Episode 120: Lon Stroschein, Founder of Normal 40 and best-selling author of The Trade, on Why High-Achieving Professionals Often Feel Unfulfilled and Want More From Their Story

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Out of more than 100 episodes, this is the one that brought Stacy to tears.
And once you hear it, you’ll understand why.

Meet today’s guest, Lon Stroschein, founder of Normal 40, where he works with high-achieving professionals who look successful on the outside but feel stuck on the inside.

In this episode, he and Stacy talk about:

• His backstory – how he went from farm kid to D.C. insider to leading billion-dollar deals in corporate America

• What made him walk away from all of it with no backup plan, just a gut feeling that he was meant for more

• Why “success” can still feel empty (even when everything looks great on paper)

• What it really means to outgrow your life (and how to know when you’ve hit that point)

• The freedom that comes when you stop pretending and finally get honest with yourself

• And the surprising patterns he’s seen after thousands of coaching convos with top performers who feel stuck, too
  
  

This one’s real, raw, and full of truth.
If you’ve ever thought “there’s gotta be more than this,” hit play.

More About Lon: 

Lon Stroschein is the founder of Normal 40®—a movement for elite providers who’ve built success but feel quietly stuck. He helps high performers trade the life they’ve outgrown for one they actually want.

A fourth-generation South Dakota farm kid, Lon’s values were shaped by early mornings, hard work, and quiet grit. He spent six years working for a U.S. Senator, followed by six years in private banking and finance, then 14 years as a public company executive—leading strategy, growth, and M&A, including a $2.1B transaction.

In 2022, Lon made The Trade—leaving the title, income, and image behind, without a backup plan. No resume. No safety net. Just a belief that his work there was done, his best decade was in front of him, but that it wasn’t going to be found where he was standing. 

Since his resignation, Lon has coached thousands of elite professionals—physicians, executives, entrepreneurs, attorneys—who feel stuck at the top. Through 1,000+ confidential coaching calls (Rambles), he’s built the world’s most honest library of career transformation—and a library of some of the most incredible stories you will never hear. 

What he’s learned is simple: most people aren’t lost—they’re just done pretending.

Lon’s best-selling book, The Trade, continues to reshape the lives of people he will never meet.

Want More Help With Storytelling?

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TRANSCRIPT

Below is an AI-generated transcript and therefore it may contain errors.

[00:00:00] Stacy Havener: I have done over 100 episodes of this podcast, and this is the first episode that moved me to tears on air, so to say. It's a special one, doesn't even begin to do it justice. Today's conversation is with Lon Stro Shine, who has a backstory for the record, books from a fourth generation farmer to a private banker to classified access at the Pentagon to sending balloons into space with Google.

[00:00:33] Stacy Havener: You'll need not one but two buckets of popcorn for this one, my friends. But the work he is doing right now is what he was meant to do as the bestselling author of the book, the Trade and Founder of the Normal 40 Community and Coaching Platform, LAN works with high achieving professionals who often feel the most unfulfilled.

[00:00:57] Stacy Havener: At the highest peak of [00:01:00] their success, just like he felt, he helps them get in touch with their unique gifts and own their next decade trading image and status for courage and meaning, just like he traded. If you don't know, Lon prepared to have your heart explode in the very best way, just like-minded.

[00:01:26] Stacy Havener: Without further ado, meet my friend Lon. Hey, my name is Stacey Haner. I'm obsessed with startups, stories, and sales. Storytelling has fueled my success as a female founder in the Toughest Boys Club, wall Street, I've raised over 8 billion that has led to 30 billion in follow-on assets for investment boutiques, you could say against the odds.

[00:01:51] Stacy Havener: Yeah, understatements. I share stories of the people behind the portfolios while teaching you how to use story to [00:02:00] shape outcomes. It's real talk here, money, authenticity, growth, setbacks, sales and marketing are all topics we discuss. Think of this as the capital raising class you wish you had in college mixed with happy hour.

[00:02:16] Stacy Havener: Pull up a seat, grab your notebook, and get ready to be inspired and challenged while you learn. This is the Billion Dollar Backstory podcast.

[00:02:30] Stacy Havener: Okay, here's the deal, everybody. I'm sitting in the green room with my friend Lon, and we're realizing we're not recording, and we both say, what are we doing? Hit record immediately.

[00:02:40] Lon Strochein: Podcast over the good stuff's been said,

[00:02:43] Stacy Havener: so we're now jumping in. This is such a gift. Lon, thank you so much for being here. I have wanted to hang out with you for I over a year.

[00:02:54] Stacy Havener: We've been friends on LinkedIn and this is literally the first time we're talking live. Yeah. We've

[00:02:59] Lon Strochein: been [00:03:00] dancing around with one another on LinkedIn for I think over a year. I think it's been closer to two years.

[00:03:03] Stacy Havener: Yeah, I think you're right.

[00:03:05] Lon Strochein: And every time I see your stuff I'm like, that chick is awesome.

[00:03:09] Lon Strochein: Thank content is great. Feel the same content. Walking on the beach, I'm like, I wish I was lived closer to a beach, so I moved to Florida. I was just

[00:03:16] Stacy Havener: gonna say, I mean, you kind of do, and so we have to start at the beginning because there's so much in your backstory like we're gonna need two podcasts potentially, but I really wanna go back.

[00:03:29] Stacy Havener: To where you started, where you came from. 'cause it wasn't Florida. No. And it probably wasn't the vision that you ended up doing as a sort of JOB. And so I wanna go back to kind of before the JOB, like you're a child. Where are you, what are you dreaming of being air quotes when you grow up?

[00:03:48] Lon Strochein: Well, look, I think like everybody, nobody gets to where they thought they would be.

[00:03:52] Stacy Havener: Mm-hmm.

[00:03:52] Lon Strochein: And that certainly describes me. Uh, so growing up, I'm a fourth generation farm kid. Literally the fourth generation. [00:04:00] And a weird thing happens in family business, certainly family agricultural business. I've got three siblings, but usually in a farm there's one that kind of emerges as the one that's gonna take over the family business.

[00:04:11] Lon Strochein: And in my family that was me. Okay. I was like, yeah, I'm the farmer. That is me. I proudly wear that. I put in the hours. I loved the work and you know, I've got a older sister who also loves agriculture. I've got an older brother who's an attorney, lives in the east coast. I've got a younger sister who lives in Europe, but I was the one, I was the one.

[00:04:31] Lon Strochein: Mm-hmm. Who was gonna do it. And so I did what you're supposed to do. I practically flunk outta college because that's a thing. And I decided, well, I probably better transfer from this college. I was gonna college near where I grew up and I, that turned out to be extended high school and it was not a good, I was not on a good path.

[00:04:48] Lon Strochein: So I decided I'm gonna leave that university, go to a different university quite a bit further away where I can get an ag business degree. Go home, take over the family farm. Well. That was going quite well.

[00:04:57] Stacy Havener: Okay.

[00:04:57] Lon Strochein: Until January before I make graduation, [00:05:00] when my phone rang and it was a United States Senator's office and they asked me if I'd be interested in a position working for them, being the eyes and the ears for the senator in the state while he was in Washington dc but also helping to shape ag legislation.

[00:05:13] Lon Strochein: Right. The next farm bill and do economic development. And I thought to myself in my little tiny apartment alone, in my little town, in my final semester of college, as I was planning to go home to the farm where I had cattle and I had tractor and I had land rented because I, this was, it was decided this was me.

[00:05:32] Lon Strochein: It's ordained it, it practically, it felt ordained in a gift. What a blessing to have that ordination. Yes. And that's how I felt. But at the same time I thought, what if I never get this call again?

[00:05:45] Stacy Havener: What if

[00:05:45] Lon Strochein: I get five years older and I'm now 28? And I'm sitting in a tractor and I'm looking back and I'm like, where would I be if I'd have said yes?

[00:05:55] Lon Strochein: E, what would've happened? What did I miss? So that was the first time I really used this [00:06:00] calculus of would I regret it if I don't? And I've applied that same question again and again in my life, and I decided in that moment, I'll regret this. I'll regret not knowing what's down that hidden path. Mm-hmm.

[00:06:12] Lon Strochein: That was not there a day ago, but is there today. And so I went down that path and then I did the single hardest thing that I had to do at that point in my life, which was to go home and tell my dad,

[00:06:23] Stacy Havener: oh my God,

[00:06:24] Lon Strochein: that while I've been ordained and I was the one and you had your plans, I'm not coming home.

[00:06:30] Lon Strochein: And it's the first time I have chills. I saw my dad cry.

[00:06:32] Stacy Havener: Oh God,

[00:06:34] Lon Strochein: true. I'm gonna

[00:06:35] Stacy Havener: cry. I mean that. So what did he say?

[00:06:41] Lon Strochein: Nothing. He couldn't. We talked about it later, but I was excited. I mean, you kind of gotta put yourself, I'm gonna work for you as senator. I'm excited. I'm 23, 24. I don't

[00:06:49] Stacy Havener: understand how this happened.

[00:06:50] Stacy Havener: Can you please explain how that happened? Like, you're at college and you randomly get a call from a senator. I feel like there's something missing here.

[00:06:58] Lon Strochein: There probably is. So a couple [00:07:00] things. One, it's South Dakota. It's a small state. It's a small state. And so you kinda get to know people. And this senator grew up very near where I did.

[00:07:12] Lon Strochein: Okay. And our family, you know, we, it's small, it's a small state. We had a, we had a na, some name ID locally. Yeah. So when, uh, this particular senator talked to some individuals at the university, his staff had relationships with people at the university. When they said, who are some people we should talk to my name.

[00:07:29] Lon Strochein: Ah. And so that's how it happened is, you know, relationship building. Mm-hmm. Early, you know, we talk about marketing. I mean, this is, this is the entirety of what you and I do today. This is brand,

[00:07:42] Stacy Havener: this is personal

[00:07:43] Lon Strochein: brand. I had a brand, yeah. By the way, started by my dad, my grandpa, and my great-grandfather.

[00:07:50] Lon Strochein: Yeah. Who started, started the ranch. So look, I, I inherited part of it, but then I endowed, I built my own. So that's where I was, that's how they found me. [00:08:00] That's why my phone rang and that's why I was sitting there facing this fork in the road. Do I wanna go down the path I was planning to go down? Yeah. Or do I wanna see what's down?

[00:08:08] Lon Strochein: This one?

[00:08:09] Stacy Havener: Yeah. So this is fantastic because there's also this dichotomy of is that luck or is that skill, and I love what you said about personal brand. I think so. I'd be curious what, so I'm not gonna talk. You tell me. Do you think that was luck or skill or some combination?

[00:08:33] Lon Strochein: I think. Uh, luck is easy. Yeah.

[00:08:35] Lon Strochein: Luck is the easy answer. Skill is the ego answer.

[00:08:40] Stacy Havener: Yeah. I

[00:08:41] Lon Strochein: think it's presence. Ooh. I think it was this openness to what is the world asking of me right now? Mm. And and you can get really busy. You can get so stinking busy, whether you're 24, 34, 54 or 84. You can get so busy in what you're supposed to be [00:09:00] doing that you lose presence in.

[00:09:02] Lon Strochein: What's, what are your options really? Yeah. Not, not what did you decide to do yesterday? Ooh, what are your options now? Really? And up until my phone ringing, honestly, Stacy, I had one path and if I'd have just put my head down, I would've taken the call and said, no, thank you. Mm-hmm. And I'd have probably ended up a 28-year-old, frustrated where might I be if I'd have said yes.

[00:09:26] Lon Strochein: Yeah. So for me it's look, sure. Skill maybe. But it's this. Maybe I should listen to this. I need to just remain present enough to be open to what might find me

[00:09:37] Stacy Havener: opportunistic. You had the opportunity, you took it. So where did it take you?

[00:09:42] Lon Strochein: Well, it took me to the western half of the state for a year and then to the eastern half of the state for five years.

[00:09:48] Lon Strochein: And one of the great friendships I made along the way was the owner, also a fourth generation owner. He was, is of a family owned but [00:10:00] large, a family owned bank, a $4 billion family owned bank in in,

[00:10:03] Stacy Havener: in the US

[00:10:04] Lon Strochein: in South Dakota,

[00:10:06] Stacy Havener: even better

[00:10:07] Lon Strochein: in South Dakota. So he calls me up. And, and so by this time when I left politics, I was married and we were expecting our first child and I just didn't wanna raise a family in politics.

[00:10:17] Lon Strochein: And this is back before politics is what it's today, right? I mean this is back in the grand scheme of things. It was kind of some kumbaya around the fire. Yeah. There was some arrows flung. But by today's standards, I mean I used to play softball with and against other senator staff and then we'd go out and have beer.

[00:10:33] Lon Strochein: I mean it was such a, now you'd bring knives to that game. It's crazy. You don't wanna go down that path. But it's a different life. It was a different place. So where did it take me was your question? It took me to this individual. Mm-hmm. Who called me up and said, I love what you're doing. I love what you're about, and I would love for you to come to work for our bank.

[00:10:57] Lon Strochein: Now I'd never lent a nickel to [00:11:00] anyone other than my sister. And I dunno if to this day if she's ping back and I didn't record it.

[00:11:04] Stacy Havener: Take that as a to-do. Yeah.

[00:11:07] Lon Strochein: This is the other thing you realize on your journey. People show up and take a chance on you. The senator showed up and took a chance on me. I dunno why.

[00:11:14] Lon Strochein: I dunno why he picked me. Mm-hmm. But he did mm-hmm. Changed the trajectory of my life. Van shows up, the owner of the bank. I don't know what he saw. I don't know why he said, this is somebody I'm, I'm willing to take a risk on. But he did. And I said yes. And I told him I will do it. But here's my dream in finance, there's all of these people.

[00:11:33] Lon Strochein: This is gonna resonate with your Yeah. Your traditional audience. Look, he, he hired me to be a mortgage guy. Great. Good. Fine. Good money. First time in my life I'm gonna make some bucks. Great. But after doing that for two years, I'm like, you know what? This doesn't do it for me. It isn't, you know, selling money isn't necessarily all that rewarding to me.

[00:11:54] Lon Strochein: It just wasn't. It was fine and good and it gets you into some great conversations, but it wasn't me. It was like, [00:12:00] ah, okay. So what I wanted to be, I wanted to be in the business end of things. I wanted to be in the business end of things one and two. What I really wanted to do is I wanted to create a private wealth group, but not the type of private wealth group.

[00:12:12] Lon Strochein: Keep in mind, this was 20. 2004, 2005. Okay. Not private wealth like Wells and Bank of America were doing Yeah. Wealth. Like I wanted to do it the 30 to 30 5-year-old who had more debt than he had assets, or she had debt than she had assets, but they were gonna be there. You knew it by their character. Mm-hmm.

[00:12:32] Lon Strochein: You knew it by how they carried themselves. You knew it by who they were. And I told Dan, I'm like, I think we can bring people in at age 30 and make them such raving fans of us, of the bank of our culture, that they stay with us for the rest of their days. And it's the long game to the most incredible culture of clientele you can imagine.

[00:12:53] Lon Strochein: And Van, to his credit, said, do it. I love that. But at the same time, [00:13:00] he said, I'm not gonna let you make what you were making as a, as a mortgage, as a real estate banker, you're gonna do it making what you'd make as an entry level banker. And I said, you got a deal. I literally took a, I took an office in the basement of the bank because that was the only place for me that was outside of real estate, and it was right next to the technology stack, meaning that the hum of the fans running against, you know, the,

[00:13:26] Stacy Havener: yeah,

[00:13:27] Lon Strochein: the, that was all in front of me, but uh, behind me was, you know, looks like a tradition.

[00:13:33] Lon Strochein: I couldn't take clients down there 'cause, but I, I wanted the billion dollar backstory before that was a thing. Yeah. I wanted to say, fine. I know you believe me, I know you trust me, but you have some reservations and I'm gonna prove it to you that it'll work. Mm-hmm. Well, fast forward five years later, it was going great.

[00:13:51] Lon Strochein: I had an office on the main level. I was in the conversations I wanted to be in, and it was growing like crazy. I had the easiest job in the world. Go take out [00:14:00] really impressive people, be their friend, make 'em a fan of the bank and help them be successful. Yeah, it was a fantastic job.

[00:14:08] Stacy Havener: Fantastic job. And ahead of your time because a.

[00:14:13] Stacy Havener: Private wealth at that point, you know, independent kind of advisory sort of mentality in general was just really getting going. And you're at a bank which is not known for having that culture or that innovative, you know, kind of let's try something sort of vibe. So a lot of pieces and keys aligning for you here.

[00:14:41] Stacy Havener: I love this. Okay. But I know that I, I didn't know this part of the story actually, but I know there's more to the story because that's not, of course, the last stop on the lawn train.

[00:14:51] Lon Strochein: No, somebody else came along, another person to bet on me for some reason, I, I can't. Can't understand, to be quite honest.

[00:14:59] Lon Strochein: But one of my [00:15:00] clients was the incoming CEO of a public company in my hometown of Sioux Falls, and he asked me to come to work for them

[00:15:07] Stacy Havener: mm-hmm.

[00:15:08] Lon Strochein: And set up distribution for this company internationally. What'd they do? So in the division I was going to work in, it was Precision Ag. So this division was the largest and most profitable of the public company.

[00:15:22] Lon Strochein: And so think of, think of your iPad in 2008. Okay. Like today, you'd get in a car and you see your, your display, and you've got all these things on what looks like an iPad. It's a touchscreen in your car. Well, that didn't exist in a tractor in 2008. So this little, you're talking about

[00:15:37] Stacy Havener: tractors?

[00:15:38] Lon Strochein: I now we're putting it into tractors, but wait.

[00:15:40] Lon Strochein: Wow. But wait, there's more.

[00:15:42] Stacy Havener: Okay. My God.

[00:15:43] Lon Strochein: So not only was it, was it doing all the basics of understanding where you were? Mm-hmm. We had figured out how to drive. Autonomously and how to navigate it started out with just an arrow, go left, go right, so you could drive straight. So we were just an aid to driving.

[00:15:59] Lon Strochein: Then we [00:16:00] actually took over driving of the machine and it would do perfect passes. So if you took a weave in the last pass, the track would take a weave in the next path all the way around. So when you drive it through the countryside and you say, how do they drive these rows? So straight now it's kind of obvious, you know?

[00:16:13] Lon Strochein: Yeah. Because even cars are, but in 2008, people were like, how the heck is this happening? But even more than that, we were also running the machine behind. So we were driving the tractor, but if you were planting corn, planting soybeans, uhhuh, or applying chemical fertilizer, or a chemical spray, we were running the equipment behind you, turning it on, off, changing the right.

[00:16:33] Lon Strochein: So as the soil got better, it was planning heavier. As the soil got worse, it was planning lighter. And so we were making farmers more efficient using the exact assets that they've owned for generations, and it was fantastic.

[00:16:47] Stacy Havener: Bonkers. It's like ag ai. Before it was even a thing. Totally.

[00:16:52] Lon Strochein: Before it was. Wow.

[00:16:55] Lon Strochein: Before it was a thing. Yeah, totally. And so Dan calls me up, says, we're doing great in [00:17:00] North America. Mm-hmm. We're doing great in the us. We want you to set up distribution around the world. And I said, I'm your guy. And the next thing I did, and I'm not joking, I said yes to the job. And I went home and said how to apply for a passport.

[00:17:16] Lon Strochein: I didn't have a passport. I mean, so when I say people took a bet on me, I didn't speak other languages. I didn't know international finance. I just knew how to treat people. And that that has kind of been the secret to my success, is to do what you say you're gonna do. Bring positive energy to whatever situation you're in and help people.

[00:17:36] Lon Strochein: And if you do those things, luck, skill or presence. Mm-hmm. Presence. CE brings you presence. TX TI agreed to see him.

[00:17:47] Stacy Havener: Agreed, and it's such a powerful reminder that the simple things, the really core foundational things like people doing business with people are [00:18:00] actually what matter, and they are also the things that in this tech enabled complex world, we live in.

[00:18:10] Stacy Havener: Those simple things, those foundational things are what we skip. Like we've lost the art of this and your entire story. It's punctuated by these people showing up and taking a chance on you because they saw something in you really different and special and you saying yes. Yeah. It wasn't because you had the degree and the MBA and all the things and the skillset and the AI cred, right.

[00:18:35] Lon Strochein: Yeah, that's right. I still don't have an MBA. Um, now I'd like to think that I've earned one long way, but to your point, I don't have a bunch of initials after my name. No, I just, relentless curiosity.

[00:18:46] Stacy Havener: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:47] Lon Strochein: And, um, this gift of knowing how to relate to people through word and action and you know, for people who are listening to this who might be younger.

[00:18:57] Lon Strochein: Yeah. The best thing you can do for yourself is [00:19:00] know your gift. Because if you go through life not knowing your gift or thinking you shouldn't use it because it's doesn't sound like it's got humility or that uh, it doesn't fit in the box that your employer's putting you in, you're in the wrong box.

[00:19:17] Stacy Havener: I wanna pause on this.

[00:19:18] Stacy Havener: We're gonna come back to your story 'cause this is a really big deal. And also whether they're younger or not young-ish, uh, I feel like. So if I were listening to this even today, sitting here at 48 years old, I'd be like, mm, I don't know what my gift is. So like, use it. Yes. But how do I know what it is? If I'm not sure?

[00:19:39] Stacy Havener: I mean, I think today I do know, but, but if you are listening to this and they're saying, well, I don't know what my gift is, what the f is my gift. How do you figure that out?

[00:19:48] Lon Strochein: That, look, if you're exactly what you just said, Stacy, if you're listening to this and you're leaning in mm-hmm. Right now, what is my guess how I find it?

[00:19:56] Lon Strochein: The single best thing for you can do for the best decade of [00:20:00] your life, the decade that's right before you is to get really crystal clear on what it is you are best in the world at.

[00:20:08] Stacy Havener: Mm-hmm.

[00:20:09] Lon Strochein: Get really clear what and when you do, you know, look. So many of us, I'm gonna assume that the average age of your listener is us somewhere.

[00:20:18] Lon Strochein: Yeah. Agreed. Delta of five years on either side of 50. Yep. And they've checked all the boxes. They've done all the things, they've done, everything that they set out to do. All of their friends knew what they were gonna do for the last 15 years because that's what they said they were gonna do. And now they're there.

[00:20:32] Lon Strochein: They've got it. They've, they've achieved all these things. They've achieved it. And from the outside looking in, it's perfect.

[00:20:37] Stacy Havener: Mm-hmm.

[00:20:38] Lon Strochein: But from the inside looking out, it's like, dammit, I dunno if I really even want this anymore. I'm, I have to say I want it, I have to make it, I have to put on the appearance that this is what I want.

[00:20:48] Lon Strochein: But holy cow, I not even convinced myself that this is really what I want to do for the next 10 years. Real, real talk. Yeah. And those are the people who find me. Mm-hmm. Those are the people who follow me. What I write tho that's the intersection [00:21:00] of the people that I just, you know, put a fork right in their poke forehead every day and say, think about this.

[00:21:05] Lon Strochein: Think about this. And And that's real. Yeah. It's real. And it's lonely. Very. It's really lonely to get there and to have so much and to know you'd trade it if you only knew what to trade it for. So I ask people in ev and I've had more than a thousand conversations with these people that we're talking about right now.

[00:21:23] Lon Strochein: And I tell, I ask them at some point, I ask them what they feel.

[00:21:27] Stacy Havener: Mm-hmm. I

[00:21:27] Lon Strochein: ask and then they tell me and they gimme a bunch of incredible words like frustrated, loss, controlled, discontented, stale, autopilot. They gimme these beautiful words. I say, what's the dream? And then they look at me and say, I don't know.

[00:21:41] Lon Strochein: Yeah. That's why I'm talking to you. Yeah. And the secret is, I know they don't know, that's why they're talking to me. Mm-hmm. But I have to hear 'em say, I don't know. They have to say, so I get to the next. Yes. Yeah. So I can get to the next question is, okay, whatcha freaking good at not what your boss thinks you're good at?

[00:21:55] Lon Strochein: Or what I can read on some corporate report? Whatcha good at in your gut when on the days you [00:22:00] get to do it, you know you're gonna be great. That's what I want. Talk about. Ooh. And you know, the first thing they say to me is. When I say, what are you great at? Yeah. They say, I'm pretty good at. I'm like, no, no.

[00:22:12] Lon Strochein: That isn't the question. What are you? Great. Not the preamble

[00:22:16] Stacy Havener: we want. Not the preamble.

[00:22:18] Lon Strochein: That's right. Because everybody's corporate America. Yeah. It rounds out. It tells you, you have to have this humility and it tells you you have to put everybody else first. And it tells you you have to pause. And those are all great things, and I don't mean to dismiss 'em for a minute, but when you're at this place where you don't know what you're great at, mm-hmm.

[00:22:37] Lon Strochein: Your humility is not your friend here. No. Your humility is gonna say, I'm pretty good at, because that's what your boss would want you to say, because your boss would kind of think you're being arrogant or pompous. If you say, I'm great at this, lemme do it. So put it aside. Your humility's not gonna do any favors here.

[00:22:52] Lon Strochein: So when somebody asks you, if you're sitting in your car, you're leaning in and say, I don't know what I'm great at. Figure it out. And don't use your humility, look in the mirror and say, I [00:23:00] am really fricking good at insert answer here. I'm like and know it and own it.

[00:23:05] Stacy Havener: Peeking out on this. This is so good.

[00:23:07] Stacy Havener: Okay, so that's everybody's homework and now I wanna come back because also I think what I really heard you say, and it's true for me, so I speak from experience on this, is that that discovery process of what is your gift is a journey. It is not something that you go stand in front of the mirror and five minutes later you've solved.

[00:23:28] Stacy Havener: You might need somebody to help you pull back all these layers of B, corporate Bs that you've been adding on to your shoulders for years. And you gotta strip that away and you might need someone's help. So it's okay, I guess is what I'm saying. If somebody says, okay, I'm gonna do the homework from lawn, and then they go and they go, I still have no effing idea.

[00:23:53] Stacy Havener: That's okay. It's a journey.

[00:23:55] Lon Strochein: Yeah. I lemme, can I comment on this? Yeah, please. [00:24:00] There's this incredible. Journey we all go on at at the height of our career. And we didn't see it coming. We didn't expect it. We didn't know it was there, but we long to remember what it sounds like when we get to sound like us.

[00:24:16] Stacy Havener: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:17] Lon Strochein: When we don't have to wonder what somebody else in the room is gonna think when we talk, when we don't have to posture or position to make it fit the culture we're in. Yeah. When we can just, this is, by the way, Stacy, this is you and I sounding like us. When we get to sound like us, we've, we've found it.

[00:24:36] Lon Strochein: Yeah. We've found that ability. So this journey you're on is to remember what it sounds like when you get to sound like you. Because let's remember when you said yes to med school, when you said yes to law school, when you said yes to B School, when you said yes to whatever you decided to do with the rest of your life, a piece of you was given.

[00:24:54] Lon Strochein: A piece of you in who you got be purely was given up for that. Mm-hmm. You had to fit [00:25:00] into your business school. You had to fit into your med school, you had to fit to law school. You had to fit into getting your accounting degree. You had to fit in. That's cool. That's not a bad thing, but it happened. Then you had to, into your first employer, you had to fit into your first boss.

[00:25:13] Lon Strochein: You had to give up a little bit of yourself to continue to fit in, to grow. Then as you move up on the organization, you have to fit in to the strategy. You have to adopt and own and promote the strategy somebody else wrote for you to follow. You give up a piece of yourself and it just happens. We don't know what happens.

[00:25:31] Lon Strochein: We don't say, when we say that fork in the road, I didn't know whether I was giving up a piece of me when I said yes to this one, but I was, and so we forget. We get layered and burdened with all of these pieces of us that we gave up along the way, so we forget what we sound like. When we get to sound like us And that journey back to that does not happen overnight.

[00:25:53] Lon Strochein: No. It's a hard, hard fought knife fight and it requires the bravest people do [00:26:00] it with somebody who can help them figure it out.

[00:26:03] Stacy Havener: Yeah. I love the idea that it's as much a remembering as it is a discovering that is incredibly powerful. So, okay, I wanna put a pin in this 'cause we're gonna come back. I wanna go back to you on your journey.

[00:26:18] Stacy Havener: So you've now just agreed to this job that you're Googling basically how to do, including how to get on a plane and go to another country. So you, you obviously do it. What happens?

[00:26:30] Lon Strochein: Yeah. So the individual who hired me was the president of the division I went to work for, and a year and a half later he was made CEO and he became CEO.

[00:26:38] Lon Strochein: He moved me out of that position in that company that I was doing well at, and he made me the president of one of the operating divisions in aerospace and defense. So for the next six years, I ran an aerospace and defense company as president, and we worked with some of the most incredible businesses in the world.

[00:26:55] Lon Strochein: Our biggest customers were the Office of the Secretary, [00:27:00] secretary of Defense. We did classified programs for them. Wow. As one of our largest customers. Nasa, uh, a piece of NASA that you don't know is before anything for NASA goes into a rocket. It rides to the stratosphere on the back of a balloon. Come on.

[00:27:16] Lon Strochein: And we manufacture those stratospheric balloons. We, that company, my company, that company, our us, as I call 'em, they still do it. And they're the best in the world. And in fact, they're the only ones left in the world to do it. And one of our biggest customers that became our customer during my tenure was Google.

[00:27:31] Lon Strochein: They had a little program called Loon where they were putting balloons in the stratosphere to connect the world globally before Elon Musk came along and did it, um, with rockets. They were doing it with balloons. And so I gotta sit across the table from Astro Teller and see what innovation fast looks like.

[00:27:47] Lon Strochein: I mean, literally, I was badged in to Google X here. I'm a fourth generation farm kid who 20 years earlier was harvesting corn. I'm sitting in Google across from Astro Teller, and if you don't know Astro, [00:28:00] Google him and read his books. Mike Cassidy, same thing. He was actually running the Loon program and I was learning in real time.

[00:28:08] Lon Strochein: How to run faster than anybody else in the world taking moonshots. I mean, that's what they called them. And I had the opportunity to do that. And then I'll finish the story with when that was going really great. My CEO same CEO said, we need to be better at mergers and acquisitions. We had nobody dedicated to doing m and a for our company.

[00:28:28] Lon Strochein: It became one of the pillars of our growth. And he moved me outta that position, into this position to do m and a, uh, for the company. And I did that for the last six years at this public company.

[00:28:40] Stacy Havener: Yeah, it

[00:28:41] Lon Strochein: sense,

[00:28:42] Stacy Havener: right? It's so incre, it's so incredible. Meaning not like that. I can't, I mean, I sort of can't believe it, but I, I absolutely believe it because that's how life and the world works.

[00:28:57] Stacy Havener: It doesn't make any sense. And at the [00:29:00] same time, it makes total freaking sense. What a journey.

[00:29:05] Lon Strochein: I start a lot of sentences in my life as I look back 10 years, I start a lot of sentences reflecting back with, if you would've told me.

[00:29:13] Stacy Havener: Yeah.

[00:29:14] Lon Strochein: Yeah. I mean, if you, if you would've told me when I was in college that I was gonna be, I was gonna have a all access badge to the United States Capitol, I'd tell you're crazy.

[00:29:24] Lon Strochein: If you would've told me that I was going to run an aerospace and defense contracting company and be badged into the Pentagon and Google X and nasa, I'd have told you you're crazy. If you'd have told me that I would lead mergers and acquisitions and be part of a very small team that led a $2.1 billion transaction where we sold public to public, I'd have told you you're crazy.

[00:29:46] Lon Strochein: And if you'd have told me, Stacy, that this gets to be my life today.

[00:29:49] Stacy Havener: Mm-hmm.

[00:29:50] Lon Strochein: I would've told you you're crazy.

[00:29:51] Stacy Havener: What you do now, where you're sitting, what I do now, what's up? Okay, so that's, and this is why, you know, when we often talk about stories and we [00:30:00] say, you are obviously the, the main character in your, in your story, in your backstory.

[00:30:06] Stacy Havener: And at the same time, most of the stories we tell we're not the hero. We're the guide. And the role of the backstory in that process is that the people, your clients, they hear your backstory and they say, there are lots of guides out there that I could choose and I choose you. And so you sharing your story with us, us to me, is the perfect setup for what you do now because you've been on the journey that you guide your clients and community through.

[00:30:42] Stacy Havener: And so talk about how, how that was for you to make this leap and sort of what the leap is today. Like what are you doing today?

[00:30:51] Lon Strochein: In each of these decisions, whether it was leaving the farm, leaving the senate, leaving the bank, or leaving Raven, um, [00:31:00] they are all individual trades. You give something up for the chance to be, do and experience something else.

[00:31:11] Lon Strochein: They're not easy, obvious, or free. And what, in each of these events, you know, I, I talked about somebody showing up and taking a bet on me. And, and by the way, I've written all of them handwritten notes multiple times, and it's amazing. These really busy humans write me back. I just wrote them a note. Oh, that's so nice.

[00:31:31] Lon Strochein: You write me back. But I, in every one of these moments, there's, there's something I don't want you to miss. Mm. Somebody showed up and said, here, do this. Here, do this. Mm-hmm. And really all I had to do was say yes or no. The next off ramp or on ramp. Was given to me, it was presented.

[00:31:51] Stacy Havener: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:52] Lon Strochein: But when you get to this certain place, when you get to a offer, many of us, when you get to this certain place in life, you notionally [00:32:00] when you're at the top of the game, you've selected to play.

[00:32:03] Lon Strochein: Mm-hmm. The people showing up to say, here, do this, aren't there? Mm-hmm. Nobody eats option and you wait for them. You're wondering why they're not finding you. And this starts this process of imposter, of self-doubt of what am I doing here of, is this how it's gonna end? Can I clinging on for 10 more years?

[00:32:28] Lon Strochein: When do all my stock options vest? How much longer can I hold on? All of these things? All of these things, because nobody's shown up to say, here, do this. And that happened to me. So I was at this place where I was ready. My streak is about six years. Six year chunks. It's like something happened. Something changes.

[00:32:45] Lon Strochein: And I was at that six year mark and nobody was showing up to say, here, do this. And I decided at this point that it was my time to say, here, do this. It was my time to be the person who showed up for me. And it isn't easy, obvious, or [00:33:00] free. It's a trade. And what I had to trade was the title and the image of who I'd become.

[00:33:07] Lon Strochein: And that's a harder yes, you have money too, but that isn't as hard. That wasn't as hard for me. Mm-hmm. Everybody has journey. Yes. It was hard. I'm not here to say and, and I'm not, to this day independently wealthy, where I don't have to ever work again. I just, uh, that wasn't the thing. It was giving up the image that I'd spent 20 years creating.

[00:33:27] Stacy Havener: Mm-hmm.

[00:33:28] Lon Strochein: And image is the right word.

[00:33:30] Stacy Havener: Yeah. And we

[00:33:30] Lon Strochein: can go into what image means to me in a little bit.

[00:33:33] Stacy Havener: Yeah.

[00:33:34] Lon Strochein: So I separated. I had an opportunity to stay with the company. It was like they're gonna pay me more to probably work less. I didn't have to move the, the job that the new company had offered me was fit my skills.

[00:33:46] Lon Strochein: Mm-hmm. And it was kind of what I, if I'd kind of would've picked a job, I'd said, yeah, this is, I'd love to do that. But at the same time, I would wake up with this belief and after conversation with my wife who called me out on it, she said, you're not happy and I [00:34:00] can see it, and I don't think your future is there.

[00:34:02] Lon Strochein: And she was right. And in that conversation I had with her, the, these words came outta my mouth and it released this incredible pressure. Maybe my work here is done. Mm. Maybe I'm not quitting, maybe I'm not leaving. I'm finished, my work is done. I was the m and a guy and we sold my work is done. That was my job.

[00:34:24] Lon Strochein: And once I released myself of having to stay and my wife released me of having to have W2 for the next period of time. Mm-hmm. Help me figure it out. Now the world opened up now. I had no reason. Now I had no excuse. Now. I had no reason to say, just an excuse. Yeah. Choose space. Should I choose to. So I left.

[00:34:46] Lon Strochein: I separated. I went to LinkedIn on my first day of not having a W2, which was February 2nd, uh, 2022. And I wrote a very simple basic post. I had a followership of probably a thousand people, and I said, this is my first day [00:35:00] without W2 income. But when I woke up this morning, my bed was warm, the carpet was soft.

[00:35:06] Lon Strochein: And my run this morning wasn't a release of stress. It was an expression of joy. I don't know what future holds. I don't know how I'm gonna make ends meet, but I know this is my time to bet on me and I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings something along those lines. Mm-hmm. And my world changed because guess who showed up Stacy.

[00:35:23] Stacy Havener: Huh? About

[00:35:24] Lon Strochein: a thousand people just like you and me. Mm-hmm. Saying how did you do it? Yeah. How did you have enough? How did you know you had enough? What did your wife say? What did your boss say? What did your kids think? Whatcha gonna do? I, and so I'm like, wait a minute, I'm not the only one who's discontented frustrated, stale at the top of their game.

[00:35:41] Lon Strochein: There's more of us. Why isn't anybody talking about this? So anyway, I just, I just leaned into it. I showed up present, curious, and I opened up my calendar and whatever, 1,058 conversations later that finally brings me to the pinnacle of my life talking to Stacey Haven.

[00:35:59] Stacy Havener: Oh yeah, [00:36:00] please gimme dollar

[00:36:01] Lon Strochein: backstory.

[00:36:02] Stacy Havener: Come on. So I feel like I remember that post by the way. I mean, I feel like, so also, can we just like get a high five on how powerful LinkedIn can really be because it's a game changer. So when you had this realization that you weren't the only one going through this, 'cause at that point you didn't know that you wanted to, to be a coach or have a community or help people on this journey.

[00:36:28] Stacy Havener: So now you just sort of. It is kind of like you showing up for yourself. You just decide, okay, I'm gonna say yes to this and just see where it goes. As you like to say. I'm just gonna be up to something and see what happens. Is that basically it, you just started talking to people when did like this normal 40 and the whole thing start?

[00:36:48] Lon Strochein: It kind of started in that moment only I didn't Okay. At that moment, I really thought if you'd asked me what my, what would, I guess, my one year in February, 2023, what that would look like, I'd have told you I'm gonna own a [00:37:00] small manufacturing company somewhere in the Midwest, because that's where I come from.

[00:37:03] Lon Strochein: Right? Yeah. That's what I'm supposed to do. It's like, Hey, that's my path. That's what I've done. I can do that. I'd be profitable. It'd be fun. I could be a guide. I can coach people, I can do, use all my skill sets and it probably would've worked.

[00:37:13] Stacy Havener: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:14] Lon Strochein: But as I still, as people started showing up for me because of my story.

[00:37:22] Stacy Havener: Mm-hmm. '

[00:37:23] Lon Strochein: cause of how I, because how I showed up. To them. And I didn't know I was showing up to them. I was just showing up to where they might be. That was it. Um, it kept filling me and I came up with this thing of I had two rules when I left. Don't make a shitty job for yourself. Don't do it because it's really easy.

[00:37:44] Lon Strochein: It is the easiest thing in the world. There is nothing easier than creating a shitty job for yourself.

[00:37:50] Stacy Havener: So true.

[00:37:51] Lon Strochein: Yes. With all the best intentions. Mm-hmm. You can still make a really shitty job for yourself. Don't do it. And it's still number one and two, this thing that I call net [00:38:00] present energy. Ooh. And in the present of someone or something.

[00:38:05] Lon Strochein: Is it giving me energy? Am I, am I lightening up? Am I feet? Am I, do I get to be me? Mm-hmm. And am I gaining energy from them and the experience, or is it a drag? Mm-hmm. Is it a net negative? And so net present energy for me is just something I really, really listened to. And every time I had a ramble, every time somebody showed up and said, I don't know how I found you in my feed, but I felt like we should talk.

[00:38:27] Lon Strochein: Mm-hmm. This net present energy thing, I just kept following it and I sh I just stayed curious about it to see where it would go. And then I started launching things. I created this little community on LinkedIn that still exists called the Speakeasy because I would write something and almost nobody would show up to comment, like, or share.

[00:38:46] Lon Strochein: But my inbox, my email box would launch, would pack full of people. I didn't know Reddit. I'm like, well, what's going on here? Well, it didn't take me long to figure out. The people who were finding me were the corporate executives, the doctors, the attorneys, the investment bankers, [00:39:00] the entrepreneurs who. Felt like, I felt, but they couldn't be seen.

[00:39:04] Lon Strochein: That's right. That way they had to hide from their emotions. They were the only ones carrying around with their feelings. I'm like, okay, I need to create a place on LinkedIn, but we can hang out where, where only the people in there can can see who's in there. Mm-hmm. So I thought, okay, I'm gonna build this and maybe I can get 200 people, maybe, maybe 250 people in there in a year, and we'll just hang out.

[00:39:24] Lon Strochein: There's 3000 people in there. It goes by thousand up. And I almost never post about it's, it's unlisted in private, so you can't Google, like right now, good listeners can't go and say, I wanna go find. And it's no

[00:39:36] Stacy Havener: cost. It's just like if you, you no cost, it's to hang out. It's a place to hang out. That's, it's a place

[00:39:42] Lon Strochein: for community and to share what you're feeling.

[00:39:43] Stacy Havener: Crazy.

[00:39:45] Lon Strochein: And so you have to, not only can you not find it, you've gotta ask me permission to get it because it's like I want, you know. So I'll post about it maybe five times a year. I'll leave a link and people will find it and they'll then. People come [00:40:00] in and I'll ask 'em a few basic questions and then they come in.

[00:40:03] Lon Strochein: Um, and then it's up to them to make friends be friends. Be seen or not. Or not. And so, uh, yeah, but it has quietly become this community where people make contacts and connections and they figure out that they're not alone. That's the thing I'm trying to prove first. Show up here. Look, you're not alone.

[00:40:22] Stacy Havener: Mm-hmm.

[00:40:23] Lon Strochein: Okay. There's power in that. There's community here. Now do the next thing. Be curious about what you wanna do with it. Don't do nothing. Do more than nothing. Dammit. And that is a big thing. Do more than nothing. Sounds easy, does hard, but to just, just showing up and asking again, that's doing something that is, that is a big step.

[00:40:43] Lon Strochein: But then you gotta do the next hard thing, which is to be in a position to be found. Everybody wants to be found without being seen and, uh, really pay attention to that. Remember when I said, here, do this? Yeah, they wanna be found, but they don't [00:41:00] wanna be seen wanting that. They just wanna be found. Pause.

[00:41:03] Lon Strochein: Pause.

[00:41:03] Stacy Havener: That's so, hold on, I gotta let that sink in. I want That is so true and real. And also by the way, when you talked about the LinkedIn thing, the whole shadow fans concept, which I, I believe is so true, which is people can't or, or don't want to be seen for a lot of reasons on LinkedIn. That's super real.

[00:41:31] Stacy Havener: And I think people who are new to LinkedIn or even who are just there don't really understand that. Your clients probably don't come from the people who are liking and commenting. They're gonna come from your dms or your emails. They're watching, but they're not raising their hand yet. And you have to keep showing up.

[00:41:48] Stacy Havener: But. Okay. Explain this to me. They don't want to say it again.

[00:41:53] Lon Strochein: Don't want, they want, everybody wants to be found, but they don't wanna do the work to be seen wanting it.

[00:41:59] Stacy Havener: [00:42:00] That last part seems to me to be the very big bit. They don't want to be, they don't want to be seen. Could be the end of the sentence. But you're saying they don't want to be seen wanting to be found.

[00:42:13] Stacy Havener: Yeah. Yes.

[00:42:14] Lon Strochein: Why? Because that's the confession. That's the moment of confession. Yeah. I'm not as happy as I look on the outside. I'm not as content as I'm portraying. I'm doing great, but my best work actually isn't here. I think it's over here. Well, to a lot of people, that's a confession of not making a decision earlier.

[00:42:34] Lon Strochein: It's a confession of not being as. On mission as they're trying to portray. And it's, I get it, it's real. It's not a fault. It's kind of, it's kind of,

[00:42:43] Stacy Havener: it feels like a failure. I mean, if I spent 20 years or more building my career in a field or in a, in a way or for a company or types of companies, and all of a sudden I now realize, oh, wait a minute, this isn't [00:43:00] it.

[00:43:00] Stacy Havener: I think I would feel like I effed up. I failed here. I this, I, I've spent, I've wasted 20 years of time or 30 years of time when actually I want you to respond to that. 'cause it's not a waste of time. Is it

[00:43:16] Lon Strochein: waiting? It's,

[00:43:17] Stacy Havener: it's part of the journey, isn't it?

[00:43:20] Lon Strochein: So I made a point earlier that I make a strong distinction between image.

[00:43:25] Lon Strochein: And ego.

[00:43:27] Stacy Havener: Yeah.

[00:43:27] Lon Strochein: And we're taught, you know, I just taught, told you about humility. And I think right here, at this point in your life, humility is your friend. Yeah. And you need to embrace it, and you need to use it. And image and ego is something that I really, my clients, I, I, I beat 'em up on this because I don't tolerate it with love, with

[00:43:43] Stacy Havener: peace and love.

[00:43:45] Lon Strochein: With peace of love. Yeah. Guess what? The people who come here, they're, yeah, they don't, they're looking for a punch in the face. They really are. They're looking, they're looking for, okay, they need it. I need to, I need to know. And, and so I'm just kind enough to deliver it to them. Usually in their own words, [00:44:00] you know, Hey, look, what are friends for?

[00:44:01] Lon Strochein: Right? Yeah. We don't have to, to mess around anymore. Come on. If you're in your fifties, the best decade of your life is right in front of you. Guess what? The window's closing, spoiler alert, getting older, the window will close. So jump through it, get through it. Make your life through it before it does or wish you had when you didn't.

[00:44:16] Lon Strochein: It's your story, baby. You figured out. But the window's closing. So image and ego. This is important. I wanna hit it. Why don't people, let's take a doctor. Okay. So many of my clients are doctors. So they decided, and here's the interesting thing that a lot of people share, but they decided young, what they wanted to do.

[00:44:33] Lon Strochein: There's a story at age 11, a sister got ill. Mm-hmm. At age 11 there was an experience. Yep. And they, they decided at that point, they wanna be a doctor. So they go through and they tell their family they wanna be a doctor, they get good grades in, in secondary education. Then they go to undergrad and get good grades.

[00:44:50] Lon Strochein: Then they apply for medical school and they get into medical school, school and grandma's thrilled. And then they go through and they get their medical degree, and then they have the white coat ceremony. And everybody's just so [00:45:00] excited and they're excited. And then they go do their residency, and then they actually get their own hospital.

[00:45:04] Lon Strochein: And it's going perfect. It's going according to the plan that they said they were gonna live when they're 11. Well, guess what? Now they're 47. And they've checked all the boxes. They've done all the things and medicine can no longer give to them spiritually what it used to. It just can't. And it doesn't mean they're being bad at their job.

[00:45:23] Lon Strochein: It just means their net present energy, that trade it no longer does what it used to do. But because grandma was so proud, they said that's what they wanna do. And they built this image, and that is the word. They've manufactured this image. And this is true of everybody who's listening. If you wonder what your image is that you've manufactured, go look in your garage and I'll start it there.

[00:45:48] Lon Strochein: Go look. Why? Where? What do you drive? That's image. Oh, what is the title on your business card? Did you negotiate harder for the title on your business card or the size of your bonus? Because [00:46:00] one can be seen and the other one can't.

[00:46:02] Stacy Havener: I see what you're saying. Okay. Image,

[00:46:04] Lon Strochein: the things you manufacture around you, the club you belong to, the the people you hang out with.

[00:46:10] Lon Strochein: You like, but they're not really, they're your buddies and not your friends. These are really image based things and you've manufactured it, but your ego who gets a bad rap is over here going, Hey Stacy, you were pretty happy 20 years ago before you had this. We can go do this and your image is over here going, no way, man.

[00:46:29] Lon Strochein: You worked 20 years to get this title. You work 20 years to get Yeah. Going back or you 20 years to get this stethoscope. You work 20 years for all this. We gotta save it. We can't not be this. Are you crazy? We work forever to get here and he goes once again. I go, uh, seriously, you, we got one decade left, baby.

[00:46:46] Lon Strochein: We gotta go make this work. So I tell people, listen to your ego. It knows when it's time to be done. Listen to it. It's really fricking smart. It's really smart. Yeah. So why don't people go, because they're [00:47:00] married to their image. They can't let go of their image. It's really not even the money. The money just buys their image.

[00:47:06] Lon Strochein: It's their image. So once they get through that, once we can kind of cut through that bullshit of what really matters in their life. And it isn't the title on their business card, it's the hours they have left with their kids at home. It's the hours they have left with their parents. If they're lucky and the hours they have left to jump through that window before they're too old to do it.

[00:47:23] Lon Strochein: Now we can listen to your ego and we can start talking about the ingredients of the life you wanna live. And it will not happen in a moment of Eureka. It will happen through a thousand moments of, huh. That was interesting. Mm-hmm.

[00:47:36] Stacy Havener: And

[00:47:36] Lon Strochein: that's

[00:47:36] Stacy Havener: how dude do people just like sob, like I'm about to sob and I'm just sitting here on a podcast with you.

[00:47:44] Stacy Havener: And it's not even about me, but like, you know, obviously I'm, this is incredible work. A meaningful work, but also incredibly difficult. Like [00:48:00] for anyone who, the 50-year-old thing is so real personally for me. 'cause I'm sitting here at 48, but I can tell you that. People, as you said, like listeners of this podcast who are in that age range, the ones who have turned 50 are like, I have got to get going.

[00:48:18] Stacy Havener: What am I doing? What have I been doing? I'm freaking 50, I have 10 good years left. Quotes, and they feel an incredible urgency to do something, to take action. 'cause it, they feel like for the last 10 years, maybe they've just been whatever, spinning or, you know, cow owing to image that is, I'm just blown away by that.

[00:48:43] Stacy Havener: I, I just can't, I mean, I just feel like people would be sobbing. I would be sobbing if you were helping me.

[00:48:50] Lon Strochein: There's rarely a, uh, in fact, I can say there's never been a coaching client. Even physicians who are pretty hardened emotionally. Yeah. I mean, they have to be with their job. [00:49:00] Um, where they, we hit this moment.

[00:49:02] Lon Strochein: Yeah. Limits. It's that realization when it's like, my work here is done. It's the same sentence that finds everybody, my work, here's just done. I need to let that go. And that, and you grieve that. It's okay to grieve that. Yeah. Grieve it. Like hell, I cried with my wife. I can lead you to the exact two stools we were sitting in, in this bar I've been to once in my life in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

[00:49:22] Lon Strochein: When I wept openly, because I came to the realization that nobody was gonna show up and save me, and that the window was closing and that this was my time to jump through it. I did a retreat, Stacy, just this last week. This is my first day back. And, and I did it at the farm where I grew up.

[00:49:37] Stacy Havener: Okay. And I

[00:49:38] Lon Strochein: took 15 people there.

[00:49:39] Lon Strochein: 15 people. How many just talked.

[00:49:41] Stacy Havener: Okay.

[00:49:42] Lon Strochein: And I connected them to a few things. One, I connected them to me, Uhhuh. Two, I connected them to the prairie, and then I connected them to deep silence for 15 hours. I set 'em out on 3000 acres where they couldn't talk to anybody. And I gave 'em three questions, three questions to [00:50:00] consider.

[00:50:01] Lon Strochein: And when they came back, we read out the answers to those three questions, what they learned on the prairie. And the last question is, what are you gonna do about it? So now you've heard this, you asked this, you heard this. Whatcha are gonna do about it? I mean, those essentially are the three questions every to a t.

[00:50:21] Lon Strochein: Every single person. Two of them surgeons, two of 'em attorneys, 10 of them executives.

[00:50:26] Stacy Havener: Mm-hmm.

[00:50:27] Lon Strochein: To a T. Every one of them got emotional. Yeah. Because they finally were present enough. Yeah. To know what they sound like. When they get to sound like them. It goes back to this thing they'd, they're so busy checking the next box.

[00:50:40] Lon Strochein: Not, not in the big sense, I just mean doing their work, doing their incredible responsible work that they can't disconnect. So yes, there's a moment when people. Discover that. Yeah. They have the agency. They just haven't been exercising it. And even though they have the agency, their image is gonna make it hard.

[00:50:59] Lon Strochein: [00:51:00] That's its job. It's its job. Yeah. And it's really good at it. It's not, I'm not being critical when I say you stay for your image, you do. Mm-hmm. But that's its job and it's really good at it. But there's a piece of you that really knows the ingredients. It doesn't know exactly. I didn't know exactly, but I got really clear on what the ingredients of my life in a few years were gonna be.

[00:51:21] Lon Strochein: And my ingredients included. Making time on my calendar to have incredible conversations with people I couldn't have imagined knowing. Mm-hmm. The day I wrote it. Yeah. Conversations like the one I'm having with you. Yeah. And the three more I'm gonna have today with people who are at this crossroads of, I think I would trade what I've got, but I dunno what I'd trade it for.

[00:51:39] Lon Strochein: Can you help me figure that out? That's where I show up.

[00:51:43] Stacy Havener: And so apropos for the community that. I am in and have grown up in my career, which is the finance industry, which is all about trading. It's all about asymmetry. It's all about risk management. It's all these very, very [00:52:00] intellectual, logical, left brain thinking, and it's really difficult for people who are in that type of an industry or built that type of a career to separate from the head, yeah, the head space, and actually get more in touch with the heart space, which is where I think you're really helping them.

[00:52:24] Stacy Havener: You know, that's that idea of, as you're saying image, but living a story that all of a sudden one day you wake up and go, maybe I wanted this at one point, but it's not my story anymore and I'm still in it. How do I close the chapter?

[00:52:38] Lon Strochein: That's exactly right. Since, since your audience is financial, the very first thing I wrote, if you've read my book, the Trade, I've got a drawing in there and I get it repeated back to me again and again.

[00:52:46] Lon Strochein: But it's a clock. It's a 12 hour clock.

[00:52:48] Stacy Havener: Mm-hmm.

[00:52:48] Lon Strochein: And we all can imagine a 12 hour clock with hours at 3, 6, 9, and 12. And I said, if your life is a 12 hour clock, roughly every year is about seven or eight years of your life. So the first [00:53:00] quarter of your life is your inheritance phase. It's just what you get.

[00:53:04] Lon Strochein: It's what you were given. So if you were born into a house that was divorced or married, your parents, you inherited that. If you're born into a house that lived on the good side of the tracks to the bad side of the tracks, you're, you're born into that. If you were born into your, a house that was democrat, republican, independent or agnostic, you're born into that religion.

[00:53:24] Lon Strochein: Mm-hmm. Um, how everyone communicated, brothers and sisters, everything, whether you had food on the table, everything is just what you inherited. It's just, it was just given to you. You don't have any control over it. But somewhere around that three o'clock hour, so notion around the age of 21 to 25, that shifts.

[00:53:42] Lon Strochein: You move into your endowment phase. These are where you start building your endowment. This is where you start making decisions for yourself. Are you gonna do drugs and alcohol? Are you gonna get married? Are you gonna go to college? Are you gonna scream at your spouse? Are you gonna have a different relationship?

[00:53:55] Lon Strochein: Are you gonna have kids? Are you gonna go to work every day and work harder than everyone else? Are you [00:54:00] just gonna punch the clock? Are you gonna, you know, uh, just all of the things. Mm-hmm. You create this endowment and you spend the next quarter of your life, the next 21 to 25 years doing that. Well, notionally, you get to about the age 48, that's where it was for me.

[00:54:15] Lon Strochein: That's where it's on my clock, age 48, which I believe if I'm not. Mistake, then that is the age, Stacey. You get to this place where you realize, holy shit. Yeah, this is my life's halftime if I'm lucky. Mm-hmm. If I'm lucky, if I lived in 96, this is my life's halftime, so now I'm entering the third quarter, that quarter ends too.

[00:54:38] Lon Strochein: What am I gonna do with this? What am I gonna do with my inheritance and my endowment that I own? I've got it. It's mine. Nobody can take it from me. I own it. What am I gonna do in halftime in my locker room? Pep talk with myself. Mm-hmm. What am I gonna do here to play the third quarter? Am I gonna play it like the second, or am I gonna play it like I wanna play it?

[00:54:59] Lon Strochein: Am I gonna [00:55:00] use the skiffs, gills, traits, talents, friends, communities, everything I built, and take it with me into the third to do it my way? Or am I gonna do it like the last quarter? And I tell everyone who comes in, I don't care what you do, I don't get a vote. All I care is that you know what you want to do.

[00:55:17] Lon Strochein: And once you know what you wanna do. Then that's what we do.

[00:55:20] Stacy Havener: Oh God, how am I gonna continue my day after this podcast? It's so good. Lon. Okay. Wait, I have a real question. Yeah, go. This has been fantastic. I, I, I'm gonna have to listen to this and I don't really listen to my podcast mostly because I don't like to hear myself.

[00:55:35] Stacy Havener: But I, I love listening to you and I will listen to this multiple times, as I'm sure many of our listeners will. So, as someone who's been your friend on LinkedIn and from afar for a long time, and I say this with peace and love, but also because I think about it for me in the context of working with you, it feels to me like it's for men, the normal 40, the trade, like [00:56:00] you're kind of a guy's guy and you've created a really safe space.

[00:56:04] Stacy Havener: It feels like, again, I'm an outsider that's really for men. And now I'm comfortable. I grew up playing soccer with boys. I work in an industry that's very male dominated, but I have, like, if I'm fully honest, I think that has been a bit intimidating for me. If I ever reached out to you, I would feel like, well, this isn't for me.

[00:56:25] Stacy Havener: Am I reading that wrong?

[00:56:27] Lon Strochein: Yes, but you're reading it. Right. Okay. But it's unintentionally delivered from me. Okay.

[00:56:32] Stacy Havener: Um, when

[00:56:33] Lon Strochein: I started I used the term dude a lot. I mean, that was my nickname on Yeah. You're the, you're the

[00:56:38] Stacy Havener: dude's dude. Yeah.

[00:56:39] Lon Strochein: Yeah. I'm the dude. I'm the dude on the farm. I'm dude doing, I'm a pilot of doing dude stuff and do, and dude do this.

[00:56:45] Lon Strochein: And I use the term dude. And even as I go back and I read the trade now, which I wrote about, I started writing seven months after I left. And I finished writing about 14 months after I, 15 months after I left. Um, it, even when I read it back, I use the term dude [00:57:00] and here's why I did that. You know, when you get started you go to what feels most comfortable.

[00:57:06] Lon Strochein: Yeah. And what felt most comfortable to me. Was talking to dudes, say, using the term dude. Yeah, but dude, dude, dude. For me, the word dude, and this is important, I guess maybe just to me, if nobody else Yeah. It was, think of my message. Mm-hmm. Think of who I talked to.

[00:57:20] Stacy Havener: Yeah.

[00:57:21] Lon Strochein: If I would sound like a CEO, if I would write like a public company executive Yes, agreed.

[00:57:26] Lon Strochein: I would blend in. Mm-hmm. I had to, I had to disarm, yeah. This incredibly powerful topic so that I was approachable. Yep. Dude did, that was marketing.

[00:57:40] Stacy Havener: Yeah. Dude

[00:57:41] Lon Strochein: was a way to be approachable. That is the benefit of the term, dude, to disarm this conversation and be approachable. The downside of the term, dude, is that it definitely suggests a gender, and I started to create momentum in a direction.

[00:57:55] Lon Strochein: But I'll tell you of my friend requests today versus three years ago, [00:58:00] people coming into the speakeasy, which is my free community. Mm-hmm. And my vintage clients, which is, you know. Uh, occasionally I do a cohort of six people, or we have conversations just like this. Mm-hmm. It's you, me, and five others.

[00:58:13] Lon Strochein: Mm-hmm. And we just go round robin and we, it's like we're doing a strategic plan one at a time, and you got six people on your time when it's your turn that's vintage and it's led by me and blah, blah, blah. But that is, my last vintage has two women. It's, oh, that's great. Okay. 40% women. My retreat of the 15 three were women.

[00:58:31] Lon Strochein: Okay. And three, three canceled in the month before. Who deferred to the next one, or it would've been six of the 15. So it is not just for men. I get completely why it would be. Come across. Yeah, it would come across that way. I get it. But I talk to women all the time because guess what, when you get to this place, like we've talked about, you're top the game.

[00:58:53] Lon Strochein: You've done all the things. Yeah. You've checked all the boxes. You got grandma's proud because he got the coat. Grandma's proud because he became a partner. All that. [00:59:00] And you have these feelings. It doesn't care if you're a man or a woman. No, it doesn't. That shit's lonely. It,

[00:59:05] Stacy Havener: it doesn't. And, and the thing is, it would be fine if it was a community for guys, for dudes, that would be totally fine because that's a niche, right?

[00:59:16] Stacy Havener: You're serving a group. And so I think for me, that was always my question was like, I love how you write. I love what you're doing. I definitely feel it's very relevant to where I am in my life's journey. I just didn't know if this was for me or not. So as your friend, and you can even use me, I think you should do a post about that.

[00:59:38] Stacy Havener: 'cause you have receipts saying like. You know, this is how many women were in my last vintage. This is how many were in my retreat. Because I bet you there are a lot of people, if I'm feeling this way and I've known you for two years, I bet other people are wondering

[00:59:53] Lon Strochein: Every day.

[00:59:54] Stacy Havener: Yeah. Every day. That question.

[00:59:56] Stacy Havener: Yep. So, okay, I'm gonna pause or else we'll be [01:00:00] here and I would love it, but I wanna be conscious of your time 'cause I know you got more rambles to get to. I wanna end with some questions inspired by Proust's questionnaire, um, just to help us get to know you a little better. But you've been so amazing and forthcoming and candid about your journey.

[01:00:18] Stacy Havener: So this is just gravy. Alright. Hit me. What book inspires you? The Alchemist. Oh, what a great call. Never been said before.

[01:00:34] Lon Strochein: It inspires me every march. It's the only book I read once a year. On the calendar date. I can't wait for March when to come, come along and here's why. Yeah. A lot of books inspire me. I got, you know, just like everybody, and you can take your one or two big nuggets from every book.

[01:00:49] Lon Strochein: But the thing about that book, I mean, we're storytellers. Mm-hmm. You and I being honest, that book, every time I read it, I'm a new character in a new place in the journey. [01:01:00] Oh. And I can't wait for March to come when I can read it again and see which character I am in the journey. What am I feeling now? And it's just this incredibly beautifully written book.

[01:01:13] Lon Strochein: It's short. And if you're a listener, get it on Audible because, because Jeremy Irons narrates it. No, it's beautiful. Your 40 minute walk becomes an hour and 20 minutes every time because you don't wanna quit listening to it. That

[01:01:29] Stacy Havener: is a fantastic call. I'm doing that and I don't even like really listening.

[01:01:34] Stacy Havener: I, I mean, I have audible, but it's not my jam. But I will do that. That sounds fantastic. Great call. It's

[01:01:40] Lon Strochein: a great, and I want you to tell me what you think. Okay. And I want, I want you to do this. What, tell me which character you're, and where you're at when you read.

[01:01:47] Stacy Havener: That's good. That's good homework for me. I like homework.

[01:01:49] Stacy Havener: Alright. Switching from books to places. I think I know the answer, but I also am very ready to be surprised. What place inspires you?

[01:01:57] Lon Strochein: There's only one way I can answer this and [01:02:00] behind me. If anybody's watching, and I don't, I don't even know if you do video, there's a tree. That tree for some reason, amongst many trees across a pretty big farm, is a tree that I can move and get outta the way.

[01:02:14] Lon Strochein: Mm-hmm. There it is. It's a tree that doesn't belong there. It's a tree that's an outcast. It's a tree that's in a ditch. It's a tree that should have been cut down, chopped down, bulldozed pushed over, and it grows stronger and stronger and stronger. And that tree, unbeknownst to me, has been watching me my whole life.

[01:02:34] Lon Strochein: It's been washing me rush by it. It's been watching me dry by it. It's been watching me just sprint my life past it until one day I stopped at that tree and it, it gave me something. Yeah, it gave me presence. It gave me peace. Now I call it the girl on the hill

[01:02:49] Stacy Havener: making me cry. Dude, come on.

[01:02:52] Lon Strochein: I was there four days ago and when I brought people to the farm, I told them there's a tree.

[01:02:57] Lon Strochein: It's my girl on the hill. And I want you to one at a [01:03:00] time, find a way there because it has something for you. And I don't know what it has for you. 'cause most times I don't know what it has for me, but it'll have something if you're quiet enough to listen to it. And it's my place I go to every single time I'm home.

[01:03:13] Stacy Havener: You're gonna have to take over the podcast. I can't talk. That was beautiful. Okay. Composing myself. Okay. So now you're giving this talk to a stadium full of soon to be crying, uh, adoring fans. And you're gonna take the stage and before you do, they're gonna play a song that's gonna be your walkout anthem.

[01:03:39] Stacy Havener: What's it gonna be?

[01:03:41] Lon Strochein: Joe Cocker? Have a Little Faith in Me.

[01:03:43] Stacy Havener: Ooh. Ooh. I haven't listened to Joe Cocker in a minute. That is a great call. That's very you. Yeah. Lyrics or, or, so what's interesting about this question is sometimes people choose the song for the lyrics and sometimes they choose it [01:04:00] for the music or the beats.

[01:04:01] Stacy Havener: What is it there for you?

[01:04:03] Lon Strochein: So, I'm a music guy.

[01:04:04] Stacy Havener: Yeah.

[01:04:05] Lon Strochein: Um, and I'm a lyrics second guy.

[01:04:09] Stacy Havener: Okay.

[01:04:10] Lon Strochein: But this one is. Both. Mm-hmm. I love, I love simple music. Mm. I love simple guitar, simple piano, simple. It just captivates me when I can focus on what's being said. And, but this one is also the lyrics.

[01:04:30] Stacy Havener: Yeah. The lyrics there are powerful.

[01:04:32] Lon Strochein: Yeah. And so, you know, it talks about when the road is long and you know, the power of friendship and sometimes the need to go alone and at the end of the day when others aren't sure. Have a little faith in me. Yeah. Have a little faith in what I'm doing. And it's, it's just a beautiful song. And every time it, there's, there's a few songs that stop me in my tracks.

[01:04:56] Lon Strochein: That One Blue Eyes Crying in Lorraine is another [01:05:00] one. Yeah. And a mysterious song called Cheyenne. Oh by George Strait, which makes me cry every time I listen to it. What? And I dunno why the moment I hear that violin,

[01:05:11] Stacy Havener: what moment I hear that, oh, I'm gonna listen to that. Well, I don't know if I can handle that right now, but I tears some point in the next few days.

[01:05:18] Stacy Havener: I'm listening to that. Okay, here we go. What profession, other than your own or the myriad of professions as you've had, I should say, what profession, other than what you've done, would you like to attempt?

[01:05:31] Lon Strochein: This one is actually pretty easy for me. I really feel, when I was in the bank, I told you I credit a private wealth group.

[01:05:38] Stacy Havener: Mm-hmm.

[01:05:39] Lon Strochein: And in the week I left, I had, on my calendar, I had literally calendared and paid for getting my series six, seven and 63 license, I think it was to become a financial planner to, to help people make good decisions about their money. Because I love people, I love story. After [01:06:00] working in a bank, I was always amazed, you know, being on a lender side, I learned who has money and who doesn't.

[01:06:05] Stacy Havener: And I

[01:06:06] Lon Strochein: learned this is where you learn not to judge a book by the cover because the person who comes in with the nice suit and the big watch and the nice rings and the shiny boots that everybody's kind of saying, boy, I hope I wanna talk to that one, is usually a one that you learn how to either turn down later or wish you had sooner.

[01:06:22] Lon Strochein: And the person who comes in that's got the dusty boots, the crooked belt and the hat that's kind of tipped sideways on their head and you're like, boy, I hope, I hope somebody else grabs that person is the one. You look at their portfolio and you're like, this person is pretty incredible. They've made a series of incredibly brave, bright decisions and they don't need to show it externally just, just to do it.

[01:06:43] Lon Strochein: And so that whole thing just fascinated me to lean into obviously the ladder of that. And I love finance, love, money still, and do all my own investing. I, as you know, I got into m and a for a good chunk of my life. Yeah, I really thought I could have been. Hey, it's, yeah, [01:07:00] not chili good, all that.

[01:07:01] Stacy Havener: I think you'd be fantastic at that.

[01:07:03] Stacy Havener: And I think the work, you know, to your point on story, so much of the work that I think talented advisors, financial advisors or financial planners do is helping their clients kind of own their story. What do they want? What do they want this money to do? Why are they spending or saving or, you know, it's really unpacking a lot of the stuff that you are actually helping your clients unpack.

[01:07:29] Stacy Havener: So there's a lot of, uh, synergies between that. It's a great one. Flip side, what profession would you not like to do?

[01:07:37] Lon Strochein: I don't want any profession that doesn't let me be me.

[01:07:42] Stacy Havener: Mm-hmm.

[01:07:44] Lon Strochein: And I think I can say I don't wanna be a doctor. I mean, you know, that's easy because I couldn't be, but, you know, doctors go into that profession with the purest of intent.

[01:07:57] Lon Strochein: It gets stolen from 'em. Yeah. 'cause they don't get to take care [01:08:00] of patients. They, they get to take care of administrators. And That's sad. That is sad. My wife, the other one I would say, and it's so similar, but different. My wife's a kindergarten teacher. Oh my gosh. I could not do her job. I, I, I don't want her job.

[01:08:15] Lon Strochein: I want to want her job. I want to be a good enough person to be able to do that job. But she came home yesterday and like, and I just got home after 15 days and she had a rough day. And I'm like, what happened today, babe? She's like, the school had a great idea and it was to bring an ice cream truck. Great.

[01:08:33] Lon Strochein: Right? What's wrong with that? Bring the ice cream truck in and they send a note home that if your child wants ice cream the next day to bring your money. Yeah. And they'll get ice cream. And Mindy is beside herself because she knows there's four or five kids in their class who there's no way, right. They have the six bucks to buy ice cream.

[01:08:49] Lon Strochein: She's like, what am I gonna do with them? What am I gonna do with the kids who don't get to go out and stand in that line? Oh, what am I gonna do with those kids? Or get left behind. So I think, you know, what she's doing. Of

[01:08:58] Stacy Havener: course,

[01:08:59] Lon Strochein: of course. [01:09:00] It would be really hard for me to tolerate that.

[01:09:04] Stacy Havener: Yeah. That is, oh, what a, I mean, what a special person she is.

[01:09:11] Stacy Havener: Any teacher. My gosh. That to me that is God's work. It is. It takes a very, very special person to do that work. And I'm with you. It's a, it's, that's tough. Well give her a high five for me 'cause she's great.

[01:09:28] Lon Strochein: Can I ask you this question?

[01:09:29] Stacy Havener: Yeah.

[01:09:30] Lon Strochein: What's your song?

[01:09:32] Stacy Havener: What's my song?

[01:09:33] Lon Strochein: Yeah.

[01:09:34] Stacy Havener: So I would definitely do an Eminem song.

[01:09:38] Stacy Havener: Um Ooh. And even though there's The Lose Yourself, there are a couple other of his songs that really speak to me, but I, I mean. I love lyrics. I've always loved lyrics. Like I was the one in when you used to have actual textbooks that you actually covered with paper bags so that you could decorate them.

[01:09:56] Stacy Havener: Or maybe that was just me and I would have lyrics [01:10:00] written all over those books and lose yourself as pretty amazing. I don't listen to Eminem often, uh, but he's definitely my spirit animal. In terms of like our website, there's a certain commercial from a Super Bowl in like 2000, and it's either 2002, I think it's 2002 that he did about Detroit.

[01:10:24] Lon Strochein: Yeah. When the auto is, no, it was 2008 after. Was it after the crisis? Yeah, it, whatever. I automobile went to pot.

[01:10:32] Stacy Havener: I, if you put that commercial on, I will literally run through a wall. I'll pick up a car. I mean, I like that commercial. God, I freaking love it. And that's what I showed our designers when I worked on.

[01:10:45] Stacy Havener: My brand, like with intention, it was that. It'd have to be m&m

[01:10:51] Lon Strochein: Stacy. Yeah. Can we do this again, but can we actually meet in person? Hell yeah. And I Hell yeah. Couldn't mean that anymore.

[01:10:57] Stacy Havener: Yes,

[01:10:58] Lon Strochein: we should, we should do a 2.0 [01:11:00] of this. Okay. At some point you do my podcast.

[01:11:02] Stacy Havener: I would love to, and I

[01:11:03] Lon Strochein: get to, then I get to put you in the hot seat

[01:11:05] Stacy Havener: seat.

[01:11:05] Stacy Havener: I'm happy to be in the hot seat.

[01:11:08] Lon Strochein: We need to get together to do it. Okay. It feels like we've got two. We've been waiting long enough to meet like this. Uh, we sure have. We need to, we need to actually do it in three dimensions. I'm

[01:11:17] Stacy Havener: in Kleenex because I know I'm gonna need 'em. Okay. Wait before we go and I'm letting you go.

[01:11:21] Stacy Havener: Otherwise, we'll stay here all day. One more question. Yes, hit it. What do you want people to say about you after you've retired? Air quotes, and maybe you'll never retire. I hope you don't, but what do you want people to say about you? What do you want them to say as part of your legacy?

[01:11:37] Lon Strochein: Easy. That dude gave a damn.

[01:11:40] Stacy Havener: Yeah. Hell yeah. Well, I'm gonna just be saying that all day already. So Lon, you are fantastic. You are a gift to everyone who knows you, and I am so glad that our listeners are gonna get to see what we all see. If people wanna connect with you, where do they do that?

[01:11:59] Lon Strochein: [01:12:00] Normal forty.com

[01:12:01] Stacy Havener: and LinkedIn.

[01:12:02] Lon Strochein: That's it.

[01:12:03] Lon Strochein: That's it. LinkedIn, of course. Yeah. ron@normalforty.com. Normal four zero.com. Find just me. Um, I'm pretty easy to find. I'm pretty approachable. You can book a free ramble. We can do this just like what you and I did. Yeah, I do them many times a week. Um, you can, you know, go to normal forty.com. I've got a newsletter.

[01:12:20] Lon Strochein: I do put out my work a lot and it's not fake. It's from the heart. I really write it. And to me it matters.

[01:12:27] Stacy Havener: It does matter. It does matter. You matter. You thank you so much, Lon. Seriously, you have made one of my favorite podcasts I've ever done.

[01:12:37] Lon Strochein: Likewise, and we're gonna do it again. Stacey. You are a gem.

[01:12:40] Stacy Havener: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. The information is not an offer, solicitation, or recommendation of any of the funds, services, or products, or to adopt any investment strategy. Investment values may fluctuate and past performance is not a guide to future performance.

[01:12:59] Stacy Havener: [01:13:00] All opinions expressed by guests on the show are solely their own opinion and do not necessarily reflect those at their firm. Manager's appearance on the show does not constitute an endorsement by Stacey Haven or Haven, or Capital Partners.

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