I'm always reflective on July 31st as it's the day I left The Scotsman office at the bottom of Holyrood Road and ended 20 years of working in daily newspapers.

That was 2009, and I left (voluntarily) having learned a lot by working among some brilliant, some not-so-brilliant, and some utterly unhinged, people. Some of the things I learned didn't become obvious, certainly not to me, for many years.

I'm not going to write (or ask AI to write) a lengthy reflection on what I've learned since, but here are a couple of thoughts…
If you are going out on your own in any field, take business development seriously. You won't survive, or thrive, unless you're constantly looking around the corner, and seeking new opportunities with new clients.

What I'm doing now bears little or no resembance to what I envisaged I'd be doing back on 31st July 2009. I certainly didn't expect to be wearing a hard hat on an industrial site in the Highlands while releasing a drone.

17 years ago, even 10 years ago, I never thought I'd be hosting online events, presenting podcasts (on a range of weird and wonderful subjects) or acting as a scriptwiter, director and producer for short videos. That's all now at the heart of what I do, but it might not be in 5 years, by which time even I will probably have to start thinking about the R-word.

Secondly, and thanks to Kissing With Confidence KWC Global for reinforcing this point at many new partner events I've hosted for The Law Society of Scotland…

No doesn't mean no forever. A business contact might have promised you work, or at least given strong hints that some projects are coming your way - but it just doesn't work out. Or maybe you pitch for work and think you're clearly the best person for it, but that guy you can't stand gets the nod instead.

As KWC says, don't see rejection as permanent, pervasive, and personal.

See it as temporary (Ah well, next time), specific (not this project, but maybe another) and think 'It's not about me - it just wasn't right now.'

I've picked up loads of work over the years by staying in touch with people who I like and/or respect professionally (and ideally both). Sometimes it's taken years and lots of coffee/lunches to get something over the line, but while you're waiting, look for those other fish in the sea (quotas permitting).

I could drone on, but it's Friday and that first beer/wine/gin of the weekend is looming.

Thanks to my collaborators Neil Cuthbert, PA Cooperative Ltd, Phil Wilkinson, Ben McLeish, Peter Ranscombe, Ross Daniel Russell, and many others for putting up with me, and my rants, dad-singing, and bad puns.