Back in the bright and blustery days of 2008, I found myself smack in the middle of a critical career conundrum.

I was finishing four years of Maths & Mech Eng study at Warwick Uni and the question I was wrestling with was:

Should I accept a safe & steady job offer from a UK high street bank? Or should I roll the dice and try my hand playing professional poker for a year?

The poker option wasn’t as crazy as it might sound.

Warwick Uni was literally breeding poker champions during my time there.

One chap I was pally with took down a poker tournament in Sam Remo for a cool €1m.

Another guy called Alex came to poker society for the first time and didn’t know his diamonds from his hearts or his spades from his clovers. But a couple of years later, he’d become the number one heads-up player in the world at Texas Hold’em, winning a few millions of dollars in the process.

I didn’t have anywhere near this level of success.

But I wasn’t bleeding chips left, right and centre either.

In my first year at uni I won an entry to a poker tournament in Copenhagen and spun that into DKr 47,776. The year after, I snagged a seat in the Main Event of the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas and during my week in Sin City I chopped another poker tournament for $27k.

I thought that with a year of dedicated study & play, I could really make something of poker.

But it wasn’t just the moolah that grabbed me.

I LOVED playing cards too. Even if I was playing for pennies, I felt a heady mix of focus, intuition and calm whenever I sat at the poker table. It was like stepping into a space where I truly belonged.

To cut to the river card, I ended up plumping for the safe and steady option of a full time job.

It seemed like the sensible choice and I thought I could always try poker a year or two later.

But that never happened. The time to try playing poker was then, when the idea came to mind. That was when it was fresh and alive with possibility. 

As I donned my dandy suit & tie and trotted along to Day 1 of my banking job, it felt like the poker gravy train had left the station leaving me standing on the platform clutching a bank-issued crusty bread roll and the thought that something warm, satisfying and meant-for-me was disappearing into the night.

I looked back on that crossroads A LOT during the first decade of my banking career.

Of course, that’s not to say the poker would’ve worked out.

But it was more the fact I hadn’t given it a go that gnawed away at me.

I did learn a little something from that experience however. I learned that when something feels aligned – when it energises me, inspires me and feels like something I’m meant to do – that’s not just random excitement. 

That’s my inner compass pointing the way.

It took thirteen long years of grinding away in banking and a huge, almighty, loving shove by the universe in the form of burnout to bring a similar opportunity along.

That opportunity?

You’re reading it.

I feel the same way about my newsletter and coaching biz that I did about poker all those years ago.

It feels like I’ve stepped out of someone else’s script, that I’ve started to write my own script and that this is something I’m meant to do. And there's a peace and freedom which comes with that.

This idea of listening to what calls you is the basis of my new group coaching programme. 

The aim of the program is to help you step into a life which feels natural, fulfilling and aligned to who you are.

I’m only opening up this program to a small group of people, based on who I think will get the most out of it.

So if this sounds like something you might be interested in, please hit reply and let me know why.

Replying to this email won’t just let me know you might be interested. It will also give you the opportunity to influence the program itself.

I look forward to hearing from you.