Sometimes your purpose can change and what seemed vitally important is no longer the most crucial focus of your existence. This offering crystalises the importance of connecting to others in finding meaning. Matt Thorne is the author of six novels, including Eight Minutes Idle, which was recently made into a film and won the Encore Award, and Cherry, which was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. He has also written four other books, one an international bestseller, and is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway. He is one of our world class practitioners, available to teach at retreats at Woodhill Park Estate.

John Rainford helped market and launch Shell Global Solutions, a start-up company that was born out of a desire for ecosystems based on global collaboration rather than competition. It grew to become a $5 billion company. He has helped both start-ups and Fortune 100 Companies develop new patents and business models to become market leaders.

Gavin Pretor-Pinney Gavin Pretor-Pinney is founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society (which now has over 62,000 members) and internationally bestselling author of The Cloudspotter’s Guide, The Cloud Collector’s Handbook and A Cloud A Day. Winner of the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books, he is a TED Global speaker with over 1.3 million views. He very kindly wrote this for Woodhill Park Journal. 

Writer and actor Matthew Cooke is an Oscar nominated filmmaker who has had over 250M social media views for his brilliant movies including his White Mirror series and American Origin Stories, advocating for the human values taught and shared by the world’s great traditions. He is an award-winning creative director and a former guest host for Larry King. He has generously shared his manifesto on his own purpose with Woodhill Park Journal - on how to save the planet.

Our fifth journal comes from Oliver Millar, COO of the Luxe Collective Fashion, which delivers pre-owned luxury and couture items and has amassed an estimated worth of £5million since the brand began in a bedroom in Merseyside, Liverpool.

Our third journal entry is on the subject of joy. One way to find your purpose is to find out what gives you happiness. Ed Haddon points out in his excellent book The Modern Maverick, that our happiness has a set point that we tend to revert to, as discovered by the psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky . On average 50% of this set point is determined by genes and upbringing: only 10% by our life circumstances (much less than we would imagine) and 40% by how we choose to spend our time and think about the world - ie what we can control. So if we focus on joy, we can raise our happiness.