Dan Murray-Serter 🧠

Co-Founder of Heights I Angel Investor | Over 100 Startups I Follow For Daily Posts on Health, Business & Personal growth from UK’s #1 ranked health creator (apparently)

Serial entrepreneur and Angel investor in 100+ startups with over 10 years experience starting, scaling and failing multiple startups.

Co Founder of Heights - Europe's leading brain and gut health company.

I also started and help run Foundrs - A not for profit community of the best, most ambitious and compassionate founders in UK.

I recently stepped away from Leaders Media - A media company making the top business podcasts in Europe, Secret Leaders - at the top of the charts, to focus on much more important things with my time - being a dad to 2 awesome daughters.

Angel/Advisor

Beam (www.beam.org)
ATAI Life Sciences (https://www.atai.life)
Allplants (www.allplants.com)
Humanity (https://humanity.health)
BYP (www.byp-network.com)
Goss (https://www.goss.media)
Tribe VR (www.tribevr.io)
Thrift (www.wearethrift.com)
THIS (www.this.co)
The Sports Edit (www.thesportsedit.com)
Faction (www.factionskis.com)
Runway East (http://runwayea.st/)
London Union/Dinerama (http://londonunion.com/)
Neardesk (https://www2.neardesk.com/)


Tailored.to (https://tailored.to/)
Motivii (http://motivii.com/)
Earlybird (https://earlybird.fm/)
Upshot (http://www.upshotapp.co/)
Togethera (www.togethera.com)
Repairly (www.repairly.co.uk)
Zaboo (www.zabooapp.com)
Lissom (www.lissom.com)
Bloom (www.hellobloom.io)

Dan Murray

Too many leaders still fear being “outshined” by smarter people on their teams.

That’s backwards.

The best leaders don’t aim to be the smartest person in the room. They aim to build the smartest room possible.

Here’s the reality:

- A team full of people who only know what you know will never surpass you
- Hiring people smarter than you creates leverage, not competition
- Growth comes from surrounding yourself with people who stretch your thinking, challenge your assumptions, and bring ideas you’d never imagine

It takes humility to admit you don’t have all the answers. But humility isn’t weakness-it’s the foundation of strength.

I’ve learned the leaders who fear smarter colleagues usually struggle with ego. The leaders who thrive? They welcome it. Because they know:

- Smarter teammates = faster progress
- Different perspectives = fewer blind spots
- Bigger talent = bigger results

Stop guarding your title. Start curating your circle.

True leadership isn’t about being the brightest mind. It’s about creating the conditions where the brightest minds can do their best work-together.

If you want to grow, stop fearing smarter people. Start hiring them.

Question for you:
Do you intentionally surround yourself with people who outshine you in certain areas-or do you default to comfort?

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♻️ Repost this if you think it can help someone in your network!

🖐️ P.S Join my newsletter The Science Of Success where I break down stories and studies of success to teach you how to turn it from probability to predictability here: https://lnkd.in/d9TnkzdH

One thing I’ve learned after building multiple teams: the most valuable people are rarely the loudest.

They’re the ones who quietly upskill when no one’s watching.

You can’t teach that level of internal drive.
You can’t force someone to care about their growth more than the company requires.

That has to come from within.

And from a neuroscience perspective, people who self-educate build something incredibly powerful:
a plastic brain.

Every new skill, every book, every online course, it all strengthens their neural pathways for adaptability, problem - solving, and creative thinking.

Those traits compound.

They become faster learners.
Better decision-makers.
More resourceful under pressure.
And over time, they outgrow people who rely only on formal training.

When I hire, I look for curiosity.
Not credentials.
Not polished answers.
Curiosity.

Because someone who reads, experiments, builds, tinkers, or studies on their own time will eventually outpace almost everyone else.
They don’t wait to be told what to learn.
They choose it.

And that choice is what makes them dangerous, in the best way possible.

If you’re that person, keep going.
Even if no one notices right now.
Your effort is compounding quietly.
You’ll feel the gap before anyone else sees it.

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Follow me Dan Murray for more on habits and leadership.

♻️ Repost this if you think it can help someone in your network!

🖐️ P.S Join my newsletter The Science Of Success where I break down stories and studies of success to teach you how to turn it from probability to predictability here: https://lnkd.in/d9TnkzdH

100-year-old productivity hack. Still works. Still simple.

1918. Charles Schwab runs Bethlehem Steel. Hires productivity consultant Ivy Lee. Lee's offer: give me 15 minutes with each executive, pay me what it's worth in 3 months. 3 months later, Schwab writes a cheque for $25,000, equivalent to $400,000 today. The method was that effective.

The Ivy Lee Method. Five steps. At the end of each workday, write down the 6 most important tasks for tomorrow. Not 7, not 10, six. Rank them in order of true importance. Tomorrow morning, start with task 1, work until complete. Move to task 2, then 3, one at a time in order. Unfinished tasks move to tomorrow's list. Repeat daily.

Why 6 tasks? Forces prioritisation. With unlimited tasks, everything feels important, nothing gets done. Six is manageable, ambitious but achievable.

Why rank them? Most people work on whatever feels urgent or easy. Ranking forces you to confront true importance. Task 1 should be the thing that, if completed alone, makes tomorrow successful.

Why one task at a time? Multitasking is a myth. Task switching reduces productivity by 40%. Takes 23 minutes to regain focus after interruption. Doing one thing until complete equals deep work.

Why plan the night before? Decision fatigue compounds throughout the day. By 4pm, decision-making quality is 40% worse than 9am. Planning tonight means decisions made when not depleted. Wake up, no decision required, just execute task 1.

Six tasks, ranked, one at a time. Decide tonight, execute tomorrow.

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Follow me Dan Murray for more on habits and leadership.

P.S. If you want 2026 to feel different, don’t start with goals.
Start with clarity.

Most people don’t need more discipline.
They need to understand what’s been draining them and what deserves their energy.

I’ve spent years refining a simple process to help you with exactly that.

Download my short PDF guide https://lnkd.in/eniDNptW

I'll see you there.

The Ivy Lee Method 100-Year-Old Productivity Hack 

Opportunities rarely arrive directly.
They move through conversations you’re not in.
Decisions made without you present.
Rooms you never see.

That’s why who you build relationships with matters more than how loudly you promote yourself.

The people who open doors are the ones who trust you enough to bring your name up when it counts. Not because you asked. But because your character, consistency, and competence made it easy for them to do so.

This isn’t about networking harder.
It’s about being reliable.
Doing good work quietly.
Treating people well when there’s nothing to gain.

Reputation travels faster than resumes.
And long before opportunity finds you, it finds your name.

Choose your people carefully.
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Follow me Dan Murray for more on habits and leadership.

P.S. If you want 2026 to feel different, don’t start with goals.
Start with clarity.

Most people don’t need more discipline.
They need to understand what’s been draining them and what deserves their energy.

I’ve spent years refining a simple process to help you with exactly that.

Download my short PDF guide https://lnkd.in/eniDNptW

I'll see you there.

I’m a firm believer that every child should enjoy school. And that it’s possible for every child to enjoy school. 

It’s just a matter of discovering what kind of school works best for your child.

This belief has led to two businesses:
💡 Minerva Virtual Academy: An online independent school for 11-18-year-olds
🦉 MVA Tutors: A world-class homeschooling & private tutoring agency for 5-18-year-olds

Keen to learn more? Hit Follow + 
Alternatively, my DMs are always open for anyone wanting to chat ⚡

Hugh Viney

There is a crisis in UK education that cost £1.7 BILLION last year, a number that has risen 170% in 8 years, and we simply aren’t speaking about it.

Last year, this staggering amount of money was spent on transporting children with SEND needs to and from school.

That’s it. £1.7 billion, with a B, all to transport kids (in some cases hundreds of miles) to schools that may not even properly meet their needs.

At some local authorities, these costs are almost a quarter of the entire education budget.

And look, I’m not blaming them. LAs are often in a desperate position, under pressure from the government to bring student numbers back up, and SEND kids are a prime demographic to target.

But this, much like the huge amounts of cash the government has been pouring into school buildings to make them more ‘SEND-friendly’, is missing the point.

What SEND kids need is schooling that meets them where they are and supports them, not being dragged halfway across the country to a building that may leave them overwhelmed, stressed, and struggling before quality of teaching is even taken into account.

This does not need to be happening.

Minerva Virtual Academy (MVA)'s results for SEND students last year blew the national averages away, and it’s not hard to see why.

Flexible, adaptable environments, 1:1 mentoring support, a fully trained SEND team, and zero need to be taxied halfway across the country every day.

If that £1.7 billion was instead spent on setting up a range of online state schools, this crisis, and the wider SEND education crisis, would disappear overnight.

We have to stop treating the symptoms and start looking at the root systems that have not worked for a long time – otherwise, the multiple crises we face will not go anywhere, and the bill will simply keep on rising.

Read the full report here: https://zurl.co/75LIr

Founder & CEO of the UK’s fastest growing school @ Minerva Virtual Academy | Education Innovator | Speaker | Dad

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This week at Minerva Virtual Academy (MVA) has been Enrichment Week, with a focus on Careers, and it has been fantastic.

What to do next is always one of the most daunting parts of school, even for kids who love it. Do I go to uni? Do I get a job? Do I start an apprenticeship? Do I take a gap year and travel? 

Well, MVA students will (hopefully) be feeling a bit more confident on the answers to those questions, as they’ve just spent the last week in workshops and presentations from Lloyds Bank,  Plan My Gap Year , Stemettes, Arden University, University of Lincoln, Unifrog, and more!

We also had an incredible cast of MVA Parents who willingly gave up some of their time to talk to the kids about their careers, and how they made it happen – this is my favourite part, by the way. MVA is a fantastic school, but our community is what makes us, in my opinion, the best.

A huge thank you everyone who has contributed to such an amazing week and to, in a small way, the futures of every MVA student who has come away feeling more confident about the future.

At events like No Fluff Fest, people always want to know the same thing:

How has MVA grown so fast?

The boring answer is, of course, that we’ve worked very hard to provide a world-class school experience that caters as best as we can to every family and child at every step of the way.

The simple answer is that we’re different.

In an educational landscape that has changed very little since the industrial revolution, different is good. It’s exciting, it’s refreshing, and it promises change.

Obviously, we would never have grown if we didn’t follow through on that promise, but the initial pull for parents is clear.

More of the same just isn’t viable.

One of the most revolutionary things about Minerva Virtual Academy (MVA) is not that it’s online.

We weren’t the first online school and, these days, we certainly aren’t the only one.

What sets our Academic Model apart is Flipped Learning.

MVA students spend roughly 60% of their time studying on a virtual platform, self-directed, in their own time. The remaining 40% is spent with teachers in Live Lessons.

Not only does this better suit a lot of kids, because they can learn at their own pace, but it also fits better around the practical realities of being a teenager.

Students can get as much sleep as they need, and learn when they focus best. No sleeping on the desk, no wasted mornings wishing you were back in bed. Let’s face it, for some kids, forcing them to start learning at 8am is needlessly making school harder for no reason other than wanting them to conform to a schedule.

We’re not looking to teach conformity. We’re looking to awaken potential.

And, sometimes, potential kicks in at lunchtime.

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The Battle

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Dan Murray's LinkedIn Performance

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