About Leon

I have done this
three times

Not gracefully, and not according to a plan.

I was born in South Africa to an English mother and a Greek father, and I spent my childhood moving. South Africa, Greece, England, back again. I left school with no qualifications at all, which is not a humble-brag, it is just what happened.

Since then I have lived in seven countries and worked in more industries than is sensible. Recruitment first, which was my first proper chapter. Then construction, which I built into a seven-figure company and then watched go under in 2008 along with a lot of other people's. Then haulage, which Brexit took most of.

What losing it twice actually taught me

The first collapse nearly finished me, and not for the reason you would think. The money was bad. The story I told myself about the money was worse. I went back into recruitment for two years and spent most of that time certain that everyone I knew thought I was the bloke who tried to get out and could not.

I told almost nobody. The man who sorts things out does not turn up needing sorting, so I did not turn up. What that cost me was not money. It was time, and I would like it back.

Every time I started again, I started as though the last twenty years had not happened. That was the mistake, and I made it twice before I noticed.

The second time round I did something different, mostly by accident. I did not leap. I drove a van while I worked out the haulage business, and I used the contacts, the pricing instinct and the tolerance for risk I already had. That bridge is now Pillar 5 of the course, and it is the single most useful thing in it.

PHOTOGRAPH
Leon, eye contact, on a job or in the workshop. Working clothes. The one shot on the site where he looks straight down the lens. Portrait.

Where I am now

I live in Mojácar in southern Spain. I still work with my hands, mostly kitchens and bathrooms, doors and tiling, while I build this.

That is deliberate and I am not in a hurry to stop. I would rather tell you the truth about where I am than sell you a finished life I have not got. When the day comes that Human Renovation replaces the trade income, I will say so on this page, with the date.

I also have chickens, which is relevant more often than you would expect.

PHOTOGRAPH
Mojácar, or the workshop, or the house. Somewhere that is obviously a real place he lives rather than a location. Landscape.
What I believe

Five things, and I will argue about all of them

  • Reinvention is always possibleRegardless of age, mistakes or circumstances. There is always a next chapter, and I have needed three of them.
  • Responsibility creates freedomYou cannot always control what happened. You can control what happens next, and taking that on returns the power to you rather than costing you anything.
  • Small consistent actions beat motivationMotivation is a mood. Systems still work on the days you cannot be bothered, which is most of them.
  • Self-worth drives outcomesPlenty of people sabotage themselves because underneath it they do not believe they deserve the result. Change the belief, the behaviour follows, then the result does.
  • Success is personal, not just financialFreedom, meaning, contribution and the people around you count as much as the number. I have had the number without the rest and it was not enough.
Credentials, or the lack of them

What I am not

I have no psychology degree. No coaching certification. No qualification of any kind, in fact, which I mention here rather than hoping you do not notice.

Everything on this site is what I did myself first, tested on my own life, usually badly the first time. If you want peer-reviewed theory there are better people to read, and some of them are genuinely worth your time. If you want the account of somebody who has actually had to do it, more than once, with people depending on him, that is what this is.

The whole story is in the book

Enough about me

The useful question is not what happened to me. It is what you are working with. That is what the survey is for.

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