Yeh I agree, they are basically in order of both whats most likely to happen and what I would prefer to happen. Although ofc 3 >1 if I can find the next Facebook. I watched Social Network a few nights ago btw, definitely recommend.
If I aksed myself 2 years ago where I'd be in 5 years I think I would have had a very different answer..
At this time I was just graduating from university. I had graduated in Journalism, I enjoyed writing and was mostly passionate about writing about politics, law and sport. I would regularly go to Brammal (spell-check
)l Lane and write a match report of just write reports from my University games. I often wouldn't even send them to magazines/newspapers and genuinely enjoyed writing about things I was passionate in. I write a lot on Blonde and I write very quickly and don't spell-check/reread etc but when I take time to write I write very differently and really enjoy it. It's very relaxing for me and kind of helps keep my mind off things.
So of course poker was still my passion and I continued to look into areas on how I could get involved. My dissertation was seperated into two parts, a) A boring essay that I spent a decent amount of time on and got a great mark. and b) A poker magazine which I spend absolutely ages on and got a shit mark. I had managed to get the top top worldwide poker players and people in the industry to contribute, I spent ages making sure the writing was better than Jesse May's and I had spent a ridiculous amount of time on the design which was something I had always struggled with.
The tutor who marked it didn't appreciate the time spent or the quality of all the research/writing. For those who did a business magazine I basically had their version of Alan Sugar and Mark Zuckerburg (sp) was pretty tilted but meh..
So around 3 months later I email Barry Carter about working in poker journalism. He told me that PokerPlayer were looking for a new staff member. As expected many many people want to be poker journalists and thus there was a lot of interest. I was really excited about the interview as going down to London on the train in a suit and going to a big company whose magazines you had bought every month for 2 years is obviously great.
The first interview was good, I can't remember much, but I remember the guys making a great impression on me and 1 hour later I was going back to Newcastle on the train. I can't remember exactly when this was but I think Man United had just beat Roma 5-1 or something.
Surprisingly I heard back from PokerPlayer and they invited me down for a second interview. In this we had to plan write an article which I think remembering back now was related to PKR. I wrote a really good piece that I had went over and over to make sure it was perfect. I was either playing Football Manager or playing poker on the PC on the side whilst doing this article. No idea what happened but kaboom and the Laptop is absolutely GG'd. I had like 45 minutes to send this article in and had to do it from scratch on my Dad's old monitor which didn't have word and thus send a really bad article iin a really tilting format to Paul Cheung who must have thought I was an absolute clown.
I had planned moving to London, I loved the hustle and bustle of the streets, people in suits, pretentious people walking about looking down at you. I just found it all so fascinating.
They replied that another guy had eventually got the job and I was quite devastated, they asked me to do some freelance stuff and I did a few articles. One was about Aspers Newcastle and the other was an interview I did with Jack Ellwood just after he had won basically everything in a 12 month period.. We went to a Weatherpersons in Newcastle and it ended up being a pretty nice piece
Around this time I started working for a financial advisor in Newcastle. I was in charge of social media and all things "networky" I really enjoyed the business aspect of the company and spent alot of time persuading the boss to allow me to do more hands on things. I enjoyed the challenge of trying to convince a 60 year old guy that he should invest all of his retirement money into a company that was basically being represented by a 22 year old guy wearing a Barbour and a stripey tie. Anyway I eventually was approached by PS and moved to Gib.
Since I moved to Gib I stopped writing as much as a lot of my job contains writing. Very different writing such as whitepapers and reports that are more formal than fancy. I'm really really happy to be working in the poker industry and think I would have found my way here some way or another but I think I could have been extremely happy working in London for the best poker magazine in the UK.
Looking back at ^^^^ makes me smile a lot. I really remember all of it so well.
If it makes you feel any better it was easily the hardest recruitment decision I've ever had to make. Two very different candidates who would have both done a brilliant job. I was genuinely gutted at having to give you the news and was made up when I heard about the PS job. It seems to suit you down to the ground and the poker industry definitely needs more passionate people in it.
Tyvm for the kind words. We try. And you will be pleased to know I wind up Keir the entire time saying 'Patrick Leonard would have known that...' etc etc
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