A true career change story

I have been asked many times how I became a coach. Potential career changes often ask me what I was doing before this and how I found out what I wanted to do. Well, I thought it would be interesting if I shared my story so you guys could see how I got here…in case you were wondering!

It was May 2001 and I had a defining moment.

You see, up until that point, I had gone from job to job looking for a sense of fulfillment that I just couldn’t find. In fact, I had six jobs in seven years! I had studied Operations Research and Industrial Engineering at Cornell University and was well on my way to becoming a successful business analyst (BA)/process engineer.

The only problem was that I felt miserable.

I couldn’t stand my jobs. Whether I blame the job, my boss, my coworkers, the company culture, or even the city I lived in, I found myself bored and dissatisfied at each and every job. Sometimes it lasted a year and a half, other times only six weeks. I had developed a habit of finding jobs that looked good on paper (read: paid well!) but didn’t measure up to who I was. I have worked for financial institutions, the government, large telecommunications companies and an international media conglomerate. It was the late ’90s, so changing jobs so quickly wasn’t a big deal. Companies were happy to hire me. I never had a problem finding a job. My problem was finding a job that I really liked!

Between jobs four and five I woke up. I realized that the problem was not the job, the company, the boss or the city in which I lived. The problem was me! It was not up to the BA work I had been doing. But what could I do? I was so lost. At the time I was determined to find my passion, even though a part of me thought I didn’t really have one (sound familiar?). In the meantime, I needed to keep working to pay my bills, so I continued to work as a BA and desperately tried to find my passion elsewhere.

It was February of 2000 and I was living in Baltimore, MD at the time. I had been at a major financial institution for about six weeks when I quit. I had reached my breaking point. I was bored to tears with work and didn’t know what else to do. That’s when I decided (with the help of my husband!) that we needed to get back to New York. I am originally from the Bronx and I always regretted not being “home”. So I found a job in Manhattan, rented the house we had just bought the year before, and moved into a 1-bedroom house with a backyard near Central Park.

I was excited. Something like.

The job was much more exciting since I had gotten a job at a media company but I wasn’t living my passion yet. But at least now one of my biggest energy drains, not being back home, was covered up and I could focus on finding my passion again. In the spring of 2001, things at my company turned ugly. Our department went from over 100 people to about 20 or more. Although I survived all the layoffs that were happening around me, I was bored and dissatisfied with the job. But instead of going through my normal routine of contacting recruiters, posting my resume, and applying for jobs, I looked within. I realized for the first time that I hadn’t had fun in a long time. So the first thing that came to my mind was that I wanted to sign up for some fun classes, like how to make jewelry, how to be a personal shopper, etc. Between these two classes, I signed up for “How to Be a Life Coach.” It was that class that brought me home. I finally found the career AND the life I was looking for… I had my lightbulb moment!

I went back to my work euphoric! In fact, he was more than elated. It was an indescribable feeling knowing what I wanted to do with my career. I remember telling friends and family and asking them to take this new interest seriously. They had heard me complain for years and throw random ideas about the job I could possibly switch to.

Well, they took me seriously because I took myself seriously. A month after that class, I signed up for trainer training, hired my own trainer, and started my client trainer business at night while keeping my day job that I needed to pay the bills.

I created a financial forecast to see how long I had to keep working at my current job before I could become a full-time business owner. My forecast was three years. I was devastated. You could also have told me 30 years. Three years seemed like an eternity. However, with the help of my coach, I stopped throwing a tantrum and just plugged in: in my business, in my day job, and in my money problems.
You see, the three years involved paying down over $30,000 in debt and saving money to provide a buffer for my business.

Well guess what happened… while I was working my business part time, the debt disappeared. I was so motivated by my new passion that we actually paid off our debt and bought new Crate & Barrel furniture in seven months!

I remember coming home and asking my husband why he was still working this !@#$# job. And he said, “Well, let’s see… there’s your gym membership, our rent on this expensive apartment, the dinners out…” Ok, I get the point. I made an appointment with him (seriously, we made an appointment) to go over our monthly expenses that night. When we went through everything and I cut things out of our monthly budget that didn’t matter as much as this career change, we found that we only needed two more months to finish saving our buffer.

That meant I was going to make this transition in nine months… not three years! WOW!
In May 2002, when I was about to quit my undergrad job, I was happily fired. I have been self-employed and living my purpose ever since.