Why Pursuing Your Passion Not Your Pension is The Ultimate Mid-Life Career Change Strategy

 

 

“The starting point of all achievement is desire.”

Napoleon Hill, Author, Think and Grow Rich

 

First things first! Start from the heart.

The first and most important commandment of choosing and growing your business is to follow your passion.

Creating a successful business that you’ll love is impossible without passion, enthusiasm, zest, inspiration and the deep satisfaction that comes from doing something that delivers you some kind of buzz.

Passion is a source of energy from the soul, and when you combine it with a product or service that benefits others, that’s where you’ll find your magic.

Kevin Roberts, former CEO worldwide of advertising agency Saatchi and Saatchi, passionately believes that love is the way forward for business. Meeting peoples’ needs, hopes, dreams, and desires, or offering something which helps them solve problems for which they’d love a cure, is good for people and its good for business.

“For great brands to survive, they must create Loyalty Beyond Reason,” he writes in his book Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands. Roberts argues, with a ton of facts, and emotionally evocative images to support his premise, that traditional branding practices have become stultified. What’s needed are customer Love affairs. “The secret,” he maintains, “is the use of Mystery, Sensuality and Intimacy.”

Other experts such as Simon Sinek, author of the bestselling book Start With Why, and Robert Kiyosaki entrepreneur and author of the Rich Dad, Poor Dad books, may urge you to begin with rational, head-based logic.

I’m advocating a similar, albeit less analytical approach to begin with. But the premise is similar, to create something meaningful for yourself, and for the customers and clients you wish to attract, you must believe in what you are doing. Your business idea must matter. You must know why it’s important—to yourself and to others.

“‘Why’ is not money or profit—these are always the results. Why does your organization exist? Why does it do the things it does? Why do customers really buy from one company or another?” challenges Sinek in his book.

I would add, what is its purpose? Roberts, would add, how can you make them fall in love with you and inspire loyalty beyond reason?

 

How to Find Your Why

When you discover and tap into your passion, you’ll find your why. You’ll also find a huge source of untapped potential that seems to be fearless and knows no bounds. Pursuing your passion in business is profitable on many levels.

Firstly, when you do what you love, this is most likely where your true talent lies, so you’ll stand out in your field. Passion cannot be faked.

Secondly, you will be more enthusiastic about your pursuits. You will have more energy and tenacity to overcome obstacles, and more drive and determination to make things happen.

When you do what you care most about and believe in with such a passion, your work will be not something that you endure, but something that you enjoy. More importantly, work will become a vehicle for self-expression.

Thirdly, passion attracts. As multi-millionaire businesswoman Anita Roddick once said, ‘We communicate with passion and passion sells.’

Ms Roddick founded her company, The Body Shop, on one simple premise—beauty products tested on animals was cruel, barbaric, unnecessary and immoral. Millions of men and women around the world agreed.

People like to do business with people who are passionate about their products and services. When global financial services company KPMG re-branded with passion as a core theme, profitability soared. Check out my presentation on Slideshare to find out how:

http://www.slideshare.net/CassandraGaisford/passionslides-with-kpmg-slides

Hearts on Fire

The key to sound business planning begins from the inside out. First you need to determine who you are, who you want to be, and what you want to contribute to the world. In working this out, there is no better place to start than with finding out what sets you heart on fire and why.

Michael Jr. Comedy, a stand-up comedian and author, explains how discovering your why helps you develop options that enable you to live and work with purpose.

“When you know your why, you have options on what your what can be. For instance, my why is to inspire people to walk in purpose. My what is stand-up comedy. My what is writing books…. Another what that has moved me toward my why is a web series that we have out now called Break Time.”

Check out this clip from one of Michael’s most successful episodes http://bit.ly/1PnOTrH. You’ll see how working with passion and purpose awakens dormant talents and enables souls to fly higher.

“When you know your why your what has more impact because you are walking toward your purpose,” says Michael.

We’ll dive deeper into discovering your life purpose in the following chapter.

 

Surf the Web

http://www.eofire.com: Fuel your inspiration by checking out this top-ranked business Podcast where some of the most inspiring entrepreneurs are interviewed 7-days a week. Founder and host John Lee Dumas shares his journey from frustrated employee to inspired entrepreneur via video here http://www.eofire.com/about/

 

Discovering Your Passion 

Everyone is capable of passion; some people just need help taking it out of the drawer. Look for the clues. Often this involves noticing the times you feel most energized and alive, or when you experience a surge of adrenaline through your body.

Sometimes it’s the moments when time seems to fly. Perhaps it is something you love to do and would willingly do for free.

Passion is not always about love. The things that push your buttons can lead you to the things that you’re most passionate about.

Working long hours, too much stress, financial strain or a whole raft of other constant pressures can soon send you drowning in a sea of negativity—killing your passion and robbing you of the energy and positivity you need to make a life-enhancing change.

If stress is taking a toll on your life you may want to check out the first book in the Mid-Life Career Rescue series, The Call For Change. The strategies and tips in the book will help you restore the balance and get your mojo back. You’ll also learn how to boost your ability to generate ideas. Available on Amazon in paperback and eBook by clicking the following link >> getBook.at/CareerChange

If you need more help to you manage stress my book, Stress Less. Love Life More: How to Stop Worrying, Reduce Anxiety, Eliminate Negative Thinking and Find Happiness, available as a paperback and Ebook will help. Navigate to here—getBook.at/StressLess.

 

Action Task! Find Your Passion

Real passion is more than a fad or a fleeting enthusiasm. It can’t be turned on and off like a light switch. Answering the following questions will help you begin to clarify the things you are most passionate about:

1. When does time seem to fly? When was the last time you felt really excited, or deeply absorbed in, or obsessed by something? What were you doing? Who were you with? What clues did you notice?
2. What do you care deeply or strongly about? Discovering all the things that you believe in is not always easy. Look for the clues to your deep beliefs by catching the times you use words such as ‘should’ or ‘must.’
3. What do you value? What do you need to experience, feel, or be doing to feel deeply fulfilled?
4. What pushes your buttons or makes you angry? How could you use your anger constructively to bring about change?
5. Which skills and talents come most easily or naturally to you? Which skills do you love using? What skills do you look forward to using? What gives you such a buzz or a huge sense of personal satisfaction that you’d keep doing it even if you weren’t paid?
6. What inspires you? To be inspired is to be in spirit. What bewitches and enthralls you so much that you lose all track of time? What makes your soul sing? What floats your boat? What things, situations, people, events etc. fill you with feelings of inspiration? List all your obsessions and the things that interest you deeply. If you’re struggling to identify your interests and inspirations, you’ll find some handy prompts in the next chapter.
7. Keep a passion journal. My passion is passion—to help others live and work with passion and to bring about positive change in the world. If you’re not sure what you are passionate about, creating a passion journal is one simple but powerful technique to help achieve clarity. Your passion journal is where manifesting your preferred future really happens. I’ve been keeping a passion journal for years and so many things I’ve visualized and affirmed on the pages, are now my living realities—personally and professionally.

Love Is Where The Magic Is

Love is where the magic is. When you love what you do with such a passion you’d do it for free this is your path with heart. You’ve heard the saying, ‘when you do what you love, you’ll never work again.’ It’s true. Work doesn’t feel like a slog, it feels energizing.

As Annie Featherston, writing as Sophia James, shared in my second book, What Makes You Happy, “When you combine your favorite skills with doing something you completely and utterly love, you come home to your True Self and find your place of bliss. The result? Contentment—and more often than not, producing something highly marketable.”

Download my free tip sheet to help you create your own passion journal here: www.worklifesolutions.nz/books/career-rescue

Passion in Business

A good way to find your own passion and identify ways to turn it into a fulfilling self-employment opportunity is to look for examples of others who have started businesses they are passionate about.

Here are just a few of many examples:

A passion for bugs! Brian Clifford is passionate about helping people and bugs. He has combined his passion into a successful business as a pest controller.

“All the rats, all the maggots, all the cockroaches all over the place, these are the things that I love doing,’ he says. His business motto is, ‘If it bugs you, I’ll kill it!”

Check out his business here >> www.borercontrolwellington.co.nz

 

A passion for bones! John Holley has turned his passion for bones into a business, Skulls Down Under, selling skeletons to museums all over the world.

Check out his business here >> www.skullsdownunder.co.nz

 

A passion for Maori food. Charles Royal’s passion for finding a way to incorporate traditional Maori foods into modern dishes led him to start his own business – Kinaki Wild Herbs.

“I had learned a lot about the bush during my time in the army and have taken that knowledge through the years, developing food tours and cooking classes using what we gather from the wild. I love organics and making something out of nothing, but you have to know what you are looking for,” says Royal. Air New Zealand now serves pikopiko and horopito in its First and Business Classes.

Check out his business here >> www.maorifood.com

 

“Passion is Everything-If You Don’t Have It You Will Not Succeed”

A love of good food and a lifelong dream to open their passion-driven business in London fueled Wellington restauranteurs Vivienne Haymans and Ashley Sumners’ move to the UK.

“We both felt we had gone as far as we could with our business in New Zealand and wanted to move further afield,” says Vivienne.

“I came here for a three-month holiday, secretly wanting to stay longer and build a business overseas. On arriving I discovered that London seriously needed a restaurant like our Sugar Club in Wellington. There was nowhere in London doing anything like it. I called Ash and a year later he also moved to London after selling our Wellington restaurant.”

They relocated the restaurant to Notting Hill in 1995, then to Soho in 1998, winning the Time Out “Best Modern British Restaurant” award in 1996 and “Best Central London Restaurant” award in 1999, along with several Evening Standard Eros awards.

Since then they have expanded and diversified their restaurant business, opening a chain of modern traiteurs (Italian-style delicatessens) that offer delicious, easy-to-prepare hand-made meals and great New Zealand coffee.

The first of these is called The Grocer on Elgin, situated in the heart of Notting Hill. Vivienne designed all three restaurants and ‘The Grocer on’ stores.

Like many people following their passion Vivienne and Ash faced significant barriers before finally making it big.

“It took Ash and I seven years to fulfill our dream of opening The Sugar Club in London. When we first arrived there were huge premiums being asked for restaurant sites.

Then, with the early 90s recession they were giving restaurants away but, like now, the banks were not lending. We had no property assets at the time, limited funds, a reference from our NZ lawyer, accountant and bank manager and a handful of NZ press clippings. The banks wanted property assets and UK business records. No less.”

Just when it looked like the obstacles were insurmountable, their passion for great food and design, the quality of the produce, and the integrity of its production, produced lucky fruit.

“We were offered a site by a landlord that we had had dealings with in the past. He liked what we did and gave us the lease. We developed the old Singapore Pandang into the Notting Hill Sugar Club. I borrowed an extra £5000 from my mum and paid her back in a month. It was an instant success and well worth the long wait.”

Vivienne says that following their passion is an important ingredient in their success.

“Passion is everything—if you don’t have it you will not succeed. It is hard work; your passion will pull you through the seriously bad times, which will always occur.”

Hot Tip! Gathering your own examples of passionate people and businesses is a great way to build confidence and generate your own business ideas.

Here are some things that other people who are self-employed are passionate about:

• Creating Businesses—Entrepreneurs Melissa Clarke Reynolds and Eric Watson
• Airports—Graham is an airport designer
• Boats—Bill Day runs a specialist maritime service business
• Beauty—Joy Gaisford, Designer
• Food—Ruth Pretty, Caterer and food writer
• Astronomy—Richard Hall, Stonehenge Aotearoa
• Design—Luke Pierson, runs a web design business
• Rocks—Carl created Carlucciland—a rock-themed amusement park
• Passion—Cassandra Gaisford helping people work and live their passion! www.cassandragaisford.com

Here are some things that some businesses are passionate about:

• Animal Welfare and Human Rights—The Body Shop
• Technology—Microsoft, Apple
• Helping people—Worklife Solutions, Venus Network
• Equality—The EEO Trust, and the Johnstone Group
• The Environment—The Conservation Department
• Honey—The Honey Hive
• Chocolate—Chocaholic
• Pampering Others—Box of Chocolates and East Day Spa

 

Tune In To Your Body Barometer

What pushes your buttons or makes you angry? Having my manager threaten to ‘smash my head in,’ and working with others who were bullies and tyrants, the relentless pursuit of profit at the expense of caring for people, and numerous work restructurings, motivated me to gain my independence.

That and getting shingles—something I wrote about in my first books, The Call for Change, and also What Makes You Happy.

Shingles was definitely my body barometer sending me a red alert! As was seeing my colleagues suffer heart attacks.

As Neale Walsch, the author of Conversations with God, says, “Judge not about which you feel passionate. Simply notice it, then see if it serves you, given who and what you wish to be.”

So, as I’ve mentioned earlier, rather than become bitter, I thought how could I use my anger constructively to bring about change?

I decided I wanted to help people find jobs that made them happy, and I wanted to help victims of workplace bullying. That was my why and my what.

Stepping Stones to Success

I started a career counseling business for an established workplace counseling organization before going out on my own.

Working as an employee first gave me the confidence to fly free. I became more motivated when the CEO changed and the new boss tried to manage me. Increasingly, the job began to frustrate me.

It lacked challenge, my salary was capped, and I was finding it increasingly difficult to balance childcare. The final clincher, however, was when I did the math.

I worked out my hourly rate as a full-time salaried employee, versus what they charged me out per hour, and how much business I was bringing in for them, and came to the conclusion they were buying my skills, but they weren’t paying me enough. I could work less and earn and achieve more if I employed myself. I started to feel excited!

 

Action Task! Tune into Your Body Barometer

Notice the times you feel strong emotions. These could be annoyance, irritation and anger. Or they could be a sense of excitement, a state of arousal, a feeling of limitless energy, a burning desire, a strong gut feeling, a feeling of contentment or determination. Notice these feelings and record them in your passion journal.

Go deeper. Ask, “How could I make a living from my passion?” or “How do others make a living from things that excite or motivate me?”

Explore possibilities. Even a simple Google search, or generating ideas with others could get you started down the right path.

** FREE BONUS **

If you haven’t downloaded the free copy of the Passion Workbook, download it here >>

 

This is an edited extract from “Midlife Career Rescue: (Employ Yourself): How to confidently leave a job you hate, and start living a life you love, before it’s too late” by Cassandra Gaisford. To purchase your copy and learn how to follow your passion to prosperity, click here to go to your online bookshop.

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Tags: career change, career counselling, change careers, Changing careers, mid-life career change