Is The Serial Relaunch Women’s New Normal?

BY: Hilary DeCesare

Some of us weren’t at Davos when the World Economic Forum declared 2023 as "The Year of the Polycrisis." Maybe we missed the headlines that the world was facing a cascade effect of crises including, "but not limited to," climate change, the rising cost of living, scarcity of natural resources, and other impact events that will have an inevitable ripple effect at every socioeconomic level.

Maybe we missed it because we were stressing out from the whiplash of coming from a hybrid work schedule and going back to the office, struggling with child and elder care, or still adapting to the boomerang of having an empty nest get filled again when grown kids move back home because they can’t afford to live on their own. Perhaps we were in sticker shock from scanning the package of eggs in the grocery cart. (The price of eggs went up 70% in the past year.)

Or, maybe we were members of the Writers Guild of America, reimagining life in an immediate state of unemployment for an indeterminate future. We didn't need Davos to point out that we were facing a constant rearrangement of the chairs and table we were fighting to be at. According to benchmarking numbers in the WGAW's 2022 Inclusion & Equity Report, slightly more than half of TV writers constituted most of the Guild's membership in that sector. Streaming and other platform shifts have meant fewer assignments and less revenue for all WGA members, forcing many to take multiple jobs. This is but one high-impact example of the Polycrisis hitting home.

As a former Silicon Valley CEO, neuropsychology practitioner, and founder of The ReLaunch Co, a career and life coaching company, I've mentored over six thousand women in relaunching their lives as they adapt to constantly churning circumstances, some by choice, others forced. The ripple effect is clear - for women, the impact of a Polycrisis looks especially threatening because women are at the bleeding edge and are usually the first to lose the most. Women are often the first to become unemployed, requiring economic support and investment.

By 2022, according to NPR, women were switching jobs at record rates, in what is now termed the "great reinvention." I prefer the term "Relaunch" to "Reinvention" because relaunching implies moving forward with intention, building from a vested base, not wiping the slate clean to create an entirely new entity. By midlife, in particular, women have spent half a lifetime honing talents and building skill sets that include capabilities from both work and life. For women who have lagged behind men in workforce opportunities for decades, a crisis brings the flip side of potentially opening the door from good to great, replete with all the energy accompanying it. You are never a blank slate in a relaunch; you are building on the opportunities you have just passed through.

During the WGA strike, Guild leaders published a statement that their research had documented an unwanted and unsustainable shift to a Gig Economy propelled by studio employment and pay policies. This was one of the underpinnings motivating the strike. According to HR Forecast, the Gig Economy is expected to grow 17% a year, outpacing salaried employment, which lags in the 3% area for many states.

On the other hand, the Relaunch framework offers a system for a foothold and a map to stability. These will be the tools for resilience because stability comes from within.

If the Gig Economy offers a temporary route, it is built on quicksand – a platform where writers will have no long-term career stability and must rely on one-off gigs, a reality recognized by the WGA and its members. Relaunches born of crisis require mastery over your capability to change the channel and reframe the challenge. This is when you need to move out of a "stuck" mindset and into a fluid emotional state that opens the kind of energy that can turn on a Klieg light in a dark room, propelling a rebound even from a deep crisis like homelessness.

“Katie," one of my mentees and a longtime client, saw a brilliant career collapse twice: once as a professional athlete, then again as an editor when the publishing industry downsized. She ended up homeless two times as well, plus the stress brought about by this crisis resulted in a heartbreaking miscarriage.

The collateral damage of the Polycrisis is often as physical and emotional as it is financial. It would be easy, or even expected, to slip into a negative mindset as science has proven that 85% of our daily thoughts are pessimistic. According to McKinsey, 80% of executives polled said that uncertainty and fear harmed their careers.

But "Katie's" trajectory changed when she saw an online ad about a publishing conference. She had no money but called on her competitive spirit to win and bartered her publishing skills for a ticket. Inspired by the conference and using her iPhone as a camera, Katie took pictures of homeless women she identified with and self-published a book. This evolved into a relaunch as a filmmaker, which eventually landed Katie on the Red Carpet at Cannes, where her film had been chosen to screen.

“Katie" is not her real name, but this story is true. In the Polycrisis environment, serial relaunching may be the new career ladder for women. We may have no choice in the circumstances we encounter, but we do have a choice to use them as a chance not to react but to relaunch.

We have options, and successful sustainability in the Polycrisis means long-term wins. What if career training included educating and equipping those most in need with the skills to manage the inevitable serial relaunches and flip the trajectory from threat to thrive? A gig economy forces a quick "gig fix" over education, training, and support for clarifying goals. If you transition from a job, try to build these in as an exit benefit.

Even entrepreneurs can benefit from numerous sources of expert online training.

Why is being stuck in your head a bad thing? Because entrepreneurs are searching for a higher sense of purpose and meaning, something that can only be achieved by incorporating the heart. Moving your mindset from the head to the heart to the higher sense of purpose – creating a flow from one internal channel to the next via the 3HQ™ Method (which stands for synergy of Head, Heart, and Higher Self) – is the map to relaunching. With this tool comes access to a rooted sense of purpose and direction lacking in the crush of negativity and randomness of a gig platform.

As the unpredictable shifting sands of the Polycrisis force us to continuously transform, reinforcing and refreshing relaunch skill sets will be increasingly critical on every level. The result: Each relaunch becomes its own masterclass in resilience.

About the Author:

Hilary DeCesare is an international business coach and three-time International bestselling author of ReLaunch! Spark Your Heart to Ignite Your Life, and pioneer female Silicon Valley CEO. As a sought-after speaker and founder of The Relaunch Co., she is among the first women to raise almost 1/4 billion in sales for tech giant Oracle, as well as millions of dollars in venture capital for many successful startups.

She is widely recognized for her work in neuropsychology as it relates to business and life and holds several certifications in the field. A unique application of her work is the trademarked 3HQ™ Method, a process that helps empower entrepreneurial women to reimagine what’s possible in their lives and careers, a topic for which she is in great demand as a motivational speaker.

Hilary serves on the boards of Love in the Mirror and The Cal Poly Irvine, where she is a frequent guest lecturer on topics such as Entrepreneurship and Business. As a loyal philanthropist, Hilary is committed to organizations fighting human trafficking and childhood cancer. She’s been featured on ABC’s hit TV series Secret Millionaire, where she shared stories of helping people who have overcome difficult circumstances. Her insights have been seen on NBC and mentioned in The Huffington Post, Forbes Brunei, The Hallmark Channel, Pix11, and Fox.

Find out more about Hilary:

1. Website

2. Facebook

3. Instagram

4. LinkedIn