Making it Work: Discovering New Opportunities to Build a Business at Any Age (Rerelease)

[00:00:00] Eric Brotman: Welcome to Don’t Retire… Graduate!: The podcast that teaches you how to advance into retirement rather than retreating. I’m your host and valedictorian Eric Brotman and we have a very special guest today. Caitlin Pyle, who is the founder of Proofread Anywhere and Work at Home School. The timing could not be better with what we’re going through, uh, with the COVID epidemic.

Uh, in four years, she’s built a multimillion dollar company, teaching thousands of students how to start their own proofreading business from home. Proofread Anywhere teaches students the skill of meticulous proofreading, as well as basic marketing and how to find your own clients and keep them as a freelancer.

Work at Home School is the second brainchild of Caitlin’s. A multi contributor product for people who know they wanna work online, but don’t know exactly what it is that they wanna do. Work at homeschool offers at least 35 products at any given time in the work at home niche and between proofread anywhere and work at homeschool Caitlin has helped thousands of people find more freedom and a better financial future and who doesn’t want that? Caitlin, welcome to the show.

[00:01:01] Cait Lockwood: Hey Eric, thank you so much for having me on it’s a pleasure.

[00:01:05] Eric Brotman: The timing for this show could not be better. All of us are experiencing remote work. Uh, many of us, I should say, are experiencing remote work for the first, uh, for the first time in some careers. Um, and there’s also a wave of unemployment and a need for additional ways to work from home. There’s gonna be a lot happening in the next couple of months and even years, uh, as this healthcare and then economic crisis unwind. So, um, I, I, I can’t wait to talk about some of the things that you’re helping folks do, but why don’t you tell us a little bit about how you got started doing this and, and why?

[00:01:40] Cait Lockwood: Well, it definitely wasn’t something that I even knew of even five years ago, I’m coming off of my five year business anniversary of incorporating into, you know, an S corporation. More tax benefits, of course. But I didn’t know, five years ago that what I’m doing now was even possible. And so I have to say that it really all happened accidentally with something also somewhat catastrophic happening to me.

I got fired in 2011 and, um, it had already put in my notice and it was, it was just good timing, really, but it still shook me up and it was traumatizing because the people I worked for were not really that nice . And so I didn’t go without having some bridges burnt behind me to put it lightly and I do write about more of that story in my book, but it’s, it was not something that I saw coming and it was something that I needed to navigate through for the first time. I spent three weeks in a funk, a little bit of a depression and went to personal training school and found out I didn’t really like it.

But because I had, I, I worked at a court reporting office, so I guess I should I say where I worked and where I was fired, because that’s quite relevant. And, and while I was working at the court reporting office, I learned how to proofread the transcripts that the court reporters were that were turning in for our clients.

And I didn’t know for the year and a half that I worked there. I did not know. Even though we worked with freelancers, Lance proof recruiters, I didn’t know that I could proof read. Full-time I guess I knew that other people were kind of doing it or at least proofreading part-time and making money, um, independent of a regular job or in addition to a regular job.

But I guess it was more about my mindset and I didn’t think that I could do it. I thought max, a hundred pages, max, you know, $25 extra a day. And you know, that’s something I could fit in here and there, but being a full-time or even part-time freelance proofreader as my primary income source was just not, not something that I ever believed was possible yet here I was a year and a half into that job and I got fired unexpectedly and I thought, oh, I guess I have to go back to school. I guess I have to go and like start a new career. And I picked personal training cuz I had really gotten into fitness and wanted to help other people do the same.

And figured that whole thing out, but on the side, because I didn’t have any income and just gotten married and five months after getting married, getting fired was, was not fun. And so I started to, or continued to proofread, you know, on a very part-time basis while I was in personal training school and realized once I got into personal training, that it wasn’t something I wanted to do because it wasn’t something I could do location independently. I’d have to be there on location and sacrifice, uh, time to earn this, you know, fake money in the system that we live in. And that wasn’t something I wanted to do. And I enjoyed the flexibility of proofreading more. And so i just continued to follow those leads and grow that side to where I couldn’t, I didn’t need to, uh, do personal training anymore.

And then the same thing kind of happened that rolled into what the business I have now is Proofread Anywhere where I teach how to do that, um, just didn’t know where it would go. And then just continued following and continuing continued going forward. Even, even when the lights weren’t on. Even when I was in the dark, I just kept going forward.

And. and here I am today. Um, also, I’m divorced. I’ve been divorced a year and, and that also an unexpected bump in the road. But, uh, here I am, and that’s a little, that’s a very short version of a very long story that’s still unfolding, Of course. .

[00:05:11] Eric Brotman: That, that, that is, um, that, that gives an incredible amount of perspective. Okay. Because you, you’re combining several different things, um, all at once that not everyone can do at least the way you are doing it. So one of them is having the discipline to work from home. and lots of us are getting some of that discipline. Now, the, the, the theory was the companies didn’t want people to work remotely because what if they’re not really working?

You know, how do we, how do we babysit them? So to speak, how do we make sure people are actually doing their jobs? And, um, fortunately I think we’re, we’re getting past that. The second though, is entrepreneurship. You know, you, you, for you to launch a company and, and to do this takes, um, it, it takes a, a, an entrepreneurial spirit.

It takes, um, nerve, um, it takes guts and it takes a passion for a why. And then the third thing is teaching which it also comes down to being very mission driven. So you, you take the, the working from home, the entrepreneurship, and the teaching and I would say you’ve got a, um, you’ve got a, a real trifecta going for you.

Um, and you’ve built this into a very successful company and a brand and have done a book and have a podcast and, and an online course and all these kinds of things. So I, I don’t even know where to start with you. Caitlin, other than number one, congratulations for an incredible run in a very short period of time. What advice would you give to someone who right now is, is perhaps either a career changer or looking for some freelance or extra income or, you know, what’s the first step? What should some someone do? Presumably read your book, of course. But what else should somebody do when they’re looking into that?

[00:06:51] Cait Lockwood: well, it’s funny, you mentioned the book because in the book we have like a three step kind of system that I’ve come up with in looking at my students and looking at myself and figuring out what everybody who’s been successful has in common. And most people think, oh, well, they just, they go out and they, they make money and they go out and they get clients and, and that that’s actually step three in the system.

There’s two other steps that need to take place before you can ever, uh, get to where you can get clients and keep them. I mean, you might be able to get some things in short term. And I tell that to my Proofread Anywhere students. If you enroll in the course and immediately you think, you know how to proofread, you skip all the, the learning up until getting clients and you go out and you try to find work, you’re not gonna have the same confidence as somebody who takes their time. And so, um, I’ve got two steps ahead of ever launching and trying to find paying clients. And so step one is to break free from what has been holding you back. And for many of us that has been these lies that we are programmed with and our upbringing and, and, and our schools and by parents and churches and, and, and all kinds of organizations and, and groups of people who all have some, some kind of interest. Right? And, and for many of us, we went to the public school system and we are programmed with this idea that we get an education by going to school, we incur some debt and we get a mortgage with a regular job and we’re gonna be like pretty much middle class for the rest of our lives. And that’s basically what we do.

We’re we’re we are taught to be cogs in a wheel and we’re taught that money is a scarce resource and there’s not enough to go around while in the background uh, the government prints money and it’s it, the value has gone way, way down. And so we’re all working really, really hard, too hard in fact, to make a bunch of this fake money.

And so identifying that, that we have um, while we have been victimized by a system, we are not victims forever and we can do something about it. And there’s other lies that we might need to break free of as well. Uh, lies that we tell ourselves like, oh, maybe I’m too old or it’s too late. Things like that.

Maybe you’ve, you’ve heard and talked about those things on the show. I know you have. And so um, those may be lies that you need to identify in yourself. And so that willingness to look yourself in the mirror and say, you might be the one standing in my way right now. In fact, like what’s behind me, I can’t see.

And you try to, you try to see around your, your mirror reflection and, and you just can’t. And so uh, that you just really have to get real with yourself. And so that’s step one is breaking free and identifying those lies. And in order to break free, you have to identify them. And so that can take some time, but being willing to talk to people about it, and you might wanna go see a therapist. I’m seeing one and it helps a lot.

Um, and a lie you might be telling yourself is, oh, I don’t need therapy. Right? And so just being honest with yourself, being your own best friend instead of your own worst enemy. And, and then you can move on to step two, which is, which is leveling up and this is coming straight out of my book and I’ve, I’ve grown a lot since I wrote the book.

And so you’re getting more of a juicier edition even right now. And, and I haven’t spoken about this stuff anywhere else. And so if you’re listening to this, you’re, you’re getting this from, from Eric fresh and uh, so leveling up by replacing those things that you identified with truths. So those lies that you were told those myths and replacing them with things that are true about yourself, about the world and about your potential in it for growth and for an abundance mindset versus a scarcity mindset.

And then you’ll also need to identify what your current skill level is. Um, so in order to level up, you need to identify what your level is right now. And adding skills if necessary polishing existing skills. And it’s really continuing step one and being honest with yourself and assessing yourself, um, at a practical level.

And then once you’ve done that, you can then move on to step three, which is finally, uh, launching. But the thing is not skipping those steps is so key because that’s gonna build up your confidence in a big, big way that’s gonna make launching much more simpler, easier. And if you break it down that way, it becomes accessible to anyone and everyone, because we’ll talk about lies more in a minute, but I wanted to, uh, I wanted to lay out the three steps.

I wanna lay out three steps first.

[00:11:03] Eric Brotman: well, I love that and I love that I got an inside scoop. So make sure you don’t tell anyone else about any of this. we’ll keep it between us and our listeners. While you were speaking, I was making some notes and the note that I made was abundance mentality. And then you, you know, you, you talked about abundance versus scarcity, and I thought that was an incredibly profound pivot point.

And it sounds like you went through that, um, in your life. I, I completely agree with you that some of the programming being done, particularly in public schools, but just in general is a, a dangerous phenomenon. I, I see very much an alignment with you on that. Um, and with our show, one of the things that we try to do is get people to break this idea, this program that you must retire someday by retreating disappearing and, and, you know, sitting home, watching Oprah and playing shuffle board, or, or how many rounds of golf can you play? Um, it seems to me that, that this idea of working as hard as you can for 45 years just to pay, uh, a house down, which you might not even be able to afford to keep anyway because of taxes and you work real, real, real hard to get there.

And then you’re just done and you sit around and wait to die. That, that that’s not living and it sure isn’t thriving and it’s definitely not an abundance mentality. So let’s talk about some of the things you called them lies. I, I love that. It’s um, it’s, um, that’s definitely going to create some, some, uh, some good juice for the show.

So I appreciate that. What kind of lies are you talking about? What kind of things do you think we’re programmed with that stand in our own way?

[00:12:31] Cait Lockwood: Well, one specific to this particular audience that is wanting to retire, but not retire in the conventional way, is that a fixed income is not unfixable. You can fix that problem because a lot of people, they write into me and they’re in that, in that, in that demographic where they’re getting ready to retire and they say, “well, I’m on a fixed income. And I just can’t afford to invest in training and blah, blah, blah. And. You know, I need that savings for later.” Well, inherent in that statement is the assumption that they’re gonna stay fixed forever, even if they add new skills. And the thing is when you add new skills, uh, and your confidence grows, and you realize that you’re living inside a box that you’ve created and that a lot more exists on the outside of that box if you’re willing to open it and look outside, poke some holes, maybe shove an elbow through the ceiling of the box, set it on fire. Anything that you can do to get rid of that box and realize that that fixed income is not the solution you thought it was.

And you need something new and better that’s going to, to solve the problem of the fixed income, because it’s clear in the emails that I see that that are saying that a fixed income is the reason that they can’t invest. That’s also the reason that they can’t make more money. And so that’s literally a prison cell that they’ve constructed. So that’s a big example of a lie that’s very relevant to this audience.

[00:13:51] Eric Brotman: Well, it’s true. And a fixed income is not fixed. It’s actually eroding because the cost of living adjustment that, um, that comes on some of those things, whether it be social security or a pension or other things tends to be a lot less than the actual inflation rate that people face, especially seniors, because seniors spend money on three things and none of them, uh, none of them have, are subject to the same type of inflation rate as groceries, for example.

The three things senior spend money on, if they’re healthy, it’s leisure, which is not, uh, something that goes up by one or 2% a year. If they’re not healthy, it’s medical and healthcare, which we know is escalating, um, geometrically. Uh, and then a lot of seniors wind up spending money on education because parents can’t afford to educate their own kids and grandparents are helping.

And we know that that has escalated outta control. So fixed income is, is really a, it is a decreasing lifestyle. And with people living longer, it is a, a recipe for poverty.

[00:14:52] Cait Lockwood: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:14:53] Eric Brotman: Why would anyone sign up for that?

[00:14:54] Cait Lockwood: Yeah, exactly. And I just am helping my dad out with things as well. And he’s he’s 72.

And I guess I could add to the list of things seniors spend money on in his case would be scratch off lottery tickets but he hasn’t won yet, but, but we we’ve part we’ve partnered up on, uh, some things financially just to make sure that he’s gonna be okay and he’s on, he’s on social security. And of course I can support him, but he’s, you know, very independent and I want him to be, to be, comfortable. And so, um, yeah, just, just helping him out with that, but it is absolutely true. There’s, there’s so much out there that is still feeding seniors this lie, that you can survive on a certain amount and it’s just not true. You’ve got to look outside the box and realize that that you don’t have to sit and play golf or Majong or gamble or whatever.

whatever. And, and you can grow, you can grow and become something that, that you never thought possible because things exist now that make things possible that never were even 10 years ago. And my job wasn’t possible 10 years.

[00:16:02] Eric Brotman: So you’re saying retirement could in fact be a graduation to the next days phase of your life? I’m so glad we connected because we’re definitely on the same page.

[00:16:10] Cait Lockwood: We are.

[00:16:11] Eric Brotman: So, so we’ve had guests on this show. We’ve had guests on this show, um, in their eighties who are talking about ways that octogenarians can start businesses or, or do things to not necessarily even because they need the money, but because they wanna stay active and plugged in and engaged because I, I can think of nothing worse if, if we’ve learned nothing from the currently six or seven weeks that a lot of us have spent in our basements um, I, I, I can think of nothing worse than 30 years of being idle. Um, having a reason to get outta bed every morning matters. So you’ve got two distinct businesses. Correct? One is one is specific to proofreading as a, uh, a freelance and a, and a work at home opportunity. And the other is a school with lots of different ways to work from home. Is that, is that a fair, uh, assessment?

[00:17:01] Cait Lockwood: Mm-hmm yeah. Proofread anywhere is much more specialized. And in fact, um, there’s a bit of that program, some of, some of the program in work at home school. And so work at home school is designed for people cause I realized there’s a lot of people that just proofreading wasn’t a good fit. And so what about them? And, and that’s how I got into affiliate marketing, which is just another form of a way that, that anyone can earn money online. Um, But then that evolved into having networked with all of these people who are also course creators like me. And we put our heads together and created work at home school and it’s, it’s got 35 people contributing to it right now. And that leaves us at a great price point for people where it’s accessible instead of spending what would add up to $7,500 on all of our instructor’s material, they’re paying less than 500 and that makes it way more accessible for, for folks with fixed, fixed income. And, uh, even those who are like, okay, well this might not work out and if it doesn’t, it’s, you know, it’s only $500. So it really hits all the bases. But what we were seeing is that people are choosing and finding it easier to get started because they don’t have to spend so much time looking for, for what’s legitimate, what would work and, and they’re finding people who are already successful that have great content that can help them be successful too in many areas.

So it gives them an outlet to figure out what works for them, which didn’t really exist in this way before with support and a community that they can plug into, uh, to make friends and to have support when things get tough, because a lot of seniors are also at home, uh, alone, whether it’s in quarantine or it’s because maybe their spouses passed away or for whatever reason, the kids moved out. There’s so many different things that could be going on and it’s so important to have a community. And so that’s, that’s a big, that’s a big thing that, that we we pride ourselves in, at work at home schools, just having a community of people where, you know, people from all age groups come together to share wisdom and what’s working for them and their successes and even failures, you know, cuz failures are just lessons. And I think a lot of people are afraid of failure. Um, but failures are just lessons and, and I think the older demographic really gets this actually, um, more so than our millennials and, and uh, you know, the baby boomers even. Um, although those I guess overlapping now.

[00:19:22] Eric Brotman: But you realize millennials, uh, were, were the, the folks who first got participation trophies, none of them know how to fail or lose anything.

[00:19:28] Cait Lockwood: Right. Right. Yeah. And I’m fortunately, you know, on the, the edge of both of those eras and I can, I can see so much evidence from my upbringing of how that was progressing towards everybody gets the trophy thing. It’s nuts.

[00:19:42] Eric Brotman: Yeah, no, that that’s a serious issue. And so, so you are probably a gen Xer. Um, I, I don’t know how old you are and I don’t ask because I know

[00:19:50] Cait Lockwood: I’m definitely a millennial, but I’m an older millennial I was born in 87. And so I think it’s, you know, after 1980 or before 1980 are generation X, um, But, but I’m older. And so the newer millennials, younger millennials, I should say definitely, uh, totally different group of people. I don’t identify with that crowd at all. People who grew up with social media are the younger millennials. Although some of those are generation Z now.

[00:20:14] Eric Brotman: Yeah. Yeah, they are. And gen Z is going to gen Z’s gonna be completely different than millennials. And I, I think some of it is actually being shaped right now by the, the current state of affairs. So, so you’ve got all these contributors with their own online courses that you’ve put together almost into a, um, um, uh, a clearing house, like a course catalog where folks can sign up for the entire school and then they can take any of the programs they’d like to take, correct?

[00:20:39] Cait Lockwood: That’s absolutely correct. Perfect.

[00:20:42] Eric Brotman: How do you, how do you vet your content? How do you vet your contributors to make sure that, that your own stamp of approval slash quality is on these courses? What, what do you do not only to vet the, the folks who are contributing, but to make sure that they’re contributing something that’s legitimate and helpful? And you know, that, that they’re not perpetrating a, a scam for somebody cause I think, I think there’s a lot of hesitation to online content sometimes otherwise.

[00:21:10] Cait Lockwood: Yeah. And there are a lot of scams out there. I talk about that in my book, too, how to spot a scam, how to avoid becoming a scam, cuz there are people who, who go out there and they want to make more money, but they expect something for nothing and, and then they’re the scam, right? And they’re just accusing other people being scams because they’re not magic products, right. They’re not, they’re not magical. And so I, I do address that in my book at a much greater detail. But in, in terms of how I vet my stuff, everybody’s connected to me before I ever put them inside work at home school, before I put my seal of approval, so to speak.

And I don’t put my money on junk is what I like to say. Uh, and so first contributors are people that I, I had been an affiliate for already. And so, um, students on my mailing list and non students, people that just been following me and like through my blog that had purchased through the affiliate links and given feedback um, so I’ll give you an example. Transcribe Anywhere is a, she used to be called zoom transcription. In fact, I believe she still has her business open at zoom transcription. She and I partner back in 2016 to create transcribe anywhere kind of, um, to follow the footsteps of proofread anywhere. And it’s since become this pretty big brand in the field of transcription.

And so we already had a relationship and she’s a contributor inside work at home school and there’s Gina Horkey at Horkey handbook. She’s always got something going on and we’re very good friends as well and have promoted each other, cuz we’re just, we’re just friends. And so my friends that I trust already that have products make a good base point and then they know people and then their students and our students, my students have recommended people that we’ve connected with.

And then of course, we always dig through the content ourselves to make sure that that it’s legitimate. And I have very high quality standards because I’m a proofreader . And so, yeah,

[00:22:54] Eric Brotman: well that, and that’s, that’s important. So, so I’m not sure everyone in our audience knows what affiliate marketing is and, and I have a pretty good sense, but, um, You know, for, for many, many years, the, the big scams were around network marketing and everyone wound up with a garage full of skin cream, cuz they, they wanted to sell things to their friends.

Um, fortunately I think some of that is going away mercifully. Um, yes. Can you talk a little bit about what affiliate marketing is for those who, who maybe are only anecdotally familiar?

[00:23:24] Cait Lockwood: Yeah. So a good example of affiliate marketing that you’ll go “yeah. Okay. I’ve seen, that” would be, if you are reading a product review on a blog and it could very well be a sponsor post in which the affiliate, the affiliated content or the, the person in the blogger behind the content is just a blogger and she’s not an affiliate. She’s just getting paid maybe $300 or $3,000 depending on the blog and it’s reach to post that content and share about the product and do the review. But in the case of online content like mine, some of the reviews you read about my products are people who have taken the course and are also bloggers because they, a lot of bloggers work as virtual assistants and proofreading is a virtual assistant skill.

And so they working as virtual assistant wanted to learn the skill of proofreading, loved the course, and they have readers that are also virtual assistants or stay-at-home moms or whatever their blog is about. And they might write a review about proofread anywhere and their experience with the course, and maybe share some screenshots and, and really go in depth on the quality and what they got out of it.

And, and so doing other people who are investigating this whole proofreading thing and wanna know if I’m legit might Google something like proofread anywhere review and it’ll come up with all the people who have written reviews and people will click through that. And, and inside that post doing the review on proofread anywhere would be some links and links over to learn more over to proofread anywhere.com or whatever.

We, we have like a whole portal set up for our affiliates that they can send traffic to something for free, like. Uh, we have a, an amazing workshop on, um, how to figure out whether you got what it takes to become a proofreader. And it’s, it’s been really successful. It’s a really valuable workshop and that’s free.

And so our affiliates send traffic. Uh, and when I say traffic, that just means send the readers, people who are reading the blog over to that workshop and they can sign up for it. And, um, most of the time they can watch it right away, cuz we’ve gotta a replay up if people don’t wanna wait and they can get started.

And, and if they ended up enrolling in one of our programs, then whoever’s link they clicked on that is the affiliate would get paid a commission. And I think we are offering like 30% for, for commission right now, cuz we really exclusive program and 30% is generous, especially for an academic program.

I go over that’s

[00:25:45] Eric Brotman: Very. Yeah. That’s really high from, from what I’ve seen.

[00:25:48] Cait Lockwood: Udemy I think does like, um, less than that, but I know that there’s like Coursera, that does 10%. And, and so we try to, we try to be competitive in that range. And some of our top affiliates have earned a higher commission over of a good couple years relationship.

But yeah, that’s probably the easiest way to describe what affiliate marketing is. There’s so many different ways to do it. Um, but that’s just one of them is writing reviews for a product.

[00:26:14] Eric Brotman: Well, um, you’ve inspired me. I have, um, my third book Don’t Retire… Graduate! Is coming out September 15th, uh, along with an audio book and hard back and soft back and so forth.

But we’re also doing a workbook and an online course, and I have never done one before. Um, and it’s going to be a financial literacy course, and I’m going to with your permission permission. Yeah, I’m gonna call you back because I, I, I, I want to pick your brain, um, you know, offline. Um, so, so at this point in the show, we need an extra credit assignment from you and, and, you know, you’re in this school business for Pete’s sake.

So you should have a really, really good, not no pressure.

[00:26:51] Cait Lockwood: Yes, I do

[00:26:52] Eric Brotman: a really good extra credit assignment that folks can use. Um, that is there one call to action from having spent some time with us today?

[00:26:59] Cait Lockwood: Yeah, absolutely. So I bet you, there are people listening to this right now who are thinking. Yeah, I don’t think that there’s enough out there. I don’t really don’t think that there’s availability of work or anything like that. And I wanna challenge you. And so if you’ve got a social media account of any, any kind. And you’ve got any kind of network or if you know anybody, even if you don’t have social media, you can do this. If you know anybody who owns a business, or if you have a place nearby, or it’s kind of hard to do this in the quarantine zone, but when you can, and this is why online is better anyway, especially if you wanna work from home using the internet is your, is your secret weapon and it’s not so secret at all. Um, but connect in some way with a group of people and social media is the easiest way. And I know you’re keeping up with your grandkids. And so you probably have social media, um, go on there and make a post and just say, I’m putting out some feelers and seeing seeing what’s out there. You can word it however way you want, but the goal of your post is to find out what kind of problems business owners are having in their business. So maybe give them some examples. You have problems with their website, so they know what to say, to kinda get their brain juices flowing.

Do they have problems with accounting? Do they have problems with getting their videos uploaded or there’s not understanding social media, perhaps. Get them to talk about problems. They have get them to complain. Um, set up like a sign, a picture of you holding a sign that says complaint department and make it funny, get them to participate.

You wanna know what their problems are and the reason why you wanna know what their problems are is because that is how you’re gonna figure out what skills you need to solve those problems. Because solving problems is the key to making money. That’s, that’s the key. If you wanna make money, you have to learn how to solve problems.

And that’s the first step. And what’s, what’s amazing is that is gonna show you that there’s opportunity out there in the network that you already have. And once, you know, maybe you, you have somebody who’s like, oh my gosh, I have problem organizing my accounting or like my filing cabinets a mess, or I wanna digitize everything or, or whatever, some skill that you might go, Hey, you know, that’s something I can help with.

That’s what you’re looking for. That’s what you’re looking for. Is a problem that you could potentially learn how to solve by, by just some kind of training that doesn’t take very long. Most of the time, it really doesn’t take that long to polish skills that you likely already have. And so that’s my challenge for you is to connect with someone, um, preferably on social media.

Because you have, you know, access to more people, maybe your grandkids can share the post to their friends and they can ask people for help. Don’t be afraid. You know, we have to swallow our pride sometimes. And I’m definitely one who, who needs to do that. When you’re a business owner, you have to ask for help.

And, and so think of yourself as a business owner, potential business owner, and go talk to some other business owners and ask ’em about their business and see what kind of problems that you could potentially solve. That’s the best way I can take, can tell you to take some action on fixing whatever problem it is you have that’s keeping you from, from graduating into retirement.

[00:29:58] Eric Brotman: You, you, you have, that was the perfect extra credit assignment. You get an a, um, I’d give an a plus, but I’m a tough grader, but no, that is, that is a work. Um, and, and we’re wrapping up now. Caitlin, how can people learn more about you or get a copy of your book or connect with you, uh, through any, through any source?

Yeah, fantastic.

[00:30:17] Cait Lockwood: You can head over to, uh, workathomeschool.com. You can find me on Facebook, on proofread anywhere we have a fan page. We have work at home heroes group on Facebook. That’s free to join. I think we’ve got over 50,000 members now, and there’s always some really interesting stuff going on.

There’s a lot of free resources with that as well. Um, yeah. And website, you can Google me Caitlin Pyle you’ll find all kinds of stuff, um, about me and my businesses on there.

[00:30:43] Eric Brotman: well, we will put your contact information in the show notes. You’ve been an amazing guest and I thank you for joining us today.

[00:30:50] Cait Lockwood: Thanks so much for having me. You’ve been an amazing host, Eric.

[00:30:53] Eric Brotman: Well, thanks for all of our listeners. Please subscribe to our podcast, post comments and reviews. Consider sending us a question which we might answer in a future episode of office hours. For more go to don’t retire, graduate.com. To learn more about BFG financial advisors visit us on social media or at bfgfa.com. We’ll be back next week with another installment of office hours and in two weeks with another engaging guest. For now, this is your host, Eric brotman reminding you: don’t retire. Graduate!

[00:31:23] Narrator: From this day forward, let us begin visualizing our dreams and building our futures. Today I implore you: don’t retire. Graduate! Visit our website at dontretiregraduate.com to subscribe. And please like us and post comments on social media. Securities offered through Kestra investment services, LLC. Kestra IS. Member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through Kestra advisory services, LLC. Kestra AS. An affiliate of Kestra IS. Kestra IS or Kestra AS are not affiliated with Broman financial or any other entity discussed.