Everything you need to know about The Fierce Emporium Programme

In this article, I’ll break down everything you need to know about the The Fierce Emporium programme. So that you’ll know if it’s going to work for you.

I understand the programme is an investment and that historically, you might be used to your employer paying for all of your professional development.

I also understand that if you’re going to invest your money in yourself and your career future, you need to get it right.

The article is an unbiased view of the programme to help you make an informed purchasing decision. 

Answers to as many questions as I can think of to help you make an informed purchasing decision with The Fierce Emporium career design programme for professionals in their 40s, 50s and 60s who want more joy-at-work.

What is the Fierce Emporium?

It’s a career design programme, built exclusively for professionals in their 40s, 50s and 60s who want more joy-at-work.

(If “joy” isn’t a word that you’d normally use to describe your work, use any of these: Satisfaction, meaning, happiness or fulfilment.)

The programme walks you through exactly how to design the next decade of your work-life to bring you the kind of satisfaction, meaning and enjoyment that you deserve.

It isn’t just ‘theory’.

It’s practical lessons that show you exactly which career design skills, habits and behaviours you will need to master to give you the freedom to create work that not only lasts but feels…bloody good!

What do you mean by ‘Fierce’?

“Fierce” is a term I use to describe work that has been deliberately, intentionally designed to be deeply: 

• Satisfying;

• Fulfilling;

• EnJOYable;

• Energising; and potentially

• Joyful

I’m not a fantasist! I don’t expect our work to be Fierce all the time!

The average midlife professionals spends 60% of their waking hours working. If at least half of those hours don’t feel in any way Fierce, it’s a missed opportunity. Isn’t it?

What problems will the Fierce Emporium programme solve? 

The programme isn’t for everyone, and it’s relatively specific with who it helps.

Here are some of the major problems it solves: 

• You give a great deal of your time and emotional energy to work - but it’s hasn’t been repaying you in kind…maybe for a while.

• You feel you have little control over your work happiness - but you don’t know how to get control.

• You struggle to articulate specifically what you have to offer to the world - even though others may perceive you as being “successful”.

• You have spent much of your work-life dancing to someone else’s tune - now you’re keen to discover your own melody.

• You’re not sure how to compete in a world that’s over-flowing with younger “talent” - but don’t want to stop working yet.

• You want to make a bigger impact on your world - but since you don’t know where to start, you need a proven method and structure.

• You don’t want to passively read another self-help book - and instead you’re ready to start actively doing something about helping yourself.

Why have I created the Fierce Emporium programme?

To be honest, I didn’t wake up one day and just decide to create a course or a programme.

The whole Fierce Career paradigm resulted from the research I’d conducted into midlife career happiness that I began when I felt a little hopeless about the possibility of me designing happier work for myself.

After I’d blown much of my savings, risking it all, leaving a 20 year career in head-hunting behind, going back to university aged 43 and completing a MSc Psychology, I still had no idea what I wanted to do when I grow up!

So I began a world-wide research project - seeking out professionals who had redesigned their careers by themselves and described themselves as “happier”.

I conducted qualitative interviews with 100 of them to understand the patterns.

And then distilled their secrets and some their stories into my first book - X Change: How to Torch your Work Treadmill. It’s a small, easy-to-digest book of stories to inspire. And published by Mpowr Ltd.

Clients came to me after reading the book - in small numbers to begin with.

Then it got featured in lovely publications like The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Telegraph and BBC. I never imagined that.

More people came to me. To the point that working one-to-one with everyone became impossible.

I needed to create something where many more professionals from all corners of the earth could redesign their work to fit them and feel good. But I didn’t want to build a standard “course”. I imagined something something creative, transformational, deeper and more fun for participants.

Knowing I couldn’t do this alone, I returned to my book publishers and ask for help. Over six-months, we co-created the deepest career design programme in the world - and chose to focus it exclusively on professionals in their 40s, 50s and 60s who wanted to experience more joy-at-work. Then we tested, piloted and launched it over the next 12 months.

And that’s how the Fierce Emporium came about.

What’s included in the programme?

Here is exactly what is included in the programme…

• An in-depth 32 Mini-module Video Course that will go through the 8 secrets that underpin Fierce work - that fits you and feels good.

• Fill-in-the-Blanks Downloadable Resources – heavily guided challenges so all you need to do is personalise them.

• Career Design Skill Templates you can use to any time in your future to maximise opportunities in your future.

• A Private Members Community – where you can gain new ideas, see what questions others ask and get feedback on your next steps.

• A Self-discovery Tool-kit with explained examples so that you understand your needs quickly and clearly.

• New Direction-finder Prompts to help you decide which problems in the world you might like to focus on. And a tried-and-tested method to take the risk out of choosing.

• A Copy of X Change: How to Torch your Work Treadmill – dip in and out with recommendations to inspire you along the way.

• A method to plan your career forever in just 15 minutes a month. The deep-dive thinking and design planning is once-in-a-lifetime but the design skills will last your entire career.

The Fierce Emporium is a research-based, structured programme for midlife professionals who want more joy-at-work.

Is the Fierce Emporium easy?

I wish this question was easy to answer!

Some parts are easy-peasy for some. The same parts are tricky for others.

It depends on you, your personality, how much career reflection you’ve done, how stuck you’ve become, how much you’ve designed your career to date, your strengths, your focus powers, your priorities and a million other things.

It’s important work.

That takes a little time. And energy.

And, it’s been designed in a creative way to enable you to dive deeper. To think about your career more deeply and in a more connected way that most people ever think about their work.

This way, what you learn will have longer-lasting effects than any other training course you’ve done before…..and any you will probably do in the future!

When you are ready, have a look at the video reviews.

What do the Video Modules include? 

There are 6 major modules in total.

And in each module, there are 4-5 challenges, each with relevant video, audio and/or downloadable content. No matter what your preferred learning style - I’ve got you covered.

I’ve kept each explainer-video around 5-10 minutes each, because life’s too short to watch videos that go on for a life-time!

Having short videos gives you a choice:

• binge watch and do multiple challenges in a day,

• do multiple challenges over a weekend,

• or, just do one challenge a day.

  It’s your programme, do it your way.
  

The learning phase modules are as follows…

1. Assessment of you and your career to date – Dive right into you, your past career, your personal needs, your dreams for your future work and life.

2. The Fierce Framework – Helping you hone in on the 8 career design skills that are needed to increase your more work happiness.

3. Foundational Career Design Tools – 4 skills that most people in the professional world avoid - and different ways to harness them to fit you, your personality and your career hopes.

4. Advanced Career Design Tools – 4 career-design skills that have to power to transform the way you “do” work forever.

5. Unearthing hidden enemies – 4 deeply transformational challenges that uncover the hidden behaviour and thought patterns that have hindered your joy-at-work in the past. Once-in-a-lifetime work that is freeing and enlightening.

6. The way forward – We pull all of your learning on career design together to create a speedy, repeatable design process that keeps your work satisfaction a major priority in your work life - in only 15 minutes per month.
   
   
   Then we move into the more active, live, action phase in your change process.

   This stage is different for every client and depends on the decisions you make during the learning phase.
   

How much does it cost? And why is the price going up?

The Fierce Emporium costs £2879 (inc tax).

Why is the programme so expensive? 

As I said earlier, I didn’t just wake up one day and decide to create a “course”.

This is a culmination of years of personal research, a life-time of talking to professionals who weren’t happy enough in their work, 7 years of re-training, testing, piloting, practising and experimenting…so far!

Myself and the two directors of my book publishers (Martyn Pentecost and Richard Hagen) put everything into this programme.

And whilst everything in there is based on scientifically-proven theories of human change, I am one of the most practical people you’ve ever met.

So I’ve made it practical – telling you exactly what steps to take and when.

I’ve also included real-life examples in there – because we know that people learn best when they can see other’s who have been where they are and gone where they want to go.

The whole course took three amazing people six months to create, once we’d decided to do it.

The reason it’s so expensive is mainly that…

• The examples I give within the course mean I had to spend years training other midlife professionals to make sure that the programme successfully allows you to redesign your work-life.

• The ‘practical’ nature of the course gives you the ‘how’ and not just the theory. There is no pointless navel-gazing.

• It took me six months alone to develop the course and then six months with Richard Hagen and Martyn Pentecost (Directors of Mpowr Publishing) to turn it into a reality.

• The creative talent and the software we used. Every image is hand-drawn, there are some magical elements we built in to make it impactful and memorable - a bespoke website is pricey to create and maintain)

• The quantitative ROI – 86% Fierce Emporium Emporium graduates report getting paid the same or much more for doing more satisfying work. But, in fairness, it’s kind of hard to put a return on investment on “more enjoyment at work”.

• The qualitative ROI – An unexpected outcome of the programme for many is that they have been asked to design their own role profile. That was a surprise - but it continues to happen. Many graduates tell me that they are enjoying the wider-life beyond work much more than they thought possible. Everyone is so different…

  Here’s some unedited video reviews, if you want more qualitative evidence.

• I’ve experimented with adding in many extras over the last 12 months to help you move faster, with more support that ever before. Here’s some of the extras:

  • 4 opportunities (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter) to get guided support through a small-group, six-week sprint through each of the modules with examples and opportunities to ask questions and get help immediately. One hour per week.

  • Monthly LIVE Group Q&A - no matter what stage you’re at, get your questions answered. And catch up with fellow career designers who are going through exactly the same process as you from all corners of the earth.

  • Private email support from me. 5 days a week.

  • Private member-only podcast - hear practical advice while you’re walking the dog or driving the car, including access to all historical casts.

  • One masterclass per quarter - on topics that relate specifically to midlife career design e.g. Foundational Networking like a Midlife Human, Advanced Super-powering your Network, Land your Personal Superpowers, A novel way to power-up your inner Critic to Support your Career Change and Fierce Career Experiments that Work and Superpowering your CV and interviews.
    
    

Is there a refund policy?

Because all the elements of the course are downloadable, there are no refunds. 

Will there be a Facebook group/Linkedin group?

Nope. Sorry. 

If you have spare time, I’d love you to spend it in The Fierce Emporium working on your future. 

That said, you’ll be on a journey with other midlife professionals from all corners of the globe, who are also investing their precious free hours and energy designing their work futures to be Fierce.

You’ll get to meet and interact with them:

• in the six-week sprints through the learning phase of the programme (1 hour a week, for 6 weeks, 4 times a year)

• in the live Q&A sessions (every month)

• in the masterclasses (every quarter)

And, if you connect really well with someone, feel free to share contact details and get acquainted. Some firm friendships have been created in The Emporium.

Who is this for?

The Fierce Emporium is not for everyone and I only want you to invest in it if it’s right for you.

This programme IS for you if:

• You are a professional at a mid-point in your career.

  The majority of my clients are in their 40s and 50s. But some of the most joyful client experiences I’ve witnessed have been with those in their 30s and 60s. I don’t discriminate on age.

• You want to experience more joy-at-work.

• You want to build sustainable, enjoyable and satisfying work for your next decade - so that you can focus on…well…creating more fun in the other parts of your life.  

• You want to experience a sense of control and freedom over how you get paid to do your best work - rather than being at the mercy of someone else's business choices. 

• You’re up for learning some new stuff - because what got you here won’t get you there.

This is NOT for you if:

• You’re simply looking for a job. 

  There are MANY courses and people out there who teach that stuff. Packaging you and your skills (the tactical elements of career design) is done after we set your personal, bespoke career strategy.

  Our primary focus during the six week learning phase is how to design your next decade to be so satisfying you surprise yourself with enthusiasm and actually look forward to it. 

• If you take yourself too seriously. 

  We do VERY serious work in The Fierce Emporium. But there's lightness and a bit of silliness built-in. Especially in the group sessions. 

• If you think you’re perfect. 

  Everyone who joins The Fierce Emporium is perfectly imperfect. In fact, they are wondrously flawed. We all are.

  And whilst in the corporate world, you may feel like you need to hide your imperfections all of the time, you're going to need to let your mask slip. I promise you we'll love what is behind it - even if you don't…yet.

The Fierce Emporium - The deepest career design programme in the world, designed exclusively for professionals in their 40s, 50s and 60s.

How long will it take to go through the The Fierce Emporium? 

The learning phase of The Fierce Emporium:

• There are 6 modules - delivered over six weeks.

• Each module has 4-5 challenges.

• Each challenge takes 10-45mins.

So, it depends on how much time you have to invest and how much of a priority joy-at-work is for you.

You can do it as fast or slow as you wish.

It’s your programme. It’s been designed to flex around your life and work.

Do it your way.

The remainder of the programme:

Your goals for the remainder of our time together depend on your needs, your life-style goals, the degree of change you have decided upon and future career dreams.

Each member of the Fierce Emporium has decided their unique next steps.

This is where we get you moving in a new direction.

Where you play with all of the design skills in the real world. All of these will be decided during the six-week learning phase.

And are different for every single client.

You get support from me and the group for a full 12 months. Throughout every stage of your change process.

Can I join even if I don’t live in UK?

Of course! Here’s an image of the locations of the current members of The Fierce Emporium.

While the UK remains the dominant country when clients live, the programme is a combination of at-home learning and group support - both of which happen online.

So it doesn’t matter where you live.

All of the live parts of the programme are recorded. So you’ll never miss anything - whether you’re at work, walking the dog, caring for sick children/parents or asleep.

Locations of members of the current Fierce Emporium programme. It’s reassuring to know that feeling stuck at a mid-point is a global phenomenon.

Can I See Behind the Scenes? 

Sure, there’s a video you can watch below that let’s you peek inside The Fierce Emporium.

Who will be delivering the training?

I deliver all the training personally.

I run the six-week learning phase group sessions. The podcast. The monthly live sessions. The masterclasses. Everything.

This won’t always be the case - but it is now.

A bit about me…

For 19 years I worked in corporate recruitment and head-hunting across South-east England and Sydney, Australia.

I loved it… until I stopped loving it.

After feeling stuck for a few years and doing absolutely NOTHING about it, I escaped. And returned to university to take on my MSc in Psychology. Here’s the story of hitting my tipping point.

I’ve chosen to solve the problem of midlife career stuckness. Or at least make a giant contribution to solving that problem.

I started by writing about career design and explaining truths about corporate life that I saw from interviewing nearly 3000 senior executives in the last decade of my career. (Like the “50-year-old corporate toast” article)

But with my new-found insights from the global research on happiness, I was able to connect dots in new ways. And then create programmes that help others connect the dots in their careers in important ways.

To take control of how they designed their tomorrow’s work to be better than their yesterday’s work.

And my work continues to excites me more than anything I’ve ever done.

I have a very active blog - because I can’t stop thinking about the problem of midlife and mid-career stuckness.

What ongoing support will I get when I sign up? 

After you sign up, we’ll schedule a kick-off call where we get you registered, subscribed to our private podcast and I’ll share all important dates and times of our next sprint through the learning phase and the live monthly sessions.

And you can ask any questions.

I’ve also created a private on-line email system where you share your progress, conclusions and insights.

This is where I cheer you on, challenge you to go deeper or give you practical ideas that will work for your personal situation.

You’ll get even further access to me in the monthly live sessions, in the live sessions in the six-week sprint through the learning phase (Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter), in the private members-only podcast and in the quarterly career design masterclasses.

Believe me, you won’t feel alone.

How do you access The Fierce Emporium content?

Once you sign up, you will receive an email from me with your login information.

Then you’ll log into the bespoke website using the login instructions in the email.

After our kick-off call, you’ll have immediate access both to the mini-programme Derailed! and your first module of the main programme.

There, you can access all the videos, audios and downloadable resources.

In our kick-off call, I’ll walk you through everything, at your pace.

Can you share real experiences and results from The Fierce Emporium?

Sure. Remember, everyone is different.

Everyone was stuck when they joined The Fierce Emporium. And then, they are not.

The results differ for everyone.

It makes sense for previous clients to tell you about their personal transformations, highlights and major takeaways themselves.

Here are videos of clients explaining their results in detail, in their own words.

What results can I expect, personally?

Since I started using all of the training ideas, tool and materials in the programme I’ve seen some pretty interesting personal results such as:

• I average 60-70% of my week doing deeply satisfying work.

• I say “no” so often and so lightly to opportunities that aren’t right, that I sometimes shock myself.

• Because I say “no” so often, I have time and energy to do more creative, satisfying and fun work. Others notice this, so I get invited to do things I never imagined - like train 1000 people globally in just one of the fierce career design skills from the Fierce Emporium within a major FMCG company.

• I work only with clients who energise me - even though they are each very different. I prioritise honesty. I understand my style isn’t for everyone. And I don’t drag people by the teeth to work with me. I’ve created ways that other humans can find me (seen my blog, Linkedin or Tedx talk?) and decide if working with me will be valuable. I haven’t done a cold call for more than a decade.

• I work fewer hours but get paid well - while doing work that fits me and feels good.

• I spend more time doing stuff that makes me happy (supporting my family, swimming outdoors, lifting weights, experimenting, weekends away with the girls, listening to new podcasts and learning how to cross-country ski in Norway)

But for me, the biggest difference is that I feel happier.

My mental health has become an active, daily priority. I’ve realised once and for all that my work is such a giant part of my mental health story (it is for most of us).

So, I design it every single day. Around the principles you’ll learn in The Fierce Emporium.

Is there anything left to be said about The Fierce Emporium?

I searched the globe for a way to figure out my next steps when I was 42.

And again when I was 44.

I found nothing that comes even close to what I wanted or needed - even if I could have articulated my needs back then!

I’d have bitten off someone’s arm if The Fierce Emporium had existed then. And it would have saved me about £120,000 - £180,000 of missed earnings, investments, benefits and wasted spend.

I wanted long-term results.

I needed deep-transformation.

I dreamt of new way of operating, of feeling control - and freedom.

I dreamt of autonomy over my work. Of driving it - rather than it driving me.

I needed methods to bring me more joy-at-work. And less dullness-at-work.

I wanted skills so that I could make many tweaks over my remaining work-life.

To make big or small changes because work-life and real-life need to entwine.

When my parents might need more - or less. When my children might need me more - or less.

Or when I might have more time to focus on my own needs.

So I created that for myself…and if you like the sound of it - I’d love to share my methods with you.

How do I sign up?

If you want to design your future work to fit you and feel good, with a structure and a method, with proven results for others:

1. Check out The Fierce Emporium programme here. There’s a downloadable mini-brochure with pricing included.

2. Book in to speak to me asap.

3. After you’ve decided it’s for you - I’ll send you a link to sign up.

See you on the inside.

Book in to ask any questions I’ve been unable to answer in this article here.

Whatever you do, don’t do nothing! Dreams reveal themselves when you’re on the move.