Quite a career switch

I have a lot of admiration for those who, when they figure out that the path they've chosen isn't quite working out for them, switch careers. 

One such switcher is Liz East, a 30- year-old Brit who had been working as a paralegal and  dreaming of becoming a criminal defense lawyer. After a few years, she took a brief side-step out of law to work as a consultant. Then she decided that the grueling, stressful corporate life was just not for her. So she opened a dog walking business. 

It helped that East had a good role model, as:

...she saw her husband wake up and do something he loved every day.

“My husband does dog-walking and dog-boarding and he loves his job,” she said. “So being around somebody who’s so passionate about what they did, I thought, ‘Why am I dreading work every weekend and working these long hours?’ ” (Source: People)

Granted, it's always going to be easier if you have someone, such as the person whose bed you share, who can show you the ropes. And I doubt they're cutthroat competitors.

It seems likely to me that, if her husband had a successful dog walking-boarding biz going, Liz East built her client book from doggos he sent her way. 

But if her business wasn't purely DYI, she did work in a pub while she developed her own dog-waking clientele. 

Still, however she got going, the transition from dealing with legal bullshit to picking up baggies-full of dog poop must have had its challenges. 

And now she's pretty well booked up, and is bringing in $400 to $530 a day. Making more than she did in the legal world. 

But East stressed that the financial upside alone isn’t a good reason to enter the business.

“You should do it because you want to be outside and want to be with dogs,” she said. “I love getting up and going to work.”

Not everyone can say that. 

Just think about it.

Sure, there are dogs who are nasty, who are jerks, but most dogs are good people.

Who wouldn't want to get up and go to work and be greeted at the door by a cute pup who's tail-wagging away, delighted to see you, and happy to get out there on the trail with his canine friends. 

Her advice to others considering a major career change is simple.

“Life is short. Don’t stay in a job where you’re unhappy,” East said. “Just make the change and go for it. I’ve not regretted it."

I see dog walkers out and about every day. They're typically handling a brace of cutie-cute dogs, and, while the dogs always look happy bouncing along, I can't say that the dog walkers themselves always look overjoyed. Bagging all that poop is definitely a downside. (Maybe Liz East has a dog walking path out in the wilds, where she doesn't have to pick up what the dogs deliver.) 

But the advice is sound.

Not everyone can career switch. If you're in a well-paying job (e.g., corporate lawyer) and really want to be doing something else (e.g., write poetry), it just might not be financially feasible. Not many are supporting themselves, let alone a family, on what a poet earns. 

I never had the guts to make a 180 degree turn from tech marketing, but when I quit corporate to focus on freelancing I decided that all I really wanted to freelance was writing. And I was a lot happier. Unlike Liz, I didn't make more freelancing. This was somewhat through choice - I did strategic consulting for a while, but much preferred writing about technology and how it was being used. But as I would tell people, "half the money, ten times the satisfaction."

Working is so much a part of your life, you're a lot better off doing something you actually enjoy doing. No one wants to go into existential dread mode midway through Sunday, thinking about getting up and going to work on Monday. (Been there, done that.)

Legal eagle to dog walker is quite a career switch. However she managed to pull it off, congratulations to Liz East for doing it.

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Image Source: Duxbury Student Union