Your Value Doesn’t Expire: Career Reinvention Over 40 with Loren Greiff | 344

Summary

Podcast Summary

This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil

Episode: Your Value Doesn’t Expire: Career Reinvention Over 40 with Loren Greiff | 344
Date: September 15, 2025
Guest: Loren Greiff, career strategist, host of Career Blast in a Half podcast, founder of PortfolioRocket.com

---

Episode Overview

This episode explores the challenges and opportunities for women reinventing their careers after 40. Host Nicole Kalil and guest Loren Greiff discuss how experience and merit often get undervalued as women age, the myths and fears embedded in the dreaded label "overqualified," and actionable strategies for staying relevant and vibrant in a shifting workplace landscape. With candid conversation, tactical advice, and a focus on authenticity and purpose, the episode aims to rewrite outdated narratives and champion the unique value of seasoned professionals.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Devaluation of Experience

• Nicole’s Opening Framing (01:10): Nicole shares the irony that while experience is touted as valuable, it frequently becomes a “liability” for women as they age in the workplace.
  • “All that accumulated merit, the wisdom, the seasoning, the perspective somehow gets turned into a liability... Women are changing careers... not because they've lost something, but because they finally found something: themselves.” (01:52)
• Loren’s Perspective (03:55): Experience alone is not enough; employers care about future impact and relevance.
  • “There’s a big difference between having experience and being relevant. In today's world, they don't care what you've accumulated. They care what you're going to impact, now and next.” — Loren Greiff (04:13)

2. Decoding “Overqualified”: The Hidden Fears

Loren lays out three implicit biases in the overqualified label:

• Flight Risk: Employers fear seasoned applicants will be bored or leave quickly.

  • “You think, ‘Oh, I could nail that because I have all the qualifications.’ What they're thinking is, ‘You're going to be bored.’” — Loren (05:07)

• Too Expensive: Assumptions about salary demands.

  • “The antidote... isn’t to drop your price. It’s to identify the bigger areas of your value by way of showing specific business impact…Always a metric. That is business currency.” — Loren (06:08)

• Not Tech-Savvy: Ageists fear that experience means an inability to innovate.

  • “It says we don’t think that you’re going to be innovative, despite the fact that you’ve been through the pandemic and remote work...” — Loren (07:36)

3. Reframing Your Professional Narrative

• Shift from Past to Future (10:19)
  • Loren urges rewriting online profiles (like LinkedIn) in terms of future value—the “tomorrow story.”
    • “You're writing your professional obituary... We need to... bridge it into tomorrow. This is the love story about the future.” — Loren (10:25)
    • Nicole: “Oh, it’s a small tweak with a huge impact and it makes perfect sense.” (12:06)

4. Combatting Tech-Savvy Bias

• Action Steps from Loren (12:43):
  • Show up professionally online, especially LinkedIn
    • 97% of Fortune 500 CEOs and teams use LinkedIn; it’s your digital first impression.
    • Have an updated headshot and banner aligned with your industry and audience.
  • Demonstrate ongoing learning (e.g., AI courses, certifications)
    • Don’t just list credentials: Explain how you applied the learning and the impact.
    • “Take people on your tech journey... tell me something you learned there.” — Loren (15:45)

5. Why Women (and Men) Shift Careers After 40

• Neurological and Motivational Shift (18:35)
  • Around midlife, purpose often becomes the bigger driver than title or salary.
    • “Our brains... move away from the ladder... There's this imaginary stop sign and says, I just can't do this anymore. We start caring more about purpose. Why am I really doing this anyway?” — Loren (19:00)
  • Loren’s personal mission: “I am on a mission to end career victimization... accelerate, elevate, and celebrate one executive over 40 at a time.” (21:25)

6. Purpose and Practicality: Aligning with Roles that Fit

• Nicole’s Reflection (23:04): Echoes the midlife reevaluation of success, titles, and drive.
• Grand Slam Alignment (24:28): Loren stresses the ideal of aligning compensation, role, and purpose.

7. Job Search Realities: Hidden Job Market & Networking

• The Hidden Job Market (26:09)
  • “Jobs that are not posted are going to come by your relationships. As you grow in your career, there is no better investment.” — Loren (26:23)
  • Overdependency on online application systems/recruiters is a mistake for experienced candidates.
• Networking Effectiveness
  • Referral trust builds over multiple touchpoints; focus on giving value before making asks.
    • “People who are in decision-making seats refer trusted advisors, not some long-range acquaintance... the ask is probably three or four touch points down the road.” — Loren (28:24)
• Network Inequality Concerns (30:00)
  • Nicole notes: Women (especially mothers) and POC can face smaller, less privileged networks.
• Loren’s Solution: Clustering and Reciprocity (30:40)
  • Build bridges between clusters (e.g., work, parent groups, hobbies) and serve as the connector.
  • LinkedIn can help democratize access, but trust must be earned over time.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Relevancy and the Future (04:13)

  • “They don’t care what you’ve accumulated. They care what you’re going to impact and move next, now and next.” — Loren Greiff

• “Professional Obituary” (10:19)

  • “Probably 90 plus percent of [your LinkedIn/resume] is written in past tense. I'm going to tell you that you're writing your professional obituary.” — Loren Greiff

• On Purpose After 40 (19:00)

  • “Our brains... hit this almost like imaginary stop sign... and once we make that shift... we start caring more about purpose. Why am I really doing this anyway?” — Loren Greiff

• Nicole’s Closing Rally (33:24)

  • “If you've ever been told you're overqualified or too much or felt like your experience somehow disqualified you... let this be your reminder that it's not you, it's the system... your value doesn't expire, your merit doesn't have a shelf life. And your best work, your real work, might still be ahead of you.” — Nicole Kalil

• On Living Big (34:01)

  • “None of us were put here to live small.” — Nicole Kalil

---

Timestamps for Major Segments

• 01:10–03:55 — Introduction and Context: The paradox of experience in hiring
• 03:55–08:58 — Decoding “Overqualified”; flight risk, cost, tech perceptions
• 10:19–12:06 — Reframing your story from past accomplishments to future value
• 12:43–16:16 — Maintaining a relevant digital presence and proving tech agility
• 18:35–24:28 — The neuroscience and motivations behind midlife career shifts
• 25:40–29:31 — The realities of job searching over 40: Hidden job market and networking strategy
• 30:40–32:48 — Overcoming network disparities and building clusters
• 33:24–34:01 — Empowering closing remarks: Your value doesn't expire

---

Actionable Takeaways

• Don’t let experience be your “professional obituary”—frame your story toward what you will accomplish in the future.
• Combat ‘overqualified’ bias by demonstrating ongoing relevance, business impact, and tech adaptability.
• Invest in your network, not just your title. Relationships, not applications, land the majority of senior roles.
• Purpose and professional ambition can (and should) coexist; use both as job selection filters.
• Leverage clustering and reciprocity in your network, and don’t overlook the power of your online presence—especially LinkedIn.

---

Final Thoughts

Loren and Nicole dismantle the myth that a woman’s value fades with age, instead showcasing that “your value doesn’t expire”—and that reinvention at midlife is not only possible, but powerful. Their discussion is a rallying cry for relevance and boldness, full of tips for anyone seeking purposeful work beyond the traditional career arc.

Transcript

[Lauren Greif]

When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom 60th and never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn more at WhatsApp.com.

[Commercial Announcer]

Mutine adjective used to describe an individual whose spirit is unyielding, unconstrained, one who navigates life on their own terms, effortlessly. They do not always show up on time, but when they arrive, you notice an individual confident in their contradictions. They know the rules, but behave as if they do not exist. The new fragrance by Miu Miu defined by you.

[Nicole Khalil]

I'm Nicole Khalil, your host of the this Is Woman's Work podcast, where together we're redefining what it means, what it looks and feels like to be doing woman's work in the world today. From boardrooms to studios, kitchens to coding dens, from your street all the way to Wall street, we explore the multifaceted experiences of today's woman, which, let's face it, is no small task. In this work, as in most work, we learn by doing, by observing, by failing, and by growing. We learn through experience. And yet in today's workplace, in the hiring, the promotions, the power structures and the hierarchies, experience is often seen as an obstacle instead of an asset. Wisdom is undervalued. Merit gets quickly forgotten in the face of something newer or cheaper. I mean, people claim to value merit above all else, they say. Experience matters. We preach the importance of high standards, and yet the moment someone has too much of it, they're told they're overqualified or too expensive or quietly passed over. It's strange, isn't it? All that accumulated merit, the wisdom, the seasoning, the perspective somehow gets turned into a liability, which is alarming on its own. But factor in some pretty solid data that shows as women are getting older, they're also getting bolder, and we find ourselves in a bit of a pickle. Women are changing careers and launching businesses in their 40s and their 50s and their 60s, not just in their 20s and 30s. They're also walking away from marriages that no longer serve them in their 50s and beyond. But that's another topic for another day. And none of it is because they've lost something, but because they finally found something themselves. And still they're facing the reality of their merit. Talent and Experience being overlooked in favor of younger, cheaper, unproven options in the workplace. So we're going to talk all about that with today's guest, Lauren Greif. And she knows this all too well. After 30 years in corporate leadership, she was put on a performance improvement plan for being too real. Since then, she's committed her life to democratizing the hiring process for job seekers over 40, helping people build careers that work for them for the next five to 20 years. Host of the Career Blast and a Half podcast, Lauren is not just preaching change, she's leading it. So, Lauren, before I move into any questions about tactics or strategies, I'd love to start by having you share what you are hearing from women over the age of 40 about the challenges they face in the workplace, about this idea of being overqualified, or even your personal experience of being too real or too much.

[Lauren Greif]

Absolutely. And I love the introduction that you did because you set the stage perfectly. How I say it is a little different from how you say it. Right. What we say is that value, experience is valued. Right. But in truth, the value that you bring can't just be left on its own as experience. There's a big difference between having experience and being relevant. And so in today's world, they don't care what you've accumulated. They care what you're going to impact and move next, now and next. Right. And so this whole idea of more time equals added value is actually not a relevant or meaningful equation in today's hiring world. And so we can talk about the myths and the placeholder that overqualified really stands for. It's an umbrella firm of myriad of fears. First is overqualified means you could be a flight risk. Right. You have way too much quote, unquote experience. So why are you applying for this job? And this happens all the time. I hear this from women all the time. Well, you know, I don't need to make that much money. I'll just go and apply for this role. That may be a couple layers down. And what ends up happening is they've kind of set themselves up. There's like this invisible booby trap that's going on because you think, oh, well, I could just nail that because I have all the qualifications. And what they're thinking is, well, yeah, you're going to be bored. You're not going to want to stay for an extended period of time. We're not going to be able to, you know, as, as. As much as you think this works, it's not working for us because it can come across as I just need a job. And there's no alignment between what it really is that you're up to versus a bunch of keywords. So that, that's the first one, the flight risk. The second one is you're overqualified because we think you're too expensive. And so when we think you're too expensive, the antidote to that isn't to drop your price. It's to identify the bigger areas of your value by way of showing specific business impact. From what to what? Please do not say I improve sales 2% versus 200%. I need a benchmark. And to the best of your ability, put some dollars around that. If you're able to increase revenue by, let's just say, $2 million and you're 600,000 or 300,000, hell yeah. All day long, I want to bring you in. So part of this is overcoming isn't to make yourself smaller women, it's really to own the impact that you've had. And the good news is, despite what you may think, there's always a metric. So that is business currency. Using generalities like, you know, I'm a proven leader, heard it too many times. So that, that's, that's just a talk track or, or an old narrative that also sniffs you out as somebody who really doesn't know the impact that you have or the value that you bring. Overqualified is also the last one that's really annoying is it's, it's really the fear that you're not tech savvy. And, and I hate this because it really says we don't think that you're going to be innovative despite the fact that you've been through, you know, the pandemic and remote work and learning all these other things. I mean, in many cases, a lot of our clients, you know, didn't even have a laptop, a desktop. But this isn't about hiding your age. It's really about being able to bypass or overcome a lot of the perceptions. So everyone will, everyone will experience some level of ageism because sadly, the, the, the system is saturated with a lot of these prehistoric ideas. And so the more relevant you are, the more seed planting you start putting in the ground that, start countering that, that old idea.

[Nicole Khalil]

Yeah, I, I appreciate you decoding this term overqualified. Right. And, and it makes perfect sense. Yes, it's flight risk. It's also, you know, and sometimes people, I think, look at career opportunities and they're like, it might take a few years to get great at this job and if you're retiring in 10 years, then I'm going to have to replace you. Like, you know, there's this flight risk, but also length of time risk, the too expensive. You handled that beautifully. Tech savvy. I think that that is unconsciously on everybody's mind and I like that you provided a balance because I came in a little hot in my intro of like merit and experience. And I also think that there are relevancy issues that we need to be mindful of or that we need to be able to talk ourselves through. And I also think just like the example of the sort of flimsy things we say, I'm hard working or I improve sales or whatever, to be able to back that up with the metrics, but also the how you do it right, to be able to explain what it is that you do or that you bring the table that that makes that happen or that people are willing to invest in. So all of that to say, where do you position your experience in a way that I don't know lands for the other person hearing it?

[Lauren Greif]

There's a couple of things I really want to emphasize and these are subtle but powerful. So the first is look at your LinkedIn profile, look at your resume. Probably 90 plus percent of it is written in past tense. I'm going to tell you that you're writing your professional obituary. You're telling people that your best years are done. Right. I led this, I sold that I launched, I invigorated, I sold, I grew. Right now I think your best days are not only over, but that you're not positioning me, my company, my team, to for the future. So we call them tomorrow stories. We need to be able to bank it off of this but also be able to bridge it into tomorrow and whatever happens thereafter. This is the love story about the future of marketing, the future of fintech, the future of manufacturing. As somebody who is going to be leading, it's incumbent within your skill set that you have vision. And so I think if your vision is only looking from the now backwards, it doesn't instill a lot of confidence that you are in a position to lead me to the next and the future. If you focus just on yesterday, it's suggesting, you know, that tomorrow will be mediocre. Mediocre, right.

[Nicole Khalil]

Yeah.

[Lauren Greif]

And so there's a lot of importance in, in just that one reframe.

[Nicole Khalil]

Oh, it's a small tweak with a huge impact and it makes perfect sense. I wonder with the assumption about tech savviness is your advice for people to like, disprove it, Share all the ways you are in fact tech savvy or all of the ways that you've learned and use technology? Or is it to redirect to like for. In my case, I'm not very tech savvy truly, but I'm pretty people savvy. What would be the advice there? If we know that the person we're talking to for any opportunity might have that assumption that that would be working against us.

[Lauren Greif]

The first is please, please, for the love of God, please like show up on LinkedIn. I cannot tell you that what a strong, I mean, 97% of Fortune 500 CEOs and their teams are busy plucking from LinkedIn. Right? It is a. You do not need to say open to work. Everybody is open to work on LinkedIn. Passive, active. You do not need to. My point is that footprint and what that profile does as the first go to One stop shop can grease the skids and share a lot of information that they can learn in effort to want to get to know you and learn more about you. Your resume, which is very old school and I'm not saying you don't need one. Yes, you do need one. But the eyeballs that are going to land on your resume as compared to a LinkedIn profile are incomparable. No way. And so you need an updated headshot. You need a really strong converting banner. Please, again, do not just put a skyscraper, you know, a cityscape or something like that. That could easily tell me you're a tour guide in that city. Or if you use a mountain scenery like you're off on a vacation and you're, you're hiking. So you really want to address everything on LinkedIn as how you were going to reach and talk to your audience with their pain points. And also of course, your, your wins. That's the, that's the baseline. You must have that presence. You must. The next level up from that is to be sharing thought leadership content that speaks to your expertise. It's not an overnight thing. I need you to know that all of you, right Content is a, is a really good game and you don't need to be an excellent writer or anything. You can always start with commenting, but you want to curate that feed to reach your audience, people within your industry, other people who are thought leaders. And doing that starts spidering out your reach and says, hey, you're that person that knows something. You're that person who's confident to be able to speak on that topic. You're somebody who also is, you know, up to speed on the latest changes or, or, or tech advents or something like that. So just by doing that it starts to change that perception. Right now the final the the best thing that you can do is share all the things that you are doing by way of tech. Take people on your tech journey. There's hundreds of AI classes and certifications LinkedIn learning. Now I don't want you to just stop short and say I got this certification. Now I want to know okay, so why did you do this and how will it impact said industry, said company? How will this make you a stronger leader? Tell me something that you learned there because if you just throw the certification up, I'm not going to be able to mind read for that.

[Nicole Khalil]

Right?

[Lauren Greif]

So that is an, a very potent and and and simple way of showing that you are agile, continuously learning and if you're learning about tech, you can, you know, have a double whammy. There's right. So that's really those are kind of the three tiers.

[Nicole Khalil]

Go all in on fall with Abercrombie Kids.

[Lauren Greif]

Their newest drop of on trend outfits.

[Nicole Khalil]

Are ready for everything from the bus stop to family bonfires.

[Lauren Greif]

And it wouldn't be fall without football.

[Nicole Khalil]

Gear up.

[Lauren Greif]

The kids with officially licensed NFL tees and sweatshirts. Shop Abercrombie Kids this season in the.

[Nicole Khalil]

App, online or and in store.

[Commercial Announcer]

Does it ever feel like you're a marketing professional just speaking into the void? But with LinkedIn ads, you can know you're reaching the right decision makers. A network of 130 million of them. In fact, you can even target buyers by job title, industry company, seniority skills and did I say job title? See how you can avoid the void and reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Get [e-mail] Campaign terms and conditions apply.

[Nicole Khalil]

The Jack Welch Management Institute at Strayer University helps you go from I know the way to I've arrived with our top 10 ranked online MBA. Gain skills you can learn today and apply tomorrow. Get ready to go from make it happen to made it happen and keep striving. Visit strayer.edu Jack WelchMBA to learn more. Strayer University is certified to operate in Virginia by Chev and has many campuses including at 2121 15th Street north in Arlington, Virginia. Love it all. Great advice. Again, logical and reinforces the message that I think we all want to be sending that we might unconsciously not be. So I guess my next question is around, based on, you know, the work that you do, why do you see that women are changing careers, starting businesses, making these big life changes later in life? What are you hearing? What's the reasoning behind it?

[Lauren Greif]

Well, I'm going to address this for the women audience, but I also want to say men are not exempt. And so this is a crazy finding. I actually learned about it through this book that I read a couple of years back called Strength to Strength by Arthur C. Brooks. And it identifies that our brains, at a certain point in time, change to the degree that without getting too geeky and scientific, they move away from the ladder, right? Climb, climb, climb, promotion, promotion, increase my compensation. Like, for some reason, our brains, it deadens out. It hits this almost like imaginary stop sign and says, I just can't do this anymore. And once we make that shift, usually around 40s, early 40s or so, then we start caring more about purpose. Why am I really doing this anyway? I. I don't understand. Like, I'm not skipping to work on Mondays. I am like, wondering when the next weekend is coming. And you find yourself, all these little clues start showing up over and over and over again. You're apathetic at work. You know, even if you were paid more, you wouldn't want to stay because it's kind of either been there, done that, or it's the politics or it's something else. And so when we are with our clients, the very, very, very first thing that we do is strip away a lot of the head noise. I am a this, I am a that, what? And we get underneath this very, very important and literally catalystic trigger and we understand what contribution they want to bring to X and what is the impact of that contribution. Now, it sounds very easy because people, I want to generate more sales or I want to do this. That, that's just on the surface level. So we really need to understand some of the underlying motivators. I'll share my why, because it was not an easy thing. But it can work as an example to demonstrate this contribution and the impact of it. So my contribution, the first piece is I am on a mission to end career victimization. Like that is come hell or high water. I talk about it all day long. I post about it. I am it. I am an embodiment of that on multiple levels. The impact of that, accelerate, elevate and celebrate one executive over 40 at a time. So this stealth statement serves as, like, the mojo. It's, it's Intrinsic in you. I could get like, all, like, goose pimply about it because honestly, when I see those lights go on and when our clients own it for themselves, 99% of all the other things start falling into place because it becomes a filter. If that company doesn't want that contribution or doesn't need that contribution, we want to understand is that contribution also an expensive problem, an urgent and expensive problem. Problem that that company or that audience needs to be solved. Right. I know that career victimization is everywhere. Right. Right. If everybody. If everybody knew how to do this, they do it. So I think it's really important to. To really be able to through that process where that break point is between. I don't really care that much about the. I mean, I care that I have a big title. Yeah. And that's not going away. But the reason why I have it is now more important than just the place, the marker.

[Nicole Khalil]

It's interesting. I mean, this is all interesting. It's personally interesting to me because I've experienced a similar shift. Right. In my 40s. It really became this questioning of when is enough enough? What is my actual purpose? What am I trying to accomplish or prove over here? Like, the latter visual was perfect because I was tired. Like, I. I wasn't interested on what the next steps were going to bring or what it was going to take to get there. And it became a lot more about, I'll say, purposes, because I think that there may be evolving, growing purpose in there. And, you know, I certainly don't want to be undervalued. And I definitely have moments when I see people with I. You're also a podcast host, so you might relate to this. But, like, when somebody has a bigger podcast, I have, like, a competitive moment. Or when somebody, you know, says that they're making millions of dollars, there's that, like, oh, could I do that moment too? And yet I find myself more and more often in the. Like, I'm not motivated by that anymore. Maybe for a second or a moment, but not long enough. Not sustainable enough for me to want to do anything about it. Like, it is interesting. And I don't want people in their 40s and 50s to be undervalued because now they care more about purpose than.

[Lauren Greif]

Well, that's, That's. That's the whole thing. Right.

[Commercial Announcer]

They.

[Lauren Greif]

They can not just coexist. They ideally should be aligned. That's your grand slam. That's what we focus on for each and every client. Because in the. At the end of the day, when they have multiple offers they're not always going to pick the one that comes with the title or comes with the bigger comp package. They go back and they have to ask themselves many, many, many times, especially when, when they know they've come from a toxic culture, they're like, never again. Right. And that is on many levels, a part of a part of purpose. I want to be with people that I can collaborate with, that I, that I genuinely like that I vibe with. There's nothing wrong with that. Doesn't. You don't have to make that trade off. You may make other compromises like a longer commute, but you are, you have control over what it is that you prioritize and then what it is that you eventually sign up for.

[Nicole Khalil]

Yeah, tactically, strategically, you mentioned LinkedIn. I think that's a big example of this. But for many people, it may have been decades since they last interviewed or looked for a position. What are some things that we might want to be aware of that have changed dramatically that will make a career search or even just looking at other opportunities a little bit more approachable?

[Lauren Greif]

Absolutely. So I am a big advocate for the hidden job market, which means jobs that are not posted. I can swear by it, not only personal experience, but from all of our clients who, who have found a variety of opportunities, changes, you know, things underground, jobs that are not posted, those are going to come by your relationships. Right. Everybody really does have a network. I can't say that they're all, you know, top of mind or, you know, they haven't atrophied, but as you grow in your career, there is no better investment. I don't care what it is that you're doing. I don't care what industry you're in. As you become more senior, those posts and those recruiters are going to get become a smaller and smaller portion of how you're eventually going to land so overdependency on applicant tracking systems and also expecting recruiters to be the messiah and come to you and find you all these jobs and, you know, do all the heavy lifting. No more. There's no recruiter can sit in an interview or, you know, build your network or really get under the hood of even the energy that you're going to be, you know, bringing to that conversation. So you really need to accept that right off the bat because the job market is not ever going back to what we used to know, where people could really leverage the pedigree, the titles and all the things that previously worked. Right. I need to see the proof. I need to know how you've done this and I need to know exactly, you know, why it was so instrumental. And so you have to tell me those things. I have to, you have to again embody that. So that's really important. Really important is your network. A lot of people think that they network and I'm not saying that they don't. But you also need to understand that there is a life cycle for how long it takes before somebody is willing to make a referral. So one touch point, two touch points, probably not going to work, right. Unless you really really know this person. People who are in decision making seats, refer trusted advisors, not some long range acquaintance, right. I need to know you if you're going to sit in a seat that also is high paying and let's face it like my name is on this, so I'm putting myself at risk if I don't know you enough to be able to refer and recommend you. So careful, please be careful not to burn your network going out of the gate and making an ask. That ask is probably, you know, three or four different touch points down the road at least, right? So give, give, give, give, give, show.

[Nicole Khalil]

Interest, do your homework on that point. I, that does jive with what I see too. Whereas it's a lot of times the people who refer you in or the connections you have or the people in your network that are being prioritized even heavier today than ever before over degrees or where you went to college or you know, designations or all of that. The one thing that I worry about is there is some research that shows this puts women and people of color at a disadvantage because for example, women with children, a lot of times their professional network feels or gets smaller because they don't do the evening or the, you know, weekend or the golf courses or the what have you with care responsibilities. Sometimes our networks can be and feel smaller. And also if it's a little bit about who you know, unless you have the privilege of being, growing up with or going to school with or being connected with the right people, that can be hard. So any thoughts or tips there?

[Lauren Greif]

I think you raise such, such an important point. Those people, right? Ideally in the, in, in an ideal circumstance you're acting as a broker, brokering a relationship from, let's just say you know, your gym and your college, you're building off of the, the pockets of people that you know, other moms, great, they want to meet other people that may have been from a prior job. You want to be doing that. And that is a very different model than Just having kind of like this big network. So it's called clustering, right? You're pulling from these different clusters, and it's always coming back to you. Oh, how do you know, how do you know Nicole? Oh, I know her from, you know, this dance class I used to take. Or, you know, I know her because her kids were in the same soccer, you know, whatever that, whatever that commonality. But you're the, you're the middleman. That's a, that's a great position to be in because naturally, every time you do that, the likelihood and the law of reciprocity says that's going to happen for you. So you want to create that flywheel. But the, but the other, the other piece that you're, that you're raising is that not everyone has the in for that network. And on some level, I'm not going to say that it's easy, but LinkedIn is, is a playing field that you can build those relationships. I mean, if you show up consistently and you build that trust again, not the first time, you're going to reach out and say, I just want to connect. Because I don't know you, right? I don't know you yet. But if you start doing research and bring something to the table that speaks to a pain point or an idea that you have that you know would be, you know, something that is within their wheelhouse, you're getting, you're getting really warm.

[Nicole Khalil]

Lauren, I could ask you so many more questions. We are out of time. So I want to make sure, on the note of LinkedIn, that people can find and follow you there. So it's Lauren Grif on LinkedIn. And we'll put that link as well as the link to her website portfolio rocket.com in show notes. Lauren, thank you for this conversation today. And listener, if you or someone you care about is 40 and over looking for a career change or a job opportunity or purpose opportunity, make sure you find and follow. Lauren. Lauren, thanks so much.

[Lauren Greif]

Thank you.

[Nicole Khalil]

All right, friend, if you've ever been told you're overqualified or too much or felt like your experience somehow disqualified you from an opportunity, let this be your reminder that it's not you, it's the system. And also you have a lot to say about it because your value doesn't expire, your merit doesn't have a shelf life. And your best work, your real work, might still be ahead of you, because as Lauren says, we don't age by living long. We age by living small. And if I know one thing for damn sure, it's this. None of us were put here to live small.

[Lauren Greif]

Small.

[Nicole Khalil]

So here's to women being bolder, living bigger, and getting better with age, and embracing the shit out of it. Because all of that is woman's work.

[Lauren Greif]

And Doug Limu and I always tell.

[Commercial Announcer]

You to customize your car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual.

[Lauren Greif]

But now we want you to feel it. Cue the emu music.

[Commercial Announcer]

Limu.

[Lauren Greif]

Save yourself money today. Increase your wealth. Customize and save. We save.

[Commercial Announcer]

That may have been too much feeling. Only pay for what you [e-mail] Liberty Liberty Liberty. Liberty Savings Very underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts. Mike and Alyssa are always trying to outdo each other. When Alyssa got a small water bottle, Mike showed up with a 4L jug. When Mike started gardening, Alyssa started beekeeping. Oh, come on. They called a truce for their holiday and used Expedia trip planner to collaborate on all the details of the trip. Once there, Mike still did more laps around the pool.

[Nicole Khalil]

Whatever.

[Commercial Announcer]

You were made to outdo your holidays. We were made to help organize the competition. Expedia Made to travel.

[Lauren Greif]

Hey JJ Virgin here on my podcast, well Beyond 40, we ditched the idea.

[Commercial Announcer]

Of aging gracefully and go all in on aging powerfully.

[Lauren Greif]

Every week I host powerful experts who can give you powerful insights on building muscle, boosting your energy, and feeling amazing no matter what your age. This is your one life. And trust me, being smarter and stronger.

[Commercial Announcer]

Are superpowers that can turn lifespan into strength span.

[Lauren Greif]

Listen to well beyond 40 wherever you you get your podcasts.

[Commercial Announcer]

Hi listeners, it's Jack Bishop. I'm the ingredients guy on America's Test Kitchen's public television show and the host of our award winning podcast. Proof. Proof combines history, science and culture to tell unexpected stories about food. Every episode is filled with aha moments that you'll want to share at your next dinner party. New episode episodes drop every Thursday. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and you might never look at food the same way again.