How would you describe yourself? Who is Justin?
(Laughter and silence...) There are a whole lot of dimensions to
answer that question on. I’m tempted to respond in a more
superficial way, which would be that I’m a New Zealander who has a
strong sense of this - valuing freedom and innovation. I run
around in a body that’s 30 years old. I live in London and have
more tremendous friends than I could have everimagined.
I think that what’s most important is what I deeply value. My
name Justin comes from justice, and that’s what I feel that my
life is about, in a proactive sort of way. I used to see justice
as something that happened after the event. What I’ve recently
realised is justice is also about setting things up so they don’t
go wrong in the first place.
Uhm... I also seem to collect trousers, and scarves from around
the world. I combine a strange mix of esthetics, textile and
clothing, with philosophy, something that my parents handed down
to me. From them comes a meditation practice that I do twice daily
and an interest in studying scriptures in my spare time. I project
that outwards through facilitating study groups in practical
philosophy and working with young people (18-26) on international
leadership courses.
I love the outdoors and finding ways to get by simply. I love
cooking, and my cooking works better the less ingredients I have.
I was trained in the bush with the bare minimum and the task of
creating something nice to eat, so when I’m presented with
infinite choice of ingredients I tend to over-egg the pudding.
What are you working on now?
I’m working on securing a job in the direction of my vocation,
which is related to facilitation of proactive justice through
creating harmonious relationships, particularly in the area of
organisations and business. So I guess you could say I’m full-time
job-hunting.
I’ve just recently come out of an experience where the
environment was not suitable for me, and I’m really working on
finding out what it means to work in my chosen area in the way
that is natural to me.
What has been your journey to what you are doing now?
At university, I really got interested in quality – from the
attitude side, not the measurement side. I graduated university
and came to England for a week- long philosophy retreat. I stayed
with a friend, who offered me a job. I didn’t really know what the
job was, but I tore up my ticket and stayed.
I ended up working in a big IT company. My friend was in sales,
so I started as a Sales/Client Director’s Assistant. Fairly soon
after I started, I went to a big internal meeting where the woman
in charge was talking about how customer satisfaction times
employee motivation equalled a profitable business. I realised
that this was attitude related (my interest at uni), went up to
her and said I’d be interested in exploring these issues further.
She welcomed the idea and requested a meeting – my first big
break. I did some research, and found out that one of the key
contributing factors to staff motivation and customer satisfaction
was the attitudes of the leaders. I ended up leading the design
and implementation of a leadership development programme. I was
22.
But it all soon went far too over my head and I drowned. From
that point on I knew that this was an area that interested me, but
now was not the time, maybe later. I felt that I’d failed so badly
that for the moment I wanted to get my hands on tangible skills
stuff versus intangible attitude stuff. So I did some research and
set my sights on project management.
I went on to become a successful project manager (PM), and did
this work for five years. I went from a big company to join the
rollercoaster ride that was New Media and ended up working in
banking IT, where I spent three years at Royal Bank of Scotland
managing changes to their IT systems and the development of
consumer websites.
I started to feel that if I stayed on that path I’d pigeonhole
myself as a PM and that in order to prevent that from happening,
I’d have to make a radical change. I’d already had a taste of what
interested me, so I decided to head back that way, but I didn’t
actually know what that meant. All I had were these idealistic
notions of what it was and how good I would be at it.
I quit my job by not renewing my contract and set out to find
work I’d love. Things didn’t progress as quickly as I’d have
liked, so I got a coach. After spending an awful amount of money
and long time (4 months) I had to admit to myself that it really
wasn’t working at all. So I fired my coach and realised that I
still had a niggling sense that I needed help, but had no idea
about how to choose a coach. However, with a little bit of
research I found that there were people who did what I was looking
for, and I found Satu.
We did work on my vision and where I was going. Getting into
action I realised that I was very scared about ringing people up
and talking to them. So it was ground breaking for me to realise
that I could plan conversations. Before calling them I would sit
down and think about: why am I excited about talking to this
person? and then define my questions from that space.
I’d always known about informational interviewing, but never
knew how to actually have the conversations where you aren’t
asking people for a job but just exploring what they actually do.
After a lot of conversations, I gradually got a sense of a sort of
company that I was interested in: less dogmatic, exploratory,
cutting edge, more into values than strategy, and the exploration
of those through a focus on productive dialogue rather than
problem solving. And I came upon two companies that seemed to fit
(off the back of cold calls actually!). They both offered me a
job, I chose one and the rest did seem like history.
But there’s the last chapter (for now), which really ends this
story on an open note. I have started to learn how much I still
need to learn. Living in that space of unknowing can be very
challenging, and downright uncomfortable. I had an idea that
somehow I’d go through this process, get a job and then I could
stop, and just get stuck in working and stop the learning stuff,
but have realised it is ongoing. So I’m feeling quite a lot of
humbleness coming out of a situation that didn’t work out as
expected. I’m starting to learn to learn. That’s where I’m at.
What was the turning point?
I’d acknowledged for quite a while that being a PM in IT and
finance were three things that didn’t suit me at all. In the last
six months of that job I began to have ideas about moving back
towards my areas of interest. But I just realised that I was
utterly incapable of pursuing those ideas, and due to my high
pressure job, I couldn’t find the motivation to explore this
new/old area. So it wasn’t just not knowing how, it was finding
the motivation to do anything about it.
My breaking point was realising that if I wasn’t motivated to
move, how was I ever going to move? So I threw myself out into the
open, and didn’t renew my contract, and put myself into a position
where I had to find something. I just kind of knew that this was
the time and space to venture out. I had enough money to last me
for a while.
It was a surprisingly unfearful time for me. I had a cocky
feeling that something would fall into place. I was happy to
finally be starting my exploration.
But once I realised that being unemployed wasn’t helping me to
find the motivation to figure out how to move forward, then my
fears and insecurities started to appear.
I was successful in creating a space, but I filled it up with
lots of DIY projects and things that I found easy to do. I found
myself a long away from actually confronting the issues. I wrote
loads about it – values and aspirations, and what I loved and what
was important, but none of it was making any difference or turning
the wheels of actually getting a job in that area.
That’s when I turned towards a coach. With the first one I
spent a lot of time energy spraying, not being focused. I was
getting more insecure and thinking: “oh s**t, I’m not getting
anywhere, and I’m not likely to get anywhere.”
After I changed coaches, my fears started to alleviate once I
felt more comfortable having conversations with real people. The
planning process was enough to get me into them, but I would still
have tremendous amounts of fear about them. I found that you had
to really keep at it to not let that fear kick back in.
Every time I would pick up the phone I would take a deep breath
in, and I was able to do it, because I was happy with my
intentions for that call.
There is one bit of the story that I missed out on. A month
into starting to work with Satu, I came home from a trip to New
Zealand feeling quite stressed about my situation. Along came an
old boss of mine who basically offered me a job for a huge amount
of money. I had no money, no job, no prospects. It was one of the
hardest decisions I’ve made, but I turned him down, and really put
my nose to the grindstone and got cracking. Two days after that
decision, I got a whole lump of money from a company that I’d
invested in (and lost hope in). It felt completely synchronous
with my decision, and I felt that I was being supported to do the
right thing.
What’s been the most difficult part of your journey?
Right now is pretty difficult. But actually no, the most difficult
time for me was when I found myself sitting at my computer utterly
frozen. I was so frozen up that I couldn’t speak, and I had to
have friends sit with me and talk with me for half an hour before
I could put a legible sentence together. I had this agitation and
feeling that the world should be recognising me and what I offer,
that I shouldn’t have to do anything to be recognised. I was so
scared, because I didn’t know how to make myself known, and I felt
paralysed, it was an awful period.
How are you feeling now?
Angry, upset, humbled, misunderstood, disappointed and yet
hopeful.
How do you see the future?
As a place where I really don’t know what I’m going to experience,
but it’s still got a positive shine to it.
The future has got a sense of unknowing in a different way than
before. Before it felt more reckless, and now I’m rather intrigued
to find out what’s going to happen.
I now know that there are people who are doing wondeful things
that I respect, and I’m gravitating towards that. I’m wanting to
further explore what’s important to me and fulfilling that. I have
a lot more clarity around my vocation and calling, and that can
only be good. The emotions I have right now are just temporary,
and are part of a bigger framework of hope.
What advice would you give to other people in similar
situations as you were in?
Get support through a coach!
- Do your research to make sure you find the right one for you.
For me it was important to find someone who was going to be tough
on me in the right way. I can drift off point when I start to
enter uncomfortable territory, so I needed someone who would help
keep my nose on the grindstone when I started to steer off course.
So know your weaknesses and make sure that the coach you hire
isn’t going to let you off easy.
- It’s really difficult to this by yourself, because the things
that are stopping you are your blind spots, and they are blind
spots for a reason. You need a process, and someone to guide you
through it and through your blind spots. You’ll still do the work
– so don’t expect it to be easy, but a good coach will help you to
do the work that you need to do to make the real change happen.
