What advice would you give your twenty-year-old self, and what should they ignore?
Recorded Margaret Thatcher said elsewhere, not written here
You never follow the crowd. You work things out for yourself. And therefore if you think differently from the crowd, you must put your own view and try to get people taking your line. But you never follow the crowd. You never do things just because other people are doing them.

Chris Ogden, Time magazine, No. 10 Downing Street, Margaret Thatcher Foundation, from Thatcher MSS (Churchill Archive Centre), 16 January 1989 source ↗

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Reid Hoffman Co-founder of LinkedIn; partner at Greylock Partners
The challenge of a big, over-arching vision is that it's hard to know where to start. And your biggest opportunity will change from year to year. Technology changes. Competition changes. You change. My advice: Just start. Find a single unmet need that nudges the world closer to where you believe it's going. And if you hit a dead end, pivot.
Recorded Hoffman's own Medium publication, Reid Hoffman on Medium source ↗
Siya Kolisi South Africa international rugby union flanker and captain
I think I wouldn't have made it if I didn't go through those struggles but that still doesn't make it right for kids to have to go through the past that I went through.
Recorded Red Bull, 8 November 2019 source ↗
Sylvia Earle Marine biologist and oceanographer; first woman to serve as Chief Scientist of NOAA
They encouraged me, the way I do others now, that if you really have something that you like to do, that’s what you probably should do. Despite what everybody says, that you can’t make a living, or that’s not practical, or a thousand reasons why you may not do this or this or this. If that’s what your heart says you should do, chances are that you ought to listen.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, 27 January 1991 source ↗
Richard Ford Novelist and short-story writer
Marry somebody you love and who thinks you being a writer’s a good idea.
Recorded The Guardian Review, 20 February 2010 source ↗

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Question Which book changed the way you think, and what did it change? Taste & recommendation
C. S. Lewis - his works were very, very important during my time there. We had discussion groups. I did become more attracted to it although I still attended the Methodist church. If you read Lewis. Then until this day, he did the lectures, something like christian behaviour and 'the screwtape letters', and we were all discussing them. I thought some of his work was the most illuminating to people reaching out to christianity because you're always questioning particularly at that age and you're looking for reassurance and for answers. Indeed you go on questioning throughout your life.
Recorded Chris Ogden, Time magazine, No. 10 Downing Street, Margaret Thatcher Foundation, from Thatcher MSS (Churchill Archive Centre), 16 January 1989 source ↗
Question What does the first sixty minutes of your day look like? Daily life
I'm not up at 6 am. I start listening to the incoming news at 6 am. I'm not up until 7. By then I've heard the agricultural news, the news and financial news and listening to radio. Lying in bed relaxing. Quite busy after one has got up. There's quite a lot to put away from the night before, last night's papers to finish off, getting up and seeing what I have for the day. And just getting my thoughts in order for the day. I have very little breakfast. It tends to be a rather busy time because there's a rather lot going on.
Recorded Chris Ogden, Time magazine, No. 10 Downing Street, Margaret Thatcher Foundation, from Thatcher MSS (Churchill Archive Centre), 16 January 1989 source ↗

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