💻 Career Compass #9
Diving into the paths of other modern millennial women.
Welcome back to Career Compass on The Navigation: a monthly series exploring other women’s musings, meanderings and methods for navigating life, with a focus on their career paths. Through short interviews with twenty- or thirty-something women, we’ll explore linear and non-linear career paths, how they approach work to make it work for them, and the blurred lines between hobbies and hustles.
💻🧭
Our guest for October is
Morris, a sustainability expert who has worked in the banking sector for the past nine years or so, but is now taking a break from corporate life to study full-time for an LLM in Law, Sustainability, Environment and Business. Separate to her work in climate policy, Lily is also a writer of fiction, and recently had a manuscript longlisted for the Penguin Michael Joseph Undiscovered Writers’ Prize! She also writes a Substack newsletter, , which never fails to put me in awe at the number of books she gets through.Lily and I were on the same Politics and International Relations course at university, and though we didn’t always move in the same circles, I recall her often having an interesting point to make in any seminar discussion, and being someone you’d want on your team for any group project. When I found out last year (I think through a mutual friend) she also now has a Substack, I was delighted to find a familiar face on the platform, and have enjoyed reading her words ever since.
In this interview, Lily shares her journey from that degree, into banking, balancing the day job with writing, and now heading back to uni again, and explores what it can mean to embrace alternative experiences to those we might typically be expected to follow. There’s talk of Welsh writing retreats, living alone, Elle Woods, and Inside Out… never a lack of variety here on
.Enjoy!
Thank you Lily for being a guest on The Navigation!
Could we start off with you sharing some musings on working a full time job while also pursuing creative endeavours?
You're consistent with posting on Substack, and work on writing fiction too. But I also know from LinkedIn how important the day job has been for you.
What’s that experience been like, and how have the two complemented each other?
The most important thing to acknowledge is that the day job has always come first – it’s what keeps the roof over my head. What this means is that sometimes I might go through a whole month and barely touch my longer-term creative projects (the novels!) and I’ve mostly made peace with that. Having the Substack is actually a really important ‘interim step’ there – with a weekly posting rhythm (a weekly set of recommendations on a Friday afternoon, and then a more in-depth longer post on Sunday), but also immediate feedback if what I’m doing is working for people. It’s much closer to ‘instant gratification’ than novel-writing is… and it is beginning to pay enough that I can consider it a ‘part-time job’ which pays for some of the time it takes to write.
To avoid conflicts of interest or other issues with the day job, I’ve kept my Substack and creative writing thematically separate from the day job (climate policy at a bank) – but that doesn’t mean the two don’t complement each other. I’ve become much better at producing a few hundred words on any subject in a short period of time, whether that’s an executive briefing on a particular issue of sustainability policy or last week’s reflections on how I think about my body.
That’s interesting and good to hear developing that writing skill can be complimentary in both worlds. Being able to be more concise with my writing is still something I’m working on! I also appreciate you acknowledging that the day job is what has to come first.
But now, in a fun pivot, you're back at school! Well, university, studying a Master’s.
Could you talk us through the meanderings that led you to this decision, from a politics degree into a banking job, and where you're hoping this year of study might take you?
Having been with the same company since completing your undergraduate degree, does this feel like a big jump?
It’s a huge jump! But it’s also a really safe way to dip my toes outside the world I’ve been in for the last decade or so. As you say, I studied politics at undergrad – with you! – and one of the things I learnt about myself quite early on was that the Foreign Office career I’d dreamed of as a teenager (in my university application I said I wanted to represent the UK at the United Nations!) might not suit my need for stability in my daily life. That left me wondering what on earth I should do, especially when a nervous breakdown in my second year changed my plans about taking a ‘placement year’ to work in industry and left me worried that I might be graduating without any work experience other than a week at a magazine and a summer at McDonald’s!
Somehow I found out about jobs in actuarial work and risk management, and ended up applying for a bunch of UK banks’ risk and insurance summer internships. I only made it to one in-person interview, where everyone was so lovely (they even gave us scones with jam and cream mid-afternoon!) that I was confident it was somewhere I’d enjoy working. I had a summer internship there, and went back after graduation, and despite some ups and downs, it’s somewhere I’ve really grown over the last decade. In particular, while working in a workplace pensions team, I got to learn about ‘ESG’ (environmental, social, and governance) factors in investment, and saw a graph which made me say “oh sh*t” about the scale of the work to be done to prevent the worst of global heating. Shortly after that, I was able to move into my first full-time sustainability role, and I’ve been working in various parts of climate finance and investment policy ever since then.
It's fair to say that one of the reasons I’ve stayed at the same company is that it’s ‘safe’ – plus for five years or so I owned a flat with a mortgage, and as a single person, I was scared of not being able to pay that if I changed jobs and it didn’t work out. So the opportunity to take a sabbatical year and explore what the outside world looks like, with a job to go back to, is one I’m really grateful for.
I knew I wanted to take some time to do SOMETHING a bit different in my early 30s. I had Covid last autumn and there was a particularly depressing piece of climate news (I can’t remember what it was now) at the time. I’d been losing faith that private finance and industry will be able to ‘solve’ the problem without sweeping changes to legislation and regulation. So I thought ‘why don’t I go and learn how to make those changes happen…’ – with a bit of inspiration from Elle Woods, of course!
What a journey! I can definitely resonate with the UN dream (didn’t we all think that was the ultimate goal!?) but it’s great how you were able to recognise that a job - albeit an ambitious and important one - would need to fit in with the kind of life, and lifestyle, you wanted and needed.
It’s also encouraging to know there are people like you working in the banking sector, committed to crucial environmental work.
And on that point of making the leap (love that Elle Woods helped!), what methods, or guiding principles, might you recommend for deciding when to make a big personal investment, and knowing it’s for the right thing, whether relating to time or finances? As well as making the decision to pursue a Master’s, you've also attended several writing retreats - which is something many dream of, but perhaps struggle to commit to (myself included!).
Also, on the age old question of balance - what tips do you have to carve out time for creativity, alongside full time work or study?
I’ve always known that I’m not someone who wants kids, but it’s only in the last couple of years that I’ve realised that meant I could do other things ‘instead’, and that some of the ‘obvious’ steps on life’s path don’t necessarily fit my needs. I was lucky enough to be able to buy a flat very young (having made the big move to Scotland partly to make that more possible compared to staying at home in London), but actually, being a solo homeowner was incredibly stressful.
It wasn’t just the money aspect but the fact that everything was on me to sort out, from mouse problems, to what to do when I came home and there was water pouring from the kitchen ceiling or down the chimney (that last one happened the day after the Queen died, when I had Covid and couldn’t go and knock on other people’s doors in the building to find out what was happening!). A couple of years ago, I made the decision to sell up and move back to renting (as part of a relocation to Bristol, which is much closer to home for me).
What that meant is that I had a chunk of money which could be a home deposit in the future… or could also be used for something else in the interim. This put me in the incredibly fortunate position of being able to take a year away from employment to become a full-time student, while still living in a nice flat by myself. It’s going to take a while to rebuild those savings afterwards, but I’m making the gamble that having gone away and spent this year learning will help me access those higher-level jobs I just haven’t been able to be a good candidate for up until now.
In terms of carving out time – I have to be the thousandth person to repeat the cliché that you don’t see behind the scenes of other people’s lives. I don’t go out a lot, I don’t own a TV and I’ve never seen any of the hot new series or films, and I don’t have a partner or kids. I don’t have a long commute or spend much time grocery shopping or doing housework (much to my mum’s chagrin!). I don’t claim to have it all figured out – but one thing I’m trying this year, while I have more control over my schedule, is to pick a weekday most weeks that can be a ‘writing’ day, alongside my studies.
So I’m responding to these questions at 3pm on a Tuesday, having written the posts for my own Substack this morning, and planning to spend some time zhuzhing up my novel for the second round of the Penguin Michael Joseph Undiscovered Writers’ Prize later this afternoon. On top of that, with my day job (or, now, my degree work) being sustainability-focused, I have a strict rule that I switch off from it in the evening and at weekends. It’s not good for anyone’s mental health to think about climate change 24/7, and I have to keep myself strong to be able to keep working in the field for many more years to come.
And the writing retreats? They’re a great way to go on holiday – and most years, they have been my main holiday, instead of going somewhere sunnier and warmer. One of my favourite places in the world is Tŷ Newydd, Literature Wales’s writing centre. It’s tucked away near Criccieth and Portmadog in North-West Wales, and has been instrumental in my growth and confidence as a writer. I mentioned the Penguin Michael Joseph Prize, for which I’ve been longlisted – that novel was begun based on a conversation at lunchtime there back in 2018, and the tutor at this year’s retreat then encouraged me to get it off my Google Drive and start submitting it to competitions.
I really appreciate your honesty here Lily - and of course, you’re right, we never really know what goes on behind the scenes in people’s lives (I also loved ’ words on this). But being able to embrace doing, or experiencing, some things instead of others is a great approach, and probably a good reminder to those who may indeed have children, or a long commute, or a mortgage to pay.
Congrats on getting longlisted for the Prize too - so exciting! A testament to the long-lasting commitment to pursuing an idea.
So, as we wrap up, do you have any Cultural Compass style - or, as you might think of them, Three Things for Your Weekend - recommendations for readers?
As we’re coming into autumn I’m making what seems to be an annual foray into crime and mystery books. I just read and loved The Truants by Kate Weinberg, which is like ‘what if Donna Tartt’s The Secret History happened at the University of East Anglia in the 2010s’, and I’ve finally taken the plunge into Mick Herron’s Slough House series. My happy place, though, is the romance genre, and I’ve recently enjoyed Lindsey Kelk’s Love Story and BK Borison’s Lovelight Farms series.
In terms of podcasts, I’m a new-ish fan of Drilled, billed as a true-crime podcast about climate change. It’s hosted by Amy Westervelt and the most recent episode featured Genevieve Guenther, whose new book on the language used by climate denialists and climate action delayers I was thrilled to find as an ebook in my university library! For something a bit cozier, I love Books Unbound, What Should I Read Next? and Strong Sense of Place - all book discussion podcasts.
The last film I saw was Inside Out 2, which is now out on Disney+. If you haven’t seen it or its predecessor, I’d highly recommend them both. They’re absolutely wonderful films which explore how our brains and emotions work, and are full of visual jokes (The train of thought! The sar-chasm!) as well as more serious truths. On top of that, both films have gorgeous musical scores.
When it comes to TV, I don’t watch much, but I’ve just downloaded the BBC series Desperate Romantics from 2009 onto my iPad, so that’ll probably keep me going until next summer…
A great mix here, Lily, thank you! You’ve got me intrigued with Drilled - I’ll be downloading some episodes for sure. 🌍
If you liked this piece and are keen to show some support without a paid subscription, a Ko-fi coffee is always appreciated. ☕