This photo is of me and my extended family, taken around the time of "COVID Christmas" 2020 AKA one of the weirdest years on the planet, ever, and all bar Megan & James (my eldest daughter and her partner sat at the back) all of our kids still lived with us so as you can imagine "working from home" took on a whole new meaning in 2020/21!
According to Myers Briggs I'm an ENFJ-A AKA An Assertive Protagonist*
*...meaning I feel called to serve a greater purpose in life. I'm thoughtful, kind and idealistic, forever striving to have a positive impact on other people and the world around me. I rarely shy away from an opportunity to do the right thing, even when doing so is far from easy. I'm a hard working, family man with 5 1/2 kids (and no that's not a typo) just doing what I do because I love IT! The Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator is a self-report inventory designed to identify a person's personality type, strengths, and preferences. The questionnaire was developed by Isabel Myers and her mother Katherine Briggs based on their work with Carl Jung's theory of personality types. Today, the MBTI inventory is one of the most widely used psychological instruments in the world.
Hi, I’m Neil.
I’m just an ordinary guy who believes that anything is possible and that anyone can do anything—just not everything. No matter how hard we work, there will come a day when we leave this world behind, and rest assured, there will still be things left on our to-do list.
After leaving school at 16, I went on to college to study technical art and design, then started my career in the print trade—just like my father, and his father before him. But this was the dawn of the digital age, and print was fast becoming obsolete so after three short years, I left that behind and jumped into retail, right as Next Plc hit the high street.
As enjoyable as retail was, I found myself wanting more.
In 1992, I switched from retail to technology, joining Alcatel Lucent (now part of Nokia). Over the next seven years, I worked my way up from a field-based Sales Consultant to the Head of Sales (UK-SME), managing a team of 50+ people with a combined sales target of around £20 million. I was fortunate to be professionally trained in sales and marketing, and quickly gained recognition as a top achiever (1994/5/6), winning UK Salesman of the Year in 1997.
In 1998, I was invited to join Alcatel's Global Club Elite for securing over £1 million in new business in a single month—a pretty big deal at the time.
Life was good.
In 1999, I decided to leave the corporate world behind and start my own business, marking the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey. I was just turning 30, recently married with two kids, had a small mortgage (about £28k, if memory serves), and a six-figure corporate salary. Yep, I was earning well over £100k a year when I said, "F*ck it, I’m doing this thing."
Leaving the "security" of a well-paid corporate job didn’t sit well with everyone in my family, but I knew I had to follow my heart—or was it my head?
Maybe it was both.
You know what I mean.
Truth be told, it was actually a colleague who said, "You’ll never earn any real money working for someone else," that finally convinced me to hand in my resignation and go it alone. I later learned that statement was total bullsh*t, but at the time, it sounded about right.
Little did I know that decision would shape the next 20 years of my life.
Here’s what happened...
I founded Futurcom, my first business, with £50k of my own money and set out to become a trusted ICT solutions provider, specialising in mid-market, multi-site technology solutions. I quickly grew sales from zero to £1.4 million before successfully exiting the business through a trade sale.
So far, so good :-)
But I was young, and I didn’t know much about running a business, different asset classes, or investment vehicles but what I did know was that every business needed to communicate, which led me to think BIGGER. After all, this was the dot-com boom!
In 2002 PwC approached me to pitch my second business to a group of investors.
I headed to The Strand to pitch FOCAS (Free Online Communications Advisory Service) in an attempt to raise—wait for it—two hundred and fifty thousand pounds!
Doh!
Not knowing a thing about venture capital, I didn’t get the money. They politely told me I should have asked for £5 million or £10 million, and had I done that, they would’ve signed me a cheque on the spot, and we’d have been off to the races.
Mind blown!
£5-10 million, for a teeny tiny piece of my little ol’ business?
WTF just happened?
I couldn’t comprehend it. I left that day feeling somewhat bewildered and deflated, with a book the size of the Bible on “Knowing your IP (Intellectual Property),” and I went back to my life to try to wrap my head around it all.
I struggled, a lot.
But like I said, I was young and thought I knew it all.
And hey, I figured I was already doing pretty well.
Ha—little did I know.
Because then came the dot-com bust.
Oh sh*t—now what?
That was 2002, and here we are in 2024. If you’re really interested, you can check out what happened over the next 20 years on my LinkedIn profile. To cut a long story short, one question that was asked as I stood in front of those investors—"What is it that you really want?"—stuck with me. It made me question everything: what I had, what I didn’t have, and what I truly wanted. That one question ultimately shaped my future in ways I could never have imagined.
So, what would you do if money we're no object?
Having enjoyed (financial) success at quite an early age I later went on to lose pretty much everything I'd ever worked for, including my marriage, my home, my businesses, all my assets and most of my friends.
They Say That what doesn't kill you makes you stronger...
I stopped working for money and instead started to work for satisfaction and after some serious realignment of my life goals and priorities I'm pleased to say that I am now very well balanced, happier, healthier, wealthier and far more content than I've ever been in my entire life.
Nowadays I'm simply too blessed to be stressed and I so don't worry about anything, ever.
It's not been an easy ride for me but no-one ever said it would be. Honestly, I wouldn't change a thing. I'm here now, I love what I do and I have a great work-life-balance.
That's me, what about you?