Lone wolf? Come home to your pack.
“You aren’t a machine with broken parts. You are an animal whose needs are not being met.”
When I started out in business I was a company of one.
For 5 years I found my own clients, did sales & marketing, managed my finances. It didn’t even occur to me to ask for help.
Then one day I realised it wasn’t much fun anymore. And I could only go so far with my own skillset.
Thankfully a project came in that meant I had to ask for help if I was to take it on.
I could either stay solo and play it small, or start thinking bigger. As luck would have it Carlos Saba was looking for new opportunities having landed in the same industry not long before.
Fast forward 2 years and I’d moved to Brighton (a little town by the sea in the UK), we’d got our first office and hired our first employee.
But we ended up falling into the same trap.
Despite growing the team we didn’t build any support around us. We thought we knew it all (or more accurately didn’t want to show any weakness as we wanted to be seen as the ‘experts’).
From tiny studio to a truly global community.
It was only 5 years later when we launched The Happy Startup School — when we shared our deepest beliefs and values, shifted our mindset from competition to collaboration and started to see vulnerability as a strength not a weakness — that we became richer in relationships than money could ever buy.
If there’s one mark I hope to leave on entrepreneurs in my lifetime, it’s that business (and life) is way more fun, rewarding and exciting when you share the journey with others.
Not just your colleagues or customers – but mentors, role models, likeminded peers and fellow travellers for the entrepreneurial adventure.
People who truly get you, understand what it takes to make hard choices and have got your back.
So whatever it is that you’re doing, don’t struggle alone.
Go find your tribe and enjoy the journey, not just the destination.
