I Knew Too Much To Be A Successful Entrepreneur
It’s All About Focus
It’s a lonely ship you sail when you decide to go it alone in business. At least it is if you’re a control freak like me.
If you’re solo at the helm, you take on every job going, from looking out for hazards to steering through choppy waters.
As well as making meals and clearing the plates from your home office.
I was always destined to run my own business. I hate being told what to do!
So when I got my first job as a journalist, my career path was immediately heading in the direction of “freelance, freedom, write about what I want to, where I want to.”
Nice idea at least.
Here’s how it actually panned out…
I was a general news reporter on a small town newspaper, covering everything from a dog with its head stuck in railings, to visits from political leaders, to football matches, to interviewing rock stars.
Awesome variety. A dream job in many ways. But it wasn’t too long before I abandoned the security of full time employment to go freelance. Like I said, I’m a control freak.
As a journalist it was my job to know a little bit about everything. A Jack Of All Trades. Then I would research the rest when required.
So when I went freelance, I saw that flexibility as a badge of honour. I did everything from reporting to PR to promoting music festivals. Yeah, I reached far on that one…
It was all great fun, but it was tough. Then I received an offer to return full time to journalism. I turned it down.
I received two further offers, each one with an extra thousand added to the salary. Each offer I turned down.
The fourth offer came in (they really wanted me, or couldn’t find anyone else, not sure) as I was experiencing a dry month. As I had a young family by then, and the offer had been increased again, I agreed to return to life as an employee.
There I stayed, working my way up to management, telling myself I was making a difference, yet always yearning for a return to self employment, where I was the boss, where I could decide what to do.
It took me a number of years to achieve this. Sometimes, life just seems easier with a regular salary and paid holidays.
A New Chance In A Changing World
As the newspaper industry was nosediving and jobs were being lost left, right and centre to save money, I thought it was a good opportunity to seek redundancy and a pay-off to launch another attempt at self employment.
By this stage I had another young family and was burnt out from the old day job, as well. I did very little for a few months. I just needed to relax, recover and assess where my life was heading, and try to work out which direction I should venture in the future.
I watched hundreds of educational and inspirational YouTube videos, read hundreds of blog posts, researched endless websites and then realised I could procrastinate no longer, so I launched myself into business again.
But I was too big and too clever to be successful as an entrepreneur right then.
The mistake I made was being a Jack Of All Trades again. Just because I could.
I was now able to build websites. So I did. PR came easy to me, so I did bits of that. Writing came easy to me, so I wrote on a wide variety of subjects for a wide variety of clients.
I became proficient on Pinterest, so went more down that route. I increased my design work, even doing logos for companies. I said yes to pretty much anything I was asked to do.
I advertised my writing services on Fiverr and worked for clients from across the world.
I realise that this might all sound impressive, but truth be told, I had taken on far too much.
I had spread myself too thinly.
I couldn’t spend enough time on each platform and each project, so nothing got out of second gear.
I didn’t believe I came across as being professional enough, and I certainly wasn’t enjoying a lot of the work I was doing.
Being a Jack Of All Trades was no longer a positive trait. It was sucking the life out of me and preventing me from being a successful entrepreneur.
The Future Is Green
So here I am, in 2021, launching greengreengreen; a service to educate and inform, but also to help promote businesses that put the environment at the heart of their mission statements.
And I finally feel good about what I am doing. I’m 100% focused.
I have been a nature lover since I was a young boy. I bought the latest edition of The Living Countryside magazine each week with my pocket money, which I collated into several binders. I used to read them from cover to cover, over and over again.
I spent most of my childhood roaming in the countryside and as soon as I turned 18, I became a member of the local Friends of the Earth group.
It saddens me that much of what we campaigned about then — deforestation, pollution, climate change — is now, 30 years later, presented in the headlines as new information. It simply isn’t.
I went into journalism to inform, educate and, if possible, entertain. I hope I’ve achieved this.
But I really wanted to inform and educate about environmental matters. Which wasn’t always easy when I wasn’t my own boss.
For example, as an animal rights campaigner, I almost lost my reporter’s job when I refused a demand from my news editor to ride an elephant at the visiting circus for a photo stunt.
I rode it out in another way. I stuck to my principles, the editor backed me and an alternative reporter was handed the task. But I knew there would be many more conflicts in the years ahead.
Hit The Road, Jack
Now, by focusing on environmental issues, I can write for clients in complete comfort, as partners in educating people about issues I feel passionately about.
I can run my own website and social media channels, and blog on international platforms, such as Medium, on subjects close to my heart.
Not a Jack Of All Trades, but a Master of One.
And that now suits me just fine.
An important part of my work is helping and encouraging people, through my writing, to lead a more eco-friendly lifestyle.
This also mirrors my own journey as I head towards being fully vegan and using only sustainable products at home. We’re all in this together.
Despite working on local newspapers for most of my career, I never enthused about looking inwards and writing for a small, hyperlocal readership.
My target audience is the world. The whole world.
Because I believe we will only make progress on critically important issues such as the climate crisis, if we take off the blinkers, look beyond our own communities and appreciate that we are all on this big rock together — and we all need to work as one for the common good.
It’s Time To Make A Difference
I’ve just teamed up with a tree-planting service in Barcelona, I communicate regularly on environmental matters with people from across the world. There is no area I consider beyond interest or importance.
And the Covid-19 pandemic has brought one major positive outcome. Everyone is talking about ‘building back better’ and learning from previous mistakes — which often translates to building back ‘greener.’
Finally, the world is on my side, and I can be here to help emerging eco businesses, charities and organisations to be heard.
I always wanted to make a positive difference in life. Up until now, I’ve found it difficult to convince myself that I had done.
I hope this new focus on what I’m passionate about will not only help me, but assist a great many people across the world. And the planet itself.
Take-Away Tips
So what do we take home — or take to the business — from all this? Well, a number of lessons learned from experience might help budding entrepreneurs:
- Maintain your focus on your goals. Running your own business has a habit of showing you a map to many long and winding roads — and cul-de-sacs.
- Even if you think you can take on varied strands of business, don’t try to achieve too much at the start. You will lose that focus.
- When it comes to promoting your business, or communicating with your customers, do it one or two platforms at a time. Build a following and then encourage people to also follow you on a new channel. Launching too many social media platforms at the start will take up too much time, dilute your efforts, and ultimately prove fruitless.
- Follow your dream. Follow your passion. Work is more enjoyable when you believe in what you are doing. Money doesn’t necessarily bring happiness. Earning money while doing something that gives you joy, probably will.
