“How did you find your career?” That’s a reasonable question that clients of Career Counseling Connecticut ask, particularly when they know my background. I started my career as an attorney. I note the following only because it is relevant to the point: I was one of those Ivy-league attorneys working at large public and private legal entities and, for that reason, received more than a few disapproving and curious looks when I left the legal profession.
My fellow prestige hounds assumed I scouted out an opportunity to become an education-entrepreneur, carefully calculated how to build a business, and then analytically made the decision to get more money/power/prestige.
Nope. I had a “calling”, a true soul-filled desire to be an educator-counselor that went against my initial programming to maximize public status. Strangely enough, the easiest way to make my calling a reality as a thirtysomething attorney and sole breadwinner of a family of five was to create a company. That I happened to do so in the greatest expansion of supplemental education in history was fortuitous.
I still don’t like my answer because the single sentence: “I had a calling…” shows the tip of an iceberg, revealing only the “a-ha moment!”, as if a lightning bolt created an epiphany. The long foundation of figuring out my calling stemmed from a lot of reading, reflecting and soul-searching.
I am meant to be an educator-counselor. That’s my calling. What’s yours?