Why do you need other people to change careers if the decision is yours? Luis R Baptista’s experience offers a useful answer: knowing what you want is not the same as knowing how to move towards it. Other people can question your thinking, introduce you to someone useful or help you see a route you didn’t know existed.
Speaking with Craig Leslie on Look At You Now, Luis describes feeling lost despite having changed careers several times before. Luis’s experience suggests that someone may not only need more confidence. They may need the right person to challenge their thinking, introduce them to someone useful or show them a possible route.
Discover
Luis’s search began after a personal crisis. He had moved to the Dominican Republic for a relationship. When that relationship ended, he returned to Europe and says he had nothing. Having changed careers before did not make this next move easy.
He tried hard to find an answer. He hired two coaches, completed 67 assessments and read 16 career pivot books. He had worked in consulting, but he still could not turn all that information about himself into a clear next step.
He then began researching other people’s experiences in the UK and the US. He says his research found many working people who also felt desperate about their careers and did not know what to do next. Trying to understand his own confusion led him to look at why other people also felt stuck in their careers.
One pattern he describes was people attempting a career change alone. Some had not told their partners or families because they expected little support. Their reasons were specific: a shared mortgage, for example, or a parent’s pride in the career they already had.
Luis also tells the story of a chief marketing officer who joined a support group reluctantly. At first, the man saw the other members as competitors. Later, he found they were helping one another. Luis says those connections became an informal network of marketing leaders who kept supporting each other.
When Craig asks how someone builds self-belief, Luis returns to support. He describes four useful roles: someone who challenges you, someone who connects you to others, someone who recognises your potential and a mentor who can show you possible routes. He says two or three people might cover those roles. This is his framework, rather than a rule every career changer must follow.
Understand
One useful way to read Luis’s account is this: feeling encouraged is not the same as getting help that makes a next step possible. Someone can believe in you completely without knowing anyone in the work you want to move into. Someone else might have useful contacts but be less able to reassure you when you doubt yourself. Both can matter, but they do different jobs.
Luis is not simply saying you should surround yourself with positive people. For Luis, support can also include challenge. A person who asks you to check whether an idea is really true may be more useful at that moment than someone who agrees with everything you say. Support does not have to mean approval of every idea.
The family examples show why support from people close to you can be complicated. Someone may hesitate because your change affects them too, not because they think you are unable to do it. A partner sharing the mortgage has practical concerns about a career change. A parent proud of your current work may struggle to understand why you want to leave it. Their reactions are not necessarily a reliable judgement of your ability, but their concerns are not automatically unreasonable either.
That is why asking people outside your closest relationships can make sense without dismissing the people closest to you. For example, a peer can help you explore an unfamiliar option while a partner helps you think through what it would mean for your shared money. Expecting one person to provide every kind of help could leave both of you frustrated.
The marketing officer’s story shows that people facing a similar move may be able to help each other, even when they first seem like rivals. His experience does not prove that every group will be helpful. It does show why keeping a career change entirely private can mean missing practical help, not just encouragement. You may also miss information, introductions and other people’s experience.
Apply
If you are thinking about changing career, you could first ask what kind of help you already have before deciding you simply need more confidence. Notice what happens in your conversations. Do people reassure you, question your plans, make introductions or explain possible routes? Which kind of help are you still looking for?
You need not announce your plans widely or assemble a formal group. One specific request might be enough to start: ask a contact whether they know someone doing the work you are considering, or ask an experienced person to explain how they entered it.
The decision remains yours. The useful question is whether you are trying to work out a career move alone when another person could help you test the idea or learn more about the work.
In their words
"I was totally lost."
"In most of these career pivoters, they did it alone."
"one is the one that challenges you, one is the one that connects you to other people"