INTRODUCTION

MY STORY

I AM PASSIONATE ABOUT HELPING PEOPLE achieve the high quality of life they want for themselves and their families. My own journey has taught me how anyone can build a hugely successful and satisfying life if they work hard, make smart choices, and stay focused on their most important dreams and goals.

I was born in Dublin, Ireland. When I was very young, my family moved to London, England. Not long thereafter, my parents divorced and my mother, originally from Ireland, was left to fend for herself and three young children in a foreign country, with no legal rights to child support or otherwise. My father, from Dallas, Texas, returned to the United States.

After a number of years and extraordinary trials, my mother remarried and we moved to Manchester, England, with her new husband. Manchester is an interesting city; it is the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. However, by the 1970s, the Industrial Revolution had moved on to more favorable business climates. The north of England was hit by a series of debilitating strikes by coal miners and others. The Labour Party had effectively dismantled any incentive to revitalize the area’s economy. Youth unemployment exceeded 25 percent. My stepfather, a professional, spent a number of years during this period driving a taxi to make ends meet.

Manchester was a cold, wet, depressing city that offered nothing to a young Irishman: no job, no future and no hope. And for this I am eternally grateful. It burned into my psyche a desire to make something of myself.

Already motivated, I got direction during the summer of 1977. I was 15 years old, and my grandfather, whom I barely knew, invited me and my brother to visit him in Dallas, Texas. Despite the ongoing stagflation that had the United States in its grip, to my eyes the streets of Dallas were paved in gold. Sunshine, opportunity and hope prevailed.

My grandfather, a stockb