Laying down the track piece by piece - 20 years independent

6th December 2019

Dear Ian,

It’s twenty years to the day when you started working for yourself. And wow, you’re still at it.

It’s been quite the rollercoaster. Plenty of highs, but of course it’s been hard at times with quite a few lows too.

When you walked out of the gates of your last full time job on that Friday in December 1999, you had no idea where that decision to leave your job would take you. You said goodbye to your colleagues - who were your family - and to the known and comfortable environment and started out on a path of your own making. It was just you, on your own. 

And apart from putting one foot after the other, there was no path ready made for you, leading you onwards and upwards. Because you weren’t just riding a rollercoaster, you were configuring it as you went - laying down the track piece by piece. 

Sometimes you’d stop and mop your brow and think - which way shall I go next? Other times you’d have to sit and rest and recover your strength to go on. It was often tough - the constant decisions, the constant questioning - is this the right way? Where am I headed? 

And the lows challenged you, prompting you to wonder if you’d made the right decision after all, or whether you should you give it up and just get a job again.

Because there were days when you found yourself working on underpaid crappy projects because you knew you had to earn money one way or another. 

Because who is there to delegate to when your health conspired against you? So you just had to keep going, even though there were days you felt like curling up in bed. 

Because there were projects that robbed you of your life, like the one where you flew across the Atlantic to spend a week working on something, only for your collaborator to go AWOL (and you never heard from him again).

Because, regardless of how much great feedback you get, there’s that one gig where someone won’t like you (like that time an attendee wrote on his feedback form, “this guy was really bad.”)

But, and it’s a huge BUT - you never gave up. And it was this dogged persistence - alongside the unfailing belief that the good times always outweigh the hard times - that kept you going.

Even in the early years when the naysayers thought they had some great advice for you, and people close to you said things like ‘sounds like you need to get a proper job’ - you kept the faith.

Because once you’ve sniffed a sense of freedom, that feeling of flying when you hit the highs, of pleasing yourself or running things just how you want to - it’s a ride you just don't want to get off.

For you, ploughing your own path has been about rising to the challenge - carving out a professional life around who you really are. It’s about doing it your way, not anyone else’s. And why are you still at it, all these years later? Because the rewards are worth it!

So these twenty years have been full of adventures. You’ve pulled so many things out of the hat and you’ve pulled them off too! It’s been a weird and wonderful mix: co-managing a band (and dealing with crowd control at a lively gig in a sweaty pub in Islington); starting a venture producing websites for parliamentarians in the early days of the web; launching a marketing agency to run campaigns for Benetton and MTV Studios; being interim marketing director for the London outpost of a Silicon Valley startup; working for the World Economic Forum at Davos; writing for The Financial Times; teaching storytelling to BBC journalists; going to Austin Texas to launch an idea at South By South West; writing a series of books on work and business; giving talks and running workshops; helping people navigate change in their careers by taking them for a walk. You’ve done it all.

This is what matters - the good stuff that’s given you a life that’s true to you. And of course, it’s the stuff that enables you to feed your kids, which is kinda important. But it’s also much more than that. It’s about hearing from others how your books, your talks or your coaching has changed their lives - that is priceless.

And after all this, you’ve come to where you should be. You’ve realised that this crazy life you lead is all about energising and inspiring other people about their own work lives. 

But even now it can feel wobbly at times. Yes, even twenty years on. Because there’s been no instruction manual for any of this. Just riding off into the unknown, with the hope that you’d land on your feet and not fall flat on your face.

Sure, the views up here are great, and that feeling of freedom is exhilarating. But sometimes you don’t want to look down, in case a few bolts haven’t been securely fastened enough, and you need to work out a Plan B fast.

Yes, it’s still precarious.

What’s more, it’s still just you. When you work for yourself there is no boss to pat you on the back and say well done. You don’t get awards at the employee forum. You don’t get a surprise bunch of flowers on your desk the morning after delivering an amazing presentation. You don’t get an HR manager asking how you are. There’s no mental health survey to complete.

So I’m going to pat you on the back, Ian - you’ve survived twenty years as an independent! Woahhh, I think you deserve a sit down.