Bear Grylls: If you could revise one chapter of your past, what would you change?

The question

If you could revise one chapter of your past, what would you change?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

Repeated verbatim in The Guardian's long-running Saturday Q&A; two publisher-hosted examples establish recurrence.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Bear Grylls

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

My failures have taught me more than the successes, so not much.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 October 2015 source ↗

Others on this question

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Philip Gould Political strategist and pollster; architect of New Labour

When I thought maybe I've just got a few weeks, I thought God this is what they mean by the reckoning. I've got to sort all this stuff out in days. Is it possible to sort out all those things in your past that you'd prefer not to have done? ... But actually by going through the process we've gone through, I think we have. And it's a real blessing to have this time do that.

Recorded Simon Hattenstone, The Guardian, interview at Gould's home in London, 20 September 2011 source ↗

Noah Harari Israeli historian and philosopher

I would like to come out at 16 or 17, and not 21.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 October 2021 source ↗

Esther Rantzen

Maybe I should have agreed to take the job of controller of BBC One when Bill Cotton offered it to me. I do feel a wimp; I would have been the first woman in the job.What do you consider your greatest achievement? I don’t really claim credit, I hope, for helping to launch Childline and the Silver Line and Silver Stories. It is an achievement that they all exist, but that is down to their amazing teams.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 17 February 2024 source ↗

Richard Coles British musician, writer, presenter and priest

My financial incompetence.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 10 June 2023 source ↗