Coffee with Jane Evans, founder of The Uninvisability Project
Jane Evans
Founder of the Uninvisibility Project, Co-Author of Invisible to Invaluable: Unleashing the Power of Midlife Women
Age: 59
Zoom Coffee.
Introduction
When Jane said success to her is having complete control of your whole life - I wondered is that even possible?
Of course, Jane has shown it is possible - when she found her rise to the top creative roles blocked - she left the big agencies behind and started her own agency.
When she found that the door back to the corporate world was shut for many midlife women, she created The Uninvisibility Project to shine a light on the issue and The Visible Start programme to provide older women with the training and confidence to wedge that door open.
Jane’s definition of success reframes our traditional idea of what success means. Success for many of us - especially when we were starting our careers and making our ascent - was defined by outcomes - a title, a promotion, a certain salary level, some kind of public recognition. The problem with success as an outcome is that it places the focus on something that is future-based and too often outside of our control.
Unfortunately, who gets the promotion is not always down to skill, talent or even personality but up to the people who hire and their idea of the ideal candidate. Research confirms what we already know - that the hiring process involves a lot of unconscious (and conscious) bias and that the people hiring tend to hire people who look like them (male, white, of a certain age) with similar educational backgrounds and world views - leaving little room for non-traditional candidates, candidates of colour, older candidates, fill-in-the-blank candidates.
If you think of success as a process then all of a sudden you’re back in the driver's seat on an open road - you’re in control and you are focused on the here and now. Yes, it takes more effort because it often means you’re starting from scratch, creating a new businesses or organisations and demonstrating to the world that there is more than one path to be taken. But it is also active and purposeful and those two things combined can be very empowering.
As 50-somethings trying to map out our next act in a world that is not always receptive to our experience and desire to remain relevant and valued - we need to look past the rejection letters and find creative ways to fulfil our career aspirations, charting new courses and redefining what success means to us.
And now my interview with Jane…
Describe your career path in two or three sentences including any twist or turns ending with where you are now.
I started out when I was 20 years old. I was the first girl in the creative department at Leagas Delaney in London. In 1987, I was headhunted out to Australia and by the time I was 35 - I'd won every award around, been on every committee and still I was told by the higher-ups that I was never going to get the creative director's job.
So I bought a massive warehouse and set up my agency downstairs and started my family upstairs. By 2001, my agency was the 19th most awarded agency in the South Pacific region. Everything was going really well. We had clients like Maserati and Revlon, we'd created Australia’s first craft beer James Squire.
But unfortunately, I was in a financially abusive relationship and when the extent of the financial abuse was discovered, I had to shut everything down and run the agency as a small cottage industry. For the next 10 years, I created beer brand after brand after beer brand. And after 10 years of that, I thought I don't think I can do this anymore.
Around that time my eldest daughter got the opportunity to study in London and my youngest was about to start high school so it seemed like time to return. We sold up in Australia and came back to London in 2014. Having never taken any real time off, I decided to take a few years off and enrol in a screenwriting course at the National Film and Television School.
Then, in 2015, the statistic came out that only 3% of the world's creative directors were female and I thought I need to get back in and change this. I started applying for jobs - I applied for over 180 jobs and got 5 interviews. Despite being wildly over-qualified, I seemed to be incredibly unemployable. The level of ageism was unbelievable.
Is that why you started the Uninvisibility Project?
It started in frustration as an early morning tweet asking if there are any women over the age of 50 creating ads in London. It was retweeted 64 times and it got me talking to lots of women - the sense of marginalisation was overwhelming.
I found 15 women, wrote their stories, photographed them, built a website, created a social media campaign, got a couple of PR pieces and within the first week our hashtag Uninvisibility had over two million views.
It became absolutely apparent that there was an epidemic of unemployment and invisibility for women. There is this perception out there that, everybody over the age of 55 has got shit tonnes of money and can just retire and cruise for the rest of their life. That’s bullshit. Thirty-one (31%) of us get divorced and twenty-five (25%) ended up being single mothers. These numbers are very hard on women and on their finances. The ultimate goal of Uninvisibility is to get midlife women working.
What decision / experience proved to be the most helpful to your career? This could include a failure that set you up for later success.
Probably when I lost my first job. I needed to work so I took a job at this very small agency. Everyone thought it would be a disaster for my career. But at this small agency, I got a chance to work on a little startup that nobody was interested in, a little thing called Word, Version One. So now on my CV, I can say I launched Word version one. That’s pretty amazing.
What advice would you give your 20 year old self knowing what you do now?
I’d say, you will have to fight for every single thing that you get. You’re going to get knocked down quite a few times but don't worry, you always will get up and you’ll have the last laugh - you’ll win.
How do you define success? Has your idea of success changed over the years?
Success to me is having complete control of your whole life. I don't mean that in a control freak way. What I mean is that you have the ability to make whatever you want happen.
When you are feeling stuck or uninspired, what actions do you take or what questions do you ask yourself?
Long walk, hot bath, sleep. That’s all you need.
I’m a great believer in the passive genius. Have you seen Elizabeth, Gilbert's Ted talk on Elusive Creative Genius? Definitely go watch it.
I believe that sometimes you have to sit and wait for genius. If you move responsibility away from you, then you don't always have to sit at your desk and think I must be a creative genius today. Instead, you can do something else and wait until the creative genius in you shows up.
In the last 5 years what new belief, behaviour or habit has most improved your working life (or your approach to creating your post 50 work life)?
Not giving a fuck anymore.
I really don't care what people think of me anymore. Of course, I care about what some people think about me, but I don't care about what everybody thinks about me.
Do you have any advice in terms of how to keep your mind open to possibilities and think bigger about what is possible?
First of all, I still think I'm 29 in some ways. That's the image I have of myself although my knees tell me something different every now and again.
So, I don't think any differently than I did, then. I am always thinking about the next 10, 15 years. I'm 60 in July and my plan for the next 10 years is to help as many women as I can get employed.
And I want to make as much money as I possibly can so that in 10 years’ time, I can retire to the standard that my career deserves.
How do I get there? Well, anything is possible.
I learn and learn and learn. I want to cram in as much as possible.
I appreciate being here, being healthy, having energy. And I want to use that.
If you could put one quote or piece of advice on a big billboard for everyone over 50 to see what would it be?
The best is yet to come.
I always say the best bits are always in the middle.
What people don't realise is we've all been given 20 or 30 years of extra life and it's not added to the end, it’s put in the middle between 40 and 70 and these can be incredibly healthy years.
What is the book or podcast you most recommend for someone thinking about designing their post-50 work life?
The book has to be Invisible to Invaluable: Unleashing the Power of Midlife Women. I think it's really important for both men and women. It's very positive, very funny, very moving and very inclusive of both black and white women.
Younger women need to read it because a dangerous precedent for their future is being set and we need to do something about it now. Midlife women need to read it for the confidence boost. Men need to read it to learn how to be part of the solution.
We've got 10, 15 years to solve this. Otherwise, we are going to see half of the population retire in poverty.
You can find more information on Jane and The Uninvisibility Project here.
