Episode 5
5. The Value of Taking Deliberate Career Breaks, Crafting a Well-Lived Life, and Defining Your Path | Katie Hair
Have you ever wished you could take a career break?
If you’re finding yourself at a career crossroads, or you’re simply seeking more fulfillment and satisfaction from your work, this episode is for you. You’ll see what can be made possible when you get deliberate about creating spaces between the chapters of your career, and learn how to structure ‘time out’ to make the most of your breaks and set a meaningful direction for a well-lived life.
Katie Hair is a career coach, consultant, and facilitator intent on aligning her career with the life she wants to lead. She’s a role model for living a life by design. Her mission is to help others do the same. Together, Katie and I explore:
- Why taking intentional breaks in your career can lead to personal growth and reinvention.
- How being deliberate and intentional during breaks can lead to a better understanding of oneself and one's values.
- The necessity of listening to your inner voice and taking risks to break free from constraints and pursue a desired life path.
- How the concept of a portfolio career, where individuals have multiple income streams and work on their own terms, is gaining popularity.
- The need and invitation for organisations to support individuals in pursuing alternative work models and provide autonomy and flexibility.
Check out Katie’s work at https://www.katiehair.co.nz/ and follow her on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiehair/
Check out my services and offerings https://www.digbyscott.com/
Subscribe to my newsletter https://www.digbyscott.com/thoughts#subscribe
Follow me on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/digbyscott/
Transcript
Hi, and welcome to another episode of dig deeper with me, digby Scott. Today, my guest is Katie hair. Who's Katie hair? Well, I describe her as an adventurer of the world and the mind. If you check out her LinkedIn profile, she says she does contracting, consulting, leadership, learning, talent, people, HR, and organization development. And that gives you a bit of an idea of who she is, but it doesn't tell the full story. If you dig a little deeper.
and read a bit more about what she's done. You'll see that she's got this diverse skill set and she's applied that across a whole range of organizational challenges. And I reckon what makes her unique is that she straddles world. So she's got a degree in marketing, but she's spent most of her career in HR. She's people -centric yet she's a data geek and she's strategic, but I know Katie, she loves the detail as well. And she's someone who really knows her mind, but she's also so super, super smart.
super, super keen to learn from others. So she's this multidisciplinary and she doesn't do anything by halves. She's got this depth and deliberateness to everything that she does. And if she's in, she's in. And here's the thing, and this is where I want to start today. If you go even a little deeper into a LinkedIn profile and read between the lines, you'll notice something interesting. There's lots of gaps in the dates in the CV, gaps between jobs, like big gaps.
Katie here, welcome to the show.
Katie Hair (:Thanks Digby, thank you, what an intro. It's always good to have somebody read stuff cold and be like, oh is that what you've taken from there, cool. Yeah.
Digby (:Haha, yeah well.
Digby (:This is the outside in view of Katie here and let's continue with that because I'm really curious about The gaps, you know, it used to be a time when gaps on your CV were considered a bad thing But I reckon you have a different view. Can you just tell us about the gaps and why they're there?
Katie Hair (:Hmm.
Katie Hair (:Mm -hmm.
Katie Hair (:Yeah, yeah, isn't that interesting? And you'll even notice that a few years back, LinkedIn didn't even have the opportunity to be so loud and proud about those gaps. And now they have a tag and it is, you know, career break and it's a, it's got an image and icon and you're able to actually expand that out rather than just have a job and people read that there's a gap between one job to the next. I think that's quite telling. Yeah. And so for me,
Yeah, even there was a gap in between high school and uni. And for being a Kiwi, Yabigowee is quite often after uni for a lot of people. But for me, I couldn't wait. And so that's one of my gaps was straight there, overseas to the States and doing counselling and nannying and at a camp, you know, all of that sort of stuff. And then back to uni.
And then a few years later, it was like, right, got some work experience as well under my belt and I need to get away. I've got to go again. And so it was a year off before what starting work over in the UK. And I was worried, it's quite deliberate about that. I was worried that if I went to the UK first and got a job, I might get stuck into it, not have the benefit of really exploring. So I was really deliberate about that. Eight years on.
it was time to leave the UK and we could go into that a bit later on because that was probably the one, the gap where I was in my late 30s and kind of being a lot more deliberate about taking that time off and what I wanted to do with it. And it was very experimental in development for me and really intentional. And then since then more recently I've...
I've had some time off as well. And again, that was different purpose, but also really intentional about creating a bit of a career shift for myself. So yeah, I've had several, and then also mini breaks. So all of those were quite long and I've had some three month ones in between here and there. And I'm, yeah, big proponent for time off. Yeah.
Digby (:I, I love the way you say a mini break is three months because I reckon for most people that would be a, whatever the opposite of a mini break is a mega break. Yeah. So that's a mini one. I, I'm, I'm really curious about how most people, when they introduce themselves, would talk about kind of what they've done in the other parts of the CV, as in when it's work and you've just.
Katie Hair (:Yeah. Yeah.
Katie Hair (:Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Digby (:provided introduction, which is kind of who you are when you're not working, which I absolutely love. And I'm wondering about that, that first one you said there was this after school, right? That was the first one that you did. You just, and I get the sense there's a coiled spring sort of thing going on for you there. Yeah. What, what, what do you reckon that was about?
Katie Hair (:Hmm.
Katie Hair (:It was burning. Yep.
Katie Hair (:That for me was, I've always had this sort of burning desire as a kid to travel and get overseas. And we were not, we didn't have enough money as a family. I wanted to do a student exchange even at school and we just didn't have enough money to get me there. And so even before that, I remember I decided to join the Army Cadets at school, not because I liked to be in the Army Cadets, but because they had a trip to Australia at the end of the year. So I went.
So I was a real dogmatic about, I'll figure out a way to get myself overseas and get trips, you know? And so it was probably the first one. And then after that, a couple of years before the end of high school, I was like, right, I'm going to get my part -time jobs. I'm going to figure out how I can earn money and live overseas. I'm going to use the family networks and manage to get a couple of different nannying jobs from friends of the family and also a summer camp job. And for me, that was just like the taste of going, yup.
This is me exploring the world, meeting new people, understanding what bigger and different is all about. And that got me excited for traveling from years to come. Yeah.
Digby (:I want to dig under that. Like, where does that come from? Right. So you hadn't traveled much as a younger kid. There was this burning desire. What was there like a formative experience? Was there a thing you saw on TV? You thought, I want to go there.
Katie Hair (:Mm -mm.
Mm.
Katie Hair (:Yeah, I think there's an aspiration for something more, because we didn't have as much. And then I was exposed to quite a few people who had come from overseas. My grandparents were in Rotary and they were hosting events. And I would go around for my little hors d 'oeuvres, chatting to people, helping out my grandparents with those sorts of things back in the 80s.
and so deviled eggs and stuff like that, you know? And I'd just be seeing and hearing all this chit chat and I'm like, oh, that sounds amazing. That sounds so cool. And just hearing all these stories. And then the same thing, my dad and step -mom at the time, they would be the opposite end of the spectrum, the sort of like hippies and they'd be sort of like having people around the table, just coffee chats. But we're really loose people who are world travelers on the different end of the spectrum. And I'd be just like hearing all these stories going, I need that. That's what I want.
So I think it was exposure to a variety of people who had done that. Yeah.
Digby (:It sounds like an accumulation of experiences and people, um, and hearing stories and beneath all of those things or threading them all together was this, well, there's a bigger world than where I'm from. And I want to find out what that is about firsthand. Yeah. And, and how do you reckon your thinking about breaks has evolved over time? Because you know, you've done lots and you've listed a lot of them. What what's, and you mentioned, I want to pick up on that.
Katie Hair (:Yeah. Mm. Mm.
Katie Hair (:Mm -hmm. Yep. Yep. Absolutely.
Katie Hair (:Mm.
Digby (:He said, I think the one when I left London was the most deliberate. So, and, and so that implies that before that you weren't so deliberate. It was a bit more, whatever the opposite of deliberate is scattered or something. How's it changed? You're thinking.
Katie Hair (:Yeah, yeah. So the first couple, the one after high school and the one to kind of almost get me over to London, they were like, travel, see the world, meet new people. Awesome. Put myself out of my comfort zone, great experiences. But the one that I had coming back from London was really deliberate in that it was like, how can you not just swan around and have drinks and go and see the world? How can you be more intentional about that to kind of for...
for your own growth and development. And I'd come across a couple of things. One was a video by Stefan Seigmeister, Power of Time Off. It's a TED talk. And that was quite inspirational for me in terms of what you can do to make the most of your time off. And yeah, he's this really cool creative designer, he's quite world renowned. And so for me, that was just like,
Digby (:It sure is.
Katie Hair (:whoa, what a whole totally different concept of instead of like retiring early, why don't you take say five of those retirement years and intersperse them in your working years and springboard what you can do with your time off. And so that was like, I was like, I love that concept. And the other one was Nicholas Petrie has done a couple of white papers around vertical leadership development.
This is idea around how you can almost accelerate your own personal development and growth and your mindset. And he talks about creating the vertical development sweet spot, which was around creating some heat moments, so things to kind of really put yourself out of your comfort zone, having yourself, giving yourself diverse perspectives and helping surround yourself with people that can do some sense making. And so with those two in mind, I was like, well, what if I have a year off?
where I can create heat moments for myself, that I can give myself some new and different perspectives. And so I put out a message out on Facebook at the time. I said, right, in a few months, I'm gonna have a year off and I wanna do some volunteering. I wanna connect with people. I want to travel to India. I wanna do a retreat, a health retreat of some sort. I wanna do this, do that, but I'm open to anywhere. And if you want someone to travel with, if you want...
If you've got a couch for me to sleep on, if you've got an opportunity, let me know. And I had all these, I was really nervous putting it out because I'm not actually a big, you know, public kind of put myself out there person all the time. But I put it out and I got all these amazing responses back from all of these people all over the world, including people that I've met in my time in America all those years ago and people that I haven't spoken to in years.
being genuinely excited for me and genuinely reaching out going, oh, you could do this, I'm traveling here, let's do this for New Year's. And it just almost set my scene for that year off. And then interspersed in that was traveling by myself through probably through South East Asia, connecting with my family over the New Zealand holidays and then going back overseas, you know, things like that. And my experience of volunteering for three months in Myanmar was pretty unreal. So all of that was just really intentional, but.
Katie Hair (:what I got from that experience. Yeah, I just, I still was one of the best years of my life. Yeah.
Digby (:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we'll get to this. I reckon more recently, it's also been one of the highlight periods of your life too, in your last bar. I want to come back to that later though. What struck me as you were talking about that decision is that you were not someone who seems to naturally want to follow a classic career ladder path.
Katie Hair (:Mmm. Yep.
Katie Hair (:Mm -mm. I guess, oh, I am now. Possibly I wasn't, but I think it's always been anchored in these gaps, you know, that it's almost like there's an element of me having some aspiration to kind of do more, add more value, but my thinking around that has shifted in terms of the previous model.
Digby (:So, you're clear about that, right?
Digby (:Hmm.
Katie Hair (:was to take a break and then accelerate your traditional career path again. And that was probably where I was at before leaving London. It was take a break, accelerate that career path because you know you can use it as a springboard. Do maybe work for an organization that was more purposeful. That's where I was at the time. And I managed to do that when I came to Wellington to live. But yeah, I think it's continued to evolve since then. Yeah.
Digby (:Mm -hmm.
Digby (:What I'm hearing is the old model that you might've been running was work, work, work, and then reset or stop or something. You know, it's kind of like get off the track, have a breather recharge, right? Yeah. And then, then back into it. Yeah. Whereas what I'm hearing now is more nuanced and more integrated. It's kind of like the brakes are actually an essential part. That's not just about resetting, but it's also almost like it's reinventing.
Katie Hair (:Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Get off track, breathe out, recharge, reset, and go again. Yeah.
Mm.
Digby (:And there's a deliberateness to the unstructured part that's not work, but it's still really, really critical to your life. Yeah.
Katie Hair (:Yeah, that's right. I think I have bad building blocks of reinventing within those prior years, but it's like, it's really accelerated now. And I think that whole model of what is the working life, you know, has completely shifted over time and the value that you place on and importance that you place on your traditional models of career versus designing your own life and what that can look like has really shifted for me. Yeah.
Digby (:Hmm.
Digby (:Yeah
Digby (:Yeah. Yeah. And I remember reading the a hundred year life by Linda Gratton and Andrea Scott. And, you know, that research that says anyone born in the Western world today, they've got a greater than 50 % chance to living more than a hundred years. So the old learn and retire model, you know, work 50 years or whatever. It's so outdated and LinkedIn's gone with that, right? It's allowing different ways of describing your career.
Katie Hair (:Yeah.
Katie Hair (:Oh, so outdated already, yeah, yeah. Mm. Mm.
Digby (:That, but you know, so it just makes complete sense to deliberately build in these breaks. If we've got a hundred year life to live and you're sort of a bit of an exemplar or a model for, for doing that. Right. And I, it's the, the word that you use when you're talking about Stefan Stegmasters, the power of time off, Ted talk was you talked about it's deliberate and it's structured yet on from the outside.
Katie Hair (:Mm.
Yep. Yep.
Katie Hair (:Mm. Mm -hmm.
Digby (:And I know this from taking a sabbatical last year for six months. Um, that from the outside, it might be that that's the last thing you want is a whole lot of deliberate ness and structure, because isn't it just about getting away from that? What, what, what's your take on that? Having deliberateness in structure with time off.
Katie Hair (:Yeah.
Yeah.
Katie Hair (:Yeah, I guess that's really a really interesting point. I think that really does come down to maybe a little bit of semantics though, what you're talking about there when you talk about the level of structure and deliberateness. And so for the more recent one, where I sort of shifted from being in full -time permanent employment to into consulting, contracting, and now shaping what's more of a portfolio life sort of career.
I think in order to do that, I'd sort of set myself up a year and it only had sort of four words. I split it up into quarters. So intentional as you like with about that, I want to get into that phase of experimenting and testing what it's like to not be in permanent employment. And I just gave myself four quarters to do that and named each one of those quarters and said, this is my intention for quarter one. This is my intention for quarter two and so on. And you get any more prescriptive and deliberate.
And I think you end up hamstringing yourself into areas that you lose opportunity, you lose the sort of the outcome of what it can be to just go in with the flow and realizing what comes to you when you've got to give yourself more space. So it's a bit of a balance, yeah.
Digby (:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like it. So there's kind of flexibility within a framework. And be like, yeah. And the word intention rather than goal or something that you need to try and achieve is more, this is the, the other word that comes to mind is theme. Like there's the theme for this quarter. And that's about this. And I remember when you did that and it was really inspiring to me because you kind of went first and I followed in terms of sabbaticals and that it really helped me because it was six months. It was like,
Katie Hair (:Definitely. Yeah. Yeah.
Katie Hair (:Yes.
Katie Hair (:Mm.
Katie Hair (:Mm.
Digby (:And at the same time, you can have a structure of something like, you know, just the day to day life running the house or whatever. But if that's all you're doing, then you're missing that reinvention opportunity and that exploration opportunity. Right. So you seem to be someone who's like, Nope, it's not about just being away from it's actually moving towards something. I don't know what.
Katie Hair (:Mm -hmm.
Katie Hair (:100%. Yeah, and I think that's really key. And I mean, there's nothing wrong with having a break if you need to get away from something, but ideally, you do that well before you're ever in a position to needing that. And I think that that's been really my focus. And there's something about using that time to reflect on who you have become and who you are becoming. And it's that becoming that, you know, leaning towards it's not just that external thing of
Digby (:Yeah.
Katie Hair (:what you're aiming for or what your next career pivot is going to be, but it's actually a lot to do with you in here.
Digby (:Yeah, that that's there's something that I reckon would that must require some bravery, right, to be able to to listen to that inner voice to go. There's something about me here that I need to pay attention to.
Katie Hair (:Hmm. Yeah, it's yeah, I got this kind of interesting one. I think.
Katie Hair (:Giving yourself the space enables you to do that, but some people will even say being brave is creating the space and holding it. And I, yeah, and before you even get to that next bit. And that's, yeah, I think that a few people were like, oh, you're so brave, you're taking this time off, you're so brave. And I was like, oh, really? Yeah.
Digby (:Yeah.
Digby (:Yeah, it's interesting. It's, it's often the decision. Um, I remember years ago when I first went out of my own as a coach and the, um, I asked a bunch of people, a whole lot of questions just to get some feedback about how I was perceived and positioned in the market and all that. And one of the questions I asked was, what do you think of my greatest accomplishments? Um, and it wasn't really trying to get kind of an ego fix or anything like that, but it was more like, how do people perceive?
Katie Hair (:Mm.
Digby (:what I have done. And the most common response was your decision to go out on your own. And I'm like, well, that's not as accomplishment. It's just something that I've just started. But I think we often inspire people with, you know, it's the decisions to go against the grain and do what matters for us that inspires others to think, huh, look at you go and do that.
Katie Hair (:Mm.
Katie Hair (:Yep.
Katie Hair (:Yeah, yeah. And I, yeah, I'd agree with that. And the funny thing is like, so, you know, even that word, or your decision to, as opposed to things happening a little bit more organically and, you know, using the word experiment. And that's been a big shift for me. And so if it's sort of, this feels like, you know, you're, when you, we do these things, people.
Digby (:Hmm.
Katie Hair (:But the bravery is people in their own mindset when they're thinking about it going, oh, you've worked off, walked off the cliff and you'll never get back once you've made that decision. And it's like, you can always shift that invariably. You know, you can always go back to full -time employment. You can always have an alternative if you want, if you're a bit nervous about it. It's that experimental mindset that says, this is just a phase and you're just trying it out and you can, you can go back if you want to, but what if you don't, what if you don't try it? That's, that's where regret lies, I think.
Digby (:Yeah.
Digby (:Absolutely. You know, the regrets of the dying, right. The things they regret not doing. And it's interesting that my partner says, you know, there are no wrong decisions. And that really, that really helps me when I'm facing a scary moment. It's like, well, there are no wrong decisions. Kind of like, what can you learn from it? Yes, there will be consequences. Yet usually nothing's fatal. So go with it. I'm curious, Katie, about. What's that? What are the barriers that you.
Katie Hair (:Mm. Yeah.
Katie Hair (:Hmm.
Katie Hair (:Mm -hmm.
Hmm.
Digby (:perhaps most had to overcome in any of those decisions to move away from maybe security or safety or whatever it might have been, the norm. What are some of the demons that were there for you?
Katie Hair (:Yeah, yeah.
Katie Hair (:Yeah, I think this...
I think there is always a little bit if you are going a little bit against the grain or the norm, is it hard because not enough people are doing it? And then you've been, because it's not enough people are doing it, their fears can start seeping into you a little bit. Money is always one, if you're making this shift, including whether it's taking time off and you've got a mortgage and bills to pay, or if you're...
Digby (:Mmm.
Digby (:Yeah.
Katie Hair (:if you're going out on your own, you know, that is definitely always one. It's a very real one, but I think it gets overplayed, if I'm honest. Yeah. And I just think...
Digby (:Tell us why, why is that?
Katie Hair (:I just think in this world, you know, when you're thinking about this, you know, like, let's think about the Wellington market at the moment, everybody's being made, laid off and made redundant. They're all in permanent safe work, you know? And so, so there's this thing where you could have that done to you. And wouldn't it be better if you could do that to yourself with all of the upsides of redundancy with none of the downsides? And so I've sort of experimented with that process a little bit.
Digby (:Mm -hmm.
Digby (:Yeah.
Digby (:I love that. I love that. I wrote a piece a couple of years ago called we're all fixed term. And it was just challenging the, the idea or lots of ideas that, you know, we're around forever, which we're not that jobs are permanent, which they're not. And all of the language around that. And I think sometimes we have these kind of languages and frames that are just, just limit us. And I'm interested in that. Yeah. When, when there's not many other people doing it.
Katie Hair (:Yeah.
Katie Hair (:Mm.
Katie Hair (:Yeah. Mm -hmm.
Digby (:And so it's hard. What, what was it as you got into kind of like mortgage land and responsibility land and all that sort of stuff, what was it that propelled you particularly for this last one, this last career break, because, you know, you, you'd gone around the planet a few times around the sun a few times, you know, you've gathered experience and expertise and you know, you had a good job. What was it that kind of.
Katie Hair (:Heheheheh
Digby (:propelled you forward for this most recent one because I on your LinkedIn profile it says it's the best one yet and I love the way you started that comment. You said time is true currency and I reckon maybe that's part of the answer to the question. But what was it that you went? No, I've got to do this.
Katie Hair (:Yep.
Katie Hair (:Yeah.
Katie Hair (:Yeah, I think having learned from all my prior experiences, this thing that I've kind of coined as sort of like, you know, the career break afterburn, so to speak. And there's these, you know, we get so focused on career, we forget about what a well of life is, and all of the things that you can do when you're not having the break, and then the benefits that come after that. And from all of the...
Digby (:Hmm.
Katie Hair (:data they'll be from my very real experiences. If anything, you can earn more money by having the break and the benefits of revisiting, you know, your values, your this, your that, all of these things, and then becoming someone new, a bit different, a new evolution, a better version of yourself after it.
Digby (:Yeah.
Katie Hair (:If you don't have that space, if you just go from one job to the next without really giving yourself that time to almost strategically think about what you want next in life and vision, there's some major gaps there. And all we think about is money so often that drives us with these decisions, far too much weight on it, as opposed to all of the intangible benefits that you'll get from this. And there's so many.
And I just think that it's sad that we don't think about those as some real benefits. Well, we do when we start getting into the 50s and 60s, but I'd like to do it earlier, guys. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Digby (:Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Totally. Right. Uh, you know, it's funny cause well, there's a few directions we could go here. One is the money thing because I'm conscious of, you know, you and I come from what most people would say is a relatively privileged upbringing background. Not everyone's going to have the same opportunities that we might've been afforded. Um,
Katie Hair (:Yeah.
Katie Hair (:Mm -hmm.
Digby (:And so, you know, where we kind of go, oh, you know, money's a thing. It's all relative in some ways. Right. Well, what do you say to that? Like. And maybe this is a societal challenge as opposed to, you know, the individual focus. But what comes up as I talk about that?
Katie Hair (:Hmm. And it is, and again, like this is, you know, our own context is really important here. And I think it's about if you sort of lift up into having the level of break in some way and understanding the benefit of what space and time off can bring in giving that to you and whatever your context is and how you can afford it. But I mean, I've gone through, you know, prior times earlier of having almost $0 to my name and still trying to get some of those.
that time off those goals achieved. So yeah, I think that for it is something that's very real for people. And I just think there's an element of ways that you can do that to still figure out with your budget, how much what you can afford and what options there are multiple options available to give you that space. But it is about your content. So for example, I don't I don't have kids, you know, my partner does, but they don't live with us permanently.
Digby (:Yeah.
Katie Hair (:So that creates some space and some gap that other people don't have. That way they'll have young kids and that will mean that that's different for them. So there's all these things that you've got to break into it to make sure it's unique to you.
Digby (:Yeah. Well, yeah, for someone who maybe can't do a year off, right. But they might be able to do a month. How would you from your experience, how would you suggest someone uses a month?
Katie Hair (:Mm.
Katie Hair (:Yeah, I think there's a big thing there, but prior to all of this, it is about thinking about the type of life that you want to lead. Yeah. And if you're not even sure of that yet, maybe that's some of the stuff that you've been thinking about doing in your time off. I read this, there was this interesting article, I think it was Harvard, and it's, it'll come to me, but it was about strategizing for your life, and like you wouldn't work, but doing it for your life.
Digby (:Yeah, right.
Digby (:Oh, how will you measure your life? It's Clay Christiansen. He's the author. Yeah.
Katie Hair (:Yeah, I think that's the word strategize in the word in this one. And it was saying something like the people that I had interviewed, only 21 % of them had thought about what a well of life means to them. And I was like, what? And that was from those that they interviewed. So that's probably quite a segment of population that Harvard are connecting themselves to. And it makes me quite sad, actually, that we're not, that percentage is not.
Digby (:Yes.
Katie Hair (:It's so low in comparison to what you can get if you do decide to be a bit more deliberate about it.
Digby (:You know, you're one of the most deliberate people I know. And I'm wondering if there's there a time, you know, recently or otherwise where, you know, that the question, how do I want to use my life? What's my life about was so far out of reach. You know, it was fuzzy because I know personally for me, there was a time might've been in my early thirties. It was around the time I just had started to have kids. And I think that stark reality of.
Katie Hair (:Mm.
Katie Hair (:Mm.
Digby (:Holy crap. There is this whole next two decades at least of, you know, being a hands on dad. What's my life about beyond that going to be? And I couldn't answer the question. And I remember where I was standing and it was terrifying. It was, it was the terrifying bit is that I couldn't access an answer that made any sense to me. And.
Katie Hair (:Right.
Digby (:Yeah, it was like, oh my God, is this it? And and I'm wondering for you.
Katie Hair (:So this is in your period of young family feeling like, what was going on? The walls are closing in. So you're sort of like, decisions are made for me, here's my life path mapped out. Tell me more about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Digby (:Yeah, the walls are closing in. Mm -hmm. There was...
Digby (:That's it. And yeah, well, you want me to tell you more? I think it was just that it was how did I get here? And then where am I going? And. It was those questions just, well, how did I get here was kind of irrelevant, but the where am I going was a was a void. There was nothing. And I think it was probably for me.
Katie Hair (:Mm.
Digby (:was that I hadn't, I think I had been cruising. I'd come out of a period of a massive burnout, professional burnout. And I think I'd just let go of aspiration. I'd let go of striving. And I don't think I'd use that muscle for quite a while. And so to vision the future is something I hadn't really thought about. I kind of thought about how do I want to be living day to day. And I was pretty clear on that, but it was more the directional challenge, right? Yeah.
Katie Hair (:Mm.
Katie Hair (:Mm.
Katie Hair (:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, isn't that interesting? So I've been doing quite a bit of coaching here and there and experimenting with a template that's actually sort of called the career odyssey plan and have been using that part of that sort of as a tool for coaching. And what I find really interesting is that...
Digby (:Hmm.
Katie Hair (:so often and that it's the idea is to kind of map out a few different career scenarios and then you sort of lock a little bit more onto one and map out a little bit more over the next course, the next five, 10 years, what that might shape to be. And people that kick it off, they find it really hard to get to what is the constraints, what are the things that are, and I use those words constraints because that's their mindset, these are the things that I have going on in my life right now that means I can't achieve.
what I think I might do. I can't even open up my mind. Yeah, there's limiting beliefs. And it's all around sort of that, that it's kind of like, well, you know, I've got kids this age, I've got these financial responsibilities, I've got this, and it's like, oh, but maybe in five or 10 years you won't have those. So how might you shape something a bit differently to thinking about that? Your kids will be older, you might not have that same level of financial responsibility, all of these things. And it's like, oh yeah.
Digby (:Limits.
Katie Hair (:And I just think, you know, push it out a decade and your whole world's in landscape shifted, but too often we're living in this context now. Yeah.
Digby (:Yeah, take the long view.
Digby (:Yeah. I want to come back to the question that you beautifully seem to avoid. Maybe you didn't have an answer to it, which was what about a time in your life which was a bit the same? It was like, I don't know where to go from here. What was happening if there was a time like that?
Katie Hair (:Mm.
Katie Hair (:I think...
Oh, there's been a couple of those. Probably one was when I was pre -going to London, I was sort of in a relationship, but I'd say that I knew wasn't right for me and I needed to go and I was working and I was earning good money and learning a lot, but it was like, actually, my dream was to be overseas, not still sitting here in Dunedin. And that was, that was probably one.
And the other one was once then once I was in London and I was working in financial services and I'm just sitting here going, oh, my visa is tied to this job, but I'm not enamored with the culture and the lifestyle of, you know, financial services and that environment is not me. Yeah. Yeah.
Digby (:I am not my visa. And what was that like for you realizing that?
Katie Hair (:Yeah, and I think both of those ones is that you do feel, you know, like it feels constraining. But I think also there's a burning flame and there's a burning flame and there's a voice that's saying, this doesn't feel right. It's not comfortable. And the more you listen to that, it's not easy to listen to because usually you've got something tied into those things.
But the more and faster you listen to that, it gives you sort of that conviction to try and break through or break out of it and do something a bit drastic. And when you do it, the level of freedom that comes from that is unreal. Yeah. Yeah.
Digby (:Yeah.
Digby (:Yeah. Yeah. I that's, you know, this, this idea that often hear people say, I want more confidence so I can make the break or jump and do the thing I really want to do. And I said, no, you don't, you need more courage and you don't need confidence in your courage. And where does courage come from? You've talked about it. It's the burning flame. It's the conviction, you know, conviction leads to courage, leads to confidence. And I think knowing in yourself that that's.
Katie Hair (:Hmm. Yeah.
Katie Hair (:Mm -hmm.
Digby (:the most important thing beyond some visa that keeps you in a job in the financial sector in London. You know, it's like, yeah, there is a better life I want for me here. And that's the conviction, right?
Katie Hair (:Hmm.
Katie Hair (:Yeah, and you'll have to make trade -offs. So typically it's not difficult for no reason. There usually is a trade -off that has to be made as part of that burning flame that comes with it. And so the London example was I had to live up, leave a pretty awesome London lifestyle and that I've forged over eight years with some really good friends. And I had to go, oh, that will be a trade -off on Europe's doorstep, all of that stuff.
Digby (:Yeah.
Digby (:Yeah. Yeah.
Digby (:Yeah.
Digby (:Yeah.
Katie Hair (:But it was a difficult decision for a two weeks, but then it opened up doors of possibilities elsewhere. Yeah.
Digby (:Yeah. And I often think of that and I found it really hard making transitions where, say for example, coming from Western Australia to live in Wellington 17 years ago, I love Western Australia. I still love Western Australia. And I resisted leaving because I was, I think, focused on the tangible things that were there, like the weather and the beaches and the networks of people I had. But then if I went back to lesser the
Katie Hair (:Hmm.
Digby (:detail and more of that. What are they actually about? As in, you know, it's being in the ocean. It's been bound to have adventures. It's being around good, interesting people that I can learn with and from. Then I went, well, could I get that in Wellington? Yeah, I could get that in Wellington. And because I could answer yes to that, it really helped me make it made the transition not easy, but easier.
Katie Hair (:Mm -hmm.
Katie Hair (:Yep.
Katie Hair (:Mm.
Digby (:Cause I was like, yeah, well, the things I've got in my old world, I could get in my new world. And that makes a big difference. Hey, I want to ask you a question that what's lighting you up. What's lighting your brain up right now? What are you thinking about? Because you've, you're such a well -versed person in, you know, pioneering into this sabbatical career break space. If you think about now, you think about where you're taking things, what's going on in your mind?
Katie Hair (:Yep.
Katie Hair (:Yes, I'm deliberately uncomfortable at the moment. So, and I am doing a fair amount of experimenting with this portfolio career. And so for me, you know, we talked about this Career Odyssey Plan. Well, part of my plan a few years out, an idea that I think might be a nice one, I've seen some, a role model that does this for me. And,
Digby (:Tell us about it. Why, why, why, why?
Katie Hair (:was having six months of the year every year off. I'm like, ooh, what would that even look like? And I've actually had that this year, not quite a full six months off. It's been, if you add it all up, I haven't been working for six months of the full year. And the timing wise, it's kind of exciting because...
Digby (:Right.
Digby (:Yeah.
Katie Hair (:One of my words of this year is generate and I want to generate my own work, my own IP, my own, a lot of it's around coaching, a lot of it's very OD developmental workshops, et cetera. And so I've kind of left myself in this space, which feels uncomfortable because I'm not earning as much maybe as I might be had I been working all of these hours, but in the same space it's...
it's leaving me with time to generate. And it's like, oh, how much time do I want? Do I want the full sort of idea of six months to do this? I'm playing with this idea of I've almost got the luxury of too much time versus too little time. And it's deliberately uncomfortable. It's a bit like, ugh.
Digby (:Mmm.
Digby (:What makes that challenge uncomfortable, do you reckon?
Katie Hair (:that I'm not traveling overseas or doing all these things. I'm like in at home with time off, which is, that's a little bit different from what it has been in the past. And it's probably a bit too much. I think there's an element where you need a level of stress. And I've had probably the least few work stress.
Digby (:Yep. Yep. Yep.
Katie Hair (:less working years of my life, which has been really awesome. But I also realized there's a point where you need to create good stress and yeah, me stress. And so there's an element of, right, how do I create that when there's no external forces imposing the stress on me? I need to generate that for myself. And so, yeah, that's interesting. Yeah.
Digby (:Yeah, you stress.
Digby (:Yep.
Digby (:It's kind of like that with great freedom comes great responsibility. You've got freedom of time, yet there's the responsibility to use it well. And that sounds like that's the uncomfortable question right now. And the other thing that comes up for me with that is that, you know, it's a bit like, do we have to wait for a burnout or a heart attack or some other catastrophe to force us to make a significant
Katie Hair (:Mm. Yeah.
Katie Hair (:Mm -hmm.
Digby (:shift in direction. And for most, if you look around, I reckon most of the time the answer would be yes. And I'm noticing you, you know, nodding, shaking your head going no. And there's something about hat, you know, the vertical development thing. How do you bring the heat? Right. If I'm staying at home and I'm not traveling because heat is a different culture, what does heat look like now? Right. Yeah. What are, what are the options for you for that? Bringing heat.
Katie Hair (:Hmm.
Katie Hair (:Please no. Yeah. Mmm. Yep.
Katie Hair (:Mm.
Digby (:Given that you're, you know, you're, you're, you're staying in Wellington or you're not going far. What could that be?
Katie Hair (:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, and all working remotely, but basically I'm set desire, the desire is to work as opposed to do something else with that time, like learning or research. It is genuinely generate and work to generate value. So yeah, there's a couple of things I have been doing and I sort of need to give myself credit for a little bit of that as well. So, but it's just weird in the space of being relaxed, right? So.
Digby (:Yeah.
Mmm. Mmm.
Digby (:Good on ya.
Katie Hair (:So like I delivered a whole new workshop, was generated some new IP and it just, five years ago, if you asked me to do that, I would have been stressing out and I just did it and it was nice. And I was just like, oh, that went successful. And I think, so that's great, you know, that to acknowledge that in there, I was able to be creative and generate something that was quite valuable without feeling that pressure to do it. But I do think.
that there's some committing to dates was part of that. Like, yep, I can have that done by this date, selling it before it's ready. There's a few things that I think are helpful, those sort of forcing functions to make you get shit done. Otherwise, how long is it? You can stretch it out. You can stretch your time out if you want. And we do the same in the workplace, you know, it's no different. Yeah, absolutely.
Digby (:Yep, it's a good one.
Digby (:Absolutely.
Yeah. Some sort of external accountability is, is important. You know, the other word that keeps coming out, we've both been talking about is when we say time off, you know, the word off. I, I wonder whether that's just a bit of a red herring because it comes back to that old pattern you talked about, which is go, go, go, go have a rest. And I'm wondering whether there's a different word or a different phrase than time off that might actually help us think about these whole ideas of career breaks.
Katie Hair (:Mm.
Katie Hair (:Hmm.
Katie Hair (:Yeah. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Digby (:completely differently.
Katie Hair (:Yeah, yeah, I don't know, because even the idea of career break versus, you know, just a break, because is it a break from your career? Is it all about your career? Is it about everything else as well? Yeah, I've been exploring that thinking. And yeah, it's not off. It's just sort of that, you know, it's that for me, that's that well -balanced life that's sort of working for you. And again, the word balance will, you know, there's no balance of this or that. It's like,
Digby (:Uh -huh.
Digby (:Mmm.
Digby (:Uh -huh.
Katie Hair (:integration and dialing things up and down depending on where you're at and what your context is.
Digby (:100%. Let's banish the binary, right? You know, on off, you know, it's about the career or not, you know, work slash life balance. Yeah, all of those things, right? It's like.
Katie Hair (:Mmm.
Katie Hair (:Yeah, yeah. Sound bites don't like nuances though, do they?
Digby (:Damn, good thing I'm not in the soundbite business then. Yeah, let's can we just zoom out for a moment, right? So we've been talking about you and your journey and how you think about this stuff. If we think about the implications of the 100 year life, right. And what that means, not just for individuals and how we design our lives, but how do we design work differently? How do we design society differently? I know you and I are both interested in those questions.
Katie Hair (:Yeah.
Katie Hair (:Hmm.
Digby (:And I'm wondering about where are you pushing into that space or where are you maybe even seeing there's interesting things happening at that level? What are you noticing?
Katie Hair (:Well, I'm noticing a lot more around through different generations of workforce that it sort of seems more natural for people when you think about influencing people creating videos from in high school in the spare time, those sorts of things. I mean, we think about this idea of work and generating income starting after high school, when nowadays a lot of that is actually...
happening during high school. So it's expanding, I think, this idea of working for yourself, what income can look like. I think that we need to be thinking about that a little bit more and the type of lifestyle that people want and see that can support that because you've got a lot of generations sort of looking at how they can think about income completely differently from what it's been.
either what they're seeing their parents do because they're not looking to their parents anymore, they're looking to TikTok, you know? And so it's like, well then from an employer's perspective, if you're still thinking about having an organization of people and ideas, then what does that look like to support those? And I think the stuff that still rings true is giving people autonomy, giving people flexibility. It's why people want to do a portfolio life or work for themselves.
And they're just still missing that point when it comes to supporting an organization of people. Yeah.
Digby (:Yeah. Have you, um, you're seeing organizations around the world or here locally that are trying a few different things in that regard?
Digby (:Very closed ended question by the way, isn't it? Yes or no. You can say no. Well, I mean, you know, there's the classic, you know, four day work week stuff, um, which is allowing, you know, traditional notion of work to become, you know, not even compressed, but it's just like, we just get productivity done in less hours because we're just doing it smarter. Right. So, I mean, that's the classic one that I think is out there. I think.
Katie Hair (:To be honest, yeah, I know. Have you? Yeah, I'll have a think. Have you?
Katie Hair (:Mm -hmm.
Digby (:I think there's a lot of questions being asked right now. I think there's an awareness that wasn't there pre -COVID and COVID has cracked the nut. You know, and I don't know where I go with that metaphor, but there's, there's, there's something about that nuts not going back together. Um, as much as old policies and old thinking is trying to put it back together. I think trying, you know, there's a, there's a, there's a,
Katie Hair (:Mm.
Katie Hair (:Trying. Yeah.
Digby (:I reckon the ground is ripe, fertile. It's a better word. Ground isn't ripe, but fertile for now's the time to innovate and experiment at scale around, you know, you alluded to it, you know, why we come together as people is to create value in some way. And there's generally an income or a financial aspect to that. Right. And so let's, let's come back to that core question.
How do we, why do we come together for that reason? What are the different ways in which we can come together that work for everyone? I reckon that's kind of one of the core questions. And you're, I think what you're doing is you have a personal level, you're modeling. Where's another way to show up in the world? I'm adding value. Yeah.
Katie Hair (:Mm.
Katie Hair (:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But it's still interesting that we haven't come up with the name of an organization that's doing that. So there's a lot of experimenting going on, isn't there? And I've just not seen that happen from an organizational perspective, which is no wonder that you are getting this difference between more people figuring out, oh, okay, well, I'll go out on my own, or I'll have an organization that will support me to almost acting as a hub.
Digby (:Mmm.
Katie Hair (:to support those people to go out on their own a little bit more. I mean, you even need to look at the Henry app and see that exploding for people that are self -employed sole practitioners. And it's making it completely easy for individuals to go out on their own because they've thought of an app that just streamlines the challenge of GST and tax for everybody. And that's exploding.
Digby (:Yeah.
Katie Hair (:There's little things like that that you go, yeah, any platform or any organization that can support that model better, there's lots of opportunity in that because I'm seeing more appetite for supporting that model as opposed to thinking about how we can do this better in an organization because people are struggling with it.
Digby (:It's almost like, yeah, don't try and retrofit an organization. Just create something, a new model from the ground up. Right. And it reminds me of Dan Pink. He wrote a book, I think it was his first ever book called Free Agent Nation, where he noticed years ago, years and years and years ago, 20 odd years ago, that there was this whole uncounted workforce in the U S and they were the free agents who were doing their own thing in their own way. They weren't working for organization, but they weren't counted in a lot of the stats. And.
Katie Hair (:A little bit. Mmm.
Katie Hair (:Mm.
Katie Hair (:Mm -hmm.
Digby (:Maybe, yeah, maybe we don't think about organizations. Maybe we just need to go beyond that idea to go, well, where is the value being transferred and created in society? Hmm. Yeah. And I think you're right. There's a rising number of people who want to do it differently. Interesting. You know, I, I have one last question, which is what have you learned through this conversation, Katie here?
Katie Hair (:Mm.
Katie Hair (:Yeah.
Katie Hair (:Thanks to me. I've learnt now I know that I hate being put on the spot with these sorts of questions. I think I would be just really interested to see if this is sort of knocking on the door of things that people are interested in learning a little bit more about, you know, even prior to having this conversation, you know, this
Digby (:No, we already knew that.
Katie Hair (:For me, this feels, it feels kind of just a normal way of being now. And when I have that through the conversation with you, you know, you hear it's sort of like, oh yeah, rolling off the tongue, like, yeah, I've managed to do this a few times. You sort of learn that, but I don't think that's for everybody. So I just need to keep reminding myself of that, that there's still, it's quite scary for people. Yeah.
Digby (:Yeah, I'm hearing you've learned that you've got this actually. And maybe there's through this conversation, there's a realization that, oh yeah, I'm kind of just doing it now.
Katie Hair (:Hmm. Yep. But saying that, if you hear, yeah, I'm reflecting back on that last element of conversation and there's still that level of uncomfortableness around what that new period for me is. So yeah, I do like to be in the uncomfortable. Yeah. Yeah.
Digby (:Yeah, you do. I reckon that's a great place to finish out. Thanks, Katie. I've learned that you're someone who... Have I learned this? I don't know if I learned this. I think I'm reminded that deliberateness and structure don't have to be the enemy of flexibility.
Katie Hair (:Mm.
Digby (:And to me, that's an incredibly powerful thing for someone like me who loves freedom and flexibility. Deliberateness and structure can enable that. So thank you for reminding me of that.
Katie Hair (:Thank you for summarising that. Yeah, nice.
Digby (:That's what I do. Hey, if people wanted to find out more about you, where would they go?
Katie Hair (:If they can go to that LinkedIn that's got all the gaps in it. Yeah, and... Yeah. Okay. Cheers, Digby.
Digby (:I think they've already been checking it out as we've been talking. Awesome. Okay. Thanks so much. See ya.
Digby (:And I press stop.
