Step away
This week I took a couple of my kids down to Dartmouth in Devon. My wife’s uncle lives there and I worked out I’d probably visited close to 100 times since my wife and I have been together. I know the place so well I could probably walk around blind-folded.
But over the past year I’ve been getting the ferry across the River Dart to Kingswear to wander about. Most of my wandering invariably involves looking across the sea to Dartmouth
And of course it looks pretty different. Things that seem quite far apart when you’re in the town are actually quite close together as the crow flies. The seemingly random layout of the town looks far more organised from a distance. I notice things in Dartmouth from Kingswear that I’ve never seen before – buildings, church spires, colours, plots of land still undeveloped etc.
It's not really a surprise that when we take a step back we see things differently. Our perspective changes. We feel less on top of things, find more space, more context.
It reminds me of being in my old job, as opposed to now, three or four years later, when I look back at it.
Then the job seemed the centre of everything, as if everything inside it really mattered, everything was important. It felt like the only option.
Now it seems much smaller, much less important. Some of it even seems quite futile. Like the meetings, the fights I had, how much blood, sweat and tears I put in to impress people around me.
I don’t want to knock it completely because it served a purpose, many purposes in fact. We all need to feel useful and I did. I also learnt some really useful skills, experience and knowledge that are as valuable today as they were then.
And they form the basis of my offer to other companies - including corporates - that I work with today.
Distance from that company, however, has helped me see that I allowed work to fill up a much bigger part of my life than I’d probably intended – or even realised.
Ultimately, it was too much pressure on that one company to be able to fulfil me forever. And of course it was naive to believe that that company could reciprocate my commitment – until I retired.
Much of what I wrote about in Corporate Escapology is based on lessons that I hadn’t learnt before I left – but that through my research for the book and self-reflections (and a lot of coaching) – I learnt afterwards and I want to share with people like me who want something different, for work to be on their terms, to fit around their lives, to make them feel good about themselves, to be connected to something deeper and more fulfilling.
Forcing a different perspective is part of my learning that I now share with clients I coach:
Identifying some of the bad thinking that we let control our actions, inaction and what we believe we deserve.
Building a richer picture of what we can do and what we know and the value they can add to others (and back to ourselves).
Helping to explore opportunities and new pathways we may have discounted or never considered but which might be second or third chapters of our amazing (but sadly, singular) lives.
If you need help finding that different - or new - perspective, drop me a line – I could possibly be better at seeing you than you are!
This week I signed off the cover of Corporate Escapology available for pre-order on Amazon - pre-orders really matter btw to signal to Amazon that the pent-up demand for this book is off the scale. Here’s the cover to whet your appetite!
