In this bestselling autobiography, he talks with brutal honesty about the roots of his family life that defined his character and how it gave him the strength to emerge from the lowest moment in his career to lift the Webb Ellis Cup, and become the most successful captain world rugby has ever seen. Dan's red-head response is to freeze, and in rugby games he would slap himself on the leg to remind himself to keep a blue head.

Some of the greatest moments of your life will be when you hold your nerve in a crisis, so learning better ways to do it is always time well spent.With an equal measure of honesty, he reflects on the lows of his career, speaking frankly of the mental anguish he felt after twice being invalided out of Rugby world cups. Even if your life is lower stakes than playing international rugby and being very much in the public eye, this is just a lovely and relatable sentiment.

And I loved the social diversity: the fact that everyone can play the game - different shapes, sizes, religions; boys and girls, old and young. Dan says he wouldn’t be the man he is today if it wasn’t for difficulties and setbacks along the way. With the “no individual is bigger than the team” as a core value, he did this in the best interests of the team.

I loved the value of always wanting to give back to the game: grassroots rugby, repurposing community rugby, youth rugby. Dan says it may mean saying no to things in your life that are going to potentially get in the way of achieving your main goals. In this chapter, Dan counsels leaders to develop their own leadership style and make it unique to them. Luminous, elegant, haunting - I read it straight through' Philippe Sands, author of East West Street.

I’d worked with some of the top mental skills coaches in the world, but always on the pursuit of greatness in the rugby environment: never on the small matter of what I was planning on doing with the rest of my life after rugby. Dan says that if “The Art of Winning” is about anything, it’s about being able to win those battles with your mind. Reading this book left me in an interesting place, not least because I closed it realising that I had almost no cutting insights to offer. However, I walked away from this book with some great common sense things laid out more directly and simply than my brain would ever allow me to do.Sir Ernest Shackleton's attempt to traverse the Antarctic was cut short when his ship, Endurance, became trapped in ice. Hidden and raised by a foster family in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation, she survived the war only to find that her real parents had not. How should we respond when confidence is eclipsed by doubt, when circumstances get the better of us, when setbacks derail us? As the 2023 Rugby World Cup goes into the finals, it's worth pausing to think about what happens to rugby players when they hang up their boots.

But it is still a huge social adjustment to make to my perceived “normal” life - similar to what I imagine those in the armed forces make when they retire from service. He watched that victory from the sidelines, as he had the All Blacks' defeats in two previous tournaments. Then there was the spirit of rugby: to go to war for 80 minutes and build friendships after - some of my best friends now are opponents from my playing days.So now, more than ever, managers must prioritise the wellbeing of their employees, especially if they are working as hybrid/remote teams. It’s about being able to strive for something where success is never guaranteed, where pressure and doubt come with the territory. Somehow, he has managed to satisfy multiple audiences and provided a book that could be a manual for both personal development and team development in a business environment, simultaneously providing a fascinating insight into the development of excellence by identifying how the All Blacks approached it over the last 20 years. And, it’s about striving to get that little big better every day, without becoming overwhelmed by the outcome. And so began a process that is still ongoing in my life, a process that has forced me to look inwardly in a way I’ve never had to before, that has proven challenging, frustrating, rewarding and left me full of gratitude.