I have always reflected and enjoyed periods of contemplation during my life and mostly without really understanding why. My early years driving trucks across Europe provided plenty of time for that. It’s amazing what you think about during a seven-day trip to the North of Scotland to load frozen fish for the Basque area of Spain, onto the South coast and back to Newcastle Fruit Market. And then you get to do it all again and often straight back out without going home!

It also taught me the importance of the journey because leaving home on a Saturday morning heading to Peterhead was all you could think about. You knew the destination was Ondarroa once you got loaded and drove all night to catch the ferry from Poole but all that mattered was the next step otherwise it was too daunting. I think our business is very much like this. We have a destination by way of a project, support call or a sales engagement but if we focus too much on the finish line, we cannot focus on the immediate task. Sales reps that only see a PO miss the enjoyment of the journey. The journey and making good decisions based on sound judgment and being able to picture the best outcome is everything.

I have hundreds of stories but picture this as a typical example of life as a 22-year-old long distance European truck driver. Eastern Europe, minus 15, middle of the night, tired, broken down with a flat tyre on the trailer. No mobile phone because they were not invented, no breakdown cover, in fact nothing but yourself. So, it was wrap up warm and set about changing the wheel. One man could just about manage the job because of the weight of the wheels, and it would take a couple of hours. Then the next job was to find a way to repair the old tyre or buy another one on the black market as soon as possible because you couldn’t travel without a good spare.

Lessons for life not to mention the constant police blackmailing, customs blackmailing in fact the whole system conspired against you arriving at your destination in one piece and on time all those years ago!

But you always did...

So, what is the relevance of this? Well I guess I am drawing parallels to the journey of life that we are all figuring out and I am no different to the poorest or the richest person in that I am making decisions and dealing with adversity from time to time.

I got ill in January and out of a bad situation I have been given something very good. Karma works like that. Whilst laying in hospital wired up and drugged up I had a vision of being healthy again and I made an agreement with myself that I would tidy up my diet and I became vegetarian and teetotal (not entirely as once every 5 or 6 weeks I might give myself a treat). I gave my family a scare and I didn’t plan on doing that again anytime soon, so I started reading.

It has had quite an influence on me and many of the things that I previously did or things that I believed in have now started to mean something. The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari resonated a lot and so I read it three times.

I go back to my truck driving story in that it is very difficult to just drift without a map or to have little or no direction. What chance is there of arriving if we don’t know where we are heading? There must be a purpose and there has to be something that drives you that so that nothing can get in the way. It is amazing how much easier it becomes when the path starts to lay out in front of you.

And it will.

When your mind is strong and the purpose is clear, you just commit to it every day. And that is where it gets tough. The cream cake whilst on a diet, the cigarette when no-one is looking, the delay until tomorrow and the permission we give ourselves to opt out.  The one thing that I have learned more than anything recently is how strong our minds are. The mind will do anything you tell it to do. Stopping smoking is easy once the mind is trained to believe that you no longer smoke. Part of my own recovery has been walking a certain number of steps every day and I am not allowed to miss the target. I am sure the residents of Knowle were alerted to a stalker as I walked right through the winter every single night I was there in rain, snow and whatever else it threw down.

The discipline becomes the drug.

Just last week I walked three miles before 6:30am whilst staying at Down Hall Hotel & Spa. The energy that sears through your body and purity of your thinking sets you up to take on the world and nothing will stop you. My old self may have woken later and could well have had a few pints the evening before. And perhaps 20 Marlboro a year or two ago! What a difference.

The other thing that has become too real is time. We have it every day and it is non-negotiable. Waste it, lose it, sleep though it and no-one cares but one thing is certain, you are never getting it back. It is easy to see how these pieces start to join up and my Spanish trip is the perfect blueprint. Be a day late and the profit for the whole trip is gone.

Whilst in hospital and going through my soul searching, I was fortunate enough to meet an amazing consultant. James Dunbar specialises in Infectious Diseases & Acute Medicine and I genuinely believed that he would stop at nothing to diagnose me after his colleagues had not been so lucky.

He asked me so many questions as he tried to piece it together and the questions were wild. Had I been bitten by rats, had I had casual relations whilst in The Bahamas, what was my sexual orientation despite being married and there were many more! As I truthfully answered no to all these questions, he went away to figure some more. When he finally got my diagnosis correct, the look of joy on this face will stay with me and what a lesson to learn. If true happiness can be found by helping others, then all we must do is just that. A simple act of giving or an act of charity will reward you tenfold and in ways that you would not expect. It is a lonely path to tread if you cannot help someone in need.

So, my poor start to the year has set me on a path that I am grateful for.

I am calm and I have a clear purpose.

I appreciate where I am and where I am heading.

My body and mind are clear, and I am aware of the importance of time.

I want to help everyone I can, and charity will reward me although that is not the reason. I can’t stop that.

I know I can do this every day and the path will be laid out.

I also know that I am in control and my mind will follow my lead.

That said, I am not a Himalayan monk and I don’t pray for four hours a day but if I can take this belief into my life, I must surely be better for it.

My wife keeps me grounded though as every time in the car I launch into a load of expletives, she asks me how the reading is going!

I may not master it but having time to reflect has been good. The 12 Laws of Karma are interesting and going back to where I started driving back and forth across Europe, there was no-one to help me on the journey and the 5th Law of Karma says that ‘we alone are responsible for what happens in our lives’. All I knew was to head North or South and keep going!

Perhaps not the worst plan all those years ago!