Mastering the Second Innings or How to Succeed in Your Second Career – Part 1
The master of the second innings - credits NDTV Sports
A dozen years ago, I made a difficult exit from a twenty year career in advertising. My wife and I started Bullzi Inc with the idea of following my passion and her experience in developing and mentoring people. We survived and today Bullzi Inc works with organisations across continents and the work has morphed and grown.
Many friends, business associates and acquaintances keep asking me how I managed to make the switch into a second career. Instead of answering this question from only my experience, I chose to talk to a number of other people who had successfully made the switch, others who are great second innings batters – a banker who runs adventure camps for children, a consumer goods CEO who advices people on personal investments, an advertising person who runs a great learning organisation and 15 others.
There are many shades to it and in Part 1 I want to specifically address it for those contemplating a switch that involves doing something on their own. Here are a few things to keep in mind:
Headline Positives – Scoring the winning runs
1. You can follow your dreams. This is enormous! You can actually live your purpose and experience a sense of fulfillment that everyone dreams of. The most successful second innings players that I have come across are marked out by their almost spiritual sense of contentment with what they do.
2. You can be your own boss. No answering to someone who does not get it or is too meddlesome or too political… You can live by the values you cherish.
3. What you create bears your stamp. You are very much the brand or completely integral to the brand. It is yours.
Spoiler Alert – the second innings pitch presents its own challenges
1. Multi tasking like crazy – Forget the corner office and the minions. If you don’t do it, it will not get done – from licking the envelopes to the strategy note. This can present challenges for people who have long been used to super efficient assistants and large teams.
2. Loss of intellectual companionship – On your own you have to bat the idea with yourself, largely. Exposure to different ideas, opinions, influences will reduce. Until you find the network and the ways to deal with it.
3. Maintaining the discipline – With no one to tell you, clock you, look up to you, remaining disciplined about work ethics can be quite a challenge. The luxury of choosing your time to start your work and close it can be quite intoxicating. I have seen people slip simply because they could not keep the shape on their own.
Negotiating the challenges successfully will help greatly in making the second innings the best phase of your life. Pad up, and go score those runs.
D5 Creation
Good skeleton- but needs more elaborating.. show examples or dig a little deep on each of the points that you stated above.
i would love to continue to follow this article
@Biswajit Ghosh, thank you for your feedback. Yes, I will be posting more. Some of the examples for challenges:
1. Multi tasking – You have to be the sales, strategy, product development, marketing, finance and admin person. As an example, you have to generate the opportunity for a proposal, write the proposal, make out the budget, send it (if necessary make a courier packet and send it), follow up and then when you win it implement, monitor, make the reports, keep track of expenses, raise invoices, keep records for taxes….
2. On intellectual companionship – in an office environment you meet the guy from another department and hear about what they are doing, what competition is doing, you can participate of call for a brainstorm, you can discuss an idea with someone, there are regular training sessions, reading matter circulated…usually a system that provides a lot of inputs. On your own, you have to to find ways of filling all of that gap.
3. Discipline – There is an office timing that you have to follow. You are often the leader and so modelling the right behaviour is important. Once on your own, the daily routines can change. There is also no external pressure to maintain discipline. It is all internal. For many people, the freedom of ‘breaking the shackles’ becomes the distraction that they have to watch out for.
There are people who have gone onto their third innings as well and how and why does that happen? Because you have missed out on the first most important aspect of this state of being — being fearless and responsible for the choices one makes. The ability to take risks is crucial. What you are talking about here is a second innings at being self employed — the switch from a job to being your own boss. That has not been clearly explained here. a second innings may mean a career switch too in another job. So if you are talking about second innings and since you didnt speak to me, I will list out my own commandments here.
1. Conquer fear. Unless you do you can never follow your dreams.
2. Once fear is overcome, the ability to take risks grows and your horizons broaden
3. Be prepared to, at least in the beginning, depending on your career choices, make compromises with your finances and lifestyle. Lifestyle will automatically change as you proceed on your path and you get more immersed in what you do.
4. Stand steady on your path. Do not be swayed by naysayers or what the world thinks about you.
4. As you get more immersed in what you do, seek out new people, thoughts and ideas. Intellectual companionship that you talk about does not shrink, rather contexts shift and the conversations you make. If you surround yourself with the same people all the time, growth is slow. Self employment actually is a journey in self discovery — the spirituality you are talking about here.
5. You may be in a rut if you follow the same lifestyle after a career shift unless within the same parameters you try and bring about changes in activities.
@ Pritha Sen. Thank you for your insights. Some of the points I am going to add to my list of learning, specifically the one about ‘changing lifestyle’.
The point about overcoming ‘fear’ is very well made – that is the start point. One of my objectives for writing this series is to help people overcome that fear with ideas, insights and experiences.
This is going to be a series and each part will have a specific focus. This one was focused on ‘for those contemplating a switch that involves doing something on their own’.
Thank you. In my mind the starting point is fear of the unknown and the will and ability to conquer that.
Sanjeev
What a lovely take on a second innings.
Thanks to rapid shifts in medical science, we will all be living longer.
A three stage career (early career, mid career and leadership) is going to disappear. Most millennials will go through multiple jobs.
The ability to skill and reskill oneself is going to be the one requirement common to every career choice.
Thanks
Abhijit Bhaduri
@ Abhijit – that is a lovely insight – the fact that multiple careers is going to be a requirement for the millenials. The ability to reskill along with the ability to adapt to the changes in environment and lifestyle are critical to success in the Second Innings.
A second innings!! Some embrace it. Some tumble into it. Some see (or have) no need for it. And then there are those who teeter at the edge. For this last group, this article series is going to be a huge help.
Who you are, where you come from, what your fathers, uncles did (and brothers – sisters do) seems to have a large impact on the ability to even approach the thought of a second innings. Is there a small town – big town gap there? May be. I grew up in Durgapur and amongst my school mates, barring professionals (Doctors / CAs / Lawyers) – there are hardly any entrepreneurs. Around 2 in a batch of 100 or so.
At some stage, I am sure you will also put down your thoughts on the impediments / self-imposed constraints that plague individuals – basis their demographic / socio-economic and various other attributes – and inhibit them from approaching a second innings.
@Dipan, I hope to cover some more ground in the future pieces including how, what to look out for, what it takes, what can go wrong and so on. Never really thought about the big town/small town gap. Will look at the data to see if it gives me any clue in this direction. Please do keep reading and enriching with your views.
I completely resonate with the positives and challenges. And I have seen myself in the last 3 years develop certain practices and strategies to overcome the challenges. For example for the intellectual challenges I reached out to peers and formed a sort of a support group. To overcome issue of discipline, I started using my calendar for every small task whether personal or work related. For multitasking, I now seek out people who would love to help me out and who can learn in the process. One challenge I do face though is lack of consistent mentorship-someone like my manager who is looking at what I am doing from assignment to assignment, who can help me think of my own annual goals and strategies to get there, who can see my inner mess and my outer manifestations or it, someone who can speak with my clients/ org I work with and find out what I can do better. I am lucky to have found great mentors (my husband, you:P) but finding consistent mentorship like one would get in a “job” is something I miss sometimes:)
@Manali – Thank you for sharing your strategies and work practices. These are very useful. I have consciously looked to expand my circle out of the ‘advertising’ group, try to keep abreast of new thinking by reading and like Eklavya, appointed a couple of people as my ‘gurus’. I follow their thinking and try and learn from what they do, without them actually. You might also want to read this advice on mentors – https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/startup-founders-need-boss-succeed-alok-agrawal?trk=mp-reader-card