The story of coming to Australia from Lebanon with just ten dollars in his pocket might sound like a tearful movie script, but Michael Dakhoul saw it as a huge opportunity. Leaving a crumbling cityscape behind him, he now contributes significantly to the shining development of his adopted new frontier of Australia through his highly successful quantity surveying business.
Imagine how different your life would be if you were bold enough to follow that dream you had as a child. There would be more firemen in the world, more Cinderella’s and more Darth Vaders.
In the case of Michael Dakhoul, there would be more movie directors. Interestingly, Michael does direct, but it’s a different kind of creative project.
“It was my dream as a young boy, growing up in Lebanon, to be a film director; to be Clint Eastwood. To first have a successful acting career before moving into directing.”
Instead of being recognised as one of the country’s leading quantity surveyors, Michael could have been collecting Academy Awards as a leading director in Hollywood.
The quantum leap from the life he’d imagined began when reality struck in his late teens.
Looking back, Michael remembers, “I did drama when I was in high school and I wanted to be a theatre actor. I was still pursuing that when I went to university.
“I had enrolled to study architecture but spent all my days next door at the theatre classes. So I guess you could say I was pretty serious about it.”
For many of the early years of his life Michael grew up in a country torn apart by war, “but we still managed to study, we still went to school, and we still had dreams.”