Andrew Reynolds: This weekend I’m showing you an alternative way to do business. But again from the emails I’ve had, there are a million excuses as to why you shouldn’t start in this business.

When I was at the seminar, just like you guys were, 12 years ago I had every excuse under the sun. I don’t know how to do it; well that’s why you are here.

I don’t have loads of money, when I got started in business I didn’t have hundreds of thousands of pounds to go and put down; I wanted to start this on a shoestring.

People send me emails saying “It’s alright for you Andrew because you’ve got a big customer database.” I had the perfect excuse when I went to that seminar, I could just say “It’s alright for the bloke at the front but I haven’t got a data base I can’t get started in business.”

Andrew Reynolds: “I’m not smart enough,” I could easily say that.

I’ve got friends who have got university degrees and stuff, I’ve got a couple of O levels, woodwork and drawing. I’m not smart enough to do this stuff; I am not a clever bloke.

I’m too busy, I don’t have the time. When I went to that seminar I had a corporate job that was taking me at least 60 hours a week to do, and it would have been so easy for me to say “I’ll do that one day but I haven’t got time to do it at the moment, I just don’t have the time.”

I’d turn the telly off, I worked evenings and weekends on my business and I got it started because I was so passionate about getting my business started. I didn’t make excuses.

“I can’t find anyone to help me, I can’t find a mentor.” Because I know from my dad’s life that he needed a serious mentor that could help him. Not the bank manager, not the accountant, not the failed business people.

“It takes too long to build a business.” Yes it takes time, this is not a get rich quick scheme, yes, of course it takes time. It’s taken me 12 years to pull in £50 million. Yes it takes time to build a business, if you don’t do that what’s your other back up plan?

“Business is risky.” Get emails saying business is risky. Life’s risky.

“I am too old.” I had a bloke recently wrote to me, said “I’m 54 years old, I’m a bit past all this I’m afraid.” He’s kind of getting ready for the home you know. He’s in his mid 50’s, pull yourself together man.

“I’ve been told it won’t work.” He’s been listening to the bloke that was pissed when he went on the discussion forum.

“I’m not very good with computers.” I get so many emails saying “Oh, it’s going to be hard, I’m not very good with computers.”

Andrew Reynolds: Let me tell you about the power of excuses and computers. I’ve got some friends in the audience today that I am so happy they have come down to see us. I’ve been working with Disability Initiative in Camberley, my home town and we’ve been helping them out with a bit of funding and they have a gentleman there that I met, a guy called Richard.

Richard wasn’t very good with computers, Richard has some movement problems, Richard has cerebral palsy. Richard can’t use his fingers on a keyboard. Do you see that big thing looks like a big blue dinner plate? That’s how he types me emails, he just hits that with his hand, the cursor goes across the screen, when he gets to the letter he wants he just goes dink like that. That’s how he writes his documents so don’t tell me you are not very good with computers. If he can do it so can you guys.

It’s an amazing charity; we are hoping to do some work with them next year to open a couple more centres, amazing charity.

Andrew Reynolds: The power of excuses. I had every excuse possible; I got every good reason why I could justify to myself and my family why I wasn’t going to do this.

I was born in a caravan. I was born in relative poverty; my parents when they got together didn’t have any money. My father failed in business, my grandpa failed in business. On my maternal side my granddad, he was a great guy, he was a preacher in a local church. He ran a small building business, it went bust. But with his standard of morals all the people he owed money to he worked his socks off for the next few years and paid every single one of them back. But he went bust. I come from a long line of business failures, therefore it’s okay because I can justify to myself that I don’t need to be a success at business.

Me and my little brother, that’s woken him up. Me and my little brother, we went to school on the local council estate. Us Reynolds boys went into the system, we didn’t learn business stuff.

When I reached the age of 40 I had had enough, I took the decision to make a change in my life. I’ve got a friend of mine who is going through a similar thing at the moment; he is kind of around that age. He took himself off to some recluse thing for a couple of weeks, hid himself away for a couple of weeks.

I said “Where’ve you been?” He said “I’ve been off to find myself.”

Andrew Reynolds: Let me tell you, life is not about finding yourself, because you don’t know what you are, life is about creating yourself. Write it down, who do you want to be? You create the person that you want to be, that’s what I did 12 years ago. I decided who I wanted to be and I did it.