Taking the first step toward your dreams can feel overwhelming, but it’s the key to creating an EPIC life. Just ask today’s guest and career transition coach, Shannon Russell, as she tells us more about gearing up for our second act. In this episode, she joins Zander Sprague to explore how small, intentional actions can lead to incredible transformations. Whether you’re facing challenges, feeling stuck, or unsure of where to begin, this conversation will provide the motivation and tools you need to move forward with confidence.
Discover the power of mindset, perseverance, and belief in yourself as we break down practical strategies to overcome obstacles and embrace new opportunities. Learn how to shift your perspective, set achievable goals, and build momentum toward the future you envision.
This episode isn’t just about inspiration—it’s about taking real action. By the end, you’ll feel empowered to step outside your comfort zone and begin your journey toward something greater. No matter where you are today, one step forward is all it takes to start making a difference in your life. Your EPIC journey begins now!
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The Power Of One Step: Transforming Your Life With Action With Shannon Russell
Welcome back to another exciting episode of the show. I am so honored to be joined by Shannon Russell. Shannon, how are you? Tell me who are you and what do you do?
Thank you for having me, Zander. I’m excited to be here. I am a career transition and business coach, and I help people transfer from their 9:00 to 5:00 jobs to start a business that gives them fulfillment and flexibility.
I know this is a second act for you. What did you do before?
I was a television producer in New York and LA for sixteen years. It was my dream from when I was a little girl, and I got to do it for sixteen years. It was wonderful.
That is awesome. It was a challenging job, but really awesome.
Very long hours and lots of hustle and bustle.
An EPIC Journey: Shannon’s Leap To TV, Franchising, And Coaching
How did you begin this epic journey that you’re on now?
I had two little boys, and that was the catalyst after missing my oldest son’s first birthday and first Halloween. I had this epiphany of I want to be a more present mom. I did a little mindset work on myself to say, “I’m going to appreciate and celebrate what I did, but now I want to do something else, and I’m going to figure out what that second act is.” I decided to produce my own life and get into entrepreneurship, and I opened a franchise business to start. That was my first business.
I’ve always wondered, is opening a franchise business, is it difficult? Did you find you had lots of support from the franchisor? As a franchisee, did you find that they’re like, “Give us some money, and then you’re on your own?”
There are definitely some that are like that, but no, mine was amazing. It was honestly the best step into entrepreneurship for me as a mom of two little kids in my first business. I say that franchises, if you pick the right one, are like a business in a box because you have that support from the corporate office. The other franchisees, some of which have become my best friends. We talk every day about our businesses, and you have all of the marketing materials, and just that guidance was a wonderful first step into business owning for me. I was able to see that my skills transferred from production into building a business. That was incredible to see.
Franchises can offer strong support, resembling a ‘business in a box’ with guidance from the corporate office.
Can I ask what the business was?
It was a Snapology STEAM education franchise. We taught children robotics and Lego building and how to think like engineers. It was wonderful. I owned it for eight years. I was in the top three of all of the franchisees most of that time. I sold it last year successfully as someone else’s baby.
That’s awesome. I’m always interested because I’ve done coaching. I’m a mental health professional. I’m all about helping people, obviously. How did you decide to become a business coach?
It was funny enough. I was working in my franchise, and I was teaching a lot of the classes at firs,t and a lot of parents would say, “You must have been a great teacher. What grade did you teach?” It would come out that I was a television producer. They started saying, “How did you go from that to this? Can you help me?” It was really an organic start, and I started helping friends. Figure out their next move in their careers.
I started thinking that there was a need for someone to just hold your hand as you get from the corporate world into owning a business because I did it by myself trying to figure out what to do until I bought into that franchise. It was organic to start, and I just wanted to help, especially women, I think in midlife when they realize, “This career I started at twenty doesn’t really fit now that I’m a mom and have other responsibilities.”
Definitely. I mean, obviously I’m not a woman. I don’t know, but I certainly have observed lots of my friends and people I’m in relationships with being working and being a mom. Sometimes, that transition from, it’s not realistic for me to be working 50 hours a week. I don’t have the time. Something has to give.
It can be for me,n too. It’s really realizing that you work so hard for this idea that you chose when you were in school, and then all of a sudden you go through the decades, and you’re just feeling it just doesn’t align anymore, so I think a lot of us can relate to that.
Navigating Work-Life Balance: Choices And Boundaries
I worked in the corporate world for 22 years and found that there was a lot of service for “We really believe in work-life balance.” What I discovered was that I was the one who had to make that balance. The company was not going to do it. I needed to put some hard stops as to when I was working. What was a working time? What wasn’t a working time? I was working for a Fortune 100 company and worldwide team. People were scheduling meetings with me at 9:00 or 10:00 at night because they were in Asia or Europe or wherever. I got that. I’m like, “I cannot be on a phone call with you at 10:00 at night.”
Say, “Now I got to go to bed, but hold on, I’m all ramped up thinking about work. I have a 6:00 team meeting that I have to go on.” That’s just not working. For right or for wrong, I put in hard stops for myself. I literally am on my calendar between 6:00 PM and 6:00 AM, not a work time. I was, as you said, out of the office. I would take a meeting if it was like a fire, like we have to. Just the general, “We need to catch up about this project. Let’s find a time.” Otherwise, I’d be in the middle of dinner and go, “Sorry, I got to go. Missed time with my daughters.” I had little enough time as it was because I was working all day, but again, they were in school and stuff.
Good for you for putting those stops in there, but I think it’s hard when other people on your team don’t, and then you’re feeling the guilt, so you’re getting the eye rolls, but you have to.
It’s so important to say, “Company, you could say that.” Unless you’re doing it, then I have to do it. Yes, it is probably somewhat at the detriment to your rocketing up the thing, but I talk about choice a lot in my book. We make a choice. It’s so empowering to say, “I am choosing this, and yes, maybe I don’t get that promotion, but I also am not missing my child’s birthday. I’m not missing that quality time around the dinner table to find out how their day was versus saying to your spouse or finding out three weeks later that your kid lost a tooth because you were so busy.” Do you know what I mean?
Yeah. Time is too precious and flies by too fast to be working 24/7.
Time is too precious and flies by too fast to be working 24/7.
It really does. Have you ever noticed because you’ve got kids, I have two daughters who are eighteen and are one’s going to be nineteen next week and 20, almost 21. I remember when they were little, they were like, “I cannot wait to be grown up.” I’m like, “Let me explain to you and you cannot appreciate this, but you get to be a quote grown up for a heck of a lot longer than you get to be a kid. You’re like a grown-up from like twenty until the end.”
Slow it down. Mine just turned 10 and 13 this month. Those are tricky. Like, that hit me hard, both of those. You want to slow it down, and they’re always like, my thirteen-year-old thinks he’s an adult at thirteen. I’m like, “No, you are not at all. Enjoy, have your fun.” I’m the mom who’s like, “Don’t worry about homework too much. Do you want to take a day off? Let’s go do something.” I just feel like experiences and living life to the fullest are really important at any age, but especially when they’re so little and they’re only little ones.
I do think there is that balance to say, yes, we all have to learn how to work hard. Have to do it, but we can have times where we’re having fun. There are times where, look, you and I both there was entrepreneurs, their days, the work just doesn’t get done as much as it should. You’re just not feeling it. You’re like, “I know I need to make those phone calls, but I don’t read. It’s just didn’t happen.” Yes. If it keeps happening, you got a problem. If it’s one day where you’re like, “I’ve been super busy. It’s okay today. It’s a beautiful day. I’m going to go sit outside and read a magazine and not feel guilty about it.”
That’s what we got into it for. That’s one of the main reasons, I think. My son’s in a play this week, and I took the whole day off because I’m going to go to the afternoon show on a Thursday, and I’m going to go at night, and I just don’t have any client calls that day. I’m going to be with him and celebrate that.
“Start Your Second Act”: A Journey On Overcoming Fear
Now, one thing I want to talk to you about is that you’ve written a book. Let’s talk about writing a book. I’ve written three of them, which that alone blows my mind because I’m a talker, not a typer. If you’d ask me in college if I’d write a book, I’m like, “No, are you kidding?” You have done it. It’s a process.
Yes, I’m still in it. I’m in the marketing phase. It’s been a little over a year since I started down this path, and it’s been such a learning process and so much fun. I’m enjoying it so much. It’s called Start Your Second Act. It’s really everything that I teach and helping people figure out their next step in life. I’m really passionate about the message, and I’m excited to get it out there, but it’s a lot to learn, and I cannot believe you’ve done it three times.
I know. I talk about this with various guests and stuff, but it’s like the writing of the book is that’s a process, but that’s not even honestly the hardest part. Editing and proofreading. I don’t know about you, but I read. You could see two of my books are over my shoulder.
I do.
Totally different subjects, but I know when EPIC Begins with 1 Step Forward came out, I didn’t want to see my book for like a month because I’d read my book like seven times because I was proofreading and I had other people that were giving me corrections. The company I work with that was putting the book together had part of the package was professional proofreaders, which I absolutely need.
I’d have to go through and see what they were correcting, try and catch. We deleted the period or that there should be a comma or they decided to rewrite something and I’m like, “No, you didn’t know you missed the way I intended that to be your my voice isn’t there.” I’m asking you, are you like, you love your book, but you’re like, at this moment, you’re like, “I really don’t want to open up my book for a little bit because I’ve all deepened that and I know everything. I just don’t want to talk about that chapter.”
A thousand percent. It’s so funny because I’ve been thinking that, and I read my. I recorded my audiobook as well. That was exhausting in itself. That was an entire weekend, and I have a podcast, but for some reason, it was so stressful trying to get that perfect. I don’t know. I don’t want to read it. I’m waiting for the proof copy to come the actual physical book in the mail. I’m excited to see it, but I don’t think I’m going to read that thing again. I just need a little space.
That’s stuff that they don’t tell you. You’re like to say, and for me to be out here in the world going, “I was tired of my own book.” Again, if you had any book and you read it, like in a six-week period, you read it once a week, you’d be like, “I don’t need to reread that no matter how great it is.”
The editing process can go on forever. At one point, I was like, “It’s done. It’s perfect.”
Look, there may be something that you missed three months from now. You’re like, “We forgot a period or a comma.” That’s okay because at some point, you do have to just let it go. I’m sure as a producer, you’re like, “We could go keep editing the bejesus out of this, but it’s not going to get better.”
I feel like, yeah. I feel like it’s exactly how I want it. If I get other ideas, like, “I should have added that in.” It’s like, “I’ll put it in the next one, but for now, this is packaged. It’s “perfect” for now. It’s what I want. My main thing is just to check this off my list of something I’ve always wanted to do and to be able to serve others in a different way of people who may not work with me one-on-one, but they can read this and feel a little bit of inspiration to start something new.” I feel like if that does it, then I will write whatever other thoughts I have in the next one.
As I talk about my book with the EPIC Begins, we all have these epic dreams. Be it write a book, run a marathon, like just start a whole new career. It is absolutely scary. It is a big leap of faith. However, the overall move is huge, but the first step is not nearly as hard as you think.
It can be a small one. It can be a small, “I registered my LLC or I spent fifteen minutes writing today.” I agree with you 100%.
It’s like anything. It takes time and practice, and you’re not going to be good at being an entrepreneur if you’ve never done it. It’s okay. I try and remind people of the things that we’ve all done that took time learning how to write. We don’t think about it. “I need to write a note.” You know how to make all the letters and make the words and all of that.
There was absolutely a time where it was hard for you to make an A and a B and a C. You just show much effort, and now you don’t think about it. Why? It’s because you’ve had lots of practice doing it. I encourage people to be gentle with yourself. We tend to go, “I’m not thriving or whatever.” You want to know what? It’s going to take time. Thomas Edison did what? Like a thousand light bulbs before he figured out the right filament.
It’s very true. It’s also just not wanting to live with regret. Even if you try it and it doesn’t work out, you’re always going to know that you tried. I think that’s a big thing in this one life that we have too is trying. There’s no regret at the end of the day.
One of the things I say in my book is that the only things you fail a hundred percent at are the things that you do not try. Look, failure is part of the journey. It is. We’re not going to get it right. I’ll put it in much more basic terms. When we got up this morning, I don’t know everything that was going to happen today. I don’t have the answer to every single question. Here I am getting to interview you. I have no idea what we were going to talk about, but it doesn’t stop me from going, “Let’s do a podcast.” Do you know what I mean?
It could have been scary. This could have scared you the whole time.
You could have. You could have been like, even though you’re not in Hollywood, been like, “Come on, let’s go. What’s the production schedule?”
Exactly. “Wrap it up now.” You don’t know. It’s my first time.
Guidance For Transition: Reflection And Capabilities
What are some pieces of advice that you have for women? Maybe they’ve been in a corporate job, or they’re just in a job that no longer floats their boat.
I think the first thing is to turn inward and just ask yourself, “Am I happy?” There are so few of us that do that. I think once we can ask ourselves, “Am I happy here? Can I be doing more? Is there something else I want to do?” Just take out a paper and pen and start writing down your ideas and
then write down your skills, like write down what you can do in this current role you’re in and what you’ve done in the past, and then look at what you’re thinking about over here writing the book.
Starting a business, whatever it is. Look and really appreciate where you’ve come from and what you’ve done so that you can see that line, that thread that connects where you’ve been to what you can do next. I think you can surprise yourself with how much your skills do transfer and how much you can bring with you as you start on that next venture. I think it’s just checking in, write it down, and starting to research those ideas. Again, even if you never try them, research it and just think, “Is this something I can do?” If you’re leaning towards yes, then give it a shot.
My career has honestly been jobs that, some jobs I should never have been hired because I just didn’t have the skillset, but because I believe in myself, unfailingly. There is honestly something about being confident in yourself. Even if you’re like, “I have no idea how I’m going to pull that off.” Now I have to.
The fake it’s will you make it right? It really is true.
Being a parent, there is no instruction manual. The moment you figure out something, the kids go and change. You’re like, “That’s not going to work anymore.” I know that I had a time in 1999 where I was at a crossroads, and I was like, “What am I going to do?” I took some time and I reflected on, just like you said, the jobs that I had done. It was more looking at what I didn’t want. What I was clear wasn’t. I wasn’t good at that job. One of the jobs where I wasn’t successful was a software engineer for a year.
I was a history and psych major. I don’t think that way. I was able to do it because I’m smart and I can study and stuff, but I joked that I worked incredibly hard to be mediocre, and I want more out of life than mediocrity. When I was looking back, I’m like, “That isn’t the job for me. I love that I have that knowledge.” That’s not the world I want to be in. I’m the person that if I have a problem, I’m coming over to your desk. “Shannon, how was your weekend?” I don’t understand this. I was working with people who I’m incredibly extroverted. They were not as extroverted.
I can imagine, so yeah.
It is. Also, I want to say, like, if you’re any of you reading, if you’re thinking of a career transition, we honestly are incredibly capable beings. We really can do anything. I can assure you that as an entrepreneur, there were lots of skills I didn’t have. I’ve been at it for two decades, and there are still skills that I’m working on getting better at.
I also realized there are things that are not my strong suits so I can hire someone else to do that. It’s like, technically Shannon, you and I could go out and change the oil in our car. It would take a really long time, but we would rather go to Jiffy Lube or a quick lube place because they know what to do. I cannot talk about cutting my hair, but technically, people could cut their own hair, but you still go to someone who’s an expert at it because it looks a lot better.
Finding Your Path: Joy, Strengths, And Skills
Also too, like when you’re thinking about what you don’t want to do as you think about your next move. That’s important because a lot of people just want to get out of their situation, that they’ll leap at whatever opportunity, and then they’ll realize that it was a parallel leap. They’re still miserable in a place because they didn’t look at that. They didn’t say, “That job is really a lot of what I dislike about where I currently am.” You want to make sure that you’re leaping to something that is going to fulfill you in your second act because this is a time to be choosy.
Make sure that you’re leaping to something that is going to fulfill you in your second act because this is the time to be choosy.
I also think when I looked back, the thing that I discovered where I had joy, where my strength was that I was good at explaining stuff, teaching people. I went from doing highly technical stuff to I was a technical trainer for seventeen years. I taught people how to use software because I understood that I could learn that side, but I could teach it and teach people. I have an aptitude for, “Wait, you don’t understand that. Let me figure out a way to explain it to you that you’re going to remember it.”
That was highly fulfilling because I got to use the knowledge I had, but I didn’t have to do it every day. I got to do it in a way. That’s the thing. We all had to get these skills. If you’re looking for your second act, you have this huge treasure trove of skills. Even if you don’t know it, you’re like, “In my job, I like it when I get to do a presentation.” Pay attention to that. Pay attention to, you want to know what. I love when I’m at a conference and maybe my company had you’re working in tech and you’re like, “I have to work the booth, but I seem to do well there or I don’t like that.” A job where I’m front-facing may not be my best job.
That’s so true.
Connect With Shannon
Shannon, how can people find you, get ahold of you, find your book?
I’m at Second Act Success everywhere on social and my book is at StartYourSecondAct.com.
Cool. That is so exciting.
Thank you very much. It’s a lot of work at this stage. It’s all been so wonderful and fun.
It never stops. Let me tell you. I hate to tell you, but even though my books are out, I’m always like, “What book promotion am I going to run? When am I going to run it? What’s that going to look like?”
I’ll be reaching out to you for advice because it’s a long road ahead for me with this.
It is, but congratulations. It is so awesome that you get to call yourself a published author.
Thank you. I’m very excited. It’s another act, and we’ll see where it leads from here.
Shannon, thank you so much for joining me.
Thank you, Zander. This has been so fun.
I want to remind everyone that if you’re ready to begin your epic journey, go to EpicBegins.com. If you go to my YouTube channel, Epic Begins with 1 Step Forward. You can see my new TV show, Epic Begins with 1 Step Forward. As always, remember that epic choices lead to the epic life that you want.
Important Links
- Shannon Russell
- Shannon Russell on LinkedIn
- Second Act Success on Instagram
- Second Act Success on Facebook
- Snapology STEAM education franchise
- Start Your Second Act
- EPIC Begins with 1 Step Forward
- Second Act Success
- StartYourSecondAct.com
- Epic Begins with 1 Step Forward on YouTube
About Shannon Russell
Shannon Russell is a Career Transition and Business Coach, an Exit Strategy Expert, and the CEO of Second Act Success® Coaching. Shannon spent over 16 years as a Television Producer before she decided to stop producing shows for others and start “producing” her own life.
Shannon pivoted her career from the entertainment industry to entrepreneurship, and she now empowers women to leave unfulfilling careers and build joyful, purpose-driven businesses that allow them to live their best lives in their “second act.”
Shannon is the author of Start Your Second Act: How to Change Careers, Launch a Business, and Create Your Best Life , and she hosts the Second Act Success Career Podcast.