Page 204 - Talane Miedaner - Coach Yourself to a New Career_ 7 Steps to Reinventing Your Professional Life (2010)

192 COACH YOURSELF TO A NEW CAREER

align with the kind of career you’d like to explore (take a look at
the Resources section for more information). Another option is to
start what you want to be doing in the evenings and on weekends
to develop your talent or skill. Take courses, classes, or seminars
that can add to your foundation. These preliminary activities can
also give you a firmer sense of whether you would enjoy switching
jobs or careers!
You may still be wondering if what I’ve been telling you from
square one is really possible: can you actually find the ideal career
or start your own business in your spare time? The answer is a
resounding, “Absolutely, yes!”

SUCCESS STORY

The Student Who Graduated and
Started Her Own Charity

Quinn Simpson is a cofounder of Akosia.org, a project to create a sum-
mer program for street children in Ghana. She is also the founder of the
Stepping Up Program, which coaches sixteen- to twenty-four-year-olds,
and is a coach as well. She herself is twenty-four years old and is unstop-
pable now that she has found her real passion in life. Quinn originally
thought she wanted to be a photographer. Photography was her pas-
sion; she was great at it, loved it, and was certain it would become her
career. She took a job shooting still photographs on a TV show, and in
one week she knew it wasn’t enough for her—she realized she needed
to help people. The only way she knew that her initial choice was wrong
was by trying it.
After her experience behind the camera, she concluded that she was
supposed to become a social worker and was convinced that was the
career for her. She studied social work in college and, during that time,
started working with very poor families in Scotland. It depressed her—
not just the poverty but also the knowledge that no matter what she did,
it wasn’t enough. She dropped her social work studies, and in her third
year of college she focused on anthropology and sociology instead—not