Career Change - Find Your Perfect Job

Since 2010, we've helped thousands of people Escape into more fulfilling work and start businesses through our Escape School in London. We've gathered knowledge from our 300,000+ Escape community members around the world to learn what works. We've dissected tried-and-tested lessons from career coaches, psychologists, entrepreneurs, philosophers, adventurers and other successful Escapees to distill a set of principles that work.

We've distilled our best career change lessons into this online course.

In August 2015 we surveyed our global community to learn why so many people were joining Escape the City and why they were feeling unfulfilled in their work. Here are some of the headline stats:

• 71% want to have a clearer sense of purpose in their career

• 51% have experienced negative physical or mental health issues as a result of their current job

• 64% would like to make more of a social impact through their work

Read the full study in the next lecture.

The job dissatisfaction trend is well documented – but what is causing it? We found three core trends driving global dissatisfaction:

Independent working is on the rise.

The rise of the independent worker has characterised the past decade, with over 1 in 7 of the UK workforce currently listed as self-employed. It is expected by 2020 that the freelance workforce will account for 40% of the working world. According to Oxford Economics, self-employment will also increase by 15% in the next ten years.

We've seen an explosion of remote working, communications and productivity technologies.

It's clear that technology has revolutionised our working lives. It's allowing more people the freedom to work from exotic, remote locations, and more importantly, from a growing number of home offices. In June 2014 there were 4.2 million home workers in the UK, the highest level of home working since comparable records began, and an increase of 1.3 million since 1998.

Co-working spaces have made their mark.

There are over 800 co-working spaces in London alone, and more are popping up each month. The co-working company WeWork was recently valued at $15 billion, signifying the economic significance of co-working and its future potential.The same trend is happening the world over. Whether you’re in Santiago, Sarajevo, or Sydney, how we work and where we work is changing.

Achieving personal goals and dreams is taking precedent.

Simply "having a job" is no longer enough. Personal growth, quality of life and health are valued higher than job stability and a rising salary. We've found that many Escapees are willing to give up a portion of their salary and stability in favour of careers that are more meaningful to them.

There's an Impact Gap.

Today's desire for impact is clear. This shift towards an economy centered on social benefit is often termed the 'Purpose Economy.' Many of us desire transcendence from our own needs in order to prioritize the needs of all of society and future generations. 55% of Escape members surveyed are looking to leave their work because there isn't enough meaning or impact. A recent YouGov survey agrees: 37% of UK workers believe that their jobs are not contributing to the world.

Entrepreneurial ambition is entering the mainstream.

15% of UK undergraduates are striving towards self-employment after graduation. But this trend transcends age: the number of those over 65 starting new businesses has doubled in the last five years alone. 50% of Escape survey responders are looking to strike out on their own.

Institutional challenges are changing who we trust and how we organize ourselves.

Forget 'job for life': the retention challenge is bigger than ever.

A job for life is a dying concept. According to an OPP report, over half of European employees (53%) have changed careers twice. 46% have changed their career three times or more. Why is this? Our survey found that 39% of professionals felt that they couldn't be their true selves at work, while a third said that the work culture in their organizations didn't work for them. Another 30% said they don't share the same values as their organisations, and nearly 25% don't share the same values as their co-workers. One third don't feel they have any role models within their current organisations either.

The smaller the better: big organisations have gone out of favour.

On the global scale — big institutions and corporations aren’t adequately addressing our biggest shared challenges. On the individual scale — these are often frustrating, unfulfilling and painful places to work.

The way we're working isn't working. But how did we get into this mess in the first place?

The answer lies in what it means "to work" and what it means to be a worker.

"What it is to be a worker has changed."

Lynda Gratton (London Business School) describe the social changes (such as role of gender, technology and the lengthening of life) has on the future of work.

"100 years ago, almost no one on earth had a job."

What are we looking for instead?

When it comes to most mainstream careers, crucial ingredients are missing. These ingredients may not have mattered to someone building a career in the 20th century; in the 21s century, they're imperative.

There are six characteristics that make up what we believe to be a happy and fulfilling 21st Century Career: Security, Mastery, Impact, Purpose, Autonomy and overall Wellbeing.

It's one thing to know what's making us dissatisfied; quite another to do something about it and know where and how to start.

Now that we've dissected what's missing – how do we go about achieving additional ingredients such as Passion, Impact, Autonomy and Wellbeing?

The first step is understanding how we got into this mess in the first place. Why do we feel so stuck? To answer this question, it helps to turn to science and human psychology to help us diagnose our "stuckness," use it to get us unstuck, and propel us forward into more meaningful and fulfilling work.

In the next couple modules we'll learn about the science of stuckness from our favourite career psychologist. But before that, let's first discuss: what is the purpose of work?

What is work exactly? And why do we do it? Why do you do it?

What do you believe to be the purpose of work?

One of our most honest learnings at Escape is that there is no single silver bullet to finding fulfilling work. No one-size-fits all blueprint to get there either.

Each of us are unique in our hopes, dreams and ambitions. We’ve each lived through a diverse set of experiences, cultures, and environments. All of us have a diverse set of values, gifts, talents, strengths, and skills. We each have our own unique potential to fulfill.

Why do you work?

"There are two sides to work. On one side is our need and desire for money. We work in order to get paid. On the other side, and totally separate from our wages, is the fact that we work in order to fulfill many other purposes in our lives."

Why do you work? What motivates you to get out of bed 5 days a week to make money?

What is the purpose of your paid employment? Here are some ideas for various purposes of paid employment from the book Your Money or Your Life. Which apply to you?

● Earning money

○ to provide necessities— food, clothing, shelter (survival)

○ to provide amenities (comforts)

○ to provide luxuries

○ to provide funds for others (philanthropy)

○ to leave an estate

● A sense of security

○ that your needs will be met

○ that your value as an adult human being is recognized

● Tradition

○ to carry on a family tradition of following a particular profession

○ to maintain a sense of continuity and connection with your past

● Enjoyment

○ to be in contact with interesting people

○ to have stimulation, entertainment and fun

● Duty

○ to do your fair share in keeping society functioning smoothly

● Service

○ to make a contribution to others, society and the world

● Learning

○ to acquire new skills

● Prestige and status

○ to receive praise, admiration and respect from others

● Power

○ over people who report to you and follow your commands

○ over the course of events, influencing decisions

● Socializing

○ to enjoy opportunities to socialize with your coworkers

○ to meet the public and feel part of a larger community

● Personal growth

○ to be stimulated and challenged

○ to expand your emotional and intellectual life

● Success

○ to get a way to measure progress and success

○ to compare yourself with others in your field

● Creativity and fulfillment

○ to achieve fulfillment, that feeling of being completely and well used

○ to be challenged, to stay sharp, to create something new

● Time structuring

○ to structure your time and give an orderly rhythm to your life

● Just because...that’s what people do.

Exercise: Why do you work?

Take out a piece of paper - answer the following questions - this will form your “workview”

What does success mean to you?

What does ‘wealth’ mean to you?

The Ingredients of Fulfilling Work

Before diving into which ingredients are missing for you individually, it may be useful to review what leading researchers, best-selling authors, and ancient philosophers have said about fulfilling work.

Security, Mastery, Impact, Passion, Autonomy, Wellbeing (Escape The City)

In our own research at Escape, we identified six key characteristics of the 21st Century Career to be security, mastery, impact,passion, autonomy and wellbeing:

What seems particularly worth note here is not what experts say constitutes fulfilling work, but more about what they do not say: fulfilling work isn’t all about the money and it’s much deeper than merely “making a living.” Our very first job may have been found because we were trying to find a job. But aiming shallowly at “finding a job” is what got us into this mess, and it will not get us out of it.

Understanding the larger ingredients of fulfilling work that are missing from your life – whether it’s purpose, autonomy, impact, overall well-being, or a combination of all of the above – and being honest about the unhelpful ingredients you've been living with for too long in your career is a good first step to diagnosing the problem and setting the course forward.

Over the next few modules, we'll aim to help you better understand your likes, dislikes, joys and frustrations from your current and past work can help inform the large and small changes you may need to address.

But first – taking into account all the studies above – what ingredients of fulfilling work are missing for you?

Exercise: Fill in the ingredients of fulfilling work worksheet

The Ingredients of Fulfilling Work: Likes & Dislikes

Reflecting on your past career and work likes and dislikes will help you form the beginnings of your Escape compass, identify the ingredients of fulfilling work that are missing for you, and diagnose the type of change you need to make.

PART 1: Identify your past and present work Likes & Dislikes

In your career, work or any life experiences so far, think of specific examples of Like and Dislikes. Come up with as many experiences as you can. Feel free to spend longer than 10 minutes on this.

LIKES:

● What have you really enjoyed? What has excited you?

● When have you felt fully engaged?

● When have you been most proud of your work?

● What are you doing when if feels like time is flying by?

● Recall a time when you couldn’t wait to get out of bed. What were you about to do?

DISLIKES:

● What kind of work did you really dislike, feel bitter or distasteful toward?

● When did you feel you were faking it?

● What sort of things do you dread doing? Times when you dreaded going into work?

● What really frustrates you? What do you have no patience for?

● What is it about your work that you really aren’t enjoying?

If you're having a hard time, it may help to think in terms of...

● Location

● Work Environment / Physical Environment

● Activities

● Processes

● Industries

● Conversations

● Problems You’re Solving

● Team & Relationships

● Company Culture

● Level of Autonomy

● Types of Projects

● Where or How You Were Working

Once you have your list of Likes and Dislikes, take a moment to identify which factors are Situational and which are Fundamental.

● Situational factors are the things that could be changed by getting a new job in a different company or by rearranging your current work situation: i.e. your commute, your psychopathic boss, your colleagues or team, company culture, a toxic environment, etc.

● Fundamental factors are much deeper and intrinsic to the type of work you’re doing and may involve a more significant change: i.e. your industry, role, day-to-day tasks, etc.

Some people are actually in the right industry or role for them, it’s just the situational aspects of their job that need to change: the commute, the psychopathic boss, the “vampires” on your team who suck the life and fun out of you, or the toxic work environment. Whereas other people need a more fundamental change: the actual industry, role, day-to-day tasks, and a company culture that is not (and will never be) a fit.

Is your miserable boss making you miserable? (situational)

Or are you an architect who fundamentally dislikes the tasks that come along with architecting? (fundamental)

If you printed out the worksheet, you can physically mark your list of Likes and Dislikes:

● Mark an ‘X’ next to anything that’s Situational.

Mark an ‘O’ or circle anything that’s Fundamental.

Do you know your Good Career Criteria?

For many people, what we think of as a ‘good career’ is defined by friends, family, teachers and colleagues. It often includes getting an annual bonus, being promoted, and having a company car. These are ‘good things’, sure. But there are plenty of other ‘good things’ - which may, or may not, be more important to you.

To build on your values, and take them a step further, it’s useful to think about what we call your Good Career Criteria. These are a simple picture of what ‘good’ looks like to you, which you can use as your compass as you work through the remaining steps. As with your values, the challenge is to boil them down to your top 3, so that you’ve got a definitive guide to what matters to you above all else.

Use this canvas to think through what matters to you:

● My guiding values are…

● I want to change my career because…

● Success, to me, means…

● My skills and resources include…

● My time and money constraints include…

Look at what emerges strongly from each of these. Are there any themes? What rises the surface as an absolute must-have? This tells you what your Good Career Criteria are - jot them down in the box at the bottom.

These three elements will become the criteria by which you assess every new opportunity or business, they're aspirational and practical and should always be referred to when you are considering new opportunities.

Being the most introspective steps, they can be the toughest - but they’re absolutely necessary if you want to course-correct your career in a meaningful way. Keep referring back to your values and Good Career Criteria to guide you.

Identifying what’s next once you have the building blocks can feel impossible. We’ve got some tricks to help you identify where to go.

Where do you start when you don’t know where to start?

How do we avoid going merely "somewhere" and instead go to a place that matters to us?

If this is one of your Blockers, you’re not alone: not knowing how, where or when to start is extremely common.

Life would be a lot easier if someone would just tap us on the shoulder and deliver our dream job, our eureka moment, “our passion” to us on a silver platter. Unfortunately everything we’ve learnt about career change points to that not ever being the case.

However, there are some tools and tips that can help you work out where to start. We'll explore six principles that may help:

1. Gain perspective (Where are you in the timeline of your career and life?)

2. Chase your curiosities (What's interesting to you?)

3. Follow your frustrations (What bothers you?)

4. Start where you are (What resources do you have available to you?)

5. Get clearer on your big dreams (What do you want?)

6. Identify your big blockers (What's standing in your way?)

Gain perspective

Timeline of your career

100 year life - new norm, could be working to 80 - have you ever zoomed out and thought about where you are in that timeline?

Exercise: download the timeline and write where you are, chances are there’s probably quite a lot left for you

On the surface “Chase your curiosities” sounds eerily like the “follow your passion" myth. But there’s a clear distinction here.

“Follow your passion” implies that you know exactly where you’re heading and how to get there. On the other hand, “Chasing your curiosities” doesn’t require this much from you. It doesn’t ask you to know exactly where you’re going before you start. It just asks that you start. From where you are at in this very moment, with what you have available to you.

"Chase your curiosities" just asks that you let excitement and enthusiasm pull you forward.

Author Elizabeth Gilbert describes the idea of Curiosities vs. "follow your passion" quite well here:

"If something is interesting to you, trust that it is interesting to you for a reason; that it is another breadcrumb on the amazing trail that will make your life yours and not anybody else's." –Elizabeth Gilbert on Curiosity

Please complete this personal brand canvas

A helpful way to think of chasing curiosities is to picture the way a dog chases tennis balls.

If you throw a tennis ball with a dog beside you, what does the dog do? If she’s healthy, she has almost no choice but to chase the tennis ball.

There are likely things that pull you like a tennis ball pulls a dog. Try to be attentive and listen to those things.

Every time you walk by a bookshop, do you feel pulled to walk in? When you hear someone talking about sailing, do you instantly perk up and chime in? If you hear about a new business idea and think “HELL YES!”? Those all sound like tennis balls. New possibilities emerge as you let yourself be pulled like a dog chasing a tennis ball.

Of course, these may not translate immediately to a new opportunity, but listening to the things that pull you and giving yourself permission to be pulled by them will likely lead you down promising paths. Tennis balls offer clues to your unique path.

Exercise: write down 10 curiosities or tennis balls

If chasing tennis balls and following excitement doesn’t work for you, maybe you’re driven more by frustrations or wrongs you’d like to fix in the world. This can be an equally effective indicator of new possibilities for yourself.

What frustrates you? What problems do you see in the world? What bugs you to no end?

Frustration is what drove skipper and director of Pangaea Explorations Emily Penn to dedicate herself to tackle our planet’s enormous ocean challenges. Emily described to a past Escape Tribe that she wasn’t always interested in plastics or the health of the Earth’s oceans, but seeing it firsthand while on an expedition disgusted her.

As Thomas Edison once said, "Discontent is the first necessity of progress."

Not only relevant to starting businesses but also to careers - so many of us lack purpose in our work, waking up and solving a real problem for othrs that we care about helps us to feel like the work we do matters.

Over to you. What are some of your frustrations?

Exercise: Write down 10 frustrations

There's a great myth about how entrepreneurs come up with their brilliant ideas:

“Successful entrepreneurs don’t pick an arbitrary vision and then figure out how to get there; instead, they look at the resources they already have–people, partners, skills, expertise, credibility–and figure out how to use them to attack an opportunity that isn’t fatally risky and which they can go after right now.” –Founder Centric, startup educators.

In the startup world, the word used to describe this principle is Effectuation. It’s a funny word, but essentially it means: start where you are and work with what you have.

Effectuation applies to entrepreneurship, but can easily be applied to your own Escape.

Be wary of choosing immediate goals that require resources you don’t have. This doesn’t mean that you should avoid grand dreams that are 180-degrees from where you currently are. Rather, it’s about working with what you already have in front of you to help you get there. Build new opportunities upon opportunities already at your disposal.

Can you apply the theory of effectuation to your own Escape into more fulfilling work?

Exercise: Please take a few minutes to write down your current resources, communities and skills:

● What resources do you already have access to?

● Which industries do you know well or have credibility in?

● What communities and networks are you already involved in?

Curiosities can help to identify new directions to head in; the ability to generate new ideas help you create new opportunities and options for yourself along the way. Curiosities and ideas are the thread between between creativity and new possibilities for yourself.

What if you can’t come up with any good ideas?

It’s easy to say “I’m just not an ideas person,” but we won’t let you off the hook so easily. You have the power to generate exciting new ideas. Although you might need to start by strengthening your own “idea muscle.”

Here are five tips to help you generate exciting new ideas for yourself and your future direction.

James Altucher has a simple daily practice: every day he picks a topic and generates 10 new ideas around that topic. The quality of the ideas matter little. Most will probably be rubbish. He may not execute on the ideas or do anything tangible with them. That’s beside the point. His goal is to make his brain sweat and work out what he calls his “idea muscle.”

Like any muscle, your “idea muscle” is one that can atrophy over time. It’s easy to think you’re not creative or that you don’t have any new ideas or you’ve run out of fresh ones. It could be that your idea muscle needs to be reengaged and strengthened.

It’s discouraging to come up with ideas knowing that most of them won’t be any good. But it’s encouraging to know that the more ideas you generate, a better shot you have at coming up with great ideas.

Disney’s Imagineering Department, responsible for coming up with new experiences for its theme parks, has a idea generation process that encourages a judgement-free atmosphere. It all starts with “Blue Sky” brainstorming

According to the The Imagineering Field Guide to Disneyland, the Imagineering department’s brainstorming rules are:

1. There is no such thing as a bad idea. We never know how one idea (however far-fetched) might lead into another one that is exactly right.

2. We don’t talk yet about why not. There will be plenty of time for realities later, so we don’t want them to get in the way of the good ideas now.

3. Nothing should stifle the flow of ideas. No “buts” or “can’ts” or other “stopping” words. We want to hear words such as “and,” “or” and “what if?”

4. There is no such thing as a bad idea. (We take that one very seriously.)

We must start broad and wide before we turn narrow and constrictive. Begin with Blue Sky. If you start shooting down the ideas before they even come out of you, you’re already constricting yourself to what’s possible.

There’s a common misconception about ideas: that you should hold onto them tightly and keep them to yourself. People get protective of their ideas. But not sharing (or even giving away) ideas is a good way to kill suffocate your ideas.

Ideas do no good just sitting in your own head. We must set them on fire and release them into the world. Act on them yourself, freely discuss them with others, and even give them away.

Don’t wait for new ideas to arrive.

Remember that the magic in any creative work isn’t waiting for inspiration to strike. It’s about showing up, having a discipline of doing your work constantly and open the door for inspiration to show up. The same goes for your ideas and your own Escape.

Stretch yourself to think of new ideas and options. Try James Altucher’s 10 Ideas a Day and make your brain sweat. Establish a discipline of frequently coming up with fresh solutions to old problems, if only just for fun. New ideas come when you as your “idea muscle” gets stronger.

By being patient with your curiosities and not expecting them to lead you to immediate gratification and being freewheeling and generous with your ideas, you will create exciting new possibilities and opportunities for yourself.

Both curiosities and ideas come from a well that has the potential to be abundant and overflowing. Maybe not at first, but once you get better at listening to your curiosities (artist dates!) and strengthen your idea muscle (10 ideas a day!) you’ll be well on your way to think and dream big.

Exercise: Idea Gen

Now that you’ve mapped out your foundations - your values, good career criteria, likes/dislikes, curiosities, frustrations - you can start building on them. As always, there’s no need to jump headlong into a new path. We’ll start by casting the net wide, with a bit of idea generation.

Perhaps you’re someone who struggles with having too many ideas. That can be overwhelming most of the time, but it means you can absolutely nail this step. Take 15 minutes to get your ideas out of your head and onto paper. Include old ones, new ones, and think of more. Go wild.

More likely, you’re thinking “I’m just not an ideas person”. Reams of ideas don’t come easily to all of us. But that doesn’t mean they’re not there - it’s just a case of strengthening your ‘idea muscle’.

When pursuing something that matters to you, you’ll encounter not only negative and discomfortable emotions; you’ll also identify real, tangible challenges and obstacles. We call these Blockers.

Blockers are the real (and perceived) things standing between us and who we aim to become and what we want to escape into. Like a brick wall, Blockers block our way forward.

Blockers include a myriad of things like: lack of time; lack of money; fear (of failure, of the unknown, and so many other things); loss in status, reputation, money; financial woes; perceived risk; lack of skills, knowledge, confidence or support; challenging relationships and difficult conversations; limiting beliefs (“I’m not good enough,” etc); “not knowing exactly what I want.”; and other such demons.

Imagining these big Blockers can easily keep us from making a big change before we’ve even taken our first step forward. To be fair, some may be genuine risks. Others, to be even fairer, might be “horrible imaginings.” (Kudos Mr. Shakespeare).

Real or imagined, Blockers are inevitable and universal along any career change or entrepreneurial journey. The first step isn’t to ignore them, but rather, to acknowledge them.

Use Your Blockers as a Guide, Not an Endpoint

Worries can be useful when used in your plan of attack; less useful when they keep you stagnant and standing still. Instead of using Blockers as an excuse to stop (or never start), use them to shine light on the things in your life you need to address.

Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius said something similar in his book Meditations:

“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” –Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Exercise

Our Blockers don't exist to stop us in our tracks; they're there to shine light on the real things we need to address in our lives. Blockers show us the way toward the life and career we aspire to grow into.

Step 1. Look at where you want to get to.

Think about your life as it currently stands in relation to where you want to be. What is stopping you moving from your current position to all those places you're curious about? What things are holding you back? What are the big burning questions swimming around your head?

Step 2. Write down your Top 10 Blockers.

Step 3. Rank your Blockers.

Now – which are your top 3 Blockers? Put a star next to them, circle them, or write them down.

Step 4. Turn your Blockers into To-Dos.

For each of your Top 3 Blockers, what is one very small action you could take this week to lighten the heaviness of this Blocker? What could you do to shine a little bit more light on the complexity of the Blocker? Is there a conversation you need to have? Is there a information you need clarity on? Is there a person you need to meet? Is there research you need to do?

If you can brainstorm 3 actions for each Blocker as to how you might be able to tackle it, you can reframe your approach to Blockers. Blockers don't have to be like a brickwall that you can't get past, but an obstacle that you can use as the way to action.

As we touched on in Career Change Myths, one of biggest temptation of the hopeful Escapee or entrepreneur-to-be is believing we can simply think our way to a new direction. It’s also tempting to believe that our next opportunity is sitting on a job board waiting for us to find it. Conventional wisdom tells us that the more we introspect and the more we search, the closer we'll get to our next exciting and more fulfilling opportunity.

Based on everything we’ve learned, this is almost never the case. Of course, introspection has its place (and we've done our fair share of it in the first few weeks of this course). And sure, you might find another job or opportunity on a job board (hopefully on ours!). But a deeper and more fundamental Escape requires a different approach. The methods and tools that got you to your current position are unlikely to launch you into something new and more meaningful.

The antidote to trying to think or search your way to a new direction is ACTION.

● Action without having all (or many) of the answers.

● Action without knowing exactly what you want.

● Action without feeling like you're ready.

Remember the quote from Herminia Ibarra in Working Identity:

“By far the biggest mistake people make when trying to change careers is to delay taking the first step until they have settled on a destination."

However, we can settle on a mini destination to help us quickly and cheaply learn about the viability of potential new directions. Now, we'll begin testing our way into new directions.

Now, using your possibilities as a guide you'll pick a direction of travel – something that excites you and that you want to test out the viability of.

With that direction of travel in mind, you'll should launch Escape Project to explore that direction and help you learn more about the viability of it as a potential career. You'll embrace three core mindsets with your Escape project, the mindsets that successful Escapees embrace when exploring new paths:

● The "Project" Mindset: Projects are short-term, have a self-contained goal, and can even be fun. The goal of a project is to inch one step closer in your escape. Your Escape Project will last 1-3 months – a good amount of time for you learn something substantial, but not too long of a commitment.

● The "Experimental" Mindset: Your primary objective with your Escape project is to learn. It doesn't matter if your project is a 'success' or a 'failure.' What matters is you learn something about yourself and your future direction.

● The "Hustle" Mindset: How can you create opportunities for yourself, whether it's getting your foot in the door for a new job or testing out a new career? The answer is Hustle. We'll first define what it "hustle" means, how others have used it to create new opportunities, and ideas for you to harness your own hustle in your Escape Project.

Also, it's important to understand what good action looks like. Paramount to the success of your Escape Project is understanding what constitutes good action. We'll share some examples to help you brainstorm your own actions.

Like it or not, we make an inordinate number of assumptions about the world around us every day. This is also true of our careers, and potential career paths we might go down. Each potential career you are interested in will hold a number of aspect you assume you’ll like, you assume you’ll be good at, and you assume lots of other things about.

When you’re thinking about a big change, there are a lot of unknowns. And with that lack of uncertainty comes an inevitable fear of what might, could, maybe, probably happen (or not happen). ‘Failure’ - whatever that means for you - comes top of the list of worries. What if this new direction doesn’t work?

The good news is, there are ways to find out before committing. The trick is to find small ways to try it out without big investments of time, money or energy.

It’s all about adopting a Prototype Mindset.

Like any prototype, a career prototype is a minimum viable version of the bigger idea. It’s rough and ready, easy to put together, and doesn’t require a big commitment.

A career prototype, in this sense, can be thought about as a ‘project’. It’ll have a short-term, self-contained goal - and completing it will give you insights and experiences that will inch you one step closer to your escape. Not to mention that launching a small project in a direction that excites you is a lot less daunting (and a lot smarter) than scheming a big, blind leap.

Your Escape Prototype Project will last 1-3 months – a good amount of time for you learn something substantial, but not so big that the stakes are too high.

To design your project:

● Choose one of the ideas from your hopper (from Step 6). There needn’t be a science to this - choose one that you’re most drawn to, or that seems easy to break down into something small.

● Set an amount of time (e.g. 6 weeks). Long enough that you’ll need to keep going even if the first attempt doesn’t go quite to plan, and short enough that you’re not over-investing in a long term challenging.

● Define a certain number of deliverables (e.g. writing 5 blog posts), or another metric (get 3 paying customers).

● Adopt an experimental mindset - basically, think like a scientist. The point of your project is to learn. Know that it doesn't matter if your project is a 'success' or a 'failure'; what matters is that you learn something about yourself and your future direction. A scientist may have a hypothesis and might be hopeful of a certain result, but that’s not her main concern. Her job is to prove or disprove her hypothesis and remain unbiased through the process. She cares mostly about what she learns from the experiment.

● At the end of your project, make a point of doing a review. What have you learned about this area of work? About yourself? What could you have done differently? And most importantly - what does this tell you about what your next project should be?

If your prototype project turns out to be a dud (unenjoyable, too difficult to execute, or just not your cup of tea) - phew. You’ve avoided making any big decisions that would send you barking up the wrong tree. Adjust the plan for your next project based on what you’ve learned, or go back to Step 6 to choose a different idea from your hopper - then go again.

If your project tells you that this seems like a direction worth pursuing - i.e. you’ve enjoyed it, achieved a small goal, received positive signals from the wider world - then it’s time for the next step.

So - you’ve decided on a direction you’re interested in. The next challenge, of course, is to find the perfect opportunity that fits your passions, skills and values. To find a box with your name on it, waiting for you to claim as your own.

At least, that’s how most career changers think. It’s all too easy to spend hours trawling job boards, hoping for that elusive opportunity to be hiding amongst the listings.

Overcoming this hurdle is all about what we call ‘The Hustle’.

The Hustle is how you create opportunities for yourself. It’s how you open new doors and build a career on your own terms. It’s how you stand out and put yourself in a field of 1, rather than competing in a field of 100.

'Hustle' has become a cliched phrase, so let's first define what we mean by Hustle, and most importantly, what Hustle is not.

What Hustle is not: sleazy and manipulative. It doesn’t aim to hurt, steal, lie, or leave one party feeling like they’ve been taken advantage of.

A Hustler makes things happen, and tells the world about it. No endless thinking or wondering. Just brave steps forward - even if it's unclear what the next step should be.

Here are the top 3 traits of Hustlers that we've met and worked with over the years at Escape.

Don't wait to be asked. Demonstrate value to others before they ask, and before you're given explicit permission. Give ideas and solutions generously, and you’ll open up new paths and exciting options for yourself. Help others and you’ll help yourself.

Or in Einstein’s words: “Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.”

Examples: “Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” –Albert Einstein.

Creating value is all about demonstrating your value to others before they ask and before you’re given permission to. Act on your ideas, give generously, and focus on demonstrating the value for others and you’ll open up new paths and exciting options for yourself. Help others and you’ll help yourself. Pursue things that excite you and be quick to demonstrate value.

Create Value: Ideas & Examples

Do Free Work

Doing free work sounds simple. But this isn’t just about taking an unpaid internship and volunteering on a community project. It’s more targeted and ambitious than that. Doing free work is about aiming high and offering to work on mini-projects for people you admire and from whom you can learn from.

“Doing free work is about building healthy relationships with people you want to learn from and work on projects youʼre interested in...Whatever ideas I propose will somehow be tied to skills of mine, but phrased in a way that's beneficial to the person I'm emailing.”

Doing free work works because it allows you to display your value FIRST -- potentially without the expectation of return. In doing so, you’ll give yourself a better shot at a new opportunity.

When was the last time you created something just for the sake of creation? Maybe you could provide value for other people in your unnecessary creation – by creating joy or relieving pain?

“Ideas are the only thing we have left...we’re in an idea economy now.” –James Altucher

James Altucher (introduced in How to Generate New Ideas), has a reason for his 10 Ideas a Day practice other than just to flex his “idea muscle.” He believes we’re now living in an Idea Economy. Ideas, he argues, are potentially the only thing we have left.

“Ideas,” Altucher argues, “cannot be outsourced. We are in an idea economy now.”

But here’s the thing about ideas: they will do no good just sitting in your own head. We must set them on fire and release them into the world. Act on them yourself, freely discuss them with others, and even give them away.

Sometimes Altucher will give away his ideas to people he thinks they can help.

“When you come up with ideas for someone else, always give ALL the ideas away for free if you think they are good ideas.”

Those goes contrary to the scarcity mindset many of us have grown up with. It’s a mindset that can hold back entrepreneur-to-be at the beginning of their time together. It’s common for people to be protective of their precious ideas and not share them openly with the room.

This is trap #1 to avoid as an entrepreneur or a career changer. By not being willing to share your ideas with others, it’s impossible for others to help you. By holding back, you’re banking on the notion that someone else is willing to quit everything in their life to focus on your idea (which is often what’s required to successfully pursue a new venture).

Sharing your ideas may open up opportunities for you. Embracing a spirit of generosity tends to pull people toward you and more importantly, allows them to help you bring your ideas to fruition. And for the ideas that you don’t plan to implement, they can help someone else out.

Show, don’t just tell. Titles, degrees, and accreditations were much celebrated in the 20th century - but they carry less weight than ever in the 21st century world of work. They might open doors, but in reality employers and collaborators are looking for applied skills and real life experience. In other words, don’t just tell us what you can do - show us. The Hustle is about doing the work, but equally, it's about sharing the work so the world can engage with it..

Shining in Public doesn't mean you need to have a blog or be on Twitter. You could just as easily shine in public by going to a new meet-up and introducing yourself in a new way. Or by launching a meet-up of your own. Shining in public could be as simple as announcing a new project to a handful of close friends and colleagues. Shining in public is about letting your new ideas, possible future selves, and projects touch the world – as scary as that might feel.

However when you dare to shine in public, communicate to the world who you are, what you believe in, and what you’re working on, you give the right people and opportunities a chance to enter your life.

Shine in Public Ideas, Examples & Resources

Idea #1: Do Something Publicly (literally)

Idea #2: Proactively Share Something

Idea #3: Invite Others to Engage With You

"Alas, the work we're being asked to do now, the emotional labor we're getting paid to do, is frightening. It's frightening to stand up for what we believe in, frightening to do something that might not work, frightening to do something that we have to be responsible for." –Seth Godin

Idea #4: Face Imposter Syndrome Head-On

The Impostor Syndrome is a psychological phenomenon that people can experience and what it does is it causes you to feel like you're a fake, so an impostor. It actually happens to people whose skill level or qualifications are actually quite good. But they always feel that they're actually faking it, that their accomplishments are not real, that they're somehow pulling the wool over other people's eyes that are just getting by on something that isn't real even though it is. They actually are good, they have the skills but they themselves don't see that. –Alicia Liu, Overcoming Imposter Syndrome, Startups.co

As Reddit.com co-founder Alexis Ohanian stepped on stage to speak to a crowded NYC hall at 99U’s Pop-Up School, a slide behind him read:

“I have no idea what I’m doing and that’s awesome.”

If the co-founder of one of the most popular websites on the internet has no idea what he’s doing — what does that say for rest of us? One of the greatest myths is that of the fearless entrepreneur or corporate escapee having it “all figured out” before they started.

Here’s a secret: they didn’t. Here’s another: they still don’t.

Alexis concluded his NYC talk bluntly:

“Sucking is the first step to being sorta good at something.”

Having the courage to “suck” — in whatever you’re testing out, with whatever you’re working towards, on whatever experiments you’re conducting — is the crucial first step in actually going somewhere worth going. Embrace the “suck,” and then keep stepping.

Opportunities manifest through people. Your next opportunity will likely appear in the form of a person. It may be through someone you know, most likely it will be through someone you don't. This is about authentic connection, not schmoozing at networking events. Meet people who care about what you care about, by getting involved with groups and events linked to topics that you're curious about. Make a point of helping others out with useful introductions, and see how things unfold. View networking simply (in the way that Steven D’Souza does) as the "art of making friends.”

Your next opportunity will likely appear in the form of a person. It may be through someone you know. It could be through someone you hardly know. It possibly will be through someone you have yet to meet. Choose genuine and authentic connection over schmoozy networking.

Meet people who care about what you care about. Surround yourself with people you admire. Aim to be helpful and generous with your ideas, time and care. Make useful introductions. All ships will rise and you may even create a new opportunity for yourself.

View at networking simply in the way that Steven D’Souza does: as the "art of making friends.”

Build Authentic Relationships Ideas, Examples & Resources

Idea #1: Ask For Help

Idea #2: Help Someone Else

Idea #3: Make a Connection Without Seeking Gain

Idea #4: Redefine Networking

Networking has become a dirty word. Fake smiles, schmoozing, haphazardly passing out of business cards, and an ingenuine exchange of “what do you do?” (and the between-the-lines “and what can you do for me?”).

We’re not big fans of networking. What we are fans of is genuine connection with interesting people and helping them pursue projects they care about. The best “networkers” we meet self-admittedly also hate “networking.” What they enjoy instead is forging authentic relationships with people they admire and being genuinely helpful to those people.

That’s it. True networking is about making friends, being genuinely helpful and generous. When practiced genuinely, it can open up new opportunities for yourself. The best networkers know what Zig Ziglar knew.

Examples:

Here are some examples of what the hustle might look like in action:

● Email people at organisations you admire. Reach out with a simple hello and offer genuine value - an idea, suggestion or relevant article/video that might interest them.

● Look at who you know. Find people in your contacts who work in - or know someone who works in - your new area. Buy them a coffee and foster the relationship.

● Create a mini website. Use Strikingly or Squarespace to create a site that represents who you are, so you can share it with new contacts.

● Write a blog. Get your voice out there on a simple blogging platform like Medium, and write a couple of articles about your topic.

● Make sure your Twitter profile is up to date. Post about your area of interest and connect with people in your new field.

● Go along to networking events. Use Meetup.com to find relevant groups, and start getting to know people who work in your new field.

● Volunteer. Build skills and transform your CV by carving out time to work for free, even if it’s just a couple of hours a week.

It might not seem like it at first glance, but the truth is that you're already a hustler. Chances are you’ve created value, shined in public, and have built authentic relationships in various areas of your life. It's about building these behaviors and relationships, to harness opportunities as you experiment and explore new directions.

It’s easy to confuse good action with procrastinating action. When in doubt, remember that good action checks many of these boxes:

● It interacts with the world (1 person or many people).

● It’s small enough to be realistically achievable.

● You want to do it, but it’s uncomfortable (7 out of 10 comfort level)

● Or...you don’t want to do it, but you’re excited when you think about having done it.

● There’s a small degree of risk involved or potential for making mistakes or feeling foolish.

Feeling stuck and can’t think of good actions? Here are some ideas:

● Reach out to your role models/heroes/heroines: Role models are the embodiment of a person or part of a person you hope to grow into. They’re the tangible example of something you aspire to become like. People you admire may embody a trait, a habit, an expertise or a body of work that you respect. Make a list of people you admire. Be clear on why you admire them. Take it one step further and reach out to them. Ask to interview them. You may be surprised who says yes.

● Conversational research: Interview someone who is doing what you might want to do. Ask them what their day-to-day is like. Ask them how they got there, what they’ve struggled with, and what their advice would be to someone who’s just starting out.

● Shadow someone: Ask to shadow someone who is doing what you might want to do. Witness their day-to-day.

● Start and complete a short project: A great way to learn a new skill or fine tune a current one is to spearhead a project applies that skill. Three months is a good amount of time to complete a small project.

● Attend a meetup: Go to meetup.com and search for a topic you care about or community you’re interested in. Introduce yourself and expand your circle.

● Start your own meetup: Don’t see something you like on Meetup.com? Start your own!

● Introduce yourself in a new way: The next time you go to a party or meetup, practice introducing yourself in new ways. Test out different narratives and styles. When you share what you care about and who you are, you give the right people an opportunity to enter your life.

● Unnecessary creation: Create something (piece of writing, photograph, whole project) for the hell of it. Don’t worry about the objective. Just do it because you want to do it. If there’s someone who helped inspire your creation, share it with them and thank them. They’ll appreciate it.

● Contracting: Is there a parent, colleague, manager or friend that you need to have a real conversation with?

● Do free work: Work on someone else’s project. Take on a microproject. Volunteer your time to help out a startup that is low on resources. Doing free work for someone else can help you learn a new skill, grow a current one and open the door for a future opportunity.

The hustle is how people create amazing opportunities for themselves - don’t miss out. It’s not about beating yourself up if these aren’t things that come naturally to you, it’s about identifying what you can do more of to maximise opportunities for yourself.

It’s important to put a few things in place to help you sustain a career change or escape - we’ve found money to be the biggest issue for people so want to provide some advice and guidance on how to break it down so it doesn’t stand in your way.

Financing your escape

How to manage the money question?

Map your relationship with money

“Your Money or Your Life”

Crunch the numbers behind your escape

Getting your head around The Money Question is a process of clarifying your goals, your levels of risk tolerance and four key numbers:

A = The minimum you can live on per month (during your escape).

B = How many months you think you’ll need to live on it for (the Hit).

C = Your ideal recurring income after the transition (post-escape).

D = Your total escape fund (your pre-escape savings).

The magic number is D – your target saving amount – and the minimum acceptable amount to resign on is A x B (i.e. the amount you need per month multiplied by the number of months you think your transition will take). Then you tell yourself that after “B” months you need to be at “C” otherwise you’ll rethink your plans or go back to your old job. NB: You may have a part-time work plan for the transition. This can further extend the period you have to make your escape work.

You may be in a fortunate situation whereby you can forecast every number without doubt. However, if your escape involves the prospect of an as-yet-unknown income stream (a new salary or a sustainable business venture) then the anticipated date of that money (C) hitting your bank account is the big risk in the calculation and it is probably worth inflating (B) by at least 25% as insurance.

If you are serious about escaping then the easiest deadline to set yourself for resignation is the day that you hit your magic number – D – the number that you need to cover you through the Hit. This gives you something to aim at and helps with the discipline of saving. It also takes away the fear of wondering when the right time is to quit (hint: there is no right time, so you might as well make it the day you hit your magic number!).

Make a worst-case scenario plan

What’s the absolute worst that can happen? (Mindset & Resilience)

Every business has revenues and costs, assets and liabilities. Your personal finances are no different. Every start-up has to get their revenues above their costs before they run out of time (and money). Your escape is no different (whether or not you’re building a business).

You have revenue streams (your salary and any other incomings). You have costs (your rent, your living expenses, etc). If your revenues are above your costs no one can stop you. You can move both numbers. Seen in this light, your job is just a revenue stream that you are particularly emotionally attached to.

Start-ups have a certain amount of time to find a scalable business model before they go bust. You are a person in search of a scalable new career. You have a certain amount of time to figure out your “business model” before you go bust (i.e. before you have to go back to your old job or find a new job).

Just like a start-up you should do a few key things:

1. Keep your costs as low as possible whilst you’re finding the way that works.

2. Get someone to pay you for something (anything) whilst you figure things out.

3. Know what your monthly burn-rate is (therefore know how many “months-till-death” you have).

4. Place small bets and test towards the way that works (rather than guessing or planning your way through uncertainty).

Minimise costs

- How can you cut your costs? Do a financial audit - download our google spreadsheet to get started, you’ll probably be shocked at how much you spend on certain things and where you can cut back.

Earn creatively

- Skills you can freelance with

- All sorts of things pay - going to ikea and picking furniture etc

Build assets, question liabilities

- Are you paying for things you don’t need? Focus on building up assets and getting rid of unnecessary liabilities - perhaps you could consider living in a cheaper city whilst you explore a new business or career to give yourself the wiggle room you need. Maybe you don’t need to own a car but could instead enroll in a car club instead.

Invest in yourself, not stuff

The two main ways you could invest in yourself are through new experiences and education. You don’t have to quit your job to do either of these.

D.H. Lawrence said that travel is the only thing you spend money on that makes you richer, and we agree. Rare is the person who returns from a genuinely new and adventurous experience without a fresh perspective on something they took for granted at home. Use the library, beg, steal, download and borrow books. There really is no excuse for being uninformed about anything you consider important for your career transition.

We advocate spending consciously, spending on things that are important to you. Look your finances in the eye and then look your values in the eye. Decide how much you need and want (there’s no wrong answer) for what you want to do. Then plan accordingly.

Intelligent transition case studies
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oSXJE6-i1ylZ55np0JQllKwqTsVUZ__k4Ast0A5NffM/edit?usp=sharing

Changing careers takes a level of resilience, for every great opportunity that comes your way, there are likely 3 that don’t pan out. To help you you’ll want to adopt a growth mindset, with a growth mindset you’ll think differently about failure - because it’s all about learning. Skills, setbacks, criticism and feedback are all taken differently, check out our extra resources to learn more about developing a growth mindset.

Keys to mindset and resilience

UNDERSTAND HOW YOUR BRAIN WORKS

Your brain has a big job: to keep you safe. It’s a job that it does spectacularly well. And thank goodness it has. It’s helped your ancestors evade an impressive gaggle of beasts, battles and bad times to help ensure you’re sitting here today.

Most of us are fortunate to no longer need to look out for hungry lions, vicious crocodiles, or savage rival Tribespeople as we go about our day-to-day tasks. Unfortunately our brain hasn’t quite caught up with this reality.

In his book The Chimp Paradox, Steve Peters calls this part of the brain which runs on gut instincts, emotions and thinks in black and white as our “inner chimp.”

Our “inner chimp” is at odds with the rational, evidence-based part of the brain which sees shades of grey and doesn’t fall for all-or-nothing thinking. Peters explains the paradox: we need our chimp for basic survival instincts, but if we don’t have a plan to manage it, it can run our lives and keep us from doing truly meaningful (but internally scary) things.

We respond more strongly to threats than to opportunities. It’s how our brain operates. Think about someone standing on a high bridge or a diving board, saying they want to jump off, but their mind is refusing to let them do it. The same can feel true for the scary steps along our own Escape.

Our brain can have power over us unless we understand this and decide to do something about it.

Career Psychologist and core Escape School faculty Rob Archer likes to talk about a principle called Experiential Avoidance when dealing with our sometimes unhelpful chimp brain.

Experiential Avoidance essentially says that the brain will try and get you to run away from stuff that involves pain and fear in the short-term, even if the long-term outcome is something you want.

Let’s say that running a marathon is something you’re deeply driven to accomplish. This requires hard work -- waking up an hour earlier to run before work, skipping out on afterwork drinks to train, pressing through those miles when it hurts the most. Your brain says: “Stop! This is no fun! I hate it! It’s hard!”

Your brain gives an excellent case for you to stop and move away from your marathon goal. Even though you should certainly be doing these training tasks in order to move toward that goal.

Rob calls these “away moves” and “towards moves.” Be mindful to make “towards moves” forward. Be cautious of your brain’s self-satisfying and safe “away moves.” They mean to keep you safe, but they will also keep you from accomplishing your higher ambitions.

TREAT DISCOMFORT AS A GOOD SIGN

Moving towards something that matters can be challenging. We are extremely good at sabotaging ourselves, catastrophizing, engaging in all-or-nothing thinking, trying to predict the future, and making rash assumptions. Whilst our thoughts and emotions are useful guides for survival, they can be much less useful when fulfilment is at stake. In this sense, emotions can be unreliable indicators of the right way forwards. If the direction excites you, it’ll likely also scare you. If something is important to you, you’ll also fear losing it.

All of this is normal when starting in a new direction, but too many of us treat discomfort as the endpoint, rather than the beginning. It’s easy to give up when things get really hard.

Going back to the marathon example -- in the actual race there will be some miles that are just horrendous and horribly difficult. But if you do not endure those miles and simply stop at the first brush with discomfort, you’ll never enjoy the accomplishment of realizing the marathon goal.

Discomfort in fact is a good sign. It means you’re growing and moving into unchartered territory. If you feel discomfort, you’re probably doing something right. Do not give up. If the end goal is important to you, keep going.

An analysis of the 558 emotion words in the English language found that 62% of them were negative and 38% percent were positive.

As humans, we have a tendency towards the negative. This probably stems back to our “inner chimp” just trying to identify problems and keep us safe. We default to focusing on obstacles, not goals. We want to fix things. We want to stay alive.

The things that worry you and that you’ve turned negative about may be genuine risks. But instead of using them as an excuse to stop or never start, take them and use them to your advantage.

Here’s an idea: Take your worries and write them down. Turn your worries into a To-Do list.

Knowing that these are things you need to address (big and small) will help you size each up and plan accordingly. Worries can be useful when used in your plan of attack -- less useful when they keep us stagnant and standing still.

GET PHILOSOPHICAL

When trying to build up a healthy “escape mindset,” it’s helpful to go back -- way back -- to the days of ancient Rome and the philosophy of Stoicism, which teaches us this: most things are not within our immediate control.

Jules Evans, our resident philosopher at the Escape School teaches the general concept of stoicism by drawing two circles, one inner circle labeled “Zone 1” and one outer circle labeled “Zone 2.”

“Zone 1 is what we have control over. Zone 2 is what we do not.”

What’s in this larger uncontrollable Zone 2? The weather, the economy, major government decisions and policies, your health (to a large extent), other people’s health, other people’s actions and reactions. On and on.

What’s in Zone 1? Surprising little, but certainly this: our reaction to the things that happen around us and to us in Zone 2. The honest truth is that we have but very little control over most things in life. But what we reign control over is how we decide to observe and react to the things in Zone 2. We have control over our perceptions to these things.

To quote Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius in Meditations, a bedrock of Stoic thinking:

“Today I escaped from anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions -- not outside.”

Escaping anxiety is a choice. Choose to focus on Zone 1.

We’ve found this to be the most important part of sustaining your escape and career change. You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with, so reach out and find people online or in person that can help you keep going when it feels hard and who can provide new and exciting opportunities for you. It’s so important to find new networks that can support you - you can start with the escape community online, and also search for meetups and groups near you who are interested in what you are interested in.

1. Foundations

2. Explorations

3. Testing

4. Hustle

5. Sustain

You’re probably sitting there with lots of paper, plans and now a clear direction as to what to do next to make your career change.

If you need more help...then please sign-up to The Escape School newsletter where we share our upcoming events, workshops, advice, tools and information on our accelerators to help your with your escape.

Make sure you also connect with the Escape community locally in your city on Facebook.

Well done for giving it a go. It’s not easy. But we believe it’s worth it and have seen the huge impact that pursuing it has on a lot of people’s careers.

Let us know how you get on, and if we can help share your idea

Happy Escaping!