Life changing moments tend to happen on the sly. You don’t experience them and immediately shout “Ah ha! Universe, now I understand.” Instead, usually it’s with distance and perspective that we can pinpoint a moment or a feeling that led to change.
Dave Kynaston’s ‘Ah ha’ moment occurred in India while stranded in a traffic jam caused by a sacred cow. At the time Dave was working as an auditor but six years later, thanks to a business plan he drew up while waiting for the bovine block to move, he is now the founder and co-owner of Exclusive Vines, a thriving boutique liquor business importing wine from Argentina.
Dave is not alone in changing careers. Thousands of people do it every year. Take Chris Hexton, co-founder and CEO of Vero, a company developing email marketing software that helps businesses track their customers’ actions and tailor their communications. Chris entered the workforce as an accountant but is now an entrepreneur and pin up for professional change. “Having an imagination and a goal and letting go of some of the uncertainty is required in order to cause change. This requires a leap of faith, but you have to have a go, right?” Chris says.
If change is hard, career change is harder. Others will doubt you, you will doubt yourself. But is long-term career satisfaction worth the uncertainty and discomfort in the interim? I asked Dave and Chris about their career change experiences, the challenges and rewards. Here are some things to keep in mind if you are considering your own career change journey:
You don’t need all the answers…small steps can bring about change
The key is to recognise if you are unhappy in your current career. This can be hard. How do you decide if you are experiencing a bad couple of weeks or if you need a career change? “The trick is to be honest with yourself about your happiness and your goals and then consider where you are at and what needs to change,” Chris says.
A lot of people stay in their role because they don’t have all the answers. But the truth is, you may never have all the answers and unless you have aspirations in the fortune telling trade, a crystal clear vision is not a requirement for career change.
If you think you might be interested in interior design, why not take a course by correspondence and explore that interest? When starting your career change you don’t need to rival the big bang or commit 100% from the outset. Slowly, slowly is just fine. Small steps are effective in bringing about change. Chris lives by the motto ‘work hard, stay humble.’ “For me this is prescriptive,” he says. “Things take work but if you keep chipping away you always take steps forward.”
Skills are transferable – your current career has not been a waste!
One of the perceived barriers to change is the feeling of wasted investment in an unfulfilling career. Progressing your career is hard work and the idea of starting something new feels like taking a step back. But skills are transferable and more than likely you have a wealth of experience that you can apply to your new profession.
“Most people tell me their biggest reservation [regarding career change] is the time they have invested in their current career,” says Dave. “This is absolutely the worst reason to stay doing something you don’t like. Someone once told me the only thing you can never over invest in is education and I think that is 100% true. Even if your new career is completely different, your different experience will bring new ways of looking at things, new connections and new ideas. Skills are highly transferable and learning is easy. The hardest part is starting.”
Failure is a possibility – but it isn’t a bad thing
“Failure is hard and rarely talked about,” says Chris. “Ultimately, though, failure teaches you so much. Not only practically – what you did wrong – but also to have resilience in the face of adversity…You have to be practical when it comes to changing career. I will freely admit I was 22, I had no children, no mortgage and could live off my own savings for a long time. I could also move home…worst case, I could return to the job I had.”
While giving the commencement address to an eager group of college students earlier this year, Jim Carrey eloquently spoke about career failure and having the courage and self believe to pursue your passions. “My father could have been a great comedian but he didn’t believe that was possible for him so instead he made a conservative choice, instead he got a safe job as an accountant and when I was 12 years old he was let go from that safe job…You can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance at doing what you love.”
You are never too old
Our society has a preoccupation with people achieving success when they are young. If you haven’t found your niche and achieved your purpose by 25, forget it. Wait! What? When these thoughts sneak in, remember, you will be working till 70. At my age, that’s 40 more years to make headway in a new career. Chris reinforces this idea, “The great thing is that no age is too old. I always like to mention Michael Bloomberg here. At age 39 he was laid off from his investment bank. He did have $10m…but over the next 10 years he built a company worth billions. That’s putting goals into practice, even when you’re not 22.”
Before you finish reading I must disclose that I have known Dave and Chris for 12 years. Before we were friends, we were colleagues. Before being career change alumni, we were fresh-faced trainees at an accounting firm. Interestingly, many of our accounting colleagues have since tested the waters in other industries and are now making waves in new professions including physiotherapy, journalism and product management.
This is not to suggest that people can’t be passionate about a career in accounting. But rather, that career change is normal. In fact, career change in many cases is necessary! Who at eighteen has their sacred-cow-shit together and knows the direction they want their life to take? Careers shouldn’t be settled for or fallen into. They should be enjoyed not endured, actively chosen and pursued with intent and purpose. Sometimes you have to go out there and grab the bull by the horns.