Career pivots are the new norm
Pivoting your career can help to shake it up so that you don’t spiral and hit a plateau or it can be a way to switch things up and make a new career move. I am on my #4 career pivot and there could be more to come who knows! I work with a lot of medics and business entrepreneurs and one of the things that is interesting is to hear about their sideline projects. Take Natalie for instance, she is amazing - a consultant paediatrican and paediatric infection lead, she is the only UK paediatrician formally trained in travel medicine. With her NHS clinic being consistently overbooked and focussed on complex cases she created the Children’s Travel Doc business to fill that gap. It takes a lot of energy, passion and commitment to make all this work. Natalie was determined to create travel kits for kids that are cost-effective and bespoke which she has achieved. When Mike Finlay Allen, started to think about creating medicine with the other aspects of his life, he says
My aim was always to have a diverse working life, so I combined hospital medicine with sports medicine, working in professional football. But I wanted to use my knowledge and experience to help everyone thrive, not just elite athletes - so we developed T-Cup for that reason. T-Cup is a wellbeing platform that helps individuals and organisations cultivate a self-reflection practise and find their own blend of health, happiness and success. My daily encounters with mental health in A&E inspired me to want to reach more people through technology, by empowering them to take control of their own wellbeing, maintaining a healthy blend, preventing it from reaching a crisis point.
Another example, is Aroon, an orthopaedic surgeon, educator and co-founder of Eurekadoc. Aroon has invested time, education, and a lot of thought into producing education resources that have an impact for other healthcare professionals. What I love about their side-lines are that they both thought about how they can use the clinical and business skills they’ve gained adapt this to a digital market.
Prior to lock-down, the Henley Business School estimated that 34% of 35 - 44 year olds, run a side hustle business of some kind. It is over a third for this age category and even higher in the 25-34 age group. Nick who is an IT consultant, took the plunge back in 2016 to set up GeekyKids, a coding club for kids. When I asked him about how the idea came about, he said,
“The idea came naturally from wanting to teach my children how to code.”
He looked online, and there wasn’t anything that hit the mark and as he enjoyed writing technical content, he put this skill to great use and started GeekyKids. Initially, it was all in-classroom teaching but since Covid-19 it has provided the opportunity to diversify into digital teaching. As you can imagine, it has really taken off and it means that the business isn’t restricted by physical location - simply, wonderful.
In Jenny Blake’s book, Pivot: The Only Move That Matters is Your Next One defines a pivot as,
“Doubling down on what is working to make a purposeful shift in a new, related direction. Pivoting is an intentional, methodical process for nimbly navigating career changes.”
So, if you are thinking about a career pivot, here are my 3 top tips:-
1. Make sure that your career pivot fits around your life commitments and priorities – there needs to be a balance. There is a great exercise on career balance that will help you to focus and be clear on how you are spending your time.
2. Put thought into your on/ offline offering. Are there things that you can do that provides a passive income digitally? All of us have expertise to share, we just need the confidence and self-belief to take the first steps.
3. In my Little Book of Career Thoughts, it gets you to drill down and think about your career from a fresh perspective. Clients often talk to me about what they are not good at and how they need to plug these skill gaps. Do you know what, stop worrying about what you can’t do and concentrate on what you CAN offer! Trust me on this, it works.
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