So you’ve decided to quit your corporate job. Now what? The BIGGEST question I hear about escaping the rat race, is - “WHAT COULD I DO INSTEAD?” Here are 7 ways to find your next venture!
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Meditating without any support (just om-ing, for instance) is hard for most of us. Like anything it’s a skill, and with practice you may find you don’t need to be guided in your meditation.
But I find that it’s much quicker to get in to the state I want to be in when I get support from an app. If you’re on any of our midlife coaching or escape the rat race programmes I will ALWAYS recommend adding meditation to your day. Here I recommend 5 very different apps!
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Before you escape the rat race, there are many questions that need to be answered before you can take the next step forward in starting your business. Learn the big questions that you need to resolve before you take the leap in our blog.
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You may think that the broader your customer base the more business you’ll get. But defining a clear niche and really knowing your potential customers can help you get more business.
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Networking for the first time is one of the biggest challenges when starting your own business. What are the biggest dos and don’ts when you start networking for your new business?
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I’ve scoured iTunes, Spotify and something called Stitcher to find you the best podcasts for 40 and 50 somethings. Here are my top 5 to help you through the commute, keep you company on your morning walk, make you laugh or distract you from the washing up.
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Not everyone starts their own business because they are a natural entrepreneur. Many midlife business owners quit their corporate job because they feel they no longer fit. So if you’re a reluctant midlife entrepreneur, how can you make a success of your business?
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In order to create a balanced life, certain boundaries must be set. In this post, find out what boundaries are and how they can be used to create a balanced life.
It’s very gratifying knowing that people need you. But it’s also a pain.
Whether it’s your children, your parents, your partner, your friends, your colleagues, your community or, goodness help you, all of the above who turn to you when they need assistance, it’s tough to find time to go to the toilet, let alone plan your exit from corporate life and design a future where you love what you do!
The bottom line is that, if you want to bring balance to your life, you have some choices to make, and not all of those are going to be comfortable. One of those choices is to create and maintain some boundaries. Yes, it’s OK for people to need you. But you also need to take care of yourself. And you need people to take care of you. That’s where boundaries come in.
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Can you quit your corporate job without more qualifications? While it might seem like a really good idea to rack up a bank of qualifications before you quit your corporate job, it isn’t always a good idea.
In this blog I give the pros and cons of getting yet another qualification.
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Yes. Maybe you were looking for a more involved answer? Let me make this clear - you can make a living doing what you love. We know this because there are people out there making a living doing what they love.
There are many reasons you may find yourself at a crossroads, where your dreams of doing something else stop being an idle fantasy and start to become an escape plan. We all have days where we entertain the thought of doing something else like moving to a remote island and living off the land, But, for some of us, we get to the point where the longing and musing stops and we get out the calculator. This is the first “make or break” moment on the journey.
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There are two types of obstacle to doing anything new in life - Practical Obstacles and Emotional/Mindset Obstacles.
The practical obstacles are the ones we tend to focus on and then there are the Emotional or Mindset Obstacles. These will be beliefs or ‘truths’, often things we say to ourselves privately, about ourselves or about the world.
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It’s very gratifying knowing that people need you. But it’s also a pain.
Whether it’s your children, your parents, your partner, your friends, your colleagues, your community or, goodness help you, all of the above who turn to you when they need assistance, it’s tough to find time to go to the toilet, let alone plan your exit from corporate life and design a future where you love what you do!
The bottom line is that, if you want to bring balance to your life, you have some choices to make, and not all of those are going to be comfortable.
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Many of us dream of walking away from our 9-5 corporate job and doing something else, anything else, for a living. I used to envy the ladies on the supermarket checkout when I had a tough, stressful, unfulfilling job at the BBC.
It’s never too late! But if you’re serious about finding ways to escape the rat race, you’re going to need a plan.
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#TheTruthAboutMenopause
Last night on the BBC, the wonderful Mariella Fostrup lifted the lid on prime time television about the menopause. Yes, it was only an hour. Yes, it focused a lot on technology and drug treatment.
But it was a start!
The menopause is a vast subject and I predict you’re going to be hearing a lot more about it now. Hold on to your hats! (or your portable electric fans - ladies, am I right?)
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My hair is grey. My midriff is expanding. My bones ache. I still have combination skin. I’m more than halfway through my career and probably my life.
I should be driving around in a sports car by now, having traded in my first spouse for a second, younger model. Instead, I’m caring from my 11-year-old daughter and taking my parents to doctor appointments. And the sports car? Forget it. I drive a car with a big enough boot to fit my groceries AND the stuff that needs to go to the tip. That’s sexy.
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I sold my house. I bought a campervan. I took my daughter and our dogs on a 6-month adventure around Europe. I cut down on my work. I made afternoons family-time. And I still didn’t have work-life balance!
And I was angry with myself. I’m meant to be the work-life balance lady. Yet I didn’t feel balanced at all! Then it hit me. There is no such thing as work-life balance…
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It’s all 99% perspiration, and feel the burn! He who wakes up first and goes to bed last wins!
I do wonder, however, what exactly is that person winning? Does first prize go to the person who sacrifices the most in their life? At a time when there’s increasing evidence that working fewer hours leads to more productivity and now that machines are learning to do many tasks in mere moments, it’s really important that we break our relationship with force, with pushing, with pain and suffering and embrace flow instead.
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You’re about to see me in a way that I rarely share on social media.
I carefully manage my public image, “my brand,” as I’m sure most of us do. On social media, we share our wins, and we share our struggles after the fact when we have some perspective and have had the chance to tidy our hair and fix our makeup for a camera-ready “tell-all”.
Over the last six months I’ve had some of the most incredible moments of my life. However, I’ve also been fed up, tired, bored and frightened. I shared some of my ordeals as they happened. But not all.
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The biggest misconception about happiness is that is it the result of our situation. If you have money, a nice house, a relationship, healthy kids and a job that befits your talents you will be happy. If you lose that job or your child gets sick or your relationship breaks down you won’t be happy.
We know this isn’t true. The evidence is everywhere. We operate from an “If only…” perspective and focus our attentions on changing the hygiene factors in our lives - the jobs we do, the place we live, the holidays we go on, the throw cushions we just have to have that will make us feel so much better every time we walk in to the living room….
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Life on the road has many, many advantages: lower costs and being able to go where the wind and the work takes you. As a digital nomad, you can be free from the repetition of the standard 9-5 workweek.
But, life on the road also comes with an amount of unpredictability. While that can be thrilling and adventurous, it can also be stressful and tedious. Wandering around someone else’s back garden waving your laptop in the air, trying to catch a mystical wifi signal to send an email or find something on the internet is agitating and not the best use of anyone’s time.
However, the stresses of ‘mobile emergency’ situations can be limited by three “contingencies” and every digital nomad should have them in place to successfully live and work during their travels.
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