Adrian Gore: Why life is a sprint and a marathon

It’s one of the coldest days of the year. It’s raining, even snowing in some parts. Yet people leave their warm houses in the murkiness of sunset, fighting heavy traffic in the downpour, to make their way to the Sandton Convention Centre. The vast event space place is packed with people looking their swankiest — here to listen to the founder and group CEO of Discovery, Adrian Gore, talking about his new book, The Four Principles: Multiply Your Impact in Life and Leadership.

We meet a couple of days after the launch for a sit-down interview. Discovery is impressive (it services 50-million people globally), and its headquarters building in Sandton is equally remarkable. The staff all seem excited about this new project, the book, which is a huge success. For a third week in a row The Four Principles is the No 1 bestselling book in South Africa, with nearly 10,000 copies sold (and counting).

You can tell Gore’s office is a well-used space — a place where ideas are brainstormed and actioned. He is affable and charismatic, as one would expect for a person who has founded and led such a huge company. But there is no ego, which is quite refreshing.

The Four Principles may look and sound like a self-help book, but it is more than that. It’s thoroughly researched and rigorous in its science and mathematics basis. On the whole, it’s easy to follow. Gore says: “It is a leadership book, but it’s not necessarily about business leadership or a quick self-help fix. It’s about whatever you want to do with your life — ultimately, finding your real purpose and the best way to achieve it.”

It’s also the story of Discovery and how it has grown in the past 30 years. “We needed to intersperse the book with stories of the evolution of Discovery to bring it to life, illustrating stories of starting the business, envisioning Vitality, filling potholes, building the bank, et cetera. These are true, lived stories of witnessing how these four principles work.”

So is this book for mere mortals?

Gore says: “When we started Discovery, I was intrigued by a professor called Leo Buscaglia. He taught a course called ‘love’. He shared an idea — a biblical one — that when you meet your Maker, he won’t ask, ‘Why weren’t you the richest person in the world?’ He will ask, ‘Why weren’t you more you?’ That always struck me as a powerful concept. We all want to be the best we can be. I believe there is greatness in people that truly scales.”

The key issue, Gore says, is that humans have outpaced their evolutionary makeup.

“Our modern environment changed rapidly over the last 12,000 years; 200 generations is not enough time to recode our biology. We evolved in conditions of scarcity, physical threats, and small clans. Yet today, we find ourselves in environments of abundance, systemic complexity, and vast networks. Each of the four principles in the book acts as a way to remedy this evolutionary miscoding.”

The first principle is “disciplined optimism”, which Gore stresses is not about naivety. “In any circumstance, human coding leads us to spot every negative while missing half the positives. To overcome this miscoding, you have to actively train yourself to see opportunities. When we started Discovery in 1992, there was immense uncertainty and fear. Many people focused exclusively on the risks. However, I looked at the country’s transformation and saw an opportunity for a well-structured health insurance model. Seeing positive signals during difficult times allows you to identify underpriced opportunities that others miss out of fear.”

The second principle is “focused urgency”, which goes hand in hand with logarithmic time, or the way perceived time seems to speed up as we grow older, because as we age, a year becomes a smaller fraction of our entire lives up to that point.

“This is the existential tragedy of time. There’s two things I don’t believe you can ever get back, time and reputation. When I tell people about logarithmic time, I’ve never seen anyone say to me, ‘I don’t believe you,’ because everyone can tell their life is getting shorter as they get older,” says Gore.

“I had a case recently myself with my Vitality annual check. I was reminded, ‘You’re having your bloods tomorrow morning.’ So I said, ‘No, I had it a few months ago.’ I was actually annoyed about it. I thought they were fooling me. I went to check and it was a year ago. The years go by like this” — finger snap. “It’s a powerful tool. Success is about urgency.”

In my case, my priorities are work and family. I’ve thought about that long and hard. I’m aware the time is short. I’ve got to use it properly

—  Adrian Gore, Discovery founder and CEO

But it doesn’t mean rushing and making stupid decisions.

“What’s important to you? For example, the work-life balance issue, where people, I think, have a linear view that a day consists of eight hours sleep, eight hours work, eight hours leisure. But that’s not how it is. My view is, if you want to achieve something, some purpose that’s important to you, you’re going to have to optimise your time.

“In my case, my priorities are work and family. I’ve thought about that long and hard. I’m aware the time is short. I’ve got to use it properly. I’m going to be physically fit. I enjoy it. But also, it’s good for my longevity and my focus. So, I run 1km. I run up and down the stairs here during meetings. I’m not being patronising; I’m just saying this is what works for me. I focus on my family and on building a business.

“We’re a very close family. We have three older children and we had a son when my wife and I were 50. I feel I’ve have no regrets.” He quotes Ray Dalio, the hedge fund billionaire, who said: “While you can have virtually anything you want, you can’t have everything you want.”

The third principle is “declared goals”, which is how setting bold goals triggers *loss aversion* and motivation.

One of the ways Gore conveys this principle is when he set a public personal goal on LinkedIn in September 2022: to run a five-minute mile. He writes in the book: “I was 58 years old, and, although in reasonably good shape, the fastest I could then complete a mile was in just over six minutes. I had given myself only eight weeks to cut around 70 seconds off my time — a massive improvement that most people familiar with running thought was unattainable.”

After much training, however, Gore tore his calf muscle and couldn’t attain his goal in the time period. He was devastated but also saw the bigger picture.

“Nearing age 60, I was faster and fitter than I had ever been, and my running had leveled up. Moreover, people all over the world had started chasing goals of their own and sharing their progress. My 30 posts over eight weeks had reached over 2m impressions … It was a success for several reasons. First, it engaged people in the importance of physical activity. Second, it proved my hypothesis: setting and declaring a goal takes you further than you would have gone without one. And third, even if you fall short of the destination, the goal — and the journey — will change you,” he writes in the book.

He set himself another goal. To run a marathon again, something he hasn’t done for 20 years. Last year he ran the London Marathon and this year the Boston Marathon.

The last principle, “the Pareto tail”, is complicated. The principle is also known as the 80:20 rule — 80% of an outcome is generated by 20% of the cause.

Gore explains: “The tail is the organising principle. It’s where impact is. We actually wrote the book the other way round, where the tail wags the dog. But I think you have to read the other principles first. The issue is that your miscoding undermines your attitude, your use of time, your motivation and the actions and decisions you need to take.

“There are a million things and choices that don’t impact the tail, but there are a few moments that do. I started Discovery one day, I had an epiphany in the bath about Vitality, I married my wife, we had children. Everything in my life changed because of those events. The book is about how to get into the tail and how to drag it out — via the other three principles.”

We have run out of time. Yes, it goes by like this (snaps fingers).

• The Four Principles: Multiply Your Impact in Life and Leadership by Adrian Gore, published by Pan Macmillan.