A Restless Heart.
A Peaceful Mind.

I have a picture on the wall of my six-year-old self. I’m running carefree into the sea, oblivious to the awful red woollen swimming trunks that hang down to my knees when wet: a young boy full of life, dreams and expectations.

Here I am, just over half a century later, and inside I am still that boy, marvelling at the joy of life, and I’m still full of expectation. I am grateful every day for all of my life, and that is part of the secret. In many ways, I have had a lucky life, one that has revolved around my love of the sea and my family.

But it wasn’t always so. It started well enough, with a career at sea as a navigator, and continued with me building several successful businesses that made me wealthy at a relatively young age.

Then I made several life choices that sent me onto a path of self-destruction. I left my wife and beautiful children and went from someone at peace with life and who I was to someone who hated myself. The power of self-hate is incredible, and for ten years I went about destroying everything I had built. I came close to taking hard drugs until, in the end, I was on my own with a huge debt.

But you know what? As I look back, that was truly the best thing that ever happened to me.

In the last two years of my descent into the personal hell I created, I had opened the door to spirituality. Avidly, like a sponge, I read books and scoured the internet, slowly learning and working out a routine for myself. With my new routine came a feeling of happiness and inner peace that I had never before experienced. I relished each day and took pleasure in the simple things in life.

I rebuilt my relationships with my children and the rest of my family. From nothing, in just over five years, I built a business that not only allowed me to repay my half-million-pound debt but made me a multimillionaire and set me on a path to use my newfound wealth to help others.

The tools I want to share with you have changed my life. Some are practical, some spiritual and some are simply things I have learned by getting them wrong first.

I still have a restless heart. I still want to sail somewhere new, drive a car I have always wanted to own, take on another project or discover what is around the next corner. I don’t believe growing older means that curiosity has to disappear.

But I have also learned that adventure on its own isn’t enough. The quieter journey matters too - finding purpose, being thankful for what we already have, understanding ourselves a little better and, eventually, finding some peace with who we are.

My outlook is spiritual, but it is not a religion. I speak about God because that is the word that now feels right to me. Others may speak of spirit, the universe, intuition or simply the quiet inner voice we too easily ignore. I am not here to tell anyone what they must believe.

I simply want to share what has helped me - the adventures as well as the quieter discoveries - in the hope that something here might help you create a life that feels more fully your own.