An eclectic life…

What is a life unless it’s lived to the fullest? Am I right?

To say that I have lived an eclectic life would be a major understatement. Just ask my family as they’ve seen me move to the beat of my own drum since childhood. Sometimes shocked, sometimes dismayed, sometimes surprised by my ongoing quest for adventure, and thus, life itself.

Never happy to sit still, I’ve always been an adventurer of sorts, willing to explore the unknown, not just merely for the sake of doing so, but to experience all that life experiences have to give.

So I guess you’re wondering what this type of eclectic life looks like to someone on the outside looking in… Curious??? 🙂

It’s the sort of life that when Sami was in Grade 1 her teacher asked the class to interview one of their parents and find out the type of job they had.

When Sam came home all excited she asked me, perhaps slightly less than accurately all the jobs I’d had, so we sat down and we started jotting them all down…

In all, we came up with 11 different jobs I’d had over the course of my adult life. She was literally bursting with pride, and I could tell she couldn’t wait to get to school the next day and share with her teacher and classmates all that her daddy had done.

Little did I know that the teacher was really only asking about the current job and not all of the job’s I’d ever undertaken.

The next day in “show and tell” she proudly stood up and told the class that her daddy had 11 jobs. I can only imagine what the teacher thought. “The poor kid, her dad can’t hold down a job…”

Sure enough, at the next parent teacher interview it came out that the question was slightly different than Sam had brought home, the three of us all laughed (Sam wasn’t present) but I could tell that the teacher was somewhat relieved to find out that I was gainfully employed…in only one job. 🙂

Fortunately for me my eclectic life has taken to live on two continents, travel to more than 60 countries and over 200 cities, plus try my hand at quite a number of different types of jobs.

It’s also provided me with the opportunity to do some incredibly cool things over the course of my life.

To name but a few I’ve worked a heavy press on a production line in a factory as a summer job when a teenager, I’ve worked on numerous farms over the course of my early years – everything from crops to prize bulls. I’ve driven heavy machinery (combine harvesters, tactors, trucks and buses). Growing up I was also a volunteer firefighter for my local town, and yes, I had a few bushfires to contend with…

I’ve survived a horrific motorcycle accident where me and my then girlfriend should have been killed, but we both walked away with minor injuries.

I’ve been detained during a military coup in Thailand and interrogated for 24 hours by the Thai military (yes, this was, by far and away the most unpleasant experience to date.) That definitely was a close call! And not one I’d wish on my worst enemy.

I’ve stayed with a family in Northern Finland near the Arctic circle and hunted reindeer in the forests (thank goodness we didn’t see any). 🙂

Spent a year backpacking around the world.

Traveled to the middle east, and looked out over the Golan Heights and demilitarized zone with Syria, ridden a troop train in Israel when a new division was being mobilized and sent north to bolster the border defences – the men and women soldiers were so young.

Driven across Australia from South to North and lived in Darwin in the Top End. Dove on the Great Barrier Reef and in the Caribbean.

Taught in both Primary and Secondary schools and lectured in a University on Curriculum development.

I decided consciously that when I moved to Canada I was going to transition into the business world, starting at an entry level I worked my way up to the Director level at a large Canadian Bank. Then worked for a Global software company and led a segment of the business during which time I created from a whiteboard drawing, and then led the development of a new Learning Management software solution which we sold successfully to fortune 100 companies. This was in the early days of the internet and an exciting time to be on the front line of new technologies.

Fun times indeed! 🙂

After leaving this I moved to management consulting world, where I worked my way up to become a Partner with Accenture. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to work for some of the world’s largest companies – AT&T, Sirius XM Radio, Best Buy Canada (I was also the Country lead and effectively the CIO) and Suncor in a range of roles.

And this was all before I decided to leave the Corporate world behind to begin my own journey.

Since 2014 I’ve created the life that I’ve always wanted and doing the things that make me passionate rather than following the standard script and working for someone else.

In addition, I spent a year studying Improv comedy and performed on the main stage to a live audience – I loved it!

I’ve had the pleasure of speaking at numerous events and forums to hundreds of people about a range of topics, most notably about the world of management consulting and, more recently about reinventing your career and life.

Written and published two books, been a frequent publisher to business journals. Created two podcast series on iTunes and Podbean on the topics of Reinvention and travel (Stories from the road series).

Interestingly, I’ve just read a book called the “The Geography of Bliss” by Eric Weiner in which he travels to a number of countries to try and define what makes people happy.

One of his conclusions is that having multiple identities is conducive to happiness. Clearly, based on my life to date I would have to agree with his findings. 🙂

For some reason we tend to pigeon hole people into being only one thing…whereas I would contend, along with Eric that leading an eclectic life can equate to greater happiness by broadening our life experience and uncovering new and exciting aspects of a life that we didn’t know existed.

For me personally I have two imperatives (1) owning my destiny (2) exploring life to the fullest. As you can tell I’m a big fan of leading an eclectic life. 🙂

Until next week

Ciao!