Managing a Midcareer Change: Having Fun While Shifting Gears

By David B. Helberg and Mitchell Sepke

David B. Helberg advises numerous business leaders and is widely known for his coaching, mentoring, and lecturing prowess. But once he felt like he was stuck in his careerlike you might feel now.

In this guidebook to getting unstuck, he shares how he transformed himself from a rank-and-file employee to a happy and successful businessman. Learn how to:

recognize when youre stuck at a job or in a career thats not right for you;
rid yourself of feelings of loyalty and/or entitlement;
develop an exit strategy to leave an employer;
block other people out so you can focus on improving yourself; and
turn responsibilities (such as paying for a mortgage and taking care of your family) into motivation.

While it might be easy to stay at a job youre not happy with (especially if it pays well), you need to challenge yourself to improve as a person. When you stay stationary in life, things get boring and stale.

Take an honest look at where you stand, and plot a path to get where you want to go with the practical advice in Managing a Midcareer Change.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781491793824

David B. Helberg

David B. Helberg has been a coach, mentor, and trusted business adviser to numerous business leaders and frequently lectures and delivers presentations on marketing, management, organizational behavior, and ethics. He is a certified internal auditor, certified fraud examiner, and has a Bachelor of Commerce degree and an MBA. Mitchell Sepke holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and a Bachelor of Education degree from the University of Saskatchewan. When he is not teaching or taking classes, he enjoys coaching sports and writing. He lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

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Copyright © 2016 David B. Helberg with Mitchell Sepke.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-9380-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-9381-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-9382-4 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 05/17/2016

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Introduction

Chapter 1: Fireman, Astronaut, Race-Car Driver—Oh My!

Chapter 2: Flailing in Quicksand

Chapter 3: Great Scott! Taking Control of Your Future

Chapter 4: It’s Your Fault You Are Who You Are

Chapter 5: Get a Grip, Son!

Chapter 6: Guess What? You’re a Product

Chapter 7: That’s Not a Goal, That’s a Pipe Dream

Chapter 8: Promises May Be White Lies Wrapped in Bow Ties

Chapter 9: Putting It All Together

Chapter 10: Rewarding Yourself

About Your Vision in Motion: Leadership Development and Management Consulting

To my wife, Jacqueline, and my boys, Jaxson and Hudson, for all the laughter and tears, and whose constant support and encouragement are behind all my successes.

Preface

Managing a Midcareer Change is focused on helping people who, facing roadblocks in their lives, attempt to burst through the obstacles before them. While writing this book with David, I found that many of the topics he presented resonated with me. As someone with an English degree, the passion and dream of one day writing a book and becoming an author was always present. But I always wondered whether I was actually up to such a task. When the opportunity to work with David came along, I jumped right on it.

By taking on the challenge of helping to write this book, I was able to look within myself and discover what I truly wanted to do in life, as well as what my strengths and weaknesses were. I could have easily let this opportunity pass me by (something David’s targeted clients often do), and my life would never have been any different. Some clients are too afraid to take risks or grab at opportunities right in front of them and are simply content with watching their lives pass them by. I saw a chance to improve my life at a young age, to gain experience for the future and advance my current skill set by helping with this book; not taking this opportunity would have made me a complete fool.

Throughout this book, David hits all the notes with a perfect pitch and creates a melody that anyone would want to listen to. He helps to inspire people to become the best possible versions of themselves—and to motivate people into actually taking action. When people find themselves content with life and in comfortable positions, it may be harder for them to want to change anything around them since they may have been living nice lives for so long.

But what if there was a chance to change your good life into a great life? Would you really want to sit on your butt and twiddle your thumbs as life waved at you as it went on by, or would you desperately try to cling to it and do everything within your power in order to capture that moment and make everything around you better? If you’re someone who wants to seize every opportunity you can get, then David is the greatest coach and mentor you could ask for.

Never be afraid to take risks, because that’s how the legends become legends. Don’t be scared to fail, because hard lessons are what make us realize our weaknesses and true passions in life. But most of all, never stop dreaming and believing in yourself, because by having the confidence to do something, you really will be able to succeed in anything that you put your mind toward.

—Mitchell Sepke

Acknowledgments

I’d like to acknowledge my wife for allowing me to work on this book only after our kids were in bed asleep—and my kids for never wanting to sleep. It is two in the morning, I’m worried that the typing on my laptop is going to wake my 5-year-old and I have since substituted a glass of water for straight vodka. (Please forgive any spelling mistakes, sentence structure issues or paragraphs that just don’t make sense, as my coauthor, Mitchell Sepke, was meant to catch and fix them all.)

To my parents, thank you for providing, throughout this process, words of encouragement such as You’d better not write about us, and to my wife for her constantly comforting words like You can’t write that or, simply put, Wait until you’re on your second wife, and thank her.

All kidding aside, writing this book has been one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my life. It wouldn’t have been possible without the encouragement and support of so many members of my family, as well as my friends and colleagues. To you all, I say a very sincere and heartfelt thank you.

—David B. Helberg

About the Authors

David B. Helberg: Now, even though I run my own company ("Your Vision in