Paul Grant with his latest book – Personalities Remixed.
A Nairnite and businessman who has found professional success travelling around the world is now hoping to give back with a series of books to help people get a positive boost in their lives and careers.
Now based in Thailand, Paul Grant started his life as a globetrotter when, at only 10-weeks old, travelled back to Scotland from Cyprus, where his father Kenneth — from Nairn — was on post with the RAF, and where Paul and his sister were both born.
“I came back from Cyprus in one of the luggage racks — I don’t think they would allow it now,” he recalls.
The family moved back to Auldearn, where his mum Audrey hailed from. Moving back and forth between Scotland and England, they finally settled back in Auldearn when he was eight years old, and where he attended Auldearn Primary and Nairn Academy.
A pivotal moment came when his parents sold their grocery store to buy the Millford Hotel in the 1980s.”
“That was when the construction yard in Ardersier was booming, and my mom and dad had quite a lot of the subcontractors staying in the hotel,” Paul explained.
“I remember two of the subcontractors having quite an influence on my career choices. “One of them was called Claude, who was the project manager for one of the platforms that was being built, and the other one was called David, who was a civil engineer but was working more as a structural engineer down at the yard.
A picture from the late 1980’s in the Millford Hotel Nairn – Paul Grant (left) with his mum Audrey and dad Kenneth.
“I used to sit and talk to them a lot, and they were always telling me stories about how their career choices had allowed them to travel all over the world. It it certainly influenced my choice in going to go into civil engineering.”
From here, he started a long career in the oil and gas industry, working in drilling engineering and a variety of roles which then took him to all corners of the world — from the North Sea to Yemen, Gabon and Brazil, as well as to south east Asia, covering various positions and roles.
Twenty years ago, when he started settling in south-east Asia, Paul also started setting up a number of companies with various remits — from well management consultancy to payroll companies.
Among the first he set up with three co-founders was Equilibria, a coaching and consulting company working in a broad spectrum of fields, from the oil and gas sectors to sports teams such as the USA volleyball and water polo teams.
From this stemmed the opportunity to publish his first book, in collaboration with another senior figure at Equilibria, Mark Wilkinson.
“I think it was really based on discussions with Mark. He said to me: ‘Why don’t you write a book?’ And I said: ‘Well, I don’t think anyone would want to read it.’
“And he said: ‘I think you’ve got a story to tell.’ So we sat down and decided how to write this book.”
The first publication, Money Remixed, was about what he defined as a “wealthy mindset”.
“It’s a set of beliefs, attitudes, and habits that are conducive towards achieving your purposes in life,” Paul explained.
“It involves adopting a positive and proactive approach towards life with a focus on creating value. And that’s very much what all the companies that we established were about.”
The following book, Personalities Remixed, is about Equilibria and its pillar of the ‘colours of personality’.
“We’ve had a lot of great feedback, just the fact that it made the Amazon best seller list was really a great encouragement for us,” said Paul.
“My personal driver was really to give something back. I’ve been successful in terms of generating wealth, and it was it was a good opportunity to give something back whereby people could see some of the lessons that I learned over the last 25 years.”
Although he has made Thailand his home, Paul returns to Nairn to visit his father and older sister, who still live there.
“I really have a lot of great memories from when I was living in Nairn, and even my time at school was fantastic. I’ve had a lot of opportunities.”
And if this book works, Paul said that a new editorial project may be in the pipeline.
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