This blog is a humorous reflection about what it’s like to be an entrepreneur. It’s a collection of stories from the totally mad and absurd world of start-ups and major projects and then what happens when you jump off into the void of retirement. Read on to judge for yourself whether it’s worth it.
- Want to know what it’s like to face bankruptcy or salvation, when you spend your last honest pennies on a live or die advert?
- How about what it’s like to drive through the desert in Arizona to handover $8,000 in cash to someone you have never met, for 20,000 golf balls that you bought on eBay the night before, and why did you fly from London to Phoenix to do that?
- And, how do you react when the medical conference on life expectancy that you are leading is interrupted by a famous professor who stands up and says “this is crap” and the BBC crew covering the event leans forward like they are about to film a snuff movie.
- How about, getting threatening phone calls and then on a dark stormy night going to the front door to go eyeball to eyeball with a hooded man wearing a ski mask.
- What about following a famous Goldman Sach’s partner, who has been recruited to head up a government task force on antibiotic resistance, into the urinals at a conference to suggest he gives you a job on his project.
- What about loaning £60,000 of your own money to the local education college for students to build a plane. What are you thinking when it makes its first flight?
Reading this kind of stuff about what it’s really like might help you understand whether you should to stick to your safe career, or you have that genetic defect that makes you want to try it yourself and develop bizarre behaviour traits.
It is far more useful (and much funnier) than the usual entrepreneur fodder from Steven Bartlett (CEO of what?) or Bezos, Musk, Thiel etc. It’s useful because it’s representative. It’s by someone who is one of the 99.9% of entrepreneurs who are averagely successful. Don’t listen to the 0.1% who become billionaires or unicorns. Unless you are almost impossibly lucky (yes luck is a key factor) you will end up like me.
Is it worth it?
Good news!, average success for entrepreneurs equals well off by most people’s standards. After 40 years throwing myself at walls, running through flames, and jumping over cliffs without a parachute etc, I have a nice farmhouse in the Devon countryside, my classic cars, a good pension pot, an amazingly tolerant other half (the photobomber), and two well-educated, well-balanced children, who I will be able to pass some money onto when I die.
But my real wealth, the wealth you can’t see or get in any other way is the experiences and memories. Being an entrepreneur has been a total blast. I have played every note on the keyboard of life from the dark painful end to the ecstatic euphoric end. I feel sorry for the herd who feed on the boring notes either side of middle C.
As stated above, I write this for laughs. Please bear that in mind. It is all true (except for changing some names) so, please laugh.
Having said that, it has a serious side. By 67, this intense career had rinsed me out. I was only getting two hours sleep and waking up every night with nightmares. I went to the Doctor, who said “It’s medication or therapy, but if you don’t stop working now, don’t expect a long retirement”. I took therapy and carried on working but not long after, following one provocation too many, I stood up and walked out the door and never came back. I did a year of garden leave and started retirement proper in August 2023. Therapy isn’t like you see on telly. My therapist actually laughs out loud and told me to write it down. Writing became a therapeutic exercise that turned into a blog. It’s now my favourite occupation. These days I get a good night’s sleep and the nightmares have stopped (mainly).
Why is it called the Land Rover Diaries?. Good question. No reason really, other than I bought a Land Rover when I retired. I still have the Porsche but the Land Rover symbolises a new phase. My son said “Good. You drive everything like it’s a missile. Maybe this will slow you down”.
It has. I am hoping for a long retirement.
