S1E13 - Unlucky For Some

Jim Banks [00:00:00]:
Back in the early nineties I sold insurance for a living. My backstory is it was something I was good at. Selling insurance was so easy, but the industry got more and more complex and less enjoyable due to lots of miss selling scandals. Most people talk about their hero story, but I have to be honest, my life was a shit show back then. I definitely didn't have a hero story to share. I grew to dislike insurance so much that in 1999 I turned my back on it. After twelve years I took a 50% cut in salary and an even bigger cut in on target earnings and ventured into the world of digital marketing. But I want to take you back a little further in time for this story.

Jim Banks [00:00:38]:
My podcast is about making bad decisions and learning from them. I think it's important to know the origin of the circumstances that fueled me to turn things around. In the early nineties I lived in a place called Bracknell. It was one of the most recently created new towns in the UK. I absolutely hated the place. I lived in the shittiest part of a shitty place. I moved there because the girl I was dating at the time had friends that lived there and property prices were cheaper. A small terrace house was all I could afford.

Jim Banks [00:01:07]:
I say I could afford. That wasn't really strictly true. I moved there using borrowed money from my parents to put down a deposit for the house. Because I'd been a bit frivolous with my money. I went drinking and clubbing a lot. I also used to gamble. Like most gamblers, I only told people about my wins, never my losses, and I never really knew how to control my addiction. So I moved to Bracknell.

Jim Banks [00:01:29]:
Things didnt go too well with the girl I was dating or with the property market. The value of the house was less than the mortgage. Even allowing for the deposit id paid with my folks money. We split up and she wanted me to buy her out. It was a bit rich when shed contributed nothing to the mortgage payments, nothing towards the bills. But her dad, who ironically has the same name as Mister Beast as in Jimmy Donaldson. He was a financial advisor and they thought they could shake me down. And guess what? It worked.

Jim Banks [00:01:59]:
I bought her out with what little money I had saved. I then got involved with a girl next door. Shed been living with a guy who I had helped get a job in insurance. He was much younger than she was, had very little in common. She decided one day she'd had enough of him and kicked him out. I don't remember much of the circumstances, but I know we ended up living together, getting engaged and then getting married really quickly, she quit her job almost immediately that happened. We couldn't sell my house as I had negative equity, so I rented it out to the council. I had been promoted at work and things were going well.

Jim Banks [00:02:34]:
So well that I was poached by a different division of the business. Joined a division of the business called the Tiger team, an elite squad of super sellers who would go into troubled business units and turn things around. I loved it, but it really did mean spending a lot more time away from home until we then moved to a village in south Wales. I got a 115% loan to value mortgage and brought with me about 20,000 pounds of debt from the previous house. My then wife was a manic depressive, a shopaholic and. And when I left the house in the morning she would be in her dressing gown and when I got home, she would still be in her dressing gown. I just couldn't make the money as quick as she spent it. But I didn't know how to help her stop spending money.

Jim Banks [00:03:16]:
Eventually, after changing from that job, which I had, which I loved, to another one to be closer to home, I found myself going out to work in the morning and then going home at lunchtime, worried what I might find when I got back. I started to earn less and worry more. I felt trapped both at work and at home. I was damned if I left and I was damned if I stayed. Eventually it got to the point I'd completely run out of money options and patience. And I decided that I was going to apply for a job in another part of the country and end my marriage. Bringing any sort of relationship to an end is hard work or personal, but staying in that relationship or staying in a job you don't like is not good for anyone involved. If you can't in give it your all, then for the benefit of all concerned, make a decision.

Jim Banks [00:04:00]:
A friend of mine once said when he was stuck on making a decision, he would toss a coin. I said that leaving something to a 50 50 choice like a coin toss, was a really bad way to make a decision. He said to me that when you toss a coin, you call out heads or tails. So as an example, heads we go for indian food, tails we stay at home and eat salad. Then when the coin is spinning, whatever you call as your choice is actually the outcome that you want. Heads, I'm quitting this job, tails I'm staying and going to make it work. So back to the story of living in South Wales. I went for an interview, got the job, and when I was driving back home.

Jim Banks [00:04:35]:
I didn't have enough money. It was about three pounds 50 pence to pay the toll to cross the Severn bridge. So I ended up having to take a major detour to get home, which added an hour to my journey. The petrol I had was paid for using credit cards I couldn't afford to pay. I I had the indignity of watching a post office assistant cut up my bank card because the bank were trying to get me to stop guaranteeing checks I had no right to guarantee. I was on the verge of bankruptcy and my absolute financial low. For this new job, I needed to have no adverse credit. So reluctantly, I borrowed money from my mum to pay my debt.

Jim Banks [00:05:08]:
I said I would pay her back and let's face it, kids always do. But really she didn't want it back. She was just happy to help. Albeit it all came with a bit of a lecture that I really didn't need. Fast forward to the day I married my lovely wife Sherry in Cyprus in September 2006. My mum passed me a scrap of paper. She had kept a note of everything she'd lent me and every pound I'd paid her back and my slate was clean. I didn't do it for her.

Jim Banks [00:05:34]:
She didn't want or need it. I did it for me. So when I went over that same bridge a few months ago to a school reunion in Cardiff, I thought about that fateful trip and the impact it had on my life. It now has a different name and is called the Prince of Wales Bridge and no longer has a toll. That was scrapped in 2018 because the bridge builders had paid back their debt. Had I not experienced that humiliating melod, I might never have had the fire to succeed inside me. So many bad decisions in this story, but it proves you can go from nothing to achieving a lot if you believe in yourself and surround yourself with people who also believe in you and try the coin toss if you are stuck on making a decision for fear is a bad one, heads is a good decision, Tails is a bad decision. I choose heads.

Jim Banks [00:06:16]:
That's all for this episode. Hope you indulge me sharing some of my soul with you. Make sure you follow the podcast on whatever platform you listen to podcasts on because my guest on the next episode is Nava Hopkins, who is the evangelist of Optimizer and I can't wait for you to listen to that episode and would hate for you to miss it.