Dive into the secrets of creating a fulfilling second half of your career. In this episode, Rosie Zilinskas welcomes Carolyn Mahboubi, a life and leadership coach with a flair for fashion and a knack for midlife transformations. Carolyn discusses the common career stagnation felt by women in their 40s and 50s, offering actionable strategies to live with intention and advance professionally. From the difference between fierce and selfless giving to transitioning from amateur to pro, Carolyn emphasizes the importance of courage, purpose, and a forward-thinking mindset. Tune in to learn how to break free from default living and build a fulfilling, intentional career path.

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Unlocking The Second Half Of Your Career: A Blueprint For Intentional Living With Carolyn Mahboubi

I’m going to start with a question. Are you feeling stuck in your career and you don’t know what to do, and you feel like you’re going through the motions? What if I were to tell you that there’s a way to reignite that spark and create that future that you have always been dreaming of? Let’s dive into the secrets of living your second half with intention.

Welcome back to yet another empowering episode of the show. I’m thrilled to have you here. As we tackle these deep life-changing insights, I’m so happy to have you here. In this episode, we’re going to be exploring the concept of being a fierce giver, how to start living from your future self, and the big difference between surrendering and giving up, which is amazing.

Trust me when I tell you that you won’t want to miss this awesome conversation. By the end of this episode, you are going to walk away with a fresh perspective on how to create a purposeful second half of your career. You are also going to walk away with a new mindset shift that will set you apart as a true leader and actionable tips that you can implement starting now.

I am truly honored to introduce our guest, Carolyn Mahboubi. Carolyn is not just any coach. She is a powerhouse life and leadership coach who has reinvented herself and built an incredible second career after decades of being in the luxury fashion world. She is here to share her wisdom on creating a conscious, fulfilling second half and how to be a fierce giver without losing yourself in the process. Carolyn is a distinguished life and leadership coach who works with some of the most extraordinary people and interesting people in the world. Go ahead and stay tuned as we dive into this transformative conversation with Carolyn where she’ll reveal how to become a fierce giver and live from your future self.

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Carolyn, thank you so much for joining me. How are you?

I am great. I am very happy to be here with you.

Second Half Of Your Career

Thank you so much. My audience is primarily women who are in the corporate space trying to advance their corporate careers. A lot of people are struggling with the second half of their career, being intentional and being present in their career. I know that you’re a life and leadership coach. What would you say to a woman who is trying to be more present and alive in that career advancement?

I would say, “Me too, and she too.” Working with a lot of women in around that age group, the mid-40s or even early 40s, we naturally seem to reach a point where we start to slow down to look at our 2nd half and say, “Do I want to keep moving forward the way I have been or do I want to make changes?” This is the demographic I work with very closely.

Also, I’ve been through it myself. For me, being a leadership coach is a second career built from scratch in the second half of my life. For the first three decades, I was an executive in luxury fashion, so I’m very familiar with this idea of growing in a field that maybe you didn’t even choose consciously. How many of us are really that conscious at 20, 22, or 24? Somehow, you open your eyes in your 40s or 50s and you’ve been moving forward by default. You wonder, “Is there something different for me in this second half?” For us, since we’re living longer, healthier lives, it’s a very real thing. What do you want to do for the next 40 years?

I agree when you said, “So does she.” That was perfect because we always think that we are the only ones. We always think that we are alone. We’re like, “How does everybody else do it? What’s comforting about this conversation is knowing that you’re not alone and knowing that a lot of people are struggling with the same thing.

A lot of people are living much longer. I’ve heard the term, “What am I going to do in my third third?” Women are living into their 70s or 80s. I know a couple of women that are entrepreneurs and they’re in their 70s and 80s. They’re happy and lively. They have a purpose. That’s one of the big differences. When people have a purpose, that’s when they live longer, happier, and healthier lives. Does that make sense?

It makes sense. Be careful of the word purpose for two reasons. One, our purpose changes. Your purpose at 48 is not the same as your purpose at 28, likely. We are a work in progress, especially as women who may have children, get married, or get divorced. We are in different life stages. Our purpose changes. I don’t want someone to hear that word and be like, “I don’t know what my purpose is. How am I going to find my purpose?” There are ways to do that. This is why people work with coaches, are in groups, and so on. Because you can narrow it down. Also, it’s not enough. A purpose is not enough.

Say more about that.

We need skills, habits, and systems. It was one of the stoics who said, “We don’t rise to the level of our goals. We drop to the level of our systems.” This is why it’s really important to do the work of creating the kind of system that takes your purpose and operationalizes it into a real thing in life that brings you satisfaction. Does that make sense?

That makes a lot of sense. At the beginning of the year, everybody sets their goals. If you don’t have those routines and tasks attached to your goals, it could be writing on a piece of paper that sits there all year and nothing gets done. It could still be your purpose, but if you don’t take action, then nothing happens. That’s a great clarification.

Fierce Giver

I know that you also talk about being a fierce giver. I want to talk about that. The reason why I want to talk about that is because I have heard that some women are very competitive within their companies, their peers, and other women. I understand the competition, the competitiveness, and wanting to be at the top. The way I look at it is if I’m at the top, I’m going to pull people up with me, especially women. When you say we can be a fierce giver, talk to us about that.

You have a show that you’ve named No Woman Left Behind. Right there, that tells your story. It says, “I am that person that is going to pull you up with me.” Not everybody, man or woman, is like that. Keep in mind that I started working at a time in the ‘80s, ‘90s, and the early 2000s when I would hide the picture of my children. I wouldn’t put it on my desk. If your reader is 28, she might have a completely different understanding than someone like me who grew up at a time when we as women felt very constrained. It’s a different story.

Leadership in the workplace and in life, in general, has everything to do with your team. What kind of team are you creating? Nobody becomes successful on their own. This is a myth, the myth of the self-made man or leader. I wanted to understand more deeply about this quality of giving in leadership. It’s Adam Grant that puts it really well in a book called Give and Take, which I recommend everybody read.

'Leadership in the workplace and in life, in general, has everything to do with your team.' – Carolyn Mahboubi Share on X

His research shows that there are three kinds of people interacting with the world, which are givers, takers, and matchers. Those are exactly as they sound. There are people like yourself who are natural givers. There are people who take. We all know 1 or 2 of those people. Matchers are really interesting. They’re always calibrating to match what they give to what you give. They don’t want to give more, and they don’t want to give less. Can you think of someone like that in your world?

Yeah.

Let me ask you this. When they researched the leaders of the top companies in the world globally, who do you think turned out at the top? What kind of leaders? Takers, givers, or matchers?

I’m going to say givers.

That’s a natural default for you. Most people say takers or matchers. They don’t think of givers. You are right. Givers are the top leaders. Who do you think are the bottom 30% or show up in the bottom 30%?

I’m going to say the matchers.

The bottom 30% are also givers. That is what, for me, got me to start thinking, “How is it that givers are at the top but they’re also at the very bottom?” The answer is the givers at the top give very differently than the givers at the bottom. The givers at the top are the people I call fierce givers. The people at the bottom, I call selfless givers.

Fierce givers are always giving to others but they themselves are also in the equation. They do not give at the cost of taking from themselves and making themselves less, exhausted, or unavailable. They have strong boundaries. They have strong communication skills. They empower. These are the leaders that help you to learn how to fish rather than give you the fish.

The leaders at the very bottom, the selfless givers, are as it sounds. They have removed their own self from the equation. They are the ones that give until they fall off a cliff. This could be a mother. This could be in a marriage. It’s not just work. They are the ones that are doing everything for others. There’s a lot of people-pleasing going on for them. They care a lot about what others think. Their giving ends up having them look, at best, like they’re a doormat. At worst, they are ineffective. These are the leaders whose teams say, “She’s such a nice person but not a great leader.” That’s the difference between a fierce giver and a selfless giver.

That makes a lot of sense. If you find yourself being that selfless giver, what are the things that you need to do? Do we need to establish boundaries? Do we need to get better at communication? How do we get out of that trap?

The first step is recognizing this difference. Most selfless givers don’t even know that there is a different way to be. For givers, the word selfish is like kryptonite. To be called selfish is the worst thing you can be called. Selfless givers need to understand that it is not selfish to have boundaries, create an operating system for yourself, and share that with others so others can respect it as well. They need to know that it’s not selfish to take care of yourself first and put on your oxygen mask first. They need to understand that.

Once they understand that, the rest is about learning the skills. The number one skill is having difficult conversations. They usually circumvent having difficult conversations and pay the price down the road. They say, well, “It’s okay. I’ll do it myself,” or, “It’s this once,” or, “She’s so busy. I get it. I can do it.” They are conflict-avoidant. That’s what they want to work on with a professional to change.

I like that whole framework of either you do it now or you do it later, but you’re going to pay the price if you don’t do it.

Things do not age well. Difficult conversations are one of them. They become more difficult down the road.

From Amateur To Pro

I know you also have, and this might go into the next conversation, acting amateur instead of acting like a pro. For example, not wanting to have a difficult conversation. To me, that’s more like you’re acting like an amateur by not wanting to have the conversation. How do you go from acting like an amateur instead of acting like a pro? Tell us about that.

Going from amateur to pro is a mindset. I use it with the second group I work with very closely, which is young adults. By young adults, I mean they could be 34 years old, but they still haven’t transitioned to adulthood, which, for me, is another word for turning pro. You do not become an adult and do not turn pro because your age increases. You do that because you begin to take responsibility for behaving away, developing the habits, and cultivating the skills that have you showing up like an adult in life or like a pro in life.

'Going from amateur to pro is a mindset.' – Carolyn Mahboubi Share on X

We have to teach our children to have conversations and difficult conversations. There is a whole generation being raised not having conversations and looking at their phones. Until you develop a number of skills, and this is one of them but I can share more with you, you are not going to be an adult. Your parents are going to call someone like me and say, “My kids went to the very best schools. They graduated from Harvard and Stanford and are wonderful human beings. They are sitting on the couch. I don’t know what to do. What else can I do? I gave them everything.”

I had that conversation with a couple about their young adult who’s 30 years old. I was puzzled. I was like, “Why am I having this conversation with you and not with her?” I didn’t realize that it was the parents calling for their young adult. I don’t even know what you would call it. What do you call it when you have an individual who’s in their early 30s who doesn’t want to have those difficult conversations and is acting like an amateur? What are some of the things that parents could do?

I know those parents and the example that you said are not the only parents that are dealing with this. What do we do with those young adults that are not launching, per se, not stepping into that, and not taking responsibility for their actions? I know young adults, several of them, who don’t want to call a doctor. They don’t want to call to dispute a bad charge on their credit card and things like that. What would you say to that?

It’s an epidemic. They’re not alone. The parents call first, almost always. You are correct. Unless the child is enrolled, nothing’s going to change. The way it usually works with me is the parents will reach out, I’ll have a conversation with them, and I’ll say, “Your kid has to decide if they want to make this change.” I’ll have a conversation with their child who’s 1, 2, 3, or whatever, and then we decide if they want to move forward. I don’t talk to the parents again. All the coaching is with the child.

Having said that, to answer your question, what can they do? They are missing the skill that seems so easy to you and I. Picking up the phone and contesting a credit card charge may seem like, “Why are you not doing it?” to us. If you have never done it and you have this fear of difficult conversations and conflict, which feels very real for them, it’s a real fear, then you’re not going to do it. You’re not going to tell your parent, “I’m afraid. I feel sick to my stomach when I think of doing this.” You’re not going to say that because you feel ashamed and you feel bad. Your parents have done everything for you. You’re beginning to think there’s something wrong with you. I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with them. I believe they miss the whole set of skills and also priorities.

As parents, we give our children, hopefully, three things over time before they go into the world. We give them resources. Our generation has been over and above when it comes to resources. We have thrown everything at our kids. The second is prioritization and values. Let your kids understand what matters, what is really important, and what is non-negotiable. We haven’t done such a great job of that. Mostly, they’ve been getting those messages from social media, the outside world, and their friends.

The last is skills. We’ve given them no skills because we have been helicopter and bulldozed parenting them and doing everything for them. When I’m on the phone with a young adult where I say, “Will you call the credit card company and say blah?” We go through all that. I then say, “Why don’t you pick up the phone now? Let’s do it together.” At first, their eyes get all big like, “I don’t want to do that.” I say, “Let’s do it together. It will be done. You won’t have to worry about it.”

They get on the phone and I can tell that they’ve never done this and they don’t know. I will take them through it and they come out the other side confident. I ask the parents, “What do you want for your child?” They say, “Confidence. That’s what’s missing.” I tell them, “Confidence is a result. It’s not something I can give to your child, but it is something they will be able to access on the other side of the actions that I can help them take.” I hope that answered your question.

It does. Women come to me and they’re like, “Show me how to be confident so that I can work on my career.” I’m like, “It’s two and the same.” In real estate, people always know the common phrase location. I tell them that in career advancement, it’s preparation. The more you prepare and the more you gain those skills, the more you gain confidence. Once you have that confidence and you’ve done all the steps, then you create what I call the custom career roadmap. Once all that’s done, you are confident because you know yourself. You’ve already done all the steps. You’ve worked on your resume. You’ve worked on your story vault or whatever all is involved.

That’s exactly what you said. If you teach them how to do this skill and the more they practice that skill, that’s how they gain confidence. That’s a great point for you to bring up because confidence is one of the things that women are seeking in order to advocate for themselves in the workplace. That’s a great point to bring up. You’re right. We can’t teach you confidence. We can teach you the skills. Once you’re learning and mastering those skills, that’s how you gain confidence. That’s a great observation on your point.

To that, I would add that you are right. Preparation is very important. Preparation is one of the other principles that distinguishes amateurs from pros. Amateurs are always winging it. They’re always hoping, winging, praying, and manifesting. Prayer is good. Manifestation is good. I get that, but pros prepare and pros do their homework.

I would add to that that no matter how prepared you are, you need courage. I’m not asking my clients for confidence. I am, however, asking them for courage. I have a lot of compassion for them. If they don’t have the courage, I get it. Courage is the thing I cannot give to you through skills, habit changes, and system creation. Courage is the thing you have to pull out of yourself and draw out of yourself. Do that thing and then I’ll meet you on the other side. I promise you you’ll arrive with a little bit more confidence than the last time I saw you.

Women Helping Women

Mel Robbins has the five-second rule. Count 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and then do the thing that you’ve been so afraid to do. That’s a great little tip that people can use when they’re avoiding doing something. Count 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and then do the thing. That’s how you can summon that courage out of yourself. Let’s talk a little bit about the women that maybe don’t pull other women up. What’s happening there that people think that they’re going to be victorious doing it alone versus doing it with other people?

Fear and a scarcity mindset. It’s like, “There’s only so much room at the top. We can’t all be there, so I’m going to make sure that it’s me that gets up there.” It’s not true. It’s an absolute untruth. When someone has that mindset, they usually have it around other things in life. They have it around friendships, money, or marriage that there are limited resources and they have to fight for it.

It creates so much unease and so much of this hustle mentality. It’s unnecessary. We’re all going to have to work hard if our goal is worth it. There’s no important goal in life that doesn’t require you to put in the time and to work hard, but it doesn’t have to be this doggy-dog suffering. What creates that is this very tight feeling around what is available to us as women. Women should not feel that way.

Your Future Self

I agree. There’s no reason. When you’re at the top, help those others by mentoring, teaching, or whatever. There’s so much that you can do to give back to those younger people who are coming up behind us. I know you also talk a little bit about borrowing from your future self. Talk to us about that because that one sounds so interesting to me.

One of the concepts I teach and coach around is the future self-concept. I didn’t create that. Most coaches will work with that. The idea is to think about this being who is 1 month, 1 year, or 10 years down the road. Give her a name. Develop a relationship with her. Let her tell you in your quiet moments who she is because who she is will decide how you behave.

Most people don’t have a relationship with their future selves. They’re moving so fast. They’re barely meeting their present self. If you have a future self, and there are exercises people can do online with this, and that future self has a name, a character, and a feeling about her, and maybe she’s wise, loves to travel, wants a certain amount of money, and wants to be surrounded by certain a kind of man or friends, she will let you know what it’s going to take to get there. That’s how you serve your future self.

Borrowing from your future self is when you do something thoughtlessly assuming your future self will take care of it. You’re like, “I’ll take care of that later.” Your future self is always paying for your actions. You’re always in debt rather than in a surplus. You are always hustling in the same place rather than building brick after brick towards something that’s very real for you.

I like that. I like having that relationship with your future self, especially giving it a name and an identity so that you can picture this future you. It’s like, “Will the future me approve of or like what I’m going to do right now? If I eat that hamburger, cheeseburger, all the fries, and whatever, is this going to serve my future self?” That’s such an enlightening concept because we want to look to the future but we also have to be present. How do you balance those two? Sometimes, it’s so hard to be in the present moment and think about that future self. How do you do that?

Over time, the two of them integrate very well. This is not a practice you develop overnight. Over time, your future self will inform the habits that you want to create. I don’t know if you know or not, but I’m an endurance athlete. I do ultra marathons. I have a race coming up at the end of June 2024. I started listening a few years ago as I started training my future self for what she needs and started to develop the habits that would help me, God willing, to complete that race successfully.

By deciding what those habits are with nutrition, hydration, and training, along with other things my future self is asking me, my future self is also a mother who wants to be close to her children and very deeply connected to her adult children. My future self is also a badass coach who wants to have a thriving business. All of those messages and desires have to be turned into one small action. I keep track of one small action for each of those elements of my future self. I have a notebook where every night, I check off or I get a flat line if I didn’t make a deposit in that particular bucket for my future self. It keeps me very present.

When I hear you say, “How can you be present?” For me, presence is constantly being conscious of what matters. We are not present when we check out and do things that don’t matter, that are not in line with our values, or that feel like a waste of time later. We did it because we were people-pleasing. We did it out of habit. We did it because everybody else did it. Using your future self to keep you present is a very good system. If you are present, you’re not doing those things. It’s a virtuous cycle. Your future self tells you the habits you need to develop to keep you present. When you stay present, you don’t do stuff that doesn’t matter. Makes a lot of sense.

Surrendering Vs. Giving Up

That makes a lot of sense. Talk to us a little bit about how surrendering is not the same or is not as equal to giving up. At what point would someone know when to surrender something versus giving up?

I remember you read that blog I wrote. It resonated with you, right?

Yeah.

It’s interesting. This concept either resonates with some people or annoys and aggravates some people. They don’t even want to go there. They’re like, “Do not use that word with me. Do not say surrender.” Many of us, for whatever reason, have grown to believe that surrender is giving up or surrender is throwing up our arms. What I mean by surrender is to slow down and allow forces over and above ourselves. This could be a religious thing for you or a spiritual thing. I don’t care. You have to believe that there is a force bigger than yourself if you are going to buy into my definition of surrender.

If you don’t believe there is any force outside of yourself and that it’s all about you, then I’m not going to even have the surrender conversation with you. For those of your audience who do believe, “There is something out there bigger than myself,” surrender means you sit down in the moment, physically or figuratively, and you say, “I’m here to receive. Give me what I need at this moment.” You get off of that mode of, “I’m going to make it happen.”

Believe me. For an athlete like me where you’re doing 50 miles and you’re going 8, 9, 10, or 11 hours in the mountains, you have to be somebody who wants to get stuff done and put one foot in front of the other. Your mental strength and your mental toughness matter, but what allows you to complete and finish is your ability to sit down in certain moments and say, in my case, “God, I surrender. Give me what I need at this moment.”

You’re almost relinquishing control to the universe, God, or whatever spiritual being you believe in. For me, when it happens, I’m like, “I can’t deal with this. I’m handing it over to You. You do with it whatever You need me to do.”

It’s so interesting because it’s relinquishing control but it’s not relinquishing power. Control is not a real thing anyway. We can be in charge of things, and we should be, but we’re not in control. It’s relinquishing the false perception of control and inviting forces over and above our small human self to empower us toward our big goal. There are a lot of aspects to this. I can’t have this conversation if somebody is like, “It’s all about me.”

There’s that joke that says, “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans,” or something like that. It’s like, “This is how my life is going to go,” and it goes completely the other way. That’s also where being a pro versus being an amateur in life applies. When you get older, you’re like, “That didn’t go the way it was supposed to go, but that’s because it wasn’t meant to go that way.” You learn to accept things, surrender, and try to be the best person that you can be in spite of everything that’s happening around you.

There’s this great book by Michael Singer called The Untethered Soul. If everything around you is falling apart, you can still go within, be grounded, and maybe not be blissfully happy at that moment but you can be content with who you are and what you’ve done for that particular situation. There are ways that you can pull in or go within and still be happy and grounded in spite of everything else that’s going around the world.

I don’t watch the news. I despise the muse because 99% of it is bad. It sucks the energy out of my soul, and I can’t take it. I find news from my husband, my sisters, my siblings, and the family around me. I’m perfectly okay with that. I know a couple of people who are like, “You’re not being informed. You’re not being responsible.” I’m like, “That’s okay for me. I’m okay with that. It’s no big deal. If something happens in the world that is that big and important, someone will tell me.”

You’re exactly right. Guess what? You’re fine. You are an example. This is not about having to trust you. You’ve tested this for a long time. You are very present and perfectly fine in every area of your life. Nothing has fallen apart.

You have given us such amazing information. Thank you so much for sharing all of your amazing wisdom. I’m wondering if there’s maybe one actionable tip that you can share with the audience that they can implement.

The biggest difference you can make is conscious reflection. There are two ways to do that. You can have a beautiful notebook where you write. There’s a lot of data that shows that when our hand is moving, our brain is processing. It’s not on a computer, but handwriting. Begin that journal. Write yourself into a good idea. Write yourself into insights and reflections. Short of that, talk to someone, a professional. Do not talk to your mom or your friend because they’ll agree with you. Reflect that way. Gentle reflection is the greatest tool we have in life.

'The biggest difference you can make in life is conscious reflection.' – Carolyn Mahboubi Share on X

I love that so much. Thank you so much for, again, sharing all your amazing wisdom. This was a fantastic conversation. Have a good rest of your day.

It’s my pleasure. Thank you.

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I love it when I can have insightful conversations with leaders like Carolyn. I’m going to outline the three big ideas that I was left with. This is really important. We discussed the power of living from your future self. It’s envisioning who you want to become and letting that guide your actions. For example, if I’m trying to lose weight in a month, do I really need to eat that candy bar? The answer should be no because I’m living in that future self.

The second idea for me is that we learned the difference between fierce givers who give without losing themselves and selfless givers who often end up burned out. Carolyn also shared the concept of surrendering. That’s not necessarily giving up, but relinquishing control to a greater force which can be a game-changer in how we approach challenges. Those are my big three ideas.

Carolyn’s actionable tip is gentle reflection. She says, “Start journaling or find a professional to reflect with.” Therapy is always good for everybody, but there are so many coaches like myself, a certified high-performance coach, or Carolyn, who is a life coach. It is the most powerful tool to have someone guiding you through whatever process you want to do to gain clarity and insight.

If you are wondering how ready you are for your next promotion, don’t forget to take the Promotion Readiness Quiz. It’s the first step to really understanding where you stand and what you need to advance in your corporate career. Finally, I would love for you to consider joining the Unlock the Leader Within Membership. It is a community that is designed to help you become promotion-ready, build confidence for self-advocacy, and connect with other amazing women who are on the same journey. Don’t miss out on those valuable tools.

Finally, remember that the key takeaway from this episode is to start reflecting on who you want to become and let that guide your actions. It is time for you to live into your second half with purpose and intention. Thank you so much for joining me. Until next time, remember to be brave, be bold, and take action.

Important Links

• Carolyn Mahboubi
• Give and Take
• The Untethered Soul
• Carolyn Mahboubi – LinkedIn
• CarolynMahboubi_Coach – Instagram
• Book a Strategy Call with Rosie
• Certified High-Performance Coaching
• 4-Hour VIP Accelerator Bootcamp
• Promotion Readiness Quiz
• Unlock the Leader Within Membership

About Carolyn Mahboubi

Carolyn Mahboubi is a distinguished Life and Leadership Coach who works with some of the most extraordinary and interesting people in the world. Armed with over four decades of leadership and entrepreneurial prowess, she empowers her clients (both young and not-so-young adults) to seize the reins of their lives, families, and businesses, and lead with Radical Responsibility.