Sweeney motivates others to reinvent themselves for the second half of life
Joe Sweeney has owned, operated and sold four manufacturing companies.
He launched a sports marketing firm and served as an investment banker.
He has been an adviser and investor in countless mergers and acquisitions.
He once even served as former Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre’s agent.
However, all of those stints were merely precursors for who he is now. Today, he’s in the business of being Joe Sweeney.
Sweeney is paid thousands of dollars to give about 50 motivational speeches a year throughout the country. He is a one-man marketing machine, and the commodity he is marketing is himself.
And he’s good at it. Sweeney recently wrote his third book, titled “After Further Review: How Reflection and Action Will Turn Your Somedays Into Today.”
The book explains how people in their 40s, 50s or 60s can reinvent themselves and lead meaningful, impactful and fulfilling lives.
“We are well prepared for the first half of our lives. We learn law, medicine and business etc. But after 30 years of doing the same thing, most of us struggle with the next phase of life, and we have virtually zero training for the second half,” Sweeney said.
“One hundred and twenty-five years ago, the average life expectancy for the American male was 47. Even 50 years ago, people would retire at 65 and die at 67,” Sweeney said. “Now we live into our late 80s and 90s, and so the question becomes, what do we do with this gift of an extra 30 years?”
Sweeney’s personal journey reached a turning point in August 2016, when he replicated a traditional Jesuit mission. He took a “dirty, stinky” Greyhound bus from Milwaukee to downtown Detroit, with only $30 in his pocket. He lived the next week as a homeless man.
“The idea is that there is a greater power that will take care of all your needs,” Sweeney said.
For Sweeney, that power came to life in the form of a homeless, schizophrenic man named Alex, who took “Joe from Milwaukee” under his wing and showed him how to survive on the streets of Detroit.
Sweeney said he returned to Milwaukee with a spiritual awakening about the things that truly matter in life. (A hint: They did not include vast wealth, a mansion, a luxury car or a huge boat.)
“That experience really shook my foundation. I said, ‘I don’t need all this stuff,’ ” Sweeney said. “Alex taught me
the value of simplicity.”
As the New Year is upon us, I asked Sweeney to share seven questions to ponder for people who are “in the locker room at halftime, preparing for the second half of their lives.” Here you go:
1. What is burning inside you? “What are you really passionate about? Our lives are linear, and then we die. The next 20 to 35 years … what’s next?” Sweeney said.
2. What are you really good at? “What are your real strengths? What’s your life’s mission? What was I put on this earth to do? And how do I do it?”
3. How do I add my strengths and passions to serve others? “That’s how you really find what your true life’s mission is,” Sweeney said.
4. What would you regret on your deathbed if you didn’t try? “People don’t regret what they’ve done. They regret what they didn’t do.”
5. Who am I and why am I here? “What would your life look like if it really turned out great? We define ourselves by what we do and what we have. That’s why people have a hard time in retirement. It’s about redefining what success is,” Sweeney said.
6. What do you need to do to make 2018 your best year ever? “It’s halftime. You’ve got to really look inside and ask yourself that question.”
7. What are three things you can do to turn your somedays into today? “Have no regrets on your deathbed. We get so task-oriented that we don’t live our somedays. Make your someday today,” Sweeney said.
Steve Jagler is the business editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. C-Level stands for high-ranking executives, typically those with “chief” in their titles. Send C-Level column ideas to him at steve.jagler@journalsentinel.com.