One Thing I Would Tell Myself 40 Years Ago
On September 15th 2016 I published an article on LinkedIn titled:
“12 Things I Would Tell Myself 12 Years Ago”
Today, on 25th January 2025, I am republishing the same article here on TOSCEO, with some additional closing comments at the end.
Enjoy the story, and share it with whoever comes upon your heart.
12 Things I Would Tell Myself 12 Years Ago
Today marks the 12th year since I decided to no longer be held back and instead start controlling my own destiny by working for myself. Three years ago today I shared 9 stories and 9 business lessons from my first nine years as an entrepreneur.
One year ago today I shared 11 things which I'm truly grateful for when I published A bedroom entrepreneur’s growth journey.
Leading up to today I was thinking about what I can share which could have the potential of proving valuable to other people who are either planning to work for themselves or people who are in the early stage of working for themselves.
I thought about what I would tell myself if I was able to travel back in time 12 years to when I first started working for myself. I decided to share what were the first 12 things that came in to my head. Here goes.
You're going to have to work harder than you have ever done before
Discover and become friends with your "imposter chimp"
Never lose your humility
Seek out other entrepreneurs who are more experienced than you
Focus on what you are most passionate about
You and your business will out-grow some of the early people who you employ
Develop your personal brand values before you start employing people
Aim to become respected and visible in your industry - share your knowledge, inspire others
Hire exceptional people - don't rush
Be prepared to adapt and continuously learn
Maintain your perspective
Be true to yourself, always
1) “You're going to have to work harder than you have ever done before”
Bloody hell working for yourself and growing a business is hard work. Personally it has stretched me to almost breaking point on many occasions, and during 2015 the stresses and pressures of growing my business tested my marriage like it has never been tested before. This may seem somewhat over the top but I expect there will be a few entrepreneurs reading this that know what I mean.
2) “Discover and become friends with your "imposter chimp”
It is only in the last two years that I have become aware of and started understanding imposter syndrome. Now I understand what it is, I know just how much it has affected my thinking, in particular during the last three years as I have started to grow my business. I have also started to realise just how much it affects other people, including my bog standard doctor and global thought leaders who are waiting to be found out.
Even with this understanding of imposter syndrome, it wasn't until five months before writing this today that one if my trusted and phenomenally gifted entrepreneur friends Richard Wilde recommended I read the book The Chimp Paradox. For anyone reading this who like me can often lose perspective of what is going in their lives, or who simply struggles to understand the voices in their head, I can't recommend this book highly enough. It has genuinely changed my life.
3) “Never lose your humility”
Humility is a personality trait that is the foundation to the re-invented HIPPO. For me one of the first times humility became a core part of how I am and how I engage with other people is when I watched my first ever 1-1 user research session. That realisation that you don't have all the answers, but more importantly that you should truly value and respect the ideas and thoughts of other people through listening, has stayed with me ever since.
On reflection I can see just how much humility and my desire to listen to and respect other people has influenced my leadership style which I've talked openly about in the 11 values that are helping me build a great team and also in this detailed article looking at 13 qualities that will make you a great leader.
4) “Seek out other entrepreneurs who are more experienced than you for guidance and support”
Back in 2009 when the recession was in full flow, PRWD was a 2 man band with just 1 main client - a manufacturing business. Yes that's right, our main client was in the sector hit hardest with the recession in the UK. We lost them as a client when they had to lay off 25% of their workforce. I panicked. I felt my business was going to collapse. I needed to speak to someone for advice. Someone who is more experienced than me and who could advise me on what they have done in the past when they have been at breaking point.
At that time I had over 300 people in my phone book, mainly people working in digital and with a variety of job titles and seniority. I scrolled down my list looking for another entrepreneur who I could call. I kept scrolling down. I hit the bottom of my contact list, and I had no-one to call.
At that moment I realised two things.
1) There are so few people who make that decision to work for themselves (maybe because of point number 1).
2) It is damn lonely running a business on your own
Later that year I applied to go on LEAD, a course for leaders of SME's. The biggest impact I had from going on this first leadership course was meeting with other entrepreneurs to share experiences and help each other.
Today, when either something great or something pretty challenging occurs, one of the first people I go to on my contact list is one of the entrepreneurs I met on that LEAD course back in 2009, Paul Stubbs.
5) “Focus on what you are most passionate about”
I remember the early days. The services page of my two person "agency" gave the impression that we were the go-to agency for anything digital. You name it, from PPC and SEO to website design and providing an ecommerce platform solution (we did actually build one of these believe it or not) along with user research, we offered it all.
One day we would be designing the new website for Monoroof (I can't believe a) this website is still live, and b) the cheek of Gofour to put their company in the footer!), the next I would be working in-house with JD Williams redesigning their checkout experience.
It wasn't until a few years later that we really started to focus on what I was most passionate about (which wasn't building ecommerce platforms) that the business started to grow. It was like a divorce that was best for both parties. It was time for me and the business to focus on taking one path rather than five or six.
For want of a better phrase, I got my mojo back.
6) “You and your business will out-grow some of the early people who you employ”
I remember when I had just four employees thinking "I'd like to become the first agency where no-one ever leaves or no-one has to be removed from the business." Wouldn't that be great I thought to myself, what an achievement it would be?
At the same time I had other entrepreneurs telling me how managing people has been their biggest challenge whilst growing their business, and also "your business will out-grow some of the people who are with you at the start." I didn't believe this, and for a few years I was happy with my belief that my business was going to be like no other.
Fast forward a few more years and a significant increase in the size of the team, and I have to eat humble pie. Yes the business has out-grown some people who were in at the beginning, and yes people will move on - including people who absolutely love working in your business.
7) “Develop your personal brand values before you start employing people”
For many businesses and many business leaders, perhaps the idea of having brand values isn't high on the strategic priority list.
Personally, when I look around at my team and company culture today, I can see just how important it was for me to develop my own personal brand values before I started employing anyone.
Our brand values, which are rooted in my personal values, and embedded within the DNA of my agency. They are up on the wall, they are the wallpaper on our computers, they are in our books, and they are on slides for conference presentations. They are a core part of our recognition platform where anyone in the business can recognise the impact anyone else is having within the business.
8) “Aim to become respected and visible in your industry - share your knowledge, inspire others”
It wasn’t until four years in to my entrepreneurial journey, in the summer of 2008, that it was recommended to me by Katie Kelly to start sharing my knowledge and experiences – to become a visible and respected specialist both at in individual level and at a business level.
For me to take up this opportunity meant genuinely stepping outside of my comfort zone. This in turn was the catalyst for bringing on my imposter syndrome.
If I fast forward 8 eight years, I feel that making the decision to step outside my comfort zone has been one of most transformational decisions I have ever made. It has provided me with opportunities to speak at the same conference as one of the industries most respected and influential thought leaders Avinash Kaushik at Conversion Summit 2016.
9) “Hire exceptional people – and don't rush”
Back in 2007, I met Craig Hanna for the first time. Craig was a senior manager at Econsultancy, and during our conversation he shared with something which has stayed with me ever since. As I was talking about the potential of hiring my first ever employee, Craig said “take your time to find and hire exceptional talent. Yes it will take longer, but the responsibility you will be able to give them through your trust of taking time to find the right person, will mean you can continue to focus on what you are best at.”
10) “Be prepared to adapt and continuously learn”
For the first three years in business, I was a one man band. Over the next six years, PRWD was a two man band. In our last two years we have grown from two to fifteen people.
My biggest challenge through all of these changes, particularly in this last two years has been with myself. Up until 2014 I was conditioned to working at the micro scale I was at. It was quite simple. I was hands on. I was doing the work I loved doing every day.
The continued changes brought about by me choosing to grow the business has meant that being adaptable to the changes in my personal role day-to-day was something I wasn’t fully prepared for. If I’m being completely frank, in 2015 I had my most stressful, anxious and ultimately damaging year in business, as I simply was not coping with the demands of running a high growth business. My experiences in 2015 led me to make management changes, in particular creating a new operations role for someone to run my business day-to-day.
11) “Maintain your perspective”
As quite a sweeping but perhaps not too incorrect generalisation, we are our own worst critic. I know I certainly am. I am constantly expecting to have done more, achieved more, had greater impact, have a healthier balance sheet, be a better dad. When I achieve something really significant, my mind very quickly starts to focus on the next big thing. I very rarely internalise successes I have achieved.
For me it is only by speaking to other people close to me, either inside or outside the business, that I have been able to get some perspective on what I have achieved personally and what my business is achieving. I am also learning to perhaps not be as harsh on myself, or actually “I am learning to understand my chimp and not let it control my thinking.”
12) “Be true to yourself, always”
For the two years up until January 2016, I wasn’t being true to myself. Due to the growth of the business, I had moved so far away from what I was passionate about (being a practitioner, a specialist and a doer) to what my role had become (running the day-to-day operations of my business) I was coming home almost every day feeling unfilled and frustrated. I was a jack of all trades, master of none. I was juggling far too many plates and waiting for them to drop. I was having to wear different hats on a daily basis.
Something drastic had to change, and I came to the realisation that I need someone alongside me in the business to run the day-to-day operations. I needed someone who was the opposite of me and my skills and experience.
I decided to offer Katie Kelly a new senior role to work alongside me, with me moving to CEO. The below is what it meant to me to finally be true to myself.
In summary
Do I truly wish I had known all of these 12 things 12 years ago? Maybe not, as I wouldn’t have had some of the life changing experiences I have been through.
Do I think that someone thinking about starting to work for themselves will be better equipped by knowing these 12 things? I really hope so.
What about you?
What would you tell yourself if you could jump in a time-machine and share a few hard earned truths about entrepreneurship?
Closing Comments For 2025 & Beyond
So, what is the one thing I would tell myself 40 years ago, when I was a 7 years young boy?
“God is real, and God loves you! He wants to be your best ever, ever friend. He will always be with you, you can talk to him at any time, wherever you are. You never, ever have to be afraid, as God is with you and He will protect you. You are God’s masterpiece! He has numbered every hair on your head! God’s thoughts for you is a number bigger than ALL the grains of sand on the beach!
Always remember, your help comes from God, who created EVERYTHING!”
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.
