Brett Trainor Unplugged
Brett Trainor Unplugged is for Gen Xers who want to get one step closer to living the life they want—on their terms. After six years of building life beyond the default corporate playbook, thousands of conversations with Gen Xers, entrepreneurs, and experts, and features in Fortune, Fast Company, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and Inc., Brett Trainor is still on the quest to build his ideal life—and he shares what he learns along the way. Part personal journal, part practical guide, and part curious conversation, this is a candid, lightly produced show about stripping away the noise, rejecting unnecessary grin...
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Myth Buster: Entrepreneurship Isn't for Everyone
<p>Somebody commented on one of my TikToks. He'd started his own solo business a couple years back, it's working, he's happy. Then he said "but it's not for everyone."</p><p>I'd been repeating that exact line for years and never once dug into it.</p><p>So this episode is two things. Why people still say entrepreneurship isn't for everyone, and why I think it's true about something almost nobody is actually doing.</p><p>When people hear "entrepreneur" they picture the same movie. Raise money, hire a team, sign a lease, bet the house. That version is...
The Expert's Privilege: Wes Wheless on Leaving Corporate and Going Solo
<p>Wes Wheless got laid off twice inside a few years. COVID, then the tech downturn. He wasn't angry about the second one. He just didn't have the energy to go attach himself to somebody else's mission again and wait for it to get taken away.</p><p>He didn't have a plan. He took a couple months, picked up some contract work to hold him over, and then a light bulb went off: if he could find enough of these, he might never need a full-time job again.</p><p>Four years later he's got a practice serving independent...
Gen X Has a Math Problem
<p>This one's a step back to look at the big picture, because a lot of the Gen Xers I talk to are too busy living life to see it.</p><p>Three things are colliding at once.</p><p>Corporate is chaos. It's not your age, it's your expense. Somebody can do half your job for half the price, and that's who gets picked. Getting laid off is one thing. Getting back in is the real problem. Look around your own network if you don't believe me.</p><p>The savings math. The generation before us had pensions. We...
9 Things I Learned in 6 Years Out of Corporate
<p>Corporate quit on me just over six years ago.</p> <p>At the time I thought this was about one thing: replacing my income. Six years, 350 episodes, and a whole lot of experiments later, I've figured out it was never really about the money.</p> <p>This is the first solo episode under the new name, and I wanted to start by sharing the nine things I've learned on this quest so far. Not a playbook. Not a system. Just the stuff that turned out to be true, whether you're still in corporate, recently laid off, or already out...
9 Things I Learned in 6 Years Out of Corporate
<p>Corporate quit on me just over six years ago.</p> <p>At the time I thought this was about one thing: replacing my income. Six years, 350 episodes, and a whole lot of experiments later, I've figured out it was never really about the money.</p> <p>This is the first solo episode under the new name, and I wanted to start by sharing the nine things I've learned on this quest so far. Not a playbook. Not a system. Just the stuff that turned out to be true, whether you're still in corporate, recently laid off, or already out...
Brett Trainor Unplugged
<p><b>Brett Trainor Unplugged</b> is for Gen Xers who want to get one step closer to living the life they want—on their terms.</p> <p>After six years of building life beyond the default corporate playbook, thousands of conversations with Gen Xers, entrepreneurs, and experts, and features in Fortune, Fast Company, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and Inc., Brett Trainor is still on the quest to build his ideal life—and he shares what he learns along the way.</p> <p>Part personal journal, part practical guide, and part curious conversation, this is a candid, lightly produced show abou...
Brett Trainor Unplugged
<p><b>Brett Trainor Unplugged</b> is for Gen Xers who want to get one step closer to living the life they want—on their terms.</p> <p>After six years of building life beyond the default corporate playbook, thousands of conversations with Gen Xers, entrepreneurs, and experts, and features in Fortune, Fast Company, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and Inc., Brett Trainor is still on the quest to build his ideal life—and he shares what he learns along the way.</p> <p>Part personal journal, part practical guide, and part curious conversation, this is a candid, lightly produced show abou...
You Can Always Make More Money. You Can't Make More Time
<p><b>You can always make more money. You can't make more time.</b></p> <p>This is the episode that ties the whole thing together: what a time rich life actually is, and why control of your time, not your income, is the key to the life you want.</p> <p>My first year out of corporate, I chased one thing: replace the paycheck and then some. I did it. And I wasn't much happier. This is the story of what I was actually missing, and the simple framework that fixed it.</p> <p><b>In this episode:</b><...
You Can Always Make More Money. You Can't Make More Time
<p><b>You can always make more money. You can't make more time.</b></p> <p>This is the episode that ties the whole thing together: what a time rich life actually is, and why control of your time, not your income, is the key to the life you want.</p> <p>My first year out of corporate, I chased one thing: replace the paycheck and then some. I did it. And I wasn't much happier. This is the story of what I was actually missing, and the simple framework that fixed it.</p> <p><b>In this episode:</b><...
15 Ways I've Made Money Since Leaving Corporate
<p>Making money outside corporate is easier than landing your next corporate job. After a thousand-plus conversations with people leaving corporate, the blocker is almost never skill or experience. It's that we overcomplicate it.</p> <p>This one is all mechanics. If you're 45+ and trying to make your first dollar outside corporate, or just want to stop betting everything on one paycheck, this is the playbook.</p> <p>In this episode:</p> <p>Your real number: why you think in cash flow now, not salary, and why it's lower than you'd guess</p> <p>Why one boss is the riskiest...
