I will be the difference maker in peoples lives!    

I’ve heard it said that life only delivers what we can deal with, and I think that’s certainly true for me.

“That which doesn’t kill me makes me stronger”
Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher

I’m a great believer that life’s tragedies and difficulties can indeed make you stronger, wiser and more determined, if you deal with them in the right way.

My father’s sudden death when I was only sixteen years old was a great shock. It left me caring for my mother and younger brother, and I became an adult overnight. In fact his death has had a great impact on my life since then:

• Until middle age I held positions normally taken by people much older.
• I’ve developed a determination never to give up if there’s the slightest possibility of succeeding. If you don’t give your very best in all situations, how can you say something doesn’t work?
• I have strong empathic ability and a capacity to feel for people and situations.

Perhaps this latter one explains why I’ve always been interested in healthcare, as it enables me to help people. For many years I was a Red Cross volunteer which was very useful when, as a seventeen year old, I encountered a man who’d collapsed with an intra-cerebral hemorrhage (bleeding in his brain).

While others just stood watching, I took action by giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. (You don’t need medical knowledge to act!) A few months later I met him, and he thanked me for saving his life.

When I did my military service it seemed natural to join the Army Medical Corps, attain a degree as an Assistant Nurse and care for wounded soldiers.

"We are made to persist. That's how we find out who we are”
Tobias Wolff, Writer

In my working life I’ve been everything from a direct salesman to a managing director, and within these professional experiences, as well as in my life generally, I’ve endured many setbacks. I’ve certainly learned a lot from each of them and managed to turn them into something good and valuable.

About 15 years ago I decided that working for others was the wrong path for me. Since then I’ve been self-employed in a number of different fields.

“Life is trying things to see if they work"
Ray Bradbury, author, playwright, poet & visionary

Before starting out on my own I realized there was much to learn, and not just business principles. Success in any field is based on who you are - not what you do. Strong personal principles are behind every successful person on the planet, and these are of paramount importance to me.

I knew from the outset that a professional business, run with integrity and providing good service, quality products and at fair prices, would be the only way for me.

The ethics by which we live our lives are those we carry into our businesses. If we are focused on self, prepared to do whatever it takes to get what we want irrespective of what it does to the people around us, then we will run our businesses in that way.

But if we care about other people, about fairness, trust and integrity, then that’s what we will take into our businesses.

”We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give”
Sir Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Britain.

So it was that, having left a well-paid job, I started my first business in 1992. In spite of the fact that this was the beginning of one of the worst economic downturns in Europe, within 6 months I was earning even more money!

How did I do this? I decided it would happen by setting it as one of my goals. I had a passion for it, and I was focused. But - I also ensured I had the necessary skills by studying marketing economy, part time, while still working full time!

Other people have said about me that I’m very good at:

• Inspiring and motivating others. The kinds of people I work best with are those who are principled, honest, hard-working and open minded.
• Recognizing that people have both good and bad periods in their lives, and helping them to handle both in a positive way.
• Sticking with something I believe in.
• Being realistic, pragmatic thinking, dealing with life’s realities not theory.
• Being empathic.
• Setting goals that are reachable, planning to achieve them and helping others to achieve theirs.
• Being disciplined and doing what I’ve decided to do without delay.

These things please me as they reflect what I have aspired to achieve in my life.

For myself – I’m passionate about:

• Character, morality, ethics, humanity, empathy, honesty (with myself and others), living as I teach others and doing my very best in all situations.
• Achieving the goals I set, talking to people with experience in various fields, always working for win-win situations.
• Spending time with my wife and children, exercising - mostly jogging, writing books and creating CD’s on personal development.
• Getting people to understand that we are all connected together, and that we must help each other.

...and this leads to my project:

"The Game Of Life And How To WIN It"

I just love to travel and to be in places where it’s light and warm, but visiting other countries and cultures is also a wonderful thing to broaden the mind and to understand other people with whom we share this planet. I’ve visited most countries in Europe, USA ( both east and west coast) Martinique, Iraq (Baghdad ), Japan (Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto) and Thailand, and my next project is to explore more of south - east Asia.

It’s said that we become like the five people we associate most closely with, so we should choose those people very carefully. I’ve always done this, and along the way I’ve meet people whose help and support have assisted in shaping my thinking and developing my businesses. For example:

• My great personal coach, Mike Lewis, with whom I work on a regular basis and from whom I’ve learned so much.
• Zig Ziglar, a great character who gives me strength in everything to do with personal integrity, honesty, character and morality.
• Tom “Big Al” Schreiter, a guru in the field of marketing and a man whose values and ethics are in tune with my own.
• My wife Tina, the wonderfull women that allways support me.
• Brian Klemmer, whose training on personal development through a very tough and deeply engaging series of seminars (Personal Mastery, Advanced Personal Mastery and Heart of a Samurai) I have attended in the USA.
  (The final goal of these Mastery seminars is to help you to personally master your life and to be able to help others to do the same. Having enabled me to take full control and know what I really wanted to do with my life, I now do exactly the same for others in my Mastery seminars.)

My experience of meeting these people reinforces for me that having people you can trust, who are knowledgeable and have the skills to help you, is a very important key to succeeding in your life.

And it’s my belief that most people, with the right help, can take control of their lives and determine what it is they want to do – then go on to achieve it.

Personal development is essential for all of us and, of course, it’s not just about the people we ‘meet’ but also about, for instance, the books we read, the audios we listen to and the DVD’s we watch.

Among my favourite and most helpful are these books:

“How to Make Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie.
This book had a great impact on me because it showed me, in a very easy way, how important it is listen to and care for other people and not be self-centred.

“Mastery (the keys to long-term fulfilment)” by George Leonard
It made me even more aware of the importance of practice, practice, practice if you want to master something. There are no shortcuts.

“The Richest Man in Babylon” by George S Clason.
It showed me the principle of giving away 10% of what you earn – including extra income - and to do so on a regular basis.

“Think Right and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill.
This book was one of the first in my journey into this field of personal mastery and development. It gave me so many keys to be successful, and for this I give thanks for where I am today.

“Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert T. Kiyosaki.
From this I gained the knowledge that it isn’t necessary to be well-educated to achieve personal success. In fact many of the rich people today don’t have more than a basic education.

“Every Second Counts” and “It’s Not About the Bike” by Lance Armstrong.
Both of these taught me never to give up, to keep fighting to the end and to fight against what tries to destroy us from within.

It’s critical for us to feed our brains and our subconscious minds with positive and self-developing input. For this reason I have, for many years, used my car as a place of education. While driving I rarely speak, instead I spend at least 80% of my drivingtime listening to CD´s of the world’s most famous speakers in the field of personal development and spiritual points of view's about mankind.

Finally:

MAY I BECOME AT ALL TIMES, BOTH NOW AND FOREVER:

• A protector for those without protection.
• A guide for those who have lost their way.
• A ship for those with oceans to cross.
• A bridge for those with rivers to cross.
• A sanctuary for those in danger.
• A lamp for those without light.
• A place of refuge for those who lack shelter.
• A servant to all in need.