Success Redefined - An Interview with Nicola Millward

Nicola Millward is Managing Director of Millward Consulting Engineers. She is also a single mum to an eight year old daughter and she could be described as a serial entrepreneur, having had several other businesses over the last 20 years. In 2019 she was diagnosed with cervical cancer and whilst she recovered and dealt with the physical and emotional effects of her illness, she realised that one of her coping strategies was throwing herself into business. So in the middle of the pandemic, she started a new company, Lollipop Luxury Parties, which went from an idea to help people stage parties whilst stuck at home, to employing 20 staff, buying a warehouse to meet the business demands and positively impacting families across the country, through those difficult times. It would be an understatement to say her life has been quite an adventure and here she shares her inspiring story of success with us and how her journey has changed her outlook on life.

When you were a child, did you know what you wanted to be when you grew up?

I wanted to be an actress. I wanted to be on stage, I wanted attention. And I laugh now because I look and I think my whole life I've actually been an actress. I think part of success and part of building businesses or elevating your career, you do have to wear a different character at times. Which Nicola is the world going to get today, depends on the audience. So yes growing up I wanted to be an actress but I think in my own way I have achieved that.

Growing up do you remember what you thought success meant?

I always looked at my dad, who worked seven days a week, and he never moaned about it, but was never really at home. We didn't have a lavish life by any means, but I just saw him as someone that worked so hard and I saw that as success. For me it's always about achieving more, going one better and almost fighting against your own success. You achieve what you think you set out to and then you realise that's not enough, I've got to go for more and work harder and harder. That's what I used to think success was about, just hard work, whereas now I know that's not the case.

So what would you say is your definition of success now?

I feel like a successful to me now, as a middle aged women, is in the fact that I have choice in my life. I choose what I want to do, who I want to do it with and realising that my wants are different now. The younger version of me was striving for the designer handbags and material things, whereas now success to me is about choice and freedom. If I don't want to come to work, I won't come to work. If I don't want to work for a certain client, we won't work for them. To me that's the ultimate success and to know that I'm not reliant on any man, any person, and I built this pretty much alone for myself and my daughter. So I think success now is more of a feeling than it is of owning things or how much money you make. Sometimes I wish I'd realised that a decade ago.

What is your proudest moment and did it make you feel successful?

So there’s a few. My greatest success is my daughter. I am so incredibly proud of this amazing eight year old that is so kind but so resilient. She has been through a lot with my illness and surgeries, but we're just this little army, just me and her. She’s my best friend and she's my number one fan and I'm just so incredibly proud of her.

There's also been snippets in my career where I’ve felt proud. When I was running Lollipops we wanted to celebrate turning one. I'd met all these women remotely, virtually and I wanted to get them all together. We planned to have this party, in this warehouse that I bought, and it was the most extraordinary experience. I had 80 women come, some that I knew, some friends and family and the rest were just strangers, but that I thought I had that connection with, and to be in a room with such energy was amazing. I was still recovering from having been in hospital but to be there and listen as every woman got up and told their experience about COVID, and just being in that room, knowing I made that happen, it was incredible. I think that's got to go quite high on the list of moments when I thought I’d achieved something really special. Millward turning 30 this year is also high up on the list.

What's been your biggest challenge when it comes to trying to achieve success?

I think it’s the things that you can't control. You can't control other people, you can't control the economy or any of  those external factors. For so many years, I would become so frustrated and so angry and upset about things that I couldn't control. Whereas nowadays, I accept that I can't control those things but what I can control is how I react.

What do you think is the biggest challenge facing women in the workplace when it comes to success?

I do think it's having a family and a career and trying to juggle both. I know that if I hadn't got a child, that over the last eight years, my business would have grown more. But my daughter will always come first. I drop her off at school and I made a deal with myself that I would always pick her up, so in terms of networking and attending events and trying to grow my business, I can't always do those things. And actually I don't want to do those things because I want to see my daughter.

How does happiness play a part in success?

To me happiness is central to success because that encompasses how I view my whole life now. I love what I do, it makes me happy. If your happy in what you’re doing, it makes you better at it, which in turn brings success. I do believe that everything you do should bring you joy and when it doesn't, then you shouldn't do it.

How do you handle stress and pressure?

I like it. I've always liked it, I’d even say I love it. I find that I am the better version of me under pressure and stress. Possibly other people wouldn't say that but it just ignites me. I've learned to manage it and I've learned to switch off. 20 years ago I would take work home, the stresses and the pressures and the worries and I've had endless sleepless nights and tears. Now the things that aren't actually that important, I don't waste my energy on. As you get older you learn to care less, especially about what others think of you.

How do you balance loving stress and pressure with your well-being?

I've actually started to have a word with myself because I believe there is a link between stress and   illness. I've learned that it's okay to do absolutely nothing, but I've had to teach myself to do that. It’s also ok to delegate, to trust others and to realise that nothing is really ever worth losing sleep over.

Who would you say has helped or influence you most along your career journey?

There isn't one person. I have found, even back at the start of my career, that the female friends I had were very much like minded, with similar outlooks. Over the decades I've seen how my friends have been ambitious and how they have elevated themselves and their careers and it's been that network that has been the most valuable to me. We've all had our dark times, recessions and having to make redundancies and all the difficult stuff, along with having children and building our careers, but I've always had friends that I can share that with. That's what's inspired me.

What's your biggest goal for this year?

This year I've thrown myself passionately back into Millwards and I want to make it into something that's really special, and that's successful to me. That's not about turnover, that's not about profit. I want Millwards to be somewhere that people are desperate to work and I want it to feel genuinely that it's a team. We’re doing a lot of fresh, new, exciting things. We've got quite a new team and we're doing things differently, because I'm different. And I go home, feeling like I've succeeded because I’ve given something, I've given someone a voice, I’ve let them make a decision or I've built up a young person's confidence and that's worth more than online shopping or any of those material things. Also my goals are more holidays and more me time this year.

If you could give your 15 year old self some advice, what would it be?

To accept who you are and be who you are, without trying to please anybody else. I think today, young people are trying to mould themselves to fitting into society or what social media wants from them or what they think their family wants, or their employer wants, and actually if I'd have been me, authentically, from the off, that could have probably saved me a lot of upset and a lot of inner wrangling.

If you could share one “secret to success”, what would it be?

To not care about the things that aren’t worth caring about. And to just be you. To have that confidence and that conviction, because at the end of the day, what really is the worst thing that can happen? Something doesn't work, that’s it!

If you’d like to find out more about Nicola’s work please visit her website at Home - Millward or connect with her on LinkedIn.