A business associate once told me that if something starts rotten it usually ends up rotten. My experience has shown that to be largely the case, so beginnings are crucial. The way that something starts is of vital importance because it sets the tone, it creates the note that a particular venture or happening will strike.

Today I was with a friend and we got to talking about her daughter, I’ll call her Lucy but that’s not her real name, who is profoundly deaf and has had many challenges to overcome. During the pregnancy the mother went through some extremely difficult episodes and came very close to death. She was told that her child would have cerebral palsy and a host of connected conditions. They persisted with the pregnancy and after Lucy was born the work of assembling the best possible circumstances began. Lucy has prospered and overcome extraordinary adversity and continues to flourish.

Developments in technology have made the prospect of her hearing being regained a very distinct possibility. The process is already under way and Lucy now has low volume background hearing. She is tenacious, bright and always attracts attention because of her demeanour. No-one told her that she should find her situation overwhelming, no-one told her that she couldn’t cope and subsequently she manages.

The difficulties surrounding her birth have made Lucy’s life more poignant and each of her small victories sweeter, she was essentially written off and consigned to a life of immense challenges. As it is she never got that report and simply presses on as best she can and achieves results that defy the expectations of those who assess such things.

What does this teach us? It means that anyone can do anything they choose but also it means that those things surrounding the provenance of a person, an idea, a philosophy or anything else characterise it and give it a frequency that it will always operate upon. Those born in adversity who overcome it will do so all their days. Those whose drive carries them forward because no-one ever told them that they weren’t supposed to be able to will continue to flourish against the odds. The Universe is not reasonable it does not know logic, it responds only to compulsions, urges, desires. This is its language.

Bear these things in mind when you create anything. You set the tone, you give provenance to your creations by how you think about them and what content you can inject into them. This is how you build your own life.