I would have taken more risks when I was younger and I would have thought bigger too
I started a lighting company in my mid 20’s and by 30 I had some of the biggest bands in the world as my clients.
If I had taken on more and better staff and expanded our design skills into other areas, I could have been a major player in that arena, but then I might still be stuck in that today.
As it happens I jumped around. Extreme sports was just starting on TV and I could have developed in that area too.
I lived in Chamonix in the French Alps as a climber and ski bum in my 40’s, and that could have been my destiny (I am happy it wasn’t!) After a stint developing indoor climbing walls I was lucky that none of it had worked out, because YO! Sushi appeared.
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Maybe by then I’d finally learned to think big. That’s what I did for the first YO! In Poland Street in Soho with the world’s longest conveyor belt sushi bar and robots – yes robots! – and all the razzamatazz got us off the ground.
It was not easy, scary sometimes, but I was in it and I was bold and it took two years to get off the ground, living on a pittance and working all the time. Halcyon days with all that hope mostly, and I am in awe of that younger me. Not quite sure how I did it.
Hindsight is good, foresight is better; but second sight is best of all
Evan Esar
Daring beyond your comfort zone and living within your means may sound like uncomfortable bedfellows but they are my go-to. It’s often easier to borrow more money than less, so much of history is about the brave and the bold who have the vision and can see the future.
Beg, borrow or steal to be in it, as early in your life as you can dare, only then do you offer yourself a chance, and at a lot better odds than the lottery.