Printism - 1 Year Old Today

Exactly a year ago today and almost to the hour as I write this, Printism was born.

For about six weeks before, I had been going along to a networking group called Monday Morning Success Club. MMSC was run by a guy called John from Manchester. He was a bit of a mad man and he had built an amazing energy around the group and every week the last hour was "The Hot Seat" where one of the group would sit in front of everyone, tell their background and how they had arrived at this point in their career/life and what they would like from the future. The group would then feedback their thoughts and advice for the person in the hotseat to take away.

There was a real broad range of people in the room every week and a mix of ages. There were people in employment, self employed and people doing both. They were a cracking bunch and I'm lucky to still count some of them as friends today.

I had seen some amazing feedback given to people in the hot seat so I volunteered to take part, Little did I know what was about to happen.

I was in employment at the time and had a great job. The money was good, I had a nice car and was free to develop the role as much as I could. My intention when sitting in the hot seat was to ask advice from the group on how I could do that. It didn't quite pan out like that though.

I gave my two minute talk on my career and how I had ended up where I was at that point and what I wanted for the future. Apparently though what I was saying and what I was showing to the group were two different things. It became obvious that I wasn't happy doing what I was doing and the whole hot seat experience took a massive turn in a diffrerent direction.

Before I started in the job I was in I had been self employed for just under a year. It had been a struggle and hadn't gone particularly well so when an offer of a job came along I had jumped at the chance. However it seemed I had the bug for being my own boss even although it hadn't worked first time round.

I was in a bit of a state of shock after the hot seat but the feedback and support I got from the group that day brought me to a decision and by the end of the day I had made my mind up to go it alone again and give Printism another shot. It was a life changing experience. Within two weeks I had handed in my notice and was up and running.

I just wanted to say thanks publically to John and everyone who was there that day for giving me the push to try again, to my clients, suppliers and various contacts around Glasgow and beyond and most importantly to my wife and family for supporting me in the decision and putting up with me when things get tough and I'm a bit grumpy :-) 

I'll post again in a couple of weeks about how the first year has gone but thanks for reading this.

Alan