Your Next Chapter - step into the next version of you

You need to be visible to have an impact and make a difference with Your Next Chapter Business. You may have exactly what someone need to close the gap they have. But if they can’t find you, they can’t be exposed to your solutions, your stories and your experience.

So it’s time to create a simple Visibility Plan that leverages your skills and meets your Most Aligned Clients where they are.

Suzy’s story of gradually moving ever closer to her sweet spot of purpose will likely sound familiar. A definite deep desire to follow a certain path, but an initial lack of self-belief hits the pause button and then life itself intervenes and a detour takes place.

Carol spent 27 years as a journalist before morphing into a PR specialist. But she never quite settled in the industry, although she was talented and by all measurements, a great success. A PR role at the UN opened a new door for her and she discovered, and fell in love with, the world of Fundraising. “I believed what I was writing and speaking about – I felt proud”. 

Like so many women who are also Mums, Cat had put her kids and husband first, right up the top of the Priority Totem Poll. Years were spent on the road delivering her elite sports kids to events, fundraising and on planes. She even home-schooled them towards the end of their high school years so they could juggle school and competing. 

During the last five years in the corporate world, it became increasingly obvious to Tammy that she was not living her purpose.  

A volunteer role at a women’s shelter in her spare time opened a new door where she discovered an absolute love of counselling and social work. This led to graduate study in Clinical Counselling and a now 20+ year career in this space.

“Liam, my 18 year old son, died on November the 5th, 2015. He had just taken his sister to the bus stop. He was worried about being late, he drove to fat, he lost control and he hit a tree. I lived for the next 15 months with a kernel of wishing it was all a bad dream. What sort of Mother was I, if I couldn’t keep my son safe?” 

 I’ve worked so hard since then to make my grief my guide, rather than a place where I wallow. I plunged into busy-ness. People saw this as strength. That was not my experience. It was a life-saving response. It was self-protection”.  

After a career I banking that she “fell into”, and the significant life change that divorce often heralds, Carolyn stepped away from the corporate world and started her own marketing business. She quickly became well regarded in the small business marketing world, publishing “Small Business Marketing for Dummies” and “Small Business, Big Brand”, running workshops and consulting to a wide range of businesses. 

From the earliest days of teenage angst, locked away in my bedroom journaling intensely, I seem to have been asking the question “what am I here for???”

I still check in with that question today. Quite regularly. But now, rather than seeking a lightening bolt of inspiration from the sky, I’m asking it to pivot, to stay on my path, to ensure I am aligned in my business and life.  

 And given the fact there are more than 135,000 searches on Google for “purpose” each month, it seems that I’m in good company. And so are you. 

 I believe our Next Chapter Businesses are very much at the intersection of contribution and fulfilment. We’re happiest when we are being of usefulness and value to others, using our unique talents, skills and life experiences to serve. When we feel light and energised, immersed in work that has meaning for us in a business that serves us just as much as it serves our clients. 

 This new series on the Your Next Chapter Podcast, Business and Life Beyond 40, explores Purpose, Passion and Reinvention through wholehearted conversations with women who have evolved, through choice or circumstance, to a new chapter in their working lives.    

 I hope that by listening into the stories they share about where they have been, where they are now and where they are going to, you’ll find both inspiration and satisfaction. 

“I’d had my fair share of challenges and turning points” said Cas McCullough in our wholehearted conversation. “A life threatening ectopic pregnancy, divorce, children with health issues, work demands, business  trials… It would be easy to stay in victim mode, but I prefer to be a survivor. And after all, drama and ups and down are all part of the human experience aren’t they?”.

And that attitude of acceptance, refocus and determination reflects the true core of Cas. She is a shining example of making the decision to choose to smile. To shrug off stories of doubt and intimidation. To choose not to listen to the mind chatter that can try and defeat you. To keep taking action and moving, staying focused on the impact you want to make, not the fears that want to unmake you.

 If you’ve ever felt that the road to your own Next Chapter has more than a few bumps and detours, you’ll find both solace and inspiration in this episode that has led Cas  to being the founder and CEO of a innovative tech startup, Writally, that cuts the time it takes to create an original blog post.

A passionate focus on making a difference and a contribution with Your Next Chapter Business is so very important. At this stage of life, that feeling of fulfilment and significance is vital – soul food even. But even the most passionate of business owners would soon feel deflated if they did not have actual clients to work with!

I’ve heard the lament so often – “if someone else could just take care of the marketing so I can just focus on doing what I love – the actual service, that would be heavenly”. Heck, even I feel that way some days and I’m a marketer by trade!

We both know the truth. Client Attraction and subsequently generating cashflow is essential for our business growth. And that means taking action. Consistently.

But the news is good! You can design your business model to complement your skills and preferred way of working and you can also choose the marketing activities that align with you and meet your potential clients where they are. You can be of high service whilst marketing, providing valuable and useful resources and experiences. You can have wholehearted sales conversations that are “elegant invitations to transformation”. Nothing about client attraction needs to be out of alignment with your values or feel manipulative, pushy or uncomfortable. It does often mean you need to develop new skills or make changes to experience success but hey, you’re a life long learner, aren’t you?

In this episode Kellie O’Brien, Kristy Smith and I discuss what we’ve learned, adopted, changed and introduced into our business models and lead generation strategies as we and our businesses have evolved over the years.