Career Transition In Four Steps With Joanne Lipman

At some point in our lives, we all experience a wake-up call about whether we’re going in the right direction. We may consider moving across country, or transitioning to a new career. These feelings may be brought on by a sudden life event — losing a job or going through an illness — or it might come out of simply taking a pause. It can even be a collective experience — something so momentous happens that millions of people decide to completely change the trajectory of their lives. (Something like that happened a while ago, right? Something like…a pandemic?) 

Joanne Lipman, the former editor-in-chief of USA Today and The Wall Street Journal’s Weekend Journal, was one of those millions of people who went through a major shift in April 2020. She (very accurately) predicted that the pandemic would completely upend work as we know it, so she set out to write a guidebook for people to learn how to transition careers, start a business, or make any kind of major pivot. Fast forward to today, and the Great Resignation and the continuing strength of the labor market have made it clear that workers have a lot more power to decide what they want to do with their lives. 

If you’ve had a wake-up call in the aftermath of the pandemic (or even if you thought about taking a leap for years before!), Joanne is here to share her best strategies for making big, bold changes and finding greater meaning in your career. The insights come from her latest book: “Next! The Power of Reinvention in Life and Work.”

READ MORE FROM OUR INTERVIEW: Four Easy Steps To Changing Careers (And Finding Happiness!) 

Joanne gives us her take on Americans’ broader relationship with work, and why the pandemic has left so many of us looking for a new sense of purpose, even three years later. But actually finding that sense of purpose? Easier said than done. That’s why Joanne put together a four-step reinvention process for people to follow, starting with how you can know when to make a change, or whether you should make a change at all. Listen in to hear her break down those four steps — search, struggle, stop, and solution — and how you can apply them to your own life. 

We also dive into concrete strategies backed by science that can help you reinvent your career with greater certainty and financial stability. Joanne explains why the best pivots often start organically, and how taking baby steps like signing up for a class or exploring a new hobby can lead you to a career you never expected to love. And when you’re in the middle of this exploration process, it can also really help to have an “expert companion” by your side — someone who knows you well and can tell you exactly where you shine.

“We all have these innate strengths and talents that are so second nature to us that we either don’t recognize them at all, or if we do recognize them, we discount them,” says Joanne. An expert companion can help you “get a much better focus on who you are [and] where you’re going.”

In Mailbag, one listener asks whether it’s better to use an inheritance to pay off a mortgage or fully fund her IRA. Another wants to know if she should lower her salary expectations while job searching after a layoff. In our money tip of the week: why you should delete your credit card info from online shopping websites.

LISTEN TO MORE GREAT CAREER-FOCUSED EPISODES OF THE HERMONEY PODCAST:

• Career Change and Salary Loss: How to Manage 
• Why A Linear Career Path Is Dead (And What To Do Instead)
• How to Reinvent Your Career

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