Matt Padwick

"We can spend this precious life making our bubble lovelier – or we can stick a pin in it."

In 1990 Matt Padwick left university none-the-wiser and spent a decade globe-trotting as an Adventure Travel Guide before arriving at a Tibetan Buddhist meditation centre in south-west Ireland, where he surprised everybody (but mostly himself) by entering a two-year closed retreat. After the retreat he joined the staff and then managed the centre for ten years until 2013.

Matt has written two autobiographical novels; "RUNNING CONTRA DICTION - and the flight of a soul athlete" (2015) and "TRANSPOSE - a self-styled revolution" (2017) which explore the insecurity that powered a life of extreme sport and wilderness adventure, and the moments of pure mind and perfect balance that made it addictive. With planet-sized humour and wry vision he scales some of the big questions of his generation.