Hello and welcome to the World of Maggi and Ken

Here is some information they want to share with you about their take on life.

Ken and Maggi met over 20 years ago, when they were both at a crossroads: Maggi had finally plucked up the courage to give up a job that she was no longer happy in. Jumping from the frying pan into the fire, she moved straight from a financially secure job in a branch of local government to the roller-coaster world of financial advice, selling insurance and investment products. That’s where she met Ken. He had also recently left a secure job with a US oil company but he was already running his own business and had been, on a part-time basis, for some years, so his move wasn’t quite so extreme. However, he was in the middle of a divorce after his wife had left him and he had decided to take the opportunity to go full time self-employed and start a new career.

Just 2 weeks after starting their new careers they experienced ‘Black Monday’ – October 19th 1997 – when UK stock markets went into freefall. Not a good time to be starting in a new investment related career where they were paid purely on commission!

It's all change for Maggi

After about 8 months Maggi decided to change track again, unhappy with the lack of support and direction provided by the company she was working for (despite them being a well respected name in the financial world). But she left having learnt some good lessons about herself, such as her attitude to risk, and the parameters within which she prefers to work. And of course she met Ken, so it wasn’t all bad!

Staying in the private sector, she spent 3 years in the field of recruitment and career counselling, working with people as diverse as graphic designers and accountants who were seeking career moves, successfully placing them with companies large and small, local and international. The UK economy was still struggling along and recruitment wasn't high on many company agendas, and following redundancy she found herself back in her previous role of career guidance and counselling, but with a different local government authority. She promised herself that she would stay for no more than 5 years – as she didn't want to get stuck back in that rut!

Well 16 years later she was still there, persuading herself that things were okay. She had convinced herself that she was still progressing her career because she did move jobs every few years, gaining promotions and taking some specialist positions, and that’s OK isn’t it?

She didn’t particularly enjoy her work but she did learn what useful skills she has, such as managing people, planning, and basically making things happen. Despite not having a technical IT background her penultimate role involved being responsible for a company database that was being used daily – and extensively – by several hundred people.

Her final role took her back to working more directly with people, and she managed a team of 20+ people who delivered a range of services to clients. She was successful in turning the team around and making it one of the best in the company, mainly by empowering people to achieve their potential and guiding and supporting them through the process. And she was fortunate to be reunited with an excellent line manager who knew exactly how to get the best out of her. But even though this partnership made the daily grind more enjoyable, she knew that her future lay elsewhere.

Meanwhile . . .

Ken was building 2 businesses (contract cleaning and carpet & upholstery cleaning) and still kept on with the financial advice for a couple of years, until he decided he needed to stop spreading himself so thinly. He expanded his businesses, building a good reputation through a high quality service and he got used to solving challenges thrown up by all manner of customers, both corporate and individual, through focusing on marketing and customer care.

About 5 years ago after selling his businesses, Ken decided he wanted a break from self employment, but he wasn’t about to be allowed to sit around doing nothing. He decided to look for employment to keep his ‘little grey cells’ working, and came up against the very real issue of age discrimination, where his wide ranging experience counted little compared with his age (he wasn't decrepit by any means, just the wrong side of 50).

He was successful in getting employment – with a call centre for a telecommunications company – and during his time there, was identified to undertake specific training in their management program and as a trainer. He also experienced working with many people who wanted to get out and do more but couldn’t see beyond their day to day existence for various reasons.

Looking at other Opportunities

Over the years they continued to explore other opportunities and had their share of successes and failures. A house was bought to let to students - at just the time that supply began to outstrip demand in that town, but they were able to focus on other rental tenants. From the sale of Ken’s 2 businesses they bought into an overseas property franchise only to find that it had been set up by an accomplished fraudster who was an old hand at parting people from their money. He's now languishing in jail. Shame the police didn’t catch up with him before they got into the business as they lost all their money.

Somewhere along the way they found the time to take courses in Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), and both qualified as Master Practitioners. This training was all about how people communicate – more - or often less -successfully – and learning powerful strategies that can be used to help people take on the things that are holding them back in life, and overcome them.

They both put the techniques they learnt into practice in their own lives and by helping others to work through issues and challenges that were holding them back. Both appreciated the power of the techniques they had learned in helping people get beyond their barriers, and knew they wanted to get more involved in this area of work, which they are now doing through this website. The philosophy and techniques of NLP underlies a lot of the information contained on the site.

Their Greatest Decision

Several years ago Ken and Maggi started working towards the biggest life change yet: to move abroad permanently. No time frame was set, which was a bad move as things drifted for a while, but then they were still working through the options, starting (as many people do) with Spain, moving on to consider France, and finally settling on Greece, where they have lived since the beginning of 2008.

They are now well on the way to facing their own destinies and living their own World of Freedom. They’re by no means there yet, but as soon as they were able to, they followed their own guidance and stopped waiting until everything else was in place before they made the move. Sometimes you have to take action and just do it or you will just keep finding excuses as to why you can’t! – then you will always be wondering “what if I had done that”?

After 6 months looking for the right piece of land (with views of the sea, the mountains and the surrounding countryside), they are now eagerly waiting until they can start building a house to their own design. They’re embracing simplicity and finding options that have a low impact on the environment and their finances, even though it means not following the usual practices. Why? Because it’s their choice and they want to!

Isn’t that what freedom is all about – being able to make the choices you want, about all areas of your life?. . . Isn’t that what everyone wants? . . . Isn’t that what YOU want?

Further down the road they’ll be pulling together all the things they’ve learned to help others who might want to follow a similar path.

And being able to advise and guide you towards your own destiny brings Maggi and Ken the satisfaction of giving something back, and - they hope - gives you the courage to go out and do it for yourself!