Corporate career to wildlife conservation
Year after year, Jodie thought about taking time off from her corporate 9-5 job to pursue a dream of being out in the African wilderness, but being risk-averse by nature, she found it too overwhelming to action
…
This cycle continued for 8 years and only in the 9th year before she was due to turn 40 she finally took action by reaching out…
Her life felt grey.
Every day felt the same and the monotony was driving her slowly mad and she tuned out as she became numb to the situation.
Jodie’s starting situation:
1. Low fulfilment from day job
2. High stress levels
3. Dealing with uncomfortable discussions with people
4. Well being affected by day job. Correlation of stress accumulation and illness
5. Enjoy physical activity - Bootcamp was great! - routine, outdoor, fitness.
6. Work currently takes up significant chunk of life. 6.45am-6pm, 5 days a week
7. Thinks frequently about changing job and travelling.
8. Enjoys being good at her job and seeing her work directly affect people in positive light!
The beginning…
Jodie started my program without any real idea of what she wanted to do. She knew it had to be outdoors and something to do with nature but that was as far as she got.
Not having a clear vision caused her to get overwhelmed quickly and made doing anything about it very hard.
Part of the process was unravelling what her core interests and expertise were.
Jodie’s Interests:
The outdoors
Gardens
Nature
Conservation
Travelling
Experiences
Jodie’s Expertise
Communications
Work Ethic
Work load adaptation (can take on more work under pressure)
Push factors
1. Does not want to look back on life knowing nothing changed
2. Not comfortable being able to predict what she'll be doing, to the hour, 10 years from now.
3. Do not feel rewarded for efforts at work
4. Work-life does not satiate experiential desire
Pull factors
1. Travelling is what she wants to do
2. Likely to experience cool things, and simply experiencing new things will achieve objective!
3. Will meet new people
4. Can choose to be outdoors, be exposed to conservation
5. Much greater freedom to achieve
Too many options…
Jodie had no idea what she was interested in.
She knew it had to be in nature but no idea what type, where or how.
The options were vast, yet the clarity was no where to be found.
Narrowing down
After some deep discovery work and delving further into her past she discovered it was Elephants, as she traced through all of her pictures and searches that she hadn’t even realised she had done.
but what next?!
The options became opened up once again,
How do I break into a sector I have no experience in?!
Do I need to go back to university? Do I need to do a masters? That could take years and cost £££
Do I need to re-train?
Getting stuck in
We went through a lot of concepts and models to start re-framing her mind as we dealt with the fear anxiety and doubt including the light-hearted three monkey model:
The three monkeys in her head running the JODIE business:
They all have a job, and want to be the best at what they do!
1. The Accountant - Wants to make things work financially, seeks stability, is trying to keep everyone "safe," doesn't like risk.
2. The Explorer - Seeks new experiences, comes up with bright ideas, does not think of consequences, (and doesn't care!)
3. The workhorse - Executes, head down, Is very good at what they do. Excels when required to perform. (but is susceptible to overdoing it) Is the fittest of the three, and has years of training under their belt!
For Jodie, the accountant has the overriding vote in the business (with good reason) so things must stack up before sign off takes place!
Jodie’s fears in her words:
“It's obviously still scary and overwhelming at this stage, but I feel like I've now got a mission to come up with a viable plan that the accountant will sign-off!”
Your analogy has helped shift my thinking so I can focus and take some action. It also means that when things start to get too complicated in my head or I tell myself e.g. 'I've got a good job blah, blah, I should be happy with it and stick with it'
I can recognise this is only the accountant talking and not the whole of me.
To be fulfilled I need to make all the monkeys happy, particularly the explorer :-)”
— Jodie
“There are lots of questions to answer...e.g. do I need any qualifications or experience to do the conservation work I would like to do?
If yes, how can I get this?
Can I do a short project?
If not, could I rock up and at least chat to some people doing this sort of thing when I'm over there?
Can you earn money or do you have to pay?
Is it best to go via an intermediary or go direct? Etc.”
— Jodie
Diving deeper…
We spent the next few weeks building her plan of action and carefully engineering an implementation strategy.
She was anxious and always ran the risk of feeling overwhelmed.
Every step in the framework was carefully designed in such a way that she would never feel overwhelmed but always continue to make steady progress.
We went through a rigorous selection process to decide which option would get her to her goal the quickest most efficient way, minimising time, cost and energy where possible.
We eventually built methods and processes to get her the connections she needed to break into the sector without ANY prior experience, networks or connections in the industry.
Ramp up….
We really cranked everything up a notch and she eventually got her flight away and landed herself a spot with the owner of a a major Elephant conservation charity in Africa where she would eventually spend time working with by the owner’s side.
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Jodie out in the wild
After a long journey she eventually made it to her dream spot. Looking after elephants in Africa, without having to re-train or study.
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