My Down to Earth lesson whilst interviewing Stephen Hawking on the Discovery Channel

My 16 year old son, Tom, and I were having a quick break between squash games, when I saw on my phone that Stephen Hawking had passed away. It was an emotional experience. Just a few moments ago we had been running around the squash court and I was feeling so grateful and joyful that we can do that so easily. Now I was thinking about all those years that Stephen Hawking was in his wheelchair and I marvelled, as I always have, at Stephen's huge, agile brain inside a body that was simply not agile.

I thought about all the things that Stephen Hawking achieved, despite his physical challenges. In contrast, I thought of a recent MBA student of mine that had complained that watching a couple of hours of learning videos on a smartphone was "gruelling"... and I thought thank you Professor Hawking for teaching us all that anything is possible and that curiosity, discipline, perseverance, strength, passion, purpose and gratitude can move mountains.

The average life expectancy of someone with motor neurone disease (MND) is between two and three years. Professor Hawking lived for more than fifty years after he was diagnosed in 1963. That is astonishing. When I then read that Stephen was 76 when he passed, I thought Wow, that's just incredible.

Stephen Hawking often said that his secret to survival was keeping an active mind and having a sense of humour. I am very honoured to say that I was on the receiving end of that sense of humour when right at the end of a TV interview I did with Professor Hawking at Cambridge University, for Discovery People (a Discovery Channel series), I asked the final question that we as a production team had thought long and hard about... "Professor Hawking, you have stated that unless we find other planets to inhabit relatively soon, we will cease to exist. Is mankind's future really out there in space?" Stephen's response was, "Steve, I am surprised at you! You should know better. That was a very sexist question. Surely your question should be, is humankind's future really out there in space?"

He was of course spot on, and I promised to put a Pound in a jar everytime I said mankind, instead of humankind from that day on. Thanks to Proffessor Hawking, that jar, to this day, remains empty... but now I have said mankind three times whilst sharing this story with you, so that's three Pounds into the jar for me!!!

Thank you Professor Stephen Hawking, for being a bright shining star of inspiration to so many people all over this planet. May we indeed one day be able to travel through space to discover other habitable planets, so that humankind's future really can be out there in space. And may we ensure that we do more than everything we can to preserve this beautiful planet Earth, so that this will always be our home base.

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