That same day we drove to Seville to celebrate. I asked someone for the name of the smartest hotel in Seville. Alfonso XIII, came the reply. It is where the King of Spain always stays.We found the hot...
Tentative is no power.
So, remember that our goals are reached by how we prepare and train in the many months before crunch time. Train right, and the summit or gold medal will be the inevitable culmination of your commitme...
So how do you get to know yourself?The first way is to spend some time alone - just you - without all the outside influences of peers and family that so powerfully shape our aspirations. Give yourself...
Shara met me at the airport in London, dressed in her old familiar blue woolen overcoat that I loved so much. She was bouncing like a little girl with excitement.Everest was nothing compared to seeing...
Samuel Smiles ends his book with the following moving story of the gentleman general:The gentleman is characterized by his sacrifice of self, and preference of others, in the little daily occurrences...
Our achievements are generally limited only by the beliefs we impose on ourselves.If we tell ourselves often enough that we don’t have what it takes, then that will inevitably become our reality.But I...
My time at Eton did develop in me a character trait that is essentially, I guess, very English: the notion that it is best to be the sort of person who messes about and plays the fool but who, when it...
My Everest story would be incomplete if I didn’t give final credit to the Sherpas who had risked their lives alongside us every day.Pasang and Ang-Sering still climb together as best friends, under th...
Mum, still to this day, says that growing up I seemed destined to be a mix of Robin Hood, Harry Houdini, John the Baptist, and an assassin.I took it as a great compliment.
Life rewards the dogged, not the qualified.
Life has taught me to be very cautious of a man with a dream, especially a man who has teetered on the edge of life. It gives a fire and recklessness inside that is hard to quantify. It can also make...
Jenomže „nemožné není dobré slovo, když se pokoušíte přežít.
It wasn’t until the final years of her life that Neville and Patsie became almost reunited.Neville now lived a few hundred yards from the house that I grew up in as a teenager on the Isle of Wight, an...
I remember once, on a family skiing trip to the Alps, Dad’s practical joking got all of us into a particularly tight spot.I must have been about age ten at the time, and was quietly excited when Dad s...
I remember once in the Arctic, when we were attempting to cross the frozen North Atlantic in a small, open rigid inflatable boat (RIB), that I heard that voice very clearly.We had been caught out in a...
Above the gates at Delphi, a short inscription greeted every weary traveler:This simple advice was considered the most important piece of knowledge anyone could possess. And to understand what the ora...
My faith is an important part of my life and over the years I've learnt that it takes a proud man to say he doesn't need anything. It has been a quiet strength and a backbone through a lot of difficul...
We then reached a fork in the valley. Should we go left or right? Dad called it left. I had a very powerful intuition that right was the choice we should make. Dad insisted left. I insisted right.It w...
We soon reached a dam and had to make a decision.We knew it was forbidden to cross a dam, in the same way that it was forbidden ever to use a footpath or forestry track. (Unless it was part of the dre...