Is there any wisdom he's learned from his years showing up to practice something on a finish line that the rest of us can use in our pursuits that might have finish lines, but we're always blowing through to get to the next thing. Here's what he said. And if you listened last Thursday, you will have heard this before, but I might be biased, but I think it is worth listening to again.

Recently, I've been reading and absorbing the world of ancient Greece, reading Plato and particularly the playwrights, Euripides and so on. And one of the things that comes through very clearly there is the notion in Greek of arete, which means excellence. It's often translated as virtue. But one of the things that really stood out for me in immersing myself in the world of ancient classical Athenian life is the importance they laid on sports. The purpose of that athletics was also to not just win the race, although that was clearly something they valued just as much as athletes value winning today. But the Greek Athletic Olympic, for example, was held in a religious shrine, the shrine of Zeus and Hera in Olympia in the Peloponnese. So it's not just about winning. It's about achieving a degree of human excellence within the context, not just of a sports competition, but in the context of a religious sanctuary. I feel in many ways, you have to burn through the experience of winning a gold medal or achieving some recognition within your field. And it's true, if you remain fixated on just how many gold medals you're going to get, then I think that's actually going to limit the extent to which that sport will be a means whereby you realise your own excellence. And that's the goal, surely.