To get, first you have to give.Even in extreme physical or survival situations, maybe you and your hiking buddy are so thirsty you can hardly walk straight. Go on - let them sip first. Give them the g...
There’s a poignant poem by Christopher Logue that I’m often reminded of when people tell me their ‘reasons’ for not embarking on a great adventure.I have a sneaking suspicion that if you can just take...
There are few greater feelings than finding out you can achieve more, and endure more, than you had previously imagined, and it’s only when we are tested that we realize just how brightly we can shine...
The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible – and achieve it, generation after generation.’ Pearl S. Buck
The day before our final exercise had begun, the DS had made the briefing crystal clear.Don’t give them anything or they will exploit it. Be smart. Stay focused despite the pain and fatigue. Slip up f...
The best advice came from the legendary actor the late Sir John Mills, who I sat next to backstage at a lecture we were doing together. He told me he considered the key to public speaking to be this:...
That afternoon, I went to Henry with a suggestion.Michael and Graham were still ill. But I was feeling almost fit again.Why not let Geoffrey and me head up to camp two, so we can be in position just i...
Sometimes you have just got to tackle these mountains head-on.
Sometimes it takes a knock in life to make us sit up and grab life. And I had just undergone the mother of all knocks.But out of that despair, fear, and struggle came a silver lining--and I didn’t eve...
So there we were.No money, and freezing cold--but happy and together.That night, all wrapped up in blankets, I made a simple promise to Shara: I would love her and look after her, every day of our lif...
Rozhlížel se kolem po nějakém kameni, kterým by se zabil. Žádný však nenašel. Musel to utrpení vydržet.
On our next return to base camp, and after the best night’s sleep I had had since arriving in Nepal, I decided that I would call home on the satellite phone.At $3 a minute, I had not yet used the phon...
It’s not how much money you have that matters, it’s what you do with it. That’s how to become really rich.Let me give you an example of someone who is ridiculously rich, in every sense of the word. Le...
It was now wintertime, and winter Selection is always considered the tougher course, because of the mountain conditions. I tried not to think about this.Instead of the blistering heat and midges, our...
If people ask me today what I love about climbing mountains, the real answer isn’t adrenaline or personal achievement. Mountains are all about experiencing a shared bond that is hard to find in normal...
I reassessed the map and my timing. I had to come up with a plan to get myself out of this mess, and fast. I turned 90 degrees and started to climb back up onto the high ground that I had just come of...
Eton, for all its virtues, seriously lacked girls. (Well, apart from the kitchen girls who we camped out on the roof waiting for night after night.)But beyond that, and the occasional foxy daughter of...
Any blisters on your shoulder blades would weep painfully, as the weight of the pack went back on. Then somehow your mind would shut out the pain, for a while. Until, by the end of the march, your sho...
Almost a hundred years earlier, to the day, Samuel Smiles had written the final pages of his book It included this moving tale of heroism as an example for the Victorian Englishman to follow. For the...
…just keep going. JKG.Winston Churchill said it in one of the darkest moments of World War Two, when the outlook was as bleak as it had ever been. On 10 May 1940, the British looked to be finished. Th...