Making It Happen - Part 2

 

In part one I gave some background information to give you a bit of an idea of where I was coming from when starting this whole thing, you may see a lot of myself in you, you may see me as a totally different person but that doesn't mean you can't achieve your own dream. I'm not the oracle on how to make things happen, far from it, I just made what I have work for me. I can't stress enough, you will have skills and strengths I, nor other people out there doing this stuff, have, you just have to believe in those strengths. As a no doubt great man (who's name  can't remember) once said, success is based on 5% inspiration and 95% perspiration and he was right. Don't expect a free ride from anybody, this is your thing, get out there and make it happen.

In this blog I will focus entirely on the first steps I took  to make the production of "Of Shark and Man" happen but remember, I haven't even started the edit yet, post production has begun but the early stages are unbelievably tedious and drawn out so there is still legs in this story yet. I hope you can get some snippets of inspiration you feel could be of use to you and your own challenges. 

Let's get started...

 

Have an idea!

Yes it's blindingly obvious but it's also one of the hardest parts of the whole process. An original, viable idea isn't something that shoehorns the things you like into one little box, you need to have that first spark and then work on that initial flash of inspiration and that can take years.

I first had the idea for what would become "From the Office to the Ocean" over twenty years ago believe it or not and it was just one aspect of what I wanted to do with my life. What would become "From the Office..." was actually, originally intended to be a book. I would spend twelve months travelling the globe exploring the stories relating to the human relationship with sharks in different parts of the world and include lots of lovely glossy photos and stories of my adventures with the sharks. As it transpires, it seems Juliet Eilperin recently had a similar idea and was able to go and write "Demon Fish". I haven't read it yet, I will of course, but by all accounts it's very good and although vaguely similar to my idea, it's not the same so the book is still something I will be doing in the future.

However, I digress. In 2007 I was sitting on a beach in Egypt dreading the return to work and decided that I would go ahead and see if I could make this book happen so on my return to the UK I did some research about the basics of putting a trip like that together and also, most importantly, this... Lesson five, check everywhere you can that your idea has not already been done by someone else! 

In July of 2008 I visited the Bahamas for a shark diving trip and by now the fire was raging inside me to get out and do what I wanted with my life. I was pretty successful at work at the time, hence the trips to Egypt and the Bahamas, so if I were to give up work and go for it, I knew I would be risking a hell of a lot. At that stage I was still quite vague on just how to go about putting a twelve month round the world trip together and more importantly, getting someone else to pay for it because there was no way on earth I could!

It was summer 2008 and I was still working through the minefield of logistics of putting a book together, I was emailing everyone I could think of about this great idea I had had and by now had attended my first Dive Show (more on that later).

It was at this first Dive Show where an important thing happened. I was going from stall to stall trying to discuss my idea with anyone I could in the hope they might be interested and the second stall I went to was for a small dive shop in Harrogate (or somewhere like that anyway) where the guy running the stall gave me thirty seconds of him half listening to what I was saying. 

"You written anything before and had it published?" he asked, 

"erm, no but I've...."

"Sorry mate, not interested."

He had a point so I was on my toes straight over to the Diver Magazine stand where the editor, Steve Weinman had already agreed to meet me for five minutes. He'd had a little nibble on my idea from an email I had sent him so when I asked if I could write him an article about sharks he was more than happy to let me. So I did, and my article about the benefit of shark feeding operations and addressing the misconceptions which go with them was published in the August 2008 edition of the mag.

It was also around this time when I met up with Jim Standing from Fourth Element and we discussed my idea for the book and the various pitfalls and logistical problems I would face in the coming months. It was then he said something which would change everything and start a chain of events which would change my life forever, "you'd be better off doing a film to be honest."

I explained to Jim that making films about sharks was what I had always wanted to do more than anything, that I had chosen the book route because I thought it would be easier as I knew I was a fairly good writer and I had only limited experience behind a Sony DV8 Tape Camcorder to call upon in regards to film, despite having a passionate interest in film-making but he was adamant the film option would be more likely to yield the results I wanted. I bounced out of that meeting, buzzing from the excitement of various ideas spinning around in my head and over the coming months started to look into how I could put a twelve month film production together.

Fast forward to late summer 2009 and the defining moment of this whole process. I googled myself, "David Diley Shark" and was perplexed by the results. My article, the one I had written previously was all over the net and two people in particular were saying some very positive things, Patric Douglas at Shark Diver and a guy calling himself "DaShark" in Fiji. "Da Shark" in particular interested me because he seemed to be involved in a project about which I had been fascinated for a good few years, over a decade anyway, the Shark Reef story, so I did some research, all the while, remembering an idea for a film I had had since first hearing the story around 1998 (I think). That was it, this is my idea, I was going to go and make a film not over the course of a year all over the world, but break it up into separate films and I was gonna start with the first film in Fiji, the story of Shark Reef Marine Reserve, an amazing tale and even better, nobody else had gone and done it, something I could never, ever understand. If they're not gonna go and make the film I want to see then sod it, I'm gonna do it myself!

 

Do a proposal

I did one for the book and I did a new one for the film, in fact, it was the very first thing I did. I knew I needed a document I could send out to people who had even a tiny bit of interest. I'd never done one before so in keeping with what would be a theme for this whole project, I learned as I did.

The proposal would be done, then re-done, then re-done, the re-done again and again and again, often to focus on a specific potential sponsor so a huge amount of time was spent staring at a computer screen often until 3 or 4am and bear in mind I was still working at this point and having to get up at 7:30am so for months, I was utterly exhausted!

My proposal contained several key points, about me, about the story I wanted to tell, why I wanted to tell it, how much I would need, how I would get the money, what I was going to do with the film and perhaps most importantly, what benefits I could offer to a sponsor in return for their hard earned cash?

Putting together your budget, in other words, how much you need to make this happen, is not easy. My first budget was about £3600! Let's just say that fell way, way, way short of what it would end up costing to put this production together. That amount was with the first idea in mind, I would go alone, be the only cameraman and it was reliant on services and accommodation being provided for free. I very quickly realised the numerous mistakes I had made.

I will admit to being nervous as the cost of the project continued to escalate, I was worried that the higher the cost, the less likely it would be that someone would invest in my idea but the truth of the matter is this, lesson six, if you have a good enough idea, a good enough approach and enough benefits on offer to potential investors or sponsors, if your budget is realistic you stand a good chance of getting financial backing, in fact, the higher your budget (within reason) the more likely you are to get it, remember the old saying, "you get what you pay for!"

Make contacts!

Good, credible contacts who might just be able to help you are your most valuable asset, you need them, don't underestimate how much either because without them, you're screwed.

As I mentioned before, I had started going to the Birmingham and London Dive Shows, I have done about seven now and to this day, I haven't once done the mooching around the stalls and looking at dive gear thing, I am there solely on business and to meet people I think might see the benefit in working with me. What you will no doubt find, as I most certainly did, is that most people, to put it bluntly, couldn't give a shit about you or your idea, be ready for that and be ready to hear "no" a hundred times more than you hear "yes," further to that, expect not to hear anything at all two hundred times more than you even hear "no!"

I spent months sending emails, a minimum of twenty each day, on one particular day later into the process, I sent almost seven hundred. For all the good emails do, a phone call is better and even better than that is meeting people face to face. In the early stages I approached at least one hundred people and in that first wave of action, I met Jim Standing of Fourth Element, Steve Weinman of Diver Magazine and Mario, Dave and Duxy, then of Cameras Underwater. All these people bought into what I was doing and not only did they offer their support moving forward, their outward expression of enthusiasm and belief gave me an enormous boost.

I quit my job!

It was early June 2010, by now I had been in regular contact with the aforementioned "DaShark" who I had discovered via Patric Douglas, in a wonderful twist of fate, was none other than Mike Neumann, the man behind the Shark Reef Marine Reserve in Fiji! A rare stroke of luck indeed and I had made my contact, I had discussed my idea with him and sent him my proposal to which he responded extremely positively and it had come to the point when I had to ask the burning question, "Mike, if I can make this film happen would you facilitate my diving and support me in Fiji?"

I was confident he would say yes due to the nature of our previous correspondence and thankfully I wasn't disappointed but both Mike and I knew that in order to make this work, I would have to make a number of sacrifices and commit to it 100%

The weeks passed and I spent every second, of every day developing my idea and daydreaming of the moment I would set foot in Fiji for the first time. I became more and more energetic for the idea, more and more insistent that I could pull it off and even more determined to actually go and do it. Conversely, my commitment to the boring rigours of daily life went the opposite way and I viewed anything which took me away from working on my project with disdain at best and at worst, utter contempt.

The one thing which was taking up far too much time and energy better used elsewhere was my job. I've had some pretty shitty jobs for some pretty shitty bosses, I worked on the produce department at a major name supermarket chain whilst at university for a boss who was sixteen, three years younger than me,  I worked for a sports shop chain which actually paid you less per hour the more you worked, I was a steward in the away end at Barnsley FC's Oakwell ground and was paid £25 to spend match days battling with various sets of supporters from around the country, this was infinitely preferable however, to stewarding the entrance to the toilet, a vantage point where only one thing was actually visible as the game went on and that was drunk, urinating men. You get my point...

In June 2010 however, I worked for a great boss at a great little company. A boss who would actually reward hard work and endeavour and who went out of his way to make his tiny little team happy. I loved working with Dean, Lisa and Joe but I didn't love what I was doing. The rewards were good, the people great, but the actual day to day stuff was as far removed from what I wanted to do as you could get. I would view each day as one wasted which was taking me further from fulfilling my ambitions and I would dread the sound of the alarm clock. On that morning, June 28th 2010, as the alarm clock interrupted my three hours sleep, a distinct depression flowed through me, a dread, an overwhelming urge to scream from the rooftops, "f**k this!"

The voice inside me was repeating over and over again, "just quit, do it, do it, do it!" so I did. I walked in, asked Dean for a word and that was it. I have always wanted to leave a job in a blaze of glory, screaming obscenities whilst turning desks over and disappearing, leaving nothing else in my wake aside from open mouths and scattered post-it notes. I was never going to do this with Dean though, I like him far too much and hugely appreciated everything he had done for me, if I had wanted recruitment to be a career, I would have stayed there forever but I didn't and obviously, I didn't.

That Thursday was the first day of unemployment, the first day of the rest of my life and for the first time in thirty one years it felt exactly that, my life! It was a little nerve wracking but I figured the desperation of my new situation and the enormous risk I had taken would motivate me everyday to make my dream become a reality, I could concentrate full time on this gargantuan undertaking and I knew I was going to pull this off, like I said in part one, failure was never an option.

Tell the world what you are doing

The very first thing I did was to make a public commitment to seeing this through and there were two reasons for this. Firstly, I needed to build interest and initiate discussion about what it was I was doing, the more people talking about it, the more attractive it becomes to potential sponsors. Secondly, it was a way for me to get extra motivation, nobody likes to fail, even more so, nobody likes to fail in public. The more people I told, the greater the expectation on me to pull it off and alongside that, the greater the sense of embarrassment if I failed or even worse, gave up.

I started this blog, I set up a Facebook group, a website, a Twitter account and posted on various websites and forums and that was it, people were talking about this guy who had done something which looked very stupid, in the hope he could do something which looked impossible!

Go it alone or hand your idea to a Production Company?

The first plan was to get a production company on board who would put the production together and let me control the shoot, the story and the final edit which was admittedly, insanely naive. However, within less than a month, through an introduction made by Hamish, I was on the cusp of a meeting with a chief exec of a London based production company with a very good track record in factual programming and who's development producer was actually really keen on my idea.

Unfortunately and through no fault of my own or on the part of the production company, this meeting didn't take place and I was back to square one, a blow of course but I knew it wasn't going to be easy and there would be plenty more false dawns to come yet.

I did my research on suitable companies and did the rounds, emails, phone calls, those first two months or so were filled with conversations with producers, development execs and surly receptionists. When I got past the dreaded gate keeping jobsworths on reception (only joking, okay, half joking...) the conversations were helpful and pleasant, a little dismissive but they were polite nonetheless, but they didn't go anywhere. It was frustrating but at least they were all nice people and wished me luck!...Apart from one.

I have toyed with the idea of naming the absolute horror of a woman I spoke to at one production company in particular but I don't think that would be very professional, nor does she deserve to have her name linked with this project in any way shape or form, especially because, in being utterly detestable during our twenty minute conversation, she actually did me a huge favour! I have hinted at this story before but never told it, however, it's an important part of the journey so I'm going to tell it now because the chances are, you'll have your own story just like this to tell in the future...

I had spoken to this person's assistant twice already and she was enthusiastic, helpful and very friendly so I was feeling good, especially when she said to expect a call back when she had spoken to her boss. The phone rang the following day and thinking it was the assistant again, I answered cheerily greeting her by name and thanking her for calling me back;

"It's not ***** it's ****, I have a message to call you about something or other, what is it?"

I was taken aback by her somewhat confrontational approach but put it down to her being busy so gave my elevator pitch, a brief description of what I wanted to do...Silence.

I asked if she had any questions;

"Why do you want to do this then?"

"It's a fresh approach to shark related media, it's exciting, it's an amazing story and it's never been done before" I answered.

"Yes it has, we've done it." she barked.

I was surprised at this because I knew they hadn't and when I questioned this, the example she gave was so far removed from what I was doing I had wondered if she had heard what I said, it featured someone almost as far removed from the "everyman" as you can get, was based in the UK and had nothing to do with sharks or shark conservation. At that point, I knew the conversation wasn't going to bare fruit, but she continued;

"Who are you anyway, why should anyone give a damn about you and your story?! I'm sorry but people want to see familiar faces, you're a nobody, nobody is interested in watching other nobodies on television!"

This wasn't going well and she smelled blood, it was then I ended any hope of her taking me seriously;

"Why do you think someone like you can do something we haven't already, if you were worth knowing, I'd know you and I haven't a clue who you are!" She said.

"To be honest," I replied, "I think people are tired of seeing the same things in regards to sharks, the same places, the same people, the same stories and the same sharks, I know shark media better than most and in regards to television documentaries, it's stale, it has been for the last fifteen years, it's all been done before and to be honest, I think it's lazy, I want to inject new vigour into it."

"I've been making those shark documentaries for twenty years."

Oops!...To be honest, I didn't really care that I had offended her, in my mind, she needed telling and I just wanted the call to end, "so I take it you're not interested, thank you for your time anyway, I do appreciate you calling me."

"The only thing we would do is invite you for a screen test..."

Hang on, what's this? Maybe she's been breaking my balls to see what I'm made of and she is interested? I've more than fought my corner, maybe she is getting a modicum of respect for me?

"You need to send me full details of your idea, a screenplay and what you've done so far and we'll see about arranging a screen test afterwards."

Alarm bells started ringing, "what if you decide you don't like me after the screen test? I'm a little nervous at basically handing my idea over to you on the strength of you saying I might get a screen test." There was a pause...

"...Look, if we don't like you then we don't like you, do you want this film to be made or not? You have to realise though, if I want to make this film and take your idea I will and there will be nothing you can do about it. I have worked in this industry a long time and you're just some bloke with an idea, you ain't gonna make this on your own so you need me but I'll be honest, the chances of you being in it are slim, we have people we use all the time for stuff like this so why shouldn't I just replace you with them?!"

I was incredulous, maybe naively, I couldn't believe she would be so up front and arrogant about stealing my idea. Needless to say, that was the end of the call and the email was never sent. At that moment, in a potentially reckless display of defiance and with a "f**k you" attitude I said to myself that I was doing this alone and I didn't need a production company, I was going to set about doing this whole production entirely independent of the bullshit I had just had to put up with. It was one of the best decisions I would ever make...

To be continued...

Making It Happen - Part 1

 

I made a promise when I started on this whole absurd undertaking, that when (notice I didn't say "if") I made it happen, I would tell you, my faithful reader, my supporter and in many cases my friend how I actually managed to pull off what, at pretty much every step of the journey, looked like an impossible task. I don't break promises, so here it is, part one of pretty much the whole story in chronological order (probably!) of how I managed it, it might be a long one this so bear with me!

The main reason I am so keen to do this is because, particularly in the shark world, nobody has ever done it before, the very, very first thing I did when I started to seriously consider making a gargantuan life decision was to research how to do it and put something like this together before quickly realising that that help just does not exist, at least not for mass consumption anyway but why? We'll come to that later...

Ok, first thing's first, let's start from the beginning, as in way, way back, because that will give you a good idea of the foundations upon which I was building when I decided the risk was worth it in really dedicating myself to this because that is hugely important. This also isn't solely limited at addressing those who want to work with sharks, most of this is applicable to pretty much everything. I'm not going to tell you what to do, I'm not even saying you should do things the same way I did, I'm just hoping there are a few bits of information relative to me which you can find useful and apply to your own goals.

Who am I but more importantly, who are you!?

We can't all be born and raised on the Great Barrier Reef, in the Bahamas, Florida or Hawaii, we can't all have ardent SCUBA Diving parents and/or a mountain of family wealth or connections to the industries in which we want to work, let's be honest, most of us don't so that's where we have something in common.

I grew up in the industrial north of England, I am the only diver in my entire (yet miniscule) family and I am from a very working class family, my dad rennovated and designed pubs and my mum at one time, worked three jobs just to put me through university. I am not and never have been "poor," I am from a far more stable background than many people less fortunate than me who really do have nothing but money was never easy to come by and holidays to shark filled locations were never going to be a reality so in that regard, I may well be exactly like you.

Why is this relevant you may be asking? Well, it's incredibly relevant because show me someone who is living the kind of exciting life you want and more often than not I'll show you someone who has had a very fortunate head start in life, handed to them on a plate. This is not something to criticise, if I could offer the same to my kids I would and it also doesn't mean what these more fortunate people are doing is of any less value, it just means you have to work harder than they did but if you want it enough, that shouldn't be a problem. Also, don't assume that everyone at the peak of your chosen vocation got there through handouts, a lot of them would have shed gallons of blood, sweat and tears for years along the way. Lesson one, find those people and learn from them.

 

I was probably a bit of an unusual child, (that's me by the way) I had a pretty low attention span, particularly at school, in my later years, it would be fair to say as far as school was concerned, I really couldn't be arsed with it, it was boring, there was no challenge and it didn't relate to anything I wanted to do with my life. However, if I was really interested and passionate about something, I became utterly obsessed and would spend every moment of every day concentrating on that and that meant that my entire life centred around two things, Manchester United and sharks and these would be joined at age fifteen, by music, notably Hard Rock and Heavy Metal, when I realised I had a bit of a natural gift with a guitar in my hands.

Are you still with me? This is going somewhere I promise. 

The thing is, it became apparent at an early age that this obsessive personality trait would shape how I would become in later life because even as a very young child I was focussed on my career and that career was working with sharks and becoming a film-maker and author. A lot of people I know, still don't know what they want to be, even in their thirties, I knew what I wanted to be when I was about six and nothing has changed, I still want the same things, so here is lesson two, if you know what you want you're better off than those who don't, you just have to ask yourself how much you want it.

Even at a young age, I would drive myself to achieve things I probably knew were almost impossible, the fact they were only almost impossible meant I would give it my all and as I got older and the years would advance, I got even worse. I can admit now, that when I was a musician in my own band I must have been, at times, a total nightmare to deal with. When I picked up a guitar for the first time, my goal was to be in the biggest Metal band of all time, to be considered one of the best songwriters of all time and to be looked upon as one of the most influential Rock musicians in the world, I hadn't even started learning to play the bloody thing yet!

My ten years in Nerve Engine taught me some incredibly valuable things however, things which got me to where I am today, the good stuff, that endless hours of hard work, passion, self belief and sacrifice would yield positive results, that if you want to be good enough and put the work in, you can be good enough. It also taught me the bad things, people will quickly look to exploit your passion, hard work and ability for their own gains, at your detriment, that sometimes means that no matter how good you are, sometimes, lady luck just isn't smiling down on you and perhaps most importantly, what you know comes a distant second to who you know. Lesson three, get to know the right people!

Know your subject and know it well!

Whatever it is you want to do, if it is vocational, that vocation will have a primary subject matter and you better make it your business to know it as well as you possibly can!

My first introduction to sharks was the one which got me hooked. Long story short, I was three and was in Wales visiting my grandparents who happened to live by the coast. Along with my dad, a keen naturalist, I found a dead Tope on the beach. My dad told me all about what it was and I was fascinated by this seemingly huge (relative to my diminutive stature of course,) fish. That afternoon, an advert came on for JAWS which was being shown on television later that night, my dad joked that had the Tope not died, it would have grown up to become JAWS and that was me done, from that moment on, sharks became the coolest thing on the planet.

From then on, I obesessed over shark books and shark documentaries. Bear in mind, back then shark documentaries, particularly those shown in the UK were as rare as rocking horse poo, there was no "Shark Week" (maybe not such a bad thing?), nobody barring a select few were interested in sharks anywhere and most importantly there was no access to the internet. This was actually a huge plus in my development because I had to earn every bit of information I could get my hands on. Due to it's complete absence, I also wasn't influenced by the internet which, whilst being an amazing source of information, is also an amazing source of misinformation. In short, I had to think for myself and as I got older, I would question the things I was learning and was beginning to come up with my own theories and discussion points. At age nine, I had managed to get a letter to Valerie Taylor via an aquarium who's address and curator I found in the back of one of my books and we started corresponding for a few years. Remember, there was no email so it was quite a laborious process!

 

I would also correspond with the likes of Dr Eugenie Clark, Leonard Compagno, Peter Klimley of the Scripps Institute and Ian Fergusson, a man I have enormous respect for and with whom I would discuss the likelihood of Great White Sharks visiting the UK coastline, a subject about which I wrote an article aged only twelve and a subject about which in the UK at least, as far as I was aware, only Ian, Richard Peirce and myself were talking and this is twenty years ago. Back then, pretty much nobody would entertain the concept, now it's a fairly common belief that it is entirely plausible, even highly likely. To put it in simple terms, I didn't learn what I knew from Wikipedia, I learned it from the best of the best and I will always have a never ending appreciatation and gratitude to those people for taking the time to respond to letters from some kid in England.

This also stoked the already raging fire in me to learn to dive and actually see a shark up close but as I said, we didn't have any money, I was only a kid and diving is expensive. I even went so far as to make a homemade wetsuit for a trip to Scarborough (UK, not the other ones!) out of a kaghoul, some trackie bottoms, a wooly hat and some gloves. I forget how old I was but needless to say when I got there I readressed the wisdom of going into the freezing cold north sea in what amounted to nothing more than a load of old clothes when I knew I wasn't going to see any sharks anyway!

That brings me back to the original point of this section, knowing your subject, whatever it is. I have been self studying sharks through books and films and in later years actually getting up close and personal with them in their habitat and I don't mind saying that yes, I know my subject and I know it well but what is most important is that I appreciate the next lesson, there are people out there older than me, with more experience, who know more about sharks than I do so I make it my business to listen to them and learn what I can from them. When I was a teenager as you may be yourself, I also thought I knew everything there is to know about the world but what went in my favour was that I knew this wasn't the case with sharks and I embraced every opportunity to learn from people who did. Lesson four, you don't know everything there is to know about your subject, you might think you do but really, you don't. Learn from people with more knowledge and experience than you and don't take it as a personal insult if you are challenged, listen, learn and take it for what it is, someone who may be trying to help you become better at what you do!

Why have I spent the last hour writing a load of stuff about what i was like as a child and the effect it's had on me in my later years? Because if you are on the verge of making your own big decisions, it might just help to know that there are people out there just like you who have done it with the same limited resources. Also, if any of this sounds familiar then it also goes to show that ordinary people can make extraordinary things happen and if you see some of the same personality traits I have, in yourself, then it is proof they can be put to good use!

I told you this was gonna be a long one, you still with me? Go get yourself a cup of tea, take a break and let's crack on!

How mentally tough are you? Dare you take risks?

Okay so we've done the introductory part, now it's on to the heavy duty stuff and some of it you may not like or want to "hear."

I recently made a new friend (Hi Paul) who contacted me for advice, the kind of advice I'm giving here, because he also has a passion to do something with his life that doesn't veer too far away from what I am doing. What I liked about what Paul discussed with me is that although it's an enormous task he has set himself, he has started doing the boring stuff that always comes at the very beginning of setting one's self a goal, he's passionate and he listens to advice! I think, although what he wants to do is going to be insanely difficult, he might just pull it off, at least elements of it anyway and I really hope he does because he has a lot of the qualities it takes to do stuff like this.

Do you though? I mean, do you really?

I see a lot of people using facebook statuses as a way to impart wisdom to others, you know the type of stuff, the fluffy, flowery crap you get in women's magazines which are almost always followed within only a few days by the same person saying how much they hate their life, job or family, usually with a caveat of "f**k my life," or "Why is it always me?!"

I'll impart some wisdom of my own, ignore these people, do not respond to these people at all. Ever. If you are about to embark on possibly the single biggest life changing event in your life so far, you don't need any overblown negativity or self pity in your life and you don't have the time or luxury to encourage it to come in your direction from others who can only affect you negatively.

How selfish are you? Are you prepared to focus absolutely everything on doing the things you want to do, to very possibly let down family and friends, to become socially unreliable and to become a one dimensional embodiment of what it is you want to achieve? If the answer is "not very," then you have two choices, change, or assess the concept of whether you are ready for all of this.

Do you believe in yourself that you can do this, as in you think you have everything it takes to overcome every obstacle that is put in your way? Write down the reasons why you think you can do this and the reasons you think you may not be able to do this and be brutally honest with yourself. If the list of negatives is more than two or three long and they are the kind of things you don't feel you can change, put the list in a drawer for future reference and reconsider if you are ready for this because chances are, you probably aren't.

The following bullet points relate to a goal similar in size to mine and one which will require the same amount of commitment, the type of goal which to everybody else, maybe even you, seems almost impossible.

• Do you have dependents, i.e. a wife/husband and most importantly, kids? If you have kids, bear in mind what effect doing this will have on them, more often than not, the negative effect. I don't have kids (praise the lord!) so this wasn't an issue for me fortunately.

Let's assume you're childless like me, the following points relate directly to you and don't have that added issue to consider.

• Do you have a job? Quit. If you're gonna do something this big then you can't do it part-time because chances are you'll fail if you do. Even better, take voluntary redundancy if you have the chance, get a bit of cash behind you. Remember, it's only a job, if you see it as more than that then maybe reassess what you would rather do, work there the rest of your life or really go for what you want.
• How do you feel about not having a social life? Not a problem I hope as you can forget having one when you get started!
• Imagine your life without the things you have now, money, possessions, car, new clothes, holidays, a home even, how would that make you feel? Chances are you're gonna have to get used to doing without or losing some, if not all of these if you go for it.
• Your girlfriend or boyfriend says "it's me or this stupid dream," what do you say?
• Consider this question for a couple of minutes, **what are you going to do if you fail?**
• How are you going to survive without a monthly income?
• Why do you want to do this in the first place?
• What do you have about you that makes you better, or more qualified than everyone else to do this?
• If you pull it off, what are you going to do afterwards?
• Who do you know now who can help you at the very early stages of putting this together and how well do you really know them?

These are just a few things for you to bear in mind, if you haven't already, you need to start questioning yourself, your motivations, your strengths and your weaknesses.

Tomorrow, part 2 is going to go through what I went through, what I did, how I did it, the mistakes I made and the highs and lows of actually taking that first step and going for what I have wanted my whole life.

Your questions are always welcome and I would love to hear about your own experiences. I want to help you in whichever way I can and hopefully some of you may get some good stuff out of this process which does just that. It's about time people started to help people like us, success and excitement in life shouldn't be confined to a small group of people, it should be a realistic goal for everyone who is willing to make the sacrifices to get there and it would be nice to think that at least a few of those will remember the people in a similar position to the one in which they found themselves previously and offer advice and support to those who want to follow in their footsteps.

**Incidentally, how did you answer the question "what are you going to do if you fail? hopefully you answered that failure is not an option and you will not fail! If you did, you're on the right tracks already.**