I boarded my husband's private jet and his secretary was in my seat, feeding him peeled orange. His mother told me to be considerate. I stepped off. Then the crew asked whether I wanted the flight cancelled.

It was pleasant. For four years, at about forty dinners, listening to a man tell the Osaka story while I held a glass.

As long as I was the only one who knew, nobody ever got to price me. I had a number in my head about what I was worth to that company and nobody was ever going to test it against a room.

Being secretly essential is the safest possible position in any room.

It cannot be argued with, because nobody knows it is there to argue with.

Nobody says you're overvaluing your contribution, because nobody is aware of your contribution. Nobody puts a lower number on you, because nobody is doing a valuation at all.

Four years of a position that cannot lose, because it never enters the market.

And the cost of keeping that for four years is this.

I taught an entire organisation that I had nothing.