Welcome to the Brilliance Brief. Every week, we break down leadership, mindset, and personal growth into something real and doable. Expect research-backed insights, a little storytelling, and practical ideas that actually fit into your life (even the messy parts).

I’m 50 years old and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.

I started in marketing. Then I moved into sales. Then business operations. Then I spent years on mergers and acquisitions. Then technology. Eventually, I ended up as CIO of a $4B company. Then I left all of it to start over on my own.

None of that was a plan.

I never sat down at 22 years old and said “Here’s my life path.” 

I just followed the next opportunity, stayed curious, and paid attention to what I was good at. 

Every big change felt scary in the moment. Some of them felt like starting from zero. They weren’t.

I hear from a lot of people who feel stuck in a job they took 10 or 20 years ago. 

They tell me they must have picked wrong. They don’t know what they’d do instead. Or they’re “too far in to change now.”

If you’re reading this and relate to any of those thoughts, I need you to hear me: it’s never too late to start again.

A few things I’ve learned about reinvention, from someone who’s still doing it.

Most people believe there’s “one path” they were supposed to figure out.

You were supposed to pick the right career and know your life’s passion at 22. (Which is a lot to ask of someone whose brain isn’t even fully developed until 25!)

That belief is what keeps people frozen in jobs they’ve outgrown for a decade or more.

You don’t find the “one thing.” You find the next thing. Then the one after that. Your career is a series of experiments you learn from.

A hard season at work doesn’t mean you picked wrong twenty years ago. You probably just stopped learning and growing.

Those are two very different problems. The first one feels like a life sentence. The second one has a solution.

Herminia Ibarra is a professor at London Business School. She spent years studying people in the middle of career reinventions. 

Think doctors becoming entrepreneurs. Lawyers becoming writers. Executives leaving corporate to start something of their own.

She found something that surprised her. The people who successfully reinvented themselves acted their way into a new identity.

They ran small experiments, explored side projects, and talked to people already doing the thing they were curious about. 

They tested. They tried. They stayed open to being surprised.

Most people are waiting to feel sure before they move, but it works the other way around. 

You find out by doing. Clarity comes after the experiment, not before it.

Most of us define ourselves by our role. I’m a marketer. I’m a lawyer. I’m a CFO.

When your identity is the role, any change feels like erasing yourself. Like everything you’ve built goes to zero. 

It doesn’t.

Every single time I’ve reinvented myself, my old experience came with me. I just used it differently. 

My marketing background helped me sell into the C-suite later. My M&A years taught me how to read a company from the inside. And my CIO role showed me how to lead teams through change.

When I left corporate to build something on my own, none of that disappeared. It came with me.

When you reinvent yourself, your experience comes with you. You start a new chapter using everything the last one taught you.

Reinvention is scary. Every time. 3 experiments that have helped me:

1. Run one small test.

Before you quit your job, pick one experiment you can run in the next two weeks that would tell you something. 

Maybe it’s taking an online business class or a volunteer role. Something small and outside your normal week. You learn more from one small test than from ten weeks of thinking about it.

2. Get around people already doing what you’re interested in.

Ask them how they got there and what they wish they’d known. Most people are generous with their time if you’re specific about what you’re asking.

The single fastest way to learn what a new career path looks like is to talk to people already walking it.

3. Name the skill that travels with you.

What do people come to you for that’s nowhere in your job description?

Maybe you’re a graphic designer, but every time there’s a hard conversation on the team, people ask you to handle it. You’re good at navigating difficult conversations.

Or you’re a finance analyst, but coworkers keep asking you to look at their business ideas before they pitch them. You’re good at spotting what a plan is missing.

Those hidden skills travel with you into anything you do next.

Ask yourself: What’s one small experiment I could run in the next week to test a different career path?

You don’t have to know the answer to “what’s next” to start moving toward it. Just be willing to run the experiment.

Some of my biggest leaps came from being willing to begin from zero. 

Every single one was scary. Every single one was worth it.

Talk soon,
Justin

P.S. Beach, mountains, or city for your ideal weekend? 

I’m picking the beach. Hit “reply” and let me know yours.