In this transformative episode, Elizabeth Parsons, Principal and Co-Founder of Encoraco, shares how she demystifies what is on the other side of “retirement” and how you can get clarity through some of the biggest questions we all face. If you don’t like the idea of retirement or are maybe even a little afraid of what might happen if you do, don’t miss this episode.
You will discover:
– Why so many founders experience severe and often life-threatening illness within the first year of retirement and what can be done about it
– The easiest way to answer the question, “What do I do now?” (it’s also the most powerful way)
– How you can unlock the answer to the question “Who am I?” in your own life
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast, where here with us today is yet another unbelievably high demand coach in the one and only Elizabeth Zelinka Parsons, who is a lawyer, author, coach and consultant. Her company and coreco, provides programs for coaching high achieving entrepreneurs, professionals and executives to design a plan for their lives when they retire from their current endeavors, their clients are never done. And while the freedom associated with the retirement concept is compelling, the notions of pure leisure, aimlessness and stagnation are not they focus on helping their clients prepare for navigate and thrive as they embrace a new chapter of their business or life. She’s also just released her latest book, which is phenomenal. It’s called encore, a high achievers guide to thriving in retirement. Well, Elizabeth, so excited to have you here. I want to jump in, because one of the things I found in you even refer to this in your intro, is that the prospect of retirement is not nearly as exciting for a lot of high achievers as it is for others. So is there a better way to think about what’s next than this traditional sense of the word retirement.
Elizabeth Zelinka Parsons
Yes. Great question, Scott. And thanks again for having me here. I absolutely have a preferred word, because none of my clients like that word, and they almost immediately tell me, can we not use it when we talk about what’s coming next? So what I tell them is, you know, think of it as another graduation. It’s a much more accurate word. I mean, we, we understand that, right? We’ve we’ve completed something challenging, we’ve mastered a new area, or, you know, reached the end of some curriculum or program. And I think when people build businesses to whatever final outcome they’re after, whether it’s an exit or it’s a transfer to employees or family, you know, it is the culmination of a massive achievement. And what that means, of course, yes, is the end of something. But what’s much more interesting is the new opportunity that is now in front of you. And when we graduate from things, that’s the way we see it. We look forward instead of imagining sort of this period where we begin to decline or retreat or become less relevant. It’s it’s much more energizing to think about it as what’s next.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Now one of the things that I’ve found is this is true well beyond just the area of retirement, but as As humans, we tend to gravitate toward things that we can see, touch, understand, that are concrete, that are near term, and we tend to shy away from things that we don’t understand very well, right, the murky unknown and and for so many folks, we focus so intently and become so astute at whatever it is that we do. Right? If we’re a coach, we know how to coach really well. If we’re a business owner, we know how to lead our business very well, and we’ve done it over decades, but we think of this idea of graduation, retirement and what’s on the other side of that line just feels like that murky unknown, and so a lot of folks resist it, because they just don’t even know what to expect over there. How do you help your clients to start to get a clearer picture of what’s on the other side of their graduation.
Elizabeth Zelinka Parsons
Great question. Well, you know, like most things, it goes back to some pretty fundamental questions. You know, who are you and what do you want? And those two things, in my view, get lost in the hustle and bustle of of working life, and whether that’s, you know, a founder in a business or some other intense professional person. And so we’re so busy meeting the needs of other people, usually, and batting balls out of our court all day, and, you know, letting, really letting our life fit the mold of whatever the you know, the structure is that that working world is providing we don’t stop and really examine those big questions, and we have a process and a framework in our material that really does help people deconstruct those questions. I mean, that’s part of the problem. They’re huge questions, right? Number one, and number two, if we’re lucky, they change over the course of our lives to some degree, in an expansive way. And so we try to facilitate that expansive thinking by breaking big questions down into smaller pieces and helping people really reconnect with what matters to them, and mostly through stories to be honest with you, and people reveal themselves that way, very powerfully.
Scott Ritzheimer
I love that. I love that one of the things that that surprised me when I first discovered it, and to this day, I can’t remember when I did, but it’s this question that you just mentioned, of who am I right, and just how so many founders can go so far without actually ever answering that question. And you find these. Folks who are like mega successful by whatever standard. Everyone has different standards for that, but by their standard, they’ve achieved it. And they they find themselves waking up one day having kind of accomplished what they set out to do, and and realizing they have no idea who they are. Why do you think it’s so easy to not answer that question?
Elizabeth Zelinka Parsons
Well, I think a lot of it, frankly, starts early in life with all of the external comparison we’re sort of taught to do, whether it’s intentional or not. You know, we all work hard to get grades and be evaluated by third parties, and there’s almost necessarily comparison there. And so I think it’s normal in early adulthood and even middle adulthood to be very achievement oriented. I certainly was. And anyone who opens my book and reads the introduction will learn that that started very early for me. And you know, it’s exhilarating to climb ladders and see that you can get up to the top of them, but there comes a point where, to your point, you achieve those things. And ask, wait a minute, what am I really doing here, and is this a reflection of who I really want to be? Am I writing the narrative of my life that one day when I look back, I’m going to be proud of, you know? And it’s it’s not that those achievements aren’t taking us toward our ultimate potential, but I think they can distract us from what really does matter to us. And I think that inflection point comes for everybody somewhere along the way, whether they are selling a company or closing on our on a more natural retirement, you’ve got to look back and find meaning in what you’ve done, and then you’ve got to be able to translate that into a future where your engagement and purpose are connected to that meaning, but also expansive. You know, you’ve got to continue on a pack of growth and purpose. That’s certainly been our experience when we work with people.
Scott Ritzheimer
And that’s one of the things I’ve found, particularly for high achievers, and then within that subset, particularly for founders, is there’s this sense that we have to be on mission right as one of the most dangerous things in the world, in a destructive way, is a founder, visionary entrepreneur who’s not on mission. What types of post graduation missions have you found the most inspiring from some of the folks that you’ve worked with?
Elizabeth Zelinka Parsons
Gosh, there were many, many, but I’ll share a great example of one. You know, somebody we worked with had had, you know, a very buttoned up sort of approach to their business life and what they were working on. And, you know, it was, it was in the realm of a commercial, you know, commercial success and all of those things. And they were really good. I mean, they were really, really good. At 55 they, they sort of were sitting on enough money that they really could do whatever they want wanted. And when we asked that question, you know, what would you do if it was guaranteed to be a complete success at you know, they, they actually said, Look, I’m going to tell you an answer, but don’t write it down, because it’s too embarrassing and it’s never going to happen, you know. And what they really wanted to do was be a Broadway producer, but they felt like they had absolutely no basis to believe that that was possible. And I won’t, we’re on a short program, so I won’t belabor it, but let me just say this, they were the biggest non believer in this idea, and with a little bit of planning, focus and effort, in three years, they were standing on the stage accepting a Tony Award for Hadestown, and they’re, you know, eight shows later, they have a whole second act that is so exciting, and honestly, who much more who they really are than what they did previously. So I love that story as one of many, because it’s fun to watch people stretch into not just more potential, but more authentic potential.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I love that. Because one of the biggest questions I find in this space is like, well, now what do I do? And so I love turning that around and that question, what would you do if it was guaranteed you’d be a success? Phenomenal question. I absolutely love that. I want to talk about kind of one of the darker elements of our modern approach to retirement, and that is the number of people who experience severe illness in that that short period of time, six, 912, months after they’ve retired. What’s going on there? Why does that happen? And what can we do to mitigate it?
Elizabeth Zelinka Parsons
It’s such a good question. We’ve got a really interesting exercise we designed to dig into that very thing, because we all see these examples, I think, and this exercise is about helping people get a little bit clearer about how identified they are with what they’re doing in their working world. So let’s just take a founder, and we’ll ask that person to identify all the roles they they perceive that they play in their business life. And there are usually 10 or 15 different roles, you know, so there’s a lot going on, right? And then we ask them to show me, tell me all the roles you perceive you play in your personal life. And what’s interesting about roles is this is one of the easiest ways we. As human beings can connect to our own sense of our identity, right? We see ourselves through the roles we play. Well. When you ask people to score their performance in those roles, and you see that they get all of their positive feedback loops from the roles they’re playing in their business life, and to some degree, lower scores in their personal life, because usually they’re neglecting those things a little bit. And then you imagine a world where all those roles disappear at once with no game plan to replace them, no way to pull the threads forward. It’s an instinct ding to your self esteem, and it happens almost without a conscious understanding, right? And so the next thing you know, three months later, you’re spiraling in self doubt and insecurity, very hard place to recover your bearings or to get sure footed on a new endeavor. So this is why planning in advance is so critical, because we can do that analysis with somebody, we can spot what the red flags might be and help them begin proactively planning to avoid that, that you know, sort of crash, because I think it’s the psychological crash that leads a lot of times to the physical crash.
Scott Ritzheimer
Right? I see a lot of folks from a number of the different things that we’ve talked about so far, either the ambiguity of it, or the fear of some of these statistics or even just the question, Who am I or what do I do next? But one of the things that I’ve also heard folks do, particularly founders, is judge when they’ll do the requirement by how much gas is left in the tank, right? It’s just, it’s this funny saying that so many people use is how to want to retire stuff some left in the tank. And my question for you is, someone who’s done this with hundreds, if not 1000s of people, do you have to wait until you don’t have any gas left in the tank? Like, how do you know when it’s the right time to retire or graduate?
Elizabeth Zelinka Parsons
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, graduate, exactly. I mean, look, I feel like that question. It’s a good one, and one has got to ask, is this thing still feeding me? Am I still growing and expanding? I mean, I can’t tell you about how many of my clients, when they come to me, they’re ready to be done with whatever their current endeavor is, but they’re hanging on to it because they don’t know what else to do. I say go out on top. Like, don’t do it then don’t wait until you’re puttering along and everyone wishes you would move on. Do it at the top. I mean, do it when you know you’re bringing your best self and all your best skills, and you’re, you’re, maybe you don’t know what’s next, but you’re hungry for the next challenge. I mean, that’s the time. And you know, we really encourage our clients, don’t, you know, hang on and and leave with sort of a, I don’t know, a c plus, right? Leave it. Leave with an A plus. Leave everyone wanting more. And you know, you’re going to be more energized when you step into the future. And you will definitely figure it out. You’ve just got to be forward, facing and proactive.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah, I love that. So there’s this question, Elizabeth that I ask all my guests. I want to ask see what you have to say as well. What would you say is the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all. What’s that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Elizabeth Zelinka Parsons
You know, I think what comes to me with that is that a life of pure leisure, as you said at the beginning, is just never going to cut it. Long term, there are so many people we have worked with who are convinced, when they sit down with us and they’ve got enough money in the bank to do whatever they want, that whatever they want is a life of leisure. And I cannot tell you how many of them, six months in, come back and say you were right. This is really boring. And you know, it, it. We are sold that idea from the time we start our working lives right, that we’re going to be free and we can do whatever we want, and we assume that whatever we want is leisure, and leisure is excellent, but it’s got to be intention with it, you know, engagement and purpose. And so I think so many people have that myth in their mind as they think about what’s waiting for them in, quote, retirement. And I would really love to disabuse people of that sooner.
Scott Ritzheimer
I love that. One of the things I say when the subject comes up is, there’s only so much golf grandkids and gallivanting that you can do, right? It’s just, it’s gonna run out. It’s gonna rain out. This has been phenomenal. We’ve all we’ve not even scratched the surface of what you, you guys do there, and what you’ve got in your book. So I’d love for folks to be able to get a copy. Find out more. Where can they get a copy of the book and hear more about the services that you offer?
Elizabeth Zelinka Parsons
Thank you so much. encoraco.com is the website where you’ll probably find the services that are of interest most easily. There’s an author page and a book page there. Of course, it’s on Amazon and everywhere else you can. Also find me at Elizabeth Zelenka Parsons on LinkedIn, which will link you straight to any of my business websites. So it’s been a real pleasure. Thank you.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic Elizabeth. Thanks for being on it’s just a privilege and honor having you here. Loved every minute of this I could have recorded for a very long time, but we try and keep it short and sweet for our listeners. For those of you listening, you do know that your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Elizabeth Zelinka Parsons
Elizabeth Zelinka Parsons is a lawyer, author, coach, and consultant. Her company, Encoraco, provides programs and coaching for high-achieving entrepreneurs, professionals, and executives to design a plan for their lives when they “retire” from their current endeavors. Their clients are never “done,” and while the freedom associated with the retirement concept is compelling, the notions of pure leisure, aimlessness, and stagnation are not. They focus on helping their clients prepare for, navigate, and thrive as they embrace a new chapter of business or life.
Want to learn more about Elizabeth Parsons’ work at Encoraco? Check out her website at https://www.encoraco.com/ and grab a copy of her book at https://amzn.to/3YWf8C2
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