How would you describe yourself? Who is Joanna?
I've spent the last 2 years finding out! I'm a bit of an idealist, trying to make myself a better person and having some impact on the world too.

Working in the City (London’s business district) for 5 years helped me know what I am definitely not. Since quitting I've been playing with ideas on what my small part in changing the world will be.

I am passionate about the idea of healthy people making up healthy societies making up a healthy world. And using the word 'health' in the broadest possible way. I get real fulfillment working one-to-one, which is what my work is now allowing me to do.

What are you working on now?
I’m studying to be an ayurvedic physician, which is traditional Indian medicine. It’ll take 3 years, of which I’ve now done one year. At the same time, I’m teaching yoga in London, running Dorset well-being retreats and Indian cooking workshops.

My latest venture is combining yoga with tennis, running zentennisyoga holidays in Tuscany! I'm also back at art school one day a week focusing on ceramics. Leaving my job in the City has really allowed the creativity to flow!

What has been your journey to what you are doing now?
I left uni with no idea of what to do. I went to IBM, but didn’t want to be another employee identified by a code. I then went to a conservation charity to do communications work, which was followed by going to Madagascar to look after an ecotourism project.

I came back and followed my parent’s advice, and went into Social Responsible Investing (SRI). 5 years later I was still there, it was a great job, I was changing the world at a great salary, and I knew that had I written down my dream job 10 years before, it would have been what I was doing.

4 years in, things began to change. I realised that most companies were doing their environmental and social reports due to pressure not because they wanted to do it. Everything had to be translated into money – but how do you do that with human rights for example?

The idealist in me got more frustrated. I literally couldn’t stomach it, and had many physical side effects – and I learned to listen to my body as my mind was too confused.

A lot of people around me kept on saying: don’t leave with an abyss in front, have a bridge. But with an all consuming job, I didn’t have time to think of what to do next.

I did know I wanted to do a yoga teacher training course so I did. Yoga led to ayurveda, which is the healthcare system derived from yoga philosophy. Ayurveda is now at tipping point in the UK– science of life – totally holistic health system.

More recently, I went back to Austria for an ayurvedic nutrition course – learning how to cook balanced meals. It’s all tailored to the individual, and it’s refreshing to have these differences between us all acknowledged.

There was a lot of synchronicity in all this: The Mayur Ayurvedic University of Europe had started this course I’m now on, but I missed the deadline by two weeks. I went for an interview anyway, and ended up starting lectures at the end of the interview!

I’d previously enrolled on a Master’s degree at Bath University on Responsibility and Business Practice. When I started I was still working in the City and it was the right thing for me. But by the time I had quit my job, so much had changed.

I 've learnt that however much you invest in something when it’s time to walk away, it’s time to walk away – don’t carry on for the sake of another bit of paper or prinicpal. It had provided the inspiration to quit my job, and some structure in the difficult period afterwards.

At Bath I was researching ways for people to fully be themselves, many people are not living their lives to the full and are in need of a spot of rehydration if you like, to be able to bloom and reach their full potential.

I wanted to find a job that allowed me to achieve this for starters. It’s actually sometimes harder work to suppress part of what’s you!

What was the turning point?
I really thought that SRI was one of the key ways to change society. I was convinced that changing companies from the 'top down' was the way to go.

It was the Master’s that really got me thinking: we explored alternative ways of looking at economics, GDP as a measurement of growth and current structures of shareholder ownership. I became instantly disillusioned.

My values also started to change. I was surrounded by people whose primary focus was money. I didn’t feel they were very fulfilled integrated human beings, and after five years this made me depressed.

However, I loved my immediate team. The one thing that I really miss is the social side, playing jokes on each other, being human – teaching yoga can be difficult for this but humour can be brought in everywhere of course!

I had already tried to resign once before, a year before I actually left. My boss told me to go away so I went to Barcelona for a few days, came back and thought maybe things weren't so bad? After all it’s scary to walk away when you are being paid well in a 'dream job'.

But things just got worse, leading me to ask for a 4 day week. Nobody without a baby had done this before. They took 4 months to come to a decision, and by this point I had decided to quit - the week they agreed to the 4 day week.

I realised that I had aligned myself a lot to my work, and talked a lot about it outside of work. And when I quit and people asked me what I do, I’d say: nothing. I identified myself with my work – I ate, walked and talked SRI. And I wondered: how am I going to recreate myself?

The City was a particularly unhealthy place for me. I’m prone to speeding up more and more, and then I have a mini energy breakdown. Upon reflection, the City was the worse place I could have worked in... I had insomnia for four years - now I sleep like a baby – your body tells you what’s going on and sleep’s a good indicator.

How are you feeling now?
Very happy with where I’m am at, and where I'm going. My main focus now is on fostering ways for humans to be happy within themselves, only then will we be able to truly respect others and the planet.

I do miss working in a team, and I’m talking to various think tanks about 2 day/week research work, I think it’s a basic human need to work in groups, and I miss the social element in my work.

Even though I’m happy, it’s taken a while for my family to come aboard. I’m not expecting instant support – and I’ve learned that even though you are sure, it’s hard to have people on board right away as well. My sister is now training to be a yoga teacher as well - my mum is wondering what exactly she did?!

How do you see the future?
I know I can throw myself into things passionately, and then get bored in 5 years time. I’ve realised that this isn’t my last chance at education, as life is a classroom.

I’m very conscious of holding myself back, having fun, being more balanced about work and life. I find that with studying Ayurveda and teaching yoga, my work-life balance is a lot more difficult to manage.

I’m learning to rest when I need it, work when I have the energy. I laugh a lot more these days. Sometimes you need a bit more time to appreciate the funny side of life. Before I think I was often too busy running around to notice all the funny things happening around us.

Would you do anything differently?
Definitely, although I have no regrets about how things have happened.

I would have left my job when I first quit, as that last year was not a happy one and I wasn’t a joy to work with, even though I am still good friends with my old team.

I would have challenged my family less. They were concerned about the spiritual realm with yoga and ayurvedic medicine – and I guess I would have listened to their concerns and tried to reassure them rather than challenging them when they challenged me.

When I left, I told people I was taking a 'sabbatical’ so my parents were holding out that I would go back to the City – so I now feel it would have been nice to be clear to others that it was a permanent sabbatical from the City! You just don't know what life has in store, taking it all week by week is so important.

My mom found it hard that I didn’t know what I was doing from week to week. It was terrifying for them, they wanted to know, and when my plans changed, they couldn’t cope with them, even though I thought it was all exciting. So I would’ve kept a lot more for my self...

Treehouse by Naomi Wolf

This book has earned the honour of only a handful of books that I have managed to finish in close to one sitting. Wolf is an author I admire and look to as someone who writes about topics I care about, challenges the status quo, and does so with rigour, intellect and humour.

While, The Treehouse is a departure from her polemical writing, it maintains those qualities I most admire and even raises the ante by adding a whole lot of heart. The book is a tribute to her father and his own special brand of wisdom whose soil is poetry, watered by passion and love, and bears fruits that appear to change people’s lives.

Naomi describes how her father was able to see the creative light in anyone. After a typical conversation with her father, people would leave their spouse, change their career or both. As I read the inspiration came off the pages and I felt personally empowered around some career changes I had been contemplating and also remember walking around meeting people and trying to see the good and the creative in them. It was a much more pleasant way of relating to the world!

Wolf’s father is a professor of poetry and the 12 book chapters are named for the life lessons he espouses: ‘Do nothing without passion’, ‘Your only wage will be joy’, ‘Pay attention to details’. While at first these may appear trite, the stories and heartfelt search and transformation of Wolf herself, who had been resisting her father’s wisdom and fighting the patriarchy from whence it came, suffuse the book with authenticity and vitality.

Now a parent herself, she shares stories of raising her children in post 9-11 New York as well as stories from Naomi’s childhood growing up with in a family where experimentation and creativity superceded rules and cleanliness. One memorable story is of her brother really wanting an icecream maker. The family could hardly pay bills, but they bought the machine and had wonderful messy afternoon learning to make ice cream. That was the only time the machine was ever used, but rather than lectures about wasting money or demands to make use of it, it was simply cherished for the joy it provided that one afternoon and the lesson left to follow your passion sunk in deep.

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2005
6.30 - 9 pm, Central London venue

ESCAPEE NIGHT!

* Hear the story (and ask questions) of somebody who has made the leap and is on her escape journey
* Meet other fellow escapees
* Learn what other people are doing to get their escapes off the ground - what's worked, what's failed, what's being tried out!
* Gain access to a great support network who are in the same boat and are more than happy to help you!

Are you looking for good tools and resources to aid you in your escape, but haven't found what you are looking for?

I am in the process of developing some tools and resources as e-products - and am looking for 3-4 readers to be part of my 'Inspiration Team' and give me input on:
* what you need and what you don't need
* what format you would find most useful
* what's the best way for you to find and access these materials

You know how some successful professionals stay in jobs that don't fulfill them waiting for the perfect job to land on their lap, or to have enough money to leave and do what they 'really' want to do

Which means that they have some good days, but most days they aren't living or working to their potential, and start being more and more unhappy with their work, which then reflect on their lives

What I do is help these people create an escape plan doing what they want (not what they feel other people want)

Which means they have clarity about the type of work that would bring them the satisfaction they crave for - and a plan to get the work too

Do you know of anyone who you think has an inspirational escape story to tell?
Someone who's moved to or stayed in the corporate sector and doing fulfilling and meaningful work?
Someone who's started their own organisation and is making a visible difference every day?
Or someone who you find inspiring and who's clearing 'fulfilling their purpose'?

I'm constantly on the lookout for interesting stories both for Escape Stories and other publications - so if you know of anyone - please don't keep them a secret - and email me who you think I should get in touch with!