Ben Saunders - Polar Explorer, Motivational Speaker

FHM, Top Gear, Sacrifice and Opportunity

First up, a bit of shameless self-promotion: yes, that's me being a poseur in the September issue of FHM, no, I didn't get to keep the jacket, and no, I have no shame.

Secondly, a few people have asked me what I thought of the Top Gear 'North Pole special' (for those of you outside the UK, Top Gear is a popular TV show about cars, mostly - you can watch this particular episode on YouTube). Yes, it was fun to watch. No, it wasn't the North Pole. (They drove to the 1996 position of the Magnetic North Pole, a couple of hundred miles south of its current position, and several hundred miles south of the geographic North Pole). Interestingly, some Russians airlifted a modified Lada on to the pack ice and tried to drive the last degree of latitude to the geographic Pole a few years ago. I've no idea how they got on, but I spotted the crazy vehicle parked up in a garage in Khatanga back in 2001.

Anyway, enough pedantry. Two links for your perusal and delectation: Maciek Duczynski's glorious photos of Norway, and secondly, Hugh McLeod's outstanding essay on how to be creative (now two years old, but it deserves to be revisited, and it's about much more than creativity)…

"The pain of making the necessary sacrifices always hurts more than you think it's going to. I know. It sucks. That being said, doing something seriously creative is one of the most amazing experiences one can have, in this or any other lifetime. If you can pull it off, it's worth it. Even if you don't end up pulling it off, you'll learn many incredible, magical, valuable things. It's NOT doing it when you know you full well you HAD the opportunity- that hurts FAR more than any failure."

{ Filed under Miscellany on Tuesday, August 21st, 2007. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site. }