Host Sherrilynne Starkie welcomes Dr. Helen Ofosu, PhD. to episode seven of the 50 Women Over 50 podcast to discuss why many women who are later in their careers are overlooked at work.
She is an I/O (industrial-organizational) psychologist providing HR consulting and executive and career coaching. She’s also an adjunct professor of psychology at Carleton University and is the author of the soon to be published book, How to be Resilient in Your Career: Facing up to Barriers at Work.
“Women who are over 50 years of age are often underestimated and can be passed over for promotions, especially if they don’t exhibit much ego or a big personality in the workplace,” explains Dr. Helen. “But there are steps they can take to ensure they are given new opportunities.”
In this interview, Dr. Helen also reflects on her own lived experience of building her successful career as a single mother and the challenges she faced, and she shares her vision for a happy (but busy!) retirement.
Listen here:
About Dr. Helen Ofosu, PhD:
Dr. Helen Ofosu, PhD. has more than 20 years experience as a I/O psychologist and is an expert in human behaviour in the workplace. Her company I/O Advisory provides a range of counselling and consulting services to organizations, executive leaders and other career minded individuals. She’s on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Black Chamber of Commerce and is an officer of the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA).
She’s been cited as a subject matter expert by a range of news media outlets and her first book How to be Resilient in Your Career: Facing up to Barriers at Work is due out in early 2023.Dr. Helen lives with her partner and son in Ottawa, and in her spare time she loves boating and spending time with her family and friends.
Resources & Contact Information:
- About Dr. Helen Ofosu, PhD.
- I/O Advisory
- How to be Resilient in your Career: Facing Up to Barriers at Work
- The One That Got Away: Being Passed Over for Promotion
- Beatrice and Croc Harry, by Lawrence Hill
- Canadian Black Chamber of Commerce
- A discussion with Author Lawrence Hill
About the 50 Women Over 50 Podcast:
Sherrilynne Starkie started this show as a creative project with the goal of interviewing 50 women past their 50th birthday to learn how they see the world, what lessons they’ve learned and what advice they have for us all. She’s been blogging and podcasting for 18+ years as part of a successful marketing and communications career and looks forward to learning from the women she will interview.
Subscribe to 50 Women Over 50 wherever you get your podcasts and please share it with your friends.
Machine Generated Transcript
What follows is a machine generated transcript. It may contain errors and is not a substitute for listening to the podcast.
50 Women Episode 7
[00:00:00] Sherrilynne:
Hello, and welcome to episode seven of 50 women over 50 a podcast for women whose personal confidence is born of experience. I’m your host, Sherrilynne Starkie. My goal with this podcast is to interview 50 interesting women who are over 50 years of age. To learn how they see life and what they’ve learned along their way.
Today I’m welcoming Dr. Helen Ofosu. to the show. She’s an industrial organizational psychologist who supplies HR consulting and executive and career coaching. She’s also an adjunct professor of psychology
At Carlton university and is the author of the soon to be published book.
How to be resilient in your career facing up to barriers at work. In this interview, Helen explains why many women over 50 are overlooked at work. She supplies some valuable tips on how to avoid being underestimated and marginalized in your fifth decade.
[00:00:56] Sherrilynne: So, tell me a little bit about your 50th birthday party. What did you do to celebrate turning 50? To
[00:01:01] Helen be honest, I don’t remember doing anything grand. I, I’m pretty sure it was a family dinner. Okay. I’m pretty low key outside of my work stuff, it was a scaled back affair.
Certainly, happy to have reached 50 because the alternative is terrible. for sure. But but I didn’t really want to do like a public thing because I still felt young. I still feel young for 50, but, No. So, I just did a, We just did a very quiet family occasion.
[00:01:32] Sherrilynne: Yes, I hear what you’re saying about that because for my 50th birthday, some family members threw a big party for me, and although I loved the celebration, I loved having everybody around, but.
There was just a tinge of embarrassment about the whole thing, like having to admit to this whole room full of people that I was turning the big five Oh. And I hadn’t really admitted it to myself yet., It, it was awkward for
[00:01:57] Helen: me. I hear you. Yeah, and I don’t know, I think 50 now was like 30 some years ago, because when you look around at other people who’ve crossed that threshold, well most of them look like they’re still just getting started.
[00:02:11] Sherrilynne: But what you’re saying is right about 50 being the new 30. But I think that’s also a function of the fact that, we’re. Just, living so much longer. Like people, my grandmother’s generation never dreamt about making it to 70 right now. Now, women are living, it’s common for women to live into their nineties now.
So, it gives a different. Perspective of what middle
[00:02:34] Helen: age is. Well, that’s it. Maybe we’re just barely hitting it,
[00:02:39] Sherrilynne: Exactly, Exactly. So, when you were coming up to your 50th birthday, Sounds like you didn’t, like, you didn’t give it a lot of thought or did you, was it on your mind, Oh my God, this is it.
I’m going to be at the top of the hill and it’s time to go over it, or anything like that?
[00:02:56] Helen: What, not so much. I have been quite preoccupied with, basically the running my business. And not necessarily in a workaholic way because yes, I do work hard, but I really enjoy my work and quite often it’s quite consuming.
So, time it just passes so fast.
[00:03:18] Sherrilynne: Oh, I agree with you about that, and I noticed that you’ve just had your 10th anniversary in business, so congratulations for that.
[00:03:25] Helen: Thank you. When you set
[00:03:28] Sherrilynne: up a business for yourself 10 years ago, did you dream that you would be where you are today in 10 years?
[00:03:35] Helen: What I did, but I didn’t know exactly how it was going to happen.
Okay. Of course, I hope to be able to, keep this business going until I was ready to slow down into some semi-retirement. Yes. But at the time I didn’t know I’d be doing so much. Right, and I certainly didn’t expect ever writing a book. So, it’s been, an interesting ride, but I’m so grateful that I had the guts to actually start.
[00:04:04] Sherrilynne: Yes. Well, I know, your business is really successful, and you’ve got, you’re at the Carlton University right now as well. Are you not?
[00:04:11] Helen: Am, I am. I do have an adjunct, psychology professor position at Carlton, but I’m not teaching any courses. Okay, so generally speaking, how it’s playing out for me is that I sometimes will support up and coming psychology students, basically through some mentorship and, finding small, applied research projects for some of them to, to participate in.
You have such
[00:04:37] Sherrilynne: a cool
[00:04:37] Helen: job. I do. I do. I cannot believe it, but I guess that’s what happens when you make up your own job.
[00:04:45] Sherrilynne: Yeah, that’s right. You mentioned something about retirement. Are you, are you thinking about retirement yet or are you still
[00:04:51] Helen: cruising?
Well, I’m still cruising, but I think probably what’s going to happen is at some point I’ll just slow down a little bit. Right. I’m not so sure that I’m going to do a traditional retirement. Where at 65. I just say, Okay, that’s it. I’m not doing anything else. I think I might drive my family. I, I hope that I still have lots of capacity left when I’m in my early to mid sixties, right?
So that maybe I’ll just change the ratio of, billable work to volunteer work and just, not have such a full schedule, but still remain engaged. I
[00:05:30] Sherrilynne: really like that plan actually, because I’ve been thinking about it myself lately about, when, when I’m going to retire and, what it’s going to look like.
And because when, when I was a kid, like I, I grew up in Ottawa, as a, as a public service town and like most people retired at 55. I couldn’t possibly imagine being retired at this stage of my life. I think I would be go, go
[00:05:56] Helen: crazy with boredom. I’m with you. Yeah, I think I’m going to have to just ease into things and just do what’s sustainable.
Whether that means working four days a week for a while and then down to two or three, but I think it’ll be a while before I just completely switch over into full-time leisure. Well, and I think another thing that’s making it more sustainable is actually what happened during covid. Right. I mean pre, well, pre pandemic.
Many of us did do certain things by video, but certainly as we emerged, there’s absolutely more acceptance of ongoing online work. Oh, yeah. And so that makes it a lot more realistic that you can be retired or semi-retired and sometimes still provide services from wherever you happen to be. For sure. So, I, Right.
So, I have a vision of being, maybe in, in the Caribbean or maybe in a southern state, bringing my laptop and iPad with me and doing some work when it makes sense and enjoying myself doing other things when it makes sense. Yeah. So, a number
[00:07:13] Sherrilynne: of countries are even like innovating special visas for people that want to work that way so that you can go and live long term in their, in their country, but still working in a, in a, working in the US or Canada or wherever you’re.
Client bases. So, I feel like that’s a, that’s going to be a big trend that we’re just going, we’re just starting to see that take off now. But I think give it a good three or four years and there’s going to be a really big trend of people doing that. And it’ll be all of us, right? It’ll be our cohort.
The empty nesters. Kids are gone and we’re not, we we’re able to, to travel with a little bit more ease with the less family responsibility and yeah. I might do it myself. You never know. Tell me about your book and about writing it. What made, tell me first of all, what is it called and when does it get, launched and how did you come to write it?
[00:08:07] Helen: Okay. It’s called How to Be Resilient in Your Career. Basing up to barriers at work, and really it came to me because as I reflected on how my professional life has unfolded, I realized that I really didn’t have as much mentorship as I would’ve liked or would’ve benefited from. And certainly, years ago, I did have an executive coach who, took me through some assessments and gave me some advice.
Ironically, the thing that was front and center was that although I worked in the government at the time, he said that I was actually better suited at entrepreneurship. At the time, I, I wasn’t quite ready to, so-called pull the trigger on entrepreneurship and, and get started, but it was some years later when, despite my best efforts, I could never find the right place or the right role in the government, and I often just didn’t feel.
Appreciated. I felt a bit underemployed. I felt a little constrained., eventually when I started my own practice, it was great, and I realized that it was able to provide support that other people couldn’t provide because I had very different lived experience. Partly because of my background and work in business psychology, yes.
But of course, partly also because of part of my personal story, making a, a go of things as a, a person who got divorced early in life and had a single parenting situation for a while still trying to do good things at work. But I think what really sealed the deal. Was that after a while I had written a ton of blog posts, probably, Gosh, a hundred, 150, right?
And I thought, well, I’m getting fast at writing blogs, so what if I could write about maybe the top 10 work related things that happen to people that are hard. Not the kinds of things that you can just Google and find the full answer. So, a long form, a do it yourself approach to navigating and understanding the top 10 things that seem to come up again and again and again with my one-on-one coaching clients.
So that’s really what the book is all about. Part of it is dealing with things like bullying, harassment, discrimination, a really interesting chapter on identity., whether somebody’s, a racialized person or a, a gender minority or. Part of a pride community, but there are some of us who are situations that work are a little bit different because we’re treated as others.
. Although the book is something that anybody could relate to, because there are many things that are universal, but because of some of my lived experiences, there’s an extra layer of meaning that certain people will be able to pick up. Well, I have a question
[00:11:19] Sherrilynne: now. It hasn’t been published, so I haven’t read it yet, but I did look through, your publicity materials around it, and I see that you have a whole section in there around barriers in the workplace.
. And so this is something that I’m curious in, , in the context of the conversation that we’re having today is, Barriers that faced women in their fifties. , when it comes, comes to work, Do you touch upon that at all in your, in your, both the, ageism slash sexism that’s all rolled into one that hits women when we’re in this cohort?
[00:11:50] Helen: A little bit. Certainly, I talk about, ageism, a little bit, but it’s really framed as part of that whole being overlooked. Being underestimated. Yes. Right, Because that’s what often happens to women, especially if they don’t have huge egos and huge personalities. And, at the end of the day, sometimes, It does make sense to try to do something different, maybe something on your own.
And so that’s really where the, one of the chapters on. When it’s time to consider self-employment. Because I’ve worked with a lot of, sometimes women, sometimes men who get to a certain age, maybe into their forties or maybe they look a little bit older and all of a sudden, despite the fact they have amazing, abilities and a great track record, Sometimes their employer just decides to go in a different route.
Right? Just decides to offer them a package and bring in somebody who’s good enough, but a lot cheaper. And so, when this happens and you’re into your forties, it’s not always easy to find a replacement job that pays as well as the one that you just left., because generally speaking, it takes.
At least a month longer for every 10 grand in income, right? So, if you’re somebody who’s hoping to get 150, 200 grand per year, well, it may take you 10 months, 12 months, maybe even longer, to find something appropriate. And so, if that’s the case, then sometimes you’re better off using some of your severance money to launch your own.
Yes.
[00:13:39] Sherrilynne: Agree. Well, yeah, as, I’m in business for myself too, but I totally agree with you. But there’s a number of women of my acquaintance that got made redundant in their fifties, through a reduction in force or one of those initiatives. And, they, what you’re saying is so true.
They struggle to get a new opportunity. It’s very, very difficult to get hired. In an employed situation when you’re, in this cohort, and, and frankly that’s just wrong. These, these women have, well, men too, but I, I’m, I just know more women affected than men, but they have. The experience that, money can’t buy, and they, they bring a wealth of knowledge, expertise, and yet they don’t even get shortlisted for interviews just based on, based on their age profile.
And I, and I think saw this certainly more in the UK than I do in Canada, but to a certain extent their, their gender profile as well. I, I had bosses. Tell me in the UK that, we give preference to men because they’re responsible for paying the mortgages and the women are as wives or more supplementary income.
This is actually an attitude that I was a bit shocked to hear. That still, that still exists, but it does.
[00:14:58] Helen: It’s an interesting dynamic because I know an older guy who, of course now he’s gray haired. White haired, and he was joking around, and he said, Well, half joking. He said, The grayer he gets, the more money he charges, and I will never forget it because the truth is that once you’ve been working for 20, 25, 30 years,.
You do have all kinds of insights and skills that you could put to great use. Yes. But for women, somehow, we don’t seem to, be valued the same. Unless we are the ones calling the shots, then yes, you can increase your rates as you see fit or as the market will bear or make, just as appropriate, whereas, I don’t know.
It just doesn’t seem as likely that women, particularly in the private sector, are treated with that same respect. Well,
[00:16:00] Sherrilynne: we just saw that, highly public story a couple of months ago now, I guess, with, Lisa LaFlamme, right? From Bell Media. Oh, yeah. And, I’m sure there’s a lot more went be on behind the scenes than as the public that we saw about why she was, shown the door, as they say.
. But, certainly the narrative that went out was because, because she let her hair go Naturally white and gray., instead of keeping it dyed up. I hope that’s not the actual full story. My God, That
[00:16:30] Helen: would be so, so depressing. Oh, that’s it. And I have a few grays, and I’m not always in a hurry to cover every single one up.
I figure I’ve earned them and, yeah, the, that’s maybe different from well ahead of gray, but.
[00:16:44] Sherrilynne: Oh, I’ve been covering mine up since my mid twenties. I think there’s no hope for my, my grandchildren are never going to know a gray haired granny, that’s for sure.
[00:16:53] Helen: nice.
[00:16:55] Sherrilynne: So, what are you doing to have fun these days?
Your book launch is coming out. You’ve been working on that, your celebrating 10 years, in your consulting business, but what are you doing
[00:17:04] Helen: when you’re not working? Well, this summer my partner and I had a new hobby. We learned how to boat. So, we got our licenses and we, joined a boating club so that we could try it out without having to commit to boating, like to owning a boat.
So, it was great. We had lessons and we got out easily, once or twice most weeks. So, it was an absolute delight from May until Thanksgiving weekend. And so is this
[00:17:33] Sherrilynne: sailing or motorboating? Motor boating. Right, Right.
[00:17:38] Helen: Oh, my goodness. It was just terrific. In fact, it was somebody who we know in common.
So, I ran into her during the pandemic. Yeah. And she mentioned that her husband had a pandemic part-time job, so he was teaching people how to operate motor boats and doing a little bit of light maintenance.
So, they took us out, last year, probably August or September, and we loved it. So that’s, that’s how we got into it. That’s a lot of fun.
[00:18:07] Sherrilynne: So where are you, like, out on the Ottawa or up and down the Rideau or both?
[00:18:12] Helen: Both. Sometimes out of Orleans and sometimes out of Manotick. Yeah. The Hearst Marina. Yes. Yes.
And next summer we’re probably going to go a little further and probably explore Thousand Islands region, because that’s another local chapter of this, of this club.
[00:18:28] Sherrilynne: Yeah. Very beautiful. Very beautiful.,
What advice would you have for your 30 year old self
[00:18:32] Helen: I think it’d be two pieces of advice. Number one, I would tell myself not to worry so much.
Because back then I used to be very worried about whether I’d be able to catch up because I did spend a lot of time taking care of my son. I, I really prioritized him early in my career. Yeah. So, I probably didn’t make as many gains as I could have, but as it turned out, It’s just fine., In fact, I’ve probably more than made up for the time that I was, more focused on, soccer mom duties and other activities.
So that’s number one. I wouldn’t have worried about, whether or not I can be successful in long term. Because if, you can’t, you can’t redo a kid’s childhood. Right. But you can. You can certainly, turn up the heat on your career when, when, when the time is right. So that was the first thing.
And then the second thing was, I am a naturally sociable person, but I didn’t put as much effort into keeping up with my network earlier in my career., in retrospect, I think that right there is probably the thing that really separates people who have an okay career and those who have an amazing career.
Had I prioritized that a little bit more, it probably would’ve made it easier going forward, especially in the early days of my business. So
[00:20:04] Sherrilynne: two things there that I find really interesting is, so I, I’m very much like you in terms of my, early career because I too was a single mother for many years.
With two little girls, and, the worrying thing, I totally hear you on that. I, my worry was like slightly different. I was not so worried about my long term career, but The thing that shook me at that time was that I didn’t want my children to ever know. How poor we were, right?
Yes. Trying to hide. I was trying to hide that fact from them. I didn’t want them to ever feel that they were the poor relations or that they missed out on anything because, mom is a single mom and, and that kind of, I always worked my butt off just to make sure that they had no idea. That they, our circumstances for difference than their friends and, and, and that, yeah.
And, the thing is, I, I shouldn’t have worried about that so much. I see that now. At the time though, I was very, very worried about it, that they, they would feel, that they couldn’t do things that their friends did and everything. And of course, in hindsight, now that I’ve gotten two grown girls with the, happy, successful lives, They’re a little bit more resilient than I gave them credit for at that time.
I think that maybe, and, and also, I don’t think I was fooling them that much, as they have shared with me over the years, that they knew that that stuff was going on there, that, times were tight.
[00:21:35] Helen: But, but what though? I, but I, I agree with you because I., I, as much as I didn’t prioritize my career over my son, I did work very hard, and I did sacrifice to make sure that some of the things that are really fun to do when you’re little
he still got a chance to do. Yes. So, it just meant that I didn’t, I couldn’t afford to do like the nice renos in the house. Couldn’t afford, Like super fancy holidays, but he did, get to learn how to ski and do all of his basketball and, music lessons and whatever.
But these things, they do come at a bit of a premium when it’s one income. Yes. That’s for sure. Yeah. That’s for sure. And then, and I guess I was, I was really trying to, focus on, work related things. But you’re right. That, that personal piece, Absolutely. I, I, I feel that I lived it.
[00:22:31] Sherrilynne: Yeah. Yeah.
So, I was quite terrified about the future. Yeah. I wish, yeah, that would be like something I could tell my 30 year old self now was relax, I, It’s all going to work out. Your future is bright. Don’t be so scared all the time.
[00:22:47] Helen: For sure. And I guess for me, I also had this other baggage. There are so many negative stereotypes about broken families in Black communities.
Oh yeah. Oh yes. And I had a little boy. Cute as the dickens, Sharp as the fox. But of course, when he was little, sometimes he was one of those people who was easy to overlook because he’s not, at home he’s very outgoing and with people he really likes and is comfortable with. Same thing, but it really.
It really wasn’t until he hit high school that he started coming into his own. and really in university, that’s a whole other category. Now all of a sudden, he’s got these world class grades and, standardized tests, results. So, he’s well on his way to finding his way into the next, the next step.
So, I’m thrilled for him. Mm,
[00:23:39] Sherrilynne: good for him. And good for you too, for, for setting him up so well for.
[00:23:45] Helen: Thank you.
[00:23:46] Sherrilynne: I wanted to go back to the thing that you were saying about building out your network and the thing that that really resonates for me. Like great advice for, women in their thirties, but also great advice for women in their fifties that have been stuck at home in their pandemic bubble for two years or more.
, I personally have not been working on keeping up my professional contacts during this time because, we just don’t have the events and the charity things and all the stuff that we usually do to help build out our networks. And, we’ve all been living in our bubble. Now it’s time to come out of our bubble, in my opinion.
And that’s part of my motivation for doing this podcast, is it’s giving me an excuse to reach out to people that I haven’t been in touch with for two or three years to say, Hey, I want to have a conversation with you. And, so it’s a constructed to be able to do that. But I, I feel that women.
At our, our stage of career are at risk. Now. Our career is going to be at risk because we have, are not keeping up our, our networks the way that we would’ve done if we hadn’t been forced to stay home for two
[00:24:56] Helen: years. I get that, but I find that I’ve been keeping in touch with people just mostly online.
So, it’s a smaller scale, definitely a smaller circle. But I’ve actually met some, made new relationships and, and met some people online. I’m not really sure how it happened, because it wasn’t super well planned. But I’m grateful that I haven’t been as isolated as I should have been considering we really had a tiny bubble.
Yes.
[00:25:31] Sherrilynne: Yeah, we sure did. We should probably re-release that song. Tiny Bubbles, as a mantra of these of these times. So where do you see yourself in ten years? We talked a little bit about retirement and stuff, but career wise, do you have anything else to add? From what we, we were already talking about leading up to retirement.
Are there more books in your, future?
[00:25:55] Helen: example, Well, here’s the thing with my book, it feels like I’ve already had critical success. And I say that only because the publisher who eventually said yes has, they have a track record for, for publishing. Big names, so I feel great on that front, but I don’t know how it’s going to do commercially, so it’s only if it does well commercially that I’ll be able to do other books.
And I feel like I have at least two or three in me. Whoa. So, I guess we’ll have to wait and see how that part goes. Yeah. I don’t want to say what the topics are, but I do have some other ideas. So, if it works out, then that’ll be part of what I do. And then, hoping to just ease into semi-retirement to continue to enjoy the boating and maybe some golfing and just keeping in touch with people who I really.
But just didn’t always have time to hang out with, because it took a lot of effort when I was a single parent, and it took a lot of effort. These first, especially the early years in my business. Yes,
[00:27:09] Sherrilynne: yes. I’m looking forward to that too. Shall we switch tracks now and go move on to the, the quick round?
Sure. What are you reading, watching, Binging? What are you enjoying? What would you recommend to a friend?
[00:27:24] Helen: Well, there’s one book that’s a little unusual that I’ve just been listening to on Audible. It’s a new genre for me. Because technically it’s a book that’s for kids and adults just the same way. The Alchemist could be described or a lips.
It’s called Beatrice and Crock Hairy. It’s a book written by Lawrence Hill and I’m reading it mostly because, I expect to be moderating at least part of a q and a next month. He’s going to be a guest speaker for the for, for the Canadian Psychological Association. Oh wow. It sees five, It’s five sections.
There’s a section on Black psychology that I’m part of. I’m also part of other sections, but that’s the section that was instrumental in bringing him to the, cpa. So, it’s our section and, and four others. Plus, the CPA has come on as a contributing sponsor. So that’s pretty exciting. It sounds exciting and I want to.
Yeah, I hope you’ll come because I know you’re a book person.
[00:28:33] Sherrilynne: Is this an in-person thing or a Zoom thing or how’s it
[00:28:36] Helen: working? It’s online. It’s online so that it maximizes the, potential number of people who can participate. Okay.
[00:28:44] Sherrilynne: I will put a link to it in the show notes then. So Great. So, our audience can find it.
Okay, good.
[00:28:51] Helen: So, I’ve been listening to that and of course some business books, but, that’s the one that’s. In a whole different category.
[00:29:00] Sherrilynne: I’m going to check it out. Sounds interesting., I’ll put a link to the book as well in the show notes. So, Helen, I know that you’ve been volunteering for the Canadian Black Chamber of Commerce.
In what role are you volunteering there?
[00:29:16] Helen: I’ve been on their board of directors since January 2020. Okay. Admittedly I’ve been a little bit less Involved over the past maybe two or three months, I had to take a little bit of a sabbatical because I just had some workload issues. Yeah. So, I’ve still been supporting them in some other ways, and I assume that I’ll, resume my proper.
Responsibilities in the coming months? Well, it’s an
[00:29:43] Sherrilynne: organization that’s getting a lot more profile than it used to. We are, we’re seeing a lot more, quotes attributed to them in the media and stuff than, than we ever
[00:29:52] Helen: used to. Good. That’s great. Yeah., I brought an idea about having a podcast to the Chamber and I hope it’s going to launch.
[00:30:01] Sherrilynne: Yeah. Podcasts. Yay. Podcasts,
[00:30:04] Helen: because, entrepreneurship is hard, period. Yes. But, Within the Black community, it’s not as well developed. So, there are fewer mentors, fewer resources, and, just sometimes it’s helpful to have some perspective, in terms of navigating some of the unique challenges that Black entrepreneurs face.
So, it’s been a real pleasure. The, the organization’s growing, they have really good funding and they’re offering tremendous, mentorship and, basically group based coaching for people at very different levels of their business journey. Yeah. That sounds
[00:30:43] Sherrilynne: fascinating. I’m definitely, I’ll keep a link to that in the show notes too, so that people can find out more and do let us know if you get this podcast off the ground, because I feel like there’s a lot of learning that could be had through that medium.
What is the app that you could not live without?
[00:31:00] Helen: Well, if I’m being honest, it’s probably my calendar app, but for fun it’s probably Audible. Yeah,
[00:31:08] Sherrilynne: I’m a big Audible fan too. I have, I’ve always got something on, like, it is never, it’s never silent around me.
If, if it’s, if it’s quiet, I don’t like it. So, I always, I’ll put on a book or a podcast or something all the time.,
, is there an over 50 life hack that you’d be willing to share with our audience?
[00:31:28] Helen:
So, the other thing I want to share is this hidden value in being an original. So many people who I work with as clients and even friends, sometimes we think we need to try to fit a template or be more like everyone else, be more normal. But you know, the older I get
The more I realize that everybody who is really successful, they are just their own version of whatever. And I remember even for myself when I first started my practice, I wasn’t sure if I should try to brand myself under psychology or more under coaching. And the truth is, and I’m kind of somewhere right in the middle, so I don’t really fit either.
And I think that’s really working for me. And I don’t feel, you know, I don’t feel constrained by anything. I just am the way that I am. And that way people who like it will want to work with me. Whether it’s for coaching or HR interventions or training. So that’s my last, my, my one little insight.
[00:32:43] Sherrilynne: Yeah, I think that’s a very true one.
And episode seven is a wrap. This has been 50 women over 50 a podcast for women whose personal confidence is born of experience. And thank you to author and psychologist, Dr. Helen Ofosu. for joining me today on the show and sharing her advice that everyone, even the most successful people among us are just our own versions of whatever we are trying to be.
She recommended that we not be constrained by what we think we should be or by what others think we might be. Be your own version of you? She says, because people will like you just the way you are.
I’ve put links in the show notes. So, you can easily find Helen online. And I’ve also included links to many of the resources we discussed in the show.
I’ve got more stimulating interviews, lined up with some incredible over 50 women. So don’t miss an episode. Subscribe to this podcast now. And if you have a second, I’d appreciate it. If you could drop me a rating or a review on apple or wherever you get your podcasts, it helps other people find the show.
So, let’s connect and create a whole community of wise women over 50, by sharing a link to the show with your friends and connections. See you next time on 50 women over 50. I’m your host. Sherrilynne Starkie.
Leave a Reply