driveway looked like I used car lot most of the time. I was driving around in some

you know, like 95 Lincoln continental. And cause I was in grad school and I didn't have any money. And my, my daughters were, my kids were all driving old used four door sedan type cars or whatever. And I'm sure the neighbors just thought, Oh goodness. You know, meanwhile, the person across the street has the least BMW in their garage that they're paying a dollars a month on or whatever it was at the time. And, and that's just not, it's not important. It's just not.

Brett Trainor (: 38:07

Right.

Brett Trainor (: 38:15

you

Brett Trainor (: 38:26

Right.

Tom (: 38:32

And all these people that you think you're impressing, know, all these, all the Joneses, as we like to call them, that you think you're keeping up with, again, are they going to be standing there on your deathbed? You know, we talk about this with failure a lot. People are afraid to fail because they're afraid of the embarrassment of failure. People don't give one quarter as much a care about your failures as you think they do.

Brett Trainor (: 38:36

They don't care.

Brett Trainor (: 38:59

Yeah.

Tom (: 38:59

That's where perception does not equal reality. So I would say start today. If you're feeling unfulfilled or you're scared, start today. Don't wait. Don't act like this is not going to happen to you. I'm watching Gen Xers like me, for example, get laid off left, right and sideways for all the dumbest reasons in the world. over.

Brett Trainor (: 39:22

Yeah.

Tom (: 39:27

priced or we're too old or we're not tech savvy. Um, you know, I made a list a while back of all the different crazy things that we've been through as a generation. It's nuts. I mean, all the different technology changes, all the different fashion trends, all the different political movements, whatever, right? Just a list this long of all the different crazy things that our generation has been through and anyone that says that we're not savvy.

Brett Trainor (: 39:37

Right.

Tom (: 39:55

is not paying attention, they're just using our age as an excuse.

Brett Trainor (: 39:56

Thoroughly mistaken. 100 % right. Yeah. And I just did some, post recently on the current state for Gen X in the workforce. So I went and pulled all the different data points to say, right, what is the real world? Right. Cause I hear the stories and it's somewhat slanted because it's people in the community that are either impacted or worried about being impacted.

Tom (: 40:00

Yeah.

Tom (: 40:18

Right.

Brett Trainor (: 40:18

But I think when I summarized everything, was like 25%, there's a 25 % chance if you're still in corporate in 2025, you're gonna get laid off. And if you get laid off, you're looking at probably an eight month job search, know, could go higher, you could get lucky and go lower, competing against 250 other people for that job. And there's a better than 50 % chance that if you are, you do find a job.

it's going to be a 30 % pay cut from what you're doing. And not even to mention, is it really a job that you want to do anymore? Are you just taking this job? Cause you have to think about it. So because I get the haters and the commenters and say, well, you can't just run away from corporate. But I'm like, look, this isn't the data is showing you, right? You're going to be out of there sooner or later. Cause corporate just does not care. Right? So to your point, have that plan, be prepared and

Tom (: 41:10

Well, and if going out and being an entrepreneur or a solopreneur or whatever is not your bag, there's a lot of small private companies or startups or smaller, you know, they're, they might be organized as a corporation, but they don't behave like corporations that would be happy to hire someone like you to come and work for them. But again, that's something that you have to envision.

Brett Trainor (: 41:28

Yeah. Right.

Tom (: 41:37

Because when you've been working on the corporate campus your whole life with 600 other people, it's hard to imagine going to work for a mom and pop with five other people in a space like that. But that's sort of what I did.

academically speaking, you I went from a four year university, a research school to a community college, whereas most of my colleagues would would look down on that. I just like to teach and I like to be your own students and I like to do something interesting. I don't care where I do it at. And that's the attitude that I think people need to to adopt is if you want to be an HR professional, for example, you can do that anywhere.

Brett Trainor (: 42:08

Right.

Tom (: 42:25

You don't have to work for a corporation that has 10,000 employees. There are hundreds, not thousands of companies out there, smaller companies, what they would call over in Europe, small to medium sized businesses, SMBs that are looking for help. They need help. They need systems driven in to whatever it is that it is that they need, know, whether it's HR, manufacturing, whatever they need systems driven in. They need some of that corporate thinking.

Brett Trainor (: 42:39

Yeah, SMBs, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tom (: 42:55

on a smaller scale. So I mean, there's opportunities out there. But here's the thing, too. You're not going to find those opportunities on a job board. And that's why you have to start making a plan now. You know what? If you get the opportunity to go to a lunch and learn at your local chamber of commerce lunch and your company will pay for you to go, go. If you get a chance to go to a conference, go. Any opportunity you have to sort of put yourself out there, start signing up for some speaking events.

Brett Trainor (: 42:57

100%.

Tom (: 43:25

If you have something that you're really, really good at, like onboarding, for example, I'm using the HR examples, but maybe you're really, really good at onboarding. You're like an onboarding expert. You know what? Start looking up HR conferences around the country and go be a keynote or go put on a conference session on a particular topic that you think you're really good at. That's how you get your name out there.

Brett Trainor (: 43:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tom (: 43:51

And that's networking. Networking is not walking around with a drink in your hand, schmoozing people necessarily. That's one form of networking, but networking is just FaceTime. It's making people recognize you for who you are. And you can use LinkedIn for that too, although LinkedIn's getting kind of saturated, but there is, and you don't have to use just LinkedIn. There's YouTube, there's all kinds of different social media.

Brett Trainor (: 44:07

Yeah

Brett Trainor (: 44:19

Tick tock, can attest to. Well, at least it for a few more days as we're recording this. I still think it's going to be around, you never know. Yeah, it's such a good point. And I think we'll end on this because you've been super generous with your time is somebody gave me the, I forget, no, I'm John DeBlanc and I apologize, talking about no like and trust. And if you approach networking, like if you're at a cocktail party, right? If you go to a cocktail party and you're meeting folks and you're just spewing out sales pitches, nobody's going to listen to you.

Tom (: 44:20

Yeah.

Tom (: 44:32

No problem.

Brett Trainor (: 44:48

But if you listen, you're engaged, you ask questions, people are going to remember you and say, had a great, it doesn't have to be super hard. So you don't have to put on, you don't have to learn how to network. It's maybe, you know, listen is the number one thing, but I mean, it's such a good point you made. didn't want to under, undervalue what that, that tip.

Tom (: 45:10

Well, and don't, and don't, don't only.

Tom (: 45:17

lean on those folks when you need them to. I think too many of us, wait till we get laid off or we wait till something catastrophic happens and then we jump on the phone and start calling all of our contacts to see what we can do. That should be a relationship. I won't even call it a friendship because you may not see the person all the time, but it's a relationship that should be maintained over time.

Brett Trainor (: 45:19

Right.

Brett Trainor (: 45:32

Right.

Brett Trainor (: 45:45

Yeah, pick up the phone, drop a note, connect on LinkedIn, just see what's going on again. Again, just genuinely be curious. You can't fake it. You do need to want to. And again, most people I meet, I tend to want to be that way, right? They're not just doing it as a self-serving and they don't like the fact that they have to reach out when they absolutely have to. But there's probably folks you knew 20 years ago at different companies you worked at, just reach out see what they're up to. You'd be shocked at the conversations that you have with, with folks and

Tom (: 46:13

Well, yeah, and ideally a big life event happens to you. You know, maybe you do get laid off. Guess what? Your phone starts ringing. Those folks start calling you. Hey, what can I do for you? Is there something I can do to help you? Or hey, I know so and so you should call them. They're looking for somebody, whatever. That way you're not always the one soliciting help. You've got the help trying to find you.

Brett Trainor (: 46:13

Again, just people helping people and...

Brett Trainor (: 46:21

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 46:28

Yeah, such a good point.

Brett Trainor (: 46:40

Yeah. And even just maybe the final point on that to tie it off is when you reach out, see how you can help them. Right. So if you're not in a time of need or don't need, is there anything you can do to help again, people helping people and working together. And, you know, I just find that has been such a one, it's refreshing to have conversations that neither one of us is really looking for anything. But all of sudden now we both know. Right. That again, you and I hadn't met until today, but I've seen your content and we had some back and forth. so next thing you know, we're on a podcast and

Tom (: 46:46

Mm-hmm.

Tom (: 46:53

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 47:10

you're recording and talking about it. it's just, that's the world. The world's going to take you there. So meet new contacts, new friends, and make sure you stay in touch with your old network and especially the people you enjoyed working with or had good relationships with. It's never too late to rekindle those.

Tom (: 47:27

That's the way it is.

Brett Trainor (: 47:29

All right, Tom. So I highly encourage folks to come check out your content. You're not disappointed when LinkedIn, when he puts the post out there, you will not get cheated. I promise you. But there's just a ton of value and good stuff is very thoughtful. what's the best way if people want to connect with you want to obviously I'll put the your LinkedIn link in there, but

Tom (: 47:49

Just, yeah, just DM me on LinkedIn. I typically do LinkedIn every morning. We're on Arizona Mountain Standard Time, which is about an hour. It's an hour earlier than Central Standard Time in the United States. But I typically do LinkedIn between about 6.30 AM and about 8 AM. But I'm checking it all day. It comes to my phone. So I mean, if you need to reach out to me for any reason and you need some...

Brett Trainor (: 47:52

Okay.

Tom (: 48:17

advice or help or whatever, just DM me and I'll get back to you right away.

Brett Trainor (: 48:22

Awesome. Awesome, awesome. Well, Tom, thank you again for spending some time with us. I'll get all those links into the show notes. And I'm sure that we will stay connected, and I'll keep tabs on what you're doing. But I appreciate your time and sharing your story. All right, Tom, have a great rest of your day. We'll catch up with you soon.

Tom (: 48:37

Yeah, thanks for inviting me. It's a lot of fun. I enjoyed it.

Yep, you as well.