Member Article

Finding the strength to be your best

Charlotte Hogg, Britain’s Personal Best ambassador, looks at finding the strength to success as an entrepreneur.

Last month, I treated myself to a trip to the cinema in the middle of the day. It was empty, it was peaceful and proved to be the perfect escape from the madness that was occurring in my working world.

After Earth shares the story of a father and son who unexpectedly crash to earth 1000 years after humans were forced to escape the planet they had destroyed. Kital, the son of the powerful but critically injured Cypher was forced to find help by travelling through unchartered terrain, facing evolved animal species and an unstoppable alien. Father and son had to work together, communicate well and trust one another to get home safely.

Now, you may be wondering what this has to do with entrepreneurship. In part, I needed to take some learnings from this film to justify my afternoon off but more than that, as I watched the story unfold I found many connections to my own story of entrepreneurship and believe there is a key theme many of us will be able to learn from and relate to.

The twist, I realised was in the story of the unstoppable alien who could sense and detect his human victims by the essence of fear. The inevitable fate of encountering it could only be changed if you were able to repress all your negative emotions and be truly fearless - it is something that only Cypher, Kitals father had mastered and sadly Kitals first experience of the alien was when it killed his older sister and changed his life forever.

He had spent much of his life trying to overcome the event he witnessed in an airtight bubble which kept him safe. He sought approval from his father who was consumed by his own guilt and unable to provide the love and care his son needed. He felt incomplete. He questioned identity yet it was these dark and devastating emotions that eventually drove him to success.

My personal drive came from tragedy and sadness and I too have something to prove. I lost close friends in a coach crash I was involved in as a teenager and have since been determined to create something bigger than them, bigger than me and ensure the outcome of my journey justifies the painful and truly traumatic start.

There are two key points in the Kitals journey that lead him to ultimate success and I, for one, believe they are the same things that will lead to the success of my business and many other entrepreneurs. At one point in his journey he was faced with a choice - to either turn back defeated but alive or else take a life threatening leap that would give him a chance of success. Secondly, in his final battle, he had to use mental strength and focus to overcome fear and win the ultimate war.

To me, these are the two biggest challenges any entrepreneur will face and like Kital, I found the strength to overcome both scenarios in the wounds and scars I have as a result of my past. I believe it is something most entrepreneurs can relate to and whether its from something as simple as being the middle child or as complex as losing a parent at a young age, many of us have an entrepreneurial wound that drives us to start our journey and often allows us to complete it with success.

For me, I have nothing to lose, I have nothing to fear and ultimately however hard, however challenging, stressful or exhausting anything I face now may be, I will never fail. And I know this because the worst thing that could ever happen to me, has and somehow, I survived, somehow I accepted and somehow I found the strength to laugh, to smile, to love and learnt to build a happy world around me and this means that if I put my mind to something, I know I have the strength to achieve anything.

More than that, just like Kital, I have become consumed by fight. It is a fight I have in my own mind but is a battle to overcome guilt, to develop true confidence and to create sense out of my story. I have a need to be publicly accepted and acknowledged and know that when push comes to shove, that my desire to achieve that means more than any fear, risk or sacrifice I might face.

This purpose and these deep rooted emotions mean that I have no need to focus on material things, I have the strength to think clearly in the most challenging situations and are able to confidently say that end is not the end, until I say it is - and I know that end will not be until I reach significant success.

It is this mind set that fuels me to be my best, in my own little way every day. It is the mindset that has driven me to build my business through great and really challenging times. It is the mindset that will drive me through the 50k run I am completing in October as part of Britain’s Personal Best and is also the mindset that really appreciates the feeling of pride, of accomplishment and happiness when I achieve new goals or objectives.

If you are someone wondering how you can find strength in adversity, how you can create greatness from tragedy, if you are wondering if you can, my advice would be to start with something small but brave. Find a challenge that will push you out of our comfort zone and make you feel alive when you achieve it. Everything great begins with a single commitment which you can make and share here: www.whatsyours.org. Join the rest of Britain in making us great.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Britain’s Personal Best .