St.Louis Business Journal
YOUR UNMET NEEDS COULD BE OPPORTUNITY FOR NEW CAREER

By Anna Navarro

September 2006  

Author's note: Client stories in this column are based on actual situations fictionalized to protect privacy and told with permission.

One way to develop a new career is to look at your own unmet needs or problems and ask whether addressing that concern for others could turn into a successful business enterprise. This approach has led many people, including me, on the path to more satisfying work.

Twenty-eight years ago I was a corporate executive struggling to find meaning in my work, trying to fit into a structure that just didn’t fit me.

I looked around for people to help me figure out the puzzle of my worklife. I took many career tests that told me some fascinating things about myself. Many resonated as true. But they didn’t really help me define a career in the practical sense of identifying a specific goal I could go after.

Finally I gave up on help and decided to tackle the problem myself. I resigned my safe corporate job after saving a year's living expenses and read every book about careers I could find. I spent a huge amount of time trying to sort out my future.

As I figured out the puzzle of my work life, I began to realize that there were a lot of other people in the same boat I was in: people who had been successful in their work but weren’t happy and didn’t know what they wanted to do instead. Could I make a career of helping them find a direction?

I decided this was a promising avenue to explore and mapped out a pilot program to test the concept. My approach was straightforward: I would charge very little, be up-front with people about the fact that I was experimenting with something new and ask for feedback continuously as I worked with them. I kept my overhead ridiculously low. My first "office" was my dining room. I hand wrote my first materials because I am a terrible typist and didn't want to pay someone else to do it for me.

From the pilot I learned that I loved doing this work, and that people felt helped by it and were willing to pay someone to provide the kind of service I was offering.

Since then Work Transitions has evolved significantly. Besides helping people find a sense of direction and hunt for jobs that fit their needs, we also coach individuals who want to stay in their current jobs maximize success and satisfaction. In addition, we train and license individuals throughout the country who want to become independent career strategists using the Work Transitions approach. Through all the growth, the driving principle behind Work Transitions has always been a quest for work satisfaction and fulfillment.

One of the many blessings of the way I started Work Transitions is that I learned through personal experience how to help others launch careers based on emerging needs which they experience in their own lives.

One client who was a gifted chef had learned totally new cooking techniques and recipes to help her husband who had severe diabetes. She was frustrated with the work she was doing in restaurants and the hours and schedule they necessitated. She tested and launched a business as a personal chef offering tasty meals for busy people with special diet needs stemming from health issues. The business took off from the start.

Ten years ago I worked with a burned out internist who bemoaned the way he had to practice medicine, with appointments scheduled every seven minutes and no time to connect with patients. I encouraged him to envision the kind of “old fashioned” medicine he wanted to practice and then to take the risk of testing whether he could make a living delivering healthcare services that way. We designed a careful, relatively low cost pilot and discovered it was feasible and he could make a living at it. He was one of the first to launch a “boutique” approach to healthcare delivery. He now has a thriving practice and enough time to enjoy his work with patients and his life outside work.

One of the best ways to spot emerging needs that can be turned into satisfying careers is to look at the world through the prism of your own needs and frustrations. Sometimes what is in the way can become the way. Just be sure you carefully conceptualize and pilot solutions before you commit all your resources to a vision of what the world seems to be asking for.

Anna Navarro is the founder of Work Transitions, a nationwide career consulting firm that trains independent career strategists and consults with individual clients.

This column was originally published by the St. Louis Business Journal. The actual title of the column and date in which it appeared in the Business Journal may be slightly different from what appears on WorkTransitions.com.