CHEATING ON YOUR CAREER: How affairs + work = an NPD in insurance

I’m about to propose something audacious. Imagine if we linked the ideas and behaviours of relationship infidelity to our careers and launched an NPD in insurance to support it?

Now some of you may feel that you cannot see what I’m saying. But I ask you to hear me out and perhaps, just perhaps, it can make sense to you.

We know that the average life expectancy is increasing. And with the Baby Boomers clocking off in the next decade, by the time I finish working, the retirement age will probably be 75. Which means if I started working in my early 20s, I’ll end up having a career that spans over 50 YEARS!  As a marriage, that would be a golden anniversary!

And do I really want to spend those 5 decades doing 1 thing - a career in 1 industry, or 1 function, or even 1 role? Maybe I do, but given the way the world is heading, the way we as people are starting to live our lives, there’s a fair few of us who are probably going to want to a different path somewhere down the career track.

I recently watched a fascinating TED talk called “Rethinking Infidelity… a talk for anyone who has ever loved” by Esther Perel. This feisty female with a French accent discusses the psychology behind an affair. And it made me wonder whether some of this internal processing might not be applied to other areas of life?

Ms Perel proposes candidly: “Monogamy used to be one person for life. Today monogamy is one person at a time,” and she suggests that in the Western world most of us are going to have 2 or 3 relationships or marriages in a lifetime. And this isn’t too far off the trends we see in work. Gone are the days of a job for life. Now, most people are doing well to be in a job for more than 2 years! And now it’s not 2 or 3 different jobs we might have over our career… it’s 2 or 3 different careers we might have over the course of our working life.

We are more promiscuous than ever when it comes to our profession. Yet the trend that I’m seeing is that often the trigger for a career change is redundancy. As the corporate world becomes more competitive, and companies streamline/cost cut/downsize, people are let go. And often THIS is the moment when they ask themselves, as Ms Perel so elegantly puts it: “Is this it? Is there more? Am I going on for another 25 years like this?”

Redundancy shakes up an employee’s world and identity not too dissimilarity to the way an affair shakes up a marriage - often detrimentally and devastatingly damaging.

Ms Perel discusses the internal processing of the victim of the affair: “It is often traumatic because it threatens [their] sense of self… A violation of trust. A crisis of identity.” A friend 15 years older than me got made redundant from her job in marketing in a major multinational FMCG. And the feelings of rejection, low self-worth, and fear sadly set in:

1. What more could I have done?
2. What’s wrong with me?
3. Why aren’t I valued?
4. How could they do this to me?
5. Why aren’t I good enough?

And I suggested to her that if there’s anything she’s ever wanted to tackle, anything she was passionate about outside FMCG or marketing, now would be the perfect time to pursue it! Her response: “I’m 40, I’m too old to change.” From my perspective - her career is only halfway through. If it’s floating her boat now - perfect! She can set sail on a straight course to another marketing role in FMCG.



But of course there are those who do use redundancy as a time to reflect, reboot and reset their course to steer their career into a brand new ocean of opportunity, leaving the seas of their former working life in their wake.

What drives this career change desire? Again, Ms Perel gives us some answers:

“ We live in an era where we feel that we are entitled to pursue our desires. Because this is the culture where I deserve to be happy… At the heart of an affair you often find a longing and a yearning… a wish to recapture lost parts of ourselves… we are looking for another self.”

In essence, we are looking for our passion, our authentic purpose, that maybe got buried when we, as teenagers, flipped through the uni course guide picking our degrees, resulting in a career that left us confused as to why we were always searching for more, until redundancy shook us out of our stupor.

 “Now that the affair is exposed, they too get to claim more and do not have to uphold the status quo that may not have been working for them.” 

Ms Perel doesn’t necessarily recommend affairs, but acknowledges how the hurt and betrayal yields new possible perspectives of growth and self-discovery.



A friend of mine was an accountant in a government department. She was made redundant earlier this year and decided to career change into interior design, honing in on her creative side and her desire to do something that meant more to her. From spreadsheets to soft furnishings - quite a jump. How is she doing it? She’s hedging her bets, working full time in a new role in accounting and studying interior design part time. In the meantime, she’s not able to really attack her chosen path, to get out there and get direct experience in the industry to which she wants to transition.

However, another friend got made redundant from a major telco. He found the career change he wanted and threw himself full force into his chosen path to start his own coaching and mentoring business, leaving his corporate career to waft away quietly into his past.

So the choices seem to be:

Continue your job full time and re-skill in spare hours - Commit 100% job : <25% career change = minimise risk
Continue your job part time, take a dip in pay while you re-skill - Commit 50% job : 50% career change =  balance risk
Quit your job completely and launch yourself wholeheartedly into a new career - Commit 0% job : 100%+ career change = maximise risk
If you get out what you put in, wouldn’t you want to put in 100%+ when you’ve decided to start a new career? But it’s here that the risks are highest.



So now to this new product development idea in insurance. Imagine if we helped people cheat on their careers? Let’s open our mind to a new approach. Whilst there are some people who don’t require a redundancy to realise their passion and jump ship to their chosen profession, these people often carry the burden of having to self-finance their self-discovery of new professional purpose. At least with redundancy there’s some sort of payout that helps to fund future plans!

Now imagine if we didn’t have to go through the trauma of being shaken up by redundancy OR the struggles of self-financing our career change.

What if we paid a little money each month, and if at some point in our careers we decided we wanted a change, we could claim against insurance that gave us enough to live on whilst we re-skilled?

It might even cover any education costs we might incur. Rather than a rainy day fund, it would be a sunny day fund - to be drawn on if that light inside of us switches on and shines like a beacon to a new calling. And we wouldn’t have to wait for the crisis.  It would be insurance based on inspiration and motivation, rather than risk and loss. A product with the purpose to pursue, not protect. To revive, not recoup. To encourage, not entitle. It would be insurance that’s sold on hope rather than fear.

Now isn’t that something audacious?

Written by

Lata Hamilton