1. Moment in the Sun - The Living End
Late 2008.
The GFC is in full swing and dominating the news.
Banks are collapsing, shares are crashing, governments are trying not to panic.
I’m working in a suburban stockbroking office, ostensibly as their in-house financial adviser there to advise the stockbrokers clients.
That all stopped when the market tanked and margin calls began.
The brokers days were filled with urgent calls from margin lenders:
Bank: “They’re in breach of their LVR, they need to sell down or pay some cash in”
Broker: “They can’t sell down, the shares will come back! Don’t sell too soon — they’l come back!”
These conversations eventually disappeared, replaced by missed calls and broker absences.
All the while my assistant and I sat there, twiddling our thumbs and helping the few clients we had as well as could.
Wondering quite what the point of it all was.
But in the months before the GFC hammer fell, I’d been getting itchy feet.
The office had been poorly managed before the financial world collapsed.
It certainly did not improve after.
Despite our pleading, our motivated entreaties, nothing was changing.
And nothing ever would.
So I had started thinking — what if I did this on my own? Could I really do a worse job than what’s going on here? What’s the worst that could happen?
Once those thoughts are in your head, it’s nigh on impossible to silence them.
But it still takes time to work out just what you’re going to do, and how, and with whom, and a million other questions.
While I was pondering these issues, the environment around me became more sclerotic and more dysfunctional.
Being paid on time was no longer a given.
Abuse from other people’s clients was wearing thin.
Covering for broker absences grew old.
Our patron in the office was drowning under his own pressures.
Even so, I still had some doubts.
For anyone that’s started their own business, I can only assume you also had this period before taking the plunge where you hesitated.
Where you paused and asked:
‘Can I actually do this?’
This was when I first heard the Living End song, Moment in the Sun.
Sitting at my desk, headphones in (against an edict that even then I thought was old fashioned), on came this song from The Living End’s fourth album, White Noise.
The intro punches you in the ears first off — rolling drum fill, noodling from Australia’s best guitarist Chris Cheney.
Then the anthem kicks in.
…nothing ever changes/ I couldn’t be any less proud…
And off it goes, smashing through verses and choruses, screaming the message that times have changed, and now it’s our turn.
It was a serendipitous piece of timing.
Even for someone not prone to superstition, the symbolism was quite persuasive.
This is our moment in the sun
This is our time to run
Because there’s nothing left for us here
There’s nothing left for us anymore
They’d captured the feeling of decay and frustration and disappointment that permeated my workplace.
And it came at it from a ‘f*%# it, let’s do it’ angle that was just what I needed to push me into what was then the most momentous decision of my life.
It wasn’t, I should point out, what made me do it.
But it was the 2% extra push I needed to make the decision.
It was quite an exhilarating moment.
And I sat there and listened to that song another 11 times.
Then I went home and told my then-girlfriend-now-wife I was ready to do it, and registered my company.
The ball was rolling and off we went.
I’ve listened to the song since and it still makes me think about that day.
It’s a good song (rather than a great one), but when it combined with the intoxicating combination of timing, irritation, optimism and determination it became this final ingredient that completely adrenalised the process.
Maybe I’m biased, but listening to it now I can’t help but wonder if it could have a similar impact for people in the final stages of a relationship.
I’m never going to encourage someone to walk away from a marriage, but for those in a dying — or — dead relationship, I wonder if this would have any power:
Living underneath a gray cloud
When nothing ever changes
I couldn’t be any less proud
The heart of this town has grown cold
I’m gonna get out before I get too old
There in a better time than now
And I’ve realised that in our work with people going through a big transition, we’re hopefully assisting them go from that, to this point:
Well, this is the right place
And this is the right time
For our moment in the sun
Moment in the sun, go
