This is a guest blog from one of our clients, Rick Cotgreave. We helped Rick discover his second career at 40.
“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” Maria Robinson
These are Rick’s words below:
“What can I do? I’m 40 years old, I’ve lost the enthusiasm I once had for my work, there must be more to life. How can I use my skills more productively? What opportunities are out there?
These are just some of the questions I had when I met Rachel in 2010. I was taking a sabbatical from work and was feeling lost. The future looked uncertain, staying in the same job and ticking down the time until retirement was terrifying. Surely there was a more productive, a more exciting, and a more rewarding way to make a living.
I had been given a gift voucher to see Rachel as a Christmas present. We arranged to meet and spend some time exploring how to combine my skills, experience, and passions to create a meaningful career. At the time I had no idea that just a two hour meeting would create such a significant shift in direction for me.
With skill Rachel coached and advised me to examine the things that really mattered to me to take a fresh perspective on my experiences and to bring them together in a way that was both relevant and of real value in the wider market place.
My background was predominantly in sport, I’d played lacrosse internationally and used that build my first career doing sports coaching and teaching Physical Education. Sport provided a great foundation for a mind-set keen to constantly look for ‘better’ and ways to develop and improve. I’d also studied yoga and meditation for many years which gave a balance to the competition of sport and helped provide an insight into the mind-set of contentment and fulfilment. Teaching had been a great way of sharing my passions with other people, but I sensed that there were more opportunities beyond the world of education.
Rachel broadened my perspective and allowed me to see how my skills could be applied in the corporate world. I began to see that a keen understanding of performance excellence learned in sport was a transferable skills that could help businesses improve individual and team effectiveness. An understanding of mindfulness could help raise awareness, manage stress and improve performance under pressure. It was this knowledge combined with the passion for sharing, teaching and coaching that would provide the building blocks for my second career.
In just two hours with Rachel, my eyes were opened to new possibilities. I subsequently resigned from my role, gained extra training and qualifications in coaching and began to build my business, Mobius Performance. I chose the name Mobius to represent the fusing of the inner and outer worlds – bringing together the performance excellence seen in sport and the personal excellence discovered in meditation.
Since meeting with Rachel I have been able to create a career that is much more rewarding. I learn something new every day and develop my skills further than I ever had the opportunity to do before. I have had the privilege to work with some brilliant people and share my passion for human development in businesses all over the world.
It might have only been two hours, but the meeting with Rachel was the start of something that continues to grow. It’s a constant reminder to me of the power of coaching – the right person, at the right time can make a massive difference to someone’s life. We all have something inside of us, it sometimes takes someone else to give us a gentle nudge so that we can grow and blossom. “
For more information about Rick, click on this link:
http://www.mobiusperformance.com/about-us/rick-cotgreave/
Imagine what an Energise gift voucher could do for you or someone you care about? Click on this link to find out more about our services/enquire about Energise gift vouchers:
http://careerstrategies.co.uk/careercoaching/what-next/
For more insights, tips and inspiring client examples, follow Rachel on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/talentliberator
“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” Alan Kay.
What could your second career be? Download our free Skills report as a first step: