Use Your Fear to Pivot Your Career

By Faizun Kamal

We are stuck. Quarantined inside our homes, the days starting to become a blur. We are worried about our livelihoods, wondering if we will still have a job when the pandemic ends. How will we pay our bills and provide for our families? As dark thoughts take over, it very quickly becomes a downward spiral. 

When you feel like you’re at the end of the rope, tie a knot and hang on. You may be at the end of a chapter that’s ending and not realize that you are at the beginning of a new one. 

 In 2015, after almost a decade in the corporate world, I was laid off. I did not have a plan or a roadmap for my future. I was not sure what the next chapter of my life would look like. The one thing that I was totally certain of, and never wavered on, however, was the quiet determination that I was never again going to be an employee. I was no longer willing to trade my time, my freedom, my soul – for money. 

You see, like so many people we all know, I got a job. Not because it was my calling. Or because I felt so passionate about it. I got a job that paid really well. Don’t get me wrong. Money is important. It allows us to take care of our families and our responsibilities. However, what I learned from this experience is that until my inner values aligned with my external actions, I could never truly be fulfilled or happy. So when my boss informed me about my layoff, I knew this was exactly the opportunity I had been waiting for.  

 In the months that followed, despite huge odds and twists in the path, I found my calling. I started a franchise consulting business to help my clients redesign their careers and lives through a franchise business of their own. I now work in my zone of genius every day. I work for a purpose that is bigger than myself. I love my clients and see myself in so many of them. And I would not trade my life now for anything in the world. 

 As you find yourself living through a global pandemic, acknowledge the feelings that arise in you as you take inventory of your life and career.  

Have you been unhappy in your job for years?  

Have you lived in constant fear that you may be laid off at any time?  

Do you feel that you have so much more to offer the world and that you are living your life at half measure?  

If you feel a yearning inside you for something different, better, bigger…listen to it. It may be beckoning you closer to your best life.