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Finding yourself.

I have stressed the importance of drawing conclusions and taking positive action. This week I would like to relate some encouraging and in my view inspirational real life examples of people deciding to change their lives.

What have these people in common?

High paid London based corporate lawyer.

Top female advertising executive.

Two city whizz kids.

High flying PR executive.

At first glance you would say very little other than they were all extremely successful in the corporate world. Note the word were.

What they really have in common is that they all identified the need to take their lives in a different direction and did it.

They took action - with some remarkable results.

Lawyer to Yoga teacher – at 46 years of age he turned his back on his lucrative career because he realised that what he was doing was really for money for it’s own sake.

He says “I traded in the Mercedes for a six year old Mazda and said goodbye to Michelin starred restaurants. I’ve never regretted it. I knew I had reached a stage in my life where I wanted to give something back”.

Advertising Executive to self help Guru – “My career in advertising had been a huge success and at 35 I had won many awards” After the birth of her daughter suffering from a loss of confidence she attended a workshop ‘You Can Heal Your Life’. A weekend of revelation!

Soon after she left her marriage, set up a training self development company and wrote a book. She has since coached everyone from nurses and City types to ‘blocked’ artists and is about to become head of the company which published her book.

City whizz-kids to Herbal Tea Merchants – long term friends aged 30 and 31 realised that to climb the corporate ladder "you have to change your personality to fit in". They had been mulling over business ideas knowing they wanted to improve other people’s lives. Including their own one suspects.

Interested in business culture in the Far East and in discussions with their business adviser they were offered a herbal product for making tea. Eureka! this was their new business moment.

They took action formed their business, lived off savings for the first year and established the business.

“Sure we miss the champagne and black cabs, but we’re much healthier now. People tell us the stress has gone from our faces. Of course, running a business can be tough, but it’s not depressing stress, it’s exciting stress”.

PR Executive to Midwife – 29 year old, working for an airline and then a large consumer agency she was living the media life, parties, expensive lunches etc.

After her mother died she realised, “life is so short, it’s up to us to make it happy. I realised how compromised I had been and how much I had been doing a job that didn’t match my values”. A friend suggested midwifery and she is now in training. “so far it, it’s everything I wanted”.

I can relate strongly with this latter example as my own daughter who has three young children is now re-training to also become a midwife.

My point in relaying these stories which were from ‘The Sunday Times’ in the UK is this.

In the Corporate World you have to conform and in some instances play the ‘political game’. I did not like it and clearly neither did any of the people I have mentioned, “changing your personality” and “being compromised” tell all.

When you take action to move yourself into areas which interest you, you gain satisfaction from dealing with like minded people in a positive manner creating life enhancing opportunities, your own life improves also.

Give something you get something back. Take action, action is the key. We all need money to sustain ourselves. But it’s not all about money as these examples show.

We need to know ourselves honestly, take positive action in our every day personal and business lives making some form of positive contribution each day. The rewards will follow.

Tip of the week.

Finish every day and be done with it. If you have done what you could.

That's all for now. I hope you will enjoy your next issue of 'byobe' Bulletin - helping you to succeed.

Best wishes,

Michael Harrison.

You can contact me at anytime on Bulletin@be-your-own-business-expert.com

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