Date: Tuesday, 25 August 2015

In two days, I will be 42 years old. I write that with a huge smile on my face. I have in the past 12 months had the hardest 12 months of my life from an emotional perspective, but more recently, strangely, the best. As I get older, I keep learning so much about myself and others and I know how enriching that is. Getting older is exciting and allows me to grow in ways I never thought possible. 

When you are navigating life by yourself, it is hard to know whether you are doing the right or the wrong thing. The decisions you make in some way seem less important because all the mission critical one's were made earlier on, yet some are defined more by time. Finally I have hit that mid point in my life and it would be ignorant not to reflect and appreciate the good and learn from the bad. At least that's how I see it.

So many of my friends hit their 40's and have had mid life crisis; divorced or have done something crazy that I am sure one day they will regret. I was a little different. I went within myself and was probably a tad hard on myself and what I had achieved to date, and started this path which I have since gotten off, that was not going to make me happy long-term.

I won't deny that I am my own biggest critic, but mostly what I have learned is that I have grown in ways that make me extremely proud of the person I have become. Not the business woman that the world sees, or those so-called successes, but the person within. I am sure that sounds wrong when someone else reads this, but by saying it out loud, I am revealing who I am today.

Never give away everything, it's as simple as that.

Too many entrepreneurs get so desperate that they give away the kitchen sink when in fact all their prospect wanted to know was that they could do a good job.

As an entrepreneur, it's hard to start a business and to keep it going year-after-year profitability creating value and jobs. But many do so very successful, and yet those who fail seem to do so falling often on their own sword.