Professor Iain Hennessey  

A few days before we ran our Brilliant Minds Showcase at Lords, I made a call to speak to Professor Iain Hennessey, a truly remarkable man.  He was the only person I trusted with the answer to my question: should we go ahead?

The date was 5th March 2020. The night before, I had attended an event at the Hurlingham Club, a testimonial for Tom Smith, the Northampton Saint, who was part of the British and Irish Lions squad that beat South Africa in 1997. Many of his teammates attended that night, including many of mine, as, like me, he had played for years at Northampton. In November 2019, he had revealed that he had been given a diagnosis of stage four cancer. That night in March, over 500 people had come together for Tom in a fundraising dinner. People were nervous. There were rumours that this would probably be the last of its kind for some time, but the spirit of rugby shone through for Tom: the rugby world was looking after its own.

Professor Hennessey was due to speak at Lords on 10th March in the iconic Long Room as part of our annual Brilliant Minds Showcase.  He is a consultant paediatric surgeon and Director of Innovation at the new Alder Hey Children’s Health Park and therefore I valued his opinion. His view was that we were probably a week away from all major events being postponed once and for all. In fact, if the Cheltenham horse racing festival had been postponed during the week of 9th March, then we would not have been able to do it. There were calls for an investigation into whether the Cheltenham Festival should have gone ahead at all due to concerns it may have led to a high number of local coronavirus cases. About 250,000 people attended the four-day event in March which ended 10 days before lockdown measures began. Cheltenham Racecourse followed clear government advice and cited the presence of the Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the England v Wales rugby game at Twickenham on Saturday 7th March in a letter explaining why it was going ahead despite concerns about the Covid-19 outbreak.

Iain was very clear: you have a window. He was prepared to travel to Lords, but it would all have been very different a week later. Over 150 people attended that day, and it was the last physical event that we ran before we went into lockdown. I will never forget what he said to me that day just before we went on stage. He explained that this was a very serious situation, a once in a lifetime event, that people would talk about for years to come. Many people would lose their lives, but the good news was the NHS would be prepared and, due to the wonders of technology, a vaccine would be developed by the start of 2021 in a shorter timescale than ever before. He was well-qualified to comment on this given his position as Director of Innovation at Alder Hey.

Professor Hennessey was one of the many Brilliant Minds with whom we had worked over the past 13 years since the birth of our children Scarlett and Harry. The one thing that all these minds have in common is an ability to tell stories which bring people together.

In 2015, when Alder Hey Hospital was built at a cost of £250m, it became one of Europe’s biggest and busiest children’s hospitals. Treating around 275,000 patients each year, Iain became responsible for the innovation facility, creating a leading-edge centre for children’s healthcare and research. He refers to it as his “Bat Cave”. Occupying 1000 sqm, this ‘underground factory’, brings clinicians, industries and higher education institutions together to create ground-breaking products and technologies that will positively impact children everywhere.

One child who was impacted by it was a six-year-old girl called Leah Bennett. After various scans and tests, Leah was admitted with a large unknown tumour at the bottom of her spine. She had nine rounds of chemotherapy, all of which were unsuccessful. At this point, in one last ditch attempt to save her life, her medical team sought out the hospital’s in-house Innovation Hub, led by Iain and 3D LifePrints.

Several medical institutions advised against surgery due to the high risk of life-threatening blood loss. As this little girl’s tumour was located close to the spinal cord and a major artery of the abdomen, it was deemed ‘impossible’ surgery.

Iain described to us how difficult it was to raise the funds to purchase a 3D printing hub at the hospital. All previous attempts to do this had been refused within procurement: apparently it was too difficult for them to justify the costs.

However, through fundraising, where there is a will, there is a way. The printer was purchased, and this eventually led to a 3D printed model of the tumour and surrounding anatomical areas being created for presurgical planning, thus increasing the chances of safe and effective removal.

The irony is that the very person who had refused the funding of this 3D Printer was the father of Leah Bennett. He was the one person who, from a procurement perspective, could not justify the costs and yet he was able to witness first-hand the full recovery of his little girl.

Dialysis patient Brian Pinker, 82, became the first person to receive the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine. Ian was right: technology and innovation had helped scientists to produce a vaccine in record time. The jab was given at 7.30 GMT at Oxford’s Churchill Hospital on 4th January 2021. The former health secretary, Matt Hancock, described it as a pivotal moment in the UK’s fight against Coronavirus; vaccines will help curb infections and then allow restrictions to be lifted. However, just over 12 hours later, the Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a new lockdown which meant that people could not leave their homes except for certain reasons, just like the first lockdown last March 2020.

The morning of 10th March 2020 was the last time that I got on a train to travel to Lords. You could sense the nervousness amongst the commuters that morning; the train was unusually crowded. This was not the typical frustration that people felt every single day due to the change in ownership from Southwestern Railways to the MTR Corporation Limited, a state-owned Hong Kong company, who were apparently incapable of running the trains. This was something different. I felt the anxiety of my fellow passengers and thought that this would be the last time I would do this for some time; I was right. This was odd as the station is less than 300m from my house and is the only way to get around our great capital city.

There is always a sense of anticipation when going to Lords and running this event, but in 2020, this had turned to a very real fear that no one would turn up. On Monday 9th March, I had received a few emails that read like the one I received from Toby Baker, the Marketing Director of Nestle for UK & Australia for Nestle: “With great regret I am informing you that the CPW guests will no longer be able to attend the Brilliant Minds Event. This is because the up-to-date Nestle guidance on external events is that we are not permitted to attend meetings, internal or external, with more than 50 attendees and all business travel to be restricted to business critical only. Really sad that we cannot be there as we have got so much from the events in the past – but need to be aligned with our policy guidelines as Leaders within our business.”

I completely respected his decision not to attend. Somewhat surprisingly, on the day itself, we had very few dropouts and people kept coming. I have been in business over 26 years and I have never witnessed as much goodwill as was shown by people that day both by the guests and the speakers who came from all different parts of the UK. I have mentioned Professor Ian Hennessey, the consultant paediatric surgeon and Director of Innovation at the new Alder Hey. Other speakers included the following brilliant minds: Dr Neslyn Watson-Druée CBE, an acclaimed executive coach, author, and keynote speaker on the topic of Leadership; Andrew Steele, who spent over 12 years as an Olympic athlete competing in the 400 metres and 4x400 metre relay for Team GB, winning a bronze medal in Beijing 2008 and is now on the leadership team of personal genetics company DNAfit, helping everybody understand the genetic factors behind fitness and nutrition; Professor Elaine Fox, a psychologist and neuroscientist at Oxford who has conducted research into the science of emotions; Kate Cook, a nutrition and wellness expert, author, and founder of The Nutrition Coach Clinic and Richard Cotter, a successful businessman, entrepreneur, high altitude mountaineer and former professional sportsman who had built a reputation for the rapid turnaround, transformation, and growth of consumer businesses.

However, special mention should be given to Helen Glover MBE, one of the most prominent sporting stars to emerge from the 2012 Olympic Games, typifying the ideal that hard work breeds success. At the time, a two-time Olympic champion, triple World champion, quintuple World Cup champion and triple European champion, she has been described by GB rowing coaches as a ‘once in a generation athlete’. Helen did not want to let us down and arrived at Lords with her twins. Having given birth to a boy and a girl on Thursday 16th January 2020, she was still feeding them.

The other person who closed the day was Sean Dyche, the Burnley Premiership Football Manager who was meant to be playing Manchester City that weekend. It was his day off, and he travelled on a train to Lords. The goodwill was astounding. Sean is the longest-serving manager in the Premier League, having overseen Burnley since October 2012, and he made the effort to attend that day, which turned out to be a tremendous success and, in keeping with tradition, we went to the Lord’s Tavern, situated next to the famous Grace Gates.

People were obviously concerned that this probably would be the last time that we would be able to get together with such a large group of people for some time to come. I cannot tell you how good it felt to have such an eclectic group of individuals together in one room. This is a feeling that I cannot wait to get back to. That sense of togetherness that we took for granted before lockdown. The fact that we were in a pub having a few beers.

Sean could have never imagined that night as he travelled home that, a few days later on 13th March, the Premier League would announce that fixtures were suspended until at least 3^rd April due to the coronavirus outbreak and, as we later found out, for some time to come.

As we enjoyed a drink together, we could never have imagined the magnitude of what was to come. But Iain Hennessey knew. I was just in denial, and thankful that we were able to run this last event in our calendar before the world imploded.

Jason Bradbury

We have got to meet some of our Brilliant Minds in the oddest ways and none more so than Jason Bradbury. A self-confessed computer geek and regular at our local café Zoran’s in St Margaret’s, Twickenham, we all knew who he was: the host of The Gadget Show. In 2008, he was sitting in Zoran’s writing Dot Robot at a table adjacent to ours whilst we were feeding our newly born baby girl. An accomplished writer, Jason has written three books, but Dot Robot was being written as we sat next to him.

I didn’t get an opportunity to work with him until Phil Brown, a client of mine, asked him to speak at their conference in 2015. It was whilst we were coming over Waterloo Bridge on the way back from the event that we discovered that, even though he hadn’t spoken to many corporate audiences, he had the most amazing background: a TV career that had spanned 20 years, a private pilot and an avid collector of exotic tech. The fact, however, that I loved the most was that he had performed in a double act with Little Britain star David Walliams whilst they were both at Bristol University.

We met Jason with his agent Debbie on 16th February 2015 and this resulted in the creation of the “Thousand-year decade” which kicked off his corporate career with me. This was crafted with Jane and Alice in King Street, Twickenham, close to where he was still living. You might have imagined that he would have walked to the offices, but he regularly arrived in a DeLorean, his very own time machine. A thousand hours of fabrication, labour and research went into his time machine, taking the screen accuracy of the car to a level where he was repeatedly asked, “Is it the actual car from the film?”

We all got on well with Jason and occasionally, with relationships like this, good things happen which are completely out of your control. The stars were aligning when Jason Bradbury ended up introducing me to my childhood hero, Seb Coe. In June 2016, he took me for lunch at the BMW Group Future Experience in London. This was the world premiere of Mini Vision Next 100 and Rolls-Royce Vision Next 100. Both concepts explored futuristic ideas in terms of fully autonomous driving technology, alternative propulsion, ‘second-nature’ connectivity, next-level personalisation and a new interpretation of luxury. Jason was due to be a guest speaker that evening at the Roundhouse, London with Jake Humphrey.

Jason had to do a rehearsal in the afternoon and wanted to take me for lunch at Hawraman Café on the Chalk Farm Road. I was happy to attend and spend time with this amazing man. Like many of the Brilliant Minds, you work with them first, but then get to know them as people. One of Jason’s major concerns at the time was his daughter Marnie, who had Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis, and it was causing him concern. Treating the condition involved taking immuno-suppressant drugs which have potentially severe side effects if used long-term.

This was the topic on his mind that day and Claire, his wife, had quit her job as a project manager and retrained as a nutritionist; it was at this time that Jason was contemplating a profound change in the family’s lives. I didn’t know when I left him that afternoon how profound this would be, but it led to them selling the house, buying a campervan (The Hopster) and finally the five of them going off around the world. In fact, I didn’t really work with him much after the event but intend to now he is back.

https://youtu.be/tkXlMz2K6ks

Lord Seb Coe

However, Jason left me with the biggest opportunity that I may ever get in my working life: to work with a Brilliant Mind in Seb Coe. The IAAF was creating a new format for the World Athletics Awards event to be held on Friday 2nd December 2016 at the Sporting Club de Monaco. Athletes would be at the heart of these awards. Their presence, their achievements and their dedication to their sport throughout 2016 was being recognised in this revitalised celebration of global athletics.

A fresh approach to the awards was required, signalling the dawn of a new era and marking a change from the “gala” event organised in previous years. This awards ceremony was forward-looking, simple in design, but high in impact. The event was to be symbolic of the vision for the future for world athletics, supported by the new leadership and style of the IAAF.

The desired tone for the awards was to be elegant and straightforward. However, it needed to be delivered with world-class professional production values, which powerfully engaged the audience around the focus on the sport, the athletes, and their achievements.

Seb Coe was not looking for an overly lavish “Hollywood” style show, nor live acts, but rather an awards event that felt authentic and true to the spirit and endeavour of the athletes. The event was designed to be entertaining, with the sport at the centre and the athletes as the heroes.

The IAAF was looking for a fresh creative and innovative approach to the awards event.

Any successful applicant had to work collaboratively and to manage any costs associated with the event in a transparent manner in order to demonstrate effective procurement and best value. The IAAF was keen to build enduring strategic relationships with appropriate suppliers going forward.

We briefed four companies in all, but it became very clear early on that there was going to be one front runner.  We made our recommendations and were asked to manage the whole tender process and then eventually the whole event. The winners were a collection of highly talented individual companies who agreed to work collaboratively: Sian Baker at Pretty Green, Rob Davy at CT, one of the world’s leading suppliers of specialist Audio Visual equipment and Tim Mackenzie-Smith and Jim Williams (Deadpan Films.)

Here we were in the summer of 2016 at the Summer Olympics from 5th to 21st August 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and I met Seb for the very first time at Buckingham Gate in London on the 24 August 2016.

I hope that this does not sound too sycophantic: I have met some amazing people in my life, but Seb Coe has a presence like no other person, and therefore I wanted to include him in this Brilliant Minds book. Seb had had a torturous year. I could not understand why someone who had achieved so much in sport, business, politics and life would want to take on Presidency of the IAAF, given what had been going on historically.

That was until he summarised what he was trying to do with the awards which were due to take place the night before a Special Congress meeting. Congress is the highest authority of World Athletics and the sport of athletics worldwide. Council, the Executive Board, and other bodies within World Athletics are accountable to Congress and must report to it annually. The Congress of World Athletics then consisted of the 214 Member Federations represented by up to three delegates each. The Congress meet every two years at the time of the World Athletics Championships. However, this was Olympic Year, and this is why it was a Special Congress meeting held on 3rd December 2016. HTL were appointed to deliver the 2016 IAAF World Athletic Awards on Friday 2nd December 2016, which was held the Salle des Etoiles in Monaco. It was also the year before the 2017 (IAAF) World Championships at the Olympic Stadium in London which was set to become the best attended in the history of the event. What a time to be involved in the sport.

In his office that day, Seb told me what he wanted to achieve from the awards which was to be an event that would see 600 guests (210 delegates plus their partners, 100 IAAF members and approximately 30 athletes) attending. I found it staggering that an event commemorating the world’s greatest athletes, past and present, would have such a small number of athletes attending (a mere 5% of the total audience).

However, Seb passionately wanted to change this whilst in some way observing the protocol that went with this event which had been running since 1987. He wanted it to set the right tone and felt strongly that it should be about the purity of the sport that he had grown up knowing when he joined the athletics team Hallamshire Harriers at the age of 12, became a middle-distance specialist, a cross-country runner and eventually its school captain when he was a pupil at King Edward VII School, Sheffield.

It had to be simple like an end of season awards ceremony that you get at any club. It must not be lavish or distasteful. It had to be about the athlete and not the member federations. I understood the brief for the awards, but I had no idea of the importance of this event in terms the potential history of the sport. This came later when I read the final proposal for the reform of the governance structure of the IAAF which was being compiled and had yet to be published.

The event itself came with a certain degree of complexity however simple Seb wanted to make it, but he drove this change. He explained at this meeting that his Serene Highness Prince Albert II of Monaco would be part of the evening. He had a good relationship with him and was seeing him the following week at the Palace!

The reason for this was that Prince Albert was the International Athletics Foundation’s (IAF) honorary president. Since 1987, the IAF, together with the IAAF now World Athletics, has worked together to organise the galas, a commemoration celebrating the world’s greatest athletes of past and present to include the male and female Athletes of the Year, Rising Stars, President’s Award, Coaching Achievement and Women’s Award. All ceremonies were presided over by HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco and the IAAF President. Its mission was to charitably assist World Athletics and Seb was the president, so the awards was partly funded by the IAF.

Royal protocol needed to be adhered to when dealing with the Palace of Monaco, the official residence of the Sovereign Prince of Monaco. Seb’s meeting with Prince Albert that week was to explain ambitions for 2016 and by default to change the format of each individual award to keep the overall format fresh and break away from the traditional “nominees are / and the winner is” …. format. We learnt that there was also a protocol when dealing with the four Vice Presidents and Treasurer of the IAAF, who would need to play a part handing over the awards to the winners, on the evening and would need to be on stage at some point. Any closing video needed to be looking ahead to the IAAF and IPC 2017 World Championships, London’s biggest sports event since the 2012 Olympics, but also to put guests in the right forward-thinking mindset for the congress that was taking place the next day. No detail was overlooked: designs for new trophies would need to be produced and approved by the International Athletics Foundation (IAF) on the correct use of the logo, as hosts of the event. We discussed the rationale for having an accomplished presenter / broadcaster to professionally orchestrate the evening, as well as a former athlete who could read the citations for the awards and undertake interviews / questions with the athletes. Seb confirmed that he would contact Clare Balding and Michael Johnson in the first instance, two iconic names in the worlds of broadcasting and athletics.

We had undertaken a rigorous process, and all I kept thinking was that I did not want to let Seb down. The team was small compared to the one which had been assembled for London 2012, but it was nevertheless important to Seb in this next stage of his journey. He never put any pressure on us.

We agreed timings for awarding the decision and that Seb and Oliver would be prepared to meet the team. This was important as everyone up to this point had only dealt with me. They needed to meet him in the flesh for this to work, to see the type of person he was and to hear what he wanted to achieve. This was the closest feeling in business that I had got to playing sport, that adrenalin kick when you have a purpose and know that you might be able to pull off something memorable.

It was only when I read the Time for Change document, which was sent to the member federations some months later summarising the final proposal for governance structure for the reform of the IAAF, that I realised the significance of the awards night, as a curtain raiser before the Special Congress Meeting. Seb had a higher purpose. This is on the World Athletics website, and he explained in this document, and I quote, “there are not many moments in our lives when we have a genuine opportunity to shape the future. The opportunity to put in place the building blocks for something we may not complete ourselves but something that provides a solid and strong foundation upon which the next generation can confidently build. The governance structure proposal is at the heart of our collective ambition to be the best we can be. It is our moment to look ahead to the sport we want to be 20 or 50 years from now and create the framework that can support our ambition. A framework that will help the next generation to protect, promote and provide for athletes and athletics in a responsible, responsive, accessible, and transparent way.

It is a time to be visionary, to be brave and decisive. It is important that we introduce change and innovation in athletics in times of strength not of weakness. We are strong and there is no better time for change. We have sponsors and stakeholders watching very carefully how we address the issues facing our sport and facing all sport, as we strive for greater transparency and accountability.

Our partnerships and revenue streams are directly under threat if we do not act promptly and decisively. This could impact on all levels of the sport, not the least the development of Athletics at both elite and grassroots level. We must accept that the reputation of the IAAF and Athletics has been tarnished by events that came to light a year ago. We still have a lot of work to do to restore our reputation, credibility and trust within our own sport and the wider world of sport. In today’s environment, the IAAF is a substantial global business. We must have the necessary structures, systems, practices, and processes in place to protect and grow our precious assets for the future of the sport. To do this we must have best practice governance standards and ensure the IAAF is modern and progressive. We also must ensure with urgency that we have independence and meet gold standards in our integrity and anti-doping functions including our disciplinary processes. In the lead up to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games we had to make some very difficult decisions, including suspending one of our own Member Federations. These decisions are not easy and have fully tested the existing framework in which we operate. A leading-edge integrity framework which no other international sports federation has in place sits at the heart of our reform proposals. It will position us as federation leaders which is critical if we are to continue to lead in protecting clean athletes. Now is the time for change. The time to rebuild our organisation for the next generation. To be the change we want to see. I know there is a real appetite for change, you are all telling me this. Change that will create trust. Change that will return confidence to clean athletes. Change that will attract more resources. Change that is lasting and change that leads. The proposals are wide ranging and many of you and your colleagues have helped to shape them into the final proposal included here through face-to-face meetings, workshops, and other communication. They are proposals which your Council and the Executive Board have discussed and debated and unanimously agreed at the 10 August Council Meeting. I look forward to spending time with you all during the Area Roadshow meetings to discuss this final proposal with you in more detail. I hope you will then join me and my Council colleagues in Monaco in December where I hope we will usher in a new era for the IAAF.”

Seb met the team in his offices in Victoria on Wednesday, 21st Sept in London. We assembled Deadpan, Pretty Green and HTL together just before 12pm. There was a sense of anticipation that never left us when we were meeting Seb. This meeting was held in a board room in London and a conference call with the team in Monaco with Olivier Gers, holding court over there.

The final piece of housekeeping that we had to do before fully cracking on with this venture was to fly down to Monaco to meet the IAAF at 10.30 on 27th September at their offices situated in the Quai Antoine in Monaco. This was to meet Jean Gracia who had stepped in as General Secretary on a temporary basis at the beginning of the year and had led the transition until Olivier had arrived.

We flew to Nice and were taken to the offices. I had been to Monaco many times, running incentive trips for Rodber Thorneycroft Ltd and when we played Nice in the European Cup for Northampton Saints. I taught Gregor Townsend, the current head coach of the Scotland rugby team, who won 82 caps for Scotland, to dive off the rocks in the harbour, just along from La Rascasse, which is where the offices were.

I entered the offices of the IAAF and essentially explained to the IAAF what we had been doing together over the last few months. This was the first time I met Jackie Brock-Doyle OBE, whom Seb described as the finest director of communications of her generation. Jackie directed the communication strategy and implementation for the world-acclaimed London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games for 7 years after leading the successful bid’s international and domestic PR and Media campaign from 2003 to 2006. She had been awarded an OBE by the Queen in the 2013 New Year’s Honours List for services to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The meeting was like any other and I was only there to inform the team what we were doing and what an honour it was to work with them all. I was there with one single purpose: to provide President Sebastien Coe with the awards ceremony that he was envisaging. Jackie Brock-Doyle OBE, as I learned later, was a key person in allowing us to achieve these objectives and for that we will always be deeply indebted to her.

We are equally indebted to Jane Ward who worked closely with Jackie. Jane is an amazing person to have when something needs doing well. Jane, Alice, and I worked closely to galvanise the team that had been assembled to put on this event. The IAAF World Athletics Awards were on Friday 2nd December 2016. We flew in on 1st December but many of the team were already setting up in the Salon des Etoiles, Sporting Monte-Carlo which is in Avenue Princesse Grace. This included the team from the UK from CT and its leader Rob Davy, who was our trump card. Based in France, he was fluent in French and responsible for bringing from the UK the most sophisticated creative LED screen, a custom modular solution, that they configured together to create the most impressive single screen that I have ever seen.

It is one thing organising an event on paper, but it comes to life when you arrive in Monaco. From Nice Airport, there is an air of expectation: 600 guests arriving from different parts of the world and being transported to different hotels around Monaco (210 delegates plus their partners, 100 IAAF and approximately 30 athletes attending).

Alice and I travelled in a taxi with Robert Wilson, the Marketing Director at Seiko UK who had a corporate partnership with the IAAF, which began in 1987 when Seiko became the Official Timer of the 2nd IAAF World Championships in Athletics in Rome. They subsequently introduced a video timing system that redefined levels of precision in sports timing and later false-start technology. Our other companion and first introduction to one of the Federations was former athlete Donna Raynor, who represented the Bermuda National Athletics Association as its president and now is member of the World Athletics Development Commission. I had been to Bermuda many times and this small island’s vote was equal to that of that of the USA. This gave me my first taste of the diversity of the 214 Member Federations.

We arrived at the Hotel Fairmont which is where the Council Members, Chairs and Athletes, were staying and upon entering the reception, we got a sense of what was about to come. One of the highlights for me was seeing all the athletes arriving from all parts of the world. One of the things you don’t expect is to be having lunch with them the following day and, more importantly, to be seated on a table getting to know Clare Balding and Ato Bolden, our hosts for the night, who had not met each other before this time. It was quite by chance, but the Athletes had their own programme and lunch was in the hotel in a separate area to which Ato and Claire were invited too. This was the perfect place to brief them and run through any last concerns or queries they had. For some reason, they had parked themselves at the front of the room, where all the athletes were queuing for their lunch, despite the magnificent views over the ocean over the harbour in Monte Carlo and the fact that this lunch contained most Athletes who had won gold in Rio that summer at the Olympics. We had been well briefed as to who was coming to the awards by Chris Turner who has been with the IAAF since 2002 and was the Deputy Director of the Communications Department-PR.

It was one thing meeting our hosts for the awards: Clare Balding, who won a BAFTA Special Award for her expert coverage of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and is one of Britain’s leading broadcasters, and of course four-time Olympic medal winner Ato Balden, who were set to be on stage together later that evening despite having only just met. However, Jane, Alice and I were not quite prepared for the visual overload that comes when you meet the best athletes in the world. Alice likened it to seeing the greatest, most beautiful people with athletic prowess, at the top of their game. The only comparison I can imagine is when the British and Irish Lions assemble in a room for the first time, but this is the best players from the home nations only, not the best in the world. I did observe that, as athletics is not a team sport, they were a quiet group of individuals. There were of course lots of acknowledgements, but it was not the same intensity as I can remember when a rugby group got together: there was no banter. This was odd for me given that they were coming together for one of the biggest nights of their careers and had been flown from their respective countries to be in Monte Carlo. I thought there might be a sense of anticipation, but I was wrong. In fact, there was a great deal more energy coming from our table as Ato and Clare got to know each other.

It was one of the most memorable lunches that I have ever had from a people perspective. Imagine the cultural diversity of the group and these were the most heralded individuals representing their country in their chosen sport, so there was a real feeling that you were in the presence of greatness. There are some people who hold themselves in such a way that they literally alter the mind-body chemistry of individuals. They seem comfortable in their own skin and aware of their surroundings. They are often the most genuine and humble people. I am sure they didn’t wake up one day blessed with this presence. They acquired it over the years it took them to become the champions of their chosen fields and I have to say it was infectious. There were no selfies, no open displays of arrogance, just a group of people that were present and happy to have attained this status. I may never get another opportunity in my life to sample this rarefied air.

Let me tell you some of the people who were there that day:

David Rudisha, the Kenyan middle-distance runner who won the 2012 and 2016 Olympic champion (he was also two-time World Champion, and world record holder at 800 metres);

Almaz Ayana Eba from Ethiopia who broke the 10,000 metres world record, set in 1993, while winning the gold medal in Rio;

Tianna Bartoletta, a two-time Olympian with three gold medals in 2012, leading off the world record-setting 4 × 100 metres relay team and then winning two more golds in Rio (first with a personal best to win the long jump then again leading off the victorious 4 × 100 metres relay team);

Thiago Braz da Silva, the pole vaulter who won gold in a thrilling duel with French pole-vaulter Renaud Lavillenie, the incumbent world record holder and gold medallist in London/2012;

Genzebe Dibaba who won the gold medal in the 1500 metres at the Beijing World Championships and a silver medal in the 1500 metres at the 2016 Olympics.

Keni Harrison, the hurdler, who set the world record in the women’s 100 metres hurdles with a time of 12.20 seconds on July 22, 2016, breaking the world record of 12.21 seconds that had been set 28 years earlier;

Candace Hill, the world’s first high school woman to break the 11-second barrier clocking 10.98 in the 100 metres sprint at the 2015 Brooks PR Invitational on 21 June 2015;

Sara Kolak, the javelin thrower, who won gold in Rio;

Liu and is the world record holder over the Olympic 20 km distance with a time of 1:24:38 hours, set in 2015 and won the gold in Rio over this distance;

Omar McLeod, the Jamaican hurdler with a personal best in the 110 metres hurdles (12.90 seconds) putting him 5th on the world all-time list;

Shaunae Miller-Uibo from the Bahamas who competes in the 200 and 400 metres and was the 400 metres Olympic champion in 2016;

Thomas Röhler from Germany, the 2016 Olympic Champion for javelin with a personal best of 93.90 metres;

Christian Taylor, the triple jumper who is ranked 2nd on the all-time list. He is the reigning Olympic champion and current World Champion. In 2016 he won gold with a jump of 17.86m. He also competes in the long jump –and in the sprints to a high level. In 2019, he announced the formation of “The Athletics Association,” an organization of professional track and field athletes around the world, independent of IAAF, to advocate for athlete rights;

Nafi Thiam, the Belgian heptathlete who the gold medal in Rio and went on to win the 2017 World Championships and the 2018 European Championships;

Elaine Thompson-Herah from Jamaica who in 2016 rose to prominence by completing a rare sprint double to win gold in the 100 metres (with a time of 10.71 s) and the 200 metres (21.78 s).

Allyson Felix who in Rio won gold in the 4x100 metre and 4x400 metre relays in Rio and silver in the 400 metres, becoming the most decorated female athlete of all time, and

Wayde van Niekerk from South African who won gold in 2016 in the 400 metres with a world record time of 43.03 seconds, beating the time of 43.18 seconds set by Michael Johnson during the 1999 World Championships in Athletics in Seville, Spain. In 2016, Van Niekerk became the first sprinter in history to have run the 100 metres in under 10 seconds, 200 metres in under 20 seconds, and 400 metres in under 44 seconds.

However, I have left the best until last and this again will remain with me: seeing Usain Bolt, the king of Olympic track and field, entering the room for lunch was extraordinary. In Rio, he completed another sprint sweep to go with the two he completed at Beijing 2008 and London 2012. Bolt was 30 on the day of the Closing Ceremony in Rio and was still unbeaten in his three events.

It was fascinating talking to Ato about the athletes who were in the room. I knew a few of them from watching the Olympics that summer, but Ato was genuinely excited to see them all assembled, and his excitement was infectious. The day before, he had interviewed Kendra Harrison, Omar McLeod, Wayde van Niekerk, Elaine Thompson, Tianna Bartoletta, Thiago Braz da Silva and Haile Gebrselassie for Inside Athletics which was an IAAF production. However, many of them, including Usain Bolt, came up to him and acknowledged his presence in the room: you could see the genuine respect that they had for him.

He was kind enough to explain that there was a hierarchy in athletics like in other sports. In rugby, if you have won a World Cup, people know that this is the ultimate achievement. However, there are a rare breed of players called the rugby centurions and, at the time of writing, this group numbers 77 players from 13 nations and 23 World Cup winners. This rare breed of men and women are only three in every 1000 international players, making it a tough membership. In the Olympics, Oto explained that, if you are described as an Olympian, then you didn’t medal at the games, if you are described as a medallist then you most certainly didn’t win a gold and if you are a gold medallist, then no one needs to say anything because it is already known, and the gold medallist would never need to mention it. Ato said that he is always described as a four-time Olympic medal winner in the press, and this was sufficient indication to tell you he didn’t win a gold, but I didn’t care. He was so humble and a genuine joy to spend an extended lunch with that I had almost forgotten the people who were around me.

So much so that Clare and Ato decided that neither of them wanted to get cars to the Monte Carlo Sporting Club for rehearsals at 4.00pm that evening and I met them at 3.30pm for a delightful walk from the Sheraton past the Grimaldi Centre to the Sporting Club, where I was to escort them to the venue. Clare did have a suitcase, so I was chivalrous and carried it for her. There are times in your life when you must kick yourself and this was one of them as we walked along the Avenue Princess Grace that afternoon to deliver the hosts to Jane and Alice who were waiting for them to rehearse alongside Sian Baker and the rest of the team from CT who were ready to go.

So, the stage was set. This event could not have been more different to previous awards dinners. The IAAF changed the format that night at the Sporting Club de Monaco. Seb wanted the athletes to be at the heart of the awards. Their presence, their achievements, their dedication to their sport throughout 2016 would all be recognised in this revitalised celebration of global athletics. The awards would signal the dawn of a new era and mark a change from the “Gala” event organised in previous years. The awards were simple in design but high in impact. They were delivered with world class professional production values which powerfully engaged the audience with the focus on the sport, the athletes and their achievements.

The guests enjoyed having a photograph in front of the step and repeat boards before entering the room where visual images of the roll of honour of the year’s best athletes were projected onto the screens, keeping the room interested before everyone was seated in anticipation of HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco entering the room before anyone could sit down. I sat back and watched as this event that I had been briefed on in the summer came to life.

I described earlier our lunch with the Olympic Gold medallists who were there representing the present, but I was not expecting the waves of former athletes that were representing the various federations who entered the room. It was a sensory overload. I sat next to Piotr Dlugosielski, who was part of the Polish 4 x 400 metres relay during its best years, winning several medals and is currently the secretary of the Polish Athletics Federation. He was a slight man who was dwarfed by Tomasz Majewski, all 140kg of him a colossus at 6’ 8½” and of course double Olympic gold medallist. Valarie Adams, 2008 and 2012 Olympic champion, 2016 Olympic silver medallist New Zealand shot putter. However, the person that instantly recognised who had that presence was Sergey Bubka, the vice President, 1988 Olympic pole vault champion. Listed in the Guinness Book of Records for the largest number of world achievements in athletics. Sergey was sponsored by Nike who started paying him to essentially compete against himself, offering world record bonuses as high as $100,000. He broke the World record 35 times in the pole vault, at one point setting 14 records over the course of just a couple years. Only once did he lose the world record title—and even then, it was a brief concession. At an August 1984 track meet in Rome, previous record-holder Vigneron passed Bubka’s standing record of 5.90m—only to have Bubka regain the record with a 5.94m vault just a few minutes later. It was eventually broken by Frenchmen Renaud Lavillenie, a new record of 6.16m, while Bubka watched from the stands. We would later get to meet Renaud.

There were several awards presented that night: the President’s Award, the IAAF Male Rising Star Award, the IAAF Female Rising Star Award, the IAAF Coaching Achievement Award, the IAAF Women in Athletics Award, Female World Athlete of the Year and Male World Athlete of the Year. The two that remain memorable for me are the first and last both presented by Seb. The President’s Award was awarded to someone who has shown her passion and commitment over many years, uniting people across nations. The recipient of this inaugural President’s served as the inspirational Chef de Mission at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games of the first ever Refugee Olympic Team. This was a result of successfully petitioning the International Olympic Committee in 2015 to give refugees a chance to advance in their athletics careers by taking part in the Olympic Games. The Refugee Team comprised ten refugees from Syria, Congo, Ethiopia, and South Sudan, providing a symbol of hope to the more than 65 million people globally who are currently displaced by conflict. This went to Tegla Loroupe who we were lucky enough to chat to the previous day at dinner. She held world records for 25 and 30 kilometres and had previously held the world marathon record. She was the first African woman to hold the marathon World Record, which she held from 19 April 1998 until 30 September 2001. She is the three-time World Half-Marathon champion. Loroupe was also the first woman from Africa to win the New York City Marathon which she has won twice. She has won marathons in London, Rotterdam, Hong Kong, Berlin and Rome.

She told us an interesting story which involved the Pope and Richard Branson. Richard asked her to coach him in the London Marathon and be part of his team in 2010. Any money raised would be split evenly between Virgin Unite and her own charity, the Tegla Loroupe Peace Foundation that uses the power of sport to bring peace to conflict-ridden areas of East Africa, to support children who are victims of conflict and to enable economic development. However, she got a higher calling when the Pope asked her to see her after the finish of a race in Rome and Richard had to charter a plane for her to come back to run the Marathon with his team.

The final award that he presented was the Male World Athlete of the Year to the most decorated sprinter in the history of the Olympic Games and the IAAF Awards. The video that was produced for this by Jim Williams was so emotive and it was a moment on stage that I was lucky enough to witness which may have been a catalyst for allowing Seb to achieve what he was aiming to do the following day. As he came up on stage, he made an acceptance speech, but it was a few words which he uttered at the end of this was, “Mr Coe I think you are doing a great job with our sport” which resonated with me and the rest of the audience. There could be no better endorsement than from the biggest name of his sport who was rumoured to be retiring after the IAAF World Championships in London in 2017.  Clare asked him, “Is that right? And can we look forward to another treble?” History tells that in 2020, we were not lucky enough to see another treble. 2016 was his year and what a wonderful privilege to be in the same room with him and the athletic family we had been parachuted into.

I have to say it was brilliantly executed, in large part due to the calmness of Sian Baker and the obvious experience of Rob Day at CT. The screen layout and the use of the super-wide screen was effective, allowing wonderful storytelling videos produced by Jim Williams to deliver the subliminal messages that Seb wanted to get across. Jane and Alice enjoyed working with Sian Baker and CT Productions. Both the set and the graphics were brilliant and there was great technical execution on the night, too. Clare Balding is a class act and Ato Bolden, as a former athlete and latterly NBC Sports television broadcast analyst for track and field, complemented her but realised that he was in the presence of greatness. She is just as you expect her to be when you meet her: warm, articulate, intelligent and inspiring. When she steps onto the stage, she demonstrates why she has had the accolades that have been heaped upon her: OBE, BAFTA Special Award, Royal Television Society’s Presenter of the Year Award, Racing Journalist of the Year, to name but a few. It was billed to last 1.17 minutes. The only reason I know this is because Clare won a 20 Euro bet for keeping the awards below 1hr and 17minutes from Olivier, who got me to take it back to the UK, and one that she has never collected!!!

The awards are like a Christmas lunch: it takes a long time to prepare and then in a very short period it is over, but you do get that sense of warm satisfaction that what you have just sampled is pretty good and a sense of deep-rooted relief that it all went well. There are only two people that we wanted to make this work for namely Seb and Carole, who had given us this opportunity, to perform for them. As we entered the Salle des Palmiers for a welcome drink, Seb, as you would imagine, like any good leader made it his business to thank the team before being consumed by the various members of the federation. During the brief time we saw him that night, Donna Raynor grabbed him to compliment him and said that this new format spoke to her as a former athlete and that she felt for the first time this was event that was for her and that they were part of this event even though the Bermuda National Athletics Association is only small.

We joined some of the delegates in the bar at the Sheraton along with Adille Sumariwalla, a former Indian Parsi 100 metre athlete who represented India at the 1980 Moscow Olympics and who is now the president of the Athletics Federation of India. As we enjoyed a few drinks, Seb was still canvassing support for the very special meeting the following day. His work was incessant and there were still members of the African federation to win over despite Usain’s endorsement.

As we flew back to London the following day, we got word from Olivier Gers via email which said, “Let me add my thanks and expression of admiration to all of you and your teams for the hard work and talent that was exhibited on and around the stage last Friday night. This simply was a great evening thanks to all of you. The feedback and buzz afterwards were brilliant, and I am confident the awards night and the new tone it set played a big part in yesterday’s extraordinary results on our reform.”

Seb saw members of the Special Congress vote in his far-reaching reforms by 182 votes to 10 after urging delegates at the start of the meeting to protect the future of their sport. The IAAF Special Congress delivered a 95% vote in favour of a resolution for constitutional reform which was to be delivered in two stages on 1 January 2017 and on 1 January 2019, issuing in a new era of transparent and accountable sports administration. In his opening address, Seb urged the 197 national member federations who were represented in the Congress room to back the governance structure reforms which were the basis for the constitutional reform.

“We must protect our sport,” said Coe. “We must put in place the structures that will keep our sport and athletes safe on and off the field of play, in and out of the stadium. It is bad enough that any of this happened once BUT it cannot happen a second time. Not on our watch and not on anyone else’s watch. We have to step up and ensure the walls are never too high again and that checks and balances are in place and working.”

What an absolute honour to have worked for this Brilliant Mind.

The last person in my life I would have expected to have introduced me to Professor Stephen Hawking was Ben Cohen.

The first time I met Ben was prior to a Sevens event at Henley when we were preparing on the Thursday evening on the main pitch at Franklin’s Gardens in May 1997. We had put together a good squad of players for the Sevens, which included Tim Rodber, Nick Beal and Matt Dawson. Ben had been invited to come to the tournament and was keen to impress. So much so that whenever I got the ball, he dumped me on my arse with some huge tackles. This wouldn’t have been so bad, but we were playing touch rugby. It was obvious from a very early stage that Ben would go on to greatness. He had everything he needed to play premiership rugby. He was over six feet tall and had superb skills and out-and-out raw pace.

He made his first appearance for the Northampton Saints, my club, on 10^th September against Treorchy in the Anglo–Welsh league. I was on one wing, and he was on the other. He was seventeen years old. He was instantly spotted as a player that would become a future international and the first seventeen-year-old to be paid for playing rugby in the country. He made his Courage League debut against Orrell sometime later in March 1997 and I remember it well. We both scored tries that day and I was left wing, which was important in the context of the conversation that I was about to have with Ben on the way back on the team bus. Ben and I had a few beers together on the back of the bus and, as the alcohol set in, he started to chat about what his ambitions were for the future. It had been ten years since I had made my debut against London Irish and here I was sitting in front of a player who very clearly wanted my place on the left wing for Northampton and was ten years my junior. I distinctly remember him saying that he would give me six months before he took my place. He was naturally arrogant, which I believe is a trait that you need to succeed at the top level. It was like speaking to a young Matt Dawson.

I wasn’t quite ready to give up my place, so I listened intently as he then told me what his dear old dad, Pete Cohen, had told him. “My dad says that when Harvey Thorneycroft wakes up and looks in mirror in the morning, he will wish that Ben Cohen was never born.” This was quite an odd thing to say to a senior squad member and, if I had been Tim Rodber, I would have probably knocked his block off. However, I admired his ambition although at this stage of his career it only extended to getting my place, which is funny given what he achieved with England and the British and Irish Lions. We became great friends over the years, and I went to his wedding. I bought him and Abbie an appropriate wedding present, which was a mirror with the words emblazoned on the back, “When Ben Cohen wakes up in the morning and looks in the mirror, he will wish that Harvey Thorneycroft was never born.”

Ben Cohen later became a genuine hero of mine on the rugby field. It was superb to see him follow in the footsteps of his Uncle George, who had won the 1966 World Cup Final. I was proud of Ben when he lifted the trophy in 2003 with England and his fellow teammates Paul Grayson, Matt Dawson and Steve Thompson. I knew from the moment I met him that he was going to be good. He turned out to be one of the deadliest finishers in the game, second in all time try scoring record for England, topped only by Rory Underwood.

Almost ten years later, I got a call from him asking whether I might be able to help him with some events for his Stand-up Foundation. I agreed to meet him for coffee with no expectations of the people that I would meet through Ben during this period. In 2000, Ben’s dad Peter Cohen, who I knew well, died from a blood clot a month after he was beaten when he went to another man’s aid in the nightclub he owned in Northampton. I can remember walking behind the funeral cortege, with all the players from the Saints to the Cathedral on the Barrack Road in Northampton.

His father’s death had a profound impact on him and the whole of his family; Ben’s rugby was their North Star. He had always wanted to do something to combat the damaging effects that bullying can have on individuals and this became exacerbated when he learnt quite by chance of the sort of pain that homophobia was having on the LGBTQ community.

He had been completely unaware of his gay following until one day he got a message out of the blue from a French lad, Laurence, from Paris. He had set up a fan page in honour of him on Facebook. Ben checked it out and there were 37,000 members all men. Apparently, he had become a gay icon, a surprise to him as he didn’t even know what that meant!

The combination of his own personal story and the stories he heard from LGBTQ community he got to know encourage him to launch the Ben Cohen Foundation in 2011. Two years later and I was sitting having a cuppa in London with Ben and said that I would be glad to help him because I had been bullied and I knew how it felt. I won’t mention the person’s name but is sketched into my brain and it doesn’t matter what you go on an achieve, you remember those moments.

This wasn’t an inconsequential endeavour. I have seen first-hand how passionate he was about this and the man that I remember at my wedding in 2004, who was certainly at that time regarded as one of the best wingers in the world, but couldn’t be credited for his oratory abilities, had suddenly become immensely articulate about a subject that I had limited knowledge on.

I remember speaking to a very good gay friend of mine about Ben at the time, asking what Ben Cohen meant to him and his response was startling. He represents body beautiful on one hand and on the other we admire him because he is the first heterosexual male to stand up for homophobia. Ben has appeared on the cover of Compete and Out Magazines (both LGBT), and more than once on the Gay Times cover. In 2013, Ben was named as one of the initial inductees to the National Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame newly established in Chicago, Illinois. He has for several years produced a calendar to raise funds and awareness for his Foundation.

The events we were discussing that day were being funded by The Barclays Spectrum network. These Spectrum Allies are individuals who are committed to ensuring that Barclays offers LGBT employees a respectful environment. This was a subject that Ben talked about with such ease being a straight ally. He was not afraid to speak up about bad behaviour with friends he had met like Julien Macdonald and Allan Carr. Barclays had chosen Ben’s foundation to be the recipient of funds raised and his foundation would review requests and make grants to support work that help them achieve their charitable objectives. All we had to do was ensure that these events were money can’t buy experiences and we met some wonderful people through Spectrum.

In the back of Ben’s mind, he also wanted to put on his own events and a perfect opportunity arose which coincided with him appearing in Strictly Come Dancing in 2013, something that would go on to change his life forever. I remember writing an email to him on 25^th November 2013, “Many congratulations on the outstanding work you did to raise the profile of the foundation during your time on Strictly. I have to say I was very proud of you and there are very few people, including myself, that would ever put themselves under so much pressure and I thought you acquitted yourself so well. “

Strictly was a hugely high-profile show and the Foundation wanted to put on a fundraising event in March 2014, make the most of Ben’s current notoriety and build on the previous Gala Dinner event held by Barclays Spectrum, in aid of the Ben Cohen Stand-up Foundation at the Corinthia Hotel on 24^th October 2013.

We had to avoid the Stonewall Event on 20^th March, so ended up choosing The Hurlingham for the 1^st May. This was one of best events that we have ever been involved with as it was access all areas at the time because of Strictly. The first fun meeting was with Ben Cohen and a former Northamptonian that had agreed to host the evening and he wanted me to meet him at Soho House in Greek Street, London to have dinner. This was the original restaurant and private members’ club originally aimed at those in the arts and media. It was just over a month before the event and I have to say I was surprised when I walked in for lunch to see Alan Carr the Chatty Man sitting with Ben and what a joy he was. His father, whose family comes from the Northeast of England, was former Northampton Town manager and Newcastle United chief scout Graham Carr, who had coached me when I was in Cobblers Youth and was regarded as a hard man and played 27 times in Northampton’s only season in the First Division.

This was the first time that I had an opportunity to ask someone like Alan why he was supporting the foundation, and he was very open to me about the maltreatment that he had endured from a very early age. Although he used his comedic ways to make friends, he never really felt as though he fitted in. The realisation that he was gay came after watching a video of himself in drama class and he saw himself for who he truly was for the first time. He didn’t have an ‘outing’ to his parents as he assumed they already knew. He denied his sexuality throughout university as he wanted to recreate himself. However, he did mention flippantly that his neighbour would appear over the fence when he was in his garden and say, “Alan you are a faggot,” which you could see hurt him despite his joviality. This was the first time that I realised that Ben was more than a gay icon for people like Alan; he was a straight ally, a heterosexual person who believes in gender equality and challenges homophobia. He was probably the most high-profile person at the time who was willing to do this. A World Cup winning rugby player, whose uncle had also won the World Cup in 1966. He certainly opened my eyes to the struggle that LGBTQ people face including horrible discrimination and social disadvantage. It was obvious to me the affection that Alan had for Ben, and therefore he was willing to offer his services to host the event at the Lensbury. He was high profile then and has continued to be so, his unique style of humour and effortless stage presence combining to make him one of Britain’s most successful and treasured comedians. It is not an act either. The Alan that I met that night was the same as the person you see on TV and what is even more remarkable is that it felt like I had gone home. Ben, Alan and I all had very similar childhoods. The Grosvenor Centre in Northampton was our local shopping hangout and Bridge Street, the local we used to go to before Auntie Ruth’s. We all knew McGinty’s down to Forties on Bridge Street. “A fight and a pint and a bag of chips that’s it.” My stepsisters had gone to school with him at Weston Favell Academy when he performed as Bottom at the Northampton Royal Theatre.

I never thought he would make that transition from the Royal Theatre to the Royal Variety Performance in front of the royals. He has done at the time of writing 16 series of Channel 4’s Chatty Man, won a multitude of awards including the publicly voted 2015 NTA and a prestigious BAFTA in 2013. He is indeed a Brilliant Mind but not in the same way as the person that would come as Ben’s guest to the event he would then host.

Ben was able to have over 300 people there that night supporting The Stand-Up Foundation. He addressed the throng outlining that bullying is one of those issues that affect people from so many different walks of life in so many different places: at school, online, at home and in the workplace. He had invited someone to talk that night about their experience and how they have been helped by a wonderful organisation called ‘Beat Bullying’ which The Stand-up Foundation supported. An 18-year-old called Natalie Farzaneh addressed the room and her speech tugged at the heart strings of all those present. As is customary at all these fundraising events, we had a raffle, a main and silent auction and Alan had donated the two tickets to the Alan Carr show with Green Room access. He also ran the “Heads and Tails” a game for all Ben’s friends in the room from Strictly Come Dancing fame. Alan thought it might be fun to have a quick round of “Celebrity Strictly Come Dancing Heads and Tales”, so he asked everyone to stand up as Strictly music was being played. “Heads and Tails” was simple and a very quick way of raising money. Alan asked the questions, where the answer will be either A or B. If you think guests thought the answer is A they put their hands on their head if they thought the answers was B, hands on the bum. Julien MacDonald was present, so Alan said to him, “That’s your bum Julien”. This was the guests’ direct opportunity to contribute to The StandUp Foundation by popping a crisp, clean £20 note into the envelope and pass it on to your neighbour. The quickest way to raise £6,000 you will ever see other than an auction.

The line-up that night was insane for guests taking a table; there was no way that this could ever have been possible if it was a corporate event. There was of course a massive Strictly presence including many of the guests that Ben had performed with that year. Designer Julien Macdonald, Dragons’ Den star Deborah Meaden and model Abbey Clancy, BBC presenters Susanna Reid and Vanessa Feltz, Countdown’s Rachel Riley and golfer Tony Jacklin. Others included singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Hollyoaks actor Ashley Taylor Dawson, actress Fiona Fullerton and Hairy Biker Dave Myers, former Casualty actor Patrick Robinson, Waterloo Road star Mark Benton and former Coronation Street actress Natalie Gumede and, of course, Ben himself.

As Strictly was the hottest show on the BBC, this event attracted other guests like Boy George, Ryland Clark Neal, Gok Wan, Christino Basciu, Si King and Gregg Wallace. Ben was able to pull off the most audacious entertainment; we could not have packed more entertainment in one evening if we had tried and it was so non-corporate.

There was a string quartet on arrival, followed by Kristina Rihanoff and Robin Windsor the professional dancers on Strictly Come Dancing. Russian Ballroom dancer Kristina Rihanoff was a cast member on US Dancing with The Stars before being on Strictly and she had been Ben’s partner that year on Strictly. Robin Windsor was part of the cast of Burn the Floor for over 7 years before joining Strictly. Philip Serrell, a regular expert on the BBC series ‘Bargain Hunt’ and ‘Flog It’ was the auctioneer. The Chatty Man interviewed Suzanna Reid and Julien Macdonald on stage. Sophie Ellis Bextor and Richard Jones (The Feeling) played after the auction and to finish the evening we had many of the members of the vocal set that perform live at Strictly each show including Louise Marshall, the multi-talented artist who has worked with greats like Beverley Knight, Robbie Williams, Van Morrison and with BBC’s Jools Holland.

In fact, many of the Jools Holland Rhythm and Blues band members and Strictly Come Dancing Band were present including Chris Storr, Fayyaz Virji, Trevor Barry, Jeff Leach, Adam Goldsmith, Neil Bullock, Louise Warren and Andrea Grant. The icing on the cake was Dion Dublin who was part of the band that night. We know him for his professional football but what is not as well known is that he is also an amateur percussionist and invented a percussion instrument called “The Dube”. He accompanied the band that night.

However, I have left the best to last: Professor Steven Hawking was also present at this event. I have described some “Brilliant Minds” in their own chosen fields. He arrived with a few of his support team in his motorised wheelchair with his head contorted slightly to one side and hands crossed over to work the controls. I had the pleasure of using the significant bulk that I had attained during my rugby career to ensure that he got to his table and was in the correct position. It was odd to see a man who would have huge audiences attend his public lectures, just be part of this evening, taking no formal role. Roger Penrose, in the Guardian obituary of Stephen Hawking, describes that to invite Hawking to a conference always involved the organisers in serious calculations. The travel and accommodation expenses would be enormous, not least because of the sheer number of people who would need to accompany him. But a popular lecture by him would always be a sell-out, and special arrangements would be needed to find a lecture hall that was big enough. An additional factor would be the ensuring that all entrances, stairways, lifts, and so on would be adequate for disabled people in general, and for his wheelchair.

An extraordinary person who shortly after his 21^st birthday was diagnosed with an unspecified incurable disease, which was then identified as the fatal degenerative motor neurone disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. Soon after his diagnosis, rather than succumbing to depression, as others might have done, he began to set his sights on some of the most fundamental questions concerning the physical nature of the universe. In due course, he would achieve extraordinary successes against the severest physical disabilities. He received many high accolades and honours. In particular, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society at the remarkably early age of 32 and received its highest honour, the Copley medal, in 2006. In 1979, he became the 17^th holder of the Lucasian chair of natural philosophy in Cambridge, some 310 years after Sir Isaac Newton became its second holder. He became a Companion of Honour in 1989. He made a guest appearance on the television programme Star Trek: The Next Generation, appeared in cartoon form on The Simpsons and was portrayed in the movie The Theory of Everything (2014). Defying established medical opinion, he managed to live another 55 years. This was a huge honour to meet him, especially when you think he died shortly after on 14^th March 2018.

We left that night to return to Thames Ditton, feeling very honoured to have been part of a night that fundamentally had been conceived in a coffee shop by Ben and me some months previously. Often the stars align, and they did that night. The young man that I had met all those years ago made me very proud that evening. However, his life would fundamentally change because of his dalliances on Strictly; I am pleased to say that the change has made him very happy, and this is good to see. We continued working for the foundation until 2018 and did some wonderful work with them, but nothing will be as good as that first foundation event.

Many of the Brilliant Minds that we have been working with over the years, like Professor Steven Hawking, have found themselves at some point at Oxford or Cambridge, during their various periods of reinvention.

They used these hallowed halls as a steppingstone to the next part of their journey. There is one individual that I would like to refer to at this point; Matthew Syed chose to go to university, but academia certainly wasn’t his primary driver; he had other things going on well before he arrived at Balliol College.

Matthew Syed was a professional table tennis player in Sweden for Angby, one of the strongest teams in Europe at that time. His father suggested that he should apply to university. He had been studying Maths and Economics in his spare time. But he thought university was a bad idea because he was determined to make the grade in table tennis. He wanted to play for England, but the administration was against his style of play which was defensive. He became extremely demoralised, so applied for Oxford despite his academic credentials not being that impressive at the time. He did an interview at Baliol College and made it into Oxford on condition that he passed his A-levels, but in the back of his mind, he still wanted to carry on with table tennis. Donald Parker, the national coach, felt a full-time university degree was not compatible with playing top-class sport, and that therefore it was not likely that he would be selected to play for England if he studied at university.

In February 1991, he went to play in the Czechoslovak Open. The tournament was packed with good players, and he was certainly an outsider. In fact, only two English players had won international tournaments since the 1950s. Matthew went on to win the tournament which sent shockwaves throughout European table tennis. The selectors had to pick him for the world championships, and he started at university and found that he was getting picked regularly for England. He was able to combine the two after all. He got to be English No 1 and got a double first in Politics, Philosophy and Economics.

He was interviewed on Transworld Sport whilst he was at Oxford and said that when he retired from table tennis, he didn’t really know what he wanted to do. He said flippantly, “Maybe I will come back to college and do a PhD, be boring, do something like that or maybe I will go into journalism, politics or economics.” He predicted his future very well in 1995.

He is also a multi-award-winning journalist for The Times and a regular contributor to television and radio. He stood as the Labour candidate in the 2001 UK General Election in Wokingham, coming third in a safe Conservative seat to John Redwood. He won a place on the Labour Party’s shortlist to succeed Ashok Kumar for the Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland constituency in the 2010 UK General Election. He is an author and has written six bestselling books about mindset and high-performance including Rebel Ideas, Bounce, Black Box Thinking, The Greatest and his celebrated children’s books.

So let me tell you my story about Matthew Syed and an event in Ireland, organised for my old client Guy Harris. It is relevant to mention the client because two remarkable things happened because of this event, held in the Westin in Dublin on 15^th November 2012.

Monte Carlo was the first incentive trip that Rodber Thorneycroft ran in 1998 for our client Guy Harris, who was the MD of BancTec, and some 14 years later, when he was now the MD of a business called Elavon, we were still working with him. He was a Saints supporter and always someone who had supported my businesses ventures. Monte Carlo was very different to this event, which by 2012 was more of a thought leadership event where content was king, learning was everything and certainly not about how much food and wine you could drink! We mention Guy because he was a slim, driven, fit MD who, as the theme “Getting the Edge.” would suggest, was keen to educate his clients on the importance of living a balanced lifestyle….

He was running back-to-back events, one in the Writing Room at Lord’s Cricket Ground, London and then The Westin Hotel, College Green, Westmoreland Street, Dublin 2. Guy had asked us to invite experts in performance to provide the very best thought leadership, to help his clients get the edge both inside and outside of work. The line-up was formidable: Pete Lindsay was Head of Psychology at the English Institute of Sport and supported teams from Formula 1, professional football, and individual Olympians. I met him at the start of his journey before he launched Mindflick. He went on to be 1^st team Performance Psychologist at Manchester City FC where he worked systemically to help the team achieve its goals. Pete had a way of turning complex ideas into accessible and relevant information for the individuals who attended, like managing stress, problem formation and problem resolution and solving large scale problems with small scale nudges.

The other person we had was Billy Walsh, the boxing Olympian who had competed in Seoul in 1988 and has just returned from the 2012 Olympics in London, where of the six boxers he coached at the tournament, returned with a gold, silver and two bronze medals and five would later turn pro. Billy was a legend in Ireland and in Wexford. In fact, he was the first sportsman to be awarded the Freedom of the Borough of Wexford in the September before we met him, such was his notoriety.

The reason that I mentioned this was Matthew Syed, who spoke before Billy, talked about the Myth of Talent in his book ‘Bounce’ to the audience. Mathew believed “successful sports men and women are made as consequence of unusual yet beneficial circumstances, hidden advantages that are not available to everybody else”. Matthew explained the unusual circumstances he was given; firstly, his parents bought a table tennis table when he was young for no reason and put it in the garage. Matthew and his brother Andrew, who was a very good player also, took full advantage of this. They would play for hours after school and even before school, duelling and testing each other’s reflexes; without knowing it, they were blissfully accumulating thousands of hours of practice. Secondly, Mr. Charters was a teacher at Matthew’s school; he was also the nation’s top table tennis coach and a senior figure in the English Table Tennis Association. Thirdly, Mr. Charters invited Mathew and Andrew to join the local club Omega in 1980. Omega was not luxurious. It was a one-table hut with plants growing from the floor; however, it was open 24 hours a day for the exclusive use of its tiny group of members who all had a set of keys. Mathew and Andrew took full advantage, playing before and after school, at weekends and during the summer holidays! In 1981, Omega became something of a sensation; one street alone (Silverdale Road, where the school was situated) contained an astonishing number of the nation’s top players. For a period in the late 80s, this one street and the surrounding vicinity produced more outstanding table tennis players than the rest of the nation combined! Had some genetic mutation spread throughout the neighbourhood without touching the surrounding roads or villages? Of course not. The success of Silverdale Road was the coming together of factors encouraging the development of young table tennis players.

Billy opened his speech after hearing Matthew and an unusual situation occurred which reinforced the messages that Mathew was discussing. Billy explained that a similar situation had occurred in the neighbourhood that he had grown up in in Wexford. He referred to the gym he attended at St Joseph’s Boxing Club, in the grounds of the local Christian Brothers’ school In Wexford. Billy had been taken there at the age seven to ensure that this kept him out of trouble. His grandfather fought. His father followed the fights. His aunt Theresa Shiel won an All-Ireland Camogie Medal for Wexford in 1968. He won his first Irish national title as a 14-year-old and went on to be an Olympian and competed in Seoul in 1988. At the time of writing this, Ireland has achieved 31 Olympic medals overall, and over half of those wins (16) were earned by boxers, including two golds. Billy told us that many of those medals were initially earnt in this area he grew up in Wexford.

There was this lovely moment in the room that day where two Olympians acknowledged that they had been lucky enough to grow up in unusual yet beneficial circumstances. Billy is now exclusively with the USA Boxing Team in Colorado Springs, having left the Irish Amateur Boxing Association, which is a sad loss when you think what he has done for boxing as a competitor and player in Ireland.

Intriguingly, there are other examples around the world where this has happened. Rasmus Ankersen, another Brilliant Mind that we have worked with, identified this in his book, The Gold Mine Effect, published after this event in April 2013. He spent six months travelling to locations he had heard about that had unusual yet beneficial circumstances. He talked, trained, and lived with the athletes, to see what they had in common and discovered locations like Matthew and Billy had grown up in. One athletic club in Jamaica produced most of the world’s best sprinters, the world’s best marathon runners grew up in the same village in Ethiopia and Spartak, an impoverished tennis club in Moscow, created more top-twenty women tennis players between 2005 and 2007 than the whole of the United States.

Back to the Getting the Edge Event. We also had Dorian Dugmore, one of the leading experts on health and wellbeing. One of the nicest men you could meet, a former professional footballer and coach internationally, he broke both thighs as a child aged 9 and played for his country at 16. He was also misdiagnosed with a heart problem in his early 20s. We met him in 2006 when Alice heard him speak at an event that she was running. He was at that point running the famous corporate wellness programme for Adidas which was ground- breaking. This role had brought him back from Toronto where he had directed the world’s best centre for heart disease recovery. His passion was hearts and his misdiagnosis had led to a commitment to help people with the health of their hearts because of this. This had led to a Ph.D. in cardiovascular medicine.

He was a natural storyteller and the most unlikely academic you could ever meet, just a warm- hearted, emotionally intelligent gentleman from Birmingham and he had the accent to prove it. He was able to articulate complex medical terminology to a lay person in a way that everyone would take action as a consequence. His message was how to maximise your performance potential both inside and outside of work. We all know our business numbers, but do we know our health numbers? Knowing your numbers could give you the performance edge and put “life in your years”. How right he would turn out to be on this occasion and the beneficiary was my old friend and client Guy Harris.

Dorian noticed that Guy was breathless when presenting which Dorian spotted and alerted me to. I put this down to the “Black Stuff” that we had drink the night before in a Dublin restaurant with Hannah Fitzsimons and Paul Clarke. However, Dorian was persistent. He insisted that we have him checked at his clinic. I decided there and then that we would use some of the profit from the work that Guy had given us and by way of thank you, get his heart tested with Dorian Dugmore and Paul Jordan. I left Guy a message the night we returned from Ireland, and he was keen to take us up on our offer. The event was on the 15^th, and I have an email dated the 16 November 2012 11:50, directly from Guy which reads, “Thanks Harvey and did you speak to Dorian reference a check-up? Do you have his details so I will speak directly to him?” It just so happened that on 19^th November 2012, Dorian was staying at our house, and I connected them that night. By 23^rd November in an email exchange, I said, “Don’t worry old boy, you are in safe hands with Paul Jordan. If you need to, speak to my friend Gareth Jenkins, who has seen him, then I can put you in touch”. On 30^th November, an appointment was arranged with Paul Jordan, less than two weeks after Dorian had noticed the abnormality in his breathing. I looked back at the email trail and the next email that I had had from him was in March 2013, informing me of what had happened. It was life changing. All I wanted to happen, for peace of mind, was to get Guy stress tested, by testing him to exhaustion on the treadmill to see how his heart performed under pressure. The test is often used to diagnose coronary heart disease and needs a cardiologist and a cardiovascular rehabilitator to be present. Now this is a crucial point, and why Bupa test do not include this in the main. They will only take you to 70% of your maximum heart rate and according to Dorian, you only see if there are any problems at over 80% of your maximum. It is used to assess the range of ability of the heart. It is a very good way to assess if the heart is healthy. The test usually involves walking on a treadmill or using an exercise bike. The speed and incline of the treadmill will go up gradually. During the test, you are carefully monitored to see what your heart rate and your blood pressure is doing. They record the electrical activity of the heart through an ECG and it takes a maximum of 12 minutes.

So Guy undertook the test and Dorian’s instincts were correct: his heart wasn’t functioning properly. The result was significant. Because of the test and further consultation, he required quadruple bypass surgery and the reason why my email trail stopped was because it takes about 3 months for patients to recover from this type of surgery. The great thing was it was spotted before it was too serious and 95 percent of people who undergo coronary bypass surgery do not experience serious complications, and the risk of death immediately after the procedure is only 1–2 percent.

The odd thing about this was Guy ended up moving to America, a life-changing decision and away from Northamptonshire where his family had been brought up. We kept in regular contact, but Dorian would often remark that he had never heard from Guy. It was if this incident had never occurred, and we found this amazing. It was if the people Dorian had saved were in denial and never wanted to admit that this had ever happened to them. This was until Dorian sent me an email on 9^th December 2020 over eight years later. “Hi Harvey, look what I just received,” Dorian remarked, and this is the email that Guy had sent to him.

“Hi Dorian

Just saw the article and it prompted me to remember how I started the same journey at a similar session! As a result, it probably saved my life and I have you to thank for that and will always be grateful. 10+ years on I’m living in Atlanta and probably working as hard as I ever had now running Bank of America’s merchant services the second largest bank in the USA. I have a gym at home and exercise 6 times a week either running or peloton so am as fit if not fitter than I have ever been. This is my bonus time of my life so am enjoying every moment. Once again thanks for saving my life and giving me the opportunity to have a quality of life in my later years Regards Guy”

I got an email on 29th May 2015 from Debbie Schiesser, the agent of Jason Bradbury, asking if I would like to meet one their clients, Kevin Dutton. “Kevin is free next Friday afternoon and said he can meet Harvey in the Ivy club if that works for him.”

An unusual place to meet an Oxford Academic, I thought, I will do a call instead. Brilliant Minds come in all shapes and forms and when you read the backgrounds, you normally get a good understanding of what you think you are going to hear when you speak to them for the first time. So this was the biography I was presented with: Kevin is a research psychologist at the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford as well as a writer and broadcaster.

Honestly, it is such a privilege to speak to people who are so accomplished, but the voice that I was presented with on the mobile at 3.45 that afternoon was not at all what I was expecting. One of the best calls I have ever had and what a discovery. The purpose of the call was to see whether we could get some corporate work for Kevin. Debbie at Arlington had had a good go but felt that my clients would probably be more suited to Kevin’s material than hers.  Arlington had been in the business of talent representation for over 30 years and during that time, they had been the official agent to many of the country’s best known and best loved TV presenters, including some of my favourites: Alan Titchmarsh (taught me how to trim my wisteria), George Clarke, the architect, who inspired us to renovate our Georgian House and, of course, Phil Spencer whom we watched on ‘Relocation, Relocation’ and someone I would just love to have a beer with. Kevin was very different to all these people I have mentioned. Kevin was not presenting lifestyle programmes. In fact, to use his own words, “I do elite cognition (the individual components of it), psychopaths (and related themes), and persuasion and influence (the key principles thereof).”

What I did not know, whilst speaking to him, was that this extremely ebullient, if not slightly foul- mouthed individual was the author of four best-selling books: Flipnosis - the Art of Split Second Persuasion (2010); The Wisdom of Psychopaths - Lessons in Life from Saints, Spies and Serial Killers (2012); The Good Psychopath’s Guide To Success – How To Use Your Inner Psychopath To Get The Most Out of Life (2014) and Sorted – The Good Psychopath’s Guide To Bossing Your Life (2015) (the latter two co-written with Andy McNab.)  His work had been translated worldwide into over twenty-five languages.

In fact, he did not even mention it, almost as if he was trying to downplay his accomplishments. I was intrigued by the way that he spoke, the most unlikely academic voice that I had ever heard and yet it was endearing. I was hoping from his biography to find a research psychologist at the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, who would add credibility to our “Brilliant Minds” offering, but it came with a bonus. He was a natural storyteller, but not in an arrogant, supercilious manner. Kev was like a bloke you would meet in the pub and yet could move seamlessly into complex academic language that highlighted his undoubted credentials.

In any initial conversation with a “Brilliant Mind”, you try and find out the path that got them to where they got to, and it was one story that Kevin told me that hooked me in. I asked him how he got into to psychopathy. This is the first story he told me, and I can quote it verbatim. He started studying psychopaths to figure out his old man. His old man was a market trader, not in the stock market. He was a bit like Del Boy; he worked on the street selling all kinds of crap to anybody. He was one of the most persuasive men he had ever met and he could probably even sell shaving foam to the Taliban. He was ruthless, fearless, charming, not naturally violent, of course you do not need to be violent to be a psychopath. He never once saw him embarrassed and he told me this story.

Kev was about nine and he used to help his dad on the market stall all over London, and they would finish on a Saturday and he took Kev for an Indian meal in a local restaurant. They were sitting in the restaurant and just as his dad was about to pay the bill, he picks up a spoon and tinkles against his glass, at which point all the restaurant goes quiet, his old man, gets to his feet and he says, “Thank you folks for coming, I would just like to let you know, you are all equally welcome here, it’s nice to see you, I know a number of you have come from a long way and some from just around the corner. There is a little party occurring in the King’s Arms Pub, just across the road and it would be good to see you there.” At which point, his old man starts to clap, at which point the entire restaurant starts to clap. So, what we have got here is a restaurant that has not seen Kev and his old man before, have not seen each other before, all applauding wildly, because they did not want to be the gate crashers to the party, which is the genius behind it. Kev is only nine and they are walking out of the restaurant, and he says to his dad, “We are not really going to the pub are we Dad?” His old man says, “No, no, no, of course not me old son, but let me tell you something, that lot in the restaurant are. My mate Malcolm has just taken over as landlord and he will make a few quid tonight.” Kev said this is the type of thing his old man would do without flinching. Something that most people would not even consider, this got him into psychopathy, and he had no doubt his dad would appear high on the psychopathic spectrum.

At this point in 2015, I had not come across anyone who had such detailed knowledge of psychopathic traits, persuasion and influence and elite cognition and I was hooked after this first story. Up until this point, when I thought about psychopaths, I thought of Dr Hannibal Lecter, the serial killer and former forensic psychiatrist played by Anthony Hopkins in in The Silence of the Lambs. However, when Kevin as a psychologist talked about psychopaths, he was referring to a distinct sub species of individual, with a distinct subset of personality characteristics such as ruthlessness, fearlessness, coolness under pressure, charm, charisma, and a lack of conscience and empathy.

Kev was able to simplify this still further by recognising that these personality characteristics were like dials on a mixing desk with no correct definitive setting; they would depend on the circumstances you found yourself in. Being a psychopath was not black or white and many professions required these characteristics for people to perform at their optimum. This intrigued me even further because I recognised a number of these traits in some of the “Brilliant Minds” that I was working with and many of the high-performing individuals that I had come across in my life.

The pattern that he observed with people who he described as having elite cognition or put it another way, mild psychopathic traits, had something he called the GOD principle: guts, organisation and determination in huge amounts. They also had acquired the requisite skills set to do the job and the right personality to optimise these skills sets. They would not carry anyone in their teams and would have no qualms about relieving someone of their responsibilities if they were not up for the task in hand and underperforming. They were people who understood the calculated risk and how to manage uncertainty, bouncing back from any downturn or underperformance. These individuals were resilient and could compartmentalise and focus on the job in hand. They were individuals who could perform under pressure and had what he called false charm and could encourage people to do certain tasks.

He gave an example of a surgeon, who had some of the above characteristics, things that you would want when someone was operating on you: focus, coolness under pressure. If things go wrong, you do not want them to panic rather you want people to focus on the job in hand. Surgeons have that dispassionate distance, that cold empathy that they display. He mentioned a barrister he interviewed who again had certain similar characteristics to those above. If you want to win a case and convince the jury, you need to be ruthless when you interview witnesses in the box.

However, these individuals are not violent, and I was intrigued to understand the mind of a violent psychopath.  In his research, he had interviewed many in high security prisons. They were not only violent, but they had also come from tough backgrounds. These two distinct personality traits, violence and background, added to the above characteristics, produced an altogether different individual.

Kev said that they are often charming, charismatic and they do tend to have a definite aura and presence about them. He said that when he is in their presence, he felt an iciness in the air and that they are emotional predators. They are looking for weaknesses, looking for chinks in your armour that they can expose. There is an intensity in their presence, which is down to eye contact, a reptilian stare, like they are trying to figure you out, identifying cues to pick up on. They are good actors and see emotions in black and white rather than colour.

In an interview we did with Kevin, he described that a group of Canadian Psychologists decided to take the American serial killer Ted Bundy up on his word. Ted Bundy smashed in the skulls of 35 women over a 4-year period in the mid-1970s and had confided to police that he could tell a good victim, simply by the way she walked. “I am the coldest son of a bitch you will ever meet,” Bundy once said and no one would doubt that, so what the Canadian researchers did was to conduct an experiment with 12 women, six of whom had suffered a traumatic attack and six of whom had not. They took a video of these women walking along the corridor and presented the footage to a bunch of students on the one hand and a bunch of psychopaths in a super max prison and asked them to simply figure out who was who? The rationale was simply, if Bundy’s assumption held water, then the psychopaths should be better at decoding vulnerability than the students. This is exactly what the researchers uncovered. Psychopaths seem to have a sixth sense for zoning in on vulnerability and weakness and can prey on those people to get what they want. It is a bit like electricity travelling around a circuit; it takes the path of least resistance and psychopaths often zone in on the people who they think are going to be the easiest targets. They do not want people who are going to stand up to them and cause them a misery and more give them problems that they do not want.

The difficulty I had when selling Kevin into a corporate marketplace was very simple. If you told the CEO that the reason he had risen to the top of his profession, like surgeons, military leaders, elite sportspeople, and bomb disposal experts, was because they had mild psychopathic traits, this did not sit that well because of the association with the word psychopath. However, we soon realised that if you tweaked the metaphor and told these leaders that they had characteristics that resembled elite cognition then suddenly we had their attention.

Kevin became one of the most universally loved “Brilliant Minds” in terms of feedback at events. He had a highly engaging style which the audience loved. He would kick most of his presentations off with, “Ever wondered if you might be a psychopath? Well, here’s the ironic thing: if you’re worried about it, then you probably aren’t.” He would run a simple test to see where you might fit on the psychopathic spectrum. He would preface this test by saying that clinicians use a wide range of techniques to reach a diagnosis and questionnaires are just one tool in their box.

Kevin and his wife Elaine, whom I will discuss later, have become great friends of Alice and mine and we love spending time with them. Kevin, by his own admission, is quite high on the psychopathic spectrum and worked out very quickly that we would complement each other which has led to some wonderful introductions and collaborative projects for each of us. One of the introductions he made to us was to Andy McNab, a novelist, and former British Army infantry soldier with whom he has co-authored two books. Andy McNab came into public prominence in 1993 when he published a book entitled Bravo Two Zero containing an account of a military mission in which he had taken part with the Special Air Service (SAS) during the Persian Gulf War, for which he had been awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal. Andy was not interested in public speaking but, as a favour to Kevin, came and spoke at one of our “Brilliant Minds” showcases at Chelsea Football Club on Wednesday 13th July 2017. This was the first time I had met him, and it is worth giving you some further context to Andy, which is a pseudonym and a penname. I will not reveal his real name even though it is on the internet. He was the epitome of sartorial elegance when he arrived and, as with all these events, there is a degree of anticipation when meeting someone of his notoriety. He had a very distinct presence; it was if he was there to deliver the job but didn’t want to indulge in any of the frivolity that comes with these types of events when you are there to entertain. He arrived early and listened to the speakers before closing the day. The line-up that day included Sir Clive Woodward, Sarah Jenkins, the now Managing Director of Saatchi & Saatchi London, Dr Guy Meadows, (UK Expert in Sleep), Professor Martin Elliott, the former medical director of Great Ormond Street Hospital and Leading Heart Surgeon Olly Rees (Innovation Expert) and Karl Lokko (a former gang leader turned activist, poet, public speaker, adventurer, and personal advisor to HRH Prince Harry).

Andy was closing the event with a Q&A with Jenny Kleeman, a documentary film-maker and journalist who is best known for her work on Channel 4’s foreign affairs series Unreported World and BBC One’s Panorama. His responses to the questions could only to be described as clinical. My early conversation over a coffee, where I detected a distinct presence, were mirrored in an extremely professional response to the questions raised, one that needed to be admired but he wasn’t there to entertain; it was done with the military precision to be expected of someone with his background.

I have to say I was not expecting this, but it was not surprising given what Kevin had told me about people he has interviewed and the fact that Andy does apparently exhibit many of the psychopathic traits mentioned above. The only comparable I can give at this stage is when I was asked by a client to set up a call with a Buddhist Monk for a potential event. The call went well but the client said, “I don’t think he is right for us; he isn’t very corporate.” At which point, I replied, “What were you expecting? He is a Buddhist Monk.”

However, the Q&A was interesting because we were able to understand the mindset of a “Brilliant Mind” who has reinvented himself multiple times and was never a victim of his circumstances, which was motivating, given that he told us that he had been abandoned on the steps of Guy’s Hospital in Southwark in a Harrods shopping bag and he was brought up in Peckham by his adoptive family. He attended nine schools in seven years. After dropping out of school, he worked at various odd jobs, usually for friends and relatives and was involved in petty criminality, finally being arrested for burglary in 1976. Partly inspired by his brother’s time in the army, he wanted to join the British Army. He failed the entry test for training as an army pilot but enlisted with the Royal Green Jackets at the age of sixteen after being released from juvenile detention. When he joined the army, he was found to have the reading age of an eleven-year-old. Shortly before his seventeenth birthday, he read his first book, entitled ‘Janet and John’. He told us that he could recall the sense achievement he felt. It was meant for primary school children, but he did not care. From then on, he read anything and everything he could get my hands on. Interesting to think that Bravo Two Zero, which was published in 1993, sold millions of copies. Not bad given the back story,

He was posted to Kent for his basic training and boxed for his regimental team. After basic training, he was posted to the Rifle Depot in Winchester. In 1977, he spent time in Gibraltar as part of his first operational posting, while with 2nd Battalion, Royal Green Jackets. He served in Northern Ireland during the Troubles and had to kill someone to stay alive as a 19-year-old soldier in Keady, South Armagh when his patrol stumbled across six IRA soldiers, preparing for an ambush. He was awarded the Military Medal for this incident.

After failing his first attempt at the Special Forces Selection, he passed in 1984, and spent 10 years with “Air Troop”, B Squadron, 22 SAS Regiment. He worked on covert and overt operations including counter terrorism and drug operations in the Middle East and Far East, South and Central America and Northern Ireland. He trained as a specialist in counter terrorism, prime target elimination, demolitions, weapons, tactics, covert surveillance roles and information gathering in hostile environments, and VIP protection. He worked on cooperative operations with police forces, prison services, anti-drug forces and Western-backed guerrilla movements as well as on conventional special operations. In Northern Ireland, he spent two years working as an undercover operator with 14 Intelligence Company, going on to become an instructor.

During the Gulf War, he commanded an eight-man SAS patrol, designated Bravo Two Zero, that was given the task of destroying underground communication links between Baghdad and north-west Iraq and with tracking Scud missile movements in the region. The patrol was dropped into Iraq on 22 January 1991, but was soon compromised, following which it attempted an escape on foot towards Syria, the closest coalition country. Three of the eight were killed, and four captured (including Andy). After three days on the run, one member, Chris Ryan, escaped. The captured men were held for six weeks before being released on 5th March. By that time, McNab was suffering from nerve damage to both hands, a dislocated shoulder, kidney and liver damage, and hepatitis B. After six months of medical treatment, he was back on active service. He was awarded both the Distinguished Conduct Medal and Military Medal during his military career.

We did not work with Andy in a corporate setting, but I felt very privileged to have met this “Brilliant Mind.” Kevin can recall story after story about this brilliant man, and I am just going to tell two which I love. The first is when Andy was pulled over for excessive speeding in a 30-mph limited area. The officers came to question him and asked him did he know that he was doing 80mph. Andy said, “Yes officer I did,” without even hesitating. The officer, slightly taken aback by the response, asked him for an explanation. Andy said that his wife had left him for a policeman last week and the reason I was speeding was because I thought you were bringing her back. At which point, the officer could not help but to applaud his response and duly let him go with a caution.

The other story Kev tells is when they were in a family gastro pub during the 2015 Rugby World Cup having a meal and generally enjoying themselves with Andy and his wife. In walked 4 lads who were tanked up and swearing. Calmly Andy got up and went to one of the boys and asked them whether they could keep the noise down and stop swearing as there were families present. He asked in a polite non-threatening manner and hoped that would be the last of it. Sadly, it persisted and at this point Andy calmly walked over and did not say anything but just looked at one of the lads. At which point, all four of them fled from the pub in what Kev describes as fear. Nothing was said as Andy sat at the table, but Kev told me that it was something that he witnessed which he never seen before. He told me that he was going to try and set up an experiment with his psychology students to see whether you could replicate the same scenario. Clearly, Andy had demonstrated in these two stories, like Kev’s dad, some of the characteristics of psychopaths.  Charm, charisma for the policeman and an iciness in the air and an intensity in Andy’s presence, when dispersing the boys in the pub. Andy is certainly a very different Brilliant Mind to some people that I have met but no less worthy. He is the highest person of the spectrum that I have met too. Interestingly, Kev is on our website and so I do get occasional emails from inmates in maximum security prisons, wanting to speak to him, which I forward on, and he deals with thankfully.

Kev introduced me to two other interesting sports people who interestingly were from my home county of Northamptonshire. The first was Peter Ebdon, the former world champion, snooker player, who the 2002 world championship, beating Stephen Hendry in a 18-17 thriller, and reached the 1996 and 2006 finals. This time around, he managed to get me to London, and we met at The Club at the Ivy, in West Street. Like Andy McNab, Peter was the epitome of sartorial elegance, dressed in the most immaculate three-piece suit and looking super fit. Ordinarily, Peter would not have been the type of speaker that the corporate audience would have requested but he had become a professional healer and Kevin was helping him regain his form as a snooker player which seemed an interesting angle to explore. If I find speaking opportunities for a writer on psychopaths, then surely there must be a market for a former sporting world Champion, who had reinvented himself at College of Healing in Malvern, practices reiki and runs his own consultancy advising breeders on which stallions their thoroughbreds should visit.

Like all speculative meetings, you go in with an open mind and out of courtesy to Kevin, I like to meet the potential “Brilliant Mind” to see where the opportunities might become available. There was more than meets the eye to this former snooker player. I have never met such an evangelical individual, in his pursuit of health and wellbeing, which we discussed. You could also see why he had achieved so much in snooker: he had a sharp mind and would often win matches because he refused to get beaten. He had also for over 25 years had a passion for thoroughbred pedigrees in the racing world and now runs a pedigree consultancy. However, it was a story that Kev told me that day which really interested me. Kev tells it like all good story tellers. He mentioned that when he had first met Peter, he naturally assumed that he may be able to help him with his performance as a snooker player, which he went on to do with his wife Elaine. In fact, he only recently retired in 2020 because of injury, so he had an impressive career.

However, when he turned up to meet Peter for the first time to overnight in a hotel in Peter’s home county of Northamptonshire, something rather unusual happened. As they arrived in the car park, Kevin and Elaine took out their overnight bags, as did Peter, from their respective cars. However, Peter also had what looked like a small 6ft snooker table, in his other hand.

Kev was intrigued by this, but it transpired that this was a portable treatment table. At this point Kevin and Elaine had not met Peter, just spoken to him on the phone. Peter soon revealed that he was training to be a reiki healer and wondered whether Kevin minded if he practised on him. Kevin tells this story beautifully; the last thing he expected to be doing with the 2002 world champion snooker star was having reiki. This showed the versatility of the man. Reiki is a form of alternative therapy commonly referred to as energy healing. Despite his scepticism, Kevin agreed to Peter’s request.

Reiki is a transfer of universal energy from the practitioner’s palms to their patient, so this is not a massage; it just targets the energy fields around the body. Kevin lay on the bench, fully clothed. The word “reiki” means “mysterious atmosphere, miraculous sign”. As Kevin lay down on the bench, he told Peter, with the humour that you would only get from a former east end market trader’s son, who is now a preeminent academic, “Let us be clear my old son, whatever you are about to do, make sure you stay away from the pink and the brown.”

I tried on many occasions to get Peter an opportunity to repay him for his time that he spent with me at the Ivy on 25^th May 2017 but sadly I have failed to date to place him, but I remain committed!

The second former sportsman that Kevin introduced me to was Sean Dyche, the Burnley Premiership Football Manager who closed our Brilliant Minds Showcase in 2020. Sean is the longest-serving manager in the Premier League at the time of writing, having overseen Burnley since October 2012.

I was lucky enough to meet him in person for the very first time on 7th October 2019 at the Grosvenor House Hotel for afternoon tea. He had travelled from Northampton, where he lived, to attend the Legends of Football Event, that was supported by the Premier League in aid of the music therapy charity Nordoff Robbins. That night, the world of football and music would honour Arsene Wenger for his contribution to football. This was a perfect opportunity to meet someone whom I had watched from afar but had no connection to at all. In fact, the sport of football was not an area that we had really come across, not because it had not produced “Brilliant Minds”; it was just inaccessible and the people in it probably did not need to speak corporately. My only real connection with football was Dion Dublin whom I had met through Matt Dawson when we were playing rugby.

I had no preconceived ideas about Sean Dyche and discovered a man with a huge sense of humility, strong work ethic, a natural leader with an insatiable desire to win. A proper bloke who appreciates the simple, valuable things in life and does not “overthink” issues. Our conversation was drawn towards our passion for Northamptonshire and, in particular, handmade leather shoes. Here was one of the most successful managers in the Premier League telling me that even if he could afford to purchase a pair of John Lobb’s, that he would not because his mum would tell him not to spend so much on a pair of shoes. Sean’s dad was a management consultant for British Steel and his mum a machinist in a shoe factory! He grew up in Kettering, where my Nan was from and I really loved speaking to him because he had the same value system that I admire. We were there in the Grosvenor House Hotel, but we would both so easily have been just as happy in Lawrence’s on 35-37 St Giles’ Street, Northampton.

However, there is a reason why this man is at the top of his game and the longest-serving manager in the Premier League. We recently worked with him, the fee of which he donated to Kidney Research UK and some of his responses were very refreshing given that we are in the middle of a global pandemic and the Premier League was being played behind closed doors with no spectators. Alice interviewed him and some of his comments were insightful and, without a shadow of a doubt, the key to his success.

Alice asked Sean about culture and how important it was to him at and the part he has played over the last eight years in creating this. He raised an interesting point in that football management is very short term: you must win to hang onto your job and you can never lose sight of this situation.

However, he recognised that something needed to be put in place that looked more to the longer term. Culture is a big part of this vision, instilling it, reinforcing it, and ensuring that his staff recognise that this is a vital ingredient of the club’s success and that they all need to buy into this. He saw this as an eight-year cycle. Sean and his staff would live the culture and set a good example to the players.

He started with two people that Sean brought with him that were important, who had a feel of what Sean wanted. He then sought feedback from his staff. What did they need to work at maximum power and ability?

As soon as he had buy-in from them, he presented this to his players. When he first arrived at Burnley, he gave the players a questionnaire to complete anonymously, to get their honest view of the existing culture at the club

He reinforced his messages using what he described as sticky words/behaviours. Minimum requirement is maximum effort is an example. Instilling basic manners and gratitude reinforced constantly.

If I were to walk into Burnley Football Club this evening, in what way would it feel different to any other Premiership Football Club? What makes it unique? A smile and hello from the players, Tony Smith from Warrington Wolves spent a day with them and he said to the staff afterwards, “You know, I know nothing about football, but you have got it right here, just because I can smell it - it just feels right.” This was reinforced by Eddie Jones and John Mitchell from England Rugby, who had been around professional clubs all their lives, when they visited Burnley.

He said that he had good evidence that what they had put together worked, so despite lockdown, non-investment in players, potential sale of the club, his view is that if you have got the culture right, then this will take care of itself. Burnley finished 10th in the Premiership in 2019/20 season and had a tough start to the 2020/21 season but at the time of writing Burnley are 15th with 28 points and well clear of relegation.

Sean likes to give feedback, but he is also ready for some of the stuff that comes back. If players do not want to be part of the culture, then Sean will work with them, cajole them, but if nothing else works, then they will need to be removed because he is aware that they will be the ones that sap the life out of the culture and club. Sean’s assistant at Burnley was Ian Woan, the former midfielder from 1985 until 2004, who started in non-league football, signed for Nottingham Forest in 1990, played for the club for 10 years, including a spell in the Premier League, so knows his way around football, has a brilliant expression: misery loves a best friend. Players who are disgruntled will search for misery and find a friend and start recruiting misery. The more they recruit, the more that cloud will follow them around.

One of the first things Sean did with any of his team was to ask them if they were alright. This simple question can then unveil so much about what might be going on in the player’s head, with family life, partners, family members. Sean knows that if you are generally secure in your life then usually you are more settled in the working environment. He said that over the years he has had to sit down with his players and sort out with them scenarios which allow them to have the clarity of what they do. It maybe something outside of work that is affecting their motivation. Part of his job as a manager is to align and realign the team that he has in the best way that he can.

He never embarrasses his players or staff, so he finds a moment, to whisper in their ear, he calls it horse whispering. This can change their whole thinking. You can cause a paradigm shift in someone quickly. The sliding doors moment where you give them certain news when they were expecting other news, so you can get a shift in people with very simple terminology and phrases. When they are low, remind them of the good stuff - a bit of altruism goes a long way.

He would never call a player a derogatory name, he would just never do it; he remembers what it was like to be on the receiving end of this as a player and, of course, what he can hear from the stands. Sean goes on to mention learnings that he has made throughout his career. He recalls being captain at Bristol City and getting booed of the pitch by 15,000 people in the stadium, with some rich use of language whilst his Mum and Dad were sitting in the stand. This is not something that you shrug off as you do care. This made him reflect on these times, about what he learned about himself and inside the camp, how he was treated by the managers, the players, the media and the chairman. He learnt more from that 18-month period than he learnt in his career which is having a bearing on his managerial career and has armed him with the skills set to ensure that his team at Burnley never had to go through a similar situation. He was there to help and guide and give them a better career than he had. This is part of his thinking, if he gets this right then he has a better chance of being successful through their good work.

He thinks that attitude, is also key in terms of success. He gives a wonderful example of where he played all his youth football at Ise Lodge in Kettering until he signed for Brian Clough at Nottingham Forest. This club, formed in 1978, has progressed to be the biggest club in Northamptonshire with over 30 youth sides ranging from Under 7 through to senior level, providing children with a safe and nurturing environment in which to play football at the Ise Lodge Community Centre. Jim Hover was a great influence on Sean, and he remembers what he said from the age of 7 “that a great attitude is everything.”  Sean said the ones that make it, not just in football but also in life, have a great attitude.

He mentioned that even the kid, who might have a perceived wrong attitude, is probably, under it all, grafting with a ball until 9 pm every night, finding a wall, getting a ball, staying cool. Joey Barton was the example he gave; when they signed him, loads of people questioned Sean, suggesting that he was not getting this one right. Sean met him for three hours and had a talk. His thinking was that, when you peel back the layers, then you have got one hell of a professional there. Joey eventually spent 18 months at Turf Moor, over two spells, playing an integral part in the club’s Championship title success in 2015-16.

In fact, Sean mentioned that Joey was the difference between them getting promoted back to the Premier League, without a shadow of a doubt, and was one of the best signings that he had ever made, a fantastic professional, warrior, he did everything right and was a massive success in him getting everything right as a manager. After an unsuccessful stint with Rangers at Ibrox, Joey returned to Burnley in January 2017, scoring on his second league debut, and helping Sean’s side secure Premier League survival.

This was also reiterated by Joey Barton, in an article that he did for Lancs Life on 26th April 2020. “I went to Sean Dyche’s house in Northampton and I just thought this fella is proper.” Dyche famously cooked Barton an omelette while the two talked football and Barton, like so many other Burnley players past and present, speaks highly of the Turf Moor boss. “It is one of the few meetings I have ever had with a football manager that not only has he delivered on his word, but he has gone above and beyond it,” added Barton. “Sean Dyche is a Premier League level manager and does run a Premier League level environment in terms of training and fitness and everything that goes with it. We are still great friends to this day.”

Honesty is something that is important to Sean whether it is soft truth or hard truth, be honest, authentic, with your staff and the team.

Sean is not into the fame game, he has not changed, he has still the same mates from Kettering that he grew up with who keep him real. This brings reality into his life. He must make results happen: this is a prerequisite he cannot hide behind this and he loves the pressure of this, however, he puts pressure into perspective. It is not as important as the health of his family, his children, himself. It is his job, one he loves and can accept that it comes with pressure, but it is still his job.

This does not mean he has not acknowledged how important this is to the people, who support the club, the players, the staff. Burnley is a one-club town where football sits at the heart of the community. He uses a mantra, ‘Our Town, Our Turf, Our Team’. The people loved him, they have even named a pub after him, The Royal Dyche Arms, a stone’s throw from Turf Moor, in Yorkshire Street.

His thinking time used to be on the M1, M6 from Northampton to Burnley and back. He liked to use what he calls soft psychology! He embraces behavioural profiling, looking to understand what makes each individual tick which he uses himself. This is “Activity Vector Analysis (AVA®) which provides detailed profiles of individuals, identifying their natural tendencies and predicting their workplace behaviours. He described that when he was out of kilter, he shared this with his club psychologist, showing a tremendous amount of self-awareness. He also used to confide in other managers, like Sir Alex Ferguson. It is important to share some vulnerability and it is amazing what comes back in return.

He never wants to stop learning and this is probably why he was intrigued by some of the people that we have been lucky enough to work with over the last number of years with Brilliant Minds. There is a great picture of Sean with us in the Lords Tavern, after he closed the Brilliant Minds Showcase on 10th March 2020. Alice hosted this event and was front and centre. It highlights the diversity of some of the people who attended. Alice is surrounded by Queen’s keyboard player Spike Edney, AI and robotics expert Craig John, ‘the pitch doctor’ Paul Boross, former international rugby union player Kelly Brown, businessman entrepreneur and high altitude mountaineer Richard Cotter, storytelling expert Richard Brimblecombe, former chairman of NHS Kingston Dr Neslyn Watson-Druée, director of innovation at Alder Hey hospital Iain Hennessey, nutrition and wellness expert Kate Cook, entrepreneur and academic Paul Stanley, head of product at DNA fit Andrew Steele, former Burnley FC manager Sean Dyche, and our digital partner at yBC James Kirk. A load of “Brilliant Minds” that you would have a beer with.

Humble Roots

Kevin Dutton’s biography reads like that of any preeminent academic: a research psychologist at the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, with a PhD in Psychology. He is also an associate fellow at the Royal Society of Medicine and of the Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy. He is the author of three best-selling books and has appeared numerous times on both television and radio and well as being the Executive Producer on Channel 4’s much-acclaimed Psychopath Night.

The interesting thing that you now know is the influence that his father had in his chosen profession but in equal measure, if it had not been for his Mum, he may have never achieved the lofty heights that befits a biography of the quality of his.

His mum, of whom he speaks with such respect, was a strict disciplinarian from a Catholic background who believed in education. Kevin went to St Benedict’s in Ealing, London’s leading independent Catholic school. Kevin once told me that unbeknown to him, whilst he enjoyed the benefits of a classical education, his mother was cleaning the houses of his best friends which he only learnt later in life. She held down these jobs to ensure that he got the best possible start in life. His mother provided the foundation for Kevin to get to where he is today. But even though it started traditionally, it was nearly finished before it began.

At the age of 16, Kevin lost his Mum, and it was tough for him. However, through steely determination, he went on to achieve the level of attainment that a school like St Benedict’s would have afforded.

At school, Kevin showed great academic promise but went off the rails after the death of his mum. He ended up leaving school disillusioned and empty-handed, drifting from job to job including working for his dad and travelling. This culminated in working in a plastics factory in London and it was at this point he realised that he needed to go back and study. He went to college in Chiswick and the only course he could get onto was psychology and so knowing from an early age his fascination with his dad’s mind and behaviour, fate played its hand, and this was the route that he followed, eventually becoming a research fellow at the Faraday Institute, St Edmund's College, University of Cambridge, and Visiting Professor for the Public Engagement with Psychological Science at the University of Essex. This led to a Ph.D. from the University of Essex in 2000 and is now a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford.

Now I do not know whether it is a coincidence, but Professor Jo Delahunty, who is a Leading UK barrister, Judge and Professor of Law, also comes from a similar background and is probably one of the best communicators that I have every come across.

Jo was called to the bar in 1986, took silk in 2006, became a part-time judge in 2009 and was made the Gresham Professor of Law in 2016. She now has the Freedom of the City of London, presented by the Lord Mayor at a special ceremony on the 13th of March 2019, to mark her contribution to the Law and for being prepared to raise and challenge judicial bullying and sexual harassment in the profession.

She is one of the UK’s leading family barristers specialising in child protection law and has won many industry awards and is identified as leading London Silk in the industry bibles.

However, hidden behind these markers of career progression is the fact that Jo comes (proudly) from a single parent family, went to comprehensive schools and was the first member of her family to stay in education beyond the age of sixteen. She explained in a Gresham college lecture in October 2017 that her careers advisor suggested she was bright enough to apply to work in a bank but not front of house as she had ‘attitude’ and suggested that she did not go to university.

It was her mother who took the initiative, looking up the CVs of those who were successful in the solicitor’s office she worked in, and identified that the common factor was Oxbridge (and being male).

Her mother then researched the colleges and drove Jo down to Oxford in her Mini, tipping Jo out at St Anne’s to go and ask for an interview. If it were not for her mum, Jo would have would never had contemplated Oxford as a place that might have been for her. She says that she asked the porter how she could get an interview and he rang up the principal and asked if she had time to see a young girl who had driven fifty miles to see her. The principle said yes and opened Jo’s eyes to her potential and a place to fulfil it. Jo then went back to her school and asked them to about the application exam and she was entered into it. She slipped in through an interview process in conjunction with passing the internal Oxford examination system for fourth term entry students (i.e.: pre-A level results, later abolished as it gave an unfair advantage to public school students who received specialist tutoring for the Oxbridge exam). She went to Oxford University to read law, one of only two girls from her school ever to do so. St Anne’s College, Oxford lived up to its reputation of giving opportunities to those from state schools that other colleges might deny. Oxford opened a world of knowledge and opportunity that, given her class and background, might otherwise have remained closed to her. It was her mother who was the initial driving force, and her maternal instincts are just as strong with her own children whom I have met.

I was lucky enough to work with Jo where she was a speaker at the Institute of Travel and Tourism’s event in Split, Croatia, in June 2019. In all the time that I have worked with “Brilliant Minds”, I have never seen a speaker get a standing ovation after she had sat down, and the next speaker was the reason why.

However, this was very different because the speaker that was proceeding Jo was Peter Moore, the Chief Executive of Liverpool F.C. It should have been him that received all the accolades but with great reference he acknowledged Jo. It was at this point and the reference to local community was when he acknowledged Jo. Unbeknown to the audience was that Jo had been there for ten families in their darkest hour, families who were part of this local community’s most important event.  Peter had grown up in this community. The event took place on 15 April 1989, known as the Hillsborough Stadium Disaster. It saw ninety-six deaths and 766 injuries. It had the highest death toll in British sporting history, occurring during an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest in the two standing-only central pens in the Leppings Lane stand allocated to Liverpool supporters, the home of Sheffield Wednesday, in Owlerton, a north-western suburb of Sheffield. Jo was part of the legal team that acted for seventy-seven families in the Hillsborough Inquests, her role being to establish that the flawed medical response by those in charge at the scene led to avoidable loss of life: a task fulfilled by the jury’s verdict at the conclusion of the longest running inquest in British legal history. Peter acknowledged the part that Jo had played to the people of his city.

This set the scene for his speech, which was equally impressive as on 1st June, Liverpool had won the Champions League final 2–0, with a penalty which was converted after 106 seconds by Mohamed Salah and a strike by substitute Divock Origi after 87 minutes. Peter explained to the audience that day what it meant for the city, given the last time this had happened was 15 years earlier. Less than two weeks later, in a conference room, his audience were treated to first-hand knowledge of what it really meant to its people from a man that had been born in the city but had left it to grow brands such as Reebok, Sega and Xbox. He had resigned from Electronic Arts in February 2017 to become CEO of Liverpool Football Club, a three-year tenure and witness its greatest period during recent history. He captivated delegates as he addressed how the football club has increased its fan base at a global and local level and he talked about the extensive work which they do to support the local community, the very community that Jo had represented.

This wonderful woman, whom we admire and love in equal measure, is probably one of the most important Brilliant Minds that I have ever met. Jo specialises in child protection law and has won awards for her work in contentious cases involving complex medical evidence and catastrophic injuries to/ the death of a child, child sex abuse, witchcraft/ ritualized abuse, and ISIS radicalisation cases. Her clients often have mental health difficulties or serious learning difficulties. Jo acts for children who have been sexually abused and face allegations of sexually abusing others. She loves sharing her knowledge by striving to make the law, its practice as well as its principles, accessible to the society it serves. I would love to meet the careers advisor that told Jo that she was bright enough to apply to work in a bank but not front of house as she had ‘attitude’. She is noted for challenging the audience’s preconceptions and pushing them into less comfortable areas of thought and reflection, speaking with passion and insight on what really happens inside and outside court, and the realities of representing confused, damaged clients when they are faced with the formality, language, remoteness, and power of the legal process. I admire this woman and feel for her because, at the time of writing, she has not been to London but has instead undertaken complex cases by Zoom, as is the new norm. This is something that lays heavy on her, as she feels that she should be there in person representing her clients; however, the pandemic has prevented this from happening, so she wrestles with the new norm and, in some cases, she will not do the trial as she feels justice cannot be done. Thank God Jo’s mum saw the potential of her child and gave her the roots to grow and the wings to fly.

It’s 20th January 2020 and I am standing in a queue, having purchased a book that I want it signed by the author.

We are in an original Edwardian bookshop with long oak galleries and graceful skylights situated in Marylebone High Street, London, called Daunt Books, allegedly the first custom-built bookshop in the world opened in 1912. I am there via an email request which read, “Greetings. I hope that this email finds you well. The time has come for the book launch as we discussed. I remember you telling me that, in order to get me more work, I needed a book like Matthew Syed! Now I can't claim to be like Matthew, but I have written the book!

I could not have been more proud of this “Brilliant Mind” whom I originally met in King Street, Twickenham on 28th April 2017. I remember looking out of my office window, in expectation of this potential speaker’s arrival. Before he even uttered a word to me, I saw a very tall Somalian man crossing the road with the grace of a statesman. He exuded confidence and I thought to myself, I wonder if this is Hashi Mohamed. He then introduced himself before we departed for a coffee. His accent I can only describe as that of Prince William and his choice of words were like those of a natural orator. If you had to place him within the complex matrix of the British class system, you’d probably say he was the son of wealthy Africans who attended an independent school and Oxbridge.

I was genuinely excited to hear more but could never have imagined the story he was about to tell. This is why I was proud to be at his book launch getting his signature. The reason I also mention this is because, like Jo and Kevin, who came from not so privileged backgrounds, his mother played a huge part in ensuring that Hashi could eventually have a better life even though the path doesn’t seem in anyway logical in this particular story. His account is rare yet remarkable, but his book was written to highlight the inequalities that exist in Britain today making what he achieved almost completely impossible.

Hashi told me that he was a Somali born in Kenya, where he lived in a rundown part of Nairobi with his four siblings (another having died), his mother (who also had six children from a previous marriage) and his travelling salesman father. I remember that location as I was lucky enough to travel to Nairobi to play in the Kenya Sevens and had to travel through this district from the airport in the taxi. His father died in a car accident in 1993, so Hashi and three of his siblings were sent to England as refugees. They lived with an aunt and then in a variety of low-rent housing, some of it rat-infested, and were eventually reunited with their mother.

He spent most of his teen years in a state of geographical and psychological dislocation. He went to a struggling comprehensive in north-west London where the headteacher was beaten up and laughed at, but he eventually managed to get a place at the University of Hertfordshire to study Law and French.

From there, he was awarded a postgraduate scholarship to Oxford, gained a position at No5 Chambers, noted experts in planning law and became a successful barrister. My role was to get him an opportunity to speak corporately. He wanted to tell his story, and I wanted to find someone who would listen to this man. I will never forget the line he left me with on his first meeting, “Harvey, imagine the journey I have been on, imagine where I am going, do you want to be part of it?”

Our first opportunity to present him to our clients came on the “Brilliant Minds” Showcase on Wednesday 28th February 2018. The line-up that day including Kevin Dutton and he was wonderful, which resulted in several bookings. The most notable of all was in May 2018 at the Four Seasons Hotel for CBRE, a prestigious Capital Group Markets Conference. It was Guy Gregory, my old friend who saw what I saw in Hashi, and gave him an opportunity. He is now an accomplished public speaker and a broadcaster – he’s made two well-received documentaries for Radio 4 and the book he signed that night was ‘People Like Us’. He is right: he is not Matthew Syed, but his journey is truly amazing, and I am deeply honoured to know him and to have been part of his journey. I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t see him in politics very soon.

One of the last events that we did before lockdown on 5th March 2020 brought together two very interesting “Brilliant Minds” who up until this point had never met each other but had so much in common.

The inaugural Sport Gives Back Awards was conceived by Connie Henry to celebrate the invaluable work of charities, organisations and individuals, up and down the country, who change lives through sport. The event took place at the Royal Institution in Mayfair, attended by 400 guests. It shouldn’t really have taken place, but sometimes luck is on your side, and you get to meet the life force that is Connie Henry, who had a vision and came to us to see whether we could work with her and make it a reality. Sports Gives Back was born from the work of Track Academy, founded by Commonwealth Games Bronze medallist, Connie Henry.

Her charity had been working in London for more than a decade. Connie recognised that sport could be a vehicle for social change and had a vision that she should bring together other organisations that work tirelessly to create opportunities with people within their communities.

Connie told me when I met her that, "at Track Academy, we help young minds believe they are more than the circumstances into which they are born. Our core aim is to create positive leaders of tomorrow, academic achievers and if we happen to create an Olympian along the way, that would be a positive by-product of our efforts". As an international athlete, triple jumper Connie Henry pushed herself to her limits to be the very best she could be, to reach the furthest distance possible. But sport was always about more than winning medals for London-born Connie. It was about finding a family, creating a network of loyal friends and mentors who would be there for her no matter what. And twenty years after her biggest sporting achievement, she is doing the same for scores of young people at the centre where she first honed her talents.

Connie’s own experiences of dysfunctional family life and lack of childhood security thrust her into the sporting arena, joining the Shaftesbury Barnet Harriers in Hendon and Willesden Sports Centre at just 15 years old.  Here she met Coach Dave Johnson who had a profound impact on her athletics career. Connie comments on the importance of family throughout her school life and early sporting career, creating loyal networks on and off the field.

I met Connie because of the work that we did with World Athletics; she was a great friend of Seb Coe and Daley Thompson. She was working for Seb at the 2017 IAAF World Championships which were held not far from where she grew up in the heart of London. She knew everyone in the sport and was the perfect host for the many dignitaries Seb would need to host during this event during two weeks in August.

She contacted us shortly after the championship, and we worked on the idea that later became Sport Gives Back. I loved her passion and, more importantly, I believed in her desire to recognise those unsung individuals or organisations that do so much for young people. Seb Coe summarises this more eloquently that myself, “Sport would be absolutely unrecognisable but for the voluntary ethos, ethic that underpins it. If you go to any sports club, you have got a legion of people doing the laundry, cutting the grass, driving kids and teams at unearthly hours of the day, their parents, their mentors, their coaches. Everyone is absolutely on board, with one concept which is creating opportunities for young people and if you don’t recognise them then you lose the very purpose of sport.

Sports Gives Back was a unique evening which focused on the unsung heroes and gave an opportunity for their charities to say thank you. It was hosted by Jeanette Kwakye, the British 100 metres champion. In attendance to support Connie were Seb Coe, Daley Thompson, Dame Kelly Holmes, Lee Dixon, Crista Cullen, Darcey Bussell, Alex Dansen, Simon Shaw, Greg Rusedski and many other people of notoriety.

One of the people I introduced to Connie, who financial committed to being present on the evening, was one of my rugby heroes. I had got to know him through various England Legends matches he had played in but really didn’t know his full background. It is worth putting this in context: Jason Robinson is a sporting legend who reached the summit in both Rugby League and Rugby Union. Jason played in three World Cup finals, scoring England’s only try to help secure the 2003 Rugby Union World Cup in Sydney, Australia.

Connie spoke to Jason about what she was trying to do, and he knew immediately that her vision made sense. We commissioned a short 3-minute film of Jason which was shown on the night and summarised why Connie wanted to do this. When he looked back at his own journey, he acknowledged that there were so many people who invested time in him and that, had they not done it, then he would have never got to the heights that he did. To start with, no one in his family played sport; it was a teacher that gave Jason his love of sport. There are so many things that people overlook like getting to training. He was so grateful to his friend’s father who picked him up and took him to training because otherwise he might have been put off. He guarantees that the more that you go out into the areas of deprivation, the more talent that you will discover. There is so much talent in these areas; they just need a chance and they need people to understand some of the problems that they deal with. He knows what it is like to have seen domestic violence at home and then carry that the next day into school or into something else. Some of these kids are seeing this stuff all the time, stuff like drugs and crime. He said that you need to understand them, understand the barriers and the challenges they have and get on their level to be able to take them to another place. We take it for granted that kids are going to come back and that their parents are going to ask them how was school or how did it go today, how was sport. However, Jason waited 36 years to hear his father say that he was proud of him. He said sometimes that can come from a teacher, someone in school, a coach and when someone says that to you, you feel 10 foot tall. We talk about mental health and all these issues at the moment, by doing sport, being physically fit, by engaging with people, by being encouraged by your own team members, this all contributes to a better mental health and a better state, so we need teachers, coaches that identify talent, that identify characters and using sport as a way of engaging with them, it will make them happier, fitter, able to enjoy themselves. Sport has taken him from a very dark place to some of the best experiences he has ever had in life.

This whole evening was focussed on sport but the person who closed this came from an altogether different background. He performed Caterpillar to a Butterfly, which is exactly what happened to this remarkable man who I met on 5^th November 2015, in Church Street Twickenham. You must watch this clip before reading on. Leading and leaving the London gang world, Karl Lokko, TEDx London Business School.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URAxnXjKXKY

Owain Walbyoff sent me an email which read, “Gents- very excited to be introducing you two wonderful individuals.  Karl, go out there tell the world what’s it’s all about - they need to hear it!”

I purposely don’t research “Brilliant Minds” before I meet them. I just want to listen to their story. I will never forget meeting this man; his warmth was overwhelming and, whilst I didn’t know his background, I immediately asked him whether he was originally from Ghana, where I had spent some time in 1996. He reminded me of a man called Herbert Mensah whom I will mention later. Karl had the same build, presence and charisma as Herbert Mensah and interestingly, they were both from Ghanaian heritage. I sensed this and took a punt in the way that I initially greeted him. A series of experiments by Princeton psychologists Janine Willis and Alexander Todorov reveal that all it takes is a tenth of a second to form an impression of a stranger from their face, and that longer exposures don’t significantly alter those impressions (although they might boost your confidence in your judgments).

He was then taken back when I said to him, “Eti sen.” This greeting is equivalent to a “Hi, how are you?” but is literally translated as “How is it?” to which the response would be ‘ɛyɛ’ (eh-yeh) 'it’s good' or 'it’s fine'. This was something that Herbert taught me when I was in Ghana in 1996.

Karl was massive, six foot five. He looked like he should be a rugby player. I immediately knew that I was going to enjoy this coffee. However, I was completely rocked by this man’s childhood. Sadly, unlike Connie, sport was not the thing that captured his attention, something altogether different but in his words addictive when he was young. So why was Karl Lokko a caterpiilar? He was a former gang leader having grown up on the gang-ridden Myatts Field estate or Vassall, historically one of the most deprived areas of the borough in Lambeth. Former Vassall inhabitants include former Prime Minister John Major and, very briefly, Vincent Van Gogh.

He told me that his Ghanaian parents had been in the country for 30 years and that it was his choice to be the gang leader. In Ghana, his mother was a teacher, but her qualifications were not recognised here, so she did various “hand to mouth” jobs and worked as a nurse. For the parents of Karl, there were few opportunities, which I will explain more about when we get on to Neslyn Watson Druee later.

I wasn’t expecting this conversation over a coffee and Karl is articulate, engaging, one of the most emotionally sharp people I have met. It was his choice to be in a gang. He created it at the age of 13; it was called MAD that stood for Merks, Addict and Drowsy. He was in high-performing sets at school and saw this as being quite entrepreneurial now when he reflects. He showed me a picture that was in the papers when he was 14, explaining that two of the others in the picture are now in jail for different murders. One of them is dead. At 15, Karl joined the more notorious OC (Organised Crime) gang which for a few years had the reputation of being the most feared and ruthless in London. Karl explained to me a world that I couldn’t have imagined even existed.

I asked him what it was like to be part of this, and he said that if he was in the equivalent coffee shop where he grew up, he would be looking for all the exit points to see where he could escape. He told me he did things that he shouldn’t have got away with. Karl told me that in April 2014, a very close friend of his, Dwayne Simpson, was stabbed in the chest and passed away. His friend was more a brother than a friend. It was at this point that Karl found his purpose, but it wasn’t sport that helped Karl. The concept was exactly the same though to Connie and Jason: someone who was willing to help and show him the way. Jason Robinson credits former All Blacks wing Inga Tuigamala with saving him from the brink of suicide in an article that was written for Stuzz in New Zealand in April 2018. Tuigamala introduced Jason to his faith.

Karl was extremely fortunate that he met Pastor Mimi. Asher, her son, was a close friend of Karl’s; they were part of the same gang. She was desperate for her son to escape the clutches of the gangs. She realised that, for her efforts to be effective, she would have to reach his friends too. She opened her home, allowing it to become a sort of informal therapeutic community rehabilitation hub. During this time, he was shot at outside her house, and the bullet went through her front door.

She told Karl he was more than a gang member and that he had potential that he wasn’t utilising. She got his attention, and this intrigued him. She made him realise in the safety of her home that he was being led by a lie, that they could regain the childhood that they had lost. He referred to making cakes and apple crumble; she was being like a mother to the boys. She continued her offensive against what she called the true enemy, the ideology of “gangsterism”. In his words, she broke “gangsterism” and, as a result, he became persuaded that conversation was the most powerful thing on the planet.

Her counselling and Bible-based intervention work led Karl to denounce his gang involvement and turn his life around. Through her holistic approach and spiritual teachings, he was able to claim back his true identity and strive towards excellence.

I was intrigued to learn from Karl what it was like to be good now and this is the story he told me: he took over his Mum’s cleaning job because, when he looked in his Mum’s eyes, he saw cardiac arrest. This was legitimate money that he earned, and this felt good. Even though it was nothing like he could obtain on the streets, it was legitimate, and this felt good.

I mentioned that Owain Walbyoff had introduced me to Karl. Owain and another former rugby player I knew were close friends of Sam Branson and Prince Harry. In Richard Branson’s blog on 29^th May 2019, he writes that Karl Lokko is a fiercely talented young man who has become a dear friend to our family and an inspiration to all those he meets. Richard first met Karl when he joined them for the Virgin Strive Challenge. Karl has transformed his experiences into confronting, mesmerising poetry. It was the poem The Butterfly Effect, which I wanted him to perform to close the Sports Gives Back Awards that night. It draws upon his metamorphosis from gang member to community activist. Connie Henry and Karl Lokko in equal measure are “Brilliant Minds”, truly transforming people that they meet and not just in privileged corporate environments.

We were celebrating sport that night, but Karl is probably the best example of social mobility that I have ever come across. Now a devout Christian who works as a youth community activist, Karl has forged a friendship with Prince Harry and when we sat and watched the Royal wedding, we were so proud to see that he was part of the congregation. He is truly an example of what Connie stands for: with the right support, lives can be turned around regardless of the circumstances into which they are born.

I can remember going to the King’s Head that night of 5^th March in Stafford Street, Mayfair. It was packed to the rafters with everyone from the awards. On 16th March 2020, Matt Hancock told the House of Commons that all unnecessary social contact should cease. That night, we had Karl Lokko and many of his great friends together with Connie Henry and our team from the Track Academy. What a night.

It is very rare that an event that you put together, in this case the inaugural Sports Gives Back Awards ceremony, ever gets to be on terrestrial TV.

However, on 19th August 2019, Connie asked me to accompany her to meet Niall Sloane, Head of Sport at ITV, at 2 Waterhouse Square, 140 Holborn, London. I was there for moral support really as Connie’s passion is so wonderful, he was immediately hooked. All I needed to do was endorse it. It was filmed at the Royal Institution on 5^th March and eventually broadcast on Tuesday, July 21 at 10.45pm on ITV. A very proud moment for all of us.

On 6^th Sept 2018, I was able to sit down with my family and relive some memories on Sky Sports thanks to a documentary that World Rugby Films had commissioned on a project that I was involved with in 1996 that deemed worth of telling. The reason that I bring it up in this particular “Brilliant Minds” reference is because of a man called Herbert Mensah, Mr Fix It, whom I mentioned earlier.

I was contacted by Rich Melton, a Series Producer for World Rugby TV part of Engage Sports Media. He had got in touch with me after seeing a LinkedIn post about The Discovery Tour of West Africa and I quote; “Serendipitously, I was looking for stories in Ghana and the Ivory Coast for World Rugby TV when I came across the post, and immediately wanted to do a story about it. I have been to Abidjan and Accra (not solely for this story, I hasten to add) and I have interviewed Herbert Mensah and Naas Botha (as well as the concierge at the Labadi Beach Hotel) and wondered if we might be able to sit down and do an interview about it when I return to the UK.” After a number of meetings, Rich eventually came to Wimbledon in July 2018 to interview me armed with a camera crew. I should probably give you some context to the reason why this was such an interesting story for World Rugby to commission.

The Discovery Tour of West Africa took place in May and June 1996. I had witnessed a tragic match at the Rugby World Cup in 1995 in South Africa. The game was between Ivory Coast and Tonga. With only three minutes of play left, Max Brito, a young winger, caught a ball and ran out of defence and was tackled by Inoke Afeaki, the Tonga flanker. Several players fell on top of Max Brito, leaving him prone and motionless on the ground. Brito was taken to the intensive care unit of the Unitas Hospital in Pretoria where medical staff worked to treat damage to his vertebrae. Brito was left paralyzed below the neck. This moment shocked me to the bone. A simple moment like this, which I had been in a thousand times before in my rugby career, changed his life forever. I read reports in the paper that there was very little support for Max Brito from the Rugby World Cup. A chance meeting with a man called Alistair Maclennan at the World Cup Final in 1995 led to us organising a tour to redress this. We set out our aims which were to raise money for Max Brito, to play rugby in Ghana, a non-rugby playing country and to have fun on what became the last amateur tour. It was a quirk of fate for us that England were not due to tour that summer, so we had a chance of getting a very strong squad to join us to go to Ghana and the Ivory Coast. At no point in recent rugby history have an England team not toured in the off season. This was serendipitous for me and, as Dean Richards has mentioned, there will never in the history of rugby be a tour like this to this part of the world with such high profile England squad players. This was billed as the last amateur tour and it certainly was just that - a fantastic, unpredictable, unprecedented melting pot of fun in the sun.

Matt Dawson, who appears on World Rugby’s video alongside Paul Grayson, whom I had played with for England A at Northampton, and Grayson himself were the first people I recruited on a bus on the way to a premiership match. I recruited most of the other players when the Midlands played Western Samoa on 2nd December 1995 at Welford Road in Leicester. We were stuck in a hotel for a few days before this match and so I managed to sit down with some of that team and explain what I was trying to do and more importantly get them to commit to going if I could get if off the ground.

Eight players that started the game against Western Samoa eventually went on the trip to Ghana in the summer: Neil Back, Tim Rodber, Darren Garforth, Richard Cockerill, Graham Rowntree, Matt Dawson, Paul Grayson and me. I also got letters from Martin Johnson, Peter Winterbottom, Nick Beal, Keiran Bracken, Will Greenwood, Dean Richards and Martin Hynes. These names and their letters of intent were sufficiently strong to allow me to pick up the phone and speak to the legendary Naas Botha. In one call, he agreed to bring a Springbok side to play us in Accra in the National Stadium. Naas had been quite vociferous in the press at the time of the accident about the way that the Rugby World Cup authorities had treated Max Brito and was keen to help. He questioned that if the same injury had occurred to one of the leading players of the game at the time, would the level of support have been the same as that which Max Brito received? This was the strength of the rugby community: one phone call to a legend and he agreed to organise the South African part of this event.

This tour would not and could not be repeated today. The clubs wouldn’t release the players, the players wouldn’t get insurance to travel. England have not had a summer off since that tour. The players would want too much of an appearance fee for travelling. But in 1996, we pulled it off thanks to a man called Herbert Mensah. The event became one of the biggest sporting events that West Africa has ever seen. Herbert Mensah was a huge man. He looked like a heavy weight boxer. He was erudite, having been educated in the UK at Sussex University, and a highly successful businessman. He fixed it. He took our idea and made it a reality. We gave him the ingredients and my goodness did he use them.

He was impressed that we had been able to get the players from England and South Africa to sign letters of intent. Herbert was a man you could trust. He loved sport and in particular rugby and football. He knew the players that we had signed up and gave us a guarantee that, if I could deliver the players, then he would deal with executing all the ground arrangements and assist us with getting the flights and hotels sponsored. If I had known then the background work that was needed to put on an event of this size in West Africa, I would never have undertaken it. However, in Herbert I was in very safe hands, and he was a man of considerable ambition. He had plans for this event which extended well beyond a rugby tour. He turned it into one of the biggest sporting occasions to ever take place in this country. I put my future reputation in his hands and my god it paid off.

Ghana had never hosted an international rugby match and was more interested in the round ball game. Herbert had a plan that our rugby international should be a curtain raiser before a huge African football match between Ghana and an All Stars team made up of some of the leading African players that were plying their trade in Europe, which included the George Weah, the AC Milan player who won European Player of the Year 1995 and Tony Yeboah, one of the most prominent and prolific goal scorers in Ghanaian and African football who was playing for Leeds United. This format would attract the crowds and of course TV and sponsorship. George is currently serving as the 25th President of Liberia, in office since 2018.

Herbert had contacts all over Ghana and explained that I should travel to his country and the Ivory Coast to meet these contacts and convince them that some of the best talent in World Rugby would be arriving on their shores in May 1996. Herbert travelled up to Northampton Saints to meet Ian McGeechan and Tim Rodber whom Alistair and I had asked to be the tour manager and team captain. Herbert gave such credibility to this project that, up until the point that he joined us, I don’t think anyone thought we could have pulled it off. This was until they met him. This softly spoken Ghanaian articulated his plans whilst cutting a pineapple with a small machete that he had brought from Ghana. He said, “This is a taste of my country”. It was all systems go from that point onwards. Ian McGeechan gave me permission to take a week off rugby and travel to Ghana and The Ivory Coast.

In 1996, it was difficult to visit Ghana unless you had a reason for going and permission. Herbert hosted me during my stay in Ghana, and I was accommodated in the Labadi Beach Hotel. This trip was a voyage of discovery in many ways. I had never been to this part of the world and neither had any of my England rugby colleagues. I did not know what to expect when I arrived in Ghana. I only knew what I had gleaned from travel books. It had once been a British Colony known as the Gold Coast and on 6th March 1957 it had become independent and assumed the name Ghana. In 1995, when I arrived, the country was led by Jerry Rawlings, a Ghanaian former air force officer and politician. Herbert told me that we would need to get state permission to stage a match of this size in Accra and I would need to meet Jerry Rawlings to inform him of our plans. To say I was nervous was an understatement. After all, Jerry Rawlings, with the support of both the military and civilians, had led a bloody coup some years before that, ousted the Supreme Military Council from office and brought the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) to power.

Herbert accompanied me on all the visits when we were in Ghana, and I came to see the country through his eyes. We visited Kumasi, the capital city of the Ashanti region, and the Manhyia Palace, the seat of the King of Ashanti and its vast central market, which was as vibrant as any in Africa. The Ashantis were one of the few tribes in the country who protected and upheld their customs, tradition and beliefs, resisting all forms of outside influence. It was amazing to visit this place. Herbert Mensah explained the significance of the Golden Stool in Ashanti culture.

The Golden Stool represented the symbol of their nation as it was reputed to hold the Soul of Ashanti. The solid gold stool was so sacred that no person was allowed to sit upon it. It was kept under the strictest security and was taken outside only on exceptionally grand occasions. When Herbert and I visited Kumasi, the King was the Asantehene, Otumfuo Opoku, who was enstooled as the 15th occupant of the golden stool on 6th June 1970 at the age of 51.  He was an old king and Herbert was keen to make sure that relevant dignitaries in Kumasi informed him of our intention to stage this sporting event. We were informed that he was familiar with rugby from watching it whilst studying in the UK.

Herbert was keen to give me a true taste of his country, and we visited the world-famous village of Bonwire, near Kumasi, where Kente cloth was woven by hand in the colours that represent Africa. Red for life and blood, blue for innocence, green for Mother Africa and Mother Earth, black for people and unity and gold for strength and fortune. Kente cloth is worn on celebrations all over the world to show African heritage and is made from cotton, silk, rayon, and lurex thread. I was informed that Kente is sold in Harrods, a far cry from the village that I walked through with Herbert, where all ages of the village worked to produce cloth. The distance from Kumasi to Accra was only 74 miles, but the roads were single track, and it took around three hours. On this road trip, I got a true understanding of Ghanaian culture and an insight into Herbert Mensah’s personality. He was truly a remarkable man; he spoke impeccable English but would then happily switch into the different languages of Ghana of which there are reputed to be 79.

Herbert explained how things happen in Ghana which was different to our European systems. He was equally at home in each, and this is what made him such a powerful man in this part of the world and a great advocate for the tour. Herbert took me to visit Ada, a town in eastern Ghana lying on the Atlantic Ocean coast east of Accra, on the estuary of the River Volta. We went to the Akosombo Dam, a hydroelectric dam at the Akosombo gorge on the Volta River.

The final leg of the inspection trip took us to Kakum National Park in Cape Coast to see the rope bridge walk, of which there are only four in the world. On the same day, we visited Elmina along the southern Cape Coast region of Ghana, west of Accra. The town was a fishing port with a bustling commercial scene and lively atmosphere. It became famous on account of the colonial fort built here in 1482. Saint George's Castle in Elmina and Cape Coast Castle were the two places where it is believed more Africans passed through to slavery in Europe and the Americas or perished than anywhere else in the world. They were among the places where some of the worst atrocities occurred, similar in many respects to the Nazi concentration camps in Europe.

I couldn’t reconcile seeing the empty slave dungeons, which were small dark underground chambers, where several hundred slaves were kept at a time surrounded by their own excrement and vomit for up to several months until being shipped out. This place of horror had a church perched on its roof. How could those who worked at the fort truly be God-fearing if they had allowed so many people to suffer in the dungeons under their feet?  This had a lasting impression on me, and I made sure that Saint George’s Castle was included in our tour to Ghana. I will never understand how human beings can be so brutal to each other and I wanted the boys to come here to experience first-hand the account of the guides at the castle who articulated the brutality that their ancestors had suffered.

The popular misconception was that the slave trade was only about the whites shipping goods and slaves in the triangle of trade made up of three journeys. Most slaves taken out of Africa were sold by African rulers, traders and a military aristocracy who all grew wealthy from the business. The fort at Saint George made a lasting impression on me, and I became even more determined to raise money for Max Brito and bring the players to Ghana and the Ivory Coast. Herbert gave me a fascinating insight into his country and then packed me off with a French translator on a plane to visit the Ivory Coast. The Côte d'Ivoire lies to the west of Ghana and to the east is the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south. We only had one night in Abidjan and drove straight to the Stade Félix Houphouët-Boigny where we were going to play the international against the Cote D’Ivoire. We were then shown the team hotel, the famous Hotel Ivoire. I thought I had entered the set of an Austin Powers movie. It was like taking a trip back to the sixties; there had been no significant changes or modernisation to its interior and furniture since its construction. Geometric shapes, shag pile carpets, bold brash colours and an excessive use of indoor plants. The casino roof was like a spiral ice cream cone. However, it did have a massive swimming pool. The Ivoire was once the place to stay in Abidjan. It had everything from a casino, ice skating rink, bowling alley, cinema, shopping mall, supermarket, nightclub and tennis courts, but now looked a little neglected. In the evening, we ate under the stars whilst listening to traditional Ivorian music, having just returned from the British Embassy where we discussed plans for the forthcoming visit. This leg of the trip was more political than anything else and a chance to play the Ivory Coast.

With an agenda, flights and accommodation paid for whilst we were in Ghana and the Ivory Coast, all we needed was a sponsor.  The project began to fall into place. Stuart Jarrold, who was a passionate rugby supporter and presented the sport on regional television, persuaded Malcolm Wall at ITV to sign off a budget which would allow a one-hour television documentary to be produced for them. This was a huge bonus for our pipe dream which was now becoming a reality.

I was introduced to Land Rover by Trevor Key and Martin Bayfield, then the England Lock, who supported me on a pitch, giving me massive credibility. Land Rover threw their considerable corporate weight behind the event which later became known as The Discovery Tour of West Africa May/June 1996.

Herbert Mensah didn’t want to be upstaged by our success in obtaining television coverage and so he convinced M-Net SuperSport, South Africa's first dedicated sports channel, to cover the match in a highlights programme. He also contacted all the major African footballers playing in Europe to come back to play in an Allstars XI against a Ghana XI, which would be coached by Brian Kidd, then assistant coach to Alex Fergusson at Manchester United and a former member of the Manchester United team. Land Rover didn’t want to be upstaged by us either. They arranged for the match to be shown live in all the dealerships that subscribed to Land Rover TV. Land Rover had been presented with an amazing opportunity to be part of this unique event and intended to leverage this to the full.

It was billed as “The Last Amateur Tour” as no one got paid to play on tour, just travelling expenses and they came out of choice. Martin Johnson joined us on the tour even though he was unable to play as he had broken his arm. Neil Back came along but couldn’t play due to a controversial moment that arose in Leicester's Pilkington Cup final defeat against Bath in 1996.

One of the last two things we needed to do was to get permission from 10 Downing Street to travel to West Africa for this tour. We had been told that an international tour in this region of Africa needed to be with the permission of the British High Commission and by default a reporting line back to Number 10.  We had been informed by the British High Commission in Accra and the British Embassy in Abidjan that this needed to happen before we could get on the plane. Luck was on our side again; one of the players who attended the tour was John Steele. His best man, Godric Smith, worked in the press office at 10 Downing Street and helped us draft the few words that the Prime Minister would need to see to give his approval. The Prime Minister at the time was John Major. Imagine our surprise when a letter from the Prime Minister arrived in the post confirming that we had his blessing to tour and his good wishes for such a worthy cause.  The last task was to secure funding to play for the players’ expenses, and we did this by getting six businessmen to pay £5000 each to attend the tour. Everything was in place, so we concentrated on ensuring that we delivered the players to Ghana. Little did we know the reception that would be waiting for us when we arrived in Ghana in May 1996.

We embarked on The Last Amateur Tour, and this is when the Brilliant Mind, Herbert Mensah, stepped in as Mr Fix It. The Accra Sports Stadium had a rugby pitch on it and, although a match had not been played on it before, posts that came from the Kakum National Park in Cape Coast, where the tall hardwood trees grow up to 65m high. Naas Botha and a Springbok team that included many old internationals had arrived. This is the power of rugby. If someone agrees to do something, then inevitably it happens. Naas Botha had connections with Land Rover and was a rugby commentator for the South African M-Net and Supersport TV channels. He teamed up with Etienne Heyns, the M-Net marketing and development director, who was a close friend of Herbert, to make sure that this match got maximum coverage in Africa. Brian Kidd was on the same pitch coaching the Ghanaian team who were due to play an All Stars XI after our international. The scene was set for a bizarre sporting event. This is an example of what can be achieved by dreaming big.

We ran out on to the pitch into one of the hottest and most oppressive stadia I have ever played in. The stadium was filled with a crowd which far exceeded its capacity of 40,000 people. People were swinging from the rafters and the atmosphere was electric. We waited in line to sing the National Anthems, whilst listening to Jerry Rawlings make a political speech, despite the fact that Max Brito was alongside him with his family and this was the real reason for the sporting showcase. His speech was met with timely boos and interruptions from the many people in the stands and he quickly finished. It was so hot standing there waiting to be received that I thought I was going to pass out, let alone play a game of rugby. Tim Rodber introduced the President to all the players as a plane flew directly over the stadium. In the UK, regulation forbids low air traffic above sporting events, but this didn’t seem to apply in Ghana. There is an expression “West Africa rules again” which means anything goes.

The match was over before it began, and we departed victorious to the most amazing chants, as Ghana welcomed their national football team on to the field, and we departed for the changing rooms. We changed as quickly as we could, so we could go and watch the football match which was the real reason why the stadium was full. I watched Tony Yeboah score a perfect volley and saw the crowd erupt before we departed back to the Labadi Beach Hotel.

It was only when I got back to my room and started to change for the evening banquet that the reality of the match started to sink in. We had played in front of the biggest black audience to watch a game of rugby. Max Brito was present with his wife and family, and the match was in his honour. The team that took to the field would never forget the images that they saw that day. Many of the players would later go on to represent England, the Lions and ultimately win the World Cup in 2003. However, they would never encounter a match like it again. The tour was a gargantuan undertaking. It wouldn’t have happened without this Brilliant Mind, Herbert Mensah. Herbert showed me a world that I didn’t know existed and when I arrived back in England, I decided I was going to do something with my life. Not everyone gets choices in life, and I had been presented with many. It is “choice not chance” that determines your destiny. This was truly the last amateur tour of its kind, and I was very proud to have been able to facilitate it with Alistair Maclennan.

Herbert Mensah is still a highly successful businessman who has also developed and produced some of the biggest and most memorable media extravaganzas in Ghana. He was a leader in the cellular phone industry in Africa. He organised the biggest African fashion and music extravaganza in honour of Zindzi Mandela, daughter of Nelson Mandela. He was appointed chairman of Kumasi Asante Kotoko by the then King of the Ashantis, Opoku Ware II. It was acknowledged that Herbert’s involvement changed the face of sports administration in Ghana. He witnessed one of the world’s worst tragic stadium disasters in history when 126 young football supporters lost their lives needlessly during a football match between Accra Hearts of Oak (Hearts of Oak) and Kumasi Asante Kotoko (Kotoko) at the Accra Sports Stadium. He continues to raise funds by walking in honour of those families each year on the anniversary of their deaths. He has changed the face of football and rugby in Ghana. He is now the President of the Ghana Rugby Football Association. He continues to one of the most important “Brilliant Minds” that I have ever met and certainly changed the path of my life and it was wonderful to re-engage with him on the 6th Sept 2018, when he featured on Sky Sports thanks to this documentary that World Rugby Films, commissioned the Last Amateur Tour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmyGQ1x1yQc

Herbert Mensah has a wonderful presence when you meet him and through all his achievements, he has a huge amount of humility which is infectious. I witnessed the same feeling when I met Neslyn Watson-Druee for the first time on 15th November 2017 in Market Square in Kingston at Patisserie Valerie where they do a great afternoon tea.

I knew that she had been the Chairman of NHS Kingston, managing to turn around a £21.5 million deficit in two years and to finish with a £5 million surplus. She had been awarded an MBE for Nursing Leadership and a CBE for Health Service Innovation. This is impressive by anyone’s standards, but there is more to her than you could imagine.

Neslyn Watson-Druee was 70 years of age in 2020 and I immediately connected with this extraordinary lady; as Linda Thomas, Former Editor in Chief, RCN Publications said, “Everybody needs someone like Neslyn in their life. She is serene, strong, courageous and successful – everything that I have seen put to good use through her actions. Always thoughtful and generous of spirit, Neslyn has achieved extraordinary things in her life, yet she remains humble and grounded. I adore her, admire her and respect her – I’ve learnt so much from her and I’m blessed to have her in my life.”

The picture I want to paint is an image of this lady at the back of a gospel choir, radiating love but when she opens her mouth, she has the oratory skills of Obama and Mandela combined. Sadly, what we miss when reading her CV is the back story to this amazing woman who is now a most sought-after high profile executive coach, author and speaker. Neslyn lives her life with a higher purpose and her story is extraordinary.

In 1957, an eight-year-old girl is sitting on a veranda in the district of Elderslie, Parish of St James, Jamaica, surrounded by the cockpit mountains, the breeze is cool, the humming birds are singing, the citrus trees are loaded with fruits. Neslyn is contemplating who she might become. Her contemplation is disrupted by her father, a tall military man, roaring to his daughter, “You are lost in a dream, live for something have a purpose, never let your dreams die, your song unsung and your potential unlocked.”

At the age of 19, she boarded an aeroplane to travel to England that required workers to staff the hospitals, railways and transportation systems. This was the tail of the Windrush period. She wanted to be a nurse and landed at Heathrow Airport with a small suitcase (a grip) with 7 cotton dresses, 3 pairs of pyjamas and enough underwear to last for a week without washing clothes.  She was met by a distant male relative and his wife whom she had never met. They bought her a pair of boots and a coat on 22nd March 1969. She had never worn a coat before and was taken to East Dulwich in London, given a meal and then taken to the train station in Denmark Hill, where she boarded the train on her own to find her way to Ashford in Kent to begin her training as a nurse.

Four years later, she was a qualified nurse and midwife and wanted to be a health visitor. In 1973, to be a health visitor, you needed to have your own private dwelling and she was no longer entitled to live in hospital accommodation for hospital staff. It was a tough time in history when people were generally uptight – it is the oil crisis – people from the National Front Party were protesting, the Anti-Nazi League were confronting them and militants were rioting against the Police.  Women did not have equal credit opportunity, banks required single, widowed and divorce women to bring a man along to co-sign any credit application, regardless of their income. In addition, the banks would also discount the value of a woman’s salary by as much as 50% when considering how much credit to grant.

Against this back-drop, the 24-year-old Neslyn, a single black woman, was attempting to get a mortgage. She tried to rent accommodation but without any success. She was confronted with notices on doors of property to rent which read no dogs, no Irish, no Blacks. She was determined when she qualified as a midwife to be a health visitor, but the odds were stacked against her at the time; in her Health Authority, Merton, Sutton and Wandsworth, there was only one black health visitor and, in the whole of England, there were fewer than 10 women of colour. Her Director of Midwifery services said to her, “Black Girls don’t become health visitors.” She was even told by Greater London Council, when she asked for a mortgage, that black women don’t get mortgages.

But Neslyn had a higher purpose. She would not let this deter her in any way. She demanded an interview with Director of Housing who had the authority to make the decision to allow her to obtain a mortgage and do the right thing. Neslyn was granted a 100% mortgage by this woman. As you will see, Neslyn has had many setbacks in her life, but always comes back on top. In the powerful words of Maya Angelou – Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it.

With her newly acquired mortgage, she commenced her training as a health visitor. Years later in 1976, the occupants of the downstairs maisonette changed and a couple wearing National Front uniform moved in. They spat, swore and threatened Neslyn.  Then, as she left her property for her new car with only 600 miles on the clock, she found that her tyres had been slashed and acid had been poured all over the vehicle, causing it to corrode. She was shaken but her warrior confidence was not destroyed.

She put her property, a three-bedroom maisonette, on the market and it sold within 24 hours. She bought a dilapidated rat and cockroach infested house, called in Environment and Public Health to fumigate the house and began to furnish it one room at a time.

By 1986, she was a fully qualified practising health visitor, with an honours degree in Psychology, a Masters’ Degree in Health Promotion and a Post Graduate Teaching Qualification. In 1987, she applied for a job and received a telephone call from the Director of HR who told her, “There is good news and bad news. We won’t be employing you for the post for which you interviewed. The good news is we want to employ you, write the job description within these parameters and tell us how much you want to be paid.” Neslyn has learnt that luck is when preparation meets opportunity.

Yet another setback led to an opportunity: eighteen months after she took post, in her new job, she was confronted by her new line manager. “I find you threatening because you are black, a woman and intelligent and I am going to block you.” She had gone from being elated in having her perfect job that she created, to total disbelief in what she heard, but once again showed courage. A gay white middle-aged female territorial Army Sergeant had oppressed and denied her self-expression and declared psychological war on her. However, she wasn’t intimidated by this woman’s insecurities and the voice within her kept reminding her: Yes, I am black, yes, I am intelligent, but you line manager will not be allowed to block me. In hindsight, she now knows the biggest block can sometimes become her biggest opportunity. She also learnt that those who have been oppressed can in turn become even greater oppressors.

So on 1st October 1989, she set up her own business. She shared a lovely quote: “Vision without action is only a dream. Action without vision passes the time. Action with vision can change the world.” She focused on her strengths and developed leadership programmes that would never allow the reaction her former boss had presented her with to happen again. She developed programmes for the NHS, 22 Multi-nationals in London through The London Enterprise Agency and the BBC. The Secretary of State for Health, Virginia Bottomley, appointment her to the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting to contribute to leadership and governance.

She has learnt that the important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. The greatest failure is not to try. Her work formed the foundations for the development of the present NHS Leadership Academy.

This brings us to the place where we started where Neslyn was the Chairman of NHS Kingston, managing a turn around a £21.5 million deficit in two years and finishing with a £5 million surplus. This happened in July 2000 and was her biggest lesson. She ordered an independent investigation into the governance breakdown; the findings showed her finance department were running two ledgers. The financial information that came to her board was different to the financial information that went to the All-London Health Authority Board. She sacked the whole board, appointed a new Board to watch her back and keep the integrity of the business. She committed mentally to clearing the deficit within two years. All the new board members said that it could not be done, but she knew she had the responsibility to hold the unwavering vision.

This was the backstory I heard that day over afternoon tea. This was a lady that had lived with passion. She had recorded many lessons in 12 books. Who would have thought that the little girl that at 19 years old, who left Jamaica with 5 O’Levels would now be the recipient of 25 awards, she mused: the National Training Award, the Millennium Nurse Special Recognition Award, Member of the British Empire, Commander of the British Empire and the Queen’s own Medal for Leadership and Health Service Innovation to name but a few.

She has learnt that it is not who you are that holds you back, but who you think you're not. So encourage people to think big and don’t listen to people who tell you it can’t be done. Life is too short to think small. The unfulfilled potential is likely to be a mental drain. The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be and, if failure comes, don’t quit. Your creativity will always be a natural extension of your enthusiasm. I leave you with the words of Jim Rohn:

The big challenge is to become all that you have the possibility of becoming. You cannot believe what it does to the human spirit to maximise your human potential and stretch yourself to the limit.

I have been lucky enough to get to know this “Brilliant Mind” and feel honoured to regard her as a friend. She spoke at our showcase on 10^th March 2020, just before lockdown and told her story. A truly inspiring woman.

Keeping with the theme of healthcare and humility, I want to mention another “Brilliant Mind” who was introduced to me by Matthew Syed on 11th March 2016.

Matthew sent me a short email which read, “Harvey - just wanted to introduce you to Martin Elliott. Brilliant doctor, who has revolutionised healthcare, and inspirational speaker. Might be worth meeting up. His messages are very applicable to business.”

In September 2015, Matthew wrote a book which is a must-read called ‘Black Box Thinking: The Surprising Truth About Success’. The premise of the book is how incremental change can produce greater success. In the book, Matthew describes the different mind-set towards learning within the aviation industry and the healthcare industry. The aviation industry once was very dangerous, with many flights ending in disaster. However, through learning and the extreme focus on safety, flying is now the safest form of travel. Conversely, the health care industry remains the third biggest killer in the western world: preventable medical mistakes. Matthew argues that the difference is primarily driven by attitude. In his book, he refers to feedback mechanisms that exist in aviation and ensure that mistakes will be reported whereas if someone makes a mistake in healthcare, it is largely not addressed. I am doing the book a huge disservice, but this is my summary.

On his website dated 28^th April 2017, Matthew makes a reference to Martin Bromiley, a dear friend who lost his wife to medical error and ‘Black Box Thinking’ was framed around this story. He is quite disparaging towards the medical profession, because they don’t systematically interrogate the mistakes they make through fear of litigation together with the egos of some senior clinicians (who don’t like to admit that they ever make mistakes!). In the US alone, according to the British Medical Journal, around 251,000 people die every year because of medical errors. That is like a jumbo jet crashing every day (2017).

In the same post, he refers to Martin Elliott, together with Martin Farrier, Simon Redwood and Umesh Prabhu as brilliant doctors, nurses and managers who are driving change in innovation and patient safety. Martin Elliott and I spoke on 23^rd March, and Alice and I met him for coffee shortly after. His signature on his emails read Professor Martin Elliott MD FRCS, Paediatric Cardiothoracic Surgeon, Director of the National Service for Severe Tracheal Disease in Children, The Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS FT. I knew instinctively that, if one of the best speakers I have ever heard, had mentioned him in his book and thought he was a good speaker, then we had to meet face to face.

His signature reflected the humility of the person that we got to meet. It should have read Martin Elliott MD FRCS is Professor Emeritus of Cardiothoracic Surgery at UCL & Emeritus Professor of Physic and Fellow at Gresham College.  He worked as a paediatric cardiothoracic (& transplant) surgeon at the Great Ormond Street from 1984 until 2019. He was co-Medical Director there from 2010 to 2015. He now holds several part time posts including non-executive director of the Royal Marsden Hospital NHS FT, London and Chief Medical Officer of Allocate Software Ltd. Pro Bono he is a non-executive director of Children’s Health Ireland, Dublin and was a member of the China Tribunal. He has led research into the pathophysiology of cardiopulmonary bypass, outcomes and clinical databases and tracheal transplantation and is widely published.  He has delivered over 450 invited lectures worldwide and many named lectures. He has held several international visiting professorships and taught and operated throughout the world. I have lifted this directly from Gresham College which is where he gives many lectures.

So the question is why would Matthew recommend him and more to the point why would a corporate audience want to listen to him? The story that I am about to tell was the reason I initially became slightly inspired by being in this man’s presence. This hasn’t stopped to this day.

Like many of the Brilliant Minds I have mentioned, someone (in this case Dave Holford, his biology teacher at school) persuaded him to apply to medical school in Newcastle at the age of 17 on an advanced course. While he was a student, he went to work in the United States at Chattanooga and ended up working in the emergency room, where most of the people working were ex Vietnam veterans.

He learnt then that surgery could save lives and  after graduating chose that as a career.  After a few months of cardiac surgery during his post-grad training,   an opportunity arose for him to work with kids, which appealed to him because there were many more operations than in adult surgery. It gave him a social and moral obligation that extended over the life of the child, and he enjoyed working with families.

Martin’s world became one of operating on children’s hearts the size of a walnut and success to him was reducing the mortality for congenital heart surgery. His view was bad doctors are quite rare, dysfunctional teams are not. The effect on his patient can be the same.

When Martin started out in medicine, there were no by-pass machines, no proper intensive care, no computers, no syringe pumps, no imaging, no ultrasound, no MRI, no CT open-heart surgery, no growing of organs. Now all of these are commonplace along with the use of virtual reality and 3D printing. The change in technology and material science improved marginally during this period. He loved being part of this transition from high mortality to almost zero mortality. This has for him been a fantastic privilege.

His whole mantra doing the job that he does was predicated on him caring about people and so he constantly tried to improve what he was doing, as in his world better than average isn’t good enough. Individual patients that he wanted to keep alive led to him trying new things and he struggled to find a way of solving them. He looked at reducing the mortality for patients with diabetes, how you get excess water out of babies by ultra-filtration, a method now used around the world and tracheal transplantation which helped develop. This often led to fighting against colleagues who told him he had done enough.

He operated on children’s hearts and wouldn’t stop trying to find ways of improving this. The team at Great Ormond Street had a relentless pursuit of excellence.   Martin’s colleague, Marc de Leval felt that human factors were contributing to babies dying and wanted to seek new ways of improving what the team did by looking outside of the hospital. Surgery was complex with the amalgamation of software, hardware, a team of up to 25 people in the operating room in a challenging and risky environment, all of which could fail. The complexity of surgery used to rest primarily with the surgeon, but the GOSH team managed the transition to make it about the teams.

In the 80s and 90s, when you had a problem, you called in an expert. Martin thought that this was a dumb way to do work. Wouldn’t it be better if they got together, traded off skills and made a better job of it from the beginning? Teams were formed, the referral rate went up and the cost of operations went down. The teams trained each other and were not exclusive to their skill sets, which eventually became the national centre. The desire was to get good results.

Martin became head of the cardio respiratory and critical care division of GOSH and later Medical Director. He set up an outcomes methodology which spread throughout GOSH which was led by a safety culture from the CEO to the bottom of the organisation with two guiding principles: you must know the quality of your data and the patient becomes the most important thing.

The GOSH cardiac team looked at Formula One and the Aviation Industry in its pursuit of excellence. Martin and Allan Goldman (then an intensivist at GOSH) noticed that the journey from the operating theatre to the intensive care unit was very dangerous and similar to a pitstop. If you look down from an aerial view, the images are similar of complex machinery and people moving around it.

This became part of a safety culture, where people were encouraged to report errors and the blame culture, which had previously made people insecure, was removed. Decisions were made by consensus, disagreements were resolved, objectives became well understood and ideas were forthcoming from the team. He was aware that human error was inevitable, so what could he do to mitigate this within his team?

They found that Formula 1 has the same component parts to what he was doing in the hospital. Teams working together, where safety is paramount, reading data from the monitors and on the basis of this intelligence, engaging in rapid prototyping and logistics to ensure that the patient/driver has everything they need to survive. The late Nigel Stepney, chief mechanic at Ferrari, who came to help Martin at GOSH, was amazed at how clumsy and informal the hospital handover was and couldn’t work out who was in charge.

Every person has a role in a pitstop as do the consultant anaesthetist (ventilator), consultant anaesthetist (ventilator), CCC Reg Nurse (pump) Nurse (drain) Nurse (Urine) and surgeon in an operating theatre. So they helped Martin with three logical phases: equipment and technology, information and the discussion plan to create a clear rhythm and defined order, like you see in a pitstop. Specific roles were allocated requiring minimal speech and calm demeanours, checklists became mandatory and people were encouraged to speak out if they felt they could contribute. Training and repetition were introduced and built into staff inductions. All performance was monitored and handovers were analysed weekly. The consequence was a fourfold reduction in multiple errors and more effective team performance. The essence of this for Martin was that you must open your mind to learn from other industries. It fascinated him that Formula One races always started on time, yet he could never start an operating list on time. His view was that medics had very poor discipline. If an operating list didn’t start on time, there were no consequences and this was Matthew Syed’s point: it wouldn’t happen in Formula One or in the aviation industry, which is one of the other industries he observed (because of safety, SOPs, no blame culture), in the hotel industry (customer service, use of facilities), in production line logistics (patient flow at high occupancies) and in many others. His focus will always be the patient (the customer) and what can he do to make their lives in hospital more effective.

He is a truly remarkable man who has dedicated his life to this job, and I was in a virtual zoom meeting recently where Martin was speaking where there were only 16 people in total and from random businesses in the procurement world. This was the email I was sent on 25^th January 2021. “Martin, as soon as you started speaking and then when I saw some of the photographs it all came flooding back. Sam, my stepson, was a newborn and you operated on him in GOSH, it would have been 1997, before I knew him. He had a procedure called “transposition of the main arteries”. Sam then had to have a valve replaced when he was 7, so I was there that time. It would have been 2004. Delighted to report Sam is a strong and healthy 24-year-old, who has just graduated from Manchester University with a 1st in Politics and is a wonderful big brother to my 2 boys. Thank you so much Martin, we are truly grateful for the amazing work you have dedicated your life to. I have told Sam and his Mum about our meeting last week, safe to say we have all had our minds blown!

Mark Gallagher

I was lucky enough at the same time as meeting Martin Elliott to get to know Mark Gallagher, who was able to tell me first-hand what he had witnessed in terms of safety in Formula One that, like Martin said, led to improvements in performance and of course team dynamics. Mark had worked in senior management roles within Formula One motor racing over the last 30 years and someone I had met in my old world when he was commercial director, with Jordan Grand Prix team, on a ski trip at the famous and newly opened five-star Hotel Le Kilimanjaro, on the Pralong ski slope of Courchevel 1850. The team were there in December when I took a group of executives on an incentive trip. I had grown up with Andy Stevenson, who alongside Mark, worked for the characterful Eddie Jordan.

Mark had other roles running the world-famous Cosworth engine business and establishing the commercial arm of Red Bull Racing, which went on to become World Champions four times. Today, he is co-commentator and Formula One analyst for BBC 5 Live and a contributor to Sky Sports F1 in the UK, a broadcaster for ESPN in the USA, as well as founder and CEO of Performance Insights.

There isn’t a better brain in my opinion who is able to articulate the industry that is Formula One and how it has evolved into one of the most sophisticated engineering, technology and logistics companies. Mark has been quoted as saying that the most profound thing that he has achieved in the time that he has been involved in the sport is the safety journey that the sport has been on.

Like surgery, its mission is to ensure that safety is at the heart of everything it does. How can they get the driver around the track safely? To do this, they have to take so many other things into consideration including reliability and performance. I want to share some stories that I have heard from Mark which look at all these different aspects.

On 11th June 1955, a major crash occurred during the 24 Hours of Le Mans motor race at Circuit de la Sarthe in Le Mans, France. Large pieces of debris flew into the crowd, killing 83 spectators and French driver Pierre Bouillin and injuring nearly 180 more. This led to one of the first major changes: crowd separation from the races. Another major change was how they tackled the problem of fire after major accidents with Bandini in 1967, Williamson in 1973 and Petersen in 1978. They created fireproof suits and reengineered the fuel tanks.

Mark grew up with Martin Donnelly in Northern Ireland and they were great friends. During qualifying for the 1990 Grand Prix of Spain, at Jerez, Martin suffered a huge racing accident which by a stroke of luck was not fatal. His Lotus 102 crashed into the barrier at 140mph (225kmh) and exploded into pieces. The chassis tore in two and Martin was thrown across the track with his seat still strapped to his back. Thanks to the quick reactions of F1’s medical team, and months of intensive treatment, he is still around to talk about what happened that day. Martin’s injuries were grave. X-rays showed he had bruising on his lungs and brain. The impact was so violent it cracked his racing helmet. He also had severe breaks to both legs and lost a lot of blood. After being treated by Professor Sid Watkins at the track, Donnelly was transferred to a hospital in Seville. During a long recovery, he suffered kidney failure and was on dialysis for weeks. For a while, it looked as though his right leg might have to be amputated, but luckily it wasn’t. The only lingering sign of his terrible injuries was a limp. This is how safety became very personal for Mark who saw his best friend become permanently disabled because of the sport.

The first driver to arrive at the scene was Ayrton Senna who was very affected by what he saw. He became the head of the drivers’ committee on safety and worked hard to develop safety in its broadest context within the industry. He subsequently lost his life in 1994 at Imola and Jules Bianchi died in July 2015, nine months after sustaining severe head injuries during the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix.

Safety became the most dominant thing for the next 20 years because of what happened in 1994 and 1995. Mark suggested that safety was about managing the human condition, that it comes from within from the top down to the bottom up and that they had to find a way of producing the required level of safety. The accident on May 1^st 1994 was watched by 200 million people on live TV which was reputed to be the largest live audience to watch a fatality.

On the Monday morning after this incident, data sets, which were previously only used for performance management, were analysed to work out what went wrong. Mining the data led to them identifying that the steering on the car failed. Ayton Senna had complained that the steering column was rubbing against his knee and had asked for a localised modification to be made, which was done without any reference to the engineering required to do this properly. This was a fundamental failure of quality engineering and process. At this point in time, if Ayton asked for something, they would do it, rather like the surgeon being the person that everyone followed without questioning whether it was the right decision.

In the aftermath of the deaths and several other serious accidents, Max Mosley and Bernie Ecclestone got together and issued a statement that their ambition and target was to eliminate to zero the fatality of future drivers. An advisory expert group chaired by Professor Sid Watkins was formed to research and improve safety in motor racing. Sid was the person accredited for the work that he did in safety in F1, serving for twenty-six years as the FIA Formula One Safety and Medical Delegate, head of the Formula One on-track medical team, and first responder in case of a crash. The resulting changes included reducing the capacity and power of engines, the use of grooved tyres to reduce cornering speeds, the introduction of the HANS device to protect drivers' necks in accidents, circuit re-design and greatly increased requirements for crash testing of the chassis.

At this point, everything became about prevention, mitigation and consequently the design of the car. High speed medical cars were introduced that had a team of doctors, including a neurosurgeon, an anaesthetist and a trauma doctor. The objective was that if an accident happened, then the car would be there within 20 seconds. The result of all this work on safety led to improvements in the cars that we drive today, that have been crash tested from the learnings in Formula One. Sid helped to save the lives of many drivers including Gerhard Berger, Martin Donnelly, Érik Comas, Mika Häkkinen and Karl Wendlinger. He was able take away this feeling that it was inevitable that there would be accidents due to the nature of the sport.

The improvements in safety led to increases in performance. When Mark first started working in F1, pitstops were 8 seconds, then 6 seconds, then refuelling was banned, so they only had to change the tyres and the wings and at the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix, the pit crew at Red Bull beat their previous world record pit-stop time of 1.88 seconds. Their new time, set on lap 21 of 71, clocked in at 1.82 seconds, when race winner Max Verstappen came in to swap his red-striped soft-compound tyres for a fresh set of rubber. Mark concluded that Formula One’s quest for performance and for safety did not need to be mutually exclusive, but they could co-exist. This is the thing he is most proud of in the 30-year journey that he has had in the industry.

David Coulthard

Thanks to the friendship and trust that we built with Mark Gallagher, we were lucky enough to have both him and David Coulthard come to our “Brilliant Minds” Showcase, on Tuesday 12th March 2019 in the Long Room at Lord’s Cricket Ground.  Mark interviewed David on stage, and we gained a real insight from the driver’s perspective, the winner of 13 Grands Prix, including twice winner of both the British and Monaco Grands Prix.

He told us that karting was in his blood. His father encouraged the whole family to partake, but David was the only one to take it up, in competitions like the super one series. In his first year, he failed more times than he succeeded but eventually went on to win the championship. It was his father who encouraged him to progress although it was clear that David already had a desire and determination to succeed. The wind beneath his wings was his father.

At 17, he realised it could be a potential career. He loved karting and he was reluctant to go into cars. He didn’t enjoy the cars at the beginning. His father recognised that he needed to surround David with good people and he credits the late David Lesley senior and junior, as the people responsible for understanding car racing. They helped create the foundation in Formula Ford that he got. David had a work ethic which came from his parents, which drove him to want to dedicate himself to the sport. The team environment has always been important to him. He loves working towards a common goal.

In 1994, David was racing the Vortex Reynard Cosworth 94D in the International F3000 Championship at Silverstone, the day after the tragic Imola GP weekend, and so this was to be David's last F3000 race as he moved to Williams to take Ayrton Senna's car. However, as he describes, he had to work for it as there was no certainty and it was questionable whether he would have got the opportunity to go to Formula One. So the weekend that changed safety in the sport was the time when David got his lucky break. This led to a 15 season grand prix career which saw him race against world class competition including Michael Schumacher, Mika Hakkinen, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton.

When he went to his first race at Silverstone with McClaren in 1990, he went on his own and recalls that this was unusual; it was almost like his family had given him the roots to grow and wings to fly.

The overriding message that he conveyed was about the trust that he had in the team and being surrounded by the best people you possibly can be throughout his career. He said that he wouldn’t be in the position he was without the support of influential people in his life.

He talked about the notion of a responsibility culture which is what Professor Mattin Elliott was trying to instil into his team when operating. People putting their hand up when they make a mistake, which he thought was a wonderfully infectious environment to be in. His overwhelming humility is what came across. He respects authority and is true to his values and belief. He respected team orders. These teams included helping McLaren to win the Formula One World Championships for Constructors in 1998. He was a founding member of the Red Bull Racing team in 2005, working together with the team to achieve the first podium finish in 2006 in Monaco, helping develop it into a 4-times World Championship winning team in 2010-2013.

When he stopped racing in F1 at the end of 2008, he found everyday life slightly underwhelming because he found that people were not used to delivering to the same high standards that he was used to in F1. He reemphasised the point that Martin Elliot made about why operation schedules do not start on time. In F1 the race starts at 2.00pm in Melbourne, everyone will be on the grid and be ready for the race start; these deadlines can’t be moved so no one negotiates on them.

He is still someone that likes pressure, responsibility, commitment, and this is regardless of the money that he has earned. He recognises that he was single-minded and to a certain extent selfish during his career which he loved being part of. He has established a successful second career as a world class broadcaster and commentator, initially with BBC Television and more recently at Channel 4, for which David’s production company ‘Whisper Films’ produces the television coverage of Formula One in the UK. Outside of Formula One, David has been a successful entrepreneur, investing in a range of businesses which have added to his reputation as being a winner on and off the track.

One quick story. David arrived at Lords, the “epitome of elegance”. However, the dress code in the pavilion is notoriously strict. Men are required to wear "ties and tailored coats and acceptable trousers with appropriate shoes" and women are required to wear "dresses; or skirts or trousers worn with blouses, and appropriate shoes". He forgot his tie and yours truly stepped in with a spare so he could be let in. It doesn’t matter who you are at Lords!

For the next section of this story, I just wanted to pick up on a point that David Coulthard made to us at Lords about him finding everyday life slightly underwhelming because he found that people were not used to delivering to the same high standards that he was used to in F1.

There of course is no surprise here and to some extent this is what I miss more than anything in life: that sense of being part of a purpose-driven team. I can’t profess to knowing what it was like to win in Monaco or Silverstone. However, being part of the journey that was masterminded by a very special Brilliant Mind in my opinion, Sir Ian McGeechan, equipped me with the skills that I have transferred into business. He led us from relegation to the second division of the Courage League to winning the Heineken Cup,

The reason why I mention the Heineken Cup is that Covid19 put paid to the 20-year reunion of a squad of players who were part of the most successful period that Northampton Saints had ever seen, leading to the final of the European Cup at Twickenham on 27th May 2000. This was the first year that the Saints had qualified for the Heineken European Cup, and they found themselves in the final after the first attempt. The Club had been established for 119 years, and they had never won anything. This all started in 1994/95 when he saw a club get relegated from the Premiership which was a bitter pill and he and the squad needed little motivation to knuckle down to secure their Premiership status the following season.  The Saints in the 1995/96 season broke every record set in the Courage League, setting new marks. Fast forward to 4^th June 1999, after another successful season on record, the squad each received a letter from Geech entitled, “We are not turning back!” He stated, “We must keep moving forward – be fitter and stronger to keep pace and intensity in our game, because I am convinced we have a game which can win us the European Cup. The style of the last seven games, in particular, make us very difficult opponents for any side in Europe… But, as in everything we now do, it is down to your honesty and commitment. These are exciting times for us, let’s make the most of them - we are definitely not turning back.”

In the space of five years, this man had shown me what being part of a team really stood for, and I will always be indebted to him for this. He had written this letter and six days later left to be the Scotland coach for the 1999 Rugby World Cup, due largely to his wife’s ill health. However, he had predicted a result that less than a year later came true, such was the magnitude of this man. In front of a crowd of 68,441 spectators at Twickenham, on 27^th May 2000, the Saints won 9–8 in the final. It wasn’t the prettiest of fixtures, a typical Cup Final, but no one cared. Pat Lam captained the side that day, probably one of the best signings Northampton had ever made and now the current Bristol coach and at the time of writing top of the Premiership.

He had been playing for Newcastle for two seasons and had helped them first to win promotion and then to the Premiership One Championship Title in the 1997/98 season. He had played in the 1991 and 1995 World Cup tournaments each time, helping Western Samoa to the quarter-finals. It was whilst he was on tour in that summer of 1998 in New Zealand with Western Samoa that he learned that Rob Andrew, Newcastle’s director of rugby, had put him up for a transfer. Geech was surprised that Newcastle would be prepared to transfer him and wasted no time in securing his services. It will be no surprise therefore that one of the first people Pat called after he lifted the cup that day with Tim Rodber was Geech, who had instilled a squad ethos into the Saints, which I was lucky enough to be part of in my last year, having played my first game in 1987.

Sir Ian McGeechan will always be remembered as one of the greatest-ever Lions coaches, but he was also a very fine centre in his day. Part of the Invincibles team that went unbeaten in South Africa in 1974, McGeechan was an accomplished fly-half and centre with 30 Lions appearances as a player. He was head coach for the 1989, 1993, 1997 and 2009 Lions Tours, assistant coach in 2005. My old teammate, Matt Dawson, sums up Geech in the best way possible. “There have been many great players associated with the Lions over the years, with names like Willie John McBride, Martin Johnson, Scott Gibbs and Gareth Edwards springing to mind. But as someone who embodies everything it is to be a Lion, there is nobody who will come close to what Geech has brought to the red jersey. From player, to coach, to manager – not to mention assistant manager and consultant – he epitomises the Lions as a brand and as a team. Once a Lion always a Lion and that comes with a bond that will be there forever. And that's because of Geech – the ultimate Lion.”

I have been lucky enough to work with Geech on many occasions and, on this particular occasion, we were with a company called DS Smith and its MD Gareth Jenkins who had assembled his team together at Twickenham in the President's Suite, the stadium's most prestigious facility. This is the location that plays host to royalty and VIPs on match days. I will never forget the theme of the day: it was around collaborative leadership, and Gareth wanted to get several different businesses he was responsible for together as they were working in silos. How could he get them to work together and collaborate?

The first part of the day was to teach them some theory on collaborative leadership, but these men were MDs of large manufacturing plants within the print and packaging world, and they would need more convincing than this.

Our masterstroke was to use the British & Irish Lions as an example of why collaboration truly works. The Lions team selects from players eligible for the national teams of the Home Nations. Opponents one minute, team-mates the next; the British & Irish Lions squad is unique in that it brings together the best players from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales once every four years. United under the same badge and philosophy, the Lions has become part of rugby folklore since the first tour in 1888. Selection is the pinnacle of any eligible player’s career and an endorsement that you are amongst the very best in your position.

It is one thing using the analogy, the catalyst was much better. After a mid-morning coffee break, a special guest was announced and imagine their surprise when the most successful Lions man of all time stood in the doorway of the Presidents Suite there for their pleasure and my word did some attitudes change when Geech reinforced the power of the a collective team working together for a common purpose. I was lucky enough to have been coached by this man and will always be indebted to the values that he instilled into me. He went on to be Director of Rugby at Wasps for four years, before stepping aside to be the head coach of the Lions' tour to South Africa in 2009.  A truly brilliant mind, tactician of the game and custodian to the ethos of the game loved by so many.

I first met Matthew Syed in June 2011 over a cuppa in Richmond where he was based, and our office was located. I had always loved reading Malcolm Gladwell books and came across ‘Bounce’ which was published in 2011.

Matthew Syed references Gladwell in the first part of this book, as well as Anders Ericsson, Carol Dweck, to prove the point that purposeful practice, intrinsic motivation and a little luck create world-class performers. I completely subscribed to this philosophy having been part of Ian McGeehan’s squad that would eventually see the Club win the ultimate prize in European Rugby. I was keen to seek him out and, in those days, you could phone him on his mobile which was on his website.

Matthew did a lot of corporate events for us in those early days, and he was very unusual in as much as he was one of the most magnificent orators with the ability to answer any question put to him. However, he would start the event off playing table tennis. I got this idea from a video that I saw of Nick Higham, presenter of the BBC News' weekly "Meet the Author" programme doing an interview with Matthew in Silverdale Road in Reading, where he grew up. Matthew was able to play table tennis whilst answering questions posed by Nick Higham. He was consciously able to answer the questions put to him whilst unconsciously playing a complex game of table tennis. I can remember the first time that I saw this former Olympian play and for any of us who think that it is not a proper sport, any doubts were blown away. There was a reason he achieved what he did in his sport and went on to be such a success in every other facet of his life.

In the early days, we talked about creating some tailored events around ‘Bounce’ and I quote an email that he sent to me on 28^th March 2012, describing what these future products might look like. “Matthew Syed delivers tailored events for businesses and organisations around the themes of performance, cultural transformation, and the growth mindset. These events, which can be half day, one day, or two days in duration, take place at various outstanding venues around the UK, and are proven vehicles to improve performance and set the stage for shifts in culture and motivation.”

More than 50 of the most forward-thinking organisations in the world have booked Matthew in the last 12 months, including Goldman Sachs, Arsenal FC, Vodafone, Rolls Royce, BP, McKinsey, Alliance Bernstein, Oxford University, Saracens, Deutsche Bank and Morrisons. The event includes presentations by Matthew along with some of Britain’s leading experts in the science of performance, including Mark Thomas, professor of evolutionary genetics at UCL, and Mark Bawden, psychologist of the England Cricket Team. There are sessions on motivation (where does it come from, and how can it be maintained), feedback (how to embed feedback, which is crucial to long term performance, within the framework of an organisation), and cultural evolution (how to alter beliefs and practices in the right direction). There are also presentations on the art of the nudge (how minimal interventions can sometimes make a big difference), as well as facilitated group sessions to tease out specific implications for attendees. The centrepiece of the day is a growth mindset intervention delivered in small groups. This is a scientifically proven technique, invented by Professor Dweck at Stamford University, that builds persistence and resilience in individuals and teams, and drives sustained performance. Growth mindset interventions have been tested in a variety of contexts, including with university students, NASA systems engineers, and businesses, with strong long-term effects. One large client has reported increased sales measured in the tens of millions of pounds in the aftermath of a new approach that included an emphasis on the growth mindset for all employees. The events include exhibitions of high-level sport and improvisational comedy. These are designed to be fun, so that participants leave having had a chance to relax, but also to challenge perceptions of excellence and where it comes from.

For any of you who know Matthew Syed Consulting in 2021, you will know this is exactly what he went on to do and over this period that I met him, which is really the last decade, he went on to be one of the most sought-after keynote speakers and is a joy to listen to with a methodology and approach to follow this up. Alice, my wife, worked with him on a few events as an accredited facilitator and thoroughly enjoyed her time doing this. In fact, anything that Matthew puts his mind to he will achieve.

It was Matthew who therefore introduced me to Mark Bawden who at the time was the Lead Sport Psychologist. Mark grew up in Cornwall and he was a relatively good all-round cricketer, playing in Cornwall Schools, Regional Schools, and England Schools. When he got to the age of seventeen, he had been an opening bowler in County Cricket and he felt like, at this stage of his life, he could carve out a career in cricket and was about to go and play club cricket in Australia.

It was whilst he was playing in a county game in Cornwall at U18s, with an unfamiliar team that he had not played with previously but against players that he had played with in the England Schools set up, that he discovered something that ultimately led him into psychology.

He was asked to open the bowling for the first over of the game which was usual for Mark to do and there was nothing particularly unusual about this day at all. He remembers being at the top of his run and running into bowl his first ball and he remembers distinctly that ball was delivered wrongly. In all the ten years that he had been playing cricket, he knew that whilst the ball was ok it felt wrong. He did not understand what had gone wrong.

He walked to the back of his mark, ran into bowl again and this time as he went to bowl, it felt like the ball was stuck in his hand and he bowled an incredibly wide delivery, so wide that it went to first slip. The wicket keeper looked at him, and everyone had a bit of a laugh. In cricket, if you get one wrong everyone has a nervous chuckle and jokes fly around like “nice loosener” but Mark had never had this feeling before. The next ball he bowled went wide again and the nervous chuckles went to concern for Mark who genuinely felt he was not in control of the ball. He bowled the third ball, and it was beamer that went over the wicket keepers head and went for four wides. So, at this point he has started his over and he has only bowled one legal delivery and he does not know what is going on. He started to panic and as the over went on this continued to the point that, as he was running into bowl, he was saying let go because it felt like it was stuck in his hand. He cannot remember how many balls he bowled in that over, but it felt horrendous. It felt like he was stuck in it for ever. The result was that he was bowling against someone he knew playing for Gloucester, who came down the wicket to him and said, “Mark I can’t watch this, turn your arm over and I will hit the ball back because you just need to get out of this,” and this is how he got out of the over. He did not know what had gone on, but it was excruciatingly embarrassing: he had gone from being quite good to a complete beginner. Needless to say, he did not get asked to bowl again that day and was stuck down in fine leg in complete embarrassment.

The next week, he went into the cricket nets and bowled consistently. The next week, he bowled in a cricket game and the same thing happened. This happened five or six times repeatedly. He felt like he was stuck in a burning building, and he could never get out of the over because in cricket you must keep playing through the over, if you are bowling wides, beamers, and balls straight into the ground constantly.

At the end of that season, his plans to go to Australia as a bowler were clearly scuppered. His friends were all going off to University and Mark’s dreams of being a cricketer were being shattered. He went to speak to a couple of coaches about what was going on and one of them was a renowned national coach at the time. Mark explained what had gone on and he said, “Mate, you have got a really bad case of the yips.” He went on to explain the stories that he knew of all these proficient level cricketers that had just lost their ability to bowl overnight and never got it back. His advice was that he should really start concentrating on his batting! He had been working on cricket for 10 years and then seemingly in the space of a few months it had all gone. This was his catalyst into psychology. He knew that the yips were not a physical thing but a brain/mindset thing. No one could explain why the yips grabs you one day. This is what got him into sports science which was only just becoming a discipline. He went to the Chichester institute of Higher Education to study Sports Science specialising in sports psychology and then studied the yips as his Ph.D. He went on to interview people about their experiences; he wanted people to realise that it was a real thing, it was just choking or cracking under pressure. His agenda was to get the yips on the radar so people could intervene and help people with it. He was doing half-time research and half-term performance psychology. The first assigned team that he was allocated to learn with was the England Table Tennis Team and the first person that he started working with was Matthew Syed, who ironically had experienced something like the yips and choking, which he mentions in his book ‘Bounce’.

Matthew Syed choked in one of the most important games of his career. He had made it to Sydney Olympics in 2000, and it was the first time he had been a medal hopeful. He was twenty-nine at the time and already a decorated table tennis player. His opponent Franz stroked the ball into play – a light and gentle forehand topspin. It was not a difficult stroke to return, not a stroke he would normally have had any trouble pouncing upon, and yet he was strangely late on it, his feet stuck in their original position, his racket jabbing at the ball in a way that was unfamiliar. His return missed the table by more than two feet. He shook out his hand, sensing that something was wrong and hoping it would rectify itself. But things got worse. Each time his opponent played a stroke, he found his body doing things that bore no relation to anything he had learned over the last twenty years of playing table tennis: his feet were sluggish, his movements alien, his touch barely existent. He was trying as hard as he could; he yearned for victory more intensely than in any match he had ever played, and yet it was if he had regressed to the time when he was a beginner. It was the same feeling that Mark had experienced. Mark and Matthew came together and had a natural connection.

Mark completed his PhD and started doing a lot of applied work. He soon realised that he spent an awful long time, doing this work, speaking to people about their setbacks and weaknesses. The things that were not working and helping them fix their weaknesses. This was helpful but what he realised was that when you are really trying to develop high performance, to get to the next level, fixing weaknesses is not enough. Sports psychologists were often perceived as weakness fixers who you saw when you had a problem.

Mark realised that this had to change, and this is where the strengths-based thinking came about. He started thinking about how you can grow the very best of people. Strengths-based philosophy came about at the institute of sport where he worked with his business partner and friend Pete Lindsay. One of the things they noticed was it is not the extended periods that you are working with people that make the difference; it is often the little bits of insights that you give people about the opportunity or possibility of developing a competitive edge.

At this time in the institute of sport, Mark began working with Nick Matthew which is where the idea of super strengths was born by accident. Nick came to Mark with his problem. He had been stuck inside the top ten in the world for several years and he did not seem to be able to get any further. Nick was worried that he had reached as good as it was going to get. In 2008, something happened to him: he had a really severe injury and was going to have at least six months out of the game. He came to Mark and asked if he could use the six months to focus on the mind as he knew he was going to be rehabbing. He wanted to spend six months thinking about his mindset and approach. He took this time to consider reinventing himself. Mark and he sat down, and Nick said he wanted to be the best player on the world. So, they did a massive performance profile of all the aspects of squash tactically, physically, and mentally and got him and his coach plus one of his teammates who he trusted implicitly, to rate where he was in the world against all these components which they had identified in the performance profile. It transpired at this time he was particularly good at everything but world’s best at nothing. Nick looked at this and realised there was a problem with his ambition to be the best in the world. They reframed the best in the world to be ‘where in my game can I be the best player in the world’. They then went through all the top ten rivals and said, “When you go on the court, what are you worried about?” Nick identified his rivals’ super strengths. Mark then asked him what his rivals thought of Nick when he went on the court, and he said he had no idea. This was the moment when Nick knew he had to identify his super strengths, the bits that his opponents were going to be worried about. Over these six months, his mindset shifted, and he grew his game around these strengths. One example he gave was he could be the best volley player in the world, if he combined this with his fitness and attitude. This became his mantra, and he built his game around this to make him the best player in the world. They did a lot of work changing attitude and approach during this six month plus the rehab. He eventually came back into squash, and he went on a huge winning spree, not because of what Mark did but because he was so committed to his goal. In the end, Nick Matthew was one of the greatest squash players of all time having achieved all the greatest honours in the game. A 3-time World Champion, a 3-time Commonwealth Games Gold Medallist and spent 19 months as World number 1. In 2006, Nick became the first English winner of the British Open, commonly known as the ‘Wimbledon of Squash’, for 67 years and went on to win the title on a further two occasions. Nick is nicknamed the Wolf in honour of his merciless reputation on court. He was renowned for his extraordinary athleticism, fitness & strength of character, which is apt having been born in the Steel City of Sheffield, UK. In 2014, Nick was selected by his fellow athletes to carry the England flag at the Opening Ceremony for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow & in 2015, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for Services to Squash by Her Majesty the Queen. In 2018, Nick announced his retirement from professional squash after a 20-year career on the PSA World Tour. He now runs the Nick Matthew Squash Academy & is a Global Ambassador for the game of squash, running events, working in the Media, and offering his consultancy services worldwide.

Mark believes this all happened because he shifted his mindset from trying to get a little bit better to finding a genuine world’s best competitive edge, which in turn gave him confidence when he went onto court to impose what he was trying to do on his opponents rather than reacting to what they were doing. This was the core thing around super strengths: when you go on the pitch, you need to try and impose your edge on the opposition rather than react to what they do. At the time of doing this work, they did not call it super strengths, but on the back of this they changed their mindset from focussing on weakness strengths. It is OK to focus on weaknesses and people will improve but there are great incremental improvements achieved when you focus on strengths rather than weaknesses. Everyone has a competitive edge according to Mark and rather than do this with one individual he wanted to apply this to a team, and this is what lead him on to work with the England Cricket Team and Andrew Strauss who had taken on the role as England Cricket Captain and was becoming aware of what Mark was doing.

In cricket at the time, they have quite a big weakness focus and because of outside forces people tend to focus on what people cannot do. Andrew Strauss and his coaches wanted to change the mindset from focussing on weaknesses to strengths as well as addressing challenges. Mark realised if you really want super strengths to work in a team context like cricket, then you need the permission to be able to go out and use your strengths. If you want people to perform at the top of their game and bring the best out of themselves, then the leadership needs to give them the permission to do this.

The example he gives is Josh Butler, who can play any shot; he has choices 360 degrees right around the ground and he is wonderfully creative. His strength is being able to turn the game around in an instant by a few moments of genius, doing things with the ball that many people would not be able to do. So, if Mark was putting the frame around this, they want him to be a game changer, innovative, to destroy an attack, be creative, in the right context but if you put a constraint around him to do all these things but never get it wrong, what would happen is players like him would perform conservatively, they would never express the edges of their game. So, what Mark calls this is wriggle room. What they learnt over time was for people to real express their strengths, first of you need to identify those strengths and understand what that gives you and what context they are a strength and what context they become a weakness. It is important for people to understand you don’t just go out and play to your strengths all the time; you have to understand the context, and this is your responsibility as a player. However, the environment around you must give you the wriggle room to confidently do this and if you do not do this, people will play soft and safe. You will not see them express their strengths and you will not get their true potential. When you give people wriggle room, it takes the ceiling off performance. This is where you see massive leaps in performance.

Over this time in cricket, Andrew Strauss was interested in mindset change, shifting focus, growing strengths and because of this, when he retired from cricket, he was very keen to take this idea of mindset shifting, from playing to your strengths and adapting this to the changing world. He could not understand how you can get all the best psychologists to work with all the best performers to get a little bit better at what they are already great at, but this approach was not taken to everyone, so this is where Mindflick was formed in 2013. Andy and Mark wanted to spread it as widely as possible, using their experiences through sport, to help as many people as possible to reach their potential. Mark and Andy and their good friend Pete Lindsay, who he worked with at the Institute of Sport, created this in 2007.

At the time, Mark was leading the team of psychologists. Pete was asked to come in and work with the boxers in the run in to Beijing in 2008. It was a story that Pete told when he was working with the boxers that fundamentally changed my life.

Boxing is unique in as much as, if you lose a race or match, there may be other opportunities. However, with boxing you get physically hurt, out manned and if the result has not gone your way, you may not get other opportunities, so this a lot of pressure going into boxing matches. This triggers a more extreme response in athletes: a type of fear response. Boxers needed to know how to manage this. Every boxer going into a ring will be scared. However, this was really highlighted to Pete when they were at a competition in Athens which was a qualifier before the Beijing games. As a psychologist at this sort of point, you are there if they need you, but you do not want to get in the way. One of the boxers was about to go in and Pete was sat on the edge of the training ring watching the trainers, nutritionists, and physios working away.

He knew something was wrong when the boxer came over and sat next to him. This boxer up until this point had never really engaged in the psychology of sport before. Pete knew something was different and wondered where the conversation was going to go. He said to Pete, “I hope I win today.” Pete did not respond other than saying, “I hope you win as well.” The boxer then responded by saying, “I hope I do not lose.” As soon as he said this, Pete realised something was wrong in the boxer’s mind, a very normal fear reaction. The boxer, who was just about to take part in an Olympic Qualifying Event, said “if I lose, this will be my last chance on the squad and I will get thrown off the squad, all the money that I get comes from my athlete bursary, if I lose that what am I going to do for money, I have just got a house with my sister, there is only me and my sister, so if I lose that money, I will lose the house, if I lose the house, what happens then, I will be living on the street, how long do people last on the street?“

Pete could see him “thought chaining” from the bout to ‘I will be living on the street, abandoned with my sister’. Pete did not know how to stop this. It brought to him how quickly the brain can go from going well today to untold misery; he calls it the crystal ball of doom, failure beyond your wildest nightmares.

Pete explained the reason it does this is that it wants to protect; the emotional brain in particular thinks in black and white terms. It wants to go to this is a very real possibility that this could happen, of course there is a billion other possibilities, but the brain does not want to do this. The brain responds in a primeval way: the fight, flight, and freeze response. Boxing is such a technical sport, despite its brutal nature, like a game of physical chess. So unfortunately, the boxer’s response which is an emotional response is not going to serve him well. This therefore led to Pete working with the boxers to understand that this is going to be how your bodies are going to respond pre-flight. He explained to them that the fear response is all normal. He educated them to understand that you just must accept that this happens, you cannot change the amygdala hijack which happens when your brain reacts to psychological stress as if it is physical danger. This amygdala is the size of an almond and research suggests that this state only lasts for approximately five minutes. He trained the boxers to normalise and accept it as the brain’s response for wanting to keep you safe and it is something to notice rather than avoid and to acknowledge and for them to accept that they still need to get on with their day jobs. Pete, like Mark, was working with high performance teams and doing a lot of applied work. He started with the boxers pre-Beijing, and this was great learning to take into the London 2012 games.

Mark was leading the psychologists at the English Institute of Sport, where there were twenty-five looking after all the Olympic and para-Olympic sports and they were interested in all the challenges that they might face. The conundrum they were grappling with was how they could affect rapid change; a psychoanalytic approach suggests that the average number of sessions required to create change that the person needs is around twenty. However, all the psychologists had experienced something they call single session change, where someone turns up with something that they have wrestled with for an exceptionally long time, something that feels completely overwhelming and crippling from a performance perspective. However, they do something, have a conversation, do, and exercise that they take part in or tell a story and they leave in their mind fixed. So, the psychologists got interested in the idea of rapid change and single session therapy. Pete sent an email around the team saying what if single session change/therapy were not the exception and what if it were the norm and you knew you could solve whatever problem a person had in one. If this were the case, what else would have to be true? The conversations went from change would not take time, maybe it is not all about behaviour, maybe there are not big and small problems. The objective was to see how this team of psychologists at the English Institute of Sport could affect change quickly, particularly as they knew they were going to get towards the London Games, and it was going to be an important game in terms of results, and they were going to have to solve things quickly. They knew they would get curve balls which took them on a journey about understanding the nature of change and how you could create change fast. One of the views was that it might not be about behaviours, maybe it was about how people viewed change; this led to the concept of reframing: what if it was about not working on behaviours, what about if it was working on strengths like they had done with Nick Matthew and shifting mindset? One of the best examples he can use to illustrate this was with Olympic champion and three-times world champion heptathlete, Jessica Ennis-Hill, one of Great Britain’s most successful athletes.

In 2012, a 40ft banner draped across the front of John Lewis in her home city of Sheffield was the local confirmation of Jessica Ennis's national and international status. She was the photogenic poster girl for London 2012. She had a huge media profile and the weight of public expectation was unbearable for this 5ft 5in athlete transformed into a giant in the eyes of her native city and the wider world. Toni Minichiello was her coach and had worked with her from the age of thirteen. Her event is extraordinarily complex, and Pete remembers being in the Olympic village the morning of her first event, which was the hurdles. There was a roar from the stadium when she absolutely smashed it, unbeknown to Pete just before Jess stepped on the track, her coach picked up that she is getting nervous and took her to one side and said just remember outside there in the stadium are 80,000 friends that want the very best for you and want you to do well. It sounds like such a simple thing to say but that reframe of there is pressure out there and people are expecting a performance to they are just friends. This transformed that weight of public expectation to a desire to perform for them. So, this got Mark and Pete thinking a little bit around this shift in mindset and how can they integrate this into what they did, making performance psychology accessible to people and spreading it further afield. Strengths based thinking along with how you create change fast was the philosophy of the psychologists at the English Institute of Sport going into 2012 and this then inspired the thinking for Mindflick.

When I first met them, Mindflick was in its infancy and is now a well-established business. They developed a personality profile called Spotlight which looked at people’s performance preferences. Effectively, how they view the world, especially when there is something to be won or lost, when they are under pressure. Andy is now executive chairman at Mindflick, and it is wonderful to see how well they are doing. Mark has known Andy a long time, and they share some great memories together.  Mark Bawden was involved in England Cricket during the 2009 Ashes which was captained by Andy who led a 2–1 victory scoring a series total of 474 runs, more than any other player on either side, including 161 in England's first victory in an Ashes Test at Lord's in 75 years.

In April 2015, Andy was appointed to the newly created role of director of England cricket in May 2015 and his first act was to sack the incumbent coach, Peter Moores. Another early move was to rule out an imminent return to the England team for Kevin Pietersen who had fallen out with the previous management team. He oversaw the appointment of Trevor Bayliss as coach and encouraged a greater emphasis to be given to limited overs cricket. He resigned his position on 3 October 2018, citing a wish to spend more time with his wife, Ruth, while she was undergoing treatment for lung cancer. She sadly passed away on 29th December that year, aged 46. In her memory, Andy launched the Ruth Strauss Foundation to provide emotional support for families to prepare for the death of a parent, raise awareness of the need for more research and collaboration in the fight against non-smoking lung cancers. During the pandemic and as part of the national 2.6 challenge, to support UK’s charities, the Ruth Strauss Foundation asked the public – and in particular families - to film themselves keeping the ball in the air for 26 taps without dropping it. Participants were able to choose anything for their bat and ball, e.g. potato and saucepan, teddy bear and book, an orange, and the TV remote. Supporters shared their #RSF26challenge on social media, made a donation and nominated friends to do the same. The likes of Jessica Ennis-Hill, Jimmy Anderson, Jason Roy, Kevin Pietersen, Jamie Redknapp, Clare Balding, David Haye and Will Greenwood all supported the event, and most importantly showed their respect to one of the most wonderful sportsmen.

I will never forget receiving an email from Andy who had agreed to come close our showcase at Twickenham on 19th January 2016. It was dated 15th January 2016.” I am really sorry to have to do this to you, but I am urgently required to fly out to South Africa on last minute business and will now not be in the country on Tuesday. I know how much time and effort has gone into the event, and I hope that you are able to rearrange your plans to make the day a success.” He had agreed to make an appearance, in light of the work that Mindflick got from DS Smith. I asked him whether he could come up with a substitute as he was not able to attend. He called his good friend Matthew Pinsent, who agreed to step in on his behalf. He also recorded a message for the showcase from the hotel in South Africa. This is the power of the network. Matthew agreed to be at Twickenham at 3.45 and to stay till the close. I remember looking at my watch at 3.45 and turned around to look at the back of the room and there was the 10 times world championship gold and four consecutive Olympic gold medallist.

I want to continue my fascination of the brain which was inspired by the demystification that Pete Lindsay had given me.

I used to wake up every Monday morning with this knot in my stomach when I was running my own business. The thought was I am never going to be able to bring the requisite about of sales each week required to cover our costs. We were employing people and in both businesses that I was involved I had front line business development responsibilities. It was not until meeting Pete and him explaining that it was normal to feel these thoughts and he helped me to develop coping mechanisms to deal with them, that I was truly able to understand that super biological computer that we carry around in our skull that is over 500 million years in the making.

We did not have sports psychologists when I was playing rugby. I finished in the Premiership in 2001, twenty years ago, and now it is commonplace as Andy Strauss articulated. The knowledge we now have about our brain is so much more advanced and continues to progress and it is an area that I am fascinated with and will go on to describe those “Brilliant Minds” that have had a huge influence on me in the last 10 years really since the 2012 Olympics and meeting Mark Bawden and Pete Lindsay. We have been lucky to meet world class neuroscientists and sleep experts who complement everything we have understood from a physiological, mental, and psychological perspective. The great link is all these disciplines are inter-dependent of each other.

One of the most interesting and complex “Brilliant Minds” that I have worked with is James Cracknell whom I regard as a friend.

One of the first times that I was lucky enough to work with James was on 24^th April 2008, at Brockett Hall at a joint event for Orange-Carphone Warehouse. This shows how long ago it was as both companies’ names have now changed. Our client, Duncan Hay, was someone who understood the importance of wellness and was a very accomplished triathlete. The significance of the date is important to put in context. People were out of kilter and neglecting their health and wellbeing, themselves, and their family of friends in pursuit of making money and this needed redressing. On 15 September 2008, Lehman Brothers, the giant US investment bank, went bust. This was the moment when global financial stress turned into a full-blown international emergency. It was the largest bankruptcy proceedings in U.S. history. The 164-year-old firm was the fourth-largest U.S. investment bank, and its bankruptcy kicked off the global financial crisis. As I mentioned previously, we were lucky enough in 2004 working with Berwin Leighton Paiser and Barclays to have come up with a product that was aptly named ‘Getting the Edge’. Edge in poker means having an advantage over your opponent.

Just writing this now slightly irks me as the theme of this day was not about collaboration; it was about what can an individual do to win advantage over another. The cast that delivered this were Dorian Dugmore, Caspar Berry and James Cracknell. We hired Brocket Hall and all its 46 bedrooms, one of England’s finest stately homes, situated in over 540 acres of beautiful Hertfordshire countryside. The premise of the day was initially focussed on wellness, its importance on getting the performance edge. Dorian delivered this by explaining the executive stress that he was seeing in 2008 and with examples of Sam Allardyce and Dave Bassett whom he tested as football league managers for a documentary which featured in ITV's "Tonight with Trevor McDonald" programme. These two managers were wired to sophisticated heart monitors, to trace their stress levels from the minute they walked into the ground to when they left. The television crew and medical experts would be given full access behind the scenes, allowing them to follow the managers' movements and the highs and lows of their emotions in the build up to the game, the strain they were under during the match and in their team talks in the dressing rooms before kick-off, at half-time and after the final whistle. At the time, Liverpool boss, Gerard Houllier, required open heart surgery after being taken ill during the Premier League fixture against Leeds at Anfield. He underwent 11 hours of life-saving surgery. Sadly, Gerald Houllier died in 2020, whilst I was writing this, following a heart operation in Paris.

The example was pertinent because many of the individuals attending the event were in very high-profile jobs and under extreme levels of stress. They also loved sport and Sam Allardyce and Dave Bassett were prime examples that might resonate with them and get them to make a potential behavioural change. The match where they were wired up was a tense relegation struggle between Bolton and Leicester, which ended 2-2, and both men came dangerously close to suffering severe heart problems. The match saw Bolton reduced to nine men in the first 20 minutes when Leicester went 2-0 up. The Foxes' Muzzy Izzet was then sent off and, in a tense and dramatic finale, Bolton scored in injury time to salvage a 2-2 draw. During the match, Allardyce's blood pressure and heart rate hit potentially dangerous levels. At one point, his heart rate reached 160 beats per minute, four times his normal resting pulse. Bassett's results were just as disturbing. His blood pressure peaked at 190mmHg, he also suffered irregular heartbeat as the game reached a climax and his heart rate topped out at 120bpm. Dorian carried out the experiment and he explained to our audience that "Getting your heart rate going at these sorts of levels would normally only happen if you had done a vigorous work-out in the gym.”

As I said earlier, in 2008, Dorian’s message was about a preventative approach to wellness and he talked about corporate wellness whose time has now come. Our intention was to help those attending to understand why their personal wellbeing was important and how it was linked to their performance inside and outside work.  The intention was to motivate them to feel inspired by the detailed case that Dorian Dugmore was presenting and, therefore, want to find out more to assist their own approach / commitment to their personal wellbeing. We were ahead of our time, as delegates were asked to complete a Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire (which took 30 seconds) and Dorian explained the different attitudes to fitness and the appropriate strategies for reluctant starters right through to those who are stuck in a rut with their regular fitness routine (Prochaska and De Clemente.) We explained the Borg’s Activity Scale to illustrate the impact of different levels of activity – in terms of achieving fitness but also in terms of watching out for risk factors whilst exercising. Borg’s activity scale demonstrates that exercise becomes beneficial for you once you get to number 13 on the scale (6 – 20) – optimum exercise happens. To illustrate Borg’s scale, we asked the group to do a gentle exercise activity including push ups, sit ups, seated ski squats etc and experience the exercise high achieved at level 13. We also explained the concept of knowing your numbers. Blood Pressure under 140/90 mm. Hg, total cholesterol < 5.m.mol/L, HDL (good cholesterol) > 1.0 – 1.4 m.mol/L, TC/HDL Ratio < 4.0 (TC divided by HDL), LDL (bad cholesterol < 3.0 m.mol/L), Triglycerides:< 2.3 m.mol/L, Blood Glucose 3.3 – 5.3 m.mol/L, Body Mass Index (20-25)   Weight kg / height metres squared). In 2021, this is the norm, but it was not in 2008.

James Cracknell was the perfect example of someone who understood the importance of health and wellness. He had won two Olympic Gold medals and six World Championship rowing titles. However, unwilling to get a ‘proper job’ in 2005, James teamed up with TV adventurer Ben Fogle to race across the Atlantic. Despite their ocean-rowing inexperience, the pair were first to arrive in Antigua. The experience was captured by the BBC in the documentary series ‘Through Hell and High Water’.

Our event was in April, and we knew that in December 2008 James was going to attempt his toughest challenge which he was preparing for with former team-mate Ben Fogle and Dr Ed Coats in a race to the South Pole. He was on a mission to reinvent himself. James agreed to be tested by Dorian Dugmore at his wellness centre; this was not to put the audience to shame but merely to offers the audience an insight to the nature of the tests and the difference in scores when James is tested under stress. James was able to draw some comparisons with his numbers now and those when he was in training for the Olympics.

The reason why I am explaining what James was doing for us in 2008 is because he was at this stage one of the most driven, purposeful people that I have ever met, setting and resetting goals.  He was then married to the TV Presenter, Beverley Turner, and they had a young son who was about five years old. James talked about trying to strike the right balance between rowing/adventure, family and friends and health and wellbeing. He would go to a black-tie event in London and Bev would go home in a taxi and James would run home. He was trying to not compromise family life but still wanted to be an extreme athlete, so would get up at ridiculous times and drag a tyre around Richmond Park in the dark, as he was preparing for the race to the South Pole. I once picked him up for an event on 27th November 2008 in Chiswick, which we were doing for Sesame Bankhall and he had spent the last number of evenings in a climatic chamber, to learn to cope with extreme cold and wind, in Farnborough, Hampshire. This chamber was inside a high-security compound that has been at the centre of scientific research for the British military since the Second World War. It had formerly been the Defence Evaluation Research Agency, latterly the privatised technology company QinetiQ, and was still developing robots and gadgets for heroic people in hostile environments.

James was probably the best example for me of someone who had the edge. He had the perfect family life and had good friends around him. I went to a few parties at his house, and he was surrounded by good people, who thought a lot of him. He was also someone who cared for his own health and wellbeing. A good role model to share with us the lessons from the Atlantic race which had been made into a documentary for television. He discussed the story of the journey, the mental factors that came into play, the importance of having the right support team, how to motivate someone with very different goals and mindset than you, how tough the human mind and body are and how little we test them in normal life, the importance of not worrying about things you cannot control and unlocking the survival area of your brain to achieve remarkable things.

I will never forget the evening of this event for which James and Dorian stayed and which was being held in the Ballroom at Brockett Hall. I suggested James should change in my room and after his keynote, he retired there whilst Caspar Berry closed the day with an inspirational speech that covered with dealing with uncertainty every day, principals of expectation, value and calculated risk and the impact that fear of failure has on our decision-making process and how to channel it.

The afternoon session closed at 5.30pm, and I went back to my room to find the double Olympian stretched full length on my bed, dressed in nothing but a towel and on entering the bathroom was greeted by a smell that took me back to some of those hairy-arsed rugby players that I had to room with during rugby tours. It is funny what you remember.

There was a great joke that was around in those days which was told by Dominic Holland, in one of his stand-up routines. He would explain to the audience why James rowed with Ben Fogle across the Atlantic despite their ocean-rowing inexperience. It is obvious he said and referred to being a Dad to four boys, Tom, Patrick, Harry and Sam, which he had with his wife Nicola. James was given the choice. His wife Bev and five-year-old son met James and Ben when they arrived in Antigua. Any Dad given the choice between a transatlantic flight with a five-year-old or rowing the Atlantic would obviously choose the latter, it is bleeding obvious. Dom is a brilliant comedian who recently has started to introduce himself as “Tom Holland’s father”.

This type of event was the last of its kind if I am being honest. The ability for a company to hire Brockett Hall for the night, regardless of the learning opportunities that we presented, would soon be discretionary with the financial crash of 2008 and the impending Bribery Act of 2010 around the corner.

James could also not have predicted what would be around the corner for him and this fundamentally changed the person whom I knew. It is only in 2021 whilst writing this that the person I knew in 2008 is back and this is the most powerful story I can tell which is done with his blessing.

In the spring of 2018, he was offered a place at Peterhouse College, Cambridge, on a one-year course MPhil in Human Evolution and Behavioural Science. We all questioned why at the age of 46 would you want to go back to university. He was still married to Bev and had three children. However, in 2010 a fuel truck travelling at 70 mph knocked him from his bicycle while he was cycling across America for a TV programme. He suffered a devastating frontal-lobe brain injury, forcing doctors to put him into a medically induced coma. He was left with damage to his frontal lobe – the part of the brain that controls things like mood and motivation - leaving him with difficult personality changes and prone to epileptic fits. The stigma of that event is something he has struggled to overcome and still affects him to this day. He was told that he would not be able to do certain things again, but he was not prepared to be defined by the limitations that other people imposed upon him.

Beverley’s support had been ferocious and unconditional, but inevitably with the emotional toll of supporting three children, James and trying to maintain her career, the pressure built and built. The anger of feeling like she had lost the man she’d married and future she’d envisaged, meant her support evolved into frustration and criticism. James describes that his behaviour and decisions – good and bad - were all being judged through the prism of a traumatic brain injury.

James felt that studying and succeeding at Cambridge would give him one last chance to show his wife that he was the man he was before the accident. He also felt that from a professional perspective, the MPhil in Human Evolution and Behavioural Science would be just another step in this remarkable man’s career. He was doing policy work on the causation link between the obesity pandemic, poverty, and physical activity.  He thought this would aide him in his desired career transition into the elected political arena.

In his head, he thought by succeeding academically and at elite sport (The Boat Race) he would be able to banish the preconceptions, stigma, patronisation, and limitations associated with having a brain injury.

To achieve the above, he knew he would find out whether people were right about what he was capable of after the accident, so he would be fighting his own fears, lack of self-confidence as well as the natural ageing process.

The undertaking in any normal person’s lifetime was colossal and many of his friends questioned the logic behind it, but none of them really knew and still do not what he and his family were facing since the accident. I can only speak from my own personal perspective.

I had a huge respect for James but, having met Dr Kevin Dutton, I knew that he was like a remarkable group of people that I had met who have what he describes as Elite Cognition. He was a high achiever, in the same category as an elite SAS soldier, bomb disposal expert, surgeon, fighter pilot, private equity CEO and the numerous sportspeople that I had met.

On the odd occasion that our paths crossed, it was clear that his personality had changed, and he was not the same person as I remember.

Bev wrote to me in August 2012 whilst on holiday in Crete. This had been their longest holiday since their son had been born such was the pressure that the head injury had put on the family. Bev was putting together a case with the forensic accountants to prove the loss of earnings that James had forgone because of the accident. Prior to the accident, I was working with James on many occasions, and I was not the only agency and paying him significant sums. He was without doubt one of the best people in 2012 that I would use as this was the year of the London 2012 Olympics. He would have been in high demand with my clients and he never let me down. I would have been happy to testify that I would have used James, in the period 2010 to 2012, had he been well.

Bev was always kind and invited Alice and me to parties at their house, such was her desire to get back to some degree of normality. I remember a Cracknell Christmas bevy, a bite and a boogie on Friday, 9th December entitled, “Let’s get blistzened.”  These would always be good nights. I can remember being on the dance floor with Jonny Searle (Gold 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona), Gary Herbert (Olympic gold medal winning cox) and Matthew Allwright (Watchdog, Rogue Traders, Food Inspectors, The Code, Fake Britain and The One Show for BBC One). However, James would not even recognise me. I would call him to offer him commercial opportunities but would not receive a response back. I am persistent and I persevered but clearly something was wrong.  I met Bev and James on Monday 27th November 2017 over a coffee, and they were kind enough to explain what had happened and I have to say I felt slightly guilty that I had not been more persistent in my quest to work with James and Bev. I was keen to introduce them to people that I have worked with over the last 11 years who were specialists within their fields and would complement what they were doing. Their personal story was so compelling and clearly and they were ready to tell it again. I had huge respect for Bev and James who were trying to beat something that they had been told which was that many couples who experience a partner with severe brain injuries often get divorced.

There are very few people I know who are so open about the cliff face that he then faced having made this decision to go back to university. His long-term objective was to succeed academically and to win the boat race and to prove to Bev and the family that he could be the man he was before his accident.

Unfortunately, he left university a quarter of a century before the internet and retired from sport 15 years earlier.  His classmates and teammates would be less than half his age and at 46 he would be the oldest man to compete in the Boat Race by more than a decade in the event’s 190-year history.

What follows is a raw and honest summary of his first three months at Cambridge, when he realised how low he was and whether he could dictate his life or take control.  I did an event with him on the 4th October 2018 at the Vitality Stadium for the Directors’ Dinner of AFC Bournemouth. This was the most open I have ever seen him; it felt like the old James, and we had a great night. I moderated the dinner, and he was the guest speaker. There were probably 200 guests but that night I asked him questions like we were sitting on a stool in a pub. I did not know until afterwards what was going on and I am so pleased I did not, or I would have been worried. The key date is the boat race which was on 7^th April 2019. He had just cracked a rib, so was not on track. Potential Blue Boat candidates had to be in Cambridge in September a month before term started in October. When term started, he was not ranked in the top 25 rowers. Bev and James were coming to the end of their marriage. The person who had been his confidante, his partner of 20 years, his rock since the accident, wife, and mother to their three kids was no longer there for James. He was missing the kids incredibly and had no support network in Cambridge or at ‘home.’ The rib injury meant that he was at the bottom of the rowing squad and he realised academically he was out of his depth. At the end of October, he was set to fail in the lecture theatre and in the boat, but he was not prepared to lose his family.  He called his wife and said he was going to drop out.  Her response reflected the fact that she was losing the man she married and dealing with the impact that a fuel truck had on every aspect of their lives.  James realised that he was on his own.

He had huge respect for his wife who had to deal with so much.  She found out she was pregnant when he was in a coma.  She was there when the kids and James needed someone after the accident.  She absorbed so much from James, who could not remember many things after the first three years and protected his parents (and hers) from how difficult the situation was.  Things were tough for them both and James was suffering from very low self-esteem. He had reached a point when he did not recognise himself, he was not the dad, husband, colleague, or person he wanted to be.  He had to make a change and that meant taking himself out of the environment he was in. This was a huge risk for him, and I still look back, given I benefitted from that remarkable night with him in Bournemouth and question why I did not pick up the signs. Two months after arriving at Cambridge, he was at the lowest point of his life, feeling totally broken.  He experienced feelings that could have been catastrophic to all the people who knew.  He was afraid and embarrassed to admit he was struggling and ask for help although mates would have unconditionally given it to him. I wished that I had been more persistent in calling him and asking how he was over this period, but I was not. I did not want to encroach. James said that Dr Phil Hopley, the psychiatrist, was the person that helped him over this period. He talked everything through with Phil.  He used the analogy that his life was like a stool.  A stool that had 3 legs: family, sport, and academia.  At that point, all three were broken.  He said he needed to focus on improving one.  If he could see progress in one, the improvement would continue, and James would gain confidence to work on the other two.

He also handed a social prescription to James which was to meet and talk to new people and not be afraid of letting existing friends know how hard he was finding life. James is a naturally shy person, and this was hard for him to do. He was also exacerbated through a fear of being judged post-accident and lack of confidence.  At Cambridge, he was at an advantage of nobody knowing the pre-accident James, as many of them were very young when this happened. James started to make academic progress and headway on the water.  Not a metamorphosis but a step in the right direction. Two of the legs of his stool, although not fixed, were at least healing. His broken rib (which eventually took him out of the boat until January) meant he had to train on his own on land. He was out of contention for the Boat Race and missing more time on the water. He had to ensure he came back performing better than the coaches and squad members expected.

That meant not only coping with the impact of an injury but the barriers of competing at elite level sport aged 46.  He had to take ownership of the training; a rowing coach might be good at setting a rowing programme but not a specific bike or rehab programme.  He wanted to be in control of his future.  He contacted Dr Steve Ingham, the physiologist he had worked with before the 2000 and 2004 Olympics.  He knew James was honest, realistic and direct, setting a brutal training programme on land so when he did return to the water, he came back stronger.  He trained harder than the rest of the squad and never stopped believing he would get a chance to prove himself in a boat. He would only be given one chance, so he had to take it. It came in March, less than a month before the Boat Race.  He took it and made the Blue Boat.  When Rob Baker (Cambridge Chief Coach) told him, he was prouder than when Jurgen Grobler told him he had won a seat in the Great Britain coxless four at the Sydney 2000 Olympics. Academically, he needed to maintain an overall of average 60% by the end of the spring term.  He had four assessed essays and his marks were 57%, 63%, 60% and 61%, averaging 60.25%.  So, like the Blue Boat he just made it. Cambridge won the Boat Race by one second. Two of his stool’s legs were back but the third was broken forever and he had to find a way of building a different but ultimately stronger relationship with his family while he was at Cambridge.

James had certainly been low at Cambridge, but he overcame even his darkest hour. He backed himself academically and submitted his thesis on July 19th, 2019, nine years to the day that he was put into a coma by that fuel truck. He recognised that showing vulnerability is a strength not a weakness.  More people than we can possibly imagine are dealing with stress and mental health issues, cannot cope on their own but are afraid to open. Society is changing but it needs to happen quicker as families are being ripped apart and we are needlessly losing people all the time. During lockdown, I have worked extensively with James and his message is resonating with the audiences he chats to and I am very proud to have him as a friend.

As soon as Dr Lee Rice walked through our door in Haggard Road Twickenham on 1st October 2010, I experienced something that doesn’t happen very often with a person I have never met.

We hugged each other and the way I describe this encounter was like meeting a modern-day disciple. There was a presence about him which was overwhelming, and this was the first person that made me really think about the power of the brain and its ability to change your behaviour.

This man had experienced life and, as we ate dinner that night, he shared some of his wisdom with us. This man had a wonderful optimistic disposition about him that was infectious. I now know that I am naturally drawn towards people like this, but it was interesting to understand the science. I am more accepting now of negativity as equally I understand that that we are not all the same and are governed by different attitudes and environments.

He told me this story about the first job he had after graduation, which was to treat soldiers who had landed on US soil directly after returning from being tortured in POW camps in Vietnam. This shaped his thinking profoundly.

The context was to explain how your attitude, behaviours and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work. This was my first introduction to epigenetics and ignited my fascination with neuroscience. Epigenetics (Epi coming from the Greek word above/beyond) tells us that changes to how our genes operate can arise because of the things that happen to us during our lives. The surprise is that these changes can be passed on to the next generation without affecting the DNA sequence.

It was whilst working with these soldiers that he realised there is a point where for some the human spirit is unable to recover. However, this is rare. It is not surprising given what I am about to recall. He did some of his best work helping these soldiers recover physically, mentally and spiritually from these cruel acts of torture. He talked about some of the cruel acts that the Viet Cong had administered on his patients. It is estimated that on their return in 1973, 95% of POWs had been tortured at some time, according to the Treatment of American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia written by John Powers.

I have never been able to understand why fellow human beings are so cruel to each other. I had experienced first-hand the slave forts in Almina in Ghana, but I wasn’t truly aware of the atrocities that had happened at the time I was born in 1969. Some of the acts of torture were barbaric, locking prisoners in ankle stocks or leg irons. There were POWs who endured weeks and even months of this treatment. Beatings were often given by the guards. Flogging was practised by some guards using light bamboo rods or rubber whips cut from old tires. Sleep deprivation was another technique where prisoners were punched and screamed at every half hour or so to keep them awake, to get them to write propaganda statements. Complete isolation was another common treatment. The extreme form of this was to place a prisoner in a completely darkened cell. Food and water were limited. In some cases, the prisoners’ hands would be tied behind their back and their ankles tied or put in cuffs. Being put into the ropes was one of the worst of the torture techniques used by the Vietnamese.

It was not until after the Vietnam War that research and methodical documentation of what was then termed ‘combat fatigue’ began to accelerate in response to the many veterans suffering from chronic psychologic problems that resulted in social and occupational dysfunction. The National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Survey was one of the first large-scale studies to examine PTSD and other combat-related psychologic issues in a veteran population (Kulka, 1990). The NVVRS helped to illuminate PTSD as a signature wound of the Vietnam War and resulted in greater recognition of PTSD as a mental health disorder. The findings contributed to the formal recognition of PTSD as a distinct disorder by the APA and later refining of the characteristic symptoms and diagnostic criteria.

Dr Lee Rice had experienced first-hand as a young man the very worse side of war and articulated his belief from this experience that positive life transformations can come through education and inspiration. He saw people recover despite the experiences that they had suffered. He articulated the three contributing areas that determined our outcomes in life: genetics, behaviour and mindset. DNA is not our destiny and, if we make healthier lifestyle choices, they can affect our health and performance in the long-term. This has been his life’s work.

He was the first person that introduced me to Viktor Frankl, the Austrian neurologist, who wrote the famous book “Man’s Search for Meaning.” He had survived Auschwitz. It taught him about the primary purpose of life: the quest for meaning which sustained those who survived. He said that, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

The people who can choose this attitude are people who have meaning and purpose in their life, which is demonstrated with two stories that he told me about his own family. I had a young daughter at this stage, and these were timely and something that I adopted in my life.

I met Lee through Dorian Dugmore, and he was the CEO of the Lifewellness Institute in San Diego and a pioneer in the field of wellness and preventive medicine. He started life as a family and sports medicine physician but was, at the time of meeting him, regarded as one of the premier medical experts on wellness in the United States. Lee was working with some of leading performers within the entertainment and film industry. He didn’t breach client confidentiality, but he had helped some very high-profile individuals make interventions to enable these stars to achieve sustained performance, through a concept called “epigenetics”.

He is a committed family man, father to two beautiful daughters and is married to his beloved wife, Mary. It was a story that he told me that made me make a lifestyle change. His daughter reversed his life path initially changing his mindset completely. He had what he calls “His Why moment.” Most people don’t understand why they need to change, until they are rudely interrupted by something in their life, like a bereavement or health scare. However, in this case it was a conversation with his daughter that was the catalyst to make a major change in life.

Dr Lee Rice was a pioneer in sports medicine. This had been his life. He served as team physician for many professional, Olympic and university teams, including the San Diego Chargers. He had prestige, social standing, notoriety and respect in his community. These are things that some people value as important. He had served as team physician for the USA Men’s and Women’s Volleyball Teams for 20 years through four Olympiads and had been the Medical Director for four successive America’s Cup campaigns, including Oracle-BMW Racing. This meant a lot of travel and time away from his family.

It was whilst he was watching an interview of himself on TV with his daughter that his direction of travel was about to change. She said to him, “Dad you are really important, you spend a lot of time helping other people, don’t you?” which he duly acknowledged. She then surprised him, by asking why he spent so much time with other people but not his own family. He decided from this one conversation to get out of professional sport and concentrate on his family and founded the Lifewellness Institute in San Diego and stopped travelling as much.

At the time he met us, he was also helping his wife Mary prepare for a ground- breaking operation to remove a 4cm x 5cm brain tumour. Mary had been an inspiration to him because when she had been diagnosed with this glioma in Dec 2009 and as she was leaving the hospital, she decided that if the tumour was going to be in her brain, for as long as she lived, there would be no room in her brain or heart for anything other than love, gratitude or hope. He described to me that Mary was having 15 to 20 seizures a day before the operation, and they needed to find a neuro-oncologist who would remove part of the tumour, so these could be reduced to 2 or 3 days.

He described this amazing story about how his wife named the tumour, her rationale being that if she was going to live with “her” in her head, then she should get to have a symbiotic relationship, helping each other live together with love an appreciation. The neuro-oncologist at UCLA told them that the average grade 2 tumour, becomes a grade 3 and 4 within six months to 2 years, after which you have about 18 months to live.

I mentioned earlier that James Cracknell sustained a head injury that nearly killed him and on 19^th July 2019, nine years to the day that he was put into a coma by that fuel truck, he submitted his thesis and obtained his MPhil. He was unwilling to be defined by people’s expectations of what he could achieve and nor was Mary.

It is at this point that I want to introduce Elaine Fox, another Brilliant Mind that we have worked with who, in her book ‘Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain: The New Science of Optimism and Pessimism’, has helped me explain why this is. I have always felt optimistic regardless of some of the setbacks that I have had in my life. Our way of being, our take on things, the attitude we bring to life and our effective mindset all colour our world, affecting our health, our wealth and our general wellbeing. Psychologists have developed several ways to measure different mindsets. Most remarkably these differences, whether we turn to the bright side of life or the dark, can be traced to specific patterns of activity in the brain itself. For over 20 years, Elaine has dedicated herself to the diverse ways in which people interpret the world. Her quest has been to illuminate those parts of the brain that allow people to experience joys and fears, fun and worry. The effective mind differs so much among people and the book, once again, confirmed many of the things that I had felt instinctively about people.

In the last decade, there have been so many breath-taking developments in psychological science, alongside startling advances in technology underlying neuroscience and genetics, and I have been lucky enough to sit and learn from these Brilliant Minds. Our outlook on life is linked to the processes taking place deep inside our brain. The way we interpret and react to the things that happen has an incalculable impact on the kind of life we lead. In Elaine’s book, she argues that it is what life throws at us that determines are genetic potential and which brain circuits, positive or negative, are strengthened. Whether we gather ourselves together and emerge stronger from a crisis or whether we are bowled over by the setbacks ruminating endlessly on the negative, is influenced by whether our sunny or our rainy brain circuits dominate.

Mary is still alive today, and Lee put this down to attitude in a talk that he gave to the Sage executive group in 2017. She describes that, as she is losing the executive function of her brain, her heart is expanding and filling up every cell in her body. Dr Lee Rice thinks it is all about attitude: it affects all the things in our life be it relationships, ability, functionality, business success, happiness etc.

It was Dr Lee Rice who initially explained to me the power of the brain which was more than we could ever fathom: it is integrally involved in every cell of our body and the power it has over everything in our body including our immune system, our feeling self, our performance self, our physical self, is way more than we ever imagined. How we choose to think and feel is incredibly important and it is our brain that drives this performance. Everything is controlled by the brain: “Neurons that fire together, wire together.” This was the first time that he introduced the concept of neuroplasticity, the idea that our brain is not locked in place after puberty, as was once thought, but that it continues to rewire itself and never stops changing as we age. It changes structure and forms new neural pathways through life experiences. The single most important driver is behaviour. To keep our brain agile, we need to find activities that challenge our brains to do things that they are not familiar with. This is what James Cracknell did when he went back to Cambridge; it must have been incredibly hard to do but, despite the setbacks, he achieved what he set out to achieve.

James was able to start understanding his vulnerabilities as well as his strengths. He was able like Mary to work out what might elicit and even change these predispositions to protect themselves and set them on a path to flourishing. The good news is that brain circuits underlying our positive and negative parts of our brain are the most plastic in the human brain.

Lee explains that happiness is now a physical state of the brain which can now be measured with an MRI.  When someone is happy, it lights up the left prefrontal cortex, which shows up on the scan; when someone is happy, it also improves enthusiasm and leads to better problem-solving abilities and better motivation. He explained that, from a study done at Harvard, it has been proved that hopefulness, optimism and contentment decreased cardiovascular disease, pulmonary disease, diabetes, hypertension and upper respiratory infections by 50%. Harvard also did a study on optimism with 1300 males over 10 years; those who were optimistic had a 50% reduction in heart disease which was the equivalent to same difference between smokers and non-smokers. A Happiness and Curiosity study at Duke University led to decreased hypertension, less cortisol (stress hormone), less adrenal stress and lower mortality rates.

The brain body connection is so important, and we can modify this. There are up to 1000 trillion connections in our brain. The wonderful thing is that many of these can be modified by the biochemical sequelae, fear, compassion, love and kindness. Without the right environment, the brain won’t change. Research shows that high levels of stress for long periods of time can suppress neuroplasticity. Elaine Fox suggests in her book that this can result in structural changes in highly specific parts of the brain, just as prolonged periods of joy and happiness can transform neural architecture.

Expectation breeds reality. If you want to feel feelings of love, act like you are in love and soon the feelings will follow the neuro plasticity of our brain which changes itself to allow us to feel exactly what we ask it to feel. This tells us that our brains can and do change, pushing us as Elaine explains towards a more optimistic or pessimistic take on life.

A wonderful example of this, which I heard in a speech given by Sir Clive Woodward, was articulated in a book called ‘Building the Happiness-Centred Business’ by Dr Paddi Lund which was published in November 2009. Dr Paddi Lund had a successful dental practice after years of military service, dental school and working very hard at establishing his business in Australia. This had brought him great success, or so he thought. That fact was that he was desperately unhappy. Paddi reached a breaking point which he calls his brush with insanity. He was depressed and anxious because of his business. Rather than commit suicide, Paddi decided to change his business into one that would make him happy. In the process, Paddi revolutionized his business and turned it into an even more profitable business than ever which created happiness for him, his staff and his patients (whom he refers to as customers). The book tells the story in Paddi’s unique way of how he did it. He tells of his journey to the abyss, and what steps he took to turn his business around. Starting with the Happiness Meter, Paddi describes how he ‘fired’ more than 50 percent of his customers because they were a major source of his staff’s unhappiness – and subsequently his. Paddi discusses the idea of happiness creating more profit in business. By creating awesome – not just satisfactory or great – customer service, customers are happy to pay their bill. Paddi goes on to explain how he created systems for the happiness in the business, such as the Courtesy System. By systemizing these devices, he ensured that each day was optimized for spectacular experiences by each customer.

This above example reconfirms something that Elaine Fox suggests in her book, that how we act in the world changes the kind of environment we experience and hence the range of opportunities and problems likely to come our way. Optimism and pessimism, just like other features of our personality, can be thought of as traits or dispositions as well as states. It has now been proved scientifically that these different mindsets come with costs and benefits. Elaine Fox was asked to be involved in a documentary with the title ‘Michael J Fox: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist’. He wanted a scientific take on where optimism comes from and whether it could be measured. Michael had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease at the age of twenty-nine but was by his own admission an irrepressible optimist. This documentary was being made 18 years after his diagnosis.

Elaine Fox argues that dispositional optimists like Michal J Fox are not just happy and upbeat, but they genuinely have hope for the future, a belief that things will work out and an unshakeable faith that you can deal with whatever life throws at you. I have always thought this, not that things will never go wrong, just that I will cope. Growing up, my Mum had always been poorly, and I lived in fear of the call telling me that she had once again been taken into hospital. However, my Mum was never anything other than positive. I remember the nights as a child when an ambulance would arrive in the middle of the night to take her to hospital. Even when she was being carried out on a stretcher, she never once gave us the impression she was scared or that we were in danger of losing her. She created an environment to protect us from feeling the fear that she inevitably must have felt. She gave us a very secure childhood. I suppose that’s what you do for the children you love.

We did sadly lose her, and it is the resilience that I have built from this moment that has driven me ever since. I lost the most important person in my life whom I loved with all my heart. My fear of failure is not becoming the person she would have wanted me to be – this is what motivates me, even now and therefore my attitude is unusually positive, and I see optimism everywhere around me.

Michael J Fox, like my mum and Mary, had an illness that would get most people down and yet it seemed that it left him upbeat and enjoying life. It is as if all the people that I have mentioned with this mindset can deal with whatever happens. Closer to home and during lockdown, we helped John Hambly with his virtual book launch of ‘Samson Rising’. John is an inspirational Brilliant Mind and his book is well worth reading. His rugby career was cut short when he was diagnosed with MS. As his inspiring book ‘Samson Rising’ relates, the body blow of this diagnosis led him to a higher purpose. This book would never have been written if he had listened to the advice of those who told him, in good faith, that there would be little interest in the story of someone not remotely ‘famous’. We met John through a wonderful man called Simon Taylor when we ran the Sport Gives Back Awards. He is now in his late fifties and for more than half his life he has suffered from multiple sclerosis yet has risen above his condition so impressively that he founded a facility in Guildford – called the Samson Centre for MS – to benefit those living with this brutal disease. The MS charity located there has more than 200 members, 11 paid staff and 40-plus volunteers, and provides around 10,000 treatment sessions a year. His response to such cruel misfortune, finding the energy to help so many others, is awe-inspiring.

All the examples that I have given can be summarised by what Elaine Fox calls the true definition of optimism in her book. The original meaning comes from the Latin word ‘optimum’, meaning ‘the best possible’ and the word was first coined by the German philosopher Leibniz who was arguing that God had created the best possible world and that this optimum world could not be improved upon. In other words, Elaine says, optimism has a lot to do with accepting the world as it is. Both good and bad have their place, and we must not to allow them to overwhelm us. Dr Lee Rice says a similar thing: his plea is to say yes to life, just as it is and not how you would like it to be. Having a sense of meaning and purpose, to be loving and to be loved. It is important to have your own worth, a sense of self-esteem; finding an inner peace and joy; being kind to others and having a generosity of spirit; Do good things and good things will happen. These are all the beliefs that I live by.

Tara Swart

I was lucky enough to meet Dr Tara Swart, at the The Hoxton, on High Holborn, in London on 11th September 2015, a recommendation from Michael Brook, who was part of BNP Paribas. Tara was then the CEO of The Unlimited Mind and Senior Lecturer at MIT Sloan. I will never forget the meeting because, as I waited in reception for Tara to arrive, I had a fifteen-minute conversation with a woman whom I thought was Tara, over a coffee and she also thought that I was someone else. I eventually realised I was talking to the wrong person and Tara was in a different part of the lobby awaiting my arrival. Not a great start. My intention was for Tara to speak at our next showcase on 19th January 2016 at Twickenham.

Tara was kind enough to tell me how she got to coach some of the most successful leaders in the city. She was the eldest child of first-generation immigrant parents from an Indian heritage from a good background, growing up in North-West London. She had a rich cultural heritage which as a child presented her with a bit of a dilemma. She wanted to fit in with her friends at school, but her parents regularly practised meditation, yoga and followed an ayurvedic diet.

At the time of meeting her, Tara had completely turned her life around and, like many of the Brilliant Minds that we work with, she decided in her mid-thirties to reinvent herself. She had trained to be a doctor where she worked for seven years in psychiatric medicine after graduating from Oxford University. She felt that the patients she treated deserved better than medication or hospitalisation as well as a chance to optimise their wellbeing with a better outcome. This also coincided with a breakdown in her marriage.

I had huge admiration for her because she moved back in with her parents and followed her passion which very few of us ever do.  She broke away from the permissible conventional ways and sought to harness the power of something that she had known so well: the brain. Having met Dr Lee Rice and Elaine Fox, I continue to be fascinated about the brain. Tara took it much further: she did a PhD in neuroscience.

Tara has this amazing ability to disseminate simple, pragmatic neuroscience-based messages that change the way people work and that translate to tangible improvements in their life. Her book ‘The Source’ is full of practical tips that have helped me take control of my brain to turn some of my desires into reality. I have never had the chance to be coached by Tara, but her book is the next best thing. Tara felt that her unique background should be shared with more people. We were lucky enough to be able to impart some of her wisdom to several of our clients during the last pandemic by me recommending her book, as well as commissioning a short video full of practical tips that she did with Alice. So what did I learn from this?

There may be sceptics out there who don’t think you can rewire your brain, but, with the advent fMRI and other sophisticated scanning technologies, she remains even more excited by how the brain works and how it changes throughout life.

She is now Faculty at MIT Sloan School of Management where she taught the ‘Neuroscience for Leadership’ and ‘Applied Neuroscience’ programmes live for several years, and now has her 6 week online programme ‘Neuroscience for Business’. She is a Visiting Senior Lecturer at King’s College, London and has also taught at Oxford SAID and remains at the forefront of the latest developments in this sector. She wasn’t sure how difficult it would be to make her mark as a woman in the worlds of science and business, but that is behind her now. As she explains, “I think once you get Faculty at MIT, you start to think, ‘Yes, I think I've probably done okay’!"

She has gone on a journey from sceptic to believer. She describes in her book the scientific breakthroughs and personal revelations that changed her from feeling like a directionless person without a strong sense of purpose wanting more from life to a successful entrepreneur living with confidence, purpose and joy. As a scientist, she has personally demonstrated the power of neuroplasticity which is the incredible ability of the human brain to grow and change throughout her life.

The pandemic has been such an interesting period for her to observe the way that people have adapted to changes or struggled with doing so. She has learned a lot about the practical tips that are required to change and grow better during this period which I think are worth sharing.

Mental resilience is a skill that you can cultivate through deliberate practice. The way that neuroplasticity works in the adult brain is a four-step process. It starts with raising awareness, from non-conscious to conscious, of the thing that you wish to change or need to change and then practice, repeating the changes so they become habit. The brain is very energy-efficient, so the more you repeat something, the more it will go down the pathway of least resistance. It is important to build accountability into this process with either friends, coaches, family or technology, all of which can help us make a sustainable behaviour change.

The interesting thing I learned from Tara was that mental resilience comes initially with the thing that I have known about for years: you first need to build a strong physical foundation to create the right conditions for success in your brain and body. These are rest, fuel, hydrate, oxygenate and simplify. I have always instinctively known that this was important from the various “Brilliant Minds” that I have worked with, but Tara was the first person for me who connected all the dots from the perspective of the brain and as a neuroscientist which is why she is so sought after by top leaders. Many of the practical tips are not new but are nonetheless worth reemphasising.

Rest is sleep and needs to be of sufficient length and quality to allow your brain to do the emotional and psychological processing that it does overnight but also because there is an active, physical cleansing process of the brain that takes 7-8 hours, so you really need to be in bed for 7-9 hours. When this process is interrupted, it affects your focus, your memory, your concentration and it has also been shown that there is an operating IQ loss the next day if you haven’t had 7-8 hours. A tip from neuroscience is that regular waking and sleeping times seem to be very important to the brain. So not just 7-8 hours but the same time each day. Tara mentions that if you wake up at the same time at the weekend as a you do in the week then you are probably getting enough sleep. If you have to take naps, lie in, or you feel like you could sleep all weekend then you are probably not getting enough sleep.

Fuel is basically a healthy balanced diet; your brain is tiny and is a small percentage of your own body weight, but it is the most metabolically hungry organ in the body. It uses between 20% and 30% of the breakdown products from your diet: 20% when you are asleep, 25% when you are focused on a task and up to 30% when you are under stress and working hard. This is almost a 1/3 of what you eat. Most people consider food in the context of being healthy, or to improve sporting performance, but very rarely use food to understand how they might make the best decisions, or take healthy risks, or be a good manager or leader, which for me is revelatory. Tara has an answer, and it is to eat regularly and choose your diet in what she calls a brain first way. This benefits your gastrointestinal system, your cardiovascular system, your skin and other organs in your body. So, this manifests itself in eating foods that are high in good fats, like oily fish, eggs, avocadoes, nuts, seeds and all the good oils. It is important to have a good quantity of leafy greens and fruits like berries. A neuroplasticity tip is to focus on dark foods, like aubergines, blueberries, blackberries, black beans, dark chocolate and coffee. The reason for this is that the anthocyanins in the skin, the dark pigments contribute to the growth of new neurons and brain growth factors.

Hydration is not just drinking water; hydrating foods are better for you than just water. Salads, cucumber, melons although you do need to drink ½ litre of water for every 15 kilograms of your body weight each day.

Oxygenation covers deep breathing and exercise. When we are stressed, we tend to breathe in a rapid and shallow manner, so start noticing how you are breathing and make sure the exhale is longer than the inhale. This signals to your brain that your lungs and cardiovascular system are in a relaxed state. Also be mindful that you don’t remain sedentary and do some formal exercise. The brain likes different types of exercise. Weight bearing exercise has a different benefit to aerobic exercise, as does social exercise like sport, so it is important to do a variety. Neuroscience shows that doing exercise that you enjoy has an additional benefit for your brain which is called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). Neurotrophic means growth of neurons, which contributes to neuro plasticity. So, the dark foods and exercise are two major contributing factors in allowing you to develop mental resilience.

Simplify means two things: we are overloaded with information and even though the brain has a natural filtering system, it is very important for us to artificially reduce some of the choices or curate some of the information that our brain is exposed to.

Tara suggests that you can do all the right things in terms of rest, fuel, hydrate and oxygenate but you wake up with a bucket of cognitive resources that is not unlimited, so simplify the cognitive debits that you take from your bucket by pre-planning each day by reducing the number of choices and decisions that you must make each day by creating a routine. Another side of simplification is meditation. Tara introduces the concept of the research that has been done around mindfulness but there are all sorts of activities that you can do which will have a huge impact on your brain in a relatively short period of time.

She tells the story of the research that was done with US Marines (a University of Miami-led research study, led by principal investigator and neuroscientist Dr. Amishi Jha) who have embraced mindfulness to help them beat stress and exhaustion. After eight weeks of meditating for just 12 minutes a day, the soldiers were far better at dealing with anxiety, stress, depression and insomnia. It helped them stay calm and focused in the thick of battle while improving their overall mental and physical fitness. According to a study in the Journal of Clinical Psychology, mindfulness increases happiness and well-being, while a major study in Psychological Science revealed such changes help regular meditators live longer, healthier lives. Other research has shown that it improves memory, creativity and reaction times. It also boosts the immune system and lowers blood pressure. Although it has its roots in Buddhism, mindfulness is an entirely secular type of ‘brain training.’

Of all the things that Tara suggests you do each day, she truly believes that 12 minutes of daily meditation is something that everyone can do.

The other top tip which I wasn’t aware of until meeting Tara was the connection between the three-way transmission of information between the limbic part of the brain, which is the intuitive part of the brain, the gut neurons, and the gut microbiome. Tara said that we've known for quite a while now that there's a neural connection between the gut and the brain. We have so many neurons in our gut, and they produce serotonin, the hormone that helps regulate your mood, often called the body’s natural ‘feel good’ chemical. Stress, alcohol, processed food and antibiotics damage the quality and diversity of our gut bacteria, and Tara suggests we need to be very mindful of maintaining this. Research shows that people who take a good quality probiotic for one month have decreased symptoms of insomnia, anxiety and were even able to reduce or come off anti-depressant medication.

Tara also mentioned that if you have Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (a talking therapy that can help you manage your problems by changing the way you think and behave), this can improve your gut microbiome. So, whilst it is relatively new and there is not a huge amount of research done, she suggests that if you physically look after the bacteria in your gut through what you eat, through supplementation, you can gain greater clarity into your own intuition, which is the wisdom and experience that you've laid down in your neurons over your whole lifetime. Tara is very big on the brain-body connection. She believes that 75% of people in the modern world are deficient in magnesium, and we know that magnesium gets leeched from your system when your cortisol (the stress hormone) levels are high. I have started putting magnesium flakes in the bath to improve this in my own body.

Many of the things that Tara suggested above I was aware of in terms of the benefits, but I had no idea of its importance in terms of my brain and my resilience. The other thing I have done during lockdown is journaling, that is recording the things that I have experienced during the day. I often read these back to see what type of emotional journey that I have been on, especially during each lockdown. It raises my awareness of what is happening to me physically, mentally and of my values. I also write down the things for which I am grateful, a very cathartic thing for me to do.

Tara talks also about abundant thinking being one of the most positive things that you can do rather than thinking about all the negatives. The idea is that there are enough resources for everyone, and we should focus on the positive opportunities that might present themselves rather than on the losses. This is difficult for many, but I am a firm believer, like Elaine Fox, in looking at the good things rather than the bad and maintaining a healthy degree of optimism. Tara, like Dr Lee Rice, confirmed that the brain body connection is so important and through neuroplasticity we can modify our brains. However, without the right environment, the brain won’t change; you must create the right default pathway. This will result in structural changes in highly specific parts of the brain and transform neural architecture. Tara calls this future proofing yourself and believes that you can cultivate mental resilience.

The date is 30th November 2020. I am logging on to WebEx and joining Serge Marston, Managing Director of CME Group, who is moderating a seminar as part of his team meeting on a Monday morning at 8.15 am.

This seminar is not focussing on derivatives which the group are famous for trading. Quite the contrary, this is a sleep seminar with the UK’s leading sleep expert, Dr Guy Meadows. It is designed to helps individuals improve the quality of their sleep and daytime performance. Dr Tara Swart mentioned how important sleep was for the brain but so much more is known now since I first met Dr Guy, through Mark Sinclair in May 2016. This man is the person everyone should try and listen tooin my opinion. He is incredibly knowledgeable on his subject but understands the influence of sleep on our mental, physical and emotional wellbeing. Read ‘The Sleep Book: How to Sleep Well Every Night’: it will change your life.

I have always slept well, but I could never understand those individuals who appeared to be able to burn the candle at both ends. Prior to the financial crash in 2008, it seemed to me that many of the people who were working in the city were seriously damaging their health motivated purely by extrinsic rewards. I had friends who were City traders who would be at their desk at 7am prior to the markets opening, having entertained clients all night. Intuitively, I knew that lack of sleep would affect their decision making, but this city culture was so prevalent that no one seemed to care even though studies had shown that lack of sleep affects the ability of people to make decisions in general. Individuals short on sleep tend to have relatively low attention to detail, poor memory, poor performance and significant mood swings.

Therefore, this seminar first thing in the morning on a Monday was revelatory. We were of course in the middle of a pandemic and attitudes had seriously changed. I refer to an article in the Harvard Review in October 2006 written by Bronwyn Fryer. It was about organisational culture and was entitled, ‘Sleep Deficit: The Performance Killer’. It opens with a heart wrenching story, ‘At 12:30 am on June 10th, 2002, Israel Lane Joubert and his family of seven set out for a long drive home following a family reunion in Beaumont, Texas. Joubert, who had hoped to reach home in faraway Fort Worth in time to get to work by 8 am, fell asleep at the wheel, ploughing the family’s Chevy Suburban into the rear of a parked 18-wheeler. He survived, but his wife and five of his six children were killed.’

Dr Guy Meadows was named the ‘UK’s leading sleep expert’ by The Times and has worked with thousands of employees helping to improve the quality of their sleep and daytime performance. He has been working in the field of sleep since 2001 and 16 years of this time have been dedicated to helping chronic insomnia sufferers. He is a sleep expert, who understands Behavioural and Cognitive Therapists (BABCP) Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). If you have problem with sleep, he is the man you go and see.  Guy is also a published author and co-founder of Sleep To Perform and ‘The Sleep Book’ is filled with practical tips that will help you perform better and you couldn’t meet a more interesting person who is passionate about his subject. He is not a psychologist, psychotherapist or a psychiatrist.

I thought it would be interesting to pick out some of these tips that Guy explains in the most eloquent way in his book and several lectures that I have been lucky enough to attend during lockdown where I wrote down copious notes. He can demystify why it is so important and explain the potential impact that sleep deprivation can have on all areas of life, specifically your cognitive and emotional performance. Armed with this knowledge, you will start to realise why it is the best performance enhancer. He has this expression that “for every great house party you need a great clean-up operation”.

The Sleep School found that during lockdown, because of a variety of different reasons, many people were experiencing a sleep debt. Our routines changed dramatically; many people were working from home, not commuting, eating, sleeping and moving at different times and this had a big impact on our internal biology.

He explained that we spend 1/3 of our lives asleep and the average life expectancy in the UK is 80 years which means that the average British person spends around 27 ½ years of their life asleep. Sleep is not an evolutionary mistake: it is part of our mental, emotional and physical wellbeing. For many years, people felt that sleep was a period of inactivity. Sleep plays a very important role in our prefrontal cortex which is the thinking part of the brain. Dr Guy indicated that, if you have been awake for 17 hours, then you have the concentration levels of someone with a blood alcohol of level of 0.08% which is the UK legal limit and if you have been awake for 22 hours then it is double that. Sleep deprivation and its impact on our cognitive performance are very similar to alcohol intoxication. So, if you want to perform at your best and be focussed then you need to have a good night’s sleep.

Guy also suggests that when we have had a poor night’s sleep, we are more irritable: it’s like we have got out of bed on the wrong side, so to speak. This is because we get moved from that pre-frontal cortex to our amygdala which is the emotional part of the brain. This part of the brain is responsible for threat detection, fighting or flighting. This means that our mood tends to become lower. Research shows that we view facial expression and tone of voice more negatively when we are sleep deprived. This can increase our risk of anxiety and depression, lower our mood and lead to poor mental health. Guy indicated that, with the pandemic, we are experiencing more mental health issues, so getting good sleep is very important.

Sleep deprivation also affects our physical health and in particular our immune system. Guy mentioned that sleep is fundamental in boosting our immune system. Sleep also helps to wash our brains; these small channels open and allow cerebral spinal fluid through the brain, washing out all our neuro toxins, in particular the beta-amyloid protein. Sleep is also good for keeping our hearts healthy as it lowers our blood pressure and it regulates our blood glucose, reducing our risk of diabetes. So, Dr Guy reckons that it is not what sleep does for us, but what it doesn’t do for us. It is the single most powerful performance enhancing behaviour that you can perform. It is instinctive to most, that night-time is the period where we regrow, reenergise, repair ourselves and ready ourselves for the next day, so we can wake up the next day and be brilliant.

Dr Guy said that the pandemic has impacted our sleep in so many ways. This of course is because it is linked to increased stress, depression and anxiety in some of us and these fundamentally impact our sleep. However, for some it has been an opportunity to get better sleep, so it is not all bad. In a lecture that he gave to one of our clients, which I was lucky enough to attend during the pandemic, Dr Guy left me with some sleep essentials which I have been following ever since. These are a mixture of the science as it is important to understand this and some of the takeaways that you can put into action. A number of these I have implemented into my life.

I need eight hours of sleep: I have always known this. The only time that I didn’t sleep eight hours was when my daughter Scarlett was being born and Alice was in labour during the night. Her pain was great than mine, so I am not feeling sorry for myself in anyway. However, I didn’t wake up refreshed.

Our biological sleep need is determined by our genetics, so not everyone needs 8 hours. 97% of the population need between 6-8 hours. The key is asking yourself whether you feel refreshed when you wake up. There are outliers that have an incredible rare genetic mutation that means that they only need as little as 4 hours or as much as 10 hours. Tom de Castella wrote an article in April 2013, entitled, ‘Can people only get 4 hours sleep?’ Margaret Thatcher is famously said to have slept for only four hours a night. Her biographer John Campbell, author of The Iron Lady, says her late-to-bed, early-to-rise routine made her the "best informed person in the room". Her frugal sleep pattern created a problem for her successor, John Major. "He found it difficult coming after her because the civil service had got used to a prime minister who never slept, and he used to sleep eight hours a night," Campbell writes. Churchill survived on four hours a night during the war, but what is less often mentioned is that he had regular afternoon naps in his pyjamas. Professor Kevin Morgan, of Loughborough University's sleep research centre, confirms what Dr Guy said: “The only rule is to sleep long enough to feel refreshed when you wake up.”

Dr Guy suggests that in this modern world we need to ring fence sleep and make it a priority in our life. He says that when you are awake during the day, adenosine (a sleepy brain chemical) builds up and the longer you are awake, the more pressure or drive it creates and this forces us into sleep. Adenosine is one of the body’s more powerful molecules and is linked to the digestion process. During digestion, the glucose in the foods we eat breaks down into glycolysis. This breaks down further into Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP) which is responsible for energy transference between cells. After ATP is “used up”, it decomposes yet again into adenosine. As adenosine builds up in the bloodstream, it interacts with specific cell receptors, inhibiting neural activity and causing drowsiness. When the body runs out of fuel in the form of easily digestible sugars from the food we eat, adenosine signals the body to become drowsy. This essentially tells us to sleep and rebuild our energy reserves. It’s a critical chain reaction that initiates the early stages of non-REM sleep and is essential to the natural sleep cycle. When you are asleep, this adenosine is metabolised. When you sleep well and wake up refreshed, this process happens naturally.

However, many people don’t sleep well, so they wake up with a sleep debt with adenosine still in their system. The first thing they reach for is caffeine. Caffeine is considered an adenosine blocker. It comes into play by similarly attaching itself to the same receptors that adenosine would normally latch onto. In turn, it prevents the drowsiness that occurs as the levels of adenosine in the body increase. Caffeine, found in drinks like coffee and even some foods, offers a feeling of wakefulness and alertness. Once caffeine levels wear off, adenosine kicks back in to cause a decrease in neural activity in the brain and corresponding drowsiness. Many people keep drinking caffeine during the day to keep them going and end up being wired, so they need the other widely sought drug to take the edge off the stimulant. If we are not careful, we end up in a caffeine/alcohol cycle, so we need to find ways of managing this behaviour.

Dr Guy has done a survey whose results suggested that 25% of adults don’t reach their biological sleep need. The good news is that you can repair what he calls a sleep debt. These are the tips that he gave me to do this. This is assuming that you have the time to do this. He suggests we should make time and that it will only take two weeks to recover your optimum cognitive performance.

He suggests that, like Churchill, we take power naps each day of anywhere between 10-20 minutes from 12pm-3pm. The key point here is that most people having a power nap are still awake and can still hear 20 minutes into sleep, so treat the power nap as a rest. He advises people to practise this.

Schedule weekly catch ups, finish work early and wind down, read a book, have a bath and add ½ hour to your normal sleep routine. Enjoy a weekend lie-in limited to one hour maximum because, if it is any longer, you get what he calls social jet lag.

A regular routine is so important and for many people the arrival of the pandemic changed this. A routine is important because we have an internal body clock, where there are 20,000 clock cells in a place called the suprachiasmatic nucleus or nuclei (SCN.) This is a tiny region of the brain in the hypothalamus, situated directly above the optic chiasm. It is responsible for controlling circadian rhythms. The neuronal and hormonal activities it generates regulate many different body functions in a 24-hour cycle. Our blood pressure, appetite, heart rate, hormones, sleep and our waking are all repeated at the same time every day. It is a beautiful internal timepiece. It is primarily kept in time by the rise and fall of the sun but also by our daily activities. When we eat, when we move, when we wind down, everything we do influences our timing.

These days in general we are not sticking to our daily routines which have been exacerbated by the pandemic, so it is confusing our internal timings which is what Dr Guy calls social jet lag. The solution is simple: one of the most powerful behaviours that we can perform is to keep a regular sleep and wake cycle even on the weekends. Keep regular working, eating, exercise and light exposure routines. The key to this is that you will have more energy, but also every other biological process will work better. This is a simple health tip and should be easy to do.

The other colossal tip that Dr Guy recommends is the importance of darkening down. We are solar powered; we have evolved to live on a planet that rotates between light and dark, so when the sun rises in the morning, it hits 500 million light sensitive cells in our eyes, and they relay to the internal body clock to activate the brain to release cortisol which helps give us that get up and go in the morning. As the day closes and gets darker, then the cortisol is inhibited and we start to see the release of melatonin, a hormone that occurs naturally in your body, that helps control our sleep patterns. This hormone lowers our blood pressure, relaxes our muscles, quietens our mind, basically preparing the mind and body for sleep. We are finely tuned to the rise and fall of the sun.

The problem is that the admission of devices into our lives prior to bed is like holding a mini sun to our faces which confuses the brain. This inhibits melatonin and activates the release of cortisol. Suddenly, with the arrival of this artificial light, the body is convinced by the brain that the day is beginning again which delays sleep onset and of course sleep quality. Therefore, we need to darken down. If your bedtime is 10pm then you need to start to darken down around 8pm, reduce the brightness on the devices, switch off overhead lights and put sidelights on. Try and create an environment more akin to our ancestors. Orange light is much less stimulating, but if you have a device, ensure that you activate the blue light filters. Just think about light in a way that you haven’t thought about before. Invest in smart lighting. Thirty minutes before bed, don’t use a device so you can focus on sleep. Keep all devices outside of the bedroom.

Night-time waking is an issue for many, so Dr Guy feels that it is important to understand the science behind this. We have three sleep stages: light, deep and REM. Start with light, which is where we begin our sleep, the entry level of sleep, where many of us we are not even aware that we are asleep. It is still crucial and it does a great job in the on-boarding of memory, as well as energy conservation. We then have deep sleep which is where we get most of our physical growth and repair, where we are most removed from the world. We then have REM, which is called rapid eye movement sleep, also known as dream sleep. Dr Guy says that we are paralysed in dream sleep to stop us acting out our dreams. Dream sleep is the most active phase of sleep. It is called paradoxical sleep because it is sleep that appears to be deep, but it is in fact characterized by a brain-wave pattern similar to that of wakefulness, rapid eye movements, and heavier breathing. This is where we do most of our psychological repairs, our emotional and memory processing.

Dr Guy suggests that most of the deep sleep is done at the start of the sleep. The second part of the night is much more about light and REM sleep. Our sleep drive builds up throughout the day, so it pushes us into the deepest phase of sleep early on. We spend 20% of the night in deep sleep, 50% in light sleep and 30% in REM. All sleep stages have incredible biological functions and Dr Guy recommends we try and get all of them. We wake up a lot because of evolution. We sleep in short cycles of 1.5 to 2 hours long waking at least 4 times a night. These awakenings can be problematic if your thinking mind highjacks your sleep. The crucial thing is how do you behave in this moment. Dr Guy advises that you should not check your phone because it only takes pulses of blue light lasting 0.02 seconds to inhibit your melatonin levels. Any cognitive or mental stimulation takes you from a state of quiet wakefulness to active wakefulness which inhibits your natural sleep. It is, however, normal to wake in the night and adopt a state of quiet restful wakefulness.

Dr Guy like Dr Tara Swart actively engages in acceptance and mindfulness techniques, as a way of operating the parasympathetic nervous system, sometimes called the rest and digest system, which conserves energy as it slows the heart rate, increases intestinal and gland activity, and relaxes sphincter muscles in the gastrointestinal tract. He suggests that if you find yourself awake in the middle of the night, then you need to practise releasing tension by breathing deeply through meditation techniques to get you settled. The crucial thing is to promote psychological flexibility; it is not designed to make you more relaxed or to get you to sleep, but rather to make you notice having thoughts sometimes tricky, but not to get so stuck in them. This cultivates a state of quiet wakefulness and that is the place that sleep can emerge. You can’t control sleep and the more you try to, the further sleep goes away as Dr Guy has learnt at the Sleep School which he runs.

Lifestyle factors that you can adopt can have a major effect on your night-time sleep. Dr Guy says that your night-time is a reflection of your day time. He suggests 2-3 caffeinated drinks per day before say 12- 4pm and then switch to decaffeinated or herbal. If you smoke, you are 2 ½ times as likely to experience fragmented sleep, so leave 4 hours between smoking/vaping and sleeping. It really benefits to stop smoking. Diet plays a part. Digestion and sleep are not good friends. If you have a big meal before you go to bed, this increases your metabolism, which raises your core body temperature and prevents you from falling asleep. Leave 2-4 hours between dinner and sleep and make dinner light and healthy. If you love chocolates and puddings after dinner, try and move it to after lunch instead as this affects sleep. Alcohol sadly is not a friend of sleep; if it is still in the system when you are asleep, it will fragment your sleep and increase your chance of not getting into REM sleep. If you have a glass of wine at 7pm, it should be cleared from your system by 9.30/10.00. Generally speaking, if you want to get a good night’s sleep, make sure there are nights when you are not drinking alcohol. Exercise is fantastic for sleep, but it all about when you do it. Leave 2 hours between exercise and sleep. Exercise elevates our core body temperature, and we need a one degree drop in our core body temperature in order to go to sleep. Having a regular exercise plan is really important. It is much better than an ad hoc session because it acts as a neurological calmer. It helps to calm our stress and anxiety, it tires us out and allows us to wind down.

Who could have ever thought how powerful sleep is as a performance enhancer? Instinctively, we have known that it is so important but for so long there has been this real macho competition in the City about sleep. One of the ways of getting respect was bragging about how little you got. Thankfully, this is changing, and it is no longer a sign of weakness to admit needing sleep. The science is there, and Dr Guy and the Sleep School are leading the way.

I first met Professor Ian Goldin in February 2012 and remain today in complete awe of this Brilliant Mind.

I have only been able to work with him intermittently over the last 9 years. Six years ago, this globalisation and development expert predicted that the next economic crash would be caused by a pandemic. He is the world’s leading expert on the systemic risks created by globalisation – risks that, during the coronavirus outbreak, are no longer hypothetical, but are profoundly affecting every human being alive today.

As founding Director of the Oxford Martin School, and formerly Vice President of the World Bank, CEO of the Development Bank of Southern Africa and Economic Advisor to Nelson Mandela, Professor Goldin’s insight into the management of global risk is singularly distinguished, and sought out by governments, businesses, NGOs and individuals throughout the world.

The Oxford Martin School brings together over 300 leading scholars in interdisciplinary teams to address critical global challenges. We have been lucky enough to work with Ian on several occasions, the most memorable of which was an address followed by breakfast at Balliol College. Ian is a truly global speaker and, prior to the pandemic, was travelling around the world and his time was in short supply. However, the pandemic put a stop to this, and virtual technology ensued, providing the perfect opportunity to work with him on 27 January 2021.

Many of the Brilliant Minds whom I have included within this book have provided insight, based on past experiences, but I would liken Ian to an historian of the future rather than a futurologist.

In 2014, Oxford economist Ian Goldin predicted that a global pandemic would cause the next financial crisis. Any recount of Brilliant Minds that we have worked with would not be complete without his inclusion and his thoughts at this unprecedented period of history.

Just shortly after our showcase on 10^th March at Lords, I listened to an interview that Ian Goldin did with Zeinab Badwawi on BBC Hardtalk. He was able to make his predictions regarding the pandemic six years before it happened in his book ‘The Butterfly Defect: How globalization creates systemic risks, and what to do about it (Princeton University Press, 2014)’.

He said that it is almost inevitable as we connect more, living in big cities, close to airports, which are not only the super spreaders of the good of globalisation but also the bad, that cotangents would cascade around the world. Pandemics in the past have always been the biggest killers of humanity and he believed that this continued to be a major threat which was being ignored. He believed that this would be the biggest threat to our lives and to our financial systems and economies. In the Spanish flu outbreak in 1918, almost 50 million people died, and this was spread through shipping and troops returning after the war and affected 1/3 of the world’s population. Covid 19 is much more virulent and with the connectivity which exists today, he suggests in his interview that the threat is much more instantaneous, and, through air travel, it can be in any part of the world within 36 hours. Globalisation has brought so many benefits and Ian is a huge fan of it. One benefit is that 2 billion people have been brought out of poverty. However, as the pandemic has demonstrated, it also can be bad.

In his book ‘The Butterfly Defect’, he argues how these integrated complex systems lead to interdependency, so a financial crisis is similar in many respects to the pandemic. It is about something that starts somewhere, in a hub, spreading around the world rapidly, through the arteries of globalisation. This interview was conducted in March 2020 and what was interesting to me looking back was the similarities of the financial crash of 2008. Ian suggests that they need to be managed in similar ways and coordination of them needs to be thought about globally.

At the time, he predicted a slowdown in the global economy, but added a caveat to this by saying that, if countries responded by rapidly addressing the crisis, by transferring money to those who most need it, by helping those who can’t get to work, by trying to sustain businesses so they don’t go bankrupt, through underwriting and extending their loans in other ways and if there is a coordinated global effort, we might be able to avoid the worst effects. However, he didn’t know for sure. How could anyone know in March 2020 as we were facing the eye of the storm? Never again in my life and this is why it is worth mentioning in this section of the book, will I ever witness what ensued in those early days, in terms of the economic downturn and how it affected people’s lives.

No one had experienced anything like this. It was a once in a lifetime period, I quickly realised that the approach was to ‘batten down the hatches and ride the storm’. The words, Covid 19, furlough, antibody tests, contact tracing, coronavirus, flattening the curve, herd immunity, incubation period, lockdown, pandemic and epidemic, PPE, quarantine, self-isolate, shielding, social distancing, track and trace, working from home, the World Health Organisation, Zoom, were not in my vocabulary or that of most of the world’s population. However, each represents a significant coordinated global effort to fight the pandemic, which means that, for most of the world’s population, they are now commonplace. Ian advocated co-ordinated action like what happened in 2008 when the world was relatively harmonious. President George Bush called a meeting immediately after the 2008 financial crash and this was attended by 20 world heads of state. He suggested a coordinated effort of nations, all the big risks, a pandemic, climate change, cyber, or finance was needed, and this is what has happened.

By January 2021, when we were lucky enough to book Ian Goldin for a speech for CBRE. He was extremely optimistic about the future and what had happened during the intervening period despite the devastation and loss of lives. The background to this was that on 3^rd December 2020 the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine had passed safety and efficacy tests, but researchers still had many questions about how this and other vaccines would perform as they were rolled out to millions of people.

Ian Goldin suggested at the start of 2021 that COVID-19 would accelerate the transformation of globalisation, but not derail it.  He shared with my client some of the megatrends in the future and how they have been affected by the pandemic. He mentioned that the devastation of the pandemic was likely to leave a permanent scar on society, but he was predicting the next decade would be a very bright one. His hope was that we will recover, because of the recognition of our independence of each other and that a threat anywhere is a threat to anyone. He hoped that people would come together to ensure that we don’t have a global pandemic again and manage climate change. His big trend prediction was that a move of the centre of economics to China away from Europe and the States. He felt that there would not be a rapid change in globalisation but that instead transformation would occur, not just with things like new vaccine discovery but the rise in digital traffic.

He indicated that supply chains had been resilient and had withstood the pandemic. Supply chains were changing before the pandemic because of automation. The rise of artificial intelligence, big data analytics, robotics and 3D printing were fundamentally transforming the world. The Oxford Martin School had estimated that 47% of US jobs were vulnerable to machine learning, automation and robotics in the next 20 years. In Europe, it is likely to be 40% and in China higher numbers. This is not only automation of tasks in manufacturing, but increasingly in services. In call centres and back offices around the world, they are seeing a dramatic speed of adoption. Call centres operated by machines in 2021 were getting better satisfaction rates than those operated by humans.

He predicted that with the advent of artificial intelligence, we would see a reshoring of these services for three reasons. The price of the machines is often cheaper in advanced economies than in developing countries. Customers want immediacy, which is not possible in a container, so we will see a reshoring of robotics and automated produced products. Customisation in automated factories, e.g. Mini in Oxford has produced over 1 million Minis because it is an automated system. Nationalisation and protectionism will also play a major role. The future of work in the US, Canada and UK is a hybrid model with staff being in the office only 40% of the time.

He mentioned that remote working has not engendered innovation. Many jobs depend on an apprentice model which cannot be produced online. Working online is also highly discriminatory to an introvert, to newcomers and young people as well as to lower income individuals. Those who have networks can reinforce them by continuing them online but those who do not are discriminated against. Offices will change to shared communal spaces, shared offices between clients plus zoom meeting rooms but with few rows of PCs. People will live further away from the offices if they are only required to go in 40% of the time.

The coming decades will be positive for Europe and the States without shocks and Asia will be the big player. We will need to adapt to the changes in climate, technological or demographic revolutions. The ageing of society, health and safety and pollution and other areas will create enormous opportunities. The future is bright,and we will return to growth despite the terrible pandemic with sustained growth where people will come together.

In his most recent book ‘Rescue’, which is not released yet, he argues the devastation caused by the pandemic will result in a bounce back and it will create opportunities for change, just as the Second World War forged the ideas behind the Beveridge Report. Published in 1942, it was revolutionary and laid the foundations for the Welfare State alongside a host of other social and economic reforms, changing the world for the better and resulting in sustained investment and growth and to working together. I feel very privileged to have listened to Ian Goldin and would recommend anyone to read his books. I have asked him about the recent events in Ukraine; I wonder what his thoughts might be now.

HTL were appointed to deliver the 2016 IAAF World Athletic Awards on Friday 2nd December 2016, which was held in the Salle des Etoiles in Monaco. We thought this would be a one-off mandate.

Little did we know that we would have the privilege of leading the delivery of the IAAF Athletics Awards for three successive years, working in collaboration with PrettyGreen and SheyZam Media Ltd. It was always a spectacular occasion attended by elite athletes who travelled to Monaco from all around the globe.

In 2016, I got a greater appreciation of the true leadership qualities of Lord Coe. There are very few people in the world, who have achieved what he has achieved, winning Olympic gold at the blue-riband 1500 metres event in both 1980 and 1984. During his career, he set eleven world records, including the world record for 800 metres which stood from 1981 to 1997. Following his retirement from athletics, he became a Conservative MP, and later led the successful London Olympic bid and the organising committee of 2012.

It would have been very easy for him to be satisfied with his achievements and not to try to do anything else. In August 2015, he was elected president of the IAAF (World Athletics) amid the difficult backdrop of doping issues in the sport. We ran the awards for him in 2016 with the IAAF, but until then had no appreciation of the role that he had taken on.

World Athletics comprises of 214 member federations, divided into 6 area associations across the world. His role as President was to serve as the public face of the sport of athletics, representing World Athletics at competitions, conferences, meetings and before governmental and international organisations to develop and promote the strategy and plans of World Athletics in growing athletics throughout the world. These responsibilities included chairing Congress, Council, and the Executive Board, including ensuring the decisions of Congress, Council and the Executive Board are implemented. He was literally travelling around the globe, such was his passion for his sport and his desire to deal with the difficult circumstances head on.

We returned from the awards in the November and were asked to work with Seb and his team on one of the most complex events that I have ever been involved with. At this point in history, Seb was two years into a four-year presidency. When he first came into the IAAF, he agreed to embrace change, to decentralise and empower, maximise commercial growth, embed integrity and trust on the track and within the IAAF. The manifesto was a partnership, a contract amongst equals, that was implemented at a rapid pace. In 2016, at the Special Congress meeting in Monaco, 95% of the member federations voted for constitutional reform which left the IAAF stronger to tackle the challenges. Under Seb’s leadership, they established the Athletes Integrity Unit and delivered a strong team working with a clear mandate at the IAAF who empowered the federations to deliver the sport in their regions.

This coincided with the appointment of a new CEO Olivier Gers, a 46-year-old multilingual Frenchman who had 20 years of commercial, marketing and media experience, leading large global teams to create revenue driven products, networks and brands. Commenting on the appointment, which came amid the Russian doping scandal, Seb Coe said, “The IAAF is on a mission to change.”

Olivier’s experience in leading global teams, working with world-class brands and businesses and developing and creating digital products and platforms would certainly bring change to the IAAF and we had the challenge of translating Olivier’s strategic plan into one of the biggest and most challenging events that we have ever been involved with. We first got to work with Olivier in August 2016 when he returned from the Rio 2016 Olympic Games where he was attending the IAAF Council Meeting; however, his official start as CEO of the IAAF on October 1 2016 was just before the awards.

We had less than a year to work on this event, which was going to take place in London 2nd/3rd August, at Excel London 2nd/3rd August ICC, ExCeL London, called IAAF Connect and Congress 2017. ExCeL London is an incredible 100,000 m2 of event space, by far the biggest venue we had ever worked with. It would later be the venue for a much bigger strategic vision.

The IAAF had a contract with the Organising Committee for the 2017 World Championships in London and they had chosen the ExCel as the venue for Congress and Connect. We were provided with antiquated, congress guidelines which we were expected to follow; however, Olivier’s plans were far more audacious than what the LOC were providing as part of their contract.

He had a desire to create more than just a congress event which was a complex event. Instead, he wanted to design an event to run the day before congress to inspire, inform, create discussion and provide opportunities to network. In a world where people are busier than ever, athletics was having to compete for attention with a wide range of sport, leisure and entertainment options for both competitors and fans. Athletics Connect was designed to bring together leaders from the global athletics community, athletes and commentators, as they gathered in London for the IAAF World Championships 2017 at the Olympic Stadium.

The result was 55 panellists on 10 panel discussions and 12 heavy weight keynote speeches, across 4 broad content themes, development and coaching, event presentation and technology, fan and partner engagement. This included Brett Gosper, the Chief Executive Officer of the World Rugby and the Managing Director of Rugby World Cup Limited and Heidi Lehmann from Kenzen, a media entrepreneur focused on wearable technology and data as the next phase of mobile computing. Heidi had been voted in 2015 Woman of Influence by The New York Business Journal. It also included Jerry Newman who led Sport for Facebook and had previously led the Digital Strategy for Chelsea FC where he focused on driving the relationship the club had with its millions of fans globally and leveraging this asset to drive greater commercial value for the club.

We had two hosts on two separate stages with two presenters: Ato Bolden, four-time Olympic medal winner, and Katherine Merry, who at one point was the fastest woman in the world over 400 metres. Katharine was the only female TV lead commentator in athletics at the time, working at numerous Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games and European Championships.

There were exhibitions in the marketplace and tech hub zone from Mondo, who created the fastest tracks in history, installed in over 1100 sports facilities as well as a stand from Doha who were hosting the IAAF World Championships in Athletics in 2019, which we would also be involved with before lockdown. One of the highlights for me was a lunch-time Q&A with IAAF President Seb Coe and CEO Olivier Gers. This was a mammoth undertaking, and we worked on this tirelessly. When Seb Coe is your client, you do not want to let him down.

We were also asked to assist the team at the IAAF the day after Connect with Congress. Olivier had the desire like the Connect event to really modernise these traditional events and congress was no exception. This was the 51^st Congress and is the highest authority of World Athletics and the sport of athletics worldwide. Council, the Executive Board and other bodies within World Athletics are accountable to Congress and must report annually to it.

The Congress of World Athletics consists of the 214 Member Federations represented by up to three delegates each, so we had well in excess of 800 people in this auditorium, the countries of which were represented by their flags that were printed on a specially commissioned board that hung to the left of the main stage. To the rear of the auditorium were translation booths as delegates had the speeches translated into their preferred languages. An army of scrutineers, all volunteers, joined the proceedings to ensure there was no occurrence of corruption in the voting process which was provided using handheld voting pads that they distributed to each of the 214 federations. Congress meets every two years at the same time as the World Athletics Championships. This is one of Seb Coe’s major responsibilities as President and everyone is in the room, sat classroom style, as he presides over the whole event which kicks off at 9.00 am and finishes at 7.00 pm.

Our aim was to try and make it more interesting without taking away the importance of the occasion. Each of the 6 area associations had to deliver a report which they normally they do on stage; however, on this occasion, we had to work collaboratively with ITN, who were the official production partner, to pre-record the reports in advance of this event. To give you an example, the Asian Athletics Association, whose president is Dahlan al Hamd, has 45 members, has its HQ in Singapore, represents the largest continent on the planet and is home to 60% of the world’s population. Its members include the Middle East, India, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Japan and the Philippines. This was just one report of six that needed to be delivered in one short 3-minute video.

The Congress also has the power to admit, suspend, expel and reinstate Member Federations from membership of World Athletics; to amend the Constitution; to approve the World Plan for athletics; and to approve, on the recommendation of Council, the members of the Vetting Panel, Disciplinary Tribunal and Integrity Unit Board. The Congress could also grant, on the recommendation of Council, the World Athletics awards for services to the sport and the titles of Honorary Life Presidents, Life Vice Presidents and Life Personal Members.

I will never forget at 2.35 pm Dmitry Shlyakhtin, the former head of the Russian Athletics Federation (RusAF), being escorted into the Excel auditorium to give an address. The context was that Russia had been suspended from track and field events by the IAAF in November 2015, following the publication of an independent World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) report that showed a culture of widespread, state-sponsored doping. He literally had 10 minutes to plead his case, and Seb Coe interrupted him to remind him that he had 2 minutes left before he would have to finish, before being escorted out of the room again. There were absolutely no pleasantries afforded to this man, and you could sense the tension in the room. All the way from Russia for a 10-minute presentation.

This address was followed by a Russia Task Force report by its head Rune Andersen and a vote on Russia continuing to be suspended. The AIU was created to be a fearless and independent organisation. Their work in uncovering the conspiracy and fraudulent behaviour was why it was created, to make cheats accountable, irrespective of their stature or standing.

Seb Coe said that the creation of the fully independent Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) in 2017 was one of his proudest achievements, adding that devolving rather than hogging power is the way forward for all sporting organisations. It is responsible for the management of all aspects of the anti-doping programme for international-level athletes and support personnel, as well as for the management of all other integrity-related programmes. I saw a side to Seb Coe at Congress which was unwavering and showed why he is the natural leader of World Athletics and was reinstated in 2019 as President. There can be nothing more difficult than galvanising so many disparate federations, representing so many cultures, languages, backgrounds and diversity. However, as I sat at the back of room and witnessed the whole meeting, I felt privileged to be part of this event.

However, looking back, the cost of putting on these events was astronomical from a cost and sustainability perspective and may I say slightly outdated. It was in stark contrast to how World Athletics operates in 2021, less than 4 years later because of the pandemic.  In the second lockdown, many of the World Athletics 214 member federations divided into 6 area associations were asking Seb how he was going to lead his organisation through turbulent times.

As the President of World Athetics, Seb Coe had to demonstrate leadership. The role of the President is multifaceted as we have seen: he is responsible for chairing Congress, Council, and the Executive Board, including ensuring the decisions of Congress, Council and the Executive Board are implemented. Seb had shown from the early days of his presidency how to lead in a crisis, but he could never have predicted how valuable this would be in March 2020. This previous experience has allowed him to “adapt, adopt, pivot, dig deep, regroup and observe the learnings that have been slightly opaque.”

He did a wonderful address for one of my clients in May 2021 and he mentions, if he goes back to November 2015, when World Athletics was facing massive issues around “industrial scale cheating of the Russian Federation, he had to dig deep.” As he demonstrated in the recount above, he remembers that he had to bring his council together, to discuss these ramifications and make some hard and fast decisions. Six years ago, it took him the best part of 4/5 days to make sure that he got all his council members from 28 different countries and six continents on the planet on a call. Some came on mobile phones, laptops and a squark box in the middle of the table. Seb had a council meeting on 19^th May 2021 and he gave his council members 6/7 hours’ notice to rally. This is only made possible with the use of technology that we use today which he believes is here to stay.

His view is that decisions that are made using the technology are much more collegiate than previously. The technology has completely transformed how Seb’s organisation does business. Athletics is no longer just about high performance, gold medals and records. World Athletics is responsible for the biennial World Athletics Championships, which is the jewel of World Athletics Series of events which also includes indoor, U20, relays, cross country, race walking and road running during a four-year cycle of World Championships and/or Cup events for each of these types of competition. The wide variety in the type, size and scope of the rest of the World Athletics Series of competitions with their different demands in terms of logistics, budget and facilities also means that there are World Athletics events happening each day among most of the sport's 200+ national member federations.

It is also about 'sport for all' and about ensuring that the maximum number of citizens can participate in athletics. Only the other day, Seb was asked to comment on Radio Five Live with Rachel Burden about Parkrun that has been suspended since March 2020 as London begins to recover from the pandemic. Parkrun offers a free, regular and inclusive model that can help people get walking, running, jogging and outdoors again this summer. Since its inception in 2002, Parkrun has grown exponentially. Before lockdown, it was taking place in hundreds of parks across the UK and in 22 countries around the world. Of the 729 venues across the UK at which Parkrun is in operation, it is understood that more than 300 are yet to approve the resumption of the event. And there’s a fear that if this number does not increase significantly, the plans for Parkrun’s return will have to be shelved. In an open letter, Seb Coe referred to it as ‘one of the greatest public health initiatives of the 21st century.’

There has been much change to the events that we were organising in 2017 and 2019, by necessity not by choice most probably. He speaks with his continental presidents around the world at least twice every month. Now when he makes decisions, he does it on the basis that he is taking everyone with him. Seb has four commissions - athletics, competition, development and governance - which are the four driving pillars of the sport. They used to meet two/three times a year, but they now meet monthly. Not only are they meeting monthly, but they all meet to ensure that there is no duplicated work, resources or effort. The IAAF used to have face to face two-day council meetings that started at 9 in the morning and finished at 6 in the evening and over two days. They now have what they call the broadcast windows when they are really refining to three-hour windows the decisions and the information that they must absorb and make. Contributions are more succinct and certainly more to the point. All these things are making a dramatic difference to how he works.

The other major consideration is that World Athletics has a sustainability strategy. In April 2020, World Athletics launched its Sustainability Strategy for 2020-2030. The ten-year strategy is set to provide a framework for the organisation, its Member Federations, and its event organisers on how to produce tangible, meaningful and measurable results on environmental, social and economic sustainability. A central goal is to make the organisation carbon neutral by 2030. Never again is Seb going to sign off on eight people flying to different time zones to deliver a report, to have supper and then fly back again. It does not make sense economically or environmentally. They can now have sight visits, but they are using drones to capture intelligence as to whether venues are in the right type of shape and that progress is being made in accordance with the various criteria that is expected of them to host a competition.

At the time of making this address to my clients, he explained to us that he was preparing for the number one competition in his sport, which is the Olympics, from Friday 23rd July 2021 to Sunday 8 August 2021 in Tokyo. Seb went to Tokyo in October 2020 with his health, science and competition teams. Athletics events are split over two locations: the road events in Sapporo and track and track/field events in the Olympic Stadium. It took him one hour to get through the airport with all the paperwork and Covid tests. Just the other day in May 2020, the same journey through the airport took him three hours. They were then bubbled in a hotel room, waiting for the Covid tests to come through. As they were flying to Sapporo, they were not able to mix with anyone at a local level. Even when they got to Sapporo, wanting to make an evaluation of the event and the quality of the operational complexity around it, which is one of his responsibilities, he couldn’t move freely and do his job. He had to stand in a particular point in the road, so that he could not speak to any of the athletes. It became about the hotel, the venue and then the hotel; there was no social interaction, and he was unable to do the job that he would normally do by meeting ministers etc as his role as President.

He explained that the world has become incredibly complex having profound impacts both in the workplace and socially. Seb speaks from a position of strength; there is no other person that I know who has worn so many hats and dealt with change during lockdown with the various organisations that he holds leadership roles with, as Chancellor of Loughborough University, Honorary Vice President of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, President of World Athletics, as a former MP and current sitting Lord and as Non-Executive Chairman of CSM Sport and Entertainment, one of the biggest sports marketing agencies in the world. He has delivered world class performances from the 1980s to the present day.

All these organisations that Seb is involved with are looking at the future model, how they work remotely, how they bring people into the size scope of the resources that they have available physically. They are looking into policies around unnecessary travel, the unnecessary burdens on the planet, commercially and financially. There are, however, organisations that have come through Covid 19 well and they are what Seb describes as two-paced organisations. World Athletics have had to contend with maintaining athletes in competition, maintain training venues and global competitions and it has been a huge challenge. This has called upon the type of crisis management which his organisation has been completely absorbed with. However, what has been very important for Seb, like other similar two-paced organisations, is that that a good chunk of the organisation is thinking about where they will be next year, in 5 years and in 10 years. Throughout the whole of Covid, World Athletics delivered a strategic plan, completed their sustainability programme, made big judgements on the format of competitions and brought two sponsors on board. Those organisations that have future-proofed themselves have found that delicate balance between dealing on a day-to-day basis with all the challenges that Covid has thrown them in terms of cash and headquarter survivability and at the same time never losing sight of what the future will look like.

The two-paced approach has kept World Athletics front and centre in the people’s minds. It has also unleashed a level of creativity that World Athletics probably did not recognise was within the team. For example, when they lost their competitions and much of the world was in lockdown, with the use of modern technology, some of the greatest athletes on the planet competed against one another on Sunday 3 May 2020 in the Ultimate Garden Clash – Pole Vault Edition. World record-holder Mondo Duplantis of Sweden, two-time world champion Sam Kendricks of the USA and 2012 Olympic champion Renaud Lavillenie of France were connected via a live video link as they competed from the comfort and safety of their own back gardens in a unique competition for the ages. Instead of a usual contest to clear the maximum height – which would be difficult with a lack of officials to move the bar up and adjust standards – the three athletes worked together to devise their own competition format. They attempted to vault 5 metres as many times as they could within 30 minutes. It was a test of technique, consistency, concentration and stamina – all qualities that are required in a normal pole vault competition, just measured in an alternative way. By the end of the contest, Lavillenie and Duplantis had each successfully cleared a total of 36 five-metre vaults, beating Kendricks’ tally of 26. Following a brief discussion between the top two, they decided to share the victory. This had 40 million hits on social media. There were learnings from this that Seb was able to take into discussions with his colleagues in World Athletics around the excitement of this and the informality of competition. Everyone is absorbing the things that by osmosis will become part of work life balance and working practice.

The Chief Nurse at the Nightingale Eamonn Sullivan

I remember being asked to undertake a site visit at London Excel, Royal Victoria Dock, in London on 16^th January 2017 with Olivier Gers the CEO of the then IAAF (World Athletics.) This was in preparation for the Congress and Connect events being held before the World Championships that were in London. This was an incredible building regarded as the largest and most versatile venue in London and was approximately 100,000 square metres in size.

The use that we were about to put this building to was important and we had 7 months to plan it. This wasn’t the case for an intensive care nurse with over two decades of experience. Eamonn Sullivan was working as the Chief Nurse at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London’s Chelsea before he was drafted into a major project at the ExCel Centre. Prior to the Royal Marsden, he was also Deputy Chief Nurse at Guys and St Thomas, Deputy Chief nurse at University Hospital London. He was one of the only Brilliant Minds that we took on over lockdown, such was the compelling nature of his story.

Eamonn was watching the TV like all of us when we were first going into lockdown, trying to figure out whether it was an epidemic or a pandemic which we were about to enter into. He got an email from a colleague of his when he was sitting in his office at the Royal Marsden. The email shared a link to the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM). There was an open letter from an Italian intensive care clinician saying that they were on fire, they were under massive pressure and they were overwhelmed. This focussed Eamonn’s mind because it is not well known outside intensive care circles, but the Italians are exceptionally good at intensive care. Much of the most brilliant research comes from Italy, they are fantastic at what they do and so, when they were saying you had to prepare as they were overwhelmed and people were dying in corridors, it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. It was at this point that the pandemic became very real. He describes this moment as time-stopping. It is important to put this into context in relation to the UK and what was going on at this time.

On March 25^th 2020, China was the only country registering more Covid-19 cases than Italy. With far fewer people, Italy’s infection rate was much higher than China’s. No other country had a truly comparable set of circumstances. The Italian government had progressively worked to contain the disease, including declaring a total national lockdown on March 10. Italy had struggled to fight against an unprecedented crisis that found dangerously fertile ground in elements of the country’s demographics, business, geography and culture. Milan’s Fashion Week drew models, designers and other fashion professionals from around the world, even as late as February 2020. A key factor in emergency management is learning lessons from others in similar circumstances, but there was no one for Italy to learn from at this stage of the crisis.

Eamonn got this news and he immediately feared for his family, staff and patients. He knew he had to get ready, and they were not ready, but they needed to do this at pace. Time was limited and he knew that he had to make every single minute and hour count. He knew that everything else had to stop at this point and this would take priority over anything else that was happening. At this stage, it was about getting the Royal Marsden ready and protecting patients and staff.

I neglected to tell you that he oversaw the intensive care units in field hospitals in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he also helped to design and build the state-of-the-art hospital at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province as an Army reservist for 20 years. Also, seven months before this, he had done an exercise in Germany where they set up a massive field hospital. This was a NATO exercise with 30,000 troops, so this was fresh in his mind. The first thing he thought of when he heard this news was therefore how can we put in a military style command and control system into the Marsden tomorrow. He said the military allows you to separate the wheat from the chaff and get to the issue very quickly, in a structured way which is also very inclusive. The leadership team of which he was part had to come up with a strategy which would allow the people on the ground to care for patients who he knew were going to be very poorly. He was preparing the Royal Marsden for what he thought was going to be a massive battle and also had to contend with St. Patrick's Festival being cancelled due to the ongoing threat of coronavirus on Sunday 15 March 2020, which for Eamonn as an Irishman was pretty depressing.

At this point, he contacted his commanding officer, Colonel Ashleigh Boreham of 256 City of London Field Hospital, to come in and talk to the team at the Royal Marden about crisis management, leadership in crisis and how they might adopt some of the military elements into the hospital. He came in on Thursday 18^th March and spoke to his executive team. During the speech, he got a telephone call. He confided in Eamonn and told him that something big was happening in London Eamonn asked him what he could do to help.

He didn’t find out until he got a call from the Chief Nurse in London asking him to attend a meeting on Sunday 21st March at Great Ormond Street in London. He turned up at 7am with a group of people he didn’t know apart from Colonel Boreham (the designated medical liaison officer) and Natalie Forrest with whom he had worked 20 years before who was Chase Farm Hospital’s Chief Executive. He likened this to a bad episode of Top Gear. They were given an envelope with this impossible mission in it, showing that there was going to be a gap of 4000 ventilated beds in London and that they had to work very quickly to avoid a Lombardy type situation. Bergamo, situated northeast of Milan in the Lombardy region, experienced one of the deadliest COVID-19 outbreaks in the world. Eamonn said they immediately formed groups and got to work.

He didn’t know anyone and was introduced to Dr Alan McGlennan, who had just been appointed as the Medical Director for the Nightingale Hospital and Natalie Forrest asked whether Eamonn would be the Director of Nursing. They were thrown together, whether by design or default, with contractors and management consultants, quite an eclectic group to just get on with the task in hand that morning.

On that first day, they had to get to work and trust the people around them to complete the Top Gear mission immediately. There was no time for brainstorming or niceties. They immediately cracked on into groups. There was a design group with Colonel Boreham looking at what the hospital was going to look like. There was a workforce group, procurement group and the clinical model group. By the end of the first day, they had the design done. It wasn’t done by committee, but rather by the military, doctors, nurses and NHS estates, coming together to say that this would work. Eamonn recalls that there was a white board, and someone asked him what an intensive unit looked like and what equipment was needed. He drew a stick man with beds and listed all the equipment that was needed with him and a couple of the doctors. The man took a picture of the whiteboard and came back 30 minutes later with a spreadsheet which they validated and off he went. It was done at this pace.

The design of the field hospital had to be a military style design that needed to be scaled up to 4000 beds. They debated what the hospital should be called, and Natalie said it should be called the Nightingale because it was about giving the public hope in desperate times. Doing something special at pace to save Londoners’ lives. It was a unanimous decision to call it the Nightingale.

Eamonn was initially a team of 8/9 before it became a team of 40 and they were told to go to the KPMG offices for a meeting with a whole variety of different people that came together. People had time to reflect on the enormity of the task in front of them, and he explained that there was a fear and that people were genuinely scared, but they still came together. Natalie Forrest, Alan McGlennan, Colonel Ash Boreham and Eamonn were expected to address the room which they all did. Eamonn describes how Natalie stepped forward and said to everyone that it was ok to be scared and the atmosphere changed straight away. He explains that you have to control fear; it is a really important emotion, you can’t disrespect it and you can’t push it away, you need to harness it and use it positively. It is a positive emotion. Eamonn addressed the group and told them that they were going to get sick, but they would look after the team and Alan and Ash both spoke reassuringly and reverently. They had three main objectives, the first two being to save Londoners’ lives, but also to make sure that families were with their loved ones when they were dying. The third objective was to treat the staff like rockstars because they knew a desperate group of people who had never worked together before would come together and they needed the best care and the best physical and psychological safety. He defined what he meant by treating his staff like rockstars. Traditionally the patient in the NHS is at the centre and all the staff are supporting the patient. In the Nightingale, this was not fit for purpose, so they put the patient and the intensive care staff at the centre and everything else around them which was a fundamental change in ethos.

Eamonn also mentioned that they realised that, as the team grew, they needed to build a very agile learning system as it was high risk. He had set up 3 intensive care units in field hospitals in Iraq and Afghanistan, but they were only 5/6 beds. This was going to be hundreds and eventually thousands and this was risky as it had never been done in the NHS before. Eamonn said that every day in the Nightingale seemed like the equivalent of five months in the NHS in terms of learning.

Plans to create the hospital were announced in a press briefing by Health Secretary Matt Hancock on 24th March. The hospital would be run by NHS staff and volunteers, with 700 military personnel providing logistic assistance. The conversion of the ExCeL London exhibition centre into an emergency COVID-19 hospital facility with 4,000 beds, delivering the first 500 in just nine days was a huge collaborative effort and tremendous achievement. Just to put this into perspective, the ExCel is 1km long and the intensive care units were over the space of five football pitches on one side and five football pitches on the other side. Standing Joint Command (SJC) in conjunction with architects, clinicians, consultants, contractors, the ExCeL facilities management team and the British Army worked tirelessly together. Every bed was fitted with all the equipment required to treat seriously ill patients who would be cared for by dedicated staff in full PPE equipment.

All the hotels around the ExCel were commandeered. Food was available 24/7; they looked after all their staff needs so they could concentrate on the patient. They gave the staff the right tools but looked after them from a physical and psychological perspective, all the essentials in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Nightingale London was one of 7 Nightingales in England and London was one of the only facilities that took intensive care patients. They eventually took 55 ventilated Londoners, over a 4-to-5-week period. To put this into context, the average local hospital will have 16 to 19 ventilated patients. A big teaching hospital will have 30. They were running at 25 to 30 patients at any one time. They were delighted with this. To the staff, it was a massive success that they didn’t have hundreds of patients. It showed that the public were listening to government advice at a time when there was no vaccine in place. People were staying indoors and were not requiring mass critical care. It also demonstrated that London rebooted the NHS to make it a major critical care unit which undoubtedly save a lot of lives.

On 4th May 2020, it was announced that the hospital would be put 'on standby', after treating 55 patients, as no new COVID-19 patients were expected to be admitted. Operationally, it shut on 15^th May although it was expected that the hospital would remain available for use on a rent-free basis. Eamonn said he was so pleased they were not needed to the extent that people had expected. Londoners did exactly what the government advised; by staying home, they protected the NHS staff and by default saved lives. On 26th May, Eamonn became the Chief Nursing Officer at the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust (RBFT). He was awarded an MBE for his services to nursing. I am proud to have met this “Brilliant Mind.” Thank you, Martin Elliott, for the kind introduction.

On the 5th June, we ran our summer showcase at the Emirates Stadium, and the event was kicked off by Graeme Codrington, who, like Professor Ian Goldin, was a specialist on global trends and was one of the first futurologists that we had worked with in his capacity as a director of Tomorrow Today.

This South African was a heavy weight and had been operating in the speaker world for over 20 years and was a published author and expert on the future of work. He gave me a recommendation which fundamentally changed our business. His email was on 4^th July 2014, shortly after the showcase, and he explained and I quote, ‘there's nothing in this for me, and no obligation on your part, but I really do think it would be well worth you and Mark Sinclair of yBC (yourbusinesschannel) meeting to chat about video and digital engagement.  You've probably already got your own agency or inhouse assistance with both video and digital channels, but I still think you'll be impressed with Mark and his team's approach.’  Tomorrow Today has been involved in some of their digital channels for a few years and was working with them on their digital engagement strategy, including his websites and videos.  He confirmed that their approach was different from that of other people they had seen in this space. Up until this point, we had no digital engagement strategy and, if I was being honest, were not planning on doing anything other than a website. This was indeed a very timely intervention; the business was in great shape but was highly reliant on me bringing in opportunities and looking back these were acquired in the most archaic way i.e. face to face meetings with senior business leaders that would very often be in London and would take an inordinate amount of time to acquire. I was knackered, had young children, was staring down the barrel of 10 years of school fees and needed a break.

Mark could see that we had access to an extraordinary group of “Brilliant Minds” and very loyal clients, but that there wasn’t enough time in the day to properly service them and provide the speakers with the exposure they truly required. yBC had built engagement platforms (web, digital, social) for clients across multiple industries. A large part of what they had built revolved around what can best be described as online TV channels, containing hundreds of high-quality clips, focussing on business issues which were keeping executives up at night or which executives were most concerned about.

Mark recognised that HTL had speakers, metaphor deliverers, delineated specialists (whatever you want to call them) who had more notoriety and content than some of the business leaders that he had exposure to. This isn’t to say that they were any less accomplished but rather that the stories that our “Brilliant Minds” told were more engaging. We decided to collaborate and produce a big library of editorial clips of HTL's top speakers and experts.

We conducted two or three shoots a year at our house in Thames Ditton and interviewed our speakers for up to an hour.  This was non-scripted, true editorial, high-production value material. From each interview, yBC produced at least a dozen clips which belonged to yBC, but we all got to use them and for me this was ground-breaking because HTL could use these clips to showcase our speakers on our website. It allowed us to reach out to existing and past clients to seek new assignments. Mark helped us with his partner, James Kirk, to create material for our live showcase events and to send beautiful content to our contact base and our social platforms, such as LinkedIn and Twitter.

We totally collaborated on this and consequently we all benefited. This was the first time that anyone in my business career had given me something like this and at no cost. The net result was that I waxed lyrical about yBC, and both of our businesses were able to realise wonderful new opportunities. All I needed to do was convince the speakers that this was a good idea to provide us with content that we could share in a digital capacity.

No one was doing this in 2014 as many speakers had no digital content and were reluctant to share any of their intellectual property online. Mark asked me to reach out to our top 20 speakers that included Sir Ian McGeechan and Sir Clive Woodward. The latter was one of the most sought-after speakers on the circuit, but when you booked him, you had to guarantee that when he spoke there would be no cameras or photographers present. He was of course protecting his intellectual property which is understandable. However, you can imagine the trepidation with which I emailed him to see whether he would be one of the first speakers that we could use for “Brilliant Minds” briefings.

The email read, “I am writing to you with an opportunity to be involved with something which I hope will allow us to work more frequently with you. The good news is it will cost you nothing other than an hour of your time (two at most). HTL has been going from strength to strength since it launched in 2006, however, I am looking to try and create a greater awareness of the superb speaker partners that I have been working with over the years. Over the last 18 months, I've been aware that HTL needs a digital strategy, so that we can reach more of our clients and contacts, open more doors, and do more business. I'm aware that not everyone we're connected to knows the full scope of what we can deliver, and this means we've been missing opportunities.  I've just not been clear as to what a digital strategy for HTL would look like. Thanks to a referral from Graeme Codrington, we're now putting a solution in place.  Graeme introduced me to Mark Sinclair from yBC.tv (background details below), and HTL and yBC are entering into a collaboration to launch a digital engagement platform for this business.  This means I'll be able to reach more clients and contacts, more often, convey the value we (all) offer with more impact, and open more doors. What I need from you is an hour or two of your time to be interviewed in London so that yBC can capture a dozen or so editorial "clips" to help us showcase you.  I'm not offering this to all the speakers we work with - just the top "set" - and on a first right of refusal basis.  There are more details in the remainder of this email, but if you'd like to confirm your involvement please reply to this email.”

If I am being honest, I thought Clive would have given me a no to my request, but amazingly he said yes, and Alice went to interview him at his offices. It did coincide with Clive relaunching his own website, but still this was a breakthrough as he was without a shadow of a doubt one of the most sought-after speakers on the circuit at the time. I spoke to him shortly after this and asked him why he had said yes to our request given he was not willing to do share content before and his answer was simple: the world is about collaboration, and I realise this now. His interview was key to many of the future global superstars that we went on to record.

The reason that I mention this is some years later, when this concept was fully established, I had lunch with Paul Stanley, on 18^th October 2018 at Il Vicolo, in Crown Passage, Pall Mall, St James’s. Paul was a friend with whom I had worked who always gave me good advice and had been a recipient of by this time of 5 years of Brilliant Minds Briefings and had attended various showcases. He paid us the most enormous compliment and being slightly provocative, challenged me to think about taking the concept of Brilliant Minds to a different level than we were operating on.

I quote his email in Brilliant Minds, “I think you have created something with massive potential.  The many recordings that you have made of people from a variety of walks of life represent a treasure trove of extraordinary narrative meta data that could be used to develop substantive theory around leadership and performance in organisations.  There are well used social science techniques for analysing such data that would yield interesting themes that could be developed from an academic perspective.  I think where this should end up is with a branded set of theory, tools and techniques that can be used by practitioners seeking to improve leadership and performance in top management teams.  Many of the stories that your Brilliant Minds interviewees share are inspirational because they represent overcoming adversity, decision making under extreme pressure, creative problem solving, finding focus, courage, authenticity, and determination to win.  These stories are inspirational and attract human interest.  However, I feel sure that there is more than just human interest and drama embedded in the data that you hold.  We should attempt to capture the key attributes of various dimensions of performance from the interviews and code those to come up with a branded consulting method that could allow leaders to become more self-aware and better at selecting appropriate styles and behaviours that are best suited to responding to organisational challenges.’

Like Mark and James from yBC, they could see the potential of Brilliant Minds beyond what we were doing with it. Once again, I reached out to our speakers with a request in 2019. By this time, we had over 1250 video clips from a range of Brilliant Minds. I mentioned that Paul Stanley had drawn our attention to the incredible data set that we hadour Brilliant Minds on film and we needed their permission to explore this “accidental” data set and see if there were any common themes about leadership and comparing them to academic literature/seminal works.  123 Brilliant Minds gave us permission to explore the transcripts and the result was that, in March 2020, we were able to send this to everyone that had participated and all those who attended our showcase on 10^th March 2020, just as we were entering lockdown. 130 Brilliant Minds’ interviews from the last seven years were our source material from some of the most accomplished people in their chosen fields. Here it is.

Brilliant Minds Research Study

This piece of ethnographic research uses the constructivist version of grounded theory methodology to go beyond a thick description of performance leadership experiences and established patterns of common behaviour and practice between leaders. It is unique in three ways.

We had access to the most amazing individuals which in normal studies is challenging. It allows a statistically representative sample of leaders to be compared which again is unusual. We had a rich data set, primarily because Mark and James insisted on producing transcripts of the interviews that we did - this was the lawyers in them!

Dr Paul Stanley FRSA FIoD AFRIN, needs special mention currently. There are very few men that have his experience in business and academia. He also used to play rugby and annoyingly is also musical. At the time, he was CEO of Global Navigation Solutions Ltd, which had been formed in November 2012 and which he sold in November 2019 to Cornes. He loved problems and turning private equity-based businesses around. As we were speaking about our research project, he was in the thick of GNS, the origins of the business dated back to Samuel Pepys, who according to The History of Cartography, Volume 3, had created in Bibliotheca Nautica, a list of Sea Atlases dating from 1588 The Mariners Mirror to more contemporary to its compilation about 1695. GNS originally was a business selling these maps which Samuel Pepys set up which were paper based until as late as 2012. I remember him telling me that two ships were lost each day around the world with all their cargo and crew because ship charts were still paper based maps and certainly not using the technology that was available. GNS was set up to digitise and integrate all the most technological advances to eliminate these types of accidents and fatalities. The business now supports more than 12,000 commercial shipping vessels and super yachts around the world. They use data intelligence to help their customers enhance safety, improve efficiency, and reduce costs.

Paul also did research in Innovation Leadership, Organizational Studies, Information Systems and Entrepreneurial Economics at York St John Business School, York St John University. The study was therefore perfect as part of this process. We ended up getting consent forms from 91 of the interviewees. Of these, 86 interviews contained relevant narrative content about leadership and performance and were selected for inclusion in the study. The study is quite high brow, but we were able to establish themes across interviews. Paul was the only one who could have completed this iterative process, as he had to create common codes and make constant comparisons with these codes and themes as more data was analysed through each of the transcripts. A point of saturation was reached when the coding and thematic analysis stopped producing new themes related to leadership and performance. The codes and themes were grouped to allow leadership phenomena to be considered from three perspectives. First, leadership that is common to all situations and sectors (“generic leadership”). Secondly, leadership that is specific to the situational context (“context specific leadership”). Finally, leadership that is specific to one of the sectors (“sector specific leadership”).

Listed below are some of the major points that came out of the study.

GENERIC LEADERSHIP

• Keep external politics away from the teams.
• Self-awareness: be a role model.
• Be well: a healthy mind in a healthy body.
• Be positive, be objective: maintain balance.
• Do your homework.
• Have the confidence to welcome diverse opinions.
• Always learn and borrow ideas.
• Codify tacit knowledge.
• Clear vision: know where we are today and where we want to be.
• Communicate with individuals, not groups: make it personal and honest.
• Plan, prepare and facilitate.
• Create a performance culture.
• Be selective and transactional.
• Don’t just train and practice: rehearse.
• Continuous feedback in training, coaching and rehearsal.
• Constant marginal improvement.

CONTEXT SPECIFIC LEADERSHIP

• Building, creating, and innovating.
• Competing, losing, and winning.
• Learning and discovering.
• Surviving.
• Teaching and coaching.
• Transforming.

We found that leaders in this cohort of interviews demonstrated a high degree of consistency in their application of an integrative model of performance leadership that combined transformational, instrumental, and transactional approaches with path-goal theory and LMX. Most of the leaders displayed a high degree of self-awareness and reflexivity. Many also displayed evidence of a high degree of emotional intelligence, tailoring communication and communication style to get best effect with their audience. Their leadership traits, skills and behaviours did not differ significantly between sector of contingent situation. Indeed, several of the leaders had a track record of success across two or more sectors and situations. Some of the strongest themes related to a commitment to hard work, preparation and learning and the focus on patient pursuit of constant marginal gains rather than quantum improvements or memorable heroic triumphs.

This book is not about academic studies. It is about stories that bring this theory to life, but I will always hold a debt of gratitude to Mark Sinclair and James Kirk for unlocking what they did from the transcripts.

One of the best examples that encapsulates all the above is the journey that the GB women’s hockey team went on in pursuit of their gold medal at the Rio Olympics in 2016.

The journey for me started with two Brilliant Minds that I was lucky enough to meet who were part of the GB Hockey Team. This team is formed especially for the Olympics comprising of separate nations – England, Wales and Scotland, who train for GB over the four-year cycle but at certain points team members will be released to play for their home nations country.

Garry Bowe, the Headmaster of my old School Wellingborough, wrote to me on 18^th September 2012. He thought I might be interested in a visitor who had attended the school that day. Her name was Anne Panter, a former Old Wellingburian, but also GB Olympic Hockey squad bronze medal winner. She had left Wellingborough in 2002 (just after Garry had arrived) and recalled me handing out prizes at Speech Day in 2000. We had just won the European Cup with the squad of players that I was part of at Northampton in my testimonials season, so the school had invited me back as a special guest which was a great honour.

Garry explained that Annie was a great lady, very modest and down-to-earth and, like me, very passionate about our old school. He told me that she had sustained horrendous injuries due to a car crash but was utterly driven by hockey, resulting in this amazing accolade of which the school were rightly proud.

Garry had no idea when he wrote to me that I was at the Olympics with my family. The only tickets we could get hold of were to watch the hockey. By sheer coincidence, I was waiting to enter the stadium and noticed the school crest with the motto ‘Salus in Arduis’, (fulfilment through challenge) emblazoned on the chest of someone I was standing next to. I asked him his connection and he turned out to be a teacher who had just returned from an overseas trip, who was there to support Annie Panter, this former Wellingburian who was playing in the tournament. Little did I know at the time that I would go on to meet her on 21^st September 2012 in Richmond. I can remember her entering the café. Whilst she was, as Garry had said, very modest, she had the look and feel of an Olympian. She was also a Northampton Saints supporter and so there was no doubt in my mind that we should try and work together. It was my good friend Gareth Jenkins, who was the first to book Annie, on behalf of his company DS Smith, on 20^th November 2012, just a few months after the Olympics, such was the measure of this team’s accomplishments and, in particular, those of Annie who had overcome so much to get this bronze medal. The event was held at The Leander Club, Henley-on-Thames, home to some of the country’s most decorated Olympic rowing legends. Leander’s athletes have won medals at every Olympic Games since 1988. In fact, since 1908, Leander Athletes have won a total of 124 Olympic medals and 3 Paralympic medals.

She was in auspicious company. On the billing that day was Mark Bawden, the Olympic and English Cricket Psychologist and Dr Dorian Dugmore, who saved Gareth’s life by testing his heart to exhaustion and discovered that he had cardiovascular issues resulting in triple bypass surgery!  This event was part of the super strengths’ series, which he had adopted for his leadership team and something that Mark and Annie were of course familiar with as a practitioner and recipient of this respectively at the Olympics in 2012.

Annie was part of one of the most amazing recent examples of team performance and leadership that I have ever heard. She was part of the team that the laid the foundations for future success beyond the bronze medal. Her individual story explains the perseverance and tenacity that was put in years before the team would go on to win the gold medal in 2016 in Rio.

She left Wellingborough and went on to study Mathematics and Economics at the University of Nottingham in 2009, having been involved with England at all age groups of hockey at u16, u18s and u2’s having got recognition at a very early age. This wasn’t easy for her as in 2003 she had a car crash that caused damage to her legs that resulted in her never being able to have a clear season without injury. It was these injuries that gave her the perseverance to keep pushing. For most people, they would be career-ending, a post cruciate ligament in 2005, a patella tendon before Beijing Olympics in 2008, which resulted in Annie taking the rest of the year off from August 2008 when the Olympics finished, and Team GB finished in 6^th place.

After the Beijing Olympics in 2008, the team overhauled their structure, under the scrutiny of Danny Kerry MBE, who realised that changes to his coaching needed to be implemented because of adverse feedback in 2008. He changed massively as a result.  Danny’s natural tendency had been risk-adverse, negative, and controlling; it was all about not messing up.

It was at this point in 2009 that Annie even considered announcing her retirement. However, she had a huge belief in her own perseverance despite having knee surgery in 2010 to address both the cruciate ligament and the patella tendon. She got no support from her sporting body and ended up having to fight them to pay for the costs of the rehabilitation as the injury was sustained whilst playing hockey. It was like hearing a horror story when she recounted this to me in the café. Her leg had to be kept straight brace for 8 weeks, resulting in her having to relearn to walk and to run. She told this story about the coach asking her to run the length of the pitch and wait for 1 minute then run back, which should have been easy but after four she had to stop. Her passion was to get back to the level she was at but had no funding, so had to work in work in the marketing department at Cadburys and other agencies in London, whilst still trying to pay for the rehab. This involved long hours in the gym at 6am for 2 hours before work and then again at night till 8pm. It is important to understand the nature of funding. Much of the credit for Team GB’s journey from Olympic obscurity to the summit of sporting excellence is because of UK Sport. The body was established in January 1997 – in the aftermath of the disastrous Atlanta Games – and tasked with taking charge and improving high performance sport. Shortly after its launch, the organisation was given authorisation to distribute lottery money and in the two decades since then, UK Sport has created a system which is now envied around the sporting world. They directly funded Great Britain and England senior women.

Another significant date is 9th May 2006 when the Great Britain Hockey Business and Performance Framework Agreement was signed between the national governing bodies of the three home nations: England, Scotland and Wales. This ground-breaking accord was developed following a steady decline in British performances in Olympic competition, the highest level of hockey, after 1996. This legally binding document is built around the central concept of Great Britain Primacy, meaning that all three nations are fully committed to putting the ultimate performance goal of Team GB’s men’s and women’s hockey teams achieving Olympic success ahead of everything else. The Great Britain Hockey Business and Performance Framework Agreement has been one of the most significant factors in the rise of Team GB over the last ten years.

Annie recalled that things started to change in the lead up to 2012 and she was part of this transformation. Danny recognised that Team GB would never be the most skilful team in the world, but they could be the best team and his views were that 'culture precedes performance' and reinforced the importance of common purpose. He believed that the team should generate their own culture, and this is exactly what they did, and he was part of driving this common purpose. To do this, they needed to understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses. They were able to identify this by doing Insights Discovery which helped them understand themselves and their teammates, so they could be more respectful, productive, and positive when working and training together. The origins of personality theory can be traced back to the fifth century BC when Hippocrates identified four distinct energies exhibited by different people. The Insights Discovery tool is built around the model of personality first identified by the Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung. This model was published in his 1921 work “Psychological Types” and developed in subsequent writings. Jung’s work on personality and preferences has since been adopted as the seminal work in understanding personality and has been the subject of study for thousands of researchers to the present day. Using Jung's typology, this Insights Discovery profile offered the team a framework understanding their strengths and weaknesses, so they could collectively develop effective strategies to become one team, hell bent on being the best in the world and everyone had each other’s backs. The team’s strength was their shared knowledge of each other. To this team, culture was the way they thought, acted and interacted. They respected each other and accepted differences.

The team all moved near to Bisham Abbey and trained together. The athletes made that choice. They realised that to become aspiring medal winners they needed to relocate, and their contracts were called full-time centralised. Training five days a week and on pitch (10 hours) and the same again for conditioning and meetings. So, 20 hours of very concentrated activity and of course a period of regeneration and recovery when they were not doing those 20 hours. Three weeks on and one week of regeneration off. Thirty-one players were contracted and to achieve this from the central funding they were required to halve their funding per each individual, so all in all, quite a sacrifice but one they were all willing to make. This environment that they built was incredibly tough, but it allowed them to build that resilience, which gave them the competitive edge over other nations. The Olympic Tournament was 8 matches over 13 days which is higher in competition time than any other sport by some margin.

They created a framework collaboratively, because of the complexity of the Olympic Cycle that was ever changing. Danny believed in specificity, training in conditions that closely reflected the scenarios that his team would be facing in the pressure pot that was the Olympic Games. They were not slaves to the data that they got on the team; they trusted their experience but used both. They controlled what was controllable and the result was Olympic Bronze. Danny empowered the team to reflect on what was working, what needed changing etc – everything from the structure of the day to training content and feedback on coaching. This was how iterations were made.

It is at this point that I want to introduce Dr Hannah Macleod who was also part of Annie’s team. I first met her at the Aviva Premiership Rugby Final when Leicester Tigers played Northampton Saints on Saturday 25^th May 2013 when she was sitting with Annie in the East Lower Stand. Hannah was there watching the match, alongside Sophie Hosking who in the 2012 Olympic Games in London raced in the lightweight women’s double scull with Kat Copeland. The duo won their final by over 2 seconds ahead of China to become Olympic Gold medallists. Talk about feeling inadequate! I sat with three Olympic medallists that day cheering on my beloved Saints. Sadly, we were vanquished.

Hannah takes the story forward from this point because, unlike Annie, she decided to push on with the team until Rio. Hannah made her senior international debut for England in 2004 against Germany at the age of 19. In 2009, Hannah had completed her PhD and within the same month was offered a place on the Great Britain centralised programme – the first full-time contracts awarded in the history of the sport. We mentioned earlier that Olympic cycles are forever changing and this happened after 2012. On 13^th December 2012, Danny Kerry stepped down after eight years as head coach to become the new performance director of England Hockey. He had planned to continue coaching for the foreseeable future and had not previously considered a move into an administrative role. In his place came Jason Lee who swapped his role as head coach of the England men’s hockey team for the women’s in February 2013. England Hockey felt that the men’s programme needed fresh leadership and made the decision not to reappoint Lee for the Olympic cycle to Rio 2016. Jason Lee won 62 caps for England and 25 for Great Britain as a player.

However, this was an unhappy period for the team as Jason’s style was very different to Danny Kerry’s, and the team had gone from winning bronze to the side's worst performance at a World Cup in June 2014 where it finished 11th out of 12 teams at the Hockey World Cup in The Hague. England were ranked number three in the world going into the tournament but defeats to the United States, China, South Africa, and Argentina saw them finish bottom of their group with their only win coming against Belgium via a penalty shootout. Hannah was amongst a handful of the senior players that felt they needed to confide in Danny if ever they were ever going to stand a chance of winning a medal in Rio in 2016. This for Hannah was a risky scenario as her place was not guaranteed but such was the power of the culture that Danny had set up in the lead up to 2012 in London, that she felt she should do this for the common good of the team. Allied with this was the knowledge that the squad might lose its National Lottery Funding. Strictly speaking, they should have lost it and they needed to prove to the funding body that they could turn performances around in time for the Rio Olympics. Unbeknown to her at the time, many of the other senior players like Kate and Helen Richardson Walsh, were also having conflict resolution conversations with him.  The players were very different at this time post 2012 in terms of what they wanted to achieve. Danny felt confident he could resolve this because this is what he had to do post Beijing. He had an exceptional group of athletes and wanted to get the best out of them. On 2nd September 2014, Danny was reappointed by England Hockey as head women’s coach up until Rio 2016 Olympics less than two years before Rio. They were not in a good place, and therefore this story is remarkable. They had to unravel the performance culture built on empowerment, psychological safety, and trust that had developed under Jason’s leadership. They had viewed Bronze in London 2021 as a failure (they were after Gold) and therefore focussed on investing time and energy on all the things they weren’t good at and had lost sight of all the great things that helped them to win Bronze. Culture was such a big part of their success, but they lost sight of it. Players were no longer empowered; there was no forum for performance conversations and open and honest feedback. All these factors seem insignificant but, if you are trying to create the best TEAM in the world, they are essential.

We all now know that on Friday 19^th August 2016, Great Britain's women won a first Olympic hockey gold medal by beating defending champions the Netherlands in a dramatic penalty shootout. The final finished 3-3 in normal time, with Britain's keeper Maddie Hinch making a string of remarkable saves. And the Dutch, the current world champions, could not beat Hinch in the shootout, which Britain won 2-0. Helen Richardson-Walsh and Hollie Webb scored the decisive penalties to win Britain's 24th gold at Rio 2016. For married couple Kate and Helen Richardson-Walsh, it was the pinnacle of two international careers that had spanned the best part of two decades. Hannah had been playing since 2004 and this was the culmination of everything she had worked for over these 12 years.

Hannah now regularly speaks for us and is very much part of our team of Brilliant Minds. She can articulate so eloquently the notion of truly understanding yourself, to build a culture on trust and explains that respect sits at the core of every great team. Raising self-awareness through a commitment to showing vulnerability, holding yourself accountable for your actions and accepting the benefits of conflict are, she suggests, essential for any high performing team and she brings this to life when she speaks.

The Golden Team, as she refers to it, were connected and had a shared sense of purpose, working collaboratively to deliver something that could not be achieved independently. They invested in building relationships, which were authentic and shared their vulnerability with each other. They all knew what Hannah’s good days and bad days looked like. Danny continued to collaborate with the team, so everyone knew their 'super-strengths,' understood roles and responsibilities within the team and distributed leadership roles; they were not reliant on any one individual. The team environment was psychologically safe, the team had the self-confidence to voice their opinion, to listen and refer back to a common goal. Everyone understood what behaviours they needed to adopt if they were going to become a gold medal winning team and the confidence to deliver what was being asked of them, which ultimately gave them the Psychological Edge. This for me is the best recent example that I have been privileged to hear that incorporates many of the things that we identified in our leadership study. At the time of writing this, I am just about to work with Danny Kerry, the current England Men’s Coach thanks to a recommendation by Mark Bawden and Pete Lindsay.

One of the most accomplished leaders that I have ever come across in terms of reaching the top of his profession is Michel Roux Jr.

I first got to work with him in January 2004 when he was a guest at an event that I was putting together for Berwin Leighton Paiser at Stapleford Park in Leicestershire alongside Frank Dick OBE, the former head of European Athletics, and the victorious captain of England for the 2003 World Cup, Martin Johnson MBE. The event was called Getting the Edge and each of the personalities gave their perspective on how they achieved optimal performance in different parts of their lives. Frank Dick used an analogy which has stayed with me until this day. He likens life to a three-lane highway and all three lanes in this highway must run parallel to each other if you are going to obtain maximum performance. He described the outside lane as your career, your middle lane as your family, friends and environment and the inside lane as your own personal wellbeing. At the time, Frank would suggest that many of the white middle class lawyers that were present that day were slightly out of kilter being locked in the outside lane and would probably not ever get out of this lane unless they were rudely interrupted, through ill health, bereavement, or divorce, such was the nature of the city at the time. The day was designed to redress the balance with three personalities that had to all intents and purposes readdressed the balance. The reason I reached out to Michel Roux in those days was because it was well-documented that he had been stressed and had been able to use exercise and lifestyle management to improve his life. Running was his saviour: he used it as a motivational tool. Michel suffered from intense migraines, smoked a lot and used to drink. He was inspired by the London marathon. Running became an addiction. His migraines disappeared, he lost weight and started to think more clearly. That is the benefit of exercise in general but running has the bonus of allowing you to be out on your own for an hour or so and therefore it is a tremendous release. Michel is constantly having to deal with people; there is rarely a minute in the day where he is not answering a question or a ringing phone such is the nature of managing a two Michelin Star kitchen. Having time to himself through running was vital for his sanity.

To put this into perspective, there are there are 20 chefs who have two Michelin stars, whose restaurants feature in the Michelin Guide UK 2021 and many of them Michel has trained or worked with in some capacity. The one Michelin Star club is not as exclusive as you might think. In 2016, the guide included 2,114 one-star restaurants. The guide states that two Michelin Star restaurants are worth deviating from your planned route to visit. Inspectors will still focus on the taste of a dish. However, they are also likely to consider the quality of the ingredients used. Many two-starchefs source unique and rare ingredients to add to their dishes to provide something that diners cannot get anywhere else as a way of maintaining their rating. The kitchen must produce consistency and are supposedly checked monthly. The stress that Michel and his team are under to produce the level of quality that is expected of them is tremendous.

Just to give you some background on how Michel was able to get to this level of excellence. Michel Roux Jr is part of three generations of food: his father Albert and uncle Michel revolutionised restaurant cooking when they settled in the UK in the Sixties and his daughter has opened her first restaurant ‘Caractère’ in Notting Hill. Michel Roux Jr was born in 1960 in Pembury, Kent, where his father Albert Roux worked as a private chef for the Cazalet family. His earliest food memories are the smells of the Fairlawne kitchen – pastry, sugar caramelizing and stews – where he played under the table while his father and mother Monique prepared the meals. After deciding to follow in his father’s footsteps, he left school at 16 for the first of several challenging apprenticeships at Maître Pâtissier, Hellegouarche in Paris from 1976 to 1979. He was then Commis de Cuisine at Alain Chapel’s signature restaurant at Mionay near Lyon, Michel’s biggest influence. His military service was spent in the kitchens at the Elysée Palace at the time of Presidents Giscard d’Estaing and François Mitterrand. He also spent time at Boucherie Lamartine and Charcuterie Mothu in Paris and the Gavvers Restaurant in London.

After a stint at the Mandarin Hotel in Hong Kong, he returned to London and worked at La Tante Claire before joining the family business. He took over running Le Gavroche in 1991, gradually changing the style of cooking to his own – classic French with a lighter, modern twist.

So, when I first met him 2004, it was off the back of him releasing his book ‘The Marathon Chef: Food for Getting Fit’ on 15th January 2004, the same week as we ran the event. The cookbook was for anyone interested in getting fit - intermittently at the gym, running for fun, or as a serious marathon runner. We had all types at this event, and this was the first event of its kind. Looking back, it was groundbreaking, even down to the invitations, which were designed like a urine sample chart, to cajole the delegate to go onto to a weblink and tell us whether they were dehydrated or not from the colour of their wee! It was a call to action, which many of the guests needed at the time, and Michel was the perfect high-profile guest to get them to make a behavioural change.

In 2004, Michel was not as big a name as he is today. However, we remained in close contact and used him frequently on events where we were trying to demonstrate the power of collaborative leadership. There is not a better an example to me than a Two Star Michelin kitchen in seeing at close hand how people can contribute to an overall purpose which is to produce excellence at every sitting they undertake. Many of the people that work for Michel Roux Jr have been with him for years, and it is pertinent at this time to explain what happened to them during lockdown. Michel has achieved a great deal since I first met him in 2004. He opened Roux at Parliament Square in May 2010 with Restaurant Associates, part of the Compass Group UK and Ireland. And in November 2010, he opened Roux at The Landau at London’s prestigious luxury hotel, The Langham. Michel is a judge and presenter on the BBC’s popular prime time show MasterChef: The Professionals and has been a presenter on all three series of ‘Great British Food Revival.’ Michel also recently fronted the highly anticipated return of BBC2’s ‘Food and Drink,’ and presented a documentary on Escoffier, whose revolutionary approach to fine cuisine has inspired Michel and many others. He is involved with the Roux Experience courses at the Langham Hotel cookery school. Michel has completed 21 marathons and done an ultra-marathon of 100 km.

Nothing could have prepared Michel Roux for what happened to his business and many of his colleagues within the hospitality industry because of the pandemic. The Roux Brand has survived recessions before, but they have never had to shut before. It was a historic moment when he closed the doors of Le Gavroche for the lockdown in March 2020. He had worked there since 1986, but his father and uncle first opened it in 1967 and in the 54 years since, they never had to shut. They went through some horrendous moments in London — the IRA bombings, for example — and still they stayed open. He held out to close because he didn’t think his insurance would kick in until he was instructed by the authorities to do so, so his last week at the restaurant did nothing and he lost a horrendous amount of money.  He said the restaurant business is a very fragile one where you live from month to month. Michel needs to do a certain amount of covers to survive; he mentioned that if he reduces his income by 25%, he will not be able to open. Le Gavroche is still a family run business and as a leader he had to reassure staff that he would do everything possible for the team, some of whom have grown up with him. The executive chef, Rachel Humphrey, started as an apprentice, and he has had the same kitchen porter nearly 30 years.

During this period, he turned 60, became a Grandad and sadly lost his dad (Albert Roux) on 4^th January 2021, having lost his Uncle Michel Roux Snr on 11^th March 2020. The death of his brother hit Albert Roux very hard. He struggled with that immensely because they were so close. The lockdowns took their toll. Albert had no routine. He’d always had purpose, but when you no longer have a purpose, you no longer have a reason to get out of bed. Both men taught Michel so much. Not just in how to cook, but lessons in humility, lessons in life as mentors. I did an event with Michel Roux on 7^th January 2021, just a few days after he lost his dad. This was a virtual event with Lawrence Dallaglio for one of my clients. Lawrence and I had expected him to cancel, but Michel said that he wanted to do it from his home in Clapham on Zoom, with 500 people watching him cook a Galette des Rois, a cake traditionally shared at Epiphany on 6th January. It celebrates the arrival of the Three Wise Men in Bethlehem. Composed of a puff pastry cake with a small charm, the fève, hidden inside, it is usually filled with frangipane, a cream made from sweet almonds, butter, eggs and sugar. I sought his permission, and we raised a glass for his dad and brother that night. Michel wanted to do this; he wanted to feel normal again and be cooking.

He could so easily have “shut up shop” as this usually positive person was very down like so many people during lockdown. The government’s furlough scheme for staff was a tremendous help as were certain grants, but there was no money coming into the business. Since 2014, he and his dad had partnered with Cheltenham Racecourse, running a restaurant during the four-day Cheltenham Festival. This was cancelled in 2021, all the covers lost. Like many leaders, they adapted during this period, doing virtual cook-a-longs, updated the website to create an e-shop, selling everything from umbrellas, aprons, wines, Champagnes and Armagnacs. The ripple effects of the pandemic affected many of his suppliers. We said earlier that to maintain two-stars, chefs source unique and rare ingredients to add to their dishes to provide something that diners cannot get anywhere else as a way of maintaining their rating. Michel uses a lot of small farms and suppliers throughout the UK, small fishing boats, catching fish delivered to the restaurant, sheep farmers providing Herdwick lamb for example. They ended up delivering food in the November lockdown with one of their suppliers, doing 200 boxes of food a week. The boxes were £120 for two people including nationwide delivery. The culinary delights of Le Gavroche in the comfort of your own home, a special meal during lockdown working in collaboration with Lake District Farmers, producers of probably the best meat in the UK. Each box included a fabulous three course meal for two, with bread and petit fours, and the food was prepared by Michel Roux and his team in the Le Gavroche kitchen.  The boxes contained the most amazing menus: Chicken & Pistachio Terrine, Truffle Dressing & Brioche, Herdwick Lamb Noisette & Spiced Pithivier, Celeriac Puree & Carrot Roasted with Ras-el-Hanout and Warm Dark Chocolate Fondant, Rum Caramel Sauce & Clotted Cream. However well they did in adapting, this was the worst year of Michel’s life, but he remained confident that the hospitality industry would recover as it is an industry that is very nimble.

At the time of writing, Le Gavroche is still only open for dinner from 5pm starting from June 14th 2021 until further notice. The past year’s great toll on the hospitality industry has resulted in staffing issues due to new Brexit regulations as well as there now being a major lack of well-trained hospitality professionals since the pandemic struck. This great brand which had largely been unaffected for over 50 years was now understaffed. Across Britain, there is a dearth of hospitality workers, and companies are getting increasingly desperate to fill vacancies. Until they can, restaurants are partly closing despite huge demand from customers who have saved money during the pandemic and are eager for a great meal out. Across the hospitality industry, there are about 188,000 open positions, said Kate Nicholls, the chief executive of the trade group UK Hospitality. During 2020, when lockdowns froze much of the economy and huge numbers of workers were furloughed, hundreds of thousands of E.U. migrants are estimated to have returned home. When Britain left the European Union single market on December 31st 2020, the open-door policy that had allowed people from any E.U. country to work in Britain came to an end. Migrants wishing to return to Britain now need to have secured permission from the government. New workers must compete for visas in a points-based immigration system that values highly paid jobs more. The industry is lobbying the government to include hospitality jobs in the list of “shortage” occupations for which it is easier for immigrants to get a visa. And it is looking for other quick fixes like reducing the size of menus, opening for fewer hours and edging up pay.

The alternative for Michel is to essentially overwork his existing staff which he is not prepared to do as his staff wellbeing is of utmost importance to everyone both mentally and physically and they work hard every service to ensure their standards of culinary excellence are at the absolute highest.

I admire Michel for taking this stance and for his resilience; this is an unprecedented period of history where leaders like Michel have to be adaptable which he has shown and he remains for me one of the best leaders of his generation. He will of course come through this and return to the levels of excellence and business that have made him one of this country’s most celebrated and respected chefs. If you look at the generic and context specific leadership points above that came out of the study, Michel is my opinion the person that demonstrates these every day in his business.

I remember originally speaking to Major Chris Hunter QGM, the British Army’s most experienced counter-terrorist bomb disposal specialist in Iraq. Chris joined the British Army at sixteen.

Extreme Leadership

This next section describes those individuals in society that we revere who have dedicated their lives to achieving greatness in the outside lane in terms of their chosen careers. The question that is often asked is did they need to compromise on other parts of their lives to achieve their goals.

On 22nd November 2020, I listened to Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4: the episode was with Arsène Wenger, Arsenal manager for 22 years and he won 17 trophies during his tenure. He was asked how difficult it was to have a job that was all consuming, so pressured and still maintain a relationship alongside it. He was very open in expressing that this was his weakness, that he gave so much time to his job, that it was very difficult to maintain balance. He reflects now saying that he has been a monster and for his family he was not up to the level that you would expect from a guy like him. Now he has retired, he tries to make up for it. Hearing this whole episode made me reflect on the question of what success looks like and with all the individuals that I have met over the years. Arsène Wenger was asked to define success and whether it has changed over the years. He said that success was finding the meaning of your life and being prepared to live it. I now realise that the definition is different depending on who you speak to and that is fine; there is no right or wrong answer.

Major Chris Hunter

I remember originally speaking to Major Chris Hunter QGM, the British Army's most experienced counter-terrorist bomb disposal specialist in Iraq. Chris joined the British Army at sixteen. He was commissioned from Sandhurst, winning the much-coveted Carmen Sword of Honour, and later served with several specialist counter terrorism units. During his career, he was deployed to many operational theatres, including The Balkans, Northern Ireland, Colombia, Afghanistan and Iraq. For his actions during his Iraq tour, he was awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal. His citation read: ‘There can be few other individuals who have so willingly played Russian roulette with their own life to safeguard the lives of others’.

I was fascinated by what makes a person like Chris want to risk his life on a daily basis. I met him through my finance director Katherine Spencer. I was first due to speak to Chris on 25th April 2013; however, he had to cancel this first meeting and this was the feeble excuse he gave and I quote, “Please accept my sincere apologies but I’ve just driven through the night from Libya through the Tunisian Desert and my colleagues and I have missed our flight from Djerba back home.  We’re getting a flight to Rome and then back to London – shortly – but I don’t think I’m going to be back in London until around 1pm.  I’m so sorry to mess you around – again – but is there any chance we could re-schedule our meeting to either later this afternoon (I can come to you direct from Heathrow) – or to Wednesday (any time) or Thursday morning?’

We finally met on 8th May 2013 and I asked him a similar question to that presented to Arsène Wenger. His answer was so profound and one that I respect but didn’t truly understand. This is because I have never really had a calling in my career. I want balance in all facets of my life but for others this is not the case.

At the time of meeting Chris Hunter, he had ended his military career and had written two Sunday Times Bestsellers. He was living what would appear to be the perfect life in Hay on Wye in Herefordshire. He was away from danger and with his family, but he said that this was not enough and he realised that the career he had chosen gave him the meaning in his life and he was prepared to live it, actively seeking challenges that would give him this purpose which resulted in other facets of his life being compromised.

Chris is an example of an extreme leader, and thank goodness there are people like him. He always wanted to be in the military from army cadets at 14 and bomb disposal became his calling. We need people like Chris to deal with situations that he was trained to do. The example he gave me was when he was heavily involved in the response to the 7/7 attacks, coordinated suicide bomb attacks on the London transit system on the morning of July 7, 2005. He needed these situations in his life.

He was working in intelligence in the old war office, opposite 10 Downing Street, which was the head of defence intelligence. He was the lead for worldwide improvised explosive intelligence, he had a small multi-national team, looking at these devices around the world, and they became pretty good experts in what they were doing. When he was in the army, he had also helped the Metropolitan Police and other police forces to devise the procedures for dealing with a suicide bomber, should this ever happen.

At 8:50 am, explosions tore through three trains on the London Underground, killing 39. An hour later, 13 people were killed when a bomb detonated on the upper deck of a bus in Tavistock Square. More than 700 people were injured in the four attacks. When 7/7 kicked off, he was with his team having a coffee just by Embankment tube station. All the phones went off and when he got back to the office, he looked at Sky News and realised what had happened. He was then told to go over to Cobra, the Civil Contingencies Committee that is convened to handle matters of national emergency or major disruption. Its purpose is to coordinate different departments and agencies in response to such emergencies. COBR is the acronym for Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms, a series of rooms located in the Cabinet Office in 70 Whitehall.

He was asked to be the subject matter expert on suicide terrorism. He said that it was fascinating going in there alongside ministers, MI6 and MI5. Chris witnessed the four attacks inside Cobra. He immediately knew from his experience that this was the work of Al-Qaeda, a broad-based militant Islamist organization founded by Osama bin Laden in the late 1980s. No one knew who he was, but they were quickly put right when the group, under the leadership of Colonel Richard Kemp, who he had worked with in the army, explained the remarkable background of Chris that placed him in this location on merit. Chris was part of a team that were dealing with an extraordinary situation, something he was trained to do, and this was certainly his calling. His definition of success was represented by moments like this, not sitting in his study writing a book.

The four bombers—characterized as “ordinary British citizens” in the subsequent investigation—carried out the attacks by using inexpensive readily available materials. These factors made advance detection of the plot by authorities extremely unlikely and forced a sea change in British counterterrorism policy which was previously focused on foreign threats. On the morning of the attack, three of the bombers travelled from Leeds, the site of the suspected bomb-making “factory,” to Luton, where they joined the fourth bomber. The group, now carrying backpacks filled with explosives, boarded a train to London’s King’s Cross station. At about 8:30 am, the attackers entered King’s Cross station and split up, boarding east- and westbound trains on the Circle Line and a southbound train on the Piccadilly Line. Twenty minutes later, simultaneous explosions struck trains at Russell Square (killing 26 and injuring more than 340), Aldgate (killing 7 and injuring more than 170), and Edgware Road (killing 6 and injuring more than 160). The fourth bomber then exited the Underground station and eventually boarded a crowded bus en route to Hackney. He detonated his device, an estimated 10 pounds (4.5 kg) of high explosive, at Tavistock Square, killing 13 and injuring more than 100. The response to the attacks was immediate. The entire Underground system in central London was closed, and investigators swept the area for forensic evidence. Additionally, some 6,000 hours of closed-circuit television footage were examined to construct a timeline of the morning’s events. The day after the bombings, Prime Minister Tony Blair declared, “There is no hope in terrorism nor any future in it worth living. And it is hope that is the alternative to this hatred.” By July 16th, police had publicly released the names of the four bombers, all of whom were killed in the attacks, and the investigation shifted to uncovering possible accomplices and motives.

After theories of a “fifth bomber” or a “foreign mastermind” were discounted, the British public was confronted with the harsh reality that four relatively unassuming young men had been radicalised into a “home-grown threat.” In September 2005, al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri claimed partial responsibility for the bombings, but the extent and nature of al-Qaeda’s true role in the attacks remained murky. In April 2007, three British Muslims were charged with assisting in the planning of the July 7th bombings, but they were cleared two years later.

Chris is someone I admire: he has empathy, humility, compassion. He has been to many war zones in his life and suggests that people are fundamentally good. His mission is to do good and to eliminate danger for the common good.

Some of the most interesting Brilliant Minds that I have met are the ones that have demonstrated the ability to trust their instincts and build something from the ground upwards. In the leadership study that we did, the qualities of context leadership demonstrated the ability to build create and innovate something that hadn’t been done before.

This often meant learning and discovery through iteration, these individuals had resilience and took on significant risk but had this overwhelming desire to create and transform businesses, which went on to be significant brands.

Sahar is an exhibition scholar from the City of London School for Girls, a graduate of the University of Bristol and a former lawyer with Frere Cholmeley Bischoff's. However, she soon realised that this profession was not for her and tells this amazing story of how she went on to build the Coffee Republic.

She is probably one of the most empathetic individuals that I have ever come across which is not the quality that you associate with lawyers. I don’t say that in a disparaging way as I have many friends that are part of this profession. She recognised that the profession was not for her and confronted her brother Bobby about setting up the UK's first US-style coffee bar chain.

She came back to London having spent some time in New York and was complaining that the UK doesn’t have coffee bars like the New World Coffee shop she used to visit. She'd noticed that no one in London was selling the skinny lattes which she'd enjoyed in New York. Her brother forced her to do one week’s market research for him. If he hadn’t have done this, she would have never had gone on to start the Coffee Republic because she would have waited for someone else to bring coffee bars to the UK. The research was to travel around the Circle Line visiting all the cafés near places like High Street Kensington in the West, Liverpool Street in the East, Baker Street in the North and Embankment in the South. She got off at each of the 27 stops to investigate the coffee on offer.

This was 1995 and the product you got in cafés at the time was instant coffee in a polystyrene foam cup whilst in America they had specialty coffees and were drinking cappuccinos, lattes, cafe mochas including a frothy crown, in to-go cups that had to come with domed lids that not only kept drinks hot, but also left headroom for the foam. In the UK, the quality and presentation were poor, and the coffee appeared to be an afterthought.

Sahar’s research convinced Bobby that they were on to something. He had been an investment banker in mergers and acquisitions at Lehman Brothers Investment Bank in New York City. However, the sudden death of their father in 1993 led him to take a sabbatical to spend time in London, closer to his family. Bobby was considering returning to Lehman Brothers after his sabbatical, however this business opportunity presented by Sahar led them both creating a new business venture and the idea of Coffee Republic was born.

They both did their research meticulously, speaking to suppliers, coffee machine manufacturers, looking up shop fitter in the Yellow Pages, sourcing potential sites and even embarking on a free coffee making course.

Sahar describes how they struggled to get funding for this great idea. The original business plan for the business was entitled Java Express Coffee and Expresso Bar (February 1995.) They were rejected by 22 high street banks, but they kept going until they secured a £100,000 loan from NatWest backed by the Department of Trade and Industry’s small firms loan guarantee scheme. Along with money from an angel investor, this funded Coffee Republic's first site which opened in 1995. Sahar admitted she was "clueless" about the complexities of running a firm in the catering industry. She was forced to learn everything from scratch.

They were naïve but saw it as a mystery.  I remember seeing the picture of the original site opened on South Molton Street in 1995. It was almost a replica of the New World Coffee shop in New York. Sahar shows the original concept drawings in her presentations from the drawings she did inside a New World Café. She depicts what we see in every city town and large village across the land now, but this was 1995. The global coronavirus pandemic significantly impacted the coffee shop market worldwide. However, in the United Kingdom, the estimated value of the branded coffee shop market in 2020 was still three billion pounds, reflecting its smallest estimate since 2015.

By 1998, Coffee Republic had grown to seven stores. Sahar and Bobby wanted to raise more funds for expansion and decided that the time was right to list the firm on the Alternative Investment Market. This enabled the firm to keep growing, and by 2000 it had moved to the main market of the London Stock Exchange. A year later, it had 110 stores across the UK, 35 full time staff and around 1500 part time staff. It was then that Bobby and Sahar made the decision to sell up and hand over to professional managers.

Sahar has written several books, including the hit guide to entrepreneurship entitled ‘Anyone Can Do It: Building Coffee Republic from Our Kitchen Table’. She also made a return to entrepreneurship with a new company called Skinny Candy. This one came about when she decided to give up sugar to improve her health and found that the only remaining sweets she could still enjoy were those targeted at diabetics. This led her to produce sugar-free sweets for the mass market. After setting up the business in 2005, she successfully sold it just two years later.

It was very useful for CEOs of many of the businesses we worked with in around 2010 to bring in leaders who had shown the qualities of context leadership that we identified in our leadership study.

They were trying to encourage their respective teams to be more innovative, to try things that hadn’t been done before. They even encouraged them to learn from their mistakes. However, they were more interested in how they had built resilience in the face of failure and embraced significant risk.

Many of the examples that were being banded around at the time were from names like James Dyson who made 5,127 prototypes of his vacuum before he got it right. There were 5,126 failures, but he learned from each one. That’s how he came up with a solution.

Facebook in October 2008 announced that it would set up its international headquarters in Dublin and by 2010, Facebook began to invite users to become beta testers, after passing a question-and-answer-based selection process. We were friends with the UK sales Director Stephen Haines, who had recently opened Facebook’s London office and the sort of rhetoric that was being banded around at the time from Mark Zuckerberg was the hacker way which was move fast and break things. The Scrum Guide was being read by many people, developed by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland to help people and teams solve complex problems.

We couldn’t get hold of James Dyson and Mark Zuckerberg, but we found people that had shown the qualities that they were preaching. We were fortunate to work with Karan Bilimoria on 13^th June 2011 at Coombe Abbey for Williams Lea. Karan Bilimoria is an entrepreneur, and founder of Cobra Beer. He is a member of the House of Lords and highly successful business leader. There we sat in the historic Abbeygate at Coombe Abbey, in Warwickshire, whilst sampling a Cobra beer with a curry, he told his story of creating and developing the highly successful Cobra Beer brand.

He was born in Hyderabad, the capital of southern India's Telangana state. He came over to study from India in London and Cambridge in the mid-80s. He matriculated at Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge in 1986 as a Law undergraduate and he went on to found Cobra Beer just three years later in 1989 at the age of 27 from his London flat.

He said that he had a deep dissatisfaction as a consumer with the beer in the UK when he came from India. He said the lager was terrible. He found real ale to be great in a pub, but too bitter and heavy with curry. He said with curry, which is spicy and hot, you want something cold and refreshing like a lager. The lager he was given was bland, harsh, fizzy and bloating. The idea evolved, and he decided to create a beer that had the refreshment of a lager and the smoothness of a beer that would appeal to men and women alike and have a globally appealing taste and accompany all food and in particular curry.

He said that they were very lucky to be able to see what everyone else was able to see and then were able to think what no one else had thought. He had no support from his father in terms of emotional, moral or financial support. His father had become the commander in chief of the central army in India and had 350,000 people under his command, but an Indian Army Officer was paid very badly so he couldn’t give him any money. He also felt that, given how educated Karan was, it was slightly demeaning to become an “import and export wallah”. He suggested that he get a proper job like a banker. There was also the implication that, if he was going to stay in London, he should realise that there would be a glass ceiling that would prevent him from getting to the top because he was a foreigner. Three decades ago, they were absolutely right, but he proved them wrong. His mantra is that it is not just good enough to be the best in the world; you have to be the best for the world.

The other consideration to factor in was that Kingfisher Premium Lager had been in the UK for eight years before they started. This was launched in 1978 by United Breweries Group in India and is the largest selling beer accounting for some one in every three bottles of beer sold. In the UK, it is brewed under licence by Heineken. Carlsberg were in every Indian restaurant and was 150 years old. They were up against all the odds: the beer market was established and those who operated in it were hugely established. He put himself into £20,000 of debt and he and his business partner started a micro business.

They also had a lot of luck because lager was growing in terms of consumption; Britain was becoming a nation of ‘curryholics’ and the most popular beer to drink with a curry was lager. However, it wasn’t all plain sailing. They had to adapt, or they would have died. After six years of setting up the business, his partner left. “He didn’t believe the plane would take off and he said he was out of it and went back to India.” He bought his partner out on his own terms, and the year after he left, the sales doubled. They remain friends today.

The problems of importing Cobra from India were massive. The first shipment of Cobra was imported to the UK from the Bangalore-based Mysore Brewery in 1990 at the start of the early 1990s recession. However, large consumer demand and increased import costs resulted in a move in production to the UK in the mid-1990s under contract by Charles Wells. This was meant to be an authentic Indian brewed beer and not brewed under licence. However, when he surveyed his consumers, all they cared about was that it was extra smooth and had a less gassy taste, not that it was brewed in the UK. When he brought it to be brewed in the UK, all the quality problems went away.

He nearly lost his business three times, but he had guts and applied something that we now know as blue ocean strategy which is the simultaneous pursuit of differentiation and low cost to open a new market space and create new demand.

They also had right from the start an attitude of wanting to put back, and this created opportunities. Giving away free beer was one of the mantras of the two business partners in the very early days, way before they set up The Cobra Foundation. They wanted to put back whenever they could and they would find opportunities to do this at a charitable event in one of the Indian restaurants that they supplied. The free beer saved the charity some costs and they were able to build the profile of the brand. This built momentum from day one and still happens today. One major event is the Lord Mayor of London’s curry lunch in the 800-year-old Guildhall, just off Gresham Street. Over a 1000 people go to this event and Cobra provides all the beer free and funds are raised for the Combined Services. Over the years, they have donated millions of pounds worth of beer; this was way before the foundation was formed. Karan is still astounded by how few companies have foundations, given the philanthropy of UK business leaders.

The Cobra Foundation is an independent charity that provides health and education for young people in South Asia, especially through the provision of safe water. His father, who was head of the central Indian army, was the original patron of the foundation, After his father’s sad passing, his friend Field Marshal Sir John Lyon Chapple, GCB, CBE, became the new patron.

He tells a lovely story about a few years ago; he kept noticing that Belu water was in all the top restaurants as well as the House of Parliament. He shared a platform with Karen Lynch, the CEO of Belu water which was quite fortunate. At the end of the presentation, he realised that they were doing so well because it was a social enterprise. Social enterprises, like traditional businesses, aim to make a profit, but it’s what they do with their profits that sets them apart. In the case of Belu water, they donate 100% of their profits to WaterAid, an international non-governmental organisation, focused on water, sanitation and hygiene. It was set up in 1981 as a response to the UN International Drinking Water decade. As of 2018, it was operating in 34 countries.

He asked her how many Indian restaurants she supplied around the world and she said none. Cobra supply 7000 restaurants and he suggested that they do a joint venture with Cobra. On 2nd September 2014, Belu Water and Cobra Beer's charity, the Cobra Foundation, announced the launch of a new, specially designed 750ml glass water bottle. All money raised from this special edition Belu bottle are now used to fund clean water projects in South Asia, an area where many ethnic restaurant sector owners and staff have personal links. He suggests that these individuals have a very entrepreneurial mindset. These restaurateurs have taken curry from South Asia to all corners of the world but still have strong links back home, so this is a brilliant initiative.

Karan remains Cobra chairman to this day. Karan Bilimoria is also founding Chairman on the UK-India Business Council, a former Chancellor of Thames Valley University (now the University of West London) and in 2014, he was appointed as the seventh Chancellor of the University of Birmingham. He remains Chair of the University of Cambridge Judge Business School Advisory Board.  In 2006, Karan was appointed the Lord Bilimoria of Chelsea, making him the first ever Zoroastrian Parsi to sit in the House of Lords. In 2008, he was awarded the Pravasi Bharti Samman by the President of India.

The glass ceiling that his family described when he was younger has changed. Three decades later, Lord Bilimoria is currently the President of the CBI. Karan is at the forefront of ensuring the CBI is seen as a home for entrepreneurs and SMEs, establishing the UK as a trading powerhouse and in ensuring that Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) representation in boardrooms across the country continues to happen.

Karan is a true gentleman, and someone I most certainly would have a beer with and, not only that, I would definitely learn something from him on the importance of leadership. He tells a story about Nelson Mandela, which he heard from his friend and honorary fellow from Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge, Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu (HON)DD. When Nelson Mandela passed away, the college asked Karan to visit Desmond Tutu and convey the condolences of the college. He did this and whilst he was having breakfast, he asked him what it was about Nelson Mandela that was so special. The first night after Nelson had been released from prison after 27 years on February 11, 1990, he visited Desmond Tutu. He said that there was one word that set him apart which was magnanimous (generous, high minded, noble). He wouldn’t go to a dinner and walk out without thanking the staff. He was loved by all and served the people. He was a man of principle and high moral values and integrity just like Lord Karan Bilimoria CBE DL.

It is very rare that you get the chance to meet three highly successful couples who have built formidable businesses together from relative obscurity.

They all appeared to be joined by a common purpose and the desire to do something that they were passionate about. I would say “living the dream” but the reality is very different. Yet they, like Karan Bilimoria, took risks, failed and failed in pursuit of their purpose and ultimately have created something they should be extremely proud of which in two of the cases are world class brands.

I had the opportunity to chat to all of these “Brilliant Minds” over the course of one weekend at an event called Taste of Bordeaux. It was born out of the “best of the best Rick Stein events” that we ran for Alan Curtis the MD of Prologis in the early 2000s. Prologis were one of my main clients and had allowed me to run a series of events over the years, whose focal point was Padstow and Rick Stein. However, rather than fly to Padstow, we chartered a plane to Bordeaux with Rick Stein. We were bound for a hotel that had been recommended indirectly by Rick Stein, through his great friend Gavin Quinney. Now bear with me as it may take a while to get to the part about the hotel!

Rick hated travelling outside of Padstow for corporate events, but reluctantly agreed to go if we worked with Gavin Quinney whom he knew through his restaurants. Gavin Quinney was a former IT sales director and left behind all the trappings of success living and working in London and moved his family to France in 1999 to run a vineyard. They fell for a lovely estate, some 15 miles from the city of Bordeaux, compiling almost 200 acres of woods, fields and, of course, the vineyards. Since the first vintage in 2000, the Quinneys made Bauduc into a very smart operation, selling direct to consumers through mail order and the internet which broke all the rules of the wine trade. Twenty years later, it produces around 20,000 cases of red, white and rosé a year. They make upmarket house wines for Gordon Ramsay, Rick Stein and the Hotel du Vin group and for a few thousand private customers in the UK and beyond. Gavin is also a wine writer, having been the Bordeaux critic for Harpers Wine & Spirit magazine since the 2005 vintage and is a regular contributor to Jancis Robinson’s website and to Liv-ex, the global fine wine site. Each year, Gavin tastes the new wines of the leading 500 châteaux, both from the barrel and again after bottling. Rick liked the Quinneys, because like him and Jill, they had done something that no one had done before and, whilst it wasn’t easy, they made it a great success.

In 1975, Jill and Rick co-founded The Seafood Restaurant in Padstow. We all know the success that they have had over the years, building a highly successful business empire, but less is known of where it all started. After successfully studying English at the University of Oxford, Rick endured awful personal tragedy, not least the suicide of his father who suffered from manic depression. He was 18 when this happened, and this was well documented in ‘Who do you think you are’, the BBC TV Series in 2009.

In the early days, Rick and Jill ran a night club in the location that is now the Seafood Restaurant. Rick was the DJ. They ran the place successfully though eventually fighting fishermen caused its closure. It was at this point that Rick and Jill decided to open it as a restaurant. We met Rick Stein, through Keith Floyd, who was a Bath rugby supporter and introduced us. Keith recommended we speak to Rick whom he had met in the early 80s. He knew Rick was a former rugby player for the Camel Rugby Club and would help us in our quest to put on audacious corporate events when we ran Rodber Thorneycroft. At the time, Keith was quite a star and didn’t want to do anything with us; he was too busy but thought Rick would have more time! Ironically, the Steins have gone on to make a remarkable contribution to gastronomy, TV and the economy of their beloved Cornwall. Their three sons are all part of the family business: Jack Stein is executive chef, Charlie is passionate about creating extraordinary dining experiences with excellent wine, personally choosing every bottle in the business and Edward oversees the building, refurbishment and restoration of all the new restaurants and listed buildings. Like the Quinneys, the family are immersed in the business.

We needed somewhere to stay when we were in Bordeaux, and it was Gavin who introduced us to a family very similar to the Steins, Florence and Daniel Cathiard. Gavin suggested a hotel called Les Sources de Caudalie which was part of a vinery called Smith Haut Lafitte. In 1990, the estate was purchased by Daniel and Florence Cathiard who had met and fallen in love in 1965 on the French national ski team. Daniel went on to be the founder of the Go Sport chain of supermarkets and sporting goods stores, and Florence the Vice-President of McCann Europe. They decided to give up their stressful careers and start a new life by buying Château Smith Haut Lafitte and return it to its former glory.

The domain's reputation was at a low ebb when the Cathiards purchased it despite its distinguished history dating back to the 14th century. In 1991, the couple hired renowned wine consultant Pascal Ribéreau-Gayon and went to work in the vineyards and the cellars. Unfortunately, the subsequent four years were plagued with bad weather, producing some of the poorest modern vintages in Bordeaux. But in 1995, the Cathiards received their first 90-point score from the influential American critic Robert Parker. Wine Spectator named their 1998 one of the 10 best wines in the world, and their 2009 vintage red received Parker's coveted 100-point score.

You might ask what this has got to do with the hotel we were staying in in France. In 1993, as the reputation of the wines started to improve, the Cathiard family embarked on a new venture. They had a visit from Joseph Vercauteren, a professor at Montpellier Pharmaceutical University. He pointed out that the Cathiards were "throwing away the best part of the grapes" by which he meant the pips, or seeds, which contain the powerful antioxidants known as polyphenols. The Cathiards' daughter Mathilde was present; 12 months later, she and Vercauteren were issued a patent for polyphenol stabilization from grape seeds, and that became the basis for a line of anti-aging beauty products called Caudalie. The brand was so successful that before long Mathilde and her husband Bertrand Thomas had opened a hotel and spa on the property. They observed that a low-lying area in the vineyard produced lower-quality grapes than the rest. A water diviner was called in and they discovered a natural hot spring in that spot. This discovery led to the first Vinothérapie Spa in the world which then led to them pulling up of the sub-standard vineyard to make room for Les Sources de Caudalie in June 1999. There are also two restaurants on the property.

So, what was the Taste of Bordeaux? In simplistic terms, it was a two-night, three-day adventure, never to be repeated and interestingly seen in a corporate setting now as lavish and slightly distasteful, but at the time probably one of the most memorable trips I have ever had the pleasure of organising. It included a private tour of Château Smith Haut Lafitte after drinks at the Cathiard family home. The following day, Gavin took us to Chateau Bauduc and talked us through how an artisan vineyard makes upmarket house wines. He then opened his house up for lunch before we returned to the hotel for a private cooking demonstration by Franck Salein, the Michelin star chef at the hotel, and Rick Stein. The dinner at the gourmet La Grand’Vigne restaurant was a selection of Rick Stein’s French Odyssey dishes, prepared by Franck Salein. Gavin chose the wines. He was given a big budget, and they were some of the best wines I have tasted. We drank Batard Montrachet 1999 with the starter, Chateau Palmer with the main course, and Margaux 1998 and Château Latour 1994 from Pauillac. The dessert wine was a Chateau Suduiraut 2001 from Sauternes.

It is worth mentioning that Alan Curtis had invested a great deal into securing the services of Rick Stein to fly out to Bordeaux and yet, when he had the opportunity to sit next to him at dinner, he declined it, inviting me to take his place with Gavin Quinney to the right of Rick and me. My only role that night was to tap a glass to get the attention of the guests whilst Rick explained the menu he had chosen and Gavin the wine he had paired with the food. The days of wine and roses, the “Best of the best Rick Stein trip” was the end of an era. I don’t know whether trips like this will ever be repeated. However, it was an opportunity to meet three very different couples who went on to build empires and reputations outside of the traditional corporate environment. Subconsciously, these conversations started to fuel my desire to keep wanting to learn from “Brilliant Minds” like them.

Breaking new ground is not limited just to businesspeople; it comes in many forms and this next Brilliant Mind is one of the most positive and exceptional women I have ever met.

At 17, Mandy Hickson was awarded a RAF Flying Scholarship and went on to gain her Private Pilot’s Licence at the age of 17. A little worryingly, she could fly before she could drive!  Whilst at university, she continued to foster her love of flying with a RAF organisation, the University Air Squadron, and it was during this time in 1990 that the RAF changed their rules and opened the doors to female would be fast jet pilots - no sex change was required.

Although five women officers had qualified as Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots in the 1950s, the RAF did not allow women to pursue a career in flying until Julie Ann Gibson and Sally Cox became the RAF's first career pilots in 1990.

Mandy attempted to join the RAF. The selection process is a particularly gruelling three days of interviews, medicals, team building, leadership exercises and aptitude tests. The aptitude tests consist of hours of computer-based exercises, designed to test hand to eye co-ordination, memory, mental agility, and the like. She was informed that she had failed at the first attempt to be a pilot. She was devastated but you can do them twice in a lifetime, so she waited a year and went back and resat them and failed them again. This would officially be the end of the line; you can go no further if you have failed them twice.

However, it was someone who knew that Mandy was a capable pilot in the air who challenged the air force. This was her Commanding Officer on the University Air Squadron. He believed that she had what it took to make it. He put his own career on the line and decided to take the RAF on, as so many girls were failing the tests, compared to 70% of men who were passing. He pointed out to the Air Force that there might well be unconscious bias within their system. He escalated it up through the ranks, and it was at this point that the Air Force offered Mandy a commission to be an air traffic controller after 2 impartial flying examiners from the standardisation squadron came and flew with her. They both assessed her as above average. She had no desire to follow that chosen career path, but she saw it as a way in to be able to make her case of becoming a fast jet pilot. She always knew that she was going to become a fast jet pilot like her grandfather before her, but it was fraught with failure.

She wrote hundreds of letters to anyone who would hear her case. She finally got a letter back saying, “Dear Flying Officer Wells the RAF would like to give your Branch change to pilot, we are taking you on as a test case. We would like to see how far through the flying system someone with no aptitude will get before they fail.” Can you imagine the HR person that actually wrote that letter in the 1990s? This planted a seed of doubt in her mind; the first flickering of imposter syndrome crept in. Every time she would struggle, she would go back to that moment: was she good enough?

Flying training was an incredibly challenging environment, each stage a steppingstone to the next. Bizarrely, she has never felt as stressed as she did when she was going through her final stage of fast jet training on the Hawk a/c. With the complexity of each sortie increasing 10-fold, she failed 2 flying exercises on the trot.

She was then filled with imposter syndrome and every flight she flew after this, she got worse and worse and was put up for what is called a chop ride. If you don’t pass the flight, you leave the air force. The trip she failed, she had learnt how to fly the aeroplane, manoeuvre at low level bombing, strafing (attacking ground targets from low-flying aircraft using aircraft-mounted automatic weapons), close formation and they were putting all these skills together in something called tactical or battle. Two aeroplanes head off at very low level, sticking to their wingman. Three quarters of a mile apart always, this is because there is an enemy airborne instructor who is trying to get behind the aircraft to simulate shooting you down with an air-to-air missile. When you are flying in this formation, you have a blind spot which is directly behind you in your six o’clock position; you can’t physically see into that space, so if you are a singleton you are guaranteed to fail, but if you have a wingman, who can see 360 around you, then they can help you get to your target.

What was happening to Mandy is something called cognitive overload; she was failing to pull out of the turns. Ideally, they would cross at a perpendicular angle and when they roll out, they are in a perfect formation. Mandy couldn’t get in the right space. She was stressed, she wasn’t eating and had skin rashes all over her body, she didn’t speak to anybody, she was completely isolated. As is so often the case with stress, it is a vicious circle: the more stress you feel, the less you sleep, the less you eat, the worse the pressure you put on yourself to succeed. The way she dealt with this was to focus completely on the end goal, to sit in her room and visualise success. She ran through entire sorties in her head, a full mental dress rehearsal, pretending to fly, and even making the radio calls!  There was a very real fear of failure; 50% of her course had already been “chopped” or re-streamed to be helicopter or multi-engine pilots, but it was her drive and ambition, sometimes simply not accepting that she would be a failure in a career to which she had given everything for the past 4 years, that drove her on.

On one occasion, one of her friends took her out and said, “Trust me.” They got on their bikes and cycled to the edge of the airfield and there waiting were the remaining members of her course who had been very busy that day making their bikes look like aeroplanes. They had passed the course and had been celebrating whilst Mandy was struggling with anxiety and fear of failure. These were the last people she really wanted to see, but she put her trust in their hands.

These guys then gave up the next few hours of their evening to cycle in battle formation, to do all the manoeuvres that she couldn’t grasp in the air on the ground. The penny suddenly dropped, and she found it easy and couldn’t understand why she couldn’t have done it before: she had been stuck in a rut. It was the people around her that made her think about things differently. It was the cognitive diversity of the rest of the group that allowed her to have this breakthrough moment.

They were thinking differently, and they made her do the same. She had been isolated and working collaboratively allowed to overcome her failings.  She flew the trip the next day and after her flight, the instructor knelt and kissed the floor in disbelief that she had finally passed. She explained to him what had happened and in astonishment he said how unbelievable it was what these men had unselfishly done. There were only six places on the course to fly the front-line fast jets and Mandy was number 7. So, one of her course mates had jeopardised his own course advancement to get her through. She had never felt so humbled to be part of the team that had gone that extra mile. When this was reported up to the squadron commander, who was also blown away by the camaraderie, he took one of the top people out of flying training and they stayed as an instructor, meaning that everyone on her course graduated, on to their aircraft types of choice. Five years after joining the RAF and on completion of what is recognised as being one of the best and most intensive training programmes in the world, she became the 2nd woman to fly the Tornado GR4 on the Front Line. She was posted to II(AC) Sqn and within a matter of weeks, she was flying on combat missions over Iraq.

She served for over 16 years in the Royal Air Force as Fast Jet Pilot flying the Tornado GR4 Ground Attack aircraft. She is one of only a handful of female pilots in the UK military to have operated in hostile war zones. During this time, she has amassed around 2000 flying hours on 8 different aircraft types.

Mandy was at university with my wife Alice and at a dinner party in Winchester in 2004, we encouraged her to tell her story as an inspiration to others. We gave her the first ever job at Brocket Hall on 23^rd April 2008, and she continues to be a highly demanded keynote speaker across a range of business sectors where she talks with humour and great passion to inspire those around her. She has been invited to share her insights with some of the most successful organisations across the world where she describes the strategies and behaviours that can be adopted when the stakes are at their highest. We are incredibly proud to have been part of this journey.

Michelle Goodman

Many of the Brilliant Minds we get to meet are introduced to us. Mattie Stewart, the Northampton and Scotland prop, was at a military event and suggested Michelle gave us a call and like Mandy, I was blown away by the accomplishments of this young woman. The first time I met her, she was seemingly very understated and humble. However, when we were able to peel back the story that led her to be speaking to me, I felt compelled to try and find a way of getting it told. This was 2010, and Michelle had no idea that the accolade which she had been awarded would have been of any interest outside the RAF.

She is very self-deprecating, having been born an only child and brought up in Bristol. None of her family had a military background, but her dad had always been interested in aircraft. He took her to her first air show at RAF Fairford, the Royal International Air Tattoo, one of the biggest air shows in the world.  She was about 6 and she remembers being sat on her dad’s shoulders looking out at the flight line.  She remembers hearing a deep rumble and, as she looked up, a huge shadow came overhead, and she ducked as the Vulcan came overhead. And that was when she knew she wanted to join the Air Force. After A-Levels, she chose to read Aerospace Engineering as it was the closest degree to help her to join the RAF and spent 4 wonderful years at Manchester.

She finished university and applied to the RAF and 6 months later, she went for her interview.  The selection process was at RAF Cranwell. Everything she had ever dreamed of would come down to how she performed during these three days and again 50% of the people who did this assessment failed. Thankfully, she was accepted for officer training and spent the next few months learning how to shoot, perform first aid, how to cope under a nuclear/biological/chemical attack and how to survive in the field. She completed various academic related activities as well as leadership training. The final exercise involved 80 of them running their own airfield in enemy territory, performing roles which would change every 12 hours.  One minute the group would be calling in simulated strikes on enemy positions, the next they were outside the wire running around commanding an assault team. This was all undertaken well in advance of flying training but would prove invaluable in terms of what was to come.

Like Mandy, she began with a shaky start. She was flying the tutor in a 2-seater aircraft that all pilots start off on, and it was her first proper solo away from the airfield.  She was off to practise forced landings. This was hour 15 of her flying. They practise these in case they may be too low to parachute out or if they are in a controlled descent and must land in a field.  The idea is not to land in the field but to see if you are going to make the landing or overshoot.

Before you go out alone, there is a relentless pursuit of practice and up to this point, she had been pretty good and felt confident.  Her job in hand was to turn the aircraft into a glider, and you do this by bringing the throttle and RPM back. She turned onto to her approach with the field ahead and was too low.  So, she put her hand on to what she thought was the throttle and nothing happened.  Unfortunately, she had pulled the wrong lever, she had turned the fuel off to the engine.  So now she was a glider, she wasn’t going to make the field and was heading for the conveniently placed hedge before the field.  However, she calmly thought that all she needed to do was to flood the engine with fuel and it would start again.  Sure enough, the aircraft hiccupped back into life, and she headed straight back, twenty minutes into the hour trip. After that fright, she was sent to helicopters and spent 15 months at RAF Shawbury and was lucky enough to get to fly the Merlin and moved to RAF Benson in Oxfordshire.

The whole process from Officer training to becoming front-line had taken 4 years.  At this point, she knew she could fly but didn’t know how she was going to react under fire.  There is nothing that can train you for this.

The story she told me resonated with me as my daughter was newly born in 2007 and Michelle told me a call that she had had with her dad which brought it home to me. It was 3 weeks into her first Iraq deployment, and she was up at a place called Smitty, which is a Forward Operating Base Northwest of Basra by about 200 miles.  Her team were on stand-by and got a callout at night to the nearby town to do some top cover for some of her guys that were under fire.  She was flying along and saw tracer fire a couple of 100 metres in front of the aircraft.  She took all the necessary evasive manoeuvres, and the rest of the trip went without incident.  When she got back to base, she called home straight away, “Dad, Dad guess what!” ‘What dear?’ “I’ve just been shot at!” as she regaled her first war story.  “Yes dear! Brilliant! Don’t tell your mother!” Her dad was in total disbelief, hearing this from his only daughter. I cannot imagine the worry.  Michelle knew at this point that she wasn’t scared and didn’t freeze at being shot at.   To her, the whole package was complete.  Being shot at in a 15-ton helicopter gave her a feeling of protection.

She undertook four deployments in Iraq. They were out there to support the troops, moving them from A to B, resupplying them with food, water, or ammunition or to the other end of the spectrum, picking them up when they have been injured.  The threat in 2007 was considerable. Even people who did not leave the base were under constant bombardment from the relentless rocket attacks.  Over the 7 weeks she was there, she had 286 attacks, that’s 6 a day with all the rocket impacts at the base.

The most rewarding part of the job for her was being part of the Immediate Response Team which is like an airborne ambulance for the troops. The helicopter she was flying cost £30 million, and it costs around about £5000 an hour to run. There can be up to 28 people on board; that’s 24 passengers and 4 crew. The crewmen see all the casualties; however, she made a rule that she would never look back.  Her job was to fly them to hospital and not to be distracted by anything else.  She did 21 callouts and 10 of those were on her third deployment.  Quite a few casualties were saved but some they couldn’t get to the hospital in time, and they died in the back of the helicopter.

The most life changing night for her was on 1st June 2007 when at 23:15 hours they were alerted that there was a serious casualty following a mortar attack on an isolated British location in the centre of Basra City. Landing an aircraft at this location is assessed to be very high risk. On 1st June 2007, intelligence reports indicated a large, ‘spectacular’ attack would occur somewhere in Basra, with a helicopter being a possible target. She was fully aware of the elevated threat level throughout her sortie.

They were the immediate response team and had half an hour’s notice to move, which means from the time they got the call, they had to be airborne in 30 minutes.  The duty lasts 48 hours, so they eat and sleep right next to the aircraft.  Realistically, they can be airborne in 5 to 10 minutes; however, what normally takes time is for the command to decide they can go. The crew was in bed asleep when a loud knock came at the door, “Wake up you’ve got a callout!”  Michelle jumped up and dragged on her flying suit, grabbed her pistol, rifle and body armour.  All her kit weighed over 2 stone, so in 55 degrees of heat moving anywhere quickly was hard going, so she stumbled out to the aircraft.  The crewman followed.  Her co-pilot and the medics ran down to the Operations room to find out what had happened.  To construct their plan, they needed to know how many casualties there were, what their injuries were and where they were going.  But in all the confusion, they came to the aircraft and they waited.  A few minutes later, they came over the radio and told them there was a seriously injured soldier with a shrapnel wound to the head and they were going into the centre of Basra where the base was still under attack which meant it would be her call to proceed.  So, she took the decision and took off to the landing site which was around 10 miles away. It was so dark, and the visibility was very poor.  They wore night vision goggles, and all they could see was a sea of green.  They headed straight for Basra city flying at a very low level.  At this height, you not only have to worry about the enemy, but the pylons, wires and masts that are all over the city.  They reached the edge of the city and they could see lots of flashes.  It was one of those occasions where she felt immense responsibility, being in charge of a 30-million-pound helicopter, and the 10 souls on board. She knew then that she needed to carry on.  They had never been to the site before, and it hadn’t been used for over 2 years, so it was expected to be dusty.  They came round and they could see flashes. She started the approach at 50 feet. There was a lot of dust at 20 feet, and she couldn’t see anything. It is even harder to land at night.  They are taught to abort the landing if they lose references from this height, but Michelle was weighing up the enemy being even more ready for them next time around. There were lots of light stanchions and wires around the site so if she hit one of those at 50 feet, it could be catastrophic and even if she got around the dust, it would take a long time to settle, and she knew it could be the difference between life and death for the casualty.

So, she continued down, with her crewman literally hanging out of the aircraft to help her down onto the ground.  At 10 feet, he was blind too, and she used the hover meter to make sure she was not drifting for the landing.  The medics rushed off towards the casualty.  The rockets were getting closer and closer to the aircraft.  Suddenly, over the radios, they heard the AS90s were launching into her sector whilst Michelle and her team were still in. They tried to get them to stop, but the rockets were already in the air.  They were on the ground for a couple of minutes before the soldier, Stephen, was secure on board and that shows the quality of the medical staff – they were working on the back of the helicopter where it was noisy, dark and unstable to keep Stephen alive.

As they took off, Michelle elected to head south as all the reports of activity that they got from the Lynx and HQ had been up to the north and that was where the AS90s were firing.  They were just picking up speed when 4 rocket-propelled grenades were fired up at the aircraft, and fortunately, spiralled up into the sky behind them.  They got Stephen to the hospital 14 minutes after the call, and they found out later he only had 15 minutes to live.

She visited Stephen in Headley Court and one of the things that had been going through her head was, ‘Should he have died?’  When she saw him, she nearly burst into tears. He was sitting in a chair, he could move one leg and his right arm to do a zip up.  He couldn’t talk, he couldn’t stand, he could barely move.  His mum took Michelle to one side and said, ‘When he first came back, I thought it would have been better if he had died (when he first came back, he was a quadriplegic), but he has improved so much, I wouldn’t change it for the world”.

Pilot Flight Lieutenant Michelle Goodman was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC), the first time the honour has been awarded to a female pilot. The DFC, awarded for “an act or acts of valour, courage or devotion to duty whilst flying in active operations against the enemy", was awarded to Flight Lieutenant Goodman because of this sortie during her second 2-month tour as part of the Joint Helicopter Force (Iraq) in support of Operation TELIC.

Michelle was truly honoured to be awarded a DFC but commented that without her crew and all the engineering support personnel, the rescue of the casualty would not have been possible. The helicopter Incident Reaction Team (IRT), whether in Iraq or Afghanistan, is regularly confronted with dangerous casualty extractions and all are dealt with in a professional and timely manner. She knew the award was not just for her, but recognised all the soldiers, sailors, and airmen, who, day in and day out, put their lives on the line for the British public to remain safe.

In 1987, my life changed forever and for over 13 years, I was lucky enough to be surrounded by high performing individuals at Northampton Saints.

My selection to play for the Saints was low key. The fixture secretary at the time, the legendary RB Taylor, invited me to play after Northampton had just lost to Llanelli on 5th December 1987. Bob was a former England and British Lions rugby player and a legend from Northampton’s rich rugby past. He was an uncompromising flanker who captained England in one of his 16 caps. “Piggy” Powell, a former Saints coach, captain, England, and Lions Player, had seen me playing for the youth team and mentioned to him that I was worth a punt. I was totally unaware of the pedigree of both these men. Bob wasn’t a man of words and cut to the chase immediately, “We were wondering whether you might like to play for the 1st XV next Saturday as Frank Packman got injured today.” I thanked him and duly accepted and then proceeded to get drunk which was the way in those days – “win or lose on the booze”.

Paul Larkin, my fly-half, walked me onto Franklin’s Gardens before the game. This was just a time-honoured tradition that a senior player would walk you on to the pitch before your first ever game for the club and he would later go on to be the Club Coach in the year I left Northampton Saints in 2001. In 1987, support for the club was still strong despite dwindling fan numbers. The club was amateur in every way. Off the field, it was run by former players who cared deeply about their club but were simultaneously holding down careers and caring for families.

However, one night at Franklin Gardens in the Sturtridge Pavilion changed the club for ever. At an Extraordinary General Meeting, the amateur committee was overthrown by a very professional group of businessmen who wanted to revive the club. That night, the actions of seven men ensured that the club would never slip away and was to remain alongside Leicester as one of the forces of English Rugby in the Midlands. At the time of writing, both clubs are one and two in the league in 2021. Fortuitously, this momentous event occurred right at the start of my career. Northampton realised that to become successful they had to take a more professional approach to the running of the club.

Northampton Saints had not been a club that liked change. However, with the advent of the league structure and the instalment of the new committee, there was a new sense of hope that Northampton could become a force in rugby once again.

I learnt an important lesson that night at Franklins Gardens when the old guard were overthrown which was never to rest on your laurels. Northampton Rugby Club had been founded in 1880 and many players would pass through it enjoying their unique experiences. However, all they were doing were holding a baton for future generations, and no one had a divine right to think otherwise. They would eventually leave and do other things.

The reason I mention this is because the following season, I was joined by two incredible talents in rugby: Ian Hunter and Tim Rodber. They were closely followed by Martin Bayfield, Matt Dawson, Nick Beal and Paul Grayson. I refer to these “Brilliant Minds” because every one of them went on to achieve the ultimate in rugby which was to play for the British and Irish Lions.

• Ian Hunter (1993)
• Martin Bayfield (1993) *
• Nick Beal (1997)
• Paul Grayson (1997)
• Matt Dawson (1997, 2001)*
• Tim Rodber (1997)*

I also mention them because it was with these players that on Saturday 15th June 2019, I was reunited for the Old Gits Tour to Padstow for lunch at St Petroc’s Bistro and Dinner at The Seafood Restaurant, as part of Giles Wilson, Tim Rodber and my 50^th birthday celebrations.

These six players revived the success of Northampton Saints and will forever be remembered not least for the fact that each of them contributed to the club winning the European Cup at Twickenham on 27th May 2000. The club had been established for 119 years and they had never won anything. In front of a crowd of 68,441 spectators at Twickenham, the Saints won 9–8 in the final. It wasn’t the prettiest of fixtures, a typical Cup Final, but no one cared. I had joined the Saints in 1987 and had waited a long time to enjoy a day like this that turned into a long night and a very long extended weekend.

Between us, we represented our club 1522 times. Here are the official numbers below.

• #1574 Thorneycroft H Harvey Wing 261 1987
• #1588 Rodber T A K Tim Lock 235 1988
• #1582 Hunter I G Ian Fullback 155 1988
• #1629 Bayfield M Martin Lock 98 1991 16/11/1991
• #1634 Dawson M Matt Scrumhalf 246 1991 21/12/1991
• #1644 Beal N Nick Fullback 268 1992 20/04/1992
• #1658 Grayson P Paul Fly Half 259 1993 11/09/1993

If you ask many of the players who now wear the Black, Green and Gold about these six players, very few will know what they achieved at the club, and this is the way it should be. None of these players are resting on their laurels and bathing in their own reflective glory, but they have gone on to become accomplished individuals.

I have purposely not included a huge amount of sporting Brilliant Minds in this book. However, I wanted to make special mention of these individuals with whom I was lucky enough to spend my 50^th birthday in Cornwall. Northampton Rugby Club was founded in 1880 and these players passed through it, holding a baton for future generations and knew that they didn’t have a divine right to think otherwise. However, each of them in my opinion has demonstrated what I believe successful people do regardless of their chosen profession: they constantly reinvent themselves.

Tim Rodber, the captain for five years of his 13-year tenure, was achieving things whilst he was playing rugby. Ian Hunter and I attended his Commissioning Ball on 7th August 1992 as Tim’s guests. Tim had, that afternoon, been commissioned as an officer in the Army. He had won the Sword of Honour, which was awarded to the officer cadet considered by the Commandant to be the best on the course, and we were there to celebrate with him. He had gone through a course that had lasted forty-four weeks. He gained 44 England caps and continues to perform at a very high level.

Tim became my business partner, and we built a business together which we sold to Williams Lea in April 2003, less than three years after Tim had lifted the European Cup jointly with Pat Lam in 2000. He is now the Chief Executive Officer (Global) for the Instant Group, which he has been running since 2013. Prior to that he was the CEO of the Americas business for global firm Williams Lea who bought us.

Matt Dawson is probably the highest profile of the group, playing after the Saints for London Wasps and was part of England's World Cup winning side in 2003. Matt won 77 England caps scoring 16 tries and in 2000, in the absence of Martin Johnson, captained a victorious England at the Six Nations Championship and was part of the side that retained the title a year later. He was awarded the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2004 Queen's New Year’s Honours List for his services to rugby as a squad member of the 2003 England's championship Rugby World Cup Team.

In 2004, he became the team captain on the BBC quiz show Question of Sport (BBC One) and for 17 years until 2021 was part of its 51-year run. His position on ‘A Question of Sport’ elevated him from a well-known rugby player to a national TV personality. In 2006, he took part in the BBC’s ‘Celebrity MasterChef’ and won. Matt then put on his dancing shoes to become the runner up in the BBC’s primetime programme ’Strictly Come Dancing’, which attracts over 12 million viewers per show. Since 2014, Matt has been working with Tim Rodber at The Instant Group. Prior to that, he spent four years at global food and facilities provider Sodexo, developing their staff engagement programmes and working as a Health Ambassador, a role which he continues to do.

Nick Beal gained 15 caps for England. He is currently the Managing Director of David Williams IFA, which he joined in 2000 before leaving rugby, one of Northamptonshire’s largest firms of Chartered Financial Planners. He combined the final years of his playing career with financial advice and is still closely connected to the Saints as a board member.

Martin Bayfield played 31 times for England and retired in 1998. Between 1985 and 1989, Martin served with the Metropolitan Police before transferring to Bedfordshire Police where he juggled playing rugby and serving in the forces. He made the transition into his full-time rugby career in 1990. At 6’10″, Martin was one of the tallest rugby players of his generation.

Injury prematurely ended Martin’s rugby career in 1998, but he easily transitioned into TV presenting and speaking at corporate events. He was nearly 36 when he played 13-year-old Rubeus Hagrid in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" (2002) and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009). He was involved in ITV’s coverage of the 2011 Rugby World Cup and in March 2012 he was confirmed as a regular presenter on BBC1’s long-running show Crimewatch. In his broadcasting career, Martin has also presented the NFL and World’s Strongest Man and worked as a rugby correspondent on BBC Radio 5 Live. In 2015, Martin was announced as part of ITV’s team for the Rugby World Cup in London.

Martin is currently a presenter for BT Sport’s Premiership Rugby and European Rugby Union tournaments, as well as being involved in popular shows such as Rugby Tonight for the channel. Martin has also been a key member of ITV’s broadcast team since 2016, being a regular presenter during the Six Nations. Martin is one of the most popular event hosts, keynote speaker, after-dinner speaker, and auctioneer, and is renowned on the corporate circuit for exceptionally funny speeches. Like Matt, he was a finalist in BBC One’s Celebrity MasterChef 2018, continuously wowing the judges, John Torode and Gregg Wallace, with his imaginative dishes and culinary knowledge.

Paul Grayson left the Saints after 19 years’ service in November 2012, and since then has been coaching on an individual basis with several players at a variety of clubs and working with BT Sport and the BBC as a pundit. He retired in May 2005 as the club’s record points scorer to concentrate on his coaching, having helped the Saints fight off relegation in a dramatic final few weeks of the season. As head coach, he guided the team to a top six finish the following season and a Heineken Cup semi-final in 2007. Through his boot, he was the only one on the Saints’ scoresheet in the 9-8 win over Munster, in the European Cup in 2000 and in the knockout matches which preceded against Wasps and then Llanelli Scarlets, both downed by late, late penalties kicked by the metronomic Paul Grayson.

If you met any of these men, they would never tell you the accolades they have achieved. They are understated and they don’t need to tell you because it is just part of their ability to constantly reinvent themselves from a careers’ perspective.

On Saturday 15th June 2019, I flew down with Matt Dawson, Tim Rodber and Andy Collier to Newquay airport in a private helicopter. We were 50, after all. Thank God we did as we were in lockdown for two years at the end of that year. I will never forget Tim opening a bottle of Dom Pérignon at 10.30am and him telling the pilot that, whatever he heard on the journey down to Cornwall, stayed in the helicopter. At no point was anything other than great rugby memories shared. Not one mention was made of what we did after rugby - no one gives a shit! We chatted for the full duration of the 55-minute flight and as we approached the landing strip, we could see the rest of the boys, including Alan Lamb, Giles Wilson, Jake Richardson and Marcus Learoyd standing waiting for us to arrive. The banter was electric. I am not a drinker, but I drank, and this is the point of this part of the book.

If you haven’t been able because of lockdown to celebrate with those friends with whom you shared close memories, then bloody well make a plan and do it. It is rocket fuel and it restores your faith in life. We arrived in Padstow, dropped off at Rick Stein’s Restaurant and out came the Bloody Marys before lunch at St Petroc’s. Stupidly, I had organised for a bike ride to punctuate the day before a dinner in the Seafood restaurant. This was scuppered because Rick Stein arrived as we were in mid flow, and this carried on until the afternoon. We didn’t know he was coming but having him and his wife Sarah added to the occasion. We finally left St Petroc’s and, instead of a bike ride, we had a pub crawl before changing for dinner.

I promise you that when I got into Rick Stein’s St Edmund’s House, I didn’t know my arse from my elbow. I haven’t drunk so much since the night of the European Cup celebrations when we travelled back to Franklin’s Gardens with the cup in tow to present to the fans. As a squad, we linked arms on the try line with the European Cup and walked towards the supporters, who sang ‘When The Saints go Marching In’ as we approached them. We eventually got on the bus, and it took us to Auntie Ruth’s, for a court session. Once the court session was over, the boys lifted Keith Barwell onto their shoulders and marched him into the main bar with the European Cup in his hands. He then proceeded to stand on the bar and announced like the ‘Milky Bar Kid’ that the drinks were on him. This was a public bar and that night everyone who managed to get into Auntie Ruth’s had their drinks paid for by Keith.

We eventually got into the Seafood Restaurant and ate the most exquisite meal and drank fine wines. Quite frankly it was a blur, but a good one. Days like our trip to Padstow don’t come around very often now but when they do, we all revert back to how we were when we were kids, the days of wine and roses! Long may they continue.

There are very few occasions when a Brilliant Mind has such a major impact on you personally resulting in a friendship that transcends any business relationship.

Parv Sains lives in Thames Ditton with, Sharan, his wife and three children, Surina, Devina and Isha, on the edge of London, bounded by the River Thames and surrounded by wonderful playing fields, woods and near the Surrey Hills. We both share a passion for rugby having played the game and often find ourselves drawn together at events that are happening locally. Parv and Sharan are probably the most capable couple in our local area, and we have high regard for what they do because they are making a real difference to people’s lives. We can’t use them that often for Brilliant Minds related events because they are out there as working practitioners at the sharp end. It was the skills that Parv has acquired throughout his professional training that I needed personally. I will come on to why later.

Sharan is a Barrister and was called to the Bar in 1999. Having attended a local comprehensive school in Hounslow, West London, she studied law as an undergraduate at Westminster University. She has developed a practice in all aspects of family law, with a particular emphasis on child protection work.  This is her passion and her focus, and she has represented clients in County Court and the High Court. She speaks fluent Punjabi and represent clients from a wide range of backgrounds. Like Parv, she has a reputation in being able to build a rapport with people, no matter how delicate or difficult the situation and regardless of their social status. The consequence is her reputation for being straightforward and forthright means that she is in high demand and now delivers training to a variety of professional involved in child protection and matters of family law.

Parv’s parents were born in villages in the Punjab, India, a far cry from the relative affluence of Thames Ditton, to a family of carpenters with an enviable reputation. The area they lived in was Raikot and Kamalpura in the Punjab. His mum and dad met on their wedding day as was the tradition at the time. He is the youngest of 5 children with four older sisters, all of whom have settled in the UK and pursued careers in the Metropolitan Police, banking and civil service. The family left the Punjab and headed off to Dodoma in Tanzania where his father had found a job working in the Commonwealth Post Office.

There is a term used to describe the African Asian migration to the UK called ‘Twice migrants’ describing people of South Asian origin who ended up migrating to the UK from countries other than those in South Asia.

Unfortunately, in early 1971, the National Assembly passed a measure authorising the nationalisation of all commercial buildings, the “Africanization” policies of countries like Tanzania, Zambia and Malawi were intended to ensure that the African majority population acquired greater control over key areas of the economy and the government. Legislation was passed restricting the choice of residence, trade, and employment for non-citizens.

In Tanzania, the nationalisation of banks and other financial institutions particularly affected the livelihoods of the Asian community who owned most of such businesses which resulted in the ensuing months, nearly 15,000 Asians leaving the country, including Parv’s family.

Though a new Race Relations Act 1968 had come into force in Britain making it illegal to refuse housing, employment, or public services to people because of their ethnic background, the twice-migrants faced racism and prejudice which made it difficult for them to find accommodation and certain kinds of jobs. Having experienced happy times in Tanzania, his family landed at Tilbury Docks in 1972 and eventually ended up in a rented room in Southall in West London. Often called Little Punjab or Little India, West London's Southall district had been a South Asian hub since the 1950s. It is also noteworthy that Sharan’s mother and father are also of Indian origin. Her mother’s parents had migrated from India to Nairobi, in Kenya then here to UK and settled in Hounslow, near Southall. Sharan’s father had migrated to the UK directly from a village in India at the age of 17 years and, although faced with the above adversity, he managed to steer through the education system here, gained a BSc at Queen Mary’s College, London and ultimately a PhD in mechanical engineering from Imperial College , London.

Although the twice-migrants were fluent in English and came from good backgrounds, they initially had to accept work in low paid jobs and struggled to gain better pay and rights. Parv’s mum became a seamstress, and his father ended up working off the Great West Road near Gillette Corner for MacFarlane Lang, who were one of the largest manufacturers of biscuits in Britain, merging with McVitie & Price in 1948 to form United Biscuits.

However, it wasn’t long before Parv’s parent’s, through their ingenuity, bravery and sheer tenacity and after a short spell renting a one-bedroom lodging, became property owners having secured a mortgage and were able to buy their own house.

I mention this because Parv remembers a great childhood and lots of fun despite the area he grew up in. Unacceptable as it may seem now, Parv’s local authority Ealing was one of the 11 local authorities in England which implemented the policy of 'bussing' in the 1960s and 70s. Immigrant and ethnic minority children, in response to opposition from white parents and residents complaining that the large numbers of ‘coloured and immigrant children’ undermined the education of their children, would be dispersed on over 50 coaches that descended on Southall on a daily basis. No white child was ‘bussed’ in or out of Southall. He remembers getting on a bus and going to school and this happened in 11 councils in England (Blackburn, Bradford, Bristol, Ealing (Southall), Halifax, Hounslow, Huddersfield, Leicester, Luton, Walsall and West Bromwich).

Parv had a ‘joora’ or topknot under his Sikh turban and was forbidden, by religious mandates, to cut his hair and remembers the hurtful jibes that he had to endure. However, he did well at school despite this. His family were resilient and got on with life, never incumbered by the uncertainty that had been bestowed upon them. He was also aware of the Southall Riots on 23 April 1979. The National Front chose Southall Town Hall for its St George's Day election meeting. The location choice was controversial considering the diversity of the area and was interpreted as an attempt to provoke residents. In 1979, there was a general election approaching and political parties, as always, needed public halls in which to hold their election meetings. Regardless of their views, legally appointed parties cannot be refused such accommodation. Given the policies of the National Front were opposed to immigration and in favour of repatriation, this was throwing down a deliberate challenge to many residents. The timing – on St George’s day – was also surely significant too in that it was a nationalist party, and this was England’s patron saint’s day. The subject is still a highly emotive one both among residents and those who took part, whether protestors or police officers. Among the demonstrators was Blair Peach, a New Zealand-born member of the Anti-Nazi League. A teacher for special needs children in East London, Peach was injured and collapsed near Southall Town Hall with serious head injuries. He later died in hospital.

No policeman was ever arrested or charged with the alleged attack, and even though an internal Metropolitan police enquiry began on the day of his death, its findings were never made public. The 1980 inquest recorded a verdict of death by misadventure which caused 79 MPs to call for a public inquiry into the case. The request was denied. The events of 40 years ago remain a sensitive topic within Southall’s predominantly Asian community and the wider anti-racism movement. Activists accuse the police of instigating the violence, of racism and of using excessive force.

Parv was placed at Featherstone High School which opened in 1976 and at the age of 13, had to contend with the sudden death of his mother who had returned to the Punjab to settle some family property dispute and never returned. Parv relates that despite all that was going on around him, he always had the ability to cope with a crisis, be it mental or emotional. He performed academically at each stage, but his huge release was drama and sport in which he excelled. It was unusual that this West London School, made of 75% Asian kids, had such a strong drama department. He references Steve Hammond as the teacher, and we all have one, who took the painfully shy child to a different place through drama.

Parv also describes the comments of a teacher who called him intrinsically lazy. However, in the back of his mind, he knew he wanted to read medicine and go off to university and nothing was going to stop him. His father encouraged him at every stage, never thinking he was deluded in any way. He knew no different even when he was filling in his UCAS application and had to tick the box on the location of his school being in a deprived inner city comprehensive, he was oblivious looking back that it could be described as this. His mantra has always been don’t be limited by what other people’s expectations may be of you. His A-levels in maths, chemistry, physics, and further maths were what he read to try and get into Birmingham to read medicine. In those days, he needed ABBB.

However, when his maths paper came back, he hadn’t got the grade he needed. He consulted his father at this point who suggested that, if he didn’t obtain the grades to read medicine, he should consider pharmacy. Unperturbed by this setback, he asked his dad whether he would pay the rather hefty £50 to have the paper remarked as Parv was adamant that he had smashed it. This was rather audacious of Parv, and Mr Hughes at his school suggested he might be wasting his money. His teacher couldn’t have been more wrong. Parv was correct: it had been marked incorrectly and in fact he had scored 94%. He therefore had the grades to read medicine and took a year off, worked in a sports shop as an assistant and went eventually to The University of Birmingham Medical School.

The journey that Parv has trodden demonstrates that anything is possible. He had strength in his conviction and went on to undertake his primary medical training at the University of Birmingham Medical School as an undergraduate and his surgical training commenced in London in 1998 and continued in the Southwest Thames training region (London Deanery) until his appointment at Worthing Hospital in 2009. He completed two periods of Laparoscopic Fellowship training as well as a Doctorate in Medicine (MD) at St Mary’s Hospital, Imperial College London. This developed his interest in the application of new surgical technologies to patient care and he continues to apply this in his current practice to provide the best possible treatment for patients. He undertakes a variety of procedures including hernia repair, colorectal laparoscopic and open resections for malignant and benign disease as well as performing endoscopy and colonoscopy with a keen interest in performing day surgery. He also undertakes proctology procedures such as treatment of haemorrhoids on a day case basis. He also has an interest in medical law and has recently been awarded the degree of Master of Laws LLM (medical law) from the University of Northumbria. His 17,000-word dissertation, which he completed during the pandemic, is entitled ‘Is Bolam fit for the twenty-first century? Institutional factors and exceptional circumstances.’ His interest and qualification in medical law has also led him to be appointed as medico-legal lead for the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland (ASGBI). Parv has published widely in peer reviewed journals and, apart from an interest in medical law, is passionate about training and teaching.

He is undoubtedly a “Brilliant Mind” and his story like all the others in this book is extraordinary but very few of the people I describe in the book have had a personal effect on me. The background to this personal intervention is that Tom Smith, the Northampton, Scotland and British and Irish Lion, was diagnosed with stage-four colon cancer that had spread to his liver and brain and this had shocked me. He had detected it in a random test.

I took it upon myself to go and see the wonderful Dr Tim Hodgson at Wimbledon Village Surgery with a simple request: can you assess my recent blood test and check my prostrate? He duly obliged and then because of what happened to Tom, I asked if I could have a FIT Test. Contrary to what it sounds like, this is not a fitness test but a screening test for colon cancer. It tests for hidden blood in the stool which can be an early sign of cancer. FIT only detects human blood from the lower intestines. Medicines and food do not interfere with the test, so it tends to be more accurate and has fewer false positive results than other tests.

Or so I thought. I wasn’t expecting my doctor to call me up after I had provided him with a sample and say, “We need to have you looked at old boy”. He asked me when I had completed the faecal immunochemical test (FIT), and I told him that I had done it directly after my prostate check. His immediate reaction was that completing the FIT test directly after the dreaded "digital rectal exam". This is a particular invasive procedure and could have caused my (FIT) test to have resulted in a false positive result. However, when Dr Tim Hodgson told me to rule this out, I was completely flabbergasted.

This is when the power of a network takes over, and I immediately called Alice and told her my news. She suggested that I speak to our friend Parv Sains, who she just happened to be appearing with in a play that night in Coventry called ‘Raving’. Parv and Alice were reacquainting themselves with a passion they both enjoyed at school by being part of a drama workshop with some very accomplished people led by Richard Brimblecombe, an actor, director and writer of high repute.

Parv, whilst having a keen interest in theatre, just happened to have found himself in an operating theatre on many occasions. She handed him the phone. He asked me what had happened and, as an experienced surgeon and doctor with over 27+ years on the clock, his gut told him that I had recorded a false positive result. However, he wasn’t prepared to leave this to chance and within two weeks, he made sure that, as his now patient, I was given the support that was required, to put my mind at rest and earn me the label of unremarkable, a medical term generally meaning that the test did not find anything abnormal. However, it took a sigmoidoscopy to check the lower part of my colon and an initial virtual colonoscopy, to check out whether I had any significant growths, such as polyps, within my rectum and colon using a high technology X-ray scanner and advanced computer programs to create detailed images of the tissues inside the colon. It did not require sedation, injections, or the insertion of a camera into the colon, and the procedure took less time than one hour. Not only that but Parv drove me to the hospital, and we ended up going out for lunch less than two hours after he confirmed I was indeed unremarkable.

This Brilliant Mind has had such a major impact on me personally. His story for me is why I am closing this account as it is rather tragic. Parv no longer works for the NHS. As he lay in his bed in Thames Ditton, having contracted Covid 19, which Professor Iain Hennessey predicted in March 2020, in my opening account, would wreak havoc in so many communities, it got him thinking about the importance of life. Covid is indiscriminate. He started to question his own mortality. This was pre vaccine and he had contracted it doing a routine procedure. He eventually got back to full health and returned to work with a certain degree of trepidation.

Not only had illness with COVID made him question his and his family’s wellbeing, it also clarified the working conditions he and other healthcare professionals were having to endure. Again, this was not only the effect of the pandemic but a situation in recent years that has demanded more of these professionals, with considerably less resource, greater personal accountability and stress levels which not only affects the person themselves but equally importantly affects their performance as clinicians. Ultimately this bears heavily on the outcomes for their patients and the safety of their patients. He is sincere in his gratitude for the education he has had the opportunity to grab with both hands and the rewards that have come with that education and subsequent profession. He admits his stoic attitude and the ability to navigate difficult situations have been invaluable in his climb from relatively humble beginnings.  However, he is quick to point out that, in hindsight and given his recent experiences, stoicism itself cannot solely be the answer to a demanding profession that requires personal sacrifice. He points out that although the importance of performance management, education and wellbeing is a well-established concept, its application in healthcare and the NHS is sorely missing and that arguably, in a profession where performance has a direct influence on the consumer (the patient) in terms of their health and safety, it is absolutely paramount. Part of his focus now, apart from continuing his clinical work and patient care independently, will be to look at how to improve performance and safety in surgery using his experience in surgery and his interest in the law. Again, he points out, that importantly, performance is not all about the technical ability to perform an operation, but equally as importantly the non-technical factors such as communication, team working and emphasis on personal wellbeing. Again, he is keen to point out that a ‘badge of honour’ for working over 100 hours per week or indeed over 72 hours without a break, which he has regularly done throughout his medical and surgical career isn’t necessarily the right thing for the patient or the doctor.

The NHS had been rocked to the core during this crisis, and whilst he was not looking for any degree of sympathy as his scenario was commonplace, he did question why he was doing what he was doing and whether he was able to give his best to his patients in the situation he was working in currently.

This is a man that had overcome so much in his life and had served the NHS for over 27 years, a rational, articulate, charismatic man that when he returned felt vulnerable and exposed. He decided with the blessing of his family to leave the NHS and revaluated his future purpose in life. I was the direct beneficiary of the fact that he wasn’t on call on the day that I needed him to be as I described to him My Iain McGeechan and coach me through the procedure that I was having and drive me to the hospital. It turned out to be nothing. I was fortunate. However, I will be indebted to him for the rest of my life.