Heart and Horsepower

The courage to begin again

I now reflect that there was something serendipitous about how my relationship with Ben Williamson began. Here was a highly successful young executive with an enviable role at PwC – four days a week, no timesheets, well paid to share his opinions. On paper, it looked perfect. But something wasn't clicking for Ben.

"I hated it, and I didn't know why," Ben reflected in our recent conversation for the ‘In the Arena’ podcast. His solution was characteristically methodical – he decided to find a coach, but not just any coach. "I thought I'd find the most experienced coach I could on LinkedIn, just so I knew what good looked like."

That search led him to my office after reaching out on LinkedIn, though he had no intention of actually engaging me. He assumed he couldn't afford it. What followed was a three-and-a-half-hour session where we mapped his 'so far' story on a piece of A3 paper – every significant moment above and below a line that stretched from his birth to that present day.

This exercise revealed something profound about Ben that immediately impressed me – his capacity for honest reflection. Whilst only in his early 30s, here was someone who had already faced significant setbacks, including the near collapse of his first business venture in Bendigo, a country town two hours from where he grew up. His response to that crisis told me everything I needed to know about his leadership potential.

With barely enough money to make payroll and a maxed-out credit card, he bought a $199 sofa bed from Fantastic Furniture, got a $12 weekly gym membership for showers, and committed to the grind of rebuilding. Every morning before dawn, he'd arrive at the gym, shower, and head to work – doing whatever it took to keep his promises to his team.

A decade later, I witnessed Ben face a very different kind of challenge. At the peak of growth in the company he co-founded just a few years earlier, with revenue climbing from $200,000 to $4.2 million in just two years, Ben and his co-founder Rhys Davis, made the extraordinary decision to take their thriving business "back to zero" and rebuild from scratch.

"It's very hard to challenge if things are correct when it's going well," Ben reflected. "When you're growing at that rate, getting money, appearing in news articles, and people want to talk to you... it's very hard to turn around and ask, is this actually correct?"

What grounds these bold decisions is a clear set of values, none more telling than what Ben calls "heart and horsepower." This principle emerged not from a corporate workshop but from his experience of their first hire Will, a developer who would check the company's app screen by screen every night before bed, looking for ways to improve it. "What a commitment level," Ben reflects. "Who does that?"

This combination of dedication (heart) and capability (horsepower) became more than just words on a wall - it became a standard for measuring both decisions and people. Do they have the desire to have an impact (heart) and the capacity to deliver (horsepower)? It's this kind of genuine and heartfelt value-setting that helps navigate the challenging moments of leadership. Whether it be sleeping on a sofa bed in Bendigo or choosing to rebuild a successful business from scratch, it will require ‘heart and horsepower, and Ben has plenty of both.

This resonates deeply with what I've learned over decades in leadership: success can often mask the need for transformation. The reflective process, which builds on a wonderful learner mindset, has helped Ben see beyond the immediate metrics of success to ask deeper questions about purpose and values.

But no one does it alone.

Ben's partnership with his co-founder Rhys embodies this perfectly: "The business dies before the friendship dies." In a world obsessed with commercial success, here was a partnership that placed relationships above revenue, values above valuations.

As we reach the end of another year, many leaders will be reflecting on their 'so far' story and contemplating their 'not yet' story. Ben's journey reminds us that sometimes the bravest act isn't persisting with what works, but having the courage to ‘begin again’ – whether from necessity or choice.

The value of coaching isn't in providing answers but in creating the space for leaders to find their own truth. Through our work together, Ben developed what he calls his "anti-goals" – not just what he wanted in his life but what he definitively didn't want. This clarity has guided his decisions ever since.

Success isn't a destination but a series of new beginnings, each requiring its own kind of courage. The real test of leadership isn't in how well we can hold our course, but in how bravely we can chart a new one when our values and vision demand it.

Play on!

Cam