Paul Sloane

They'd say, oh, the cleaner didn't clean out the Petri dish.

I'm going to have to do it myself.

But he was intrigued.

And this is one of the key messages in the book.

It's no good having these accidents unless you're prepared to act on them and see them as information and opportunity rather than as an inconvenience and an annoyance.

And when he studied it, he discovered something which was resistant to bacteria.

He stumbled on penicillin by accident.

Well, you don't.

You have to abandon this concept of control and planning and certainty.

We tend to think that our life is going to be planned and progress in a straightforward fashion.

If we work hard at school, we'll get good grades, we'll get to university, we'll get a good job, we'll progress up the career ladder.

But life's not like that.

Life is full of unexpected occurrences.

And most older people, if they look back and they're honest, they'll say that many of the most interesting things that happened to them in life were the result of an accident or something unexpected.

They were made redundant from one position and it turned out to be the best thing.

They started a business.

It didn't work, but they stumbled on something else.

They met their future partner by accident.

And it's very, very common.

And so the idea that you can plan for success is...