I’m less interested in being everywhere, and more interested in being useful where I am. That shift in focus changes how you spend your time, your en… - Bear Grylls

During my time at Eton, I led regular nighttime adventures, and word spread. I even thought about charging to take people on trips.
I remember one where we tried to cross the whole town of Eton in the old sewers. I had found an old grill under a bridge that led into these four-foot-high old brick pipes, running under the streets.
It took a little nerve to probe into these in the pitch black with no idea where the hell they were leading you; and they stank.
I took a pack of playing cards and a flashlight, and I would jam cards into the brickwork every ten paces to mark my way. Eventually I found a manhole cover that lifted up, and it brought us out in the little lane right outside the headmaster’s private house.
I loved that. “All crap flows from here,” I remember us joking at that time.

When my parents were away, I would often be sent to spend the night in the house of an older lady who I didn’t know, and who didn’t seem to know me, either. (I assume it was a friendly neighbor or acquaintance, or at least hope it was.)
I hated it.
I remember the smell of the old leather photo frame containing a picture of my mum and dad that I would cling to in the strange bed. I was too young to understand that my parents would be coming back soon.
But it taught me another big lesson: Don’t leave your children if they don’t want you to.
Life, and their childhood, is so short and fragile.

50. Keep Grounded

When was the last time you ventured into the great outdoors? I mean really ventured, where you set out into the unknown with just a map and compass, backpack and sleeping bag - the sort of venturing that makes your heart beat faster.

Have you experienced the hypnotic patter of rain on your tent, the clear call of an owl or the rustling of the wind through the leaves at night? It’s a feeling of absolute freedom and belonging - a chance to reconnect with both ourselves and planet Earth.

At night in the outdoors is also a reminder that the best things in life aren’t things.

Money can’t buy the quiet calm that comes from sitting beside a mountain stream as it ‘tinkles’ through the rock and heather.

Money can’t buy the inspiration that you feel sat on a clifftop above the pounding of the ocean surf as it hits the rocks far below.

You can’t bottle feelings like that.

And sitting around a campfire under a sky of stars is the most ancient and wonderful of human activities. It reminds us of our place in the world, and in history - and it’s hard not to be humbled.

These sorts of simple activities cost so little yet they give us precious time to be ‘still- - time to reconnect, to clear our heads of the dross, to remind ourselves of our dreams and to see things in the perspective they often require.

We all need that regularly in our lives - more than you might imagine.