Life Lessons Learnt Over 10 Years

Over the last 10 years of my life, from ages 18 to 28, I’ve:

• Read 1,000+ books
• Set up a 6 figure business helping hundreds of young people annually??
• Invested in 4 properties and 6 figures worth of stocks?
• Run 2 marathons?
• Contributed towards 2 books?
• Achieved 2 years sobriety
• Been profiled by Involve, LinkedIn’s Top Voices, The Economist, Teach First and Stonewall

In my latest LinkedIn article, I have shared the mistakes I’ve made and the lessons I’ve learnt over the last decade of my life in case this is useful to anyone.

1) Manage your sense of self importance

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learnt over the last 10 years is to not take myself so seriously and to learn to manage my sense of self importance. This was a tricky lesson for me as I’ve always been quite a serious person and achievement oriented, measuring my worth according to my success.

I sought out lots of mentors who were extremely successful in their careers, who had a lot of wealth, achieved recognition in their fields, who were well networked etc and asked them how I could be like them and accomplish what they had done. I was surprised when the collective feedback I got from them was to stop working so much, enjoy the journey and take advantage of all the types of opportunities available to me at my age, including relationships, hobbies, travelling, not just the career ones. Lots of my mentors highlighted that my career and life is going to be a marathon, not a sprint so asked me to question why do I feel the need to do everything at once and have all these vaulting ambitions, and are these always such noble and desirable goals, when the consequence is I can get quite irritable and flustered a lot of the time because of chasing after these goals.?

It’s easy when you work and live in a big city like London to feel like the only things which matter are your job, income, personal development, status etc. and forget that there all types of people, different types of aspirations and ways of living and these are all equal and each have their merit. I always used to take pride around working 7 days a week, being so busy, running around all the time, claiming that it was because I was so ambitious and hard working, compared to others, but I rarely took a step back and meditated on how resentful and lonely I felt much of the time. The older I get the more I realise that every person’s behaviour and personality has their merits in most cases. A common bit of life advice is surround yourself with the best people and people who you want to be like which I see the logic in. However it can also be good to challenge yourself and meet with and talk to people who have different mindsets and ways of living to see how these work and if there is something in this which you may want to start doing.

I also found it helpful to try my best to zoom out and think about other people and communities rather than just myself .?For example when it comes to activism and social change, I love what ex-Attitude editor Matthew Todd said on this topic. He highlights a lot of LGBT+ people are vey interested in helping themselves and their own LGBT+ community, but they don’t always take a step back and appreciate the threat of wider societal and environmental issues like climate change and how these will affect the LGBT+ community negatively through increased popularism, violence and scarcity. When it comes to feeling part of a tribe or community, I love what Brene Brown said, that on the back of lockdown easing, her and her family endeavoured to go to more live music events because it’s so magical being around 100s and 1000s of other people who are taking part in an experience and resonate with the same music, entertainment, stories you do. You start to feel like you are bigger than just yourself which is amazing. When I was a teenage and in my early 20s, I thought I was the only one who would listen to music and envisage scenarios in my head to inspire, motivate and cheer me up when I was feeling down and in need of help, but one of my therapists said to me a lot of people do this and that’s why when you go to a concert it can be so powerful because you are in a room full of loads of people who are equally touched and empowered by the same songs we have all been listening to for yeas.?

One issue of taking yourself too seriously and having confidence which verges on pride is you can be easily triggered and frustrated. As someone who is young and runs a business, I often get lots of questions from strangers about myself and my business. Much of the time these are complimentary and questions driven by curiously, but sometimes they cam be patronising or belittling. A few years ago when I took myself very seriously and was laser focused on myself and my business I would get really angry and frustrated by some of these questions and individuals and it would bug me for months and even yeas. However now whenever I get a strange or negative comment or question I just say to myself I am not that important, and it placates any negative feeling I would otherwise have.?

I find it’s helpful to challenge the societal idea of the self made person and the rags to riches narrative we are so often told. This is because sometimes from experience when you start achieving and getting recognition by others you can start developing a sense of confidence which verges on arrogance believing that you are doing well because of all your hard work and talent, rather than your situation, however the older I get the more I am aware of power and privilege at play. We’re all born with a different set of cards in life and in some cases things are just easier for you based on where you are born and your circumstances. For example, I work hard and have faced setbacks but I also came from a very encouraging and supportive family and lived in my family house for most of my 20s where I didn’t have to pay rent. This meant that I had a lot of confidence and belief in myself and a great safety net to pilot running a business Career Accelerator for a few years which has fortunately grown nicely, but I’m aware most people don’t have this situation. Therefore instead of me thinking I am so great and brave and talented I’m always aware that in most cases everyone is trying their best and working hard given their circumstances and they should all be admired for this. Checking my privilege definitely alleviated a lot of my ego and sense of self importance.?I love reading self help and personal development books about smashing goals and achieving success in different aspects of your life, however the older I get the more I realise not everyone can drop everything they do and set up a business, travel the world, invest in property and stocks due to a number of factors (family wealth, ability status, background, mental health) and so they shouldn’t be judged for not doing this.?

One of the best bits of career advice I’ve ever received was my by cousin Bhavna who advised me ‘you’re not going to be good at anything in your 20s’ so stop putting so much pressure on yourself and enjoy the journey and you will organically develop expertise and skills by the time in your 30s and 40s, which I loved the notion of. There is a lot of pressure to achieve mastery, success and tick off loads of things on your things to do before you’re 20/30/40 to do list but rarely do people take a step back and realise that often it will take at least 10+ years to develop the expertise and skills you need to be impactful and good at your work.?

2) Let yourself feel happy and successful now

I feel like society champions certain milestones that we are encouraged and told to achieve in order to be happy and successful. For example, getting good grades at school, getting into a good University, getting a good job, getting a high income, having an athletic body, being in a relationships, getting married etc. On one hand I feel this is positive as I find it’s nice to have goals and things to work towards and in many cases having a well paid job, developing your knowledge in school and university, belonging to good institutes all have their merits. On the other hand I think it’s negative because I find there are so many societal goals to go after, some of these goals seem to clash with one another, everyone has different preferences and it’s hard not to feel like you are falling behind your peers and others in society, especially with the effect of social media.?

In the book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k, the author Mark Manson highlights that one of the issues around setting goals for yourself and then working hard to achieve them is that when you achieve the goal, whilst you may be happy and proud in the short you, you are often left feeling quite deflated afterwards as you’ve invested weeks, months and sometimes years to achieve your goal and once you have achieved your goal you realise your not going to be permanently happy or proud and you’ll inevitably develop new more bold and ambitious goals to chase after and peg your happiness on this. This is why he proposed having strong values is important which you can abide to everyday, so this means you feel proud and happy everyday instead of waiting to be happy in the future. Values can include things such as working hard, being a good family member and friend, being helpful, helping your environment etc. which you can action and see the results of every day. In the book The Unexpected Joy of Being Ordinary, the author Catherine Grey writes a lot about hedonic adaption which is where human beings achieve their goal and then start get used to the buzz and excitement of achieving this goal and then want something else above and beyond this goal to be happy again.

For example, when I started my business Career Accelerator 5 yeas ago my initial goal was to work with 10 schools and 10 businesses and create a talent pipeline between some of our students and some top unis and businesses. After 3 years I achieved this but I wasn’t happy.?Now that I had a bit of a platform I wanted to do something around helping the LGBT+ community so I spearheaded a fist of a kind LGBT+ business youth mentoring programme which now supports over 200 LGBT+ mentors and mentees every year, which I was really proud of at the time. However even after this I wasn’t happy.? I didn’t want to just be a hero or entrepreneur in my own community, I wanted to be an ally to other communities. Next year I am super keen and excited to work on developing a Neurodiversity and Disability youth mentoring programme which I am optimistic will be a success.?However I know from experience 1 year after launching this I will probably want to do something else and peg my happiness and pride on this new goal.

In his book Happy Sexy Millionaire, Steven Bartlett highlights that if you ask someone how much money they think they need to be happy they will usually always say between 2-3x the amount they currently have, regardless of their wealth. For example, if you have ￡500K net wealth you may feel you need 1 million pounds or 1.5 million pounds to be happy and secure, but if you have ￡1 million pounds net wealth you may feel you need 2 million pounds or 3 million pounds to be happy and secure.?

I’ve been keeping journals since I’ve been 15 yeas old and when I look back at some of these journal especially for my teen years I’m proud to see that in most cases I’ve achieved and gone above and beyond most of my goals, but also intrigued that I don’t wake up full of pride and ecstasy that I am living my best life, but I wake up to a demanding set of goals for what I want to do over the next 10 years. I think it’s interesting that we spend so much of our time and energy thinking about what we want to do over the next 10 yeas, we rarely ever look back at where we were 10 years ago and how much we’ve achieved and progressed over the last decade. If I could go back in time 10 years ago when I was 18 I wish I could tell myself to chill out more, relax, be proud of what I am doing and enjoy myself more. I’m sure many of us would give our 18 year old selves this advice. However then I think to myself I’m sure the 38 year old version of myself will be telling the 28 year old me this advice as well.?

Doing a coaching session with one of my coaches, Jae, I told them that in the next 10 years I want to be a paid speaker, consultant, author, have an amazing network, live abroad etc. and that as I get older it will be easier to achieve my goals as I will have more experience, credibility, a bigger network etc. Jae agreed with me in theory but they also said even phase of your life has opportunities and challenges and life doesn’t necessity get better and easier in every single area. For example, aged 28, I get to be the young, fiery, endearing entrepreneur but have limited life and business experience and a smaller network, however in 10 years time I will likely have more life and business experience and a bigger network, but I will likely not have the same youthful charm, energy and drive as I do now, which really made me think. One of my coaches Saski shared a mantra with me which I loved; this is: ‘I am proud of what I have done in the past and I am excited for the future.’

Sometimes goals conflict with one another and consequently if you are chasing goals you may have to wait another few years or even decades to feel successful. For example, if one of your goals is to set up a successful business you may be spending most of your time on this over the first 5-10 yeas and not make enough time to have enough time to date or have a partner. Then after 10 years of setting up and scaling a successful business, you may want to be in a relationship and get married. This may take another 5-10 years. Therefore if 2 of your big life goals are to have a successful business and a life partner you may be delaying you happiness and sense of achievement by 2 decades as an example.

The other thing to flag is that your life doesn’t happen in a vacuum and we can never predict what will happen next with our society and world. For example few of us could have predicted covid and lockdown over the last 2 years. Speaking from experience I promised myself I will work really had in 2019 and focus on my work, but in 2020 onwards I am going to be really social, make loads of friends, get involved in loads of networks, travel more, and put myself out there. I didn’t predict covid or lockdown and consequently I ended up just doing more work in 2020 and 2021 and even less socialising and travelling than before, because I made the mistake of trying to phase huge and important parts of my life for later. On the back of this mistake I have made more of an effort to be well balanced in the moment.

3) Look after your mental health first and foremost

I’ve often been told that your career and life is about the journey, not the end destination. Mentors have challenged me and asked me what’s the point in achieving your goals if you are miserable and end up in bad health. I find there seems to be a strong sense of time urgency by society and our networks that you have to be at a certain place by a certain stage of your life, which I think is arbitrary and laughable given the huge variety of circumstances in each of our lives however this still causes stress and pressure for many.?

The majority of the research shows that you will likely be happier more productive and better to work with if you take breaks and switch off from time to time from work. However it’s important to realise taking breaks and switching off means different things to different people and that’s completely fine. For some people, it means going abroad and going to a beach, for others it means doing a staycation and staying in your accommodation but just not working.

For me what I found what well is going on city breaks outside London every 2-3 months for a few days for a change of scene from London, being able to read ore books, going to museums, journaling etc. and this works really well for me. In fact baking in these city breaks has definitely been one of the most impactful things I’ve done for my wellbeing and happiness over the last 10 years. When I come back from a city break I feel so much more refreshed, energised and grateful for the work I do. Sometimes it can be easy to forget how grateful we are for the work we get to do and the life we live and it takes within off and changing scene for a bit for us to remember this.?

It can also be good to switch off from tech and social media from time to time. I’ve personally not had a great time with social media, especially as someone who is quite focused and competitive. I would be having a great day and then go on Instagram or Facebook and see something which would trigger me - it could be a gay peer hanging out with all his gay mates which made me feel unpopular, it could be a friend who got an impressive promotion at work which made me feel like I was falling behind in my career, it could be someone younger than me with an attractive body which made me feel like I am getting older and less desirable etc. A few years ago I stopped using Instagram and massively reduced my usage of Facebook as well and these things have definitely improved my happiness and wellbeing.

Exercise can be great to boost your mental health and wellbeing. Some people feel like they have to be an expert in a certain sport or activity to take part in it or look a certain way to take part in exercise but one thing I have found it is that there are so many different types of exercise and sports out there there will be something which you like doing, are decent are and which works for you. For example, for me I like running and going to the gym. I find it’s good to be intentional what you want to get out of your exercise routine e.g. for me my goal is to exercise 3-4x a week whether that’s going for a run or going to the gym, it’s not to get a model like body. I feel like the last thing you want and need when you are already having a demanding job and life is to get more stress from working out.?

When it comes to work life balance I think it’s important to do what works well for you and realise this is a journey and you don’t need to nail this straight away. In theory it’s great switching off over the weekend and clocking off work at 5pm, however if you’ve not done this in years it may be tricky to straight away action this successfully. There seems to be a lot of pressure to have an amazing routine, for example waking up super early, doing exercise, working efficiently with no phone on you for hours on end etc. which can cause a lot of pressure and dissatisfaction and feeling of inferiority in the majority of people who don’t have these routines and struggle to have these routines. I would recommend just finding a routine which works well with you so long as you get the results you need. For example, I love the idea of sleeping early and waking up early and getting loads of work done by the time it’s midday, but I tend to be a night owl by nature and I’m usually buzzing in the evenings working on something I find really exciting, networking with people, going to cool events etc. and I love it. Consequently I tend to sleep late and wake up late, but I always get the work done which is all that matters. There will always be people who brag about how disciplined and puritan they are when it comes to their routines but I would always invite you to be curious ands interrogate what results they are getting with this. For example, I don’t mind sharing I usually sleep between 23:00 - 00:00 and wake up around 8am but that hasn’t stopped me from achieving quite a lot of success at a young age. I don’t really care if someone wakes up at 5am and only has a few hours of sleep, especially if this hasn’t led them to accumulate much success at their age. It’s important to live in the real world and realise that over certain months your work may be very busy and it may not be possible to not work certain evenings or weekends and that’s fine, but at other points in the year work will be less demanding which is a great opportunity to switch off more from work in the evenings and weekends. The last thing you want is to beat yourself up and cause yourself more stress when you are just trying to create a more well balanced and harmonised lifestyle. Switching off from work can be tricky when you are an entrepreneur and love your work even if you know that rest is important as well. My coach Jae recommended to me that I should listen to my body and do what my body is telling me. For example, let’s say it’s a weekend and I’m super keen and excited to write a LinkedIn blog, then in this case it’s fine to do this as I’ll get more happiness, joy and satisfaction from this than forcing myself to play the Nintendo Switch or see a friend for a coffee as an example.?

Thinking back to values, for many of us one of our values is around being a good person, helping others, making people feel good. If you have poor wellbeing in your life you are more likely to be tired, irritable, aggressive and unintentionally there is a risk of hurting those around you; including friends, family and colleagues. I realised this the hard way when I was starting my social enterprise. On one hand I was working hard and my heart was in the right place to start a social nobility organisation helping young underserved people which we were doing, but I was working so much I was becoming irritable and obnoxious to my family and friends, which was counterproductive and something I always aim to rectify and prevent against now.?

4) Do what you are good at and delegate the rest

London Business School Professor Charles Handy proposes that we all have a golden seed with us which is our unique strength, talent and contribution to society which we should nurture and invest in, which is a sentiment I love. Charles Handy highlights that sometimes those around us such as our parents, guardians and loved ones can recognise and identify our golden seed before we can. For example, after finishing University, Charles Handy got a job in oil and gas and to his surprise, his mum responds to this by saying this will make great material when you write your book in the future. This was a great example of as his mum she predicted he would have a very successful career as a writer and educator.?

I think it’s great to invest a lot of time and energy identifying some of your key strengths through reflection and seeking feedback from others and really utilising these strengths and talents to do your life’s best work. This is as opposed to being the jack of all trades but master of none.?

There are some great strength focused and personality assessments which I’ve personally sued and found helpful; these include

• CliftonStregnths: https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/252137/home.aspx
• Myers-Briggs: https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test
• Red Blue Green Yellow: https://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/story.php?title=discovery-insights-color-personality-quiz-red-blue-green-yellow_6fp

It can also be really helpful to have a look at a list of values and identify up to 6 values which really resonate with you and try to best to abide to these daily.

On one hand it’s good to be well balanced and have goals in different areas of your life, however in reality there are going to be certain aspects of our life that we are more interested and ambitious in than others at different stages of our life and I personally feel it makes sense to focus on the areas which bring you the most energy at the moment. One of my favourite sayings from the book The One Thing is an extraordinary life requires an unconventional lifestyle - highlighting the importance of being more focused than the average person on your endeavour. Robin Sharma also highlights that if you want to be among the top 5% of performers in the world you have the train and dedicate yourself in a way 95% of people won’t be willing to do.?

One concept I came across a few years ago which changed my life for the better was the concept of live leverage which proposes that we should do what we are good at and talented at and where possible delegate the rest. For example, in my case, I like money and am finally ambitious however I am not too interested in the details of investing stocks or property, so what I did in my 20s was loop in a wealth manager from my network to look after my personal finances which led to me to achieve a personal portfolio of 4 properties and 6 figures worth of stocks, helping me to achieve financial independence at a young age. If I felt like I had to do everything myself I would probably have got demoralised about not being too into stocks and property and not hired anyone to grow this part of my wealth and would have consequently have missed out on life changing amounts of money over the decade. I think there is no shame in admitting you aren’t interested or skilled in something however the most important thing is you are honest about your ambitions and find a way to achieve this, for example, through delegating this to someone else who can do it better or faster than you can.?

I would recommend identifying the different aspects of your life and things you want to do in these, but also see what other aspects of your life and tasks can be delegated so you can focus on what you are good at and have the most impact. For example, if you don’t enjoy or like cooking instead of fretting about this and stressing out about it, if you have the means you can invest in a meal prep service like Fresh Fitness Food to deliver meals to you daily so you can focus on what you care about and are good at, whilst having your food and nutrition taken care of.?

In the book The One Thing the author Gary Keller proposes that we have 7 aspects of our life?

1. Our key relationships
2. Our physical health
3. Our spiritual life?
4. Our job
5. Our finances
6. Our business?
7. Our persona life?

It’s important to know your worth and your value and act accordingly. By focusing on just a few areas of your life and a few goals within them you will have much more capacity to really invest in ambitious goals and will be much more likely to achieve them. For example, instead of having 10-12 goals if you just have 1-3 goals over a year research shows you are much more likely to achieve these 3 goals.?

It’s important to realise that even though there are billions of human beings on this earth there is no one out there with the same genetic makeup, personality and lived experience as you, and that is a huge advantage for you. In sales there is a powerful technique called the challenger sales technique where the seller teaches the client something new about their industry, market insight and challenges them a bit during the selling process, which makes them more valuable and useful before the client even starts working with them or buys their product. In the same way, even in a non sales context, I think it’s always important to walk into any room thinking you are unique and have something to offer people in the room that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to get.?

Some people feel they have to have a certain upbringing to be successful e.g attending a good private school, coming from a middle class family, attending Oxbridge, working at a blue chip company etc. and if you don’t have this you can’t be successful, or as successful as others. I personally disagree with this and I strongly feel you can turn being an underdog and more adverse, negative experiences into positive experiences.?In the book The Time Machine, the author H. G. Wells highlights that in the future if humans have nothing to worry about due to technological advances looking after them and society so comfortably, they risk evolving to be infantilised and weak and childish as they don’t have to build up any resilience. I often find that sometimes it’s those who’ve suffered the most in life growing up who end up becoming the more resilient, strongest and driven than those who’ve come from a relatively comfortable, privilege upbringing. In the book Millionaire Next Door the author Thomas Stanley highlights that the bulk of millionaires in the US are self made first generation millionaires and it’s usually the 2nd and 3rd generation of these families who become complacent and too comfortable and loose the family money. ?

Growing up I attended a very homophobic boys and was bullied a lot and didn’t have any friends when I was a teenager. This was a horrible, isolating and demoralising decade for me however I used this experience of injustice, being a minority and not having a relatable network as fuel and ammunition to start Career Accelerate which now helps around 500 young people from a variety of underserved minority backgrounds prepare for successful futures through 1:1 mentoring led by relatable role models. I couldn’t be happier and more proud in my career. I have a strong feeling if I was straight, popular and had loads of friends and a comfortable teenage life I probably wouldn’t be so energised, passionate and keen to fight for social justice or be running a social enterprise I love right now. In the book David and Goliath, Malcom Gladwell highlights that there are some advantage of being an underdog, whether that’s being dyslexic, working class, Black Heritage etc. as you often have to work a lot harder, become a lot more resilient and have energy and fire to better yourself and tackle societal injustice. One of the best bits of career advice I got was from my dad who said don’t worry too much about which job type pays the most, go into a job you care about and are good and focus on being world class at that job, which is a sentiment I love.

5) Be ambitious with who you surround yourself with

Most of us have heard and know that the people we hang out with define us and that were should be around the people we want to be like. However one thing I’ve found is very few people actually action this advice very well. A great book I read about organising your network is Fully Connected by Julia Hobsbawm. In the book Julia highlights that in life we focus so much on taking pride in going to the gym every week, showering every day, but asks why don’t we spend the same time and energy focusing on nurturing and investing in our social relationships and networks, something which all the research shows is so vital for our happiness and success.?

One approach recommended is writing down all the people you know and speak with on a regular basis and then diving them into categories such as: people I spend time who I don’t like, people who I spend time with who I do, people I admire who I want to become friends with and then make a plan to improve your social network by spending less time with those you don’t like or value and spending more time building relationships with people you like and admire. In my mid 20s I did this exercise and realised I didn’t actually like or admire most of the friends and people I hung out with with my age. They weren’t ambitious, didn’t have any goals and carried out living a mundane life everyday with no intention of improving it. One thing I’ve started doing is unfollowing and unfriending people I don’t like or who are toxic from my social media accounts. This may sound callous however I feel passionate your wellbeing and sense of self worth is more important. I made an effort to spend less time with them and more time investing in relationships with people I admired and wanted to be like who tended to be more older and more experienced and mature. Curating my social life has definitely been one of the most impactful things I’ve done both personally and professionally over the last decade. More and more research is being done around the pernicious effect of being around friends who are negative and toxic and make you feel bad about yourself if you aren’t like them. As a litmus test one thing you can do is reflect on how you feel after spending time with people at the end of the encounter e.g. is it positive or negative and this should be a good sign if you want to continue the relationship with them or not. I think it’s so important to have a tribe and community in life however I think it’s equally as important to rethink what you mean when it comes to being in a tribe and community. A few years ago I thought because I was a gay young guy my tribe and community would have to be other gay young guys so I spend a lot of my early 20s focusing on making gay male friends through sports clubs, volunteering and meet up events. However I soon realised I had little in common with most gay young guys my age and their company actually made me really miserable. On the back of this I expanded my definition of what I thought of as my aspirational tribe and community to include anyone who as nice, ambitious, open minded, regardless of their sexuality, gender, age etc. and it’s worked amazingly well. Most of my friends now tend to be in their 30s and 40s, a mixture of straight and LGBT+, a mixture of genders etc. and it makes life so much more enjoyable and exiting.?

Research shows that you only really need between 5-15 good friends in your life to be happy. Every year I always aim to make sure I have up to 15 good friends and contacts who I speak with and hang out with regularly and this number has worked really well for me. Every year I also have a list of aspirational friends - people I admire from my personal and professional life who I’d love to get closer with and hang out with more who I make more of an effort inviting out. When it comes to befriending aspirational friends I would recommend just being bold and say you think they are great and you would love to grab a coffee with them if they have time and no worries if not. Most of them would be flattered and be keen to meet others and build their network. If they are too busy or not interested at the time that’s fine as well but at least you’ve made the effort to try and build a friendship with them. I am over the moon and so happy I get to count so many of my heroes and role models as good friends I see monthly now. Lots of people in my network tend to be millionaires, very successful in their careers and very well networked and accomplished and hanging out with them always leaves me feeling really energised, motivated and happy.?

On a professional level, I strongly believe that in many cases business is all about friendship. I work with 20 corporates in my business and many of these clients have become good friends of mine which is amazing. We share many similar interests and drives around education, young people, diversity and inclusion and social justice so it make sense we would get along and have stuff in common. In the past I was very formal and serious and wanted to maintain a look of professionalism at all times, but now when I meet clients and work with clients I am a lot more chilled, relaxed etc. and make an effort to get to know them better and in fact It’s also had really positive benefits for my business’s corporate partnerships unintentionally. I feel life is too short to not ask people you admire or work with out to get to know them better and add them to your network where possible. My business’s first 3 corporate partners were LinkedIn, Vodafone and Just Eat and 5 years later I am still really good friends with my contacts and champions in these 3 companies.?Everyone is different and has different interests and hobbies. I actually really like and enjoy gong to networking events and conferences. I used to think people would think I was lame to do so and tired to hide this part of me and go to less events and conferences but now that I am older and more mature I own this part of me. I go to loads of events and conferences and on the back of this I have made some of my best friends, amazing clients at bluechip companies and learnt loads, alongside having a lot of fun during the networking drinks and afterparties. The work I carry out at Career Accelerator isn’t rocket science, however it is all underpinned by having great trusting, strong relationships with our clients which fortunately I love building.

6) Be focused on yourself over others

My mentor and friend Lord Rumi Verjee gave me the advice: before you can help others you need to help yourself first. First you need to look after yourself, then your family, then your community and then your planet. However you need to be strong first before helping others.?

We live in a capitalist society in the UK and money grants us power and privilege which are important things to help us develop and help others. I think it’s important to be in a strong and stable financial position before you help others otherwise there is a risk of working hard on something you care about but struggling to pay your bills which can make you resentful and disengage as a result.?

I think it’s important to know your worth and contribution. I used to love to volunteer and do it a lot but I’ve stopped doing any volunteering for the time being whilst I am still at a relatively early stage of my career. What I found is that if you are still in the process of developing skills and knowledge and experience you are less valuable and useful to an organisation as a volunteer. Just because you volunteer for an aspirational and exciting and admirable company I would ask yourself: are you actually helping the company or just doing this to make yourself feel good or build your CV further. I’ve been fortunate to have volunteered for some amazing companies I admire the work of. However in retrospect I realised in many cases I was just a glorified type writer and someone who fundraised a small amount of money and my contrition was pretty minimal in the grand scheme of things even though I was feeling quite stressed juggling my volunteering roles above and beyond my demanding job. I realised I could benefit from being more patient and waiting a few years when I am more skilled and knowledgable and well networked before volunteering for organisation again where I can be more helpful.?My approach is I’d rather dedicate the first few decades of my life to be focused and develop some expertise and knowledge and a good network first so I am useful when helping others. I don’t think there is much point stretching yourself too thin by taking on too many projects but not being good at anything or adding that much value. I feel in society there is a temptation to show off and say you are involved with loads of projects and side hustles and crazy busy, but I personally think this is inefficient. I am now much more inclined to say my main focus is myself and my business and this works well with me at this stage of my life.?My logic is that we have decades of our lives to live and work so what’s the hurry in wanting to do everything all at once. Even if you work really hard and spend all your time working and achieving there is a risk you never actually enjoy or value the work or journey, which I think would be a bit of a shame.?

Robin Sharma highlights personal development is so important and that your personal income and business can never grow further than your own personal development. One of the best bits of career advice I’ve received is always focus on yourself first and foremost, for example, your skills, knowledge and expertise, compared to the job you currently have. Jobs are temporary compared to you and your career. I love my work at Career Accelerator and definitely want to do it for the next 5 yeas of my life and I’m super excited about this journey, however I am always thinking about and finding ways to develop outside my role as the CEO at Career Accelerator, for example, exploring how I can become an author, a paid consultant, live and work abroad etc. so that I am prepared for my journey after exiting Career Accelerator.?

Some great ways to focus on yourself and develop include?

• Working with great mentors, coaches and sponsors who have achieved what you want to achieve?
• Taking part in leading leadership programmes which suit you?
• Reading books
• Working with agencies ?

There is a striking learning and development formula which shows that 70% of your learning and development tends to come from your actual job, 20% from mentoring and coaching and 10% from classroom learning.?

7) Have ambitious goals authentic to you and realise there will be trade offs

Lord Rumi Verjee told me in order to achieve your goals you need to have goals in the first place. I thought this was a great observation that so many people have lots of energy and ambition and want to achieve in life but few of us really integrate and say out loud what our specific goals are in the short run and long run. All the research highlights how important and helpful it is to write down your goals on paper, say your goals out loud to other people and work with others to keep you accountable on your goals.?

I don’t consider myself super megalomaniac and I’m personally a big fan of ambitious but realistic goals but I do admit if you set yourself really high goals you are likely to develop a more compete and ambitious mindset and behaviour to go along with this and in many cases this will be conducive to achieving your goals. Even if you fall short go your huge goal you will likely still accomplish more than what you would otherwise accomplish with your more meagre goal. In the book 10X the author Grant Cardone highlights you should look at the goal you currently have and 10X it and there is a chance that you will be able to achieve this new bold goal or failing this still achieve much more than you would otherwise.?

I feel there is a lot of pressure from society to follow a lot of admirable goals such as get good grades at school, get into a top uni, get into a top company, start a business, be a millionaire, get a great body, marry your partner, start a family, eat well etc. all of which have their merits in most cases however I think it’s super important you pursue a few focused goals which are authentic to you and which you genuinely want to and can benefit from and sometimes there will be trade offs between goals. For example in my social enterprise I have to decide between 2 competing goals - 1) paying myself the highest salary I possibly can and 2) growing a team at Career Accelerator and increasing our social reach. In this case I decided to take a middle ground and pay myself a good competitive salary for someone my age and position whilst also slowly and steadily growing my organisation's headcount and social impact. Some people would have just focused on paying themselves a 6 figure salary and not hire anyone whilst others would pay themselves the lowest possible salary but hire more people in the organisation and make more social impact, and each of these options has merit to each individual.?

In the book The One Thing Gary Keller highlights that it’s good where possible to set yourself at least 1 goal in every aspect of your life so that you are well rounded and make sure that you are investing and paying attention to each aspect of your life. That said Gary Keller also highlights that an extraordinary life requires an unconventional lifestyle and that if you truly want to be world class at something or have a big ambition in one aspect of your life it’s unlikely you will have a perfectly formed aspect of life ratio and this is fine as long as you are happy with this.?

In many cases in life you can’t have it all and this is fine but you need to make peace with this.

For example?

• When I was training for 2 marathons in 2021 and 2022 I stopped drinking for 2 years and stopped going to bars and clubs as much.
• When I was starting a business especially for the first 3 years I struggled to maintain a good work life balance, have any romantic relationships and pay myself a decent salary.

Another useful tool when it comes to life planning is the Wheel of Life template where you can visualise all areas of your life at once to see where you need improvement.?

These categories include

1. Family and Friends
2. Significant Other
3. Career
4. Finances
5. Health
6. Home Environment
7. Fun and Leisure
8. Personal Growth

I always make sure to work with mentors and coaches in different aspects of my life so I can use the amazing powerful of mentoring for other aspects of my life, not just work. For example?

• A wealth manager for my personal finances?
• A personal trainer for my fitness ?
• A life coach for my persona life?

I think it’s good to have ambitious but it’s also good to think long term. As Bill Gates famously said: people overestimate what they can do in 1 year but underestimate what they can do in 10 years - a sentiment which influenced my blog. From experience I find you often only see your hard work pay off in a few months and years in many cases not days or weeks.?

I think it’s important to pay attention to what good looks like for you and focus on doing this and don’t pay attention to what most other people say. Everyone’s goals in most cases are admirable and valid. For example, I made the decision to dedicate a decade of my life to set up and grow Career Accelerator which is a small, sustainable and impactful organisation. Some people criticise me telling me I should be running a fast growing, scale up tech venture, I should be making 7 figures, I should create something to sell to Google, I should scale my business globally, I should stop running a business and get a proper corporate job, I should focus more time on datings men and not on my career, I should party more while I am young etc. Ultimately my goal is to run a successful impactful sustainable organisation which I do and I love doing and will continue to do. Knowing what my ‘why’ is helps me focus on my true north and be proud of this work, and not pay attention to the distracting noise.

One helpful and impactful thing I’ve benefited from is setting up a Mastermind group with 3 other entrepreneurs where we come together every month to discuss what is going well, what are we working on and any challenges/annoyances we are having and support with one another through this. This has been an fantastic and fun way to talk about our ambitions and goals, receive support and encouragement for them and also feel like we are part of a like minded tribe and community, even though technically we are working on our own separate goals.?

8) You need money to help others

I personally think there is a connection between having money and being able to help others. This is because when you have money and can look after yourself you can then focus time, energy and resources on going above and beyond your own needs and help others. This is as opposed to struggling with paying your bills and taking care of yourself which can cause stress, unhappiness and relationship breakdown and you’re probably not going to be in the best situation to help others, if you want to even if your heart is in the right place.?

From a philanthropy perspective, the more money you have, the more money you ave available to give away and donate as well. There are some cases of people who work hard to make lots of money in the first half of their life and then they spend the rest of their life giving back to society. Whilst this is a very extreme example of making money and giving back I think it’s a good example to highlight that if you have gotten to the stage in your life when you have lots of money, you are in a fanatic opportunity to give back compared to someone who doesn’t have as much money.?

I think it’s very important to have a wealth abundant mindset and be positive about making money and having money as money is so important in society and our lives. There are lots of different ways to make money and have money other than just your job. I think it’s a shame people feel they are restricted to making money just through their job and so write off being wealthy even as young as their 20s if they aren’t in a lucrative profession like consulting, tech, finance or law as an example. There are loads of great books around making money through investing in different income streams such as stocks and property and side hustles as an example. If making and managing money isn’t something you’re personally interested in or super skilled at I would recommend hiring a trained wealth manager to look after and grow your wealth.?

On a psychological level, if you know you have money, I think this acts as a very helpful safety net to make you feel comfortable and confident that you can can risks and start a social impact business for example without worrying too much if it doesn’t work out. There are lots of books about entrepreneurs who start businesses when they are young and these businesses end up becoming really successful and making the founders famous. These tend to be exciting feel good books but I feel rarely do we interrogate that many of these entrepreneurs probably came from comfortable and supportive families and environments and felt confident that even if their business or side hustle didn’t work out they would still be fine and could get another job and wouldn’t end up homeless. I wasn’t surprised to read that the average age for most successful entrepreneurs is people in their 40s, not 20s. This is because by the time most people are in their 40s they tend to be in a much more comfortable financial position?and so more likely to be able to take the risk of setting up a business compared to a normal person in their 20s who doesn’t have this luxury.?

9) Helping others makes you happy

If I look back at my last 10 years most of my proudest and happiest memories have revolved around helping people; for example, spearheading a departmental peer mentoring programme when I was at University, when I hear some of Career Accelerator’s mentees have now got into top Unis and jobs on the back of their mentoring and they send me an email or WhatsApp with the good news, seeing projects I’ve set up at partner state schools still going and getting good feedback. I’m always reminded that when you’re on your death bed you’re not going to be thinking about how much money you made or how many likes you got on social media, but you will probably be thinking about how many people you helped, how you made people feel, your social impact etc.?

All the research shows helping others increases your wellbeing and happiness and sense of pride and achievement. I’m lucky that I get to do a job which is all around giving back and helping others and this helps me stay happy and energised most of the time. I understand not everyone is in the situation where they run a social enterprise and in this case it can be trickier for people to directly support their environment in many cases. In these cases I recommend being creative and trying to bake in some outreach to your job role or weekly schedule where you can, for example, getting involved with volunteering networks at work or a project outside of your workplace.?

A lot of people want to give back and make an impact (and would do a great job of this) but struggle with having enough time to do this. In this case I always recommend highlighting if giving back is something you are interested in doing and baking in some time to do this over the month/year to make sure this is accounted for. In 2023 I am determined for my business to do more in person work e.g. career mentoring, workshops, work experience at employer offices etc. as I realise it’s so much more engaging and meaningful and impactful when you see the looks of young people going into a exciting and aspirational office they could work in in the future, meeting inspirational mentors and learning from them, meeting other students and employees and feeling part of a community. One one hand it definitely takes more hard work and organisation to run but I would argue it’s nearly always very impactful and meaningful.?

Reverse mentoring can be really helpful and life changing. I find it’s always great to act as a mentor and work with younger and less experienced people than you from time to time to realise everyone is at different stages and is trying their best and you can get a lot of happiness, satisfaction and feelings of accomplishment by helping others, not just yourself. Even though I am busy with my day job I always block out some time to mentor others (usually up to 3 people per quarter) because I know I get a lot out of it and it always leaves me feeling optimistic, proud and energised for my own future. When I mentor someone younger and less experienced than me, it makes me pause and realise how far I’ve come compared to where I was before and gives me the chance to share some lessons I wish I knew when I was younger, which I personally find really rewarding. Mentoring others stops me thinking about me all the time and where I want to go and how far this is away but helps me think back to what I have done already. I often mentor very ambitious, hard working and aspirational young leaders who are 18-25 years old. When I see how much pressure they put on themselves, their vaulting goals and their occasional inability to realise how much they have going for them in the moment and the bright futures they have ahead of them, I realise this is very likely the stage my I am also at when I talk to my mentors about wanting to invest in myself and develop more, ands this realisation encourages me be kinder to myself.?

10) Try not to compare yourself to other people?

On one hand humans get so much of our essential happiness and worth and meaning from our relationships with other humans but on the other hand so much of the pain, unhappiness and sadness we experience in life is also a result of other humans. This has always been the case for humans, but social media in today’s work is further exasperating this.?It’s common to go on personal and professional social media and compare our lives to what we see online. Many of us would have had experience where we having good days and feeling good about ourselves but then we see someone in our ‘reference group’ (e.g. similar age, community, social network) doing something impressive and feel jealous and envious of this which can deflate how we are feeling.?That said, it’s worth remembering that research shows that often people post on social media a lot when they are are unhappy or as an attempt to convince others and themselves they are doing fine. Obviously this isn’t always the case but it happens more frequently than many people imagine. Whenever I am feeling too down after spending too much time on social media I have to remove myself from it and remind myself to go outside and be around people in the real world.?

In life we rarely, if ever, know the whole picture of someone’s life. I always have to remind myself there are so many variables in all of our lives there is limited point trying to compare ourselves to others when we’ve all had such different opportunities, challenges, backgrounds and genetic differences. I know so many cases where attractive, young, healthy people are jealous of more experienced, wealthy and accomplished people. These experienced, wealthy, accomplished people can sometimes be jealous of a young person’s energy, looks and freedom in turn, as an example. No one has a monopoly on all the best features and advantages in the world, in fact the majority of us are just trying our best in life.?

I always try my best to just focus on myself, get to know myself really well, what I want to accomplish and put my time and energy and attention on this, and it usually works. I personally love being on my own in many cases and reflecting on myself, my personality and my leadership. The more I know about myself and like myself the less concerned I get with what others are doing and up to. One of the reasons for this is it’s very unlikely there is something in your network doing the exact same thing/s you are doing or looking to do. For example, on one hand there are tonnes of great youth social mobility charities in the UK which I am aware of (and sometimes feel jealous of). However from what I understand my business Career Accelerator is one of the only social enterprise organisations which have a laser focus on working class, female, BAME, LGBT+ and Neurodiverse and Disabled 14-30 year olds through 1:1 business mentoring led by world leading tech firms, which makes me feel better about the work I am doing and the unique contribution I am making through my company.?

Most of us have loads of time to develop our skills, knowledge, craft, network etc. and we don’t need to do everything and achieve everything all the time, as often it’s the journey which is so fun and rewarding, not the end destination.?Even if we did achieve everything we wanted by tomorrow, whilst we may experience a temporary boost in our wellbeing and happiness, research shows this will naturally go down to our natural happiness and wellbeing levels and we’ll be chasing after something else soon to peg our happiness and feelings of self worth on.?

Comparing yourself is natural and we all do it, it’s a basic human instinct. One thing I’ve started getting better at is trying not to take myself so seriously and laughing at myself and my idiosyncratic thinking and behaviour a bit more. For example, I have a tendency of getting jealous of other young social entrepreneurs, gay men and young professionals. This is pretty hilarious given that everything which drives me tends to be around making society better, LGBT+ inclusion, people reaching their potential, so rationally I should actually be super thrilled and happy for successful social entrepreneurs, gay men and young professionals. By laughing at myself and my irrationality I feel less serious and stressed about what others are doing and feel more of a part of a movement instead.?

One of my favourite sayings is that

• In your 20s you care about what people think of you
• In your 40s you stop caring about what people think of you
• In your 60s you realise no one was thinking about you in the first place

When it comes to being jealous of someone who is very accomplished and has loads of achievements, it’s worth remembering that all the research shows that for humans the first time we do something, whether it’s win an award, do a marathon, be in an intimate relationship, the more special and memorable it is. However after that, if you win loads of awards, run multiple marathons, have loads of romantic partners,?each subsequent win becomes less special and memorable. I always have to remember this whenever I win an award or do a marathon or have a date with someone I like, I should enjoy and relish the moment as opposed to straight away counting down to the next opportunity I can do this again.

Privilege definitely exists in society and it can be tricky to accept this especially when people are privileged in an area of life you are really interested in doing well in, as their unearned advantage can seem even more frustrating and unfair. However it’s worth remembering if someone has gotten a privilege they probably won’t be able to recognise or appreciate this, not out of arrogance but just because they’ve never worked hard for this they equally don’t experience the euphoria and feeling of pride of achieving this. In one book I read about the psychology of money the author warned readers not to be jealous of a rich person in their network because there is every chance that rich person is jealous of someone else for another reason.?

There are benefits of having competitors and people doing good work in our space, for example, in many cases it does make us work harder, be more ambitious and try new ideas to gain a competitor advantage. If I didn’t have so much competition in the schools youth mentoring space, I probably wouldn’t have spent so much time and energy investing in our LGBT+ and Neurodiversity and Disability mentoring programmes over the last few years, which fortunately are proving to be a bit hit with our clients.?

I think it’s important to live in the real world and realise that given the nature of human beings aging and our society which is obsessed with youth and beauty, there will be always be someone younger, hotter and exciting coming up behind you and this is to be expected and not necessarily feared, it’s just the circle of life. I remember in an interview I watched, Elton John mentioned he spoke with Michael Jackson when Michael Jackson was struggling with his mental health and Elton John told Michael Jackson he needs to realise that he won’t always be number 1 performer in the world one day and someone else will come along and take his place, and this is fine and acceptable, so long as Michael Jackson accepts this reality and moves on to do something else. If not, hanging on to previous glory and not accepting the reality of the world can destroy someone.?

You can use competitors as composite role models and identify 2 traits you like about them and 1 trait you don’t like about them and would personally do differently, and from this you can craft your own leadership template. No one is perfect and in many cases someone’s greatest strengths and talents can also directly contribute to their drawbacks and weaknesses. It’s important to realise that younger and less experienced people probably see you as a role model as well and will be looking up to you thinking they want to be like you in the next 10 years of their lives and to not forget this as you climb up your personal and professional ladders in life.?

One of my favourite metaphors is by Robert Webb in his book How Not To Be A Boy, who said ‘in life we are all playing a role in a play and our job is to play our role as best as possible and also help our fellow actors do the best they can do’ which perfectly summarises the merit of trying to be the best versions of ourselves and also helping others and the beauty of community not competition. Another great metaphor shared by my coach Jae is that each of us represent a specific light bulb in the chandelier of the world, and without one of us the world would be a less bright place to be in.