SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to the Ask for the Skinny Podcast with a guest. I'm proud to present Avi Lexil. Avi, welcome to the show. Please tell us more about yourself. What is your story?

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Hi, Peter. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm an executive consultant. I've been working for about 15 years in global organizations. And about six, seven years ago, I decided to launch my uh my private practice. And since then, I've been serving more than 120 executives, mainly executives that are dealing with some sort of chaotic transition, especially when they hit a specific peak in their life and they want to rethink about how they manage, how they uh manage their career, how they manage their work. And that's what I do most of my time. And I'm also uh researching how executives develop in chaotic environments through my PhD, which blends really good with the main challenge that most executives meet when they get to a certain age, right? Navigating chaotic environments in their life and in their career.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

You mentioned that um that there's a certain age, and uh our podcast uh is about midlife. Would you agree that uh the midlife is somehow uh let's say a milestone in the life of most executives, and that they start thinking of their job and of their life differently?

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Yeah, that's a that's a very good question because uh the easy answer is yes, and that's not new. Meaning, we have uh all the main uh psychological models about human development point at a certain stage uh where we start to rethink. Some models say every 20 years, so it's like a 20, pretty much 20, 40, 60, etc. I think that what's happening now is that it's just much more difficult to find an answer that can satisfy the individual. Uh, 20 years ago, a person in their 40s would think, okay, I'm tired, I'm bored. Um something might happen in their life that leads them to a to uh to a change, uh health issue, a divorce, or whatever, and they want to search for something else, and they will just find an interesting path to go on for the rest of your life of their lives. Today, it's much more difficult to just commit to a new path for the rest of your life. So when you get to that midlife crisis, uh, if you want to call it like that, um most people, especially when it comes to careers, um they are scared of saying, This is what I'm doing now, because they know that it's not gonna be for the rest of the lives, it's gonna be for maybe 10 years, most cases for five or six years, if it goes well. Um, so yeah, totally agree.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Yeah, I I have a question. In these days and age, we we are so uh I would say pushed toward specialization, and people that have that uh that that have uh multiple skills, they don't know how to position themselves because everyone is pushing them into one they call it niche or uh one thing that they want to do. They need to have certain certificates, they need to have certain education, and everything is is um specialized. So uh nobody is hiring people with uh diverse knowledge and with a lot of different experiences, and I believe that is also part of the reason why people are afraid of changing careers because uh they understand that where they are now, they're specialized, they have invested so much time and effort in that, uh they have proven results in that area, and now uh they they need to start from zero or with one certificate on uh uh another task. Uh, what's your take on that?

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Yeah, yeah. So, first of all, there is an uh sort of an objective problem. When someone hits the age of uh 40, of course, it's not on their birthday, right? But around that age, around those years, uh it becomes much more difficult to specialize again, not only because that you need to, you know, make money, sustain a family, or whatever it is, just because our mind is made to crystallize at that point. So the all the knowledge, expertise, experience slowly becomes who you are from a psychological perspective, from a uh practical professional perspective. You just know how to play with what you know and what you know how to do. Um, and it becomes much more difficult to be to reach that malleability that we had when we were 20, 25, 30. So it just becomes more difficult. And and I think that that's one of the reasons, even we even if most people don't know how to articulate it, it's just more difficult. I think that the general dynamic is changing though, meaning let's divide expertise or specialization, as you as you called it, in two different kinds of specialization. On one side, we have a um formal, uh static, almost technical kind of specialization. Think about the person who knows how to uh code in Python or the doctor that is specialized in a very specific uh disease and knows how to diagnose it well and how to treat it, not necessarily to how to do make surgery. We'll see in a moment why. So they have a technical knowledge, they're very good at those things. Um, they're very different from other people who have adaptive, adaptive expertise. Adaptive expertise basically means I know a lot about something, doesn't matter what problem you throw at me, even if it's a brand new problem, I can play with what I know to find a creative solution. So now think about a doctor that is specialized in a specific field, I don't know, uh cardiovascular uh diseases. Pretty broad, they know how to understand even a brand new disease that might come up tomorrow in a remote land and develop a treatment. Or think about a consult, a marketing consultant that doesn't just know how to build a funnel technical, but really understands the psychology and the technology of um attracting people to your offer. Those people, even if the world changes, know how to solve a problem based on their expertise. So my assumption is that um when you develop the ability to become an adaptive expert, you can do it again with a new field. It takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of uh experimentation, but you can do it also when you get when you become, you know, uh when you are 40, 50, or even later. Uh you just have the muscle of becoming an adapt adaptive adaptive expert, and that helps. So uh the short answer is you're right, but for specific people who know how to be true adaptive experts, it's easier. And also, I have to say, with AI, I'm I'm sorry that I have to bring it to the episode. I assume that most listeners are tired to hear about it, but with AI, generalists are pretty useless because you can get any knowledge pretty easily. You do need specialists, but you can get also those answers through AI. So the only specialists that actually have value are those specialists that can play with knowledge in a creative way and give you concrete answers. And in the same way, also generalists that can play across disciplines, which AI doesn't know how to do, uh, also are valuable. So if you know a lot about marketing, economy, psychology, and uh uh Far East philosophy, that's actually the kind of expertise that AI is really bad at providing. And even if you're a generalist, you have you have uh you have a value in the market, so you can reinvent yourself.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Okay, and how should how should people go with their new career? Should they quit the job and then try something new, or should they start developing their expertise before they quit their existing job and start anew?

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Yeah, so uh I'll start with the obvious answer. The first thing to check is the financial viability of it, right? Meaning, if you cannot sustain yourself, you cannot just leave your job and go and explore the world. Um, I mean, you can try, tell us how it goes. That would make an amazing Instagram profile. Um, but no, I think that the the core piece of it is uh exploration, meaning you want to decide what's your new career after you've explored enough paths. If you are lucky, you're working in a job that allows you to explore different paths throughout through your work. So you will meet interesting people, you read interesting content. I'm thinking about a management consultant, right? That works in a big firm or even in a medium-sized firm. They will work one quarter on helping a farmer company, the next quarter is a gaming company, the third quarter is a philanthropic fund. They have enough exploration uh opportunities and they can think, okay, I want to dive deeper in the philanthropic field. Let me see if that's good for me. If you're not that lucky, so you should take a certain amount of time to talk with a lot of people and understand what is the right, what is an interesting path for you, um, and start to develop a pseudo expertise. Meaning, don't elude yourself that by reading a few books you're going to become an expert, or by talking with a few people, you're going to become an expert. But try to uh act as you are trying to develop that expertise. Go down the rabbit hole, meet with people, try to solve problems in your mind, or by talking with people in the field, and see if that kind of reasoning and problem-solving routines are something that really fires you up. And if it does, if it doesn't, just go to the next field that it's interesting for you. But if it does, so that's the time to understand what the market thinks about you. Do you have the skills needed to find the first job in that field? If not, so what are those skills and how can you and how can you learn them? And now I I cannot give you a very specific tactic because most people, you know, every field is different. Sometimes you can actually just get an online certificate and it's enough. Sometimes you just need to find someone that will give you a chance and you will have to learn on the job. So it's it's very, very different. Uh, but I think that the main idea is first of all, make sure that you have that kind of explorer exploratory phase. Once you have that exploratory phase, play with it, meaning play with the field, try to do the actual work, don't leave it as an intellectual uh as an intellectual image in your mind. And once you have it, try to understand whether the market can accept you as you are or if you need to develop the right uh the right capabilities.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Amazing. I really like how you put it and how you you have uh you have down-to-earth uh point of view where uh many modern gurus say you can be whatever you want and you can start anew whenever. But uh, I believe that reality is uh more uh in your direction, as you have explained. Uh some fields uh are possible to enter without prior knowledge, uh, most of them not. And uh we have this uh let's call it neuroplasticity problem or challenge, and a lot of people is not adaptable enough to start something uh new. So it's important to understand ourselves and to understand that our environment is not just fairy tale and roses, and it's it's a tough world out there. So you have to prepare yourself, you have to train before you go to the uh sports events or a match.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

Yeah, yeah, 100%. Also, think you can think about it like that. If the field that you're interested in is so easy to access that you can just learn a little bit and enter, that means that there is an AI agent that can do the work for you, unless it's physical, right? Unless you have to drive or to work in a factory. So that means that you have no uh added value to that field, okay. And even if you learn a little bit, there's no reason for you to join. There are enough people, so so that means that most fields require significant efforts, which is realistic, but it just needs to be needs to be considered as part of the process.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Thank you, Avi. Let's uh conclude with uh number one advice. What would be your number one advice for our listeners and viewers? How to go about career change in uh their real life?

SPEAKER_00 13:46

That's uh that's a very good question. Um, I think that the number one advice is not to um get addicted to rumination. Uh, many people start entertaining the idea of making a change and they speak with a lot of people, which is a very good thing to do. They start reflecting and journaling, etc., which is also a very good thing to do. They start a lot of learning and take a lot of courses, which is also a good thing to do, but then they just get stuck in that loop, and that's ruminating. That's a lot of reflection, a lot of thinking without actually pursuing any path. So I would be really, really careful with that. So the number one uh advice probably is uh make sure to have a check-in with yourself at least once every couple of weeks and understand and just ask yourself the question: did you actually make progress or were you ruminating? If you made progress, good for you, keep going. If you are ruminating, meaning you are in the same place you were two weeks ago, so you're just going at the change in the wrong way and eventually you're gonna get stuck, and that's very dangerous from a lot of perspectives psychological, financial, and even social at some point.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Amazing advice, Avi. Uh, where can our listeners and viewers uh get in touch with you? What's the best point to connect?

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Sure. So, first of all, you can um visit my website, avilleg.com, avi with a why. Um, you can also visit my Substack um profile and my newsletter, Masters of Babel, or just you know, check in my uh LinkedIn profile. Um, I'm always happy to have a chat with anyone. So if you wanna just talk through some of the things that we discussed together with Peter today, just reach out. We're gonna find some time.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

Avi, thank you for all these amazing insights and thank you for being my guest tonight.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Thank you, Peter. I really appreciate it.