How Mark Bowness went from suicide attempt to million-dollar business mogul

When Mark Bowness’s hidden secret was finally revealed, his life spiralled out of control — until he came up with a multimillion-dollar idea.

Mark Bowness’s life was spiralling out of control when he hit “rock bottom” one night and googled “the quickest and most painless way to die”.

He was 26 years old and his marriage had just broken down as he struggled with his sexuality.

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He was disowned by his church and lost his job running a Christian ministry — and the salary that went with it — and that night, the increasingly desperate young man attempted to take his own life.

Thankfully, that attempt failed, and when he woke up in hospital the next day, he realised just how precious life was — and that he needed to do something to change his own life as well as other people’s.

Mark Bowness turned his life around after attempting to take his own life. Picture: Instagram/@markbowness

Mr Bowness, who grew up in the UK, soon became preoccupied with the idea of community after losing his own in the church.

That preoccupation ended up sparking a radical business idea which made global headlines just three months after his suicide attempt.

Mr Bowness launched his business, Tribewanted, in 2008 after leasing the idyllic and largely empty island of Vorovoro in Fiji.

The company’s website built a thriving online community on a simple but unique idea — punters from across the world could pay to visit the island on a per-week basis, vote online about what to do with the space and how to run it, and then actually visit it and begin building a complete eco-island “from scratch”.

It attracted people from all walks of life, from busy parents to frazzled corporate workers, and garnered so much attention it ended up being filmed for 18 months and turned into a prime-time TV show aired in the UK and across the world.

Then, in 2010, he began training to be a life coach as he wanted to turn his own painful life experience into a way of helping others.

In 2013 a new venture was formed after Mr Bowness launched the We Build Tribes Facebook group, which brings together 31,500 professional life coaches and other experts.

He also launched the 7 Figure Tribe mentoring program, which helps coaches, entrepreneurs and experts build up their own networks, or “tribes”.

The business recently received a coveted award after generating more than $US1 million ($A1,449,800 million) in just 12 months.

The 40-year-old, who is now based in Sydney, told news.com.au he was thankful he was able to pull himself out of that “dark place” and turn his life around.

“I grew up going to church every Sunday morning and literally always feeling like an outcast, because I had this dark secret — that I was gay — but I was living in this crazy, split world where the church said it was wrong,” he said.

“It really impacted my life … I always believed that God could ‘heal’ me and I got married at 22 but I didn’t know who the hell I was before it all came crashing down.

“But once I got to that rock bottom of nearly wiping myself off the face of the planet, suddenly everything I had taken for granted was precious and I had no fear — if I launched a business and it failed and I went bankrupt it wouldn’t matter, because I would still be here.”

He said every step he took from that point on was built on the idea of helping people find the supportive community he had craved in his younger days.

“If I had had a non-judgemental group of people to talk to at the very beginning when I first had that doubt about my sexuality I wouldn’t have gotten married and I wouldn’t have attempted to take my own life — it would have changed the whole course of my life,” he said.

“I’m passionate about people belonging — what I loved about the church was that community environment, and it’s an inherent human trait to love being part of a community.

“I believe we all have life experiences that can help other people and no matter what we’ve been through, I believe we have the ability to turn our life experiences into a business that can powerfully benefit other people.”

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