4 Questions to Ask Yourself When Plotting a New Career Course.

Hundreds of thousands of federal workers could be leaving their jobs next month under the “fork in the road” and other restructuring initiatives. Other employees are being terminated allegedly “for cause,” a designation that could make it difficult for them to collect state unemployment benefits. Even more workers are losing their jobs in Federal Government-adjacent sectors including universities, health care, museums, public television, and myriad not-for-profit organizations.

Other workers are threatened with job loss as new tariffs impede long-standing domestic and foreign business models and supply chains.

These gloom-and-doom scenarios do not have to spell disaster for your career and livelihood if you think through the challenge now. Reinventing your career is one way to do this.

Career reinvention often means finding the intersection of:

1. What you love,
2. What you are good at,
3. What you can be paid for, and
4. What the world needs.

This is sometimes referred to as “Ikegai,” a Japanese philosophy of well-being.

Although I do not have precise figures, my experience suggests that many workers downsized from large organizations are near the zenith of their career. The years between age 40 and age 60 are generally considered to be “peak earning years,” as full-time workers with bachelor’s degrees tend to make the most money during those two decades. As a result, your 50s are the decade in which your income-earning potential can be its highest.

Ironically, this is also the point in a surprising number of careers where workers find themselves out-of-work. Corporations may find them “too expensive.” (although I doubt they will admit it) Public agencies and others probably terminate more older employees just because their entire workforce is older.

Whether you are terminated from your job due to some rational economic process or for no discernable reason whatsoever, it is time to figure out what comes next.

What do you love?

A good starting point for career exploration at any stage of life is to think about what activities or subjects you love. A former coworker pursued his interest in healthcare and became an E.M.T. Another acquaintance—an electronics technician for many years—began studying calculus at age 70 to qualify as an electrical engineer.

What are you good at?

Also consider whether or not you have the talent for what you love. For example, you may not want to pursue formal schooling in engineering if you lack mathematical aptitude even if you love to tinker and invent gadgets. Another classic example I’ve cited before is that “being kind-hearted” is not good enough to become a great nurse because it is a technical job.

Some retirees convert hobbies into businesses or take jobs doing things they have done as hobbies for years. But this does not work for everyone. It may not be fun to spend eight hours or more per day doing something that was exciting for one day a week. A client that loved baking, for example, accepted an apprenticeship in a commercial bakery. She was heartbroken when she found the work was different from baking at home.

Can you be paid for something you love?

You may be able to monetize a spare time activity you love as a second-act or third-act career. For example, if you have established a successful social-media or website presence for a community group or club, you may be able to build this into paid freelance or contract work. It can take time and money, though, to turn a hobby or volunteer activity you love into a practical business, so think about whether you want to make the commitment. But remember the expression “if you do something you love, you will never work a day in your life.” 

Does the world need your expertise?

You can love what you do, be good at it, and have expertise that can be monetized, but you will only make money when you are offering something “the world” needs. You will find it a challenge to establish whether the market needs the services you want to offer when entering a new field if you are unfamiliar with potential employers or customers.

It may require market research to figure out whether you can convince prospective employers or customers that they need your service. Use LinkedIn and your personal network to identify people that are doing what you want to do so you can speak with them. Approach them by explaining that you are learning about your new field, so they don’t view you as a competitor. People that love what they do like to talk about it, so you will get information.

We found well-known reinvention examples.

There are countless stories of successful midlife career changes. Here are a few of them:

Julia Child was a longtime Federal Government employee when she took a cooking class at Le Cordon Bleu. She was 49 when she published “Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume One,” in 1961. She got her own TV show, “The French Chef,” at age 51.

Colonel Sanders (of KFC fame) held many jobs — as farmer, firefighter (usually a government job), insurance salesman, and streetcar conductor — before running a Kentucky service station at age 40, where he also sold fried chicken. His chicken became famous, and so did he! Sanders sold his first KFC franchise in 1952, at the age of 62.

The one job he reportedly never held was Army Colonel. Kentucky Colonel is an honorary title.

Ray Kroc was 50 when he met Dick and Mac McDonald and convinced them to franchise their local, self-service burger restaurant.Kroc, a salesman then selling five-spindle milkshake mixers, saw the potential in the quick-service concept. By the time Kroc reached age 63, McDonalds had more than 400 locations in 44 states.

Duncan Hines was a traveling office supply salesman who assembled a list of quality restaurants across the United States, which he sent out with his Christmas cards in 1935. (He was 55.) The following year, he self-published a book, “Adventures in Good Eating,” which he sold for $1 a copy. In 1952, at the age of 72, he partnered with Roy H. Park to create Hines-Park, allowing his name to appear on a branded line of foods and products, including baked goods.

These people are reminders that you always have the power to make a change and become the person you always wanted to be — the person you were meant to be.

Some are convinced it is too late to start something new. Others are worried about age discrimination in the job search. None of these are reasons not to reinvent yourself after you are downsized.