RESILIENCE AMIDST CHAOS: THE AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC JOURNEY OF A DOCTORAL PRACTITIONER NAVIGATING EXTREME UNCERTAINTY

In a meeting on June 26, 2023, with my thesis advisor I was asked directly “what is this thesis about?” I found it kind of funny to be asked this question with roughly 30,000 words written and 4 of the 5 thematic chapters submitted and reviewed. But the question was poised at the perfect time because when I wrote my first thesis proposal in 2021, I was in a completely different job role and was yet to experience a level of volatility and uncertainty that the next few years would entail and that I hadn’t experienced in the previous 16 years of management work. As an autoethnographic study, this thesis is about a scholarly practitioner re-defining their career identity and motivations, working towards finding peace (on a purely human level) with internal validation and accepting that their professional future is fully within reach; whatever they chose to reach for. For me, this thesis is about validating my experiences through a reflective journal and finding structure and meaning in a time that was filled with chaos, personal/professional/societal trauma, existential crisis and a fortieth birthday. By evaluating my own personal work journal, I have swam in a pool of reflexivity for the past 2 years and have documented my own sense of mourning for a professional life I once dreamed of that I had to accept was just not going to happen. But, and a very important but, through this reflexive process I was able to reroute my professional journey and take action to attain newfound goals, a new purpose, and leave a 3 thousand square foot home in Texas to create a new life in Central America owning and operating a newly found eco-tourism company. This thesis is about my journey.