We spend a major chunk of our lives in a classroom, trying to learn English, Maths, Science, and other subjects. From primary school to university, the learning stays constant. For most people, this learning stops as soon as they finish their studies. They start thinking that they’ve learned enough and that they don’t need to do it anymore. But Myles Broom thinks it shouldn’t be that way, if you want different results in life.
Myles Broom is a successful entrepreneur hailing from the U.K. He is the co-founder of The Normal Company, an agency that provides real-time solutions for scaling e-commerce brands to their highest ever returns. The company has assisted several brands in discovering their “untapped” potential and using it to increase their returns to all-time high levels, including multi-million dollar sales volumes for emerging and established brand names. The Normal Company’s clientele includes many international brands and top Instagram influencers from all over the world.
The Normal Company is Myles’ most successful venture, and his sole focus today, but it wasn’t the first one. From the age of 14 to 25, the young entrepreneur started a variety of different ventures, mainly because he wanted to learn something new. For him, it wasn’t about making money; it was more about building something from scratch and proudly putting your name on it, out of pure passion and for what he says, is his innate hobby. In his exact words, “If I had a slight incline that something could either be a ripe opportunity or something I could learn a lot from, I would pursue it. I feel like when you are young, you have to do that – there’s nothing to lose apart from the opportunity cost and thinking what if – I wanted to just keep creating”. This practice proved to be very beneficial for him in the long run.
And that’s not it; Myles like most successful entrepreneurs didn’t follow the college route like most of his school friends at the time, Myles stepped in the job industry as soon as he could with the same mindset, taking an apprentice level role in I.T. at just 16. Even though he always knew he wanted to be an entrepreneur, he still took up jobs to learn how businesses operated, and their internal structure which he says is invaluable if you want to build your own someday. He even switched from a high-paying job to a lower-paying one just because the latter offered more exposure to what he wanted to see and learn, and better chances of development.
Myles believes it is much easier and better to learn from others’ experiences than learning it the hard way by experiencing it on your own. He says, “The key for me and the way I see it for most people is that you can be paid to learn, which is a huge and vital opportunity for longevity of success if you really are wanting to make it in any business; see the operations from an inside perspective, understand the market, see how the CEO operates, see how the marketing director manages their team, see how a real business gets growth, get close to it, without having to take the risk on for yourself until you are ready. This was my path, I decided that I would soak up as much knowledge as possible from companies I could work for and play a strong part in, to then take into my own.
From the outside looking in, it probably didn’t look like this was ever really me – but it was always my master plan to not only take jobs for the salary, as would be the case with most, (I left a well paid job for a lesser paid one twice) but for me to really say to myself ‘what can I specifically learn from this company, from this boss, from this team, to then take with me?’ I always saw it as a long game and setting the foundations for ultimately where I wanted to go, but to use the world of work to my advantage.
I remember being in an interview one time, and actually grilling the interviewer for over 25 minutes about their business growth forecast they had based on their marketing plan for the year, and how it didn’t stack up.
I got a call back within an hour offering me the position.”
When asked about what advice he would give to aspiring entrepreneurs, Myles said that he always advises everyone to have the humility to work for someone else. Do not think, even for a second, that you are superior in terms of knowledge. Instead, remember that someone out there will always have more knowledge than you, and this should make you more eager to learn because you cannot learn everything. In simple words, the cycle of learning should never stop.
Myles also highlighted the importance of learning about things that are not directly related to you. The way Myles sees it, everything is connected to each other in one way or the other, which is why every individual should try to learn something new whenever he gets the chance. Yes. it’s good to specialize in a particular field and learn more and more about it, but we are living in uncertain times, which is why we need to diversify our skillset and prepare ourselves for the worst too.
Myles Broom’s life is the perfect example of what he preaches, and it also shows us that if you value learning above money, the latter will come to you itself and in compounded amounts. He is indeed an inspiration for the youth of today who wish to grow their own ventures.