By Gary Courtenay on 20/06/2007 14:11

During the last TV series of ‘Grand Designs on Channel 4 recently there was one particular episode that caught my attention?  In essence it was a documentary about a very unassuming chap who bought the scattered ruins of a castle in Yorkshire with the near obsessive goal of restoring it to its former glory.
 
He had £400k of his own money to invest and it ended up costing him about £750k to rebuild this magnificent structure. The programme does not discuss values but my guess is that the Castle must be worth now £2-3 million at the very least, probably a lot more.  What is even more remarkable than the perceived profit though is that the man behind it all most certainly didn’t restore the castle with profit in mind you see he didn’t appear to be motivated by money at all.
 
Well by now you may be wondering why I’m writing to you about a TV programme and some guy who restored a castle in Yorkshire?

< ... Read More »

By Gary Courtenay on 13/06/2007 12:04

The first insight: When you teach you learn I recently returned home after delivering a lecture to a group of seasoned entrepreneurs at the University of Warwick on the topic of goal setting. Going through Q & A with them made me realise that a few key areas of own my life are bereft of properly set goals. Read More »

By Gary Courtenay on 06/06/2007 09:58

I was watching an episode of the popular TV show ‘The Apprentice (UK)’ recently in which 16 young entrepreneurs compete with each other for the chance to win a £100k per year job as Sir Alan Sugar’s so called ‘Apprentice’. In this episode two teams (each of about 5 remaining contestants) were each tasked to purchase traditional British foods and travel to France and sell their selection at a long-established French outdoor market alongside and in competition with French market traders selling the very best of fresh French food produce. Each team was allocated a budget and was issued with the promise that Sir Alan Sugar would fire someone from the losing team i.e. the one that sold the least (usually the person he sees as being the most responsible for the team’s loss).

Not a single sausage was anywhere near ready for c ... Read More »

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