Who is Michael Brown? And how this book could save lives.

I’ve been working with mid career workers around the world for nearly 20 years, and over that time have met roughly 10,000 individuals, most of them face to face in the trusted space of a training room. This has given me privileged insight into their hopes and fears, and the challenges they are having to deal with from all directions. The experience has also allowed me to find out what techniques they find most useful in boosting what I call their career mojo.

Before becoming a trainer I spent 15 years in the hospitality business in the UK, where through largely trial and error I worked my way up from being a warehouse supervisor to driving the marketing activity across a chain of 4500 pubs. I developed coping strategies for dealing with the boss from hell and learnt how to deal with corporate dysfunction in its many guises.

This book waves the flag for the mid careerers, whose story is largely untold. In my opinion the Millennials get more attention than they deserve, and there is possibly too much written about Leadership. We forget how the  unsung heroes in “the middle” who bear the brunt need to be supported as well. This book is for them.

The book also has a higher level purpose now that it did not have when I started writing it. It has potential to save lives.

On Good Friday my wife and I had a lovely day out in on the coast. We cooked a nice supper, watched a cooking programme together and went to bed early at 10pm. The next morning the alarm went off as usual at 6am, and Charlotte didn’t turn it off. Thinking this odd, I got out of bed to wake her up from what looked like a blissfully deep sleep. It took me ten minutes to come to the awful reality that she was dead.

Charlotte had died of a massive pulmonary thromboembolism: a huge clot in the pulmonary artery between the heart and lungs. It causes instant shut down, and her death was painless and she knew nothing about it.

She was a fit and healthy 57 year old: a non smoker, not on any medication, who didn’t know her doctor’s name because she never went to see him: a dog walker with a love of the moors and valleys around here. The post mortem found all her organs to be healthy, as was her blood and arteries. No explanation was given. If this could happen to her, it could happen to any of us.

Why am I telling you this? Because you and I can do something about this. Cardiovascular related deaths are the biggest killer of all: one in 4 deaths in the UK is attributed to this, and 420 people will accordingly die in Britain the day you read this.

Further research is being done into thrombosis, so we can find out how such a sudden and terminal event can sneak up and take you away before your time. I have set up a Just Giving page for Charlotte with the aim of raising £50,000 to support the British Heart Foundation in their research into this field. All the funds raised will go specifically towards research into thrombosis which is currently being undertaken at Birmingham University. The BHF are spending £35 million over 3 years on this research, so as an organisation they are making huge difference to our understanding in this field, and there are several exciting developments which could represent real breakthrough.

I am going to donate all the proceeds from the sale of the book to the Foundation (as well as organising other events so we can smash the target). Therefore people who buy the book are in effect contributing to the research. My Job Isn’t Working!  now has a higher level purpose, and one which I hope evokes your support. Thank you.