One question I hear a lot is - Am I too old to start a business. Many people feel that they have ‘Missed the boat’ or they are too old. They see others much younger and worry about how they will compete. 

The internet seems a young person’s game and selling online is an area they feel uncomfortable in. I understand this only too well. When I started out we had a telephone and a diary. We called people and made appointments to visit.

Records were kept manually and business was face to face. It was a great way of working for relationships however it was limited to how many people you could speak with daily.
These days you can reach millions of people with one click of a button. The game has changed and is unrecognizable. I remember when ‘Email’ came out. We could type a letter and not have to walk to the post box, it was exciting.

Then social media and messaging apps evolved. We could connect with people all over the world and build relationships faster than ever. It was here I became scared. I was taught to keep my cards close to my chest. Not to share plans or ideas, don’t tell anything until the contract is signed.

All of a sudden there were people everywhere sharing ideas, collaborating, and doing business together. I, like many people, thought I was too old to get involved. I lacked confidence and was scared of what people would think if I posted a video or commented.

For many years I ignored social media. It was something young people did and not part of my life. 

I still have reservations and have to false myself to use social media. It’s not natural for me and I never enjoyed it. However I have gotten better, I do post and I have built a small network of friends. It’s nothing major at this stage but it’s growing. I’m opening up and learning new things.

I get involved and share my opinions. Sometimes I get good feedback and sometimes not. I have learned not to take it personally and get on with my life. 

I did this by jumping in and thinking, what have I got to lose? I tried and it went OK. So for anyone holding back on dreams because they have missed the boat or are to old, I would say go for it.

Try your best and see what happens. You may fail or succeed, you won’t know until you try. The only difference is - do nothing and you will definitely fail, at least by trying you give yourself;f a chance. 

There is also a lot of help out there, Youtube has a wealth of information on running a business, there are books and courses to get you ahead. Many are very affordable or free.

Or if you really want to increase chances of success there are also mentors like myself, people who have had the same experiences and won. I’m middle-aged and am still starting new businesses. I am learning and improving all the time. I have my insecurities like everyone, but I get help to overcome them. 

Don’t let insecurities of age hold you back, reach out and ask for help. As they say, when the student is ready the teacher appears. This happens no matter what the age. 

www.taylormadecoaching.couk

We have decided to start a new business for fun. Over the weekend we were talking and was speaking about how hard things have become for many people. 
Lockdown hasn't been easy and so many have lost jobs. during our conversation, we got onto business as we always do and wondered why people don't just start a business of their own.

We agreed it is probably down to confidence and attitude towards security. Most look for employment rather than create employment because that was what was expected of them. 

We bring our girls up to believe they can have what they want in life. All they need to do is believe and plan then things will happen. So we decided to put this theory to the test. 
We spoke to the girls about business and asked if they would like to have their own company.

Now our girls are 12 8 and 10 months, so the 10 months didn't have much input but the other 2 wanted to start something up. We explained what would be needed from them and that they would have to spend their own money to help get the company started. I'm pleased to say they were in with no moaning or negativity. 

Not once did they mention losing money or it being too hard to work, they thought it was a great idea as we would do it as a family.  At this stage, we don't even know what we are going to do but we know we are going to do it together. 

And this is the great thing about a business, starting once is fun and exciting. It gives you so much pleasure to see ideas happen and start to take shape. We have no idea what we will sell or what level of business we will create, but we have worked out why we want to do it.

We had our very first board meeting on the 13th March 2021 where we brainstormed ideas and decided why we wanted to have a business. 

All we know at this stage is our WHY, which is -

To have a business that brings us together as a family, have fun, and bring fun to other people. We want our energy and sense of fun to spread through our community and make a small difference to people's lives. The business we set up will be with the sole intention of making people smile and creating happiness. 

That's it at the moment, Meeting one done and we know why we want to start a business. We see a lot of people down at the moment and we want to do something about it. We have ideas of what that may be and we will research all the ideas.

So over the next few months we will come together every two weeks as a family and research, we will look into different businesses that can make people smile and decide if we think they can work or not. 

The worse thing that can happen is we don't start anything up, but we would have had a great time planning and learning and our kids will gain such a great education that when they leave school they won't be programmed like so many to just look at one option. 

They will be confident and able to build business plans and create their own destiny. 

Firstly Happy Mothers Day to all the lovely Mums of the world

Secondly, as it's mothers day I want to talk about the importance of family and knowing how to treat each other.

I live in what we call a 'Blended family' My partner and I each have daughters from previous relationships and now we have a daughter born from the two of us. 

So all in all with 4 crazy girls and myself we have a house full of fun and laughter. However, it wasn't always that way. It took time and patience to get to where we are. It took understanding and sometimes arguments to work out what we needed to do.

When Aga & I got together is was a confusing time for our children. Aga had come out of an abusive relationship and I had split from a woman I had been with for 20 years. Whilst the new relationship was good for us, for our kids, it was very confusing. 

My daughter was grieving the loss of me from the family home and Aga's daughter was confused that a man she now lived with gave her attention and did not shout at her or her mother. 

At first, we could see the negative effects the relationship had on us as parents and we went about fixing it in all the wrong ways. We threw so much love, attention, and gifts at the kids it was relentless. The kids were in a spin, they were overcompensated and confused even more.

We thought we were loving them to the best of our abilities but we weren't. Seeing them still unhappy put a lot of pressure on us as a family. We were arguing and blaming each other. 
I was and am protective by nature, My eldest daughter is so important to me and I could see her struggling. On the other hand, I could also see my partner's daughter starting to thrive. 
She was benefitting so much from the new relationship and forgetting over the violence she had witnessed in the past. This made me feel even more guilty and depressed. 

Starting a new relationship and seeing people suffer is not a nice feeling. Then everything started to change. We worked out we gave the kids too much and offered to much choice. We had put too much pressure on them and made things worse. 

We took a quiz called 'The 5 love languages' here we learned how each of us likes to be loved. 
It was shocking to see that we all loved each other but in the wrong ways. We loved each other how we love to be loved ourselves.

My daughter and I need to be loved physically, we love hugs, kisses, and touch. This shows us the other person loves us.

Aga & her daughter Love time, they want the person who loves them to spend time with them, to be listened to, and enjoy experiences with. 

By throwing gifts at us all meant very little to any of us. I could give my daughter an expensive gift and all she wanted was a hug. Aga would often surround me with questions and invade my space when all I wanted was a kiss and cuddle. 

The same for her, I would always hug and kiss her thinking that was how she wanted to be loved, then problems occurred I'd back off to give her space (How I want to be loved) She needed me the most at this point and would get sad with thoughts of me not caring. 

Nowadays we understand each other so much more, we love each other how we want to be loved. We talk so much (living in a house with 4 girls I have no choice) and we laugh so much. 

Life is so much better now we know how to love each other. 

If you can relate to that in your life, I have put a link to the love languages quiz below. It's free and you may well learn a fantastic lesson in Love -

https://www.5lovelanguages.com/quizzes/

All my businesses are set up to give me Freedom. Money is important but time is more so. I want time more than anything else. Time is the most valuable thing I can have in my life but it has to be time on my terms.

I ask myself the three WWW a lot to make sure I am getting enough time and its valuable to me. They are -

What does Freedom mean to me? 
Why am I doing what I am doing?
What is my dream job in life and business?

By asking these questions I can work out how happy I am and what I need to change to create more time and happiness. 

Just under 2 months ago I decided I would like to write a book and I am almost finished. 

Well if I am honest I decided to write my book years ago. I only really started writing it 2months ago. Before I would start-stop, give up, and forget about it. Life would take over and something else would come up.

This time however I have written over 50,000 words and only have about 5000 more to write. It’s the first draft and I will have to do 2 more drafts before publishing, however, in two months I got way further than I ever did in all my previous attempts. 

So what was different now? 

This time I have become what I call a routine Machine. I set my goal and I set up a routine that worked for me. I committed to writing every day for at least 1 hour. I then set a time of day to write and a routine that gets me in the mood.I worked out that If I wrote 1000 words a day, I would roughly have 60,000 words written in 2 months. As I type this I am totally on track to achieve this target. 

I also worked out what was the right situation for me to be able to meet this goal. I have a noisy family and everywhere is Locked-down at the moment, so I had to find a solution. The only way I saw it working was to get up before everyone else.

5 am in my house is quiet, apart from the dog snoring outside my office I hear nothing. I can focus and write. I got into a routine and I do the same routine every day. Here is how and why it works for me -

5 am Alarm goes off - Get up immediately, do not lay there as I will fall back to sleep. I know I have work to be done and this is my time. Make the most of it.

5.15 am Make my coffee in my special mug. My daughter gave me a mug for Father’s day, it says ‘The best Dad in the world’ on it. This mug means a lot to me and puts me in a good mood.
I then do a little mini routine where I shake a jar my daughter made for me. 

The Jar contains a liquid and stardust. When shaken it mixes together and looks lovely, It represents her love for me and puts me in a great mood. 

The other thing I do is open a jar of motivational quotes she wrote for me. I read one a feel the positivity. 

5.25 I’m ready to write, my mood is set and I feel good about myself. The words flow and I feel wonderful when I reach my daily target. 

I keep doing this until I finish, I know as long as I keep this routine, I will complete the book on time and be able to publish it. The pain of writing is high but the pleasure it will generate when I have my completed book on the shelf will be worth every early morning and letter I typed. 

I can’t wait to finish the 2nd and 3rd drafts, agree on a title and write again to announce it has been published. 

Not everything in life goes well, sometimes things happen that cause major setbacks. Sometimes it's very small things that almost happen unnoticed that cause the biggest pain.

Usually, I deal with the major things really well, I take it as a challenge and deal with it. It's the small things that often upset me the most. I  guess I find them harder to deal with as I am unaware they have happened. 

In this episode, I talk a little about a mental issue I have around face masks and how people wearing them affect my mental state of being. 

I am very goal-driven, there is so much to achieve in life and I want to achieve as much as possible.

My partner (Aga) is as well, she loves to plan and work towards the next big thing. At the moment we are working on our fitness together. Three times per week we run along the beach to improve our fitness.

5 weeks ago we couldn’t run for more than a minute, Now we can run for 20 minutes without stopping and we are getting better. Whilst we run we talk about our day, our plans and our future together,

This morning we were discussing my fitness goals and how I am planning to change how I look and feel. Aga, as she often does transitioned into her coaching mode, questioning me and making me think about what I wanted and why.

We do this a lot with each other as it’s good practice and we love to help each other achieve. Towards the end of her coaching session, she asked me what I would feel like when I achieved my goal.

I answered ‘I would feel like I was just at the beginning’ What do you mean she said, surely when you hit your goal you would have finished?

This is where I think differently from other people, many would agree I had finished and I should be happy. For me I am happy but I have just begun. In my mind everything up to the point of my goal is preparation. The hard work really starts when I hit my goal.

I can’t allow myself to think I have finished as Life is all about progressing.

If I want to lose weight and set a goal to lose 1 stone in weight, I don’t finish when the weight is off. I have just started, I want to maintain the weight loss or lose more if needed. If I had the attitude I had finished I may go back to old habits and put the weight on again.

If I study for a new skill, I don’t consider myself finished when I have that skill I try to improve my skill and better it. By having the mindset that when I reach my goal I have just started then I know I will hit my goal and better it.

Goals are a constantly changeable benchmark, The end goal is always the beginning, A new level that I will operate from, and a platform to spring to the next goal.

I find that thinking works for me, It keeps me going and keeps me moving forward. I hit my goals enjoy the moment, then use what I achieved as the start of something new and exciting.

Connect with Lee on Facebook

Here is why, when we journal we notice things we would take for granted. Most people we coach are pretty sure they are conscious of all the decisions they make. However quite often they can’t recall everything they did the previous day, who can?.

Let’s take losing weight as an example, how effective will your plan be if you do not know what you are eating? You may be strict to start and maybe you will relax and cheat, you may have little willpower and find it hard to change what you eat. Or you may be completely unaware of what you eat and not realize the damage you are doing to your body.

Keeping a journal will show you exactly what you need to do to succeed. This is not just for weight loss, this is for anything in life that you want to improve on. For example, let’s say you never have any money left at the end of the month. You are in debt and can’t see a way out. You’re worried and need to sort your finances out.

Action point one – Buy a diary or notepad. Nothing too big because you will need to carry it around with you.
Action point two – Decide you will commit to sorting your finances out whatever it takes.
 Action point three – Make a commitment for 7 days that you will write down every penny that leaves you and what it was spent on. Write your commitment down and why you are doing it.
 Action point four – Every time you spend money and every time a payment comes out of your bank account journal the amount and what it was for. Even if you lend someone money, write it down. You must account for every penny that leaves your account. Make a separate page for every day.
 Action point five – Repeat this every day for 7 days.

Read the full article here and how to make the most of this life-changing exercise. - https://www.taylormadecoaching.co.uk/the-power-of-keeping-a-journal/

Connect with Lee of Facebook here - https://www.facebook.com/Coach.leetaylor

Luck, happiness, love, whatever you want is always around us. If you are born into a free society with a roof over your head, food, clothes, and the ability to make decisions then you are truly lucky.

The difference between lucky, happy successful people and unlucky, unhappy people is the ability to follow the luck formula.

Being grateful for what you have also is an indicator of how lucky and happy you will be in life

The luck formula is -

Preparation and  personal growth  + Attitude belief/mindset +opportunity (what is coming) + Action /  doing something about it = luck

The more prepared you are coupled with having the right mindset and taking action, the more luck comes your way. 

1. Preparation and growth - consistently improve and prepare yourself, your skills knowledge, expertise relationships, you will be able to take advantage of the opportunity when they arise. 
2. Attitude - need to see situations, conversations, and everyday life as opportunities. You can not see what you don’t look for and you can not look for what you don't believe in. 
3. Opportunity - Luck that isn’t planned for, comes at you quickly - a natural occurrence. The more you look the more comes to you. 
4. Action - now is your job to act on it - this is what separates the successful from the rest. They take action and massive action

In this episode, I talk about my Love Diary, my conversation starter, and what I am doing tonight to enjoy myself with my partner. 

These are 3 easy tips to implement into any relationship to improve and strengthen