“Courage leads to empowerment”
Throwing everything up in the air and changing career is never easy, but when your professional highlights include interviewing Clint Eastwood, Cate Blanchett and Dame Helen Mirren, working with the Duke of Cambridge and appearing on our TV screens for more than 20 years, it’s perhaps harder still. Nevertheless Kate Silverton has no regrets about leaving journalism and dedicating herself to helping young people and their parents.
Last summer, shortly after releasing her debut parenting guide, There’s No Such Thing As ‘Naughty’, she stepped down from news presenting to concentrate on counselling primary and secondary-age schoolchildren as part of her training to become a qualified child therapist. By the time this interview is published, Silverton will ‘be very much ensconced’ in her new profession, just weeks away from completing a post-graduate diploma in child counselling and one step closer to achieving her dream: opening her own private counselling practice to help youngsters and their parents.
‘The Japanese have a wonderful concept called ikigai, which means “life purpose”. Doing something you love is shown to improve life expectancy, so you should always make sure you’re not running away from something, as in “I hate my job”, and running towards something you’re passionate about instead,’ says Silverton. ‘Go towards something that nurtures and fulfils you, because life is not for us to endure, it is for us to enjoy. Once you
