My Career Story: Living an Adaptive Life
This career story is offered so that you can learn about how the writer (Ian Johnson) arrived at where he is now. It is a sample story that can hopefully both inspire and inform you.
Life Begins at the End of your Comfort Zone!
Summary
My story is rather longer than usual. It spans 45 adventurous and eventful years, during which I have experienced 15 or more careers, through five major life phases.
Remarkably, only 3 of these careers were accessed through replying to a newspaper advertisement. Most happened through word-of-mouth connections.
At this point in time I am working on my legacy – leaving a contribution that makes a lasting social impact.
- Early Years: completing my Ph.D. – 1970
- Wandering and Wondering: 1970 – 1977
- Corporate Life: 1977 – 1999
- Self-employed, Semi-retired, Volunteering: 1999 – 2019
- Leaving a Lasting Legacy: 2019 – ????
Looking back on my life as a whole, I had a good start, and my early years were positive and hopeful, though not without challenges. I lived in a stable home, was well cared for, clothed and fed, and I received a high-quality education at a typical English Grammar school.
As I began to complete my Ph.D., my life began a downward spiral, and the wandering years were extremely difficult for me. Fortunately, once I entered into a committed relationship, and started corporate life, my prospects began to improve. I had lots of ups and downs, and many anxious moments, yet in general, life gradually got better. Maybe it was because I was enrolled in the School of Luck, or perhaps because of my Intrinsic Motivation and journey researching life and careers?
Anyway, the last few years have definitely been the best ones.
Early Years
When I was young, my career aspirations were very focused. I loved nature, and reading stories about animals, such as Tarka the Otter, by Henry Williamson. I even wanted to be a zookeeper when I was about 10 years old. Then along came Watson and Crick, the DNA double helix, and watching Raymond Baxter on our small black and white TV showing an enormous clear plastic model of a cell, with the nucleus and cell components. So insightful. So compelling.
By the age of 13 I was hooked – I wanted to understand the mystery of life, and being a biochemical researcher was the pathway to mastery. In high school I excelled in the sciences, studying biology, chemistry and physics and even reading “Dynamic Aspects of Biochemistry” by Baldwin. The Krebs cycle was so fascinating to study.
After graduating from High School, I spent nine months working as a laboratory technician at a local chemical plant, before going to the University of Bristol to pursue my dream of becoming a biochemist.
Fast forward six years and at the age of 26 I had acquired a B.Sc. and Ph.D. in Biochemistry. I knew a lot of science, but unfortunately, I realized that I had not discovered the mysteries of life.
Post-Graduate Life – The Wandering Years
My ambitions were derailed by the disturbing insights revealed because of experiments I conducted on myself by imbibing small amounts of marijuana and LSD. I discovered, painfully, that there was more to life than the rational world of Newtonian science and the billiard-ball atoms of the Bohr model. The results were disturbing flashbacks and an incapacitating mental breakdown. But there were no conclusions.
I had reached a dead end and had no idea what to do. So in November of 1970 I acted on a suggestion made by a fellow Ph.D. student by going to Israel and working on a Kibbutz. My Hero’s Journey had begun, and my search for the mysteries resumed.
After six months in Israel, learning basic Hebrew and picking cotton, grapefruit and egg plants, I returned to London, England, and found work as an Editor of the Biochemical Journal. Perhaps I got the job because one of the other staff members just happened to be someone I knew at high school?! Anyway, my salary was enormous. It was more than my father was earning when he retired at the age of 65, after 50 years of dedicated employment. Wow.
After two unhappy years dealing with the aftermath of my breakdown and working as an editor in London, I followed another friend. They had emigrated to Canada, and said it was a great place to live. My first application to the Canadian Embassy in London was rejected. I wrote back politely, asking them to review my application again – after all, I was a highly qualified research scientist, and would be a great asset to Canada! The second time around, my application was approved, and off I went to Toronto, in September of 1973.
Two weeks after arriving, I landed a job as a laboratory research assistant at the University of Toronto Medical School and found a suitable place to live. And my Canadian salary was twice what I had earned in England! However, your Hero had landed on an ice floe that was beginning to melt rather too fast for comfort.
After two years of work in the laboratory, your Hero became restless, decided to jump to a new ice floe and become a secondary school chemistry teacher. So Ian enrolled in college to get the required certificates and quit work.
I bought the required textbooks, and then abruptly did a completely unexpected about face. Instead of jumping onto another ice floe, I jumped off a cliff. The voices said “Go West Young Man” and so in September of 1975 I impulsively packed up my meager possessions a week before school started, left Toronto and caught a plane to Calgary.
I was again following my friends, who now happened to live in the Kootenay region of south east BC. Now I was an unemployed long-haired hippie, living out of a backpack, supporting myself with my savings, and I had become wanderer.
I lived in the Kootenays for the winter, then travelled across Canada, back to Toronto, to England, to London, and to my Yorkshire home, then all the way back to Vancouver before going to San Francisco where I passed a few months imbibing the Haight-Ashbury culture.
My savings were almost used up, and after nearly two years on the road I finally returning to Vancouver in July of 1976 and starting looking for work.
Corporate Years:
From Single Scientist to Married Salesman
So seven years after I completed my Ph.D. at Bristol University, I ended up in Vancouver. Based on my experience at the University of Toronto, I expected to find work in a week or two. Not so! I began to look for work as a researcher, but, much to my disappointment, was unable to land a job. Days became weeks, then months, with no work in sight. My savings ran out, then my Unemployment Insurance, until I finally ended up living on on Welfare for a few weeks.
Because I was unable to find work as a researcher, and out of total desperation and necessity, I answered an advertisement for a job selling chemicals to Hospitals and Universities. I hated the thought of being a salesman, but when you are desperate, any work is better than none.
And also, out of necessity, I finally obtained a driving license.
Of course, it did help that, shortly after arriving in Vancouver, I had entered into my first serious relationship. After a short period of getting to know each other, we were married in May, and as a special honeymoon present, I got the sales job in June of 1977 – they required someone with a valid driving license – good thing that I was able to drive!
As I settled into my new relationship and a strange business role, I cut off my long hair and beard, started to wear business suits, and gained weight rapidly.
So, as the Hero’s Journey goes, that was a triumphant return after seven years of adventuring.
I was happily married, my income had doubled again, I had a company car, an American Express Card, and an expense account. My wandering years were over, and I gradually began to accept my life in business, enjoying the opportunity to travel and meet new people.
Your Hero had finally found a big ice floe that was safe to say on for a while.
Working life continued to evolve. My parent company was bought out by DuPont. I had new bosses, and I had to trim my hair even shorter, and wear even more conservative business attire.
Although the sales work was always changing, I eventually became restless. Many of my peers had been promoted and moved on to bigger and better opportunities. I stayed in the position for nine years, becoming increasingly frustrated, until something magical happened.
I was given a dream promotion – DuPont appointed me as a new business development manager – Biotechnology Products – and in 1987 moved me and my family to Toronto, all expenses paid.
(Family? Yes, that’s another story – my first marriage ended almost as quickly as it had begun, and after a no-fault divorce, I embarked on a second marriage which is still going strong, and we were fortunate to be blessed with a wonderful son. DuPont moved us all to Toronto. We hoped to be there for a couple of years, and then come back home to Vancouver. But things worked out in a way that was different from what we expected.)
The DuPont Canada headquarters was a whole new world. I worked in the Executive Suite seeking for profitable biotechnology investments. After learning to be a salesman, I was now acquiring the skills of a Business Executive, and my days as a lab rat were long gone. I got to fly in the Executive Jet down to corporate headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware. And my income continued to increase, not rapidly, but certainly in a satisfying manner.
And then the Hero’s Journey decided it was time to tip the ice floe and throw me in the water. After just a year in heaven, I was catapulted into hell, because DuPont management decided to not pursue its biotechnology opportunities and terminated my project and my position.
As a consolation prize, they gave me a job in computer systems. This was the era when the IBM PC powered by the Microsoft DOS operating system was just becoming established. I had bought my own Apple Macintosh computer years ago and was comfortable using the IBM PCs that began to land on executive desks – so much so that I was often called in to trouble-shoot the various glitches that happened to my C-Suite colleagues.
So now I became a “Systems Support” which meant I was schlepping around with boxes of monitors and computers and installing them on people’s desks. I had shifted from corporate jet to pushing a trolley around the office. Ignominious, but at the same pay. I felt defeated and miserable. My dream had ended all too soon, and once again my ice floe was tiny and unstable.
Then gradually, the situation improved, and I landed a real Systems Manager project, installing a complex program that linked US and Canadian operations for a Medical Service business. I was back on the corporate jet down to Wilmington again, and the ice floe felt larger and safer.
That lasted about a year, then they trained me as a Quality Management Consultant, and I learned all about the Malcom Baldrige Award. The good news was that this ice floe was rather fun and enjoyable.
And then they began to deploy me as a Management Consultant visiting DuPont customers throughout Canada and helping them deal with management challenges. I even joined the Canadian College of Health Service Executives. My responsibilities expanded, to include being a Conference Speaker and Workshop Leader, representing DuPont Canada Medical Products Division throughout all of Canada.
I greatly enjoyed my consulting and speaking work, and it was one of the best times of my life.
And then I began to get worried – the ice floe was visibly melting – cutbacks were looming, and Staff positions like mine would be the first to go. I was facilitating one meeting where the Managers were making plans to close down an entire division of support staff. I knew that in another meeting someone else would be planning to close down my division too. I was sawing off the branch I was sitting on.
Did I mention that my family expected to move back to BC in a couple of years? Well, seven roller coaster years had already passed, and we had almost given up hope that we would ever move home to Vancouver.
Then, of course, the magician waved his magic wand again. There was an internal job opening in Vancouver that I was qualified for. I applied, and got the job, and DuPont moved us all back to BC again.
The job? Sales representative – Biotechnology Products!
It was my old job, and they were glad to have me back, because they knew how reliable I was. And my family was so happy to be living in BC again. How strange that the job I was so desperate to leave in 1987 was now something that was very welcome in 1994.
Yes, I was glad to get out of the Management Consulting role, even although it was very enjoyable, because being in sales was more secure. Back home in BC, with a great salary and a secure sales job – or so I thought. Finally I thought I had found a nice big and safe ice floe that felt like home, safe and secure. How wrong I was!
Plan A, moving to Toronto, had been executed. Plan B, moving back home, was in progress now, and what would be next?
The ice floe tipped yet again.
After just a year in my new old job, the magician waved his wand again. DuPont sold the US parent of the division that I worked for, and its Canadian branch was in limbo.
That was a worrying and very uncertain time. Less than two years after we returned to BC with a ‘secure’ sales job, DuPont transitioned the entire Canadian business to a distributor, and let all the staff go, including myself.
They treated us very fairly – giving me a pension and a package based on my years of service. And, as luck would have it the Canadian Distributor hired me (with reduced pay and benefits, of course!) to continue with my existing job, so life continued fairly normally, and I adapted to the new no-frills employment conditions.
For the first time in nearly twenty years, my income and working conditions suffered a significant, but manageable, setback.
Worse was yet to come. After three years of living back home in Vancouver, the magician waved his magic wand again.
Much to my surprise, I discovered I had been fired, without cause and without notice. The news was delivered abruptly in an afternoon phone call from my manager.
My services were no longer needed, and I was liberated on Friday 26 March 1999. My corporate life had lasted for 22 years, and it was now ended.
No ice floe this time – I was thrown into the icy waters and left to learn how to swim for myself.
Although very unexpected, it was a great gift – a clean break, without being tortured by ‘performance appraisal’ interviews. Although it did not seem like it, I had just enrolled in The School of Luck!
Just like that, I was free. The universe had decided it was time for me to graduate from corporate realms and be self-employed.
And so I began to explore the opportunities offered by learning to create a life as an independent consultant.
Self-Employed Years: Semi-retired
After being released from the external constraints imposed by a challenging job, I was now freed up to pursue my inner compulsions. After Plan A and Plan B, Plan Z began to unfold – it was time to finish writing my first book: How to Lead and Still Have a Life!
In 1996, together with Karen Scraba and Chris DeGrow, friends from DuPont, I had begun to write a book about Collaborative Leadership. Now that I was no longer working, I could devote my full energy to this project. Although it was extremely challenging, and took almost five years, with the help of my friends, How to Lead and Still Have a Life! was successfully published early in the year 2000.
Now that I was an author and had a book, the next step was to market it. I created a business identity – We-Q Consulting Services – set up this web site , joined the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers (CAPS ) and arranged for workshops and events to promote the book.
That was when I discovered that you begin marketing the book before, not after it is written! So, although I learned and accomplished a lot, the book did not sell well.
Meanwhile, I was working as a Management Consultant at a Natural Pharmacy, and that lead, through networking connections, to work as a business instructor at the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition. And that in turn lead to a second book – Marketing Solutions – that was written for a specific market and took only five months to finish. Very successful – hundreds of copies sold in Canada and used by students, at a healthy profit for yours truly.
I continued my business teaching career at the Boucher Institute of Naturopathic Medicine, helping ND’s understand the business skills needed to run their practice.
During this time, I also had private clients – usually Dentists, Doctors, Massage Therapists and other healing arts professionals who were looking for assistance with managing their practice.
I even worked with the owner of a Yoga Studio – exchanging information about cash flow management for Downward Dogs!
As for volunteering, that began in 1999, when I joined the Board of my son’s local Youth Concert Band, and soon found out that I was President! Fortunately, I was able to find a suitable replacement within a year, and made a graceful exit.
Through another network connection I was invited to volunteer at a personal development program based on A Course in Miracles. There I discovered that I was a talented facilitator, coach and counsellor – although of course, I had no qualifications or certificates for work using my skills.
What emerged next came via my network connections at CAPS. I was invited to join a men’s group, and one of the members was an Executive Coach. My background and suited me to coaching, and that became another source of income.
Another of my connections from the Men’s Group invited me to become a travel assistant for a Trauma and Addiction Rehabilitation Centre, and I have found this completely different line of work to be very rewarding. It gives me the opportunity to draw on many of my life experiences and skills, and always keeps me on my toes.
My coaching activities began to include working with the Executive Directors of Non-Profit Boards.
As a result of my experience, I was invited to join the Board of Chimo Community Services in Richmond, and I served as their Vice President for three years.
In 2013 I was asked to serve as Executive Coach for the Founder of LBN, Dr. Alisa Lipson. Now I am serving as Volunteer Board Advisor for the Learning Buddies Network, and have been with them for eight enjoyable years.
That rounds out the list of about 16 or 17 different types of work and volunteering that have emerged in the most amazing, unexpected and magical way.
Fully Retired: Legacy Years
Fast forward to the present – July of 2023. My family and I seem to be recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic in reasonable shape.
I have retired from my work as travel assistant for the rehab center, and continue to volunteer for the Learning Buddies Network. My main focus is on keeping our volunteers meaningfully engaged as they explore life and learn to be expert adapters living a flow-filled life.
Declaring A New Identity – 5 May 2024
Ian Johnson – Organizational Architect
“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I ended up where I needed to be.” – Douglas Adams
Using Appreciative Inquiry to Build Grassroots Cascade Networks that Drive Social Innovation
Small Groups, Loosely Connected, United by A Common Cause
Thank you all for giving me the opportunity to serve.
I feel very blessed and look forward to continuing my adaptive adventures.
Until we meet again.
