School drop-out to 17 year old entrepreneur - my business story (389)

As I mentioned briefly in the intro, I fell into the world of business when I was 17.

I also quit school at 16.

So a bit of a kind of unusual route to working for myself.

And I feel like there's a bit of context from my teenage years that kind of sets the scene as to why those were a set of decisions I ended up making.

I feel like looking back, I can so clearly see that the person today that runs a business and absolutely loves it has just always suffered.

been there.

I can see myself as a teenager almost just like bubbling away and loads of the things that I now do in my business today I actually feel like when I was a teenager is when a lot of those things kind of started to come to life.

I think the first thing to say about my upbringing and kind of me is that I have the most incredible family.

I'm so grateful to be able to say that statement out loud.

And my parents particularly, I massively credit to helping me to do what it is that I do now.

My parents are both very involved in running quite a large church.

I grew up in a very church led environment.

And for me, that was a really positive thing.

I grew up seeing my parents not just have a job, but have something that they feel really passionate about.

They were always kind of showing me what it looks like to lead with values and impact and kindness.

There's definitely parallels, I think, between church and a business.

Like they kind of operate in a similar but different way.

It's obviously a charity, but I feel like I saw a lot of that behind the scenes.

And even just little things, like from a fairly young age, I was pretty comfortable on a stage holding a microphone in front of quite a lot of different people.

you also naturally in that environment get very confident speaking to different people and being in different environments.

So I feel like a lot of those kind of soft skills that I use in my business now were really honed when I was younger and definitely seeing my parents do something that they were so passionate about kind of got me excited, I think, to not just kind of have a job, but build something that really felt that aligned for me in the same way that their jobs felt so aligned for them.

Speaking of church, one of the kind of very first things I really got myself stuck into was helping to lead our youth group.

Now, you might hear youth group and think like, oh, that's cute, like 20 kids in a hall with some Monster Munch and reading the Bible.

I mean, that sounds... probably like something I would have enjoyed doing as a teenager.

But when I say youth group, I'm talking like big scale.

As I mentioned briefly in the intro, I fell into the world of business when I was 17.

I also quit school at 16.

So a bit of a kind of unusual route to working for myself.

And I feel like there's a bit of context from my teenage years that kind of sets the scene as to why those were a set of decisions I ended up making.

I feel like looking back, I can so clearly see that the person today that runs a business and absolutely loves it has just always suffered.

been there.

I can see myself as a teenager almost just like bubbling away and loads of the things that I now do in my business today I actually feel like when I was a teenager is when a lot of those things kind of started to come to life.

I think the first thing to say about my upbringing and kind of me is that I have the most incredible family.

I'm so grateful to be able to say that statement out loud.

And my parents particularly, I massively credit to helping me to do what it is that I do now.

My parents are both very involved in running quite a large church.

I grew up in a very church led environment.

And for me, that was a really positive thing.

I grew up seeing my parents not just have a job, but have something that they feel really passionate about.

They were always kind of showing me what it looks like to lead with values and impact and kindness.

There's definitely parallels, I think, between church and a business.

Like they kind of operate in a similar but different way.

It's obviously a charity, but I feel like I saw a lot of that behind the scenes.

And even just little things, like from a fairly young age, I was pretty comfortable on a stage holding a microphone in front of quite a lot of different people.

you also naturally in that environment get very confident speaking to different people and being in different environments.

So I feel like a lot of those kind of soft skills that I use in my business now were really honed when I was younger and definitely seeing my parents do something that they were so passionate about kind of got me excited, I think, to not just kind of have a job, but build something that really felt that aligned for me in the same way that their jobs felt so aligned for them.

Speaking of church, one of the kind of very first things I really got myself stuck into was helping to lead our youth group.

Now, you might hear youth group and think like, oh, that's cute, like 20 kids in a hall with some Monster Munch and reading the Bible.

I mean, that sounds... probably like something I would have enjoyed doing as a teenager.

But when I say youth group, I'm talking like big scale.