Founder@ Interview
Interview with Lucia Knight
“Figure out what your unique Superpowers are and then design your business around them. Then all you have to do is focus on making the change you want in the world profitably enough to keep doing it for as long as you want. .” – Lucia Knight
Today we feature Lucia Knight, the founder at Midlife Unstuck. We hear their story in their own words, their successes, their challenges and their insights.
Let’s start by getting to know you. Can you please tell us a little bit about you and what you do?
I’m Lucia Knight and I’m a midlife career designer and career happiness researcher. I’m 48 years old and 5 years ago, I decided to leave behind a career of 20 years corporate head-hunting to return to university to study a MSc Psychology – no easy thing at my time of life.
My dissertation was informally entitled “Where the heck have all the 50 year olds gone from big corporates?” as I could see this silent trend becoming more wide-spread in many of the companies I’d worked with in my former career.
A great introduction and start to this interview. Can you please tell us, how did you start, from what age, and what made you decide to change direction and start?
Once I’d looked at the trends in the Western world to favour younger individuals for all sorts of leadership position and to slowly, quietly and discreetly put professionals in their 50s out to pasture, I felt compelled to do something about it.
So driven was I to get this message into a broader market place, I founded Midlife Unstuck where I now help other professionals in their 40s and 50s to design work is ways that play to their unique strengths, that feel more satisfying and have longevity.
Thank you for that insight. So can you tell us…What does your business do and where is your company based?
Midlife Unstuck is a career design business with a specific focus on working with professionals in their 40s and 50s who want to design the second half of their careers differently to their first half.
I have created one-to-one consultancy programmes to help individuals discover their unique offering to the market (I call these their Superpowers), to decide which Super problems in the world they want to focus on and then to get paid well. These programmes evaluate every possible idea for the next steps in their career and analyse which is the best based on a whole range of factors – including their appetite for change, their unique skills and their lifestyle goals.
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I have also worked with the publisher’s of my book X Change: How to torch your work treadmill (available from Amazon) to co-create a 6-weeks on-line career transformation programme called The Fierce Emporium.
What’s the story behind your success? What led to your aha moment? how did you get to where you are now?
In the early days of Midlife Unstuck, I created a research project which found me interviewing 100 professionals who had made large and small changes to their careers after the age of 40 who described themselves as “happier” for having done so.
Some of the larger changes include individuals who were aerospace executives who created their own gin company, financial services executives who became full-time authors and head teachers who became entrepreneurs.
Some of the smaller, but nonetheless impactful changes, were going freelance after a full-time permanent career, buying into a local HR franchise after spending two decades in international HR roles or creating a business at retirement age that grew to being the most joyful role of a career.
So, my aha moment? My unique research allowed me to unpick the eight secrets behind “successful” (i.e.happier”) careers beyond 40 and I designed this knowledge into a methodology for change – I call this The Fierce Model of Career Change.
I’ve been undoubtedly helped by Mpowr Publishing – who offered me a publishing contract early in my research and we have collaborated on the creative design of The Fierce Emporium – my on-line career redesign programme. I’ve also gained some traction and momentum in my business by being featured in The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Sydney Morning Herald and BBC.
I don’t think anyone would say that founding a business is easy. But it’s a great deal more fun and more satisfying that watching those over 50 being disappeared from many of the big companies in UK.
The design of the business is around my own Superpowers and I use my own methodology to make sure that I get to use those Superpowers in as many situations as possible each day. I analyse it regularly and most recently I assessed that I get satisfaction from nearly 75% of each day. And I’m working on outsourcing as much of the remaining 25% as I can.
Thank you for sharing that. What’s been your life’s biggest lesson so far?
The biggest challenge I have faced, and continue to face, in my business is getting up to speed with marketing my business in a very noisy marketplace. From the early months, I invested in training with great marketeers to help me set up systems, to market in usual and different ways to others and to promote my transformational programmes in a way that connects with my perfect clients.
Yet, I do not have a marketing background and in the early days I was investing my early profits in learning from those who knew marketing. This is something I continue to do and I’m always learning new skills and evolving my offering.
There is no point in having fantastic one-to-one and on-line programmes if you don’t know how to sell them!
One of the things I did in the beginning was try to be on all social media platforms. This was frankly a waste of time and energy. I soon learned to choose one channel where my ideal clients spend time and maximise my offering there.
I’m an introvert who adores learning so spending time with my self learning from podcasts, on-line courses and reading books is a delight for me but during the variety of lock-downs I relied on personal connections with other entrepreneurs for support, collaborations and fun. Without that network, it would have been lonely and more stressful than it was.
I wish I’d known that you have to shout very loudly before anyone hears. I was worried about what others would think of my early videos/articles/social media posts so I spent too long on them and wasted time.
If you were to go back in time, what piece of advice would you give to your younger self?
I grew up with a Dad who loved his work and had his own business and I always said I’d never own my own business in case I spent too much time away from my family. But I think in my previous career I was modelling the idea that “work” was a chore to my two daughters.
Recently one of my daughters came into my home office and drew a big smile on my whiteboard and said “Mummy does work that makes people happy as a Cheshire cat!” And I love that! Both my daughters know I really enjoy my work. They see me working hard to be good at it and helping others by sharing my Superpowers with them.
Work is such a critical piece of our identity and contributes so crucially to our self-esteem, it’s important to do work that you enjoy, that gives you satisfaction and if it can be fun – why the heck not?!
If I were to say anything to my younger self, I’d encourage her to PAUSE and think once a year if she’s doing work that feels as good as it used to. And I’d tell her to seek out ways to try new things – even without changing jobs. To experiment, to say “yes” to lots of things that are different to assess whether she likes them or not.
I became a bit stale in my previous head-hunting career, even though I was perceived to be “successful” at it. One other piece of advice to my younger self is to keep defining and re-defining what “a successful work life” means very regularly.
We’re nearly halfway through our interview so it’s a great time to ask how does your business run. What three tools make your business run better?
Canva – brilliant for creating social media posts, youtube thumbnails etc very quickly.
Google Workspace – work from anywhere from phone or laptop.
Big Vu – video recording.
Imovie – simple editing on the go.
What do you know now that you wished you had known before?
I wish I’d known that you have to shout very loudly before anyone hears. I was worried about what others would think of my early videos/articles/social media posts so I spent too long on them and wasted time.
What has been your greatest or proudest achievement or moment?
My greatest achievement to date has been securing a publishing contract from my amazing publishers Mpowr Publishing who not only published my book X Change: How to torch your work treadmill but we’ve collaborated on several other projects and co-created what I believe to be the world’s best on-line career redesign programme for midlifers – The Fierce Emporium.
What future life goals do you want to achieve and why?
I’d like to celebrate my 50th birthday with a big Italian feast in my garden and I’d like to be the fittest I’ve ever been in my life.
I’d like to create a Netflix documentary on career change with lots of inspiring examples. I’d like to have created so much positive change in the world that I receive an invitation onto Desert Island Discs and my favourite podcast 3 Books with Neil Pastricha. I’d love 10,000 people to join my on-line career redesign programme – The Fierce Emporium.
I’d love to employ more people like me to effect more change in UK and beyond. I’d love to swim the lakes of Lithuania and in Lake Bled in Slovenia. I’d like to swim 10k in a tidal swim. I’d like to unicycle (unsupported). I’d like to do a handstand for 5 minutes.
I’d like to celebrate my parent’s 50th and 51st wedding anniversary in Ireland with our big extended family. I’d like to giggle with my daughters and husband daily. I’d like to lie in a hammock on a quiet Caribbean island reading an amazing novel.
I’d like to say “yes” to 1000 little adventures with old and new friends before I die.
Honestly, I could fill a book with future life goals.
To finish our inspire questions…”We believe that sharing inspiring words can inspire others.” If there was one positive thing you would say to someone to inspire and empower them what would it be and why?
Figure out what your unique Superpowers are and then design your business around them. Then all you have to do is focus on making the change you want in the world profitably enough to keep doing it for as long as you want.
“Thank you it has been great learning more about your founder story and Midlife Unstuck”
To learn more about Midlife Unstuck Visit www.midlifeunstuck.com
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