So that is how we came to be standing in a sparse room, in a nondescript building in the barracks at SAS HQ--just a handful out of all those who had started out so many months earlier.We shuffled arou...
One thing I am clear on, though, is why the show has been so successful.I consider it is down to the magic three: good fortune, an amazing team, and a willingness to risk it all.My magic trio.There i...
One of the books that has had the most influence on me is a little manual called by Scott Alexander. I know, it’s a weird title, but give it a read. I read it first when I was 12 years old and I stil...
Neil’s feet were still numb from the frostbite. Long exposure up high, sat waiting in the snow for all those hours at the Balcony, had taken their toll. At base camp, we bandaged them up, kept them wa...
My worst ever speech was one I did for a pharmaceutical company in South Africa. They were paying me $1,000 and my airfare. It was a fortune to me at the time, and I couldn’t believe my luck. That wou...
Light can only shine through broken vessels.
It took me quite a while to begin to recover physically from Everest.The thick, rich air of sea level, in comparison to the ultrathin air of Everest, was intoxicating--and at times it felt like too mu...
If the person you’re speaking to will think worse or less of the person you’re speaking about, then it’s gossip, so cut it out!
I remember, one week, we all started playing strip poker., I thought. It wasn’t really even poker, but was more like: pick an ace and lose an item of clothing. I tried one night to rig the cards so th...
I love the quote she once gave me: When supply seems to have dried up, look around you quickly for something to give away. It is a law of the universe: to get good things you must first give away good...
I also believe strongly in the powerful words: I took the road less traveled, and that has made all the difference. They are good ones to live by.The big, final motivator was that I really wasn’t enjo...
For eighteen hours we had neither drunk nor eaten anything. My body and mind both felt strangely distant. Both were aching for some relief.In the porch of our tiny single-skinned tent, I reached out t...
Eton’s great strength is that it does encourage interests--however wacky. From stamp collecting to a cheese-and-wine club, mountaineering to juggling, if the will is there than the school will help yo...
Well, obviously the £1,000,000 one is 10,000 times faster than the £100 one. Right? That’s clearly ridiculous. Is it even ten times faster? No way. Twice as fast? Unlikely. At best, the difference is...
And in order to get, we first have to give.
Winston Churchill (him again!) once said words to the effect that everyone gets the chance to make their fortune once, but not everybody takes it.
While Mum was a busy working mother, helping my father in his constituency duties and beyond, Lara became my surrogate mum. She fed me almost every supper I ate--from when I was a baby up to about fiv...
Walter came from a strong line of self-motivated, determined folk: not grand, not high-society, but no-nonsense, family-minded, go-getters. His grandfather had been Samuel Smiles, who, in 1859, author...
This general lack of sleep really got to me. And little can prepare people for how they will react when deprived of it--over multiple days. Everything suffers: concentration, motivation, and performan...
Their hands were also huge – two massive leathery mitts that looked like hairy wicket keeper’s gloves.