As I hit my final year of high school, like a lot of us, I had no idea what I wanted to be as I’d “grown up.” Childhood dream job of driving buses was quickly dismissed as I’d added a love of cars over the years, and realised the quickest way to get myself into my dream car was to find a job I could do that paid well.
I scraped into a university degree majoring in Accounting, and began a full time cadetship, whilst completing uni at night. Fun fact – my lack of application in my final year meant travelling to university the best part of an hour away which made for some challenging trips home at 10pm after a full day of work.
My early 20s were defined by long weeks of work and study, feeling invincible I would burn the candle from both ends through the weekends out with friends/co-workers etc. I did the odd fun run, would find time for the gym a few times a week, but was definitely not doing much else to manage my overall health.
Sure enough as I moved into my later 20s, health problems appeared – driven by the lack of “balance” that the drive to further my career (& cars haha) brought about, I was burnt out and physically suffered as a result. A pre-screening test for a boot camp I joined revealed hypertension which was a huge shock, and devastating at the time as I’d joined the boot camp to step my training up, realising I needed more accountability and structure to get my health on track.
My late 20s were also punctuated with a bout of chickenpox that lead to glandular fever, dropping 15 plus kg off me, and a liver infection that destroyed a chunk of it meaning no alcohol for 12 months. (not a bad thing at the time given my binge drinking!)
11 years into my finance career and not having even hit 30, I was kidding myself when it came to my health. I was proud of what I had achieved in terms of career progress, (& cars) but was setting myself up for not only an unhealthy life, but a much shortened one.
Change was needed so I made it – I left my long term employer in professional services to go and work in a “regular” business. That was the change of pace I needed, I was able to learn new things and apply the discipline I’d built up working the long hours and studying after hours etc as and when needed in these roles, knowing the demands on me were generally less than I’d been used to.
4 years or so into my work as a CFO with smaller businesses, I landed upon what would be the most pivotal role of my life to date. The pic above is from my days there with 2 of my favourite ex-colleagues. All up I spent 7 and a bit years there after commencing in 2011. What made it pivotal? The CEO I worked with for one. Little did we both know that he would inspire me to leave finance all together a few years later!
From the get go, he wanted to understand what “the plan” was.
“What’s next Barnesy?”
“What’s the goal this year?”
“Come up with a Big Hairy Audacious Goal for yourself.”
In my early 30s, I was in the mindset that I had found a fantastic job (CFO in a sporting body), worked close to home, had more time for my fitness and was finding a nice settled routine. I’ve made it I thought to myself. I wasn’t earning what I could have staying where I started my career, but I was comfortable and had found the balance that I didn’t have earlier in my life.
The “stretch” that some of these questions asked of me created was real. I’m comfortable I thought to myself, I’ve got to where I want to be, I’m content, etc – so why change anything or seek anything else out?
Well my CEO knew better of course, we had a circa $25M project to work through, and he suggested to me to have a think about what I wanted longer term as I would probably be looking for a new challenge after that and some other transformative work we would be doing.
Whilst my mindset might have been a little stuck initially, one thing that was growing was my passion for fitness. By 2013 I was on Instagram posting pictures of my abs and food – crazy behaviour haha. My dream day job and proximity to home meant I was up at 5am (and earlier some days) to get my morning session in, showered and at my desk early eating my high protein breakfast 5 days a week, and training every Saturday morning.
2015 rolls around and we complete the major project. Life is good, great job, awesome home life, fitter than I’d ever been, had been helping my gym out with some finance stuff – nothing to complain about. Bored is too strong a term, however some of those questions that my CEO often put to me were becoming more relevant as I was starting to question how long I could keep doing “this.” Not borne from frustration or otherwise, just a sense that the purpose/end goal had shifted.
2016 was not only the year that I got married, it was the year that I took my first steps to changing careers. The CFO in me wanted to dip his toe in the water and try a bit of part time coaching down at the gym that had become a big part of my life. Having the support not only of the gym owners but my corporate CEO at the time was instrumental to not only making that opportunity happen, but ultimately one that would lead me to open my own gym 3 years later and have me sitting in my gym just under 4 years after opening writing this piece.
Maybe you’re already carrying out your life’s purpose. Maybe you’re still looking for it. Maybe what feels like your purpose right now won’t be of interest to you next month. If there’s one thing that you take from this – don’t be afraid to get after that Big Hairy Audacious Goal. A strong sense of purpose can mean incredible things for the impact you can have on the world, and equally importantly, the impact you have on your own happiness.