Jes Ward
cityWILD
Denver, CO USA
"Perfect means getting to where you want to be, not to where everyone else says you should be."
Career Roadmap
Jes's work combines: Education, Non-Profit Organizations, and Teaching / Mentoring
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Day In The Life
Skills &
Education
Advice for getting started
Don't set your bar at the top, set it where you want to go, get there, and then figure out where you want to go next. Perfection is getting where you want to be, not where everyone tells you to be.
Here's the path I took:
High School
Bachelor's Degree
Business/Corporate Communications, General
University of Denver
Life & Career Milestones
My path in life has been direct
1.
Jes’ mother was a teen mom who struggled to raise six children.
2.
Realizing they needed to forge a better path for their younger siblings, Jes moved in with their grandmother.
3.
Chose to do a year of AmeriCorps instead of going directly to college.
4.
Ended up working for an organization called PeaceJam for 13 years.
5.
The job started to feel too corporate, and Jes wanted to get back to their hometown of Denver, Colorado, and work directly with students.
6.
Took a job at CityWILD, a Denver nonprofit that "uses the lens of nature to teach leadership and self-empowerment."
7.
One of the activities CityWILD does with at-risk youth is whitewater rafting; they teach kids to "scout rapids," both in the water and in their lives.
8.
Believes one of the best things about nature is that it isn't about perfection—it's about the appreciation of diversity.
Defining Moments
How I responded to discouragement
THE NOISE
Messages from Myself:
I can't do it. I'm not perfect.
How I responded:
Don't set your bar at the top, set it where you want to go, get there, and then figure out where you want to go next. Perfection is getting where you want to be, not where everyone tells you to be.
Experiences and challenges that shaped me
My mom was a teen mom, she was 17 when she had me. She struggled quite a bit with alcohol, with depression, with addiction.
I'm the first in my family to go to college. My mom was a teen parent who struggled to raise me and my siblings and never had the opportunity to finish school.
Due to my moms problems, I was mostly homeless until I was about 12 years old.