Maggie closes her PC at the end of yet another ordinary day in her swish city office. A day of mind-numbing (if well paid) glorified data inputting, mixed with the usual banal office banter. A day that ends yet again with the overwhelming inkling that she needs more to her working life.
There was a time when the thought of belonging to a corporate environment with its electric buzz, earning good money, eating in the latest restaurants and buying the odd designer handbag – had been enough to have Maggie brimming over with enthusiasm for a day's lemming-like slog... but when exactly that time was, Maggie struggles to remember.
Maggie can't recall when she started to hoard articles about female entrepreneurs from the papers and glossies. She can't recall when she stopped watching Friends and The OC and started staying in for Dragon's Den and The Apprentice. Maggie can't recall when her subscriptions to Elle and Marie Claire started to fall by the wayside and copies of Real Business had begun to amass in their place. When had she stoped indulging in Chicklit and swapped Jilly Cooper
It edged in very softly at first but now it seems to be part of her, whispering through her consciousness, prowling through her sleep, harnessing her attitude and grabbing hold of what she knows to be her destiny. Maggie can't deny it. Like an itch she is going to have to scratch. She is going to take the plunge and start her own business.
As she makes her way back to the comfort of her sofa, ibook and wireless internet, Maggie pushes through the throng on Oxford Street (the shoppers and workers around her have long lost their individuality and come to personify the consumer demographics which seem to occupy her every waking moment away from work!) and a familiar sense of excitement muddled with fear churns inside her. Her mind races with pros and cons. She knows her idea is good, she knows it has been a long time coming and that its not flash in the pan. She’s discussed it with her beloved Martin and her parents (despite their extreme dysfunctionality in most areas of adulthood they showed inordinate talent for business!) and some other experienced people whose opinions really matter to her. She knows she could make it work if a few things were in place (like some initial investment capital!!!).
Then unexpectedly Maggie feels very small for a moment. Her confidence gushes away and she grapples with a wave of familiar terror: Would any of these anonymous people around her really be interested in buying her product? Who was she to think she had a place in the world to sell her idea? Perhaps she was being ridiculously ego-centric thinking her business might be one of the ones to last past its first year? Could she really be responsible for keeping her own accounts (Maggie hates numbers!) “Oh gosh, what’s point?” thinks Maggie “Maybe I am just mad, a total fantasist or having an early mid life crisis?!”
As Maggie meanders back from her home tube, back to the cosy flat she shares with martin, the fear subsides and another light-bulb idea pops into her mind’s eye. She speeds up involuntarily to get inside and scribble it down. She makes an easy pasta supper (the idea of having friends for supper and dwindling over dinner party menus hasn’t crossed her mind for months!) She feels renewed vigour, nestles into the sofa with her beloved computer and starts to tap away. All those business books are coming useful now as she is writes her business plan and it flows.
Maggie knows the path to starting her business will be tough. She knows she will have to cut out the retail therapy and the girls’ nights outs. But she also knows that she won’t ever forgive herself if she doesn’t act soon… If she doesn’t act on her instinct and realise her inspired idea. “It’s time,” thinks Maggie “…for me to take the plunge. I'm going to become an entrepreneur!"
