How do I launch more meaning in a new career in middlescence?

Christine Renaud: 00:13

Welcome to the More the Brainier, the brave space where creative minds come to share and solve the most pressing burning questions. From Montreal, I'm your host, Christine Renaud, CEO of Braindate.

Also with me today is Jane Gibb, our Creative Producer.

Jane Gibb: 00:37

Thank you, Christine! We're delighted to be joined by Paul Propster, former NASA strategist and founder of their Story Lab, Jennie Glazer, CEO of Coqual, Center for Talent Innovation, and Fady Atallah, Creative Director of Cities at Moment Factory. The themes we'll be discussing this month are re-centering one's own purpose mid-career, the questions we ask ourselves as leaders, and the best way to move from passive to active citizen. Over to you, Christine.

Christine: 01:15

Thank you, Jane. Paul, Jennie, Fady, bonjour. Welcome to the third series! And before we dive in, let's get an idea of where everybody's calling in from. Paul?

Paul Propster: 01:25

I am calling in from Altadena, California, Southern California near Pasadena.

Christine: 01:31

Very good to see you, Paul. And Fady?

Fady Atallah: 01:34

I’m calling in from Paris, where I'm working now, but I'm from Montreal.

Christine: 01:39

Great, and Jennie?

Jennie Glazer: 01:41

I am calling in from Brooklyn, New York. And I was just in Paris last week, so I'm very jealous.

Fady: 01:47

I missed you, Jennie. I was here, too.

Christine: 01:51

And now, Paul, you're a storyteller, so we would love to open this episode by each one of us sharing our favorite stories. A story from your childhood that you refer back to sometimes as an adult. Personally, when I was thinking about this question, one of my favorite stories from my childhood is actually very creepy. And it's from a lullaby that my mom used to sing to me, which was pretty much telling me that I should just keep sleeping because the world is cruel and full of liars! So, anybody has something a bit more inspiring to share?

Paul: 02:26

Sure, I could jump in. So I would say I was about 10 years old and I went to a Catholic elementary school and… we had a writing contest and the folks from Mars, right? They make all the candy bars, you know, sponsored it. And so we were supposed to write a story about one of the candy bars. And so I decided to write a story from the perspective of a coconut becoming a mounds bar. Now it sounds like a tragedy, but it was actually kind of an uplifting little story. And the neatest thing about it was, unbeknownst to me, I won a prize and so my mom, ⁓ my older brothers were given the prize and my mom wanted to surprise me, and so we had these closets.

There were seven of us kiddos. ⁓ And so we had these closets with the sliding doors and there were three doors. And I don't know if you remember that old game show, Let's Make a Deal. But ⁓ my mom put it behind one of those doors and said, OK, Paul, there's a special prize here. You know, pick a door. And so when I picked the door, it was a letter from the candy company saying that they really loved my story and I forget, I think I got a gift certificate or something along those lines. But it kind of encourages me whenever I'm feeling a little bit of imposter syndrome or something, I'm kind of struggling. I can go back to that time and just remember kind of the freedom and the innocence of story and it kind of helps energize me from time to time.

Christine: 04:18

That's wonderful. Little did they know that they launched your career.

Paul: 04:22

That's right!

Christine: 04:26

And Jenny, do you have any story that you think about as an adult that has impacted your childhood?

Jennie: 04:32

I do, this one is from middle school, so you can guess where this is going. I was very confident as a cellist without actual talent or ability, and I decided to audition for the National Symphony Youth Orchestra. ⁓ The challenge was I did not put any practice or forethought into work. I just showed up to this audition, and unlike what you might see in a movie, where suddenly you discover your perfect, innate talent. It was a total fail. I mean, they felt bad for me. I felt bad for them. It was just not good. And that was the first and last time I ever walked into a room without putting in the work. And so I just walked away having that painful, visceral experience. What is that expression? “Planning is essential, plans are useless”. So I at least want to do the planning so I'm ready. And then when I come in, I'll just go with it.

Christine: 05:42

and Fady?

Fady: 05:43

As you know, maybe from my name that I grew up in Lebanon, I have a lot of war stories, but they're all mostly really stories that have most likely shaped me in many ways, but they're stories of resilience. You often hear stories of war and inevitably we imagine more dramatic things, but I think they're often, I remember them as stories of adventure and stories of getting away with something.

the time early on in the war,: 1975

I think that has influenced me often because I started studying, I was very good in math, and then at some point I'm like, no, I'm going to do political science. So I dropped the engineering school and architecture school that I was hoping to join, and I did political science and economics and from then on. So yeah, I think these stories are great and how they, especially if we overcome them, shape our personalities.

Christine: 07:31

Thank you for sharing, Fady, and I'm really excited to dig in. I think it also ties in with your burning question that we will explore in the next episode. And Paul, when you hear all of those stories, and that was your career at NASA, and we'll get into that your burning question in a second, but what makes a good story for you, What do you think is a great story?

Paul: 07:53

I think kind of just what we heard today, right? Just authenticity, passion, relatability, you know, being told in a way that, you know, we can all relate to, that we can emotionally invest in. ⁓ So yeah, those are a couple things that, especially when you're, ⁓ you know, trying to get a new idea out there, whether it's, you know, a complex mission to another world. Or just getting a new product out there that's going to improve somebody's life. ⁓ Yeah, think that authenticity, transparency, and get-ability are a couple of things that we strive for.

Christine: 08:37

And that's something that I learned from you. So I've known Paul for many years. We met here in Montreal. And Paul, until this year, you were the chief story architect at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab and the founder of their story lab. And something I learned from you, I thought that was so fascinating, is how your work at NASA was all about helping people to actually understand each other. Because many great minds are working at NASA from different fields. And they don't actually can relate to each other and their work and their discovery. So your work was to make that language and their impact and their research understandable for each other. Can you tell us more a little bit about that work?

Paul: 09:22

Sure, yeah, it's this idea of a shared story, know, to kind of help optimize the team dynamics. And so, you know, you may have heard, you know, the hero's journey, right, kind of that traditional kind of storytelling arc. And the challenge with the culture there at JPL is, you know, it takes a relatively large team to create these missions. And...everybody, what we discovered was everybody kind of had their individual hero's journey as to what the story was. And, and so as we would bring teams together and take them through a couple of, ⁓ sessions with us, we would start to help them understand that, using tools from like our friends over at Pixar, you know, it's great being here in Southern California, cause we can tap into, you know, the, industry here and they help us understand some of the key ways to sort of, you know, extract the story.

And so we get them to understand, you know, this shared story because it really does turn into a kindred quest versus a hero's journey. And so everybody on the same page, you know, on the same, ⁓ in the same context, understanding, like you mentioned, Christine, the impact that they're trying to make their intended outcome. It really helps the team ⁓ kind of circle the wagons and focus on what they're trying to do.

Christine: 10:53

That's fascinating. And you mentioned that you're also an eternal optimist, a rule dodger and a dot connector. Can you tell us more about the rules that you're dodging?

Paul: 11:04

Well, in order to start something new inside of NASA, you got to stick and move your way through! I saw a gap when I got there, in strategic communications and obviously narrative thinking, we kind of had to bend the roles a little bit. There's a great book ⁓ out called Orbiting the Giant Hairball, I believe is the name of the book. If you're in there, it's hard to get stuff done. But if you can just orbit around all the stuff, all the politics, all the shenanigans, you can get a lot more done.

It's partly finding those crewmates who are willing to take that journey with you. And yeah, having to kind of dodge a few traditional pathways and make your own to do something that the lab kind of didn't know they needed and then said, my gosh, you the director was, you know, we haven't been doing this? And we were just like, no, sir. So yeah, so I think in that way we had to kind of dodge a few rules, Christine.

Christine: 12:32

I love this.

And it brings us to your burning question. So you left the Lab in January. So I would love for you to tell us what your burning question is right now and include any relevant context that you think might help us to support you and guide you.

Paul: 12:57

OK, yes, so it's been an amazing 2025 so far, but I'll share my burning question and I'll add a little context. OK, all right, so my burning question is, how do I launch more meaning in a new career in middlescence? So a little context around that. My whole life, I've been a kind of 9 to 5 person. I kind of started out in aerospace and then kind of drifted into space. So ⁓ a little further out. And this year just has been challenging. I was excited to kind of start this new chapter of retirement. But, you may have heard about the wildfires that struck the Alta Dena area. January 7th. So, kind of my first real day of retirement was January 6th, so, gosh, so then, ⁓ yeah, all heck broke loose and we were displaced, our home survived. We just moved back about a month ago. so, yeah, so I feel like I lost a little time to think about this burning question.

And so I really appreciate this opportunity to share it with everybody, and just kind of figure out all the things that I've been doing, I've always found a lot of purpose in. But they were sort of, the purpose was kind of already defined for NASA or for a pharmaceutical company or technology company, the different careers path or steps that I had. And so now, I really need to kind of think about my own, I've been years, decades, thinking about other people's purposes, so to speak. Yeah, so that's kind of my question.

Christine: 14:57

I love that question. I'm so grateful that you're bringing it to the table.

Jennie and Fady, this is a moment for clarifying questions. I see Jennie is excited. She will have many questions. I know her. So time to share.

Jennie: 15:22

Alright so Paul, I was thinking about this. You've spent your career building stories around big audacious missions. So what I was curious about was what kind of mission wouldn't fit into your old career but keeps whispering at you right now?

Christine: 15:41

Love this.

Paul: 15:42

Wow.

Christine: 15:43

Starting strong.

Paul: 15:44

That's great. You know, this has been tugging at me, Jennie, you know, and I would just say what I've loved: the constant thread through my career has been that that juice or that energy you get when you help somebody understand what they're trying to do more clearly. Right.

So it's kind of like you believe what you know, but you know, we're going to help you know more clearly what you believe, kind of thing. And ⁓ I'd like to take that and take it to educational institutions because, know, we're, we're partnered with Caltech at JPL, right? So we're different. We're not a civil servant center like Goddard and the other centers. We're actually employees of Caltech and we're NASA's ⁓ only federally funded research and development core. So what I've discovered.

So working closely with Caltech is in this journey for these new minds coming up, they make great researchers, but they don't make kind of well-rounded humans to where they're prepared for life after the institution, right? So they're going to say, hey, I'm a great researcher, but they may not be able to talk about the research they do.

They may not be able to share about the impact they want to make. so to develop some sort of course or certification or something, develop this model that then we could take to other institutions, especially minority-serving institutions and underserved institutions. Because the knowledge, the amazing humans are everywhere, but the opportunities aren't. And so to try to connect those two things. ⁓ Great question. Dang.

Christine: 17:34

Fady?

Fady: 17:35

You mentioned early on about the shared stories, and I almost want to look at it the same way that Jenny looked at it, but more thinking about the people, the people you want to share with, the people you have shared with that actually matter to you, versus, you know, we all work for sometimes projects that touch us more than others, and people that we care about more than others. So I think my question is, ⁓ who would you like to share your magic with?

What area, you mentioned education, but like, I think that's kind of interesting, especially when you get to a point in life where you want to give. I guess middlescense is about that a bit. Yeah, maybe talk about the people you care about and you want to bring magic to.

Paul: 18:21

Yeah, that's another great question. I think I still want to continue to work with change makers, whether that's a scientist, a technologist, engineer, folks who have these amazing ideas to help those come to fruition and plan it too. So at JPL, we, our business areas are earth, the solar system, and then the universe. And I've worked across all those, but, ⁓ but I really was drawn a little bit more to the earth facing missions, right. And helping us to understand our, our home, ⁓ better and better. And again, another kindred quest. so, so helping, helping maybe solve some of these unknown problems, right. That, are bigger than one institution.

And again, creating that shared story that brings together all the right folks to look at some of these unknown problems that are looming out there, especially for our planet.

Christine: 19:30

Is there anything in your work that actually was not something that you enjoyed and that you wouldn't want to do anymore?

Paul: 19:37

⁓ Yeah, I mean, again, when you're working in an old hierarchical kind of community or structure, yeah, I could do without that. I love some of the startups that I've met and just the energy. It feels like JPL 20 years ago, right?

One of the things you get when you join in the orientation package is some postcards: and there's one of the early days of JPL and there's some army folks there in their dress uniforms, right? And they're all looking one way. And then there's the lone JPLer shirtless, you know, ball cap and looking the other way. Right. And I'm like, that is JPL to me. And I think, unfortunately, some of the institutions just haven't evolved their leadership skills. And so I guess maybe that's the more the pinpoint is you know folks who are good leaders who want to get good things done that are for the greater good.

Christine: 20:42

And what's your, the biggest hurdle that you face right now to choose your next path?

Paul: 20:49

Health insurance, no I'm kidding.

Christine: 20:51

⁓ Come to Canada!

Paul: 20:58

⁓ I think right now it's kind of crazy. I have a lot of folks reaching out. Some of the projects that we had started were a lot of external projects, right? Because our new director, our first female director who is amazing, Dr. Lori Leschin, she understood the story and our brand and that we needed to tend to that. She put out ⁓ strategic imperatives.

So not objective, she felt these were things we had to get done and it was a three year plan. And one of them was global inspiration. So as we started doing that, we ended up working on these projects like with Warner Brothers and, you know, unusual or, you know, collaborators, unlikely collaborators, let's say. And so a lot of those are still going on. So I kind of have this fork in the road and maybe it can be brought together. My comfort zone is just get a nine to five job and, you know, maybe work just a few more years and then really retire, right?

Or is this the time in my life where it's kind of the perfect storm where I could do, you know, Paul Inc. and just go out and maybe a combination of doing workshops and talks and maybe taking on creative projects could work, but that's where the health insurance thing comes in.

Christine: 22:19

Hmm. Yeah, it's a real thing. It's a real thing ⁓

So that was very useful. Thank you, Paul. And now it's your time to just sit back and relax and let us do the work. So it's a moment where Paul ⁓ is invited to not speak and Jennie, Fady and I can discuss your insights, other questions, anything that we feel can help Paul in his quest. So who wants to start?

Jennie: 22:51

I have two thoughts that come to mind and it was really listening to your story. And it starts with, do you want to be a part of someone else's mission or is it time to launch your own? And that led me also to a theme that you were sharing, which was really about purpose in your work.

And it's not uncommon when people leave high prestige roles that they often confuse the position with purpose. ⁓ And so you have a real opportunity to really think about how you infuse, because that's clear that that matters to you so much in your ways of engaging with changemakers and that the work is actually going to drive something.

And so my advice was don't go looking for the job, build a prototype. And maybe start really small with experiments, start a storytelling circle, co-create something without knowing what it becomes. You can obviously work on the health insurance also in other ways. But I would say you're going to find the next Paul 2.0. by thinking like a designer, not a job seeker. And I almost was thinking like, what's your minimum viable mission?

Christine: 24:23

Love this, Jennie. Thank you. Fady?

Fady: 24:26

Yeah, I'm going to take it from a slightly different angle than Jennie, but in the same direction. You mentioned earlier, as you were chatting about the time that you lost to answer the question. I've actually been through a similar situation many years ago, much, much younger, I was. But I think time is of the essence. This is not a question that you can answer shortly.

So that's where I'm saying I'm in the same direction as Jennie, but I think there needs to be time, especially after spending such a long period confounding purpose with job, which the same way I did, I think it took me about seven years. I did consulting for seven years. I closed my company, did consulting for seven years. Then I joined Moment Factory and that was many years ago.

So I think first thing is time.⁓ You have to allow yourself the luxury of time. We only live once, so I don't think this opportunity is going to come back again. It's an incredible opportunity that you should grab. Of course, we all have constraints and we have families and we have obligations, but that comes. It's not a problem. I'm sure someone like you can manage ways. ⁓ But I think giving yourself time is the most important thing. Second, I think is, the same direction, I think travel is maybe a way like putting yourself in uncomfortable situations, not travel to comfortable travel, like uncomfortable travel, maybe going to places that you haven't yet explored. In a way, what Jennie was asking, like what was there all along that you haven't done? And that's something that I didn't do when I had the choice and I kind of regretted it. So I think ⁓ it's an incredible time that you have an opportunity ahead of you and just take the time. It's okay. It's a luxury, hopefully you can afford and that you're entitled to after all these years.

Christine: 26:27

Thank you, Fady. And I wanted to go in a similar route. And I love, Jennie, what you mentioned about the prototyping. Prototyping is so good. It's such an efficient way to remove the pressure and keep the creativity. I think it's a lovely thought.

⁓ And I wanted to talk about the idea of middlescence. So I was at South By (Southwest) a couple of weeks ago, and I attended a talk from Chip Connolly, the former head of global hospitality and strategy at Airbnb. And he actually launched this thing, this new institute to help folks in their middle age to find new purpose and to embrace this moment in our life that we now call adolescence. And what they were mentioning is how, you know, at adolescence, you have all these rituals that are built in our culture to help young folks to kind of say bye to their former identity and be reborn in their young adulthood.

But in middlescence we don't really have that, we just have to struggle. We don't have the celebration necessarily. And when I was thinking about you, Paul, and I was thinking actually about the hero's journey.

And I was wondering, similarly to what, if I join what Jennie and Fady were mentioning, and I was thinking about the hero's journey, it could be something, I think, very useful and powerful to craft your own middlescence ritual. And thinking about, you know, the hero's journey where you have, you know, this quest that you're launching and you surround yourself and, you know, you have the self-discovery and you have the death and the rebirths and the mentors and the guides and all of those elements from the hero story, but really crafted around a bit to the point of Fady of celebrating this new moment in your life and really embracing it and creating the space and the rituals and the attention for you and for your family, because I'm sure also there's maybe some pressure to let people know, okay, what are you up to, what's happening? But if what you're crafting is this own.. this ritual for yourself, for your middlescence and for crafting your next chapter. I think this is by itself, you know, a project that is worth and that is of value. Any thing to add Jennie and Fady?

Fady: 28:55

And maybe I would say possibly you can look at it as a designer, but you can also look at it as an artist. And it's a different approach, right? Where a designer is more in the structure, in how it kind of comes together. And the artist is going back to what Jennie said earlier, finding what's in you. I was at a show two days ago and it's by Black Lives, if you know them, it's a jazz band. And there was a song that kind of was mesmerizing and it says they kept on singing it “as long as you can find it in you”. So I think that's kind of a nice pursuit.

Jennie: 29:35

I was thinking, Paul, it sounds like you're not launching a career, you're launching a chapter in the story of you and maybe even a community. And that's more than valid. It's really valuable.

Christine: 29:46

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely. And I wonder if we think about existing communities of storytellers, what's lacking? You know, as an entrepreneur, it's always what I'm looking for. I'm never looking for what my competitors are doing and if I'm threatened or it's really about, what is the gap? What is the thing that nobody's doing that somebody needs to do? And so I think that could be helpful. ⁓

Christine: 30:21

Okay, Paul, you are granted your right to speak again. We would love to hear any thoughts, takeaways that you gained from this conversation.

Paul: 30:31

Well, I'm just very touched for your thoughtful perspectives. They're super helpful. I have been kind of toying with ⁓ a prototype, right, Jennie. But like not really, you know, should I do that? you know, sometimes my wife, you know, she'll say, “are you working for free again?!” You know, it's, you know, it's so and so, you know, I think building your prototype, trying to get some clay and kind of maybe that, no, maybe it's more like this, you know, and mushing things around, Exploring that trade space and that minimal viable mission, I think is kind of a cool thing to think about.

But also, as Fady said, just allowing myself time, you know, I was kind of ready to go on January 6th and now it's a little harder now because I feel like, oh, I've lost that time, you know, I've lost a little bit of runway. Had fire brain, you know, just just couldn't really think about anything else, know. So understanding that that there is some time. And I do appreciate the confounding the purpose with your current role, right, in your current job. ⁓ I got to untangle that and the uncomfortable travel that stuck with me to kind of go to those places that are outside of my, my comfort zone.

I have been thinking a little bit about a gap, Christine, and maybe what I can help bring to the table is helping folks ideate, right? Taking all the things that we do at the lab when we get a new idea from a scientist for the next mission, a principal investigator, and how we have these concept maturity levels. ⁓When I got there, we didn't have story and strategy as part of those. And so we now have a sixth dimension of idea of maturity. ⁓ And then collaborate. again, so ideate, collaborate, the third one's communicate. But collaborate, I found, is kind of a big gap, especially, again, at institutions like ⁓ Caltech, just as an example. The researchers are doing their research. And they struggle trying to work with a team because they haven't during their journey so far. And so being able to help with that, I was able to persuade the lab that my team should become ⁓ certified LEGO serious play facilitators.

So we have been able to take LEGOs and I think go where nobody has gone before. You know, in helping folks learn how to collaborate and understand roles. And then of course the communications part with all the story stuff. So I think that's kind of the mission slash prototype that I've been, and it's encouraging to hear you all say that's what you kind of should be doing or at least exploring, you know, looking at those things.

So, and that community as well, cause you know, when you leave, community, you know, you do kind of feel a little alone and you know, trying to stay connected with some of the communities that I got to explore when I was at JPL like, our friends over at FoST, you know, at The Future of StoryTelling with Melcher and others. So this has been wonderful. I really, really appreciate your thoughts. Thank you.

Christine: 34:21

Thank you, Paul. This was really rich. I'm excited that we have two more of those conversations ⁓ coming. And I really appreciate, you sharing your journey with us. And I'm very excited to see where your talent will take us and the planet, too. So thank you so much. And thank you also to Jennie and Fady for such a rich conversation. Thank you. Many thanks also to Jane Gibb, our Creative Producer here at The More the Brainier, and to Jenya Sverlov and Chris Leon, our delightful sound engineers.

Jane: 34:56

Thanks Christine! If you have a contribution to Paul's burning question, please share it on BrainDate's LinkedIn page where we'll be posting this episode or send us an email at TMTB@braindate.com. We'll end today's episode with a quotation from Dolly Parton:

“If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, then you're an excellent leader.”

On the eighth episode of The More The Brainier, Jennie will prompt us to explore leadership through the art of asking questions. Join us next week!

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