Meet Gil Gillies, a (now) self employed web designer and digital designer.
Gil has lived life in so many career outfits. We first met in 1995, when we both had the label ‘Youth Worker’ slapped to our backs. Fun days. Hang about on Facebook long enough and you eventually catch up with people who you haven’t seen in a very long time and connections rekindle.
Gil is passionate about equality, inclusion, human rights and the personal and social development of young people. And he has managed to bring all his values together in his current role: delivering services to small charities, groups and businesses who also share similar world views.
He had an upbringing in Belfast in the 1970’s, his first job was as a milk boy (yes, milk used to be delivered to front doors), then he undertook an apprenticeship in the world famous shipyard. He then became a traveller, eventually ended up on a very small island of the West Coast of Scotland working as a lay preacher.
Most of his adult life has been youth work/community work in some form, which seems (he says) an unlikely story for someone who now owns and runs a wee print and digital design company, in a wee town in West Lothian, UK.
T H E I N T E R V I E W
What does doing what you love to do mean to you?
‘Doing What I Love To Do‘ is freedom.
It’s a waking dream.
Making a living from CREATIVITY is a deeply (read: deeply) satisfactory employment.
Not to get too cosmic about it, doing what I love makes my soul sing. You know when you are in the bath and you hum and find that perfect acoustic spot where everything resonates and vibrates around you? That’s how doing what I love to do feels to me.
It’s doing it my way.
It’s not about money. For me it’s an energy thing, a ‘help people along’ thing.
Yes, that ‘wee print and digital design company’ in the West Lothian village of Pumpherston, is more than just a pretty fontface. The why is the main deal. Being able to use all my Website and Design skills and experience to help groups, business, and individuals who are making their difference really is, getting even more cosmic…bliss.
How are you living your life doing what you love to do?
For now my work includes design for print, printing services, design and development for the web and search engine optimisation. And to be able to manage my work around the needs of my wife, her career and I get the privilege of growing my lovely daughter every day.
What has been your career journey to this point?
In my first life Act I was a Marine Engineer. At 21 I decided to travel and spent the next several years in communities in Ireland and on Iona. I returned to youth work in 1995. Spent many years as a Youth and Community Worker before eventually getting frustrated with some local authorities and voluntary sector agencies, so I decided to work for myself.
The frustration taught me a huge lesson, you have to do what you say you are going to do (life, career, business) and not write one thing on the ‘tin’ and do the exact opposite.
How did you make doing what you love to do happen?
I’ve always had the idea to work for myself but never quite had the confidence and self determination. Eventually my planets aligned. I had a career wife and a daughter. It suited all our needs for me to do this. The prospect excited me greatly and here I am.
When did you know what it was?
As a young youth worker In the 80’s I often needed 50 of those fliers and 10 of those posters, for one event or another. It was impossible to get any print run small enough to be able to afford it. The “Gestetner” was horrifically restrictive with the print having the personality of a church newsletter. PC’s and Macs weren’t available for us all (yet) and so the basic skills of design and ‘cut and paste’ were learned on a dodgy photocopier.
As time went on, better techniques where developed, contacts made and computers became available and soon the print world became possible for me.
When I realised that I could design and produce anything I wanted, with only my imagination as a restriction, then, that was the moment when I knew what it was.
It seems to me that I have been growing this seed for longer than I was even aware.
Can you share the good, the bad and the ugly when you made the decision do what you love to do?
OK, first comes the self doubt. Then the realisation that everything comes down to me. I am totally responsible. Then I realised that working for myself is actually two jobs. Not only does the work need done but you need to go out and find it in the first place.
When self employed you are always ‘the business’, you work on your own merit and the buck always, always, stops with you.
I had the worries and fears of ‘would I be good enough‘ and ‘do I really know what I’m doing?’ but the excitement and the chase of the dream pushed me passed my fears.
What were the biggest hurdles, challenges and barriers you had to overcome?
In my case, setting up was fairly easy for me. That was a good bit. However hurdles: moving goal posts, cash flow, getting the work at the beginning.
Challenges and barriers though are there to be overcome; they are like little mini-tests. How far are you willing to go?
I’d say these were necessary hurdles for me. They tempered my mental-metal. As my old journeyman would say these things let you see the cut of your jib.
What was easy? A surprise?
On the cosmic scale of easiness setting up and maintaining this business was about 60-70% easy. I’d be doing this as a sort of hobby for a few years before I jumped. It has it’s peaks and troughs. The big surprise for me was that I can actually make a good living doing what I love. Financially and cosmically.
What led you to this love specifically?
Freedom to create.
What would be your top 5 pieces of advice, or suggestions, words of wisdom you would like to share?
- Keep the faith. What ye give out ye shall receive threefold.
- Just because you build it doesn’t mean they will come – you have to tell people.
- Resist the temptation to run at it.
- Dotting the i’s and stroking the t’s saves so much grief later on.
- Give proper thought to your branding and look for if you are going solo or if you are personal branding for a career move. Getting your pal to do your website and buying cheap stationery is anti-advertising and marketing.
What has been your biggest learning in the journey so far?
Accounts. It’s important to get this correct from the start.
What piece of wisdom did someone give you that worked for you?
Sleep on it! You always see things with a more level playing field the next day when refreshed.
What’s next for you on this path?
I plan to expand my business and take on an apprentice.
What was the biggest piece of learning you picked up and ran with?
For me as a website and design person it must be back up your data. Please don’t learn this one the hard way.
Pick a quote for life, and explain why it hits a home run for you?
There are always three groups of people. One group will love what you do, another will hate what you do. The final group won’t even know or care who you are.
Contact Gil
Gill offers website design and printing services in West Lothian, UK. You can reach him at gil[at]westlothianprinter.co.uk. Or visit, he always has real coffee on the go. He can be reached via Twitter or Facebook
Do you have a question for Gil? Thinking of leaving the voluntary sector and entering self-employment? Ask away in the comments,
Need some help to Quit Your Job and Find Your Work? That’s what I do.
Photo Credit: The Gestetner
Leave a Reply