During the pandemic and the switch to online remote work, I found myself both enjoying the comforts of home, but also missing certain elements of working at my downtown office. At home, I loved that I could grab a blanket to warm my legs when cold, smell the fresh air through the open windows, step outside to feel the sunshine, or see trees and native plants outside my window. Working from home allowed me to lead a less 'severed' life, and to be more connected to the seasons and natural environment. 

At the same time, I desperately missed seeing people in-person. I missed the bustle of downtown, the ability to grab an espresso from my favourite coffee shop and make small talk with the baristas. I missed the feeling that people were all around, even if I was usually too busy to deeply engage. 

This experience was something I heard resonating with so many of my friends and family. Some folks were 100 percent loving working from home, while others felt something was missing. 

When I worked from home I was so much more comfortable and relaxed, but I lacked the informal and formal interactions with real human beings. When I went to my first conference on diversity and inclusion since the begining of the pandemic, the artificial nature of the hotel meeting rooms, the sterile and depressing decor, the rooms without windows, and lack of physical comfort astounded me. I loved getting to see colleagues in three dimensions again, but I missed the comfort of my home office. I had also grown accoustomed to being closer to natural things, plants and animals (though demosticated), in my home environment. Everywhere I looked in the conference rooms I saw carefully produced straight-edged lines, perfectly symetrical arrangements, and hard smooth surfaces. Nothing natural was growing here and it felt like misguided design. 

What also intrigued me was how the vast majority of my experiences from morning to night were 'from the neck up.' I felt completely disconnected from my body and from any form of comfort for ten hours of each day. I was listening, processing, critiquing, and discussing ideas. To be honest, this was not the first time I had wished for a more balanced mind-body experience - every three hour long class I took in university felt unnatural. The sessions were long and the conference program was dense, so I found myself using lunch breaks to walk outside, and skipping sessions to go for a run.  

I started asking myself, why do conference spaces have to be painfully boring?

What would gathering in a structure with a dirt floor feel like? 

Could we find refurbished farmhouse or barn to host the next conference?

Why are we not setting up workshops outside in fairweather months? 

Why do I have to fight to have my bodily need to walk, stretch, or stand included in my workday? 

Am I the only one who feels this way about where and how we work every day?  

Then I heard the call to return to the office and I knew my questions were too radical for the status quo. 

Like most knowledge workers, I was overworked, drained by constant context switching, spending everyday in back-to-back meetings, and tied to a screen. I desperately wanted to find a workplace that would affirm my bodily needs and my spirit. I also felt deeply saddened to know that mental health challenges are now the norm among the majority of workers (HBR artile, 2021), and I wanted to find a way to make work more humane. 

I packed up my bags (proverbial) and I left my job. I went in search of a place grounded in nature-  a way of working that would help me exist in my body. 

I did not find one in the job listings on LinkedIn so I set out to create one. 

So began Wild Equity.