What are the strategies to get me through a stressful day?

Grant Leboff: Surrounding yourself with great people and leveraging some of that talent that’s around you, I think it’s really important. When it’s not so easy, when you have that time and you think, why am I doing this? Why did I bother? What are the strategies you used to get you through that?

Lara Morgan:Other than turning to alcohol? No, I don’t drink! So actually, genuinely for me, I’ve always played sports. Always tried to do something that gives me a physical release that just allows me to go beat the hell out of a squash ball or a hockey ball or go for a run, that’s one of the ways I’ve handled it. And I absolutely advocate this emergence, and there’s so much available, of enterprise organisations and networking and… You know, the day when you’ve been invited to an event in the evening and you’ve had a shockingly bad day, anything, actually all I want to do is settle down and cry in a corner. I have never found an occasion where I’ve gone…. Sod it! You said you’d go and you’d go and somebody rewards you for bothering and somethings like, it’s that moment of serendipity – and I know that’s mad, but that’s what I feel – but somebody looks after me because I’m working harder than the rest and I might be on my knees, but if I just keep pushing on and I’m knackered, but I’m trying and I’m going to put a smile on my face… I have to lead by example. I have to commit. I can’t expect my people to be the same in terms of the level of dedication. They don’t have 99% shares. And so I’ve got to be realistic of my expectations and their’s, and every time I’ve done that, I’ve had an interesting meeting, a useful conversation or I’ve sold something. You know, how good is networking?

Grant Leboff: So to an extent, just keep on keeping on as well. It’s just… you know what… I’ll just carry on and somehow…

Lara Morgan: Don’t do it blindly. Try and do it in a focused way. I mean, you know, if you’re going to be in an enterprise group, check out what kind of enterprise group are they. Try, always, to use the word focus. Am I focused? Focus makes money. Have a specialism – Is it marketing? So be world class at it.

Grant Leboff: What I really like about your approach as well is, I don’t want to be unfashionable. It’s very fashionable to talk about work/life balance and all these other wonderful things, and they are great things, but I built my first company up by working 80 hours a week and that was just what I did and now I look back on and say did I do it wrong? I didn’t have …

Lara Morgan: Did it work?

Grant Leboff:  Yeah. It did work! I didn’t have the budget, it’s all very well saying without bringing other resource, but at some point…

Lara Morgan: … But I didn’t have the bloody money! So I winged it and I’ve had to do it myself and it probably wasn’t as good as a professional, but I couldn’t afford one!!

Grant Leboff: Exactly, so I like the approach and you are honest and just… you know, guys, it’s hard work.

Lara Morgan: And you will miss and make sacrifices and you will get grief in the ear from your partner. And there will be moments where you are perhaps drawn into a lay by, crying your eyes out because it’s been one of those really dreadful days. Yeah. I had to let 33% of my team go after September 11th and I nearly lost the business and the emotion of that, I will never forget. But the privilege having a business and then seeing the other side… I’ll look back on it… that was okay.

Grant Leboff: Which is a nice way because ultimately, it was worth it, and that’s, that’s the great message.

Lara Morgan: But it is hard work.