How does one man make a global hit out of cars, then do it again with sheep? The answer isn't Jeremy Clarkson. Meet Andy Wilman, the school friend who rebuilt Top Gear from a dead show into the most watched factual programme on the planet and stayed out of shot the whole time.

In this episode Dan pulls seven lessons from how Wilman works:

Sell the people, not the product. Make them feel something, don't just tell them something. Leave the rough edges in. Give it time. Treat the obstacles as the game. Build something people talk about. And build a team of people who aren't like you.

Plus the deeper point behind them all: why your best mentor might not be famous at all. They might be the person behind the scenes that everyone else walks straight past.

Mentioned in this episode: Mr Wilman's Motoring Adventure by Andy Wilman, Top Gear, Clarkson's Farm.

If this episode made you think of someone, send it to them with a note that says thought of you. That's how mentorship travels.

Take It From a Mentor is made byhttps://tenmentors.com/https://tenmentors.com/, the home of mentoring music: original albums built to mentor you through the inner critic, collaboration, and the challenges work throws at you. We make mentoring tools for the people every workplace depends on and every workplace often overlooks. If someone on your team deserves a mentor, that's what the Ten Mentors box is for. Find it at tenmentors.com.

New episode every other Tuesday. Follow so you don't miss one. And remember: that was advice worth stealing.

What kind of home did you grow up in? It's a question most people have never been properly asked. And yet the answer to it shapes almost everything. How you handle conflict. How you receive love. How you speak to yourself when things go wrong. How much you trust people. How comfortable you are with success. How you show up in relationships and at work and in the quiet moments when nobody is watching.

In this episode Dan talks about inherited misery. Not inherited money and not inherited success. Inherited emotional pain. The kind that gets passed down through families without anyone meaning to, from one generation to the next, until somebody finally notices it and decides to do something about it.

Because a lot of people are walking around with reactions they don't fully understand, patterns that keep repeating, a voice in their head that was never really theirs to begin with. And they think that's just who they are. But a lot of the time it isn't who they are. It's what they were handed before they were old enough to question it.

Dan shares his own story honestly. Growing up with a mother in survival mode, a home filled with criticism and emotional chaos, and the long slow process of understanding the chain before finally deciding to break it. From burning pages of anger and resentment in the garden to doing the real work of therapy, self reflection and choosing differently, this is a conversation about what healing actually looks like when it isn't dramatic or clean or instant.

It also goes into how inherited misery follows you out the door. Into the relationships that feel uncomfortably familiar. Into the workplace patterns that look like personality but are actually survival responses still running long after the danger has passed. And into the complicated question of what you do with the people who caused it, who are usually not monsters but wounded human beings who never got the help they needed either.

This episode won't tell you your family was perfect and it won't tell you to cut everyone off. It will ask you to look clearly at what you were handed, understand it as human rather than purely personal, and consider the most powerful thing anyone from a difficult background can ever do. Decide that the pain stops travelling through them.

One emotionally healthy person can change the direction of an entire family line. This episode is for anyone ready to be that person.

Why do people stay silent when they know something is wrong? Why do workplaces, institutions and even ordinary people sometimes protect powerful people instead of confronting harmful behaviour?

In this episode, Dan explores sexual harassment, silence, status, reputation and what he calls “The Golden Egg Syndrome”, the human tendency to protect people who bring money, influence, success or attention, even when serious concerns surround them.

From workplaces and offices to celebrity culture and public scandals, this is a deep conversation about power, accountability, fear, human psychology and the uncomfortable reasons people often look the other way. Most importantly, how do we recognise these patterns in our own lives and what should we actually do when we see them happening around us?

Some people are not better — they were better guided. In this episode, we explore why growth is often shaped by environment, support, confidence, and opportunity more than talent alone, and what to do if you had to learn the hard way.

Why constantly consuming self-help advice, podcasts and people telling you to change this and fix that can actually keep you stuck. In this episode Dan looks at how the hamster wheel of constant reinvention affects your career and confidence, and why mastering one craft over time beats always starting over.

Most people believe they think for themselves. But if you look closely, much of what we believe, say, and do is shaped by the world around us — expectations, trends, and the need to fit in.

In this episode, we unpack and do a deep dive on Emersons Essay on Self-Reliance and why its message still feels uncomfortable today. Emerson challenges the idea of conformity and pushes a simple but difficult question: are you actually living by your own thoughts, or just repeating what you’ve been told?

We share our honest take on where self-reliance still holds up, where it feels difficult in modern life, and what it really means to trust yourself in a world full of noise.

If you’ve ever felt pulled in different directions or unsure which voice to follow, this one is worth a listen.

Adult friendships don’t always last the way we expect them to. People come into your life, and then slowly move out of it. Some you lose touch with. Some you barely hear from anymore. And some disappear completely.

And if you think about it too much, it can really get to you. You start wondering if you did something wrong. Why it faded. Why you didn’t stay in touch.

In this episode, I share a different way of looking at it.

“I came across this poem called The Train of Life… and it changed how I see friendships completely…” Instead of one “train of life,” I see friendships more like a railway network. Different lines, different directions. Some people stay on your train for years. Others are only there for a short part of the journey. And sometimes, you’re the one who gets off.

This is about understanding that change doesn’t mean failure.

It means movement. And maybe the goal isn’t to hold onto everyone. Maybe it’s to travel and experience well.

And if you're interesting check out our mission and story at https://tenmentors.com/mentoring-mission/

Watching an orchestra perform Spring 1 by Max Richter changed the way I think about cooperation. Dozens of musicians, different ages, different backgrounds, each playing a different part, yet together creating something extraordinary. In this episode we explore what that moment reveals about society, leadership, teams, and why harmony appears when people stop trying to dominate and start listening to one another. Sometimes the most powerful lessons are not found in books or theories but in moments we can see and hear for ourselves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLDvbnK_Sqk

Check out our mission on https://tenmentors.com/

After years of chasing productivity — hour-long workouts, endless task lists, and constant pressure — Dan realised something surprising: more effort wasn’t creating better results. In this episode he shares the system that replaced burnout with consistency — 25-minute workouts and two meaningful tasks per day. The result? More progress, less stress, and the freedom to actually enjoy life while still moving forward.

We’re told that happiness lives at the top. The promotion. The book deal. The medal. The number in the bank account. The moment you can finally say, “I’ve made it.”

But what if that’s a myth?

In this episode, Dan explores why our biggest victories often feel strangely empty not long after we achieve them. From publishing a book and expecting a permanent internal shift, to watching Olympic athletes return to normal life just days after standing on the podium, this is a conversation about why “arrival” doesn’t deliver what we think it will.

We talk about social comparison, invisible debt behind visible success, the pressure of curated lives online, and the quiet trap of delaying happiness until everything lines up perfectly.

And most importantly — what replaces that mindset.

Because maybe happiness isn’t about reaching a summit.

Maybe it’s about evolving, deliberately and consistently, year after year.

Borrow what helps and leave the rest.