Climb Your Mountain Everyday lessons from an extraordinary life

'Life is too short to waste time on second-class ambitions. Go for the big ones.'

Now in his late seventies, Sir Ranulph Fiennes looks back on a lifetime of exploration, and draws powerful, inspiring lessons that we can all use when faced by the tribulations of everyday life.

Having crossed both Polar ice caps on foot, climbed Everest and the Eiger, served in the SAS and circumnavigated the world along its polar axis - a 53,000 mile odyssey that has never been repeated - 'Ran' looks back from the summit of an incredible life and teaches us how to:

- Learn self-discipline, and master fear
- Plan for success, and make your own luck
- Learn from failure and strive to succeed
- Keep going, whatever life throws at you

Sir Ranulph Fiennes was the first person to reach both poles by surface travel and the first to cross the Antarctic Continent unsupported. In the 1960s he was removed from the SAS Regiment for misuse of explosives but, after joining the army of the Sultan of Oman, received that country's Bravery Medal on active service in 1971. He is the only person yet to have been awarded two clasps to the Polar medal for both Antarctic and the Arctic regions. Fiennes has led over thirty expeditions, including the first polar circumnavigation of the Earth, and in 2003 he ran seven marathons in seven days on seven continents in aid of the British Heart Foundation. In 1993 Her Majesty the Queen awarded Fiennes the Order of the British Empire (OBE) because, on the way to breaking records, he has raised over £14 million for charity. He was named Best Sportsman in the 2007 ITV Great Briton Awards and in 2009 he became the oldest Briton to reach the summit of Everest.