“I realised recently that I could have set this all up, on the side, while I was still employed.
Thing is you don’t think like that when you’re an employee – you just don’t think striking out in a new field is possible for you. But it is.“
Ken Titmuss
No money. Told you’re too old to get a job in your industry. Out of work for the first time in your life. No experience running a business. No idea what to do next.
Most people would have given up, but not Ken Titmuss. I met Ken the other day and his story was so moving I videoed it (below) so you can hear it too.
Ken Titmuss now runs London Trails, his innovative business offering guided walks of London using old maps.
Yet only a few years ago Ken was lining up at the job centre, signing on for unemployment benefits.
He’d left a role in his long-time career in community work thinking he’d easily get another job, only to find that, in his mid-50s, employers were overlooking him for younger candidates.
He simply couldn’t get a job anymore – as you can imagine, that came as a shock.
This is the story of how Ken decided to no longer let the government, or any employer, determine his future. It’s the story of how, by deciding not to give up, he took action and in the process stumbled on a new Free Range business that he loves.
AND it’s the story of how sometimes, age can be an advantage (Ken sometimes wears a Tweed jacket to emphasise the venerable historian angle!).
Ken started a business, in a completely new field, after a lifetime of employment. He had no piles of cash and no business background but he learnt how to get the word out, got up to speed with technology (we met over Twitter!). He is now building a business that is finally giving him the freedom he never had in employed life.
Watch Ken talk about his journey from unemployed, to finding out what he wanted to do, to making it happen in a recession. And how he now gets paid to walk around his favourite city with old maps.
If you’ve ever gone into business for yourself watch 7mins in when Ken describes the feeling of getting his first payment – I actually got teary hearing him talk about it. We’ve all been there!
PS: Ken took me through his old maps and his walks and I’m hooked!
I thought I knew London but I never saw it in quite that way before. Even regular guided walks don’t have the same impact.
If you’re a Londoner Ken’s walks are worth checking out as you’ll see your surroundings through new eyes -> his website is http://londontrails.wordpress.com/ and you can follow him on Twitter @oldmapmap
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