Career change at 40 rarely looks like a leap. Yvonne Lam left a senior role at JPMorgan in Hong Kong and started over as an interior designer, one small step at a time.

Yvonne took an introduction to design course during maternity leave, then a full year diploma with five real client projects, then an internship where she was the oldest person in the room taking direction from designers half her age.

In this episode, you'll hear Yvonne's story and learnings:

• How to test a hobby before you bet a career on it, in the exact order Yvonne did it
• Which JPMorgan skills transferred straight into design work, and why she says you are already halfway there
• How she handled the friends and family who questioned her decision, and why some of them ended up questioning their own
• The one technology gap she used to out execute designers with far more experience

If you are in the messy middle of leaving corporate and waiting to feel certain, this one is for you. You do not need certainty. You need the next proof point.

Connect with me:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joannawong-chasingwaves/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chasingwaveswithjo/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Chasingwaveswithjo

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Leaving corporate rarely looks like one clean leap. Nic Law changed careers from corporate lawyer to master gin distiller, and the part nobody sees is the two years in between with no salary and his savings draining.

This is a Spotlight episode, where I go deep on one bold career change and the thinking behind it. Nic quit his law job in Hong Kong out of the blue after seven years, with no plan and no idea what came next. What he did next is the useful part: he took a distilling diploma, talked his way into an internship in Scotland in his thirties, and called every government department in the city until he found the one that could grant a license nobody believed still existed. Today he is co founder and master distiller at N.I.P., one of Hong Kong's first gin distilleries, named as the opposite of VIP.

In this episode, you'll learn:

How to tell a calculated risk from a reckless one when you are the one taking it

Why he tested the idea in small steps before committing a single dollar

What actually transfers from the career you are leaving, and why his legal training was the reason the business exists at all

How he kept moving when every answer he got was vague

We also get into runway, which is where most of these decisions actually get made. Three months, six months, a year. How long you need before you jump, when a bridge role is the smarter move, and why a long runway is not always the safe one.

If you are stuck in your career and waiting to feel certain before leaving corporate, Nic's story is the one to sit with.

Connect with me:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joannawong-chasingwaves/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chasingwaveswithjo/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Chasingwaveswithjo

Enjoyed the show? Hit "Follow" and leave a review to help others find us!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Every career pivot starts before you have proof it will work. Tim Wong was told bands don't work in Hong Kong, then played to seven people.

THANKS TO OUR SPONSOR: 90 Seconds.

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Tim is the lead singer of Dear Jane, one of Hong Kong's biggest rock bands. Before that he was on a TVB contract that his father's connections helped arrange, and when he told a supervisor he wanted to leave to do music, the answer was that bands don't work here.

What happened next is the part nobody puts in the highlight reel. A first show after signing to Warner that drew seven people. Roughly eighteen months dormant between labels. A founding member walking away. Falling over on stage twice in the middle of a guitar solo.

I wanted this conversation on the show because the mechanics are identical whether you are leaving a stage or leaving a corporate job. You are making a career decision without certainty, in front of people who have opinions about it, with no way to know if the thing you are betting on will land.

The line from Tim that I keep coming back to: "if you think you have one hundred percent certainty, you do not know enough yet.

We also get into what it feels like when the room finally sings your song back, and why he taught himself to become a director.

⏱️ CHAPTERS

00:00 Told bands don't work in Hong Kong

01:17 Welcome to the studio and how Tim and I met

02:34 An accidental start in acting at TVB

05:03 Starting Dear Jane and the pushback that followed

07:05 Back to indie roots and finding a singing voice

09:36 Falling over on stage twice, mid solo

13:28 Playing to an audience of seven

19:42 Losing a founding member and rebuilding the sound

25:23 How to take the leap without a guarantee

30:56 The night the whole room sang it back

33:50 The cover that exploded on YouTube and brought the audience back

39:24 Why waiting for one hundred percent certainty keeps you stuck

41:17 Learning to direct and being a beginner again

45:39 What to do if you are standing at a crossroads right now

47:31 Fan questions and where Dear Jane is touring next

Onwards: Bonus content, Show & Tell and scenes that didn't make it into the full episode.

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