A Realistic Guide to Starting a Business After 60 with Sue Ellson

Nigel Rawlins: Sue, welcome back to the Wisepreneurs podcast. This is your second appearance and in our previous episode you talked about resilience, the concept of being employable, and also you defined yourself as a Geekster. Can you tell us a little bit more about what it means to be a Geekster?

Sue Ellson: Well, yes, a  Gigster is my definition of somebody who uses technology to attract aligned gigs. So it means that you do a lot of different things to get gigs. It doesn't mean that you are part of the gig economy. It just means that you do a lot of different things. And I often joke, after spending 11 years in banking and moving from Adelaide to Melbourne, getting a job, finding out I was pregnant, losing that job. I often define myself as not having had a real job since 1994. So I think it's somebody who is able to support themselves with whatever sort of work comes in, so it could be contract, freelance portfolio career, could be a two days a week here and three days a week there.

It's any combination of anything. So, but one of the essential elements for me, having been online since 2001, is using technology to facilitate that process of getting the gigs.

Nigel Rawlins: That's what it's all about, and that's what we're trying to encourage. So one of the things that I'd like to go deeper into today is one of my, well, I call it a category of what I focus on, which is called networked entrepreneurship. And you are a perfect example of a person who is an entrepreneur and very connected into a network.

And, and those two work together. It's basically about building a business through connections and I think that's how we originally connected?

Sue Ellson: Meredith.

Nigel Rawlins: Fuller, who's been on the podcast three times, and will come back on, and I think people are probably beginning to realize, I do come back to people and talk to them again a year later, or maybe 50 podcasts later.

I can't remember which one you were on, but it doesn't really matter anyway, but that's, that's part of the network. And it's also finding out what you've been up to, which is what I'm gonna ask a bit later. So, building a business through meaningful connections. Now, one of the things you mentioned last time, again, I, I think this is an example of you with your network connections.

You spoke about always being green and growing. So what new skills have you been coming across in your green and growing?

Sue Ellson: Wow. Uh. I don't keep a catalog, Nigel, I just keep on trugging along. One of the skills I've had to acquire this week is of all the random things I search for myself online, on Google and on Bing. And I found out this week that Bing has de-indexed my sueellson.com website, which is a pretty scary thought, because I realize Bing's not the most common search engine, but definitely it is an important search engine because anybody acquiring a new Microsoft computer will automatically have Bing as their preferred search engine. So I've had to go through the Bing Webmaster backend and find out all the things that were in theory wrong with my website, I say that in inverted commas.

I've found some pretty scary things that were not of my own creation, so that makes me think, oh my goodness, perhaps part of my website has been hacked, but I can't prove that. It could just be a glitch in programming of a plugin that's come in and gone out. But anyway, I. truth be known, I'm fixing up all these errors on my website that I didn't even know that I had.

So I've been able to use the tools of Bing Webmaster to find those things, and I've actually decided to remove the tags from my website, from the indexing in search engines. The tags are still on there, but I've done a bit of a cull of the tags. So yeah, very technical questions, but it's definitely something that I've just had to buckle down and work out. But that said, I know that there's a couple of things I do not understand that I'm going to have to ask for help with. And so what I'm doing is I'm working on the things that I can do first, and then anything that's left over at the end, I will call in the cavalry and get some additional help for, for those things that I don't understand.

So that's just one of the skills. But yeah, I, I'm, I'm always green and growing and one of the comments that I heard recently is that some people are either senile or dead of a similar age, and I think that really falls down to the idea that you've, you've gotta keep learning and digital competency is what we all need to be able to survive in this world.

But back to your point about networking, I would say given all the AI and all the tech that just keeps on barraging us at an exponential rate, the only thing that is going to help us survive is not just a network, but the relationship we have with that network. Because obviously if you know people and you can ask them, then you get access to opportunities that you just would not get just relying on the tech to do it. The tech will discriminate you, wipe you out, you know this website glitch is pretty serious. But the good news is if you do still search for me on Bing, all this other content that I've had published about me still appears. So it's not as if I vanished off Bing, but just my website listing has vanished.

So yeah, who knows how long it'll take to fix.

Nigel Rawlins: I look after about 18 websites, so, um, I'm very, very careful about indexation and I am on Bing as well, but Bing does send visitors to your website. Have you tried AI to solve that problem?

Sue Ellson: I do ask AI questions, and I did ask it about this one, and it gave me all the stock standard crap answers that everything else did. So, no, it didn't give me the answers, and I, I do long prompts. I don't just say, you know, why did I get removed from Bing? I did do a much longer prompt query, but no, it didn't gimme the answer.

My website now has these random H1 tags in it. So you know, there there's no reason for those to be there. I didn't put them there. So some other tool that I've used has, has put those  H1s in and so now I've gotta find, and it's not showing if I look at the actual section. So, yeah, you know, I've, I've gotta do a lot more forensic digging to find out what the problem is.

But yeah, in the meantime, if I was relying that on that as my sole source of income, I would crash and burn, you know, really fast. And that's why we can't rely on tech. We've, we've gotta use it and we've gotta understand it, but we also can't rely on it. The relationships is what helps. And for example, I had a client yesterday, I haven't seen him for probably two years, and just because I'm on LinkedIn and on all my socials, and I update them at least once a week.

Those people who know me are reminded that I exist. So when their requirement turns up, I'm in their memory and that's what gets me the gigs as well. So yeah, the tech is, is a combination factor.

Nigel Rawlins: I don't think people realize if, if you're going to work for yourself and often on your own, there are things like that that will pop up and demand your attention.

They're frustrating. Like, you know, I've just switched to a new device so that I can look people in the eye. But I couldn't get my lights working this morning because I changed my, uh, uh, wifi configuration.

Anyway, I won't go into the details, but this is one of the big issues about working for yourself is you're gonna have to fiddle with IT. And um, and obviously on the podcast, one of the big issues that I have all the time is my guest has to get their sound working. They have to get their visual side working.

And often, depending on how technical they are, it can take 20 minutes to get that right.

Sue Ellson: Yeah.

Nigel Rawlins: Before I can even start. So, you know, one of the things about working for yourself that people do need to know is get things set up properly the first time. Get good instructions. And we'll talk a bit about that with you 'cause you've worked with a few people where you've helped them sort that side of it out.

Okay. Well let's move on a little bit. So we talked about green and growing, but you also had that thing about, inside yourself, and I hear this a lot with women mostly, is the confidence and the fear not having a real job. Now, one of the things I try and address is women over 60 who've maybe had a career and want to move out and work for themselves. And I do get this a lot, that confidence is their biggest issue.

So has your identity with the Gigster evolved because you've gotta work pretty hard to get the work?

Sue Ellson: Hmm.

Nigel Rawlins: That's part of the evolution of moving out of a, a job and to working for yourself. So talk a little bit about that. Has your gigster focus evolved?

Sue Ellson: Yeah, definitely because over time the people who need your services changes because often your service offering changes as well. So you find that you move into different audiences. And what I'm finding, because I've been in this world for such a long time. A lot of the people my age, and I'm about to turn 60, are retiring because the average age of retirement in Australia is 56.9, I think, or something like that.

Slightly younger for women and slightly older for men. So that means that I now either have to work with a younger cohort of people or I have to make, make myself relevant to a new network because those people are leaving the network of my connection. So, so that's been really interesting.

So I've always gotta keep building my network. I've, I can never sort of just stay with the same network. I've gotta keep doing that. So one of the things that I've always maintained is a close relationship in my local community, so I'm always involved with council events and local networks. I'm always doing that.

I'm a member of various professional associations and I'll continue to do that, but I'm also thinking that we live in a country that is still very ageist and even though I have energy and enthusiasm of somebody much younger than myself, and the willingness and capability to do it I I have found myself discriminated against because of age.

So, to go back to your piece about confidence, I was working with a person who had been in a very successful role for five and a half years and decided it was time to move on, and they went to a role that they thought was business development, that's what they were promised. Soon as they got there, they were told it was sales.

So it lasted two weeks and this person was only 29. So this is, yeah, you know, tricky. But I know this person very well, so I said to them, and they had the support of their partner to, to go out and do their own business, which originally they'd said they were never going to do, but now they've realized they want to do it.

But I knew full well that this person was not prepared to go straight from working full-time to running their own business. They wouldn't have the internal grit, confidence and commitment to be able to do that. So I said, look, the best thing for you to do is to get some temporary work, a job for now.

And these job for nows are really great options. I wish people more people would understand that they're of huge value. So this person registered themselves on an online platform that provides gigs on a temporary basis. And they were approved within three days. Got a job in an organization, was doing customer service full time, and then the immediate urgency of earning a living and having something to do every day was fixed, resolved.

And so they then started about building their business on a very slow basis. Now that role got extended, then they got offered a four day a week job, so now they're doing their business one day a week. And this other job four days a week, and now it's six months in, and the person's saying, look, I've gotta get more clients from other places because I need the next, but they're doing it in stages.

And because I knew that the confidence of your mind plays tricks on you when you don't have something to do all day, one little seed thought can escalate into this humongous disaster. And all that happened was somebody didn't ring you back in five minutes and you know, all of a sudden it's a major catastrophe in your life.

And I know that probably sounds like a wild exaggeration, but that's what can happen when you are sitting on your own, without IT support, without this and that. So, really, if you're going to embark on this journey, I would really encourage you to have a job for now on a part-time basis just so that you had exposure to other people.

Were out and about. And this is a person who has someone to come home to at night. Has lots of hobbies and interest, participates in sport, you know, it's not somebody who's isolated, but I just knew this person well enough to know that they wouldn't be able to adjust going from a job into their own enterprise overnight.

It, it's unrealistic.

Nigel Rawlins: You're totally right, it's the portfolio career, you need to edge in. Unless, of course I think they can, um, contract back into the organization they were with, which would be the ideal I think to start with, so that you have got some work. But if you're gonna try it from scratch, I think that that is the best way to go.

You, you've gotta get some work and look, part-time work. I, I mean, I, I got a bit burnt out about seven or eight years ago and I was sick of working from home. I still had all my clients, but I went out and got a little part-time job and it was great. I actually met local people, um, and it didn't pay too badly either because especially if you've, now, I haven't done that for several years now, but it was a fantastic experience to get out.

I really enjoyed that and I recommend that to people. You know, something completely different that you've never done before.

Sue Ellson: Yes, and for this person it was a big bonus because they'd had a number of jobs where the culture in the organization was terrible and for the first time in their entire career, and they'd been working since they were 14, that this person said, I'm not leaving the job. It takes me an hour and 20 minutes to get there.

But the culture is so good, I'm staying in this job until my business is at a point where I don't need it anymore. So yeah, I was really impressed by that.

Nigel Rawlins: That sounds fantastic. Alright, now one of the things I'd like to get into is about networked entrepreneurship.

My last guest, episode 70 was introduced to me by you, but you worked with that person through being introduced by another person. So this is the basis of what networked entrepreneurship is all about.

Can you walk us through that sort of thing that happens with you, that

Sue Ellson: hmm.

Nigel Rawlins: your networks that you've developed, somebody gets introduced to you, and then maybe you introduce them onto somewhere else like you did with me.

Sue Ellson: Yep. Yep. Okay. So this is just typical old word of mouth, you know, and as anybody in marketing knows, word of mouth is the number one best strategy for starting any business beyond a website, beyond social media, beyond advertising, you know, it's word of mouth and what is the definition of a business?

Somebody who pays you for something. That's it, that's the definition of a business. So, I have a policy, my three favorite words are from now on, but, so if you haven't done this before now, just do it from now on. Don't beat yourself up if you haven't done it until now. But I connect with every single person I meet online. So, if I meet them in person, a text message, a phone call, I'm at an event, a DM, whatever it is, I invite 'them to connect with me on LinkedIn. And so I don't remember how I met Dave, from Author to Audio, but I did meet him somewhere. Oh, no, sorry. I do remember I was at a. City of Boroondara event and his partner was speaking and then I got chatting to him afterwards.

So I connected with him on LinkedIn. So that's how I first met Dave. And then he was obviously producing the audio book for Laurie. And so Laurie got to a point where he knew he needed to update his digital presence and because Dave had realized that that's what I could do. He introduced me to Laurie and away we went.

And it's been amazing and I've loved doing it. And then Dave actually recommended another one of his clients to me. So I've had two clients from Dave and now he's apparently got somebody else who does the, the whole shebang a different level. So he is, he's passing those referrals onto someone else.

Perfectly fine. No worries at all. My policy has always been to have a network, and I believe we all need three networks in life, which is our personal, our friends and family, our professional, so we need to be known in the industry as well as in our jobs, so that's why I'm in these professional associations and I'm going to events, I go to between one or four events every week, either online or in person. And I try and meet at least three people at all of those events. And, and then your personal network, which is you like riding your bike, you like martial arts, you know, you, you've got, you can go to those places and people know you for those activities. So it means that if you have a terrible breakup in your family and friends network and you lose your income through your professional network, you can still go ride your bike and life will be okay, or you know, catch up with your cycling buddies or whatever. And so that's the value of that. But the benefit of me having had this policy of connecting with everyone I meet is I now have over 26,000 connections on LinkedIn, over 30,000 followers.

And people will often say, oh, Sue, I met you eight years ago. This seems to be some random number. But eight years ago they met me. And now they've decided they want LinkedIn help and so they'll come to me. So, so that policy of connecting online and then maintaining the relationship by posting and engaging, also online, uh, that maintains the relationship.

And then when people are ready, they automatically come through to me because they've done all the due diligence and they've seen me in action and they've seen the results and they trust me. So, so that, that leads to that opportunity.

Nigel Rawlins: Well, I, I think that's a very important aspect of business. 'cause one of the things is, it, it's, it's a word I don't like is the hustle that you have to put that effort into things. Um, you have to continuously seek work. Now, obviously the ideal would be that people seek you out, that you are such an expert in a particular niche, that you are the go-to person.

But the rest of us, we might be generalists or we might be, well for example, you are a LinkedIn expert and that is your niche in many ways. But you can also do a bit more than just that. So what does your week look like in that regard, in terms of seeking that work?

Sue Ellson: Yes, well, a lot of the things that I go to are free or low cost, so there's not a huge financial expense for going to a lot of these things, but there is a time expense and, and that is significant. But I've never paid for advertising. I mean, I've done a little experiment like I promoted a LinkedIn event recently and spent $40 on it just to battle test the system.

It produces zero results. This is another reason why I don't pay for advertising. Um, so, you know, I've done a few little experiments, but I don't pay, but I, I do keep showing up. In person and online, and I have a motto of being friendly and professional. Now, if you and I are talking privately, then obviously I might go into a little bit more detail about something, but I don't air my dirty laundry for want of a better word, online.

Whereas I know a lot of people, of a different belief system will say, it's okay to share my personal journey of how difficult this was, or what happened here, or what happened there. I don't believe that's necessary. I, I just like to focus on providing amazing value because I'm an educator at heart, so most of my work comes to me, but it's because I've already published a lot of content on a lot of places.

So it, it's not free work. And then interestingly, one time, I think it might've been during COVID when just things every, just, everything just went crash. And I, I sort of reduced some of my online activity and I noticed how in only three weeks I thought, oh, I feel like I'm, I've missed the game. You know, like, it, it was really sudden the, the sort of the crash of coming away from this online world. So you really have to maintain it and you have to be prepared to show up on a pretty regular basis.

Nigel Rawlins: One of the points I was, I'd like to make there is your whole week can't be client paid work.

It's like, you know the tradies, you want something done,

Sue Ellson: Hmm

Nigel Rawlins: they've gotta come out and quote. They're not getting paid to do that. And the same with the person working at home. So, give us a hint.

How much time a week would you spend on the unpaid work that you have to do in a business? And it's not just marketing that's unpaid, it's also the admin

Sue Ellson: Emails,

Nigel Rawlins: and a whole lot.

Sue Ellson: DMs, uh, comments on LinkedIn posts, you know, whatever. Uh, look, I, I would hate to add it up, Nigel, I don't know exactly. It's a lot. The only thing I can say is it's an enormous source of joy and inspiration for me to do it. So it's a lot of hours, but it's not for the fainthearted. I'm an ex-banker, so if I worked on the rate of billable hours, my billable or my hourly rate, if you spread out the number of hours I do divided by the income, whatever, it's probably a lot lower than many would suspect.

Uh, likewise with the plumber, they've got drive to the venue, you know, they're not gonna bring the pipes to them. It's a bit like the piano tuner. I optimized a piano tuner's website for their local area because they didn't wanna be driving to Geelong from St. Kilda every time to tune a piano.

It would be a lot easier if they tuned pianos within 20 kilometer radius of them. So we optimized his business for that 20 K radius. So, yeah, it's, it's a lot of time. I, I hate to think. The only thing is I have become a little bit more selective about the events that I go to, because a lot of them are time wasters.

So a lot of the networking groups where you join and have to pay a fee and turn up every week, going to those on a once off basis is pointless. You, you're not gonna get any value out of that, but if you can find three networks to go to on a regular basis so everybody knows you as the X, Y, Z person, then, you know, that's gonna be far better value and time spent. But then there's other events that I go to that I just go to 'cause I'm really interested. So one was recently on How To Start Your Own Podcast. I was originally thinking about creating a poems and poetry podcast, but I've decided, you know what, if I wanna reach people with my poems, I can do that much quicker in other ways.

So I've decided I'm not gonna do a podcast, but because this event was being run by the Melbourne Press Club, I would be meeting people in person and I would be going to RMIT University in the city and I thought I'm going, you know, it's, it's something of interest.

So I see a lot of what I do is part of my lifestyle rather than just, you know, business or non-business.

Nigel Rawlins: Now, many of our listeners are over 60 and they're considering, self-employment or setting up a solo venture, they've got a lifetime of experience. I mean, especially if you're 60 years old, you might have had several jobs, family, a whole range of things in your life.

And they may feel their professional network is retired. Just like you mentioned that some of your 60 year olds are starting to retire. So what are three practical steps that you might suggest to them that they might like to look at? This problem about networks aging is a problem.

Now, you've addressed it in many ways by spreading yourself to different age groups. But let's have a think about three things that they might be able to do to get moving.

Sue Ellson: Yeah, well firstly, if you're over sixty, you've only ever had work as in a job it is a huge mindset shift. So I don't want anybody to underestimate how different it is to be you in your own enterprise compared to a workplace. You have a different methodology. You think if I work 10 hours, I should be paid for 10 hours.

It, it, it's not like that In your own business, there'll be many, many hours where you may not get any sort of income and then one day you'll get a thousand dollars and you'll think it's Christmas, but you know, that doesn't last. It's only a once off thing. So anything that you can do to find other people who've either done the, the transition themselves, or who have been in their own enterprise for a period of time, you need to put those people in your network and and be speaking to them on a regular basis.

Now, whether that be a mentor relationship or whether it be an accountability partnership relationship, you really need to manage that transition 'cause psychologically it's a huge difference. I found this when I went from Westpac to being in my own business that I couldn't call IT department.

I didn't have access to information. I, I had to find answers for everything myself. And if you are used to leading a team and getting the other people in the team to do the work, this is a very different process. You can't just outsource everything. You can't afford to outsource everything, even if it was going off to a foreign country.

And then there's a cultural difference, and that's a whole other conversation. So the first thing is you need a person who's been through it to, to saddle up with and ask all those horrid questions, and say, is it normal to feel like this? You know, you definitely need that person on your side.

The second thing is you need to avail yourself of existing resources. There are huge range of resources put out by the Victorian Government, you can go to your local library. Librarians know the answer to everything. They know answers to be better things than Google does 'cause there's a lot of things that are not on Google that a librarian will find the answer for. So you need to know where to get access to information and follow through on those templates and make sure that you've, you know, you don't miss the basics, 'cause there's a lot of basic things that you can miss and you can automatically assume that a lot of things are worth doing and they're, they're often not. The third thing is you've gotta be across the tech at some level, and I believe you can start off a business, wait for it with just a LinkedIn profile. You don't need a website and 64 social media channels. What you need is a LinkedIn profile, so people Google you, that information comes up.

You can talk all about your value proposition. And then you can connect with people, maintain your network. You can get by without a customer relationship management system or a fancy accounting package. You can just use LinkedIn and start and get going. 'cause I'd much rather you build the business organically over time rather than try and nail it and scale it from day one.

I mean, that's ridiculous. So just start off really, really small with your LinkedIn profile and then as time goes on, build up further from there. Because I think a lot of people think they've got to conquer Mount Everest on day one, and that's just not necessary. And the perfect example of this was an academic I met, they came along to a course I was teaching at the Center for Adult Education on how to create a website.

Now they already had purchased a website for would you believe this Nigel? $20,000. And it was a brochure website that didn't even work. And she didn't know how to edit this client. But this client had previously been an academic at a university. And what they wanted to do is they'd obviously got a package.

That's how they could afford this ridiculous $20,000 website. And what they wanted to do was edit PhD papers. So all they had to do was find somebody studying a PhD, connect with 'em on LinkedIn and say, by the way, I help people with their PhDs and then move on to the next person. Would've been so easy to find them.

Ask the person if they'd like some help, and then move on to the next person 'cause you know, if they don't want help, fine, just move on to the next one. And they had a business, but no, they spent $20,000. Now, if you've just made the big leap and spent 20,000, how many clients do you edit PhDs to get that 20 grand back?

You know, it's, it's not a good idea. So keep your costs low, start small, but at minimum you have to have a LinkedIn profile.

Nigel Rawlins: I agree with that. That's the interesting thing is costs. What do you think it would cost to start a business? I'll be honest, I've been going about 25 years I think now, and I'm still spending a lot of money each year on subscriptions. What do I do? I've got subscriptions for a whole range of online courses. You've got your phone subscription, you've got equipment, internet, you've got all sorts of expenses. Now there are a lot of free resources around, so when you start off, obviously, unless you're very lucky, you're not necessarily gonna get work straight away. It could take several months, could take even a year.

So people have gotta be prepared to put a little bit of money in. And for example, you've just stated how they could have saved themselves $20,000. They could have invested their money, well, some of their money with you. What do you reckon about what should they do with money to start with?

Sue Ellson: Don't spend it. Like, just don't spend it. I mean, you'd be amazed at how many things you can do without spending the money. And so that's why I say start off with a LinkedIn profile and then when you get some money, then pay for the next, uh, piece of the puzzle and just make do without spending any money, until you're making money out of the business with it.

Because if you've got really high overheads that's going to affect it. Now this person who started off the new business, they have a very specialized product and service that they offer to clients, and there's a software system that they can use to facilitate transactions and they've already had practice with it.

So they've decided they're going to make that investment to run their business because to do it manually with spreadsheets is, is a ridiculous waste of time. So if there's something like that, that's mission critical for what you are trying to do. Sure, go for it. But even your email newsletter subscriptions, you don't have to pay until you get 500 subscribers.

So there's a lot of things that you can start off at low cost. The other thing I would suggest is don't go for the free version of everything, for instance, you might be able to create an email newsletter and you might be able to have 2000 subscribers for free, but nobody on earth uses the platform.

That emails all bounce and it doesn't have any integrations to any other software you might use in the future. So you'd be far better off paying a monthly fee that integrates with everything else, and then, you know, knowing that it will last today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year.

I'm risk averse being an ex-banker, but I would say avoid spending money on a lot of these ongoing costs because they can add up very, very quickly. But that said, you don't wanna make crazy mistakes and waste a lot of time either. So some quality, professional advice can help you save money.

I mean you spend more money on the professional advice, but you save more money on the, the efficiencies and, and not wasting time. The better systems that you're developing. I'll give you an example here, Nigel. One of the best things I teach all of my clients and they hate me for it with a passion, is to put all their passwords in an Excel spreadsheet and that they all bitch and complain and say they don't wanna do it.

And I'm happy with my notebook and I've got different passwords and I, I just reissue it. I've got some must Last Pass thing. I don't care what it is. They all complain. They've all said it's been the most valuable thing for their business is to have their passwords in one spot so that they can, um, divvy them out as needed.

Or change them as needed. 'cause it's, it's all in the one location. So, yeah, there's things like that if you do get professional help, that can make a significant difference to, to the journey of going from, you know, nothing to a, a business of some sort.

Nigel Rawlins: Yeah, I just wish our Australian dollar was, uh, on par with the American

Sue Ellson: Oh, that would make a huge difference.

Nigel Rawlins: You'll find that a lot of subscriptions are in American dollars, unfortunately. And for Australia an American dollar is about a dollar 50 or a dollar 60 Australian, unfortunately. So I, I just had to renew my online calendar program, which integrates with everything. It was 200 American dollars.

It's insane. So, but if you want to do any online learning, you are going to have to spend at least a hundred US dollars or more. Um, and that's the issue. You have to continuously learn how to use your software or find a better software that will help you, um, streamline your work.

Alright, we've just talked about the marketing side of it. What about AI and what I call AI augmented work. How would you describe your work with AI ?

Sue Ellson: I'm always battle testing things all the time for different reasons. I, I went down the rabbit hole one night asking AI to evaluate my poetry that I've had published. I've got over 150 poems on my website, so there's enough data there for them to play with. And, you know, some of the questions I got answers to were confronting and inaccurate as it turns out, and others were, you know, semi-helpful, but I think when you reach 60 plus, you have a lot of knowledge that is way beyond that term called lived experience. There are just so many things that we've seen, done, tried, and are aware of that AI just does not match up to. And I have a friend who's a little bit older than me who's gone down the rabbit hole with AI and now believes the AI more than me.

And that's the major concern that I have because AI is a bit like an echo chamber that tells you what you want to hear a lot of the time, and it doesn't employ the scientific method, it employs the probability method, so the accuracy is not so great and also, it doesn't sound like my voice, but what I have found it quite useful for is assessing and testing some of the things that I do.

So sometimes I'll put something together and then I'll say, is there anything else I could do? And that has been really helpful because it's, it's brought in ideas that just wouldn't normally be in my common range. And so I thought, oh yeah, that's a good one. Oh, that was a waste of time. Oh, no, that's, you know, 25 years old or whatever it is.

I mean, I, I, I still evaluate it, so it's a, it's a helpful adjunct in, in many things that I do. But I've actually found a lot of the times when I've prompted it to do certain things, it gets nowhere near my level of knowledge and understanding of the topics that I've done, because I mean, I've been working on them for years, for hours and hours a day, so how could it expect to know that kind of stuff?

And a lot of the stuff I've acquired is not online.

Nigel Rawlins: I find that as well. I found ChatGPT is just, just a bit wishy-washy lately. It, I think it fluctuates. I agree. I think the thing about being older is that you have got a lot of experience and you should be able to evaluate what you're seeing. I really beat up AI a lot and I use several of the different AI platforms and I just shift and sometimes I'll challenge them each. And when I get to help me write an article, I then have to work it like mad to, to, to come into my voice. You know, I'll say that sentence is just too fluffy and that's where you've got to be really quite strict with it, I think.

Sue Ellson: I think you do because it's very seductive and some of the way it presents information is very seductive. And it also makes it sound like, well, that's obvious and that's what you should write. And I remember working with one client and she, she has English as a second language and I think she could also be dyslexic.

So I think she's got a bit of a real nervousness about her writing. And so she wrote a piece of text that she wanted to publish somewhere. I can't even remember what it was, but she wrote it and then she went through it with Grammarly and then she went through it with Microsoft Copilot and, and then I was there as well.

So it had like four iterations. By the end it was word perfect and revolting. Like, it, it, it was just nothing like how she sounds, but it was perfect. And the amount of time we wasted wasn't necessary to finesse that piece of writing to that extent. Absolutely not. And it was, it, it triggered off her insecurity.

And I think this is another problem with AI. It makes us believe that we are not as smart as it is because it, it sounds very impressive. But we are as smart as we need to be. And so yes, use it as a tool, but please don't rely on it. And please, and, and this friend who's gone down the rabbit hole with it, turned around and said, I've asked it the most difficult questions.

Give me the worst answer. You know, tell me this, blah, blah, blah. I, and I'm, I'm going to speak to my friend today so you know, what questions should I ask my friend and, and, and I'm thinking, you've lost it. You've, you've absolutely lost it. And they're deluded. And because they have a bit of a learning issue, this particular person, I thought, um, this is actually quite dangerous. So if anything, I'd say trust your instincts because we've been, we've been around the earth enough times, or the sun or whatever it is, um, to to know the difference between what's real and what's not.

Nigel Rawlins: Well, I think one of the interesting things you said there was that you interrogate it after you've done something. So what did I miss? Or what could I do here?

And I think that's important. What you're doing is you're having a conversation with it. The danger is that you are trusting it on everything.

I, I wouldn't trust it on everything because I'm horrified by some of the rubbish I get. And I do have to work it. Alright, that's pretty good. So, what else can we talk about? Yes. Cognitive vitality, and longevity. One of the things you spoke about, uh, last time was if you are working for yourself and, this is for anybody working for yourself. You've gotta look after your body and your wellness and also your mind. You, you need the mental clarity and you need the energy. And we spoke about it on, on our last episode together. Tell us more about what you are doing to keep yourself employable physically and mentally.

Sue Ellson: Yeah, look, your physicality becomes much more noticeable as you get older, I think. And I think you fantasize about what you used to be able to do, uh, but then if you really remember it, it wasn't necessarily the case. Like for instance, you might say, oh, I've forgotten where my X, Y, Z is in the house.

But then if you think back to when you were 25, you probably forgot where it was then too. But you automatically assume now you're getting dementia because you forgot when you're a little bit older. I mean, everybody's forgetting stuff all the time. I mean, it doesn't matter whether you're younger or older.

So I think you've gotta be very careful of the internal critic. And I've started going to the School of Philosophy and I go there once a week and I've done the Wisdom Within Program, and now our topic is happiness and apparently we cannot be what we observe. I don't know all these random comments I'm trying to get my head around, uh, which I can't really, but, what I found was working on my own, I meet a lot of people, even you, I've met several times now in person and online, but there's big gaps between that. Whereas now by going to the school of Philosophy, I'm seeing the same people every week. I'm finding that very, very helpful because you can go deeper into a friendship or business friendship or course participant friendship with someone because you're seeing them on a regular basis, so, so that's been really, really helpful for me.

I also catch up for a Chai with my neighbor once a week. We spend about two hours together. So that's something again, I do every single week. Uh, unless, you know, either one of us is completely unavailable, but it's a different time every week. I put myself on the dog share website, and now what I do is I ride my bike from Canterbury to Camberwell, and then I walk Alfie, the dog.

And of course I end up sitting in Jenny's couch and we have another discussion, and that goes for a little while as well. And she's coming to my birthday celebrations and when she goes away,  Alfie will be coming to stay here. So I'm walking the dog and, and even though I don't have a dog and I don't want the commitment of a dog and the expense of a dog, and, you know, I still travel a bit with work, so yeah, I, I can't, I don't wanna have a dog for those reasons or a cat.

And yeah, so I'm doing a lot of things that keep me, and particularly because I live on my own, I need to remain connected in, in multiple ways. So that's one thing. The other thing is it took me about three years, but I got rid of all processed food from my diet. In fact now I eat so clean that I don't wanna go out for dinner because I know the food is gonna be cooked with something else.

So I don't have food allergies, but I just find I feel so good eating good food that I don't wanna eat bad food anymore. So, um, that's another thing that I do and I would still like to do slightly more exercise. I thought that the dog walking would be something, but I really need to up that a little bit.

So, yeah, I'm definitely looking after the mind a lot more than I have. I think I could still do a little bit of improvement on the physical side of things. I, I've gone to bush walking groups at the end of last year, but I don't wanna walk in pouring rain or boiling heat. Um, so yeah, I, I choose shorter activities.

I, I go through Eventbrite and Humanatix and other sites and I book myself in for events, so I'm always doing a variety of different activities. So that gets me out and about, Hmm.

Nigel Rawlins: Sounds like you move a lot more

Sue Ellson: Yeah.

Nigel Rawlins: and you're very lucky in a way that you don't have any major health problems because unfortunately, a lot of women as they age, do have some health issues. It's a good one about the food too. Uh, that's, that's my downfall, chocolate biscuits.

Sue Ellson: I still like dark chocolate.

Nigel Rawlins: Oh, well, I like white chocolate.

White chocolate macadamias. I've just gotta stay away from them. Okay, what else did I have in mind? Okay, if somebody's listening to us and they're 60 or in their sixties and they're sitting on the fence, what advice would you give them?

Sue Ellson: What are they sitting on the fence about?

Nigel Rawlins: I dunno, they might be worrying about, you know, will anybody take me seriously or am I too old? I suppose that's one issue.

Sue Ellson: That's a good question. So. I remember meeting this person who was very bitter and jaded because they were an expert in nutrition and they'd been teaching for a long time and running cooking workshops and it was all fantastic. But they lost that regular teaching gig and then they got themselves online.

And they were very angry about a 20-year-old who goes on and puts on a green smoothie on Instagram and thinks they're a nutritionist. 'cause of course, in her mind, that's just not nutrition. That's just a green smoothie. So. I tried to talk to this person about, well, okay, so what are you doing to promote yourself well, well actually she was doing nothing.

So I thought, okay, so I thought, alright, where's the best place to start? And the best place to start is usually with people 10 years older, or younger than ourselves because they know us at some level. We've had similar cultural experiences, similar music taste, you know, just, just generally these are people who are more likely to relate to us.

Yes, I have a number of younger clients in Australia and overseas, so it's not as if I can't relate to people who are more than 10 years older or younger than me. I definitely can, but if you are gonna start somewhere, then do that. So then she realized that she had to get face-to-face with people again, because that was the only way she was going to promote it.

And also she had to reach people who wanted more than a green smoothie, who wanted food combinations, who, who had special dietary issues or. They needed something else. So she realized she wasn't competing with the Instagram green smoothie. She was competing in a different field, and that's where she had to go.

So that's how that worked. So if you're sitting on the fence, you've gotta take sort of a long, hard look at yourself. There is free business mentoring available through your local council so you can speak to these people before you get your idea off the ground. Don't believe everything everybody else says though, because you know. The number of times people have said, do this or don't do that, and I've done the exact opposite and it's worked. So, you can't believe everything you hear. So speak to a minimum of three people. Don't just speak to one and, you know, crash and burn. But get out there. Go to local workshops that are run by local councils and local neighborhood houses and anything in your community.

Just look up stuff that's close to home and, and get yourself out and about. And start asking the question. And remember, a business is somebody pays you for something. So whatever it is, it doesn't really matter. Just start somewhere.

Nigel Rawlins: Yep, that's it. That's all it is. You've gotta find something that somebody's prepared to pay for. You know, I had a young fellow come around and clean all the concrete on our paths the other day. He was 22 years old and, uh, very happy, very bright boy, did a beautiful job. And I'm thinking 22 and he's running his own business. And I thought, what's he gonna be like when he is 42?

Sue Ellson: that's right.

Nigel Rawlins: Alright, so this has been a wonderful conversation, again, you've been a fountain of knowledge here, so how are people going to find you?

Sue Ellson: Well, I'm all over the interwebs. Uh, but I guess the simplest one is either sueellson.com or my LinkedIn profile under Sue Ellson, E-L-L-S-O-N. There's no I in the middle. And, yeah, just, just reach out to me if you've got a question. On my website you'll see I've always got events that are coming up, but you can also see past events.

You can listen to free webinars and see that my first four books are on researchgate.net, so you can download them for free. If you contact me from this podcast, I'll happily send you my fifth book, directly. I'm more than happy to do that. Just ask the question and I'm always happy to answer quick questions via direct message or email.

I always put that offer out because I remember contacting Lifeline when I was doing research for my first website and I said how many people contact you because their challenged by the consequences of moving. Oh, we stopped taking those statistics 12 months ago. I said, oh, well that's not so great. But they said so often people don't need to call Lifeline, but if they know they can call, it gives them the confidence to carry on with, with the challenges of life, shall we say. Also another little comment I'd make is if you are thinking about doing something, please don't listen to what everybody else tells you.

There'll be a lot of people who will say, it's not worth your time, you'd be better off doing this. I have a friend who said, Sue, because your income went down, you should apply for Centrelink, and then you could get funding and you could be a personal carer. And, and I'm thinking, hang on a minute. If I was living off a Centrelink benefit, first of all, it wouldn't pay my bills.

And secondly, that is not a good use of my expertise. I can help hundreds and thousands of people doing what I do, whereas that would only let me help one person, uh, do something. So yeah, we've really gotta sort of think more broadly. And if you've got health issues, I mean, I. I have excellent health because I've had to maintain my health, 'cause I haven't had sick leave. I haven't had holiday pay, I haven't had maternity leave or, or parental leave as it's called now. I haven't had bereavement leave, any of those things since 1994. I didn't even have half of them before 1994. I only had holidays and rostered days off. So I've had to keep my health well.

So, make sure health is your number one priority because that's the only thing we can never get back. And so yeah, I, I definitely encourage you to, to make that a priority. Everything else kind of comes second after that.

Nigel Rawlins: That's fantastic. Thank you.

Sue Ellson: You're welcome Nigel.