We are all where we are today because of all the previous events of our lives and all of the decisions we've made along the way
Right now, we can make
new choices
About Dave Cordle
When I look back at my story, it provides a rather beautiful metaphor for my life now, and passion for career coaching and personal development.
I started climbing mountains on family holidays in North Wales, and became seriously hooked in the Scouts and Venture Scouts when I enjoyed regular winter trips to the British mountains, and a couple of summer expeditions to Austria.
I began my professional life training as a cartographer with the Directorate of Overseas Surveys, a department of the British government.
I made maps of places such as Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Sudan and the British Virgin Islands. It was a fascinating time, being involved in planning the flights for aerial photography, interpreting the photographs and eventually producing the plates for the different layers of the final map.
When that department merged with Ordnance Survey, I didn’t want to relocate and moved for a year or so to another government department where I surveyed government buildings and drew floor plans.
When digital mapping eventually arrived I had moved back to cartography and was mapping pipelines for British Gas. It was a key decision point for cartographers: whether to follow the digital revolution or move on. I chose to move on, retraining as a computer systems developer with Commercial Union (now Aviva).
Climbing big mountains
It was during my latter years as a cartographer and my during career in computing that I undertook bigger mountaineering expeditions to the Andes, the Himalayas, the Tien Shan and the Caucasus.
At that time, I also held various leadership roles in scouting. That’s where my passion comes from to help young people learn the strategies for success. Strategies I now also share with my adult clients.
Enjoyment and stress
At work, although I trained as a programmer I spent most of my computing career working on the people side of things: business analysis, project leading, user support for management information systems. For almost all of that time I was working with HR/personnel, pensions and taxation people.
It was a good time – the work was ok, the people were great and the money was good. Over time, though, stress crept in, almost unnoticed. There was more to do than time to do it in, the hours became longer, the enjoyment ebbed away. I felt unhappy and overwhelmed and it was affecting my life away from work too. It got to a point where I had time off and sought help to cope with it.
An unexpected game changer
Although I made a return to work and things were better, without really recognising it I was still stuck and unhappy. The spark had definitely gone. The game changer for me was redundancy. The only thought in my head when I was told my job was redundant:
"I don't want to do this any more".
But why? That's when I stopped and really thought. It was because I no longer had any passion for this work and I couldn’t see a way out. The only thing I knew at that point was that whatever I did in the future, it had to be something I felt passionate about, that I relished getting up in the morning and going to do.
It turns out that a goal like that, which on the face of it is quite vague, is actually a great place to start. I produced a very long list of possibilities which I eventually whittled down to four top options:
Adventure Tour Leading
Writing
Counselling
Teaching
The support I had from professional Career Coaches at this time made all the difference. Having researched the latter two of those options in detail, I realised that what these Career Coaches did was a combination of those two skill sets.
So that is where, in 2001, I started my professional career coaching career.
Starting my journey in careers
At first, I worked mostly with people going through redundancy. I found that for me it wasn't just about helping someone get another job, it was about giving them the skills to get work they enjoyed that supported a lifestyle they wanted.
I worked more and more with people who were stuck in jobs they didn't enjoy, found stressful, or made them feel overwhelmed. I helped them to transform their career experiences either where they were or by moving on.
A Journey to Success
Almost everyone I was working with then, at some point said to me something along the lines of, "I wish I'd know all this when I left school". The more I investigated, the more I realised that not only were organisations not training their own staff to manage their careers, but young people were leaving education and entering the workforce without this knowledge.
Because of my involvement with young people through scouting, as a school governor and swimming teacher, I wanted to change this. It's funny how, when you talk about things, the right people turn up: I gave a talk about my vision for education at a collaboration group in London and Céline, a gamification expert, approached me after the session to share her interest.
We collaborated, combining our expertise in careers and gamification to produce and pilot a program for teenagers. With new expertise from Lisa and Cécile on our "Journey to Success" team, we published Navigate, a card game that helps individuals and groups manage their emotions in different situations and create better outcomes.
We realised that working with leadership teams in schools and with staff would be the best way forward in changing the outcomes for young people. Between us we have now worked with several schools.
A journey to career coaching for teachers
Most of my work alongside all this has been with adults who are mid-career but feeling lost, unhappy, and overwhelmed, but stuck because they don't know what to do about it. From my work in schools, I noticed that whilst everyone was talking about great outcomes and careers guidance for students, nobody seemed to be helping the teachers look after their own careers.
There seemed to be many teachers who, like you, were unhappy, overwhelmed and stuck, or who just want some help to make sure they could develop their career in the way they wanted to.
That's why I created Career Coach for Teachers
To give teachers somewhere to get help with challenges in their own career and make the changes they need to make so they can go to work happy again. I see so many benefits to helping teachers either find an enjoyable and fulfilling path within the profession or, if it's time for a change, make a successful move into something else...
Most importantly, for teachers: feeling fulfilled and happy in their role and career
For students: greater inspiration and skills for life as some of that rubs off on them
For schools, colleges and universities: happy staff and better outcomes
For your families and communities: you being happy and fully present with them
For me: it contributes to my mission to create a world where everyone has the skills and confidence to define and create success for themselves
