You Stupid Boy! Name Change?
Finally, after 5 years of the “Upstairs Downstairs” scenario of my marriage, I had my own place. It didn’t have a stick of furniture, but I knew my headspace would be better.
My first purchase was a bed…wow…an actual bed. Having sofa-surfed for five years, I couldn’t imagine what having a proper bed would be like anymore.
It took months to gradually bring things together to make the flat a home, a home for me and my thoughts…and yes, plenty still lay heavy on my mind.
The loss of 5 family members, which included my parents, the work disruptions, including redundancy and of course the marital breakdown and all within that 5-year slot of my life…depressing? Yes…and I knew I needed to press the reset button.
In regards to employment, I had decided I was going to focus on self-employment in Web design…that may sound a little random based on some of my previous careers, but I had amassed a great deal of computer-based skills over the years.
I had had a computer of some kind or other since the days of the ZX-81 and Commodore 64. Eventually I had moved on to a desktop PC (when they became a thing lol) and leapt into the world of online business…yup…when that became a thing also!
Back in the day, HTML coding was the only way of putting together websites, so I learned the skill.
Online business was only just starting out when I first got internet access, but I had quickly realised that there was “money in them there hills”.
I remember making friends with a guy in Ohio. He was a ventriloquist dummy creator…but also he had started to get into network marketing.
Websites in those days were basic, to say the least, a varying coloured main landing page and text, sometimes an image. But my friend across the pond was looking at creating business-based newsletters, things that people would subscribe to and that would contain ad copy and therefore a monetized side.
With my interest in writing, this sounded like the way to go…and hey, would it ever catch on? It was worth a punt…something I worked with him on for a year or so, until suddenly my communications with him dropped off.
I later found out he had sadly passed away…life eh?
Fastforwarding some years and now faced with working out how to bring in some money, a web-based business was a perfect fit. I had moved along with the times in respect to the advancements of web design and networking and had already built a few websites for myself.
I found out that the Chamber of Commerce had a support process connected to the Job Centre which assisted people starting a new business.
It meant I could draw a level of unemployment benefit whilst setting up as long as I met with a Chamber of Commerce mentor once a week.
My mentor was a retired Bank Manager, he was great and uncannily looked very much like Arthur Lowe (Captain Mainwaring - who was also a Bank Manager) from the Dad’s Army TV series.
He soon realised I actually gained nothing (based on my previous career experience on skills) from the weekly visits apart from a signature on a piece of paper to prove I had been and in order to get my unemployment benefit. But we got on well, he spoke a lot about his life and we drank coffee whilst putting the world to rights.
Whilst looking for new business leads, I happened across someone in my local area wanting a website for her photography business, and as it happened they lived just 10 minutes walk from my new flat.
This was to be my first new commission with my newly set up business, but also the start of a life-changing friendship with both the photographer and her husband.
Creating the website took a month or so and several business meetings…ok ok…beers in our local pub.
The three of us got on really well and started to spend more time together and beyond the website creation process.
We probably met, on average, at least once a week…in the pub… don’t judge me! But also we had the “Monthly Blow Out”, this was a Saturday where we met at the “Pave” pub, just a short walk from my flat and situated at the end of their street.
The day kicked off around 1100hrs with a full English breakfast and a pint. When breakfast was over, we had, what became customary, a shot of Black Sambuca. And then off into the city to do the rounds of our favourite pubs in the Old Town area.
What happened from there, well it got a bit messy and generally spanned 8 to 10hrs…a blow out for sure ha.
Anyway, during one of our deep intellectual chats on one of the “MBO’s”, I spoke about my need for a full personal reset. They were aware of the rough 5 years and understood where I was coming from on that.
So, the conversation turned to “I am thinking of changing my name”…little bit of a show stopper statement as they weren’t sure it was potentially a positive way to go.
I explained that for the last 15 years I had been known and identified in business as “JTB”, which wasn’t a massive deal other than I wanted to do something that had a positive impact for me mentally. I understood the gravity of the fact that my family may frown upon such a decision, but I was set on it…this was one of my reset goals.
So, the discussion went around potential names and hey, I didn’t settle with any of the options we came up with that evening on our 8-hour pub crawl. We talked about it over several days and then it was set.
I went through the legal change of names process, changing passports and all such things, and my reset button was well and truly pressed.
As a footnote to this, my family were fine about it and quickly got used to calling me by my new name.
Whilst the hurt of all the previous years would never be erased, I felt a release from some of the associations with my married name and the engrained business identity that called me back to the darkness.
Until Next Time
Next Time: 🎶 D.I.V.O.R.C.E 🎶
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