If you find yourself among the ranks of people who aren’t wildly enthused about their jobs, then something needs to shift. It all starts with new thinking, which opens you up to greater possibilities. It seems that we have only 3 options available to us - 1) Stay unfulfilled and grow progressively more numb, 2) Dream of greater possibilities, but never take action which might actualise it or 3) Dream, act and remain resilient until our vision is realised.

If we pay attention to the examples of people reclaiming their lives, we learn that a person typically needs to devote a significant block of time to the task of finding their True North.

Clare Dunn spent a year without matches.

Robyn Davidson trekked across the deserts of West Australia for nine months.

Henry David Thoreau’s inner discovery involved two years, two months and two days in a cabin he built near Walden Pond.

The phrase the pursuit of happiness was coined by Thomas Jefferson when he wrote America’s Declaration of Independence. Jefferson was a fan of the philosopher Epicurus who was one of a number of ancient Greek sages fascinated with human happiness.

For well over 2 000 years people have wrestled with the question of happiness. We continue to ponder its importance, navigate the best way to find it and most perplexing of all, wonder how to hold onto it.

It is hard to accept that 8 out of 10 people don’t feel passionate about how they spend their work lives (which is most of their day) in this, ‘one wild and precious life.’

Do you?

The big factor in career change over the last couple of decades has been having to accept that the days of a job for life are well and truly over.

As technology becomes ubiquitous and the pace of life quickens, we’re having to become more nimble and dynamic than ever before. First, we had the GFC and now Covid.

External shockwaves like these can completely upend a person. Entire industries such as tourism, airlines, entertainment, restaurants and countless others have collapsed or contracted out of sight.

 Perhaps for the first time in history, we are living in a time where the children are responsible for raising the adults. An ancient proverb maintains that it takes a village to raise a child. But what kind of child is raised when that village is more akin to inhabitants of a mental asylum? A couple of years ago a book was released called, The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success. It suggested that psychopaths tend to be fearless, confident, charming, ruthless, and focused - qualities that are tailor-made for success in the twenty-first century.

When exploring the question of how to start a small business, I typically invite people to start by exploring their heritage, beliefs and values instilled in them. As Ted Hughes simply put it, “Before us stands yesterday.”

During the questing time of adolescence, I found a good steer while reading Scott M Peck’s A World Waiting to be Born. He offered a notion called ‘the guidelines of the heart’:

It is easy to apportion blame to an education system designed to hem us into neat compartments but perhaps the lion’s share of responsibility rests with our own passivity.