Living Fully: From Architecture to Personal Development

Join Emily Bron as she chats with Susan Younger, an inspiring woman who jumped into entrepreneurship at 50, published a book at 61, and has continued to achieve remarkable success. Susan shares insights from her diverse career as an architect, massage therapist, and personal development leader and offers wisdom on finding fulfillment and balance in life. Tune in for an engaging conversation filled with valuable lessons on simplicity, purpose, and the continuous possibility of reinvention.

TIMESTAMPS:
00:50 Welcome to the Age of Reinvention Podcast
01:15 Meet Susan Younger: A Journey of Reinvention
02:13 Susan’s Early Life and Family Background
08:35 Discovering Architecture and Overcoming Challenges
13:25 Professional Journey and Career Transitions
21:30 The Philosophy of Simple Living
26:13 Connecting Architecture and Massage Therapy
31:14 Building Community and Thriving Through Challenges

Click here to listen to Part II of the podcast episode

Click here to watch Part II of the interview

Emily Bron: Welcome to Age of Reinvention, the podcast where we dive deep into the stories of those who have dared to reshape their lives and discover their true purposes. I’m your host, I’m Emily Bron, and today we are joined by a truly inspiring person, Susan Younger. Susan is a multi talented woman, a skilled architect, a certified massage therapist, and a personal development leader who merges technology with the art of communication.

She is here to share her journey of success through simplicity and how you can do it. Can redefine your life for better alignment, joy, and fulfillment. Susan, thank you so much for joining us today. It’s my real pleasure to see you after some time. Your diverse career and dedication to living simply, but profound and remarkable. Let’s dive right in.

Hello.

Susan Younger: Hi, thank you. So great to be with you today, Emily. Love you.

Emily Bron: Yes, thank you. And just, I don’t know a lot about you. And I hope you will share where you were born. I know that you moved several times across the U. S. But what really excited me, especially today, when I learned just a couple of lines about you.

Susan jumped into entrepreneurship fully right before turning 50, but she published a book at 65. She started with Bank, and we will speak about it, at 63, considered C Suite Network at 65. And engaged full time and 68 and I’m just thinking, what is the next for Susan

Susan Younger: Lord only knows the other piece I didn’t actually put in there is work with a nonprofit charter school that is a dropout recovery and I have been doing that now for seven years.

If I’m 72, that would’ve been at about 65 too. Involved in sitting on the school board, helping them to put together how to make things better for a lot of the kids that are, and I’m calling them kids because at the age of 72, even people in the twenties to me are kids . But you start to recognize that some of us were blessed with a childhood that supported us in ways that others never had. And when it’s your childhood, you just think it’s normal. You don’t even realize that it is truly, at a certain point I said, I had a Pollyanna childhood. It was not that there was not trauma. It was not that it was carefree and, That we were rich and everything was taken care of.

But I was born of parents who both had lost their parents when they were young. My mother’s mother ran away when my mom was four. And she was a child born in 29, an identical twin. And the twins were left to be raised by my great aunts, and my great grandparents and so she and her twin had some tumultuous times because nobody talked to them about things the simplicities of life that occurred to little girls and You know that all of those things were new and different for them but my mom was that adventurous child who broke horses with her great with her grandfather and Was the prankster and had lots of fun and My dad lost both of his parents by the time he was 13 and as a young soldier in World War 2, he was injured three weeks into his tour of duty in Europe.

He was in the hospital for six months and when they met he was recovering from a leg injury and roller skating to recharge his ability for movement and such so he was a very graceful man in his roller skates But he walked with a limp and that’s where mom and dad met each other because of their childhood, They were determined that my brother and I would not have the lack of communication You On all the things in life that were going on, they would be very open and honest with us.

So I grew up with table conversations over dinner as being the time where you talked about anything. We really had a very open, honest conversation at all points, when things were good, when things were bad. I had no clue how fortunate I was to have that sort of a childhood.

I was born in Omaha, Nebraska. We lived in Iowa most of my life, and I Grew up in a town called Mason City, which is also the birthplace of Meredith Wilson, so the movie The Music Man is very much anchored in Mason City. In fact, they did the world premiere of the movie there because it, it’s, really the story of our town, even though it was written about Indiana, but it was Mason City that was his anchor.

So music, playing in the high school band, and from grade school on, I played flute. And I was such a shy child that mom and dad and friends of theirs would talk about the fact that, Oh my God, Susie might never even get to college because she’s just too shy. She’s not going to go. There was, there were these discussions around the fact that I was, smart, I was tall and I was shy.

Mom literally said to me in like sixth grade, you are going to have to reach out to others because you could be mistaken for arrogant. They are not going to come to you. They’re going to think that you’re stuck up and not willing to engage with them. They’re going to look at you as the one that isn’t reachable.

Emily Bron: Oh, I’m sorry, but for me, it seems not like typical American parent narrative.

Susan Younger: Nobody told them not to say these things. Nobody told them that was the abnormal. It was what, for them, they had wanted somebody to have had conversations with them about in life. So I was blessed with this, Very open discussion about what do you want?

Not ever being told I couldn’t have what I wanted. We moved from Omaha to a small town. My dad was a traveling salesperson for an insurance company. And then we moved to Mason city when I was five. And so I went to enough different grade schools in Mason city, because as they rented and moved to different houses, they would talk about what they liked, what they didn’t like until they bought a house.

And then eventually they moved from a house to a Farm because my mom always wanted horses and I remember the day mom bought a horse I was between fifth fourth and fifth grade and she said you kids are going to go play it at lunch Dad’s coming home. I have to tell him I just Took the extra grocery money and bought a mare.

And she needed to have that horse experience back in her life. I always had examples of somebody stepping forward to do things and Figuring out how to make it work. So as they were talking about moving I was always drawing little sketches for them of how what they described about a house. So I showed an interest in architecture in grade school You In seventh grade, when you had to write write a little report about what you want to do.

I said, I wanted to be an architect and the teacher said what’s your second choice? She didn’t want to say I couldn’t have that but typically a small town girl from Iowa wasn’t encouraged to go after architecture as a career and they would suggest teaching and I thought about well, I the idea of stocks and markets and I definitely was not a thinker in the normal range.

I loved art I loved drawing all those things that were creative and mom was somebody who cooked because she had to, but she was very creative and fun about it. Dad was somebody who always planted a garden. We always had to, do things around the house together and that. And every night we shared a meal at the dining room table with those conversations.

So as I moved on in life, that really became part of when you said, I wrote my first book. It was published when I was 61. And it was called Simple Living, Simple Food, Life Lessons Learned, Dining with Family and Friends. Because it was those stories about, cooking and being in the kitchen with my great aunts and the trips to their house in Omaha, where the back porch would be a refrigerator over the winter because it was cold enough.

The cookies, the candies, the hams, the, we’re all out there in that back porch. And you just go out with your coat on and fill up a plate with all sorts of goodies and stuff. Those were the memories that fed me and also when I went into business I didn’t have a business training. I had my training in architecture, but when I was in high school we had moved from in town to the farm.

They didn’t have the programs for mechanical drawings that I was counting on to help me prep for architecture. I had to Say, you can’t move me there, I’m not going to be able to get what I need to go to college and mom and dad said ask the shop teacher, maybe he will let you do that on your study hall.

And sure enough, the guy was more than willing to let me come sit in the back of the room. He’s off working with the boys on whether it was something mechanical or something else that they were doing. I’d be sitting there doing my mechanical drawing, so that I got to prep for it, and later on when I’d go back to town, he’d be, She’s the one who encouraged us to put girls into shop classes.

And you don’t even realize that you are being a leader, but first you’re learning how to lead yourself. And it was always by my parents saying, ask. If you get a no, it’s a no, but if you don’t ask, it’s still a no. And so we really were encouraged to reach beyond what was comfortable. And not in a pushed way that you’ve got to go do this, but it’s that pushed way of saying, if it’s what you really want, you have to reach for it.

And so that’s that backstory of getting started in things.

Emily Bron: Amazing. And I feel this, real American spirit. In you, which I learn more from books when I was living outside, and I would say not so often to be mad. And nowadays, from many things I see around, but I’m really happy to hear it and to see this spirit alive and flourishing.

Susan Younger: And the other funny part of it is my last name being Younger. If you know anything about Missouri, which is where my dad came from, he was born in a small town called Skidmore. And his joke would be, it’s Skidmore ever since he left. Just this tiny little. little place. And mom was on a farm right next to Boys Town in Omaha.

And so they both had cultural things from their background that gave them strength. My grandfather, my great grandfather bringing horses off the range out west and breaking them. My dad’s family, the younger brothers ran around with Jesse James. So we had outlaws in our background. We had, cowboys in our background.

We would watch the things on Saturday morning that involved Jesse Jameson, as if it was family history. You’re like route, rooting for the criminals because they’re family. We had just funny things like that to talk about as kids that others didn’t have because the rest of our family was very small.

But we played games. We did things that always had us together in conversation.

Emily Bron: Amazing. Speaking about your professional career, which actually spans architecture, massage therapy, and leadership in the C suite network lately. Can you describe shortly your journey? I know it’s very challenging in short terms.

And actually, What is important and interesting to me? What inspired you to explore such diverse fields?

Susan Younger: As I mentioned before, mom and dad were moving a lot. So I was drawing little plans and those plans for them. Mom later said, geez, I wish I had saved some of them. They didn’t necessarily work, but your mind was working to solve a problem and give us An answer for what we were looking for in a home.

So that’s where some of that started. The other piece that was interesting about the town I grew up in is there was some really incredible architecture, which until I got to school in architecture at Iowa State, I didn’t realize was even there. There was a clothing store on the corner downtown that, as it turned out, had originally been a bank designed by Frank Lloyd Wright at the turn of the century.

When they were doing that bank, half of his crew of architects and designers were in town doing houses along the river. So there’s a whole neighborhood of turn of the century homes done by architects working with Frank Lloyd Wright. I love those houses, but they are funky looking to most normal people because they do not match the typical stuff.

And some of them come careening out of the rocks, and you can see them from both sides. footbridge, there was just inspiring bits of a neighborhood that to me were incredibly artful and I had no understanding of what they were until I was in architecture school. But I was accepted to architecture school at Iowa State while I was still a junior in high school.

So I knew what I wanted to do, which unlike most kids are like, I’m going to college to figure this out. I had a plan, and I also worked for this local architectural firm between my junior and senior year of college. I got that job because again, mom and dad said, why don’t you go talk to them while you’re here on your fall break and let them know you want a job next summer.

Maybe if you ask early and sure enough, when they did hire me, I said, why did you choose me? And they said, you were the first one to ask me. for it. You don’t stop to think sometimes that it is as simple as asking first and, we didn’t have all these own online applications and such, which I think in some ways is a disadvantage now, not an advantage because I could walk into their offices, and say Hi, I’m Susan Younger. I am taking architectural, classes at Iowa State. I’m wondering if you will be hiring an apprentice next summer and how could I apply for that job? The gal that was the receptionist was in her seventies at that point, and she had been with the father of the principal.

That had started the father had started the firm in 29 or 30. She had been his receptionist from the first day he was open. She was still there. And I got to hear the banter between them because when Tom would say something and Elizabeth didn’t agree with it, she’d go, remember, Tom, I’ve changed your diapers.

I don’t have to take yours anymore. So you had this. Banter of almost family like connections, even in business and to have that be your first working experience. You created the camaraderie you created community. You were working with neighbors. That was a architectural office where I sat in the same room as the three principals, and if they had business to talk about, we were all working on our drawings while they were talking about a problem they had to solve finances they need to get, until it got to a point where it was super serious and they went to a conference room.

Most of those conversations are ones I got to witness. That kind of intimate experience early in life, really prepared me for understanding just how much it’s all human discussion at all levels. And so when I graduated and had turned them down, because I wanted to go work in the big city, I wanted to do interior architecture.

I didn’t want to work on small town projects. I got to Texas because Texas was where, in magazines, I’d seen great things happening. I had names of firms that I was going to go knock on their door. I arrived the same time the oil embargoes were going on. I was on my way to an interview as Nixon was leaving the White House.

And every firm I was interviewing with said, we’re downsizing. If you had been here two months ago, we might have hired you, but now we’d be laying you off. So now when we hear those sort of stories, those are not new to me, those are how I started life, and I had to go back to them after the, expansive trip to Dallas and Houston to say, I couldn’t find a job there, I know you’ve hired one of my classmates, any chance you’d take on a second apprentice, they did, and I worked for them for three years.

Three years later, I hear from one of the firms I’d interviewed with and the guy sends a note and said, we’re hiring. Why don’t you come back and interview again? We didn’t have the communications that we do now. So letters went back and forth for a couple of months and I recognize that. I didn’t have a friend to stay on their couch the way I did the first time.

So if I went down, I was going to have the cost of travel, the cost of hotel, all of that. And having spent a month doing that the first time, I wasn’t too anxious to do that again, to be turned down. I was applying to graduate schools at that same time. So I finally sent a letter and said, I really appreciate our communications over the last couple of months.

But here’s what I know. I am applying to graduate schools. I hope to hear from one of them where I can go and expand my understanding of working with interior architecture. I’ve got three years of doing and, gave him a kind of clue of the types of projects I was working on. I said, if you have something that would allow me to take what my skills have been developed now and turn them into a career, I would love to know what your opportunities are.

However, I’m going to say no thank you at this time because traveling to Texas for an interview does not seem feasible. That no thank you turned into a week later receiving a brochure from the company and the guy sending me a note that said, I remembered you because my family that I grew up with is 30 miles from where you live.

I will be coming home to visit family. I will interview you in Iowa. Now, had I not said no, that wouldn’t have happened. But again, it’s that clarity of being specific about what you want and also what you’re willing to contribute. And those sort of things are what most of these online applying for jobs now don’t give people the opportunity for.

So what you typically find is when people are talking about they got a great job, somebody either introduced them, and I still think that’s a big part of it. You get referred more than you get, You then you get just the luck of the draw and it does make it very tough for people now to Understand why are they being rejected and it’s because somebody’s list it didn’t quite match and that’s all it is

Emily Bron: Okay, susan I can speak about it, you know in my personal experience to be on the market and, but I am already, have experience.

I look at my children who are applying for work and I really, see the difference and you are out of the book, as you mentioned, simple living, simple food life lessons learned, dining with family, friends. It’s long title, but, a lot inside it, a lot.

It’s actually, life philosophy. I am intrigued by your advocacy for simple living. How has this philosophy influenced your life? And career choices and helped you to become what you are today.

Susan Younger: Because it was never about being famous. It was never about the big house. It was never about I’ll only be successful when I get X title.

None of those things mattered. It was about how my daily life supported me and how my daily work supported what I felt was important in life. And again, I was blessed to have. family and friends that helped me to have those discussions about things. And like I said, those were around the dining room table or picking food out of the garden and sitting on the step, cleaning the beans and having a discussion about things in life.

Finding out things that had happened to my great aunts long after they were you know in their 50s 60s and 70s and not having their whole life story. But later mom and dad sharing things that they knew about what had happened to them that you were like, wow that’s you know, that’s pretty powerful to know but living with a Multi generational family we almost always had one of the great aunts either coming to visit us or eventually living with us and and when one of them had cancer and ended up in the care center, she had lost her arm she’d lost her breast years prior, lost her arm, moved into the care center.

Her apartment in the care center was a few blocks from my apartment when I was working for the architectural firm. I could go over and Clara and I could go shopping together. You have those conversations that help support you and make you recognize what is it going to be that’s important to me later on?

Will I remember that big job or will I remember the connections I’ve made in life? And for me, when we talk about bank code and you’ve got the four cards of blueprint action, nurturing, and knowledge, Nurturing is first. So for me, it’s those life connections that are powerful to know, and you start to understand the difference in the values of how we put things together.

I’m a very intuitive person. So when I first heard of this in 2015, I was like, holy crap, she’s talking sales. But what I’m hearing is. The relationships and the business conversations that I heard go awry, that I could look at two people arguing and go, their point of views are much closer together than they think, but this one’s looking at it from up here and what he thinks needs to be done and this one’s down here going what it’s going to take to do it and they haven’t figured out how to meet in the middle.

They haven’t figured out how to take what is important to each of them and put it into how it can be important to all. And to me, what this did was give me a tool framework for cracking the code, as we say, of who people are. When I got to Dallas and started working with the department stores as a project manager, I got taken to merchandising meetings where the CEO and all the merchandising managers are there, and I’m the mouse in the corner taking notes.

So that as we’re doing these drawings later, I can remember, oh, this was what’s important to this one. This is what’s important to here, but I could also see that these guys who had, CEO of such and such was really just there were times you would look at him and go, God, he’s just scared as hell that this could go.

Wrong or indifferent. And these guys are arguing about stuff and you start to see how human they are. And when you look at them as human beings, instead of titles, you start to understand why there are discussions at times in business that are extremely difficult. But I could unpack those things intuitively.

But when people would say, how do you do that? I’d go, I don’t know how you don’t, because it was so intuitive to me to understand people that I can speak to them from where I saw them to be in that moment. This tool allowed me to share with somebody else how I saw that. And that’s why. At the age of, almost 65, I’m like going, shoot.

I had no intention of adding another bag of tricks to my school belt. And, I had friends saying you’re doing massage and you’re doing architecture, you should be coaching and mentoring. And I’m like going. Yeah.

Emily Bron: Oh, we will get to this. We will get to this. So actually my next question, I was looking forward to to hear you speaking.

You have this unique combination of expertise in both structural design and body work, architecture and massage therapy. How do you see the relationship between architecture and massage therapy and how this combination of skills and experiences benefited your clients?

Susan Younger: Two things. Number one, architecture for me is creating the space you work in. It’s a framework. Bodywork is working on the structure you live in physically as a human being. So I can see the parallels between looking at a building and going, does air circulation work? Does the framework support the structure?

Is the space comfortable to move through? In body work, are your muscles flexing so that they move right? Is your spine supporting you? Are your legs underneath you as a foundation? Can you stand on those feet? I could see those parallels of structure and systems. And again, it’s that intuitive feeling for me at times that.

I could understand as I went through training and added in not just a basic massage, but myofascial and structural integration, Tom Myers and his anatomy trains, you’ve got muscle and fascial lines that go from the bottom of the feet up and over your head. There’s, a front line, a back line, a vertical, a diagonal.

And I’d, for years traveling again, before there were, laptops we carried around, I’d carry around drawings and piles of paper in a briefcase and haul a suitcase. And so I’d have a bag hanging over this shoulder, a bag behind me pulling and leading with my left foot. And when they did the diagonal line on me, I’m like, holy crap, all of a sudden I feel that from the knee to the shoulder.

Letting go and opening up it. You just sense all those connections. My mom was an identical twin born in 29. She didn’t have enough calcium in her body. She and her twin both had all their teeth pulled by the time they were 18 wearing false teeth. I’m the kid standing on this toilet looking in the mirror trying to pull my teeth out because mom took her teeth out. Why can’t I take my teeth out?

You know those sort of things that affected her meant riding horses being thrown off them She had back surgery by the time she was 19 when I was in first grade, she was in for another round of back surgery, they told her she shouldn’t ride horses. She’s I’ll be danged. I am going to ride horses because that’s what makes me feel good.

We had traction set up on the door for her to lengthen out her spine. So the structure of the body was something I was seeing as much aligned in life as I was in. In architecture, and I read, I think it was either mademoiselle cosmopolitan Vogue, something like that had an, had a reflexology article, like a single page thing, but it showed the feet and it showed the parts of the body and show where the spine was. And mom was sitting on the sofa and I sat down on the ground underneath her and I took her foot and I said, what are you feeling? She’s what the heck are you doing to my back?

And that was while I was in college and you start to notice that there are things you like. In life things that you feel are important, but they’re not what you can drive a business on and You know going to school and getting architecture as my background and stuff I had a job where I was in new york half the time doing private label shops for macy’s at that point and i’d been looking for a way to add massage in As a side thing because retail was going through so many takeovers So My position in Phoenix had been relocated to the corporate offices in L.

A. Ten months later, I was laid off. My husband and I moved back to Phoenix. I was cashiering at a grocery store looking for freelance work. The old CFO from my department store years was now CFO for a furniture company in Albuquerque. He’s we’re doing renovations, start planning, visual presentation.

I’m putting your name in to be director of store planning and visual. I did that for a year there. But all those things, five moves, Phoenix, L. A., Phoenix, Albuquerque, and you’re like going, this ain’t gonna last and I ended up back in Dallas. So you’re through five locations in less than three to four years.

You start going, I need to find something else that I can do that doesn’t mean that I can be replaced. And massage to me was one of those things that I thought I could be drawing during the day and doing massage appointments at night and weekends. And I may not be making a salary that matches what a corporate pay is, but is it enough to sustain me?

And in 2001, Labor Day weekend before 9 11. I’m sitting on the dock with friends who had a houseboat, and they were, they bought a 1950 something wood hulled houseboat actually, cabin cruiser, and we were in the boathouse, and Life was not going well. The small firm that I was working with was not doing well.

And I had my massage license, but it was like, okay, what would it take for me to be truly independent? I sat down and, laid out what I owed, what I was doing rent wise. I cashed out what little bit of a pension I had at the time, because not really a pension, but the 401. Because the company had gone through bankruptcy.

So what had been put in years ago had been knocked down to almost nothing and hadn’t really recouped. But I knew if I took that money out, I could pay the rent for September through December. And these guys happened to be my landlord at the same time. And so I said, are you willing to wait until I get that money?

I won’t pay you September on time, but I will pay you September through December all at once. That gave me enough of a cushion to know I had a roof over my head for four to five months. And what I figured out is doing massage and doing architecture, if I could find some little bits. I could sustain myself on $100 a day. It was gonna be peanut butter sandwiches, whatever, it was gonna be minimal, but I could create a life.

I could on a Saturday night, say to friends in the neighborhood, drop by my house. If you got a bag of chips, you got pimento cheese on celery. You got a loaf of bread, you got crackers, whatever you got, we’re just gonna potluck a party BYOB, or there’s water and tea at my house, it was very much a stop on your way to the clubs, because some of these, it was a neighborhood that was highly located near the gay neighborhood.

And so a lot of these were guys that would stop by and then they’d go out to the clubs or they were people that walked their dogs that we knew. And I’d say, we’ll have a game of cards. We can play cards. We can do dominoes. We can just sit here and chat. But again, my table became a point of conversation with people.

And when I couldn’t afford to go out, I could certainly invite them in. And you start to recognize that it is keeping community around you. The people that you had for clients in massage didn’t have to know how hellish the rest of your life was. You needed to show up in that hour, working with them.

And as they’re bitching and moaning about what is you’re going, if that was my only problem, geez, would I be happy, you’re listening to what’s a big issue for them. And you’re recognizing how much life is about the small things that make you survive. And then from there you start to thrive, it’s the step by step building to what you really need.

Emily Bron: Now I think we are segue to topics that you can speak for a long time insights on the bank methodology and I will just tell people who think it’s not financial institution and And you are certified B A N K I O S Which I still not sure what is about coach and trainer

Susan Younger: Informational operating system. So that’s the first level then we call it fundamentals in sales and relationship Speed coding is you look at the environment you look at the way they dress. Look i’m in a print thing, you know It’s it shows flowery. It’s not you don’t see somebody’s logo on my shirt because I don’t need to have you know, I could spend 500 for a t shirt, where others are like, oh no, I can only wear the best because I want to hang out with the best.

So each of these four cards has 12 words on them. And when you’ve organized these so that they match who you are, for me, it’s nurturing first. It’s about those authentic relationships. It’s about being connected and being truly who I am and allowing others to be who they are. Then for me, it’s the action.

I need to have fun. I didn’t have money, but I still needed to have people come over. We needed to giggle on a Friday night or a Saturday night. We needed to be able to find ways to feel like we were spontaneously doing something exciting, exciting on a different level than. Then most, but for me, it was exciting enough.

And then it’s knowledge. Knowledge is about learning. Always being the one who can look at things from A to Z. And frequently with knowledge, people will say you can’t sell to them because they have to vet it themselves. But the other thing is, if you give them enough information, they vet it. You stop talking about trying to push them.

And then blueprint. Blueprint is what people figured I must be high in because I was drawing blueprints. I was creating frameworks. I was working to budgets. Everything I built was on budget and on time. In fact, they were frequently ready early. People go, how do you do that? I’m like you just work to what’s done.

You make it work for the project. You make it work for the team. So I solve these points by working with these three. That’s not typical of others. Those that see this are like you didn’t do step one. And I’m like, nah, that wasn’t important to me. But to somebody who step one is important, I can piss them off in a heartbeat because I ignored what they know to be the rules.

I didn’t follow the process and what was interesting is I was doing consulting with a design firm when I was first introduced to this and we had a team of about 15 to 20 young architects and designers and I started going, Oh, that’s why so and so would ask me, what do I do first? And I’m thinking you’re a creative idea processing gal.

What do you mean? You need to know what to do first? But then I realized she needed a blueprint structure. She wanted to make sure that what she was doing first was really going to be the right thing to start with. So I could turn to her and say, would you help us create a checklist and give her a responsibility within the team that related to what her skills and.

And values were the ones that were knowledge that were like, Ooh, I’m really into lighting. I’m like, great. Will you research all the lighting components we need? We need information about these. Will you bring that back to the team? The one that was like a go getter and a self starter that would be bored in meetings.

I’m like, why don’t you go just, you don’t need to stay here. Let me work with these about what their assignments are going to be. You take this and run with it, go play with it, send them on their way. And then there’d be ones that were We need to work together so I could give two or three projects related to each other to a team of two or three people and let them be in community and working and that way they could.

play to the team aspect that was important to them. You started having things come together because everybody was seeing the power of what somebody’s values were and what they contributed to the team. You weren’t sending them all off to do all of this stuff. You were really utilizing the team to be most effective.

And you were also able to show them that you respected what each of them brought to the team. And you can challenge them in a way to understand why the deadlines were important from their point of view, not from something else and that a mistake wasn’t a mistake. It was a new learning. What did we learn from that?

You never made it wrong. You made it, that was an interesting thing for us to discover so it doesn’t happen again.

Emily Bron: For our listeners striving to reinvent their life careers of businesses being after 50. Could you explain this bank personality profiling system can help them to decide or accelerate success?

Susan Younger: So what’s interesting is when you start to understand the values that have driven you, you can start to see why certain positions aren’t great for you. I had an architect working with me, incredible architect, somebody who had trained for the Olympics to do Shooting and a couple of other things, I, not really the tri triathlon, but, some of those multitask type things he was so accurate and so detailed the fact that we were working on projects that had a fast turn and required you to do them real rapidly, not perfection, but rapidly just drove him up the wall and he would go, I just don’t see how you managed to do all of this.

I said, this is not the job for you. I said, it is not that you are, do not think that you are failing here, but recognize you need to work with something that is not this high pace, not this chaotic. You need to find a position that allows you to really create that detail that you love to focus on. And so I didn’t have to wait for him to reach a point where the rest of the company is like, why isn’t he achieving what he needs to achieve?

I said, go find something else. And he ended up working for the Federal Reserve for a number of years, helping them build banks, something that he didn’t have to rush through in the same way he did with a retail project that needed to turn in a day. You hard harness what is important in the way they process things, which allows you to look for things that are better related to your skills.

Your heart and how you process between here and what serves what you need to do. And sometimes we get so hooked on what was I doing? That you think that’s the only thing that defines you. When I was cashier in the grocery store, the gal who had been the ad man to every CEO, and I went through eight CEOs in the 12 years I was at the department store, so she’d seen a lot.

She comes through my grocery line and she is crying. And I’m like, why are you crying? She says, I’m sorry to see you drop to this level. And I’m like, honey, this is not defined me any more than being the DVP of store planning defined me. I said, but this puts food on the table, and I’m off on the side looking for architecture jobs.

I’m okay with it. Please do not feel that this is beneath me. And please do not say that anybody here is at a lower level than me because they’re cashiering as a grocery clerk. It does not make you a different human being. It’s a choice I made because in that moment, it got me out in public.

It got me doing something that was taking care of family. And it was something that allowed me to make transition.

Emily Bron: I wish many people will look at life like you are. And you are really example of what is dignity and what is a real understanding of values is. In my view. With your involvement in Code Breaker Technologies, I understand, the company you’re working, how do you think technology is changing the landscape of personalized communication and sales strategies that you actually working around?

Susan Younger: What I love about this company, and this is a company, let’s say somebody’s in transition and they want to be in business for themselves. This is a company if they want to join, I can help them figure out how this could be an option for them, because you can either speak about it and sell it, or you can use it in your business.

Both of those are options. What I love about this is when I was introduced to it, I got the 4 cards and I got audio of 7 hours of training. That was in 2015. In 2019, we launched an AI that allowed us to take a written script. And say, is it written in the code the way we think it is, which was just phenomenal to get to play with in 2019 so I could sit in a meeting with somebody and say, Hey, talk to my phone.

Tell me how you see yourself in your business. I could record it. I could drop it into the AI and I could say, you just spoke in this bank code. Does that match you? Or does that match your client? And in some cases, it didn’t match either, but it matched the way they thought they should be talking. And we could talk about who is your client?

Are they nurturing first? Or are they people that are all about, I got this checklist, I got to make it happen this way. Are you communicating with them in a way that really is how they hear things? It just became an incredible way to be seeing AI. As something that was human first in the sense that it was talking about respecting somebody’s values.

That’s why now, instead of it being something that was known as a sales tool, first, we now call it how to make people matter. Whether it’s a sales conversation or a personal conversation. And what drew me to it to begin with was the fact that I saw that relationship side of it. What’s real interesting is the gal who created it is action first with nurturing second.

And she’s geez, why isn’t people not doing more selling selling. But most of us are in there because of the heart base of it. The fact that it does allow us To connect with people and I don’t see it as replacing all these other personality codes because a lot of those are psychometric they talk about your you know, all sorts of things in terms of how you operate from A psychology point of view.

This is not psychology. This is what we say biology b u y Biology why you buy why you make a decision when you can layer everything How you would take the values of making the decision and put it on the psychometrics. It just expands it in a whole new way. Plus it’s so simple, so fast. So now we have an AI.

I can run anybody’s LinkedIn profile. And it’ll tell me the code of the profile that’s written now, if they have cracked their code for me at another time, I can look at it and go. So did you write this? Did somebody else write this? Is it written to who? You want to receive it? Or is it written to the values of who wrote it about you?

You start to be able to go. How are you being seen? Versus how do you really want to be seen? And how do you want your customers to see you? So one of the gentlemen in 2019 that I was working with, he’s very action. He’s let’s get to the bottom line. Let’s do this. But when we put in his profile, it came up more blueprint, but he was dealing with hiring teams that needed a structure and a system.

So his profile was written to his customers. And when we could understand that, somebody’s why isn’t his profile matching him? I said, cause he wrote it for his customers, not for himself. Understanding those differences. I had during the lockdown in 2020, somebody reach out to me from India.

The gentleman, all I got was a LinkedIn thing. And at that time I could crack his code. And see that he appeared to be a little more action. But the company he was representing was definitely a technology company that was high knowledge And when I could look at the other names of executives with that team, they would also be knowledge so I approached him on the fact that my guess is you must be doing sales and The high action part of a team that is much more Structured and knowledge base.

And so you have to figure out how to move them forward at times when they’re really analyzing, to be able to explain that to him, to help him figure out how to move things forward was a powerful conversation. You start to understand when you’re talking to a team that everybody’s point of view is unique.

And I always say there are 24 combinations of these, because you can order them six different ways for each of the cards. So 24 options, but on an infinite spectrum, because this is one component of what the rest of your life has been, and your life is going to affect you. If you grew up in a family that everybody was blueprint, but you’re the action, You’re going to feel like the odd duck out and wonder why the heck don’t they get me and why are they so boring, because they’re doing the same thing.

They’re eating the same thing. They’re not spending money on stuff. And you want to go have fun and do wild and crazy things. Or if your knowledge and your family’s all action, you’d rather be buried in a book, researching something going to a conference and your family’s gone. Why aren’t you out playing?

Why aren’t you out running around? Why are you insecure and staying home and it’s I’m not insecure. I just don’t care about that. And it didn’t make them wrong, but it just made them different. And the others didn’t understand it enough to respect it. And when you think of the number of kids feeling like they don’t know who the hell they are, because their family’s trying to tell them they need to be like everybody else.

Excuse me for saying, but my language skills sometimes deteriorate.

Emily Bron: No, I didn’t find anything out of norm. You speak your mind. You speak your heart. You speak how you actually see the world we are living in. And it’s it seems very relevant.

Susan Younger: And sometimes that’s part of what’s difficult.

People are so worried about saying something, that they say nothing.

Emily Bron: Tell me please, where it started? Because I live in North America for 27 years. I live in Canada. You live in the United States. And our lives were different till we met. And even now. So when this trend became a trend, the free Freedom loving Americans, Canadians, people who were raised, on the best literature of, spirit and freedom and independence, started to afraid to speak their mind.

And if they’re speaking, I understand there is a different level, there is decency, there is tough, there is many, but where is this? A fear became part of

Susan Younger: the judgment. It’s the judgment and it’s at this point, if you don’t agree with me, then you’re completely wrong and you don’t count.

And that’s just BS to me because. Some of my best friends and I do not agree on a lot of things. And that is normal. However, when you start saying I can’t hang out with them because they don’t believe like me, then why the heck do you think we’re going to change? Why do you think anything is going to work out?

In the past, it used to be that you didn’t hear everything, but now you hear so much and so much of it is being framed to only align with what you like. So the more you hear things being aligned with what you like I’m the one who always is saying, you know what pisses me off about the way information is called to align us with what we have already chosen to look at.

I want the stuff that doesn’t align with me so that I can understand the differences in the world, and the differences of opinion and I want to understand what brings that to be the important opinion for them. Is it because that is from a blueprint process. That is the way it has always been that’s, blueprints are reluctant to change.

For them, when you’re talking about changing something, you really have to show them where the change is going to be a positive effect for them to risk. Okay. They’re risk avoidant, whereas the actions like I’m all about the change. If there’s an opportunity in it you get those two arguing about something.

You have to come to a point where what serves them both. And we’re not at this point as likely to work for what serves us both. It’s come down to how do we win? How do we win instead of how do we both win? And I think we’re at a point in life where there are a lot of people trying to go, we need to find the middle again.

We need to find that ability to have those discussions. Monthly, I have a a dinner conversation and it has over this past year come down to a group of maybe five to ten people that get together and it’s mostly women at this point, but I call it my table of soul. And I don’t necessarily pick a topic.

I thought I might pick a topic, but it’s been really fun to just let it evolve and let it be. We’re getting together. We’re going to talk about whatever comes up. Who’s having a hard time. Hey, who started something that they want a little bit of feedback on, or geez, I haven’t seen you. You didn’t make it last month.

What’s new and exciting. Those kinds of conversations are where life builds. So I’m starting to see some of these people who didn’t know each other. Start to find ways to work together on something that they’re both passionate about but I’d have no clue to introduce them for that. But I have people for years tell me I don’t know how you managed to put together people at your dining room table That are interesting unique and you don’t end up with fights I said you know when you work with people who are respectful of others, You can still have the differences, but it doesn’t necessarily always go well, but you work through it.

Emily Bron: Susan, what insights can you share about managing stress? And finding balance in one’s professional and personal life and actually finding the balance with what is going on around us. Because, many people are worried these days, full of fears, uncertainty, even they are okay, from professional, personal side, because the stress became underlying, feature of our life, what you would say,

Susan Younger: do things, step away from a lot of it. People keep digging for more and sometimes you have to step back and give yourself quiet. And I know that monkey mind is like going 90 miles an hour, but sometimes you have to do that. And then reframe the conversation.

Sometimes when you’re telling somebody that so and so did this to you, No, somebody did what was easiest for them to do, and it had nothing to do with you, but your judgment of what it was. Was framed from what has either happened to you in the past or what you were hoping for in the future and you have to reframe those with that forgiveness, not in a way that’s going to change what they did to you, maybe, but in a way that you go, how is that the best they could do in this moment and how do I deal with that for what I need in my life?

Do I still hold them here or do I release them and say, love you, but bye bye. And I don’t mean that in an ugly way, but there are some friends that people keep because they’ve always been my best friend, and it’s your best friend isn’t growing and they need to maybe stay planted where they’re at while you’re growing into something else.

It doesn’t mean you, you are like, I can never speak to you again, but it’s maybe I maybe spend a little less time with you. And I find that circle that helps me to expand myself. A book I’ve, I stumbled upon recently, and I’m almost done with it in audio. It seems so appropriate for you on this day and hold on, let me find the title so I can.

Because I am not the best at it all. Karen Walward, W A L R O N D, Reclaim Radiant Rebellion, Reclaiming Aging, Practicing Joy, and Raising a Little Hell.

Emily Bron: Oh, I need to read it. It’s not a good You will share after, yes.

Susan Younger: But what I love about it is she’s 55 and she’s talking about the whole thing of ageism and how we have Framed it up as bad instead of looking at it the way in times past it was looked at as good And she’s talking about the chapter i’m on right now is called mission possible What can you possibly do to have the life you want?

What do you need to do movement wise to move the way that is comfortable for you? You don’t need to do crossfit because everybody else is doing crossfit. Maybe for you. It’s hula hooping Maybe for you. It’s just a walk. Maybe for you. It’s a walk in the woods Whereas somebody else, it’s a walk around the block.

Understanding what feeds you joy, where you find your peace. One of the things I’ve always said, because when I lived in Arizona, I did many trips to the Grand Canyon. I am in no shape to hike it at this point, but I’ve hiked it from the North Rim, from the South Rim, from Hermann’s, various different things.

And I can remember laying on the ground down in the bottom, and one of my friends says, If we had a gun at this point, I’m not sure if I’d shoot so and so for suggesting this, or me to put me out of my misery. And, you recognize that you prepped for something, but you didn’t prep well enough to sustain it the way you thought you might, but it’s still an incredible experience that you’re ready to continue on and a mile further up the road.

We’re under a waterfall and looking at stuff and going, holy crap. This is magical. I have said to many people, I feel closer to God in the Grand Canyon than I do in any church. And. And I am somebody from an architectural standpoint, incredible cathedrals, just give me the chills, there’s, I can find both religion and nature to serve me in different ways.

And I can find things in religion that I’m like, that is full of crap. And Buddhism seems to have a lot of things here and Rumi, and, you can just look at all these different pieces as having wisdom in them and where they come together. In commonality can sometimes be way more important than saying this religion over that religion and understanding who we are as individuals and who we are as communities, because we do need connection and life is about how we find connection for some of us.

It’s not paired up one to one. For some of us, it’s, I’m still an individual and I need my freedom, but I still need a community to have conversations with, to go to dinner with, to, to understand what gives me joy and what gives me purpose, because I think as we age, we really start to understand we need purpose, not just a title, not just a “I did this”. We need to know that it really served a purpose in life and that’s where people talk about Legacy, you really hear a lot about legacy right now and your legacy may not be family

Emily Bron: And you know what? That’s why name of my podcast age of reinvention redefine freedom lifestyle and purpose in midlife because in different stages chapters of our life, we have different purpose, and it’s normal, and many people are lost when, in 50s, 60s, they need to redefine their purpose.

And here we’re going to the question, my standard to each of my guests, advice for midlife reinvention. For our listeners in midlife, looking to redefine their freedom, lifestyle option, and purpose, what advice can you offer about pursuing your passion, changing careers, and starting new ventures? I know you were speaking about it in each of the answers, but summarizing.

Susan Younger: Find what are the things that you have, what are the skills that you’re best at and focus on how those can be reinvented in other industries. In some cases, it’s not looking at it within the industry you’ve been, but in what part of doing that job was exciting for you. What gives you joy? And then is there something that you’re passionate about?

Right now with what I’m doing with the dropout recovery and banks looking at how we can help education and keep kids from feeling that they are isolated and fearful about moving forward in life. How to stop bullying, how to avoid suicides and all this craziness that’s going on when they can feel that they are

understood. So that’s taking me in a direction I didn’t think I’d be going at this point, but it’s a good one to be in and to be, and to not ever decide that you are a done or a failure because you didn’t reach this other pinnacle. Because really sometimes it’s looking at the pieces from the past that put together a puzzle that you can create a future out of.

And it really is creating the puzzle that is your next phase in life.

Emily Bron: I really like it. Thank you very much, dear Susan. I’m really happy to reconnect with you and I will do it once in a while. Just a source of inspiration for me and for other people around. And what an enriching conversation we’ve had with Susan Younger today.

Susan, thank you for sharing your experiences and insights on how embracing simplicity can lead to actually anything. Extraordinary outcomes. It’s clear that no matter where we are in life, there is always a chance to reinvent and find deeper purpose and fulfillment. To our listeners, we hope today’s episode inspires you to explore, evolve, and maybe even simplify your path to success.

Remember, in the age of reinvention, it’s never too late to pursue your dreams and ambitions. and redefine your purpose. Remember to visit our social media pages to share your stories of reinvention and hear more incredible journeys like Susan’s. Until next time, keep redefining, keep discovering and pushing the boundaries of what you believe is possible.

I’m Emily Bron, and this has been the Age of Reinvention. Thank you for listening, and I look forward to the next episodes and next stories of triumph and success.

Susan Younger: Thank you. I’ve had a great time being with you today, Emily. Lovely to reconnect.

Emily Bron: Thank you, susan.

Susan Younger

C-Suite Network Thought Council Leader | Coach | Trainer | Consultant | Design Expert

Susan K Younger is a seasoned coach and consultant with over 40 years of experience in architectural planning and project management, specializing in retail, commercial, and hospitality industries. As a practitioner of the B.A.N.K. personality profiling system, she helps businesses improve sales, communication, and teamwork.

With a unique blend of expertise in design and massage therapy, Susan has spent two decades focusing on wellness through structural integration and myofascial release. Passionate about simplifying complexities, she empowers individuals and teams to achieve their goals, build meaningful connections, and create extraordinary outcomes in life and business.

In this episode of Age of Reinvention, host Emily Bron delves into the extraordinary life and career of Susan Younger, a woman whose path is a testament to the power of reinvention and simplicity. With a dynamic career that spans architecture, massage therapy, and leadership, Susan exemplifies how embracing simplicity can lead to profound success and fulfillment.

From Architecture to Massage Therapy: Merging Structure and Spirit

Susan Younger’s career journey is anything but conventional. Initially captivated by architecture, Susan pursued a degree in architectural design, drawn by her fascination with creating comfortable and functional spaces. However, her path took an unexpected turn as she developed an interest in massage therapy, leading her to become a certified massage therapist.

For Susan, the parallels between architecture and massage therapy are clear. Both fields involve understanding structures and creating environments that support well-being, whether it’s the layout of a building or the alignment of the human body. This unique combination of skills has allowed her to offer holistic services that address physical and spatial needs.

The Power of Simplicity

Central to Susan’s life philosophy is the concept of simplicity. Her book, “Simple Living, Simple Food, Life Lessons Learned Dining with Family and Friends,” captures this ethos, advocating for a life focused not on material success but on meaningful relationships and authentic experiences. Her upbringing, characterized by open communication and familial support, laid the foundation for her belief in simplicity as a pathway to joy and fulfillment.

Susan’s advocacy for simplicity also extends into her professional life, influencing her career choices and leadership style. By focusing on what truly matters to her—community, creativity, and connection—she has crafted a successful and deeply satisfying life.

Reinvention at Any Age

Susan’s story compellingly illustrates that pursuing new dreams is never too late. From jumping into entrepreneurship before turning 50 to writing a book at 65, Susan embodies the spirit of reinvention. Her involvement with Code Breaker Technologies allows her to use her diverse skills to help others achieve success through the innovative B.A.N.K. personality profiling system, a tool designed to improve communication and relationships in both personal and professional contexts.

Finding Balance and Managing Stress

In today’s fast-paced world, managing stress and finding balance is more crucial than ever. For Susan, self-care and mindfulness are integral to maintaining equilibrium. She emphasizes the importance of stepping back, reframing conversations, and allowing space for quiet reflection. Her approach to life is not about avoiding challenges but facing them with a mindset grounded in understanding and resilience.

Advice for Midlife Reinvention

Susan advises those looking to reinvent themselves in midlife to focus on their skills and passions. She encourages individuals to explore industries beyond their current fields, leveraging their unique abilities in new and exciting ways. Reinvention is about piecing together past experiences to create a future that truly reflects who you are.

In conclusion, Susan Younger’s journey is an inspiring reminder that simplicity and reinvention go hand in hand. By embracing what truly matters and remaining open to change, we can continuously redefine our purpose and path in life. Susan’s story is a beacon of hope and possibility for those seeking to transform their lives. Tune in to the Age of Reinvention for more inspiring stories, and remember—it’s never too late to pursue your dreams.