Copy link Copied Copy link Copied Subscribe to gift this article Gift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe. Already a subscriber? Login Mark Cubit enjoyed “every single day” as a stockbroker at Merrill Lynch. But after 15 years, every day started to become more like Groundhog Day, and he would have had to move his family away from their home in Melbourne to advance his career.
And so the highly successful Australian equities broker decided to take the plunge into the unknown and quit at the age of 42. Mark Cubit, right, at The School of St Jude in Tanzania. “I’d been well remunerated.
I literally jumped off the cliff, hoping I’d find a parachute before I hit the ground,” Cubit recalls. In so doing, he joined the exclusive band of former high-achieving, highly-paid corporate executives who, having had it all once, are determined to have it all again. But the second time around, they are striving for different things, pouring their energy into everything from charity and advisory work, to staying fit, writing, joining boards, and running businesses for pleasure.
Or, most likely, a combination. As Andrew Walsh, former chief executive of financial services software company Iress says: “I don’t think you have people who are high-achieving, or performing at that level, stop and do nothing. I don’t think it’s in the nature of the person.
” BOSS spoke to four high achievers who may have left the corporate world, but certainly haven’t st.
