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🎒 Career Breaks, Gap Years, and Sabbaticals: How to Plan, Save, and Make the Most of Time Away! 🌞
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🧳 Katrina McGhee explains Career Breaks, Gap Years, and Sabbaticals—empowering you to take a meaningful step back from work and live life on your terms.
From creating a solid financial plan to exploring your personal goals, Katrina walks us through what it takes to make the most of time away and come back stronger. 🌍
In this episode, we discuss:
1️⃣ Defining Career Breaks, Gap Years, and Sabbaticals: Katrina clarifies each term and shares who they're best for.
2️⃣ Financial Planning: Steps to save and budget for a fulfilling time off.
3️⃣ Addressing Common Fears: How to counter doubts about career impact, financial stability, and social pressures.
4️⃣ Communicating Your Plan: Tips for discussing your decision with family, friends, and even your employer.
5️⃣ Making the Most of Your Break: Setting goals and themes to guide your experience and personal growth.
6️⃣ Returning to Work: How to re-enter the workforce confidently and communicate the value of your time off.
🔗 Katrina's Links:
📚 Taking a Career Break for Dummies
🧐 Profellow: Graduate Study and Professional Development
🔗 David's Links:
🍏 Forget About Money on Apple Podcast
🎧 Forget About Money on Spotify
📜 Katrina McGhee Quotes:
💡 "A career break isn't just time off; it's an intentional journey toward clarity and fulfillment." — Katrina McGhee
🔗 "You’re not escaping life—you’re recharging so you can show up better in everything you do." — Katrina McGhee
#financialindependence #financialplanning #gapyear #careerbreak #personalgrowth #toxicworkplace #takeabreak #lifeonyourterms
🎧 Listen & Subscribe: Hit subscribe for more episodes that help you take control of your life and career. Tap the bell icon 🔔 to stay updated!
📜 Disclaimer: This episode is for entertainment and informational purposes and does not constitute financial advice. Please consult with a professional for specific needs.
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Transcript
Introduction: Meet Katrina McGee
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the Forget About Money podcast, where we encourage you to take action today so that you can focus on what matters most to you. Today's guest is Katrina McGee, author of Taking a Career Break for Dummies. Katrina is a career break coach who guides people in taking purposeful time off through career breaks, gap years, and sabbaticals. After her own 20-month break, she became a go-to expert, sharing practical advice in places like Forbes and Thrive Global on planning finances, managing time, and maximizing personal growth during a break from work. Welcome, Katrina. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be
What Are Career Breaks?
00:00:35
Speaker
here, David. Katrina, in this episode, we're going to explore the idea of career breaks, sabbaticals, and gap years. We'll discuss not only the benefits, but also the overlooked risks of stepping away from work and whether time off is always worth it. To start, let's talk about some definitions. I know that we have hiatus, sabbaticals, gap year, and a few other terms, leave of absence. So what I'd like to do is just start with a couple key definitions so that the listener has some context of what we're discussing specifically and how it might relate to them in their current situation. Let's start with career break. What exactly is a career break and how does it differ from a sabbatical or a gap year?
Why Take a Career Break?
00:01:21
Speaker
Great question. So career breaks, I just simply put, they are intentional gaps from employment. So you're taking time away. It's an intentional period of time where you're unemployed. Some people will be let go or asked to leave their job and can lean into that and decide, okay, I didn't choose the start date, but now that I have this time, maybe they have a severance package, maybe they have savings. I really want to make the most of this experience. So I would include that as well, kind of under the umbrella of career break because they're choosing to lean into that time off. But essentially, I like to... Some people will talk about it as a sabbatical because I think to your point, there's a lack of clarity and strict rigid definition around the term and what it does and doesn't mean. But the sabbaticals are technically company provided benefits. So you get it through your employer. So when I'm talking about career breaks, I'm talking about a kind where you're cutting ties with your employer and basically setting yourself free to experience and do a lot of different things. Now you're a coach and I'm not sure exactly how many tens or dozens or hundreds or thousands of people you've helped along the way, but you've come across a lot of people who have, for one reason or another, wanted to take some time off.
Misconceptions and Benefits of Career Breaks
00:02:31
Speaker
Why might someone choose to take a career break versus simply just taking an extended vacation? Oh, yeah. So a career break, obviously, when you're leaving your employer. And so there are a lot of reasons that might come with deciding to take that kind of a break versus an extended vacation. One of them being, you feel like there's a sense of misalignment with where you are today and where you want to be. So it might be that you're just so burnt out and you feel like you've really not been taking care of yourself. Maybe the employer is kind of toxic or has, you know, just like makes it very hard to create a sense of balance and wellness while you're working there. And you just need to step away. You need to focus on healing and you know that you don't want to return. For other people, it might be like they've grown and they've changed. And so while they've been promoted and while they love the work that they do, they realize at some point, you know what? I want to rediscover myself in this current season of my life and figure out what this next chapter is going to hold for me. And I can't stay on the path I've been on. And so it's this desire to create something new and to kind of leap, right? Into the unknown for the ability to kind of shake up their life and make a big change. That's another reason as well that people will do that. Now, outside looking in, I mean, I've had a stressful career. Well, who hasn't, right? But mine was a military career. And of course, there were stressors. But you're tied to that 20-year commitment. You can't just... There are some programs where you might be able to take a year off here and there, but that's rare. And few people actually take advantage of those things. But in the corporate world, it's a little more accepted to do those. At least I believe it's growing to be more acceptable to take some time off for personal development, growth, stress reduction. I'm not sure exactly all the reasons. I'm sure every individual person has their own reason. I would think outside looking in that if someone takes some time off, they're in jeopardy in some way of like losing their job or maybe they can't go back to that job. What are some common misconceptions or is that a misconception?
Financial Considerations of Career Breaks
00:04:24
Speaker
What are some common misconceptions about career breaks or gap years? Yeah, well, absolutely. The fear of being sort of like left behind, left behind your peers, left behind in your career. There's this sense that you're going to sacrifice all of the years and possibly like thousands and tens of thousands of dollars you spent in your education to take a break. And I think that alone is one of the top misconceptions. What I like to tell people is when you really want a break, especially for talking about addressing your well-being and your wellness and feeling like you need this time because you're living at an unnaturally hectic and frantic pace with all the deliverables and the always-on culture, it's like driving your car and saying, I can't stop for gas. I've got to keep going because I'm trying to get to my final destination when your tank is nearly empty. Yes, you can keep going, but for how long? And you're really at the end of the day, creating more struggle and more problems down the road for yourself by not taking care of yourself. So I think it's really valuable to think about a break as a chance to pour into yourself. And what that means is you are going to feel more fulfilled, more energized, potentially more clear about what you want in this next season or chapter of your life. And that version of you that comes back to work, you have the same network, you have the same education, you have the same expertise and experience. But now you are performing or able to perform at a higher level. You have a greater connection to innovation and creativity. You have a true excitement to be back at work and to be doing things that light you up and like a clarity that's going to drive you to perform at those higher levels. So actually, I have seen this time and time again. I've coached over 100 people through breaks. They come back as better versions of themselves. It's not like you 2.0. It's like you 4.0. So I think that is one of the top misconceptions.
Deciding and Preparing for a Break
00:06:14
Speaker
The second one that I would like to say, like I see a lot is around it's going to completely break the bank. I think it's important for people to understand a break can be whatever you need it to be. And there's no particular or specific amount of time that it has to last. Gap years, typically people think of gap years like travel breaks. So when you say I'm taking a gap year, a lot of times included in that idea is that you're going to do some international travel. Career breaks generally are more open. People do travel. I travel, but it can also mean that you're going to stay at home and you're going to spend time with your family or you're going to spend time taking new classes or explore different parts of yourself by feeling burnout and doing therapy or whatever it is that you decide to do. It's just more of an expansive term. But at the end of the day, it's like you get to make it be whatever you need it to be. And you can make it short, you can make it long. My break, the $40,000 I saved for an original 12-month break ended up lasting so long, I took a 20-month break. I traveled around the world for 20 months. And that was life-changing. And I think it really showed me what's possible, which I'm sure people listening to this podcast already know. There's a lot of misconceptions about money in general general and being able to channel it into ways where it's in alignment with what we value is really important. And I would just encourage people to think about that in terms of a break. Like it doesn't have to cost, you know, tens and tens of thousands of dollars. It doesn't have to be $50,000 if you don't want it to be. Although it could be. I have clients that definitely have, you know, spent a lot of money on a break, but it's up to you. Toxic bosses, stressful workplaces. I mean, there's no shortage of like people expressing their dissatisfaction where there's current jobs, whether you're looking at social media posts or media. Now, I don't know how much of that is actually like solid or, you know, like actually credible at the individual level, or is it just kind of like this movement that everybody just feels like they want to complain? But how do you, but how do you separate the wheat from the chaff on that? So you have a client that comes in, what would that client exhibit towards you for you to say, look, life's stressful, but I don't think a gap year is right. Why don't you try these other things first? Can you discuss that? Like, how do you decide you can't just blank and say a gap year is right for everybody. So how do you delineate between someone who might just haven't be having a bad week versus someone who's truly like lost and needs to rescind themselves? Yeah, that's a great question. And I think there's sort of two parts to my answer. The first part is I'm actually going to say, yeah, I think everybody should be able to take a break at some time. I think it's unnatural to think, especially with what's required of us today, that we're going to work for 40, 50, 60 years and never take a break. I don't think... I mean, even farming, right? There are seasons where the field lays that low and where things have to happen. There's winter season, there's sleep, right? We need those 8 hours of sleep. So I think it would be great to live in a world where taking time off, maybe shorter amounts of time, but taking time off is normalized. So if somebody comes to me and they want it, you don't have to earn it through suffering. So if they want it, I want to find a way to help them get it. That said, I think the underlying point that you're making, which is a really valid one, is a lot of times the problems that we are experiencing in our work are amplified by what's going on inside of ourselves. And just changing our environment or just changing our external circumstances is not enough to create the kind of change that people are often seeking. So we have to understand it's always going to be an inside job first. However, it's kind of like... This might be a really poor analogy, but I'm going to use it anyway. It's kind of like, you know, if you are an alcoholic and you're trying to get sober, do you want to get sober in your house that has like a full bar? If you have like a full bar and all the alcohol, or do you want to go into the woods and go spend some, you know, like a few weeks camping and just be away from the triggers and the things that make it harder to do the work that you need to do. And so I think of a break, like removing kind of cutting ties with all of the triggers and the demands that make it hard to have boundaries, that make it hard to hear yourself think, that make it easy to say yes when you really mean no, that make it harder to stand up for yourself or go to the gym or eat the food or drink the water or do the things that you need to do to take care of yourself, right? So I think it enables that. So if somebody were to come to me and they were just having a tough time for the last month, I would be really curious about what's going on. Obviously, you don't need to quit a job if you're just in a hard point or a tough season. But I do think for everyone out there listening, know that you can take a break. You don't have to justify it. But I would say it's always going to be an inside job. So even if you go on a break, there's going to be some dark night of the soul moment when you are really faced with your own stuff. And like, how did I contribute to the place that I got to where I didn't have boundaries or I didn't feel good or I did way too much and I overextended myself or felt like I wasn't, you know, accelerating through my career in a way that I had wanted to. Yeah.
Empowerment and Self-Discovery
00:11:03
Speaker
And maybe this is just my age or my own biases kicking in here, but I do see a lot of people just complaining. And I know that you don't have to, everybody's got their own life and you don't have to earn the right to not work if you don't want to work. That's your decision. But to think that that's going to be the silver bullet to happiness or some revelation or a huge second chapter in your life, I don't know that that's, and you probably ask those kinds of questions when you're talking to your clients, but I'm thinking, what I would think of first is, okay, work is work and then, okay, that's eight hours a day or 10 or 12, whatever your work schedule is. What are you doing on those others to reduce stress? You know, and most of the time, I mean, I see people who work and then they, the aspects of their life that isn't their actual work are also stressful, but then they'll complain about work. So, okay, what is that person doing? Are they actually truly trying to prioritize sleep, good nutrition, habits, good habits outside of that little work block time? So for me, I mean, I know you're the coach, but if I saw something like that, I would say, well, let's look before you decide that you don't want money for the next six months or two years. Let's see what you can do to reduce your stress. Do you have those hard conversations? I mean, sometimes, yes. Not everybody, though, is coming at a place of like, I'm just really stressed and I need to quit my job because I'm really stressed. You know, sometimes it's like I have these dreams or I'm in a job or on a career path that doesn't feel true to where I want to be. And I just want to find some joy and rediscover who I am and figure out what I want. But definitely, there are the people that come from it through the case of burnout. So you and I are actually like same generation. I think we're pretty much the same age. So I get... I kind of get 2 years apart. I know this is a fact. So there you have it. You do know more about me than I know about you. I do. That's right. That's right. I'll say I get that. I totally get that idea of just quitting isn't the answer. But I also have seen time and time again, when people take a break, it's like they leave the matrix and they get to see life is a bunch of choices that they previously thought were not choices. I have to show up this way. I have to do this a certain way. It's like when you realize there are all these ways that you feel like you're just getting by financially, but you can make a lot of different decisions to actually shift and generate money and put it towards places that actually will impact your life now and even more so down the road. It's like that with work. And so what I think the magic of a break is for anyone that takes one at any point in their career, especially in that mid-career, like I've been working for at least a decade or longer. It's like, Oh my gosh, I had a choice all along. Like I am empowered to make decisions. I can make brave choices. I can find more alignment. I can do the courageous thing and start my own business if that's my dream, just to see what will happen. I just see people feel so much more in control of their life, which does lead to a greater sense of happiness and contentment to at least feel empowered to know they can go for what they want. And so I would say that in and of itself is one of the most valuable things a break could bring you. And I think people oftentimes forget that they're in a matrix of sorts or making a lot of unconscious decisions that they don't like when they're just grinding out, trying
Taking Breaks After Education
00:14:08
Speaker
to keep up with everyone and like, you know, get that promotion, make sure that they're still rated as a high employee, keep earning that income, but like not really enjoying it or at the expense of their own wellbeing and happiness. Yeah. You said the word empowered twice. And I think that's a huge way. I mean, it's a huge word, right? And again, I don't know your clients, but I would imagine, especially right now with the pressures, like even our ages, you know, coming through what society expects you to do, graduate high school, go to college, get a job, work for 20 plus years, maybe retire one day. But going that route, you're not necessarily empowered at an individual level. You're just walking a path that's expected of you. And I think that for two reasons, one, that's a little bit defeating, at least in a mindset capacity. And the other is it puts you in a position to blame other people because you're not empowered or you don't feel empowered or you never experienced what that really means. So when you do take that time off or you retire from a job, maybe later in life, after 20 years of a challenging job, you start to feel what that really means. When you can design your everyday, you can design the stimuli that goes into your brain every day. You can watch this. You can listen to that. You don't have to answer to this person or that person. You can more walk your own path that's aligned with your own values. So I can see where the benefit of, let's say somebody's worked 10 years in a career that they're like, okay, this is just not my jam right now. I'm financially sound enough. Let me take some time off. And then I can see how that time off would then recenter them, make them feel empowered for the next chapter. Assuming they go back to work for another decade, at least then they'll understand that it's just work. It's just money. And you're that they're ultimately in control of all aspects of their life. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that is like one of the best gifts, right? To realize that you get to make those choices and that you are in the driver's seat way more than you have even realized like that, you know, that's a really powerful place and awareness to have. My daughter is 21. And when she graduated high school a few years back, I advocated that she take a gap year, just take a year off. She decided to go straight into college, which is her decision. But what are you seeing as far as the benefits of taking a gap year after high school or at least before starting college? Maybe go right into the workforce right out of high school. So how does someone navigate where to take the gap year and then seeing the benefits years later? Yeah. So I don't have clients that are, you know, like high school students or college students taking gap years, but I definitely have tangentially, you know, have experience with that. And I know a couple of coaches who work in that space and I would say it's that self-awareness. So I think there's a lot of what we just talked about, right? It's like the path that you think you're supposed to be on. You go to school, you go to the best school you can, you get the degree, you get the job, you keep getting promoted, you go down that path. I think it's an amazing moment to really see yourself and figure out in this early state of adulthood, who am I and what's important to me and how capable am I really? And I think it allows you to see life in a new way to have a broader perspective so that when you decide to take that next step, whether it's going to college or if you are out of college, it's getting that first job, you're able to do it from a much more aligned place. And like the word I love to use, right? Empowered place of deciding it and consciously deciding it and intentionally deciding it. And, you know, having this sort of the stake, this claim, like I am, this is who I am. This is what I'm looking for instead of mindlessly sort of being on autopilot and just doing what's expected of you. Agree. Okay.
Budgeting for a Career Break
00:17:37
Speaker
So we have this person who wants to take a sabbatical or a career. What word should I be using right now? Career break? Career break is great. We use career break. We have a person who has decided a career break might be for them, but then finances are clearly an issue or could be clearly an issue, especially if you haven't worked for 20 years yet, or maybe you haven't had the savings habit bug. You're not quite there. How should someone approach budgeting and saving for a career break? Yeah. Well, you've basically just described me. So that was my story. I was living at my means. I had, you know, $60,000 worth of MBA loans to pay off from going to business school. And when I decided and realized I need a break, I want to travel the world. I had like $1,500 in my bank account. So, you know, the most important steps that you can take, if you can relate to that sort of space of feeling like you haven't set yourself up financially to do this yet. First, you want to have a target. How much do you think your break would cost? It can be an estimate. I very highly encourage rounding up, being conservative in your estimate so that you're overestimating versus underestimating. But think about if I were to take 3 months off or 6 months off, whatever you want your break to be, do you understand to the nearest thousand, right? How much would that cost? My number was $38,000. So then it's like, wow, there's this huge gap between $1,500 and $38,000. How am I going to start to pull levers to change that? So the next step that I took, and I would highly recommend anyone take, is looking at what you're actually doing with your money. So I went for 2 months, not judging myself, not making sweeping changes, just being really honest and spending money, but tracking every dollar I spent to see where is all this money going because I'm living at my needs. And some of the things I saw shocked me. I was spending $700 a month on groceries and I was still eating out. And I was a single person only feeding one person. So that did not feel good. It was really easy for me to find quick wins once I realized where I was spending my money, like places to shift and make a change so that I was reducing that down. Now, eventually, that only gets you so far. So I'm saving $200 a month, and then it's like $500 a month, and then it's $700 a month. Then I made a bigger decision. And I decided at the ripe age of like 30, 31, to get a roommate. And I moved into a really nice apartment, but it had 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms. And I was like, okay, I'm going to go back to getting a roommate because it's going to cut my expenses down dramatically. And so I did that. I was living in a city where it wasn't cheap. And so it all kind of came together. 18 months later, I had $40,000 in my bank account. So sometimes you got to make those big choices, but it's so much easier to make those choices when you have a goal in mind and you know what you're trying to do instead of just, air quotes, save a lot of money. And when you are really aware of how you're currently spending your money and then making conscious and aligned choices about what do I value the most and do my choices with where I'm spending my money reflect that. And so, you know, that I think is like a really simple way of kind of working towards your goal. How much time were you planning on taking off? And you said it started at a particular amount of time and then you were either frugal enough or you managed your money well enough that you were able to extend that. What were those timeframes? Yeah. Originally 12 months. And then about eight months in, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm spending way less money than I ever thought I would. I'm just going to keep going until I run out of money. So that lasted me about 20 months. I basically hit my red zone where I was like, okay, now I have just enough money to like move into the next chapter of my life. Let me start looking for jobs. And I started applying for jobs and I landed 5 offers in 5 weeks. I accepted a job that I was excited about. But I think it's important to note one of those jobs was a 30% raise and a promotion. And I think that's another important point to go back to the misconception. I see my clients sometimes end up in jobs that pay more. I have one client who was working as a VP of operations, took a break, got poached out of her break by a recruiter, and now does contract work that pays her 2 times her corporate salary used to pay her for her to work on her terms. So it's like her break actually opened up the possibility to make more money in a new way for her as well. But, you know, that was my experience. So yes, 12 months into 20 months and, you know, kind of spent until it was gone. And then I was like, okay, let's go back to work. Let's start building up the savings and pay off my debt as fast as I possibly can. Did you go back to the same job that you had before or no? No, I did not. Okay. So if someone wanted to keep that door open, what key steps should someone take in order to secure their current job or leave at least with an open option to return?
Maintaining Employer Relationships
00:22:12
Speaker
Yeah. Well, if you know that you want to return and that's your ideal, first, I encourage you to go through your employee handbook and see what kinds of leaves of absences they offer. Maybe they do offer a sabbatical program. So it wouldn't be necessary to make this huge sweeping leap of quitting your job altogether. So like see what's available, even if they don't have, you know, sort of a formal sabbatical benefit, see what the leaves of absence would be. Like how could you make this work and talk to your manager? If you are a high performer in good standing and you can build a case for how this is going to benefit you, but then there's going to be a ripple effect for it to benefit the company, that can really go a long way towards getting to take a break. Now, if you do have to quit and you're like, okay, they don't have a program. I really need this time off, but I would like to leave the door open. I highly encourage giving ample amount of notice when you go to leave your job. I gave 8 months notice, actually, when I quit my job, which is kind of insane. But a lot of my clients give between 2 and 3 months. And that really sets the stage for you to be in alignment with the sentence. I'm doing this for me, but I want to make sure I leave you and the team in the best position possible for my absence. And I think it builds a lot of goodwill to allow the team time to create a transition plan and to smoothly transition. And then when you're giving your notice, I always encourage people if they want to leave that door open or just have an advocate through their manager and their company, really focus on what you're moving towards and not what you're trying to get away from. So instead of dumping on them and talking about all the ways that you were miserable, or they disappointed you or didn't meet your needs, focus on what you're trying to create. For me, that was... This is my chance. I'm in my early 30s. I'm so excited. I want to see the world and I want to live my life in a bigger way than I've ever really been able to. And I know this is my time. And I'm really excited for that. And I just have to say yes to myself. And it's like, Oh, well, I want to be be supportive supportive of that. That doesn't sound so bad, right? So just really focusing on what you want to move towards, I think is another helpful way to basically like leave on good terms and potentially have the door open for when you come back. That's great. We've got the employer out of the way.
Handling Reactions from Family and Friends
00:24:17
Speaker
In your case, I'm not sure exactly your personal situation. Maybe you're single, you live a nomadic lifestyle. It might be easy for you to make this transition more so than someone else who's maybe got a spouse, kids, maybe family members who feel strongly one way or another about it. How can people talk to their family and friends about their career break plans, especially if they're not supportive? Oh, good question. So I ran some numbers and about 60% of my clients do have partners, whether they're married or cohabitating with someone. And about a third of them have children. So I am single. I don't have kids. It's definitely easier in some ways for me to do it. But I have lots of clients that have more responsibilities than I do. So I just want to say that for anybody listening or watching, you can totally do this. My piece of advice, because I've definitely seen this with some of my clients, when it comes to people not understanding, number one, please understand that what you're doing, even though it's growing as a trend, it is still very unfamiliar to a lot of people. And it is still countercultural to what we see in the past. So please know that when people initially have a negative response or a resistance, it's a reflection of their own limiting beliefs. So for them, that was never an option. So why would it be an option for you? You might be butting up against their reality. That's not possible. That's not what a good, responsible adult human being does. So being able to not make it about you and your decisions, but understand that's their reality. And that is an example of maybe their own limiting beliefs about what's possible, number one. But number two is, one of the things I advocate for, for anyone at any point of their journey on a break, preparing, being on one, is you have to be really clear on your purpose. Have a purpose statement. Know what this break is really about. Know what's at stake if you didn't take it. Really understand why you are doing this and be able to articulate that simply to other people so that even if they're not fully on board, you can at least say what this break is about. Because if you sound confused and you sound afraid and you sound nervous about it, they're going to totally pick up on that and reflect that fear back to you and be like, I think this is a terrible idea. And who could blame them? They're looking at you. They're like, you don't seem ready for this. So I don't want you to blow up your whole life. So I think that's a really important piece. I will say I did have... As an example, I did have a client whose husband was not on board with her break. And she really wanted to do some international travel. It had been like a childhood dream. She was crushing it in her corporate life, but really feeling like if I'd never take time to address this, she was in her 40s. I'm never going to get to live this version of my life. Her husband wasn't interested in doing the international travel. And what was really interesting is that in the beginning, he really reflected a lot of her own fears. And as she became braver and more clear about what the break was for, that she really wanted to take it, he slowly got on board, but he also saw her thriving. He saw her really embracing new parts of herself, being excited about life again, really engaged and connected. And I think that's another important thing to know. Sometimes people don't understand your vision of what you want for your life, whether you're starting a business, taking your break or doing something off the beaten path. It's not their job. It's your vision. So sometimes you have to start building that vision and living into that vision before people realize, Oh, now I see what you're doing. Now I see what that's about. So I would say if you're waiting for full permission from everyone in your life to agree that what you're about to do is a great idea, you'll be waiting until you're dead. So like, good luck, right? That's probably not going to happen. So you have to decide what you're willing to risk. So your client traveled and did she travel?
Travel vs. Staying Home During Breaks
00:27:52
Speaker
She did travel. Yes. Did her family go with her or was this a lone, lone trip? She did. She did spurts alone. So she went for like, I think eight weeks at first came home for several months and then went for another six weeks and then was at home again. And you did some traveling too. What are all the places that you went? Yeah. Oh, it was so exciting. I started with a one-way ticket to Colombia. I went to Cartagena, Bogota, Medellin, and then I flew down to Barcelona. I'm not Barcelona Buenos Aires, sight unseen. And I stayed in an Airbnb for a month, got to know the city, love the city, flew to Barcelona, spent some time in Western Europe. My mom very unexpectedly got sick. She was in the ER. I had to drop everything. Thank goodness for points and miles. I was able to get a last minute ticket home, spent some time with her, and then continued on my journey, flew to Southeast Asia and got to travel around to Vietnam and Thailand and some other countries down there. Did a yoga teacher training in Bali. Came back, moved to Denver, spent some time hanging out in Denver, ending my break, going through a re-entry period, and then went back to work. Hablas Español? Un poquito, un poquito, un poquito si. Un poquito si, pero ahora, más o menos. I get good at it when I travel, but it's really rusty when I don't. No, you're good. You're perfect. You're staying in. Thank you, David. So what kind of tips would you give for someone who's planning to do travel during a career break? And are there unique considerations for travel over just staying home? Yeah, absolutely. So fundamentally, everyone needs to figure out their purpose, right? Why am I taking this break? An easy question you can think about when it comes to what would my purpose be? What are you risking if you stayed at your job or in your current life? What's that state? That can kind of lead you down the path of really understanding what this is about. You can also think about why do I really need this break? What would make it worthwhile for me? So once you have a purpose statement, you also want to think about 3 to 4 themes. So pillars, the topics, themes, ideas of what you want to experience in this break. It might be learning. It might be travel and adventure. It might be reconnecting. It might be recovery if you're really burnt out. When you have that understanding, you can make sure that anything you do during this time is going to create a successful experience.
Pursuing Goals During Breaks
00:30:14
Speaker
The kind of experience that you don't regret, the kind of experience that you look back on and you go, Oh my God, my life changed for the better. I'm so glad I did it. Even when life is really hard, because life will be lifey all the time. Even when you're on a break, you will face some BS at times because life is just going to light. So I think it's important to know that. So purpose statement and themes, absolutely know that for your break. Also, please plan budget, time and money for a re-entry period. Think about having a buffer from when your break is ending and the joyride is over to where you are looking for a job or starting your business or doing whatever you're doing. You want time where you're not freaking out about the fact that you've run out of money. You have to take just any job. You're going to throw away all the things you've got, all the benefits you got from your break and just settle for another crappy situation. You really want the time and space for that. Now, if you're going to travel, there definitely are extra considerations. But I think one of the biggest is thinking about your timeline. So high season versus low season is going to have a way different impact on your budget. Monsoon season versus not monsoon season is going to have a really different... It's going to have a very big impact on your contentment, right? The kind of experience you can have if you're having fun, if you're staying indoors all the time. So really think about when you're deciding to travel, what your budget for that travel is. And then also thinking about, do I want to be in Europe in the summer? I can't afford that. That's not the best use of my money, but maybe I'll go later in the fall. And really thinking through how that's going to impact your budget and your sense of joy for wherever you're going to be. So I think that's a really big thing to consider when you travel on top of all the admin vaccines and getting a no-fee ATM card and things like that that are more tactical. Well, it seems like you had a pretty good time during your career break. And travel is just one of those things that some people want to do. I know, at least in the financial independence community, it's funny because people say, I want to travel, I want to travel. And then they'll fire and they'll hit their number and then they'll stop working. And then they go travel. And like three months later, they're like, I'm good. I thought I wanted it, but now I've lived it and it's not my jam. Or it was nice, glad I could do it, but it didn't work out. So not everybody loves traveling or it turns out you don't love traveling, maybe as much as you thought, or there's just other things. And you've got a lot of clients. What are some of the things that you've heard from clients that they've accomplished or set their sights on, goals they achieved, who really got the most out of their career break? Yeah. So travel is big, but it's only it's about two thirds of my clients that travel abroad. So a lot of my clients, you know, a third don't. So that's totally normal. Writing a book is definitely one of the things I've seen come up a few times for what people hope to achieve during their break. But another one is really a sense of reestablishing a new way of life. And that sounds very vague and kind of high level. But at the end of the day, they want healthy routines. They want healthy habits. They want to learn how to live in their current life, in their current situation, but to have better boundaries, to take better care of themselves. Sometimes they have a health crisis and it's about getting themselves back to a healthy place. For some people, there's therapy involved of like, man, I am feeling like I don't have boundaries and I always say yes to things or there's a loss that needs to get processed. So I talk about this sometimes, but very unexpectedly, I gave eight months notice at my job. And one week before my break started, my younger brother passed away. And he was like my favorite human. It was like the worst moment of my adult life, my life ever. On top of like... At the same time of like having this best moment of my life, this highlight of my life reel and having to like coexist with both of those. So a big part of my break was on just literally like moving through the grief process. And I see that with some of the clients I have as well. Maybe they've lost someone close to them. Maybe there's a divorce, sometimes even losing your job, if that was really a big part of your identity. There's really just allowing yourself to go through the grief process can be a big part of what people do on a break. But there's also retreats. I see people start businesses and really give something a go or do passion projects just to see where
Avoiding Pitfalls and Planning Re-entry
00:34:28
Speaker
they lead. A lot of my clients like to do pottery. I feel like that comes up a lot. Writing and pottery are, I guess, creative exploits that they like to try out maybe in a way they couldn't before, but there's just so many things like the sky's the limit. What kind of pitfalls have you seen people make while
00:34:45
Speaker
sabbatical or career break and so succumbing to the fear of the unknown and really not being grounded in what the break is about i see people sometimes pull the rip cord and eject early so it's not my clients it's not the people i'm working with you know over time but people that come to me maybe you know in the middle of a break or people i just hear about
00:35:09
Speaker
they're on sab they will sometimes get so in their head about being on a break that they're like, I can't do this anymore. like I'm scared. The job market is crap. like I just need to be looking for a job because it's probably gonna take me six months to find one. I can't be messing around with this. I'm just gonna go back to work. I have had people that I've worked with that are on career break number two, career break number three, because they did not enjoy the first one. They either early exited or they felt so stressed. They felt so guilty. They felt so bad about being on a break and were second guessing everything they did that they couldn't enjoy it. And they ultimately feel like at that time, it was like, Oh, it wasn't really worth it. So I see that happen as well. I think those are kind of the biggest mistakes. The other thing is, if you don't have a re-entry period, you will probably settle for a job that you don't really want. And it's one thing to choose a job that doesn't have everything you want because you've decided with intention, this is the next right step for me. And I'm going to make this lead to the thing I ultimately want. But it's another thing to be coming in hot off the heels of your break and be like, Oh my God, like I don't even feel really confident about what I did. I don't know how to explain it. I'm worried everyone's going to judge me. like I'm so desperate to find a job. I'll just take anything. And they just start like you know praying and spraying and they're applying to every job, even jobs they don't want. And then they just settle for the first thing that comes. And that makes me really sad because that kind of defeats the purpose, I think, of taking that time. But I do see that with people that don't have a re-entry period and or that purpose statement themes and understanding of how to articulate the benefits of a break. They just have a lot of shame and sort of feel the stigma around taking time off. The transition to reentry, I imagine, is probably just as shocking or ah that might be that might be a tough word, but just as interesting as probably stepping away from the workforce into the career
Keeping Skills Fresh
00:36:58
Speaker
break. One of those concerns going back in, I would imagine, is their professional development, their professional skills. Are they still marketable depending on how long the break was or the type of job that they're trying to step back into? How can people keep their professional skills fresh during a break ah to maintain their career momentum? Yeah, great question. So upskilling is absolutely something you can do. I have some clients that do that. So it might be a certification, it might be online classes, but it can also be you know going down the rabbit hole of podcasts or reading books on topics you know about what's current in your field to get back up to speed and maybe beyond where you were before. I have one client who did a fellowship. So there are fellowships for mid-career professionals. ProFellow is a website that like shows you can filter on that, but there are places you can go to find them. And so you know he did this clean energy... I believe it was a clean energy fellowship out in California for 3 months. And it really opened up doors for him and his career once he finished that fellowship at the end of his break. So there are many ways that you can upskill. I think it's also worth noting if you are attempting a business and deciding you know for part of your break to you know give give it a go as far as like starting a business or doing something on the side, having a side hustle, you will learn a lot of skills. And so being able to articulate the skills you've learned and using those as an asset and strengths that you can bring into the interview process and you know highlight on cover letters, I think that's another way for you to sort of expand what's possible. I have clients that have learned languages, obviously not to fluency during a break, but definitely getting better at those skills and being able to use them in a way that they become an asset in their job search and an asset to their future employer. That's another way I see it. But something maybe counterintuitive that I would add as far as like how do you come back really strong and able to be a high performer? You have to fully disconnect at the beginning of your break from your work life. And this is actually a really big mistake. I see a lot of people that don't have a coach or don't really know what they're doing make because they think if I'm just scrolling LinkedIn casually just to see what jobs there are, or just you know constantly thinking about and stressing about staying current, I think that's good for me. I think that stress is good for me. And the opposite is actually true. You're going to be halfway in and halfway out the whole time. You're going to be worried about being on a break. You're not going to be able to fully enjoy it. And then you're going to jeopardize all the benefits that a break could give you. And what I see is people freaking out you know through the whole process and feeling like they're falling super far behind. And then someone in their peer group or colleague gets promoted and then that sends them down a whole spiral. And so it's kind of like a ah doom a doom loop, if you will, or a doom spiral if you stay connected. So please disconnect, even if it's only for two months or three months before you start to come back online and think about things like upskilling or re-engaging your network, which is another great way to pay pave the way for a smoother re-entry is really thoughtfully engaging you know your network and coming back to the people you've known and worked with even in past jobs you know from many years ago.
Framing Breaks in Resumes and Interviews
00:39:57
Speaker
Continuing with the re-entry phase, I imagine employers would could have an issue with that gap in their resume. How should someone frame their career break on a resume or in an interview to show to show it as a beneficial experience? Yeah. So there are several things you could do. It will depend on how long your break is. So if you took a three month break, you can use years, right? If you have a chronological resume, you could use years and it it can get hidden in that, right? So you were working in 2023 and you were also working in 2024 or something like that. So you can kind of hide it to the point that it's not worth the addressing unless you really want to highlight it. But on the resume, you can hide it just by using years. I also have clients that use more functional resumes. So it's not chronological. It's not focusing on the years if they took like, you know, a six to 12 month break. But if you did take a break and you did some things that you are either really proud of or your break was longer, it was like a year or longer, or you just did some really meaningful things, using it as an experience. So putting it on your resume as if it was a work experience, calling it, you know, something very simple, but then giving one or two bullet points that really highlight amazing things you did. right Did you summit Mount Calamandreau? Did you write a book? Did you start a business? Did you you know like did you relocate? like You use this break to relocate and to like establish your family, which some people have done. Really giving context to it will help people understand. It isn't just this blank space where you freaked out and weren't able to get employed. But instead, it was this intentional break where you did some really meaningful things for yourself. So I think on the resume, the goal is to just fill in the gaps and let people know there's a story there. In the interviews and the cover letter is when you want to really lean into it. So the activity I tell everyone to do, whether they're my client or not, is with 25 benefits you got from a break. They can be big, they can be small. I slept 8 hours. That felt amazing. I got my health back, right? I lost 20 pounds and I'm super fit. It could be that you got to really indulge creativity and you made your own plates and bowls at pottery class, but you really got to explore. But think about what that break gave you, 25 things. And from that place of seeing all those benefits, then connect the dots in a cover letter and in an interview to how did this make me better so that I can be better for you, right? How are you winning in this deal? Which is a big part of what I did. And it's how I got those 5 job offers in 5 weeks. I was able to talk about my break like an amazing asset that helped me stand out. I still had an MBA. I still had a past career as an actuary and then a second career as a market researcher. I still had gone you know to great schools. I had all of this great experience. But now I have this thing that makes me look brave. It makes me look bold. It gave me some you know like additional language skills and like also more things to talk about. And it helped me stand out in those interviews and be remembered and be sort of seen as somebody that's a little bit different than everyone else. And so you you know I highly encourage people to lean into that in the cover letter and in the interview if asked about it, because people will be curious about what you did during that time. So make it sound meaningful. Because of your business, you've seen a lot of people go through this transition.
Fears of Career Derailment vs. Benefits
00:43:11
Speaker
But if you're the person going through the transition, you can be worried. It's understandable that they are worried and have some anxiety or some but frustrations or fear or whatever it is to go through it this process of a career break, what would you say to someone who worries that stepping away from work could derail their long-term career goals or earning potential? Yeah. Well, you know, first of all, again, I think it's really important to understand sort of 360 degrees, like what's at stake if I leave, but what's at stake if I stay? And I think sometimes people don't think about what's at stake if they stayed. So you might realize, right? It's like, oh my gosh, I might have a nervous breakdown. And then... Which by the way, I have seen that happen. I have clients who have come to me where the break was forced upon them because they wouldn't take it year over year over year. And so their body or their mind just basically gave up and said, we're not doing this anymore. It's usually a case of burnout, but you know other physical things have gone on as well and they just didn't have time to address it. So I think it's important to think about what's at stake if you don't take a break. I also think it's important to be grounded in why you don't want to take a break. If you think that I would like to, but I'm not going to because I have these fears, really think about what those fears are. I recommend listing them out and discerning whether each item on that list is a fear or a concern. So I like to think of concerns as in, you know I don't have enough information and that makes me feel worried. Well, you can go get more information, right? So a big concern I hear, I don't know what to do about health insurance because in the US, right our employment is often tied to our health insurance, which is you know like very essential. That's great. But there are lots of people that have businesses that have taken breaks. you know there There are ways that people other people around you have made it work to get health insurance even when it wasn't coming through the main employer. Some of my clients are married and that's an easy one, but other clients you know like myself were single. So I think it's important to to address that that's a concern, but don't let that be this paralyzing thing that you never learn how to overcome, right? The fears are sometimes more irrational. I'm worried no one will ever hire me again. Okay, well, is that true? Well, would no one ever hire you again? Well, no, but I might have to take a job that pays less. Okay, great. Is that doable for you? The answer might be no, I don't want to sacrifice that. But if the answer is, I make a good amount of money, I feel really miserable, I have a lot of nice things, but also this version of my life is giving me no fulfillment and no joy. When you think about, right, what's at stake again? It's like, is that a worthy trade-off? Is it okay if you have to take a little bit less money? Some of my clients, like I said, make more, but some do choose to take less because they are making a trade-off for something that feels more joyful and aligned once they come back and they feel good about that trade-off. So I think that's important as well. I like to say a really well with-lived life is one where you are chasing down green flags instead of constructing your whole life to avoid red flags. right So when you think about the fears, obviously, we want to mitigate fears. We want to like prepare for things. We don't want to be caught off guard and you know like suffer and struggle our whole life. But I think for a lot of us, we have a lot of gifts. We have a lot of advantages. But we believe that we're always in survival mode and that we're always just getting by even if that's not true. And so we design a life where we're trying to avoid all of those fears, all of those red flags. And that creates a smaller version of the life we want. At times, you're going to have to go for those green flags. You're going to have to step outside your comfort zone and chase those things down. And so I really just encourage people when it comes to a break to figure out, is this a moment where I am chasing a different green flag that is not my break, right? Whether it's progress in your career or a chance to do something you know different in your and your career path, or is it a bunch of avoiding red flags? And if it is, I just encourage you to think about what does my life look like if all I ever heard do is ignore the things I need and want so that I can always try to avoid the fears that I worry about that might not even come to pass, right? Because that leads to a really small life, in my opinion. And definitely, you you know, I wouldn't be where I am today if that was my philosophy. So I would just encourage people to think about that. Think about the trade-offs. Well, Katrina, thank you so much for talking. I know you have many more green flags to go chase down. Thank you for sharing your expertise with those considering a career break, a sabbatical or a gap year. I truly do appreciate it. I've learned a lot and I hope we get to talk again soon. Thanks, David. what I had a good time. Thank you for having me on. And thank you all for watching and listening
00:47:56
Speaker
for