Oliver Emberton

It’s not enough to be yourself, you have to be your best self.

An old man looks back upon his life, knowing his end is near. He stares through the rain and tries to figure out the exact moment when his dreams died. But there is no one moment.

Hard work does not make you successful. If that were true, our soldiers would drive Bentleys and our teachers would take their lunch breaks in gold-plated Jacuzzis.

Tragedy is the space between our potential and our reality. Romeo and Juliet is tragic because two lovers so nearly lived out their hearts and dreams, and lost everything.

A lifetime of bad lessons can mess you up. Look at every love story ever told: Boy meets girl. Their eyes touch and for a heartbeat the world stops turning.

You’re you losing weight? “You should be happy with your own body!” Saving children in Africa? “You should save your own country!” Curing cancer?

The secret to time management is simple: Jedi time tricks. Imagine you were a Jedi master called Bob (your parents, whilst skilled in the ways of the force weren’t the best at choosing names).

Let’s play a mating game. Put 100 men and 100 women in a sealed room. On each person’s forehead, write a random number from 1 to 10, and call that their ‘attractiveness’.

We’re forever being sold a lie on how to prosper in life: discover what you’re best at, work hard at it, swim in an ocean of riches and happiness.

Imagine if life were a marathon. There’s a start, a finish, and the faster you run, the further you go: The secret to winning a marathon is to knuckle down and keep going.

Isn’t it annoying that everyone in the world hasn’t fallen in love with you yet? Let’s fix that. You judge yourself by your intentions Inside your head, you know exactly what you’re trying to do, at all times.

I’m going to share a game with you. This game will reveal incredible things about whoever plays it; surprise, shock and delight complete strangers, and has kickstarted more friendships than I know how to count.