Not interested in university but wondering what other opportunities lay ahead after school? Take a read of Sara’s story on how she took the road less travelled after finishing Year 12 by deciding to take a two-year traineeship in Outdoor Leadership with Black Diamond Adventures. Hear firsthand about her experience, what she’s learnt, and the exciting adventures she has been on since embarking on this journey.
What do you want to be when you grow up? It’s a question we’re asked from a young age and one we often respond to with great naivety and confidence as a child. However, this question is one that very few have a definite answer for. This was most certainly the case for me as I came to the end of Year 12, still clueless as to what I wanted to do after school. I feel that from a young age we are made to believe that by the end of school we should have a fairly clear vision of what we want to do with our life. What university we want to go to? What course we want to spend our time and money studying? What career path we want to decide to take that will determine our future. This is something I still can’t comprehend. How should we be expected to make these kinds of decisions at the ripe age of 18 years old? All we know is the routine life of school and have barely had a chance to really experience life beyond this.
This was something that really stuck on my mind and began to stress me the closer I got to the end of school. I’ve always been the kind of person that has been determined to make calculated and well thought out decisions that I am confident in and I know will have a good outcome for me. But this one had stumped me. I had looked through all of the uni course manuals, highlighting courses that sparked any kind of interest within me. I had always had the mindset that if I’m going to commit to studying 3 years for a course and pay fees I wanted to be sure that it was for something that I was passionate about. I didn’t really mind which uni I went to or how much it cost. I just wanted to be driven and passionate to learn about whatever course I decided on. However, the pile of course manuals began to stack up on our coffee table and this idea of uni was becoming something less and less appealing to me. This was hard for me to comprehend as I had always seen myself going to university after school, getting my bachelor’s degree and making a good, stable career for myself. An idea which I believe has become the default vision for many school finishers, both for those who think they know what they want to study and those who have absolutely no clue.
So I put my research skills to the test and began to look into what other exciting opportunities were out there for me…and little did I know that what I would find would shape the next 2 years of my life after school in a way I could have never predicted.
Soon after I discovered the career opportunity of the ‘Outdoor Eddie’, or ‘Outdoor Educator’ for those who aren’t familiar with that lingo. After hitting search on ‘outdoor education companies in Sydney’, a long list of places popped up. I emailed and contacted as many places as I could. One of the companies that came up was ‘Black Diamond Adventures (BDA)’, a small outdoor education company based in the Illawarra. ‘Leaders in NSW School Camps’ they had boldly written on their website page. That’s a big claim to make I thought. I soon received an email from the director, Rob Mann, and after exchanging a few emails and having a brief zoom call, he asked me if I wanted to come down to Wollongong to meet with him and his right-hand man, Connor. Rob had been the only person (not company) who had showed any interest in meeting me in person and I thought to myself what do I have to lose? I hopped in the car and drove the 1.5hrs down the coast to a warehouse complex tucked away just north of Wollongong.
One tip I have for anyone out there is to make sure you do your background research before any interview. One interesting thing I had discovered about BDA was that they had their own podcast channel – another unique feature which no other outdoor ed company I researched had. So, I did what any smart person would. I listened to the first episode titled ‘The Start of A Great Adventure with Rob, Connor & Tyson’. What better way to get to know them than to listen to them talk about each other! I learnt a lot about them pretty fast. The biggest point I took away was that they had recently picked up crossfit during lockdown. Great I thought! They like crossfit. I like crossfit. We’ll get along just fine.
I felt that the interview went well but the uncertainty that COVID had brought had made Rob and his team uncertain about whether he would even have any work for me. Lucky for me, they decided to take a chance and hire me as a Outdoor Leadership Trainee. If you ask Rob and Connor they will tell you that I basically forced them into giving me a job but I just say that I was persistant. If you want something enough, you’ll find a way to get it. Even if you have to pretend to be a crossfiter to get the job!
So that was that. I was about to begin my next chapter. I packed up my life in Sydney and moved down to Wollongong ready for my next adventure. There have been so many lessons and learnings from my time at Black Diamond over the past two years and I have tried my best to narrow it down into my top 3.
DO HARD THINGS AND CHALLENGE YOURSELF (even if everyone else tells you not to!)
As a young 18 year old, fresh out of school and having moved away from home I was nervous to say the least. I was away from my family and didn’t know anyone in the area I had moved to. Now I look back on it I had really taken quite a big risk making this decision – this could have been the best or worst choice and there was only one way to find out.
I still remember my first day at the Black Diamond warehouse. It’s 7:55am on January 24th and through the roller door I walked to see Rob, Connor and Tyson sitting at trestle table. They looked like they had been there for a while. Coffee cups sat on the table and they each had a notebook and pen out in front of them. Had I gotten the time wrong and rocked up late to my first day at work I thought to myself? They gave me no indication that I was late, however, I did learn my first BDA lesson that morning. Being on time is late. Little did I know that they had all been there since at least 7:40 not working but getting ready for the day. They do this to ensure we are organised for the day and prevents us from being on the back foot. I have never been late to a day of work since…I think.
After being handed my official Black Diamond T-shirt marking my initiation into the BDA team we sat down and discussed what needed to get done that day, and top of the list was to clean the kayaks. Ok I thought…clean a few kayaks. Can’t be that hard right? Little did I know the task that lay ahead. For the next four hours Tyson and I spent time unloading and scrubbing 18 kayaks, checking for any damages and then reloading them back into the trailer. I’m sure you’re thinking ‘ah what a thrilling way to start the day,’ but this was my first introduction to the idea that you always have to do the hard thing first. There were many other tasks written on our to-do list that would have been much easier to complete but we took the hardest one first and tackled it head on. In this instance, once the task was done we could look at the trailer and feel a sense of satisfaction knowing that there were 18 spick and span kayaks ready for some adventures.
This is just one small example of doing hard things but throughout my time at BDA I have gradually learnt that doing these hard things over and over again trains our brains to become more resilient and adaptable. It’s out natural instinct to want to take the easiest option. Doing hard things goes against everything we know. Why would we keep walking when our muscles are tired, our backs hurt and all we want is a warm shower and cozy bed to lie in? Why wouldn’t we leave a job half-finished when we could be spending time at home, sitting on the sofa and watching TV? Well, because often putting in the hard work will lead to a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction that you otherwise wouldn’t get if you gave up. Rob shared a quote with us the other week which resonated with me that said “Champions don’t need to be asked to do extra work. They do it. They understand that excellence involves doing more than what’s required. the more you put in, the more you get out.” From running half marathons, abseiling off 30m cliffs, squeezing through small cave systems and running from lightning storms, to facilitating a group of students on five-day trips and running training sessions for 50 teenagers at schools. I have been thrown into a plethora of uncomfortable situations most of which I myself don’t think I am ready for, but I am still here and in every instance I have challenged myself and learnt something new.
Students will often turn to me and ask why do you do this job? You must be crazy! To which I respond firstly with, yes, I am a little crazy, but then remind them that it is when we do hard things and challenge ourselves that we grow and become better. If we decide to succumb to our natural desire to give up and stop trying, we never get the sense of accomplishment and achievement that comes with pushing ourselves further than we think we can go. This is why I love this job. Not only am I personally challenged every time I go out, but I also get to see young people challenge themselves and see what they are capable of too. The gold moments for me are when we’re all sitting around the fire at the end of a long and strenuous day, and the students can reflect on the day and say despite how many hills they climbed or how sore their feet were, it feels good to have made it through all of it together.
Being able to play a part in all these small and big wins is why I love this job. I see this not only in the realm of hiking but also many other outdoor activities too. That moment when a student makes it to the bottom of an abseil after wholeheartedly believing they couldn’t get over the edge. Finally getting that crispy crack of a whip after working on their technique for hours. Getting that perfect strike of the flint and steel and watching their kindling light up in flames. In all these instances they have had to persist and work hard at a skill and in doing so have had the satisfaction of seeing their hard work pay off. And in every instance that student will look back and say it was all worth it in the end.
MAKE MISTAKES (but don’t forget to learn from them!)
Mistakes. Let’s be honest we all make them. It’s natural. Yet many of us, including myself are hesitant to make them. We worry about what others may think of us. We worry of the consequence that may lay ahead for a mistake that we had no intention of making. As a bit of a perfectionist myself, making mistakes is something that I have had to come to terms with over the past 2 years. Luckily for me, Rob is one of the most forgiving people I know. He does have one fair condition – that we always learn from our mess ups and do whatever we can to fix them…and trust me there have been many.
A recent example of this happened on a canoeing trip in Kangaroo Valley. I was out on the water practising some paddling skills with my group of students. It was a beautiful day out on the water. Blue skies, no wind, sun shining. I suggested to my group that we play a game of bull rush on the water for a bit of fun. In my canoe I had a dry bag with a few essentials: first aid kit, truck and bus keys, garmin GPS, raincoat, snacks etc. Little did I know that the group was a tad more competitive than I had first anticipated. On the call ‘BULL RUSH’ two boys in their canoe started b-lining it straight towards us. Seeing this, the teacher and I began paddling hard in an effort to evade the boys heading towards us. But they were too fast, and I could feel our canoe beginning to sway to one side as we paddled with all our strength. Then all of a sudden ‘BANG’ the boys had t-boned us in the middle of our canoe and next thing I know I’m floating in the water next to a capsized canoe. Ah that’s alright I’m sure you’re thinking. Well, a wave of panic washed over me as I realised that I had left the dry bag in the canoe open. Yes, pretty much all of the vital items needed for this trip were now somewhere floating along Kangaroo River. I began yelling at the kids to look for the dry bag. Would it sink? Would it float? I didn’t know but I had to do anything I possibly could to retrieve the items. As I’m pulling the canoe to the shore I realise that my phone is in the pocket of my shirt underwater. I yell out to another student to come over as I pull my drenched phone out of my pocket and hand it over. What an absolute mess.
The green dry bag is still nowhere to be seen. As I reach the sand bank I pull the canoe up and flip it back over. A wave of relief floods my body as I see the dry bag floating in the canoe. Phew! Everything is here, but did everything survive the water? I tip the contents of the bag onto the sand and was glad to see that everything was in there and nothing was lost. The outcome of this mishap was nowhere near as bad as it could have been with the only casualty being a sopping wet first aid kit with most of its contents needing to be thrown out. However, it does serve as a strong reminder that with every mistake there is a lesson to be learnt. In this instance, it was one: do your dry bag up in your canoe, and two: don’t think your above being capsized by a group of rowdy and competitive students on the water. I can also confirm that apple iphones are waterproof…you’re welcome.
At the end of last year we actually introduced a strike system wherein when you mess up a strike is given (and yes I did get a strike for the above scenario). While this was mostly for us to look back on and laugh about over morning tea, it is also a reminder of everything we have learnt from over the past year. And while I would love to say that I haven’t received a single strike that would be a lie…a very big lie. In fact from our most recent calculations I was topping the list with the most. But, I should add that doesn’t me having the most strikes mean I have also learnt the most? Here are a few for your own enjoyment…I have broken trailer wheels, had bush turkey’s steal my staff packs, melted fake grass onto trangias and painted a door frame with a watercolor paintbrush. All of which I received a strike but also learnt something new. At Black Diamond we try our best to do everything right but it’s not always possible and that’s okay, as long as we do our best to fix it, learn and then can hopefully look back and laugh.
TAKE ON NEW OPPORTUNITIES (even if you feel like you may not be ready for them)
One of the most valuable things that I have learnt from the past two years is not to be afraid to take on new opportunities. Making the decision not to go to university after school and throw myself into full-time work in an industry that I knew nothing about was a decision I never thought I would make but one that I am so grateful that I did. My younger brothers will always say that all my hard work in school to get a good ATAR was wasted. And yes, it wasn’t used to get me into my dream course at university, but it did one thing for me which I never thought it would. It was my first real lesson in teaching me that if you set your mind to something and do whatever you can to achieve it – your hard work will in most cases pay off.
I encourage any young person who is nearing the end of school to look at what other exciting opportunities are out there for you. Don’t confine yourself to the idea that you must go to university straight away. Take the time to follow your passions and do what you love. University and study will always be there when you’re ready for it. For me, taking the opportunity to work at Black Diamond Adventures has enabled me to not only learn a variety of practical skills such as abseiling, caving, high ropes, bushwalking and many, many more, but it has also been a catalyst for my own personal growth.
‘Leaders in NSW Camps’ they had written on their website. Well, I now look at that and think that’s an understatement. Black Diamond Adventures are leaders in so much more than that. They are leaders for young people from all facets of life. Rob has created a company that isn’t focused on churning out camps with outstanding activities but rather strives to ensure the students and staff on his camps are valued and leave their camp having challenged themselves and learnt something new.
It is this drive that not only makes BDA ‘Leaders in NSW Camps’ but ‘Leaders FOR young people’.
I consider the people at Black Diamond that I work with as family. I am so grateful for the opportunities they have given me that have shaped me into the person I am today from leading groups through the majestic outback of the Northern Territory and snowshoeing up Mt Kosciusko to running half marathons and achieving goals that I never thought I could. Don’t think too hard. If you want to do it, just go for it!
