Don’t Be A Mental Loafer, Neville
I think the responsibility of Management is to provide a safe and secure job for their workers by helping them create a working environment and life of stress-free happiness, although it’s seldom achieved in the ever-changing competitive world of today; but that must be the aim and, although our business seemed to change every day, it was always with the thought of these principles, striving to make a better place to work in.
I can hear some people saying, ‘what a load of old ????’, but there you are, staff didn’t know everything that we were thinking in our hearts and heads.
Is success something you are born with?
Very often people that are born and raised in a poor family do better than people who are brought up in a rich family. They seem to have an overwhelming desire to get themselves, and their family, out of the low-income trap. They strive to become secure in all aspects of their lives, very often accumulating unimaginable wealth.
Mind over Matter or Does it mean Determination?
‘every hour of every day’
Keeping our eyes and ears open for opportunities that just seemed to be everywhere if we looked for them, we have always had the passion and desire to look for and seek out deals where there didn’t appear to be any; we didn’t know or realise that at the time, we were on a journey of highs and lows, and everybody knows that a journey of 1000 miles starts with one small step. That’s where we all procrastinate so, very often, we will not make that first step until someone pushes us to do it.
Don’t say ‘I could have’ ‘I should have’ ‘Don’t be frightened to become a Millionaire
So, just to summarise; for me to get more I had to motivate myself to do more and when I did more, that motivated me even more to have more.
‘Understand and know why you are doing it’
Dreams or Goals – what’s the difference?
Another one of our dreams was to be financially independent and free of all debts, something that we really did not believe could happen to us. How could it? We had no right to even think like that.
That kind of thinking is common in people telling themselves that they are not worthy to be successful.
Well, we had to force those thoughts out of our heads. We did this over time by telling ourselves that everyone, deep down, has the same opportunities as everyone else; we just had to believe in ourselves and not continually compare ourselves to everyone else. I did this until that deep-seated fear of not being as good as everyone around me had gone. Back then, apart from those things, I personally did not know what I liked; I had to figure that out over time. One thing I learned was to tell myself that the job that I was doing that day was the best job in the world; I had to do the job, so I might as well enjoy it – the day went quickly and it gave me a positive mind.
Everybody has different agendas, priorities and commitments at different times of their lives. Although not all of my dreams come true, a lot more than I had expected did, and many more would have if I had made more effort in that direction, but that’s down to me not seizing opportunities when they appeared.
What are yours?
If only, I had done that
I used knowledge from one job to get to the next job. Don’t be afraid to change jobs because you will find something incredible that you would not have if you had just waited until the right job had come along. And, what if it is not the right job, then what? Don’t waste time doing nothing.
From the moment we started our business there hasn’t been a wasted moment. I advise everyone to get out and live, prove to yourself, and I really do mean prove to yourself, that you are worth something. Don’t go with the crowd, grasp life, it’s the only chance you will ever have, don’t let it go, don’t let yourself down, don’t be an ‘If only, I had done that‘ type of person.
Get ready for your success in 2021
12 Ways to succeed in 2021
(1) You are either going forwards or backwards in life. So, in 2021 constantly drive your mind to always go forward.
I found that the only way to go forward for me has been to get off my backside and do something, anything that I am capable of doing
My Book
Absolutely fantastic!
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Absolutely fantastic! A truly inspirational read. Written with such passion demonstrating all the life long hard work, sheer determination, love and care plus having the essential ability to think outside the box.
Must read book… ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A must-read book if you are in business, retail, dealing with the public or just want to understand what it takes…
Inside is so much knowledge from the man who sold his business at the height of the recession for £70mil, no mean feat.
The fact that all the proceeds go to charity is just an added bonus.
What a lovely, kind man with a great philosophy. So many high street stores could learn so much from this book.
Available to download
(2) Set goals for 2021 – big ones, small ones, short-term, long-term, minute to minute – even the 50-year goals.
All successful people have goals, it’s so easy to do, so why is it that most people ignore the basics of setting goals
(3) Decide to love what you are doing in 2021 – whatever you have to do in life love doing it – you will find amazing opportunities will come your way.
Whatever you do in life never become complacent and never take anyone for granted
(4) In 2021 have more pride in what you do – more than you have ever had before in your life.
My Dad my hero. He taught me to have pride in everything that I do
(5) Do more in 2021 than you get paid to do, then eventually you will get a lot more for what you do.
To receive more I had to motivate myself to do more and when I did more that motivated me to have more
(6) Learn a great deal more in 2021 about what you want to be, do, and have, in fact, make it more than you have learned in the last 5 years.
I told myself not to be a mental loafer all of my life, not even for one minute
(7) If you do the same thing today as you did yesterday you will get the same results – if you want different results in 2021, then change what you are doing right now.
You and business should change every day, so embrace it
(8) Listen more to others in 2021 that have been there and done it successfully, you may already know what they are telling you but one day you won’t and that’s when you can make a fortune.
Read and listen to non-fiction books, motivational speakers, find a mentor but you must take it in
(9) Take total responsibility in 2021, in-fact, you are responsible for everything in your life.
Once I became responsible I had a paradigm shift to success
(10) In 2021 focus more on what you desire – in every aspect of your life.
Focus on what you can do today that will build passive income in the future
(11) Become more aware of time in 2021, everyone has the same amount of it, don’t waste it as once it’s gone it’s gone.
I must do the most productive thing possible at every given moment
(12) Don’t procrastinate in 2021, don’t wait until all the lights are on green before heading for town this year.
Just get on and do it, yes, do it now
– an extract from my book, The Answer is Yes Now What is the Question by Neville Wright
The Art of Understanding Money
Our business at the time was no different and it made us think – what if….?
My wife and I played many parts in our businesses, wearing many hats, and if one of us was to go that would mean 50% of the key staff would go too and the other 50% would crack under the pressure. At the time we were the only ones who knew everything about the business; the managers had their areas of responsibility, and our daughters were busy with advertising. promotions and customer service, which left little time to learn the boring bit of how to run a business.
Dad’s Dead; what do we do now
Knowing that I would be leaving a debt I did not want my family to be left in the same position as my friend’s family so one day we played a game of ‘Dad’s Dead; what do we do now?’ I’d heard this game on one of my motivational tapes.
Questions needed to be answered – ‘would they keep the business? how would they operate? would they sell? and then what? One answer I got back was ‘they would carry on as normal’ so I said ‘ok, I will be dead today, run the business’. Within 5 minutes, ‘have we got enough money to buy more property?’ I said ‘I’m dead, ask someone else’, ‘have we got enough stock?’ ‘who do we have relationships with, who are our estate agents, who are our letting agents?’ ‘what banks do we use?’ ‘what is our plan for the business in the future?’
The game went on for some time and we soon realised that we needed to do something, making us aware of the need for key staff and partners to know more about the business.
I would urge everyone to play this game before it’s not a game anymore
Back to the debt, because of what happened to my friend we not only wanted to pay off our £1,075M debt but we wanted to pay it off within three years out of profits. Having said that at the time I didn’t think we had got a chance, but what the mind can conceive and believe can be achieved and we paid it off in 2 years and 9 months. Needing to clear the debt proved to ourselves that we were in control and we were not getting out of our depth with borrowing. It was a very good exercise but with me being so stubborn I did lose out on a couple of good deals which in hindsight would have paid the debt off with the profit.
What did we learn and how did we do it?
During the process I did find out that we had some insurance policies that we’d taken out each time we got a bank loan but we didn’t understand that we could have cancelled these when each loan was paid off, or, that the insurance could have covered the next loan, so you can imagine we were very pleasantly surprised when we eventually cancelled them because the premiums went towards paying off the loan and we got a return of £75K. On top of that I found out that we both had 9 pensions each which had been taken out over the years. I amalgamated and put them into property.
When you are new to business all you care about is the loan you need, not what’s actually being said or done, you’re signing paperwork, saving tax and not really thinking about pensions in 60 years time. Looking back now it’s amazing how many things we did based on trust of other people dealing with our finances……….. it all comes back to
Pay in a Day
I also came up with an initiative which I believe was the first in the trade and probably never been done since, was to pay in a day. We’d been getting between 2 and 5% discount by paying in 30 days, by re-negotiating the terms to pay in a day could we achieve a 7 to 10% settlement discount. All we had to do was persuade the suppliers to take up our offer and if they did we would save £200K. The majority came on board and we did achieve an extra £160K on the bottom line. Between 1995 and 1996 our profits rose from £323K to £484K making £161K extra profit without having to put up our prices to the customer.
Every week that went by we had less interest to pay on our loan. We were paying an average of 12%. By dividing the £1,075M into 156 weeks, paying off £6,891 a week we would save £15.90 interest, equivalent to £827 per annum. After 144 weeks we had paid the debt off, £992,000 out of profits and the remaining £83K from the interest that we saved.
Free of Debt At Last
Embrace problems – a normal days work for us
I think that if anybody wants to be really successful in business they have to be thinking all the time of how to solve problems. Start with the ones you have got and expand from there. When you are in business you don’t have to look for problems they will come looking for you, thick and fast. All you have to do is figure it out. An example of this was back in the late 80’s.
One Friday night I got a call from a Commercial Estate Agent saying he had a client who wanted a Property that we owned and would we be able to do a deal with him. The client wanted to turn the said property into a tearoom/cafe and he wanted to live above it with his family. I said ‘great but I didn’t think his client would be able to make a living from it, but would be nice if he could’, so I told the Agent to draw up the paperwork.
The Agent replied, ‘it’s a bit more complicated than that, my client needs to sell his house before he can move’. I said, ‘let me know the address of the property’. We knew the area well so we agreed to buy it.
The Agent said, ‘there’s a slight problem my client is in arrears with his mortgage and he will be repossessed the following week if he doesn’t pay £3,000 by the following Monday so could we give him the £3,000 and take it off the price of the house when we buy it?’ I said, ‘of course’.
The Agent then responded, ‘that’s great but there’s another problem my client cannot legally sell his house for 3 months. He bought his house cheap as a sitting tenant and if he sells before June he has to pay back the discount he got’. I said, ‘that’s fine, we’ll organise the paperwork and then complete in the June’. The Agent said, ‘that’s not legal so you would have to take it on trust’. I said, ‘ok’.
The Agent then said, ‘and there’s a further problem he’s getting married in a week’s time. He needs £1,500 to pay the caterers or they won’t do the catering’. I said, ‘I would take the £1,500 to him’. Would there be anything else that he has a problem with? Ha! Ha!
The Agent replied, ‘actually there is another thing, before he gets married he needs to get divorced but his wife will not sign the paperwork unless she has £3,750’. I said, ‘ok, so as I see it I am going to buy a house in three months time, I am going to give your client £3,000 for his arrears, £1,500 for his wedding catering and £3,750 for his ex-wife?’ The Agent said, ‘yes, that’s it’.
I said, that’s fine on one condition. ‘I will also give him a year’s lease valued at £11,000 for the commercial property that your client wants and take it off what your client thinks his house is worth’.
The client wanted £39,000 to get himself out of trouble but I had to value the house first and it would have to be a win-win situation for both of us.
The following day we agreed £34,250 made up of £16,000 for the house (which was what he paid for it), £11,000 for the year’s rent, £3,750 for his wife’s part, £3,000 for his arrears and £1,500 for the caterers. The client moved into our property and we bought his house in the June. I then renovated his house for £5,000 and sold it for £47,000.
When the tenants came to our office to sign the paperwork they found out that we owned a nursery business, and unbeknown to us at the time they had decided to open a baby shop instead of the cafe. Within 8 weeks the owner came to see us to say that he wanted to leave and would we give him £600 for two month’s rent on a house he had found? We did.
He left that day, knowing full well that he could have stayed for another 10 months without paying anymore rent but he didn’t want to. A win-win for us again due to them taking a year’s lease.
We made £17,000 on the deal for an outlay of £30,000 over 6 months – that’s equivalent to 57% profit.
We’re still not sure why he moved on so quickly though…….
Embrace problems – a normal days work for us
Audio Release – The Answer is Yes Now What is the Question
Audio Release – The Answer is Yes Now What is the Question
Available to download
Thank you Jay Britton, narrator and well known UK voice actor and acx.com the, audiobook creation exchange, for helping me to achieve another life-time goal.
‘There is lots of emotion, highs, lows, how to succeed – my dyslexia and ADHD is highlighted as you listen. Due to this I often get sidetracked and have to go back to the original part of the story; again, this is highlighted. I also use some unsavory words, not in a malicious way merely showing my frustrations when not everything goes my way. The book took me just over three years to finish.
If anyone has any comments, feedback or questions please feel free to get in touch.
Don’t let the flea trainers get you?
What is Normal? Whatever it is, keep away from it, don’t let it get you!
In the 1990’s we had learned and gained the ability to be flexible with the attitude of ‘The answer is yes, now what is the question? That meant that when customers said ‘can you…? we would say ‘yes’ before they had finished asking the question. We still worked hard, only now we were getting incredible rewards for it, so we started to have the things that came with surplus money – worldwide holidays, good cars, my first Bentley.
Eating out every night became a normal necessity of working life, because the more money we earned the more responsibility we had, and the harder we worked, the less time we had at home. Everything that we needed to do at home was looked after for us so we could work extra hours at the drop of a hat, which happened most days.
We got so busy at Kiddicare that it was not possible to see all of the reps during the day; we would see some of them in the evenings, and some would stay at our house instead of a hotel. We could get the buying done without the disturbances that inevitably would happen in the shop during the daytime. There would also be more time to chat and find out what was going on in the trade.
We were very careful not to compromise any of the reps when asking questions; it was very important to us as we didn’t want to be just another retailer, we wanted to be the best. We would ask, ‘what’s your best seller?’ ‘where are we in your list of customers?’ without naming them, which we wouldn’t have expected them to do anyway. If we were not their top customer I would say ‘how many do we have to sell to be at the top of your list?’
It was usually something simple that we could put right immediately and then become number one for that rep. I seemed to be more concerned that the rep came top in his company than me being top in the league of independents; it was my secret goal that all of our reps were the number one salesperson in their company.
One thing that has never bothered me in business is the 24 hours in the day; it’s not broken into work, and then other time zones – I have been available in the business 24/7 because I had no choice at the start, and I just naturally carried it on.
Life hasn’t changed – I wrote my book mainly between 10.30pm and 3.30am. It was the only time that I didn’t get interruptions!
Once you get the rewards you realise that the effort that was first forced on to you by necessity is all worthwhile. I suppose at this point, if there is any advice that I could give, it is
Don’t let the flea trainers get you?
Having Fun Making Money
I often felt I should be dressed up as a clown to go to work, as my world consists of juggling balls, verbally and mentally spinning plates. If you have ever been to a circus you will have certainly seen the clowns juggling balls and spinning plates.
Both come to mind in the early days when we started to build both our property maintenance and retail businesses. To be quite honest I probably worried about it more in the early days, but after the excitement set in it became a normal part of growing a business and I can’t say that it ever stops. Or rather, I wouldn’t want it to stop! Metaphorically speaking, after smashing so many plates along the way, we did get a bit cynical, and therefore I ended up using plastic ones….
Every Job Was Another Plate
One plate spinning, that’s fantastic; then another; it’s no problem to get a third one spinning, you cope, you add the fourth. You go back to the first, second, third and fourth but you get ambitious, so you add a fifth, but back you go again to number one. No time to rest, no time for holidays, no time for lunches.
This was us so after a while we were there spinning eight or nine plates. It got easy, we got used to it, it’s so easy thinking we were invincible, piling on ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen but realistically in business to get up to this number quickly you would have to involve the bank.
In the early days we were leveraging our assets with the bank and had no problem giving them everything, including our house; we extended our credit that we had with suppliers; many times. If our suppliers wanted to sell us their surplus stock we would want to pay for it once we had sold it. This amounted to leveraging our souls, which I became uncomfortable with as I liked to pay for goods when we received them, as the other way round is risky business to say the least.
Rob Peter to Pay Paul; Then What?
Every growing business goes through this at some stage, if you know that you will sell more stock, say in January you have to buy it in December, but the supplier wants you to buy in October and pay him at the end of January. Of course there are many scenarios and two are, firstly that you sell the goods by December but take your credit time and then secondly, you find you have used the money on other stock when it comes time to pay. In the event of you not achieving the anticipated sales, panic sets in, and you sell the stock at a loss to make way for new stock, which then leaves you short of money. We were no different, constantly juggling.
Having reps that knew our business, and who knew us personally as friends, could fight our corner so as to provide us with more stock to trade out of the situation. It really would have been hard for us to expand at times, without the faith that everybody had put in us. Many suppliers would give us ten times our insurance limit because of our payment track record, most also knew that we had property that we were not afraid to sell if it came to the crunch. Our suppliers also knew that we had a team around us that understood the business in terms of what the businesses needed to achieve and why, which was found to be invaluable.
Well Done Everybody; Now Let’s Get On
This One Made Us Millions – Ek Pialla Garam Chaar
‘One cup of hot tea’ my dad told us this when we first started in business. This one sentence, once implemented, made us millions of pounds.
When dad was in India the shopkeepers used to invite people in and then ask if they would like a cup of tea. He said that the process was very, very simple. The tea was a free gift; the hotter it was, the longer it would take to drink, meaning more time to wander around the shop. The more you see in the business, the longer you would be there, and the more the shopkeeper would befriend you. Everything being equal, if there was something that you wanted, why not buy it?
Although my dad told me this on day one, it took something like 5 years for us to implement the strategy, and only when we got our third shop!
Speculate to Accumulate
The more we gave, the more we received. Local people who would go for a walk around the village would stop for a free coffee, a win-win situation unbeknown to them.
Just by being there, they were helping us to sell to new customers coming in for the first time
the thought of a shop in a village, packed with people, it must be good and, of course, every aspect of the business was
For years I have asked people to answer this question in 5 seconds
Which one would you pick? 1 million pounds cash right now, or 1p today and doubled every day for 31 days?
Just so you understand, without any doubt; on the first day I would give you 1 penny, the next day 2, the next 4, the next 8, and so on. On the eleventh day it would have accumulated to £10.24.
So, which would you take?
Answer now – 1 million or 1 penny?
When it comes to money, lots of people like to keep it, hoard it away for a rainy day, or just because they feel safe seeing their savings in a bank ready for them to live on when they don’t have a job or don’t want to work.
Now think about this; if, after working and saving for thirty years, you find out a thief has been stealing a bit of your savings every week you would be very angry, so why are you not angry about inflation doing the same thing every week?
Inflation is just robbing you so that your money deflates, leaving you unable to buy what you could have just a year ago. So I say that your money is being stolen. Most people don’t see it like that, and, if they do, they don’t understand just what it’s doing to their savings and the diminishing returns they can get on their money.
Another question for you, in 5 seconds please.
Who is the winner when it comes to money?
- The person who saves their money in a bank?
- The bank which lends that money to a customer?
- The person who is the borrower of that money?
The answer, in the vast number of cases, is the person who borrows. You see, different times call for different strategies, but the person who puts their money into the bank, usually to protect it, loses out to inflation in two ways; £100k today in the bank, with inflation, say, at 10% next year, is worth £90k which, in 5 years’ time, will be worth under £62k.
Meanwhile, the person who borrowed their money has an investment worth just over £161k, which they can leverage against, say at 90%; that’s an extra £54k of investment that they can buy and reinvest, making a £215k investment that can buy passive income for them.
At the present time, the net passive income would be £12.5k, plus the appreciating asset would keep up with inflation, whereas the money in the bank would have an income of £500 and would be eroded by inflation.
So, Speculate to Accumulate
Money makes money, but only if it is invested with caution. Most people don’t give this a thought.
If you don’t believe me, ask any business person
Marville born on 24 September 1979
With the business being a 50-50 partnership we became Marville, using our names Marilyn and Neville, adding properties on the end with a tagline of residential and commercial investments.
We had traded properties from 1975, buying and selling one or two at a time. We used to go into estate agents and ask what they had for £1,500 or less. They would bring out 6 or 8 properties at a time.
We knew all the streets in Peterborough, we would never go to the same place twice without going in a different direction, always looking for ‘for sale’ boards. I would make ridiculous offers on all 8 properties even though I had not seen inside them. I would offer the price of a virtual rebuild, thinking any condition above this was a bonus. The agents would say,
if you were fortunate enough to get all of these, would you be able to buy them?
Do you think I was going to say no? Of course not! I used to say ‘yes of course’ thinking there was no way that all of these people would accept my offer. However, just in case they did I was confident enough that I would find the money from somewhere. The chances were quite slim that I would get any at the prices we had offered but if we were lucky then we would probably end up with one, and one a month was good.
The number-one goal of establishing financial freedom as quickly as possible had its up and downs as we tried to hold on to as much property as possible and receive an income from it. By holding on to it cash flow was affected and, consequently, properties had to be sold. It seemed hopeless to us, but an insider would have seen it differently, they would have seen the substantial number of properties we had at any one time.
Marville was growing but we just hadn’t got to the tipping point of keeping investments; we had properties that could produce 20% income but of course, this would have meant keeping them for 5 years to get our money back, which we couldn’t do.
Sometimes you have to give up what’s good in the short term to get what’s great in the future!
Business Changes Every Day – We All change Every Day; that’s life
Life is a Journey and a Series of If’s
If I was good at spelling I would have stayed in one of the jobs that I had previously had. If the government had given me enough money I would have stayed on the dole. If I could have sold my house before going self-employed I would have had the fear of losing the money maybe, and then I would not have had the courage to go into business
None of the above happened, so I had started my business with 37p, not having the slightest clue of where life would take me.
I had not realised that living in a caravan was the best thing that could have happened to me, it had given me a standard that I could cope with. I was happy, enabling me to burn bridges over the years, very often risking everything and saying that if this all goes wrong I can go back to living in a caravan.
I think the great thing about not being as good as others at something, whether it’s sports or business, or whatever, you just have to focus on the things that you can do, and in doing so, find yourself; then practise getting better at whatever you put your mind to.
I not only put my mind to what I could do, but also what I couldn’t do; then I was driven, but you just don’t stop at ‘normal’ – you exceed your own expectations and everybody’s around you.
So, despite always running away because I thought I was dumb, not knowing that I was dyslexic and that there was nothing to be ashamed of, by the beginning of 1977 I was good at buying property
Don’t let your financial fears ruin your future?
It can be very hard for most people to go and risk all of their money. I suppose I had never had any real money in my hands; it was always tied up in assets, and living in a 10 ft caravan was always a standard.
There are people who say to me that they wish they had got the money to start a business or money for investments. If I know them, I say,
You’ve got a house that is paid for, or nearly paid for, that will give you plenty of collateral you could leverage this asset, so you really have got the money available to you
Unfortunately, they say, ‘I’m not going to do that. I am not risking my house.’ I say,
Of course not; stay away from making money, keep on making excuses for not putting your money where your mouth is; just keep wishing someone else will do it for you.
There are people I speak to who have made the decision to be independent and look after themselves. They are like sponges; they soak up all the information they can, then they look for ways that the information can be used in their business, and lives, always looking at everything as a positive.
Then, there are those who think that the business that they are working in is totally dependent on them, they are always thinking that they should be self-employed and have the money that their employers are getting.
Some people ask for advice, and then contradict what I have said and always give excuses why they won’t do it. They are in limbo because they won’t invest the money, the time needed or take responsibility. They are the people who are always saying, ‘we should have’, or, ‘could have’, and today, there goes another missed opportunity.
I have found that when you wish with conviction you will get what you want, and if it means leveraging your house, you will do it. A house is only an asset; whatever you have in life you are the custodian, whether it’s the house, vintage car, land or money; you are never going to keep it. I say,
whatever you have please look after it and leave it for the next person in better condition than you found it.
Money should be looked after with pride, not buried deep in the ground, or the bank. Money cultivated grows, and makes more money. I use money three times at the same time.
Don’t let your financial fears ruin your future?
I Mentally Treated my Business as a Game
I mentally treated my business as a game; a competition with imaginary players all competing against me. Losing wasn’t an option.
If life was harder, it would be easier to make the sacrifices needed to become rich.
Security was my number one priority so all decisions were made with that criterion in mind.
Will this decision take us nearer to, or further from our ambitions and goals in life? As we wanted to be secure in the long run, I repeat, the long run, it didn’t matter about the short run.
So my priority was to prove to myself that I could, so working harder and longer became normal. The more I did, the more I wanted, it was like I was hooked. I just could not stop myself from working, then investing the money into the business without a thought of easing up on myself. Every day push, push, pushing myself and I found that everyone around me did the same.
Goals are a normal part of life, aren’t they? If anybody said no, I would be lost for words; my goals may be different from yours, but the categories should be the same – goals relating to: family, friends, work, money, lifestyle, home, location, hobbies, leisure, food, education, etc., etc., etc.
Goals are like juggling balls – you have to keep practicing; and just because you drop some doesn’t mean that you’re no good. Don’t give up, just do it again. If you have a goal, it means you will have already made an effort. To achieve a goal, you have to give something of yourself – effort – and the more you give to the world in the way of effort, the more the world gives back to you in the form of abundance. But, most of the time, the world tries you! So it often takes a bit longer than expected.
I am where I am because of what I have done in the past. If I want to be somewhere else, it’s simple; I must change and do things differently to alter the future.
What would you change to alter the future?
Use the KISS Principle, Keep it Simple!
‘I work in my business because it’s a lifestyle. I love doing it but I will never make any money’
This means that the business is not working for them – they are just working for the business. Making money is all about making the business work for you; consequently they are buying their own business every day.
I was always aware of this trap. Very often people will work all of their lives and close the business without having thought about selling it. What they should have done is implemented a 5 or 10-year plan beforehand so they can keep their lifestyle until they pop their clogs
Are there other businesses around in your sector that are successful? I only had to be 1% better than the nearest competitor to take their business?
If your business is not working for you just think before you throw the towel in?
From the first day in business, we thought that we would create a business –
- that would sustain our lifestyle; this was no problem as we didn’t have one yet
- that the family could make a living from and sustain all of their needs
- one which could be around and passed on to generations to come, or be sold for a substantial amount of money
The Last ‘S’ is for Stupid!
Passion. Is it Addictive?
I found that the passion in what I was doing could get so addictive that I would just keep going, irrespective of everything or anybody else in my life. There was a driving force inside of me pushing to challenge and beat myself at what I was doing. I always want to perform tasks quicker and quicker, always beating my own record, over and over, never stopping.
Passion in what you do can get you anything and everything you desire in life! This is one of many examples in my book. My mind has never changed.
What’s your definition of Passion in Business?
Mad, Foolish or Dreamers?
By 1974 our dreams of becoming wealthy overnight just disappeared and realistic dreams took their place, thinking of what we wanted to have, to be, and do, in ten, twenty, thirty, or even fifty years’ time. This took us into a different place as far as our minds were concerned; we couldn’t get upset if things went wrong, because instant, short-term success had gone from our minds.
I didn’t have many tools, nor the equipment necessary for the type of work that needed doing, there was no chance of borrowing more money and on top of all that I was a ‘dyslexic‘. I didn’t have any certificates for painting and decorating, so I thought no one would give me work.
It was all about long-term goals, so setbacks didn’t upset us; in fact they gave us a boost, propelling us to the next level. We actually thrived on them, whereas we saw others give up along the way after one failure and, after seeing others fail, we never saw ours as failures; we saw them as just another way not to do things. Imagine if inventors gave up on their first attempt – we would still be in mud huts with no electricity – not too dissimilar to the caravan we lived in at the same time as we became self-employed.
Looking back, I think that it was not a certificate that I needed, it was just confidence.
My Answer – Just don’t Give Up!
Don’t be afraid to share your knowledge
Not only that, I wanted a job, but at the same time I had disrespected the situation when I had one. This taught me when I became self-employed –
to be interested in learning new things, as you never know when you will need them and since then I have never stopped learning, every day, without fail. There is never a day goes by without learning something of interest; even negative things teach us.
I found that one of the secrets of success is to share knowledge with other people. I have worked in so many places where staff, and even bosses, would not tell me their little secrets of how to get the job done more easily or quickly. In my eyes, they were unfortunately insecure; I thought that if they told someone else, that would make their job easier for them, the company, and ultimately, the customer would benefit.
Whatever business I have had, I have encouraged staff not to be afraid to show others how to do the job. It opens up opportunities for them to expand their own knowledge, and, at the same time, become more valuable in the company, freeing them to take on more interesting roles doing things that they wouldn’t normally have time to do if they had not shared their secrets.
Now, I’m not talking about giving away a secret scientific formula that belongs to the company, only a basic sharing and overlapping with the teaching of jobs to make it more interesting, productive, and inspiring for all.
In our Kiddicare business we had staff that thrived on responsibility; they were making decisions themselves without any fuss or delay.