Why being an entrepreneur is a bit like being a doubles tennis player (apart from the shorts).

I collected our daughter Natasha from her friend Immy’s house last week. Immy’s mum Hayley answered the door. Hayley was in her tennis gear. We got chatting about the sport. It is, she explained, the 'total game' – requiring pyschological balance and nerve, athleticism, technical excellence, instinct, strategy, preparation, and in the case of doubles, communication. Plus a nice clean pair of shorts.

Ah, can you see where this is going...? I’m about to suggest that Hayley’s ‘total game’ idea made me think about being an entrepreneur. Today, with my Leon (sun)hat on, I did my best to handle some delicate issues with our shareholders agreement that required conversations with lawyers, accountants and my fellow shareholders; spent time at a photo-shoot for our second cookbook, which included helping make an Italian flag out of tomatoes, peas and spaghetti; wrote a document sharing my thoughts on how we might grow Leon best across the next two years; looked in at our Carnaby Street restaurant; replied to an email from a UCLA professor in LA saying they would love Leon to be there; and most importantly, answered a complaint from someone who was upset with the amount of chicken in her soup.

In other words, I spent my day managing 'stakeholders', as they say in posh books. In more stressful moments, one certainly thinks they are all surrounding you holding... well, stakes.

To add to the breadth of things I chose to do today, with my Vasari hat I gave my views on a business we are looking to buy in South Africa (is the turnaround plan too ambitious?), and spent time working out how we could get hold of a drinks distribution business we would love to own (does the vendor have sensible price expectations?). I tried to work out why a big piece of our web site has just, well, disappeared. And I faced a very big decision about whether my filing in my office should be box files or lever-arch files (any thoughts anyone?).

What's more, no-one decided for me what I spent my time on, so I had the constant unanswered question about whether I really did spend my time doing the right things. Freedom brings responsibility. And a tendency to existential doubt.

Now, I am lucky. In Leon, I am playing doubles (hooray, back to the meat of the metaphor). So if I am having a bad day, Henry the CEO of Leon hopefully has a good one and gets a few good fast first serves in. If one is totally by one’s self, it can be a wee bit lonely. I think that we are meant to hunt in packs. Even the famous R. Branson has relied on people like Simon Draper, Will Whitehorn and his CEOs to do the actual work. Vodafone's explosive growth was publicly headed by Chris Gent, but he relied on a team that included his COO Julian Horn-Smith and his CFO Ken Haydn. All working above the Indian take-away in Newbury.

Even as part of a partnership or team, it can all feel a bit draining, and people might find us sitting in the corner rocking slightly. Being an entrepreneur does not make you special, just like picking up a racquet doesn't make you special or a good tennis player. But what you do have is a very clear scoreboard for how you are playing. And a good amount of control over the shots you need to play to get scoring. One has freedom, with accountability and responsibility. Which is what makes one feel alive, and truly wealthy. Maybe that's why each game starts with Love. My goodness, this metaphor is beautiful.

Entrepreneur. Ok, so we know the French don't have a name for it, but where does it come from? Is it something you can call yourself, or only something you are called by others, like ‘over the top’ or ‘dishy’ (not me)?
 
I guess ‘entre’ must be ‘between’. Which is, I’m sure, how all entrepreneurs feel. Squeezed in between shareholders and the team. In between crises, if not in one. Caught between managing the short term and the long term. Between a rock and a hard place. Between meetings. And between you and me, a little weird.
 
Management Today has invited me to join their merry band of bloggers and to fly the flag of the entrepreneur. Like Alesha Dixon on Strictly, I feel that I may take some time to settle in (although I think she’s really starting to come into her own, wouldn't you agree?). But as this is our first date, maybe we should give ‘a little personal history’, as they used to say at P&G. I'm John. I am married to Katie and have two kids. Girls. Natasha and Eleanor. I am the co-founder of a small £10m, growing - if we play our cards right, assuming that's not mixing Brucey metaphors with Strictly - business called Leon. We (Henry and I) are trying to create 'good fast food'.

And at the same time, I work with my hardcore industrialist friends Vivian (that’s a boy’s name) and Jacques (that's a French name, although he’s actually Greek South African) on turnarounds. We took a £200m Scotch whisky business called Whyte and Mackay, and in four years turned it into a £600m business. Some luck, some hard work, some good work. I started in sales and marketing at P&G, and then spent seven years at the strategy consulting-moonies we call Bain & Company. And I am a fully signed up member of the cult. My working life, I like to think, is about making companies better and the world healthier - in every way.

Which is what I think being an entrepreneur is about. From space, all of us entrepreneurs probably look alike. Up close, I wonder if there aren't at least a few types of us. Some work at the helm of their particular company for twenty or thirty years. Some start or buy more than one business, but always within a particular sector and are proud and forthright in their determination to stick to that. For example, I had the real pleasure of meeting Theo Paphitis last week, and he was a great person. In answer to my deliberately open question: ‘What do you do’, he replied: ‘I am a shopkeeper’. And he meant it.

Then there are the third type - entrepreneurs whose eyes and thoughts wander more widely, and who can't help looking at the world for all its flaws, bad service, poor execution, greed, stupidity, and waste, and want to make it better.  We haven't got too much time to do so. At one time, society took 'progress' for granted. But there is no such thing as automatic progress. It takes constant effort, imagination and graft to stop things going backwards. We can't let governments and big companies strip us of freedom, courage, love, creativity and a sustainable society. We must end the destruction and poisoning of nature. And we must stop the huge waste of human talent that is still all around us. As entrepreneurs we need to get onto it. So let's begin.