How things have changed
Every now and then, something happens to make me take a step back, and review where I am. I think it’s extremely important as a creative person to do this. Just this week, I was emailed the inset photograph by my Chilean guide – Sabine, who accompanied me on my little photo-tour of Torres del Paine national park in Chile a few weeks back (in the inset picture, I’m the one standing with my back to the camera (left) with Polly, one of my participants from Australia – looking out towards the Towers of Paine, across Laguna Armaga in Chilean Patagonia).
I don’t often see photos of myself in the ‘environments’ I frequent these days, and this image in particular has made me think…..
A few years ago, I was sitting very comfortably in an IT office in the middle of Edinburgh. My life was pretty normal, I went home in the evenings, caught up with friends, did the shopping, washing, went back to work the next day and so life continued for me, as it always had.
Each day I would look outside of my office window, and I’d watch as the clouds crawled across the view I had over the rooftops of Edinburgh, over Arthurs Seat (extinct volcano) and over the seasons I’d witness the same landscape change. I was an onlooker, dreaming of being outside more often than inside. I felt my life was pretty good, but I’d always wished to be outside more often, making images more often too.
Roll forward to today, I’m just home from a month’s long trip to Patagonia, Bolivia and Easter Island. Things couldn’t be more different for me these days compared to my life back in my comfortable little IT office. I now run a successful photographic workshop business, I spend most of my life outside, watching the clouds crawl across some very beautiful landscapes here in Scotland. In the past year, I’ve expanded my business to Norway, Iceland, Patagonia and Bolivia. I wouldn’t have dared guess that this is what I would be doing back in 2007 when I first had ideas of changing career.
Although it has not been plain sailing, and like every job out there, my new job has it’s downsides as well as upsides, I find that I’m much more content at what I do, and I also feel I’m more in touch with who I am as well. I’ve learned so much about myself through the act of setting up and running a photographic workshop business.
In many ways, I’ve had to review just who I am. I think we all carry around with us a mental image of who we are, and of our own abilities. I’ve had to seriously reconsider my own mental image as I think it was really out of date. For years I felt I didn’t have much initiative, or was able to be pro-active enough to do things for myself. I’ve found that it’s simply not true.
I wish, that if you have aspirations to do something new with your life, that you can find the inspiration and encouragement to try them out. Often the signs are there, the clues that we need to make some changes to our lives, but we seldom take their cue and run with it.
I’ve been more scared in the past three years than I have been in my entire life. Running my business has been like riding the crest of a wave. Thrilling and often making me feel very, very alive indeed. There’s been very little in the way of staidness to it.
I think that with whatever it is that you’re doing, whether you’re creating art, engineering bridges, building roads, writing computer programs, just taking a moment to stop and reflect on who you are, where you currently are and what it is that you want is a vital ingredient to having a good life. I believe that everything that has happened to me over the past few years – has happened because I wanted it to, and by visualising where I wanted to be, I was naturally steering my own course in the direction I wanted to go.
Patagonia was brilliant by the way, as too was the Bolivian altiplano. Both landscapes were extremely different, and it was really something to get to come back to some places that I have a deep connection with. If I had to go back to my IT job now, I guess I would adapt to that, but I don’t think I could ever live with the prospect of never going back to revisit Patagonia and the Altiplano. They are like good friends that I have to keep in touch with. They feel like home, and sometimes I think I’ve become a citizen of the world through my own love for remote landscapes.
I am enjoying your journey. Congratulations to you Bruce. I had the same fear when I set out to build my own design business 15 years ago. It was scary, (still is sometimes) but ever since I have always felt alive. It’s a good feeling and that success has also allowed me time now to shoot my own landscapes. Cheers Steve
Comment by Steve Coleman — 12 July, 2012 @ 5:20 am
Hello Bruce,
It’s nice to hear that you’re now home safe and very enthusiastic about your journey. After finishing reading this post something echoed in my mind, because that’s the feeling and “stage” I’m experiecing right now. After 10 years working with social issues (sociology) I’ ve realised that, in order to fullfill my ego, I had to make a change in my life. I had to get outside of the confort zone. That moment arrived back in September 2010 when I managed to go to your Isle of Eigg workshop and after that, things started to change. Despite the difficult moments we live, I’m doing what I like – working with and teaching photography – and I’ m not sure if I can do it till the end of days, but now is an experience and feeling that I want to preserve and nurture.
Since my photographic experience with you on the Isle of Eigg and adventures with Jürg on Muck, a lot has changed. My vision changed tremendously. But I gained some strange forces to carry with my dream: being happy with what I do. But I’m scary? Every single day. But I like it! :-)
Thanks Bruce for your wisdom and wise words. They made it possible.
All the best.
João Pedro Silva
Comment by João Pedro Silva — 12 July, 2012 @ 10:17 am
Hi Joao,
Really great to hear you’ve taken the plunge, and can recognise the feelings I’ve expressed in my posting.
I personally find it very inspiring to feel that there is a ‘flow’ to what we’re doing. I guess I’d also like to believe that my little workshop was the catalyst for you to move in a direction you are now heading in. Each and every one of us has an influence and impact on others around us. I think your posting is a perfect example of going with the flow. Seeing the signs, listening to your intuition and going with what you know is the right thing for you to do (even though it is very frightening at times).
Comment by Bruce Percy — 12 July, 2012 @ 10:41 am
I think the other reason I like your blog so much is that your posts resonate with me. Without tarring you with my brush, much of what you put in this post so closely describes me it’s scary:
“A few years ago, I was sitting very comfortably in an IT office in the middle of Edinburgh. My life was pretty normal, I went home in the evenings, caught up with friends, did the shopping, washing, went back to work the next day and so life continued for me, as it always had.”
Sounds like Bilbo Baggins, ‘And so life goes on, very much as it has this past Age.” Most of us are existing rather than really living, sitting at desks, doing the choirs, living for the weekend, as if that’s all that life has to offer. It’s best not to think too hard about or you’ll get depressed! Better to use it as a call to action.
I too stare out of the window, wishing to be out there, rain in my face, exploring, adventuring, living. I’m beavering away, hatching plans, digging my escape tunnel whilst also very fearful that anything other than doing what I’m doing now is a massive risk to me and my family. I too have an image of me as lacking initiative, putting myself out there and being risk averse. I have to consciously focus on moving forward into the unknown and *believe* rather than *know* that it’s the right thing. That’s scary. Imagine investing all that time and it not lead you where you want. That’s life. Failure isn’t falling down, it’s not getting up (a quote I heard last week). Better to try and fail than to try at all, etc. Man, there are so many (often trite) quotes that say the thing that we all know, but struggle to live.
I know that your career change wasn’t entirely self determined but in the words of Paulo Coelho “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it”. So I salute you for making it happen and living a life that you clearly enjoy and find very rewarding.
I’ll take solace from your post that reflecting on where I am, being mindful of where I want to be (risks and fears and all) and what I’m doing puts me in a better place than to have a numb mind by not thinking about it at all.
And to end with a final quote (obviously in a quotey mood today) that I rely on time and again:
“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” ~ Andre Gide
Easy to quote it. Harder to live it.
Comment by Duncan Fawkes — 12 July, 2012 @ 10:54 am
João, that’s a great story and glad that things are working out for you. I’m in the midst of something similar since I went to Skye with Bruce in March. Since then I’ve built up a huge amount of momentum that I am hoping is taking me somewhere new, exciting and yes scary. I wouldn’t like to put in a testimonial that Bruce changed my life (not least, he’d be weirded out!) the workshop, his views on photography and life, coincided with a deeper search I was experiencing. But if I did have to point to a moment where I no longer felt like an imposter and became a bona fide photographer/artist it was around the time of that workshop*, and I feel that my photography is orders of magnitude better now than before. In reality it might not be the case, but I have the confidence to think that and that’s as powerful as the images themselves IMO.
I’m glad you’ve felt something similar!
*and it had little to do with the images I actually shot – difficult in terrible weather – but just the immersion in the photographic journey, the process, the outdoors, the thinking, all of it)
Comment by Duncan Fawkes — 12 July, 2012 @ 11:01 am
Hi Duncan,
Love that last quote.
I think some of us dream of utopia. We are indeed living, even though it sometimes feels like existing. Sometimes my life is too unsettled and I wish for that ‘existence’ you describe.
Utopia does not exist. I get so many emails from people wanting to do what I do, only they don’t really want to do what I do, because their idea of what I do is completely different from the reality.
It’s hard work running your own business. I don’t stoat around with a camera all day having fun and watching the money pour in. I seldom get to make images of my own on my workshops, and this year I was beginning to feel I needed some time on my own to do my own creative thing. That’s why I’m off to Iceland in a week’s time – for some much needed personal creative time.
I hated working in an office, but I still do. I have a little office here in Edinburgh (pop in sometime, if I’m here though – which I seldom aren’t). I have to do the accounts, the chasing people up for payment for workshops, the people who cancel without telling me they’re not coming, the time wasters that all businesses have to put up with. I have troubles too, but I do feel that what I’m doing is much more rewarding than writing Java programs to make someone else very rich.
I like being able to schedule my year to suit me. Sometimes I’m away from home far too much, and I find that hard to deal with. Other times I’m really pleased I have that variety to my life.
Risk. Hmmm. I think permanent jobs are an illusion anyway. Someone said to me a few years back that being self-employed is much safer. I think that’s mostly true – I know how things are going (I don’t get a sudden redundancy surprise), I’m also responsible for my own future – which some of us hide away from under the umbrella of an employer (supposedly) looking after us (they’re not really – if we’re of no use, we go). So we all have risk. Risk you may lose your current job, risk your current employer may go under and you’re put out on the street looking for a new job anyway.
Belief can help with carving a way forward, but I’ve met some people who believe and they have nothing to really believe in. They’re highly unrealistic about their business plans. I had no idea if my business would work – as you know – we chatted about this – I was forced into going this route because of redundancy and hopeless IT recruitment agencies passing over my skill set. I had nowhere else to turn. Fear can be a great motivator.
I didn’t have the courage to do this. I’m quite a scaredy-cat to be honest about lots of things, and my hand was forced. I figured that there was never going to be a perfect time (that’s just us trying to control our environment too much). If I were going to transfer to this, then maybe it would be easier if I didn’t already have a job…….
And I had informed reasons for doing it too. I saw my website had traffic, that people liked what I did. I’ve been very lucky that a lot of people like my style of photography and want to spend time with me. Perhaps that is the hardest thing of all to pull off, and in my own case – it’s a fluke that I had that to start with.
Most business start up’s work in tandem with an existing job for a while. I’ve known too many friends think they need to stop one career to move into another, but I think that’s not the way to do it. You find out by trying something on the side if it has market value, and if you focus your efforts on it, it will grow and if it grows, something has to be given up to pursue it full time. It takes small steps and each of those steps informs you of the next step to take.
Comment by Bruce Percy — 12 July, 2012 @ 11:13 am
Some reply Bruce, that’s a blog post right there! :)
Completely agree with the need to balance risk with realism, and there are plenty (myself quite possibly included!) that are borderline delusional about their ambitions and business. There’s this need to take a risk and making sure you’re not sitting in your comfort zone, but you need to make sure when you leap it’s not into the lion’s den!
Related to your earlier “it’s not all glamour” point, it’s the stuff that goes on behind the scenes, trying to move the ball forward every day that people don’t see and that they will come a cropper on.
As you say the reality is that you’re still going to be working in an office, answering phone calls, emails and dozens of other things that are probably more annoying than things you deal with in the corporate world. The big difference is that you’re building something for you, you’re doing those less desirable things because that’s what you need to do, not just because it’s a job. You find the desire and motivation to do those things because you need them to help drive your passion. Doing them for someone else when you wish you wre doing something else is the total opposite.
And yes, it’s all about the “side hustle” – build something, find something that resonates with people and take it from there whilst still in work. For some perhaps many people dropping it all and switching may work. You hear of all the city bankers that decide to give it up and become tree surgeons in Devon, etc. Well great, must be easy with a fat account to see you through! :) The reality is that testing the market (and indeed testing that it’s what you want to do) presents a much cheaper and easier point of entry, and you can ramp up when when appropriate.
Have just finished Chris Guillebeau’s $100 Startup which was a fantastic read. He talks about finding the intersection between what you’re good at and what people will pay money for. Not all of the things that you’re good at and are passionate about will generate revenue. Not rocket science really!
As I say, I’m chipping away. Hoping to get my website sorted soon (I’m doing the perfectionism/procrastination thing with WordPress themes right now :( ) and see where that leads. Maybe or even quite possibly nowhere. But if it takes me somewhere new and I learn a bit more about where I’m going then it’s all good.
Sorry, feel like I’ve dragged you off topic now talking about starting businesses rather than the importance of self-reflection!
Comment by Duncan Fawkes — 12 July, 2012 @ 1:04 pm