If you're like many public servants, you long to have a rewarding career or job that you actually love to work at, but are afraid that leaving the public service means you'd have to give up things you can't afford to give up, such as sick days, medical benefits, and that pension you've paid into all these years.

But working in the Real World is different from working in the public service and great things await you outside those walls if you want them. The Real World offers many opportunities for promotion, career advancement, and entrepreneurship. Organizations in the private sector actually cherish skills like creativity, originality, and resourcefulness, rather than suppressing them. Excellence in performance and superior results can be rewarded with something other than a thank-you message.

If you've worked in the public service all your life, you might be tempted to think that every organization works the way government does. But it's not true; private industry is not constrained the same way the public service is. Employment milestones like job interviews, project delegation, and compensation and reward all operate completely differently. Organizational leadership is of a totally different calibre. Most importantly, you have the opportunity to truly help people... to make a difference in their lives, by using your own skills and talents, and not just by supporting a cookie-cutter public benefits system.

If you can bring your unique abilities and your passions to the right kinds of work, you will love what you do. You will look forward to each day. You will thrive in your career instead of just surviving it in.

This book explores how the private sector opens up opportunities for you that are not available as a public servant. It also examines the fears that keep you bound in your current position, preventing you from looking elsewhere for a better work-life. You deserve to be able to love what you do, and if that means leaving the public service then learn how to start taking steps in that direction.