In the latest in our Finances after Fifty series, we meet 55-year-old Steve Smith, a former London insurance broker who moved to "paradise" to start a business and lead a very different life. He talks to Anna Harcourt.
I grew up in England. We moved around a lot, and I lived in Holland for five years as a child. My father had his own business, he sold paper, reams of paper to offices and other companies. He followed the work.
Mum was a mum, up until when I started secondary school. She then went out to work at Stansted Airport, she used to work at the call centre.
I think when you grow up, quite often you don't see money, mum and dad look after all that. It's only later in life that they may tell you some things you probably never realised. I don't think we were ever hard up, but there are times when it was difficult.
I started working at the age of 12, a Saturday job. I worked in a store that sold jeans and specialist clothing to the farming and building community. At the end of the day I used to have nine pounds in my hand. Straight away my mum said “Go open a bank account”. If I had nine pound, I was allowed four pound for me, and five pound going to the bank. So that worked really well because it taught me the value of money. If I haven't got it, I can't buy it.
I lived in a place called Bishop's Stortford in Hertfordshire for 30 odd years. I worked for Marsh [the largest insurance company in the world], I was an insurance broker, commuting to London every day, 35 to 40 minutes. Used to have a fantastic office opposite the Tower of London, it was great. I enjoyed that very much.
Then I met my wife Jo. She's from Te Kūiti. She was working for another insurance company and she and the CEO and a few other leadership people came over to the UK. I was asked to host some clients at the insurance awards at the Royal Albert Hall, and there was a whole group of us on this table. I had these clients to entertain all night long and talk and talk, that was my job, but I felt really bad because I couldn't talk to her.
So I finally got a bit of a reprieve and I said to her, “Well, I'd love to show you around London”. And then she said, “It's my birthday. Where should I go for lunch?” And so I took her to a fantastic little pie and mash shop. That was 2011.
So we were together and working for two or three years in London. And it was around that time I started thinking, I’m not sure I want to be doing this for the rest of my life. I enjoyed insurance, what I did was very, very much fun. But sometimes, whilst I knew I was doing good for my clients, I just got a bit tired of some of the culture, the corporate world. I think also, working for other people, I just got a bit fed up with what was happening.
The vast majority of people I worked with were absolutely brilliant, and you're meeting some of the most knowledgeable, experienced people in business. But there are also one or two that are bullies. They shout, they demand, they don't treat people nicely. That's what I got tired of. The dishonesty that you find, they're in it for themselves.
As I was approaching 40, I started to think about things, and that's when I started going “Okay, do I want to be doing this for the rest of my life? No.”
I said to Jo one day, "Had enough?” At that point I'd taken redundancy. Jo was working for someone else, but she really had had enough. So I said, "OK, I'm going to spend every waking moment doing some research about moving back to New Zealand”. And that was August 2014, I would have been 43.
In February 2015 we moved here, and I love it. I'm a citizen. Would not change it for anything, as much as I miss a good pub. We had a child — unexpected, but brilliant. He’s now 10.
I have a penchant for buying watches, I've bought them to commemorate certain points in my life. When I emigrated here, it was quite a big thing because I sold everything up in the UK. Sold my house, sold the car. And that's when I bought my two single biggest purchases.
It was our last night in London before doing some travelling around the UK. I had picked up my immigration documentation that morning, and I was in this wine bar in Selfridges, and I just stood there and then off I went and bought a watch. Rather a lot of money. Then bought an engagement ring from Tiffany. So again, rather a lot of money. And that was the defining moment of the new adventure. I have not bought a watch since. No, I've got priorities. And now I sit there and think, crikey, how much money did I spend? But then, I had it at the time.
For the move to New Zealand, I was excited, very much excited. We had our plan, and of course all that changed because we discovered we were pregnant.
So Jo got the job she wanted in New Zealand, and that's led her onto some fantastic things. I couldn't get the job I wanted, so I went, well, why don't I be a stay-at-home dad? I did that for about two and a half years.
I learnt more being a parent than I did working. How to deal with people, how to treat people, be in a different environment —I'm trying to negotiate with someone who can't even string one word together! Also most of the people in those circles of parenthood were women, so I was an odd one out. That was difficult, but it was a great experience.
I began working as a business broker in 2019. I work at NZ Business Brokers and sell businesses for people, and quite often, what they want me to do is solve a problem. And that problem often is that they want the money from the business sale to go towards something, invariably their retirement. They often have no idea what the business is worth. They think the business is going to give them a million dollars, and then they're quite disappointed when it doesn't. So what I try and do is help them put strategies into place to get them through it.
I make introductions. So I've got a group of trusted advisors that I go to. It's very much working together to achieve a goal, and that's why I enjoy it. If I sell someone's business, I've helped two people. I've helped someone exit their business, which is quite often solving a problem, and they can move on to their next adventure, and then I've helped somebody else kickstart their adventure.
Finding the right advisor is important. You've got to meet someone in person, and you've got to sit down and think, ‘I can trust this person’. If they haven't got the time to talk to you, if they're just sending you down one path, or they're not listening to you, then don't go with them.
I'm happy to be self-employed. I get the time to do great things, meet new people every day. I get to go to my son's sports day. I get to take him on his school trips. We get to go to the hui when that's held. I get to be available on the teacher-only days or during the school holidays, and go exploring, go to museums, go to Te Papa.
When you're in that big corporate environment, you often feel on your own. And now that I’m self-employed, I am on my own. But you feel much happier.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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