Over 50 and Starting a NEW Career

Being over 50 and wanting something more for yourself is more common than you might think. Society isn't exactly KIND to those wanting to change their careers at this time in their lives, but that's why we're having this conversation today - to show you that this could be the MOST fruitful time of your life.

Sherrilynne Starkey is an expert in navigating the digital landscape. She's a communications consultant, a social media marketing innovator, blogger, and the host of the 50 women over 50 podcast, where she interviewed many inspiring women making a positive impact in their communities and leaving a mark on the world through their work, their mentorship, and even philanthropy.

Listen in on our conversation that shows us that making a midlife career change is not only possible, but essential for our personal growth and transformation.

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Transcript

[00:04] Debra Jones: Welcome to OWN THE GREY, a podcast to dispel the notion that aging is undesirable and setting new positive attitudes. I'm Debra Jones, and I believe you can be vibrant and healthy throughout the best years of your life. Sherrilynn Starkey is an expert in navigating the digital landscape. She's a communications consultant, a social media marketing innovator, blogger, and the host of the 50 women over 50 podcast, where she interviewed many inspiring women making a positive impact in their communities and leaving a mark on the world through their work, their mentorship, and even philanthropy. And I'm hoping that our conversation today might show us that making a midlife career change is not only possible, but essential for our personal growth and transformation. And I'm hoping she'll tell us how to do it. Welcome to OWN THE GREY, Sherrilynn, I'm so glad you're here.

[01:13] Sherrilynne Starkie: Thanks for having me on the show, Debra.

[01:15] Debra Jones: So you're a Canadian.

[01:17] Sherrilynne Starkie: Yes.

[01:18] Debra Jones: Lived all over the world, repositioning and reinventing yourself every time. So, could you summarize your journey for us and how it led you to where you are today?

[01:29] Sherrilynne Starkie: Well, you know, being on this side is 50. You know, it's a long journey, so I don't know where to start. But I guess I'll just start at the very beginning of adulthood, and I'll just go, okay. So I was a teenage bride. Well, not quite teenage. I'd only just turned 20 by the time I was 23. I had two babies. And my husband thought, oh, this. Oh, this is very boring. And a lot of work, looking after babies and being financially responsible for people. Anyway, so he left. I was on my own with my two baby girls. I worked part time in retail. You know, I was struggling. I was really, really struggling. I just thought, I don't want to raise my kids in this construct of hard poverty and living paycheck to paycheck. Like, what can I do? So I started doing a bit of soul searching at that time about what could I do? I didn't go to university. Instead of going to university, I got married, you know, and. But I did remember that back in. In high school, I did very well in English. So I started looking at what jobs can you do with English and writing and stuff like that. Anyway, I met a woman who was in pr, and she told me I'd never even heard the term. And she told me what it was and what she did, and I was like, yeah, okay, that's it. That's what I'm going to do. And. And so I went back to college at that time and did a two year diploma program here in Algonquin, in Ottawa. Never really looked back, actually walked out of that program. I got a job in the civil service. I was lucky, very privileged to do that because it was during a bad recession and most of my colleagues at school weren't that lucky. But, you know, fast forward. I met another man and fell in love and married him and he was from England. So over to England I go, that's where I had my first agency career. And so the girls and I went over there and I started working in a pr agency there. And that's when I was like, oh yeah, this is where I should be, you know, this is my home, these are my people. And so done that my whole career. So I spent seven years in England. I worked in a couple of different agency environments there, kind of working myself up the rankings and to be fair, because I was a, you know, a mature student and a little bit older than most people in the first or second year of their career. I made the transition upwards into management a lot more easily than just because you're older and you're smarter and you have more or less experience. Right, so.

[03:52] Debra Jones: Right, right.

[03:52] Sherrilynne Starkie: So my career advanced quite quickly in my early agency life. After seven years, we followed my husband to Washington, DC for his career, where I took over running a boutique agency in Washington DC. Again, that was another huge career jump for me. A big leap into running a whole agency in a market I didn't know. I had no media relationships, I knew no one. But anyways, it was an exciting time. Did that for five years. Then again, following my husband's career, we went back to the UK and we landed in a place called the Isle of Man, which is an independent nation, not part of, not part of the UK. You probably know this, but most people don't.

[04:37] Debra Jones: Right?

[04:38] Sherrilynne Starkie: And we were there for six years and I. That's where I started my own agency and ran it there for five years. Came back to Ottawa at that time for family reasons, and I spent the first six years working in. What was the time I came into it was Canada's top kind of social media digital pr agency. Thornley Falls, it was called. Became the president of that agency after a couple of years and then after six years, decided I wanted to be more autonomous and start working on my own again. So went out at that point as an independent communications consultant, which is what I'm doing to this very day and totally enjoy it. So that's it. Career wise, life wise, raised a family sent them off into the world, now have grandchildren. My daughter is once a teacher and once a nurse, and my grandchildren are between ten and newborn and living flourishing lives. And so I guess the lesson learned from that journey is just keep putting one foot in front of the other and don't let a mistake that you made when you were 19 years old get you down for the rest of your life, because mistakes you make when you're a teenager don't have to be your destiny for the rest of your life.

[05:56] Debra Jones: Wise, wise words. Yeah. And what I heard, listening in between the lines of what you said is that you were very determined to just keep moving and evolving for yourself. You weren't scared of making shifts into new lands. I mean, I came from England - I did the opposite - to Canada. And you don't know anybody. You have no history here. It's like being dropped off in the middle of nowhere.

[06:25] Sherrilynne Starkie: It is.

[06:26] Debra Jones: And yet you've got to find your way. You've got to get your head above the water and start breathing, start swimming, right.

[06:33] Sherrilynne Starkie: Even from the most fundamental things that you never think about until you're in the situation. Like when I first went to England, I had to relearn how to drive the other side of the road. And plus I had learned on an automatic transmission, I had to learn how to drive a stick and learn how to use the phone system because it was quite different from what I was used to. And, you know, learn how to take the tube and everything like that. It really does kind of bend your mind. And to be fair, there's a bit of a, you know, a leap of faith. When you move to a new place, you don't know it until you get there. What the challenges are going to be or what you like or what you don't like. And. And, you know, I've lived in three different cultures, business and social cultures. Until you're immersed in it, you don't know what it is. You kind of have to learn through trial and error and stuff. So as you learned yourself, I'm sure, when you came to Canada.

[07:29] Debra Jones: Absolutely. It was night and day. A whole new world. A totally whole new world. Exactly. And, you know, we're talking about this and there is such a correlation to the idea of making such a leap of faith in the second part of your life, you know, over 50. And. And our stories about finding our way and putting roots down and discovering all the things that we need to discover to support ourselves mentally, physically, financially, all of those things that it's doable and it's happening all the time. We're just two people talking that, yes, it worked out, but it worked out because we were determined that it was going to. I think you need some courage and drive to make a leap, but once you make the leap, it's like if you, you're jumping over to the other side now, you're on the other side now what, what you're going to regret, right? Are you going to, are you going to suffer or are you going to say, okay, what, what do I need? You know, what, what kind of security can I get for myself? So, you know, there is courage involved. And I kind of, I want to talk about that with, with respect to this idea of when we turn 50. And you've spoken to 50 women after 50, and I want to ask you, what did you learn about that? But I just want to start by saying that it is a change in perspective and vision for yourself. Once you hit that 50 mark, there's a whole new terrain, isn't there?

[09:07] Sherrilynne Starkie: Yes. And it's, you know, it really is a turning point, I think, in every person's life, not just women, every person's life, because it really is like, I hate the expression over the hill, but it's such a perfect analogy because you spend your whole life building, building. And then you get to a point where, you know, it's not downhill in a negative way, but it's like things are under their own momentum.

[09:34] Debra Jones: Yes, good one.

[09:36] Sherrilynne Starkie: You're under your own momentum after that, and things just seem easier and faster. And that comes in middle age around the time that you turn 50. So it really is a turning point. And you're right. And I was excited when I heard that you wanted to talk about this aspect because it is a theme that came up time and time again in my 50 interviews. I think when we had our email exchange, I mentioned to you that I'm just launching my second season where instead of continuing to interview women, I'm kind of doing an analysis of all the interviews that I've done and all the lessons that can be learned from it. And so the second episode is all about, should I change my job or can I change my job or do I want to change my job at this point? And so I had been reviewing all my notes around this anyway, so there were some really kind of interesting findings about that. I think I could start with my own personal experience, though, was when I turned 50, I was back here in Ottawa, and I was in a situation where I was employed by somebody else, and I was senior management in this firm, you know, it's probably the only time in my career that I had a real kind of problem with confidence around it because I knew that I wasn't happy in the job, but I was like, oh, I'm 50 now, and this is a young person's game. And, you know, do I want to go out on my own? I'm worried socially, like, what am I going to do for social connection if I'm not coming to work every day? Like, I was very worried about this kind of stuff at this age where I had never worried about it before, I was always just like, I'm doing it. I'm doing it. But this time. And, and I ended up staying in that job six years, which was three years longer than I should have, really. But the, the lesson of it is, is I did go out on my own, and, you know, the phone started ringing from day one, and it's been a real successful journey. And I'm very, very happy. And I'm like, why didn't I do this three years? And so this whole lesson about taking the leap of life, I think that's a lesson you have to learn over and over and over again in your life, because I was really, really kind of paralyzed in this job for three years. I didn't enjoy it. It was coloring every single part of my life, the stress I felt in that job. And so, yeah, so that's my personal story. But when I did it, I was much happier that I had done it. But the feeling of dread and foreboding and lack of confidence leading up to it was one of the most uncertain times of my career, for sure.

[12:02] Debra Jones: Yeah. It's a very real thing, isn't it? It's very visceral, for sure. I'm sure that there have been some of the interviews that you have had with these women that have been talking about that type of a dramatic shift in their lives. What did you, if you could just maybe even summarize the type of lessons that we could gain from these people's experiences and doing that.

[12:32] Sherrilynne Starkie: So I'd say there was kind of three main buckets or themes for women. For, first of all, only two of the 50 women that I interviewed said that they wanted to just retire and sail off into the sunset, and I thought that was telling. Yeah, only two out of 50 wanted to do that. And interestingly enough, one of those two I'm still connected with on social media, and I could see that she's gone back to university. Like, she's did not go out and sit in a hammock in her backyard. She's gone on to do other things. I don't think she had it figured out when she was coming up to retirement, but now she's doing it. One of the main things, and this kind of came out in different varieties, but it's me time, right? It's me time right now. I've done everything. I've raised my kids, I've built my career, stayed in a job that I may not have liked because it pays the mortgage, all that kind of stuff. But now it's me time, and I'm at a time in my life when I feel like I have the freedom to do what I want. The kids are gone. I just have more time, less obligation that I can kind of do what I want to focus on right now. With a few interviews, I kind of got an urgency out of that, too. It's like I'm running out of time, like, I got to get a move on. I'm over 50 now, and I still haven't done all the things that I said I wanted to do. And so there was a. That was kind of a different variation of it's me time. And then the other one is that I have some resources. Like, I have a little more money now, so I'm not worried about paying the rent and all that kind of stuff. If I don't make a lot of money, it's not that urgent. So I can do something that's, you know, maybe take some time to get a business going or maybe explore something a little more creative. So there was that.

[14:15] Debra Jones: Did you find that these women that were wanting that kind of shift, did they know what they wanted to do and what they wanted to get into, or were they just trying to search for something?

[14:29] Sherrilynne Starkie: Well, it was both, really. A couple of the women I interviewed were like, I've always wanted to be a writer, and I never had the time or the luxury of being able to pursue that. But now, you know, now I can and I can follow my dream. My dream of being a writer. That was part of it. That was one part of it, but the other part of it was, what am I going to do now? Like, I'm not, like, going to the bank every day and working at this is not fulfilling me in the way that I want to feel at this stage of my life. And so there's a bit of a search about, what could I do right now? What are my skills, what are my aptitudes? And is there a way I can leverage these skills and talents into a business or a way to help me, you know, pay my bills and live my life. So it's kind of both ways that happened. There's a third group that we're kind of forced into it, right? Women have been made redundant at work because they're 50 and they have a big paycheck and, you know, younger, greener staff is cheaper. And so several women of my acquaintance and also that I interviewed were in that position where they just. They've been made redundant. They've had a very good, successful corporate career, but something has happened between 15 and that they're out on their elbow, and then trying to get another job at that stage of life is very, very difficult. It's difficult to get an interview. As soon as the recruiter looks at your cv and sees how much experience they get, dollar signs in their eyes, they're like, no, even getting to the interview stage can be very difficult. So these women then start, you know, having tried to get a job, understand that, well, okay, that's not going to happen for me. I'm going to do something for myself, start a business or start consulting or something like that in order to make their way. And then a couple have other things that have happened that made them really kind of stop and reevaluate where the life is. A midlife divorce, becoming a widow, those were two things that I heard time and time again. There was a death of a spouse, and everything in their life changed as a result of that. And so they started a bit of soul searching at that point about what am I going to do with my career? Pandemic. Also, women that were already in a business for themselves when the pandemic came and it impacted their businesses, it was devastating for many of them, especially service providers. And so they kind of had to reevaluate how they were making their money and find a different way to innovate making their money. For several, it played in their. In their favor, right? Because one woman I interviewed that, she was like, she's a coach and mentor to tv reporters. And so she used to be traveling all over the country and coaching and training, and all of a sudden all this went online. And so now she can just do it from her dining room, and her profit margins went way up because she didn't have all these overheads and expenses. So, you know, it was a boon for her. A couple of women got sober for the first time in their lives, and that made them, like, reevaluate everything in their lives. And they went on to something new. One woman was raped at age 50, she was in law enforcement, and it made her totally reevaluate everything that she believed up to that moment in life. And then she had to, she just took a 180 and totally rejigged her whole career and went out and to work the nonprofit sector to help other victims of assault and rape. And it was a total change of. Total change of career for her. Yeah. So those are kind of like the driving forces of why people have made the leap.

[18:16] Debra Jones: Yeah. And as you've mentioned, I mean, there's so many different reasons, but the point is there are so many women, so many men even, that are making this kind of a change at this time of their life. What I heard about how difficult it was to be hired by someone, my mind went to being an entrepreneur. I mean, I've been an entrepreneur pretty much all my life, so that's an easy territory for me to navigate. But, you know, if you've been used to being an employee and now scariness, and that's what I keep going to when I hear people talking about it, is, it's scary for them.

[18:59] Sherrilynne Starkie: Yes.

[18:59] Debra Jones: What can you share that can kind of shine a different light on that feeling? What is it that you could inspire them by telling them, well, let's start with brass tags.

[19:14] Sherrilynne Starkie: Most people that I know that leave a staffed employee type situation and going out to work on their own will triple their income in the first year. Okay. Like, that's pretty compelling. You want to triple the amount of money that you make. So, you know, that makes you feel a little less scared to try it. But there are the other things, like I'm saying about my own experience where I was worried about social connection, I was worried about relevancy in my career. I didn't want to be sidelined. And these are real concerns. And I guess one, one piece of advice I can give to you is, like, you know, work your network. Like, build out your network, tell your friends and family what you're doing, find other places to meet other people that are going through similar experiences so that you can share and learn. And there's a lot of career coaches and career groups out there that you can join, especially in the, in the zoom world, that you can join and find like minded people and talk out your issues. There's a million Facebook groups out there that are very kind of subject specific, where people share freely what they're going through, and you can learn from seeing their experiences. So there's a lot of support out there. There's stuff that you can pay for. There's stuff that's there for free. There's a lot of books and video courses. That's so much help out there for you today. For someone that is looking to make a career transition, that there's no need to go it alone, there's no need to feel isolated, you know, in your.

[20:45] Debra Jones: Industry, in digital media, I mean, that's constantly changing. We all can see that. But when you are in a position you are in, you see it all. You know what's going on. And I have a client that's in similar type of industry. She's at the point where she wants to change something up. But you know, that relevancy of your skill set in that kind of digital world as it's constantly changing. She feels she doesn't want to up her knowledge, she doesn't want to get with the times, but she doesn't feel that there might be anything out there for her with the skill set she has. What would you say to her?

[21:28] Sherrilynne Starkie: Well, don't underestimate the value of 30 years of experience in the workplace. There's one thing my mom always says. You can't put an old head on young shoulders. And so even though you might not understand the how to's, when it comes to digital communication, you understand the impacts and you understand the strategies and the, you know, the higher level concepts of what you're trying to achieve or what the client's trying to achieve. So you don't need to know how to work Facebook to give communications consulting to a company or firm, an association or anything. You bring 30 years worth of experience and that's. That's something that money can't buy. You know, you've walked the walk for 30 years in your career, and that means that you have a level of knowledge and experience and skills that are unmatched. So I guess to someone like that, I would say, don't think about what you don't know. Think about what you do know. Do an inventory about what you do know, what your areas are, what you think, your personal, you know, your personality type strengths, your talents, areas of knowledge, your areas of experience. Build yourself like a little spreadsheet or something. A little inventory of everything that you know that you are awesome at. And concentrate on selling those skills. Don't worry about what you don't know.

[22:54] Debra Jones: Yeah, that's really good advice. You know, I was drawn to the fact that on our logo for OWN THE GREY is the wise owl. And that's really why I chose it, because that is, the point is we have wisdom that the younger generation cannot have. They haven't been around long enough. And it's that wisdom that is our valuable asset, isn't it?

[23:20] Sherrilynne Starkie: Yes.

[23:21] Debra Jones: Yeah.

[23:22] Sherrilynne Starkie: Well, I mean, we see this in kind of all the social anthropology is why the elders of tribes, including corporate tribes, are given respect and they become the oracles and the informers because they've been there, seen it, done it.

[23:43] Debra Jones: So that leads me to something that I've suggested on a few occasions, is in your line of work and you're thinking of transitioning into something else. What about becoming a mentor or a guide or an advisor for something? Would that work?

[24:02] Sherrilynne Starkie: Well, several of the women that I talked to have done that. One example is episode number two, Dinah Vinck. She was a marketing executive with 35 years experience that had been made redundant, was put out to pasture in quotation marks, and she was one of the ones that did this inventory. But like, well, you know what? I don't want to keep doing what I've always done. And she couldn't really get the contracts because she was a little bit older than other people out there. And so she thought, what can I do? Well, she personally had gone through a very traumatic perio menopause experience, and she decided to, like, really lean into that. She did a bunch of research. She developed a whole set of assets to support women through that experience. And then, so she provides this content and coaching, and, you know, she's kind of redefined everything in her career, and she's never been happier. And she moved to Panama, and she does it all. She runs her, a global business out of her new apartment in Panama. She moved, she was canadian. She wanted out of the snow. And, you know, she's, she's living a very, very happy life doing something completely different from anything that she'd ever done. But she did that. She took an inventory. But what have I done? What do I know? Well, you know, what, what do I have that's a sellable skills or a better knowledge and also what's topical, you know, what am I seeing that people are asking questions about that they want some help with? And she was able to marry that. And so that's just one example. And I think if you go to Google and just Google, career coach, business coach, you're going to get millions of returns. Like, it's a big, big thing. I'd say over the last ten years or so, I've seen a huge increase in people setting themselves up as coaches as opposed to being consultants. I think kind of digital media has driven that thing because people want to do things for themselves more so than just outsource some of their work. But yeah, coaching is a big career trend.

[26:09] Debra Jones: So you being in the digital world, my sense, and where I see my business going is more on the digital line. So making my online school and courses that people can take online, I know for sure that the world is going on a more digital vein. For me, I think that's easier than trying to open a brick and mortar and to do something sort of in the old way of do I open a store, do I open a therapy practice, that kind of thing. What can you share about the digital world where we're headed? And would that be a good focus?

[26:51] Sherrilynne Starkie: So that depends on what you're selling. Right. So people do want experiences. People do want to go to a nice restaurant and enjoy delicious food. Like if you're a restaurateur, you're not going to do that online. Although some people have set up these things where they deliver meals to your house.

[27:09] Debra Jones: Right.

[27:10] Sherrilynne Starkie: The one thing that I caution people, especially people that have higher ticket invoices that they sell, is that going online, there's a risk of becoming commoditized. So going online will drive your rates down because you're starting to compete globally instead of just in your own market and that kind of thing. But I think the advice I would give you there is don't put all your eggs in one basket, stick to your knitting in terms of consulting and supporting people one on one, and wherever your mainstay of your business is now, and then find ways to, to amplify that online. So if you are a corporate trainer, for instance, and you go into companies and deliver training and, you know, these are things that companies will sign big, big invoices for. If you're going to design a training, a training course for their employees and you're going to come in and deliver it, well, you might be able to adapt that training course that you've already invested a lot of time into creating, into something that's a little bit more generic, slim it down a little bit more digestible, and find a way to deliver that through a video course or other kind of online training course, that's something that you can do.

[28:22] Debra Jones: Yeah, I think that's really good advice. And for me, being out on my own, when I came out of corporate world and started my own business 25 years ago, I think the diversification was what kept me afloat. Right. You can't, as you said, put all your eggs in one basket. You can, but that's risk. It's a big risk, but if you can diversify. So I made some things to sell, and I did some teaching and things like that. So I always had something. I was even. I started out, actually as a feng shui practitioner. So sometimes I had feng shui to do, sometimes I had healing to do, sometimes I had teaching to do. But there was always something that was coming at me which kept me afloat for all of these years. So I really vouch for the diversification piece. Not totally different things, things that are relevant. So it makes sense, right? So when someone says, what do you do? It kind of has some correlation. So one thing that I really wanted to focus on, and in my introduction, and these were my words, not yours, it was talking about personal growth and transformation, because I really believe that we're all here on this world to evolve and grow within ourselves. What can you share about personal growth and transformation from your perspective?

[29:44] Sherrilynne Starkie: I agree with you that we are all here to learn every single day. That's why we're put on this earth, is to learn. And when you stop learning, the fun and the light goes out of life, like we are all here to learn every single day. And so my advice to women over 50 is that if. If you're not learning every day, if you're not discovering new things about yourself or just discovering new things in general about your career or whatever, it's time to look about making a transition into something different, because you're in a dead end and nobody wants to be there. Right. So I agree with you about that. In the context of my 50 interviews, I would say that. Remember, I said there was only two women that wanted to retire. I think that kind of speaks to that testament, and I think it has something to do with our cohort, like, our time that we are on this planet at this time, in this day and age, is that women of our age have always had a certain amount of autonomy. We've had more autonomy than our mothers and grandmothers had in terms of money and life experience and the ability to, you know, sail our own ships and not be beholden to men and, you know, to husbands and fathers to make the decisions for us and everything. And that's something that we don't want to give up just because we're retiring. And that. And I think that is part of the reason why 48 women said they have no intention of retiring. They want to continue to evolve. They want to continue to contribute. They feel alive when they are participating, and they can't. And I know this is true of myself as well, as the women I interviewed, they can't even visualize it. They can't even picture themselves not involved and continuing to pursue either careers or businesses or hobbies, the arts, whatever it is that's driving their passions. So I agree with you on that. And I think that of the two women that did want to retire, one's off in university, the other one's not quite at retirement yet. So we'll see what happens. Sounds good.

[31:54] Debra Jones: So what's next for you?

[31:56] Sherrilynne Starkie: So, again, this whole theme of personal growth. So my podcast is my hobby, and I kind of started it to speak to what you were just saying about. So I. My business was very successful through the pandemic because everybody wanted to go digital, and I worked my guts out. Like, all I did was work, work, work. Couldn't travel, couldn't do anything anyway. So just work, work, work, work. But then I, you know, I woke up one morning, like, missing making connections with women my own age, and I wanted to figure out what does it mean to be over 50? Because, like, it was freaking me out that I was here already. So, yeah, so I said, okay, I'm going to interview 50 women over 50. I'm going to talk to them about what it's like. This has nothing to do with my business. It's my hobby. But I learned with every single interview, and I love doing it. It was a lot of work. So after a year, I got my 50 interviews done. I thought, that's it. Finish that project. But I didn't. It just kept turning over in my brain. I've finished my interview, finished them in late October 23, and then by the time I came back to work in January 1, I was like, I'm not actually done this journey. I enjoy it. I learned from it, but I feel like there's still a lot more value to be had from these interviews. And so this is why I've come out with season number two. I'm going to continue to analyze all these interviews through these different lenses and these different issues to see what are all the insights that came out of it. So this is my personal journey of discovery that keeps my fire lit. And you know, what I learned from this, I take back to my work. I mean, it wasn't my primary drive for doing it, but I sell more podcasting services now than I ever have, you know, so I do bring it back to my work, although that wasn't my primary objective in doing it.

[33:51] Debra Jones: That's awesome. So where can people find your podcast?

[33:55] Sherrilynne Starkie: So it's called 50 women over 50, and you can find it wherever you get your podcast from or on all the popular apps. I'm also on YouTube, and you can find me online. Just Google: Sherrilynne. I'm gifted with a kind of an unusual name, and I have a pretty big digital footprint. So you find me out there. That's beautiful.

[34:14] Debra Jones: I'll put links in the show notes to make life easy for everybody. But it's been inspiring and it's really great to have these kinds of conversations with each other. You know, listening to your story of why you started the podcast, it's kind of similar to my story, too, is that you learn what you need to know by talking with people. There's a better way to do it than within a podcast, right? Because now you have so many options to speak to so many different people, not just your small circle of friends that you've been speaking to forever. But I do really believe it's all about learning something new. And so the people that I interviewed on my podcast, they're saying the exact same things. They're just reinventing themselves over and over and over again. There's no end point until we're just 6ft under. And who knows if that's the end point or just a beginning point. But that's another story for another day. But I thank you for sharing your wisdom and what you've gleaned from your podcast. And I'm really excited to see what comes out of your analysis of what you've heard, because you're right. Wisdom is only wisdom if you use the information that you learn, right? So this is your opportunity and our opportunity to make sense of all. So thank you for your time today. It's really been a pleasure.

[35:38] Sherrilynne Starkie: Oh, thank you for having me on the show. I appreciate the opportunity, and it was a pleasure getting to talk to you.

[35:45] Debra Jones: This episode of OWN THE GREY is brought to you by. I AM. -Discover your unique talents, realize your potential, and align to your path. Take the first step to uncover your life purpose by visiting www.DebraJones.ca/courses