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Tabatha Jones: next act. And if you're somewhere around 50, give or take a few years, I never check for ID.
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Tabatha Jones: And you've recently found yourself thinking, is this it? Welcome, friend. You are in exactly the right place. Maybe you spent the last 20 or 30 years or more building a really successful career. You've climbed the ladder, you've gotten the big promotions, you've managed the teams, you've survived the reorgs, the bad bosses, the ridiculous meetings that absolutely could have been emails.
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Tabatha Jones: And at least 14 different corporate initiatives that were supposedly going to transform the way we work.
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Tabatha Jones: You've done the responsible thing. You've built the career, you've paid the bills, you've contributed to the 401 , and you've probably taken a conference call from a vacation at least once.
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Tabatha Jones: Which we should all agree is completely ridiculous.
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Tabatha Jones: And now you're looking at the next 10, 15, maybe 20 years of your working life and thinking.
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Tabatha Jones: I don't know if I want to keep doing this.
11:53:16 --> 11:53:29
Tabatha Jones: Or maybe you don't hate your job at all. That's something I think we need to talk more about. You can be grateful for your career, and still want something more, or something different.
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Tabatha Jones: You can love your company and still wonder what's next. You can make really good money.
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Tabatha Jones: and still want more freedom in your time. You can be incredibly successful at something.
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Tabatha Jones: And decide, I don't want to do this forever. Those things can all exist at the same time.
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Tabatha Jones: And somehow we've turned it into this imaginary midlife crisis.
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Tabatha Jones: I think it's a midlife awakening. Friend, you're 50. You're not dead. You've just finally accumulated enough experience to know what you don't want to put up with anymore.
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Tabatha Jones: And that brings me to why I'm here and why I created this prod prod, gosh, podcast. So who the hell am I? I'm Tabatha Jones. I'm a career and business coach, entrepreneur, speaker, author, and former corporate executive. I spent more than 28 years in corporate America.
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Tabatha Jones: 28. That's a really long time.
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Tabatha Jones: I started in a call center, worked my way up to project management, climbed through the leadership ladder, led large technical organizations, managed multimillion dollar work, got promoted, negotiated raises, traveled all over the place.
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Tabatha Jones: And did all of the things ambitious corporate women are supposed to do. And I was pretty freaking great at it.
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Tabatha Jones: That's important.
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Tabatha Jones: I didn't leave corporate because I couldn't hack it. I didn't rage quit after some terrible meeting and dramatically throw my badge onto someone's desk, though there were probably a couple of meetings where I thought about it.
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Tabatha Jones: I left corporate at 50 because I'd built something else. And here's a part of my story that matters most for what we're going to talk about on this podcast. I didn't leap.
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Tabatha Jones: I built.
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Tabatha Jones: I started my coaching business while I was still working full time, demanding job, raising a family, commuting, supporting my, my spouse's business. But I did it just one hour here, a Saturday there, talking to a client after work.
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Tabatha Jones: Maybe spent a little more time on the weekend working on this. I figured things out while I still had a paycheck coming in.
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Tabatha Jones: And one eventually.
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Tabatha Jones: I decided I was done. We'll talk about that nasty reorg later in the future. I was promoted through the reorg. Like things looked from the outside like they were going really well, but I was pretty miserable. And when I decided I was ready to leave and realized I had options, I already had clients.
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Tabatha Jones: I already had savings. I had built a business. I had proof that someone would actually pay me for this thing I had created.
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Tabatha Jones: Now, friend, that doesn't mean I had everything figured out. Gosh, I wish I had, but no. Entrepreneurship has been an education all on its own.
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Tabatha Jones: I've made money. I've spent money on things I would definitely never spend money on again.
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Tabatha Jones: I've created things that worked. I've created things that absolutely did not work. I've changed my mind. I have pivoted. I've questioned myself.
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Tabatha Jones: I've had incredible opportunities, and I've worked with amazing clients.
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Tabatha Jones: What I've learned through all of this is something that fundamentally changed the way I think about the whole idea of leaving corporate.
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Tabatha Jones: Corporate isn't the enemy. That's where we got all of our experience from. And I'm so grateful for that.
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Tabatha Jones: And entrepreneurship, it's not necessarily the promised land.
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Tabatha Jones: I know someone might want to revoke my internet coaching license for saying that we see all the influencers out there, you know, making it look like it's as easy as can be. There's a little more to it than than sometimes we see. So I consider your 9 to 5 to actually be an asset.
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Tabatha Jones: And when I say nine to five, I always start laughing. I don't know anyone that works nine to five. I sure as hell didn't. I mean, it's pretty much a 5:00 AM to 9:00 PM kind of gig and sometimes in the middle of the night, you know, doing what needed to be done. So when you say, when you hear nine to five and roll your eyes, know I do.
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Tabatha Jones: But there's a whole corner of the internet that's telling you that if you're serious about your dream, you need to go all in. Burn the boats. Quit the job. Bet on yourself.
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Tabatha Jones: Friend, I'm calling complete bullshit on most of that. Especially if you're 45, 50, 55, or 60 years old. We've got mortgages.
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Tabatha Jones: retirement accounts we want to keep adding to. We have great health insurance and maybe some wonderful benefits. I came from the cable company, I had free cable for years. We've got kids in college. We have parents who might be beginning to rely on us.
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Tabatha Jones: And honestly, we've worked so damn hard that we don't need to spend the next decade recovering from an impulsive financial decision because someone on Instagram told us we weren't brave enough.
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Tabatha Jones: Your paycheck is absolutely an asset. It can fund your business, it can pay for the software or the administration support, it can pay for coaching.
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Tabatha Jones: It can give you room to experiment. And more importantly, it can allow you to make decisions from curiosity instead of desperation.
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Tabatha Jones: There's a huge difference between asking, would someone buy this? And oh my God, somebody has to buy this because my mortgage is due.
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Tabatha Jones: That's why one of the things you'll hear me say over and over again is build before you bounce. Not because I want you to build.
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Tabatha Jones: Not because I want you to leave corporate. I don't believe everybody needs to leave corporate. In fact, I believe quite the opposite. I want you to build enough options that you get to decide. You get to decide when you get to decide what.
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Tabatha Jones: And you get to decide how, because I don't think escape is actually the goal.
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Tabatha Jones: And this has been a big evolution for me. For a while, I talked a lot about corporate escape. I even called myself the Corporate Escape Sherpa. I have the trademark to prove it.
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Tabatha Jones: And I still love the Sherpa energy and philosophy. We're climbing something. I don't want you to climb this alone. Preparation matters. You need to know where you're going. You need to know what you're carrying. You need a plan and a guide who's been there that can help you through it.
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Tabatha Jones: I still believe all of that.
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Tabatha Jones: But what I've realized over the last couple of years is that.
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Tabatha Jones: And then we have the escape goal.
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Tabatha Jones: It's a little bit of a small goal.
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Tabatha Jones: Because what if you don't want to leave? What if you want one more big role? What if you want that VIP title before you tap out? What if you want to leave your current company and go somewhere that appreciates the hell out of your experience?
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Tabatha Jones: What if you want to consult? What if you want to build a business on the side, like I did? I built my business on the side for 4 years while I was working full-time.
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Tabatha Jones: What if you want that business you're building to replace your salary eventually?
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Tabatha Jones: What if you leave corporate, build a business, and then five years decide, you know what? I might want to go back.
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Tabatha Jones: guess what? You're allowed. There are no next-act police here that are gonna tell you what to do or tell you you're wrong.
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Tabatha Jones: Nobody's gonna show up and say, excuse me, ma'am, in 2026, you announced on LinkedIn that you were an entrepreneur. You're going to need to surrender your W-2.
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Tabatha Jones: You can change your mind. That's not failure. That's information. That's growth. That's having options. And that's what the intentional next act is all about. The goal here is choice. I want women our age to stop thinking there are only two choices.
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Tabatha Jones: Stay miserable forever or blow up your entire life.
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Tabatha Jones: There's a lot of territory between those two spaces.
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Tabatha Jones: Maybe you spend the next year building a consulting practice while you work full-time. Maybe you finally go after the promotion you've been talking yourself out of.
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Tabatha Jones: Maybe you test that business idea that's been living in your head for the past three years.
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Tabatha Jones: Maybe you finally write the damn book.
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Tabatha Jones: Maybe you change industries.
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Tabatha Jones: Maybe you decide your current job isn't actually that bad once you stop expecting it to fulfill every part of your identity.
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Tabatha Jones: Maybe your next act isn't one thing.
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Tabatha Jones: Friends, there's something I'm incredibly convinced of, and we've spent decades being asked, what do you do?
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Tabatha Jones: And it feels like we're supposed to have one tidy, like, really specific answer. I'm a director, I'm an executive, I'm an engineer, I'm a project manager, I'm a coach, I'm an entrepreneur.
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Tabatha Jones: What if your next chapter gets to have an "and"?
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Tabatha Jones: I'm a leader and an entrepreneur.
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Tabatha Jones: I'm an executive and a writer.
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Tabatha Jones: I'm a consultant and I have a W-2 job.
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Tabatha Jones: I'm a coach, and I occasionally want to turn off my phone and disappear into the woods.
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Tabatha Jones: Oh, actually, that last one's me. Your life doesn't need to fit neatly into a LinkedIn headline.
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Tabatha Jones: And can we talk a little bit about starting over?
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Tabatha Jones: This one makes me a little bit nuts.
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Tabatha Jones: When I meet with women, I often hear something like, Tabitha, I'm 52 years old. I can't start over.
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Tabatha Jones: And immediately my answer is great. You're not starting over.
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Tabatha Jones: Friends, you're not starting from zero. You're starting with decades of experience. You've spent 20 or 30 years.
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Tabatha Jones: And you have so much information and experience and things you already know how to do.
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Tabatha Jones: You're starting with good judgment, strong relationships, leadership experience, technical expertise, industry knowledge. You've made mistakes and learned from them.
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Tabatha Jones: You've had wins and celebrated them. You have negotiation skills, project management, communication, problem solving.
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Tabatha Jones: So many skills. We don't have enough time today for me to list them all.
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Tabatha Jones: And…
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Tabatha Jones: All of those little weird things that you've learned over the decades that you don't even realize are valuable.
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Tabatha Jones: Because they've become a second nature to you. Your assumption is, oh, anybody can do this.
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Tabatha Jones: I'm going to challenge you a little bit on that.
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Tabatha Jones: I consider your corporate experience to be your inventory.
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Tabatha Jones: So your question shouldn't be, how do I start over?
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Tabatha Jones: Your question should be…
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Tabatha Jones: What do I want? Everything I've already built?
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Tabatha Jones: to make possible.
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Tabatha Jones: That's a very different question, and it's one we're going to talk a lot about on here.
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Tabatha Jones: What you can expect from this podcast. These aren't going to be hour long episodes. I love you, but neither one of us needs that kind of commitment right now. Am I right? These episodes are going to be about 15 to 20 ish minutes. We're going to talk about career, money, entrepreneurship.
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Tabatha Jones: Probably a little ageism, confidence, fear, building something while you're still working.
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Tabatha Jones: Getting promoted, leaving, going back, changing your mind.
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Tabatha Jones: And probably some of the ridiculous things that happen when you're trying to figure out what comes next, while simultaneously being a fully functioning adult.
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Tabatha Jones: I'm going to share some things I'm seeing with my clients.
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Tabatha Jones: Things I've learned from my own experience.
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Tabatha Jones: Things I've screwed up, because those are super fun for literally everybody else.
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Tabatha Jones: Things I would absolutely do again. Yeah, I've made some mistakes and stepped in some things, but there are so many things that I have loved and enjoyed and would do 100 times over.
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Tabatha Jones: And occasionally I may share things that will irritate you. I like things to be a little spicy. Somebody would probably describe me as spicy nice, and that's okay.
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Tabatha Jones: I'm not here to tell you you can manifest your dream life by writing it in a journal and waiting for the universe to just FedEx it to your door.
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Tabatha Jones: I believe in dreams. I also believe in spreadsheets and data. So we're going to have a plan.
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Tabatha Jones: And one more thing before we go today, I'm also finishing something I'm incredibly excited about right now.
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Tabatha Jones: It is called The Idea to Income Playbook, and honestly, it's the book I wish I'd had when I was sitting in corporate wondering, could I actually build something of my own?
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Tabatha Jones: Where would I even start? What would I sell? Who would pay me? How much money would I need?
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Tabatha Jones: How do I do this without blowing up the life I've spent decades building?
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Tabatha Jones: This book is actually going to launch on October 1st. I call it a book, and I hesitated, you heard me, because it's really more of a system. There's a full system within this book, within this playbook, that is going to give you a lot of the guidance I wish I had had early on in this journey.
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Tabatha Jones: I'll tell you more about it over the next few episodes, because a lot of what we're going to talk about here overlaps with the work I've put into that book.
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Tabatha Jones: So for now, if you've got an idea rattling around in your head and you're ready to start figuring out whether it could become something real, I've got something free for you today. It's my Idea to Income Jumpstart and Kit.
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Tabatha Jones: I'll put the link in the show notes, so just go grab it when you're ready. You don't have to quit your job. You don't need an LLC by Friday. Please don't start building a website.
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Tabatha Jones: You don't need a 47 page business plan. You just need to start figuring out what you want and take the next intentional step toward it.
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Tabatha Jones: Because here's what I want you to remember. You're 50, not dead. You don't have to blow up your life to build a bigger one.
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Tabatha Jones: And whatever comes next.
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Tabatha Jones: Let's make sure you choose it on purpose.
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Tabatha Jones: I'll see you next time.
