Why this book exists
A focused place to understand what is happening
Piet is forty-four, he is a sales director for a packaging company in Warrington, and three years ago he built a spreadsheet he has never opened. He built it properly, over a weekend. The mortgage is in it, and both sets of school fees, and the car, and what the pension would do if he stopped paying in, and three scenarios for what he might earn doing something else. It took him eleven hours and he was, he told me, almost happy while he was doing it, which is not a word he uses about work any more. Then he saved it and closed it and has not opened it since. He came to me saying he was trapped. He used the phrase golden handcuffs. He said he had built a life he could not afford to leave, and that he envied people who had nothing, and that some.
The writing is designed to reduce shame, bring the underlying pattern into view and give you practical ways to respond without pretending that every life follows the same formula.
