“I was so over having a corporate career with the long days and commuting.”

What work were you doing previously?

I was a Director of Communications at a major technology company. 

What are you doing now?

I’m now the Founder and Director of Work in Harmony, supporting leaders to build engaged, high-performing teams.

My business involves lots of different income streams.

I do team coaching and training work for my own business and for other companies. I do communications consultancy drawing on my skills from my corporate career.

I’m also developing training programmes with various partners with complementary skills, and I've got a part time job as operations manager at a community mediation organisation where I’m also a volunteer mediator. 

Why did you change?

I'd had a great career, which ended the way corporate careers often do with a mutually agreed, very amicable exit.

I was in my late-forties. I spent the first year looking for a job identical to the one I had before and couldn't find one. There were opportunities out there, but they weren't right for me.

Then I met someone who talked about me potentially doing some substantial freelance work on government relations, which is something I started my career in.

I got excited about that and started up my own communications consultancy.  Sadly, the contract never materialised!

I started to think about how to go about selling myself as a communications consultant. But I had no clue, and no real energy behind it. I’d ask myself, 'Why am I doing this? I don't want to do this'.

I spent a chunk of time faffing around not really selling anything, thinking this isn’t what I want to do. Being a consultant was so different from being a communications director with a big team behind me. 

So then I started kicking ideas around. I decided I wanted to train to be a mediator which I did, but found it'd be difficult to make it a career and it was unlikely I could make a living out of it.

I was feeling very lost: ‘I'd had this amazing career, I'm now a nobody, I don't know what I'm doing with my life’.

How did you choose your new career?    

I signed up for the Career Change Launch Pad. 

I was looking for new inspiration, was keen on the community aspect, and wanted some expert help.

Through connecting and conversations during the course, I discovered team relationship coaching.

I was already in contact with a career coach who was using me as a guinea pig for her coach training. She introduced me to several people and one of them introduced me to a lady who worked at a university. 

I turned up to talk about potential mentoring opportunities at the university. I was telling her about how I missed my team from my old role, how I wasn't enjoying being a consultant or working on my own.

She said, 'The thing you're missing about your work is team working. You're really missing your people. Have you ever thought about doing something with teams? I know someone who does work with teams as a team relationship coach'.

I then had a call with the team relationship coach, and she introduced me to the lady who ran the training course for this.

Within a few days, I’d signed up to do an introductory course, which led me to do the full training. 

Are you happy with the change?    

I feel good.

It's not easy, but I love it. I love the variety and I want to keep going with it. I don't feel that I'm in my ‘final form’ yet, but I'm getting there.

I love the work I do with partners and my associate work, and I have a much clearer idea of how I want my business to develop.  

Now I just need to get out there and sell it!  

What do you miss and what don't you miss?    

I'm so over having a corporate career with the long days and commuting. 

I don't want to go back to that kind of life. 

I can live without the big salary but I do miss the security part of having a regular income, where you don't have to worry about what’s coming in from month to month, as you do when you’re trying to establish a business. 

How did you go about making the shift?    

I started my coach training just before the pandemic, so once the pandemic started the training was paused.

I ended up working for Sainsbury’s as an online shopper to help feed the nation and bring some money in.

I was able to finish my coach training, which finished later than originally planned.

When I first started the coach training, I thought I’d become a team relationship coach. 

But I saw that I have all these skills (mediation and team coaching skills, as well as facilitation, communication and leadership skills from my background as a comms director).

Now I've brought that all together in a career portfolio.

How did you develop (or transfer) the skills you needed for your new role?    

While I went into this thinking I was doing something very new, I'm still using and bringing in skills and experience from my comms background.

Sometimes you don't realise the importance of all the things you've done before and all the stuff you know.

I hope I can add value in ways that perhaps someone who's solely worked in Learning and Development couldn't, as they haven't had my experience.

My corporate background also helps in terms of giving me credibility in all the work I do.

How did you handle your finances to make your shift possible?

I was lucky because I'd come out of my corporate role with a generous settlement.

To a degree I was able to live off savings, but of course eventually they run out if you're not earning. 

Covid didn’t help, which is when I took on a part-time retail job to bring in a small income while I completed my training. 

What was the most difficult thing about changing?    

I think I'd been a little bit dependent on people coming and dropping work into my lap.

That's what had happened in my corporate career – you didn't have to go out and sell. I think for many people running their own business, going out and selling is hard and that's an ongoing challenge for me. 

But I'm now starting to get people contacting me, interested in what I'm doing, wanting to partner with me.

What help did you get?

There was a group of us who continued to stay in touch after the Launch Pad.

That was really helpful in being able to share ideas and go through the highs and lows of career change together. 

I also have support networks with my coaching and mediation friends. That really does help to get support and ideas, recommendations, and to expand your network.

I think it’s important to get support from people who understand what you're trying to do. It can be hard to explain to others what you're doing, if they haven’t done it themselves or are risk-averse.

What resources would you recommend to others?    

Don’t do it on your own.

Find or build a community for yourself. Connecting and networking was groundbreaking for me.

Everyone you meet, ask them for other connections. Talk to all sorts of people. By the end of it you'll be a lot clearer on where you might want to go. 

You just don't know where a conversation will lead.

What have you learnt in the process?    

At the start it can feel like all you see is this big career change mountain and there's lots of fog.

But if you just take steps and trust the fact that as you keep your eyes open and keep scanning the horizon, eventually you'll get there. 

Then you can look back and more clearly see what added up to getting you to where you are.

What would you advise others to do in the same situation?

Be open-minded, and don't think that you have to shift into something that has a clear name or job title. 

Instead, you can think of it as acquiring skills that will go in your skills bucket, that you can use in different ways.

I think you have to be prepared to go down a few ratholes, where you investigate some things that aren't going to end up being the new career.

I investigated teaching English as a foreign language, which turned out not to be a viable option for me, but it helped me cross it off the list.

If you’re still in a job, if you’re able to, talk to your colleagues to see if there's a way to get involved in the thing you want to do while at your current work. 

In my case that would have meant getting in touch with the HR department and asking if there's a way I could have been involved.

Unfortunately, I didn’t do that, when I'd had the perfect opportunity to do so as I was in a massive company with a large HR department.

Lastly, you need a bit of patience. These things don't happen overnight. It can be a slow process, so you've got to believe in your shift and what you're doing.

We caught up with Claire recently to see how her shift was working out, 2 years on. Here's what she's been up to, and the biggest lessons she's learned. 

What's changed for you in your career since we first published your story?

At that time, my goal was at some point in the future to move away from having a portfolio career and purely focus on running my business Work in Harmony. 

However, I now see my business as just one important part of my portfolio and there is space for me to do other work I love, both paid and voluntary work. 

For example, when I originally accepted my part-time role as Operations Manager for West Kent Mediation, I saw that purely as a means to earn some regular income.

I didn’t think I would want to continue to do that role at the charity once my financial situation had stabilised.

However, what has happened is that I’ve realised I enjoy the charity work and, while it will never be the most financially rewarding job, it’s rewarding in other ways.

It gives me structure for 10 – 12 hours of my working week.  

I’m much more settled in my business now and much clearer on what I do and don’t want to offer in terms of services. 

I enjoy working for other companies as an associate as well as working with a business partner to deliver soft skills training. I’m also now starting to build my own client base.  

It took a while to get to the point where I could confidently go out and sell Work in Harmony and finding the right formula for marketing the business is an ongoing challenge. 

I’m currently focusing on building a network of people who understand what I do and who see the value in it. Particularly people in the HR and Learning & Development community. 

One major addition to my portfolio has been working as a Launch Pad Ambassador for Careershifters! That involves me having calls with potential clients interested in the Launch Pad.  

It’s very flexible and I can fit the calls around my other commitments.

While it’s very different from the work I do in my business in many respects, I love talking to the clients and helping them to decide whether the Launch Pad might be a good option for them. 

I’ve always enjoyed teamworking and it’s great to be part of the Careershifters team!

I’ve also recently taken on a non-executive position at a video production company and I’ve been invited to become a school governor.  

I’m currently considering the latter as I don’t want to overcommit.

While I like the variety of all the things I do, I fear it’s one of the perils of a portfolio career that one could end up with too many different focus areas and not doing justice to any of them! 

How do you feel about your work now?

I very much enjoy everything I do and love the fact that it allows me to be so authentic at work. 

It all feels very me. In fact, as I approach yet another fifty-something birthday, I do have some regrets that I didn’t make my shift earlier in my career!  

What challenges have you come up against since making your shift, and how exactly have you dealt with them?

Setting up and running your own business as the sole director and employee can be lonely. 

I think I underestimated how tough it would be to act as MD, finance director, sales director, Head of IT etc. 

That was quite a shock to the system after working in corporate where other people worried about all of that while I focused on one specialism!  

While it’s a bit daunting, there are so many sources of good information out there, whether by reaching into your network or searching the internet.

What’s worked well for me when asking for help from my network is offering to contribute something to their business in exchange for their support, instead of paying them.

I had a good experience of this when I helped a designer in my network with something for his business and he designed my company logo for free in return! 

How is the financial side of things panning out, and is this what you'd expected?

About a year ago, I paid off my mortgage and this has made life a lot easier. 

Prior to that, there were some months when making ends meet was tough.

Having been a high earner for many years, I think I underestimated what it would be like to not have a regular amount of money landing in my bank account at the end of the month.

I was only able to pay myself a wage when I’d brought in enough business and been paid by my clients.  

I took a part-time job to have some guaranteed income. This left me with plenty of hours in the week to work on my business, which was a good decision. 

To top up my income, I’ve also occasionally fallen back on skills from my former career in communications and government affairs. 

What have you learned since making your shift?

I did a team coaching course back in 2020.

One of the coaches advised me not to get too attached to the outcome when we were talking about how I might use my new team coaching qualification.

I didn’t fully understand what he meant at the time, but nowadays I give the same advice to other people who are going through a career shift and have a fixed idea of what they want to do…or are worried because they don’t! 

It was such great advice. Every person you meet and every opportunity you take can potentially lead you in a different direction from the one in which you thought you were heading. 

Yes, there might be some dead ends and some obstacles to overcome but, if you have the courage to stay open-minded and flexible, you will eventually find the path that is right for you. 

To find out more about Claire's services, visit https://workinharmony.uk

Claire took part in our Career Change Launch Pad. If you're ready to join a group of bright, motivated career changers on a structured programme to help you find more fulfilling work, you can find out more here.

What lessons could you take from Claire's story to use in your own career change? Let us know in the comments below.