New Energy, Passion

I have a candidate who worked for 23 years with a Fortune 500 company and loved the corporate culture there, which has always been notoriously nurturing, but she hated her job. Downsized and free at last, she wants to purchase and open a franchise. She came to one word for her newfound enthusiasm: passion.

Joseph Campbell, the anthropologist guru, is well-known for his advice to "follow your bliss". As a career counselor, I have struggled with that notion throughout my own career. I always counseled people to follow their bliss/do what you love and the money will follow. But rarely did anyone believe it was possible. You had to earn a living, and that meant find a job that pays enough to make ends meet or provide even a luxury or two. Being happy, passionate about the work itself was pure luck.

But we're in a new economy, and if the spirit of the entrepreneur isn't alive today, it never will have an opening like this one, at least not for a very long time. The way out of dreadful work and working your passion is to nurture that intuitive longing, perform due diligence on getting the facts, and then budget yourself well enough to confirm you have a fiscally responsible business mentality. Then take the leap. This difficult downturn may be your uptick.