“Pressure is a privilege”
Billie Jean King
"Whatever it takes... WHATEVER IT TAKES!"
My father's voice cut through the chaos of the final seconds. We were camped yards from the opposition tryline, and as captain, I felt the weight of expectation crushing down. The ball came to me, and after a quick shimmy, I made for the line. Their star player—who would later become a Welsh rugby legend—launched onto my back, desperate to drag me down short. All I remember now, 33 years later, is somehow crashing over the line to score the winning try, their future all-star still clinging to my back.
Pressure is a powerful force—at its best, it can drive greatness; at its worst, it becomes a millstone, creating inertia and self-doubt.
In 1980s South Wales, rugby wasn't just a sport—it was our religion. Every kid I knew dreamed of wearing the red jersey, all of us yearning to emulate the legends of Wales's golden era. For me, that dream intertwined with another: becoming a doctor. It seemed perfect—rugby was still amateur then, and several Welsh internationals were physicians. "People always get sick," my parents reasoned, cementing my path.
My weekends became sacred, devoted to rugby. From village games to regional sides, each step up brought mounting pressure and expectation. That winning try in the cup final led to representing East Wales—the highest honour at my age. I was in the mix with the best, though the weight of competition grew heavier with each season.
Then came the first real taste of failure. At sixteen, watching my best friend make the national squad while I sat in the stands marked my first brutal lesson in handling disappointment. Forcing a smile as I cheered him on, pride and devastation warred inside me. It was my first real test of character under pressure—one that would shape my relationship with expectation for years to come.
Failure often opens unexpected doors. In the wake of my national team disappointment, my parents suggested applying to a prestigious English boarding school—ironically, the very institution where rugby was born. The symbolism wasn't lost on me: here was a chance to return to the game's roots while charting a new path forward. As I left my local school, a parting gift of a £15 book voucher led me to “In Pursuit of Excellence”—a title that would prove prophetic.
September 1997 brought a different kind of pressure. The imposing architecture of my new school mirrored the weight of social expectations: navigating a world of old money, cultured conversation, and ingrained privilege. Yet rugby, once my source of heartbreak, became my sanctuary. On the pitch, my Welsh roots transformed from a potential liability into a mark of distinction. The game that had shaped my childhood now shaped my identity in this foreign environment.
The next two years became a balancing act: representing my new school while maintaining ties to Welsh rugby, travelling between two worlds that were separated by more than just miles. My dedication paid off when, at eighteen, I finally pulled on the red jersey I'd dreamed of since childhood, representing Wales against England and Holland. The pressure hadn't disappeared—it had evolved, teaching me to harness it rather than fight it.
Dreams evolve, and sometimes they shatter to make room for new ones. As my final year approached, the path to medicine lost its shine. The struggling NHS painted a bleaker picture than I'd imagined, while the world of business and entrepreneurship beckoned with increasing allure. A conversation with my tutor opened another door: he spoke of friends in the City of London who'd managed to blend successful finance careers with rugby. Their route? Economics.
The decision to withdraw my medical school applications felt both terrifying and liberating. I chose to pause—to spend a year playing rugby in Australia while reapplying to economics programs at English universities.. It was during this transition that a friend's mother offered words that would haunt me for years: "I'm not worried about you Morgan, you're going to be fine whatever you do." Her heartfelt confidence became another weight to carry—the burden of being the person everyone expected to succeed.
In 2000, Australia might as well have been another planet. Without today's instant connectivity, keeping in touch meant careful planning: buying discount calling cards, coordinating email times across time zones, walking to internet cafes in the Australian heat. This distance created space to reflect, but also amplified the pressure of expectations carried across oceans. Each brief connection home reminded me of the people I couldn't let down—even as I charted a course away from the future they'd once imagined for me.
Australia taught me different flavors of pressure. The practical challenges of independence—painting navy ships, pulling pints, brewing coffee—felt almost liberating compared to the expectations I'd left behind. These odd jobs funded my rugby dreams while teaching me self-reliance, each paycheck a small victory in my year of discovery.
My introduction to a Sydney club rugby, however, brought a harsh lesson in humility. One of my Welsh coaches had opened the door to a top-tier club, but the Australian summer had baked the training grounds as hard as the reality I was about to face. The gap between Welsh and Australian rugby became painfully clear in those first few sessions. Their players moved with a speed and precision that made my previous achievements feel provincial. After a weekend tournament north of Sydney, the verdict was clear: I needed to step down to the under-21 team.
The demotion stung, though with hindsight, I had been measuring myself against a standard few Welsh players could match at the time. Yet the pressure followed me to the under-21s, transformed but not diminished. Coming down from the first team meant expectations still rode heavy on my shoulders—my new teammates looked for the quality that had earned me that initial shot with the senior squad.
What saved me was the team's camaraderie, a brotherhood that welcomed me despite my faltering confidence. But as the season wore on and my form dipped, I discovered the double edge of Australian sporting culture. Their legendary banter, usually a source of such warmth and inclusion, became a test of mental fortitude. When you're playing well, it lifts you higher; when you're struggling, it can feel like drowning in open water. Those final games remain etched in my memory as some of my darkest moments on a rugby field—not because they were truly my worst, but because pressure had finally found the cracks in my armor.
London's financial district replaced the rugby pitch as my arena of pressure. At the London School of Economics, the challenges multiplied: juggling London's astronomical living costs, navigating academically demanding courses, and facing the looming spectre of securing that crucial first step into finance. The pressure had evolved from physical to existential—each exam, each networking event, each application feeling like a moment that could define my future.
My first taste of banking came through an internship at Citigroup's equity derivatives desk—a placement secured more by chance than choice. I entered a world I barely understood, during a market downturn that turned mentorship into a luxury my struggling teammates couldn't afford. Their fight for survival left no room for nurturing an intern's ambitions. The rejection that followed was hardly surprising, but it carried a valuable lesson: in finance, as in rugby, timing and environment could matter as much as talent.
The numbers tell their own story of persistence: twenty-nine applications, twenty-seven rejections, and finally, two offers. The choice between a mysterious Hong Kong investment firm and JP Morgan's London trading desk became a pivotal moment in my career. I chose London, and for once, pressure became an ally rather than an adversary. The trading floor hummed with the same energy as a rugby field, but here the teamwork felt different—collaborative pressure replaced competitive pressure, creating an environment where growth felt both challenging and natural.
But comfort breeds restlessness. The move to my first hedge fund marked another transformation in my relationship with pressure. The stakes rose exponentially: I needed to prove to my JP Morgan colleagues that I'd made the right choice, show my new team I deserved my spot, and validate the faith of family and friends who'd watched my journey from Welsh rugby fields to the peaks of global finance. The pressure had come full circle—once again, I carried the weight of others' expectations, but now on a stage I'd chosen for myself.
Life has a way of closing circles. Around this time, rugby—once my entire world and childhood dream—quietly slipped away. The pressure of professional expectations had finally eclipsed the joy of the game. One chapter ended as another began, though I wouldn't understand its significance until years later.
When I left finance after more than a decade, the initial relief was palpable. But nature abhors a vacuum, and the familiar weight of expectations quickly found new forms. The entrepreneurial path brought its own species of pressure: the constant need to answer "What are you doing now?" with something impressive, the obligation to justify leaving a successful career, the responsibility to ease my wife's concerns about our future. The pressure hadn't disappeared—it had merely changed its mask.
This pressure morphed into something more insidious: a paralyzing fear of judgment. Every decision, every pivot, every moment of uncertainty became haunted by the spectres of failure and disappointment. I imagined myself weighed and measured in countless minds, found wanting in each one. The fear of letting others down became a self-fulfilling prophecy—in trying to meet everyone's expectations, I often failed to meet my own.
Yet life offered a profound lesson in perspective. The truth is, the audience we imagine judging our every move is largely fictional. Everyone else is too consumed with their own journey, their own struggles, their own expectations to maintain the constant vigil we imagine. Those who do watch hoping for our failure reveal more about their own insecurities than our worth.
Liberation from external pressure didn't come as an epiphany but as a gradual awakening. Like learning any new skill, developing immunity to others' expectations requires constant practice. It's a muscle that needs regular exercise, or as Tim Urban brilliantly puts it, a mammoth that needs consistent taming. Some days the mammoth bucks wildly; other days, it walks calmly beside us.
The reward for this practice is profound: the ability to hear your own voice above the noise of external expectations. The discomfort of disappointing others never fully disappears, but it becomes a manageable whisper rather than a deafening roar. In its place grows something far more valuable—the deep satisfaction of living authentically, of allowing your own internal compass to guide your journey rather than the countless fingers pointing in different directions.
For years, I saw pressure as my enemy—an invisible force that suffocated me under others' expectations. But looking back through my journey from rugby captain to trader to entrepreneur, I realise pressure wasn't the problem—my relationship with it was. Pressure, when embraced rather than fought, sharpens focus and demands growth. It reminds us we're in the arena, not the stands, where every challenge presents an opportunity to rise.
The privilege of pressure lies in what it signifies: the chance to evolve, to transcend our perceived limits, to live fully. The lesson isn't about escaping pressure; it's about learning to harness it without breaking under its weight. By defining success on our own terms and silencing the noise of external expectations, we transform pressure from burden to fuel.
In the end, pressure becomes a privilege when we understand its true nature: not as a weight that holds us down, but as a force that lifts us toward our highest potential. This is the gift of pressure—it marks not just our challenges, but our capacity to meet them, reminding us that we're alive in the arena of meaningful endeavor.
