Thinking of Changing Careers? Why and How I Did at 36

Have you ever dreamed of changing careers, but don’t know how to start?

I haven’t. Seriously. Except for my first few years in the workforce, I’ve always worked in marketing or sales in one capacity or another, and I had always loved it. Two years ago, this month, I was a marketing manager for a theater company. But here’s why and how, two years ago this month, I changed careers.

Changing Careers--www.thethreeyearexperiment.com

I really liked my marketing job. It was part-time, flexible, and the first real job I’d had in the almost-eight years since my first child had been born. I loved the autonomy, the professional identity, the praise I was getting for a job well done. Everything about the job, basically… except the summers.

See, I worked for an opera company, and the “season,” the time when we staged our three big productions, was the first week of June through the second week of August every year. During the season, my part-time job became a full-time job, and I worked nights, weekends, whenever. I was salaried, so although I could work less during the rest of the year to make up for the summer weeks, I earned exactly the same paycheck through the summer while I worked like crazy.  Continue reading “Thinking of Changing Careers? Why and How I Did at 36”

Letters of Intent

Mr. ThreeYear has been after me for a couple of weeks. “When are you going to contact international schools? When are you sending letters of intent?”

Our family is on a three-year journey to double our net worth and move abroad. One possibility for our move involves me getting a job as an ESOL Teacher in an international location.

Letters of Intent--www.thethreeyearexperiment.com

Why would I continue to work when we move abroad? Wouldn’t that limit our location independence? First of all, our plan is to move to one specific international location for a couple of years. We’d really like to expose our kids to new cultures, languages, and parts of the world. We do want to enroll them in a formal school, however. A teaching position gives us many of the benefits we’re looking for.  Continue reading “Letters of Intent”