It isn’t everyday that you get a multi-millionaire Chief Executive Officer of one of the world’s leading health & fitness online portals popping by your website to write a comment. And it definitely isn’t everyday that a CEO would respond to your request – almost instantaneously – to connect with individuals who accomplished their weight loss goals just to help you achieve your goal of featuring an informative weight loss motivational interview.

But that’s what I experienced in my encounter with Chris Downie, CEO & founder of SparkPeople. Something that makes him so special and different from other CEOs I’ve ever come across in my ex-corporate life. And I know it’s definitely that same sincerity, down-to-earthness and dynamism of his that spearheaded the success of Sparkpeople today.

Offering their diet, fitness tools and services totally free, SparkPeople’s approach to help people shed their weight has been so medically accepted that many professional doctors had even approached them volunteering to support their selfless initiative since inception. Their results are impressive! Featured on various media & publications such as Fox TV, ABC TV and The New York Times, SparkPeople is one of the fastest growing websites on the Internet. In both 2006 & 2007, it was even voted the best online health site in Business Week under the “Best of the Web” awards!

Prior to SparkPeople, Chris co-founded Up4Sale.com, an online auction website which grew so big that it caught the eye of eBay. In 1998, Up4Sale was acquired by eBay for a reported US$70 million (Source : The Enquirer) worth of cash and stock options. He also founded BabyFit, another successful website under the SparkPeople group. Wow, that’s makes him the best person to talk about entreprenuership, isn’t it?

As part of the series for ‘Start A Business’, the 9th ranked goal in my last reader’s poll Top 10 Goals of Goal Setting College Readers, I’m really happy to be able to invite Chris to share his start up experiences in this exclusive interview. If you’ve been itching to start your own business, be it online or just a brick & mortar store, let his experience show you how you too can blaze the trail!

Chris – thanks for your time. Can you give us a personal introduction of yourself and what were your growing up years like?

Sure, thanks for talking to me Ellesse! We have a lot in common – my mission in life is to help people reach their goals and I used to be an accountant too – at Proctor & Gamble (P&G)! One of my current motivations for staying healthy and reaching goals is to be a good husband and father to my two sons. They keep me on my toes!

As a kid, I had anxiety that runs in my family. I didn’t like this, so I developed a personal improvement program which combines topics that help your body like nutrition and fitness with areas that help your mind like goal setting and leadership. Initially I started with tracking my fitness program and then later added other areas. I drew inspiration from writers like Stephen Covey and others. Basically the program is designed to help you become the best person you can be. This program helped me break out and become an entrepreneur.

Wow Chris, I’m certainly flattered to know that we’ve a lot in common. It’s really an overstatement actually as I’ve got so much to learn from you!

I know you’ve always been very entrepreneurial. Up4sale, SparkPeople, BabyFit etc. What made you give up a career as an accountant to start your first business? And how did you startup SparkPeople?

I’ve always known I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I grew up in a single-parent family that didn’t have much money – we often lived paycheck-to-paycheck. I think this fostered a drive to start my own company so I’d have a chance to determine my own destiny – hopefully from a young age.

I remember in a 10th grade project about picking careers, I chose “Entrepreneur” and few people at that time knew what that meant. So, it was natural that I’d start a company at some point. When I hooked up with my friend Rob, we realized we had a lot in common and decided to leave Corporate America at the same time to follow our dreams.

When I was 13 (25 years ago now!), I started combining fitness and goal setting as a way to help me reach my goals. I strongly believe that entrepreneurs should work hard to be as healthy as possible to handle all the stress and maximize their chances for success! One thing I did was set a goal to do a 10-minute workout every day. I ended up doing this 700 days in a row and it changed my life!

That kind of inspired me to start up SparkPeople. I wanted to SPARK millions of PEOPLE to reach their goals. I wanted to help people reach goals from this program like I have been able to. I can honestly say that I wouldn’t be a multi-millionaire if it hadn’t been for developing the SparkPeople program and using it myself!

The major difference between SparkPeople and other types of diet and fitness programs is that we combine motivation and goal setting with health and fitness. As a result, members are able to both get healthy and reach many other types of goals.

Chris, you’ve really got that started! I’m sure you’ll gain many new SparkPeople subscribers just from that “ I can honestly say that I wouldn’t be a multi-millionaire if it hadn’t been for developing the SparkPeople program and using it myself” statement.

Being able to walk the talk is something so crucial that many businesses fail to recognize! Could you also share with us some of your teething issues during the initial startup phase and how you overcame them?

We spent a significant amount of time in the early days at SparkPeople doing Research & Development to build a better way for people to reach their goals especially their health goals.

Later on, we found it difficult to break through the clutter of so many other large brands in the diet category that we decided to make our site completely free to help reach our mission of sparking millions of people to reach their goals. We’ve had to work incredibly hard to keep improving our site and program because there’s so much competition in the category.

I’ve taken a different approach for the SparkPeople culture. In my first company, I worked 80-100 hours per week every week for about 2 years. I realized that you can’t keep this pace up for more than 2 years or it’s likely you’ll end up in the hospital. I am fairly sure my allergies got much worse because of the stress this put on my body – so I highly recommend that all entrepreneurs work hard to stay healthy – or you could be doing real damage to your body.

At SparkPeople, we decided that employees would work relatively normal hours. BUT, we would work hard at being as efficient and smart as possible. Our team has responded to this culture. One result is that we’ve never had a key employee leave the company and people love working at SparkPeople. We challenge ourselves to get as much done in 45-55 hours per week as other company’s employees get done in twice that time.

Absolutely true. Building a business is like running a marathon race. You’ve to keep up the momentum right till the end! There’s also a common saying, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know”? Has this also affected the way how you build your business?

This hasn’t affected us much. We have just focused on building a great consumer experience so that our members are successful and spread the word to their friends, family, and co-workers.

For SparkPeople, the “who you know” has been the millions of people who have signed up for our sites and then spread the word. We also continue making the site better. In fact, that’s our best marketing strategy so far. If you have a site and program/product that really works, people will spread the word and do your marketing for you. This is the same way eBay grew into such a large company. Google too.

That’s very true! Word of mouth marketing is the best marketing.

You know something? During a poll I’ve conducted in Sep 2007, starting a business is one of the top 10 goals of Goal Setting College readers – what have you learned from your own experience that could help them in launching their own business?

I’ve learned that starting a company is extremely hard. So, I always recommend that people find something they are passionate about when starting a company because they’ll be spending so much time with it. In most cases, they should also be willing to make some major sacrifices in life to make their dreams come true – including making their personal expenses as low as possible.

During my first company, I lived with my Mom for free rent and drove a car that my friend gave me when she went back to grad school – and it wasn’t a very nice car – I got a new car right after we were acquired after the brakes on that car gave out and I ran off the road. I ended up putting $50,000 on my personal credit cards. But the determination to reach this goal carried me and my partners through the difficult times.

Another major lesson is to focus on strategy and execution. Getting ideas is relatively easy compared to strategy and execution.

I certainly attest to that! I get a lot of cool ideas about what to write on Goal Setting College and new internet projects from time to time but it can be daunting when it comes to actually working on them. What are some of the biggest mistakes that you see budding entrepreneurs do?

The number one mistake I see from new entrepreneurs is overvaluing their business idea. By this I mean that new entrepreneurs often think if they have a good idea they are more than halfway towards being successful, but that’s nowhere near the case. This single mistake often makes it hard to work with young entrepreneurs for partnering, etc. For example, we’ll sometimes have young companies with not much more than an idea wanting to work with SparkPeople. But, they don’t realize how far along we are on the execution scale so it’s hard to talk to them.

Another mistake I see is not working hard to keep expenses low in the early days so they have enough time to learn from mistakes and be successful before running out of money. We made mistakes every day at Up4Sale – but they were mostly sweat equity mistakes that didn’t cost us much money.

If you had to identify 3 important habits that you’ve acquired that had helped you to become what you are today – what would they be?

Great, question! Here are three I can think of:

1. Drive to Continually Improve Myself

   This originated from the desire to overcome anxiety. I think the best way to improve yourself is through doing something – getting real life experience at something. Of course, reading great authors and other material can give you a good head start.

2. A Real Focus On Execution Once I Set Goals

   Setting big goals is easy, reaching them is much harder. One of my favorite motivational techniques is to build a vision collage. I did this when I was at P&G when I set a goal to become an entrepreneur. I cut out pictures that represented my goals and hung that picture in my office. Then, anytime I was feeling down, I could look at those aspirational pictures and keep my real goals in mind. I’m also a fan of telling people about your goals.

   At SparkPeople, from day 1 our goal was to help millions of people. This sounded ludicrous at the beginning. But, now I’m starting to talk about increasing our potential to helping tens of millions of people!

3. A Revelation that “Your Daily Actions and Words Impact More People Than You’ll Ever Realize!”

   This is what eventually led to SparkPeople and my goal to help other people. I came up with this quote when working at P&G. A co-worker started using my program. She then transferred to another location and I didn’t see her for about 6 months, but stayed in touch via email.

   When I saw her again, she had lost 50 pounds. She told me she had been waiting to see me in person to tell me I had changed her life. She had started a walking group at her location where the others said, “Pat, if you can do it, we can do it!” So, my small actions to improve myself had helped this co-worker and then she was motivating other people. In other words, nobody can tell the ultimate impact once they help someone.

I certainly understand where you’re coming from on your last point. In fact, it’s your seemingly simple comment that really touched and motivated me to contact you!

Oh by the way, do you blog at all? If yes, how is blogging important to your overall business?

I do some blog posts on SparkPeople, but I spend more time posting on our message boards and making comments on member pages. Blogging and board posts are extremely important to our business because members give so much support to each other. SparkPeople gets millions of blog posts and board posts each month. Some of them bring tears to my eyes. Here’s an example of a recent post about a lady who lost 100 pounds on SparkPeople.

It has been amazing getting our members to appear in national media outlets like People Magazine, The Today Show, Woman’s World, Good Housekeeping, and many others. There is a real chance that SparkPeople is becoming a cultural phenomenon.

Thank you for sharing that testimonial, Chris. I must admit it’s very touching, knowing that the things you did actually went on to change someone else’s life. I didn’t really understood that until I finally got to experience it for myself as well.

Now back to our interview. Well, it’s certainly not everyday that I get to interview a multi-millionaire CEO, Haha! Can you provide us with a peek into a particular day of a CEO’s life?

Ha, that’s funny – I don’t think of myself in those terms. In some ways I’m more normal than you might think, but in other ways it is strange compared to my life before the business success.

Since I work from home and I’m 3 hours behind my co-workers, I usually wake up around 6-6:30, have a cup of tea, and then walk 20 feet to my office and start working – almost always in shorts and a T-shirt – unless it’s cold, then I wear sweat pants. I take many quick breaks throughout the day to get fitness and sunshine. This helps me stay high energy and productive.

I spend my time handling a mix of higher level strategic issues with being right on the front lines with my team motivating people on the site. I’ve made over 8,000 posts on our message boards to motivate people. I’ve learned that in a high growth internet company, no two days are the same and you never know what will happen from one day to the next.

Working from home, I probably get to spend more time with my family than the average CEO. Overall, I feel blessed to have this opportunity to help people while having fun in the process!

8,000 posts! Are you basically living in the forums? Haha. Having helped so many people achieve their goals, how have you adopted this same philosophy into your life?

As you can see from a peek into a day of my life above, I live the SparkPeople brand every day! First, almost every day I post messages in our online community. It’s fun for me to help motivate people to reach their goals. I know that if I’m motivating them, they are in turn motivating me to stay on track!

Another thing you may have noticed above is that I do is take frequent fitness breaks outside to keep my energy levels high. This is also the time where I usually get my best ideas – when I’m outside and away from the computer.

We also pay a significant annual bonus at SparkPeople to employees who follow a consistent fitness and health program. We call this the SparkPeople Adventure program.
Also, even though I’ve had success already, I realize I still can learn something new every day by continuing to work hard and having that drive for improvement!

Spot on, Chris! Success is indeed a process and never an end in itself.

Thank you for sharing your wonderful insights and please continue to SPARK the lives of millions of PEOPLE around the world. I know you will and you can, because you’ve just sparked one.

Mine.

** Photo Adapted From Violator3’s Collection

• Get Your Free Subscriber Downloads Here!


• Subscribe Free Career, Business & Trade Magazines For Your Career & Economic Goals

Editor’s Note : This article is written to help those who’ve been thinking whether to make the leap in changing careers. It was never my intention to toot my own horn. As you’ll soon realize – after reading this – that there’s really nothing that glorifying at all! Months since writing this article, I’ve also ventured into other online businesses projects while maintaining Goal Setting College and have hence renamed the title of this article.

Do you know what people brand you as when you’re doing something they dream of but yet couldn’t bring the courage to? Let me give you a clue. It starts with the letter ‘M’.

No idea?

The supportive ones will call you a Maverick. They’ll tell you things like “You know something? At times I really admire you. You know what you want and you’ll gallantly go all out to pursue it. I can’t do that. I don’t have the guts.”

The cynical ones? They’ll regard you as a Moron, thinking that your decision to try a totally different arena extremely silly and secretly wishing that one day, you’ll scram back to where you started. They’ll occasionally ask you “How’s things going?“, trying to probe you on the status of your progress, waiting for the moment to prove that they were right about your decision in the first place. That you’re destined to fail the moment you start.

It’s sad. But over the course of my 2 major career switches. I’ve constantly encountered these 2 groups of people. And to tell you the truth, I think they existed for a reason. They’re there to add fuel to your desire, making it even more burning than before. They’re there to prove that you’re right. Because what you’re doing is something so worthy that they’ve subconsciously admitted to it by reacting the way they did! Your passion to pursue what you want in life only serves to dwarf their own insecurity and cowardice in doing the same!

I hope that by sharing with you my story, I’ll be able to encourage the “Maverick” (or “Moron” … ) in you to take that first step to “Find a Better Job”. Ignore the naysayers. Challenge the odds. And make your dream a reality.

Getting Started in The Corporate Jungle

8 years ago, I was just another fresh accountancy graduate eager to make my mark in the commercial world. Even though I didn’t secure an interview with any of the Big 4 International Accounting firms – which was considered the holy grail in the accountancy profession – I was lucky and thrilled to be offered a job immediately after I graduated.

But that happiness was short-lived. As I was rotating across different departments doing tax, accounting and auditing in a local public accounting firm, my sense of unfulfilment increased. I was either doing menial work such as audit vouching, filing, vetting tax submissions at my company or routine tasks such as data entry and churning out cheques for payments at a client’s place. Often working into the wee hours of the morning. There was one time where I was at my client’s office rushing through month end closing just to avoid the possible Y2K bug in their accounting system – while my friends were waiting for me to join in the Millennium year count down. I started asking myself. Is that the life I want to lead for the rest of my career as an accountant or auditor?

As I was furiously typing away on the keyboard, I secretly made a pact with myself. I had to go.

Deciding To Go Into IT

That was it. Once I’ve consciously set that goal, everything else really took care of themselves.

Every Saturday, I would spontaneously scour through my local recruitment papers or websites and look out for positions which seemed promising. I noticed that financial systems solution firms were sourcing for people of my qualifications and remembered how much I enjoyed my 2 months professional attachment with one such firm as an business analyst intern in my sophomore year. In fact, I liked it so much that I continued the same project I was working on in that company as my final year graduation project work with 2 other friends.

I decided to go for it. Since my University grades weren’t good enough for those top consultancy firms, I tried a different strategy. I went for entry positions in smaller and mid sized firms. Many of my friends scorned at the idea, thinking that working for smaller companies don’t add much value to one’s credentials. And besides, what if I didn’t like it there? I would have wasted precious time running around different companies.

I know tons of people are probably in the same situation. They’re so afraid of taking the wrong step in their career that they would rather tread the “proven” path. Go to an auditing firm. Work for 3 years. Use it as a stepping stone to get into a multinational corporation. Crunch numbers for the rest of your life.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say that being an auditor or accountant is unworthy. If this is a conscious career choice you’ve decided, by all means go ahead. In fact, it’s a great recipe to follow if that what you want to be. A high flying finance professional. But the irony is, most people didn’t chose what they want to do because they really want to do that. They probably did that because others were also doing the same. That it was a convenient decision. Or because their parents, spouse, family or friends expected them to do so.

I understood all the risks my friends were talking about at that time. But I told myself. What did I really have to lose? I wasn’t the smartest kid in school. I didn’t have much systems experience. Most importantly, I was young. As long as I was able to get into a systems related job, I don’t mind working from the bottom. I didn’t even mind getting the same low pay I was offered at the public accounting firm. Even world famous motivational speaker Anthony Robbins started with a humble background as a janitor! And guess what? The strategy worked.

8 months into my first job, I was offered an analyst position in an IT solutions firm.

And in the 4 years I worked with that firm, I traveled extensively within Asia for various system rollouts, got to know a bunch of colleagues – who taught me so much about life in the cubicle farm – and underwent great professional growth. Friends who were skeptical about my career move started to give me their blessings. It was also during then that I got to know an acquaintance from Hong Kong who recommended Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad to me. I loved that book. But I didn’t know it would actually change my life the way it had.

My career went into a standstill as I joined my 3rd job an implementation consultant. Even though I liked the traveling, was generously compensated and even promoted the first year I joined them, the pressures of the job was depriving me of time with my family and myself. It was eating into my health. As I continue to ponder over my life purpose, my career compass began to point to an untapped territory.

I knew I wanted something different this time.

Researching On A New Career

Reading Rich Dad Poor Dad gave me an awakening because even though I was a trained accountant and knew the nuts and bolts about finance, I was new to the concept of residual income and being financial independent. While still holding my second job, I began doing a lot of research. At that time, one of my good friends was doing Network Marketing. She was selling health nutritional supplements and was advocating how I could join their organization to learn more about their compensation plans and probably find the answer I was seeking.

Even though I was determined to find a way to get out of the rat race, Network Marketing was something I felt I wasn’t suitable. Especially after my incessant research. I knew myself. I wasn’t into health care and selling nutritional supplements, though financially rewarding wasn’t something that I could foresee myself doing in the long run.

At the same time, I also toyed with many different business ideas. Brick and mortar franchises and other offline businesses, personal financial planning consultancy services, eBay or Yahoo auction niche sites, affiliate marketing and even silly online ventures such as get paid to read emails. You name it, I’ve probably considered or even tried it before.

In 2005, I started Goal Setting College. I was having hands-on experience building my first static website a few years back through a premium affiliate marketing course and decided to build a site that was on something I was really enthusiastic about. Goal Setting and Personal Development. It started off solely as a resource site and gradually evolved to be the place I share my personal development learnings, experiences and experiments. I absolutely love it!

As I juggle my day job with my writing on Goal Setting College, I began to see its potential. The money earned from it wasn’t substantial but the articles were gaining some traction from the search engines and blog carnivals, amid some teething realizations. Visitors were downloading my free Goal Setting Tutorial. Some readers became my online friends. Steve Pavlina & Darren Rowse’s successes soon became my inspiration.

“But do you have to quit your job to pursue all these?” You’re right. I don’t need to. I could’ve worked full time on my day job and still write by the side. Would I have a safety net then? Yes. Would I be stretching myself to the fullest then? Yes. Would I be living the life that I’ve set out pursue in the first place? No. I would probably be so busy traveling around the region preparing for implementation, doing support & project management that I would just leave Goal Setting College latent. And let it suffer a slow death.

I reckon. If I were to die tomorrow, would I be sad that I didn’t implement the system in another office, answer another user’s support call or would I regret giving up the chance to give this a shot, succeed and win to tell the tale like I do now?

I made up my mind. I’ve decided to burn my bridges.

The Day I Say “I Quit!”

When I told my ex boss over the phone that I’m quitting, he was very shocked. He told me he never saw it coming. I looked happy, fulfilled and was enjoying great working relationships with my team members. I traveled frequently around the region for business and had good rapport with my users all over the world. In fact, I was just promoted a year ago and given a pretty nice salary increment. Leaving the team was the last thing I would ever do. At least that was what he thought. While that was all true, what he didn’t see was the latent unfulfilled dream I was harbouring.

He asked me for the reason. I told him. I told him it was an entirely personal decision and had absolutely nothing to do with the company nor the team. I liked what I was doing. I was excited about the great plans he had for us and how I would play an important part in spearheading them. However, that was not strong enough to snuff out the desire in me. The burning desire to write wholeheartedly for Goal Setting College.

During the telephone conversation, he never gave up trying to talk me out of making such a seemingly rush decision. Giving up a well paid, extremely promising job in a multinational corporation just for a taste of being the boss of “a wobbly small business” – which I didn’t really reveal much about – didn’t make sense to him. Yes, that was what he sees the whole saga. A silly decision.

Many friends & associates who knew about my decision were likewise astonished. I could literally see them separating into the camp which called me a “Maverick”. As well as the other that thought I was a “Moron”. But the worst ones were those who said they were supportive but were in fact cynical.

In my last week with the company, I was on my way home on the subway with a Hong Kong business associate who was going back to his hotel. Before he alighted, he left those parting words that I would never forget “All the best in your future endeavours. But keep your options open. I’m sure if your business doesn’t work out, we can always make arrangements for you to come back.” Gee. Did I hear a snigger somewhere?

Skeptical Joes are always waiting to pounce on their next victim. But are you going to let them stop you from taking the confident jump that your heart calls affectionately for?

I decided not to. What about you?

*Photo By *Zara Under Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License

• Get Your Free Subscriber Downloads Here!


• Subscribe Free Career, Business & Trade Magazines For Your Career & Economic Goals

If you’re facing a dilemma making a career transition, especially a mid life career change, perhaps Mark’s story will give you some well need motivation.

Born in Belfast, North Ireland, Mark McClure was an IT instructor & engineer with various multinational companies and has been based in Japan, Tokyo since 1994. An International Coaching Academy accredited career coach, he helps people “change their game” by finding what they really love to do.

Mark is also a SOHO business owner. In June 2007, he amalgamated his interest in Career and Life Coaching with Internet Marketing to start up his first entrepreneurial venture at GoalCreationMaps, where he provides career changers with an online course on how to create meaningful goals on a 1 page mind map. Prior to his relocation to Japan, Mark was a Physics & Meteorology teacher in a public school in North Ireland. He also holds the CISCO CCIE, an equivalent of the “MBA” in the IT certification world.

Physics teacher turned IT engineer. Professional career coach. SOHO business owner. How did this guy manage to transit through 3 totally different arenas? Why did he make those decisions? What were some of his challenges? As part of the series for “Find A Better Job”, the 7th ranked goal in my previous poll Top 10 Goals of Goal Setting College Readers, I’ve managed to twist his arm to share with me answers to these mind boggling questions in this exclusive interview.

Mark – thank you very much for your time. To start the ball rolling, perhaps you can tell me more about yourself?

Well, what else can I say? You’ve pretty much said it all in your introduction! To just add on, probably the other more relevant thing from your readers’ point of view is that I am absolutely convinced of the power of coaching and mentoring to support and sometimes, to accelerate change in a ‘coachable’ person’s life and career. Of course I’m somewhat biased!

Having spent my teens and twenties in the United Kingdom – in a world with just 4 TV channels, no broadband Internet, no bloggers and no mobile phones – it has been an incredible ride through the last 20 years of technological and economic changes. And being based in Japan / Asia has made it even more eventful.

Now that I’m in mid life (I am 47 this year!) and my daughter is approaching her teenage years, it’s very natural to be both concerned and excited about what the next 20 years will hold. All things considered, it seems appropriate (to me) that I’m finding another way – through coaching – to express my interests in helping others again.

I understand that you were a Physics & Meteorology teacher before moving on to become an IT instructor & engineer. Those sound like 2 totally different arenas, aren’t they? What was the rationale behind the change and how did you eventually decide what you wanted?

For me, teaching was a career choice – it was never a vocation. I never had a sense that I was born to be a public school teacher – even though I knew I was getting better at it with 4 years experience. There were 2 reasons for leaving:

• Not getting paid enough money! Way back in the 1980s UK teachers were getting promotions and minuscule salary rises based on doing silly things. Like volunteering to put the chairs away after morning assembly.
• The UK’s National Curriculum was just starting up and I could see a bureaucratic stranglehold being put on the classroom, with the bias towards more and more tests and continuous assessment.

As for what I wanted, well, I knew it was something to do with education and learning – so I began looking in the weekly Education supplement of a UK paper called “The Guardian”. In there, after some months, I came across a job ad about a computer company looking for teachers to join their training department.

This seemed perfect except that I would’ve to leave Belfast and move to the south of England. That’s often the way with opportunities. They require tough decisions. I figured I could come back and visit my family fairly easy as it’s a 1 hour flight from London. And so off I went to spend a rather lonely January 1st, 1987 in temporary Bed and Breakfast near my new office.

Wow, that certainly sounds eventful! You know, personally I believe that every experience we go through in a way or another is there for a purpose. And I’m pretty sure your career as a public school teacher would’ve given you a head start in the instructor role. But what else did you do to prepare yourself for advancement into this new career?

Nothing much, really. Like what you’ve said, I already trusted in my instructional skills and also in my new employer’s intention to groom these for the corporate training environment. It was more about getting myself ready to move away from home, more than anything else.

Many people are aware that they need to change. But most of them aren’t willing to get out of their comfort zone. I certainly know a lot of friends like that! What about yourself? Did you have any misgivings when you first made that decision? How did you manage it?

That’s not an easy question! Some people are truly happy “where they are” even if others think they need to change.

In my case there was a palpable feeling of excitement when I applied to the computer company. Even more so when I flew over for the interview. Combine that intuitive feeling with the fact gathering process of a career change and subsequent interviews – and the pieces seemed to slot into place. It was the right thing to do.

I had 2 misgivings – one, that I was leaving in the middle of a school year. But then, if I had dropped dead the next day, life would have gone on and another teacher appeared. So I didn’t let that hold me back although I did feel for the children I was leaving. In fact I still have the “Push’n'Go” firetruck my 6th form class gave me on my last day. They’d be adults with families of their own now.

The second misgiving was that I feared the conversation with the Head Master! A case of false evidence appearing real because he was very good about it – and the apprehensions were all on my side.

Well, I’m sure the kids would’ve been happy for you! What other problems did you face and how did you overcome them?

Things rolled along just fine with a little patience and some Irish dark humour

Hahaha … You know, one of the banes of a career change – especially if it’s cross functional – is achieving a fair balance between remuneration and job satisfaction. How do you come to terms with that?

That’s another tough one! When I was between jobs in Tokyo during 1999, I went to a recruitment consultant determined to get an IT job in the Finance industry there. She told me something I would never forget, along the lines of “You can get an IT job there with persistence – but you may never be able to leave”. At first I thought her words were strange because for sure I would be earning 25-50% more than my previous job (this was before outsourcing became a common phenomenon) AND there were bonuses too.

What she was hinting was, that people got carried away with the extra money and for some, their lifestyle inflated to spend most of that increased income. Fortunately, my better half and I’ve been more financially prudent and put away a lot of money during my 7 years in the salt mines (sorry, it’s that Irish humour again). That made it easier to leave.

I also tend to think that life offers us challenges at different times. For example, you may have strayed away from more meaningful work for the big money. But that doesn’t mean you’ll not be tested. Either stay where you’re and “suck it up” or take a calculated risk and go for it. Easier said than done. But there are people who do it!

Well said! I strongly attest to that because I made that same calculated risk to write full time for Goal Setting College! That amount of lost income was definitely made up in the form of increased life satisfaction. Not just career wise.

Sometimes, you just have to do what you think is right! OK, back to our interview. Many months ago, I’ve just attended a career seminar and one of the speaker reiterated the importance of networking to move yourself – within or across industries. What’s your take on this?

It can be a big help. For example, the Tokyo IT world for foreign finance firms is a small niche and many of the same faces pop up in different places. Or so I’ve heard – since I stayed at the same Bank during my time there.

I’d definitely pay attention to the “don’t burn your bridges” advice if you plan on being an employee in one of those types of niches – as the hiring managers move around too!
In the brave new world of online business entrepreneurship I suspect that relationship building and networking are very valuable and essential approaches. I’ve just dipped my toe into the virtual waters with my personal blog. Maybe you can give me some mentoring as to how it’s done – I’d be all ears!

You’re definitely right on the importance of networking in the online world. Especially in the blogosphere. In fact, I actually find myself networking more than I did in the real world. Don’t think of how much you can benefit from the relationship. Think of how you can provide value to the other person.

When you start doing so, you’ll find that people will start opening up to you. I guess that pretty much works the same when finding a new career, right Mark? I know you’re a certified career coach as well. Can you share with me how and why this transition into coaching?

Well, here’s a shameless plug – you can read all about that on my personal blog MarkMcClureToday!

Another angle to it is that I became deeply interested in personal development and life purpose and planned to use the skills for an in-house mentoring program. But I also realized how powerful it could be to coach myself. In fact, those skills are turning out to be real useful now that I am growing an online business.

Most of my business is online – information products, coaching and mentoring by email. I do some limited one to one coaching via Skype. If you or your readers are interested in any of these services, I’ll strongly encourage you to sign up for my free mailing list on the blog. You can get members exclusive special offers and discounts!

Sure, I’ll pop by and say hello to you later Hmm… seems like you’re doing really well. Owns a full suite of career coaching services and products and now a personal blog too! Other than that, how has life changed now that you’ve made these career moves?

Well, my commute has dramatically shortened – from 1 hour each way to about 5 seconds. Haha! And I am able to set my own schedule and hours. It feels great to go for a lunchtime run and have no boss to answer to. On the other hand, growing net income and monitoring cashflow are ever-present realities in a startup. Although overheads for an online business are very low and manageable.

You know, I’ve never tried career coaching before. But assuming I’m someone who’s now at a career crossroad and I’ve come to you for advice, how would you go about working with me on finding something that I love to do?

First of all, in my experience, coaching only works well under these circumstances:
the client is coachable and willing to take some action. (one can look like he’s ready but only time will tell!)

The coach and client have a confidential and trusting professional relationship. Without either of these 2 the coaching will fail. Or be very limited in its effectiveness. Next up, coaching is a conversation where the coach applies the “2 ears and 1 mouth” approach.

That is, most of the talking will be yours. What I would then be looking for, are opportunities for you to become more aware of what your goals are. What you like and don’t like doing and what you are interested in changing. That normally leads into the unexplored territory of “personal responsibility”. It’s the avoidance of this, more than anything else that prevents people from making real change.

Now I should point out here that the most effective coaches I have seen and listened to are truly excellent at inspiring their clients and holding them accountable. But that’s because they see unrealized potential within the client, who often doubts or is blind to that potential.

A word of warning: I know the psychologists have a word for this. Transference, I think? But it is NOT the coach’s job to compel a client to follow through on goals and obligations. This is 100% the client’s responsibility. If you sense that you’ve to live up to a coach’s “expectations” for you, there’s probably some transference going on. In some cases, this can lead to an unusual dependency on the coach and his advice, without seeing the end. That’s not healthy in my opinion.

At the end of your coaching relationship you should be ready to politely fire(!) your coach if he has done their coaching well. That’s how good it can get after excellent coaching!

A good coach should also notice that a client may be slipping and backsliding and offer feedback to the client in a number of ways. But it’s definitely not like an irate sports coach slamming the locker room door and screaming “come on, you can do it for me. Give me one more big effort” etc etc.

While career change can be liberating and empowering, it can involve hard work and also considerable sacrifices – not least, financial. So, in my coaching, I always try to be aware that the client (and myself too, sometimes) can be suffering from “the grass is always greener on the other side” approach to career change. Sometimes that is not so – the real change to be made is in the client’s approach to and belief in their existing career and abilities. In such cases, no change is actually good change!!

Thank you for such a comprehensive analysis of your coaching approach! It’s so very common for people to assume that coaching – be it career or life – is going to solve all their decisional dilemma. At the end of the day, you still have to make the call, do the work.

Because eventually, you’re the one bearing the consequences of your actions. Not your coach! Mark, before we end this interview, do you have any books, resources or blog recommendations on career change that you’ll like to introduce to the readers?

I have some unconventional ones.

Read the Science Fiction book Replay, by the late author Ken Grimwood. If you were unmoved by self-growth exercises like “imagine the mourners at your funeral hearing about what you had or hadn’t done in your life”, then Replay may deeply move you. It made me think so much about my daughter. And what the true miracle of life may be. Well, the main character also has a daughter he grew to deeply love during one of his replays…but only in that one replay.

Another greatly underrated resource is David Allen’s book Ready For Anything. He has made his name as the Getting Things Done guru. But I can also see in this book how deeply he has pondered to be the best of what he’s capable of – and still enjoy those bonsai plants!

** Photo By Victor_Nuno

• Get Your Free Subscriber Downloads Here!


• Subscribe Free Career, Business & Trade Magazines For Your Career & Economic Goals

Continued from How This Couple Achieved Their Weight Loss Goals in 9 Months! (Cont’d)

Now that you’ve achieved your weight loss goals, how has life changed for you – individually and as a couple?

Denise: Life has changed for me tremendously! I am healthy and don’t worry about going down the same path of health issues as my mom and other family members. I have more confidence in myself now that I’m not overweight.

I have changed my goals in life too! I am currently working on getting my certification to be a personal trainer and am furthering my education in Health and Wellness Promotion. I am also working for Sparkpeople to help many others in meeting their goals. As a couple, we are more active together. We enjoy going for walks, bike rides, etc. We are both happy and healthy and so proud of each other for what we have accomplished.

Matt: We’re a lot more active together. Taekwondo, mountain biking, hiking or anything we can do to spend more time together outside of the house. We used to just sit at home, watch some TV, maybe go out to a movie. Now we’re constantly trying to find a new place to hike, bike ride, or explore in our spare time.

Individually, I’m much happier with life all around. I wasn’t a bad person when I was obese, but I didn’t do anything extra to be a “good” person. Now I try to help people understand what it takes to live a healthier life. I spend a lot of time trying to help motivate people around SparkPeople.com. While I’m not employed by SparkPeople.com, I do what I can to help promote the website and “Spread the Spark”.

Your achievements are indeed remarkable, Matt & Denise. Not only have you benefited from the whole process, you’ve used your experience to motivate people who had the same aspirations. And I’m sure there’re many people and even couples who’ll be inspired by both of you. What advice do you have for other aspiring couples who intend to do this together?

Denise: Support each other! That is the best thing you can do for yourselves. Find some activities that you can do together. Walking together is a great way to get exercise, spend time and motivate/support each other.

Matt: I agree with Denise. Support one another and realize that people progress at different rates. Don’t just lose weight because your spouse wants you to. You have to want it for yourself as well. Be honest with yourself and each other, and it will be much easier to achieve all your goals. Most of all, enjoy the time together. It can be exciting to do new activities with one another and can give your relationship a boost.

You know something, many of my friends successfully lost weight only to find themselves gaining it back a few months later. What are your thoughts on this and what have you done to maintain your weight?

Denise: Well, I think that comes from being on a diet. If you change your lifestyle, then you don’t have to worry about doing the yo-yo diet thing. You tend to keep it off because you have learned the techniques that help to keep the weight off. If you don’t change your lifestyle, you are more likely to gain the weight back.

That’s why I believe diets don’t work; they are a temporary solution to losing weight, not a permanent solution. Staying active and watching my food intake has helped me maintain my weight. Keeping my healthy habits that I learned has certainly helped me out.

Matt: I think Denise hit the nail on the head. Most people “diet” until they lose the weight, then they return to their old habits. More people would succeed if they would commit to changing their lifestyle. We made a conscientious decision to change the way we live…eat better, exercise more, live well.

Having successfully achieved one of the greatest goals in your life, how have you adopted this same goal setting philosophy into other aspects of your life?

Denise & Matt: To a certain extent, yes we’ve. We’ve used the goal setting philosophy for several small goals over the last few years. Right now our main goal in life is to own our own home and live a happy life together. The first goal in owning our own home was leaving California. We certainly achieved that this summer by moving to Missouri. Now that we’ve made that move we are starting to set some smaller goals on how to cut expenses and save more money.

That’s all for this weight loss motivation series. I hope you’ve been inspired by Matt & Denise. I know I certainly did. Having started to run and work out regularly myself, I do agree that losing weight and getting in shape is indeed not easy. In fact, none of our top 10 goals are. But the tougher the goal, the greater the achievement. Remember, nothing is difficult if you’ve set your mind to do it!

And while you’re at it, do check out Sparkpeople (which, by the way is absolutely free) and say hello to Matt and Denise on the messageboards.

• Get Your Free Subscriber Downloads Here!


• Subscribe Free Career, Business & Trade Magazines For Your Career & Economic Goals

Continued from Weight Loss Motivation : How This Couple Achieved Their Weight Loss Goals in 9 Months!

Cool… I know Matt has briefly touched on this, but I’m still curious to know more about your fitness activities. What are some of your favourite workout routines?

Denise: I like to do a variety of things. I don’t really have a favourite, but some of the things that I like to do are workout videos (on Yoga, Turbojam, The Firm, Denise Austin workouts…), mountain biking, elliptical, etc. I also enjoy doing a video that Coach Nicole on Sparkpeople.com has made. She has a few on the website that are great for a mid-day break workout.

Matt: I don’t necessarily have any favourite “routines” per say. I would have to say my favorite thing to do would be mountain biking. Since losing weight I’ve gone on 3 & 4 hour mountain bike rides and loved every minute of it. Before moving to Missouri I was also VERY active in Taekwondo, a Korean martial art. I would train 4-5 days a week for several hours per day. Also, I never used to enjoy running. In fact, I hated it. Now I really enjoy running on the treadmill.

Any delicious diet recipes or plans that you’ll like to share with us?

Matt: I actually have quite a few recipes that I’ve “dabbled” with since eating healthier. Denise is a very picky eater so I have to be relatively creative in what I prepare, and how I prepare it. Her favourite dinner that I’ve developed is a whole wheat pizza. It’s a modified french bread dough recipe for the crust. I substitute whole wheat flour for white flour, and the only other ingredients are water, yeast, and a small amount of sugar. I’ll make each of us a personal pizza that comes to about 500 calories. A lot of the other meals I make are with chicken and various vegetables.

Denise: Matt does most of the cooking in our house and I definitely do enjoy the whole wheat pizza that he makes! We really just try to find ways to make recipes healthier. There is even a recipe section that Sparkpeople.com has and we will look in there for some new ideas for good recipes from time to time.

Sounds delicious… maybe both of you can treat me to some of that pizza the next time we meet. Ha ha. I know maintaining those workout routines and diet plans definitely aren’t easy! How did you keep yourself motivated and disciplined throughout that process?

Denise: Some days were easier than others. I was seeing results with what I was doing and I didn’t want to ruin my progress. So I did what I had to do. Some days I would get up earlier than normal to do a workout. For the days I didn’t get up early, I made sure that the moment I come home from work, I would do my workout right away. If I didn’t feel like working out, I would tell myself that I had to do for at least 10 minutes and if I was still feeling like that, I would stop.

Majority of the time, by the time 10 minutes came around, I was into my workout and was feeling good with what I was doing. I knew that I felt better when I exercised and ate properly. I also had Matt cheering me on every step of the way, which was very helpful for me!

Matt: My motivation and discipline came from a fear of dying young and leaving my wife at an early age. Denise is my best friend in the world and I want to spend as much time as possible with her. I figure we are on this planet way too short of a time and I want to enjoy it with someone I love and care about. If eating a little healthier and exercising a little more means I can spend more time with Denise… well, that’s all the motivation I need.

Both of you have my utmost respect! I’ve seen so many people embarking on their goals so enthusiastically in the beginning only to lose steam and even gave it up when they’re just about to succeed. What about both of you, were there any times that you’ve felt like giving up – due to something like a weight loss plateau or other challenges – and how did you overcome it?

Denise: I didn’t feel like giving up, but I certainly got frustrated by plateaus. I had a difficult time watching Matt lose weight at a faster rate than I did. Some weeks, he would lose 2 pounds and I might stay the same or maybe lose just half a pound. It made me crazy for quite some time! I would go a few weeks without losing anything and be so irritated, because I knew I was working so hard.

I had an a-ha moment though as I was writing in my community journal on Sparkpeople.com and realized that I was letting the scale tell me how I was doing. I realized that I shouldn’t be relying on the scale as my only way of knowing how I was doing. The proof of my hard work was there in the mirror, staring back at me. My clothes were getting loose, I was losing inches. I was seeing progress, it just wasn’t on the scale because I had gained some muscle which helped me look more lean.

Matt: As Denise hinted at, I didn’t really run into any challenges or problems with my weight loss goal(s). By following the SparkPeople.com suggestions, I never had a week where I lost less than a pound. And more often than not, I was losing 2 pounds each week. That kind of success made it very easy to maintain the new lifestyle and never feel like giving up.

Continued reading this weight loss motivation series at How This Couple Achieved Their Weight Loss Goals in 9 Months! (Final)

• Get Your Free Subscriber Downloads Here!


• Subscribe Free Career, Business & Trade Magazines For Your Career & Economic Goals

Have you been slogging on your weight loss goals and yet feel frustrated at times that perhaps you’re never going to reach “there”? Well, it’s time for some weight loss motivation and advice!

As part of the series for “Lose Weight and Get in a Better Shape”, the 2nd ranked goal in my recent poll Top 10 Goals of Goal Setting College Readers, I’m very fortunate to be able to invite Matt & Denise Tausig, a married couple from Lake Ozark, Missouri to share with me some of their weight loss tips. In fact, they were so gracious and forthcoming in giving me their thoughts that I’ve to break this weight loss motivation interview article into 3 parts. Yes, it’s that informative!

Their achievements thus far, have also been phenomenal.

In a short span of 9 months (from 1st Jan – 30 Sep 2004), Matt lost a whopping 90 pounds, dropped from a size 42 pants to size 34, swapped XXL shirts for just large or medium and shed a total of 17 inches from his waist, hips and neck. Not only did that add more confidence to his already confident self, he now has more energy and run much faster and longer in sports.

Over the same period of time, his goal buddy and wife, Denise lost 37 pounds, dropped from size 12/14 waist to size 4/5 and swapped L or XL shirts for XS/S. She now sleeps better and has gained a tremendous amount of muscle, strength and not to forget, confidence! Her hair and complexion’s glowing too!

Matt & Denise – thank you very much for joining me in this interview. Now, before I start, can you tell us a bit more about yourselves?

Matt: Thank you too, for allowing us to share our success with you and your readers! Well, we’ve just moved from Aptos, California to Lake Ozark, Missouri where I accepted a new job as the Head Golf Professional at a local resort. We’ve been married for just over 9 years and try to spend as much time as we can with each another. Whether it’s mountain biking, Taekwondo, going to the gym, or just going for a walk, we really try to experience as much of life as possible while in each other’s company.

Denise: I’ve spent the last several years working in the real estate industry. The job paid great, but I wasn’t happy and was desperately needing a change in life. When Matt told me about the job opportunity in Missouri, I knew it was a great chance for us to make a positive change in our lives. Moving has actually allowed me to further my interest in helping children learn how to eat better and live a healthier life.

Amazing. You know something guys? Both of you truly epitomize the concept of Soul Mates! Not only do you experience life together as a married couple, you’ve even embarked on a weight loss regime together! Frankly, looking at both of you now, it’s really hard for me to imagine that you were chronically overweight 4 years ago! What was the trigger to that life changing decision?

Denise: My mom’s health was very poor for a long time. I watched her deal with so many health problems which included obesity, several strokes, diabetes and congestive heart failure. That scared me into thinking that I might be going down that same path. Matt found Sparkpeople.com and said that he was going to see if it would help him lose weight. He told me it would be great if I would do it with him, but I didn’t have to. After looking at the website, I decided that it couldn’t hurt to give it a try.

Matt: My story is somewhat similar. My father has lived most of his life with far too many health problems, including diabetes & heart disease. Most of his health problems have been attributed to his obesity. With the help of Gastric Bypass surgery, he dropped from 350 pounds to 185 pounds. I’m very proud to say he has maintained that weight ever since.

At 26 years old and 265 pounds, I knew I was headed in the same direction. I didn’t want to deal with such problems and began some research on the Internet to help me track my calories and lose some weight. I happened to chance upon SparkPeople.com and actually thought it must be a scam because (at the time) they were only charging $9.95 a year for this incredible program /advice. I decided to give it a try, figuring the worst case scenario would be that I lose $10. Little did I know what SparkPeople.com would do for our lives!

Sparkpeople.com? It’s completely free now, isn’t it? I remember showcasing it in one of my earlier articles, 11 Goal Setting Software & Tools that You Can Use for Free! What are some of its features that you’ve used and can you tell us how they’ve helped in your weight loss regime?

Denise: Sparkpeople.com has a lot of features that helped us! Some of the features that I believe were helpful for me are the nutrition tracker, fitness tracker and message boards.

The nutrition tracker really opens your eyes when you are tracking your food. You find yourself being more aware of what you are actually eating. It makes you realize that all that time you were thinking you were eating well, you may not have been because you were underestimating what you were actually eating.

When you sign up and set up your goals, the program tells you how much you should be eating calorie wise and how much you should be burning. With the fitness tracker you can see what calories you are burning and have a log of all the exercises and activities that you’ve actually done, which kept me motivated to see the amount of calories I was burning each day doing various things.

The message boards were a great place for weight loss motivation and support overall! While I had Matt on the same program, it was always nice to talk to others on the site who were going through the same process. I would talk to many people, giving and receiving support at the same time.

Matt : Denise said it all.

Wow, Sparkpeople.com sounds like one place I must really check out in detail! So, what kind of changes did you make to your lifestyle? You know, other than all the tracking you’ve done using the free tools?

Denise: I am much more active! I don’t necessarily count calories all the time, but I am aware of what I’m eating. I keep my portions under control and still allow a treat once in a while. I do like to track my calories from time to time, just to keep myself in check. I’ve learned what being healthy really means.

Matt: Well, the biggest change was in the type of food I eat, and how much. I still enjoy a “treat” now and then, but it’s definitely in moderation. We certainly don’t eat out at restaurants as often. But my favorite change has been in my activities. I used to exercise a little, but since then I’ve got really interested in fitness and exercising. Now I want to be as active as possible and will do anything I can to go on a mountain bike ride, play softball, hike, run, or just about any sport/game you can think of.

Continue reading this weight loss motivation series at How This Couple Achieved Their Weight Loss Goals in 9 Months! (Cont’d)

• Get Your Free Subscriber Downloads Here!


• Subscribe Free Career, Business & Trade Magazines For Your Career & Economic Goals