Written by Pamela Skillings

Gerard Butler is probably best known for his leading role (and jaw-dropping abs) in The 300 and being romantically linked with Jennifer Aniston and Cameron Diaz. But did you know that this movie star and sex symbol also escaped from Corporate America (okay, it was Corporate Scotland in Gerard’s case)?

I read Gerard Butler’s inspiring story in the latest issue of Men’s Health and couldn’t resist featuring it here on the blog (and not only because it would give me an excuse to post a shirtless Gerard Butler photo to pretty up the site).

You see, Butler was president of the University of Glasgow Law Society and thought he had made it when he landed a position at a prestigious law firm after graduation. Unfortunately, he was miserable as a lawyer. “I was drinking constantly. I hated my life,” he told Men’s Health.

It wasn’t until Butler saw a production of Trainspotting in 1995 that he suddenly felt alive and certain that his true calling was acting. Others might have dismissed the idea as impractical. Butler gave his notice at the law firm and moved to London a week later to pursue an acting career.

read more…

Written by Pamela Skillings

Name: Nicole Witt
Previous (corporate) occupation: Strategic Consulting and Brand Management
Current occupation: Business Owner, Adoption Consultant
Website(s): www.TheAdoptionConsultancy.com and www.AdoptANewLife.com

1. Tell us a little bit about your corporate career path.

I spent four years in consulting, then earned my MBA from the Johnson School at Cornell. I always had thought about running my own business, and even took a lot of classes in entrepreneurship, but somehow found myself back at work for one large corporation after another. This time around, I was doing Brand Management and, although I was quite successful, I was terribly unhappy. I always knew deep-down that I was just not a corporate kind of person.

2. What made you decide to change careers?

After my husband and I went through a personal crisis with infertility, and ultimately became parents, I just couldn’t go back to what I had done before. It suddenly felt completely meaningless. Additionally, I couldn’t justify the control my career would have over my life in exchange for nothing but a paycheck. So I decided to follow my passion. I launched The Adoption Consultancy to help other couples struggling with infertility to become parents through the miracle of adoption.

3. What were your biggest career change challenges?

• Everybody’s #1 – Money. Adjusting to the initial lower income was tough, but it just made it that much sweeter once I started making money again.
• #2 – Fear and self-doubt. Another fairly common one, I believe. But I knew it was possible because other people were making a living in this field. I just kept telling myself, “If they can do it, I can do it.” It turns out I can!
• #3 – Recreating my definition of success. This was a tough (and ongoing) one. In my previous world, success was defined by title, salary, office location, and lots of other corporate nonsense. Sometimes I struggle to remind myself that my definition of success is different now, and I have achieved it! When I’m wrestling with this one, it often helps to picture my kids telling their friends what I do. I’m so much more proud of them knowing that I help to build families, and that helps me come to grips with my lack of access to a corporate jet.

4. What are the best and worst things about your new career?

The best is that I love it! I jump out of bed in the mornings eager to get to work. I am pursuing my passion and my calling and am making a lasting difference in the world. There’s nothing better than talking to my clients right after they’ve become parents. Another wonderful aspect is the flexibility that my work provides. I bring my kids to school in the morning. I spend Wednesday afternoons with them. I’m home whenever they’re sick. And I never have to worry about missing a game or recital due to the whims of my boss!

The worst things are the rare times when an adoption doesn’t work out, sometimes dealing with difficult clients and having to pay for my own benefits.

5. What advice would you give to someone who feels stuck in an uninspiring job? Do you have any success secrets to share?

Take the leap! You can do it. Define what success means to you, what you need to do to get there, and start tackling it one step at a time. That’s the trick. You don’t have to do it all at once, but if you create a realistic plan and work it one step at a time, you WILL achieve your goals. There are ways around every obstacle that is out there. You NEVER want to look back on your life and think ‘what if.’ The time is now!

Written by Pamela Skillings

The Labor Day episode of America’s Toughest Jobs put our fearless contestants behind the wheels of loaded 18-wheelers. Their task was to guide their 80,000-pound vehicles up 500 miles of the most rugged terrain on earth above the Arctic Circle.

I have to admit that the second episode didn’t quite match the first in terms of drama and entertainment. That’s probably because most of the contestants were surprisingly capable big rig drivers — including Michaela and Eric, two of my favorites from last week.  Luckily for us viewers, there were a few exceptions:

1. Chris, the investment broker from Queens — Poor Chris had a lot of trouble with downshifting his truck.  I think the most terrifying part of this episode for me was learning that the brakes in big rigs are practically useless and proper downshifting technique is key to keeping the trucks under control. But Chris’ real problem wasn’t his driving.  It was his attitude.  How dumb do you have to be to mouth off to one of the judges on the task and call him an ass? Chris was not only asked to give up the driver’s seat twice, he was eventually kicked out of the truck and forced to ride the rest of the way with the producers. Nobody was surprised when Chris was voted one of the four worst performers. Despite a poor performance in the final elimination task, Chris got lucky and will go on to compete another day.

2. Bryce the personal trainer from WI and Rommel the karate teacher from NJ — These two both had some trouble behind the wheel, but managed to perform respectably on the elimination task.  I’m glad they’re staying for now — they’re both nice eye candy and seem likable enough, if not particularly entertaining so far.

3. Amy the Wall Street executive from Boston — Amy helped to bring a little drama to the show with a scary moment in the driver’s seat when her truck went out of gear and appeared to be hurtling out of control. But the real drama came when Amy’s driving partner Rie (the model from Portland) voted her buddy Amy as one of the worst drivers. Amy didn’t take that very well. Then, despite a promising start, she botched the final elimination task and was sent packing. We learned in the show post-script that Amy later quit her job on Wall Street and is contemplating her next career move (Amy — If you’re reading this, email me if you’d like to share your story of escaping from Corporate America).

So what do you think? Does America’s Toughest Jobs make you grateful for your warm and dry cubicle? Or does it make you long for more adventure?

Next week: gold digging.

Written by Pamela Skillings

I have a new favorite show. America’s Toughest Jobs is the kind of reality TV that I love. The only drawback is that it’s hard to make fun of the losers on this show — even those who get eliminated are tougher than I am (and more interesting than 99% of the rest of the reality TV contestants on the air).

Here’s the premise of the show: Thirteen men and women from “safe and comfortable careers” are sent to compete in the most dangerous and demanding jobs on earth. Each week, the weakest link is sent home.  The last contestant standing at the end wins $250,000, the  value of the combined annual salaries for all of the dangerous jobs featured on the show.

In the first episode, the contestants go crab fishing on the Bering Sea.  Crab fishing is considered the deadliest job on the planet — the injury rate is almost 100%. Crab fishermen and fisherwomen endure subzero temperatures, 30-foot swells, 40-knot winds, and the back-breaking work of chopping bait and heaving 800-pound pods off of and back onto the fishing boat. This episode will definitely give you a new appreciation for your next order of crab legs.

So how did the contestants do?  read more…

Written by Pamela Skillings

If you read Escape from Corporate America, you know that it’s full of the personal stories of corporate escape artists and their advice for others who feel stuck in their careers. I spent months tracking down and interviewing amazing people who had busted out of their cubicles to pursue their dreams.

When I was feeling trapped in Corporate America, I had no idea that there were so many of them out there. Way too many to fit in the book, in fact. And since I finished the manuscript, it seems like I meet a new escapee every day.

So I decided to create a regular blog feature to highlight more daring tales of corporate escape. First up is Shannon McCaffery, a woman who bounced back from three layoffs and endured enough corporate stress to land her in the hospital before she decided to start her own business. Read on for her brilliant advice for getting unstuck.
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Shannon McCaffery’s Daring Tale of Corporate Escape

Name: Shannon M. McCaffery

Previous (corporate) occupation: Director of Corporate Communications

Current occupation: Marketing coach, consultant and implementer. Founder and CEO of McCaffery Communications.

1. Tell us a little bit about your corporate career path.

I started right out of college in publishing. I was a sales representative for Random House’s College Division. They sold their college division 4 years later to McGraw-Hill and hence my journey from company to company began. I loved books and just wanted to write, edit, market and be around books. My trajectory went from working in sales and sales management to working in marketing and loving it. My favorite job was as Director of International Marketing because I literally got to see and change part of the world. I traveled from Bali to Australia to Amsterdam. Then everything started to crumble.
read more…

Written by Pamela Skillings

Some say that a true entrepreneur could never work in Corporate America. Many claim that you have to be born with that entrepreneurial DNA and will know from an early age if you’ve got what it takes to run your own business. I strongly disagree. I believe that entrepreneurial skills and attitude can be acquired.

In fact, doing some time in Corporate America can be a great way to pick up very valuable business expertise that will come in handy when running your business. As Aliza Freud, founder and CEO of SheSpeaks, puts it, “I think that the skills that I gained when I was working at a big company really helped to make me a better entrepreneur.”

The trick is to get out before the bureaucracy crushes your entrepreneurial spirit.

Sure, the stories about entrepreneurs who started their first profitable businesses during junior high are inspiring. But it’s also true that many of the most legendary entrepreneurs of all time started out as corporate employees.

 

• Henry Ford was the son of farmers and toiled in an engineering job before striking out on his own to form Ford Motor Company.
•  Walt Disney was an illustrator for an advertising agency before he and his brother Roy started a business in their uncle’s garage that eventually became the Walt Disney Company.
• Ray Kroc was a salesman for the Multi-Mixer Corporation when he bought a California hamburger restaurant from the MacDonald Brothers and turned it into a multibillion-dollar international chain.
• Mary Kay Ash was a sales director for Stanley Home Products for twenty years before she retired and used her life savings of $5,000 to get Mary Kay Cosmetics going in 1963.
• Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak spent time as engineers at Atari before they created Apple Computer.
• Jeff Bezos quit his job as a senior vice president on Wall Street when he came up with the revolutionary idea for Amazon.com.
• Michael Bloomberg was a senior manager at Salomon Brothers until he was squeezed out after the company was acquired in 1981. The unemployed Bloomberg went on to make his fortune by starting Bloomberg LP, the financial information company, and later used
  his billions to finance a successful run for mayor of New York City.
• Martha Stewart had a successful career as a stockbroker before she turned a catering business into a media empire.

Do you have other nominations for the Corporate-to-Entrepreneur Hall of Fame? Don’t be shy. Show your entrepreneur-sized ego and nominate yourself if you like!

Written by Pamela Skillings

On Friday, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Womensphere Women’s Entrepreneurial Summit. It was a great event with lots of terrific panels and presentations.

I also had the opportunity to meet a number of amazing women  — including many successful entrepreneurs who escaped from Corporate America to pursue their entrepreneurial passions.

Check out some of their stories for a bit of inspiration to keep you going next time you start wondering if your dream is really possible.

Analisa Balares is the founder and CEO of Womensphere. She is also a Harvard MBA who served in senior roles at Goldman Sachs and Microsoft before launching her career as an entrepreneur. Analisa was recently selected as one of 35 “young leaders” to join the New York City Young Leaders Program, a public-private partnership between the New York City Government and private NGOs.

Joan Coukos is the CEO and chocolatier behind Chocolat Moderne, an award-winning chocolate maker that has been featured on The Today Show. Joan was a banker for many years before she fell in love with the art of chocolate making. She started her new career by experimenting with chocolate recipes in her tiny New York kitchen and testing them with her banking colleagues. Pretty soon, she was ready to turn pro and start Chocolat Moderne (I happily sampled some of her wares and can attest to her talent!)

Nadine Vogel joined the conference fresh from a speaking gig at the United Nations. She is the founder and CEO of Springboard Consulting, a firm that helps companies communicate with the one third of the U.S. population that either has a disability or is the parent of a child with a disability. Previously, Nadine had a long and successful career as an executive for a large financial services company.

Feyi Boroffice is a cofounder of 2 Hats Network, a consulting firm devoted to helping companies retain and advance emerging leaders, particularly mothers and women of color. Feyi is a Harvard MBA who spent years in senior corporate roles before leaving to start 2 Hats. She and partner Simi Sanni Nwogugu (a former investment banker and media executive) boast an impressive list of Fortune 500 clients.

Read more daring tales of corporate escape or check out my corporate escape artist directory.

Written by Pamela Skillings

Just a quick post to say thank you to everyone who came out to Soho House last night to help me celebrate Escape from Corporate America! I hope you all had fun. I know I had an amazing time. I don’t think I’ve ever had so many great conversations in one night. The only downside was that the evening flew by so quickly that I didn’t get to chat in-depth with everyone.

The cocktails were delicious (thank you, Flor de Caña!) and the company was fantastic. Several of the inspiring corporate escape artists that I interviewed for the book were there.  My favorite financial planning expert, Ms. Sherrill St. Germain, came all the way from New Hampshire and was kindly offering advice to the revelers. Somehow financial planning is always more fun over cocktails.

Plus I got to meet many of my online friends in person. Somehow I missed Rose, though. I was looking for you, but never found you! Hope you enjoyed the mojitos and made some new friends.

I will be posting photos of the shindig and a more detailed report very soon. But in the meantime, I just wanted to say thanks for all of  the support and for making it a night to remember for me.

Written by Pamela Skillings

I had the incredible opportunity to write a piece for The New  York Times about my struggle to walk away from my job (and most importantly, my salary) to start my own business.

The story ran in the Sunday business section this weekend: Do You Love the Job, or Just the Paycheck?

I have always dreamed about seeing my byline in The New York Times. I might as well admit it — even though I know how earnestness is frowned upon in the blogosphere. :  )

After all, I’ve already written about my financial neuroses and job angst (as you’ll see if you check out the article).