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.

College teacher turned ghostwriter | Scaling founders, coaches, and consultants to $100K+ /mo | Writing to build wealth and better self | 98,000 on Twitter (X)

Taylin John Simmonds

I finally admit defeat. 

I downloaded app blockers for social media, YouTube, music, even my Kindle. Not to be more productive. Because I felt like an addict craving digital crack candy and I was becoming someone I didn’t recognize. 

The only things I allow from 7am to 7pm: walk, meditate, exercise, write, call my mom. 

Four days in and I already feel like I came back home to myself. If you think you’re strong enough to not need this, that’s exactly what I said too.

Today, I make more per month from my paid newsletter than I did as a college teacher working 40 hours a week

I started 4 years ago thinking it would take 10. I'm not going to tell you it's a sure thing. But if you gave it 5 honest years your odds are better than you think

I live a quiet, slow life. And I’ve visited 12 countries. 
I live a quiet, slow life. And I surf waves that terrify me. 
I live a quiet, slow life. And I’m building something I’ll be proud of in 10 years. 

Quiet doesn’t mean it's not exciting.
It means you stopped confusing non-stop adrenaline for ambition.

People spend 16 years learning the same things as everyone else in a classroom and then wonder why they feel replaceable. 

That’s math. The stuff that makes you impossible to replace is always self-taught. It has to be. 

If it was assigned, everyone else learned it too.

I used to defend college and university. I went to one. I taught at one. But I can't keep pretending the math still works for most people. 

Commoditized degrees. Skills that AI can (or will) replace. Six figures of debt before earning. Self-education with AI and mentorship will get most people further in a fraction of the time and cost. 

I'm not anti-education. I genuinely love education. 

I just can't ignore the risk anymore. And I don't think you can either.

Everyone's trying to escape work. Fewer hours. Passive income. Early retirement. That's not freedom. That's avoidance.

You don't want to do less. You want something worth pouring everything into. Work that's worthy of your full attention, your full energy, your full devotion.

Find that first.

College teacher turned Substack ghostwriter | Thoughts about craft, ideas, and AI as a creative partner (not a replacement) | 2B impressions | $4M+ revenue generated | All in on Substack

One thing I will always respect is working long, hard hours for your family. 

Not to get rich. Not because you like to. But because someone has to put chicken and potatoes on the table at 5pm. 

That’s love with its sleeves rolled up.

Work is the best place to do weird sh*t. 

My team and I, name projects just to make each other laugh. We send dumb memes during work hours. We say things in meetings that would make a corporate manager's eye twitch. None of this is "productive." But it creates a culture where people actually enjoy showing up. 

And that is the most productive thing we've built.

Everyone chasing money is chasing freedom. But what is freedom without a craft you care about, people you laugh with, and a family who smiles when you walk in the front door? 

The loneliest people I've seen aren't the ones who are broke. 
They're the ones who won the wrong game.

A book you highlighted but never practiced is a book you never read.

Understanding doesn't live in the notes you took.

It lives in the choices you made differently afterward.

Every hour you spend scrolling is an hour that won't exist in your memory tomorrow. 

It could have been a game of Uno with your mom. A mind-bending insight from an aged book. The feeling of accomplishment from writing something that just poured out of you. 

The question isn't whether you know this. It's whether you'll act like you do.

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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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