An £8,000 lesson

'There are a lot of lessons to be learned. We can all learn lessons.'

David Gill.

In the summer of 2016, I received £8,000 worth of fines through the post.

The strange part was that I had absolutely no idea what they were for.

After a fairly stressful phone call, I discovered the whole thing stemmed from a £50 fine issued six months earlier when a camera caught me stopped in a yellow box on Hammersmith Roundabout.

The original letters had been sent to my old address in Highgate while I was living in Putney. Because I never received them, I didn't respond.

The reminders escalated into court notices.

The court notices escalated into enforcement action.

Eventually the bailiffs tracked down my new address and suddenly I found myself facing thousands of pounds of fines and a court hearing.

Fortunately, the judge took pity on the stressed young man standing in front of her and revoked everything except the original fine. I got to keep the money I needed to bootstrap my business, although I still lost half a day in court and several weeks of stress.

All because I forgot to update the registration address on my car.

At the time, I remember feeling incredibly unlucky, but looking back, I see it differently.

I had made a simple admin oversight because I was trying to do too much.

I was working a demanding sales job, running a company in Kenya on the side, exercising every day, filling my diary with social plans and generally trying to squeeze as much life as possible into every available hour.

What I couldn't see at the time was that the fine wasn't really the problem. It was just a symptom of operating right on the edge of my capacity.

I know now that when we're operating in that state, things start to slip. We forget to reply to emails, miss appointments, overlook important details, arrive late and drop balls that normally would have been easy to catch.

Fortunately, those mistakes don't usually lead to £8,000 fines, but they can cost us in other ways.

They create unnecessary stress, consume time and energy, damage relationships and leave us feeling like life is harder than it needs to be.

One of the biggest shifts I've made over the last decade is recognising that success isn't just about how much you can fit into your life. It's also about creating enough space to stay on top of the things that matter.

Because when life becomes too frantic, the cost isn't always obvious. Sometimes it's hidden inside the mistakes we don't realise we're making.

If you’re operating at capacity, what is it costing you?