When I met Denise, she looked like she was ready for change. She had been working in the same bank for nearly 20 years, and at 42 she knew she couldn’t do the same job for another 5 years, let alone 10!
The problem was, she had worked her way up in the bank to a point where she was in the top 1% earning category. She had a lot to lose. But she also had a lot to lose if she didn’t make a change. She was not only unhappy in her work – not learning anymore and sick of the politics of the ‘big corporation’ – she was becoming unhealthy. The stress was grinding her down.
So we took her on a journey. With her closest stakeholders (her husband, a work colleague and a close friend) we explored what made Denise tick – her skills and strengths, her needs and constraints for her future, and what she values and brought her energy. We created a range of options, and filtered them down to the thing that was most likely to bring her happiness.
Denise has now reduced her hours to a 4 day working week, and is spending the extra day working on designing her future – she has a big idea for how to market and sell a specialist product online, and is excited that this will soon become so viable that she will eventually be able to quit banking for good.
“Without Start Now I’m not sure I would have had the confidence to act on my passion. Having someone challenge me and help me put my ideas to paper, was the catalyst I needed to start moving”.
