I recall starting a new job when I was in my late 30s. I had been running my own business importing women’s fashion clothing into the UK and wholesaling it to upmarket independent women’s dress shops from a fancy display unit in the rag trade area, behind Oxford Street in London. Then the supply end in South Africa failed to deliver. As I was closing things down and letting the showroom, I thought how much I would enjoy working with property. An old friend was now running the property development side of his family’s business, and an opportunity opened up for me to join him. I did not have much experience, so I prepared carefully for my interview with his uncle, the founder of the much-larger conglomerate of construction businesses. I related to him how I had purchased and developed a residential property (which happened to be my own home) some years previously to get myself out of debt. The story was impressive enough for him, and I was hired at a good salary.
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