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.Looking back, I suspect Christopher shouldered a great deal of theblame that belonged to others.But that is what MDs and presidents andCEOs are paid for.If it happens on their watch, then they must bear theresponsibility.To his credit, Christopher did just that, although I suspect heaged a year during the crisis.Desperately we attempted to back out of the Chadwickham House deal.No dice.There was no escape clause.I flew back to London and underwrotea loan at a very nasty rate of interest.That was foolish.By this stage in mylife I should not have been personally underwriting business loans. Lesson No.4: Never personally underwrite business loans for yourcompany unless you absolutely, positively, are forced to.Even then, setlimitsin the agreement so that, as the loan figure is reduced over time, you arereleased from your undertakings commensurately.Dennis Publishing moved into its fancy new headquarters.We were happywith them, but remained as poor as church mice for a few months.Christopher was offered a new job by a rival publisher based in America.Hetook it and still resides today on the west coast of America; very happily, Imight add.I appointed a new MD and a new finance director.Life movedon.A while later, my partners and I made a killing in America and I foundmyself awash with cash.Tens of millions of pounds of cash.Naturally I setabout spending it just as fast as was humanly possible, which, in my case,must have set some kind of world record.New cars, new houses, new women and new wine cellars.But I'm not acomplete fool and my new finance director, Ian Leggett, proved to be a gem.He forced me to invest in a few sensible things apart from the company itself,One of them was Chadwickham House.I bought the property from the land-lords for a song and sold it six or seven years later, when we moved to anevenlarger office block.The profit was handsome.Very handsome indeed.Lesson No.5: Listen to people who are good with money and alwaysinvest in property with a good address - providing you can pay cash for itand will not need to sell it for a few years.So where did the negative, disguised luck come in? It came in the shapeof the black hole in the 1990 company figures.Think about it.If we had known the truth, I would never have entered into a lease for afancy new building.I would then not have been in a position, as a tenant, topurchase it from the landlords.After all, I'm not in the property business.Furthermore, we would not have been in a position to squeeze a sensationalprice from the property developer who subsequently bought it from me.(Hewas forced to pay above the odds because Ian discovered that ChaduickhamHouse was slap bang in the middle of a city block the developer had beenacquiring site by site.)It wasn't a clever business brain that made me all that money.It wasdumb luck.But I was ready to seize the opportunity that disguised luckhad delivered. One of my favourite philosophers, the first-century Roman Seneca,coined the following: 'Luck is what happens when preparation meetsopportunity.' I have never come across a better definition - that's why I'mrepeating it.Preparation multiplied by opportunity.Say it again.Learn it offby heart.Let it become a daily mantra.Luck is preparation multiplied byopportunity.Over the centuries this has morphed into cracker-barrel soundbites, as inthe golfer Gary Player's: 'It's a funny thing, luck.The harder I practised, theluckier I got.' But the original is far more profound and Seneca's quote isworth a moment of our time.Preparation is the key.Be prepared.Do theheavy lifting and the homework in advance.Get on with the job, but remainalert enough to spot an opportunity when it arrives.Then hammer it.If you haven't prepared yourself, the opportunity will go begging.It willbe yet another regret in your life, another 'if only.' And even if you haveprepared, but are too busy, probably buried in the minutiae of management,or a messy divorce, or moving house, or a hundred and one other things,thenluck will again evade you.Months or years later you will be saying, 'If only Ihad spotted that opportunity.I was ready for it, but I wasn't paying attention.''If only.' are the two saddest words in the English language [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Looking back, I suspect Christopher shouldered a great deal of theblame that belonged to others.But that is what MDs and presidents andCEOs are paid for.If it happens on their watch, then they must bear theresponsibility.To his credit, Christopher did just that, although I suspect heaged a year during the crisis.Desperately we attempted to back out of the Chadwickham House deal.No dice.There was no escape clause.I flew back to London and underwrotea loan at a very nasty rate of interest.That was foolish.By this stage in mylife I should not have been personally underwriting business loans. Lesson No.4: Never personally underwrite business loans for yourcompany unless you absolutely, positively, are forced to.Even then, setlimitsin the agreement so that, as the loan figure is reduced over time, you arereleased from your undertakings commensurately.Dennis Publishing moved into its fancy new headquarters.We were happywith them, but remained as poor as church mice for a few months.Christopher was offered a new job by a rival publisher based in America.Hetook it and still resides today on the west coast of America; very happily, Imight add.I appointed a new MD and a new finance director.Life movedon.A while later, my partners and I made a killing in America and I foundmyself awash with cash.Tens of millions of pounds of cash.Naturally I setabout spending it just as fast as was humanly possible, which, in my case,must have set some kind of world record.New cars, new houses, new women and new wine cellars.But I'm not acomplete fool and my new finance director, Ian Leggett, proved to be a gem.He forced me to invest in a few sensible things apart from the company itself,One of them was Chadwickham House.I bought the property from the land-lords for a song and sold it six or seven years later, when we moved to anevenlarger office block.The profit was handsome.Very handsome indeed.Lesson No.5: Listen to people who are good with money and alwaysinvest in property with a good address - providing you can pay cash for itand will not need to sell it for a few years.So where did the negative, disguised luck come in? It came in the shapeof the black hole in the 1990 company figures.Think about it.If we had known the truth, I would never have entered into a lease for afancy new building.I would then not have been in a position, as a tenant, topurchase it from the landlords.After all, I'm not in the property business.Furthermore, we would not have been in a position to squeeze a sensationalprice from the property developer who subsequently bought it from me.(Hewas forced to pay above the odds because Ian discovered that ChaduickhamHouse was slap bang in the middle of a city block the developer had beenacquiring site by site.)It wasn't a clever business brain that made me all that money.It wasdumb luck.But I was ready to seize the opportunity that disguised luckhad delivered. One of my favourite philosophers, the first-century Roman Seneca,coined the following: 'Luck is what happens when preparation meetsopportunity.' I have never come across a better definition - that's why I'mrepeating it.Preparation multiplied by opportunity.Say it again.Learn it offby heart.Let it become a daily mantra.Luck is preparation multiplied byopportunity.Over the centuries this has morphed into cracker-barrel soundbites, as inthe golfer Gary Player's: 'It's a funny thing, luck.The harder I practised, theluckier I got.' But the original is far more profound and Seneca's quote isworth a moment of our time.Preparation is the key.Be prepared.Do theheavy lifting and the homework in advance.Get on with the job, but remainalert enough to spot an opportunity when it arrives.Then hammer it.If you haven't prepared yourself, the opportunity will go begging.It willbe yet another regret in your life, another 'if only.' And even if you haveprepared, but are too busy, probably buried in the minutiae of management,or a messy divorce, or moving house, or a hundred and one other things,thenluck will again evade you.Months or years later you will be saying, 'If only Ihad spotted that opportunity.I was ready for it, but I wasn't paying attention.''If only.' are the two saddest words in the English language [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]