BY ANGELA PIDDUCK. Sunday, June 20 2010

Peter Anthony Gales has come home with a mission. “To help people through designing personal practices to get more out of business, career and their personal lives,” he asserts in an interview with Sunday Newsday.

His is a programme which tells you how to live a life of passion, freedom and self-expression by first showing that your current perceptions of basic, fundamental concepts, are what’s causing stalled careers, the inability to retire, job dissatisfaction, failed relationships and poor health. Says Gales: “I work with people to shift how they relate to these fundamental concepts, and also design practices that support them in getting more out of life – whatever that means to them.”

The former Fatima College student completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Political Science at York University in Toronto, came back to Trinidad and spent almost three years in the family business, and then pursued an MBA at Cornell in upstate New York Gales then worked in the United States, London and in the Netherlands at the head office of Philips, the Dutch electronic company which he says “was a great experience”.

A brand marketing background evolved into a focus on new and emerging media, encompassing traditional mass market product and brand launches, as well as pioneering efforts in online advertising and e-commerce with major players in the industry, such as, Yahoo, MSN and AOL..

“But,” says this very ambitious man, “I still always felt there was something else I needed to do, but just didn’t know what it was, until I found myself drawn to self development and personal growth. I used a sabbatical in 2005 to explore that side of my life and it came to me that at heart I am a teacher, and decided to offer services for the times we now live in, times defined by accelerating change.

“The likelihood of living a long and prosperous life is directly related to your ability to adapt to this kind of change, to anticipate it and even steer it sometimes. On the opposite side of the pain and suffering that individuals who can’t or won’t adapt will experience, is an exciting, exhilarating world of possibilities where every individual truly has the power to live fully.

“I want to help build a world where everyone loves their work because business is the vehicle that ends war, poverty, and environmental destruction.”

To achieve these goals, Gales consults with companies and coaches individuals who are looking to kick-start their careers.

“There is not any one particular thing you will do that is going to change your life. It’s the things you do every day, like the people you have contact with daily, the things you read and practice just like a sport, that will give you the quality of your life today and tomorrow. Hence the practice of your life,” he says.

Gales sells his services, time and information products through Morevida Inc, which he runs with just a computer and the internet. “I do not need a physical office, you can conduct business without one,” he says.

Having recently come home to spend quality time with his parents, Gales finds that “there is so much happening here, so much opportunity to make a difference, that I would like to explore what I can contribute to Trinidad and am now focused on consulting and teaching. In teaching people how to design their own lives, I am not telling them what to do, just providing what is missing from their basic education since even those who went to university were never taught how to deal with change.

The fundamental question, Gales says, is “What do I want my life to be about?”

“I give them a new way to think and approach things. I see them every day not making the most of their lives; most people pretend, some acknowledge it. I see it manifesting itself in people unwilling to accept feedback, and take no criticism whatever, you cannot have a conversation with them on how to improve what they are doing because they take it personally. But if you can’t take criticism you cannot grow. The word “responsibility” is not popular with Trinis because they hear I will be blamed for something done wrong, so they do not wish to take the risk. This wrong environment sets people up to stay small, thinking when you do something wrong people will laugh at you.”

Gales, who is fascinated by high technology, computers and the internet, says the times we live in right now afford people opportunities that never existed before. “We live in really exciting times and traditional education is changing to keep up, but it is not moving fast enough in our country so young people are still being educated geared for what ended three decades ago.

“We are in different times where people can re-invent themselves, the old days of a career of one job in a lifetime with one company, have changed and it is now taken for granted that people will change companies at least four times, and careers too as not because you studied for years to become a lawyer, and may hate it, do you stay stuck with it.”

“My life,” says Gales, “is a living testimony of adapting to change and this is one of the fundamental things I help people with. To a child who really

doesn’t know what he/she wants to do, I say join the club, I know people my age and older who do not know what they want to be and they become paralysed for fear of making a mistake in their choice of study. I say to that the only mistake you can make is not doing anything or not making a choice. Your life will unfold for you through the mistakes you make, choose something and go ahead, don’t worry about whether it’s the right choice, because as long as you pursue it to your fullest ability you will learn from it and that experience may very well lead you to what you really want to do. So pick something,” says Gales, “don’t just sit and wonder should I do that or should I not.”

Gales first book The Practice of Acknowledgments – How to Experience More Caring and Rewarding Relationships in Your Personal and Professional Life will soon be published. While his writings on the Practice of Your Life are available on his website “www.thepracticeofyourlife.com.” He is particularly excited about an upcoming workshop that he is designing together with Scott Hilton Clarke about managing commitments in the business place and contact can be made through pgales@morevida.com.