Achieving your dreams and financial freedom, but feeling unfulfilled?

Take heart from this eye-opening feature. CBC Stories meets inspirational entrepreneur Chris Goodman, Co-Founder and Director of Focus Group, a UK telecommunications and IT business. He talks about how he achieved all his goals but felt unfulfilled – because he had failed to invest in himself. 

Tell us a bit about yourself and your journey

Focus Group now has nine offices around the UK. We’ve got nearly 800 staff and almost 30,000 customers. So, it’s constantly growing – but it wasn’t always a big business.

We set up in 2003. We actually didn’t start trading until 2004. It was just me and my business partner. We’d both worked in sales, and both worked for somebody else. As most people out there know, who have founded a business, you perhaps realise that you are not going to achieve all your dreams and ambitions working for somebody else. We took the plunge in 2004 to quit our jobs and go it alone. 

We were really young. I think Ralph was 21 when we set up the business and I was 23. I think being young, a bit green around the edges, meant that we came in with a completely fresh approach. We weren’t burdened by doubts and fears. We hadn’t built a life of things to lose yet. At that age, there was a work hard, play hard mentality.

Was starting your own business something you always wanted to do?

I think it was. My great-grandfather was an entrepreneur. He was the chap who invented the snap-lock safety pin, so in my family history there was an entrepreneurial spirit and commerce. And growing up, I saw the trappings of what that can come with. Not in my personal life but I’d seen it in past generations, so I was pretty keen that, if the opportunity presented itself, I’d find my way into business. My parents were both teachers so, as all teachers out there will know, it’s not the highest-paid job. More of a vocation. While that’s incredibly admirable and we need people who are willing to put themselves second, I was always driven to make a success of myself.

What is your definition of success?

That definition of success has changed dramatically over the past 20 years. I suppose, in a way, the perception of financial and material success is what drove me. I find now, when I am having conversations 

with people about motivation, work ethic, work-life balance, it is easy to view it in a different way and say ‘Maybe you should be careful about that work-life balance’.

There is always a question mark over whether you would have been so successful if you weren’t so driven in those early days.

When we got to 2020 and sold a share of the business, we’d had a fantastic journey, but had I really taken the time to enjoy the journey – to reflect at various moments on the highs and the lows and all the things that come with running a business, like having responsibility for staff? The answer is absolutely no.

While I would diligently write my to-do list and goals for each year, the extent of my ‘have I succeeded or not?’ was at the end of the year either putting a tick or cross next to the various items.

There was no emotional aspect to it. No sense of appreciation. 

The level of enjoyment or satisfaction I would get from the ticks was far outweighed by the one or two crosses, where I’d written ‘Lose some weight’ or ‘Play more golf’. Negativity bias is very common.

We don’t give ourselves the time to be aware of these traits. Most aspirational people reach that point and within minutes they are ‘What next, what now?’.

You tell your kids ‘You can have anything, but the one thing you can’t have is everything.’ So, you have to realise at some point that sometimes it is enough and understand what is enough, because if you are constantly striving you are never going to be happy. You are never going to find that contentment that, ultimately, people are searching for. It’s not necessarily about wealth. It’s the sense that it gives you. The opportunities it creates for you. How sad is it that you get to the point where you have those opportunities but, actually, you are not content with who you are?

Maye, you are not content with the choices you’ve made. Maybe, you breached your moral code in order to get there and, if you are living with cognitive dissidence where your actions don’t portray the morals that you’ve got, then you are destined to live a life that is not as fulfilled as maybe it could have been, which is a real shame. 

Let’s be honest… When do you seek out counselling or a life coach? You seek them out when you aren’t doing well. When you are in a bad place. What we actually need is great people around us from a very early age to just check in with us. ‘How are things? How are you progressing?’ We all need that bit of a steer from time to time. Sadly, we don’t reach out for that until we are struggling.

Talk to us about some of the sacrifices you have made

This realisation came in the past couple of years through having counselling, both in a traditional sense but also life coaching. I sacrificed things around my personal life, really. Whether that was my physical health, my mental health or the health and well-being of my family and relationships. Not in a catastrophic way. Certainly not in a way that I could perceive but, over time, these things have a tendency to build. In terms of physical and mental health, it was in a non-productive way. I think that was putting myself last. That’s very different now; I put myself first. 

If I put myself first, I am the best version of me and I have more to give myself and my family. That’s a complete shift. 

I had my first really poor mental health experience in 2005. When that happened in 2005 and 2012, my approach was ‘OK, I’m not very well and I need to see a doctor’ and invariably the doctor prescribes you with antidepressants. In my case, it was an anxiety/panic disorder. But I didn’t change anything else. As soon as I’d taken the medication and felt better, I saw no reason to change my lifestyle. 

Those periods were two or three months of not being able to work properly. Not being able to go outside so much, because you develop a bit of agoraphobia. I was continuing to work hard to play hard. My life was not in balance. I didn’t listen to my body or my brain, which was crying out for help. 

Ironically, it was the pause that was forced upon us by covid which coincided with a third dip in my mental health. I had a moment where I had a completely different way of looking at it, thinking this is just ridiculous. It coincided with effectively realising all my dreams. 

I thought, this can’t be right. Something has to change, so that’s what triggered the last couple of years of self-reflection. 

I am in a very different place nowadays.

Having stability away from work was massively important. 

I would say to anyone struggling with their mental health, just invest the time in you. Everyone will find their own source of comfort.  

What does happiness look like to you?

It is about understanding what is enough. What makes you feel content? For me, being able to look myself in the mirror and know that I am being true to myself. Doesn’t matter how successful I am, if I am pretending to be someone I am not then I know that. That’s not going to sit well with me. 

My mentality over who I am prepared to spend time with has changed. I am not going to compromise and pretend that I am friendly with people who I don’t like. I don’t think anyone should compromise on their values and what’s important to them. 

Getting outdoors is so, so important. 

The simplest things, if you give yourself the time to be present, will bring you absolute joy. For most of us, what we have in front of us is more than enough.

What one bit of advice would you give your 18-year-old self?

Put yourself first.

This is a very small extract of a lengthy podcast interview, which also touches on Chris’s blog and the Focus Foundation, launched in 2021. 

Full podcast – https://youtu.be/EMPngHvf-SA

Focus Foundation – https://www.focusfoundation.org.uk