It's My Birthday! And It's A Time To Reflect

It’s my birthday today ... well, not really, it’s just that this is my 53rd blog post and in 2022, I was 53 years old. But there are also two milestones this year as well ...

I have written as many blog posts as I the number of years that I have been on this planet and feel that this is a personal achievement in many ways. However, there are too many things still to do.

We have, over the past 53 years of my time, seen many individuals who have been graced with the fortune of becoming very successful by being at the right place at the right time.

Examples are:

- Stanley Kalms (Dixons)
- Lord Alan Sugar (Amstrad)
- Michael Dell (Dell Computers)
- John Caudwell (Phones 4U)
- Neil McArthur (Opal Telecom)
- Sir Charles Dunstone (Carphone Warehouse)
- Peter Norton (Norton Software)
- Bill Gates (Microsoft)

And in more recent times:

- Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook/Meta)
- Jeff Bezos (Amazon)
- Elon Musk (Tesla/SpaceX)

All these people became not just Millionaires, but Billionaires and amongst the world's one percent of the population who hold almost half of the global wealth ... currently around 45.8%.

So, back to my list and the common denominator of all of the above: One thing, and that is technology. You didn't think that this was just a random list, did you?

Looking at a couple of specific examples, Neil McArthur founded Opal Telecom which was purchased by Sir Charles Dunstone who created Carphone Warehouse, which went on to be TalkTalk which was bought by Dixons!

Jeff Bezos went from selling books online with next-day delivery) to buying yachts and building sub-orbital rockets to compete with Elon Musk who first built then sold Paypal to fund Tesla and SpaceX (who have gone past sub-orbital now).

I once met Baron Kalms when he was just Sir Stanley. He came to visit the Dixons store in Oxford I was working at. It was back in November 1990 when I first started working there as a Salesperson. I always wanted to sell technology and from selling TVs, Video Recorders, 35mm SLR film cameras and Hi-Fi systems.

I was also fortunate to have been selected to go to Amstrad when they ventured into making the first affordable PCs, which were in line with the budget TVs, Videos and Hi-Fi systems that Alan Sugar had started to have made in China at the time. The significance of that day was I learned all about the new Intel 286 chipset that was to power the new product!!

"Did you see that? I made a connection! Just like in technology and in life!"

My passion for Technology has been the foundation of over £20m in sales since the early 1990s and as a fully trained and accredited BT Engineer, I have installed and repaired thousands of phone lines and have seen the early installations of the very first broadband services in the UK back in 1999/2000.

I may not be in the one percent club, but I have certainly played my part in the success of others. One thing is for sure, I have had a great career and happy life and therefore, never felt like I was working too hard.

I love being a technology problem solver!

If you feel inspired to find out more then do call me on 07555 807700 or leave a comment below and I'll be in touch as soon as I can.