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Looking back over my old blogs, you might get the impression that I have lots of holidays…….I don’t, just the average amount, I do seem to talk about them a lot, so I’ll apologise upfront as I’m about to do it again.

I just got back from holiday last Wednesday, I normally wait until after the summer rush then sneak off when everyone else is back, it means everywhere is quieter and we can really escape it all.

I am one of the few people it seems in today’s mad world who fiercely defends my holiday time, no blackberry, no phone, not even a newspaper. I read 8 books on this trip, some really girly rubbish (but I like it), some courtroom drama stuff and a big period drama for when I ran out of everything else. I completely forgot about the rest of the world, work couldn’t have been further from my mind, it was wonderful.

So maybe I have a different perspective because I missed all the excitement of the last few weeks…..

Maybe I have a different perspective because I have just had 2 weeks complete downtime…..

Maybe I have a different perspective from catching up on all that’s passed in a couple of hours of reading emails on a plane…..

Or maybe I just have a different perspective……..

I left for my holidays on a high! We had just hosted a hugely successful broker conference, we were a few days from our Aviva broker TV advertising going live, the feedback from brokers was and is fantastic, awareness of the Aviva brand was at it’s highest point ever and exceeding the 2009 targets, and we felt like we were starting to win in what remains a hugely difficult market.

So when I came back to see some of the press coverage about Igal leaving the UK to take on a new role in North America, it felt like I’d entered the twilight zone. I was expecting flashing lights and that weird music, because what I was reading was so far from the reality of the world I thought I was living in. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t live in a rose tinted world, I’m not naive, we’ve had our moments, but it did all seem a bit out of balance.

The headlines certainly didn’t relate to the world I recognised before my hols. Neither did they seem to represent the man I worked alongside for the last 2 years. And I’m pretty sure not one of the 200 plus brokers who were with us at the conference a few weeks ago recognised it either.

Outside of the twilight zone I can only reflect my own perspective. I’m sad about the news that Igal is leaving the UK to take on a new role in North America. We’ve come a long way, it’s starting to feel like the tough stuff is behind us, and we have built a great platform to grow, all at a time when very little in the market or the economy has been in ours or anyone else’s favour. 

I’m pretty sure that the twilight zone and the real world won’t get mixed up. That what’s been written will be taken with the big fat pinch of salt it deserves, and that nobody is expecting a full scale reversal of all that we’ve done, just because the headlines hint it will be so. Brokers will judge us on our actions in the real world, and that’s all I can hope for and expect.

Janice