Vuokko's story: From a banker to nature and entrepreneurship – stages of the change process

From a banker to nature and entrepreneurship – the change process

I have now come a full circle in my five-year change process and experienced its outcomes, and that gives hope to those changing their careers. Quitting a long career in the financial sector in a crisis situation, and a change towards something new is already bearing fruit. Even though I have been scared, it has carried me that I have kept my mind open and listened to myself when going towards the new, sought help and taken the necessary steps. I have understood the importance of self-direction, and taking care of my own well-being and recovery.

What I've learned

Explore your internal strength and examine yourself honestly and carefully and improve your self-awareness! Are you your own best friend and in charge of your own life? That's your first mission. We can also talk about loving yourself, a life-long task that cannot be separated from your work image.

Dare to dream! Have confidence in yourself and see your greatest potential. Only you set your own limits. Explore your dreams and best visions for your success story. Examine your values. What is of importance to you personally? Explore the entity consisting of the different aspects of your life and match the pieces of your dreams together.

Next, make a concrete action plan! Draw your own horizon on paper and mark the steps towards the best vision. You must proceed patiently in your process and enjoy the journey. Your life is now.

Get outside help: see a career coach, therapist, social worker or business advisor! Accept support from your friends. But despite all the advice you get, and in addition to it, trust your own internal wisdom the most. Make the decisions about your own life yourself. Keep your life under your own control. You don't want anyone else to steer your life, do you.

Be active and move forward! Implement your plan: retrain yourself or apply for a new job. Apply for the social and statutory subsidies you need. If your plan is not to do anything for a while and to give yourself some time for making decisions, then do so. The most important thing is to make the decisions, and then act accordingly.

When you are ready to implement a new phase of your plan, give yourself some time to recover. Take a holiday, even an unpaid one. Consider a four-day working week. Make a realistic plan on how you can cope. Finally, rejoice and enthuse over your success. You have every right to do so.

In the future, the sense of urgency you felt as part of the change may return and overcome you in a situation that reminds you of what you experienced in your crisis. Once you have become aware of the steps in the process, you can ignore that emotional state, realizing that the feeling evoked by that memory in the present moment is not true. It's just your body reminding you of the past and part of your history. Fortunately, change heroes are not prisoners of their past.

Change is a process – towards the top of the mountain

The change is a process that has certain stages: denial, acceptance, heading for the new, euphoria, new discoveries, finding the balance in doing things, and finding meaning. When undergoing change, people are in shock and in denial about their situation. So was I. When I knew the day to leave my job was approaching, I wanted to deny it and I worked like crazy. I started feeling really bad. I got help from the occupational health care. I got support from the shop steward. I felt I was all alone with my life situation. I felt a mix of hatred, shock and anxiety.

At the same time, however, the acceptance of the situation began to raise its head. Having been aware of the industry's risks and the progressing drop-out game for a long time, I had started to process my future in my mind. If necessary, I’m very quick to react and take action once I have analysed the options available. I decided to quit my job at my own initiative and move towards something new: a career change.

Emotional pain led towards change

In the last few years as a banker, I felt that the next employer/employee negotiations were hovering over our heads all the time, causing tangible pressure, which had a very deteriorating impact on the workplace atmosphere. It created uncertainty and unpredictability. I became aware of what was a realistic picture of the future. Up to half of the jobs are likely to disappear from the banking and insurance sectors as smart technologies and robots are taking over the business. Major changes in legislation are also changing the nature of work in the financial sector. After a long experience of a bad work atmosphere, I felt that I needed a personal change instead of holding on to the old and fighting for my job.

I mustered up my courage and decided to climb to the top of the mountain of change, turning one stone at a time. In the summer, when we were sweating, quite literally, for more reasons than one, I decided to ask for career coaching from my union. Employer/employee negotiations were held everywhere, in both my own bank and in other banks. The shop steward walked me through the process step by step. I held on to my rights and filled my own obligations to the employer. I contacted the occupational health care and arranged appointments with a psychologist and a social worker.

Inner guidance when going through change

I made my choices listening to myself. I resigned from my job and started studying physical education and entrepreneurship, to start with. After that, I continued with the Vocational Qualification in Natural and Environmental Protection, and training in entrepreneurship, service design and productisation. I worked as a member of a cooperative alongside my studies. It was a good choice, as I wasn't considered an entrepreneur.

For a longer time, I had managed a well-being and exercise club as a secondary job, so I started to develop this plan B of mine: well-being at work programmes. I read up on strategic well-being and went on an entrepreneur training course. I kept on training myself. I maintained my skills as an Asahi instructor and took the instructor courses that I boosted with a Trainer4You Personal Trainer course. I continued with degree studies in natural and environmental protection with the focus on sustainable development. The sacrifice I made when changing careers was the loss of financial security. I barely got my finances under control by subletting my apartment and switching my car to a cheaper one. I decided to switch counties and moved to the Helsinki Metropolitan Area when I got a job in the Hiilipörssi carbon exchange project of the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation. At Hiilipörssi, I finally found a job with a meaning: curbing climate change and biodiversity loss by means of mobilising companies.

Establishment of Visoko Oy

Today, I’m the founder of Visoko Oy and coach specialised in business consultancy for sustainable growth and nature-based occupational well-being services with a quality label. I am also specialising in promoting consultation and coaching with the help of a digital course platform and multichannel approaches. To arrive at this point, I have boldly embraced change, studied new things and been open to networking with others. Currently, I’m involved in three development projects. They are related to introducing the Delphi forecasting method to businesses, co-creation processes and assisting companies in the promotion of sustainable growth. I have received funding from the ELY Centre (enterprise development aid) and Business Finland (Innovation voucher). For the past two years, I have been working hard on refining my business plan and productising my service model to get to this point. Now I can develop my product-service package for the markets in collaboration with three companies.

When you identify and become aware of the stages of the change process, you learn to react accordingly. The first change shakes you up. Eventually, the changes will no longer crumble the foundations of our life, and you have learned to anticipate and prepare yourself. I’m very grateful for everything I have experienced and for the people who have helped me through this change – both in good and in evil. Along the way, I learned that there is always both something good and something bad in the organisational cultures, and it all strengthened my will to become an independent entrepreneur.

I would not be here, or the same person I am today, without my difficult experiences as well.

Vuokko Isokorpi