I once ran a business called onebestway.
It was a Creative Agency.
Over 14 years it grew from nothing.
To something.
Growth.
Specifically, it grew from nothing to sales of £1,250,000 over about 8 years.
Then trundled on.
Winning awards and creating jobs over 14 years.
But it wasn’t always steady growth.
Sometimes, there was sharp decline.
Consett.
An example of sharp decline happened one cold early morning early in year two.
Our offices were in Consett.
And I turned up early.
I was always in first.
First to see the cold computers and desks.
First to warm them, and the room, for the others.
Except on this one morning.
Because when I arrived at the office.
I saw something quite different.
Different.
On this one morning all I saw.
Was a brick.
Brick.
One way to enter to an office.
In the middle of the night.
If you have no keys.
Is to use a brick.
Throw it at a window.
(That should do it).
And one way to very, very quickly ‘unplug’ monitors from sockets.
Is to hit the cables with an axe.
So the axe cuts through the cable – and the table top actually – with speed.
I learned both these things on this cold morning in 2002.
Momento.
For years, I kept the brick.
I smiled at it.
It was a momento.
It reminded me, and the thought of it still does, that we bounce back.
The brick incident was a mere blip.
A bump in the road.
The road from nothing.
To £1,250,000 of sales.
