1. Which person has most inspired you in your career, and how?
I have been married for nearly 39 years to my high school love Jacqueline, and we have worked together in business for many of those years. After graduating from the academy of fine arts, I started working as a teacher. But after a few years, I had become totally fed up with it; the only thing keeping me there was my salary. My wife ordered me to stop immediately as she saw that it was making me unhappy - and so I did. She gave me the strength to set up a successful business designing taxi top lights, together with a friend. While after a terrible motorbike accident, she motivated me to go to university to study law and then start my own law firm.
2. How would you describe your political/leadership style in three words?
Creative, humorous and argument-based.
3. What is the smallest change you have made in your career that has had the biggest positive result?
Following a motorcycle accident, I had to give up my old job as an industrial designer, and studied law instead. I started my own law firm later, before eventually entering politics.
4. Is there anything you have personally achieved or done that would surprise people?
In politics; during last year’s European elections, the elderly party I represented had no chance of winning a seat, but due to luck, hard work and smart solutions, we won and surpassed many parties who, according to the polls, should have won a seat.
5. What was the most inspirational and influential book you have read and why?
Rule by Secrecy: Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids, by Jim Marrs. This book convinced me that the world has always been driven by money and power. It shows that through the centuries there are always parties that profit from wars and people’s suffering, because they do not count in the moneymaking world. Although I am a socially liberal Christian democrat, I will always fight for injustice and try to contribute to a better world.