Welcome to Taking a Career Break with Katrina McGee, the show for high achievers who are feeling burned out or unfulfilled.
Hi there, I'm Katrina, your career break and sabbatical coach and author of the best-selling Taking a Career Break for Dummies.
And I'm James Hammond, your podcast host and producer. Are you ready to take a life-changing break that leads to a happier, healthier, and more fulfilling life?You're in the right place.
I'm going to break down my proven framework that's helped nearly 100 clients achieve transformative breaks.Are you ready to change your life?Let's go.
Hello and welcome to this week's episode, Embarking on a New Career Path and or Becoming Self-Employed, which is pages 21 to 22, 23 in the book.Going to discuss that little section in a bit more detail.Katrina, how are you doing?
Alright James, I dropped my phone, the screen broke, I dropped it off, and I'm waiting to see if it will be resurrected.So good times!I'm excited to be here though!
How does it feel to be back in the 90s?
I had to write down handwrite directions to get that I looked up on Google Maps on my laptop to then take in the car with me and read as I drove to this new phone repair place.It was pretty exciting.And no, it wasn't.It was actually very stressful.
It's hard to imagine, isn't it?It's hard to imagine these days, two or three days without a phone.
Yeah.Yes, it's uncomfortable.It's uncomfortable, James.
Okay, let's talk to a bit a little bit uncomfortable, but this can be uncomfortable to subject because this could be a big change in your lives.Let's get stuck into the episode.
And the first question I want to ask you is, why do you think people want to embark on a new career path or become self employed?
And I love that question.And I think the answer is because whatever path they're on no longer lights them up.Now, it's possible.Like me, it never really did.And the pain of that has just become so obvious that they're like, I can't.
I don't want to keep existing like this.Life has to be more than this.This can't be all that there is.But I actually have other clients who find that their path was good for a while.
And then they grew, they changed, and what they wanted changed, but they never altered the path to catch up with this new version of them.So I think when you take a break, you're going to have a lot of reflection time.
You're going to have time to pursue your interest.You're going to have time to really slow down and enjoy life.And a lot of people don't want to return back to the daily grind and the hamster wheel. the same way that they did before.
So I know we're going to dive more into this, but you know, it might be more about their work lifestyle that changes versus the work itself.But sometimes it is the work itself as well and what they're doing.
But I think at the end of the day, a break is a catalyst for a new beginning, a new reality.And for some people, that means doing something new with their working hours.
Okay.And my second part to this little discussion here, this question is COVID.Do you think that significantly changed people's thoughts on this or has it always been there sort of festering away previously?
I think it's always been there under the surface, but for a lot of people, it was more unconscious.I think COVID eventually made it unbearable to the point that the pain was so great.It became a conscious pain, right?
Instead of this low grade sense of, Gosh, it feels like something's missing or it feels like life was supposed to be more than this or like, man, I really used to feel like an interesting, creative person.And this life is really sucking it out of me.
But then you're like, No, but this is just what it is.And you go back to your distractions.
I think COVID removed a lot of those distractions and amped up the focus on work and the focus on, you know, your sort of like immediate, the immediate to do list and I feel like within that, the pain for many just became intolerable.
And it seemed like, wow, if life is really this short, things are this unpredictable.And I'm giving this much of myself to my job.I want to stop for a minute and get more out of life.
And I also, I think COVID burned a lot of people out that were already potentially teetering on the edge and it just pushed them over.And so some people just need a break because they can't breathe.They can't stop to catch their breath.
It's like they're walking along on a broken leg and a twisted ankle.
Yeah, I wonder what part of that break, I'm not calling COVID a break, but it was a break in the norm.
I wonder what part of people's lives at work were affected where suddenly they can't see people, and now they're drilling down into, oh, what am I actually doing for work?You know, what is the actual task at hand?
I wonder if seeing people day to day because they like them and they like the camaraderie in the office and stuff like that kind of protect them a little bit from the actual job.But then they got down to working remotely full time in their own space.
And like, oh, I don't actually like the job.And it's not really fulfilling.I wonder if that kind of had a part to play as well.
I mean, for sure.I think it strips, you know, like COVID stripped away all of the, all of the other things.
And it's like just you and work and now work is invading your home life 24 seven, like the computer or whatever the laptop that you're using to work on is in your home.
And it might even be in your bedroom or in your, you know, living room, like a place that you're living and doing other non-work things.And so I think it just amplified the intensity of work and the focus on work.
Okay.What can a break lead up to?
I mean, it can lead to so many things.
So I think, you know, the point of this episode, what we really want people to know is, if you're craving some kind of change, or you're curious about what could be lying on the other side of a break, right, it's hard to envision when you're feeling very stuck in your daily grind, we want to paint that picture for you.
So there are possibilities of, you know, new careers, like you can go in a new direction.One of those is pursuing an alternative path when it comes to the work that you do that could be adjacent to your old life or it could be something really new.
So when we talk about how can you use a break to facilitate change in your career path, there are a couple of things you can focus on during your break.Please Caveat, please do not start this at the beginning of your break.
The beginning of your break is about rest, restoration, then it transitions into joy, exploration, connection, right?This part that we're talking about should come in the last, you know, 30% or the last 20% of your break.
But the kinds of things you can look forward to and incorporate, you can look towards professional development, upskilling, if you will. And there are so many ways to do this.
I encourage you to do it in ways that feel good to you and feel inspiring and that align to your own career break or sabbatical purpose and themes, which it probably would be a career break because you would be quitting your job.
But, you know, you want to think about those themes and your purpose statement.So you can take unpaid work experiences.
If there's someone that you want to mentor you for a short period of time or a project that you would love to work on that you just don't have
the experience for, but because you're on a break, you're willing to do 10, 20 hours of work for several weeks to learn through that project.I have clients who have done fellowships, which is a really exciting opportunity.So I think it's ProFellow.
It might be profellow.com, but there is actually a database that you can go to to look for fellowships based on various factors.But taking a fellowship is like being awarded an opportunity, right?To go in with a cohort and to learn something new.
And so one of my clients used a fellowship to pivot to an adjacent industry and sort of like under the same umbrella, but sort of pivot what he did and to pivot the industry a bit.And it expands your network, right?
So you don't have to be in a fellowship to expand your network, but being in a fellowship and in a cohort under a program is a great way to expand your network.You can do certifications, you can take courses,
I've had a client who joined a startup part time during her break and did marketing with them because marketing was her previous skill set.
And so she got to see a startup and kind of learn more about, you know, not the startup, only the startup specifically, but about entrepreneurship and starting up a new business. through that experience.
And you can also you have time to deep dive on a topic of interest.
So if there's something that you've been wanting to learn about, or something you see, like, maybe you really are interested in UX, and you know that that just keeps growing, and that's something you want to dive into and sort of pivot, you have a chance to just deep dive and completely nerd out on a topic of interest.
And another, you know, example of this is learning a language.I have several clients that have done immersions, both in their home country,
or in a country where that is the native language, but where they go and they just do a language immersion to get some basic skills or to build fluency in another language, which obviously can help your career prospects beyond, right?
So thinking about that professional development, like I touched on already, you can expand your network.It doesn't have to be through a formal process.
You can use this time to connect with people who you think are doing interesting things or who have changed their own careers or pivoted in meaningful ways and you admire them and then ask them about who they follow or who they admire.
And just continuing getting to know more people that inspire you, more people that are interested in connecting with you and sharing more about what they know.And then the other way, you know, we could talk about exploration is
thinking about diving into self-employment.So you can stick your toe in the water of self-employment during a break, or you can just dive deeper into passions and hobbies without that pressure, just being curious to see what comes up.
But at the end of the day, when we're thinking about this bucket of self-employment or indulging in passions and hobbies, it's really about being able to do something that you really enjoy,
and finding more freedom and autonomy in the way that you are able to do it, right?So you might look at becoming a freelancer, a contractor, or a consultant, right?
Or maybe an entrepreneur who actually starts a side hustle or a business around that topic of interest.
But those are some potential options, right, for people that want to create a change of what can I be doing at the end of my break or the middle of my break to facilitate change if I know that I don't want to come back to the old way?
Do you think combining a hobby or passion with maybe potentially a self-employment full-time business of your own business, right?Is that a problem or is that maybe even a danger?
Because you do read and hear online sometimes that never combine your passion and your job because it doesn't become a hobby or a passion anymore, it becomes a chore or a work thing, right?You put much pressure on it.Is that danger there?
Of course, of course there's a danger, but coaching people is a passion of mine.I really love it.And I was doing this before I even really knew what coaching was.
I mean, arguably now I do it much better because I've been trained and certified and learned some things.But I was always helping people. But I was always helping people, right?And yeah, sometimes it becomes a grind.
And sometimes I'm like, oh gosh, you know, that's just life though.
I think if it's really important to you, like if you are creating for creation's sake, and it is like a spiritual or a sacred experience for you, then yeah, putting money pressure on it is probably not the way to go.
But if it's something that you have an extreme talent skill, it's in your zone of genius, or it just brings you alive, I believe there are ways you can explore making money off of that or in conjunction with that.That doesn't have to be soul-sucking.
You do have to be more careful.It is possible that you will turn it into a job, job, and hate it, of course.But think about people that are professional singers. For a lot of people, that's a passion and they turned it into a job.
And even though sometimes it feels like a grind, they wouldn't really want to be doing anything else.So I think it's not necessarily a deal breaker, but you do have to exercise some caution.
Yeah.If someone can pay me a nice salary for my podcasting, then I would take it all day long.Just talk to people.I love doing it.
Okay.What are the most common ways that career breakers can approach self-employment?
Yeah, so what I see through clients that have stuck their toe in self-employment or just dove in headfirst into the deep end, there's three common ways I see people kind of like get those seeds planted and kind of going.
So one is they're inspired by an idea that they have on the break.It might be an idea that was floating around in the back of their head before the break.
They just didn't have the space or the solitude or the silence or the time to really cultivate that, nurture that and see what that idea could be fully formed. But they might also just be traveling or exposing themselves to new things.
And it sparks a new idea, it sparks a possibility of what they could do.The second one is, it's this desire to have more freedom and autonomy.So they sort of like start with the end goal.
of I want to live a more freedom-based, a more independent, a more autonomous life.So what skills do I have?What experience do I have?
What needs could I fulfill that allow me to have more freedom, whether that's still working, but doing it in a way where you have location independence, right?
Or having more autonomy where you're like, I'm kind of my own boss, or I'm a contractor working for a company, but I get to set my time.
I take it project by project, and I can say no when I need time off, or I can say no when there's a different thing I want to focus on.
And the last one is a really fun one, but if you are connecting with other people on your break, whether through travel or just involving yourself in new communities, new spaces, new places, you'll meet some really interesting people.
You might meet a person that has a really great business idea and your skill set in marketing or operations is a value to help them bring that idea to life.
You might meet someone that's doing something that you could do yourself and to see them living their dream and doing it sparks so much for you to be like, Oh my God, like I could be doing this. I love what they're doing.
So, you know, similar to the first idea of being inspired by an idea on the break, instead of it being internally generated, where you're coming up with the idea, it's sort of externally generated, where you're seeing someone living out a version of life that you didn't know, and they're introducing you to a new possibility that then creates more possibilities for you as far as what you could be doing if you're interested in doing your own thing or finding some version of self-employment.
Yeah, that's underrated the inspiration of people meeting real people not seeing online profiles that might have some influence of followers.But that's a interesting point.Yeah, I love that.And what options do you have posts break?
Let's break so many things, right?For this episode, we're really focusing on when you want change.And so if you want change, it depends on what kind of change you're seeking.If you want to switch careers altogether, you can do that.Revisit, right?
The fellowship, the personal development, that can create a bridge for you to get from the career that you had to the career that you want to have.If you want more freedom and you want to be location independent, you can become a digital nomad.
You can embrace a new work style.You can work hybrid or more remotely and do it from other locations or work as a contractor where you're setting your own, you know, hours and you are taking it project by project.
Some of my clients actually go into part-time work.So they come back and they're like, man, that grind sucked. I've become better at managing my money.I also value my time 10 times more than I ever did before.
I see what I'm sacrificing every day I go into the office.So now let me look for a part-time opportunity that will provide enough income for me to keep going, but not take up my whole life.So I've seen that happen several times.
Another one is incorporating more breaks into your life.So instead of needing to just downgrade sort of at a constant level, which would be like the part-time option,
It's like deciding that you're going to work hard, but you're going to take more breaks.Those could be short breaks.Those could be long breaks.If you're a contractor, obviously, you could take more breaks.
But it might just be that you go to a job with the intention of, I'm here for two years, and then I'm taking six more months off.
Or I'm going to this job, but I'm letting them know I need two weeks of unpaid vacation because this is how I'm going to make my work life work for me. So there's that option.
And the last one, which, you know, is very specific, but I have seen this happen more than once, so I just want to mention it. Some of my clients semi-retire.
So I discern the difference between part-time work and semi-retire because when they're semi-retiring, it's more like they're not looking for a new job job or a new career or something where it's like consistent.
It's like, I have enough income, steady income coming in to take my foot off the gas and to just do things that interest me that make money.So they haven't fully disconnected from the working world.
Maybe they want to be working and they just like being involved, but they're gonna be involved in things that feel good to them. Or they might just need to pick up something on the side that they can do, but it's very casual.
They're not necessarily super invested in it.It's like, I'm semi-retired, but I'm also open to income as it comes available.
But I'm leaning into other things like my Social Security or other passive income that they're calling in to move forward investments, like 401k stuff, whatever, to move forward.So this is an option that I have seen some people take as well.
That's a great way to finish the episode because episode three, which is the next one, is going to be about creating a budget for your break.
And that's going to incorporate all these things we talked about today and about how to plan for that break in terms of money and even post-break, right?If you're going part-time, you obviously need to make sure you have some budget for that.
Semi-retirement is obviously falling into that as well.Katrina, another great episode, another day in podcast episode in career break land.And I think we've learned a lot and a lot for people to ponder.
Love that, James.I can't wait for the next one.
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