The Long Road Home

What my career in live TV that turned into work as a vegan chef taught me about change...

For years, I thought my problem was the company I worked for.

I started my television career full of ambition and excitement. I loved the energy, the pace, the storytelling, and the feeling of being part of something important. Yet despite the promotions, opportunities, and obviously cool quotient of being a TV director at age 25 - I would go home feeling exhausted, disconnected, and empty.

Looking back, some of that exhaustion was undoubtedly tied to my addictions and afflictions at the time (hello high functioning alcoholic with bulimia). But I can also see now that spending years immersed in a news environment filled with death, disaster, tragedy, and crisis takes a toll on a person. A soul can only absorb so much before it begins to change them. Not to mention my soul had (has) a bigger purpose and she started to nudge me away (so that I could figure out what I should be moving towards).

Rather than leave television altogether though, I tried making smaller moves (as many of us do when faced with the discomfort of massive change). I left one network for another. I moved from CityTV to CTV. Then into satellite television. Then SunTV, CBC, and back to Global. Then other roles within the industry. Every time, I convinced myself that perhaps it wasn’t television itself that was the problem - perhaps it was simply the wrong company, the wrong position, the wrong environment.

But the same feelings followed me everywhere.

The same tension.

The same exhaustion.

The same quiet voice whispering that I no longer belonged there.

The turning point arrived when my father was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia (yes, the same thing Bruce Willis has been faced with).

Suddenly, life became very real. When you learn that a parent is dying and there are still years of unspoken words between you, something shifts.

I left my job and spent several months resting (spiraling?) while my partner at the time supported me. During that time, we became engaged and began planning a fairytale wedding. Outwardly, life appeared to be coming together beautifully.

But beneath the surface, everything was unraveling.

My father’s illness forced me to confront my own shadows. The engagement ended abruptly two months before the wedding. I found myself couch surfing, broke (and bankrupt), unemployed, and deeply entrenched in addiction.

Yet somehow, I kept returning to television.

I moved from one role to another, one network to another, one opportunity to another. The Weather Network. Online Video Producer. Reality TV.

As much as I knew the industry wasn’t for me, I didn’t know who I would be without it.

That was the real problem. Television had become part of my identity. Leaving wasn’t simply changing careers.

It meant becoming someone new.

During the final months of my father’s life, I traveled across Canada while working on a reality television show. By the time I returned home, he had deteriorated dramatically. I was fortunate enough to be present with him and my family at the hospital when he took his last breath.

The following week, hundreds of people attended his funeral. Story after story poured in about the impact he had made on their lives.

As I listened, something became painfully clear. My father had touched people. He had changed lives.

And despite all my success in television, I felt no connection to the work I was doing. And so the week after we buried my dad I walked into my executive producer’s office and I quit.

Shortly after the funeral, I traveled to Cuba for a long weekend.

I spent four nights drinking heavily, sleeping with random men, numbing myself in all the familiar ways.

But every morning, I sat alone on the beach and stared out at the ocean. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was praying.

I asked for guidance. I asked what I was supposed to do next.

Most importantly, I asked what it was that I truly loved (because I had been unhappy for so long that I had forgotten)

The answer arrived clearly.

Raw food. Yoga.

Confusing at first, and rather “Eat, Pray, Love” random seeming - but I went with it.

Within weeks, I enrolled in a yoga teacher training program and began studying under a raw vegan chef who taught me not only how to prepare food, but how to build an educational business around it.

For the next year and a half, I maintained one foot in television and one foot in wellness.

I worked on a morning show while attending training, teaching classes, and slowly building a new life.

Eventually, I made the leap. And I left television for good.

Not because I was certain. But because I finally trusted myself more than I trusted my fear.

That decision would eventually lead me to Costa Rica, where I spent the next decade reinventing myself over and over again - as a culinary educator, caterer, bakery owner, retreat facilitator, executive chef, workshop leader, breathworker, coach, mother, writer, and entrepreneur.

What looked like a series of disconnected careers was actually a long journey toward myself.

And every pivot that followed would teach me the same lesson:

The hardest thing to leave is never the job. It’s the identity attached to it.

What’s your experience in purpose, passion, and pivoting? Anyone else 45 and not sure what they want to DO when they grow up - but at lease you know who you want to BE?

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“The Brand that Breathes” is my new body of work consisting of a book under the same name, my latest iteration of my podcast, signature branding package, and upcoming group coaching program. If you are interested in working with me please book a complimentary consult call.