Brian Clark: The 22 TRILLION Dollar Opportunity

Tim Stoddart: Hey, everyone, welcome to the copy blogger podcast. My name is Tim Stoddart. Thank you so much for joining me. My guest today, my friend, the one and only Brian Clark. Brian, what's up, man?
Brian Clark : What is this copy blogger thing, Tim?

Tim Stoddart: Well, it's it's a lot of things, but more importantly, it's a lot of work. That's what it is.

Brian Clark : It is an evolution. It is a work in progress. It was always intended to be. So carry on with the torch, my friend.

Tim Stoddart : Well, certainly. Well, geez, perfect place to start out. You kind of are on the same wavelength as I am. I want to know what has life been like for you the last couple of months now that Copyblogger is officially removed from your day-to-day thinking, let's call it. How's it feel? How's it feel that Copyblogger isn't part of your life anymore?

Brian Clark : Yeah, it's weird. It's really been, you know, it's five years since really the process of unraveling started, right? We had gotten copyblogger media up to, you know, eight figures for three years in a row. And then faced with the question, do you go big or do you start selling off things? And we had the private equity deal right there on the desk. I could have signed it. And, you know, I talk about this a lot now with my new projects, but your values kind of shift when you hit age 50 and you're like, OK, I've got a few years left with my kids before they leave. And, you know, that's really it. And I was just kind of, you know, what more do I have to do specifically here? Anyway, long and short of it is I didn't sign the deal. We sold StudioPress to WP Engine instead. In 2019, we sold off the Rainmaker portion. And then you got involved and we had some shuffling around of stuff. The former partners all went off and got to do other stuff. And I was kind of halfway one foot in one foot out the door until you and I got to a point where just like, all right, I think I can remember I was in the gym, you know, trying to trying to get buff like you. And, and I remember I texted you and I'm like, you know, do you want to buy me out? And you're like, Yeah, we could talk about that. And that was fine. And that was five, what, not quite five years later. But from there, you know, the only person I was going to sell to was you. So it just felt like it was the right time. You know, you had new ideas. And I was like, all right, you need to go need to go run with that.

Tim Stoddart : Thank you. I've been enjoying listening to you or not listening, reading a lot of the transparency of the story. You got so much going on and you started a new project called Longevity Gains, which seems like it's kind of the culmination of a lot of these ideas that have been bouncing back and forth in your mind over the last four years. And so I really, really want to talk about that. But before we get there, I just want to touch on a couple of things that I've learned about you and about Copyblogger as this has kind of been unraveling. I remember I was driving to Lake Norris. It's a lake in middle Tennessee to go wakeboarding with my best friends. And I was listening to one of the Unemployable podcast episodes, and I can't remember exactly where it was. I think it was Gina something, the woman that founded Mighty Networks. It might not have been her, I'm not really sure. And she was talking about how she had these plans to go big and expand. And I remember right away in the podcast, she was just like, eh, why would you want to do that? And it was the first time I ever heard this other side of copyblogger where I realized, oh, wow. there are other values as opposed to just building this massive company and this massive brand. And that was the first time I really heard that inclination of you expressing just bigger isn't always better. And the meaning of the work really, really matters. So that's not necessarily a question. I'm almost just asking you to comment on that.

Brian Clark : Yeah, that's a good point. So, I think it gets lost in, you know, where we ended up. But when I started Copyblogger, I had a successful real estate brokerage. It was pretty much all online. This was before Zillow, but you can imagine trying to create that type of interface with MLS listings. and all of that combined with content and all the leads would come in. It worked pretty well. And that was another thing I could have scaled bigger. But I understood myself that I started that business because I wanted to succeed as an entrepreneur in a way that had nothing to do with the practice of law, which is what I left originally. And so anyway, had a near-death experience and another time when I had this chance to really look at what matters, what's important, right? And, you know, near death experiences work pretty well. Hopefully you don't need that. Anyone listening, you don't need that if you're intentional about it. But when I started Copyblogger, I knew I knew stuff that people needed. I knew that blogging was shifting from this kind of idealistic thing to a commercial thing. I had been doing what we call content marketing since 98. It didn't get a name until 2008. So this is how early this was, right? But all I wanted going into Copyblogger was to make enough money to support my family and do work that I wanted. That was my goal. It was never to create an eight-figure company. But when you start from that standpoint, right, like with purpose, everything I do is purpose driven. I am not the type of person that can just go all in just for money. But if you start me off with purpose, I end up making a lot of money. It's happened every single time. And each time there's more money involved. Now, am I going to top what we did before? I doubt it. Again, I'm not even trying, but you never know. I always seem to get attracted to big shifts that involve a lot of money. And if you do good work, then you tend to get a slice of that. So I guess I'm starting off that way again. I'm much more sophisticated than I was back then in every way, both in the ability to teach, the understanding of the way I market, and just generally not as stupid as I was when I was young, right? You know, with the wisdom they talk about you get when you're a little bit older just means you don't do as dumb stuff, right?

Tim Stoddart : There's a great Charlie Munger quote where he says, like, instead of trying to be smart, just don't be stupid. And it's like a much better probability of success by just not being stupid.

Brian Clark : It's good advice.

Tim Stoddart : It's good advice. Yeah. Man, well, you just transitioned perfectly for me on what I wanted to talk about next. You said that you had this, like, idealistic to commercial. You captured the moment with Copyblogger where blogging was turning into a thing. And I really think out of all of the skills you have, like obviously you've you're an amazing writer, you're an amazing teacher. The superpower, so to speak, that you've brought forward is this ability to like be just slightly ahead of big shifts. So you did that with content marketing. I feel like you did that with online education. I think you said it was like the lynda.com deal with LinkedIn, where you said like, oh, wow, like this is turning into a thing now. And you're really doing it again.

Brian Clark : The big one was actually WordPress, right? When I started with WordPress was the year WordPress was a thing, and that's open source. And three years later, we had entered the premium market that was literally just starting. But, you know, you use the tool, you understand why it's hard for non-technical people and you try to fix it. Right. So anyway, you're right though. Online education was another one.

Tim Stoddart : Hey there, it's Tim. And I need to take a moment to tell you about this show's sponsor. It's a product called Hype Fury. When I was able to speak to Yannick, who is the CMO, one of the founding partners of Hype Fury, and he agreed to sponsor the show. I was so thrilled. And the reason. is because I have personally used Hypefury for the last three years and it has allowed me to build my social media following and my personal brand to over 70,000 followers. I could not have done it without Hypefury. And I really, really mean that. I use this product every day and it's added so much to my business and to my life. So Hypefury is a social media scheduling tool. It has three main features that I think separates it from every other tool. One, it allows you to quickly create content and schedule them. So it's a very nuanced feature, but it's so helpful. Basically, I sit down at my desk in the morning, and I type out my tweet, I type out my LinkedIn post, and then all I do is I hit enter. And Hypefury schedules it at the opportune time on Twitter, and on LinkedIn. I don't have to think about it any more than that. All I have to do is sit down and create my tweets, create my posts, hit enter, and Hypefury does all the work for me. Second, Hypefury makes it so that you can easily create threads. And threads have been the biggest value add for me in growing my following. So threads really helped me grow my following on Twitter. And those threads format themselves into longer form LinkedIn posts on LinkedIn. It's actually kind of funny. I made a video about this not too long ago about how, yes, like you want to create threads on Twitter. You want to be a thread boy, because I'd say like 80% of my growth on both Twitter and LinkedIn have been from threads and long form posts. And I wouldn't have been able to format. any of this without using Hypefury. And then third, Hypefury is really good for keeping you inspired. So what it does is it, it shows you some of your most popular tweets and your most popular posts. And it basically gives you information. It gives you inspiration as to what your audience is looking for. and what they most actively engage in. So you're never sitting at the computer thinking, oh man, what am I going to say today? What kind of content am I going to create today? It's constantly feeding you new ideas, new inspiration, and it allows you to to quickly create this content so that you can continuously get yourself out there, continuously build your brand, and most importantly, turn that social media following into newsletter subscribers. So through Hype Fury, I've been able to grow my personal email list, timstodds.com, to over 30,000 followers. That's turned into a business within itself. It's really helped me grow the copy blogger newsletter. We're at 110,000 followers right now. A whole lot of that is also because of hype fury. So please, this is a product that I use every single day. I personally vouch for it. You can check it out at hype fury.com H Y P E F U R Y.com. If you have any problems with it, you can send me a DM on Twitter. And I'm sure I can convince you as to why it will add value to your life. So hypefury.com. Thank you so much to hypefury for sponsoring the show and let's get back to the episode. So I feel like you're really just ahead of the curve again, and this is a great place to introduce longevity gains. Longevitygains.com is a project that you're working with and the, I mean, please correct me if I say anything wrong, but the, uh, the premise. behind what you're working on is that the average age of the world, but also of the country, is increasing. And older people in our country, in the marketplace, account for much more of the spending than they ever have before. There's always been this You and I, I think we agree with this word ageism. It doesn't really mean anything, really. Like there's so many different variations of what that means, but typically we've viewed older people as like, okay, they're on the end of the ropes and all of the marketing and the advertising for them is like, oh, let me help these like frail older people that just have no clue what life is about anymore. And that's clearly not the case. So open platform for you. What is this? What is longevity games? What is the opportunity that you see in this marketplace?

Brian Clark : Yeah, this all really stemmed out of my project further that in 2019, you know, I realized that a lot of the weirdness I experienced during my 40s is kind of normal. And people at midlife experience it, it's generally not a midlife crisis. But it's definitely a transition period where your values start to change, you start being interested in other things. And again, I told you the story about deciding to sell at age 51, right? It happened exactly like that for me. So that I've been serving an older audience for the last four or five years. But with longevity gains, I realized, you know, I love to teach. And really, this is too big a shift. I mean, it's happening, it's already happening. And you're just now really, interestingly, in the last six months, since I started longevity gains, I'm seeing the mainstream media really latch on to this, but at its very basis, is older people are living longer and healthier lives, and they have all the money. At the other end of the spectrum, birth rates have been dropping for decades. So we're going to have fewer young people by a lot, right? So like the millennials are kind of the last big generation. And in seven years, you guys start turning 50. Right. So you're certainly not going to want to be ignored just because you cross some imaginary demographic line. I think the millennials will probably live forever if medical science has anything to say about it. But we're working on it. Yeah, I mean, it's it sounds crazy. We can talk about some of the age reversal stuff sounds like science fiction, but it may turn out to be correct. So the baby boomers really have all the money. But you know, if you talk about life extension and stuff like that, that may happen for young Gen Xers, it may happen certainly for you guys. But that's not the issue. Even without that stuff, older people, not everyone, but a lot of people are completely redefining what it means to be 50 or 60 or 70. In fact, there's a lot of evidence that for the healthier portion of the population, midlife is really like from 50 to 75 now, instead of 40 to 65, right? So your 40s, you know, the joke is always that you're over the hill once you hit 40. But you know, you're not going to feel that way when you get there, Tim, you're going to feel a little less dumber. Right? That's the experience of wisdom. But yeah, so so all of these dynamics are coming into play. But the problem is, You know, marketers do have a demographic cutoff at like 49, right? Which makes no sense. I mean, if you look at who is running the C-suite, who owns most of the businesses, these are people in their 50s or 60s. You know, and so when I see younger entrepreneurs making casual ageist statements, even as a joke, I'm like, who do you think you're marketing to? You need to be careful about that. But ageism is so ingrained in our culture that we don't think about it. We don't think about it like we do racism or sexism or but it's an ism just like those things. It's a prejudice. And in this case, it's a very expensive one. Yeah, so the essence of longevity gains is, hey, wake up, here's where the money is. And this is just the beginning of a long term trend for the rest of this century, older people will be the dominant consumer block.

Tim Stoddart : What was it that opened your eyes to this? I was never sure, because you started Further almost as just a side project, something for you to do, to learn about for your own development. For those that want to sign up for that, it's further.net. It's a weekly newsletter. Definitely check it out. But was the… what I say, like the evolution of your understanding, did it come from just that hobby? And you started learning more and more? Or was there something that you saw something that you read that really was like, Oh, wow, there's this whole thing here that that nobody is recognizing yet.

Brian Clark : Yeah, that's a good point. So I started further, like at the beginning of 2015, as a side project. Again, I had always kind of ignored personal development, just thought it was kind of like Tony Robbins nonsense. Wasn't happy, even though I was at the height of greater success than I'd ever even wanted.

Tim Stoddart : So I'm like, maybe- So crazy to hear you say that, by the way. I don't mean to cut you off. But hearing that you weren't happy during that time is you just you never know what's going on behind people's eyes. You know, never interesting to hear you say that. Yeah.

Brian Clark : Yeah, please. I've got a definite game face. But that doesn't Yeah, you never do. That's such. That's wisdom right there. You never know what's going on with someone else. But again, as I said, it turns out it's fairly common for people in their 40s, especially successful people, to kind of go, is this it? I got everything I wanted and I'm not happy. And anyway, so I started further just to kind of try to make myself happier, figure out what I was missing. And that's how I discovered the whole, you know, midlife slump. The happiness curve says you get happier after 50, which a lot of people think older people are bummed out all the time. And it's just, you know, you're just on a sad slide to death. It's not that at all. I mean, Research shows that your happiest decade, which hopefully we will all make to is your 70s. I mean, it's crazy. So that's a big misconception. But what happened was after we sold StudioPress, I took my family on a trip around the world. And we lived in France for three months. Five years ago, right now, I was in France sitting around supposed to be not working. But you know me. What's that? Yeah, exactly. What else am I going to do with myself? So I read a book called The Longevity Economy by Joseph Coughlin. He's the head of the MIT Age Lab. And that's the first time I realized that old people are where it's at. I don't call them old people normally. Older people. And he basically outlined the demographic shifts and, and the wealth distribution and all of these issues. And I was like, wow, I had no idea. And that was concurrent with my figuring out that I want to talk about what it's like to be at midlife, right? I was just turned into my 50s and all that. So that's when further shifted to be about midlife, but it's interesting because who's at midlife right now, Gen X, and that's my generation, the forgotten generation, no one gives us any love, so I'm like, I'm not only gonna talk to people my age, I'm talking to Gen Xers, and that's gonna be fun, because to a certain degree, even at the beginning of Copyblogger, the way I would write using pop culture metaphors and all of this stuff, I attracted a lot of Gen Xers just by doing that. So I've kind of been serving, we've been growing up together is one way of putting the evolution of the people who follow me. So anyway, that's how Further started. And then Further was a thing, I didn't want to teach marketing anymore. We did stuff at Unemployable. It was successful, but unfulfilling. I'm just like, what? am I supposed to do, you know? And that's when I decided, you know what, more people need to know about the longevity economy. We need to build an ecosystem here that's beyond Facebook ads aimed at 50 plus year olds, right? It's, we need to, we need to get something going here. And it's kind of like the ecosystem that Copyblogger built around content marketing. Now, obviously, other people got involved in that as well. But again, WordPress ecosystem, right? So I said, well, I can help other people. I'm not creating competitors because they're not me. They're not going to do this exactly like I'm doing it. But if we can once again create an ecosystem all boats rise together. And this has always been part of the key to my success. Kind of, like you said, operating within movements, right? Change. Yeah. Big shifts that go in a new direction in a commercially viable way.

Tim Stoddart : It is pretty dumb that we continue. So if there's an investor deck, right, that somebody sends me, it's almost always the case that it's like, yeah, we are appealing to 18 to 35 year olds. right? That's just seen to be the holy grail of marketing for some reason. That's like the demographic that we all think is the most valuable. And once you learn even the slightest bit about how the world has been aging, it's like clearly the worst thing to do. So with that in mind, what specific opportunities do you see? It's one thing to say, we need to start marketing to older people, we need to start talking to them differently, not just back brace commercials and AARP commercials, right? But what are the actual markets that you're seeing as opportunistic? If somebody's listening to this and they say, oh man, I want to get in there. Where would you point them?

Brian Clark : That's a great question with a big answer. In many ways, we'll stop saying the longevity economy and it'll just be the economy because it's everything. Now, here's what's driving that. Beyond our youth-oriented culture, which ironically began when the Baby Boomers were kids, the celebration of youth and old people are bad and never trust anyone over 30. Now the baby boomers are the older people. And people are like, go away, boomer. Right? I mean, it's, it's ironic. It's sad. Yeah, exactly. So, um, But the big changes, number one, the baby boomers are the healthiest older people in the ever Gen X will be a little bit healthier. Millennials will be a lot healthier once you get there, because this whole concept of healthy aging is just an evolution. You know, I mean, what Brad Pitt is 60, right? I mean, is that Yeah, I know. He is. I think he may be 59, but that's close enough. Guy does not look too bad for his age or for any age, honestly. But okay, beyond ageism, the reason why businesses and marketers just kind of tune out older people is the idea is in your 50s, all you're going to do is save for retirement. and then you retire, and then you only spend certain things like healthcare and travel maybe and stuff like that. You're not a viable economic consumer anymore. But what we're seeing is the, I call it the retirement myth, because retirement since the introduction of the 401k is kind of just It doesn't exist the way we've been brought up to think about it. Like a made up thing that we did. We totally made it up, but it was true for a little bit. And then it kind of unraveled over time. So, um, Generation X will probably be the first group that can't afford to retire in a majority of the people, which is being treated by some people like a tragedy, and others view it in a different way on one of those. Mainly because this is another concept I discovered a few years ago with further is unretirement. And these are baby boomers who can afford to retire and they did. But then they said, this sucks. I mean, what am I going to do? I'm just sitting around doing nothing. You know, I got purpose and meaning out of work. I got social connection. I got all these benefits. And then I just left that behind. Why? So they go back to work. So this unretirement trend, there was a book written about it way back in 2014. So this is not a new thing, but I figured it out in like 2019. So I started thinking with further, okay, so Gen X can't afford to retire. What if that's not terrible? What if retirement's not all it's cracked up to be? And we got all this research that says you retire, you get depressed. Some people are suicidal. They become second-class citizens. And then you add the ageism with that, and they're treated that way too. It's just, I don't know. I personally would not want to be in a position where other people get to determine what my worth and value is to society, right? So I may not work as hard when I'm older. I really can't see myself stopping altogether, especially when it comes to writing, you know, I figure I can still continue to do that for quite a while now. So to answer your original question, in the broader picture, the economy or the market for everything will skew older because people will work longer, which means they spend longer. And then we have something called healthspan, which is not how long you live, but it's healthy life expectancy, how long you are a viable, vibrant person who gets around and does stuff and goes out and shops and travels and all of this stuff. Again, that's the trend we're seeing. And again, in 2030, the first millennials turn 50, Gen Xers start to turn 65. That's really the tipping point. But it's not like the longevity economy isn't already here. I don't know if you saw some of the reports. Everyone keeps saying we're going into recession, we're going into recession, and then it doesn't happen. And it now turns out that it's baby boomers spending money. that is propping up the entire economy and keeping us out of recession, because Gen Z is struggling, right? And I'm like you, every time I see, here's how to target Gen Z, I'm like, why? They're spending my money. The only money my kids have is mine.

Tim Stoddart : Okay, I have some points, but I also want to summarize. The point is, it's not as though there's really specific opportunities that you want to jump into and capture. It's just that the economy as a whole is moving.

Brian Clark : Well, I will I will say this in the short term, you know, especially let's look at 50 year olds now, young boomers, I think one market in general to look at to answer your question is an explosion in online education that is different than what we see now. Now we've got like masterclass and people take it for fun, right? It's like educational entertainment. But we are seeing a major skills gap between what employers need and what people have, especially when you have older people who haven't been to school in a while. This whole concept that it's like learn, earn and retire. Retire is going to be replaced by learn again, or relearning, retraining. That's one gigantic market. Another one that is operating right now is age tech, which is technology that is designed to compensate for, you know, when you get older things, are not as bad as the stereotypes suggest, and yet things are different, right? So age tech is interesting. Right now, you see a lot of people who get funded who still think of aging as a problem to be solved. And when you're aiming at really older people right now, who perhaps are of the generation before the boomers, right? Yeah, they're not as healthy and they've got, you know, serious ailments and whatnot to deal with, and technology is certainly assisting with that. But as you get to the point where you guys start turning 50, the environment is just going to change from It's not that we're marketing to old people. We're just marketing to people because the population is skewing so much older. And again, I'm looking forward to you guys joining the party because I really see that's when the dynamic changes because you're going to see a lot of perceptions going how dare you call me old. Gen X already does this. They just we always laugh at everyone anyway, but we're like, yeah. You're going to treat us like elderly people when we grew up on nine inch nails and Seinfeld, right? I mean, I don't think so.

Tim Stoddart : To your point about the shift, I was reading two, three days ago, the average age, so You know, we're supposed to be in a recession. The real estate market has supposed to have collapsed like a year and a half ago. And it just hasn't. And in a lot of ways, even with the interest rates rising, it's stronger than ever. Well, how the hell does that happen? It's because the average age of the home buyers in the United States at least is 47 years old now. And 20 years ago, it was like 33 years old. Right. So I'm actually leading to a follow-up question here, because this is a point that I see a little bit of like friction where it might not just be that simple because older people do. You're telling me that they, they spend money, but they also like invest their money. They're not buying coffees and like new cars and stuff like that in the same way that younger people are like, they're buying houses and just holding onto these houses or they're, they're putting their money. in markets like index funds and, and just letting it compound really. So I've also read a lot of studies about this big, I think they call it dry powder, right? Just like all of this cash that's like sitting on top of the liquid economy. So what about that? You know, like that's a real problem. That's, that's definitely a bottleneck in this new economy that you're talking about.

Brian Clark : Yeah, that's definitely a difference between liquid wealth and spendable or like spendable cash and assets, right? Two big things to look at going towards that 2030 tipping point. A lot of downsizing and or right sizing as they call it in real estate. I'm living in a house now that's way too big for me and my wife because my kids just left and we're going to sell it soon and you know, get into something smaller. And that's a fairly common thing that's happening. The problem I see for real estate is that boomers are holding on to their house before they right size to maximize their exit. And then they're going to flood the market all at once with all these expensive homes with high interest rates. So what happens? Prices plummet, right? So I would sell as soon as possible. That's my personal thought. Don't necessarily follow that advice as gospel, but I did used to be an attorney and a broker. And what I'm seeing is things are going to come down and they probably need to, right? Millennials aren't poor. That's a stereotype, but it's very difficult to amass enough cash for the average person to buy a $2 million house that's not what we think of should be a $2 million house. So that's one thing. And I share your thoughts about the hoarding, the whole idea that you're just gonna pass it on when you die kind of thing. There's actually a growing movement, and I'm seeing more and more of this, called the Die With Zero movement. And there's even a book called this. And it sounds like it's advocating for baby boomers to basically just party balls until the end and spend all their money, right? But it's more prudent than that. It's like your kids need help now, not when you're dead, right? Help them buy a house now, help them buy what they need now, pay off their student loans, whatever, you know, use the money now. in part, and then use the rest of your money to live a great life, not a fixed income citizen who sits around watching TV all day, which if you look at the stats historically for what retired people do, you know, you see commercials about cruises and travel and hanging out with the grandkids, but they spend most of the day watching TV, right? That is not a life that I think my generation wants, and I don't think your generation wants that either. So you're seeing a big shift in attitudes, and that's really what it comes down to. We have this historical notion of what old people are like, turns out, that's a bunch of misconceptions that are changing every day. We have misconceptions that you're supposed to retire, or that you want to retire. We're seeing a lot of shifting attitudes about that because it's not all, there's just a lot of myths that we all grew up with culturally ingrained in us. And now the story's coming out, you know, it's not what you're supposed to do anymore, necessarily. Now, that doesn't mean some people who have the means don't want to, I guess, go to the villages in Florida and hide from the rest of society. But most people don't want that, statistically. It's called aging in place. I call it living in place, right? Older people are the only people who are defined by getting older, even though we're all aging from the moment we're born. Again, it's just the way we think, the language we use, And it's just an opportunity to re-examine all that because when you realize that things aren't as they seem, and it involves people with a whole bunch of money, there's money to be made there, right? So I know there's a huge anti-ageism movement. There's the opportunity for government to step in, although the United States government, I'm not sure it can do much of anything at the moment. But I think marketing effectively created the youth culture for the baby boomers at the beginning. Marketing created our ideas of retirement. And I'm saying these two things have led us to this mess. I think it's marketers who are going to lead us out of it. Because if you treat older people with respect, they'll spend their money. Perceptions change. You guys get older as well. And the whole dynamic of our society shifts.

Tim Stoddart : It's so interesting to talk about, because I guess just almost hitting on the point I made before, once you have even a basic conversation about it, it seems so obvious. You know, duh. And all the commercials that you see that are tailored towards older people, it's all, you know, the same like pharmacy commercial recycled about some kind of medicine that has a thousand side effects read off in like a really quiet voice at the end of the commercial, you know? But what I'm… Well, what I'm seeing is you talk about this this movement and this culture. And we see this, this counter culture in, you know, like the sixties with the hippies. And I guess even before that with Elvis, I'm not as much of like a culture buff as you are. Are you predicting, are you seeing that there's going to be something similar to that? Almost like a movement and a culture of people in their fifties and their sixties traveling, enjoying time with their family, enjoying time with their grandkids. I don't know. going on cruises, going out to restaurants, like what does that look like just in terms of a visual for society?

Brian Clark : It's already like that. I mean, here in Boulder, older people rule this town, right? Other than Dion. Dion is a is a brother for sure. But of course, Dion is my age. So yeah. But yeah, it's already there. The reality is that healthy older people are driving the economy. What hasn't caught up is the perception. Like Madison Avenue, I don't understand why you wouldn't want to chase this money. And I think they will because they have no choice. But to them, it's not hip or cool. The cool thing that wins the advertising awards is some Gen Z thing. But it just is not sustainable, Tim. It can't go on that way. And the people who are getting involved now, like the entrepreneurs, will be the ones that get the outsized returns, right? Like, again, starting Copyblogger in 2006, was way more lucrative and influential than starting Copyblogger in 2015, right? I mean, it wouldn't have even made a blip. So this is this transitional point that I see in the next five or six years. But I have to say, since I started Longevity Gains, and I'm like, man, is everyone going to just go, man, what the hell is Clark doing? What is he talking about older people for? And then in the last six months, it feels like, you know, it could be my own confirmation bias. But the New York Times talks about older people longevity shifts in demographics every single week now that just started. So things are changing. It's happening. It's going to take a while lot of opportunity. But, you know, I think it's kind of an ideal market right now for people like me. You know, there are a lot of people, marketers, entrepreneurs, my age, who are not looking to retire. And they'll probably be the ones who found most of the new stuff. But that doesn't mean younger people can't do it. But you're just going to have to develop this sense of empathy and try to imagine what it'll be like. But it's somewhat easier when you realize it's not that different. Like, are you, what are you 35, Tim? 37. 37. Okay. I mean, I basically feel that age still right now. Except not as dumb, you know. It's our recurring theme for the episode. I'm not saying you're dumb, Tim. I'm saying I was dumb.

Tim Stoddart : I was just having this conversation with my wife the other day where I remember being a kid so vividly and looking at my dad and little did I know my dad she was a very young dad, and so it must have been even weirder for him, right? And looking at my dad, I'd be like, oh wow, when I get older, like, I wonder how that feels. Like, do I feel like a grown-up? And when my son was born, I thought for sure, like, okay, my kid's born now, I'm gonna feel different. I'm gonna feel like a grown-up. And it has not happened at all. Not even a little bit. And you know, I have like a good example here about what you're saying. Just yesterday, I interviewed a new potential sales rep for Stasi for my agency. I've never had a sales rep before. It was always me and the woman. is in her 50s. She was a former officer in the Navy for 30 years and then she did recruiting for the Navy for like the past 10 or so 15 years of her before she retired from the Navy. And she did exactly what You just said, she said, like, I want to do something else in my life. I've served my country. I've done this for a while. And she found an entire program that teaches people how to do cold calling and the follow up process and basically how to become a cold calling sales rep. And the light in her eyes about this new stage of her life and like the excitement that she had. When you talked about the re-education, you know, where you don't feel any different. You're still the same person. It's just things change. That was the exact example that came up in my head.

Brian Clark : Yeah, it's interesting. I don't know how much time we have left, but here's a very good tip. If you are thinking about marketing to older people, it's called subjective age is what we're talking about here. older people, their subjective age, how old they feel, is often 10 years younger, maybe more than they are. So what do you think happens? And this is the thing that kills me about the brainiacs on Madison Avenue, and in big corporate America with their pharmaceutical ads, with the smiling older people. I'll My wife is like a year or two younger than me, right? And then I'll say, look, that ad is aimed at you. And she's like, no, it isn't. See, subjective age. She's like, that's not me. And there was even a recent article in the Atlantic about it. Like you go to your high school reunion. You're like, look at all these fat old people. And then you're like, that's not me. And then you look at pictures from the event. You're like, oh, that is me. You know, right. We don't feel older. So when you do your traditional image based brand advertising and you try to show people you know, that you think represent them, they go, no, that's not me. So that's an interesting tip. There's all sorts of fascinating stuff. I've got this free e-book that you can grab over at Longevity Gains if you subscribe to the newsletter for free. If you want to check it out, it's all good. But yeah, this is what I'm doing now, Tim, to answer the extended question.

Tim Stoddart : We will link the e-book in the show notes of the article. Go to copybloggerpod.com and then you can just click on this episode. Okay, man, let's wind this thing down. I want to finish up with one more question, which is just a bit more personal. You've shared this journey that you've had about this success and then losing yourself, going on the sabbatical, finding yourself. I know that's like kind of dramatic wording, but I think you get my point.

Brian Clark : That's pretty accurate. Yeah. Is it?

Tim Stoddart : Okay. Okay. You just, you strike me right now, like you're really finding this lane, like this thing that you're passionate about and you're excited about. Is that just, How's that feeling for you? Like, it's cool on the outside to see you really firing on all cylinders right now, like you're really on to something. How are you feeling about it all?

Brian Clark : This is how it's always been for me. And, you know, I'm talking to Trudy and Jared, who I work with on the further and longevity gains. And they're like, you're so enthusiastic about this. And I'm like, this is exactly how I was when I started copy blogger. Yeah, I can tell you, they thought that was a good sign. So yeah, that's what it feels like. And again, it's not about, oh, I'm going to make so much more money again. It's It's just doing the work. And if you do the work, the money comes, you gotta be smart about it. It's not like we're over at Copyblogger all these years saying, just follow your passion. No, we're giving you concrete ways to engage with people, to persuade people, to get people on board with what you're excited about. So there's a lot to it. There's a lot of strategy. There's a lot of tactics, but for me, If I'm excited about it because I've got a sense of purpose about it, that's what I tend to succeed with.

Tim Stoddart : It's really cool. I'm happy for you. Thank you so much for coming on the show. To repeat its longevity gains.com and further.net is also a free newsletter that you can check out. I think it's just Brian Clark on Twitter. I don't see you on Twitter that much anymore, though. I feel like you Yeah, you've rebelled.

Brian Clark : I'm over there with you on LinkedIn, who would have thought we'd be on LinkedIn?

Tim Stoddart : Not me. Yeah, not me. But that's been a theme of the podcast too, is how cool LinkedIn has been recently. So things change. Everything will be linked up in the show notes. Like I said, copybloggerpod.com. Man, Brian, thank you so much. I really, really enjoyed this conversation. I've been enjoying the newsletter thoroughly. I really, really do appreciate your work.

Brian Clark : So thank you for coming on. Hey, thanks for having me, man. It's good to talk to you. You too.

Tim Stoddart : All right, everybody, talk to you next week. See ya.