Member Article

From corporate to entrepreneurship during Corona - here are 8 tips to help you take the leap

Nadja Chaieb, a leading international Career Fulfilment Coach & HR Champion, who has managed HR teams for some of the world’s leading brands including IKEA, Vodafone and H&M, dared to change her career during corona, by taking the big leap. Driven by Corona she decided to make a shift, by leaving corporate for her own Coaching & HR Consulting business, which sets out to improve the working lives of others. She created a new career for herself, having reflected on her own challenges thanks to inflexible corporate structures which saw her climb the corporate ladder for almost 20 years…to end up somewhere she didn’t want to be. Despite being encouraged by her parents to take the ‘safer route’ of climbing the corporate ladder, already as a child Nadja dreamt about running my own company. She followed traditional road, as university and a corporate career. It wasn’t until she realised her career was not supporting her core values and that latterly it had also come at a detriment to her own and her family life, thanks to poor work life flexibility and the pressures put on high achievers, especially in Italy, Nadja suffered from feeling unfulfilled and craved more….a profession and career more connected to her passion and purpose, more time with her family, more time for herself and well-being. After investing in coaching and having reconnected with her inner purpose and core values, making them non negotiable, and leaving her last HR Managerial position, she found she had no desire to replace it with a similar one - and decided to get off the treadmill and change direction to put her back in control of her life. Was she scared? Yes, to death! But the desire to live a fulfilled life was too strong to neglect so she had no other choice than jump.

It is now her mission to help other ambitious professionals, especially parents to fulfil their desire for wanting more, both in their professional and family lives, helping them to ‘Wake Up’ before they waste more time in the wrong roles, the wrong teams, and the wrong businesses, and instead start to embrace their true values, their true potential and desires for their life so they can then find a career that really fits them, because she believes we all CAN and SHOULD have it all.

Here are Nadja’s 8 tips for daring to change careers in the middle of your life:

Identify your Unique selling points. It is crucial to work on your self-awareness, to really understand who you are, what you are good at, what you love to do and what is holding you back to be able to be successful in your new career, so you need to consider yourself as a marketable product - what really sets you apart?

Are you ready for business? If you’re thinking about leaving your job to set up in business it’s crucial to do the thinking before you leap. Think through your business idea and offer very carefully so you have total clarity around who you are going to serve and with what, so you can be super focused when the time comes.

Do not be afraid to fail If you have a good idea, dare to try! What is the worst thing that can happen? If it turns out that it was not a good thing, you have at least dared to try. This is not a failure. You learn all the time so dare rather than sit and regret it as a pensioner, otherwise something terrible will happen, NOTHING!

Believe in yourself! Visualize where you want to be and work on your mindset and what could be getting in your way. Our minds are steered with many negative thoughts and limiting beliefs of ourselves, that will hinder us from being successful. Identify those negative thoughts and turn them around and you will see things change.

Ask and take support from someone Surround yourself with people that have made similar journeys that can support. A coach that can guide you and surround yourself with people that are supportive to your ideas.

Create your own action plan - starting with the end in mind. Goal setting will give you clarity, responsibility and accountability, writing it down will help both your brain and new career work towards your goal.

Take action! Successful people are all action oriented, it is important to take constant and massive action, so be a doer, no matter what is going on in the world for you. Taking that first step is the most important one, think about what you can do first, that will have the biggest impact and that can move you one step closer to the opportunity you want to land into.

Think about how you will positioning yourself To be known as the ’‘go to person’’ in your area of expertise what do people need to know about you? Having a strong personal brand will help you whether you decide to change paths within corporate or to launch yourself as an entrepreneur.

Many people live in fear, knowing they are made for more, but not daring to make the leap….what happens here is resentment and discontent breeds and unhappiness follows. In a world full of turmoil and uncertainly, Nadja believes it’s time to vote for ourselves, to take our life by the horns and start to create a life we actually want - so we can make mid-life a joy - not something we dread. She is so happy she decided to change track and is now getting to live a life that really suits her.

Good luck!

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Nadja Chaieb .