Is It Too Late to Change? How to Build a Career You Actually Love

 Episode Summary 

In this inspiring episode of Better Than This, host Meghan French Dunbar explores what it really takes to build a career you love — one that sparks joy, brings meaning, and honors your quality of life.

You’ll hear the personal story of Allison Bailey Vercruysse, founder of 18 Rabbits Granola, as she shares how she left a prestigious banking career to follow her passion for food. Meghan also shares insights from Jane Wurwand (co-founder of Dermalogica) and Gayle Jennings-O’Byrne (founder of WOCStar Capital) on finding purpose and aligning your work with what matters most.

Meghan unpacks the three essential practices for creating a fulfilling, joyful career:

1. Follow what lights you up
2. Connect to a deeper purpose
3. Prioritize quality of life over external validation

Whether you’re feeling stuck in a “should” career, craving more meaning at work, or seeking practical ways to thrive without sacrificing your well-being, this episode offers mindset shifts and actionable steps to help you recalibrate.

Listen on Apple, Spotify,  and other major streaming platforms

Key Takeaways:

• Why passion, purpose, and quality of life are the true pillars of career satisfaction

• How societal pressure, fear of change, and linear career paths keep us stuck

• Jane Wurwand’s 4-question framework to find your purpose sweet spot

• Gayle Jennings-O’Byrne’s powerful story of pivoting to purpose after corporate success

• How to turn the dial up on meaning and joy without quitting your job tomorrow

• Questions to ask yourself to rethink your next career move

Featured Guests:

• Allison Bailey Vercruysse, Founder, 18 Rabbits Granola

• Jane Wurwand, Co-founder, Dermalogica Skincare

• Gayle Jennings-O’Byrne, Founder, WOCStar Capital

Topics Covered:

• Building a meaningful career

• How to find your passion at work

• Career change inspiration

• Overcoming fear of change in your career

• Purpose-driven work

• How to prioritize quality of life

• Redefining success in your career

• Work-life balance and mental well-being

• Authentic career development

• Thriving without burnout

Resources + Mentions:

• Jane Wurwand’s 4-part framework on passion, talent, demand, and pay

• Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program: the 5 pillars of flourishing

• WOCStar Capital and the movement to fund women of color entrepreneurs

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Connect with Meghan on LinkedIn @meghanfrenchdunbar or subscribe to her newsletter at meghanfrenchdunbar.com for more inspiration on thriving at work and in life.

Full episode transcript

Meghan French Dunbar 
Hello, wonderful human. Welcome to Better Than This. Today we’re going to talk about one of my very favorite topics: building a career that you actually love. Is it possible to do work that you absolutely enjoy, that brings you to life, that sparks that fire inside of you, get paid well, and actually enjoy your life? Yes, I propose that it is. I’ve seen people do it.

I’ve built a career myself that I would say follows along these lines, and there are practices that I actually think can help anyone along their journey — build a career that you love.

So, we’re going to start today with a story — not my own, for once. This is from Allison Bailey Vercruysse. She is the founder and former CEO of 18 Rabbits Granola, and she’s a creator and wonderful human. This is her story of her career unfolding.

Alison Bailey Vercruysse  (01:55)
At seven years old, I would go in my closet, sit down with huge butcher paper, and design dresses — life-size dresses. From a very young age, I wanted to be a fashion designer. As a teenager, I looked at all these fashion magazines, and my grandmother — my dad’s mom — would say, “You’re never going to make any money doing that. Why even bother? Why are you looking at those? You’re wasting your time.”

After being told that year after year, you kind of think, “OK, I guess that’s not worth anything.” And so, I dismissed it.

Then food — I was really passionate about that. From a very early age, I went into the kitchen and helped my mom. I don’t know if it’s a product of the decade I grew up in or whatever, but I never saw that as becoming a career.

When it came to college, I wanted to do philosophy or art history. Well, that was completely squashed because I had to do business. I was told by my father, “You must study business, and you must go to school in Texas, at least the first year.”

Meghan (03:06)
Like, “I won’t pay for your school if you don’t”?

Alison (03:10)
Yeah.

Yes. I ended up going to school and majoring in business. I went to TCU and SMU.

I swore I wouldn’t go into banking, but I ended up going into banking. I worked at a bank holding company, and I was in mergers and acquisitions. From there, I went to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

That was a great experience, and it lasted five years. Then I decided, you know what? I’m way too creative for this atmosphere. I don’t know who I am or what I’m meant to be doing here, but it’s not this. Even though it’s a good career, I think that’s also when I separated from my dad’s idea of success and embraced my own.

I no longer thought it was about money — it was about fulfillment and what drove me. I realized if I stayed in the banking atmosphere, I would die. I would get sick, get bored with life. I couldn’t exist like that.

That’s just how my soul is. There’s just more I’m meant to do in life. And one day, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I went home to my husband and said, “This is just not working. This is not my passion. It’s not what I’m meant to do.”

And he said, “Well, then let’s go pack up your stuff and give them your notice.” So, I did.

I used my degrees to be a consultant and make a decent salary working 20 hours a week. I started yoga, went to the beach, learned how to meditate, and painted. I also met some designers who wanted me to do paintings for them for interior design.

I took a food writing class with UC Berkeley Extension, and I couldn’t stop talking about food. I was so obsessed with food. I was like, wow, I finally found this internal fire within myself.

I was really passionate about it. So, I turned to the instructor and said, “Hey, what do you recommend?” And she said, “Go get an apprenticeship.”

I went to Citizen Cake — Elizabeth Faulkner’s place on Grove Street — and begged for an internship. At first, they were like, “We see people like you all the time. What can you do that no one else can? Why should we pick you?” And I was just like, “Give me a shot.”

Somehow, I begged my way in there. They threw everything at me. I had to crack like 500 eggs and separate them into yolks and whites. I had to juice a bunch of oranges. I was doing all this with a huge smile on my face.

I was so happy being there that they were like, “Oh my gosh, she’s not going away.” They taught me pastries, granola, bread — everything. I did that for six months. Then I asked Elizabeth Faulkner, “What do you recommend?” She said, “Why don’t you work at a catering company?” She recommended Taste Catering.

I went over there and learned from people with 10 to 12 years of pastry experience, but I was on the same team as they were. No one knew anything about my background or where I came from. I literally came in cold. That’s where I got the kind of commercial experience to do more production — like 200 cakes in a couple of hours. Then I said, “OK, it’s time for me to start my own business.”

Meghan (07:00)
What are the very best things that came out of your 18 Rabbits journey?

Alison (07:05)
One that we’ve been talking about right now is really to honor what I’m here to do — to know that knowing what I am here to do is a huge gift in and of itself. Every day, I feel like I have a way to express that, to express my gift, and be in that joy.

Meghan French Dunbar (07:25)
So maybe, like Allison, you’ve found yourself in one of these kinds of “should” careers. Stable, what you’ve been told you’re supposed to do, a practical career, pays well enough — and you know, we’re not supposed to love our work, right? That’s the story we’ve been told.

Maybe it’s parental pressure, financial pressure, societal pressure, whatever it might be. You’ve found yourself in a role that you’re not particularly happy in. Either it doesn’t really light you up, or it’s actively making you miserable.

What I’ve seen from many people I know and have spoken to is that a lot of people get stuck. You’ve climbed the ladder and put in all this time and energy building a career you don’t really love. But the idea of changing it is — you know, it’s probably, you know, it’s too late at this point.

There are a lot of excuses we give ourselves about why we can’t leave the role we’re in, or the career, or even the industry, and start over again. That’s something about Allison’s story that just blew me away.

She had made it, I mean, at a young age, to the upper echelons of the banking community. She had this prestigious career, doing incredibly fancy work — and she just walked away from it all and started from scratch. And yes, this is 100% an extreme example of what it takes to build a career you love.

But I started with this story for a reason because I think Allison’s story illustrates a lot of the societal narrative that keeps us trapped in things we don’t love.

One is judgment. She had all this parental expectation from her father and was concerned that if she left her role, she would disappoint him or let him down. She was worried about what her boss was going to think — there’s a lot of worry about what other people will think about your career decisions.

Another element is just fear of change. In one of the first interviews I did for the magazine I used to run, way back in 2015, I was talking to Paul Saginaw. He’s one of the co-founders of Zingerman’s Deli and the Zingerman’s franchise in Michigan. He said a quote I’ll never forget: “When it comes to change, people either hate change, or they really fucking hate change.”

That has stuck with me throughout my career because it’s true — whether it’s trying to incorporate some kind of change in the workplace, like a workplace policy, people are often resistant — all the way to leaving your career, jumping off the deep end, and taking a leap to try something new.

It’s really hard to change, especially as we get older.

In addition to being concerned about external judgment and fear of change, there’s also this concept of a linear progression of your career: entry-level, then promoted to associate, mid-level manager, all the way to the top. And you have to stay on that linear path at the same level or above at every step.

This keeps so many people trapped. You make it to VP level, and you don’t like what you’re doing, but to do anything new, you feel like you’d have to start over again “at the bottom.” So, you convince yourself you can’t step off the linear path because you’ve come so far up the ladder.

A lot of these stories and narratives come into play when we’re thinking about changing our work or career to make ourselves happier, and they keep us stuck in roles we don’t like.

When you think about your work, for most of us, it’s where we spend the majority of our waking hours in our adult lives. We spend so much time and energy there. It’s a primary source of stress, and it’s also a primary source of purpose and joy in life. It depends on the type of work you do — it impacts your life in untold ways. It’s one of the most important decisions you’ll ever make.

I will also 100% acknowledge that sometimes there are financial situations where you can’t just up and change your work. Fortunately, the practices we’re going to talk about today — all three of them — you can incorporate into the work you’re already doing.

You don’t have to stand up and quit tomorrow to build something you love. It’s possible to slowly turn the dial up on some of these practices in your current work and see if you can get to a point where it feels good enough.

And you can also follow in Alison’s footsteps and completely change what you’re doing — quit your banking job, explore art and cooking, and find something that absolutely lights you up, building a career around that. There’s a broad spectrum of opportunities you can tap into to actually begin cultivating and nurturing a career and work that you love.

So, to get that started — practice number one is, in fact, following your passion. Following what you love, following that spark, that thing that lights you up. Just following it and seeing what would happen or what the possibilities would be.

When you think about something you really, really love to do, is there any way you could get paid to do it? It’s just a fantastic exercise.

And to lead us through it, we’re actually going to talk to Jane Wurwand. She’s the co-founder of Dermalogica Skincare.

Jane Wurwand (13:35)
For me, it’s a really simple grid, and it’s four questions.

First: What do you love to do? And I mean really love to do — really love to do. And I don’t really care what that is. If you say it’s having sex, OK, well, put it down. We’ll work it in somehow. Maybe on OnlyFans, I don’t know. So, what do you love to do? In other words, what speaks to your soul? What do you really love to do?

You might say it’s petting dogs, or it’s being outdoors, or it’s organizing people’s closets. I don’t care what it is — put it down. Nobody’s going to read this but you.

Secondly: What are you good at? Because those are two different things. If you say, “Well, I really love to organize closets, but I’m actually crap at it,” well, then, that’s work. But write down what you’re good at. And it doesn’t matter if they don’t seem to intersect.

What do you love? What are you good at?

Third: Do people need it? We have to assume that what we’re trying to find is something that will pay the rent. All right, it’s not necessarily going to buy you a Mercedes or whatever, but you have to live on it. Unless you say, “I’m deeply religious, I love being alone, I’ll join a nunnery or monastery,” then you don’t have to worry about being paid. That’s OK — if that’s what you’re meant to do, you’re going to be really lucky.

So: What do you love? What are you good at? Is there a demand for it?

And fourth: Can you get paid for it? Can you earn a living?

Let’s just take this thread: I love the ocean. I’m a really great sailor. Is there a demand for people who sail? Hmm. Well, I suppose if I was fishing, or maybe I run a sail company or a boat company. Can you get paid for it? Well, if I work for someone who’s a fisherman, or maybe if I work on a cruise ship, or whatever.

So, you start down the path. It doesn’t matter how random those four are. Think of these as circles, and what you want is for the four circles to somehow overlap.

If you are good at it and you love it, you may have a great hobby, but it might not be a career. If there’s no demand for it, no one will pay. That intersection means you’ve got a hobby.

If you love it and can get paid for it, that’s great — but is there a demand for it? You might love it, and you can get paid if someone wants it, but maybe nobody actually wants your...Macaron dog biscuits.

So, if you can get paid for it and there’s a demand for it, that’s the sweet spot. If all four intersect in the middle, you’ve found your purpose.

So, what are you good at? What do you love to do? What can you get paid for? Is there a demand for it?

If you can find as many of those that intersect in the middle, it’s a bit like a hunt — but in the middle is your sweet spot, and that’s your purpose.

You’re smart enough, brave enough, bright enough. You’ve got 12 waking hours a day that you’re not eating, having sex, or asleep. Hopefully, you can figure it out. You might have to go somewhere to do it. You might have to travel. You might have to go to a different country.

But if you can do it in any humanly possible way, that’s what you should be pursuing, in my opinion. Otherwise, you end up doing something you’re good at, that you get paid for, that there’s a demand for, but you don’t love it — and now you’ve just got a job.

Meghan French Dunbar (17:46)
You can follow your passion — the things that you love — and attempt to build a career getting paid to do what you love, like Jane talked about. You can also follow your passion and your heart in terms of what it means to take your next best step.

When I talk about this, I mean following your passion instead of your “should.” To help bring this to life, I’ll tell you my story about deciding on graduate school.

I was working at the Environmental Defense Fund, and I had fallen in love with their corporate partnerships program. EDF worked with companies like McDonald’s, KKR, and Walmart to help them become more sustainable. I fell in love with the idea of the marriage of business and sustainability. How can we incentivize businesses to actually act responsibly and be more sustainable?

I wanted to study this in graduate school. I was looking at doing an MBA program, and in my brain — my little high-achiever brain — I was like, “Must attend top 10 MBA program.” So, I’m looking at the Harvards, the Oxfords, the Booths, the Berkeleys — all the things.

At the same time, I’d found this teeny-tiny niche program in San Francisco called Presidio Graduate School. At the time, it was the only MBA program in the country where I could study an entirely holistic, sustainable MBA — an MBA in sustainable management. All of my sustainability heroes had either founded or were teaching at this tiny graduate school. But nobody had ever heard of it, right?

My other option was to try to get into one of the top 10 MBA programs and also do a master’s degree in environmental policy, which was what a lot of sustainability people were doing at the time. This option would mean I’d have to do an additional year to get the extra master’s degree, and I’d have to be making the connections between the environmental studies and my MBA program on my own. They weren’t taught together.

Whereas at Presidio, every single class was taught through the lens of sustainability. They were already providing a curriculum that brought the two together, and it was exactly what I wanted. But my ego was like, “I have to go top 10.” My heart — my passion, what actually lit me up — was Presidio.

And actually, for one of the first times in my life, I listened to my passion — what lit me up, what I actually felt inspired to do. And I went to this teeny-tiny little school, and I loved it. It was fantastic. I got such a great education. I met peers who were total business wonks like me, but who were really inspired and cared about sustainability — and who are now leading sustainability at some of the biggest companies in the world.

It was the best choice I could make for myself and was a great example of me following my passion and what I love, instead of what I felt like I “should do” — the practical, societal choice.

I offer this story and Jane’s approach as ways to help you move through all the societal judgment and concerns you have about what you “should” do — about what your next decision might be in your career. What would your next best step be if you were letting what you love — what lights you up, what inspires you, what you’re passionate about — lead the way, instead of letting external voices dictate your choice?

I feel like as I was growing up, I kind of had this idea that there was an exact right script of how my career was going to unfold. And my career has unfolded in the strangest possible ways I ever could have imagined. It was not linear at all. It was this gorgeous progression of me following what I was passionate about and being brave enough to leave roles when I wasn’t passionate anymore or felt like I was in a toxic workplace.

I would take the next best step based on what I was inspired by, instead of what I “should” do. And every single one of those steps just turned into a steppingstone that got me to someplace I probably never would have imagined in a million years — but it was the right place for me.

When you’re thinking about your next step or a big decision in your own career, what would it look like to follow what inspires you — to follow what lights you up, what you’re passionate about, what you love?

That’s practice number one.

Practice number two is tapping into having a higher purpose or more meaning in your work.

Seventy percent of workers at this point tie their purpose in life to their work. So, if you don’t have much purpose beyond your salary, your title, or revenue goals, it can start to feel really shallow. That’s a lot of the reason why people can be at the highest echelons of their career and still feel like something is missing or like they’re not fulfilled — because they’re not doing something they care about. They don’t feel like they have meaning in their work.

To bring this to life, we’re going to listen to a story from Gayle Jennings-O’Byrne.

Gayle Jennings-O'Byrne (23:00)
I’d had an undergrad professor who might’ve even founded the magazine Mergers and Acquisitions, and I just loved his class and him. After grad school, I went to Wall Street and went into mergers and acquisitions because of that experience I had as an undergrad.

I stayed at J.P. Morgan almost two decades — first as a mergers and acquisitions investment banker, then as an international lobbyist. I was an international lobbyist during the Bush administration, and then I was in J.P. Morgan’s foundation and got to see impact in social enterprises and nonprofits.

So, I’d seen the flow of capital from my early days in Silicon Valley with innovation and tech startups. I’d seen the flow of capital in the bigger scheme of the financial markets on Wall Street. Then I’d seen it from a policy and geopolitical position — monetary and fiscal policy, negotiating trade agreements with other countries. And then I’d seen it from the social impact space.

And in all of these, I didn’t see enough of the allocation or the flow of capital to underrepresented communities — to my sisterhood.

And so, after surviving cancer, or in the midst of trying to and hoping I was going to survive cancer, I made a pact with a higher being that if I got a second chance — if I got off that operating table — I would live a life with more purpose.

I was kind of in that beautiful, no-judgment wheel of corporate success. And yet I had other values and passions, and I wasn’t being intentional about them. So, I made that pact.

Yeah, I got off the operating table. I’ve been cancer-free since. And so, I walked away from a company I loved and a job I was doing to join the front lines with women and underrepresented entrepreneurs.

That was the birth of what is now WOCStar Capital, which stands for Women of Color Stars.

Meghan French Dunbar (25:29)
Of course, in Gayle’s story, it took a pretty significant wake-up call for her to leave this corporate role she had worked so hard to get — a good job. But it wasn’t what brought her a sense of genuine meaning. It wasn’t the purpose she absolutely wanted to pursue with her life.

But she did it. She left. She made a huge change, took a huge leap. Of course, it was a risk. She started her own organization and is now living her purpose every single day.

What we find with people like Gayle, who actually tap into their purpose and meaning, is that research shows when people have a deep and profound sense of purpose, it leads to increased happiness, greater longevity, better sleep, and better mental and physical health. It also decreases stress and improves cognitive function.

Feeling like you have a sense of purpose is a huge benefit to every single element of your life, but it’s also a key component to doing work that you love. It’s one of our three primary intrinsic motivators as humans: feeling like we have a sense of meaning.

Again, you don’t have to quit your job and go start the organization of your dreams — though you could, you definitely could. (Call me if you want to, because I will 100% talk you into it.)

You can also tap into your purpose in your current role. What are the problems and issues you really, really care about? What are ways you could engage with them regularly, maybe even outside your work?

Are there ways to bring your work together with causes and issues you care about? Is there a way to volunteer your time and talent to organizations already working on this? Or, in whatever your expertise is, can you find a purpose-driven company doing fantastic work for the world that you could bring your talent to?

Working for a purpose-driven organization, volunteering, doing tiny little acts on a weekly or monthly basis that bring more purpose into your life and help you engage on problems you really care about — these are ways to tap into more purpose in your career without having to change everything or quit tomorrow.

Practice number three is prioritizing your quality of life over extrinsic validation — like title, status, awards, salary — all the external validation we get that makes us feel successful but doesn’t actually make us truly happy.

When I’m talking about quality of life, I’m talking about Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program. They identified five key elements that lead to human flourishing:

• profound social connections,

• having purpose and meaning (see practice two),

• mental and physical well-being,

• feeling joy and life satisfaction, and

• feeling like you’re aligned with your values and character.

The practices we’ve talked about today — when we talk about having greater purpose, that aligns with one of the key elements of human flourishing. When we talk about doing what we love and our passion, that aligns with having joy and increased life satisfaction. So that’s two out of the five.

When it comes to the other three — physical well-being, deep social connections, and feeling aligned with your character and values — that’s where we talk about quality of life.

So many of us fall into the trap of sacrificing time with the people we love, sacrificing our mental health, sacrificing our physical health, in order to make more money or get the next promotion or take on more responsibility or have the fancy title. We sacrifice the actual things that make us happiest — that actually lead to true human flourishing — in the name of our careers.

Last year, I was talking to a friend of mine. She had just left her role — she had been CEO of a pretty big-name organization. I was talking to her about all the reasons she left, and a lot of them came down to how stressed and overwhelmed she was.

She was like, “I was constantly on the road. I have three young kids, and I felt like I was missing their life. I had so much financial pressure on me from the board. I just felt like I was never enough. I could never turn off my work. I was constantly working at night and on weekends. My mental health was suffering. I was exhausted, overwhelmed. I constantly felt like I was right on the precipice of burnout. I had no time for my physical health. I wasn’t exercising. Everything was about my work.”

At a certain point, she realized she just needed to step away. So, I said, “OK, let’s talk about what’s next. What are you looking for?”

And she said, “Well, I’m looking for a CEO role at a bigger organization.”

And I was like, “Friend, you just told me one of the main reasons you’re leaving is because this role made it so you couldn’t have time with your family and friends. It was deteriorating your mental and physical well-being, and you were miserable. So why do you think you need another CEO role at a bigger organization?”

She said, “Well, that’s the next step. If I don’t take a CEO role, or if I take a CEO role at a smaller organization, people will think I’ve taken a step down.”

And I was like, “No, no, no, no, no. We can’t do this. We can’t do this. What would it look like in this moment if you prioritized your well-being and your quality of life — the things that truly matter to you — over the extrinsic validation of your title, your salary, and the size and scale of the organization you’re running?”

She said, “Well, if I were prioritizing my quality of life, I think I would just try to be a consultant and work for myself.”

And I was like, “I think that’s the answer.”

The title and the status and all the societal garbage that makes us feel like we have to do something bigger and better and more impressive — it doesn’t matter. None of it matters.

What truly matters is doing work you love, having time with the people you love, treating yourself well, and being healthy. When you get to the end of your days, those are the things you will be so happy you prioritized.

When we look at the top five regrets of the dying, they’re things like:
“I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.”
“I wish I’d had the courage to be and do what I actually wanted to do.”
“I wish I’d kept in touch with my friends.”
“I wish I’d had more time with the people I loved.”

You do not have to wait until you’re on your deathbed to make those decisions. You can make them now.

What does it look like to prioritize quality of life and what you actually need to truly flourish — over all the extrinsic validation?

Instead of gunning for that next promotion or title, maybe you’re asking your employer if you can work four days a week, or have shortened workdays so you can get off at 3 p.m. and go be with your kids or your friends or your family.

Maybe your next decision is about what would decrease your stress, instead of what increases your salary.

These are all questions we can ask ourselves. And when you do, it puts things in an entirely new perspective that can change the way you’re making decisions about your career and how you’re choosing to work.

All three of these elements can get out of balance. You can pursue something you absolutely love — that lights you up — but if it has no purpose, and you have zero quality of life because you’re a total workaholic, you sacrifice your well-being and your relationships.

You can also have purpose and meaning and do the exact same thing. I see a lot of social entrepreneurs and people doing deeply meaningful work who completely sacrifice themselves because they care so much about the thing they’re working on.

Or you can do work that has meaning and is good for the world, but that you’re not passionate about. You’re like, “I don’t really enjoy this. This doesn’t light me up anymore. Maybe it once did, but now it doesn’t.”

You can change. Your purpose can change. Your passion can change. The quality-of-life elements — all of those can change.

When you continue to tap into all three and just try to turn the dial up on all three consistently, that’s where the magic happens.

What you choose to do with your work and your career is one of the most consequential decisions you make in your life. So, look at it critically.

Instead of making it just about money, title, awards, and climbing the ladder, what does it look like to optimize for what brings you to life, what inspires you, what you’re passionate about — what brings you purpose and meaning and optimizes your quality of life?

Dialing those three little dials up as much as possible not only helps you build a career you love, but it helps you build an entire life you love.

Hopefully, it means you get to the end of your days feeling like this was a life well-lived — and that you’re thrilled with the choices you made in your career.

I hope that helps. Until next time.