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“We’re really excited to have you here in Bolivia.  We’ve organised a four week small business development program for you to run which kicks off next week with you presenting to 50 tourism business owners, telling them how you are going to assist them. Tell us about your experience with small business development.”

I felt sick. How do you respond to that? I’m an IT guy – I had no idea about small business development. To make matters worse, everyone was looking at me interested to know the answer. Rolando, one of the people running the volunteering organisation in Bolivia, had picked just the right time to ask the question – when there was a total lull in the conversation and everyone was quiet which meant, when he spoke everyone tuned in.

Last Saturday, in a Meetup group I run, I met a lady who had been in the same career for 30 years. While she was ready for a change, she was not sure she could do anything else except what she had been doing for so long – nursing.

That moment led me to thinking about my own experience with this. While I didn’t have 30 years of experience behind me – only 10, I certainly had convinced myself that I.T. was all I could do.

I can’t remember exactly how I answered that question that day in Bolivia. I remember having an overwhelming sense of guilt because my brain immediately assumed I’d mislead the charity I was about to work for. The truth was, I’d simply ticked the small business option (because working with toddlers in a daycare centre wasn’t my thing!) and I’d always admired people who had the courage to start something. I’d also attached my resume to the application, as per the instructions, so I was expecting an I.T. project. There was a break down in communication somewhere but it wasn’t anything I’d done.

That first day came around all too quickly. I was nervous – scared someone would call me out for not knowing what I was doing. I’d put together a presentation combining my marketing theory (from the marketing subject I did at uni) with my experience as a traveller and the creative structure that I used to produce results in my own life.

The presentation went quite well – despite the fact someone was translating ever word I said to Spanish the whole way along, impeding the flow a little. I’ll never forget at the end of the presentation, there was one guy who stood up to voice his issues. He was quite emotional and on the verge of tears and he said to me “I’ve taken one horse riding tour with 8 people into the mountains. They were referred to me by a friend. I want to keep doing this but I have no idea how.”

Over the next few weeks we took the participants on excursions to visit some other tourist sites to see what they did, we worked through a SWOT analysis in groups on each of the market segments and I started working one on one with some of the business owners. While there were a few businesses I helped during that time, I want to focus on the horse riding guy. Here’s how it went:

“What’s the name of your business?” I asked, kicking off our discussion.

“Name? I don’t have one.” He answered quickly.

“You need a name for your business, so people know how to refer to you. Have a think about what you want to call yourself” I said, giving him his first piece of homework.

“Now what horse rides can you do?” I asked him.

“I can go anywhere you want,” he answered with a helpful smile on his face.

We worked together for the next couple of sessions, using some wisdom I’d read in an article written about Steve Jobs about limiting product choice and came up with 3 tours he could offer people.

One of the volunteers was a graphic artist and she did the flyer for him. I then asked him to brainstorm where his customers might hang out – that is, where he was going to put his advertising flyers. With some encouragement, he came up with some great places to put them.

In the end, I was able to assist him and the others. If you’re looking at making a change and not sure what else you can do, don’t limit yourself to what you’ve done in the past. You never know what you might be capable of.

Advice for those looking to leave the corporate world.

I received a call out of the blue last week from a friend of a friend who is been given the choice by his employer of taking a job he doesn’t want or taking a redundancy package. He was weighing up his options. He really wants to take the package and move to the coast somewhere but is afraid to make that change.

I decided to write this blog post after speaking to him to share some of my insights for the benefit of anyone else going through something similar.

To add some context, I took a career break of about 18 months back in 2012 as I did not know what I wanted from life. I knew I wanted to do some traveling though. It was all pretty scary for me at the time – as I was telling myself (as crazy as it sounds) that I’d made a mistake, stuffed my career, my life was over, etc, etc. That break though, changed my life, I ended up quitting my job at the end of the leave and I’ve chosen to live life on my terms ever since – part of which involves running my own adventure travel business (something I am very passionate about).

Decision comes before circumstance

Well maybe not in the dictionary. Certainly in life it does – well that’s what I’ve found.

There’s a default I’ve gone to in the past where I make a decision based on the circumstances and whether I can see it working. As an example, my friend, let’s call him Brian, might be looking at such things as where he might live, is the rent cheap there, can he get a job – all the practicalities. In my experience, you’re never going to know all of that. At some point, you have to take a leap of faith, make a decision and go with it. I often find if you make a decision to do something, to leap, you find a way to make it work.

When we made the decision to move up to the Northern Rivers of NSW, we’d been thinking about it for a while. One day, we said to ourselves, we’re moving in a week. Nothing planned except to leave Melbourne, get in the car and go. Two days before we were due to leave, a friend emailed us out of the blue and said her mother (who lives in the area) is going away and she needed someone to housesit for her for the next 8 weeks – could we help? Bingo. We accepted. It gave us enough time to have a good look around, find a place to live, find jobs and get ourselves setup.

I don’t know what I want

“I don’t know what I want.” Said Brian, after I’d asked him the question.

He went on to say he felt like he was overwhelmed by what was going on and couldn’t think clearly.

Sometimes a little bit of space is all you need to realise what you want.
– Unknown

In that situation, I’ve found time out is often a good strategy. I took leave from my role in IT not knowing what I wanted from life – I simply knew I wanted to do some travelling. The thing that I stumbled upon was the benefit of giving myself some space. Knowing what you want is less a function of picking from the finite number of options in front of you (or doing research) and more a process of giving yourself time out, sitting with that question and letting the answers come to you. It’s kind of like remembering the name of a song only after you stop trying to think of it.

Think Lifestyle

“Did you take a pay cut?” Brian asked me after I told him I had some IT work up here on the Gold Coast.

“Yes – quite a big one,” was my answer.

I could hear a touch of disappointment in his voice. The thing is, while I was not getting paid what I was in Melbourne, I was getting paid enough to live the lifestyle I wanted at the time. I was living a life completely different from what I had in Melbourne. I wasn’t going out on a Friday night after work. I wasn’t buying lunch everyday. No transport costs. Living costs were also cheaper.

I think when we think about making a change like this, it can be easy to disregard it based on money. I always encourage people to look at the lifestyle they want – not just their job – and quite often they are surprised at what they find.

In Hindsight, I should have…

We can all use hindsight and say “we should have..” after the event. We can also fear change and scare ourselves into thinking we need to keep doing what we are doing for what ever reason and then regret it later on.

“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”
– Number 1 on Top 5 regrets of the dying

I really love that quote. You might say – that’s great but what can I do about it now? Well here’s something I came up with years ago.

Sit down somewhere quite – preferably in a park or amongst nature and away from busy, crowded areas. Take a few moments to relax, taking some deep breaths. Now imagine you make the decision to keep going with your life in the same direction you have been – perhaps logically following your career, not exactly happy but comfortable, playing it safe or maybe not doing exactly what you want. Imagine all the promotions over the next 20 or 30 years and where your life may lead. Really imagine it – where do you live? Who do you work for? What have you achieved? What car do you drive? Really paint a picture in your mind. Now imagine you are 65 and retiring from work and you take a look back over your life. Ask yourself what you are feeling.

I did this exercise back in 2011 in the Fitzroy gardens in Melbourne (near work at the time) whether to take leave or keep going in my career. I don’t remember the exact details of the life I imagined – only what it felt like. At the end of the process, I remember being overwhelmed with a deep sense of regret of having played it safe my whole life and I had regretted not taking a chance in life – not backing myself and going for something I wanted. That was a real turning point for me.

You can always go back

Someone once said to me there are no bad decisions because you can simply change your mind and go back. I think that is the case here for Brian.

A word of warning on this point though: don’t focus on the option of going back. Use it to quell the fear of change a little then focus on really giving the new life a genuine try. Pour your heart into it. You’ll be amazed at what you can do.

Live your own adventure.

For years I struggled with the question “What do I really want from life?” I kept doing what I was doing in my IT career even though I knew I wanted to change because I had no answer for this question. I’ve come across many people who struggle with answering that same question. Here’s my take on why it is so hard for some people to answer.

Our education system teaches us that there is a right answer to every question. Through testing, we are rewarded for being able to recall or calculate the right answers to the questions that are asked. For many questions, this makes sense. Being able to perform a mathematical calculation is critical in building a bridge, for instance. So, we assume that there is a right answer to every question – even the one above.

The problem is though, there is no right answer to this question. Well – not right in the way we have been taught to think of right. There is no formula to apply or some fact to recall here. It’s a different type of right – a right that has no reasons. Answering this question requires using a different technique – one that answers it and then doesn’t look for a reason why. Because I believe, what we truly want just is – there are no reasons for it. And in the logical cause and effect world we live in, where are the right answers backed by evidence, that concept is alien to many of us.

About 4 years ago, we moved to the Coolangatta on the Gold Coast in Australia. I wanted a part time job doing IT while I got my business and self sorted out.

I’d assumed that ‘if a business wanted to employ someone, they’d advertise’ and ‘no one will want to put you on unless you work full time’. I ignored both of these and used a different technique. I approached businesses directly.

I made two phone calls and turned up at two businesses in person and asked them for a job. Out of those four enquiries, I was offered two jobs.

It turned out, both businesses had been considering putting someone on to help out with their busy workload but hadn’t had time to advertise. Not only that, both of them only wanted someone for two to three days a week.

Sometimes it’s powerful to ignore your assumptions.

I’ve been putting off writing a blog for weeks. I’ll be honest – I’m waiting for something and that something is the perfect blog topic and the most perfectly written blog. I’m waiting to be struck by inspiration, for it to feel right and waiting to be sure it is a blog worth writing.

If I continue to wait, I’ll get nothing done. No blogs. Nothing published. Life will not change. I will not get what I’m going for, which hurts more than publishing a blog that might be wrong.

So, here it is, not perfect but it is a blog.

Is there something you are putting off?