Calvert Giving Fund
News 8 Austin
May 15, 2007
Paying the price to find the perfect job
By Ivanhoe Broadcast News
You may dream of pursuing your passion professionally, but are you ready to pay the price?
When Lisa Hall left her lucrative job at a Fortune-500 company to work for the Calvert Foundation, a non-profit organization that helps create jobs and housing for the underprivileged, she took a 50-percent pay cut and lost her personal assistant, benefits, vacation time, and stock options.
"My compensation was very good, and it was hard to walk away from those things," Hall said. "But at the end of the day, I'm doing work here that I love. I also have the opportunity to have a meaningful impact on other people's lives, which I wasn't getting in my prior job."
Lisa Yee's decision to leave Magic Pencil Studios, a successful creative services company she built with her husband, meant more coupon clipping and a lot less eating out.
"When I was a child, my dream was always to be an author," Yee said. "Writing a book was always my dream, and I felt the timing was right."
Yee's passion for writing paid off when her manuscripts were picked up by Arthur Levine, the same editor who discovered J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling "Harry Potter" series. In fact, her first book sold over 250,000 copies.
Though both women say they are happy and fulfilled, they have a few words of advice for women who wish to follow in their footsteps.
"When my husband and I realized we were headed towards a midlife crisis, we started saving money, and we had enough that we knew we could get by for a year without having to worry, so that was kind of our little cushion," Yee said.
Hall agrees women need to take a look at their budget to figure out how their new compensation package will cover their current expenses.
What's important to about your current way of life? Clothes? Having your own office? Taking expensive vacations? If you decide to pursue your passion, you may have to make some tradeoffs. For instance, when Hall took her job at the non-profit organization, she had to work in a cubicle instead of an office. She and her family were still able to take vacations, but they did so on a much smaller scale.
"It was a trade-off in terms of not staying at a fancy luxury hotel and having to cook dinner at the condo instead of going out to a restaurant every night," Hall said. "That's an example of something we do a little different now because I moved to a job that has a lower salary."
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