Here's a wee bit about me.

After completing my PhD in organic chemistry, I worked in R&D in the pharmaceutical industry, developing drugs for cardiovascular disease and cancer. Inspired by the placebo effect, and how some people's conditions would improve because they believed a placebo was a real drug, I left the industry to write books and educate people in how they can harness their mind and emotions to improve their mental and physical health.

I'm author of 12 books, including 'The Joy of Actually Giving a F*ck', 'The Five Side Effects of Kindness', 'How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body', 'I Heart Me: The Science of Self-Love', and 'Why Woo-Woo Works'. I'm also a magazine columnist, a regular podcast guest, and have been a featured guest on Channel 4's, 'Sunday Brunch Live' in the UK and CBS Sunday Morning in the USA, as well as on numerous BBC radio shows.

I'm a regular speaker in both the public and corporate sector. I've delivered talks for Google, 3M, Bank of England, HSBC, NHS, Electrolux, Diageo, Costa, and many others.

And I'm the honorary scientific advisor for the charity, 52 Lives, which helps people in need through acts of kindness.

I'm an advocate for kindness and work passionately to inspire a kinder world.

Here's a few kinda fun facts very few people know about me:

  • I used to be lead singer in a 14-piece amateur soul band.
  • Several years ago, I unofficially held a memory world record for memorising the order of a deck of 52 playing cards (in just under 2 minutes). My party trick was memorising a 100-digit number in about the same time. Haha - exciting parties! LOL (I have an on-demand workshop on how to do this that's available to members of Personal Development Club).
  • I play competitive tennis. I suppose that's expected when you live in the same town that Andy and Jamie Murray (former world number 1 tennis players) grew up in.
  • I co-founded an international relief charity with some friends back in 2001 (Spirit Aid Foundation)
  • I'm a former athletics coach (long jump and triple jump) and I managed the Junior Men's team of Sale Harriers Athletics Club from 1996-1999, leading them to 3 successive UK championship finals.
  • Among many other jobs I've done over the years since I left the corporate world, I've been a bartender, a charity volunteer, a delivery driver, and I've taught chemistry and ecology at a local college to earn money while I wrote my first book.
  • Even though I'm a writer now, I failed my English exam on my first attempt at high school.
  • I love learning new things so I'm always studying something. I'm currently nearing the end of a part-time degree in mathematics and physics, which I do in my spare time. I'm learning, among other things, the mathematical basis of quantum mechanics.
  • My PhD thesis was on: "Synthesis and reactivity of pi-allycyclopentadienyl cobaltolactone complexes" ... phew! :-) Haha ... I couldn't resist throwing that in at the end.
  • My most recent publication is 'The Biology of Heroism', which was published in the Encyclopaedia of Heroism Studies in 2023.