September 20, 2025 • 28 mins
Episode 112: It’s NEVER Too Late: To Rewrite Your Story!
In this inspiring episode, Kimen Petersen shares his personal journey of overcoming self-doubt, learning disabilities, and late-in-life career changes. Through heartfelt stories and practical wisdom, he encourages listeners to trust their timing, embrace their unique path, and remember that it’s never too late to become who you’re meant to be.
Timeline:
- 00:00 – Introduction to the podcast and host
- 00:42 – Challenging the belief of being "too late" or "too old"
- 01:05 – Kimen’s struggles with dyslexia and early self-doubt
- 02:27 – The impact of adversity on empathy and compassion
- 03:42 – Career stress, health scare, and a turning point
- 05:05 – Discovering dyslexia at age 26
- 06:50 – Realizing self-worth comes from within
- 07:50 – Quitting a management job and facing fears
- 09:00 – Returning to school at 40 and academic success
- 10:30 – Starting a new career and making a difference
- 11:45 – Stories of late-blooming athletes and breaking age barriers
- 13:00 – The importance of courage and taking action despite fear
- 14:30 – Becoming a teacher and giving back
- 16:00 – Financial fears and how support appeared along the way
- 17:00 – The myth of the "perfect time" and living in the present
- 18:00 – Advice: Take the first step, even if you don’t have the whole plan
- 19:00 – Rejection as redirection and trusting the journey
- 21:00 – The power of belief, persistence, and being "unreasonable"
- 22:30 – Practical invitation: Write down one step you can take today
- 24:00 – Final encouragement: It’s never too late to become what you’re meant to be
- 25:00 – Closing thoughts and call to share the episode
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to Your Inner Advocate,a podcast by Kimen Petersen,
formerly Conversations with Kimen.
This podcast is a space forinspiration, soulful insights,
and meaningful life lessons.
Your host, Kimen Petersen drawsfrom personal stories and powerful
conversations with remarkablepeople to help illuminate your path.
These episodes reflect his livedexperiences and thoughtful perspectives,
(00:25):
all aimed at encouraging you to live lifewith greater authenticity, joy, and ease.
Your inner advocate is here tohelp you tune in, trust your inner
wisdom, and move through life withmore clarity, flow, and fulfillment.
It's possible that you've.
Told yourself that you're too old,that you missed your chance and that
(00:48):
you should have started years ago.
But let me ask you this.
What if none of that was true?
What if in fact you're what?
Right on time?
So I'm gonna go into mystory a little bit of the
background, , when I was in school.
(01:11):
I had a lot of trouble with spelling, withreading comprehension and reading speed.
I was an absolute whi at mathematics,and so this is probably why they
never realized that I had a learningdisability , I have , dyslexia,
(01:32):
but the funny thing is Ijust thought I wasn't smart.
I thought I wasn't good at school.
I wasn't good at spelling.
I wasn't good at reading.
So rather than going to secondaryeducation, I went right into the workforce
because I wasn't smart anyway.
My grades weren't good enough to make, getinto university and what's the point in
(01:53):
going to university if you're gonna fail?
That was kind of my idea.
But you know, the funny thing is.
Say I'd had gone back to school orgone to school then I was so young
and so immature that I would've neverbeen prepared for what I do now.
(02:15):
So maybe that idea is, you know, thatI idea of what if I'm right on time?
What if I had to go through all this?
And it's fascinatinghow everything adds up.
In retrospect, when you look back, I wentthrough lots of depression, um, alienation
(02:38):
and worse when I, when I was young.
And the interesting thing is,um, the reason I am somebody
who really wants to help.
It's specifically because I know howit feels to be alone, to be hurting
and have no one there for you.
(03:00):
So if you ever show up in my spaceand you're hurting, you're gonna
see who I am at a deep level.
You're gonna see how much I care.
And I don't care, in spiteof what I've been through.
I care because of what I've been through.
'cause like, you cannot learn empathyand compassion without storms, without,
(03:22):
without going through it yourself,not to the level that I learned it.
So when somebody's in my space is reallyhurting, I'm a hundred percent there.
I'm right there.
And that's one of the thingsthat I love about myself now.
(03:42):
So we go back, I was, youknow, relatively successful.
Worked my way up into a managementposition, definitely over my head.
And the stress hit me.
And if you read, heard her, or if youlistened to some of my other episodes,
you might have heard me talk about this,how one day I ended up in the cardiac ward
(04:08):
in emergency thinking, no, this is it.
You know, this is how it ends.
And I basically said, youknow, in my head I said, if.
If anybody's out there help methrough this, and I promise you,
(04:30):
I'll figure out what I'mhere to do in this life.
So yeah, I made it through.
It turned out it was justlike a high level of stress.
I,
and yeah, I quit that management job,the one that made it that look good.
But the whole time I knew I wasn't doingwhat I was supposed to do in this life.
(04:51):
Do you get that feeling sometimes?
Do you get the feelinglike you're here for more,
like there's somethingelse you should be doing,
and do you have the fear that I hadthat oh my, like I'm just not smart
enough or, it's been so long sinceI've been in education it because to
(05:13):
fill in on that, on the story about.
How did I figure out I was dyslexic?
Well, I didn't find out till I was26, and one of my friends, she was
a special ed teacher, and I thinkI wrote her a birthday card and she
said, Kim, and like, do you knowhalf your letters are backwards?
And I'm like, I, uh, okay.
(05:36):
She says, are you dyslexic?
And I'm like, DYS, what?
And we did some studying and some sometests and turns out that I'm dyslexic
and I didn't find out till I was 26,which kind of slightly flew in the
face of this idea that I'm stupid ornot, not intellectually gifted, right,
(05:57):
but not enough to push me forward.
You know what, if we're right on time.
So I was going in this directionand I thought I'd finally made it
into this big, like, high profilebuilding, building manager.
Um, I'm gonna gain, I'mgonna have the respect.
It's like respect is not somethingthat comes from outside youth.
(06:20):
When you're looking out there for respect,it means you're missing it inside.
If you're looking for somethingacceptance outside you're, it's
something you're missing inside.
And no matter how many people respectyou from the outside or how many people
try to fill that gap,you'll never fill it.
(06:44):
You have to fill it for yourselfand then you can receive it.
So here I was.
I quit that job and I didn't reallyknow what I was gonna do, and I
was scared of going back to school.
But you see,
the beautiful thing was I wasput into a place by life itself,
(07:08):
where I had no other option.
I couldn't go back.
I had to go forward.
Now.
Do I think we all needto get to that point?
No, I don't.
I don't, but I did at that point to moveforward, I had to burn all my bridges.
And honestly, if there's somethingyou really want to do, really want
(07:31):
to go for, you gotta understand.
If you think back to every singleproblem that ever happened in your
life, there was always a few things.
When you look back at them, youknow, any problem that's in the past.
You look back and you'll seethey have some things in common.
Like first off, therewas always a solution.
You know, if it's in the pastthere had to be a solution.
(07:53):
'cause that's how it ends up in the past.
Either that or it's still going on.
And the other thing is, it alwaysworked out better than you thought.
I,
you know, I like to saysometimes it's like, you don't
need to know the whole plan.
You just need to start.
Down the path and the pathwill unfold as you go.
(08:17):
So at 40 years old, I went back to school,
you know, dyslexic.
And the cool thing is like a lifetimeof learning, uh, communicating with
people, of listening of hard work.
'cause I understood that.
(08:39):
I still had the belief that Iwasn't intellectually gifted.
I never was, and I was okay with that.
But what I knew for certain that I wasthe hardest worker that you've ever met.
And so I would make up for mylack of intellect by working hard.
And I worked hard.
I studied four and a half hoursevery night, 19 hours on the weekend,
(09:05):
I hit the honor roll every single term.
And at the end they named me theirvaledictorian heart award, they
call it, for, um, excellence in,um, you know, academically, but also
for showing unconditional positiveregard for everyone I've met.
(09:27):
And that's, that's how I got there.
And then of course there's someadvantages starting into a profession
with a little bit of salt and pepperon the sides that the first day I
worked, everybody was looking at melike, I'd been in this for 20 years.
And we were so well educated,it'd be pretty hard to tell.
(09:52):
And I just went out into practice
and, you know, other thingshappened along the way.
But it's like everything worked out
and now I have an incredible practicewhere I make a difference every day.
And the difference looksdifferent all the time.
It's like some days it's just likepunch 'em in the arm and say, you'll
(10:15):
get 'em next time the other day.
It is just really being with theirsomeone as they're, as they pour
their heart out and tears roll downtheir face and just being there with
them moment to moment to moment.
You know, it would've been easy for me todecide that it was, there wasn't enough
time, or I couldn't do it, or was too old.
But
(10:37):
thank God I didn't listen to that story.
See, it's never too late.
See, you gotta think.
Think of.
Even, even with some of the athletesI worked with, or I've worked with in
(10:58):
the past we're, we're talking femalemarathoners in their early forties.
Um, breaking records, um, going toworld events, qualifying for everything.
You, you know, some people think thatrunning is a young person's game,
but there's amazing, amazing peoplethat are pushing all the boundaries.
(11:27):
You know,
people sometimes stay in a job eventhough they need, they know they need
to move on, they need something more.
And like they said, like,you're gonna, I understand.
You can sit there thinking,okay, financially, um,
(11:47):
start going back to school.
You know, it might put your retirementin in a bad space, but I wanna challenge
that 'cause like literally, if you'recompletely unhappy for the next 20, 30
years coming into retirement, how longare you gonna be alive for retirement?
(12:14):
And how much joy will you have in life?
Uh, everybody's afraid.
But remember that courage is notthe lack of fear or absence of fear.
It's taking action in the faceof fear, and there's no one
(12:34):
out there that isn't afraid.
But there is something on theother side of fear, like one of my
favorite quotes is fear is a milewide, but it's only an inch deep.
And when you step into it.
You'll see how shallow it is.
So, I mean, even more incredible in thelast two weeks of my program, um, the dean
(13:00):
of the school walk came up to me and said,Kimon, you're coming to teach for us.
Right?
You're coming to teach for us.
She didn't say right.
She says, you're coming to teach for us.
I'm like, yeah, I was planning on it,thinking it about it, but you know,
I don't have a degree, so I gottawait till I have the 26 hours in
the profession or 2,600 hours in theprofession to qualify as a teacher.
And she says, and she goes, Ididn't ask you Kim, and I told
(13:21):
you you're coming to teach for us.
And they created and got, uh,got a permission for me to teach.
And it was amazing.
They had me teach like, here's aguy in his forties who didn't do
post-secondary ex uh, education.
I, I've done a lot of side courses andlistening, communication, um, and all
(13:45):
that, but I didn't do formal education.
And here I am, I'm an instructor andwhat, what I instructed was, they
called it professional development and.
My curriculum included, um, communicationand listening skills, ethics and bylaws,
(14:10):
um, and also study skills because itwas the first 10 weeks of the program.
And this is when if you can, ifyou can establish really good study
habits, you can do really well,but it's a really hard program.
But my, my most, my largestintention was to bring the
heart back into massage therapy.
(14:31):
I was in school for massage therapy, andso I would, I would try to tell really
heartwarming stories from my practice, theones that I had permission to talk about.
One of the other quotes I reallylove is by Theodore Vis, uh, sorry.
(14:53):
Theodore Teddy Roosevelt.
Do what you can with whatyou have, where you are.
If you wanna move on to somethingnew, that's all you have to do.
Do what you can with what you have.
Where you are.
And when I went back to school,my biggest fear was finances.
(15:15):
But it's funny, it's like if youare on the right path, if you are
going in the direction that you'resupposed to go, the way will appear.
And I was able to get student loansfor enough to cover the first, the,
the first half, first year of thecourse and some of the second year.
And my wife's practicegot incredibly busy.
(15:38):
And unfortunately we lost twograndparents during this time, but
they both left me a little bit ofmoney, just enough to make it through.
So even that worked out.
'cause I think we're always afraid, right?
I
think about it, this question, whatdream have you put on the shelf?
(16:07):
Because you were tellingyourself, you're too old,
you're too late, or you're just not ready.
Because honestly, thereis no perfect time.
There's no, there's no perfect time.
The only because the truth is
(16:31):
the only thing that exists is now.
The past is gone.
The future is just a potential.
So if you're waiting for some futuredate, when it's the right time,
that future time will never come.
The truth is you will never havemore time than you have right now.
(16:56):
You'll never be ever again.
Be as young as you are right now.
You'll never have enough this kindof capacity you have right now.
This is the time.
So somebody will asklike, how can I get there?
(17:19):
And I love the mountain analogy.
I,
and it's simply, have you ever heard this?
How do you climb a mountain?
Well, you don't sprint.
And you don't teleport.
You simply, whatever your mountain is,whatever your dream is, whatever your
(17:40):
goal, you point yourself in the directionof the mountain and you put one foot
in front of the other and you keeprepeating that until you reach the top.
It's that simple.
Literally, the journey of a thousandmiles begins with a single step.
(18:02):
But if you don't take that firststep, you'll never reach the peak.
Now, as you're going, you need torecognize signs on the path, right?
You think about sometimes rejection action
(18:26):
is actually redirection.
Interestingly, like one of myathletes who wasn't able to get into a
certain program and they tried twice,
and then they,
they were so tenacious and persistent andso passionate about going in the direction
(18:53):
they found a program half a world away.
And they applied to it.
And this is the cool thing.
It's like sometimes, sometimes lifegives you these little hints that
you're going in the right direction.
And this person got this really greathint because when they were talking to
them, they were talking about the programand so and so, and this, the, the,
(19:19):
the admissions person in this school,like half world away said You, well,
the one problem with your program is.
You guys typically only do one ofthis certain class, but we require
two, so you might need some upgrading.
And this athlete went,I took an extra one,
(19:40):
you know when she told me that.
And even then I, now I get shivers,it's like, oh my God, isn't that
like your past self knew that'sthe direction you were going?
So they set it up.
So as you're wondering if you'regoing the right path, watch
for the signs that you are.
You know, sometimes you face lockeddoors and closed opportunities
(20:02):
or people telling you no.
And what if those weren'tredirections or rejections?
There were actually redirections.
Life is not here to pull therug out from under you if
you're aligned with your path.
And sometimes the door's locked ora wall shows up, but only to point
(20:24):
you in a direction that's gonna takeyou quicker and more effectively
towards your dreaming goal.
Maybe a rejection is the universe's wayof saying, not this, but something better.
(20:44):
You know it.
It's interesting, like.
Even though, I'll tell you, Iknew for a large percentage of my
life that I wanted to do something
that really helped people.
Even in, in my early twenties.
I went and backpack to Europe for sixmonths and my plan was to come back and go
(21:07):
back to university and become a counselor
and, uh.
When I came back, theeconomy was in a shambles.
Um, of course, I, I'd made too much moneybecause I'd got, uh, a buyout the year
before, so I didn't qualify for studentloans, and I needed to upgrade my English,
(21:33):
so
I put my tail between mylegs and I went back to work.
And it's interesting, it, I feltlike I was rejected by life, but I
think life was just redirecting me
like, this is not the perfect moment.
(21:54):
You, you have more to learnbefore you can go there.
And at that point I kind ofdecided that that was it.
I'm never gonna be ableto do what I wanted to do.
But the truth is, you can'tmiss what's truly meant for you,
(22:18):
no matter what.
What has meant for you will happen, andif it something you want is not happening.
It probably means it's not meant for you
and you.
If you start down the path, the pathwill reveal itself along the way.
It's just how life works is co-creation.
(22:40):
You, you take a step,step, life meets you there,
and when you want something, the universeconspires in helping you achieve it.
(23:00):
Now if you are really gonna go for it,if you are really saying, that's it,
I've gotta do this, you gotta understandthere's a power of belief around becoming,
and sometimes it requiresbeing completely unreasonable.
(23:22):
And what that means is there's amillion reason why you shouldn't.
So you do not take onany of those reasons.
You'd be completely unreasonable.
Yeah, I shouldn't.
Yeah, I can't.
Yeah, I'm too old.
Whatever.
I'm going for it.
You need to have faith,persistence, and boldness
(23:46):
and literally sometimes youabsolutely have to be delusional.
D Lulu,
think about it.
What would you take on in thislife if you knew for certain
that success was guaranteed?
What if you knew you couldn't fail?
(24:11):
We have to be unreasonable.
Sometimes
we have to believe despite all theresistance, both internal and external.
It is not delusion, it's faith in action.
Henry Ford said it best,whether you think you can or you
(24:31):
think you can't, you're right.
So how about this?
Think about this.
Do it now or do it later today.
But try it.
Is there something where that youreally want to do in this life?
Pull out a paper now, or as soonas you can safely pull out a
(24:54):
paper and write down one step.
One step you can do today.
Maybe you're gonna finda mentor or a community,
um, maybe if it's whatever, you'regonna look up a program that
you wanna go back to school for.
(25:16):
When you, have you ever thought that?
Okay, so if that brings up somefear, think about it this way.
Fear when you feel it in the body,and excitement, when you feel
it in the body, feel identical.
The only difference is whatyou're thinking at the time.
So replace the fear.
Thoughts with excitement, thoughts.
(25:38):
And honestly, you don't haveto have it all figured out.
You don't need the perfect plan.
Just start with what youhave, do what you can today,
and start taking small steps becausethey will add up to big changes.
(26:06):
So here's my invitation.
Stop waiting for the perfect time.
Stop waiting until you feel fully ready.
The time is now.
Nothing else exists.
One step towards it.
Write it down,
(26:27):
have it in reality whereyou see it every day.
The only question is, will you steponto the path that's waiting for you?
And remember, it is never,ever too late to become
(26:50):
what you're meant to be.
Muhammad Ali said, don't count the days.
Make the days count.
Hey, thank you for spendingthis time with me again.
I really appreciate it.
(27:12):
If anything in here really sunk in.
Or if you know somebody who wouldreally benefit from this conversation,
please, please provide it to them.
Share it with them.
Really love it.
If you take, maybe reflect, um, journalabout this, share it with somebody else,
(27:42):
just.
Keep going.
It's never too late.
And keep on always buildingyour own internal advocate.
Thank you for listening to this episodeof Your Inner Advocate, a podcast by
(28:03):
Kimen Petersen, formerly Conversationswith Kimen if you found value in
today's episode, please follow likeand share the podcast with someone
who you think may benefit from it.
You can listen on Apple Podcast.
Spotify, Podbean, and connect onInstagram @ your inner advocate.
Until next time, keep listening toand developing your inner advocate.
(28:29):
. Today I want to talk with you aboutsomething that really probably
will touch every single one ofus at some point in our life.
And it's the idea that it's never too lateto become the person you're meant to be,
Welcome to Your Inner Advocate,a podcast by Kimen Petersen,
formerly Conversations with Kimen.
This podcast is a space forinspiration, soulful insights,
and meaningful life lessons.
Your host, Kimen Petersen drawsfrom personal stories and powerful
conversations with remarkablepeople to help illuminate your path.
These episodes reflect his livedexperiences and thoughtful perspectives,
(00:25):
all aimed at encouraging you to live lifewith greater authenticity, joy, and ease.
Your inner advocate is here tohelp you tune in, trust your inner
wisdom, and move through life withmore clarity, flow, and fulfillment.
It's possible that you've.
Told yourself that you're too old,that you missed your chance and that
(00:48):
you should have started years ago.
But let me ask you this.
What if none of that was true?
What if in fact you're what?
Right on time?
So I'm gonna go into mystory a little bit of the
background, , when I was in school.
(01:11):
I had a lot of trouble with spelling, withreading comprehension and reading speed.
I was an absolute whi at mathematics,and so this is probably why they
never realized that I had a learningdisability , I have , dyslexia,
(01:32):
but the funny thing is Ijust thought I wasn't smart.
I thought I wasn't good at school.
I wasn't good at spelling.
I wasn't good at reading.
So rather than going to secondaryeducation, I went right into the workforce
because I wasn't smart anyway.
My grades weren't good enough to make, getinto university and what's the point in
(01:53):
going to university if you're gonna fail?
That was kind of my idea.
But you know, the funny thing is.
Say I'd had gone back to school orgone to school then I was so young
and so immature that I would've neverbeen prepared for what I do now.
(02:15):
So maybe that idea is, you know, thatI idea of what if I'm right on time?
What if I had to go through all this?
And it's fascinatinghow everything adds up.
In retrospect, when you look back, I wentthrough lots of depression, um, alienation
(02:38):
and worse when I, when I was young.
And the interesting thing is,um, the reason I am somebody
who really wants to help.
It's specifically because I know howit feels to be alone, to be hurting
and have no one there for you.
(03:00):
So if you ever show up in my spaceand you're hurting, you're gonna
see who I am at a deep level.
You're gonna see how much I care.
And I don't care, in spiteof what I've been through.
I care because of what I've been through.
'cause like, you cannot learn empathyand compassion without storms, without,
(03:22):
without going through it yourself,not to the level that I learned it.
So when somebody's in my space is reallyhurting, I'm a hundred percent there.
I'm right there.
And that's one of the thingsthat I love about myself now.
(03:42):
So we go back, I was, youknow, relatively successful.
Worked my way up into a managementposition, definitely over my head.
And the stress hit me.
And if you read, heard her, or if youlistened to some of my other episodes,
you might have heard me talk about this,how one day I ended up in the cardiac ward
(04:08):
in emergency thinking, no, this is it.
You know, this is how it ends.
And I basically said, youknow, in my head I said, if.
If anybody's out there help methrough this, and I promise you,
(04:30):
I'll figure out what I'mhere to do in this life.
So yeah, I made it through.
It turned out it was justlike a high level of stress.
I,
and yeah, I quit that management job,the one that made it that look good.
But the whole time I knew I wasn't doingwhat I was supposed to do in this life.
(04:51):
Do you get that feeling sometimes?
Do you get the feelinglike you're here for more,
like there's somethingelse you should be doing,
and do you have the fear that I hadthat oh my, like I'm just not smart
enough or, it's been so long sinceI've been in education it because to
(05:13):
fill in on that, on the story about.
How did I figure out I was dyslexic?
Well, I didn't find out till I was26, and one of my friends, she was
a special ed teacher, and I thinkI wrote her a birthday card and she
said, Kim, and like, do you knowhalf your letters are backwards?
And I'm like, I, uh, okay.
(05:36):
She says, are you dyslexic?
And I'm like, DYS, what?
And we did some studying and some sometests and turns out that I'm dyslexic
and I didn't find out till I was 26,which kind of slightly flew in the
face of this idea that I'm stupid ornot, not intellectually gifted, right,
(05:57):
but not enough to push me forward.
You know what, if we're right on time.
So I was going in this directionand I thought I'd finally made it
into this big, like, high profilebuilding, building manager.
Um, I'm gonna gain, I'mgonna have the respect.
It's like respect is not somethingthat comes from outside youth.
(06:20):
When you're looking out there for respect,it means you're missing it inside.
If you're looking for somethingacceptance outside you're, it's
something you're missing inside.
And no matter how many people respectyou from the outside or how many people
try to fill that gap,you'll never fill it.
(06:44):
You have to fill it for yourselfand then you can receive it.
So here I was.
I quit that job and I didn't reallyknow what I was gonna do, and I
was scared of going back to school.
But you see,
the beautiful thing was I wasput into a place by life itself,
(07:08):
where I had no other option.
I couldn't go back.
I had to go forward.
Now.
Do I think we all needto get to that point?
No, I don't.
I don't, but I did at that point to moveforward, I had to burn all my bridges.
And honestly, if there's somethingyou really want to do, really want
(07:31):
to go for, you gotta understand.
If you think back to every singleproblem that ever happened in your
life, there was always a few things.
When you look back at them, youknow, any problem that's in the past.
You look back and you'll seethey have some things in common.
Like first off, therewas always a solution.
You know, if it's in the pastthere had to be a solution.
(07:53):
'cause that's how it ends up in the past.
Either that or it's still going on.
And the other thing is, it alwaysworked out better than you thought.
I,
you know, I like to saysometimes it's like, you don't
need to know the whole plan.
You just need to start.
Down the path and the pathwill unfold as you go.
(08:17):
So at 40 years old, I went back to school,
you know, dyslexic.
And the cool thing is like a lifetimeof learning, uh, communicating with
people, of listening of hard work.
'cause I understood that.
(08:39):
I still had the belief that Iwasn't intellectually gifted.
I never was, and I was okay with that.
But what I knew for certain that I wasthe hardest worker that you've ever met.
And so I would make up for mylack of intellect by working hard.
And I worked hard.
I studied four and a half hoursevery night, 19 hours on the weekend,
(09:05):
I hit the honor roll every single term.
And at the end they named me theirvaledictorian heart award, they
call it, for, um, excellence in,um, you know, academically, but also
for showing unconditional positiveregard for everyone I've met.
(09:27):
And that's, that's how I got there.
And then of course there's someadvantages starting into a profession
with a little bit of salt and pepperon the sides that the first day I
worked, everybody was looking at melike, I'd been in this for 20 years.
And we were so well educated,it'd be pretty hard to tell.
(09:52):
And I just went out into practice
and, you know, other thingshappened along the way.
But it's like everything worked out
and now I have an incredible practicewhere I make a difference every day.
And the difference looksdifferent all the time.
It's like some days it's just likepunch 'em in the arm and say, you'll
(10:15):
get 'em next time the other day.
It is just really being with theirsomeone as they're, as they pour
their heart out and tears roll downtheir face and just being there with
them moment to moment to moment.
You know, it would've been easy for me todecide that it was, there wasn't enough
time, or I couldn't do it, or was too old.
But
(10:37):
thank God I didn't listen to that story.
See, it's never too late.
See, you gotta think.
Think of.
Even, even with some of the athletesI worked with, or I've worked with in
(10:58):
the past we're, we're talking femalemarathoners in their early forties.
Um, breaking records, um, going toworld events, qualifying for everything.
You, you know, some people think thatrunning is a young person's game,
but there's amazing, amazing peoplethat are pushing all the boundaries.
(11:27):
You know,
people sometimes stay in a job eventhough they need, they know they need
to move on, they need something more.
And like they said, like,you're gonna, I understand.
You can sit there thinking,okay, financially, um,
(11:47):
start going back to school.
You know, it might put your retirementin in a bad space, but I wanna challenge
that 'cause like literally, if you'recompletely unhappy for the next 20, 30
years coming into retirement, how longare you gonna be alive for retirement?
(12:14):
And how much joy will you have in life?
Uh, everybody's afraid.
But remember that courage is notthe lack of fear or absence of fear.
It's taking action in the faceof fear, and there's no one
(12:34):
out there that isn't afraid.
But there is something on theother side of fear, like one of my
favorite quotes is fear is a milewide, but it's only an inch deep.
And when you step into it.
You'll see how shallow it is.
So, I mean, even more incredible in thelast two weeks of my program, um, the dean
(13:00):
of the school walk came up to me and said,Kimon, you're coming to teach for us.
Right?
You're coming to teach for us.
She didn't say right.
She says, you're coming to teach for us.
I'm like, yeah, I was planning on it,thinking it about it, but you know,
I don't have a degree, so I gottawait till I have the 26 hours in
the profession or 2,600 hours in theprofession to qualify as a teacher.
And she says, and she goes, Ididn't ask you Kim, and I told
(13:21):
you you're coming to teach for us.
And they created and got, uh,got a permission for me to teach.
And it was amazing.
They had me teach like, here's aguy in his forties who didn't do
post-secondary ex uh, education.
I, I've done a lot of side courses andlistening, communication, um, and all
(13:45):
that, but I didn't do formal education.
And here I am, I'm an instructor andwhat, what I instructed was, they
called it professional development and.
My curriculum included, um, communicationand listening skills, ethics and bylaws,
(14:10):
um, and also study skills because itwas the first 10 weeks of the program.
And this is when if you can, ifyou can establish really good study
habits, you can do really well,but it's a really hard program.
But my, my most, my largestintention was to bring the
heart back into massage therapy.
(14:31):
I was in school for massage therapy, andso I would, I would try to tell really
heartwarming stories from my practice, theones that I had permission to talk about.
One of the other quotes I reallylove is by Theodore Vis, uh, sorry.
(14:53):
Theodore Teddy Roosevelt.
Do what you can with whatyou have, where you are.
If you wanna move on to somethingnew, that's all you have to do.
Do what you can with what you have.
Where you are.
And when I went back to school,my biggest fear was finances.
(15:15):
But it's funny, it's like if youare on the right path, if you are
going in the direction that you'resupposed to go, the way will appear.
And I was able to get student loansfor enough to cover the first, the,
the first half, first year of thecourse and some of the second year.
And my wife's practicegot incredibly busy.
(15:38):
And unfortunately we lost twograndparents during this time, but
they both left me a little bit ofmoney, just enough to make it through.
So even that worked out.
'cause I think we're always afraid, right?
I
think about it, this question, whatdream have you put on the shelf?
(16:07):
Because you were tellingyourself, you're too old,
you're too late, or you're just not ready.
Because honestly, thereis no perfect time.
There's no, there's no perfect time.
The only because the truth is
(16:31):
the only thing that exists is now.
The past is gone.
The future is just a potential.
So if you're waiting for some futuredate, when it's the right time,
that future time will never come.
The truth is you will never havemore time than you have right now.
(16:56):
You'll never be ever again.
Be as young as you are right now.
You'll never have enough this kindof capacity you have right now.
This is the time.
So somebody will asklike, how can I get there?
(17:19):
And I love the mountain analogy.
I,
and it's simply, have you ever heard this?
How do you climb a mountain?
Well, you don't sprint.
And you don't teleport.
You simply, whatever your mountain is,whatever your dream is, whatever your
(17:40):
goal, you point yourself in the directionof the mountain and you put one foot
in front of the other and you keeprepeating that until you reach the top.
It's that simple.
Literally, the journey of a thousandmiles begins with a single step.
(18:02):
But if you don't take that firststep, you'll never reach the peak.
Now, as you're going, you need torecognize signs on the path, right?
You think about sometimes rejection action
(18:26):
is actually redirection.
Interestingly, like one of myathletes who wasn't able to get into a
certain program and they tried twice,
and then they,
they were so tenacious and persistent andso passionate about going in the direction
(18:53):
they found a program half a world away.
And they applied to it.
And this is the cool thing.
It's like sometimes, sometimes lifegives you these little hints that
you're going in the right direction.
And this person got this really greathint because when they were talking to
them, they were talking about the programand so and so, and this, the, the,
(19:19):
the admissions person in this school,like half world away said You, well,
the one problem with your program is.
You guys typically only do one ofthis certain class, but we require
two, so you might need some upgrading.
And this athlete went,I took an extra one,
(19:40):
you know when she told me that.
And even then I, now I get shivers,it's like, oh my God, isn't that
like your past self knew that'sthe direction you were going?
So they set it up.
So as you're wondering if you'regoing the right path, watch
for the signs that you are.
You know, sometimes you face lockeddoors and closed opportunities
(20:02):
or people telling you no.
And what if those weren'tredirections or rejections?
There were actually redirections.
Life is not here to pull therug out from under you if
you're aligned with your path.
And sometimes the door's locked ora wall shows up, but only to point
(20:24):
you in a direction that's gonna takeyou quicker and more effectively
towards your dreaming goal.
Maybe a rejection is the universe's wayof saying, not this, but something better.
(20:44):
You know it.
It's interesting, like.
Even though, I'll tell you, Iknew for a large percentage of my
life that I wanted to do something
that really helped people.
Even in, in my early twenties.
I went and backpack to Europe for sixmonths and my plan was to come back and go
(21:07):
back to university and become a counselor
and, uh.
When I came back, theeconomy was in a shambles.
Um, of course, I, I'd made too much moneybecause I'd got, uh, a buyout the year
before, so I didn't qualify for studentloans, and I needed to upgrade my English,
(21:33):
so
I put my tail between mylegs and I went back to work.
And it's interesting, it, I feltlike I was rejected by life, but I
think life was just redirecting me
like, this is not the perfect moment.
(21:54):
You, you have more to learnbefore you can go there.
And at that point I kind ofdecided that that was it.
I'm never gonna be ableto do what I wanted to do.
But the truth is, you can'tmiss what's truly meant for you,
(22:18):
no matter what.
What has meant for you will happen, andif it something you want is not happening.
It probably means it's not meant for you
and you.
If you start down the path, the pathwill reveal itself along the way.
It's just how life works is co-creation.
(22:40):
You, you take a step,step, life meets you there,
and when you want something, the universeconspires in helping you achieve it.
(23:00):
Now if you are really gonna go for it,if you are really saying, that's it,
I've gotta do this, you gotta understandthere's a power of belief around becoming,
and sometimes it requiresbeing completely unreasonable.
(23:22):
And what that means is there's amillion reason why you shouldn't.
So you do not take onany of those reasons.
You'd be completely unreasonable.
Yeah, I shouldn't.
Yeah, I can't.
Yeah, I'm too old.
Whatever.
I'm going for it.
You need to have faith,persistence, and boldness
(23:46):
and literally sometimes youabsolutely have to be delusional.
D Lulu,
think about it.
What would you take on in thislife if you knew for certain
that success was guaranteed?
What if you knew you couldn't fail?
(24:11):
We have to be unreasonable.
Sometimes
we have to believe despite all theresistance, both internal and external.
It is not delusion, it's faith in action.
Henry Ford said it best,whether you think you can or you
(24:31):
think you can't, you're right.
So how about this?
Think about this.
Do it now or do it later today.
But try it.
Is there something where that youreally want to do in this life?
Pull out a paper now, or as soonas you can safely pull out a
(24:54):
paper and write down one step.
One step you can do today.
Maybe you're gonna finda mentor or a community,
um, maybe if it's whatever, you'regonna look up a program that
you wanna go back to school for.
(25:16):
When you, have you ever thought that?
Okay, so if that brings up somefear, think about it this way.
Fear when you feel it in the body,and excitement, when you feel
it in the body, feel identical.
The only difference is whatyou're thinking at the time.
So replace the fear.
Thoughts with excitement, thoughts.
(25:38):
And honestly, you don't haveto have it all figured out.
You don't need the perfect plan.
Just start with what youhave, do what you can today,
and start taking small steps becausethey will add up to big changes.
(26:06):
So here's my invitation.
Stop waiting for the perfect time.
Stop waiting until you feel fully ready.
The time is now.
Nothing else exists.
One step towards it.
Write it down,
(26:27):
have it in reality whereyou see it every day.
The only question is, will you steponto the path that's waiting for you?
And remember, it is never,ever too late to become
(26:50):
what you're meant to be.
Muhammad Ali said, don't count the days.
Make the days count.
Hey, thank you for spendingthis time with me again.
I really appreciate it.
(27:12):
If anything in here really sunk in.
Or if you know somebody who wouldreally benefit from this conversation,
please, please provide it to them.
Share it with them.
Really love it.
If you take, maybe reflect, um, journalabout this, share it with somebody else,
(27:42):
just.
Keep going.
It's never too late.
And keep on always buildingyour own internal advocate.
Thank you for listening to this episodeof Your Inner Advocate, a podcast by
(28:03):
Kimen Petersen, formerly Conversationswith Kimen if you found value in
today's episode, please follow likeand share the podcast with someone
who you think may benefit from it.
You can listen on Apple Podcast.
Spotify, Podbean, and connect onInstagram @ your inner advocate.
Until next time, keep listening toand developing your inner advocate.
(28:29):
. Today I want to talk with you aboutsomething that really probably
will touch every single one ofus at some point in our life.
And it's the idea that it's never too lateto become the person you're meant to be,
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