In his book Outliers, Malcom Gladwell claims it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. I guess I’m a slow learner, as it’s taken me a mere 148,000 hours to realise the opposite. Namely, that I’m not an expert at something. After running 3 businesses in 5 countries over ~17 years, I’ve come … Continue reading A Founder, Not A CEO
This article first appeared in the Winter 2016 edition of Waterlog Magazine. I once almost caught a trout between my legs. Aged 8 or 9, frolicking in a murky River Itchen, my Dad lifted me up out of the water by my arms and somehow my ankles ensnared an olive brown trout of about a … Continue reading Swangling
They say it’s not what you know, but who you know. But who do you know? What does knowing someone mean today? We’re taught that it’s wise to build our personal networks – it’ll make us more successful knowing and being connected to lots of people – and technology now aggressively encourages this behaviour. We … Continue reading Vanity Networks
Is a 'happy entrepreneur' a misnomer? Being an entrepreneur is hard. Really hard. Or, in the words of Elon Musk, "Being an entrepreneur is like eating glass and staring into the abyss of death.” If that’s what it’s like when it’s working, given Elon is one of the most successful entrepreneurs alive, what hope do … Continue reading The Happy Entrepreneur
Here's an article that appeared in the wonderful Waterlog magazine this summer and explains why I've not been writing so much recently... My hazy first memory is of trying to fish - a kaleidoscopic jumble retained by my three-year-old mind, reassembled 30 years later. It all started with the discovery of a worm in our garden. … Continue reading Recast
To those unfamiliar with the concept, sending ones children to boarding school is a shockingly weird thing to do. Imagine you had never heard of a boarding school before, and I explained to you that parents would not only choose, but spend huge amounts of money (the equivalent of the average UK wage after tax), … Continue reading Boarding Up the Soul
