Ten people. That was the list I made in October 2016, of people who'd changed my life without ever meeting me.
It started with a question I've been asked in a few interviews over the years: who would be your fantasy dinner party guests, and why? My answer changes almost every time. It depends on what I've been reading, watching and listening to.
That autumn I decided to answer it properly. I'd been working through a book by Claudia Azula Altucher called Become An Idea Machine, which asks you to come up with ten ideas a day. It got me thinking about the dinner party question again, and the list turned into a blog post. Ten living people who'd influenced my life, who I'd love to hang out with, but who I'd never met.
I'd been lucky enough to spend time with some of my heroes by then, people like Tony Robbins and Jamie Oliver. They'd have been on the list a few years earlier. So I left them off and looked at who was still shaping me from a distance.
Here's who made it, and what each one gave me.
The ones who made it safe to be honest
Brené Brown came first. She's a research professor who has spent years studying vulnerability, courage, worthiness and shame. Her 2010 TEDxHouston talk, The Power of Vulnerability, is one of the most watched talks there is.
When I found her work it was like someone switched on a bright light and showed me something I knew was there but couldn't quite see. A few years before, I'd told a friend I felt that to really help other people, I had to make myself vulnerable. I'd started sharing more of my story. But I still carried shame about parts of my past and I was scared of being judged. Her work helped me drop a lot of that self-judgement, which was probably the harshest critic of all. I wrote more about her book in The Gifts of Imperfection post.
James Altucher made the list too, because his book Choose Yourself started the whole thing. His point is that so many of us wait for someone else to pick us, and that the path to happiness starts when you choose yourself.
The ones who changed my body
Rich Roll wrote Finding Ultra. The night before he turned 40 he had to stop halfway up the stairs at home to catch his breath. He went on to become one of the fittest men around, eating plants. His book was one of the reasons I signed up for my first ultra marathon.
Michael Pollan gave me my favourite line about food: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." I'd add one word. Real.
James Colquhoun and Laurentine ten Bosch made the documentaries Food Matters and Hungry for Change, which kept a lot of us learning how to get healthy and stay that way.
The ones in my headphones
Rev Run is in here because of where I started. My first crush as a kid was Debbie Harry from Blondie. When people asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, the answer was Adam Ant. Then I discovered hip hop and my world changed. Run-DMC grabbed me early, and later I watched Run's reality show and saw a man who was a role model as a dad, as well as on record.
KRS-One is on it for words. I first heard him in 1987 on Poetry by Boogie Down Productions, and one line stuck: "that's not poetry, that is insanity". His lyrics have taught me a lot. There's a reason his name stands for Knowledge Reigns Supreme Over Nearly Everyone.
The ones who showed me how ideas travel
Seth Godin, because I was trying to share a message about health and he knows more than anyone about how ideas spread. His line about running down the street naked has stayed with me: it'll get you noticed, but it won't accomplish much.
And Gary Vaynerchuk. Someone asked him for three words to inspire them on a bad day, and he said "You're gonna die." No pretence. Straight to the point.
What I notice about that list now is how much of it ended up in what I actually did. A book got me to the start line of an ultra. A talk helped me open up about my story. And the lyrics gave me an education of their own.
Who would be on your list? Pick one person who's shaped you from a distance, and tell me who and why.
