Eddie the Eagle

I receive kindness every day. I love to smile when I'm out and about, and if someone smiles back, which happens about half the time, I think that's an act of kindness every couple of minutes in my day.

Some people thought I wasn't taking the sport seriously because I was always laughing and having fun, but I loved my skiing, I loved my jumping, and I thought, 'Well, why not have a smile on my face when I'm doing something that I really, really love doing,' and that's how I was.

I've never really let any kind of negative things affect me, generally. I would take a positive out of the most desperately horrible situation.

After my ski jumping career finished, I went back to school to study law, and now I travel between five to 20 times a year doing after-dinner speaking, motivational talks, appearances, openings, TV and radio shows.

Both parents were hard-working and made me work for my pocket money by doing household chores. That taught me the value of money and gave me a strong work ethic.

I want to prove to the skeptics that I'm not a clown. I'm very serious about what I do. I want to be a good ski jumper who has a sense of humor.

Ski jumping is just 10 per cent physical, 90 per cent mental. Some people can't do that. It's not just to do with the fear at the top. It takes a lot of guts to go off the top, but it takes 100 times more courage to jump off the end.