Sometimes, a career begins with a book.
I was saddened to hear of Jeffrey Archer's passing. For me, he was much more than a bestselling author. He was the writer who, quite unknowingly, gave a fourteen-year-old girl her first glimpse of a world she had never imagined.
My first Archer novel was Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less. I was fascinated—not just by the wit, suspense and ingenious plot, but by the world it revealed: money, business, finance, ambition, calculations and clever people navigating Oxford, Paris and Ascot.
Something clicked.
I had always been comfortable with numbers, but I began to see that numbers could tell stories too. Money could be understood. Businesses could be analysed. Accounts had a peculiar beauty—the symmetry of debit and credit, the logic of a balance sheet.
Then came Kane and Abel, The Prodigal Daughter and As the Crow Flies. Through stories, I discovered enterprise, ambition, risk, competition and resilience.
Looking back, I wonder: did those books create my interest—or simply reveal something that was already within me?
Perhaps this is why I believe so strongly in career counselling today. Young people do not always know what their interests really mean. A fascination with numbers may be a love of logic. An interest in business may hide an attraction to strategy or entrepreneurship.
Careers are not always born from carefully made decisions.
Sometimes, they begin with curiosity.
And sometimes, they begin with a book.
Thank you, Jeffrey Archer, for unknowingly opening a door for a fourteen-year-old reader.
— CMA (Dr.) Charu N Thakur