Title - Origin story (for newsletter licence?) tags - callumstory
Once upon a time, I was a diagnostic radiographer.
(Start with story of missing contrast on a CT head?)
I also worked in a world-renowned medical research team at the University of Oxford.
Although on a path to reach the top of my profession, I was frustrated by the lack of autonomy.
Then one day, I was offered an exciting new position in Reading.
I had a decision to make:
- Move my family to Reading for the sake of my career, or
- Stay at home in a job that made me unhappy
But then I realised: who said I have to do either?
And I thought, “screw it - I’ll write my own rules.”
I realised that what I really wanted was the freedom to live anywhere - and the ability to take time off with my family whenever I wanted - income unaffected.
Looking ahead 10 or 20 years, I discovered that - even if I reached the pinnacle of my profession - I’d never achieve that goal.
Or rather, the odds were stacked against me - and it would be an (unnecessarily) arduous and frustrating journey.
What it would really take is a business designed from the ground-up to run itself with little or no investment of my time.
So just like that, the decision was made:
I quit my job and left behind the career I’d been in for over 10 years.
You know the saying - “be careful what you wish for”?
Well, if it was a new challenge I was hoping for, I certainly got it.
In a matter of months, my personal library quadrupled in size as I scrambled to discover what vehicle would take me to a life with more autonomy.
I tested various business ideas along the way - from dog training to locally-sourced hampers for holiday cottages - each providing new lessons and taking me one step closer to the destination.
To my surprise, I discovered that I was a good writer.
I’m convinced that my English teacher - Mrs. Sutton - would freeze in shock if she knew people were paying me to write for them.
Mind you, not the kind of writing she taught me (or tried to).
I mean copy writing - words that sell.
Turns out, the writing skills I’d developed to persuade the British government to award me - a novice researcher - over £60,000 in funding… could be utilised and improved upon to help companies make more sales with emails, sales letters, website pages and advertisements.
This also had the advantage of being damn god fun and providing the time and location autonomy I’d been seeking on that fateful day.
And then one day, my wife - a sonographer - had a similar realisation about her own career.
In search of a new challenge, she decided that she wanted to open a private ultrasound clinic.
And after months of planning, we opened the doors.
Exciting?
Yes.
Scary?
Absolutely.
And sure enough, year one was like smack in the face.
Such is life, we were ready to open the practice within days of finding out Maria was pregnant.
Yes, we were trying to have a baby, but the timing of the business plan and pregnancy were both unpredictable.
So we had to weigh up whether it was worth continuing even thought starting a new business at the same time as having a baby would be incredibly challenging.
Eventually, despite reservation, we decided that it was now or never.
So here were were, on day one, with:
- Our first baby on the way…
- No clients…
- No reputation…
- No marketing budget…
- … and debt repayments that exceeded our income
Also, Maria worked full-time, so she could only scan at the clinic on evenings and weekends.
Soon, that would have to stop, too - she’d be on maternity leave for 12 months.
And even IF Maria was happy to scan during mat leave, it wouldn’t be much.
To make matters worse, recruiting a replacement was extremely challenging.
There was a local and national shortage of sonographer’s.
And at such an early stage, we had yet to establish a reliable source of clients.
Oh, and there was also a tiny little curve ball called the Covid-19 pandemic.
Anyway, to make a short story long, I found myself working 60-hour weeks to keep my commitments to clients and also figure out how to make the clinic profitable at 0-20% capacity.
On the best months, we broke even.
Most months, we lost money.
Frankly, we struggled to meet our financial obligations.
Then one day - tired, frustrated, burnt-out - I noticed that my voice kept dropping in conversation.
A gastroscopy revealed an oesophageal granuloma (ulcer).
I would need an operation under general anaesthetic to remove it and make sure it wasn’t anything sincere.
Thankfully, it wasn’t…
… and my voice soon returned to normal.
But then, a few weeks later, I lost my voice again.
I coughed-up blood on more than one occasion.
I had abdominal pain on and off for a week.
Unsurprisingly, I was sent for another gastroscopy…
… which revealed that ulcer had returned.
And that was the day that changed my life.
It was a low-point.
At 30 years of age, I’d developed a serious health problem.
I knew that I’d pushed myself too far and too hard - and now my body was screaming at me to make a change before it was too late.
And, in any case, this wasn’t the life I’d imagined when I decided to leave my old career behind.
The entire point of doing so was to improve the quality of my life - to develop the freedom to live anywhere and take time off whenever I wanted without affecting my income.
Well, I’d somehow managed to get myself into the exact opposite position - I was a slave to the practice, and so was Maria.
Something had to change.
And it had to change NOW.
Not at some point in the future. Not when Maria was back from maternity leave. NOW.
If it didn’t, it wasn’t just my lifestyle that was at stake, but also my health.
And not just my health but, quite literally - if something didn’t change - I could be risking my life.
You see, it’s not unusual for an oesophageal granuloma to develop into cancer.
And having recently lost a friend to cancer at 28, this was all starting to feel a little too close to home.
So, time to change direction.
I asked myself, how is it that some people turn the same 24 hours in a day - the same 7 days in a week - into extreme success and autonomy…
… and yet others - people like me - run themselves into the ground with the exact same amount time?
I knew I had to go beyond than copywriting… beyond marketing… and figure out how transform a struggling business into a well-oiled machine that would run itself without my personal input.
In my search for answers, I made several breakthrough discoveries.
The most pivotal came from a mentor, Jay Abraham - the world’s highest-paid marketing consultant who has, in virtually every industry, generate over 21.7 billion in sales.
Well, what was the discovery?
In a word: optimisation.
Optimisation means getting the greatest return for the least expenditure of time, energy and money at the lowest possible risk risk to build your own ideal vision of success.
I instantly realised how critical this was.
So I kept asking myself:
“What can I do to get the greatest return for the least expenditure of time, energy and money - at the least risk - to provide myself and my family with more time and location independence?”
Over and over, on a daily basis, I asked myself a variation of that question.
And slowly, but surely, the answers came.
It wasn’t an easy process - and it’s certainly a work in progress - but I can tell you that, within just a few months of asking myself this question (and implementing some of the other things I learnt), my life had changed completely.
Instead of losing money, the clinic was producing more profit than our other income streams combined - even though it was still only operating at 20% capacity. Plus…
- It was getting more and more profitable - and requiring less and less of my time and Maria’s time - every day
- I was already working much less (just 30 hours a week, total)
- I could take time off with Maria and Mabel whenever I wanted
- I had the freedom to wake up whenever I wanted (unless my daughter made the decision for me!)
- My ulcer began to heal and my voice was improving every day
- I felt more relaxed, happier and in control of my life
Look, I’m not saying this makes me some kinda marketing genius or goo-roo. In fact, I didn’t create or invent anything to turn things around. I’m just normal guy who faced immense difficulty and no other option but to change and succeed.
In a way, I was forced (admittedly, as a result of my own decisions) to unearth and apply the principles that would take me from where I was to where I wanted to be.
What I’m saying is that I have no idea IF I can help you or HOW I can help you - only that I’m able and willing to pass on some of the discoveries I’ve made along the way.
Crafting the life you want - with your practice serving you - takes an abundance of creativity.
Steve Jobs once said that creativity is just connecting things.
Or, in other words, ideas are a new combination of facts that already exist.
To get from where you are to where you want to be requires testing lots of new ideas.
Speaking from experience, the speed at which those ideas arrive - and the speed of you progress - is correlated with the quality and quantity of information you gather, digest and apply.
If you want to hear more from me, I have a private email list of the top health practice owners. But I keep the list small to provide as much value as possible to everyone on the list. Therefore, you have to either be invited to join the list or your have to apply. If you’d like apply to join, click the button that says “apply now.”