Laura Berman Fortgang - Now What?: 90 Days to a New Life Direction

nowwhatcoaching.com/welcome-to-now-what

Its not what you do that brings career satisfaction. Its who you get to be while youre doing it.

LAURA BERMAN FORTGANG

Being given the opportunity to revise this book after more than a decade since it was written is a great gift. Its also bittersweet. On the one hand, its wonderful to confirm that the material is still relevant. On the other hand, its sad that the material is still relevant. In fact, its not only relevant; its needed more than ever.

It was originally written as a result of eighteen months of work starting four days after September 11, 2001. I had told my agent that I was not interested in writing any more books. I felt my two previous ones were enough proof that I deserved to have been plucked out of obscurity to be the first American coach featured prominently in the media and awarded a book contract without a proposal. I had settled back into coaching clients in the relative quiet of suburban life with two infants and a toddler. However, 9/11 changed everything. Suddenly, my phone was ringing off the hook with people who felt panicked that life was short and anything could happen so they better take those dreams off the back burner and get moving. For the next year and a half, my coaching clients reflected one specialty: supporting people to figure out what they wanted to do with their lives. And that has not stopped. Ive written two books since this one, and I speak to corporations on a variety of success topics, but when the phone rings with a coaching request, its for career transition, and that has only intensified since the Great Recession.

This book is for you if youve been wondering if youre losing your marbles because you are considering a career change when most people think you have it good. Maybe everyone around you just thinks youre nuts for complaining or thinking of shifting gears. My motto is: If everyone is saying youre crazy, youre on the right track.

Now, please understand, I am not talking about true mental illness. I am talking about the very scary and unpleasant feeling of considering walking away from a good paycheck or years of experience in one area to do something else. You wonder if youre losing a grip on reality because our society (and likely our partners, spouses, and friends) are reflecting back on you how illogical your rumblings are. And again, thats good. Thats very, very good. Logic is a left-brain function, and as a population (first world, likely two or three generations away from our immigrant ancestors), the notion that having a job or an income of any kind should be happiness enough has become outdated. You know your life is good by the standards that society measures it, but you are not happy and cant seem to justify it or name why it is so. You may not be sure how else to go about things or what else you should do with your life.

If youre unemployed, dont think Ive forgotten you. This book is for you, too, especially if your industry is shrinking or gone altogether. So many people are finding themselves old, overqualified, or shut out of opportunities and industries due to the quickly changing landscape. Complete reinvention is required.

Youre being asked to send your rsum out into cyberspace with barely the courtesy of an acknowledgment that anyones read it and no way to follow up with anyone. Its pretty easy to feel hopeless. New tactics are a must. Social media and who you know matter. One big problem is that weve been trained to believe that if we do our rsum right, network, and interview well, a job is a given. Not in todays world. Its not about doing all the right things better. Its doing something entirely different.

As youll see in the upcoming chapters in this book, your rsum will not come into play for an indication of where new momentum might come from. Your life story (Chapter Four) will show you what needs to come back from the past or what needs to be pursued to get the ball rolling in your life again. After a decade of experience with this program, its almost become formulaic: Something from the past rolled into the skill set of today equals your new direction, or at least the key to having luck return to your side. Its OK if you are doubtful, but proceed anyway. I need you to trust this process.

Since launching the hardcover of this book in 2004 and the paperback in 2005, almost five hundred career coaches in the United States and abroad have trained with me to use this material with their clients. I have continued to coach people one-on-one myself and I have spoken publicly to tens of thousands of people, sharing the insights and exercises herein. Learning from all these outlets that the material really works time and time again surprises me. I wrote the original first draft in ninety days with four beta-testing groups standing by to work the program week by week. It was based on everything I did intuitively, shooting from the hip with my clients after twelve years of experience and the intense post-9/11 experience. But its been the decade since that has shown me hundreds, if not thousands of times over that this program works and that the trend toward stepping away from soul-deadening jobs is only growing with no sign of stopping.