Publisher’s note: Here’s more writerly wisdom from our friend Vince Mao. His writing is all about real life and real writing. He’s fun, funny, philosophical, and so worth reading. Today, Vince reflects on the concept of burnout and its true benefit.
What does it mean to pursue a second career? One not built purely from burnout, but from wisdom that’s slowly accumulated? I used to think that starting a business would be a stark shift: walking away from my job, my personal life, and taking on tremendous risk.
Turns out it’s not.
My dad retired from his career as a college professor a few years ago. Since then, my parents have been living their best life: traveling the world, visiting relatives, and enjoying their hobbies. These aren’t entrepreneurial endeavors, but they were impossible to do while raising my brother and me. They were always shuttling us from orchestra rehearsals to recitals to school events. Everything felt effortless – never rushed, never overwhelmed. Now that I’m on the other side of that fence, I realize just how hard it was to maintain that illusion.
Watching them enjoy their post-retirement life makes me wonder, what will I do when I reach that phase? More importantly, when do I want that phase to begin?
What will I do with my time?
According to this Harvard Business Review article, most businesses get off the ground when people are in their 40s and 50s. As I’m now ramping up my fourth decade, these options are coming into sharper focus.
What do I want to do mid-career? Do I want to start a business?
I’m not going to be quitting my job and going “all in”. As an engineer, I enjoy making something new by leveraging resources that I couldn’t marshal alone. But I have begun thinking more intentionally about the trajectory of my life, and there’s no point in starting from scratch when I have time right now to lay the groundwork now. It’s not burnout from the status quo. It’s taking the long-term approach that naturally comes as you build momentum.
The advantage that I have that my parents didn’t? Infinite access to information.
Why consider a second career now?
Life experience changes how we see things. This is why exposure is important. You might have read the classics such as Shakespeare and Dickens in your formal education. I remember being annoyed at having to read them. Like most young adults, I was more interested in getting on with my life and spreading my wings. You don’t fully appreciate these themes until you’re in the midst of building your career, your family, and redefining your identity.
The words themselves don’t change, but you certainly do. And you will hit walls along the way.
Burnout isn’t this monolithic collapse. Your personal and professional endeavors don’t fall apart at the same time, though fallout in one certainly affects the other. It’s not exhaustion in any one realm – it’s more of an indicator that something’s missing or something needs to change in your life.
While navigating a professional life seems more chaotic now, it’s also never been easier to start building a digital presence.
The new world order
Careers today are a patchwork of job-hopping, reinvention, maybe even different industries. Company loyalty is extinct, and pensions are a relic, not to mention any type of job stability. Retirement, as a concept, is rapidly losing meaning. To me, life is a tapestry of multiple threads that weave together. It doesn’t just abruptly shift from one area to another with nice, neat borders. The colors and the designs and the patterns all mix and merge, naturally transitioning from one thing to the next. And yes, burnout is natural and well-documented as being part of it all.
Whatever your path may be, it’s likely that it didn’t unfold in the way you imagined. We are a curious species. We’re wired to explore. Education doesn’t end with school. You never stop learning. You never stop incorporating. You never stop rediscovering old ideas from a different perspective. Because of this, developing a second career now doesn’t seem to be so intimidating. It’s that very curiosity – and our continually evolving perspectives – that propel us forward, not to mention it’s never been easier to act on due to the digital tool we carry in our pockets now.
The digital age makes it easier
If you’re reading this, it’s likely you’ve already been toying with the idea already. It won’t necessarily take off as fast as all the success stories across the internet would have you believe. It takes time, persistence, and more than a little bit of treading some familiar ground and taking your lumps along the way.
Regardless of the reason, there’s a 20% chance that your business will fail in the first year. Without a personal element, without actually caring about those you serve, without a strong reason beyond monetary gain, a business has no solid foundation to outlast the first few years, let alone survive long enough to evolve over a decade. This is why it pays to start figuring out who you are now. It’s much easier when you know your values and have a strong sense of purpose. You have a much better understanding of who you are beyond society’s influence.
That’s why I write. That’s why I think. That’s why I reach out and engage with others both in person and over social media. I don’t intend on ending my contributions to society when I hit another burnout phase, and the prospect of retirement seems quaint. You can’t expect to have everything that was provided to your parents, especially if you’re a Millennial.
There are some amazing writers across platforms like Medium and Substack. Each of them have their experiences to share, ideas to expand on, advice from across cultures and careers. I’ve seen more than a few of the louder creators and writers crow about going “all in” and that the “9-5 career is dead” or that “college is a scam”. Often, they seem to want to reach the endgame content rather than enjoy the process. More than a few burn out from that kind of execution. Speed isn’t the same as growth, and I’ve come to appreciate that distinction through experience.
Expressing yourself through any form of content is a valuable exercise, but if you haven’t lived for long, then the chances of you encountering the more interesting aspects of the world are yet to occur. While age and wisdom are often conflated together, there is a very real correlation between them if one has the determination to grow and become something more; to take part in something greater than themselves.
Timing is important…but it’s not everything
Careers are only a first act in a professional sense, and while the 9-5 version is not for everyone, it does provide a framework. If you want to keep it fresh and interesting, it’s up to you to continue seeking novelty and challenges, whether you are in a position for a few months or a few years.
Burnout isn’t as bad as everyone makes it out to be. After going a few rounds where I have experienced it across multiple disciplines, I’ve come to understand it more as a misalignment with several factors: growth, structure, and pacing. Any one of these could trigger it, and it’s always within our power to step back and reassess and take action. But when we feel we’ve gone as far as we can, it’s time to start over with the skills that we’ve gained, the lessons we’ve learned, and the perspectives we’ve curated.
The second act in our professional lives can take any form, and starting a business based on the first is a compelling one. More than a few of my peers have started doing this, and it’s because they have something to say and something to offer– all from personal experience. One has founded a business around sensitive skin products. Another is building one around authenticity in leadership and fostering improved communication between management and staff. Entrepreneurship is a very personal journey, and while success isn’t guaranteed, I’ve noticed that successful ventures tend to have this thing in common.
And yes, it can be more lucrative.
So what can you do to start?
If you’re just starting out in your twenties, there’s plenty of time to explore and figure out what your second career path might be. If you’re in your thirties, you have some experience and are beginning to understand yourself a bit more. If you’re in your forties like me, you’ve definitely been around the block and are confident in your faculties. It’s never too early to consider where you want to go, and it’s never too late to start building. A digital presence is the most powerful asset in your arsenal because you have a calling card that can grow and evolve with you. Regardless of AI and the hype around any social media or any writing platform, you owe it to yourself to have a body of work somewhere that you can share.
I’m not saying that being burned out is a prerequisite for a second career. But it’s certainly one of the factors that can nudge you into taking action. It’s one of the stronger course corrections to take in the arc of your journey.
The best time to start isn’t when you’re “ready”--it’s when you’re curious, when you ask yourself what it means to you, when you see yourself as a producer, not a consumer, of life.
So while you can start from burnout, it’s better to start from curiosity.
A guest post by
He says, “9-5 parent obsessed with intentional, iterative improvement aligned with identity. Written over 450+ articles about my discoveries through this process over the past three years.”
If you’re learning and finding value from Pen2Profit, may I suggest you explore my deep-dive online course, Write-Earn-Repeat. It’s equivalent to a college semester and my students say, “Great course, Maryan! I particularly appreciate all the resources you mentioned throughout the course.” and “This is the first course I’ve taken online that has finally started sinking in and producing income.”
"There's a 20% chance your business will fail in the first year."
To your point, the only real reason any business "fails" is because the owner decides to stop doing it, and in most cases, that's probably because the business owner did not create sufficient alignment with a sense of purpose to motivate continuing on.
"If you’re in your forties like me, you’ve definitely been around the block and are confident in your faculties."
When you're 65, you look back at forty and think, oh wow, when I thought I'd been around the block I was still standing in front of my mailbox. : )
The older I get, the less territory I realize I've covered.
I fully agree, especially in today's environment, it's a good idea to think about a 'second' --or 3rd or 4th -- ): career. Times change, definitely. Sometimes however, that specific idea or aha moment just comes, out of serendipity, as did mine. We were traveling often to Mexico, thinking of taking the leap from our SanFran corporate jobs, jumping ship. It was nearly impossible to find bookstores there, and I'm an avid reader. We'd ID's the pueblo we wanted to settle in, and I decided as a hobby, I'd open a bookstore. It was one of only 6 in the state (Quintana Roo is home to Cancun) so it was an accident waiting to happen. Just luck. Sometimes things just come to you, but a wonderful second act for sure, through my need to read. Thanks btw for a great post, Vince.