Serving as a financial advisor covers a wide range of activities and this can include helping clients navigate new career paths. It is not surprising for clients to indicate they have reached a burnout phase in their current career path five, 10 or even 25-plus years into their primary career. The challenge is how to best guide them when they have decided to pursue a successful and rewarding second act.
There are a lot of things I wish I had known before my wife, Abby, and I decided to shift directions and launch our second acts. My goal here is to share some of the wisdom we acquired, so that you could share it with your clients. But first, here is some background on me.
In June 2013, I announced my retirement from the world-renowned hospitality company Hershey Entertainment and Resorts (HE&R) after 23 years of working for this well-run organization. It was a difficult decision that surprised many of my colleagues. I had moved up the ranks of the finance department to my final position as associate vice president of finance. Abby was a busy pathologist for a regional hospital in York, Pennsylvania.
The premature death of a good friend and coworker, Frank O’Connell, prompted Abby and I to reevaluate our priorities. Frank was just 48 when he died of a heart attack in October 2011.
Less Stress, More Fulfillment
Abby and I decided to exit our high-stress jobs and move into an early retirement phase. This would allow us to spend more time together and do things we felt were beneficial to others, like teaching and volunteering.
As with many of your clients, the stress and long hours became harmful to our health. While we were both earning good incomes, we hoped this was the change and fulfillment our life needed. I had become a bit burned out in the hectic corporate world, even though I loved the company and my coworkers. Abby felt the same in medicine, with even longer hours and higher stress than I had.
Unfortunately, it took the untimely passing of our dear friend to lead us to another path in life. In an odd way, Frank’s death reinvigorated our life.
Second-Act Suggestions
Explain the Math
Remind your clients that the long-range plan to save money and invest wisely was done to build a healthy portfolio for a future retirement goal or in my case, a semi-retirement phase. Review the numbers with them and show them that they can afford to move into that next stage. Let them know what the tradeoffs are and how long it will take them to build up their portfolios a bit more before they make their move if this is a need or priority for them.
From a financial standpoint, Abby and I had done all the right things by working closely with our financial advisor to build a healthy retirement nest egg. Our years of saving and investing allowed us greater flexibility to seek other opportunities and rewards than what our current jobs offered. Abby wanted to pursue other benevolent activities, such as volunteering. Unfortunately, family and personal events prevented her from fulfilling this desire until we later moved to Philadelphia.
Be Honest About Academia
You may already know that academia is an extremely rewarding second career for many C-suite clients or even financial advisors. Since I had loved teaching college courses as an adjunct professor, I decided that teaching on a full-time basis was my calling. Based on my adjunct teaching experience, numerous accounting certifications, and 33 years of business experience, I thought getting a full-time college teaching position would be easy. I discovered I was wrong.
In order to avoid relocating away from both of our families in Pennsylvania, I reached out to 15 colleges and universities on the East Coast. Yet I received 14 refusals and just one interview with Penn State University (PSU) for a teaching position at a local campus. The interview went poorly due to the heavy focus on my lack of a PhD. I quickly realized I had screwed up by underestimating the importance of this degree in my academic job search.
Some of the best advice you can provide to your clients who are contemplating a second career in academia involve things that I learned the hard way during my transition:
Lesson 1: Do Your Homework
I should have done more research into the need for a PhD. What I learned was that while many colleges require a PhD to teach in their classrooms, some larger universities hire “lecturers” to take on much of the teaching load while the PhDs concentrate on their research.
Lesson 2: Have Some Teaching Experience
For me, this came in two forms: I taught some in-house finance classes at Hershey and served as an adjunct professor at various local colleges over the prior 10 to 12 years while working at Hershey. But despite this experience, I had not done enough research nor spent time with full-time faculty to understand the importance of having a PhD, too.
Lesson 3: Be Prepared for Lower Compensation
Academia and industry pay very differently. For example, I took a 35% annual salary reduction to enter the field of academia after 33 years in industry. Thus, advisors need to collaborate closely with clients to prepare them for a different lifestyle based on lower earnings. In an excellent book about transitioning from the boardroom to the classroom without a PhD by a fellow instructor, Michael S. Peterson, I learned there are several ways to supplement your income such as consulting, serving on corporate boards, and taking on writing or speaking engagements.
Lesson 4: Consider a Teaching Program
If you or a client genuinely want to be an excellent academic instructor, I suggest attending a teaching program. For example, I attended an intense Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) Bridge Program in June 2014, which helps executives transition into academic roles. This week-long “bridge program” does exactly what its name implies. It helps business professionals bridge from the boardroom to the classroom.
Quite simply, I wanted to become an excellent — not just mediocre — professor at the university level. Attending this bridge program was a terrific way to learn the necessary tools to succeed. The program included excellent instructors dedicated to helping attendees launch a teaching career.
Why Career Changers Fail
While reading an article on why people fail at switching jobs, I learned several valuable lessons that you should share with your clients who are thinking about any kind of career change. In brief, choosing a new career path should be done with care, spending time with people who perform the work you want to do is vital, and extensive research is also vital.
Are your clients feeling stressed or burnt out in their careers? If so, open a dialogue that discusses the concept of a second act in their careers. Financial advisors need to collaborate closely with clients during a stressful career change. Abby and I were able to complete a career change only because we were prepared financially for a lifestyle change.
Despite facing many obstacles in my career change at age 53, I persevered and fulfilled my dream of teaching at the college level while increasing our happiness as a couple. As I set out to change paths, I had no idea I would teach at the prestigious University of Illinois for the next seven years and have the most rewarding experiences of my 40-year career. It helped me give back to the accounting profession as I loved interacting and sharing my experiences with the intelligent, energetic Illinois students.
As in many plays, sometimes the second act is better than the first one!
