Many successful people reinvented themselves in a later period in their lives. Jeff Bezos worked on Wall Street before he reinvented himself and started Amazon. Sara Blakely sold office supplies before she started Spanx. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson was a WWE wrestler before he became a successful actor and filmmaker. Arnold Schwarzenegger went from a bodybuilder, to an actor to a Governor. McDonald's founder Ray Kroc was a milkshake-device salesman before starting the McDonalds franchise in his 50s.
How does one reinvent themselves? What hurdles have to be overcome to take life in a new direction? How do you overcome those challenges? How do you ignore the naysayers? How do you push through the paralyzing fear?
In this series called "Second Chapters; How I Reinvented Myself In The Second Chapter Of My Life " we are interviewing successful people who reinvented themselves in a second chapter in life, to share their story and help empower others.
As a part of this interview series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Audrey Daumain, leadership communication consultant and creator of the Smart Perspective™ communication programme.
Audrey Daumain is a a leadership communication expert with more than two decade's experience working in finance, oil & gas and luxury industries, advising senior
leaders in global corporations on communication and diplomacy strategies. She is the creator of Smart Perspective™- a proven system that builds a robust work culture
fostering peak performance. Her vast management and mediation experience combined with a profoundly human-centric approach reinvigorates businesses by illuminating new ways of engaging in today’s complex workplaces.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we start, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?
Born and brought up in France, I am the daughter of a rather unconventional family because my father was 40 years older than my mum. He retired shortly after I was born in Summer 1977 and my mother has never had to work. Raised in fear of authority and in the love of others, I was always very good at school (“ could do better” was a recurrent note from my teachers, I admit) but could have been excellent. I was distracted, an extravert and always caring for others in class and in the courtyard.
I practiced swimming, tennis and horse-riding and had private English & piano lessons. I jumped a class when I was nine and ended up in college being sometimes two years younger than my peers. I passed my A-levels aged just 16, meaning I was too young for university, so I stayed close to home in HND in Commerce and Trade, which I hated.
Aged 11, I had a penfriend, Jo, living in Surrey. Every year she would come over to spend time with us in our beautiful home in southwest France, and I would go to hers. Some 36 years on, we are still extremely close and her parents are as much family to me as any blood tie.
I then moved to Pau, in gorgeous southwest of France at Uni to study English and American Language & Civilizations. I didn’t enjoy that much more than Commerce.
In July 1998, during a “standard” yearly visit to Jo and her family, I was offered a summer job at the French Consulate through my already existing great network, and … the rest is history. I called my parents and told them I wasn’t coming back home. I stayed in London for 13 years!
Can you please give us your favorite "Life Lesson Quote"? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Nobody can hurt me without my permission” from Gandhi. I think that people can be extremely harsh. I was so often laughed at during my school years because my dad was so much older than my mum.” Grandad is coming to you!” My father, a highly ranked military man (WWII, Vietnam, Algeria, Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur) was not an easy man to live with. He was tough, abrupt and abrasive. I had to deal with that from a very early age.
Later on I was sexually harassed at work, that was tough too. Evolving professionally in a male dominated environment ( I spent over 20 years in Finance) was also a great school to apply this quote.
People just aren’t good at handling conversations that care and have the desired positive impact. We get hurt all the time, learning how to disconnect the words from the person and then the words from our reaction is an incredibly powerful skill that I have mastered over the years.
You have been blessed with much success. In your opinion, what are the top three qualities that you possess that have helped you accomplish so much? If you can, please share a story or example for each.
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Resilience & Grit : I have never felt a sense of failure. Whether at work or in my personal life ( I went through a divorce and a tough separation before meeting my current husband. God that’s funny, I sound like Elizabeth Taylor!!), everything that happens is a learning. And I mean this, it’s just a buzz word. I moved jobs 10 times before finding my perfect balance. Each time I took away serious key learnings and tried to adapt my reactions and expectations accordingly
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Attentive to others but able to say no: Often described at school as the “negotiator” or the “popular friend”, I was always very sociable. Interestingly, despite this need to be surrounded by people, I was never taken advantage of.
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Life is for LIVING: I will take fun over anything. Fun doesn’t have to be crazy stuff, but keeping in touch with the little girl inside is very important. Seeing the fun side of things, being able to laugh about (almost) anything is very important part of my life.
Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about ‘Second Chapters’. Can you tell our readers about your career experience before your Second Chapter?
I think I can sincerely say that I have always been at the right place at the right time. Or maybe I made sure I was in the right place at the right time. I don’t believe in God, but I believe somehow the Universe has some kind of plan that we must somehow work out by ourselves. After joining the French Consulate in London in 1998, I found a job at Morgan Stanley. To give you an idea, I was the assistant of the assistant to the incredibly inspiring Dame Amelia Fawcett, CAO of the group at the time. I was making coffee and bringing her gigantic leather and paper diary from meeting room to meeting room!
From then, I spent 20 years in Investment banking, private banking, private equity and brokerage. I loved the corporate world in those years. The buzz, the diversity of the roles, the incredibly diverse types of people coming from everywhere in the world. Very energizing.
In 2010, I landed in Geneva, working for Barclays Private Bank and that’s when I really started to pay particular attention to people. How we interact, how we function. Fascinating. My last role before I took the leap of entrepreneurship was as Executive Director at Edmond de Rothschild Private Bank.
And how did you “reinvent yourself” in your Second Chapter?
Frankly I don’t think I reinvented myself at all. I think that I have always been what I am today, it’s just that now I am IT. I embody and live IT fully. My first chapter was clearly the perfect foundation for …now!
Can you tell us about the specific trigger that made you decide that you were going to “take the plunge” and make your huge transition?
Hmmm. Here we go. It’s not a nice story, but it’s my story and I have learnt to embrace and love it in my own way. In 2020, I was the victim of an extremely violent car accident with my darling mother. Sadly, she passed way that day. When you realise that you are alive, that you don’t know how it’s even possible to still be walking and have a functioning brain, you just know that you have to do something absolutely amazing with your life.
Confucius said: “You have two lives. The second one begins when you realise that you only have one.” That was my cue to leave the corporate world and get onboard of my very own personal adventure.
What did you do to discover that you had a new skillset inside of you that you haven't been maximizing? How did you find that and how did you ultimately overcome the barriers to help manifest those powers?
As mentioned above, the sequence of events propelled me to make that daring decision. A lot of family members and friends couldn’t understand why I would want to add the additional stress of having to build a business from scratch when I was already dealing with recovering from my injuries and deeply grieving. But I knew. I knew that I had all it took, because when you remove fear, you have it all.
We fear what hasn’t happened yet, it’s a crazy thought right? So manifesting my powers meant acknowledging them, embracing them and doing something with them. Federating, soothing, framing conversations, bringing discipline and smart perspectives around me – that’s what gave me the name of my company: Smart Perspective™.
How are things going with this new initiative? We would love to hear some specific examples or stories.
AMAZING! I am both humbled and proud of everything achieved so far. I have worked and still work with incredible names in the finance, oil and gas and luxury industries. My clients are smart executives and I guess what I can share is that most of the time when I meet them for the first time, we have this conversation: “ Right Audrey, I am not quite sure which shape our collaboration might take, but for sure we are going to work together!”. Because when its right, when you build trust and you show that you actually do care about serving them, they want to work with you.
Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
It simply wouldn’t make sense for me to mention just one person. I will start with my husband. Because despite being very different ( I am a dare it all- ID type, he is a highly cautious, risk averse person – C type! That’s the DISC types in case you are wondering), he has been incredible dealing with me post-accident, accepting my decision (challenging it too, but let’s not go there!!), taking care of the house and our young child when I am working all hours and travelling quite extensively.
I also want to acknowledge by very close-knit set of friends who are my rock and my cheerleaders, no matter what. Never ever left alone, and that is one hell of an asset when we are working for ourselves.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started in this new direction?
When I launched, a seasoned entrepreneur told me “ I give you 18 months before you go and look for a job, that at the time it takes to realise how hard it is to get anything off the ground”. Truth is 4 years on, with an offer built right bang in the middle of Covid, I am earning more today than I was in banking.
Since then. So many interesting stories have happened. I, of course always remain very discreet about my mandates and their content but know one thing: when I get called in and listen to a client’s needs, I realise that its always, always about people and how we interact and communicate with each other. How we make decisions. How we federate and influence. Let me share a story. I was a few weeks ago attending a great workshop at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (world famous EPFL). The crowd was a bunch of incredibly smart young women inventors who were looking for tips to set up their company – or had set up their company but needed further advice – mainly on governance. Being a strategist, I was looking forward to hearing their questions and the facilitator’s answers to learn from them. I did. However, do you know that most of the questions were not about Governance. They were about “ COMMUNICATION”.
How do I tell my teacher, who is also my business partner, that I don’t agree with the way he operates and I want more shares in my company?
How do I tell my business partners that this business is not my lifelong ambition, I don’t want to spend 24/7 on it like they do, I want to enjoy life?
How do I tell my Angel Investor that I disagree with the direction she is giving our product development?
And so many more.
Handling crucial, clear conversations is definitely a skill that should be taught in business schools. And why limit it to that actually!
Did you ever struggle with believing in yourself? If so, how did you overcome that limiting belief about yourself? Can you share a story or example?
Yes, of course. Like anyone else, I often think about what it was like to be paid to be on holiday or stay in bed with I get a cold. Often, I feel tired and wonder if all of this is “worth it”. I know it is, of course I do. But during these moments it’s not about what I know, or what I do its about how I feel. I have learnt to be very discerning when it comes to Being vs Doing, most thankfully to the Map of Meaning certification course that I took (check it out its really fabulous, I use it a lot in my daily work today and with clients).
Limiting beliefs about myself? of course! But you know what? I say yes and then I figure out how to do it. Unless it’s really out of my scope then of course I will refer to someone excellent I know or decline. And then, next mandatory step for me: I ask for feedback. How did I do? How can it be better? Have you learnt something? Tell me because feedback is a present, every time.
In my own work I usually encourage my clients to ask for support before they embark on something new. How did you create your support system before you moved to your new chapter?
Great question! Don’t laugh but I have set up my very own “Advisory Panel”. Team Audrey in my Smart Perspective Governance ☺ A set of ex colleagues, friends who I can rely on regularly. They are still playing that role today. I would send them my question, ask them for a support and they never fail. You need your advisory panel. You need people who are diverse in their way of seeing life. You need successful people, you need risk averse people. I actually think I have all 6 thinking hats from De Bono in my panel!
Starting a new chapter usually means getting out of your comfort zone, how did you do that? Can you share a story or example of that?
Massively out of comfort zone. Its jumping in the unknown. Its facing disagreements and fears (mine and those of others). I remember well that day, let me tell you the story.
I was presenting (pitching but you know, I prefer the word presenting I am not a start-up) to a group of men all suited and booted. Nice enough but… serious. I got super nervous. I forgot my words, I got hot and bothered. When these situations happen you have basically two choices: either you grin and bear it and struggle through it to try and hide it (like you think they can’t see it??) or you do what I did “ Sorry guys, I am not quite sure why, I am sure you are all super fun but I am feeling a bit overwhelmed and intimidated. Could we open the window?” They were so kind and nice to me that the meeting went way better than I could have imagined.
Don’t try to hide it. Say it. Own it. Get over it!
What are your "5 things I wish someone told me before I started" and why? Please share a story or example for each.
1 . Audrey, Life is for LIVING. Enjoy the ride. My father was strict and kept repeating that “the world only smiles to the best of the best. There is no room for slackers”. Whilst I get what he meant and my education certainly helped me throughout my life and career, I am certainly not saying that to my kids. I want to see the fun in everything, I truly believe that we are much better at what we do when we loosen up a bit.
2 . Audrey, how do you feel? Learning early how to identify, manage and embrace your emotions is a wonderful skill and I wish I was taught this earlier.
3 . Audrey, your greatest skill is called silence. Don’t feel that you have to answer everything and everyone. Shut up and... breathe.
4 . Audrey, Trust your intuition. Listen to your inner voice. Always. You can choose to ignore it, but write it down and get back to it in due course.
5 . Audrey, You are never too small to make a difference.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
If I could inspire a movement, it would be the "Meaningful Conversations for a truly Connected World" movement.
Imagine a world where every person understands the power of intentional, clear, and empathetic communication. This movement would encourage people to have deeper, more impactful conversations—whether in the workplace, at home, or with themselves. When we communicate meaningfully, we create understanding, dismantle biases, and build trust! In business, this could transform teams and boost innovation. In personal life, it would nurture stronger connections and emotional well-being. And when we apply it to ourselves, it can lead to personal clarity, resilience, and growth. I believe that creating a culture where every conversation has purpose and respect would bring immense good to every facet of society, helping us all to connect, understand, and support each other on a deeper level. This always benefits the financial bottom line.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them. :-)
Oh yes please!!!! Oprah, if you read this. Please let me come over to have tea with you.
Why??
I feel that we have such a shared understanding of resilience and overcoming adversity. She is also such an inspiring masterclass in empathy and communication. I love listening to her, she always moves me so deeply. I love the way she talks about internal transformation, it really resonates with me. As I grow into my new journey, I know I would benefit endlessly from her wisdom to launch my book, my new services, my podcast. Your date is mine Oprah!
How can our readers further follow your work online?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/audreydaumain/
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
