The midpoint of your career and life don’t need to be full of malaise. In fact, you can find yourself reinvigorated and get unstuck through a framework that Adrion Porter developed called, the Malaise to Mastery Roadmap. Adrion joined “The Cred Podcast” host to discuss his decision-making framework and how he inspires individuals and companies to eliminate feelings of stagnation and stress through three key pillars of transformation—mindset, meaning, and milestones.
Adrion, Founder & CEO of Mid-Career Mastery and Podcast Host of Gen X Amplified , shared how he applies this framework to his own professional and personal life as he transitioned out of the corporate world and found purpose-driven work in his own businesses.
Read the podcast recap below to get tactical ways that you can implement this roadmap to get out of a rut and into a groove so you can achieve your most fulfilling aspirations.
The Pinnacle Moment that Changed Adrion’s Career
After graduating business school at Vanderbilt in 1999, Adrion headed to New York and got a job at City Group as a digital marketer right during the Internet bubble. From there, Adrion went to HBO as a marketing director from 2003-2008. This was at a time where HBO dominated Sunday night, as popular shows like “Sex and the City,” “The Sopranos,” and “Six Feet Under” captivated viewers. During this period of career advancement for Adrion, he found himself facing an important life decision as he and his spouse prepared to have their first child. They ultimately decided to relocate from New York to Atlanta to be closer to family.
Joining the Cartoon Network in Atlanta as a senior marketing director, Adrion faced another significant transition that changed the trajectory of his career after a handful of years.
“I had just turned 40 and then was laid off. I was trying to figure out my next move, and that’s when I started to focus on more purpose-driven work,” Adrion.
After pursuing some consulting work, Adrion took a role as a CMO at a startup and noticed a common trend among his peers of similar age. They seemed to be going through, what Adrion described as, a period of malaise in terms of their career.
“I noticed this a lot with Gen X; we were feeling stagnant, stressed, and stuck,” he said. “We’re the generation that is squeezed in the middle of Brilliant Boomers and the Magnificat Millennials, so I started a podcast to amplify Gen Z as the overlooked but powerful generation.”
As the host of Gen X Amplified, Adrion has interviewed Gen Xers from all walks of life—business leaders, well-known entrepreneurs, New York Times best-selling authors, and often, people without name recognition who have insightful stories to share. Based on these conversations, Adrion wanted to do more to help people who are stuck in the middle, whether that’s their career, life, or any transition that may be holding them back from reaching their full potential. He started his consultancy, Mid-Career Mastery, to help people who are in the middle maximize their impact.”
The 3 Pillars of Transformation
As part of Mid-Career Mastery, Adrion developed his own decision-making framework, which he refers to as the Malaise to Mastery Map. This framework codifies what Adrion refers to as the three pillars of transformation—mindset, meaning, and milestones—to empower individuals to get unstuck and start thriving.
The first pillar, mindset, involves a reframing and reimagining that allows someone to go from feeling stagnant to feeling rejuvenated. That process entails moving from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset, which is more important than ever as lifespans and careers keep getting longer.
“It’s about reframing the thought that your best times and years are behind you,” Adrion said, noting that people are enjoying their work well beyond their 60s.
The second pillar–meaning—entails discovery about what you find purposeful. Once you determine what lights you up and what you value, you can more intelligently align that purpose with your aspirations.
For the third pillar, milestones, Adrion noted that it is all about “creating and celebrating what I call motivational markers of momentum.” When you reach that midpoint of your career or life, those important milestones aren’t as clear as when you were younger and were graduating school, getting that first job, etc.
“It may feel like you’re in one, long run-on sentence,” he explained. “We need to get out of the traffic jam that we call life and you can do that by creating these micro milestones, whether that’s running a marathon, writing a book, or anything in between.”
Applying This Framework to the Real World
Adrion applies this Malaise to Mastery Map to his everyday life, starting his day with a mindset meeting where he evaluates what is gonna to be purposeful for him that day or week, and what milestones he needs to achieve. From there, he writes down three actionable goals that act as his guide for where he allocates his time and energy each day.
“I am using this in my own personal and professional life, and I created this multidimensional approach that aligns with science so companies and individuals can transform out of an inflection point,” he said.
When working with organizations using this framework, Adrion noted that he often gets to work with age diverse teams, something that he is particularly passionate about. Oftens, teams are stagnant due to ineffective working relationships between team members from different generations. While varying ages present an opportunity for innovation and stronger ideas, many teams get caught up in the friction. What Adrion does is reframes their mind to see this friction as an opportunity.
“If your organization is trying to amplify a new AI tool, look at how you can leverage the talents of someone younger who may be more adept in this technology,” he says. “As a senior leader, facilitate trainings to foster a culture of mentorship within your team.”
Individuals can apply this same mindset shift to other areas of their life, like getting out of a rut in a marriage by remembering the true meaning of your union and why you got married in the first place.
“There are no limits to this method,” said Adrion. “From small changes to large changes like acquiring a new business or starting a company, I wanted to create this flexible model that can be applied to any transformation point.”
The Curve of Happiness: Turn that ‘U’ into an Upward Arrow
When conducting research to develop the Malaise to Mastery Map, Adrion found numerous studies by labor economists analyzing the correlation between work satisfaction and age. The studies found there actually forms a “U” shape where your happiness starts high early in your career, dips to its lowest point in your mid-forties, and then goes back up again in your late 50s and early 60s.
“When I noticed this curve of happiness that was validated by multiple studies, it let me know first and foremost that I was not alone in this mid-career malaise. It’s perfectly normal,” Adrion said.
For many people, they don’t question that feeling of stagnation. They accept that it is what it is, and wait it out until their joy starts to return in a few years. However, that doesn’t need to be the case.
“When we’re at this middle season of our lives, we tend to rethink a lot of the decisions we make,” he said. “But, hopefully with this framework, we can be inspired by life stories, motivations, and practices and transform out of those limiting beliefs.”
Listen to Adrion’s full episode here.
