Hello all! First time poster, thanks for having me. I am reaching out to you for any thoughts, help and advice on a possible change in career... I don't know where else to turn that I can maintain some anonymity. This is a bit lengthy, apologies, and I appreciate none of you might want to wade through it!
I am coming up for 37 and have worked in the travel industry, running a business with my mother, for around 14 years (she is MD, I am also a director). Our business is fairly successful (given that we are still in recovery after COVID), has an excellent reputation and is quite small - my mother and I both work full time and we have three staff doing the same. I am our most successful saleswoman, handle our social media and am essentially the manager. I don't really enjoy managing staff and am feeling a bit burnt out by it all. I work at least 40 hours per week and have a lot of responsibility, carrying an emergency phone around with me 24 hours a day for example. My Mum is in her mid 70s and still needs the salary to pay the mortgage. The business has been a labour of love and we are very proud of it but I can't remember a time when I didn't have some worry about it playing on my mind.
I earn £32k but get free trips abroad a few times a year, work from home and am essentially my own boss, but more and more I am dreaming of a change and of having less responsibility and a few less hours a week. I would love to close my computer at 5.30pm and not have to worry about it. I have already travelled a lot and have a very happy home life now so the free travel is not that important to me. Therefore I am thinking about potentially selling our business in the near future - the money from the sale would enable my mother to stop working and I would be free to pursue something else.
This raises the question... what on earth would I do? I need to step straight into something of a similar salary ideally, in order to cover my share of the mortgage and bills, but I do own part of the business and by selling I would have some money to help tide me over. I have a first class degree in History, English Literature and French but no qualifications beyond that. I DO have a lot of transferrable skills though I suppose, having run a successful business, but I am completely self-taught in that regard. I am great with people, have a good command of the English language, am not bad at maths, am very conscientious and pride myself on doing everything to a high standard... but I'm just at a loss for what to do and it feels like such a risk. I am also a fast reader and enjoy that, I wondered about copywriting jobs for example.
In an ideal world I'd love to pursue a career in history, which I love, or working for a charity like the Wildlife Trust. I also have a lot of experience with animals, big and small, and have fostered cats for charities so wouldn't mind getting involved in that area. I have to accept that by giving our business up, I would lose a lot of freedom... right now I work set hours but I am at home and can easily take time out for appointments and so on. But maybe that would be offset by having less worries? Our staff would also be deeply upset if we sold... we would do everything in our power to protect their roles and they are all experienced in the field and valuable to a buyer, but we are very easygoing employers.
Has anybody made a big change like this and do you regret it? What job did you go into? Am I mad?
Thanks so much if you made it this far!