Suna Kneisley Interview: "Kitty Hotel" Second Act Success Story
Diana Landau | October 08, 2024
This Month I Used to be Somebody has gone to the CATS! Meet Suna Kneisley, who consistently combines her passions with success throughout her life. A former Marketing Exec in high tech for Intuit and Oracle, she began investing in real estate and helping her colleagues do the same. That has led to a 20+-year successful career in investing, as Founder of Freedom Investments. Along the way, Suna also fell in love with cats. After volunteering for a local non-profit cat adoption organization, Suna eventually became Executive Director in her spare time. In 2019 Suna bought Pat's Boarding Place for Cats, which she has improved on and expanded and they now have kitty condos for up to 78 cats. (Are we seeing a pattern here?)
Suna grew up in the Midwest, first in Indiana and then in Illinois to a U.S. military father and Korean mother. As a kid she was very social, up for any sport. She knew her father hated his career as a CPA. Her mother, who possessed keen business intuition, turned her focus to a very busy local Mr. Donut Shop. She kept after the owner until he sold it to her family. Working at the donut shop growing up, doing all kinds of shifts, instilled a sense of entrepreneurship in Suna.
She attended Northwestern and UC Berkeley and after considering a career in medicine, she was hired by Intuit and never looked back. After personally investing in real estate, she began pooling resources with her fellow employees and began managing various investments. "I don't like doing things alone. I love to share what's exciting and what opportunities there are with friends and family."
She started volunteering for Cats About Town Society (CATS) in 2008 and realized they had organizational problems. Suna took them on with mounting debt and turned CATS around. They now care for and adopt out 400-600 cats per year. When Pat's Boarding Place became available in 2019, Suna pounced on the opportunity. In addition to running her real estate investing firm, volunteering and managing the kitty hotel, Suna loves to travel, just about every month. She also loves to play pickleball. "The path is interesting. It kinda unfolds!"
Suna's (unretirement) tips:
• "Find what it is that gives you joy. Use your skillset. Or do something completely different!"
• "Keep moving! Movement for your body. Pickleball is the great equalizer--most everyone can play."
• "It can also be really helpful to just sit and be still for your mind. Meditate. It will help you find what you want to do."
• "Be open. Be clear about how you want to feel--the kind of person you want to be at your best. What does that look like? What does that smell like? What does that taste like? Be clear about that and then be open to the opportunity, whatever it is. Then follow, say YES to things."
Diana Landau is the Content Wrangler for Pickleball Media After 15 years in corporate marketing, in 2012 she pivoted to write and wrangle content for Niche Media's weekly blog. She now manages the "I Used to be Somebody" blog
Edward Hechter Interview: High School Dropout Hits it Big Time as an Entrepreneur and in Pickleball
Diana Landau | August 10, 2024
Meet the remarkable Edward Hechter, who has "unretired" multiple times. He was a highly successful exec in tech, another incarnation as an entrepreneur with his wife, a consultant who helps companies overcome challenges and even the CEO of the giant Pickleball Central. "I tend to stay involved helping people that I adore solving business puzzles."
Edward grew up in Southern California in a typical middle-class family. "People say I was overly verbose and precocious." In high school he became active in debate, skills he would use for the rest of his working life. It was during his junior year of high school that he became one of the best high school debaters in the country. Midway through his senior year, he transferred schools and the new school didn't give him credit for some of his earned coursework. He decided to leave.
Edward began working in 1981 at the age of 17 in a tech consulting firm. He applied for the "girl Friday" position and as the company grew, he advanced. The company built websites for businesses all over the country and when Edward took the helm as the EVP and GM, the company went from $8 million in revenue to $100 million. "I was the right guy in the right chair," he tells us.
In his first unretirement, Edward figured he'd focus on becoming a soccer dad, volunteering and skiing on weekends. But he missed the intellectual side of solving complicated business puzzles. So he and his wife went shopping for a "broken" business to rehabilitate. They found a family-friendly, fixer upper in PartyPail, an online party supplies company. Edward says they went from just two orders a day to exploding in volume in just 5 years with $5 million in revenues.
In his second unretirement, Edward still wanted to help companies so he became a consultant/investor/mentor to help businesses break through whatever was holding them back. He loves helping countless entrepreneurs solve real world puzzles. "My love language is service," he says. "So I have to do good things for others. And if it turns out to be a good thing for myself too, even better." He was asked to come on board as the CEO of burgeoning Pickleball Central in 2015. And eventually helped the founders sell the business. In 2017, Edward created the Hawaii Open Pickleball Championships, the first sanctioned Hawaiian pro pickleball event.
Now in his third unretirement at age 60, (we see a definite pattern here), Edward and his wife live in Hawaii and the state of Washington. Edward still consults as much as he wants to and plays pickleball 3-4x a week. He says he's focusing on pickleball, poke, people and peace.
Edward Hechter's tips on life and work:
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"Know thyself, and what lights your fire."
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"It is often hard to tell what lit your fire until it's gone. Then you recognize you want it back." (Edward's example is his drive to help companies solve problems. He missed that.)
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"Figure out what your love language is. It's about finding the one thing that brings you a feeling of love. Start from a premise of joy and everything is easier."
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"Who do you want to share a foxhole with? That to me is the ultimate test."
• (Un)Retirement Travel with the Pro Allan Wright, Zephyr Adventures
Diana Landau is the Content Wrangler for Pickleball Media. After 15 years in corporate marketing, in 2012 she pivoted to write and wrangle content for Niche Media's weekly blog. She now manages the "I Used to be Somebody" blog
Stephanie Stuckey Interview: Rebuilding Stuckey's a part of Americana
Diana Landau | June 11, 2024
Carl interviews the unstoppable Stephanie Stuckey, the CEO of Stuckey's. The brand is known by generations as a highway oasis serving up pecan log rolls and kitschy souvenirs. Many Boomers fondly remember family road trips throughout the U.S. when stopping at Stuckey's was a tradition. Reviving her family's company is just the latest in a long list of Stephanie's accomplishments. She's been a Public Defender, a Georgia State Representative, a Director of Sustainability and Resilience for the City of Atlanta and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Georgia School of Law. Stephanie's story has recently been featured in The New York Times, the TODAY Show and the Washington Post.
Stephanie was born in Easton, Georgia and was surrounded by family. "It was a fun childhood!" Her father was a U.S. Congressman, so the family split their time each year between Washington D.C. and Easton. Going back and forth between two very different homes, Stephanie says, "You grow up very resilient and you have to learn those social skills to survive."
After college and law school, Stephanie spent over 14 years as a Public Defender. She then served for 7 years as an elected Representative for the Georgia State Legislature. in 2012 she left politics and became the Executive Director of GreenLaw, an environmentally focused law resource center in Atlanta. (Another one of her passions.)
Stephanie's grandfather sold Stuckey's way back in 1964 for $16 million (the equivalent price in today's value would be $158 million). She purchased back her family's company in 2019 with no prior entrepreneurial experience. "I didn't even know how to read a balance sheet!" she tells us. Stephanie learned what she had to do--and that didn't include upgrading the actual physical stores, which were on the decline. Only a dozen out of 300+ stores were left. Instead, she realized people still wanted to be able to buy their pecan snacks and candies. Undaunted, she found two partners, (one a pecan farmer and one a marketing exec) and the brand now has an online store, a distribution center and just two years later, the company's sales have gone from $2 million to $14 million.
In addition to running the company and raising a family, Stephanie just wrote her memoir, UnStuck: Rebirth of an American Icon this year. In her spare time, Stephanie enjoys traveling by car to explore the backroads of America and pulling over at every boiled peanut stand. She says she follows her grandfather's and father's advice: Work hard, be fair and have fun!"
Stephanie's advice on starting a second (or third) act:
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"You are not alone! I think a lot of times it's very lonely, I know it is, it can be isolating when you're trying to put something out there."
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"Go out there and find your community so you can support each other. Just reach out!"
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"Embrace your weaknesses as opportunities to learn and celebrate your strengths!"
• (Un)Retirement Travel with the Pro Allan Wright, Zephyr Adventures
Diana Landau is the Content Wrangler for Pickleball Media. After 15 years in corporate marketing, in 2012 she pivoted to write and wrangle content for Niche Media's weekly blog. She now manages the "I Used to be Somebody" blog.
Adam Bryant Interview: NYT "Corner Office" Columnist moves to his own C-Suite
Diana Landau | February 13, 2024
Carl interviews Adam Bryant this week. Adam is an award-winning (Including editing a Pulitzer story) journalist and had a weekly feature in the New York Times called Corner Office, where he interviewed business leaders across the globe. He was also Director of NYT Live, a global conference enterprise. He's had many different roles at the Times, including deputy editor in the Science department, deputy national editor and business editor at Newsweek Magazine. Adam says his 55th birthday gave him pause. "I thought if I wanted to do something else, I better get going." So he turned his side job into a new day job, writing books and coaching C-level execs.
Adam grew up in Montreal and Westchester, NY. He had a middle-class suburban childhood and his father was a journalist. (So of course, at first, Adam didn't want to pursue that course.) Adam was busy as a teen playing lots of sports and always having a part-time jobs. In college he worked as a reporter for small newspapers. He started working for the New York Times and his career took off in the 1990's. He had the Corner Office column for years and never missed a week.
After 30 years as a journalist, he realized he was going to leave the NYT at some point and there would be an "emotional blast zone" (as he calls it) of adjustment and the question was when. "I had to do some internal work to figure out what I wanted to do next." He recommends everyone who is contemplating making a leap to do just that. "Once you get out of the job/industry you're in, widen your lens. There's a big wide world out there. Time to experiment."
Over the course of 500+ interviews, Adam saw patterns and themes emerge in the business world and he started writing books about it. When he and his wife moved to New Orleans to be closer to their grown daughters and families, he says his wife gave him the third floor as his "office." You'll have to listen in to hear about the coolest office ever, which includes table tennis, foosball, and more.
Adam is now the Senior Managing Director at the ExCo Group, a company that mentors senior leaders to accelerate business impact. He is the author of four books, including his most recent ones, "The Leap to Leader" and "The CEO Test."
Adam's tips on making the leap to something new:
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OBOB: Optimal Band of Busyness
People should be aware of their optimal OBOB. How busy were you then and what level do you want now? For example, you can't assume if you're a CEO that all of a sudden you're going to be content playing golf twice a week.
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Common Pattern -- Want, Should, Need
We spend a great deal of our lives focusing on "should" and "need." At this stage of life, pause before you do something you "should." Stare down that difficult question of "What do I really want to do?" Give yourself some time.
Diana Landau is the Content Wrangler for Pickleball Media. After 15 years in corporate marketing, in 2012 she pivoted to write and wrangle content for Niche Media's weekly blog. She now manages the "I Used to be Somebody" blog.
My 6 Best (Un)Retirement Decisions
Carl Landau | February 10, 2024
I'm currently starting my 4th year of what we call (Un)Retirement. And maybe I've learned a thing or two I can share to help you...
Actually do it and retire! I thought about it many times. Exactly when should I cut the cord and stop working the crazy hours and dealing with the pressure of running my own business for 40+ years? The best advice I give people about (Un)Retirement is do it sooner rather than later. I wish I had sold/quit 5 years earlier. The last couple of work years were a drag on my mind, body and spirit. And I didn't realize it until I stopped.
Hire a pro to create a financial plan. The reason I felt comfortable in stopping the job/career is that I had been working with a great financial planner for several years in anticipation of the change. That person is Ian Castille at Capital Advantage and I consider him a good friend at this point.
I talk to so many people that have/had successful careers and have created wealth that they manage themselves. Or at least they try. This is crazy. What do you truly know about the financial market? I'd rather pay someone that studies the market all day to make my decisions. I sleep so much better at night because of this.
Avoid the temptation to go back! You are an expert with experience and it's so tempting to go back. I was in the live event biz for the past 20 years. I know that business back and forth and have seen so many opportunities to return. But, every time I return to my senses (also with the wise counsel of my wife Diana who had to put up with my totally-consumed-working-self for many years). Now I focus on where I'm going!
Do something new. Use the skills you already have, except in a new way. After working for decades, we all have developed incredible insights into organization, management, writing or whatever. Just use that toolbox in some new and cool endeavor.
Hire someone to do the shit you don't like to do or aren't good at. When I first was launching our podcast and newsletter I was going to hire an assistant. But my friend Bekah said I should consider hiring a virtual assistant company. I did that 3+ years ago. I hired a company Monkey Creative. It was one of the best decisions I ever made. No employees for me to worry about and I only pay for what I need done. I get to do the writing and they handle the graphics, e-marketing and all the other stuff I don't want to do/not good at.
Just start and see what happens. I didn't have a plan beyond starting the I Used to be Somebody podcast and newsletter. Then I took a leap of faith. Perhaps it would lead to something else? It lead to me interviewing 80 incredible people that I would never have met in a million years. Many I now consider my friends. The podcast and some pickleball talk led to Diana and I co-authoring (with our instructor and friends Mo and Reine) the Amazon best-seller, Pickleball for dummies. Most recently, my new path has led to leading vacation tours around the world for our podcast audience. You never know...
