Stephanie McCullough (00:00:06):

Welcome to Take Back Retirement, the show for women 50 and better, facing a financial future on their own. I’m Stephanie McCullough, and along with my fellow financial planner, Kevin Gaines, we’re going to tackle the myths and mysteries of “Retirement,” so you can make wise decisions toward a sustainable financial future. Through conversations and interviews, you’ll get the information and motivation you need, to move forward with confidence. And we’ll be sure to have some fun along the way. We’re so glad you’re here. Let’s dive in. Coming to you semi-live from the beautiful Westlakes Office Park in suburban Philadelphia, this is Stephanie McCullough and Kevin Gaines of Sofia Financial and American Financial Management Group. Say hello, Kevin.

Kevin Gaines (00:00:50):

Hello Kevin.

Stephanie McCullough (00:00:52):

Today we have another in our series of women sharing their stories of getting to and into retirement. And I’m very excited to introduce Diane Blumenthal. Diane is currently president of Dianthus Biopharma Consulting, and as you’ll hear, she started doing this consulting work after a long and very illustrious career in pharma and biotechnology. In fact, she has worked in manufacturing quality control, supply chain and network strategy. She’s actually helped build and transition companies from the startup research and development phase to being a fully integrated biopharmaceutical company with approved commercial manufacturing operations and products, which is quite the specialty. She’s had a key role in the development and commercialization of six pharma products. She’s also got extensive experience in the transfer and scale up of processes from the laboratory bench to commercial scale manufacturing. Diane started out with a bachelor’s in bioengineering at university of Pennsylvania, and then a master’s in chemical engineering at Lehigh University.

Kevin Gaines (00:02:04):

All right, well, after that intro, how can we do anything else, but let’s bring Diane in and dive right in.

Stephanie McCullough (00:02:14):

Diane Blumenthal. Welcome to Take Back Retirement.

Diane Blumenthal (00:02:17):

Well, thank you very much, Stephanie, for having me.

Stephanie McCullough (00:02:19):

We’re so excited to hear your story. First of all, can you tell us a little bit about what you did in your career?

Diane Blumenthal (00:02:26):

Oh sure. So I am a biochemical engineer by training. I’ve done most of my work in the biotech arena, basically working with startup companies and helping them take research ideas and make them a reality. So we take processes that have been developed at the bench and then work with them, make them scalable, make them commercializable, so that when you go to the pharmacy and you get that bottle of medicine, that was a research idea that started on the bench, but had to have a lot of work that went along with it to make it a reality. So I did that for the majority of my career, but in the early part of my career, I didn’t work in biotech and well, I did work in biotech, but it was not in pharmaceuticals. And I worked on some really fun projects like making vitamin pills for cows.

Stephanie McCullough (00:03:18):

Oh my goodness.

Kevin Gaines (00:03:19):

Geez.

Diane Blumenthal (00:03:20):

And either of you skiers?

Stephanie McCullough (00:03:23):

Not anymore.

Diane Blumenthal (00:03:23):

Okay. There is a protein that gets added to water on the ski slopes that allows the ski slopes to make snow at a higher temperature than 32 degrees, and it’s called Snomax.

Stephanie McCullough (00:03:36):

Wow.

Diane Blumenthal (00:03:36):

And I actually worked on that product in the early years of my career. And it was a product that was accidentally developed when a group out in California called Agro-Bio was trying to develop a way to protect plants from getting frostbite. And so this is the parent strain of this recombinant protein that was developed. And somebody got this really bright idea one night, I guess, sort of like thinking, well, what could we do with this? And somebody said, well, we’re trying to avoid ice from nucleating, but if we use the parent strain and we can actually make ice nucleate at a higher temperature, we can make snow.

Kevin Gaines (00:04:19):

How could anybody possibly miss that connection?

Diane Blumenthal (00:04:23):

I have no idea, but I haven’t worked on that in, oh God, it’s going on 40 years. And I was sitting and listening to my really good friend’s daughter give her thesis presentation. She’s working in climate, environment and climate. And she talked all about Snomax and I’m like, oh my goodness.

Stephanie McCullough (00:04:41):

That’s really cool.

Diane Blumenthal (00:04:42):

So that was really cool. It was really fun to see it all these years later, people were still using it. So that was one, it’s a couple of other things I did. I worked on indigo dye and a couple of other things, but that was in the early part of my career. But then I got the pharmaceutical bug and then never left.

Stephanie McCullough (00:04:49):

So interesting. So what was the working atmosphere like in the industry? And I imagine it might have changed over the time that you were there.

Diane Blumenthal (00:05:07):

Oh, certainly. Yes. Well, I would say that I entered the world of biotech in its infancy. So most of what I did in terms of working with biotech companies was working in areas of science and pharmaceutical development that was always very, very new. So it was whatever the newest thing was in recombinant DNA technology and making insulin cheaper or growth hormone and taking advantage of the advancement in molecular biology, which was very, very new when I started out in my career, to working and making antibodies and doing things that people had never done to commercialize antibody production. Now, there’s a million antibodies out there. You watch TV every day and at least half of the drug commercials you see, if you see the little MAB at the end of the technical name, you’ll know it’s an antibody, because that stands for monoclonal antibody.

Diane Blumenthal (00:06:06):

And so I did that, and then I got the gene therapy bug and started working in gene therapy. So I say all of that because most of what I’ve done is work in new modalities, new innovative science and worked in mostly startups. My first job was at a big company for the Eastman Kodak company. I’ve worked at companies where we’ve got bought by big pharma, but almost all the companies I’ve worked for have been startups and startups are intense. They are a labor of love. You have to really, really want to do them. You have to be doing them for more than just what you think is the financial gain of them. You really have to do it because you want to help patients and you want to advance the technology and move medical science forward. But it can be intense.

Stephanie McCullough (00:06:55):

So what was it like being a female leader in that startup?

Diane Blumenthal (00:06:59):

Oh yeah. Well, so I’m an engineer by training. I got my degree back in 1980 when it wasn’t very common to have a female engineer, I was in chemical engineering and so it wasn’t common. Although, I did work in a laboratory in my undergraduate years with a woman who was a graduate student then became a faculty member. And I worked with her for my graduate degree and she’s still a very close friend. In fact, my business partner.

Stephanie McCullough (00:07:25):

Oh awesome.

Diane Blumenthal (00:07:26):

And she was a female engineer. And so I had her as a role model and I think that really, really helped, but it was tough. I mean I worked in mostly a male environment and it was a balance between wanting to be one of the guys and trying not to be one of the guys because that doesn’t go over very well.

Diane Blumenthal (00:07:45):

Now that women are in leadership roles and women can do almost anything nowadays, I think we’ve all learned that women trying to be like men is not good. It backfires on you. Behavior that men, assertiveness that men have or leadership styles that men have on women don’t wear well, at all. And in fact, tend to give women leaders, have over the years given women leaders a bad reputation. And so it’s taken us a while as a gender to figure out our place, but it was challenging. One of the stories I didn’t want to forget to tell is that my very first job interview at a graduate school, I went to work for the Eastman Kodak company and the head of the division sits me down and had had a group of young women all and had gone out on maternity leave on him like within the space of a year.

Diane Blumenthal (00:08:42):

And one of the questions he asks, which was totally illegal even back then, is “so, what makes you, tell me why you think you’re not going to go out and get married and get pregnant and only give me a few years. What makes me say I should invest in you?” I mean, that was my very first big interview and I’m thinking, ay yay yay yay yay, but the world has changed and of course I did end up getting the job and I did not end up disappointing him because I didn’t get married until very late in life, but I didn’t stay there very long. It just was not the right place for me. But it was a great first company experience.

Stephanie McCullough (00:09:22):

The big corporate versus the small startup, right?

Diane Blumenthal (00:09:24):

Yes.

Stephanie McCullough (00:09:24):

I mean, do you have to wear lots of different hats in a small startup situation?

Diane Blumenthal (00:09:30):

Oh absolutely. Depending upon the stage of development of the company, you could be rolling up your sleeves in the lab one minute and at an executive board meeting in the next minute. But that’s the fun of it. That’s what I loved about it. In my later years I loved mentoring men and women and helping them and young people develop in their careers and give them the skill sets that they needs to be the next generation. That’s I feel it’s part of our responsibility.

Kevin Gaines (00:10:00):

So how did you find yourself in the startup area? Did you just fall into it or did you say okay, big companies, let’s just swing the other way and go as small as possible.

Diane Blumenthal (00:10:12):

That’s an awesome question. No, like a lot of things in my life, it just sort of happened to me. So I’m in Rochester, New York, it’s freezing cold and I get a phone call from a recruiter who says, I have this job out in the California area. Now I’m a New Yorker, okay. You can hear it in my accent, right? I’m a New Yorker, born and raised on the east coast. And he says, I got this job and he starts to describe it to me. And I’m like, okay, this sounds great. And then he tells me it’s on the west coast and I’m like, nope. And he goes, you all won’t even talk to me? And I said, okay, I’ll talk to you.

Diane Blumenthal (00:10:51):

So we started chatting and I started learning about it and he convinced me, he was a great salesman and he convinced me to meet with the hiring manager. And the hiring manager actually was a colleague of somebody who I knew through professional associations, who I respected a great deal and became a friend of mine. And I called Nikki on the phone and I said, hey, I have this opportunity. I believe you know Joe Tarnowski. And he said, oh my God, Joe, when he went on and on about Joe and he told me, and I told him about the job. And he said, if you don’t pack your bags and take that job, you’re insane.

Diane Blumenthal (00:11:26):

So I met with Joe, he flew me back down to the New Jersey area and he was a man who does not take no for an answer. And through a series of back and forth, he ultimately convinced me to move to the land of fruit and nuts, as I thought about it back then, of course I don’t feel that way now. I lived there for almost 12 years and I loved every minute of it. But he convinced me to go and I have some, I mean, just some really funny stories about my going there and bursting into tears the first day I landed in California in the grocery store because I didn’t have Hellman’s mayonnaise, okay. And then I realized Best Foods and Hellman’s were the same. And then I was like, okay, I can stay here. But I had never been very far from home and it was a life changing event, a life changing event.

Diane Blumenthal (00:12:12):

And he became, and still is a very close friend of mine. He, along with my friend Janice, have been, Janice was my role model. I call him my mentor. He has been helpful in helping me make every step and change in my career. I owe a lot to him, but yeah, it was just one of those picking up the phone and talking to a recruiter and that was that.

Stephanie McCullough (00:12:36):

How small was the company when you joined it?

Diane Blumenthal (00:12:40):

Oh, goodness gracious. It was maybe 30 people. Maybe 35, mostly researchers. They had no clue on what it took to develop a product. And I honestly, really didn’t know much about it either, but Joe was a great teacher and he was patient and we developed and brought a number of products, although they didn’t go to licensure until after we both left. But we were out in the thick of biotech back then. Okay, this is when Genentech was becoming a household name, Amgen. Up and down the Peninsula in the Northern part of California was every biotech, you can go back into reading books now about the startup of biotech. And I read a lot of them and have over the years and I’m like, oh, I know that person. I didn’t know that person. Oh yeah. I did that. And oh yeah, it was really like that.

Diane Blumenthal (00:13:34):

And it was fun, it was a life changing event personally as well. I changed as a person for the better. And I also, when I talk to young women and men about being comfortable with being uncomfortable, it’s important to not be afraid to make a change, to get outside your comfort zone. And it’ll be rough at times but you come into the back end of that and you go, wow, look at what I did. And I went as an experiment, like I’m going to stay for a year or two or three and then come back and I was there 11 years.

Stephanie McCullough (00:14:12):

Wow.

Diane Blumenthal (00:14:12):

Yeah.

Kevin Gaines (00:14:13):

So when you talk to people about being comfortable with being uncomfortable, how do you describe it? How do you convince them that is a healthier approach to have?

Diane Blumenthal (00:14:30):

Well, it’s you have to be unafraid to try something new and know that it may not work out. So I am not the kind of person who just jumps with my eyes closed typically. But I am the type of person that goes, okay, well, what’s the worst that could happen? So when I make the move to California, what’s the worst that could happen? All right. I hate it. And in a year’s time I’ll come back. What’s the worst that could happen? What’s the worst that can happen if you go into a party or you try something in your career and you go, eh, this isn’t for me. But you have to know where your boundaries are. You have to know that you don’t want to stretch yourself so far that you are not largely successful. If you make some mistakes, that’s fine.

Diane Blumenthal (00:15:19):

That’s the learning process. When the kids are little, they fall every time when they’re trying to learn how to walk, it’s a process, but you don’t want to be in a situation whereas you, especially as you get up into leadership roles, where if you make a mistake, it could be significant and you never want to be in a situation where you’re so outside of your comfort zone that somebody’s going to get hurt.

Diane Blumenthal (00:15:36):

Like in my industry it could be a patient, right? But it is, you have to just say, okay, you just got to dust yourself off and say, this didn’t work and I’m going to try something else. It is about the journey. You never know where the next step is going to go. You never know what’s going to happen. And if something doesn’t work out, it doesn’t mean that the next thing won’t and you just have to sort of say, okay, I’m going to learn from those mistakes. But there will be rough times and there have been, just that’s life. There’s rough times in your personal life too and you’re just going to have to navigate your way through it.

Kevin Gaines (00:16:08):

That, what you have just said is so important to retirement because this is what we talk about, a lot is you have never retired before, this is a brand new journey for you, and yes, some of it may come across scary. You could do a lot of prep, listen to some excellent podcasts. I happen to know one, completely unbiased opinion, to help you prepare and think about what your life is going to be. Once you “stop working” and I know we’re going to be spending a lot of time talking about that with you as well. It’s just a theme that I think we need to emphasize. This is an important trait for retirement as well, that there’s going to be these uncomfortable moments and I’m so happy that you brought that up.

Stephanie McCullough (00:17:01):

Yep. And that you don’t have to get it right the first time.

Diane Blumenthal (00:17:03):

No, no. And as an engineer we’re taught to problem solve. So we’re also taught to be prepared and we’re also taught to try to prevent something that you could have known about from happening. But we’re also taught that stuff happens and you have to figure out how to navigate it. So like anything else in life, you can do research, but you can’t do research ad nauseam. I’m big into doing research and my husband makes me, says I make him crazy because it’s like he finds the solution and then he’s done, he moves on. I’m a little bit more like, I have to make sure I have two or three solutions and I’m sure it’s the right one, but it can’t paralyze you. But you’re right, it’s you have to prepare yourself. You can’t go in and just say today, okay, I’m going to quit today and I’m not going to think about what that consequences of that are financially, emotionally, or what am I going to do when I get up tomorrow because it’s not an extended vacation.

Stephanie McCullough (00:18:03):

Right.

Diane Blumenthal (00:18:04):

And I think for some people that’s a little bit of a shock. Their self-esteem is tied up in their job. They’re who they are, is what they do day to day is tied up in their careers. And now what do I do? What’s my identity. Does that make sense?

Stephanie McCullough (00:18:22):

Yeah. Completely. So since we’ve gone there, when you were in your career, did you have a plan for retirement? Did you have a kind of an, whether it’s an age or a milestone in mind, what was your thinking?

Diane Blumenthal (00:18:34):

You know, I never had that. I’ve got to retire at 60 or I have to retire at 55 or whatever. I’m a late-in-life parent. So I have children I’m raising. And so I had to be concerned about that. But it really wasn’t like that. I did go into this last job knowing it was more than likely going to be my last startup and my last operating company, that I was very clear.

Stephanie McCullough (00:19:03):

And why was that?

Diane Blumenthal (00:19:04):

Because they’re tiring. I just didn’t think I had more than one in me. And this one was the toughest. It was the toughest for a whole host of reasons. And so I went into it knowing it was probably my last one. I went into it knowing that I had a four year commitment in my head because I knew that’s where my stock would have the maximum amount of benefit. But I also knew that it might not work out from a stock perspective. But I said to myself, we’ll see where it is at four years and if financially it allows me to either go into consulting full-time and know I didn’t have to have that steady paycheck or I could do it part-time or not at all. That was all to be decided later.

Diane Blumenthal (00:19:56):

And then this one, when I was consulting, I worked mostly for startups as well, but then after, then this last one ended up being six years. And it was six years because of the fact that it was clear after, well, I wanted to see the product approved. And so it took a little longer than that four, and then I also knew that the company was in the process of being sold and then it took a whole ‘nother year before I had my money in my hand. And then a little bit longer after that, because I sort of said, well, I’m going to stick it out and then COVID hit and then one day I woke up and said, I’m done.

Stephanie McCullough (00:20:37):

Oh yeah?

Diane Blumenthal (00:20:38):

Oh yeah, yeah. It just said the job was no longer fun anymore. COVID was part of it. It was, the job was just sort of routine and my group had grown and my manager didn’t need me. I was kind of, sort of there as the internal consultant because that’s really, I had a lot of the institutional knowledge and they wanted me there. And my old, my youngest I’m sorry, has dyslexia and he really needed the attention to help him get through, the online school was a disaster. So all of those, it’s just kind of all the stars came together and aligned and I just woke up one day and said, I’d be done.

Stephanie McCullough (00:21:17):

Yeah. Yeah. I want to stop for one sec because we have a lot of listeners who might not have ever been in a startup world. So you mentioned stock. So as I understand it, right, for some folks who get in early on a startup, part of the compensation is some stock in the company-

Diane Blumenthal (00:21:36):

Yes.

Stephanie McCullough (00:21:36):

… which may or may not lead to actually being worth something down the road, is that fair?

Diane Blumenthal (00:21:42):

Yes. Yes. That’s true. So most of the companies I’ve worked for have been companies that have already gone public. So that you get during different phases of companies that I’ve worked with, you get stock, the right to buy stock. So you get stock options that are set at a certain price and then when the stock goes up, then you get that difference or you can buy those stock options when they vest. And so you get stock and investment in the company, you can also get actual stock, which restricted stock units. And you guys could probably explain that a whole lot better than I could, but you get different types of equity in a company. And so as the company is successful, you become able to take advantage of that success and they vest over time, so it’s not like you get them in the very beginning.

Diane Blumenthal (00:22:29):

And so in order to get the full benefit, most of what you get usually is the biggest bang for your buck you get is when you start and that’s where promotions and bonus, compensation, you get them over time but their vesting schedule is certainly not like you get them on that day. So you have to stay with the company, they’re golden handcuffs to keep you there. With the last company I work for, I had the luxury and it was unique and unusual. Someone like me is usually only needed after a company goes public, but I had the opportunity to join this company before it went public. And so I had pre-IPO shares, which were very, very low, low price, very low price, and got to be there when the company did go public, that made those shares much more valuable.

Diane Blumenthal (00:23:16):

And so that really made this even more enticing when I was trying to make the decision about whether to do it or not. And that was an incredible experience. And the reason why I was able to join pre-IPO was because of the fact that this technology had gone very, very far in an academic institution before the company actually became a real company. So to hire somebody like me prior to them going public, it was because of the stage of development of the product. And that was a great experience. I got to go to NASDAQ and our CEO got to ring the bell and it was a highlight of my career. It was so much fun to be able to do that and to be at a company and see them go public.

Diane Blumenthal (00:24:00):

And in a time period when gene therapy was just taking a resurgence from the years when they had a couple of deaths, 15, 20 years ago, well, 15, more like 15 years ago and it had to go subsurface for a while. It just wasn’t ready for prime time. So yes, and not every company I’ve worked for, there were companies, I had the company in California, actually that company did not do as well and they ultimately got purchased by J and J after I left, Johnson and Johnson. However, we got paid, a lot of our bonus one year was paid in stock and the value of the stock went down so much that year after I purchased it, that it took me five years to write off the loss of that.

Diane Blumenthal (00:24:47):

And I had a tough time paying the taxes that year, because I didn’t have any money to pay the taxes. It was a complicated situation. And I was young too, I didn’t have a lot of discretionary income and I had to pay taxes on money that I would never see. It was really, really hard. So it’s tricky business. It’s a very, very tricky business.

Stephanie McCullough (00:25:06):

I’m glad you told that story too because some people think, oh, if I get some stock as part of my compensation, that’s a golden ticket, but it doesn’t always work, you’re taking risk when you agree to that.

Diane Blumenthal (00:25:20):

Yes, you were absolutely taking risk. And I tell everybody do not go into these companies thinking that this is going to be the answer to your prayers, meaning it may be, but don’t count on your financial security 100% being there, if at all. When I worked out in California during the period of the biotech boom, was also the period of time in Silicon valley during their boom. And so I watched a lot of people turn 30 and be multimillionaires, but that’s not the norm. My friend Liz says, she goes, you’re a unicorn. She said, lightning doesn’t strike twice and you got lucky twice. And my husband says it wasn’t luck, it was hard work, but I do agree that it was a little bit of picking the right companies and you don’t know, you just don’t know. And I was just fortunate and I do count my blessings every day that I was very fortunate.

Stephanie McCullough (00:26:13):

So, without getting into specifics and numbers, when you were looking at the ability to retire, kind of what things factored into that and made you comfortable that was going to work out okay?

Diane Blumenthal (00:26:26):

Yes. So I knew that when I took this last job that we would be okay, fine. We would be, I mean, we would be okay financially if my last company never went public or they never were successful.

Stephanie McCullough (00:26:46):

Got it.

Diane Blumenthal (00:26:24):

But I would still probably have to work whether it was going to be an operating company again, more than likely not, but I would probably have enough of a nest egg and security that I would be able to go ahead and consult properly full time. And that was also largely because my husband is a retired military officer and so I knew we had health insurance. Health insurance is very important and many of my colleagues work because they need the health insurance. And it’s not that they need the money, but they need that. They need that security and we needed it. I have young children, my husband had cancer. We had to have it. So I had that luxury.

Diane Blumenthal (00:27:24):

The second thing was that I knew that if the company was successful, then that would be it financially and I wouldn’t have to worry. But I did not count on that being the case and you have to balance that. The other thing, and we talked earlier about my knowing that I could retire or what made me decide when I could do it. The last little piece is our company got bought out by a very large Swiss pharmaceutical company. And the Swiss are very, very gracious to their older employees and they have a clause in their stock agreements that once you turn 60, if you retire, you get to retain your stock and get to keep it vested or unvested. And that was the final pin in the decision because I knew I was walking away with quite a bit. And that allowed me to feel extremely comfortable that if I never worked again, I would be okay.

Stephanie McCullough (00:28:28):

Great. Thank you.

Kevin Gaines (00:28:28):

Definitely a nice.

Stephanie McCullough (00:28:30):

Yeah. So what was retirement like? Did you wake up one day and not have to go to work?

Diane Blumenthal (00:28:35):

Oh God. It was so nice. For the first couple of months I was like, oh wow. I don’t have a ton of time to do anything. You’re switching health insurance, and you’re just getting all your financial house in order. And we’re still in the process of doing that, to be honest, as consolidating accounts and doing all of that kind of life stuff as we get closer to 65 and then I just took a break. I took a mental break, I just did things with the kids and they were both applying to schools. They both go to independent private schools and so we were in the application process and all of that. So I had, the first four or five months, I had no time to myself.

Diane Blumenthal (00:29:14):

But then it was just enjoying that I could sit down with a book. I could watch a movie on Sunday night. It wasn’t, oh my God, I got to get meals ready for the kids and for us and worry about cooking. And my husband is very self-sufficient but there’s certain things that I do and certain things that are mom things that have to get done. Like I won’t let him do laundry and I teach my boys how to do laundry, but just stuff, life stuff, I have to give him his honey do list for the week. And so it was so nice on Sunday nights, I go, I can stay up until as late as I want. And then you kind of get in a groove, you start to think about the things you like to do.

Diane Blumenthal (00:30:00):

And I’m just, I don’t know how I worked because I’m busier than ever, but true, I’m consulting and I’m doing some work, but I am busier. And it’s great, I love it. I would not get this, we had the time back with our kids and the way we never would have in the pandemic. But I also get time now with my kids before they go off to college, it’s my last chance to make an impression on them. And that’s a gift that most people don’t get and I cherish it and I know I’m very lucky because most parents don’t get that.

Kevin Gaines (00:30:34):

That’s fantastic. Now you’ve mentioned consulting a couple times. So when you were fantasizing about retirement, was doing consulting always one of those things? It’s like when I retire, I can do consulting as much or as little as I want, was that going to be, in your mind was that how you were going to spend your retirement or did you just kind of, it’s like I’m board, what am I going to do? Let me consult.

Stephanie McCullough (00:31:02):

Or did people track you down?

Diane Blumenthal (00:31:04):

Well, it’s a little bit of both. I didn’t make that conscious decision. I more was if I feel like I want to do it, I know I could do it. But I also knew that I had a window and I knew that it was, if you’re too far out of the marketplace and this business works so fast. Technology is changing so fast that after a certain period of time, you’re only as valuable as the last company you worked for, the last project you did. So I knew that there was a lifespan for how long I could be out of the market. And I expected and sort of had this idea in my head that it was going to be more like a year, but then a colleague of mine said, the operative words were, could you just help us a little? We only need some advisory help and I really could use your expertise.

Diane Blumenthal (00:32:05):

And this was a young woman who I just adored when I worked at my last company, and I couldn’t say no to her. She’s just a sweetheart. And so I said, sure. And I love the CEO. And then the woman who I’m working closely with is just a sweetheart. And then the technology is new and novel and fun and the people are fun. And so I just couldn’t say no. And what started out to be as an advisor, more was like now I’m their part-time CTO.

Stephanie McCullough (00:32:34):

Really?

Diane Blumenthal (00:32:35):

Yes. And it was a little bit more than I wanted. And I have to tell you, there’s so much stuff that needs to be done there, and there’s a number of people who are trying to do it who just don’t understand how to do it. And that need to fix, that engineer in me of like, I got to go in there and fix this because you’re going down a path and you’re never going to get out of that rabbit hole if you do that. I have to stop doing that. I have to say they just are going to have to stumble a little bit because if I don’t do that, then they’re going to suck me up into 40 hours a week plus, and I, no, no, no, don’t want to do that. So it was a little bit of both and it was a little bit of the fact that I knew at some point I would want to do a little bit just to keep my scientific interest satisfied because I just, I need that intellectual stimulation. Does that make sense?

Stephanie McCullough (00:33:26):

Yeah. What are the biggest challenges about being self-employed now?

Diane Blumenthal (00:33:32):

The balance. Is to saying no and carving out those, I don’t like having an hour here an hour there to say, okay, it seems to I’ve fallen into a pattern because the kids are up early and get on the bus early. So I’ve fallen into a pattern of working mostly in the mornings and then if it bleeds over into the early afternoon, that’s okay. But I sort of try to cut it off, A, to just regroup and clear my head, to do other things, go out and run errands when nobody else is doing that, go to the grocery when nobody else is there. And then making dinner and then if I do anymore, sometimes a little bit in the evening, but I try not to if I don’t have to. So that’s one of the challenges. The other challenges is not letting the things that you have on your list that you’ve wanted to do slip away. You have to make time for those.

Diane Blumenthal (00:34:29):

One thing I haven’t made time for is cleaning the mess behind me and it drives my husband crazy because he just is very, very regimented. But doing the things that you really said you wanted to do when you retire and making the time to do them. And I am, after the summer, I’m going to pick up a couple of other things that I want to do, that I just haven’t really made the time for and just make the time for it and just say no to people. I’m not taking on any more clients and I’m just not doing any more committees and I’m saying no to the people at school because it’s easy to slip back into that busyness.

Stephanie McCullough (00:35:09):

Yeah.

Diane Blumenthal (00:35:10):

It’s very, very easy. Even if you don’t have children at home, it’s very easy to slip back into that.

Stephanie McCullough (00:35:16):

Especially if that’s what you were used to for so many years.

Diane Blumenthal (00:35:19):

Yeah. And you make a good point. You’re used to going, it’s like, oh my gosh, what do I do? To sit and sit still is, yeah, it’s okay to sit still. It’s okay to read a book and just do whatever you think you want to, take a walk with your husband, go for a bike ride. It’s okay. That’s what, you’ve earned it.

Stephanie McCullough (00:35:40):

What are the best parts about working for yourself as opposed to being someone else’s employee?

Diane Blumenthal (00:35:48):

Oh, it’s great. I loved it the first time around and having the opportunity the first time around, the company I went to work for, the blood company, once we realized it, it wasn’t that I wasn’t a good fit, they just weren’t ready for me and so I had the opportunity, I had a nine month severance. And so I said now is the time to try something you’ve never tried before and I have a paycheck coming in every month. And so I knew what that was like and I loved it. I love helping people, but I don’t like the other aspects.

Diane Blumenthal (00:36:13):

The managerial aspects of writing performance reviews and dealing with people’s complaints about this, that, and the other thing and all the things that go along with being in the routine, mundane stuff. I get to do all the things I love to do. Problem solving, helping people do things that are good for patients and bringing technology to patients and doing all the things that I just love, loved about my job and don’t have to do any of the other stuff. It’s great. And I can say, and pick and choose what I want to do, because you need me and I don’t need you. So that’s great.

Stephanie McCullough (00:36:51):

I think when we talked before you talked about some rules, you developed about the type of work you would take.

Diane Blumenthal (00:36:56):

Yep. I do. I had three rules and it has to be with people who I like and they’re fun because if I no longer like you and you’re no longer fun, I make you go away. Nicely and casually and just wind you down. But I spent way too many years working with people who just aggravated me to no end or were difficult people or just didn’t want me to be doing something and made my life difficult. So oh, you have to be nice. It has to be something that is meaningful. And then you have to be willing to pay me my value. And that was tricky. That was really tricky to figure out what is my value, what should I be charging. You know what you paid consultants when I was working.

Diane Blumenthal (00:37:48):

But I also know that I have done and a few of us have done something that is very, very unusual and I’ve done things that are not so unusual, which is bringing these startup companies to the next stage of their development. But I’ve done things that are very unusual and unique. And so, you don’t want to be arrogant about it because I’m not doing it for the money, but you want to at least be paid your value. And because if you’re not, then some of the things that you may have to do because you can’t be completely like, I’m not going to do this if you want me to, even though you should and it is the right thing to do, and what you agreed to do if it’s something mundane, but it is as an advisor or whatever it is that it’s the right thing to do. You don’t want to be resentful of the fact that you didn’t charge enough.

Stephanie McCullough (00:38:35):

Yeah.

Diane Blumenthal (00:38:36):

And also too, it’s really important to understand that as silly as this is going to sound, it’s human nature, that if you undersell your value by your hourly rate, people are not going to respect you in the way you need to be respected for your years of experience and for what value you bring to them. And it sounds silly, but it is what it is. And one of the companies I’m working for is a nonprofit and I’m giving them pro bono time and I have no problem with it but I did tell the, this is an ex colleague of mine, that here’s where my limit is because I don’t want to be taken advantage of.

Diane Blumenthal (00:39:15):

I’m happy to cut my hourly rate for you because you’re a nonprofit, it’s a very, very rare, unusual disease that they’re trying to navigate through but you do have to start paying me at a certain point because otherwise that’s not right. And for me it was a little bit of an ethical problem because I don’t need the money. It’s about respect though. And a really good colleague of mine said to me, you have to charge them something because they have to understand the value of your time. So I think that’s important to know.

Stephanie McCullough (00:39:44):

I’m glad you said that because I know especially a lot of women struggle with pricing their services and undervaluing ourselves.

Diane Blumenthal (00:39:52):

Yes.

Stephanie McCullough (00:39:52):

Have you changed your pricing since you first started?

Diane Blumenthal (00:39:56):

Yes. And I’ll tell you the funny story. So I have a gentleman who’s worked for me twice, my last company and the company before, I brought him to my last company. And now he is a consultant for a big company out of London. And he told me how much they’re filling him out at. And I said to my business partner, we’re charging too little money. I said, we’ve got 15 years on him and far more experience and they’re billing him out at that rate, and we upped our rates.

Stephanie McCullough (00:40:22):

Yeah. Good. Sometimes it takes that shock.

Diane Blumenthal (00:40:28):

Yep. Yep.

Kevin Gaines (00:40:29):

Well that actually kind of alters the next question I had for you. So back when you were trying to establish your initial rate, your initial value, how much was it, this is what the market price for these services are versus what will it take me to give up X or whatever that is in retirement that I’m going to be giving up this leisure or time with fam or whatever to do this? So how much of it was what the market will bear versus you got to pay me to give up something else that I want to do?

Diane Blumenthal (00:41:07):

That is an awesome question. I did never consciously thought about the second piece of that question until part of the way through a project that my colleague and I are doing. And I only agreed to do it because she was going to help me because I was afraid it was going to be too much. Part of the way through the project we were working with a company that they have contracted with to do their manufacturing and this company has been extraordinarily difficult to deal with.

Diane Blumenthal (00:41:36):

And so I think the best way I can answer that question is the second half, is which is it wasn’t conscious but one day she and I were talking and she was very frustrated and we would ebb and flow one day I was more frustrated than she was. And I finally said, you know what, Janice, it is not worth what they’re paying us anymore. And if we’re going to continue to work with this company, if they don’t just cut them off and move on and cut their losses, A, I don’t want to be held liable. So there was a liability issue here that was making me very nervous and that’s important in my industry. We never want to be responsible for somebody getting hurt. And then the second thing is that I’m like, it’s just not worth it. I have better things to be doing with my time rather than being aggravated by this manufacturer.

Diane Blumenthal (00:42:24):

So I mean, I’m really not an arrogant, and very hard for me to often times pat myself in the back, but I’m like, this is just, we’re not being paid enough. And because they were trying to help, I felt it was, that tick the box of helping humankind, and not that they were taking advantage of me, but it was like, and we gave them a cut rate because we felt bad for them, but that’s where it was, I was done with that. That’s where I said, this is just not worth it, financially or emotionally, and I have better things to do with my day. So that’s the best way I can answer it. It was not a conscious decision for me that that was okay.

Diane Blumenthal (00:43:02):

Anything less than that, it’s not worth my time. Now, the longer I do it, the more it is, I’m getting a little bit more picky and retirement, I’m starting to edge into feeling really comfortable in my skin in retirement. And now it’s becoming, you’re taken away from my going for my bike ride or my cup of coffee now that I’m not holed up at home because of COVID with my girlfriend. So, I’m sorry, but they are, my family and my friends and my life outside of working is priority now, not the work.

Stephanie McCullough (00:43:35):

Awesome. That’s great. So what suggestions would you have for women who aren’t there yet, who are looking towards that retirement transition and hoping to plan for a rewarding rest of their lives when they don’t have to wake up at the crack of dawn and be at someone’s beck and call?

Diane Blumenthal (00:43:52):

Ah, good, good question. Let’s see. So let’s talk about the more fun part, which is not the money first, which is think about what it is that you want to do in retirement. Think about the things that are important to you, prioritize those, make a plan, whether it’s in your head, on a piece of paper, just say, okay, I know what I want to do and what my, this is the next stage of your life. What do I want to accomplish in this timeline? Do I want to travel while I still can? Is that important to me? Is it spending time with my grandchildren, my children? Is it learning how to play an in instrument? Figure out what it is that’s important to you and start to say, okay, I’m going to tick that off. Don’t make it a list of, “Oh my God, I have to do this by this date and this date.” It’s not a job!

Diane Blumenthal (00:44:46):

But it is at least a roadmap to say, this is what I’d like to do. And then just be okay with being in the moment and where the journey’s going to take you, because you never know. You never know. Somebody may call you and say, hey, listen, I want you to volunteer for this organization that I’ve been trying to get going. And you have fundraising skills or you have this skill or that skill, and it might hit that mark for you and it might make you feel very fulfilled. So don’t make the plan hard and fast, but at least say, I know what I’m going to do with my day, my week, whatever it is. From a financial perspective, you need to plan, okay, that’s what you do. But you can’t make it a plan that is so rigid that life doesn’t happen around you.

Diane Blumenthal (00:45:35):

I tell this story and it really had an impact on me. Two companies ago, there was a gentleman who was our president, our owner, when we got bought. And they asked him to take this assignment when our president left. And he said, yes, he did. And he was less than one year from retirement and he agreed to delay his retirement. He made it to three months before his retirement and died unexpectedly in a hotel room.

Diane Blumenthal (00:46:05):

Okay. Don’t let that happen to you. Don’t put it off because everything has to be perfect. Don’t have that regret. And that had a big impact, and you asked me earlier what were some of the decisions, that has always sat in the back of my head, of don’t make the regret of, I didn’t get to enjoy my retirement because I spent all this time saving for it and giving up the do not doing that house renovation, not taking that trip when my kid graduated from high school because I didn’t want to spend the money because I was concerned about my retirement. Make yourself comfortable. You don’t have to live like a king when you retire, you don’t have to live like a pauper either, but prioritize what’s important to you, but don’t wait until you retire to do the important things in your life.

Diane Blumenthal (00:46:50):

You hear stories all the time of people getting sick and just don’t wait and don’t make it a hard and fast rule. You know where your comfort zone is, you know where you’re financially secure with taking risk and not taking risk. Everybody has their own level of risk.

Stephanie McCullough (00:47:08):

Well, I’m really glad you mentioned the flexibility because that’s one of the things that I’ve learned over 24 years of doing this work. That’s what sets people up for a successful retirement, if they have that flexibility, as opposed to, I must do all of these things every year and I must have my house just so, and I must buy the beach house. All those things, if you’re financially flexible and can withstand some shocks or upsets or positive news too, it’s just going to set you up so much better for a sustainable financial situation.

Diane Blumenthal (00:47:45):

Yes, absolutely, and it’s about balance. I mean, my husband and I, we both came from very modest means and we both know what it means to have to work hard. We both know what it means to live paycheck to paycheck. I had a person, you go to the grocery store for my first time out of graduate school and put it on a credit card, because I wasn’t getting paid for a month, and I remember sitting in the orientation meeting going, what do you mean you’re not paying me for a month? Nobody told me that. Borrowing a down payment for my car, from a friend because my parents couldn’t do it. And then when I moved from paycheck to no longer being paycheck to paycheck and having that little nest egg and the first time I sat across the table with folks like you, and I said to this lovely woman who I still use to this day for some of our needs, is I don’t have much.

Diane Blumenthal (00:48:42):

And she said, you don’t now, but it will change. And it has. And we both look at each other going, wow, but we also are respectful about the fact that it could change in a heartbeat too and that we know how lucky we are, but we worked hard to get there, but we would’ve been okay if it wasn’t what it is. If my last company didn’t get bought, all right, so it would’ve been a little bit different and I might have said, okay, kids, you’re on your own for college and I’ll pay for your private school or maybe they wouldn’t be going to private school or there were a lot of other things, we might not have bought this house. We might have done some other things that were different, but we don’t have to have two cars, three fancy cars and have a house at the beach and we’re not those kinds of people.

Diane Blumenthal (00:49:36):

So it was a little easier for us to get where we needed to be. And I don’t fault people for feeling that way, and those are important things for them in their life, and those are important enough for them to make those sacrifices, but everybody knows what that level of sacrifice is for themselves.

Stephanie McCullough (00:49:52):

Yeah. And prioritizing what’s important to you, right? That’s the other piece, there’s no one size fits all for any of this.

Diane Blumenthal (00:50:00):

Absolutely. Absolutely. And that’s, I have a really good friend in Boston who does something that’s amazing and I just love what she does. She and her husband have a state of the household every year on New Year’s Eve. They get wine and they get special food to eat and they have a state of the household. And they look at their financial situation, they look at what they want financially for the year, where they budget. They have budgets for different things. They talk about what goals they have for the kids. And as the kids got older, they became part of the process.

Stephanie McCullough (00:50:35):

Oh cool.

Diane Blumenthal (00:50:36):

And I thought this was the coolest thing ever. What about teaching your kids financial responsibility and how do you teach that to your kids? That’s a whole ‘nother podcast.

Stephanie McCullough (00:50:45):

Oh, it is. Yeah.

Kevin Gaines (00:50:47):

It’s a whole ‘nother podcast series.

Diane Blumenthal (00:50:48):

Yes, absolutely. And my husband and I talk about that very, very often, because our kids are just starting to get old enough to understand it. Really understand like they understand their allowance and they understand all of that, but they’re 12 and 14 and now we’re starting to teach them about life.

Stephanie McCullough (00:51:07):

Yeah. That’s great. That’s an important piece to put in there. So many of us didn’t get that growing up.

Diane Blumenthal (00:51:12):

Yep.

Stephanie McCullough (00:51:12):

Kevin, do you have any last questions you want to make sure we?

Kevin Gaines (00:51:15):

I think we’re good. This has been an incredible interview and I just really appreciate that you took the time to sit down with us because I know our listeners are definitely going to benefit and if they don’t, they’re listening to this podcast wrong. Everybody should be taking stuff from this episode.

Stephanie McCullough (00:51:34):

Yes. Thank you for your openness and generosity sharing your stories, Diane.

Diane Blumenthal (00:51:38):

Well, thank you so much. It was a pleasure. I enjoyed it a great deal and I hope it is helpful to folks.

Stephanie McCullough (00:51:44):

Thank you.

Kevin Gaines (00:51:44):

Great. Thank you.

Diane Blumenthal (00:51:46):

You’re very welcome.

Kevin Gaines (00:51:51):

All right. A lot to unpack there. Stephanie, I don’t, well actually I do know where to start. To me, the single most important thing out of this interview and maybe most of the interviews we’ve done, be comfortable being uncomfortable. This is not about perfection. You’re not going to get everything right. Life is not going to go exactly the way you want it to go. Almost literally, don’t kill yourself trying to get that perfect retirement account value or positioning. Don’t be scared to take chances. Don’t take ridiculous chances, but take some chances. Enjoy your life. This is about retirement more than anything is about the experience, it’s the journey. And I jumped on that in the interview and I’m jumping on it again now, I just think that statement was so important for all of our listeners and frankly, you and I to learn from and take.

Stephanie McCullough (00:52:56):

Yep. And I think perhaps because of Diane’s career path, she had a lot of experience with that. Jumping into that job in California, going with startups where you didn’t know if they were going to be successful or not. One of them wasn’t a good fit and then she tried out some consulting. She had that experience of jumping around jobs, not all of us have that, but it’s perhaps something that might be good to try out in little bits, find ways that you can put yourself in a situation trying something new because I think you’re right, I think it’s an inevitable part of whatever retirement’s going to look like for people.

Stephanie McCullough (00:53:36):

There’s going to be change, there’s going to be uncertainty and learning to rely on yourself and to trust that you’re going to find your way through it. Also, I was impressed by obviously she had a good network she had built up over the years. Opportunities came because of a former colleague or someone she had mentored in the past. As we all look to whatever our next chapter will be, that network of people, those connections we’ve built up is a resource. We look at financial resources, we also look at other resources and your network, your professional, your friend network, that’s a resource, that’s an important thing not to overlook.

Kevin Gaines (00:54:12):

And it didn’t sound like that this was the issue with her while she was working. But some of these people in your network when you’re focusing on, rightly or wrongly, earning as much as you can because you got all the bills to pay. You got the schools for the kid, all this life pre-retirement, so you might not be able to do something with them or help them out, think of nonprofits, while you’re working. But once you retire it’s, as Diane said, it was more about picking stuff she wanted to do, not stuff she had to do. And now your network, same people, but they can offer you different avenues, different opportunities of stuff you want to do.

Stephanie McCullough (00:54:56):

Yep. I’m definitely going to be listening back to this episode. I thought Diane had a lot of wisdom that she was so generous to share with us. Thanks everybody for being with us. We’ll talk to you next time. It’s goodbye from me.

Kevin Gaines (00:55:08):

And it’s goodbye from her.

Stephanie McCullough (00:55:12): Be sure to subscribe to the show and please share it with your friends. Show notes and more information available at takebackretirement.com. Huge thanks for the original music by the one and only, Raymond Loewy through New Math in New York. See you next time.

Disclaimer (00:55:27): Investment advice offered through private advisor group, LLC, a registered investment advisor. Private advisor group, American Financial Management Group, and Sofia Financial are separate entities. The opinions voiced in this material, are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice, or recommendations for any individual security. To determine which investments may be appropriate for you, consult your financial advisor, prior to investing. This information is not intended to be substitute for individualized tax advice. Please consult your tax advisor regarding your specific situation.