Confessions of a Money Obsessive

I was honoured to be asked to give a talk at The DO Lectures in July.

If you haven’t heard about The DO Lectures, it’s been taking place annually for 15 years in a cowshed in Cardigan, Wales.

The cowshed is on a farm that’s the home of Clare and David Hieatt, and their family.

Every year, they invite 100 purpose-led entrepreneurs to attend three days of talks, amazing food and entertainment, and most importantly, connecting in-person with like-minded entrepreneurs.

I think of it as a kind of Glastonbury for founders!

The talks have been viewed online by over 100 million people. It’s remarkable what David, Clare and their DO Lectures Founding Partners Andy Middleton and Carlo Navato have achieved over the years.

Even more so when one considers they’ve had many offers to fund ‘going for growth’, or to ‘make it bigger’, turning down every offer on the basis that ‘small is beautiful’.

Which it is.

For many years, I’ve been driving five hours to and from East Sussex to Cardigan to attend The DO Lectures event. For me, it’s like an annual reset, almost like a pilgrimage, reflecting on the past year and looking forward to the next. Most importantly, to CONNECT.

Zoom is terrific; I work with clients all over the world thanks to its technology, but nothing beats real human-to-human connection.

So, when David invited me to give a talk, it was a dream come true.

The brief for speakers is simple. They say, ‘give the talk you’ve always wanted to do - the one that scares you because it reveals the very essence of who you are.’

To do the brief justice (I like to do things properly or not at all), it meant facing up to some uncomfortable aspects of my life and career that I’ve never shared publicly before.

I felt a mixture of excitement and fear, thinking “I need help!”

So I reached out to three people who I knew would help me get as far away as possible from my comfort zone of facts and figures, spreadsheets, and slides with bullet points: speaking coach Matt Matheson, fellow first-time speaker Alice Ramsay and, most importantly, my wife, Ruth Polden.

The title of my talk emerged as we worked on it together: ‘Confessions of a Money

Obsessive’.

It’s my story of chasing money, losing sight of what matters, and the four lessons that

changed how I see it forever.

You'll hear what it was really like to be born into wealth, how it led to court cases and losing it all, selling my first company to The Jam, chainsawing copycat products, working with Pink Floyd, and what I call ‘my stroke of luck’.

After I gave the talk on the first day of the event, many founders came up to me over the subsequent days and shared equally open, vulnerable stories.

Isn’t it amazing that, when we open up ourselves, it ‘gives permission’ for others to do the same.

I’m wondering if there are any aspects of my talk that resonate with your own life or career?

I’d love to hear from you – do get in touch.

P.S. Huge thanks to my fab supporters Ruth, Matt and Alice; I couldn’t have done it without you.

Photos credit: Alex Lloyd Jenkins