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Reinventing After a Successful Exit with Jack Calhoun · Beyond Expertise

0:01
Eric Dickmann: Welcome to Beyond Expertise, the podcast about what happens when the career identity you've built no longer fits, and how you begin figuring out what comes next.
0:12
Eric Dickmann: I'm your host, Eric Dickmann.
0:14
Eric Dickmann: Today my guest is Jack Calhoun, the founder of Encore Career Lab.
0:20
Eric Dickmann: After helping build a successful wealth management firm, Jack sold his stake in the business around age 50 and set out to reinvent himself.
0:29
Eric Dickmann: What stayed with me from our conversation is that Jack had something many people entering a second act do not: runway.
0:37
Eric Dickmann: He was financially secure.
0:39
Eric Dickmann: He had time to experiment.
0:41
Eric Dickmann: He could try writing, build a consumer product, make a wrong turn, and step back to examine what the experience was teaching him without the immediate pressure of having to replace a paycheck.
0:53
Eric Dickmann: That does not mean the process was easy.
0:55
Eric Dickmann: Financial freedom gave Jack options, but it did not give him clarity.
1:00
Eric Dickmann: He still had to confront the loss of his professional identity, the isolation that came with leaving a working community, and the realization that the business he created was not the one he wanted to spend years operating.
1:13
Eric Dickmann: I think that distinction matters.
1:15
Eric Dickmann: Some people get to approach reinvention as an exploration.
1:19
Eric Dickmann: Others arrive there after a layoff, a restructuring, or a financial disruption, and they need the next chapter to start producing income quickly.
1:28
Eric Dickmann: The lessons may be similar, but the conditions are not.
1:32
Eric Dickmann: What I appreciate about Jack's story is that he was willing to examine the experiment that did not work and ask a better question.
1:39
Eric Dickmann: Not simply,"What business should I start?" But,"What did my previous work give me that I still need in my life?" For Jack, the answer included relationships, contribution, creativity, and the opportunity to help people think through consequential decisions.
1:56
Eric Dickmann: That understanding eventually led him to the work he's doing today.
2:01
Eric Dickmann: As this show evolves, I want to explore not only the stories of reinvention, but the mechanics behind them, what people tried, how they supported themselves, what created momentum, and what they would do differently.
2:13
Eric Dickmann: Jack's story begins that conversation, and also reminds us that the freedom to experiment is itself an advantage worth acknowledging.
2:22
Eric Dickmann: Let's get ready to go beyond expertise Hey, Jack, welcome to the podcast.
2:26
Eric Dickmann: I'm so glad to have you on today
2:29
Jack Calhoun: Thanks, Eric.
2:29
Jack Calhoun: I appreciate it.
2:30
Jack Calhoun: It's great to be here
2:32
Eric Dickmann: Jack, one of the things that I do, as I start these shows is I ask people to really turn back the dial of time and go all the way back to when your corporate career first started, your first job really out of school, your first meaningful job.
2:45
Eric Dickmann: And I know that you had a little bit of background in, uh, journalism, if I'm not mistaken.
2:49
Eric Dickmann: Talk to me a little bit about that experience of entering the professional world, and did you start out doing what you thought you'd be doing?
2:57
Jack Calhoun: Yeah, it's, it's funny.
2:59
Jack Calhoun: I look back on it now and, uh, you know, in high school, I guess I, some teachers that I admired said, you, you know,"You're a good writer," right?
3:06
Jack Calhoun: And that was kinda it.
3:07
Jack Calhoun: And I was like,"Oh, I'm a good writer." Uh, and so, uh, growing up in Atlanta and a lifelong fan of, of the Georgia Bulldogs, you know, the Herschel Walker era, uh, Georgia also happened to have a really good journalism school.
3:21
Jack Calhoun: Uh, and fortunately for me in the early'80s was easy to get into, not so much anymore.
3:26
Jack Calhoun: So, so I just waltzed myself right on down the road, uh, and, and, and enrolled at Georgia, got into the journalism school, and it was, it was aligned with my gifts as a writer, I guess, and I enjoyed it.
3:39
Jack Calhoun: It was fun.
3:40
Jack Calhoun: Um, and I thought,"Well, this is great.
3:42
Jack Calhoun: I'll just go right out and I'll make a living as a writer or reporter and editor and, um, you know That's it.
3:50
Jack Calhoun: And so I got out and immediately we had the recession of'89 and'90 and, um, I'd had a job lined up with a suburban Atlanta paper that had been acquired by The New York Times.
4:01
Jack Calhoun: It was really a good entree, hope- you know, hopefully for me at the time, and they put a hiring freeze on.
4:07
Jack Calhoun: And so my next best gig was a rural paper like 80 miles away, and I was not down with that.
4:14
Jack Calhoun: And so, uh, I ended up going to work for a trade magazine publishing company, uh, and, and it's free circulation and, and as a marketing person you already understand how soul-crushing that kind of stuff is'cause you're just, you're, you're just a hack to write the copy.
4:30
Jack Calhoun: Not a hack, but I mean, they don't value you, right?
4:33
Jack Calhoun: Because all of the revenue comes from the advertising, right?
4:37
Jack Calhoun: So that, that was soul-crushing and so I segued from that into sports marketing and all this happened within about two years.
4:44
Eric Dickmann: Oh, okay.
4:44
Eric Dickmann: So fast
4:45
Jack Calhoun: and yeah, and so that was very informative for me.
4:48
Jack Calhoun: That was the Collegiate Licensing Company, which essentially pioneered, uh, college licensing in the United States.
4:55
Jack Calhoun: They, they created a consortium so that Nike, Adidas could come to them instead of negotiating with each individual school.
5:03
Jack Calhoun: And it was family owned by a family, the Battle family, great people, and I learned a lot.
5:08
Jack Calhoun: Um, one of the things I learned was that there were like 20 Battles in the company and I wasn't one of them.
5:12
Jack Calhoun: So, uh, I didn't see a bright future there, but I learned a lot about entrepreneurship.
5:18
Jack Calhoun: And one of the things that really dis- demystified it for me was just getting together every week, every month, every quarter, seeing what's working, seeing what's not, iterating, keep going, right?
5:29
Jack Calhoun: And so all of a sudden it was like, oh, this isn't as mysterious as I thought, right?
5:33
Jack Calhoun: And that was really instructive to me at a 25, 26-year-old age.
5:38
Jack Calhoun: So, um, yeah, so f- from there I, uh, jumped over to my father who was, uh, uh, a what you'd call a breakaway broker.
5:47
Jack Calhoun: Uh, he had been in the wirehouse business in the'80s and he liked the clients, he liked the subject matter, he hated the commission pressure, and he had gone fee only at a time when that really wasn't a thing, uh, to his credit.
6:00
Jack Calhoun: And so I moved over there to start doing marketing and, and business development and, and really branding for our little tiny company at that time to really to try to make us look bigger than we were.
6:11
Jack Calhoun: So, uh
6:12
Eric Dickmann: you excited about that transition?
6:14
Eric Dickmann: One of the things that stuck out to me as you were describing that journey is feeling valued.
6:20
Eric Dickmann: And, you know, when you're working for a publication that's just cranking things out, right, really doesn't care about the quality of the writing all that much, I'm sure you didn't get a chance to be all that creative in some of those early roles.
6:32
Eric Dickmann: But as you were progressing down this path and eventually into this more family business, were you feeling valued along that journey?
6:40
Jack Calhoun: Well, I was because, you know, as ADD as I am, my father was twice what I was, so between the two of us, uh, we had a lot of ideas and it was fun to, uh, to, to be valued for those and, and we made a good team on the vision part.
6:55
Jack Calhoun: Uh, not so much on the, uh, tactical and implementation part, which was kind of native to ADD stuff.
7:01
Jack Calhoun: But, um, but yes, it was great, it was fulfilling, and really it was validating in a way because, um, my, my, my major and my experience in journalism ended up serving me really well in the investment business
7:15
Eric Dickmann: Oh, talk a little bit more about that because one is a very creative pursuit, right?
7:19
Eric Dickmann: And the other is much more of a technical, numbers-based, pursuit.
7:23
Eric Dickmann: I'm sure there's lots of client interaction, so you have to have good people skills but where did you feel that there was good overlap?
7:29
Jack Calhoun: Yeah, it is.
7:30
Jack Calhoun: It's a hyper-analytical world, and I'm pretty analytical in some respects, but, you know, not with things I'm not particularly interested in.
7:37
Jack Calhoun: So stochastic charts and standard deviations and, um, things like that weren't terribly riveting to me.
7:44
Jack Calhoun: But I understood it conceptually and the need to understand it, and I was good at communicating stuff to clients, right?
7:50
Jack Calhoun: So modern portfolio theory, asset allocation, things that are commonplace now were not back then.
7:55
Jack Calhoun: Uh,
7:56
Eric Dickmann: Mm-hmm.
7:56
Jack Calhoun: efficient markets, you know.
7:58
Jack Calhoun: And so that was the realization, oh, all of these kind of wonky nerd types are burying people in these, you know, formulas and trying to show, prove their alpha and, and people's eyes are glazing over.
8:12
Jack Calhoun: And as an empath, I could see their eyes glazing over, right?
8:16
Jack Calhoun: And a lot of people are oblivious to that, right?
8:18
Jack Calhoun: And Dad was like me.
8:19
Jack Calhoun: Dad was-- Dad taught me a lot about that and, and about, you know, non-verbal cues and all that.
8:24
Jack Calhoun: And so that helped me understand that we really needed not to dumb it down at all, but to simplify it and get down to the essence of what we were trying to explain to people.
8:33
Jack Calhoun: Why are these things important, right?
8:34
Jack Calhoun: Why is it important not to chase performance, even though it seems like a logical thing to do?
8:39
Jack Calhoun: Um, you know, why is it better to diversify instead of to go all in on whatever's been hot recently, right?
8:46
Jack Calhoun: And so those were things I could communicate.
8:49
Jack Calhoun: So I learned the business really through my, um, my need and my interest in communicating these principles to clients.
8:55
Jack Calhoun: And, um, you know, there was a lot of imposter syndrome along the way, and there was an always aspect of that.
9:01
Jack Calhoun: But, you know, probably in hindsight, I undervalued, uh, the soft skills, the human stuff that really distinguished what I had to offer.
9:11
Jack Calhoun: And also this vision part, um, which was the creative, you know, as I said, ADD-type personality.
9:17
Jack Calhoun: I created a program in the late'90s for accounting firms that were getting in financial services, uh, the ultimate wonks, right?
9:26
Jack Calhoun: And,
9:26
Eric Dickmann: Very much so
9:27
Jack Calhoun: and they were being way, uh, swayed by the brokerage industry to sell dot-com stocks.
9:33
Eric Dickmann: Mm.
9:34
Jack Calhoun: And, you know, having come into an industry that they didn't know, they didn't know any better and so I created an alternative based on the fiduciary model, you know, where we helped them tell a much more professional service, uh, aligned story with their accounting brand.
9:49
Jack Calhoun: And that resonated with quite a few firms.
9:53
Jack Calhoun: And then the dot-com bubble blew up, and then we really looked like we knew what we were talking about.
9:58
Jack Calhoun: And so that program ultimately took off.
10:01
Jack Calhoun: And so I bought that out of the company in the mid-2000s, ended up being the majority owner.
10:06
Jack Calhoun: And, um, circa 2014, um, you know, we were up to about a billion and a half in assets under management by that time.
10:15
Eric Dickmann: So you really saw some growth
10:16
Jack Calhoun: We did a lot, and it was ironic or, you know, it was interesting that it happened during a decade with two of the worst bear markets in the history of the stock market, uh,'01,'02,'08,'09.
10:27
Jack Calhoun: But because we were diversified, because we didn't panic and all of the things that seem common sense today but didn't feel that way at the time, um, we looked good, right?
10:38
Jack Calhoun: And we did the right things and our performance showed it.
10:41
Eric Dickmann: You talked about entrepreneurship earlier too and how do you think entrepreneurship played into the growth of your company or your interest in growing the company as you began to work more closely with your dad and, and start to do some of these new programs like you did with the CPAs?
10:57
Jack Calhoun: Yeah.
10:58
Jack Calhoun: You know, call it serendipity or kismet or, you know, for me it, you know, there's a faith component for me.
11:04
Jack Calhoun: But, you know, I, I see a path that I sort of gained experience that all kind of culminated, right?
11:10
Jack Calhoun: Uh, so my communications background was a big part of it, but also that time I spent at Collegiate Licensing Company, watching that family create this very entrepreneurial consortium concept, uh, I then essentially applied that concept to working with accounting firms.
11:25
Jack Calhoun: Um, and, and I wouldn't have had an idea how to do that without pr- without that prior experience.
11:30
Jack Calhoun: And so, um, I had the chutzpah to, you know, at 33 or whatever years old, to roll this thing out, partner up with Schwab and these accounting firms and, you know, and I had the, the brochure.
11:42
Jack Calhoun: I didn't have, I didn't have the guts behind me on this thing, and I, I convinced a good friend of mine who was at, uh, KPMG and, and had been at T.
11:53
Jack Calhoun: Rowe Price, uh, the, the teachers' retirement fund, um, to come on board, and he was the guy that, you know, we made the band, right?
12:00
Jack Calhoun: So, so I was kind of the, the, the, the front man, and he was the lead guitarist, I guess.
12:06
Jack Calhoun: And so he was able, you know, he, he came in and he was like,"Oh my God, you've done nothing.
12:11
Jack Calhoun: Your brochure is not reflective of what's going on back here." So he made back here get all, all cleaned up and looking right, and between the two of us, we made a good team, and that h- that was a lot of the entrepreneurial part of it, was the kind of building it on, on the fly, right?
12:26
Eric Dickmann: Well, your story really resonates with me because so many of the guests that I've had on this show talk about an experience that was actually fairly early in their career, and they took some real lessons from it that maybe sat idle sometimes for decades, and then all of the sudden they kind of hearken back on these lessons or that experience and realize there was really something there that they just kind of set aside, but that they were able to take advantage of later on when they really gave it some thought.
12:56
Eric Dickmann: And it sounds like some of that played into your story as well.
13:00
Eric Dickmann: And I think it's also interesting, you know, you talk about your faith, and then you're also talking about a business where it's all about money, right?
13:07
Eric Dickmann: It's all about gains and how much more money can you earn for your clients, and the clients obviously are very focused on how much money they're earning.
13:15
Eric Dickmann: So how did you balance all that?
13:19
Jack Calhoun: You know, I think part of it was that we were advocating, uh, uh, this kind of fiduciary, more conservative diversification approach.
13:27
Jack Calhoun: And so all of what you just described was what I called the dark side of the industry.
13:32
Jack Calhoun: Uh, they were, they were preaching cha- chasing performance.
13:36
Jack Calhoun: They were rolling out, you know, day trading platforms and encouraging people to get in there and, and, and, and, you know, flip stocks around and everything.
13:45
Jack Calhoun: Well, we happened to be in the s- in the office complex where unfortunately there was a mass shooting from a psychopath who was a day trader.
13:52
Jack Calhoun: And, um, and, and so he got flipped upside down and, you know, it was a bad thing.
13:59
Jack Calhoun: So all of that was real to me.
14:01
Jack Calhoun: And so, you know, I felt very good that we were doing things the right way and, and that people needed us and we were saving people from this, um, you know, Dad called it the trail of tears, you know, brokerage firm to bank to insurance company blown up, blown up, blown up.
14:16
Jack Calhoun: And then we were helping them, right?
14:17
Jack Calhoun: So it was lucrative.
14:19
Jack Calhoun: It was a great business.
14:20
Jack Calhoun: Um, but it also was a good sleep at night model.
14:24
Jack Calhoun: Um, having said that,'08,'09 took a lot out of me, uh, you know, psychologically.
14:31
Jack Calhoun: Uh, it was, it was such an extraordinary black swan event.
14:36
Jack Calhoun: Uh, it was the first time in my entire career in that business I was like,"I don't actually know if it's gonna be okay."
14:42
Eric Dickmann: Hmm.
14:43
Jack Calhoun: Um, and, you know, so our tagline was kinda like, you know,"If everything's okay, you'll be glad you stayed invested, and if it's not, not really gonna matter anyways." Um, you know, so that, that-- by the time the offer came to sell my company, that part of it, I think for me, I was like,"You know what?
15:00
Jack Calhoun: It'd be okay with me if I wasn't in charge of people's life savings for a while."
15:04
Eric Dickmann: I bet that's a tremendous amount of pressure.
15:06
Eric Dickmann: But there's real money and real stress that goes on in the, in the financial services business, right?
15:11
Eric Dickmann: In wealth management and, and giving people advice on what to do with their money.
15:16
Jack Calhoun: Yeah, there, there's a lot of that.
15:17
Jack Calhoun: And when you're telling people to stay the course no matter what, you know, whether you're in a bubble or, or, or the, the ultimate bear market like we were in'08,'09, both of those take a lot of emotional discipline to keep clients focused, and also belief that you're doing things the right way, and, and you can't always prove that out until in hindsight, right?
15:38
Jack Calhoun: So there's a lot of stress there for sure.
15:40
Eric Dickmann: So when you decided to sell the business, was this something that you had been contemplating and actively looking to sell the business?
15:48
Eric Dickmann: Was it an offer that just came along?
15:50
Eric Dickmann: You know, what was your mental state?
15:51
Eric Dickmann: Were you ready to get out?
15:53
Jack Calhoun: You know, I, I, I wasn't, but I think what I was and hadn't stopped to, to consider was, was, um, um, kind of bored.
16:03
Jack Calhoun: there's a point in wealth management, weirdly, where it doesn't make sense to devote your efforts to creating new things.
16:08
Jack Calhoun: It makes more sense to tend to what you've got.
16:10
Eric Dickmann: Sure
16:11
Jack Calhoun: The market will move things a lot more than you can move them with a new program.
16:15
Jack Calhoun: Um, and, and, and so I was kinda restless'cause I like building and creating.
16:21
Jack Calhoun: I don't love managing.
16:22
Jack Calhoun: Um, and then the market caught up with us, and so some offers started coming in, in private equity, things like that, and, and they were, like, surprisingly high numbers for, you know, what I was expecting.
16:32
Jack Calhoun: So that got me thinking.
16:34
Eric Dickmann: Hmm
16:35
Jack Calhoun: Um, and then ultimately, you know, the partnership and I had a discussion, and then, uh, we worked it out to where we, we did an internal transition, and that was great.
16:45
Jack Calhoun: And so the younger partners, you know, I sold my shares back to them and, um, and, and so everybody was kind of a winner in that way.
16:54
Jack Calhoun: And, um, but for me, I was not like,"I gotta get out of this industry," right?
17:01
Jack Calhoun: It was just sort of a subconscious vibe that was brewing with me, and then when these numbers started coming in, I started thinking,"Eh, all right.
17:10
Jack Calhoun: Let's take some chips off the table, right?
17:12
Jack Calhoun: Let's go.
17:12
Jack Calhoun: You know, I'm a creative guy.
17:14
Jack Calhoun: I'll, I'll go reinvent myself.
17:15
Jack Calhoun: This'll be fun.
17:15
Jack Calhoun: I'm 50, you know.
17:17
Jack Calhoun: I'll figure it out." And thus was the entirety of my thinking about this next phase.
17:24
Jack Calhoun: And I look back now and I'm like,"Dude, hmm, should've talked to some people, done some more planning." I don't regret anything.
17:32
Jack Calhoun: I regret not being mentally prepared for it, but it ultimately led to what I've created now, so
17:37
Eric Dickmann: Well, I was just saying You're not alone there.
17:39
Eric Dickmann: I think so many people find themselves in that position.
17:43
Eric Dickmann: You were on the lucky side of it, right?
17:44
Eric Dickmann: You w- sold a business, so you had some money.
17:48
Eric Dickmann: Uh, you were able probably to take a little bit of time to figure out what this next act is gonna look like.
17:53
Eric Dickmann: I think for a lot of our listeners, it's more of a forced change, right?
17:57
Eric Dickmann: They're laid off, there's a downsizing, an acquisition, whatever it may be, and all of a sudden they find themselves,"Oh, geez, what am I gonna do next?
18:04
Eric Dickmann: I'm not so sure I wanna continue doing what I was doing, but I don't know what that next thing really is.
18:10
Eric Dickmann: And oh, by the way, I don't have a lot of time to figure it out because got a family to support." So now you're in this phase.
18:16
Eric Dickmann: You've sold the business.
18:18
Eric Dickmann: You've got the proceeds from that.
18:19
Eric Dickmann: You can think through what your next act is gonna be.
18:22
Eric Dickmann: Did you have an idea of what you wanted it to be?
18:25
Eric Dickmann: Did you have some guiding principles of saying,"I don't know what it is, but I wanna make sure it's checking this box and that box"?
18:32
Eric Dickmann: How did you approach it?
18:34
Jack Calhoun: You know, I kind of did the conventional wisdom of follow your bliss, right?
18:41
Jack Calhoun: So, uh, your, your passion, right?
18:43
Jack Calhoun: And so I went back to writing and, and, you know, do some, doing creative writing and things like that.
18:49
Jack Calhoun: And, um, you know, I built a little, you know, cabin behind the house.
18:53
Jack Calhoun: We had a little property and, you know, did the whole cliched thing and, and, you know, it was great until it wasn't.
19:00
Jack Calhoun: After about three months of that, you're like feeling like you're in"The Shining," you know?
19:06
Jack Calhoun: Not the violent way, but the isolation way, right?
19:08
Jack Calhoun: You know, and I would write up in the, in the house because I was just so isolated and, and, and you don't think about that.
19:15
Jack Calhoun: Uh, and then I had a, a vision for creating a consumer product, a consumer electronic product.
19:21
Jack Calhoun: Uh, I'm a big outdoor smoking and grilling fan, and there was an opportunity to create a Wi-Fi thermometer in the market.
19:29
Jack Calhoun: Um, like these ceramic smokers, like Big Green Egg, Kamado Joe, they, they, they hold a temperature for a long time and you don't need to babysit them, but you do wanna keep an eye on them.
19:39
Eric Dickmann: Mm-hmm
19:40
Jack Calhoun: Um, and I thought it was ridiculous that the only thing on the market was a Bluetooth thermometer.
19:44
Jack Calhoun: You had to stay 50 feet from it to stay connected.
19:46
Jack Calhoun: And so I was like,"Eh, all right.
19:50
Jack Calhoun: Let's do it." And so I put together a development team and we did it and created it and it was really cool.
19:55
Jack Calhoun: We built it on the AWS platform.
19:57
Jack Calhoun: It had an app.
19:58
Jack Calhoun: The product was great, and then the tariffs came out.
20:01
Jack Calhoun: Uh, we had a lot of steel in the construction, and then COVID hit and everybody started a side hustle and pay-per-click ads exploded.
20:09
Jack Calhoun: And essentially I went from this very high margin world of wealth management to the skinniest margins on earth, which is consumer electronics.
20:17
Jack Calhoun: As a CMO, you're laughing at me right now.
20:20
Jack Calhoun: And, uh, and I was, I was like, you know...
20:24
Jack Calhoun: And, and I ultimately just wound it down, you know?
20:27
Jack Calhoun: I, I was gonna pivot it and I was having discussions with manufacturing, grill manufacturers'cause we had a patent on the technology for connecting to AWS And I thought, you know, I probably, I'm a good, persuasive enough I can probably get this done.
20:43
Jack Calhoun: And then what, right?
20:45
Jack Calhoun: Then I'm gonna be that much deeper in an industry I hate, right?
20:49
Jack Calhoun: I loved the product creation.
20:51
Jack Calhoun: That scratched my creative itch, the entrepreneurial part.
20:55
Jack Calhoun: I'd expected to sell it and move on to something else.
20:58
Jack Calhoun: You know, uh, uh, conditions moved against me.
21:00
Jack Calhoun: I got stuck in it.
21:02
Jack Calhoun: You know, you learn.
21:04
Jack Calhoun: And so all of a sudden now I'm managing something that is just a brutal industry to be in.
21:09
Jack Calhoun: And so that was, I was like,"You know what?
21:11
Jack Calhoun: I'm just gonna wind it down, lick my wounds." And, and I worked with a coach at that time.
21:16
Jack Calhoun: This was just coming out of COVID probably.
21:19
Jack Calhoun: And he helped me kind of do what he called an autopsy of that experience, and it was very instructive.
21:25
Jack Calhoun: And, and I was mad at myself for a while because I was like, you know, I knew better than this, right?
21:29
Jack Calhoun: I mean, I advise my clients on how to retire.
21:32
Jack Calhoun: How come I went into something capital intensive, risky, no experience, all the things that I would've said no.
21:39
Jack Calhoun: And, you know, the cobbler's kid's kid had no shoes.
21:42
Jack Calhoun: And so, um, so, you know, after going through that with the coach, what I realized was it, it, it scratched the, the creative itch for me.
21:51
Eric Dickmann: Yeah
21:52
Jack Calhoun: But I didn't spend enough time thinking,"Well, what if it doesn't go perfectly?
21:56
Jack Calhoun: Um, what if you end up, you know, really needing to be in this industry for a while?
22:01
Jack Calhoun: Beyond the creation, what's there for you?
22:03
Jack Calhoun: And what are your priorities?" Like you said,"What are your values?" That's what I now see was my mistake.
22:10
Jack Calhoun: And one of the things I realized was I really missed the relationship stuff, right?
22:14
Jack Calhoun: As an empath, I really miss engaging with people that I cared about and who cared about me, and helping them solve these sort of higher level life problems, right?
22:24
Jack Calhoun: I just didn't miss managing money.
22:26
Eric Dickmann: Hmm
22:27
Jack Calhoun: So that was when I was like,"Oh, well I can do that in different capacities," right?
22:32
Jack Calhoun: And that was when this concept, this vision started to come to me.
22:35
Jack Calhoun: I wish there'd been a program I could have gone through when I left my career behind that would've oriented me to help me think through what you're talking about, right?
22:43
Jack Calhoun: Not the what, but the why.
22:46
Jack Calhoun: And, you know, it's a Simon Sinek thing, right?
22:48
Eric Dickmann: Yeah, find your why, right?
22:49
Eric Dickmann: And, and I think you're, you're exactly spot on here because so many people haven't thought about that next step yet.
22:58
Eric Dickmann: And, you know, there are tons of guidebooks out there now at least where you can say,"Well, don't make this mistake, don't make this mistake," but there is something to learning it, right?
23:08
Eric Dickmann: You can tell teenagers not to do a lot of things, but they're probably gonna do them anyway because the only way that you really learn is to make the mistakes.
23:16
Eric Dickmann: And if you've got a limited runway but you make these mistakes, the pressure really starts to build because now you're just coming from further and further behind.
23:26
Eric Dickmann: And so that was one thing that struck me in what you said, and I think the other was this whole concept of isolation and loneliness.
23:34
Eric Dickmann: I think especially when you've been in an environment where you've got an office full of colleagues, you've got customers that you're working with, you're interacting with people on a regular basis, and then it's potentially just you or you and a partner, oftentimes virtually, you're not even together in the same room, that's a very different experience and, and rather jarring for people.
23:54
Eric Dickmann: So I'm not surprised at your reaction to those things because I hear that so often and have experienced that myself
24:01
Jack Calhoun: Yeah, and there's a couple of variations of that.
24:03
Jack Calhoun: You know, one are people who've been forced out, uh, who are sort of mid-career, and that's a whole other kind of stress.
24:09
Jack Calhoun: I totally get that.
24:10
Jack Calhoun: Uh, the other are people who have taken an early retirement package or they've just full-on retired or, you know, they've walked away from that career.
24:17
Jack Calhoun: They're ready for this next act.
24:19
Jack Calhoun: They don't know what that is.
24:21
Jack Calhoun: And they're-- And, and that was quote kind of me, right?
24:24
Jack Calhoun: And, and then, and there's this sense like, well, nobody is crying for me, right?
24:30
Jack Calhoun: You know, my friends are working their butts off back there, and I've got enough wherewithal to be able to keep a roof over my head, and, you know, people are starving all over the world.
24:40
Jack Calhoun: And what, what right do I have to complain, right?
24:43
Jack Calhoun: Uh, you know, boo-hoo, you're, you're lost.
24:46
Jack Calhoun: You can't figure out what to do with your life.
24:47
Jack Calhoun: Boo-hoo, you know, you've got some money.
24:49
Jack Calhoun: You had a good career.
24:50
Jack Calhoun: Cry me a river, right?
24:51
Jack Calhoun: A- and that's sort of the subconscious vibe, I think.
24:55
Jack Calhoun: And so for me, and this is what I've found with a lot of people, is you go internal, right?
25:00
Jack Calhoun: You don't talk about it because you don't feel like you've got a sounding board for anybody who can relate to it and actually have empathy for the isolation.
25:08
Jack Calhoun: A- and then it b- creates a self, uh, an endless loop, right?
25:12
Jack Calhoun: And, and so we, we, we're in our head.
25:14
Jack Calhoun: The first thing I realized that I missed was, um, was a brain trust, right?
25:19
Jack Calhoun: A sounding board.
25:20
Jack Calhoun: You know, partners, like you said.
25:21
Jack Calhoun: You know, you're, uh, you're, you're all up in your head, and all the arguments are going up here, right?
25:27
Jack Calhoun: Um, and so we get analysis paralysis.
25:30
Jack Calhoun: And Particularly achievers, which if you've read the book"From Strength to Strength," highly recommend that book.
25:37
Jack Calhoun: Um, Arthur Brooks calls, you know, people who are career invested is what I call it, right?
25:44
Jack Calhoun: Achievers don't like to call themselves achievers, but they are.
25:48
Jack Calhoun: Um, for people like that, we don't like when we don't have an answer to the question, what do you do, right?
25:55
Jack Calhoun: And, and, you know, even for me, having sold a company and supposedly, you know, grabbing the brass ring or whatever, and people say,"What are you doing?" I'm like,"Yeah."
26:06
Eric Dickmann: Yeah.
26:07
Jack Calhoun: It didn't feel good.
26:08
Eric Dickmann: Now
26:08
Jack Calhoun: And, and I had the metrics, supposedly I was successful, right?
26:12
Jack Calhoun: And so, you know, it's even more so when it's not on your terms, right?
26:17
Jack Calhoun: And so we rush to the what.
26:19
Jack Calhoun: As achievers, strivers, whatever, y- we rush to the what, and we don't spend as much time on the why because it feels like we don't have the luxury of that, or we don't even know how to address that, right?
26:32
Jack Calhoun: And so that was sort of the process and the framework I realized was missing.
26:37
Jack Calhoun: And, and having been in wealth management, I was like,"Oh, we are doing it wrong," right?
26:42
Jack Calhoun: I mean, we're doing it right in one regard, which is getting the numbers right.
26:45
Jack Calhoun: That has to be right or there's nothing else to talk about.
26:49
Jack Calhoun: But then we're like,"Okay, numbers look good.
26:51
Jack Calhoun: Party on, Wayne."
26:52
Eric Dickmann: Mm-hmm.
26:54
Jack Calhoun: And, and that's where we miss it, because there's this concept that retirement is just a 30-year vacation.
27:01
Eric Dickmann: Yes
27:02
Jack Calhoun: But really it's like a year vacation, and then it's like, what on earth am I gonna do with the next 29 years after that?
27:11
Jack Calhoun: And, and that's the part people can't get their arms around because people in corporate are so fried, they're so burned out
27:19
Eric Dickmann: Yes
27:20
Jack Calhoun: that this Shangri-La vision that they're working towards is hard to talk them out of, and I get it.
27:27
Jack Calhoun: And, and they've got it coming.
27:29
Jack Calhoun: They have got it coming to go into that world and catch their breath and reset.
27:34
Jack Calhoun: The problem is, you know, it's like I say, you ever been on a vacation that went a couple of days too long and you're kinda like, you know,"All right, let's get back to it," right?
27:42
Eric Dickmann: Yes
27:43
Jack Calhoun: There's no it to get back to.
27:45
Jack Calhoun: And it...
27:46
Jack Calhoun: And, and then, then it turns into inertia and
27:48
Eric Dickmann: Yes
27:49
Jack Calhoun: and that's when you start down what I call the decline railway, right?
27:54
Jack Calhoun: Get southern boy, right?
27:55
Jack Calhoun: You know, incline railway bit by bit, you go up the mountain, de- decline railway down bit by bit.
28:01
Jack Calhoun: And it's, it's losing your working muscle, right?
28:04
Jack Calhoun: It's losing your initiative, accountability, and it's the sandbox that our careers give us that we're then plopped out of it and, and we're f- forced to rebuild the sandbox on our own.
28:19
Eric Dickmann: It's adding value, right?
28:21
Eric Dickmann: You no longer feel like you're adding value.
28:23
Jack Calhoun: Right
28:24
Eric Dickmann: And, and careers for a lot of people are how they add value to this world, and once that's taken away, all of a sudden, maybe they're a parent, a grandparent, whatever it may be, and they're adding value in that kind of a way.
28:36
Eric Dickmann: But it's not quite the same as what you experienced in the corporate world
28:40
Jack Calhoun: Now you've really hit on it, and this is something I really try to get across to people, and that is, um, humans are wired with a need to feel accomplished,
28:48
Eric Dickmann: Mm-hmm.
28:49
Jack Calhoun: and we're the only species on Earth that's wired that way, right?
28:53
Jack Calhoun: Your dog does not wake up every day trying to figure out how to be the best dog he can be.
28:58
Jack Calhoun: But we are, right?
28:59
Jack Calhoun: And so we don't feel good about ourselves.
29:03
Jack Calhoun: We don't feel aligned when we're not doing things that are helping, that matter, and that call on our highest and best.
29:10
Eric Dickmann: Yes
29:11
Jack Calhoun: And one of the things I hear that I try to make the distinction with people is, is, well, you know, I'm just gonna volunteer, right?
29:18
Jack Calhoun: I'm gonna volunteer more, you know, particularly people who are financially secure or have some time, and, and it's, it's from the heart.
29:27
Jack Calhoun: It's a great instinct.
29:28
Jack Calhoun: But what I find, there's this, there's this rule of thumb called the 100-hour rule of volunteering, and there's been some studies that have found that beyond about 100 hours a year, you don't feel any additional fulfillment from volunteering activities.
29:45
Eric Dickmann: Oh, interesting
29:46
Jack Calhoun: It doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.
29:48
Jack Calhoun: It just means don't expect it to fill that meaning and purpose void, right?
29:52
Jack Calhoun: Well, if your average nine-to-five job is 2,000 hours a year and 100 hours is pretty much beyond which you're not gonna...
30:00
Jack Calhoun: You got a 1,900-hour delta just for a nine-to-five kinda job, and not many people in this day and age are working those hours anyway.
30:09
Jack Calhoun: So the void is significant, and a big part of that is this misplaced, well-intended idea that I'm gonna volunteer, and that's gonna be my work thing for me, and it's not.
30:20
Jack Calhoun: You have to find a new kind of work, you know?
30:24
Jack Calhoun: And I make the distinction between the soul-crushing, grinding corporate work and your life's work,
30:29
Eric Dickmann: Yeah
30:30
Jack Calhoun: and that's what I have to get people to stop long enough to hear it because people hear work and it's a four-letter word, right?
30:37
Jack Calhoun: And I'm like,"No, that's not what we're talking about.
30:39
Jack Calhoun: Look at the Rolling Stones," right?
30:42
Jack Calhoun: Look at Mel Brooks.
30:43
Jack Calhoun: He's 99 years old.
30:44
Jack Calhoun: He's working on a reboot of The Producers and Spaceballs, right?
30:48
Jack Calhoun: Yeah, they're famous, and yeah, they're rich, but rich and famous isn't what it takes or, you know, we wouldn't have the 27 Club, right?
30:55
Jack Calhoun: It's people who are doing their life's work.
30:57
Jack Calhoun: They don't have to be doing this at all, right?
30:59
Jack Calhoun: It's what drives them because it's what they feel like they were put here to do.
31:03
Eric Dickmann: So after your experiment with the thermometer, you kind of came to this realization,"Well, that wasn't the business that I am gonna do for the rest of my life." But you were feeling a little bit of this uneasiness about the direction that you were headed.
31:18
Eric Dickmann: So at that point, did you say,"Well, I need to come up with a program to help more people?" Did...
31:23
Eric Dickmann: Were you talking with peers and you started to hear something over and over again?
31:27
Eric Dickmann: What was the genesis of how you started to build this next business for you?
31:33
Jack Calhoun: Yeah, I was-- there's a couple of things I was realizing.
31:36
Jack Calhoun: First, I'm the first year of Gen X.
31:38
Jack Calhoun: Um, I'm 60.
31:39
Jack Calhoun: I was born in 19...
31:40
Jack Calhoun: very end of'65.
31:43
Jack Calhoun: Um, if my kids wanna trigger me, they just call me Boomer, and then, then it's game on, uh,'cause I'm right there on that line.
31:51
Jack Calhoun: But I'm very much in that Gen X sensibility and, and I understand the demographic, and the first thing I was looking at was like, these people are not gonna do retirement like it's been done in the past, right?
32:02
Jack Calhoun: They're gonna look at whatever the Boomers did, and they're gonna be like,"I'm not doing whatever they're doing," right?
32:07
Jack Calhoun: Corporate work, corporate retirement.
32:09
Jack Calhoun: Gen X is like,"Mm-mm," right?
32:11
Jack Calhoun: So I knew that that was gonna blow up this retirement model as we've known it.
32:16
Jack Calhoun: Um, and then kind of living that, I was like,"Oh, okay, well now I understand how to get oriented," right?
32:23
Jack Calhoun: And what, what's missing from this equation, which is the existential part.
32:27
Eric Dickmann: Hmm
32:28
Jack Calhoun: In the program, we call'em the threads, you know, which is like your tribe and, um, you know, your, your, your people and, and all of these things that, you know, I probably should have printed that out before I brought it up on this podcast.
32:40
Jack Calhoun: But, um, you know, but it's your, your, all of the things that our careers give us that we underestimate that collectively kind of make up this fabric of our lives.
32:50
Jack Calhoun: Uh, and so we have to weave all that back together again.
32:52
Jack Calhoun: And so that's really what I think we're missing for people.
32:56
Jack Calhoun: It's not just do the numbers work, but how am I gonna reinvent myself and create this new identity, and I think in particular, this f- future vision, right?
33:08
Jack Calhoun: And that's so important that we have what's called perspection, right?
33:12
Jack Calhoun: We see this future, uh, for ourselves.
33:14
Jack Calhoun: We see ourselves thriving in some capacity, and it pulls us forward.
33:17
Eric Dickmann: Hmm
33:18
Jack Calhoun: Well, the model, the mentality, the vision of aging in this country is decrepitude,
33:23
Eric Dickmann: Yeah, that's right
33:24
Jack Calhoun: And, and so if you're my age and you're 60 and, and I, I embrace the conventional model of 80, it's not inspiring to me.
33:33
Jack Calhoun: I wanna avoid that as long as I can, right?
33:36
Jack Calhoun: And so I don't have a future vision.
33:37
Jack Calhoun: My future vision is what trip can we go on, right?
33:40
Jack Calhoun: But if my vision is Mel Brooks, 99, jamming, right?
33:46
Jack Calhoun: Dan Sullivan, strategic coach founder, is 81, he looks like he's 50.
33:50
Jack Calhoun: You know, all of a sudden I'm like,"Oh, well, that is inspiring.
33:53
Jack Calhoun: I'd love to be that." Right?
33:55
Jack Calhoun: And so a lot of this is changing the paradigm for people and getting people to reject this vision of aging that was appropriate 50 years ago when people, you know, sat down at 5:00 and smoked a pack of Viceroys and had three martinis every night, right?
34:09
Jack Calhoun: Like my grandparents did, and nobody does that anymore, you know?
34:13
Jack Calhoun: And so we're in better health.
34:15
Jack Calhoun: The smoking thing is huge, and we kind of dismiss it, but
34:18
Eric Dickmann: Oh, that's right.
34:19
Eric Dickmann: Yeah
34:20
Jack Calhoun: totally changed the way we age.
34:22
Jack Calhoun: Now you've got AI, and now you've got medical tech, all of it wrapped up together in longevity, and people who have, you know, means will invest in their health in the future, right?
34:31
Jack Calhoun: And so all of this is, is wrapping up at a completely different view of aging than we've had in the past, but we still have this old retirement vision, which is make the money and go, go, go on your re- European river cruise, right?
34:46
Jack Calhoun: Which is a fun thing to do, but that's the entirety of the vision.
34:50
Eric Dickmann: How do you communicate that?
34:51
Eric Dickmann: Is this a, a one-on-one coaching program?
34:55
Eric Dickmann: Is it a mastermind?
34:56
Eric Dickmann: How have you put all this information together, these thoughts together in a way that can really help people kind of start to think clearly, I guess might be an easy way to say it, about what their future looks like in their second act?
35:09
Jack Calhoun: Yeah.
35:09
Jack Calhoun: Uh, it's, uh, for us and, and our, our program is Encore Career, Career Lab, which is what I created.
35:16
Jack Calhoun: Uh, and you know, the, the concept is that your Encore career is one that you create on your terms, you know, and, and career is not the career that you had before, right?
35:25
Jack Calhoun: Um, and so it's a combination of, it's a 12-week program.
35:31
Jack Calhoun: Uh, it's, it's a combination of self-study using this a- asynchronous curriculum that I've created, hosted online, rolls out a week at a time, and it walks you-- The big categories that w- that we divide it into are the why, the what, and the how.
35:46
Jack Calhoun: And so the first four weeks is really devoted to surfacing things.
35:50
Jack Calhoun: You know, this hidden wisdom that we all have that we've accumulated in drips and drabs over the course of 30 years, that it's become, you know, I call it your wisdom brand, right?
35:59
Jack Calhoun: Wisdom fingerprint.
36:01
Jack Calhoun: Um, it's unique to us.
36:02
Jack Calhoun: It's our combination of talents and experience and, um, perspective and, and that's what we have to offer in this next phase, a lot more than grinding energy that we have when we're 25, right?
36:17
Jack Calhoun: And fortunately, it's what the world desperately needs right now, right?
36:22
Jack Calhoun: You know, and as I've been telling clients, you know, your 20, 23-year-old billionaires are gonna be deciding what reality is for your grandkids.
36:29
Jack Calhoun: Don't you think you wanna inject a little wisdom into this discussion along the way, right?
36:34
Jack Calhoun: So it's really helping people figure out what is that and, you know, and also how can I offer that in a way that I'm being compensated for the value I'm delivering, which is significant
36:43
Eric Dickmann: For sure
36:44
Jack Calhoun: Um, so this isn't necessarily a time of diminished income.
36:47
Jack Calhoun: For a lot of people it is'cause money just isn't as important to them as it was 20 years ago.
36:52
Jack Calhoun: But it's not mutually exclusive.
36:53
Jack Calhoun: These can be wildly lucrative if that's what you wanna do.
36:56
Eric Dickmann: Yes
36:57
Jack Calhoun: Um, and so that's part of it, and then we have, you know, probably the secret sauce is, uh, group cohorts.
37:04
Jack Calhoun: Um, you know, it's people like us in these group cohorts, five, six, seven people.
37:09
Jack Calhoun: Um, and it's very helpful because you realize, oh, it's not me, right?
37:15
Jack Calhoun: It's this, it's this situation.
37:17
Jack Calhoun: And we're really the first generation that's confronting it, right?
37:20
Jack Calhoun: Even our grandparents didn't come into this phase thinking,"I'm gonna reinvent myself and have this amazing third act," right?
37:28
Jack Calhoun: A- and, and, and but we, we see this in front of us, and so we're all kind of on it, you know, on this journey together, right?
37:36
Jack Calhoun: As pioneers in a way.
37:38
Jack Calhoun: And, and so that's part of the framework idea.
37:40
Jack Calhoun: So being around people who are going through it, who've been strivers, achievers, and who are also as lost as you are in a lot of ways, or as stuck, and they've been successful in their own right, it's just, it's helpful.
37:53
Jack Calhoun: Everybody can kind of, you know, bring a spirit of support and ideas and empathy and compassion, and it just makes you realize, okay, it's, I'm not a failure here.
38:05
Jack Calhoun: You know?
38:05
Jack Calhoun: Right when I thought I was supposed to be successful and exit stage right, and now I feel like a failure, oh, a lot of us are feeling this, right?
38:13
Eric Dickmann: I love that and I love the framework that you have there.
38:16
Eric Dickmann: And I think we're in such a unique time in w- many ways because throughout history, people have always respected the wisdom of their elders.
38:25
Eric Dickmann: And I think for so many people, we've spent our careers building skills, building talents, expertise in various ways, and now all of a sudden we're in the age of AI where people start to say,"Well, I don't need that anymore.
38:37
Eric Dickmann: I can just ask ChatGPT."
38:39
Jack Calhoun: Yeah
38:40
Eric Dickmann: And I personally don't believe that's true.
38:43
Eric Dickmann: I think there are a lot of things that AI can do that is extremely helpful, but discernment isn't one of them.
38:50
Jack Calhoun: No, it's
38:51
Eric Dickmann: A taste isn't one of them.
38:53
Jack Calhoun: No.
38:53
Eric Dickmann: Creativity really isn't one
38:55
Jack Calhoun: really one of them either, you know?
38:56
Jack Calhoun: I mean, it's, it's been programmed to be moral, but it's not inherently moral
39:00
Eric Dickmann: That's, that's exactly right.
39:02
Eric Dickmann: And so I do think this is a time where a lot of people are wondering,"What is my value?
39:07
Eric Dickmann: What am I gonna do in my next act?
39:09
Eric Dickmann: How can I make a meaningful contribution?" Whether it's for additional financial security going forward, or just the ability to share what they've learned and, and add value to others.
39:21
Eric Dickmann: And so I love what you're putting together there, and I, I believe that there are a lot of people out there that could use that kind of cohort support.
39:30
Jack Calhoun: Absolutely, and the world needs it.
39:32
Jack Calhoun: And we have one-on-one coaching is the third leg to the stool, right?
39:35
Jack Calhoun: So we have the group, the one-on-one, the curriculum, um, a- and it really creates this communal experience, and I think that's what we need going forward, right?
39:44
Jack Calhoun: Um, and, and, and to help people that are moving into their 60s and beyond, 50s, to stay in this sense of community, um, because that's what the first thing that goes away that I really underestimated, you know, um, is, is the isolation that we talked about.
39:59
Jack Calhoun: So I think that's what's so important and fig- helping people figure out, okay, what is this unique formula of wisdom that I have amassed and, and how can I offer it back to people in a way that helps them and that, you know, compensates me?
40:15
Jack Calhoun: And, um, so much of that comes from lived experience, right?
40:19
Jack Calhoun: And, and what do I know now that I wish I knew then?
40:22
Eric Dickmann: Yes
40:23
Jack Calhoun: How would I inform younger me 10 years ago doing whatever?
40:26
Jack Calhoun: You know, it can be personal, it can be professional, right?
40:29
Jack Calhoun: You know, one of my early clients, uh, she was mid-50s, got a surprise divorce, right?
40:34
Jack Calhoun: Didn't see it coming, didn't want it, out in LA, and after 20 years raising kids had to jump back in the workforce.
40:41
Jack Calhoun: And she has been looking, you know, putting together a support group with other women that have been given the same situation, right?
40:49
Jack Calhoun: Surprise divorce, back in the corporate workforce, had a early successful career, but now they're having to reinvent themselves.
40:55
Jack Calhoun: That's tremendous value
40:57
Eric Dickmann: Oh, yeah
40:58
Jack Calhoun: that, who feel isolated, right?
41:01
Jack Calhoun: Um, and, and they're, they'll pay for that community, right?
41:04
Jack Calhoun: You've raised a special needs child, right?
41:07
Jack Calhoun: You know, you don't have to come at it from a credentialed expert.
41:10
Jack Calhoun: You can come at it from some, a parent who lived it, and what have you learned?
41:14
Jack Calhoun: Support group.
41:15
Jack Calhoun: So these are these kind of wisdom, just two very, you know, quick examples, you know.
41:20
Jack Calhoun: And that's part of what I think we have been really good at is helping people surface that and think, oh, okay, that's something, yeah, that really resonates with me,
41:29
Eric Dickmann: That's gotta be hugely fulfilling
41:31
Jack Calhoun: Very, very fulfilling for them and for me, right?
41:34
Jack Calhoun: So my encore career is helping people find their encore career, so it's, uh, you know, it's, it's nice when a plan comes together
41:41
Eric Dickmann: I love that.
41:41
Eric Dickmann: And you know, this, uh, podcast is entitled Beyond Expertise, and the concept is very much the same.
41:46
Eric Dickmann: It's what's beyond that expertise that we've developed throughout our careers.
41:50
Eric Dickmann: And, uh, so I love your mission.
41:52
Eric Dickmann: I love what, uh, you've put together there.
41:54
Eric Dickmann: I love the frameworks that you discussed, and have loved this story today.
41:58
Eric Dickmann: Uh, where can people find out more about you and about your programs?
42:02
Jack Calhoun: Yeah, our URL, uh, as luck would have it, is encorecareerlab.com.
42:08
Jack Calhoun: Uh, it's lab, L-A-B, singular.
42:10
Jack Calhoun: Uh, they can also email me at that same domain, jack@encorecareerlab.com
42:15
Eric Dickmann: That's perfect, Jack.
42:16
Eric Dickmann: I'll make sure that we've got all that linked up in the show notes so that people can find you this has been great.
42:21
Eric Dickmann: I've really enjoyed our conversation today.
42:23
Eric Dickmann: Love what you're doing.
42:24
Eric Dickmann: Thanks so much for taking the time to share your story with us.
42:27
Jack Calhoun: Thank you, Eric.
42:28
Jack Calhoun: It's been a privilege.
42:28
Jack Calhoun: Thanks for having me
42:30
Eric Dickmann: thanks for listening to Beyond Expertise.
42:33
Eric Dickmann: You can find show notes, resources, and links mentioned during this episode at podcast.ericdickman.com.
42:41
Eric Dickmann: If this conversation resonated with you, I hope you'll join me again next time as we continue exploring what it means to reinvent ourselves beyond our careers, titles, and expertise.