James Brown's Crisis Compass

For over a decade at BBC Newsnight, Sam McAlister secured the interviews others couldn't – Bill Clinton, Elon Musk, Stormy Daniels. But it was 13 months of negotiation that led to the conversation that changed everything: Prince Andrew discussing his ties to Jeffrey Epstein in 2019. The interview became a global news event, resulted in Andrew stepping back from royal duties, and is still making headlines six years later.In July 2021, Sam threw the dice, she gave up her BBC pension and security as a single mother in the middle of a pandemic to write a book. That gamble paid off. Her memoir Scoops became a bestseller and a Netflix film starring Gillian Anderson and Billie Piper. Today, Sam teaches negotiation at LSE and is one of Britain's most compelling voices on persuasion, power, and resilience.LESSONS YOU'LL LEARN:Don't get bitter, take control - When Sam wasn't getting credit for the Prince Andrew interview, she didn't whine or play victim. She took voluntary redundancy, wrote a book, and ended up with a Netflix deal and 30 million viewers watching Billie Piper play her.Imposter syndrome is mostly a crock - When you've worked hard and earned your place, confidence isn't arrogance – it's honesty.Build trust through respect, not manipulation - Sam's superpower wasn't sucking up to powerful people. It was treating them with respect while demanding it of herself. Know your financial bottom line before taking risks - Sam had three outcomes mapped before leaving the BBC. That clarity gave her the courage to leap.No one is dead – If you can't control it, suck it up. If you can, do something about it.

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.

Bitterness is the poison you drink expecting someone else to die. It's the corrosive emotion born from crisis that fills your throat with bile and consumes your every waking thought with questions like "why me?".In this special compilation episode, I've pulled together five extraordinary conversations with people who have every right to be bitter about what they've faced, but who have found their own methods of beating it back: Anthony Scaramucci, fired from the White House in 11 days while missing his son's birth and facing divorce; Amanda Knox, who served four years in an Italian prison for a murder she didn't commit; Mo Gawdat, former Google X exec who lost his son Ali to medical negligence; Lisa Squire, whose daughter Libby was tragically abducted, raped and murdered; and David Holmes, Harry Potter's stunt double who was paralysed from the waist down in an accident that should never have happened. LESSONS YOU'LL LEARN:Close the gap between "should" and "is" - Bitterness lives in the space between what ought to have happened and what actually did. Accept the world as it is, not as you think it should be.Shift from victimhood to agency - Work out what is in your control and what isn’t, then focus on the former.Pair emotional honesty with tiny steps forward - Feel everything, embrace it, sit in it - but understand that emotion alone changes nothing.Choose your narrative consciously - In any crisis, there are multiple stories you can tell. Choose those that dial up pride, purpose or perspective and dial down bitterness.Forgiveness is for you, not them - Holding onto blame and hate doesn't punish those who wronged you; it only prolongs your suffering.

Professor James Brown is an author, podcaster and ADHD expert. Burnout, and a Christmas day spent contemplating his own death led him to get a private ADHD diagnosis. The result helped him reframe his entire life. This is James Brown's Crisis Compass

Professor James Brown is an author, podcaster and ADHD expert. Burnout, and a Christmas day spent contemplating his own death led him to get a private ADHD diagnosis. The result helped him reframe his entire life. Expect an honest look at the realities of ADHD, bipolar, cyclothymia, binge-eating disorder, and chronic anhedonia – the inability to feel joy. James teaches us how to co-exist with your neurodivergence, while his productivity shows us how it can be deployed to your advantage. LESSONS YOU'LL LEARN:ADHD is a reason, never an excuse: understanding your condition gives you a lens to reframe your past, but it doesn't absolve you of responsibility. Consistent inconsistency is the reality:  with ADHD, you can be incredibly productive one day and unable to open your inbox the next. It’s a game of averages. Motivation often comes from fear, not passion: many with ADHD are driven by external deadlines and fear of letting others down rather than internal drive.You can create meaning without feeling joy: James proves that even without experiencing happiness, you can build a life of profound purpose and impact. Society fails neurodivergent people systematically: a third of male prisoners likely have ADHD. Early diagnosis and medication improve outcomes in every domain. The cost of not treating ADHD properly is £19 billion per year to the UK economy.Book:ADHD Unpacked https://www.amazon.co.uk/ADHD-Unpacked-Everything-survive-thrive/dp/1526679361Podcast: ADHD Adultshttps://theadhdadults.uk/

Richard Walker OBE could’ve stepped straight into the top job at Iceland Foods, but chose to prove himself first—building a property empire in Poland. But when his mother was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's Richard decided it was time to be closer to the family unit and join the business, starting at the very bottom stacking shelves in London stores. Since then, he's transformed Iceland into one of Britain's most pioneering retailers, removing palm oil from all own-brand products, launching radical campaigns on plastic and food poverty, and proposing that low-risk offenders serve their sentences working in Iceland stores rather than taking up valuable space in prison. This is Richard’s Crisis Compass.

In this second episode in our AI mini-series I met with Professor Gary Marcus live at the RAID conference in Brussels. Gary has been writing code since he was 10, built a Latin translation program at 16, and became a professor of psychology and neuroscience at NYU. He's founded AI startups, testified before the US Senate, authored multiple books including his latest: Taming Silicon Valley: How to Protect Our Jobs, Safety, and Society in the Age of AI, meanwhile his Substack has over 80,000 subscribers who rely on him to cut through the hype. When he warned that AI was heading toward catastrophe, Sam Altman called him a troll. Gary argues that large language models are a glorified autocomplete that hallucinate constantly. He also reveals why "P Doom" (probability of AI ending humanity) is overblown, but "P Dystopia" is approaching 100%. He explains why GPT-5 disappointed everyone, and why he believes we're witnessing the greatest theft of intellectual property in history. This is the conversation Silicon Valley doesn't want you to hear.LESSONS YOU'LL LEARN FROM GARY:P Dystopia is far more dangerous than P Doom. Forget AI ending humanity. Focus on the real threat: universal surveillance states, free misinformation, and the collapse of trust in truth itself.Large language models don't understand the world, they just predict what words come next. That's why they still hallucinate constantly and, in Gary’s opinion, will never achieve AGI.We're witnessing “the greatest data heist in history”. AI companies are training on all copyrighted material without paying a penny, with the ultimate aim of replacing everyone - including you.Democracies are under threat from AI-powered misinformation. Generative AI is the "machine gun of disinformation" - making it faster, cheaper, and pitch-perfect.Critical thinking is the only defense. In a world where misinformation is free to generate, teaching kids to question everything - especially AI output - is the most important skill we can develop.Taming Silicon Valley: How to Protect Our Jobs, Safety, and Society in the Age of AIhttps://www.amazon.co.uk/Taming-Silicon-Valley-Protect-Society/dp/0262551063His Substack Marcus on AI is available here:https://garymarcus.substack.com/

You’d think as the son of the founder Richard Walker OBE could have walked straight into the top job at Iceland Foods - the supermarket empire his parents built from a tiny shop in North Shropshire. Instead, he spent years building his own property empire in Poland, determined to prove himself on his own terms. But when his mother was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's Richard decided it was time to be closer to the family unit and join the business, starting at the very bottom stacking shelves in London stores - the best year of his life, he claims. Since then, he's transformed Iceland into one of Britain's most pioneering retailers, removing palm oil from all own-brand products, launching radical campaigns on plastic and food poverty, and proposing that low-risk offenders serve their sentences working in Iceland stores rather than taking up valuable space in prison. This is a masterclass in how to earn respect, and use business as a platform for change.LESSONS YOU'LL LEARN:Never ever ever ever give up - originally Richard’s father’s mantra that carried Iceland through countless crises. When kicked out of his own company, he started a rival chain that became his ticket back in. Tenacity isn't just admirable - it's essential.Prove yourself from the bottom up - Richard spent a year stacking shelves to earn his right to lead. The privilege of family succession means nothing without the respect of 30,000 employees who need to see you're one of them.There's a difference between delegation and abdication - leading 30,000 people requires trusting an amazing team while keeping your eye on the details. Effective leadership is knowing when to step back and when to dive in.Get comfortable being uncomfortable - whether it's climbing Everest with failing eyesight, lying next to a dead body at 29,000 feet, or building a business from scratch in Poland where you don't speak the language, growth lives outside your comfort zone. Embrace the risk.Appreciate what you already have - Chasing unicorns (like becoming an MP) can blind you to the platform you already possess. Richard realised Iceland gave him more power to drive change than any backbench seat ever could.

Gratitude is a mindset. It’s a tool that when deployed in crisis can be essential for reframing your narrative and your understanding. How we find gratitude in crisis, however, is not always obvious, nor is it easy. In this special episode I’ve looked back into our archive to find five extraordinary and unique situations where gratitude has been the difference between despair and resilience.Today’s episode features important learnings from Strictly dancer Amy Dowden; celebrity chef Jon Watts; the late tech-founder and philanthropist Stephanie Shirley; self-help powerhouse Paul Mckenna; and Falklands veteran Simon Weston. LESSONS YOU’LL LEARN:Gratitude + passion = purpose. When you're thankful for something you love, that gratitude transforms into determination that can push you through unimaginable pain.When there's nothing else to be thankful for, clarity can be all you need - A hard truth is better than no truth. Knowing the boundaries of your crisis stops the spiral and gives you a place to start.Even the most devastating experiences can transform you for the better. Crisis can deliver a resilience dividend, dismantling what doesn't serve you and building something more meaningful in its place.Deliberately notice what you have, not what's missing. You get more of what you focus on. Gratitude retrains your brain to see abundance instead of lack during crisis.Be grateful for the chance to contribute. After losing everything, gratitude can simply be thankfulness for time and ability to make a difference. Learn to like yourself for that, not despite your scars.

Alex Goldie grew up walking on eggshells in a violent, alcohol-fueled household where he became the family peacemaker - literally throwing pillows into rooms to break up fights. Today, with 2.5 million followers and a bestselling book, Alex is a force in the digital and mental health space.This is Alex's Crisis Compass.