Creative Edge
Career Counselling and Midlife Crisis
Reprinted from the Report on Business section of
the Globe and Mail, January 5, 2001
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Ready for your
midlife career switch?
After decades in the same field, people are now abandoning their professions to find new
joy at work
SIMONA CHIOSE Special to The Globe and Mail
Joel Lazarus was a
restaurateur for 20 years, but he was always buying, renovating and selling properties on
the side.
More than two years
ago, the Toronto man's part-time interest became his full-time vocation. At 42, he took
the plunge and became a real estate agent.
Now with a successful
track record in his new field, Mr. Lazarus regrets not having made the move sooner.
"I'm working as
much [as before], 90 hours a week. In real estate, you put in similar or more effort as in
the restaurant business," he says.
"But I find this
very positive, I'm much happier. Before I was stressed all the time."
Mr. Lazarus is part
of a growing cohort of people who change careers in midlife, often after decades of
working in the same company.
Veterans of such
switches emphasize the importance of careful planning and putting aside a cushion of
savings.
But they also claim
to have found something that finally makes them happy and gives a sense of meaning they
had been craving.
"I had lost my
taste for office politics, I didn't want to be a vastly different person inside than I was
outside," says Minda Davis, who worked as an insurance company manager for more than
three decades before being offered a severance package.
A year later, she
became executive director of the New Israel Fund of Canada, an organization that funds
non-governmental organizations that foster social justice in Israel.
"I'm meeting
people who are on the edge of social change. These are not the kind of people I met in the
corporate world," Ms. Davis says of her three-year stint in her present job.
As the economy
changes and job mobility increases, some people are choosing to look for more than a new
job -- they want an entirely new life.
"As people age
and accomplish some of their more immediate goals like paying off a mortgage and getting a
career going, they look at things more broadly, at the value of how they're spending their
time," says Sylvia Milne, a partner in the Toronto consulting firm Catalyst Career
Strategies Inc.
At
the same time, career advisers say that while many of their clients think they would like
an entirely different profession, it is not usually necessary to jettison decades of
experience to find joy at work again.
Linsay Cornfield, a partner at Toronto's Creative Edge Counselling, emphasizes the need for extensive research. "First discover what you have a passion for. Then find a way to connect your passion with a need in the marketplace."
"It's
our last resort to urge people to give up the assets they've built up. We have to caution
most to slow down."
Two key
considerations, Ms. Milne says, are your motivation for working and your preferred working
environment.
Over the transition,
counsellors advise taking what might be called the turtle's way -- a slow, steady
investigation of jobs where the individual's skills can be applied and frequent networking
with professionals in that area.
Having a nest egg or
severance package to cushion the impact of not earning a salary for at least a year is
also helpful before switching careers.
Those who have made
the leap suggest another factor: a strong support network of friends and family who
understand the difficult process of changing gears mid-stream, often after experiencing a
layoff.
"Many
people in midlife realize that they've been following someone else's dream, perhaps their
parents'. Or they've achieved their goals and it's time for a new vision," says David
Cornfield, Linsay's husband and partner in Creative Edge. "A lot of
the people we see are suffering from low level depression. Going a bit numb makes a boring
day more tolerable, but that same numbness makes it hard to figure out what excites your
passion and your motivation."
If
the process sounds more like therapy than business advice, that's because behind the
apparently practical choices lie more complicated psychological issues.
"Exploring what you want to do with the rest of your life can bring up a lot of issues that lie at the core of who you are and how you feel about yourself " says Mr. Cornfield, who himself shifted from being a lawyer to training as a massage therapist before settling on career counselling."You have to build a relationship of trust with your counsellor before you can open these issues up."
Mr. Lazarus is
fortunate -- he always had a strong sense of real estate, where to purchase property, what
areas were up and coming. He also brought to his new vocation the quick thinking of the
restaurant business.
Mr. Lazarus almost
made the switch to real estate 10 years earlier, but family members persuaded him to stay.
This time, he was filled with resolve. He had a year's salary put away, plus family
support, and spent six months taking an Ontario Real Estate Association course.
Carolyn Purden also
built a new career on her existing skills. After being a journalist for more than 25
years, the organization she worked for was restructured and her position as the editor at
the the Anglican Journal became redundant.
Her established
career brought her a severance package that allowed Ms. Purden to spend a year
investigating her options. With the help of a career adviser, she brushed up on her
ability to market herself and eventually made over 100 cold calls to people in different
industries who might require help with their publications.
"At the end I
was getting bored with the whole process so I set up my own business," Ms. Purden
says. Four years ago, she started offering corporate communications services, then focused
the business on writing and editing in response to clients' needs.
Some of the people
she called during her initial job search became her first customers. "That was the
most amazing thing -- how generous people were with their time. In the course of nine
months only two people turned me down."
Once the leap has
been made and has proven successful, career-switchers often feel that the new job provides
a natural fit. Mr. Lazarus says he wishes he had trusted his "gut feeling" 10
years ago.
Mr. Cornfield encourages his clients to adapt. "You have to ask what your life wants from you, not just what you want from life. It's about what you are called to do, moving from a young, idealistic view to a more mature view. We're talking about taking authorship of your life."
For information about David and Linsay Cornfield,
click on Who We Are
For information about the counselling and coaching services
offered by
David Cornfield and Linsay Cornfield at Creative Edge, Toronto,
Canada
click on Creative Edge Home Page