Are you feeling the pull towards a career shift but can't seem to let go of the comfort zone?
Kate Richardson, a career transition coach with a compelling backstory of her own, joins us to shed light on the often intimidating but ultimately rewarding world of mid-career changes. We dive into the essence of change, discussing why so many find themselves at this crossroads and how it's less about leaping into the unknown and more about taking thoughtful, strategic steps towards a redefined sense of self.
This episode isn't just about the "what" and "why" of career transitions but also the "how." We discuss the transformative 'messy middle,' or liminal space, where the magic of growth happens, and how action, not pre-existing confidence, is the true catalyst for change.
This episode is a celebration of the courage to follow one's own path, the shifts in perspective that come with it, and the profound impact it can have on personal fulfilment.
You can connect with Kate via LinkedIn and get help and resources on your own transition path at her website.
Coal Mine Rhythm - Short Version B by Dan Ayalon
Are you feeling the pull towards a career shift but can't seem to let go of the comfort zone?
Kate Richardson, a career transition coach with a compelling backstory of her own, joins us to shed light on the often intimidating but ultimately rewarding world of mid-career changes. We dive into the essence of change, discussing why so many find themselves at this crossroads and how it's less about leaping into the unknown and more about taking thoughtful, strategic steps towards a redefined sense of self.
This episode isn't just about the "what" and "why" of career transitions but also the "how." We discuss the transformative 'messy middle,' or liminal space, where the magic of growth happens, and how action, not pre-existing confidence, is the true catalyst for change.
This episode is a celebration of the courage to follow one's own path, the shifts in perspective that come with it, and the profound impact it can have on personal fulfilment.
You can connect with Kate via LinkedIn and get help and resources on your own transition path at her website.
Coal Mine Rhythm - Short Version B by Dan Ayalon
Kate Richardson is a mid-career Well, let's call it career transition coach. Amongst a number of things, kate, firstly, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Thanks, greg, good to be here.
Speaker 1:It's so cool to have you here and this is a super interesting topic for me. I have a real passion for seeing people do what they love and hearing about you from my own coach, kate, who is an absolute rock star of a coach. She is amazing. Kate put me on to Kate Richardson and when I started to have a bit of a look at what you do, I just thought this is a super, super, super cool thing, and I did a little bit of research, as you would expect when we're going to do a podcast interview. But one of the things that I found really intriguing is back when you first started studying at the University of Sydney. You spent some time on a I think it was a former karaoke boat that you studied on and actually worked with six workers in Vietnam. That sounds like a super fascinating place to start and maybe kind of helping us understand how you got to be where you are now.
Speaker 2:Well, that is a good place to start because it's a good reminder that I have spent. I've had a few career changes along the way. So prior to that I was working in the cultural sector and I thought, hmm, need something new. So I started a master's in international relations at Sydney Uni and I'd always wanted to do some kind of volunteering. So, yes, I threw a series of connections, I landed in Cambodia, it was actually and spent some time with an amazing offshoot of Oxfam that was doing a lot of work with women, garment workers and sex workers and really helping them develop their own grassroots activism capabilities and build a network and build support. And it was just one of those incredible experiences that I'm so grateful for. And then it sounds like a strange segue, but then I kind of ended up back in the corporate sector.
Speaker 1:And you sort of were in the corporate sector for some time. You had a whole bunch of really senior roles in marketing and strategy and those sorts of things. And then you had this almost like I want to call it an epiphany I don't know if that's how you would describe it but a moment where you thought I need to make some changes myself and then from there your move into helping others with careers was birthed. Is that an accurate assessment or you're afraid to pull that apart.
Speaker 2:No, that's right. I'm not sure it was an epiphany. I think someone described the career transition process in terms of the point at which you reached the decision where you just know something has to change as a long, simmering process, and I think that's a really accurate description, and it was certainly my experience in that. For about five years prior to that, I was thinking oh, I just want to do something different. I'd always had a little dream in the back pocket to do my own thing, but I just didn't know what the thing was. And I think it's actually that desire for certainty and the answer that keeps people stuck, because you think, ok, well, once I figure out the answer to what's next, well then I'll make my plan and I'll make it happen. But what usually occurs is you just keep circling that same question. It's hard to get off the mental merry-go-round. So career transition is actually about letting go of having all the answers at the beginning and just getting started and being open to possibility and what you might discover along the way.
Speaker 1:Is career transition typically something that does happen mid-career or is this something that can happen really at any point in your career?
Speaker 2:It's interesting when you look at the data, I think we think of mid-career as that most typical transition point, and not just in career two, but often in life. But if you look at the data, life is about transitions, and we often experience those at different points in time. I do think, though, there is definitely a moment when you're, let's say, in your 40s and there's data to support this too in your 40s, maybe even sort of late 40s when you start to think is this what I really want to do? How do the next 10 or 20 years look? Is this what it's all for? Is this what it's all about? And it's a natural point to kind of put the head up You've created an established career, you've done some years, but often that's a moment where your value priorities start to shift, or your view on the role that work plays in your life and the kind of work you want to do and how you want to work and maybe even where you want to work can definitely change.
Speaker 1:And sort of touching on that in terms of the role that work plays on your life. How much of a role does work play on your identity?
Speaker 2:Oh, it's huge. It's such a good point, greg, because, if you think about it, when you go to make a change as I said, typically when you're mid-career you've developed an established career, you've built networks, you've probably invested money in your education, you've certainly invested a lot in getting to that point, so there is a Really. What that does is define your working identity in a very particular way. So when you start to think about doing something different, you're not just thinking about changing jobs or some of the practical aspects of career change, but you're actually thinking about changing a part of who you are, and that's actually a significant aspect of why career change can feel so daunting. Well, if I'm not Kate from Marketing, who am I?
Speaker 2:And also because that's how other people see us and that's why, too, when you're looking at making a transition, it's so important to connect with different people and people that don't know you as well, who know different things, different industries, what we might call our weak ties, because those people don't have such a fixed idea about us and therefore they can be more open to where we might go and also, obviously, they can help us understand different pathways and different options. But our strong ties family and friends can sometimes be resistant to us changing, although they may just have quite a fixed idea about how they see us from a work perspective. So I've certainly had clients say things like oh, I told my brother I was thinking of moving out of 20 years in the UN to do something completely different and he was like wow, why would you do that? You've got all this experience. They just can't see it, and that can often get in the way of making a change.
Speaker 1:Do you think sometimes some of that is also to do with the fact that in a way, you're disrupting them as well? So it's not just your own life, but even if they're not necessarily in your household, you're not financially affecting them, even when we can get to that but they are your brother or your father, mother, sister, et cetera. So they're not living with you, but they feel challenged by you moving and changing because it disrupts them. Is that something you see?
Speaker 2:Yes, and I think also, what it does is it triggers other people's judgments, insecurities and fears.
Speaker 2:So, in my own experience, for example, at the end of 2017, I'd been in my job for five years I'd been going round and round on that mental merry-go-round and I thought, look, I've just got to step off so I can get some clear air and start to think about what's next. And I was lucky enough to have some holiday saved up. My partner had long service leave, so we did take a trip. But I remember telling somebody at a barbecue I said, oh, look, I've quit my job. And she said, wtf, what the hell? What did you do that for? And it really it triggered me actually, because I thought I was still in the throes of uncertainty that comes with making that kind of significant decision, but it was just such a potent reminder that, as I said, you trigger other people's fears and worries when you make, well, any kind of a decision, really, but particularly that kind of significant decision that might be out of step with their values or the way that they see people should operate in their working life.
Speaker 1:And do you see often that these sort of decisions are also tied up with other big life choices, maybe relationships, maybe where they are living, which country they want to be living in, not just the work that they want to be doing? Are they often? Do they go hand in hand?
Speaker 2:They certainly can, and I think there can be that point where you're evaluating your broader life too, because work is life and life is work to a degree, and those examples you just shared demonstrate that I think there are also. You know, covid is probably the best example in recent times of something that just created a kind of tectonic shift when it came to the way that people viewed work and their career. It really has, I think, changed a lot about the way people think in terms of, yes, I can have a career break and maybe I do want something different, and I thought I was on this trajectory, but hang on. A second global crisis has come along, disrupted everything I thought about job security and my future and really thrown up a whole lot of questions around yeah, where I want to live or how I can work. It's opened up so many more possibilities, so I think that has definitely prompted a real shift in people's thinking.
Speaker 1:And when you see people coming to see you and they're coming to see you for the first time is there generally a common catalyst that's created them coming to see you? Has it been, you know, the death of a close family member, maybe COVID, maybe dissatisfaction with work? You know what is it? That's the most common reason. You think that's kind of, if you like, unshackled them from their previous way of thinking.
Speaker 2:I think typically there's a real build up over time. I was just looking at someone I'm going to be meeting with later today who was talking about oh, I first thought about this 12 years ago and I think it's not uncommon for people to think about it for at least a few years. And I think it just builds up and up until the steam's rising in the pot and the lid's just got to come off. Something has to change and sometimes there is a catalyst, like in my own experience, for example. I had, as I mentioned, thought about doing my own thing in different ways over time, but it was the death of someone in my partner's family at quite a young age that really changed the way I was looking at things and it made me think well, if not now, then when am I going to do it? So I think those moments can be a real catalyst.
Speaker 2:I find obviously the other obvious one is when people lose their job, and obviously we've seen a bit more of that in the last 12 months with redundancies across different sectors. But I find when people are in that mode, sometimes it's an opportunity to take a step back and really shake things up. It's a forced kind of change if you like. But other times people are in a which is completely understandable. They're in more of a scarcity mindset and they're thinking well, I just need to get the next thing. I can't be kind of taking that step back at this moment in time.
Speaker 1:And I remember I'm in my mid 50s now and I remember writing an article and I probably would have been in my mid, probably early 40s actually when I wrote this article and it was having a little bit of a crack at guys. I'm a guy and I can identify with where guys in their 40s are at or where I was at the time, and I would see this scenario. So they would have a really happy life. They had their partner, they were happily married or partnered up with their person.
Speaker 1:They often had kids, they often lived in an area that they really loved and they had the white picket fence almost. They enjoyed the lifestyle they had, but they hated their jobs and who they had become in their jobs. And when time came for conversation with them about, hey, maybe you should make a job, it was always that make a change, sorry, it was always that, well, I can't because I've got a mortgage and we live in this nice area and the kids in a nice schools and I would need to drop my income, etc. Is that a common sort of point of resistance for people?
Speaker 2:Definitely. And I think you know I've heard people describe it as they feel trapped. They've got, as you say, the big mortgage and the nice lifestyle and, yeah, maybe up until that point work has served them well, but something is changing and they feel unable to get out from under the weight of work. So, yes, I think that is a not uncommon scenario. I think anybody who is mid-career is going. You know, there's always going to be psychological resistance, change for anybody.
Speaker 2:But I think when you're mid-career it is a little bit more of a unique moment in time, because often you do have responsibilities, you do have family or you do have financial considerations, and so when you start to think about doing something different, you think, oh well, I just can't go and I can't go and leave my job tomorrow, I can't just throw it all in, I can't, you know, run off into the sunset.
Speaker 2:But I think that's also, just, you know, our brain playing that role of being a reason-giving machine. You know, as soon as you start to think about doing anything remotely outside of your comfort zone, your brain's always going to say here's all the reasons why you shouldn't do it. You know, stay in your lane, don't do anything different. And that's why, as part of the work that I do, I always talk about the explorer's mindset, which is look, you don't actually need to commit to a big change at the start, you just need to open the door to possibility, because when you do that, you can take small steps to explore. And it's that process of exploration that helps you de-risk a move, helps you test your assumption, helps you challenge those limiting beliefs that you might have and figure out what is a practical reality, because, of course, there are practical considerations when it comes to making a change, but it helps you identify what is a practical reality versus what is just a story that you're telling yourself.
Speaker 1:It's a really interesting point. When you talk about you know, we're always looking for reasons or we're not actually looking for them. They present themselves through our monkey brain. Interestingly, I know when I would challenge these guys, you know a number of years ago about this sort of stuff, and I would say to them things like but if you've got a four-bedroom home, you could move to a three-bedroom home, you could move three suburbs further away, so you've got cheaper housing. But again, it all just seemed too hard. And yet their very essence of who they were, their identity, their work was something that was not bringing them, you know, fulfillment and meaning, and yet they still weren't prepared to make those changes. Do you see many people who make quite dramatic shifts? I saw something on your website actually, about somebody who'd worked in insurance and became a tram driver and I just bloody love that. I just thought that was excellent. But do you see people make really quite dramatic change?
Speaker 2:Some people do. That's a good example. I, you know, I've also had someone who you know was working in advertising who gave that up to become an outback station hand. So some people make those kind of poster changes, if you like. But everyone's definition of change is different and for some people it's more about becoming really intentional about what their career looks like. So, for example, I've had someone who was in quite a senior year old university, going for a promotion, decide not to take that promotion as a part of doing some of this work because she recognized that there was no alignment with her value. So that wasn't necessarily about making a dramatic change, but it was about being really intentional about her decision making.
Speaker 2:But I think the when people think about career change and perhaps those dramatic or radical examples point to that when people think about career change, they see it as this really big leap. Oh it's. It's kind of, you know, stepping off the edge of the cliff. And I always remind people it's more like stepping off with a parachute. You're not dropping straight to the bottom. There's a you know, quite a few steps between the top, you know, and the ground there and part of this is just recognizing. Again, if you see it as a big leap. You're just never going to do anything because it's too daunting. And it's really about bringing it back to.
Speaker 2:What are the possibilities? How can I take small steps to explore so, as you touched on earlier, so I could start to actually see and experience what a different working identity might be like? What is it like? Maybe I'll do a few side consultations so I can start to actually experiment with the identity of moving from being corporate executive to consultant. There's all of the practical things you need to know, of course, like what's that job actually like and what would I get paid and what's the pathway and what would I need to do to make the transition. But part of this experimentation is also, you know, you've got to put that new jacket on. It might just think, oh, this isn't me, this is pretty uncomfortable, but you need to kind of wear it and see how it fits and see how you experience it.
Speaker 1:And do you ever get people who have made the change and maybe it's quite a large change and then go oh my God, this is not what I thought it was going to be. It's way worse than I thought it was going to be and actually it's gone the other way. Does that happen, or is that very rare?
Speaker 2:That doesn't happen to me, but I've certainly talked with people who have done that. So to give you an example, so one of the clients that I was working with worked as a technology program manager and she had a real passion for nutrition. She went off to study nutrition, she started working as a nutritionist and she realized that she didn't actually want to be working one-to-one with people. She wanted to be collaborating, working in a team, and to me, that's just a classic example of how, when you rush a decision and you don't actually invest enough time to turn an idea or a theory about where you could go into a reality, you can make really bad decisions. To me, that's an obvious one that you could figure out if you spend a little bit of time, for example, talking to people who are working in the nutrition space. Well, what's your day look like? How do you find working one-to-one with people? If you've made a transition, what do you miss about the kind of work you used to do before, etc. Etc.
Speaker 1:And so how do you physically help people make that or practically help people make that transition? Do they run through some sort of process? Do you do an assessment at the beginning? How would that typically work?
Speaker 2:I've got a five step framework that I use, and part of it was informed by my own change of course. I just felt like when I was at that point I just didn't know what to do. Hence the five years ticking on by and I felt like a lot of other people my age in their 40s at that point early 40s were grappling with those exact same questions. So part of it is I've incorporated what I've learned along the way from other people and part of it is being that bowel bird and cobbling bits and pieces together. But what I think I've created is a really effective five step framework for career change and it starts with reflection values what's really important to you, because that can change or shift at different points in time. Things can come in and out of focus and I think when you really clear on what's most important to you in that next chapter, you can make good decisions. Strengths being not just what you're in sorry, not just what you're good at, but what you're energised by, that's super important. And also reflecting on what do you actually want your working life to look like. So, for example, when you think about your ideal working day, what does that involve? You may not necessarily know the job and you may not necessarily be able to realise it instantly, but if you can envisage it for yourself, then you can start to look at what progress might mean and how you can take small steps in that direction. So, what's important to me, what am I not just good at, but energised by, and what do I want my working life to look like? And you can ask those questions. That gives you a natural springboard or a point from which you can then think a little bit more strategically about okay, well, what are the possibilities for the next step? And that process is really important because you've got to have a rich divergent lease.
Speaker 2:When you've been doing something or a couple of things over a long period of time, it can feel really hard to think outside of that.
Speaker 2:So it's really about stretching your thinking Because, again, you're not committing to anything at this stage. You're just thinking through possibilities. And then, when you've got a list of possibilities, of course you don't want to run off and explore 10 different things at once, but you can then take two or three of those possibilities and really lean into learning more about them. So you don't make that mistake, like the person who shifted into nutrition that I mentioned earlier, you get really clear on what the path entails, what it looks like and what you need to do to get there, and then you can make a more confident and informed decision. Because if you've got that very established career even if it's, you know you're one of those guys you were talking about earlier where you're just not really happy and you desperately want to make a change. But if you can't see what's on the other side of change, you're just never going to do anything about it because it just feels too impractical and too scary.
Speaker 1:Do you see any differences by gender? Do you see that maybe guys have a particular approach to it and women have another approach to it? Or is it just common threads you just see right across humanity?
Speaker 2:I would say really common threads. People use the same language. I feel stuck, I don't know what to do. I don't know what other jobs are out there. All the language is very similar. I think probably what this is not necessarily a gender thing, but obviously sometimes rest with men is anyone who feels like they're financially responsible. I'm the breadwinner, I earn the biggest salary. I think that can just feel like a really tough thing to get your head around, but look, the same philosophy applies. You don't have to walk away from that big paying job and also I've had clients who've got pay rises. People just automate. There's kind of a number of beliefs which just pop up as soon as you start thinking about doing something different. I'll have to start again, I won't earn enough, I don't have the skills, no one's going to support me to make that shift, et cetera, et cetera. So all those kinds of reasons, as we were talking about earlier, are fairly consistent across the board.
Speaker 1:I had a former life. I was in a professional role and I had accreditations and certificates and things on the wall and shiny badges, if you would, and I had all of the kind of accoutrements of the profession I would go along to events. There was a certain element, almost in an anthropological way, of status. There was a you know, I'm part of something, I'm part of a group, I'm part of a club, I'm just a little bit special. The thought of then letting go of that, whether you are a lawyer, an accountant, engineer, you know whatever, and then going and doing something where maybe that professional you know credibility and status is not there. How do you help people that are wanting to make a shift where that's involved?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's such an important point and I think you know, for those listeners that haven't heard about this prior, what you're referring to there to a degree is the sunk cost fallacy, where you've invested in your career, you've got, as you say, the accreditations, you've got the network, and you can feel as though it's very difficult to walk away from that investment. But also, as you say, greg, it's a big part of your status and identity, and I think part of this work is about redefining what success means, because often I find that people's definition of success as they move through their career has probably changed, but they haven't upgraded their internal programming, if you like, to align with that. So that is that point, perhaps, where someone's saying, well, maybe the money isn't as important, or maybe I do, like you know the status of this, but I'm really sick of those meetings, or I don't feel like my work is making a difference, or whatever it might be. So I think it really doing that work around strengths, values and your career vision or ideal working life is a really important way of challenging yourself to think about, well, what is important to me and what does a satisfying, successful career look like for me? And then, of course, that reflection only takes you so far, you know you.
Speaker 2:Just you cannot think your way through this problem. You have to act your way through it, and that's where that process of exploration comes in, because you need to be able to see yourself doing that different thing. And so there's typically two dimensions to exploring. One is talking to people who are doing the kind of thing that you're curious about or interested in, and part of that, yes, is practical. I need to figure out what the job actually is. But also part of it is actually just building your sense of what's possible and where you could go.
Speaker 2:It's very difficult to see yourself as something else if you've been, you know, kate B Counten for the last 20 years. And the other dimension is experimenting, finding small ways, low risk ways to just dip that toe in and get some tangible experience of something, and that could be a board role or volunteering or a side project or even a second at work. I've had a client, for example, who worked in a media company in a senior strategic role, but she was really curious about interior design. So one of the things that she did was put a hand up to lead the interior renovation of the office building that she was working in.
Speaker 1:It's interesting. I find it also really fascinating that your former career mostly in and around marketing and strategy, is very much particularly the marketing aspect, very much about identity or a business, very much around identity for a corporate entity, and now you're working with people around people's own identity and there's some sort of interest and confluence between those two things. For you personally, what lights you up in this work? You know, obviously we all want to have meaning and purpose in what we do. What is that for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting you observe that. I think that's something that I've got a bit clearer on over time in terms of seeing the parallels between my previous career and my current career In terms of what lights me up. To me, it's helping people make change. It's helping people overcome really tough challenges and design a working life that is much more meaningful and is much more motivating. That, to me, is just so satisfying.
Speaker 2:I think, too, one of the things that I was struggling with in my previous career and it became more prevalent over time was I just felt like more and more of the work that I was doing was going into what I call the digital dustbin that presentation that yeah, I came presenting it, but I don't know if that corporate client's going to take it anywhere. Or that email, or that meeting it all just felt like it was a whole lot of stuff washing around and I wasn't necessarily seeing tangible outcomes, whereas one of the things I really like about this work is, even if it's in a very small way, every single day I am helping someone. It might be just something small and practical. It might be making a connection, for example, between so I had someone yesterday who's interested in counselling, so I was able to make a connection with somebody I know who's recently been studying that Just a really simple thing that's practical and useful, and I think, yes, there's the purpose and the meaning side of this, but for me, it's just that regular opportunity to make a small, tangible difference that I find really interesting.
Speaker 2:And I think too, as I said, it's only sort of I probably only realised this in the last year or two that the skills that I had in my previous role in marketing have actually been incredibly helpful, not just in terms of launching and running a business and I always said to anybody who's worked in and around marketing communications you're 10 steps ahead of other people when it comes to starting a business if you've got that experience but also in terms of helping people package up their story and their skills and how they position themselves. That has come in. That has been incredibly handy, and I suppose the last thing I'd say there, too, is I'm taking people through a strategic framework and it's a process. It's a process of discovery, of thinking it through, possibilities and getting to a tangible outcome, and, in a way, a lot of the skills I developed in some of the strategic work that I did have been very useful in that as well.
Speaker 1:And presumably, as the world or the rate of change increases, the talk of AI disrupting our work, a lot of the roles that we've traditionally felt like we could have, and even if we looked two or three years ahead, we could probably get a sense of what we might be doing. Is that making it tougher for you, or is that making it easier, in a sense, because there is so much opportunity for change and reinvention, if you like?
Speaker 2:Yes, in my mind, a contemporary career. There's so much more uncertainty, it's so much less predictable, but at the same time there are so many possibilities. Covid has completely changed the idea of remote working and who might have access to something like that, so I think that's a really good example. I think I always say to people that long-term, linear career planning just doesn't make sense in this kind of environment, and what's really important is having answers to those questions I talked about earlier, because different possibilities are going to be thrown up along the way. Opportunities might appear before you that you'd never expected, or a chance conversation might open your mind to something, or you might develop a really strong interest, or what you need in your personal and home life might undertake a big shift. So all of those things can happen along the way, and so it's really hard to plan when people say, oh, where do you want to be in five years? It's a really hard thing, I think, for most people to answer. But if you're really clear on those questions, then you can be thinking about possibilities that line up with what I call your map of me, the sort of best version of your work, what you need at work to feel happy and satisfied and you can be open to things that you might discover or chance opportunities, as I mentioned, that come up along the way.
Speaker 2:I do feel as though in the last 12 months, mainly with AI, that that is really changing the game, and I know we're only kind of very early on in the advent of that technology. But I think that's yeah. I mean the idea that in the past, if you think about it often, it's been one of a better description blue collar workers that have been displaced by technology. But this is a really interesting time in that it's going to affect a lot more professional or white collar workers, and I think too, covid has contributed to this and perhaps also just the shifts in the job market over the last 18 months. But I think the idea of job security I'm getting the sense that people are starting to recognise that the corporate job in Averta Commerce it doesn't represent security at all, and so those perhaps more typically insecure options like starting your own business, for example, are not necessarily off the list for people, as they might have been in the past.
Speaker 1:I used to say to people that if you work for yourself, you always run the risk of bankruptcy and if you work for somebody else, you run the risk of redundancy and you just have to, I think, be comfortable with either of those, depending on which way you go. What's the most challenging thing for you in your line of work, when you're meeting with people and you're seeing them look to make these big transitions? What do you personally find the most challenging?
Speaker 1:I find the most challenging For you personally with working with this type of work.
Speaker 2:I think it's. Another career change coach said to me recently how do you, how do you feel or how do you rationalise the fact that some people are not going to make the kind of change that they set out to make at the start? And the way that I think about it is I know that this framework works. If you follow this framework, if you keep taking small steps, even when you feel really uncertain and full of self doubt and fear and all of those things that are part of any kind of change or transition, if you keep going, you'll figure it out, you'll get there. So I, in a way, I feel secure in the knowledge of that. I do, or I'm always asking myself what could I do? What can I do differently? How can I help people to continue to take action? Because I think that's the biggest challenge in this, the thing about career changes it takes time, you know it might.
Speaker 2:Yes, some people might make a change in six months, but, depending on what you want to do, for some people it might be, you know, a 12 month or a two year process. For me, certainly, it took me 12 months of exploration, while I was also doing some consulting work in marketing, which is obviously my field of expertise. But it took me 12 months of exploration to figure out, oh, this career change thing. I think this is what I want to do and it took me really another 12 months to kind of really build up. You know the beginnings of a business from there, so it's not necessarily something that happens overnight.
Speaker 2:And I think when you're in what psychologists call liminal space or what I call the messy middle of career change in other words, you know you want to make a change, you've started on the journey, but you don't yet know what's on the other side of that change that can be a hard place to spend time because, as I said you know, it is full of worry and fear and self doubt. It's also full of, you know, interesting experiences and reflections and sometimes can be really energizing and give you an absolute sense of agency. You know over your destiny, but it's not easy and so it. You know it's really about consistency of action. It's not about, I always said, if you look, it's not about doing 100 things next week. It's much more about sustainable consistency, steps taken over time, because that's how you start to build your confidence, realize what is on the other side of that change and continue to figure out what you need to do to get yourself into that position.
Speaker 1:It's interesting you talk about. You know people taking action and the resistance to taking action. I had Freddie Bennett as a guest on the podcast now. Freddie ran 300k across the Sahara and he's just finished similar distance across the Arctic Circle. The comment he made is that often people wait for confidence Before they take an action. And he's saying actually you have to take the action before you get the confidence. Another way of putting this is that you know all of the great things that we aspire to Are on the other side of the things that we don't want to have to do. Would you agree with that? That is a principle also with making career transition.
Speaker 2:So true, I like. There's a book called the confidence get by Russ Harris, and he says the confidence of action sorry, the, yeah, the the actions of confidence come before the feelings of confidence, and and it's absolutely true. So, for example, people often say to me oh, I wouldn't be able to do that or that feels like a pipe dream, or you know. But they have a conversation with someone who's taken a similar path, for example, which is a good, a good Demonstration of a small action, a 20, 30 minute conversation. Sometimes that can be enough, may not be enough to help them know that that's what they want to do, but it might just be enough to shift their thinking so that they start thinking I don't a sec. If Greg's done that, maybe that's possible for me.
Speaker 2:So, yes, the confidence comes through through action, and that's where that explorers mindset is so important. Because you know you're craving certainty, you're, you're seeking, you know that, that, that comfort that comes from you know, that known identity and also just all the practical ups and downs of you know a career or job change, and so it's very easy to just, you know, want to retreat to the, the comfort of what you know. But every time you take another little step. It just you know it builds it and it's. You do have to remind yourself, though, that you don't need to know exactly where you're gonna end up. You know you can't, it's. It's a process of discovery, it's iterative, so, as long as you just keep being open to possibility, open to what you might discover, and Consistently take action, because a lot of people that I'm working with too, they're busy. They've got families, they've got busy jobs. You know they're not taking a day out of their week to do this. They're finding small ways to do things every single week, a.
Speaker 1:Lot of people Fearful of what others think. You know what will people say if I become a tram driver or whatever it is that they're thinking about? How do they get past that, whether it's their family or their close friends, and that sense of fear over what others will will think of them? How, how would you be counselling people around that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a really Interesting one actually, and I think people have to get to the point where they can experience what I'd call career joe mo. So, instead of the fear of missing out, it's the joy of missing out, and that comes with, you know, that knowing of like. Well, actually, this is what I want, because I've thought about my values and what's really important to me and I've thought about what I love to do and what I'm really energized by, and I know what I want my working life to be like. So, yes, I might experience Judgments from other people and uncomfortable moments, you know, in this transition, but if I can keep coming back to that, you know, it's a lot easier To stay the course.
Speaker 2:I think of my own experience when I was working in marketing previously and advertising. I was just thinking about the next run up. Well, it's the next job, it's the bigger agency, it's the bigger MD role, it's the biggest salary. That was just kind of in my mind and it was actually really surprising to me that as soon as I Stepped off the treadmill for a minute, that suddenly became really unimportant. It was. It really kind of knocked me over actually, but I think in. Well, I know that. In part, that was because, as I was talking about earlier, my definition of what success meant to me had really started to shift, and I was beginning to be able to articulate that for myself as well.
Speaker 1:It's so interesting and I guess this is encouraging people to be brave that if they are Thinking about the reflection they might have at the end of their life, looking back on on their lives and the various chapters they had in that, would they, I guess, die with satisfaction that they really did what brought them joy and that, and and ideally, they bought joy to others. With some with that sort of thinking, let's say, there's somebody who they're really this, this podcast, has piqued some interest for them. How should they even begin to start thinking about this process? Is this something that they should only engage with if this has been gnawing away at them for years, or this is just suddenly occurring to them like what's the best way that they should start thinking about a transition?
Speaker 2:Yeah, great question. I mean I always say to people the best time to start is now, purely because it always takes longer than you think. As I said, it might be a six month process but maybe it might be a two year one. So just get started and while I talk to that framework in a very linear fashion, you know you can dip a toe in at any point in that, that, that process, if you like. So, if you, I always said people pay attention to what you're paying attention to. So If you just know that, you keep coming back to something like, if I think about my own experience with coaching, I wasn't really thinking about being a coach I that was really something that I came to through this process, but I'd certainly kind of. I knew that I liked Helping people. I knew that people I enjoyed giving advice and supporting people.
Speaker 2:People use your joke that they come to Kate Richardson's confidence clinic. I know that over the years I'd sort of looked on a few websites at counseling or you know similar types of programs. So Clearly there was a curiosity there. So those Dory Clark says optimize for interesting. If you're not quite sure what you want to do or where to start, just follow your curiosity, you know, pay attention and, even if it's Doing a short course or having a conversation with someone who you think's doing something interesting, I always love Brian Grazer, the film producer. He talks about curiosity conversations, which he's always had since been. In the first part of his career, when he started in film and TV, he made it his mission to talk to lots of different people in the, the office that he was working in, the film production company who's working. And then he Expanded beyond that and throughout his life he's always talked to people from lots of different walks, professions you know, groups, etc.
Speaker 1:And because you never know who you're gonna meet or what you might learn or what you might uncover, and I think that's that's a great place to start and can I Possit an argument with you on this that in theory, if you think of you know the average person, if they were, let's say, they retire at 65 and we are getting older. You know we're growing older, we're able to work longer. But let's take it at 65. If you're a 15 year old and you are at school and you are being asked to choose subjects which help guide you into your future career, where you really have no Understanding of how the world works at 15 no disrespect to 15 year olds out there, but but realistically, you've not lived in the world in the way that a 40 year old has.
Speaker 1:So at 15 you're choosing your subjects. If at 40, so 25 years later you are still in the career that you chose when you're 15 will well done you. That's impressive. If at 40 you're choosing a new career for the next 25 years at 65, that you that'll get you have until you're 65. Surely the 40 year old is so well placed to make a career decision. They've had the benefit of experience, understanding the world, seeing what they like, seeing what they don't like. Yet so many people get stuck at 40 thinking I can't change it. It seems bollocks to me. It doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2:You know what it's so funny? Great, because I, even though I primarily work with people in their 40s and 50s, I do also, from time to time, work with people in their 20s and 30s. And everybody says the same thing it's too late. People in their 20s Tell me it's too late to change career. And it's never too late.
Speaker 2:And, as we just talked about, contemporary careers are different. You might have two or three. You know careers in your lifetime, maybe even more. I often ask people you know how many jobs have you had so far in your life? And of course, it depends on where you're at, but you know, some people might have had 20 or 30 jobs and they might have another 20 ahead of them. So it's, it just doesn't make sense. But it's just where our mind goes, because when you're 40, you're thinking about oh, it's a risk, I don't want to take the risk, I'm giving up. The people tend to think about what they're giving up, not what they're gaining, and I suppose that's like any making any kind of decision where there's something at stake. So, yeah, it's an interesting one. People say the same thing, as I said, in their 20s.
Speaker 1:Have you seen anybody really late career? What's sort of the oldest career change you've seen? Have you seen any? I remember hearing a story of somebody who was posthumously awarded a degree in her 80s. She had finished the degree but hadn't graduated and I thought, God, that's just such an amazingly cool story Somebody who's returning to university in their 70s or 80s but from a career point of view, has there been somebody that has made a really late change?
Speaker 2:Yes, in the last year I worked with a guy, an American guy, who was 67. And he'd worked in and around education and culture really, and he went through this process and he's embarking on moving into the coaching space. As a result, I've definitely worked with a few more people which has just been interesting for me personally in the last 18 months who are in their 50s or 60s and are either thinking, well, what do I need to do to set myself up for the kind of let's call it unretirement? Ie, I don't want to fully retire, I want to do some kind of work, but hey, I don't really want it to look like this, and maybe it's part time and maybe it's project work or maybe it's something completely different. So I find it quite interesting of people at that age who are thinking, yes, how do I set up the next five years so that that provides a kind of runway into that unretirement period in my 60s where I still want to do some work, but I want it to look different. And certainly people like I worked with someone in the last year or so who've been in the education system for 45 years you've been a school principal for 25 years and I really admired the way that she approached. She wanted to be really intentional about how she embarked on this chapter. So she was in her early 60s because she saw herself working for another at least 10 years. And it's also about how we define work.
Speaker 2:I also encourage people to think about their working life more broadly, because it might include a side hustle or volunteer work or a board role or something else. It's not necessarily just about what you're doing nine to five. I had a great person that I worked with in COVID who was quite a dark place actually and he was selling office furniture and out of this process he got himself to a point where he did copywriting. He's just about to start his own digital marketing agency. But one of the things I'm proud of is he was a movie buff and he actually owned a video store. That was part of what pushed him out of obvious reasons, out of his job and career, but he's just up to, I think, 100 plus episodes of his movie podcast. That's not bringing you many income, but it's helped him experience the passion. It's helped him develop all these new skills. His confidence has gone through the roof and he's doing something he loves.
Speaker 1:I absolutely love hearing that. I mean, I think that is absolutely superb, kate, there's going to be so many people out there that are listening to this in their 20s, their 30s, but particularly in their 40s and 50s, who this message from you has really, really resonated. I will make sure that I include ways for people to connect with you. You've got resources on your website so I'll include all those in the show notes, but I would encourage anybody that's out there. You know, if you're in your 40s or 50s, you've probably got, you know, all things considered, a good 30 years ahead of you in life, exactly you know and make the most of it.
Speaker 2:So Because you might have another two, like people like it's too late. The way that I think of it. You might have another two careers, maybe three, the way that it's now. So there's plenty of time.
Speaker 1:There's so much time and I just absolutely love the work that you're doing because I think it's yeah, it really is legacy stuff for you, kate like to be able to do this kind of work and to genuinely sounds cheesy, but to genuinely change people's lives. You know, the reality is the people that are around them, that are. You know, they're potentially worried about what will the people around me think? The people around them are going to see a more vibrant person. They're going to see a person who's more alive, right? So?
Speaker 2:So true.
Speaker 1:I just love the work you're doing.
Speaker 2:It's funny when I was making my own change and I got to the point after that barbecue where someone really threw me with the question of why did I quit my job? But I got to the point hang on a sec, yes, I'm going to work, but I'm going to take 12 months to explore what was next. And I suddenly felt this real energy and excitement around that. And then when I was telling people that people, instead of kind of judging me, people were saying, oh, that sounds great. Wish I could do that. And it was such an interesting shift. As you say, people can see the change in you.
Speaker 1:That's exactly it, Kate. It has been an absolute joy chatting to you today. As I say, I will put some ways of being able to connect with you, but I really love what you're doing and thank you so much for the time you've given today.
Speaker 2:I love talking about it and it's been a really interesting conversation, so thanks.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Kate.