Rising Stars: Meet Paul Rowney

Today we’d like to introduce you to Paul Rowney.

Paul, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I am British, moved out to Florida in 2004 for business, stayed, and got married (2nd time!) to an American, Sheri. Now a US Citizen. Two children, girls, aged 34 and 31, both live in the USA.

I am now retired, aged 69. I started my career (in the UK) in sales. Then started my own company in 1979 at age 25 to publish trade magazines. Initially, I wrote, edited, and ran a range of business-to-business publications, then built the company to a reasonable size. Running alongside them a variety of events, exhibitions, seminars awards, and so on. Did so for 17 years.

I have learned a few things on the way…

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Lesson No 1… I’m not a believer in the whole “following your dream” approach to your career. I believe in following your abilities. If I’d followed my dream I would be, probably, an underpaid paleontologist. My ability took me in a more profitable direction…publishing and events.

Sold the company in 1989, bought it back in 1991, and then sold it again in 1996 to start a specialist event management company: Forum Events UK. (It is still going). Bear in mind this was in the days before the internet and email. I remember seeing an early demonstration of the Internet in 1996. We had our first website by 1997!

Lesson No: 2 if it’s easy, everyone would be doing it. Nothing’s easy, especially if you’re trying something new. Don’t listen to the doom merchants, go ahead and do it, they’ll always be someone saying “It won’t work” (and, of course, sometimes it doesn’t) The key to success is persistence.

Over 40 years of running my own company there have been so many struggles, obstacles, and inevitably, failures. But you learn more from them than any success you may have. Failure means you have to analyze what you did and why it went wrong. If you’re successful you gloss over the minor mistakes and take it all for granted. It will come back and bite you.

Ran these specialist business-to-business networking forums in the UK, France, Switzerland, Malta, and Portugal. The company grew the company to 50+ people. Then I moved to the USA in 2004 to start a US version of the same operation, from scratch. Organized events in every major city in the US. Sold the company in 2013.

In 2016, I took over Nashville Health and Wellness magazine, and launched off the back of it, the Nashville Wellness Fest. Unfortunately, COVID caused me to close the magazine (now known as PURE LIVING Nashville magazine, an online publication). But the Wellness Fest continues, we just did our fourth in May 2023.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am proud of launching and publishing a wide range of magazines in sectors such as Marketing, Communications, and Print. The event company, Forum Events UK started in 1996 and was run by me until 2013 and is still thriving in the UK. (in the US it was acquired and absorbed into a bigger company).

I’m just a good old-fashioned entrepreneur that started all these companies with no outside help-I did have some excellent business partners. We were good at spotting opportunities in our marketplace and (most of the time) successfully exploiting them.

Lesson No: 3. If you need to use a ‘consultant’ then you’re doing something wrong. Just like a bank manager, they will NEVER understand your company, or your market, as you do. Their advice will be a mass of educated generalizations. Avoid.

We’d love to hear about how you think about risk-taking.
Well if it wasn’t for banks, staff, and customers running a company would be easy!

Since I started running my own company I think I have been through four recessions, including starting the US company in 2007! Just before the 2008 meltdown. Timing maybe isn’t my strong point.

Lesson No 3: Never rely on a bank for any assistance. They’ll offer you an umbrella when it’s sunny and grab it back when it starts to rain. I have lost count of the times they have said “You’ll never make it work”. And we did.

Lesson No. 4. Being a pioneer means you’ll probably end up with “arrows in your back.” i.e. being the first to launch a new idea (in my case..magazines..events) means the competition will spring up behind you and do their best to derail you. So make sure your product is better than theirs.

I am proud of launching and publishing a wide range of magazines in sectors such as Marketing, Communications, and Print. Providing a place for people to work, get paid well, and enjoy themselves. (I never believed people should work excessive hours, weekends, etc. If they had to do that either they were doing something wrong, or the company was-either way it had to be rectified).

The event company, Forum Events UK started in 1996 and was run by me until 2016 and is still thriving in the UK, (in the US it was acquired and absorbed into a bigger company).

I’m just a good old-fashioned entrepreneur that started all these companies with no outside help-(I did have some excellent business partners who complemented my skills with much-needed ones of their own). We were good at spotting opportunities in our marketplace and (most of the time) successfully exploiting them.

Lesson No: 5. If you need to use a “consultant” then you’re doing something wrong. Just like a bank manager, they will NEVER understand your company, or your market, as you do. Their advice will be a mass of educated generalizations. Avoid.

Lesson No:6. You’re never too old to take on a new challenge! To become a published author as I close in on my 70th birthday, with, as they say ‘more runway behind me than in front’ was an unexpected achievement. Just goes to show that age doesn’t have to be a barrier to trying something new. (I take my Father as another example. He wrote his memoirs at age 93!). Aside from writing I’ve also hiked a few miles of the Appalachian Trail. Don’t let age hold you back. Your later years are when you can follow your passions! (see Lesson No: 1).

I guess what might best describe me is “creative”…good at seeing opportunities or different ways to do something. I have mostly created/launched new products or ideas, rarely copying others and trying to beat them at their own game.

My latest challenge and one I am particularly proud of is becoming an Author and Book Publisher at the ripe old age of 68!

It came about strangely:

We were living in the middle of Kentucky, near a town called Burkesville. I had read a lot of “post-apocalyptic” novels and one day I thought about how our small village would survive some kind of ‘apocalypse’. One which didn’t involve Zombies, Nuclear Bombs, or Pandemics (it was before COVID). One which might have a more realistic scenario for the ‘World Coming to an End’.

So I started writing “French Creek” a post-apocalyptic novel that tells the story of how a series of natural disasters causes the eastern half of the USA to collapse and society to revert to the 19th century. To add a twist, the Mississippi becomes a kind of ‘Berlin Wall’ to keep the western half of the US safe from refugees from the east. It revolves around the fictional Kentucky village of “French Creek.” An alias for the name of the place we lived in.

To my surprise, it has sold well, reaching the Top 100 in its genre on Amazon.

So, I have just written and published the sequel: ‘A Return to the 21st Century?”, which relates how the Federal Government (now in Sacramento) attempts to revive and reconstruct the east, starting in Kentucky. However, the best-laid plans do not always happen the way they should….this one leads America almost to the brink of civil war.

What was interesting is that on my social media pages, comments were made that a series of natural disasters causing such a catastrophic collapse was “an unrealistic scenario.”

To answer these questions, I did a lot of research, and in the fictional form I have written (in true Star Wars style), a “prequel” that looks at the facts behind the natural disasters we have already experienced and, if they happened again, (alongside climate change and man-made stupidity) they could cause a collapse of large areas of society in the US.

Called “S.O.S The Storm of all Storms” it will be published in July.

So three books in eight months…not bad for a senior!!

And a fourth on the way…but not a post-apocalyptic novel!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.paulhrowney.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FrenchCreekthebook