The Alchemy of the Climb

Will Swayne, Entrepreneur & EO Member

When I sold my business in 2024, I thought I’d reached the summit. After two decades of building, growing, and finally exiting, I expected fulfilment, the kind that lingers.

Instead, I found restlessness.

And in that restlessness, I discovered something unexpected: I wasn’t done.

For nine months I travelled, spent time with family, and explored ideas that fascinated me, AI, coding, philosophy. No deadlines, no KPIs. Just curiosity. But slowly, a familiar energy returned. Not ambition exactly, but purpose, the desire to create again.

The Long View

My first business began in 2003, a digital marketing agency that grew through persistence and trial and error. Joining EO in 2013 expanded my world. I stopped seeing business as competition and started seeing it as evolution.

In 2017, I launched a software company with a co-founder. It was at various times challenging, exhausting and exhilarating. My EO forum became my compass through it all, through growth, risk, and eventually, the exit process that ended in 2024.

I’d thought selling the business would feel like freedom.

Instead, it felt like standing at the top of a mountain… and realising the view was beautiful, but the climb was what gave it meaning.

The Transformation

• With time and perspective, I began to see risk differently.
• In my twenties, it was something to conquer.
• Now, approaching fifty, I see it as gravity, a force to understand, not resist.

When you climb, you don’t remove risk. You ‘clip in’ as you go. The idea being that any mistakes don’t prove fatal.

Each lesson, failure, and relationship becomes an anchor that lets you move higher with confidence. That’s what experience gives you, not fearlessness, but steadiness.

The Next Ascent

I don’t yet know what my next venture will be and for the first time, that uncertainty feels exciting. I’m exploring, experimenting, trusting that the right idea will reveal itself through curiosity.