If We Can, You Can

Author:

Roy Stanley

Business:

Tanfield Group Plc

Published:

10/11/2008 11:14:00

I guess one of the worst experiences that you can ever have in life is going home to your wife and saying, “We might lose everything.” It doesn’t get much worse than that.

When that happened, it was about determination. I gave myself a good talking to. There’s always a temptation to blame events, to blame circumstances or to blame other people, but what happened to me was nobody’s fault other than mine.

It took me about 24 hours to stop feeling sorry for myself and I thought, I’ve got responsibilities here, I’ve got to get up and get on and I’ve got to get this situation sorted out. So that’s what I did, and having learned from that experience, it was probably one of the most important times in my life.

If that happened to me now, I probably would have had a different response to that event. Previously I thought that I only had myself to depend on. Many entrepreneurs, and I put myself in this bracket, are paranoid. They believe that the world is out to get them so you put personal protective mechanisms up in order to deal with that.

At the time I guess I didn’t have the incentive to go and seek support. From the people who I did approach, there was a handful, and one person in particular, who never ever backed away from me; they always stayed with me and that’s something I really appreciate.