Just the other day it occurred to me that a rather significant anniversary from my working life was drawing near. It was on April 29, 1999 when my final morning show aired on the local radio station. The company had been bought out by a larger corporation that couldn’t justify keeping locally-produced programming on air in our community. With the end of that airshift came the end of my broadcasting career, which had spanned 23 years.
I had no interest in trying to find work in another radio station in the region. My career in that industry was done. I did pretty much every task imaginable in broadcasting that saw my voice actually travel up and down the AM and FM dials at a total of six different radio stations in three different communities. While that may sound like a lot, I was not nearly as transient as many of the co-workers I had shared a microphone and studio with over the years. Celebrating That 20 Years Have Passed I chose to post a reminder of the milestone on social media. I added a photo my wife, Brenda, snapped of me holding a magnetic door sign that used to be on my car when I was working at the local radio station. It has spent years clinging to the side of one of the file cabinets in my home office. I mentioned in the post that it had been twenty years since the local radio station had ceased broadcasting local programming (it is a repeater now). In the following 24-hours I discovered two interesting things. First, there are a lot of new people in the area who had no clue there was a radio station in operation here. Second, there were at least as many people who actually remembered listening to me during the local morning show I hosted from October 1981 to the closure of the local studio. It even generated a conversation in the post office this afternoon about how things have changed. What The Anniversary Really Revealed To Me Oddly enough, all I could think about with the comments posted online and those shared with me on the street or at a meeting was this: the end of one career of mine twenty years ago was preparing me for the midlife career change I would make 16 years later. While I really enjoyed the radio business, technology was changing it rapidly. We now have online streaming radio stations and satellite radio. Local radio is not as predominant. The same basic pattern evolved during the years I was involved in the print media industry. However, I was able to spend enough time in both industries to pull together a great deal of transferrable skills. It was with those transferrable skills that Brenda and I were able to transition into the current careers we are following. What I am saying here is that I may have just realized that I have been evolving through all of my career changes after all. For More Information On Midlife Career Changes Someone mentioned to me today that I had been getting groomed for forty years for my current position in my life. That statement sums it up very nicely as you are also being groomed for your next career. For details on how to navigate a midlife career change, download my eBook, “Surviving Midlife Career Changes.” In it there is a lot of interesting information that will guide you through the most important career change of your life.
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AuthorMy name is George Elliott. I have been in the Media Industry since 1978. I spent 23 years in Broadcasting and worked in a total of six different radio stations located in southern British Columbia Canada during my career. In 2000 I switched gears and moved into the Print Media Industry at a small town, local weekly newspaper. In 2004 I bought the paper and operated it with my wife, Brenda until July 2016 when we closed it. I launched a freelance web content and article writing business from my home in January 2014. Archives
April 2021
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