Photo: Regent’s Park, London by Tracy Reilly
Starting Broad Walk, Taking Risks, and Making the Most of a New Chapter
What would you do if you could do anything? This terrifying, liberating, expansive question is a challenge that dares to be answered. Its one I’ve been asking myself for a few years now and slowly answering. Broad Walk, my strategic consultancy, is part of the answer.
As my once creative and exhilarating career in advertising began to ask more of me than it returned, I stopped to ask myself: if I were intentionally designing my life from scratch, what would be in it, and what would not?
In: creativity, problem-solving, working with talented people doing important work, small scale, local, and big, consequential opportunities, time in nature, skill-building, risk-taking, flexibility, connection, more friends, more family, more fun.
Out: manufactured corporate emergencies & fire drills, sleepless nights, profits over people, performative effort, politics, working all the time, not being present, even when I’m in the room.
If its not clear from those lists - Broad Walk is in many ways an answer to a burn out. I’m grateful for it. Because I realized a few things on my path to this venture.
Almost everyone is burning out. Its the nature of our society and system.
One of the cheapest and easiest ways to ground yourself is to connect with nature, and connect with community. Our green spaces do this. People need them, and green spaces need people too. I can help connect them.
One of my greatest joys are gardens and gardening, yet for years I did not have the time. Spring after spring, I missed the blooms. Lacked bulbs in my own yard because I forgot to plant them.
Too many of us aren’t making space for the things that bring us joy, and prioritizing them. Now, before its too late, I am building a life around them, and helping others take in the incredible beauty around us in people and places.
In corporate, we love a “from/to” - its now so ingrained to my psyche I almost can’t do anything unless I can see the journey, the impact, the optimization. So Broad Walk is my future case study. Join me as I build it, asking questions, floating ideas, and above all, making an impact.
