Live Without an Expiration Date

We’re taught to picture success as a staircase — steady, upward, one predictable step after another. Then you hit your 40s or 50s and the staircase disappears. You get passed over. You take a lateral move that feels like a demotion. You leave a title behind to build something that matters more. And somewhere in there, you start wondering if you’ve lost the plot. You haven’t. You’ve just outgrown t...

For twenty years, “I work in tech” was the career equivalent of a permanent parking spot — stable, a little smug, and always close to the good snacks. Then the layoffs came. Then the “AI efficiency” memos came. Then the second round of layoffs came. Now a lot of sharp, seasoned tech professionals are staring at a job market that no longer recognizes the rules they mastered. In this episode, Rich b...

Everybody wants the highlight reel: fired at 52, landed the role, redemption arc, roll credits. This episode is the expensive, occasionally funny truth about everything that happened in between — and it runs long, because the real story didn’t fit in a tidy soundbite. I walk through my own career-transition case study — a twenty-year entrepreneur who had to fire-sell his own business, then lost a...

Nobody ages you out faster than you do. Sure, there’s plenty of ageism coming from the outside — HR departments who think “digital native” is a job requirement, hiring managers who see “25 years of experience” and read “expensive and set in his ways.” But the version of ageism that does the most damage is the one nobody else can see: the running commentary in your own head that starts narrating yo...

You showed up. Every day, for years. You didn’t job-hop, didn’t play games, didn’t hold the organization hostage every review cycle. You were the dependable one. And somewhere along the way, that became the problem. In this episode, Rich breaks down the quiet, unspoken shift that happens when an organization stops seeing your loyalty as an asset and starts treating it as a guarantee — the moment t...

Your new boss wasn’t born when you got your first performance review. She’s sharp, she’s fair, and every time she says “let’s circle back,” some small, petty part of you wants to explain what circling back looked like before Slack existed. This episode is about that part of you — the ego mechanics of reporting to someone with less tenure or experience than you — and how to actually get good at it...

For the first half of your career, one good mentor can carry you. They know the industry, they know you, they open a door or two, and that’s enough. Then you hit your 40s or 50s, and something breaks. The one-mentor model — the wise senior person who has all the answers — stops working, not because mentors got worse, but because your problems got more complicated than any one person’s experience c...

Everybody tells you to “be yourself” in an interview, right up until the interview actually starts, at which point most of us turn into a nervous impression of a LinkedIn headline. In this episode, Rich Jones makes the case that authenticity isn’t just a nice-to-have in job searches and workplace conversations — it’s a genuine competitive advantage, especially for experienced professionals competi...

EPISODE DESCRIPTION We’ve been taught that imposter syndrome is a problem to fix — a glitch in confidence that needs to be silenced before you can lead, interview, or negotiate like you belong in the room. Rich Jones disagrees. In this episode of Live Without an Expiration Date , Rich makes the case that imposter syndrome isn’t a malfunction — it’s data. It shows up precisely at the moments you’re...

Last episode was about the audit — figuring out where AI has quietly exposed a skill you thought was still current. This one’s about what you do after you’ve run it, if you’re the person in the room whose job is now to lead with these tools instead of just personally keep up with them. This week, Rich talks to mid-career executives specifically — the ones who aren’t worried about being replaced by...

You’ve done everything right. Two decades of solid performance, a resume full of results, a network you’ve built for years. So why is the job search taking longer and hurting more than it did when you were starting out? In this episode, Rich breaks down what actually changes about job searching once you’re mid-career — and what to do about it. This isn’t generic “update your LinkedIn headline” adv...

Most people don’t lose ground in their careers because someone said no. They lose ground because they never asked. Somewhere in the second half of a career, the ask gets harder — not because you’re less capable, but because you’ve got more to lose and you’ve watched enough negotiations go sideways to know they can. In this episode, Rich breaks down how to ask for more money, a bigger title, or a w...

You’ve had the thought. Maybe more than once. Sitting in a meeting that used to energize you and now just drains you, wondering if it’s time to do something different — not because you’re desperate, but because something in you has quietly changed. The problem is you can’t tell if that’s wisdom or noise. This week, Rich walks through how to actually evaluate a career pivot instead of just feeling...

You didn’t get the job. Or the promotion. Or the project. And something felt off. The interviewer kept asking about your “comfort with new technology.” Or they mentioned the team is “really energetic.” Or you just noticed that everyone in the room looked like they graduated sometime after the release of the iPhone. You suspect ageism. Maybe you’re right. Maybe you’re not. Either way, you’re stuck...

There’s a moment in almost every job interview for someone in the second half of their career when the question arrives. Sometimes it’s direct: “Walk me through the gap on your resume.” Sometimes it’s softer: “Tell me about your most recent transition.” However it’s phrased, what the interviewer is really asking is: What happened to you? And are you okay? Most people are not prepared for this conv...

You’ve been measuring success your whole career. The question nobody asked you — including you — is whether you chose the metrics. In this episode of Live Without an Expiration Date, Rich Jones takes on one of the most avoided conversations in the second half of a career: what success actually means once the ladder runs out of rungs. Not a motivational answer. Not a retirement-planning answer. A r...

There’s a conversation most experienced professionals never have. Not because no one would listen. Because most of us don’t know we’re allowed to have it. It’s not a performance review. It’s not a raise negotiation. It’s a direct, professional accounting of your value — what you bring, where it creates the most impact, and what the organization needs from you right now. In this episode, Rich Jones...

The Weight of the Box There’s a moment you don’t forget. You’re walking out of the building carrying a box — or a bag, or just your laptop and a coffee mug — and the life you had inside that building is now behind you. Everything ahead is unscripted. This episode starts there. Not with the pivot. Not with the opportunity to reframe. With the actual experience of what a layoff does to an experience...

You’ve heard the rumors. The calendar invites went to certain people — and not you. The reorg came down written in that careful corporate language designed to say everything and nothing. And now you’re waiting. This episode is about that specific experience. Not the layoff itself — the suspended state before it. Where you’re still showing up, still doing the work, still maintaining the game face,...

Episode Description: There’s a moment — and if you’ve been through it, you know exactly what I’m talking about — where you’re sitting somewhere quiet, coffee going cold, and you think: How did I get here? Not in a grateful way. In the disoriented, slightly terrified way that comes when everything you thought was settled isn’t anymore. That’s where this episode begins. In this episode of Live Witho...

Most organizations don’t have a model for the leader who leaves on purpose. They have plenty of language for the ones who get pushed out — the restructuring, the performance conversation that went sideways, the long goodbye nobody wanted to have. But the leader who looks at the situation clearly, decides the time is right, and walks out the door with intention? That story rarely gets told the way...

Here’s a podcast description — I’ll give you a few length/format options since these get used across different platforms: You told yourself it would get better. That the culture would shift, the leadership would change, or the role would evolve. So you stayed. And stayed. And somewhere in that staying, something started to cost you more than you realized. In this episode of Live Without an Expirat...

Not Quite Ready: Using Semi-Retirement as a Bridge When Full Retirement Isn’t the Answer Yet You’ve done the math. The number isn’t there yet. So you keep grinding — telling yourself you’ll figure it out later. But full retirement isn’t your only option. In this episode, Rich Jones breaks down semi-retirement as a deliberate bridge strategy — not a fallback, not a consolation prize, but a real, de...

You’re in meetings. You’re still getting invited to things. Nobody has said anything directly. But something has changed — and you can feel it. This episode is about that feeling, and more importantly, what to do with it. When organizations make decisions about people — to sideline them, restructure around them, or move them out — they rarely announce it. What they do instead is send signals. Quie...

Most career conversations at this stage default to two options: stay and grind it out, or start looking for something new. Both feel exhausting before you even begin. This episode makes the case for a third option — one that doesn’t get nearly enough airtime. Rediscovering what drew you to your work in the first place. And renegotiating how you show up inside the organization you’re already in. Th...