We have our work cut for us if we want to keep up this momentum though as it is technically harder to increase percentage growth year on year whilst growing organically. Its the first thing analysts question, “how do you intend on maintaining this trajectory?” The simple answer is, you don’t, unless each year you increase every area in identical proportion to your turnover. Its very difficult to achieve this organically as with growth comes cash flow difficulties and a plethora of challenges. Also in an economy such as ours, I believe its more prudent to follow common sense, build at the speed that you feel most comfortable at.

That being said, we are on a massive recruitment drive, although I am not sure where we are going to house everyone yet as we are bursting not just with energy on the 28th floor but at the seams too.

But under the skin of UKFast we are having fun and thats important. Breaking down our larger goals into a myriad of challenges for smaller teams to tackle is the new game. I would be kidding myself if I thought I can influence every team member as well as the direct line managers can, who work directly for and on behalf of their team mates. My job is to motivate the managers and trust they are able to pass on the message with passion and without dilution.

Its part of the process of learning to manage a much larger business. Its sad in a lot of respects as I have thoroughly enjoyed the responsibilities of leading from the front and battling with my mates who all of whom I’d swim the channel for and them in return, (with the possible exception of Rich, who’s not a great swimmer!) Over the last 12 years a great many of them have become close friends and I love being a part of their growth outside of work too as they settle down and start having kids. But its time for these friends of mine to wear my shoes and develop new skills of their own managing and developing their teams.

If I look at this pragmatically, there are similarities to the old days when there was just 20 or so of us. If you total up all our managers and team leaders we are in a similar place. The only difference is that unless I want to continue to slow down the growth of UKFast, I have to let nature take its course. I can’t be sat next to every person coaching them individually!

So have I officially stepped back? I have done so before at my peril and watched managers with pedigrees and so called proven track records steer us off course. On previous occasions I have had to step back in to pick up the pieces. Its costly when you get it wrong, you not only slow down growth, you also lose great people who get disheartened in the process.

Yet this time I am confident we have the right people in place and whilst I don’t think any of us are the finished article yet, their appetite makes them the right people for the job. I have spent a number of years preparing for  this and working tirelessly on the culture of the business ensuring I invest all my time and energy in the right people.

It comes at an interesting time to as my own family is growing too. My wife Gail gave birth to our newest baby last Friday at 2.26am. Not many people can work with their spouse yet we have had an incredible innings and I have enjoyed working with her and building this great organisation together. So in a funny way I know I have lost her too at this crucial time. Mind you don’t for a minute underestimate my wife. At ten minutes past midnight I was reminding Gail that I had a sales meeting starting in just over 7 hours. And whilst I was slightly late for the meeting and a little shell shocked and emotional on arrival, my wife too arrived at work carrying our baby less than 9 hours after giving birth. If you thought Thatcher was tough, you have no idea. Its this sort of commitment that makes UKFast special.

So whilst Gail is doing her mum stuff, you can rest assured, that I wont be allowed to and she will continue to motivate and inspire me and the troops from a different angle. But this time is going to different for her too.

After the birth of our first daughter, she lay on a play mat whilst Gail (with support from June and Paula) entered every transaction of every customer into our new accounting system we’d designed and built. It took months. The impact of second daughter followed a similar suit as the business had grown to new levels with new extraordinary challenges that require endless hours of commitment. So this time I can say with certainty Gail’s officially on maternity leave and I am going to see to it that she enjoys every moment.

Luckily we have been planning this for some time and we have put in place a team that whilst they cant replace Gail they support me and my managers to the highest levels.

So it is undoubtedly the birth of a new era, a very interesting one. Wish us luck!

Best of British

Lawrence

Latest arrival to the growing team at UKFast

I find it fascinating that people can view the same thing from completely different perspectives and say with absolute certainty that they see total opposites.

You can look at a picture and see the most magical inspiration before your eyes, and yet someone else might not give it a second glance.

The same applies to everything we do and experience in our lives. What might inspire one person, just doesn’t make sense to another.

And so what drives this difference in opinions and views?

I heard a great analogy that the brain like a computer, is a processor, however, unlike a computer, it can only focus on one thing at a time. If you try it, you really can only give one thing, your full attention. And whilst you can perform functions that you have rehearsed over and over again, walking, cooking, exercising, when turning your attention to something important, you will struggle if you add something else to the mix.

Tony Robbins talks of only being able to feel one emotion at the same time and I totally agree with this concept too.

Understanding this philosophy, or restriction that we all have, actually helped me enormously. Previously when I have tried to tackle everything that needs sorting in my life, I of course became overwhelmed and very little got done. In fact, sometimes the list is so large that it is easier not to tackle anything and find something easier to fill your time.

We have a rule at UKFast, that we never show all our plans to people, when we only had 4 people in the business (sorry Rich and Neil) Gail and I would write enormous lists of everything that we needed and wanted to achieve. And whilst we got incredibly excited by this, our 2 new team members actually became demotivated by the sheer volume of what lay ahead of them.

Can you imagine walking or running across America? Or climbing Everest? Or rowing across the Atlantic in a tiny boat which my good friend Dan Innes did? The thought is almost too daunting, but if you cut it up into smaller journeys, States, weeks, days, hours, then break each one of those into separate challenges, everything is a lot easier to tackle.

So what did we do at UKFast? Well we wrote some software and whilst Gail and I could offload thousands of jobs and ideas, we’d only let a maximum of the next 4 tasks be visible to anyone in the team. A remarkable thing happened, productivity speeded up, the same 2 people became more engaged, not only tackled more but achieved the work of 5 people. Both Richard and Neil still work for UKFast, they have joined the 10 year club and both got a cheque for £10,000 for putting up with me for a decade!

More seriously though, I couldn’t do what I do without support from individuals like these guys. Yet if we’d not learnt this really important lesson, the same two people might be very different.

So in a world of a thousand decisions and with enormous pressures at every turn how do some people manage to remain positive. How come some people just seem to be luckier than others.

In a meeting the other day a friend pointed out a quote from Steve Redgrave’s book, everything they did prior to winning the Gold medal was benchmarked against the question, “will it make the boat go faster?”

I could have done with this clarity as a very small business person running MDC as my first 10 years in business were incredibly stressful. They were great fun too, but it was like a game of snakes and ladders. I’d go from strength to strength then hit a major issue usually in the form of cash flow.

I hadn’t had a day off or a holiday in nearly 10 years and my uncle Anthony (who was doing my accounts) told me I was busy going nowhere. He was right of course and although the advice hurt, I took the holidays I needed and suddenly I had new goals to focus my attention on. My boat started to go a little faster, I was just going in circles!

Going back to the brain being a single processor philosophy, I learnt early on in life that you can convince yourself that even when it was bitterly cold, if you said out loud with conviction, “I love this weather” pretty soon you’d be noticing the colours in the mist or rain and the biting wind just didn’t feel so bad. I applied this philosophy to many things, but it took a while for me to translate this skill into business and personal life. However it can be done and actually is done by thousands of business people and atheletes across the globe. You are probably doing it already in areas of your life without realising it.

If you focus on all the problems you may encounter whilst trying to hit your sales target or grow your business, you can guarantee you are going to make it significantly harder on yourself than if you focus of the end result of picking up the trophy or celebrating the success that may lie ahead.

Now some people may argue that you need to be realistic and you have to plan to avoid pitfalls, personally I believe this is procrastination and if we all did this, we’d not evolve as humans, we’d simply sit at home stressing about the next episode of Coronation Street.

If you feel cold, focus on something else and the cold will go away. If you feel sad, find something you can be grateful for and do your best to focus on that instead. Whatever you focus on you will feel.

Do you focus on the economy and should you? Well yes if you are an economist or the Prime Minister otherwise you should have enough on your plate. I remember one of the nuns at Brigedene Convent saying, “Lord grant me strength to change the things I can and the courage to accept the things I cant and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Now whether you are a religious person or not, this is great common sense. We are too wrapped up in the news because it is so accessible, it in front of us in our homes, in our ears in the car, it is the topic of conversation on everyones lips. Its boring and really if we didnt know any better you might be better off. Focus on what you can change and hope for the best that everyone else is as focussed as you on their roles.

I am not advocating ignoring warning signs and throwing caution to the wind with everything you do, I just mean don’t let it consume you like so many people seem to allow.

If you get the balance right, it should in theory give you more time to focus on the important things. Improving your own lives. Quality time with your friends and family. Its funny how it always seems to boil down to this.

He explained that happiness is something that comes from within. It depends entirely on your internal state and the lens that you look at life through. So if you’re unhappy, you will probably see the bad in everything. If you’re immensely positive and happy, then you’re bound to approach life with a spring in your step and see the good in everything.

Lets face it, there is good in everything and everyone. Sometimes you just have to look a little harder.

I have met many people who assume that money is the “be all and end all.” But money doesn’t bring happiness. People bring happiness; family and friends and the things you do with them. The more you give, listen and contribute, the happier you seem to be.

If you are missing in any of these areas, then these are the places to invest more time and energy. I am not the finished article by a long shot, but I am aware of where I need to spend more time, so there is hope for me yet!

I delivered a talk recently to my sales team and account managers, I was trying to get their attention and make them start the year off with their best foot forward. All too often people take too long to brush off the winter blues after Christmas and New Year’s excesses.

I asked them what makes people successful? And why are some people more successful than others? Whilst there are no hard and fast metrics to measure this principal, I have learnt that people who take their time more seriously than others inevitably cram in more to their days and eventually over a long period of time these small steps you are making now, mount up to be a big journey. I mentioned something similar in last week’s blog.

But to put it into perspective, I got people to focus on the end of that journey. What’s the final destination? And what will your last words be when you are on your deathbed?

It is a great question and as I have been there, I am able to help give an accurate depiction of what you are bound to say.

It was only 11 years ago, but I remember every second as though it were my last, probably because at the time they were.

Deep under the snow, I had the life squeezed out of me.

My last breaths were hard and fast. I remember the heat from my mouth as I suffocated and whilst all this was going on, my mind was busy at work.

And what goes through your head when you are alone underground cemented in an early grave, very much alive, even if it is only for a few more minutes?

I can tell you with certainty, when it’s your turn and sadly your turn will come, you wont be thinking of the money you have or haven’t made. You will be thinking of one thing; relationships.

It’s people and relationships that are the only things of value, nothing else matters.

I spent my last few minutes feeling massive regret and I can promise you I will never be in that position again. I will live trying and I will die trying.

There is nothing in my mind more important than this.

It’s difficult for me to explain to you just how valuable your last few minutes on the planet are. They mean everything, but I am not eloquent enough to put it into words. I do believe if you knew now what I have learnt, you might approach your life slightly differently.

The best way to try and explain the emotion is if you put yourself in a position where you find out you are never going to see someone you love dearly again, it is sprung on you, they are emigrating and you have one last day with them.

What do you do?

Well, I know what I’d do, I’d change whatever plans I had for that day and dedicate every last minute with that person making it as memorable and magical as possible.

However you look at this, the actual parting when they leave is going to hurt.

Imagine not having a full day, only having a few minutes to come to terms with the fact you are not going to see them again, only this time they aren’t there with you; you are alone. It’s fair to say this is much tougher.

This is bad enough, but when you imagine not just that one person, but every great person you’d ever had the pleasure to spend a minute with in your amazing life, a life that 5 minutes ago you took for granted.

And whilst they can’t hear your goodbyes, they can’t see your tears, you will crave their breath on your neck or the touch on your skin.

Take a minute and think about it. It puts a lot into perspective when you simplify everything to just raw emotion, trust me there is nothing more important in any of our lives.

The feeling I had that day is not a feeling I’d wish on anyone. It is far too extreme to have to deal on a daily basis, but occasionally I go there to reflect, usually around now! Each time I visit, I get a little more. There is more to discover, but it’s just too painful to immerse myself completely and I am not ready to completely share the whole experience just yet. One day maybe. The bit just below the surface, can only be described as an avalanche of emotion; quite ironic under the circumstances and the snow.

It’s an intense place and it’s a time that when it comes again I am ready for it and it’s not the cold dark, lonely place I remember all too vividly.

So, with that in mind, are you investing in your friends and family enough? I know I’m not. When was the last time you really showed someone how you feel? And even if that was 10 minutes ago, do you do it enough?

And when you tackle your day or week ahead, what if you were to get up a few hours earlier, to guarantee an extra few hours. Even if you did this 6 days a week, you’d give yourself an extra 624 hours, but of working hours, that’s like adding 78 days to your year.

So why lie in bed when you can start the day off in the gym or with a brisk walk in the fresh air and squeeze that extra little bit out of life.

Anyway, most importantly enjoy the week ahead and make a difference to your own life by making a difference to others.

Its a beautiful place and at the start of the Millennium it was a landmark moment that I am able to look back at. We were not well-off, we had very little and if I am honest, I was barely keeping up with my mortgage repayments, but we had our health and dreams to make a better life.

UKFast was only months old and we sat down in front of the log fire the next day and wrote out everything we had achieved in those first few months of business. The list didn’t comprise of very much, maybe 7 or 8 things, but it allowed us a small victory and gave us a sense of pride and a warm reminder that we were going in the right direction.  As a business person you get regular setbacks, so its easy to forget that you are making progress. This discipline makes the positive steps you are making, however small, stand out, just like footprints in the snow.

Our first list was a little sparse to say the least. We didn’t have any staff, we’d moved to a tiny 2 person office in the city, we can’t have had more than 4 or 5 customers, but it gave us a platform to start building in the New Year.

Its a discipline that we continue to follow as a tradition and each year the list gets a little longer. We list people, awards, accreditations, office moves, holidays, great moments,  literally any achievement however big or small. We do a business version and a home one too. It is something we now look forward to and its a great time to look back on all the events of the previous year and reflect.

In a world that races at 1,038 miles per hour (at its circumference) it often feels like we are going at the same speed. Its all too easy to forget to pause and look back on the journey, weigh up what went well and what could have gone better.

However successful you are, there are always areas in your life where you can improve.

Honesty is an important part of finding true success. You need people around you who can spot when you are going of track, but you also need to be honest with yourself too. It requires discipline, because more often than not, its easier to ignore problems as often the truth hurts. If you are listing the good you have to list the bad too.

It might be weight related, it may be your work life balance is out, you may be neglecting someone, you maybe neglecting yourself? Whatever it is, there has to be something you can improve. Deep down you probably know what it is, its often difficult to face up to, because if you do, you have to do something about it.

But we need the bad things too as they are important drivers to help give us things to aim at to improve. Without those annoying negative things we’d have no reason for growth and fundamentally, this is what life is all about.

So dont beat yourself up for all the bad things you might be doing, just use  them are leverage to make some serious improvements.

Besides what choice do we have, if you leave a problem, does it go away? Seldom, in my experience do problems just disappear they normally get bigger!

For the record I have a list as long as my arm of all the things I might have done better if I’d taken more care or been more disciplined. What I have found though is by writing down my New Years refection it helps me solidify what is needed for the journey ahead.

So before you do your goal setting this year and write down the list of everything you want to do and become, it might be worth considering sitting down with your partner, be they business or pleasure, or both like in my case, and list all the things you have done together and achieved.

I promise you its worth that warm fuzzy feeling and it gives you the momentum to take on 2012 and all the challenges you set yourself and those unexpected ones!

Don’t expect a miracle, success is built up of  small steps and lots of them, but years later those small steps may culminate to giant leaps or the pitter patter of tiny feet.

I wish you all the best and I hope to see you on your journey soon.

Best wishes for 2012 and beyond.

Lawrence Jones

The line up consisted of 3 politicians, myself and another business person. One of the big topics concentrated around university fees and whether or not the £9,000 is fair.

There seems to have been a massive cultural change over the last 10 or 15 years. Blair popularised the idea that everyone should go to University and whilst headline grabbing “right-on,” or “perfect world” scenario sounds great, it actually left the country in a bit of a pickle years later,  suddenly Great Britain was short of plumbers, electricians and other tradesmen.

No worries though we had a few million Lawyers coming through the system!

The way Tony Blair portrayed university made it such that if you didn’t go you were a second class citizen. Suddenly every parent in the country was busy competing with their next door neighbours and their family members to send all their children to Uni.

Is it any wonder so many families end up in debt. I was shocked to find out how expensive university is. This coupled with Student Loans are in my opinion big enough reasons NOT to go on to higher education, unless you are learning a specific trade for a particular vocation.

People forget, a university is a business. They generate money, pay salaries and report profits just like other businesses. But are our universities in danger of focussing too much on their own profits rather than the education they are providing?

There are other ways to learn, a university degree doesn’t give you an iron clad guarantee that you are going to be successful. Sir Gerald Kauffman the labour politician there mentioned a story of a girl who he’d known who’d gone on an apprentice scheme, ending up “carry a polythene bag walking up and down a train picking up rubbish.” Whether he meant to or not (and I am sure he did not) he spoke as if this person was a second class citizen as a result of her failing the scheme. Every job has merit and never underestimate a person by the clothes they wear or their vocation.

Its interesting when asked for a show of hands how many people wanted to go to university, everyone stretched for the ceiling but there was silence. I asked the question, what is it about University that you are looking forward to? Is it the freedom? Is it the fact that you get away from your parents and you have an abundance of parties?

Now I got a reaction. I got a unanimous resounding response.

Once I’d explained that you don’t have to go to University to have a blast. I had their attention. They had not considered this option.

I never went to university, I not only had my first 4 bedroom house at 19 years old, I also had an income greater than my mother who had been teaching for 20 years.

And all from just playing the piano and being resourceful.

I must have touched a nerve or said something that the kids related to because as  soon as we’d finished the 30 or so students all gathered round me to shake my hand.  It was an overwhelming moment as I realised that in amongst all the adversity and uncertainty, I somehow represented some sort of beacon of hope. I must have been the first bit of positivity they had seen in some time.

Talking with the kids, I could see passion tempered with an air of desperation of which way they should turn.

What sort of world are we creating for the next generation? We are so busy worrying about the now, the future is being overlooked.

John Moulton is the only one who put it in a simple enough way for me to understand. “For every £3 the government earns, it spends £4.”

It doesn’t matter if you hate the conservatives, the labour government set that ball rolling. And if you hate labour, there are a plethora of indiscretions the conservatives have made. Both parties are equal in their indifference and their desire to share the blame. The world is changing quicker than our political system can deal with.

Can you imagine a simple questionnaire going out, “Do we invade Iraq?”  and “Do we invade Syria?”

The people of Britain could answer that question very simply via the internet and there would be no need for the lies and time wasting debates that precede and follow.

This would have been an administrative impossibility a decade ago. Now it would be simple and you could have an answer back on a any question in hours.

Anyway its not going to happen. I can’t see politicians voting themselves out of the control they currently have. Something has to change though. The quality of the decisions being made and the management of the diminishing funds isn’t at a high enough level to propel us forward.

So it’s no wonder that the 6th formers are looking anxious.

What are the options?

Well whatever the economy, if you are wanting to set up a business, there is no right or wrong time. There were 2 of the 17 or 18 year olds, who told me they were already making money running their own little businesses. One a cake / confectioners, the other buying shrimp. (A bit random for Manchester – mind you if you can make money trading shrimp in Manchester, my money is on this kid being an entrepreneurial superstar.) Ironically, both these 2 young people told me they were being forced to go to university by parents who already run small businesses, yet they feel that their kids need qualifications to fall back on.

Crazy really. We dont look at qualifications when assessing candidates at UKFast. We look for great people and we don’t prejudice a person based on their ability to do well in an exam environment.

As my A level Music examiner said to me after I crucified Sonata in A, “If Mozart could have heard that, he’d have turned in his grave.”

"If Mozart could have heard that, he'd have turned in his grave!"

I failed my A level, and that same examiner ended up working for me a few years later. He often said, if he’d known what I was capable of on the piano, he’d have marked me very differently. But the system wasn’t and still isn’t built for the odd ones out.

It’s a good job I failed really, I think University would have been the death of me. It would have given me the confidence to write a CV and go for interviews. It was this lack of confidence in my ability to get a job that forced me to set up my own business. Ironic really, especially as you can set up a business without a single qualification. You just need the passion and the determination and a bit of belief. The rest will come as I am finding.

I got the impression these kids just wanted to be told that they could succeed, but no one tells them that. No one wants to build up their hopes for fear they might get knocked down. The economy doesn’t help, it discourages entrepreneurialism and whilst I don’t think this is a deliberate act, I do think it’s an inevitability from the constant doom and gloom that surrounds modern politics today.

This applies to all walks of life, athletes, business, musicians etc. You require levels of discipline that exceed the norm and the fruits of your labour are usually directly proportional to the effort and care you put in.

This week I was invited to Manchester Town Hall for a civic welcome for Gábor Takács-Nagy. A Hungarian musician who joined the Manchester Camerata this summer as the Orchestra Leader.

After a quick introduction, Gabor kindly treated us to a sneak preview of what can only be described as a new Camerata. The same people, the same instruments, but a totally different sound.

Standing up, casually dressed, the chamber orchestra lit the room. I was spell bound. I have seen the Camerata play a number of times, but never like this.

I am someone who spends a great deal of time studying other leaders in the hope that I may in turn inspire others one day with what I am able to learn and pass on.

This is one of the reasons I take my 2 daughters, 5 and 7, to events like the concert last night at the RNCM where the Camerata did their first full concert with Gabor at the helm. My 2 daughters were captivated and both fell asleep on our knees in their party dresses, to the most wonderful music I have heard in Manchester for a long long time.

It is safe to say, Gabor is an inspiration and if you get an opportunity, you have to go and witness it for yourself. If you can’t afford the ticket, please come as my guest. Either way, you have to come.

Gábor is one of those people you hear about in history from a previous generation, but you never get lucky enough to meet.

Yet here in Manchester, making himself accessible after conducting his first Manchester Camerata concert last night, he is in my opinion one of the most inspirational people I have ever had the pleasure to meet and our Great city of Manchester is a better place for his arrival and efforts.

And I cannot be alone in my thoughts, because the members of his chamber orchestra must feel something special to be able to raise their game to that extent.

I have met him a few times now and each time I leave a better person, lifted to a new level.

So what is it that makes him special?

If I was only allowed to use one word, it has to be “passion.” When someone speaks with so much congruency and feeling it is difficult not to get engaged.

Gabor uses raw emotion to lead his orchestra and watching him at work he balances his very dynamic and energetic movements with carefully chosen words when describing what is about to be performed.

Leadership is about honesty. You have to love and believe absolutely in what you do if you want others to follow you. Even then you don’t have a God given right, these are merely credentials to enter the game. You then need the passion to get people engaged in the challenge you are ultimately setting them. If there is no challenge, there is no game.

Finding the challenge can be a challenge in itself. Its essential though if you are to inspire others to unite and raise someones game. The greater the challenge the more likely you are to inspire the person presented with it. Its too easy to assume that everyone wants an easy life. Why on earth would you want an easy life?

When something is easy, it is no fun. The fun in life comes from developing skills to combat new hurdles.

Something only becomes satisfying when you’ve picked yourself up a few times, dusted yourself off and run headlong at it again. Pretty soon you learn how to solve the conundrum and then its time for a new challenge.

When you sit watching musicians I always reflect on the hours they sacrificed for their instruments. My favourite moment in any film is the scene in Groundhog day when Bill Murray starts to learn the piano. Stuck in a timewarp where each day restarts, he eventually learns that he may aswell make a difference to everyone else’s life if he can’t improve his own. This becomes his challenge!

When you see him hammering the piano entertaining the whole room, it puts into perspective how long he’d been there; literally a lifetime.

And that’s whats required. A lifetime of commitment. If you want to become truly great at something, you better get focussed. There is a long road ahead.  If on your journey you want some entertainment or inspiration on route, please do come and see what I am talking about.

Mohammed Ali said, “I run on the road long before I dance under the lights.”

Gabor you have earned the right to dance.

It was the first time I saw the immense power of the internet. I sat watching the video playing on a website. We didn’t have a TV at the office. I was at work with 18 people split between 2 businesses. 12 people selling mobile phones and the other 6 working away on the embryonic version of what is now UKFast.

I sent people home that day. I have never done that before and I hope I never have to again. There are not many times I have felt defeated, but this was one of them. It was a day to reflect and grieve, not to win business and compete. The world stopped that day and I don’t think it ever fully regained the momentum that it was developing back then in the early days of the internet.

It was December 1999. I was in the bar on the top floor of one of the Twin Towers. Pressing my nose against the window. The floor was designed in such away that the concrete at the base of the window curved away, which gave an eerily breath-taking view below.

My old school friend Pete who was then working on Wall Street for Klienwort Bensons decided to take us for a quick liquid lunch. It turned out to be rather longer than that, and we drank the day away sipping Cosmos until the sun went down.

Looking down on the Empire State Building and the tiny world below, it made Manchester feel like a train set. I remember letting ourselves into an art-deco function suite before leaving. It was an amazing place and although we shouldn’t have been there we took our time and savoured every moment.

We were 2 Welshmen in New York. Pete and I felt invincible. Life was there to be embraced and I had brought Gail along who I’d only been dating 8 months. UKFast was only 3 months old.

There is something about New York I love. I spent a great deal of time there in between selling my business to Granada and meeting Gail. It was where I first fell in love with the Internet. I knew it was the home of my next adventure. I just had no idea what I was going to do on it.

One thing I was sure of was that it needed to follow a similar business model to that of my piano rental company I’d set up a decade before. I was always grateful for the small bits of regular cash trickling in from the rental of the grand pianos. And during the bad months, the money kept me afloat. I just needed to find a better balance. I was paying too much for the pianos, and I wasn’t able to charge enough, plus very few people are in the market for such a niche product.

Bouncing around New York, I had been in no hurry to set up my next venture and although the money was going to run out, I knew it was better to take my time. I was 30 and the next venture needed to be the right one. I was going to hang back this time until I knew I had the right plan.

My family had thought I’d given up. I was painting in Central Park, writing poetry in the bar in Grand Central Station and playing chess with the Russian dudes in Washington Square Gardens. These were symbols of a failure in their eyes. It didn’t help that my mode of transport was a skateboard with green wheels and although I ventured out on a set of rollerblades from time to time, I was discouraged by my friends due to the sheer number of accidents I had on them.

That day I was on top of the world, quite literally. Although I have been to the Berg since, it doesn’t have the same charm as the Twin Towers. In fact I have never found anywhere to do a Cosmopolitan as well as the bar Windows On The World on the 106th floor.

New York is the city that gave me the direction I needed and although UKFast was only months old, I knew we were onto something special.

Pete and I both knew people who worked in the Twin Towers. I’d met a nice young lady who worked there some months before meeting Gail and I cant help thinking how unfair life is and how so many peoples lives were so brutally affected that day.

I will never forget that day when we whiled away the hours dreaming of our futures. I have happy memories of that building as well as the tragic ones.

Watching the planes hit those two majestic buildings, I can’t forget those horrific moments, like the millions of other people watching powerless to help, glued to the internet desperately hoping that this was not actually happening.

When you consider that 2753 people died as a result of the Towers collapsing and the terrorist attacks. Can we forgive what they did? We can never forget, that’s for sure.

This is one event in my life that remains incomprehensible and to the thousands of New Yorkers and their loved ones affected by the tragedy, there are millions of well-wishers around the world who are thinking about you today.

What is it about this man? He keeps on popping up on British TV, yet he lacks the finesse of Branson and the passion of Robbins. He most certainly lacks the humility that you’ll find in abundance in the other two great men.

He comes across as a self opinionated man who likes putting people down to make himself feel better. And by surrounding himself with sycophantic people who do not openly challenge him, it is no surprise that he slipped up this week, after telling engineer Glenn Ward as he fired him on BBC’s reality TV show The Apprentice: ‘I have never yet come across an engineer who can turn his hands to business.’

Is he right? Are engineers poor business people?

Actually to put this into perspective and illustrate just how ridiculously dumb a statement this is, you have to look at other generalisations, like racism, agism etc. White people can’t dance, black people can’t swim. They are just preposterous and there is no place for generalisations in today’s society. It’s so important that people stand out from the crowd. Isn’t that what entrepreneurialism is all about?

There will always be some people that fall into sweeping generalisations like this, however no generalisation can cover all people.

Sugar just created his own new ism, engineeringism. You can’t take a group of people and publicly denounce them on National television.

Correct me if I am wrong, but engineering is a trade. It is something learnt. So why would people who chose to learn engineering as a skill be any worse or any better than people who study music, martial arts, French or whatever takes their fancy. Actually, history tells us that the people who learn the skills have a competitive advantage when setting up businesses where these skills are required.

The moment I heard this bigoted comment, I immediately thought of James Dyson an engineer who cleaned up after revolutionising the vacuum industry. Dyson’s fortune, estimated by the Sunday Times Richlist at £1.45bn, is almost double Lord Sugar’s £770m. It’s safe to say that Dyson changed the world and is in another league.

Lord Sugar defended his remarks: “I was drawing on my experience, having dealt with thousands of engineers over the years. That said, I accept the odd example that has been outlined, although James Dyson has told me many times he is an inventor not an engineer.”

Dyson’s own description of himself as an “inventor” just demonstrates his humility, the trait so lacking in Sugar.

When you start to unravel the list of great entrepreneurs over time, engineers do play a huge part.

What car would Sugar be chauffeured in if Rolls hadn’t met Royce in the Midland Hotel, Manchester back on 4th May 1904. Royce was an amazing engineer and entrepreneur. Ironically, one of the first proper apprentices too, not the wooly TV type.

Royce started his trade in 1878 when he started an apprenticeship with the Great Northern Railway company at its works in Peterborough. When he ran out of money after 3 years he joined a tool-making company in Leeds, before joining the Electric Light and Power Company. He had a stint making dynamos and electric cranes and one of his first factories opened in Trafford Park, Manchester, a stones throw from where we built UKFast’s first Data Centre.

After seeing the equipment being delivered and installed to our new DC, I have the utmost respect for engineers. From the generators to the cabling, it’s remarkable the technology that we take for granted because it’s out of sight.

It seems that the greatest revelations of all time are born out of engineering discoveries and brilliance. The Internet being probably the biggest of them all and if not, it is certainly the incubator for the engineers of tomorrow. Giving life to other great engineers like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook who is giving the Google boys a run for their money.

What gets my goat is that Sugar continues to set such a bad example to fellow entrepreneurs of how to behave in business and worse still, he gives the public a very one dimensional view of what business is really like.

The great business people that I have met are like the great people from all walks of life. They are warm, kind and giving. We can all go through life taking, however to truly get anything of note out of life, you have to put in without expecting anything in return.

Only when you arrive at this outcome will you be truly fulfilled.

There are probably a few incredibly rich people reading this thinking “*ollocks,” yet the very same people who think that they are the pinnacle of their existence are the people who need to go back to the basics more than most.

I am not trying to be judgemental. It works for me. The day after my avalanche accident, I stopped worrying about what other people think and I just got on with doing what felt right. Then one day I just woke up years later and everything was rosy. I am not saying everything is perfect in my life. I am a million miles from where I’d like to evolve as a person. I have so much to do to improve if I am going to hit some of my goals, but I know what needs to be done and I choose very different people to Alan Sugar to aspire to. I once asked Branson if there is anyone in business who has inspired him, we were running at the time. He said firmly, “No.” he paused and said, “I do admire Nelson Mandela.” After another pause, “And Desmond Tutu.”

This supports my point that to be great, follow great people. It doesn’t matter that they are in a different walk of life. Great people will have similarities in their behaviour that help make them successful. Likewise, idiots have a habit of copying daft things!

On the subject of being an engineer. I surround myself by them because I admire the skills that I would so much love to posses. Being an entrepreneur allows me to tap into the engineering world and marvel at the things that are made possible nowadays.

Given the choice to aspire to be like Dyson, Royce, Sugar? I gave up Sugar a long time ago.

So next time you watch The Apprentice, see if you noticed he has a boardroom chair that is bigger and taller than everyone else’s. Lord Alan Sugar should stop taking himself too seriously and someone should tell him, people watch the show because of the uncertainty of who is going to be axed and not for him. Sorry Alan

Its good to see other business people and prominent ones speaking out about Sugar’s stupidity. Will King, founder of the King of Shaves grooming business and himself a mechanical engineering graduate, said he was ‘saddened’ by Lord Sugar’s very public statement, dismissing the abrasive business leader as ‘out of touch’.

I hadn’t known Gail long, but long enough for her to want to help me identify the problem. Doctors were unable to help, they checked for diabetes and thyroid, but there was nothing clinically wrong. Yet I was struggling to function. I was getting unnecessarily stressed and the not knowing what was wrong was compounding the problem. UKFast was in its infancy and I remember sitting down with a friend also running a small business, who described similar problems. Yet he was slim and seemed in great health now. He told me that he’d reached 18 stone and he’d been told he couldn’t digest certain foods. He simply avoided them and the rest is history.  He gave me the telephone number of a chap called Peter and I agreed to meet him at the Midland Hotel for an allergy test.
There are 3 reasons that significantly contributed to me being successful, outside of all the luck I’ve had.

1.       Gail – Great decision maker and the calmness that I can only pretend to possess
2.       My avalanche accident which taught me the importance of time and gave me the “Do It Now” concept.
3.       The allergy test and clear head I have had since that day
I came down stairs from seeing Peter. He’d said I was lactose intolerance. I had no idea what this meant or the impending implications of eliminating milk from my diet. I thought, this is easy, its only milk. As I walked past my favourite restaurant The French, located in the hotel, I realised that milk was in ALL of my favourite foods. Pastry, cream, cheese, the list is endless. But being an obsessive person, from that day on, I never (knowingly) ate milk again. I say knowingly because if I ever have it now by accident, I am seriously ill.

The first few days were hell. I had intense headaches and I felt terrible. Then one day I woke up and the headache was gone. It was like a cloud had lifted, I could see clearer, I could think with more agility. I was able to multi function where previously I’d struggle to make decisions.

As a child I struggled to concentrate and keep my attention on anything for even the shortest period. I had a short fuse which assisted me on the rugby pitch but not in everyday life. I had difficulties reading and I wrote certain letters in words the wrong way around. These days they call this dyslexia, I was just pronounced “less bright” than my counterparts back then. With milk out of my system, everything improved. I could read with confidence, without having words appear out of nowhere and my dyslexia, had miraculously disappeared.

Since that day, I often joked I’d sooner drink petrol than a pint of milk. Interestingly enough, you should be careful what you wish for, after siphoning petrol from one of my quad bikes in Wales, I accidentally swallowed rather a lot of petrol. I was expecting some horrendous after effects, yet compared to milk I can now promise you, Petrol is far easier to digest in my opinion and my statement still stands.

More seriously, knowing the difference this made to me, I went on a journey of discovery and also a journey to help others who may be suffering from similar symptoms and not knowing that their lives could be so much easier. To date I have paid for over 200 people to be allergy tested. In fact, most people at UKFast have had the test. The results were so dramatic, that I stopped doing it for a while as a number of people had similar massive improvements, so much so they changed their personalities over night becoming more dynamic leaving for pastures new, a few even setting up their own businesses. I have since then learned that someone’s health and destiny is more important than my own needs as a businessman.

The change in my personality was so dramatic I needed to understand scientifically why this substance that so many people speak so highly about was literally poisoning me. Its such an intrinsic part of the Western culture, how can people be unaware of its dangers? How can we still be giving it to our children?

I learnt a great deal over the next few years. I found out that in the US they are 20 years ahead of us. They have linked milk to behavioural disorders. In the UK we drug children who have serious aggression problems and ADHD. In the US they test the children for lactose intolerance.

I remember hearing my father-in-law and ex-teacher talking with my Uncle Peter a child psychiatrist and they were discussing “problem children,” and the drugs and treatment they give them. I listened as John said, every day after lunch in the playground a particular child would go crazy. Sure enough they drugged him, neither of these 2 highly intelligent men whom I admire massively picked up on the “after lunch.” What were they feeding this kid? Our culture doesn’t look at whats causing things, we simply drug people. Its easier. This is an industry in itself.

In the US as part of their education programme, they reference aggression as being linked to lactose intolerance in kids films such as Hulk Hogan.

The production and distribution of Milk is big business. There is an entire industry promoting it and until recently there was the Milk Marketing Board set up in 1933 and finally dissolved in 2002. This once powerful organisation brought us “Milk is good for you because it is full of Calcium.”  Wrong. You cannot digest anything like the same amount of calcium from milk as you can from vegetables such as spinach, kale and broccoli. Calcium from dairy products is excreted and not ingested as it has a greater bioavailability than calcium from certain green vegetables.

Milk settles your stomach. Wrong, Cow’s milk has a pH ranging from 6.4 to 6.8, making it acidic. Listening to Tony Robbins I learned that the acid alkaline balance of the human body is very delicate. We constantly put too much acid in our system and it results long term can be fatal.

I have left some information that I have obtained at the bottom of this blog. If you genuinely care about yourself, have a read and really consider whether it is worth that “moment on the lips.” These days there are a huge amount of foods that are made without milk additives, including ice-cream and even cream which can be made from soya.

The links between milk and cancer, particularly prostate cancer have been proven by 11 different Universities, yet they are not promoted.

Personally I couldn’t operate at the same level and pace of life if I still drank milk or ate it in my food. If I have it by accident, I go dyslexic within minutes I get a blinding headache and come out in spots, along with some other horrendous side affects.

After doing a social experiment at UKFast back in 2002 where we tested 17 people in one day. 14 were lactose intolerant, which is pretty close to the US research which states 75% of all Americans cannot digest milk.

If you suffer from IBS, aggression or are overly irritable, if you have skin disorders, hyperactivity or severe lethargy, I will bet money you are one of the 75% and I can say with confidence because I have helped so many people, when you remove it, get ready for a great new world, it will be like lifting a cloud. Watch you energy levels soar, you will be like a teenager again.

Try it! What have you got to lose!

Best of luck

Lawrence

PS. The allergy test is worth doing, because it highlights a variety of substances you may struggle with. Although 75% of people suffered from milk intolerance, 100% of people registered at least 1 intolerance to one substance or another. What’s your poison?

—–> END

The enzyme needed to digest lactose, lactase, reaches its highest levels in the small intestines after birth and then begins a slow decline unless milk is consumed regularly.^[5]

Lactose, the disaccharide sugar component of all milk must be cleaved in the small intestine by the enzyme lactase in order for its constituents, galactose and glucose, to be absorbed. The production of this enzyme declines significantly after weaning in all mammals. Consequently, many humans become unable to digest lactose properly as they mature. There is a great deal of variance, with some individuals reacting badly to even small amounts of lactose, some able to consume moderate quantities, and some able to consume large quantities of milk and other dairy products without problems. The gene in humans that controls lactase production, and hence lactose tolerance/intolerance is labeled C/T-13910. When an individual consumes milk without producing sufficient lactase, they may suffer diarrhea, intestinal gas, cramps and bloating, as the undigested lactose travels through the gastrointestinal tract and serves as nourishment for intestinal microflora who excrete gas, a process known as anaerobic respiration.

It is estimated that up to 50 million Americans are lactose intolerant, including 75% of Native Americans and African Americans, and 90% of Asian Americans.

Lactose intolerance is a natural process and there is no reliable way to prevent or reverse it.

Some studies suggest that milk consumption may increase the risk of suffering from certain health problems. Cow milk allergy (CMA) is an immunologically mediated adverse reaction to one or more cow’s milk proteins. Rarely is it severe enough to cause death.

Milk contains casein, a substance that breaks down in the human stomach to produce casomorphin, an opioid peptide. In the early 1990s it was hypothesized that casomorphin can cause or aggravate autism spectrum disorders, and casein-free diets are widely promoted.

A study demonstrated that men who drink a large amount of milk and consume dairy products were at a slightly increased risk of developing Parkinson’s disease; the effect for women was smaller.The reason behind this is not fully understood. Several sources suggest a correlation between high calcium intake (2000 mg per day) and prostate cancer.

A review published by the World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research states that at least eleven human population studies have linked excessive dairy product consumption and prostate cancer.

Medical studies also have shown a possible link between milk consumption and the exacerbation of diseases such as Crohn’s disease, Hirschsprung’s disease–mimicking symptoms in babies with existing cow’s milk allergies, and the aggravation of Behçet’s disease.

Considering the hectic duties of our Manchester business UKFast, a place which is aptly named, I can’t remember a moment where we have ever come up for air.

Yet, inspite of craving the intensity and fast paced business life, I never tire of the Welsh countryside and there’s not a more beautiful time of year.

Time out is so important and the bigger UKFast gets the more I realise I need the complete switch off. I have come to learn that the peace and quiet of the mountains is a great place for me to get the time I need to reflect on the important decisions.

Also, I love it. If I have learnt anything from my peers, life is so short, so just do the things which you enjoy the most. If you can combine what you love the most with what is absolutely necessary, you have the recipe for success.

You’d be excused for questioning why I chose a place where we had no internet, no phone, no mobile, intermittent heating and water over a more exotic location, but for a man who lives and breathes the Internet, this is the only place I have found on earth which is remote enough to disappear. It’s just perfect, it’s on my doorstep.

The journey back is always interesting as my mobile bleeps incessantly as it picks up the emails and texts that escaped me, listening to the news it is mind bending what happens in the real world in just a 2 week period. Yet if you think about it, nothing really changes. The world has a habit of carrying on regardless in your absence.

I am lucky that I have a great team at UKFast who know what they are doing and they have a habit of running  the business better when I am away! I am not sure what this says about me, however I mustn’t grumble. UKFast is a collective of fantastic minds and personalities and it is designed in such a way that it develops in line with the team who run it.

So what’s new? What is on the horizon?

I left the business after a record quarter and with a Royal Wedding imminent, there was talk in the business community of a disastrous April.  With millions of people timing their annual leave to take advantage of the bank holidays, I must admit I had lowered my expectations of what we should expect. Yet, in spite of the holidays and the whole world glued to the telly (including me – yes I found one) for the Royal Wedding, April was a respectable month and we exceeded my expectations.

There were predictions that the Royal Wedding would cost the economy £6 billion, yet as an event it showed Britain in its best light and it is wonderful to see so many people from all over the world coming together for something that we all relate to. Whatever cultural background you come from, everyone loves a wedding and as weddings go, what a spectacle.

In my opinion this event plays an important part in Britain’s recovery. A buoyant economy relies on positivity and an underlying feeling of confidence. I can’t remember an event in my lifetime that united so many people from so many different walks of life. It is absolutely what we needed as a nation. With politicians intent on debating process and problems, we need to build from here.

Gordon “Bennet” Brown’s doom and gloom era is long gone. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Its plain for everyone to see and if you are in business now is the time to remain positive and stick to your plans. After all, you can go away for a couple of weeks and the world wont have changed, it’s just your perception of it that’s important.

So when you are worrying about interest rates that may go up, or tax breaks that could be better, just remember that Britain earned the title “Great” and it’s the Great British public that achieved this. What is important now is not to forget that we are competing on a global level more than ever with emerging economies overseas. And this isn’t just in business, this is especially important in our schools and public services, in fact in every walk of life.

I was asked to talk to some children at a local school once and I prepared my talk around the magic of what every member of the class was going to achieve.

There is no better way to inspire a room of 7 year olds, than to tell them that they are the people who will be building the planes, and trains, hospitals and schools of the future. That they will go on to run and shape the world.

So let’s hope I am right, the signs are certainly there and we have a good cross section of businesses at UKFast and the general consensus is that trade is good.

And in the meantime, whilst I work away in Manchester, I know my mountains are in safe hands guarded by HRH Prince William who keeps a watchful eye on the mountain ranges of Snowdonia in his SeaKing helicopter.

My “planning” is almost non-existant. All my work done is long before any planning would normally take place, at the “dreaming” stage. It’s a side that is drilled out of us at an early age, usually in school and by our elders. Yet the dreaming stage is the most fun and its where the magic happens.

I have my own theories on planning, however they are all inspired by others and date back a considerable number of years. Tony Robbins was the chap who originally opened my eyes to something I had been doing very successfully at various times of my life. I just hadn’t realised what I was doing. I certainly had no idea there was an actual science behind it. I tried some of Robbin’s techniques and actually in my first Goal Setting session, listening to Tony in my headphones, I wrote down a wild and seemingly unattainable goal. “Meet Tony Robbins” as one of my objectives.

It took me a few years to realise that I need to write more specific goals, as sure enough, at an event in London, I met Tony Robbins. The problem is I literally shook his hand along with many others and that was that.

I then went back to the drawing board. The next goal involving Tony Robbins was far more specific and it involved spending quality time with him where I’d get an opportunity to share ideas and develop a friendship.

In less than 12 months from writing this goal,  the impossible happened. Gail and I were sitting in  Tony’s living room at his home in Fiji with his lovely wife Sage, spending real quality time with them. It was an amazing opportunity to credit Tony for influencing us and encouraging us to engage our ambition. It felt good to be able to tick this one off the list and thank him first hand for his guidance.

Tony Robbins is an extraordinary man and if you want to learn Goal Setting properly, my advice is go and get Tony’s CDs and start today. He changed my life enough to make me look deeper at myself. There is no way we’d be in this fortunate position, unless we’d made some very definite changes for the better, and he certainly kickstarted us into looking at ourselves and being more self critical.

Once I’d started on this journey of discovery, there was a great deal I had to find out for myself. There had to be more. I went on a journey trying to understand the science behind it. I found a chap called Earl Nightingale who was clearly a driver and inspiration for Tony Robbins.

It’s no wonder Robbins found Nightingale fascinating. Nightingale was an extraordinary man.

At 17 he joined the United States Marines. He was on the USS Arizona during the attack on Pearl Harbor he was one of 12 surviving Marines on board that day. 2402 people were killed in the attack, 1177 onboard the USS Arizona. This clearly impacted on Nightingale. His perception and the way he valued both life and people after this terrible ordeal must have changed that day.

After the war Nightingale worked for a radio station, he eventually developed into motivational speaker. In 1956 he produced the first spoken-word record to sell over a million copies, The Strangest Secret. Nightingale’s radio program, Our Changing World, became the most highly syndicated radio program ever, and was heard across the Globe.

In spite of this, I still think Tony is the one to listen to on Goal Setting. He has worked with the last 4 presidents of the US and his list of clients is impressive. When you realise who he has helped reach the heights of their professions, it makes a compelling case to sit down and take him seriously.

What Earl teaches, is that everything you want is all around you. He talks saying “you are standing in a field of diamonds, but only a few people can see them and know how to reach out and pick them up.” He simplifies the success that some people achieve and links it to certain things they do in their behaviour.

Tony encourages you to think and dream as a child. Dream of everything that you might want in life. Not necessarily materialistic things, but family things, health, literally everything, but he encourages you to drop your adult way of thinking and THINK BIGGER!

The process is similar with both from there. They both get you to write down your goals, but Tony explains the science behind it and backs it up with irrefutable evidence from research first carried out in the 70′s. Once you have written down your goals, date them with when you expect to achieve them. 3 months, 9 months, 2 years, 10 years etc.

Earl insists you read this every night and pin it next to your bed. I don’t prescribe to this way of thinking. Gail and I “Goal Set” once a year. We take a few days to go through our lists and achievements and start to consider what we want from the coming months and years ahead. We do ours in January and we literally have books full of things we are aiming at.

We then revisit this 2 or 3 more times in a year to tick off items we might have already accomplished and to add anything we have dreamt up more recently to the lists.

It is as simple as that. And that is the end of the planning. What about the execution of all the “dreams” and Goals?

Nothing, we simply sit back, and get on with our lives. Everything just has a habit of falling in to place.

You are now thinking, well that’s easy. There must be more to it than that? Well not really. There are techniques and subtleties, but we have actually developed our own style.

What you will learn on this new journey, is just how powerful your brain is and just how you are hampering your own success by allowing your subconscious to dominate your creative thinking.

I could write for hours on this subject, and one day I’d love to. In the meantime, go write a list, put it in a drawer and take it out in a years time and then let me know how you get on. But if you really want to get serious, let me know and I will delve much deeper into this subject in a future blog.

Good luck and dream BIG!

Lawrence Jones
UKFast

Sat talking, he summed up the shortness of time, by describing the decade between the age of 60 and 70 as just “10 summers.”

It was a sledgehammer moment. I take time more seriously than anyone I know after my avalanche accident, or so I thought and here’s someone who’s summed up the importance of living every minute in just 2 words.

And then when you start weighing up different events in the future, like my 7 year old is off to university in 10 summers too, I realised that I really need to perfect this switching off and using some of my discipline to ensure I don’t blink and miss another moment.

That night during dinner another friend asked me to play the piano. I suddenly found myself having a ”Sliding Doors moment.”

For a second, sat at the piano with a room full of successful people, it felt like nothing had changed. These were precisely the sort of events I’d be asked to perform at in my previous life. However apart from being incredibly rusty on the old piano, there is one subtle difference, this is no longer my official job.

I have climbed the mountain and I am now on the other side with the guests enjoying the evening.

After thousands of hours sat at the piano dreaming about another world, in a blink of an eye, the dream is a reality. How on earth I ended up running a technology business, I’ll never know.

Back then, if someone asked me to run UKFast in its present capacity, a business with 125 employees and all the responibilities, I just couldn’t have done it.

Just like I learnt the piano one note at a time, I have had to learn the skills to run UKFast in a similar way. And like the piano, just when you think you are getting good, there is always someone more technical or more graceful or more inspirational, the same applies in business. There is always another level. Whoever you are.

20 years ago, I spent a great deal of time with some of the cast of the Manchester Les Miserable team. It was an awesome time in Manchester, when the Hacienda was centre of the world and the Manchester bands rocked the world. At the time, I used to play the piano for a living. I’d be in a dinner suit playing in hotels and afterwards, we’d all pile down to the Press Club or my house for a sing song.

A few months ago, Gail and I were fortunate to be invited to the Royal Variety Show. When the Les Miserables cast from London came onto the stage for the Royal Variety Show, the hair stood up on the back of my neck and I was filled with a massive sense of sadness as well as joy almost simultaneously. All the amazing experiences crammed into a matter of moments creating a overwhelming surge of emotion.

And when the young lady playing Eponine sang On My Own, I remembered my close friend Gemma Wardle who at 16 years old played the role brilliantly. Standing on the Palace Theatre’s stage in Manchester looking so lost, captivating her audience.

I recall a party I threw on New Years eve and as the cast of Les Miserables were all away from home, they piled around to mine. And on a baby grand piano in a flat in Manchester, we had the greatest line up of talent you could ever hope to see. For me as a musician to have such beautiful voices was such an experience, because they make you sound so much better. Michael Ball who was dating or married to one of the girls filled my living room with his booming voice. Even the next door neighbours who had a propensity to complain as much as my propensity to throw a party, marvelled at the music!

It was a surreal time. It was another era. And thanks to Facebook I am still in contact with some great characters.

What is amazing is that my current career couldn’t be more removed from the old days as a musician. What’s not changed is my desire to perform at the highest standard, that’s almost like a transferable skill that I have reapplied over and over again, and if I look back at some of my old friends, they all had that passion back then too and they all went on to be amazing and achieve greatness in a variety of fields.

So I wonder, what will we all be doing in 10 summers time?

With that sobering reminder of just how time flies, with the kids on Easter holidays, we’ve headed to the mountains for some Piste and quiet.

My 4 year old daughter has clearly worked out the importance of time already. She has just woken up and climbed in bed with Gail and asked, “Why are we only staying here for 7 nights? Can we ski all day until he night time because I love being on holiday and 7 nights isn’t long enough.”

Enjoy!

No email, no internet, power cuts, sideways rain and no mobile phone access.

Brilliant!

Castell Cidwm is an inspiring place, a real hive of activity. This week we had various groups down doing different activities. A few of the directors were giving the UKFast Management Training Program a final polish, whilst I had the arduous task of taking a team of apprehensive colleagues through the hills above Beddgelert. I don’t need much of an excuse to get my walking boots on. I get a great deal more done in the peace and quiet of the mountains as opposed to being back in the office.

I have learnt that walking is a great place to discuss plans and get to know people. People seem less guarded, less preoccupied with portraying themselves in polished way in the countryside and by mixing fresh air and an increased heart rate, it also makes work more enjoyable.

Over the past 12 months I have been considering how to best manage UKFast as it continues to grow at a rapid pace. I have no formal business training apart from what I pick up from those around me and from the mistakes we make. With 125 staff and contracts of £14.5m already this year, it is a very different business than the one we started in 1999 in a tiny 2 man office on Fountain Street. But as it grows, do we have to run it differently?

This is a question I have been pondering over for some time. I think there is a way where we can maintain that small business feel.

UKFast covers a wide array of clients, SMB / SME and Enterprise and Government organisations. All these organisations require very different levels of care managing their solutions and after significant analysis, 2 very distinct groups emerged.

I remember reading Losing My Virginity and being intrigued why a businessman would chop his record company businesses in half when they reached 100 staff. It seemed alien to me at the time, as there were only 16 of us in UKFast when I read it. It was not something I gave too much thought to.

And so, after much deliberation and analysis, we made the decision to split the team into 2 new distinct groups with defined responsibilities. It was this new team that I invited down to Wales to walk with me whilst we discussed our futures. Being away from work gave the new team time to bond and digest the proposal and concentrate their energy on this new task in hand. I can confidently say I could not achieve the same result in an office environment. Even though our office is a great environment, sometimes you just have to swap the walls for heather.

The team left Castell Cidwm enthused and empowered with an exciting journey ahead.

The result is that now everyone benefits, both clients and the team alike.

Over our 11 years in business we have managed to win some amazing brands and like our other clients, we look after them and we support them through their growth.

It will come as no surprise that our bigger clients require more attention. They tend to have significantly more complex hosting requirements and as a result, they need extra help.

It is impossible to provide one member of staff for all of our thousands of clients across the whole UKFast client base, yet at the top level, we have clients now who get exactly that.

When I first heard the idea I assumed that the main benefit is that by keeping the businesses small it maintains or increases the energy in both parts.

Now this is true, but I underestimated some of the other benefits of the change too.

The main benefit is that instead of losing great people along the way, when top level jobs and management positions are already filled, it creates the perfect progression from Team leader to Manager, Manager to Director, from Director, to Director of a new division.

Each time someone is promoted, you create a gap to fill with enthusiastic team members.

And when you are considering bringing in new talent. Have you considered the ones under your nose?

A friend of mine told me “promote people to a level above they’d ordinarily expect. They will thank you for it and work significantly harder.” He gave me a couple of examples and mentioned a cleaner of one of his businesses, and how she went on to be the manager of the entire division.

It reminded me of some questions I was asked recently, one of them was, “What did you learn from your first job?”

I said, ‘the person brushing the floor, might be the one with the biggest drive and most potential.”

In short, I have learnt, never underestimate anyone as I was the person holding the brush.

It’s very easy to underestimate people. I know I have personally done it numerous times. It can be a scary prospect entrusting a position of responsibility to someone. It’s always a gamble. Yet it’s a bigger gamble when you bring someone else in.

Recently Sale Sharks lost their Commercial Director Nathan Bombrys. It’s common knowledge so I am not talking out of turn, it’s merely a good example. He’d been with the club a decade. He’d arrived at around the same time we got involved, shortly after the game turned professional.

He understood the club and the sponsors inside out. He was extraordinarily passionate about both the club and the owner. After about 3 or 4 changes to the CEO role, Nathan realised that the opening would never have his name on it. Consequently he decided to move on and instantly was snapped up by Scottish Rugby.

Over the last 10 years there is no supplier closer to Sale Sharks than UKFast. I worked alongside Nathan and helped him fill the stadium on numerous occasions. I knew that Nathan was undoubtedly the man for the job, I had first hand experience of this man’s talent. He was the right person, back when they gave the role to Niels de Vos and although I think Niels is a smashing guy, Nathan was the one pulling the strings. Not many people know that, but that is a fact.

A very clever Stamford professor, Jim Collins wrote that in almost every case of the businesses who achieve greatness for a sustained period of 15 years or more, the leaders were grown from within.

Yet it is hard to trust in talent you might already have. There is no right or wrong answer. There is just opinion and conjecture. Either way, whatever you do in business, it’s a gamble.

I always wonder who are these early morning “driven” people? Where are they going?

I have a theory, have you ever noticed how people seem to get more irate the nearer it gets to 9.00am when driving into work? Obviously it’s not everyone, there just seem to be more people stressed as 9 o’clock approaches.

What I need are these other people, the dynamic ones who want to squeeze every last drop out of the day.

How do I get more of these early risers on my team?

Later that morning, shortly after 8am, whilst addressing my sales team, I asked ‘how many of you have been to the gym already this morning?” A handful raised their arms. The rest looked rather sleepy. I was reminded of the chap in the black BMW. I used him as an example of someone who was making the extraordinary efforts needed to better himself and live life to the absolute potential.

I made a point of saying, “we need to find out who this person is and get more of the same.” I wrote it as an action point on the white board and thought nothing more of it.

I came out of the sales meeting and my PA walked up to me explaining she’d had a strange email, from a mystery man in a black BMW who’d seen me this morning and wanted to meet up.

Now is this coincidence or is there something deeper here? Something working at an unconscious level? Personally too many things like this happen to me and have done throughout my life to think its coincidence. The word coincidence merely exists to service the sceptics. I believe if you focus on something hard enough it will manifest itself in time.

One of the things we consciously focussed on from the outset at UKFast, was and still is to recruit quality people. Bill Gate’s quote sums up the need for great people.

“A people hire A people. B people Hire C people.”

We have a grading mechanism at work, Gold, Silver, Bronze that I learnt from Tony Robbins. After going to a seminar with my wife and business partner Gail, we decided to try the grading system. What was interesting, everyone graded each other identically and when we listed the Bronze people, the managers all turned and said, these are the people that sap our time and resources.

It’s no coincidence that we now have the most engaged workforce at UKFast we have ever had? There are still serious amounts we can do to improve it further, but understanding that we are a long way from the finished article makes us focus on the continual improvements necessary to achieve the very best possible.

If I knew the answer to recruiting the perfect person, I’d bottle it and put it on the supermarket shelves. As fast as I think I have a defined formula, I find an outstanding individual who bucks the trend.

Attracting great people is one thing, but its only part of the goal. Keeping great staff has to be even higher on every business persons agenda these days. With tools like LinkedIn and Facebook, if you don’t give back to your team, it is highly likely they might consider alternative arrangements.

It is a never ending conundrum keeping the balance, yet I believe it is an absolute must.

At last years Christmas party I was also able to welcome back 4 people who had left UKFast and now returned. I mentioned every one of them and publicly reminded myself of the sort of business we’d have now if they’d never left. One of the guys said that when he got the call, he couldn’t contain himself. He’d been enticed away with a bigger salary and title with all the trappings. What he or his new employer hadn’t taken into consideration is that he was never going to fit in.

We recruit on dynamic. For us it is less about skill-set and more about personality. If you fit in, we can teach you the rest. On the other hand, big personalities in the wrong environment can be a real disruption and need a very particular style of management.

My philosophy is invest in the selection process from the outset. I hate having to let great people go, simply because they didn’t quite fit in, or that they felt the pace wasn’t right for them. So many business people shy away from spending the money spoiling their team members, yet spend thousands on recruitment and retraining for people that they have to replace.

By keeping people, think of the recruitment fees you save. Think of the experience you keep on your team, the knowledge and depth of understanding that develops over time. Its not to be underestimated.

The selection process at UKFast, just gets harder each year.

One of our favourite uses of our training centre in Wales, Castell Cidwm is for the new recruits and for their initiation into the UKFast culture. Over the years I have received a fair amount of criticism for my tactics of taking newly recruited people away to a remote hideaway to take them out of their comfort zone. Our model has been described by more traditional business folk as barbaric and a waste of money.

However if you ask the members who make it, you will only hear of the satisfaction that comes from people who exceeded their own expectations. People inspired.

And I suppose that’s what it is all about at the end of the day. Inspiration.

I love taking people and helping them over achieve. Giving them roles or responsibilities they might not ordinarily earn in other walks of life. Its often the people who were told, “you will never amount to anything” that are the most fun to inspire. They have a point to prove and they are the ones who surprise their friends and colleagues as they develop faster than everyone else around.

So back to the guy driving the car who contacted me, although he doesn’t work for me, its inspiring just knowing there are others out there who are prepared to put in more at their own expense. It’s self sacrifice and its the only way to ensure success. Set your alarm clock 2 hours earlier, get yourself to the gym and start cramming in more to every single day. I believe you will be far more useful to your team around you.

It might sound like hard work, but watch what happens. A few years ago, I made a conscious effort to do precisely that, and every year I step up and add more to my schedule. It is certainly working for me, and I have a number of other successful people I know who adopt a very similar strategy.

See you in the gym tomorrow.

I remember dying. I remember every second of it with the clarity of high definition slow motion. So where am I now? I remember being woken up, is this real or is this just the next stage? Is this purgatory? Why does my head hurt so much? Please God help me.

I remember the helicopter. We flew across the beautiful mountains for what seemed like an eternity.  The crew seemed very anxious to get me to a hospital and they kept checking on me. I insisted I sat up and tried to speak, but the pain was too great. What had happened? One minute I was flying like a bird and the next I was cemented deep underground.

“You are the lucky one.” Shouted the pilot. “We don’t meet many like you.”

This gave me hope. The pain was scaring me. There was no blood, so I was conscious if there was something seriously wrong with me, it was inside my head.

They had laid a stretcher out next to me, I caught Stefan’s eye giving the rescue team the nod to let me stand up, he could see my pride. I was not going to be beaten. I staggered to the helicopter like someone concussed leaving the field with a man on either side ready to catch me should I fall.

The boys had sat in a circle around me waiting for the chopper, creating a wall shielding me from the wind. I can see the dirt and scratches on the glass window of the helicopter I was starring at.

There is so much I recall from that day. Their faces no longer beaming and their lungs emptied. They were shattered. They were the brave faces of broken men. They were struggling to deal with what had happened. Their experience had been just as horrendous. They had stood helplessly by and watched their friend get swallowed up by the same mountain we had been flying down minutes earlier. To this day I don’t remember seeing it coming. I remember being hit by it and being swept away, I just don’t remember seeing it. I remember seeing the boys waving. I waved back, triumphant. I was having a great day. I was oblivious that they were warning me of something terrifying coming down the mountain. Suddenly I was engulfed. I don’t remember sound either, it is almost as if it stopped before I was swallowed up and actually for the amount of movement the boys on the sideline were making, I think this part of my memory has been wiped clear.

We were flying towards a town, I smiled thinking of Dan’s face as I caught him holding his camera wanting, yet not wanting to take a photo. I smiled and gave him the go ahead. “Do it.” That’s all I could say.

He looked how I felt at the birth of our first daughter. Frightened, shellshocked, exhasted and this a man who rowed across the Atlantic. It is amazing how a mountain can cut you down to size without warning.

The boys who started digging that hole in my eyes grew up and became men that day. They took responsibility and worked as a team to save my life and I am only here because every single one of them gave 100%. With only one shovel, they used their hands to burrow into the snow. I was 8 feet down before they found my head. I was unconscious at this stage and unaware of the shouting and instructions being hurled from the 2 doctors in the group.

Dug from deep below the snow, Lawrence survived the avalanche

During the digging, Danny Robb consoled Dan explaining that after this much time, even if they were lucky enough to find and resuscitate me, I would have serious brain damage, with the likelihood of being unable to speak or walk. It had been more than 8 minutes and the chances of survival dramatically drop. I can only imagine Dan digging harder with this going around his head. Dan was a family friend, we’d grown up in Wales and our mum’s are best friends. He’d have been contemplating the impossible task of explaining my loss to my mother.

Deep below the surface a very different fight was taking place. I gasped for air one last time as I was turned over and taken below the surface. I had consciously chosen not to continue to fight the immense force, I knew I was going to need every bit of waking strength for what was coming. No one could have prepared me for what came next. Suddenly everything was very still. My arms were cemented far apart. I was entombed in a dark cold grave.

I was suffocating fast. There was no air, just what was left in my lungs. I tried to hold my breath, then chose to breathe very slowly with tiny breaths. It was no use, I was dying and I knew it. By the end I was panting, alone, desperately trying to breath air that just wasn’t there. The last physical memory was the heat this created on my lips and the sound of me fighting for my life.

I don’t remember fear as such. I calmed any panic with thoughts of all the wonderful people in my life.

“Oh God, I was never going to see Gail again.”

“Please God, what have I done?” I had completely wasted my entire life.

I never asked for a second chance but someone took pity on me that day, yet I was made to suffer the whole experience to remind me just how important life is.

And its to this end I will work tirelessly to give something back every single day.

It wasn’t a great day, but it is something I treasure. It is much more than a memory. It is a physical experience almost like an invisible souvenir that travels with me wherever I go. Something I can call upon whenever things gets tough.

I am a different person now from the battered and torn shell of the boy lying in that French hospital bed and that night I was woken up by an angel. Dazed and confused I opened my eyes to see Gail by my side. Was I alive or dead? It didn’t matter anymore, I now knew my purpose.

And 10 years on, as today is the anniversary of the Avalanche in Pic Blanc it is easy to see the difference that day made. I am married now with 2 children and no doubt more to follow. Our lives are very different as a direct result of a change in attitude. Knowing that every day since that accident is an extra one, does make me cram as much as I can into every one of them.

“I am disappointed,” I said, “but not surprised.”

Its the end of an era. “It is being made official in the morning and there is an embargo on the story until 10am tomorrow. Charlie Hodgson is resigning in the morning.”

I was leaving for Verbier in the morning, for a few days skiing and boarding with the family and friends from work. Charlie is someone who I’d consider one of the most underrated fly-halves in todays game. Underrated or not, you have to treat people nicely who work for you, and if you want incredible results my advice is you need to go overboard on the “lavishing praise” aspect of management.

The lavishing praise is something I learnt from Branson, and sitting here now in his home in the Swiss Alpes with friends I am reminded just how much he has helped me and UKFast in 2010.

The Lodge is a great place to reflect and the New Year is the best time to review and plan. I am here with a crowd from work and we wouldn’t be here if Branson hadn’t kindly offered up a few pearls of wisdom. It just goes to show you being nice pays off, as I am spending my hard earned money in one of his luxury properties spoiling my top performers at UKFast!

Team launch

So what did I learn and how are we different?

Well UKFast was a pretty good business going into 2010, but it wasn’t perfect and I was probably the biggest of a number of few weak links. I had no formal training to run a business of this size. With an anticipated turnover of between £17 and £20m this year, the business is very different from the one I set out on the journey with Gail back in 1999.

And although my heart and intentions have always been in the right place, I have been learning as I have been going along. Now this is not too big a problem when the business is small, however as the stakes get bigger, small mistakes can manifest themselves as much larger ones down the line. So it is essential errors of judgement are kept to a minimum. On the whole we have been lucky, but luck not something you want to solely rely on when everything you hold dear is at stake.

I needed help and fast. Ironically on this journey of development I have come to the realisation that as fast as I develop, I will always  need to learn more! This is to maintain the momentum that you create. Mohammed Ali said, “I run on the road, long before I dance under the lights.” This beautiful phrase is almost prophetic. There is so much you can read into this statement. You can image just how hard Mohammed Ali trained and how far he must have run to become the living legend we all now know and love. And what was his ultimate outcome? To be the greatest boxer? Or to change the world? Somehow I think the boxing was just a stepping stone for the latter and the momentum he created will live on long after his memories fade.

Tony Robbins sums up the importance of learning nicely with the phrase, “If you are not growing you are dying.” I can associate with this. The times in my life where everything slotted perfectly in place coincide with the times when I am consciously making an effort to develop. All the people I know who end up failing, simply stopped developing often riding on their past successes. They stop doing everything that got them to that place in the first place. The result, they get less lucky.

Going into 2010 was no different to previous years, I knew we had some work to do to maintain our spirit we’d worked hard to achieve since inception. Managing thousands of customers and hundreds of people required skills I simply didn’t have at that time. It was my first question I asked Richard B, “how do I maintain the spirit that we have had since inception whilst growing it beyond a hundred people?”

But the answer is not important and maybe something for another day, what is important is that I was asking questions and eager to learn other peoples opinions. You will find the answer to the most extraordinary problems if you set out on the journey to discover them.

And now, sat in the basement of The Lodge typing away, with the guys from work watching “The Hangover” which is swiftly becoming a cult film for our team in this cult venue, I enter 2011 really excited about the differences we are going to make to peoples businesses and their lives. I am even more excited about the differences we are able to make for the guys at work, all of them. I have learnt that my colleagues have the appetite to develop at a similar pace to me and they need rewarding just like I do too.

Enjoy the challenge

And reflecting on 2010, was it a good one? I certainly regard it as was one of those life changing years. One where I stepped up a gear and started listening, not just to the advice of great people around me, but also my gut too. Following your heart and fulfilling your dreams is where you are ultimately tested. Fundamentally isn’t this really what it’s all about anyway?

So if you are a dreamer like me, dream big and best of luck for 2011. I wish you every success. Go make those dreams a reality or come and join me on mine.

Lawrence

Good luck for 2011 from UKFast

I was about to start blogging about the fact that when you have a wife and children, suddenly you seem to become more successful. I first came accross this theory when Vernon Lord a then finance director at Granada jokingly commented that he disliked me, there is always a little truth in the jest. He said, “you have no wife, kids, loan repayments, school fees, ex-wives. You have nothing that ensures you have to perform.”

I reminded him that I’d never missed my target and that I was his most consistent performer. “That’s another reason, you have messed up my theory!” he said.

And actually, during the BBC Sports Personality Of The Year, I am reminded that my theory is completely inaccurate. Merely a coincidence. There are millions of unsuccessful parents as well as successful ones. I have the association of this,  just like Veron, because over the years I have seen people step up when they have children.

So yes, becoming a father or mother  is a driving force, but it doesn’t guarantee success and what about the individuals who are well on their way to success long before they settle down?

They announced the winner of the Life Time Achievers Award, David Beckham, he is a great example of someone who was inspired from an early age.

In fact Beckham optimizes real inspiration, and its something he has had since his childhood. Are the qualities you find in a David Beckham character the same ones required in someone who is successful in business? Absolutely. They are one and the same. However where sport has some great personalities, it concerns me that on the very same channel, we are spoon fed Sugar as the equivalent role model for the business world. Sorry Mr Sugar, I am sure you are a very nice man off camera and all aggressive finger wagging is just for TV, however you are no David Beckham. It does make me think we need better role models in business.

I remember hearing a comment from a senior official in the IOD (Institute of Directors) the year I was kindly awarded, Young Director of the Year, it was explained to me that the then Alan Sugar, (prior to his first title of Sir) was setting a very bad example in the manner he was conducting himself in the boardroom, saying “your fired.”

I have to agree on the basis that really you’d find yourself in an employment tribunal if you really behaved like that with your staff, so for young business people who are aspiring to be entrepreneurs, Sugar is not someone I’d recommend emulating. There are much greater leaders out there.

John Timpson being one of my favourites. Another man who is a massive fan of Timpson, is a friend and client James Kight of Printerland. He is a good example of one of those driven characters too, a Beckham of the online world.

Gail pointed out that 2 of Alan Sugar’s directors joked that neither had ever had a compliment in the 14 or so years they’d worked for him. I find this extraordinary and actually quiet intriguing. My real concern with Sugar is his lack of humility and if you have any doubt, look at the chair he uses in his boardroom. It is higher than all the others, almost throne like.

If you want to gain the respect of your team members, work along side them, yes direct, but do not “Lord” things over them.

And bending back to Beckham, it is lovely to see a grown man, a real celebrity genuinely humbled when picking up his well earned Lifetime achievers award.

And here is the difference, during his speech he talked about everyone elses hard work, he never mentioned his own commitment, not once. Great leaders take it on the chin and  blame themselves when things go wrong, but you can really spot the best leaders by their lack of appetite to take the glory. They reflect praise and credit others when they are complimented on their success. Beckham stands out as one of those greats, and his speech was a pleasure to watch.

Described by Sir Alex Ferguson as someone who hung back after training to carry on practicing, a joy to watch. You can only imagine the work he put in. He was 16 when he joined the men at Manchester United. If that is not praise enough, I thought HRH Prince William summed it up superbly, when he credited his “*skill, passion and dignity.”

Are these not the essential ingredients I am hunting down? Whatever walk of life you want to be successful in, I think this is as succinct as you can put it.

If there is one other thing that amplifies success and I know is true in my case, behind every successful man there’s a strong woman. Victoria Beckham may not be the most popular person in showbiz, but who can deny her strength of character. Victoria is a formidable woman and an exceptional business person in her own right. It is great to hear a modern day living legend like Beckham speak from the heart and credit his wife saying “she truly is an inspiration to me every single day.”

So maybe a wife is needed afterall?

Have a great Christmas and thank you for reading.

Back in 2011

Best wishes from everyone at UKFast

Lawrence

—————->

* “His contribution to football during his 18 years in the professional game has been exceptionable. As a player he has served loyally as England’s captain for many years, providing us fans with some of the most memorable moments of English football for a generation. During his career he has had highs and lows, but has always remained determined committing himself fully to his Country, his team mates, and to his fans when he is on the field to play. Most importantly, he is an example to young and inspiring footballers of all ages and stages of their career of how to play the game with skill, passion and dignity. Many congratulations David, a well deserved award” HRH Prince William

“Indeed it was a great pleasure to play with David Beckham, a great joy. He is a great footballer and I think even a better person.” Zinedine Zidane

“What’s that?” I replied.

“That feeling inside of you now…. it hurts doesn’t it.”

It certainly did and although I smiled, I thought, I am not giving him the pleasure of saying that again.

I realised why he is such a great motivator. That’s all he had to say, a simple observation, making me focus on the pain I was feeling and boy it hurt all the more.

I had been warned that this is Richard Branson’s game. We were the last to leave the beach, all the others had gone back up the hill to the Great House. It was after midnight and Richard said, “Right, who’s for a game of Perudo?”

If you were like me and had no idea what Perudo is, it is a game of dice that is played on the streets of Peru.

It was during the game I asked Richard if he’d mind if I’d interview him. I had spoken to the EN Magazine and they’d expressed an interest in it. Richard agreed to the idea and on the last day before leaving whilst sitting in his kitchen I had one of the most enlightening conversations of my life. It was a great moment with the kids playing with baby tortoises in the garden and Gail and Joan talking in the background, I really felt a million dollars.

To get advice and insights from a man like Branson is a serious gift and that’s one of the reasons I feel the need to share them. He is a man who does things the “wrong way,” he bucks convention and he is one of the few men alive who have managed to create, maintain and grow huge corporations yet maintain his entrepreneurial flair.

So when he talks, I listen.

Without spoiling the interview, one of the things I highlighted is Richards propensity to compete, at everything.

He plays tennis twice a day, he is always playing chess, backgammon, or racing round the island on a catermaran or kite surf. The man never stops, but there is always a challenge imbedded in everything he does. I highlighted this and he said something along the lines, “life’s all about the challenge.”

Ten days later on business in Dubai, a friend showed me his computer screen and I read the headline, “UKFast wins IT employer of the year.” It was a really proud moment. I’d completely forgotten it was the week of the UK IT Awards.

It means a great deal to win an award because they represent milestones in our history. They are accolades that are owned entirely by the team and reinforce why we all work so hard at constantly trying to improve and better ourselves.

So this week, as finalists at the MEN Awards in Manchester it would have been the “triple” if we’d picked it up. We were in the £10m to £25m category. We’d previously won the under £10m group in 2008.

It was a disappointment even though I wasn’t truly expecting us to win it. It was jolly decent of them to include us again, and as they announced the winner, I remembered that Branson moment. I focussed on the pain of losing and turned up the dial and as I did, I began to understand.

It was right that we didn’t win it. We can do so much better. There aren’t more hours in the  day, yet we are wasting time by not being as organised as we could be. I savored the moment. This is the fuel that I need to rise to the next level and understanding this fills me with confidence. I realised that losing is as important as winning and the sinking feeling of losing is actually a great motivator.

Back in the kitchen on Necker, I reminded Richard of one of his biggest losses. I asked him how he felt after the Northern Rock debacle, where after huge amounts of work and courage to take on one of the biggest mess ups in banking history, his bid and his team, Virgin Money were ignored for a weaker state run option. He spoke at length about winning and losing and on this particular occasion, he said, “Oh, I went out and got completely pissed!”

I now understood. It is the avoidance of feeling failure that partly drives him. It is common sense, if you remember the feeling, you are more likely to work harder to avoid it. I remembered just how motivated I was to improve when playing Peruda.

As a man who has had plenty of practice of getting things wrong, I have been using failure as an effective mechanism to inspire change without knowing it. But this time with the added weight of my entire focus on my failure to bring home the prize to the most deserving workforce I have ever had the pleasure to work along side, I felt sick.

That feeling drove to ask  the question, “What else can I do to drive UKFast even further, even faster making our product the very best in the market place and setting a new standard in hosting?”

With all the great people supporting me, I do believe I have the answers, I certainly have the right team around me both in and outside of work. Looking through these new set of spectacles, I am beginning to think I have been over complicating something that is essentially very simple.

But strangely, that horrible empty feeling became almost pleasant, knowing that I am about to take the reigns and step up a gear or two and inspire the UKFast team, after all I have only myself to blame, and only I can set the example. I have some extraordinary goals and I cannot afford to miss them. I cant imagine the pain and disappointment for all of us involved.

It is safe to say I am going to do everything necessary to avoid the negative association with missing future amazing milestones.

So I headed to Wales for a simple weekend in the mountains with my family and some of my closest friends. I am feeling inspired, truly inspired.

A few years ago I was a dreamer. A hopeless young man desperate for a purpose, directionless.

Today, I am a man on a mission. I know where I am going and why. I have a greater understanding of the game. I’m here to compete. I am on this planet to make a difference. I cannot wait for monday morning!

Oh, and back on Necker, I won those next 2 games by the way. I am sure you can guess what I said to Richard.

I caught her eye. She smiled, but not the usual reflex smile, but one from someone who is making a concerted effort to put on a brave face.

Following me into my den, Rach put down my coffee and said, “she doesn’t want anyone to know, but she’s just split up with her boyfriend.”

Now telling you and the world at this point is probably a little inconsiderate at first thought, however, stood at the bar of the 1.30pm flight to Dubai with a few pals on a business trip, it was agreed that it was a good subject for a blog.

So 20,000 feet in the air, travelling at 875kmph, I feel pretty safe from Sarah’s backlash.

But it isn’t just Sarah and without going into names, there was a list of them. Five beautiful young ladies, all of whom are incredibly supportive, passionate, dynamic people, real assets to our business. So why has it all gone so horribly wrong? And has it?

Firstly, if you met these girls, you’d queue to get a date with them.  They are Bond Girls, real life intelligent and fun characters. Yet they are all suddenly wallflowers and Christmas is beckoning.

It’s a bit of a strange phenomenon but its happened enough now for me to question the element of coincidence and reoccurrence.

Here is the theory. UKFast is indeed an extraordinary place to work. It is a place where women and men are not equal. It is a place where we all have to work incredibly hard to keep up, especially us men. I have to be careful not to be discriminative against men here, because I truly believe that women are the better natural communicators.

In UKFast because of our equal opportunities attitude, girls start UKFast and with in 12 months they are young ladies, completely different in looks and attitude and poise. They are more confident, they have a better understanding of life than when they first arrived. Really they are different in nearly every way.

But they often arrive with boyfriends, and this is where the problem starts.

The UKFast induction starts with a week of training in Manchester in the boardroom, followed by 2 or 3 intense days down in North Wales at our Training Centre, Castell Cidwm in the Snowdonian mountain range at the foot of Snowdon.

It is as intense as you want to make it. If you want to push yourself beyond belief, you have the opportunity. Alternatively you can take more of a back seat role and choose a slower pace. Either way at the end of a few days, you will either want to leave with the notion “these guys are crazy!” or you are “IN” and in for keeps.

You never forget the first time you arrive at Castell Cidwm. With thirty 100 ft pines in the entrance, sitting proudly at the head of the most beautiful lake in Wales. New arrivals stare in disbelief. They have heard everyone talk of this magical place, but nothing really prepares you for actually witnessing one of nature’s most extraordinary places. It’s breathtaking.

Once these girls complete training they are thrown in the deep end. It’s not until a year or so later you look back and they just look completely different. I remember having a BBQ recently at the end of the summer, and seeing the girls with their boyfriends, the guys looked really young and out of place with them.

My observations pretty soon manifest themselves as real life issues and suddenly their relationships breakdown. If you are one of the boys who let go of these beautiful girls, you need help and I do not say this flippantly. I know these characters, I know where they are going on their journey. Where are you going? Where are on earth do you think you will end up without super strong women behind you? I’d love to meet the hybrid of perfect women they intend to replace them with. Maybe I am missing a trick. Maybe I am not working these girls hard enough.

Still each to his own. Some people choose the path of least resistance; some of us just love swimming upstream.

So just before switching off my phone whilst buckling into the flight on United Emirates giant new plane A380, I received a message from Sarah.

This is why I go to work, its not for money, its not for glory, its for moments like this, moments of magic. That’s not her message, her message read like this….

“Thank u so much for this morning. Really cheered me up. Thanks for caring. Have a great time in Dubai.”

With 5 of my top young professionals all dismayed at losing boyfriends, I’d invited them to my home for breakfast before my flight. Ben cooked pancakes with his homemade blueberry sauce. After breakfast the girls headed to the Marriot Spa , where Harriet laid on a few things to cheer them up and remind them just how beautiful they really are.

UKFast Girls on Tour (Trip back from Switzerland)

I had a busy day ahead. I had to be at the airport for 11ish. I had a 9.15am meeting with a marketing agency I own, so I’d planned a quick breakfast and group hug prior to start of their day. There is strength in numbers and together they are able to pull each other through and with me away, I knew they were in good hands.

A friend once told me, my job as a business man is to enrich peoples lives, so along with the £10 donated to the charity box in the airport, from the customs official who lost a bet that my glasses were triggering the bleeper, I managed to make a few people smile today, so I feel great.

It amazes me just how easy it is to forget these wonderful people who make our businesses what they are.  If you get an opportunity to give something back, don’t think about it, just do it. Have a party, the moment I got back from Dubai I was heading for Manchester City Centre for a surprise birthday party with a load of friends from UKFast. You can always find reasons to celebrate.

And when you come across someone in pain, lend a hand and just remember how tough it is.  We’ve all been there and we never know when it is our turn to face adversity.

Finally on the subject of UKFast Girl Power Day, Happy Birthday Mrs Jones.

Gail jones Commercial director @ UKFast, Birthday girl 33 today

LJ x

PS. By the way, I don’t want anyone teasing Neil for thinking the A380 was a road somewhere between here and Dubai!

C works closely with LJ, Gail and Rach, never a dull moment when she is around

“Well, I lost them when I mentioned we have trampolines in reception. The 3 man panel looked a little embarrassed.” Said Jonathan Bowers.   “Their eyeballs were bulging. One of the men plucked up the courage and asked, “why? Why would you do that?”

He had been answering questions after a presentation for an award we are finalists for. They asked him about motivation. Its a classic question, because very few people truly understand what motivates people. They assume it’s money. It is never money. Most people use fear,  but fear is short lived. Sustained success is never built on fear.

I often wonder why people ask questions when they are frightened to hear the answer. I believe they ask the question, hoping to find the person who will agree with their own strategy. They find an ally, and this cements their reasoning why they do something in a particular manner.

Just because others follow, does not make it right.

Jonathan explained that the improvements in the office environment directly translated to improvements to our profit.

Well this sort of statement is a “red rag to a bull(y).”

Yet it is true, I can show clearly that investment into the well being of a team, significantly increases output. Yet this scares so many people. Is it the word investment? Is it the word significant? What is it that scares people into not investing into people?

My first objection I get, is the money objection. I get this one all the time. “Why do you waste money on such nice facilities?” Ask this question to James Kight from Printerland. James and his partner Graeme run an amazing business. I am proud to have them as clients and friends.

They moved their business from a string of terraced buildings in a residential area of Manchester to a beautiful purpose built office block and look at the results. Awesome. I’d like anyone to challenge them on this subject. Yet they were brave enough to make this decision and their staff retention and general well being significantly improved. Their team undoubtedly work harder as a direct result.

And not all the investments need to cost money. You can invest energy. Like Jonathan and my fellow directors, all of whom have the boundless energy. I believe this is the single biggest contribution needed when building a successful team. Are you doing the basics right?

First you need to look at yourself.

What sort of leader are you? Do you have a style of leadership already or are you working towards a goal? Can you learn how to be a good leader?

These are great questions and if you can answer these honestly, they will give you the answers to all your questions. When things go wrong, can you blame yourself?

Now this doesn’t sit well with all leaders. It takes a very specific type of person to be a “Level 5 Leader,” (see Jim Collins – Good To Great & Built To Last). Apart from the fact that a level 5 leader has humility, when things go wrong, they take responsibility for everyones failings on their own shoulders. And when things go well, they impart all the glory on others in the team.

Without this basic function, you cannot lead successfully. The reason being is that eventually, people will want recognition for all their hard work. You can only push people so far.

This is why PAIN does not work as a long term strategy of motivating. Once you have inflicted significant pain and suffering on people, resentment kicks in. The only thing you can build on resentment is more pain. But watch out, the bigger the amount you inflict, the more is coming your way, 10 fold. Or 15 fold in the shape of the Sale Sharks rugby team

Here is a great example of a leader who is inflicting huge amounts of pain, day in day out; but without reward. Worse still when they do well, they still get berated. The result; they have nowhere to turn.

I would never normally talk outside of the “clubs walls” however as the relatively new coach Mike Brewer publicly humiliated his players last night after a huge amount of effort on the pitch, whilst talking to the press, I think it is only fair to speak up in the players defense. After-all, as the leader, surely he has to reflect on his own inadequacies too. If the team fails, he ultimately has failed.

It is also important to remember that even if the result is a disaster, it is unwise to deliver a collective bollocking. “Why, do they not deserve it?” you might ask, well, some might. And the problem with a collective bollocking is you are letting the real culprits off too easy and the ones that worked their socks off, quite rightly feel really aggrieved.

This is definitely the case last night and there was good in last nights performance. A great leader looks despair in the eyes when faced with adversity, they still manage to highlight the great tackles, the run up the wing by Hodgson, the perfect kicking and yet, come the final whistle, they enter a silent dressing room, knowing everyone is truly devastated. The only noise is from their big hearts and the sound of the changing room down the corridor. This is pain enough.

This is the time you sit in silence with your troops. Savour the prolonged agony. Then in a calming voice, tell them to remember this pain, reassure them, “This is the last time we feel this together.” Savour this moment, these bad times together are as important as the winning ones if you truly care about your team.

The problem with running a small team with an iron rod, as opposed to a balance of reward and discipline, is that at some point something gives. When the pressure mounts and it always does, you as the leader have nothing to hang on to.

This is when you need the strongest deputy to remind you when you have overstepped the mark. But if your deputy is too young or inexperienced or fearful too, you simply are out of control. There is a fine line with being a tyrant and a stern task master.

As a leader this is where you need strength. You need to stand tall and take it on the chin. You need to be the last to eat, the last out, the most sincere, you are the leader. You are allowed to be fearful, but you must never leave. When you are in pain, sometimes it is difficult to think of everyone elses needs, yet this is how great leaders are born.

If you flee the scene as Mike did, you create uncertainty and mixed with a touch of resentment, a new game is afoot. This is toughest of all problems to identify and deal with. Discord. Once you have discord you really are in trouble.

When building a team from scratch, you need to be aware of the values of the current set up when recruiting. If they don’t match you have to envisage what your team will look like when this persons values are transferred on to the current set up. This is the job of a visionary. This is NOT easy, and therefore this is why people make so many mistakes.

If you bring in someone with very different values, prepare yourself for a long arduous journey of solitude and pain. If it’s any consolation, to the boys who played last night, it is not your fault. You have the support of thousands of fans, and although I have the most expensive season ticket in the ground being the main sponsor, I am not their biggest fan. There are people on the terraces who have followed them all their lives, they have followed them through thick and thin. The good times and the bad. They have memories of their fathers and brothers standing shoulder to shoulder, sharing every emotion. They have never left their side.

Its important to remember, emotion is directly linked to performance. You chose the flavour of the emotion. That is your responsibility as a leader. You need to invest huge amounts of time learning how to understand emotions. This is a massive responsibility and you will live and die by your results.

So in my opinion whether you are a rugby coach, a business man, a father, this is applies to us all.  If you create negative emotion, face the negative consequences.

This is an edited version on an experience I went through in 2001. It was a horrific experience, it was my worst nightmare. But which part is the nightmare?

Another great week flies by and what are we left with? What do we have to show for it? What can you say you did this week that was different form the last?

I am here planning the next exciting stages of UKFast. Over the last few years I have been lucky enough to take advice from some extraordinary entrepreneurs. As a result I have helped catapult UKFast on to a very exciting stage in its development. We have grown year on year, not just in profits and turnover but in our resolve to make a difference.

By rubbing shoulders with people playing at a higher level than you, you most certainly develop at a faster rate.

We employ superstars. Are you in a position where you feel you have something extra special to offer?

You maybe like me 20 something years ago. No qualifications and no idea of which direction to go. On the other hand you may have every idea of your goals and direction. Either way, graduate or completely unqualified, seasoned professional, whatever your status, if you are a great person looking to do great things, I am waiting to hear from you.

If you are interested in meeting me and finding out what life and work balance is truly about, get in contact.

I can’t guarantee great weather. I can guarantee great food and great company, UKFast.

What are you waiting for? Destiny beckons……

Loz

Please contact Jayne Pitman and find out how to apply now on 0844 576 3999

UKFast
City Tower
Piccadilly Plaza
Manchester
M1 4BT

We even had Clem Curtis and the Foundations as the band and the entire squad of Sale Sharks players, girlfriends and wives came too. Clem celebrated his 69th birthday that day and still rocked the house like he did back in the 70′s.

This years annual party is even bigger. To celebrate an amazing first half of the year and for just being in business together, we are having UKFest. Yes that is UKFest and not a typo. It stands for UKFestival. We are throwing a weekend festival for friends and family of UKFast down in Wales on the Castell Cidwm estate, and if I can convince the farmer behind to borrow his field, we can squeeze in some extra tents and portaloos and invite even more guests.

But its not just parties and nights out. Your team mates need constant training, their environment needs to be just right. People are sensitive. Quite often, new starters bring with them associations of what businesses are really like. It’s their first hand experience from a previous job and they have the association firmly set in their mind that management equals pain and inconsistency and all businesses are the same.

Sometimes you can never break that association and people go through their lives really not enjoying their job.

We are currently in the process of kitting out our office with a huge amount of greenery. It is partly to celebrate the start of a brand new business venture with a friend of mine who has been in the world of trees and horticulture for 17 years with his lovely wife Clair. It’s also a great excuse for me to have fun and reinforce that by creating a fun environment.

So once you’ve created the Best Place To Work, what then?

I am a great believer in working with people to get them to be their happiest they can possibly be. But you know what, sometimes you just cant please everyone. If you have an individual who doesn’t quite get your core values and what you really stand for, they will probably work against you. Not necessarilly deliberately, but nevertheless, by them not “buying into” your culture and philosophies, they can cause a huge amount of damage. If that person is in a senior position, you have even more trouble.

I read a book called The Extra Mile that focusses on alignment and engagement. The 2 buzz words of corporate HR.

Objective number one is go get everyone aligned with your way of thinking, then get the most engaged people into positions of seniority (as long as they fit the mould) and then work towards getting every individual engaged.

Easier said than done and it is an ongoing quest when you have hundreds of staff. But it is possible. UKFast is living proof of it and although we are more a work in progress than the finished article, we are having fun learning about each other in the process.

The same book states clearly that if you have a manager or someone in a senior position who is either disengaged, or engaged but not aligned, you are in for a rocky ride, but there’s enough to discuss on that topic to warrant a dedicated blog.

I love puzzles. Getting your team right is the ultimate puzzle. It is like doing the rubiks cube in the dark!

So do people really understand the importance of alignment and engagement? I think not. It amazes me how many office environments I see or hear about that are simply not places I’d want to work. And working from an industrial unit is not an excuse either. I went to see James Timpson’s offices in Wythenshaw. Apart from the fact James was building a swimming pool off the staff canteen area, everything about his office was simply a “Wow!” And that being said, I don’t think you could find a managing director who places people and their well being higher on the agenda. James is a credit to British business and an example to other business men and women who want to build something extraordinary. He not only followed in his father’s footsteps, he strode on ahead and paved the way for a new era of “upside down management.”

And so after my FD at UKFast put it so succinctly. “We have colourful staff, but the office is a bit grey” I thought it time to take our “fun initiative” to a new level and start living some of our values! You can always do more, and if you ask yourself that question, can I do more at every stage, you will normally get better results.

So does it pay to invest in your staff? Absolutely! Invest in the workspace, training in every aspect of people and career development. I am just beginning to see the fruits of our labour, and it is worth while. It is difficult to quantify human emotion, we all understand monetary values, but when it comes to effort and passion, we don’t have a scale to measure it. As a result, I think it falls by the wayside in order of importance in 21st century business.

With regards to the office environment, when people ask “what is the rationale behind such a beautiful office?” I simply  say, “when I come to work I want to feel a million dollars. I want my team to feel te same.”

If you have any comments or ideas on how we can continue to develop at UKFast, I’d be very glad to hear from you.

I think it is Ken Blanchard who says “people never arrive in the same demotivated state as when they leave.” He blames the management, saying they deteriorate through poor leadership.

It happens at a time when 4 people return to the UKFast team, so out with the old, and in with the even older! The common theme being, “you don’t know what you have got until you haven’t got it anymore.” I am sure it is not the case for all of the people who leave UKFast. Businesses are always on the move. The direction and speed of all businesses differ. You have to find the one that suits you the most, the one that is going in the right direction and at the right speed and is full of like-minded people. You have to be realistic though, people join you for a certain duration, often mapped out as part of their career goals. Even the most motivated of people can leave if it is part of a wider career strategy.

So how do you keep staff?

Whether you are a seasoned entrepreneur, or one that is just starting out, I believe your business need an identity. You need Core Values. Now you can copy these from other businesses, yet a word of warning. It wont work. Many of our competitors have mysteriously adopted similar or identical core values and marketing initiatives, but unless they are genuine and come from within, you will not be able to live these values day in, day out. And when you attract people with similar values that you are professing to have, they will soon recognise a pretender and once you are found out, they leave. It also creates discord amongst your existing team who will voice cynicism, worse still you wont even know about this as it will be done behind closed doors.

You need to ask all your team for the words that they like to be associated with whilst at work. Words like Honest, Professional, Hard working, etc there are litterally hundreds of them to choose from. When we did this at UKFast we used a local PR agency with a good reputation to come in and do this. We felt it essential that we did not influence the process in any way.

The results were astounding. We quickly realised that every department chose the same 5 core values. He explained the rarity of such a discovery and professed “you may be on to something here!” This was back in 2003 / 2004. The prediction was right. Our core values were set, and although up to the time of the exercise we did not know what they were, ironically we were all living them. Is this an accident? I have to say yes, as I have had no formal training whatsoever to run a business and my steep leaning curve has come from getting stuck in and not being frightened of making mistakes. The irony of finding 6 departments within the business with identical values is probably down to our recruitment strategy. I think we simply employed people we felt we will all get on with. Our early strategy (although that’s a bit too posh a word for it) was people first, qualifications second. I look back with close to a decade of experience and on hindsight, it wasn’t such a bad HR strategy.

As an 11 year old business we still recruit on a very similar basis. I am not interested in CV’s or stories of someone being the best sales person in their last job. With the right attitude and values I believe I can turn anyone into an even better one. Qualifications can often be camouflage for some absolutely awful candidates.

This is why our training centre in Wales is so important to us; Castell Cidwm. If you can get through there and you are still smiling, you’ll fit in.

So how do you identify your own core values?

I’d recommend what we did at UKFast back in the early years and split up your business into teams, keep the departments together if you like and ask everyone to write down 10 values that they hold dear. I’d then encourage them to discuss them as a group and get them down to a maximum of 7. Once they have argued which ones they want. I’d make them re-do this until they come back with 4 or 5.

A business should not have too many values. It simply becomes to complicated to manage if it does. After all, you can only feel one emotion at a time. You cant feel happy and sad, frustrated and angry, bored and vexed. We are quite simple folk at the end of the day (especially us Welsh), so simplify the values as much as possible.

It is unlikely that you will get the same result we got back in 2003 and you definitely wont get the identical list of values we chose either. I have done this now with many businesses and I have never had the same result twice. What does this tell you? Never, Never copy someone else’s. By copying others, you do yourself and your business a disservice and furthermore you waste a great opportunity to unite a team.

Now that you have your core values in place and everyone is in agreement you need to invest in your staff. (Part 2)

hedge your desk

Greenest office in the UK! UKFast

So what is wrong?

I am someone who enjoys a challenge and I spend time observing behaviour. So England’s performance and particularly the reaction of Wayne Rooney interested me immediately. I remember meeting Coleen Rooney and her dad and brother whilst on holiday in the Caribbean at Sandy Lane. I didn’t spend much time with them, but enough to understand their values and the sort of people they are. Clearly hardworking, proud working-class Brits (if there is such a thing anymore.) It would be safe to say therefore that Wayne Rooney is no different, and from watching him play on occasions for Manchester United his hardworking roots show through.

So why are so many people blaming Rooney and the team for the poor performance. It seems fair, after all they are the ones who are on the pitch. We in our millions however vocal cannot influence the game from our armchairs.

For Rooney to be that vocal about his performance and react so negatively to the fans, it shows he clearly has nowhere else to turn. Somewhere, someone is calling the shots and I assume that is the manager and he has not got the buy in from his players.

The negative attitude from the team demonstrates they do not agree with something pretty important with the current England set up. Be it the formation, selection, the banning of the wives. Somewhere behind the scenes there is a clear undercurrent undermining the manager.

So how do you combat this situation and get the team back gelling?

It is a very difficult one to fix, especially during a competition. Clive Woodward a man who knows what it is like to create a team that lifted the Rugby World Cup referred to certain individuals as “energy zappers.” He identified these energy zapping people and removed them from the team and eventually the squad. He got a great deal of resistance too from the rugby community who couldn’t understand why he kept out great players.

In my opinion the England manager is making some pretty basic mistakes of leadership and management. He has set his stall out, banning the wives, picking the team and creating the formation and it looks very much like he has not got the buy-in from his team members.

It is one thing to ban the wives, which incidentally is a good idea. However if you do not  sit husbands and wives around a table and explain what and why you are doing something, all you are going to do is create an army of influential people ganging up and undermining from the sidelines, and as they are not allowed on the sidelines they are probably on the phone ranting after and before every training session and game.

What Capello should have done was sit the wives and girlfriends down with the players, explain the importance of this once in a lifetime opportunity and got their agreement that 100% focus and commitment is required. He should have treated it as a military campaign almost as if they were off to war. He should have encouraged zero communication from friends and family throughout the tournament. Imagine the power of the players and the feeling of camaraderie amongst the team if he’d done this. All the players feeling and sharing the emotions together, not being able to rely on anyone else but themselves. Instead, he has created a nightmare for the players who are trying to keep their wives happy from 60 miles away. Not the sort of focus you want your players consummed with.

In this sort of environment he has a group of WAGS furious with the whole set up and hell bent on undermining it at every level.

On the pitch this was evident that the players made a public show that they do not agree with the current set up.

Whatever he does at this point is going to be scrutinised by the players. So the fact that he has now made a few odd selections and left out good friends and players who they can rely on, means that they start to question the whole set up. Throw in a formation that they dislike and hey presto, you have Friday night’s performance down to a tee.

So how do you fix it?

That is a really good question. Firstly the manager needs to listen. He has a difficult task ahead. He will have a lot of ideas thrown at him. Some good, some bad. He cannot agree with them all, yet change is necessary. If he wants to save face then he is finished and the boys will be on the next flight home. If he is big enough and he can sit down and have a sensible discussion and allow the team to contribute, he has a chance.

Whatever he decides, he needs to get the buy in of every player. Each player needs to understand their roles with in the team selection.

But to get them to “get onside” at this stage is particularly difficult as many managers have failed in the past. The main problem here is that the professional football player is overpaid and underworked. He has an entourage of yes men following him and his friends and family and they are treated not like celebrities, but more like Gods.

How do you manage someone with a massive ego, it’s not easy. So how do you manage a squad full of massive egos. Why anyone would want to be a football manager I don’t know!

His only hope is to remind them that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. This is England! The problem is he is NOT English and if he tries to wave flag it may be more like a red rag to a british bulldog.

Deep down, all the players want to do is make their friends and families and the millions of well wishers proud. They have one chance. I have just seen Gerrard on the TV talking about a team talk they are all about to go to and his statement to the camera reinforces what I say here. He mentioned that Anelka was sent home for speaking his mind, then paused before adding, well there may be a few of us on the way home then.

I have come across situations like this from time to time in business. It is easy to make a change in the hope that this will solve a bigger problem you may have, only to find out it compounds the issue. Sometimes I feel that I may listen too much. but at least if I have made a mistake, I know somewhere someone will speak up and set me straight.

It’s a balancing act, keeping your team happy and getting the results. The 2 are closely linked. Damage one and you damage the other. Get the spirit right and you can achieve anything. It is a quest that I strive for and continue to analyse. It is the ultimate puzzle. If you leave it, it stagnates and if you tinker too much you distract it. It requires care and attention and also great people on board. And it is the great people that invariably end up running the team. A good manager should not have to do anything, just observe. Sadly I am not there yet, but I am getting closer.

I have a theory and I am in good company with some other wiser folk than me with this one too. The theory is this. In order to reach a great height in whatever you do, you have to set it in your sights as a target. You have to know where you are going. That sounds like common sense but so many people fail to grasp this one before they set out on their journey. You have to define the success you want or else you do not know when you have arrived at your destination. When I set a goal, I literally map out every single aspect of what I am wanting to achieve.

OK, so you have set your sights on something exciting, something that is now going to drive you forward. Well, welcome to the easy part, it might not feel like the easy part, but believe me it is. At this point in your journey you are under very little pressure, with maybe a few of the driving factors that got you off the couch in the first instance, a wife, the bailiffs, the annoying relative you wanted to prove wrong, a family you want to support. But essentially you are embarking on the exciting journey and everything is new and you are busy. And busy is key. Whilst you are occupied with very little time to sit back and over analyse you are far more likely to be successful.

I’d sooner work 7 days a week 18 hours a day and make lots of mistakes than take my time over something and dissect every decision. It’s the mistakes that make you a better person and businessman; if you learn from them.

So here you are flat out, obsessed with everything you are doing and so focused on the goal that you almost forget it. I think this is a healthy discipline. I am not someone who believes you have to have a photo of your goal and look at it every day. I revisit my goals just for an update 2 or 3 times a year. I am always amazed at how many I can tick off!

Then suddenly, at one of these points when you check up on your progress, you realise you have hit your goal that you had set years earlier. You are happy, still busy, still excited, but you have achieved something.

Firstly you deserve a pat on the back. The hardest part of this is that there are very few people who will understand what you have had to go through to reach the heights you are at and the sacrifices you have made. I am lucky, Gail my wife is my business partner and a best friend all rolled into one. When we set goals we also set rewards for whenever they are met. This way we are reminded forever by linking great memories to all the hard work and achievements. No one wants to remember the hardship and certainly you will be viewed as a real bore if you keep telling everyone how hard you work or all the problems you continually face.

It is at this stage where most people go wrong. How many times do you hear of someone who has made it, then lost it? Yet come back and done it again! It’s quite a common story. Once you have hit your goal and had your celebration you need to refocus. You have to sit down and set new targets that are equally as challenging as the very first one. Why? Because if you don’t, you will simply take your eye off the ball and start to relax, then fester.

In a lot of peoples cases, that celebration I mentioned, does not stop and it continues for years until people realise this is simply not a fulfilling lifestyle. So many successful people I know end up drinking, gambling or womanising or in some cases all three. They are simply looking for the buzz they used to get in work. My advice is get back to it, and pronto!

I am often told how successful I am and people very kindly congratulate me and say “well done, you really look like a person who deserves it.” I am always flattered and if I am honest slightly uncomfortable with a sense of embarrassment. The thing is, for me I am not the finished article. My success is relative. I have set my goals on much larger sights and this is not to be clever or outdo someone, it is simply because if I don’t, I am in danger of not taking my own advice and living by the values that I know are incredibly important. I have to keep developing. this way, however painful, is the only way I know. I am therefore a man on a continual journey where retirement equals death.

It is far easier for some people to have a lie in on a Sunday morning, but for me, if I am awake, I have to start the day and really give it my best shot. This morning I had a run around our lake in Wales, Llyn Cwellyn. It is beautiful and it is just a long enough distance to stretch me. In fact this morning it felt tough and I pushed myself slightly harder, knowing that it is good for me in the “long run” – pun intended. I’d also started the day with a drink of apple juice that seemed well past it’s sell by date! Leaving a warm bed and a snug cottage for the cold wind and hardship is not everyone’s cup of tea, but for me it is an essential part of my goals which I set years ago as a kid. Never to lose my youthful spirit and this requires me to keep youthful energy which means I have to remain a fit as a teenager. Now there’s a goal you can never settle back and congratulate yourself with, it is litterally and ongoing tread mill. but the rewards associated with being fit and healthy massively outweigh the negatives. In my book, I’d sooner be running in the rain with the wind in my hair, thinking about all the great things I have in my life. My wife, Gail, my children, my friends and family. It is a great time to say thank you. I am not sure who to, but yet I find myself always saying thank you. I take nothing for granted and I am busy reinventing myself.

I always admire Madonna. She is from my era, and yet she unlike most popstars, has been successful in every area of the pop industry. She continues to do it where others fail. It is safe to say, she keeps herself incredibly fit, which helps her to maintain a youthful spirit and I’d also bet money on the fact she sets incredibly challenging goals to reach. Who wants to maintain the Status Quo, God forbid you might end up like them!

So when you are setting your goals, and when you are on your journey, just remember to combine a bit of exercise and treat your body to some of the fresh air and fast pumping blood that it thrives on. In turn, your body will reward you with the stamina required for being super successful. And when you hit that goal, because I know you will, have the next set ready.

The body acts as a thermostat. It kicks itself into action when things get bad. Hence the saying “When the going gets tough.” But just like a thermostat. It also switches itself off from time to time to rest, and if you allow it, it is very difficult to get the momentum up and running again. Welcome to the race that never stops! If you want to discuss any of your ideas or challenges, drop me a mine. I am happy to help where I can.

Good luck on your journey.

Lawrence

The UKFast girls work incredibly hard. They are all super intelligent, fun characters with big personalities with the caring gene which means they make the perfect hostesses. You find the UKFast Girls at all the outside events, Twickenham, Sale Sharks, Silverstone Grand Prix and all corporate hospitality. They also fly with me on a great deal of my business travels and commitments.

I find it helps having fun people around. The girls help break the ice at events and play an invaluable role in so many areas of the businesses. They all double up in some capacity or other – be they a PA, sales person, account manager or even senior manager. By hanging around with the girls we develop strong relations with each other cementing a bond which is necessary when working under pressure.

I personally believe it is the toughest of all the jobs at UKFast. They are expected to always greet people with a big helpful smile, a task they do very naturally.

They have been a big hit at the premiership rugby this year, we have never had so much involvement directly with the players.

The photo here is of the girls thawing out after a morning skiing. They have all been involved with the 2010 UKFast Hosting Summit in Verbier’s prestigious venue, The Lodge.

After a heavy week discussing how to revolutionise our product offering, The UKFast Girls are due to be flown back to Manchester by Private Jet so they are fresh and ready for the Internet World, where they are hosting the UKFast stand at the hosting worlds biggest conference.

Why not come and say hello! If you are in London this week, Tues, Wednesday and Thursday, come and visit us there and meet the ultimate team that helps make UKFast one of the most unique businesses on the planet.

UKFast Girls on The UKFast Private Jet

1. Cancel the Hosting Summit in Verbier

2. Wait for the news that we could take the private jet

3. Consider other options?

I am confident at this point as the pilot had been on to the powers that run the airspace and in-spite of the doom and gloom on the news, there was no reason in his mind why we would not be able to take off at 9am on Sunday morning. Little do I know!

It’s late Saturday afternoon in Manchester, a good friend James who runs the very successful business Printerland turned to me saying “you are not going to Verbier Loz, they are not going to open the airports.”

Thank God James said this. I might have waited if it wasn’t for this comment.

It was this one line that inspired me to change my mindset. I realised that everything hung in the balance of nature and the weather.

This was not a great situation to be in. James bet me £1 that I wouldn’t get there and that was it “game on.”

I picked up my mobile and rang my PA, “Rach, put everyone on full alert. I want everyones bags packed and around at our house in the next 90 minutes.”

Gail was already looking at options to get us across the Channel. The P&O website was inoperable, clearly a business who doesn’t host with UKFast! We found away via another site and we booked the ferry for 4am.

News was coming in from my PA of everyone’s whereabouts. It wasn’t looking good. 2 in a beer garden, one in Wales without transport, one getting ready for her grandfather’s birthday party. One gone walkabout and, one thankfully at home – Charlotte.

Charlotte started to help round up the troops. Meanwhile, I had another problem.I now had one car and 8 people. I rang my bro, Jonathan who is my communications director. He was in Sainsburys.

“…..well leave your trolley where it is, you are not going to need it.”

I had another driver, but I was still a car down. I then rang the marketing director Paul Harris. (Big Frank)

Paul and his lovely wife were getting ready to go out for a dinner party with friends.

It’s times like this, when you realise just how committed friends are.

“I’ll be there for you in half an hour” he said.

This was great news as Paul had just bought a Porsche Cayenne, which meant the vehicles for our RoadTrip were 2 very handsome black beasts.

The team was now complete, and with a bit of creativity we prized the boys from the beer garden and Wales and Rach even made her Grandfathers party; cut short admittedly, however I had done the calculations using the satnav, and I knew that as long as we left no later than 8.53pm we had a good chance of arriving at the early ferry, Dover.

James and Sue, his wife, were laughing at us, as this was going on in support of the madness required to change direction with little or no thought or regard for the consequences.

Grandma turned up, and with an emotional “goodbye” our 2 little daughters headed off a night early.

It was the best thing we could have done in hindsight and I owe James for bringing the realism home. Else we wouldn’t be sat here.

We made it to Dover and with 2 minutes to spare we boarded the early ferry at 1.55am.

The ferry was a far cry from the private jet and I remembered the times we did this as a kid. It was different from how I remembered it. Already tired, I couldn’t sleep. There was a great buzz amongst the team who had arrived at the house with lots of hugs kisses all ready for the adventure.

There was a massive sense of relief, as all of them had thought this great trip would inevitably be cancelled.

We headed from Calais across France, past Lake Geneva and into the Alps. The trip was exhausting and the hairpin bends were the only thing keeping Ross my co-pilot awake. The sheer fear of each bend approaching kept him on the edge of his seat.

This stage of the journey took us 8 hours, and with the exception of one flashing speed camera, and being pulled over by the French police for misunderstanding the speed limit, we had a great journey.

In fact, the French police made the  UKFast RoadTrip complete and after a couple of UKFast baseball cap souvenirs and a massively reduced fine, they ignored the 3 girls sleeping in the back seat. They escorted us to the cashpoint at the next service station, we shook hands and we were on our way again.

So as the rest of the world is grounded (apart from Richard Branson, who set off anyway from Necker yesterday in spite of the uncertainty of where he might land) we found there is always a way. But it does remind me the importance of friends, because none of this would have been possible with out the flexible grandparents, John and June, “Thank you.” To Paul’s family, especially Claire, the ultimate working mum, “Thank you”. To everyones parents, girl and boy friends, “Thanks, it is much appreciated.” Most of all, to my 2 little-ones who didn’t get a choice in the matter, “thank you T & P, I miss you lots!”

I remember as a smaller business we started to struggle to run events as the numbers were increasing and hotel bills and training fees were mounting.

In the end, we brought our own training centre, that’s how seriously we took it, even back then.

And now, a few years on, the difference between our tight knit culture and most businesses is evident, as soon as you walk through the door or pick up the phone.

That phrase “think outside the box!” is a telling one but how many business owners and managers are guilty of staying in their box to do all their thinking.

This week sees me heading off to Snowdon. There is a group of new recruits going through their paces at Castell Cidwm our dedicated team building training centre in Snowdonia National Park and I have decided to gate crash it.

Jonathan (my mad as a hatter Director of Communications) and I have arranged for an interview, on a ridge adjacent to the summit of Snowdon. To cap it all off I have agreed to stay the night camping on the ridge, which is currently covered in deep snow and prone to 90 mph winds.

Who am I to say NO!  I can see this getting me into trouble!

So why team building? Its expensive, you are taking people out of the business, its more often than not cold, it’s always wet, what do we gain?

We gain an insight to the individuals who participate.

We take them outside their comfort zone, and throughout the days as the pressure mounts you see people’s true colours. Who contributes with the washing up? Who gets up first? Who is fun? Who avoids work? All these answers are invaluable.

Quite often, people come down to Wales and they never make it back to work at UKFast. When someone does not have the necessary credentials we require for them to fit in, contribute and have a great time under pressure, they really wont enjoy the fast paced life ahead at UKFast.

I also believe we do some of our best thinking in the mountains. When you are away with colleagues, you are able to bond in a different way, especially if you genuinely want to get to know them. I think if you put on an event and only show up for the press photo or don’t show up at all, I think you will get the result you deserve. You have to passionately care about your team if you want them truly to develop.

On the flip side of the coin, I know plenty of businesses which do incredibly well with out the significant investment of team building. There is many an accountant who can put up a firm argument that the expense cannot be proved to transfer on to the bottom line. It’s sadly true. How do you quantify the benefit of a weekend away with colleagues?

All I can say is it seems to work for us at UKFast. We do put people high on the agenda and the results the team bring home for us are amazing. I am sure there are many ways we could make more money at UKFast but if they involve inhibiting the investment in people and dampening the culture, then no way!

Mind you saying that, I wonder if I will be saying the same tonight on the top of Snowdon, bedding down for the night. When you are having your cup of Coco spare a thought for me.