Income verses development?
Nick Hindley
Learning and Development Consultant at Nick Hindley Learning and Development Consultancy
Reflecting on my career decisions "development verses income" development has always outweighed a bigger salary? For me this is a normal thing and over the years my wife has become accustomed to me taking sometimes swinging cuts in our income so I can gain new experiences and skills (possibly the best definition of true love?).
My chart does not represent the number of employments but the number of roles I have had over the years, some roles with the same employer.
The first big challenge and test of my intentions was the decision to give up a highly lucrative sales role to enter the world of L&D! I have never had a doubts about this decision.
My decision to leave my employment of 24 years to become self-employed saw an initial period where the income generating roles in our household reversed for a couple of years as I became established. This was a great development for me as a man to be relaxed about not being the "bread winner" as was the expectation of my parents’ generation.
This was possibly my most exciting and growth filled period of development, not only the range of client companies I worked with; fisheries protection, banking, Tech, Pharma, education et al but also the fantastic L&D companies I worked for as an associate. They were all great role models as people, practitioners and businesses. Added to that my continuous research quest for my Ed D. I still feel sorry for my supervisor as I continued to find new areas of research.
Amongst the excitement of assignments, I found I missed the continuity of contact, especially with managers within an organisation. If an army marches on its stomach, an organisation functions through its managers. After several years of good money from consultancy my wife had yet another shock as I returned to a permanent role at 50% of my last year’s earnings!
In more recent times happily my yearning for new challenges has, sometimes, coincided with higher salaries but my primary directive to develop and grow remains the focus and inspiration for my professional journey.