Entrepreneur, Educator, Executive
How Career Transitions Shaped Lynda T. Correa’s Story
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Explain your relationship with career transitions. Have you had more than one?
All I’ve ever known are transitions. We Millennials have Pluto in Scorpio, so we are used to this endless cycle of death and rebirth. I went to school for communication and got my first job as an assistant store manager for a $65M Target store, even though I never worked retail. Next, I jumped ship to be an Operations Manager for a startup, a bilingual public charter school, even though I never worked in education. Then I went to business school to learn marketing, so I could go back to retail, and ended up starting a travel makeup business instead. After the pandemic slowed down my entrepreneurial ambition, I have been at a nonprofit based in New York that supports entrepreneurs.
In between these steps, I’ve started a second business to help people with their personal brand narrative and written a fiction novel (now contemplating a second). After going through these various cycles of death and rebirth, I have learned that nothing is forever, and that has somehow brought me peace. I know I’m going to come out of any transition better than how I entered it.
How do you know when it is time to make a change, and what does the first step typically look like?
The minute you start looking for something else, it means you’re bored and/or burned out and looking for a way out. I remember, during my journey with Pocket Palette (my travel makeup business), I applied to a somewhat prestigious writing program and was accepted to be mentored by a Pulitzer Prize winner / MacArthur Genius. I committed to the program and was just on the brink of uprooting the entire system I worked so hard to build when circumstances beyond our control gave me an out. I ended up dropping from the program and left with the validation that I could do writing if I wanted to.
Now, when I start to get that itch to learn a new thing and completely change myself, I usually take a 4-day weekend to just sleep it off, and that usually does the trick. If the itch to learn is still there, then I take an inventory of my skills toolbox: What skill do I have that might be useful to have someone give a stamp of approval? For example, I’ve done fundraising before, but I’m taking a look at short online programs that will give me official “proof” that I can do it. If it's a skill I don’t have, but think will be useful to me in the future, I seek out opportunities to try it out. For example, I wanted to see if event planning was something I could pursue, so I planned a small event at work and determined I hated it, which was good to know - now I don’t have to try to develop that skill.
Did you choose each pivot, or were you reacting to circumstances outside your control?
For the most part, I chose each pivot. I would say the pandemic helped end my journey with Pocket Palette, but I was already starting to feel the need to change things up.
Which transition felt the hardest, and why?
Honestly, each one felt like the end of the world as I knew it. And that’s because it’s true. Life could never go back to how it was once I made that transition, and that’s because I was never going to be the same person again. Now that I’ve gone through that several times, I can recognize it, honor it, and know that the world is, in fact, not going to end.
What was the biggest mindset shift you had to make when moving into a new industry or role?
It was an identity shift each time until the last time. In my early 20s, I was all about whatever my work did. This was pre-pandemic, peak “girl boss” culture. I was Lynda, the leader at Target. I was involved in the community with my red shirt on, I even spoke at city hall (ironically, about personal branding) on behalf of Target. My Twitter handle had my title in it. Switching to working at a school in Washington, DC, my identity changed again. I was a nonprofit Barbie. I was at the events and was on the board of the Young Nonprofit Professionals chapter.
I went to networking events and happy hours, presenting that identity first. Switching to student mode as a full-time MBA was easy and was a perfect transition to becoming a full-time entrepreneur. These transitions laid the foundation for my second business in personal branding. I switched so many times that I knew the process for how to do it easily. Wash, rinse, and repeat.
The thing I teach my clients is that once you have a new story to tell people, they sort of forget the identities you led with before that. Heck, even I forgot some of the roles I played. Now I’m in nonprofit leadership again, but my identity is primarily as a storyteller and entrepreneur. How I perform those identities changes with each new role I play.
How did doing your own thing change your relationship with work or risk?
It honestly wasn’t entrepreneurship that changed my relationship with risk. I was betting on myself, and I knew I was always going to have my own back, so in that case, it was a safe bet. What really changed my mindset about what’s an emergency or not, what’s worth stressing over or not, was working for an elementary school. I rode in an ambulance (twice) to take kids to the hospital after they had an emergency. Ever since that experience, and sometimes to the chagrin of my managers, nothing is a real emergency to me anymore. The board of directors requested a last-minute change, and now the document is full of typos? Oh well. No one had to ride in an ambulance because of it. We’ll be fine.
What does “relaunching” a career mean to you now, and how does it feel different than a younger career shift?
Astrology has helped me get over some of this. Again, Millennials are the Pluto in Scorpio generation; we know that this is part of our karma. I have other Scorpio placements, so leaning into it and understanding it has helped me think of things less seriously. That’s the benefit of wisdom: you’ve done this before, so you know you can do it again.
What does success look like for you in your current chapter, and how is it different from before?
In my early twenties, I needed the validation of titles and formal programs. There was a moment when I was in my second transition, when my colleagues that I started with at Target were now working at district levels. Friends from school were directors and had these fancy titles, and for a moment, I was envious. If only I had stayed in one career, I could have had those titles.
But now, in my mid-thirties, titles and external validation don't matter as much to me as much as the actual work and lifestyle that comes with it. I have written a book and am now querying for an agent, and I skipped the mentorship (though having a Pulitzer prize winner lend a quote for the cover would have been nice!). I have learned to do the things that I want to do. And if I’m happy with that, I consider it a success.
If you could go back to your pre-transition self, what would you say?
I’d go even further back and tell my high school senior self, who didn’t get accepted to her top schools, that deciding to start at a community college to try again for my dream school was the correct decision. Every single thing has worked out and made sense, even if I didn’t find out until 17 years later why a particular thing had to happen. As I think about my current self who is going through transitions again, it’s a comfort to know that I eventually understand the lessons I had to learn. Until then, I’m happy to collect stories for my eventual memoir.
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