InnerChange Story
The seeds of InnerChange were sown back in 2003 when I was just retrenched from my last full-time corporate job while already in a prolonged “midlife crisis”. I knew what I did not want to do but had no idea what I wanted to do. In that state of mind, the outplacement service that I was offered to soften the blow of retrenchment was not much help to me either. The service was mostly designed to provide comfort and help me find another job inline with my skills and past positions (in the software industry). The program was glaringly inadequate to help me find out what new directions I could be looking at. It assumed who I was–based on my past– and tried to pigeonhole me into another job so I could meet my future financial and other commitments as a “good consumer” should do. It was so blind to my present situation even to seriously ask the question what state I was in and where I might want to head. When I took the initiative to express my feelings about not wanting to go back to a similar line of work, they were so ill-equipped to deal with someone like me that I ended up giving it a miss after a few sessions.
Photo: Hamid reading Rumi under the night sky – outside Alice Springs June 2015
I am not trying to belittle or blame the outplacement agency at all; in fact the consultant allocated to work with me was such a kind and experienced person. It’s just that most such agencies are moulded by the dominant work culture. They mostly function like a Human Resource Recycling factory whose function is to refurbish the “resources” and pump them back into the system, … ignoring the “human“!
I had just had enough of the rat race and didn’t want to go back into the game. So I thought if there is nothing immediately out there to help people like me, why can’t I start one myself; to learn and to help. I was longing for a major change and felt that my compass for this new direction was inside me, yes inside and no longer influenced by voices outside. And that’s how the idea of InnerChange started to take shape.
After exploring the idea with my friend Torrey Orton; who was an experienced psychologist, executive coach and organisational change manager; we decided to partner and offer new services for people to find their vocation or calling in relation to work. InnerChange Pty Ltd was founded in early 2006. Since then it has grown organically as we tried helping our clients while being shaped by their needs and personal transformations as well as ours. I am indebted to Torrey for his immense help and support during the first few years.
After that seemingly naive and shaky start many years ago; along with my journey of personal transformation, InnerChange has also transformed throughout the years to become what it is now. I am now doing what I really love doing and cherish every moment of it.
I now fully absorb and appreciate Rumi’s saying:
Let yourself be silently drawn
by the strange pull of what you really love.
It will not lead you astray. ~Rumi