253: How Career Change at 20 is Different than 30 (or even 40 and 50)

Paul Angone 00:04
In that place of transition, when you're the most uncomfortable, that you're actually making the most progress.

Lisa Lewis-Miller 00:11
There's nothing that you can't do if you don't want to.

Jessica Sweet 00:15
Whether you know it or not, you probably do have a lot of networking contacts.

Marc Miller 00:20
I was raised to be employee. I wasn't raised to follow my passion.

Introduction 00:30
This is the Happen To Your Career podcast, with Scott Anthony Barlow. We help you stop doing work that doesn't fit you, figure out what does and make it happen. We help you define the work that's unapologetically you, and then go get it. If you're ready to make a change, keep listening. Here's Scott. Here's Scott. Here's Scott.

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:54
Welcome to the Happen To Your Career. I'm Scott Anthony Barlow. This is the show where we share stories of how high achievers find career happiness and meaning. I think that one of the most interesting pieces of human nature in psychology is that we all drastically overestimate how unique our situations really are. And what's kind of interesting about this is we're predisposed or automatically biased to think that our situation is special, and it's the most challenging set of circumstances. And we see this every single day with people of all ages. And I mean, I've seen this throughout my life, I've seen this throughout, like, everybody I know is impacted by this, right. And that said, though, at every single age, there's also some real challenges as well, especially, well, you're making a career change, and you know what, we actually wanted to figure out what some of those real challenges are when you're making a career change at 20, or in your 30s, or in your 40s, or even, you know, 50s and above, right. And there's even some secret advantages as well at each one of these ages. So we actually asked four world renowned experts to come in and help us break down those challenges, both the real challenges and the perceived challenges, for each age group of changing careers at 20, 30, 40 or 50 plus. And we even went so far as to use this episode to create a little mini guide for each decade of your life, no matter which one you might be changing careers at. So you can find that entire guide happentoyourcareer.com/232 where you can read it, and download the transcript and everything that goes along with it. But we wanted to be able to go and talk to these people. So we actually sent our very own podcast manager, Josh Rivers, to go and ask some of these hard questions.

Joshua Rivers 03:02
I'm in Oklahoma, I move from the city out to the country. And so this is my first time living in the country. So it'll be a new experience, for sure. Usually, I am on the back end editing the audio. So every once a while, Scott lets me out of the basement, to be able to virtually see some people. He's nice like that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:24
That's Josh, by the way.

Joshua Rivers 03:26
So what are some of the perceived challenges that people in this age range have?

Paul Angone 03:31
I know when I was graduating from college and entering into my 20s, I had these dreams and visions of, you know, climbing all those steps, getting the good grades, getting the right internship, graduating with that high GPA and then opening up the door and there would be up at the top kind of my dream job, you know, whether, maybe it's working at Google, where it's so cool, it doesn't even feel like work. You're just laughing all the time and playing foosball and solving the world's problems. All in a day's work. That's kind of what I envisioned when I got to the top.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:05
And that's Paul Angone. He's a writer and a best selling author. And he's got a new book that just came out pretty recently called "101 Questions to Ask in Your Twenties". And he's actually a pretty hilarious writer. I've gotten to know him over the last three or four years or so and he's become a friend. He's a hilarious writer who knows people in their 20s better than they often even know themselves.

Paul Angone 04:31
And instead, I climbed all those steps. I got the good grades. I had landed the right internships, but when I got to the perceived top graduating, I opened the door and I felt like they had tricked me in a way and I ended up back in the basement. And I was starting over and I didn't realize at the time that I was starting over, you know. And so you're exploring and there's all these dark halls and locked doors and there's this one guy at the end with like this bad comb over who you have to give your resume to and he just laughs at it and rips it up. You know, that's what it felt like when I graduated from college, no, I was graduating, as well, more in the Great Recession time. So jobs were scarce at that time. And you start quickly realizing that, you know, my bachelor's degree, my liberal arts bachelor's degree, I got a degree in Communication Studies from a small private school, well, it was a great education, and I loved it, I wouldn't change it, but it didn't exactly fling open the doors and saying, "Oh, here, welcome. And here's all the job opportunities that are now laid before you." I had to work really hard to pound open those doors and so is a change of a mindset, really. And so I think that is the perceived challenges in a sense of 20 somethings who have big dreams and big goals, who want to make a difference, who want to make a lot of money, who want to make an impact. I know I was that same way, but then you quickly realize that, you know, it's not going to happen as quickly as you maybe envisioned it was, as you were climbing those stairs and there's going to be a lot of do over moments along the way.

Joshua Rivers 06:10
So what would you say are the real challenges?

Paul Angone 06:12
Yeah, I would say some of the real challenges are, I mean, I guess it would be in some of the perceived challenges that I mentioned, as well, they do mirror some of the real challenges in the sense that, you know, the bachelor's degree doesn't get you as far as it used to, you know. Now you see a lot of 20 somethings today feeling, like, well, "I have to get my master's degree. I'm unemployed. I already have $30,000 in debt. But let me add just another $50,000 and get my MBA as well. Because I guess that's what I should do. Because my bachelor's degree feels as worth as a high school diploma." And then the fact that there just are a lot of millennials, especially, it's a big demographic. So you have a lot of people with a similar skill set, with similar experience, all applying for similar type jobs. So even though the job market has improved, we've seen that kind of thawing out a little bit, it's still a competitive market, especially for 20 somethings with this typical, certain kind of experience. So there are some challenges as far as, you know, maybe taking jobs that feel like "Man, this is not really a good fit." Or, "This is not the career path I want to be on." Or, "I'm really struggling here." So, how do you do your best work in jobs that don't feel the best? You know, how do you bring your best self to jobs that feel really wrong? And I think sometimes that is the challenge of your 20s, you know, that really lousy jobs are kind of this 20 something rite of passage sometimes. But I quickly learned as well that you learn a lot in the jobs that you like the least. And hopefully you learn the lessons quickly, so that you don't have to go and get another lousy job. You can keep progressing and increasing your skill set and making connections so that your next opportunity is a better opportunity. And then maybe also you're working on the side, and doing you know, the quote unquote "side hustle" as a 20 something. I think that's more the reality now than it is the rarity, that you're working a full time job, you're working your side hustle, you know, your dream that you're working at is feeding you while you work at your job and your job is feeding you while you work at your dream, but you're going to have to hustle a lot. And really success in your 20s is more about setting the table than it is about enjoying the feast. And in the process, you're going to have to ask yourself some really good questions about, "What is your 'why'? What is your significant 'why'? Why do you want to do what you do? And how are you going to get there?" And you have to be very strategic in the process, because again, those doors just aren't going to be flung open for you in your 20s, like, some of us, I think, expected it to be that way.

Joshua Rivers 09:04
So what are the secret advantages that this age range would have compared to other age ranges?

Paul Angone 09:11
Yeah, the thing about your 20s and the struggle, and the ambiguity, and the confusion that I see people working through as they're trying to find that path, as they're trying to find that place that feels like home, it can feel very unnerving. It can feel very uncomfortable. And this doesn't seem like an advantage per se, it seems like an uncomfortable place to be. But what I found out through my own story and then working with, you know, hundreds and thousands of 20 somethings at this point, is it's in that place of transition when you're the most uncomfortable that you're actually making the most progress. And that if you're feeling those feelings of angst or you feel like you're I'm going through a quarter life crisis, you know, as we're saying these days, well, gosh, that is a great time to, again, be flexible, to be open, to be fluid, you know, to start realizing that your 20s really isn't about life going as you planned, but it's about how you change and adapt and grow as it doesn't go as planned. And so again, I think that's that opportunity there, but you have to capitalize on it and that's why I'm so big on being strategic about the questions that you're asking. Because sometimes it can feel like you're overwhelmed with questions and ambiguity but we have to be asking the right questions. And that's why I wrote the book "101 Questions You Need to Ask in Your Twenties". It's kind of that culmination of 10 years of research and writing for me, that I wish I would have been asking earlier in my 20s, as I tried to figure out, "Okay, what is the career path I want to be on? How am I going to make this happen? How do I start strategically planning for this? And how do I start realizing, too, that the career path is probably going to look a lot different for 20 somethings now than it did 20, 30, 40 years ago?" I think it's a lot wind year, it's not the direct linear path up the corporate ladder as much anymore, and might look something like, kind of, like, island hopping. And that's the diagram that I created in my book. It's this island hopping career journey, where you're picking up different skills at different islands, and you have to be very strategic about how you're going about doing that. Because really, this is a generation that's, kind of, a creative mashup. You're this creative mashup that's creating creative mashups that are your own, and they're unique to you. And there's a great opportunity there to do good work, and to do your own work. But you have to take advantage of it and you have to plant those seeds in the ground and water them consistently. Because success, again, is just not going to happen in a day. It's like planting an avocado seed. It's going to take about 10 years before you see any fruits, and you got to be watering it a lot throughout the process.

Joshua Rivers 12:07
That is a long process.

Paul Angone 12:09
Yes, it is.

Joshua Rivers 12:10
Alright, so what advice would you give to someone who is in this age range and struggling with making their change?

Paul Angone 12:18
If you're struggling to make a change, if you're struggling to transition, if it feels too scary, well, I'll pose a question to everybody in that place that actually a gentleman named Seth Godin posed to me. And if you know Seth's work, he's this amazing author, speaker, thinker, he's written books like "Linchpin", you know, he's this New York Times bestselling author. And for my new book, "101 Questions You Need to Ask in Your Twenties", I reached out to Seth, who I've had the privilege to get to know over the years, and I asked set, I said, "Hey, what do you think is the question 20 somethings need to be asking themselves right now?" And then I was afraid to ask Seth this question. I was nervous. I'm like, I don't want to waste Seth's time, he's an important person. I don't want to bother Seth Godin with this question. But I finally asked him with, you know, trembling fingers and anxiety of, "what is Seth gonna think of me?" And then Seth replied back and, you know, about five minutes, he sent me back an email, and his question that he wanted me to include in the book to 20 somethings was, "What is fear holding you back from? And is it worth it?" And it was that, "is it worth it?" question that really spoke to me, you know, "is the fear that is holding me back, the fear that is keeping me from taking that risk, is it worth it?" And most of the time, it's not. You know, if we look back at different times in our life where we have taken that risk, those when we held ourselves back, and we felt anxious about it, we felt depressed, or we felt stuck, you know, that wasn't worth the forward movement that we then gained. So that's why I even say in my book, "101 Secrets for Your Twenties" the possibility for greatness and embarrassment, both exist in the same space. You can't do anything great if you're not willing to be embarrassed in the process. So if you're sitting there right now, and you're either making a change, or you're afraid to make a change, if transition feels overwhelming and scary, well, first of all, you're not alone. It's scary for everybody. Transition is difficult. It is a tough season to go through. There's a lot of breaking, in a sense, when you're transitioning. Just like a breakup, and literally a breakup is a transition, you're breaking up with something. And in your 20s, I think you're going through a lot of breakups, with your past, with your school, with relationships, with your home as you move, there's a lot of breakups, but as you transition, it's okay that you fail, you know, and it's almost cliche now that, you know, be comfortable with failing, you know, you're going to fail a lot, you're going to take those risks, but when you fail, don't begin calling yourself a failure. Because you're not. And again, you're not alone in this. And even though everybody is making their lives look amazing on social media, and we're kind of overwhelmed with what I call "obsessive comparison disorder" on social media, especially, as 20 somethings that we're constantly comparing ourselves every single post of every single day, you're okay, you know. And not everybody's life is as amazing as it looks, obviously, on Instagram. So reach out to people. Don't go on this journey alone, you know. Don't be that person that's struggling to make it appear like you're not struggling, reach out and pick up good resources to help you along the way, help, you know, find mentors, find guides that will help guide you in that transition. Because even though you might feel lost, you're also exploring, but explorers get lost on purpose with purpose. So that's the goal, intentional loss that's exploring on purpose with purpose and bringing along guides along the way to help you do that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:05
Okay, so that's 20s, right. And that wraps it up. But what about people who are not in their 20s? Or what happens once you get into your 30s? Well, we brought in somebody you might have heard before.

Lisa Lewis-Miller 16:19
Oh yeah, you can make excellent references to things that millennials or younger millennials are gonna consider vintage or won't even know about, like, N64, and all sorts of great stuff like that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:31
That's Lisa Lewis. She's a career change expert and a certified career coach on the Happen To Your Career team. You've heard her before on Episode 147, following the breadcrumbs to your dream career plus, like, 10 other episodes. Now she's worked with countless 30 somethings over the years. Here's what she had to say about the challenges of changing careers in your 30s.

Joshua Rivers 16:52
What are some of the perceived challenges... we're gonna talk about the real challenges on the minimum. What were some of the perceived challenges that people in this age range have when it comes to career changes?

Lisa Lewis-Miller 17:03
I think that the nuance between the perceived and the real challenge is so interesting, especially for folks in their 30s. Because, I mean, the age bracket of just turned 30 all the way to 39, about to turn 40, encompasses a huge amount of different perspectives, and life changes, life stage changes for most people. So it's hard to come up with any one descriptor that accurately covers everybody that's in that decade of their career. But some of the things that I tend to see pop up in different clusters of folks in their 30s are, number one, people put, especially high performers, smart, ambitious people will tend to put a huge amount of pressure on themselves to have figured it out. So, you know, the 20s felt like the decade of exploration and trying out new things, and, you know, didn't really matter, they were spending a lot of time doing other things that were important and just getting their lives together as adults. But then there's something about when the clock strikes 12, and on your 30th birthday, that seems to bring about this belief that... you've got to have it all figured out. And you got to know what you're doing and what path you're gonna be on for the rest of your life. And so one of the perceived challenges can just be, "This is where I'm supposed to be. And this is not where I am", and feeling the frustration and the pain between the expectation curve and the reality curve, and wishing that there was more overlap there than there is. So I think that's one big perceived challenge is this self imposed pressure and expectation that as if there were one right final answer, or one right final job that you would be doing for the end of your days. And I think, sort of paradoxically, an interesting thing that also pops up as a perceived challenge for folks in their 30s is oftentimes they feel like they're too far into whatever path they've been on to make a change. And sometimes that, you know, when you take a step back from that belief, it feels a little funky. Because if you think about how long they've been alive, or how long they've been in the working world, most people in their 30s have a whole another lifetime's worth of time left in the workforce alone, much less being alive on the planet, you know, Lord willing. But the fact that you can be at 35 feeling like it is, you know, you've invested so much and you've come so far that it's too late to turn around, but yet, you probably have another 30 to 35 years left in the workforce, depending on retirement age and the way that you structure your career. That perceived belief that, you know, "Well, I spent the past decade plus of my life working in environmental engineering" or "working in marketing and media and publicity" or, "I've spent that working as an educator, you know, as a fourth grade teacher.", it can be really painful to think that, you know, because you've invested so much, that there's no chance to make a pivot, make a change, make a correction, you know, do something completely wildly excitingly different, and go to say grad school to make a pivot from being a teacher into being a social worker, or making a pivot from being an environmental engineer into being a natural resources economist or something else like that. So I think that's probably number two of the perceived limitations, or perceived challenges. And I think number three for perceived challenges can be a real grappling with the difference between the expectation and the reality of who you are and what your priorities are right now in life. Because in your 30s, there is such a great amount of reorganization and reclarification and prioritization of your values. Because so often, the 30s are the decade in which you have a massive financial means to make an investment into a home, or you have a master relationship capital that you are engaging in a long term romantic relationship, maybe adding kids to the mix. If you're going to have a furbaby, you've probably gotten it if you're in your 30s. And so fundamentally, the things that you value are different than what they were in your 20s, and your teens, at some level. There are going to be some foundational values that don't change for you. But even the way you organize them relative to one another, can change. And so a perceived limitation, I think, when you're in your 30s, is being beholden to previous versions of you, and what that previous self would have wanted. Because what you're telling yourself would have wanted for your career, for everything else that career effects in your life can be wildly different than what the real 30s version of you is interested in having or not having.

Joshua Rivers 22:03
All right, so then, what are the real challenges?

Lisa Lewis-Miller 22:06
So I think that of the perceived challenges of seeking a new opportunity in your 30s, that there are hits of all of those that are real challenges, you know, the underlying theme, that's a real challenge among all three of those different perceived challenges, is having dug in your heels on a specific set of beliefs about who you are, what you're capable of, that you might perceive as being unchangeable, but are fundamentally creations inside of your brain, which with the next breath you take into your body, you could decide are not true or not true for you, or different for you. And so I think that a real challenge of being in your 30s is paying exquisitely close attention to the things that you believe to be true or not true about who you are, what you're capable of, and what matters to you, and giving yourself permission to rewrite the script and rewrite those beliefs as bits and serves you in that specific era. Because... just because your life has changed, and you have new priorities, and maybe you have a house, and maybe you have two kids, doesn't mean you couldn't have a, say, three month sabbatical, where you take off and pull the kids out of school and go travel around the world. You know, there's no reason that some of the dreams that might have gone with a less rooted, less tethered lifestyle can't still exist for you. But your perception about what's available or not available for you can make a big, big difference. So giving yourself the space and the permission and the openness to keep pursuing the things that bring you joy, even when the people and the models around you are tending to be a little bit more rooted, a little bit more stable, you know, a lot of times in your 30s is where, especially, I think, for women, as you're thinking about potentially having kids or wanting to be a really active role in their lives, I think that oftentimes... excuse me, oftentimes, this is where the Sheryl Sandberg "Lean In" principle, it starts to pop up because there's a real temptation to try to lean back a little bit in your career to create more space to be with your family. And I think that, you know, one of the beautiful things that Sheryl does through her book is talks about ways that you can have your cake and eat it too, and continue to have fulfilling, exciting, meaningful work and ask for more and ask for more responsibilities and draw smarter boundaries to get yourself the support that you're needing so that you don't burn out or sacrifice really important priority time with family, while also creating the time and space for what you need. Because by the point that you're in your 30s, if you're in a more typical corporate setting, you probably have people working under you and you have people that you can delegate to and take some things off of your plate and be a little bit more particular and choosey about what the things are that you are in your zone of genius when you're working on, such that, the things where you might be in a lower zone of competence, you know, even in your zone of excellence that you could delegate those to somebody else who for whom that might be their zone of genius, that you can stay focused and productive, and executing on the stuff that's really joyful, and flowing and meaningful for you, while also, getting out of the workplace at a time that makes sense, so that you can honor the other things in your life. So I think that the perception game and figuring out what's available to you, and what you've told yourself as available, is one of the biggest challenges of being in your 30s. And also being willing to set the boundaries to protect the values that are the most important for you, whether those boundaries are with your family, whether it's with your job, whether it's with yourself, you know, whether it's with the way that you're honoring other things that are important to you, but aren't quite as important to you. Those are probably the biggest real challenges that being in your 30s can start to bring up.

Joshua Rivers 26:06
What are the secret advantages that they have over other age renews?

Lisa Lewis-Miller 26:11
Well, I think being in your 30s is kind of like a secret weapon time of your career. Because, you know, when you're in your 20s, the perceived age discrimination things that can pop up for you just based on your age alone, and your competence and your commitment and your interest staying in a place for the long term, and your ability to make a contribution at a more leadership level are, you know, really societally determined. And similarly, once you start to get into your 40s and 50s, there's a new and different creative way of age discrimination that pops up, that, you know, based on people below you in age, getting more power and responsibility and having certain preconceived notions about how adaptive or flexible people in their 40s and 50s and 60s are in the workplace. So 30 is our a pretty sweet spot to be in terms of having a secret superpower that, first, nobody has these really entrenched deep beliefs about what people in their 30s are or not capable of. You know, you see people in their 30s, making career transitions and coming in, much lower on the organization's chart totem pole than you might imagine, for someone at that age. But they also are so dedicated and so willing to work hard and make great contributions that they'll climb up quickly. And conversely, a lot of folks in their 30s are already stepping into VP level type roles, and some even C suite level roles depending on the organization and its size, and how long their tenure there has been. So the secret weapon part about being or the secret advantage part about being in your 30s is that there's nothing that you can't do, if you don't want to. Being in your 30s gives you tons of time to... if you want to pull the emergency brake on whatever career path you've been marching down and do something wildly different, you have so much time to do that. I mean, if you're 39, and you decide at that moment, you want to go back to school and go to med school, even if you have to do some prerequisites, by the time you get out of med school, you will still have at least 15 years of time as a practitioner, which is plenty of time to go ahead and pay off those student loans, create a rich life for yourself, get to help the people that it feels really joyful and meaningful for you to help and create this second chapter that would be really, really fun and fulfilling and exciting for you. So I don't think there are any secret superpowers or advantages about being in your 30s. I think they're all pretty explicit that you know enough about the world to be able to create a lot of value, you have gained enough experiences and skills to be wildly helpful, you are mostly sort of older millennials, so you've grown up with a lot of technology, so you feel really technologically fluent, and easily able to dive right in with a lot of the millennials. But you also are far enough along in your career that you can hang with folks in their 40s and 50, you know, sitting in a boardroom or around a conference room table, and be respected and valued like a top contributor. So being in your 30s is a pretty rad place to be.

Joshua Rivers 29:24
What advice would you give to somebody who's in this age range, and struggling with making the change?

Lisa Lewis-Miller 29:31
Well, number one, if you are in your 30s, you are old enough to know that asking for help is not a bad thing. And if you are struggling, and you're not asking for help, what the heck are you doing? You're bringing it all upon yourself. This is like a new and interesting way that a perceived belief or a limitation is getting in your way of doing what it is that you want to do. Because you're at the stage in your career, most likely, where you've had enough time to build up some capital and you can afford to invest in things for yourself, whether that's books, classes, a graduate degree, coaching, therapy, all sorts of other stuff that can make a huge impact and a huge difference in your day to day happiness, in your sense of clarity about what's next for you, and the path and the accountability to make that change happen. And by the time that you're in your 30s, you probably have a little bit more of an established community around you, whether or not, you are in a long term romantic relationship, you know, you have had enough time to really develop some beautiful adult friendships, you are probably playing a new and different role within your family unit than you were when you were in your early 20s. And you have so many other people around you that your happiness, your fulfillment, or conversely, your sense of unhappiness, or dissatisfaction can have ripple effects on. And we know that having dissatisfaction over the long term has ripple effects, even for yourself, in terms of your health, your physical health, your mental health, in terms of your excitement and your energy level, in terms of the way that you're thinking about and viewing your life and in terms of the people that you're attracting into your life. And if you have the choice and the option to make a change and go after something that's new and exciting, why not set yourself up for success in every possible way? Why not double down on taking a class, and having a coach and reading the books and finding the mentors and doing everything else to make it as easy as possible? Because you probably have a lot of things going on in your life, you know, it's not the same sort of like untethered freeness, that a lot of folks in their 20s tend to experience, you know, you have a lot of things that are pulling on your time and your energy every day. So why not invest in systems and programs that will make it as efficient as possible for you to make a transition? Because anybody and everybody can do it on their own, if they can find the time, if they can create the mental clarity and space, if they read the right books, they do the right research, all that good stuff. But if you don't have to go at it alone, and there's no reward for making that transition without getting help and external perspectives. And in fact, there might be things available to you by asking friends, family and outside experts for help that you couldn't get to on your own, why not do it? Maybe sort of an important extra clarification to add would be that the sort of older part of the 30 spectrum that falls into a little bit of that No Man's Land, which is like I don't quite feel like Gen X, I don't quite feel like Gen Y, I don't quite feel like a millennial, I didn't completely grow up with technology. So while I feel technologically literate, I also don't feel like I'm as fluent as some of my counterparts. I think that that actually can even buy you more street cred with your more experienced peers, to be able to really have a seat at the table there and to be empathetic to their mindse.

Jessica Sweet 33:06
You do have the tools, whether you know it or not. There are things that are working to your advantage, even if you feel like you're in kind of the worst possible situation.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:18
That's Jessica Sweet of Wishing Well Coaching. She specializes in peeps that are in their 40s and she's also an expert in career change. Now, here's her thoughts on the perceived challenges of making a career change at 40.

Jessica Sweet 33:32
So I think, in their 40s, people have sort of psychologically hit an age where a perceived challenge is their age. So, you know, when you're not in your 30s anymore, you've kind of crossed a threshold. And you're sort of in this funny space, which is middle age, so you're too far into your career, to feel like you can just drop everything and restart. But you've got too much career left to just stick it out. So I think a perceived challenge is being in this funny place where you're feeling particularly stuck and being at that middle age. So I think age has a couple of different ways in which it's sticky in your 40s. So it's that... it's being in that very stuck place where you're right in the middle to far end to just drop everything and restart but also to much ahead of you to stick it out, and then age also being sticky because there's this perception of ageism. So people feel that they're going to be looked at and perceived as, "too old in the marketplace" and be discriminated against.

Joshua Rivers 35:03
So what would you say are the real challenges, then?

Jessica Sweet 35:06
I think ageism is a real challenge, it does begin to be a thing. I don't think it's unrealistic to think that that is something that is a real challenge. I don't think it's an insurmountable challenge. But I do think it is a challenge for people. I think another challenge is that people are, at this point, usually, you know, into a job for several years. So, you know, some people have had several jobs. But a lot of people that I've talked to have been at a job for, you know, 5 years, 10 years, 15 years more, and they haven't interviewed for a long time. They haven't been, they haven't kept their skills, very sharp in terms of knowing how to get a new job, you know, knowing how to network, keeping their network alive, just being really on the edge of that type of thing. So a real challenge is figuring out, "how do I kind of get back out there?", it's almost like the dating scene, you know, you don't really know how to get yourself back out there, again. And so a real challenge is figuring that out, figuring out how to do that, even figuring out what you want to do is a real challenge. And when you're at that stage that I talked about before, where you're kind of too far into, just give everything up and start again, and you have too much career ahead of you to just stick it out, and you're sort of woken up in the middle, and then you realize you don't like your career, being in that place where you realize you don't like what you're doing can be very, very uncomfortable. So that's a real challenge to be stuck in the middle there and realize, "Oh, I don't like what I'm doing. I need to figure something else out. I don't know how to do that. And I cant... I'm really stuck between a rock and a hard place. I can't stay in, I can't get out. I don't know what to do." So that can be a real challenge that I've seen people struggle with.

Joshua Rivers 37:13
Alright, so what would you say are the secret advantages that they would have over other age ranges?

Jessica Sweet 37:20
So a couple of things. One is the years of experience that people have. So people do, at this point, have a lot of experience under their belt. They've done a lot of things in their career, they've seen a lot of things. And another thing is that whether you know it or not, you probably do have a lot of networking contacts. And most people that I talked to, that is the case. So it doesn't have to mean that you have, you know, 500 plus LinkedIn contacts, or that you go to networking events all the time, your networking context can be, you know, your neighbor, your brother's friend, it doesn't matter how you're connected to these people, but at this point in your career, and in this point in your life, you do usually know a fair amount of people. And those people, those connections are advantages to you. Because knowing people, having connections, being able to reach out to people, that's the way that you will usually make the connection to your next position. So that's a real advantage. When you're just starting out in your career, it's harder because you haven't had the breadth of experience and you haven't had the time to make that number of connections. And so it's a real advantage to have done that already.

Joshua Rivers 38:43
What advice would you give to somebody who's in this age range, and is struggling with making their change?

Jessica Sweet 38:49
So I would say, don't stay stuck. A lot of people that I talked to wait and they hope that something's going to change, you know, they sit in their career and they think, "Well, something will shift for them. Something will happen in their jobs. They'll get a promotion. You know, something will show them the, sort of, the way through." And sometimes, yes, that happens, but a lot of times, I've talked to people who have waited years and nothing's happened, or something's happened, but it hasn't made them any happier. So I think the advice that I would give is, be proactive and figure out what it is that you want to do. Don't just stick it out and hope for something to change, hope for something to happen to you, figure out actively what it is that you want and go and make it happen because you can do that, you do have the tools, whether you know it or not, there are things that are working to your advantage even if you feel like you're in kind of the worst possible situation.

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:57
Okay, so we've heard from 20s and 30s and 40s. But what happens when you get into your 50s? Or even above your 50s? What about that?

Marc Miller 40:08
I set achievable goals in the mornings. My first goal is to get hit the feet, hit the floor and get out of bed. If I get that done, I go, "yes!"

Scott Anthony Barlow 40:16
That voice you hear is Marc Miller of careerpivot.com. Mark did 22 years at IBM, he worked for some tech startups, he's been all over the place and been there and done that. Here's what Marc had to say about the perceived challenges when you get into your 50s and above.

Marc Miller 40:33
People in their 50s and 60s, they have these things called obligations. And they're usually larger than your obligations, because I hear your obligations in the background, and these are usually mortgages, finally putting kids through college, we're supposed to be at our peak earning years, unfortunately, what's happened to most of us is we went through two brutal recessions when we're supposed to be saving up for retirement. So the reality is the vast majority are still trying to save money, so they may eventually someday retire. So the challenge is, is we can't quite take the risks that the younger generations can do, because we don't have the career one way left. And in fact, I, many of us are going to have to work into our 70s, and so a lot of, you know, I did a blog post a week ago on the fact is, if you're going to work into your 70s, you need to start planning that in your 50s. Because it's probably not going to be a j-o-b, it's going to be something a collection of things that you're going to be doing. So we can't quite take the risks that the younger generations can.

Joshua Rivers 41:53
What are the real challenges?

Marc Miller 41:55
Well, I think the real challenges is number one, obviously, the elephant in the room is age discrimination. There is, you know, we are going through a massive demographic shift, where we've been used to being in control to, I mean, I was raised to be an employee, to go work for a father like company that would take care of me. And after 30 or 40 years, I would be able to go off and retire. Well, two thirds the way through, they moved my cheese. And so making the kinds of shifts that are going on with the economy, we're not used to that. We are seeing massive creative destruction happening at an ever accelerating rate, and, I mean, I've got here... I got an iPhone 6s sitting in front of me, think of what the iPhone and smartphones have done, and the amount of industries they've destroyed, the amount of industries they've created. But they've also equally destroyed even more. And that kind of shift is we have to stay nimble on our feet. And that's not something we were necessarily expecting to be able to do at this age. It's a matter of learning how to shift, say, bob and weave like Muhammad Ali. Sorry, that wasn't part of the plan.

Joshua Rivers 43:24
So what would you say are the secret advantages that you may have at your age range as compared to other age ranges?

Marc Miller 43:33
Well, I think the number one thing is we have our work ethic, we are used to coming to work, getting the job done. Like I said, I was raised to be employee. I wasn't raised to follow my passion. I was raised to go get a job, and it was supposed to be fun. And so therefore, if you tell me to come in and do a job, we are going to come in, we are going to show up. By the way, we're going to probably hang around for longer than the younger generations. By the way, the younger generations change more often because that's what we told them to do because they were our kids. But we're gonna stick around and we are going to be loyal. So that is one of the key points as we are going to adapt. But you know what? When all said and done, at the end of the day, you're going to be happy with our work.

Joshua Rivers 44:34
What advice would you give to someone who is in this age range and struggling with making their change?

Marc Miller 44:41
Okay, number one, we are used to being in control. When you're making these kinds of changes, you have no control. In other words, you have no control over when jobs open, you have very little control. So number one, you have to be able to move and react and prepare in doing it differently. A lot of our generation, what we did was we react to these things happened. Rather than in this day and age, you need to make your opportunities. And the other piece is your next job, or your next career is going to come through a relationship. One of the challenges that many of us, in my generation, we've... our careers progressed because of relationships, but very often those relationships have aged out. No words. The folks who helped us get us to where we are today are have either retired or died, or no longer in a position of power. So therefore, you need to build new relationships. And yes, it is usually with people who are younger than you, and start forging those relationships, because that's where it's gonna come. Many of us have gotten used to it, we kind of forgot the fact that these relationships are what got us to where we are today, but, by the way, a lot of those relationships have gone away. So you're going to have to go create more.

Joshua Rivers 46:28
Is there any other comments or things you have regarding somebody in your age range, making a career change?

Marc Miller 46:35
One of the most valuable connectors you will have, that you probably don't think of, is this concept of weak ties. And weak ties are relationships that you... people who you don't know well, these are people you've probably worked with in the last 10, 20 or 30 years. So a good example of this is particularly if you have older children or even adult children, think about this, your adult children's friends' parents, Josh, you look like you got young kids, one of the most valuable things to you will be your kids' friends' parents, because they have networks that are very, very different from yours. They know people you know. And again, your next, every transition you're going to make is going to come through a relationship. I had a near fatal bicycle accident 15 years ago. I decided to go teach high school math. My most valuable connector was my chiropractor. She knew lots of people I didn't know. So hopefully I've planted a few seeds there.

Scott Anthony Barlow 47:54
Okay, for any section of this podcast, no matter whether you're in your 20s, 30s, 40s or 50s, you can actually go over to happentoyourcareer.com/232, that's happentoyourcareer.com/232, and be able to download the mini guide that we've put together containing all of this information, and what some of the hardest parts are, and also some of the special unique advantages you have at any age, because quite frankly, I want you to be able to understand what those real challenges are, but also, what you can and should use as your advantage, too, that's a big deal. That's kind of what we do here at Happen To Your Career, and that's kind of why we spend so much time talking about strengths. Well, some of those things come along with different age and life experience, too, which is pretty cool, as well, use it. You got it, right. Okay. I hope you enjoy that. If you love this episode, this is the first time we've done this particular type of episode before in this way. And if you loved it, I want to hear from you, drop an email to hello@happentoyourcareer.com and let me know what you thought of the episode and if you want more. If you hated it, too, and, you know, you love some of our other episodes instead, let us know that as well. It's all good. And guess what? We've got plenty more coming up next week, right here on Happen To Your Career. So take a listen to what we've got in store for you next week on the Happen To Your Career podcast.

Phillip Migyanko 49:19
I feel like the first one is, "what's next?" It's that, what's next mentality, where they've been taking all these tests and trying to figure out what might be that next scenario, even taking BuzzFeed questions and quizzes. It's really trying to figure out how do you translate all of those skills that you have into finding a great career that you're also excited about?

Scott Anthony Barlow 49:42
That's right, all that and plenty more next week it's here on the Happen To Your Career. I will see you next week when the episode releases on Monday. Alright. I am out. Adios.