Moving on from disappointment

Hello and a slightly belated Happy Easter!

I decided to delay sending out my newsletter, I felt sending it out on Easter Sunday and the bank holiday Monday wouldn’t really be appropriate.

So here's the next edition.

Being left disheartened and disappointed, I quickly had to decide what I was going to do with my life as my idea of joining the armed forces was no longer happening.

I decided that the best thing I could do was to stay on at sixth form as I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do career wise and could at least spend another year figuring things out.

So that’s what I did.

One year actually ended up being four as after I completed a year at sixth form I then decided to go on to college to do a national diploma in business and finance. I had enjoyed doing business studies at college, so this seemed a natural next step for me.

The year at college passed really quickly and I really enjoyed my course. I did well and liked learning about business, marketing, finance and everything else in between.

Along with my college work, I had got myself a part time job, working weekends at a bar and nightclub. It was good fun, and allowed me to have a little financial freedom as well whilst studying.

I finished my years course at college and decided to carry on my studies. I opted to do a HND in business studies and finance rather than a degree. I figured out at the time, the HND was more practical and more assessment based, rather than exams and thought this would suit me better.

I started my HND at Birmingham Polytechnic, opting not to move away (probably a mistake, looking back!) and really enjoyed learning even more about business, marketing, economics, products, sales and being an entrepreneur. I continued to work in order to pay for my studies and got a job working in a pub as well as a summer holiday job working in the civil service at the department of transport in their Birmingham offices.

The two jobs couldn’t be further apart in terms of experiences for me. On the one hand I’m working in a pub in a suburb of Birmingham, learning a lot along the way. Not just about the job, but about people, how they act, and dealing with conflict, confrontation and all the things a young barman would have to deal with when working in this type of environment.

The summer job was entirely different. There were strict rules, passes to get in and out of buildings and the office environment was ok but also very sterile in terms of atmosphere I found.

The job was pretty easy and paid really well so I kept my head down and watched and learnt how these people all operated in their environments, very different to the pub but just as interesting.

I think this would have been the first time I got to see close up, how people operate in different environments and indeed how different environments demand a differing approach. Being aware of this early on for me was good and having the ability to adapt to your surroundings is something that I believe is key. Adapting, is an important skill for any business owner to have in their locker.

The course of business never ever runs smoothly, so being able to adapt is vital.

Adapting comes in many different forms as well. Sometimes you need to adapt your mindset to overcome a problem or challenge. Or you may need to adapt a product or service you are selling to meet new expectations of your customers. Or adapt your approach with different members of your team. In other circumstances, you may have to change your whole business model to survive and recent COVID times have shown us the power of adapting.

After two years, I finished my HND in business and finance and obtained a Merit which I was quite happy with.

I now just had to work out what I wanted to do career wise as in truth I was no further forward in deciding what is was I wanted to do.

I started applying for jobs. I thought that perhaps I might do well in retail, so I decided to apply for some trainee graduate manager courses with some of the large retail chains.

After quite a few applications I managed to get an interview with a retail chain called C & A, they have long since disappeared from the high?street, but at the time they had stores across the country as well as Europe. I reckoned I would get some good training and gain the experience I was after, working for this national retailer on their graduate scheme.

I thought my interview had gone well but that was the last time I heard from C & A no reason as to why I didn’t get any further, in fact nothing. I think at that point I sort of decided retail and I weren’t going to get on.

I had decided that I needed something with a bit more of a challenge, maybe something where I could earn money based on how well I did and not just work a job where I got paid and that was it.

So I started to think about sales jobs, jobs where you could earn bonuses, commission and be in control of what you could earn.

I started to apply for lots of different sales jobs. I applied to sell paper, I applied for jobs selling photocopiers but didn’t get any further than interviews. The reasons were always around not having any relevant experience etc etc.

Then, one day I saw a job advertising for a trainee Estate Agent. At the time I didn’t really know what this involved but I like the sound of property and you could also earn commission, so that seemed good to me!

I was really pleased to get an interview for the job and I was excited to find out more and also do my best to impress!