Richard Reed - If I Could Tell You Just One Thing...: Encounters with Remarkable People and Their Most Valuable Advice

BY RICHARD REED
WITH PORTRAITS BY
SAMUEL KERR

If I could
tell you
just one
thing...

ENCOUNTERS WITH
REMARKABLE PEOPLE
AND THEIR MOST
VALUABLE ADVICE

Published in Great Britain in 2016 by
Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE

www.canongate.co.uk

This digital edition first published in 2016 by Canongate Books

Copyright Richard Reed, 2016
Portraits Samuel Kerr, 2016

The moral right of the author has been asserted

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on
request from the British Library

eISBN 9781782119234
ISBN 9781782119227

Typeset in Bembo by Palimpsest Book Production Ltd,
Falkirk, Stirlingshire

To Chicken and Sausage

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

W HEN I WAS A CHILD my father often took me fell walking. We spent misty days climbing the gentle peaks of the Yorkshire Dales and Lakeland crags. Each trip a new route, a different summit to climb, always a bar of chocolate at the top.

I dont remember him teaching me per se, but I inherited from him the rituals of the Great Outdoors: close the gate to keep the sheep in, walk at the edge of the field to protect the crops, stand aside for those coming uphill.

My favourite tradition was placing a stone on the cairns, the small pile of rocks that walkers create to help mark the way. A simple, easy practice, both altruistic and self-preserving in its aim: to help others find their path, knowing that the next time the lost fell walker could be you.

We benefited from those cairns ourselves many times, when the clouds came in and the path was unclear. And even on bright days, those cairns provided welcome reassurance, while more distant ones hinted at different paths still to explore.

Off the mountains, Ive come to appreciate that sometimes a few words of advice can act as cairn stones in life; a wise sentenceor two that get you back on course when youre lost in the fog or stuck in boggy terrain, knowledge from a fellow traveller who can point out the best views of the safest route.

On at least three occasions a single piece of advice has changed my life. And over the years Ive gained a deep appreciation of learning from people both wiser and more experienced than myself. So ten years ago I made a simple promise to myself: whenever I met someone remarkable, Id ask them for their best piece of advice.

The result is this book.

If I Could Tell You Just One Thing walks the full spectrum of human experiences and emotions, from those of Simon Cowell at one end to those of Lily Ebert, an Auschwitz survivor, at the other. In between, youll find the considered wisdom of presidents and popstars, entrepreneurs and artists, celebrities and survivors; from people whove made it and from others who have endured incredible hardships, from those whove climbed as high as you can go in life, and from people whove witnessed the worst of what humans can do to one another.

Good advice is like a nutrient-rich broth, made from boiling down the bones of life. And being fed so much of it, sourced from such remarkable people, has enriched my life and understanding of my fellow homosapiens immeasurably. If chosen well, a few words can capture and disseminate the main insights gained from someones hard years of experience, thereby allowing us all to benefit from them. That is certainly the aim of each of the encounters in the book.

Every person is someone Ive met, either through running myown business, or from my subsequent varied career working in government, charities, the arts and the media. Some people featured are friends, some are people who generously agreed to be interviewed, and a few are unsuspecting folk I ambushed when fate put us in the same room at a party, a conference or, in one case, at a urinal.

When I ask people for their best piece of advice, I urge them to really think about what they consider to be most important. I put the exact same question to everyone: Given all that you have experienced, given all that you now know and given all that you have learnt, if you could pass on only one piece of advice, what would it be? There is something about asking people to stand behind just one nugget of wisdom that gets them to reflect harder, dig deeper and be more candid in their response. And it has led to some extraordinary answers. The material is diverse and wide ranging, and covers everything from achieving success to dealing with failure, from finding love to having better sex, from getting the best out of people to surviving abuse. There should be something in this collection that speaks to everyone.

Most people when asked for advice are happy to give it. This desire to help is a manifestation of the better part of human nature; it costs nothing, can be shared infinitely and will last indefinitely. And I hope that this is the first of several books. For there are countless remarkable people on the planet, and this first collection only captures the insights of a fraction of them. There are endless stories to be told and wisdom to be captured.

Over time I hope to help create a global commons of advice, a shared pool of wisdom that everyone can both contribute toand gain from. After all, as a species we are much more alike than we are different. And while everyones path through life is unique, we can all benefit from the knowledge of more experienced walkers ahead, who can tell us of the most beautiful things to see and guide us to the safer places to cross the river.

Richard Reed
June 2016

IN THE BUBBLE WITH PRESIDENT CLINTON

H IS STAFFERS CALL IT BEING in The Bubble, the experience of travelling in President Clintons entourage. You ride in the Presidents plane, drive in his armed convoy, sit at his table. You dont so much as move, you glide. Theres no queuing for passport control, no checking in, no checking out it all just happens behind the scenes. You go wherever and whenever Mr President goes.

I got to ride in The Bubble on a Clinton Foundation trip round Africa. It was a gruelling schedule: eight African countries in eight days. Every day the same: wake up in a new country, get in the convoy, drive hours down dusty tracks and potholed paths into the middle of nowhere, visit a project an HIV testing clinic, a malaria treatment facility, a womans empowerment group then back in the jeeps and on to the next project, at least four times a day.

At each visit, the President was an unstoppable force: straight out of the 4x4, hug the local community nurses, talk with the dignitaries, dance with the local tribal performers, pose for the photos, do the speech, present the gong, stop and chat with thelocals, play with the kids, notice the quiet one at the back, make a point of talking to them, give them a hug, coax out that smile. At every event. In the searing heat and dust, all day, for eight days straight. Ive not seen anything like it. I dont think anyone has.

He reflected for a while when I asked my question about advice for life in a rare moment between stops. But the Presidents answer made sense of what we were seeing:

Ive come to believe that one of the most important things is to see people. The person who opens the door for you, the person who pours your coffee. Acknowledge them. Show them respect. The traditional greeting of the Zulu people of South Africa is Sawubona. It means I see you. I try and do that.