Episode 187: Redefining Success (revisited)
/“There was just a point at which I was like, you know, I’m not getting from this job what I need to get...And I had to be selfish and say, I need to do what’s best for me. And that means leaving without having any idea what comes next.”
Tess Vigeland during her travels in the Middle East
“Our society teaches us that our identity is equal to our successes, and we learn that from a very young age. What I’m having to learn is OK, if I succeed or fail in any given moment, it has nothing to do with my sense of worth or my ultimate worth.”
Whitney Johnson
It's the start of a new year - a time when a lot of us think about changing our lives in one way or another. In this show we re-visit a conversation with two traditionally successful women who left their old work lives for the unknown. But jumping meant leaving their identities behind as well as their paychecks.
Tess Vigeland is the former host of Marketplace Money, the public radio show here in the US. She left her job at the top of her game, and initially wondered if she was nuts to have done so. She writes about it in Leap - Leaving a Job with No Plan B to Find the Career and Life You Really Want. Whitney Johnson was itching to move away from her comfortable existence at Merrill Lynch and challenge herself in new ways. She invites other people to do something similar in her book, Disrupt Yourself - even if you may not think you need disrupting.
You can also read a transcript of the show from its original release.
Tess spent the three years after our podcast conversation living in Asia and the Middle East. In 2022 she’s just started a new job as host of a Wall Street Journal work and careers podcast. It will debut this winter.
Whitney’s latest book is Smart Growth: How to Grow Your People to Grow Your Company. She is also a podcaster. Her show is Disrupt Yourself.