Career Building versus Career Searching

I had one of those horribly vivid dreams a few months ago.  I was in law school and wondering where I would work after I graduated.  I couldn’t find anything that interested me and was also having anxiety over whether I wanted to practice law at all.  As I was struggled to awake from my nightmarish dream, some rational thoughts emerged… “I’m no longer an attorney. I’m running The Learning Consultants  (Connecticut Path of Abundance is a subsidiary of The Learning Consultants.) As I gradually awoke, my stress turned to joy.  I was so happy that I was about to get up for the day.  But, it was before 5 am.  So, I slept… peacefully for a couple of hours.

My mission to help others find career happiness stems from genuine empathy.  The combination of law school plus law practice was 11 years for me.  Some of it was great (law school friendships, experiences as a big city prosecutor). Some of it was good (traveling the country while working on a huge securities fraud case for the SEC).  Some of it was miserable (billing hours in private practice). But, most all of it – even during the good times – was spent career searching. I seemed to be perpetually seeking.  That was a tough.

When I started The Learning Consultants many years ago, I found what I was searching for and started building.  Even during the initial stages when there was uncertainty about “success”, I was happy while building what I knew was true to me.

It was not easy.  Much like any entrepreneur who builds a company from scratch, I had to deal with both ambiguity of process (what do I do?!) and ambiguity of outcome (will it succeed?) But it felt good – even when it was stressful.

Whenever I’m counseling a client to move from career searching to career building, I feel great joy.  That joy comes not only from helping others but from remembering my own past.