I’ve been very fortunate that through a lot of hard work over the years, I’ve been able to have had many opportunities.
For my 13th Birthday (literally the day of my birthday) my older sister gave me her paper-round to start that day (the legal age I was able to start work).
Prior to that (before I even remember starting school), my ‘pocket money’ was only given to me when I’d properly tidied my bedroom, and cleaned a share of the bathroom. So you could say that from an early age, I was given a strong work ethic.
At University I had a part time complimentary therapy clinic (and in addition to my full time Engineering degree, I was also a barman, student warden, and ran a few clubs and societies).
On leaving Uni I worked as a door-to-door salesman for a few months, had a challenging office job (in that it wasn’t challenging intellectually!) .. and then started setting up my first Limited Company in June 2000.
I’d already heard that in general, only one in five businesses succeed beyond the first few years, so I set up multiple variations of businesses, running them alongside each other, hoping that at least one would succeed longer term.
Then as some businesses didn’t go as well as I’d hoped, I’d phase them out and develop alternative ones. And as new opportunities became available, I’d take them on too.
The longer term plan (from a comparatively early age), was to ‘retire’ at 35 years old (in 2012), with the equivalent of a million pound in the bank, so I wouldn’t have to ‘work’ again. And then, I could move to NZ, and enjoy the incredible outdoor lifestyle whilst still young and fit enough to maximize my time there.
However, in December 2009, the opportunity became available to take on a luxury boutique hotel the following summer of 2010, on a minimum 3 year lease (taking me to the end of August 2013, so a year behind my planned schedule). But it seemed too good an opportunity not to miss.
This hotel has been going pretty well (although not quite as well as I’d hoped, because of the naivety of many locals perpetuating historical myths about the hotel). And although I haven’t quite reached the million in the bank, through the acquisition of some property, share options, and savings, I’ll have enough to support myself for the coming years (i.e. enough to cover my living costs whilst living in my own property, with the option to ‘work’ if I want to buy something a little more expensive, as and when).
I can then focus on the dreams I want to, when I want to.
However, I’ve now had it confirmed that literally the day after my hotel lease expires (the final definitive date of my hotel lease), I begin the first actual race day of the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race!
So how did I do it?
- My typical working week is at least 100 hours plus (often more).
- On average, I manage about a half day off every couple of weeks (and even then I’m still on call)
- I don’t tend to sleep too much (i.e. 6.5 hours a night seem to work perfectly when I’m busy)
- I work hard, I’m not afraid to turn my hands to doing whatever needs doing (whether that’s unblocking toilets, fixing websites, dealing with challenging customers, etc.)
- I work ‘smart’ (although this has been a long and slow process, learning just what is smart working and what’s less effective). – In the main part for me, it’s about employing the right staff / sub-contractors, to do whatever their job is well, so I can leave them to it without question or concern, with trust, (and provide them with all the training they might need to carry on learning as they go along).
- I also try to rethink through virtually every process and system I’m involved with, to maximise its efficiency and performance. Also helping ensure consistency for my businesses customers (whoever they are).
- There are countless books on the subject, and too many apt quotes to describe what I do. For each person though, you need to work out what works for you, and go with that.
- As my sister once said “he had to work really hard to be consistently that lucky” .. to me, that about sums it up.
