This month, fifteen years ago, I left my corporate job to start Foundation Family Wealth. I have reflected on that transition over the past few months as our team has revisited Foundation’s proposition and brand. It was a good time to think about what I set out to create at Foundation. But it was also good to remember why I left corporate.
I worked for South Africa’s largest independent stockbroking business for nearly two decades. It was fast-paced and fast-growing. I worked with the inspiring founders, alongside brilliant colleagues, and loved my clients. I flourished in an environment where I was left to learn and grow, with some flexibility as a mother of three young children.
Yet, I wasn’t happy. I didn’t like the environment. I didn’t like the excessive focus on money, performance, trades, and the ever-present green and red screens. And I wanted to do more meaningful work in my own way, at my pace, with clients who share my values about money.
However, it felt out of reach. Too daunting for a young mum who was barely holding everything together, and a big stretch financially. It was too difficult to imagine walking away from my salary slip.
I felt caged.
Feeling trapped is not a good place. In that place, I imagined that people and circumstances were keeping me from moving to where I wanted to be. Until I realised that what kept me in that job was not my financial obligations, or my family responsibilities, or even uncertainty about what I wanted to do with my future.
It was fear.
I was afraid of letting go of the safety of the salary slip. I was afraid that I wouldn’t make a success of a new business.
I didn’t like that realisation. It was much easier to blame people and circumstances for my imprisonment than to admit that I was the one holding myself there. But I liked being controlled by fear even less.
So, I acted. I didn’t jump ship immediately. It took me many years of planning, deliberation, and some serendipity to leave. I started saving more deliberately to support my transition.
My stance changed, and ironically, the remaining time in that job was fruitful and happier. Instead of feeling confined, I felt free because I was working towards a vision.
Many people are really trapped by circumstances. Yet so many of those people are the most delightful, joyful humans because they choose not to be confined in their spirits.
I come across many others, even people with the means to create almost any future, who are trapped by an imaginary jailer. Fear. They are either blind to their entrapment or choose to remain in that miserable place.
When you find yourself there, as I did, you can change the way you see it, or you can change it. Either way, you have the keys to the cage.
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Kind regards,
Sunél
