My journey to becoming a guide – by Simon
My journey to becoming a guide – by Simon
Posted on
In 2008 I was working for a large logistics company in the mining industry. The work was actually great (so I thought). We had a fantastic team, some incredible challenges to surmount and the position was well paid.
But it was killing me.
Up at 6am to be at work by 7:30am, grind all day, finish around 6pm, home by 7pm. Phone calls late, phone calls early.
“We have just had 2 haul packs go down, whilst a third of our fleet is in shutdown… it is costing us 100’s of 1,000’s of dollars every day, we need you to get these parts up to us ASAP!”
“One of your driver’s has just been involved in an accident, the police are on the line for you”
“Ben’s trailer is on fire just outside Kalgoorlie! The fire truck is on it’s way, but it is still an hour away”
I learnt a lot from that role (not whether the correct English is learnt or learned by the way… had to google that!) but it is a maxim of the industry, that you either learn to love the deadlines, or you get out. Pressure is just part of the logistics game. You deal with fleets of vehicles worth millions of dollars, and freight worth $10’s of millions of dollars and nothing ever sits still. We used to joke, that how good it would be if we could just press pause for a day, to get our heads around where everything actually is!
In this role, it didn’t take me long to work out that probably my one and only true talent is, I am really good at coping with constant change.
Ask me to stick to a routine and I am completely terrible. Ask me a to adhere to process, and you are more likely to get a flow chart with my suggestions as to how the process can be improved.
It is my greatest strength and my greatest weakness, and it should come as no surprise that he who thrives on change, will one day reap what he sows.
I remember it clearly. It was one of those corporate retreats, and after a day of team building/naval gazing, I called up my now wife Emily and made her a simple promise.
“I promise that we will always punctuate our lives with adventure.”
Both Emily and myself have very close families. We didn’t want to go off and live with a Bedouin tribe for the rest of our days, but we craved adventure. I am not sure if it is the love of learning that adventure offers, or if it is that (pesky) love of change, but we knew it then and we know it now, that there is nothing trivial about adventure. Joseph Campbell said it best.
“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.” Joseph Campbell
Boom! What he said.
And for our first great adventure? The Bibbulmun Track. We walked over 1,000 kilometres over 59 days. Just us and our packs.
Typical of someone from the industry, there was a spreadsheet, there was an exorbitant plan and there was a desire to get the cargo (that’s was us!) from here to there in the most efficient amount of time.
It is funny to me now, and needless to say, that attitude changed. Personal holidays don’t get the spreadsheet treatment any more.
It probably took about 10 days.
I like to think that Corporate Simon died one kilometre at a time, and when the kilometres started to add up, there was no going back. Being immersed for so long, I couldn’t help but develop a deep appreciation for nature and fascination for the human body. It appears to me that being active out in nature is about the most natural human experience one can have.
Like all of life’s great adventures (currently doing the toddler adventure…whoa!) , this experience became a line in the sand for me. Life was never quite the same after walking the Bibbulmun Track and the experience changed my expectations of what life could really be like.
We returned to our corporate jobs, but not for long. This experience set in motion events that eventuated in Emily and myself taking on Inspiration Outdoors in 2010 and becoming full time guides.
Life has been full of adventure ever since.
Simon
Managing Director
Inspiration Outdoors
