Dr Andrea Goeglein Of ServingSuccess: Second Chapters; How I Reinvented Myself In The Second Chapter Of My Life
An Interview With Jake Frankel
Everything takes longer to achieve than you think. Make the act of striving to achieve the real achievement. The Unicorn Challenge was originally conceived to be a virtual offering to my corporate women’s leadership clients. They were having a lot of budgeting challenges in the years following the great pause. I kept doing the work until something worked.
Many successful people reinvented themselves in a later period in their lives. Jeff Bezos worked on Wall Street before he reinvented himself and started Amazon. Sara Blakely sold office supplies before she started Spanx. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was a WWE wrestler before he became a successful actor and filmmaker. Arnold Schwarzenegger went from a bodybuilder, to an actor to a Governor. McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc was a milkshake-device salesman before starting the McDonalds franchise in his 50s.
How does one reinvent themselves? What hurdles have to be overcome to take life in a new direction? How do you overcome those challenges? How do you ignore the naysayers? How do you push through the paralyzing fear?
In this series called “Second Chapters; How I Reinvented Myself In The Second Chapter Of My Life “ we are interviewing successful people who reinvented themselves in a second chapter in life, to share their story and help empower others.
As a part of this interview series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Andrea Goeglein.
Andrea Goeglein, PhD applies the science of positive psychology to work with people of all ages to solve their thinking problems. Andrea is the founder and curator of The Unicorn Challenge, The Ageless Edge Mindset gatherings, author of the Don’t Die™ self-development collection of books, and co-host of the Hey, Boss Lady! Podcast. She invites you to join her in living her motto: be silly to be successful. Find all things Andrea at www.ServingSuccess.com
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we start, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?
I paused a moment when you asked this question. As I entered Andrea 2.0 plus, I realized that my childhood experiences seemed dimmer yet foundational to who I am, the businesses I built, and what I will create next. Being my own boss and being responsible for others’ well-being was modeled all around me. I came from an Italian-American family of butchers, electricians, plumbers, and trash haulers. In a way, my dad and uncles took care of the community so the community could live their lives to the fullest. It feels so familiar. A fun fact. When I was going through training to open my first operating business — a Haagen-Dazs Ice Cream Shoppe in my 20s in Reno, NV — my dad came with me to training! Another fun fact. During that training, it was my dad who was able to explain what the “two-register” system was. DM me if you need further information!
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Only those who sow seeds of change can hope to grow and reap a harvest.”
Andrea Goeglein
Don’t Die™ With Your Song Unsung, p. 83
I did not choose that quote to share to be self-serving. I chose it because of how it came back into my life this year. I wrote that quote in a book I published in 2011. A few months back, I received a DM from someone I had not seen in many years. We were casual acquaintances. Her name is also Andrea. Andrea was at her mom’s helping plant a garden. Her Mom had received a seed pack of basil as a thank-you gift for donating to the UNCF (United Negro College Fund). As Andrea began to open the pack, she saw my name and the quote. The synchronicity stunned us both. She reached out to tell me. Of course, I had no idea they were using the quote or how they came to read it. What I know is that at that moment, I was reassured that I was meant to continue my work.
You have been blessed with much success. In your opinion, what are the top three qualities that you possess that have helped you accomplish so much? If you can, please share a story or example for each.
I will answer using three of the five provided in the Values in Action survey I took in 2003: gratitude, love and be loved, and love of learning. The other two are spirituality and honesty, but you only asked for three! Now here is the cool thing about these strengths and the coming up on a survey. In 1987 I did another strengths and values exercise. It was very rudimentary, using a list of words, flashcards, and a sheet of definitions. I have carried those cards in my wallet for 25 years now. What startled me in 2003 was that the strengths and values were the same — whether I took a statistically validated computer-generated survey or some paper and pencil technique. There is a big difference, though. In 2003 when I got my results and was taught that the way to the most satisfying life was to USE the top strengths in all I do, I listened. I listened so well that I shifted the focus of my consulting practice away from the behavioral surveys I was using with my client and focused on teaching how to apply the information from the VIA to your daily success. I am grateful I love people and have a love of learning as a top strength. The VIA is free and available on my website.
Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about ‘Second Chapters’. Can you tell our readers about your career experience before your Second Chapter?
You know that is a dangerous question to ask someone in their 60s! If all has gone well, there is a heck of a lot of experience. Let me offer my cliff notes version. For decades I have viewed myself as part businessperson, part academically trained, and all about others success. What did that look like? I owned many operating businesses from fast-food to small hotels. Concurrently, I had a boutique executive development consulting practice, wrote books under my Don’t Die™ brand, hosted television segments, created a podcast, and hosted a YouTube channel, all under my other trademark, Dr. Success™.
I do have a tip I would like to share with your readers about writing books and business. You will notice I have trademarks that have been perfected over a decade. When I was being urged to write a book, I found myself responding that I would only write a book if I were creating a business brand like Chicken Soup for the Soul™. Now, Don’t Die™ is not Chicken Soup yet, AND my intention to create an inspirational book series has never — and I mean never — wavered.
And how did you “reinvent yourself” in your Second Chapter?
The good old-fashioned way — through loss, confusion, anxiety, and using the techniques I have taught and used throughout my career. It has taken longer than I expected, so I will add patience to the qualities I had to learn.
Can you tell us about the specific trigger that made you decide that you were going to “take the plunge” and make your huge transition?
Trigger? Trigger? Let me introduce you to the year 2020! I fully anticipated turning 65 that year and was busy planning some celebrating trips. The first one was to experience the whale migration off the Mexican Baja coast in January. I thought starting the year watching the birthing of whales would be auspicious and set the tone for my major birth and business year. What I did not anticipate was what happened eight weeks later. What I did not anticipate was I would have the opportunity to completely re-imagine my business as I knew it. I watched as big businesses morphed into new models. I watched as small and medium-sized businesses questioned if they could survive long enough to morph into any model. I also watched my achievement mindset consulting stall. It is not that people stopped wanting to achieve. That will never happen. However, uncertainty confuses what to strive for. It was from this perspective that The Ageless Edge Mindset and Unicorn Challenge transformed the focus of my business into the business of being silly and being successful at every age.
What did you do to discover that you had a new skillset inside of you that you haven’t been maximizing? How did you find that and how did you ultimately overcome the barriers to help manifest those powers?
Is it a skill to drop the need for things to look perfect, be perfect, and without errors? Well, the collective skill of accepting that “good is good enough to start” was a challenging one for me to overcome. In my expanded work offerings, that meant getting over how my face (my ever-graciously maturing face) looked in videos. From the first time I did a television segment in 2006, I had to confront my mindset (see why I have to teach what I teach???) about how I looked on camera. I have a joke — that is only a half-joke, as most jokes are — that HD was not made by people over 50! Heck, I am not sure HD is made for anyone over infancy. Have you noticed that no one makes negative comments on a baby’s appearance on camera? Image communication is here to stay. I could choose to filter my way out of my apprehension or accept that there is value and wisdom at every age. I must be authentic, or The Ageless Edge Mindset will never succeed. I overcame my apprehension by living my newest offerings: I took the Unicorn Challenge, I knew I wouldn’t die from negative criticism, and I began to live The Ageless Edge Mindset instead of just researching the best science has to offer about achievement and satisfaction at any age.
How are things going with this new initiative? We would love to hear some specific examples or stories.
Things would never go as great as I expect them to! All kidding aside, starting and restarting and starting and restarting is hard. I found a way to ignite my progress forward through some of the “loss, confusion, and anxiety” I mentioned above. Let me explain. Over the last 40 years, I became a “giver”. I like to give to nonprofits that do the work in my community that I believe will make my community better. One of my earliest stretch goals was around how much I wanted to be able to give — reflecting 10% of what I wanted to earn. I came close one year. Then all the changes started, and I had to reduce my giving. That crushed me. When an organization I support, Teach for America-Nevada, came back to me and invited me to give at a higher level, I became creative. I could not give more than I earned since I was not earning more. What I could do was offer to facilitate The Unicorn Challenge for a 4-week session where the fee to participate was a direct donation to Teach for America-Nevada. Once I did that, I decided to offer that program every quarter this year. I still don’t earn anything from the version of The Unicorn Challenge, but my personal satisfaction is through the roof.
Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
Have you ever had a conversation with someone and something they say just sits with you and won’t leave your brain? Well, I had such a conversation with my daughter, Dana Rizer. I was sharing the work plans I wanted to do in my mid-70s. Dana listened and then said, “Why don’t you do that now?” I heard her. I remembered what she said, but I was not quite ready. It took about another year before I shifted my focus and my offerings, but that one conversation pushed the timeline up a decade! It makes me smile each time I think about how our children become our teachers. For me it is a really cool feeling.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started in this new direction?
When you do good, good happens. During one of my Teach for America-Nevada sessions, a member shared that they had lost years of their professional graphics files when a hard drive crashed. These files were pre-cloud, but they had backed up. Unfortunately, it appeared the drive was wiped clean. A month after we concluded our sessions, I received a message from them. They said they had checked the wrong drive in their rushing and clutter. All of their files were found and safe. This brought their participation in The Unicorn Challenge to life. Two of the tips in the Challenge are: 1) get organized and 2) stop rushing.
Did you ever struggle with believing in yourself? If so, how did you overcome that limiting belief about yourself? Can you share a story or example?
“Ever”! Of course, I have. However, I believe that in the struggle, you find the deeper levels of yourself. You find how much further you can stretch, how much more you can sustain, and how much more you can create. My initiative benefiting Teach for America-Nevada was born of a struggle for sure.
In my own work I usually encourage my clients to ask for support before they embark on something new. How did you create your support system before you moved to your new chapter?
Gathering people and creating a community comes naturally to me. I think it is another benefit of my Italian American genes. The pandemic and the ensuing business and cultural changes were anything but natural. That point in time occurred as I was turning 65. I lost my business gatherings. And in case someone has not told you, it is more challenging to create a community with each progressive year mostly because there are fewer opportunities to be included. So it took a while, almost two years, for me to devise a solution and execute the idea. Once again, I combined my desire to give back to my community with solving a personal and business need. The first thing I did was create a monthly professional women’s, no-host dinner gathering. Our public radio station, KNPR.org, also has a community magazine, The Desert Companion. Each year, The Desert Companion hosts the Restaurant Awards, recognizing the “best of” in restaurants in Las Vegas. With the help of a friend, we created a mailing list of about 25 professional women. Each month, we pick one of the award-winning restaurants, make a reservation for 8, and send an email. The first eight women to respond get a seat at the table.
Starting a new chapter usually means getting out of your comfort zone, how did you do that? Can you share a story or example of that?
I got by with a little help from my friends. That is not just a Beatles lyric; that was how I did it! As the world of business opened, I started going to larger business gatherings, meetings, and luncheons, and I noticed something about myself. I did not like going by myself. That is saying a lot, given I am not shy, but it is true to my extroverted nature. I came up with what I call a “wing person” plan. Every time I register for an event, I reach out to a trusted circle of friends and ask who wants to join me. I never go to events alone so I always have an anchor to process what is happening in the room. That makes me feel supported in the moment and helps build relationships using my time to be with friends and be involved in my business and community.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me before I started” and why?
At my Andrea 2.0 plus stance, it is not so much what I wish someone told me before I started, but that I listened sooner. If my reinvention in Chapter 2 of life is about anything for me, it is about integration and actualizing what I have learned along the way. Let no life lesson be wasted. Time is of the essence.
- When you think with your heart, your head works better. I finally understood the AA slogan my dissertation chair lived by, “your best thinking got you here.”
- Everything takes longer to achieve than you think. Make the act of striving to achieve the real achievement. The Unicorn Challenge was originally conceived to be a virtual offering to my corporate women’s leadership clients. They were having a lot of budgeting challenges in the years following the great pause. I kept doing the work until something worked.
- What you think you want may be all wrong for you. When you achieve what you thought you wanted, you will be a different person. The new you, does not want the same things the old you wished for. That is why achievement of the goal should not be the goal.
- What you think will make you happy may make you feel empty. Each empty feeling creates the spark of inspiration to start creating again.
- Failing feels terrible and never trying feels worse. I feel this is true at any age when it comes to using your strengths to create your next chapter. I feel this is especially true when it comes to creating all love in your life.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
Wow, this question gave me pause in a good feeling way. I began to imagine how much good and positive change could happen if every person with a skill to sell donated the facilitation of their work in a way that the fee to participate in the program went to a local nonprofit that helps their community. Community-by-community problems would be solved. Personal development would be the foundation for developing the world. Thank you for this question. The seed of a much bigger idea has been planted.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them. 🙂
Philanthropist and author MacKenzie Scott. I want to thank her for sharing her wealth by giving a substantial grant to one of my favorite nonprofits, Communities in Schools. Her gift accelerates CIS’s Nevada mission in a way few others have. MacKenzie lives at the stratospheric level of wealth yet does not preoccupy herself with growing her wealth. Instead, she looks around and determines where the money is needed most now. For me, she lives the Don’t Die™ spirit in a way I aspire to do.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Website: ServingSuccess.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ServingSuccess
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drsuccessphd/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drsuccess/
Podcast: https://linktr.ee/HeyBossLady
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
Dr Andrea Goeglein Of ServingSuccess: Second Chapters; How I Reinvented Myself In The Second… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.