Looking back…
I still find it quite surreal that I am writing this article as a business owner. Although my dad has run his own business from the age of 19, it was never part of my plan to do the same.
My ultimate goal in life was to play professional rugby for my boyhood club, which I was beyond privileged to have been able to do…after that…who knows!
To be completely honest, through blissful ignorance, starting a business kind of just happened, but it has been (so far) one of the most challenging, rewarding and exciting things I have done.
100 & First is just shy of being 2.5 years old and the 100 & First Foundation is 18 months, and now seems as good a time as ever to reflect on my former life as a professional rugby player and my current life as a business owner and the stark similarities between them. I won’t list them all, but here are a few:
1. Knowing yourself
As a rugby player I probably learnt this too late in my career, but the clarity it gave me when I did was unparalleled. The last few years of my former life, I prided myself on knowing what I was good at (which turns out wasn’t a huge amount) and what I wasn’t. What I needed to make the team better, and what the team needed from me to allow them to flourish.
I feel that this clarity has been vital in allowing us to do what we do at 100 & First. Within the wider consulting world we tackle a minute portion of it, but what we do do, (we believe) we do incredibly well. For all the rest of it, we have partners that cater for those needs much better than we can, so rather let them look after that, to allow us to do us. This level of knowing who we are and what we do has meant that we have been able to create bespoke and specific offerings and make sure that we maximise the impact for our clients.
2. Treat people unbelievably well, and they will work unbelievably hard
This is actually a direct phrase that we used all the time in my playing career, and, in different language, is something you see thrown around on LinkedIn on a daily basis, and to an extent is common sense, but bringing it to life is a different kettle of fish!
I was lucky enough to experience first hand at Saracens how powerful this philosophy is and how much of a driver it can be for performance. It is something we talk to clients about, but most importantly try our best to live and breathe ourselves…BUT it’s not about money, or dinners etc, it’s trying to understand about peoples upbringing, their family life, why they are in the job in the first place, what they got up to at the weekend…because the truth of it is, is that these are the things that make the person who they are, and only when you know and understand these things, can you treat people unbelievably well.
In doing so you create connection to the organisation they work for, the people they work with and a sense of belonging. They care about how their actions impact the business and so work unbelievably hard to better themselves and in turn the organisation.
3. We are disciples of Serendipity
As a professional rugby player, we spent every week in training running ‘maps’ and analysing the opposition so that in a game we can manufacture opportunities for us to score points and ultimately win the game. We were essentially trying to ‘create our own luck’ and good scenarios that would then massively increase our chances of getting a good result…which is exactly our mantra at 100 & First.
I’m not a spiritual person by any means, but as a business, we fundamentally believe in serendipity and if we keep putting ourselves in ‘good situations’ we increase the chance of good things happening.
This is only scratching the surface, but hopefully, it has been at least an interesting read and in true serendipitous fashion, if you would like to find out more about what we do please give us a shout!
Will