From a very early age Carl has always been a very competitive person. The person he has always been most competitive with has been himself. He always wanted to achieve his best. This has been in education, sport and work.

He was born in Great Britain, started his education in the USA to have his last year of primary school, followed by grammar school and then university back in Britain.

His sporting competitiveness (he started competitive swimming when he was 4 years old) was more than matched by his achievement academically. At the age of 10 he was classed as a gifted child in California, finding A level (pre-university) algebra simple.

He struggled on returning to education in Britain. It was not challenging in enough areas. Therefore in a type of frustration, he stopped trying. Indeed he was accused of “coasting” by more than one teacher at grammar school.

Carl still managed to get 10 O levels and 4 A levels. He got a place in a redbrick university and achieved a higher 2nd class Bachelor of Commerce honours degree.

However at University the degree was not the main challenge. In parallel to his degree Carl was working in the accounts department of the european subsidiary of a company in the Xerox Group. By his final year he had worked up to Acting European Financial Controller for the company.

He was offered the position on a permanent basis. However Carl did not want to become an accountant. His first job after university was in IT – providing software solutions to clothing companies. His experience in international accounting was proving very useful and his future looked that it was going to be a successful one.

Then the event happened that changed, well nearly ended, his life.

Three decades later, Carl has not done badly in life. He did get back to working and succeeding in the IT sector. He has a wonderful family.

However events in 2014 did make him look back on his life. Among other things it has made him change the focus of his life from providing IT solutions to global organisations to providing training to young adults for their and their companies benefits.

He has reflected on his experiences in business and his personal life and is able to positively use failure as well as success himself, in addition to passing this onto the people he works with.