Why I swapped my desk for a tent

I recently returned from a 6-month career break which involved some time in the USA and a lot of time in driving across Australia. There were 2 questions that generally came up when I first mentioned planning the career break.

1. Why are you taking it?
2. What do you expect to get out of it?

And on return there have generally been 2 questions that come up when I talk to people about the trip.

1. Why did you take the break?
2. What did you discover?

Plus, a bonus question of where was your favourite place? Or was there anywhere that was a letdown? (depending on if it was an optimist or pessimist asking).

While I’m more than happy to relive the trip over a cup of coffee or beer with anyone who is keen to know more, now that I’ve been back in the city and back to work I also thought it might be valuable to some people (and also me) to jot down the answers to these questions as quick articles while they’re still fresh in my mind.

I’ll kick off with question one (with the other to follow as a separate article).

“Why did you take a career break?”

At its most simple I could say because, “I made a spur of the moment phone call to my partner on a rainy winter Monday morning, I had the realisation that $28 for a ? chook, chips and salad isn’t a bargain for Tuesday night dinner and because we could”, but while all true that probably doesn’t really get to the nub of the question. So, I’ll unpack each of them.

“I made a spur of the moment phone call to my partner on a rainy winter Monday morning”

Having recently left a long-term role at a corporate and being part way through a contract gig at a start-up it’s fair to say change and looking at things differently was front of mind. Plus, while not in a rut exactly I think deep down there was a desire to challenge myself in a way would need a bit of time, space and a leap of faith.

As for rain on a Monday morning… well it might be fun to get caught in the rain after a few pina coladas, but less so because you’ve forgotten an umbrella.

In short it was time to take stock using the same advice I’d often applied to crack a brief or get a different perspective on a stubborn business challenge - take yourself away from your everyday environment.

“The realisation that $28 for a ? chook, chips and salad isn’t a bargain for Tuesday night dinner”

It’s frustrating to hear our politicians constantly refer to the “Canberra bubble”, but if I’m being honest after about 15 years working in marketing and living in the inner city, I think I’d been caught in a bubble of my own.

At work people had morphed to become consumers, communities into target markets and through a business lens all the family homes and cars insured by the companies I worked for were simply “risks”.

Where I lived hearing complaints (and if I’m being honest doing my own fair share of complaining) about the cost of living while happily spending $28 for ? a roast chook, chips and salad washed down with a $12 schooner wasn’t uncommon. People were more likely to head overseas than west of the Great Dividing Range, and despite having access an abundance of information, thinking was becoming more insular and opinions were based on the individual lived experience.

I’d like to think that I’m fairly open minded and across social trends (I correctly predicted Brexit, Trump and that the word “problematic” would become itself problematic), but it was a rude awakening to realise my view of those living and working outside of the inner city largely came from customer research, The Guardian and Brown Cardigan. Just like those frustrating pollies, I was becoming disconnected from a broader reality.

Realising $28 is way too much to pay for ? a roast chook was my Tony Abbott “Street Library” moment. Something had to change.

“Because we could”

Without getting too deep, looking back many of the big decisions I’ve made in life have been dictated by the question “what should I do?” rather than “what could I do?”. This has resulted in me taking a pretty linear path in life and with my career.

Circumstances both in and outside of our control meant thinking about what we could do, became both more attractive and possible than it had in the past.

This was driven by:

• A redundancy and existing savings providing a financial break
• A move to contract employment meant I’d have to hunt for work again when it ended (and so would probably have a gap in income anyway)
• The house we rented was about to be renovated so we’d have to move out
• My partner Andie was training for her first marathon and her training was inspiring us both to see what’s possible when you put your mind to it (plus meant we already had a holiday booked to New York).

What should we do… Invest the money in a low yield term deposit or an increasingly shaky share market, fire up LinkedIn to find a new job, spend a month of Saturdays at open houses and just treat the US trip like any other holiday?

Or

What could we do… Burst the bubble!

We thought about some of the different options all across the globe based on our interests, risk appetite and general vibe. Ultimately, we decided a road trip across Australia was the best option (despite neither of us camping since school). Sharing our plans with family, friends and colleagues quickly affirmed we were making a good decision. If things go pear shape what’s the worst that can happen? You come back and you’ve already got the template for what you “should do”.

So we put our worldly possessions into storage and set off on an adventure that included running 26.2 miles around NYC and driving about 22,000KM across Australia with a quote from Ferris Buller in the back of my mind, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it”.