In a few months, more veteran politicians than ever will be out of a job. Almost 70 Conservative MPs, boasting a combined 1,000 years of parliamentary experience, will voluntarily quit and even more will be brutally kicked out. And I feel sorry for them. Really. It’s tough to start again.
Ten years ago, my annual salary was £8,000, less than my teenage daughter brought in from her nannying job. It was barely enough to pay the bills – and with a sizable mortgage, two cars, school fees and all the luxuries of a comfortable middleclass lifestyle, there were a lot of outgoings.
Blame it on my midlife crisis – in retrospect the best thing that ever happened to me. Because instead of doing all the stupid hedonistic things middle-aged men do as they try to reinvent themselves, I did something equally stupid. I decided to reinvent my career from a standing start, abandoning an office job in journalism to see what else there was out there. If Arnold Schwarzenegger could make a dramatic career change at 56, why couldn’t I? And if Jeremy Clarkson can go from petrolhead to Cotswolds farmer, anything is possible, surely?
Today, with a business bringing in close to £300,000 a year, I look back on that relatively tiny sum with immense pride. I own a global training company that provides businesses with strategies that enable data-obsessed teams to “translate” complex material into simple stories that not even ChatGPT can match. Yet.
Back then, I had nothing. No clients, no income, no real clue what I was going to do, where I was headed or how I’d get there. Just a mad idea that there was something else.
This story is from the April 30, 2024 edition of The Independent.
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This story is from the April 30, 2024 edition of The Independent.
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