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If you had it do to all over again, would you choose the career you're in now?
If not, you're certainly not alone. According to a Wall Street Journal/ABC News
poll, half of all American workers would opt for a different career if they had
a second chance.
Why? A lot of it comes down to one simple word -- independence, says Charles
Fitzpatrick, director of the Small Business Development Center and The Center
for Entrepreneurial Activities at Central Michigan University.
Most people know they will never reach their full potential while working
under someone else or in a job that doesn't feed their passions.
Of course, most folks just daydream about that road not taken. Or they have
vague plans of pursuing their real passions after they retire.
But increasing numbers of young and youngish professionals are discovering they
can afford that second chance -- Long before their 50th birthdays.
Thank the robust economy, the soaring stock market and prematurely swollen
retirement accounts. And thank a tight labor market for rapid job advancement
for the talented.
Of course it still takes guts, confidence and ability to toss away the security
blanket of a good job and start all over again at something new. It also takes
planning.
Meet three people who took the plunge.
Seven minutes of peace
John Hayden, in his early 40s and single, was in his eighth year of selling
large computer systems for Hewlett-Packard in Seattle when he pulled off his
greatest coup -- a tough, $2.5 million sale. Hayden won company awards and
accolades, but no peace.
After I nailed that big account I had about seven minutes of elation before
another customer called with some problem, and I realized that the biggest deal
of my career was worth seven minutes of feeling high.
The reason I'd gone to work was to have money, and after eight years, I had
money. At some point you have to think about the trade-off of not doing work
that feeds your soul.
Hayden decided it was time to quit -- yet he had no clue what he was going to
do. He'd always had entrepreneurial ideas and hoped to pursue one.
“I knew I wanted to quit for a long time,” Hayden recalls. “I was bored early
on, during training. It was like I'd tried every Blizzard flavor at Dairy
Queen. But the money kept getting better, so it was always easier to stay.
The grocery ceiling
Dave Wolf, in his mid 30s and married with no kids, was a grocery merchandiser
for Nature's Fresh Northwest in Portland, Ore. He worked his way up from
cashier to upper management in the course of a decade.
But when a major conglomerate bought out his company, Wolf recognized that his
job was becoming less creative and less independent.
I wanted to find an outlet for my creative energies, the former art student
says. I wanted a job that contributed to my community and to the environment.
But it was too difficult to make a shift while I was working so hard on the
burnout track.
Tired of being an overseer
Jill Gianola, in her late 40s and single with two teenage kids, had worked as
the business manager at Electronic Decisions, a microelectronics company in
Urbana, Ill., for nine years.
It was long enough, she felt, and time to follow her own star. “I wanted to be
a doer rather than an overseer. I didn't want to manage people anymore; I
wanted to do the best part of my work on my own.”
Hayden, Wolf and Gianola were successful employees at reliable companies that
were decent places to work.
It takes guts, confidence and ability to toss away the security blanket of a
good job and start all over again at something new.
Workers of an earlier generation might have given their right arms for such
jobs, viewing them as secure career tracks, culminating in a comfortable
retirement paid for by an employer grateful for decades of service.
But not today's brand of talented employees. They've seen the downsizing of
corporate America and the death of company loyalty.
And they have seen too many people hang on to jobs they hate because of fear,
desperation or sheer inertia.
Time to stick your neck out
Fitzpatrick says the trend of successful workers lighting out for greener
pastures is definitely on the rise. He cites a number of reasons, including:
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Disenchantment with work environment, challenges and pay.
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The allure of potential income from entrepreneurial pursuits.
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A need to finally pursue an original business concept or career path that a
worker has always considered.
Fitzpatrick also suggests that a greater number of workers are able to jump
careers today, thanks to technology.
Software programs, the Internet and the availability of technological support
services allow people to do research, work from home and attend to other
aspects of business they never could have done in the past.
The government plays a role here, too, as individual workers get tax breaks to
fund their own, portable retirement plans.
How to succeed in quitting
Hayden didn't have a specific financial strategy to help him leave
Hewlett-Packard. But being tight with a buck certainly helped.
Hayden describes himself as a manic saver. During the years that he earned a
good salary and bonuses, he accumulated stock in H-P and other companies.
He also invested in real estate, ultimately buying three duplexes that he fixed
up and rented. At first, rental incomes simply paid his mortgages. But as
rents rose in the Northwest, Hayden began earning extra cash while enjoying
increasing property values and tax benefits.
He also lives inexpensively in one half of one of his duplexes.
Psychologically, Hayden made it much easier to quit his job by first taking a
one-year leave of absence. He promised himself an initial six months of
traveling around the United States, during which he wouldn't even think about
what to do next.
To save on transportation, lodging and food costs during that first six months
of travel, Hayden bought a Westfalia van.
Today's brand of talented employees have seen the downsizing of corporate
America and the death of company loyalty.
The former high-volume salesman budgeted himself to $1,000 in monthly expenses,
despite his substantial net worth.
No fat portfolio, but another ace in the hole
Wolf had to plan specific financial strategies to help him leave his job. When
he decided he wanted to move on, his bankbook was pretty empty.
For starters, Wolf paid off as much debt as he could, including credit cards
and student loans, to minimize expenses later on.
Wolf also managed to save a bit of money, but he invested it in his company's
401(k) plan. He would only dip into it if he absolutely had to.
No cash reserves? Well, there was Wolf's wife, Leslie Jones. A couple of years
earlier, Wolf had helped put her through graduate school so that she could make
a career change.
Now that she was back in the work force, it was his chance to take a risk and
Leslie could provide a safety net.
Wolf and Jones, like Hayden, came up with a creative way of turning a major
expense -- housing -- into an investment.
They had always lived in communal housing, so they bought a house with a close
friend and rented space to the friend's boyfriend and his brother.
The five housemates all contributed sweat equity into fixing up the house and
increasing its value.
Wolf not only managed to own a house (and enjoy the tax advantages) while
paying just one-fifth of the mortgage. He also had to perform only one-fifth of
the normal chores. So he had time to take a series of computer classes.
Finally, to save the expense of health insurance while making his transition,
Wolf arranged to work the minimum number of hours at his old company so that he
could still receive benefits.
A single mom with two kids, with little margin for error
Gianola had determined that she could make a very good financial planner. Her
first client turned out to be herself. She had to plan her career switch --
the biggest financial move of her life -- like a pro.
Gianola figured her living costs at $1,500 a month and calculated $20,000 in
start-up costs for her new business. Assuming that she might be without any
income for as long as a year, she put aside $38,000 in extra funds before
leaving her job.
While she still had steady employment, she shopped for low-interest credit
cards and took out a home equity line of credit.
In retrospect, she also wishes that she'd gotten disability insurance, which
was impossible to obtain once she'd left her company.
The joy of looking poor
In addition, Gianola moved from Illinois to a less expensive home in Columbus,
Ohio, pocketing some of the cash from her home sale and repurchase. She
insisted on a house close to the kids' high school so that they wouldn't need a
car to get to class or after-school jobs.
And although she hadn't planned it, she recommends starting up a new business
when your kids are almost ready to go to college. “I looked very poor, so my
kids qualified for financial aid,” Gianola reports.
Gianola also repositioned her investment portfolio by switching all but her IRA
funds into safe vehicles such as money market and short-term bond funds. She
simply could not afford any more risk at the time.
Finally, she set up an office outside her home and devoted much of her initial
time to marketing. She prepared free financial plans so that friends might
spread word of her services; she taught financial planning at a local
community college; she wrote articles for local papers.
R E L A T E D S I T E S
Jamtown
A whole new bag
After leaving Hewlett-Packard, Hayden traveled widely in the United States,
Mexico and Central America. While on the road, he got a brainstorm for a
product he calls Jamtown.
It's a bag full of five percussion instruments made by indigenous peoples
around the world -- iron bells from Ghana; claves (thick sticks) from Central
Mexico, scrapers (dried gourds) from Peru, goatskin drums from Pakistan, and
shakers (seed pods) from Africa. Retail cost: $75.
Add another $12 for the book and game cards to help you learn how to play the
instruments and use them to express rhythm.
Hayden's new bag is now sold through four national mail-order catalogs and on
his Web site.
From apples to Apples
Wolf, at the time of this writing, was still in the early throes of trying to
quit his full-time job. He is working half-time at Nature's to retain his
benefits package and getting his feet wet as a computer consultant and Web site
designer.
Gianola is doing so well now that she recently hired an assistant to help her
service 110 financial clients. She operates on a fee-only basis. Her typical
fee is $2,500 to $3,000 for the first year. She now manages more than $14
million in assets.
Hayden, Wolf and Gianola all proved successful in the first, and often most
difficult, phase of shifting careers -- leaping from a good job into the great
unknown.
None of them did it on a whim. Fitzpatrick recommends you investigate before
you jump.
Research your markets, perform powerful self-assessment, and talk to people in
your new industry, he says, so you understand, both financially and
emotionally, what your career shift entails.
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