They say you should write what you know. Looking back, every chapter of my life was secretly teaching me how to tell stories.

I grew up in Perth, Western Australia, around trucks, motorcycles, music, mischief, and the occasional arrest. I went to technical school to become a boilermaker, but left after two weeks when my father was released from prison and took me on the road as his apprentice. We travelled Australia in a sign-written truck—Mobile Piano Workshop—towing a caravan, restoring pianos under the instruction of an Irish alcoholic genius. Later came rock bands, radio, commercial jingles, marriages, children, recording studios, houses, technology companies, real estate, investment banking and strategy work with major corporations. At thirty-eight, I arrived in New York with two suitcases and considerably more enthusiasm than common sense.

None of it was a detour. Piano tuning taught me to listen for the resonant truth. Restoration taught me that beauty is often revealed rather than created. Music taught me that the audience remembers how you made them feel. Radio taught me that you may have only three seconds to earn someone’s attention. Jingles taught me to communicate an entire story in thirty seconds and make it unforgettable. Investment banking taught me that capital moves when people believe in a compelling future. Strategy taught me that organizations also need a narrative people can understand, believe in, and act upon.

Eventually, all those lives converged in ghostwriting. People can be brilliant at building companies, managing fortunes, leading institutions, surviving extraordinary circumstances or imagining new worlds without necessarily knowing how to shape those experiences into a book. The ghostwriter listens for the meaning hidden in the details, discovers the structure inside a life and gives another person’s knowledge a voice.