July 2024 - Live True

Major Life Change is Possible

Do you dream of living a different kind of life, and doing work that incites joy and passion, but think it’s a pipe dream and impossible to achieve, especially if you’re in a partnership or have a family, which compounds the challenge?

If so, join me as I talk to my fabulous friend and podcast strategist and producer, Shelley Röstlund, as she interviews me about mine and my late husband’s own huge career and life change.

Back in 2012, together, we made the decision to throw everything up in the air and totally reinvent what our work and personal lives looked like.

It saw us leave a central London lifestyle for a home in the Welsh mountains, and big careers we’d invested years in for new jobs in completely new fields.

Several people thought we were mad and quite a few thought we were making a huge mistake, but 12 years later, I’m sharing the story, warts and all, about what happened, how we made the transition, and what it did for us.

Shelley helps me unpick our story. I hope it gives you some inspiration if you’ve been feeling less than enthused about where life and work sits for you right now.

In this episode Shelley helps me to share:

How life looked for Jeremy and I back in 2012 and how we came to make a drastic decision one evening, while out for a meal, after another intense and tiring week
The way we decided to prioritise the big and small decisions that needed to be made (we were looking at moving location and changing both of our careers at the SAME time!)
How I navigated my career transition from an employed PR and Comms professional to becoming a self-employed Career Coach (which ended up spanning 4 years end-to-end)
Why these big moves were the best thing we ever did and why I’m grateful today, that we did what we did
Why we all need to look at our decisions as mostly TYPE 2 decisions, and not cemented TYPE 1 decisions (listen to the episode to hear what these are and why it matters!)

At the end of the show, I leave you with my greatest wish for you: DON’T HESITATE.

Don’t wait for some magical “right time”, and don’t wait until you are retired so you can only then live the way you want to.

In our case, if we had waited, we would never have had the blissful, freedom-filled nine years that we got to live and enjoy together. Jeremy passed away earlier this year, quite suddenly. Making the decisions we did, creating quality time for each other and those we love, is something I will be forever grateful for.

A bit more about Shelley Röstlund

Shelley Röstlund is a systems-led personal brand strategist working with knowledge experts…those who teach, educate, consult, advise or mentor others. Her specialism is in uncovering her clients’ marketable genius – their unique gifts which they were born to bring into the world.

South African born and British-grown, Shelley has worked with 150+ brands across 30+ industries through her consultancy and agency work. She leads Harbour 32, a family-centred marketing agency which focusses on personal brand strategy and podcast show positioning and production.

She has been captivated by entrepreneur origin stories, the art of business and the magic of message since her early 20’s. When she’s not devouring business adventures, you can find her deep in a vampire thriller or off on an exploration with her teenage daughter, Cavachon doggie and Swedish husband.

If you would like to know more about Shelley or would like to connect with her, please do go to her Harbour 32 website or listen to her podcast show called Brand Compass Show (find on your favourite pod app here). You can connect with her on LinkedIn or join her on Instagram.

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.

Curious about changing your career?

Book a call with me to chat about how I work with people just like you every day. Life shouldn’t be hard at work.

Finding what lights you up, brings you joy and gets you paid at the same time – well, that’s a eureka moment. Right?

Find out about my Career Transition Programme and book a call with me.

Questioning your options to change careers?

You may like to wander over and check out my Work Wonderland™ Course. You can use this as a temperature check to make sure that what you are thinking of, in terms of changing your work or job, makes sense.

The course and web application are a low investment to help you to confirm what you are thinking, or give you some routes that you hadn’t considered possible. Read all about it 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.

Happiness Propelled by Provocative Philosophies

Do you ever wonder how to find the courage and resilience to make big work and life-affirming changes, when those changes feel risky or hard?

If so, join me as I talk to my long-time friend, Michael Taggart, whose career and life path has seen numerous twists and turns; some chosen by him, some not.

Through a mix of employment and self-employment, he’s been a journalist on national newspapers, a comms guy for city councils, a PR for financial services companies, he’s built and run his own content marketing agency, and he now co-owns and manages a gourmet tea business with his wife Helen, suppling tea to hotels, restaurants and cafés, and running an actual bricks and mortar shop in Brighton.

In this episode you will hear us talk about the different career shifts that Michael has made during the course of his life, and why.

Plus: we delve into the fascinating philosophies that underpin his courage, resilience and attitude to risk as he continues to chase his dreams.

This stuff is provocative and engaging in equal measure, so without further ado click play and come listen.

In this episode Michael and I discuss

The twists and turns of Michael’s career path over the last 20 years, and what propelled each change.
Michael’s self-confessed “low tolerance for dissatisfaction”, and how this has helped shape his seeming courage and resilience.
Michael’s belief systems around luck, a lack of free will, a pre-determined existence, and what happens when we die, and how this impacts his choices and how he lives.
My philosophies on luck and life after death, and how they inform my own perspective when it comes to risk
How our theories and philosophies can spur us on, no matter what our belief system.
How Michael feels pursuing his new venture at MDTea, and how his days are now so much more satisfying because he determines his own destiny

It’s a really relaxed conversation and we cover a lot in the time we have together. Join us if you’re looking for some interesting and thought-provoking perspectives that might help you make changes that, like Michael, see you looking forward to your work days with relish!

A bit more about Michael Taggart

Michael Taggart started his professional life in the 2000s as a journalist, rising through the ranks, at first, of local and regional newspapers.

Following a stint as deputy editor of a group of newspapers in Spain, he went on to work on Fleet Street for several national titles (“all the worst ones”, he says!), finally hanging up his notebook in 2005 to switch to local government communications. After six “mostly enjoyable, mostly productive” years at three city and county councils, Michael moved to Brighton, fell in love, got married and began a 10-year career in finance and tech marketing.

In perhaps his most eyebrow-raising professional move, he took over the reins at his wife’s tea company, MDTea, just over a year ago (at the time of recording), and describes his current managing director role as “the most satisfying so far”.

If you would like to discover more about Michael or would like to connect with him, please follow his LinkedIn profile, visit the MDTea online shop, or follow the behind-the-scenes comings and goings of the business on Instagram.