Table of contents

• Finding My First Customers: Where It All Began
• Learning Lessons – What Worked for Cars May Not Work for Other Businesses
• Changing My Approach – Learning to Pivot
• Trying to Scale In the Travel Business
• Learning Through Movement
• Starting From Zero Again
• Building Familiarity and Trust
• Finding Customers My Own Way

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

I’m Adam Thornhill, an entrepreneur and investor based in Dubai, originally from Liverpool, England. This series looks back at the early stages of my career – the businesses I built, the mistakes I made, and what those experiences taught me about building something that lasts. I hope you find these lessons useful. I’d love to connect with you if so.

Finding My First Customers: Where It All Began

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned over time is that every business needs customers, but the reality of where you find customers changes depending on where you are in life, what you’re building, and who you have around you. 

There are so many variables that it can be difficult to sustain a business long-term unless you have the right strategy. I’ve finally got there now, but it took me a while! 

Let’s rewind…

When I was 17 and first starting to buy and sell cars, I didn’t have a marketing plan or any kind of strategy for finding or retaining customers. 

What I did have, however, was a network. Most of my friends were just passing their driving tests. Naturally they were all looking for cheap first cars, so that’s what I focused on sourcing.

My first customers were simply the people around me. I didn’t realise at the time how important this would turn out to be. 

Learning Lessons – What Worked for Cars May Not Work for Other Businesses

As time passed, my network changed as it does for most people when they’re young. People moved on, friendship groups grew smaller, and that initial network wasn’t enough anymore. I couldn’t rely on selling cars to the same group of people forever, so I had to find other ways to make money.

This is when I moved into the taxi business and realised I was facing a completely new challenge. I wasn’t trying to sell vehicles anymore – I needed to find reliable drivers.

Taxi businesses tend to run in two main ways: either the vehicle is shared between two drivers on day and night shifts, or one driver keeps the car full-time. In both cases, reliability matters more than anything else.

At first, I tried going straight to taxi ranks and speaking to drivers directly, but looking back, this was never going to work. Most of the drivers had been doing it for years, and I was a 20-year-old trying to rent out taxis – one of which was bright pink with a PrettyLittleThing wrap. It didn’t exactly build confidence.

Changing My Approach – Learning to Pivot

Eventually, I had to change how I approached the business. I couldn’t just rock up and expect people to trust me like my friends had. I had to build those relationships gradually.

So that’s what I did. There was a local place where taxi drivers would congregate after their shifts to play pool and have a drink, so I started going there regularly. I didn’t try to pitch anything straight away – I just spent time there, got to know people and let conversations happen naturally.

After a few visits, though, I managed to secure my first drivers, who agreed to split the cab between them on a day and night basis. When Christmas came around, I gave them a week free to settle in, which helped build trust early on. Later, when I added a second taxi, those same drivers started recommending their friends.

This was the first time I saw how powerful word-of-mouth networking can be when you’re not trying to force anything. 

Trying to Scale In the Travel Business

When I later moved into the travel business, I knew straight away that friends and referrals alone wouldn’t be enough.

So I learned from my earlier pivot into the taxi industry and tried several different approaches. I experimented with Meta ads and even radio placements, but neither really gave me the return I was expecting. I felt like I was spending money without building anything long-term.

Then, I tried something more practical. I put advertising stickers on my taxis and told the drivers that if they brought travel clients to me, they’d get paid for referrals. It gave them a reason to talk about the business and created another channel for customers to come through.

Around the same time, I joined BNI Alpha in Liverpool, which was a different world entirely. Every week, business owners would meet, talk about what they were doing, and actively look for ways to help each other through referrals. It also meant standing up and presenting regularly, which wasn’t something I was used to.

The first few times were uncomfortable, but eventually it built confidence and helped me get better at explaining what I was actually offering.

Learning Through Movement

At one point, I decided to travel across Europe, spending time in places like Haarlem, Paris and Belgium.

Part of my reasoning for this was so I could advise travel clients more effectively, but it also gave me the chance to meet people along the way. Conversations with travellers and tourists naturally led to new connections.

After around 10 months, I returned to the UK, but I was already thinking about what was next. Dubai was positioning itself as a global business hub, and it felt like a place where I could build relationships with people who valued service and were willing to pay for it.

When I later launched my consultancy business, I approached things differently again. This time, I avoided paid ads completely and went straight to the customers, relying on networking, building relationships, and word-of-mouth advertising. 

Starting From Zero Again

When I first moved to Dubai and launched Relate Consultancies (a consultancy that supports foreign nationals and international businesses looking to operate in the UAE), I joined Facebook groups aimed at British expats living in the area.

Rather than posting services straight away, I spent time reading through the posts and comments. I looked at the questions people were asking and the problems they were dealing with – visas, bank accounts, moving logistics. Then I started helping.

Some of the first people I helped, I didn’t charge at all. Partly because I wanted to build relationships, and partly because I was still learning myself. They tell you to never give anything away for free in business, but this turned out to be one of the best decisions I made.

These early connections started recommending their friends and associates, and before long, the network began to grow on its own. At one stage, it was bringing in roughly one new client per week!

Building Familiarity and Trust

To build on my existing network, I started going to Liverpool supporter clubs in Dubai. (I’m actually an Everton fan, but that didn’t really matter. Being around people from my same city created an immediate level of familiarity!)

Here, instead of being another business owner, I was someone from home. That made conversations easier and I found it was quicker to build trust with new people. At the same time, people back in the UK would occasionally hear about someone planning to move abroad and pass my details on.

More recently, even running has played a part. I’ve met a few clients through conversations after events or training sessions, just through being around the right environments. 

All of this goes to show that when you have the right attitude and approach, you can find customers anywhere and everywhere. 

Finding Customers My Own Way

Looking back, I tried most of the usual routes when it came to finding customers: online ads, radio, sponsorships and referrals.

Some of these approaches worked better than others, but the most consistent results have always come from the same place – meeting people in real life, and helping without expecting anything back. 

It might be slower at the start, but it builds something more solid over time.

If you’re inspired by my story, please get in touch – I’d love to hear from you.

The post How I Learned to Find Customers, Wherever I Was in the World appeared first on Adam Joseph Thornhill.

Table of contents

• My Love of Cars: Where It All Began
• My First Lesson in Vehicle Loss
• From Driver to Trader: Getting into Business
• The Land Rover Discovery TD5: Learning to Improve Value
• The Subaru: Discovering Restoration and Patience
• A Crucial Realisation: Overlooked Vehicles Present Real Opportunity
• The Fiesta ST and Letting Go
• Returning to Cars in Dubai

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

I’m Adam Thornhill, an entrepreneur and investor based in Dubai, originally from Liverpool, England. This series looks back at the early stages of my career – the businesses I built, the mistakes I made, and what those experiences taught me about building something that lasts. I hope you find these lessons useful. I’d love to connect with you if so.

Throughout this series, I’ve written about calculated risk, resilience, and long-term strategic decision making. We’ve discussed my health, my hobbies and my entrepreneurial pursuits, and it’s been great to share my story publicly.

Long before I started building companies, consultancies, or investment portfolios, however, there was something far simpler I was drawn to – something that taught me early on about independence, profit and loss. Cars.

My Love of Cars: Where It All Began

Even as a child, I was drawn to cars. It wasn’t just about the flashiest models or how they looked – it was how they worked, the intricate mechanisms under the hood.  

I was fascinated by the idea that thousands of individual components could function together as one system. When maintained properly, it boggled my mind that this machine on wheels could take you anywhere you wanted to go, and that you were in complete control.

While most people saw cars purely as transport, I saw them as mechanical systems that could be understood, fixed, improved and, in some cases, rescued. This curiosity led me to study a BTEC in Vehicle Technology at school, which later inspired my first taxi business.

Then, at sixteen, I bought a scooter and completed my CBT. It wasn’t glamorous, but it gave me something far more important: independence. For the first time, I could move without relying on anyone else.

My First Lesson in Vehicle Loss

At seventeen, my uncle, who was a motor trader, gifted me a Renault Clio he had picked up from auction. The car was far from perfect – the alternator was failing and it had its own quirks – but it was mine.

I learned to drive in that Clio. Every stall, every smoother gear change, every small improvement happened inside that car. Passing my driving test felt like independence officially earned. But a week later, my beloved car was written off in an accident.

It was an early lesson that freedom can be temporary, and that loss doesn’t ask whether you’re ready for it.

From Driver to Trader: Getting into Business

With limited money, I bought what I consider my first real car, which was a Vauxhall Astra. By modern standards, it was pretty basic, but it represented momentum – a life moving forward.

I soon discovered that although I loved driving, it wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to be more involved, and somehow combine my passion for cars with my aptitude for business. 

I started going to auctions, just observing at first. I watched experienced traders evaluate vehicles in seconds, making decisions quickly and without emotion. Gradually, I started participating, buying, and selling on a small scale.

Not every deal worked, and some mistakes were expensive. But every misjudgement refined my instincts. Cars became more than transport; they became my first experience of buying low, improving value, and managing risk – all crucial entrepreneurial lessons. 

The Land Rover Discovery TD5: Learning to Improve Value

One of the most memorable projects from that period was a Land Rover Discovery TD5.

I purchased it as a project vehicle and converted it to make it more capable off-road, preparing it for events I planned to attend. This was the first time I was able to take something functional and improve it through effort and understanding. 

The TD5 was a huge milestone for me and reinforced a principle that has stayed with me ever since: value is often created through intelligent improvement rather than initial perfection.

If you buy correctly and make calculated upgrades, you can increase both utility and appeal, but if you over-invest emotionally or ignore margin, the numbers rarely work in your favour. That balance between passion and practicality is something I still apply in business today.

The Subaru: Discovering Restoration and Patience

Around the same time, I completed a full restoration on a Subaru. Restoration teaches patience in a way few other projects can, because shortcuts reveal themselves later, usually at a higher cost.

Working through that process strengthened my appreciation for doing things properly the first time. It also highlighted something important: effort compounds. The more time you invest in understanding a system, the more confident your decisions become.

A Crucial Realisation: Overlooked Vehicles Present Real Opportunity

Not all the vehicles I worked with were exciting: Ex-Royal Mail vans, Peugeot Partners, Transit campers, and Hackney cabs formed part of the mix. These were vehicles most people overlooked, but they taught me that assets don’t need to impress – they just need to perform. That distinction later fed directly into my first taxi business, where vehicles became income-generating tools rather than passion projects.

There is a difference between loving something and monetising it, and learning that difference early shaped how I evaluated opportunities moving forward.

The Fiesta ST and Letting Go

Just before leaving the UK, I bought a Ford Fiesta ST. This purchase represented progress – it was one of those cars you looked forward to driving, not because you had somewhere important to be, but because you enjoyed the experience itself.

Not long after buying it, however, it was stolen and never recovered.

The financial loss was frustrating, but what stayed with me was the personal element. It symbolised a chapter of work and independence, and losing it created a strange sense of closure.

Looking back, that moment became one of the factors that pushed me to leave the UK. Sometimes losing something creates the space for something new to begin.

When I moved to the Netherlands, cars became distant for the first time in years. I drove rentals when needed, but ownership creates a different level of connection and responsibility.

I also noticed how significantly more expensive vehicles were compared to the UK. Cars that would be affordable at home carried substantial premiums there. It reinforced an important lesson: geography shapes opportunity. The same asset can carry different value depending on location, demand, and regulation. 

Returning to Cars in Dubai

When I moved to Dubai and decided to stay long-term, my love for cars returned.

Dubai is a city built for driving, and I enrolled with Copart locally. Following the floods, there were significant numbers of damaged vehicles entering the auction that many people avoided.

But years earlier in the UK, I had learned how to evaluate vehicles quickly and without emotion. Assessing damage, calculating potential repair costs, and weighing risk against margin felt less like starting again and more like returning to fundamentals.

What Cars Actually Taught Me

Looking back, cars were never just about transport for me. They were my first exposure to risk management, loss recovery, margin awareness, and opportunity recognition. They taught me how to detach emotion from investment decisions and how to improve an asset rather than simply consume it.

But most importantly, they gave me independence. Perhaps this is more meaningful to me because I was born with clubfoot and movement was restricted, I don’t know. 

All I know is that before offices, before employees, before consultancy or investment portfolios, cars gave me movement. That movement created autonomy, autonomy created confidence, and confidence made entrepreneurship feel possible.

If you’re inspired by my story, please get in touch – I’d love to hear from you. If you’d like to work with me.

The post What Cars Taught Me About Risk and Independence appeared first on Adam Joseph Thornhill.

Table of contents

• How I Learned to Take Risks
• Gaining Independence and Responsibility
• Forging a New Path: My Taxi Business
• The Valuable Lesson I Learned About Stability  
• Pivoting in the Face of Great Change

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

I’m Adam Thornhill, an entrepreneur and investor based in Dubai, originally from Liverpool, England. This series looks back at the early stages of my career – the businesses I built, the mistakes I made, and what those experiences taught me about building something that lasts. I hope you find these lessons useful. I’d love to connect with you if so.

How I Learned to Take Risks

By the time I turned seventeen, I had already spent a couple of years working and learning through hands-on experience. I understood responsibility, long hours, and earning money through effort. What I didn’t yet understand was how unpredictable the world of business could be.

Keen to take risks and build something of my own, I started buying and selling cars. This venture started small, mainly through platforms like Tuebrook Auctions, eBay and Gumtree. 

My budget was limited, so I focused on cheaper vehicles that needed minor repairs – work I could either do myself or organise through people I knew. Each sale taught me something new, whether it was negotiating, managing risk or understanding how quickly markets could change.

What started as a side gig quickly became more serious. As I bought and sold more vehicles, I started building connections within the motor trade. 

I learned quickly that these relationships mattered just as much as the cars themselves. Access to the right information, the right people, and the right timing often meant the difference between profit and loss.

Gaining Independence and Responsibility

Just three weeks before my eighteenth birthday, I moved into my first apartment. It was above a hairdressers on Breck Road, with single-glazed windows, old carpets and wallpaper that needed replacing, but it was mine. I was determined to fix it up, and so I did.

Living independently brought a different level of responsibility. Rent, bills and daily costs meant that my income couldn’t be inconsistent for long. Around this time, I decided to leave Quality Fireplaces and commit fully to buying and selling cars full-time.

For a while, things went well. After around six months, I had managed to save a decent amount of money. But my income was really unpredictable. 

Some weeks, I would sell two or three cars, and other weeks I would sell nothing at all. The highs were good, but the uncertainty made it clear that I needed to build something more sustainable.

Forging a New Path: My Taxi Business

Before long, I bought my first taxi – a pink vehicle with a PrettyLittleThing advert on the side, complete with a part-time night driver already in place. This felt like a different kind of business venture entirely – and it wasn’t exactly easy to get started.

Most insurance companies simply didn’t understand why someone under 21 was trying to start a business like this, and several refused to insure me altogether. Eventually, after a lot of persistence, however, I found a provider willing to take the risk.

Within another six months, I added a second taxi, which helped me to generate consistent income. I allowed myself to enjoy some of my newfound success and moved into a penthouse near the Metquarter.

Over the next few years, I continued buying and selling cars while gradually expanding the taxi fleet. For the first time, my business felt stable and scalable at the same time.

Then COVID arrived.

Almost overnight, everything slowed down. Taxis sat idle, drivers returned vehicles, and car sales dried up. Like many business owners at the time, my income plummeted while all the same fixed costs remained. 

This forced me to take a step back and reconsider everything. 

The Valuable Lesson I Learned About Stability 

Looking back, this stage of my life taught me the difference between making money and building something sustainable. Buying and selling cars showed me how to create opportunity quickly, but the taxi business showed me the value of consistency and recurring income.

This was also the first time I experienced how external events that were completely outside your control could change your business overnight. 

COVID forced a shift in my thinking. Instead of focusing only on what I knew, I started looking more broadly at industries that had been disrupted and where new opportunities might emerge.

That mindset change became important later. I became less attached to individual businesses and more focused on understanding markets, timing and adaptability. 

Entrepreneurship stopped being about a single idea and became more about recognising when to move and when to change direction.

Pivoting in the Face of Great Change

When people look at my business background now, they often see different industries and assume the path was planned. In reality, much of it came from learning through experience and adapting as circumstances changed.

Starting businesses young meant learning quickly about risk, responsibility and uncertainty. Those lessons still shape how I approach opportunities today. I tend to focus less on short-term wins and more on whether something can operate consistently over time.

If there is one good thing to come out of losing my taxi business to COVID, it’s that it influenced how I work with other founders and operators. Many businesses go through periods of growth followed by sudden change, and having experienced that early on makes it easier to stay practical and calm when circumstances shift.

It was during this period, as industries adjusted to the impact of COVID, that my attention turned to travel – an industry facing significant disruption and uncertainty, but also one that presented an opportunity to build something new…

If you’re inspired by my story, please get in touch – I’d love to hear from you.

The post Building Momentum: My First Steps into Entrepreneurship appeared first on Adam Joseph Thornhill.

Table of contents

• Joining the Workforce at 15: Learning on Site, Not in the Classroom
• Finding Small Opportunities Everywhere
• Moving on from My Apprenticeship: A New Path
• Reflecting on What I Learned As an Apprentice

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

I’m Adam Thornhill, an entrepreneur and investor based in Dubai, originally from Liverpool, England. This series looks back at the early stages of my career – the businesses I built, the mistakes I made, and what those experiences taught me about building something that lasts. I hope you find these lessons useful. I’d love to connect with you if so. 

Joining the Workforce at 15: Learning on Site, Not in the Classroom

I started working immediately after leaving school at 15. Looking back, this was probably the best decision I could have made for my future career.

As I was too young to start an apprenticeship officially, I joined Quality Fireplaces as a labourer. My plan was simple: work hard and learn everything I could. Then, when I was sixteen, I could start my apprenticeship and begin the next stage of my life.

Before long, I was formally signed on as a Gas Engineer Apprentice. It was my first real job – my first experience of structured work, responsibility, and learning a trade from the ground up. It was a shock to the system… but in a good way.

Unlike school, where progress was measured in exams or grades, progress in the labour force was practical. You either learned how to do something properly, or you didn’t. And when you did, it was super rewarding.

I was paired with an engineer called Kyle, who taught me the trade hands-on (shout out to Kyle!). I learned quickly that there was no substitute for experience. Everything I learned, I learned by doing – by making mistakes, and figuring things out in real time.

However, it also became clear that working in the trades often meant long, unpredictable hours. Jobs didn’t finish at a set time – they finished when they were done. It wasn’t unusual to still be working at eight or nine in the evening, especially during winter. 

Still, unlike at school, progress as an apprentice was easy to measure. Here, at the end of each day, you could see what you’d built or installed. This gave me an early understanding of effort and outcome that stayed with me long after I left the industry.

Finding Small Opportunities Everywhere

During the apprenticeship, my routine was straightforward: each week involved five days working on site and one day at college. But I began to crave something more.

Because my wage as an apprentice was pretty low, I started looking for extra ways to earn money on the side, indulging my entrepreneurial spirit.

I began advertising on Facebook, offering to fit outdoor taps and taking on small jobs outside of work hours. I would cut copper pipe down to fit inside my holdall and travel to jobs on my scooter. Logistically, it wasn’t ideal, but it worked.

Around the same time, I started noticing opportunities within the work we were already doing. Before fireplace installations, chimneys often needed cleaning, so I bought chimney sweeping brushes and started offering that as an additional service. It brought in extra income and, more importantly, taught me something I’ve carried into business ever since – that opportunities are there if you look for them. 

Not long after turning 17, I passed my driving test and was trusted with a blue Y-reg Transit van. With that came more responsibility. I began travelling to jobs independently, loading materials and managing more of the work myself. 

This was a small step, but it felt significant. Independence became something earned through trust and consistency, rather than something given – another crucial lesson. 

Moving on from My Apprenticeship: A New Path

As time went on, I started thinking more about where my Gas Engineering apprenticeship would lead. I wanted to progress faster and increase my earning potential, which led me to consider a fast-track gas engineering course. However, my academic grades meant I wasn’t eligible.

That moment marked the beginning of the end of that chapter, but the start of a new path forward. I realised that while I valued the experience I was gaining, I wasn’t prepared to spend several more years in college before moving forward. 

I wanted to move more quickly, take on more responsibility, and find opportunities that matched my ambition at the time. Looking back, this was less about leaving the trade itself and more about recognising that my path didn’t have to be linear.

Reflecting on What I Learned As an Apprentice

Working as an apprentice taught me things that formal education never could. I learned the importance of reliability, showing up consistently and finishing what you start. I learned that reputation matters – especially in customer-facing trades where trust is everything. 

Most importantly, I learned to look for opportunities rather than waiting for them to come knocking. Whether it was fitting outdoor taps on evenings and weekends or upselling chimney cleaning before installations, I became comfortable creating additional value rather than simply completing the task in front of me.

That mindset carried forward into everything that followed. I became less focused on titles or traditional progression and more focused on learning skills that could be applied elsewhere. 

This experience also helped me get more comfortable working in uncertain environments, where outcomes weren’t guaranteed, but effort still mattered.

Starting work young meant learning responsibility early. There was no separation between effort and outcome. That experience still shapes how I approach business today, particularly when working in environments where practical decisions matter more than theory.

Many founders and operators I work with come from hands-on backgrounds themselves, and understanding that experience makes it easier to focus on solutions rather than processes for their own sake.

If you’re inspired by my story, please get in touch – I’d love to hear from you. 

The post Learning Through Work: What My Apprenticeship Taught Me About Responsibility appeared first on Adam Joseph Thornhill.

Table of contents

• Growing Up in Anfield
• My First Taste of Business
• Choosing Independence Over Convention
• What Uncertainty Taught Me About Business
• How My Early Life Shaped How I Work Today

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

I’m Adam Thornhill, an entrepreneur and investor based in Dubai, originally from Liverpool, England. This series looks back at the early stages of my career – the businesses I built, the mistakes I made, and what those experiences taught me about building something that lasts. I hope you find these lessons useful. I’d love to connect with you if so.

Even as a child, I was never one to follow a traditional path.

Growing up in Anfield, Liverpool, I was surrounded by strong personalities and close-knit communities, in a culture where independence was encouraged from a young age.

This environment, combined with my own experiences inside and outside of the education system, gradually pushed me towards finding my own direction, rather than following the conventional school-college-university route.

Looking back, this decision was actually crucial to my future success in business. People often dismiss teenage ambition, but many of the choices I made back then – some deliberate, some instinctive – were crucial in shaping my later successes as an entrepreneur.

Growing Up in Anfield

I grew up on a small street where everyone knew each other. Like a lot of kids, we spent our time playing football outside and making our own fun.

Unlike other kids my age, though, I was born with clubfoot in both feet, which delayed my ability to walk and left visible scars on the backs of my legs. Even as a child, this never felt like something that defined me – just an obstacle I would need to overcome to get to where I wanted to be.

I attended Anfield Junior School and enjoyed learning. My headteacher, Mr Lund, left a lasting impression on me, and school at that stage felt positive and straightforward. There were Christmas plays, endless football games in the playground, and lots of excitement about growing up and becoming my own person.

My First Taste of Business

Secondary school, however, became more challenging. I attended North Liverpool Academy, a newly opened flagship school at the time, a place filled with new technology and ambition that was famously shaped like an aeroplane!

Academically, I started strong and was placed in top sets across most subjects, but outside the classroom, I was suffering. I was overweight with a significant overbite, which made me insecure about my appearance and unsure of where I fit socially.

It was during this period that I had my first experience of business. I began buying sweets and drinks with my pocket money and selling them at school. What started as a small hobby grew into my first real moneymaking venture.

I quickly realised that buying the sweets in bulk reduced my costs, so I began sourcing stock cheaply from places like Greatie Market and Costco. It was simple, but it was the first time I understood how supply, demand and margins worked in practice – and it’s a lesson I’ve never forgotten.

Bolstered by my newfound business acumen and ambition, I became more interested in life outside of school. I joined Salisbury Amateur Boxing Club, ZAP Youth Club, and the Army Cadets. I lost weight, became more confident, and started to feel more comfortable in myself.

Choosing Independence Over Convention

As my confidence grew outside of school. I became less engaged in lessons and more interested in life beyond the classroom. Around this time, I also changed my surname from Askew to Thornhill, taking my father’s name.

This marked a personal shift, and became the name I would use as a founder and entrepreneur, even if I didn’t know it back then.

In my final year of school, I was told that because of my lateness record, I wouldn’t be allowed to attend prom. This was the catalyst for me choosing to leave school early and pursue work instead.

I was still fifteen when I received my National Insurance number and took my first steps into working life. When I turned sixteen, completing my CBT and getting a scooter gave me my first real sense of independence and freedom.

At the time, it didn’t feel like a dramatic decision. It felt practical. I knew I wasn’t reaching my academic potential at school, and I believed strongly that I would find my own path through work rather than education. I was right to take a chance on myself, even though it felt risky.

What Uncertainty Taught Me About Business

Looking back, I can see now that the uncertainties I faced in childhood shaped how I think about responsibility and decision-making as a working professional.

From an early age, I became comfortable making choices without certainty and accepting the consequences that came with them. I learned early that progress often comes from doing rather than waiting for permission or perfect timing.

The small experiences mattered more than I realised: selling sweets at school, building confidence through boxing, and learning that independence came with responsibility.

None of this felt strategic at the time, but it actually formed the foundations for how I would approach business later on. I became more interested in practical outcomes than theory, and more comfortable learning through experience.

How My Early Life Shaped How I Work Today

When people see the businesses I’ve been involved in now, they often see the later stages – companies, partnerships, or projects. What’s less visible is how much of that approach comes from those early years.

Leaving school at fifteen and entering the workforce meant learning quickly how to adapt, take ownership, and make decisions without a clear roadmap. That mindset still shapes how I work today, particularly in environments where uncertainty or change is constant.

That early sense of independence later influenced how I approached building and operating businesses such as Relate Consultancies and the ventures that followed.

It also influences how I work with others. Many founders and business owners I work with haven’t followed traditional paths either. Understanding that there isn’t always a single correct route makes it easier to focus on practical solutions rather than following the ideal, perfect path.

If you’re inspired by my story, please get in touch.

The post Early Independence: What Choosing Work Over School Taught Me About Business appeared first on Adam Joseph Thornhill.