I walked away from acting with an abundance of advantageous skills and knew I could do it again in a new career once the initial shock wore off. You can, too. You can land solidly on your feet. You don’t need to cower. There’s no need to panic. You’re not close to being done. You haven’t finished your run. You’re a player. Get off the bench and get back into the game.
It’s not simply a matter of career moves. It’s about developing self-confidence in your abilities and refusing to take no for an answer. If there’s one thing I learned in acting, it’s never taking no at face value. This practice will benefit you like no other. You’ll want to spin into success, negotiate, and bargain right on the spot by connecting with the decision-maker.
It’s about knowing who you are—a survivor. You’re not someone to be tapped out, cut in front of, or put aside. It’s a shift in mindset from too old to ever-so-valuable, desired, sought after—an asset and benefit for any company to hire you. You’re in demand because of your skills and experience. You have integrity and status and a resume of detailed facts.
This mindset can connect you to your skills, the stuff you’re truly good at—the things you love that allow you to live on your terms. With that, you’ll never be stuck. You can work anywhere, rise in the ranks, or transition to your next dream. You can walk tall and proud and wow your audience.
It can guide your interviews. They’re simply conversations, so you can talk your way into your new career with a rundown of your skills.
More importantly, it can feed a foundational belief in yourself that no one can shake, no matter how often they say no. It’s the solid internal vision and appreciation of yourself that leads, connects, and makes things happen. It provides the confidence to let people know you’re it. Nobody else will do.
Where It Starts
What are your skills and values? While related, there is a difference between the two.
Skills are the tools (abilities, knowledge) you use to achieve your goals. They may include multiple languages, organization, networking, team building, and listening; technology, mathematics, drawing, singing, architecture, sales, and writing—even running a marathon. For example, my most valuable skills are helping people get results, organization, and problem-solving.
Values are the ethical choices and personal beliefs that affect one’s behavior and how one lives and treats others. They may include respect, kindness, gratitude, diversity, creativity, reliability, goodwill, courage, justice, curiosity, passion, forgiveness, honesty, positivity, trustworthiness, truth, and empathy.
As an aside, empathy is not the same as sympathy, which has pity to it. Empathy is a deeper connection; it’s the ability and courage to stand in someone else’s shoes, even if they are far different from you, with the intent to truly know them. It’s what we each want as human beings: to be understood, to know that someone genuinely cares for us and sees our needs and wants, fears and worries, successes and dreams. When you have empathy for other human beings, they often respond with gratitude and relief. Their subsequent openness is something to cherish. Caring enough to go there, yup, another skill.
Personally, I would describe service and empathy as my core values.
You’ll notice my examples include the “most valuable” skills and my “core” values. That’s because there are varying degrees of both. You may be competent in some skills and excel in others; you may value many things, but some are an intrinsic part of who you are. All can be used to your advantage.
Furthermore, both skills and values are choices and actions. You can practice and improve your skills and practice and improve the integrity of your life and what you stand for, giving you the confidence and humility to say, “This is who I am; this is how I live my life.” But first, you must know what they are and sufficiently respect them.
Here’s how my skills and values worked together to help me transition from one career to another:
As with any audition, I was perfectly at ease selling myself and my services, setting up interviews, stepping onto new stages (so to speak), and doing all I could to convince a client that I was the best choice to find them qualified people for their jobs. I knew I’d come through for them, and I usually did.
Much like my character study work as an actor, I screened candidates and met with HR directors and CEOs, intensely aware of their feelings and what they were after. It helped me create a plan to help each person involved achieve their goals. Again, it was a skill and something I did with seriousness and integrity. It wasn’t a game.
I was good at persuading people to meet with me and improvising on the spot.
Improvisation—the art of spontaneity, where you’re given a situation that is unprepared and unrehearsed and required to come up with some response. It’s an art in which actors must excel. This means that I was never stilted or dependent upon a script. I was natural, friendly, and genuinely engaged.
It also meant I was a good listener, which allowed me to tally the facts, zero in on the need, know when to move in or hold off, make suggestions, and create precise, caring results with the precision of a laser surgeon.
Like a scene in a play—watching, listening, working with others, and sincerely reacting—but it was recruiting and sales, with profitable results. I was a leading man in the theatre and continued to lead with my whole self, using all my tools and expertise in this new industry.
Understanding your core values before you consider your next career chapter will allow you to own yourself and identify opportunities best suited to you. You have to know what works for you and what doesn’t. This is so important (and why I devoted an entire chapter to the subject).
Excerpted from The Next Act: A Complete Guide to Career Change, Professional Reinvention, and Finding Work That Matters, Summit Press Publishers (March 23, 2025)