There is no doubting the value of teachers and professors during our education years. In later years, many visit counselors to improve their lives. Some are prepared to pay big money to listen to Anthony Robbins or Tom Peters to enrich themselves in their or work home environment. Yet how many of are truly honest with professionals from whom we seek help. We all read with much enthusiasm the 7 principles of Steven Covey. Asked anybody today, what ARE the 7 principles Steven preaches…. you will receive the AHHHHHs??? and “Mnnnnnns…….???”

I have been asked whether I have a mentor: perhaps someone who inspires me to achieve business success. I used to wonder about it but now I believe that I am my own mentor. No one knows me as well as I know myself and certainly I am never as honest with others as I will be with myself. I have a habit of talking to myself. Not out aloud but internally.

My children point it out when I appear to ‘slip away’ from a conversation. I am aware of needing to hold my head up whilst I walk rather than ambling along with a furrowed brow staring at my shoes.

I am always thinking about something though while I walk. Making mental notes, concentrating, engaged in thought. My valued possessions are my dictaphone and notepad which I still carry along in a small bag strung around my shoulder when I run in the morning.

When I was 12 years of age, I remember taking cooking classes in school. I needed a container to be able to take my creations home to share. The day I went to purchase one there was a long queue in the supermarket and I determined that they didn’t need my money and simply walked out without paying for it! After a couple of lessons I lost the container. It was after this when I watched a Cantonese film, typically full of morals, that I learnt the value of honesty. “ What’s not yours, will never meant to be yours.’ And if attained in any way through greed or dishonesty, you will never hold onto it. And you will never know in what manner it will come back and haunt you.