In case you were wondering – in case you’ve ever been as lost and confused as I have – there is an arrival point on the journey to find yourself. How do I know? Let’s say I performed my own prodigal son experiment – I went out into the world and became something I’m not and it took a long time to return to who I am.

You see, on the outward leg I made everything about myself wrong. When I was about five I heard my aunt comment to my mother that I still used my left hand; I thought I was doing something wrong and I changed to using my right hand. This became the pattern of my life. When I discovered I was an introvert, I tried to make myself into an extrovert, and so on.

The route for the return journey was indicated by the answers I found to the question, ‘What if there’s nothing wrong?’ If I recognised for example that my mind jumped from one project to the next, instead of trying to fix and change that through discipline and force, I took the view that nothing was wrong and asked instead, ‘How can I apply this to my best advantage?’

The fixing and changing approach is based on the assumption that there’s something wrong, something to be fixed and changed. What do you change it to? It has to be based on some external, which would inevitably be some other person, a colleague or peer – or God forbid, a sports star or celebrity! – who you compare yourself to. Which one to choose, there are so many! The alternative was like a bolt of lightning: change nothing, emphasise that which you are – all you have to do is overcome the shame, guilt, doubt, fear. Talk about crawling across cut glass!

The rewards are great: a sense of peace, power, presence. And who knows, maybe your father will throw a party!