The Search for Meaning, Money, Creativity and Control

Breathes there an ambitious achiever – male or female – forced to methodically function in a bureaucratic hierarchy who hasn’t fantasized about cutting the umbilical cord and starting their own business? The pleasure & pain of owning one’s own business is rapidly becoming the focus of countless Americans. As a coach, you are probably working with clients who want to take direct control of their career and are dreaming and planning to be independent. Millions of Americans – three time more women than men – fueled by choice or necessity are starting their own businesses.

Published in the November, 2009, edition of the UTD Coaching News, The University of Texas at Dallas, School of Management.

In dealing with unrelenting change for myself and my career clients, I remember that I am a graduate of the School of Hard Knocks. “You can no more teach what you don’t know than come back from where you ain’t been” according to Mark Twain.

I may have learned more from this reality education than the academic Ph.D. Perhaps the combination set me up to be extremely committed and successful in plowing through the fear, chaos and uncertainty of the “dark night of the soul” and the pain which results from unexpected change!

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The following article was published in the Summer, 2009, edition of Itineraries, the newsletter of Second Journey.

Igniting our passionate purpose is seen as a rapidly increasing necessity in today’s chaotic and complex changing world. We are all aware that the 40-year “Womb to Tomb” job is totally defunct! There is no longer any safety net, except what we, the individual, create. I have labeled this career revision the “YO YO Model—You’re On Your Own!” You and I are responsible for learning to successfully balance our own career on the current edge of constant change, chaos, complexity, and uncertainty. Though painful, frequently fearful, and characterized by a “miserable middle,” discovering the purpose you can pursue with passion requires activating a major step of growth, creativity, coherence, and order for our work lives.

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