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Capacity, Not Age: What Really Decides Your Next Career Season · Happen To Your Career - Meaningful Work, Career Change, Career Design, & Job Search

• 0:00
  Scott Anthony Barlow: She's 61, doesn't need the money, and she just took on more work. No mortgage, no more kids at home, more freedom than she's had in 40 years. From the outside, going back to work after you've earned your way out looks like a mistake. It wasn't. In this case, we're gonna call her Susan. She knew something about her own situation that most people miss, and that was what creates a fulfilling life for her.
• 0:24
  Introduction: This is Happen To Your Career. Most people let their career happen to them, falling into jobs by accident, staying longer than they should, and wondering if this is really all there is. But a few people decide to stop settling and do something different. This podcast is for you to take control, get intentional, and design your career to fit the life that you want to build. Real stories and real research so you can stop waiting and start making it happen. I'm Scott Anthony Barlow.
• 0:52
  Scott Anthony Barlow: Now, there's actually roughly five seasons in a working life, and they tend to be influenced more by obligations that you have rather than age. After you move out of the kid years and you move into your early career, you don't always have tons of obligations, and then you get into the building years.
• 1:10
  You know, you might have a house or kid or mortgage. Then from there, you move into the full years. This could mean you've still got kids at home, they're, you know, preparing for college, or you've got parents who have started needing help, sometimes both at the same time, many other obligations. And then comes the choosing years, where the weight starts coming off, less obligations.
• 1:32
  Now, some people make it even to the open years, where obligations are off and all of the experiences and all of the assets are still there. But what makes one of those seasons that I mentioned harder or less hard, it is not just about the level of obligation. It's about how much you're carrying compared to how much you've got to carry it with, how much capacity you have.
• 1:58
  Here's an example. Let's take two people with the same list on paper, someone who's 45, has a mortgage, couple of kids at home, a mother who started needing help last spring, and they're 20 years into their career. Now, the first person might've been at the same company 11 years, has three weeks of savings, and when something goes wrong at work, it's the first time that they've seen it.
• 2:21
  So it eats the entire week. You know, they don't have that experience or have seen it before. Maybe that person's brother lives four states away and only calls on Sunday and can't really help with the parents. So by Thursday night, there's absolutely nothing left, and he's not gonna be able to change anything.
• 2:42
  There's not really room in his life to be able to do it. Okay, now the second person has been through two reorgs, a company that went under, lots of different experiences across the board. So most of what happens at work is a version of something that she's seen before. She dedicated three years to building up a massive emergency fund, and then also she's been able to ask her sister to take her mom to appointments every other week, and her sister said yes.
• 3:11
  So she finishes most weeks with something in reserve, a little bit left in the tank, right? Same mortgage, same kids. One of them can take a swing at the next 20 years, and one just absolutely can't focus on the future at all. It has nothing to do with which one is tougher. Okay, let's go back to the woman who was 61 who went back to work.
• 3:31
  She chose to go back to work. She didn't take it on because she had it easy. She took it on because after 40 years, the other half of her situation was as strong as it was ever gonna be. She didn't have anything left to prove. She had the finances handled. She had four decades of knowing how things go.
• 3:48
  Now, the default path here is that your circumstances are what is picking your season and your next season, but it doesn't have to be. You can design a path for what you want life to look like in the next season, and most people are never going to choose to do that. So my question for you is, what do you want your next season of life to look like it? And will you make the decision to grab ahold of it and do something about it?
• 4:13
  If you want help with that, by the way, then I'd love to invite you to drop me an email, scott@happentoyourcareer. Put 'Conversation' in the subject line, and I'll connect you with the right member of my team, and we'll have a conversation.
• 4:25
  We'll understand what you're trying to accomplish. We'll understand some of the concerns that you have and help you figure out how to navigate through your exact situation. It's what we do, and it's what we love to do. Until next time, I'm Scott, and this is Happen To Your Career. Adios. I'm out.