My story

Unplugged Ambition is pretty much my fault.

I'm the least interesting thing about Unplugged Ambition, but it's only fair to spill, so here goes:

The CV

Offered a job on a FTSE-100 graduate scheme for marketers whilst I was still in my first year of university, I never even had a chance to question whether marketing was what I wanted to do.

I moved to work in communications in the public sector. At 28 I was a Corporate Communications Manager at the Department for Education, managing a team and a very considerable budget.

Then I packed it all in to set up a chocolaterie and patisserie in the Cotswolds.

After six years, I returned to marketing, this time in the tech sector. Since 2012 I've worked for start-ups, tech companies turning over up to £60m annually, and I've taken roles in Ed tech and education.

Between 2021 and 2024 I was the Marketing Lead in no less than 7 companies: repeatedly quitting roles in frustration at the behaviour of senior leaders, and horror of what it was doing to me, hoping to find 'the right fit'.

A high-achiever on paper, driven and reliable at work, I survived emotionally through a series of repeated efforts to run away.

Survival

Between 2010 and 2019 I spent at least three weeks a year in India. I stayed in ashrams, retreats, on beaches, in mountain hostels, city hostels. I travelled to Dharamshala, Delhi and Dehradhun. To Benares (Varanasi), Rishikesh, Haridwar and Goa.

In 2019 I moved to India. Not to live in an ashram, but to take on A Regional Director of Marketing and Communications role for a PE-backed £400m turnover company based in London, UK.

I was addicted to the status and the income. I was forever running away to experience being myself. I kept coming back. Marketing was all I could do, I firmly believed. Despite the evidence of all my time off being spent writing poetry, dancing, doing yoga, supporting friends...From 2021 onwards I was spending 100 nights a year in a tent: wild camping or on campsites. I'd leave the office and head straight to a beach or wood or mountainside; I'd drive back to the office Monday morning. Every day's leave was spent in a tent.

I was earning good money (never as much as the men on the leadership team, my peers) but I never seemed able to financially plan: everything felt transitional, impermanent and precarious. I drove (and still drive) a now 10-year old Nissan Micra. I spent a fortune on nice clothes, nice wine, furniture...things to distract me. I hadn't begun to live.

I cried at least one night in three after work (during sometimes work, when the camera was off).

I made a lot of rich men a lot of money. A lot of them hit on me. Some of them got nasty when I didn't like it.

In April 2024 I pulled out of a joke of a recruitment process just before they could offer me the job, went out for a daytime drink with a friend, met a girl in the bar, who lived in a caravan, got talking with her and suddenly, and after years of mental cycling, and reading, and meditation, my way became clear.

Five weeks to the day since that meeting I was living a very different life.

Ten weeks to the day since that meeting and Unplugged Ambition will go live.

The personal stuff

I don't like the term single: it implies availability. I call myself 'complete' and have done for many years. I don't have kids. I wouldn't mind a couple of cats.

I had a tricky childhood in some ways, the reverberations of which in no small way contributed to this eagerness to please, this minimising of my own wants, this desperate drive to 'fit in'. A lot of you will relate. Basically my parents never got over their own childhood, then had me young, then four others: I tried to parent when I wasn't even five years old. It took about another 35 years before I thought I'd better parent myself.

I have no savings, there is no sugar daddy, I'm unlikely to inherit anything. If you want to "do this" but "can't afford it"...I'm your lack of excuses personified.

We can talk about all of this as we go on...what I'd like to stress is, you can do this on your own. You are more powerful than you know. And finding the right people, and prioritising your own happiness is a great focus to have if you want your energies to go towards the achievement of goals you think are important, rather than what a bunch of investors want you to sweat for.

You do not need someone else's money or approval to live the life that was intended for you.

Unplugged Ambition is not about me..it's for all

I know lots of folks wanting to live a different lifestyle do have kids or partners. A lot of folks DM-ed me and shared how being gay, or working in a different country from their birth country, or being brown or black has made corporate life even more challenging to navigate. My mind is blown on a daily basis when I learn about the multiple ways the deliberate engineering of work culture as well as the personality disorders of many 'in charge' impacts. This is a space for everyone and all of these things are things I want to talk about and learn from you about.

Finally: men. Especially white, straight men. Especially senior, white, straight men. If I were you I'd feel sometimes excluded from some of the discussions we've had on LinkedIn. And for that, I am truly sorry.

The fact that most of our nemeses are white, straight, senior men does NOT make you as a human less of an ally or fellow traveller. It does not make your perspectives or experiences less valuable. You should never need to apologise for the behaviours of others, or need to caveat your views, or hold back. And if I slip into a 'casual sexism' then call me out on it, please. You are so, so, so welcome here, if this kind of content resonates. There are difficulties for all of us wanting more for ourselves.

Your story is one of hope

So your story won't be exactly the same...but if you're feeling 'stuck' then understand that the thinking you're doing and the waiting and the cycling are all preparing you. You are building new mental networks, new social networks and you are in training.

Change can happen. A caterpillar can't become a butterfly overnight, nor would a chrysalis believe what will happen next.