Hi there and a very warm welcome to our new ‘Business Success Academy’ Blog. Before I started writing I was thinking ‘this was the beginning… the first posting on my very first blog!’

However, when I thought about it further, I realised there was a whole story, I can only describe as ‘The sixty year trials’ (well almost), that has led to the beginning of my ‘Business Success Academy’ mission. Hopefully, you will begin to see that, where I have come from and what I have done, during the past 60 years has led me to do what I am doing. When finally, ‘Business Success Academy’ became crystallised in my mind, I thought ‘Oh my God, It’s like staring at Everest, knowing I am going to take the journey to the Roof of the World, never having climbed a mountain before.’ Then I realised, I have climbed many mountains in my life and that sharing my experiences will hopefully make it easier for others to follow a straighter, more direct route to the summit.

It was only later in life that I realised how much my father had taught me. I lived with my Mother, Father and Brother Derick, in Eastleigh, Hampshire, a railway town with rows and rows of back-to-back housing. Local employment was primarily, the Loco Works, The Wagon Works, The Loco Depot, Caustens the Printers, Price’s Bakery or Pirelli General Cables. The latter was where my father worked for the last 20 years. Although he worked as a store man in a factory, I will always remember that he always wore a collar and tie to work and never ever used bad language. He worked 6am til 6pm Monday to Friday and 6am to midday on Saturday and Sunday. When he got home, he worked in the garden nurturing his vegetable.

My Dad was one of the few factory workers at the time, who went without the luxuries of life, in order to buy his own home and to provide support for me, while I continued in Further education. I remember that we didn’t have a car and only ever had two vacations away from home. One week at the Sunshine Holiday Camp in Southsea and another very wet week in a caravan near Sandbanks. I can also remember tagging after my Mother as she shopped. First time around the town to check the quality and the prices, the second time to buy what we needed. £5 a week housekeeping from which she would also buy her cigarettes. I’ve been a careful shopper ever since, albeit, there are many occasions where I have made foolish purchases, not so long ago either.

My education started out in a very strict Catholic School, ruled by the ebony rod! (boy that hurt!). I then passed my 11+ and became one of those elite, who went to Grammar School. What I really mean is that all my friends went to the Secondary Modern and I was the mocked for having to wear a bright green cap and blazer until I was 18. During my schooling, I excelled in workshop studies and engineering/architectural drawing, not the sort of subjects very highly rated in Grammar School. In fact, academically speaking, I was in the half of the year which made the top half possible.

However, it was whilst I was still at Junior school that I discovered my entrepreneurial spirit, such as ‘scrumping’ Apples and Peaches from the local orchard and then knocking the doors of the local bungalows, selling them on at 2p a lb. I did everything from getting up at 5am to help the local milkman on his milk round, to doing two newspaper delivery rounds every day and then, moved on to being the ‘after school hours’ store-man at the local corner shop.

From the age of 14, my real passion was playing the drums, 2-3 evenings a week in a local Rock Band and, like many teenagers, I wanted to become a Rock Star, rather than have a JOB. However, when it came to the crunch, I gave up my dream and went onto Teacher Training College, because my father’s dream, was that I should have a better future than he. I was fortunate to win a place at the World’s best Technical Studies College, Shoreditch College which, at that time, was at Englefield Green in Surrey. When I look back, I realise this was one of the happiest periods of my life and very formative in respect to my future work ethics.

Whilst at college, in addition to my very demanding coursework, where I learned from some of the finest lecturers in teaching, I took a double main to pass with merits and still found time to play my drums. Although I had to work every vacation to pay my way through college, the 6am-6pm factory shifts at Pirelli’s during the summer, the night shifts at the Post Office during the Christmas Break and various jobs including landscape gardening and office work during the Easter breaks helped nurture my work ethic and ensured I didn’t leave college broke.

It would now appear to be a good place to pause, before I run through the main events of my working life, from which experience should assist you in avoiding some similar mistakes to my own and hopefully, benefit you by sharing the ‘good stuff’ with me, the things I aim to share with you that might make your journey easier and more successful via Business Success Academy.

Your Friend and Future Business Partner

By the way, if some of you were wondering what I have been doing during all my recent visits to the USA, I will finally own up, because it’s now all over the news: