~ Field Notes ~
My advice on career transition
At some point in our lives, we decide that what we are doing as a job or career at the moment, isn’t the best for us in the future.
In 2015, after some 12 years in the military – itself a spur of the moment decision that I made when I saw how much friends were really thriving in it - I decided that I should try something new to support causes that I’m passionate about. I’d reached a waypoint in my career, although not achieved the things I’d wanted to – but realised that I had stalled and momentum in a new direction would help me regain the initiative.
This article came about as I regularly get asked by friends leaving the military, how transition works from someone who’s undergone many of them and how it can be more successful.
This is a simplified version of how I transferred from the Royal Marines into the BBC, an international media charity, going freelance, and then starting my own creative agency (Haus of Hiatus).
The reasons why I plan to have two, three, or four careers in my lifetime.
Popular media is full of people who are showing how healthy and able they are in their sixties, seventies and eighties these days. By example, just look at Ranulph Fiennes who at the age of 65 summitted Mount Everest, or Rosie Swale-Pope who ran around the world, starting at age 58!
Rowing across a current: A veteran’s thoughts on transitioning into the creative media sector.
In her article, ‘It’s Hard to Be What You Can’t See’, Marian Wright Edelman asserts that kids need to be exposed to a wide range of writing that reflect the true diversity of the way the world really is.
This perspective is useful to help explain why some veterans don’t venture far from employment that they know as a result of their service – and possibly why some organisations that have low numbers of veterans, may come to unfair assumptions of someone who has served in the military.