Kate: Following a Calling

Kate was a successful businesswoman and entrepreneur in her early fifties. Her business was doing well but she noticed that she no longer felt the same passion for the work that she once did.

She had begun exploring what else she might do. This exploration had taken her in what she referred to as interesting directions, but she reported that nothing was coming together as a next career. She wanted help bringing more focus to what she referred to ask her discovery process.

As Kate and her coach began to talk about the various directions, what emerged is that these were deeply held interests for most of her life. In the whirlwind of her adult life, she hadn’t had much time to explore them further. Until now.

Something else became apparent. There was a shared thread running through the activities that she had chosen to pursue. What had initially appeared to be a random collection of activities, were related. They all moved her more fully into what she called a spiritual life.

What had initially appeared to be a random collection of activities, were related.

What Kate had set in motion was the process of Exploring Options and Experimenting (reference Transitions Framework). Those experiments had not only taken her in interesting directions, as she referred to them, but much more. They had begun to illuminate what she wanted to do next.

Kate shared with her coach that she felt called to a life of service. This was both exciting to her and scary. It meant she would leave behind the professional life that she knew so well. She enrolled in a seminary, and this meant closing her business.

Over the next year, she reported that being in seminary led to a deep exploration and learning that, as she referred to it, “fed her soul.” It also affirmed for Kate that a life of service was indeed where she was headed.

Three years later she graduated from seminary and became an ordained minister. A year later, and leading a church, she reported that she utilized her business skills far more than she would have imagined.

In this and other ways, Kate did not leave behind all that she knew, but rather she carried much of what she had learned as an entrepreneur with her.

In addition to her ministerial role, Kate continued to carve out time to do other spiritual activities that fed her soul, like her religious studies and writing. This was a best fit for Kate, in that she preferred having variety in her life alongside a mix of time to herself and time with people.

In the process, Kate successfully transitioned into an encore career, which for her encompassed a sense of purpose, a passion for continuing along a spiritual path, and a paycheck.