Sara Bliss - Take the Leap: Change Your Career, Change Your Life

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ADVANCE

PRAISE

FOR TAKE THE LEAP

BARBARA CORCORAN

This book doesnt just tell you that you can change your life. It shows you how. Take the Leap is filled with valuable advice for any budding entrepreneur, along with the stories to back it up.

BOBBI BROWN

Ive always believed that a fresh perspective is the key to disrupting an industry or acing a new career. Ive switched up my career multiple times and it keeps things interesting. If you are ready to go for the life and the job you really want, Take the Leap is the go-to book for anyone making a career change.

SIMON DOONAN

Get ready to leap! A great career should be like a roller coaster: exhilarating, scary, with lots of sharp turns.

Copyright 2018 by Sara Bliss

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Touchstone Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

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First Touchstone hardcover edition December 2018

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Interior design by Laura Palese

Cover design by Jason Heuer

Back cover photographs (left to right) courtesy of Kutch Wines, Oneika Raymond, and by Simon Songhurst

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bliss, Sara, author. Title: Take the leap: change your career, change your life / by Sara Bliss. Description: New York: Touchstone, [2018] Identifiers: LCCN 2018034914 | ISBN 9781501183188 (hardcover) Subjects: LCSH: Career changes. | Vocational guidance. Classification: LCC HF5384 .B55 2018 | DDC 650.14dc23 LC record available at https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__lccn.loc.gov_2018034914&d=DwIFAg&c=jGUuvAdBXp_VqQ6t0yah2g&r=c9Glxg4VVUANT1TVtTh3YPOCuEEIGc6AamaOr-eXNtpUk55NPCEk4gZckoX7wiRG&m=KyznpQ0rL7IwpbZY4p6tAbzDuVobrRN3lsDSAO0j5S4&s=fEwevLnz4bzCLcIZMjVp01iye_UeYP-cTm2M18oOU9c&e=.

ISBN 978-1-5011-8318-8

ISBN 978-1-5011-8320-1 (ebook)

FOR ELLIOTT & LIV

ADMIT IT. You sometimes fantasize about living a completely different life.

Y OU IMAGINE HEADING TO WORK via sailboat, not subway. Trading in your dreary cubicle for a job that pays you to travel the globe. Or replacing your small paycheck with a six-figure advance. Maybe youre looking to do something truer to who you really are, moonlighting as a yoga instructor or a comedian or even a firefighter. Perhaps you feel the call to transform other peoples lives through education or art or therapy. Or you finally want to see your name in lights. Whatever it is that you sometimes dream aboutwhat if it could actually be your life?

Take the Leap features more than sixty stories of people who made their fantasy a reality. The Texas lawyer who now runs a surf school in Nicaragua, the professional football player who is making it as an artist, the movie studio president who sold all his possessions to move halfway around the world and start a charity. It turns out that changing careers isnt always about the job as much as it is about changing your life.

The landscape of work is radically shifting. Fifty years ago, it was common to choose a career for life. Today only 9 percent of Americans have the same employer for more than twenty years according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Thanks to the internet, its never been easier to apply for jobs, connect with other people in your field, research another industry, learn a new skill, market yourself, create a brand, or launch a business. According to a survey by the Freelancers Union and Upwork, 2017 saw 57.3 million people freelancing, an 8.1 percent increase from 2014. Some people find themselves needing to pivot because the job they thought they would always have no longer exists. For others, what they want out of life can change.

I know how challenging it is to make a career switch, even in the early stages. Growing up, I dreamed of being a writer like Nora Ephron. I imagined publishing a book a year, with a few movies or plays thrown in. Then in college, I became obsessed with art history. When I landed a job working at the front desk at Christies auction house in Manhattan, I was paid hourly with no benefits (while expected to dress impeccably). After a year it felt as though all I was doing was helping move art from one fancy apartment to another.

So I went back to my original plan and decided to be a writerbut being a novelist was out of reach (I had to write one first). Magazines and newspapers with staff writing positions didnt care about my college fiction awards. So I took a night course called Writing for Magazines at New York University and learned how to get published.

I landed as an assistant at House Beautiful thanks to my art world background. I mistakenly thought I would be able to hop to womens magazines from there and cut my teeth into writing about antiques and building products. Neither was an interest. Luckily, I eventually found editors who saw that I could write about anything and assigned me travel stories and profiles, which is where I really found my groove.

To survive in the era of shrinking magazines (and writers paychecks), Ive had to pivot my career countless times. Ive written four books on my own, but then seven books as a ghostwriter. I also created a new identity as a brand advisor for hotels and lifestyle brands. Through it all, I have written a novel and three screenplays, none of which has soldyet. Maybe thats why Im so drawn to the people in this book, all of whom didnt give up on a crazy dream and found success later in life. Their stories are motivation not to give up. Maybe Hollywood is still within reach...

The main constant in my career has been writing profiles. Ive found that no matter who Im coveringa celebrity, an entrepreneur, a hotelier, designer, or an athleteIm most interested in people who didnt follow a linear path. The most inspiring stories are of people who decided one day to set an entirely new course for their lives, whether it was because they were facing an obstacle or they were driven by something bigger.