Moments That Changed Your Life | Easy English 132

Life's for living

and doing everything you wanna do, every day.

If we really wanted to make it,

we needed to move to London.

So, we packed up all of our stuff and we did it.

I'm not a rich man, but I'm not a poor man.

But yeah, it's just been a time for reflection in the last two years

and just thinking; what's it all about?

Having to actually care for a human,

on a day... a minute to minute basis,

because you're sustaining them,

you're literally responsible for them,

to keep them alive.

It was too fast paced.

It felt almost like a rat race there, you know.

Everyone...

each to their own.

Hiya, so this week, I wanted to ask a more deep

and meaningful question to the people of Brighton.

I wanted to know if they've ever experienced

a moment in time that's made them

change the course of their life.

Now, I'm not just looking for negative stories,

I'm also interested in the positive realisations

that have changed peoples futures.

Now before we get started,

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Welcome to Easy English, here we go!

Tell me your life changing moment.

My life changing moment, was when my wife's sister,

unfortunately, was lost to leukaemia.

And it made me realise, life's for living

and doing everything you wanna do, every day.

And how long ago was that?

- 15 years.

15 years ago.

Do you have, like, a life changing moment in your mind?

My life changing moment, for myself was moving to Brighton.

Because, it's a lovely area, very calm and relaxing,

but a lot of opportunity still.

I come from quite a dead-end place...

well, I wouldn't say it's dead-end,

but not as much opportunity.

- Yeah.

And erm... it's more of a younger crowd,

easier, go with the flow place here and perfect energy.

Life changing moment for me.

It was definitely making the move,

over to the UK from South Africa, with my husband.

That was a... like, a huge, life changing thing for me.

Okay, and what led you to do that?

We...

me and my husband are both tattoo artists

and we kind of, felt like if we really wanted to make it,

we needed to move to London.

So, we packed up all of our stuff and we did it.

And now we've been here for like,

three and a half years and we love it.

Yeah, so can you tell me your kind of, life changing moment?

I'm living in Australia, I employ a lot of people in my business

and I spent two years during COVID trying to assist everyone else

and maybe I lost sight of my own issues.

So, it made me reflect after COVID;

reflected what life was really all about and...

in terms of finances and stuff.

And I've brought forward my retirement, to this year.

And... and basically smell the roses.

I was an artist manager,

so I was dealing with... with kind of, everything.

I was working in... with an artist sort of, business structure.

And it's a lot more intense pressure,

because you're working with everything

that the artist wants to do, on a day to day basis, you know.

The relationships can become quite strained

and quite toxic and stuff like that.

And, you just...

I'd been doing it for so long,

I did it for over ten years

and you get sort of, sucked into it

and you're carrying other people's pressures

and it can be hard to put it down,

because it's a round the clock job.

It made me realise that, having the kid, on top of COVID,

coming in and shutting everything down

and making me kind of, reassess my...

my own priorities,

it made me realise that actually,

with no reflection on any of the artists I worked with,

that I was very unhappy in the job and the...

I wasn't...

I wasn't happy with the lack of boundaries,

I wasn't happy with the pressure that was on me, in that situation.

And I reconnected with a lot of music and realised that,

in a lot of ways, even though I was working in music,

I'd lost my love for it, in a lot of ways,

because I was seeing, too much, how the sausage was made,

in a...

Oh.

- Good... good... good phrase.

You know, in a... in a negative way,

I was seeing too (much) behind the curtain and...

And all of those things just kind of, stacked up

and it made me take a dive.

I basically took a voluntary redundancy from a relatively,

well paid job.

- A big step.

- Yeah, to nothing.

- Wow, yeah.

In order to kind of, connect...

reconnect with my desire to work creatively.

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Now back to the episode.

And so, what kind of changed 15 years ago in your...

in your life, because of that?

Stopped working so hard, made sure I had time for my kids, my family.

And realised that every day is a blessing.

So kind of, live each day kind of, vibe.

And how's that going?

Do you still kind of, have that...

is that something you always wake up thinking about?

It's ten o'clo...

what time is it?

11:00 on a Monday morning and I'm in Brighton

and I should have been in Liecester.

So yeah, I'm still living it.

Are you skiving off work?

- Yeah!

I'm skiving off work.

So you really are doing it!

- I'm really doing it man.

Wow okay, that's brilliant!

Some of my friends moved down the year before

and I felt they enjoyed it so much

and I felt like it was a time for me.

Like, I moved to London for a bit and it was just too fast paced.

Me too!

- It was too fast paced.

It felt almost like a rat race there, you know.

Everyone...

each to their own.

And I feel like Brighton's more like a community,

like a... almost like a small town; everyone knows everyone.

I was going to ask you like, what are like,

what are some good points of why people should move to Brighton?

Well, number one; obviously the sea.

Lovely people.

Yeah, just a lot of good opportunity.

And then, 'cos when you were in London,

you came from London to Brighton or you went back to Surrey?

I went back to Surrey for a bit.

I only lived in London for about a year.

I was doing insurance work and I felt like;

you know what?

That wasn't really for me; being behind a desk

and everything.

And I wanted to get out and about, you know.

I started working on a site for a bit and I've loved it, honestly.

And there's a lot of space around here.

A lot of... everything's being, you know, built up around here

and I felt, it's a good opportunity.

But now I'm moving and doing bar work

and like I say, there's so much opportunity,

different choices around here.

Are you creative as well?

Yeah, I am a creative, I do music

and I feel like it's a good area for that as well.

Lots of just, lovely people, in general,

who are very open to new opportunities and that.

And was it a spontaneous, kind of thing

or was it very well planned and conceived?

We had been thinking about it for like, since we visited.

So it was about a year and it took like, a year to kind of,

get all of our like, paperwork together.

So yeah...

- I imagine it's not so easy to...

- It was hard.

It was difficult.

- Yeah.

- But we did it and now we're here.

Congratulations.

- And we survived COVID.

And where is... do you have a tattoo shop now, open?

We...

we don't have... we don't own one, we work for...

I work for two different tattoo shops in London.

One is called 'Cloak and Dagger' and it's just off Brick Lane.

And then, the other one's called 'Seven Doors',

which is also just off Brick Lane,

so one's at the top, one's at the bottom

And when you say specific tattoos, what...

what...

what do you mean?

Is it... you said that UK...

a lot of like, traditional tattoos.

Ah okay.

Like, the sailor-y stuff?

- Yeah, exactly.

Is there a name for it?

- That... you can call it that, yeah.

Sailor-y stuff.

- It's fine, a lot of people call it that,

A lot of people just call it like, American traditional.

You can call... or just traditional.

Whatever...

whatever you want to call it.

Nice, and do you regret your life change, at all?

No, not at all.

If anything, I feel like I've grown a lot

since I've been here and I've made like,

really great friends and work has just taken off,

better than I could have hoped.

So all around, good decision.

- That's good to hear.

Ah congrats!

And so then, have you now moved to the UK or?

No, no.

I'm on holiday.

We had a tour planned around,

believe it or not, a Garth Brooks concert,

this weekend, in Dublin.

And my wife, being the Minister for Planning in our business...

in our family, decided to build an eight week holiday,

before the concert.

So we've been... we left Australia in July

and we're just coming to the end.

We've been in Italy, we've been in Cornwall.

- Wow!

St Ives and Glasgow; my home town.

And now down with family in Brighton, heading to Dublin on Thursday

and then home, next week to Australia.

- Bloody hell!

My next question was going to be;

and how is your life decision...

like, doing for you right now?

But it sounds like it's just all rosy.

Well, I'll be honest, the... the change, I'm struggling to be honest.

In terms of mentally, just with the...

I've worked since I was 15, so I'm 65,

I've been in business a long, long time,

employing hundreds of people over the years.

And honestly, am struggling with the concept of not working anymore

and not getting up at 05:30 every day, because I love my job.

But, I'll ease my way into it and...

and see what the next chapter in my life's got.

I want to give back.

I want to look after homeless kids and...

and see if I can maybe, point them in the right direction.

I was going to say, how do you intend to sort of,

spend your... once you return from your holidays,

to spend your free time?

I've got a thing; obviously, divorce rates in Australia, for instance,

every second marriage ends in divorce,

which means that children don't have a father figure, possibly,

to show them the way and then they go to crime.

I'm hoping that maybe, myself and some other people,

possibly some federal funding from Australia,

that we can put these kids in to careers

and show them that, you don't have to steal,

you don't have to break into people's homes.

We can show you, if you learn a trade and get a job,

you might be able to be successful.

And that's... that's my goal next.

You're going to be a philanthropist, are you?

Kind of, something like this?

Yeah, yeah.

Bit of my money and a bit of the government...

more of the government's, I might add.

I'm not a rich man, but I'm not a poor man.

But yeah, it's just been a time for reflection in the last two years

and just thinking; what's it all about?

And how's it going now then?

Great, yeah.

Very happy.

- Super happy?

Yeah, yeah.

- Yeah?

- Yeah.

- Nice.

Do you sort of, have contacts with people

who did the same thing you did, and you're like;

thank f...

I'm not involved in that anymore?

Yes, yeah.

- There's a lot of that is there?

Yeah, I mean, the thing is in management,

it will either...

it can... it can sort of,

crush you and people will just leave music entirely.

And I know... I know that,

I know a lot of people that have left music entirely,

because the pressure of being either an artist

or being a manager or whatever,

has just completely crushed their love for it.

And I could see that, that, was what was happening to me

and that's why I kind of, I decided to shift gears.

So, you're not bitter about the whole experience, at all,

'cos you got out of there quick enough?

Not at all, I have like...

I have memorabilia from my time in management hung on my walls.

Like, I'm happy that I sort of, did it in the end.

- Yeah, yeah.

But I'm also very, very happy that I got out.

I'm interested in hearing your stories

about how small or big moments

have changed the course of your life,

positive or negative, let us know in the comments below.

Thanks for watching this week's episode

and we'll see you next week.

Te-ra.