Career Change: Wisely, Most Professionals Take That Slow and Carefully

 The word on Tom Brady's debut performance in sports broadcasting is non-ambiguous: The guy needs improvement. The Wall Street Journal even provides some must-dos. 

But the issue is the very familiar, that is this: Can a great in one aspect of human performance exit that comfort zone and dazzle in another? There are precedents, especially on Wall Street. Disgraced players Michael Milken and Henry Blodget both carved out new territory and conquered after their fall. But, does Brady have a second act in him.

The comfort-zone issue for Paul, Weiss partner Karen Dunn is if she, as part of the team preppping Kamala Harris for tomorrow's debate, can produce the needed over-the-top results in performance art? This is not a 180-shift for Dunn. 

She is a seasoned litigator who has down cold what moves the dial on how humans present themselves for the required impacts. That skill is transferable, of course. 

However, according to those who rate such things Dunn didn't score high on how she coached Harris back in 2020. Meanwhile added on the check list of how to assess Dunn is the GOP contention that her dual role as Harris advisor and lead defense lawyer for the Google antitrust trial kicking off today smells of a conflict of interest.  Should she have stepped beyond her day job as litigation powerhouse?

Then there is the curious situation of Hillary Clinton. From the get-go in her undergraduate years her core identity has been The Smartest One in the Room. Yet in politics that is a hard identity to sell, especially for a woman. Actually it can be an obstacle in closing the deal. Note that Bill Clinton, whose IQ is allegedly 159, immersed himself in the likability branding, not so much extreme smarts. To today we still love that rascal. 

Back to Hillary. In politics she never acquired enough supporters and couldn't neutralize enough detractors to make it across the line to being elected US President. Her public life never made it beyond being a US Senator and Secretary of State. Obviously she wanted much more. That hunger in itself had been a turn-off.

Overall, as I hammer in this article published in O'Dwyer's Public Relations, a career change or even a shift is brutal. That's exactly why there are usually years of talk about shaking off one professonal identity but no action. Intuitively careerists get it that in the process they lose years of know-how, their brand, networks and probably confidence. 

For more than 30 years I jaw-jawed about exiting what I knew so well - content-creation - for something else. The demands of that line of work, including being an influencer, were taking too much out of me. When I finally let go of 85% of all that I was quite nervous. It took three years to establish a new comfort zone. 

Transition or even extending a professional identity is a difficult experiment with no guarantees. We Brady fans wish him the best. But his debut seemed to indicate he's no natural in the demanding role of football broadcaster. Meanwhile tomorrow is the big game for Dunn. And Hillary will probably always be trying to establish herself as more than smart. 

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