Fact: The average person will change careers 5-7 times during their working life according to statistics gathered from Careers Advice Online.
The pandemic seems to have accelerated a desire for change.
When you’re considering changing careers, you can quickly become overwhelmed with the abundance of information. But we have some good news for you! You can boil it all down to 4 simple questions.
https://biggsuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/4-Questions-to-Ask-Yourself-for-a-Smooth-Career-Change-blog-post-image.png430448George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Fosterhttps://biggsuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/BIGG-Success-Nurturing-Your-Inner-Entreprener.jpgGeorge Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster2021-06-29 05:00:452021-12-23 17:25:16Answer These 4 Questions For A Smooth Career Change
Who ever said you can’t learn anything from watching television? Today, we’ll pull out a syndicated show. We recently caught the Waterworks episode of The Cosby Show. In this episode, Cliff (played by Bill Cosby) decided to fix the tile in the bathroom.
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When I was in the plumbing business, it seemed like just about every time someone called after trying to fix something themselves, it turned out to be more expensive than if they had just called us in the first place!
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Well, that’s exactly what happened! Cliff got in over his head. Clair (Cliff’s wife) and Theo (their son) began calling plumbers (without Cliff’s knowledge). In the midst of it, Sondra (their oldest daughter) called Clair, who filled her in on what was going on.
Sondra told Clair about some friends from college who had their own plumbing business. Cliff was perplexed – why would someone with a good degree from a good college become a plumber?
Jennifer (the head of the crew) said that trying something new isn’t throwing your field away. She went on to give some examples:
Gauguin was a stock broker before he became a painter.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – was a doctor before creating his unforgettable character, Sherlock Holmes.
Shirley Chisholm had a Master’s in Elementary Education before she became a Congresswoman.
Gandhi studied law before he became … well, Gandhi.
Is there a profession lying within you just waiting to get out?
For many people, the second time’s a charm. The second career is the one that leads them to bigg success.
So if you find yourself considering a career change, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, here are a few tips:
You are the entrepreneur of your life. One of the things that entrepreneurs understand is that change means opportunity. So don’t resist change, welcome it. Better yet, look for it.
Next, redefine yourself. Bigg success is life on your own terms. Don’t define yourself too narrowly. Broaden your terms to find your bigg opportunity.
For example, if you’re in sales, do you sell tangibles or intangibles? No matter which one it is, there are a lot of occupations and industries to which your skills are transferable.
You’re still going to the same destination. You’re just going to ride in a different vehicle. For example – if you find yourself out of work, think about what you loved about your last job? What were you really good at? Look for those same things in your next career.
Remember that where there’s growth, there’s opportunity. A rising tide lifts all boats, as the saying goes. So look for industries or sectors where the number of jobs is expected to rise in the years ahead. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is a great place to research that.
You may find yourself going through a difficult time. You may find yourself longing for something better.
Think about Gauguin, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Shirley Chisholm and Gandhi. They found the second time was a charm.
Take all that you’ve learned about yourself and look for your opportunity for bigg success.
Thanks so much the gift of your time today. Please join us next time when we think about school days. We’ll ask, “As adults, can we earn extra credit?” Until then, here’s to your BIGG success!
In high school many of you probably took a careers/skills/interest survey. I did. And what I remember most is that my answers to the questions linked me highly with the occupation of Funeral Director. I am sure it also linked me with several other occupations, but that one stuck in my mind as I read the test results at age 16 or 17. And, of course, I instantly thought in stereotypes and imagined a job in a morose world of sadness and death. Sounded like a great job to a high schooler – and a girl to boot. What females run funeral homes? And it sure was fun for my sister. What a hoot for a 13- or 14-year old to find out her sister ought to be a Funeral Director (actually the test at that time said Mortician.) Imagine the great teasing that happened at our house.
Not once, but twice
So, fast forward a couple of decades. I had completely forgotten about those results until I once again took a skills/interest assessment test online. Just for kicks, to see where my skills might take me in future incarnations of my career (no pun intended there.)
Guess what ranked right up there in the top five on the list? Yep. Funeral Director. So this time, I decided to dive into the results and find out what it is about me and/or my answers that linked me to this profession, not once, but twice—20 years apart. There must be something that keeps bringing me back to that career.
My instincts told me that the following skills and interests would make me likely to thrive in this career:
I like helping people
I am generally calm
I am sensitive to the needs of others
I can help people plan
I write well
My instincts also told me that:
I'd have a tough time spending each day surrounded by grieving people
I'd have a tougher time spending each day surrounded by the dearly departed
Back to the research
According to the U.S. Department of Labor in its "Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2008-09 Edition", funeral directors:
“Perform various tasks to arrange and direct funeral services, such as coordinating transportation of body to mortuary for embalming, interviewing family or other authorized person to arrange details, selecting pallbearers, procuring official for religious rites, and providing transportation for mourners.
The job of a funeral director requires tact, discretion, and compassion when dealing with grieving people.”
Self assessment
Let's see…Tact. Check. Interview skills. Check. Arranging details by phone. Check. Discreet, Compassionate. You bet. So far, sounds like me.
However, that's where the buck stops. I might have some of the skills but not the constitution.
A profile on Salary.com of Funeral Director Fred Skinner summed up nicely the intangible qualities needed:
“Dealing with the emotional upheaval a major loss brings poses one of the profession's most important challenges. In one case, Skinner helped a teenage boy, beside himself with grief at the loss of his grandfather, to come to terms with the death. The family had chosen that the body not be viewed, and the boy was distraught that he could not see his grandfather for the last time. "I talked to the boy and his mother, and I got the family to give me 24 hours so that I could prepare the remains to give the boy a chance to see his grandfather and say goodbye."
There is more to any job than the skill set needed. What about temperament? Preference for hours worked? My personality, while compassionate, is too emotional for this kind of work. And though I most-likely could make all the logistics happen, I would not pass the test in terms of my comfort level with death. And, I like my evenings and weekends thank you very much.
So, even though I don't intend to choose this particular career as a next move, I discovered, or re-discovered some key information about my skills. Perhaps you would too. Take a career test online. You might unearth (again, no pun intended) some long lost skills or interests that you can polish for use in your current job or the next one you move into. And, by examining your personality, you might find out why you aren't in the jobs on your career test profile.
P.S. Funeral Directors have recently (2008) been highlighted in an Emmy Award-Nominated documentary. The PBS Frontline program The Undertaking received a nomination in the category of "Outstanding Arts & Culture Programming" category. According to a press release from the National Funeral Director's Association, Frontline “presented a moving, insightful view of funeral service and the important work performed by funeral service professionals every day. The documentary featured multi-generation, National Funeral Directors Association-member (NFDA) firm Lynch & Sons Funeral Directors, which operates from several locations in suburban Detroit, Michigan.”
Fred Gratzon, author of The Lazy Way to Success, had a great post recently called the Definition of Success. He says that you’re a success if you can “give from your abundance”.
He’s not just talking about money, but it reminded me of one of the guest speakers for my class. He said that his goal is to give away a million dollars in his lifetime. One of my students asked him why he set a goal for giving instead of a goal for how much he would keep. He said that he felt that, if he could afford to give away a million dollars, he knew he would be doing just fine!
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Fred also said that a lot of people think you have to work hard to be a success. He disagrees. In fact, he thinks you have to avoid work to be successful.
The definition of work
This is what we found most interesting – how he defines “work”. He says you are working “if you’d rather be doing something else.”
So if you love what you do, it’s not work! You can spend countless hours at it, because you find joy in it.
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We love what we do here at Bigg Success. Sure, we work hard by most people’s standards … it’s definitely not 9 to 5. But we found a way to work together doing what we love for a fantastic community of people. It’s not always easy, but it is fun … it doesn’t feel like work, at least not most of the time!
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Blaze your own trail
A great example of this is a young man we talked with recently – Sean Aiken. His last year of college, Sean’s dad told him to find a career that he was passionate about. Like a lot of young people, Sean didn’t know what that was. So he decided to find out by working 52 jobs in 52 weeks!
Now he’s working on a documentary about the project and he’s writing a book. He found his passion by blazing a new trail.
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My students are usually a pretty money-motivated group. They often go for the jobs that pay the most. The problem is it’s cyclical – the highest paying job now may not be the highest paying job in five years. So I encourage them to think about what they really enjoy doing and find a way to make a career of it. Now they’re set to rise to the top of their profession because it won’t feel like work.
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Don’t accept the terms that the world sets for you. Don’t define yourself by other people’s terms. Use your imagination to create your own world.
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As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “When you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” So make a decision to do what you love!
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The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
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Today on The Bigg Success Show, we did another installment of Tutors on TV. We love the sound effect so much we had to bring it out again! 
Who ever said you can’t learn anything from watching television? Today, we’ll pull out a syndicated show. We recently caught the Waterworks episode of The Cosby Show. In this episode, Cliff (played by Bill Cosby) decided to fix the tile in the bathroom. 
When I was in the plumbing business, it seemed like just about every time someone called after trying to fix something themselves, it turned out to be more expensive than if they had just called us in the first place! 
Fred Gratzon, author of