I have never really been one for self-improvement. Sure, I’ve got my faults (where do I start?), but hey, I’m still a (vaguely) functioning member of society. Why change? For those of us happily stuck in our ways, the pressure is unfortunately mounting to better ourselves. It’s now all but impossible to amble into a bookshop without being confronted with a new self-help tome to “maximise YOUR productivity”, or to scour YouTube without a video thumbnail urging you to “motivate yourself to WIN”. All of which, on reflection, I could probably do with.

Enter the hard-but-posh adventurer Bear Grylls, who joined the self-help “space” in 2023 with an app called Mettle, billed as “the world’s first toolkit for men’s minds”. You can tell it’s marketed at alpha males like Grylls (as opposed to bottom feeders like me) because of the emphasis on mental fitness rather than health. My body is so unfit, I dread to think what state my brain’s in. But seeing as I at least qualify, as a bloke – albeit of the beta variety – I thought: why not give it a whirl?

Now, I like Grylls. I once asked him: “You happily eat goat testicles, yak eyeballs, camel intestines and elephant dung. Should one be wary of the vol-au-vents and canapés at your drinks parties?” “Well, nobody comes to my drinks parties if they think I’m cooking,” he replied. Though I did worry about him after his recent escapade........

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