Being offered a dream opportunity can definitely sway your direction. Not being able to fulfill that dream can definitely test your character. Here I tell the next chapter in my story.
It’s June 2012. Almost a year after I left Chelsea FC to embark on a whole new journey. With some ups and downs at Hurricane Marketing, I decided that it was time to direct the motivation and the relentless ambitious drive that had been guiding me all these years into my own ventures. So I left full time employment to continue my quest.
A Lonely Line of Work
As you’d expect the quest had to pay the bills and keep the mutt in dog food, so I have been freelancing since mid March. The freelance world is a strange one. It’s a mix of renegade rogue agent meets Joe No Mates with the benefits of flexibility, networking and new scenery and the downside of no security, invoice chasing and gloomy stress levels.
If I was in a video game I’d be a cross between Sonic The Hedgehog; speeding along without stopping, chasing nothing but golden rings, and Max Payne (obviously without the addiction to painkillers and alcohol). Imagine those characters in a title. Damn, I really am a genius.
Riding the Wave, Waiting to Crash
The last few months have been an interesting ride to say the least. Hands down the most demanding period I have ever faced with challenges I never thought I’d be capable of surpassing. Not because I didn’t have the skills or acumen, but because I never had the self belief.
I felt like I had taken a huge knock over the past nine months. I came crashing down to earth from the highs I was on from being happy in multiple areas of my life, to being depressed and down that everything had gone Pete Tong, having no idea who I had become, what directions I was taking and why. I’ve faced these dilemmas many times before and felt that to find myself again, I had to cut everything out and start again. So I did…
More Challenges…
Of late i’ve been working mainly with PR agencies that want to fill in the gaps of the services they ‘offer’ but don’t specialise in. This generally means helping to deliver a pitch presentation, an array of creative ideas or advanced analysis and reporting.
From one particular client, a rather large and interesting project appeared, whether out of fate or coincidence I don’t know, but it brought back emotions i’d been trying so hard to overcome. I saw the fine line between business and personal circumstances and knew if I could overcome the emotional challenge this project represented, it would benefit me greatly. But it was a tough decision, I consulted a few different friends who knew the pain I was facing by even looking at this project, but all of whom responded that it was an opportunity too large to pass up. I’ll be honest, in business I am strong minded, patient and strategic, but this emotional link from a past love had me afraid, anxious and wanting to quit before I had begun.
I can’t go into much more detail unfortunately but I will say that I am glad I went through with it. I believe that life is a test and I will always try to overcome challenges that present themselves, regardless of the consequences. I got fantastic feedback in the end and the processes I created for the client have laid the foundations for what I am now piecing together as a business model.