~ Field Notes ~

What it's like to walk the London marathon carrying a 100-lb backpack, to set a world record
Endeavour, Fortitude, Resilience, Indomitable spirit Chris Shirley MA FRGS Endeavour, Fortitude, Resilience, Indomitable spirit Chris Shirley MA FRGS

What it's like to walk the London marathon carrying a 100-lb backpack, to set a world record

So it just happened. The idea. It kept on coming back to me, over and over again. Like I could just reach out and touch it. If he could carry an 80-lb. pack for 26.2 miles – then maybe I could do it with a 100-lb. (45.36kg) pack. I was surprised no-one had ever done it – I've had one or two podium places in low level Taekwondo competitions, but nothing quite on this scale. Nothing that would put me the best at something in the entire world!

It's daunting when you say it out loud: The; Entire; World.

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Compound adventures: why breaking long endeavours down into bite-size pieces is good for us millennials
Compound adventure, Endeavour, Modular adventures Chris Shirley MA FRGS Compound adventure, Endeavour, Modular adventures Chris Shirley MA FRGS

Compound adventures: why breaking long endeavours down into bite-size pieces is good for us millennials

As a millennial, we find ourselves caught between life chapters also: buying a property; starting a family; launching a business; concentrating on a career; or just jack them all in to go and climb mountains; live in a van or sail around the world.

The idea of big, wieldy goals seems great when you’re in your twenties but not hugely achievable as your responsibilities to family, career, or a mortgage mount up in your thirties and forties.

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Sports and exercises for good mental health

Sports and exercises for good mental health

As millennials that grew up in the internet age, we’ve faced challenges that our parents and previous generations haven’t had to deal with. This requires a different outlook to those in the past, simply ‘getting on with it’ is no longer good enough.

We’re the most globally-connected generation and therefore, more exposed to what’s going on in the world – which includes the bad parts. To stop ourselves being overcome with anxiety and panic, it’s important to maintain a healthy balance of work and ‘play’ – that doesn’t focus on drinking alcohol or spending vast amounts of money.

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On the other side of life
Mountaineering, Climbing, Resilience, Accident, Aosta, Italy, Matterhorn Chris Shirley MA FRGS Mountaineering, Climbing, Resilience, Accident, Aosta, Italy, Matterhorn Chris Shirley MA FRGS

On the other side of life

I have been thinking a lot about time recently.

Somehow, I always perceived time as being linear. Everything having its own beginning and ending. Its own past, present and future.

But it was the evening of the accident when I felt the true meaning of time. I have heard it being described before, in books, in films, by other people with remarkable stories - that in certain moments in life, time can stop.

Stand still.

Cease to exist as it did before and change your life forever.

The night I received the message about the accident was the moment when life and time truly stood still. I can still remember some of it, how alien time felt. I remember my knees getting weak and shaky. The outside world disappearing. The truth is, it is a feeling like no other, one that I hope that you would never experience.

And yet, it was once of the rarest moments of my life when I felt time as raw as I ever have.

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What 3 months in hospital taught me about isolation (by a former-Royal Marine and ocean rower)

What 3 months in hospital taught me about isolation (by a former-Royal Marine and ocean rower)

Late last year, I had a big fall whilst trying to climb the Matterhorn mountain – tumbling fifty metres which put me in coma for eight days and hospital for almost three months. After spending a week in a coma, I woke up with a traumatic brain injury. The Italian doctors had found three lesions (damage in the brain) which affected my short-term memory, speech and vision in one eye. At first I didn’t recognise my girlfriend, family or close friends whom had all flown to be with me throughout the coma. But as time went on, I started to become more like the person I was before – but some perspectives had changed.

It was undoubtedly the hardest period of my life, but these basic principles helped me to endure it and come out stronger.

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My advice on career transition
Career, Transition, Growth, Lifestyle, Positive mindset, Strategy Chris Shirley MA FRGS Career, Transition, Growth, Lifestyle, Positive mindset, Strategy Chris Shirley MA FRGS

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).

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