I’ve never really shared this before, but I love watching boxing matches. Facebook knows this and kindly sends me clips of Tyson and Ali which I start my day by watching. I’ve even watched all five Rocky films and then yesterday I was staggered to know there was a sixth one called Rocky Balboa which I immediately had to watch, where he’s now much older, retired and has a restaurant (why does everyone want to have a restaurant?). To everyone’s dismay, he decides to do a tournament match with the current world heavyweight champion who’s around half his age.

His son tells him he can no longer hit hard enough, to which he replies: “It’s not about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit.” That pretty much sums up the last few years of my career. A series of business ventures that I have wanted to get off the ground have fallen at the last hurdle and one thing I have never let myself indulge in is disappointment or dismay. To allow oneself to go that route is a trap, a downward spiral from which it hard to recover.

If other people let you down, it’s not your fault and with that realisation, it’s much, much easier to dust down and fire up again. If other people tell you your plans are misguided, it’s important to step back, kick the tires on your idea and if need be take on board any useful suggestion that might make what’s in your head sit more comfortably in someone else’s head – whether that’s a landlord who has a restaurant space available which many people are pitching for or a highly talented individual who you want to bring into your team or an investor you want to back you.

When I’m mentoring anyone who is experiencing doubt about themselves, I regale them with the story from my journalist days when I once interviewed someone who made a billion dollars in his first year in business. He said that every morning he stared at himself in the mirror for 30 seconds and say to himself: “I am going to achieve whatever I set out to”. Try it – it’s not as easy as it sounds.

I was lucky to have been brought up to believe I can achieve whatever I set my mind to, which puts me in a sort of place of privilege as I don’t have a glass jaw (boxing term) and which is why I do so much mentoring as I keep coming across people jointly facing self-doubt and ambition. It’s a joy to help people untangle the two and overcome perceived obstacles.

I think I shall quote Mr Balbao liberally from now.