My Purpose

My Story

After exiting a second highly successful, market-leading business, with every trapping of success I had worked so hard for, I fell into a depression. That was in 2012.

Since then, I have been driven by a hunger to go deeper, to understand what it truly takes to live a life that feels whole. I was no longer just chasing success. I was searching for fulfilment in every area. Joy in my work. Meaning in my days. Deep connection and belonging in my relationships. A sense of harmony and happiness that made every part of life feel aligned.

After a period of deep meditation, reflection, experimenting, failing, learning and refining, I pieced together a system that worked, and worked repeatedly. I would later come to call it The Flywheel of Fulfilment™ Framework.

So what led a man with all the success and financial freedom he had ever wanted into a depression? The honest answer is that I had spent my life chasing the wrong definition of success.

I was born just north of London and, like many first-generation kids growing up in the UK, I was raised on hard work, resilience and silent perseverance.

After graduating from university, by the time I was 25 in 1991, I had launched and failed at my first business, had 3 others die stillborn, and then, incredibly, got married. I had also bought an apartment in St John’s Wood in London in 1988, just before interest rates surged to a peak of 15.5%. My apartment dropped 40% in value, leaving me with substantial negative equity. My mortgage tripled. I was buried in crippling debt and facing bankruptcy.

But with the love and the kind energy of my wife, whom I had just married, the next business I launched in 1991, with little to no money, took off. I had come through 3 brutal years of pure survival. I still remember the two of us counting pennies from a jar to decide what we could eat that day.

That fear never fully left me, and it went on to shape everything.

By 30, I was running one of the UK’s largest office equipment distributors in my sector, representing all the major brands. I sold that business in 1999 and did some consultancy work, which led me to launch into the conference industry. Another major leap, but this time a business that aligned with my values. My first conference, on Global Transport Security, was staged in Chicago in 2002 and it was a huge success. I went on to become the market leader in conferences on security and counter-terrorism, then Lean and Six Sigma, and later Business Transformation and Operational Excellence, staging the 10 largest conferences in the United States in their respective sectors.

And once again, I was sacrificing far too much. My health, my friendships, my peace, my experiences, all quietly traded for business growth. The money was there. The joy was not.

The money was there. The joy was not.

Here is what I could not see at the time. Somewhere along the way, I had absorbed a definition of success that was never really mine. It was handed to me by my upbringing, by society, by advertising, and it whispered the same thing every single day. You do not yet have enough. So I kept trading every other part of my life for work. Longer hours. Pushing through. Restless the moment I stopped.

I was hooked on the feedback loop. You deliver, work rewards you, and you go straight back for more. Personal life rarely pays you back that fast, so work quietly becomes the place you live.

And I believed all the lies a high achiever tells himself. Rest is for the weak. If I am not working, I am wasting time. More hours simply mean more success. Asking for help is a weakness I cannot afford. The sacrifice is only temporary, and one day, later, I will finally enjoy the life I am building. It is the plan almost every high achiever is quietly running. Sacrifice now, thrive later.

Then my body sent me a warning I was too busy to hear. One night, my wife called an ambulance because I was certain I was having a heart attack. At the hospital, they told me it was heartburn, brought on by overwork, overwhelm and years of neglecting my health. I felt relieved, and then I went straight back to work.

In 2012, at 46, after 24 years of building, I exited my conference business and decided to take time off. That is when the real journey began. I had been longing for the freedom. After 3 months, I felt empty. After 6 months, I fell into a deep depression, the first of my life. I was lonely, lost and unfulfilled. I had every marker of success a man is supposed to want, and I had never felt so hollow.

I had tied my identity entirely to running a successful business and to the trappings that came with it, the beautiful home and all the rest. When the business was gone, so, it seemed, was I.

I had to do something. I came across a meditation class, and it changed the course of my life. I spent the next 2 years in deep meditation, 4 hours a day, every day. I studied ancient wisdom, yogic sciences, breathwork, neuroscience and high performance. I was rewiring my nervous system, and with it my identity. I woke at 5 a.m., took cold showers, embraced a simpler life, and sat with my own mind until I understood its patterns.

I reached profound states of bliss and clarity. And in those moments, the truth I had missed my whole life became simple. Success and fulfilment are not separate pursuits. They are parts of the same system, but only when you design them to be.

Success and fulfilment are not separate pursuits. They are parts of the same system, but only when you design them to be.

So I began designing my future self with intention. I built routines, systems and principles aligned to my vision, my values, my strengths, my passions and my deeper why. I redefined success to include vitality, joy, relationships, purpose, contribution and freedom, all built on simple behaviours within my control, so they were genuinely achievable.

I turned everything I had learned into a system I could live by, where every area of life fuels the next. The Flywheel of Fulfilment™ Framework, where you can hold extraordinary success and lasting fulfilment at the same time. It included methods for shifting identity and for supercharging productivity at work, achieving even more in far less time, so I could set firm boundaries around my working hours and let the flywheel do its work.

This was never just theory. I have spent the last 12 years proving it, battle-testing it and refining it, including by returning to business and building another market-leading conference, this time while thriving in every area of my life rather than sacrificing it.

I learned that true fulfilment does not come from stopping work. It comes from doing work that aligns with who you are, with strong focus and clear priorities. Whatever stage of life you are in, you need something that gives you purpose, a reason to get excited in the morning. The goal is not to hustle endlessly and then retire, hoping that one day you will finally start living. That is a dangerous illusion.

The real goal is to do work you love, that you naturally excel at, that creates the greatest value, and that aligns with your deepest reasons for being. Purpose is not optional. It is oxygen for the soul. Abandon it, even in the name of rest, and you risk losing your energy, your direction, and the very joy you were working for all along. That is when work stops being something you do and becomes an expression of who you are.

It is only when your work is integrated into a life of harmony, where your relationships, your health, your growth, your contribution and your rest are all getting the right attention, that you truly thrive. That is when every circle of the flywheel turns together, each one energising the next. This is not a life of balance, trading one area off against another. It is a life where every part grows at once.

Today, I live an extraordinary life in harmony. I am in my 60s, but I feel 30. I train, I play tennis and pickleball, and I enjoy a number of other hobbies and activities. I feel energised, grounded and in flow. My marriage is thriving after 35 years. My son, who graduated with first-class honours from Oxford, is humble, kind and full of integrity. I still build businesses and make investments, but only in ventures that align with who I am. I also coach, speak, write and serve. And I wake up every single day excited.

I have lived what I teach for 12 years. My mission now is to help others do the same, to live with purpose, create extraordinary success, and feel deeply fulfilled in every area of life.

If I can do it, so can you. Life is not just about achievement. It is about building a life that feels worth reliving, every single day. It is about reaching the very end, with a smile on your face and no regrets. Just happiness, and contentment.