It’s the end of December 2009, and I’ve been doing the same job for 15 years. I know it by heart, and can do it with my eyes closed or just about. I know clients’ questions and candidates’ answers. I unfortunately don’t get it wrong very often, through lack of surprise. I’m stuck in a darn comfort zone that undermines me instead of comforting me in my cushy files. “Darn” because it is chipping away at me from the inside, introducing pernicious questions and thoughts I don’t want to hear. How many of us have told ourselves that we’ve learned all there is to learn in a certain field, but don’t know what the next step is, and have launched ourselves into pseudo-new projects with our employers or have discovered fascinating para-professional activities? All the better for the multitude of causes that benefit from the talent and energy of managers and professionals who are just cheating their routine outside of work.
Let’s be clear—my idea is not to discourage people who have gone as far as they can in their professional careers from doing volunteer work or working on special projects. But in reality, they are simply escaping their daily monotony by justifying their need to fulfil themselves elsewhere without quitting their job. . . Oh, the golden cage of a regular pay cheque. Investing your time in activities outside your professional sphere is only relevant and beneficial when not an escape from the office.
You need courage and guts to end a career and start another one. Courage or a touch of madness, because reinventing yourself at 35, 40, 45 or even 50 is not that easy. While there is no age at which to begin rebuilding your professional career, you do require strength of character and an incredible amount of energy to survive the transition period. And yet, the outcome is often very happy, beneficial and profitable. Yes, that’s right—statistics show that people who follow their gut instinct about changing careers ultimately end up with a salary equal to or higher than what they had before, with happiness and quality of life as a bonus. The problem is the tiny matter of the transition.
In his book Outliers, Malcolm Glaxwell shows that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at the top of your field. Okay, so it also takes a few good opportunities, fortunate encounters and a certain amount of talent in addition. At 40, some people have achieved this benchmark, while others will take ten years longer or five years less. Think of lawyers, accountants and software developers—and recruiters. How many hours of interviews have you done? Personally, I reached my 10,000th hour three years ago, and sold my recruiting firm a year later without even realizing that I had reached that fateful number. There is no such thing as chance. . .
Getting back to the transition—why courage? Because of the 10,000 hours. How long will it take achieve proficiency in a new career? How long to reach the 10,000-hour mark? As we get older, the years seem to speed up, leaving us with increasingly less time to do everything we want, hence the fear of having to reinvest as much time and energy in learning a new job or following a passion. Often, though, a passion precedes a career, resulting in the accumulation of flight hours without even realizing it. I remember a photographer who after 15 years of SAP consulting quit her job to go back to school as a professional photographer. She traded in an excellent salary (thanks to the ERP implementations of the 1990s, CRM of the 2000s and other Y2K bugs) to go back to school with young, idealistic students—a far cry from the business world she had just left. What guts to spend 18 months learning an occupation not renowned for being very lucrative. There are too many photographers on the market, so only a few survive. Having nurtured this passion for 20 years, however, perhaps the 10,000 hours were not such a hurdle, with passion and talent in the mix. Today, she has just opened her first studio and is a very in-demand photographer.
Transforming your passion—when you have one—into a future career is a great option. Sometimes though, there is simply a desire for change and a better quality of life. . . for changing your contact network and reconnecting with fundamental values. Another inspiring example is that of the advertising manager who began a second career as an osteopath. It took him five years of study with young, dreamy students, he who already had his future business model in mind. His career change was meticulously planned and mapped out. A word about the transition period— no more fancy restaurants, happy hours, celebrities and campaign and product launches, champagne glass in hand. Instead, drink green tea, sandal candles, backs to be massaged and bones to be realigned. Today, he works from home, which he has rearranged to accommodate his patients, and has a large clientele of businessmen and women who come to him to be relieved of their stress.
There are tons of success stores, as well as failures. What’s important is to live the experience of reinventing yourself with an objective in mind, a desire, an urge. You don’t reinvent yourself because you need a new job, but because you feel the need and urgency in your deepest self. Even if you don’t yet know where it will ultimately lead you, the siren call of change is stronger and your entire self clamours for a career change. The process is difficult, because undergoing a transformation is painful. Being reborn professionally hurts.
In her book Chapters, Candice Carpenter underlines this painful transition, the rite of passage to your professional future. You need to agree to transform yourself, to abandon what previously seemed so dear and important—such as your status, old business card, or fancy title after your name. You also need to deal with the fear of other people, who will project their own anxiety onto you. “What will you do? What will you become? You can’t just take time off and not work right away—people will forget you. Send me your CV, I can help you circulate it.” But NO, this is not the right approach. You don’t want to go back to work, you can’t, because you simply DON’T KNOW what it is you want to do.
During the transition, there is little to be said, because you are still in project management mode. I recently told an old acquaintance that I was a “liberated entrepreneur.” The expression pleased me—a lot. No need to justify why I didn’t have a business card or title. I had projects, that’s all. Projects, ideas and aspirations. A diary full of future projects that I am working on as I wait to see which ones will materialize. In front of my drawing board, my intention is to give them free rein until I find what it is I want to spend the next 10,000 hours of my time doing.
What about you? How will you spend your next 10,000 working hours?
Nathalie Francisci, CHRP
Board Director, Speaker and Colomnist