By Richard Eisenberg, Forbes.com
Special to Online Career Tips
Stephen Pollan is an iconoclastic life coach and personal finance mentor. He’s also a lawyer. But I think the engraved sign on his New York City office desk offers the best description of what he does: “Professional Fear Eliminator.”
Pollan, 83, meets with clients for 45 minutes to an hour to help them deal with knotty career issues they’re facing or fearing, from bouncing back after a layoff to dealing with a gnarly boss to squeezing out more money from a severance agreement. Often, his advice is provocative, unconventional and even blunt. (Full disclosure: I’m a former client.)
“I’ve found that the most significant things people bring to me are their fears,” Pollan says. “Careers are the biggest creators of fear because they’re our stream of income.”