Allow me to introduce myself...

It’s certainly been a while since I last did this, and perhaps if you’re a newer connection of mine, you may not know, so I thought it only courteous to briefly introduce myself…

Hi, I’m Jay – TEDx Speaker | Award Winning Author | Founder, My TrueNORTH - home of the #ADDAZERO Business Challenge!

The Early Years

I originally qualified as a social worker before quickly determining this wasn’t the career I thought it would be. In 1991 I joined the Royal Army Medical Corps – British Army, training as a Combat Medical Technician to begin a life of service.

Throughout my military career, I retained an ongoing desire for learning. So alongside upgrading my medical qualifications and experience to include Pre-Hospital Trauma Life Support, Burns & Ballistics Trauma, and Nuclear, Biological, Chemical, and Radioactive warfare medicine, I also completed a degree in Adult Education teacher training to work within the Pre-Deployment Training Wing and completed a level 7 qualification in Change Management.

Deploying operations in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor, and Sierra Leone. I also deployed on exercise across much of Europe and Canada.

After a series of ‘incidents’ and a long stint of rehabilitation in the hospital, I was eventually medically discharged after 12 years of service.

Post military career

Despite a good CV, some great experience in management, and a strong work ethic, I initially found it hard to gain employment, with many seeing my lengthy hospital stay as a long-term sickness absence risk – rather than acknowledging the cause and my prior work record.

This made me more defined and determined to work for the right employer. And led me to spend a couple of years working at the highest level for one of the high streets' largest PLCs before returning to medicine and taking on a role as Regional Manager and part of the National Quality Assurance Team for St John Ambulance. ?

Entrepreneur

Having been born into a family business and then living with an entrepreneur. I was more than aware of the demands and expectations of business ownership. And so, becoming increasingly frustrated with the pace of change and the ability to make a lasting impact, I left behind employment and started a business of my own.

That’s not entirely true, as I opted to buy my first business, as a small Health and Safety Consultancy, after the owner had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer and didn’t want to have to make the team redundant!

I applied all my learnings from my time in the Army, change management and post-military career. Coupled with what I had witnessed within my own family’s business and that of my partner – along with some of my thoughts, ideas and beliefs about people, passion and purpose.

Less than five years later, and having been nominated and a finalist in the FSB a Businessman of the year, I sold the business as a going concern and moved into my 2nd.

Speaking career

I literally ‘fell’ into speaking quite an by accident. However, I was quickly advised, “You should do this for a living - you’re a natural”. I took their advice, first joining Toastmasters International and quickly progressing to the Professional Speaking Association. I asked lots of questions, I listened intently and applied all I had learned. My speaking career quickly progressed, signing with a Bureau within the first year and accepting my first international speaking engagement (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) just 14 months after I began speaking for a living.

Since then, I’ve had the immense pleasure of presenting to almost 500,000 people across more than 30 countries, including the United States of America, the United Emirates and Bali. Culminating in being invited to open a TEDx event (with a speech called “The 50 careers to train for that don’t yet exist”) in 2019.

Published Author

As part of my desire for personal development, I attend many conferences, training events, courses etc. One was with Mr Raymond Aaron – A New York Best Selling Author and publisher. With whom taught me how to write and submit my great idea to publishers.

Everyone kept telling me, “You should write a book”, and so in 2015, I sat for around six weeks and wrote – Battlefield2Boardroom – 10 Proven Military Strategies to Combat Mediocrity. Lessons I had taken from my career in the British Army on recruiting and getting the best out of people. ?I’m delighted to share that the book went on to win a National Authors Award in the category of Best Innovation! Since then, I’ve written and published: Road2Utopia, #ADDAZERO The Ultimate Guide to Sustainable Scale: Establishing Basecamp and #ADDAZERO The Ultimate Guide to Sustainable Scale: Scale to Summit. With a volume of 8 more books in the process of being published over the next 12 months.

The latter books are also available on both Kindle and Audible.

Today

I’m a father (My Son Bailey turned 26 last month and is in the process of planning his wedding)

A Husband (My wife Amanda owns her business as a Customer Journey Specialist supporting Business Owners to attract and retain customers).

A Veteran (A member of the Royal British Legion supporting others who have served)

A Business Owner – My TrueNORTH is my business mentoring company. We support Business Leaders to live their legacy by reviewing and revising the holistic approach to business to become a business for good.

A trustee (My pro bono work with registered charities supporting the mental welfare of society)

A keen swimmer (both pool and wild), Hiker (Can’t beat a daysack, pair of walking boots and a hill!) and a ‘cruiser’! I bought my Kawasaki Vulcan S less than a month ago, finding more excuses to ‘nip out for a spin’.

Nice to meet you.

Care to share your story? Let's grab a virtual coffee sometime...