The Compound #28: “Your wife lets you do that?”

3.45am alarm on Friday, drive to Luton (🤮) airport, 48 hours in Barcelona and home to do bedtime for Cody at 6pm on Sunday.

It’s been an amazing weekend.

That’s the question three different people asked me.

Get away with it?

Firstly I think there’s such a problem with the framing of that question.

I know the question is usually asked jokingly, but I think there's something quite revealing about the way we frame it.

Look, I absolutely recognise what sacrifice my wife has to make when I go away for the weekend…and I appreciate that beyond belief.

But recognising that sacrifice shouldn't mean feeling guilty for having a life outside my family.

And I want exactly the same freedom for Abby.

I think we've developed a strange relationship with independence once we become parents.

We're told to maintain friendships, look after our own wellbeing, keep our own identity and make time for ourselves. But the moment somebody actually does that, the reaction is often surprise.

"Your wife lets you do that?"

What an odd way to describe a marriage.

Abby isn't my manager. And I'm not hers.

We're two adults who've chosen to build a life together. A massive part of that life is raising Cody, which is easily the best thing either of us has ever done.

But we were individuals before we became parents, and I don't think we should have to abandon those parts of ourselves.

Of course, the other half of that is making sure Abby gets the same opportunities, with the same support and without a running commentary about how much I'm sacrificing while she's away.

She’s said she wants to go to Edinburgh soon. Either alone or with a friend…and I’ll be pestering her until that trip is booked.

Because it's not really freedom if one person has to fight for it and the other just assumes they have it.

Anyway…Barcelona was awesome.

Being a dad, husband and business owner can be hard. Sometimes all you need is to be in a European city with your best friend drinking TSLs (tequila, soda lime) and chatting shit.

And getting home in time to put Cody to bed was a pretty great way to finish the weekend.

Both things can be true.

Last week was a big one for Toucan. We had two Leaderships meetings to cover two time-zones, Toucan Talks at Soho House and our All Company Meeting.

We filled the room at Toucan Talks and even had to reject requests to join due to capacity.

The week was a massive success.

We’ve been growing for 8 years now. 8 consecutive years of revenue growth…every single year…with no exceptions.

That’s a privileged position obviously.

Profitability has generally gone up too, although we have had some flat years when we chose to reinvest, to hire amazing people and to accelerate growth.

Of course, I take some credit for that but when I look at the team around me, I’m not surprised we’ve had a good run.

So we’ve never had a genuinely bad year. Obviously we’ve made mistakes, had tough moments, lost clients etc…but we’ve never been sat there thinking “shit, is this going to fail?”.

The more founders I speak to, the more I realise how fortunate that is. And one half of me thinks it’s been a good validation of the decisions we’ve made and the work we’ve done (and it is)…but I’m also aware that I don’t have any actual evidence on how I would react or behave if things did take a bad turn.

I guess you could argue it’s a gap in my CV.

It's easy to believe you're a good leader when the business keep moving in the right direction. It's considerably harder to know how much of that confidence survives when things start going backwards.

Would I stay calm? Would I make the difficult decisions quickly enough? Would I back myself in the same way?

I believe the answer is a resounding yes.

Look, I don’t want to experience that but if/when it does happen…it will provide me with more experience and a new perspective I’m sure.

Until then, our goal is to keep winning and to keep growing.

So far so good.

Something really nice happened at the two Amazon conferences I went to in the US last month.

Three different people came up to me and mentioned this newsletter.

Not one of them mentioned how insightful it was (make of that what you will). What they all said was…they love how honest I am.

They’ve enjoyed hearing my unfiltered perspective as someone juggling multiple businesses, a family and some big health/fitness goals.

And tbh, that’s probably the best feedback I could have asked for.

I enjoy writing this newsletter so much. Sometimes I sit down with no idea what to write and freestyle it. Other times I’ve had ideas in the week and I’ve made a note in my phone to refer back to.

Either way, it’s been a forum for me to organise my thoughts and become really clear on who I am and where I want to go.

So here’s the favour…if you enjoy this newsletter, please could you reply with a sentence or two about why?

I’d love to share a few of your comments to encourage more people to subscribe.

Basically I need your help to convince more strangers to agree to a weekly unsolicited download from my brain.

I honestly have no idea where this newsletter will go…but for now it serves me well…and it’s being well received by others too.

That's issue 28.

Here's to growing businesses, keeping your friendships alive and never having to ask permission to enjoy either.

James

Founder, Toucan Agency · Co-owner, Twenty One Beauty · UK