Adventures of a Corporate Hippie

An ex- corporate girl’s guide from the rat race to joy & fulfilment

By Lynda Bayada

Preface

Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild and many popular others, suggests that any writer write with a question in mind. A question that the story will inevitably provide the answer to, for both the writer themselves and others.

My question is, “Am I allowed to do this?”

This book is for anyone who is sitting idle in a job, feeling relatively uninspired and unfulfilled, bettering themselves through one path and one path only – taking the next rung on the proverbial career ladder to ‘success’. It’s for those who are seeing that ladder as the only way to further their lives because they haven’t been taught any other way. And it’s for those who have a vision that one day, someday, they’ll do that thing that they have always wanted to do. They’ll take that course, they’ll create that product, they’ll train in that industry or they’ll start that business and live a life they really get excited about and driven by, not the temporary one they have now. Not the temporary one which is most likely to become permanent the more and more responsibility and baggage – both literally and figuratively - they gather across their lives.

It’s for people who attempted something and failed miserably in their own eyes and who hid themselves away for fear of being scrutinised and judged for that failure.

It’s for people like the 30 year old version of me who think dreams are for someone else.

It’s for people like the 30 year old version of me who think they don’t deserve to question their life or who think they shouldn’t dare step outside the box they’re in. (The one they, unconsciously, placed themselves in in the first place sadly.)

It’s for people like the 30 year old version of me who think they’re not good enough to create and pursue something different, anything, to what they’re doing now.

I’m able to write this for you now because I climbed my way up that proverbial corporate ladder, seduced by the call of the next rung. I thought that if I made it to the next rung, then I’d be happy. I climbed and climbed until I realised, nope, that wasn’t going to cut it. I wanted more for my life. I wanted life to be rich - and I meant both in money and feeling terms. And even that was a delusion, I soon discovered.

So, I jumped ship and took a risk and started my own coaching and consulting business.

In the original vision for this memoir, I had done it. I had achieved the coaching and consulting business touting that it had “not been without its many trials and tribulations” but that I had made it there none the less. And this story was originally going to be about me sharing said trials and tribulations on the way to the all-important ‘successful’ business. (Define that for me, please.)

I’d envisioned writing something like, “I’m able to write this for you now because I’m now living my dream. I now believe I am deserving, dreams are for me to chase and that I am good enough.”

And that is true. I do believe I’m deserving and that I am allowed to follow my dreams and that I am good enough.

But it’s not about the slaying of any entrepreneurial dragon. Or the realisation of any dream, in fact.

It’s about something so totally intangible that is even more important. It’s about self- worth.

It’s about discovering the core parts of who you are and evolving so much that you end up coming back to who you really are.

It’s about self- inquiry.

And it actually ends with my life in tatters – in the best possible way.

My external achievements are humble. I am ordinary. And it’s of no surprise to me now that I write from this perspective. I’m grateful for my ordinary life.

If you think your life is running on empty. If you think your life is flat lining. If you think your life is dull and although full of experiences, is experience-less; read on.

You’re allowed.

Introduction

In the last (almost) seven years I’ve been through somewhat of a personal revolution. Not an evolution. No. Evolutions imply smaller, incremental changes in state that certainly test your boundaries but do not test your frame. I’m talking big, frame breaking and transformational change. I have challenged every single way of being that I was conditioned to follow. Like a good little girl, I was groomed to follow the ‘formula’. The formula being; get good grades, get a good job, get a good husband, get a good house, get good children, get a good dog. The problem was that in the getting, I wasn’t really getting anything on a real level. Something was missing. I was feeling entirely unfulfilled.

At first, I didn’t realise that I was unfulfilled. Sometimes I wish I could have stayed there, ignorant to the fact that I wasn’t finding fulfilment because God damn it, it got hard. But there was a little something that spoke to me, soon after my 30th birthday, that told me otherwise. Turning 30 in itself is evolutionary. I’m told that many people experience upset during this time. They start assessing and reassessing the direction of their lives. For many, this period of upheaval is often explained away by exactly that – “Oh, you’re just turning 30. Everyone has these feelings around that time. They’ll soon pass.”

Why should we let them pass?

I decided not to let them pass. I decided to really notice them, feel into them and experience them.

I decided to listen.

I believe we hit our thirties and really start to learn the lessons that the previous decade taught us. In our twenties we’re exploring, discovering and experimenting but most of us haven’t particularly locked anything in yet*. We haven’t particularly locked in who we are and what we’d like. Perhaps we allow life to happen to us rather than creating life.

(*NB: I say most of us. I realise this is not a one size fits all approach.)

I believe once we hit our thirties we get a deeper curiosity for ourselves and begin to want more for that self. We start listening to our desires. We start seeking to match that desire. We want more from our intimate relationships, from our friendships, from our roles at work, from our careers or vocations, from our leaders and bosses, from our salaries. We want to matter and what’s more, we want the vehicles to help us matter.

For those of us who do decide to do something with these desires, we experience flux, disillusion and doubt. Will we dare keep up the pursuit? For those who decide to ignore it, they stifle their real selves and bury that version of themselves far, far at the back of their minds going on to fight another day in the same life. A life that might be just fine.

But that’s not you. If it were, you wouldn’t be reading this right now. You would have found the romance novel in the next row. No. You’re curious about this book because you’re seeking a rich life with all that that phrase entails, for all its troubles, strife and wonderment.

I’m living proof that it’s possible. And no, it doesn’t mean having pots of money (though that is not a bad thing to desire).

This book is the real life version of my personal journey in navigating a revolutionary transition which some might have called the “30 year crisis”. I’ve cut some teeth, bruised some knees, and suffered some heartache. I’m hoping it will provide some insight or at the very least some inspiration into going out and grabbing, with both hands, the quality of life you desire and long for.

Ask for something new. Ask for something different. Ask for the things you desire and want. As children, we are often discouraged from asking. We are often taught to put others before ourselves and it feels selfish to ask. But do you want to look back and ask, “Did I ask for what I wanted?” Or do you want to look back and simply state, “I asked for all that I wanted”.

And no, it doesn’t actually matter if you got it or not. It’s actually just about the inquiring.

You deserve it.

You’ve waited long enough.

Chapter 1.     

I was working as a project manager by the time I was thirty. I dove head first from a social sciences degree into the world of corporate off the back of a horrific experience as a telephone counsellor.

As a part time youth counsellor I was privy to some of the terrible happenings our young children of Sydney (and indeed the world) can be faced with. My final phone call was from a girl, around the age of 10 or 11, who was trapped in her downstairs bedroom with the phone, pleading and begging with me to save her because her father was going to walk in any minute and sexually abuse her.

Her last words to me were, ‘he’s coming’, before hanging up.

The call failed to be traced and I could not shake the image from my mind or heart.

That day rocked my world. I felt powerless, helpless. I wasn’t effecting any real change there.

Whether it was because I wanted to hide from the harsh realities of the world or whether it was because my view of the world was becoming unfairly skewed by these stories, it didn’t matter. I wanted to run from it. I made a decision at that early age that I wasn’t resilient enough to stay in the human behaviour space. So, I chose corporate - unfeeling, structured, safe, financially lucrative corporate. Finance to be exact. It was the answer to my prayers, really. I got to go in, do my job and leave without having any extra responsibility. That suited me just fine as I would be more interested in partying and boys, thanks very much.

Throughout my twenties all I cared about was travelling, dating, drinking, dancing and making more money in order to do all of those things. I desired the climb. I was ambitious, but I was ambitious without any real heart. The climb that I was on didn’t really suit me, though I thought it did at the time.

I mean, you just read that I opted out of a counselling role and a career in the human behaviour arena for a career in corporate. I went from one extreme to the other. Do the two even go together? Later I would find that they didn’t. 10 years later to be exact.

10 concrete years later, I had systematically and dutifully worked my way through various big finance companies to end up as a project manager – a business project manager with one of Australia’s big four banks. I was doing well. And by that time I had bought into the widely fostered belief that in order to be successful you must work really hard. I did. I remember working three weekends in a row just before Christmas, down in butt fuck nowhere, on a pilot for a project that ultimately failed. Working til 8 pm three nights a week became the norm and so did having little energy to do the things I enjoyed such as eating properly and exercising to keep my health.

I was exhausted. But of course I wasn’t thinking this. I was just plodding along because that’s what you’re supposed to do, right? That’s what’s expected of you if you want to go any further, if you want to go any higher.

Besides this, I had the corporate card, the business card, the laptop, the title and the grand salary package to stroke my ego. I had made it, hadn’t I? I had position, power and status. (Hello ego.)

No.

I was effectively selling my soul and allowing the blood to be drained from me.

Now don’t get me wrong, whoever knows me and is reading this would know that my managers and leaders at the time were genuinely fantastic. I was lucky to have formidable, ground breaking characters in my life to look up to and follow. I remain good friends with them today and they have contributed to my personal growth. I am truly grateful.

What became very apparent was that my own personal stories, my own personal conditioning, were the catalyst for selling my soul. My belief systems and emotional lack of well- being were the contributors to my blind commitment to a life of futile ladder climbing.

But I didn’t know that yet.

Like I said, the project ultimately failed. It failed spectacularly and sent my leaders reeling. It was a high profile, high net worth project. Suppliers who were heavy hitting had betrayed their clients in the most obscene of ways. They said something would work when they knew it wouldn’t.

It wasn’t just business to the two women I was working for at the time. It was personal.

My team fell apart. One left and the other chose another role within the firm.

Where did that leave me?

Redeployed.

I went from being super busy and “important” to being bored.

The projects I now had were mundane and routine.

But I had something I never had before. I had space. I had time.

I had time back to go to yoga and eat healthy meals and think.

I had time to think and then feel.

And something became very apparent. Something wasn’t quite right.

And I was turning 30.

There is a saying, ‘idle minds are the devil’s workshop’. I disagree. I think ‘idle minds are the angel’s playground’.

But I only have the benefit of hindsight to tell you this now.

I thrashed around for a bit before I started paying any attention to the little voice from within.

The internal battle between the little voice – which was really my heart – and my head sounded something like this;

Heart; “Help others”.

Head; “But, but, but how? In what way? It’s impossible. I’m so ingrained on this path, there’s no way I can get off now, is there? I mean, I’m too entrenched. I’m too entangled in the web. I have too many material commitments. I can’t. I simply can’t. No. No. I’m going to stay right where I am”. (Hello fear.)

Heart; “Help others”

Head; “Nope. Not gonna work. I need to go on a holiday. That’s what I’ll do. They always help. I just need to gain some perspective. I’m just bored.”

And go on a holiday I did. But not before a couple of other, ‘swift kick up the butt’ things happened. More was becoming apparent.

And I was turning 30.

I was a smart girl. I felt I had more to offer. It was this smart girl’s worst nightmare being underutilised and undervalued. I also started to feel extremely guilty about earning good coin in exchange for very little effort. I now felt stale and guilty alongside bored.

To top that all off I was consistently faced with inertia. The two women I previously worked for (and indeed my two managers before them) had somehow protected me from the truth of the wider organisation. Out there, it was ruthless. My arms became small. I was someone who always fought the good fight. Managers described me as tenacious. Whoever I was going into battle for, I wholeheartedly and unequivocally defended. Instead of youths on the the other end of the telephone, the business was now my client. And when I was working on their behalf, I was like a bull terrier with a bone. I saw it as my personal mission to ‘win’ for them. Anything they wanted, I saw it as my duty to get.

But our IT department, not to mention the 1700 other departments, had other ideas. Red tape became the blinding medium of the day and ‘no’ became the norm. Whether it was budgets or white men in grey suits with private school educations being unconsciously biased as the excuse, the answer was always ‘no’.

The little that I did have to do became hard. Everything became hard. No longer challenging, but hard.

I’ll never forget coming out of a meeting one day, dejected by yet another no, and my manager saying to me, ‘Sometimes Lynda, you’ve just got to learn to roll over.’

I was mortified. Really? REALLY? REALLY? I must simply lie down and comply? Or must I play dead? My immediate response, across a packed floor of co-workers, was, ‘Oh for Christ’s sakes, would you give a dog a bone?!’

Whoosh.

You could hear the turning of heads. My voice was not entirely calm or low in pitch.

It felt like every which way I turned that I no longer fit, that this organisation was no longer my size. This life, this certain, aggressive, determined life was not lovingly accepting me anymore. Or was I no longer accepting it?

Between my head and my heart was my stomach…. “If you don’t change your life now, you will never change it. That clock is starting to tick. Bust a move.”

Fuck. Are we talking biological clock here? Yep. You tell me that babies don’t become part of your thoughts when you’re facing a milestone birthday and you don’t have them yet. (That’s if you want them.)

And by that time I was 30.

Head: “Right, yep. Holiday, holiday, go on a holiday. Heart, I’ll compromise with you. I’ll go and help people on my holiday and that should call us even, right?”

• Update #9 - They're Here! Dec. 20, 2018

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• Update #8 - The Proof is Here! Dec. 10, 2018

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• Update #7 - Proof Copy - Hold.The.Phone Nov. 26, 2018

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• Update #6 - And off to the proof reader we go! Oct. 16, 2018

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• Update #1 - Thank you for Ordering! And Next Steps... July 16, 2018

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