PASSION FOR
CHANGE
By Meredith Grenier
STAFF WRITER, The Daily Breeze Imagine working 60 hours a week and providing
daily fodder for a boss who dines on junior executives.
Or drowning in a 9-to-5 forever of dead-end drudgery and boredom.
Then suddenly a voice says: "Follow your passion. It’s the key to discovering
the special, dynamic person you really are. And here are the tools to parlay this passion
into the career of your dreams."
It may sound like something out of the Wizard of Oz, but that’s just what happened
to 20 participants at a meeting of The Life & Career
Clinic’s 'Power Team' on a recent Sunday morning at the Hermosa Hotel. They are
on a journey to ‘pursue their passion’ that began more than a year ago when they
first met ‘The Voice’, Mary Lyn Miller,
a dynamic Manhattan Beach career consultant and the clinic’s founder.
After 60 seconds with Miller, you feel as though you’ve been jolted awake after a
long sleep. In five more minutes your endorphins have surged exponentially. And by the end
of an hour, you feel as if you can fly.
Her clients say when it comes to motivating people to ‘find their life’s
work,’ she walks on water.
Take Melissa Vardey. A year ago she was a professional pianist and songwriter who had
blocked her musical creativity. Now she’s written a song recorded by Michael Crawford
that is No. I in Australia and has landed a writing contract with Warner Bros.
Christine Nesbitt was "in a coma emotionally" and had an indoor job. Now
she’s investigating ways to pursue her passion for the outdoors, maybe join an
ecological expedition team or the Peace Corps. Tara Joseph finally is following a
dream that she repressed since she was 12 years old. The would-be actress won a role in a
junior college production of 'Jesus Christ Superstar.’
Miller greets the group. "Good morning!" she shouts, wired for sound and
pacing back and forth.
"Good morning!" the group shouts back. As advanced students, they know energy
is part of the drill, despite the 9 a.m. hour.
"Welcome to the power team. Every one of you is involved with your passion. So the
focus of this group is the ongoing expression of your own genius..."
Clearly Miller is pursuing her passion, but her genius has been a longtime "work
in progress," the term she uses to describe the process of "re-inventing
yourself - - building a lifestyle around who you really are."
Her clients run the gamut from students needing advice on college majors, to retirees
seeking second careers.
Arriving in California from Illinois in 1971 with a degree in communications, she
jumped on the corporate fast track, becoming vice president for a financial management
organization until 1975, when her daughter, Brandy, was born. Between then and 1980,
Miller co-owned a feminist bookstore in Manhattan Beach, sold accordion lessons and got
divorced. In 1980 she opened a career consultant business, which was growing nicely when
Miller was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 1986.
"I had to put all my energies into fighting cancer, so I had no intention of
continuing my business. I didn’t know if I was going to live, how I would make any
money, what I should do for work - the most basic things. All my life I had been told to
get it under control, plan it. Now everything had just blown up.
"So I had to let go. But the miracle part of my story came when I concentrated on
my healing, and out of that came this focus on inner self and what I am about."
As a result, 1987 was her best year in business, but she put in only one-tenth of the
energy, because she was focused on "what is right for me."
"Everyone thinks they must have a plan. Just keep the vision and it will carry
you. At the core of every success story is passion," Miller says.
Clients at The Life & Career Clinic choose among a series
of programs. Most include a personal history and career
counseling tests to develop an ‘Essence List’ of natural gifts, talents and
abilities.
Next she evaluates results, examines self-defeating blocks, identifies a new focus and
develops strategies for change. Many clients participate in follow-up support groups.
"I don’t encourage rash moves,’ Miller says, ‘because the minute a
person says, ‘I am going to change my career’ and considers all the
implications, he’ll just go back to bed." She says the changing process is done
in tiny commitments: "This week I will pick up the 1,000 pound phone or do something
good for myself, like meditate or go to lunch with a friend."
Advanced members in Sunday’s power team had already developed their plans, and
most had launched new careers. This was the first of a series of monthly meetings led by
Miller to keep them focused.
Positive energy filled the room, although most participants admitted they felt
everything from ‘kind of nervous’ to ‘terrified’ to be there.
Miller explained this was because their presence meant having to come to grips with their
deepest fears - the very fears that kept them from pursuing their passion all these
years. Fear of responsibility, failure, success, public speaking...fill in the
blank.
"We are most resistant to the things we really are," Miller tells the group.
"When we got in touch with what we are de- signed to do, it is frightening, because
it makes us so vulnerable. The resistance is a sign to keep going. Carry on."
By way of introduction, Miller asks each participant to tell how he or she is feeling
at the moment, what his life/job was like when he began the changing process, in what area
his power and passion lies, and what he wants from the group.
With the unfolding of each story, individuals begin to bond more, offering words of
encouragement, sympathy and plenty of humor.
One young mother says she hopes to gain in deeper knowledge of herself, "I have
the fear of discovering my own power. When I started, I was in several horrible
relationships in my work, within my family and with the man in my life. I was taking care
of everyone but myself. I am the mother of a 2- year-old so - HELP," she said,
throwing up her hands. The class laughed. They understood.
Rita Gazzaniga of Westchester says "It’s about life, not just careers...When
I started, I had a job and money, and I hated my life. I didn’t know what was wrong
and couldn’t figure it out." In the end she left a job in sales, moved into the
counseling arena and overcame stage fright to pursue a career in the entertainment
industry.
Ted Caligiuri, 34, of Hermosa Beach had burned out as a high-paid management
consultant, constantly on the road. He chucked it all and spent a year in Asia before
returning to set up his own consulting firm, which turned out to be neither satisfying nor
financially successful. He found Miller’s number in the phone book, and since then,
he says, "things have really clicked along."
Tests showed he had all the qualities of an entrepreneur. In November 1991, Caligiuri
started thinking about designing a bag that holds 40 pounds of groceries but can be rolled
up into a tiny ball. Four months later he introduced the product, and today he
manufactures a complete line of ecological products in his Gardena factory. Recently he
was featured on CNN and is well on his way to building his own multimillion-dollar
business.
Karen Cheeld was a quiet, gentle person trapped in an extroverted world and unable to
get out. Miller helped her to end both the ill-suited job and a bad relationship, and
today she’s a therapist.
Carrie Perlow was terrified of letting go of her job as a telemarketing executive. She
had to give it up in pieces by moving from full time to part time. Today she is following
her artistic bent, working as an artists’ agent.
Karen Dellosso of Playa Del Rey was selling truck freight. After working with Miller,
she realized she was highly intuitive, which led to classes in biofeedback and
hypnotherapy. Today she has a hypnotherapy practice in Beverly Hills.
Richard Lowman of San Pedro earned up to $200,000 a year selling computer software. But
he found his performance was erratic. "I didn’t understand why, so when my wife
suggested I go to Mary Lyn, it seemed like the perfect answer." That was six months
ago. Today he’s inching toward a newly discovered interest in helping people heal
physically - maybe chiropractic or kinesiology. He doesn’t know at this point, and he
doesn’t care if it takes five years. "Having a direction allows me to be more
free. I understand why sometimes I’m bored. Now it makes sense that I’m always
early to my martial arts class and rarely early to work."
The Daily Breeze
January 24, 1994
Read
More About The L&CC!
[ Passion for Change ] [ Making a Career of Jobs ] [ Baby Boomer Burnout ] [ Celebrating Victory Over Cancer ] [ Chicken Soup for the Surviving Soul ]
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