Does your career need an airbag?

When one door closes another opens but all too often there is a long hallway in between Rick Jarod

Don’t we sometimes wonder if careers came with airbags, ready to deploy in case of accidents? 

Even as traditional career structures and roles crumble, a number of us continue to tolerate our careers. Our mind is a dangerous animal after all. Always engaged, it coaxes us to stay inert, helped by the crutch of the pay cheque or our responsibilities or both! 

What if we fail miserably when we take that chance? Will we be ever be able to get back into well paid employment? And those family responsibilities?

As someone who is just a few weeks into figuring out my new next, here is what I have learnt at my journey’s outset:

Unconventional is the new Conventional

The fishing is best where the fewest go... Tim Ferriss

At a recent career management event, someone remarked: Corporate life is a bit like having beer. You feel great after the first pint. But after your tenth, that’s a whole different feeling!

Career transitions are bold, risky and never easy. But key is to pause, question and validate your own assumptions as you aspire to establish a new career identity.

Knowing is the result of doing and experimenting, argues Herminia Ibarra in her book “Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career”. Career transition is a crooked journey along which we try various possibilities of who we could become. This includes:

• Try the unusual by creating small wins - Volunteer, consult, advise, mentor
• Don't be suspended in mid-air - Connect with friends you trust, mentors and different role models
• Take time to reflect - Be patient and keep eyes open for new opportunity

At the same event, an expert said that navigating careers and change is a bit like finding your space in a crowded train. A bit to the left, a bit to the right! There are no straight lines to the top!

Entrepreneurs are not Window Shoppers 

Action is the spark that ignites potential John Long

How many times have you window shopped and hoped to swap your 9-to-5 job for entrepreneurship in the midst of change?

Check out Tony Robbins' excellent post around how most of us just keep wanting to be an entrepreneur but never get around to it! True entrepreneurs jump and then look!

Entrepreneurs are perfectly likeable and imperfectly lunatic. How can you change your world if you don’t have a bit of lunatic lurking in you? 

Ever fantasize about sliding down, head first, on the entrepreneurship rope selling pre-packaged Ethiopian chilli sauce and readymade food? I just heard of someone trying just that. 

Jonathan Wright, who successfully co-founded the Innocent drinks company before selling to Coca Cola, says no one has it fully figured out at the start. His founding team went from discussing building electric baths (water and electricity in close proximity, no less!) to self-opening doors to sourcing fresh fruit from the warm tropics. They eventually built a smoothie empire in the UK!

The Psychology of Luck 

Life will astound you when you give something a shot after being shot down Julieanne O’Connor

For someone going through a career transition, doesn’t luck sometimes sound like that other popular four letter word?

However, in his book 'The Luck Factor’, Richard Wiseman details 4 behavioural techniques that lucky people employ to create good fortune in life, not just in careers:

• Maximise Chance - Active networking while focusing on new experiences
• Listen to Hunches - Being alive, mentally and physically, to seeing opportunity 
• Expect Good Luck - Visualising success becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy 
• Turn Bad Luck to Good - Not dwelling on things but taking control

To know more, download this article from this website.

Key Learnings

• This is an era of self-managed careers: So commit (actively manage); be curious (willingly experiment); connect (who knows you, not who you know); open to change (ability to adapt) and be confident (faith to carry out tough career decisions).
• When thinking unconventionally, draw threads between what you are doing and what you want to do. But don’t overthink, it’s about giving chance a chance!
• Your career develops though significant moments (securing a promotion, job loss, career breaks, losing teams) but career agility lies in what you do every day. The trick is to continue to grasp and learn daily.
• Anticipate false starts when you go where the growth opportunities are. Key is to keep evaluating you are going towards what you want!
• Don’t lose your identity. Keep circulating. Be an all-weather networker.
• Disrupt your career but not yourself. Career breaks don’t destroy you, but your mind can.

Explore. Experiment. Engage. Expand! Don’t be a spectator to your career, because it doesn't come with air bags! 

Are you or someone you know planning a career transition or change? What have you learnt so far? I would love to hear from you in the comments section. If you enjoyed this post, please like and share it!

Note: Thanks to INSEAD alumni Claire Harbour-Lyell, Kerynne Metherell, Julianne Myles, Steven Parker for some keen insight at the careers event!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some of my other articles have been featured on LinkedIn under Customer Experience, Leadership & Management, Career Development, Sales Strategies, Big Ideas & Innovation, What Inspires Me. Here are some quick links:

• Mind The Gap: A Powerful Lesson in Building Character
• Building great Customer Experiences: Be invested, Be Inspired, Be Personal
• Tips on leading a better Professional and Personal Life
• Self Help with Curls: Life Hacks from a 90 Year Old
• Improve Credibility, Increase Sales: Save Executive Meetings from going off-course
• What's Cooking: Life Inspirations from Cooking
• From Grit to Great: Lessons from the Sales front line
• Learning from nature: Adapting for personal growth
• Striking the Right Note: Inspirations from a children's music concert

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Abhishek is a Sales & Marketing leader based out of London. Until recently, he was Vice President, EMEA at Persistent Systems and is now looking for his next adventure. He has previously led regional sales and business development teams at Wipro, Cognizant and Cisco and holds an MBA from INSEAD, France. He has lived, studied and worked in India, U.S., Singapore, France and U.K. He considers himself a passionate globalist and in his spare time, a free-range foodie and an aspiring author. All opinions are his own.