From Geologist to Sustainability Professional: My Personal Shift Story

Wondering how a geologist becomes a sustainability professional? Well, you're not the only one. I'm often asked how I went from being a geologist all the way to a sustainability expert, author, and strategist. Hi, I'm Tracy Lydiatt, founder of the Sustainable Living School, the place where sustainability theory bridges into real life, giving you the bigger picture why and the how-to for your life. Welcome back to my channel, and if you're new here, I hope to earn your subscription today. Hello and welcome to this video where I get a little bit personal and vulnerable. Before we get into this though, I would love to hear in the comments below what you think about mining and if it has a role within sustainable living. I'm super curious to know how many of you think about this and what questions you might have. I do read all the comments and do my best to respond, so drop me a comment below. Okay, ready to hear my story? Let's go. Started out doing a bachelor's degree at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC, and, and I went into the mining industry. There's lots of varieties of ways that you can be a geologist, which I didn't know, and I picked hard rock mining. My job as a geologist would be to go out with a company, find deposits. My specific area was gold and silver mining. We have a lot of that in Canada, and And I had the great fortune of working in Northern British Columbia, in Northwest Territories, as well as Nunavut, which is Canada's newest territory. And I also did some work in Argentina. I love geology. I still love rocks. You can tell I have a huge rock collection. I'm gone around with the world with me, specific rocks that I love so much. And, um, I'm very process-oriented, so geology was very appealing to me. Me because of the processes involved in forming those deposits. How did those rocks get there? The structures that cut through them. And I really love the science behind it. And I also loved how it gave me the opportunity to travel to places that I never would have been able to access. That took me to a lot of remote places that I'm super grateful that I had the chance to see, appreciate, and witness life there. That being said, the remoteness when you're working provides a very unique opportunity to learn a lot about yourself, especially when you're in these like super isolated camps that are only accessible by air. The one I'm about to tell you about only had 36 people in it at, at the most. We had multiple buildings and we slept 4 per person in the cabin. And I think there was maybe 6 to 8 women at the max these camps. So super interesting place to live and learn about yourself and work. And we would work for usually a month on and then have 2 weeks off. It was also a very mentally challenging place to be at times when you get tired and tired of being in the same place around all the same people. The point being is that when you work remotely like this, many of these camps rely on huge generators to generate their power. Hopefully someday that won't be the case and there'll be more wind and solar solar. I know the industry is transitioning in that direction. When I was there, it was diesel generators, which make a lot of noise. It's like white noise in the background all the time. And I worked as a geologist logging core. And so what that means is there would be drills out on the property, they would produce these long tubes of solid rock that would be loaded into boxes, flown back to the core shack, and then myself and a team of other geologists would sit and log the core. So that means we would look at where the geology transitioned, the rock types changed, if there was mineralization or faults. It was a pretty monotonous job that required a lot of humor to get through, and I was grateful for my team that I worked with. This one day, uh, the generator happened to be off because they were doing maintenance. I just happened to find myself in this core shack by myself, and so I made myself a cup of tea and took a break from logging core, and I stood out on the core shack. August which is fall in the Arctic. And I was on the tundra, which means there's no trees, it's very flat, there's not many mountains, and you can see for a really long way in the distance. And in the fall, it's got these beautiful colors, just a huge array of yellows and golds and oranges and reds. I was standing there drinking my tea, I looked down, I look up, and I see this caribou buck with this huge antlers standing out on the tundra in front of me, which I have no clue to this day where this animal came from because one minute it wasn't there and then the next minute he was. We stood there for a minute in this complete silence and locked eyes, and when we locked eyes, this like thunderbolt of awareness hit my heart and I realized that that caribou was standing in the exact position where the edge of an open pit mine would start should that deposit move forward into that stage of mining. And that's when I had my, my aha or epiphany moment with this caribou, because I realized in that moment I didn't want to contribute my skills as a geologist to this industry anymore. And that was a really hard realization for me because of the 4 years of training that I had done and the years of of, you know, working in this industry. And, you know, I'm not bashing the mining industry at all. I'm actually really proud of Canada, and we're one of the most regulated countries in the world when it comes to mining. And there have been thousands of people that have contributed to those standards and that work that I'm really proud of. And I'm proud to be part of that industry. And I am— the share I'm making is that it didn't work for me. Anymore for my own personal wellness, and I felt like a calling to contribute my time and energy in a different way. And so still, that moment was— it's still super emotional for me. And, you know, to think, like, it's kind of silly that this animal changed the trajectory of my life. It took another 2 years before I was able to move out of mining into the opportunity to study sustainability, mostly because I was paying down student loans, and I also wanted to honor the commitments that I had made to the companies that had hired me. Fast forward 2 years, I'm finally in the position where I can apply for advanced education. And so I applied to about 4 different— 4 or 5 different master's programs in different areas of the world. Got accepted to and chose was Sweden. And I chose Sweden out of others that were in North America because I really wanted to get out of and experience a different culture, a different way of thinking about things. I jumped on that opportunity and went to Sweden into this town called Karlskrona. It's at the very bottom end, right on the Baltic Ocean, and was part of a cohort that year of 65 students that were from 23 different countries. When I get there, we find out that we obviously have to write a master's thesis. The unique part about this program, which again I think comes from being in Sweden, is that it was a collaborative process. So it wasn't just me researching and writing. I actually had two other teammates, so the three of us worked together, and we could pick any topic that we wanted in sustainability. Really proud to share that I wrote a collaborative thesis with these two other women, and we all survived, and we still love each other, about sustainable mining and the role of it in sustainability and how to apply Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development. If you really want to know the full topic How do you apply that framework to an industry like mining, and what does that look like? And last time I checked in our student portal, I think our thesis had been downloaded like 382 times. And so when I, when I saw that number and I look back and think about the pivot that I made and that caribou and how much time and energy and like real heart-wrenching, like leaving this industry that I loved to to go and do something different and unknown. Looking back on that, how valuable that was. I know that whoever has downloaded it obviously found it— they found it in the first place, and because they were probably looking for something to help them. And so to me, that is so meaningful, and it makes the jump and the risk and the, the emotion that I went through so worth it. Really grateful that I have been able to contribute in some small way to the conversation around mining and sustainability, which is a huge topic. I'll probably do another video on it. If you want to see a video more in depth about what I think as a geologist and the role that mining has in sustainability, uh, please let me know in the comments below. I'd love to hear what you think. I will link my thesis down below in the description box. I will do another video. I just wanted to share my personal story today. I hope that it's been valuable for you to learn a little bit more about me. I really look forward to connecting with you soon. I've put together a free PDF called Sustainability Decoded that you can swipe for free. This guide provides a science-based fundamental framework that helps you decode sustainability and discern your way through the mountains of information out there. Plus, I I designed it so that it gives you some personal prompts to help you discover key areas in your life and your context that you can take action on at home. All you need to do is click the link below this video and grab your free guide. And if you find it valuable, all I ask is that you pay it forward and share with friends and family. I really appreciate it. Thank you again for being with me today and listening to my story. I'm so grateful for your time. Your energy to tune in today. If you did find this video content valuable, it really helps this channel grow if you hit the subscribe button, the notification bell, and the like button so that you can be notified when more content is published. I look forward to connecting with you again. Bye for now!