David Allen – The father of GTD – Getting Things Done – his synthesis of a process that he has fine-tuned whilst coaching senior executives across the US over the last 30 odd years. Famous GTDers include Evan Williams (Twitter co-founder -see Rule 10), Oprah Winfrey, Will Smith and Tom Cruise.  He has written 3 books – Getting Things Done, Ready for Anything and Making It All Work

David Hieatt - An ex-colleague from my years in advertising, and someone who loves to make a difference. With his wife Claire, they founded Howies, then the Do Lectures and now Hiut Denim. I loved the ads he wrote, I love the companies and things he creates even more. His blog is a must read. Watching the Do Lectures always gives me a boost to get out there and ‘do’ something. Seeing David Allen at the Do Lectures was a moment of synchronicity for me. He has a cute book too The Path of a Doer

Eckhart Tolle – Made being in the ‘Now’ cool with his book The Power of Now. A simple approach to finding more prescence and fulfillment at any time, whatever you ‘think’. Look at this video of Jim Carey following his ‘now-realisation’. His follow up book A New Earth: Create a Better Life explores these themes in a practical and comprehensive way.

Faustomaria Dorelli – My favourite yoga teacher. Fausto lead a self-enquiry group at his Innergy Yoga Centre in London that was the key catalyst in enabling me to dive deeper into the essence of life. He photographed the classic book on yoga from Sivananda - The New Book Of Yoga

Jon Kabat-Zinn – A fully qualified doctor who introduced the concept of MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) to the world. Influenced by yoga and buddhist teachings, there are now hundreds of Mindfulness teachers around the world thanks to his initiatives. One of his key books is Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness

Leo Babauta – Writer of one of the top blogs in the USA – ZenHabits.net. His journey of transformation with a focus of changing one habit at a time is enlightening and inspiring. His book focus is a distillation of a number of his blog posts.

Mihály Csíkszentmihályi - Introduced the concept of ‘Flow’ as seen in world class athletes, musicians and performers – where action merges with awareness and there is a loss of self. Going with the flow in this context is not a passive yielding but an active expression of your talent – where expertise meets challenge with spontaneous joy and fulfilment. Here is the book – Flow: The Psychology of Happiness: The Classic Work on How to Achieve Happiness. You can watch him at TED here.

Tal Ben Shahar - Author of Happier: Can you learn to be Happy? Whilst at Harvard, his Happiness course became a best-seller. His evidence based approach to the science of Happiness has kick-started the Positive Psychology industry. Whatever you think you want in life, ultimately its happiness. Finding out what really makes people happy and what doesn’t couldn’t be more important.

These are just some of the teachers that have inspired me. I thank them all from the bottom of my heart.

Let me know who or what inspires you.