PERSONAL SPECIAL 5 PEOPLE WHO
TOOK A HUGE PAY CUT FOR THEIR UNIQUE DREAM JOBS
IF YOU EVER WANTED TO BECOME A FULL-TIME
COMEDIAN OR TOUR GUIDE, CHECK OUT THESE TIPS FROM PEOPLE WHO TURNED THEIR
DREAMS INTO REALITY.
When considering the road less traveled, it would be
unwise to assume there is a set roadmap to lead the way. Similarly, the path to
finding your dream job is unlikely to be identical to that of anyone else.
But carving out a path--whatever it may be--is
what Dan
Coffey, a senior consultant at career development firm
IMPACT Group, considers to be a vital first step to finding your dream job.
Step two he says is doing your homework.
“When you love
what you do, you can become quite successful,” Coffey points out. “But, that
doesn't always mean that you can do what you love and have the same results.”
If you need a little inspiration, here's advice from
five people who came up with a plan to follow their dreams:
When Christopher
Rither was in college, he made a list of all the things
he wanted to achieve throughout his life, and as he got older he checked each
goal off one by one.
He had planned on becoming a university professor by
the time he was 50 years old--he chalks this up to his own college experiences
and the inspiring professors he had. But when he reached his deadline, he realized
life had taken him in a different direction.
“To other people I lived the dream: a successful
business in real estate, big house,
nice cars, great kids, and enough money to keep it all going,” he says.
Great as his life seemed to be, Rither knew this
wasn’t his dream.
“My company had so consumed my life that it
infiltrated my sleep,” he says. “You know you have it bad when sleep is no
longer the thing that rejuvenates you."
Rither says he woke up one day and realized his life
was the problem, and it was time for a change. With only a bachelor's degree, a
university job seemed out of reach. So he did some research and found that he
could teach at a foreign university without a master’s degree. Soon after he
sold his business, houses, and most of his possessions and moved to South
Korea.
Now Rither is living the dream as an assistant
professor of debate and conversational English at Myongji University in South Korea,
and he couldn’t be happier.
“I may make less money now, but the teaching schedule
allows me to work on the things I really enjoy, like expanding on my writing
and artistic abilities,” he says.
Rither's Advice:
What has made
you successful in one occupation will do the same in another, and you can
always learn what you need along the way.
At the time she was a 37-year-old marketing
professional at Sony Music, and she was beginning to burn out.
“It felt like I had outgrown my fun, exciting career;
I knew there had to be more to life than this,” Mayer says. “I also knew that
someday I wanted a business of my own and my prospects for something
entrepreneurial in entertainment weren't strong.”
She left the entertainment business to accept an
entry-level position at a tour company, which paid about half of her previous
mid-to-high $50,000 salary. “Friends and family said I was crazy to leave
behind a career with a good salary and even better perks,” Mayer says.
But it was all worth it, she says, and she was able to
realize just how much she loved traveling and planning other people’s
vacations. Not long after, while on a work-related inspection tour of Italy,
Mayer came up with the idea for a fashion-themed tour.
“I had to follow my heart and devote myself to
something that brought me joy,” Mayer says.
With one year's worth of assistance from her parents,
she took the time to refine her concept, developed itineraries and marketing
ideas, and in the spring of 2001, she founded Shop Around Tours Inc.,
a tour company for travelers who love to shop.
The first few years weren’t easy to say the least,
especially after September 11 drastically changed the travel industry,
and Mayer had to make sacrifices. She says she had to seriously scale down her
lifestyle, skipping things like eating out for lunch, happy hour, and shopping
for pleasure. “But I regret none of it and would do it all over again,” she
says.
Mayer’s Advice:
If you can find
a way to take a risk, do it, but only if it works for you. If you have no
savings or backup plan, think about building a nest egg to fall back on before
you take that leap. I had serious reservations when I cut my salary in half but
I had a specific goal in mind and I eventually achieved it.
If giving public demonstrations is a large component
of your job and you have a serious fear of public speaking, you’re in trouble.
At least that’s what Dan Nainan thinks.
As a senior engineer with Intel Corporation, his
six-digit job included traveling the world with executives like former chairman
Andy Grove giving technical demonstrations on stage at high-profile events. But
he says he was incredibly nervous about speaking on stage.
To get over the fear Nainan took a comedy class, and
he says after that his interest in comedy took off.
After receiving a promotion to an even higher position
at Intel, Nainan became bored. He says he knew then that his career was not
right for him, so he left his job to pursue comedy as a full-time career, and
it took two years to make his first five dollars a show.
Apart from the severe pay cut, Nainan says he faced
several challenges getting into the entertainment business: For one, he says he
had no idea what he was doing. “It's not like becoming an accountant or a
doctor where you know exactly how many years of schooling you have to take, and
what tests you have to pass, and so forth,” Nainan says. In addition, he says
other entertainers were less than forthcoming with guidance.
Now that he’s figured it out, Nainan has performed all
over the world, met President Barack Obama, and says his work is extremely
fulfilling.
“Certainly I was anxious about the very low income,”
Nainan offers, “but at the same time I had the feeling everything would work
out, and surely enough, it did, way beyond what I could ever have imagined.”
Nainan’s Advice:
Many people I
talk to have what they consider to be a boring job, but they also have a
passion of some kind, whether it's singing, comedy, making movies, dance,
entrepreneurship, or whatever. At the same time, they'll tell me that they want
to pursue their other passion, but they don't have time to do so. I would have
to disagree.
The average American watches over 30 hours of
television a week. Also, on Friday night, there's tremendous societal pressure
to go out and party and drink, because that's what everyone else is doing. Then
they are hung over Saturday, and not really able to do anything worthwhile,
then they rinse and repeat Saturday night and then they are hung over Sunday, and
barely struggle in to work Monday morning.
If they could cut out the television, the partying,
and the drinking, well, I've just found them 60 hours a week!
Since the 1990s Steve Silberberg had been making six
figures designing and writing software for an investment firm. He graduated
with a master’s degree from MIT and
figured that’s what he would always be doing.
But when Silberberg turned 40 in 2002 he became uneasy
with his life in a cubicle. As his company grew, so too did the pressures
associated with his job. “Whenever I showed up to work, I wanted to stick a
fork in my head,” he says.
Battling feelings of depression and desperate for a
change, Silberberg realized he was happiest while on backpacking adventures.
“When I returned to work, I found that my clothes fit better, my disposition
had improved, my weight was lower, and I was stress-free,” he says.
In 2005 he took this realization and created his
company Fitpacking, a weight-loss-centric backpacking
vacation company.
Not everybody has taken to the notion of backpacking
in the remote wilderness to lose weight, Silberberg admits, and he confesses
that, though the business has kept him afloat thus far, when business is bad he
begins to fantasize about going back to the corporate life for the more solvent
pay. But he quickly snaps back to reality when he realizes there is still more
backpacking ahead.
“Sometimes I need to be more parsimonious with
everyday expenses and that’s a drag,” he says. “But it’s no more of a burden
than sitting in a cube every day unable to enjoy our beautiful national parks
and national forests on a regular basis as I do now."
Silberberg’s Advice:
Silberberg’s Advice:
Make sure not to
make your family or loved ones suffer (or even yourself) in order to make your
dreams manifest. Of course you think your business is going to succeed (if not,
don’t even think of starting one) but make sure not to lose your house or
starve your family because of it.
At the height of the real estate boom in
2007, Thomas Morgan made a half a million dollars in a year putting the money
together for real estate developments.
He says he got into business because he didn’t know anything else, and the
thought of going into film, though it was always what he loved and wanted to
pursue, seemed ridiculous to his father.
He didn’t realize he could get into full-time
filmmaking until after a few chance encounters.
After meeting some people who had experienced
homelessness, Morgan says he was shocked to learn their plight wasn’t the
result of drugs, alcohol, mental illness, or laziness. He figured they were the
exception to the rule until his wife challenged him to find out more and he
called the National Coalition for the Homeless.
While attending a Spin magazine
party in New York, he told a fellow party attendee,Super Size Me director
Morgan Spurlock, that someone should do a documentary on homelessness in the
U.S. Morgan replied, “Why don’t you?” Hearing that he would do the film,
another attendee, actress Susan Sarandon, offered her support.
Morgan says when he returned home from his trip, he
told his wife, “Honey, this is crazy but I want to sell the house, downsize our
lives, and do this.” His wife agreed.
Ever since Morgan has been making films full-time, and
he now operates a production company with Susan Sarandon called Reframed Pictures that
produces and supports documentaries with a focus on social justice and human
rights issues.
Morgan says he doesn’t mind the pay cut, and he will
never go back to his previous role, even though he didn’t dislike what he used
to do. “I wasn’t going to make a difference, and in the end it helped the
wealthy get wealthier, not mankind as a whole,” he says.
Morgan’s Advice:
Money is important
in sustaining your existence--it is not as important, or significant, in your
happiness or life. If you chase your passion you will find happiness. It won't
always be perfect, but sometimes the journey is the destination.
BY RACHEL
GILLETT
http://www.fastcompany.com/3034318/hit-the-ground-running/5-people-who-took-a-huge-pay-cut-for-their-unique-dream-jobs?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fast-company-daily-newsletter&position=6&partner=newsletter
PS: AND I KNOW A COUPLE OF MY
STUDENTS WHO LEFT THEIR ENGINEERING/TECHNOLOGY JOBS TO EXCEL IN FINE ARTS
MS
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