Erika Andersen shares her journey from musician and spiritual seeker to founding Proteus, plus how clarity of vision and mission can sustain entrepreneurs through change.
Check Out These Highlights:
Erika Andersen’s origin story begins with a childhood shaped by feminist parents and suffragist grandmothers, instilling a belief in possibility and independence. After pursuing music and spending nearly a decade in an ashram, Erika discovered her calling in organizational transformation; eventually founding Proteus in 1990.
In this episode, Erika explains why having a clear mission and vision is critical for entrepreneurs, how self-talk can quiet the “white noise” of anxiety, and why transformation must be rooted in authenticity rather than outside prescriptions. She also shares how Proteus pivoted during the pandemic and why true success comes from helping people become who they want to become.
Listeners will walk away with practical insights on resilience, clarity, and building businesses that align with their deepest purpose.
About Erika Andersen:
Erika is a leadership expert, bestselling author, and founding partner of Proteus. For over 35 years, she has helped CEOs and companies like Spotify, Amazon, and Charter Spectrum grow through change with clarity and confidence. Her latest book, The New Old, applies her wisdom to aging well and crafting your best later life.
Connect with Erika:
🌐 Website: https://erikaandersen.com/
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andersenerika/
📑 Substack: https://substack.com/@erikaandersen1
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About Me: https://tobymyles.com/about/
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Toby Myles: My guest today is Erika Andersen, a leadership expert, bestselling author, and founding partner of the Coaching and Cons consulting firm, Proteus. For more than 35 years, Erika has helped CEOs and companies like Spotify, Amazon, and Charter Spectrum grow through change with clarity and confidence.
Her latest book, the New Old. Builds on that legacy, applying everything she's learned to the challenge of aging well and crafting your best later life. Today we're talking about the messages she heard growing up that shaped her belief in possibility and how that early encouragement became the through line in everything she's done since.
Hey, Erika, welcome to the podcast.
Erika Andersen: Ooh. I love that introduction. That was a great introduction. Thank you.
Toby Myles: Oh, good. You're you're very welcome. Thank you. I'm really, um, I'm really excited to have you here. We were chatting a little bit before I pressed record about, at, at least from my perspective. This is a long time coming and I'm not sure why I didn't have you on sooner.
But, um, here we are now and, uh, I like to just share. With people, with our listeners, how we know each other, because it's different for each of my guests. But you and I were introduced, uh, through Christie Mitchell, who's a marketing consultant. Um, she was building, um. For lack of a better term, she was building a dream team for Proteus for you, um, to, to bring some projects forward, website, um, content and newsletters and LinkedIn and things like that.
And I was fortunate to be a part of that team. And just to this day still, um, Proteus has been one of my favorite clients ever. So that's how we know each other.
Erika Andersen: Yes.
Toby Myles: So, um, I would love for you to take me back to, uh, a mo a moment in time or maybe like a cluster of moments that you feel like really kind of set you on the path that you're on.
Erika Andersen: That's an interesting question. I don't know if I can do a moment or a cluster of moments, but if I really go back, like into my childhood, it's sort of the. The culture really that my parents created. And it was pretty unusual because, so I'm one of four kids. We were born from the, uh, forties to the fifties, late forties, early fifties.
So we're all old. And um, and my parents were both. Although I don't think they would've used this word at the time. They were both feminists. Both of my grandmothers had been suffragists.
Toby Myles: Oh,
Erika Andersen: wow. And marched for the vote, and my paternal grandmother went to teacher's college, which was pretty unusual and became a teacher.
And in fact said to my grandfather who she loved and wanted to marry, I don't wanna marry you until I've had the opportunity to teach for a couple years. So this was,
Toby Myles: that's amazing.
Erika Andersen: Free World War I, so, yes. It sounds crazy. You know, and my, um, maternal grandmother has a, her own wonderful story, which is, she grew up in the Midwest, in St.
In, in Missouri. And I guess her dad was pretty dreadful and he had decided she was one of a number of kids, five or six kids, and he had decided that because she was the oldest daughter that she wasn't gonna get married. She was gonna stay and take care of him and her mom in their old age. That, which I guess was pretty common, you know?
Yeah. So she didn't think this was a good idea. So she created this scheme with her brother, who was the oldest son, could do whatever he wanted. He had gone away, gone to college, and he was in Omaha, Nebraska, working, and they cooked up this scheme via letters that they would both tell their dad, her dad, their dad.
Mm-hmm. That she was going to move to Omaha to do for him, which basically means. You know, be an unpaid housekeeper. Yeah.
Toby Myles: Yeah.
Erika Andersen: And, um, his name was Jim, and so his, their father kind of said, well, I guess that's okay. As long as she's like in the thrall of another man, kind of, you know? And so she moved to Omaha, got her own place, went to secretarial school and got a job.
Meanwhile, Jim's writing home all these letters. Yeah. Ellen's here taking care of me, cooking all my food, doing all my stuff. So Awesome. So she and my, uh, paternal grandfather who has his own story, had left the Mennonites and gone to law school. And anyway, they both became Unitarians. And they met in the Unitarian church in Oh
my
Toby Myles: goodness.
Erika Andersen: And so that, that's the background of my parents. So, so they raised us two boys and two girls. In, in such an egalitarian way. I, I honestly don't remember, and I think I'm remembering accurately, and I've checked this with my siblings, that the expectations for all four of us were basically exactly the same.
My parents hope that we would, all four of us find work that we've loved and that made us a living. And ultimately if we wanted to create a family
Toby Myles: mm-hmm.
Erika Andersen: That all the same. Everybody's the same. Yeah. Yeah. So, and I feel like that culture is, you know, that was my home culture. That's what I arose out of. So, and my dad especially was such a curious person and such a.
Such an investigator of the world and my mom was such a lover of the written word. She had been a journalism student before, before we got married, and, and three out of the four of us are published authors. So
Toby Myles: Wow.
Erika Andersen: I ascribe most of that to my mom. So I feel like they created this wonderful cauldron of.
Coolness that we mm-hmm.
Toby Myles: All. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That sounds like an amazing, um, it was wonderful nurturing environment Yeah. Really to have as a young person. And also, um, maybe not like the pressure that some people put on their kids today to, um, you know, get the best grades and go to the best colleges and do all the extra Yeah.
Curricular activities. Right. There's not a lot of room for, um, yeah. Exploration.
Erika Andersen: Yeah, I think that's right and and my parents, I mean, they definitely had high expectations that we would do well, that we'd do well in school. Yeah. That we would find something we liked and be good at it, you know?
Toby Myles: Mm-hmm.
Erika Andersen: Um, but you're right.
There weren't, like, we weren't super hyper scheduled, and there was a lot of time for exploration and whatever. Like I was very interested in music. My parents completely supported that, you know?
Toby Myles: Mm-hmm.
Erika Andersen: So, yeah, I think that's right. I think they had a really good, I mean, they weren't perfect obviously, but they, yeah, they, there was a really good balance of, um, high expectation with, um, supportive belief.
They, they expected a lot from us, but they believed that we could do it. Mm-hmm. And, and we weren't, they weren't breathing down our neck all the time, you know?
Toby Myles: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So then how, so take me from that, that upbringing and that environment to, um. You know, what did you decide to do in college and then how did that lead you to, to Proteus?
Erika Andersen: Oh my goodness. Okay. So I have an interesting story too, as we all do. So I went to, um, I went to college to study music. I was a trumpet player and I was very interested in that. And I wanted to be a professional trumpet player. Maybe a conductor, but definitely an instrumentalist. And I was, I was good. And I went to school and, you know, studied and then, um.
It's now, this is a moment I, the summer after, or at the end of my junior year in college, I, um, auditioned for a summer program that, um, the. Boston Orchestra did. And the guy who was the, it was the first trumpet player who was, you know, overseeing the auditions and at the end of my audition, he said, and I don't know, to this day, this was 1970.
3 So I don't know to this day if he was being a misogynist or if he was like a messenger from the cosmos. He said to me, you are very, very good. You're really talented, but I don't really think this is what you're meant to do.
Toby Myles: Wow.
Erika Andersen: Isn't that fascinating? And no one had ever said anything like that to me.
And so I just kind of, and it sent me off on this. Really spiritual quest.
Toby Myles: Mm-hmm.
Erika Andersen: And I ended up, um, following a teacher living in an ashram for almost 10 years.
Toby Myles: Oh my
Erika Andersen: gosh. And, um, every year I service to the community meditated for hours a day. Mm-hmm. That became, and this was when I was 21. So that really became the kind of foundation in a lot of ways of who I am as a person.
I still meditate every day. Wow. Low these 50 years later. Wow. So that really kind of set me off in a whole direction. And then at the end of that time, as I was moving outta the ashram, I got connected with a guy named Tim Galway. Is that name familiar to you?
Toby Myles: That
Erika Andersen: name is Familiar. Wrote called The Inner Game of Tennis.
Toby Myles: Oh,
Erika Andersen: that was very, very popular in the seventies. And he was also a student of my teacher, Premera. And he hired me. I, I was young, I had a lot of energy. I was pretty smart. Yeah. We had the same teacher, you know, whatever.
Toby Myles: Yeah.
Erika Andersen: And that was, that was what ultimately led me to Proteus, because Tim had started a company called The Inner Game Company based on the principles of his book, which were that, and at the time, this was kind of radical 50 years ago, but now it's like, oh yeah, of course.
That we have a lot of voices in our heads. Mm-hmm. And that most of us have a, a very, one, at least one big voice that's very critical. Mm-hmm. And most of us have a voice that's not even really a voice. It's the thing we've learned with. It's our, it's the part of us that under that perceives and understands and doesn't judge.
Toby Myles: Mm-hmm.
Erika Andersen: And, um, the inner game is all about tuning into that voice, you know, that self one versus that self too. And I loved it. It really resonated for me, having, yeah, by this point had meditated for almost 15 years. And it was my first introduction to. Working in organizations. To try and help to try and make people's lives better, to try and make the organization work better.
And I just loved it.
Toby Myles: Mm-hmm.
Erika Andersen: So I worked, I, I felt like, ooh, ooh, this is my, you know, and then I started following the Breadcrumb. So I worked for Tim for a couple years. Then I got married, moved to East Coast, and worked for a guy named Peter Block, who you might also be familiar with. He's written a lot of very well-known books, staff consulting skills.
He, he was an amazing guy. He hired me to turn his IP into workshops. Okay. So that was cool. I did that for three or four years and then I went, I moved upstate, uh, upstate New York, and I went to work for a company called Ridge Associates that did leadership training mostly. And they hired me to be their head of instructional design based on the work I'd done with Peter.
So I'm kind of like, you know, doing that.
Toby Myles: Mm-hmm.
Erika Andersen: And then, uh, after three or four years of working with them, I, and this is when I started Proteus, I saw that even really good companies like Ridge, they were. Um, they were vendors there. Here you want a listening training, here's listening training. You want, you know, it was like a, a machine, kind of like,
Toby Myles: yeah,
Erika Andersen: get your soda outta this machine.
And what I really wanted to do, based on the client, uh, relationships I was starting to have and had been having for the last, at this point in five or six years, I really wanted, so this was in the late eighties. I really wanted to become what has since come to be called a business partner. You know?
Mm-hmm. You're a business partner. Yeah, and, and so what I really wanted to do was help clients get clear about the future they wanted to create for themselves.
Toby Myles: Yeah.
Erika Andersen: And then help them to do that either through means that we had, or by referring them to somebody who could do something else, right?
Toby Myles: Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Erika Andersen: And so that, that became Proteus. I started Proteus in 1990 for that reason to be mm-hmm. The business partner to clients who wanted to change and grow in the ways that we could help. And then here we are 36 years later.
Toby Myles: Oh my gosh. I love what you talked about, um, because. Uh, you have, there's a, there's a thread, um, and I know this from things I've read that you've written, but also working with Proteus that, um, you know, it's really about what is it that, that you want, like what you're hoped for.
Future, I think is a term that you use. You're hoped for future, right? Yeah. And as you're telling me this, I'm thinking how. How that is so rooted in your upbringing really. Right? Yeah. Like that was kind of your parents' philosophy too, right?
Erika Andersen: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. My mom used to quote this, she was so cool in so many ways.
My mom used to, and I mean, not cool in some ways, you know, you don't always get along with their parents, but, um, she was so independent and she so valued. Uh, independence and independence of thought. And there's a poem that she used to quote to us about whatever the weather, da, da, da. I am the captain of my ship, the master of my destiny.
Mm-hmm. That was the last line close. Like that's what I grew up with. So, so yeah, this idea that. And not some just airy fairy, oh, do whatever you want. More. Like,
Toby Myles: yeah,
Erika Andersen: you can craft a clear vision for the kind of life you wanna have, and then you can make effort to make that happen. You have power to make that happen.
Mm-hmm. I think that's probably the. The most important message that they gave all of us and all of us have. We all have my older brother's no longer with us, but all of us have, and he had until he died. Great lives that we've created for ourselves and I really
Toby Myles: mm-hmm.
Erika Andersen: You're absolutely right. That, that, um, clarify and move toward your hope for future.
You know, that started with my parents.
Toby Myles: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I'm curious how that looks when you're, um, building Proteus and working with clients. And that's evolving over time because we've all heard the horror stories. You know, we hire somebody who seems to be the expert and for people who are listening, you can't see me, but there's the air quotes, right?
And they come in and they think they know best. What's for us? And um, sometimes we trust them and so we go in a direction that really is out of alignment. So what does it really look like when you are working with clients? Like what are those early stages look like? I love
Erika Andersen: it. I really love that because it gets to the heart of one thing that I think is, is part of our secret sauce and, and pretty unusual about us is we're e Even though I don't work with clients anymore, I still advise the senior team and help 'em in various ways.
Now I, now I get to be like the fairy godmother, you know? Mm-hmm. One of the things that we do is we're very clear about what we bring and what you bring. So we always say to clients, look, you are the expert on your business. You're the expert on your life. You're the expert on the future you wanna create for yourself.
What we can bring is tools to help you clarify that and tools to help you transform. Once you've understood how it is you want to transform and we can even help you get clearer about. You want to transform, we're not gonna tell you who you should be, where you should go, what business you should have, that's yours.
Mm-hmm. We're just gonna help you with those tools and interventions, kind of, and guardrails to help you get where you're trying to go.
Toby Myles: Yeah. Yeah. That's, I, I just
Erika Andersen: big, I've always loved it. It's a, it's a, it's a huge distinction because mm-hmm. You know, I, we. Now I've been a consultant for, you know, almost 40 years.
And, and so often we've, we've done projects alongside of especially big consulting companies who shall remain nameless, who do exactly what you say. They come in, they do some quick, you know, it's usually the, the project is sold by some, you know. Main person and, and then they send a, yeah. A bunch of little, you know, people who just got their masters five minutes ago,
Toby Myles: right?
Erika Andersen: They ask a bunch of questions and then they go, here's what we, here's what you should do.
Toby Myles: Mm-hmm.
Erika Andersen: And, and if you're in the business while this is happening and you have, um, authentic relationships with the people who work in the business, then they'll tell you the truth. And most of the people in the organization are going.
What the hell? Yeah. They give 15 minutes. They don't know what's going on.
Toby Myles: Right.
Erika Andersen: Right. Or else they're telling us things we already know or else they're telling us things that aren't true and we know that 'cause we're working in the business every day. Yeah. So we, that's, that's never what Proteus does. We come in and say, okay, let's help you get clear
Toby Myles: mm-hmm.
Erika Andersen: About what's working, what's not working, where you want to go, what you wanna stay away from. And then once you've decided where you wanna go, we'll help you get.
Toby Myles: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And, and. You know, the fact that it, that's what, three decades ago? Yeah. Proteus, you found it Proteus and it's still going strong and still evolving.
You know, um, we were talking a little bit before we pressed play about the pandemic and how things had to shift and evolve to, again, you know, during that time to being more virtual. What was, what were some of the challenges and like we talked about silver linings that happened during that time.
Erika Andersen: Well, the main one was the one that we started talking about is that, so my two business partners at that time, Jeff and Laird and I, uh, got together as soon as this was clear that this was gonna go on for a while.
Mm-hmm. I think it was April of 2020 and said, okay, so let's do, let's practice what we preach. Let's get clear what, what, what do we need to do here? And the three things that we decided we needed to do is pivot the business to virtual to be able to do everything. In so far as possible, everything we did, consulting, facilitation, coaching, training, virtually like this.
Mm-hmm. You know?
Toby Myles: Right.
Erika Andersen: Um, to, to make sure that insofar as possible, we could take care of our team, our people.
Toby Myles: Mm-hmm.
Erika Andersen: And the third thing, although it was foundational, is let's not have the business. Blow up, you know, let's get That would be good going Right. You know, and so our, our main focus over that next few months was, and it, it was at the, you know, from April, may, June, I don't know if you remember, but everything was kind of paralyzed, so we weren't getting a lot of work.
So we were able to make that shift and learn. We, we were starting to do some things virtually, but we figured out how to do everything we did.
Toby Myles: Mm-hmm.
Erika Andersen: Facilitation, training, consultation, coaching. Via Zoom, which was the best. Yeah. At the beginning of the pandemic. You remember that Teams and Google Meet weren't even in the same Strat.
Yeah. So we zoom. No, and I feel like it was, it was terrible. It was hard, but boy, we figured it out. We were doing good work. And so by the time the fall came around and people were starting to engage us again, we could help them. Yeah. We could help them through the pandemic. And so I'm, I'm very proud of that.
And obviously the business survived. Yeah, continue to now, you know, we use those tools all the time. We, I think everybody does, but we use, sure, we use the, the virtual approach to things much more than we ever would've otherwise. I think.
Toby Myles: Yeah. Yeah. It's, um, you were able to get through that, but then also keep some of those tools Yeah.
As an, as an added benefit. Right. And so it makes the world a much smaller place, I feel like, and you can actually touch more people. So, um,
Erika Andersen: a hundred
Toby Myles: percent.
Erika Andersen: And, and it turns out that there are time, like for instance, one of the things we do, as you know, is, uh, it's a two day intervention that I. Kind of invented 36 years ago called Vision and Strategy.
And it's exactly that. It's helping, uh, an organization, it's usually a group of, you know, kind of 10 to 15 people. The, the senior people in the organization figure out, okay, what are we solving for? Where are we starting from? What would look like if it were good? And now what's our plan for getting there?
Mm-hmm. And the fact that we learned how to do that virtually during the pandemic. Now it, it works sometimes. I mean, it's. My point of view, it's almost always better to do it in person. But for instance, if you're doing it safe with the board of a nonprofit and they're all over the world.
Toby Myles: Mm-hmm.
Erika Andersen: It, it, it's a great way to do that if you're doing it with a company that needs to do it very quickly.
And there are a lot of different places and they either can't take the time or can't afford all comp. You know, there are situations where it's great to have that approach that you can use. So, you know, yeah. It has turned out to be a, a, a good, good tool in our toolkit, I'd say.
Toby Myles: Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, that definitely was a hurdle that you had to cross.
The pandemic was for everybody. We talked about that a little bit. Yeah. Uh, we were all, the entire world was dealing with some, some form of it in some way. I'm curious to know, um, like along the way, because a lot of our listeners, a lot of my listeners are, um, you know, solopreneurs, for lack of better word.
Yeah. Or some might be just starting out, or some might not be starting yet, but thinking about it, and there's always. Um, hurdles. There's always things that come up. Yes, there's highs and lows of entrepreneurship. You know, there's days where you're wondering what are you even doing? And so I'm curious, like, have you experienced some of those and, and when you have, like what is your, what keeps you going?
What keeps you going?
Erika Andersen: Yeah, so a couple of things. One is I think it's really. And obviously I would say this, but I think it's really important to have a clear vision and mission. So mission, I was, I would define as why do you exist? Why are you doing this?
Toby Myles: Mm-hmm.
Erika Andersen: You know, what's your people, some people call it purpose, some people call it, you know, but what, and another way we talk about it, when we talk about with our clients or ourselves, we say, what would happen less well in the world?
If you weren't here, what, you know,
Toby Myles: okay.
Erika Andersen: How do you wanna make a difference? Right?
Toby Myles: Yeah. Yeah.
Erika Andersen: Um, so that, that's critical. And I have a personal mission that I've had for, before I started Proteus. My personal mission has always been to help people become who they wanna become.
Toby Myles: Mm.
Erika Andersen: Not who I want them to become, or who society wants them to become to help them become who they wanna become.
And sometimes that, that includes helping them get clear about who they want to become, right?
Toby Myles: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Erika Andersen: So that's my personal mission. And then for many years, the mission of Proteus was, as you said, helping people clarify and move toward their hope for future. And recently my partners revised that to something that I think is very, uh.
Very central and simple and profound. Now, now, over the last couple years now, our mission, the mission of Proteus is true transformation made easier.
Toby Myles: Mm.
Erika Andersen: And I love that. It's, it's like, it's the, it's the essence of what our mission has always been. Yeah. So having that mission I think is critical. And then, and then vision is what would your future be like if you were better fulfilling your mission, you know, to right envision that future where you're doing what you say.
And I think if you have those two things, if you have a clear why and a clear, what would it look like if, I think that keeps you going even in the, because then you can put the bad times in perspectives. In fact, I was just talking to my son the other day. Who he and his wife started a business last year, a bar, a natural wine bar in Brooklyn.
It's, it's doing well, but starting business is always, as you say, and he was, you know, having a little anxiety attack as one does. And I said, you know, Ian, I remember about two years after year and a half or two years after we started the business, there were two months when we didn't make a dime. And it was our only source of income.
'cause my ex-husband, my husband at the time was also working in the business and sometimes you just gotta keep breathing. Mm-hmm. Remind yourself of your mission and your vision. Have a backup plan. I mean, I knew I could always go get a real job if this.
Toby Myles: Sure. Yeah.
Erika Andersen: But, but when you have that, like, why am I doing this?
And what would it look like if it, if it were what I wanted it to be, that it really. I think it keeps you from getting completely knocked off course by the inevitable day-to-day difficulties that can come up. You know what I mean?
Toby Myles: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I think, uh, it's, I wanted to circle back to this because you talked about your why and I feel like you were like way ahead of your time.
Like everybody knows what's your why, like that's, you know, we all have heard that, but I feel like you were doing it before it was even called a thing.
Erika Andersen: Yeah. Yeah, that's right. No, that's exactly right. I I, and sometimes I feel like I'm, it, it's funny, I, I am, I'm a very rational, logical person. Mm-hmm. But I also really trust my intuition and I feel like sometimes intuition can take you places, logic can't.
Mm-hmm. And when I was starting my business, especially, I had this kind of deep longing. For purpose to know, okay, if I'm gonna start a business, I don't want it to be for some superficial thing. Like, well, I gotta make a living, or, you know,
Toby Myles: yeah.
Erika Andersen: What's, what's, I wanna serve some larger purpose. I even said that to my, my original business partner, Marty, and he said, well, okay, this is your thing.
What do you, what do you want? And that's when I came up with our mission. But I feel like there is something in most of us that that longs for purpose.
Toby Myles: Yes.
Erika Andersen: Right.
Toby Myles: Yeah.
Erika Andersen: And it may be that it's more acknowledged now than it was 35 years ago, but I think that's a human thing. I think we long for purpose, we long for mastery, we long for autonomy, you know, and a lot of this has been supported by psychological research over the last 40
Toby Myles: years.
Yeah.
Erika Andersen: But I think, um, I think tuning into those deeper longings. Can sometimes be very helpful, right?
Toby Myles: Yeah, yeah, I think so too. And I think that, like you said, you know, there inevitably will be times hopefully not many, where you're, you lose a client or you're Yeah, you know, didn't hit revenue goals and you're wondering, am I gonna pay the bills this month?
Yes, exactly. And that, right? But having that underlying just, um, belief that what you're doing matters. To other people, but also to yourself.
Erika Andersen: Exactly. That what you're doing matters to other people and yourself. 'cause that kind of the, when you, you know, I'm a, you know, this, I'm a big believer in the power of, of self-talk, of hopeful, accurate, realistic self-talk.
And I feel like if you have a good talk track in your head about mm-hmm this is why I'm doing this, it's important to me, it's, I think it's, it could make a difference in the world that has the impact of. Calming the white noise. 'cause anxiety is just white noise. It's just a bunch of crap that happens inside your head.
I'm gonna, it's gonna, we're all gonna Wait, wait, wait. No, no. Yeah, I'm, I'm good at this and it seems to be going generally well, and I have a plan and, you know, I, I can, I can shift the plan if I need to, you know, it's just mm-hmm. You, you need to talk to yourself. Well, yeah. Especially if you're an entrepreneur.
You know, I think another thing, I was thinking about this when you asked that question. Um, I think it's important to get clear about, and this is why vision is so important, the kind of company you want to create. I had a friend who kept trying to create an actual company with, you know, employees and, you know, and I could tell he just wasn't happy.
And I kept saying, is this really what you want to do? Mm-hmm. And finally, after about. Eight or nine years of kind of hitting his head against that wall, he realized he just wanted to be a one person show.
Toby Myles: Yeah.
Erika Andersen: You know, and create strategic partnerships with various people. But he didn't wanna, he, he thought he should want to,
Toby Myles: right.
Erika Andersen: Have a company, but he didn't. Mm-hmm. He just wanted to be a solopreneur, you know?
Toby Myles: Yeah.
Erika Andersen: And the minute he acknowledged that. Oh my God. He was so much happier and it worked so much better. And yeah, so I, so I think you have to get clear on what kind of a, if you're an entrepreneur, what kind of an enterprise you want to have all the way from just you to mm-hmm.
You know, Google, but, but really get clear about what, what's gonna work for you and what you are really gonna wanna do, you know?
Toby Myles: Yeah. I think that's so important because especially with. All the online platforms, you know, we have so many people in our faces all the time doing all the things, and it's easy to get swayed in a direction like, oh, I probably should be doing that, or I should be doing that.
One of the biggest lessons I've learned in my journey is to put the blinders on. I believe in what I'm doing. I believe in what I'm building, and I'm gonna do it my way because if I can't do it my way, I'm probably not gonna be happy.
Erika Andersen: A hundred percent. And then, and then, and then once you're, once you have that clarity, then you have the bandwidth kind of to, to.
In a reasonable way, think about new possibilities that come across you. Yeah. Not, not to go, oh, I guess I better, but not like that. Yeah. Just if you're doing your own thing and you feel like you're pretty much going down the right path for yourself, if something wanders by, you can assess it. You can say, is this something I could do?
Is this something I should do? Is this something I wanna do? Right. Yeah. Cool. All right. How do I incorporate it? No, next. Mm-hmm.
Toby Myles: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I worked with a, um, systems coach last year. I'm one of these people that is, is very, uh, I'm pretty diligent. I'll follow a system, but my brain doesn't always put together the system in the best way.
Mm-hmm. And so I hired someone who was kind of like outside eyeballs and, um. And, uh, I used a tool called Asana. It's all my, my entire life is in Asana to-dos, projects, tasks, whatever. But one of the things she did, it was such a simple thing, was that we created this board of projects and anytime I had an idea for something, I could put it in there so I wouldn't lose it.
But then I had to flag it as, you know, is this something that's a priority right now? Yes or no? If not, you know. It can be later, but it's still there. And so I don't lose it and helps me, who is somebody who loves to create new things to just say, okay, like, I don't have to do this now, but I'm not gonna forget it.
Yes, it's in my project board for whenever or
Erika Andersen: never. I, I love that, not, not only to not, not lose it, but also to then have a mechanism for assessing whether or not really you should be doing. And I love, one of the things I love in that Toby, is I think that when, uh. You know, especially when, when somebody is a solo printer, but also if they're building a company, it's, it's, it's, it's easy to forget that you're not supposed to be able to do everything that there are.
There are people who have capabilities that you don't have. There are people that have time that you don't have. There are people who have experiences that you don't have. Yeah. And I, and the best, um, business people of any kind, but especially entrepreneurs that I've worked with. Are not, are never, um, hesitant to reach out to somebody and say, Ooh, you're really good at this.
I'm not good at that. Mm-hmm. Can we, can we partner somehow because I need that capability and I don't have it. I think that's, I, I've seen more people fail because they try to be too much and do be everything to everybody and do too much than for any other reason. I think.
Toby Myles: Yeah. Yeah. And also I would add on, because this podcast exists, because I finally realized the thing that was holding me back, one of the things that was holding me back was, I don't know how to do the tech part of it, and I don't really want to learn how to do the tech part of it.
Right. Yeah. And I thought. Okay, then I'm just, that's it. I'm just not gonna do it. But I have an assistant now and she does many things for me, but one of the things she does is, is my production, this podcast, I would probably still be thinking about it. Were not for her. Yes. And I've thought that about other things too.
Right. I've brought projects along over the past. 18 months that, because I got help from other people.
Erika Andersen: Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. And another example is my husband, who is now retired but was a brewer, he, he was an IT guy and the head of the IT for the New York Botanical Garden and all that. But his second career was.
He started and built and ran, and then ultimately sold a brewery. So about two years after we started the brewery, so this would've been in 2016 or 17, I was running the numbers for him and I said, you know, sweetie, if you don't wanna keep losing money, if you just want to lose break even on this, we're gonna have to open a tasting room.
There's no way to mm-hmm.
Toby Myles: To,
Erika Andersen: you know, to run a break even brewery if you're just selling. Wholesaler.
Toby Myles: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Erika Andersen: Like, oh my God, the last thing in the world I wanna do is, you know, run a tasting room. He's, he's kind of a hermit, you know?
Toby Myles: Yeah.
Erika Andersen: He's an engineer. He is very creative. He's a great brewer, but, you know.
Yeah. So I said, let's find somebody. Yeah. So he found this kid this 24 at the time. 24, yeah. 24-year-old kid, and he just did a fantastic job. And then about a year after we hired him, he said, you know, I'd love to learn to brew too. Okay. Which Patrick, so Patrick taught him to brew. And when we sold, when Patrick sold the brewery three years ago, he sold it.
We always say we sold it with Cody. And so Cody is now the head brewer of the, of the brewery post Patrick. You know, so sometimes that person that you hire to do something that you don't know how to do, it just creates a deeper relate. I mean, the, the. Final chapter, well, not final, but the latest chapter of that story is that last October, um, Cody asked Patrick, my husband, to officiate at his wedding.
Toby Myles: Oh,
Erika Andersen: you know,
Toby Myles: oh, I love
Erika Andersen: that. Cody became, like, we say he's our, he's our fake fourth kid. You know, so sometimes those people that you hire just because, oh, you're good at that. I'm terrible at that. Yes. It creates something much deeper. You know?
Toby Myles: Yes, yes, for sure. I, when I, when I hired my assistant, um. I really knew that I needed her to help me with the podcast and it was not something she had done before, but she was very capable and very willing to learn how to do it.
Um, she's helped me with many other things before and I think of her, like, I call her my system, but she's really a, a part of my team. She's a partner in my business and she. Does things that sometimes I forget to do. She keeps me on track. She reminds me. And so she's turned out to be so much more than just, you know, a virtual assistant.
I don't even think of her that way. She's a, she's a really important part of my business. Yeah. So, but I love that story, that Cody story. Yeah. That's wonderful. So, um, so I wanna make sure we talk about this because I'm, um, reading your newest book right now. Um, it is. I feel like it's directed at me. I'm 63 and so I'm right in that chapter of life, you know?
And I'm not somebody who's really ever gonna stop. I'm gonna keep going until, you know, the wheels fall off, so to speak. Yeah. So, but I would love for you to just talk about. Um, 'cause that's your fourth book, I believe.
Erika Andersen: Sixth.
Toby Myles: Sixth book. Okay. Uh, I lost track. Sorry about that. Um, but, but the latest book really, um, I'm loving so far.
What's, oh, did you always know that that book was in you or was that something you kind of just kind of bubbled up? Like at this point in your life? My books?
Erika Andersen: Yeah. That's a great question. All my books bubble up, so, so when I write a book, it's because I'm trying to crack some kind of important code for people.
Mm-hmm. For the readers. Mm-hmm. You know, something that it's an important thing that people find difficult. I wanna make it easier. Basically, yeah. That's why I've written all my books. So
Toby Myles: yeah.
Erika Andersen: How this one came around is, so my, my last book before that, as you know, was about change. Mm-hmm. And it came out during the pandemic, it came out in the fall of 21.
And it was about, uh, organizational change primarily, but, um. So then the pandemic happened, and you know, that book came, I put it on hold for a while, while we had to pivot the business. And then that book came out. And then, um, but during the pandemic, um, at the time we lived in the Hudson Valley. And, um, it was great for me because I could, I had woods, I had hundreds of acres of woods to walk in.
And at the time, in 2020, I was. 68. Yeah, 68. And so I was really star. I had time to think about a lot of things as I was walking for hours in the woods. And, um, like you, I've always said, I'm not, I'm never gonna stop working altogether. That seems like a weird thing. But I did notice in my late sixties that I wanted to cut.
Like I told, when I turned 65, I told my business partners that I wanted to cut back to full-time. Which was true, and which I did. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I started working 40 hours a week versus 50 or 60 a week. But as I was walking around, you know, 68 in the pandemic, I was like, I, I haven't, I haven't done what I always tell people to do about their businesses in their lives with this third act.
I don't have a vision for my own third act. What, what do I? Mm-hmm. I don't think I. You know, now I'm working 40 hours a week instead of 60, but I don't think I want to keep doing that in the same way when I'm 80. I don't think, you know.
Toby Myles: Yeah.
Erika Andersen: So I started to clarify my own vision and then as I, after the, after the change book came out in 21, I started thinking, you know, I think this is probably an important.
Code to crack. Mm-hmm. And I'm trying to crack it myself. And so as I always do with books, I started thinking because I, I didn't, I noticed that there were, uh, a lot of books being written about old age with baby boomers. 'cause we're just writing millions books about it. Yeah. That most of them were pretty, um.
Tactical. It was kind of like, eat this food. Live in this place. Oh
Toby Myles: yeah.
Erika Andersen: Do this with your money. Um, take this supplement. You know? And, and as always, I mean, you've read my other books. I, I really wanted to step back and. Provide a handbook. Mm-hmm. You know, like, what are the, if you're in your sixties or seventies and you wanna, you don't wanna just drift, you want to craft your best later life, what are the key principles that are gonna serve you best and serve me best, also serve all of us best.
And so that's, that's what, you know, when I started thinking about that, it was probably in 20. Two. And I was in the midst of, I had decided that in 2023 I was gonna step back from running the business and I was gonna step back from working day-today with clients. So that was a big shift. Mm-hmm. So that was also as my mom used to say, grist for my mill.
So, um, yeah, so, so that's why I was writing it for me as well as for all of us who were in our sixties and seventies and eighties. Mm-hmm.
Toby Myles: Mm-hmm.
Erika Andersen: And, um. It was so fun to write and so interesting to write. And I found, as I'm sure you're seeing reading it, that so much of what was, what has been in all of the other books and as IP for Proteases was, uh, I, I, I was able to find ways to frame it for this purpose, you know?
Yeah. Like the, yeah. The, the, the chapter. So the three principles, as you know, the first one is be the boss of your life. Mm-hmm. Um, uh, the second one is master your mindset. Again, not a surprise that you, you know me. Um. And the third one is get good at change.
Toby Myles: Mm-hmm.
Erika Andersen: And I figured, okay, these are my three best shots.
These are the three things that I think will be most helpful to the largest number of people who are trying to have great third acts. And the, in the chapter, in the Be the Boss of Your Life about how to create a vision. It's really a simplified. Less corporate kind of organizational version of the vision approach that we've been using with our clients for the last 36 years, you know?
So, um. So much fun. So much fun. Yeah. With that book. Yeah. And, and, uh, and now that we, part of my vision include we, my husband and I live in Spain now in the northern part of Spain. And a lot of my Spanish friends have said, when's it gonna be? When are you gonna have it in Spanish? So that's, there you go.
Is to get the book transmitted in Spanish and start to
Toby Myles: Yeah.
Erika Andersen: Market here.
Toby Myles: Yeah. I, I, I love it. I mean, it's obviously, it's, I'm very interested because I'm in that, you know, right. In that time in my life. Um, I also, uh, my friend Barb, um, Mason, who was on the podcast early on is a retirement coach, but not in the way, not in a financial way.
Right. It's not that she's not teaching people what to do so that they can be financially sound. It's right. I'm probably gonna butcher the way she says it, but you know, what are you gonna do with like a month full of Sundays? Essentially, you know what's, yes. What's it gonna look like? You know, and don't, and you don't have to just wait until that happens, until you're done to just see what happens.
You can actually plan for it, you know, so that,
Erika Andersen: yes. Oh God, I love that. I love that there are people who are doing that because I, you know, the. As I thought about it, as I did all the research for the book, as I interviewed a lot of people, I feel like that's a big, especially in, in, in the us that's a big gap where people, you know, professional people, they think about, okay, am I gonna have enough money?
Where am I gonna live? How am my health issues? They think about all these very. Which are good to think about, all these very pragmatic things. Yeah. But that critical, um, emotional, psychological, even dare I say spiritual aspect of it is how, who are you going to be?
Toby Myles: Mm-hmm.
Erika Andersen: And what kind of a life do you wanna have for yourself if you're not working for, or 50 or 60 hours a week?
We don't think enough about that, you know?
Toby Myles: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we're living longer and staying healthier longer, you know? Oh
Erika Andersen: my. So, yeah, there's, oh my God, that's, I mean, that, that's a, that, that's a huge thing. It's, it's, it's the reason I called the book The New old, there, as you know, there's, uh, some statistics I have at the beginning that I love, which is that, okay, a hundred years ago in the world, one in 20 people were over 65.
Toby Myles: Yeah.
Erika Andersen: Now one in six people are over 65.
Toby Myles: Mm-hmm.
Erika Andersen: It used to be unusual to be old. Now it's common to be old. Right. And that 65-year-old, a reasonably healthy non-smoking 65-year-old in the Western world right now has even odds of living to be 90. That's just nothing like that. That's amazing. Like that has ever been true.
Toby Myles: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Erika Andersen: Ever been true? Yeah. I mean, I have a friend here in Spain that I talk about a lot. I my poster about her on Substack and stuff, her name's Pilar. In fact, I just saw her today. She's 90 and she is just rocket it. She, she turned 90 in October and she basically spent the month throwing parties for herself.
And I was in, um, one party that she gave here. In our city, in Ello, um, for 25 of her closest female friends, and she out danced and out, talked and out partied us all. I mean, that's not what you, if you think of somebody being 90, that's not what you think of. And her friend Esra Yeah, I know she's 85. She's rocking.
There's, you know, it is like mm-hmm. To, to be, um. Healthy and active and vital in your seventies, eighties, and even nineties. This is all brand new.
Toby Myles: Yeah. And
Erika Andersen: so, uh, you know, since we're not, probably most of us gonna die a couple years after we retire at 65, it behooves us to figure out who we wanna be and what kind of life we wanna have.
Toby Myles: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I, I guess I would argue that having that, um. Plan or idea or things that we actually wanna do will actually continue to help us live longer, more vibrant lives. Right? It's, you have to have that thing that yes excites you and your purpose.
Erika Andersen: Yes, a thousand percent. I mean, there's, geez, you can just, you could look for days of the research that supports that, that
Toby Myles: mm-hmm.
Erika Andersen: That I, I wrote this. I have a substack, um, a substack called The New Old, and uh mm-hmm. The last post I wrote, which was a couple weeks ago, was about, it turns out that the single most important thing that predicts both length and quality of life is your mindset.
Toby Myles: Yeah.
Erika Andersen: Which is such good news because we're pretty much in control of our mindset, you know?
Toby Myles: Right, right.
Erika Andersen: And so if you, and, and a big part of mindset is, is, is purpose, is like, why am I getting up in the morning? And if it's something that's really meaningful to you. All kinds of, all kinds of good things swarm around that, you know?
Toby Myles: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Oh my gosh, so, so good. I feel like we could just keep talking, you know, I could refill my coffee and we'll just keep going, but, um, but I do, I wanna make sure that our listeners, um, can find you and you mentioned Substack, so tell us where are you mostly online and where can they grab your book?
Books.
Erika Andersen: Um, they can grab any of my books on Amazon. If you just look at my name, which is, you can see how it's spelled in the lower right hand, left hand corner of my screen. Yeah. Um, Erika Andersen and I have a website, ErikaAndersen.com, where all my books and you can see about it. I'm mostly online, uh, kind of professionally at LinkedIn.
Erika Andersen, I was an early adopter, so I got to use my regular name and my substack is. ErikaAndersen1, and if you put in a new old, you'll get there too. And Substack, for any of your listeners who are in there, you know, thinking about this third act thing, sixties, seventies, eighties, there is now evolving a wonderful community of older people who are sub stacking.
Okay. Really cool, smart, intelligent, all over the world. There's, for instance, one of my Substack friends now is an 87-year-old psychotherapist, an author named Patricia Ross, who lives in California. Another is a woman named Janice McDonald, who's 81, who moved to France when she was 68. Just 'cause she wanted to change her life.
I mean, really fast people.
Toby Myles: Yeah. Oh my gosh.
Erika Andersen: Yeah.
Toby Myles: Oh, good. Thank you for sharing that because I did not know that I'm, I'm sort of, I've sort of dipped my toe into Substack and I have a few friends and colleagues who are there. Um, I don't spend a ton of time, but, um, I probably am gonna change that now 'cause I'm really curious.
Erika Andersen: I, I, I read stuff on Substack every day and find it inspiring and thought provoking and it sends me down cool rabbit holes. There's another woman, Anne Richardson. Who's 82 I think, and her sub substack is called the Granny who stands on her head because she does yoga and she stands on her head and she wrote a book called The Granny who stands on her head about how much she likes being old.
So
Toby Myles: I love that. I love that. Amazing. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much. You've given me and our listeners so many things, so many new places to explore. Um, all of this. I appreciate you, appreciate you, um, your time and you saying yes. To doing this. Um, and I know it's gonna be a great, um, episode. Thank you, Erika.
Erika Andersen: Wonderful. Thank you Toby.