Amy Chan, 42, always thought she would work in marketing. And she spent the first 10 years of her career building herself in that industry. But her passions lay elsewhere.
Chan began sharing her romantic experiences publicly when she posted about a breakup on Myspace at age 25. And the post resonated: “So many people contacted me,” she says. This was 2007 – people weren’t yet sharing the most intimate details of their lives on the Internet.
Chan continued to write about relationships for her local newspaper, for her own blog and for national publications like the Huffington Post, while continuing to work in marketing during the day. Along the way, “I came up with the idea for Breakup Boot Camp,” she says, a place where people who have just gone through a breakup can find comfort and refuge together.
“I kept wondering what happens to people who don’t have friends to lend them a couch to sleep on?” or “who don’t know what books to read?” she says.
Although she wrote down the vision for the breakup boot camp in 2015, “I was too scared” to implement it right away, she says. “So I just kept it to myself and talked about it for a long time.” But in hindsight, that was probably a mistake. There was no real reason not to implement it.
That’s why her best advice for turning your passion into a career is: “Whatever it is,” she says, “just start it.”
“The way the mind works is to show you all the reasons why you’re not ready,” she says. But you have to overcome those negative thoughts.
At some point, Chan realized: “If I don’t do it now, I won’t do it,” she says.
If what you want to do seems too daunting to tackle all at once, instead of looking at the project as a whole, break it down into individual steps, she suggests.
“Just like a writer,” she says. “You don’t think about the 500 pages. You think about the first 50 words and then the next page.” If you’re considering a career change, that might mean reading an article about how to get into that career or contacting someone who works in that field for an informational interview. If you’re starting a new business, this might mean creating the first social media account for your project and starting to build an audience.
You can also find a partner to keep you on track or put down a deposit for that first step. Both of these things ultimately helped Chan move forward: She found a psychologist to help her organize the boot camp and booked the spot.
Finally, she started the first separation boot camp in February 2017. It was a three-day, two-night stay on private property in upstate New York, including yoga and sessions with Chan and the psychologist.
At the end of the weekend, Chan looked around and thought, “I fucking did it,” she says.
It started small – “there were only seven people,” she says, “and two of them were from the media. And two were friends.” But it gave her the courage and motivation to continue the boot camps. Now she organizes a few every year.
Your idea won’t necessarily turn out the way you imagined, and you don’t have to implement all the components at once. But by trying things out, you can gain some initial experience and figure out how to proceed.
With the help of features in publications like Fortune and The Cut, Chan eventually caught the attention of a major talent agency. They offered her a possible career as a breakup coach, and in August 2017, she finally quit her job in marketing to pursue her relationship-focused career full-time. Her first book deal was six figures.
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