My Career Journey

My relationship with work started as a young lad. At dinner time.  In my family dinner time was about both food and sharing what happened in your day.  We always seem to run out of time when it was my Dad’s turn.  I am not sure why, I am not even convinced this is true.  I am sure I have decided it is my origin story for work.

I decided that if Dad wouldn’t talk about work it must be a bad thing.  Bad things had to be avoided or limited in one’s life to avoid disappointment.  So I would work to live.  My work would just provide the financial resources so I could do what I really wanted to do – the good stuff.  You know travel, play sport, live it up.  Ah good times.

I wasn’t good enough to be a professional AFL player and I didn’t get the grades to be a physiotherapist so what was I to do?  As I was finishing my Bachelor of Bullshit and good times, I mean Commerce, my Mum went through a really challenging life experience.  She received great support and really blossomed.  I thought that was awesome.  There also seemed to be a number of opportunities to do this kind of work.  I even found this company who was going to pay me well, develop me and be my ticket to America.  I was in.  It was recruitment for me.

Ten years later I had earned more money in my 20s than my parents ever did.  Worked in Melbourne, Perth and London – nope it wasn’t my ticket to America as I hoped it would be.  Worked hard and played hard.  Experienced redundancy.  Lead teams, climbed ladders, made money and so what.  I wasn’t happy.  I should have been. I mean I was successful at work, traveled internationally and I had even found the women of my dreams and got married.  I wasn’t sure if I was a good human and lacked any real direction.

The next phase of my career was to work out who I wanted to be and what I wanted to do.

I become a fundraiser for a hospital.  I experienced that as just another sales job with no products to sell or budget to attract customers.  I was also shocked by the undesirable behaviour and culture of the team and organization I had joined.  What I am grateful for is a great friendship made during that time.  I also realized I was a good human and no longer needed to hear it from other people.  I also confirmed that sustainable work needs both a great job and great environment.   So if fundraising isn’t ‘it’ – whatever ‘it’ is.  What’s next? 

I needed to understand what ‘It’ was and I needed structure and a plan.  I took time to understand what was important to me and write down my life plan.  I knew I wanted to have a family, live within 15kms of the Melbourne CBD, own two cars, travel to America annually, put kids through a private school education etc.  I also worked out what financial resources I would need at any and all stages of my life design.

I wanted to try my own business and LOVE health and fitness so I became a Personal Trainer.  Oh man it was great to nerd out on training and nutrition and do whatever I wanted.  Well sort of.  I had replaced one boss with many.  I was back to taking full responsibility for who I was and what I wanted to do.  I also learnt the value of time.  My non work time was in the middle of the day when friends and family weren’t available.  My work time was in the evenings and mornings when they were free so connecting with important people was prevented by the way I worked.  The tasks that energized me were all happening when with my clients, I just wanted to coach.  To earn the money I needed to support the life I wanted for myself I would have to become a presenter and sell products.  I wasn’t interested in that so a return to corporate life was on the cards.

9-5 lifestyle, ‘good’ money, leveraging my strengths and honouring my fears lead to starting in the Global Mobility Industry as a sales professional.  I was grateful that someone in corporate land would welcome a personal trainer as I thought that couldn’t happen.  Global Mobility is a combination of services to support the movement of employees, and their families, both domestically and internationally.  I was primarily back to filling my day with what other people wanted me to do and being who I needed to be to fit in rather than who I wanted to be.  My weekends and annual leave were again very very important to me.  I was also being technically challenged as my sales skills were no longer achieving the results I wanted.  I reflected on my sales philosophy and for the first time took ownership of what I believed was best practice.  I was the first Victorian Chapter lead for the International industry body the Forum of Expatriate Management (FEM) and landed multimillion dollar contracts. 

A pattern was starting to emerge in my life.   I would enter work and intimate relationships dialing up who I needed to be and doing what I needed to do to impress the other person.  That wasn’t sustainable and as I honoured myself more, I changed and broke my ‘contract’ with them.  So these relationships started beautifully and burnt out quickly.

I continued to invest in and experiment with better understanding human behaviour and started selling Psych Assessments for selection and development.  I also became a Dad.  I loved becoming a Dad and had lost my love of corporate selling and found an organization that was equally uninspired and lacking focus.  This role ended in redundancy.  Returning home to tell my wife that I wasn’t able to financially support the family was a difficult experience to navigate.

I was moving closer and closer to understanding how to be my best and do my best work.  It had to be in helping people and I knew I could never lose interest in reading about, listening to, watching or engaging in conversations about human behaviour. 

Before investing in addressing what I consider professional barriers of entry I wanted to better understand what jobs there were in helping people with human behaviour.  I chose to explore Social Work, Counseling, Psychology and Coaching.  I spent time with individuals from each profession to learn what problems they solved, who they worked with, what environment they worked in, how much money they can earn, what formal qualifications were required to practice and who seemed the happiest.  I landed on coaching.

As I undertook Life Coaching qualifications I worked as a Business Development Manager for Career Coaching businesses.  I was leveraging my past to learn about the industry, build skills and networks to move to my future work as a coach while securing the financial resources to maintain my lifestyle.

I experienced redundancy and the end of another intimate relationship.  This galvanized that is was time to be my best and do my best work from the very beginning of any relationship personal or professional.

For the last 5 years I have been self employed as a Career Coach.  I work with individuals one to one or in groups, in the room or in person to do a little life design and job design work ensuring they are aligned so they can be their best self and do their best work.  My great joy comes from seeing others redefine success for themselves, be their best and do their best work in weeks or months and not the years it took me.  The ripple effect across families, schools, teams, business and communities is awesome!

So what is success for me?

Being present, patient and curious as I maintain my ideal health and wellbeing, care for and enjoy my relationship with my son and support others through my business