Hard-earned lessons from people who've faced the worst and come back stronger.
Hosted by Andy Coulson. Follow for weekly insights into the art of the rebuild.
Crisis What Crisis? is powered by Kingsley Napley — the lawyers you want in your corner when the pressure is on. Visit kingsleynapley.co.uk
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Sir Richard Dearlove is one of the world’s greatest living spymasters. He joined MI6 in 1966 at the age of 21, and over nearly four decades ran agents under intense Cold War surveillance in Nairobi, Prague, Paris, Geneva and Washington, before rising in 1999 to become Chief of the Service — the role known simply as C. His five years at the top were among the most turbulent in the Service’s history: his headquarters was struck by a rocket, 9/11 remade the global security landscape, and Britain went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Since leaving the shadows, Sir Richard has built a second, very public life — Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge, business adviser, outspoken commentator, and co-host of the hugely successful foreign-affairs podcast One Decision.
In this conversation, Andy Coulson lifts the bonnet, as far as Sir Richard will allow, on the experiences that formed him, the decisions that defined him, and the lessons a lifetime in intelligence can offer the rest of us.
POWERED BY KINGSLEY NAPLEY
I know what it is to have the right legal support around you when facing a crisis. Kingsley Napley are the kind of lawyers I wish more people knew about – there to help you make the right decisions, protect what matters, and build real resilience when the pressure is on. This episode is powered by Kingsley Napley. Visit www.kingsleynapley.co.uk for more details.
FOUR LESSONS FROM RICHARD
Grasp your opportunities – don’t wait for luck. A successful career isn’t handed to you by chance. It comes from spotting the opening when it appears, and trusting your instinct for how to handle it.
Build a team you can trust. Pick dependable, loyal, focused people, lean on them, and let them carry the weight.
Self-pity gets you nowhere. The Dearlove family creed was simple: you get on with life. Whatever you’re facing, someone has faced worse and carried on.
The most dangerous problems don’t arrive with a bang; they build quietly while no one's looking. Start putting them right today, not when it’s too late.
CHAPTERS
07:15 – What resilience really means to a spymaster
08:54 – His father: an amputee who won Olympic silver on crutches
11:50 – Boarding school at four, and the making of a tough character
13:18 – The tap on the shoulder: joining MI6 at 21
18:58 – Prague: a life lived under constant surveillance
21:07 – Running a double agent behind the Iron Curtain
24:36 – How to read who holds up under pressure – and who cracks
28:03 – Becoming C
30:22 – The rocket attack on MI6
33:36 – 9/11: a shock, but not a surprise
39:07 – Iraq, the intelligence, and his quarrel with Chilcot
42:10 – Leaving the Service
46:51 – Russia, China and the end of the rules-based order
Reverend Richard Coles has lived multiple lives — pop star, priest, broadcaster, novelist. But the greatest crisis of his life came in the form of someone he loved deeply.
Richard watched helplessly as his partner David grappled with an addiction that cost David his job, his licence from the bishop, and ultimately his life.
In this bonus episode of Crisis What Crisis, I sit down with Richard to discuss his Crisis Compass. The four points of navigation that he turns to in order to help survive a crisis – a person, a habit, a comfort and a piece of advice.
If you haven’t heard the full conversation yet — his journey from pop star to priest, the AIDS epidemic that shaped his generation, his years with David, and what he’s learned about hope in the aftermath of loss — go back and find it in the feed. It’s well worth your time.
POWERED BY KINGSLEY NAPLEY:
I know what it is to have the right legal support around you when facing crisis. Kingsley Napley are the kind of lawyers I wish more people knew about – there to help you make the right decisions, protect what matters and build real resilience when the pressure is on.
00:50 A Person – His circle of friends since his teenage years, now neighbours on the South Coast.
01:23 A Habit – Singing. Every Tuesday in the Brighton Festival Chorus.
01:49 A Comfort – Cooking. The whole ritual, start to finish — yes, including the washing up
02:31 A Piece of Advice – From a friend’s motto: “Be authentic and engage.” Work out who you are. Step into the world.
BUY RICHARD’S BOOK
A Carol and a Killing –
REVEREND RICHARD COLES: Beginning Again When the Life You Knew Is Taken Away
Season 7 · Episode 208
Tuesday, October 13, 2026 • Duration 54:16
Few people have lived as many lives as Richard Coles. In the 1980s he was the keyboard-playing half of the Communards, whose “Don’t Leave Me This Way” was the biggest-selling single of 1986 – taking him, almost overnight, from the dole queue to flying aboard Concorde and the full pop-star life.
Then, the gay socialist atheist who set out, in all seriousness, to bring down the government through the power of pop, became, of all things, a Church of England priest. Then a celebrated broadcaster, a best-selling novelist, a Strictly contestant, and the inspiration for the BBC sitcom Rev.
But behind the reinventions runs a thread of profound loss. As AIDS swept through his world in the 1980s, Richard watched a third of his circle die – the formative crisis, he says, of his adult life. At 17, before any of the fame, he survived a breakdown and an overdose he fully intended to be his last act. And decades later came the greatest loss of all: his partner David.
In this conversation, Andy Coulson explores a life in which crisis has repeatedly been the doorway to transformation – and what Richard has learned about loss, faith, forgiveness, and how we begin again when the life we knew is taken from us. His latest crime novella, A Carol and a Killing, is out this month.
POWERED BY KINGSLEY NAPLEY
I know what it is to have the right legal support around you when facing crisis. Kingsley Napley are the kind of lawyers I wish more people knew about – there to help you make the right decisions, protect what matters, and build real resilience when the pressure is on. This episode is powered by Kingsley Napley. Visitwww.kingsleynapley.co.uk for more details.
FOUR LESSONS FROM RICHARD
Sometimes you just have to step forward. You may be uncertain, apprehensive, but stepping forward, into the unknown, is how a new chapter begins. Crises are unavoidable; the opportunity is in not being defeated by them.
When you get something badly wrong, face it, own it, make amends – and then let yourself be forgiven. Richard did a thing he remains ashamed of. What mattered wasn’t that he deserved forgiveness, but that he sought it, took his medicine, and learned to live with having been forgiven.
JO TUTCHENER SHARP'S CRISIS COMPASS
Season 7 · Episode 207
Tuesday, October 6, 2026 • Duration 08:27
Jo Tutchener Sharp is the founder of fashion brand Scamp & Dude. In 2015, with two young boys at home, she suffered a brain haemorrhage and was told she needed major, life-saving surgery. Faced as she saw it with the pearly gates, she felt regret that her positive impact on the world had not been significant enough — so she made herself a promise. If she survived, she would change all that...
In this bonus episode of Crisis What Crisis, I sit down with Jo to discuss her Crisis Compass. The four points of navigation that she turns to in order to help survive a crisis – a person, a habit, a comfort and a piece of advice.
Our full conversation was recorded live at the BizFest Festival in Essex. If you haven't heard it yet, go back and find it in the feed. It's well worth your time.
POWERED BY KINGSLEY NAPLEY:
I know what it is to have the right legal support around you when facing crisis. Kingsley Napley are the kind of lawyers I wish more people knew about – there to help you make the right decisions, protect what matters and build real resilience when the pressure is on.
This episode is powered by Kingsley Napley, visit www.kingsleynapley.co.uk for more details.
CHAPTERS:
01:29 A Person – Her husband Rob, business partner and the man who literally saved her life in a hospital room
03:55 A Habit – Paddle every morning. At the club she's not Scamp & Dude Jo, she's Paddle Jo
05:10 A Comfort – A hot bubble bath with the door locked, and cold-water lake swims — being in water
05:50 A Piece of Advice – Stay positive. Good things can come from bad things, if your mind is open to it
JO TUTCHENER SHARP: I faced the pearly gates and felt regret
Season 7 · Episode 206
Tuesday, September 29, 2026 • Duration 30:20
Recorded live at BizFest in Essex, this is the story of how a near-death moment became a £16 million business.
Jo Tutchener Sharp had built a successful career – running the beauty division of Purple PR, leading communications at Estée Lauder, then founding her own agency, Beauty Scene, and growing it to a turnover of around £5 million. In 2015, with two young boys at home, she decided to step away. But the stress of the exit took a physical toll, and shortly afterwards she suffered a brain haemorrhage that could bleed again at any moment, with potentially fatal consequences.
Facing what she calls her "pearly gates" moment, Jo was overwhelmed not by fear but by regret – the feeling that, were she to die tomorrow, she would not have made a big enough mark on the world.
So Jo made herself a promise: if she survived, she would dedicate the rest of her life to doing good. Just eleven months after brain surgery, Scamp & Dude was born, a clothing brand with purpose stitched into its heart. Today Scamp & Dude turns over £16 million a year, has donated 4.5 million products to charitable causes, and given more than 95,000 scarves to women starting chemotherapy. For her work Jo was awarded an OBE for services to fashion and charity.
In this business episode, Andy Coulson explores how Jo turned a life-threatening crisis into a moment of opportunity, and what it really takes to build a brand where purpose, family and commercial success pull in the same direction.
POWERED BY KINGSLEY NAPLEY
I know what it is to have the right legal support around you when facing crisis. Kingsley Napley are the kind of lawyers I wish more people knew about – there to help you make the right decisions, protect what matters, and build real resilience when the pressure is on. This episode is powered by Kingsley Napley. Visit www.kingsleynapley.co.uk for more details.
FOUR LESSONS FROM JO
Take the calculated risk, not the leap of faith. Jo lined up five clients and £25,000 a month in fees before she resigned from Estée Lauder. De-risk the jump before you make it.
MIKE SOUTAR'S CRISIS COMPASS
Season 7 · Episode 206
Tuesday, September 22, 2026 • Duration 06:05
Mike Soutar is an entrepreneur, publishing titan and the forensic interviewer familiar to millions from BBC’s The Apprentice.
In this bonus episode of Crisis What Crisis, Mike shares the four points of personal navigation he relies on when life gets hard: a person, a habit, a comfort and a single piece of advice.
If you haven’t heard our full conversation yet, go back and find it in the feed. It’s packed with hard-earned lessons about risk, resilience and leadership.
POWERED BY KINGSLEY NAPLEY
I know what it is to have the right legal support around you when facing crisis. Kingsley Napley are the kind of lawyers I wish more people knew about – there to help you make the right decisions, protect what matters and build real resilience when the pressure is on.
MIKE SOUTAR: The Apprentice star on the real ingredients for success
Season 7 · Episode 205
Tuesday, September 15, 2026 • Duration 01:10:03
Millions know Mike Soutar as the forensic interviewer on The Apprentice, the Scottish voice across the boardroom table for the last 15 years. But long before the television, he built one of the most remarkable careers in British media – on a deceptively simple formula of hard work, optimism and self-belief.
In this business episode, we go back to the beginning. Mike started out at 17 writing horoscopes and romantic fiction at DC Thomson in Dundee, working on hot metal presses with a pencil he wasn't allowed to replace until it was a stub. By his early 20s he was editing Smash Hits. He went on to turn FHM into the biggest-selling monthly magazine in Britain, launched some of the country's best-known titles, and sat on the board of IPC when it was sold to Time Warner for more than £1 billion.
But the biggest turning point of his career came not in a boardroom, but in a hospital bed. In 2006, at the height of his corporate success, a chicken Caesar wrap left him seriously ill, his organs beginning to fail, unsure whether he'd survive. Lying there, he asked himself whether he had ever really tested himself — and the honest answer was no. So he walked away from the security of corporate life, raised £4 million in five weeks, remortgaged his home and launched ShortList.
His new book, Next Gen CEO, is about how the next generation of leaders can navigate an age of AI and uncertainty by becoming, of all things, more human.
POWERED BY KINGSLEY NAPLEY
I know what it is to have the right legal support around you when facing crisis. Kingsley Napley are the kind of lawyers I wish more people knew about – there to help you make the right decisions, protect what matters, and build real resilience when the pressure is on.
Optimism without a plan is just naivety. When ShortList failed on day one, hope didn't save it, a plan did.
UNDERSTANDING PERSPECTIVE: How to Find It When You Need It Most
Season 7 · Episode 204
Tuesday, September 8, 2026 • Duration 22:36
Perspective is one of the most useful tools we have in crisis – a way of taking pressure out of a difficult moment, stepping back and working out what really matters.
In this special compilation episode of Crisis What Crisis, I share the story of the five most terrifying days of my own life and revisit four extraordinary guests whose lives have been shaped, and sometimes almost undone, by the pursuit of perspective.
POWERED BY KINGSLEY NAPLEY:
I know what it is to have the right legal support around you when facing crisis. Kingsley Napley are the kind of lawyers I wish more people knew about – there to help you make the right decisions, protect what matters and build real resilience when the pressure is on.
In this country, one in six of us will experience significant anxiety at some point in our lives. It's an epidemic that doesn't care about class, wealth, gender, age or race – and yet, as this episode argues, anxiety isn't the enemy. It's information. A signal to be read, not a fault to be removed.
In this special compilation episode, Andy Coulson draws on his own experience of anxiety attacks and revisits six past guests – a broadcaster, a journalist, a content creator, an adventurer, a designer and a cellist – who each faced anxiety in a very different form and found their own way to live alongside it.
POWERED BY KINGSLEY NAPLEY
I know what it is to have the right legal support around you when facing crisis. Kingsley Napley are the kind of lawyers I wish more people knew about – there to help you make the right decisions, protect what matters, and build real resilience when the pressure is on. This episode is powered by Kingsley Napley.
Most guests give me their Crisis Compass looking back on a crisis they've survived. Erin Baker is different. Her partner died just 12 weeks before this recording, and she is, by her own account, exhausted by the demand to keep being strong.
These four points aren't hard-won wisdom viewed from calmer shores — they're the things holding her up as we speak. That, I think, makes them rarer and more valuable than almost any compass I've been given.
In this bonus episode of Crisis What Crisis, I sit down with Erin to discuss her Crisis Compass. The four points of navigation that she turns to in order to help survive a crisis – a person, a habit, a comfort and a piece of advice.
If you haven't heard the full conversation yet, go back and find it in the feed. It's well worth your time.
POWERED BY KINGSLEY NAPLEY:
I know what it is to have the right legal support around you when facing crisis. Kingsley Napley are the kind of lawyers I wish more people knew about – there to help you make the right decisions, protect what matters and build real resilience when the pressure is on.
Discover shows related to Crisis What Crisis with Andy Coulson, based on actual content similarities. Explore podcasts with similar topics, themes, and formats, backed by real data.
Get less interested in yourself. The habits of self-loathing are hard to shake, but Richard found relief not through endless self-examination but through caring less about his own importance – and turning his attention outward, to other people.
CHAPTERS
05:34 – Realising he was gay in a hostile world
12:10 – Seventeen, a breakdown, and the overdose he meant to be final
15:37 – Escape to London, and the friendships that still anchor him
18:26 – Bringing down the government through the power of pop
20:50 – The socialists who were, secretly, perfect Thatcherites
21:40 – Dole queue to Concorde – and the toll fame takes
29:35 – AIDS – the formative crisis
31:29 – The lie he told, the shame he carries, and seeking forgiveness
35:02 – The atheist who walked into a church and came out a believer
38:07 – Walking away from a life he loved to train for the priesthood
45:21 – Loving an addict
50:51 – Learning to live a life around the loss, not without it
Build the business around the life you actually want. Jo walked away from a £5m agency because it cost her time with her kids. Scamp & Dude was designed the opposite way – with her family built into it. Success isn't just the turnover; it's whether the business gives you the life you wanted.
Purpose is the engine that keeps you going when it gets hard. For Jo it's charity; for you it might be something else entirely – but find the reason you're really doing it, because that's what stops you quitting.
Awareness can be worth more than margin. Know which parts of your business are there to make money and which are there to build the brand, and don't confuse the two.
CHAPTERS
07:04 – Why a great job still wasn't enough
08:50 – How to de-risk backing yourself before you jump
10:11 – Walking away from a £5m business to get her life back
10:24 – Stress and the warning she ignored
13:54 – Choosing one last Christmas before brain surgery
15:30 – Waking up alive, and the promise made in a hospital bed
19:42 – Hospital bed to product in eleven months
24:34 – The Super Scarf mission, and 95,000 women starting chemo
26:54 – How to turn your hardest moment into your superpower
This was a Crisis What Crisis Production – Rex Fisher (producer), Ioana Barbu (studio manager), Fred Sharp (research), Johnny Seifert (audio), Jasper Cullen (video).
Investors back people first, ideas second. Ideas change the moment they meet the real world. What backers are really buying is you.
When you're fighting a difficult boss, keep it principled, not personal. Argue for the customer, not for yourself, and keep bringing the data. It's very hard for anyone to argue against a case built on what's genuinely right for the people you serve.
Chasing purpose. Mike had sold his company, had the money and the status, and still felt hollow. He thought what was missing was a job, instead it was a purpose..
CHAPTERS
06:38 – Why AI makes human leadership more valuable, not less
10:13 – Whether a self-made career is still possible in a flat economy
14:59 – How instability early on can forge the drive to control your own destiny
21:42 – Fake it till you make it: backing yourself into a job you're not ready for
24:27 – The FHM playbook: build in service of your customer, not your advertiser
28:43 – Why he left a hit at its peak – and what fear of failure does to founders
32:12 – How to stand your ground with a boss who holds all the cards
39:41 – The near-death moment that asked him: have you ever really tested yourself?
44:23 – Losing control, and what to do when you're forced out
46:27 – How he raised £4 million in five weeks – and why investors really said yes
50:16 – The launch-day disaster, and the case for protecting your team from the panic
53:22 – The £1 million opportunity he turned down – and the lesson in why
55:03 – Why success and status left him feeling hollow – and what actually fixed it
59:15 – Knowing when a job isn't worth your reputation, and walking away
01:03:27 – What 15 years on The Apprentice taught him about how to treat people
This was a Crisis What Crisis Production – Rex Fisher (producer), Ioana Barbu (studio manager), Fred Sharp (research), Johnny Seifert (audio), Jasper Cullen (video)
This was a Crisis What Crisis Production – Rex Fisher (producer), Ioana Barbu (studio manager), Fred Sharp (research), Johnny Seifert (audio), Jasper Cullen (video)
