Ep: 218 How to Reignite Your Passion: Navigating Mid-Career Transformation at Any Age

It's about having the clarity , self-confidence and unstoppable belief to go after and get everything you want . If you'll come with me , I'll show you how . Hello friends , I hope you had an amazing week .

Today we're going to talk about something that builds off of last week's episode , and in last week's episode we talked about inner leadership and in that we touched on what does it mean to get to a point in your career and this can happen at any point in your career , but it especially happens , I think , most frequently , at mid-career .

You know those ages between 40 and call it you know 54 , where you're just kind of over it or you've got these inner nigglings that are telling you you really want to do something else , but you don't really have any idea what that is . That's probably most people .

Some people have a very clear idea , like I'm doing this and I'm kind of done with it and I actually want to go do this , but most people are like I want to do something else and I just don't know what that is . We are going to talk about that and how to prevent yourself from getting stuck and demotivated in the middle years .

You don't want that to happen . It makes you more vulnerable to if you work for a corporation to layoffs . You have to stay charged and you can't depend on your boss to do that for you , on your boss to do that for you , and you can't depend even on the quality of the assignments that come to you to do that .

The staying charged comes from you and you can give yourself that at any age and at any time , in any circumstance . So we'll hit a little bit on that . We'll talk more about that , I think , in next week's episode , but today what I want to talk about is what does it mean to be refired ? And I'm going to share an interesting story of one of my friends .

When I was a couple decades ago , her mother was a teacher and actually went back to night school in the later part of her teaching years and became an attorney , a very successful attorney . You can do anything you want .

You just have to believe it and do the work to figure out what is that thing and what is the gap between where you are and where you want to go , and then take a very , very strategic and disciplined approach to plotting out that pivot that you want to do , because you can do it .

You can do anything at any time and I'm a believer that it's very , very important just throughout our life , I think even after our work days are over and we're in our later years . I firmly believe that we need to have a purpose and it has to be about contribution in whatever way that matters to you .

I don't think it can just be about taking care of ourselves or taking care of our family or pursuing fun things like travel and stuff . You may feel differently , but I see people who are at their best in their later years who are passionate about something . I don't know what it is . It might be volunteering , might be giving back in some way .

It might be finally pursuing that writing career . It might be volunteering , might be giving back in some way . It might be finally pursuing that writing career . It might be opening a business and running it in your senior year , so you stay engaged and vibrant .

It is a decision and I think in the middle years between 40 and 54 , it's where it can all start to go very wrong and we can start putting it in automatic pilot and just punching the time clock and I just feel like that is the kiss of death for passion in your life , and I think it's can really be the undoing of a career that could still hold great

promise , whether in your existing discipline or doing something entirely new . So that's what this episode is going to talk about . It's going to help you take a look at yourself and where you're at with your career , and if something new is calling to you , I'm going to give you some options .

Inside my business , where I could help and I'm very passionate about this , this is one of my big callings in life is to help people understand that if we're going to spend 90,000 hours working , spend it doing something that matters to you , and that answer is different for all of us , but the answer is out there and you can live that .

It is something , though that takes a bit of work for some of us , and a belief that it's never too late , that we can go after and accomplish things at any age if we decide to do it . So enjoy this episode today on what it means to be refired at mid-career refired at mid-career .

Today I want to kind of build off last week's episode where we talked about inner leadership in your career and as part of that we talked a little bit about some things that can happen at mid-career , when maybe you're feeling called to do something new but your practical mind resists that right and says , ah , I can't .

You know , I've got too much life going on , I've got a family , I've got obligations . I just cannot afford to chuck all of that and go back to school or change career paths and maybe take a pay cut or whatever . So today what I want to talk about is how to refire at mid-career . That's how I like to think about it .

I think I mentioned in previous podcasts one of my hobbies is I write romantic fiction under a pen name . So I've studied a lot around novels and one of the things you have to guard against as a screenwriter or an author is how do you keep the momentum and the excitement and the engagement in the middle ?

And our career is the same when we're just getting started , like in the 14 , 15 years from college graduation to age 39 , some of us might change paths a couple of times and we've probably changed jobs several times , but we're really focused and we're fired up and we're learning and we're energized and maybe we've even gone back to grad school to get an advanced

degree . We've even gone back to grad school 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 your partner may or may not have children and then as you start to get up in years , into your 40s and 50s , sometimes you start to have issues with the health of a family member or even older parents they have to take care of . So life gets more complicated and our baseline needs become more advanced and expensive .

Maybe we get used to two careers at a fairly senior level of income and we're comfortable , right , and we've got a couple of kids and we're worried about college and there's just all of these things , and so it can feel harder to have the freedom , can feel harder to have the freedom that maybe we had or felt we had earlier on in our life .

So if that's you or someone you know , I want to talk to you today because this is really important and I kind of think about our career in thirds . So you've got the college to age 39 , and then you've got the middle , which is ages 40 to 54 . Then you've got the college to age 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 work to , and that's kind of it . And so there's different things that happen in those thirds . Like the first third , you're fired up and energized and learning and growing into those aspirations that you had earlier on .

And then in the middle , that's where a lot of us can feel like we stall out a little bit . Sometimes that's temporary and sometimes it's more permanent , and there's a lot of life factors in there . But I also think there's a lot of mindset factors in there around the implications of what it would mean to make a big change and all of that .

So that's probably the most complicated phase of the career .

And then we have the later part of our career , from mid-50s to whenever we decide to retire , and that , especially if we're working for someone else , that has its own set of complications and its own mindset issues we have to conquer around feeling like you're too old to do this or fearing that you're about to be laid off because of your age or that you can't

keep up , or there's also multi-generational issues we're starting to encounter in the workforce . You have everything from Gen Z all the way up to even some boomers still in there . So this is a time when there's lots of different people and mindsets and perspectives all mixed together and that can be harder to deal with or feel harder , I think , to some people .

The further on you get in your career , you can feel left out , you can feel like the pace of change is too much .

So I want to talk today about what happens to us in the middle part of our career where , like I was saying on the novel , you know the editors , when you submit your manuscript , might tell you this has a saggy middle and that just means all the wind came out of your manuscript in the middle and it got kind of boring right .

And the same thing happens in the middle part of our careers , not to everyone for sure , but to many of us . And today I want to talk about why and that's why I'm calling this , want to talk about why and that's why I'm calling this refiring at mid-career , because our career is something that doesn't just happen to us , we need to happen to our career .

It's the reverse . And so we're not just the recipient of the opportunities that come to us . We need to be of the mindset that we create those things . And I also think we need to pay attention to what our inner voice of wisdom is telling us .

And if you have this like loud voice that's telling you that you're kind of over the thing that you're doing , I want to tell you today you need to listen to that voice , because I truly believe that when people find themselves plateaued or stalled yes , there can be a lot of surrounding issues going on in life or some complicating factors that might be happening

at the place that the person works . But I truly believe that if we're listening to what we really want and we're staying aligned with that meaning that we're heading in that direction we're allowing ourselves to pursue that or at least explore pursuing that that's when we refire .

Like you can see , people in their late eighties , nineties that are very excited about life and still learning and still growing and listening and becoming great at working on the computer and just all of the new things that have come in their lifetime . They embrace them and they stay energized by them .

It's a decision that we make and I've had some clients say stuff to me during coaching sessions before where they're like you just don't

understand . I have got a lot going on in my life . I just can't throw all my life cards 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 true self , our soul , our guide , whatever it is you believe religiously . It's not just some random thought flying around .

I truly believe that inside we know what's right for us . We have that voice right and we can either choose to listen to it or not . So today I want to give you a few more stats . Last week I shared a lot of statistics .

I want to go back through those and I want to talk about how widespread this issue is at mid-career and I want to talk about some things that you can do to not toss all your life cards up in the air but to give yourself permission to just explore it . At least do that right , honor your inner voice at least that much . So here we go with the stats .

Least that much . So here we go with the stats . Like I said last week , more than half of US workers want to make a career change , and for high income . So for incomes in the US over 75,000 , that number is closer to 60% . It's 59% want to change careers .

Now this could be anything from changing functional areas , like moving from HR to marketing , or moving from marketing to finance , or whatever , or it could be wanting to start their own business . That entrepreneurial thing is certainly a trend in today's culture . I'm doing it . A lot of people have side hustles , friend , in today's culture I'm doing it .

A lot of people have side hustles . It's a great way to keep your inner spark alive and to honestly keep learning and mastering all the new skills . I find it's a great way to stay energized . So if almost 60% of the high income earners are really dreaming of a career change , then you might wonder like what is stopping them ?

Because very Most of us stay put right . Or we might dip our toe in the water , might interview for a couple jobs , might look into the advanced degree that might allow us to move from a corporate job into being an attorney or whatever , or we might look into starting the company , but we don't really do it right . So why not ?

Well , according to statistics from Gallup , the top barrier is financial security 57% don't pursue something different because they believe that there's a lack of financial security in doing so , that letting go of what they have and moving into something new would be too risky . 40% don't even know what they'd like 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 on ourselves that we have to know , we have to know , and then sometimes we just pick anything that comes along to start earning money which you know , I get it .

Sometimes we have to be practical , but then they stop looking and they can spend their entire career feeling out of alignment or feeling like they're doing something with their life that they don't want to do . And remember , last week I shared a statistic we're going to spend a third of our life more than 90,000 hours working .

Let's work at something that we're passionate about , and if we've lost our passion , let's go explore something else . And if we know what that is , let's explore it .

And if we don't know what it is , let's find that out , because there's a way to do a set of activities that would allow you to get some clarity into the types of things that spark your interest right , and that's important to know . So 40% don't do it because they have no idea what they would even want to do right , and that's important to know .

So 40% don't do it because they have no idea what they would even want to do right , they just know they don't want to do what they're doing right now . 37% believe that or they don't do it because they don't think they have the right education or experience to make the switch .

Now this one is really tricky because there are certain fields that you want to go into that , yes , they require a certain educational credential and maybe even a license . So I'm thinking here like a CPA or a doctor or a lawyer , like the professions right . There are other fields .

Most of the other fields are more about an acquired skill set and it might take some work to find the first opportunity in those and might be that some of your skills transfer and others you would just have to learn on the job .

But there's a certain percentage of us that tells ourselves that we just don't know what we're doing or it's too late to learn right .

It's all these things that we start to tell ourselves that we believe are true , like it's too late , I don't know how to do that , or whatever , and we just think that that's the truth , and so we don't allow ourselves to pursue it . And I'm here to tell you that it's not true , that there's a way to do anything .

Back in the day , at the early stage of my career , I had a friend whose mother had been a teacher , for my guess is she was probably around 50 . And she went back to school after having been a teacher for the full 30 years so she must've been 52 . Cause she had like 30 years then , so she could retire and collect whatever her teacher's pension was .

She actually , in the last two years of teaching , went back to law school part-time , graduated as an attorney , got a job working at one of the biggest law firms in the country in trademark law , and I think she's still there 25 years later , you know . So she's into her seventies and is loving every minute of it . She didn't think for one minute .

I remember talking to her about it . She didn't think for one minute that she was too old , she just knew it's , she had thought about it and she decided to go into teaching instead when she was much younger , like in the college age , and she enjoyed teaching . But she just decided that she didn't want to be retired at 52 .

She was kind of done with the teaching thing and she thought you know what , I'm just going to go back to school . So she took the LSAT , got accepted and did it . Now that is refired . She didn't have what I was calling a saggy middle to her career , a lackluster finish .

She refired and went in a completely new direction that probably I have no idea , but probably three extra income , you know and went in as a junior attorney at the age of whatever she was at the time . She graduated maybe 54 , something like that . Right , and she's still there .

Maybe she's just retired I haven't checked in lately , but she was there , you know , a couple of years ago . So you know it is never too late . But you know there are times I guess my point is there are times when you might have to go get credentialed right . Then go do it If that's what you 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 for one of the leading firms in the country . Knight law degree . She got an excellent job for one of the leading firms in the country , and so you can do that too .

But most of the time I would say 80% of the time we're not thinking about doing something that requires that kind of credentialing . Like you can still do that , but a lot of times it's more just about believing in yourself and maybe you have to skill up a little bit .

Maybe you need to take some courses , maybe you need to do some volunteering in a new field there's lots of ways to do that kind of thing . Or maybe you just need to sell yourself to an employer . That here's the skills that transfer and here's where I would learn on the job and here's exactly how I would do that .

Like sell yourself and get in there and learn on the job . Like you don't have to write yourself off just because you don't have every single thing that this new career field might want you to have .

You would be surprised how many skills transfer from job to job the basics of managing a project , excellent writing skills , excellent speaking skills , persuasion skills , management , leadership skills . There's so much that transfers from job type to job type that I think it's relatively easy to pivot in whatever direction you want .

You just have to believe that you can . And it's the belief that gets in our way , and we'll talk more about that in a minute . So work satisfaction for people is at its lowest point statistically at age 47 in terms of happiness and fulfillment , and they point to on the survey that it's really about several things . You might have some children .

You might be balancing being a rather senior level exec with a lot of responsibilities at work and you couple that with a lot of responsibilities at home . You might be a two-career family . Maybe you both travel a bit . That adds a complicating layer . Maybe you're even taking care of elderly parents .

So there's lots of things that happen in our life , along with our beliefs , that can keep us stuck where we are , because we tell ourselves that it's safe , that we invested all this money and all of this time to be where we are and now it's time , at midlife , to reap the benefit .

But here's the thing Too many people believe that their corporate job is the safe place path and honestly I'm not dissing corporations because I am still very much in it , but I will tell you like there are so many things that that corporation can encounter in terms of unexpected changes , difficulties , spinning a whole part of the company off , you know , maybe buying

another company for a set of reasons that creates redundancies in the workforce , like there are an endless number of things that can happen that would make that quote unquote safe job no longer safe .

So I'm not trying to be a downer , but I do think it's important , when it comes to this topic , to be realistic , because why would you want to kill your dreams to stay in what you're telling yourself is the safe place or the safe choice , when the truth is you could go into work on Monday morning and not have a job . That's the world we live in .

So I'm not saying that again to be a downer , but the point is it's not a safe choice , right ? Nothing in life is guaranteed . We know this , we do know it right , from our own personal lives , relationships , health . We just don't know what the

future holds . And so my point here is don't talk yourself out of what you want because you're telling yourself that where you are is a safe place or that you don't have the skills or the ability to learn something new , because that is just not true . If you have a skills gap , you can close it , you can fill it .

You can just decide what are the things you need to learn and then go do it . Or if you don't know you know you're done with where you're at and you don't know what you want there are ways you can go about figuring that out .

So I want to give you what I think the five steps are , and they're probably going to be a little different than what you might expect , and this is going to be all part of my new offering that I'm launching in June , called the Mid-Career Edit , and I was inspired by a lot of the stats that I've been reading around .

Almost 60% of us want to do something different and we're not doing it , don't think we can afford it financially , or we don't think we have the right skills or whatever . There are five things I think we need to do when we want to go do something new . Number one we have to first work on our self-concept .

I found like if the average age they're saying in Gallup , the average age that people first think about a major career path change either leaving corporate and becoming a business owner , or maybe changing functional areas 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 us don't allow ourselves to do it . Well , you know the interesting it's usually around the age of 39 . And , like I said , most of us don't allow ourselves to do it .

Well , you know , the interesting thing about it is the reason I think you've got to work on your self image or your self concept first is because you've spent your 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 X , even if you might've changed career paths a couple of times .

You might , for example , see yourself as you're just someone who works in corporate , and yet you've got this , this inner voice telling you that you'd really love to be your own boss , right , but then you come up instantly with all of these reasons why that's not possible .

You have to work on your self-concept first before you start exploring the specific thing that you think you might want to go do . Don't just dive in to your search , right ? What you want to do is change how you think about yourself and decide not only who are you now .

So what are all the good things that you've put into your bag of tricks that make you who you are , 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 are those things that you might want to do in the future ?

And you have to look at where the gaps are between how you think about yourself today and all the things you've been doing and where you want to go in the future . Are those two things aligned and does it seem very possible that you could pivot from one to the future ?

Are those two things aligned , and does it seem very possible that you could pivot from one to the other ? Or is there a huge gap between them ? Right , and it's that gap , that kind of river of misery , that will prevent us from actually going to do the thing .

So , getting clear on your self-concept , like who do you think you are right now and who do you want to be in the future , and then bridging that gap , that's step number one .

Then , with that belief in yourself that there's this future , you that you want to become in the next three to five years , right , and that you've figured out , like how , from a belief perspective , to start thinking of yourself in that new way . Step number two is about rediscovering what does that even mean from a what do I want perspective ?

So sometimes you'll know , some people know exactly I want to go back to law school or I want to start XYZ business , but most of us don't know . Like I said , 40% of us have zero idea of what we might want to do in the future .

So that discovery process and looking at the range of possibilities , the things that you're interested in , the things that you feel like your skillset might set you up to do and be successful at , or even just potentially , hobbies or areas of passion that you're interested in , understanding what all those things are , and then exploring the range of possibilities open

to you within that . Do you want to work for someone else ? Do you want to do your own thing and explore all of that ? Do you want to work for someone else ? Do you want to do your own thing and explore all of that ? Then there's step number three , which is choose something . So we have to make a choice .

So there's a world of possibilities open to all of us , but you can't pursue them all . You have to narrow in on something and put your focus there and once you choose that thing , you need to take another look at your self-concept and make sure that you work on aligning your beliefs with that new thing . And then we work on the plan . That's number four .

And then we launch , we go . That is going to be something that we work on . There's a five-step process and we're going to work on that over a series of six months together and you will go in with maybe a general idea of that .

You want something new and hopefully you'll go out the other side after having done this work and you will understand what that new thing is and be ready to go . That's what I mean by refiring at mid-career . Too many of us think that we hit a certain age and we've got these obligations and it's just too late .

We're too old , it's too late , that we can't do it . It's too risky , there's too much at stake , and I'm here to tell you , just because you might decide that it's time for something new and you might decide to sign up for the mid-career edit and do that exploration , that doesn't mean that at the end of it you have to do anything .

You don't , but don't you owe yourself the opportunity to just open the door to the future of what your life and you could be and allow yourself to explore that ? I think it's huge and I think you know , even if you decide that it's not right for you right now , it could be something that you do in three years , in five years .

You know you don't have to do it right now , but my point to you is honor yourself and give yourself the gift of allowing yourself to think about the things that you want and to pursue that in a very tangible , real way , not in a dreaming of some vague thing , but make it real , like hone in on something very specific and look at it and turn it around in

your hand and think about it . And think about you with that opportunity and doing that thing and being very successful at it . And try that new suit on or that new dress on and see how it looks on you and see if is that even what you want to be and do with the rest of your life ? If the answer is no , that's fine . You've lost nothing .

You can stay where you are , but you'll know and there'll be no regrets because you'll have fully explored it . You'll have gotten clear on it and you'll have either decided to do it or ruled it out .

And that is the key Give yourself permission to stay excited about life , to believe that you can still move towards something new at any age and that that opportunity is available to you . It's not closing down and you're not too old ever to learn or do something new .

So I think it's important and I think it's something that too many of us play it safe , or we think we're playing it safe and we keep telling that inner part of ourselves no , and I think it's a recipe for just being very miserable .

You settle into this place in your career where you're coasting along and you're going through the motions , but it's just like slow torture . Sometimes it doesn't happen to all of us . Some people stay very , very excited and motivated at every stage of their career , even if they never change jobs right .

To some extent it's a mindset , but sometimes there's a new thing calling to you and when it does , I think we owe ourselves to listen .

We need to pay attention to that and explore it and decide from a place of belief whether or not it's something we actually want to go do , and never make that decision from a place of telling yourself a bunch of things that aren't true , like you're too old or it's too late , or you can't do it , or it's not safe , or it's too risky or whatever , because

none of those things are true . I can promise you , whatever it is you want to do , if you really want to do it , we can figure out a way to align your belief system with that and to put together a plan that minimizes the risk .

Might take you a little longer to do it , because you might have to do a dual path thing and grow you know the seed of a business very , very slowly or whatever , but you can still do it . You can do anything you want to at any age , and that's what I wanted to talk to you about today .

So if you're interested in the mid-career edit , if any of this rang true , if there's something new calling to you , I want you to go to the purposefulcareercom forward 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 life coach ?

If not , I'd be so honored to be your coach . I've created a virtual coaching program and monthly membership called Next Level . Inside we take the material you hear on this podcast , study it and then apply it . Join me at the purposefulcareercom backslash next level . Don't forget the purposefulcareercom backslash next level .

Join me and together we'll make your career and life everything you dream of . We'll see you there .