The attached interview above is from SDPB's daily public-affairs show, In the Moment.
Executive leader Lon Stroschein is launching a new venture called "Normal 40." It's a way to engage with other men who are facing the halftime of their careers and seeking new challenges and new meaning. He joined Lori Walsh for a conversation about his endeavor.
The following transcript is autogenerated.
Lori Walsh:
You're listening to In The Moment on South Dakota Public Broadcasting, I'm Lori Walsh. From The Great Resignation to The Great Renegotiation, millions of American professionals have used pandemic disruption to rethink their careers. South Dakota executive Lon Stroschein has launched a new leadership endeavor. It's called Normal 40 and Lon is with me now inside the SDPB Kirby Family studio in Sioux Falls to talk about his work, executive leadership, family, how to coach other men back to a path of personal meaning. Lon welcome. Thanks for being here.
Lon Stroschein:
Thanks Lori. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.
Lori Walsh:
This is an exciting time for you. Does it have anything to do with the pandemic? Did the pandemic and midlife and everything that's happening in the world, did it light a spark for you? Was there some other catalyst?
Lon Stroschein:
For me being quite honest, it was another catalyst. It kind of got tied up and wrapped up into everything that's going on now. But for me, I'm 47 today and it probably started for me, what I call the Normal 40 in my mid 40s. And I would show up to work entirely fulfilled, I felt great, I had a great job, I still have a loving family. And I would show up to work every day and I would think to myself, well, is this it? Is this what I'm going to do? I'm doing well, I'm making ends meet financially. As an outsider, looking in, it looks like I've got the world all in my favor, but at the end of the day, I would wonder, well, is this it?
Lon Stroschein:
And I would start to peel that onion back. Well, why am I feeling that way? And I felt a little guilty for having some of those thoughts. And so I did what I do and that's I sat down and I wrote, I wrote about what are these things that I'm going through? What are these things that I'm feeling? And what I came up with was that, that I was going through some sort of a transition that I needed to better understand. And I realized that, look, my life has a clock and I was in my mid 40s and if I live to 90, I'm at my life's halftime. And if I work till age 65, I'm at my professional halftime. And I think the awakening of that really got me thinking about, okay, am I really going to come out of the locker room and play the second half the way I played the first half? Or is this my time to really put some attention to what is it I'm going to do? What is it I want to fulfill? And how am I going to make those changes?
Lori Walsh:
So you write about this on your Normal 40 blog. And this is one of my favorite parts. You're also thinking about your wife and saying, "Have I really shown enough appreciation?" You've got a good marriage, but "do I appreciate her ... What has this cost me?" And so you're also looking at the second half of your personal life, looking at your family and saying, this has deep meaning.
Lon Stroschein:
Absolutely. Look, professional life is hard and we put a lot into it and we sacrifice a lot. And we look at the sacrifices we make through our own lenses a lot, especially when we're sitting at our desk and we're there with our team. And we're thinking about crisis coming at us, the next crisis, the next crisis. And we're thinking about the workload that's being put in front of us to execute and get done. And we're thinking about the people who judge, and then we're thinking about the next trip we're going to take to do the next deal. And along the way, the people who are witnessing that are the people you share a roof with, not at work, but at home. And unfortunately I think it's natural. And I think it's a normal, hence the name Normal 40, for you to get to a point in your life where you realize, maybe that trade needs a second look.
Lori Walsh:
A lot of men, a lot of other dudes said, me too, or what's next? Or tell me more. Or count me in. You just put it out there on LinkedIn and said, who else is ... You put a sort of raw journal entry that you wrote on a plane and said, who else is with me on this? And who else wants to kind of go along and see what happens next? And a lot of people said, yes. Tell me a little bit about that.
Lon Stroschein:
Yeah, absolutely. So in this journey, and I'm still on some sort of a journey, but it's getting to be more and more clear for me. So I started down this journey and I wrote a blog that I never really intended to post, but I wrote it for myself. And I went out with a CEO friend of mine here in Sioux Falls, and I showed it to him and it didn't have my name on it, didn't say anything about anything. And I said it in front of him and I just let him read it. And he got done reading. He said, "Who wrote this? And I said, "Well, why?" And he goes, "Because this is how I feel." And I looked at him and I said, "You? This is how you feel?" And he said, "Yes, this is exactly how I feel." And I said, "Well, I wrote it." And he looked at me and goes, "You? You feel that way?"
Lon Stroschein:
Like there was my first cue that there's something to this. There's something to this that dudes don't talk about. There's something we feel in our gut that because of our image, our status, where we work, that we're going to hold it in and we don't have the connections naturally. And we don't take the time with the connections we do have to talk about it. It's normal. We're all feeling. Shouldn't say all. We're probably not all, but there's a lot of dudes feeling it. But we don't talk about it. So over the course of time and keep in mind, this was January of 2020. And it took me until this day, today, to finally say, look, I'm going to do something about this in a more public way.
Lon Stroschein:
And it took me two years of wrestling with what is this? What is this calling that I'm feeling? And who are these guys who are showing up? So I post a LinkedIn and you can see what I post there. And what's happened is I've kind of created this following I never intended to have. And it's an awesome responsibility, but I've met dudes from all over the world. I've met surgeons who have decided that they're going to dedicate some of their time to understanding brain theory. And why dudes in midlife go through this, and they want to just offer that up to me to share. I've met executives in the UK who've decided that they are going to quit their job and pursue something that they knew they should have done three and four years ago. And they're crediting just the conversation for that. And I think that there's more of that out there if we just take the time and find a group of dudes to talk to about it.
Lori Walsh:
How do you deal with the pressure of, because you didn't get to 40 without those sort of scripts repeating in your head again and again, that maybe you shouldn't be sharing this or you're stepping out onto a new ledge. When you first showed your friend, for example, you didn't have your name on your blog post. You showed him something anonymous, which would tell me that there was a little bit of you that you wanted to protect just in case he looked at it and said, this is meh, whatever. That you could have maybe had a back door. So I guess in female parlance, we would call that vulnerability. What do you call it?
Lon Stroschein:
I'll never forget my first post, because I am a public company executive, and I remember my first post. It was in a voice that wasn't me at work. It was me on the inside and I should go back and look, I don't even remember exactly what it was, but I remember sitting there staring at the words, wondering, do I post this? And what are people who know me at work going to think about this little bit of vulnerability here? And the fact that, hey, I've got some things that I'm working on and maybe you do too and maybe you should think about it. And slowly but surely because of the people I work with are just awesome, I gained more and more comfort, but you better believe that the first time you tell yourself, you're going to have a conversation. And certainly if you're going to take a moment and you're going to post about it, beyond a one-on-one conversation, it's going to take more courage than you ever thought it would because of how you live the first half of your life.
Lon Stroschein:
If you think about ... Look, I'm just going to talk broadly about dudes because I am a dude and I'm in my middle life. And we spend the first half of our life chasing success. That's what we're doing. We're looking for the next promotion. We're looking for the next opportunity. We're taking risks. We're moving up. We're competing, whether directly or in directly, with those around us and people in other industry. And we're taking those risks. And over time, you get to a point in roughly your midlife and you've done really well. You've got the promotions, now you have the desk, you have the team, you've built an image, everything feels safe. You've taken the risk, things feel good enough, you've got the association, the compensation is good, the fear is down.
Lon Stroschein:
But something happens over a period of time in your midlife and that's you get comfortable. And you find that you've worked yourself into the box, and all this success you were chasing in your first half actually leads you to this place where you're somewhat trapped. Because what are you going to give up to do something else? You're going to give up your image. You're going to give up your compensation. You're going to give up your desk. You're going to give up your team. Now it's all the opposite. All the things that you wanted to chase something different, something that Bob Buford in his book would call, significance. To chase that is a risk, a risk you're not willing to trade because it's bigger. There's more to lose. So what do you do? You come in and you punch the clock another day, another week, another month. But you know in your gut that the clock is ticking and you want to do something about it.
Lori Walsh:
This strikes me as something that not only could change your life, but could change a community too. There's this potential of people making this kind of change. If there's something more during the second half for people who are successful, people who have gotten places, people who know how to achieve things and they are now turning their attention towards something else. That could be pretty exciting for a community. What do you think the ripple effects could be?
Lon Stroschein:
Well, I can tell you firsthand what the ripple effects are just for me. And I can say it because I've heard it from men and women. I post to dudes and I talk about dudes, but the truth of the matter is a lot of women go through the exact same thing. And I hear from a lot of them. The difference between men and women is they'll talk about it. They'll talk about it with me openly. They'll talk about it with their friends and family more openly. They'll talk about it online. They'll react to my post. Where dudes, they're just different. They don't want to leave their DNA on anything that's going to let someone else think there's a chink in their armor. And I get it. It's normal. I get it. So what a dude's do? They come right directly to me. They direct message me and they hit me on my email, which I love. And then we have a conversation. Conversation over coffee, conversation over Zoom, conversation over a phone call, whatever. I've gone for flights with people. I've done everything you can imagine.
Lon Stroschein:
But going back to your question about ripple effect. I hear at least three or four times a week from people who are like today, I made a change and I made a change because of something you said. And I made a change because I feel like there's a community behind me that supports this change. And I'm making a change because now I understand there's a clock and I am actually in control of my second half story. And so the ripple effect of that, that's probably the last I'll see of that particular ripple effect on those two or three or four men and women that I hear from. But from there, I've heard from a female executive in town that her and her husband and their family started going back to church. They started reengaging in activities that they used to do together. Because the message of owning your clock and having a finite amount of time on the Earth, it resonates because it's real. And you really start to notice it in midlife when you think of yourself being in halftime and how you want to play your second half story.
Lori Walsh:
For people who are saying, "But I didn't get the desk, I didn't get the success. You're speaking from a place of privilege, Lon. I don't know if I can make some of the changes that other people can make, who have a different financial stability. I was never born into the kind of family." This is a privileged conversation to some people. What's in this for people who think, well, I'm not at the place, but here I am at midlife, but I'm not at the place where I thought I was going to get?
Lon Stroschein:
Sure. I don't subscribe to the fact that it is a privilege conversation. I think it all boils down to what you have and what you long for. And are you willing to make that trade? If you have means, the trade looks different, it different financially, but what you feel, what you feel inside, it's all the exact same. It's all about knowing what it is, being very clearheaded. Here's where I am. Here's where I'm at. And all dudes, I shouldn't say that. A lot of dudes get to me and they're like, I know what I have. And I'm telling you, I'm willing to trade. I just don't know what I'm willing to trade it for yet. And so the whole conversation is about that. You've got to have something that you're willing to trade everything you have for.
Lon Stroschein:
And man, I'm telling you'd think, well, I should know that. I should wake up in the morning and know what I would trade what it is that I have for something else. You won't, I didn't. And it's totally normal. But there's a process you can go through to figure out. Do you want to stay where you're at? Which is a great option for a lot of people. Just do it better. Or do you want to trade it for something else? And to me, it's not about privilege. It's about knowing that you're ready to make a trade and knowing what you're willing to trade it for.
Lori Walsh:
Well, this is not the last time we will have Lon Stroschein on the program. For now, Normal 40, LinkedIn. I'm going to spell Stroschein for people. S-T-R-O-S-C-H-E-I-N.
Lon Stroschein:
Nailed it.
Lori Walsh:
We'll put a link up on our website at sdpb.org so you can find his work and come back, talk to us more about this in the days ahead.
Lon Stroschein:
I would love to Lori. Thank you so much for having me.
