Are you thinking about retiring, but sense that you’re not done yet? Consulting can be an excellent second career. It can be a practical way to redeploy your expertise and experience while persevering flexibility. But what does it take to be a successful consultant as a second career? Amy Rasdal explains how to get started and common obstacles you’ll need to overcome.

Amy Rasdal joins us from California.

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Amy Rasdal is the founder of Billable at the Beach which helps hundreds of people start their own successful consulting businesses. She traded her corporate job for consulting 15 years ago leveraging the advantages that consulting offers including freedom, flexibility, control, interesting work and excellent pay, while being able to work when you want, where you want and how you want.

Prior to starting her own business, Rasdal Associates, Inc., 15 years ago, Amy had over 25 years of experience in Operations, Product Development, Corporate Development and Marketing.  Rasdal Associates specializes in the other side of entrepreneurship – implementation and execution. Focus areas include program and project management for the Internet software and medical device industries.

Amy earned an MBA from The Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth and has undergraduate degrees in Computer Science, Music and French.

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For More on Amy Rasdal

Website

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

Strategic Quitting – Julia Keller

How to Begin – Michael Bungay Stanier

Think Big – Dr. Grace Lordan

Design Your Life and Get Unstuck – Dave Evans

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Wise Quotes

On Consulting as a Second Act Career

“So as a second career? Well, honestly, it’s never a first career. It’s always a transition. My version, what I want to do and what I help people do, is be a superhero using superpowers for super pay. So the reason I say it’s never really a very first career is because you have to do something to build expert skills. So that’s being a superhero with a superpower.”

On Consulting in “Retirement”

“I think for a second career, kind of a retirement age career, it’s much harder at this point to figure out what superpower am I going to sell? Because by now we all have a lot of superpowers, right? We’ve accumulated a lot of experience. So it’s a little bit tricky. And I think people have some heartburn narrowing down and focusing a little bit. So what I encourage people to do is find that intersection of what you’re really good at, your deep experience and expertise –  what you really love to do. There may be some things that you’re really good at, but boy, you don’t want to do them anymore. I worked with a client who had been a CPA, and then jumped off into the commercial side. But all of her jobs had been in Finance and Accounting. And she said, I am sick of Finance and Accounting. I want to do something a little bit different. So there may be pieces in our experience and expertise that we don’t like as much. So what are your deep experiences and expertise? What do you really love? And the piece that you can’t miss is: what will the market pay for?”

On What Makes Consulting a Good Fit

“The most important thing is wanting to do it. You do have to go into it realizing that you really are committing to that ongoing networking, marketing and business development. But I’ll tell you it’s really about relationships. By this point in our lives, most of us are pretty good at it and we get to choose who we have those relationships with. So some of those nightmare people that we’ve had to work with all these years, we can let some of those people go – and hopefully there’s just a few of them. For those of us thinking about retirement, almost all of us have the experiences and expertise to be able to do it. You have to have something to offer. Almost all of us do at this point. So honestly, I think it’s mostly the interest, the desire, and the ability to make a contribution that makes it a fit.”

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About Retirement Wisdom

Schedule a call to see how the Designing Your New Life process can give you an edge in your next chapter.

Visit retirementwisdom.com for tools and resources to help you retire smarter.

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About Your Podcast Host 

Joe Casey is an executive coach who also helps people design their next life after their primary career. He created his own next chapter after a twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1.5 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes. Business Insider has recognized him as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.