Miriam
Loved her job for years, until the appreciation for her work began to thin. Staying felt safer than finding out what else was still possible.
New book by Linda Chung
Choose Your Winter
Four Steps to Build Agency in Your Work and Life
A lot of people don’t feel they have a choice about their work. I dare say they do.
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A fable, told twice
You know the ant and the grasshopper. Here’s the next page.
In the version everyone knows, the ant works all summer, the grasshopper plays, and winter decides who was right. The moral: hard work saves you.
On the next page, the grasshopper isn’t lazy. He’s out in the field every day too, playing his fiddle, and people pay him for it. He just spends it about as fast as it comes in, the way everyone around him does. The ant isn’t working any harder. She even goes to some of the same parties.
The only difference: she’s carrying a picture of winter the whole time. It was never really about who worked harder. It was about who had a plan.
What this book is about
Agency: the ability to choose
The ability to make choices, big and small, that build a life you find fulfilling.
Choosing who and what you work for, and when. Not escaping your job: some of the best people I coach love where they work. And not “financial freedom” in the sense of never working again.
Nobody in this book stopped working. What changed for all of them was who set the terms of their work, and who was doing the choosing.
In my experience, it’s rarely a lack of money that holds people back. It’s not having a plan they can see.
Is this book for you?
Sprinting toward what?
You’ve been sprinting for years, through the promotions, the reorgs, the shifting goalposts. You told yourself it was going somewhere. Really? Where?
Things are fine, or at least tolerable. Who says work is supposed to be fun anyway? So planning for what comes next keeps slipping to “later.”
You assume your job, your company, your plans will keep going the way they have. Then something changes that you didn’t choose, and suddenly you’re miserable, with no other option but to endure.
You’re doing well by most measures. So why does it feel like you have so little choice in your own life?
A default isn’t a decision, and you’re not stuck with it.
Inside the book
The Four Gets
A simple, step-by-step method. Each chapter ends with a short exercise, so you finish the book with a picture and a plan of your own.
- 01
Get the Picture
What does agency actually look like for you? Not vaguely, vividly.
- 02
Get the Gap
Where do you stand against that picture, in real numbers?
- 03
Get the Plan
Your investments, your business or career, or a mix: what closes the distance?
- 04
Get Moving
Start with this week, and the step that moves you forward the most.
Real stories
Where they started
The people in this book are real. Names and some identifying details have been changed.
Priya
A high-stress sales management role and sole financial responsibility at home. The stress showed up in her sleep, her patience, her Sundays.
Owen
Built a work-from-home routine that suited him so well, he hoped to take it around the world. Then, one announcement later: mandatory return to the office.
Claire
Her job had gotten easier, even enjoyable. But there was no path upward, and deep in her heart, she knew she could offer more to the world.
Where they are today is in the book.
Free resource
Agency Year Workbook
The workbook from the Get the Gap chapter. Three simple steps: where you are today, where you’ll be in your Agency Year, and the gap between them.
Download FreeFor general information only, not financial, legal or tax advice. The book and workbook won’t tell you where to invest. They help you see your picture, your gap, and the plan that closes it.
About the author
Linda Chung
Linda Chung is a coach, mentor, and the founder of Fulfilling Life Design Coaching. Before coaching, she spent more than 25 years in business management and leadership. She works with career professionals and entrepreneurs around the world, helping them build agency: a clear picture of the life they want, the real numbers behind it, and a plan to build it.
Linda practises what she teaches. When her work no longer fulfilled her the way it once had, she chose her moment to leave. She coaches today because she chooses to.
An invitation for readers
A free 45-minute conversation
If the book stirs a picture you’d like to explore, I offer a limited number of free conversations to readers. No pressure and no obligation: just time to look at where you are, where you’d like to be, and a good first step. Email me with “Choose Your Winter” in the subject line.
Winter can be dreaded, or it can be met with a plan.
Build the readiness, and the timing is yours. Choose your winter.
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