Get the Life You Really Want

by James Caan

  JAMES CAAN

  Get the Life You Really Want

  Contents

  Introduction: Taking charge of your life

  1 Release Your Potential: Why do you want to change?

  2 Resolutions: Setting your targets and priorities

  3 Reclaim the Day: Managing your time

  4 Reaching Out: Sharing your plans

  5 Ready Reckoning: Thinking about money

  6 Refresh Your Career: Taking a new direction

  7 Reveal Your Best: Presenting with confidence

  8 Relationships Matter: Working with other people

  9 Regime Change: Looking after yourself

  10 Reap the Rewards: Motivating yourself

  Conclusion: Closing the circle

  By the same author

  Get the Job You Really Want

  Start Your Business in 7 Days

  Introduction

  Taking charge of your life

  A couple of years ago I met a young woman called Gina. She had recently spent some time in prison, and after her release it seemed no one was willing to help her. Gina found it impossible to get a job because of her criminal record. Yet although the odds were stacked against her, she wouldn’t give up. She was absolutely determined to change her life and support her young family.

  She made contact with the Prince’s Trust. This is the charity which gives practical support to young people who are finding life challenging and helps them to rebuild their lives. The Trust approached me and asked me to see if there was any way I could help Gina, as she was so committed to turning things around. We met up, and got on really well from the start.

  Gina had started a flower-arranging business called Blooming Scent. She was creating beautiful floral pieces for events like christenings and wedding receptions. So together we looked at how she could make her new business work. In particular we thought about the way she organized her time and how she could get more business from her regular customers.

  A few months later, I found myself sitting in Buckingham Palace. Prince Charles had organized a black-tie dinner, an event called Invest in Futures, to raise funds for the Trust. I was amazed to be there myself, in such splendid surroundings. But I was even more amazed by Gina.

  Gina stood up in front of everybody at that dinner, an audience which included royalty, cabinet ministers and celebrities. She told them – simply and honestly – how she had succeeded in changing her life. It was an inspiring and very moving speech.

  I felt immensely proud of Gina, and I was happy to have played some small part in getting her there. Of course, the drive to succeed and to change her life had come from within her. I had just guided her energy.

  I also saw something of myself in Gina. I’m often surprised that people who meet me think, for some reason, that I must have had an easy life, that I had things handed to me on a plate. They, in turn, are surprised when they discover that I actually left school, and home, at sixteen.

  I left against the wishes of my parents and I made some difficult choices. I didn’t go to college or university, but started working straight away. During my late teens and early twenties I re-invented myself. I learnt on the job and from being exposed to real life.

  Then I decided to set up my first business, a recruitment company. I did not have much experience but I had plenty of cheek and self-belief.

  A lot of that self-belief was directly connected to the excitement of the first deal I ever made, aged twelve. I remember it clearly. My father used to own a business where he made leather garments. I took one of his new leather jackets and paraded it round the playground at school, making sure the jacket got noticed, and then sold it. I realized that I had made more money from selling one jacket than my father gave me as pocket money for the entire month. The excitement and thrill of doing that deal have never left me.

  As I got older and a little bit wiser, I realized that although I had rejected my parents’ advice – my father wanted me to take over his business and I didn’t want to – my dad had taught me many great things. There’s one piece of advice he gave me that I still believe in completely. If you ask the right questions, the right decisions will make themselves.

  Making big changes in your life is always a daunting prospect. It is much easier to do nothing. Sticking with the life you know is comfortable, even if you are not completely happy with it.

  But if you go ahead and make changes, the feeling of freedom is truly exciting. Suddenly you are in charge of your own destiny. You’re no longer playing a bit part in someone else’s dream.

  This book is full of ideas based on my thirty years of experience as an entrepreneur. They are the things I have learnt from setting up and running successful businesses. Together they make up what I call the entrepreneurial spirit. This is a way of approaching and thinking about the world that makes change really happen.

  By ‘entrepreneurial’ I don’t just mean setting up a business. It could equally be about deciding to change your career, or getting a community project off the ground, or putting a band together. It’s all about taking charge of your own decisions and being able to shape your own future.

  The great thing is there are no boundaries to being an entrepreneur. You can be fourteen, or eighty-four. You can be male or female, married or single. You can work on your own or as part of a team. The entrepreneurial spirit empowers. It can transform every part of life.

  I hope you can apply these ideas to transforming yourself. And that, like Gina, you will have the determination and the confidence to re-invent your life. Use these ideas to add value to everything you do. They will help improve the chances of you achieving your own goals.

  1

  Release Your Potential

  Why do you want to change?

  I am a great believer in what I call the Power of Why. It’s amazing how a change to your state of mind can start to unleash your potential right away. This is all about understanding what is important to you, what is spurring you onwards and upwards. It is finding the part of your personality that will give you the energy and the power to transform your life.

  The Power of Why is something I am always looking for when I think about backing a new business. It was what I tried to uncover whenever I was sitting in the Dragons’ Den. During each presentation I studied the person making the pitch. I always back people, rather than purely ideas, so I want to know what is driving them on.

  I invest in the person leading the business. If I don’t feel their passion, then it doesn’t matter to me how good their financial plan is. I won’t be convinced they will achieve what they are forecasting.

  I want to identify what it is in their make-up that tells me they have the determination to succeed. How will they deal with the problems they are certain to come up against? Will they go that extra mile to make it?

  Everybody has their own reasons for wanting to achieve their goals. Mostly people will say that they are doing it for themselves. However, one of the great motivators is the fact you want to change for other people.

  I know this goes against the grain of usual business advice. You will often be told you should be changing your life for you, and not for other people. However, I think that is too simple a response. Of course we all want to change for ourselves. But the problem is that if it is only for ourselves we want to change, we too easily accept compromises. Our pain threshold is much lower. We will always cut ourselves more slack. But let’s say your mum and your brother have each put some of their own money into your latest venture. Believe me, you will work twice as hard to make sure you don’t let them down.

  It’s like Gina, who wanted to turn her life around after being in prison. She wanted to do that not only to support her young
kids, but also to show her family and friends that she had changed. ‘Now I can look my family in the eye,’ she said, ‘instead of hanging my head in shame.’

  Dig down and find not only what it is in your life but who you want to change for. That is a powerful force. The more factors you can add to make your commitment to your journey stronger, the more likely you are to achieve your goals.

  My dad left his life in Pakistan and travelled over to England without a word of English. He did that because he wanted to provide for me and his other children. Can you imagine what it must have been like for him arriving here? Somehow after arriving in London he made his way to the East End. He relied on nothing but an address on a piece of paper and a lot of pointing and smiling. Again, what determination. He was so driven, so motivated, so committed to being successful in business. That character – his DNA – is part of me.

  The very first investment I ever made on Dragons’ Den was in a person rather than a product. Sammy French came in with her Fit Fur Life treadmill for dogs. It wasn’t the idea of the dog treadmills themselves that convinced me. I knew absolutely nothing about them or their market potential.

  What inspired me was Sammy’s own story. Here was a single mum, living in a council flat, working as a waitress to pay the bills. She was selling her treadmills in the evening because she really wanted to earn more money to give one of her daughters a private education. That was driving her on.

  As well as that sense of motivation, which gives you the desire and the hunger to transform your life, you also need the willingness to start out on this process of change. You have to do that without necessarily knowing where you will end up.

  It is what I try and use when I help other people in their businesses. I hope to come in and give them confidence. I want them to believe in the fact that they can achieve what they want. That is another massive part of giving yourself the right mindset to change your life.

  When I tell people they will be successful, I start the process of them believing in themselves. I may not have done anything practical or specific. Often I have helped them with the why, rather than the how. I might simply have had a conversation with them, but the key thing I have done is to remove the fear of failure that is dragging them back. I want to get rid of the voice in their head saying, ‘You can’t do it, you’re useless, you haven’t got the experience.’

  Everyone knows that fear of failure. The common ingredient shared by every successful entrepreneur I meet is that they have learnt to deal with the threat of failure.

  I was once at a conference with Bill Gates, and he was asked whether he ever doubted he would succeed. He said of course he had. When he started Microsoft, it nearly got stuck at the first hurdle because he couldn’t get a company car for the first salesman he hired. The car leasing firm refused, point blank. They had never heard of Microsoft, the company had no track record, they would never make it. If a friend of Bill’s had not agreed to guarantee the lease, the Microsoft story would have ended there and then. Bill Gates learnt not to be fazed by the fear of failure.

  Top sportsmen and women do the same. When Wayne Rooney finds himself in sight of the goal with the ball at his feet, he is fearless. He will just take the shot. He believes he can score, even if that time he shoots wide. Yet over and over again you see other players miss a tap-in, in front of an open goal. They fumble the shot. Why? They feel the pressure. The adrenalin is pumping and they start worrying about the possibility of missing. Sure enough, they miss. They’ve lost their nerve.

  Great players in any sport have harnessed their fear of failure. They have learnt how to draw on their belief and their confidence, and importantly they are able to do that on the big points.

  I find the same in business. The basic skills are the same. There are people with all the business skills you need who still fail. It is all locked up in that emotional thought, ‘I can’t do it.’ Those who succeed say, ‘Yes. I can do this. And I will.’

  Mindset: the JC approach

  Find out what it is inside you that is going to drive you on to transform your life. Those driving forces are all-powerful. They will encourage you to overcome the natural, human fear of change and fear of failure.

  If you can work out who the people are that you really want to demonstrate your transformed life to, that is a great additional motivation.

  The difference lies not in the basic skills we all have. It is in our minds. It is in the confidence that we can get what we want.

  It is your mindset, not your ability, that shapes how high you will go. In other words, it is your attitude, not your aptitude, that determines your altitude.

  2

  Resolutions

  Setting your targets and priorities

  Every time New Year comes around, the same thing happens. We sit down and decide to turn over a new leaf. Then we draw up a list of all the resolutions we intend to keep for the next twelve months.

  It’s nearly always the same list, isn’t it? We’re definitely going to lose weight and join the local gym so we can feel fitter. We will eat healthier food, give up smoking, drink less. We are going to look for a new job because the one we’re in seems boring and predictable.

  And what happens? We end up with lists of what are unrealistic aims. They are targets that look great on paper, but after a couple of weeks they sound far too difficult. The list of resolutions goes in the waste-paper bin. Never mind, leave it for another year. It’s not a very motivating activity.

  If you really want to change your life, thinking about your plans and ambitions once a year on 1 January is not enough. I firmly believe that planning what you want to achieve should be a year-round activity.

  Life is fluid, events happen, contexts change. So my brain is always ticking over, reflecting and analysing the things that are happening in my life, both at work and outside. Each day I am asking myself questions, testing myself. How can I improve what I am doing? How can I change things for the better?

  Asking questions and working out what needs changing is great. But then you have to move from thinking about things to actually doing them. To start moving forwards and get some traction, it is important to set targets. Otherwise you go through life like a pinball, being bounced around by other people telling you what to do.

  Unlike those New Year’s resolutions it is important to set targets that are achievable. So many people set goals but never achieve them. They choose hopes and aspirations that remain just that: hopeful and aspirational. In other words, don’t aim for the stars straight away. Otherwise you might just end up clutching at thin air.

  To me goals and targets first have to be attainable. As well as aiming for large targets, you should build in milestones along the way. Break down the big goal into bite-sized chunks that you can see, touch, smell, feel. These smaller steps make it far more likely that you will reach the end of the journey. They allow you to look ahead, see a clear path, and enjoy some success really quite quickly.

  Each step has to be something you can achieve quite easily. If you set the next milestone too far down the road, your motivation quickly weakens because you know you can’t get there in the immediate future.

  When I started out in my first business I had no idea where it might lead me. Of course I wanted to be successful at what I was doing, but I didn’t have some master plan. I hadn’t seen myself ending up running a private equity business and appearing on TV. My first milestone was really quite simple. When I set up my recruitment business I had an office which had no windows. It was little more than a broom cupboard, with a desk, a chair and a phone. I felt like I was working in a cell; it was really bad for my morale.

  So the only thing I was obsessed with was making enough money to rent an office with a window. I plugged away, started finding a few clients and landing some deals, and I made enough money to move to an office with a window. As soon as I got that office I set myself another small goal: to hire somebody else to work with me. It was lonely being a one-man band. Cooped up
in an office every day with only myself for company was driving me mad. I wanted to work with someone so I could enjoy sharing the successes with them.

  I still didn’t have a private meeting room for interviews and client meetings, though. I was having to use hotel lobbies and coffee shops. So that was my next target. Then I aimed for sales of £10,000 a month. When I got there, I wondered if we could do £20,000 a month. Even twenty-five years later I can tell you every single step of the way.

  At each stage I thought of something I could achieve that would drive me on. I fixed on something that was measurable and would make my life better.

  It’s like when a friend suggests you might want to join them to run a marathon for charity. Let’s say the charity is one you are really keen to support. However, it won’t work if they try to convince you by saying, ‘Come on, do you want to run twenty-six and a bit miles next April?’ If it was me, I know I would not say yes. I would be out straight away, because the distance sounds just too far, too big a target, too unachievable. I am not even going to bother.

  But if the same friend comes to me and says, ‘James, I’m doing some running to get fit. Do you fancy coming with me to jog for a couple of miles round the park?’ I’m OK with that. Then a week later he comes back and says, ‘How about another run? This time let’s just take it easy and go over to the West End and back?’ Great. It all sounds do-able.

  All I need is a few milestones to help me along the journey. We build up the amount of running, almost without knowing it, to taking part in a ten-kilometre run at some point. Before I know it we are feeling quite good about moving up another gear. Now, when I think about the possibility of doing a marathon, those twenty-six-plus miles don’t seem like that big a stretch.

  Here’s another example. I have always loved cars. I always wanted to drive a Rolls-Royce Phantom, which was probably the most expensive car I could have imagined. When I started out, though, my target wasn’t to own a Phantom. My target was to have a Chopper bike, which was the dream mode of transport for any kid growing up in the early 70s.