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I've changed the client's name and irrelevant details to protect anonymity.
Kevin got a bachelor's degree in sociology from the University of Michigan. That was 15 years ago. Since then, he's been a barista and now is a waiter in the San Francisco Bay Area. He's married with a child and another on the way.
He’s tired of being a waiter: the hours, the restaurant-worker culture, and the money. He makes $70,000 a year and, with a stay-at-home wife, the high rent, and taxes in the Bay Area, it isn’t enough to live even in a marginally safe area.
Kevin's new-client questionnaire and first session revealed the following clues to the sort of career he wants:
1. His number one priority has changed from "making a difference," to making money.
2. Despite his degree from Michigan, he feels incapable of intellectually challenging work. He believes that having taken what he perceived as the easy courses, avoiding scientific and technical ones, sales is his most likely path to higher income.
3. Despite lack of expertise in science and technology, he likes cutting-edge tech.
4. He had dreamed of being a helicopter pilot but at age 40 and married and soon to have a second child, he has decided he lacks the money and time to become a pilot.
5. He said that a key part of being a waiter is sales: pushing appetizers, drinks, expensive or slow-selling entrees, and desserts, and that he's good at that.
Thus we concluded that he should investigate selling helicopters. We identified four leading manufacturers of cutting-edge choppers: Bell, Airbus, Sikorsky, and Leonardo. We also identified sources of information about the state of the art in helicopters, notably the Helicopter Association International. He'll use the internet to also learn about helicopter sales: the range of job opportunities, the best way to train, the profession's pros and cons, and his chances of landing a job that will pay significantly more than $70,000. With that knowledge in tow, Kevin said he'll then contact helicopter sales managers for more information or a job.
At the end of the session, I asked how he felt about doing that homework. He said he wants to do it, but his tone suggested that he might succumb to his bugaboo: procrastination exacerbated by his busy life’s tasks: his job, co-parenting, his church volunteering, etc.
I asked him whether we should bet that he’ll do a good job on his homework. Again he said yes but again using an unsure tone of voice. I asked if the barrier to being more confident is that he’s unsure how to handle roadblocks that might come up, for example, not finding sales managers at those firms at the companies' website, on LinkedIn, and by Googling. He said he thought he could handle such problems. But I felt only cautiously optimistic he would, so I invited him to feel free to email me if he runs into a roadblock he can’t seem to get around.
We’ll see. I'll keep you posted.
