Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Basketball player and author
Barack Obama has shown us how to be a politician guided by intelligence, integrity, and compassion.
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Question
What song would you like played at your funeral?
Death & what remains
Question
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Failure & regret
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
What most recently made you cry?
Identity & self
Question
Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?
Money & investment
Question
Which moment embarrassed you most?
Failure & regret
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's Q&A repeatedly uses this prompt, sometimes dropping 'living' while retaining the same comparative judgment.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
I love and admire Julia Roberts, one of our Running Wild guests, for the way she has a few close friends, is loyal to her family, doesn’t believe in all the fame stuff and can laugh at herself.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 24 January 2026 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 406 →
Paul Weller
English singer-songwriter and musician
David Attenborough, because he sticks to what he loves and is still passionate about it. God bless him.
Jaime Winstone
English actress
My Nanny Frances, my mum's mum.
Boris Becker
German tennis player, coach, and commentator
My sporting hero, Muhammad Ali.
More from Bear Grylls
View profile →The Bare Necessities.
My failures have taught me more than the successes, so not much.
When it’s just us as a family on our island hideaway in Wales.
Watching the movie Everest.
An apocalypse escape vessel – a steel hull ice-capable sailing boat for all the family that has almost zero electronics and is manual operation throughout – armed with an array of weaponry.
Holding the hand of some random lady at an airport who I mistook for my wife, Shara.
More on values & belief
- What is the trait you most deplore in others? 197 answers
- What is something everyone in your world agrees about that you think is wrong? 79 answers
- What are you unwilling to optimise? 30 answers
- What have you come to understand about what it means to be human? 14 answers
- What is the most overrated virtue? 10 answers
- What do you need to believe in order to get through the day? 9 answers
Also answered this
Erin O'Connor, Bryan Ferry, Adwoa Aboah, Tony Ross, Dan Aykroyd, Nicholas Hoult
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All values & belief questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject