Ronnie O'Sullivan
English snooker player
Perspective. I used to zoom in and it would be all catastrophic, now I zoom out and get a bit of perspective.
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
Question
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Craft & work
Question
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Failure & regret
Question
What is the worst job you have done?
Craft & work
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Verbatim recurring item in The Guardian Q&A; two fully readable publisher-hosted respondent pages establish institutional recurrence.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Shakespeare said, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” – I think that’s true.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 9 August 2025 source ↗
Others on this question
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Kellie Maloney
Retired boxing manager, promoter and politician
Choose your friends wisely.
Shinya Yamanaka
Stem cell biologist; Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, 2012
So I think failure is important in my career.
Tom Allen
British comedian
Never save anything for best.
More from Kevin Rowland
View profile →My brother Pete passing on in 2005.
Insanity. I am on a recovery programme – clean from drugs and drink for many years – and if I stopped doing all that stuff I’d go crazy pretty quick and pick up drugs again, because I was a real fucking addict.
The contentment I have now.
My dad said, “You’re going nowhere.” I was seven or eight.
I worked in the stores of Edgware hospital when I was about 17, and it was grey and depressing.
Gerry Adams, because he’s got incredible integrity and vision, and he’s had to put up with so much flak.
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