Taking Control Of Your Own Destiny

Taking Control Of Your Own Destiny

I guess, like many entrepreneurs, my business journey started out of a need to solve a problem. My problem was that I had been made redundant!

When I was 19 years old I was kicked off the Travel and Tourism course at college and told I would not amount to much - which was something that truly and deeply upset me. My Father was an educator, so I believed that a strong knowledge base was the path that everyone needed to take in order to succeed in life.

So, bitterly, I left college and thought to myself �I will show those b***ds that they were wrong about me�. In my family home there would be no allowance for wallowing in self pity or taking some time to �find myself�, so it was straight out, hitting the pavements to find a job.

And, for me, there was only one place I wanted to go�

From a young age, I didn�t just like the leisure sector, I absolutely LOVED it, so I went straight to a local travel agency, CV in hand; minus the mention of my recent drop-kick out of college of course!

And, to my delight, they agreed that I would be a good fit and I was in! On the shop floor, stacking the brochures, chatting to customers, generating sales, making the tea; learning my trade and craft!

Terry �the failed student� was now Terry �the travel professional�. But the excitement and adulation was short lived, just a few months into the job the store hit financial difficulty and eventually they had to close the business.

I was out.

This, in my mind, was my second travel-based failure in quick succession and garnered a drive in me that I still, to this day, credit with a lot of my subsequent successes.

The day that I walked out of that store for the last time, with my P45 in my hand, I made a silent but sincere promise to myself, never again would I work for someone else, ever.

Never would I be at the mercy of someone else's decisions.

That was it, I was done having my dreams dictated by external forces. There and then I decided to take control of my own destiny.

If my life is ever turned into a movie (in which I will cast George Clooney as me of course!) that moment when I left that shop will be accompanied by inspirational music, lightning and a dramatic slow motion angle of me looking up to the sky! I might be making the moment sound a little bit more dramatic than it actually was, but the impact on me was genuinely life-changing.

Even at the tender age of 19 I could see why that store had gone bust.

The people who ran the business were lovely, but the management was terrible; the store layout made no sense, the racking of brochures didn�t create a good flow for the customers, the staff weren�t incentivised to sell the most profitable destinations, there were no beneficial deals with operators in place to increase margin etc.

I could see all the holes in the business as plain as day and I thought that was how everyone saw business? Turns out maybe not!

With the confidence of youth and a �not taking no for an answer� attitude I decided that not only did I think I could do better, I knew I could. So I put my money where my mouth was� well, actually at the time I managed to convince my Dad to lend me �4000 in startup capital which - even though I eventually retired him when we were acquired by Going Places - he thinks I still owe him!

That �4k got us up and running, we were in business - my friends thought I was nuts, but I was convinced (and committed) to my mission and vision, we were going to build an empire, and I guess, in our own small way, we did.

I won�t go into that whole business journey here in this article, but there are two elements that I believe are key to this tale:

I committed to myself to taking control of my destiny - I had a fire in my belly that nothing and no one could or would extinguish.

� and then

I took massive action constantly and consistently to achieve the desired outcome.

All too often I hear entrepreneurs, founders and business owners loosely state their goals and aspirations but they either don�t fully, truly believe it, or they just don�t take the relevant action to make it happen.

Taking control of my destiny was one of the most liberating and fulfilling decisions I ever made, but don�t be fooled into thinking that all of the journey will be filled with rainbows and unicorns if and when you decide to become the captain of your own circumstance!