Ande Lyons - "Don't Be Caged by Your Age"
Please meet Ande Lyons, one of the amazing people I met at Podfest 2024! Not only is she an experienced podcaster and gifted business professional, but she also has a remarkable Bosshole® story to share. You will learn how that experience opened a whole new world for Ande and it is still expanding today!
Links and Resources from the Episode:
Click here for Ande's LinkedIn profile
Click here for the Don't be Caged by Your Age website
Click here for Ande's Instagram
Click here for Ande's TikTok
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The Bosshole® Chronicles
“Ande Lyons - ‘Don’t Be Caged By Your Age’”
Original Publish Date: 3/12/2024.
Host: John Broer
John Broer: Well, hello to all of our friends out there in the Bosshole Transformation Nation. This is your host, John Broer, and welcome to this installment of the Bosshole Chronicles. Today, you're going to get a chance to meet a new friend of mine. This is somebody I met at this year's 10th anniversary of PodFest, which is an amazing conference for podcasters and producers and people that just want to get their voice out there. You're going to get a chance to meet Ande Lyons now.
I met Ande at PodFest. This was her first time there as well. Ande is a successful business founder, business person and seasoned podcaster. She's actually going to be launching her podcast called "Don't Be Caged by your Age, which is specifically for people to help them thrive after the age of 65 and how they can look at new pathways in their lives and feel enlivened and engaged and visible now that they are in a different chapter of their lives, if you will, but I was just one taken by Ande's own Bosshole experience and how it helped to shape her into the amazing professional she is today. I think you're going to get a real kick out of meeting her. So let's meet Ande Lyons.
The Bosshole Chronicles are brought to you by Real Good Ventures, a talent optimization firm, helping organizations diagnose their most critical people and execution issues with world-class analytics. Make sure to check out all the resources in the show notes, and be sure to follow us and share your feedback. Enjoy today's episode.
Ande, welcome to the Bosshole Chronicles. It's great to have you here.
Ande Lyons: I am so delighted to be here with you, John. Thank you for having me.
JB: You bet, and our listeners know from the introduction you and I had a chance to meet this year at PodFest. It was my first time there. Was it yours?
AL: First time, absolutely my first time.
JB: It was an amazing community of podcasters and support people. It really was great. I remember what a delightful lunch you and I had, actually twice but during one of those you shared with me a pretty remarkable Bosshole story. So I said we got to have Ande on the podcast, but also, just, you have a really interesting and unique background and accomplished business professional so I wanted to make sure that you had a chance to show up. So, hey, can we go back to that story? I mean, I'm still thinking about what you experienced, but if we can start there and just sort of move forward about how that shaped who you are and the professional, and how you've helped people out there in the world.
AL: Thank you, John, and listeners. I earned my MBA way back in '89. And when I earned it, I went into banking, not because it was a fit for who. I am- Okay, I am an entrepreneur. I'm a risk taker. Bankers are always mitigating risk right.
JB: Right, right.
AL: I wanted to get that experience on my resume, that real critical thinking, doing financial analysis on every industry and crunching numbers and doing all the things right and also finding out how banks lent money. How did that whole thing work? So I was in my third year. I'd made it three years when the bank had been seized by the FDIC.
Now this is a $50 billion bank that went under in '92 because of the real estate crisis that we had here in 1990, here in New England, and the downsizing left me in charge of a high-profile portfolio and, honestly, I'd been a commercial lender for a minute right.
A couple of years and I was having a great time going to the Skybox Games and just really entertaining my clients and it was wonderful. But I had to take a six-week medical leave for surgery and when I returned, my boss, the department head, had taken my portfolio and given it to a newly hired man out of New York City. I'm here in Boston. They brought him here and they gave him my portfolio and the title of vice president, never talking to me about it, and they just said you're going to do a workout now. You're going to work on the deals that are falling behind, okay, and in arrears.
JB: In those six weeks there was no communication about this change being made? Oh my gosh. Okay, go ahead. Sorry.
AL: And we had email.
JB: Then yeah, we did, didn't we? That's right, I remember that, yeah.
AL: Anyway. So I returned and it was just- it felt really weird and they asked me, my department head, said you really need to meet with HR, and I thought, "where is all this coming from?
JB: Right.
AL: I left feeling like I was a star. My clients all loved me, I was doing all the right things, my personnel file folder was A-plus, the new bank president had quoted me and emailed everybody about if we can all have, I was called Andrea there, her attitude we will make this new bank a success, right? And so I couldn't figure it out. So I went and spoke to HR and they said well, maybe you need to talk to our out placement group. I was like, wow, this is strange.
And so I went. I had a conversation with this out placement counselor and she started sharing things that were in my personnel file that I knew were absolutely against all the laws. I was in therapy, hello, that doesn't belong in my file. I went to an acupuncturist, what? And then the final one was that I was crying in front of clients. Anybody knows me. I'm an extrovert. I can be having the worst moment in the world but I see someone and I light up. I'm like hi, how are you? What's up. Right, right.
Just not my nature. And then the counselor's looking at me and she's looking at me under her eyebrows like you're getting this right, and I was like, oh my gosh, thank you so much for revealing this information that I was unable to see in my personnel file. I'm off to go hire a labor law attorney.
JB: Yeah, yeah.
AL: That's what I did. Now I didn't have any money to hire anybody great to defend me. Frankly, just being able to have that labor law attorney put together the correspondence to the bank saying what you've done is wrong and here's what's happening, really validated my experience and that felt great. But I had to sit there for six weeks with nothing to do while all of this got settled.
Right it was so awkward. I learned a lot from the experience because I don't know listeners if you come from a family that loves adversary and difficult conversations and confrontations.
But I grew up with you, got to be a good girl and go with the flow, with what everybody wants you to do, coupled with my family, avoided confrontations like big okay, okay I didn't have experience in having tough conversations and so I had lifelines to friends who were good at this and they would tell me okay, don't meet with them unless your, your attorney's present and don't do this and don't do that. So in standing up and folks, I got to tell you my boss was a woman and so this made it even more of a tragedy to me.
I had gone to an all women's MBA program, so I knew the challenges of women in the workplace still trying to find their way after years of men being the dominant feature and not understanding how to have conversations themselves. So I learned a lot, but it was very painful. The important thing was that I took a stand and I'm thinking of Taylor Swift, who went to every day to her trial for sexual abuse because no one would believe her that it happened, and she was standing up for all the other women who had never happened for taking a stand and being okay with whatever the outcome was going to be and knowing that you would figure it out once it happened and find a new way for yourself.
And I deeply understand, John, how sometimes people say well, if I get a bad rap, right, if I get a bad reputation, then I'm not going to be able to find a new job, right, I'm not going to be able to get into another role.
JB: This will follow me wherever I go, right, exactly, and anybody that could think of this rationally would realize this was one a horrible thing to do to another person illegal, which obviously I mean you pursued on your own, and you and I are in the same demographic age group. We're in the same demographic, I mean. I think. Actually you said when you got your MBA in, what was it '89? You said '89, '89.
AL: Yeah, I'm a baby boomer. Yeah.
JB: Me too. I was actually thinking about the music that I was listening to in the 80s, and it was actually some pretty good music. But this is the sort of thing where and you just said something really interesting under what I would consider to be the model, the business model under which you and I are, through which you and I came, you showed up, you followed the rules. You could challenge the rules, you and I are rule challengers, there's no question about it but there was a certain protocol or etiquette that we followed. You said you know, be a good girl, don't speak up.
I think anybody could say hey, there are people that are in positions of authority. We trust their insights, their expertise, their integrity to do the right thing. And then you're gone for six weeks and your job is completely well, one, people are fabricating stories and two, your job is gone. Is it any wonder people are suspect and, quite frankly, pissed off at organizations that do this? And it's not an indictment on the entire organization, it's that manager or that Bosshole, but it translates to the organization. And then we see now the emerging workforce that says why would I want to put myself through that? People that are in their 30s or 40s are saying I don't want to do that.
Why would I do that? Give myself over, you were way too trusting or you gave them too much credit. Well, that may be true, but that Bosshole earned that reputation.
AL: Right, and you're doing everything exactly.
JB: Exactly.
AL: You're meeting numbers, you're meeting expectations, you're getting quoted by the president of this big bank and all of a sudden you get undermined, out of right field. And if she had come to me and said, Andy, you've been doing a great job, but, honestly, this is a corporation, we need to follow our own internal protocol, and who gets to have these type of clients?
You've only been a commercial lender for a minute and you've done a great job. But I really need but you're a junior, right? I really need to give this portfolio. And what can we do? We can leave you with a few here and then you can build on that.
JB: Right.
AL: I was being punished by having to and the banking world is called going into work out, where you have to work out loans and come up with compromises with owners that are in default, really ugly, gnarly work. But no, no conversation out of left field, taking advantage of me and what I learned from the attornies, because of course, the bank had the top law firm in Boston. Of course, of course. Representing them, but when it was all said and done and quote off the record they looked at me and said oh my gosh, what happened to you was awful.
This department had no business doing that to you. And she has been reprimanded. And that was my happy ending was to see her get into a lot of trouble.
JB: Yeah, you know what I mean. Again, I was raised not to wish ill on people but quite frankly, that should never be tolerated.
AL: Yeah, we can call it a learning opportunity there, you go.
JB: There you go, so let's go with that. Thank you for sharing that with our listeners and we hope people are not experiencing that. But we know better than that. In the last three and a half years, we've heard stories that are horrific, and they've happened more recently. You would think, oh, that doesn't happen these days. Yes, they do. You did not let that crush your spirit. I'm sure it was very difficult, but you clearly grew from that and you were not going to let that incident diminish who you were as a professional or a person and I want everybody to go into the show notes because Ande is also a prolific podcaster. I'm kind of fast forwarding a little bit in your career. You have taken not only that but a lot of other things and you've converted that into a platform to be able to share with other people entrepreneurs, and so forth.
So tell us a little bit more about that and how that influenced your ability to help people, business leaders, managers stay out of the Bosshole zone.
AL: Well, and also for me personally, it was a case of, "I've been unemployable ever since Then. In fact, I introduced myself. When you stand up at networking events and you introduce yourself, I often say hello, my name is Ande. I've been unemployable since 1992. I fell off the wagon twice. Once I fired myself. The second time I got fired.
I've used it to pursue entrepreneurship. As a woman who was having babies, raising babies and doing all of that, I needed the flexibility and it really propelled me into coming up with some great business models that allowed me to stay in the game. So I'm a four times founder. I founded a dot com where we raised eight million in venture capital and almost made it. So that was '98 to 2000, the end of 2000. And then it went under with all the other dot coms. I had a successful food manufacturing business that I scaled in less than two years nationally, and I've had other platforms where I either angel financed or charming personality backed. And I've learned a lot along the way. And where I've used podcasting is that it's a wonderful way to increase brand awareness and get more people into your funnel as a business. So, with subsequent businesses, in 2012, I started podcasting and then in 2014, when I started working on startups and really getting into the startup ecosystem.
I started a podcast called Startup Life Show with Ande Lyons. Then, when COVID hit, I had been co-hosting a monthly pitch event in Boston for founders. I took it online with StreamYard and then through that I knew as an extrovert had to stay engaged with folks. So I started Startup Life Live Show. But as a result of interviewing founders and understanding how, when you've launched a business, now you are the boss. Right, you don't want to be a Bosshole, but what happens to so many founders is that they get so hyper-focused that if you're not part of the solution, you best be getting out of the way, and that's for family members too.
JB: That's a good point.
AL: Finding ways to help founders remember the relationships. If leading wasn't innate for them, like many tech founders, perhaps they could bring someone on board who could help them be impeccable with their words and create the right culture.
That's hard to do from day one because from day one, you're just thinking about who can help me get this launched, when you really need to be thinking who is going to be part of this team, having those tough conversations. As a startup founder, you're bringing on people at reduced salary who want to be part of the excitement, but you have to tell them from day one look, just so you know, as we scale and we start entering enterprise, I'm going to be bringing on folks who you will be reporting to because your background is great for now, but I promise you I'll bring on someone who will help elevate your own progress and make sure that you have a great experience. You've got to set those expectations from day one because as you get to growth status in a startup, you're going to need a completely different person running whatever that department is, someone who has that IMET scale experience, versus the one who helps with the startup stage.
JB: That's a tough transition to make, isn't it? I mean, because when you are a founder startup and doing virtually everything, relinquishing control is really difficult. So let me ask you, you've been working with founders directly and directly for years. I mean, you are a founder yourself. Yes, are you seeing a difference in terms of the interest in startups today versus 10 years ago? 20 years ago, I actually started my first business when I was 16 or 17. I think there's this inherent entrepreneurial thing that some people have and that need for control is pretty powerful. But until they come to that realization that I need other people around me surround myself with talent, they just get stifled. But what are you seeing in terms of today versus a decade ago in terms of drive for startups.
AL: Or even two decades ago from the dot-com days, I happen to see just the same churn. The economy sometimes forces people into entrepreneurship, or life challenges will force people into entrepreneurship, or they're just compelled to do something better than what they're seeing and solving a problem for folks. But I see it all to me at the same level. It is a grueling way to make a living.
JB: It is not easy.
AL: There's high levels of uncertainty, but, as I always tell people, you always win when you launch a business, no matter what happens, because you're going to dive into parts of yourself that you would never have found before and if it doesn't work out which is highly likely you'll use it for the next business, or you've got such great transferable skills and you're going to get paid more when you go back into to be an employee.
JB: That's true.
AL: The transition, especially if you've always been an employee. That transition from employee mindset to owner mindset is really challenging and it's just so important to get coaching so that you understand. You're not there for the awards, right. Right. And the evaluations. You have a completely different mindset as a founder that you need to implement and execute on.
JB: So let's talk about the founders mindset a little bit, if you don't mind. Tell me about it. What makes it unique?
AL: Founders are fierce problem solvers. In fact, they don't wait for someone to even help them solve that problem. And that, to me, was always the number one ingredient. I've seen every single founder I interviewed. They never met a problem that they didn't love and wanted to find a solution for.
And so that's a very important part of the founder mindset. And then being able to innovate and make mistakes. Really understand that you're in a lab and you're experimenting every single day. The word pivot is used everywhere, right, but it's so true. You can't get locked into how you initially thought of something and how it needed to be. You have to be able to go nope, I have new information now.
I got to go this way and you have to be so flexible to the feedback because until you take that value proposition that you have and bring it to market, you really don't know what the user experience is going to be. And I say user experience for everything. I mean anything you do in life. There's a user experience as a manager, as a leader, as a boss, as somebody who's trying to manage up to your boss. There's a user experience that you always have to be listening for and saying how can I solve this problem in the best way for me, my company, as well as those out there that are going to be buying and using my product or services.
JB: In our world at Real Good Ventures, we do a lot of people, science, analytics that help us understand objectively how are people wired behavioral wiring since they were eight to 10 years old. One of the things we can measure is risk tolerance. Is somebody more comfortable with risk? I think you and I are both very comfortable with risk, and then there's a sizable amount of people that are more cautious with risk. Invariably and I'm sure you've gotten this over the years, Ande you hear a lot of people say I've got an idea for a business, I've always wanted to do this, and yet that tolerance for a risk will hold them back, and maybe in a good way. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but I think what you share is understand the risk, the level of work and sort of destigmatizing failure, because you're going to fail a number of times before you succeed. I think that's inherent in what you just said.
AL: Absolutely, and you can take this right into anywhere you're working. You have to get comfortable with making mistakes and setting landscape for everybody. Look, we're going to make mistakes this is how we learn.
None of the drugs we take today, none of the amazing innovations that we have today, would have happened if someone had been afraid to make a mistake. And I think, as bosses, what we see in a lot of Bossholes is they want to constantly look good and they want to have everything go perfectly. Well we all do, but to become a risk taker. And, yes, there are some people who are innately comfortable with it. But the truth is, you build your muscles for this, just like if you're starting out with weightlifting. When you start a business, you have to lift those weights of tenacity and persistence and resilience so that you get better at it. So what scared you two months ago or a year ago? You're like, oh, I'm all good with that.
JB: Yeah, I got that figured out. I've got new things that are scaring me now, right.
AL: So I encourage folks to lighten up and really be an observer and whatever they're doing, so that they don't take everything so personally, and that's hard especially if you're bringing an idea to life, whether it's internally at an organization or through your own business, there's going to be critics. There's going to be just things are going to blow up.
I mean my food business. I was about to take it to the really next level, okay, when my manufacturing facility was hit by lightning and burned to the ground, and this was after two of my main ingredients had been wiped out agriculturally. So there goes the margin, right, for the product. Then that fire happened and then I'm sitting there going okay, I could probably solve this problem, and all of a sudden my husband's home, at 11 A.M., he'd just been laid off.
JB: Oh my gosh.
AL: There'd been a downsizing at his company and we had a nine and a seven-year-old. What are you going to do?
JB: Yeah, that's right.
AL: Sometimes quitting is the best choice. Really getting comfortable with understanding that risk and failure they're important for growth.
The personal development and the professional development that happens because you tried and you have those great contrast moments that tell you what you don't like, what doesn't work. Those are to be celebrated. But we've been so indoctrinated, internalizing these beliefs that we have that we can't make a mistake or we're gonna get in trouble, and that's a cultural thing. And you bring in these CEOs. I would say, with all due respect to Harvard MBA, my hometown, but I don't have any respect for them because they're all about shareholder value. Unless companies shift their rewards to how our employees are doing, you're gonna have this culture that is all about a bottom line, that it's not sustainable if you want to have people thriving within your organization.
JB: Whenever I travel the country and speak at conferences, usually depending on the topic, I will open a conversation with the audience and I said, on the count of three, I want you to tell me just shout out the business you're in, okay, and or I'll put it up as a prompt on the screen and I'll do that and you'll hear just a collection of different things that are said. Everybody's answer actually ought to be one thing, and that's people. Everybody is in the business. I don't care what you're manufacturing, what service you're providing. You can't do any of it unless it's through people.
And I actually have a colleague. He's a Harvard MBA, very successful entrepreneur, and he said I got an amazing education in my from Harvard Business School, but I was shocked at how much I didn't learn about people. I learned about every other aspect of it. I feel completely equipped to go in and run a business, but I really needed to go back and learn about people, and that's ultimately what we're talking about here. So that's cool. That is so cool. So, Ande, this has been great. Thank you again for reliving the Bosshole story, but it clearly has shaped who you are and your journey has been amazing. You've got some exciting stuff getting ready to happen in March of 2024. It's a new podcast. I want our listeners to go into the show notes and follow you. Tell us about the new podcast and what it's going to do.
AL: Well, thank you, John. It is called "Don't Be Caged by Your Age.” And it's helping folks past 55 thrive by helping them dissolve their internalized ageist beliefs. So what happens is, you know, we get plenty of ageist and ageism right from society. Okay, you're 65, you need to do this. You need to look this way. Where's your cane, right? And we get it institutionally right. We get it from our corporations and there's history behind. How did this retirement age come about right and why did it come about? I want to have conversations with folks who are figuring out how to reinvent, repurpose and reimagine themselves because, look, if you're 65, based on all the tests out there, you got another 20 to 30 years left in your life at least what are you gonna do?
Because, as humans, we need to wake up every day with purpose. Most of us do, and so how do we take those internalized ageist beliefs that are our own limitations? I can't do that. I'm too old. No, you're not. So I'm having great conversations with guests who figured ways to be in the world even though they are of quote, "the retirement age, and we're having conversations around how unhealthy retirement is. In fact, the World Health Organization has shared that it is costing societies billions of dollars here in the US and Europe and across the world by having folks quote retire. It is unhealthy and if you're not using it, you lose it right.
JB: Yeah, oh yeah.
AL: You have a much greater chance of happiness and fulfillment in your post-retirement ages. So don't be caged by your age. Tune in everyone and find out more ways to stay engaged internally, you know, in your organizations, as well as in pursuing new endeavors.
JB: Well, and I love when threads connect things. So when I think about startups and entrepreneurs and founders and this really sizable demographic and wealth of expertise that is out there, that could be retired or getting ready for retirement and they may not want to work full time. It could be a fractional sort of role. What a great resource to pull in and enhance your business. Those two ends can connect very easily.
AL: Absolutely. And what, baby boomers and Gen Xers are brilliant at relationships, making connections, having conversations. Because we grew up at a time where we didn't have email and texting, we had to learn how to write well and talk well and be willing to have conversations with folks. So what a great addition to anyone's organization.
JB: Oh, for sure, for sure. Well, Ande, I'm so glad you were able to join me on the podcast. It has been a delight beyond, "Don't be caged by your age. Anything else happening, anything got you excited these days.
AL: No, this is really what I'm- thank you for asking that. This is what I'm really focused on right now. I'm very excited about this next stage and I invite folks reach out, connect with me on LinkedIn. I'd love to learn what you're up to and what's making your heart sing with joy. I find that so fascinating, so thank you.
JB: I will make sure that's in the show notes. All right, everybody. Well, thank you. Thank you, andy, and we will see you next time on the Bosshole Chronicles. We'd like to thank our guests today on the Bosshole Chronicles and if you have a Bosshole Chronicles story of your own, please email us at mystory@thebossholechronicles.com. Once again, mystory@thebossholechronicles.com, we'll see you again soon.