Defying Age in the Workforce
We recently sat down with Vanessa Tennyson, founder and CEO of Capitalize Your Humanity and a recipient of our Certificate in Business Excellence, for an open conversation about how she’s embraced an encore career, moving from human resources to entrepreneurship. Vanessa shared her journey, focusing on what it took for her to defy age in the workforce and accomplish her professional goals.
After 38 years of pursuing the traditional measures of success, the concept of retirement didn’t ring true for me. I felt that the word itself meant I was “all done” and yet I had this nagging feeling that I was just beginning. Instead of ignoring my gut instinct (which is all too often the advice given — go with the facts, not your gut), I leaned into it and started to research opportunities for learning more about encore careers.
A few years ago, I attended a fellowship at the University of Minnesota that introduced me to the concept of an encore career — the Advanced Careers Initiative — directed by Dr. Phyllis Moen and Dr. Kate Schaefers in the Life Course Center. Phyllis stated in the first meeting of my fellowship cohort that “there are two words that are banned from any conversation, ‘old’ and ‘retired,’ for neither have the same meaning that for generations has defined them.”
An encore career is whatever motivates you away from monetary success and toward a more global concern for societal issues. Having spent many years working hard, earning money, raising a family (or not), had its own built-in rewards in terms of how we traditionally have measured success — wealth, fame, accumulation of material possessions, etc. We spend our lives in mainly two stages: the first is being cared for by others and the next is caring for others. During an encore career, we are given the opportunity for the third stage — caring for ourselves. Driven with purpose for the greater good can become the most compassionate self-care of all.
Vanessa is the founder and CEO of Capitalize Your Humanity, a consulting firm providing executive and leadership coaching in the greater Minneapolis, Minnesota area. In her practice, she focuses on creative thinking and helping others to discover innovative solutions. As a transgender woman, Vanessa has spent the last 40 years in a myriad of roles within the public, private, and nonprofit business communities. She offers a unique perspective of operating in business in both male and female roles, and in her research, she developed the The Triad of Discovery, which focuses on important issues of self, allowing a safe space for judgement free communication, which leads to enhanced performance and diversity of thought.