Taking the Leap

12000 feet above Queenstown, poised at the door of the plane, my Eastern European skydive instructor tells me we’re going on the count of 3. Vaan, Tooo,.. out I jump. It’s probably a combination of the excitement and a desire to be in control. I’m not going to risk waiting for 3 and being pushed out – I’ll go on my own terms.

In a small town in Colombia, I sign my life away on a waiver form so serious it requires a fingerprint as well as a signature. A band with emergency contact details is rather ominously tied around my wrist. The grade 5+ rapids of the Rio Suarez have plucked many before me from their rafts, but I can’t wait to get out there.

I’m 7 years old and standing in the queues at a themepark on the Gold Coast with dad. Standing as tall as I can, I am able to turn my 119cm into the minimum 120cm requirement to go on the upside down roller coaster. My older brother is too scared to join us, yet my eagerness caused a spontaneous growth spurt.

I’m not afraid of heights, I don’t fear death, I’m un-phased by deadly sharks, snakes and spiders. Heck, I even love public speaking. But at 11am on Friday morning I was trembling.   My fingers shook as I typed 4 simple words on lync to my boss “U got 5 mins?” When he confirmed he did, it was Showtime. I steeled myself for what I was about to do. The butterflies were having a frenzy in my stomach. Why on earth was I so nervous? Because, it turns out, I fear the unknown. And when the stakes are high, and I am doing something for myself, I have an almost paralysing fear of making a bad choice.

Completely unbeknownst to my boss, I was calling him into a room to deliver my resignation. I was resigning from my well-paid, successful career with the leading Australian Bank that I had joined as a fresh young graduate 11 years ago.   I didn’t hate my job, there were some seriously awesome people in my team, and I had, quite possibly, the best boss in the world. Yet here I was calling it quits.   I didn’t even have a new job offer waiting in the wings.   I fought back a swell of emotion and said what I had to say. My boss sat there in shock. Then a smile took hold as said “Good on you” and wished me all the best. So “why did you do it?”, I hear you asking. “Have you completely lost the plot?”

I quit yesterday because I had lost not the plot but the passion. I had progressed as far as I possibly could go in my role – short of someone above me throwing in the towel or getting hit by a bus. And there’s only so long you can wait for that to happen. Even then, a promotion in my exact area of expertise didn’t exist, it would involve a bit of a sideways shift into areas I had less interest in. My job wasn’t easy, but I could almost do it with my eyes closed. And with each new (stupid) question or illogical decision that would interrupt my day, I could feel an extra ounce of cynicism creeping in. I like to be the office optimist. The happy person who greets everyone with an enthusiastic smile, and no matter what obstacles there might be, I will be the person who just gets on with it and gets shit done. When I felt I was at serious risk of losing this, I knew the time had come to exit stage left.

The challenge when leaving a great position in a top team with one of the leading players in the market, is where to go next. This wasn’t a move for money, a move for a promotion, or a move for the sake of moving. This was a move to re-discover my passion. As someone with an actuarial degree, it probably isn’t a huge surprise that my next steps are all about improving the odds. I’m going on a passion hunt, but I’m taking two paths rather than one. To earn my keep and continue to do the work I enjoy – to see if I can enjoy it again once all the limitations and bureaucracy is removed, I’m going to set up my own business and (hopefully) get some consulting work. I’m the numbers nerd who gets the bigger picture and can speak and write about it with panache. I can build a beautiful spreadsheet, but it’s my ability to truly understand the story behind it, and pass this understanding on to others, that I am hoping will set me apart.

But maybe this won’t make me happy either. So my other path involves a bigger shift. A return to lecture halls full of teenagers and the days of slaving away on assignments and exams. In March, I’m heading back to university to study sports science. I have a brain for science and I love sport. The choice seems obvious, but I know the career prospects are more limited in the areas that appeal to me. For some time now, I have had a nagging wonder as to whether I should have gone down a career path that actually involved either my love of sport or travel, or whether my career should just enable me to play the sports and do all the amazing travelling on the side. The time has come to find out once and for all. I’ve faced my fear and taken the first big leap.   I don’t know where I will land, but with each minute that passes, the fear is gradually being replaced with excitement. I’m glad I did it, for as they speculate: “You only live once”