Well here we are – my first article of 2021 and 54th since I made the commitment to start this at the beginning of 2020. When I made the decision to do this weekly, I only had titles for 26 articles but it is amazing how the creative juices flow when you make a decision to do something, and are committed to it.
The first article for 2021 is on how we view life. Now I do not dispute that to achieve our mission in life, we need to have a single minded devotion to our goal, but not at the detriment of what is really important in life – the people around us, our families, friends and business colleagues.
I am not a lover of a single minded attitude just to build wealth, as in most cases it can lead to forgetting what is really important – people. Someone said to me right at the early stages of my business journey, “Don’t worry about making money. Build strong relationships and as long as you have a product or service in demand, money will flow”. It always has – maybe not in the financial abundance of where my mind was when I first started in business – but the wealth of friends and business colleagues I have built up over the last 38 years has far outweighed the financial wealth.
Personally I think – and I have mentioned this before – that since March 2020, most of us have had time to really re-evaluate our lives and look at what is really important. The one thing most of us have missed – and the Christmas period highlighted this for me – is the social side of our lives. When we are stripped of being able to hug someone close to us, give someone a kiss, shake someone’s hand, not being able to go to the pub, a restaurant or a sporting event, it really plays with our minds. This is when I am so grateful for the friends and family I have and the business colleagues I see on a regular basis – albeit in an online world at the moment. It has been what has got me through and if we are honest with ourselves, what has got most of us through.
This is so much more important than the car we drive, the house we live in or the holidays we have. When we all depart this world, no one will remember the car you owned or the house you lived in. What people remember is how you touched their lives, the difference you made to them. This is something that others can pass down for generations to come.
A commitment I made when I sold my last business in 2016 was to pass on the knowledge and experience I had built up over the last 38 years of business ownership to others. I had – and still have – a mission that is so powerful to help the small business community through and out the other side of this pandemic. So I offer to anyone reading this article, if you need any help or just need someone to talk to – I am here. I make this offer with no financial message behind it. If you are struggling financially, its not a problem, just pick up the phone or drop me a message. I am always available.
Keep your dreams alive. Keep believing in yourself. Seek help if you need it – it is a strength and not a weakness to ask for help. Take care and keep well. Have a very successful 2021.
This article was first published on LinkedIn by Richard Knight on 02/01/2021