I was born in the small town of Bexleyheath, Kent, where I lived with my mother, father, older brother and younger sister until the age of 6.

My father’s determination and drive was an inspiration to me. As a professional footballer, he played for Charlton Athletic, pre and post war. He competed in two FA Cup Finals at Wembley, winning in 1945/46 and losing in 1946/47. He also represented England twice.

When I was 5, I swapped his FA Cup Winners medal for a penknife. As you can imagine, this went down like a lead balloon, especially with my Mum, and she made sure that the medal was returned the following day!

At age 9 I moved to Cambridge for 3 years while my dad managed Cambridge United, then moved to Leicester as he was appointed as Assistant Manager at Leicester City who were in Division 1 of the Football League at the time.

I played youth football until 1966, (yes, that very memorable year in English football!) and spent a year on trial at Leicester, where I had some amazing experiences, training and playing with the likes of Peter Shilton, David Nish, and Steve Whitworth, who all went on to play for England. But I knew I wasn’t committed to the hard work necessary to get to the top.

At age 16 I left school and went to work for 4 years in the head office of the Leicester Temperance Building Society. During this time I worked in all the major departments which gave me a good grounding in the services, Building Societies provided to their customers. Whilst it was a steady job it didn’t excite me.

I had developed an interest in sales and started applying for positions in companies where full training was given. In 1970 I had my first sales position, selling office equipment for Olivetti. After 12 months I was promoted to dealing with larger companies, which meant moving to Brighton. After 4 months I was missing home, family, football with my mates so I took a sales job back in Leicester with Rank Xerox.

4 years later aged 24 a friend and I decided we wanted to live life a bit (in the sunshine!), so I quit my job, and a week later we were on a boat with a one-way ticket to Gran Canaria. I ended up getting a job selling, and then running weekly beach parties. We would take between 80-100 people every Friday to the south of the island where they could eat and drink as much as they wanted. At night they met up in a bar for a glass of sangria and then got Free entry into a nightclub! By the end of the day hangovers were plenty, but great fun was had, and good friendships were made for the rest of their holidays.

6 months later, I returned home with some amazing memories. I had grown up, learnt more about life, was independent and self-sufficient. The ‘Pre Canaries Stuart’ had been replaced by a ‘Post Canaries Stuart’ which was confident, daring and a bit of a tart! Ok not quite that bad but let’s just say I had found my mojo!

Having arrived home I started a couple of business ventures, both of which were fun and built around the sale of leather handbags! I worked the summer east coast markets and set up an Export company supplying handbags to a number of different countries.

At aged 27 I met up with my previous girlfriend and we decided to get married the following year. I had had a great time but felt I was ready to settle down and I needed to find a steady, well-paid job, so I joined Philips Business Systems. Over the next 4 years our children, Robert and Ruth were born in 1979 and 1982, and have developed into amazing adults. I think they must have got this from their mother!

In 1985 at age 35 I was promoted to National Sales Manager for our Word Processing products which meant moving the family to our head office in Colchester. Within 12 months I was given responsibility for all office products that were sold through third party channels of distribution and became a board member of Philips Business Systems. I shall be forever grateful to Philips for the training and support that allowed me to progress so quickly.

I also learnt that there is a downside to being the boss. Whilst my indirect businesses were doing well by 1989, the Direct Sales activity of the Business Systems division was not. To put it in perspective we had in total a £100m turnover activity that employed just over 1000 people that was losing £4.8m. As a management team we had to make some very tough decisions, but in 18 months had reduced turnover to £79m, made over 200 people redundant and were making £3.4m profit. Even though my side was doing well I had to take my share of the pain which meant closing 4 businesses and making all the staff redundant. To part company with good colleagues that I had worked alongside for several years was a very emotional experience and one I will never forget. It was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. This also put a massive strain on my marriage and sadly, shortly afterwards we separated after 13 years of marriage.

I left Philips at the end of 1990 and over the next 15 years took on different Director roles with national and international companies such as Security Express, Group Information Services Ltd, Liberata, and PFE International. In my time at PFE I spent 3 years working abroad in our subsidiaries in Portugal, France, and Germany. Even though my foreign language skills were limited it was a fascinating experience to work with the different cultures and employment laws and learn so many new things.

On returning from Germany in 2001 I was asked to take on a consultancy project by two of my past Board Directors who had started a business in Manchester after they left Philips. They were in the process of selling their software business to the Anite Group and wanted me to evaluate a new opportunity. I recommended that the Anite Board take this on, but they preferred to take an option to buy it in 18 months if certain numbers were met. As part of this deal, they asked me to become Managing Director and build the company from scratch. In 18 months we had recruited a team of 60 people, annual revenues were £1.8m with a net profit of 14% and there was a back order book of just over £5m. The mission had been accomplished. It was probably the greatest achievement in my career to date and I learnt so much in the process. I continued to manage it for a couple of years but the challenge for me to continue to maintain the business didn’t excite me enough.

I had reached a stage in my life where I was finding it difficult to work for anyone else and unsure exactly of what to do next. I had been extremely fortunate to have had so many great opportunities up to this point and wanted to find a way to give something back. In late 2006, I was contacted by ActionCOACH who wanted to know if I was interested in a Business Coaching Franchise. After 2/3 months of thorough research, I knew it was the right fit for me and an opportunity to support local business owners in my community.

I joined in March 2007 aged 56 and with the support of the No 1 business coaching company in the world, set off on a journey that is still unfinished today. Fifteen years on, I can look back on having coached over 100 businesses on a 1-2-1 basis and over 370 owners and employees on my Group programmes. I have made lasting friendships and   seen my clients achieve some great results, some of them life changing. If that wasn’t enough reward for my hard work, I have also learnt a huge amount from my clients’ experiences and been able to use this to help others. What a great WIN/WIN!  I’m still excited to take on new challenges and help as many people as I can and  will continue to do for as long as I can. Definitely no retirement on the horizon for me yet!

Outside of work, and even more important, my family have grown and developed beyond my wildest expectations. Robert has a fantastic role as Senior Business Analyst – Finance at The Port of Felixtowe, Britains biggest and busiest container port. He has been with them for the last 18 years and is responsible for Hutchison Ports (UK) Group payroll and billing systems. He lives with his partner, Chris, in Ipswich.

Ruth meanwhile, who lives in Leicester, has pursued a Telesales career selling Gas and Electricity contracts to businesses. She spent 6 years with British Gas and then setup her own self employed business in2014. She has still found time to have 2 wonderful children, Danny 7 and Lexi 3. Anyone who has experience in Telesales will tell you that to be in that role for that long and be successful, is an amazing achievement.

I am incredibly proud of Robert and Ruth and what they have achieved and look forward to seeing the next generation of ‘Johnson’s, Danny and Lexi, grow up and develop in the coming years.