How to Plan Your Next Act in Your 50s (Without Burning It All Down)

Brown Ambition

iHeartPodcasts

Business, Self-improvement, Education

4.9 • 2.5K Ratings

🗓️ 5 December 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this BAQA episode, Mandi Money is joined by legendary money expert and Money Coach, Lynnette Khalfani‑Cox, to answer a powerful question from listener Raquel: “I’m 56, I like my paralegal job, I love my podcast, and I know I can’t afford to fully retire… so what does my next act even look like?”

Together, we talk honestly about purpose vs. profit, identity beyond your 9–5, and how to design a “second half” of your career that actually feels good—not like another grind.

In this episode:

• What to do when you can’t imagine not working—but also don’t want to die at your desk

• How to separate your identity from your job title

• Ways to test an entrepreneurial or creative “next act” without blowing up your life

• Using a podcast or passion project as a door‑opener to paid opportunities • Frameworks for figuring out what you really want this next chapter to feel like

• The three key numbers to know before you pull back from your 9–5 (income, expenses, net worth)

• Why retirement doesn’t have to be all‑or‑nothing (and what flexible work can look like)

Connect with our guest

• @LynnetteKhalfaniCox on IG

• Grab her latest book Bounce Back: The Ultimate Guide to Financial Resilience

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is an I-Heart podcast.
0:02.6	Guaranteed human.
0:09.1	Just a reminder, BA fam, this is the part of the show where I ask you to take out your salt shakers because the advice that we are giving needs to be taken with a heavy dose of salt.
0:17.9	We are not your financial experts or your financial planners.
0:20.8	This is all for edutainment purposes. So... with a heavy dose of salt. We are not your financial experts or your financial planners.
0:24.0	This is all for edutainment purposes.
0:30.2	So everything we're saying cannot be a replacement for getting your own personalized advice from financial advisors, CPAs, any experts out there.
0:34.5	Thanks so much for listening.
0:35.9	Now let's get to the show.
0:36.6	Hey, hey, BA fan. Welcome to the
0:38.6	BAQA. It's your girl, Mandy Money. I am joined by the delightful, distinguished dream girl,
0:46.1	the fairy godmother of my life, Lynette Calphani Cox, who I think was maybe the very first guest
0:53.4	we ever had on Brown Ambition.
0:55.0	So anytime you come back is wonderful.
0:57.1	Hey, Lynette.
0:58.3	Homecoming.
0:59.4	Homecoming.
1:00.6	So VA fam, you may recognize Lynette because she is in her own right, just one of the, on
1:06.9	the Mount Rushmore of personal finance experts of my life.
1:09.9	Certainly, like Lynette is up there.
1:11.5	But for those who are not as familiar, let me reintroduce y'all. Lynette Calphani Cox, aka the money
1:17.4	coach, is a personal finance expert speaker, author of 16 money management books, including the New York
	...

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