Career learnings from A Shepherd's Life

If you are stuck for a Lockdown read at the moment, I highly recommend you try James Rebanks’s autobiographical memoir “THE SHEPHERD’S LIFE.” Why? It is a fascinating account of the job of a shepherd which might not be a route you have ever considered or know much about. It is an account of James’s life as a Herdwick sheep shepherd on the Lakeland communal fells in the north west of England where his family have farmed for more than six hundred years. I actually published a version of this article on LinkedIn a few years ago but now that we are “doing” the book in my reading group next week I am struck again by how many career management learnings there are in it which might be useful reminders for us all.

Quick bit of background first – James Rebanks, the author, is mid-40’s, so this is not the tale of some elderly shepherd stooped over his crook. He left school with few qualifications but through a passion for reading ended up going to Oxford University to study history. Throughout this period, he continued to return home to the family farm, to work whenever he could and after doing a “proper job” post university returned to run the farm full time with his young family. The book shares the details of everyday life on the fells; the nuance of difference between each sheep; how they are selected at market; the challenges of weather and disease. Let me pick out just a handful of the successful career management tips we can learn from a shepherd’s way of life:

HELP OTHER PEOPLE: that’s what genuine relationship building is all about, what proper networking consists of. As James says “My grandfather and father go out of their way to do good deeds for their neighbours, because good will counts a lot. If anyone buys a sheep from us and has the slightest complaint about it, we take it back and repay them, or replace it with another. And most people do the same”. (p.24) When did you last go out of your way for someone else?

ADAPT TO SURVIVE: be versatile, learn new skills, seize the moment and try something new. James describes how hard his grandfather worked to make the farm profitable. He was an “opportunist” so that “If milk paid, milk cows. If fattening bullocks paid, buy bullocks. Adjust, adapt, change. Do whatever you needed to – because you stood on your own two feet, there was no one to pick you up if you fell down. The geographic constraints of the farm are permanent, but within them we are always looking for an angle.” (p.48) What are you doing to thrive and survive?

TAKE A RISK: James’s grandfather “took his chance” by taking the family back into the hills. “It was normal to have bits of land scattered many miles apart. The land directly next to the land you have rarely comes up for sale. So it is not at all unusual that my grandfather bought a farm fifteen miles from his rented farm” (p.50). Throughout the book, working hard is a constant message. Life is not easy; the piece of land you want does not neatly come up for sale just when you want it to do. Taking a stepping stone job or volunteering are all career coaching parallels when the perfect next job does not automatically appear. What risks and new steps are you taking?

HAVE GOOD JUDGEMENT: James emphasises how important it is for a shepherd to be smart. It Is “held at a premium amongst farmers. You very publicly live by your decisions, as judged and measured by those around you.” (p.51) So in terms of career management, reflect before you jump in and get seduced by a new role. Try to make the smart decision once in possession of as many facts about the organisation as possible. Talk to people who work there, read reviews from current employees posted on www.glassdoor.com visit their premises (COVID-19 permitting of course), check out the competition, do your due diligence. How does a recent decision you have made demonstrate good judgement?

DON’T BE AFRAID OF FAILING: my final snippet from the book comes when James is at Oxford. One of his professors is surprised that James is returning to his shepherd’s life after his studies, in fact he has never really left this Lakeland life. James describes the other students there, “They are OK, but they are all very similar; they struggled to have different opinions because they’d never failed at anything or been nobodies, and they thought they would always win.” When asked what could be done about this, James replies “send them all out for a year to do some dead-end job like working in a chicken-processing plant or spreading muck with a tractor. It would do more good than a gap year in Peru. He (the professor) laughed and thought this tremendously witty. It wasn’t meant to be funny.” (p.143) Lessons here for us parents with teenage children considering gap years for sure but more widely reassurance that it is normal to struggle at things, to fail, in fact it builds character and is a good thing. When was the last time you failed at something?

If you have enjoyed this article please do share it with others and I would love to hear your responses to some of these questions posed in the comments below or hear about your ideas of other books that you have found helpful or inspiring which contain career insights. If you would like help with any aspect of career management or would like to find out how career coaching can assist you then please get in touch with me on [email protected]