Changing careers in your 30s to fulfill your life‘s purpose

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Chan With A Plan, host Max Chan speaks with Amy Marden, author of The Parts We Lost and Mirror Mine, and founder of Afghan Refugee Resettlement Assistance DMV. We go through Amy’s journey from pivoting from a successful career in law to becoming a creative writer, writing stories based on experiences from her own life as a military spouse. From knowing when it was time to quit working in law, to her journey in writing and publishing her first book we hope her journey can provide some inspiration for you to make the move in pivoting to work that fulfill your life’s purpose. 

QUOTES

“I think the first thing would be before you make a leap do your research, it should be an educated leap into a new field, you shouldn’t just one day walk into your job and say I can’t take it anymore and quit and then go find something else, I think that’s not smart.” - Amy Marden [18:17]
“Be kind to yourself in that regard and know your value and have a little faith that all this work that you’ve put into it and all the leg work that you’ve put in ahead of time is going to pay off, regardless of the little voice in your head that saids maybe it’s not good enough.”  - Amy Marden [32:17]
“I think it’s a lie to say money can’t buy happiness cause in some respects it definitely can, but there is the internal need that I think we all have as humans to have passion, and I think it’s a rare thing if you can be passionate about the thing that you are also getting paid for, and I think that if you can say that about your life, you’ve really figured it out.”  - Amy Marden [41:45]

TIMESTAMPS

[0:49] Meet Amy 
[2:22] Amy’s journey on becoming a lawyer
[4:41] Advice for recent JD graduates on getting their first job as a lawyer
[6:31] Guidance on paying off law school debt quickly
[9:46] Moving to a new geographical area for work and how to properly adjust if you have children
[11:21] The trigger point in which Amy was done with law and decided to make a change and focus on pursuing a new career path in creative writing and how she got started in this new career path
[15:48] What family and friends thought of Amy quitting law to pursue creative writing
[18:10] Advice for professionals that want to pursue something completely different but are too scared to make the jump
[19:22] Career advice Amy wished she knew in her 20s 
[20:40] Delaying family to focus on building your career
[25:02] The process in writing and publishing Amy’s 1st book
[29:54] Marketing Amy’s 1st book and learning lessons along the way
[31:46] Amy’s lessons on writing and publishing her 1st book and next steps
[35:56] Discussing Amy’s Afghan refugee project
[39:32] The importance of volunteering and community outreach
[41:33] Why working prestigious jobs don’t actually make you happy and fulfilled compared to other creative pursuits
[43:17] A major career roadblock that Amy had faced and what she did to overcome it to move her career forward
[45:04] Contacting Amy
[54:42] Outro

RESOURCES & RELEVANT LINKS

Amy Marden 
Lutheran Social Services
USAID Disaster Response for Afghanistan Crisis
Chan With A Plan
Career Advice with Chan With A Plan Facebook Group
Max Chan on LinkedIn