Your holiday is booked and the countdown is on for your time away in the sun and on the beach.

You’re imagining yourself as James Bond walking out of the sea in Casino Royale showing his six-pack. Unfortunately, you’re not quite there yet, but now is your time to start and get that body.

But where do I start, I hear you saying. Well, I will give you the help and advice that is needed to kick-start your personal transformation. But in simple, manageable ways that you can understand and use straight away.

1. Motivation

It all starts with a ‘wanting to do it’ mentality. It’s not easy. I am not saying that to get ‘Ripped’ it doesn’t take hard work and effort, because it does. And to do this, you need the motivation to do this for yourself and not someone else.

Picture in your mind the ideal body for you, and use this as your goal. You need to do this for yourself not anyone else as this will make it accountable to you. Accountability is huge in transformations as it keeps yo...

When the London team went into the Olympic bid pitch, seven years before London 2012 began, they weren’t expecting to win the Olympics. According to the press, Paris were clear leaders while London was trailing. Moscow, New York and Madrid were somewhere in the middle.

When the results were announced, of the 54 photographers poised to capture the celebrants, all but three were camped in front of Paris (the scuffles that erupted among them, as they attempted to get to the London team, made great TV).

So what changed? As then culture secretary Tessa Jowell put it, “We’ve come from nowhere to win the Olympics and that is quite something.” Something had shifted in the brains of the panel of Olympic judges casting the votes. Which begs a question this piece sets out to answer…

What is it that changes people’s thinking? What are the prompts that persuade and influence people to action?

Why, why, why?

Answers to that question are often based on looking around, on understanding ...

Mad – that’s the typical adjective most people choose when I tell them about my new expedition. They will listen for a while but are primarily eager to get in a second-hand anecdote of a climber who died or a story they heard of a recent polar bear attack. Attempts to go through the detailed risk assessments and give a reality check to the horror stories are usually met by patronising smiles. You shouldn’t have asked the question, then, I think; you know expeditions are what I do.

I am not pretending to be Ranulph Fiennes, self-proclaimed ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’ adventurer. But madness is relative. For this sports-hating schoolgirl who’s never touched skis before, it certainly brinks on madness to sign up to a 150-mile crossing of a polar plateau, dragging a 20kg pulk and cursing my own ambition. That was in February. Now I’m ready for the next big thing.

Madness seems to be a common thread in adventure – it will get you more funding, more exposure, more people buying yo...

 “What’s happening?” Steve whispered to me.

“They’re deciding whether or not to let us go.”

“Do you think they will?”

“No,” I said, and when I saw Steve’s shoulders slump and his face darken, I wished I had lied.

Even if I had, it would not have mattered. One of the men had taken out his mobile phone and was speaking into it with urgent vehemence. When the call ended, he pointed at four of the men and issued them instructions. Two manhandled our bikes from us and the other two clapped their hands on our arms and shoulders and began to lead us away. Around the corner, a panel van sat beside the kerb, and Steve was roughly pushed into its open back door first. He complied meekly, head down, resigned to his fate, whatever that might be. I, on the other hand, felt so angry at what was happening to us that I considered kicking out, striking and punching at these men with their hands on me, screaming and flailing like a trapped cat, doing whatever I could, no matter how viol...

It takes a certain level of faith to get through the pain of seeing your sporting dreams slip from your grasp, only to reinvent yourself as one of the greatest professional wrestlers in history. To then leave the ring and conquer Hollywood – well, it seems only Dwayne Johnson could manage that with such endearing panache and effortless cool.

But if it hadn’t been for Johnson’s incredible strength of spirit, things could have turned out very different for The Rock – the People’s Champion who became the film industry’s undisputed leading man.

Who’s the biggest male star in Hollywood right now? Brad Pitt; George Clooney; Johnny Depp? Think again. The answer to that question must surely be Dwayne Johnson, and that’s not just because he’s six foot five and has arms like tree trunks. No, the man who made his name as one of the most iconic WWE wrestlers of all time is now worth a staggering $64m a year – and that means he ranks higher than any of those silver screen stalwarts, no matter...

Memory blips are natural as we get older, but keeping your mind active and challenged will help to keep your brain younger than your years. Ensure you’re firing on all cylinders with my top tips for looking after your brain health.

1 Lights out 

Night owls take note. Research shows that sleeping less than seven hours a night is linked to poor brain health and memory loss, with studies showing that chemicals released during the deeper stages of sleep are vital for repairing the whole of the body, including the brain. Make sure you’re getting plenty of shut-eye by starting your bed time routine an hour earlier and leaving your phone and tablets out of the bedroom to avoid distractions that will hinder sleep.

2 Take a challenge 

Whenever we do something for the first time our brain builds new connections that keep it active and stimulated. A study with London cab drivers found that as they learnt The Knowledge – the huge task of learning the 25,000 streets and landma...

David Hall was once a chronic, paranoid schizophrenic. He was admitted to a psychiatric hospital on many occasions. Then one day in church he was prayed for and a miracle happened.
David is now nearly 60 years old. He grew up in and has spent most of his life in south-east London and he currently lives in Anerley with his wife, Katie, and one of their two children.

David grew up with ten brothers and sisters. David’s mum was a Catholic and he was brought up in this faith, being baptised and attending a Catholic school.

At the age of 15, David’s mum suddenly gave up her Catholic faith and stopped attending church, and David and his siblings no longer had to either.

Within a short time David suddenly went off the rails, smoking cannabis and getting into petty crime, lying, and sleeping around. He started getting arrested a lot and at one point got sent to a remand home for the short, sharp, shock treatment.

When David was 18 he was kicked out of the family home by his mum an...