Change Management

Change Management A World Citizen’s New Life

Carole Dumenil’s Five Lives

Some say that cats have 9 lives. As for Carole Dumenil, a financial analyst turned acupuncturist, we’ve counted 5 so far. She has moved around the world, working at high-paying but unsatisfying jobs until she decided to change and find happiness.

Text and Photos by ROBERTO BENZI

She’s Carole Dumenil, French-born, citizen of the world and completely in love with the Andalusian sun. On the upper floor of her white and bright house, there’s a study where she practices acupuncture.

The taxi rides up the sloping hill in a residential area of Marbella, I haven’t got out of the car yet before I find her before me: she smiles and holds out her hand asking me if I have traveled well.

ws Carole, today you are an acupuncturist, but you started out working in finance, I would say that’s a good shift. Tell me all, what did you study?

cd I studied Economics at the University of Reims (France), until I couldn’t take the provincial narrow-mindedness and the small and oppressive university campus anymore. So I changed programs and moved to the United States to do an MBA in Boston at Northeastern University.

ws What did you do after you graduated with a degree in Business Administration?

cd As I had a US visa for a year, I looked for a job, because I felt good there. I started working for a Commodity City Advisor in New York City. I'd been with them for two years, earning quite well, over one hundred thousand dollars a year. Often it was hard for me to understand why they would pay me so much. However I was not fully satisfied: computer, finance, mathematics, I was sitting in an office for many hours and I could not anymore. So I started several activities including flamenco and shiatsu.

ws How old were you at that time?

cd It was 1999 and I was twenty-five years old. I was not completely satisfied, being a financial analyst was not enough for me, I felt that my life had some deeper meanings and the hidden part of my essence was pushing to come out more and more insistently. I resigned and took a sabbatical year. I traveled the length and breadth of Latin America, went to England, rented an apartment in London and began to study acupuncture at the College of Integrated Chinese Medicine in Reading.

ws A twenty-five year-old with a great income: it’s good to live in the city with $10,000 a month. You had to be motivated to abandon that career.

cd Yes I did make good money and I felt free to do whatever I wanted, but it was just an illusion. The environment was too materialistic, relationships with friends and colleagues were mostly superficial, life was based on having rather than on being and that was no longer good for me. I wanted to change, leave. It’s in London that I realized that I had found my way. I graduated as an acupuncturist three years later, in 2003. Of course while studying, I was supporting myself financially by working for Deutsche Bank until early 2004.

ws This seems to be your third life, after Reims and the Big Apple you landed in London. Have you had difficulties with colleagues, family, friends, boyfriend?

cd Difficulties exist in every choice we make, be it work or relationships. My family understood and accepted my decisions, after all I was financially independent, I worked, studied, and worked again. Some friends stay even if living on the the other side of the ocean. Every-

Three exciting new life stories. • Lizzie Edward • Jessica Coleman • Craig Zabransky

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Fear about my future and what I was going to do with my life was a big challenge.

Lizzie Edwards started out as a fashion model. After modeling she went to University and on leaving began working in advertising. She quickly realized it wasn’t for her, something had to change, and fast!

01 01 Carole Dumenil 02 The view from Carole's house/studio 03 The front of Carole's house/studio 04 Life in Marbella 05 Carole bikes everywhere 06 The Marbella's seafront, it's paradise. 07 Marbella's beach where Carole runs and bikes to keep fit

Sevilla

Marbella

Gibiltar

Tanger

thing else transforms naturally.

ws How did you start acupuncture?

cd I started working with great enthusiasm and energy at the Traditional Acupuncture Centre in London and also became voluntary at the Gateway Clinic, the first practice to adopt Chinese medicine in the United Kingdom. I was able to devote myself to my new life fully and in 2005 became the assistant to Master Gerad Kite. After that year he asked me to work full-time in his London clinic.

ws Looking at your past in New York, do you have any regrets?

cd As for my job, I don’t have any. I must say that I have always found open-minded people who allowed me to study and work as an acupuncturist.

ws How much did you earn as an acupuncturist in the London clinic?

cd My salary didn’t match that of New York, and also London is a much more expensive city. My average pay was around 45,000£ per year, but I felt in my place, I felt I was doing good for people and this gave meaning to my life.

ws What made you change your life again?

cd London is a city I love, but I found it distracting. It is immense, covering distances takes a long time. Towards the end of 2008 I worked so hard and every encounter with friends, from going to the theater, the movies or to dinner required days, sometimes weeks, of planning. Moreover, the weather is often gray and rainy and the lack of sun for several months brought me an accumulation of stress and fatigue that all I wanted was to take a long vacation in the East. I traveled to India and Nepal for a few months promising myself that once I had got back I would have decided whether staying in London was an option or not.

ws You were about to start your fifth life, weren’t you?

cd Actually, yes. Once I got back to London I decided to move to Geneva or Marbella and open my own acupuncture clinic. I had a friend in Marbella, and also Spain has a lot more attention and respect for Chinese medicine, and there’s

What made you decide to change your career? I began working in commercials production. However I found it totally unfulfilling.

Why personal stylist? It combined my training in fashion design and experience in the industry, my love of shopping and my own personal experience of the impact of dressing and how it can affect how you feel. Today I cannot believe I am being paid to do what I do, helping people look and feel fantastic. What sort of investment did you make for this shift? I had very little money, but decided to invest it to hire a career coach: it turned out to be the best investment I have ever made. I also has to train firstly in Personal Color and Style and then in Corporate Image, and that cost me about £5,000. The other main costs were building a website, and Google Ads to drive business to my site, which was invaluable.

a lot of sun. That same light and warmth that I had missed for too many years. I moved to Marbella in the early summer of 2009 and for about a year I commuted between the Costa del Sol and Britain to help my patients and work in various clinics at the same time. The following summer I decided to settle here.

ws Hearing you say “settling” leaves me a little puzzled. You’ll be in Marbella until when?

Carole smiles, gets up from her chair and invites me to follow her on the terrace of her house. Silently she brings my attention to the garden. cd See? I think I'll stay here. I work well, I have good clients who often become friends, I get home to my studio and I work with two clinics, one in Gibraltar and in Cancelada. I have a partner and a cat named Fluff. I am made, do we say "happy?"

ws Yes, the positive state of mind of those who accomplished their dreams is what we call happiness. But Spain is an European country risking to go bankrupt.

cd Yes, it is certainly a difficult time, many cities and towns in the country are in great difficulty, as in many other European states. You can live with less and be happy, wealth lies in living the life that we choose.

ws It is said that cats have nine lives, we never know how many human beings possess. For you we counted five, what’s the sixth going to be?

cd At the moment I do not know. I'll send you an email so you can report it when it happens.•

My happiness made me decide to change careers.

Jessica Coleman is a junior interior designer at Intu Interiors who used to be a cognitive-behavioral therapist where she worked with life-sentenced men in group therapy. The job was getting to her, that’s when she took a step back.

What made you decide to change your career?

I wasn't happy in my role as a trainee psychologist - I was stressed and overworked I knew that something had to change - I didn't want to be in a job that had the potential to make me feel so unhappy - life is too short to be unhappy in your work!

Why did you become an interior designer? Interior design is always something that I have really enjoyed ever since I was young. When deciding which subject to choose at University, it was between psychology and design - I chose psychology because I found it interesting and I believed that it would provide me with a more stable career than design would. Looking back I should’ve gone for design!

What sort of investment did you make for this shift? I invested a lot of money, time, dedication and effort into changing career. I had to re-train as an interior designer, which meant working part-time in various administration roles, finding the money to pay for a course, and taking time out to study full-time for a while as well.

Travel influenced each of my career moves.

Craig Zabransky is a freelance travel photographer, writer and blogger who created and owns StayAdventurous. He aspired to work on Wall Street, and worked as a consultant for some time. However a memorable party might have opened his eyes.

What made you decide to change your career? I worked long hours in a stressful career for a decade and I needed a break. Then after one memorable birthday I decided I needed to see more of the world. But I wasn't sure when. Actually I was all set to resign, but my firm had a leave of absence policy and I applied. I left for 11 months and visited Central & South America and Europe. After my adventure, my views changed, my life changed. I needed to do something different.

Why Travel Writer? In Costa Rica, my first destination in my year off, I watched the most majestic sunset with my journal, and a local cerveza. I needed to inspire others to see the world and enjoy a sunset like that.

What sort of investment did you make for this shift? I made three main investments. The first was working with a career coach. A second investment was time with no income, I needed to establish myself, pitch my stories and eventually build a readership for my site. Third investment: social media. I spent hours and hours meeting fellow travel writers and learning from them and discussing destinations on Twitter.