Midlife is a tipping point for many Kiwis but the changes in health and wellbeing are poorly understood. In Part I of the Listener’s two-part series, Paulette Crowley explored what can help the “sandwich generation live long and prosper”. Here, she talks with Dallas and Donna Gurney about myth-busting the midlife crisis narrative and what they’ve gained from making a change.
At the Whananaki General Store in Northland, Dallas and Donna Gurney are living a different life from the one they might have imagined. When the short-lived Today FM closed in March last year, Dallas, 46, was ripe for a big change. The former manager of Newstalk ZB was on “gardening leave” when bosses moved to close the station he was in charge of creating.
He was tired of watching the media ‒ a sector he’d worked in since he was a young journalist in Northland ‒ burn to the ground. “Everything we took for granted has changed. You never knew how long the place you were working at was going to be there.”
Donna, 47, agrees the industry is a “shadow of what it was”. Also a media veteran who’d worked in top sales and marketing roles, she was weary from dodging ever-looming budget and staff cuts.
“It was almost like we were just on this treadmill waiting for our careers to finish, you know, and hoping we’d get there so we could have a great few years at the end of our life.”
A major health scare ‒ a heart attack for Dallas – spurred the couple to act on a long-held dream.
Owning the Whananaki General Store, the local shop when Dallas was growing up, was a pipe dream the couple often toyed with, “depending how unhappy we were with our careers at any given time”. When they heard just over a year ago that the 140-year-old store was on the market, they decided to buy it.
They’re now firmly embedded in the beachside community on Northland’s east coast. They’ve survived the “absolutely nuts” six-week peak summer season when holidaymakers push the area’s population from 500 to 5000. They’ve also completed a major shop renovation and bought a house.
Culture shock wasn’t an issue for Dallas, but Donna says she misses friends and, sometimes, slices of city life such as restaurants and fashion. That’s solved by regular trips to Auckland, and she doesn’t really miss the big-city lifestyle.
“When you’re living somewhere like Whananaki, no one gives a shit if you’ve got a Louis Vuitton handbag. In fact, they might laugh at you and just assume it was fake,” she says.
“People judge you based on whether you’re a good person in the community. So, for me, it’s been a really good calibration of what’s important.”
Outside of the busy holidays and weekends, Whananaki’s pace of life is much slower. There’s walking and kayaking and more time for family – including Dallas’s 95-year-old grandad, whom they lived with for six months when they first moved to Whananaki.
The pair aim to travel to Europe once a year and Donna has just begun a photography course. Dallas has joined the local volunteer fire brigade, fulfilling a childhood dream.
Buying the store wasn’t just buying a business, they say. The shop has quite the history – it almost burnt down twice – and is an important part of the community as it’s the only business in town. For many locals, working at the shop as teenagers has been a rite of passage.
“It’s not just our shop, it’s the community’s shop,” Dallas says. “They show so much appreciation and pride in it, and they’re really protective of it.”
Jobs for life
If you can’t throw it all in and head for the country, there are other steps to make your work life better.
Sometimes, when people are feeling overwhelmed or burnt out at work, it is due to a lack of boundaries, says Lara Haines, Auckland-based leadership and executive coach.
“There is a lot that we take on because nobody else will or because we just aren’t very good at saying no. Take stock of what you are really there to do. Anything else that comes up that isn’t urgent, or your job, practise saying ‘no’, or ‘I can look at this next week – shall we set up some time?’”
You’ll find this hard, or even feel guilty, if you are a “people pleaser”, she says, but keep doing it until you get comfortable with it.
“You will be surprised how many issues get resolved before any meetings the following week.”
She also says to never work weekends or stay late. It’s a bad habit that is hard to break and it’s not necessarily rewarded.
If you’re think about asking to reduce your hours, make sure you have boundaries in place first. “I have seen a number of people try to cram a 40-hour week into 32 hours and it’s not sustainable. For some, the better option is to have some dedicated work-from-home time. Always disconnect when you are off duty. Don’t check work emails and messages in the evenings.
“If you want to look at changing careers, look at working with a coach to help identify what it is you want to do and to work out a transition plan.”
“De-age your CV – highlight projects from only the past 10 years; take the dates off qualifications and education.”
Leadership coach Suzie Marsden, who co-founded her own business, Amp’d Careers, at 50, says most people don’t spend a lot of time planning their work lives. “We plan our holidays but not our careers.”
She recalls a 47-year-old woman she worked with breaking down in tears because she felt so relieved that she finally had a plan for the next 10-15 years of her career and was in the “driving seat” at last.
Again, she suggests taking stock: “If you think back over the last 10 years of your working life, what have you absolutely loved? Which bits of the job have you loved and why? Which bits have you really not enjoyed and why?”
And if you get offered career counselling when you’ve lost a job, take it. “If you’re not offered it, ask for it. You’d be surprised by the amount of people who don’t use this, because they don’t understand it.”
If you don’t have access to career counselling, use AI, she suggests. “AI tools are genius. Tell AI, I am really good at this, I have these transferable skills. What are the types of jobs I could be doing to take advantage of that? With some well-chosen questions and a bit of trial and error, you probably could come up with some fantastic ideas.
“De-age your CV – highlight projects from only the past 10 years; take the dates off qualifications and education.”
She says a lot of middle-aged people come to her after losing corporate jobs.
“We are in a recession and what we are seeing are organisations letting people go. We are seeing a real nervousness amongst middle-aged people. They’re right to be worried. They have a belief that they won’t be employable because they are older, which is a horrible thing, but there is unfortunately ageism through conscious or unconscious bias.”
