For years of my life, I was a spectator.
I always dreamed of living a great life, but it did not seem like it was for me. I started Gymnasium because I was sick of average, sick of failing, and sick of wishing for a better life and not getting there.
Where I came from
I am from a working-class family in the UK, one of five kids. We never had much, and home was chaotic. Education and school were less important than surviving.
I left school barely able to read and write. I was a problem child, and I remember my English teacher screaming a McDonald's order at me in frustration, telling me that was all I would ever amount to.
I had no role models and no aspirations. My friendships and relationships were dysfunctional, and people did not want to know me.
The breaking point
In my early twenties it got too much. The drugs, the terrible relationships, the deteriorating mental health, not being able to make anything of my life. I needed to change.
I felt trapped being a spectator, watching everyone else live great, fulfilled lives. I wanted to be a champion. I wanted to do great things and live a great life.
The book that changed everything
I discovered a book on meditation, The Art of Happiness. It was not groundbreaking, but for the first time I learned the power of my mind. For the first time I was able to change something about my life.
If one book could do that, what else was out there? I became obsessed. I read and learned everything I could, from social skills and dating to philosophy, economics and business.
What changed
I went from someone with poor prospects who people wanted to avoid to someone people wanted to know, work with and include. My opportunities went from zero to a hundred. I earned a degree through seven years of online study, despite failing school.
My mental health improved drastically, as did my sense of purpose. I started to love who I was and the life I was living. To this day I feel fulfilled, with abundant opportunities for love, connection, business and purpose.
My purpose is to help people who were like me. People who never had it easy, who for whatever reason have to build it for themselves, and often build it from ground zero.
I have been there. I have had it hard, figured it out and come out the other side.
Nothing arises on its own.
Everything I teach comes from people who came before me and shared the answers. Cultures separated by time and vast distances mapped the same territory and reached remarkably similar conclusions. What survived is what worked.
