Imagine for a moment you are so famous there are twelve thousand books written about you.



Not twelve thousand copies of a book, but twelve thousand different books with you in them.



That's twelve thousand different interpretations of your life and times.



Imagine that.



It's easy to if you're Winston Churchill.



Voted the greatest Briton of all time, he is perhaps one of the most written about people in the history of literature.



It's not difficult to understand why. Over the course of his life, Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill;



* Fought in three wars* Became a distinguished hero escaping from a prisoner-of-war camp* Wrote 8 to 10 million words (more than Shakespeare and Dickens combined) for forty books and thousands of newspaper and magazine articles* Won the Nobel Prize for literature* Became one of the world's most highly paid journalists* Was one of the greatest orators of all time* Held Prime Minister's office twice* Saved Western civilisation



Although famously known for leading the UK and allied forces to victory in WWII, which was certainly his own finest hour, Churchill led a long and illustrious pre and post-war life.



Of course, Churchill had the advantage of being born into aristocracy at a time when the class system dictated the life you would live.



Privilege can only get you so far and it's what he did with that advantage that is most commendable.



Over the course of his life, Churchill showed bravery, grit, leadership and a commitment to bettering himself with everything in his undertaking.



As a young man, standing 5'6 with a body you could describe as wafer-thin, he wasn't gifted with an athletism you would associate with battlefield bravery.



And being born with both a stammer and a lisp, he didn't possess the natural skills to be one of the greatest orators of all time, whipping-up a nation with his words and rhetoric.



Nevertheless, he pushed himself to do both.



Churchill's statue in Parliament Square, Westminster



It wasn't his innate natural abilities that served him through his life, although he did have a gift with words and an excellent memory, rather it was Churchill's mindset that was his superpower.



Coupled with an insatiable work ethic and a total belief in himself, it propelled him to become one of the most famous figures of modern times.



When we think of Churchill, we tend to imagine the slightly hunched-over ageing old man, wearing a top hat, cigar in one hand and extending the V for victory with the other.



This is him at the height of his fame. What we sometimes fail to remember is that he was a prolific doer from an early age.



Meeting both success and failure along the way and acquiring the leadership skills the UK (and half the world) needed in their darkest times.



This is the Churchill mindset.



Churchill had a lifelong total belief that he was destined for success



From a very early age, Churchill believed he was destined for great things.



"We are all worms, but I do believe that I am a glow-worm," he wrote in private to a friend in 1906, not long after returning from the Boer War as a hero and winning his first parliamentary seat.



When he was given the position of Prime Minister in 1940, a year after the UK declared war on Germany, he said he believed he had spent his whole life in preparation ...