WAVE: James Bianco Careers Coach

My name is James Bianco and I’m a careers coach, let me explain a little about what I do. Firstly, read the following, does it sound like you?

“Well, the thing is, I am really unhappy at work”

“I hate my job – but I’ve no idea what I’d do – or how I’ll make ends meet”

“I feel so unfulfilled at work – the longer I sit at a computer screen it feels like another part of my soul dies”

If so then maybe I can help. I never set out to be a careers coach – and if you ask me what I do – I’d say I’m a “coach”. But when I set up my practice two years ago, I was not expecting so many of my clients to want to focus on changing their careers. The irony is that becoming a coach had been part of my solution to a career that I found wholly unfulfilling. 

I had what was on paper a great job, working in International Development, lots of travel to exotic places, had got promoted quickly, was well liked at work and had lovely colleagues. But the truth of the matter was I was uninspired and was working in a technical role reading too many complex papers and looking and looking at spreadsheets – I was desperately bored and felt like I was frittering my life away. 

Career change is like swimming, you can’t learn it from reading a book

The thing was I didn’t feel like I could up and leave – I didn’t know what I wanted to do, I was the main breadwinner and had a young family and my parents (especially my father – bless him) thought stability was the way to go. I was firmly stuck in my head with the same thought going round and round and no solution presenting itself. I had started to get really down and this was bleeding into my life outside work too. 

It was one night sitting on the sofa with my wife – where she turned to me and said my mantra had become “I’m uninteresting and uninterested” that I knew I had to get off my bum, stop trying to figure out what to do by myself and make a change. 

I turned to Ted Talks and watched way too many, I turned to career books and they made very little difference. I eventually plucked up the courage to turn to a friend who is a coach and talked with her. She reminded me of a quote by Henry Mentzinger and I’m mashing this up to suit my purposes: “Career change is like swimming: you can’t learn it from reading a book”. She was right, I had to get out of my head and into action. 

This formed the basis of my career change, and now, the basis of my career coaching for my clients. Step one is start doing something new – start seeing the world in a different way. Natasha Stanley from Career Shifters, always says: “You can’t be what you can’t see” and I believe this wholeheartedly. Sometimes when you’ve been doing the same job for a while, had the same group of friends for a long time you can’t see new options as your inputs have been the same for way too long! 

So, if you’re feeling stuck with your career, I’d ask you, how could you try something new (and I’m talking about having some fun here)? If you struggle to come up with an answer meetup.com can be useful a useful starting point as well as “do something different”, a great app produced by a wonderful Brighton based company. 

But I’d also recommend reaching out. Your career makes up such a significant part of your life that it shouldn’t be ignored – especially if it’s making you miserable. The more people working in areas that excite them, in jobs aligned to who they are, will make the world a better place. 

So what happened to my career – well I now have a portfolio career – working in London a few days a week, have my own successful coaching practice and barely a week goes by where I’m not asked to get involved with a new and exciting company. 

James Bianco runs 16 Degrees Coaching, for more information visit: www.16degreescoaching.co.uk