Recognizing Ageism: Steps to Take Next

Escape and Empower Podcast with David Greenberg and Peter Gilfillan

David Greenberg and Peter Gilfillan delve into one of the most pressing challenges for experienced corporate professionals: ageism. Sharing personal stories, strategies, and actionable advice, they discuss recognizing and overcoming workplace ageism while exploring opportunities to create financial independence through entrepreneurship.

In this episode, Dave and Pete discuss:

• Recognizing Ageism in the Workplace
  The hosts highlight common signs of ageism, including reduced career advancement opportunities, limited challenging assignments, and workplace cultural shifts that marginalize experienced professionals.
• The Reality of Corporate Transitions
  Pete shares alarming statistics about how many executives are forced out of their positions after age 50, often unable to secure comparable roles. Dave reflects on how transitioning from the corporate world provided freedom and a chance to redefine his goals.
• Parallel Paths to Financial Freedom
  Dave and Pete outline different strategies for navigating ageism, including building semi-absentee franchises alongside W-2 roles, diversifying income streams, and preparing for corporate exits proactively.
• Leveraging Entrepreneurial Spirit
  The hosts emphasize how entrepreneurship eliminates the barriers of ageism, allowing individuals to apply their skills and passions in a way that builds lasting wealth and independence.

Key Takeaways:

• Prepare for Ageism: It’s not a matter of if but when. Diversify your income and assets before being caught flat-footed.
• Transitions Offer Freedom: Embrace career shifts as opportunities to focus on what truly matters in your life.
• Entrepreneurship Has No Age Limit: Your experience and skills are assets in business ownership. Hire for what you don’t know and focus on growth.

"Ageism doesn’t apply when you’re an entrepreneur. Your drive, skills, and vision matter more than your years." — David Greenberg

CONNECT WITH PETER GILFILLAN:

Website: https://www.hireyourself.com/
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/petegilfillan/

CONNECT WITH DAVID GREENBERG:

Website: https://empoweredfranchisee.com/
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-greenberg-entrepreneur/

Transcript

1
0,00:00,000 --> 0,00:29,000
Welcome to the Escape and Empower podcast. Escape from the corporate rat race to empowered franchise ownership. Are you ready to take control of your destiny, follow your dreams, and live life on your own terms? Join our host, Dave and Pete, for insights on how to break free from the corporate grind. Ditch the 9 to 5, and step into empowered franchise ownership.
2
0,00:29,000 --> 0,00:55,000
Welcome to the Escape and the Empower podcast. My name is Pete Gilfillan, and I'm here with my cohost, David Greenberg. We are both former corporate executives that decided to escape the corporate world to become empowered business owners, and we are excited to share with you all the stuff that we've learned and guide you through the process of learning about how you can escape and become an empowered franchise
3
0,00:55,000 --> 0,01:11,000
business owner. Good morning, David. Good morning, Pete. It's great to talk to you and talk about hiring yourself and figuring out how to control your Disney. Remember those 7 AM meetings that if you weren't at the 7 AM meeting, you weren't actually doing your job?
4
0,01:11,000 --> 0,01:42,000
Oh, cow. You know, I always tried to be the first one in the office. Right? You you get caught. I I mean, I remember being in the elevator 6:30 in the morning, and I get on the elevator with the wrong executive. Right? And all of a sudden, I had 5 assignments already before it was 7 AM. Right? And then and then to your point, right, we get into meetings, and you'd be in meetings from 7 AM to 5 PM, and you get out of those meetings, and then you go back to your desk and you had 250 emails. Right? You remember those days. And in the 250 emails, there was all kinds of bombs.
5
0,01:42,000 --> 0,02:20,000
Right? Like, we we need a decision on this right now. And if you don't respond, then you lose your position on making a decision. Oh, yeah. Like crazy. Right? Yeah. Especially when you were running contests and incentives at that multibillion dollar budget. You're like, okay. I got a multibillion dollar budget. There's 3 of yours of us spending it, and, I don't go home. Unbelievable. Between you and the FDAs, it was a great company, and we learned a ton. But holy heck, I do not miss the time zone challenges or the the meetings or I actually gave the heebie jeebies when I go back into an office. That's why we've escaped.
6
0,02:20,000 --> 0,03:06,000
Yes. We've escaped. Right? And and you could say we've got great lives. And, you know, I I worry about some of our friends that, you know, they are now older. They're in the corporate world. They've been, in companies for 30 plus years. And what I'm hearing, and we see it every day, is there's a lot of ageism going on. Right? The the the value of somebody that's been around for 30 years that has all that business acumen, it's it's they're not they're not the corporate world is not valuing that. They they it's actually, a disadvantage to them, at least from the way the corporations look at it. So maybe I thought we'd talk a little bit about that today. What do you think? Oh, I love it. Because I faced it when I gave you my first phone call in the, spring or summer of 2013
7
0,03:06,000 --> 0,03:33,000
when I was making the transition into the space, and I called Pete and said, hell, because I I had gone out. You know, I have the shiny resume, you know, global marketing, Miles the Motor Corporation, head of marketing for the Canada, you know, just sold and grew a technology company in the SaaS space. So, you know, I had the skill set that you just couldn't beat, but I also had a price tag, that they didn't wanna pay. Yeah.
8
0,03:33,000 --> 0,04:39,000
And it was it was tough when I got in there, Pete. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, here's a really scary stat that I use a lot, in my webinars, and it goes like this. 50% of 50 plus year old corporate executives get pushed out of their company before they're ready or pushed into retirement. So 50% of 50 plus year old corporate executives. Now here's that really scary stat. Of the ones that go get another job, only 10% make the same or more than they did in the prior position. So they're getting pushed out. They're not ready because, you know, you and I, as we talk to people, they're in their fifties, they're in their sixties, and they say, listen, Pete, I still have gas in the tank. I still need purpose. I want to be engaged. I don't wanna, you know, basically quit and just sit on a bench and, you know, take it easy. People want to be engaged. They intuitively know we stay young when we're active. Our mind, our body, and it heck, you know, the way things are, you can't save enough for retirement. So bottom line is there's gotta be other ways. So let's talk a little bit about this ageism in the workplace. So what would be kind of one thing as we talk about
9
0,04:39,000 --> 0,06:34,000
ageism that you think about? Let's talk about it first from when do you recognize it? You know, how do you understand it? Whether you're looking for a new job or whether you're all of a sudden in the job. And, you know, I I I experienced it when I was looking for a new job, trying to figure out what I was was doing. And, you know, I decided I didn't wanna move out of Nashville anymore, so that narrowed my scope even more. Sure. But then I also got in the workplace, and I was like, okay. You know, the end result is I'm gonna have to go in underemployed, which I came to realize wasn't a bad thing because it might give me the opportunity to do something along with it on parallel paths. Because I was in that transition facing ageism, and I was 51. And just like you said, if I got another job, I'd last 4 or 5 years if I didn't die doing that traveling all over the place. And, I was gonna be 56 doing the same thing. And, you know, I had 1 in college and a senior going into college. So talk about fear. And I was like, holy heck. What what do we do? What do we do? Because, you know, whether, you know, I started to see a change in the workplace culture that I didn't necessarily fit. Did I see, you know, limiting career advancement opportunities? Maybe I was tapped out. Did I see the, you know, fewer challenging projects coming my way if I was in and saying, oh, jeez, why is all the good stuff going to the young people or even getting retirement pressure? Those are the kind of things that happen when you're on the job as you just mentioned. Yeah. So, you know, ageism is real. And my point is, okay, what are you gonna do about it? How are you gonna face it? What are you, where are you gonna go? Yeah. I mean, you gotta start preparing yourself, right? So if you, if you're seeing the signals, right? You're not getting advancements. They're bringing in younger people. You know, all your older peers are going away.
10
0,06:34,000 --> 0,08:16,000
Right? You're getting less diligent projects. Right? They're just they're phasing you out for lack of better terms. You know, you have to start planning in advance and thinking about, okay, how do I diversify my assets and my income? How do I prepare if they walk in and say, listen, I'm sorry, we're done with you. We no longer need you. Right? And that's real. Like, I was working with a guy, he had worked for a company for 32 years, given his life to the company, Right? Literally gets an email telling him he's laid off. You you think somebody gives their life to you and they send him an email. So we don't wanna be the person sitting in your office, you get that email and you're caught flat footed. So there's things you can do. Certainly, you can start networking, building up your resume, start thinking about other things you wanna do. You can go create other sources of income. Right? So whether it's rental properties or a semi absentee franchise or whatever you got, but go diversify your assets, your income. Be prepared. You know, there's a great book, and I I used to give it to all my employees. It was called Who Moved My Cheese? Right? And if you the premise of the story is the cheese station. Right? You go to the cheese station, they get all this cheese. Pretty soon, the cheese starts, you know, going away. There's less and less and less of it. One guy puts on his sneakers and goes and starts looking. The other guy just continues eating the cheese, and all of a sudden, the cheese is gone. Well, that's what's happening now with a lot of these executives that are in fifties and their sixties is that bottom line is that the cheese is running out, and you better get your tennis shoes on and get ready because you're gonna be looking for a new cheese station. You know, it's totally true. And, you know, transitions are tough to talk about. You know, when I was growing up in the corporate workspace, you know, he stayed in the job for a long time. That was where he were. And being in a transition
11
0,08:16,000 --> 0,10:55,000
was a sign of weakness or something went wrong. And, you know, today, people look at transitions totally different. They look at it with a sense of freedom, and I wish I had looked at it with a sense of freedom. And frankly, once my wife talked to me about it, I said, okay, we are free. We are free to think about not the professional development we want on our next gig, but what we want out of life. And there was a little transition, assignment that I went through with Laurie and I, my wife, and we really figured out what we wanted to do. Alright? We didn't wanna jump back in and move out of Nashville, Tennessee. We come to love it after, after, you know, 10 years. And then we didn't want to, you know, have me disappear for 2 weeks out of the month because we're about to putting up the second one in college, and Laurie's home by herself. I mean, why not think about doing something where I can enjoy myself when we become empty nesters? And and and the third thing we started to think about is, okay, we had a balance sheet. So, you know, how do we use it to our advantage, but still plan for what we need to do in the future? And that became kind of invigorating. That's why I called you, Pete. And I ended up, I think, as you know, taking a parallel path approach to my transition. You know, you can go cold turkey. Right? You can just jump into the franchise world and and, you know, you can look at something that, you know, figure out what your runway is. And is it 12 months? Is it 6 months? And we can figure out what kind of, you know, franchises fit the kinda runway and ramp that you're looking for for a path to, you know, profitability someday. But you can also take parallel paths. I signed my franchise agreement in April of 14, and, in March, I signed on to help a startup, because they need operational experience to help scale. So, you know, it's 30:30 hours there and 20 hours in the franchise, investment. And I ended up having a it was executive model approach. I ended up being able to do that parallel path for 3 years as I built 6 locations over 4 years. So, you know, I think my point here is, you know, when you're facing ageism and you're seeing the writing on the wall, think about, okay. If you get another w two job, where are you gonna be in 5 years from now? That because that's as long as it's gonna last, if it lasts that long. Or if you take the path of becoming an entrepreneur, that runway is as long as you want. And and start to figure out, you know, which path you wanna go then. And then then say, okay. Well, how do I approach it?
12
0,10:55,000 --> 0,12:28,000
Do I do a soft wrestle? Do I take parallel pass or I just jump in with both feet? Yeah. We we talk about it. Right? If you either go executive model full time with this idea that you're looking to replace your corporate level income, being involved in that business full time. Right? And then you're all in. And that's what I did when I first left the corporate world. I invested in, you know, junk king, and I was all in drive and building that business. But I quickly shifted to then having a second business, my franchise consulting. So I did exactly what you're talking about, diversify my assets, diversify my income. And so there's many different paths and you can do whatever you choose to do. But I think the key thing is, is that start putting together the plan now so that you're not caught flat footed. So that because ageism is gonna catch up with you. It's just a matter of time when it's your number, and it's not your fault. They have a head count. You've got a big target on your back because of your age. I'm sorry, that's the reality of the world. We can't change that. We can only prepare and be ready. And so figure out what it is, and you and I do this all day long, helping executives figure out, hey, listen. Am I just done with the corporate world? I wanna take control of my life and just that kind of stuff. Or do I wanna diversify, keep a corporate job, maybe a lesser position and have a franchise on the side, own up multiple different businesses, but get your tennis shoes on, start figuring it out so you don't get caught flat footed. I had this, candidate,
13
0,12:28,000 --> 0,14:08,000
earlier in the year, and he was, CEO of a mortgage company. And he was, like, he was just tired of the pressure and lack of applications. And you know where the mortgage business has been with the with the interest rates they they are. And so we started down this path. We found him a great essential b to b service based business, which really didn't drain his retirement account. It was very moderate investment for him, to jump into. And he was going through the process and also taking a w two interview, and they wanted to move to another city. And he came back and and we had a lot of a lot of coaching sessions. And he says, okay, Dave. I think you're right. We're gonna do this because I was just offered a underemployed position, but they don't need me till October. And they just need to meet help them rebuild their their lending team, and it's like a 12 month gig. And and and he says, how are they paying? He says, it's not what I'm worth. He said, is it cash flow? He says, yeah. I love it. They gave me benefits too. So he took 4 months off. He built this business, hired general manager, and went back to work, and and now he's he's completely happy. A, he's no longer single threaded in income streams. Yep. And 2, he's built this business, found the general on his side on the side. His wife loved it because he went back to work and a little more cash flow as he builds it to something he really wants to be. Yeah. And when they when they're done with them, when he's done his job at that company, right, they're gonna push him out. Right? Right. It's a 12th day, and so then he's got something that's built on the side. And then he can choose to take another w two job or he can build another business. Right? So he's got options. And that's the key thing. Give yourself options because the numbers
14
0,14:08,000 --> 0,14:13,000
will tell you that you're gonna get impacted some way, somehow with ageism.
15
0,14:13,000 --> 0,15:18,000
And, you know, it's the other thing I was gonna share with this story and it's my personal story and probably yours. You know, ageism doesn't apply when you're entrepreneur. Right? It's it it just doesn't apply because it's your spirit inside you that drives you and, your skill set that doesn't have anything to do with age. Because if there's something you can't do, what do you do in the corporate world? Or what do you do as an entrepreneur? Hire it. Yep. Right? If you don't have that skill set, you go buy it because it takes a long time to build it. And and the second piece to that story was, from my personal experience, once we were able to stabilize the first one and second one, we had all the workflows and processes. I wasn't focused on running the day to day business. I was focused a little bit on building that startup. But now I was focused on finding the right person for the second or third one and just deploying the same workflows with this with new talent and the capital that we had to go build, as I ran parallel paths with the w two and also the franchise
16
0,15:18,000 --> 0,15:50,000
investment. Yeah. Certainly. We learn in the corporate world how to drive business and and help people drive their business with the like the dealers. And that ain't different. Right? When you start investing in businesses, you learn how to build and grow those businesses, and it's easily replicated. Not easy because it's a heck of a lot of hard work to launch a business. But the idea is it's it's an easier path because you've got the experience. And then you also have, in in the case of a franchise, the support, the infrastructure behind you at some point. Yeah. So I often talk to my candidates. Are you expensive?
17
0,15:50,000 --> 0,16:52,000
And they'll say yes. Are you on the verge of becoming obsolete? Yeah. Pretty much. Well, will you be obsolete in 5 years for sure? Okay. Then you've just made the decision. It's real simple. Yeah. So, you know, if you're facing ageism, give Pete a call. Give myself a call. We faced it. We understood it. We work with candidates every day that are facing it. And remember, ageism is real. The one thing you can't do is bury your head in the sand. You gotta face it and figure out how you're gonna work with it. And if you're gonna work with it, you know, don't worry about transitions. They're not that scary. You know, as soon as you come out of your shell and say, okay, I'm in transition. I'm cool with it. I'm free. I'm not worried about the other things. I'm gonna start my networking. I'm gonna think about creating wealth. And, hopefully, you'll give Pete and I a call, and we'll be happy to walk you through the process of seeing if we could find the right fit for your next business investment. Well, when you've been a w two executive, you know, the pay is good. You know, there's a lot of,
18
0,16:52,000 --> 0,17:45,000
I guess, steam associated with being vice president of blank or whatever. But at the end of the day, that doesn't matter if they if they walk you out, you're out. Right? And so to your point, start preparing now, get ready. You can go to the empowered franchisee website, the hire yourself website, set up a call with us. Our job is to help get to know you, get a good understanding of what you're looking for, what you'd want with the business, connect you with great franchises, and then be a coach to help you explore this path. And it may or may not be for you, but we're here if you if you need it. Well, Pete, thanks for bringing up that subject. I love talking about ageism, and I'm ready to help if you are. Let's do it. Alright. Thanks, Dee. Thanks for tuning in to the Escape and Empower podcast. We hope today's discussion has inspired you to consider franchise ownership as a path to living life on your own terms. Start your journey towards financial freedom and flexibility. Connect with dave@empoweredfranchisee.com,
19
0,17:45,000 --> 0:17:47,000
orpete@hireyourself.com. Until next time.