This is so cool. I’ve been looking forward to it since the school invited me – a year and a half ago. They either wanted to give me plenty of notice – or inflict on me 18 months of anticipation.

Because this is one of life’s unexpected treats. Perhaps not quite as good as being able to come back and score the last-minute winning try against Bradford Grammar this afternoon, but it’s up there on the karma scale.

Many times I sat in this hall, where you are now, and thought: why don’t these big shots just get on with it?

And, 35 years later, I’m up here… Having waited this long to stand up here, it’s tempting to make the most of it. Take you down all the high-ways and by-ways of my life.

You’re lucky, though; never mind about boring you – I don’t want to bore myself.

So, they won’t have to wrestle me from the stage. Patience has never been my strong suit. Restlessness, though, has been a consistent force – mostly for good. It has pushed me to go to new places; try new experiences; think of new ideas; take on new challenges.

When I was at school, I couldn’t wait to get going. And, as you can tell, I’ve traveled a fair way from Lancaster.

From Lancaster to London, to Geneva, Nicosia, Toronto, Sydney, Casablanca and finally Auckland, New Zealand – it’s been on a great journey. I have my ideal job and I meet wonderful people.

Most importantly, I’ve been able to give my kids a bigger life than the one I knew.

There have been other rewards. My first real job was with Mary Quant. A mind-blowing job for a 20 year-old male at the end of the ’60s. Mary made skirts shorter than a teenage boy’s attention span.

Mary Quant took me on when I said I’d go anywhere, do anything – for half the price of anyone else. And at Mary Quant I met my wife.

Good first lessons: make your own luck, and follow your heart. I’ve always ignored warnings against enthusiasm. The best decisions I’ve made have come from my heart. When my head has bullied my heart, I’ve made mistakes. Emotion and passion reigns, not logic and reason.

The enthusiasms you’re forming now can make your lives richer – and make your careers possible. When I was here, I learned to love books. It took me a while to figure out that I loved reading because I love ideas.

Now, I work with ideas all the time. I’ve even convinced a company full of people who thought they were doing something pretty cool – making very smart and often very funny ads – that they are part of something even cooler: Our core business is ideas.

What would you rather work in – advertising, or ideas?

Enthusiasm gets rewarded. Another thing I discovered here was sport. My favourite team, even then, was the New Zealand All Blacks. I loved their spirit, their style, their haka.

Most of all, I loved them because they always used to win.

When I started living in New Zealand, rugby union was just becoming a professional sport, and I was invited onto the All Blacks’ board. An easy decision, made from the heart.

Now, I’m serving with another Kiwi team, the Team New Zealand sailing syndicate that holds the America’s Cup – hopefully forever. A world beating team from the world’s edge. Another decision from the heart.

My best career move was joining Saatchi & Saatchi. I had never worked in advertising before. I loved the company, though – its creativity, its commitment to ideas, its irreverent humour. Taking my job was another decision from the heart.

Our inspirational dream is to be revered as the hothouse for world changing ideas. Our spirit is Nothing is Impossible. Now – that is cool.

I started in Bowerham and ended up in New York and New Zealand. So you can see – Nothing is Impossible!

Having a goal – a goal I decided for myself – did enable me to enjoy the rewards of success. And it enabled me to share them. Nowadays, I get asked a lot about success, power and all that stuff.

I can’t believe it when interviewers ask me about the stress involved in a life like mine. Especially in America, brows furrow and a special note of concern will be injected into questions about the difficulties of a CEO’s life.

I have to break it gently to the interviewers: life at the top isn’t hard. It’s hard – really hard – at the bottom, where you don’t have freedom and you don’t have choices and you don’t have a clue what you want to do.

So feel good guys – it’s as tough as it gets right now for you. It’ll only get easier as you get older. Honest! And the way to that:

Follow what you have a passion for. Don’t get sucked into following the herd, following your peers, following the norm or – worst of all – following your parents…

Follow your passion, and then spend all your time figuring out how to make tons of money out of doing that!

Congratulations to those who won a prize. I never did. So, congratulations also to the crazy ones who didn’t, and here are 10 ideas to think about as you win the world from Lancaster.

1. Make the small decisions with your head; the big ones with your heart. Your heart is the compass that points to your happiness.

2. Decide what it is you will never do. It’s hard to decide exactly what you will do. Maybe it’s not possible; perhaps your goals may change. Improve your chances of a good decision by telling yourself what you absolutely will not do. Minimize your chances of unhappiness – of finding yourself in a job that you hate, that goes nowhere.

3. Take responsibility for your own happiness. In your hearts, you know – or you will know – what it will take to make you happy. You are responsible for getting there. Your happiness is too valuable to surrender to someone else.

4. Prepare yourself to get lucky. Luck happens when preparation meets opportunity. All of you here will get opportunities in life. You’ll get chances to make your own luck. If you’re prepared.

5. Pursue failure. It’s the only way to achieve meaningful success. I’ve been successful in my pursuit of failure – several times. A genius is a person who makes the same mistake. Once. You won’t know your limits till you crash up against them.

6. Don’t look back. Life is too short to spend it gazing into the rear-view mirror. You’ll make mistakes; if you obsess over them, you’ll keep making them.

7. Ask dumb questions. The “what if” question is the best question of all. A great question is at least as valuable as a great answer. It’s how you get to create world-changing ideas.

8. Avoid moderation. Be hot, or cold, but not lukewarm. Nothing succeeds like excess. And only abuse your bodies on the weekend.

9. Turn your peaks into a plateau. For all of us, there are times and places when we’re right in the zone. For most people, these occasions are rare and unpredictable. We use so little of our capacity for so much that is so important – work, family, love.

10. One final thought. The words that sum up my life; the philosophy that underpins Saatchi & Saatchi. Nothing Is Impossible. Believe it.

It’s great to be back here. I’d like to thank Lancaster Royal Grammar School for inviting me back. It’s a thrill for me to look out on this hall, and your bright futures. I want to wish all of you a wonderful life. A happy life, and a big life.

If you want to find out more about Lancaster Royal Grammar School please go to www.lrgs.org.uk.