Let’s pre-empt career escapees with executive style coaching in schools.
Mark Twain was quoted as saying: “ You can go to heaven, but I’d rather go to Bermuda”. I grew up there. A 22 sq mile island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. This is what it looks like.
At 14 I was packed off to boarding school in England to complete my secondary education. Even at 18, my self awareness was limited. Interests included books and horses. Careers advice at school was minimal and in line with the traditional English boarding school environment restricted to the professions:
doctor
lawyer
accountant
banker
teacher.
The world of work was easy just fit into one of those boxes (…or tiny shoes…)
I didn’t feel particularly drawn to any of those professions, but what did I know, I was 16, 17, 18.
After an English Literature degree, and within 6 weeks of beginning law school, I knew I was a fish out of water. Faced with the lowest grades I had ever received in my life I began to understand the effect that personality has on your ability to succeed in a particular field. But if law wasn’t for me, what was?
It took 4.5 more years and a lot of unhappiness for me to seek out a career coach.
The self awareness methodologies I learned during 6 hours of career coaching opened up a method of approaching job-seeking that over 6 years of traditional search failed to provide and has guided every decision I have made since.
Meanwhile I noticed blogs such as“Live your Legend” and “Escape the City” cultivating huge following and my friends regularly commenting that law or accounting is just for now, they will do something more interesting later.
What if we didn’t have to wait until we are 5 or 10 years down a particular route and miserable to discover what we truly enjoy doing and where our real strengths and skills are? What if self-awareness tools and career coaching methodologies were taught in schools so that by the time you are 18 you have a range of tactics you can employ to make congruent personal decisions based on personal values and strengths.
If everyone’s job played to their strengths and interests how much more productive a society would we be?
The education to employment path as it stands is broken. I am passionate about upgrading and individualising the way careers education is provided in schools to create happier, more productive societies globally.
I’m excited to meet fellow do-ers and dreamers at UNLEASH LAB 2017 and learn from their experiences, knowledge and insights.
