A New Career Path Awaits Those Willing to Take a Chance

“Your journey to a new career path is an opportunity to not just survive but thrive and create work that’s meaningful to you.” – Seth Godin.

My grandparents married in 1941, during a time when it was customary for many couples of that generation to adopt gender roles in their marriage. My grandfather explored a new career path outside the home to earn the necessary finances for their family. At the same time, my grandmother managed the household with ingenuity and creativity before eventually caring for their two children.

While their gender roles and individual contributions were clearly defined, collectively, they each enhanced their existence’s overall quality and abundance.

By 1965, after spending 24 years managing the household and raising her two children to be responsible and independent young adults, my grandmother realized that she had spent so much time taking care of everyone and everything else that she longed for something more, something that was all her own.

One ordinary weekday evening, while the family was eating dinner, my grandmother shared with everyone that it was time for a new career path. It was time for her to start looking for a job.

I will never forget my grandmother telling me this story, angered even years later by my father and grandfather’s response to her news.

“Who is going to hire you? What experience do you have?”

While it was customary (and expected) for wives living during my grandmother’s generation to be quiet and obedient to their husbands, that was NOT my grandmother.

While caring and loving to her family, friends, and neighbors, she was also incredibly strong and resilient, unafraid to speak her mind with decorum when mistreated or disrespected based on gender.

So, when my father and grandfather said to her, “Who is going to hire you,” their comment didn’t dissuade her from exploring a new career path but instead ignited in her a determination to prove them wrong by achieving what they both thought was impossible.

A Surprising New Career Path

At the age of 44, when other wives were content continuing to manage their households as they’d always done, my bold and courageous grandmother defied her family’s skepticism. She found herself a job without any help from anyone.

The company was called Frasse Steel Company and, quite conveniently, was located just a few blocks from my grandparent’s home, which was fortunate given that the family only had one car during this period.

At first, my grandmother was a member of the typing pool.

The typing pool was a group of office secretaries whose job was to type documents for employees throughout the company based on handwritten notes, dictations, or even edited documents.

Utilizing the technical skills she learned in high school, combined with her natural aptitude for the typewriter and her steady, confident personality, my grandmother excelled at her role. It wasn’t long before senior leadership noticed, most notably the company president, Peter Frasse.

Somehow, my inexperienced grandmother, whose longest career was spent as a wife, mother, and homemaker for 24 years, eventually found herself the secretary to the president of Frasse Steel Company, an honor she relished well into her 90s with a sense of great pride and accomplishment.

As you can imagine, my father and grandfather were often reminded of their shortsightedness whenever the opportunity arose.

My grandmother’s new career path from housewife and mother to secretary to the president of a well-established and profitable business helps to illustrate a point we all often forget as we journey down our own career path.

We will never fully know the opportunities available to us and which job titles might be within our reach until we take a risk and explore the possibilities.

My grandmother, and so many others in her generation, believed that her life was defined by her gender roles: wife, mother, and homemaker.

While she enjoyed her time raising her children, transforming a house into a home, and preparing meals to fill her family’s stomachs and warm their souls, she was still too young to accept that there was nothing more she could accomplish, nowhere else she could make an impact while finding a new purpose to her daily life.

Regardless of her strength and resilience, my grandmother was 44 years old at the time of her new career path, and her resume was filled with domesticity, not professional business experience.

Though she may not have outwardly shown it, yes, she was fearful that no one would hire her as her family had suspected, and even if she did manage to get a job, failure was always a possibility to contend with.

But she also knew something else. If you never take a risk and try something new, you’ll never know what might be possible.

Today, many of us are struggling on our own career journey.

For some, a layoff or toxic work environment can weaken one’s self-confidence, leading to an inability to see our true strengths and legitimate achievements. Such a weakening can cause us to shy away from new career paths, with a misguided belief that we aren’t fully capable of the opportunity.

When I think back to my grandmother’s experience, she had legitimate reasons to feel ill-equipped to explore a career outside the home she created for herself and her family.

If she had allowed self-doubt and fear to gain a stronghold in her mind, she might not have found herself with a 20-year career filled with meaning and purpose, which was all her own.

Writer and motivational speaker Ashley Hetherington says, “I wonder about all the things we miss out on when we stay in our comfort zones when we stay safe. When we don’t take that chance, that could change everything.”

At 44 years old, my grandmother could have easily remained in the comfort zone she had created since marrying my grandfather.

But in doing so, she would’ve missed out on a long, rewarding career, connecting with people she would never have encountered in her day-to-day life while feeling a personal sense of reward over what she could achieve on her own through a determination to succeed.

It’s human nature to want to stay where we are safe and secure, which is definitely the surest way to avoid being wounded or experiencing failure in our personal and professional lives.

But if you have a longing for something more than where you are right now, a new career path that could provide your days with the purpose and inspiration you’re missing, don’t allow a little voice saying, “Who is going to hire you” to stop you from putting yourself out there and taking a risk.

Yes, that is the most challenging part: admitting you are vulnerable and then pushing through that vulnerability toward an opportunity for something greater.

But nothing good will ever come from simply imagining what might be possible. Trust yourself and your abilities; you might be surprised by where a new career path might lead you.