ABOUT SECOND ACT BRAND
This is the real story, not the polished version.
Your Second Act Starts Here
Maybe a career change later in life feels less like an adventure and more like a question you can't answer yet. Planning a career change after 50 means having decades of experience, but no clear place to put it. That uncertainty is real. I know it firsthand.
Instantly Blindsided
It can happen in the blink of an eye. One call. One letter. One notification.
Suddenly your life is spiraling out of control.
I spent years as a Class A machinist before becoming a full-time public speaker. Thirteen years, thousands of miles, hundreds of events, across 25 states and 3 Canadian provinces.
We were doing well. We’d bought a piece of property and started building a home.
I was driving north on Interstate 77. A week-long keynote, hundreds of miles from home. Everything was normal.
Then my phone rang.
It was my mother. Dad’s condition had gotten worse. He’d been diagnosed years earlier with Alzheimer’s, ALS, and Parkinson’s, all three. Now he was slipping toward the end. If I wanted to see him, I’d better come home.
I did.
My wife and I put everything on hold to help care for him. Within weeks I was standing at his bedside when he passed.
A few days later, I spoke at his funeral. I’d spoken in countless places and before hundreds of people, but this is one of the toughest things I’ve ever done.
Little did I know. . .
That phone call was only the first domino to fall. My speaking career never recovered. A business we built the next year didn’t survive. We ended up delivering papers at four in the morning just to keep the lights on. Then a few months later returning to a career I swore I’d never do again, working second shift in a machine shop.
And that’s just the beginning.
If you’ve had one of your own, you already know exactly what I mean.
Some of this, I’d rather say out loud than write down. If you want the fuller version, I’m telling it week by week on YouTube in a series called BLINDSIDED.
Here's What Nobody Tells You
Getting blindsided once, everybody understands that. It’s the second time, the third, the fourth, that people aren’t prepared for.
I got blindsided four times over the course of less than twenty years, four separate career pivots that were completely unrelated.
At the time, none of them seemed connected.
Looking back, every single one was building toward where I am right now. And I’ll be honest, I still don’t have it all figured out.
Every single time, I had to relearn the same lesson. I’m not responsible for what happens to me. I’m only responsible for what I do next.
That’s not a motivational poster. That’s the only thing that’s actually kept my wife and me standing. And it’s the one thing I know how to help you with, because it’s the only reason we survived, four separate times.
Track Record
Before I started Second Act Brand, I spent years in precision machining, drafting, and quality control for defense and medical grade customers with zero margin for error.
From there, 13 years on the road as a full-time speaker, 25 states, 3 Canadian provinces.
After that, back into a manufacturing role another 12 years for aerospace, defense, and medical technology, as a laser and CNC programmer, and a CMM quality inspector.
In the margins of that stretch, second shift, mostly, I earned a diploma in counseling and an AA degree with honors. The pull toward teaching and helping people never actually left, even standing on a factory floor.
For 5 years after that, I worked fully-remote as a technical writer and video tutorial producer for a major web development and digital marketing company.
And the whole time underneath it all, I’ve been running my own businesses in the margins.
I’ve had the rug pulled out from under me with caregiving, a business failure, a bait-and-switch job promotion, and layoffs. And I’ve started over more than once. So this isn’t hypothetical, or something I got from a book. These days, over 11,000 people follow that same story, one video at a time, on YouTube.
Embrace Your Winding Path
Everything you just read is where Second Act Brand actually comes from. Not a theory. Not a framework I picked up somewhere.
Four blindsides, and I had to find my own way back every single time.
Eventually I wrote down exactly how I did it, the whole process, broken into 30 days. I called it Reinventing Yourself After 50.
If you want to watch the story behind it instead of just reading about it, I’m telling it week by week on YouTube in a series called BLINDSIDED.
You’ve read this far. That’s usually a sign you’re already thinking about it.
No pressure. No countdown. Just the plan, whenever you’re ready for it.
Not ready for the full plan?
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