Birmingham business owner: 'Losing my work as a musician during Covid in my early 20s inspired this business'

As the youngest city in Europe, Birmingham has been an attractive place for youngsters who want to begin their careers in recent times.

But with the cost-of-living crisis taking hold across the country, it can be much more difficult for people in their late 20s and early 30s to achieve financial stability in the post-pandemic world. As part our new campaign Project Peter Pan: Championing the lost generation - BirminghamWorld spoke to one young Birmingham business owner about the difficulties young people face today, and how losing his work in the pandemic inspired him to start his own business.

Will Crawford, a 26-year-old who lives in Sutton Coldfield, is the founder of Quietnote, a company that helps people and organisations learn mindfulness through music. Will lost all of his work as a professional musician at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire during Covid, and the idea for Quietnote came during this period.

He had the idea and vision when he noticed the strong similarities between his musical practice and his spiritual practises, and the company now run workshops and courses in Birmingham as well as one-to-one coaching.

He says struggling for work as a musician during the pandemic four years ago inspired him to start the company.

Will said: “The difficult part for me was when I lost a lot of my work as a musician during Covid-19 - I lost a lot of important gigs and a lot of opportunities fell through during my final year at the Birmingham Conservatoir. After that I set up about exploring mindfulness through music because I thought it was a service that could be useful to people.”

Getting on the housing market

Will currently rents just outside the city centre with his girlfriend and he says he understands the difficulties young people face when trying to rent when starting their careers. He believes the rental market is more realistic than a mortgage during your 20s.

“What we’re seeing now is energy bills starting to come down,” he said. “We’re quite good with how we use our time, we don’t use too much electricity and we're very careful with our finances in this sense. I think for where we both are - at the beginning of our careers - renting is actually the best option at the moment as we have the freedom to move.”

He added: “With the housing market, I'd rather be in a position where I was more established. I think it’s a different world now than when people were traditionally getting onto the housing market. I’ve never considered it in my 20s, whereas in my 30s it looks like it's a much better time to do it.”

The challenges young adults face today

Speaking about the challenges young adults face today, Will said: “I think one of the biggest challenges young professionals are facing at the moment is that because our world is so overly connected and we have so many options available to us at the moment.

“We’re constantly being fed these false dreams on social media on being able to quit our jobs and travel the world and become an influencer. And because of that it’s created this numbing effect, and because of that people are having all of these options presented in front of them but it feels like there’s a lack of care for young professionals.

“There are so many pressures from the mental health side of things. From the climate and political turmoil across the world. So much of our world is now staring at a screen and we’re missing real life personal connections. We need to take our wellbeing and our mental health as one of our number one priorities.”