Now that I've got your interest, you might be thinking 'well who is this guy and how come he knows so much about this kind of stuff?' That's the kind of question I could only expect from you, and it's a question that I've been asked many times. I'd like to answer it right now.
I'm Scottish by birth, so I can assure you that I have a firmly realistic outlook tinged with a healthy dose of good, old-fashioned skepticism. I've got my mother and my siblings to thank for that. To say that I have qualified from the University of Life is a statement that you can best judge from my career experience. In my time I have been:
A horticulturist for the local Council
A bottle packer and inspector in a glass factory
An insurance consultant (twice)
Manager of one of Edinburgh's largest pubs
A short order cook in Canada
Transport Manager for a builder's merchants in England
Truck and crane driver
A carpenter in Florida
Public speaker, MC and after-dinner raconteur
Store demonstrator in Harrods
Radio DJ with my own show
Forklift truck driver
A telesales person in Colorado Springs
An Amway distributor (sorry!)
An entertainer at the Natural History Museum in London
Delivery driver for a car rental company
Juggling company production assistant
Signwriter in Spain
Trade show exhibitor
Commercial webpage designer and IT consultant
A retailer with shops in Christchurch and Wellington, NZ
Corporate trainer and business mentor in New Zealand
In the midst of all this activity I've also managed to find the time to get myself arrested, get deported from Canada, lose three businesses in one go, and be bankrupted for the kind of money that wouldn't even buy you a good second-hand car. Over the last 12 years I have worked with people from all walks of life, helping them to find their 'vital spark' the one thing that will continually drive them forward and help to make each one of them a better person. My experience through all that time has broadened and deepened and I'd like to thank the countless fascinating, diverse and wonderful people who have taught me so much, and to whom I am indebted for sharing their experiences with me.
I became interested in the psychology of thinking and how people learn when I worked in one of the most unusual companies I have ever encountered. Back in the early nineties, I found myself out of work, with a wife, a mortgage, and a big black cat to support. At this low point in my life, my wife Beccy bought me (for no particular reason) a set of juggling balls made by a company called More Balls Than Most. Now this intrigued me enough to contact the company and ask them for a job.
Thus I found myself working for a juggling company in London. We manufactured one of the most popular adult games of the time namely the Thud Juggling Kit. But that's not all we did. MBTM marketed the juggling kit along with a huge range of other juggling and performance items like unicycles, juggling clubs, devil sticks, diabolos, fire juggling props, walking globes, clowning makeup, wild and colourful stage clothes, juggling books, videos, and software, and anything else loosely connected with this ancient art. The Thud Juggling Kit not only found its way into Harrods, but also W.H. Smith, House of Fraser, British Home Stores, and thousands of small gift shops around the UK, Europe and the USA. We also marketed the juggling kit as a corporate gift, by printing a company's logo on custom coloured balls and creating a fully customised set of instructions and presentation box. We produced these kits for companies like ICI, Hewlett Packard, and Virgin Airways.
I was working with a group of free thinking entrepreneurs who always seemed to find a way to get things done even the 'impossible' became just another thing on the to-do list. My experiences during my years with More Balls Than Most showed me a whole new range of possibilities and changed forever my view of the world and how it works.
I moved to Wellington, New Zealand in 1993 with my splendidly patient wife Rebecca and set up on my own, creating a wholesale business, an importing business, a mail order catalogue business and two specialist retail shops with interests in retail, wholesale, manufacture and corporate promotions. The corporate side of my business led me to work with many NZ companies at executive level and it was in that environment that I became interested in teaching thinking skills and fundamentals to professional and business people.
So does all of that make me qualified to teach someone like you how to live your life better? Am I the person to teach you how to bring balance into your life? Only you can answer that, but I'd like to offer you this I have explored how unbalanced I could get MY life, and I've observed the results of those imbalances first-hand. My experience has been wide, varied, and at times really difficult. A wise man (it could have been Bruce Willis on one of his blues albums...) said "If it doesn't kill you, it just makes you stronger." Well I'm still alive, and believe me when I tell you that I am stronger now than I have ever been. Let me help you to find your strengths, and show you some fundamental, basic skills and simple techniques that will change the way that you see your world.
