Ivan Lendl
Czech and American tennis player
I always wanted to play tennis. Otherwise, I always thought it would be fun to do something in mathematics or physics.
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Question
What is the worst job you have done?
Craft & work
Question
What does love feel like?
Relationships
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
What song would you like played at your funeral?
Death & what remains
Question
How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
This is a standing question in The Guardian's decades-long The Q&A and also recurs independently in career and life interviews.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Prime minister and brain surgeon.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 June 2018 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 204 →I was a huge daydreamer and imagined myself as a successful general leading his troops into battle.
Kim Wilde
English pop singer
A pop star: I loved music from a very young age.
Belinda Carlisle
American singer
A travel agent, so I could see the world.
More from Robert Peston
View profile →Cleaning the freezer room at Bejam as a Saturday job, aged 13.
Being completely still.
With my late wife, Siân Busby, and our boys, Max and Simon, on assorted Welsh and English beaches, in sunshine and rain – especially when there was a Punch and Judy show on the prom.
Maybe I’m Amazed, by Paul McCartney.
Being driven across the Atlas Mountains in a snowstorm 25 years ago, by a local taxi driver who plainly put a lower premium on the advantages of living than me.
I am rarely disappointed. I try to make the best of things.
More on identity & self
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