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Strip Away Your Past – Reinvent Your Future

By Laura Berman Fortgang on September 30, 2019

Pun intended!

Here’s how one woman changed everything to follow a new career path that better suited her.

How to Reinvent Yourself at Any Age

Filed Under: Inspiration to Follow Your Blueprint, Job Change, Job Satisfaction, Reinventing Yourself, Taking Action Tagged With: Career Change, Career coach, Career Coaching, career path, career reinvention, Change, Clarity, entrepreneurs, life coach, new direction, Now What CoachingLeave a Comment

Shifting Gears to Fulfill a Childhood Dream

By Laura Berman Fortgang on August 5, 2019

No role models.
No expectation to even go to college.
A dream beaten out of him.

And yet, this dream did not entirely disappear, and now this man is able to say, “Finally, I am free of this, and I can go after something I’ve always wanted.”

Shifting Gears to Fulfill a Childhood Dream

Car mechanic shifts gears, becomes a doctor at age 47 and helps address shortage of black doctors

Filed Under: Following Your Passion, Inspiration to Follow Your Blueprint, Job Change, Job Satisfaction, Taking Action Tagged With: beat the odds, career, Career Change, career path, career reinvention, Clarity, Following your passion, new direction, Now What Coaching, passion, take actionLeave a Comment

Dare to Dream!

By Laura Berman Fortgang on July 18, 2019

Follow your dreamsBottom line: “Life is short. Our days are numbered, so why spend them doing something we don’t love? It’s time to make a decision to go for it.”

If you don’t try, you’ll never find out what might be possible. You have one life. Don’t miss it!

11 Reasons Why It’s Important to Follow Your Dreams

Filed Under: Following Your Passion, Inspiration to Follow Your Blueprint, Job Satisfaction, Lessons Learned, Life Lessons, Taking Action Tagged With: Career Coaching, career path, entrepreneurs, Following your passion, Now What Coaching, take actionLeave a Comment

I Need to Make a Change, But I Don’t Have Time

By Laura Berman Fortgang on May 14, 2019

par·a·dox
/ˈperəˌdäks/
noun
noun: paradox; plural noun: paradoxes
1. a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true.

Change can’t happen without attention. Unless you just want to be on the receiving end of change . . . the stuff you can’t do anything to control. If you want to be navigating your own career, you’ll have to give time to the development of strategy and the execution.

I Need to Make a Change, But I Don't Have Time

Life is overwhelming. Careers demand more and more of our being. And still, if you don’t like how it’s going, you have to MAKE the time to go back to the drawing board.

How to make time:

  • Wake up thirty minutes early
  • Take one night a week that is sacred and cannot be scheduled
  • Drop one obligation that you’ve been meaning to give up anyway
  • Say no to one unnecessary meeting a week
  • Cook enough food for two meals every time so you can save nights of cooking
  • Outsource or delegate one household chore

What to do with that time:

  • Research options you’ve been considering
  • Make phone calls to network/meet up with people you’ve been meaning to sit with
  • Increase your exposure in your industry
  • Read a book that will guide you to decide what’s next (hint, hint: Now What? 90 Days to a New Life Direction)
  • Redraft your resume
  • Send out said resume
  • Start the business you’ve been dreaming about as a side hustle
  • Test the viability of an idea you’ve had

Please don’t tell me you need a change, but you don’t have time. You’ve got time for what you want to have time for. Now, you just have to want a change more.

Let us know how we can help.

Filed Under: Inspiration to Follow Your Blueprint, Lessons Learned, Life Lessons Tagged With: Change, Clarity, coaching, entrepreneurs, life coach, Now What Coaching1 Comment

Trapped With No Way Out

By Laura Berman Fortgang on April 15, 2019

When all you can see is what’s right in front of you, it’s very hard to be creative. You may be painfully aware that you can’t stand what you are doing for work right now and still be utterly unable to see any other options. It’s a phenomenon that I see over and over again as I talk to people who can’t find the incentive to stay where they are but have no idea what else they could do.

Trapped with no way outSometimes it seems that a career is on a trajectory similar to a laboratory mouse which has to travel straight in a narrow lane from one end of the box to the other. There’s no way to see over the walls of the lane to other possible paths, and all you can see is what is right in front of you. There is no way out and only one way to go – straight forward – on the same path you’ve been traveling.

Of course, this is an incorrect assumption, but it is also a very hard trap to get out of on your own. The key is to understand what choices got you in the box. How did you end up with only one pathway?

stuck on the same pathIt may have been the motivation to please your family or the intent to see a strong suit through. It could have been that you had to prove something to yourself or to others or that you didn’t think you could attain what you truly wanted. There are so many reason we find ourselves cornered by our resume and can’t see any other feasible way to go.

Josh was out of work when he hired me to help him figure out what was next. He detested his old job and knew he didn’t want to go back to the same type of work, but he could not get out of the one-way lane. The salary of his old kind of work was very alluring, but he would admit that the thought of doing the same thing again was mind numbing.

It took a lot of chiseling away at the barrier he had put around the truth of what he wanted. He wanted to tap into his roots as a musician. He knew that becoming a middle-aged rock star held no promise. However, we did eventually uncover many ways to combine his musical interests and business acumen to invent a totally new direction for him that had merit and were worth pursuing. He was able to get some traction exploring different possibilities.

A complete letting go is necessary. I imagine someone holding on to a ledge “white-knuckling” it. They are holding on for dear life and won’t let go. In my fictitious scenario, it’s not holding on in order to avoid falling to great injury or death, but it is with the same tenacity that people will cling to a path even while they admit they can’t stand the thought of continuing on.

Let go. Admit you don’t know what’s next AND stop running in one singular direction. Just stop and wait. Stop ignoring what is nudging you. Listen and trust it even if you’re scared. Stop and wait. You’ll know. And then, you’ll act.

I don’t believe it when people tell me they don’t know what they want to do. I think they do know but they are just too afraid to admit it.

Can we help? Let us know! We have a team of facilitators who’d love to help you find your next direction.

Filed Under: Following Your Passion, Inspiration to Follow Your Blueprint, Job Change, Lessons Learned, Life Lessons, Now What? Newsletter Articles, Reinventing Yourself, Taking Action Tagged With: career, Career Change, career path, career reinvention, Change, entrepreneurs, Laura Berman Fortgang, Now What Coaching, take actionLeave a Comment

When Life Offers You a Hard Right

By Laura Berman Fortgang on February 25, 2019

When I was five years old, my father was offered the opportunity to establish an office for his large American employer in Caracas, Venezuela. (It was a much healthier and wealthier place then that it is now.) I wasn’t privy to how the negotiation with my mother went down, but they decided to take the one-year assignment. It turned out to become a six year stay, and one I am forever grateful for as I’m still a Spanish speaker and a lover of exploring different cultures.

At least once in each of our adult lives, we’re likely to have to make a decision that pulls us towards an unproven opportunity and away from the comfort of established routine and relative certainty. I’ve listened to many a client weigh the fear and lack of a guaranteed outcome with the excitement and “rightness” of what’s calling.

In the last couple of years, I’ve worked with two established medical professionals who were presented with the opportunity to go in a related but new direction. One, felt deeply called to provide more holistic and integrated medical care but feared being ridiculed by the ‘establishment’ and never being able to return to traditional medicine if her leap did not work out. The other, was a very well-reputed surgeon who felt compelled to bring her talents to the world of artificial intelligence in the medical field (robotic surgery to be specific). She had no guarantee that it would be a wise career move although it sounded very plausible. Both women ultimately left the comfort of certainty to reap very positive results.

When Life Offers You a Hard RightThis brings me to my own hard right. Earlier this month, I declared a run for New Jersey State Assembly which is a part-time designation. It would be a tremendous honor to represent constituents in the everyday decisions and votes that affect their lives. Some of you may recall that I did run briefly in 2017. We’ll call that the apprenticeship. This one is fully professional and staffed by people who know how to win elections.

Although I had run before, it was not in my plans to run this time around. There were very big responsibilities keeping me in the land of certainty. However, let’s just say the Universe conspired to open the door so I would step through it. An abundance of professional support came to me without effort. As is so often the case, the “coincidences” were too great to ignore.

I intend to bring my skill set of solving intractable problems with small business owners, individuals who are career seekers, and executives to NJ state government.

What is pulling you off the known path? How can we support you to decipher what it is or to make it happen?

Join me at Kripalu at the dawn of spring for a Now What?® Retreat. Let’s get you started.

Prepare to join our next discounted round of Now What?® On Demand. Registration begins in March. This is perfect for you if you want to work on your own from the comfort of your own space.

And if you can lend your support to my hard right, it’s permissible from US residents and every dollar counts. Thank you in advance!

Filed Under: Following Your Passion, Global Impact, Inspiration to Follow Your Blueprint, Lessons Learned, Life Lessons, Taking Action Tagged With: career path, career reinvention, career transition, Change, Clarity, life coach, new direction, new venture, Now What Coaching, Opportunity, take action, transitionLeave a Comment

To Be Or Not To Be? That Is The Question

By Laura Berman Fortgang on February 8, 2019

To Be Or Not To Be? That Is The QuestionIn Shakespeare’s famous soliloquy, Hamlet was questioning whether or not to keep living. That is not today’s question. Let’s look at it a different way. Using the same words, consider the meaning of the famous phrase this way: “to be or not to be… myself?” That is today’s question.

“It’s not what you do for a living that will make you happy. It’s who that job allows you to be.” That is a key line from my TEDx Talk and from Now What? 90 Days to a New Life Direction which is the backbone of today’s question. If your job allows you to be yourself — the best parts of yourself — it will bring you satisfaction and likely a modicum of happiness.

Do you like who your job makes you be? Does it bring out your best or your worst? Do you simply tolerate your own behavior? Does it honor all you have to offer? Is it fulfilling?

IF the answer is no, don’t fret. Read on to find out how to get your mojo back.

You thought it was the job you hated. Nah. What you hate is how unaligned you are with yourself: your values, what you care about, what you want to contribute, and your best self.

What’s required is a turn-around of your focus. Stop performing your job and start protecting your soul.

To BE you again you have to:

  • Get rid of the vampires that suck your time, your energy, your goodness
  • Either find a motivating reason to be there or get out
  • Revisit your job description and explore if there’s a way to renegotiate it to better suit you
  • Make time for hobbies or outside-of-work pursuits that feed your soul (it may even be your family!)
  • Restore a sense of purpose by focusing a vision for what’s possible that is bigger than your need for a paycheck (on this job, a new job or outside of work) —a change in policy, culture, direction, branding, focus, product or a significant problem to be solved.

These are all pretty tall orders, I understand. However, just acting upon one of these bullet points would change how you feel about your work significantly. Choose one, keep it at the forefront, rinse and repeat.

Helping you make this shift is what we love to do at Now What?® Coaching. Let us know how we can support you to reach new levels of career and life satisfaction.

Filed Under: Inspiration to Follow Your Blueprint Tagged With: beat the odds, Career coach, entrepreneurs, life coach, new direction, Now What Coaching, Opportunity, take actionLeave a Comment

Wait! Don’t Set Any Goals for 2019!

By Laura Berman Fortgang on January 3, 2019

Don’t set any goals?! Is that what I’m recommending? Well, yes. Sort of.

I want to introduce you to a way to get new results in your life that will be FAR MORE effective than simply writing down your SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound).

Wait! Don’t Set Any Goals for 2019!The key to getting more bang from your New Year’s reset is to set WHO goals vs. WHAT goals. WHAT?! Yes, you read correctly. I want you to focus on where you need to grow personally before you focus on WHAT you want to accomplish. For example, many a New Year’s resolution list includes wanting to lose weight. A SMART goal would be to lose 20 lbs. by June 2019. Specific: 20 lbs. Measurable: 20 lbs. Attainable: Yes, that’s not impossible. Relevant: Yes, I want this. Time-Bound: by June 2019.

There is a $70 billion weight loss market in the United States!* That is absurd when you consider that most of those consumers know EXACTLY how to lose weight. I’m sure you do too. Every audience I speak to can tell me: “Eat less; exercise more.” So, why do we have a multi-billion-dollar consumer market for weight loss advice and products? Because few teach you how to change the WHO. They teach you how to change WHAT you are doing but few actually address the internal changes that need to happen to keep you on track to do WHAT the programs offer and advise.

Back to you! Your 2019 will be brighter if you DON’T set WHAT goals right now and instead focus on WHO goals. Who do you need to be this year? How do you need to behave? What quality do you want to put at the forefront and build like a new muscle?

Do you want to get a new job this year? You’ll need to send out resumes, network, contact recruiters and the like, but you’ll have to work on your discipline and your courage first. To make the most progress on those two WHO goals, your best bet is to start small. Overcome a small lack of courage before you go for the big ask. Are you not one to send back improperly cooked food at a restaurant? Start now. Ask for what you want where the risk is low. Then, start building up your courage to contact the people you know you need to talk to, like an old boss or that colleague who works for a competitor. Build the courage muscle, put a date on it and DO it!

Small ways to build discipline might include: no longer setting a snooze button, committing to walk the stairs whenever possible, writing ten minutes a day, cleaning your desk every night before heading home, tackling whatever you’re working on in small doses.

“Aren’t these just distractions keeping me from doing the work of getting what I want?” you might ask. NO. These are the things that when you take the time to practice, will keep you in action doing the WHAT items without getting derailed. If you have a track record of losing steam on your action plan, you need WHO goals to be dealt with before you move into your action plan. Then you keep up the muscle-building while you move into the action items. If you don’t work on your discipline when it comes to eating, sticking to a plan becomes erratic. You get the idea.

Stop that GOAL setting right now and get your head on straight. Work on WHO you need to be first before you attack WHAT you have to do. The results will surprise you.

I’ll be right here applauding. Let us know if you need an assist.

*According to PRNewswire

Filed Under: Following Your Passion, Inspiration to Follow Your Blueprint, Lessons Learned, Life Lessons, Now What? Newsletter Articles, Reinventing Yourself, Taking Action Tagged With: Change, Following your passion, Laura Berman Fortgang, life coach, new direction, Now What Coaching, Opportunity, take action1 Comment

When Intuition Prods Your Soul

By Laura Berman Fortgang on December 31, 2018

"Intuition is a prod from your soul intent on reuniting you with your Life Blueprint®.” Laura Berman Fortgang

Filed Under: Following Your Passion, Inspiration to Follow Your Blueprint, Inspirational Quotes, Lessons Learned, Life Lessons, Motivational Quotes, Quotes to Live By, Taking Action Tagged With: Clarity, Following your passion, Laura Berman Fortgang, life coach, Now What Coaching, Opportunity, passions, take actionLeave a Comment

When You Bring all of Yourself to Work…

By Kelly Johnson on December 28, 2018

Magic happens!

Take a look!

Now I’ve Seen Everything

Filed Under: Following Your Passion, Inspiration to Follow Your Blueprint, Job Satisfaction, Lessons Learned, Life Lessons, Reinventing Yourself, Taking Action, Video Viernes Tagged With: coaching, Following your passion, life coach, Opportunity, passions, take actionLeave a Comment

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Speaker, Author, Coach

 


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