Power PepTalk guest host, Cori Sue Morris spoke to Constance Beverley from Share Winter Foundation about career pivots. Constance shared how she transitioned from being a corporate attorney to CEO as well as her top tips to pivot your career.
Can you walk us through your own career pivot?
Constance: Many people see pivot like there's just one. Anything great in life is a multi-step process. Just an FYI on that: there's no pivot quick scheme in real life. But yeah, I was a corporate attorney. I was a complex corporate litigator, a bankruptcy attorney, during the last financial crisis. I graduated from law school in 2007 and went straight to the big Wall Street law firm. I worked in the big-name firm and did the whole, successful, big law thing.
I hated it. I was good at it. I did not love it. But you know just because you're good at something doesn't mean you should do it. I think that's something that we don't tell people. We don't tell women and we don't tell anyone that just because you're good, doesn't mean it's something that's gonna give your life fulfillment.
And thinking about pivots, as a kid, they tell you to pick a job. Then, you're supposed to work your life around that job. If I could go back, I would tell anyone I mentor to pick a life and then figure out a job around that.
Life especially during the financial crisis, I eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner at my desk. I had lots of debts to pay. I do not come from a background that did not require acquiring a large amount of debt in order to skip over an income bracket. So, I had a lot of obligations during that time which is what motivated me. I was always a hard worker. I was always gonna do the best and I wanted to be the best because that's a plus mentality. But, I was just really unhappy.
I didn't know the kind of lifestyle I wanted was to be more flexible. I wanted to be outside more. I wanted to be giving back more. I want to be more community-oriented. Then the real crux of it is that I wanted a proactive life and being a lawyer or at least a litigator is a very reactive life. Complex corporate litigation is when something happens, you react to it. I didn't want that. I wanted a more proactive life. I wanted to feel like I had a little bit more control.
“Many people see pivot like there’s just one. Anything great in life is a multi-step process.”
I also worked with big corporations and I wanted to work with real people. I realized that in that life, that wasn't gonna work for me. With the law, I love the law. I use the law every day. It gives me an edge in absolutely everything I do. Though, if anyone's contemplating it, go to business school, not Law School. That's my number one thing, go to business school. Or actually, don't go to grad school at all. But yeah, I was just really unhappy.
I was working with nonprofits on the side. People say it's my side hustle. It wasn't necessarily a hustle. It was my side joy. Basically, I started realizing that there were things that I was learning in that capacity that I liked better. I felt more adept to that and I enjoyed it more. I started thinking about making a change in my career. How do I get closer to that full-time rather than part-time? Realizing things, benchmarks, or ways, I made that leap. That was massive because I wanted to pay off my student loans. I was like, “You can't stop using this degree until you've paid for it.” And that was the biggest benchmark.
To be fair, as soon as that was done, it was really hard to stay motivated in that space. I also had certain skills I wanted to acquire and I think that's very helpful for people in whatever current position.
Was there a skill, a client, or a person you wanted to be with to learn from?
Constance: If there's a department or if you want to go in a different direction, you want to figure out how it works. So, I started doing a lot of that. I looked around at the opportunities I had. And I wanted to make sure that I didn't walk out of my current situation without having taken absolutely everything I could get from it. For me, I wanted more direct client contact. I wanted to manage cases. I wanted to do a little bit of business development. I wanted to write a Supreme Court brief. And, I did all of those things. Once that happened, I just decided, “Okay, now I need to start looking.”
Quite frankly, being really unhappy had a super negative impact on my health. Actually, my health got really really bad and forced me to look at my life and ask if it was worth it. The paycheck was really nice, like the big-lawyer paycheck. I can't really say there was much else. Other than that, I also wanted to build a safety net, which I did you.
I grew up raised by a middle-class single mom, she was awesome. She helped my sisters and me. But it wasn't like I could dip into anything unless I built it myself. So, pay off the debt, build a safety net, and acquire a set of skills that would help me with the next thing.
How did you find your new role?
Constance: I had a couple of roles before this role. That's something that I also like to tell people. I've had a couple of friends asking, since they know I'm the one that took the flying leap out of corporate law. I looked around and I started volunteering my time. I worked with other nonprofits. I had friends who were starting businesses who were like, “I really need a lawyer to look at this contract. I can't really afford it and a bunch of those other things.” So, I started doing that.
I left and I joined a tech startup as a co-founder which was way out of my lane. I had no idea what I was doing which was great. Everything was new. Everything was 'build your own equity, choose your own adventure'. We were not the next Instagram which makes me super sad, because that would be great. I would have been talking to you about how to retire before 40. But unfortunately, that is not the case.
I'm actually not big on the retire before 40 thing. I'm on a 'live a life that you don't need to retire from kind of thing’. I think there's a lot of those goals that are pushed on women. Just build a life you like and then you don't have to try to escape it in any capacity. So, I did that and I learned a ton of things. I learned how to deal with an outsourced app team in India, Pakistan, and all these other places. I learned about marketing and went through a tech incubator. I pitched to VCs.
“Build a life you like and then you don’t have to try to escape it in any capacity.”
In all of that time, I also was still doing a lot of community work. I was working with community organizers and sat on a couple of nonprofit boards. I just kept piecing things together. Ultimately, I got a job with a nonprofit that I had worked with in law school as kind of a pastime and took over partnerships and development there. From one of the boards I was sitting on, I was actually offered this job. So, it took some time. There was a five-six year transition between leaving the law and having this job.
Every little step along the way really mattered. When I look at it now, I couldn't possibly do everything that my job requires now without each step along the way. No matter how crazy some of them were, there are things that I understand now because I took a weird contract gig or I helped a friend. So, it was a long pivot, but every single thing got me in the right place. It was a lot of networking and putting yourself out in the circles you want to be involved in.
Nonprofits are a great way to try a new skill
If you want to try a new skill, nonprofits area great way to do it. But there's a technique to that and I will give you this very important thing. Do not call a nonprofit and say, “what can I do?” You're basically asking an overburdened organization to create a job for you to make you feel good. What you can do is call them and say, “I am a marketing whiz. I crush it at social media and I noticed that yours might need a little help. I'd like to intern for you. I'd love to write up a strategy.” Or you could also say, “I am a finance minister. I'm wondering if you're optimizing.”
If you come in with a very specific thing and email them, they're gonna call you back and be like, “Let's talk. When can you start?” If you know exactly what you want to do to get involved in your community, what skills you want to put in, then that is a completely different game-changer. That is what I did. It gave me a lot of work to do. I got very busy very quickly, but that's how you do it.
Can you tell us about Share Winter?
Constance: Share winter is a foundation, but it's not a private foundation. So, we do accept public donations. It was started as an initiative of the US Ski and Snowboard team to get more kids active in winter sports and to get more people interested in skiing and snowboarding. What I do is raise a bunch of money, give it all away to grassroots organizations that are teaching kids who are traditionally denied access to the sport. We let kids who usually don't fit the profile of a skier, or snowboarder which tends to be an affluent white male who lives in a mountain town, get involved in these life-changing sports. I also sit on the committee for the growth of the sport, the National Committee with the trade associations. I'm basically a diversity and inclusion advocate and a bit of a rabble-rouser challenging the norms in this very niche industry. But, they've been super amenable so I'm excited about that.
We also offer consulting and guidance to our individual nonprofits. We're sounding board. They can call me if they don't want to call their board and say, “I just lost a funder, what do I do?” Or, “I don't know how to handle the fact that I have to let all of my part-time staff go because of the economy right now.” So, we're an advocate and also a consultant for each of our grantees and our youth here.
I'm a snowboarder and my season was cut short. It was very hard to see the mountains are out without me, but stay home now shred later.
What would you say to people who are looking to pivot during this challenging time?
Constance: I think the interesting thing is this crisis is a great time to evaluate your goals because you're forced into it. You might as well maximize this moment where you have to wrestle with your anxiety. I'd say the first thing you do is really sit down and ask yourself what you want and what you're willing to sacrifice.
I talked to a lot of people and I’ve heard “No, I'm going to take a pay cut. I'm gonna have to put off having a family for a couple of years.” We're already stressing out and asking ourselves what life is like. So, why not take this really challenging time and think: “If I'm literally starting from scratch, what do I want my life to look like? And what is it going to take to get there?” Because that's really critical.
“The first thing you do is really sit down and ask yourself what you want and what you’re willing to sacrifice. ”
If you don't really know what you want, you're gonna bounce around a little bit. You’ll find that you’re still not happy. Start there and try not to jump into whatever the next thing is just because you have to, unless, you have the privilege to do that and you have some downtime. A lot of people are treating this like there's downtime. Most of us aren't having downtime. We're either side hustling, raising kids, taking care of parents, or we have a partner that might be sick and quarantined in our own house. There's a lot of stuff that's happening. So, don't feel pressured to do that right now.
But, if that is your reality, or if that helps you gain a sense of control, this is a good time to just put it all down. List it out and start looking at it on paper and really confront yourself with what kind of changes you really want to make.
What's your biggest challenge to keeping up or having your journey in the transition or in life, generally?
Perfectionism
Constance: I think it's perfectionism. That's cheesy and it's been on a bunch of TED talks and makes me feel super lame saying it. But, it's real- the idea of what I thought my life should be and that idea of perfection. We're so tasked with knowing what we want to do or what we want to be all the time. We set these goals and then we have this idea of what that looks like and what the perfect version of that is. Nothing is perfect. I have my dream job. It is not perfect. I have bad days. My life is not perfect because I switched careers. There's other stuff I need to do. Accept that that's 100% okay.
People’s perception of perfection
Also, other people's perceptions and perceptions of perfection are not yours. Another cheesy quote that's getting passed around, but really works is that: comparison is the thief of joy. “I don't live in a big house. I am not a partner to a law firm by some people's standards. I have utterly failed.” I have friends that have that mentality and they're like, “How on earth do you get to snowboard and work with the community and still meet with really important people, and do the work you want to do? How do you make that work and pay your bills?”
You've got to remember that everyone's always looking for something no matter what they have. That's part of life. And if you can get over that, the rest of stuff isn't so scary. It's not easy, but it's less scary.
Cori Sue: Success on your own terms.
Constance: Absolutely. Because those are the only ones that matter. If anyone has anything to say about it, ask them if they're paying your bills. “Are you paying my bills? I don't think you need to worry about it and my definition of success.”
Cori Sue: What handles can we follow you on? Um, so the share winter foundation or it's at share winter Foundation, and all my stuff is private because I run a kid's charity. So you know, I keep my corporate and private life separate because you are not your job. So I'm very big proponent of corporate personal life separate but you can find all of that stuff at share winter foundation and where to share with your foundation on Facebook and share winter foundation.org.
“We’re so tasked with knowing what we want to do or what we want to be all the time. We set these goals and then we have this idea of what that looks like and what the perfect version of that is. Nothing is perfect.”
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