This week’s focus: It is 10 years ago this week that I left the corporate safety net of Boots the Chemists to launch Morgan Cross Consulting. I can honestly say that the last 10 years have been the best, most enjoyable and most rewarding years of my life. Having been my own boss now for so long, I am also happy to let you know that I’m now completely unemployable!
During the past decade I have learnt so much – about marketing, about consulting and coaching, about running a business and about myself. But perhaps my biggest lesson of all is that even in a one-man business like mine, you are nothing without the support, commitment and engagement of other people.
Strong, effective relationships are not simply important to organizational success, they are the cornerstone of all organizational success.
So, to borrow a line from the Oscars ceremony, I want to thank everyone who has encouraged and helped me over the past decade, including all my clients – I’ve carried out over 100 assignments of various sizes since launching my business with my first paying customer, Rick Mills of Walgreens Boots Alliance – my family, my friends, my coach, the readers of my articles and books, the people who’ve come to my workshops or hear me speak, and everyone else that his given me help and advice.
You’ll all never know how much I appreciate your support and friendship.
Thank you.
Off the record: ‘No Man Is An Island’ by John Donne
No rock lyrics this week. Instead, the first words that came to mind were from this poem by Donne, written in the early seventeenth century.
No man is an island,
Entire of itself;
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were,
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore, send not to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
© Stuart Cross 2016. All rights reserved.