Welcome to Episode #7 of Work Like A Mother podcast with Marina! In this episode, Marina delves into the concept of seasons - not just regarding nature, but also in life and business. Fresh from Tony Robbins' "Unleash the Power Within" event, she shares insights into the 80 to 120-year economic cycle and how it impacts individuals and entrepreneurs. Explore the stages of life from spring to winter, and gain valuable perspectives on navigating the current economic climate. Dive into intriguing generational and historical analysis, culminating in empowering advice on finding opportunities in uncertain times. Tune in and gain a fresh perspective on how to thrive in any season!

Marina Tolentino

https://www.marinatolentino.com/

IG: @marinattolentino_

YT: @marinatolentino

Subscribe to my newsletter for more behind-the-scenes and encouragement from me! https://marinatolentino.myflodesk.com/worklikeamother

Transcript:

All right, so today we're going to be talking about seasons, seasons of life, seasons of business, seasons of generations. There are all of those. So I am fresh off of Tony Robbins. Unleash the power within. I spent, was it six, seven days in Dallas. The event was four full days. We did over 50 hours of education within those four days. So I'm talking like 1213 hours days.

You're sleep deprived, you're stressed a little bit, you're hungry, you're freezing. They keep the room really cold and you're sitting there and just being a sponge to all of this information. And so on day one, one of the things that Tony talked about was these seasons. And so it has been known, there has been studies done that every 80 to 120 years our economy goes through a cycle. And this has had a track record for the last 4000 years and going on previous to that. And so I think today my biggest aha for you is to realize and help you recognize what season you're in in your life and then what season we're in for the economy because that's going to help make you a better business leader and a better entrepreneur so that you are being proactive and facing the wind instead of running away from the storm. So I just want to kind of dive into that real quick. So one of the things he's talking about is just understanding seasons of life, right? So when we talk about the four seasons, we have the obvious, we have the spring, the summer, the fall and the winter.

So realizing if you're in your 20s, you're probably more in your spring phase, right, versus when you're in or actually, I guess spring can be a little bit longer, he says from age 22 to age 42, this is your planting period of your life, right? So we're growing things, we're planting a lot of ideas, we're trying a lot of different things to kind of figure out who we are as an adult, first of all. And then what are our skill sets that we're really good at? And we start to identify some of our passions in our 20s. So that's really going to be your spring season. In your summer, that's your productivity. And so really that's going to be. What do you say? Why do I have fall is next? I'm just going to go with my notes. Fall is my power stage. So I have 43 to 63 years old is going to be your fall.

So I think summer is the 22 to 43 and spring is your teens. Let's just reverse that a little bit. But if fall is age 43 to 63 years old. So that's like my husband is entering his fall. This is what they call the power stage of life. So for him, this is when he's hitting his strides. He's done a lot in his career already to this point. He's made some shifts and he really knows what he likes and what he doesn't like.

So he's very certain about certain things versus. I know for me, I'm still in my spring phase, my summer phase. I am still kind of exploring a little bit. I've done a lot of things. I've accomplished a lot. I've tried different careers, I've tried different businesses, and now I'm starting to approach the things that I really want to do because I know it's most important to me and what I really enjoy versus just chasing the dollar or just chasing the achievement now it's more about quality of life. So your fall stage is considered to be the happiest time of your life because, let's face it, our are not really happy because we're chasing all these things, right? We like have this hustle and this hunger in us. And then in our 40s, we can slowly let off the gas a little bit.

And this is usually when you make the most amount of money in your career, too, is when you're in those forty s and fifty s. Then we have winter right after fall comes a winter. So what does winter look like? Winter is age 64 to age 84. And this is the most fulfilling stage of life, which is really encouraging to think about. But that's because you've gotten to the point of life where you have so many memories and you have so many core beliefs that have come true. Hopefully by this point, your legacy has grown, you've grown grandchildren, and you're really starting to see life come full circle and repeat itself a little bit. And this is really the age when a lot of giving happens and a lot of contribution happens. And so I can see why that's the most fulfilling.

So I think just realizing, like, okay, what age am I, number one? But then thinking career wise, family wise, what stage am I in as well when it comes to seasons of life and business? So that you can, number one, I think, give ourselves a little bit of grace. Because if we realize, hey, I'm still in my. Don't have to have all this shit figured out yet, we can calm down a little bit knowing that it's coming, right? Just enjoying the ride, being present where you're at, and then knowing that it will continue to change.

Right.

One thing that is certain, out of all things, is that change is going to happen. Whether we do nothing, change is going to happen. And whether we take action, change is going to happen. So just realizing that that is coming down the pipeline. So let's go into the history a little bit. So I took a lot of notes on this, because if we talk about those 80 to 100 year cycles that are going on, we're entering, or the book that's called is the fourth turning. So this is a book by William Strauss and Neil Howe. And this really breaks it down, like, decade by decade and generation by generation over the last hundred years.

So if we go back to 1910, right? Let's just put ourselves there. If we were born in 1910, what does life look like?

Right.

It means we are protect or. Wait, what did I say?

Protected.

Early World War I. Yeah. So if we were born in 1910, we weren't in the war. We were still young.

Right?

We're a kid. We won the war. And then there are heroes of World War I happening. And between 1910 and 1920s, we start to get this big tech boom that's happening in Americas and in Europe, and that is the car evolution.

Right?

So cars are now a thing. We are going from horses to cars. It's a huge move in humanity. If we get to the 1920s, then, right, you're 1015 years old. You're really experiencing this abundant childhood because what do we call that? The roaring twenty s. Right. So after war, there comes a blissful phase. Well, this was the.

So really, that's kind of the equivalent of what we're seeing is the millennials in Gen Z right now, which I find is interesting. And we're going to talk about this in a little bit later. So let's fast forward 1930s. Then we enter the Great Depression.

Right?

So this is 1929. It hits. You had to be strong to survive, and there was a lot of fear in the culture because it was just unknown. Everything was kind of crashing around you. You didn't know what tomorrow was going to bring. You didn't know what the government was going to say. It was just a really crazy time in the 30s. So then fast forward, as we know what happens.

1939, we have World War II starting. So we go from a really hard period to an even harder period. So shit just got worse, right? So by now I'm 40 years old, or 30 years old. If I was born in 1910, I'm in this war. I am fighting and experiencing this war in World War II. But we come back victorious. And this generation is known as the greatest generation. That is what they're titled.

Then, of course, we enter the 1950s right after war. We have this great, amazing time. This is the baby boomers. So we come home, we have a lot of babies. This is really when industrialization starts to kick off, too, because all of a sudden we have some money. We're starting to. All these women that were in the workforce that entered during World War II want to stay in the workforce. And so we have both husband and wife who are working now, and it's just an interesting time of abundance.

This is the. Let's go to the 1960s. So again, if I was born in 1910, by now I've just had a couple of babies, probably, and my babies are turning into teenagers. This is what's happening in the. So this is the latchkey generation. It's a very small generation, but the kids grew up super independent because, again, both kids were working. So this is the first time where mom wasn't stay at home mom anymore. It's the first time where they were left alone a lot of the time, and they had a lot of independent motives and ideas, and that's where the freedom and hippie dippy stuff came about, because they saw their parents, who were very, very traditional and wanted a new world.

So we saw that transition happen. Fast forward again, let's go to 1980s. We experienced the helicopter parents, and let's think why that might have happened.

Right?

Why did we have helicopter parents? Well, it's because we had very independent people all of a sudden raising kids, and they didn't want to be what their parents were, which were super strict, but they also were very fearful of the future. And so there was like this mishmash of parenting going on, and that created the course through the. We have this huge technology boom called the Internet. So cell phones, phones changing, Internet, all of its computers is happening, which leads us to the year 2000, which is now the Gen Z generation. So we have entitled people, which I know you guys are going to hate this if you're listening. We have but very creative and very convenient driven generation. So they grew up with Internet. They were born when Internet was created, right? They were born with cell phones.

Honestly, by age five and age six, Facebook had existed. So this is the first generation that has grown up with social media. And so it's really interesting, when I circle back to this, of how this is going to create each generation based on when they grew up. Their childhood really determines who they will become in the future. So now we're in the considered winter now. So if you consider the was our fall, that was an abundance period, right. That was a lot of things going good, a lot of boom, a lot of evolution happening previous to that. That was our spring.

There was a lot of planting going on. Now we're heading to winter. So 2023, winter is here. And I know for sure in real estate we have felt it. It feels a little bit scary. It feels like it came too soon. I don't think I was ready for it yet. I think I thought, okay, 2024, it's really going to get real, but I feel like it hit real now.

And so we are leading into war. There is a very good chance that war is coming sooner than later. I don't know when in this decade, but I think it's going to happen. We're already seeing a lot of unrest with Ukraine and with Palestine.

Right.

And all of that going on. And then we have lots of stuff going on in Asia. And so is it likely that China is going to get involved? Heck yeah. But we don't know what that looks like.

Right.

And obviously we don't have a crystal ball, but it could be not a physical war, it could be a cyber war.

Right.

It could be a technology war where not necessarily there's a lot of blood and casualty, but it could be an intellectual war, which I think is really interesting to think about what that world could look like.

Right.

But knowing that, we really just have to think about all of these generations are now mixed, right? And so we've seen this in our grandparents and in our parents and now us as parents. And so who are our children going to become? Right. If they are growing up in the. We're entering into winter, what does that mean? Well, it means that good times create weak people, weak people create bad times, bad times create strong people, and strong people create great times, which I think is kind of cool to think about, but realizing what that means.

Right.

So the weak people into bad times, that's not a good thing.

Right.

So if you were someone born in the, went to the depressions, that's not good.

Right.

But you lived through a really hard couple of decades there. But however, if you were a strong person going into great times, that's actually what they call the millennials. So my generation, I think it's age 28 to 42, that generation is the millennials. And we are considered the greatest generation coming up about. And we just haven't had our moment yet, which I think is encouraging. But knowing that we're going to have to overcome something really big to get to that greatness label, which is interesting to think about when it comes to business. When we think about these cycles, every time there's a recession, a lot of businesses lose. A lot of businesses end up quitting or canceling, going bankrupt.

Right.

So if we're entering the season of a recession that we don't know how long it's going to last. It could be a year, could be five years. I don't know. There is opportunity everywhere. I think that's an obvious one. But just recognizing that there are.

What is it?

I think I wrote this down. Over 65% of Fortune 1000 companies were born in a winter season. So if you let that sit in, that's big. That's Hyatt, that's Netflix, that's Airbnb. All of those were built during a winter season. So something like that. And then one of the things I wrote down, too, was that the biggest breaks to momentum when you're trying to build something is the wrong emotion. And so if I have to wrap this up with anything, it's just knowing that, yes, there's all these economical things going on and there are seasons of life, right? These are all factors out of our control.

These are cyclical. They happen over and over. And while we can be certain it's going to happen, we don't know what time it's going to happen. The one thing we can control is ourselves. And the one thing we can control is our actions, our emotions and our thoughts. And regardless of what the media is telling us, regardless of what your social media and your friends are telling you, you know yourself and you know your truth, you know your skills and your abilities. And if you take even just 5 minutes to think back to all the things that you've accomplished before this moment, you have proven to yourself you are a badass.

Right?

So anytime there's uncertainty and you're wondering, like, holy heck, the sky is falling, I'm going to crash my business and I'm going to have to get a job at a nine to five or, I don't know, work at a fast food restaurant. No, you don't. Why do you have to do that? No one has to fall susceptible to the fear unless you choose to. It is a choice. So I just want to encourage you, if you're listening to this, being super doubtful and afraid of the future, of what 2024 brings with the economy and with the recession, realize there is opportunity everywhere. And the best thing you can do for you and your family is to step back like Zoom back, big picture perspective, like, almost have an out of body experience and look down on your life, look down on your situations and the opportunity that exists around you. And I guarantee you're going to find some open windows, some open doors. God's going to show you a way to create new opportunity in your life and come out this year as better than ever.

So I just want to wrap that up, guys. Just knowing, like, this is cool stuff. You can get a little bit nerdy with the history and the economy, right? But knowing this isn't our first rodeo as humans. We've done this before. It's really interesting when you go back even to when America was being formed and the different seasons that America went through and just kind of fast forwarding that. Okay, now, what does the 21st century look like? It's a little bit different. So some cool stuff, a little bit nerdy. But I hope this just gives you some perspective today, because I know social media is crazier than ever.

The media has gone haywire, and only you and your truth can tell you what is reality for you. So I'll see you guys next time.