WELCOME TO 2024
Dear Readers
I hope you had the best Christmas and New Year break and that you were surrounded by all those people who mean the most to you.
I also hope 2024 turns out to be a good year for you and your loved ones.
I thought the New Year might be a good place to explain how 45 Not Out came into being. In March this newsletter will be 3 years old and some fab women have followed it along the journey. But over the years more fab people have joined the newsletter and may not know the story of how it came into being.
So here goes….
When my eldest daughter went off to Uni I had a knee jerk reaction and went back into self employment. I’d had a previous career as a freelance marketer some years previously, but abandoned that for school-friendly jobs whilst my two daughters were young.
I’d had a nice little business previously, working a couple of days a week from home with regular, loyal clients and earning a good living. So naively I thought I could slip straight back into where I left off.
How wrong I was.
Not only had the digital revolution taken place during my absence and my skillset needed a ton of skilling up, but I was twenty years older - in my early 50’s. I could do something about the first challenge (I went on a crusade to learn what I was missing) but I couldn’t do anything about the second.
It manifested itself in some subtle (and not so subtle) downright ageism. To raise my profile I was attending a lot of networking events around 2015/2016 when the digital revolution was making millionaires of some early adopters of digital skills, particularly in Manchester. I was mixing with these new entrepreneurs and, unfortunately, these were the kinds of clients I needed to get my business off the ground.
I was going to events and having conversations with these business owners and experiencing downright rudeness (think walking off whilst in mid conversation with someone) and ageism. I think one even said that they doubted very much that I could do what I was saying I could do! And it was all down to the fact that I wasn’t a 20/30 something.
Eventually I met some forward thinking business who I took on as clients, who valued the depth of my experience and I had good working relationships with. But I had to put up with the continued ageism from some quarters for the next four years
Around this time, podcasting crossed my path, so I took a leap of faith and started the 45 Not Out podcast to see if it would resonated with anyone. Well, it really did and people came out of the woodwork to say that they’d experienced exactly what I had. The podcast grew to 21 episodes and you can find out more about the podcast here.
Next, I plucked up the courage to start the newsletter a year later and that began to grow too, with fab women staying as subscribers from the beginning - thank you to those - you know who you are :)
As the 45 Not Out community grew, I realised I needed a hub - somewhere those people who thought like I did could use a community and discuss issues that are relevant to people at our stage in life and support each other.
So, I founded the 45 Not Out Community Facebook Group. This is the beating heart of 45 Not Out and it’s the first port of call for anybody curious about 45 Not Out. It’s a closed Facebook group, meaning no posts are visible to non-members and what goes on in the group stays in the group.
And I’m delighted to say the group is growing and my mission is to grow the group to a size big enough where it gets enough traction it can start to help to make the changes we want to see.
If you’re not already a member of the group (and why not?) you can ask to join the group here
So, that’s a brief outline of how 45 Not Out came into being. But what about the future? Well, one of my goals for this year is to make 45 Not Out a business in its own right that helps to make a difference in society for those women at this stage in life. I’d like women of our generation to be listened to more and included on any decision-making. I’m not entirely sure how that might happen, but I’m just focusing on that fully right now.
If you have any ideas or thoughts, I’d love to hear them. You can contact me by just replying to this newsletter and we can start a conversation from there.
So, that’s a potted history of how 45 Not Out came into being. If you already know the story I apologise for the repetition.
I’ll continue to issue the newsletter weekly and publish things that happen that resonate with women like us. And if there’s anything you like me to cover or mention, again just reply to this newsletter.
So, as we start the journey of 2024, I’d just like to wish you a cracking year and the confidence and opportunity to achieve what you’d like to achieve this year. And the newsletter (and the other 45 Not Out platforms) will be right behind you all the way.
Here’s to wonderful 2024.
Take care
Una x
