You don’t have to quit your job to get your joy back in midlife. You have to redesign your work so it fits the life you actually want. That was the biggest lesson from my latest LUXEtalk conversation with Maria Rushing of the Women’s Career Transformation Network.
Maria is an Amazon bestselling author, a certified life coach, and a four-year breast cancer survivor. For ten years, she has helped midlife women step off the hamster wheel and into work that feels lighter. Here is what I took away.
Curious about this episode? Here’s a quick preview of our conversation before we dig in.
When a Long Commute Became a Wake-Up Call for a Midlife Career Change
Maria’s story starts in a world I know well. Around 2010, she had spent about seven years in a commercial escrow department in downtown Seattle. She assisted the senior closer on the big deals. Million-dollar buildings. The real estate people loved her because she got them their checks and handled whatever they needed.
Then the company went through a merger.
Her flex time disappeared overnight. She had to stay until five every day. With her long commute, that put her home around a quarter to seven each night. The company also required employees to declare every vacation day for the entire year in January.
Plenty of people would shrug and say that’s just work. But Maria felt it in her body. Her health started to slip, and her family time shrank. She isn’t alone in that. Medical experts have tied long daily commutes to higher stress and poorer heart health, and she was living proof.
So she asked herself one honest question. Is this really what I want for the rest of my working life?
Watch the full conversation here.
The answer was no. Maria is creative. She had ideas she simply couldn’t pursue inside a corporate structure. So she resigned in an orderly way, and that decision planted the seed for her whole philosophy. She calls it design your work to fit your life, and it now anchors her midlife career coaching for women.
I felt that story. Flexibility is a big reason I love my own work helping Whatcom County families buy and sell homes.
Joyful Career Design Starts With the Season You’re In Right Now
I asked Maria to define her approach in plain words. Her answer was simple. Joyful career design means using your strengths and talents to do meaningful work that fits your life at the stage you’re in right now.
That last part matters most. Our lives move fast. We rarely stay in the same place for long.
After she left escrow, Maria didn’t jump straight into one new job. She mixed the things she loved. She wrote a series of children’s books on health topics, starring a character named Sammy the Centipede. She used her education degree to substitute teach in her local school district. As she put it, you mix the things you love to do into your work.
In 2016, she decided it was time to start her company. This year marks its tenth anniversary. She also wrote a practical guide to midlife career transformation for women who want the same freedom she found.
I see this idea play out in real estate every day. Families grow. Kids leave home. People downsize or finally buy the view they always wanted. The house that fit at 35 rarely fits at 60, and many of my clients start selling a home when their life stage shifts. Work follows the same rhythm. I share more of those everyday reflections on my real estate and lifestyle feed.
The Job You Want to Leave Might Be Funding the Life You Want
By midlife, you carry a lot of knowledge. Maria pointed out that you’re probably using it to make money for someone else’s company right now. You could use that same knowledge to consult on the side, build a small business, or eventually run your own company.
Here is what surprised me. Maria doesn’t tell unhappy clients to walk out the door. Given her own story, I expected the opposite. Instead, her approach to midlife career change for women starts with a mindset flip.
“So I’m not gonna tell them, you’re not happy, leave your job. No, because you have to flip your mindset. You have to say, okay, this job is paying me to figure out the things and to support the way that I really want to live, which is a totally different frame of mind, which helps you through those days when you think you don’t want to be there. In the meantime, you look at your strengths and the things that you really like. Maybe you even lost touch with the things you really like because you’ve been doing this same job for so long. And that’s what I help people do. I help them get reconnected to the joy.”
That reframe changes everything. Your current job stops being a trap. It becomes a bridge. The paycheck funds your exploration while you rediscover what lights you up.
That rediscovery is the heart of her one-on-one career coaching and courses. She also notes that a thread usually runs through your life from childhood. What did you love to do? What were you doing when you felt excited?
For agents, this hits close to home. Years of transactions give you skills you can reshape. You could mentor newer agents, coach, or build a niche around what you love most. We explore this kind of intentional growth often in LUXEtalk conversations about purpose-driven success. Maria’s own path through business, education, and career strategy shows how many forms that growth can take.
Why a Real Estate License Belongs in a Bigger Toolbox
This part of our talk made me smile. Maria still holds a real estate license. She just doesn’t chase listings anymore. She keeps it working quietly through referrals, as one tool among many.
Here’s how she described it.
“I have all kinds of things that I have in my pocket. I call them the toolbox because I’m a certified life coach. I do have a real estate license. And what I use it for now is for the pocket, right? Because that’s not where I’m beating the bushes. I’m out, I’m doing referrals. So I have that available, though. I recommend that we all have multiple streams of income. Learn how to invest, how to save your money in a high-yield savings account. Learn how to invest some of that money. You know, learn the ins and outs of things that interest you. Because it needs to interest you, or you’re not going to do it.”
Building multiple streams of income gives you options when one stream slows down. Every agent learns that lesson in a shifting market. Plenty of Americans already live this way. Federal data on Americans holding more than one job showed roughly 8.4 million multiple jobholders in early 2026.
Maria’s key point is interest. If a side stream bores you, you won’t stick with it. Find what genuinely pulls you in, then build around it.
| Income Stream | Time Commitment | Example for Real Estate Professionals |
| Referral income | Low | Keep your license active and refer clients to trusted agents |
| Coaching or consulting | Moderate | Mentor newer agents or advise first-time investors |
| Investing | Varies | Learn the ins and outs of rental or long-term property investing |
| High-yield savings | Low | Park commission reserves where they earn more |
| Creative products | Moderate to high | Write a book, launch a course, or build an app |
For me, the spark is freedom. It’s my number one. I love making my own schedule, and real estate lets me do that to a point. It depends on how heavily involved you get. That freedom lets me give my full attention to clients buying a home in Whatcom County.
The biggest mistake I see is chasing income you don’t care about just because someone else made money doing it. The second is relying on one source of income in a cyclical industry. I talk through these tradeoffs often when I connect with fellow real estate professionals.
How a Breast Cancer Diagnosis Shaped Maria’s Mission to Help Others
I asked Maria whether surviving breast cancer changed how she thinks about stress and joy. She didn’t hesitate. She said you are never the same person after breast cancer. Life becomes so much more precious.
That shift pushed her somewhere new. App development.
Her first app, Encouraged Living, launched in August on the iPhone App Store. It’s a companion for breast cancer patients and survivors. They can track appointments, medications, doctors, and bills in one place. It also tracks mood and food, and it offers encouragement along the way. Maria also wrote a breast cancer memoir for patients and survivors. It’s available in English, Spanish, and German, and it connects to the app.
| App | Who It Serves | What It Solves |
| Encouraged Living | Breast cancer patients and survivors | Keeps appointments, medications, doctors, and bills in one place |
| Desk Ledger | Freelancers and entrepreneurs | Simplifies money in, money out, taxes, and client notes |
| YUMMI Squad | Parents of picky eaters | Turns meal planning into a game kids help choose |
Her newest app, YUMMI Squad, grew out of her Sammy the Centipede books. It’s built for parents to direct and children to decide. Parents choose the meals and vegetables on the back end. Kids spin to pick their salad and main dish, then create an avatar buddy. They earn “bravery beans” for trying food, even if they only lick it or sniff it. Enough beans make the avatar hop, dance, or throw a full confetti celebration. Meanwhile, the app builds a weekly grocery list. It even connects to kitchen-tested recipes from Baldwin Publishing.
What struck me is how personal every project is. Maria turns her own challenges into tools for other people. She shares updates on this work through her daily encouragement for midlife women. That is purpose-driven business at its best.
Five Minutes a Day and No More Box of Receipts for Busy Agents
Most freelancers don’t need full-scale accounting software. They want the basics. Money in, money out, a simple client list, and tax information. So Maria built Desk Ledger, which launched on the iPhone App Store in September.
You spend about five minutes a day on it. Log your income and expenses as they happen. If you’re rushed, just enter them and sort them into categories later. Set the tax percentage you want to put aside, and the app tracks it. The advanced version creates a tax report you can hand straight to your accountant.
This matters for agents. Most of us work as independent contractors, so taxes don’t come out of our checks. Knowing how estimated quarterly tax payments work for the self-employed helps you avoid surprises. Desk Ledger gives you an up-to-date balance every day, so you know what you’ll need each quarter. You can also send invoices and keep client notes in the same place.
I love the idea of logging a lunch receipt right at the table between showings of homes for sale in Lynden. No going home to sort paperwork at night.
Avoid three common mistakes. Don’t hand your accountant a shoebox of receipts in April. Don’t keep client notes in one tool and your finances in another. And don’t underestimate quarterly taxes when commissions arrive in bursts. I share more practical tips like these alongside local real estate updates and community news.
Following the Thread of Joy Back to What You Truly Want
This was the moment that shifted my own thinking. Maria said most people don’t know what they want. They’re on the hamster wheel every day, doing the thing. We have aging parents, jobs, children, and business obligations. The list goes on.
Her first step is surprisingly gentle. Take time for yourself. If you can’t get away, take 15 minutes or half an hour a day with a journal. Health experts agree that journaling helps manage stress and anxiety, which makes it a smart place to begin.
Then she shared her favorite approach.
“So I would say just carve out some time to think. Go to your favorite thinking spot. Everybody had a favorite thinking spot when they were younger. If you think back, you probably had one. Right now there might be a place that you like to go, a favorite little shop, coffee shop, or someplace where you can just go because you know nobody’s gonna bother you. And you go, and you find some time alone, and you figure that out. And in my book I do talk about that thread of joy from when you were young, like go by the decade. Just write down by the decade what lit you up during those decades. And then when you go back through, you can usually find a theme of some kind.”
That’s the thread of joy exercise. Go decade by decade. Write down what excited you in each one. Then read it back and look for the pattern.
Maria has watched clients do this and light up. They say, “I forgot about that.” Sometimes a long-buried dream resurfaces. That memory becomes the spark, and then you can find resources to help it grow.
If you’re wondering whether now is the right time, Maria offers a free career change decision tool. It helps you weigh your timing, find some stress relief, and get a clear snapshot of your finances. Many people don’t truly know their money picture until they look. She also runs a Facebook group for professional and entrepreneurial women.
My takeaway is simple. I now schedule thinking time the way I schedule showings. It protects the freedom I value most, and it keeps me honest about what still lights me up.
Want to hear my full conversation with Maria Rushing on redesigning your work around joy in midlife? Listen to our podcast episode.
FAQ Section
How can Maria Rushing help you figure out what you really want from your career?
Maria recommends carving out regular time alone to think and journal. Then look back across each decade of your life and note the activities that repeatedly brought you excitement.
Should you quit your job if you’re unhappy with your career?
Not necessarily. Maria suggests reframing your current job as the income that supports the life you’re building while you explore your strengths and interests.
What is the thread of joy exercise?
You write down what lit you up in each decade of your life. Then you review the list for recurring themes that point toward your next direction.
How can real estate agents use a license as one of several income streams?
Agents can keep an active license for referrals, like Maria does, while building other streams such as coaching, consulting, or investing that match their interests.
What is Desk Ledger and who is it for?
Desk Ledger is a simple iPhone app for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It tracks income, expenses, tax set-asides, invoices, and client notes without full accounting software.
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Careers are being redesigned every day. Professionals are building businesses around freedom, purpose, and the seasons of their lives.
If you’re a real estate professional, entrepreneur, or purpose-driven leader with a story about building work that fits your life, I’d love to hear it.
I bring the curiosity and the questions, and you bring the lived experience that helps someone else take their next brave step. Together, we can show listeners that a life well lived is built one intentional choice at a time. Apply to be a guest and share what you’ve learned with our community.
