This is a story about clinging on for dear life...

When you are hounded to the edge of the abyss, you will fall to your death if you allow yourself to be pushed one single step more. You shouldn't push people that hard. You shouldn't be so harsh, critical, judgemental, presumptuous. You don't know how close somebody is to the edge, until they're gone.

I don't want to go on about this, but I'm dealing with suicidal thoughts on a daily basis. If you think that's because I'm mentally ill, you're wrong. My brain has correctly judged the circumstances, and it's telling me that I have very few options. My brain is correctly informing me that I'm on the edge of a precipice, and the other side is a jeering snarling crowd who don't care whether I live or die.

People accuse suicidal people of being attention seeking, or selfish. It's actually neither. You have all the time in the world to hurl those accusations at a gravestone when they're gone. They won't be receiving any attention or anything for themself when they're gone. They won't even be stealing a single precious breath of your oxygen anymore, so how can it be selfish?

I've got a life insurance policy that covers suicide. My family are literally better off if I'm dead. That's cold hard cash in their pockets, rather than the rather draining task of repeatedly telling me I'm not good enough and I'm selfish. Yes, it's hard work to have to keep telling somebody to keep taking steps towards their demise, to keep hounding them until they're dead.

In Oxford, I'm pretty sure I came up with the term pushy parents. It kind of stuck with my friends, and their parents, and the phrase entered the popular vernacular. There were a lot of high-achieving kids at my schools in Oxford, and living nearby. My parents had big plans for their only son. They were going to make me achieve everything that they had failed to ever achieve, by force.

We all want our kids to do well, to get ahead, to achieve their greatest potential, but you have got to realise that they're still children. If you push them hard their whole childhood they won't thank you for it, if you push them beyond their limits and make them sick. You will struggle to judge how hard they can work, and how much stress and pressure they can handle, because you are a mature adult, and they are a developing child.

A child's attention span is different from yours. A child's knowledge and experience is different from yours. A child's ability to express distress and protect themself is different from yours. A child's capacity to experience daily stress and pressure and bullying and coercion is different from yours.

You might think that you are bringing up baby Einstein, but in fact you might be twisting that child's personality into somebody who's very bitter and resentful about being kept in from seeing their friends in order to study more. You might not be aware just how deeply etched childhood experiences are in that child's memory. You have no idea what is important to that individual child, especially if you don't listen.

Why am I bitching and whining about this stuff? Well, let me remind you: I'm living with the desire to commit suicide. I can only act on this once, and then I have no further opportunity to tell you who I really am, to tell you what makes me tick. This is a time capsule. It tells you everything you didn't want to know about me when I was alive.

This is the inconvenient truth. This is the smoking gun. This is the postmortem analysis.

I read a few books that were posthumously published after the author's death. The anguish, the distress, the emotion of the authors, thinly concealed behind passive agression and satire, oozes out from those works of literature. The words are soaked with emotion. Every sentence packs a punch, swung wildly at an unseen enemy.

I was systematically re-programmed to believe that my life was worthless, which is why I take huge risks. It's not selfishness if the self has no value. The more that you tell a person that they're shit and they're a burden and they're not good enough, the less risk-averse they become. They will go to great lengths to prove themself or to feel some connection to life.

I don't care what anybody says. Extreme sports are not stupid... they're brave. I can barely express to you just how cold, hard & rational you have to be to step into an extreme environment. You are literally weighing life & death with your every action. You are making decisions that can barely be comprehended by somebody who hasn't willingly laid their life on the line.

My Dad's a real coward. He's abusive to me and my Mum, and he won't admit he's in the wrong. He's such a coward that he hid behind his front door and got the police to deal with me when I went to confront him. He won't even face his own son, on the level, like an adult. He's never done anything brave in his life. He's a real disappointment to me.

I'm actually very calm and rational. I realise my Dad's an old man, and he's good to my sister and my niece, so I wasn't going to risk his life by pulverising him. I just wanted him to stand and face his own son, and confront the issue of him abusing me and my mum. I wanted him to admit he was wrong, to my face. I didn't demand it, but I felt that only a coward would shy away from an honest face to face conversation about his wrongdoing. I was right. He's a coward.

My Mum gave me life, and actually helped save my life and give me hope when I had my back against the wall, but my Dad is poisonous. He actually talks my Mum out of helping me. He probably thinks he's being a protector, a hero, but he's wrong. He's protecting nobody. My Mum will be hurt when I'm dead, and his son will be dead. My sister won't have a brother, and my niece won't have an uncle, and he won't accept any responsibility.

Yes, responsibility. Let's talk about responsibility.

On a daily basis, I'm responsible for my own life. I need to eat, sleep and not throw myself off a tall building. Yup, that's pretty much my entire existence at the moment. I'm trapped at the edge, and the route back to safety is blocked by my Dad, the 'protector' so I'm desperately trying to find another route back to safety, while my Dad is busily telling everybody not to help me.

I have no idea why somebody would step in and tell a caring person not to help a desperate person. I have no idea why a Dad would tell a Mum not to help their child. It's really upsetting. It's upsetting for me, and it's upsetting for my Mum, to have my Dad driving wedges in-between family members. Why can't we all just get along?

I'm not a defective toy, and you can't just return me to the store. I'm not broken, you just have to accept that I'm a human and I have my own identity, and I have identical needs to any other human. I need glucose, water, oxygen, salt, protein, fat, fibre and emotional sustenance. Cutting me off from my own mother by trying to poison her opinion of her own son, to compensate for your own shortcomings, that's patently disgusting.

I can have a lovely conversation with my Mum. Then, the next time we speak, her views will have been completely tainted by my Dad. I have no idea what his big problem is, but I suppose I should try harder to get to the bottom of it. It's no longer the case that I should assume that his 30+ years more on the planet means that he should be the more mature one.

Yes, I've always wanted to look up to my Dad. I've always wanted him to be a role model for me. I've always wanted him to lead by example.

My Dad doesn't really follow through though. He's a quitter. He's never had a career like I have. He's never achieved anything academically like I have. He's never been able to provide enough for his family. He's a real failure. A drunk and a drug addict, he's a bit of a loser, and I guess he feels pretty bad about himself.

Yes, he took his parents money and squandered it. His parents were wealthy and sent their kids to private school, and he messed up his chances of achieving anything of note. He mucked about with drugs and decided that was his priority in life... to take drugs. Even after the arrival of his son, he decided that the pursuit of drugs was still the most important thing in his life.

One of my best friends was a drug addict. When his son arrived, he cleaned up his act. He got himself a mortgage and a steady job. He quit drugs and smoking and keeps himself fit and healthy for his son. He's my role model. I look up to him. I admire what he's done. He's the gold standard that I aspire to emulate.

Men need father figures in their lives. They need masculine identity, which is about strength, leadership, trust, providing for loved ones, consistency, resourcefulness, reliability, dependability. You can't depend on a drug addict. The only thing they love is drugs.

My Dad actually destroyed his health with drugs, and had to go to hospital for a series of operations at around the time that my niece was born. I'm not sure whether fear of death or the arrival of a grandchild was the reason why he cleaned up his act, but he did finally quit drugs, in his sixties.

Nobody preaches louder than a convert, and I imagine that my Dad is very pious now that he's no longer abusing drugs. I don't drink or take drugs, but my Dad is pretty insufferable about many aspects of my lifestyle. He assumes that because I live in London I'm high on cocaine all the time. He assumes that because I have high earning potential, I spend it all on drugs. He's completely wrong.

Because he's a fuckup, he assumes I'm a fuckup too, but he's wrong. Because he's made mistakes in his life, he assumes I've made the same mistakes. Because he let people down, he assumes I'm going to let people down too. He applies his own guilt to me. He makes me carry the guilt for his wrongdoing.

I've got a brilliant title for a blog post lined up for December 26th, so I can't tell too much of my story at the moment without spoiling the surprise. There aren't actually any surprises. Everything is here, somewhere, but I'm going to spell things out for the world. It's extremely frustrating that I have to pace myself, to tell things little by little, but patience is a virtue.

I'm currently writing 2,000 words a day, and it's already swamping people. Hardly anybody is still engaged with my writing. It's gotten a bit unbalanced, and there are themes that are beginning to be a bit like a broken record. I'm actually dragging things out a little now, because I picked some milestones, and I'm making sure I don't give away enough to allow people to think that they can extrapolate and guess how the story ends.

I'll tell you how and when the story currently ends, according to my plan: I kill myself on New Year's Day, having told my tale but without the energy, support or resources to be able to continue living. It's exhausting being beaten for your 'sins' which are actually a result of taking abuse for somebody else's guilty conscience.

I'm going to tell you how somebody gets driven to extremism. Extreme risk taking. Extreme behaviour. Extreme moods. Death, which is at the other extremity from birth.

When a child is born, you write their future, based on the opportunities that you offer them. Choice is an illusion. Free will is an illusion. We can only play the cards that we are dealt.

Tags: #childhood #suicide #parents #depression

This is a story about making new friends...

I don't like bullying. My new friend Klaus Bravenboer doens't like rugby. Somehow we get along and became friends, fast. We are just about to go surfing. Yesterday I was in hospital feeling sorry for myself. That's the difference that friends make.

We are really enjoying a spur of the moment visit to Koa Tree Camp in North Devon/Cornwall, mapping the territory as a high-performance team. None of this was preplanned. We are just going with the flow, dude.

I've always been a bit of a man on a mission, and it's nice to have a healthy way to express my masculinity. I've been fetching wood, making fire, tending to the animals, walking round the farmland. I feel quite proud of myself, even though that's a little laughable to all you happy well adjusted people who are loving your lives.

Klaus and I have been capturing videos, taking photos and doing interviews with the lovely founders of Koa Tree Camp: Andy, Gemma, Sam & baby Hamish and Poppy the dog. You'll be seeing more of this on social media over the coming week or so, during the build up to the inaugural Man on a Mission weekend.

78% of suicides are young men. That's more than 3 times that of women. I'd like to understand why that is, and understand myself more. I just want to be happy and well adjusted, like you. I'm pretty happy right now, and I'd like to hang onto a little piece of that.

There will be more Frankie the cat pictures soon. Meanwhile. here is Klaus with a black and white pig (October 24, 2015)

Tags: #friends #manonamission #bullying #suicide #surfing #adventure #leadership

This is a story about the value of time...

I should have been at work today. Instead, I was trying to entertain and amuse my fellow patients in hospital. We put on our own rendition of There's a Hole in My Bucket. I must stress that this was a team effort. I co-wrote the script, helped make costumes and props and played the part of Liza. Everything is cool when you are part of a team. Everything is better when we stick together.

I might be a drama queen, but you don't have to attend the performance

We even tried to work in some plot lines for Black History Month but this was somewhat of an afterthought. We definitely challenged gender sterotypes though. Homophobes might also be somewhat disbelieving when I say that I'm mostly heterosexual, but I was able to have make-up applied to my face, wear an apron and play the part of a LAY-DEE, OOH!

Yes, this is a satirical critique of today's society (October 2015)

Tags: #NHS #mentalhealth #depression #suicide #LGBT #gender #leadership

This is a story about bridge burning...

How many of us are afraid to declare the causes we support, for fear of impacting our professional reputation. Does supporting mental health and homelessness charities make me look somehow less corporate, and consequently, make me less employable? Does the fact that I have even experienced these things first hand make me unemployable?

In fact, if my employment options became coincidentally curtailled at the same time as I have started blogging, despite a successful full-time career of some 18+ years, it would not take a brain of Britain to recognise that this must be because of institutional discrimination, which is probably illegal.

There is absolutely nothing to suggest that I am any less able than any other candidate in the job market, and in fact, my history makes me more of a 'catch' to a potential employer: the man who has nothing has nothing to lose. Plus I have been 'stress tested' to the limit and beyond. I know exactly where those limits are, and I can empathise with my colleagues when they are under stress and pressure.

When 'sh1t goes bad' who do you really want in the bunker with you? People who have never been in that kind of situation before, and are therefore an unknown quantity, or people who know their personal breaking point.

I've been in some hair-raising situations, both through choice and by accident. Challenging yourself, and being challenged by things that are out of your control, teaches you how to handle stressful situations. A certain amount of training, discipline and drills will prepare your muscle memory to pull the "parachute rip-cord" to use a layman's term. But how do you deal with the long plane journey up to 13,000ft? How do you mentally prepare to throw yourself out of a perfectly servicable aeroplane?

Worse still, how do you prepare yourself for people yelling at you and telling you you're an idiot? People do this because they are scared and have lost faith in your leadership. People believe that pain and fear can be magically taken away by those in positions of authority.

Losing authority can be dangerous, especially if you are the leader in a dangerous place. Generally, most people don't know what to expect when they are entering an extreme environment: the mountains and the sea (the poles and the deserts too, but I don't know much about those places, yet).

Let me tell you about crampons. These are a spiked device that attach to your feet, so that you can move safely on ice. I always shake my head in disbelief at people who are blunting an expensive pair of crapons on rocks. If they do encounter any ice, they will certainly not be effective if they are not sharp.

Let me tell you about ropes. These long flexible cords are no use at arresting a fall unless they are attached to something solid. In order to attach a rope to a mountain, you will need a whole load of other heavy metal gear that will need to be secured to the rocks, and the rocks themselves will need to be large and heavy and generally immovable.

So, if you see climbing parties with crampons and ropes, moving on snow - in an area with no glaciers - then these things are only there as a confidence trick. The fact is, that there is very little stopping you from plunging to your death, even with ropes & crampons.

I personally, don't like to be weighed down with unnecessary gear. It's not about not being prepared. It's about recognising that I'd rather have saved the energy, so that I can use that surplus reserve of energy in order to scout ahead of my group for problems, or fetch assistance if necessary. The main thing though, is to stay within personal limits as a leader, so that when people are tired and cranky, and scared and their feet hurt and they are cold and hungry, you don't mind giving them your personal stash of candy bars, you don't mind them calling you names, you don't mind them questioning your leadership skills.

The main thing that qualifies a person as a leader is how they cope under crossfire.

The more I lead people in stressful situations, the more I learn about my personal weaknesses, the more I learn about my personal limits. Nobody should underestimate just how hard I had to be pushed before I cracked, but nobody should consider themselves such a 'rock' or a hard nut that will never crack under pressure.

My best friend and climbing partner sustained life-changing injuries in a 'freak' accident when the chockstone he was abseilling from shattered. I have only just started to deal with feelings surrounding this, so I'm not going to write any more about this today, but my thoughts always turn to him and how I have shyed away from post-accident involvement, as it was such a terrifying reminder of our mortality and fragility. I knew I couldn't do anything to turn back the hands of time. Accidents happen, and the first thing you learn in the mountains is that you can't control all the variables. It's still something that victims, survivors and those connected to them, have to come to terms with though.

Ropes have their place in sport rock climbing. Modern equipment is so good - the Petzl Grigri in this case - I don't even have to hold the rope to be honest, but old habits literally die hard (October 2012)

Addendum for climbing nerd trolls: no, I didn't leave the rope all over the place like that. I was asked to step in and belay only seconds (sic.) before the photo was taken. And, no, I'm not even standing on the rope even though it looks like I might be from the low-resolution image. Anybody who has climbed multi-pitch with me will tell you my ropework is above your nitpicking.

Tags: #climbing #leadership #homeless #career #london #banking #adventure #mentalhealth

This is a story of imitation...

I pitched the Cambridge Angels in flip flops. They didn't like this very much. It was a hot day in June though, so I thought it was appropriate. Perhaps I was a little over-inspired by The Social Network, but at least I wasn't wearing my dressing gown.

I also structured my company, so that my shares would be less diluted when the company received investment.

I was even so paranoid about anybody wrestling control of my company away from me, that when I wrote and signed a vesting agreement for my co-founder in a pub, on a napkin, during the first weeks of the Springboard Accelerator Program, in Cambridge, I deliberately held the pen upside down for the photo. Plausible deniability.

Anyway, so Hubflow is winding down operations, and that means I failed as CEO, despite the fact I stepped down a few years ago. Of course I wanted to give all my investors a big payday, so put a black mark against my name.

People should remember that I always had one eye on the sales pipeline and another eye on the bills, taxes, and wages. I would never bankrupt a company. However, it's all credit to my co-founder for getting things in order when I became unwell.

It's tough at the top, and I have nothing but respect for anybody who is in a CxO position. I'm not after anybody's job... I know how much of a kicking the executives get from investors, customers, and the sleepless nights thinking about everybody who is depending on them.

I'm also not so naïve as to believe that I should be telling anybody how to build a successful startup yet. I learned loads on the Springboard program, but those lessons have yet to express themselves in a useful and productive way for everybody who invested time & energy in me.

I'm wrestling with an unquenchable desire to research and develop stuff, to innovate, to explore ideas. I know that I can deliver a project as a solo founder, or build something from day one with the right co-founder(s). Bringing people in later in the life of a startup, is very difficult.

I also know that I can be a developer, or I can be a startup founder...  not both. Sure, I can write code, I can fix bugs, but the demands on a founder are so great that it's impossible to do the development as well. I was writing and maintaining code for the iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, web application, maintaining the database, doing sysadmin, operational support... it was too much, on top of raising money, meeting customers, pitching and meeting mentors.

On the Springboard Program, Jon and Jess did a great job of supporting the founders. I know that Jon also went by far the extra mile for the teams that were dealing with issues, and the safety net that was there for me could not be faulted. I had bitten off more than I could chew.

I was always torn between raising any kind of investment round (friends & family, seed) or bootstrapping. I also was conflicted about bringing anybody into my startup, except hired help. I didn't trust anybody. I also couldn't let go of control and empower anybody to help me.

When you are bootstrapping, you don't have any money. For anything. Making rent payments, wages, expenses... everything comes down to one thing and one thing only: how much runway have you got left for your burn rate? You run lean, but you also run stressed. That's not an excuse for me not being a team player though. Hubflow probably could have been a bigger success if I had learned the importance of Team, as well as Traction and Technology.

You live, you learn.

Photographic evidence that I did make people laugh as well as cry. I think we had great times in Cambridge. I know I did (May 2011)

Tags: #startup #entrepreneur #university #career #leadership #computing #apple

This is a story of "greedy, lazy, incompetant people who got found out"...

Justice is a funny thing. So is Karma. Things will always catch up with you. "My name is Earl. I'm just trying to be a better person".

I might not particularly agree with the Patriot Act, but I agree with the punchy tagline that was used to sell a lie to the American people, who were still scared and reeling from the biggest terrorist attack on home soil: nothing to hide; nothing to fear

However, I have a job which I need to pay my rent, but someone who isn't me (Earl) was working with a colleague who had his/her contract terminated today. Here are some more words I heard from Earl:

"I had asked to be moved from one scrum team to another due to a difference in style and approach from the way I like to do things, which has always been quite successful for me. However, it's not in my remit to tell other people how to do their job, so I asked if I could work with the a person who seemed to be doing things more in line with my expectations.

There then followed a blissful two days of productivity. The business seemed happy. The product owner/CIO seemed happy. Us developers were overjoyed and we were high-fiving and walking around the office with big grins.

We decided to go out for lunch as a well bonded happy team, at the suggestion of our scrum master. But he/she never showed up. As we sat there at lunch, we all agreed what a great guy/girl he/she was, and that we wanted to support him/her from the inevevitable management pressure that was going to fall on his/her shoulders.

We were surprised that our colleague didn't join us for lunch, especially as it was his/her idea. We had left a note and tried phoning him/her.

Over lunch we discussed how 'damagement' (management) were not really interested in knowing the truth, and in fact didn't want to know it, as it would undermine plausible deniability.

I observed that a couple of people had been asked if they would like to consider other opportunities in light of the increasing and relentless pressure. I wondered whether I might have been guilty myself of precipitating one of the scrum masters' untimely departure. It was almost an open secret that I thought he/she was a micro-managing waste of space.

I had actually been one of the people who was asked to consider other opportunities. I nearly laughed in the face of the person asking me. The irony of it was beyond belief, given this person's dependence on me during the previous weeks. I stood my ground and asked him/her to resign instead.

This kind of brinksmanship must be going on all the time between these equally incompetant fools. Knowing that I was competant, it was not brinksmanship for me. Instead I felt confident that the project and the client needed me more than I needed the contract.

You can't bluff a poker player who is holding the nuts - the very best possible hand available from the cards that have been dealt. It's a simple matter of memorising the odds for all the possible hands, and then your play becomes automatic: you know almost immediately when you should fold.

When we got back from lunch, I went for a pooh. I sat on the toilet, looking at Facebook and taking my time. I was relaxed and enjoying my job again, for the first time in ages, after having been empowered to do my job and make things better.

I came back to my desk, and my team told me he/she was gone. Immediate effect. They had got rid of him/her while we were all at lunch, with that empty chair at the dining table.

We speculated during the afternoon that the reason for termination was a lack of fear. Our departed colleague was rumoured to have no mortgage. He/she was too honest. Too fearless. He/she wanted to do the right thing.

I liked him/her, even though many people didn't, seemingly for intangible reasons, unrelated to whether they could do their job well or not. His/her face didn't fit it seems."

Anyway, I'm not really able or willing to comment, given my position on a sensitive, high-profile project that I can't talk about, and would never talk about, given my professional duty to my client. I will say this though, of the attitude of me and my colleagues. We care very deeply about the needs of our client and customers, and we always put those needs first, often ahead of our families, our health. We are passionate and dedicated, and excel at our jobs, under the most intense pressure and stress.

We are all trying to be the very best we can possibly be. We need to be. The bank is "rotten as shit" as the Department of Justice will attest. $1.9bn fines don't get dished out every day. We are turning it around though. I really like the CIO. I really like my team. I really like my job. I really like trying to save hundreds of thousands of jobs. We don't get to do that in IT very often.

[Picture has been removed by IT Security]

Me in the office, wearing a rugby shirt, looking like I'm having a 'good time' despite having worked far too many 7-day weeks (September 2015)

Tags: #banking #career #london #leadership #agile #scrum #capitalism

This is a story of friendship, love and adventure...

A group of friends put their trust, their money and - indirectly - their lives in my hands, and I took us all to Caracas, Venezuela, where we were transported across the city in trucks that had holes in them that looked very much like bullet holes. We all survived.

I must admit, if the holiday was a success it was more by good luck than by good judgement. I'd like to say that it was effective delegation that made the difference, but really, I just outsourced the problems to an excellent local guide - Alejandro Battistini - who was trying to make a name for himself and the island of Coche, off the coast of Margarita island, South of the Caribbean.

Having been to both islands on a couple of occasions before, myself, I was familiar with the way things worked as a traveller in a small group. Having a huge group was a different logistical proposition all together, however.

I negotiated a seemingly sizeable deal with American Airlines in order to get nearly 20 people plus 20+ kiteboards, and perhaps as many as 50 giant kites, to our destination without incurring costly excess luggage fees. When we came to try and fly to a small group of coral sand islands called Los Roques, I knew that we would be taking an extremely small turboprop plane and weight would be an issue. I tried to impress upon the group the importance of travelling light, but when the airline staff saw a gigantic pile of bags, they baulked at the prospect of a sketchy takeoff.

This was a big blow to the group, and to make matters worse, there was then a lull in the wind and we found ourselves killing time on the beach without enough wind to kitesurf even with our biggest kites. Everyone should have been very annoyed with me, and I felt really bad that things had not worked out.

What's bigger than a big kite? Two big kites. Instead of letting me feel all embarassed and sheepish about everyone sat around on the beach, the gang helped me with the crackpot idea of flying two kites at once to get twice as much power. I was the only one who got to try it, as it needed so many people to help me launch the kites but make sure I didn't get launched into outer space by 26 square metres of bi-kite. That was an inspiring piece of alturism on the part of the group.

The most fun I've ever had with my clothes on. Thanks guys & gals! (April 2005)

Tags: #adventure #kitesurfing #kiteboarding #leadership

This is a story of a career spent in anonymity as a small cog in a big machine...

Any entrepreneur will tell you that overnight success takes many days, weeks, months, years or lifetimes. I can tell you exactly how long some of my successes took to build, and what the cost was: in terms of personal sacrifice.

Let's talk about my first startup, Bournesoft. I had needed to quit my job due to ill health, and as I recovered from the depression that followed, in July 2008, I taught myself to program games for the iPhone. I had 3 number one hits in the Apple App Store, in late August and early September.

The price I paid for this, was mood instability, which had been kept in check by the routine of office hours. With only a limited window of opportunity to make big cash in the App Store before every Indie Dev saw the opportunity, and then the big corporates moved in. I worked 18 hour days, and paid with my relationship with my partner, family, friends.

I also paid with my love of programming. I hated programming after having to learn Objective-C and the Apple platform under such pressure, which I put on myself. It was supposed to be a fun and confidence building excercise, that I had set for myself, having had an abrupt halt to a successful 11 year career as a software developer.

And so my next startup - www.bournemouthelectrician.co.uk - required significant retraining, but gave me the opportunity to work with my hands in a non-corporate environment, which I decided were my two priorities at the time. Unsurprisingly, there is not really an established training route for wealthy and successful IT professionals and Mobile App Indie Devs, into the building trade.

Undetterred, I incorporated a company (Bournemouth Technology Ltd) funded it myself with a director's loan, signed up for the training courses and got myself an IT contract to "fill the time" and keep the cashflow positive. As soon as I had passed the 17th Edition of the Wiring Regulations, C&G Periodic Inspection & Testing exams and had been inspected by the NICEIC, I bought a van and started trading.

In terms of sacrifice, I invested about 30% of what my lowest earning App had returned me. I also gave up an IT contract that was worth "a lot of money". But I hated programming and working in an office, remember, so I didn't view it as any kind of sacrifice at the time.

Until you have stood in a puddle of water in your customer's kitchen, when you have burst the cold water pipe into the house, or had to find the emergency cutoff as fast as you can when you have drilled through a gas pipe... you do not appreciate your desk, your swivel chair, your computer screen and your photocopier.

Anybody who says "stud finder" has not done any building work on older houses, which are full of the DIY-enthusiast's bodge-jobs, which are a daily risk to the life and livelihood of those in the building trade, who have to lift your horrible laminate flooring, crawl through your fibreglass filled loft, drill through your crumbling brickwork, and discover the creative plumbing you have plastered into your walls. "Why the f**k did they do it like that?" you find yourself asking far too many times. There is never a good answer. Regulations and professional standards exist for good reason.

When I was up to my elbows crawling around in shredded newspaper (creative insulation) dodging the exposed 230v A.C. live terminals of junction boxes that didn't have their lids any more, I got a phonecall asking if could I do a 2 week IT contract that would pay the same as rewiring two whole houses. I realised that I had finally learnt the value of the career I had left behind.

I managed to clear 2 weeks in my full diary of customer's jobs, but I avoided the unpleasant job that I really needed to grasp the nettle of. The right thing to do would have to been phone and cancel those jobs completely. Instead, I was exhausted from building my business from nothing to being a profitable company, and the shame of failing my customers drove me into a second lengthy depression. I did not fail gracefully. I don't feel too bad, because many members of the public I met tried to take advantage of hard-working and skillful tradesmen.

So, I started to retrace my steps. As my depression lifted, I built another Mobile Apps startup. This time selling to enterprise. I drove to one of the UK's largest insurers in my electrician's van, for a sales meeting. It started as Roam Solutions, and then became mEpublish.com and eventually, after the springboard(); TechStars program in Cambridge, it finally became hubflow.com.

Pushing myself so hard took me to the limits of human survival, costing me countless friends, my wife, all my money, my house, my boat, my cars, my hot tub, my summer house, all my tools of the trade. I would gladly pay double that, because it led me home, to London, reconnected me with my friends, and reignited my desire to continue living, liberated from fear of losing material possesions and unhealty relationships.

I'm the one taking the photograph. Camden Town, London, UK (October 2013)

Tags: #leadership #startup #entrepreneur #computing #mentalhealth #suicide #depression

This is a story of leadership, charisma and madness...

People rarely know what they are really asking for, and what they are asking other people to do. When friends asked me to guide them up a mountain by an interesting route, of course I thought "what would be interesting to me?". Challenge accepted!

Is this reckless "leadership from the front" that could have gotten somebody killed or injured? Certainly, I'm at the front of the group here, stood astride the ridge taking the photograph. However, we need to acknowledge that our leaders cannot be responsible for the personal decisions of every member of their party. We are all adults, and especially in the mountains, we have to take individual responsibilty for staying within our personal comfort limits.

When we are scared and stressed and tired, beyond our limits of experience and endurance (physical and emotional stamina) we are a danger to ourselves and our expedition party. It is the leader's responsibility to spot the member of the group who is struggling the most and ensure that the party is led within margins that person can tolerate, otherwise you have failed as a leader.

We are extremely tough, proud and stiff-upper lipped people, so it's pretty hard to really read people's fear and stress levels, so the only way to manage risk to any group that you're leading is to never leave yourself without a line of retreat. When it became clear that my group was unhappy to continue on the route I had chosen, they began to accuse me of having led them into a position of no retreat. If I had done, I would have failed my group, as their leader. However...

All smiling, retreating off Crib Goch, Snowdonia, Wales, UK. We were back on the main path in less than 20 minutes. Descending is a lot safer and easier if you do it early and with confidence (April 2010)

Tags: #leadership #climbing #adventure