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My 14 years’ experience of growing a business from £0-£100m as well as the life that goes with it.

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Simon Says

Winformation This Week...

This time of year always reminds me of one of the biggest shocks of my life. James and I had given ourselves six months to save the capital we needed before leaving our old employer “in the summer next year”. Two weeks into that perfect little plan, I walked out of the cinema on a day off and my phone lit up. “James has quit, do you know anything about this.”

I knew one thing. We were screwed. He had taken the leap early. Very early. We didn’t have the savings. We didn’t have the plan. But looking back, that moment was a gift. It forced movement long before we felt ready, and that single jolt shaped everything that came after. In today’s One Idea to Win in Business, I explain why movement creates the clarity you think you’re missing.

Now I’ve recently started charging my phone outside the bedroom at night. It helps me wind down, but it also means that when the alarm goes off, I have to jog twelve yards to turn it off. By then I’m up, and the odds of getting my chubby body to the gym before work rise by about thirty percent. Win, win.

But when it comes to shutting down properly in the evening, another little trick has helped even more. In today’s One Idea to Win in Life I share a really simple shut down method which should help you finally get a decent night’s sleep.

One Idea to Win in Business

Something to Finally Get You Started or Scaled

Try The Reverse Start Exercise: Why “Not Knowing Where to Start” Is Actually Your First Advantage

People massively overestimate how much clarity is needed at the beginning of a business. They picture successful founders mapping out perfect plans in a neat notebook, knowing exactly what comes next. That image has nothing to do with real life.

When we started Carrington West, we sat in a cold garage with two slow laptops, two personal phones and fingerless gloves to stop our hands freezing while we made calls. We had no plan, no brand, no name and no roadmap. The only thing we had was pressure. And pressure pushed us into action long before a perfect plan ever existed.

Not knowing where to start often feels like failure. It is actually the moment you are most equal to everyone else who has ever built anything worthwhile. Confusion is the natural starting point. The act of moving through it is what creates clarity. Sitting still only thickens the fog.

When James and I left our old company, we were meant to have six months to prepare. A neat transition. A gradual exit. Instead, 2 weeks (and an end of year review that James didn’t want to prepare for ha!) we were out and on the journey, months too early! At the time it felt like panic. Looking back, it was an incredible advantage. It forced us to start. And guess what. That is all you need at the beginning. A start. Any start.

Movement creates clarity. Thinking about movement creates stress.

The trick is simple. You do not start at the beginning. You start at the end and work back. That is how you turn chaos into direction. That is how you replace confusion with a path. Here is a twenty minute exercise that will give you the clarity you think you are missing.

The Reserve Start Exercise

Take a blank sheet of paper and answer these in order. Do not overthink them.

1. Where do you want the business to be in five years. Write it in the present tense as if it already exists.

2. What would need to be true in twelve months for you to be one fifth of the way there.

3. What would need to be true in the next ninety days to make the twelve month picture possible.

4. What three actions could you take this week to move toward the ninety day picture.

You have just given yourself a starting point built from the destination backwards. Suddenly you are not stuck at the beginning anymore because the beginning was never the problem. Lack of movement was.

The confusion you feel is completely normal. It does not mean you are off track. It means you are on the exact track every real entrepreneur begins on.

Take the next step. Even if it is messy. Clarity always shows up for the people willing to move.

If you are comfortable… and you can be bothered to do this exercise and are comfortable in sharing it. I’d love to see what you’ve written. I’ve got something coming up in the next couple of weeks where I’m keen to Zoom call one or two of you legends and help map out your 2026. Send me the above and steal a march on getting selected for free! Hit reply and send me your 1-4 above. I read and respond to every one!

One Idea to Win in Life

Something Simple to Help You Shut Down

Still Thinking About Work at 2am? Here’s the System That Stops It Cold

Entrepreneurs are brilliant at working. Switching off is the part we are terrible at. You finish the day, get into bed and the same thoughts keep looping. Tomorrow’s tasks. Something you forgot. A message you still need to send. Your mind keeps running because it thinks the day is unfinished.

The answer is simple. You need a parking bay. A place where every loose thought is stored so your brain knows it can stop working.

Before bed, sit with a notebook for five minutes and run a shutdown sequence. Write everything you are worried about. Write every task that still feels open. Write anything that might ping into your mind at two in the morning. It does not need to be tidy. It just needs to be out of your head.

Once the list is down, finish with one sentence. Today is closed. Say it out loud if you need to.

You are teaching your mind that the work has a clear end point. Without an end point your brain tries to solve problems all night. With one it finally lets go.

A calm mind at night is not about having less to do. It is about having somewhere for those thoughts to go. Put them in the parking bay, close the day and give yourself the quiet you need to hit tomorrow hard.

It’s Christmas, make it a nice notebook that will sit next to you all year…let the hints to your partner begin.

Win or Wonder?

Ask Me a Question…

No matter where you are on this mad journey. Starting out, scaling up, or somewhere in the messy middle feel free to ask me anything.

Business, life or mindset, I read and reply to every question. The best ones will get featured in future editions of Winformation, with your permission of course!

To ask, just hit “reply”, type your question and send. That’s it. No forms. No fuss.

Until next week! 

Let’s win, together!