Podcast | Reinventing Your Career: Midlife Transitions and Purpose With John Tarnoff
How Career Coach John Tarnoff Helps Professionals Navigate Change, Find Purpose, and Build Meaningful Careers in Conservation and Beyond.
What if midlife wasn’t a crisis but an opportunity? How can professionals transition into conservation careers later in life? And what does it take to reinvent yourself for a career with purpose?
Today’s guest is John Tarnoff, career coach, author, and speaker specializing in mid-career transitions. After spending decades in Hollywood as a film executive and producer, John made a dramatic career pivot and now helps professionals navigate career change with confidence.
In this episode, we explore how mid-career professionals can identify their true calling, break into new fields like conservation, and overcome challenges such as ageism and self-doubt. John shares practical strategies on networking, personal branding, and storytelling—key tools for landing opportunities in a competitive job market.
It’s an insightful, empowering, and practical podcast.
Enjoy!
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Transcript
Hi Nick, great to be on your show. I’m thrilled to be here. I I really respect the mission that you’re on and and, this whole idea of kind of growing this, cadre population of of conservation experts, professionals. We certainly need this out on the planet, my goodness, more than ever.
So, I come to the career space out of industry, out of a very volatile industry. For thirty five years, I was a film studio executive and film producer in Los Angeles. I took a, a kind of a sabbatical out in the nineties to, start a tech startup, when that was all kind of, you know, happening and very, very, kind of exciting. And unfortunately in 02/2001, when the stock market tanked and the bubble burst, me and my partner in our company burst with it. So I found myself kind of back on the street at a particularly tender junction.
I was just turning 50. Yeah. And I thought, okay, what am I gonna do? I I mean, I’ve, I’ve kind of committed all of this energy and, focus to, to running and growing this company. It’s gone.
I, I mean, it’s, it’s all, it’s all over. Do I go back to entertainment? Do I find something else? Do I, what do I do? I really didn’t have any reference points.
So I decided to go back to school, and I knew of a psychology program that was mostly a kind of a life mastery program, really. It was a program in spiritual psychology, local university here in Los Angeles. And it was a program that had initially been developed to prepare candidates for the California marriage family therapy license. But it had kind of evolved from there into really a study of behavioral psychology, post World War two with a particular focus on, I guess, you could call it stoic philosophy. The idea of of taking 100% responsibility for everything that goes on in your life.
Not that you’re blaming yourself for things that go wrong, but you have a choice as to how you’re going to respond. And that was really the, the kind of the heart of the program. And it’s a two year full on program. A lot of, kind of clinical work back and forth, the working with other students as clients and rotating through these processes of of really learning the skills through doing them. And out of that experience, I began to think about myself in a different way.
Not that I was interested in becoming a psychologist per se, although ultimately I kind of got into an adjacent field as a coach. But it really helped me change a lot of my, programming around my role, around the way the world works, around what I could do. And what I found is something we can talk about this in terms of of your population. Something that happens in midlife is that we tend to, evolve from a focus on doing and, kind of attaining our status in our in our business and in our lives. I mean, it’s we’re we’re out of this building period and we are now into a, into a kind of a purpose period where we take this attitude of, okay, I I’ve, I’ve learned my profession.
I’ve become an expert. I have some accomplishments. I’ve, I’ve, learned to navigate, relationships and friendships and family and, money and all of these things. What’s next? How do I put this to good use?
So this is a natural process that we all we all get to, and I think this this cliche midlife crisis, right, where people get divorced and they start new and all that. It it really is an expression of this quest for some kind of purposeful change in midlife. So that became kind of a theme for me as I looked for new opportunities. And strangely enough, through kind of a kind of a miracle of happenstance as I found myself back in the entertainment business, but in a very different kind of company, in a very different kind of a role. And for most of the February, I wound up at dream works animation in what was really a people development role.
It was not a content role. And I was very conscious about this when I went in and they essentially created a job for me. I was introduced to some people there through a mutual connection. And I thought this is a great company. I’d love to work here, but what’s the job?
Well, there was no job. But they were interested in having these conversations with me. And I mentioned this because it’s a bit of a template for how I think most of us, whatever our field might be, should behave in looking at our careers. Not to pick out I mean, I’m kind of blowing my whole speech here in this one introduction, so I’ll so I’ll I’ll shut up. I’m not picking up.
Pick up, please. Okay. We’re used to finding jobs that are posted and saying, okay. Which is which ones can I do? I believe, and we’ll get into this in detail, that we need to flip that script.
It’s not about fitting yourself into a job that you can do. It’s about deciding what is the job that you do best, the job that you were born to do, the job that you have kind of risen to the occasion on at this point in your life, and then finding a way to do that. So at DreamWorks, I didn’t really realize that this was system, but that’s kind of what I was doing. I was basically saying to them, here’s what I think is going on in the business. Here’s some questions for you about how you’re growing your company.
And and I I was just having these open ended conversations, and they were thinking, this guy’s got something on the ball. Maybe we should bring him in here and have him put some of these projects into into play for us, which is what I did. Yeah. And then in 02/2008, ‘2 thousand ‘9 during the recession, the company changed direction. I was kind of getting all fired up about this whole education and training side.
They were going, yeah, not so much anymore. We’re not so sure that we wanna keep doing it. And, and we had this very amicable parting of the ways, which goes to another aspect of work today, which is so important. And I, I think you, in our conversation before you alluded to this statistic that I often quote about how in my entertainment career, I was fired 39% of the time. And I I came up with that as a joke in my TEDx talk in 2012, got a big laugh, nervous laugh because who talks about this?
Right? Who talks about getting fired as a as a personal metric? But the point is that it’s not about doing anything wrong today, getting fired, getting laid off. It’s about your fit. And, yes, there are times where you clash and where, you know, you screw up and whatever.
But for the most part, this is about a lack of, of, of, congruence between who you are and what you do and what the requirements of the company are at that time. Mhmm. So you’ve gotta face the fact that you wanna be in situations where what you do is a kind of a steady state, a steady offer. You decide, and it’s gonna evolve, of course, but you decide what your agenda is professionally. Mhmm.
And you’re looking for that fit that’s that’s out there. Mhmm. And and that really kind of describes in in the abstract a lot of what I work on as a career coach to help people find their fit, decide on what that fit is, and then use their network to go about finding those opportunities for them and growing those opportunities over time. Yeah. Right.
Well, that’s a brilliant introduction. Thank you, John. Yeah. And I’d like to really double down on that finding of the fit. I mean, as I’m listening to you, like, various things gonna jump to mind.
Like, particularly think around, like, midlife crisis, like you were saying, I think that’s very resonant to a lot of people. From my viewpoint, I think what often happens is way back at school, I guess high school for you guys, you know, you choose the topics that you’re interested in that maybe then leads into a university degree or a master’s or bachelor’s or whatever that sort of lays down tracks then into an industry, which lay down track into a job and a career and so forth. Yep. When you were laying down tracks twenty, thirty years ago as you were leaving school, those tracks have led you off in a direction where you’ve kind of disconnected from the passion and purpose, or maybe your passion and purpose has evolved and changed as as you’ve changed as an individual. Right.
Yeah. And so that feels like part of what happens midlife is, I guess, two things. One is life happens. You get fired, and a change is forced upon you. Or two is the changes just welled up inside yourself.
What I was hearing with you is this this almost the idea of Ikigai. I guess you’re pretty quite yeah. Yeah. I use the ikigai, in my work. Sure.
Right. So for people who are for people who are uninitiated, the ikigai, I k I g a I, is this Japanese notion of life’s purpose. Right. And it has been interpreted, in the West via a well, copied and posted a Venn diagram, which is divided into four quadrants that are really the four questions of Ikigai in the West. What do you love to do?
Mhmm. What do you do well? What does your world need? That’s that’s my spin on it. The the the graphic says, what does the world need?
I think that’s much too lofty. I think it’s about what does your world need and then what can you get paid for? So at the intersection of those four questions is the beginning of your discovery, your self discovery around what your purpose is at this stage in your life, which is likely if you haven’t been thinking about this for a while, you’ve just been kind of head down in your work. Yeah. It’s going to be a real shock to think about, well, what do I love to do?
What do I do? Well, I mean, those are two really important aspects. Yeah. And figuring that out alone is a revelation for most people. Now tying that into your market, That’s what what your world needs.
Yeah. Right? How can you find that product market fit Yeah. For you as an individual? And when you you think of yourself as a product, as a business of one, it kind of resets the stage on how you’re going to proceed to develop and grow your career.
Right? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And I guess the fit and what the world needs from our side, from my side is people finding careers within wildlife conservation, bringing what they love and what they’re great at into that and understanding that career landscape.
Yeah. Yeah. What Yeah. What advice would you give to people, like, practical steps about just around finding your fit, finding your niche or your niche or however you want to kind of frame that. Like, what yeah.
What would you say to someone who’s been fired or just they’re just feeling unsettled their mid career. They want to do something else. How do they figure out what something else is? Right. This is not a well, two things.
One, this is an inside out process. It starts on the inside, but then it has to evolve into, an external interactive engagement process between the individual and the world around them. Yep. The people, friends, family, colleagues, past colleagues, old bosses, you know, teachers, schoolmates, etcetera. Can’t do this by yourself.
So the the the idea that I talk about in my book is the career you want is already inside you. You just need to do the self reflection and the engagement and the prototyping really, or you start experimenting. Well, what if? What if I did this? What would that look like?
What what what would I need? What what resources do I have? What resources do I not have? Who who do I know who’s done something like this? If I don’t know anybody, how can I find people?
All of these questions, that go into imagining where you could be and in multiple instances. So design thinking would ask you to create multiple prototypes Mhmm. Mhmm. And see which ones get the most traction in your research and development process. And over time, which ones feel most aligned?
The kind of baseline practice that I think is so important for people to adopt is journaling. And this is not your high school diary confessional journal. This is a, journal that’s based on, a writer named Julia Cameron, and a book that she wrote many, many years ago called the artist’s way. Mhmm. And it’s a pages.
Right? Morning pages. Absolutely right. It’s based on the idea of morning pages. Morning pages is three handwritten pages.
I think that’s a lot for most people. I just advocate for people to do a single handwritten page in a in a kind of Moleskine notebook, kind of like this, you know, the usual You mean just like this. Right? There we go. There we go.
Every day, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes jotting down your morning pages or your evening pages, whatever comes up, whatever in your mind, even if it is blank, you can always find something to rant about. Yeah. The exercise gets your mind going and helps you develop an inner relationship between your conscious and your unconscious. And, again, this idea that your career is already inside you. There’s that part inside that’s trying to kind of shout out and say, here, over here.
You you need to be thinking about this. Talk to this person. It’s like, oh, wow. I never thought about that person. That’s an interesting idea.
How did I come up with that idea? Well, it’s all inside. Right? But here’s the other side of it. If you’ve been doing your career for a while, you’ve been living on the planet for a while, you’ve picked up some baggage along the way.
We all have. Mhmm. And we need to unburden ourselves of the baggage. We need to accept the past. We need to resolve our hurt feelings.
We need to make amends if that is called for. We need to kind of get to square one with our attitude about what we’ve done, what the world has done to us, what the opportunities are. Because if we don’t reconcile the past, we’re going to be bringing it in to every single meeting, every job interview, every client interview, every every, grant application, whatever it is that we’re doing Yeah. We’re going to bring that baggage in. And it creates this kind of virtual chip on our shoulder where there’s a certain attitude that we are going to bring in whether we like it or not, and people will pick up on it.
They won’t necessarily identify it, but they will say, you know, there’s something about that person. They’re they’re they seem great. They said all the right things. I they can do the job, but I don’t know. There’s something something off.
Let’s go with that person. That other person. Right? I know I know exactly what you mean. Yeah.
Yeah. So what I’m hearing is sorry. Go on. On. Oh, no.
No. Go ahead. Yeah. So I’m hearing a process of self reflection, discovery, conversations, exploring, morning pages, journaling, letting an internal dialogue become external. And then also and prototyping.
I love the idea of prototyping. From our side that it’s sort of like internships, experiences, testing, trying before you buy, that sort of thing. Absolutely. Trials, trial studies, etcetera. Yep.
Yeah. And then finding what I hear is peace, like, just in terms of reconciling the past and starting from a clean slate to move forwards that puts yourself out there in the right way. Yeah. What’s the next step? So if someone’s they’ve explored the prototype, they’ve got some some some clarity about where they might want to go.
How do they then move forward with that? How do they then start to, yeah, use that as their North Star, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. It’s all about your network.
Right. And, you know, a couple of cliches around that. You know, your network is your net worth. Yeah. And, a a writer friend of mine says that, networking is just one letter away from not working.
I’ve not heard that one yet. Which I love. And it’s true. So the the the the iterative process of finding your niche, finding your birth, I guess, is to engage with the people around you and create not just a network around you, but a community. And I would say the difference between a community and a network is that a network being everyone that you have contact with connections with on whatever level that large group will stand by and watch you feel.
They’re not really invested in you as a group. Mhmm. But a subset of that network is a community of shared interest Mhmm. That you want to create and nurture, and that community will step in and help you succeed. So your task, once you have decided, at least tentatively, what that niche value proposition, plan of attack is, prototype, whatever that might be, you need to start getting interactive Mhmm.
With the people who are in your community, could be in your community Mhmm. And see what develops. Mhmm. It’s, it takes time. Mhmm.
You may start off here we are March 2025 with a particular idea about where you wanna go. There’s in your in your world, there might be an issue. Someone might say drinking water. You know, someone might say, mining pollution, you know, extraction questions. Someone else might say sustainable energy.
Mhmm. Whatever that passion is that you feel driving you to shift into a conservation oriented career, you gotta check it out. Right? Mhmm. You’ve gotta make sure that this is really what you wanna do because it’s a lot more than the issue.
It’s the people. Mhmm. It’s the culture. It’s the processes. It’s there there’s a lot of downsides.
Right? There’s a lot of drudgery that goes on with all of this work. Are you prepared for that? Do you understand it? Mhmm.
Who do you know? Who can you meet? Who can you talk to? Mhmm. You need to set up informational interviews with people in your field.
You need to say, hey. Look. I’ve got this background. I’m coming into it from this angle. I think I might wanna do this.
You’ve done it from this angle. Tell me about your experience. Mhmm. What advice do you have for me? Who else can I talk to about this?
I’m sure in your field, people tend to be generous about their time when it comes to welcoming in, nurturing, forming this wider, network cadre, population community of conservation professionals. Yeah. So in a way, I I think for someone who wants to get into this, who’s kind of driven to get into conversation writ large. I I’m sure that’s like, sure. Come on in.
Let’s let’s let’s let’s help you decide where you fit in here. There’s plenty of room. Yeah. There’s in infinite infinite need, infinite capacity. Right?
There absolutely is. Yeah. We need as many as people working in this field as possible. And just to reiterate, I mean, conservation is such a warm, welcoming community. You know, we definitely feel you’re absolutely right.
You know, we I mean, I’m in a privileged position where I get to speak to people like you on the podcast on a regular basis, and I can’t think of an instance when someone said no. You know? And most people were encouraged to reach out and have these informational interviews, just understanding people’s roles, getting their advice just one to one. You know, it can work really well, and people are quite open and quite flattered too, actually, you know, to be asked often. Yes.
People are busy, but people do want to kind of throw the ladder down and help people, you know, to kind of come up through careers too. But But having said that, a lot of people can lack confidence in networking. I’ve felt that in the past. Many people have. Networking can be a scary word.
Have you got any, like, practical advice for people who might fear reaching out, stepping outside of a comfort zone, connecting with a total stranger, whether that’s LinkedIn or in an event or whatever. Like, how can people get through that kind of fear barrier? Yeah. Well, you gotta start small. Mhmm.
You have to start, easy, make it comfortable. Start with the people that, you know, start with the people that you feel comfortable with, even if they’re not in your field and the field that you intend to go in. And then build up a sense of what your value is. What is it? What is it about you that, supports the idea of making this shift?
What is your story? What’s your narrative? What’s your motivation? Mhmm. One of the key steps that I recommend people address is their LinkedIn about section.
This is a golden opportunity that most people miss to really define not just their bio, not just their their job history and bullet point form, not just a kind of a condensed version of their resume or CV, which by the way, should be in your experience section on LinkedIn. So it’s already there. You don’t have to repeat it. The opportunity with the about section is to create, and you’re gonna love this, a mission statement about who you are, why you do what you do, and where you wanna take it, where you wanna what’s the impact that you wanna make. Mhmm.
And I think particularly for conservation careers, this is a golden opportunity to really help people get to know you before they even meet you. Mhmm. And for someone who’s making a transition from a different business industry into conservation. I think you want to start working on some of the bridge elements that bring you in. Yeah.
So if you come out of, I mean, this is kind of obvious. If you come out of finance, well, you can be maybe raising money. Yeah. Right? If you’re if you come out of software engineering, I’m sure there are opportunities to create systems and levels of efficacy and efficiency Yeah.
Around workflows and procedures and ways of making this more efficient. Yep. So and this is true really in any area. You really wanna you really wanna drill down on what your strengths are, what I call the superpower. It’s that particular combination of experiences, skills, abilities, preferences, passions, values that really describe you as a unique person, a unique value for the work that you wanna do.
Mhmm. And it’s true that many people will do the work that you do or have done, But no one does it quite the same way. Yeah. And part of the fit that you’re looking to find is the rapport and the shared values and shared cultural elements that you’re going to find in any organization that you that you apply to, that you get in touch with. So that’s a, I think, a really encouraging aspect of this, which is that you’re not trying to please everyone, you’re not trying to to get a job offer from everyone.
You’re looking to build your community. And if you take this attitude into the networking process and say, I’m looking to find people who are interested in X, Y, and Z, because that’s where I wanna go. Mhmm. Who do you know? Mhmm.
And if someone challenges you and says, well, what makes you think that you can just drop twenty years of that work and go into this? You think people care about you? You think I mean, you’re a newbie. Why would anyone give you the time of day? Well, by this time, you will have done some research.
You will have had some conversations maybe with your close friends about this and come up with some ideas that you feel comfortable talking about. Well, I have this background in finance or software or management, and I’ve led I’ve, I’ve led teams to successfully deliver projects. I would assume that there are plenty of projects in the conservation world that need management And they need someone with some perspective on the world and some integrity and someone who doesn’t, flinch at a at a difficulty, who doesn’t turn back when the going gets tough. Yeah. That’s the kind of person I am.
Yeah. And if you’ve done your self reflective work, if you’ve answered those four ikigai questions, if you’ve done a little prototyping and imagine how this could go, if you have researched others in the field and can say to this doubting person that you encounter, I kind of see my career similar to the careers of this person, this person, this person Mhmm. Who came into conservation from this area, that area, whatever, turned it around, did this, that’s kind of my role model. Yeah. That person might say, oh, okay.
Well, you’ve thought it out. Bravo. Good for you. Yes. Let’s let’s have a conversation.
Yeah. So again, it is it is working on that inner, drive and then figuring out what are some of the practical, aspects, contacts, ideas that you can use to to make friends. Right? Build rapport. And that’s a keyword for me, make friends.
That’s how I reframe networking. I think it’s a really nice thing to kinda just throw in there as well. It is about making friends really, isn’t it? Couple a yeah. Go on.
I just wanna give you a side note about this that that that relates to job interviews and the the, you know, the the fear and intimidation that we all have about job interviews, about putting being put on the spot. And one thing which I say to people about job interviews is don’t look at your job interview as a job interview, as a test for whether or not you fit into that particular role. Yeah. Look at every job interview as a networking opportunity. Yep.
Because if you make a good impression, if you build rapport, if you get along with that person, but you don’t get the job, well, you’ve still made a friend. Yeah. And that person may know of other opportunities. Yeah. And countless times, and this is kind of more of a corporate thing, recruiter thing, and I don’t know if this happens as much in your world, where someone will get turned down for the job.
Excuse me. Someone will get turned down for the job, and then the recruiter or the hiring manager will call them back and say, hey. Look. I’m sorry it didn’t work out Mhmm. For this, but we have another opening coming up.
Right? Or I have a friend at another company Yeah. And I’ve just sent them your profile or your CV, because they have something coming up. Right? So there are always opportunities out there.
You have to see each person you meet as a node in your community, in your larger network that could come in handy. Yeah. Brilliant. And node is exactly what was in my mind as you were talking there. So three things jump out.
I wanna sort of share reflections on and hear your thoughts on as well. One is around job and interviews. I totally get that. I think really the the purpose of interviews is is that rapport. It’s the other person thinking, are you gonna fit into this team?
Are we gonna get along? And from both sides, understanding where that connection’s there. If you’ve got the interview, you’re already good enough the job most of the time. You’ve been shortlisted. You’ve proven your point.
Yes. Now it’s about that human interaction. Yeah. The other two things, just briefly. One is this idea of nodes as well about, and going back to networking as well.
I think if you can just get one introduction from someone that you already know to someone else that you don’t know, and then asking the question you said much earlier, which is who else do you know? And suddenly, you know, there’s six steps of separation. Conservation’s a really small world. Nine times out of 10, if I talk to someone, we have someone in common. You know, it really is like that.
So you can quickly expand by just getting, an introduction from someone you already know. And then the final thing, and I’ll shut up, is, this idea of, like, personal branding, the mission statement you talked about there, the top of LinkedIn. I think that’s so important. And I wonder, like, could that mission statement also be, like, not just who you are and what you bring into the world. Could it be aspirational about who you want to be?
Could it be It should be. Positioning yourself into the role you want to be? Absolutely. That is the in in a in a kind of a three act structure of of the about section that I propose, your your first opening paragraph is that who and why. Yeah.
Right? Where do you come from? What was the inciting incident or wake up call or moment Yeah. That that awakened you to your purpose? Yeah.
To your talent, to your skill set, to your preferences. Yeah. And then in the middle of your about section, you wanna share a couple of stories from your CV that highlight that identity that you have expressed Mhmm. And how it has played out. Could include a lesson, could include a success, could include, you know, a transition Mhmm.
Growing in responsibility, whatever. And then that third section is the call to conversation. Mhmm. It is the going forward from here on out, my goal is to take what I’ve started out with and what I’ve learned and what I’ve accomplished and apply it in this direction. Mhmm.
And to define the issues that you want to address. Mhmm. Going forward, I see a great need to focus on this issue. Mhmm. I believe that with my background in a, b, and c, I’m perfectly positioned and excited about the opportunity to focus in this area.
Mhmm. You know, the biggest challenge I see is x. Mhmm. It’s gonna take y and z for people to address this. I’m all in.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Someone reading that about statement, about section is gonna go, Yeah. This this person got Scott Scott got it figured out.
Let me look at their experience section, the CV, the experiences, This all checks out. Right. Right. Right. Send them a send them a message.
Let’s have a call. Yeah. Yeah. Again, this loops back to me in your background in production and films. This is storytelling, isn’t it?
This is classic storytelling and connecting with your audience. Yeah. It’s all storytelling. It’s all about making that connection through the story. And, you know, there there is such a a focus, and this is largely incorporate on skills.
Yeah. Right. Have those skills laid out in your CV and in your LinkedIn profile because the applicant tracking systems are going to be scanning your CV and they’re gonna pull out the skills. And if you don’t have the skills, you’re out. Okay.
I mean, from a mid career perspective, skills are for kids. If you don’t have insight, wisdom, experience, strategic understanding of the world of your business, of how all these pieces fit together, skills are great. It’s how you learn. It’s how you build your career. But at a certain point, the skills are fungible.
I mean, they’re changing so rapidly. Yeah. It’s impossible to keep up. You want to be deeper than that. Right?
You wanna use your experience and your wisdom from having been on the planet for four or five, six decades to make a difference. And if you can understand what that difference is that you could be making, and that difference aligns with who you are in your background, people can do the math. People can understand that you have a particular, you know, portfolio Mhmm. That’s going to match the work that they do. Mhmm.
And I I have these experiences all the time with clients where they will meet someone in a particular context and that person would say, you know, you should think about doing something like this. And I’ll say, what do you mean? I’ve I’m not familiar with that area. It’s like, well, yeah. Yeah.
Forget the fact that you’ve never done it before. You’ve done all of these elements that is ex it’s exactly what we do over here. Mhmm. You should come in and talk to us. Mhmm.
Because a smart leader is also going to be looking for outside perspective. Mhmm. Right? They don’t want the same old thing. They don’t want the conventional wisdom.
They don’t want people who have been kind of lulled into their comfort zones by years of doing the same thing in the same way. There are gonna be people out there who are looking for fresh blood. The fact that the fresh blood is has got thirty years experience, it’s still fresh. All the better. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I love that. I want to kinda keep connection with the idea of not just applying for jobs, but actually attracting jobs.
That’s something I’ve read about in your background, and we’re touching on that now already, aren’t we, in terms of building your referral network, connecting to a community, getting introductions. Is there anything else you can kind of add to that narrative in terms of how we can get jobs to kinda come towards us in the right types of jobs? Right. The third element of my methodology is thought leadership. It’s branding through thought leadership.
And thought leadership is really the exercise of your experience, your point of view, your wisdom, and applying it very specifically to the areas of change and maybe conflict or, you know, issues Mhmm. That are occurring in your field. Mhmm. So it’s this idea that you want to stand up for what you stand for as a professional and share this with the world in one way or another. I’m coming on your podcast as a thought leader in this area.
We’re talking about the tenets of my methodology and how I believe they apply across the board. Yep. And I before we got in touch to do this this recording, I didn’t know you. I didn’t know your organization. I didn’t even know there was anything called conservation careers.
And I I thought, oh, okay. Well, that that makes sense. Here’s a niche that I’m completely not aware of, but I believe I can provide some actionable advice to people because it’s it’s still about careers. It’s still about how do you grow your careers, whatever the the field might be. Right?
Yep. So conservation in in a funny way is kind of an ideal opportunity for thought leadership because we’re all talking about this one way or another. We all know what the challenges are around conservation and the planet and what we’re doing to it, etcetera. Right? This is this is front and center in the conversation and frustrating because we seem to be making spotty progress, let’s just say.
Yeah. And that there are so many challenges around this. So to be able to have a platform or a soapbox or whatever you wanna call it using social media, using education, professional organizations. I mean, imagine if back to the idea of of someone from finance who has had a fairly gray career, running the numbers and perhaps even leading organizations or in some capacity as a as a as a as a well established financial professional, making an impact. Imagine that person using that experience to get into the fine points of, stewardship, financial stewardship in the conservation field.
What what brilliance could that person share about? Maybe it’s a blog. Maybe it is, lecturing, going to conferences, finding every opportunity to share about best soundest financial management practices Yeah. Specifically tailored to the needs of the conservation field. Yep.
That becomes a way of alerting the world to your brilliance and your wisdom. But it also draws opportunities because you’re you’re laying out based on your superpower, based on this this this niche that you’ve developed, this value proposition that you’ve developed for yourself. Yeah. It It lays out the practical applications of that. So it makes sense that people would then say, oh my God, person has this background.
They have this focus. They have this experience. They have this, they have this attitude. There’s this, there’s this prescription that they’re talking about. We need to talk about them.
Yeah. Right? We need to talk with them rather. And if not us, then then my colleague over here at this organization, they’re in disarray. My god.
They need this help. You know? Call this person up immediately. They’ll solve your problems. Yeah.
Yeah. And so your community starts to join the dots for you. Yes. Yes. Yes.
The thought leadership helps you deepen in that community. It helps build that trust in your expertise. Yeah. And over time, through the the the the permanence of everything that goes online, all you need to do is Google a person Yeah. To see, well, what have they written?
Where have they been interviewed? Where have they spoken? You you just, you know, look at look them up on LinkedIn. Are they are they participating? Are they posting?
Are they commenting? What are they saying? Are they smart? Are they stupid? Mhmm.
Are they engaged? Are they are they reasonable? Are they a troll? I mean, you know, we’re all we’re all out there for better or worse. Yeah.
We have to we have to make the best of it. We have to be smart about it. Yeah. Absolutely. Take advantage of these opportunities.
Yeah. And we have control of that. Again, it comes back to stoicism. Like, control what you can control. Right?
Yeah. Absolutely. It’s a total stoic fiesta. Yeah. And don’t worry about the things you can’t control as well just to kind of round that circle off.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And don’t worry about the people who are trying to tear you down. Right?
Yeah. If you know I mean, listen to every criticism, but evaluate it based on your on your your core, on your on your beliefs, on your integrity, on what you know is true for yourself. Yeah. You know? Love it.
Use use everything for your advantage. Good. Yeah. Couple of things. I’m just looking at the time, and I could talk to you all day.
This is I love these sorts of conversations. Specifically around people who are career switching, and I’m thinking people who are mid late career as well, 50, you know, 60 type. There’s two concerns they raise all the time, and I know you’ve spoken to this before. One is ageism. I’m too old.
People don’t wanna hire me. I’m 55, 60, whatever the number might be, you know, and should I hide that? Is that something I should be worried about? And then the other piece we can handle maybe separately is, like, I’ve never worked in conservation before. I’m an outsider.
How can I even tell my story of why I’m suddenly switching from being a gray finance person to wanting to do land stewardship or whatever? Maybe we can talk about ageism first specifically because that’s such a a topic that’s of interest. Yeah. So ageism exists. It is a bane on on a blight on the economy.
Yeah. It is the last acceptable ism. People don’t even realize that they are ageist. Many older people are ageist against themselves. They believe that, oh, I am I’m getting old.
I’m I’m slowing down. I’m diminished. That it’s such a powerful trope in our culture. Mhmm. That I don’t think we’re going to eradicate it anytime soon.
Mhmm. So I think we should step around it, circumvent it. Mhmm. And we should also start by being proud of our age. Our age is a reality.
There’s no getting around it. If you try to hide your age, avoid putting it on your documents, people are gonna find out. If someone is ageist, they’re biased against you, and there’s some kind of shocking surveys about this. There’s one survey in The UK this past fall that surveyed recruiters, and the consensus was that, no one should be hired over 57. None of these people surveyed felt that anyone should be hired over 57.
I don’t know why not 56, but whatever. So, you know, people who are biased are gonna be biased. They’re gonna find you out. They’re not gonna hire you. Don’t worry about it.
Find the people who are focused on you and the work that you do. And the other thing that I would say about this is the clearer you are about your mission and aligning your mission with your background, with your goals, with your values, The clearer that statement is, the more it makes sense, the more integrity it has. And if it is value driven and deliverables driven, in other words, what do you offer in the work that you do? What can you what can you what can you deliver? People are interested in practical solutions.
If you offer one, chances are they’re gonna pay attention. And if they are smart about it, they’re going to say, here’s someone who has all this experience is offering this deliverable, this set of practices based on their experience, and we need that. Wouldn’t it make sense to bring them in versus trying to train someone who’s young, who’s got kind of, you know, no maturity or they’re, you know, they’re they’re they’re still kinda putting their life together. Don’t we want someone who’s more settled, who’s more on purpose about why they’re doing the job? Those opportunities are out there.
So, again, I think in terms of ageism, I mean, be aware of it. You know, I I think about, you know, Monty Python holy grail. You know, I I I look down my nose. I you know, I I I looked down my nose in your general direction. It it’s, it it, you know, it’s it’s relevant.
It’s irrelevant. Just just just bypass it. Just stand up for stand up for your age, stand up for the value that you represent. If they get it, they get it. If they don’t get it, move on.
Yeah. It’s their loss. Exactly. Yeah. Age is another word for experience as well, I guess, isn’t isn’t it?
It just shows you all bringing value. So yeah. Wonderful. And then the other point I was raising also then is about, telling the school your transition. Well, but how do you start?
You were saying, well, how do you start? Right? How, you know, what what how how do you how do you make that transition? And, look, I I think there are so many opportunities, more opportunities, I would think, in in conservation just because of the nature of the of the work Yeah. To intern, right, to shadow, to, to to prototype and find out what your role is.
Yeah. There there are so many opportunities to go and there’s so many organizations. I mean, I mean look at look at the rise of ecotourism, right, as a as a way in. Yeah. As a way of kind of starting and saying, okay.
Well, I’m I’m interested in this area. Let me go on this trip. Let me kind of sign on to this expedition. And, and, you know, maybe there’s a way of, of kind of finding out more about it, meeting people along the way, having conversations, finding a, a, a niche birth for myself in, in this, in this area. So, you gotta get some experience doing it.
And I would say always start with a beginner’s mind. Take an attitude of service. Be, joyfully humble and excited about what you’re learning, and excited about just the prospect that you’re going to be able to make a difference. Yeah. You will find people who resonate with that and who vibe with you personally and who say, you know, I love your particular attitude or you’re so smart about this area or you help me solve that problem, let’s talk some more or why don’t you consider this or there’s this program coming up or there’s a conference you should attend or any number of things.
And conferences, by the way, is a great way in. Right? Mhmm. Go to a conference, meet as many people as you can, the person sitting next to you on either side of you and at that particular panel or keynote, introduce yourself, and you don’t have to be an expert. You can interview them.
Tell me about what you do. Why are you at the conference? Oh, if this is the first time you’re at this conference. Oh, great. Great.
It’s my first time. I know nothing about this. I’m interested in learning. Oh, that’s great. Well, if you’re interested in learning, well, you should talk to this person, talk to that person.
Again, it’s going to be a very welcoming environment. So for people who are concerned about this or concerned about networking and how do you make the transition and no one’s gonna want me, it’s like, stop. Just stop the monkey mind that’s going on in your head and put yourself out there. Just show up. You’ll you’ll start to feel comfortable.
You know? You’re spending three days at a conference. The first day, you don’t talk to a single soul. Yep. And then the second morning, you’re having coffee and someone leans across the table and goes, hey.
Who are you? Why are you here? My name is so and so. Right? And all of a sudden, you have an amazing day from there.
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Fantastic. Well, look, as we’ve got a couple of minutes left, I want to ask you some just very quick fire ish questions that I normally ask of wildlife conservationists, but I’m really excited to hear you’re slightly outside of your plan.
It’s gonna be great. Yeah. One, it’s a simple question. It’d be interesting to if I could take you to one place in the planet and you could see one species, where would you go and what would you have to say? Place one species.
Oh, wow. I would say, Bengal tiger. So India probably. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Why? I don’t know. It’s the first it’s the first, it’s the first thing that came into my head. Yeah.
Just kind of the most powerful, self confident, animal out there. Yeah. Yeah. Why not? Up in the food chain.
Love it. Go for it. Top predator. Yeah. The world is in a tough place right now.
Wildlife, particularly nature, biodiversity, whatever we call it, and you referenced it yourself, is in decline. And we’ve sort of we’re losing the battle to save it as a global community. Yeah. Yeah. As a non conservationist, what do you think we should be doing to turn this around?
What do we need to do more of or be better at? Education. I just don’t think there’s enough education in the midst of all of the, the fire hose of disinformation, misinformation, negativity. And I think that, you know, we have to do more to educate kids. We can’t do it within the systems.
We have to come in from the outside. We have to be better. We have to be more strategic. We have to we have to meet them where they are. Mhmm.
You you can’t expect them to come to you. Mhmm. Right? You have to go to where they are. Mhmm.
I love that. And then finally, again in the same context, are you optimistic for the future? And if so, why? Well, ultimately, I’m optimistic for the future. I’m not necessarily optimistic for homo sapiens.
Mhmm. But I am optimistic for the future. The planet will prevail. Yeah. Yeah.
And I I have some kind of depending on on the day, either dark or wildly optimistic thoughts about the next five hundred years. Because I think that we have the opportunity to build out of this decline and chaos. I mean, I can’t believe I’m having this conversation. I never had this conversation much less in public, but, if you if you assume that there is this that this decline will continue, and that we may actually asphyxiate ourselves, but before we’re done, then those who survive will will create a new, perhaps hopefully more sustainable civilization. Yeah.
So, you know, if if Homo sapiens is not done, and I do think regardless, I think we will see a catastrophic population, decline over the next couple hundred years. Mhmm. I think that’s kind of inevitable. Mhmm. And and maybe that will be the rebalancing that that does the trick.
I don’t know. Yeah. But it’s gonna be something that our grandchildren and great grandchildren and beyond will be in the middle of. Yeah. But nature will prevail.
Yep. Yeah. John, it’s been such a pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom. You’ve been you’ve shared so much value to our audience.
We’re all so grateful for your time. If people wanna find out a bit more about you and your work and maybe even get involved, where should they go? Where should we send them? So LinkedIn is the first place that I send people. I’m the only John Tarnoff on LinkedIn.
So just, type it into the search and and I’ll come up. You can also check out my website at johntarnoff.com. And if you are in your mid career phase and you are interested in becoming part of a community of other job seekers and career builders in mid career, I’ve started a small but growing community around that at midcareerlab.com, midecareerlab.com. And, you can get further information there. Wonderful.
And we’ll put links in the show notes and wherever you’re listening to this from. Yeah. John, once again, great to connect. Thanks for joining the show. Thanks so much, Nick.
Wonderful. Wonderful. I’ll stop the recording there. Yeah.