Tag Archive for: Coaching

How To Weigh The Risks Of Your Next Career Move

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Career Move“The Great Resignation” has been circling headlines for months as employers look to fill open positions post-pandemic, and employees look for greener pastures with a career move. The job hunt is increasingly competitive as 44% of employees are actively looking for new roles and 53% are open to leaving their current job.

The good news is that there’s no shortage of open positions. As of January 2022, the U.S. had 11.26 million jobs available — a 55% increase from January of 2021. The pressure to hire has encouraged employers to consider increased pay, benefits, and flexibility at work.

Diving into a new job presents plenty of opportunities to develop your career, skills, and financial wellness. It can also be intimidating to learn new processes, develop new relationships, and potentially find yourself in a less-than-ideal working environment.

After refining your resume, applying to positions daily, and attending a few interviews, you may finally find yourself presented with a job offer. A gleaming opportunity that may offer higher pay or a more prestigious job title, but you can’t be sure of its work-life balance or career challenges yet.

Some well-deserving workers may even receive multiple offers to consider. These situations create pressure to make a decision relatively quickly. It’s a good spot to be in, but having the skills to evaluate risk and rewards lets you fully enjoy the moment and guides you to make a confident decision.

If you’re in the middle of a job hunt or considering other career opportunities, here are some steps to help you weigh the options.

1. Identify Your Priorities

Your individual needs for your next career move are unique to you, and understanding those goals helps you create a framework for comparing offers. A majority of workers (56%) are looking for a pay raise, but there are several job benefits to consider, including:

  • Health benefits
  • Job security
  • Flexibility at work
  • Career goals
  • Employer culture

Take time to list the potential benefits of a new job and rank what’s most important to you. This is a great practice before you start applying so you can save your time and energy for positions that best fit your needs. It can also help you decide how well your current position matches your needs to consider if you’re ready for a change or not.

Next, make a spreadsheet or other list that includes all of these benefits and rank how well each job opportunity meets these criteria. This creates an easy and objective reference to compare jobs that you can update to reflect your needs as they evolve.

2. Research The Position

The internet age has given us a range of resources to evaluate employers and job expectations that too many employees don’t take advantage of. While you likely studied a company, its values, and the position itself throughout the interview process, another review before signing on is worth your time.

Start with the company itself and explore its communication channels. YouTube videos, press releases, and the About page can help you identify cultural values, how the company has and continues to grow, and insights into management. Some companies even go as far as to share their hiring secrets — a great reference in the interview phase.

Review sites like Glassdoor provide a peek into the employee experience through position and interview reviews. Check out the site to vet your priorities against what other employees report their experience with the company was. You’ll also have access to salary ranges that will help you negotiate your pay.

Finally, you’ll get the best information straight from current and former employees. Check out the company’s LinkedIn page to find current employees and search the company name to find anyone who previously worked there. You can connect with workers and send a quick chat that you’d like to know more about their experiences. You may be surprised to find how willing people are to help you find a job that fits.

3. List Your Risks

Most people stuck between two options are worried about making the wrong decision more than they are making the best decision. They’re hung up on the risks, wondering if it’s a step backward or if they’re really cut out for the position.

Imposter syndrome aside, it’s important to consider the risks of a new position. To compare the risks of staying and leaving, you need to start by identifying them. Sit with the moment and feel your excitement, fear, hesitation, and joy. What’s the root of each of these feelings? You may think:

  • “There’s no room to grow in my current position.”
  • “What if I don’t work well with my new manager?”
  • “If this career change doesn’t work out, I may have to restart where I am now.”
  • “If this startup goes under, I have to job hunt again.”

List these risks under the decision it ties to. Visually seeing the number of risks for each choice is helpful, but not all risks are equal. Place the biggest risks at the top of each list and continue the list from most to least risky.

moving careers

 

4. Evaluate And Control Risk

Now that you have clear lists of your potential risks and rewards, go back and consider how you can negate some of the risks. Here are some examples from the previous exercise:

  • If there’s no room to grow in your current position, is there a new skill you can develop to open higher career opportunities?
  • If you’re worried about your next manager, can you set up a meet and greet through the employer?

This practice can also uncover that the risks aren’t holding you back so much as a fear of change. That’s absolutely natural. Especially considering the economic turbulence of the last two years. Still, 80% of employees that quit their job in the last two years have no regrets.

5. Make The Decision That’s Right For You

Changing jobs is an excellent way to advance your career and financial health. Salaries increase an average 14.8% with a new role — especially if you’re early in your career. On the other hand, you’re placed in a new environment to develop new working relationships, which comes with its own networking benefits.

Ultimately, there’s probably not a right or wrong answer. No matter what you choose, you have the option to continue looking for new opportunities if you don’t love where you land. If you land in a position that helps you thrive, that’s a huge win for your well-being and career.

Following the steps above can give you peace of mind that you’re making the best choice with the information available to you. But remember that your next job is far from the end of the line, and there’s always another opportunity around the corner.

By: Bri Marvell is a content creator from Austin with interests in financial wellness and career development. When she’s not at her desk, you can find her exploring the city with her dog, Miko, or getting creative with a new craft.

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How to Achieve What You Want Professionally in 2021

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Nicki GilmourIt is the time of year when professional women (and men) try to finish out the year at work. Reflecting upon and making meaning of an extraordinary year is no easy task as we look back at 2020. An executive coach can help you figure out what matters to you as we enter 2021. Flash forward a year from now, what story do you want to be telling about how your 2021 went? Achieve what you want professionally next year!

Working with a coach is a great way to accurately goal set and get clarity and not just rely on hope as a strategy. Executive coaching helps you behaviorally align to  achieve what you want, no matter what 2021 throws our way. Self- efficacy is a pretty interesting topic at a time when productivity hacks are definitely top of mind.

Promotion or Just a Better Version of Yourself?

Whether it is promotion, advancement, enjoyment, renewal, growth or balance and boundaries at work, most people have some thoughts about how they want 2021 to play out.  Coaching is a process but it is also very much a relationship between coach and ‘coachee’. It can be very intimate in the sense that both the coach and the client has to show up with honesty and vulnerability. Curiosity is important , but not for curiosity’s sake but rather to truly evoke true insights that the client can experience to help them further their leadership or career journey. Sometimes people know the questions and answers consciously and just need help with options. Sometimes people may not know the questions or answers that they need to solve for their challenges or mindset.

The What, The Why, The How and The When

Everyone who comes to coaching knows they want to change something. Or at the very least, the know they want to be a better version of their current selves at work, as a leader or an aspiring leader. Figuring out what you want to achieve, defining it and making sure it is really want you want is cemented by checking in on the ‘why’ you want it. This way we tap into understanding your motivation so we can leverage that to make it actually happen. Are you committed? If not, let’s find out why! And, find out what you really want.

The best way to succeed in 2021 is to clear the life long mental debris, and surface any lingering competing agendas that hunker down in your subconscious and tell you things like you don’t have time or you aren’t good enough which stops you from going after your goals.

More often than not, the subconscious sometimes heard in self-talk, drives the bus, so goal setting is futile if behaviors are not aligning with achieving those goals and your brain tricks you into rationalizing it all that everything is as it should be. Literally, coaching work we do here at theglasshammer is based on a methodology developed at Columbia university and further developed by our head coach. It encompasses adult learning theory, developmental psychology and our immunity to change, neuroscience, behavioral science, social or individual/organizational psychology known as I/O psychology and psycho-dynamic theory around groups and how they operate. In plain english? It boils down to two things:

  • Fear, shame or esteem issues might be sitting hidden in your subconscious paralyzing you from being your greatest version of your professional self.
  • Sometimes it is not about, the systems and dynamics are dysfunctional and you are bearing the brunt of it in your role mostly.  Also sometimes also there are traits in your identity or personality that accentuate issues or make you take up a role like the person who calls it for example.

In coaching, the co-creation of the “how to” begins with a serious look at context, where do you work and what are the organizational norms as these do vary depending on the team and workplace. How does work get done? What is rewarded and what gets tolerated that should be?

Coaching Leaders in Real Life

If you are a leader who struggles with followership after a very successful career built on getting things done, then it is a matter of looking at how work gets done around you.

EQ is about adapting. So, if despite your technical competence and generally mastery of skills, you just cannot get people onboard with the plan the way you want to see it executed, you may be left scratching your head.

Chances are you are not hearing people around you when they explicitly or infer things to you about the project and how they see their role in it. Not listening to feedback, everyday conversations, observations on how people act and react is probably part of what is going on there.

When talking about feedback, I am not referring to the once per year performance formal feedback review. The answers are always in front of you, even in passive aggressive “covert process” type teams and organizations where people seem to say yes but do what they want anyway.

Maybe, you are a manager whose peers and managers do not think you are ready for the next step. Again, what are you missing here? Is it a behavior of yours? Is it something you are or are not doing? What should you do more of, less of and maybe stop or start doing?

If you are a leader who needs to internalize that leadership identity, chances are you have “imposter syndrome” and you might be working very hard in the same way as you always have. Often people who have these tendencies of being “insecure overachievers” do not realize that the behaviors of large amounts of quality work output that got them so far, is not what is going to take them to the higher echelons of company management. Authenticity comes into play here as they struggle to shift identities as fear dictates so much around losing the identity of being the expert.

Cognitive understanding of what you need to do is one thing, behavioral change is another and it is very hard to do.  That is where a good coach  can come in to help you look at your options. Caveat emptor, buyer beware, there are millions of coaches out there as the industry is under-regulated, feel out the fit with a chemistry meet and ask for their methods and see if they are certified by the ICF at PCC level.

What should you expect? After a time, some people can start to reflect not just on action but in action and make behavioral choices in the meeting live time no longer beholden to the old ways that were not longer working for them. Real strategic insights and executive muscle can be built.

You get to be in the movie and watch the movie at the same time. Who wouldn’t want that?

To book an exploratory call with Nicki our founder and Head Coach select a time below

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How to Make Your Next Career Move During COVID-19

Next Career MoveNavigating change at work is applicable to everyone in their career right now. Working with an executive coach can help with adapting to the new environment of work from home and adjusting your mindset to deal with the changes that, due to a pandemic, seem to be here to stay for a while.

Executive-level jobs in the financial services and Fortune 500 are not exempt to disruption as the economic damage starts to take effect and it is very possible that companies will start slashing budgets and downsizing later this year.  So now, not later, is the time to prepare to make your next career move.

It won’t be the old-fashioned tap on the shoulder informing you that your team is being consolidated and there is no place for you.  The digital version of getting marched out of the building can provoke the same feelings of rejection, shame, anxiety and fear of what job to do next. If you are fired or made redundant, furloughed or re-org’ed out, then all is not lost. Instead, start with your own inner voice and control your psychology around what just happened, as self-talk and old fears and feelings can easily surface at this point. Your unconscious mind will enjoy slapping you with paradigms developed over a lifetime. These can take many forms; for those with imposter syndrome it could be “told you so, you didn’t belong there.” In the case of general self-worth concepts it could be the shame of “letting them down,” even though when I push my clients to further consider this internal message the “them” is mystical, general and undefined.

The best investigation you can do into your own constructs can be done using concepts from Lahey and Kegan’s work in Immunity to Change. This is a book I write about often and pursue with coaching clients to help them understand how to break out of implicit notions that your brain is quietly telling you.  These notions are working as the operating system beneath all the human apps or hacks that you think you are running for things like productivity and mastery in your life.

In times of potential trauma, such as job loss, you are faced with a choice of how to recover, as there are many emotions and thoughts involved with this type of situation. The best thing you can do is let go of any negative emotions such as anger or bitterness or shame. This is often easier said than done. Get perspective, as most likely this is not about you personally in these COVID-19 times. Use this event instead as reframe the change as an opportunity to understand what you enjoyed most, and least, about both the job itself and the company culture. This will help you figure out what is next for you professionally. If you have any kind of decent financial cushion, make a promise to yourself that you will not make rash decisions and instead take the time to reflect on what you really want to do.  That could come quickly if clarity happens, which is why a good coach can help you by supercharging you and your process. What do you need more of? Less of? How do you get what you want? This can be more satisfaction, more time, more flexibility, more money, a different title or even a complete pivot into a different career.

Not Furloughed or Fired but Ready for a Change

Even if things are steady at work it is okay to think about making a change, especially if your industry doesn’t look robust in terms of future sustainability or growth. See the writing on the wall regarding how your company is dealing with employees during COVID-19. Look for actions and behaviors. Are they laying off staff in other departments or teams? How are they doing it? Is there a voluntary severance program in place where the deal is lucrative? If so, perhaps it is worth talking to your manager about the future, specifically your future. This can be a courageous conversation to have so make sure you are in good standing with your boss as of course there is risk attached. If everything looks steady, find ways to ensure you make your value visible at all times. Working smarter not harder is the key here.

Take this time to think about what you want long term. In these exhausting times, it is easy to just survive the day and pour a cocktail on a Friday to celebrate getting through another week at work. Do an exercise of “flash forward” and picture yourself three years from now; what are you doing work-wise? Which firm are you in, if any, and what does your day-to-day look like? Start with the end in mind and start to think about the steps that could be taken to get there as Rome (or anything) was not built in a day. What skills do you need to develop? What connections do you need to make? What does starting the transition or pivot to a new job, career or industry look like? Herminia Ibarra’s fabulous book Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader very much argues that we are all in transition, and we just might not know it yet. From this perspective, looking at networks and skills is a worthy action at all times. I highly endorse her work, and this is a consistent recommendation from me to my coaching clients across senior levels on Wall Street, tech, fintech, healthcare and pharma.

As gloomy as things might seem right now with the outlook for the economy and personal risks in going to work, it is ultimately an ideal time to figure out what you want and what works for you. Things will return to a normal of sorts, but who knows when? Think about the last time you interviewed for a job. You might have been in a different place in your life and it’s okay to acknowledge that everything has changed. Not least, you have a chance to think about your enhanced skillset. And surely all of our resilience muscles have increased, as we have been resourceful though quarantine, kids crawling in to zoom meetings and productivity despite lack of connectivity. You are better placed than ever to be the best executive version of yourself!

If you wish to have a complimentary, exploratory conversation to see if executive coaching with Nicki Gilmour or one of our associate coaches could help you navigate your career this year and beyond, then please select the time that works best for you from the link below.

Event: Exploratory Coaching chat – see full list of times

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Happy Presidents Day: 10 “How to” Career Articles

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Nicki GilmourHappy President’s Day 2020. We are taking a publishing break this week to work on our new site behind the scenes that should be launching at the end of March. Look out for that. Also, as it is the school holidays for many, we urge you to smell the roses and spend time with those who matter and want to talk our own advice there too.

In the meantime, here is a selection of our favorite “how to” career articles. Career articles regarding “how to” never get old! Here are 5 picks that our readers liked most and have some of the highest readership figures over our thirteen years of bringing you the information that matters regarding how to navigate to the next level, beat the office blues and break your own glass ceiling:

Some were written a while ago but remain solid in their advice and relevancy. Enjoy and see you next week!

1.How to Survive a Re-Org and keep your career on track

2. Negotiation Tactics to close the gender wage gap

3. What to do when you feel undervalued at work?

4. Are you an “insecure overachiever?” stop the imposter syndrome

5. Who is on your Board of Directors?

6. Get Promoted in 2020!

7. Negotiate More Vacation Days!

8. Avoid Burnout with this article and this one too.

9. How and When to find a new job.

10. Use the Lattice not the ladder in your career.

Coaching is the ultimate career secret weapon and is where the rubber meets the road since advice is generic but coaching is specific to who you are and where you are.

If you want to be coached as a soon to be or a new leader or even just want to be even more excellent than you are today, then get in touch with Nicki  (nicki@theglasshammer.com) for a free exploratory chat to see if leadership or executive or career coaching is for you. Write coaching in the title of the email so you dont get lost in the pile.

We have a number of excellent associate coaches ( all Columbia University qualified) who can be matched with you, including Nicki who is also an organizational psychologist, looking at the systemic as well as the individual career enablers and de-railers.

Enjoy the week!

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6 Tips to Understanding the Company Culture Before You Take the Job

Nicki GilmourIt’s not you, it’s them. Finding the right cultural fit at work is key.

How many times have you seen a high performer move firms and just not do so well? That person has not lost their talent or work ethic, nor has their personality changed. The environment or ecosystem in which they are operating has changed and it is organizational culture (or team culture for that matter) which makes or breaks successful female and male executives at work.

Organizational culture is quite simply about “how do we do things around here? How does work get done?” and spotting it can be easier said than done. Having recently read a couple of pieces on how you know when you have taken the wrong job, including a humorous one by Liz Ryan, I wanted to supply you with six tips to help you understand how work gets done before you say yes to the job (get the offer, or close to the offer, before you ask, perhaps?):

#1 Ask what gets tolerated that shouldn’t in the team
#2 Ask what a high performer looks like
#3 Ask who the high performers are (clue: if they rattle off only men’s names and there are plenty of women on the team, that should be further investigated)
#4 Ask what the leader’s strategic vision is and how that is being executed by this team specifically?
#5 Ask if they could change one thing for the team to be even better than it is, what would that be?
#6 Ask how closely the team operates to the firm values regarding policies that matter to you such as remote working, flex time, parental leave, taking vacation, etc.

You might be surprised at the answers. And, of course, hear what they are saying, not what you think you want to hear!

If you would like to have Nicki Gilmour or one of theglasshammer vetted coaches as your coach, schedule an exploratory call here!

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How do you know if you are ready for a job change?

People leave jobs for many reasons.

Is it time to change jobs, change firms or leave the industry? (F)However, the more senior you are in the organization and the longer you have been there, the psychological grip on you to stay there is usually higher. You might tell yourself you are staying for practical reasons like bonuses or vested equity or deferred comp. All of these are valid for sure but really how much money are we talking and have you looked at how that money can be cashed in even if you do stay or leave?

Are you using that as an excuse to mask a deeper fear of the unknown? If you have been at a place for over ten years, it is totally normal to think about how could you possibly find a new job in a different firm and question what would that be like, culturally.

How do you know if you are ready for a change?

Hermina Ibarra provides an excellent survey in her amazing book “Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader” (I recommend it to my coaching clients regulary)

Have a go at answering the questions with a yes or a no.

  1. Have you been in the same job or career path for at least seven years?
  2. Do you find yourself restless professionally?
  3. Do you find your job more draining than energizing?
  4. Do you resent not having more time for outside interests or family?
  5. Do you have a changing family configuration that will allow you to explore other options?
  6. Are you admiring folks around you who are making big changes?
  7. Has your work lost some meaning for you?
  8. Do you find that your career ambitions are changing?
  9. Recent events have left me appraising what I really want?
  10. Do you find your enthusiasm has waned for your work projects?

If you got 6-10 yeses then you could already be deeply in a career-transitioning period. Make time to reflect on your goals and see if your life goals are evolving also.

If you got 3-5 yeses then you may be entering a career-transitioning period. Work to increase insights and “outsights” which are new horizons that appear from doing new things and meeting new people.

If you got 2 or less yeses then you are more likely to be in a career-building period in your current job so you are busy working on
developing within that role, team or firm.

If you would like to work with Nicki Gilmour as your coach, you can have a free complementary call to discuss what is on your mind and to see if there is a fit and see if coaching is for you. Book your preliminary meeting with Nicki here.

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Should I stay or should I go? Are you thinking of leaving for the right reasons?

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Nicki Gilmour - Founder of The Glasshammer.comShould I stay in my job or leave to go to a new firm? This is often the question that brings people to coaching.

There is no simple answer to this, but there are ways to truly explore what is best for you.

I can break these down into three categories:

1. Systemic dysfunction – is there misalignment in the way people and processes meet? Is the culture and how work gets done around here, one of inconsistent management practices with no real support with process and policy to ensure good behaviors happen? Is leadership lacking? Is the mission unclear? Are you able to do your job the way you see fit?

2. You – your mental models, behaviors, reaction and actions.

3. Them – other people and their mental models, behaviors, reactions and actions.

It is only by looking at these factors that you can make an assessment of whether staying or leaving is best. You go with you to the next job so repeating patterns won’t bring you happiness or success if those patterns needs to be broken.

I am now taking up to 15 new coaching clients for Spring/Summer – if you are interested in signing up and working with me for 5 sessions, book in for an exploratory call to see if I can help you over the next 6-9 months so you can develop, grow, succeed and feel renewal at work.

Testimonials from mid to senior level professionals available.

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Change Your Mindset To Change the World (and Your World)

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By Nicki Gilmour

As we close out our Black History Month coverage this week, and in a direct follow up to my Op-ed on mental constructs regarding Race and how to talk about racism.

I ask how can you ensure your network is not just full of people like you, who hold the same constructs and therefore everyone can easily have confirmation bias? Bad for business with potential ‘groupthink’ coming into play, and bad for personal growth.

I am going to ask you to check whether you walk the talk on having an inclusive network.

Does your network consist of people who look, think and act like you, in every way? I am here to ask what can you gain by broadening your horizons?

How can you ensure you are getting to know perspectives that are different from yours? Equally, how can you explore enough when you are getting to know someone, to find out if that person who do not look like, can actually be very similar? How can you not presume or make assumptions based on stereotypes? It is hard because you brain “goes” there and research from the fields of neuroscience and social science’s “ladder of inference” can be shared with you in one sentence here. Simply put, your brain tricks you into thinking you have seen this before and you know what this is about. Guess what? You don’t know what is coming next, whether it is your brain seeing four red cars and subliminally telling you the next car will be red. Or whether your brain tells you that leaders are always better if they are tall white men even if you don’t know the person himself but in concept only. Or you do know the person and you dismiss their flaws and give unearned credibility to them due to concepts.

My point is, appearances can be deceptive. We are all made up of complex identities, no one is simple or one dimensional and we all have a gender (male is a gender too), ethnicity (maybe we need a new word as it implies white protestant as a benchmark baseline ), orientation (straight is an orientation too), nationality, work position, parent or not parent status, even golfer or not golfer status. Most of us, have had some affiliation to a legacy or current dominant group. We can go through life like that, easily. I had very little perspective for example of what it meant to be a Catholic growing up in Belfast as my class and religion meant I was never really stopped by army or police or had to deal with thugs and gangs and any resemblance of poverty. Bombs yes, they were everywhere and random, but the everyday drag and bias of being in the minority and less powerful group in my society, no. Yet, my mindset was one of scarcity, fear, paranoia and being aware to this day of the so-called “other”. I am not saying I am freed 100% from my sectarian constructs – maybe 99%, but I know that i see parallels in the USA with race and that is why I know for sure that people can take the diversity journey and grow. As Maya Angelou said, “when you know better, you do better.”

So, where do you start?

Step 1: Take the time to understand your values because values are espoused versions of your implicit beliefs. Chances are you are running the same old program that was handed to you in childhood via your direct environment, family structures, institutions such as school and church/temple/mosque, and the overall society you were born into and whatever norms that group had in play.

Step 2: Write out every construct you have been told such as “Trust is earned” or “X, y, z is the way it is”. What do you tell yourself when you are in varying situations as who to hire for the project, who to cut from the project, and who to promote? What do you tell yourself when you are stressed at work and having less than optimal interactions?

Challenge the and every single line by asking yourself simple questions such ‘Do I believe this, truly?’ or an advanced version of this could be ‘How else can I look at this?’ or ‘Is this still working for me now?’ and “how is this actually something that was given to me by my father/mother/granny, and is not actually how i feel at this time?”

If you would like to work with me as a coach on personal and professional growth and renewal, with real insights for you, about behaviors and the context of the operating system you are in. Please book a free exploratory time with me. Life is too short to carry outdated constructs around. Grow! Whether it is individual, or organizational change, it does not happen without awareness as the starting point.

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What would you like to change for 2019?

By Nicki Gilmour

Let’s face it, we are always changing, evolving and adapting to survive. Imagine how you can use change to thrive.  

Last week, we talked about themes from 2018 and what was memorable to you. What is your “theme” going into 2019? Is it a new theme? Are you carrying around a theme that you no longer want? Is it even your theme? Or is it what you think you ‘should’ be doing according to other people’s wisdom? Or even due to ‘norms’ for people at your stage of your career or life?  

Think about what you want and then think about what you have to do to get there. Simple right? Sounds like goal setting, right? And it is mostly. But something to also consider is the behavioral piece of achieving goals because if you have a goal and your actual actions are not aligning then it might not be as easy as it looks on paper.  

What do you have to do? And will you do it? What is behind what you tell yourself? 

Who do you have to be? Who do you want to be in 2019?  

Book a free exploratory chat with Nicki to see if coaching will help you get you further, faster.

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High Stakes: Changing Careers at the End of Your Long Career in Financial Services

By Nicki Gilmour, CEO and Founder of theglasshammer.com and resident Executive Coach

What do you do if you really feel that you need a change?

First of all, talk to a coach to make sure that you don’t just need a vacation.

Coaching to stay in the game is often a lifesaver as it can give you some strategies to delegate work or navigate the inevitable politics in a way that doesn’t drain you. But, at face value let’s say you are ready or at least ready to think about making a change.

The first thing to do is look at where you are at in your life? Here are things to consider if you are in the “last 2-5 years” of your current fast pace, Fortune 500/financial firms work stage and now want to do something more meaningful with your time and energy for the next chapter. It is not retirement we are talking about here, it is about transition. This column is about the very specific transition of high flyers who have slogged under the boomer and generation X structures of facetime and fitting in, into their next chapter of purposeful, less rigid work.

What do you want to do with your time and energy for the next five to fifteen years?

If you are like many of the senior level, talented, smart and well-paid women who work in financial services and who hire me to work on how to do something other than the massive role they are currently doing, then think about these factors:

1. Is it really about the money?

The money is keeping you in to a degree and creating some inertia around change. It’s hard to take a pay cut and it’s hard to think about walking away from a pile of vested equity (and there are ways to not do the latter) but nobody is saying leave tomorrow and getting a plan is key. If mortgages are nearly or already paid and the kids are in college or are set up for that experience financially, it is possibly not entirely about the money.

2. Is it about your identity?

When you have worked so hard and built an identity around the job, people are often worried about the loss of that identity in various ways (from actual self- concept change and the psychological effects of that, to status and to relating to others).

3. Is it about a fantasy?

So, you may have come to the conclusion, that you do not want to be CEO or on the Exec Committee. You might be C- level, SVP level, or Managing Director level and you might be ready to declare this the pinnacle of corporate life and guess what? Giving yourself permission to do what you actually want to do is actually pretty important. The trick is to explore what you really want to do next (and that could be making it to CEO also). Look beyond the fantasy and allure of running away and opening a Bed and Breakfast, north, south, east or west of where you live now! If it’s a business, great then let’s see how serious you are about doing the business plan and figuring out that landscape for real. Really testing your assumptions about what you want to do next, whether be your own business or a non-profit gig or even running for office, it is good to consider in detail (viability check) what that will look like with a coach while safely cashing in on the (big) day job from a comfortable office with a view.

Work with Nicki Gilmour as your Executive Coach- book a complementary exploratory call here or email her on nicki@evolvedpeople.com – the sister coaching business to theglasshammer.com

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