Welcome to chapter neXt

Hello and welcome to the first ever edition of chapter neXt!

A place where we explore all things entrepreneurial for the next chapter in our Gen X lives (but you Boomers and Xennials are welcome, too!). 

We are kicking things off with some inspiration from well known successful Phase 2ers, as well as thoughts on how to get started on this journey yourselves.  Just because we are 50+, maybe retired or on the brink of it, doesn’t mean we aren’t still Alive and Kicking! (you’re singing it now, aren’t you?)  So grab your coffee, or a 2 liter of Jolt Cola, and read on.

Tales of grit, gumption & great success - all written by people defining their chapter neXt.

1. He was a tough guy to keep down. 

After an unsuccessful law career (he had a courthouse fistfight with a client), a failed roadside diner, and sacked as an insurance salesman, at the age of 62, he was living in his car.

He had a recipe that the customers at his diner loved. But with no money to start another restaurant, he asked another restaurateur to use his recipe & pay him $0.04 per serving.

2. She once wrote, “I am sadly an ordinary person… with talents I do not use.” 

We think she very much underestimated herself.

Her husband worked for the State Department & was stationed in Paris. She immersed herself in French culture. In Paris, two friends were writing a cookbook geared towards Americans & asked her to collaborate. It took 10 years, but eventually the book was published - she was 50. 

Now living again in the US, she was interviewed on a sleepy, local public television program that considered itself a place for serious discussion of literature. Instead of talking about the book, much to the chagrin of the host, she cooked. She fumbled around the set, made mistakes, and viewers loved her.

The high-brow program was eventually canceled. But she was given her own show.

3. Her mother, in her last days, said that she had always regretted not becoming a performer. Years later, after a divorce & to avoid her mother’s regret, she started acting in community theater - at the age of 42. Within a year, she ended her career as a psychiatric nurse and took whatever jobs she could to support her new love of acting.

At 53, she attended a cattle call audition at Disney World. She was hired as a street performer - at 53 she was a professional. This fueled her ambition and she moved to Hollywood to fulfill her mother’s, and now, her dream. It was nearly another decade until she became a recognizable face.

These folks who started late & finished strong?

1. Harlan Sanders - aka, Col. Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame.

2. Julia Child - the culinary genius who all but defined French cuisine in America and paved the way for “celebrity chefs”. (BTW, the only time my wife was ever REALLY starstruck is when she saw her shopping at the local Whole Foods in Cambridge, MA.) If you are a Julia Child superfan, you can rent out her former vacation home in France for $15K/week. Or just get cooking with her (Books on Amazon / Videos on YouTube)

3. Kathryn Joosten - You probably know her best as Mrs. Landingham - the president’s secretary on The West Wing, or maybe as Karen McCluskey from Desperate Housewives.

It seems like actually getting started working on your dreams matters way more than when!

Ok, so you are thinking you might want to start your own business/new venture. Maybe you have just retired, or retirement is looming, or you’ve been “downsized”, or are a bored empty nester? Something new sounds appealing, right?

We’ve still got plenty of energy and interest in us, but how to start? If this is a completely new thought for you, of course it will seem daunting and difficult to approach, so let’s think about how to take the first steps. What could you do? Butcher? Baker? Candlestick maker? Open a bar? Solve mysteries with a small pack of friends? How to even begin thinking about it?

As an executive function skills coach, this is my jam.  I am all about breaking things down, making things concrete, and finding the progression of steps. So, here is how to get the ball rolling. For starters, you want to be sure whatever you do aligns with your abilities.  You also don’t want to hate this next phase, so it should be something you at least semi enjoy spending your time on. Thus, your first actionable step is to make a list of all the strengths, talents, and skills that you believe you have.  Don’t limit yourself - make it a true, let-it-flow brainstorming.  Anything from IT skills to the ability to make people laugh to being a crossword whiz - it all goes on this list.  Next, do the same with things you enjoy spending your time on.  This might include playing guitar, researching the history of houses, or staring at bugs.  If you happily choose to do it, add it to the list.

That’s it. 

Make your lists, then sit with them for a week or so.  It’s possible that they might spark something right away, but more likely you will need to let them float around in the background for several days until you see connections between the two lists. Good at hanging with kids is on the strengths list and love playing guitar? Maybe phase 2 for you is a small guitar school for the young crowd. You’ve got tech skills and love words? Maybe making an app for learning vocabulary is worth considering. See where we are going with this?

Ok, go, do.  We will meet back here next week for step 2!

We hope you enjoyed the inaugural edition of chapter neXt. 

This weekly newsletter is for those of us who are maybe a touch past our physical prime, but finally ready for prime time. GenX, young at heart Boomers & maybe the odd Xennial who have decades of experience, some real hard earned wisdom, a sense of humor that is, well, maybe just a little off.

You know who shot JR, you Escaped to Witch Mountain, you unabashedly think Cheers was a great show, you wanted your MTV,  you read Akbar & Jeff’s Guide to Life, you knew all the words to every song on REM’s Murmur album & it freakin’ kills you that you know all of the songs playing in the grocery store, elevators and dentist offices.

You know what you need to do when the streetlights come on, it was cool on Friday night when everybody went home to watch The Brady Bunch, you know what night Chicago died & you trained in vain while you fought the law (they won) and eventually you got lost in a supermarket.

And now you are gonna build something that is awesome - it will be yours, it will be freakin’ cool, & it will rock.

chapter neXt is a newsletter/community/guide for entrepreneurial folks in their 50s and beyond. It is published by Julia Kelahan (check her out on LinkedIn, her amazing strength-based learning center & her ADHD & Executive Function coaching business) and Tim Kilroy (check him out on LinkedIn & his agency growth business & his agency-focused newsletter). They are the proud parents to 5 kids, they live near Boston & their dog’s name is Fred.