On several of my regular visits to my life coach/councilor we have discussed the issue of nature versus nurture. In her true psychology style she attempted to convince me that we were all a product of our upbringing, in particular the first seven years of our life. Personally i disagree with this as i believe if we are born with differing levels of  skills why can we not be born with different personalities? For example i was undoubtedly born less intelligent than my partner. However i was born with greater levels of sexual expertise than most other men. There's no doubting that, i refuse to accept i'm just this good because of practice . So surely one person can be born with greater ability to hate, or with more competitiveness. Anyway, moving on even if you believe it is all down to nurture allegedly we are all formed by the age of 13 or something and anything that goes thereafter has no affect.

What is the point i hear you asking. Well if this is the case did my stint in the corporate world affect me and has it helped or hindered my attempts to set up The Building Experience? If you are wondering what has brought this issue to my attention it is because my business partner recently asked me to tone it down a little in meetings because he thought i was being a little too aggressive with our partners. I was also recently told that i was talking to my sister as if we were in the boardroom!

Spending time in any profession is bound to have a major influence on an individual. Take Nick Knowles for example. I'm sure years in the media spotlight and on the front of glitzy magazines has affected him. Likewise many years in the corporate world has certainly influenced my management style and may even have increased my already massively competitive nature.  Perhaps on occasions this may have riled certain people and had a negative affect on the progression of The Building Experience.

But equally i hope and believe that there are many things i learnt during my previous life which have been a massive help in what we are trying to do now. Quite honestly the boardroom is not that different to a building site anyway. Wolf whistling may be prohibited and getting your shirt off and pectorals out when it's sunny is frowned upon, but many similarities remain. Plus the rules for success in both fields must be the same, hard work, ambition, good people around you and a bit of luck.

So for my business partners sake i'll try to tame the beast when it rears it's ugly head next time, but quite honestly i'm a pretty lame example of a corporate animal anyway. I'm more a pussycat really.