At the outset of your entrepreneurial career, risk is everything

The more risks you take the more chances you have.

Take more risks and if they go wrong you have time to start over, you have less to lose, and you build your self-belief and skills.

Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.

Napoleon Hill

I try to balance risk by imagining the future and what could go severely wrong. Then I only take the risks that would ultimately not completely wipe me out. Patience helps – it doesn’t come naturally to us entrepreneurs but it’s a sweet lesson when you practise.

My rule number three is “Everything always works out, always,” and the proviso to that is to be willing to wait.

  • Take Away

    Biding my time

  • I’ve had two boats sink. One on the River Thames coming back from a service with an incompetent driver, and the other in a hurricane.

  • In both cases the insurance companies sought to avoid paying, but by biding my time and not settling, I had a full payout in both cases eventually.

  • I’ve been around for two CEOs and three venture capital owners of YO! Sushi and it is still going 25 years later with 75 restaurants.

  • With YOTEL I endured a fall-out with the then-CEO and never protested too much, and today we are friends again.