To my wonderful family.
Yes, even the weird ones.

Forword

People often say they remember where they were when major things happen in life. For many it can often be a catastrophic incident in the world. They remember where they were on 11th September 2001, what they were doing when they heard the news about Princess Diana, or when Tony Blair told us we were at war once again.

Rightly or wrongly I've never really thought like this. For me it's what I was doing the first time I heard Bowie. Like, really heard Bowie, where it made me stop dead in my tracks. Or the first time I watched Christopher Reeve play Superman and it sent shivers down my spine. Or the first time I saw Ultimate Warrior on the telly, making his entrance to the wrestling ring and being transported to another world in my imagination.

These are the moments that stay with me. The moments I draw inspiration from when it's needed. 

Never before in life has a book done this. And by ‘this' I essentially mean ‘changed my life'. 

Movies and albums absolutely. Perhaps even the odd TV show. People definitely. But a book? No. I enjoyed reading but was never a reader. 

That was until 2012.

I happened to find myself in a well-known high-street bookstore with my young son. I seem to remember The Gruffalo being the order of the day. As we headed for the checkout I was drawn to a book called The Art of Being Brilliant. 

What a shit title for a book I thought. Who even buys this pish? 

I felt compelled to have a flick through. Every page I stopped on smacked me in the face with truth and wit. The way it was written was just how I think. It was like someone had climbed into my brain and stolen all my thoughts, made sense of them, and put it in a fucking book. It was my book. Who's this arsehole that's written my fucking book? 

Andy Fucking Cope.

Absolutely furious, I bought it. 

And then I read it. And then I read it again. I read it twice in one sitting. It made me laugh, it made me cry (Jimmy's Diary), it made me think, it made me angry, it made me think some more, and, most importantly, it made me do. It gave me permission to do all the things I'd thought about but didn't know how. It brought clarity and focus to a very busy head. It gave me a sense of belief.

I loved it. I still do. And I love Andy Cope for writing it.

Fast forward a few years and our paths finally crossed. They say you should never meet your heroes as it's never what you hope it's going to be. 

David Bowie. Christopher Reeve. Ultimate Warrior. Andy Cope. 

Andy is one of my heroes. Unlike my other heroes he's very much alive. I met him, and he was everything I hoped he would be. 

We talked. We ate soup. He asked me to write a book with him. I said yes. We wrote SHINE, the best self-help book ever written. 

BOOM. 

And now he's penned this one, the second best self-help book ever written! It's Andy's greatest hits, gathered together in one epic page-turner. No plot spoilers from me but it's got everything you wouldn't expect from a personal development book; goats, Munchkins, Bon Jovi, the paranormal Olympics, the word erschlossenheit, and an actual chapter called ‘Yogi, Boo-Boo, and the Homos'. He even dares to pick a fight with Buddha and literally nobody ever does that, ever.

Laugh, cry, squirm, and learn. You'll remember where you were when you read The Little Book of Being Brilliant. 

Enjoy!

Gavin Oattes

Trainer, keynote speaker, stand-up comic and best-selling author

Thinking Allowed

19th July, 9.48pm. Picture this. My wife and I are sitting on a patio in Majorca. Inland Majorca. Classy. Not Magaluf Majorca. The sun's set and we're winding down after a hard day of winding down.

I like to think of myself as a go-getter, someone who squeezes the maximum out of life. But I also like to be in bed by 9pm. Holidays are different. It's more like 10 or even 10.30. Lou's reading a trashy novel. I look up from my Kindle and ask, ‘Tourette's. Why is it always negative? Why don't they blurt lovely stuff. “I love you!” “You're amazing!” “Gosh, look at that sunset” kind of thing?'

Lou reaches for an olive but doesn't break away from her book. ‘Repressed thoughts', she replies as the olive goes in.

I'm impressed. She's guessing, obviously. But logic tells me she's right. Tourette's must be what Freud was rabbiting on about with his Id and Ego stuff. However, it's not her actual answer that spurs me on, rather her ability to have this thought while choosing an olive and without breaking away from her chapter. Multi-tasking at its best.

‘Do you ever wonder about your thinking? You know, think about your thinking?'

She sighs and breaks away from the book. ‘I'm aware of it now,' she huffs. ‘When it gets interrupted. And at night. When it keeps me awake.'

I decided to prod. Gently. ‘So, at 3am you're lying there thinking? You're thinking so much that it's keeping you awake. You're the one doing the thinking.'

‘Yes. Obviously.'

‘If you're the one doing the thinking, have you ever thought who's the one noticing that you're thinking?' Please note, this is the kind of conversation that you can only have after 25 years of marriage. It's not a first date question. At least, not if you're wanting a second.

Lou penetrates the Majorcan dusk with one of her Paddington stares. There are no words but just the merest shaking of her head which I'm taking to mean WTF? You're disturbing me from my book, for this?

‘Or that nothing's real?' I dare to venture. ‘It's all created in your mind. Literally everything. Your book. Even Majorca.'

She adds a sigh and long blink to her Paddington stare. She hits her book against the table so there's a loud thud which, to be fair, is a good way of making her point. I have to admit, her book does look real.

‘Majorca's not real? That's ridiculous shit. It's an island. We're sitting on it. Whatever's in your head, write it down and we'll publish it when you're dead. I don't want people thinking you're a dick while you're alive.'

I resumed my Kindle chapter thinking she's probably right. The world's not ready for this.

At least not until Part 4.