people
is
personal Do you remember that moment on the film ‘Taken’, when Liam Neeson is searching for his abducted daughter who is being trafficked? He is in a lift and is pointing a gun at the perpetrator? The evil man says, “it was never personal, it is just business” and Liam replies “It is personal to me”. Well, I identify with that within the business world. Several years ago, a pivotal moment in my self-worth, and the direction of my life that I took, was when an investor, who was brought onto a Board of a Company that I Founded, by one of the other major Shareholders. As we left the first meeting that she attended, she turned to me and said, “You know Penny, I don’t have to like you, it is just business, it isn’t personal.”
Wow, I thought, this is going to be hell, and I was not wrong. My business was personal to me. It is where I place my values, my passion, my time, my energy and my desire to have impact. I am in my 4th decade of business, thirty-seven years of commitment to the focus, disciplines and tenacity of business. Twenty-five of these years have been as my own boss, a business owner. Business has always been personal to me. The way I treat others, the values I hold, the integrity I live by and the joy I seek for myself and others. For many years I thought that business was my own private battle, I felt isolated from what appeared to me the reality of others. I had a mantra of ‘one day I will be a proper
