OPINION OPINION THE GIRL CLUB Meet

BY KAY KUDUKIS

hen the world turned upside down in 2020, Claire Rogers was 46, living in England with her husband of 17 years, and five years into her third career, this one as a professional speaker. She’d already been a successful model; had climbed the corporate ladder at an elite banking corporation in the travel industry; rubbed elbows with celebrities; and made some big bank. She was crushing it.

Life didn’t start out that way. Rogers’ parents emigrated from England to Canada in their late teens with 3-month-old Claire. Barely six months later, it was over. Her father was able to afford a better lawyer, so she spent the first 15 years of her life with him.

“I wasn’t one of those kids who were gifted,” Rogers says about her studies. There were, she says, three things she was interested in: animals of any kind; books, particularly the mysteries, adventures and fantasy worlds of Enid Blyton; and the faraway places on the postcards she collected.

Dad remarried; her stepmother lived up to the fairy-tale hype and kicked Rogers out. She spent her high school years with Mom; just weeks away from graduation, she hadn’t a clue what she was going to do next. Mom told her she could be a model and travel the world, but Rogers thought every mum says that about their kid

“I thought modeling was dumb,” Rogers admits. “It was never going to be my passion.”

But … “If you were going to be dumb enough to pay me 10 grand to just sit in a bathtub in a bikini for eight hours, I’m gonna sit.”

The next five years were spent in Japan doing ad campaigns, runway modeling and visiting the places on those postcards she’d collected not so long ago.

Instead of telling on herself, Rogers went full assault with self-help books (300 over 18 months), learning how to recognize triggers and mitigate their damage. It became abundantly clear that her brain was wildly unhappy with her career choices, so she quit.

She took some courses, earned certificates and started coaching. One day, she ran into a particularly prickly client from her corporate days. He insisted on knowing why she’d left the company. So, she told him. He replied: “I don’t know how many times I have locked myself in my office and had a panic attack before a meeting.” He followed up with: “Can you come speak at my company retreat?”

Over the next five years, Rogers was a keynote/motivational speaker for Fortune 500