February 8, 2025 • 36 mins
Can you truly reignite your passion and redefine your career at any age? We're here to explore the possibility and offer a roadmap for those ready to take that leap. This episode is packed with stories and strategies for overcoming stagnation mid-career, especially between the ages of 40 and 54, where the desire for change is often met with fear and uncertainty. We share the inspiring journey of a teacher who successfully transitioned into a legal career, proving that with self-belief and strategic planning, it's never too late to pursue your dreams.
We tackle the internal battles faced by high-income earners contemplating a career shift. Financial security and the fear of the unknown are powerful barriers, yet nearly 60% of workers earning over $75,000 annually wish for a change. Understand the importance of listening to your inner voice and rejecting the misconceptions about qualifications. Through compelling narratives and statistics, we highlight the transformative power of honoring your passions and exploring new opportunities without needing all the answers upfront.
Embrace the fear of change and step into empowerment with our structured five-step process for career transformation. We discuss how reshaping your self-concept and overcoming perceived barriers, like skill gaps and financial concerns, can pave the way for a successful career transition. Our upcoming Mid-Career Edit program launching in June is designed to guide you through these steps, offering support and community as you pursue your next level of success. Join us to reflect on your professional journey and explore what's calling you next, fostering a space where we all aim to make our careers and lives everything we dream of.
Follow us on Instagram @thepurposefulcareer.
Learn more about Next Level, our monthly membership at https://www.thepurposefulcareer.com/nextlevel.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the Purposeful Career Podcast,
episode number 218.
I'm Carla Hudson, brandstrategist, entrepreneur and
life coach.
Whether you're on the corporateor entrepreneur track, or maybe
both, decades of experience hastaught me that creating success
happens from the inside out.
(00:21):
It's about having the clarity,self-confidence and unstoppable
belief to go after and geteverything you want.
If you'll come with me, I'llshow you how.
Hello friends, I hope you hadan amazing week.
Today we're going to talk aboutsomething that builds off of
(00:43):
last week's episode, and in lastweek's episode we talked about
inner leadership and in that wetouched on what does it mean to
get to a point in your careerand this can happen at any point
in your career, but itespecially happens, I think,
most frequently, at mid-career.
You know those ages between 40and call it you know 54, where
(01:08):
you're just kind of over it oryou've got these inner nigglings
that are telling you you reallywant to do something else, but
you don't really have any ideawhat that is.
That's probably most people.
Some people have a very clearidea, like I'm doing this and
I'm kind of done with it and Iactually want to go do this, but
(01:29):
most people are like I want todo something else and I just
don't know what that is.
We are going to talk about thatand how to prevent yourself
from getting stuck anddemotivated in the middle years.
You don't want that to happen.
(01:49):
It makes you more vulnerable toif you work for a corporation
to layoffs.
You have to stay charged andyou can't depend on your boss to
do that for you, on your bossto do that for you, and you
(02:09):
can't depend even on the qualityof the assignments that come to
you to do that.
The staying charged comes fromyou and you can give yourself
that at any age and at any time,in any circumstance.
So we'll hit a little bit onthat.
We'll talk more about that, Ithink, in next week's episode,
but today what I want to talkabout is what does it mean to be
(02:31):
refired?
And I'm going to share aninteresting story of one of my
friends.
When I was a couple decades ago, her mother was a teacher and
actually went back to nightschool in the later part of her
teaching years and became anattorney, a very successful
attorney.
You can do anything you want.
(02:52):
You just have to believe it anddo the work to figure out what
is that thing and what is thegap between where you are and
where you want to go, and thentake a very, very strategic and
disciplined approach to plottingout that pivot that you want to
do, because you can do it.
(03:13):
You can do anything at any timeand I'm a believer that it's
very, very important justthroughout our life, I think
even after our work days areover and we're in our later
years.
I firmly believe that we need tohave a purpose and it has to be
about contribution in whateverway that matters to you.
(03:38):
I don't think it can just beabout taking care of ourselves
or taking care of our family orpursuing fun things like travel
and stuff.
You may feel differently, but Isee people who are at their
best in their later years whoare passionate about something.
I don't know what it is.
(04:00):
It might be volunteering, mightbe giving back in some way.
It might be finally pursuingthat writing career.
It might be volunteering, mightbe giving back in some way.
It might be finally pursuingthat writing career.
It might be opening a businessand running it in your senior
year, so you stay engaged andvibrant.
It is a decision and I think inthe middle years between 40 and
54, it's where it can all startto go very wrong and we can
(04:21):
start putting it in automaticpilot and just punching the time
clock and I just feel like thatis the kiss of death for
passion in your life, and Ithink it's can really be the
undoing of a career that couldstill hold great promise,
whether in your existingdiscipline or doing something
(04:43):
entirely new.
So that's what this episode isgoing to talk about.
It's going to help you take alook at yourself and where
you're at with your career, andif something new is calling to
you, I'm going to give you someoptions.
Inside my business, where Icould help and I'm very
passionate about this, this isone of my big callings in life
(05:05):
is to help people understandthat if we're going to spend
90,000 hours working, spend itdoing something that matters to
you, and that answer isdifferent for all of us, but the
answer is out there and you canlive that.
It is something, though thattakes a bit of work for some of
us, and a belief that it's nevertoo late, that we can go after
(05:31):
and accomplish things at any ageif we decide to do it.
So enjoy this episode today onwhat it means to be refired at
mid-career refired at mid-career.
Today I want to kind of buildoff last week's episode where we
(05:52):
talked about inner leadershipin your career and as part of
that we talked a little bitabout some things that can
happen at mid-career, when maybeyou're feeling called to do
something new but your practicalmind resists that right and
says, ah, I can't.
(06:13):
You know, I've got too muchlife going on, I've got a family
, I've got obligations.
I just cannot afford to chuckall of that and go back to
school or change career pathsand maybe take a pay cut or
whatever.
So today what I want to talkabout is how to refire at
(06:36):
mid-career.
That's how I like to thinkabout it.
I think I mentioned in previouspodcasts one of my hobbies is I
write romantic fiction under apen name.
So I've studied a lot aroundnovels and one of the things you
have to guard against as ascreenwriter or an author is how
do you keep the momentum andthe excitement and the
(06:58):
engagement in the middle?
And our career is the same whenwe're just getting started, like
in the 14, 15 years fromcollege graduation to age 39,
some of us might change paths acouple of times and we've
probably changed jobs severaltimes, but we're really focused
and we're fired up and we'relearning and we're energized and
(07:19):
maybe we've even gone back tograd school to get an advanced
degree.
We've even gone back to gradschool to get an advanced degree
Like there's just lots going on.
But then midlife happens, right, and then you start to get into
a different phase.
So you might have a partner.
At that point you and yourpartner may or may not have
children and then as you startto get up in years, into your
(07:42):
40s and 50s, sometimes you startto have issues with the health
of a family member or even olderparents they have to take care
of.
So life gets more complicatedand our baseline needs become
more advanced and expensive.
(08:03):
Maybe we get used to two careersat a fairly senior level of
income and we're comfortable,right, and we've got a couple of
kids and we're worried aboutcollege and there's just all of
these things, and so it can feelharder to have the freedom, can
(08:27):
feel harder to have the freedomthat maybe we had or felt we
had earlier on in our life.
So if that's you or someone youknow, I want to talk to you
today because this is reallyimportant and I kind of think
about our career in thirds.
So you've got the college toage 39, and then you've got the
middle, which is ages 40 to 54.
Then you've got the college toage 39, and then you've got the
middle, which is ages 40 to 54.
Then you've got the last third,55 to whatever age you plan to
(08:49):
work to, and that's kind of it.
And so there's different thingsthat happen in those thirds.
Like the first third, you'refired up and energized and
learning and growing into thoseaspirations that you had earlier
on.
And then in the middle, that'swhere a lot of us can feel like
we stall out a little bit.
Sometimes that's temporary andsometimes it's more permanent,
(09:13):
and there's a lot of lifefactors in there.
But I also think there's a lotof mindset factors in there
around the implications of whatit would mean to make a big
change and all of that.
So that's probably the mostcomplicated phase of the career.
And then we have the later partof our career, from mid-50s to
(09:35):
whenever we decide to retire,and that, especially if we're
working for someone else, thathas its own set of complications
and its own mindset issues wehave to conquer around feeling
like you're too old to do thisor fearing that you're about to
be laid off because of your ageor that you can't keep up, or
(09:58):
there's also multi-generationalissues we're starting to
encounter in the workforce.
You have everything from Gen Zall the way up to even some
boomers still in there.
So this is a time when there'slots of different people and
mindsets and perspectives allmixed together and that can be
harder to deal with or feelharder, I think, to some people.
(10:20):
The further on you get in yourcareer, you can feel left out,
you can feel like the pace ofchange is too much.
So I want to talk today aboutwhat happens to us in the middle
part of our career where, likeI was saying on the novel, you
know the editors, when yousubmit your manuscript, might
(10:42):
tell you this has a saggy middleand that just means all the
wind came out of your manuscriptin the middle and it got kind
of boring right.
And the same thing happens inthe middle part of our careers,
not to everyone for sure, but tomany of us.
And today I want to talk aboutwhy and that's why I'm calling
(11:03):
this, want to talk about why andthat's why I'm calling this
refiring at mid-career, becauseour career is something that
doesn't just happen to us, weneed to happen to our career.
It's the reverse.
And so we're not just therecipient of the opportunities
that come to us.
We need to be of the mindsetthat we create those things.
(11:25):
And I also think we need to payattention to what our inner
voice of wisdom is telling us.
And if you have this like loudvoice that's telling you that
you're kind of over the thingthat you're doing, I want to
tell you today you need tolisten to that voice, because I
(11:47):
truly believe that when peoplefind themselves plateaued or
stalled yes, there can be a lotof surrounding issues going on
in life or some complicatingfactors that might be happening
at the place that the personworks.
But I truly believe that ifwe're listening to what we
really want and we're stayingaligned with that meaning that
(12:10):
we're heading in that directionwe're allowing ourselves to
pursue that or at least explorepursuing that that's when we
refire.
Like you can see, people intheir late eighties, nineties
that are very excited about lifeand still learning and still
growing and listening andbecoming great at working on the
(12:33):
computer and just all of thenew things that have come in
their lifetime.
They embrace them and they stayenergized by them.
It's a decision that we makeand I've had some clients say
stuff to me during coachingsessions before where they're
like you just don't understand.
I have got a lot going on in mylife.
(12:53):
I just can't throw all my lifecards up in the air.
I would say I get it.
It's not that I don't get it,but that voice inside.
That's the voice of our trueself, our soul, our guide,
whatever it is you believereligiously.
It's not just some randomthought flying around.
(13:14):
I truly believe that inside weknow what's right for us.
We have that voice right and wecan either choose to listen to
it or not.
So today I want to give you afew more stats.
Last week I shared a lot ofstatistics.
I want to go back through thoseand I want to talk about how
(13:37):
widespread this issue is atmid-career and I want to talk
about some things that you cando to not toss all your life
cards up in the air but to giveyourself permission to just
explore it.
At least do that right, honoryour inner voice at least that
(14:00):
much.
So here we go with the stats.
Least that much.
So here we go with the stats.
Like I said last week, more thanhalf of US workers want to make
a career change, and for highincome.
So for incomes in the US over75,000, that number is closer to
60%.
It's 59% want to change careers.
(14:24):
Now this could be anything fromchanging functional areas, like
moving from HR to marketing, ormoving from marketing to
finance, or whatever, or itcould be wanting to start their
own business.
That entrepreneurial thing iscertainly a trend in today's
culture.
I'm doing it.
A lot of people have sidehustles, friend, in today's
(14:46):
culture I'm doing it.
A lot of people have sidehustles.
It's a great way to keep yourinner spark alive and to
honestly keep learning andmastering all the new skills.
I find it's a great way to stayenergized.
So if almost 60% of the highincome earners are really
dreaming of a career change,then you might wonder like what
is stopping them?
Because very Most of us stayput right.
(15:11):
Or we might dip our toe in thewater, might interview for a
couple jobs, might look into theadvanced degree that might
allow us to move from acorporate job into being an
attorney or whatever, or wemight look into starting the
company, but we don't really doit right.
(15:32):
So why not?
Well, according to statisticsfrom Gallup, the top barrier is
financial security 57% don'tpursue something different
because they believe thatthere's a lack of financial
security in doing so, thatletting go of what they have and
(15:53):
moving into something new wouldbe too risky.
40% don't even know what they'dlike to do next.
They have no idea right, and,by the way, I hear that from
people across the spectrum.
I've done a lot of coaching,even of folks just getting out
of college.
They don't know either.
We put all this pressure onourselves that we have to know,
(16:15):
we have to know, and thensometimes we just pick anything
that comes along to startearning money which you know, I
get it.
Sometimes we have to bepractical, but then they stop
looking and they can spend theirentire career feeling out of
alignment or feeling likethey're doing something with
(16:35):
their life that they don't wantto do.
And remember, last week Ishared a statistic we're going
to spend a third of our lifemore than 90,000 hours working.
Let's work at something thatwe're passionate about, and if
we've lost our passion, let's goexplore something else.
And if we know what that is,let's explore it.
(16:58):
And if we don't know what it is, let's find that out, because
there's a way to do a set ofactivities that would allow you
to get some clarity into thetypes of things that spark your
interest right, and that'simportant to know.
So 40% don't do it because theyhave no idea what they would
even want to do right, andthat's important to know.
So 40% don't do it because theyhave no idea what they would
even want to do right, they justknow they don't want to do what
(17:20):
they're doing right now.
37% believe that or they don'tdo it because they don't think
they have the right education orexperience to make the switch.
Now this one is really trickybecause there are certain fields
that you want to go into that,yes, they require a certain
educational credential and maybeeven a license.
(17:42):
So I'm thinking here like a CPAor a doctor or a lawyer, like
the professions right.
There are other fields.
Most of the other fields aremore about an acquired skill set
and it might take some work tofind the first opportunity in
those and might be that some ofyour skills transfer and others
(18:07):
you would just have to learn onthe job.
But there's a certainpercentage of us that tells
ourselves that we just don'tknow what we're doing or it's
too late to learn right.
It's all these things that westart to tell ourselves that we
believe are true, like it's toolate, I don't know how to do
that, or whatever, and we justthink that that's the truth, and
(18:30):
so we don't allow ourselves topursue it.
And I'm here to tell you thatit's not true, that there's a
way to do anything.
Back in the day, at the earlystage of my career, I had a
friend whose mother had been ateacher, for my guess is she was
probably around 50.
And she went back to schoolafter having been a teacher for
(18:54):
the full 30 years so she must'vebeen 52.
Cause she had like 30 yearsthen, so she could retire and
collect whatever her teacher'spension was.
She actually, in the last twoyears of teaching, went back to
law school part-time, graduatedas an attorney, got a job
working at one of the biggestlaw firms in the country in
(19:15):
trademark law, and I think she'sstill there 25 years later, you
know.
So she's into her seventies andis loving every minute of it.
She didn't think for one minute.
I remember talking to her aboutit.
She didn't think for one minutethat she was too old, she just
knew it's, she had thought aboutit and she decided to go into
(19:37):
teaching instead when she wasmuch younger, like in the
college age, and she enjoyedteaching.
But she just decided that shedidn't want to be retired at 52.
She was kind of done with theteaching thing and she thought
you know what, I'm just going togo back to school.
So she took the LSAT, gotaccepted and did it.
Now that is refired.
(19:58):
She didn't have what I wascalling a saggy middle to her
career, a lackluster finish.
She refired and went in acompletely new direction that
probably I have no idea, butprobably three extra income, you
know and went in as a juniorattorney at the age of whatever
(20:19):
she was at the time.
She graduated maybe 54,something like that.
Right, and she's still there.
Maybe she's just retired Ihaven't checked in lately, but
she was there, you know, acouple of years ago.
So you know it is never toolate.
But you know there are times Iguess my point is there are
times when you might have to goget credentialed right.
(20:41):
Then go do it If that's whatyou want to do.
She did it part-time, at night,and she's still, even with a
night law degree.
She got an excellent job forone of the leading firms in the
country.
Knight law degree.
She got an excellent job forone of the leading firms in the
country, and so you can do thattoo.
But most of the time I would say80% of the time we're not
(21:02):
thinking about doing somethingthat requires that kind of
credentialing.
Like you can still do that, buta lot of times it's more just
about believing in yourself andmaybe you have to skill up a
little bit.
Maybe you need to take somecourses, maybe you need to do
some volunteering in a new fieldthere's lots of ways to do that
kind of thing.
Or maybe you just need to sellyourself to an employer.
(21:26):
That here's the skills thattransfer and here's where I
would learn on the job andhere's exactly how I would do
that.
Like sell yourself and get inthere and learn on the job.
Like you don't have to writeyourself off just because you
don't have every single thingthat this new career field might
(21:46):
want you to have.
You would be surprised how manyskills transfer from job to job
the basics of managing aproject, excellent writing
skills, excellent speakingskills, persuasion skills,
management, leadership skills.
There's so much that transfersfrom job type to job type that I
(22:11):
think it's relatively easy topivot in whatever direction you
want.
You just have to believe thatyou can.
And it's the belief that getsin our way, and we'll talk more
about that in a minute.
So work satisfaction for peopleis at its lowest point
statistically at age 47 in termsof happiness and fulfillment,
(22:35):
and they point to on the surveythat it's really about several
things.
You might have some children.
You might be balancing being arather senior level exec with a
lot of responsibilities at workand you couple that with a lot
of responsibilities at home.
You might be a two-careerfamily.
Maybe you both travel a bit.
(22:56):
That adds a complicating layer.
Maybe you're even taking careof elderly parents.
So there's lots of things thathappen in our life, along with
our beliefs, that can keep usstuck where we are, because we
tell ourselves that it's safe,that we invested all this money
(23:19):
and all of this time to be wherewe are and now it's time, at
midlife, to reap the benefit.
But here's the thing Too manypeople believe that their
corporate job is the safe placepath and honestly I'm not
(23:39):
dissing corporations because Iam still very much in it, but I
will tell you like there are somany things that that
corporation can encounter interms of unexpected changes,
difficulties, spinning a wholepart of the company off, you
know, maybe buying anothercompany for a set of reasons
(24:02):
that creates redundancies in theworkforce, like there are an
endless number of things thatcan happen that would make that
quote unquote safe job no longersafe.
So I'm not trying to be adowner, but I do think it's
important, when it comes to thistopic, to be realistic, because
why would you want to kill yourdreams to stay in what you're
(24:26):
telling yourself is the safeplace or the safe choice, when
the truth is you could go intowork on Monday morning and not
have a job.
That's the world we live in.
So I'm not saying that again tobe a downer, but the point is
it's not a safe choice, right?
(24:47):
Nothing in life is guaranteed.
We know this, we do know itright, from our own personal
lives, relationships, health.
We just don't know what thefuture holds.
And so my point here is don'ttalk yourself out of what you
want because you're tellingyourself that where you are is a
(25:09):
safe place or that you don'thave the skills or the ability
to learn something new, becausethat is just not true.
If you have a skills gap, youcan close it, you can fill it.
You can just decide what arethe things you need to learn and
then go do it.
Or if you don't know you knowyou're done with where you're at
and you don't know what youwant there are ways you can go
(25:33):
about figuring that out.
So I want to give you what Ithink the five steps are, and
they're probably going to be alittle different than what you
might expect, and this is goingto be all part of my new
offering that I'm launching inJune, called the Mid-Career Edit
, and I was inspired by a lot ofthe stats that I've been
(25:57):
reading around.
Almost 60% of us want to dosomething different and we're
not doing it, don't think we canafford it financially, or we
don't think we have the rightskills or whatever.
There are five things I thinkwe need to do when we want to go
do something new.
Number one we have to firstwork on our self-concept.
(26:18):
I found like if the average agethey're saying in Gallup, the
average age that people firstthink about a major career path
change either leaving corporateand becoming a business owner,
or maybe changing functionalareas or going back to school to
now become a doctor.
Whatever it is you want to do,it's usually around the age of
39.
And, like I said, most of usdon't allow ourselves to do it.
(26:38):
Well, you know the interestingit's usually around the age of
39.
And, like I said, most of usdon't allow ourselves to do it.
Well, you know, the interestingthing about it is the reason I
think you've got to work on yourself image or your self concept
first is because you've spentyour entire time getting your
degree up to the age of 22.
And then from 22 to 39 or 40,building an image around you do
(27:05):
X, even if you might've changedcareer paths a couple of times.
You might, for example, seeyourself as you're just someone
who works in corporate, and yetyou've got this, this inner
voice telling you that you'dreally love to be your own boss,
right, but then you come upinstantly with all of these
reasons why that's not possible.
(27:25):
You have to work on yourself-concept first before you
start exploring the specificthing that you think you might
want to go do.
Don't just dive in to yoursearch, right?
What you want to do is changehow you think about yourself and
decide not only who are you now.
So what are all the good thingsthat you've put into your bag
(27:49):
of tricks that make you who youare, part of your brand as it
sits right now?
And then, with that in mind,then you need to look into the
future and say, well, what arethose things that you might want
to do in the future?
And you have to look at wherethe gaps are between how you
(28:11):
think about yourself today andall the things you've been doing
and where you want to go in thefuture.
Are those two things alignedand does it seem very possible
that you could pivot from one tothe future?
Are those two things aligned,and does it seem very possible
that you could pivot from one tothe other?
Or is there a huge gap betweenthem?
Right, and it's that gap, thatkind of river of misery, that
(28:33):
will prevent us from actuallygoing to do the thing.
So, getting clear on yourself-concept, like who do you
think you are right now and whodo you want to be in the future,
and then bridging that gap,that's step number one.
Then, with that belief inyourself that there's this
future, you that you want tobecome in the next three to five
(28:56):
years, right, and that you'vefigured out, like how, from a
belief perspective, to startthinking of yourself in that new
way.
Step number two is aboutrediscovering what does that
even mean from a what do I wantperspective?
So sometimes you'll know, somepeople know exactly I want to go
(29:20):
back to law school or I want tostart XYZ business, but most of
us don't know.
Like I said, 40% of us havezero idea of what we might want
to do in the future.
So that discovery process andlooking at the range of
possibilities, the things thatyou're interested in, the things
that you feel like yourskillset might set you up to do
(29:44):
and be successful at, or evenjust potentially, hobbies or
areas of passion that you'reinterested in, understanding
what all those things are, andthen exploring the range of
possibilities open to you withinthat.
Do you want to work for someoneelse?
Do you want to do your ownthing and explore all of that?
Do you want to work for someoneelse?
Do you want to do your ownthing and explore all of that?
Then there's step number three,which is choose something.
(30:08):
So we have to make a choice.
So there's a world ofpossibilities open to all of us,
but you can't pursue them all.
You have to narrow in onsomething and put your focus
there and once you choose thatthing, you need to take another
look at your self-concept andmake sure that you work on
(30:33):
aligning your beliefs with thatnew thing.
And then we work on the plan.
That's number four.
And then we launch, we go.
That is going to be somethingthat we work on.
There's a five-step process andwe're going to work on that
(30:54):
over a series of six monthstogether and you will go in with
maybe a general idea of that.
You want something new andhopefully you'll go out the
other side after having donethis work and you will
understand what that new thingis and be ready to go.
(31:15):
That's what I mean by refiringat mid-career.
Too many of us think that wehit a certain age and we've got
these obligations and it's justtoo late.
We're too old, it's too late,that we can't do it.
It's too risky, there's toomuch at stake, and I'm here to
tell you, just because you mightdecide that it's time for
(31:37):
something new and you mightdecide to sign up for the
mid-career edit and do thatexploration, that doesn't mean
that at the end of it you haveto do anything.
You don't, but don't you oweyourself the opportunity to just
open the door to the future ofwhat your life and you could be
(32:01):
and allow yourself to explorethat?
I think it's huge and I thinkyou know, even if you decide
that it's not right for youright now, it could be something
that you do in three years, infive years.
You know you don't have to do itright now, but my point to you
(32:22):
is honor yourself and giveyourself the gift of allowing
yourself to think about thethings that you want and to
pursue that in a very tangible,real way, not in a dreaming of
some vague thing, but make itreal, like hone in on something
(32:44):
very specific and look at it andturn it around in your hand and
think about it.
And think about you with thatopportunity and doing that thing
and being very successful at it.
And try that new suit on orthat new dress on and see how it
looks on you and see if is thateven what you want to be and do
(33:08):
with the rest of your life?
If the answer is no, that'sfine.
You've lost nothing.
You can stay where you are, butyou'll know and there'll be no
regrets because you'll havefully explored it.
You'll have gotten clear on itand you'll have either decided
to do it or ruled it out.
And that is the key Giveyourself permission to stay
(33:29):
excited about life, to believethat you can still move towards
something new at any age andthat that opportunity is
available to you.
It's not closing down andyou're not too old ever to learn
or do something new.
So I think it's important and Ithink it's something that too
(33:53):
many of us play it safe, or wethink we're playing it safe and
we keep telling that inner partof ourselves no, and I think
it's a recipe for just beingvery miserable.
You settle into this place inyour career where you're
coasting along and you're goingthrough the motions, but it's
just like slow torture.
(34:14):
Sometimes it doesn't happen toall of us.
Some people stay very, veryexcited and motivated at every
stage of their career, even ifthey never change jobs right.
To some extent it's a mindset,but sometimes there's a new
thing calling to you and when itdoes, I think we owe ourselves
(34:35):
to listen.
We need to pay attention tothat and explore it and decide
from a place of belief whetheror not it's something we
actually want to go do, andnever make that decision from a
place of telling yourself abunch of things that aren't true
(34:55):
, like you're too old or it'stoo late, or you can't do it, or
it's not safe, or it's toorisky or whatever, because none
of those things are true.
I can promise you, whatever itis you want to do, if you really
want to do it, we can figureout a way to align your belief
system with that and to puttogether a plan that minimizes
(35:16):
the risk.
Might take you a little longerto do it, because you might have
to do a dual path thing andgrow you know the seed of a
business very, very slowly orwhatever, but you can still do
it.
You can do anything you want toat any age, and that's what I
wanted to talk to you abouttoday.
So if you're interested in themid-career edit, if any of this
(35:39):
rang true, if there's somethingnew calling to you, I want you
to go to the purposefulcareercomforward slash mid-career edit
and sign up for the waiting list, and with that I will leave you
until next time.
Make it a great week.
My friends, do you have a lifecoach?
(36:09):
If not, I'd be so honored to beyour coach.
I've created a virtual coachingprogram and monthly membership
called Next Level.
Inside we take the material youhear on this podcast, study it
and then apply it.
Join me at thepurposefulcareercom backslash
(36:31):
next level.
Don't forget thepurposefulcareercom backslash
next level.
Join me and together we'll makeyour career and life everything
you dream of.
We'll see you there.
This is the Purposeful Career Podcast,
episode number 218.
I'm Carla Hudson, brandstrategist, entrepreneur and
life coach.
Whether you're on the corporateor entrepreneur track, or maybe
both, decades of experience hastaught me that creating success
happens from the inside out.
(00:21):
It's about having the clarity,self-confidence and unstoppable
belief to go after and geteverything you want.
If you'll come with me, I'llshow you how.
Hello friends, I hope you hadan amazing week.
Today we're going to talk aboutsomething that builds off of
(00:43):
last week's episode, and in lastweek's episode we talked about
inner leadership and in that wetouched on what does it mean to
get to a point in your careerand this can happen at any point
in your career, but itespecially happens, I think,
most frequently, at mid-career.
You know those ages between 40and call it you know 54, where
(01:08):
you're just kind of over it oryou've got these inner nigglings
that are telling you you reallywant to do something else, but
you don't really have any ideawhat that is.
That's probably most people.
Some people have a very clearidea, like I'm doing this and
I'm kind of done with it and Iactually want to go do this, but
(01:29):
most people are like I want todo something else and I just
don't know what that is.
We are going to talk about thatand how to prevent yourself
from getting stuck anddemotivated in the middle years.
You don't want that to happen.
(01:49):
It makes you more vulnerable toif you work for a corporation
to layoffs.
You have to stay charged andyou can't depend on your boss to
do that for you, on your bossto do that for you, and you
(02:09):
can't depend even on the qualityof the assignments that come to
you to do that.
The staying charged comes fromyou and you can give yourself
that at any age and at any time,in any circumstance.
So we'll hit a little bit onthat.
We'll talk more about that, Ithink, in next week's episode,
but today what I want to talkabout is what does it mean to be
(02:31):
refired?
And I'm going to share aninteresting story of one of my
friends.
When I was a couple decades ago, her mother was a teacher and
actually went back to nightschool in the later part of her
teaching years and became anattorney, a very successful
attorney.
You can do anything you want.
(02:52):
You just have to believe it anddo the work to figure out what
is that thing and what is thegap between where you are and
where you want to go, and thentake a very, very strategic and
disciplined approach to plottingout that pivot that you want to
do, because you can do it.
(03:13):
You can do anything at any timeand I'm a believer that it's
very, very important justthroughout our life, I think
even after our work days areover and we're in our later
years.
I firmly believe that we need tohave a purpose and it has to be
about contribution in whateverway that matters to you.
(03:38):
I don't think it can just beabout taking care of ourselves
or taking care of our family orpursuing fun things like travel
and stuff.
You may feel differently, but Isee people who are at their
best in their later years whoare passionate about something.
I don't know what it is.
(04:00):
It might be volunteering, mightbe giving back in some way.
It might be finally pursuingthat writing career.
It might be volunteering, mightbe giving back in some way.
It might be finally pursuingthat writing career.
It might be opening a businessand running it in your senior
year, so you stay engaged andvibrant.
It is a decision and I think inthe middle years between 40 and
54, it's where it can all startto go very wrong and we can
(04:21):
start putting it in automaticpilot and just punching the time
clock and I just feel like thatis the kiss of death for
passion in your life, and Ithink it's can really be the
undoing of a career that couldstill hold great promise,
whether in your existingdiscipline or doing something
(04:43):
entirely new.
So that's what this episode isgoing to talk about.
It's going to help you take alook at yourself and where
you're at with your career, andif something new is calling to
you, I'm going to give you someoptions.
Inside my business, where Icould help and I'm very
passionate about this, this isone of my big callings in life
(05:05):
is to help people understandthat if we're going to spend
90,000 hours working, spend itdoing something that matters to
you, and that answer isdifferent for all of us, but the
answer is out there and you canlive that.
It is something, though thattakes a bit of work for some of
us, and a belief that it's nevertoo late, that we can go after
(05:31):
and accomplish things at any ageif we decide to do it.
So enjoy this episode today onwhat it means to be refired at
mid-career refired at mid-career.
Today I want to kind of buildoff last week's episode where we
(05:52):
talked about inner leadershipin your career and as part of
that we talked a little bitabout some things that can
happen at mid-career, when maybeyou're feeling called to do
something new but your practicalmind resists that right and
says, ah, I can't.
(06:13):
You know, I've got too muchlife going on, I've got a family
, I've got obligations.
I just cannot afford to chuckall of that and go back to
school or change career pathsand maybe take a pay cut or
whatever.
So today what I want to talkabout is how to refire at
(06:36):
mid-career.
That's how I like to thinkabout it.
I think I mentioned in previouspodcasts one of my hobbies is I
write romantic fiction under apen name.
So I've studied a lot aroundnovels and one of the things you
have to guard against as ascreenwriter or an author is how
do you keep the momentum andthe excitement and the
(06:58):
engagement in the middle?
And our career is the same whenwe're just getting started, like
in the 14, 15 years fromcollege graduation to age 39,
some of us might change paths acouple of times and we've
probably changed jobs severaltimes, but we're really focused
and we're fired up and we'relearning and we're energized and
(07:19):
maybe we've even gone back tograd school to get an advanced
degree.
We've even gone back to gradschool to get an advanced degree
Like there's just lots going on.
But then midlife happens, right, and then you start to get into
a different phase.
So you might have a partner.
At that point you and yourpartner may or may not have
children and then as you startto get up in years, into your
(07:42):
40s and 50s, sometimes you startto have issues with the health
of a family member or even olderparents they have to take care
of.
So life gets more complicatedand our baseline needs become
more advanced and expensive.
(08:03):
Maybe we get used to two careersat a fairly senior level of
income and we're comfortable,right, and we've got a couple of
kids and we're worried aboutcollege and there's just all of
these things, and so it can feelharder to have the freedom, can
(08:27):
feel harder to have the freedomthat maybe we had or felt we
had earlier on in our life.
So if that's you or someone youknow, I want to talk to you
today because this is reallyimportant and I kind of think
about our career in thirds.
So you've got the college toage 39, and then you've got the
middle, which is ages 40 to 54.
Then you've got the college toage 39, and then you've got the
middle, which is ages 40 to 54.
Then you've got the last third,55 to whatever age you plan to
(08:49):
work to, and that's kind of it.
And so there's different thingsthat happen in those thirds.
Like the first third, you'refired up and energized and
learning and growing into thoseaspirations that you had earlier
on.
And then in the middle, that'swhere a lot of us can feel like
we stall out a little bit.
Sometimes that's temporary andsometimes it's more permanent,
(09:13):
and there's a lot of lifefactors in there.
But I also think there's a lotof mindset factors in there
around the implications of whatit would mean to make a big
change and all of that.
So that's probably the mostcomplicated phase of the career.
And then we have the later partof our career, from mid-50s to
(09:35):
whenever we decide to retire,and that, especially if we're
working for someone else, thathas its own set of complications
and its own mindset issues wehave to conquer around feeling
like you're too old to do thisor fearing that you're about to
be laid off because of your ageor that you can't keep up, or
(09:58):
there's also multi-generationalissues we're starting to
encounter in the workforce.
You have everything from Gen Zall the way up to even some
boomers still in there.
So this is a time when there'slots of different people and
mindsets and perspectives allmixed together and that can be
harder to deal with or feelharder, I think, to some people.
(10:20):
The further on you get in yourcareer, you can feel left out,
you can feel like the pace ofchange is too much.
So I want to talk today aboutwhat happens to us in the middle
part of our career where, likeI was saying on the novel, you
know the editors, when yousubmit your manuscript, might
(10:42):
tell you this has a saggy middleand that just means all the
wind came out of your manuscriptin the middle and it got kind
of boring right.
And the same thing happens inthe middle part of our careers,
not to everyone for sure, but tomany of us.
And today I want to talk aboutwhy and that's why I'm calling
(11:03):
this, want to talk about why andthat's why I'm calling this
refiring at mid-career, becauseour career is something that
doesn't just happen to us, weneed to happen to our career.
It's the reverse.
And so we're not just therecipient of the opportunities
that come to us.
We need to be of the mindsetthat we create those things.
(11:25):
And I also think we need to payattention to what our inner
voice of wisdom is telling us.
And if you have this like loudvoice that's telling you that
you're kind of over the thingthat you're doing, I want to
tell you today you need tolisten to that voice, because I
(11:47):
truly believe that when peoplefind themselves plateaued or
stalled yes, there can be a lotof surrounding issues going on
in life or some complicatingfactors that might be happening
at the place that the personworks.
But I truly believe that ifwe're listening to what we
really want and we're stayingaligned with that meaning that
(12:10):
we're heading in that directionwe're allowing ourselves to
pursue that or at least explorepursuing that that's when we
refire.
Like you can see, people intheir late eighties, nineties
that are very excited about lifeand still learning and still
growing and listening andbecoming great at working on the
(12:33):
computer and just all of thenew things that have come in
their lifetime.
They embrace them and they stayenergized by them.
It's a decision that we makeand I've had some clients say
stuff to me during coachingsessions before where they're
like you just don't understand.
I have got a lot going on in mylife.
(12:53):
I just can't throw all my lifecards up in the air.
I would say I get it.
It's not that I don't get it,but that voice inside.
That's the voice of our trueself, our soul, our guide,
whatever it is you believereligiously.
It's not just some randomthought flying around.
(13:14):
I truly believe that inside weknow what's right for us.
We have that voice right and wecan either choose to listen to
it or not.
So today I want to give you afew more stats.
Last week I shared a lot ofstatistics.
I want to go back through thoseand I want to talk about how
(13:37):
widespread this issue is atmid-career and I want to talk
about some things that you cando to not toss all your life
cards up in the air but to giveyourself permission to just
explore it.
At least do that right, honoryour inner voice at least that
(14:00):
much.
So here we go with the stats.
Least that much.
So here we go with the stats.
Like I said last week, more thanhalf of US workers want to make
a career change, and for highincome.
So for incomes in the US over75,000, that number is closer to
60%.
It's 59% want to change careers.
(14:24):
Now this could be anything fromchanging functional areas, like
moving from HR to marketing, ormoving from marketing to
finance, or whatever, or itcould be wanting to start their
own business.
That entrepreneurial thing iscertainly a trend in today's
culture.
I'm doing it.
A lot of people have sidehustles, friend, in today's
(14:46):
culture I'm doing it.
A lot of people have sidehustles.
It's a great way to keep yourinner spark alive and to
honestly keep learning andmastering all the new skills.
I find it's a great way to stayenergized.
So if almost 60% of the highincome earners are really
dreaming of a career change,then you might wonder like what
is stopping them?
Because very Most of us stayput right.
(15:11):
Or we might dip our toe in thewater, might interview for a
couple jobs, might look into theadvanced degree that might
allow us to move from acorporate job into being an
attorney or whatever, or wemight look into starting the
company, but we don't really doit right.
(15:32):
So why not?
Well, according to statisticsfrom Gallup, the top barrier is
financial security 57% don'tpursue something different
because they believe thatthere's a lack of financial
security in doing so, thatletting go of what they have and
(15:53):
moving into something new wouldbe too risky.
40% don't even know what they'dlike to do next.
They have no idea right, and,by the way, I hear that from
people across the spectrum.
I've done a lot of coaching,even of folks just getting out
of college.
They don't know either.
We put all this pressure onourselves that we have to know,
(16:15):
we have to know, and thensometimes we just pick anything
that comes along to startearning money which you know, I
get it.
Sometimes we have to bepractical, but then they stop
looking and they can spend theirentire career feeling out of
alignment or feeling likethey're doing something with
(16:35):
their life that they don't wantto do.
And remember, last week Ishared a statistic we're going
to spend a third of our lifemore than 90,000 hours working.
Let's work at something thatwe're passionate about, and if
we've lost our passion, let's goexplore something else.
And if we know what that is,let's explore it.
(16:58):
And if we don't know what it is, let's find that out, because
there's a way to do a set ofactivities that would allow you
to get some clarity into thetypes of things that spark your
interest right, and that'simportant to know.
So 40% don't do it because theyhave no idea what they would
even want to do right, andthat's important to know.
So 40% don't do it because theyhave no idea what they would
even want to do right, they justknow they don't want to do what
(17:20):
they're doing right now.
37% believe that or they don'tdo it because they don't think
they have the right education orexperience to make the switch.
Now this one is really trickybecause there are certain fields
that you want to go into that,yes, they require a certain
educational credential and maybeeven a license.
(17:42):
So I'm thinking here like a CPAor a doctor or a lawyer, like
the professions right.
There are other fields.
Most of the other fields aremore about an acquired skill set
and it might take some work tofind the first opportunity in
those and might be that some ofyour skills transfer and others
(18:07):
you would just have to learn onthe job.
But there's a certainpercentage of us that tells
ourselves that we just don'tknow what we're doing or it's
too late to learn right.
It's all these things that westart to tell ourselves that we
believe are true, like it's toolate, I don't know how to do
that, or whatever, and we justthink that that's the truth, and
(18:30):
so we don't allow ourselves topursue it.
And I'm here to tell you thatit's not true, that there's a
way to do anything.
Back in the day, at the earlystage of my career, I had a
friend whose mother had been ateacher, for my guess is she was
probably around 50.
And she went back to schoolafter having been a teacher for
(18:54):
the full 30 years so she must'vebeen 52.
Cause she had like 30 yearsthen, so she could retire and
collect whatever her teacher'spension was.
She actually, in the last twoyears of teaching, went back to
law school part-time, graduatedas an attorney, got a job
working at one of the biggestlaw firms in the country in
(19:15):
trademark law, and I think she'sstill there 25 years later, you
know.
So she's into her seventies andis loving every minute of it.
She didn't think for one minute.
I remember talking to her aboutit.
She didn't think for one minutethat she was too old, she just
knew it's, she had thought aboutit and she decided to go into
(19:37):
teaching instead when she wasmuch younger, like in the
college age, and she enjoyedteaching.
But she just decided that shedidn't want to be retired at 52.
She was kind of done with theteaching thing and she thought
you know what, I'm just going togo back to school.
So she took the LSAT, gotaccepted and did it.
Now that is refired.
(19:58):
She didn't have what I wascalling a saggy middle to her
career, a lackluster finish.
She refired and went in acompletely new direction that
probably I have no idea, butprobably three extra income, you
know and went in as a juniorattorney at the age of whatever
(20:19):
she was at the time.
She graduated maybe 54,something like that.
Right, and she's still there.
Maybe she's just retired Ihaven't checked in lately, but
she was there, you know, acouple of years ago.
So you know it is never toolate.
But you know there are times Iguess my point is there are
times when you might have to goget credentialed right.
(20:41):
Then go do it If that's whatyou want to do.
She did it part-time, at night,and she's still, even with a
night law degree.
She got an excellent job forone of the leading firms in the
country.
Knight law degree.
She got an excellent job forone of the leading firms in the
country, and so you can do thattoo.
But most of the time I would say80% of the time we're not
(21:02):
thinking about doing somethingthat requires that kind of
credentialing.
Like you can still do that, buta lot of times it's more just
about believing in yourself andmaybe you have to skill up a
little bit.
Maybe you need to take somecourses, maybe you need to do
some volunteering in a new fieldthere's lots of ways to do that
kind of thing.
Or maybe you just need to sellyourself to an employer.
(21:26):
That here's the skills thattransfer and here's where I
would learn on the job andhere's exactly how I would do
that.
Like sell yourself and get inthere and learn on the job.
Like you don't have to writeyourself off just because you
don't have every single thingthat this new career field might
(21:46):
want you to have.
You would be surprised how manyskills transfer from job to job
the basics of managing aproject, excellent writing
skills, excellent speakingskills, persuasion skills,
management, leadership skills.
There's so much that transfersfrom job type to job type that I
(22:11):
think it's relatively easy topivot in whatever direction you
want.
You just have to believe thatyou can.
And it's the belief that getsin our way, and we'll talk more
about that in a minute.
So work satisfaction for peopleis at its lowest point
statistically at age 47 in termsof happiness and fulfillment,
(22:35):
and they point to on the surveythat it's really about several
things.
You might have some children.
You might be balancing being arather senior level exec with a
lot of responsibilities at workand you couple that with a lot
of responsibilities at home.
You might be a two-careerfamily.
Maybe you both travel a bit.
(22:56):
That adds a complicating layer.
Maybe you're even taking careof elderly parents.
So there's lots of things thathappen in our life, along with
our beliefs, that can keep usstuck where we are, because we
tell ourselves that it's safe,that we invested all this money
(23:19):
and all of this time to be wherewe are and now it's time, at
midlife, to reap the benefit.
But here's the thing Too manypeople believe that their
corporate job is the safe placepath and honestly I'm not
(23:39):
dissing corporations because Iam still very much in it, but I
will tell you like there are somany things that that
corporation can encounter interms of unexpected changes,
difficulties, spinning a wholepart of the company off, you
know, maybe buying anothercompany for a set of reasons
(24:02):
that creates redundancies in theworkforce, like there are an
endless number of things thatcan happen that would make that
quote unquote safe job no longersafe.
So I'm not trying to be adowner, but I do think it's
important, when it comes to thistopic, to be realistic, because
why would you want to kill yourdreams to stay in what you're
(24:26):
telling yourself is the safeplace or the safe choice, when
the truth is you could go intowork on Monday morning and not
have a job.
That's the world we live in.
So I'm not saying that again tobe a downer, but the point is
it's not a safe choice, right?
(24:47):
Nothing in life is guaranteed.
We know this, we do know itright, from our own personal
lives, relationships, health.
We just don't know what thefuture holds.
And so my point here is don'ttalk yourself out of what you
want because you're tellingyourself that where you are is a
(25:09):
safe place or that you don'thave the skills or the ability
to learn something new, becausethat is just not true.
If you have a skills gap, youcan close it, you can fill it.
You can just decide what arethe things you need to learn and
then go do it.
Or if you don't know you knowyou're done with where you're at
and you don't know what youwant there are ways you can go
(25:33):
about figuring that out.
So I want to give you what Ithink the five steps are, and
they're probably going to be alittle different than what you
might expect, and this is goingto be all part of my new
offering that I'm launching inJune, called the Mid-Career Edit
, and I was inspired by a lot ofthe stats that I've been
(25:57):
reading around.
Almost 60% of us want to dosomething different and we're
not doing it, don't think we canafford it financially, or we
don't think we have the rightskills or whatever.
There are five things I thinkwe need to do when we want to go
do something new.
Number one we have to firstwork on our self-concept.
(26:18):
I found like if the average agethey're saying in Gallup, the
average age that people firstthink about a major career path
change either leaving corporateand becoming a business owner,
or maybe changing functionalareas or going back to school to
now become a doctor.
Whatever it is you want to do,it's usually around the age of
39.
And, like I said, most of usdon't allow ourselves to do it.
(26:38):
Well, you know the interestingit's usually around the age of
39.
And, like I said, most of usdon't allow ourselves to do it.
Well, you know, the interestingthing about it is the reason I
think you've got to work on yourself image or your self concept
first is because you've spentyour entire time getting your
degree up to the age of 22.
And then from 22 to 39 or 40,building an image around you do
(27:05):
X, even if you might've changedcareer paths a couple of times.
You might, for example, seeyourself as you're just someone
who works in corporate, and yetyou've got this, this inner
voice telling you that you'dreally love to be your own boss,
right, but then you come upinstantly with all of these
reasons why that's not possible.
(27:25):
You have to work on yourself-concept first before you
start exploring the specificthing that you think you might
want to go do.
Don't just dive in to yoursearch, right?
What you want to do is changehow you think about yourself and
decide not only who are you now.
So what are all the good thingsthat you've put into your bag
(27:49):
of tricks that make you who youare, part of your brand as it
sits right now?
And then, with that in mind,then you need to look into the
future and say, well, what arethose things that you might want
to do in the future?
And you have to look at wherethe gaps are between how you
(28:11):
think about yourself today andall the things you've been doing
and where you want to go in thefuture.
Are those two things alignedand does it seem very possible
that you could pivot from one tothe future?
Are those two things aligned,and does it seem very possible
that you could pivot from one tothe other?
Or is there a huge gap betweenthem?
Right, and it's that gap, thatkind of river of misery, that
(28:33):
will prevent us from actuallygoing to do the thing.
So, getting clear on yourself-concept, like who do you
think you are right now and whodo you want to be in the future,
and then bridging that gap,that's step number one.
Then, with that belief inyourself that there's this
future, you that you want tobecome in the next three to five
(28:56):
years, right, and that you'vefigured out, like how, from a
belief perspective, to startthinking of yourself in that new
way.
Step number two is aboutrediscovering what does that
even mean from a what do I wantperspective?
So sometimes you'll know, somepeople know exactly I want to go
(29:20):
back to law school or I want tostart XYZ business, but most of
us don't know.
Like I said, 40% of us havezero idea of what we might want
to do in the future.
So that discovery process andlooking at the range of
possibilities, the things thatyou're interested in, the things
that you feel like yourskillset might set you up to do
(29:44):
and be successful at, or evenjust potentially, hobbies or
areas of passion that you'reinterested in, understanding
what all those things are, andthen exploring the range of
possibilities open to you withinthat.
Do you want to work for someoneelse?
Do you want to do your ownthing and explore all of that?
Do you want to work for someoneelse?
Do you want to do your ownthing and explore all of that?
Then there's step number three,which is choose something.
(30:08):
So we have to make a choice.
So there's a world ofpossibilities open to all of us,
but you can't pursue them all.
You have to narrow in onsomething and put your focus
there and once you choose thatthing, you need to take another
look at your self-concept andmake sure that you work on
(30:33):
aligning your beliefs with thatnew thing.
And then we work on the plan.
That's number four.
And then we launch, we go.
That is going to be somethingthat we work on.
There's a five-step process andwe're going to work on that
(30:54):
over a series of six monthstogether and you will go in with
maybe a general idea of that.
You want something new andhopefully you'll go out the
other side after having donethis work and you will
understand what that new thingis and be ready to go.
(31:15):
That's what I mean by refiringat mid-career.
Too many of us think that wehit a certain age and we've got
these obligations and it's justtoo late.
We're too old, it's too late,that we can't do it.
It's too risky, there's toomuch at stake, and I'm here to
tell you, just because you mightdecide that it's time for
(31:37):
something new and you mightdecide to sign up for the
mid-career edit and do thatexploration, that doesn't mean
that at the end of it you haveto do anything.
You don't, but don't you oweyourself the opportunity to just
open the door to the future ofwhat your life and you could be
(32:01):
and allow yourself to explorethat?
I think it's huge and I thinkyou know, even if you decide
that it's not right for youright now, it could be something
that you do in three years, infive years.
You know you don't have to do itright now, but my point to you
(32:22):
is honor yourself and giveyourself the gift of allowing
yourself to think about thethings that you want and to
pursue that in a very tangible,real way, not in a dreaming of
some vague thing, but make itreal, like hone in on something
(32:44):
very specific and look at it andturn it around in your hand and
think about it.
And think about you with thatopportunity and doing that thing
and being very successful at it.
And try that new suit on orthat new dress on and see how it
looks on you and see if is thateven what you want to be and do
(33:08):
with the rest of your life?
If the answer is no, that'sfine.
You've lost nothing.
You can stay where you are, butyou'll know and there'll be no
regrets because you'll havefully explored it.
You'll have gotten clear on itand you'll have either decided
to do it or ruled it out.
And that is the key Giveyourself permission to stay
(33:29):
excited about life, to believethat you can still move towards
something new at any age andthat that opportunity is
available to you.
It's not closing down andyou're not too old ever to learn
or do something new.
So I think it's important and Ithink it's something that too
(33:53):
many of us play it safe, or wethink we're playing it safe and
we keep telling that inner partof ourselves no, and I think
it's a recipe for just beingvery miserable.
You settle into this place inyour career where you're
coasting along and you're goingthrough the motions, but it's
just like slow torture.
(34:14):
Sometimes it doesn't happen toall of us.
Some people stay very, veryexcited and motivated at every
stage of their career, even ifthey never change jobs right.
To some extent it's a mindset,but sometimes there's a new
thing calling to you and when itdoes, I think we owe ourselves
(34:35):
to listen.
We need to pay attention tothat and explore it and decide
from a place of belief whetheror not it's something we
actually want to go do, andnever make that decision from a
place of telling yourself abunch of things that aren't true
(34:55):
, like you're too old or it'stoo late, or you can't do it, or
it's not safe, or it's toorisky or whatever, because none
of those things are true.
I can promise you, whatever itis you want to do, if you really
want to do it, we can figureout a way to align your belief
system with that and to puttogether a plan that minimizes
(35:16):
the risk.
Might take you a little longerto do it, because you might have
to do a dual path thing andgrow you know the seed of a
business very, very slowly orwhatever, but you can still do
it.
You can do anything you want toat any age, and that's what I
wanted to talk to you abouttoday.
So if you're interested in themid-career edit, if any of this
(35:39):
rang true, if there's somethingnew calling to you, I want you
to go to the purposefulcareercomforward slash mid-career edit
and sign up for the waiting list, and with that I will leave you
until next time.
Make it a great week.
My friends, do you have a lifecoach?
(36:09):
If not, I'd be so honored to beyour coach.
I've created a virtual coachingprogram and monthly membership
called Next Level.
Inside we take the material youhear on this podcast, study it
and then apply it.
Join me at thepurposefulcareercom backslash
(36:31):
next level.
Don't forget thepurposefulcareercom backslash
next level.
Join me and together we'll makeyour career and life everything
you dream of.
We'll see you there.
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