49. How to Reinvent Yourself Without Starting Over
Interview With Anne van Leynseele
At some point in many women’s lives, the question is no longer, “What am I supposed to do?” It becomes, “What do I want to do next?”
You may have built a successful career, raised a family, supported other people, and handled more responsibilities than you ever imagined. You may even feel grateful for the life you have. Yet you can still feel restless. You can appreciate what you have built and know that you are not finished building.
That does not mean you need to blow up your life, walk away from your career tomorrow, or have a perfectly defined new purpose. It means you are ready to think more intentionally about the woman you are becoming.
On Second Act Simplified, I spoke with Anne van Leynseele, creator of Preferment™, about what it takes to begin shaping a meaningful next chapter before your career ends. Anne has moved through entertainment, digital media, international business consulting, government service, and law. She also became an author and purchased a cacao farm on Hawaii’s Big Island.
Her career may look unconventional from the outside, but one idea connects every transition: Anne never viewed herself as starting from scratch. She carried her knowledge, curiosity, and experience into every new chapter.
That is the most important message for any woman considering a midlife change. You are not beginning with nothing. You are beginning with decades of evidence about what you can do, what matters to you, and what you no longer want.
Reinvention Does Not Mean Erasing Your Past
The word reinvention can make change sound more dramatic than it needs to be. We picture leaving everything familiar behind and becoming a completely different person. That image can make a new direction feel unnecessarily risky.
Anne’s transitions usually grew from something adjacent to what she was already doing. Curiosity led her toward a new subject. She learned what she needed through formal education or informal exploration, and then she brought her existing abilities into the new field.
That is a more useful way to think about reinvention. You are not throwing away your previous career. You decide which parts belong in your next chapter.
Some of your most valuable abilities may be difficult for you to recognize because you have used them for so long. Organizing complex work, explaining difficult ideas, building relationships, managing conflict, mentoring people, solving problems, and creating processes can feel ordinary when they have become second nature. To someone else, those same abilities may be extremely valuable.
Ask yourself which skills you are good at, but do not stop there. Also ask which skills you still enjoy using. Being capable of something does not automatically mean you should build your future around it. Your next chapter should draw from your experience without recreating every part of the life you are ready to change.
Prepare for Who You Will Become, Not Only What You Will Have
Traditional retirement planning focuses heavily on money. Financial preparation matters, but it doesn't answer the deeper question of what your days will feel like when work no longer organizes them.
Anne began questioning the traditional retirement model while working at the Social Security Administration. She saw accomplished people prepare for the financial side of retirement without fully preparing for the change in identity, purpose, challenge, and connection that could come afterward.
This led her to revive the word Preferment, an old term associated with advancement or promotion. Instead of viewing the later years of life as a slow retreat, she sees them as an opportunity to move toward a deliberately designed life.
You do not need to be close to retirement to consider that question. In fact, starting earlier gives you time to explore possibilities without forcing an immediate decision. Anne began designing her own post-career life at 48. She bought a six-acre farm in Hawaii and gradually became involved in the community through volunteer work, soil testing, tree grafting, and cacao processing. Years before she planned to stop working, she was already testing what might keep her physically, intellectually, and emotionally engaged.
That approach is much more realistic than waiting until your final day of work and expecting a new identity to appear the following morning.
Who Are You Without Your Career?
For many women, a career is never just a source of income. It provides structure, relationships, recognition, and proof that we are useful. Even when we complain about work, being needed can become part of how we understand ourselves.
That is why Anne uses what she calls an identity-first approach. Before deciding what activity, business, or project to pursue, consider the woman you want to become.
How do you want to spend your time? What kind of challenges keep you interested? What relationships do you want to deepen? Which roles still fit, and which ones are you ready to leave behind? What do you want your children or grandchildren to learn by watching how you live?
For much of our adult lives, women are rewarded for being responsive to other people’s needs. We become caregivers, employees, partners, mothers, grandmothers, problem-solvers, and dependable friends. After years of asking what everyone else needs, identifying what we want can feel surprisingly uncomfortable.
Putting your own fulfillment back into the conversation is not selfish in the destructive sense of the word. When you feel challenged, interested, and connected to your own life, you often have more energy and attention to bring to the people you love.
Confidence Usually Comes After You Begin
One of the biggest obstacles to starting something new is believing you should feel confident first. Anne describes confidence through the idea of self-efficacy: when you succeed at something once, you become more certain that you can succeed again.
In practical terms, confidence is built through evidence.
You take a small step. You survive the discomfort. Something works, or you learn what needs to change. That experience becomes proof that you can take another step.
Waiting to feel completely confident creates a trap because confidence has nothing new to grow from. Your first step does not need to be impressive. It only needs to give you information, experience or momentum.
This also means that an imperfect attempt is not evidence that you should stop. As Anne put it during our conversation, occasionally stubbing your toe is part of the process. You recover, adjust and become better prepared for the next unfamiliar thing.
Start With an Experiment, Not a Life-Altering Decision
You do not need to identify one perfect purpose that will define the rest of your life. Anne believes in having multiple purposes, which is a freeing idea for women with several interests.
Your next chapter may include paid work, a creative project, volunteering, family, travel, advocacy, learning, and community. One interest does not have to carry the full weight of becoming your new career, identity and purpose.
Anne shared the story of a woman who loved tai chi but found it difficult to travel to a class. She began taking classes online, learned how to teach, and invited neighbors to practice in her garage. She later accepted donations for the classes and directed the money to the nonprofit where she had worked. Eventually, the YMCA continued the program, and she trained other people to teach it.
What began as a personal interest built community, fostered contribution, and gave her grandchildren a new way to connect with her. They helped with photography and a website, and she was no longer only the grandmother who prepared the family meal. They became interested in what she was creating.
She did not begin by announcing a major reinvention. She took the next reasonable step and let the idea develop.
That is what experimentation can do. It replaces the pressure to choose perfectly with an opportunity to learn.
Build From What Is Already Interesting to You
If you don't know what you want next, start collecting possibilities.
Pay attention to what catches your attention. Ask other people what they enjoy doing. Revisit interests you had before adult responsibilities took over. Look at the activities already in your life and consider whether you want to engage with one of them more deeply.
Someone interested in movement might take an online class, then join a local group or eventually teach. Someone who remembers being fascinated by geology might enroll in a community education course and discover a local rock-hunting club. A woman who enjoys walking her dog might be perfectly happy continuing that routine, or she might become curious about training, therapy-dog work or agility competitions.
The goal is not to turn every interest into a business. The goal is to create enough movement to discover what engages you.
You can begin with two simple exercises. First, make a running list of activities, subjects, and experiences you would like to explore. Do not evaluate them yet. Second, look at something you already enjoy and ask how you could make it a little more challenging, social, meaningful, or creative.
You Are Allowed to Choose a Life That Fits You
Designing your next chapter also requires learning to say no. Women are often conditioned to believe that declining a request requires an airtight explanation. It does not. Every yes commits time and energy you can't use elsewhere.
Creating room for something new may require protecting time before you know exactly what will fill it. It may also require accepting that your choices will not make sense to everyone.
As a teenager, Anne decided that marriage and children were not the right choices for her, and she spent years defending that decision. Her larger point applies regardless of the path you choose: women deserve the agency to build lives that reflect their own values rather than someone else’s expectations.
Your second act does not need to resemble Anne’s, mine, or anyone else’s. It should fit your personality, responsibilities, values, and hopes for the future.
Your Next Chapter Can Begin Now
You do not need to wait for retirement, a job loss, a milestone birthday, or a crisis to give you permission to change. You also do not need to know exactly where the process will lead.
Begin by noticing what feels unfinished, interesting, or newly possible. Identify the experience you want to carry forward. Choose one small experiment that fits your real life, then let what you learn inform the next decision.
You are not starting over. You are building from everything you have already lived, learned, and become.
If you know you are ready for something more but haven't fully figured out what it looks like yet, subscribe to the Second Act Simplified newsletter. You will receive practical ideas, encouragement, and realistic next steps to help you begin building what comes next.
You can also listen to the complete conversation with Anne van Leynseele on Second Act Simplified and learn more about her Preferment™ framework through Rarified Life.
Anne van Leynseele has built five careers, written three books, and created the Preferment™ framework, a research-backed alternative to traditional retirement for accomplished women. A former Hollywood producer, Fortune 100 consultant, and Obama Administration attorney-advisor, Anne speaks on creation, purpose, and designing a post-career life that continues their definition of success.
Retirement was designed for shorter lifespans and punishing physical work. Today, women finish careers with decades of capacity ahead. Anne created retirement's successor: in the 15th century, preferment meant ascending to a promotion, and Preferment™ asks what you're rising into and shows women where they'll matter next.
