Tom Gilb - Q3

Q3.  Can you tell us a little about your personal life?

Yes.

 

Ohhh you mean will I detail it here now?

 

Well I can tell you it has been fun - and to protect innocent people I can't tell you all the details!

 

The essence starts when I was 17 and met this wonderful Norwegian girl of 18 in London. She is sitting next to me in my living room as I write this. True Love = Endureth Long! (Corinthians 1 again). I was in my first year of 6th Form (boring). So of course I got engaged, moved to Norway and got a job at IBM just by asking! All really great decisions. :)

I mean who knew that Norway was going to be the richest country with the best quality of life in the world?

 

I continued my studies at University of Oslo for about 10 years, on the side of full time job, and a family from 1964. Sociology, Economics, Political Science, Philosophy. What fun - and I did it for fun, not for a job. Yes it is all useful for me today. I realized that I would not be a good bureaucrat at a University - and also realized that 95% of University people dislike me or my ideas. That is probably a good sign. The key is who the other 5% who do!

 

Thank goodness I never had to do a Thesis approved by the 95% who dislike my ideas! So I decided my books would be my 'Thesis". My ideas are evaluated by the readers - and I have full respect for that - even from those who feel they do not like my ideas. At least they had a look at them!

 

We have 4 boys and 5 grandchildren. We live just outside Oslo in a new apartment, half hour away is our amazing beach-front cabin on the Oslo fjord, and we have a "town cabin" in Covent Garden - which is useful as we love to go out in London, and visit my London Family.

 

In January 2008 the Norwegian Government decided to pay me a nice sum (which I have apparently been forced to save for 50 working years) every month for the rest of my life. I still continue working with my son Kai - but I am even less focussed on earning money, and more focussed on fun, travel for me and my wife, playing grandfather, and writing creating and spreading the word. I like the model of my friend W. Edwards Deming (Statistical Process Control) who held his last lecture at 93. I like to tease my listeners that I will teach their grandchildren when they are retired.

 

I enjoy perfect health, which I know is a gift at my age. No, I never smoked.

 

I am Norwegian Chairman of the Board for The Art of Living Norway (artofliving.org) which has made available to  me a lot of wisdom, and contact with a younger generation.

I think I believe, but cannot measure or prove, that we had past lives and will have future lives. This explains some things to me - but I might be wrong - so I am doing the best I can in this life. If I can get back to you afterwards and confirm my hypothesis, I will. Watch this website. Failing that I hope we can discuss this 'afterwards'.

 

One consequence of this hypothesis is that maybe my ideas are not as 'original' as I might like to believe: maybe I either 'remember' ideas, or are fed them by spirit guides? A least I get to keep the income and royalties. And spirits don't sue for plagiarism! Hey with a bit of luck I will either remember, or find an old copy of, my books, when I am young in my next life, and can follow Newton's idea of standing on the shoulders of giants. Well, even if I can't - you can!

My philosophy, from 17 years old:       do what you love,        do it well,       don't let money dictate what you do -    you will survive.