A Brighter Future

This week it’s all about over­com­ing depres­sion, Lock­down and redun­dan­cy and forg­ing ahead on a new path which is exact­ly what Kris­t­ian Tay­lor Beau­mont did. 

As told to Miran­da Wilkinson

“I’m orig­i­nal­ly from Brighton but moved to Man­ches­ter 1996 after fin­ish­ing uni­ver­si­ty to start a new life in the city, a few years before the bomb changed it for­ev­er.  I felt like Man­ches­ter was like me, it had tak­en a few hard knocks, but had a strong heart and would re-build and start again, which was my goal.

I start­ed work­ing in retail with DKNY, before find­ing my true pas­sion in per­fumery work­ing at the city’s best stores like Kendal’s and Sel­f­ridges, sell­ing some of the top per­fume brands in the industry.

From there I moved from sales to train­ing, first as an Area Train­er then devel­op­ing my role into Nation­al Fra­grance Train­ing Man­ag­er, for a major fra­grance dis­tri­b­u­tion com­pa­ny.   I loved my job; I loved the brands I worked with like Jean Paul Gaulti­er & BVLGARI and the very fast-paced lifestyle. 

When Lock­down hap­pened, unfor­tu­nate­ly, I was not liv­ing in a sug­gest­ed house­hold bub­ble and I was already liv­ing under the dark cloud of hav­ing been made redun­dant at Christ­mas after 18 years.  It was so quick, not even in the space of a month, from hear­ing about the threat to being shown the door, but that was the Brex­it impact and the com­pa­ny on a con­tin­u­ing steep decline.  So being me, I was focused on job hunt­ing and try­ing to stay pos­i­tive and super busy, I have always been full of ener­gy, but then came the sec­ond Lockdown. 

All of a sud­den, this time with lit­er­al­ly noth­ing to do, nowhere to go, I am not embar­rassed to admit it hit me hard, I ate far too much, gained 3 stone, start­ed day­time drink­ing, stopped job hunt­ing as I had the what is the point mind-set. 

My end­less ener­gy dis­ap­peared; my con­stant pos­i­tive out­look became a hor­ri­ble image of doom and gloom. Have you ever seen an image of a per­son walk­ing real­ly slow­ly and every­thing around them is going super-fast? That was how I felt, the world had left me behind, I had noth­ing to con­tribute, I was going to lose my home, I had already lost my job, to be blunt, I had noth­ing left and there­fore only one option seemed appro­pri­ate, so I took the deci­sion to end my life before it was tak­en from me!

I look back at that time and it still shakes me just how close I came to end­ing my life; trust me this was no diva cry for help; I was very effi­cient in my plan­ning. But obvi­ous­ly, some­thing went wrong thank God, so enter police knock­ing down my door and a rush to hos­pi­tal, where I stayed for just over a week.

So that gave me a great deal of time to think, and then time to talk.  I became pals with a love­ly old lady in her 80s. She told me inspi­ra­tional sto­ries and I told her about me. SOMETHING CLICKED and I decid­ed I had time left to save my home, my health, and my san­i­ty. I had work to do, plans to make and one hell of an action plan to put togeth­er. I need­ed to take the tough route back, I need­ed to push myself hard, prove I was tough and resilient and I did have lots to offer, I could go super-fast like the rest of them. 

Fast For­ward to right here right now, I am self-employed, my busi­ness K2B Train­ing & Devel­op­ment is all me, I am my own brand. The name was easy — I want­ed to help peo­ple get from ‘A 2 B’ and my ini­tials are KTB. It launched in the last week of August and became ful­ly booked till just days before Christ­mas, then again from the 1^st week of Jan­u­ary and cur­rent­ly right through to the end of April. I work with oth­er self-employed and small busi­ness­es deliv­er­ing my ‘Con­fi­dence in Sales’ course, I am also heav­i­ly com­mit­ted to deliv­er­ing employ­a­bil­i­ty train­ing to var­i­ous unem­ployed demo­graph­ics, along­side the new Kick Start employ­ment programs.

But this is not a doom and gloom sto­ry, I love a hap­py end­ing, I pride myself on always find­ing the sil­ver lin­ing, no mat­ter how thin.  What kept me going? My abil­i­ty to laugh — why do I say that?  Well, now so many of my del­e­gates com­ment that I am just 100% ener­gy and always laugh­ing with a fun (okay, a bit of a child­ish) out­look on life. I am alive and I am liv­ing my life to the full and I am not in slow motion with every­one else mov­ing at a faster pace around me. I am the one that is mov­ing faster than them! So, if you are not in a good place, then please find some­thing to make you smile and focus on a pos­i­tive future, if I can do it any­one can! 

Now, my future looks pro­duc­tive and promis­ing; I am in nego­ti­a­tions with two oth­er clients that I can add into my packed diary and 2021 pro­jec­tions are strong and 50% more than my orig­i­nal 1^st year plan. 

www.k2b.org.uk

If you or some­one you know is hav­ing a dif­fi­cult time, please do not hes­i­tate to con­tact Samar­i­tans (UK) on 116 123 any time, from any phone.

“You can get in touch about any­thing that’s trou­bling you, no mat­ter how large or small the issue feels.”

“We’re here to lis­ten, no judge­ment, no pres­sure, and help you work through what’s on your mind. We’ll nev­er tell you what to do.“

A full list of men­tal health organ­i­sa­tions across the globe can be found here.