How Can I Maintain Career Capital While Taking Time Off?

00:00:00.000 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:00:04.400 | All right, let's do one more question.

00:00:06.360 | We got one more question here.

00:00:07.600 | This one comes from Dave.

00:00:09.960 | Dave says, my wife and I have a 13-month-old child

00:00:13.200 | and would like to have another.

00:00:15.400 | We're both working professionals who

00:00:16.920 | have built substantial career capital.

00:00:18.920 | So they're both mid-career professionals.

00:00:21.720 | I find myself increasingly drawn to being a stay-at-home dad

00:00:25.120 | for the next five years or so while my children are young.

00:00:28.200 | While acknowledging that this would cause a drastic change

00:00:30.680 | in my career trajectory, do you have any advice

00:00:34.280 | on how I can continue to stay engaged and build or maintain

00:00:38.480 | career capital while taking such a long time away from work?

00:00:47.160 | All right, that's an interesting question.

00:00:50.040 | I wouldn't really sweat career capital maintenance,

00:00:53.520 | at least at first, if you're going to shift

00:00:55.960 | to be a stay-at-home parent.

00:00:58.800 | That's where your focus is.

00:01:01.520 | I would say in today's professional landscape,

00:01:04.480 | this is much more understood than it used to be.

00:01:07.720 | So if you say, I did this, this, this.

00:01:10.280 | I was at this point in my career.

00:01:11.680 | I have a lot of career capital.

00:01:13.800 | Three years, I disappeared.

00:01:16.040 | And then I came back onto the scene.

00:01:17.560 | To say, yeah, I disappeared for those three years

00:01:19.040 | because I was taking care of my kids,

00:01:20.580 | this is way more understood.

00:01:22.760 | You don't really need a more elaborate explanation

00:01:25.000 | than that.

00:01:25.760 | Now, if you're talking about a five-year period--

00:01:27.760 | and by the way, I'm pulling these timelines out

00:01:30.280 | of thin air, so don't take this too seriously.

00:01:33.120 | But roughly speaking, I think if you're talking about maybe

00:01:35.620 | a five-year period, maybe around year three

00:01:39.520 | is when you bring back in-- or year four,

00:01:42.160 | maybe you bring back in the part-time consulting,

00:01:46.000 | whatever it is, the limited engagements,

00:01:49.160 | just to get your foot back in the door,

00:01:51.240 | to pick up on the newer skills, to get your name back out

00:01:54.160 | there, more importantly, to help you start sniffing out

00:01:56.480 | the different opportunities so you're not just

00:01:58.040 | trying to go for-- if you go from zero to 60,

00:01:59.920 | now I need a full-time job, you might end up

00:02:02.400 | landing in a job that's not the right setup for what you're

00:02:05.120 | looking for.

00:02:05.640 | So it allows you to get your foot back in the door,

00:02:07.760 | see what's going on, test the water if you do

00:02:10.080 | want to go back to work.

00:02:11.120 | And if you do, where do you want to fall

00:02:13.040 | on the spectrum of doing your own thing as a consultant

00:02:15.600 | or going back and working for a firm?

00:02:17.720 | You get a lot of good insight.

00:02:19.240 | But I think for the first three years, if you can be at home,

00:02:22.280 | be at home.

00:02:23.880 | And your focus should be on that.

00:02:26.120 | Also, remember the whole point of career capital,

00:02:30.200 | the theory laid out in my book, "So Good They Can't Ignore You,"

00:02:32.880 | is that the whole point of career capital

00:02:34.600 | is that it gives you something you

00:02:36.600 | can invest to get in return traits in your career that

00:02:41.520 | resonate.

00:02:43.360 | So you have this general vision of a lifestyle

00:02:46.560 | that is very appealing.

00:02:48.920 | Oftentimes, the things that makes lifestyles appealing

00:02:51.720 | are themselves valuable.

00:02:53.040 | So you have to have something valuable to offer in return.

00:02:54.760 | So you build up rare and valuable skills.

00:02:56.200 | This gives you more career capital.

00:02:57.720 | You invest that capital to get more control and autonomy

00:03:00.040 | over your career.

00:03:00.960 | But the whole reason you do that is

00:03:04.080 | so that you can shape your career

00:03:05.480 | towards a lifestyle that resonates.

00:03:07.520 | Well, if what's resonating with you right now

00:03:09.440 | is a lifestyle where you're home with your kids,

00:03:12.200 | you've jumped to where we're trying to get.

00:03:16.120 | The career capital is a means to the end of,

00:03:19.600 | I have autonomously shaped a lifestyle

00:03:23.120 | that resonates with me.

00:03:24.240 | It's one of the things you can use to get there.

00:03:26.240 | But if this lifestyle resonates, I

00:03:29.600 | want to be there in my kids' life

00:03:31.040 | during this young period of their age

00:03:32.680 | and be more engaged in family life and what have you,

00:03:36.000 | then you are already at the end.

00:03:38.440 | So you don't have to worry so much about career capital.

00:03:40.840 | And then when it comes time to come back to work,

00:03:42.960 | if you want to go back to work, you

00:03:44.520 | should be doing this from a lifestyle perspective.

00:03:46.600 | Oh, is there a lifestyle I have in mind here

00:03:49.000 | that work now plays a role again?

00:03:51.680 | But I want to be surprised in your situation

00:03:54.120 | where you're saying, I really like this lifestyle where

00:03:56.600 | I'm with my kids.

00:03:57.480 | And maybe now they're getting a little bit older.

00:03:59.480 | They're in school most of the day.

00:04:00.860 | And so I don't want to just be at home.

00:04:03.240 | But I want to maintain a lot of the aspects

00:04:05.120 | I like of this lifestyle.

00:04:06.040 | I like to be there in the mornings.

00:04:07.240 | I like the fact that I can pick them up after school

00:04:09.520 | when they're done.

00:04:10.160 | And I think this is really important.

00:04:11.700 | But I also want something else to do.

00:04:13.520 | This may lead you to a very different type of career

00:04:15.880 | trajectory than if you were just

00:04:17.240 | trying to stay on the trajectory you're on now.

00:04:19.280 | Maybe this is a trajectory you're

00:04:20.600 | saying, I'm not trying to be the partner at my engineering firm.

00:04:23.360 | I want 10 hours a week of consulting work

00:04:26.840 | that is interesting to me.

00:04:28.440 | And because I was pretty good before I

00:04:31.240 | put what I was doing on pause, I get a pretty good hourly rate

00:04:33.760 | for it.

00:04:34.260 | And that's nice.

00:04:35.000 | And it helps me to make things a little bit more

00:04:37.600 | flexible in the household.

00:04:38.680 | But it also gives me a lot of flexibility.

00:04:40.480 | I mean, your whole vision might be different.

00:04:43.440 | So what I'm trying to say here is

00:04:44.720 | the goal for all of this type of thinking

00:04:48.080 | is autonomously crafting a lifestyle that resonates,

00:04:51.400 | that you had an idea and you made that actually happen.

00:04:56.000 | That's the whole ballgame here.

00:04:58.760 | So in the professional world, if there's a particular trait

00:05:01.280 | you want in your job, I want very flexible hours

00:05:03.440 | or a lot of money or this or that,

00:05:04.900 | then career capital is really important to it.

00:05:06.780 | But you're playing a bigger level here

00:05:08.400 | where job fits in there here.

00:05:11.840 | But there's other things also going on.

00:05:13.480 | So work backwards from the lifestyle that resonates.

00:05:17.040 | I'm reading your long elaboration here.

00:05:18.800 | You're very good at what you do.

00:05:20.160 | There will be economic opportunities for you.

00:05:21.880 | If you want to get back to it after three years,

00:05:23.880 | start doing something so that you

00:05:25.320 | can get a sense of what do I really want to do.

00:05:27.280 | But don't really sweat career capital in the sense of this

00:05:31.920 | in itself is the end.

00:05:34.320 | Your goal is not in life to have as much career capital

00:05:37.240 | as possible.

00:05:37.840 | Your goal in life is to have a life that

00:05:39.560 | is shaped as much as possible towards what you really

00:05:41.880 | care about.

00:05:43.040 | Capital is one of many tools that you can deploy.

00:05:47.280 | So I say go for it, man.

00:05:50.080 | Get home, be there with the kids, do cool things with them,

00:05:53.880 | get weird hobbies that they get involved with you with,

00:05:57.640 | get to know the teachers at the school, whatever it is.

00:06:00.520 | Go over the top and decorating for holidays,

00:06:02.280 | all the cool stuff you get to do when you actually

00:06:04.360 | have some time.

00:06:05.320 | And just enjoy that resonating for a while.

00:06:07.160 | And then if you need to bring work back into it,

00:06:09.200 | bring work back to it.

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How Can I Maintain Career Capital While Taking Time Off?

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