Pamela Kleibrink Thompson.

October is the month we celebrate Halloween, when children trick or treat in disguises. Are you an animator disguised as a plumber? Or are you a writer disguised as an insurance salesman? An artist disguised as a real estate agent?

Is your day job the disguise you wear to hide your true passion?

Perhaps you have invested a lot of time in your job. It's taken a lot of effort and maybe even a lot of money to get you where you are today. You think you should stick with it because otherwise that time and money would be wasted. What about the future? Wouldn't that time be wasted if you continue doing something you don't enjoy? Maybe you chose what you are doing now when you were just out of high school or college. Do you want to limit yourself to what a 22-year-old decided for the rest of your life? Why not spend the rest of your life doing what you really want to do?

Maybe you have invested both time and money in your education. You went to law school and have a good steady income. But you hate law. I had a career-coaching client who got into law because he watched the TV shows that glamorized lawyers. He worked in mergers and acquisitions, but longed to acquire a business as a tour guide in Mexico.

Sumner Redstone was a successful lawyer earning six figures, but he gave up his legal job to earn a fraction of that working for his father's theater chain. He loved that business and eventually built it into an entertainment conglomerate. In 2007, Sumner Redstone had an estimated worth of nine billion dollars.

Maybe you think you can't just give up what you are doing -- your family is depending on you. Talk to your family and find out if they would be willing to cut back a bit to enable you to pursue your passion. Wouldn't you do the same for your spouse?

Maybe you think you have to pay some dues before you can do what you really want. My husband wanted to write movie reviews for the UCLA newspaper, but instead of approaching the editor with this desire, he offered to write on other topics to prove himself first. His friend and schoolmate Jeff approached the editor about writing movie reviews and got the job.

Perhaps you are like my friend who believes that if he accepts money for something he loves doing, it would take the fun out of it and he wouldn't love it anymore. My producer friend Alex works at number-crunching during the week so he can spend his weekends in his garden, designing landscapes.

Perhaps you think it's too late to change. "If I haven't achieved this by age 30, I might as well forget about it." There are few occupations where age is a factor. Professional football players usually retire from the game by age 35, but for most professions age doesn't matter. Some people who achieved fame in later life include such late bloomers as Ian Fleming, whose first novel, Casino Royale, was published when he was 45 years old; Paul Cezanne finally had his first solo exhibition when he was 56 years old; Ed Sullivan was 47 years old when CBS hired him to host a TV variety show to air on Sunday nights. There are many instances where people returned to school in later life to obtain the qualifications needed to pursue their dream job.