It took a personal tragedy for entrepreneur Peter H. Thomas to evaluate his own existence and start down the path to the creation of LifeManual – a book designed to help people navigate successfully through life.
When his son, Todd, tragically committed suicide in 2000, Peter’s immensely successful business career in real estate and investments was given a new perspective. An artist, Todd was suffering from mental illness and just 36.
As he struggled to understand what had gone wrong, Peter channeled his grief into the creation of the Todd Thomas Foundation – an organization devoted to raising awareness of mental illness, erasing its stigma and helping to develop effective treatments.
Partially as a fundraising venture, he developed a program called 'LifePilot' - a precise set of activities, mental exercises and reflection that leads the participant to self discovery. Based on the principle of setting goals around values that matter, LifeManual encapsulates the essence of LifePilot. It expands on Peter’s values-based theories for happiness with inspiration drawn from many sources – including Aristotle, George Foreman, Winston Churchill, James Joyce and ordinary folks who touched Peter’s life.
"My son’s death was the motivation behind the book," said Peter, who founded Century 21 Real Estate Canada in 1973 and developed the company into the largest real estate network in the country. "LifeManual is essentially an operations’ manual for life. I want to help people align their life with values that are important to them. Every word of the book comes from my own experiences."
His previous two books were devoted to succeeding in business. Windows of Opportunity became a sales force handbook while Never Fight with a Pig detailed lessons learnt in three decades of real estate deal-making. However, LifeManual is designed to help in both the personal and business worlds.
"Everyone wants to find health, freedom and happiness," said Peter. "No one wants to be stressed. But why doesn’t life work out for some people? Many of us are ready for a helping hand. I suspect people aged between 30 and 40 years old will be most interested in this book because it’s a period of life when you decide to start making changes. I started to change my life at 33 – it was a perfect time to reflect on the past and think about the future.
"You can almost divide life into the learning, earning and returning years. I guess I am in the returning years now. Remember the tribal elders among the Native Americans – they were the ones that delivered words of wisdom and experience to the young ones. Century 21 taught me the importance of working with partners. You can only do so much on your own and it’s important to achieve results with the help of other people."
When Peter sold Century 21 Canada in 1989, it had $9 billion in annual sales and employed 8,500 people with 450 franchises. He went on to further business ventures in real estate and other sectors including country music. Today, he is retired but arguably busier than ever as he divides his time between Switzerland, British Columbia and Arizona, and his work with LifePilot which has included staging many workshops across North America in the past two years.
"Todd was the motivating force behind this book’s completion," said Peter. "He was very spiritual and believed in all the principles outlined in this book. I know he would be very proud of what we’re doing."
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