Sunday, October 30, 2011

The Career Change Challenge

He sits among the many, all those lost souls who lost their jobs the old-fashioned way, via a layoff when the economy contracted what is now three years ago. But he's different from them. He didn't get laid off, he left his job by choice to pursue work he deems more fulfilling, more engaging, more aligned with his values. Perhaps most importantly, work that is about people, not profits.

But the economy is working against his best efforts. He feels like he is wrapped in chains, stuck inside concrete walls that surround him, at least 20 feet in height. On the other side of those steep concrete walls is a moat, infested with sharks, piranha, and alligators. Past the moat resides a mine field; equipped with nothing to detect the mines, he wonders how he'll ever be able to find his way through. But no matter, after the mine field sits waiting an army of more than 10,000 men, armed with machine guns, tanks, mortars, grenades, and missiles. Finally, on the other side of that army, is the new career.

It's simple, he thinks to himself. All he has to do is break out of the chains, scale the 20 foot concrete walls, find his way through the man-eating beasts waiting in the water, navigate the unrelenting mine field, and finally, bob and weave his way through the barrage that will be unleashed upon him from the army that knows no defeat.

Once he does that, he'll have his new career.