Hey, welcome to Lessons from A Quitter, where we believe that it is never too late to start over. No matter how much time or energy you've spent getting to where you are. If ultimately you are unfulfilled, then it is time to get out. Join me each week for both inspiration and actionable tips so that we can get you on the road to your dreams.

Hello my friends and welcome to another episode. I'm so excited to have you here. I got this question and I figured I'd make a podcast episode about it and it was, can you change your career in your thirties? My friends, if you've been around me for five seconds, you already know my answer to this and it would be the same answer I'd give if you asked me if you could change your careers in your forties or your fifties or your sixties.'cause the answer is absolutely yes. Of course you can. Not only can, you should if you aren't happy where you're at, but I wanted to answer this in depth because I really want you all to understand the problem with this question and how I want you to think about it a little bit differently. So I get the anxiety that comes from thinking about quote unquote starting over, which you're not starting over. You have tons of lessons, you have tons of skills. You're starting with from a much better, a vantage point than when you were 18. Okay? But I understand that it is a scary thing and I want you to really understand why it isn't because it's actually scary. It's because you've been programmed to believe it's scary. We have been programmed to believe that there's one way that you should do careers, that you should pick something, you should stick with it.

The longer you stick with it, the better, the more quote unquote successful you are. And if you change, there's not only something wrong with you, but you're risking so much and you're risking all of this, I don't know, your livelihood and stability and all of this stuff, all of these fears and everyone's gonna judge you and you might fail and it might not work. And all of it's. All of it's made up. Our society has this like obsession with longevity, with like, you know, the sign of success is how long you stick with something. And so it is really instilled that in us for whatever reason, whether based on religion, based on society's needs, like for capitalism to work, it is in their favor for people to stick with their profession and become experts. That's great for capitalism. It's not great for you. And I think for a lot of us, we've been raised with this idea of a marriage is successful if you've been married 25 years.

It doesn't matter if you've been miserable the whole time, if you guys hate each other, right? The same thing with careers. It's like nobody actually cares if you like it or it's working for you or you're good at it. It's like we don't care that you're depressed and maybe suicidal and you're having panic attacks and you're taking all this medication. Like if you stick with it, you're a real winner. And if you leave, there's something wrong with you. And so for a lot of us, we feel stuck because we think that the marker of our success is sticking this out. We also think that if we leave that we are going to somehow endanger ourselves. We believe that it's just easier to stay and make whatever we are making because you know better the devil, you know than the devil you don't. And so because it's easier, we think that it's somehow better.

But again, it's just not true. So many people, myself included, I make more as a business owner now than I did as a lawyer and I work much less. I didn't think that was possible. When I left my logging, I thought I'll never replace my income. That was truly my thought because that is what I've been programmed to believe. That's what people told me, that like as a lawyer, you make such a good income, you should never leave. People would kill for this. And now I look back and I'm like, there's no ceiling to how much I can make as an entrepreneur. I can make 10 times what I was making as a lawyer. And right now I do it with a much better quality of life. I work much less. I love what I'm doing, but I didn't know that was possible. And I think for a lot of us, it's more of that fear that has been instilled, that has gotten you to think that there's something wrong with you wanting to leave in your thirties or forties or fifties, rather than it actually being something wrong rather than it actually being hard.

For a lot of people I work with, they change their careers very easily. They think it's gonna be super hard and then they get the job in the new industry and they're like, ah, it wasn't that hard to transform my skills. It wasn't that hard to get this first job. And so you have to really like ask yourself, where do I know it's gonna be a lot harder? Sometimes it will. And where is it? Just like, I think it's because people have told me it's, but it's really not as hard as everybody wants you to believe, right? So I want you to like really think about what if the standard was that you have a new career every 10 years. I just want you to think about how you would think about this change differently if society had said like every 10 years you should start over.

And that's a sign of someone that's innovative and it is, you know, a sign of your growth and it's gonna be the best thing for everyone. You wouldn't sit here with all the shame and fear and I'm doing something wrong and all this other. It's simply because we just at some point decided you should stick with something forever that we now have even these doubts as opposed to understanding like, all right, I tried this, that chapter's over, it was great, it taught me a lot of skills. I learned how to think a certain way. I'm better off for it and now it's done and I'm ready to move on. So I just wanna start off with that because I want you to understand that like there's nothing wrong with wanting something different at any age. There's nothing wrong. You should change, you should grow, you should be a different person.

That is a sign of a healthy human being whose brain is evolving. And so as you change, if you decide like this has run its course, I am ready to move on to something else, again, there's nothing wrong with that. I also want you to think about the reality of careers today. It is different than it was 20, 30, 50 years ago. It's different than it was 10 years ago, but the whole concept of like pick a career and then stick with it for the rest of your life just doesn't exist anymore. Entire industries are gone or will be gone in the next five to 10 years. Entire industries that never existed when you went to school now exist. There was no way for you to decide what you wanted to do with let's say ai if you went to school 15 years ago or 20 or 30 that you now can't.

And so you have to really understand that like the way that careers have been up until now is different. A lot of our careers will be gone or change drastically because of the rapid change in technology. And that's something to actually deal with because I think for a lot of people who are scared, you're not gonna leave and then you're gonna be forced to leave when you're not ready, right? You're gonna be forced because your industry is gonna change and your jobs are gonna be eliminated or you know something else is going to happen that's going to disrupt that industry. And so I always think why not do it on your own terms? Why not be the one that's kind of foreseeing this and seeing if you don't wanna be here and understanding that it's all gonna change anyways. I might as well kind of have my finger on the pulse of like where I want to go, what is new, what is exciting to me?

What do I wanna learn about? And so I think for a lot of us, whether you wanna change or not, you might have to, you might have to get used to this idea of changing maybe in your fifties or sixties. Like that's a very real possibility even if you don't want to, even if you like your industry. And that's okay too. It's just the nature of what is happening with jobs. And I think the more we know that and the more that we embrace that and not shy away from it and realize that careers are changing and nobody is staying at the same job until their retirement and there's no pension anymore and none of that's happening, it's just gonna be different that maybe in this new era it is that I change careers every 10 years and I try something new. The other thing I want you to really think about when you think about career change is how long you have to work.

If you're asking me if you should change your career in your thirties, that tells me that you have at least another 30 to 40 years of working maybe even more. I think a lot of people want to continue working well into their seventies and a lot of people have to. A lot of people don't want to, but they have to. But fine. If we're looking at how long you have to work, I want you to think about how long you've already worked. And I'm not talking about like you know, summer jobs or afterschool jobs when you're a teenager. I'm talking full-time employment. You've probably only worked 10 to 15 years up until now, you know, maybe 20. Now think about the fact that you were gonna have to work double that , you're gonna have to work another 30, 40 years. It is so much time.

That could be a depressing thought. And I'm not trying to depress you with that. I just want you to truly understand what you are signing yourself up for. If you're resigning to the fact that like I can't change jobs, it's like I'm just gonna have to stick this out even though I know I don't want this, right? Because it's hard because it's gonna require some intentionality because it might be a little tricky because maybe I'll fail a little bit along the way and I'll have to pivot. I want you to really think about what you're signing yourself up for and what you're resigning yourself to. Because for so many of us, it's like when you really understand, gosh, I'm gonna have to do this, or can I do it this job that I don't want right now, can I do it for another 10, 20, 30, 40 years?

And if the answer is no, likely the answer will be no for a lot of you. Okay, what am I willing to do to change that change? I actually think one of the biggest gifts I gave myself when I quit my job as a lawyer was not just quitting that job and it was not like finding entrepreneurship and you know, doing this gig, it was liberating myself to know that I could try other things because it opened up a whole world of possibilities for me that isn't just limited to this. Like I don't believe that this is all I can do now that like now that I have this podcast and I have this coaching career, I have to be a coach for the rest of my life. Like that's not even remotely, not even a thought. I just know that that's not gonna happen.

I'm not gonna be a coach for the next 30 years . It's just not going to. And that's okay because I love it right now and there will be a time where I won't or that I'll outgrow it or that the industry will change or that I will change. And one of the most liberating things that used to terrify me, it used to terrify me to think like, oh my God, I have to start over or I have to try something else now it's the most exciting thing. 'cause I'm like, what else could I do? What else do I love? I'm constantly thinking like I see other people's jobs now and I'm like, that's kind of cool. Maybe I would do that. Maybe I would try that. Maybe I would try this kind of business. Maybe I would try that kind of business. In fact, I don't think I've ever mentioned on the podcast, but one of the things that drew me to entrepreneurship, when I quit the law, I started going to meetup groups.

I honestly just wanted to meet people to see what they do for work. 'cause I had no idea what other jobs were out there. And I was like, if I'm gonna start over, I gotta figure out what other possibilities are there. And I would go to these meetup groups. I went to all different kinds of meetup groups that I had no business being in. But I remember when I went to the startup meetup groups, I went to these business kind of focused shark tank style meetup groups. And I've talked about how much I love them 'cause it was fun. But one of the things that blew me away was at the time I had just left the law. And in the law, when you're a lawyer, you not only are like pigeonholing yourself as a lawyer, you very quickly get pigeonholed in whatever practice area you work in.

So if you do, you know, family law, it's very rare that you even believe, like let's say if you've worked in family law for five years, you're not like, oh you know what? I'm just gonna start doing immigration or I'm gonna start doing corporate litigation or whatnot. You're like, okay, I'm a family law attorney. You know, I was a criminal defense attorney and I really had this idea of like, well there's really not much else I can do so I can do criminal defense or maybe something in the criminal justice system. And I feel like all of my friends kind of thought like that. All of my lawyer friends. And when I went to these business meetups, I would talk to these guys or girls, but mostly guys about their businesses and they would tell me like, you know, I'm, I dunno, I'm making this product.

I'm creating this new type of wall outlet that does X, Y, and Z. And then I would ask them like how they got into that and they would say like, oh well my last business I was doing like this healthcare product. And I was like, wait, wait, wait. You were doing something in healthcare. How did you start doing this? And it would always be things that were like wildly different that had nothing to do with each other. And these serial entrepreneurs would tell me about all of these different businesses that they had. And I was like, I don't understand. How did you know how to do that? And they would kind of like were like, well you know the foundation, like you know how to run a business. The rest of it you just learn, you figure out it's not that hard. And I remember thinking like that is so freeing.
Like that is so cool. It's not like you did a healthcare business. That means you have to be in healthcare for the rest of your life. You have to be in the healthcare business for the rest of your life.

You can do that business for five years and then you can go start a smoothie company and then you can go start, you know, whatever. And I remember that feeling like, oh my god, I want that. I don't wanna be pigeonholed in one thing that I have to do forever and ever. And now having done it, now I understand 'cause like I did the photo booth business and now I'm doing the coaching business and I see how like when this is done, if this is finished, I will take the same skills that I have from this business and I will just move them to something else.

I already know sales, I know marketing, I know kind of brand building, I know how to do social media, I know how to build an audience. All of that stuff is extremely valuable in any other type of business, right? I also know how to do kind of different backend stuff with the photo. With business I had learned like manufacturing and some hardware and software and like that can come in handy if I try to do another product based business. This business, obviously it's service based. I kind of understand the backend of this. I can understand kind of agency work and instructional work and service-based stuff. I have a set of skills that I can then take on to do something that's completely different than this. And there is part of that where I can understand how for my past self that was terrifying. It's like, oh god, starting over.

But there's part of that is so liberating because I'm sort of looking at my life of like what else is possible? What else could I try? What else could I build? How much capacity do I have, right? Like what am I made of? I can see really like how much I can experience in this life, how many things even through my career. And it's been the most exciting thing for me. 'cause I'm like, I don't know, maybe I'll write a book, maybe I'll become a speaker. Maybe I'll start a completely different business that's unrelated to this. Maybe I'll go into product design. Maybe I'll try a software, maybe who knows, who cares? There's so many things and I don't have to worry about that now. But I know that for me, like and I'm in my forties, maybe that happens in my fifties, maybe I do this for another 10 years and then I decide I'm gonna move on to something else.

Maybe I never move on. Maybe I love this and I end up doing it for 30 years and I'll look back on this clip and laugh. Who knows? But I think that the point of it is, is that there is no limitation or like line in the sand that like who I am today is who I have to be is what I have to do. I have to keep doing it for the rest of my life and it's the only way I'm gonna make money. It's not true. And I think that so many people, even if you're not in entrepreneurship, I think the thing I liked about that was just the mentality. Like what if other people thought about their careers like this that like you, just because you did something one time doesn't mean that that's all you can ever do. You gain certain skills in that career that will transfer to other things that you can apply in other ways.

And yes, you just have to maybe learn some more skills or brush up on things. But what if that isn't as hard as you think it is? And it opens you up for trying so many new things. The last thing I'll say is that I want you to also really take in, I'm gonna say this in two ways. It doesn't take as long as you think it takes to change your whole life, but with the caveat that it also doesn't happen overnight. So the reason I wanna put a caveat in is that I think for a lot of us, we think like if I can't change things in the next six months, then I'm just not gonna, it's not worth it. And that kind of all or nothing thinking will be the death of your dreams. Um, it doesn't all have to change right now, but I think that we don't really realize how much of your life can change in a couple of years where really everything around you can be different.

And I think when you think a little bit more long term and what we were talking about, about how long you have to work, if you're gonna work for another 30 or 40 years, let's say it takes you three or four or five years to change that career, let's say it takes you some time to learn some new skills and it takes you some time to get your foot in the door and to network and to figure out, you know, the new industry and how to get a job. Okay? Your whole life could be different in three years. You could have a new job in a new industry with new people, you can try new things. It doesn't take as long as we think it's gonna take. And I think that for a lot of us, when we really understand that so much more becomes open to us.

So much more becomes available because you could do multiple careers in the next 30 or four years. You could try something and take a couple years to kind of transition into that, do that job for 10 years and then decide you wanna do something else. There is no limit other than the limit that you put on yourself. And so my answer to this question always is a resounding yes, you absolutely can change your career in your thirties. And if you're even asking that, then you should because you clearly don't want the one that you have. And there are so many other things that might be a better fit for your personality. And there are so many new industries and so many new ways to make money in this day and age with technology. And you have to first open yourself up to that possibility.
You have to first know that it's possible for you to even go after it and look for like ways to make that possibility a reality.

So let me be the one to give you that permission to let you know that you not only can, but you should. If you're not happy in your career, you should find ways to change your career now so that you don't spend the next however many decades doing something that you hate. As you can tell, I get very excited about this 'cause I think everybody should change their career if they're not happy. I promise you there's ways to do it without quitting your job, without throwing your life into upheaval. I actually think it's a much better way. There are ways to do it in a slow kind of methodical, very thought out, strategic plan so that you can do it with your own risk tolerance so that it takes the time that it takes, but you get the result that you want without having to disrupt your whole life.
And so you just have to get started. You have to figure out the plan. You have to get started on like what that's gonna look like for you, how long that's gonna take. And if you want help with that, that is what I hit my clients with. You can join me in the Quitter Club where we work on these types of five-year plans where we kind of help you explore and figure out what it is you want to do. It's my membership where we go deeper with these concepts and I love helping people find careers that they actually love. So you can go to lessonsfromaquitter.com/quitterclub. I hope to see you in there. And if not, I'll see you on the next episode of this podcast.

Hey, if you are looking for more in-depth help with your career, whether that's dealing with all of the stress, worry, and anxiety that's leading to burnout in your current career or figuring out what your dream career is and actually going after it, I want you to join me in the Quitter Club. It is where we quit what is no longer working like perfectionism, people pleasing imposter syndrome, and we start working on what does and we start taking action towards the career and the life that you actually want. We will take the concepts that we talk about on the podcast and apply them to your life and you will get the coaching tools and support that you need to actually make some real change. So go to lessonsfromaquitter.com/quitterclub and get on the wait list. Doors are closed right now, but they will be open soon.