For many years, I genuinely believed that success was the answer.
Not because I was chasing money or status for their own sake, but because, somewhere along the way, I’d come to believe that achieving more, working harder and constantly moving forwards would finally make me feel enough. Success became tied to my identity, if I was succeeding, I felt I had value, if I wasn’t, I questioned my worth. Looking back, I can now see that I wasn’t really chasing achievement. I was chasing something much deeper without even realising it.
That belief shaped almost everything I did.
I worked long hours, placed enormous pressure on myself and convinced myself that if most people worked eight hours a day, then working sixteen somehow meant I was moving twice as fast. I rarely stopped, I always believed there was another goal to reach, another challenge to overcome, another level to achieve. No matter what I accomplished, it never quite felt enough because the finish line always seemed to move a little further away.
At the time, I thought that was ambition.
Today, I see it differently.
The recession changed everything.
Much of what I had built, and much of the identity I had built around it, disappeared almost overnight. For the first time in my life, I found myself standing still with no clear idea of who I was anymore. I’d spent so many years measuring myself by what I did, that when all of that disappeared, I genuinely didn’t know what was left. I didn’t just feel as though my business had failed, I felt like I had failed. Everything I’d believed about myself disappeared with it, because in my mind, achievement and self-worth had become the same thing.
That was one of the hardest periods of my life.
I can still remember feeling completely lost, questioning everything I’d believed about myself and wondering how I had gone from feeling successful to feeling like I had nothing left. At the time, I couldn’t see beyond what I had lost, everything I’d worked so hard to build had gone and with it went the identity I’d spent years creating. I genuinely believed life had fallen apart, although I can now see that something very different was happening.
Life had pressed pause.
At the time, it felt like the worst thing that could have happened to me. Looking back, I now see it as one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever been given, because for the first time in my life, I was forced to stop. I couldn’t keep chasing the next goal because there wasn’t one, I couldn’t hide behind work because the work had gone. For the first time, I had no choice but to sit with myself and begin asking questions I’d never slowed down long enough to ask before.
Moving abroad soon afterwards became another turning point.
I rebuilt another business, but something much more important happened before that. For around six months, I didn’t have to wake up before dawn, rush to work, solve problems all day, or carry the responsibilities that had dominated so much of my life. It was the first time I can ever remember simply having the space to breathe. It felt as though I’d finally taken the blinkers off. For years, I’d been so focused on getting somewhere that I’d forgotten to notice where I already was.
That period changed me more than I realised at the time.
For the first time, I wasn’t constantly doing, I was simply being. I’d spent so much of my life measuring myself by what I achieved that I’d never really learned how to simply enjoy where I was. Slowing down gave me something I’d never experienced before, the space to think, reflect and gradually discover who I was, without constantly trying to become somebody else.
Instead of measuring my life by productivity, I began noticing things I’d previously overlooked. Time with my family, different cultures, different ways of living, and different definitions of success. I started to realise that fulfilment wasn’t waiting at the next achievement. It could also be found in balance, presence, meaningful relationships, and appreciating life as it was happening rather than constantly chasing what came next.
Once I’d experienced life that way, I knew I could never go back.
From that moment on, something inside me had changed.
I still enjoyed building projects, setting goals and working hard, but they no longer defined who I was. Success became something I enjoyed rather than something I depended on. For the first time in my life, I realised there was a huge difference between achieving success and believing your worth depended on it. That single shift changed the direction of my life far more than I realised at the time.
I eventually built another business, but I built it very differently.
In the past, my greed, ambition and intent to succeed had controlled my life. This time, I wanted my personal life to shape my work life. I wanted balance as much as ambition, freedom alongside responsibility, and time with my family to matter just as much as financial success. I still worked hard and I still enjoyed the challenge of building something meaningful, but I no longer believed success had to come at the expense of everything else. That was a lesson it had taken me 30 years to learn.
As I continued understanding myself, I found my curiosity growing in a completely different direction.
For years, I’d spent so much time trying to prove myself that I’d rarely stopped to ask why I thought the way I did or where many of those beliefs had come from. Once I started asking those questions, I realised how many of the rules I’d been living by were never really mine. Some had grown out of childhood, others through life experiences, and many through expectations I’d accepted without ever questioning whether they were true or whether they were helping me become the person I wanted to be.
I immersed myself in mindfulness, reflection, personal development and understanding myself on a much deeper level. The more I learned, the more I realised that many of the answers I’d spent years searching for externally had been waiting internally all along. I wasn’t becoming somebody different, I was gradually uncovering parts of myself that had been hidden beneath years of pressure, responsibility and the constant need to achieve. As that understanding deepened, I became fascinated by the connection between accomplishments, our beliefs and the way we experience life. Looking back, I can now see that life had been quietly preparing me for the work I do today long before I ever stepped into a classroom.
One thing I know with complete certainty is that I would never choose to go back to the person I was before those experiences.
I still enjoy working hard, I still enjoy building things, challenging myself and striving to become better than I was yesterday. The difference is that those things no longer define me, they are part of my life, but they are no longer my identity. I measure success very differently today. Time with my family, meaningful relationships, peace of mind, personal growth and living in a way that feels true to who I am matter far more to me than they ever once did.
If the recession had never happened, I honestly don’t believe I would have found myself.
At the time, it felt like everything I had worked so hard for had been taken away. What I couldn’t see then was that life wasn’t taking something from me, it was giving something back. Losing the life, I thought I wanted gave me the opportunity to discover the life that was actually right for me, and for that, I’ll always be grateful.