How They Did It | Eike Usher From Financial Services & Management to Conservation & Biology
Eike grew up in Germany and had always been into nature, animals, and art. As a child, she remembers wanting to be a veterinarian and help people understand cat behavior. In university, she studied Business and Administration and after graduating she worked as a financial broker at an international bank. Eike excelled at her job and moved to other roles and was given the responsibility to manage a team at a young age. However, she became increasingly unhappy with her work and decided that she needed a change.
She left her career in search of what she wanted to do next, but was clueless how to even get started. Luckily, while relocating temporarily to London with her husband, she found an organization called Career Shifters that offered a seminar on how to find the work you love. This was the turning point of her career search that made her realize that working with animals and art would be what she wanted to do next.
Since then, she went back to school for conservation & biology and has volunteered in several conservation projects across the globe. Among her favorite moments were elephant monitoring in Africa and meeting John Dransfield at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Soon she will finish her studies and we will follow her footsteps to see where she lands next.
This is a summary that accompanies the original interview published on Work In Progress Podcast. Here we highlight the main takeaway and some useful resources. Listen to the full interview here.
How Eike Made The Switch
- After leaving the job as a manager, Eike took a year to figure out what she wanted to do next [14:25]
- While living in London with her husband, Eike stumbled upon Career Shifters, an organization with courses and resources that helped Eike immensely [15:30]. Some useful exercises include: (1) Reflect on past choices made in life. Why did you choose those? Who influenced you? (2) Reflect on the things you wanted to do as a child. What were some hobbies, articles and magazines you read that you loved? Meeting other people going through the same problem as Eike was helpful because she felt that she was not alone [23:00]. It was also helpful to talk to other participants who didn’t have any preconceived opinions about her or her career. Eike made a friend whom she met with regularly and kept each other accompanied on the same journey
- Volunteering: having no prior experience in conservation, it was hard for Eike to find work. She started by volunteering in Africa, RSPB (the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) in UK, then she went back to Africa again to do more volunteering
- In the beginning she paid to volunteer and as she accumulated more experience it became easier to find volunteer work that paid her. The more volunteer work she did the more she realized that conservation is what she wanted to do as a career
- Eike also talked about monitoring elephant in Africa [33:15]
- It was difficult to get started in this field that she had no prior experience in, so she went back to school to study biological sciences. She realized her fear of science was unfounded: she worked hard and realized that science wasn’t as difficult as she imagined
What Eike Did Before The Switch
- Eike studied Business and Administration in university. After graduation, like many others, she accumulated debt so she needed to get a job right away. She accepted a financial broker position at an international bank and over the years she worked in various other roles such as sales, mortgage broker, product manager, sales trainer [03:00]
- In a couple of years, Eike paid off her debt but felt like she was stuck in this path that she started in. When she accepted the financial broker position, she didn’t question if it was what she wanted to do. From the outside, she seemed successful [05:00]
- Eike grew increasingly unhappy at work: there were things that didn’t work and it was difficult to fix them despite her trying. For about three months she cried everyday when she got home. Eventually, Eike decided this couldn’t go on and she needed a change [06:00]
What Eike Does Now
- Conservation biology. Right now Eike works at the Royal Bonatic Gardens at Kew [45:00]
- Painting: the first time Eike went to Africa she started a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for the trip and in return she offered paintings to those who supported her [31:10]. In the end, a couple of people donated and she painted while volunteering in Africa. Other people saw her painting and started to ask her for paintings in exchange for payments. This continued and the she has been putting the payments towards school and volunteer trips
Obstacles Eike Faced When She Switched
- Self doubt: “Why can’t I like my job just like other people?” [24:00]
- Through the seminar she learned that she lets other people/situations decide her path quite often and she was upset about that [16:40]. But when she finally took charge of her work, she found the dream career that she never thought was possible before
- She did all of the volunteering work by herself, which meant during these times she and her husband lived apart [42:30]
Eike’s Next Career Goals
She found her dream job and will be sticking around for a while!
Where To Find Eike Online
Eike’s Advice on how to get started
- It is difficult to get started without any experience. The best thing to do, besides going back to school, is to volunteer. These can be found online and paying to volunteer is also a viable option [37:30]. However, beware of companies offering these but not doing it in sustainable practices
- Opportunities can be found online and once your network starts to grow, it becomes easier to find volunteer work through them [38:00]. Eike is happy to help connect you to her network if you need help with introduction
