Career-Change Therapy

I've been thinking a lot lately about my previous career and how happy I am to have made the decision to leave it behind. I was very dissatisfied and unfulfulled in the Movie/Television production business in L.A. where I was an Assistant Director. As I look back on that - and my decision to leave it - it was kind of like "Career-Change Therapy."

I credit my decision to leave to my therapist at the time. He was the first person to encourage me to take a look at the possiblity that I didn't have to do what I was doing. I remember it took a while to wrap my brain around taking myself off my movie career track which I'd been on since being a Film Major in college but the truth is, emotionally, physically and spiritually - I didn't have a choice. I was done. I still remember wrapping the Spielberg movie, "A.I." and packing my car to drive out of L.A. as fast as I could. That was around ten years ago.

With a psychiatrist for a father and a number of wonderful therapists as influences along the way - becoming a therapist myself became a no-brainer. The irony was, when I did the movie work, I enjoyed talking to the actors and crew about how they were feeling more than I liked my real job which was very managerial and logistics based. For those that don't know what Assistant Directors do - they essentially run the circus that is a film set. We put out the shooting schedules, did our best to maintain them, told people what to do and to be quiet (I hated that) when the cameras were rolling, handled the actors, the extras and walked a line between satisfying the crew who were exhausted and the producers who wanted us to get the damn day done. It was pretty wild but I have no regrets. I'm just happy I do what I do now.

So yes, I'm a big supporter of "Career-Change Therapy." I highly recommend it.