Q3. Can you tell us a little about your
personal life?
Yes.
Ohhh you mean will I detail it here now?
Well I can tell you it has been fun - and to
protect innocent people I can't tell you all the details!
The essence starts when I was 17 and met this
wonderful Norwegian girl of 18 in London. She is sitting next to me in my
living room as I write this. True Love = Endureth Long! (Corinthians 1 again).
I was in my first year of 6th Form (boring). So of course I got engaged, moved
to Norway and got a job at IBM just by asking! All really great decisions. :)
I mean who knew that Norway was going to be the
richest country with the best quality of life in the world?
I continued my studies at University of Oslo for
about 10 years, on the side of full time job, and a family from 1964.
Sociology, Economics, Political Science, Philosophy. What fun - and I did it
for fun, not for a job. Yes it is all useful for me today. I realized that I
would not be a good bureaucrat at a University - and also realized that 95% of
University people dislike me or my ideas. That is probably a good sign. The key
is who the other 5% who do!
Thank goodness I never had to do a Thesis approved
by the 95% who dislike my ideas! So I decided my books would be my
'Thesis". My ideas are evaluated by the readers - and I have full respect
for that - even from those who feel they do not like my ideas. At least they
had a look at them!
We have 4 boys and 5 grandchildren. We live just
outside Oslo in a new apartment, half hour away is our amazing beach-front
cabin on the Oslo fjord, and we have a "town cabin" in Covent Garden
- which is useful as we love to go out in London, and visit my London Family.
In January 2008 the Norwegian Government decided to
pay me a nice sum (which I have apparently been forced to save for 50 working
years) every month for the rest of my life. I still continue working with my
son Kai - but I am even less focussed on earning money, and more focussed on
fun, travel for me and my wife, playing grandfather, and writing creating and
spreading the word. I like the model of my friend W. Edwards Deming
(Statistical Process Control) who held his last lecture at 93. I like to tease my
listeners that I will teach their grandchildren when they are retired.
I enjoy perfect health, which I know is a gift at
my age. No, I never smoked.
I am Norwegian Chairman of the Board for The Art of
Living Norway (artofliving.org)
which has made available to me a lot of wisdom, and contact with a
younger generation.
I think I believe, but cannot measure or prove,
that we had past lives and will have future lives. This explains some things to
me - but I might be wrong - so I am doing the best I can in this life. If I can
get back to you afterwards and confirm my hypothesis, I will. Watch this
website. Failing that I hope we can discuss this 'afterwards'.
One consequence of this hypothesis is that maybe my
ideas are not as 'original' as I might like to believe: maybe I either
'remember' ideas, or are fed them by spirit guides? A least I get to keep the
income and royalties. And spirits don't sue for plagiarism! Hey with a bit of
luck I will either remember, or find an old copy of, my books, when I am young
in my next life, and can follow Newton's idea of standing on the shoulders of
giants. Well, even if I can't - you can!
My philosophy, from 17 years old:
do what you love, do it well,
don't let money dictate what you do -
you will survive.
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