Review
------
"This is it--a turbocharged, high-energy,
stripped-to-the-core distillation of key ins and practices
to truly move you forward. After readiong Laura's loving and
potent guidance, you can't help creating the life you yearn for."
—Jennifer Louden, author of Comfort Secrets for Busy Women
"Laura Berman Fortgang is your perfect guide to making change in
your life. You will be inspired, but more importantly, you will
finally take action.”
—Pamela Slim, Body of Work
"If this book delivers just ten percent of the power of Laura's
coaching, it will be worth thousands of times the price."
—Mark Bryan, co-author of THE ARTIST'S WAY AT WORK
"We all need to plug into an energy source for our lives and once
you plug into Laura Berman Fortgang and Now What? you will be
electrified and raring to go. Listen to what she has to say and
you will move your life to new heights."
—Iyanla Vanzant
"Thinking of making a big change in how you make a living--or how
you live your life? Having trouble getting started? This wise,
honest and practical book can help you figure out what may be
holding you back, and where to go from here. I'm recommending it
to everyone I know. Great stuff!"
—Anne Fisher, FORTUNE
Praise for LIVING YOUR BEST LIFE....
"Laura Berman Fortgang will help you reach the success and
fulfillment you are destined for."
--Ken Blanchard
"A brilliantly written, indispensable guide that touches and
expands the very best of our hearts, minds, and spirits."
--Harold Bloomfield, M.D., author of Making Peace with Your Past
and How to Survive the Loss of a Love
"Beware-this thought-provoking book will put you on a one-way
path to a more creative and fulfilling life."
--Kyle MacLachlan
"Fortgang generously offers glorious, refreshing guidance to help
us each find our unique path in life."
--Jennifer Louden, author of The Woman's Comfort Book
"Fortgang's Wisdom Access Questions have the makings of
brilliance-simple, easy to use, hugely effective, and humblingly
obvious."
--Judy George, founder and CEO, Domain
"Laura helps you organize information... so you can move your
life forward in positive ways. I can't recommend this enough!"
--Julia Sweeney
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About the Author
----------------
Laura Berman Fortgang is a nationally renowned
speaker, life coach, and career strategist, helping individuals,
small businesses, and corporations forge new directions and
weather change. Laura is a recent Huffington Post blogger and a
media perennial appearing on Oprah, various morning shows, CNN,
MSNBC, and in many print publications. She lives in Montclair,
New Jersey.
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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
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Introduction
nowwhatcoaching.com/welcome-to-now-what
Welcome
It’s not what you do that brings career satisfaction. It’s who
you get to be while you’re doing it.
—LAURA BERMAN FORTGANG
Being given the rtunity to revise this book after more than a
decade since it was written is a great gift. It’s also
bittersweet. On the one hand, it’s wonderful to confirm that the
material is still relevant. On the other hand, it’s sad that the
material is still relevant. In fact, it’s not only relevant; it’s
needed more than ever.
It was originally written as a result of eighteen months of work
starting four days after September 11, 2001. I had told my agent
that I was not interested in writing any more books. I felt my
two previous ones were enough proof that I deserved to have been
plucked out of obscurity to be the first American coach featured
prominently in the media and awarded a book contract without a
proposal. I had settled back into coaching clients in the
relative quiet of suburban life with two infants and a toddler.
However, 9/11 changed everything. Suddenly, my phone was ringing
off the hook with people who felt panicked that life was short
and anything could happen so they better take those dreams off
the back burner and get moving. For the next year and a half, my
coaching clients reflected one specialty: supporting people to
figure out what they wanted to do with their lives. And that has
not stopped. I’ve written two books since this one, and I speak
to corporations on a variety of success topics, but when the
phone rings with a coaching request, it’s for career transition,
and that has only intensified since the Great Recession.
This book is for you if you’ve been wondering if you’re losing
your marbles because you are considering a career change when
most people think you have it good. Maybe everyone around you
just thinks you’re nuts for complaining or thinking of shifting
gears. My motto is: “If everyone is saying you’re crazy, you’re
on the right track.”
Now, please understand, I am not talking about true mental
illness. I am talking about the very y and unpleasant feeling
of considering walking away from a good paycheck or years of
experience in one area to do something else. You wonder if you’re
losing a grip on reality because our society (and likely our
partners, spouses, and friends) are reflecting back on you how
illogical your rumblings are. And again, that’s good. That’s
very, very good. Logic is a left-brain function, and as a
population (first world, likely two or three generations away
from our immigrant ancestors), the notion that having a job or an
income of any kind should be happiness enough has become
outdated. You know your life is good by the standards that
society measures it, but you are not happy and can’t seem to
justify it or name why it is so. You may not be sure how else to
go about things or what else you should do with your life.
If you’re unemployed, don’t think I’ve forgotten you. This book
is for you, too, especially if your industry is shrinking or gone
altogether. So many people are finding themselves “old,”
“overqualified,” or “shut out” of rtunities and industries
due to the quickly changing landscape. Complete reinvention is
required.
You’re being asked to send your résumé out into cyberspace with
barely the courtesy of an acknowledgment that anyone’s read it
and no way to follow up with anyone. It’s pretty easy to feel
hopeless. New tactics are a must. Social media and who you know
matter. One big problem is that we’ve been trained to believe
that if we do our résumé right, network, and interview well, a
job is a given. Not in today’s world. It’s not about doing all
the “right” things better. It’s doing something entirely
different.
As you’ll see in the upcoming chapters in this book, your résumé
will not come into play for an indication of where new momentum
might come from. Your life story (Chapter Four) will show you
what needs to come back from the past or what needs to be pursued
to get the ball rolling in your life again. After a decade of
experience with this program, it’s almost become formulaic:
Something from the past rolled into the skill set of today equals
your new direction, or at least the key to having luck return to
your side. It’s OK if you are doubtful, but proceed anyway. I
need you to trust this process.
Since launching the hardcover of this book in 2004 and the
paperback in 2005, almost five hundred career coaches in the
United States and abroad have trained with me to use this
material with their clients. I have continued to coach people
one-on-one myself and I have spoken publicly to tens of thousands
of people, sharing the ins and exercises herein. Learning
from all these outlets that the material really works time and
time again surprises me. I wrote the original first draft in
ninety days with four beta-testing groups standing by to work the
program week by week. It was based on everything I did
intuitively, shooting from the hip with my clients after twelve
years of experience and the intense post-9/11 experience. But
it’s been the decade since that has shown me hundreds, if not
thousands of times over that this program works and that the
trend toward stepping away from soul-deadening jobs is only
growing with no sign of stopping.
The New Economy or Human Evolution?
Many people in America, and other countries that have had an
immigrant culture, are the descendants of a work ethic that has
taken its toll. The immigrant work ethic was that of hard work
and sacrifice to provide for one’s family. The next generation or
two followed the rules as they were outlined for us. Those rules
have changed, along with our desire to follow them. What we are
left with is feeling like we are in foreign territory. It’s like
being asked to change our internal operating system, and it feels
as unnatural as it would to a PC user trying to become a Mac
user.
Today’s professionals who have reached some level of success are
longing for right-brain freedom. They want to create, innovate,
and express themselves through work. Their intuition or inner
promptings are pestering them, but we were not usually raised to
respect those. Those musings have been traditionally labeled
“frivolous,” “selfish,” and substandard to the American ideal of
“making it.”
Where it would make sense that people today would just be
grateful to be employed when so many others were losing their
jobs, I’ve seen more people instead ready to do something else
with their life. The shape that work takes in our lives and the
place that it holds in them has become as varied as the
individual. People are experimenting with finding what is going
to make them happy and, in many instances, money is no longer the
main criterion for staying or going.
My own Polish immigrant grandher would have no basis for
understanding that I work with people to find work they really
love. In his day, feeding your family through the work you did
was reason enough to be happy!
In his book Linchpin, Seth Godin says: “Now we live in a world
where all the joy and profit has been squeezed out of following
the rules . . . The working middle class is suffering. Wages are
stagnant; job security is, for many people, a fading memory; and
stress is skyrocketing.”
Is it any wonder that so many people are longing to make a
change?
Godin goes on to say that this presents us with an rtunity to
become “highly sought-after, indispensible, and unique.” That is
what this book s to help you do. Whether you develop a new
role right where you are, switch companies or careers to do so,
or start your own enterprise,* we have to disrupt the status quo
and break out to be uniquely ourselves. Being a cog in the wheel
and like everyone else is no longer the secret to a protected,
secure future.
To make the change, you have to be a little bit crazy. You have
to break out of the norm and trust your intuition and where your
craziest ideas are leading you. As humans we are ready to be all
that we are capable of; therefore, reorienting from a
five-sensory existence to a sixth-sensory one. That means people
are wanting to include all of who they are in how they work. They
don’t want to leave at home their intuition and deepest desires
to make a difference.
Just as we humans are not conscious of the evolution that led to
us to having thumbs, neither is most of our society aware of the
evolution that is leading us to long for expression of who we
truly are in our day-to-day existence. More and more of us are
starting to make drastic changes to honor the parts of ourselves
we have left behind. In doing so, we feel more alive—connected to
ourselves and the world around us. This explains why in recent
years I’ve stopped saying that people come to me with career
crises. I see them now more as spiritual crises. It’s not
necessarily about God but rather about your desire to align with
who you really are instead of who you think you are expected to
be.
It’s Not “What” You Do but “Who” You Get to Be
What has become undeniably clear to me over the past few years,
as I continued to work with clients, is that career and life
satisfaction stems less from what we choose to do for a living
and more from who we get to be while we are doing it. We want
work that allows us to feel in harmony with ourselves. It is at
this point that we equate having “more” with being more and
feeling more alive. When this happens, we don’t care as much
about what we are doing. We focus more on who we are becoming.
This affords us the ability to dream about things bigger than
ourselves. This becomes the point at which life feels more
meaningful and you become curious (with less worry) about how it
might all play out.
As you get yourself on a path to honor this evolution, you are
tapping into what I call your Life Blueprint. Your Life Blueprint
is the unique imprint on your soul that helps determine what will
make you happiest and most fulfilled. The philosophy is
introduced in my second book, Living Your Best Life, as part of a
process of self-discovery. This book provides you with a concrete
and chronological ninety-day path to specifically uncover the
direction your blueprint indicates for your life.
How to Use This Book
Though most people have come to me over the years longing for
clarity about career direction, this book is designed to also
uncover other next steps such as what will follow divorce,
separation, loss, or relocation. Whether you are employed,
unemployed, a young searcher, a midlife searcher, or a retired
person looking forward to another chapter, this process will work
for you. Age is not a factor as long as you have a deep sense
within you that there is more you are meant to contribute and
that this greatness still wants to come out of you before your
time here is through. True greatness is not tethered only to a
deed or career, but encompasses a general ability to communicate
with the world from a place of contentment and peace. That is as
great a purpose as any.
This book will take you through an encapsulation of the process
my clients go through to find out what their next step or steps
should be. The goal: a happy life. And to me, that is all that
matters.
In 2001, I made a conscious decision to exclusively work with
clients for ninety days at a time (versus previous relationships
of six months to a year). I had noticed time and again in my work
with clients that people could produce extraordinary results when
given less time within which to do it, and so I designed the
ninety-day program we are about to embark on together.
Ninety days—forty-five days to find the new direction and
forty-five days to set the course toward it—will sound like a lot
to some people and not nearly enough to others.
First, I should tell you that there are no overnight solutions.
Some discoveries take time to mature. I’ve had people take as
long as a decade to cross over into the path they discovered in
our times together, but most happen within one to three years.
The discoveries can be profound, but sometimes people are slower
to put them into action. Then again, you will be surprised at how
much you will accomplish in ninety days. Hundreds of people have
already made major changes in their lives using this program, and
I hope that you, too, will find that this book helps you discover
the next step on your path.
This ninety-day program has been effective in more than 90
percent of my clients. Here are some examples:
When Carla entered the 90 Days, she was on medical leave,
dreading going back to work, and clueless about a new direction.
When she finished the 90 Days, she was ready to give notice and
pursue a degree in sports psychology.
When Jake started the 90 Days, he was disappointed and depressed
by his current career, with no particular passions he would like
to pursue. When he finished the 90 Days, he was clear that he
wanted to work with children and was putting a two-year plan in
place for retraining and getting into a new line of work.
When Taylor entered the 90 Days, she was hoping to create a plan
to cross over from professional stylist to art dealer over the
course of the next four years. When she finished the 90 Days, she
was selling art, planning new buying trips to Cuba, and moving
into her new living/gallery loft space.
When Jennifer started the 90 Days, she was facing ing debt
as she struggle to keep her business and life afloat and wanted
to gain new ideas to rebuild her company. When she finished the
90 Days, she was enrolled in a seminary after admitting the truth
about what she knew deep down was her new direction.
When Scott entered the 90 Days, he was spinning his wheels in a
midlevel management job at a large corporation, which was
frustrating and unsatisfying. He felt trapped by a recent divorce
and child custody issues and saw no way to make a career move.
Shortly after leaving the ninety-day process, he was offered a
position as CEO for an $800-million-plus company with more than
eight hundred employees across the country from his old job.
This work takes attention and focus and self-reflection. There
are exercises in every chapter. If you are one of those people
who skips the exercises and, despite your best intentions,
doesn’t get back to them later, you will cheat yourself. It is a
process. It’s ninety days to a life direction, not ninety days to
landing a job. So trust the author, the process, and the time
frame, and you will see results. If you rush, skip around, or try
to force answers, you’ll only grow frustrated, blame the program,
and throw the book in the pile with the rest you attempted.
The beta groups that tested this book specifically asked me to
tell you that every exercise is crucial, even those that may
appear trivial initially. They would recommend that you do them
all, even if you think they don’t apply to you, because you will
discover something new about yourself by doing so.
The steps outlined in this book are meant to be executed in the
order in which they appear. Each chapter is a week. Some of them,
like Chapter Six, which includes a research project, and Chapter
Eight, on money, will take longer, but keep up with their demands
in the background as you move forward with the program. You may
also decide to revisit a chapter as things change and evolve.
You’ll notice there are a few QR codes throughout the book. If
you’ve never seen this before, it’s pretty easy. Download a QR
code reader in your . Neo Reader and Quickmark work well
with different devices. You’ll scan the code with your phone or
and see the page open up. If you want to print it out or
get it to your computer, you can e-mail it to yourself and
download it to get to work on it. Please enjoy the videos and
supplemental materials. It’s my intent to give an extra boost to
your process by adding this twenty-first-century tool that the
original book did not have.
You’ll notice that this book is divided into two parts: “Naming
What ‘It’ Is” and “Getting There.” The first part helps you
determine the direction or next moves and does so by asking you
to look in unexpected places for answers. The second part gets
you into action and helps you redesign your life to accommodate
the changes you are thinking of making.
You’ll also notice that each chapter has a box with summary
questions. Most of them you’ll have answered during the course of
reading the chapter and doing the exercises, but they are there
at the end to create a more concise record of your progress.
Working with a buddy or a small group to have further support
will expedite this process and keep you on track. If you enter
the process with an open mind and try not to force an outcome,
you will be surprised by how well it can work.
If you are one of the people it does not work for, do not fret.
Your time will not be wasted. Any in counts, and finding
one’s place in life is often a process of trial and error. I know
it can be frustrating to feel that the answers elude you, but
timing is everything and the answers will come eventually. If
your “it” does not become clear by the end of the first section,
you will find that the exercises in the second forty-five days
can be used to further explore what “it” is, although other
readers will be using it to forge their new path.
For some of you, the “it” will be a direct hit. You’ll know
exactly what you need in order to set out to do or become. For
others of you, the “it” will be an undeniable direction or
preference, and for others, “it” may be very clear, strong
criteria for what will make you happy, even if it is not
specifically a chosen direction yet. The results will vary for
each individual, but I can promise ins and clarity that will
move you forward. With it will come the return of happiness (even
if you did not think you ever lost it) and a sense of peace (even
if your every question is not yet answered).
To help you get an early indication of where your blocks to
clarity may be, and to prepare you for what’s to come, take the
following assessment.
Why Can’t I Figure This Out?
Being unable to see what’s next for you and your life’s direction
could be a reflection of many different blocks. Answer the
questions on this checklist truthfully to find where the blocks
may be for you. Mark all the statements that are true for you.
Don’t fret, because each upcoming chapter is designed to help you
through these groups of obstacles to clarity. Each chapter breaks
you through to the next. Use this list to help you find where the
program will help you most.
nowwhatcoaching.com/now-what-assessment
Print out the assessment if you like by scanning above.
A. TRUE
My life is chaotic and out of control.
I have no time for the things I really want to do.
I have interpersonal conflicts in my workplace or at
home.
My home and/or office environment is cluttered and not
conducive to good work.
I am the sole provider or caretaker of my immediate
and/or extended family.
B. TRUE
I have trouble seeing myself doing anything new with my
life.
I pride myself on my position and reputation.
I have put years of investment into my current work or
life role.
I feel that my position or role gives me approval and
admiration from those around me.
I feel that what I do reflects positively on my family
and others around me.
C. TRUE
I have a list of fears and reasons why I can’t make a
change right now.
I perceive negative consequences to making any radical
change now.
Money fears are a major consideration in my thinking
now.
I question my ability to do anything else.
I worry that my age could get in the way of being able
to make a change.
D. TRUE
I feel lost and off track but can’t really say
specifically what the problem is.
I have a dream (or dreams) that I have yet to fulfill.
There are things I used to enjoy and excel at that I
don’t get to do now.
I have a hobby or volunteer interest that I wonder
about making into a career.
I have a repeating pattern of failures or mishaps in my
work and/or relationships.
E. TRUE
I want to do something more meaningful or to feel that
life has more meaning for me.
People are always telling me I should do or be x, y, or
z, but I never really feel motivated to fulfill their
expectations.
I am not necessarily aware of the impact I have on
people and on my community.
I wish I knew how I and/or my work fit into the grand
scheme of things.
I often long to know how I can make a difference in the
world.
F. TRUE
I have ideas about what I’d like to do, but I’m not
sure how to go about them.
I am not exactly sure what would make a job or role
satisfying for me.
I vacillate between a few future possibilities but have
yet to decide on one that suits me.
I am not sure if I can find a career that fits my
values.
I want to be certain before I make a move that it will
work out.
G. TRUE
I dread looking at my money situation.
I already live beyond my means and wonder how I could
ever support a change.
I have been financing a lull in work activity.
I do not have a money plan for making a transition.
I am convinced that any change would mean a step
backward financially.
H. TRUE
I am a realist.
I avoid any strategy that is not logical and almost
foolproof in its desired outcome.
It’s hard for me to invest in things I cannot see or
touch.
I tend to need external proof before trusting someone
or something.
I take on new ideas slowly.
I. TRUE
I tend to do more for the people around me than they do
for me.
I find it hard to ask for help.
I often drop what I am doing when someone else needs my
help.
I wish I had more of a personal and professional
network to tap into.
There are people in my life who doubt me or think I am
crazy to make a change.
J. TRUE
I have no plan for transitioning to something new.
I find it hard to manage many projects at once.
I tend to make progress on projects in spurts instead
of being consistent.
I tend to lose interest if I come up against roadblocks
while I am executing a plan.
I have a lot of ideas that I have done nothing about
(projects, jobs, products, the arts).
Take note of which sections you scored three or more Trues in. Go
back to the earliest section where you had three or more
positives, and be ready to tackle those obstacles when you arrive
at the corresponding place in the program. Using the correlated
list on the following pages, you can see which chapters will hold
the most punch for you in breaking through your blocks to
clarity. It is strongly recommended that you do the program in
order, but if you feel moved to jump straight into your blocks,
do so according to the chapter breakdown here. If you are ever
stuck or unclear as you go, go back a chapter or two to make sure
you really covered everything.
A. Chapter One: What You Hate Gives a Name to What You Want
Getting a hold of your whirlwind life is important to finding
what’s next.
B. Chapter Two: With Every Gain, There Is a Loss
Recognizing that you are not what you do, and finding the
permanent attributes you can use to move forward, are critical to
your progress.
C. Chapter Three: Most Limits Are Self-Imposed
Identifying and working through your self-imposed limits and
obstacles will pave the way to more possibilities.
D. Chapter Four: The Past Holds the Clues to the Future
There are clues in your life story that you may not be
recognizing as strong indicators for your future direction.
E. Chapter Five: Your Purpose in Life Is Right Under Your Nose
A sense of purpose will give great context to your life and help
ease you into new and satisfying directions.
F. Chapter Six: Your Purpose Needs a Vehicle and Chapter Seven:
Your Criteria for Happiness: Is This Really “It”?
Finding a way to bring who you are into what you do is critical
to your happiness and satisfaction. These chapters will help you
put form and function to your new life.
G. Chapter Eight: The Bottom Line Is the Bottom Line
New awareness of your financial life and how it can ease your
transition is in order. There is no time like the present to
begin.
H. Chapter Nine: Life Often Does Imitate Art: Write Your Own
Fiction and Chapter Ten: Put Yourself in rtunity’s Way
Giving up old ways of achieving and taking big steps to trust
yourself, your instincts, and the flow of life are necessary to
move you on to new horizons.
I. Chapter Eleven: You Don’t Have to Do It Alone
The quality of support from the company you keep is crucial to
making your transition to something new. You can train those
around you to be better supporters. This chapter will show you
how.
J. Chapter Twelve: Following Your Life Blueprint
Implementation and execution are just as important as innovation.
Putting one foot in front of the other and monitoring all your
rtunities are key to moving on.
I welcome you to an exciting (and sometimes y) exploration
that will reveal the truth about what you really want, who you
really are, and what you are truly capable of. This truth will
accelerate your life and spur your personal evolution. You will
invite your Life Blueprint to integrate itself into your life
and, as a result, experience a time of great wonder and
unexpected surprises. You will see your way to a new life
direction. It will be up to you whether you pursue it or not.
However, in my experience, once “it” is undeniably clear, it is
virtually impossible to ignore its call.
part one
NAMING WHAT “IT” IS
(weeks 1–7)
CHAPTER ONE | week one
What You Hate Gives a Name to What You Want
Problems are only rtunities in work clothes.
—HENRY J. KAISER
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