Where in the World is Waldo (Your Career)? Part 1 of 3

Have you ever had your best-laid career plans derailed? Or wondered why you are fantasizing about a career change? Or found yourself dealing with the consequences of the poor judgment of your employer? If so, you glimpsed a portion of The Cycle of Career Change. The Cycle is a...

Job Interview Got You Unnerved? A Little Emotional Clarity Can Help

To cross the threshold from unemployed to working, you need to travel through Interviewland. It can be a wild, disorienting place without direction markers. Some people go there and are never heard from again - at least that's what it can feel like that when you are there.

The ONE Question You Need to Ask Yourself to Avoid Being a Zombie

This question can help you avoid wasting years of your precious life that you can never get back. If you feel stuck in your life or job and want to make a change but are fearful of making a mistake, then this post is for you. This ONE question might help you clarify what is truly important and what you are willing to risk for the chance of a life worth living.

Exit Strategy: Dealing with Unethical Requests from Your Boss

This circumstance is one of the most stressful ones you can experience at work. Maybe you have been lucky during your career to have had great leaders. They display themselves in situations such as treating

How to Be a Star at Work with this One Proven Strategy

Leave the whine country. I have seen this lesson work wonders on the first day I learned it. It is so simple and obvious as many profound ideas are. The bad news is that people who are unaware of this strategy will drive you crazy.

The Top Five Regrets of the Dying and What We Can Learn from Them

Minimize regrets at the end of your life. In this post, I'm going to take on a weighty subject that most people don't want to face and that is the fact of our mortality.

7 Startling Reasons Why You're Unhappy and What You Can Do About It

Awareness is the Key. In this post, we'll explore seven reasons why so many people are unhappy and unfulfilled in today's world. Imagine you are driving your car and it just isn't working right. The wheel is pulling to the left, the engine is making a strange sound, and there's some power lacking.

Don't Like Your Life Story? Change it!

You were born innately healthy…then what happened? You developed early in life what Transactional Analysist Claude Steiner calls your "life script". The content of your life script comes from the negative and positive messages you received from the people close to you. To survive, you arrived at an early decision.

What Would You Do for Free?

How to align your true self with what you love to do by knowing your basic nature and your signature traits. In this post we're going to unpack what It means to live in alignment with who you are and what you love to do. We'll describe what signature traits are and what your basic nature means.

Save Half a Million Dollars by Using This Strategy to Lead You to Fulfilling Work

Knowing your motives and your basic nature are the keys to finding fulfilling work. In this post, we're going to explore the correlation between a person's motives and their basic nature and how that can be a huge insight into finding work you love and avoiding time wasted and incurring the chains of student debt.

Your Current and Your Unlived Life

You can never get back the time and the opportunities you've wasted playing it safe listening to resistance.

The Jedi is Wrong - May the Force NOT Be with You

Force is draining your motivation and you don't even know it. The seemingly current worldview is that the way to make things happen is by force. Force comes in many forms. Manipulation by social media, psychological force, economic force, physical force, unethical marketing force and so on.

Purpose: The Foundation of Motivation (Part Four)

Technically speaking, Purpose is not considered a Motive per se. We would argue that It's a sustained life of motivation and have included it as a foundation of motivation. One of the most potent examples of Purpose is Viktor Frankl's horrific experiences in four Nazi Concentration camps. His purpose was what kept him motivated.

Connection: The Foundation of Motivation (Part Three)

Critical parts you need to know to determine what will motivate you. In this post, we're going to explore how Connection or Relatedness is the third pillar of Motivation and how it ties into the previous two of Autonomy and Mastery.

Mastery: The Foundation of Motivation (Part Two)

Discover how mastery is a critical part of motivation. In this post we'll cover how and why Mastery (sometimes called Competence) is an essential element in Motivation. We'll describe the 5 keys on the path to Mastery and you'll understand how that builds our sense of Autonomy.

Motivation: What Is It and Why Is It Important?

Every action you take is dependent on motivation. Everyone is trying to figure out how to be successful. The foundational element of being successful is finding out what motivates you.

The Importance of Learning New Career Skills for Building a Career You Love

Being able to learn new skills quickly has always been useful. But, increasingly, it has become a necessity. In this essay, I'd like to outline some of the evidence that the economy is shifting in ways that are going to make being able to teach yourself hard skills an imperative. I'd like to argue why developing a skills-based perspective towards your career is the key to fulfillment and satisfaction. Finally, I'd like to tell you how you can develop the ability to learn hard things faster.

3 Questions You Must Ask Before Changing Jobs

Is It the Job or Is It You? This article will help you figure out if you have a bad job or a miserable one and what you can do to improve your current situation. By answering three specific questions, you'll gain clarity and avoid unnecessary risk to yourself and your loved ones if you consider changing jobs. You might just find a way to love your current job again.

Living Like You Mean It: The Existential Life

To be fully alive, your search for personal meaning must be never-ending

Does Your Personality Fit Your Career?

What to do if you find you personality and your job are out of alignment

The Secret of Success in 8 Words, 3 Minutes

Author Richard St. John speaks on the eight traits that all successful people have in common (3 minute video)

The Hottest New Job Sectors

CNNMoney reports on the job sectors and cities where employment growth is strongest

The Three R's of Midlife Reinvention

Vivian Diller, a psychologist and blogger for Huffington Post, offers advice for personal reinvention in midlife

Is a Career Coach Worth the Investment?

Find out why a career coach might be a good choice for you

Best Online Job Sites for Boomers and Beyond

13 online job sites specifically targeted at mature job seekers

Life Lessons from the Class of 42

David Brooks analyzes the life stories of the Yale class of 1942

Best and Worst Jobs -- A Rating of 200 Popular Careers

CareerCast.com used 5 key criteria to rate 200 popular jobs on how satisfying they are.

Richard Bolles' Five Essential Career Change Strategies

Five essential career change strategies from Richard Bolles, author of What Color is Your Parachute

Know Yourself!  (Free)

A Consumer Guide to the Myers Briggs Test, the Strong Inventory, Birkman and Other Leading Career Aptitude Tests and Personality Tests – Which One is Right for You?

A Year Gone By: Surviving Grad School

Gina Plaitakis is in graduate school to get a certificate for becoming an art teacher. After 18 months of juggling school and homework and motherhood, she’s finding a groove.

Wish Me Luck!

D’blank hatches a plan and says, "so long" to his readers.

30 Great Cities To Restart Your Career

An analysis of the best cities and town in America for people seeking to start a second career

Left to Fend for Myself

In the absence of Coach Lou, d’blank reflects on the last leg of his road trip.

Look Homeward Angel

D’blank reflects on his summer vacation. Coach Lou asks him to focus on the value and simplicity of these experiences as he moves forward with Life 3.0.

Another Way of Life

Coach Lou celebrates d’blank for living Life 3.0 and encourages him to look for more opportunities to do so while visiting his hometown.

A Journey to the Northeast Kingdom

Coach Lou applauds d’blank for finding solitude with some like minds in the deep woods of Vermont.

Can You Really Never Go Home Again?

D’blank and Coach Lou reminisce about d’blank’s hometown and try to come up with creative ways to lend a hand to its struggling community.

Maybe I Should Just Go with My Gut?

Coach Lou and d’blank discuss "Moby Dick," Malcolm Gladwell’s "Blink," and the value of taking time to consider your next move.

Gone Fishin'

d’blank takes a vacation.

Career Change: A Guide to Finding Your Passion

Seven steps to finding a career you love -- An excerpt from Kerry Hannon’s book, What’s Next

The Creativity of Daydreaming

Coach Lou and D’blank celebrate day-dreaming as a tool for creative problem solving.

Nothing = Something?

Couch Lou and D’blank discuss the value of staying present when looking for a path forward.

OK, I'm Starting to Get it Now

D’blank and Couch Lou discuss the five components of well-being as well as d’blank’s search for Career Well-Being.

I Have a Vision -- Or Was It a Dream?

Coach Lou and D’blank discuss the discuss the difference between a dream and a visualization.

Discover the benefits of a Career Change to a Lifestyle Business

My friend Mark Miller, who is also a regular contributor to WhatsNext.com, recently published a book entitled

A Guide to Midlife Career Change

Career Change & Life Balance is an invaluable resource, packed with practical information on midlife career change, hundreds of useful references and links, and an abundance of common sense advice for changing careers or achieving better work/life balance.

Inside Out and Backward

Coach Lou and d'blank debate: When it come to setting goals, is it better to work from the outside in... or the inside out?

Five Things to Contemplate Before Making a Major Career Change

Career expert Kerry Hannon provides some insight into the challenges of midlife career change

Consider A Midlife Career Change to Teaching

The rewards of teaching are enormous, and so is the need for excellent teachers. In the next decade, there will be 1.5 million teaching vacancies in the United States, according to the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. Millions of baby boomers are retiring from the profession, and a staggering 50 percent of new teachers leave the field within their first five years --the equivalent of nearly a thousand teachers, both novice and seasoned, calling it quits every day. All the vacancies won't be filled, because of funding issues. Still, it will be a major challenge to recruit and retain enough educators, never mind top talent.

You Can't Have a Life Plan Without A Vision of the Future

What Lewis Caroll said is true: "If you don’t know where you're going, any road will get you there..."

Back to school?

Career transition blogger, dblank, considers the possibility of returning to school

The Blues Make You Feel So Good

Blogger Dennis Blank continues his search for meaning listening to Delta blues and eating ribs for breakfast in Clarksdale Mississippi

Four Strategies for Charting a Midlife Career Change

It's common for people in midlife to feel a strong urge to change careers in search of something more meaningful or fulfilling.

Setting My Goal: Learning How to Write Prose

Blogger Dennis Blank realizes that his unfulfilled ambition is learning how to tell stories as a writer, learning how to write prose.

Coach Lou Gets Tough

Coach Lou gets tough, because planning Life 3.0 isn’t supposed to be as easy as it sounds.

Tackling My Life List

d’blank makes a life list, covering his best skills and the ones he most wants to use in "Life 3.0."

3 Questions That Could Change Your Life

At a certain age, many of us start to grapple with some tough questions about our future, and we start to focus more attention on the issue of what is truly important to us.

Emerging Second Career Opportunities in Education

Experts project growing opportunties for midlife career change to teaching in the next decade. Mass Retirement of Teachers Anticipated.

Is This Going to Require Homework?

Call it what you want, says Coach Lou, but reinventing a life does require real effort.

Do I Need a Plan for the Rest of My Life?

Every article or book on retirement says you must have one. So I was committed to staying at my job until I had a plan for the rest of my life. But then I began to see that I might be stuck at my desk at 75, still trying to come up with the plan.

Enlisting a Coach and Charting a New Course

Blogger Dennis Blank, just retired from a 24-year career at "Jumbo Corp.," sets out to define "Life 3.0," enlisting a life coach to help chart his new course.

20 Ways to Brand Yourself on Facebook

If you’re job-hunting, assume that employers will check you out on Facebook. Have you scrubbed your profile?

Self-Promotion for Introverts

Networking works best as a lifelong pursuit rather than as self-promotion CPR when you need a job or want to power up your business during down times.

Death: A Life Lesson in Personal Change

The lesson is: Live like you’re dying. What would shift in your life, your behavior if the possibility of death loomed over you?

Time Well Spent

Time Well Spent: After finishing her first semester of graduate school, art director-turned-mom-turned-aspiring art teacher Gina Plaitakis makes the most of the opportunity to catch her breath over winter break.

Career Change Advice: Be a Subject Matter Expert

Are you thinking about making a move from your traditional field? Branding yourself as a subject-matter expert can give you an edge.

Career Change Roadmap 2010

How to get started on a new career? A new free guide answers 12 key questions

The Happiest States

Novel research shows that sunshine, open space—and fewer people—are what appeal to people in the happiest states.

Laid Off? That May Be Better Than the Alternative

Research at Boeing finds the corporate survivors in more miserable shape than those who were laid off.

Average Unemployment at 29 Weeks and Rising

Although the rate of new job losses has slowed nationally, prolonged unemployment is becoming a deep-seated problem, as millions are struggling to find re-entry jobs.

Best Careers for Women Over 40

These jobs combine above-average pay, prospects, control and flexibility—the attributes women over 40 say they want most in a career.

What Does it Take to Break into Health Care?

Health care jobs are expected to continue growing rapidly through 2016; here’s how you can break into the field.

First Step: Finding Your Passion

Three career coaches from the What’s Next Advisor Directory offer advice on finding one’s passion when considering new career directions.

Trying to Master Life as a Master’s Student and Mom

It's the end-of-the-semester craze. I now realize just how nice my life as a mom was before I started graduate school.

How to Find the Best Age-Friendly Employers

The Great Recession is pushing older workers to postpone retirement, but will employers accommodate them?

5 Tips for Midlife Career Change

Experts say it’s important not to rush into a midlife career change. Develop a process that includes friends and advisers, and stick to it.

How to Make the Switch to a Green Career

Green careers will be one of the fastest-growing employment categories in the years ahead. Here’s how you can make the switch.

Seeking to Start a Farm, Tim Will Finds a New Career Creating Jobs

New Career: Tim Will’s plan to become an organic farmer detoured into incubating businesses and retraining workers to get an economically depressed region back on its feet.

Career Change: Downshifting Your Career as a Retirement Strategy

Downshifting, by shedding hours or responsibilities, can help you move toward the career transition you want.

How to Avoid the Most Common Midlife Job-Hunting Mistakes

In a new report, an organizational behavior specialist explains how to avoid common midlife job-hunting mistakes and improve your odds of getting hired.

Best LinkedIn Groups for Job Seekers

Join LinkedIn expert Phil Rosenberg on a tour of the social network’s best LinkedIn groups for job seekers.

Five Great Second Careers

Five great second careers: the tough economy hasn’t forced boomers to give up their dream of encore careers with meaning.

Finally, He Bought the Farm

Once Barry Meinerth dreamed of being a veterinarian. He ended up a successful magazine executive, but after thirty years of producing magazines, he grabbed an opportunity and bought a farm. Now he produces alpaca wool, and self-fulfillment, instead.

6 Tips For Planning a Second Career

Some essential advice for planning a midlife career transition

Pursue an Entrepreneurial Career in Sports and Fitness

In-depth, downloadable guides from FabJob to help you decide whether to pursue an entrepreneurial career in sports and fitness. (Some titles available in print editions.)

Open a Restaurant or Food Service Business

In-depth, downloadable guides from FabJob to help you understand the challenges and opportunities you will likely face if you decide to open a food service business. (Some titles available in print editions.)

Open a Retail Store

Six in-depth guides from FabJob on how to open a retail store: antiques shop, art gallery, bookstore, boutique, ice cream shop or wine store.

Back to School

As my daughter enters first grade, I too will be going back to school, for the first time in 20 years, to study for a master’s in fine arts education.

Best Part-Time Jobs for Baby Boomers

25 best overall part-time jobs for baby boomers, ranked by a combination of percentage of part-time workers, annual earnings, percent job growth and annual openings.

Best Jobs for Baby Boomers

Rankings of the best jobs for baby boomers, ranked by criteria including job growth, annual earnings and number of annual openings.

Fastest Growing Jobs for Baby Boomers

50 of the fastest growing jobs for baby boomers.

Best Overall Jobs for Baby Boomers

Fifty of the best overall jobs for baby boomers, ranked by a combination of earnings potential, job growth and number of openings.

How Can I Overcome My Fears?

How can I overcome my fears when it comes to a career change? Career coach Brian Kurth advises on how to use the economic downturn as an opportunity to prepare yourself for a second career.

Where Do I Start?

Career coach Brian Kurth answers a career changer’s question: where do I start?

What Can I Do to Test My Aptitude for a New Career?

What can I do to test my aptitude for a new career? Career coach Brian Kurth provides three simple tips.

Identifying Alternative Careers

Career advisor Sheryl Spanier offers advice on identifying alternative careers that share aspects of your previous job that you valued and enjoyed.

How Many Times Will I Change Careers?

Expect to change careers—more than once—says career strategist Mary Lindley Burton.

When Is it Time to Go?

All career changers seem to identify a specific moment when they knew it was time to move on.

A Portfolio Career Brings a Retirement with the Right Life Balance

Accountant Peter Harris wanted to improve his life balance. Developing a life portfolio plan helped him do it.

Making at Career Change at 81

Ruth Roberson lost her last family member when she turned 81. That’s when she chose to heal herself by making a career change and becoming a caregiver.

Career Change Doesn’t Stop: From Reporter to Mom to Computer Scientist to Sculptor

At 40 Jean Proulx Dibner reinvented herself once. At 56, with the help of self-assessment, she did it again, turning a hobby into a new career.

12 Questions to Consider Before Hiring a Career Coach

There are a number of factors to consider before investing your time, money and effort in hiring a career coach.

The Teacher'™ Lounge

You can learn a lot about becoming a teacher gabbing with the other teachers on break.

Three Questions That Could Change Your Life

With all the turmoil in the economy, many of us grappling with some very tough questions about our near-term and long-term future. This situation has reminded me of a book by Lee Eisenberg that I read a few years back called “The Number,” in which he focused on the whole notion of what it means to be financially independent.

Substitute Teaching: Learning on the Job

Substitute teaching brings little pay or appreciation, but it represents a great avenue for aspiring teachers to gain on-the-job training.

From Retiree (Briefly) to Flight Attendant

Retirement gave Ronwyn Ingraham the chance to indulge her youthful dream of becoming a flight attendant.

Hammock Time

Hammock time is a special time when just being where you are is enough.

10,000 Miles Behind and 10,000 More to Go

Watching Jay Leno ’retire’ from ’The Tonight Show" gave me a chance to revisit old dreams, refocus new dreams and . . . appreciate all of the miles I’ve traveled and those left to go.

Culinary School By the Numbers

Going back to culinary school is hard in so many ways. But there are lots of reasons to stick with it.

Welcome To What's Next

Why We’re Here. No doubt about it -- we live in challenging times. The economy is in turmoil... unemployment is hitting levels not seen in decades... and eighty million baby boomers are moving rapidly toward a stage of life that used to be called ‘retirement.’

Getting Certified to Teach in Public School

Most states offer an “alternate route” to teacher certification. A key step to getting certified to teach in public school is passing the Praxis exam.

Hiring a Life Coach

9 key questions to ask when hiring a professional life coach.

Finding Your Passion

Doing a collage of all of your interests is one way of finding your passions and starting you on the path to thinking about how they can translate into a career.

Using Her Sense of Humor to Build a Portfolio Career

Sue Burton Kirdahy left her successful career as a financial marketer to follow her passion for laughter. After some twists and turns, she has built an exhilarating portfolio career as a humorist and creative consultant.

Most Popular Dream Jobs

Brian Kurth, founder of VocationVacations.com and author of Test Drive Your Dream Job, tells What’s Next about the most popular dream jobs for baby boomers.

'Caretaking Practice'

Outer change can be quick, but inner change takes time and patience.

Advisor Definitions

Use these definitions to understand the jargon and acronyms often used by financial advisors, career coaches and life coaches.

Execunet Job Listings

Leave Happy

Leaving a corporate executive job? This helpful How-to Guide from What’s Next tells you how to manage a successful executive career transition.

Before You Quit Your Job

9 essential steps for aspiring entrepreneurs: If you want to wisely manage your exit from the corporate world, heed these before you quit your job.

Dean of the Dream Job: From Radio Executive to Education Entrepreneur

Tom Hooper had dreamed of becoming a teacher. At 42, the two-time entrepreneur dusted off his dream job and reinvented himself as director of development at a new private school.

Our New Life: Living in Italy

How I learned to stop hopping continents and savor a slower, simpler life, living in Italy.

Expat Diary: Living in Mexico

Looking for a warmer climate, I found a second home—and more reasons for living in Mexico—in a small town outside Mazatlan.

Rookie on the Champions Tour

After years of barely playing golf, Graham Banister rediscovered his game and earned a chance to play as a professional on the PGA Champions Tour.

The Rookie Plays on Sunday

Making it to the final round in a PGA tour event: “You never really think you’re going to get there, and then you do”

Test-Drive Your Dream Job

Years of dreaming about a career change led Brian Kurth to his dream job. Now the Oregon entrepreneur helps clients take trial runs at their own.

From the Investment Business to Culinary School

John Stephano gave up a nice salary, enrolled in culinary school at 40 and let loose his lifelong passion for food. The hardest part was convincing himself not to stay on the safe path.

Interview: Finding an Executive Job at a Nonprofit

How to transition from the business world to the nonprofit sector.

Career Anchors

A self-assessment test to help you find your "real self" from Edgar Schein

Bridgestar: Find Executive Jobs in the Nonprofit Sector

Current listings of available management jobs in the nonprofit sector.

Career Values

Career Values card sort self-assessment tool by Richard Knowdell

Giving Back: From Actress to Social Worker

Actress Carol Mannes went back to school to earn a degree in social work. Now she gives back to her industry as a social worker helping actors and entertainers.

Working at a Nonprofit: Journalist Is Moved by its Mission

Former TV producer Elaine Purchase is working at a nonprofit, having made a career change after hearing a small voice calling her to help the most vulnerable—drug-exposed and medically fragile infants.

Producing a Second Career: Starting a Nonprofit Theatre Troupe

It took nonprofit entrepreneur Marcia Seligson a few false starts before she found the second career that was right for her.

Cooking Couple Turns to Comedy, Personal Training

Coauthors of a successful cookbook and radio show decide to pursue their separate personal passions -- personal training and stand-up comedy.

Getting Paid to See The World

Getting paid to see the world and experience exotic locations is a rare and priceless opportunity.  But it can be done.

Empty Nesters Find New Beginning in Provence

Finding themselves with an empty nest, Barbara and Doug Babkirk started a sideline business running retreats in Provence, France.

Richer By Far: Developer Now Helps the Homeless

A real estate developer reinvents his life and finds spiritual renewal by providing services to Austin’s homeless

Becoming a Pastor: My Spiritual Calling

A search for a more spiritual life leads to a new career for a former set decorator for films and TV

From Dancer to Dietician: Healthy Steps to a New Profession

At the age of 54, Helen Buteroff made a successful career change from dancer to dietician, and ultimately found a way to bring her new profession and her first career together in a meaningful and creative way.

Personal Reinvention in Park City

Early retirement leads to personal reinvention for two fast-track New Yorkers.

After the Earthquake

News of an earthquake leads an executive to consider whether it’s time to change the course of his life.

Becoming an Art Teacher

After signing on as a volunteer at her daughter’s school, Gina Plaitakis got a charge that has her excited about becoming an art teacher.

Chef School at 40: My First Day

John Stephano nearly went to chef school when he was 20. Instead, he went into sales and then the investment business. Twenty years later, he’s stirring his passion at the Culinary Institute of America.

The PI Wears Prada: One Woman's Midlife Career Change

When her job in real estate soured and her kids got older, Jeanene Weiner followed a dream and started her own detective agency.

The Accidental Winemaker

Read The Accidental Winemaker at Careers 2.0: Profiles in Career Change on What’s Next

Into the Deep: From Real Estate Agent to Wet-Suit Designer

Debbie Davis was bored in her real estate job. Then she fell madly in love—with the ocean. At 55, she has an Internet business selling women-friendly wet suits, and a whole new view of life.

Ask the Advisor

Downshifting at Last

Downshifting to part-time work and a new beginning.

From Art Director to Art Teacher

Volunteering for the PTA led Gina Plaitakis down the path to a new career.

Joining the Peace Corps at 51

Valerie Stinger’s desire to help the less fortunate, live in a foreign country and add to her lifelong learning led her to a dramatic career change, joining the Peace Corps at 51 after a career in pharmaceutical product development.

Laid Off at 55, Choosing to Become a Nurse

Bob Seymore lost his job but found his calling when he chose to become a nurse in his second career.

Becoming an Author: From the Corner Office to the Bestseller List

Becoming an Author: Lalita Tademy went from being a single corporate executive to a married, bestselling and globetrotting author.

She Dreamed of Africa

Vivian Glyck gave up a six-figure salary to help a hospital in Africa—and has never felt richer.

Tools + Resources

A Second Chance to Become a Pro Golfer

For the best amateur players, turning 50 means an opportunity to become a pro golfer.

Become a Teacher (Free)

Our free career guide to teaching was written for individuals who wish to become a teacher in mid-career.

Civic Ventures Aims to Bring Out the Benevolence in Boomers

Civic Ventures directs the energy of would-be retirees into philanthropic endeavors that capitalize on their deep, profound experience and drive to give back.