My Career Journey

How I jumped...and flew!

Hi! I'm Cherry Douglas and I am a UK based career coach.

I am pleased to be able to say that I love my working life these days. My passion is helping people to recognise when their careers are just not working for them and then supporting them as they find the courage to make the changes they need to have a more inspired working life.

And that passion comes from the fact that I have trodden that path before you. I have changed career direction, struggled with the fears and challenges that career change presents, so I know what you are going through and also what the potential pay-off is!

I remember not so very long ago, sitting on a crowded train coming home from London after a day at work, looking at all the grey, tired people around me, thinking that there had to be a different way of working. This mindless treadmill was completely soul destroying.

How did I get to that point? I am a qualified careers professional. My job is to help people make the best they can of their working lives. And yet somehow I had got myself stuck on a career hamster wheel that felt a bit like death warmed up.

Well, I had fallen into a familiar trap. I had been working at the same level as a career consultant for quite a while and I needed a change. So I decided I should make the move to a management role.

Yes, I am afraid it was the 'shoulds' taking over again! This is what a career 'should' look like, I told myself. People expect you to progress up the ladder, don't they? And it so happened that a management opportunity came up just at that time which would allow me to work with people I already knew well.

So I went for it, got the job and became a 'Deputy Director' – quite a grand title, don't you think?

It was fine for a while. New challenges always bring renewed interest. But gradually I came to realise that they were the wrong kind of challenges for me. I wasn't really so impressed with my fancy job title after all. I wasn't interested in playing institutional politics and the petty power games which waste so much time and energy. And I was missing the satisfaction of working directly with clients.

Looking back, I can see how my role as a manager conflicted with many of my most deeply held values. It just didn't feel like 'me'. No wonder I wasn't happy!

I was getting frustrated and de-motivated and it got to the point where I started wondering how many more years I would have to do before taking early retirement!

Not a good sign.

So I took myself in hand, applied some of my own career coaching skills to myself and realised that this was one of those moments in life when I just had to find the courage to take a leap of faith.

So I took a deep breath and jumped.

But as it happens, I had jumped once before.

Like many graduates, when I finished University I wasn't too sure what I wanted to do. I assumed that I had to get started on a serious career and so ended up going for one of the many graduate training schemes that were available.

(Can you see how those assumptions about what a career 'should' look like were shaping my decisions?)

I suppose there was the germ of the idea of wanting to help people, but if I am honest, I was following the crowd, rather than taking the time to work out what would really be right for me.

So I started out in retail management. This was fine for a while, and I made a few moves up the career ladder. But as I went along it became clear to me that the commercial aspects of the job left me pretty cold.

(You mean we actually made 5% more sales this week than the same week last year? Yawn!)

The interaction with customers was much more rewarding. And I don't mean doing the hard sell. What I enjoyed was taking time to talk to customers, finding out what they were looking for, helping them to find just the right thing. If it led to a sale, great. But it was the relationship building and helping that gave me a buzz.

My progress up the ranks slowed as I realised my heart was not in it.

I went to a professional careers adviser for help. I had a few ideas in mind that I wanted to discuss with her. Things like social work and IT.

Social work made sense with my desire to help people. But IT?!

Yes, I was still being tempted by the career areas that were 'in fashion' and where I thought there would be a good salary to be made, without really making the connection with what would be right for me.

Luckily the careers professional I spoke to did her job well. She encouraged me to think past the superficial attractions of specific jobs and to focus more on what gave me real satisfaction at work. She brought my attention back to the key themes for me – helping people, education and being able to work with some independence. It was exploring round these themes that helped me realise that her job was just the kind of thing I was looking for!

So that was the first time I jumped.

I decided to give up my secure job and return to college to study a postgraduate Diploma in Careers Guidance. Sounds easy, but it was an enormous leap to make.

Leaving a secure job with prospects for something that just sounded right. But then the prospects for me in a job I did not enjoy would not be brilliant and did I really want to be securely stuck in something that was essentially driven by the profit motive? No!

Money was also an issue, but I applied to lots of places for sponsorship for my training and was eventually successful. I decided to train away from home so I could let out my flat as a source of income and I had also been doing some saving 'for a rainy day'. Something told me that the rainy day had arrived and it was time to cash in my savings to make my career change possible.

And I am pleased to say that I have never regretted that move!

The training took a year and from then on, I worked in a number of employed roles as a professional careers adviser.

For many years, this work was exactly what I wanted. It offered variety, constantly changing responsibilities, a number of different roles in different organisations, giving me new challenges and always bringing me into contact with different and fascinating clients. I was always keen to go to work each day, never quite knowing what issues clients would bring. The job itself changed as I went along and I started running training and workshops as well as doing 1-1 work. I was continuing to learn new skills and stretching myself.

Perhaps I should have stayed? But as I said, I fell into the management trap, which proved a mistake. With hindsight, it was a mistake which provided the springboard into what I am doing now.

And now I really do work I love!

When I jumped out of my management job, I decided to set up my own business offering career coaching to others who were at significant career transition points.

Now the idea of being self-employed was pretty radical for me as I had never thought of myself as an entrepreneur. In fact, I probably had quite a dim view of entrepreneurs, stereotyping them as pushy, aggressive and money orientated. So it was a scary option and it really took me out of my comfort zone.

But I just went ahead and did it in spite of all my fears.

Remember what Susan Jeffers said?

Try it - it works!

I love the freedom and flexibility of working for myself (I get to walk the dog more often!). Every day is different and I have met so many new and inspiring people along the way!

I have learned so much over the last few years. It is possible to be an entrepreneur and still have a heart! You don't have to be trying to build a massive business empire if that is not what you want. And another radical rethink for me was realising that you don't have to have just one job - you can make a living by having a number of different income streams.

That last realisation has been a big part of what has made this new working life a success for me. Several smaller sources of income are just as good – perhaps better – than just one.

So how did I develop these different strands of income?

Again, it was not exactly planned out in advance.

If I was going to offer career coaching services, I needed a website.

I started looking into getting a website built and initially considered hiring someone else to design one for me. But I heard so many horror stories - people being ripped off, web designers making sites that look pretty but generate no traffic,coaches having to wait for weeks to get tiny changes made on their sites, the list goes on.

So I decided I would like to have a go myself. OK, maybe I am a bit of a control freak too – I just like the idea of being able to have instant control over my site, being able to change it whenever I wanted.

Now I am a fairly confident computer user but I knew nothing about website creation.

So I started trawling round the internet for ideas and this is where I stumbled across SBI and I got intrigued!

SBI, or Site Build It is a package that helps anyone to create a website. You don’t need any programming skills or knowledge of web design, you don’t even have to have a business or product to sell. You just bring your brain and motivation. SBI has all the tools you need, and they take you by the hand and teach you step by step how to use everything. There is a great community of SBIers out there, all ready to offer help and advice as you go along, so you get this feeling of belonging too.

They help you find the perfect topic for your site, to build it, to get traffic to it, and then they even teach you how to make money with it, no matter what it is about!

Have a look at the Video Tour to get an idea of how it works.

I have built this site with SBI and there are thousands more out there who have followed the step by step process to success. Take a look at these examples built by normal people like you and me. All these sites are amongst the most successful sites on the web.

You can also see that there is a staggering variety of topics that people have turned into profitable websites with SBI.

Now before you get too excited, this is not a quick fix.

SBI uses a tortoise as a mascot – slow and steady wins the race. You need to be ready to spend time and effort building your own site, but it is great seeing something that is all your own take shape and to watch the traffic slowly building as your site grows.

If you choose a topic that you have a real passion for (so for me that was easy - helping people to make positive changes in their working lives) then creating content for your site will be fun. What are you passionate about that you would love to share with others? Maybe you could turn that passion into profit?

The main thing is that it's totally risk free. SBI has a full money back guarantee.

They're happy for you to try it out to see how you like it.

What about the additional income stream? Where does the money come in? Well one strand is through advertising. You probably saw the links on my site that say 'Ads by Google'. Every time someone is interested and clicks on one, I get some income.

I have also written an ebook Know Your Personality, Know Your Career which people buy from my website.

And in my newsletter for career changers, The 5 Minute Career Coach, I occasionally make recommendations or referrals where I get commission from sales.

There are many other ways to make money with a website and SBI shows you how to do all that.

You can get some more ideas from what other SBIers are doing by looking at these case studies.

This is absolutely something that you can do too.

If you are desperate to get out of a job you hate, why not start planning your escape route right now with a website which can gradually bring you a new stream of income?

This could be the start of you really changing your life.

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Still hesitiating?

Why not take just 2½ minutes to look at this short video which tells you more about the SBI package?

Or if you are looking for practical answers to practical questions, I recommend that you get in touch with the SBI Advisory Group. They are a great bunch of experienced SBIers who know Site Build It inside out and will answer any question you have, big or small. Or if you just want to hear more about my own personal experience of learning how to use SBI and building this site, then feel free to contact me via this site.

On the other hand if you just need something that will speak to that inner voice of uncertainty, think about this one:

Go on, stick a few of your fears together. Stretch yourself a bit beyond what you thought you could do.

You'll be amazed at what is possible when you just give it a go!

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