One idea to Build your Business, one idea to Scale your life. Every Wednesday.

Welcome to Winformation Weekly. My 13 years’ experience of growing a business from £0-£100m, and the life that goes with it. All wrapped up, in one winning weekly email.

Simon Says

Winformation This Week…

The first "working Wednesday" of the year is here, and I hope you’ve had a great start to 2025. At Carrington West, the company I co-founded, we put a huge emphasis on self-development. Twice a year, we shut the entire company down for half a day and bring in a world-class speaker to address the team. One of the most impactful sessions we’ve had was with Brad Waldron, who spoke about the "Big Rocks First" principle from Stephen Covey’s book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It’s a simple yet brilliant method to ensure you focus on your priorities, whatever they may be. For me, this year’s priorities are health, family, and business. Since it’s January, I thought it would be the perfect time to discuss this incredibly valuable concept in today’s Life Section. I’ve also included a YouTube link to further explain it.

A couple of years ago, I had a chance encounter with one of Britain’s wealthiest individuals, John Caudwell, which taught me two invaluable lessons. I share these insights in today’s Business Section.

Business

What One of Britain’s Richest People Taught Me

A couple of years ago, my wife and I were off to Mallorca with our two toddlers for a sunny getaway. As we waited to board at Gatwick, I spotted one of my favourite and most eccentric entrepreneurs sitting right in front of me, John Caudwell, one of Britain’s wealthiest people. I’d followed his journey closely, drawing inspiration from his success when I was starting out. He’s a billionaire and the owner of the UK’s most expensive house (if you’ve seen the documentary). But here’s the twist - we were boarding an EasyJet flight! What was he doing on a budget airline?

Naturally, I took the opportunity to grab the seat next to him at the gate. I struck up a conversation, sharing how much I admired his work and telling him about the business I co-founded. He seemed genuinely interested. John was travelling with his young son, who was about the same age as ours.

In that brief 15-minute chat, he taught me two massive lessons...

Lesson 1: What Real Success Looks Like

I couldn’t resist asking him why he was flying EasyJet. He told me that he often does and that his team always look for the best deals. After selling Phones4U, he went on to launch the charity Caudwell Children. Although he’s flown private before, he said 95% of the time he chooses low-cost flights because, as he put it, he couldn’t justify spending money on private travel when he’s so involved in charity work. There was then the environmental impact. The EasyJet is flying with or without him, the private flight is an extra tin can in the sky.

I posted about this encounter on social media last year, and it got 200k views. The comments were eye-opening and showed me how the public perceives successful people. Almost no one believed the story. But if you Google John, he regularly talks about flying with budget airlines. Real success isn't always acting on what you CAN do, but deciding to do what you SHOULD.

Lesson 2: React Only to What You Can Control

It was the day that the French Air Traffic Control had decided to strike, and travelling through their airspace on the way to Spain was going to be extremely delayed. Our conversation had come to a natural end, interrupted by his young son clambering over him and my son doing the same to me. After being sat waiting to board for an hour, the voice on the tannoy explained we were about to finally get on the plane, great news. Everyone cheered. But...we needed to be sat on the plane, strapped in ready and to take off. The pilot would then seek a takeoff time to fly over France. This could mean we were sat on the runway for 6 more hours. People went crazy, me included. How could we manage this with two toddlers already climbing the walls. People complaining, people shouting, and some even in tears. John? John didn't look up from his book. He didn't flinch. He looked at me and smiled before returning to his book.

Although the second lesson was non-verbal, it taught me everything about the man and the billionaire mindset. React only to what you control. You read about this stuff all the time. But when you see it unfold in real time in front of you it really is inspirational.

Life

Using Stephen Covey’s Big Rocks First Method to Manage Your Time & Increase Your Happiness!

Last year, we had the privilege of hosting world-class speaker Brad Waldron, who delivered a powerful session on prioritising your time. His talk centred around Stephen Covey’s Big Rocks First time management tool. After incorporating this method into my weekly and monthly planning over the past year, I’ve decided to kick off 2025 with even more intention by applying it to my entire year.

What I’ve discovered is that it’s more than just a time management technique, it’s a genuine “happiness tool.” It helps me focus on what truly matters, bringing more balance and fulfilment to my life.

The concept involves visualising your time as a large glass jar. The big rocks represent your most important priorities, the smaller rocks are secondary tasks, and the sand is the admin work or other people’s demands. If you fill the jar with sand and smaller rocks first, there’s no room for the big rocks. But by placing the big rocks in first, everything else can fit around them.

This method is all about intentional scheduling and time-blocking your calendar for the big rocks first. For me, this year, that means prioritising my health and spending quality time with my young family. Once those priorities are set, the smaller rocks and sand can fill the remaining space. And if there’s any sand left over that doesn’t fit, well, it simply doesn’t make the cut. 

This approach ensures you focus on what truly matters to you, allowing everything else to fit in around it. It’s a simple yet incredibly effective way to manage your time and priorities. Don’t forget you can’t ever manage time, you can only ever manage yourself.  

Further details on this are here.

Until next week! 

Let’s win, together!