My Own Executive Coach 
Collision Course: Is This a Midlife Crisis or What? 
by Barbara Reinhold 

DEAR COACH: I'm a 42-year-old account manager with a strong consumer product and I feel more lost than I ever have. After more than 10 successful years with this company, it feels like the job fits me well in some ways, but not in others. I love the rapid flow of ideas and the complex marketing challenges to be analyzed. I also enjoy the contacts with clients and other team members. But there are other things I also like to do, such as working with my hands to design things, and there is no room for that in my current job. At first these things didn't matter to me, but now I actually get angry about the things I want to do that don't fit into my paid work. I'm fascinated with color and texture, and I love the holidays because then I can get creative. I'm also good with record keeping and am a stickler for details, and so I drive the administrative assistants crazy - I've heard them call me "The Great Micromanager." Simple things are driving me a little crazy, like I can't stand how drab the office where I work seems. It makes me want to scream just to be there. Does this happen to most people in their 
40s? Can you help me figure this out? 
GLENDA

DEAR GLENDA: Relax, there's nothing wrong with you that can't be fixed by stepping back and taking a longer look at your talents, aptitudes and temperament. This is not really about your age, except for that when you have talents and interests, you have to use them or they begin to torture you to get your attention. It seems to me that what's going on here is really an embarrassment of riches. You have too many talents, some of which are inconsistent with each other. It sounds as if you are blessed with something that the Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation, a respected aptitude assessment firm, calls "colliding aptitudes." For instance, you like problem solving and leaping from one idea to another. That's what makes you good at brainstorming new approaches and other essential account manager activities. But at the same time I see in your questions some hints of other, less compatible strengths, such as an attention to detail, a strong sense of color and design and general artistic ability. I suspect you tend to micromanage when people reporting to you show a lack of aptitude for things that come easily to you but are not necessarily a major part of your job. The design part of managing the account really belongs to somebody else. So what can be done here? First off, you might enjoy conducting an aptitude assessment through a place like Johnson O'Connor to get a full picture of your situation. You see, aptitudes that aren't being used in your life in some meaningful way begin to itch as you mature, and it might be in your best interest to see if any other itches will be popping up. You can also begin thinking of your life as a multifaceted thing. You either strategize about how to use different aptitudes in various parts of your life (not just as work), or you vary your work to have more than one emphasis. People who work for themselves to have more variety in tasks and change of pace are often multi-ability folks choosing to design a work week that uses more of who they are. Similarly, some people vary their work by season. I know someone who writes in the winter and does landscaping the other three seasons to satisfy two of his talents. So you need to be talking to yourself, not about whether you're coming unglued at midlife (which you're not), but rather about how you're going to use these colliding aptitudes in the whole of your life. You need to assess your own unique blend of talents and discover which talents are the most under-used. It's not a bad problem to have, but you will need to look at it as both an analytical puzzle and a design challenge. I'm confident that there's a way for you to honor all your gifts, using them in a combination of career-related and life-related activities. This is not a crisis, but rather an opportunity. Good luck, 
CAREER COACH 

About Barbara Reinhold | Publications/Products | Articles/Tips | Counseling | Coaching |
Organizational Services | Links | Contact Information