When Helen decided to launch FW, she went to a close friend for advice. Conveniently, that close friend had a wealth of financial and entrepreneurial experience.

“I said to him – I remember really clearly – I have no idea where to start. Like, none,” Helen recalls. “And he said you just do one foot in front of the other. Start anywhere.”

The next morning, he sent her a 15-page business plan. It was the push she didn’t know she needed – proof that momentum starts with someone willing to take you seriously

Whether you’re building your own thing or shifting into a different industry, Helen’s advice is the same: get chatting. “Talking to as many people as you can in the sector that you want to launch into is really important,” she says. 

When considering a switch, Helen suggests playing the long game and posing yourself this question: “If you’re 30, what do I want to be when I’m 40? What do I want to have achieved? If you’re 50, think about yourself at 60 and work back from there.”

“If you’re a high performer and you’re a type-A personality and you are competitive, you’re going to want the next big job,” Helen says. “That is not helpful because you might get that job. But it might not be the right job for you.”

Like some of the guests on the latest season of Too Much: The Switch, Helen has sacrificed her salary to get where she wants to go. “Pay cuts are something you need to consider,” she says.  

As Helen explains, by not being flexible on pay, you could be pricing yourself out of sectors that are actively hiring. 

“Organisations like ours at FW do spend a lot of time telling women to know their worth, negotiate hard, all those things, and I respect that and I know that’s right. But it’s not always right,” she says.

“It is very difficult to say to someone who has been paid $250,000 in a big job but has been out of work for a year, maybe a pay cut is the solution. [But] maybe it is. And then it’s a strategy of working yourself back to the salary.”