Page 191 - Talane Miedaner - Coach Yourself to a New Career_ 7 Steps to Reinventing Your Professional Life (2010)

STEP 7: MANAGING THE TRANSITION SMOOTHLY 179

perfect business contact or job opportunity in the process. If noth-
ing else, you will acquire skills and experience that will help you
hone in on your ideal work. Even if you try something and discover
that you don’t like it, that is useful information and will help you
narrow down your parameters. Use the resources around you to
help you transition or build skills for your new career.

Career Transition: Important Things

to Consider

In addition to carving out more time, it is also extremely helpful
to have a financial cushion in place. It is ever so much easier to
say, “Take this job and shove it!” if you have a solid two year’s liv-
ing expenses socked away. Statistically,
most small businesses fail during the
first two years of business because of If you are not actively
lack of capital. If you don’t want to involved in getting
become yet another statistic, take the what you want, you
time to get your own financial house in don’t really want it.
order. Reinventing your career might
—JOHN-ROGER AND PETER
mean that you need to go back to school MCWILLIAMS
or get additional training. These things
take time and can usually be done while
you are still holding down a job that covers your expenses. And it
might make sense to experiment first to make sure you will actu-
ally enjoy doing it before you leave your current occupation.

Get Your Financial Reserve in Place

As much as I was hankering to quit my bank job so I could coach
full-time, my first coach, Thom Politico, urged me to hang on to my
day job until I had two years of living expenses in a money mar-
ket account socked away and my credit card debts under control.
This is wise counsel and is essential if you have a family to support.