Thankfulness
A two-minute daily practice that can gently change what your mind notices.
Mark Elliot · Purpose, adventure and inner peace
I have spent a life at sea, building businesses, making mistakes and starting again. Adventure still calls to me. So does the quieter work of finding contentment, purpose and a way to live with more inspiration. Here I share the stories, spiritual practices and practical steps that have helped me along the way.
Mark Elliot

Spiritual in outlook.
Practical in application.
Shaped by lived experience.
Mark’s story
My journey

I have a picture on the wall of my six-year-old self. I’m running carefree into the sea, oblivious to the awful red woollen swimming trunks that hang down to my knees when wet: a young boy full of life, dreams and expectations.
Here I am, just over half a century later, and inside I am still that boy, marvelling at the joy of life, and I’m still full of expectation. I am grateful every day for all of my life, and that is part of the secret. In many ways, I have had a lucky life, one that has revolved around my love of the sea and my family.
But it wasn’t always so. It started well enough, with a career at sea as a navigator, and continued with me building several successful businesses that made me wealthy at a relatively young age.
Then I made several life choices that sent me onto a path of self-destruction. I left my wife and beautiful children and went from someone at peace with life and who I was to someone who hated myself. The power of self-hate is incredible, and for ten years I went about destroying everything I had built. I came close to taking hard drugs until, in the end, I was on my own with a huge debt.
But you know what? As I look back, that was truly the best thing that ever happened to me.
In the last two years of my descent into the personal hell I created, I had opened the door to spirituality. Avidly, like a sponge, I read books and scoured the internet, slowly learning and working out a routine for myself. With my new routine came a feeling of happiness and inner peace that I had never before experienced. I relished each day and took pleasure in the simple things in life.
I rebuilt my relationships with my children and the rest of my family. From nothing, in just over five years, I built a business that not only allowed me to repay my half-million-pound debt but made me a multimillionaire and set me on a path to use my newfound wealth to help others.
The tools I want to share with you are life-changing and life-affirming. They can help you move from wherever you are now towards what I describe, for me, as heaven on earth.
My outlook is spiritual, but it is not a religion. I speak about God because that is the word that now feels right to me. Others may speak of spirit, the universe, intuition or simply the quiet inner voice we too easily ignore. I am not here to tell anyone what they must believe.
It is my mission to help as many people as I can reach. Many of the tools are free, and they are shared with love and joy.
A free place to begin
My time as a navigator taught me that. First Steps brings together three simple practices to help you appreciate what is good, understand what needs to change and begin picturing the life you want to create.
Explore Finding Your Way The downloadable email guide is being prepared. Read a short overview in Finding Your Way.A two-minute daily practice that can gently change what your mind notices.
An honest, kind look at what is working, what is missing and what you want more or less of.
Give your direction a visible shape, including my own personal example and the story behind it.
Free Life Hacks
A growing free library for the difficult days, the searching days and the days when you simply want life to feel a little better. These are practical and inspirational resources drawn from lived experience, not quick fixes or empty promises.
Explore Useful Ideas for Real Life
Choose where to begin
Explore the free material, learn about the ThinkMiracle seven-week programme, or consider a private conversation with me.
Free
First Steps guide
An introduction to Thankfulness, Where Am I Now? and Dreamboard. The email guide is being prepared; explore the practices freely on the site now.
Explore the guide →£195
ThinkMiracle Academy
Weekly material and exercises, with two live 45-minute group Zoom sessions with me in Weeks 2 and 7. Enrolment is not yet open.
Academy details →
The story behind the work
The title comes from that photograph of the carefree six-year-old boy running into the sea. My memoir tells the fuller story of how I lost sight of him, what happened when my life unravelled and how I eventually found my way back to something more honest, peaceful and inspired.
Discover the bookOne life, inward and outward
My stories of sailing, travel, business and starting again sit alongside the inner practices that help me live them with purpose and contentment.
The ThinkMiracle programme offers a guided journey through that inner work. My A Restless Heart YouTube channel follows the adventures and everyday life that continue to shape it.
One small step is still a step
Begin by understanding where you are.
Explore Finding Your Way