 All the great personal development speakers like Tony Robbins (pictured above) have a ‘story’. The story is usually something like ‘10 years ago I was here dreaming of being there and discovered that by using the ‘Power of my Mind’ to change my thoughts, I could turn all my dreams into reality’. A ‘story’ like this is powerfully persuasive because it enables great speakers to be what they teach.
 10 years ago...I was living what many would call a successful life. I had a large detached home, was married to a pretty and loving wife with 3 wonderful children. We owned a couple of cars, had dual incomes, holidays abroad every year. I'd done quite well at school, achieved a degree, secured a good job with promising prospects and at the age of 37 I had a career path all mapped out for me. I had climbed the corporate ladder and was successfully leading a team of managers delivering organisational change projects and management development programmes throughout the UK.
To anyone on the outside I had made it!
Having grown up on a council estate with very little as a child, now as a man I had made something of my life and in doing so ensured that my children had the secure life of abundance that I had only once dreamed of.
I was a success, so why didn't I feel like one?
Inside I was frustrated, I felt like I was living someone else’s life, I was going through the motions of being a loving husband, dutiful son, responsible son in law, positive parent, loyal friend, ambitious, committed employee, friendly neighbour and as 'good' a person as I could be. But for some reason I wasn’t connected to my life emotionally. I felt detached, like an observer. One day it dawned on me...
the life I was living was the direct result of the thoughts I had been thinking since my childhood.
The way I had been thinking had created, a stereotypical ideal of the ‘perfect life’ – the only problem was that this life was everyone else's expectation of me and didn't take into account my desires and my dreams. I had fallen into the habit of trying to please everyone else and forgetting about what I wanted. No wonder I felt so empty.
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Time to change...
I had a choice. I could continue living someone else's life or I could start to live my own. Did I want a life by accident or a life by design? I began to study personal development books, listen to tapes and attended seminars. I learned that all successful people visualised their goals and aspirations and listed them down and somehow got what they wanted.
I visualised myself self-employed running my own Personal Development business, I visualised receiving a £1000 cheque in the post, I wanted to earn twice as much money doing half as much work, own a red Toyota MR2 sports car, meet and work with the top personal development people in the world, work on TV. I visualised my family happy and healthy standing outside a big dream house waving to me. I envisaged swapping my stressful life in the office with a bottomless in-tray and rush hour journeys to and from, for open roads and a workspace surrounded by lakes, mountains, forests and beautiful peaceful landscapes.
 I wrote these goals down in a book and then over the next 10 years as a direct result of all this positive thinking and wish list, my ‘merry-go-round’ life turned into a rollercoaster ride. At times exhilarating and exciting and at others, I could only shut myeyes tight, hold on and trust I'd be ok.
Everything I wrote down and imagined eventually materialised...
Some of what I manifested was wonderful but some things weren't what I was expecting. Just a word of advice, when you visualise your happy healthy family standing smiling outside your big dream house...... make sure you are in the picture too. And when you are trying to manifest a life where your parents aren't being a burden on you, make sure you surround them in positive light and visualise them in good health!!
In 2002 my divorce was finalised, my ex wife was granted the family home and custody of the children, both my parents died and my work-life balance business in the beautiful Lake District was out of balance. Plenty of "life", not alot of "work"!!
‘What you continue to focus your mind on will become your reality’
This is the true power of the mind so be very careful what you wish for and how you wish for it. Your brain doesn't pay attention to the word DON'T. So if I say:
Don't think of BLUE. Don't think of a tropical paradise, don't think of palm trees, don't think of your car, don't think of zebras, and don’t think of your children.....
.....it's impossible.
Our minds will focus just as much on the things we 'don't' want to happen as it will on the things we do. So with that in mind, DON'T think about all the wonderful things that will happen to you when you begin to take responsibility for your own thoughts, feelings and behaviours.
Back to my story....
 24 months ago...I was living in the beautiful Lake District running a work-life balance and coaching company surrounded by lakes, mountains, forests and beautiful landscapes. I was also able to earn more than twice as much money for doing half as much work, just not as often as I would have liked, or needed to. I was feeling isolated, probably because I was isolated, I was still hurting from my emotionally draining divorce, the death of my parents and I missed my children I was also feeling disillusioned with the lack of British summertime and the abundance of rain at the time. (By the way, In 2004 I eventually owne my my red Toyota MR2 and within 2 months it became a casualty of the West Cumbria floods and was written-off by the insurance company. In truth it was too small, left hand drive and expensive to run, but it was on my list and I'd visualised it! Left hand drive? Maybe I should have been more specific).
I felt it was time to write a new list?
 Day Dreams & Skool Daze...I remember seeing an article about working in Saudi Arabia, and by coincidence a friend sent me a clip of a motivational speaker who mentioned that he had worked in Saudi Arabia after deciding that he wanted to travel, writing a list and visualising. I also have a recurring memory from my school daze. Our (probably frustrated) french teacher once boasted 'when I worked in a Saudi school I'd carry my wages home in a wheelbarrow' - that day I reckon the thought of earning a fortune abroad was planted in a few heads.
In that moment I decided to start manifesting the next chapter of my life. I'd be an inspirational, international teacher a month later at a workshop run by a friend of mine and amazing coach Gary Quinn I logged that thought with the Universe.
 Out of the blue...In January 2006 out of the blue I received an email from a training company based in Abu Dhabi asking me if I was interested in delivering training to UAE nationals. My initial thoughts were internet scam; they'll want my bank details. Then my thoughts ran away a little, Iraq, Al Qaeda, Orange boiler suits and being beheaded on national TV. And then I rationalised my thoughts somewhat and decided to believe that this was the Universe delivering. After all I had been thinking about working out there and this could be the opportunity I was looking for.
The Sheraton Beach Club Resort.
I set about exploring the opportunity further and took a look on the internet to find out where in the Middle East Abu Dhabi actually is and learn more about the place and find out what the advice to tourists/visitors was. While I was searching an image caught my eye of the Sheraton beach club resort – It was such a stunning picture of the hotel under a cloudless blue sky with a palm tree-lined, golden sandy beach fronting a beautiful deep blue lagoon, that I was compelled to put it on my screen saver. I responded to the email and then didn’t hear anything for nearly 2 months. Then I had almost given up on the idea, when I received an email offering a chance to meet the company owner who was in London for a few days the next week. Although it was a long journey, short notice and I still had some doubts and concerns, I made the decision to go.
We hit it off straight away and I discovered that the company actually used the Sheraton Hotel, I was amazed.
Was the Universe delivering?
A month later I flew out to Abu Dhabi, I was met at the airport and driven to the Sheraton Hotel. What I hadn't been aware of was the fact that there were two Sheraton's in Abu Dhabi and I was staying in the 'sister hotel' to the Sheraton Beach Club Resort, a short taxi drive from the beach in the heart of the city. My heart sank a little. I so nearly had an amazing story. However, with a little bending of the truth wouldn't this story be good enough? The trouble was, I'd know the truth and I'd know that my amazing story wasn't "exactly" amazing. It's a good story, but not an amazing story...
The Universe delivers...
That evening as I booked into the Sheraton Suites, weary with travel and if I'm honest, quite disappointed, I was handed a pass:
'What's this?' I asked...
'It’s a complimentary pass to our sister hotel’s beach club it’s very nice do you know it?' The desk clerk politely replied.
Do I know it.....?
I’d been looking at it every day on my screen saver and day dreamed about being there for more than 3 months.
So within 24 hours of arriving in Abu Dhabi I was walking into the beach club resort that I'd been staring at on my screen saver. I bought a long cool drink from the pool bar walked down to the beach with a good book and sat under the palm trees in one of the very same sun loungers that I could see on my screensaver. Wow!
Tingles up my spine...
The sea looked gorgeous so I decided to go for a swim. The resorts lagoon was like stepping into a warm bath and the salt content in the water made swimming effortless. I lay on my back and floated on the surface looking up at the cloudless sky. Just behind me further out in the middle of the lagoon I saw a diving platform. I swam over and climbed onto it and looked back at the hotel and beach front and in that moment the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I was looking through my own eyes at my screen saver picture. I realised in that moment that I was actually standing in the exact same place the photographer must have been stood when the picture was taken. A picture I found when randomly searching the internet for information about a thought I had nearly 6 months earlier. I had my ‘story’.
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