It was a creative place for me and whilst it was mid holidays and the majority of students were on vacation, I really got a sense that I was in a special place. I had a great summer and made some lifelong friends and although I considered moving there, I was fundamentally a musician and back then, wild horses would have not dragged me from my vocation.

I never realised just how important Palo Alto was going to be in the technical revolution that followed. With Stanford University on its doorstep too, the area is steeped in history in the same way people look upon Manchester as a central point for the Industrial Revolution, Palo Alto and Silicon Valley have to carry similar weight.

Since then we’ve seen meteoric rises from a number of the worlds largest technical giants, Apple, Cisco, eBay, Google, who house their head offices there.

One of the most recent of the dominant players is Facebook who moved to Palo Alto in 2003. They have had an interesting rise to fame and good fortune, although the fortune is a little more recent.

With traffic volumes exceeding Google, Facebook has more than 830 million users, and as a result has to be the world’s most high profile website.

In recent years it has entered everyones homes and hearts, linking families, businesses, long lost relatives, school mates, it has done the impossible. It is doing the unimaginable. It crosses borders as easily as water and it knows no boundaries. There is no culture that has rejected it. It works in every language. Fundamentally it feeds the needs of all humans, whatever creed or continent.

The billion dollar question is how far can it go?

There is no point trying to work out how Mark Zuckerberg created such a masterpiece as I doubt he really knows. There was evidently a gap in our social lives that none of us knew about and Facebook filled it. What Zuckerberg has done extraordinarily well is exploit that gap and give us exactly what was needed.

So with talks of the Facebook IPO, is it worth the $100 billion that they are hoping to raise? It sounds like a lot of money and with economies all over the world facing tougher times around the corner, it seems crazy that a website that allows us to communicate with each other can be worth so much.

Yet, if you put it into perspective, $100 billion is only 27 times the annual revenue of $3.71billion, when Apple went public in 1980 it was valued at $1.19 billion 25 times its earnings. It is moderate in comparison to Googles who went for 218 times earning back in 2004. Yet Google delivered and in the last 8 years changed the face of advertising. Facebook would have to be the world’s first $700 billion dollar company to replicate Google’s rise.

When you consider Facebook grew 88% last year, it is a tempting gamble, yet a great many brokers are warning against investing in the rising giant. Personally I can see it going for a great deal more than 27 times even though the market currently dictates around 12 times. There is an emotional attachment that people have with the site and that sometimes carries a great deal of weight, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the initial entering is particularly high.

If you scrape away all the hype though and compare it to Apple who grew its profit 85% to $25.92 billion, Apple trades at a modest 13 times its price to earnings.

If you apply the Facebook multiple, UKFast would be valued at almost $1.0 billion.  ($939 million to be exact.)

Maybe I should have stayed in Palo Alto after all, especially when you apply the Google multiple, UKFast would be worth $7.5838 billion. Now even my wife couldn’t spend that much.

Whatever the outcome, you have to hand it to Zuckerberg, he’s done well. And inspite of a great many people all professing to have either come up with the idea or influenced it, he has hung on to the lions share getting credible people in around him who have track records in designing large scale corporates, enabling him to remain creative.

This is the thing I admire the most in any business. Its the first thing that suffers usually. Demands on the entrepreneur dictate new pressures and larger responsibilities as businesses sky rocket, so much so they often suck out the life and fun of most founders. Yet in spite of this and some pretty stupid gaffs, Zuckerberg enters the Silicon Valley Hall of Fame as one of the youngest internet billionaires.

On the subject of gaffs Zuckerberg paid David Chloe a graffiti artist who decorated a wall of his first office in Palo Alto offering him shares instead of a few thousand dollars. Those shares are now worth an estimated $200,000,000.

Ironically, the fee for the picture David Chloe painted is more than the cost of the building that they left. I am not sure I’d want to paper over that mistake.

So as Facebook move to Menlo Park Campus to their new HQ, I cant help thinking of the neglected piano. I do hope with all that money sloshing around someone takes the trouble to give her a tune and a tinkle every now and again.

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

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.

Bloxham was selling posters in Afflecks Palace, Ferguson had just arrived at United, Tony Wilson was giving the Factory a whole new meaning. Tim Bacon was a barman in JWJohnsons, Oglesby was at Cheadle Hulme where only weeks earlier I’d been playing against him on the great British rugby fields.

Bruno was holding centre stage at the French Restaurant, at the then Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza, Midland Hotel. I was the cheeky piano player busking my way through life.

I had never been so poor, but I had certainty that something good was just over the horizon.

I learnt pretty early on that it was never going to be that simple. I took a hundred wrong roads and although I had the belief that “one day” I’d be successful, I had not found my direction.

That direction came after a trip to New York when I realised that the next era had to involve the internet. I was now 30. I had tried and failed in so many areas, and I knew my venture had to be the right one. Without time on my side there was no margin for error.

There is a saying that behind every successful man is a good woman.

That could not be truer than in my case. My chance meeting with my now wife Gail Jones was undoubtedly a great Manchester partnership. 200 yards away from where Rolls met Royce in Albert Square, we instantly hit it off.

Many people ask me, “how do you work with your wife?” I have never had an issue with it. We both focus on different areas of the business and whilst it is sometimes hard to switch off when you live with your business partner, I have had the benefit of a soundboard for every major decision that has ever been part of the shaping of UKFast.

Has the last 10 years been an easy ride? There is no such thing! Every week there is something new. That’s the nature of business and life in general. It’s full of ups and downs. 3 days ago I had the first of 2 operations on my thumb after trapping it in a door and slicing clean through the bone. I was told that they were going to amputate it the next morning.

Not the holiday on Necker I was hoping for. But after another operation and a great deal of determination, I am told now that it will survive! And whilst the holiday has been somewhat interrupted with emergency hospital trips, the kids are oblivious to any disruptions thanks to Danielle, PA come Mary Poppins.

So I’m sat here on Turtle Beach where my daughters found 2 baby turtles yesterday fighting for survival, less than 10 minutes from hatching. Today Charlie, one of the Necker team has just helped dig out another 72 other turtles that would not have made it. And what about my thumb? Well I am managing to type, and inspired by just hearing the news that I have been very kindly awarded the EN Entrepreneur of the Year title for 2011, I am reminded that around every corner is another exciting challenge and the only pain you feel gives you a bench mark to truly appreciate the great moments in our lives.

I know my children will never forget today and the freeing of what seems like hundreds of turtles as they swim for safety around the girls ankles. I will never forget this day for very different reasons.

I haven’t won many things in my life and its typical that I am not there to celebrate with my colleagues and friends without whom I’d be average at best. However to be awarded this is just one of those moments in my life where I stopped, took a sharp intake of breath, filled my lungs and had to brace myself.

I am honoured to accept such a title. Do I deserve it? Not in a month of Sundays.  What does it mean to me now? If I thought there was any let up on the road ahead, I was mistaken. I now have an added responsibility to live up to all those kind people who have belief in me. Thank you I am truly honoured.

It seems doubly special that I find out on Necker Island, home of a great inspiration, friend and in my opinion Britain’s greatest living Entrepreneur.

If you don’t mind I have some turtles to attend to.

Lawrence Jones holding baby turtle on Necker Island

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.

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

UKFast is a group of amazing, dynamic, innovative people. When UKFast gets nominated for an award, it is the team that deserves the credit.

Even though it’s called the Entrepreneur of the Year award, there should be no mistake. This award represents the entrepreneurial spirit in UKFast, the under current that runs right through the backbone of this organisation.

Its the worry of letting everyone down that I think drives the emotion inside, as no matter how calm I am in the run up, something kicks in and in the seconds before they announced the winner, adrenalin is now flowing. Its a great feeling. The feeling of relief after the expectation and all the emotions and thoughts that gathered, bottlenecking waiting for the answer.

I went to Fiji with Gail recently to help understand our business better. We learnt a great deal about ourselves in the process. I remember doing an exercise, with Tony Robbins where he asked,

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.

Yes people do seem slightly more cautious. But this is partly to do with the fact we were told we were heading for recession. I remember backing out of a property deal after the Nothern Rock crisis. Thank goodness Gail and I plucked up the courage and pursued the deal, it was Castell Cidwm, the UKFast training property which is now an integral part of our successful recruitment and training strategy.

The reason for my comments are not flippant, I know a great many people have been through difficult times, my point is this. Is this a recession, or is it merely a change in the way people do business? What do I mean by this? Well, it is safe to say that people have changed the way they buy things.

When you purchase something there are 2 decisions that you make.

1/ do I want/need this product or service?

2/ where shall I buy it from

In the old days! People went to shops and bought there and then.

Then came the internet. Now people looked online, researched and then once they’d narrowed down what they wanted, they headed to the shops and bought it there.

But, then came the new era. An era of confidence where people simply go online to do research and then simply buy it without hesitation.

Well this is a massive shift. It surely makes sense that if you as a business have not embraced this you are going to be in a huge amount of trouble.

I believe the cultural shift in how we buy is SO extreme it is literally wiping businesses out who do not have a credible online presence. Look at Woolworths, they felt that the internet would not work for their business. Yet Argos who embraced it is now one of the biggest online retailers in the world.

I was at a round table this week discussing the economy and budget. I heard numerous businesses explain that they had zero growth. The same businessmen stated clearly when I asked them do they use the Internet to attract new business, “people  in our industry do not use the internet to research our product!” The irony is I have helped a few businesses in the exact same sector generate millions of pounds worth of new business, all via the internet! But how do you educate people who simply do not believe it is possible. These sort of limiting beliefs are lethal and often are the main reasons why businesses simply stop evolving.

If only I got a pound for every time I heard business people say “my customers wouldn’t use the Internet!”

Over the years, I have won a few £1 bets to people I have met at Sale Sharks who said, exactly that.

Caunce O’hara, now giants in the Insurance industry were about to spend a fortune on a website. I asked them to consider a different option. For less money I helped design and build a new system that not only worked out an accurate price for the insurance premium, it took the money and attracted new business. I won my pound.

It’s not a business model I’d advise people to follow, I am lucky enough to be able to do this as a hobby as I have a huge R&D team, I also have done this enough times to know, I’d succeed.

I have done the same in a variety of industries. Debt management, clothing & retail, one business in particular (again who said it cant be done) is now invoicing more than £1,000,000 per month from online sales!

I can guarantee these people dont think we’ve just been in a recession.

The problem is, “you don’t know what you are missing until it is too late.” It’s people’s own shortsightedness that is simply holding their businesses back, or in some cases damaging their business.

I have 15 year old kids who are customers and a great many small businesses who are doing extraordinarily well. It’s never the brands who are riding the crest of the wave, they simply think they are. A lot of the high traffic sites are below most peoples radar. The people who win, are the ones who realise that customer experience is everything, and they build a super fast and effective site and host it on a dedicated server for that added umph. Before they know it, they are getting customers from Google, and the customers are coming back in their droves because the experience is perfect.

When we explain to people that their site is slow, they don’t understand. They look at their own site and say, “it seems fast to me!” This is the biggest misconception. They are ususally viewing a cached version of their website on their own local machine. What does this mean? Well basically, your machine stores images of sites that you visit regularly. So it stands to reason that when you look at your own site, you do so though rose coloured spectacles. You are in effect getting an artificial view of how your business is really NOT performing.

On the flip side through your customers eyes, it doesn’t hide the harsh truth, that for new visitors, your site is like jelly waiting to set.

This is particularly noticeable for people who end up hosting in the US to save money. People can simply drop out of the UK arm of Google once the search engine picks up the foreign IP address. Google simply assumes that your main focuss is probably aimed at the foreign market, as your site will perform better in the country where it is hosted. Some of the largest hosting providers in the UK, host their customers in the US and Germany. Rackspace host thousands of their clients sites in the US on their Cloud environment. One and One (1&1) a German company who also own Fasthosts, who market themselves a the hosting worlds market leader , host their servers in Germany!

Personally I believe keeping it simple is the best way. Host your site as near to your customers as you can. We are lucky, by being in Manchester we couldn’t really be more central to the whole of the UK.

I hear horror stories all the time on this subject. One thing worse than going abroad to host, is taking it in house! The ultimate in stupidity. Let’s stick our server on the end of our broadband connection or a leased line. So what if it is 100Mb. You may as well attach it via string! Yes it might work occasionally but not enough to get noticed on the search engines. Telcos for years simply resold 100Mb lines time and time again, and guess what? They attached them to a 100Mb line. The ultimate in bottlenecking.

If you imagine the internet works on the basis of regions. You can host your store on the main high street, the Oxford Street or you could host it on a back street. Which gets more traffic? Obviously the high Street. Yet so many businesses spend 10′s of thousands of pounds on their websites, yet they think they dont need to invest in their hosting. They think they can simply stick it on some shared space, or a cheap dedicated server (down a back street). Even worse, they dont realsie why it doesn’t work properly or why they dont get awesome results.

At the same time, we come across small businesses who take our advice or dip their toe in the water with UKFast. Experience the speed of the UKFast network and then get addicted. These companies listen to their customers and upgrade every time their site slows down by a fraction. These are the businesses who are the next generation. It is not the brands you know about, these are the new kids who a carving out a new horizon. They not only get my vote, they get my help and support in every way. They are the entrepreneurs of tomorrow.

So be warned. If you have a business and you are NOT taking your online marketing seriously, or worse still you are spending the bulk of your budget on the design and leave nothing for the location of your window to the world, you will not get the results you are wanting, but you will get what you deserve.

This does sound harsh, but it is a really harsh world out there.

If you are a web developer or you run a business designing sites, if you are hosting your sites on a single server to save money or to create a revenue stream, although you may think you are doing your client a favour, you are actually suffocating their business. If you wish to try a server to see the difference, drop me an email at UKFast or post me a comment. Every business I have tried this with has increased sales. Its not  rocket science, but it will certainly pay for one!

The event I was kindly invited along to started with a training session racing around the Velodrome. I was fortunate to get some one to one training with one of the Olympic team. I was keen to pay attention as I quickly learned that a break in concentration could prove disastrous. The bikes have no breaks and if you stopped peddling for any reason you were in danger of being catapulted across the track; which was incredibly steep on the corners.

Being in a room with the North West’s finest entrepreneurs is an interesting place. There is a huge amount of testosterone pumping around everyones veins and the bravado was evident amongst the friendly competitors. But once on the track, it was head down and down to business. It was clear why these business people at the top of their game. They all take competing very seriously in whatever they do.

It is also immediately evident that there is little or no difference between the winning attitude of the highly motivated business people and the Olympians and although we all got beaten, roll back the clock a few years and give us some proper training and I reckon there’d have been a few contenders in the room. My attitude was such that I thought OK, I am going to give these guys a run for their money. I was absolutely convinced that I could win. Of course I got battered, but at least my attitude shone through and it made me compete to my highest possible standard.

After a lovely dinner where we ate the food the cyclists eat on a daily basis, we were treated to what in my opinion was the best part of the night. Rebecca Romero and Sarah Storey sat down and were interviewed. They talked of the Olympic challenges and the drive that got them to the highest point in their sport. Rebecca is an interesting phenomena as she has achieved one of the rarities of Gold medals in different disciplines. She started in rowing and then transferred to cycling. With in 6 months she was hitting the speeds expected from the Olympic cyclists.

Sarah a para olympian has won medals in every games since 1992. She talked openly about her challenges. Having only one hand there were people throughout her life that treated her differently. What was lovely top see is just how that motivated her and drove her even harder. She explained how she was inspired at the age of 6 years old watching the Olympics on a tiny TV and saying, that that is what she wanted to do.

Goal setting! You can’t beat it, or her in this case.

During the questions and answers it was interesting to hear their reactions and opinions.

When asked;

Silver medal, winner or loser? Both firmly stated without even a second to think… ‘Loser!”

What do you think of skiing and snowboarding that are adapting some of  their races and styles to introduce bigger sponsorship?

Again both passionately said, “what is more exciting than 2 people competing head to head? The sport does not need to reinvent itself and we do not want any more money. We simply just want to compete.”

It was blindingly obvious that the attitude that these 2 Olympians have is identical to that of the entrepreneurs in the audience. The belief that you require to get to the top of your game is identical whatever you want to achieve. Although the goals maybe very different, the hard work that is involved in reaching the top of any industry requires stamina and determination. When the vast majority give up, there a few people who kick into another level. These are the natural born winners, although actually I don’t think they are born, more socially conditioned. Something in each of these successful business people and athletes lives inspired them to want to go to these extraordinary lengths.

So what are you going to be if you never grow up? That’s the million dollar question…. quite literally! Choose, take aim and go get it. And don’t stop no matter who tells you you cant do it. Normally if someone tells you something cant be done, it is usually from talking from experience, their own experience. Do not let other people’s limiting beliefs limit your own.

And most of all, no silver medals. Aim high and win.

Stood in the Great House on the hill looking at a photo of Sam Branson and his friends, I turned around and Richard walked up to me arm outstretch and with a warm smile he bowed his head gently and welcomed me to his home. It is the greatest thing for me to meet such a distinguished businessman. I have many friends who have become incredibly successful. Most of them though are particularly hard with their staff and rule their businesses with an iron rod. Richard is someone who clearly breaks this mold and it is refreshing to see that he is a million miles away from the ludicrous business ethics they portray on The Apprentice.

It didn’t take him long to suss me out and pretty soon we were discussing sport. He is currently in training for the Virgin sponsored London Marathon. He had already heard I was a keen exerciser and immediately asked if I’d like to run with him. A couple of Richard’s guests arrived for drinks, they were staying on the nearby island. They owned and developed Vale and Beaver Creek in the US. (An amazing Ski Resort) During the conversation with Janet and Paul from Beaver Creek, one thing stuck out and it made an indelible mark in my brain that I think will be there forever.

Richard said, “well, if you say Yes! to everything, you are going to have a far more interesting life.”

In my 41 years on this planet nobody has ever give me such great advice or such a great directive. And it makes perfect sense. How many of us just potter through life and procrastinate. I have only been on the island less than a week, but I am 100% sure you will never see Sir Richard Branson procrastinating. He is a decisive character, who doesn’t stop for breath.

Before leaving for bed, I asked what time we should meet. He said “pop around to the house at 6.45am and just shout me if I am not up.”

I didn’t sleep a wink that night, excited at the prospect of continuing a great conversation with a fantastic philanthropist and entrepreneur.

We have since run for a number of hours together and I have had some solid business advice during my time following in his great footsteps. Advice that once you have heard it appears like complete common sense. However you could read a 100 books and find 50 different ways from a variety of experts which all contradict each other. So to hear it from someone you respect, immediately fills me with confidence. And actually now we have discussed it, I totally understand and I cannot wait to get back to UKFast and start implementing some of these great ideas.

Yesterday I ran with him a little later than before, and I reminded him of what he had said to me and what an impact it had.

I explained that you could have written an essay, yet in one short sentence he summed up just how simple you need to make it.

“If you say Yes! to everything, you are going to have a far more interesting life.”

What a great piece of advice and for anyone setting out as a young entrepreneur, in business, in school, wherever and whatever you are wanting to do, this is good advice. It is a simple strategy that I can promise you Branson lives by. He is a man with a large appetite for life and it grows bigger by the day, and I am sure his positive attitude towards just doing things straightaway, off the cuff without procrastinating has to have something to do with his enormous success.

I am very interested in how he portrays his feelings on this subject, as he decided to use the line as subject matter for a column he is doing for the New York Times. It is definately something to look out for.

Lawrence Jones UKFast

Dedicated Server Hosting, Manchester

It is a good ice breaker and for those of us assessing the candidates, it starts to give you a snap shot of what is to come.

A young lady stood up, and I don’t have her name to hand and she described her momentous achievement as creating a small shop on ebay and selling a variety of things.

When she sat down, I immediately asked, “so why are you here?” At first I think she might of felt that I was criticising her at least I hope she realises that I was singling her out because she was clearly different.

Out of the 40 to 50 soon to be leaving education, she truly had done something momentous. She has taken a small amount of cash, purchased something, found a route to market, built a shop however rudimentary and started marketing a business. This woman, because in my eyes, she is no longer a young lady she is a business woman.

Now that I write this blog, I realise that I need to follow up  her progress and make sure she is given encouragement. So often entrepreneurs are discouraged from school, university throughout careers. Usually by people who wanted to do things themselves yet, they never followed through.

If you fall in to any of these categories, it is never too late. My parents left their jobs in their 40′s and bought a run down hotel. Some in the family described it as a midlife crisis. Even I, the eternal optimist questioned their sanity of selling a beautiful family home and giving up great careers to become owners of a semi-dilapidated hotel.

20 years on, how wrong was I and what a hotel. They now have the hotels on either side and it sleeps 100 people. It has an awesome reputation and a massive returning customer base.

Ironically the kick that triggered my father was doing my first years accounts. After tax, it transpired I had earned more than my mother who had been teaching for 20 years.

Last year a young lady came to be interviewed for the job of PA. As soon as I read her psychometric test results, I knew that she would make an excellent personal assistant. However I also realised that  she had the perfect profile of a fledgling business person.

Her test also identified that she would benefit from traveling and it sensed that she was in a bit of a dilemma. I confronted her on this matter and sure enough she was torn between “going travelling” with her boyfriend and starting a job.

I suggested that she should be decisive and as her profile suggested a job working for someone else may just drive her bananas.She just needed a little motivation.

Last week I got a telephone call asking for an appointment to meet with her and her now fiancee. They were back from their holiday, and they had formed a solid business idea and they were putting a plan together. They wanted my advice. I was honoured to meet with her and excited to be a small part in giving her the confidence for her to choose the correct direction of her life.

After a a couple of hours, it turned out, she and her fiancee are about to become UKFast clients and it is looking likely that we will designing and hosting their software to run their new business idea.
If you have a dream, dont lie in bed and procrastinate, or talk about your venture to your pals for years and years. Get a pen and paper and start writing lists, start goal setting. Start organising what you need for your new future. And OK, if it fails, guess what, you pick yourself up, brush yourself down, remember the lessons of the failure and start again. You keep doing this until you get it right.

If a baby is struggling to learn how to walk, do we give up on the baby? Does the baby give up? Never! They keep standing up and falling down until they perfect the art.

Yet as adults this is drummed out of us. We become fearful of what our peers think. A great entrepreneur is born out of simply not caring what those around them think. This in my opinion is why so many dysfunctional kids succeed where clever folk fail. A dysfunctional child is reminded all through their life how much of a failure they are. So it becomes easier to go it alone than be reminded of this throughout a professional career.

My fathers favourite line which stuck with me was “son, you will not even be able to hold down a bin mans job” it was said so much I believed him. So when the time came I did not dare attempt to get a job. Instead I became self employed by default.

All the big entrepreneurs that I know tell a similar story.

Ignore teachers, parents and your peers. Get out and have a go! What is the worst that can happen. Especially whilst you are young and in a recession. In a climate like today’s there isn’t a more perfect time to cut your teeth.

Good luck!

Mid recession, with no clear understanding of how long is the tunnel or how dark it might get, I am drawn back to the hypnotic clouds.

There are some things in life you can’t predict or influence, “weather” you want to or not. But do these unpredictable elements stop you from going about your normal business or day to day lives. Of course not. Only in extreme cases, but even these are “blips” and they cannot halt progress.

I am reminded of Earl Nightingale and his anology of the ship. He describes the damage caused by a ship in a harbor cut loose without a captain, crew, charts or destination. He then describes the same vessel, but this time with a captain, a crew a destination and therefore a purpose. The vessel will reach it’s destination every time. It will seldom be on the exact course, the currents and wind will do their best to divert them. However their collective purpose is stronger than the outside elements.

Just like the plane overhead. It’s destination firmly programmed in to the captain’s head and the onboard computers. The elements are constantly changing, but the clear path is set.

I set a path a few years ago, and every day I tread closer towards my goal. Some days slower than others I might add, but I carry on unperturbed. One of my intentions was to continue learning in order to keep myself interested and able to manage our rapidly growing responsibilities. And even though I am forced to change my location as the rain starts to spit, my vision is not spoiled by the change of scenes.

Far from it in this case. One of my goals is to surround myself with successful people so I can learn from them. I think my wife took this too literally and booked us into a place called The Lodge. Sir Richard Branson’s private Ski Chalet in Verbier Switzerland.

Although Richard isn’t here this week it is a real eye opener to meet some of his team and to see how real everything he has created is. And to realise  just how achievable it is to set and follow similar goals.

So we take a couple of hours a day on the slopes carving our future strategies in our heads before cataloguing, discussing, arguing, debating our future in these sumptuous surroundings.

I realise  that not everyone can afford to take time out in such lavish style. However you do need to take time out! However you do it, it can be in a garden shed as long as you get uninterrupted time to yourself. The important thing is you have the time to reflect and think about where you have come from, what you have learned, and where you want to get to and what you might encounter on the journey ahead.

Planning and knowing your outcome in the reverse order are the two most important factors that separate the Bransons from the Brainless.

“So where do I go and how do I do it?”

Personally I always head for the mountains. At home in Wales, we have been lucky enough to find ourselves a house and lake in the Snowdonia National Park. It is a place where mobile phones aren’t banned, they simply wont work!

Before the Lakehouse , I’d put on a rucksack, pack it full of beer, squeeze in a tent and enough provisions and off I’d go. My first weekend away with Gail who is now my wife, was in a serious thunderstorm where we camped at the top lake on Snowdon.

It rained so hard that breakfast turned to soup and we had to pitch the tent on a steep slope to stop it from filling with water.

But I’d set myself a goal years earlier, I’d find the perfect partner when I was still poor and she would be resilient, determined and kind.

I got more than I bargained for. She indeed became my partner in every sense, wife and business. Yes she had all the traits, and my friends who know me would laugh saying, she needs to be resilient and determined to put up with me!

So what do I mean when I say I got more than I bargained for? Well, I’d set the goal to find Gail whilst I was still poor. A fundamental flaw in goal setting.

“You have to be careful what you wish for” my Gran always used to say. She must have been on a Tony Robbins course!

What I should have set was to simply find the perfect woman. As a result, I remained “poor” and unsuccessful until I met her.

This is not superstition. This is simple programming of your brain. Whatever you ask for you get, whatever you focus on you will feel. This is how seriously I take goal setting now.

To give you an example of a goal I set as a child, “one day I will have a house in the mountains by a lake.”  I also set a burning desire to have a home that was big enough for everyone in my family to enjoy.

Gail found the perfect place amazingly less than 2 miles from the summit of snowdon, with an estate that has a 250 acre lake and the properties combined are big enough to sleep 28 people.

Coincidence? No, I don’t think so. I remember not being able to afford the fee at the Snowdon car park, plus I have too many cases of other goals for this to be coincidence.

It is worth noting that every super successful entrepreneur that I know follows the same key principals. Be very descriptive about what it is you intend on achieving, be bold and don’t hold back.

So instead of trying to switch off from your business at the weekend, get in your car or on a plane. Get a note book and pen and take some time out to pat yourself on the back for all that you have achieved and focus on Stage II.

Your business journey consists of many rungs on a very tall ladder. You determine how high you go. You can get off at any time if you get vertigo like Nixon of MoneySuperMarket.com, or you can keep climbing new ladders. Or in Bransons case, when you run out of ladders to climb on this earth, go Galactic. All I can say in his wake, is “Go Branson!”

And to fellow aspiring entrepreneurs like myself, never stop learning, never stop pushing, and certainly never stop trying.

Nothing should distract you from the path you set and don’t be hypnotised by events surrounding the economy. Your purpose will outlive any economic downturn.

I blogged a few weeks back after Rob Williams from Dolphin Music  died on the mountains where we are now.It is humbling to be reminded that life is so short. So get up, stop procrastinating.

All you need is pen, paper and you have a purpose.

Typically technology-savvy, the teenager you thought was simply chatting over MSN or adding to an already buckling Bebo account may well be using the internet to far greater effect. Astoundingly, in 2007, 43 per cent of teenagers used the internet to make money online.

“Big deal,” you might exclaim. “Anybody can sell on eBay!”

But bear in mind that 22 per cent of those teenagers actually set up an online business. And over four fifths of these young tycoons do it from their parents’ homes. No overheads, no rent, no leaving the house – just pure profit. It beats a paper round, that’s for sure.

As a youngster, back in the dark ages, I would have killed for a platform like the internet from which to do business. I made my extra cash as a very young entrepreneur setting up unofficial tuck shops. Then as I grew older my stock became more and more varied. I sold anything I could get my hands on; sunglasses at one point, T-shirts the next.

My teenage self was daring, bold and unaffected by the rules of business; something which I have taken into my adult career. The beauty of the young mind is that it is completely unhindered by boundaries. Teenagers “think outside of the box” simply because they’re not aware “the box” exists. However, the platform I was able to work from and products I could offer at such a tender age were restrictive. The internet changes everything.

Unfettered are the youth of today. They can source pens from China for 5p a bushel and distribute from a website where they never need disclose their age or identity. They have a technical know-how which probably exceeds many of their adult counterparts. And they have the luxury of time.

Encouraging Britain’s young business minds, especially in the current economical climate, is something companies and educational institutions alike should be embarking upon. We need to take the brightest sparks, cultivate the freshest ideas and look to the next generation of entrepreneurs for inspiration.