Fear of failure can make losing feel personal, especially in leadership roles. But how you respond to loss shapes your confidence, relationships and long-term success far more than the outcome itself.

This is a story which is somewhat humiliating and yet also the opposite because I’m so damn proud of myself!

I was on holiday in Norway with old friends who live there. Every few years we get together and do activities. Norway, with its beautiful mountains and outdoor attitude, entices these things unlike my Cambridge home which is flat, landlocked doesn’t do a lot of outdoor enticing. I am not outdoorsy, but currently unfit, chubby, and pasty pale. I’m not just pale, I’m that blue colour that slightly hypothermic people go.