I was born into a third-generation mining family. My role models weren't business owners; my dad has had the same job since he was 17. To this day, my mother has never driven a car. She was a 100% stay-at-home mom. But she was very motivational. She told us we could be anything, which was great.

Mining towns are very sporting orientated, very male oriented. Nearly every guy got a job in the mines and nearly every girl got married. I was different; I was artistic. I wanted a challenge, and high school wasn't challenging. It was horrible and I hated every minute of it. I spent a lot of time writing music and drawing. That was my outlet.

My father let me pick one subject at school and he picked the rest. He picked Maths 1, Maths 2, Physics, and Chemistry … I picked Art. I graduated school with a pretty good score, enough to get in to university and study Law. My dad was horrified when I said I was going to study Art. He said art was a hobby, not a business.

College felt like high school: not much of a challenge. So I decided to do a minor in marketing on top of my major in visual art. I graduated early, when I was 19, and moved to Australia's Gold Coast for my first job at a marketing agency.

I figured out pretty quickly that it wasn't my scene—all egos and pool tables. I loved the work, though, so I decided to go out on my own and pick clients that I believed in. I was never one of those marketers who can sell ice to Eskimos. I can't do marketing for things I'm not passionate about.

I grew my agency, Mitara, to be one of the leading marketing agencies in Australia. At the same time I kept writing music and then got signed to a record label. I got married. I was doing songwriting tours, four to seven weeks at a time. I released my own album when I was 24, and two of the songs reached #2 on the Indie charts in Australia. I toured Japan with my band. I got divorced. I met Florian in London; six months later he was living in Australia with me. Six months after that I was pregnant.

I had my eldest daughter and went back to work less than one month later, while working from my laptop in between. My agency was turning over more than a million dollars a year, but I was stuck in more ways than one: I was tied to it all the time because all my clients wanted to deal directly with me, so I couldn't scale it.

I had our second daughter. I discovered sweat equity, and took equity in a food company even though I didn't know anything about food. I grew it to a 10-million-dollar turnover in two years, then realized I wouldn't enjoy the things I'd need to do to stay with it through the next phase of growth. I took equity in an indie haircare company.

By the time this book is published, I'll be doing something new. I think we can count on that.

WORK AS A JOURNEY, NOT A LADDER

My stepdad told me: “Your instability is going to look really bad on your resume.” I've never had a resume one day in my entire life! If it takes me three years to solve this problem and then I solve the next one in two years, that's not resume instability. That's efficiency!

—Jeff Hoffman

“Job security,” “career stability,” “corporate ladder” … these terms have a lot less weight than they used to, especially in a world that no longer honors a 40-year career.

I hear business owners talking up the fact that their retention rate on their staff is great—well, is high retention necessarily a good thing? The average attention span isn't good these days. I'd rather align with people's attention spans and energy levels. If I know somebody is going to get bored after two years, fine. If I can have them for those two years, that's great.

Why pigeonhole people into one career? This mindset starts at school. When I grow up I'm going to be a fireman. We need a shift away from that old conversation, and it starts with our kids!

Take my two girls. When my youngest was in preschool, they made all the kids write what they were going to be when they grew up on a sign and hold it up. She came home protesting, “Mom, I had to pick just one. Why?”

My older daughter was the opposite. She was like, “Mom, my sister keeps changing her mind. One week she wants to be a doctor, the next week she wants to be an artist, then she wants to own businesses.” I said, “Does she keep changing her mind, or does she want to do all of those things?”

The youngest said she wanted to do all of them. “Great,” I said, “that's your first three careers. I wonder what else you'll do.”

When people ask you what do you do, how do you want to answer?

Think about this for a minute. What would you like to say? This isn't necessarily what you currently say, but what would your dream answer be? And if it's not what you're doing right now, how can you get there?

I'm an entrepreneur. I could never call myself that when people asked, not until I achieved my definition of what a true entrepreneur is. Mine is to build a profitable business and sell it. Your definition may be different. The thing about the word entrepreneur is that it covers a lot; it doesn't put me in a box or say that I can only do one thing. So it suits me in that way.

Your answer to the question “what do you do?” can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be. It might not be one job title, or even a job that exists. You might want to create something for yourself. Whatever it is, own it.

The chapters of your career are like the chapters of your life. What you liked in your twenties you might not like in your thirties. What you liked in your thirties might not appeal to you in your forties. So why do we expect one career to see us through? If you're going to stay committed to a career it needs to evolve with you, or you need to evolve out of it. Either way, give yourself permission to evolve.

CHOOSING YOUR OWN ADVENTURE

I get bored easily and I like learning. No surprise there. So I'll tell you a career secret of mine: I don't actually choose my next career move based on my past experience. I base it on my mentor's approach: life design. Define what you're passionate about right now, go research it as someone outside the industry, define the problem, find a solution, and go about fixing it.

Let's take building startups as an example. I love growing small businesses, so I went in search of a channel for that. I tried venture capital (which is the obvious way to do it) and thought oh my God, this is so compliant. This is so not my thing. Then I found sweat equity and it suited my style much better.

My first sweat equity project was a prepared-meals company. I'd never worked in the food industry before. But I think it's really good to go into an industry that you don't know anything about, because you've got an outside point of view. You don't know what you don't know; you just set it up to be a really good business as opposed to what's standard in the industry. I didn't know anything about food but I was ready to just figure it out.

I went to get a mentor, which is always the first thing I do when I need to find out about something new. They said that becoming a successful food manufacturer takes 10 years, and it's often something that carries on through generations of families. It requires a lot of trial and error and a lot of time. They told me a bit about it and I knew I wasn't interested (they lost me at “10 years”!)—but I owned a food company. So I thought, great, what's another way I can do it? I decided to shut down our kitchen and partner with a manufacturer to create the food, while I focused on the marketing.

Manufacturing wasn't the thing that excited me, so instead I created a sales and marketing business that was committed to people's wellness, operating within the food industry.

The other thing that didn't excite me was the margins. Food manufacturing typically returns about 5–10%; I'd come from a service-based industry where I was used to 30% margins.

And I decided that I wanted to scale a business to a stage where it was turning over 10 million dollars, which I hadn't been able to do with my marketing business.

So I had this list of key things that I wanted the business to achieve for me: 25% returns, turnover above 10 million dollars, me dealing with marketing rather than the food itself. I shaped the business to fit that mold and achieve those things; I didn't worry about the industry norms. That meant unwinding a lot of things that were in place because they were the “normal” way of doing things. I didn't care about “normal”: instead, I asked, Is this the best way to do this?

If you can see a better way of doing things—for yourself or for the place you work—don't worry if it hasn't been done that way before. People follow the same old traditional pathways and wonder why they don't get different outcomes. If you want to see different results, you have to change the way you do things. So don't be afraid to start with your own career.

Most of us pick an industry or a career path based on our previous experience or interest, then try to find a role within that industry that works for us. Try it the other way around! Think about the skills you have and the way you like to work, and see if you can match that to an industry or role that will allow you to operate that way.

It's exactly the same if you're thinking of buying or starting a business. Instead of coming up with an idea and then trying to make it work, why don't you go out and research the market? Find out what the gaps are, find out what's trending, then go out and find a business that you can shape to fit that. You've got a much better chance of success that way.

Passion is important. If you get bored with what you're doing, you won't do it well. But often we focus too much on the industry or the job title and not enough on the type of work or daily activities we'll be doing. I'm just as happy marketing a food business (which I knew nothing about) as any other type of business, because I love the creative side of marketing and strategy and I'm passionate about wellness and not cooking. Once the food business grew big enough that I was tied to my desk as the CEO, I was suddenly ready to move on, because I personally need freedom and flexibility much more than I need that title. The idea of heading up a multimillion-dollar business sounds really good, but it doesn't actually make me happy.

We've all heard that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. That might be true, but reinventing your career does not mean you have to start over again from zero. I really like the way my mentor, Jeff Hoffman, talks about how easy it can be to train in something new and switch careers: As you go through your career, you create a toolbox of skills. When you want to change tracks, you can pick up your toolbox and take it to another job site.

Most businesses and industries have similar challenges: They're just dressed up as different products and services. Valuable skills—such as managing people, holding a role on a board, setting KPIs, and doing strategy, sales, and marketing—can be taken anywhere. Should you want to redesign your life, take your toolbox and go learn about a new industry. You won't be going in empty-handed.

People think that it might take them three or four years to transition into a new industry. I've found that I'm able to do it in a lot less time, because I take my toolbox and then all I have to do is learn about that sector. More importantly, I'm looking at the industry from the outside, not having a long history of working in it, and that's why I usually think of different ways to do things. Without the baggage of “We've always done it this way,” I'll think of different ways to approach the problems that I want to solve in that sector.

So when you want to change things up and look at a new career, don't think of it as starting again. Yes, you'll need to get yourself across a new industry, learn about trends, competitors, and everything else, but you already start miles ahead when you turn up with your already-refined skills.

No more excuses for saying, “I studied X in college, therefore I will be in that industry or role for the rest of my career.” If that role doesn't excite you anymore, doesn't fit your current stage in life and tick your requirements, then reinvest in your career. Redesign your life. I do it every seven years as my passions and interests change, and I want my business to provide me different things.

It doesn't matter what you've done before: Right now, where do your skills fit best? Which industry or role is going to give you what you want out of work? Pick something that needs what you have, and change the rules of the game to suit the way you want to play.

DEFINING YOUR SUCCESS—AND GETTING IT

Once you've picked your career (for now), you get to decide what success in that career space looks like for you. Don't just assume that all the normal markers of success (like a bigger paycheck, bigger office or better title) are going to work for you. Climbing the corporate ladder is one definition of success, but is it the definition of happiness?

As much as CEO means big money and a great title, it was not me, not my way. I still want to make big money, but I know now that being an in-office CEO isn't how I'll do it. Being the CEO means you have to be in the office nine to five, babysit everything, be accountable, do compliance and reporting, and all the things I hate. In professional jobs, the big corner office is the dream. But that's not my definition of success.

My definition of success includes a lot of flexibility—deal making, co-labs, empowering teams (not managing them), problem solving, creative communities and brands, redefining the client experience, and of course making profitable businesses that impact lives.

Don't be held back by what's “normal.” I was getting botox last week and I started talking to the lady doing it; she asked me what I do. I never really know how to answer that so I told her about all my businesses and my whole approach of being flexible. She made the throwaway comment, “Oh that's not an option for me, because I'm a clinician.”

I challenged her on it. I said, “If you're really valuable to this company I bet you'd be granted some flexibility. I don't have the time to park my car here and sit in the waiting room. It annoys me. I don't even want to be seen walking into these places! So you could figure out a way to come to me, or better yet, let me come to your house. Give me a glass of champagne, do four of us at once, all entrepreneurs. You could take the idea to your boss and tell them you've got a new business concept and you'd like their support! See what they say.”

Don't trap yourself into thinking that you need to do a whole lot of study or start all over again if you want a more satisfying career. Come back to what you love and what activities you want to do every day. Maybe you can stay in the same industry but do a different role, or have the same role in a different business. I figured out that I love growing startups to a certain size, so when I get to a stage where “my work here is done” and it needs someone else to serve it, I can go back and start again with another one.

Lots of people quit their jobs and join small businesses because they don't want to be stuck in corporate; let me tell you, small business owners love people like you! We get to pick up somebody who's got amazing experience but just wants to join a small team and have a sea change. A friend of mine just employed a funds administrator who was previously managing 750 funds at once, and now he manages five. The company gets the benefit of his experience and he gets to pick up his kids from school every day. For him, that's success.

If you're completely overwhelmed by the idea of redefining your role or changing careers, I get it. A lot of people stay in jobs they hate because they feel like it's too big a risk to try and change. Maybe you've got kids you need to support. If you've got a partner, talk to them about it. There's a huge chance you can take turns supporting each other.

If your partner isn't supportive or if you're on your own, think about the amount of change you could manage, even if it's tiny. Remember the rings of change? Just try making a change that's within 10% of your current normal. Then see how far you can push it.

If you want to make effective changes and get to your version of success, you need to surround yourself with people who can get you there. Even if you have a partner who's backing you, and especially if you don't.

When I met my business partner in Gutsii (another wellness brand!), she was reinventing her life. Although she was recently divorced, she wasn't a victim; she made it her choice to walk away from a partner and a business. She was confident in her ability and skill set. Plus she had an amazing idea that was on-trend.

Now that we're business partners, she's traveled with me to America a couple of times, where we blended my close friends and high-level business network, and from that we've formed an amazing friendship. Oh, and did I mention she's moved to LA? What a wonderful life design, and none of that was on a vision board.

What she was great at doing was defining her values and aligning to a business partner with the same ethics and passions. She's open to learning and drawing herself big-ass circles, and signed up to enjoy the journey.

People say you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. So pick your five carefully. Find people who'll encourage you and expand your thinking. Find your tribe.

CREATING YOUR VOCATION

I say “creating” your vocation rather than “finding” it, because you might create something for yourself that isn't already an existing role or conventional career path. Finding implies that there's a perfect career out there, and once you find it, it'll fit forever. I'm sure you know by now that I don't believe in that because your priorities will change and your career will have to evolve to keep up.

So I talk about creating your vocation: It's a process that's always evolving.

This evolution is always about figuring out your next move. To pick your next move, based on where you are now, ask yourself some questions:

• What do I enjoy?
• What are my priorities?
• How do I want to spend my time?
• What does the ideal work environment look like for me?

If your current position doesn't match up with your ideal, choose to focus your energy on not complaining about the situation. Look at the list of ideals you've made, and look for solutions to make it happen.

Ask your trusted friends for feedback. Ask your network about opportunities. Keep an open mind and be prepared to do something you'd never considered before. If it fits your skills and serves your priorities, it might be the perfect fit.

Before you make a big move, check in and make sure that it suits your values. Does it align with the things that are most important to you? Does it allow you to be the person that you want to be? Does it give you a good gut feeling?

If you understand your value set and what fills up your soul, you'll know what's right for you. If your job doesn't involve a little bit of something that fills up your soul every day, you've got a disconnect. Go back to Chapter 8 and check in with your pie. You'll know what to do.