Winter briefly arrived in the North West of England and the photo above was taken at Chester Zoo just outside the exotic Islands area.  Not sure how some of the animals felt but I had a great time.  I think of this post as an intro blog part 2.  It’s an attempt to explain what has happened to me in the last 15 years or so that has led to this blog.

I consider my 20’s to be the lost decade.  If I was being really harsh I would probably have included a fair part of my teen years as well knowing what I know now but we all need to give ourselves a break every once in a while.  The reason why I call this the lost decade is that I didn’t really make any progress in my life.  I left university in 2001 having lost my way – from age 16 I had decided I was going to be a business boy.  I had always taken a bizarre interest in current affairs and constantly read the financial pages on Teletext (Millennials will be baffled by that reference).  However, I didn’t really do anything with that information.  I mean sure I had a savings account from a young age and I didn’t waste my money on branded goods but that doesn’t create wealth.

I had no idea what to when I left university because I had fallen out of love with the business world although I couldn’t tell you why but knew I needed to do something different.  So here’s the crazy bit of the story … After a few months of watching episodes of a TV show called Bargain Hunt I decided I was going to be a self employed antiques dealer.  No joke, that’s what I decided to do.  Was interested in glass and porcelain so read a few books, went to a few antiques fairs and off I went.  Through this experience I learned a few hard lessons:

1. I lost most of my money
2. I got my pricing wrong (until I got some advice from a fellow trader)
3. You have to work hard in the beginning (I was even lazier then that I am now)
4. Know your market (I got involved as the market for true antiques was collapsing & collectables took over)

I remember a lot of cold dark mornings (the big events open really early to allow traders in before the public), sleeping in tents and spending a lot of time on my own.  I can of course put a positive spin things in that at least I tried.  I put my money where my mouth was and trying to claim my stake in the world.  The one good decision I had made without realising it was that even as a student I was saving into a with-profits scheme so when the business (I use that term loosely) soaked up nearly every penny in my bank account I was able to cash in this savings plan and pick myself up again.

From that point on I drifted for years falling into my current job and while I was living within my means I didn’t have much direction.  Watched a lot of TV, ate a lot and by the end of the decade so to speak I was starting to notice that my metabolism wasn’t taking care of business for me.  On the upside my financial sense hadn’t completely left me and I had bought a house and was inspired by a TV programme which aimed to show you how to pay off your mortgage in five years. Now I haven’t paid my mortgage off yet but what it did do was make me me look at my student loan, car loan and boiler loan.  I realised how much interest you paid on loans and focused my efforts on clearing these debts.  I was fortunate at this time to have some future inheritance advanced to me and I used it to have new double glazing and pay off any remaining debt with the exception of the house.

My thirties have been a much more positive decade despite a few bumps along the way.  I had stability in my personal life and a new-found curiosity to question things and search for a new way to approach life.  It’s really been the last three to four years when things have come into focus for me.  I’ll go into more detail and talk about the books that I have read and provided inspiration in future blogs but suffice to say I’m doing better at work, I don’t worry about bills or retirement and I now know where I want to focus my efforts outside work.  The toughest thing I have come to terms with is that you can’t do everything, you have to make a choice to do a few things well.

I’m still figuring out how many times I’m going to blog a week but Monday will definitely be one of those days.  I’m developing a few ideas for content but I’m not sure what order to run them in.  This blog is intended to be a means of me giving back to the world in however small a way.  That being said if anyone is inspired by my ideas my cut is 20% of everything you make from the date of the relevant blog.

It#s no back to watching Empire Strikes Back for me it’s a big day on Wednesday night/Thursday morning and need to work my way through the other films in the franchise!