Gisele Aubin offers an honest look at what it means to change careers in middle age and how she personally found her own happiness. “In Transit” is not your typical step-by-step guide to your kind of hit book, but offers a realistic, emotional, and ultimately messy but satisfying story of how one woman discovered what she wanted to do with the rest. of their life. And readers will find empathy, hope, and ideas for advancing their own careers in these pages.
Gisele Aubin is a woman after my heart. She has known the stresses of the corporate world, and when her job came to an end, instead of feeling discouraged and unemployed, she saw it as an opportunity to take a year off and instead spend time reinventing herself, trying to find out if she wanted to continue in the corporate world or become self-employed. At first, she didn’t know what she would do if she became an entrepreneur. What type of business could you start? And at times, she felt inclined to return to a regular job as different opportunities arose, but each time, she felt her spirit rise against the idea, so she continued her transition to self-employment, or as she calls him “. you’re-on-your-own-and-good-luck-with-that!”
Anyone who has ever worked in the corporate world knows the stress it can cause, the demands that come from all directions, and the general insanity of it all. While I never had a job like Gisele where I had to travel a lot, I could fully relate to her constant frustration of trying to keep in touch with people in a world that never stops communicating:
“Long flights are the best. I totally step away from the surrounding cabin and zoom in on my screen. Those four and a half hours in the air is like eight in the office. Where else can you afford to be? Protected from endless phone calls, emails, instant messages and any other way people have to communicate with you? The day they allow mobile phones and Internet access on all flights will be the day I stop traveling, I hope. “
Also, Gisele’s corporate life was so busy and full of travel that she rarely had time for herself. He admits that he has little personal life or emotion, and always keeps sadness at bay with humor, as when he comments that “you know you have a great need for a life when emotion is a salad in the airport terminal.” Even his weekends were full of work:
“I could never, never catch up unless I was playing alone while no one else was. The only time to get ahead was the weekend or the middle of the night. So of course I could have won that catch-up game. day, but lost on other fronts like sleep, relationships and health, just to name a few. “
And then the company you work for suddenly sells out, giving you the option to stay in the new company or the opportunity to choose unemployment, or rather a sabbatical to rediscover yourself and transition to self-employment. By choosing the latter, Gisele re-cultivates her relationship with her boyfriend, travels to Europe, takes classes, and remembers what it’s like to just have fun again – like when she and her sister surprise their parents by showing up for breakfast in their pajamas. And finally, you realize how you want the rest of your work and your personal life to be.
Watching Gisele go through this transition was fascinating to me. After her years in the corporate world, she was something of an adrenaline junkie, constantly referring to the hamster in her brain that doesn’t stop but always needs to be busy, planning, programming, thinking about what’s next. She knows she needs to learn to relax and stay in the moment, but as with most of us, this is easier said than done, and that is precisely why I and so many others will identify with her story.
Many books have been written on how to become an entrepreneur and build your own business from scratch, but few discuss it from a personal perspective. “In Transit” is more like entrepreneurial therapy in which we can see the daily frustrations and emotions of a woman during her career transition, almost as if we are watching a reality show on how to become an entrepreneur. Gisele takes it all with bravery and a good sense of humor that will have readers laughing, engaging with her, and ultimately motivated to follow their own dreams.
If you’re ready to jump into self-employment or make any other major life change, you’ll find a kindred spirit in these pages who understands where you are, where you want to go even if you don’t. and who can show you how he managed to get there. Prepare for a career and life-changing experience.