A year in review and lessons learnt

What a year it’s been. 

It was only a year ago we, myself and Dave Christophi, set up Your Guardian and it feels like a lifetime.

Global pandemic aside we knew setting up and going alone was going to be tough.  We have made changes and taken steps forwards, backwards and sideways.  There have been a few tears and tantrums, some sleepless nights and some critical and difficult conversations had along the way. 

We are still here and massively enjoying the ride.  We have worked with, and continue to work with, some simply brilliant businesspeople and each day provides us with new challenges.  Every time we speak to prospective and existing clients we are blown away by their desire for success, resilience, and hard work.   

Thank you to all those that have supported our journey and we look forward to more successful years ahead.

We wanted to jot down some of the lessons we have learnt over the last year.

Be clear on why you do what you do.

We took a long time getting this right, at the start we had an idea and then it morphed into something else, it bled across everything we did and made our focus, foggy.  We then went all the way back to the why we do what we do.  From this point other things fell into place.  We need to constantly remind ourselves of why we do what we do, this has always guided us when we consider our future plans.

Take on all feedback.

Entrepreneurs (I still don’t class myself as an entrepreneur) have a belief in what they do, it is a tremendous blessing but can also be a curse.  We pick our side and defend it. But, sometimes we might be wrong.  We had some really harsh criticism of some of our messaging that really upset me personally.  However, with a deep breath and a different lens the feedback was completely correct.  We have taken this and other negative feedback on board and used it positively.  No-one has the monopoly on the good ideas, listen to all feedback.

Nothing is ever finished.

If you are looking for the final version of anything you won’t find it. You know what you know now and in some cases that will have to do.  I look back on some of the first documents we created and want the world to swallow me up with embarrassment, however they were what they were at the time, the ladies at ActiveIQ did well not to laugh us out of the building!  At that moment they were fit for purpose.  Is what we have out there at the moment perfect? No. Do we strive for perfection? Yes.  Balance is the key, if you sit on version 1 for too long you miss the bus, if you get it out too quickly then you might do more harm than good.

Trade in the commodity that is Honesty.

Seems like an obvious one, but open and honest and business don’t always go hand in hand.  It is an unnervingly dark place when you feel like there is a subplot to certain situations, worst still when you find out there has been one! Throughout every step of our journey, we have been honest with ourselves, within the team and with our clients.  Not always easy, or fun, however, wholly, wholly necessary.  I’m not talking about ‘bull in a china shop, say whatever you want, however you want and screw what people think of you’, more so open and honest feedback and being able to look internally to how we receive feedback.

A quote from Pete Banbury from The BodyMapper in one of our very early meetings

‘If we trade in anything, let us ensure that we trade in the commodity of honesty’