Page 42 - Talane Miedaner - Coach Yourself to a New Career_ 7 Steps to Reinventing Your Professional Life (2010)

30 COACH YOURSELF TO A NEW CAREER

adoption—being some kind of pet expert on TV. That is something
I can still do: parlay my experience into media somehow. That may
be the next thing.

What did you do for fun as a kid?
I used to write. I loved traveling so much. I kept a journal about
everything we did on family vacations and wrote short stories when
I was ten. I loved writing. That is why I went to journalism school,
but then I got off track thanks to my well-meaning parents, who
wanted the first lawyer in the family. We always had dogs when I
was growing up, and one of my favorite memories from when I was
two and three is playing with all the animals on my relative’s farm.
There are photos of me kissing the dogs on the tip of the nose, lots
of pictures of me with animals. We had dogs, cats. As a child, it was
all about dogs, farm animals, and writing—quite an interesting
combination of bizarre things that make me unique!

What was the shift for you in finally quitting your day job?
After year one, Hip Hounds was starting to break even and was
even turning a profit ahead of time. I had budgeted it to be profit-
able by year two, so this was a pleasant surprise. I was steadily
paying back the business loan, and my accountant was impressed
with the prospects for the business. It was starting to look good,
not just in concept but also on paper. Even then, I was terrified to
let go of my day job. I held on to my day job until I realized that
in the past six months of working I had saved only $5,000. You
reminded me that the point of the day job was to provide financial
security and that if I had spent those forty-plus hours a week for
six months on marketing for new dogs, I would easily have made
more than the $5,000. So, all of the sudden, the financial reasons
for keeping the day job had disappeared, and it made sense to
quit and work on Hip Hounds full-time. You gave me the coaching
assignment of writing my letter of resignation—an assignment that
was really easy to do! It was turning it in to my boss that was the
hard part.