Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck. When is It Too Late to Change Career? And Why Comparison Won't Help You

0:00A Rayo original podcast. Before we begin, are you following or subscribing to reworking? If not, why not? Support the show, make sure you never miss an episode and help others to find it too. Welcome to this week's Ask Tim Anything. One thing I've learned over the years is that almost everyone feels like they're making it up as they go along. We just get very good at hiding it. There's a strong theme of change in this week's episode because whether it's changing careers changing your relationship with money or simply changing the story you tell yourself it's really the practical stuff that holds us back more often than not it's fear fear of getting it wrong fear of starting over fear that everyone else has already got it figured out the truth is change can be uncomfortable but staying where you are when you're unhappy isn't exactly comfortable either now i won't pretend that I will always have the perfect answer.

0:55I'm not here to tell you what to do. I'm not a therapist, financial advisor or career coach, but I can offer a different perspective based on the lessons I've learned through business leadership and life. Sometimes one conversation is enough to help you make the next best decision. So let's dive into today's questions.

1:16We've got a question in from Tony in Runcorn who came to us via Instagram at reworking podcast. his question is I've been doing the same job for over 10 years now after thinking about it for a while now I want to go into something completely new it's something I've had an interest for in the past but I've got no qualifications how do I go about this is there a way to change careers when you've been doing the same job through years well Tony great question thanks for sharing it the first thing I'd say is that don't skip over the 10 years the 10 years that you've done is a great investment in terms of building up skills knowledge and experience that puts you in a different class you're not just a new starter you've learned some stuff what you have to really be clear about is what have you learned and what is that potential transferable value of those skills if you are thinking about transferring and going somewhere else the cautionary note i immediately would start to say to you though is don't jump from the fire just yet and the reason i say that is this, until you are guaranteed about what this new career path is, this new industry sector looks like and what the pluses and minuses are there, because trust me, every single industry sector has them, then you shouldn't make the transition just yet.

2:31Do the research, find out the information, see what it is beyond the initial pull of thinking about it that could actually make it a realistic thing where you don't just think, you actually do. I'll give you an example. Lots of people wanted to be lawyers when I was growing up. Lots of people I know then started watching Suits, the Netflix drama, and they said, yes, I want to be Harvey. I want to be him in the great suits, doing all the cases, running around in pretty offices. But the reality is that most legal professionals will tell you it looks nothing like a Netflix documentary. It looks much more like hard slog, research, reading lots of stuff in back offices and dark rooms where nobody sees the outputs of your work.

3:12and until you can understand exactly what the little nuanced bits of every single potential industry sector looks like I'd advise you not to make the jump because sometimes it may be more productive to get a lateral change or another change in a business that you're already in because if you haven't fully explored all the opportunities where you are now where it could be a secondment it could be a work shadowing opportunity it could be upward mentoring of the CEO within the business that you're working in, you might be missing out on some gold that's sitting right in front of your nose. And often when you're chasing the rainbow to find a pot of gold over there, you might miss the one that was right in front of you at the particular place that you're at now.

3:54So what I'd say is first explore what this new opportunity could look like and speak to someone who's currently working there. Get some real advice or information from somebody is doing the thing that you want to do today. Ask them the tough questions, not the pretty exciting things that they do. Say, what's the worst thing about the role? What would they change? How would they make it better? That will give you some information. Then I'd want to make sure that you're not eliminating opportunities where you are now, given that you've got over a decade of experience in one particular field. That's valuable in its own right.

4:29The thing I would definitely not get you to do is just go out and get another qualification. There are so many people who have so many letters after their names, after picking up so many degrees, who are in exactly the same position that they were before they took the qualification. Because it wasn't valuable what they've got in terms of additional information for the work they wanted to do. I'm not saying that qualifications are bad or getting more education is negative. But I'm saying the place that you are in terms of a workplace, it transacts on value. What value are you actually adding? and the acquisition of more qualification is based on a trading principle that we learned from school.

5:10If you work harder, you do the work, you get a qualification, you get a reward, you get a certificate. That was a sense of success but in the workplace what gets you visible and gets you potentially more money, more promotions or a better opportunity is working out what is valuable in a space and that sometimes is not necessarily a qualification and with 10 years experience you could be an experienced hire for a new role rather than someone who's coming in with a qualification or a letters after the name saying that they have the theory to do the work in modern day work particularly in the workplaces i am either part of or i'm an investor we promote people who can solve problems and solving problems doesn't always come with a qualification it comes with knowledge and experience which you seem to have lots of that in bucket loads given you've worked in the same place for 10 years so what i'd say is get the information from somebody that's working in potentially interesting places you are thinking about ask them the question if qualifications a requirement to get in there or can experience be traded for education and then and only then when you're sure that there's nothing within your current role or industry sector that you could apply for because you've got the warm contacts the knowledge and you're known then you can think about something else going out and looking for another opportunity but value what you have first and then think about qualifications later our next question is from Hannah in Nottingham who came to us via email at reworking at bowermedia.co.uk she says I'm always broke by a payday well we all understand that one I end up putting money into my savings at the start of the month but by the end of the month I've had to dip into it so it's like I haven't saved anything at all how can I actually start saving money instead of spending it all listen i think there'll be so many people who are in exactly the same position that you are and i think the first thing i want to say to you hannah is let's remove the guilt because when we talk about money it's often associated with guilt that i haven't got enough i'm not doing enough i'm not saving enough get rid of that we are where we are and with money money is numbers numbers are facts and if we deal with facts rather than feelings we can get better.

7:37So stop the guilt because I can feel it implied like, oh, I feel really bad. I haven't done anything. You are where you are, right? What we have to do is work out a plan to potentially get you into a better position. Okay, so we've dealt with the pain bit, which is around the guilt. We now want to talk about how do we plan for the next stage? What I think you need to do is, this is tough. It's the hardest part of actually getting control of your finances. It's acknowledging really the point of where you are. What I want you to do is take your last two or three months bank statements and put them on the table.

8:09Have two pens with you. Have a red and another colour pen. Of all the things that you spent in every single month where you didn't need to spend, put a red ring around it. Just put a red ring around it. And all the other things that you think are essential, like paying for your bills, making sure you travel, all those things, use the other colour pen to identify that it's the right spend. Of all the things that you didn't need to spend, just add them up. Add them up for every single month and get that number. That number is what you should have in your savings account. So that's the extra thing, that's the bump that you can create, the buffer that you can create in your savings every single month.

8:49It might be that you have one less coffee than you have bought from somewhere else. Or you buy yourself some nice coffee, make it at home, and then put in a thermos when you go into it. Find some way to reduce your spend. That's the hardest bit to do because with this tap-tap culture that we have, it's so easy to just keep tapping and then all of a sudden the money's disappeared. So reducing the spend by identifying the unnecessary spend that you have is the most important thing. Then next, you've got to set up a separate bank account. It's a side bank account which might be adjacent to the current one you have or with a different provider.

9:26That money that you save, the one less coffee, the one less matcha that everybody seems to be buying, take that money and put it in that account where it's separate from your day-to-day tap-tap account, which you use on a regular basis and leave it there. It might only be 20 pound. It might be 50 quid, whatever it is, just put it in a separate account. Then you have to think about this. How can I generate more money? Is there something else that I can do? Because if you're saving, it's usually because you're saving for something. you want to get to some particular point it might be a deposit it might be a holiday it might be a new dress it might be anything that you want but that thing means that you have to accumulate more cash if you've done the bit where you've reduced your spend so you can increase the amount you can potentially put away to save the only next option is increase the money that you earn and the way that you can do that is look at any skills or talents that you have which you can sell to somebody else in what I call the five to nine period.

10:24The nine to five is what you get paid for. The five to nine is when it's your free time, which you can use that skill, knowledge or experience to sell to somebody. So it could be that you come up with a way to plait hair. I would use that example because that's what my wife used to do, right? If you can plait someone's hair, you can book an appointment to do someone's hair styling at seven o 'clock on a Thursday evening and they charge them 50 quid for that that's 50 quid extra you have that month where you could have been watching married at first sight but now you're earning 50 quid doing someone's hair put that money into that same separate account which is going on and now not only you save 20 pound for the matcha you've got 70 quid because you've got another 50 quid because you generate some income for yourself the final thing i'd say is that all of this saving is toward a specific goal because goals motivate us and I want you to do this.

11:15Visualise what you're saving for. So it could be a new dress, a new pair of shoes, a new holiday, a new house. Take a picture of that and screenshot it on your phone. So the first thing that you see every single morning is that thing that you are saving for because when you are looking at the matcha, you get at your phone, your picture will come up and you're like, no, no, no, the matcha is not better than this picture that I want. when you're thinking about going and getting that meal deal when you could have made sandwiches before you'll look at your tap tap phone and you'll be like no no no no no I'm not doing that so get a visual representation of what you are saving for or what you're trying to achieve with the money that you have to put aside because that will hopefully give you the dopamine rush which is bigger than the spending dopamine rush that you get from actually buying that matcha or new pair of shoes that you don't need because you're saving for the big holiday to Thailand that you're desperate to go for So make sure you first get out the statements to say where you are today.

12:12Analyze those statements. Reduce all the outgoings that you possibly can. Then set up a separate bank account where you can put that money actually into, which is away from your day-to-day spending. So you know there's a secret piggy bank that only will go into money you've saved. Then you've got to work out, can I earn potentially more money doing something? Can I get on Vinted or any other ones, sell some of the old stuff that I've got? Can I trade a skill that I have for some money somewhere? And then use that money, put it in that separate bank account. And then finally, visualize what you are actually trying to achieve.

12:48Whatever that goal is, take a screenshot on your phone, save it. And every time you go to spend, look at it and say to yourself, do I want this thing on my phone more than I want the current thing I'm about to spend? And if the answer is yes, then you will make sure you keep saving. if the answer is no you need a bigger goal.

13:14We've got a really powerful question in from Liam in Portsmouth who came to us via Instagram. He says this, I'm 35 and I feel like I'm behind in life compared to everyone else. A lot of my friends moved to cities after uni whereas I came back home to my hometown and I feel like I've stagnated? How do you stop worrying that you've left it too late to make a change? Wow, Liam, this is a very, very powerful question. And I think for us at reworking, it's actually essentially why we set up reworking. We wanted to talk to people just like you, Liam, who were thinking that they were behind or everyone's moving 100 miles an hour, or they've made the wrong decision.

13:54The first thing I'd say is that you definitely haven't made the wrong decision. You've made a decision. It's a very subtle thing, but it's very important. The very fact that you can change and do something else means that the decision is not fatal. It's still going. Trust me, you are here. You've got time to send me messages on Instagram. You've got options. You've got choices. We can do something about it. The bit that I think you need to really rework is that you need to stop comparing your unedited view of your whole life to somebody else's edited perspective of what they are doing. All too often I hear people say well look what Jennifer did last year and look what Phil's doing tomorrow blah blah but they don't know what Jennifer did on Tuesday when she had to deal with some form of sickness or what John had to do in terms of getting into the position he is, the things he had to sacrifice and all we see is this edited filtered view of everyone else's life on those annoying LinkedIn updates when they say, oh my gosh, John's got another promotion.

14:57It's like, how is he doing that? I don't know is the honest answer. So therefore I shouldn't focus on what John or Jennifer's doing. I've got to focus on what I'm doing. And that's what I'm saying to you, Liam. You know the 360 degree view of your life. You don't know what that is for everybody else and what they're doing. So focus on what you can do and controlling the controllables that you can change. I can't work on other people and what they've done in their choices. they might be telling you they're having a fantastic time in the city while they're eating beans on toast because they can't afford the rent for the particular month do you understand what I mean so don't compare yourself to somebody else's journey because that doesn't help you it can give you something to aspire to fine but don't make it a direct comparison because you're an individual just like they are right going back to your hometown is not a negative choice actually there's more people now who are going back to where they started their lives because actually in terms of affordability in terms of connection in terms of networks all of those things are in the environments that they grew up in and the big smoke of cities is not as attractive for many people as it once was we're just about to have a very interesting conversation about who's going to run our country and having somebody from the north who spent time in manchester building up Manchester who now is saying that devolution and moving power around the country is more important I think you're going to see a much more regional push to where success is and where it looks like and I think that's a great thing having gone to Great Grantham having gone to Crewe Manchester having gone down to Portsmouth in lots of different areas where you you're sending your questions from I see amazing opportunities right there and there where if I had the time and attention I'd probably take advantage of those but I don't what I don't have over what you have by staying where you are is a connection and that connection is collateral and if you can use that collateral to come up with a concept an idea a proposition a job opportunity you're probably going to be ahead of people because people make decisions based on people they like and if you can have a connection to the area that's got to be a great thing the other thing by staying you'll know what people in the local area need and want and how that works.

17:16That gives you a step up on everybody else. So I'd really focus on what you have. The bit that I really want to unpick with you though, Liam, is this feeling of stagnation. Because that's a powerful word, but it's not a fact, it's a feeling. Because the fact that you have stayed and you are continuing to move on means that you aren't stagnant. You're actually achieving stuff. You're actually doing stuff on a day to day basis. But the feeling is because you're comparing yourself to other people's journey. And I think that's at the heart of what the challenge is. If you can unpick what you see in their journeys that you want, you like or you aspire to.

17:57Cool. Write them down. Articulate them. But in an individual way, not in look what John's doing. You should say this is what Liam wants to do because I've seen that and that interests me. then you set yourself a target how am I going to get it how am I going to achieve it how am I going to make that happen for me because let me be clear when I've been in Manchester Newcastle Liverpool Birmingham where my mum came from Jamaica and other things I see lots of the same businesses I see in London thriving and doing great work create employment doing great things so we should worry less about postcodes and more about potential and you have tons of it and it gives a nice P that you're in Portsmouth too.

18:40So I want to hear that you're revolutionising Portsmouth and what that means for you in your local area and then everyone will be watching your LinkedIn update and saying, maybe I should move to Portsmouth. The final bit of your question was, is it too late to make a change? It's never too late. Every day I'm making decisions about change and you can do the same. Wherever you are, at whatever age you are, you have huge opportunities to change your life depending on what you want it to be. I've just celebrated the 50th year on this planet, right? I'm great. You're supposed to say I don't look at Liam.

19:17That's what I expect you to send me on Instagram. You don't ever look at. But anyway, the reality is that I still don't know what I want to actually do. But that for me is empowering because I've got the opportunity to do whatever I want. you at 35 have 35 years of experience and knowledge that can be leveraged towards whatever you want it to be the decision that you have to make is what do you want to focus on because once you get that clear time won't matter it will be about how can I make it happen quicker thank you so much for spending time with me today if there's one thing I hope you take away from these episodes it's that progress doesn't usually come from having all the answers it comes from asking better questions so thanks for sending all of your questions my way and keep yours coming because if you're thinking it somebody else probably is too you can get in touch with us on social media or email at reworking at bowermedia.co.uk thanks so much for listening and i'll catch you next time on reworking Thank you.