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Beginning as a performer, Ms Hamlin married and moved to Marblehead, Massachusetts, where she directed the dance programme at Radcliffe College. She then started to produce arts documentaries, reporteded on culture on Boston television and became host and producer of the first women's talk show in the US, winning two Emmy awards along the way. Many of the unemployed or underemployed are "repackaging" themselves and moving into new careers out of necessity. But there are those, such as Ms Hamlin, who risk change because they are no longer learning or enjoying the jobs they have. What qualities compel these people to overcome self-doubt and anxiety and begin new jobs when they have already achieved success where they are? In some cases, boredom and anger outweigh the fear. For others, a lifelong history of achievement provides the confidence and drive to take on risky ventures. Dante Capitano, a psychologist with RHR International, a management company, says some business executives will leave the comfort of their positions "if they have the opportunity to be a significant player at the table". "I think they like to be part of change," he says. "They are willing to challenge themselves, and they can tolerate ambiguity. These are people who tend to get bored in maintenance roles, which is good because a lot of companies now need top performers." Eileen Mullin was a vice-president at Merrill Lynch in New York responsible for the company's human resources website. She had achieved the trappings of corporate success: an office with "a gorgeous view of New Jersey", a secretary, generous benefits and a substantial salary. After two years in the job, she was restless, unfulfilled and "struggling against the political agendas of others". "I made a list of the most fun times I had at Merrill Lynch and International Business Machines [where she had been editor of IBM.com]," she says. What she liked was working with technology and young people. So Ms Mullin left her job and launched GenuineClass (www.genuineclass.com), offering computer instruction to children and teenagers - including digital animation, website creation and computer programming. She also holds weekend workshops to involve the parents, a computer day camp and birthday parties, where kids can build web pages and tinker with old PCs. Her classes, based in the Empire State Building, are growing, and her new children's computer activity book will be released in December. The state of the economy did not concern her when she left her job. "I had a lot of confidence that I could succeed," she says. "I had a lot of skills and I knew I would be able to improvise. I knew the kind of services I had to offer would find a market." Ms Hamlin had also become restless with success. After doing her chat show for 11 years in Boston, she launched a new career coaching, consulting and lecturing lawyers and business executives on how to sharpen their communications skills. Her books and tapes include "What Makes Juries Listen" and "How to Talk So People Listen: The Real Key to Job Success". "People have to stay true to themselves," she says. "I feel so lucky that I could, indeed, follow my own muse." Steve Cadwell, a principal at Stanton Chase International in California, an executive search business, says his career path was "evolutionary rather than revolutionary". He started out in telecommunications, moved through executive sales and marketing positions, before going into software and telematics. Two years ago, he was recruited into the search business - when the industry was undergoing the worst turmoil in its history. But it offered new vistas. The recruiting business had not changed for 25 years, Mr Cadwell says, and he wanted to bring technology into the equation. He pushed for more video-conferencing and web-based software that would enable job seekers to monitor searches and post resum&#eacute;s on confidential websites. Companies are given access to sites where they can see candidate interviews and read their profiles. "A lot more can be deployed to reduce costs and do the search faster," Mr Cadwell adds. The shift into headhunting necessitated an adjustment, he says. The work requires more networking and cold-calling to get in front of the clients. But he also finds it exciting. It is "a rare thing", he says, to be able to help both companies and job seekers, some of whom have never been unemployed before. "Our clients are quite polished but we have to help them focus on what they really want and then help them execute their plans." He gets the greatest satisfaction when he returns to a client company a year later for a debriefing and learns that both parties to the deal have settled in successfully. "I have had to adapt because the economy was changing," he says. "Fortunately I could adjust, and when opportunities came along I had the right background to take advantage of them." Many senior executives leave the corporate world because they think they can emulate previous success working for themselves, says Tom Welch, a Florida-based corporate coach. "They may want to get away from 15-hour days or they may want to escape a long commute. But sometimes it doesn't work out," he says. One of his acquaintances joined a friend in a consulting business but he hated the marketing side of the practice. "He jumped back into the corporate world, taking a lesser job because he wanted to be protected under that blanket," Mr Welch says. "You won't find a lot of people who will take risks."