Diving in....

The way I currently feel is a bit like this analogy...

I'm looking out over a beautiful & calm swimming pool and it looks inviting to swim around in it, so I get my swimmers on and head off to the poolside.

As I reach the pool side I still want to go swimming but I'm checking the temperature of the water by dipping my toe in. But its not really telling me whether its warm enough or not. So I hesitate a bit more to try & find out if its warm enough. All the while the water level is going down (probably a leak or something like that in the pool!) and I become more and more frustrated about how far I've got to go to get to the water's edge every time I try to test the water, and every time I still can't make my mind up about going for a swim.

So in short I'm doubly frustrated because I want to go for a swim but I'm also frustrated that I don't know whether its warm enough for a swim. And the frustration becomes a self perpetuating engine as I the longer I hesitate the more work I have to do, and consequently the less energy I have.

I FEEL I should just dive in... what's the worst that could happen? If its too cold for a nice swim and after 10 minutes I just come out, cold & wet. But I can get warmed up and dry over time. In the real world that means resigning, getting stuck in and seeing what comes of it, and if its a complete disaster then apply for another job somewhere else or

Overall I believe that even if its too cold at first, I'm sure it will warm up in time. Again in the real world then just get stuck in and see where it leads me... it might be successful or it might lead me into something completely different.

To help with the feeling of frustration that I am constantly having to work harder at keeping interested and not feeling I am making progress... May be its time for a reflection to see just how far I have come so far?

Free and easy...

... and I'm not talking about my last date (I wish!).

My rollercoaster continued today as I researched one of my business ideas.

Surfing the web I came across a number of services that offered something pretty close to what I had imagined I would offer... and my heart sank! They all looked very professional, very sleek and talked about their benefits. Bollox! Why did I think I could do this? They look good, they know what they're doing and they're already up & running (one company talked about being established back in the day of 1988!).

I was up against the proverbial ropes, but I had put myself there. I had allowed my doubt to eat away at my confidence. I felt I had been there before, there was something re-assuring in my doubt... surely I looked into this before I had this idea? And then I remembered the whole reason behind my idea - the opportunity that all these other supplier had conveniently left out though left out a critical element... their price!

My whole point (my USP, as a poncy management guru might say) is my service is FREE! Now I know just how powerful that word is - according to Asda its the most powerful word in a marketeer's thesaurus (and "New" is the second most powerful word, by the way!). Now being free means I have to get scale (i.e. a high number of people to use this service) in order for the business model to work and to get that scale I need to make it remarkably easy to use for all - so easy that my granny should be able to use it. But what the research did tell me was that I also need to offer absolute reliability.

So I need to remain focussed & single minded behind the real power of my idea... free, easy to use and reliable - and ignore any distractions of confidence!

Darkest hour before dawn...

I'm a bit disappointed...

Yesterday I was formally told my application for career break had been rejected as my role within the project I am working on was too critical (nice compliment!).

But I seem to be taking this all very stoically.

I had hoped I would win the Euromillions last night so that I could storm in to work on Monday and tell them to stuff their job, but alas the jackpot went to somebody outside of the UK. An outburst of jingoism is justified, I feel!

Anyway... the whole point of the career break was to being able to dedicate myself to my business ideas and get cracking on them. Now it seems I won't be able to focus solely on making my ideas happen.

But what this has done for me is make me think about how I can progress... I'm thinking that this actually allows me to radically reduce my risk. I can take a extended holiday, may be 3 or 4 weeks and then test my idea in the real world and be more confident from that about the next steps. If it works really well I can feel confident in taking time out (either by re-applying for a career break and feel confident that investors will step up to the plate for a proven success) or if it dives then working on something else. Overall its make me think differently - taking me away from the comfort of the BIG COMPANY THINKING.

So the dark disappointment is not the end of the world as I know it... just the start of a new dawn.

BIG COMPANY PLODDING, small entrepreneurial nimble thinking

Today was the start of my BIG FTSE top 100 company's new financial year, and to mark the new financial year we all gathered to hear our Managing Director and the leadership team set us up for the forthcoming year. It was professional, gave a clear direction and, I think, will set us up well to deliver this year and the future.


Throughout the presentation, stuck in a hot room, I kept thinking a couple of things...


Firstly, that I don't fit into the mould for my current employer. I am a maverick, and I'm not being big headed or vain about saying that. I clearly straddle two functional bases at work - marketing & sales - and have thus far been able to generate a role with feet in both camps. But the flip side of that is I don't have a firm home to which I belong at my current employers.

Secondly, all through the presentation I kept thinking - this is great stuff for my employer, but its not for my company. I think today I realised just how BIG COMPANY THINKING my thinking on my idea actually is. My idea, and making it happen, is currently framed in the context of a top FTSE 100 company executing the idea, as opposed to a small nimble operator who has an idea and gets on with it.

I'm reminded of a friend who started his own company & product in something like 7 weeks, and he was able to do this because all he had to do was get approval from himself and make it happen. He could change as he went along. He didn't need thousands or hundreds of thousands of pounds to bring it alive. I can't ever imagine bring something to life within a big company atmosphere in 7 months never mind in 7 weeks!

So how can you get the best out of BIG COMPANY THINKING and mesh it with nimble thinking? What is nimble thinking? I need to find out...