Ep359: Marc Miller – Move Towards Simplicity in Your Life

Andrew Stotz 00:01
Hello fellow risk takers and welcome to my worst investment ever stories of loss to keep you winning in our community. We know that to win in investing, you must take risk, but to win big, you've got to reduce it. And I bet you're exposed to investment risk right now. To reduce it, go to my worst investment ever.com and download the risk reduction checklist I've made specifically for you my podcast listeners, based on the lessons I've learned from all of my guests. Fellow risk takers, this is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz, from a Stotz Academy, and I'm here with featured guests, Mark Miller. Mark, are you ready to rock?

00:40
You betcha.

Andrew Stotz 00:43
We just had a nice little chat before we turn on the recording and I know you are ready to rock. Let me introduce you to the audience. Mark Miller is the founder of career pivot, which helps those in the second half of life, design careers that they can grow into. For the next 30 years. Mark authored the book, repurpose your career, a practical guide for the second half of life, published in September 2019. Mark is a recovering engineer, a multi potential line and a professional career changer as he has made six career pivots over the past 35 years. Mark is also the podcast hosts of the award winning repurpose your career podcasts. You can learn more about him at career, pivot and repurpose your career podcast by visiting career pivot.com. Mark, take a minute and affiliate for their tidbits about your life.

01:47
Well,

Marc Miller 01:48
as I said, I'm a recovering engineer. Yes, there's a 12 step program for that. And I live in a heat Meadow where we have lived for the last three years. We've lived through the pandemic here. We, my wife and I lived in Austin, Texas for 40 years where I spent much of my career in the high tech world. When I finally got a joke I have. I've left tech twice. The first time I left you'll hear about the story. The second time I left a joke I relapsed.

Andrew Stotz 02:29
And personally being a member of a 12 step program, I know what you're talking about saying you're recovering x x x. Yeah. So again, whatever your addiction is there. That's right. Well, you know, I normally would ask you some questions about what you're doing and all that. But I know that you've got a pretty powerful story to tell. And I know that so much of what you're doing now. And what you think now goes back to that story. So I think it's time to share your worst investment ever. And since no one ever goes into their worst investment thinking it will be. Tell us a bit about the circumstances leading up to it. And then tell us your story.

Marc Miller 03:14
Sure. I graduated from college in 1978 with an engineering engineering degree. And I did what my parents expected to me, I went to work for the big father light company, I went to work for the Borg. Oh, I mean, IBM. And, and I spent 22 years there, and I wandered around a lot. And great experience. Then the in 99 they screwed me in my pension. I gave them the singer finger salute, and went to work for successful semiconductor startup. And so here we are, we're rolling along.com bust is rolling down. I mean, it's and we're, I'm fine. My son is getting ready, he graduates and to June of 2002. He's heading off to college. And then on July 11, of 2000 to have a big time cyclist. I'm riding with my Bicycle Club. And we were on what I thought was a pretty non risky ride. But in hindsight, it was incredibly risky. Lots of blind turns lots of and I came down a hill, turned into a blind turn, the road was cambered the wrong way. So I couldn't hold the turn. And I was going about 30 miles an hour I slammed into a Toyota Corolla head on. And, you know, my buddies who were in front of me thought a gunshot had gone off. And to put it bluntly when all things considered, I was freaking lucky. I am I hit the grill. my right knee has a right leg has a big scar from hitting the headlight. I smashed the hood I smashed the windshield, I smashed the roof, and I went over the top. And I was fortunate It was a Sunday morning in Westlake Texas, which is a very hoity toity neighborhood. And the first two people came across on me was two doctors coming off of their duties at bright orange Medical Center. And they took me to the emergency room. I then spent five days in the trauma center, I tore up a knee, I broke a hip, I dislocated your shoulder or broke a bunch of ribs broke the clavicle had imprints lipids in my head, but I had no internal injuries and no brain injuries I'm willing to admit to. And by the way, those speeds were our combined speeds exceeded 50 miles an hour you bet a 10% survival rate. So they had me walking on crutches in three days. They threw three titanium screws in my hip, not steel, but titanium. And they, you know, they had me walking on crutches in three days. I was back in a bike in 10 weeks flying back to China in four months. Oh, by the way, I flew back into China in November of 2002 into shenzen or Guangdong Province, which was the epicenter of SARS v one. And there's a whole story behind there because I didn't know I was there. I was there for three days to train Huawei, the, one of the bad boys of China. And, and I knew afterwards, a lot of people around me got sick. I remember there was a woman who was on the flight into Hong Kong who was taking sitting next to me in business class. I emailed her afterwards, she was there to buy coffeemakers. And I asked her how was your trip? And she says, Oh, I got really sick. And we didn't know till three months later, that was SARS. That he that was SARS v1. And, you know, we went from there to Shanghai to Nanjing to Seoul. And so yeah, this is deja vu all over again. So there I am. I'm questioning, okay. Why did I live.

07:47
And

Marc Miller 07:48
at the same time, my son was home with me the entire summer after graduating from high school and I'm rehabbing. And we have all these great conversations. It's like, you go into college, you can eat like crap, or you can eat healthy. Your first college roommate, not going to be your best buddy. The odds of throwing 218 year old boys the same room and then hitting off perfectly, but you have to respect each other's privacy. And we had a bunch of conversations like that over the summer. And as you can tell, I'm very direct. And what I learned four years later, when he graduated and came home was he listened. Anyone who's had raised an 18 year old boy, you have no idea when you say something what sticks. And so, if I had had the bike accident, I wouldn't have had that time with my son. So it was a blessing. Now at the same time I'm going Why am I doing this? I had received enough our company was bought up by loosen which I like to call it the sister of the Borg and loosen just imploded. And at the same time we were a euro. They were as we were bought. They then spun out loosen and microelectronics is a gear systems. They had the name of the URL. I was part of the team. We were 17,000 employees when we were spun out. When I left. Two years later, we were down to 6000. And I was on the team that was deciding who got laid off next. No fun, no fun. And so I'm going Why am I doing this? Basically, I got enough in retention bonuses that we paid off the house. We funded our kids college education. So at 46 I was debt free. We weren't rich, but I was definitely debt free.

Andrew Stotz 09:57
Wait a minute. 46. That's almost half Way through your life.

Marc Miller 10:01
That's right. He's really a third because I have played a living to 125 or whatever,

Andrew Stotz 10:07
what age were you at the time of the accident, by the way?

Marc Miller 10:10
I was 4646. Okay, so that worked out at 40. I was 46. Okay. And so it was like, Okay, why am I doing this? And I decided I was gonna go teach high school math. And by the way, I was for the previous 10 years, I was a geek that could speak, right? And I said, Well, I'm going to go do good. And well, one of the things I learned about myself, and by the way, I'm an observer of people, I've traveled the world. Where did I get hired, I got hired in a relatively new high school in Austin, Texas, that was 70%, Hispanic 80% socio economic disadvantage, ie free and reduced lunch. And in my first three weeks, I guess, figured out that I'm dealing with a new culture, poverty. Well, I train engineers in China, if I can do that, I can do anything. But what I also discovered was, I had convinced myself I had been an extrovert. Because I was onstage, I was good. I was great up there. By the way, when I was done, I was exhausted. Yeah. When we finish this interview, we'll be tired. And I don't get energy from being onstage or being around people, though. I like it. It takes energy. It takes a lot of energy. And this is where one of the things I learned through this whole experience was, over the years, I hadn't managed to twist myself into a pretzel. I had remade who I was to make more money. And by the way, I got really good at this stuff. By the way, it was really, really harmful to me. Because I couldn't I commonly say when many of us who graduate from college, we started a careers, we become actors. We play roles. And very often we learn to play roles that are not who we are. We get good at them. We get lots of positive feedback. By the way, when we hit our 50s and 60s, staying in character becomes exhausting. Well, as I look back at my career, and this is particularly true, I left teaching after two years, highly successful. I was exhausted, I was depressed. I suddenly realized I can't do this. And being in a highly in a socio economic disadvantage school, I had a lot of kids with problems that I could not help them solve my right. And it would, I'm glad I did it. But it totally and completely exhausted me. And it's one of things I realized, Oh, I may be good at this. I just can't do it full time. And, and this is one of the challenges I find with working with particularly doctors and lawyers, who get really addicted to the money and the prestige. And when they suddenly say, Oh, I don't want to do this anymore. They get all this pushback from everybody else. Oh, you're so good at it. Why would you want to do it? You make so much money? Why would you want to stop? It's because I don't like doing it anymore. And so what I learned my worst investment was learning over the years to change myself. I'm a big time introvert. Yeah. If you met me, you'd never know that. I've dealt with this pandemic Really? Well. You know, I'm on zoom a lot. But, you know, but that's mostly one on one. I like talking with people one on one. And so it's it. What necessarily makes us successful in our careers isn't always a really good investment. It may be financially good investment. But is it really is it the right thing for us? The answer is and where I've particularly find this is with creatives. creatives who are Yeah, I claim I've worked with several who they've taken their creativity and they put it in a little box. And they sealed up the box, they put all the creativity in the box, and they put it underneath the bed, and they forget about. And they hit their 50s and 60s and then suddenly go,

15:16
I can't take this anymore.

Marc Miller 15:20
And because we don't have the stamina that we had when we were younger, or more importantly, we don't put up with the BS anymore.

Andrew Stotz 15:33
Yeah, it's like you can't, it's tougher to hold things in. It just it's so much work. It's I think, try saying, Yeah,

Marc Miller 15:42
yes. And so you suddenly start going, Okay, all this stuff's keeps on popping up. So my, my years, you know, I left teaching after two years, I then did a year of nonprofit work. I then got sucked into another startup, I quote, I relapsed. In the it was a predecessor, predecessor of zoom, I worked for a sociopath. There were six of us who worked for him, and three of us quit, two of them got fired, and one was a walking coronary. And I said, when I left in 2000, levels, I'm not doing that anymore. And I had enough few money that said, I don't have to. Now we had to make some very conscious decisions. And by the way, one of the conscious decisions was in 2018, was to move out of the country and move to Mexico. But it's, it's but it's one of those things of all of that was triggered by the bike accident, which I refer to as a moment of clarity. So right, we are thrown out of our comfort zone,

Andrew Stotz 16:53
literally.

Marc Miller 16:54
Right? We are going okay, why the hell am I doing this? And the and what happens is in these moments of clarity, and by the way, this can be a marriage divorcing big things, bad things. What happens is the filters come down because we look at life through filters. Yep, the filters protect us. Right. And in during those times, the filters come down. And you go, Oh, this is what real life is really like. I'll use the example back in 1992, chrismas 92, i ruptured the L four l five disc in my back. And I decided to take three months off on disability and let it heal. I didn't I like saying I don't like doctors with sharp implements. Yeah. And, and by the way, that when I was working for IBM and IBM went to its near bankruptcy. When I came back, I had so much clarity that because I, I everything was taken away, I spent two plus months in bed. I remember when I finally could roll over on my side in bed, all God, that was wonderful, because I laid on my back the entire time. And you suddenly you learn to appreciate the small things. And it's so these moments of clarity are really, really important to take advantage of them.

Andrew Stotz 18:31
That's what I've written down a lot of things in relation and the latest one is this moment of clarity. But I wondered, could you now summarize what you took away? You know what you learn from this experience? Because also keep in mind, there are some listeners out there that are facing in its own way, an equally painful setback, not knock back. So for those people out there, I want you to think about, you know, what did you learn from it? Well,

Marc Miller 19:07
what I learned is I had a lot of preconceived ideas of what I should do. I like call that the S word. You know, there should be peace on earth and goodwill towards men and the Arabs and Israelis should not fight the butt of stepping back and saying what do I really want to do? Similarly, as you can appreciate, we've stopped buying stuff. we've simplified our lives. And that all goes back to that because you realize what was important. In fact, there's a great George Carlin video on stuff from the early 1980s and It's really interesting. We do a lot of things because of stuff. And two of my favorite books are one, Dr. Henry cloud wrote the book necessary endings. And that is, in order for new things to begin, we often have to end old things. And by the way, we suck at ending things, relationships, jobs career. The second book is creature lightner, called repacking your bags. And the concept there is periodically, times of your life. You need to unpack your bags, throw things away that are not, that don't serve you anymore. And repack. In these times, when you're really in hard times, it's time to step back and say, Hmm, do I really need this crap? Do I need x, y, z? Do I need to stay in this relationship? Do what do I need to do? To allow me to what do I need to end? And I'll use the example for me when we moved to Mexico. I started I read the book necessary endings. I'm going Why am I still in Austin? I've been there for 40 years. Why am I still here? My job doesn't require me to be there. My family, my wife and I are there. But I'm other than I have friends and I have a network. It wasn't the same place. It wasn't a great place I moved to in 1978. So why am I still here? It's called inertia.

Andrew Stotz 21:52
We all get that.

Marc Miller 21:56
So I think it's looking at how does in my case, how does Mark do a better job of taking care of Mark? What's really important? particularly for those of us in our 50s and 60s who've been displaced, the world is not going to go to the back the way it was.

22:19
So what do you want to do?

Marc Miller 22:24
Because the world you left a year ago, probably doesn't exist anymore. You can look and say, you know, the world is my is my is, is my courtyard. It's It's my, you know, it's everything. So what do I really want to do with that? What other not what other people think I should do?

Andrew Stotz 22:49
Yeah, and there's another angle for people that get over 50. And that is something that my dad said to me, when he was older. He said, for the first time in my life, the horizon is shrinking. And that was like, wow, you know, like in our youth, the horizon is widening, the opportunities are opening up. And so there's that shrinking horizon, that is another factor that puts some, you know, pressure. And maybe I want to go through some things that I took away from what you've shared. There's five things I've taken away from what you shared. And I'm going to sum it up in five, kind of words or word number one, gratitude. Word number two, like as in like what you do, word number three, simple, keep it simple. Word number four, clarity. And word number five is let go. And to just go through those a little bit, talk about gratitude for a moment, what I always tell people is that if you really, you know, you're feeling depressed, you're feeling down, just go to a local hospital. And in that hospital, will be some people who will be seeing the last light of day, today. Tomorrow, they will be gone. And they will give anything to have your problem. So that's my challenge to the listener. You know, if you really feel like you, you really down, go somewhere where people are literally losing their life. And then it gives you some appreciation. The next thing is this idea of liking what you do. And I tell a story about my sister who's a pretty good artist. And I was visiting her in Kennebunk many years ago, and we were in a coffee shop. And she said you see that picture on the wall? I said, Yeah. And she said, I painted that. I said, Well how did it get in this coffee shop? So I sold it to him. I said I'm going to just sell it to him for and she said you know, a couple 100 bucks or whatever. And I said to her, you know Why don't you do that for a living? You could just be in the basement, you could paint. And you could sell these, you know, and you get better at it. And she looked at me and she said something I never forget. She says, I don't like painting. It just how could it that you could have this skill, and it's just not something that you want to do, you know, maybe I don't want to be in a basement. And she wanted to be, you know, she's always been a mortgage broker, and she has her own business, and she likes helping people. And so that's the concept of life. Now, the next one is simple. And what I always say people's life is simple. If you find that it is not, stop, take a step back, take a moment, and work to simplify. And that's what you've talked about. You've talked about the moment of clarity and for the listeners out there. When is your moment of clarity? Did you have it already? Are you having it right now? clarity means that things become clear. And so search out that moment of clarity and use that moment to transform yourself. And remember that it doesn't have to be, oh, this as in this case, an extreme event, you could have your moment of clarity, right now. But take that moment, and get it now the last one you talked about is what do I need to end. And that is the concept of letting go. And I think that if we look at gratitude, doing what we like keeping life simple, taking advantage of moments of clarity, and letting go. Bow boom, what a life. So those what I took away? Anything you would add to that? No, it's

Marc Miller 26:42
one of the things I talked about with the moments of clarity is they can have been in the past. They could be now you can go back and look at what did you learn? When were you thrown out of your comfort zone? And, and take advantage of those times? such that you can go okay. Because, by the way, we have a habit of forgetting. We learn and then we go, Oh, it's not important anymore, because I've moved on to the next phase of life. And the answer is, man, maybe not. We do so many things in our life in our careers based on what other people want us to do. Yep. And just because it makes us more money gives us more prestige. doesn't necessarily make it better. I was very fortunate. My dad was an egghead, he was an economist, New York Stock Exchange. Well, I joke my dad wasn't frugal, he was cheap. And you know, and I learned not to spend money on stuff. And a few years ago, I made the decision. I told our son, everybody else. Don't give me anything for Christmas or my birthday. I don't want any more stuff. You can give me experiences. I'll spend money on experiences, but

Andrew Stotz 28:14
stuff doesn't bring me joy. Don't give me your stuff.

28:18
Yeah.

28:21
So you know,

Marc Miller 28:23
you know, it's kind of like I bought a new bike over the Christmas. And because it allows me to experience things. Do I really? Do I have the fanciest bike? No, I bought one that was adequate to get me what I wanted to do. So I can have the experience I wanted.

Andrew Stotz 28:47
That's beautiful. I mean, that stuff is such a burden sometimes. Alright, now, I want to ask you the next question. I want to think I mean, when you think about this, I mean, obviously, one of the answers to this question is just, you know, crash, crash in some way in your life, you know, and learn from it. But I mean, obviously, we'd like people to avoid having to go into a crash. And I want you to keep that in mind. As I asked you this question based on what you learn from this story and what you continue to learn. What one action would you recommend our listeners take to avoid suffering the same fate? Well,

Marc Miller 29:24
it's interesting. We had this discussion, I run an online membership community and we a year ago, we had a set of mastermind groups where we talked about risk. And we looked at what is risk? How do you decide what risk is how is something risky or not risky? And how do you mitigate that risk? Well, I'll use the example. When I went out on that bike ride. I didn't think I was taking any risks. It was real risky. At other times, when I left IBM, I viewed it as being real risky. wasn't at all, we were already in the process of being acquired by loosen. It wasn't risky at all. So it's, it's learning how to be able to evaluate the risk. And saying, if I'm going to do this, if I'm going to make a change, what's the real risk? And I, I like to say I've got a whole chapter on my book on a concept called MSU disorder, and MSU stands for make stuff up. Right? When we don't know, we tend to make stuff up, we fill the void of knowledge. So the key piece here is when you're going to do something and you're worried about is it riskier to go talk to people get outside the I mean, the inside of your head is one of the darkest places in the world. Which means you might have to class for help. And I'm a guy, I don't like asking for directions.

31:01
So,

Marc Miller 31:02
you know, thank God, you know, when we drive to Mexico, now I got Miss Google.

Andrew Stotz 31:08
And think that do you think that that one piece of advice is asked for help?

Marc Miller 31:14
Yes, is go get outside, go get outside counsel. So that you're because what's going to happen is, very often we make decisions and we don't have all the information. We just fill it now. And, and just like me, I went on that bike ride, my wife knew I was she wasn't she didn't get she didn't go on that bike ride with me. She said, That's way too dangerous. So

Andrew Stotz 31:52
yeah, I mean, one of the things I ride my bike in Bangkok. And in, you know, now, at this age, one of the things lessons that I've learned is that I think that a lot of success in life has to do with risk management, much more than I ever thought, whether it's managing money, whether it's living your life. So when I go out in the morning, I go out very early number one, but not so early that drunks are driving around. So I usually hit the road at about 5am, I go down to an area that's got a lot less traffic, I've got a lot of lights on my bike. And I even have a reflective vest that I wear. And you know, I look like a complete, you know, nerd or whatever. But, and then I've got a great little side mirror that I added on to my risk management. So I can see cars coming in, I tend to go kind of in the middle of the lane, so that they see me. And then when they come I then quickly move to the sign. I mean, all of these things are risk management, you know, type of type of things. And so you really remind me, you know that risk management is critical. So let me ask you last question, what's your number one goal for the next 12 months?

Marc Miller 33:07
For the next 1212 months is number one, I want to get the next repurpose your career book out. I've done three additions, I want to do an addition based on the crap we've just gone through. And we're going through because I think we won't know the level of disruption, cause for least the next six months. And two, I'm growing an online community of more people helping everybody else out. And for me, at this point in my life, I don't coach people individually anymore. I do everything through my online community. And that's far more gratifying. People seeing other people going, what you're doing what you can do that. Right, and people who can encourage one another because one of the challenges, you know, I'm 64 Most of us have all this messaging in our brain saying well, I should you know, if I'm gonna continue to work, I need to be a certain level of prestige and I need to be done. The answer is why and, and having people who are willing to call your bluff and going, why Why are you doing that?

Andrew Stotz 34:28
So to to learn more about that, should they listen to you repurpose your career podcast, should they go to career pivot comm if someone wants to learn more about your community,

Marc Miller 34:39
yeah, go to career pivot, comm slash community. There's also the repurpose your career. The sponsor is the community and, and I've been focusing the podcast on the left for the last year on folks who are in the second half of life. How are we going to transition get through this And a lot of it is mindset shifts. Many people will never go back to full time employment. And that's fine. Although that's a different paradigm. And, and that's it's a matter of getting people to reshape their heads as to what's going to make me successful after this is over, and success in the future will not look like success in the past. I forget who said, What got you What got you here won't get you to the next place.

Andrew Stotz 35:40
Yeah, that was a great book. And I can't remember the author now. But yeah, yeah. All right, well, listeners that you haven't another story of loss to keep you winning. My number one goal for the next 12 months is to help you, my listener, to reduce risk in your life. So go to my worst investment ever.com right now and download the risk reduction checklist and see how you measure up. As we conclude, Mark, I want to thank you again for coming on the show. And on behalf of a Stotz Academy, I hereby award you. Yes, you alumni status for turning your worst investment ever into your best teaching moment. The crowd goes wild. Do you have any parting words for the audience?

Marc Miller 36:24
Well, I am honored. Andrew, as what can I say, is probably one of the greatest rewards I've ever received.

Andrew Stotz 36:36
The cost of it was just a very severe bicycle accident. So you've paid your dues, we will get you on the show.

Marc Miller 36:45
After the bike accident. I lost 18 pounds. And so one of the things I wanted to do is I wanted to write the crash diet book. Because you get in front of a car, you can let it hit to you, you know you break a bunch of stuff you can't get to you. You can't get to the refrigerator to get the beer ice cream or pizza. In that you have no choice but to lose weight.

Andrew Stotz 37:12
I wonder if that'll be a best seller not Well, ladies and gentlemen. that is a wrap on another great story to help us create, grow and protect our wealth. And we learned today, our health fellow risk takers. This is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz saying. I'll see you on the upside.