The great escape: quitting the rat race

Janine Hall moved to Bali to pursue her dream. Photo / Supplied

Tour operator Neill Sperath uses a red Westfield T-shirt as a flag on the back of his kayak trailer. It's there to remind the erstwhile marketing professional that he never wants to return to corporate life.

The summer break is the time when mid-life crises are born and some people like Sperath choose to quit the rat race.

Another Kiwi who took action is Janine Hall, who had a career in fashion marketing. Hall worked for some of the world's best high-fashion labels: Top Shop, David Jones, and Marks & Spencer, before returning home where she landed a not quite so glamorous job with The Warehouse.

"For eight years it was hugely exciting," says Hall. "I was very passionate about my roles overseas. But they took a lot out of me in terms of time. I was not really having time for myself or my wellbeing."

The turning point for Hall was buying a boat when she returned to New Zealand, but finding that she didn't have time to sail it before or after work as she'd planned. "I realised I was giving up the things that truly made me happy. I had lost a bit of the shimmer to my life."

After leaving London, Hall had spent a year travelling before starting work for The Warehouse. During that time she discovered surfing, kite boarding and wake boarding.

"I thought [at the time] this is what I want my life to be like all the time, not just relegated to work holidays.

"Back in New Zealand it niggled at me. I realised I needed to change my reality," she says.

When work became a grind in Auckland, Hall upped sticks and moved to Bali to pursue her dream.

Years of work in the corporate world left Hall with financial resources to call upon and her dream was launched last year when she opened Surf Haven, a women-only surf and yoga centre, where she meets many inspiring women.

Not everyone who wants to escape the rat race leaves New Zealand, or even Auckland.

Sperath, who runs TIME Unlimited Tours, lives his dream on Auckland's North Shore. Likewise former Nestle high flier Linda Chalmers escaped the "global employee rat race" by moving to Devonport, with its village lifestyle.

"Nestle was an amazing company to work for and it was a very exciting lifestyle," says Jamaican-born Chalmers, who met her Kiwi husband when she was sent here to give strategic advice to the local operation. "You were very well looked after."

But once she started a family in Switzerland, Chalmers found the lifestyle was no longer appropriate because of the high level of travelling.

She also had some galling experiences in the corporate world after she became a parent. On her very first overseas trip away her daughter was hospitalised in Switzerland.

Then, just as she was about to be promoted, she was hauled aside by her boss and told that she was sending mixed messages to the company. "My boss told me I was sending conflicting messages by doing my job so well, but not wanting to be promoted."

He told her to choose between her family and her career. By this stage Chalmers' first daughter was nearing the age of 5and had been looked after by a series of nannies. "I felt like I hardly knew her."

The answer to the dilemma was simple as far as Chalmers was concerned - "my family came first". At her request, Nestle paid to transfer the family back to New Zealand, but ultimately couldn't find a position for her - offering a redundancy package instead.

"That was a blessing in disguise and when I really made the move out of the rat race. I was able to set up my own consultancy business and so be able to determine who I would work for and when I would work." She also does charity work for a local church.

Currently Chalmers consults to clients on marketing and business strategy. "We wanted to be near the sea and wanted our children to be free to be children," she says.

"I love seeing them run off to school in their bare feet."

"In terms of escaping the rate race, I don't travel at peak hours. I either catch the ferry into the city or drive outside rush hours."

At the height of her corporate career Chalmers was flying into exotic locations for three to six-month stints, where she would live out of a hotel. "These days, I'm a Walking School Bus driver."

Kusal Perera had a promising future at Fonterra Ingredients, where he was a senior business manager, when he realised something wasn't right. "I looked at my life and I had everything I wanted to have and thought: 'what's next?"'

Thanks to the incentives that came with the Fonterra job, there was always more he could do. "It was like a well-oiled machine. The harder you work, the more you get rewarded. It never ends. As soon as you reach a goal, the goalposts move.

The decision to take two to three years out to be a VSA volunteer was a relatively easy one for Perera, whose father had considered doing the same, but didn't because he had a young family. Kusal Perera's other alternatives were to go overseas with Fonterra, or work for a Fonterra customer.

He took the VSA option and is seven months into his time working with the Tanganyika Farmers Association (TFA) in Tanzania. His main role is to mentor and develop TFA's sales and marketing team.

Early on, Perera and a colleague were out in the TFA 4WD vehicle and found themselves lost in a dried-up riverbed. Eventually some Masai people came to their aid. "I thought, 'This is my typical day at the office.' You are really forced to live for the moment here."

VSA has given him more career options. Perera has found an ability to inspire people that, although mentioned in his Myers Briggs profile, he didn't know he possessed.

"I always had aspirations of being a sales and market director, but not a CEO or MD. I'm absolutely inspired and have discovered things about myself as a manager that I didn't know at home. "

Perera would like to return to New Zealand and spend a year surfing at Ohope. But after his VSA assignment he's likely to head to Europe or the Middle East and boost his finances working for a multinational company.

The final word goes to Chalmers: "It is more about being, rather than achieving."

EXPERT ADVICE

Jo Mills of Career Analysts Ltd says don't chuck in your real job on a whim. "Are you simply reacting to your current circumstances and a tough 2010? Or is this change one that is well considered and meets your values, motivators, talents and interests?"

People who quit the rat race successfully:

* Know themselves.
* Have a realistic plan with budgets.
* Leverage their current role to build critical skill sets or networks.

It's also important not to burn your bridges, Mills says. You may want to return to your former career.

Recommended reading

Kusal Perera's tips for potential rat race escapees:

* The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
* Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom