Chapter 1
HOW ARE WE?
A Quick Review: Current State of Affairs
Earth is 4.54 billion years old, within an error range of 50 million years.
According to the Population Reference Bureau, since then an estimated 107 billion people in total have lived on our planet. Just a tiny proportion of those has made a truly global impact by providing the world with new technology, transportation, medicine, education, or in other ways that have made the world a better place. I am aware that not everyone can make a global impact or has the urge to, and being a great parent, an inspiring teacher or a doctor makes the world a better place…
I am simply exploring how many out of the 107 billion could have done more, been more, seen more, achieved more, contributed more; how many of those, rich and wealthy, poor and unfortunate, could have made the world a better place, but left this world with deep regrets?
All over the world, people are hoping, seeking, working and praying for better lives.
In today's super‐connected world, more people than ever have the chance to make positive change. All over the world, people see what they have now and dream of ways to improve their lives. In the poorest parts of the world they might be seeking stability, food for their families, security and a place to live. A place where they can feel anchored, to grow and to realise their full potential.
And that story isn't just true of people in poorer places. Though it's on a different scale and with different challenges, that's pretty much what everyone everywhere wants.
There are vast differences in wealth across the world. The issue of wealth and income inequality is one of the great moral issues of our time; it is certainly the great economic issue of our time. It is estimated that 1 per cent of the world's population controls more wealth than the remaining 99 per cent combined, according to financial institution Credit Suisse.
We live in a world where the vast majority have to work very hard to make a living. That probably includes you.
Your religion, race, sex and country of origin can all massively impact your ability to succeed or to find places to succeed. For centuries, countries have been building imaginary borders walls and fences that in some cases make success for the masses harder. Today, some countries and continents have strict immigration laws; we seem to be going back to more segregation and less integration.
But it must not continue that way. Here's why.
Change is Coming
In large part due to technology.
Because of technology, more people are engaging with the wider world, acting, reacting, coming forward, doing, rebelling, exploring. Every telephone mast, every new phone line or wireless connection allows someone new to come into this amazing ‘future’ that a lot of us are already living in.
In 1995 only 0.4 per cent of the population had access to the internet. Only the most visionary people had an inkling of how profoundly it would change people's lives in the years to come. Now, the internet is accessible to more than 49.2 per cent of the population—that's more than 3.6 billion people. This is already having a massive, positive impact all over the world.
I believe that this huge change will allow something even more positive to happen. It will allow hope to flourish.
I am a firm believer that communication is the great hope for mankind. Communication is the great skill humans have above all other animals. Language is precise and nuanced in humans in a way that no other creature can match. It allows us to know each other and understand each other.
The great hope I have for technology is that it allows more people to communicate, become more open, more integrated and have more love for others. Indeed, right now, knowledge, ideas and wisdom are being shared through the world wide web. Go on YouTube and you can learn anything from making a crème brulée to building a motorbike engine—or of course, you can watch a cat playing a piano, or doing something else that is equally funny!
What does this mean?
The World is Open for Business in More Ways than Ever Before
Despite the walls and fences that in some places are going up anew, in many ways the world is more open than it ever has been. It's more open for business, for learning, for understanding.
Thanks to phone apps, computer programs and the hardware that supports them, start‐up businesses are having an instant and massive impact. Thanks to social media, people are prepared to push the boundaries, question established wisdom, learn what seemed impossible, invent, push further, break records and create new paradigms.
We are at the start of a new leap forward for humanity, the result of a building momentum since the start of the Industrial Revolution more than 200 years ago. In the last 100 years, the momentum has really increased spectacularly. We've had amazing breakthroughs.
Just over 100 years ago in 1903, the Wright brothers' first aeroplane, the Wright Flyer, skipped into the air from a field near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. It was the start of a whole new journey for humanity, with increased communication and ever easier travel. Just 66 years later in 1969, men stood on the moon. Two years after the Russians had sent an unsuccessful rover to Mars, in 1997, the new generation of rovers began rolling across the red planet. That's less than 100 years from the first successful powered flight! Now plans are underway to send people to Mars by 2030.
On Earth, a new breed of tech pioneers has established brands with global recognition. Apple, Amazon, Uber, Skype, Spotify, YouTube, Google, Airbnb, Microsoft, Hewlett‐Packard, Netflix—the list goes on—are now part of our everyday lives. Meanwhile Tesla, Virgin Galactic, Reaction Engines, SpaceX, Sierra Nevada and many others are at the same stage as the generation of aviators were who came after the Wright brothers over 100 years ago— getting ready to take humankind further than ever before.
In technology, another growing area of change and expansion is artificial intelligence (AI), in which computers learn how to learn so that they can make their own decisions. The menial and not‐so‐menial jobs of the past, such as driving, warehousing and even clerical jobs, are being automated.
It's an extraordinary time of change, renewal, vigour and growth that will also mean upheaval, dislocation and revolution. We all need to be ready for that change and to make the most of it. Now more than ever there are opportunities for human beings to release their potential and no longer be caught in the everyday humdrum life of the world. But with these technological advances comes the danger of many people being left behind, of a tech‐poor class being ruled over by a tech‐rich elite.
Our Past
In order to understand where we are going, we have to remember where we came from. We have to appreciate what our ancestors had to go through to allow us to live how we live today with the freedoms we enjoy. But most importantly, we should learn from their mistakes and from our own.
We are living in an extraordinary time. Never before has there been so much opportunity and so much danger for the human race all at once. Yet, if you have an optimistic view of the world like me, your focus will be on the opportunity this amazing world offers.
The great philanthropic entrepreneur and inventor Elon Musk said:
‘If anyone thinks they'd rather be in a different part of history, they're probably not a very good student of history. Life sucked in the old days. People knew very little and you were likely to die at a young age of some horrible disease. You'd probably have no teeth by now. It would be particularly awful if you were a woman.’
In those 4.5 billion years, Homo sapiens has only been around for a tiny fraction of that time. It has been an incredible journey for humanity, which has travelled at breakneck speed to a position of dominance on the planet.
Louise Leakey, granddaughter of the famous anthropologist Louis Leakey, explains in a TED talk she gave:
‘If there are 400 sheets of tissue paper in the roll, then the very first life in the oceans is seen at sheet 240. The age of the dinosaurs begins at sheet 19. Dinosaurs in their many forms and great diversity are around for 14 and a half sheets. Dinosaurs are extinct by the end of the Cretaceous, 5 squares from the end, making way for the mammals.
‘Our story and place on the timeline as upright walking apes begins only in the last half of the very last sheet. The human story as Homo sapiens is represented by less than 2 millimeters of this, some 200,000 years.’
Though that number of 107 billion people in total having lived since the very start of the human race may seem like a lot, if you think that right now there are around 7.4 billion on the planet, expected to be 9 billion by 2050 and 11.2 billion by 2100, then the achievements of the ‘few’ who came before us have been extraordinary.
What's more, though Homo sapiens emerged around 200,000 years ago, civilisation is a relatively new idea. The first cities were built around 6,000 years ago. That's only 200 generations from then to now. In the intervening 60 centuries, so much has happened, so many great cultures have risen and fallen, so many people have lived, loved and built what we take for granted today.
Even the idea of civilisation has come a long way. One of the newest flourishings of thought is the increasing rise of the non‐religious mind.
The religious mind has changed, too. Sacrifice, let alone human sacrifice, is no longer part of everyday society. Yet many cultures we look back on in awe practised sacrificial offerings as a part of their religious beliefs. The Aztecs, Etruscans, Egyptians, Romans and Incas sacrificed humans and animals. Though many people were drugged and sacrificed against their will, others were sold a priestly lie about an eternity in heaven and then offered themselves freely.
At first it sounds like a joke to imagine the modern‐day teen preparing himself for sacrifice. Can you imagine two kids today saying: ‘Hey, are you coming to see a movie this afternoon?’ and the other replying: ‘No, can't do it. I'm sacrificing myself. I'm going to heaven this afternoon.’
But vestiges of outmoded ways of thinking do still exist. These days, human sacrifice is performed by members of insurgent groups, not mainstream religions; it's done not with knives in a temple, but with an explosive belt in a marketplace. Such tragedies show us, in many ways, how short a time it is since the days of deep superstition.
Though modern civilisation is sometimes brutal, there's no doubt our ancestors were more brutal. Depending on their culture, they were highly creative in thinking up new ways of killing or torturing. You name it, it's been done.
Some of the reasons for all that killing, torture and death can only be thought of as absurd.
In the period of the Spanish Inquisition, an auto‐da‐fé saw people tortured and burned alive just for thinking differently from the priests who held power over them. In South America, Spanish colonists deemed it acceptable to kill natives because they didn't have souls.
The British Empire degraded, massacred and raped its way across much of the known world, destroying local economies and making them dependent on Britain as their hub. Most other European nations did something similar, using more or less brutality to achieve their goals.
In the 20th century, political ideologies were the killers.
Tens of millions died in Stalin's Communist Purges, with quotas for executions plucked from thin air and massacres arranged with the stroke of a pen.
Under the Maoist regime in China, it is estimated 80 million people died as a result of the Cultural Revolution.
Hitler's regime murdered 11 million noncombatants and desecrated their bodies. Six million of those were Jewish. Others had mental health issues, were of supposedly ‘poor’ genetic stock, or did not fit in with the Nazi's Aryan ‘master race.’
Capitalism has been the driver for amazing advances in technology, medicines and culture, and has simultaneously ensured that inequality is built into everyone's lives. Billions of people have died because they cannot get the medicines and food they require, the clean water they need or the freedom from strife they crave, due to the inherent instability and unfairness at the heart of capitalism, even though there is actually plenty for everyone.
In the modern day, new dangers have risen. Humans have become so dominant as a species that we threaten many other species on the planet through deforestation, overhunting, climate change, plastic pollution and nuclear disaster, to name a few pressing problems.
And yet… and yet I remain an optimist—and optimism is at the heart of the traits you need to make your life better. I believe we can evolve to be better than we are. I believe we can learn the lessons of the past, and build a new and better world that obliterates the cruelty and madness that came before.
Why do I believe this? Because there is something extraordinary about humanity and that includes you.
Look at the evidence. Over millennia, men and women have travelled looking for food, for new ways to live, to escape captivity, to survive and sometimes to conquer others. Men and women have traversed continents; migratory wave after wave has walked, ridden on horseback, sailed in boats, crossed seas and oceans looking for a better life, for wealth, or hoping to bring their version of truth to the world.
Look at human achievement. The designing and building of impressive bridges that span seas and rivers; tunnels in the most impossible places; pyramids; cathedrals; and the most amazing buildings and structures were all made using rudimentary tools and equipment, often taking centuries to complete.
I want us to turn on our senses and really try and visualise what it might have been like in a different time from now. I want you to see what you would see, hear what you would hear and feel what you would feel if you were present at the following scenarios.
Let's imagine some different scenarios.
Let's Imagine—1
For a moment, let's put ourselves in the shoes of those who went before.
How do the lives of the people involved in those ancient endeavours compare to yours? What was their journey long before you were born? What does it tell us about ourselves?
I invite you to imagine it was you in the place of your ancestor.
People have been setting out in handcrafted boats crossing vast oceans for thousands of years. Four thousand years ago, merchants set out from the shores of Egypt to trade with a massive network of tribes that stretched from the shores of the Levant to the southern coast of Spain, all the way across the treacherous Bay of Biscay, to the shores of Northern England and finally across to Scandinavia, where they traded for amber. The Vikings set out regularly across the North Atlantic to trade in Iceland and Greenland, as well as to pillage Europe. Traces of Viking archaeological remains have even been found far, far away from Scandinavia in North America! The people of Easter Island are related to those of South America—meaning that at some point thousands of years ago, Native South Americans set sail on reed boats and plotted by sun and star to arrive thousands of miles away on a tiny rock in the Pacific.
Imagine yourself as one of these travellers, climbing into an open boat or very small ship with little cover and protection from the rain and the sun. Maybe you are a slave, forced to row when the wind dies down. Perhaps you have never been on the water before and you see the dark depths heaving around you, with giant fish and sharks circling. You feel the gruelling routine every day, your hands grip the oars as the wind dies and you experience desperate days on end when you are becalmed. Your water supply begins to fail you, filthy water green with scum is splashing in a thin film at the bottom of the water skins. The crew draws lots to decide who will be eaten when the food runs out. The searing heat of the sun burns into your head and others grow weak and sick.
But then the weather breaks and rainwater floods down. The revivifying water slakes your thirst and gives you hope and, as you are blown forward, the shout comes up: ‘Land! Land!’ You heave a sigh of relief. You've made it! You're going to live.
When our ancestors crossed the oceans, the hardships they faced were many and various. They faced annihilation at the hands of a cruel natural world, protected only by the sides of the vessel and the determination to go on, no matter what.
These are the amazing lives of the people who went before us. Many of our extraordinary predecessors would have faced even greater hardships when they crossed oceans and seas for the first time. Our modern troubles, at least for many in the West, are small in comparison.
Yet though we are heirs to the impressive achievements of those who went before us, every generation has its heroes, its survivors and those who have moved civilisation forward.
Let's Imagine—2
Four and a half thousand years ago in ancient Egypt the state religion had such a powerful message that it inspired the Pharaoh Khufu to order a massive monument built to protect his mortal remains and ensure that his soul lived on into eternity. It was to be a project on a massive scale. The idea of pyramids had been around for thousands of years, from the ancient low‐walled mastabas still found in desert complexes to grand masses of stone that would last forever. Khufu's idea was that he would build the grandest ever pyramid—a man‐made mountain in the sands.
Khufu deployed tens of thousands of slaves to quarry and move massive stones, many weighing 50 tons or more, through the hot sands—all for a religious idea! Those slaves toiled and sweated and died in the sands. They had no mechanised lifting equipment. Brute manpower, wet sand to slide the blocks on and leverage were the tools of the day. How many were crushed to death? How many lost limbs? Yet, our ancestors rose to the task. It was the seeing through of a vision that stemmed from the imagination of the pharaoh and his priests to create something truly extraordinary. The lives of the masons working on the quarried stone were gruelling: breaking and shaping it with the most basic tools, their lungs and eyes and noses filled with dust and flies. Working day after day as the Nile floods rose and receded each year was incredibly tough. And yet one of them could easily be one of your ancestors. As could the foremen overseeing the project or the slaves who toiled and sweated and died in the sands. They pushed on and created and laboured and made something that the world to this day, four and a half millennia on, still marvels at.
The pyramids have survived for thousands of years.
And every single thing that has been created in the world started in someone's mind.
People can achieve great things, if only they know what great things to achieve. Perhaps they can create something more useful than a man‐made mountain, if only they have the right vision!
Let's Imagine—3
In Europe, millennia later, think of the soldiers of the Roman Empire, who often had to leave their families and loved ones for journeys to new frontiers where they would campaign, fight and face death on a daily basis.
Imagine it's you. You have two young kids and a beautiful wife. Because you are a soldier you are forced to leave your hometown and follow your general on his journey to conquer new lands. Your feet are wrapped in furs in the cold, and in lighter boots and sandals in the dry weather, but are calloused and bleeding by the unending marching. It might take you years to get to your destination as you march to places no Romans have been before, facing hostile tribes, terrible weather, diseases that spread through the legions, freezing winters, burning summers, lice and fleas.
When you arrive, you know you have to kill to stay alive. Every day, fellow soldiers die around you. You are surrounded by uncertainty, you're homesick, you're scared, you're surrounded by brutality and possible death. You never know if you are going to get back home.
It's a hard life, but it's equally difficult for this Roman legionary's wife. Imagine experiencing her life. You have to get by, find work in the local markets or in the fields, look after the kids while you wait as the days, weeks, months and years go by, not knowing what has become of your loved one and realising you may never know.
Let's Imagine—4
The California Gold Rush saw the expansion of a massive population into the west of America in search of gold. Some 300,000 people flooded into California in a few short years, firstly from Oregon, Hawaii and Latin America, then in an increasing tide from across the world. Many crossed the vast plains of America in covered wagons, encountering rightly hostile native Americans protecting their ancestral lands. Many died on the way from disease or from arguments with rivals, and yet others struggled and toiled to find gold, while others gave up and perhaps more cannily decided to provide the gold hunters with supplies in the newly growing towns. It was an extraordinary time. It saw rivalries lead to murders, while other lives were transformed in the incredible press of people and commerce that founded the newly born state. It brought disastrous displacement for the Native Americans and riches to the country as a whole. It's not an easy tale to tell with a simple moral, but it's worth remembering the energy and drive that made this moment so important in so many ways.
Let's Imagine—5
Let's imagine the inventors who first dreamed of flying. From the storytellers in ancient Greece who fabricated tales of Icarus building himself wings from wax and feathers and plunging to the earth, to the book The First Men In The Moon by H. G. Wells, people have dreamed of soaring above the ground, even the world.
With balloon flight in France in the 18th century man experimented with lighter‐than‐air transport, while others dreamed of flying like a bird. Experiments in balloon flights led to explosions in the air, terrible disasters that rained fire down on the spectators below. Some balloon expeditions saw explorers attempt to fly over the North Pole—only to end in disaster, starvation or being eaten by wild creatures.
In 1799, Englishman Sir George Cayley devised the concept of the modern aeroplane. He envisaged his fixed‐wing flying machine with systems for lift, propulsion and control. He designed the first reliable glider that could lift a man and predicted that the only way an aircraft could be designed would be when a small enough engine could be fixed to it.
In 1903, inspired by Cayley, the Wright brothers created the Wright Flyer, after years of study and as the technology of building a light enough engine finally caught up with Cayley's vision. From that first powered heavier‐than‐air flight, within 50 years humanity had broken the sound barrier. Within another 25 years it had travelled to space and the moon. Space probes are exploring beyond the edge of the solar system even now. What a short journey it has been to get this far!
And now things are accelerating. Which means things can also get better for people quicker if we just apply our minds.
In the World, Now
Down on the surface of the earth, men and women are doing more than they ever could before. An incredible struggle to do better is exemplified in sport. Olympians train for up to 8 hours every single day for years to achieve, to perfect, to move onwards and beat the records of those who went before.
Climbers have scaled the highest mountains with the most basic clothes and gear. Athletes have swum rivers and seas just to test their resistance and capabilities.
Men and women who have lost limbs now have more opportunities than ever before. Many are free to get on with their lives in ways their predecessors could never have imagined—not disabled, but enabled by society. And because of their achievements they are able to spread word of their causes to help others more effectively. Some have gone on to swim, run and cycle for charities, cross seas or trek to the North and South Poles to create awareness for their causes and the charities they support.
We are all raised up and inspired by these individuals. They are beacons for us to be guided by and they are useful reality checks to help us get our own struggles in perspective.
Yet, achievement isn't only about doing. Sometimes achievement is about survival itself; about resilience and hanging on in the face of the worst odds. Humans have done terrible things to each other. They have cheated and killed others to take control of their possessions, their land and their families, or simply to have a world without them in it. Whole countries have gone to war for the sake of very stupid ideas that somehow turned out to be deeply addictive and irresistible. Men have created weapons of mass destruction. We have wiped out or attempted to wipe out complete races in acts of what are euphemistically called ‘ethnic cleansing’.
That also is unfortunately part of our story.
Let's Imagine—6
Imagine yourself living not so along ago, during a period of conflict, when World War II is raging. You're living in Nazi‐controlled territory, under occupation by a cruel army that has only hatred for you in its heart.
What is it like to be a kid in the midst of all that? Scared, alone, hungry and suffering daily air raids. Maybe your father is a soldier, maybe he has already died.
Imagine spending your days in a concentration camp, knowing that each day might be your last. Or imagine being a soldier on the other side, having to follow orders or risk being shot— obeying something you don't believe in, but knowing that you, your family and loved ones have got to survive somehow, and that depends on your obedience.
Then imagine being one of the liberators. You are only 18 or 19, leaping from a boat on to a beach exploding with shells and the air thick with bullets. People around you are shot and dying, yet somehow you push on. How scared you are.
We don't even have to imagine some of this horror. You can see it this very day. It is going on right now, with people fleeing war‐torn regions and taking to the waters in the flimsiest of boats to find a place where they can be safe. Many drown along the way. That we have not done enough to help them is to our lasting shame.
As uncomfortable as this may be, this is humanity. It has happened and is happening to people like you and me. And yet, the good news is that there are people helping others, giving them food, clothing, housing and safety. And on another level, if you think about all that horror and death that has gone before, then it's undeniable that you are from a line of survivors. You are the current expression of the ability to survive. It's what you and the rest of the world has in common.
But wait. Is that a selfish thought? Too selfish?
Maybe.
I remember reading Victor Frankl's book Man's Search For Meaning, which is based on his true story of surviving the Holocaust. In it, he describes how he lived through the awful, life‐destroying conditions of a concentration camp. One thing that struck me was how he said he had to become completely apathetic in order to survive. Frankl confessed that apathy enabled him to shut down his emotions and stop being worn out by the horror he was seeing. All his energy was focused on his own survival. For him, that was the strategy of resilience he adopted to get by.
There's an irony here. By listening to Frankl, by using our empathy, we can learn that some people in some situations survive through apathy. The big lesson is that, at different times, you've got to know how to ask yourself the right questions and the questions change with the context. If he'd shown too much empathy at that point in his life, it's quite possible Frankl would have died. He needed to preserve his energy, to look after himself. All the finer, selfless feelings had fallen away due to the extreme position he found himself in. Frankl was an empathetic, kind writer and person, but in this context he needed to be someone quite different from his usual self. He instinctively found a survival strategy.
So, yes, it is selfish to say we all come from a line of survivors. But there are times when an interpretation, a response, is what saves you. This, too, is the skill of survival.
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QUESTION:
How did human beings who wanted to go further, go faster, do new things, invent, fly, go into space and break the barriers to what seemed impossible?
ANSWER:
By asking themselves—ourselves—the right questions.
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Fast and Easy
We live in a world where many companies, organisations and individuals are simply interested in making a quick buck, and not really interested in who they leave behind, or use, or who gets in the way.
Right now, oil companies are destroying the environment. It's not only a question of global warming, which some people still argue isn't real, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. There are also the oil slicks, the oil rig leaks, the tankers that collide, the diesel that fills the air with poisons, the ruthless squeezing of the very last vestiges of fossil fuels from rocks by pumping sulphuric acid into the earth and into the water supplies that sustain us.
Plastic companies are polluting the seas with waste they say is not their problem. Massive multinationals use plastic on a daily basis, not caring or taking responsibility, as micro‐plastics get into the most basic organisms and vast islands of plastic fill the seas, killing underwater life and affecting the plankton that produces oxygen.
Pharmaceutical companies and cartels are selling drugs. Many of the ‘legal ones’ you can buy over the counter have massive side effects and many of the ‘illegal ones’ are creating addiction. Farmers are overusing antibiotics as growth aids to increase their profits, creating superbugs for which there is no known cure.
Criminals are trafficking people through massive slave trade organisations. Slavery is now the third biggest illegal activity on earth in economic terms, after illegal drugs and counterfeiting. At the same time, speculators are destroying vast swathes of forests and poisoning rivers with mercury and other heavy metals, making the indigenous people homeless or dependent on non‐sustainable modes of life, while also destroying local cultures and local wisdom. In fact, making more slaves.
This mentality doesn't care about the effects of what it does, nor in what sphere it operates. It is the activity that comes from a lack of ethics, a lack of seeking to care and nurture those around it, and profiting at the expense of others because it is fast and easy to do so.
The fast and easy is everywhere. I have seen it in the personal development industry. Although the purpose of personal development should be to empower others, so many create programmes that promise you will get rich quick. They are not interested in helping others, but have their values inverted. Who can sell more? Who can close more deals? These are the wrong questions. They entice people to treat others like lambs being led to the slaughter. The same thing applies to trainers and authors who copy each other and don't give credit where credit is due.
There are many, many great people in the personal development world who do beautiful and positive things. And then there are the others. The ones whom I believe are not involved in self‐development, but are in the ‘selfish development’ business, encourage others to take without considering the consequences, or to serve themselves and their financial objectives.
It's a mentality that is going to harm us all.
Your Questions
Thankfully, it doesn't have to be like that. No one, no individual or organisation, should get away with it. Am I being unrealistic? Utopian? Maybe. But if we don't do something, your children's children won't have a planet to live on, or will live on a planet ruled by ruthless individuals and organisations, even more so than today.
If you can learn only one thing from this book (and I hope you can learn a lot), it is that you not only start asking yourself questions… you ask The Right Ones.
I hope this book, The Question, will inspire you to make use of all the extraordinary positive skills around you. That it will become a forum for ‘doers’, for people who care and are driven to get on with what they want to do and become who they want to be in a way that helps others to do the same.
I hope you can make an impact in some positive way to change the world around you. Of course, not everyone will become an inspirational speaker or a best‐selling author. But you can be one to make an impact, starting from the bottom up, with loved ones, family, friends, colleagues and people at work, and then with their circle of people, to make the world a better place.
Such a movement starts from within. It starts with you.
So, I ask you to genuinely consider The Question: what are you here for?
Take a few minutes now to consider your answers to the following:
What do you want in your life?
What do you want for others?
Do you ever ask yourself these questions?
How much time do you dedicate to thinking about these questions?
What do you want to get from this book?
What did you get up for today?
Who needs you?
What are your plans?
What do you really want to do?
What are the excuses you make for not making these things happen?
Do you think it's too late? If so how do you know?
Are you thinking now's not the right time? When would be the right time? Do you have the time, i.e. are you going to be around at that later right time?
Maybe you think you haven't got the money to change your life. Do you think everyone that started a business had all the right circumstances to make things happen?
Maybe you believe your parents won't let you.
Maybe you think you are too fat, too short, too tall, too Hispanic, too black, too white. How did you come to that conclusion?
Maybe you think it's not your problem.
Maybe you think they will sort it out? Who are they?
Maybe you just don't care. Maybe you have secretly given up.
Do you tell yourself these things? If so, remember: one day your life will be over. But there might be enough time still to do what you want if you stop listening to your excuses.
Excuses will hold you back and drown you in inertia if you let them win.
If you carry on thinking them, at the end of your life you will look back on a list of regrets.
This could be a real possibility. Think about it.
* * *
QUESTION:
What do you want to achieve; what do you want to have seen, felt, touched, tasted, understood and experienced before you die? It's funny because we know we are mortals yet we believe we will live forever. For some reason we tend to believe death will come at a convenient time and only when we have fulfilled our dreams.
Think about this. Take some time to answer now. When you've done so, write down your answers. Start a notebook and allow those answers to guide your life.
Remember: the quality of your life will depend on the quality of the questions you ask yourself.
The power of questions lies in the transformative answers they provoke. A hostile TV show interviewer can do this by setting an agenda through the power of their questions that make it difficult for the interviewee to express their message and direction.
But you don't need to do this to yourself and trip yourself up. You only need to think carefully about your honest answers to some important questions.
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* * *
Think about a simple question like ‘Why can't I lose weight?’ (You can change the weight question to be about anything).
This unhelpful question presupposes:
- You are carrying too much weight
- You need to lose weight
- You aren't able to lose weight.
If you don't challenge these types of questions, you will reinforce their meaning.
If you answer with the word ‘because,’ then you are acknowledging the ‘truth’ of the question's presuppositions.
Yet, if someone was to say to you directly, ‘You are too fat, you need to lose weight, but you aren't able to lose weight,’ you'd probably say, ‘F**k you.’
This weaselly way of asking a question creates a mindset you wouldn't normally accept. It means you need to ask yourself the right questions—the ones that will produce the useful answers that you can do something useful with.
* * *
* * *
Think about how empowering those questions are and notice how they start to challenge your presuppositions.
Try the same with, ‘Why doesn't anybody like me?’
Ask yourself:
‘Is it really true that nobody likes me?’
‘How do I know no one likes me?
‘Do I really want the specific people that I think don't like me to like me?’
‘What would they bring to my life?’
Is important to me if they don't like me? And if it is, why?
And if it is, how do I know?
‘What makes me want them to like me?’
‘How do I go about making myself more popular?’
‘What have I tried already?’
‘Now, being honest with myself: what do I need to do differently?’
‘Actually, are these people worth it?’
These, again, are empowering questions.
This is why it's so important to focus on questions. If you don't ask the right questions, you will always get the wrong answers.
I will say this here again and repeat it throughout the book:
The quality of your life will be based on the quality of the questions you ask yourself. And that's before you even look at the answers.
Those who never give up, who do not accept average, who work hard, who focus, who learn, who always look for the answers—the right answers—ask questions of a different sort.
Below are some better questions that people with everyday challenges can ask themselves. See which ones apply to you. And ask yourself, are there even better questions I can ask? What are they?
How can I become more active?
How much better can I feel today?
How am I going to lose weight? By when am I going to lose weight?
How many people would LOVE to be with me? How sexy am I?
How can I deal wisely with those who hurt me?
What can I learn today?
Where can I find like‐minded people?
How lovely will life be today?
What can I read on my commute to work?
What other great ideas do I have?
What am I passionate about?
How can I serve others?
How much do I care about myself? Others? About being loved?
What do I LOVE doing?
Remember:
If you ask questions that hold you back, you will be held back.
If you think average thoughts, you will be average.
To achieve greatness, think great things.
* * *
* * *
So, is personal development, professional growth, and getting on in the world and taking charge of your life really so simple?
In many ways, yes, it is. If you start becoming aware of your internal dialogue, that voice inside your head and (for those who are questioning if you have a voice or not—that one, that's the one I am referring to) then you get the chance to control it; to take it in the direction you want to go and to make a whole new reality and consciousness with it.
How do you do this?
The first step is to become aware of your inner voice. What you say to yourself is of extreme importance. But it's not all internal.
It's also vital to surround yourself with positive, loving people. Ditch the bad voices and questions and the negative people in your life. Do it soon, no looking back, no regrets. You have a choice: —it's up to you to spend all your life trying to change those who are having a negative effect on you, or to become the person you want to be at a distance from their negative influence. Changing yourself is easier than changing others.
So start asking those empowering questions that will get you thinking in the right direction:
What are you here for?
What are you here for personally?
What are you here for professionally?
What are you here for globally?
We are only getting started. My job is to coach you. To make you think. To help you find your meaning, your passion, your mission in life.
The questions you start to ask yourself as you read this book, and over the coming days and months, are best when designed to steal the agenda away from that voice that once controlled your direction. You don't need more of the same. You need more of what will make you ‘jump out of bed in the morning’ like when you were a kid, remember?
We Need a New Approach!
You agree, don't you? (See what I did there?)
The first thing to remember is that we will stay on track and won't be deterred.
I believe we should use a combination of a steadily applied optimism and positive attitude— of doing what's right locally to influence what's happening globally—to make things change. Being ready to act and getting your own head in gear can make that happen. Aligning your needs and your desires with what's good for all of us, so that you don't live in a vacuum separated from others, is part of that journey.
Though you are one person, you can make a difference, but it's through combining many of us that we can all together make a massive difference.
I believe personal development is the way to free up so much potential in the world and make the world a better, a happier place.
And I think we can all agree, we need that!
I've spent many years working in the personal and professional growth industry because it's my passion. I'll share with you more about my journey in the next chapter. For now, it will be helpful for you to know that I am one of a large disparate group of people wanting to help others become the best versions of themselves. There are many of us, many people who help millions around the world.
I've been in the personal development business since 2006. I've read so many books, attended countless seminars, interviewed and studied with so many great people; and now I feel a new approach is needed.
That's why I created my company, The Best You. I meet with successful people and interview them for broadcast on The Best You TV programme and print their interviews in The Best You Magazine so the word can get out about what the most extraordinary and talented people do in the world today. That's also why I organise The Best You Expos in Europe and America—to give people the chance to connect up with each other. To enable people who really want to help others to share platforms and ideas. Because who knows what greatness and positivity can come from that?
It's said that in the world of personal development there is a lot of ‘personal shelf‐development’ going on. People buy books and attend seminars, but then leave the books and ideas on their shelves, or take really important notes and then leave them hidden in a drawer. Does this sound familiar?
My mission with The Question is to really help you think, to help you find your deep passion and then hold on to it. It's simple, its straightforward, no seven steps or 22 steps, no acronyms.
It can be summarised in the words: The Best You – A Better World.
Let's stay positive. Does being negative help? Does worrying help? The answer is No.
With self‐development we can at least take charge of our lives; to have the tools to live fuller and happier lives with more meaning and get that message out to as many people as we can.
* * *
The Question is: What is your true purpose in life?
* * *
Stan Lee, my hero and the creator of Spider‐Man, said through Peter Parker's uncle, ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’ Whereas in Mark Manson's book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, he states that with ‘great responsibility comes great power.’
You, me, us. We all have the power…
I believe you hold a great responsibility to find your true purpose. As a fellow dweller on our planet, you have obligations to the world and everyone in it.
You're not alone. Billions and billions have come before you and risen to the challenge by answering their version of The Question.
It's worth looking at just how far we've all come and how amazing you, we, and those who went before us, really are.
My Struggles and Discoveries
I've asked myself many empowering and disempowering questions over the years. It's only lately that I've really come to understand the choices I was making—when I was just reacting and when I was really taking charge of my own path.
This book is not about my life in particular, far from it. It's about your life. It's about all our lives. But let me tell you a little more about me so you know who I am and what I've struggled with and learned. It might give you a shortcut to moving forward on your own path.
Let me be clear: My life has not been more challenging than that of millions or billions of other people all over the world. In truth, I consider myself blessed and lucky in so many ways. It's also true that everyone has struggled in their lives. What's important is to learn from people who have faced and beaten their struggles, no matter what the causes.
There's no doubt some people find a way to deal with the knocks far quicker than others. Listening to how other people deal with their own struggles can help you face your own.
Who am I? To be honest, I have been working on the ‘who’ for most of my life and only now is it coming into focus. The ongoing Project Bernardo started 53 years ago and continues today. I'm more interested than ever in learning and developing. I'm 53 but I have the curiosity and energy of a 26‐year‐old.
I have been an entrepreneur for more than 32 years. I have been a husband for over 30 years to my wife Julia. I have been a parent for 27 years and now am a father of three: two sons, Max and Lucci, and my daughter, Gigi.
I would describe myself as honest and loyal, as very motivated and driven, and as one who creates his own path and vision.
Both my parents were Spanish immigrants who came to London in the 1960s. My dad came from the south of Spain, from a city named Jaén, and my mother was from Sevilla. I got to understand in my early years what it meant to be an immigrant. I can only imagine how difficult it was for them to go to a different country, not speaking the language, not having friends or family. Missing the food, the weather. I am so aware of what current generations of immigrants have to go through!
When I was nine, my parents decided they wanted us to have a Spanish upbringing, so we left London and moved back to Spain, settling in Marbella, Malaga.
I had a normal childhood and education. Because my mother tongue was English, I went down a class when I got to Spain, but I recovered and did okay. As I mentioned in the introduction, my father passed away when I was 15; he was 54. It was a shock to me and knocked the whole family in ways I didn't expect.
It was only years later that I realised the impact it had on me and my brother. The usual questions people ask themselves at times of crisis came to me. How could this have happened? How could my dad, the powerful centre of my life, be gone? How could he have died just like that? Was there something I could have done differently? Why had this happened to me while all my friends at school still had their fathers? Why had it happened now? Why, why…
Into that whirl of pain, my grandfather bravely stepped in to try to make sure that the family was supported while we overcame the loss. But then we were thrown back into more grief when, six months later, my grandad joined my dad and we were left alone.
I remember looking to my uncles on my father's side for more support. But they did not step up to help and in fact were nowhere to be seen. In six months, two of the main rocks of my life were gone. My mum, my seven‐year‐old brother and I were alone.
Mum did what so many mums do in times of crisis. She bent herself to the task, working harder and harder to ensure that we were provided for, had food on the table and heat in the house. She was and luckily still is extraordinary, in my eyes and with tears in my eyes I tell you now, she is a legend!
For my part, I carried on studying until I left school at 18. My teen years were marked by a pattern of school, part‐time jobs and partying. I worked as a DJ for many years, so access to sex, drugs and rock and roll was very easy, but I always had that sense of responsibility.
The way things were at home, with my mother working all hours possible to pay the debts that had piled up before and after Dad's death, meant that for me going to university wasn't an option and I had to look around to find what else I could do.
With few choices, I joined the army and served 13 months in the military police, where I learned discipline, chain of command, respect, friendship and loyalty. It was a fascinating and empowering time that gave me so many skills in life that I never otherwise would have had. Perhaps strong guidance from senior officers was what I needed now that my dad wasn't around.
I left the army at 19 and needed something to do that would support my mother and family. It was then that I got into sales. This was the period in the 1980s of the great timeshare boom in Spain. I was a kid who spoke English and Spanish. I was as green as anything, but determined to make a go of it as a real estate agent. I remember turning up on my first day at work, being shown the ropes and told ‘get selling or you'll be fired’. No pressure then! It involved approaching holidaymakers on the streets and signing them up. I had to learn how to be unafraid, to be likeable and to keep a positive mindset when I got knocked back. And let's face it, in those early days, that was often!
But I stuck with it. I began to understand the way the office was run and I got to know the people who were the developers and landowners we worked for. I watched and learned, and began to think that maybe it wasn't so difficult to do. Call me naive, call me determined, but a year later I started my own real estate business with a partner. I was excited. I was taking my future and my life into my own hands—that sense of being my own boss has always been the place in my mind where I'm the happiest. I was in charge. Or thought I was. I'd gone into partnership with an older man, who, I didn't realise, was a complete psychopath. He was aggressive, dangerous to be around and had no concern for me at all. In fact, I'm convinced at some points he wanted to kill me.
Nevertheless, I learned and I learned more. I found out about people, about how you approach someone to sell them something. I learned which ones would not give you even two seconds of your time. I learned about being friendly and—dare I say it?—charming. And I had success.
Life went along pretty comfortably. I got married to the wonderful Julia, and we had Max. We were living in a nice part of Spain with lots of sunshine. Life was an adventure.
Then, two years in to living the dream, came the first real estate market crash. I had credit cards and bills to pay and suddenly I was down to my last few coins. We were about to lose the house, people were knocking on our door looking for money. I can remember hearing Max crying in the other room because he was hungry. I had kept some savings—just a few coins,—in an old box of Roses chocolates. I went over to it to get money for some food and found all I had left was one 100‐pesetas coin. That was it. That was all the money I had in the world. I'd lost everything. Or so I thought at that moment. But I still had a loving family and a wife and child to look after. Plus my wife was pregnant with our second child. I tilted the box to get the coin out and, at that moment, it's also true to say that the penny dropped. I had to act, and act now.
With no other money, the first thing I had to do was make sure my family ate. Believe it or not, I got my son a tin of lentils and after I had bought that I had no more money in the world. The next day I asked a friend if he could give me some work. He agreed and I started inviting people to time‐share resorts…
And it worked. One week later I was making over $3000–$4000 a month. I was back on track.
So they say that after every dark night there is a brighter day.
I built on what I had. By the age of 27, I was running large sales teams, getting into marketing, running resorts and converting hotels into timeshare resorts.
At the age of 30 I was offered a job working in another property business. I turned it down because it wasn't something I really wanted to do. Then they upped the offer. And upped it again. I was finally offered a ridiculous salary for a job I didn't initially want. Eventually—and this was over 20 years ago—I was offered €6,000 ($7,000 US) a month. I weighed up the offer and decided that it was good, so I took it, with no doubts.
I was on track. I was making hay while the sun shone and, more importantly, I was making money. Once again my boss was a lot older than me, and it is only in hindsight that I realise I was unconsciously looking for a father figure, hoping that someone would fill in the very big gap in my life left by my dad. It was only when my own sons reached the age I was or my brother was when we lost our father that I really began to realise the impact his death had on me. What was I supposed to do as a dad? I had no role model to base my behaviour on. But back then was a different time and a different culture. There were no therapists or psychologists to help, no counselling, either—and men in Spain didn't exactly open up to other men about their feelings. So I got on with trying to do the right thing.
What that experience taught me was a stoical sense of determination. And that realisation came into greater clarity when I created my mantra—something that I think when I'm pushing on and fighting and doing my best: no one is coming to my rescue. The fact is, although you may have friends and support around you, understanding quickly that you have to face your challenges head on is the best thing you can do.
Motivational speaker Brendon Burchard phrases it this way: ‘Challenge is the pathway to engagement and progress in our lives. But not all challenges are created equal. Some challenges make us feel alive, engaged, connected and fulfilled. Others simply overwhelm us. Knowing the difference as you set bigger and bolder challenges for yourself is critical to your sanity, success and satisfaction.’
Whatever happens, I always remember that it's up to me to take the necessary action. Many spend their lives expecting the perfect solution to be presented to them—whether that's the perfect idea, the perfect job, or just more money to fall in their laps. So many believe someone will come along and want to help you and it will all be perfect. But optimism and naivety are close friends, and unfortunately life and nature have a way of putting egg on faces. When that happens, you have to get up, keep on, don't accept no, stop crying and stop feeling sorry for yourself. Take ‘response‐ability.’ Of course you must be responsible, but you must also make sure your response to whatever life throws at you is always the same: get up and try again.
Almost immediately after beginning my new job, my family came to have a lovely way of life. We lived in a large, comfortable house. I had an idyllic family life, great pay and money in the bank, for once. But, after 18 months I got bored. I wanted a challenge again.
So I sold everything I had to have money in the bank to get into real estate, working for myself, starting all over again. The following year I started developing properties and selling real estate. The upshot was that I was soon making a lot of money. Those were happy times, in my early and mid‐thirties I was living the dream! House, family, cars, money, motorbikes.
I had it made, right?
Wrong!
At the age of 38 I hit my second real estate crisis. Why I didn't prepare for it after the first one, I don't know, but there's a lesson in that, too. The truth is, I lost everything. I lost all our money. I lost my properties. I lost the cars and the great house we lived in. I say I hit a property crisis—but it's more like it hit me. And although I say I lost everything, really, that's not true. Julia and the kids stuck with me and that's what really counts.
This time, as a nearly middle‐aged person, it was much more difficult. I had become used to the wealth and to a very comfortable way of life. I had a Porsche and I had motorbikes, and a lifestyle that suited me and my family very well indeed. Now I was in debt, struggling with the loss of material things I had taken for granted.
What next?
I am a great believer in serendipity. Things happen for a reason. Simon, a friend of mine, was working for the hypnotist and lifestyle expert Paul McKenna. Though I wasn't really impressed with personal development at the time, I heard a talk by Paul and it got me curious. Soon after I read his book Change Your Life In Seven Days. I was impressed. There was something in it, an approach to life that I'd never seen before. I wanted to know more and, thanks to my friend and Paul's generosity I was able to do the training for free. I took action and trained with him in London.
My training with Paul McKenna and Dr Richard Bandler lasted for a few years. During that time I absorbed their messages of self‐reliance and taking charge of one's emotional life. I remember being in the seminar room with Richard and Paul and, for the first time in my life, I was aware of my thoughts and how to change them and apply them deliberately. I had a set of skills I'd never had before. That in itself was a revelation to me and the powerful techniques Richard and Paul taught for dealing with challenges led me to become a Practitioner in NLP, then a Master Practitioner and a Trainer.
I lost everything for a reason, I told myself. For some reason I had to hit rock bottom and then come up again, different, changed and with new knowledge.
At that time, I needed this new way of thinking so much. I was scared, I was frustrated, and I was angry with myself and with the world over what I'd been through and put my family through in gaining so much and then losing everything… twice!
And then Paul announced that he was closing his training courses in London to move to Los Angeles. These were the very courses in which I had experienced first hand the extraordinary effects of personal development training and seen other people's lives transformed by NLP.
It was then I received the offer. I was given the chance to continue promoting for Richard and start a new NLP training company that housed Richard Bandler's London seminars. But should I? Could I? It was a very daunting prospect.
I had been a real estate salesman who had plenty of life skills, plenty of experience. But, though I knew how to sell, I knew nothing about running a personal development training business. On the other hand, I knew passionately that my life had been hugely enriched by my connection with the personal development world.
Now there came to me two useful questions that helped me answer my doubts. They went like this:
If not me, then who?
If not now, then when?
And that was it. I committed! Self‐help had real value. I knew that. And it was my conviction that made me commit to whatever lay ahead
So, at 42, I was living on the last bit of money we had and it was that transition into this new venture that allowed me to make a living to start all over again; my life completely changed.
It's funny how things can echo from the past. In fact, I made the same trip that my father had made all those years before when he emigrated from Spain to the UK. This was a new journey and a new experience filled with the pain of parting from my family and home, with the excitement of starting in a whole new world and facing all the challenges and learning I would need to do.
It was tough at first. To get things going, I had to leave my family behind in Spain and organise a new life in the UK, starting from nothing. I was in a country where I had never worked before, with very different food, a completely different lifestyle and, maybe most importantly, with a very different expectation about the weather!
Things weren't easy for me. It's hard leaving your family to look for a new future.
I salute you, fellow immigrants. I had a taste of what it must have been like for my parents. My dad emigrated to London after the Spanish Civil War, not speaking a word of English. I at least had that advantage over him. My mum came to London many years later at the age of 17 and they found each other and made a family and a life. That in itself was an achievement. God knows what so many others have to go through all around the world when they are forced to migrate due to war, or economics. I know my story is nothing in comparison to theirs, but my own insight gives me the empathy I believe is so vital when I see someone who needs help.
Building the business took a huge amount of learning. I made mistakes, sure, but I was helped and supported by people along the way and I came through, creating a unique programme committed to encouraging people to help themselves and to help others. It has been ten years since those early days. I want to thank all of those who have had to endure working with me. They have all contributed to helping me arrive at where I stand today.
In this work and the work I've done before, in over 32 years of business, I have developed more brands and businesses than I care to remember. At the same time, I've been a son, a father, a husband, a brother, a friend. I've met many great people. All of this has moulded me into who I am. The great Frank Sinatra said, ‘Don't hide your scars… they make who you are.’
From a business point of view, I am a marketer, a salesperson, a CEO, a boss. I am an author, a speaker, an editor of a magazine, a promoter of many great people, a partner, a producer of TV and other content. All this is true. But what I am above all else is a dreamer. From when I was very little, my mum always called me a dreamer. If that means I am a believer that anything is possible and that I can create new things, then I suppose I am. Maybe it's true what friends have said —that I am a leader, a visionary! These are not words I use easily, it's just who I suppose I am. Part of my vision is that I believe we can make this world a much better place and I don't listen to those who tell me it's not possible! I choose to ignore them.
I come from a place where my life has given me vital lessons. My experience, looking around at the personal development from the inside, has also allowed me to see the flaws and mistakes that so many make and keep making. This is, in many ways, priceless for my business.
As for life generally, there have been quite a few missteps, stumbles and falls, a few scares, some very dark and sad days along the way, some very scary ones; but 53 years in, I've never been hungrier to make an impact. It's still difficult at times. Running a business can be very lonely. I have many days when I speak to people who have no idea of what we do as a company, nor of the amazing changes that I see regularly occurring in people's lives. I meet the cynics and the lost, as well as the optimists and the most amazingly talented people. And to all of them I pass on the message that positive change can and does happen every day in people's lives. Sometimes it's hard. Sometimes I believe I'm swimming against the current, alone. But the amazing people I meet along the way and the transformations I witness have made it all worth it.
It has been said before, but it's worth repeating: Remember to be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you likely know nothing about.