Career Reinvention: How to Recognise and Reposition Your True Value

Share this article

Career reinvention doesn’t have to mean starting again or becoming someone completely different. In fact, I believe the opposite is true.

There comes a point in many careers when “What can I do?” is no longer the most useful question.

You already know you are capable. You have years of experience behind you. You’ve succeeded at some things and failed at others. You’ve developed strengths you probably take for granted. You know what energises you, what drains you and what you never want to do again.

Perhaps what matters more now is:

What do I WANT to do with everything I now know?

You may have left corporate life and be considering something of your own. You may have built a successful business that no longer reflects who you’ve become. You might want to turn your expertise into consulting, advisory, coaching or speaking. Or you may simply have a growing sense that there is another chapter waiting.

It can be exciting, but a career reinvention can also be deeply unsettling.

Before you look forward, look at what you have

When we start thinking about career reinvention, our instinct is often to look outside ourselves.

We research opportunities, industries, business ideas and trends. We look at what other people are doing. We start thinking about new job titles, businesses, websites or LinkedIn profiles.

But I believe there is some important work to do before any of that.

Take stock of what you have accumulated.

And I don’t just mean your qualifications, job titles and achievements.

Think about the problems you instinctively know how to solve. The things people consistently ask for your help with. The strengths you barely notice because they come so naturally to you. Your relationships, insights and perspective. The lessons you learnt the hard way. The work that gives you energy and the work you never want to do again.

Your career has given you far more than a CV.

What is your True Genius?

Over the years, I have become fascinated by what makes one person or business distinctively valuable.

I call it your True Genius.

It is not one skill or talent. It is the unique combination of your experience, strengths, personality, purpose and perspective, and the value you create when those things come together.

We often struggle to see our own True Genius because we are too close to it.

One of the things I have recognised about myself, for example, is my ability to see patterns, possibilities and positioning opportunities very quickly. I can often see the value in a person or business that they struggle to articulate themselves.

For years, I simply thought this was part of what I did. Only later did I recognise that it was part of what made my contribution distinctive.

There may be something equally valuable sitting in plain sight in your own career.

Don’t reinvent. Reposition.

This is where my view of career reinvention is probably a little different. I don’t think you necessarily need to reinvent who you are. You may need to reposition what you already have.

Take the best of your experience, combine it with who you are today and think deliberately about where that value could take you next.

That could mean changing careers. Starting a business. Repositioning an existing one. Becoming an advisor or consultant. Developing an offer around your expertise. Writing, teaching, speaking or mentoring.

It could also mean remaining in your existing world but becoming much clearer about the contribution you want to make within it and communicating it consistently.

The point isn’t career reinvention for the sake of change. It’s intentionality. What do you want your experience to become?

Positioning starts with you

I have spent much of my career working with positioning, and increasingly I believe positioning starts long before we decide what we want other people to think about us.

It starts internally.

- Who am I now?

- What matters to me?

- Where do I create the greatest value?

- Who do I most want to create that value for?

- What do I want to be known for?

- What do I want more of in this next stage of my life?

- What am I ready to leave behind?

Once you have greater clarity about those things, the external pieces begin to make more sense. Your career reinvention becomes intentional.

Your positioning. Your story. Your personal brand. Your offer. Your LinkedIn profile. Your website. They become expressions of something you already understand about yourself.

Position yourself for what’s next

This thinking is what inspired me to create Position Yourself for What’s Next: a one-day experience built around three stages: Discover. Position. Express.

Discover your True Genius and the value you have accumulated. Position that value around who you want to serve, the problems you want to solve and what you want to be known for. Then express it through your story, personal brand, messaging, offer and visibility.

Because perhaps career reinvention isn’t about wiping the slate clean. You’re not starting from scratch. You’re starting from experience. And the opportunity now is to decide what you want to do with it.