Mark Richardson has already had a big life as a test cricket player and broadcaster on popular TV shows like The AM Show (now AM), The Block NZ and The Project. He was busy, opinionated and for a while even thought about going into politics. But then it all came crashing down.
One after the other, he lost his work when the three TV shows he loved working on closed down or changed.
“I don’t like to fail,” says the former Black Cap. “So having all my jobs disappear left me feeling that I hadn’t been good enough, when in reality it was beyond my control and all about budgets.”
When all his work disappeared by April last year, he says the following few months were stressful. He wasn’t sleeping and found it hard to keep positive. His wife Mary, 53, admits it was very scary for her.
“It was terrible watching all his jobs go one by one and watching him try to cope with all that,” she says.
Explains Mark, 53, “Well, you take on the responsibility of supporting your family, so when you can’t do that, it can be really difficult. I realised that they wanted to change the format of The AM Show, but I struggled with that decision and losing the chance to work on it. I was really disappointed.
“But I started a radio show with Leah Panapa on Today FM, which I was really enjoying, but then the station was closed.
“I thought, ‘God, what now?’ I remember coming home, and our daughter Annabel was here, and I had this numbing sensation.”
“He was so sad,” adds Annabel.
Mark and Mary’s 16-year-old twins Annabel and Charlie are very close to their dad.
While Mary knew Mark was struggling and not sleeping, she was so impressed that he would get out of bed every morning and get on the phone or get in front of people looking for work.
“Then he would come home and say, ‘Well, I’ve done all that,’ and sit on that chair and not really be able to communicate,” she recalls.
At the time, Mary, who is a former flight attendant, was in the middle of sitting her qualification exams to be a real estate agent.
“I was only halfway through it, but we knew that I’d be able to start that job, but it was a while away.”
The couple had a few months from April to August in limbo as they worked through what to do about paying the bills.
“We weren’t destitute,” says Mark, “because we always had the house we could sell, but we both wanted to see what we could do to stay afloat.”
The hardest thing for Mark was that he’s a high-achiever who likes to do the best he can at a job and he also likes to have a plan.
“I don’t like the uncertainty of not having a plan that I can stick to.”
Mark turned to his old sport of cricket and approached the NZ Cricket Players Association for help.
“They have a service where they help players transition out of cricket. I basically used their service 20 years after I left cricket!” he laughs.
The association sent Mark to Wellington, where he was helped to get a CV in order and work out what career would suit him.
“I did a personality test and that told me I was 100 percent suited for the military and only 24 percent suited for sports broadcasting,” he says.
This was a bit of a surprise as Mark still works as a popular cricket commentator for TVNZ, but he also says he’s very good at following instructions. Then he got a call from a friend who suggested he come in to have a chat with him at the investment firm Forsyth Barr. As it happens, Mark has a Bachelor of Commerce and after speaking with the team at Forsyth Barr, he was offered a job in July last year.
Mark jokes that the three people he put up as references for the job application process were the three bosses who had fired him.
“I knew they would give me good references because I knew they thought I’d done a good job and I was sacked because of the broadcasting industry making budget cuts.
“I’m now an investment advisor and I’m loving it,” says Mark. “I’m going through my accreditations at the moment and I have to have two years’ experience in the industry before I can be fully accredited by the NZ stock exchange.
“We have a variety of investment services, from good old brokering to a full discretionary investment management service, where we have full authority to invest on behalf of our clients in a manner dependent on their individual needs.”
Mark says he walked in on his first day at Forsyth Barr and admits his head was spinning.
“But once you start to speak the language, it all starts to sink in, and I looked at our senior guys who are doing well and I realised this was a great job to have. Those guys absolutely love what they do, so I look up to them and I can see what lies ahead.”
A few months after Mark started his job, he was still appearing on The Project regularly, something he had been doing for years.
“I was sitting at my desk when one of the advisors sitting opposite me stuck his head up and said, ‘So I see you’ve lost another job.’ That was how I heard that The Project had been cancelled.”
Mary wasn’t at all surprised that her husband could pivot from a job as a broadcaster to one as an investment advisor.
“He can also fly a plane,” she adds. “He has his pilot’s licence!”
But while Mark was working hard at his new job, Mary was finishing her study to become a real estate agent, and was also having to pivot from flight attendant to her new career working with Barfoot & Thompson Mission Bay. She had worked in real estate with her mother in the 1990s, but it had been a long time since she had worked in the industry. But once again, it was friends who helped her out.
“I was so nervous about starting out and wondering how I would find my first house to sell, but then some amazing friends gave me their house to sell in the first six days of being a real estate agent.”
Both Mark and Mary say the support of their friends has made a huge difference to them working through the stress of unemployment and starting out on new career paths in their early fifties.
“We both have the same stresses at the moment because we’re both trying to build a business,” says Mark. “We both changed our careers, but we’re both at the building block stage of those careers.”
The couple has been together for 22 years and say that despite the added pressure of the past year, their marriage has held strong.
“Mary’s a mum and loves being at home, so her job gives her the flexibility to do that, and I’m really proud of what she’s done,” says Mark. “She’s doing really well – much better than me in these early stages.”
They are, says Mary, each other’s cheerleaders.
“One minute, I’ll say, ‘I don’t know if I’m going to be good at real estate,’ and he’ll say, ‘No, you’re going to be amazing.’ Then he’ll say he’s not feeling very confident and I’ll reassure him.”
Mark helps out by distributing Mary’s real estate pamphlets in the neighbourhood.
“I get out for a walk in the morning and put them in the letterboxes,” he says. “I get really annoyed when there’s a ‘no circulars’ sticker, but I respect that. I just wander around the streets and have fun.”
Mary’s positivity has been a great help to Mark when he’s had self-doubt, and while many couples might have struggled through losing work and trying to discover how to get new jobs, they are stronger than ever.
“Our plan had been shot to bits and while we were quite happy going without, we didn’t want our kids to go without,” says Mark.
“It really has made us much stronger and it’s made me love Mark more,” says Mary.
“We’re quite old- fashioned,” says Mark. “We take the whole fact that when we got married, it was forever.”
Mark and Mary are pleased their teenagers were protected from a lot of the stress, and it shows. Charlie and Annabel are gorgeous, confident kids. They both love their sport and have already represented Auckland in athletics.
Mark says that looking back, the cancellation of his work actually gave him his life back. He was home and more present for the family, as well as his love of fishing.
“We’ve also been blessed that we got through to this stage, with these great new opportunities so quickly. Now we’ve just got to be successful,” he laughs.
