Is it possible to start a new career after 50?

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Question: I’m in my 50s and I want to reinvent myself by switching careers and industries. Is this possible?
We asked executive coach and senior career consultant Kadine Cooper to tackle this one:
It’s absolutely possible. I did it just before my 50s. I was tired of the politics of the corporate world so I became an entrepreneur. And I have zero regrets and I have not looked back.
The first step is doing some self-reflection; going back to what you’re passionate about and what you value. For example, my values are faith, family, fun, freedom and flexibility. That’s what I use to anchor me before I say yes or no to something. I ask, ‘Am I honouring my values?’ It’s about figuring out what you want at this stage in your life and your career and what it is that you value, without worrying so much about the ‘how.’
Then, it’s research. Build your network in that new space. Connect with other like-minded individuals and ask them questions. What does a typical day look like for them? What are their challenges, the problems that they solve?
Another step that I recommend is to do a SWOT analysis on yourself. Businesses do this all the time, but it can also help you figure out: What are your strengths? What are your potential weaknesses? Is it a skills gap? What do you need to do to shrink or lessen this weakness? What are the opportunities that are available to you? And what possible threats? You may need to accept a more junior position in a new industry or career. Know what you are willing to accept, what your ‘floor’ is. ‘If I have to say yes to lesser compensation, how long will it support me?’ You can do this exploratory work and self-reflection in tandem with the research and networking.
Your new digital footprint is extremely important. That’s your brand and how people see you. You need to ensure that your presence on social media is sending a clear, concise and consistent message as to who you’re transitioning into.
It’s not just a one-and-done thing, it’s a process. It may not be three months, it may not be six months. That’s why your values should be your foundation. The ‘why’ will anchor you when you go through those valley moments where you say, ‘Am I making the right decision?’ I think another key thing is surrounding yourself with people that want to see you win and succeed as you are transitioning.
The final thing I would add is, ‘If not now, when?’ You don’t have to figure it all out, just start the process.
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If you’re tuning in to the Paris Olympics, you’re no doubt marvelling at the physical feats of the athletes: the ability to flip through the air and stick a landing, slice through the water with powerful-but-precise strokes, navigate a bike across slick pavement at speed.
There is another skill set these athletes have honed, however, that’s not immediately obvious. It’s what’s known as “the Gold Medal profile” – a set of mental performance competencies that research has shown “underpins podium performance.” According to this evidence-based framework, if you are able to master things like resilience, confidence, self-awareness, stress management, emotion regulation, teamwork and communication, you’re setting yourself up for your best possible chance at one day wearing a medal around your neck.
Because having your head in the game really does matter, many Olympic teams work with certified mental performance consultants (CMPCs), sports and performance psychology professionals who’ve been specifically trained to help athletes with the mental aspects of elite sport.
Read how mental performance tips developed for athletes can transfer to the office.
Consultant Jennifer Kenny believes that what we currently recognize as leadership is half of what we are capable of. After years of research and facilitating workshops, she believes we are missing out on the enhanced results that can be delivered by teams taking advantage of the best of masculine and feminine leadership traits.
She stresses it’s not a case of a binary divide, men versus women. She has a long list of leadership traits common to men that are advantageous, but also a list of their traits better abandoned. Similarly for traits more common to women: Some are healthy, others unhealthy.
“We want to use the best of men’s and women’s leadership styles and to transcend the simplistic binary – so both men and women can express both our masculine and feminine leadership,” she writes in 100% Capacity: The End of Gender Balance as We Know It.
Read how to “double your capacity” by adopting the best and jettisoning the worst of gendered leadership traits.
During Meg Whitman’s tenure at the helm of online auction giant eBay, she grew the company from 30 employees with $4.7-million in annual revenue to a global public enterprise of 15,000 employees with nearly $8-billion in annual revenue. In 2010, Harvard Business Review named her the eighth best-performing chief executive officer and top female CEO of the decade.
Reflecting on that experience in her book, The Power of Many: Values for Success in Business and in Life, Ms. Whitman writes, “I gravitated to playing sports with my siblings and on any team I could join. And I consider that opportunity critical to my eventual success in business.”
Other prominent leaders have also participated in sports. Former IBM president, CEO and chair Samuel Palmisano played football in high school and at Johns Hopkins University. Former Whole Foods co-CEO Walter Robb was the captain of the soccer team at Stanford University. And current chair of Deloitte U.S. Lara Abrash still plays competitive softball.
Read the four ways sports can shape resilience, confidence and perseverance in young people.
The gender pay gap is the gift that keeps on giving. Women make less than men during their working years and that differential continues into retirement.
A 2024 report from Ontario’s Pay Equity Office (PEO), Understanding the Gender Pension Gap in Canada, shows a gap of 17 per cent, meaning that for every dollar of retirement income men receive, women get only 83 cents. (That includes income from government pensions, workplace pensions and personal savings.)
“We assumed that if wage gaps are closing and women’s labour market participation is increasing, we should see a closure of pension gaps. But that’s not what we saw,” says Kadie Philp, Ontario’s pay equity commissioner.
In fact, the gap is larger than it was nearly 50 years ago. In 1976, the first-year researchers were able to find meaningful statistics, the pension gap stood at 15 per cent.
Read the full article.
Carpenter Barbara James is working their dream job: helping to build their community’s long-awaited bighouse, a 11,500-square-foot, cedar-constructed place for ceremony for the Gwa’sala-’Nakwaxda’xw Nations, in northern Vancouver Island.
The federal government promised a new bighouse when it forcibly relocated and amalgamated the Gwa’sala and ‘Nakwaxda’xw nations in the 1960s. To be part of the project as it is finally happening is “definitely a highlight of my career,” says James, 36, who identifies as two-spirit.
But getting to this stage was not without challenges, they say.
When James started a trades discovery course for women at British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) in 2005, they hardly ever saw other Indigenous people on campus, let alone Indigenous women or gender-diverse people. It was the same when they started working.
“I used to be the only woman on site,” says James, whose ancestral name is Ma̲lidzas.
Read the full article.
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