RELAUNCH RORY STEWART: On his love for risk and a battle with bitterness
This is a relaunch of a previous episode, but the lessons contained within it are as important today as they were when we sat down to speak over two years ago.
Rory Stewart has spent his life running toward gunfire. At thirty, he was governing millions of Iraqis under siege, rockets landing in his compound while insurgents climbed the walls. Years earlier, he'd walked six thousand miles across Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and India – surviving on strangers' floors, dodging bullets, and at one point sitting down in the snow ready to freeze to death until his dog Babur barked him back to life. Then he tried to fix British politics from the inside – becoming Prisons Minister, running for Prime Minister, and standing as an Independent for London Mayor before Covid cancelled the election seven weeks out and ended his political career. Today he's the force behind the podcasting phenomenon The Rest Is Politics – currently touring the country giving erudite political commentary.
While his most recent book, Middleland, launched last month (October 2025), draws on pieces originally written for a local newspaper when he was serving as an MP in Cumbria, it is an urgent and inspiring portrait of rural Britain today.
LESSONS YOU'LL LEARN:
- Permission to fail breeds confidence - Rory's father set impossibly high expectations while making him feel it was okay to fail. That paradox became the foundation for handling extreme crisis without paralysis.
- Beware thinking in clichés during crisis - Under siege in Iraq, Rory evacuated civilians into an ambush because he fell into a "women and children first" narrative. When you're living the movie version instead of the real version, you make dangerous decisions.
- Animals are crisis teachers - Babur the dog saved Rory's life by refusing to let him give up in the snow. Animals approach the world with courage, presence, and forgiveness.
- Bitterness is backwards motion - After being defeated by Boris Johnson, Rory struggled with anger. Whenever you have bitter days, you always go backwards. It's not just bad for you – it's terrible for everyone around you.
- Test yourself before crisis finds you - By voluntarily embracing discomfort and risk when you don't have to, you build the capacity to handle it when you must.
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