A New Way of Being

“I like things to happen… and if they don’t… I like to make them happen.” - Winston Churchill This episode is all about creating opportunities… rather than waiting for things to fall in your lap. I spoke to the award winning author and journalist Maurice Hamilton, who explained how he got to do the job he loves – in part by taking motivation from the most successful formula one driver of the early...

Burnout and stress is on the rise. Finding work-life balance is increasingly elusive. What's the answer? The issue isn't necessarily too few hours in the day, it's how we use the hours we have - which comes down to our choices and priorities. Ed Jackson, the former pro rugby player turned walking quadriplegic who is now a charity fundraiser and TV presenter, came up with a superb formula for how t...

It can be easy to judge other people for negative actions and decisions, but the truth is we can’t know the circumstances that led to them. We are not nearly as in control of our lives as we like to think. People don’t necessarily like to hear that, but we don’t choose the family we are born into, our genes, our personality traits, the influences we are surrounded by while growing up and so on. Wh...

When Joe Wicks came up with the idea that changed his life, and started posting online content in 2014, there was no master plan. He just loved doing it and ploughed on - even as people told him he was barking up the wrong tree - before eventually breaking through. It's a story that is often repeated in seeming 'overnight successes' - that ability to keep on going even when the rewards are not imm...

" Commit to something - then figure it out. " Jimmy Chin Jimmy is a pro climber, skier, photographer and Oscar winning Film director. The theme of this episode is about following your heart and taking risks. Committing to a path and working it out along the way. Jimmy picked up the Academy Award for the incredible  Free Solo. You can find the episode with Alex Honnold, star of  Free Solo , here: h...

Many high achievers are driven by a burning desire to compensate for the wounds of childhood trauma. But you can’t fill an inner void with accomplishments and approval. This isn’t to cast judgement on so called "successful" people – it is just to suggest that putting them on a pedestal is overly simplistic, and in many cases they may benefit from empathy rather than envy. This week's bitesize gues...

Don't overlook what you have NOW by focusing on what you are working towards in the future. We live in a world of perpetual doing. Thinking about the future, and the past, making plans, and completing tasks. There's nothing inherently wrong with that – BUT - we do risk missing out on the joy of being, appreciating our experiences in this moment This was clearly illustrated to me by one of my previ...

Over the course of the last 4 and a half years speaking to people for this podcast – the topic of visualisation has come up a lot. Former Wales rugby union captain Sam Warburton spoke about using it to help him recover more quickly from an injury. 6 time major golf winner Nick Faldo would visualise the outcomes he wanted twice a day in his pomp, and “saw” himself as the winner of major championshi...

'Marvel at the incredible benefits walking confers on our bodies and minds' Professor Shane O Mara is a leading neuroscientist and author of the fantastic book – In Praise of Walking Getting out walking is so important, especially at this time of year, and particularly for those of us still working at home after the covid pandemic changed working habits so profoundly. It helps with creativity, moo...

"Happiness is about pleasure and purpose. the key is to get that balance right" This bitesize episode is all about setting up our lives for happiness. Paul Dolan - professor of Behavioural Science at LSE and author of the excellent book Happiness by Design - says happiness is about striking a balance between pleasure and purpose. He shares some great examples of how to find both – and talks about...

Henry Fraser is a best-selling painter, best-selling author and highly in-demand public speaker. When he was seventeen years old, Henry’s life changed in a moment when he was paralysed from the shoulders down after breaking his neck diving into the sea in Portugal. Before his accident, despite being an academy rugby player for Saracens, Henry described himself as being quite anxiety prone, and som...

Smartphones have so many people in a grip, and the mental health cost is profound. In this episode, professor Cal Newport - author of Deep Work and Digital Minimalism - sounds a warning. He talks about the work of Jean Twenge, a generational researcher in the US. Her research revealed the profound impact that smartphones had on the wellbeing and mental health of the first generation of students th...

Are you the sort of person who tries to combat anxiety and other challenging inner experience by practicing positive thinking? If so – this bitesize episode is for you. My guest is Dr Russ Harris, the best-selling author of the Happiness Trap. He argues that positive thinking has its place – but it is limited. So called negative thoughts are an inevitable part of the human experience – and its not...

"Language is the post powerful drug known to man" Dave Alred is one of the most in demand coaches in elite sport. He’s helped major winner is golf, elite athletes galore.. and was famously Jonny Wilkinson’s guru and mentor during his World Cup winning heyday. In this bitesize episode – Dave talks about the power of language, and how to use it to positively impact people and even get them to change...

"If you can meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those two imposters just the same..." As Rudyard Kiplng was well aware, success and failure are relative. Neither change who we fundamentally are, and life goes on. One man who understands this is England cricket captain Jos Buttler, who led England to T20 World Cup success recently. When we spoke in our full length episode - number 14 in the b...

The importance of circadian rhythms for health and longevity - with Professor Satchin Panda, the world's leading expert on circadian rhythms When we eat may be more important than what we eat, and going outside to get natural light in the first half of the day can improve your mood and your sleep. As the days get shorter, this episode has some simple to implement but seriously powerful tips to hel...

"If you don't produce, you won't thrive—no matter how skilled or talented you are.” People tend to be distracted and distractable these days, and so if you can develop the powers of focus and 'find the joy in monotony', you can achieve some truly remarkable things. This bitesize episode is about how to do that - with Ebony Rainford Brent, the former England cricketer and world cup winner, who was...

So many of us learn to avoid our feelings as we grow up, and turn away from them or try and medicate them away – and that can come at a great cost. One man who knows this is the former Premier League footballer and chairman of the PFA Clarke Carlisle, who was awarded the title of Britain’s brainiest footballer. Clarke has suffered with addiction problems, and has tried to take his own life on more...

"If your emotional abilities aren't in hand, if you don't have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can't have empathy and have effective relationships - then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far." That is one of Daniel Goleman’s quotes about emotional intelligence, which was also the title of his best-selling book – which outlin...

Social belonging is a fundamental human need, hardwired into our DNA. Owen Eastwood is a performance coach who has worked with some of the most elite groups in the world, including the England football team, NATO and the Olympic’s Team GB. Evidence shows are hardwired to seek to belong and be accepted as we are, and when we are part of an organisation or team where that doesn’t happen, it is a hug...

You might know him currently as one of the most eye-catching dancers on Strictly Come Dancing, but Tony Adams is an Arsenal and England football legend. For a significant proportion of his time as one of England’s most successful footballers, Tony Adams was also stuck in the grip of alcoholism. He got clean in 1996, and proceeded to set up the Sporting Chance clinic – to help thousands of other pe...

"Purpose is about aligning yourself with what life wants to do through you" Bernardo Kastrup is a scientist and philosopher who has worked for the European Organisation for nuclear research at CERN, inside the Hadron collider - and who has a PHD in computer engineering as well as a PHD in philosophy. He argues that, instead of thinking of ourselves as separate from life, if we can recognise that t...

"Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time." Most people are super busy and the rates of burnout are soaring. So, something has to give, but the question is what? One person who came up with a brilliant formula for working out how to spend his time is Ed Jackson. Ed was a professional rugby player who broke his neck and was told he would never walk agai...

This a bit of a different episode of Life Lessons - a special episode to mark Roger Federer's retirement from tennis. As many of you know, I am a huge tennis fan, and have found Federer's play to be beautifully transcendent. I have been lucky enough to interview him on several occasions, and did the last ever one to one sit-down interview with him at Wimbledon at his last appearance in 2021. So, t...

"With discipline, people don't need rules" One of the best books I have read during the four years I have been recording this podcast is Legacy by James Kerr: about the strategies, attitudes and lessons that have enabled the New Zealand All Blacks to the most successful team in sporting history. In this episode James is talking about the power of giving people responsibility, and the example he st...