“I was feeling very alone and irritable.”

What work were you doing previously?    

My joke is that I was sitting in misery for 40 hours a week!

I was working in admissions at a film school in New York City. 

What are you doing now?  

Now I'm the director of a synagogue in Philadelphia, so my career change has also meant a geographic change. 

I run the synagogue administratively. 

How did you feel in your work before you decided to make the change?    

Not great.

I’d been in that job for five years and it had been a weird roller coaster of dealing with absolutely terrible, toxic issues, to thinking ‘well, this isn't that bad. I can work remotely, they pay me enough, and a job change would take time and energy I don't have right now so I can stick it out.’ 

But then you'd hit a bad day and it'd be 'let me immediately apply for 30 jobs today because I'm miserable'.

How did you choose your new career?    

My husband isn’t Jewish and I lived in the US Midwest for a while where there are very few non-Christian folks.

So being Jewish in a way that’s accessible to non-Jews has always kind of been a part of who I am. I'd host a bunch of interfaith events for friends and family throughout the year .

During the Career Change Launch Pad course I took part in, I was doing a brainstorming exercise with another course member who suggested going into religion on the administrative side of things. I wondered if that could be an interesting thing for me to do and look into.

Are you happy with the change?

Yes, the job really checks all my boxes. 

I was really surprised to find something that checked all the boxes.

In busy periods it can feel crazy but it's also really energising, and I love that.    

How did you go about making the shift?    

Once I’d decided to explore the idea of administration for a religious institution, most of my exploration took the form of informational interviews.

I began asking progressively bolder questions about the practical realities of career progression, earning potential etc.

After I finished the Launch Pad we were in the run up to High Holy Days at a time where events in the Middle East were volatile, so I was looking at how I could make a difference, be a force of good.

I wasn’t thinking about it as a strategic career change move, it really was simply that I wanted to help bring some peace within my community at a difficult time. 

I was leading a lot of facilitated conversations. That was a skill that I knew I had – being able to bring people of differing views together, put them in conversation and come out with maybe not agreeing but at least not hating each other.

So I organized a bunch of these through the synagogue that I belonged to, bringing in personal friend groups and family members.

Afterwards I thought ‘oh, I can do this, I can do this on the hard stuff, so this is a part of a potential job that I know I can do’.

My husband and I had been talking about moving out to a smaller US city for a while, so when I felt ready to properly start the job search I applied to a few things in New York but also applied to jobs in other cities we'd been talking about.

I had three interviews for the job I have now, and in four different ways I was asked “what's your feeling on Israel/Palestine?”, or “How are you going to handle Israel/Palestine? This is a congregation that has many different viewpoints on it, what are you going to do about that?”.

So I was able to draw on some of those prior facilitated conversations: “This is how I've had those kind of conversations, it's our job to create a safe place for people in the community to have those conversations.”

How did you handle your finances to make your shift possible?    

I was fortunate enough in my previous position of having fairly safe job security, so I knew I had some leniency to take some risks and try things without completely putting myself in jeopardy.

I can be shameless sometimes and in a lot of my informational interviews I asked “Realistically, can this support the life I want to have? And how could a potential job lead in the future to work that's not just sustainable but also prosperous?".

I learnt that yes, it was possible, and there was a bit of a game plan that needed to happen. I'm not ready to be the director of a major synagogue and earn the higher salary that would come with that responsibility, but I'm ready to start small and work my way up.

A job in a cheaper city meant that the lower salary would be sustainable in terms of living costs.

What was the most difficult thing about changing?

The hardest part was before joining the Launch Pad.

Feeling very alone, feeling irritable, the “how bad is it?” question that I was asking myself on a daily basis. Is this so bad that I need to uproot myself for a big shift, or is it okay enough and affords me the life I want outside of work to be ok?

Then a hang up I had during the actual shift process was that I’d spent a lot of time in my life really knowing who I am, so identifying what I like and what I’m good at came relatively easy. 

But the question of finding something I’d enjoy, could do well, and would get paid sustainably for was challenging to me.

I had a moment of thinking 'there's nothing that I want to do that’s sustainable. It's great I have hobbies and things that give me energy, but that's not a job’.

What help did you get?    

The Launch Pad helped with giving me a community of people in the same boat.

So it stopped feeling like it was just me alone on my little island watching everyone else I love being happy and wondering 'why is this not me?'. 

I partnered with another course member and we'd been meeting monthly since the course ended, which was a wonderful accountability check in with someone else who gets it. 

It’s been this really nice feeling of security of not being alone, and giving a bit of confidence.

What have you learnt in the process?

I’ve learnt to let go of the idea of 'this is the step by step recipe to success in life'.

I'm less compartmentalised and less regimented in terms of my life. Letting myself be okay in living in the messy.    

You can mix and match and trust that something good will come out of it. 

What would you advise others to do in the same situation? 

Trust yourself and trust your instincts.

You are worth the happiness you say that you want!

Daniel took part in our Career Change Launch Pad. If you're ready to join a group of bright, motivated career changers on a structured programme to help you find more fulfilling work, you can find out more here.

What lessons could you take from Daniel's story to use in your own career change? Let us know in the comments below.