Quintessential Jill-of-all-trades, Jo Laurie has experienced many career changes in her life. As a young student in her native England, Jo was pushed into the empirical sciences in school and specialized early on in chemistry, physics, and math. She is dyslexic and these disciplines were meant to help her focus on her strengths with numbers and equations.

Jo was successful in the sciences and in the British system under Margaret Thatcher; she was paid to attend university (free tuition plus a stipend) and earned a BSc (Hons), a degree with honors in Psychology. While Jo was stimulated intellectually, she yearned for a more creative outlet. So she left England and headed to New York City to reinvent herself and test-drive a new world. Read Full Story

Finding it hard to sit still at a desk job, Anne Roos had many occupations over the years before she found her dream career. She was a high school teacher in northern California but didn’t feel supported by the administration and soon burned out because it was not a good fit. All along she had been pursuing her passion on the weekends as a harpist for weddings, concerts and special events. But could she actually make money as a full-time musician? Read Full Story

Alicia Sable Hunt, known to all as Sable, grew up in the Hamptons in the 1980’s during the height of materialism, big money, and a recreational drug culture that was rampant in this affluent east coast community. She benefitted from the very strong grounding of a religious household and ended up in nursing school, an anomaly in her group of friends, most of whom pursued high profile and high paying corporate careers. Sable attributes her passion for helping people to her mother who instilled strong values in her at a young age.

A Nurse in the Kitchen

Always comfortable in her own skin when working with patients, Sable experienced a variety of settings in the medical field from bedside nursing to intensive care, and outpatient clinics. But, she developed a love for oncology care working with cancer patients. With 15+ years under her belt as an oncology nurse, Sable understood the immense struggle of those fighting cancer and the nutritional challenges they uniquely face. Proper nutrition is paramount during cancer treatment but many patients suffer from loss of appetite and taste preventing them from receiving the nourishment they need. Sable feels strongly that patients should be able to thrive while continuing with their daily lives during cancer treatment and recovery. Championing the cause in 2006, she stepped into her kitchen and began baking up a solution, and Sable’s Foods was born. Read Full Story

I just read an article by David Cutler who wrote a book called The Savvy Musician. He outlined various competencies for success in musical careers that are applicable in all professional work arenas.

• An Entrepreneurial Mindset. The ability to problem solve, create opportunities, think outside the box, market remarkably, and manage your own projects.
• Leadership and Vision. Individuals who possess a strong sense of vision and the courage to lead with influence are rewarded on many levels.
• Collaboration. Successful professionals value working with others, creating projects that are greater than themselves. Consider joining forces with the not so obvious constituents in your circle of contacts: community members, educators, business leaders, neighbors, etc.
• A Strong Brand. A brand is much more than your name or logo. It is the sum total of how others perceive what you do. What distinguishes you from the pack and how will potential clients or colleagues know that?
• Risk Taking. Most people are terrified of failure, playing it too safe and buying into the myth that anything less than perfection reflects poorly on them. An overly safe approach often results with a failure of the largest order – professional goals. If you crave success, be willing to fail and learn from it.
• Internet Mastery. The web offers unprecedented opportunities: social networking, blogging, podcasting, news releases, viral sensations, etc. It’s simply not enough to do these things – you must do so strategically for the greatest impact.
• Financial Literacy. Prospering financially doesn’t simply mean raking in piles of cash. Success requires a deep understanding of how money works – earning, spending, and saving.
• Research Skills. The most successful professionals do not reinvent the wheel. They take advantage of pre-existing resources. They establish relationships with mentors, embrace creative modeling, and devour resource materials in their field.
• An Understanding and Interest in the World. Only those who are engaged in the challenges, values, and realities of their communities are able to create products and provide services that fill gaps and resonate with others. Successful professionals are relevant.

When you play the career game with these rules in mind you will be well prepared for success.

Many people look for new careers because they are unsatisfied with their jobs, not in touch with their passion, or completely burnt out. Rebecca Carlson was very happy with her career as an Art & Creative Director in the advertising world. She was playing to her strengths but feeling extremely run down, depressed and often unable to get out of bed which was unusual for this active, athletic and vibrant woman. Following a trip to Jamaica, her symptoms rapidly progressed to the point where she lost the feeling in her legs and found it difficult to grasp a pencil with her hand. She decided it was time to visit her doctor to see what was wrong – thinking she had pinched a nerve or something of that nature. After weeks of medical testing, countless MRIs, and two spinal taps, her doctors revealed the heartbreaking diagnosis… Multiple Sclerosis. Read Full Story