Quotes from Herminia Ibarra

Becoming our own person, breaking free from our "ought selves"—the identity molded by important people in our lives—is at the heart of the transition process.7 So is ridding ourselves of an unhealthy overidentification with the organizations that employ us, a harder-to-recognize but equally problematic self-definition.

This is not to say that "what we do" is tantamount to "who we are," but for most of us, work is an important source of personal meaning and social definition. Work activities and relationships are tightly woven into the fabric of our lives. In fact, work often provides the defining framework within which we set priorities and make decisions about other important facets of our lives. It is no wonder we feel so lost when that framework is in question.

Potential employers or coworkers come to know (and therefore, trust) us when they know our story and can accept it as legitimate. Sometimes it takes many rehearsals before it comes out just right. What happens in the retelling is not just a more polished story; we finally settle on a narrative that can inform the next step.

Insight is an outcome, not an input.

We learn by doing, and each new experience is part answer and part question.

all face two basic and interrelated questions: What to? How to?

Self-creation is a lifelong journey. Only by our actions do we learn who we want to become, how best to travel, and what else will need to change to ease the way.

Rarely does "becoming an ex" happen as a result of one sudden decision. Instead, it happens over a period of time, one that often begins before we are fully aware of what is happening.

It takes, on average, three years from the time a person decides to leave the company until the day he or she walks out the door. Those are not good or productive years.

oscillating among the different possibilities allows us time to come to new and different ways of integrating who we were then with who we are now and who we are becoming. When this self-exploration and self-testing ends prematurely—either because we are not able to tolerate the contradictions or because we are unable to assimilate new information about ourselves—we risk either letting go of the past too rapidly or holding on to it too rigidly.

McKenna uses this story of a drowning woman to illustrate how stubbornly we can hold ourselves back.

Time-out periods—sometimes as short as Jane's ten-hour drive, other times as long as Brenda's multiyear moratorium—help people make changes by providing a space for reflective observation.18 Stepping back makes room for insights we have been incubating but cannot yet articulate. It helps us see the coexistence—and incompatibility—of old and new.

that none of their existing contacts could help them reinvent themselves. That the networks we rely on in a stable job are rarely the ones that lead us to something new and different.

the fastest way to get to people we don't already know is through contacts as far away as possible from our daily routine.