Episode Details

I've known Nish for over 25 years. He was there when I started my first job out of school, and over the years our careers and lives intersected. These days, as well as being a friend, Nish and his family are also clients. For many years Nish was a financial planner, even running his own firm for a period. To have someone with that professional skill and background decide to engage me and my firm to act as their financial planner is to me, one of the greatest professional compliments you can receive. Today I'm really excited to share with you a little bit of Nish's hugely successful transition from the corporate world to running his own photography business – Nish Photography. But it doesn't just stop there. Because Nish and his incredibly supportive wife Janine made a second transition a few years later by making a sea-change. Leaving the big smoke with its big mortgage and hecticness, and moving the family to a small seaside community about an hour out of Melbourne. Nish and his family have never been happier. I asked Nish how these two major transitions came about, and I think there is absolute gold in what he was able to share. So let's dive in and take a look at this real life example of someone who has achieved choices in life, true financial autonomy. So far in Financial Autonomy – the audio blog, we've looked at different transitions that you might make in your life – moving from being an employee to starting your own business, reinventing yourself after a redundancy, or rebuilding after a divorce. In future episodes we'll be exploring many more, like planning financially for starting a family, making a career change, and retirement. Today though I'm really fortunate to be able share with you a real life experience of someone who has successfully achieved not one but two major transitions. In preparing for this piece I interviewed Nish to gain a better understanding of how his move from the corporate financial world to running a photography business unfolded, and then how he and his family subsequently made the transition from inner city life to a small seaside community. I started by asking why he decided to make the initial move from the finance world, where he had worked in various roles for around 20 years, into photography. He attributed the initial steps in that direction to a discussion he had with a psychologist who encouraged him to spend more time and energy doing the things he loved. His two great passions beyond his family were music and photography. So he took some singing lessons and picked up some small gigs playing his guitar and performing. Now that's no small thing. First you need to acquire the skill of singing (he already knew how to play the guitar), then you need to have the courage to get up and perform in front of real people, and then you need to find venues and convince them to let you play, ideally with you receiving some money for the effort. He did it. Next came photography. Nish told me he'd essentially missed the transition in photography from film to digital, so as with the singing lessons in pursuing his musical interests, there was a financial and time investment to be made in bringing his skills and equipment up to the level required. He recognised that the singing wasn't likely to be a viable alternative to his current career, but saw that photography presented the possibility of building a business and giving him an option to escape corporate cubicle captivity. So he launched his photography business as a side project, working on weekends. His initial focus was family portraits and weddings. He built his web site, and promoted himself through word of mouth. He gained valuable experience and knowledge. He operated this way, working his normal job, and developing his photography business on the side for roughly 12 months. This is a great strategy to progress