December 2023 - Live True

When the wildly impossible, becomes possible

Have you ever dreamt of making a wildly different career change but told yourself it’s not “realistic” or possible?

Our minds place all sorts of limits on what we can and can’t do, and what’s permissible, so in this episode I invite Samantha Day to share her story and insights on how she made the seemingly impossible shift from accounting to stand-up comedy.

In her inimitable style, you’ll hear about how Samantha made the decision to leave her 30-year career for something new and incomparable; the thought-provoking psychological approaches she uses to deal with fear and doubt; and the practical steps she took to get started and build her profile.

In this episode we discuss

The push and pull factors that drove Samantha to make a career change
How she sanity checked her choice to move into comedy so that she could feel confident she was making the right decision
Two powerful psychological perspectives Samantha uses for developing courage, one of which she got from Michael Macintyre’s director!
The steps and approach she took to build her new career from scratch
How Samantha’s old job made her ill and the physical signs to look out for that suggest real change is needed
How Samantha feels doing a job that’s in alignment mentally, physically and emotionally

A bit more about Samantha Day

Samantha Day spent 30 years working as a tax accountant in the city of London, before making a career change that couldn’t be more polarised.

In her early 50s she embarked on a transition from accounting to stand-up comedy, turning a very new hobby into a real job that she earns a living from.

She’s won numerous comedy awards, is regularly gigging around the country, and she’s (at the time of recording) had two really successful runs at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Find out more about her on her website at samanthadaytime.com or follow her on Instagram.

Questioning your options to change careers?

In this episode I quickly talk about my Work Wonderland™ Course, which is what Samantha completed before I got to actually meet her. She used this as a temperature check to make sure that when she was thinking of changing her job, she wasn’t making a jump to something else that she wouldn’t be happy with.

The course and web application is a low investment to help you to determine the right career path (even if you have no idea what the right direction is at the start), or to confirm that what you are already thinking is the right choice. Read all about it here.

There is a community with this show

If you enjoy this podcast show, then you will definitely enjoy being part of the Dream Chasers Unite community.

Come and meet, learn from and be inspired by awesome, like-minded people who are on their own Dream Chaser journeys (at various stages).

Find out what’s possible, by seeing what other people are doing to determine and go after their ideal careers and lives.

Join the group here.

Ways to watch and listen

Listen on the go, on your mobile phone:

Click here to find the show on your favourite podcast app.

You can watch the episode in full colour here:

All full episodes are recorded in video as well, and are uploaded to the show’s playlist on my YouTube channel. (Click here to quickly subscribe to my channel to see future episodes).

If you want to watch with auto-generated captions – click the captions icon on the YouTube play bar menu at the bottom of the video.

I was sick, but medically I was diagnosed as fine

These show notes give you some cliff notes as to what this episode is all about. This makes it easy for you to share with someone who you think should listen and, if any links or resources are mentioned in the conversation, they popped here for you.

What you can expect in this introductory episode

I share my journey as a Dream Chaser with you. I port you back to 15 years ago and give you a little insight into my life back then, and really what started my obsession with living my best life.

For anyone looking at me from the outside, you would have thought I was at the top of my game and succeeding. At 32, I seemingly had a killer career and life. After 11 years of hard graft on the work front, I had earned myself a sizable salary, a senior job title to be proud of, strong promotion prospects and, I was renting a beautiful flat in West London, regularly dining out in fancy restaurants and I had a clothing allowance that allowed me to swan about in designer clothes.

Except that, at 32 years old, that killer career and life had also earned me a decade of chronic insomnia and stomach issues that meant I couldn’t digest food, and I was experiencing random bouts of sobbing.

I share more in the full episode, but basically after many invasive hospital tests that confirmed nothing was physically wrong with me – I was catapulted on to a journey to the Alison you meet today.

I started slowly moving towards a life and work that I really love. So today, at 48 years old, I genuinely have a career and life that aligns with who I am, what I’m good at, what I’m interested in, and what I care about.

I am passionate about you having the same. I have crafted this show to give my superhero clients a platform to share their amazing, life changing career and lifestyle transition journeys with you.

A dream chaser is quite literally someone (possibly you) who is chasing the dream. One where they are happy, fulfilled and are living the life that they want and deserve… on their terms.