Mountain guide Mark Sedon has lived a life of adventure and has the tales to go with it.

He has survived a fatal helicopter crash, been swept by an avalanche into a deep crevasse, and been trapped in a Papuan mine.

But as Sedon explains in his new book, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?, an adventure doesn’t need to be death-defying.

How have near-death experiences shaped your attitude to risk and adventure?

I’ve learnt that worrying doesn’t actually help; it’s a wasted emotion. If there’s something I’m not happy with, I either stop doing it or change something to eliminate that concern. The near-death experiences have made me more cautious, but they haven’t put me off adventures – they’ve inspired me to do more.

How do you keep going when everything that can go wrong does go wrong?

For me, it’s a bit like climbing Everest  or kite skiing across Antarctica: it’s just one little step at a time to address the most urgent issue. If a whole lot of things are going wrong, just choose one thing at a time to address. If you can’t change it, put it out of your mind and move on to the next one.

What have you learnt about adventure over your lifetime?

Just how much fun it is. And adventures don’t need to be big. It’s about trying to keep that youthful desire for small adventures in your life and that sparkle in your mind for learning new stuff.