Jacqueline Hazewinkel – “Recommendation and inspiration. I can recommend everyone to climb a mountain and in particular this one while you cross 5 different climate zones with changing vegetation and beautiful views. Besides nature showing her best self it is also a great way to experience teamwork while you are not reaching this top alone.”
On May 24th I joined the members meetup in Amsterdam. It was an inspirational evening and I recommend it to all of you to join such a meetup in the future! Face2face makes the difference and helps this network to mature and develop.
After this evening network founder Joost d’Hooghe asked me to share my story of climbing mount Kilimanjaro in 2017 (after resigning from my job – I worked for DSM for 11 years). Of course I climbed this mountain (5895 meters above sea level) for myself, but also for the Dutch charity fund War Child by raising more than the 6000€ for children who have had to experience a war during their youth or who are still in the middle of a war.
This is the moment I would like to repeat two words from my first paragraph: recommendation and inspiration.
I can recommend everyone to climb a mountain and in particular this one while you cross 5 different climate zones with changing vegetation and beautiful views. Besides nature showing her best self it is also a great way to experience teamwork while you are not reaching this top alone. Our team consisted of 25 climbers, accompanied by 1 lead guide, 13 local guides and around 70 support crew members.
And I hope this story inspires you to follow your heart and to sometimes do the extraordinary and be aware of yourself doing something extraordinary. And when you are aware then also take the next step of celebrating and being proud of yourself.
After this adventure I read a book (working identity from Herminia Ibarra) describing unconventional strategies for career reinvention. While common wisdom holds that we must first know what we want to do before we can act, Herminia Ibarra argues that this advice is backward. Knowing, she says, is the result of doing and experimenting.
So that is what I have been doing for the past year (both voluntary and via a temporary job at a greentech-start-up)
Do I now know exactly what I want? Maybe not, but I will keep on following my hart and I will focus on finding a job where I can contribute to a better world while deploying my financial expertise (not by bean counting) and professionalism, learned and developed during my 11 years at DSM.
Jacqueline
Members can directly contact Jacqueline in the members App by clicking here.
Jacqueline on LinkedIn.
