This test also told is based on a conversation with Jessica Guo, who has worked as a consultant at PwC for over seven years. She recently stopped hiking on the Divide Divide and the Grand Divide Trail trail, and does not plan to return to the business world. This story has been changed for length and clarity.
I had heard of the Pacific Crest Trail when I was 18 years old, and because I am from Washington and I grew up in Seattle, the idea of going home really appealed to me. I decided to do it in 2023.
At the time, I worked as a consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers and I decided to take advantage of a program they have where you can have paid leave and receive 20% of your salary. In my mind, hiking through would be one and one. You do it once in your life and move on.
The hike took me five months. When I am done, I felt like I had just done this really incredible thing – then I went back to work. It was a really difficult transition.
My team had also changed while I left. I felt like I didn’t even know what kind of work I was doing. I did not know what my future looked like in the business, even if I liked the work I was doing before leaving.
This year, I decided to leave my job.
My last day of work was on Wednesday, and I’m starting my next hike on Monday.
I make the continental divide path and I link it with the great divide trail in Canada. The route follows the mountain ranges that divide the continent, from the New Mexico to the Kakwa lakes in British Columbia. The total mileage is 3,700 and I hope to finish in about five months. I plan to make an average of more than 30 miles per day.
Being able to enter another country and continue on the same path for 700 additional miles seemed to be a truly unique way to discover this part of the country, which is so beautiful and wild. I want to do things that scare me, and this road scares me. It’s also my 30th birthday this year, and I wanted to send it to it with a big bang.
Jessica Guo traveled the PCT in 2023. Jessica Guo
The PCT hike changed me
I started the PCT alone and I finally joined a group that I met on the track before taking a risky section.
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At one point, we were trying to walk in the snow while walking on the branches when we broke and impaled my calf.
Fortunately for me, one of my hiking companions was a Swedish sailor, so he helped provide medical treatment, hiked with me, then returned. At the emergency care center, they gave me six stitches. This is how I ended up getting my name name: the stitches.
I had to get off the path for eight days, but the doctor said I could continue to hike with stitches and that he would give me a suture suppression kit to cut them myself. So, at one point, when I was back with the group, the doctor ended up facing me and we just cut them to the side of this mountain.
The path is a bit like a washing cycle. It only makes you turn and turn, and every day you have trouble and it’s aggravating. And then at the end, you are like: “Oh, I’m different.” You come out purer and rarer than before – even if you are less clean.
This simply opens your mind and opens your eyes to different ways of being in the world, and reminds you that you don’t really need a lot of things you have in your life to be happy.
When I went back to work, I lost this identity to feel so powerful and so strong. I felt like I lost a lot of direction. On the path, you have such a clear northern star.
Jessica Guo plans to hike 3,700 miles over 150 days this summer along the continental division. Jessica Guo
I realized that I wanted to get off the corporate scale
I was on a very defined career track. In consultation, you make the partner, then principal partner, then director, then principal director, then director, then partner. I was a manager and I left this track now.
About a year after the PCT, I realized that I was at a point where you are committed to this track and you are talking about becoming a partner in this company, or doing something completely different.
I was at a crossroads and I had a lot of conversations with people. Do I want to make this song my life? Do I want this life?
I realized that the answer to this was probably not. I felt like the things I did on the track were so much more victims of life than the lifestyle I had when I worked.
I’m lucky in the sense that I don’t leave my business on a bad note. I have this safety net to feel like I could always come back if I want it.
Now, I want to find a way to marry these work skills of my work at PwC – like coaching and facilitation – with outdoor. After my hike, I would like to start my own facilitation practice where people can discover the outdoors, whether on a few different sessions, a weekend or a week or two, and to obtain a similar experience that I obtained from crossing without necessarily having to invest six months.
It was very scary to leave my job, especially in this economy. But for me, it’s just the right time. If I stayed in my business for another year, I would just waste my time. I would languish. I would get a resentment that I spend my time on this when I know what I want to do is something else.
If you have a dream now, do it now. If you wait, then it may be less accessible or less accessible. Follow this instinct.
Do you have a story to share on the release of your job? Contact this journalist at kvlamis@businessinsider.com.
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