No, Life Doesn’t Begin At 40
On November 25th 2017 I published an article on LinkedIn titled:
“Maybe life does 'truly' begin at 40”
Today, on 25th January 2025, I am republishing the same article here on TOSCEO, but with some additional closing comments at the end.
Enjoy the story, and share it with whoever comes upon your heart.
Maybe life does 'truly' begin at 40
Just over an hour ago I turned 40 years old (aka young).
Its 1am in the morning, and as I was just about to go bed, I looked in our fridge and saw the chilling beers that my fantastic colleagues had just bought me as a gift for my birthday.
My colleagues are an incredibly important and influential part of my life - they are the people who are instrumental in the services and value that my company delivers to our clients. They are the people I see every day I'm in the office. They are the people who are looking up to me to inspire them, to make them feel respected, valued, trusted.
I'm not sure exactly where this article is going, but with "life begins at 40" coming firmly in to mind, as I looked at which beer I was going to take from the fridge, I felt utterly compelled to write this article.
I have made my mind up - this article is going to be about me sharing some of my biggest lessons running a business, alongside having a relentless dedication to also being a true family man with my wife and three children.
Lesson 1 - it is incredibly, incredibly hard to run and grow a business and maintain a really healthy balance with family time - particularly during the working week
Maybe running a business, until it becomes incredibly successful and you can afford to step back, is simply not very compatible with seeing your family and watching your children grow up. I am fascinated to hear what Derek Mills has to say about this - Derek inspired me to make a change to my Monday to Friday routine which led me to publish what proved to be one of my most shared articles in 2017 - the life-changing magic of spending more time with your children
Spending time with your children is priceless - but you can't forget the importance of what you actually do for a living
Lesson 2 - when you are a leader, its what you do when you are physically present that really matters
As the saying goes, behaviour creates behaviour.
As a leader, particularly being a business leader, I am realising more and more that what is crucially important is what I do, what I say and how I am with people when I'm physically present within my business. No matter how many minutes or hours I spend on my business, thinking, talking or doing things on my laptop when I'm commuting, sat at home or out with my family, this is invisible.
As a leader, you have to be seen to be believed. You have to be truly, physically present
To my exceptional team who are reading this right now, I just want to say, you are going to be seeing me more often - more often than what you have seen me since the early part of 2017 after Amelia was born and I reduced my time in the office by 1 hour each day. You deserve to see me, talk to me, learn from me, get support from me, and grow with me and the agency, more than you have been doing.
For any of you who have ever felt that my significant (particularly for someone leading a business) time out of the business spending time with my family is an indication that I don't really care too much about either the business or your career, I am determined to make you feel different about me.
As I start to change my time spent thinking about, analyzing and often worrying about what could be better about the agency, to time spent demonstrating just how much I care about the agency, I hope this change will have a material impact on my colleagues, my business, myself and my family.
Lesson 3 - maintaining perspective is one of the important life skills, and a skill which at 40 years young, I still haven't mastered
Whether its the pressures of daily life through to the pressures of truly stepping outside of your comfort zone, pressure, for me anyway, plays absolute havoc with my level of perspective.
I often find it fascinating how even when there has been absolutely no change to a current, often challenging circumstance, my perception of what is going on can be at opposite ends of the spectrum.
I spend hours and hours each week experiences a range of different things - one or two which actually happen
If anyone reading this has the silver bullet to maintaining perspective, please share it in the comments!
Lesson 4 - your level of energy is directly related to the level at which you are in the zone, happy, focussed, positive
Three days ago I would not have been up writing this at now what is 1.40am. Tonight, having just turned 40 and feeling like it is important for me to write this article of reflection, I'm wide awake, engaged and feeling like there is some value for some people reading this.
The more time you can spend in a positive state of mind, the more time you are likely to be "in the zone" and being your true-self
Lesson 5 - only once we get a handle on how our own mind operates can we then start to truly start living and exploiting our own potential
Since 2015 I have spent quite a bit of time aiming to understand the way my mind works, and how it influences my behaviour, happiness, engagement levels and pretty much every aspect of my daily life.
I'm truly grateful that through my time spent over the last few years, I have been aware of this - in particular by understanding just how influential my early childhood was.
As adults, our affect and influence on our young children in their early years is truly profound and life shaping for them. This should never be underestimated
My journey towards truly getting control of how my mind works, and re-wiring how it operates based on experiences and situations from my childhood from birth until around 10 years old, is a long journey. It is also a journey I simply have to take if the people most important in my life: my wife, children, friends and colleagues are to gain themselves, by being in my company.
Lesson 6 - life is full of life lessons, its just about whether you see them as this
In this last 12 months, I have spent much of time not seeing my experiences as lessons which I can learn from. In the hustle of day to day life, its so easy to just do, and not think and learn.
For me, choosing to write articles like this on my Linkedin profile has been a way of me being able to remind myself that I should stop being so hard on myself.
We are own worst critic. We need to see all the good in ourselves that others can see in us.
Lesson 7 - spending time with young people to share your life lessons and learnings is both rewarding and immeasurable valuable to them
In the last 12 months I have had the privilege and opportunity to share some of what I do and what I have learnt to a young audience. It was a technical college to around 80 students aged 15-17. In amongst yet another period of uncertainty and stress during 2017, I was able to bottle up and share stories which seemed to really resonate with the students. If only one of them makes decisions as they move forward which positively affects their lives from having listened to what I shared, I will be very happy.
We should never underestimate the value of us sharing our learnings to younger people
Lesson 8 - most people leave their most important concerns hidden rather than bringing them to the surface to make changes or just face up to them
This has been me, 100%, up until the last few years, and even the last few months. It has only been through my openness about my challenges with imposter syndrome and experiences of leadership have I ended up having countless discussions with people who have harboured similar concerns or anxities for many years of their lives.
By opening up about our own concerns, we help other people open up about theirs
Having just typed that last sentence, a thought just came over me - "why I am writing all this, which on the surface has little to do with running my business or a business?". What I am striving to be? Why don't I write more about my business to promote it?
If I'm being honest with myself, here is what I feel right now as I turn 40 I am striving for...
being open about my own feelings and personal journey as a way of helping make it real
an increasing understanding of how to become a better leader
building an exceptional agency that is desirable and respected on different levels
providing ways to help more businesses become more enjoyable to work within - for this read this article
having a balance in life so my children don't grow up wondering why I am rarely at home
for the people closest to me to truly enjoy being in my company
getting a true and deep understanding of how my mind works and how I can affect this
sharing my experiences with others who in some way could benefit from what I am learning
Its now 2.27am on my 40th birthday and I'm going to go to bed in preparation for my two youngest daughters to wake me up with what I expect will be big smiles on their faces.
Thank you for reading this.
In around 5 hours I'll start to find out whether life 'truly' does begin at 40!
Closing Comments For 2025 & Beyond
So no, life doesn’t begin at 40!
Life begins when we have the revelation of Jesus Christ, who is the only one that can and does set us free from life in the flesh, dominated by sin and death!
So to summarise, life begins at the cross of Jesus!
Is Jesus Your Lord & Saviour?
If you haven’t already, it is now time for you to be born-again by receiving Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour!
Head over to the Become Born-Again website to read God’s purpose for your life.
