I was scrolling around on LinkedIn today, and I came upon an article, which led to a podcast and down the rabbit hole I went. This particular article and Podcast were about starting over and reinventing yourself. It focused on doing this later in life, which I found to be quite informative and helpful since I now am at this juncture of life. For me change isn’t so much change. I began my working life in a Kitchen and became a Chef, I love cooking and anyone who knows me will tell you I am pretty OK. That was all great until it wasn’t anymore. The every Holiday and weekend just got to be too much. So I went back to school to learn to program, since I already had some self taught skills and had been noodling with electronics since I was a child.
Off I went to become a programmer, which I love doing when I am working on a me project. Not so much when working for a company, so that lasted about 2 years but got me in the Networking and security field because I happen to be in the right place at the right time with the right answer. After 10 years working in corporate IT, I decided it was time to jump into the consulting market and away I went. Year 1 was horrible, I almost died of starvation and had my car repossessed 1 time. I did not give up, I got my car back and I fought harder. Then people started to notice, and the phone started to ring and the emails started coming. I was doing it, working for me!! I was 45 when I jumped ship from corporate IT where I made a decent salary and bonuses.
10 years later, I accept a position with my biggest client, because at my age an office job with not as much travel became appealing. While I am still in the IT field, I manage equipment and projects now. I have a good work, life balance and work with a fantastic team of individuals who I cannot say enough good things about. My dream though has always been, and still is to have a bed and breakfast type place, but for hikers. A step up from a hostel, but in the same price range to make it worthwhile. My biggest obstacle to this had always been, the fear of failure and the lack of support from my partner.
I no longer fear failure, I have proven to myself time and again I can do anything I put my mind to and make it work. It just takes the right team around you to make it happen. I have the right team around me now, and am working toward making my lifelong dream a reality. We plan to homestead to an extent, and grow vegetables and herbs. Raise Chickens and rabbits. And provide Trail services to Pennsylvania hikers throughout central Pennsylvania. I plan to supplement our income with consulting Jobs and other contracting services. So like I said earlier on, change isn’t so much change for me, as I have changed several times over the years as my needs, knowledge and the world around me has changed. Well in the words of David Coverdale… Here I go Again.
The above reference article:
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7021490511416827904/
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