Article · Both sectors

Two interview questions that changed my life

At 21 I was asked how much I wanted to earn, told it was the wrong answer, and then asked what I would spend it on. If you are under 30 and wondering how to get ahead with AI about to change everything, this is for you.

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A single chair in a sunlit meeting room

Over the past few weeks I have had calls with five ambitious young professionals. They asked hard, sharp questions. How do I get ahead? How do I build real wealth? What should I be doing now that I will thank myself for in ten years? Answering them, I realised I was telling my twenty something self everything I wish I had known, so I wrote it down.

In it you will find what I got wrong, so you can skip those mistakes, what I got right and why it worked, the two questions that took me from a 12 year old with a £3 a week paper round to providing for a family, and my advice on what it takes to excel. It is not about money for its own sake. It is about building something that gives you and the people you care about real choices.

Some of the most intelligent people I speak to are my most junior candidates. They will not settle for average and they want to know exactly how to do better. Things are moving fast. The people who do well will be the ones who live and breathe their markets and the technology reshaping them, every day.

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