Snap, Crackle or Stop: Change your career and create your own destiny (Momentum) - Softcover

Quinn, Barbara

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1843040077 ISBN 13: 9781843040071

Publisher: Momentum, 2001

Synopsis

Thinking about being somewhere else...something else? More and more people are. But for most, that dramatic career change remains just a wishful idea. This is the book that looks at where you are in your career state, and what it takes to make the leap to something completely different. Dramatic career change has never been more exciting - or more possible. Increasingly people are looking for purpose in their lives, to find a way of earning money while doing what they feel they should be doing. It's about finding a line of work that uses your talent, makes you feel fulfilled and feel you are doing the right thing. Yet for many people it's still a terrifying prospect. Especially if the 'right thing' turns out to be a completely different direction from your current job. Whether you've snapped or whether you are crackling with discontent, this book helps you evaluate your current career state and find the path to becoming the master of your own destiny. It uses the experience of people from all walks of life who have made a dramatic change: from the preacher who left the cloth to become an advertising sales executive earning a six-figure salary, to the baker who after 28 years found his place as a sculptor. Snap, Crackle or Stop isn't necessarily about becoming rich, but about being exhilarated about what you do. It's about success and how people made it happen. This book will inspire and stimulate anybody considering a career change - to help you find where you're meant to be, and get there. This book will:* Get you thinking and believing that you can find work that is both financially rewarding and true to your values and your needs.* Show you real life stories where people have made the change, and tell you about the costs and benefits, highs and lows.* Include specially devised techniques to work out where you are in your career state and how to move on.

About this title

About the Author:

Barbara  Quinn is a senior partner of CAIL Consulting Group Inc., based in Canada. She is a frequent conference presenter and known for being passionate and provocative.

She has always been fascinated by people who have made dramatic career changes and the factors that took them to their destiny. Seeking out and interviewing the people who are the substance of this book has been a mission in Barb's life for a number of years.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

I am convinced we have the power to master our own destiny. It all comes down to choosing passion over the ordinary and for accepting that our fate is what we make it. Mastering destiny is a time in our career when we are working for expression, when a job is not a job but a deep opportunity to express ourselves. Do you think you are mastering your own destiny? Do you believe that you are where you are supposed to be?

Imagine being invited to a game of career poker. Each of us is dealt a hand of cards: skills, experience, education and desire. A deck of opportunities lies in the middle of the table. If you think destiny is preordained, then wait and see what the next card brings. When you are sitting in exactly the same place, same job, same time next year, you can sit back and take comfort in fate.

If, on the other hand, you want to develop the attitude and skills to master your own destiny, then get into the game and take charge. People who are working in their field of passion feel lucky, imagining they stumbled on it. Scratch a little deeper and you will find that they really made it happen. They took at least one step that got them closer.

You may be dreaming of quitting your job and running away to a cabin in the woods. Think again. That is called retirement. I am talking about making deliberate decisions, changing careers and finding work that makes you happy. It is not for ever since destiny is not one destination. You will have to make these changes many times in your life. When people hear the word destiny, they think of preordained fate and talent: the brilliant young mathematics student, the superior athlete or child genius at piano. These rare examples feed the myth that destiny is preordained, as though there is some gigantic career map with your name attached to a job out there in the universe - Lee Smith, accountant for life: Mary Wooster, engineer for infinity; Jon Singh, technical analyst for ever. Not so; it all comes down to choice.

The goal is to find opportunities for work related to what we love to do, what we've always dreamed of doing. It means continually evolving and switching work patterns to find as many outlets for our talent as we can fit in during a lifetime. Like a great painter, there is no one piece of art that sums up a lifetime. An artist's work and style may change considerably over the years, the artistic techniques and processes may be different but the need for expression remains constant. Imagine if the great impressionist painter, Paul Cézanne, had not quit law practice to paint. Hard to imagine the world being robbed of his great talent and legacy. He might have been a great lawyer but he was a greater painter. Ultimately the desire to master one's own destiny is rooted in the need to find happiness in and through work. It comes from a sense of knowing that there is something important to be done and that you are the one who is supposed to be doing it. Do you feel you are hitting your stride? How do you feel when someone asks what you do for a living? Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor! Is this what you want? If you do nothing to make the change, nothing is what you'll get. Significantly, the change process starts with unhappiness and restlessness, a deep longing for another kind of career.

You are not alone if you are feeling dissatisfied with a job that does not make best use of your talents. In an exclusive survey of Britain's managers, one in three is dissatisfied, one in five is downright unhappy. A US Gallup poll, conducted in 1999, revealed that only 39 per cent of working adults are completely satisfied with their jobs. Another North American survey claims that 85 per cent of the workforce are disillusioned with their jobs and nearly 50 per cent suffer from physical or emotional burnout. So what is wrong? Are the jobs really all that bad? Is it that people have not found their groove? I think so. I believe people who feel burned out from their careers are bored. They might be busy but they are essentially bored. Their job feels like a prison sentence. Doing time!

My husband told me on our honeymoon that I could do and be anything I wanted to. No one had ever said this to me before. This was foreign language to me then and it is to many people now. We have a hard time accepting the fact that we can do anything. The only thing stopping us is us. There are some people who have given up on the idea that change is worth the effort. You've met them at work. They're so unhappy in their jobs, their negativity spills out into the room. I remember a man who worked in a utility. He had a white board in his cubicle. Walking by one day, I asked what the number was in the right-hand corner of his white board - 4015. Without a blink, he said it was the number of days until retirement and that every morning his ritual with coffee was to subtract one day. He was serious when he said this is what gave him a glimmer of hope to get through the day. As he departs this life, will he wonder if he could or should have done something else?

This is not a tale of how to be a millionaire nor is it a fable on the benefits of a sparse but spiritual lifestyle. Not that money should be seen as trifling. Getting paid for doing what we love almost seems like a bonus at times.

About this edition

• Publisher: Momentum
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1843040077
• ISBN 13: 9781843040071
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192