HEADLINES from Business Mentors, Inc.

 

What is HEADLINES?

 

 

HEADLINE: LEARNING TO JUMP…AGAIN!

 

Josh had been referred to me by another satisfied client.    He couldn’t wait to begin to tell me his story and convince me of how much he wanted a change!  Josh had been a software technology consultant for many years with a well-known national consulting firm.  He was getting excellent client reviews, consistent promotions and raises which carried him well beyond his compensation expectations for his career.  Unfortunately, he no longer enjoyed the work.  He moved from assignment to assignment, he never knew if his suggestions were implemented, and he found that he spent more time in his hotel room than in his condo at home.

 

SAME OLD, SAME OLD…

 

But, what was the real reason for his unhappiness?  Perhaps it appears to be the heavy travel or the failure to see results of his efforts, but that was only a symptom of his frustration.  Josh had always wanted to actually work in the transportation industry, but he never acted on his desire.  He always stayed on the periphery in consulting.  This was brought home to him in the last year when his company signed on to assist a transportation company for the design and implementation of an inventory tracking system.  The time he spent working with that company’s teams was invigorating, and he had never found himself so interested and involved in his work.  How then was he going to be able to make a successful transition into this field?

 

TIME TO JUMP…

 

When Josh was a kid, I'm sure he enjoyed jumping around and playing with his friends.  His decisions then were based more on his desire to jump and play rather than on the consequences of jumping and playing.  It's unfortunate that as we age and become settled in our career paths that we also become hesitant to consider options and our own desires.  In other words, we jump and play less, and we act more out of responsibility or feared consequences.  Josh had traveled the path of success for so long that he was unwilling to even look at taking a chance on a new career direction.

 

COUNSEL FROM THE COACH

 

Josh is like many individuals with whom I have worked.  They can identify what energizes and excites them, but they don’t know how to move beyond that.  I counseled Josh on how to examine his background in light of the transferable skills in his professional background which would allow him to gain the interest of transportation industry executives.  By helping Josh isolate and label his professional accomplishments in the consulting arena, he was able to see that he had extraordinary skills transferable across multiple industries, not just transportation.  He came to understand that industry experience is only one component for consideration when looking at a candidate for a role. 

 

I am quite pleased to tell you that today Josh is a mid-level technology executive with a major airline in the United States.  He continued to knock on doors of transportation executives until he found the one airline that was playing “catch up” from a technology perspective with its competitors.  The CTO decided that Josh’s blend of skills in software technology and transportation consulting was the perfect fit. I get a call from Josh about every six months to tell me how he is doing and to say thank you. 

 

It’s those types of calls that make my role so personally rewarding!

 

Invest in Yourself,

 

Al Stewart

President/Owner

 

 

Business Mentors, Inc. is a career management organization that was founded in 1995 by Al Stewart, a former corporate executive with background in the transportation and communications industries with such industry leaders as Eastern Airlines, AT&T, GTE and Sprint and an educational background in Adult Education.  His firm, Business Mentors, Inc., offers a broad range of services focused on successful management of professional careers including:  Career Exploration, Career Transition, Career Outplacement, Becoming an Entrepreneur, Executive Development and International Transition.  With a powerful record of success using counseling, consulting and motivation of over 3500 executives in the past ten years, the firm founded the executive coaching movement and continues to enhance its reputation as one of the leading and most highly regarded career management firms in the country.  For more information about our services or questions regarding how we can assist you, please consult our website:  www.business-mentors.com   Or, you can choose to email us at alstewart@business-mentors.com  or call our offices (Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale or Paris, France) at our global number:  404.644.8618.  Our associates are available in person at one of our three offices or via teleconference worldwide.

 

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