Brian’s Blog | From Stock Broker to Outdoor Instructor

Brian is from Essex, he’s training to be an Outdoor Instructor, he’s 54, has 5 daughters and was a stockbroker for 20 years…

Here is Brian’s story, his reasons for making a big change and where he’s headed on new adventures…

Having been stuck inside the 4 walls of the corporate world, I’d lost a sense of who I was & what was important to me.

My creativity and personal drive had all but disappeared, I’d swapped fun, freedom and adventures for meetings, paperwork and the daily grind.

I knew I needed to find a very different head space, to lose the routine and get back inside my own brain and use my body for something other than sitting down. I wanted to feel alive again – I’d always loved sport and as I got older and had a family of my own, we’d all enjoyed the great outdoors life and adventures.

I don’t know exactly when I started dreaming of throwing myself into the great outdoors full time but once I started I didn’t stop thinking about it.

Then I read about Land & Wave from previous trainee Tatty’s Escape The City blog

I made a first tentative phone call and they offered support by the bucket-load straight away. There was encouragement and belief in what I could achieve from the outset – I started to believe in myself and exciting possibilities again.

I initially thought it wasn’t going to work out for this year and shelved the idea so to speak but I couldn’t get it out my head. After another email on the Wednesday (5 days before the course started!), I said ‘Yes’ and signed up to the course.

My journey, professionally & personally, couldn’t have been possible without these guys.

What happens now?

The City has started calling me back, the bright lights and shiny buildings beckoned but I’ve tasted a new, better, more balanced and rewarding life.

I’ve made some very rad, very real friends and discovered skills that I didn’t know I had. This course has awakened something in me that had been asleep for a very long time.

The call to the outdoors has been so strong and Dorset so lovely I am now looking to relocate down south, ready to ride a new kind of wave and walk the coastal path instead of the underground.

I’m keen to show other mid-lifers that there is life outside of the hum-drum, the day to day, the routine. I want to be a role model to my own kids, as well as others, showing them that facing your fears can be exciting, exhilarating and utterly life changing…

If this sounds like something you’re interested in – being outside, adventures and a fulfilling career – how could it not? Then join our next free open day and see how this could be you. 

Outdoor Instructor Training next starts in October.  

12 February 2020 by Owen Senior