CMO to Condoland, Liz Bieler
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[00:00:00] Kristin: This week I'm speaking with Liz Bieler. Like so many previous The Second Chapter guests, Liz followed the path that she was told to follow and for a long time, gave up a creative life she craved, but since letting her creativity flow and boy did it flow, she's become a jazz singer, a voiceover actor, and now an author with Allison Condo Land and more books coming soon.
[00:00:23] Liz: I had a greater sense of self and I knew my worth, whether in a field where I had no experience and I was starting at the bottom or otherwise, I just knew who I was because I had life experience and I think. think that's an advantage. I think you take the path that you're meant to take and if you can ignore all the noise around you, you'd be happi.
[00:00:48] Kristin: Hi, Liz. Thank you so much for joining me on the second chapter. How are you?
[00:00:59] Liz: I am great. Thank you for having me.
[00:01:01] Kristin: Tell everybody where you are talking to me from
[00:01:04] Liz: I am in a town called Maynard, Massachusetts.
In, in the.
[00:01:09] Kristin: Yes. And you weren't always there. You were in Florida for 20 years. Is that correct?
[00:01:15] Liz: I think about 22 actually. Yeah, so I recently relocated about a year ago.
[00:01:22] Kristin: And what is it like being back in the I don't know, the winter cold versus South Florida
[00:01:27] Liz: It is cold. I got, I had to buy a lot more winter gear. But yesterday it was a beautiful, snowy day and we're at the end of February, in March, actually, so it's fine. I appreciate being back to the seasons.
[00:01:42] Kristin: Yeah, that's the one thing I have to say in London is very. I don't know. It's kind of always . It gets a little bit warm in the summer. It gets, cold in the winter, but it's, I do miss some of the well, I say I miss the extremes. I go home to Ohio to see my family and I don't miss them at all. , I'm always
[00:02:00] Liz: come to,
[00:02:01] Kristin: I'm glad to be backwards.
Very neutral.
[00:02:03] Liz: but you know, When you have the cycles, it's almost like a cycle of life.
[00:02:06] Kristin: Yeah,
[00:02:07] Liz: And I find I appreciate it because spring is around the corner and then we're gonna have renewal,
[00:02:12] Kristin: That is very true. It's almost like I feel like I have to recreate, but the spring flowers here are really amazing, so I get some of that as well. I feel like I'm turning very English that I'm like, let's discuss the weather
[00:02:26] Liz: We do that here too.
[00:02:28] Kristin: I know, but it's so bad here. Had to tell a British person. They're always talking about the weather. We are not here to talk about the weather though. We're here to talk about you. Your changes. Life, career, all of it. career wise, you started in financial service, marketing and language research.
How did you get there and how did those things go together?
[00:02:46] Liz: So I went through a. All my friends went to college. It meant it was not a question. I had to go to college. I had to major in something practical, and so I majored in economics and after that I got a job in financial services on the telephone. I got some licenses, and then I went back to business school because that's what everyone else is doing.
I was really just following a path that wasn't set by me. I was always a singer. And I did Broadway shows in high school and after high school, and I loved that. When I was 17, my mother took me to Backstage. It was a tour for Broadway and they told us that Ho Girls at the time made about, I think it was $355 a.
which I thought was a lot of money, but she didn't think that, and , she was just trying to show me how unrealistic it was.
[00:03:42] Kristin: were like, that sounds great.
[00:03:44] Liz: I did, I would've loved it. Had friend who went into it and then she told me not to major in English because that wasn't practical. So the two things that I wasn't supposed to do, I ended up doing later.
But I went on a path and that ended up because I majored economics in financial services marketing. And uh, I liked it. I'm, I wanted to master it. Whatever I do, I wanna do it well. And I went along numbly for a long time thinking it was great and maybe it was great. I There were things I enjoyed.
I had great teams. I got to travel. I worked for some great companies. And then I had a painful breakup and, it was a long-term relationship. And I remember thinking, okay, I'm in my forties now. What? This is not how I planned. And one day somebody on my team came up to me and said, he's a friend.
And he said, I know you're not happy. I know you wanna stay here and look out for us, but we're gonna be fine and you need to be happy. And so I started thinking, what does happiness look like? And at the time it was voice acting and singing, which sounds crazy if you've been a corporate person for 20 odd.
and when I told people they fell into [00:05:00] two camps, some people thought, that's wonderful. Go for it. Good for you. And other people were very agitated by that choice. Even strangers. I remember being in a, because trying to get into the field, you start going to hang out where musicians hang out and then you're invited to sit in is what they call it.
And so you get up on the stage and you perform with them a song or two. And I remember a man I didn't know asking me what I did. And I believe you have to assume the role to earn the role. And so I said, I'm a singer and a voice. But how do you make money?
[00:05:39] Kristin: Love that question.
[00:05:41] Liz: I got that a lot, and I, it was not the first time I'd had it, so I just said, I can't believe my finances are that interesting. But it, when people react to your own personal choice, it's because it doesn't mesh with their understanding of the world and what their options are.
[00:06:02] Kristin: Yes.
[00:06:03] Liz: And you have to tune that out.
So I did, I had some family members, some friends, very supportive and some not, some discouraging me, some thinking I was wasting my time. My best friend in the beginning was quite negative, and then later she said she was wrong
[00:06:22] Kristin: It's interesting because you kind of followed this practical path because of you. What your mother said about finances and things like that ended up going into finances. And then of course, the first question somebody asks you, how do you make money? You know, It's immediately back to finances.
[00:06:37] Liz: A lot. I got that a lot. And then I remember telling somebody once in a social setting that I was a singer and they said, sing for us.
[00:06:44] Kristin: You're not a trained monkey.
[00:06:46] Liz: When I told my boss when I was leaving the company and I had a nice, very nice job, and we had a little goodbye party in a conference room, and he also said, okay, now sing for everyone acapella. Just sing something.
[00:07:01] Kristin: That's not really how it works. , I could say from personal experience, that is not how it works.
[00:07:06] Liz: But these are, there are people in life who want other people to do what they do, so they feel better about it.
[00:07:13] Kristin: So do you think it was more challenging to step back from a position where you had clout, you had financial security? Or do you think it would've been, and this is obviously just imagining, do you think it would've been more challenging starting out at, what your mother was showing you was not a good salary, but you were younger, so you maybe didn't have all that life experience?
[00:07:39] Liz: I, I remember bumping into an old friend that I used to do musicals with in New York, and he had been on Broadway and he had Tour Nation. And I just bumped into him at a cafe and I told him what I was doing, and he told me that he now had no 401k. He had turned to carpentry.
He was a little bitter about it. And I and I thought, wow. So I've seen him on stage. He followed it. And maybe by doing it later, I learned lessons. And avoided some mistakes that I wouldn't have otherwise. Does that make sense?
[00:08:15] Kristin: Yes it does. And I think it's interesting because, I've experienced it in my own life and talked to people sometimes for the podcast, but people really struggle with some time. I mean, If you were going back into a corporate setting, let's say, or changing careers in a slightly different way, people struggle to see sometimes this is my trajectory and this is how life experience has prepared me for another job.
But I think with what you're doing, you have a little bit well, I don't wanna speak for you, but I do think
[00:08:47] Liz: I have perspective
[00:08:49] Kristin: Yes.
[00:08:49] Liz: and I have a cushion, financial cushion. I remember wanting to get a gig early on when I was trying to get gigs, and a man said to me he had a club restaurant. He said let's have lunch. I figured, okay, I'll have lunch. And he said, I'd like you to come out on my boat with me on. That I had no intention of doing . So I just said I'm really sorry I have to work because I was doing some consulting and if I were 18, maybe I would've gone
[00:09:19] Kristin: Yeah, that makes sense because I think we also learn the power of saying, Just things we don't wanna do to people. , we don't wanna do . All of these things that Yeah, maybe, yeah. When you're 18, you don't have that perspective to say, yeah, sorry, I kind of know what you're after.
[00:09:36] Liz: I think what it is
I had a greater sense of self and I knew my worth, whether in a field where I had no experience and I was starting at the bottom or otherwise, I just knew who I was because I had life experience and I think.
I
think that's an advantage.
Doesn't mean it's not, you're definitely too old to do a lot of things.
People will tell you. And once the pandemic started, I did [00:10:00] stop singing. Doesn't mean I won't go back to it, but I've stopped for now. But
I think you take the path that you're meant to take and if you can ignore all the noise around you, you'd be happi.
[00:10:14] Kristin: And this was in 2009 that you made this switch, right? To voice act, VO voice acting and
singing. And you mentioned the pandemic, but for the past, what is that
[00:10:24] Liz: It was about 11 years. I was really happy it was. It was going from certainty. You know, I, I my upbringing was all about saving and be certain and having income and all of those things because I had older parents and they survived the depression, so they had a certain scarring to them to just throwing myself in the middle of nowhere and not knowing what came next.
And I think I needed that. I needed to take that. And it's risky and you never know when the next gig is,
but when you get one boy, it's exciting,
[00:11:00] Kristin: And during the pandemic for fun, you know, as we do for fun, you decided to try some writing. Tell me a bit about.
[00:11:08] Liz: It was on my bucket list always to write a book, and so I just started writing. Of course, I had again, had no idea what I was doing. And um, I saw on Meetup a group that was looking for writers interested in
starting a novel.
[00:11:24] Kristin: Way to start small. By the way,
you know what, I'm gonna write a little, how about a.
[00:11:30] Liz: That was on my bucket list. I always thought one day I'll write a book and having that writer's group was, I don't know how I could have done it other. Because I didn't know what I didn't know. We really clicked. Everyone was supportive of everyone else. We gave each other critiques.
One of the women in the group is a sensational experience, novelist for years. And so I have benefited from her teaching. And anyway, we still have the group and we meet regular. Every few weeks now, I'd say, but in the beginning we were meeting every week, so that gave me the discipline to write something because I had to hand it in, so to speak.
And and I'd write it and think it was great. And then I'd learn, no, it wasn't so great, but I'd learn why. And so little by little I finished the book and then once I was finished writing, I had to rewrite it and I had to rewrite it again, and then I'd get feedback from agents and I'd think, oh boy, I didn't do this, or I didn't do that.
So by the time I was finished writing it, I really didn't wanna look at it for a while, I got it to where it needed to go.
[00:12:41] Kristin: the book's been published. It's Alison Condo Land. You hear these stories of people sent it to a million publishers. And you always hear the rewrite stories too. I, don't ever Well, there's probably someone who's come up with an entire novel and didn't do tons of rewrites in tons of
tweaks,
[00:12:56] Liz: I think Jack Kerouac is
the only one
[00:12:58] Kristin: After all of this you know, not wanting to look at it a bit tell me about getting it published.
[00:13:03] Liz: Oh. I went with a, an indie publisher because I don't have an audience. This is again, starting over, right? And a lot of people think I'm nuts. But I don't care and I am determined. My editor turned out to have a publishing company and she said, if you're interested, I'd be interested in publishing it.
So that's what I did. And she did a lot of things I didn't know you were supposed to do. Formatting and keywords and metadata and anyway she helped me get an illustrator. And they did a cover. The woman did a cover and I think it came
out pretty
well. I'm happy with it.
[00:13:42] Kristin: And it's had lots of five star reviews online. I would like to read a couple of little snippets from reviews, if I .may.
some reviews from your book to you,
[00:13:52] Liz: course.
[00:13:53] Kristin: I didn't want
the book to end absolutely insightful and witty and I really liked this. Um, which is gonna lead me to a question perfect for readers.
Looking for a beach read with memorable characters, but real world. Real world problems, I can speak. and that was from Book Life Reviews. And I know you said that it is a bit of a beach read, but that was not your intention and that's not really how the book
turns out.
[00:14:19] Liz: It's fun and it's funny, right? And there's one chapter that might make people cry, but most of it is pretty funny. And and that's real life. In South Florida,
people are colorful and they're ethnic, and so I celebrated that in the book. But on another level, he talks about people dealing with a situation. Where they're being taken advantage of and they don't know how to address it. And it's a story about confronting corruption, which when I was writing the book, I just, everywhere I looked, I saw more and more stories of abuse and corruption and cheating and lying and [00:15:00] stealing, and that makes me crazy.
So this was my attempt to show people don't have to take it, but they can't do
it alone.
[00:15:10] Kristin: And I, I like that it is, you mentioned the characters. And one of the things that's really interesting about the book is it starts with a cast of characters. So it's almost like reading a play. And as you're going through these characters, you're like, I. Okay, I know that person, or this is a really over the top name.
What is gonna happen here, ? So immediately from the start, I feel like you get that there's, the people that are the good people, the kind of maybe not so good people, the really over the top people. And that, it is gonna read with a lot of fun, but there's gonna be something bigger that happens.
[00:15:44] Liz: I didn't want people to get stuck on their names. If I had Jason, John, and Jacob, how would you
ever remember who was who
[00:15:52] Kristin: And they are definitely not Jason, John and Jacob
[00:15:54] Liz: No, they are not. So I figured I'm just going to use caricature names in a way so you'll understand who they are without having to remember all these names
cuz there are a lot of people in the story.
[00:16:06] Kristin: And I feel like there is definitely some parallel to your own life, Do you find, I was it a character that was fairly like, oh yeah, I know her because in many ways I am her. Did you have people you were reflecting, obviously you don't have to out people since some of the characters are quite crazy, but was how much of it feels autobiographical?
[00:16:25] Liz: you know, authors, they say, write what you know. And particularly when it's your first book. I I lived in South Florida for 22 years, so there are definitely things that parallel my own life. Um, the characters themselves, iconic. They represent the types of people that you bump into, but the stories are fictitious. people read it, they'll say to me, this could have been my.
[00:16:52] Kristin: Yeah.
[00:16:52] Liz: hear that outside Florida, it's really a ubiquitous, if you live in a building, you deal with personalities. I would say it's authentic, but it is
fictional.
[00:17:03] Kristin: Alice's uh, late twenties in the book, she's very idealistic. I'm wondering also, because of course when I start reading it, I start putting myself in the story and then I'm, I was kind of almost surprised. I was like, oh, know a bit about Liz. I know you know where I'm coming at. So why did you choose to write her in the, the stage of life maybe that she was in?
[00:17:23] Liz: I think I thought that would most appeal to readers and they could relate to that age she was. I, I couldn't make her any younger because she'd had a certain amount of life
experience when she came into it.
[00:17:36] Kristin:
When I first started reading it, I was like, oh, she's starting afresh in like her forties or something, and then I was like, oh wait, she's young.
And that makes sense. As I started reading it, I was like, oh, okay. But for whatever reason I was maybe because I was talking to you for the podcast, so I had this, this vision of, women changing their lives after. 35 or 40.
And that's kind of the, part of humor in the book is that the place that she moves is mostly Florida snowbirds. People who've gone there after retirement or you know, are much, much older
[00:18:04] Liz: Right, right. And that, that happened to me. but the, the people in the story are not real. I moved into a senior
community,
there were people who would say to me, who were you visiting? you know, people have a lot of ideas about what others are supposed to do and how you're supposed to live your life. there's a scene in the book where she gets interrogated on the elevator that would happen to.
grandparents live here? No. Do your parents live here? No. I live here. But is it your parents' apartment? Can you imagine asking people these questions? But they would ask that and uh, it's a music. I'm gonna look back and it's funny, but I think it's more about if women decide to do what their society tells them to do.
They're not going to be authentic. I can't, this
is not who I am.
[00:18:59] Kristin: Yeah. And I have to say, I spent several years living, I ended up living in Brooklyn because I couldn't get the kind of quality of life that I wanted in Manhattan. But even, so, two of my sisters live in Florida, and sometimes I'd go down and go, oh, could have a house and it'd be so much cheaper.
I mean, could have a big house not far from the beach.
And so that was something I definitely related to in this story cuz I just thought, you know what would've happened if I would've flown for pastures? I was gonna say greener, but maybe bluer with
[00:19:33] Liz: and a disposal,
you get a disposal I used to call my friends and run it and say, do you know what this is?
Because they were
jealous.
[00:19:42] Kristin: I closet space. I London is not known for traditionally having things like, built in closets cuz they're very old, small flats. So yeah, I could see the appeal as I was reading it for sure.
[00:19:55] Liz: yeah. I mean, it was, it was great while I was there.
[00:19:57] Kristin: So what's next? You are a [00:20:00] writer because you write, you've used that description, I think, what did you say before as we were, as you were saying about Singer, that, you put that into you, you say the role that you wanna be in, you phrased it much nicer than I did, but, writing, you're an author, you're published, The thing now is
[00:20:15] Liz: I think. uh, I, I finished first draft
of the next book
and,
[00:20:22] Kristin: finished. Very
[00:20:22] Liz: yeah, it's a middle grade book and I have someone reviewing it and then we'll see if I have to make any more changes and then I'll start submitting that. Uh, and I have an idea for the third and fourth, so I really enjoy it.
It's
just so creative.
[00:20:39] Kristin: Do you think that, because of this writing group, like you said, you have sort of, um, an assignment I have to hand in my work next week. So do you think the ideas are flowing because you're doing it? I mean, is it something that these ideas just keep coming because, once you write, it's just coming.
[00:20:55] Liz: if I start thinking
about it, I panic and I can't think of anything. But when I relax and I just let it go ideas do come to me. It's when I'm, maybe I'm in the shower or maybe I'm just watching TV and laughing, and then I think, oh, I know a good story. So, and I put the ideas down and then, other people because they're all gonna have an opinion.
[00:21:20] Kristin: My sister's pregnant and she's like, like, I cannot tell people the baby, like the suggested names cuz everybody has an opinion about the name. Anyway, go
[00:21:28] Liz: Yeah. I think, um, your show is about, it's about women changing what they're doing. And if you listen to what other people expect of you, you will, I don't think you'd be happy. So you keep it to yourself until you've done it. I didn't announce that I wrote a book
until it was published.
[00:21:48] Kristin: Yeah, I like that because it's, you you've been through it. Once you've heard the, how are you gonna make money, how do you. What are
[00:21:56] Liz: Oh, I heard it with the book
too.
[00:21:57] Kristin: But by the
time you're like, published, people can't say that much. You're like, well, there's a book, but guess what, here it is.
[00:22:03] Liz: And Yeah, and they will say something. A family member told me you don't make money writing.
I don't know if that's the only thing in life, but yeah.
[00:22:13] Kristin: I did warn you that I was gonna ask you about advice for other people that might be thinking about a career change or, even sometimes even small changes can kind of hold you back because maybe the naysayers what you're hearing in your head.
So what do you say to people that might be thinking about a change?
[00:22:29] Liz: really
know
Yourself and what's gonna make you happy. And if you want financial security, first of all, I took a move into the arts, so that is probably the highest risk. but if you wanna make a change, plan it out and ask yourself what you value most, save some money or find a way to work part-time.
Although I will say to the extent that you keep your foot in the old world, it's very hard to land in the new. and I did do that for quite a while. I was consulting I also think you've gotta get support. You can't do it by yourself. So find your new community, find other people doing what you wanna do, learn from them.
if you can, I mean, if you're going to be, let's say you wanna change from a doctor to a lawyer, you go to law school, it's a little more clear cut. But if you wanna do something creative, find like-minded people. Get your community. You help them. They help you learn from each other.
And once you know that you can swing it financially, you
gotta take the plunge.
[00:23:42] Kristin: It's interesting cause when you were talking about the writing group, I was remembering that I used to go to a writing group for a time and I love writing and interestingly, I felt the same way. I knew that I was coming the next week, so I would write.
[00:23:56] Liz: right.
[00:23:57] Kristin: And when you have that community, that accountability or the same.
I don't know. I'm a triathlon coach, so I think there's an accountability to fitness things. Like for me, if I know I'm gonna go meet someone, I'll go for that run. I'll go for that swim. I have a club that, you I coach because I know people come to that club because they expect to see friends. They expect to get challenged by people, and I think it's the same with that change.
So it's really interesting to hear you say that because the minute you said the writing group, I was like, Absolutely. That's why I was writing all the time because there were people that I, that I liked meeting. There were people that I liked to hear their work and sharing. It was a great learning experience.
[00:24:36] Liz: yeah. And I mean, You have to hope that the group will be supportive. I got really lucky. just that sense of community because you're, you're off in uncharted territory, so it, it helps you get your
bearings.
[00:24:52] Kristin: We find um, one of the things here, you hear emerging a lot and emerging is a difficult word, or, is often. [00:25:00] Associated with young, and because I work with a lot of playwrights, one of the complaints I hear, or from a lot of, second career or emerging at a different time of life, playwrights, is there aren't programs for us.
I don't know if you've applied for any of these type of things. I don't know if that's a situation you find, but do you. That there is a community of other emerging writers that are, maybe similar to you or in this group.
Is it just a hugely different kind of group?
[00:25:29] Liz: It's, we started out being four people. one left after he got what he wanted out of the group, and then it remained three women and one is a lifelong writer. one is kind of like me um, a different career prior and is now writing and uh, I guess that's enough for me. I've also taken, there are things like the writer's workshop and authors publish.
I, I misspoke. There were a lot of online groups I've joined. when I wanted to write a children's book, I took an online class in writing for children. And that professor is the one who's now reviewing my book. So you find the resources, there are writer's, groups on Facebook, and they tend to be very supportive of each other.
There's a lot of them, so you, you can find it. The online world
is very helpful in that regard.
[00:26:26] Kristin: I absolutely agree because for the podcast I've found so many guests and through my production company, social media is not something that I always love, but I feel like I'll never leave it because this is where I've made a community. So when you start, once you start, like the algorithms, ugh, they're so frightening. But once you do start, it's like, oh, I looked at, female playwrights, so now I know more of them. Or I looked at, writers' groups. So more writers' groups get suggested and then you end up with this community that it's definitely out there, but you might never have known when you were working in
[00:27:02] Liz: Absolutely. , there's a lot of creative people out there and uh, social media, it's a mixed blessing. But you take the
good when you can get it.
[00:27:12] Kristin: exactly. What about a quote for me today? Do you have a quote for me
[00:27:16] Liz: Sure. Do it really parallels what we've been discussing. if you wanna go. Go alone. If you wanna go far, go together.
It's an African proverb.
[00:27:28] Kristin: I have heard that before and I really, really love it. It's funny because, was saying with my triathlon club that there's this accountability and I almost think in that case, If you wanna go fast and far , once you start going together, you get faster, you go further but I think, you know, comparing it to the triathlon club, but I do think you'll end up kind of with both I don't know, accelerating what you're doing as well as going far with it, because that's not a good analogy.
[00:27:58] Liz: no, I, I know where you're going. Basically, nobody can do anything all by themselves. I really believe that. And there's just so much going on in the world. We've gotta work
together.
[00:28:10] Kristin: Yeah. And like you said corruption and, all these horrible things that are happening to have a community and then also to have your writing, which is really paralleling something that's so much bigger.
[00:28:23] Liz: It's, you know, people receive the book as they will. So some will just find it a really funny beach read and others will find
the deeper meaning that you just described.
[00:28:34] Kristin: Yeah, I've, I think I've spent a little too much time reading the headlines today like, corruption is everywhere.
[00:28:39] Liz: it kinda
is. Maybe we didn't realize it before, but with 24 hour news
cycles,
you see a lot.
[00:28:47] Kristin: And I do think you
know that the. Is showing kind of what someone could do if they take the initiative. one person, once they rile a community around them can do a lot, whether it's professionally, whether it's making a change in the world. So, like you said, depending on which way you wanna look at it, the book will maybe lead you to stand up for yourself a bit.
[00:29:08] Liz: That's, that's exactly it. And, uh, if That's what you took away from
it, that makes me happy.
[00:29:13] Kristin: Good. is there anything else you would like listeners to know?
[00:29:16] Liz: no. I mean, if,
if they have a dream, I guess be bold. that's what I would say. But it takes a lot of work. Takes a lot of work and determination. My dad was 50 when he started his business. And I was a little kid, and uh, he did not make a take a take home salary for six years. He just worked night and day pouring it into that business and he made it work.
And I asked him later in life, what made you think that you weren't going to fail? Like so many businesses
fail.
[00:29:52] Kristin: Mm-hmm.
[00:29:52] Liz: he said, I don't think you understand. That was not an. So when you are determined to do something, [00:30:00] you'll
find a way.
[00:30:02] Kristin: Absolutely. I love that. Your dad sounds like he's cool
[00:30:06] Liz: He
[00:30:07] Kristin: Well, thank
you so much for sharing a bit about your story today and the book is Alice in Condo Land and it sounds like quite a few more to come. So we look forward to seeing what's next.
Thank you, so much,
[00:30:19] Liz: Oh, it was a pleasure. Thank you, Kristin.
[00:30:21] Kristin: Take
care.
[00:30:22] Liz: you too.