329: Mid-Career in 2026: How to Rebuild Stability, Visibility, and Confidence

The ground shifted for mid-career professionals in 2025, and many are still feeling the impact. Rolling layoffs became routine, job titles lost their signaling power, and working harder no longer translated into advancement. For professionals in the middle of their careers, the old rules stopped working, often without warning.

In this episode, John Neral unpacks what actually changed in the job market and leadership landscape and outlines a clear, practical plan to help you reclaim control, confidence, and direction in 2026. If you have felt exhausted by a job search, sidelined by shifting responsibilities, or unsettled by the rise of AI, this conversation will help you move forward with clarity and intention.

John begins by examining why organizational stability is no longer a reliable promise and why mid-career professionals must build stability as a personal system. You will learn how results-led resumes, a focused LinkedIn presence, intentional networking, and a personal board of directors create leverage in an uncertain market.

From there, you will hear how to translate responsibilities into outcomes, make your thinking visible, and use leadership communication to earn meaningful opportunities instead of additional tasks. A simple value narrative framework is introduced to help you clearly articulate who you help, the problems you solve, and the outcomes you deliver so decision makers can quickly see your fit.

John also addresses AI and its growing influence on careers. While AI can support research, drafts, and exploration, your real advantage remains human judgment, decision making, strategy, ethics, and relationships. 

Key Topics Covered

• Why layoffs became ongoing business activity instead of one-time resets
• Why job titles carry less meaning and scope has become blurred
• The role of visibility and communication in career advancement
• How clarity replaces hustle in a draining job search market
• Results-first storytelling and practical value narratives
• Where AI adds leverage and where human judgment still wins
• Identity work to redefine leadership, impact, and confidence
• Showing up as a proactive strategy instead of grind

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stage For 2026
• 2:01 Holiday Reflection And Support
• 5:10 The Wake-Up Call Story
• 9:30 2025 Layoffs And Stability Redefined
• 14:30 Job Titles Lose Power
• 19:00 From Execution To Visibility
• 23:05 The Emotional Toll Of Job Search
• 27:40 Clarity Over Hustle
• 31:05 Career Stuck vs Career Change

Transcript

John Neral: 0:00

If 2025 felt unsettling in your career, you are not imagining it. You lived it. For many mid-career professionals, this year did not come with one big breaking moment. It came with a slow erosion of certainty. Layoffs that never really stopped, job titles that stopped meaning what they used to. And being good at your job and still feeling overlooked, stuck, or unsure led you to consider what actually might be next. And here's the part no one is saying out loud. What used to work in your career is no longer working the same way. It's not because you did something wrong, it's because the rules have changed. In today's episode, we're going to take a look back at 2025, and I will help you make sense of what actually happened. And more importantly, what it means for how you show up in your career in 2026. I'll talk with you about why grinding harder is no longer the answer, why clarity means more than hustle, and how mid-career professionals can regain control, confidence, and direction in a job market that feels anything but predictable. My friends, if you've been feeling off, uncertain, or questioning yourself, this conversation is timely and it's for you. Let's get started. I help mid-career professionals like you find a job or career they love or love the one they have using my proven four-step formula. Happy holidays. We're in that wonderful time between Christmas and New Year's. I hope all of you have been celebrating the holidays, have had a wonderful time with family and friends and making memories. I want to share with you this quick little story. So I have often said that we have two families in our life. We have families of origin, we have families of choice. And I'm I'm very grateful and blessed to have a um a wonderful family of choice that as I have gotten older have truly um, they really are. They are they are family. And um, I am recording this episode on Monday morning, December 28th, at about 7:30 in the morning. I have been up for about four hours. And the reason I have been is because my insomnia is back. So it happens from time to time. I learn to just kind of roll with it and deal with it. But as I was thinking about recording today's episode, I finally remember my dear friend and colleague Linda. Now, Linda and I co-taught together for a number of years, and we were the pair that nobody thought would work. And yet we worked incredibly well. Linda was a phenomenal um special education teacher, resource room teacher in the sense of, so she was an inclusion teacher. So essentially I was I was in charge of um essentially leading the content for the math class, but then Linda was there to support and provide individual assistance for students in the classroom who needed it. And and I remember one of the things from day one I said to Linda was, you and I are co-teaching this class. It's not me, it's not you, it's us. And we need to work in tandem with that. And so I'm sharing all of this with you because Linda and and her husband, uh Larry, are truly family of choice. And we get an opportunity to spend time with them during the holidays to check in and celebrate and all that kind of thing. But but here's why Linda is so top of mind for me. Um there was a time in my mid-career journey where I was dealing with a terrible bout of insomnia, so much so that I had overslept for work on a couple of occasions. Now, you might not think that's such a big deal, but when you are a uh middle school teacher, or you're a teacher just in general, you are expected to be at your post at a certain time to greet those kids. And when you're not, it upsets the balance of how the school day is running. So um I had been up late, I couldn't sleep, I'd finally fallen asleep. I slept through three alarms and the phone rings. And I answer the phone, and it's our our front desk uh administrative assistant, Marilyn, and she's like, Hey, John, I'm like, hello. She's like, John, it's Marilyn. I'm like, Hi, Marilyn, how are you? She's like, I'm good. Hey, hey, John, I got a question for you. I'm like, what, Marilyn? She goes, Are you coming into work today? Because it's 8:15. And I went, oh shit. So and I lived about an hour away from the school. So, of course, you can imagine the upset, the embarrassment, the whole thing. And I talked with one of my um administrators, and she was like, you know, John, it happens. It happens to everybody once. It happens once. Um, it happened again three weeks later. And Linda really stepped up for me and she said, What if I call you every morning to make sure I'm up? She goes, I get up, I get on the treadmill. It's nothing for me to just pick up the phone and call you. How about I do that? My dear friend called me every day for the remainder of the school year, which was about eight months. And every day I got a wake-up call from Linda. I affectionately refer to her as my Jewish mama. And Linda did that for me. And I never will forget that because it was that kind of kindness and support that we give to people. We give to our colleagues, we give to our friends. But more importantly, we give to them with an open heart because we want to do something there to support them because we see somebody in need. I was going through a really difficult time personally, and Linda was there. She was there in a way for me that not many people knew. And I love being able to tell this story because it just speaks volumes about our friendship. And so I hope you have a Linda in your life. I hope you have somebody who is there for you in your working relationship to help you navigate because 2025 was such a difficult year for us. We saw so many things change. I saw my business change in many ways. I saw the work with my clients change. And I know you have seen things change within your company or organization, your job, and also in this overall landscape. So, to just take a walk down memory lane, I've got a few things to highlight what we saw in 2025 and what it's going to mean for us leading into 2026. So let's talk about layoffs. In 2025, what we saw was layoffs are ongoing. They are not episodic. And so by that I mean there was this sense of uncertainty or unease that when a company went through one round of layoffs, then it wasn't like, hey, we're good for a while. It was here's the next one coming. So 2025 showed us that layoffs are this rolling business activity and not a one-time reset. And so, understandably, as a mid-career professional, you're looking for stability. But I want to offer you that stability is no longer an organizational promise. Companies are optimized for flexibility and they will pivot and change accordingly as needed. But your stability, as I have said time and time again on this podcast, you are 100% responsible for your career. Your stability is now an individual responsibility. It is about making sure you are well positioned, strategically placed within the job market, and you are there to offer that security for yourself. Your resume is updated, your LinkedIn is optimized. You are continuing to network and make those kind of connections. You are continually learning and sharpening your skills. And you are building that personal board of directors that is there to help you when you need, and vice versa. We're not going to see that change in 2026. In fact, if anything, I think for you as that mid-career professional, you're going to need to double down on that. Double down on how you are showing up and what does that career stability actually look like for you. The second thing here is job titles lost their power in 2025. As we saw this year progress, people who held titles that were quote unquote impressive or significant, what we saw was that these conversations shifted around the title and what they actually do. Jobs lost a sense of scope or influence, so much so, in fact, that boundaries within those job positions seemed to dissipate. And what that meant was that you held one title, but found yourself doing so many different things. As you were trying to get promoted and looking at the competencies at the level above, you're trying to do those things in your job title and more than likely did them very well. But what you also saw was that you were only being recognized at the title you were at. And so the titles essentially didn't matter anymore. But what does matter, especially leading into 2026, is being able to clearly articulate what you do, why it matters, and how it creates value. This is all about the results. You must be able to demonstrate and clearly articulate your results as to why you are valued and needed in that organization. So I really want you to lean in and think about what is it that you do that is so valuable. Somebody else can't do it at the same level, and an AI or machine can't do it as well. Mid-career professionals, and especially those of you who are big-hearted leaders, are often tagged as being high performers. You are high achievers who have demonstrated high potential and you continually bring those results. In 2025, you probably felt invisible. See, in 2025, execution alone stopped driving career advancement. Being that person who was executing and getting things done, always dependable, didn't lead to you getting more opportunity. It actually led to you getting more work. And that's the big difference. Getting more work didn't mean that you were being more visible. Because being visible now is a leadership skill. It is not about self-promotion. So for those of you who shared outcomes, lessons learned, and strategic thinking, whether it be in client meetings, project meetings, meetings with your own direct leadership, you were able to gain traction without being a braggart or being louder or flashier. This is the skill in 2026 where being able to articulate those values, as I taught with uh talked about with the previous point, this is where you need to shine. This is where you need to show up and do it in a way that comes from a place of value and service. So being indispensable in what you do, it has its place. But it doesn't mean that that is going to be the sole determinant for you getting that promotion. So if you feel invisible, that's understood. I get it. But we need to work on in 2026 about how increasing your visibility and doing it in a way that feels very genuine and authentic to you. For those of you who have been laid off or have been looking for jobs this year, let's acknowledge that job searching in 2025 became emotionally exhausting. This whole job search process in 2025 was a direct attack on your confidence, not on your capability. We saw companies take longer to make hiring decisions. They were putting you through more rounds than ever to get selected for that job. And so, understandably, that meant that you felt that your worth was being questioned. You were ghosted, you were rejected, you were met with silence by so many companies. And I'm not excusing that behavior, but we have to understand it in context. That unfortunately is the nature of where this job market is. And so we could talk all day long about how prepared are you to get a thousand no's before you get that one yes and work on that mindset and everything. But that takes time. For those of you who have searched for jobs this year, you have experienced a sense of professional grief I have not seen in the almost nine years I have been working full-time as a leadership and career coach. You've experienced a loss of identity, momentum, and certainty with not a lot to process or rationalize why it happened. And your hustle-based job search backfired. You probably thought that if you just doubled down on the amount of applications and played this numbers game, that it would work. You networked more, you constantly tweaked your LinkedIn or your resume, and it only resulted in you getting tired. What I want to offer you is that the way to get through that is with clarity. It's about being clear about where you're most valuable and who needs someone like you. It's not about randomly applying for positions, waiting for something to stick. That is why how we show up matters more than ever. Because the clearer and cleaner you are in terms of who you help and what you help them do, the easier it is for someone on the other end who doesn't have a lot of time to invest in finding talent. They want somebody really, really quickly, but they're also willing to take the time to find that person. The clearer and cleaner you are, the better your results will be. I've seen it time and time again with my private coaching clients, but it is about changing that mindset and changing that strategy. So many of you, years ago, and just a few years ago, even, were thinking, oh, I want to think about a career change. It's why I developed this idea about a mid-career GPS to navigate you to what's next. But what I've seen in this job market and what so many of you are experiencing, it's not so much about career change. Right now, it's about being career stuck. Many of you are not looking for a new job. You want relief. You want to feel useful and valued, and you want to feel like you're moving forward again. And that stuckness that you're feeling is often connected between your skill set, where you fit within that organization, and the expectations that you have for your career that don't necessarily line up with the path that the organization has for you. And all that does is drive dissatisfaction. So again, I come back to clarity. I come back to how you show up. You have to know how you are showing up from a place of value and service to identify where it is you need to get unstuck and what you are moving toward. And my friends, AI has completely disrupted this game. We saw AI exponentially accelerate this year, and AI has disrupted confidence so much. AI exposed what I like to say is this fragile work identity. Because many of you realize that what has gotten you to where you are isn't necessarily going to get you to the next thing in your career. You realize that the things that you were valued for of just a few years ago aren't necessarily valued right now. When asked the question, why should we hire you? Now that value proposition or that value statement seems unclear and perhaps unbelievable. So many mid-career professionals this year experience a deeper sense of anxiety about where they seem to fit within this job market. And some of you have been directly impacted by it. Some of you have reached out and said, I have lost my job to AI. What do I do in 2026? We will continue to talk about AI as a tool. And AI as a tool that is not going away, that needs to be used and needs to be leveraged. But here's the thing. And if you're multitasking for a moment, come back to me because I need you, I need you to really listen to this. AI has and will continue to elevate the importance of human decision making, not just the technical output. It is about how we use AI to elevate the decisions and the strategies we make and implement because we are the human being in the conversation. We are the human being that will always crave connection and relationships. And I will tell you right now, AI is not the answer to solving your resume. AI is not the answer to optimizing your LinkedIn profile. And AI is not the be all and end all when it comes to building your networking strategy or your interview prep. But it is a tool and it has its place. And so what I want to offer you in 2026 is to find a different relationship with AI. Find a different relationship with AI that is empowering and motivating for you in the work that you do and how you talk about using it. If you have not had an opportunity to listen to episode 319, it's a conversation I had with Lindsay Mastis. It is one of my favorite episodes from this year. In it, Lindsay talks about her career shift and pivot from leaving a career in television news to focus on being an independent storyteller in AI and technology. And we talked about where AI is. And I would love to bring Lindsay back on the show in the new year to talk about just the advancements in AI and where things are headed and going. But keep in mind, AI is a tool. If you are using it as the be-all and end-all, my friends, you are grossly mistaken. So think about that. AI has disrupted this job market. It has disrupted this job landscape, but it is a tool. And AI has elevated the importance of human decision making. Your mid-career identity became blurry this year. And by that I mean so many of you have questioned who am I if I'm no longer in this role? If you've been lay off, laid off or stagnant, or maybe you feel like your career has plateaued in some way. You've probably gone through a little bit of a professional identity crisis wondering what's going to be next. The other thing I have seen time and time again is that people will look at their resumes and they will look at their LinkedIn profile and they will have all of this content and information there, but you don't believe it. And that is why you're not getting job offers. That is why you are not being a more effective leader. That's why you're not getting promoted within your organization. It is your failure to clearly communicate where you are the most impactful. So your work for 2026 is really around identity work. It's that identity work about who you are and what you do, how you lead, decide, and impact. This is no longer optional. This is foundational. And it leads me to my last point. This is all about how we show up. At the end of every episode, I say to you, how we show up matters. And I will share more about this with you in the coming weeks. But this hit me like a ton of bricks towards the end of this year. That how we show up needs to be a much bigger conversation than we have had. Okay? Showing up is replacing what grinding used to be. Showing up is the energy in your thoughts, emotions, and actions. Because working harder often produced diminishing returns. Working harder didn't get you advanced. Working harder left you behind. Showing up and having those intentional conversations about your goals, your desires, your motivators is what leads you to have the clarity about how you want to position yourself inside your organization and in the industry where you work. Being clear about that matters more than ever. It is about owning where you are in your career and grabbing it by the horns and taking total control of it. In 2025, I have seen those mid-career professionals who took responsibility for their careers, owned their narrative, communicated clearly about their value, talked about how they were going to help a new organization or where they were going to help their continuing their organization. They were advocating for themselves. They were showing up from that place of value and service. They were not sitting quietly on the sidelines hoping they would be noticed. The mid-career professionals who did that got something they didn't expect. They regained agency and greater direction than they have ever had in their career. And that, my friends, is the conversation we will be having in 2026. The conversation for those of you who are looking for that new job, but also the conversation for those of you who are in a really good organization and don't have any intention of leaving, but you are feeling stuck. You are feeling undervalued and underutilized. And this is about the conversation moving forward to get you elevated, increased visibility, and ultimately creating your next advancement opportunity to what is next for you and your career. So I want to leave you with this question. When you think about your career, where are you still grinding? Where is it feeling really difficult or almost impossible to break through? And you find yourself just doubling down on all this hard work. When you identify that, this is the question. Where are you being called to show up differently in 2026? That is the question we're going to start answering next week. So, my friends, if you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor, kindly share it with somebody. If you are not a part of my free email newsletter community, I invite you to join. You can go to my website, johnnarrell.com. It is a twice-weekly newsletter with leadership and career information and strategies to help you navigate this most dynamic time in your career. I invite you to come in. There is a much larger conversation that happens over on email. I invite you into that as well. We look back on 2025 with a lot of awareness, a lot of gratitude, a lot of frustration, and a lot of angst. Maybe that's what's keeping me up at night. Who knows? But what I also know is that there is tremendous opportunity for us to welcome and move forward. And in that, that is what will make 2026 an exciting year for us professionally and hopefully personally as well. So until next time, my friends, as we bid 2025 adieu and welcome 2026, you will build your mid-career GPS one mile or one step at a time, and how you show up matters. Make it a great rest of the day. Happy New Year. Bye for now. Thank you for listening to the Mid-Career GPS Podcast. Make sure to follow on your favorite listening platform. And if you have a moment, I'd love to hear your comments on Apple Podcasts. Visit johnnarrell.com for more information about how I can help you build your mid-career GPS, or how I can help you and your organization with your next workshop or public speaking event. Don't forget to connect with me on LinkedIn and follow me on social at Johnnaryl Coaching. I look forward to being back with you next week. Until then, take care. And remember, how we show up matters.