Three Simple Steps: A Map to Success in Business and Life (12 page)

Everyday thereafter, I walked to the school bus stop using a different route than my siblings. This required climbing a fence, crossing a muddy field, and rejoining them half a mile away. They probably thought I was in a grumpy teenage mood. What I actually did during that detour, however, was to imagine that a huge glass cloak descended from the sky and completely covered me as I walked. By the time I rejoined my siblings, I was fully protected inside this shield. I imagined all slurs and taunts bouncing off the glass or exploding on impact.

The effect of this simple trick was astounding. I felt powerful and impervious to any insults. No one could hurt me anymore. My schoolwork returned to its higher standard. I played better at sports. For the first time in my life, girls seemed willing to interact with me. It was as if someone had flicked a switch, and I had changed my persona overnight. Gradually, my self-esteem improved. I gained confidence and, perhaps because I was no longer focusing on it and certainly no longer
against
it, the bullying simply stopped.

Then in 1976, Sevvy Ballesteros came in second in the British Open and captured the world’s attention. I watched his performance, and true to his interview, he was so calm under pressure. I have used this technique ever since, a trick I call my
mentality shield
. Whether in investor meetings, public speaking, or just in a crowd at a concert, it protects me from external stimuli that I don’t want in my mind. Over the years, I have studied a wide variety of religions and disciplines and I find a form of my mentality shield in all of them.

In the same year Ballesteros achieved fame, it was time for me to choose a career. University was not an option I ever considered because we were poor. England did not have the retail and restaurant infrastructure of America, so working one’s way through university was not an option and scholarships were not as available back then.

All of my ancestors had served in the military, and many had experienced the horrors of war. My father had been in the Royal Air Force, and his father had served in the army. Growing up in the farmhouse, military service was certainly glorified. Prints of fighter planes and bombers adorned the walls. The fire utensils were held in empty ammunition shell-cases. We played in the loft with old gas masks and tin helmets. Plastic models of planes and tanks were the common birthday or Christmas gifts handed out. I had dozens of them. We watched any television movie or
drama that had to do with the war, and there were lots of them through the sixties and seventies.

When friends and relatives visited, the conversation turned to the war years within minutes. They were all brought up similarly, and their like-mindedness reinforced their beliefs. Seated at the dinner table, I lapped up every story. It all sounded like a great adventure. Years of external stimuli had rewired my neurons sufficiently so that I never really considered any career option other than the military. My siblings were similarly wired and joined the Royal Air Force when they turned sixteen. I don’t think they ever considered an alternative.

Every Sunday, so long as the utility bill and weekly television rental fee had been paid, Audrey and I looked forward to watching a program called
Holiday
. It is the longest running travel review show in the United Kingdom, and in the mid-1970s, it was at its peak. Audrey had never traveled farther than the shoreline. Harry’s only trip overseas was a military deployment to Egypt. For the poor, a holiday abroad was a distant dream, and we looked on with a mix of fascination and envy. I wanted nothing more than to be able to see some of those exotic places one day.

I figured I could at least get to see some of the world as well as have a career if I joined the Royal Navy. A documentary series called
Sailor
was a big television hit at the same time. The camera followed some young officers as they struggled to build their early naval careers. Their lives seemed so glamorous and so far removed from my own as they traveled to all kinds of exotic locations. I decided that was what I wanted to do.

Everyone but Audrey laughed at me. No one in our family history had ever been “officer class.” In the 1970s, the military academies were elitist, and the Royal Naval College had produced a high percentage of the country’s political leaders. Only the sons of titled people were typically admitted.

When I mentioned it to the school career advisor, she pointed out that no one from the province where we lived had ever been admitted to an officer academy in any of the military branches. Instead, she showed me a brochure of a chicken-packing plant in the next town and suggested I apply for an apprenticeship. Fortunately, I was wearing my mentality shield that day and gently deflected her offer.

People around me were quick to point out that I hardly offered the appropriate school or family connections, and my accent clearly marked me as lower class. Everyone thought I was stepping above my station, and I think most were worried that I was setting myself up for a fall.

The radio blasted the latest doom and gloom about the economy, which was decimated in the mid-1970s in the United Kingdom. Military commanders were threatening to quit because of the severe budget cutbacks. The Royal Navy announced it was cutting two thousand positions.

Fortunately for me, I never listened to the radio news. In my spare time, I was always outdoors or down at the library. Despite never having any money and not once succeeding at any venture, my father was obsessed with business and financial news. When he turned up the volume to listen to a talking head tell how bad the state of affairs had become, I went for a walk in the woods. I was not smart enough at the time to know I was protecting my mentality. I just preferred to be outdoors. It probably saved me because I never let any outside influence dilute my dream of becoming a naval officer.

Pestered enough, a parent will break in the face of a child’s insistence. Realizing I would not let go of the desire, Audrey made an appointment for me to visit the Royal Navy recruiting offices in a town thirty miles away. Despite the pain in her bones from the cancer, she insisted on making the trip with me. She put on her best outfit and I wore my school uniform, but we still looked ragged.

Three bus routes and a long, painful walk through town later, we arrived at the intimidating building. A tall, fit-looking officer stood behind a huge oak desk as we entered the meeting room. He was in full uniform, sword at his side. When he spoke, his eloquence startled me. I felt my mother shrink back as we took seats opposite the desk.

The officer looked down his nose, took in Audrey’s threadbare outfit and while still standing, pronounced the following sentence, which even to this day I recall word for word: “Her Majesty’s Royal Navy always applauds ambition. However, I feel it only fair to inform you that we have, how may one put it delicately, certain standards. It would be quite wrong to raise this young man’s hopes.”

My mother blushed, and I wanted to punch him for humiliating her. I stood to leave, but Audrey’s firm hand set me back in a seat. Her eyes bore into the officer, and he had to look away. She insisted he give me an application form. The man made a token protest, but my mother stared him into submission. Years before, I had seen her put God in his place, so I began to feel sorry for this mere mortal. I doubt he had faced enemies in battle more determined than Audrey was in that moment.

Sometime after that trip, I was in a classroom when the teacher began asking if everyone had made their minds up about careers or universities. When I stated that I had applied to join the Royal Navy College, the teacher choked back a laugh. Several of my classmates tittered. The teacher made some comment about there being a fine line between ambition and arrogance. I was no longer bothered by other people’s opinions, so added no more explanation. I had started to develop that unshakeable belief in my ability that I had read about in the lives of so many self-made people.

Two months later, when everyone but me had forgotten about the trip to the recruiting office, a letter from the Admiralty arrived.
It stated that my application had been accepted. I was invited to the Admiralty Interview Board in London to be tested mentally and physically. Most people we knew were shocked by it and quick to point out that it was probably a token gesture. Some said it was a politically correct move so the military authorities could not be accused of bias against people from working-class families under our new socialist government.

Having never been away from home before, it was a daunting prospect for a sixteen-year-old. Audrey ordered a suit for me from a catalogue that offered weekly payment terms. It was a gray pinstripe with flared trousers and I looked like I was either going to a wedding or a Valentine’s Day massacre. I made the trip alone by train and bus.

Everyone else who had been invited to the tests was older than me, and I was the only one with a working-class accent. I realized, however, that the perceived prejudice was in my mind only. I had been brought up to believe in the class divide, but at the Admiralty, everyone treated me as an equal. I made fast friendships and have fond memories of that week. I had no idea how I performed, but I gave it everything.

I realized quickly that the tests were about character. Some of them seemed designed to cause the candidate to fail, and I noticed quite a few had a hard time with not being able to complete their tasks. I had control of my mentality by then and I understood that the test was not about winning but about remaining calm under pressure. With my mentality shield in place, staying unflappable was now second nature. After every question or challenge thrown my way, I would pause before choosing how to react. I mapped my mind ever so carefully out on my tongue.

Months went by with no response from the Admiralty. Everyone around me either tried to console me or tease me about not making it. Out of the blue, a second letter from the
Admiralty arrived. Because I was not yet of age, it was addressed to my father, and we all gathered in the lounge as he read out my sentence in a formal manner. I had been accepted to the college and, in addition, had been offered a rare scholarship.

Two years later, when I was the appropriate age, I entered the naval college as a midshipman. Joining me in the line of arrivals at the college in 1979 and wearing the largest name badge I had ever seen, was
His Royal Highness—The Midshipman—Prince Andrew
, the middle son of Queen Elizabeth II—someone I had only seen before in news footage. He looked even more nervous than I felt. Quite unnecessarily, he introduced himself. We shook hands, but I was so unprepared, I could not think of a thing to say. I think I just grunted. I do, however, remember wondering what that recruitment officer would have made of the scene.

To have been transported from the derelict farmhouse to the higher echelons of the Naval College is in itself a rags-to-riches story that’s the stuff of fairy tales. The success was purely down to my decision to control my mentality. I was beginning to feel that I could do anything, but I still had the daunting prospect of surviving military training, which had a notoriously high dropout rate.

Military officer training is a proven process of character building. From beginning to end, the intention is to form new mentalities and to mold everyone into the like-mindedness of the required style and standard. Orders have to be given and obeyed without deliberation. It is indoctrination, but not so different from the way our mentalities are formed in civilian life. The differences are that the recruits are fully aware and eager for it to happen, and the time constraints intensify the process.

I realized early on that our backgrounds didn’t matter at all. The process was to crush every ego to dust, and then rebuild
characters quickly according to some traditional blueprint. That intensity makes the process necessarily brutal. At times, sleep, nourishment, and even time to breathe are luxuries. I found, however, that being in control of my mentality was a great advantage. I let nothing anyone said or did shake me from my intention of succeeding. When I screwed up and was bawled out by a senior officer, it did not bother me like it did others. I recognized the process for what it was, and most of the time I was wearing my mentality shield anyway.

From thousands of applicants, several hundred were invited to the Admiralty interviewing process, and only one hundred made it from there to the college. Two years later, only five of us were left to graduate. Along the way, people were rejected when they failed academically. There were no second chances. Some could not take the physical or mental regimen and left of their own accord. The majority simply had not been tested beyond their known endurance before, and their characters failed them at crucial times.

An unexpected benefit of the physical side to the training was that I became much fitter. Being an outdoors type as a kid and a decent amateur-standard soccer player, I was already in reasonable shape. The Navy’s training, however, added muscular strength and stamina. Before long, I broke into the soccer first-team squad. On my debut in an away game against an army base, I scored the winner in a 2–1 victory and never looked back after that. A month later, I was chosen to play on a navy select team that was to tour military bases in Germany and Holland.

I was nineteen but had never been in an airport or stepped on a plane. All I knew of the countries was what I had seen on those
Holiday
programs on television that I watched with my mother. Finally, I was getting to live my dream of travel. What everyone had said was impossible was now my reality. I was traveling around Europe, while playing the game I loved, and with
the glamour and salary of being a naval officer. I didn’t think life could get much better.