A quote I read years ago about “repotting”—a term I’d never heard before, except regarding plants—completely altered my attitude on change.

This kind of repotting is about your career—or your LIFE. Repotting: reinvention, your second act, rebooting, a new chapter…

Although I can’t remember exactly where I saw the quote that inspired me about repotting, I can find where the term was first promoted. It’s outlined in this article on Insights by Stanford Business.

Repotting your life…

The first person to use this term was Ernie Arbuckle, a Stanford dean, when he told a reporter:

Repotting, that’s how you get new bloom … you should have a plan of accomplishment and when that is achieved you should be willing to start off again.

Then in 1989, Donald E. Petersen told The New York Times when he stepped down as head of Ford Motor that he was “struck with the philosophy of Ernie Arbuckle,” who said one should change occupations every ten years. “Well, ten years are up,” he said, “and it’s time to repot myself.”

But what would Sugar Bear say??

Then there was Peter Hero, another person who knew Ernie Arbuckle. He worked at a Madison Avenue ad agency during the Mad Men era and said, “It was creative and fun, but I after a time I began to think, ‘What difference does this make?’” One day, sitting in a very smoky room with five other grown men in ties, heatedly debating whether Sugar Bear would say that Sugar Crisp cereal gave him energy or made him stronger, Hero hit his limit. “I stood up and said, ‘I have to get out of here.’” He never went back to advertising. Instead, he repotted.

He moved to San Francisco and managed Spice Islands, a spice company, to significant growth; completed a graduate degree in art history; ran the Oregon Arts Commission; was appointed president of the Maine College of Art; and then returned to the Bay Area as CEO of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. There he’s credited with transforming philanthropy from old-world, end-of-life giving to an active engagement with newly wealthy tech entrepreneurs. He said this,

The real benefit of repotting is that you’re designing your life instead of having someone else or society define it for you.

 

Change isn’t always easy

I’m going to admit it—I’ve always been resistant to change. Change is hard! Some people can become almost paralyzed by it. But then I saw that quote when I was making a major change in my life:

Every interesting person should repot herself every ten years or so.

That stuck with me. I believed it. And every change I’ve made since has been a little easier because I tell myself that I’m in the process of repotting.  It sounds so beneficial and positive!

Maybe you’re making some of the same changes that I’ve made: I have quit good jobs, moved to new cities, and started over several times following my husband’s relocations. I have repotted myself from a great corporate job that I loved to being a stay-at-home-mom. I eventually moved from this to being an entrepreneur. I’ve just recently repotted from owning a business to becoming a freelance writer.

Of course, repotting happens beyond the world of work, too. People repot themselves when they get out of a long-term relationship, start a new one, move to a new city, become empty nesters, etc.

Major changes in life—repotting yourself—takes a bit of a leap of faith, but the end result is usually better than expected. And it’s been proven—change and growth lead to greater happiness.

Yes, Ive come to firmly believe that all interesting people should repot themselves every ten years or so!