Just keep moving forward

When you first started riding a bike, you will have fallen over loads. You always got up and tried again. That’s what it’s like in life and in business. You will fall over, there will be setbacks and at times you’ll wish you had never started. But you will eventually get through it. I don’t mean that if a business isn’t working then you should stick with it, sometimes the right decision is to walk away. I’m talking more on a personal and emotional level. Just because you fail in one business doesn’t mean you should give up business altogether. Learn from the mistakes and move on.

As I’ve mentioned previously, apart from the fortune I sunk into Tonic (which would make most people’s eyes water – I was too gung-ho...remember – better to start on a shoestring budget); I also lost money in a failed investment venture. I could have completely given up at that point, but I retrenched, took stock, and decided how to take my business forward – and moved back into property. I also decided to go back to work for the bank, partly because I missed working in that environment, but also because the cash would be very useful in my other ventures, also because after my experience in business, I knew I could do a hell of a lot more in the banking environment. I could have just gone back to work feeling like a failure, but instead I went back feeling like a hero...how many other people have put everything on the line for an entrepreneurial venture? Not many. People in banking think they’re entrepreneurial, but they’re overpaid for what they do, and they’re cushioned from any fallout from their decisions...as we saw during the credit crunch – that’s not entrepreneurialism. If things go wrong they just get a good severance package and move onto the next job. However when you’ve had the balls to put everything on the line, you realise what you’re capable of and you start to see the world differently. You have a huge advantage over everyone else who is in a cushioned environment at the bank. You realise that you’re the only one that doesn’t care if you have a job tomorrow or not, because you have an entrepreneurial mindset and will be able to find a way to sustain yourself. You also realise that you’re not obsessed about money – my lifestyle is not very extravagant, I’ve never been into extravagance. It’s like playing Monopoloy, it’s about playing a game and money is just a way of keeping score, not about being a flash, arrogant idiot (which is where a lot of people that made fast money in banking went wrong). Even Warren Buffet, the world’s richest man, has a very simple lifestyle but continues to make money and then plans to give it all to charity. That’s what I’m talking about. Too many people at the bank are hung up on money because they have an extravagent lifestyle, or even a lifestyle in which they’ve stretched themselves to be dependent on the money. However with this entrepreneurial mindset, I was able to go in and focus on making a mark in the business, improving the business, and doing what I love without being bogged down by any hangups. If I suddenly don’t like what I’m doing, or if people start pissing me off, I can just leave, and that is tremendous personal power. I wake up each morning excited about going to work and excited about all my other ventures on the side. Life is good, and all because I got up when I fell over and just got on with it.

One more thing to mention is this – when I made a mistake, as I did in the investment venture, I stood up, admitted it and took the hit. Even though there were other investors involved, I screwed up on a crucial piece of due diligence, and therefore I covered everyone’s investment losses myself. I didn’t try to wriggle out of it, even though I easily could have because everyone made the investment knowing that there could always be a risk of loss. To me, it’s important to work with people who have ethics and morals. I’m not saying I’ll always cover a loss, but in this case I felt personally responsible.

By contrast, I put down deposits on 8 flats a while ago through someone I know, who was able to secure them at a good price. However it turned out that he and his partner did not have the authority to sell those flats, and worse, they paid my deposit over to another party who themselves were not authorised to sell, and in the end the money was lost. In this case, it was absolutely the fault of the friend with whom I was dealing...he should have made sure my money was safe and that there was a clear contract to buy the flats. Instead not only did he lose the money, he refused to repay the money while he ‘pursued the other party through legal means’...that’s been going on for 18 months now. I will never do business with this person again. The amount of money isn’t a lot, and if I was him I would have put my hands up and said ‘i screwed up’ and paid out the money while pursuing the other party. Instead he leaves me hanging on with no information and no remorse. A short while later I heard he went behind my back to enter into an investment that I had introduced him to, effectively cutting me out. Oh well, that’s the end of our business relationship, I cannot stand people with no ethics. Once again though, learn from all this, and keep going.