Leaving My First Career

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My longest career was in technology. I was an IT Director for 25 years managing Data Center and Tech Support Staff. Eventually, I moved into a more marketing role in technical sales for Verizon promoting data center and large network infrastructure. This career was extremely lucrative and allowed me to build a large retirement nest egg which brings me to why I left.

Leaving My First Career

As I got older and found that there was more money than I was ever going to spend in the rest of my lifetime, I took the bold step to retire at age 52. The politics and stress of working in a large marketing/sales organization was not worth the money. I was really ready to do something a bit more creative along with doing some world travel - mostly on my own terms.

The Encore - What's Next

I mostly spent the first 3 years of retirement traveling and playing in the stock market. I also jumped into doing some commercial voiceover work which is something I had done for around 15 years in an earlier career. Many of the non-broadcast VO jobs involved corporate and explainer videos. Upwork clients began to ask if I could also do the video for them. Well that started my quest to build my video editing skills.

Building An Encore Career

Here's where the fun begins. As I began winning more and more client jobs in my new field, this effectively let me learn and build skills on-the-job as it were. Each new job forced me to push myself to learn new skills and acquire tools to significantly increase the quality of my productions. The challenge was the thrill for me and the money was secondary.

The best part was that I could choose how hard I wanted to work. That brings me to the next step.

Managing An Encore Career

Building a client base is hard work and it takes persistence and being somewhat aggressive. It also takes the right attitude toward the work and your clients. My approach in this career toward clients is similar to that in a corporate job with a small twist. In corporate life, your clients can be both internal and external. As an independent supplier, all of your clients are external but still need to know that you are working hard for their success. You don't have a large organization behind you to fall back on so the challenge is "on" to produce professional quality with no excuses. Clients appreciate genuine commitment to the success of their projects.

Again, your success is entirely up to you. Which leads me to some advice for an encore career.

Advice For Your Encore Career

Based on my experience, here are five tips for excelling in your encore career.

Decide what your objective is, whether supplemental income or full time "pay the bills" type of career. This will set you up mentally from the start.
Be aggressive in proposing and winning jobs if you want to build a business. I found that on Upwork, it is important to be active on the platform and present so that your past clients can see your visibility. This is an investment in yourself as a single proprietor company.
Approach every contract with honesty, integrity and a sincere desire to make the client be successful and look good.
Give yourself a break. Building a new career is hard work in the beginning. Make sure to take some occasional personal time. It is never a good thing to put in 50-80 hours a week without some resting.
Have fun. Hopefully, you have picked a new career that you enjoy doing. Keep a positive attitude in all situations.