Building a Career for a 100-Year Life

We plan our careers like life is short. Go to school, climb the career ladder, retire. But as we live longer, the model doesn’t hold up. 

London Business School professor Lynda Gratton joins Jessi to offer a model for the arc of a long career. After selling a million copies of The 100-Year Life, which makes the economic case for longer lives, Lynda found readers were hungry for an actionable plan. Her new book, Living the 100-Year Life, is the answer.

In this episode, Jessi and Lynda discuss:

Why the career ladder is disappearing, and what to replace it with

The weave vs. the ladder: how thinking of your life as something you’re actively crafting changes everything

The eight threads that hold a long life together: four for staying productive, four for nurturing yourself

Why your employer is not your parent, and what it means to move to an adult-to-adult relationship with work

The three questions to ask yourself during any transition: who am I, where am I now and what promises can I make to my future self?

Why understanding your heritage is one of the most useful things you can do for your career

How a seven-minute conversation can begin to strengthen the thread of friendship

What’s worth mastering in an age of AI, and why finding an adjacency is almost always smarter than starting over

Why identity is the hardest part of reinvention, and how to explore your possible selves without losing yourself