Breaking the code. Life how you want it to be.

Rusty Gaillard is a transformational coach who works with people who are ready to make a change. Whether it's a career dead end, being bored or unhappy in their chosen path or working too hard, Rusty works with his clients to transform their lives and find work they love.make a change.

Before he was a coach, Rusty spent 13 years at Apple. He was Worldwide Director of Finance when he realised that it wasn’t what he wanted to do for the rest of his working life. He had no aspiration to continue climbing the corporate ladder, didn't want to work for another tech company or foe a consultancy. He felt stuck and that the situation was hopeless. He wanted to do something new and different but didn’t know what it was.

It was a challenging place to be. From the outside things looked really good and in many lots it was but there was something missing. In such a big company is it really possible to make a difference? When you put all your energy into work what will you have to show for it? What is the purpose of what I’m doing? You don’t find it meaningful but how do you find a different path?

Rusty did everything he was meant to do. He checked all the boxes and became defined by his job but his heart wasn’t in it. He didn’t feel he had got what he was meant to have got. He became less passionate about his job and less motivated.  He did what he needed to do and became responsive rather than proactive and didn’t have the drive to move things forward. So what was the first step he took to change his life around?

Rusty thinks that we all work towards a code, a pattern or belief system that we follow in life which can be very difficult to change. In Rusty’s case his code was to work for a big corporation, be a good employee with a stable job, and to be in a successful marriage with children. He needed to break this code before he could change his career path. It was during this time that Rusty got divorced and this external change was how he broke the code he was working towards. The divorce affected his self-confidence and self-image but coming through it broke the pattern and belief system and gave him the ability and confidence to move forward.

Without a big issue like divorce it is still possible to break the code. We need to find something we really want to do, something that we’re willing to stretch to get it. We need to acknowledge the way we think about the world. Our code is how we see ourselves and we need to deliberately step outside the code to get what we would really like in life - what is meaningful or what life we want to create for ourselves. If we create a picture beyond our current code it becomes the motivation and the key to break the code.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Rusty here. Our previous podcasts, upcoming guest list and previous blogs are also available.

You can find out more about Rusty and his work here. His book is Breaking the Code: Stop Looking for Answers and Start Enjoying Life