Why My Career Pivot After Redundancy Was The Ultimate Experiment At Self-Reinvention.

My pivot from a "safe job" to running my own business.

I get asked a lot about my career pivot from a "safe job" following redundancy to running my own business. The questions are many and varied but two seems to be consistent.

1. How did you go about it?

2. What steps did you take?

There is no rule book on how to make a successful pivot from a career with a specialised skill set to one that does not. You can transfer skills in context but others you will have to look at filling in the gaps.

I was an expert about business in the insurance industry but I was no expert on starting my own business. It was the unknown and it still is very much so. I am still finding my feet 18 months in.

But I love the edge of chaos so I keep embracing it. I immersed myself in retraining. Not only in my personal and professional development qualifications but as an entrepreneur. I see many (myself included) forget that part in the pursuit of following their passion.

In all industry career pivots but especially in the coaching industry.

I got lost in the fluffy term "coaching". I wanted to help everyone and anyone and forgot about the fact that I am a business owner.

So I am going to repeat that again.

You HAVE to think like an entrepreneur.

When considering a career pivot to a new area, people usually have a vague idea of what their interests are. They can have a strong sense of what they dislike, and a huge fear of making the ‘wrong’ choice.

It comes down yet again to our values.

What is important to you?

Why is it important?

What does it give you?

It’s very hard to tell others about what they ‘should’ do when they will always be the ones who are best-placed to judge for themselves. So I will as always give the perspective from my own journey. I will say that the sooner we stop trying to assume it should be a certain way or happen in a particular order the quicker we find our way forward.

And don't make comparisons.....please I beg you! Model but do not mould. If you mould yourself on someone else's persona in whatever industry you choose to pivot in it will stick out. People will spot it immediately. Look for inspiration while being your own biggest inspirer and encourager.

It is one big rollercoaster ride. On the days the s**t hits the fan you will get off and hurl. But on the good days, you will jump back on for your next adrenaline fix. It is not for the faint-hearted. I have no steady income. I had to put a lot of my own money into my business and I don't know when I will get that back. For me, that was a risk worth taking but my situation will be different to others.

You will have to ask yourself:

What is the payoff?

What have I got to lose?

Some days I work for 16 hours straight. I work consistently. It is paying off. This is the hardest I have ever worked in my life but I love it that is what helps me keep the faith.

Talking to others can be as unhelpful as it is helpful. Bear in mind when talking to others who voice their opinions that they are not you. They don’t share your values, your vision, your life experience or your story. I recently let another "professionals" opinion very near derail me. I was lucky someone kicked that out of me.

Don't ask others for their opinions ask them for perspective. It makes a difference trust me. And trust yourself, your gut, head and heart. It will not lead you too far astray.

It’s still worth doing, of course, I am blessed with the people I am surrounded by in a personal and professional capacity. They never give me opinions or the answers. They help me pull them out of me like I do with my clients.

What did I do when I didn't know what to do or where to start?

I wrote a list of things that I was confident of communicating in a way that connects. I looked at my life experience and skill set. I brainstormed topics that I thought I might enjoy helping others with.

Then I did it, I measured it, I marketed it more if it worked and moved on if it didn't. I was sh**ting it in the process. But acknowledging that fear was going to show up was half the battle won.

I had to repeat the process until I started to nail it. It knew it would take months even years but I want it bad enough, so I keep at it. At the very least I knew I would have more information than if sat around drawing up a list of pros and cons. I was guilty of this in the past. It leads to procrastination. Which in turn drained my energy.

What next?

I created a self-reinvention experiment.

I was a commercial broker for 20 years, but the work left me feeling unfulfilled. I had no impact.

However, I had drive and ambition. I knew I could reinvent myself and find where I would fit it in following redundancy, especially after my physical and emotional transformation.

My broking skills and flair for creating human connection could make me a great entrepreneur. But I didn’t know where to start. At one stage in my early 20's, I had 3000 clients in my portfolio. Every one of them would ask to speak with me about their business.

I treated every one of them as a human, not a policy that generated profit for my company. I was passionate about the people, not the profession as such.

So I thought humans I love them and I am good at connecting with them. So working with them in depth might suit me but in what context? My life experience led me to the personal and professional development industry.

So I started with a simple project. One that I could do ‘on-the-side’ while retraining. For some that may be while working in your "safe job" until you can transition into self-employment.

I had become a "thought leader" ingrained in my brain. I now eat, sleep and breathe it. You have to otherwise it feels like hard work.

I am good at creating content so I started a blog and then writing on a platform like Medium. I began publishing videos and photos on all my platforms. Yes, I was sh**tting it in the process. I still do by the way. It doesn't get easier it is not supposed to otherwise you won't get braver or better.

I created many downloads and an e-book and put it out there. I didn't worry whether it was perfect it never will never be. If I give into that pressure it leads to even more procrastination. I lose more time.

The reality is that most likely no-one may even have seen it or cared. (The world wide web is a really big, busy place). I cared that is all that matters. It provided me with value.

I did it because it built my confidence.

What I was looking for was not sales or page views or subscriptions. I was looking for feedback and stuff to measure on whether I enjoyed the process of doing these things. I did so I kept building on from that.

I am still building and running daily self-reinvention experiments. I am like Bowie in the sense that I keep reinventing myself in my life and business so that I don't need to fit in or conform. I was a broker, a bodybuilder and now a business owner. It has been one amazing ride full of highs and lows.

For more on this, you can read my piece How I Went From Redundant to Abundant in Two Years.

In running my experiments, I start acquiring the skills that I needed to thrive in my new found career. It is a simple process but we can over complicate it.

Think of it like this.

You are looking for some signal, some more information to keep you feeling your way to the answer.

Have you made a career pivot? Does this help or resonate with you? Have any more suggestions?

Post them in the comments so we can help each other with our different perspectives.

For more on having the courage to change with a pivot contact me for details of professional partnerships for progress.