Breaking Barriers Blog

I looked at the resume with anxious anticipation hoping for a perfect match to the job opening.  “Oh no”,   I sighed.  I saw he had over 20 years of experience and no date on his degree.

My conclusion—he’s too old.  I knew my client would never interview him.

I am an Executive Recruiter by trade.  I’ve been recruiting in Southern California for over 25 years.  I place accounting and finance professionals like CPA’s, Controllers, Financial Analysts and CFO’s.   It is true—it is the “kiss of death” to be 40 years old and looking for a job in a top company—unless you are on the fast track to CFO of a large company.

Even though age discrimination is illegal, we all know it exists.  But the point of this scenario is to emphasize a prevailing paradigm in our culture—that success belongs to the young.

I did not understand, even early in my recruiting career, why years of experience and maturity were a “bad” thing.  Sure some people get set in their ways over time, but on the other hand, young adults can be stubborn and impulsive.  A good employee fit should not rule out a mature person who may be exploring a new career path or someone who has grown and learned from their mistakes—after all I read the average person changes careers 3 or 4 times in a lifetime.  Time and time again, I have seen “older” professionals start their own businesses and practices for lack of a different option.

Another example of our younger is better paradigm is the May issue of OC Metro with the cover story “40 under 40” touting the tales of 40 young professionals who achieved incredible success before the age of (horrors) 40.

Not only do we see this in careers and business but, of course, in sports.  We buy into the fact that our bodies deteriorate over time and that we can no longer jump higher or run faster as we move into middle age and beyond.

I challenge you to not buy into the younger is better paradigm.  Let’s look at two success stores.

Harland Sanders cooked chicken dishes at the age of 40 for people who stopped at his service station in Corbin, Kentucky.  As his popularity grew, he moved to a 142 seat restaurant.  At age 65, his station failed (due to the new interstate).  He took $105 from his first Social Security check and interviewed potential franchisees.

His new franchisee, Dave Thomas (of Wendy’s fame) turned the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant around and revolutionized the fast food industry by simplifying its menu to basic fried chicken and salads.  Colonel Sanders expanded and later sold the corporation in 1964 for $2 million but still maintained his Canadian operations where he continued to collect franchise and appearance fees.

Colonel Sanders died on December 16, 1980 at the age of 90—a successful and wealthy man.  His fast track career didn’t start until the age of 65.

Another late bloomer was running star Priscilla Welch.  Priscilla didn’t start running competitively until she was 35.  Up to that point, she smoked a pack of cigarettes every day.  When she met her husband Dave, she quit smoking and trained under his guidance and ran the London Marathon at the age of 35.

Four years later (age 39) she qualified for the British Olympic team and ran the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles (the first women’s Olympic marathon) and finished sixth.  (Joan Benoit-Samuelson of the USA won the first Women’s Olympic Marathon.) On her 40^th birthday, Priscilla began setting age group world records for the masters division.

But putting the masters division to the side, Priscilla won the New York Marathon in 1987 with a 2:30:17.  She also placed second in London and set an age group world record with a 2:26:51—this was also the sixth fastest time in the world in 1987!  Priscilla ran the Boston Marathon in 1988 setting another age group world record with a 2:30:48.  This record stood for 14 years.

These are two important examples of success in middle age and beyond.  Of course, I must also emphasize my own success having just set a marathon personal record of 3:53:23 at the age of 56 beating my Boston Marathon qualifying time by over 21 minutes.

So maybe you missed the career fast track and turned 40 or even 50—disappointed at your stalled career.  Maybe you didn’t make the team in high school and you considered your effort a failure.  Maybe you didn’t qualify for Boston after having tried for 14 years (like me) and decided to retire.  It’s never, never too late to achieve something incredible!  Let’s focus on what is positive and move forward with courage and confidence and believe that the best years are yet to come!

Next—Dating and Middle-age—Being In Shape Does Help!

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When I started the marathon training program for my first marathon, the biggest hurdle was wrapping my head around the distance.  When I thought about 26.2 miles, I couldn’t comprehend running that far.  It was farther than the twelve-mile drive from my hometown, Augusta, to Wichita (Kansas).  If I turned around and ran back, I still wouldn’t cover the distance. That’s just crazy!

The training program for the Wichita Marathon (now called the Prairie Fire Marathon) was six months long with increased mileage each week and a long run every Saturday.  When our weekly long run exceeded ten miles, I was grateful to be running with a group to help push me along.  I discovered a new set of aches and pains and a new level of exhaustion.  The time commitment was enormous.  Can you imagine going out on a Saturday and spending three to four hours running?  I actually questioned my sanity as the mileage got longer and longer.

My new friend, Arne, started training with me during the week.  Arne had a management position in corporate accounting.  He recently moved to Wichita from Chicago for the opportunity at Pizza Hut and was focused on moving forward in the company.  He was a CPA, intelligent and fit.  I enjoyed his company on the training runs.  We were both accountants, so we had something in common.  This was his first marathon as well so we were going into uncharted territory together.

We were crazy in those days.  I remember we went on a 10 mile run in August when it was really hot and humid without carrying any water.  We would drink out of the hoses in front yards of houses as we ran by.  What were we thinking?

Going for long runs is a great way to get to know someone.  As the mileage accumulated, Arne and I became more than friends.  Face it, if you can look and smell like a drowned rat in front of someone and they still like you, it must be love.

We made it through the training…finally.  I am proud to say we both finished our first marathon in Wichita, Kansas in October of 1983.  I finished in 4:23:10.  I was twenty-nine years old.  When I crossed the finish line, my legs buckled and my stomach muscles tightened up so much I couldn’t stand straight.  Despite my discomfort, my smile was huge.  Goal accomplished after six months of grueling training.  At that moment I realized that the marathon was more mental than physical.  Our bodies can be trained to do much more than we can imagine, but if we don’t believe we can do it in the first place, it isn’t going to happen.

My relationship with Arne continued after the marathon was over.  It was going so well that I asked Arne to marry me in December—he accepted.   I’ve been told that I am not very patient…  We set the date for the following May.

The week we were getting married, Arne got a promotion.  He was offered the Controller position for the distribution company of Taco Bell located in Irvine, California.  By that time I had been with Pizza Hut for almost five years.  I was nervous about the move.  Leaving Pizza Hut wasn’t hard–it was a great company but accounting work wasn’t fulfilling to me.   Though I was distraught about leaving my close family and friends, I looked forward to my new adventure.

One of my most fond memories right before we moved was running with the Olympic Torch.  Pizza Hut sponsored one woman and one man to run with the torch prior to the 1984 Olympics held in Los Angeles.  I signed up for the drawing in the fitness center and won.  When the torch passed through Kansas, I was one of the runners who carried it for about a half a mile.  I was surprised at how heavy it was.  Even though it was raining when I ran, people were standing out in the middle of nowhere to watch and asked for my autograph.  It was a thrill and I got to keep the torch as a souvenir.

In July 1984, Arne and I arrived in California.  I was unemployed.  Even though I had been offered a similar position at Taco Bell to the one I had at Pizza Hut, I declined hoping I could find a position more interesting.  I started my job search in earnest.  I went to a small employment agency and the recruiter said, “Why don’t you try the personnel business for a week and see how you like it?”  My heart skipped a beat.  Yes, I liked the idea of becoming a recruiter and the chance to try something other than accounting.

I started the trial week and found the job interesting and challenging.  I got an offer to stay.  Okay…it was a huge salary cut but I knew I could make it up on commission.  Something inside knew this was the right move for me.

When Arne found out I accepted $350 a week, he was livid.   “What!  Are you crazy?  Why would you throw away your accounting career?”  Arne shook his head slowly and I could hear him sigh as his eyes narrowed and his mouth tightened.  “Unbelievable.”  But my gut feeling proved to be right.  I started making more money after two months than I ever did in accounting.  Arne stopped complaining…  The lesson here is to do something that you want to do and the money will come.  The overachiever was alive and well.

I left the small agency after six months and joined a national recruiting firm that specialized in the accounting and finance area and started placing full-time professionals.  I found my career niche.

Life was good.  I enjoyed my new career.  Of course running was still an important part of my life and I continued to run races focusing on the 10K to half-marathon distance.  I maintained a weekly mileage level of 20 to 30 miles a week during this time.  In an effort to improve my performance, I started researching vitamins and minerals and started taking supplements to help maintain my health and fitness level—a practice I continue today.

After three years with the recruiting firm, I took a bold step and went out on my own.  It was the influence of my parents and the allure of being my own boss.  I took the plunge in 1987 and moved into an executive suite.  The economy was humming and I enjoyed success as an entrepreneur and loved being independent.

Meanwhile, Arne was intrigued with the potential of the personnel business and he started his own company, Hemingway Personnel, Inc., in 1989.  It was primarily a temporary placement firm specializing in accounting and finance.  So, if it wasn’t stressful enough that both of us were self-employed, it certainly became more traumatic when, in 1989, I discovered I was pregnant.  How did that happen?   I guess that’s a rhetorical question…

Thus began another turbulent period in my life.

Next–Pregnancy, Running and Working with a Spouse

Training Report

I logged 51.5 miles this week.  This included a 7 mile speedwork run and back to back long runs of 17.5 miles on Saturday and 8 miles on the hills on Sunday.  My long runs were slower than normal.  I am beginning to fatigue and must rest more.  I’ll work on that.

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During the worst of my emotional trauma, I refused to take medication.  Perhaps it was my fear of losing total mental control.  My gut told me there was a better way to deal with my issues.  Even today I view my “nervous breakdown” as a blessing.  I discovered self-hypnosis.

If you are one of those people who push yourself to the extreme, you know how hard it is to relax.  I was wired all the time.  At this point in my life, I was not running.  I wonder how I would have handled the stress if I had had the benefits of exercise.

But back to my emotional trauma, while I was in the hospital, the doctor hypnotized me to help me to relax.  Even though I had not been hypnotized before and was quite skeptical, I did experience some relaxation—to the point where I could sleep.  I was intrigued.  He told me if I continued to practice self-hypnosis, I would continue to improve.

The doctor recorded a 15-minute tape for me.  It took me through a relaxation and breathing exercise and contained positive affirmations designed to lessen my anxiety.  I listened to this tape whenever I felt anxious and again at night before sleeping and in the morning before I got out of bed.  I didn’t really understand hypnosis, but I was willing to try it.  I was hopeful it would work.

It did work.  As I continued to listen to the tape, my ability to relax improved and I was able to think and function again.  I had a speedy recovery—and without drugs.*   I returned to work more relaxed and productive.  But I needed a change from the chaos of public accounting.  So after two (very long) years, I left Peat, Marwick and took an accounting position in the corporate office of Pizza Hut, Inc.  It was 1980 and I was 26 years old.

Pizza Hut was a great company—innovative.  It was one of the first companies to have a full gym located in the building.  Maybe I didn’t have the encouragement to exercise when I was growing up, but I certainly did now. The company encouraged every employee to take advantage of the center.  I started to exercise during my lunch hour.  The fitness director at the gym was a runner and was recruiting people to run with him.  I was easily recruited.  My life was forever changed—I became a runner.

Associating with runners is addictive.  Runners are generally positive and energetic people.  Many are also competitive and always looking for ways to get faster and run farther.  Running was a perfect match for my competitive, wired nature.  It also required no real skill like hand-eye coordination.  Just put one foot in front of the other, right?

I ran my first race almost immediately.  It was a two miler and I finished in a whopping 24 minutes.  My legs ached, I was gasping for breath and I felt like I might throw up from the long, grueling distance.  We all have to start somewhere I told myself.  But, despite my agony, I loved the way I felt after the race, my heart was pumping, my mind was clear and I accomplished a goal.  I finished, I really finished!

While I was feeling good about my new adventures in running, I had to come to terms with another area of my life—my worsening relationship.  After nine and half years of marriage, Greg and I called it quits in 1982.  I was shattered.

By that time I had been running for two years and had graduated to running 10K races (6.2 miles).  Did running help me through my divorce?  Yes, it did.  There were days when I just wanted to sit in a corner and cry, but I forced myself out the door because I could always count on the positive feelings I experienced at the end of the run.  I was doing something good for myself.

Running was not easy—in fact it was complicated.  There were speed drills and mileage charts and finding the right shoes.  Was I a pronator or supinator?  Should we eat before a race?  Should we eat after a race?  If so, what is appropriate?  It’s important not to take it all too seriously!

Injury was a big factor.  I had a tendency to go overboard on training—what a surprise.  The overachiever in me was on a mission.  I was sure I was on the road to Olympic stardom.  I discovered chiropractors and ice and, of course, anti-inflammatory medication.  By the way, I highly recommend chiropractors.  I had a crooked hip, which was fixed by chiropractic medicine and allowed me to continue to run.

By this time, I had been thinking for some time about running a marathon.  Pizza Hut offered a marathon training class.  I needed a challenging goal that would take my mind off my divorce so I decided to go for it.

I met Arne at the first informational meeting.  They say never jump into a new relationship immediately after a divorce.  Well, my jump was off a cliff.

Next—First Marathon-Second Marriage

*For a more detailed description of self-hypnosis, see my Premium Content.

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Sometimes life presents challenges for which we aren’t prepared.  In 1976, when I graduated from college in Kansas, women were just barely breaking out of traditional roles.  I hadn’t envisioned being a pioneer…but I found myself in that role.

Right after graduation, two other business students, who happened to be men, were recruited by a local corporation to join their management training program.  I was perplexed.  Both men graduated with lower GPA’s than mine.  What about all of my hard earned accomplishments?  I was ignored and the anger intensified inside.

When I started my job search, I began to think it was a curse that I had worked my way through college as a bookkeeper.  One woman in an employment agency couldn’t understand why I wasn’t happy working as a bookkeeper.  She rolled her eyes and sighed as she asked, “What else could you possibly want?”

Don’t get me wrong.  Being a bookkeeper is a great job, but I went to college to do something else…to make a difference.  I wanted more.

As my job search drug on that summer, I became disillusioned and I felt sorry for myself.  I could feel the pressure again and my sinus problems got worse.  How could life be so unfair?  So I did what any overachiever would do, I went back to school.  I wasn’t going to give up.  I needed to keep pushing forward.

I took a graduate assistantship at Wichita State University.  I decided to take additional accounting courses and sit for the Certified Public Accountant’s (CPA) exam.  It was the only way I could think of to get a “professional” job.  Greg, my husband, took a position as a Speech and Debate Coach at a high school.  After a year at WSU, I was qualified to interview at CPA firms.  I was ecstatic to accept a position with the largest CPA firm in the nation, Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co (now KPMG).  Yes, the overachiever was back in business.

The Peat, Marwick office in Wichita had 30 professionals at that time.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered that I was the first woman ever to be hired on the audit staff—yes really.  There were two women on the tax staff so I was not alone but definitely in the minority.  I knew everyone could see me shaking when I walked into the office on my first day.  Undoubtedly, I would be scrutinized.

On the first day of orientation I felt nauseous in the pit of my stomach. My intuition was telling me something.  When I got the brochure that instructed women in the firm how to dress, essentially like the men, I knew I was forging new territory.

At the first client to whom I was assigned, the accounting staff thought I was a bookkeeper—so did the second client.  I could feel my temperature rise and my heart race as I smiled and explained I was an Auditor.  I just couldn’t escape the bookkeeper title!  Was it at the third client where the accounting manager asked me to sit on his lap?  He thought I was cute…  They didn’t cover that situation at the orientation.

As time went on, I didn’t gain confidence, I became more nervous.  I didn’t believe I was as talented as the other auditors and I couldn’t focus.  I was regularly working fifty to sixty-hour weeks.  I was always fatigued and dreaded going to work.

My heavy work load weighed heavily on my strained marriage and Greg complained constantly.  My anxiety attacks got more severe and I couldn’t sleep.  I started pacing the floor at night.  One day the room closed in on me and I couldn’t catch my breath.  As I was gasping for air I wondered if I was going insane.  I didn’t know if I could survive another day.  The emotional turmoil was just too great.  Out of panic and desperation, I checked myself into the hospital.

They didn’t say it was a nervous breakdown, but that’s what it must have been.  I was away from work for three weeks.  The silver lining of this experience was that I was assigned to a psychiatrist while I was in the hospital that used hypnosis as a relaxation technique.  Little did I know at the time how much this therapy would help me in the future.*

*For a more detailed description of self-hypnosis, see my Premium Content.

Next—The Challenges Continue

Training Report

My training for the Lincoln (Nebraska) Marathon on May 1^st is on track.  I ran total weekly mileage of 55 miles including an 8-mile speed workout on the treadmill, a 17-mile long run on asphalt on Saturday and a 7-mile trail run on hills on Sunday.

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