Fifty Years in Business
// A Golden Year
Here we are at the start of another New Year, and may I be the first to wish you everything you want for 2026.
I find January 1st brings all the excitement of a fresh start bundled up with huge enthusiasm for a list of resolutions that are usually broken by the 20th.
This year though it’s going to be different, no really! This year will be a golden year in the "anniversary" sense of "golden". 50 years working in the same industry.
So, I’m John - the wire guy.
I’ve made a career selling wire and cable to people who make electrical equipment, medical machines, aircraft and electronics systems and I could talk a glass eye to sleep with details about why one type of insulation is better than another. This was my first job fresh out of school and this year I’m celebrating half a century.
// Stepping into the goldmine..
I can still remember that first day when, on the 19th of July 1976, I set off for my first day.
It was the long hot summer that everybody talks about. We had droughts and water tankers, it was disco or punk depending on your taste in music, the Prime Minister was James Callaghan, and we were just coming off the back of a three-day week.
The FA Cup was still an important trophy in the footballing calendar and was won by Southampton in a shock victory over Manchester United.
I set off from my home in South London wearing a blue polyester suit with flared trousers and an excruciatingly bad haircut, nervous, but keen to get stuck into grown up life. It's interesting to reflect that I was still a couple of weeks short of my sixteenth birthday and setting off on adventure across our capital city with just 2p in my pocket to find a phone box and call my mum if I got into trouble yet I was only just happy letting my kids go into our local town on the bus alone at that age - how the media has influenced us - I really don't think it's any more dangerous now!
I jumped on the train at Hither Green, it was one of those old slam door trains, the kind you see in the Harry Potter films, that first came into service at the end of the second world war. They had originally been pulled by steam locomotives and still smelt of smoke and bore the hallmarks of that earlier time. I plonked my backside on a seat that thousands had sat on before and looked out of the window as the housing estates and tower blocks of my youth passed by.
The train rolled into Charing Cross, and I emerged into the centre of a busy, bustling London filled with a mixture of excitement and apprehension as we were warned to look out for bombs as this was the height of the IRA troubles.
A short tube ride later and another walk and I entered the doors of my first real job and, suddenly, here we are 50 years later.
// Mining for more..
As you can tell I’ve started the year in reflective mood and thinking about what I can do differently this year to maintain the resolutions and to keep a grip on the will power that has eluded me in the past.
Then it occurred to me - rather than do things differently what can I do more of that’s the same?
I can’t claim full credit for this Eureka moment as I’ve been reading about Jeff Bezos and his thought process when he started Amazon.
His ethos was not to look for shiny new things to sell but rather to concentrate on which customer demands would never change, for example nobody wants to pay more for something, and nobody wants a slower service. Concentrate on the unchangeable and do it better, consistently, seems to be the key to success.
Love or loathe Bezos it seems to me he's got this right.
Looking back over my career quite a lot has changed. I started with fixed phone line lines, yellow Pages, and Telex machines (ask your grandparents), then came the mobile phone and fax machines, now we have email, Internet, social media, and AI.
So how do I reflect on the past, find the changeless and still remain relevant – well it’s easy to get seduced by the next great thing but we have to remember - these are only tools that help us try to achieve one goal – the human connection we all crave and that hasn’t changed it all – if anything is more elusive than ever. The divisive nature of our mainstream media, the constant comparisonitis and view that everyone is doing better than us on social media and the massive reduction in real life, face to face interactions have certainly taken a toll and so getting back to human connection must be the way forward.
The other thing that really stood out on reflection was consistency. I certainly don’t always get it right, but 50 years must count for something, I guess. I’ve made my career by just keeping on plugging away, trying to embrace change, showing up enthusiastically each day, and not taking the occasional setbacks personally (yeah that’s a hard one for me).
So, against that backdrop, and in celebration of a golden year, I’m setting myself several challenges around the number 50 that, taken together, should improve my health, business, relationships, and human connection. I’m hoping the number 50 will help keep me honest with the consistency as well.
The list includes things like 50 dips in the sea, lose 50 pounds or 50 face-to-face meetings with friends and family (if you’re only inspired to copy only one of these please let it be this one!) The full list is below.
// My Golden Challenges
50 Dips in the sea
50 Days without alcohol
50 customer visits
50 Hour fast
50 face to face catch ups with friends and family
50 new customers
50 Yoga sessions
50 subscribers for a new business idea
50 miles walked in 1 weekend
50 hours spent on my garden
50 blog posts
50 miles cycled on 4 consecutive days (London to Paris)
50 new customers in 2026
50 lengths of my local pool without stopping
50 pounds weight loss
50 LinkedIn posts
50 email newsletters to existing customers
50 Hours DIY
50 days consecutive in an ice bath
The whole life approach I’ve tried to take here is intended to achieve moderate growth for my business, moderate improvement for my health and continued strength in my relationships – everything comes with moderate improvement - right?
I have realised that I don’t need to be right for everyone, I don’t need to go viral, I don’t need to scale at speed, and I certainly don’t need to hustle and 10X my business.
I just need to show up regularly for the people I care about and hopefully make the world a little better for the people I encounter - does this ring true for you too?
Wish me luck and maybe join me on one of the challenges!
John.
You can connect with John here - https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnjocham-wire-and-cable/
