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I recently sat down with many-time entrepreneur and coach, Sharad Lal on his excellent How to Live podcast to talk about the journey of building Casual from a 1987 Mini on the road to Mongolia to offices in seven countries.
The conversation explored the complex realities of scaling a creative business while trying to maintain one's humanity. This is particularly challenging when navigating the realities of the economic landscape.
So how do we do it? Answers on a postcard, but here are five of the most important takeaways from our conversation...
1. Values Aren't Wall Art - They're Essential for Effective Business
When we hit around 35 people in our London office, I noticed that something changed. It is around that size that culture stops taking care of itself. We identified our best employees and then worked out the values they display every day. We consolidated these and assessed every team member against them.
The hard part? Having to part ways with people who aren't a values match. It's easy to put values on the wall. It's brutal to actually use them to make people decisions. But without that discipline, you can't scale globally. Values are what you do when no one's looking - and in a business spanning eight time zones, nobody's looking most of the time.
2. Know What You're Not Good At
In my wedding speech, I said something cheesy but true: carbon and iron are very different elements, but together they make steel. The same principle applies to business partnerships and team building.
You don't need to be perfect at everything to be a successful entrepreneur, but you do need to know your weaknesses and surround yourself with people who complement your strengths. When we brought in our CFO Edward - a chartered accountant who understood creativity - it transformed how we operated. Good people don't just fill gaps; they take the weight and make the job easier.
3. Provision Isn't Love - Presence Is
Living in San Francisco, surrounded by fabulously wealthy who don't seem satisfied (Elon?), has taught me something essential: happiness comes from appreciating that wherever we're headed, we're already there. Thinking that the next summit you're aiming for will solve your problems is a recipe for wishing your life away.
A coach told our leadership group: "If you're a breadwinner, you kid yourself that provision is love. Actually, presence is love." Being there for your family without distraction, without your phone, without worrying about work - that's what matters. Time with our loved ones is the only truly finite resource.
4. Fitness Is About Feeling Strong, Not Being Strong
After nearly losing my mind trying to finish my book while managing the business, I learned to schedule exercise first. Monday run, Tuesday personal trainer, Wednesday run, Thursday swim, Friday bike, Saturday swim.
A lot of the benefit is not about being strong - it's about feeling strong. When you're running any sort of organisation in an uncertain world, fitness gives you the mindset to confront problems and overcome them. Plus, my best ideas come while exercising away from the office.
5. We Are the Sum of Our Stories
We are the sum total of the stories we tell ourselves. Countries, businesses, and individuals are all shaped by their narratives. "I'm not creative" is just a story, probably stemming from an incident in a third-grade art class. "I'm not good at public speaking" is another story. "I'm not a people person" - another story.
Some stories you can control, some you can't. But catching yourself in negative self-talk and actively rewriting your personal stories can be transformative.
The Bottom Line
We often overvalue the risk of doing something different and undervalue the risk of staying the same. You have agency in writing your own future.
Risk contains potential. If something scares you, it's probably an opportunity to grow. We spend too much time worrying about what will happen to us and not enough time realising we can actively shape what happens next.
The world doesn't have to be something that happens to you. You're an active participant in your own life.
Want more insights on building businesses with heart? The full podcast conversation dives deeper into the challenges of global expansion, the reality of letting people go during tough times, and why creativity is fundamental to being human.
Listen to the full episode/connect with Sharad here:
Spotify - https://howtolive.life/ep103spotify
Apple Podcasts - https://howtolive.life/ep103apple
Instagram - @podcasthowtolive, @sharadlal
Facebook - @podcasthowtolive, @sharad.lal.39
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