I gave early retirement a shot - it didn’t suit me! (Dana’s story)
“I gave early retirement a shot - but it didn’t suit me - the winters were too long and dark!’
When she became ill at the age of 48, Dana was glad of her corporate career - and the accompanying health benefits.
After 15 months of treatment, she returned to work.
And was promptly demoted! And subsequently, passed over for promotion.
She absorbed the blows while pondering what to do.
At the same time, she maxed out her pension contributions - her intuition told her the future in this organisation wasn't bright, for her.
Things got no better.
Until a bolt from beyond changed things.
Early retirement isn’t right for many. Work for our generation has the potential to bring purpose, meaning to our lives and a way to engage very actively in society. That’s why stopping isn’t right for many of us.
Saved by a new job offer, perhaps?
A revered institution tapped her on the shoulder and offered her a senior position. She jumped at the chance to feel valued once more.
After an excited start, it transpired that while the new role held all the responsibility for change, it was afforded none of the authority to make necessary changes.
Hamstrung by protectionism, she had battled on for seven months, against mismatched values and a culture that simply didn’t suit.
As Dana tendered her resignation, she felt that ‘there must be a better way’ to figure out the remainder of her work-life.
What she knew for sure was that she was nowhere near retiring!
Her illness had shown her clearly that she had plenty more left in the tank. And she wanted her work to return to being the positive, energising and satisfying part of her life - as it used to be.
Making use of all the energy left in the tank
After coming across Lucia in a google search, she booked in for one of her free half our career conversations.
Afterwards, convinced, but still not entirely certain, she invested in one of her masterclasses ‘Networking like a Midlife Human’ and the mini life-satisfaction assessment programme Derailed!
Then, she knew that she’d found a way to learn how to take control of her career fulfilment, satisfaction and longevity.
She embarked on the Fierce Emporium programme and invested in extra one-to-one support from Lucia.
"Even though I couldn’t recoup the cost of this training from an employer. It’s been a fabulous investment in me and my future”
So important was it that she figure out her new career strategy, she dived into the tasks each week and invested hours each day, going deep, connecting the dots from her past to her potential future. And getting super-clear on her unique Superpowers, and becoming crystal-clear on her Kryptonite.
As the weeks flew by, Dana found some of the exercises challenging but she persevered. Although, she'd been a life-long learner, she’d never really positioned herself at the central focus of her learning.
It took more effort than she'd initially imagined but she knew the value was there. And the guided approach meant she could take everything one step at a time. Moving as fast as her life allowed.
Creating Momentum
Aha moments started to land.
One of her primary discoveries was that she had been masking some of her life-long Superpowers as they hadn't been valued in her last organisations.
This turned out to be key to the design of her next career chapter.
“What I'd perceived as weaknesses in the past are actually strengths - and I’ve been masking them in certain environments with different values. This has been a revelation.”
Beyond the six-week learning phase, Dana prioritised the monthly Q&A sessions with midlife career changers from vastly different business disciplines and functions.
She always brought along a question and loved hearing the questions from others at different stages of change.
"It was a huge motivator to me knowing that there are monthly meetings - check-ins and opportunities to ask questions while I was implementing my new plan. It was so great to have the support of a group of people travelling in new directions together - from all corners of the world."
The prototype
Dana decided to design a portfolio career where she can spend some months of the year in property investment and development, some in software and app development and some in change management.
All of these use her new-found Superpowers, but point them at a variety of different problems. This diversity feels exciting and flexible.
Once the portfolio career had been decided as her prototype new career strategy, she invested in other learning programmes e.g. entrepreneurship training and technical programming to allow her to get to where she wants to be more quickly.
Success - defined personally
One of the concepts in the Fierce Emporium programme that hit home deeply for Dana was that of defining success very personally - often differently to previous peers or from traditional, societal expectations. She brought tears of laughter to one of the monthly meetings by sharing her thoughts on this.
"It has become easy to say "Yes" or "No" to opportunities because I have become very clear on what success means to me uniquely, personally.
Some of my friends think I’m mad - but one of my signs of my personal success is driving around in a white van while I’m doing my property work.
“I love being Dana, Queen of the Road, in my white van."
As Dana steps into the live experimental phase of her portfolio career, one of the surprising results is probably one of the most important lessons for her career longevity and joy:
"A surprising outcome of joining The Fierce Emporium is that I now care less what the outside world thinks of me and am more concerned with how I feel about what I’m doing."
If you liked this, you might also like these case studies:
Designing a midlife exit plan when all you want to do is press the EJECT button (Dara’s story)
Saying goodbye to corporate life (Aaron’s story)
Designing a new career, in a new country at the same time (Pete’s story)
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