Career Transition: Finding Your Next Move Without a Clear Plan | Carlee Wolfe

You can lose a job, change direction, or realize the work no longer fits without immediately knowing what the next chapter is supposed to look like. The hard part is that work can become tangled up with identity. When the title changes, the question can become bigger than “What job do I get next?” It can become “Who am I now?”

Carlee Wolfe joins L. Michael Burt for a conversation about what happens in that middle space. Carlee works across organizational change, talent, coaching, workforce development, and community work. She also knows career disruption personally. During the pandemic, she experienced job loss and the questions that can follow even when you understand that a larger change is happening.

One of the most useful turns in the conversation begins with a familiar phrase: “trust the process.” Carlee admits the phrase can be both motivating and frustrating because trust is hard to touch when you are still inside the uncertainty. Together, Carlee andMichael develop another way to think about it: touch the process. What can you see, do, honor, or complete today that gives you something real to stand on?

That can be as small as showing up for coffee when you said you would, putting the phone down and going to bed, or simply picking up the book you keep saying you are going to read. The point is not that tiny actions magically solve a career transition. The point is that commitments compound, and each one can become evidence of how you are choosing to show up.

Key ideas from the conversation:

• Why career change can shake identity even when the change makes sense

• How to separate who you are from the title or organization attached to you

• Why curiosity can come before clarity

• How small commitments create something tangible inside an uncertain process

• Carlee’s 3 Cs: curiosity, clarity, and confident action

• The 3 Essentials: information, support, and encouragement

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