Speaker #0People who want to leave corporate and move into a sustainable role or find a green job have heartfelt intentions, but there is a real possibility that you will get sucked back into the same system, the same power structure, and ultimately end up feeling as if nothing has really changed for you. I don't want that for you. I know you aren't thinking about taking the huge leap of leaving a safe, comfortable corporate role just to end up in a slightly improved version of the same thing. Welcome to the Regenerative Work Life podcast. If you are ready to make the leap out of your corporate job and into purposeful regenerative work, this is the show for you. As you've probably discovered, transitioning into regenerative work is a lot more complicated than going on a job board and sending off your CV. This journey you are embarking on means taking risks, going against the grain, overcoming challenges and writing your own script. It takes entrepreneurial muscle, powerful vision, and a willingness to change. Having a mentor by your side makes all the difference. I am your host, Alyssa Murphy. I have worked with hundreds of impact-focused businesses and individuals, and I am here to help you. Let's take things one step at a time as I show you how to quit corporate, find your vision, and successfully transition into regenerative work. Here on Regenerative Work Life. my main focus is to offer you actionable advice that you can put into practice and that will really help you make tangible steps forward into your regenerative career. But occasionally, I'm going to pause and offer you a deep dive into a topic that requires a bit more nuance and reflection. You see, it's so important as we transition to a regenerative career that we pay attention to the mindset that we are acting from. We have to make space for new paradigms. and unlearning and difficult questions that don't necessarily have an immediate answer. And when we do that, it can feel like we're taking backward steps. But here's the thing, the whole concept of linear progress is part of the problem. Put simply, it should look messy sometimes. That's how you know that real growth is happening. So in pursuit of that real growth and creating a radically different work life for yourself, let's dive into today's topic. What defines a regenerative career and how can we avoid the corporate appropriation of this term that is bound to happen? I'm going to talk more about exactly what I mean by corporate appropriation when it comes to language or concepts such as regenerative, sustainable, green, impact, purpose and so on. And then I'll share four questions that you can use to help guide your career choices towards something that is truly regenerative. Here we go. One of the most interesting. challenging things about helping professionals transition into regenerative work is the fact that regenerative is still a niche term. It's also by the way really frustratingly hard to say regenerative. Regenerative. I chose to call my business regenerative work life because I very specifically want to help people who want to do regenerative work and for me that is not the same thing as sustainable work or green jobs although those can often be where someone starts out as they begin to learn about regeneration, and that's absolutely fine. There is a lot of discussion, sometimes quite academic in nature, about the definition of regenerative. Now, I welcome that discussion, and I'm grateful to be able to learn from it, but it isn't my focus. I'm here to be the voice of regenerative reality. I'm here to help people like you take practical steps. I want to help you build a viable career that is rooted in nature, climate and community, that also supports you and your family. And I want to help as many people as possible to do that. So I believe that simplicity and accessibility is an important part of being able to do that. I also don't believe in creating some kind of unattainable high standard of what truly qualifies as regenerative work. That's not my intention here. As far as I'm concerned, every time someone has the courage to quit a corporate role that perpetuates greed, inequity and ecological damage, that's a big win. It's really not helpful to set some kind of expectation that they will only have impact and feel purposeful if they find truly, purely regenerative work. On the other hand, regenerative is becoming increasingly popular and beginning to enter the mainstream. And so I think we do need to be careful that the term does not become yet another meaningless corporate label. And as someone who worked in climate tech marketing for the last 13 years, I know a thing or two about how corporations take over this kind of language. Let me give you an example. I recently saw an advert for oven chips or fries, I guess if you're in the US, that focused on the regenerative farming methods that this brand apparently truly believes in. Parts of me wanted to celebrate that vocabulary like regenerative is making it onto primetime television, but mostly my heart sank to see the term being used as marketing fodder. Because when language and concepts become more popular, they are almost always used to manipulate and placate people. This corporatisation is exactly what I fear has happened with labels like green, sustainable and impact which as I said are often the kind of words that people use when they start to think about a more purposeful career. People who want to leave corporate and move into a sustainable role or find a green job have heartfelt intentions but there is a real possibility that you will get sucked back into the same system, the same power structure and ultimately end up feeling as if. nothing has really changed for you. I don't want that for you. I know you aren't thinking about taking the huge leap of leaving a safe, comfortable corporate role just to end up in a slightly improved version of the same thing. I know you want to be part of the solution, a radical solution that sees the world differently. So what is the true essence of regeneration? And how can you decipher between meaningful efforts and corporate polishing? if you're looking to move into regenerative work. As I promised, I'm going to share four questions that you can ask yourself when considering regenerative roles, as well as business ideas and other work opportunities. The questions that I'm going to share were inspired by an article I read by Kasper Benjamin Reimer Bjorksoff. I don't think I've said your last name correctly. Bjorksoff, I apologize, that outlined four preconditions for regeneration. I highly recommend following Caspar on LinkedIn. He's a fantastic thought leader and I've included a link to his profile in the show notes. As I go through these four questions, I really want you to bear in mind that regeneration is not a box ticking exercise. I'm not offering you a handy checklist that a role or business can either qualify for or not. My intention is to offer you a different way of thinking, to exercise some new neural pathways that might be quite unfamiliar. and in particular to help you avoid the pervasive danger of corporate greenwash. So with that in mind, let's get into the four questions that can help you in your search for a regenerative work life. You may want to have a paper and pen handy. You can also find a full transcript of this episode on my website at regenerativeworklife.com and just go to the podcast tab. Okay, question one. Does this work actively reduce the pressure on our planet? Actively is an important word here. Does doing this work, this job, actively reduce pressure on the planet? For me, this is where sustainability can come unstuck, because it's entirely possible to do something more sustainably that doesn't actually need to happen in the first place. For example, you might consider a role in sustainable fashion, and yes, compared to most fast fashion production, it may have less impact on the planet. But the question here is... is it actively reducing planetary pressure? Particularly when you consider that we may well already have enough clothing to meet the global population's needs for several years. Another way to come at this question is to think about where that planetary pressure comes from. If the work is reducing a pressure that it's also contributing to, then that's a nonsense. So my oven chip example is a good one. I'm sure that this brand has employed some kind of regenerative tokenistic gesture. I know I might be sounding quite cynical on this, but I'm pretty sure I'm right. So maybe they're, you know, planting some wildflowers or something like this. But that's really nothing more than a token gesture if your entire business rests on harmful mass farming techniques. So think about this question. Does the work actively reduce the pressure on our planet? Question two. Will it improve life for all beings and distribute that benefit fairly? OK, this is a really tough one. and something that I was personally blind to for a long time. So I'm going to be brave and explain this one from a personal perspective. So I worked for many years in the climate tech sector. It's a sector that thrives on the promise of human ingenuity and technological innovation to essentially save us, and by us we mean humans, from climate change. Now, there are several problems with that story, but the one I want to focus on here is who that technology is made for. Because in the vast, vast majority of cases, it's made for corporations, to allow corporations to keep doing what they're doing, albeit more cleanly. and efficiently. Where climate tech is sold or is designed to be used by consumers, those consumers are predominantly from wealthy nations. The vast majority of the climate tech we are creating will be used by the people who will be least affected by climate change. Intersectional conversations are very rare in my experience of this sector. So... This is a big topic to get into, and I want to make sure I keep this relevant to you and your work life. When we say improve life for all beings and distribute that benefit fairly, we need to check in on the lens that we see the world through. You know, is the outcome of the work I'm doing just for people like me? It may well be locally focused, but are the benefits being shared, not only by all the people involved, but also by all the species involved? by the land involved. We need to expand our thinking of who the stakeholders are and come to understand the whole ecosystem. As I said, these are big, big questions and I don't want you to get stuck in them, but I do invite you to sit with them. As my friend Ryan James taught me, you need to learn to just be with the question and not necessarily search for an answer. It's enough just to bring this question to your job search, bring this question to your business idea. It matters. that the question is present. Let's move on to question three. Can this work have an impact quickly and at sufficient scale? I found myself, when I first came across this question, getting caught up in it because, as I said, I've spent a long time working in climate tech where I was working with startups. And there is this absolute obsession with growth in that world. And we use words like hyperscale. And clearly, that's not. what we're creating with regenerative work. So I'm going to simplify this question further and translate it as, is this real? Is the work I am doing and specifically the impact it will have real? Will it be felt? Can it be seen? Can you touch it? And I think this is a question that you know the answer to in your body. You don't need to approach it logically or rationally. Your body will know that it's real. Your senses will know that it's real. And by contrast, if it's all happening on paper or at a distance or at the conceptual level, you'll know that too. And maybe that's an indication that the impact is not quick enough or at sufficient scale. It cannot be that token corporate gesture. Final question, question four. Does it account for repercussions beyond its immediate location? This is a nice straightforward one actually, because it's simply about expanding our awareness beyond our immediate circle of impact or experience. Let's go back to my example of Oven Chips Incorporated and let's say they're planting little patches of wildflowers over here but over there they're large-scale farming thousands of acres with monocrops and chemicals causing soil depletion and water pollution and then they have the audacity to talk about regenerative farming techniques. And I'm just using this as an example before anyone from the oven chip sustainability team comes at me, please come and prove me, come and prove me wrong. I'm very happy to be told that I'm wrong. But this is what happens a lot of the time, right? We point to some sort of project or initiative that we have over here when our core business is actually working in totally the opposite direction. The point is that we are very used to thinking of impact and benefit in terms of our little view of the world. And we don't like to think about supply chains or transport or workers because it's highly inconvenient and often very uncomfortable to do so. But regenerative work asks us to open our eyes. Does the work account for those repercussions? So taken together there's no doubt that these questions set a high standard. And when I was putting this episode together I was worried that it might feel too dense or be a little off-putting, but here's the thing. High standards are necessary if we're serious about weeding out corporate greenwashing in our career choices. Roles and organisations will naturally be stronger in some of these areas than others and that's okay. Like I said, this isn't a scorecard and we're not aiming for perfection but we are aiming to think differently. We are aiming to hold businesses accountable. We are aiming to build purpose-filled work lives that genuinely support nature climate and community. So as you look for regenerative work, look for this kind of intersectional thinking and intention. I invite you to sit with these questions, let them be thorny, let your thinking expand. For me, a regenerative work life is not afraid of hard questions and I hope that these will help guide your transition. I hope this has been helpful to you, I hope that you can use these questions as you move forward with your regenerative career. And remember, nature needs each and every one of us. Thank you for listening to the Regenerative Work Life podcast. It's time to put what you learned today into practice. Remember, you were called to this work for good reason. Nature needs each and every one of us, and you can do this. If today's episode has been helpful, please take the time to share it with someone who needs a little guidance in stepping out of corporate. and into regenerative. Learn more about how I can help you find your vision for a work life filled with purpose, impact and joy at regenerativeworklife.com and connect with me on LinkedIn. Just search Alyssa Murphy. I'll see you back here soon for the next episode.
