Man breaks out of career slump by accessing buried trove of resources and rediscovers his groove
Brian, a 32 y.o. single salesman, came to my office, complaining of sadness, lack of motivation/ drive and feeling of unworthiness mainly due to his dissatisfaction with his job as an insurance salesman and lack of career direction. “I feel ashamed of myself … not man enough.” Brian added that he was in a committed relationship with a mature woman who was settled in a career as a physical therapist and despite his love for this woman didn’t feel prepared stable enough emotionally or financially to ask his girlfriend to marry him. After making inquiries about Brian’s education and interests, he shared his passion for baseball and more specifically that he played center field in college. Brian also disclosed that he had obtained a Master’s degree in student life services and had had an interest in becoming a Division 1 Collegiate Baseball manager or athletic director in a college.
However, upon completing his Master’s degree and applying to multiple job openings in college athletic departments, Brian became discouraged by the lack of responses to his applications. After approximately 5 months of “whiffing” Brian decided to get into insurance sales, a career in which his father had prospered, because he needed money and it was another way to provide people tools to succeed. Initially, Brian was enthusiastic, having passed the requisite exams, and was enjoying meeting with small business owners, which were his target market. However, after 6 months of rejection of all kinds from customers and pressures from management to meet sales goals, Brian entered counseling seeking to take care his own needs.
Persevering was identified as an essential factor in the establishment of any successful endeavor and when asked in which areas of his life Brian had persisted.
He identified baseball which he played for twenty years. We then identified some of the resources he had tapped into in order to overcome hitting slumps in his baseball career to which he described the following: reviewing his hitting mechanics with a coach, taking extra hitting for 20 minutes daily, swinging a bat at home 100 times a day while “seeing” the bat strike the ball and taking a deep breath before each swing, empowering himself by imagining his bat striking the ball while in the dugout and on deck circle and bringing the same swing into the batter’s box.
Brian retraced the reasons he decided to get his master’s degree and attempt to get a job in an athletic department and soon realized that he was “in the right ballpark” but had the wrong approach to getting on base, e.g., rather than attempting to hit a single he was trying to hit the ball out of the park by getting his first coaching job in a college setting or land an assistant athletic director’s position. Therefore, we adjusted Brian’s expectations and encouraged him to “expand his strike zone” by seeking a job in any athletic department working with student athletes and/or a baseball coaching job even at no pay at any level.
Having expanded his hitting area, Brian was then encouraged to regain home advantage or channel his social skills to a friendlier audience via networking with the teammates, coaches and teachers he had come in contact with over his entire academic career.
It was also recommended that Brian apply for any advertised positions in this more expanded arena. Brian had a teammate who was working as a student life counselor for a local college which Brian applied for and was able to secure within 3 months after beginning his counseling sessions.
Brian also scored a non-paid hitting instructor position for his alma mater’s baseball team.
Brian happily gave notice to his boss at the insurance company and moved onto to greener pastures.
Brian was now prepared to work through any adversity for the next year to not only position himself for his next wrung on the college ladder but also to put on ring on his girlfriend’s hand.