Thousands of Canadians change jobs every year in a move that can cause emotions that range from excitement to nervous anxiety, says career coach Marge Watters. And although many people talk about changing to an entirely different career, few of them actually follow through and do it, says Watters, who is also co-founder of career assessment firm Knebel Watters & Associates.

"Changing jobs is like someone who goes from managing one company to managing a totally different one. It could be a bookkeeper who gets laid off and goes back to school to be an accountant," she says.

"Switching whole careers is a different story. About 90 per cent will consider a significant career change, but fewer than 10 per cent actually do it," says the Toronto-based Watters, who also has written a book, It's Your Move: A Personal and Practical Guide to Career Transition and Job Search For Canadian Managers, Professionals and Executives. Watters also has been through a number of different careers herself, having spent 20 years as a corporate lender and investment banker. More recently she went back to school to earn her master's degree in divinity.

She says the key to a successful career transition is to ask yourself some difficult questions.

Brennan O'Connor, Business Edge
Toronto retailer Mo Coulter has made a number of moves during his active business career.

"I ask our clients to do a reality check," she says. "What do you do best? What are the barriers to entry? I mean the notion of running a bar in St. Lucia might sound great, but are you prepared to get home every night at 4:30 in the morning?" Several high-profile Toronto residents who have gone through career changes say they are glad they made the switch.

Local retailer Mo Coulter, for example, began his career training to be a professional engineer in Northern Ireland, near Belfast. But he liked working with people more, and quickly switched to selling computer systems.

One day his wife Freda suggested they go for a vacation in Canada, where she could visit an old school friend who lived in Calgary. "Little did I know she also had an ulterior motive. She secretly wanted to move to Canada," Coulter says.

In 1977, Coulter arrived in Calgary and started to send out his resume. While he was working during those first few months before his wife and two sons arrived to join him, Coulter says he remembers sleeping on a mattress on the floor and eating his dinner sitting at a card table. Two years later he accepted a job in Toronto as vice-president of sales and marketing for a company specializing in computer services for municipal governments and insurance companies.

Almost a decade later, he walked into the showroom for Harvest House furniture - a visit that would change his life.

"I dropped the hint that if (the owner) was ever interested in selling his business to let me know," Coulter says. "I actually wasn't interested in his business so much as I was the land underneath. We had the property next door and it would have made a nice gift shop for my wife to run. I often say how I fell backwards into the furniture business."

Six months later, Coulter became the owner of Harvest House, then in Richmond Hill, although he kept his full-time job as a sales and marketing executive for another year. Asked if he was ever nervous about buying the business, Coulter smiles. "I came from an entrepreneurial family," he says. "The biggest reasons why I think I've done well are my family and my faith."

Son, Peter, works in product design and sales and son, Mike, serves as financial controller in administration. Coulter and Freda are scheduled to celebrate their 41st wedding anniversary on Dec. 28. Harvest House moved to a showroom in downtown Toronto's trendy King Street East district six years ago, and sells their custom-made wood furniture throughout Canada and the United States. There is a separate 26,000 square foot facility north of Toronto in Schomberg.

Coulter declines to give out current revenues for the company, but will say they have grown 10 times from when he originally bought the business.

"There are no regrets. It doesn't make sense to think about what you could have done in your past. You should just enjoy what you have," Coulter says.

Glen Grunwald was a student at Indiana University when he met future basketball Hall of Fame member, Isiah Thomas. The team went on to win a NCAA college level championship game.

After graduation, Grunwald worked briefly at one of Chicago's top law firms until he was offered a job with the Denver Nuggets basketball team as their chief administrative officer and general counsel.

"I injured my knee during college and couldn't play basketball, but still loved the game," Grunwald says. "It was a great opportunity."

But the team owner who originally offered him the job got bought out soon after, and Grunwald left the team. He worked briefly in other jobs until Thomas called and he joined the new Toronto Raptors franchise as assistant general manager to Thomas, as well as vice-president of legal affairs.

When Thomas left in 1997, Grunwald was named general manager, a position he held until December 2004 when his contract was terminated.

"The thing is that I loved Toronto. I had spent all this time promoting the team and promoting Toronto as a city, I didn't want to leave. "My wife is from also from Toronto and we have a great group of friends here," says Grunwald, who is now president and CEO of the Toronto Board of Trade.

"With any career change you want to evaluate yourself and look around to see what it is you enjoy," Grunwald says. "The skills I used in the past (as a corporate lawyer) have definitely been useful here at the Board of Trade. One of the great benefits of working at the Board of Trade is that you are with an experienced, talented group of people."

Watters says one of the biggest career changes she has seen is former Hydro One CEO Eleanor Clitheroe, who was fired in 2002 amid allegations of lavish expense claims. Her multi-million dollar wrongful dismissal suit is still before the courts.

Clitheroe now reports to an entirely different type of boss in her new career as an Anglican pastor. "It goes back to the late '80s. I always wanted to be a pastor and serve God," she says. "My true friends were very supportive. They said it was something I should have done much sooner in my life."

Clitheroe had already completed six months of studies towards her master of divinity degree when she was fired. Afterwards she took two-five-day retreats led by a spiritual director to reflect on what came next.

"People should experiment in advance before making this sort of change in their lives. They should volunteer and serve on fundraising campaigns or get involved some other way," she says. "Talk to as many different people as you can."

Clitheroe says that had always wanted to retire from the corporate world at age 50 and spend the next 10 to 15 years in Christian ministry. But making the career change was still hard.

"It was an adjustment moving from our home and into the seminary, but we did it," Clitheroe says. "It was also hard being a student again after I had been out of school for so long. It took a while to get used to writing essays and thinking about where to put the comma or semi-colon."

Today, Clitheroe divides her time today between duties as associate pastor of St.

Cuthbert's Anglican Church in Oakville and as a volunteer with Prison Fellowship Canada, a prayer-based Christian ministry that counsels inmates, ex-cons, their families and victims.

"I think working with women and children is the most rewarding part of this work. Children of offenders are seven times more likely to go to prison themselves. We have to reach out to them," she says.

Clitheroe says is happy with her career change and although the hours required are similar to the corporate world, they are more flexible, allowing her to spend more time with her husband and two children.

"I'm quite contented with the way things have gone. This is something I've always wanted to do. You have to really listen to what's in your heart," she says.

(David Hatton can be reached at hatton@businessedge.ca)