How To Overcome The Financial Fear of Changing Your Career

I've been asked this question today: How did you overcome the financial fear of changing your career? This is such a great matter and truly the biggest concern of a career change, especially at the middle-life, which is more or less my current case. My answer is based on 2 pillars: financial planning and purpose.

Pillar Number One, Financial Planning.

Since early childhood, I was taught how to deal with money. My parents had a good economic status, but we were not rich. My father was an executive of a multinational and used to do a monthly family meeting. During those meetings, he would address our balance sheet, cash flow, and even some kind of capital expenditure plan. I remember very well the lessons he and my mother gave me and my sister every time we wanted something. They had a growth mindset and were extremely focused on achieving their dreams. 

The first time I had to deal with a budget was at the age of 9. My sister and I went to Disney World in Florida - it was an international journey since we lived in Brazil at that time. We got a 2,000 dollar budget to manage in 2 weeks. And we came back with $500! That was a big one, I learned by experimenting on how to manage a budget. Maybe this is why I worked so many years as a Financial Controller as well.

This is to illustrate that I’m conscious of financial management because of my parents and by the role I had before becoming a coach. When I decided to pivot my career, I made a 2-year plan with a clear picture of how much money I had saved, how much I’d need from my savings, and how much I’d start earning. I believe that this amount of clarity is what makes me have the courage to take the risk and start moving towards change.

Pillar Number Two, Purpose.

I had quite a successful career in Finance and absolutely no problems to change jobs and to perform my work. I was actually a great Financial Controller and really loved numbers. The thing is that I had a sabbatical period after an international transfer, from Brazil to Italy. That was when I started to reflect on whether it was time to experiment with something new.

One of my passions is the topic The Future of Work. I felt I could do something to help people in the coming years since the digital transformation would transform the work market as we know from today. I’m not getting into more details, otherwise, I’d be writing for hours about this topic. But the thing is: after I realized I had a natural talent for advising people about their careers and accepted that could be my next work, I had a tremendous force of CERTAINTY. Every action I did, the project I deployed - Career Lab at the 4th Industrial Revolution or CL4IR - which is now becoming my business were aligned. I can give you a very good example. In the first half of 2020, despite the pandemic and economic crisis everywhere, I reached 100% of my sales target. 

Well, all in all, what I’d say to you that is reading this article and fearing economic disruption is: start your financial planning, have your savings in place and make a decision. When the decision is made, you are UNSTOPPABLE.