The 10 Laws of Career Reinvention summary

In the Western world, intellect seems to have triumphed over instinct. But when it comes to career reinvention, you should consider a different approach.

Your body acts as a good guide to what you truly want, and you should listen to it when it tells you that something isn’t right for you. These gut reactions to situations are what psychologists call rapid cognition.

Fear is an ancient biochemical reaction. It’s what ensured that our ancestors would run from saber-toothed tigers and avoid risky situations whenever possible. Reinventing your career is a risky undertaking, meaning fear will be your constant companion. The important thing is to keep moving in spite of fear.

We don’t like experiencing fear, and excuses provide an easy way out of risky situations. Excuses preserve self-worth by allowing you to explain for why you didn’t do something that you wanted to do but were too afraid to deal with.

We can only explore far-flung and exotic travel destinations because someone was willing to imagine what was once impossible: flight. Reinventing your career is similar – you have to be willing to imagine options that you hadn’t thought of before.

This “road less traveled” holds many opportunities. First, by thinking outside the box, you train your brain to come up with novel ideas. This is crucial in the process of reinvention, as you will find yourself in many situations where you need to be able to think creatively.

Imagine you work as a lawyer, but are thinking about switching to public relations. One of the first things that will probably cross your mind is, “But I don’t know how to create a campaign. As a lawyer, I spent most of my time drafting contracts.”

However, that’s not the kind of thing that matters when you switch careers.

Leading a large company is a complex task. One person can’t handle the responsibility alone – that’s why companies have a board of directors. So how can you apply this concept to the equally complex task of reinventing your career?

You need to create your own reinvention board, a group of people who will support your career reinvention.

If you’ve ever moved to a new country, you know that it can be tough. You encounter cultural differences and language barriers, and are unfamiliar with the way things work. The best solution to this confusion is usually to get in contact with the natives.

And the same applies to your career reinvention.

People who are in the process of reinventing their careers are eager to jump in, but end up confused and disappointed when their resumés generate low response rates. The reason for potential employers’ lack of interest often lies in the fact that the job candidate didn’t bother to learn the language of their new industry.

Each industry has its own language – a specific understanding of certain words and a technical jargon.

Imagine that it’s early 2008 and you make perfectly reasonable plans to reinvent your career in one year. And then suddenly, you’re met with the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, and virtually all job openings evaporate into thin air.

It doesn’t take a collapsing banking sector for your plans to crumble. Plenty of other things can throw a wrench into the cogs that are your plans. However, there are some tricks that’ll help you keep the machinery running even if things do go wrong.

The self-help industry discovered long ago that if you act with confidence, people will follow. If you don’t have the confidence, you can always fake it till you make it. This is often a good tactic at the beginning, however the career reinvention process is a long one and in the end demands a deeper, truer confidence.

People are attracted to those who are confident. Indeed, numerous studies have demonstrated that those who experience more positive emotions like satisfaction, joy and enthusiasm receive more social support from their environment.