By Angela Charlton, Ph.D.
Manager of Player Engagement
If your next career goal is to find fulfilling work in a profession that brings you great personal happiness and is something you will be successful at, you might want to first consider getting “rewired.”
Jeri Sedlar and Rick Miners, internationally known career transition experts and co-authors of the best-selling book Don’t Retire, Rewire, offer excellent advice for those transitioning into a new career or undergoing significant changes in their life.
According to Jeri Sedlar, the first step in the rewiring process is to get out of your own way and break through any perceived barriers that you think might hinder your quest to reach a new and different set of professional goals.
Next, according to this husband and wife team, you need to recognize what you already have going for yourself.
“When it comes to tapping into pre-existing skills and talents, NFL players have a distinct advantage over many others going through a career transition or retiring from a particular profession,” notes Rick Miners. “They are the most driven professionals in the world and already know what drives them individually. Former players can successfully rewire and transition into new professional pursuits as long as they know what it is that fulfills them and essentially makes them tick.”
“NFL players have transferable skills they aren’t even aware of, mostly because they have never had to use them outside of football,” he adds. “They have already identified in themselves what we call the ‘drivers,’ the internal motivators that are found inside us and that help us determine what we are drawn to in both work and life. ”
“NFL players clearly recognize what drove them in their football playing days,” says Jeri, “When they leave football behind, those same drivers will be in place, ready to lead them to what they want to do next. They need to listen to those drivers throughout the rewiring process. This is the point where the connection is made between what they want and what they do.”
Jeri and Rick explain that knowing your drivers enables you to make good choices – more efficiently than if you didn’t know them – between different types of career directions and life commitments. They assert that drivers give you a focal point for your “rewirement” planning by showing you where your emotional payoff, satisfaction, and fulfillment have come from in your life.
They point out that drivers will not tell you what specific kinds of activities, profession, or organizations you will want to be involved in – it is your job to pick the profession and activities that you think will give you the best match between your drivers and the activities you are pursuing. Through their research, the couple discovered that knowing what your internal “drivers” are and then finding the activities and field of work to fulfill them ultimately leads to high levels of personal and professional satisfaction. In fact, according to their study, driver satisfaction is so critical to happiness and fulfillment that it was more important than whether people got paid for their work.
Ten Ingredients for a Successful Rewiring:
1. A positive attitude
2. Good health
3. An awareness of the financial picture
4. An open mind
5. A desire to stay connected
6. Self-knowledge
7. Meaningful interests or a desire to discover them
8. Intellectual curiosity
9. A willingness to explore
10. Flexibility
(Used with permission from Don’t Retire, Rewire, Alpha, written and copyrighted by Jeri Sedlar and Rick Miners)
For more information, visit www.dontretirerewire.com