One Take with Nigel Allen

👉 The Scoop – Nigel is both inspirational and elevating: a superbly successful salesman for Fortune and a fundraiser for hospice organizations. But mention Nigel Allen to those of us present at creation in the Latin American cable industry and we all remember when suddenly, we would get random funny jokes in our emails from someone called the Admonster. Fast forward and the mystery was revealed: Nigel Allen was Admonster. He was the one making our days a bit happier.

 👉 Decisive Moment #1 – I think the answer to that question for me started when my father became ill and died of lung cancer. This was back in the late 90s. It was a painful illness to watch. About a year after that, I retired.

👉 Decisive Moment #2 – Fast forward another 12 months and my financial retirement was crumbling because of poor financial choices in the stock market, and I had to go back to work.

And one day I opened my former newspaper, looked in the classified section and there was an ad for a position at the big hospice in Pensacola. I got hired even though I was terribly under qualified. That put me on the path that is now more than 20 years behind me of doing fundraising work.

👉 Unexpected change or event – Going from selling ad space for Fortune Magazine to fund raising for hospice care.

👉 What did he do? – There were a couple of things though that kept me grounded and I think helped me be successful. I kept it basic and authentic.

👉 About older workers – Many CEOs are themselves older. So, the first thing I'd say to the CEO is practice what you preach, buddy.

There is enormous value to life experience. There are very few true new ideas. But you know, the benefit that those of us with some seasoning have is we've seen a lot of great new ideas that have not succeeded. We've seen a few that have succeeded. But we've also seen the gray in between the black and white of success and failure.