Changing Your Worklife

Amongst all the market uncertainty out there, people are having – or choosing - to reinvent their work lives. I met a contact yesterday who has worked in music and broadcasting all his working life; now he’s diversified into property development, building houses. He didn’t expect to embarking on a new career in his early 50s but he’s enterprising enough to diversify, recognising that his management skills are scalable, whatever the industry (and he’s being very successful at it).

Increasingly, people are mixing it up, rather than just having one trade. A guy I know is a designer but also manages – and works behind – a bar. He’s a very good designer; he also makes a neat espresso. Neither of those roles dilutes the other; if anything it strengthens them.

Inevitably the current economic climate will force people to do new stuff, to rapidly embrace change and decide on new career routes. I saw this article in Sunday’s ‘New York Times’ - ‘Out of a Job, and Realizing Change Is Good’ – by a woman who lost her job as an investment banker on Wall Street. After the initial shock, she felt liberated by having different priorities in her life and after interviewing for another bank role, decided she wanted a real change. Now she’s working in the not for profit sector.

It’s an old cliché of course, but change like that needn’t be a shock, it can be the start of a whole new You…