Chief Change Officer
#330 Gary Bremermann: Clarity Over Comfort—Career Change on Your Own Terms
Tue, 29 Apr 2025
In Part 2 of his conversation, Tokyo-based American Gary Bremermann moves beyond his own story to share the frameworks and realities that shape career reinvention today. From his Seven Steps to Career Clarity to his candid views on Japan’s ageist hiring market, Gary offers a Gen X blueprint for change: slow, thoughtful, grounded in values, and fiercely human. For anyone tired of chasing titles and ready to build a career worth living on their own terms, this episode delivers both the hard truths and the hope.Coaching the Opportunity Seekers“Mid-career professionals weren’t asking what they wanted—they were asking what was available.”Gary explains why so many talented people get trapped following default paths—and how coaching helps them reconnect with what they actually want.Your Story Is the Starting Point“Your past holds the clues to your future—you just have to read it differently.”He breaks down why career clarity begins with mining your real life for patterns, strengths, and missed signals.Values Before Vision“Forget the mission statement—start with your values.”Gary shares why starting with personal values, not corporate buzzwords, is the foundation for sustainable career growth.Practical Dreaming“One dream job without limits. One dream job grounded in reality.”He explains how a two-track dream job exercise helps people balance ambition with achievable moves.Japan’s Aging Workforce and Recruiting Reality“The labor pool is shrinking, but the hiring practices haven’t caught up.”Gary shares firsthand insights on ageism, cultural resistance to change, and why Japan remains one of the hardest recruiting markets in the world._____________________Connect with us:Host: Vince Chan | Guest: Gary Bremermann --Chief Change Officer--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Expansive Human Intelligencefor Transformation Gurus, Black Sheep,Unsung Visionaries & Bold Hearts.EdTech Leadership Awards 2025 Finalist.15 Million+ All-Time Downloads.80+ Countries Reached Daily.Global Top 3% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.>>>150,000+ are outgrowing. Act Today.<<<
Chapter 1: Who are the host and guest of this podcast episode?
Hi, everyone. Welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chan, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist humility for change progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. Today, we are diving into career transformation with Gary Berman.
Chapter 2: What is Gary Bremermann's background and career journey?
Gary is a recruiter, career coach, and Japan talent market expert who has spent 25 years helping professionals navigate change. But his own journey wasn't a straight line. Gary hitchhiked across North America, dropped out of college two times, built a global business, and burned out before finally finding his true calling.
In this two-part series, we'll explore how he discovered his passion for coaching, the seven rules of career clarity, and the harsh realities of Japan's talent market, including ageism and the fear of change. Whether you're rethinking your career, hiring talent, or just wondering what's next, this series will change the way you see work. Let's get started.
So now you are a coach in addition to being a headhunter.
Chapter 3: How did Gary transition from recruiting to career coaching?
Yes. I started just doing recruiting 23 years ago and people would come to see me and I would have these amazing mid-career professionals come to see me to talk about potential job opportunities. I was selling them job opportunities. And very accomplished professionals, they would come, we'd sit down either in my office or over a cup of coffee or lunch.
Chapter 4: Why do mid-career professionals struggle to define their career goals?
And I would say, what do you want to do with the rest of your career? And they would just look at me and say, what do you have for me? They didn't have a vision or an idea or a mission for what they wanted to do.
They were still 20 years into their careers, just opportunity seekers looking for the highest salary or the best company to work for, but not having a kind of internalized thoughts and vision for what they want to do other than ambition.
And so it wasn't until 10 years into my recruiting experience that I wrote what became Seven Steps to Career Clarity, which is a seven steps process for figuring those things out. And I realized that many of the people never did the work on their careers because they're so busy working in their careers.
And so I wanted to share that knowledge, what I've learned from talking to so many people about their careers, but also the things that I've been through and the kind of thinking around finding your way and finding your path and finding work that you love. And they're amazing people. They're not flawed people. They've just followed the model of great school, great company, continual advancement.
And some people will, I studied accounting, so I have to be a CPA. Or I studied law, so I have to be a lawyer. And so having someone that can work with them and say, I get that, but what would you really like to do? And help them think a little bit differently and help them understand. make change. So the people I work with, they're thinking about changing jobs.
They're thinking about changing careers, like a complete redo of their career. And some of the people I coach, they're ambitious and they just want to move up in their company. And that's okay too. There's nothing wrong with that. But just helping people think a little bit deeper about their lives than I just have to follow this path.
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Chapter 5: What are the Seven Steps to Career Clarity developed by Gary Bremermann?
Yeah, like I said, a lot of us are conditioned by our environment. By the way, I studied accounting as my first major. So naturally, I became a CPA, Certified Public Accountant. But the truth is, I didn't enjoy the world. So I left the practice. We all start off following a certain path, whether it's because of societal expectations, family pressure, or financial goals.
Not necessarily chasing success, but just meeting financial responsibilities, supporting a family, paying a mortgage, keeping life stable. And over time, it's easy to just stay in that job. I mean, if you're making six or even seven figures, it's a really, really good income. And for some people, the more they earn, the harder it becomes to leave. The comfort zone gets too comfortable.
So even when they start thinking about change, actually making a move feels almost impossible.
Yes.
Tell us more about your seven rules of career clarity. Give us the full framework. How do these seven rules, seven steps, help people find real and sustainable clarity for their decision and direction in life?
Yeah, so we talked up until now, we've talked a lot about our story, things that happened to us in the past that provide us with some clarity about what we can do in the future. And so the seven-step process starts with your story, looking at the past to find clues for your future. But it also talks to some really basic stuff.
And what I've done with the seven-steps process and the e-book is distilled all of the fundamentals of... Thinking about your career. So you start with looking at your past and then you do the mission, vision, values, which I call values, mission, vision, because values is where you start. You think about what your dream job is.
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Chapter 6: How can identifying strengths and weaknesses affect career decisions?
And when I talk to people about dream jobs, I say that you pick two or think of two. And one is the dream job. If you have no limitations, could be anything. You could be president. You could be an astronaut. What would that thing be? And then think about a practical dream job. And then you look at what's out there, the pathway to your dream job and how to get there.
And one thing that, that what I do, it's a little bit different than some of these other thoughts about is you look at your strengths and weaknesses, and there's certain schools of thought that say, don't worry about your weaknesses, just focus on your strengths. And you may have heard that along the way. It's like align with your strengths. Don't sweat your weaknesses.
But for a lot of people, their weaknesses hold them back. So I help people understand, are there any weaknesses that you have that are holding you back? And are they things that you could work on? Pretty basic stuff. The thing that's fun is other than the dream jobs is identifying companies and jobs you'd like to do.
And that's another thing where people who are caught on a path or going down the path without really giving it a lot of thought is People discover new possibilities and new things and new places and new things they could do that they didn't have the chance to do because they didn't go through this process.
And then another thing, I've been here in Tokyo for 25 years and I've built up a network, partly because I'm a recruiter. You have a network to be an effective recruiter, but also because I enjoy connecting with people. And I think it's really important for people to get out of their bubble and establish a professional and personal network in the place that they live. So we talk about networking.
And then the last step is action. Nothing happens without taking action. And so I encourage people to figure out what the most important actions you could take. So it's a very simple process, but I've distilled it down to 25 pages. So those are the seven steps.
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Chapter 7: Why is networking important for career transformation, according to Gary?
And then if I may add, the other thing that I noticed in my recruitment practice is that people are not, they go to university and like you studied accounting, everything there is to know about accounting, but the career management and career development components are not taught in university. And people don't get the toolkit they need to accelerate their career growth.
And so I put together an online course called the Career Kaizen Course, which is 24 topics about career development that if you learn about them and master them over time, you'll see greater acceleration in your career growth. Hopefully by then you have a clear idea of where you want to go. You don't want to just go rocket off in the wrong direction.
But I help people with the tools that it takes to grow their careers.
Career isn't really a science or an art that you can formally study. Because, let's be honest, professors and researchers don't even change jobs themselves. Why would they study something like career change? If you try searching for academic papers on the subject, you won't find much. But what does exist is a wealth of skills, wisdom on managing, developing, and navigating careers.
And these skills don't just come from career studies. They pull from leadership, economics, psychology, finance, and other areas of social science. Some of these insights are research-driven, some are teachable, and of course, they can be learned with the right guidance. That's why I see career intelligence
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Chapter 8: What tools and courses does Gary offer to support career development?
which is understanding how to adapt and make strategic career moves becoming more and more relevant. It's also one of the reasons I started this podcast show in the very first place because most of us weren't taught how to navigate career change. especially not in a world where uncertainty is now the norm, not the exception.
Gary, I remember you once mentioned that Japan is the hottest recruitment market in the world. Are you referring to recruiters trying to hire the best talent? Or are you talking about job applicants and career opportunities? What exactly makes Japan's recruitment market so competitive? I'd love to paint your brain on this.
Okay, thank you for asking. Yeah, so it's considered globally to be the hardest market in the world to recruit talent. One thing to keep in mind is my focus is on bilingual professionals in Japan. The majority of my clients are international firms looking to hire people locally to help them grow in this market. But just overall, the working population is shrinking.
Mm, yep.
there's a generally risk people are risk averse and i'm always hesitant to talk in broad generalizations really depends on the individual but there's the risk averseness level is higher here than in other markets so changing jobs is there's some fear around changing jobs there's some fear around working for international firms that are more likely to do restructuring or org changes or layoffs
But it's the challenge for the employers. The employers have a hard time finding the right people to do the role that they're looking for. And so the recruitment market here, the fees for professional recruitment services are the highest in the world.
So I'll have clients come from Singapore or Hong Kong or North America or Europe, and they're accustomed to paying fees that are much lower than what the standard fees are in this market. And they have no choice because the way it is, it's just a really tough market to get people to change jobs and That's just the way it's been.
And it's been that way for 23 years that I've been in recruitment in Tokyo. And it just it hasn't changed. And you would think with the development of technologies, it'd be easier to identify people or assess people. And nothing has fundamentally changed about recruiting talent in this market.
It all comes down to mindset, not just technology. Sure, you can use LinkedIn or other platforms to identify and reach out to talent. But at the end of the day, especially in Asia, there is a very strong cultural layer that technology alone cannot bridge. As someone who's also Asian, I understand that certain values like trust, stability, and loyalty play a huge role in career decisions.
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