+ Episode Transcript

0:00
Welcome to the podcast. My name is Thor Challgren. And the episode that you're about to listen to I've titled let's talk about change. Because, well, welcome back.

0:15
I've been away for a year. And in this episode, I want to talk about change change as it affected me, and then also what it means for this podcast going forward. So thank you so much for joining me today.

0:33
In this episode, I want to talk about why I was away for a time, what led to that, and then what my intentions are for the podcast moving forward. So I'm going to talk a little bit about what happened, my journey leading up to this point. And then I'm going to give you a couple of ways that the new podcast will be similar to what I had before but then also different. So we're going to talk about the focus of the podcast, and also the format of the podcast. So let's jump right into it.

1:15
As you may know, if you've listened to the show, before I started a podcast in 2020, around the time that the pandemic began to be something that affected all of us, this was in the spring of 2020. And I produced a number of episodes through the fall of 2020. And then at that point, I reached a level in my personal life where things began to be challenging. And specifically, in my case, because of the pandemic, I was in a situation where I wanted to go out and help take care of my father, he was on his own, and we couldn't have people come into his house, we couldn't have him taken care of outside of his house. So the most logical thing for us was for someone in the family to take care of him in his home. And that turned out to be me. And that happened in October of 2020, and went all the way through April of 2021. So a good long time, during which I got to really spend a lot of great time with my dad, which I really appreciate. But it was a situation in terms of work, where it was challenging to do everything else that I have going on with my work and continue with the podcasts. And so I sort of took a hiatus for that reason.

2:41
And another reason that sort of made sense was that during that time in my business, I began to become more focused very specifically on who I wanted to help. As you may have recalled from the original podcast, it was called course change. So I talked a lot about change, and how we can adapt to it, the strategies that we can bring to it the way that it impacts our life. And some of the episodes I had were very specifically talking to people who were empty nesters. And around that time, this just became something that I became very much more laser focused on because it was who I was. So that led me over the last year to really look at that. And that became the focus of my business in terms of who I help. And so it just seemed natural to me that when I restarted the podcast, that that would be my principal focus.

3:46
I kept thinking I would restart the podcast. And there kept being reasons why I thought well, I'll do that next. I'll do that later. Well, the time is now. And the new podcast begins next week.

3:59
So right now, I want to talk about what's going to be the same and what's going to be different. So let me start with talking about the format of the podcast. This is the first difference how it's going to be different.

4:14
What you'll see when it resumes next week is there will be an interview episode that will drop early in the week, I think either Monday or Tuesday, but for sure, in the beginning of the week, that's going to be an interview where I talk with someone who I think will have interest to the listener and they may be an empty nester themselves. They may be an expert or someone who brings interesting points of view or perspectives to empty nesters, in a lot of cases these are people that I either know or have an interest in learning from them and teat and understanding how what they have to teach and share can educate me can inspire me and hopefully do the same as well for you. So that episode will be probably 30 to 45 minutes, that's going to be me interviewing them.

5:08
Then later in the week, I'm going to have another episode, which will be just me. And I'm going to be doing a recap of my discussion with them. So this is really a chance for me to step back, think about our conversation, and pull out three to five highlight points that I want to share with you that I personally got value of that I benefited from. And hopefully you can too, so that episode will be later in the week, probably Thursday or Friday. And it will be probably 15 to 20 minutes, somewhere in there. And again, it's going to be a summary a recap of the interview that happened. So you could probably listen to that one without listening to the interview. But I recommend both because I think you're really gonna hopefully benefit the most from listening to the interview. And then seeing Okay, here are the takeaways that I had. So that's how the format is going to be different.

6:09
It's also going to have a new name. So you'll see that when the feed drops on that week, the beginning of the new format, which is going to be November 15. So speaking of feed, there's something it's going to be the same, the same exact feed the same way that you listened to the show before, if you were subscriber, you would continue to be subscribed to this new feed all of the episodes that I had before the interviews that I had, before they are all going to be there, you will now see new artwork, the new name of the podcast will be on there the new artwork, but it's going to be the same interview, what will change in some of the instances is the opening and closing of that episode will now have the new name, the new branding of the show, I'm going to be doing that probably over the first month or so is I'll be converting the old legacy episodes which so much good stuff, those will start to be transitioned to having the new opening and closing.

7:13
So you may hear in the first month or so some episodes that may still have the old name, but just know that that's going to be changed as I am able to do that. So that's going to be the same. So if I refer to a show, it's gonna have the same episode number, and it'll be the same title, what will just be different as the name so that's one of the things that's the same.

7:39
Another thing that is the same is the focus. As I said earlier, my overall interest is in change. We, in case it wasn't obvious are going through so much change right now, you can look at the news. And people talk about whether people want to return to work in an office environment or whether they may want to stay home or things that are just we could not have imagined a year or two ago. I think what has happened with the pandemic is that it's speeded up all of these things in society that we're changing. So that, to me is still an overall topic that's super interesting. It's I'm passionate about it.

8:26
What's different is that right now I am exploring the idea of change through what for me is a very personal lens and that's my place in life as an empty nester parent. I am now rediscovering what I want to do in the rest of my life. If you are an empty nester parent, you may be at a point where everything that you knew about your life up to this point has been sort of programmed, you knew that you were going to end your 20s you, you finished school, you go out, you get your first job, your first apartment, you meet someone, maybe you enter into a relationship, you get married, you have kids, all of those things were sort of obvious to you as to what came next. You knew that okay, I'm just going to tick the next box until you became an empty nester until your kids go out into the world. And so now you're societal role in some ways, is what are you just supposed to sit around and wait until you become a grandparent? Or until you retire? And then you're just going to travel? I mean, those are all great things. I look forward to those.

9:48
But if I have 30 years left in my life, shouldn't I want something more like a greater purpose for my life and that's really the conversation that I want to bring as how do we go from a place of not knowing of feeling, in some ways, an emptiness of what's next for me and move into the idea that there are greater things that I can do in life, there's a greater purpose for me still. And that's really the conversation that I want to have is how, as an empty nester parent, can I begin to imagine something greater for my life? And this is interesting, because when I first started thinking about this idea, I asked myself, would it be okay? If what I do and the rest of my life is even better than what I did as a parent. And I think, when that idea first hit me, there was something that was a little unsettling about that.

10:57
Because as parents, we're sort of societally trained to think that there's no greater role that you can have in life than being a parent. And I think that's true, up to a point. But if you have a belief that you'll never do anything greater in life than be apparent, and you still have 30 years of life left, what does that say? About those 30 years, you've already set this limiter if you believe that, that you'll never do something greater than be a parent.

11:36
So part of my challenge in the work I do and in this podcast, is to challenge that assumption that we may have, that there is not a greater role for you for me, than being a parent, because I believe there is. So that's one of the focuses I want to bring is how we can begin to define what that new purpose is, what does it look like? What value can we bring to the world that's as good if not better than what we did as a parent.

12:12
And believe me, I am so proud of the work that I did as a parent, and the person my daughter is becoming, that means the world to me. So I don't take it lightly to say that I want to do something better than that. But I have to believe that my bar that I set for myself is so high, that I want to exceed it.

12:35
So that's the focus that I bring to this podcast now is looking at what roles we can have as parents, and what we can discover in terms of a purpose that fulfills us for the rest of our life. So what you can count on what you can expect the podcast to look like, we're going to be talking about a number of ideas, including, how do you give yourself permission to move forward.

13:06
And I think that's a really key first step is that you have to decide that it's okay, to discover something greater for yourself, I believe we have to give ourselves that permission. Otherwise, we're gonna have this sort of upper limit belief that Well, I can't do that. Because that would mean that I'm not a good parent if I do something greater. So that's the first step, we're going to be talking a lot about that idea of permission.

13:33
The next is discovering what your purpose is. So one of my passions in this is to talk to people, where we can have conversations about what different purposes look like, what you might want to do with the rest of your life, and how you can explore that.

13:49
We're also going to be talking about relationships. Obviously, you know that when your kids go off to school, you now have a new relationship with them. They are adults. So how does that relationship look different? We're going to explore that. If you have a spouse, this is a new relationship to because it's possible that in the last 15 or 20 years that your relationship with each other has been defined in your role as a parent, well, you're still a parent, but your job as a parent is done. So now, what does that do to your relationship with your spouse? So we're going to talk about that.

14:34
We're also going to talk about what your new identity is. How do you define yourself? This became so clear to me. I remember the first time someone I was meeting for the first time asked me what I did before when my daughter was at home before she went to college. It was easy for me to answer any number of things but one of the most obvious One was, well, I'm a stay at home parent, I'm a stay at home dad, I raised my daughter, that was the definition that I had for myself was in relationship to someone else. Well, now, while you are still a parent, it would be much harder for me to say I'm a stay at home parent, because frankly, I'm not. So what does that new identity look like for me? So one of the things we're going to be talking about in the podcast is, how do you find that new identity for yourself? And what does it look like? And I have a number of ideas on how we can approach that both in the small and the big picture.

15:42
And then we're also going to talk about friendships. And how do you find nurture, friendships that support and motivate and inspire you. One of the things that was fascinating to me, as I sort of looked back at my life was many of the friendships that I had were all as a result of activities that our daughter was involved in, whether it was soccer, or cheerleading, or Girl Scouts, we became friends with so many awesome people, because their kids were also going through those activities. So when school was done, when those activities were finished, all of us as great friends, as we were, we kind of didn't have that ready made reason to continue to see each other all the time. And in many cases we do and I love that. But what can happen is you can discover as an empty nester parent, that your friendships, which were built upon school activities, other activities, maybe those aren't as strong. So what I want to talk about is, how do we redefine what those relationships look like? And how do you go out and nurture the circle of friends you have, so that as you are going out and doing greater things, that you have a circle of friends that support you.

17:12
So those are the things that I want to talk about my focus in the podcast, I hope that you can hear in my voice how excited I am. I'm looking forward to continuing this conversation. When the new podcast begins the week of November 15, I hope you will come back at that point and begin to hear how we're going to evolve this conversation. It's going to be change through a very specific lens. And I'm super excited for that.

17:45
I thank you so much for listening to the show. If you've been a listener in the past, I hope that you'll continue to be with us and continue on this journey with me. I appreciate you so much. And so I will simply close this episode by saying I will talk to you soon. And we'll see you on November 15th. Thank you so much. Take care.