KEY POINTS:
When life turned to custard for Hugh Porter, a former Radio Hauraki presenter, he set sail for the high seas, leaving Auckland and a career in broadcasting behind him. One of the original radio Hauraki pirates, Porter worked at the station as a DJ when it got a licence to operate onshore in 1970.
He moved to Radio International to work in advertising sales and in the eighties joined Radio Pacific as sales and promotions manager. It was a tough, high-pressure job that got even tougher during the stock market crash of 1987 when fewer companies had money to spend. In addition, while struggling in his professional career due to the economic downturn, Porter's wife left him and his father died.
"Life wasn't that good," says Porter, "and one day I walked down to Westhaven Marina from my rented home in Ponsonby, saw a yacht and thought, 'Bugger it. I'm going to throw it all away and buy a yacht'."
But even that didn't go to plan. His idyllic life away from all the stress and economic depression, sailing around the sunny Pacific islands, ended when he ran the yacht aground on the Nirva reef in Fiji a year later.
"I was uninsured and lost the lot," he says. "I returned to New Zealand as a shipwrecked sailor. I was penniless, I had no boat, no home, no job, no wife, no father. Nothing."
What he did have was a plan. He figured that if he didn't drink, smoke or buy anything he didn't need for 18 months, then he could buy another yacht using money earned from working with Chieftain Charters - the company that had brought him back to New Zealand.
"I worked for them and we built the company up into one of the largest charter firms in the country," he says. "I have always been an optimist. I have always known and have a knowledge of self worth. Throughout my life I have had these things that just come to me. Whatever I decide to do I succeed at because I am willing to pay the price."
What Porter most wanted to do was to be free to explore again. He ended up buying a 37ft yacht this time, left his job and set sail again.
"I decided I was going to enjoy life and have adventure," says Porter. "I sailed up north to live in the Bay of Islands."
That was in 2001, but Porter didn't get the lifestyle he expected there and so upped anchor and moved again, despite his yacht being stricken with a badly damaged sail that had been blown out in a storm.
"I headed up north without any charts and ended up at the tip of New Zealand. Then I meandered my way down again, single-handed, wondering what to do with the next part of my life."
Porter would head out to sea each night and return to the coast each day to see where he was. Doubtless Bay caught his eye one morning and that's where he is today - working as a radio presenter, this time for Sunshine FM. The yacht is long gone and he's now a happy landlubber.
"There is something magical here," says Porter. "At night you can see every star in the sky, the water is clean - it's perfect. There are five mountains here that are sacred to the Maori and if you draw a line between them the lines cross over Doubtless Bay."
It is something that clearly fascinates the breakfast radio presenter who now has an almost spiritual view of life.
"I think anyone who has sailed the Pacific and looked at the navigation and migration across the Pacific of the Polynesians, and you look at the Incas, Aztecs, Mayans, the Druids and Stonehenge then there is something out there that we don't fully understand."
After what seems like a lifetime of travelling, searching for that special place to call home and a job that fits his relaxed lifestyle, Porter has found it.
"Here in Kaitaia, at the top of the North Island, they tend to be a bit laid back but I don't allow myself to lower my professional standards," he says. "But there are amazing people here. Life is a ball."
Porter's journey from high pressure and frantic sales job to finding the right level for him has taken a while. Other people looking to change their lives may want to move a little more quickly and perhaps set down a game plan with a clear timeline and set goals. That's where a life coach can help, says Clive Littin, a former Catholic priest who describes himself as a trainer, counsellor, master coach and spiritual guide. Littin says as a child he always enjoyed helping people and that becoming a priest in 1966 seemed a natural fit. But in 1989 he and the church went separate ways and he now works as a life coach with his own company, named Get a Coach.
He wrote Beating the Monday Blues, is a primal therapist and says he has worked with organisations such as NZ Post, Auckland City, Waikato University, Montana Wines, NZ Immigration and AUT.
"Many people come to me saying they are unhappy and stressed. People just seem to set up lives that they are unhappy with. How I help people who want to change their life is to help them discover their passion.
"To do this," says Littin, "you should list on a sheet of paper what excites you. It is what excites you that is the key to happiness and no amount of workplace power, money, big house or wonderful partner will bring you that. If you are not doing what excites you then you are in the wrong job, you are in the wrong relationship. You are doing and thinking the wrong things."
Littin tells the story of a client who's passion was mountain biking, but his high-end job was as far from cycling as could be.
"He looked at me as if to say; 'Tell me how to make a buck out of mountain biking'. My question then was; 'What is it about mountain biking that pumps you up?'. Somewhere in those answers will be an opportunity to make money - and it may not come from riding a bike."
Littin says doing what excites you can mean changing jobs, switching to a completely different career or starting up a business to follow a passion. It can mean earning less money, not having the status of a particular job title and maybe - as with Hugh Porter - moving to a completely different location, one well away from the city.
"A lot of people in the world are on Prozac," says Littin. "And they are not getting excited about much at all. Being excited is what you are."
Coaches can help
* A personal coach can be your cheerleader, supporter, motivator, and an 'essential friend'.
* A personal coach speeds up the process of turning your dreams and goals into visible, measurable results.
* Holding you accountable is one of your coach's key roles.
* Personal coaching is a way of getting balance back into your life.
* A coach recognises your strengths, talents, skills and gives them focus and direction - both in your career and personal life.
* Coaching helps you identify obstacles that may be keeping you away from success, such as stress or procrastination.
* A personal coach boosts self-confidence.
* A good coach is a confidential sounding board.
* A coach asks questions to discover what you want.
* Coaching makes sure you know how to set great goals and achieve every one of them.
Source: Clive Littin
