I once sent a text to my sister, when I was at one of my lowest points in life. She kept it. She told me: ‘One day I am going to show this to you again. To show you how far you will have come, when you have found your way back out of it’.
It was 2009. The Global Financial Crash hit the UK hard; a deep recession followed. This was not long after I had opened my own television production company. It was something I’d dreamed of doing for years. The industry went into shutdown mode. Advertisers slashed their budgets. Heads of Channel’s rolled and with it their teams and their agreements to commission some of my shows.
I had to make a tough decision. My heart told me to keep going. This was my new baby, after all. My head told me the recession was not ending any time soon and with staff to pay, I didn’t have time to hold out. I needed to draw a line in the sand before risking any serious financial loss. I put my company into voluntary liquidation.
I was right in the thick of winding my company up when the nursing home in Australia phoned. It was where my husband’s mother was being cared for. It was time to come. So, he got on a plane, but she died whilst he was on the way. He had to cremate her soon after. He dealt with this alone.
When my husband returned to the UK, his boss then asked him if he would move to China. We’d earlier lived in HK, so he had experience working in Asia. It wasn’t a choice though. Many others in his company had already lost their jobs.
So, I was now back to freelancing in a dead market and with some company debt. My husband was now faced with moving to China, or losing his job. At the same time, we were funding our eldest son’s Masters Degree in the United States and our youngest son’s final years in a British public school. Neither fees were cheap. We feared that we would have to pull them both out and that we could lose our house as well. We were standing on a cliff and staring into the abyss. We had no choice.
My husband flew to Shanghai. I got a job as Executive Producer with another independent production company. We had no idea when we would ever live together again.
I looked at my company debt that now needed paying off. It wasn’t huge, but it represented a good chunk of time my husband and I would have to stay living apart. It also screamed at me that I’d failed and I felt dreadful about it. ‘It’s just a number darling’, my husband said. ‘A number that we just have to chip away at’.
My husband came into his own in China, building a successful Shanghai branch. I was by now running a huge Drama Documentary Series for the US Discovery Channel called: ‘I Shouldn’t Be Alive’. The name sums it up. We’d interview real life people who survived an extraordinary situation against all odds. (Like the guy who went mountain climbing alone when an avalanche hit. It shattered his pelvis, but nobody knew that he’d gone there. If he didn’t crawl out and save himself, he’d die). We then used actors to dramatise their stories. It was the first time I had done drama filming and we were shooting all over the world. I loved it. But I hated living apart from my husband.
As one year became two, I once more cried through a SKYPE call, missing him so badly. My husband said: ‘Life’s a Marathon, not a sprint. We’re just hitting the wall at Mile 18, but we’ll get there, I promise’.
But, once we paid off our debt, Uni and School fees, we were still living apart. Neither of us would allow the other to give up their job. ‘You can’t give up what you’ve built in China to come back here’ I said. I didn’t want (in my mind) to emasculate him, by having him out of work. ‘But you can’t give up doing what you love so much’ he said to me. He knew I would be on a Dependent Visa in Shanghai and would hate being relegated to housewife. We were at a stalemate of denial and indecision. What changed this was a guy who had cut off his own arm.
One of the bosses I was working for was a Producer of the Hollywood film 127 Hours, directed by Danny Boyle (you can buy the DVD here). It was based on the true story of Aron Ralston. (Read his book here). He was deep down a canyon in Utah when a 350kg boulder dislodged, crushed his arm and trapped him for 5 1/2 days. No-one knew he was there. He cut his own arm off with a pocket knife, as he knew he was close to death and it was his only way to survive.
Before the film’s release, we had a company screening. At the end of it Aron came out on stage to talk to us. ‘When you are about to die’ he told us, ‘the fact you’ve done great work means jack shit. The only thing that matters is the people you love. It is that you have loved and have been loved in return’.
I told my company I wasn’t renewing my contract and booked my plane ticket to Shanghai the next day. Life is too short. I know how lucky I am that my husband is still my best friend after nearly 30 years.
Shanghai was amazing. I didn’t become a housewife or end up unemployed there. I followed my heart and what made me happy, then= the work just kept finding me. I travelled, made amazing films and then had time off in between, in which I learnt Mandarin. We’ve since moved back to HK and life is brilliant on all levels again.
My sister recently read that text message I had sent to her to me. I am so grateful that she kept it. It reminds me that no matter how low you can go, there will one day be a way out. And to never take anything for granted when life is on the up again.
The Lessons I learnt:
- Life’s a Marathon, not a sprint. Sometimes you hit the wall, other times you cross the finishing line. The painful times don’t last; enjoy the good times when you have them. Things go down, but they always come back up again.
- I thought my company was a failure. It was just not meant to be. Had it been successful, then I would not have been as free to move country. My husband might have opted to stay in the UK and lose his job. He would have missed the opportunity that led to the success he is having now. We wouldn’t have the awesome experience of living in China or be back in HK today. Our life is richer and better than we imagined it back then.
- Debt is just a number. A big one is overwhelming. So I wrote it down and broke it down into smaller chunks, so it no longer scared me. I set goals: how many chunks we’d tick off by a certain time and we started chipping away. We paid it off way sooner than expected.
- It’s amazing the number of people who surround you when you are successful. And who disappear when you are deemed not. The few who supported me at that time are some of my closest friends today. They are the ones who matter.
Who has inspired you to change your life? I’d love to hear in the Comments below.
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