Paralympic Resilience with Ian Rose

Foreign.

I'm charlie redding. And I'm laura siddall and this is the tribathlon podcast.

And we're all going to have something that cancels out that negative self doubt and that self talk that we have inside our head and all. Steve used to turn around to me and he said, ian, do you want to be the best in the world?

That was Ian Rose and this episode is Paralympic Resilience. Sophie, welcome back to the Tri Bathroom podcast. While Sid's off racing and gallivanting around the world, we've got you back as guest co host. So really looking forward to chatting to you again.

Welcome back.

Thank you very much, Charlie. It's really nice to be back. It's been fantastic listening to you and Sid chatting away, but it's lovely to be back. So thank you for inviting me back.

No, I'm really looking forward to catching up because I know that you've been up to quite a lot since we did that initial interview, haven't you? So I remember chatting to you about you setting a goal of wanting to run a sub 3 marathon and I believe you've been successful in that. So tell me all about it. How did your, how did you get down to your sub 3? How did it go? We haven't really chatted properly since you did it. So let me. Tell me all about it.

Well, the. Thank you. Yeah, I did, I just about managed to do it. I think it was mainly a slightly different training program, maybe helped. Um, I was training for 100k race, so I kind of slotted in my, my marathon training into training for an ultra marathon. So. So the, the training was a lot of long hilly runs. I did quite, quite a few longer runs than I would normally do for a marathon training plan. I did a lot of them on the hills on the Cotswold way, so that was great. I kept in with my interval session every week, my interval session. I did a bit of cycling and I did. I also did some work on something called a Versaclimber, which is, which is something that I saw Andy Murray uses for rehabilitating his hip. But it's good for climbing and I think that maybe helped with some of the strength and conditioning as well. So, yeah, I did it and the race I actually ended up doing was going to be a virtual marathon and so that was going to be tough. I thought it was going to be probably the hardest thing to do, sort of like 26.2 mile time trial, but in the end I would say it was actually almost one of My best marathons ever because I. I was able to plan the route. I was even able to sort of choose the weather conditions to an extent, because we had two days on which we could do it. Family and friends were there, so I had my husband handing out water bottles. My kids were there. I had some friends come up from Bath. In fact, Kerry Sutton, one of the ultra athletes that you've interviewed on the podcast, came over. So she was there at the start. A few of the friends came and other family members. So that was awesome, having all that support. And not only that, I was able to run with two paces, two amazing pacers. So I had somebody helping me, a lovely lady called Fi Maycock, who's an outstanding runner herself, has done about 13 sub 3 marathons. So she did the first half with me. And then a younger athlete, somebody called Henry James, who I know through the Cast and Friends charity, he helped me in the second half. So.

So it's a bit like your. So it was. It was a virtual marathon. So you're supposedly doing it on your own, except you got your sort of personalized support crew and pacers for the whole thing. That sounds brilliant.

Yeah. And it was virtual in the sense that, yeah, we all did it virtually wherever we live, but it was a global thing. So it was a qualifying race for the Masters Marathon Majors Championships. So everybody who wants to qualify for the Abbott World Masters Majors Championships was doing this race on this particular weekend. So then you have to submit your results with your Garmin data. They then had to be verified. And in fact, we only just heard whether or not we qualified in the last week, because it took them about eight weeks to verify all the results.

And did you qualify?

I qualified with my time of 2 hours, 57 minutes and 24 seconds.

Amazing.

Congratulations. Well done. And so did you feel like you were, you know, did you just maintain the right pace all the way through? Or were there any stages where you thought this wasn't going to be possible? Or were you. You kind of going too fast or what was what. How did it pan out?

Um, well, I've raced. I've tried to do this before, as you know, and massively hit the wall trying to do a sub 3 in the past where I went out a little bit too quick. And my best races are the races that I always do, a negative split. So I knew that I literally had to stick to my paces. Um, so I was going for like two hours, 59. 59 would have been completely acceptable. So we basically did virtually every kilometer in four until the last 5K. And then we. And then we sort of put our foot down a bit and did the last 5k in about 20 minutes. So we did a nice negative split and felt really comfortable the whole time. And it sounds a bit crazy for anybody who's run a marathon and for me as well, but I think I definitely got into that flow state that we've obviously talked about and you've interviewed people about on the podcast. And for once I just felt so comfortable and actually didn't really want it to finish. I kind of just didn't want to stop. So, yeah, it was just awesome.

And do you think there's anything that you did that you could replicate to sort of help you get back into that flow state more easily in the future?

I just think maybe, Charlie, it just happens. Some days happen like that and other days don't. You know, maybe we do the same training and we go and do a marathon one day and then six months later we do the same marathon and we just feel completely different. I don't know. You know, it could be something to do with our nutrition, could be something to do with our hormones, could be something to do with a little bit of taper. I don't know. But I am quite religious now in terms of what I do. My taper is the same. The food I eat in the week of my taper is exactly the same. So I've got my little superstitious strategies that I do and employ. So like what? Well, a lot of beetroot is eaten in that last week of tapir. A lot of chicken liver pate goes down because that's meant to be super good for you. If it's not beetroot, it'd be rhubarb for the nitrates. Three days of absolute carb loading. Barely a vegetable is seen. Yeah. So things like that and sleep a bit more sleep. I don't look at Instagram the day before. I just kind of tune out of all of that sort of sleep stuff. I definitely watch motivational videos. I listen to particular podcasts two nights out before the race. So I've kind of got a nice little pre race week plan sorted now.

Brilliant. And that.

But that's great advice for other people, isn't it? Because you're totally right in that. So I've done two half Ironmans in the last few weeks. And the first one I felt like I was in flow state and I ran my second fastest half marathon within that. And I felt like I could have, you know, bounded along for. For much Much further.

Yeah.

Second one, two weeks later. The run was torture. It was. I don't, I don't know whether it was, you know, whether I cycled a bit harder, whether I. Because I actually thought I'd done a bunch. I tapered much better for that. I didn't tape at all for the previous one. Whereas I'd recover, allowed myself much better recovery for that one. So I was expecting to nail it. And the run, whether it was the hit, it was a more hilly run. So whether that was a significant factor. But also, you know, I'd had the COVID the second Covid jab three days before and I suspect that that might have been an underlying. Because I did react to the first one I had. So, you know, you just don't know. Some days you think, be on it today and then you're not. And then other days you think, I mean, golf is the classic example, isn't it, that you. I don't know if you play any golf, but you know, you can turn up to play golf and think, this is going be a rubbish day, I'm not in the mood for it. And suddenly you have one of your best rounds of the year. Then other days you're coming into it on form, you're like, I'm going to be awesome today.

Yes.

Wheels fall off and you're hopeless.

So, yes.

So something about that. But it sounds like you're, you've cut, you're programming your mind to give your stack the odds in your favor, which is, which is really, really good. And you've also done another race since the. Since the sub 3, your ultra. So tell us all about that. How did that go?

So, yeah, the Ultra. Loved the Ultra. It was a brilliant day out. So I was training for the 100 kilometer Ultra, which was Race to the Castle. So as soon as I did the sub 3, I got back on my ultra plan and did three 50k training runs which were really fun to do, really enjoyed them. But at the end of each one my knees were beginning to sort of hurt and I was like, okay, this is, this is, this is fun, but it's also a little bit painful. And knowing just how much I love to run and to compete and to keep going, I was thinking, or maybe if I want to carry on doing this when I'm 60 and 70, then I need to maybe scale it back and not do the 100 km. Because at the end of the day it was doing 100 kilometer race was a bit like that sub three goal. It's kind of it is a bit of an arbitrary number and really most of your mates think you're crazy anyway. They certainly think that 55km was far enough, so. So I said to myself, well, maybe there's no need to do the 100. So I dropped back to the 50k or 55k it was up in Northumberland. It was the most fantastic weekend because we hadn't been away for ages. It was just lovely to get away. It was lovely to see my cousins who live up there, so we had a really nice time with them the night before, went out for a nice big pub meal, got up in the morning. Weather was a little bit shabby, it was very, very misty and rainy and windy and. But that doesn't really matter when you're racing. You sort of forget about the weather, I think, when you actually start the race. And, yeah, just really great people, lovely support, great marshalling, amazing route. We went over marshlands, we went through streams, our feet were soaking wet, like proper ultra runners should be all wet and muddy. And I fell in a little hole halfway. Well, about mile 40, I fell in a hole, which is kind of amusing. I sort of giggled and jumped up and carried on and got to the end and a bit like you were saying about coming end of a race without having any support there, I. I got to the end and the chap was one of the marshals. He's like, right, no, carry on, here's a pit stop, you know, help yourself to some more food. And I was like, oh, no, I finished my race. So, so, so they. So there was nobody there at the end. My cousin, bless her, missed the end because she was meant to be what, see me coming through the end. But I started 20 minutes earlier than I told her I was going to start because my husband ran with me and his start time was 6:30. So when we started the race, I just said to the marshals, can I start the same time? So I ended up finishing a bit quicker than I expected and, yeah, managed to manage to set the course record because it was the first time they'd done the race. So I managed to finish in four hours and 55 minutes.

Brilliant, brilliant.

So.

And you didn't come, you didn't win by just a small margin, did you? How far back was the second runner?

I think the next chap behind me was about 5 hours 39 minutes.

So 40 odd minutes behind you. So that's a. Yeah, you've set a pretty significant course record there. And where in Northumberland is this?

We started near Corbridge, which is A nice little place if anybody wants to go to Northumberland. Lovely little place near Hexham. And then we ran towards Morpeth and then we. Then the 100 kilometer folk went up the coast. Beautiful route. Stunning route which. So we missed out on that. Up all the way to Bamber Castle.

Amazing.

So that would have been amazing. So maybe next year my husband wants to do the second day because you can do these races in two stages. So he's contemplating doing day two. So he gets to do the castle bit and the beach bit and I'm contemplating maybe doing the full thing.

Oh, you're back to thinking about the full thing, are you?

Well, possibly, because I sort of feel like I maybe sort of didn't quite do as perhaps I could have done. So.

So what are you going to do.

To try and ease. Is there anything you can do to try and help your knees between now and then?

Well, maybe. Maybe more strength and conditioning. That would certainly be the thing. So that would. That would definitely be good. I did buy a weighted vest to do this training, something again that Kerry Sutton mentioned that she uses when she's doing her training for ultramarathons. So I didn't use that as much as I could have done. So I think maybe I could go back to that over the winter and do some weighted vest walks with the weighted vest on to build strength. Because I think at the end of the day it is all around the strength of ligaments and tendons around your knees and joints. And as we get a bit older, that's. That's probably something we need to work on, so. And I know that maybe. Yeah, having a big, long rest afterwards would. Would be good.

Yeah, so it sounds like good, good. A good idea. And what about Cass and Friends charity? What's been happening with that in the. In the. I don't remember when we did our interview, actually. Would it have been about. Probably nearly a year ago, wasn't it?

Yeah, I think it was. I think it was just sort of before Christmas, before the first lockdown, and we were. So my goals for the charity were to build more of a tribe, as we talked about, with regards to sort of that whole community, to carry on with the Mindset work. So I've coached quite a few more athletes on the Mindset program and that's been fantastic. Some of the athletes I've coached haven't been athletes that we support through Cass and Friends because they may have been a little bit too old for the funding. But what they've been able to do is make a Small donation to the charity in receipt of the mindset coaching, which has been fantastic because we've not been able to do our usual fundraising in Covid, but that's been a nice little bit of income. We have continued to receive some grants. We've been nominated for a Queen's Award for Voluntary Service, which is a really nice accolade to have. Whether we get it, I don't know, but it's been lovely to be nominated and I'm now in the process. I've just spent the last couple of months putting together an athlete branding and sponsorship program because I realise when our athletes leave us age 18, there's still a long way to go in terms of funding themselves for their sport. Sport Aid does kick in at age 18 and I think they'll all be eligible for about £1,000 of funding through Sport Aid. But that's, as you know and I know from sport, you know, if you're going to do an Ironman, it's what fit £550. It's not even going to touch the sides, really. So the idea behind the athlete branding and sponsorship program was that we begin to equip them with the skills necessary to start thinking about how they do that. Amazing.

That sounds really good. And have you got any athletes that are particularly standing out at the moment as really top performers?

To be fair, they're all awesome, Charlie, but yeah, we have. I mean, just this last weekend we. One of our runners was that. Well, we had two runners at the National Schools Championships. Both did absolutely brilliantly. Our runner, who is aged 16, she came 11th in, I want to say, the 3000 meters and our runner, who is 17, won the. No, sorry, Caitlin won the 3000 meters and she's 17. And Kai, I think, was maybe in the 1500 meters and she was 11th. Isaac, another triathlete, he ran a personal best under 16 minutes for a 5K on the track yesterday. And yeah, they're all just doing awesome, to be fair. They're just brilliant. We've got a boxer who's waiting to get back in the ring to compete because, of course, boxing matches haven't been able to start again. So, yes, some of them haven't been able to compete yet, but the runners and the track athletes and the triathletes, they've been able to compete a bit, which has been really lovely.

Brilliant. Oh, it sounds. Sounds like that's going really well and going from strength to strength. So, so well done, you guys on that and well done with the nomination of the. Of the. Hopefully hopefully an award coming your way in due course, but that would be really exciting.

Brilliant.

So let's dive into the interview with Paralympic athlete Ian Rhodes. Born in 1972, Ian Rose contracted eye cancer as a baby, losing the sight in his left eye and most of the sight in his right eye. But he went on to compete in five Paralympic Games at judo, winning two medals, as well as medals in the World Championships and in the European Championships. Ian was even on course to represent Paralympics GB at his sixth Games in London when he sadly sustained an injury during training, so had to retire, ending an international career spanning 22 years at the top. Now a really well respected speaker and workshop facilitator, I wanted to understand more from Ian about controlling the controllables, defining your purpose and also unleashing the power of resilience. I know you're going to really enjoy and take loads from this conversation with Ian Rhodes. So, Ian, welcome to the Tribeathlon podcast. Really looking forward to chatting to you and finding out more about what you've been up to and what you're currently up to. So welcome to the podcast. Let's kick things off by. Can you tell, for those people that don't know much or anything about you, can you tell people your story? You know, where did it all begin? How did you get into your sport of choice? And, you know, how did that sport evolve for you?

Well, firstly, Charlie, thank you very much for inviting me onto your podcast. I'm really excited to talk to you and to share some experiences with your listeners as well. So thank you very much for that. You're very welcome. So, yeah, I'm a judoka, which is participant in the sport of judo, and there's a very sort of, you know, sort of time banded story in respect to how I got into that and a really specific reason. So I was born back in 1972 and I live in a place called High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, just outside London. And when I was born, within the first six months of being born, I was rushed into Stoke Mandeville Hospital near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. And I needed some operations to effectively save my life because they'd found that I'd contracted this cancer in my eyes called retinoblastoma. And through those operations that I needed to effectively save my life, I lost all of the sight in my left eye and I lost most of the sight in my right eye. And through the radiotherapy that we, you know, that was around back then, there was no chemotherapy. You know, we're talking many years ago now, aren't we? And you know, there was only radiotherapy around and through that radiotherapy, which is quite a destructive sort of treatment, I, you know, I grew up with a, you know, a bit of a facial disfigurement. So down the right hand side of my face I have an indent where the bone didn't grow quite as fast as, as the rest of my face. And it made me look different in school. So at the age of seven, I was doing the normal thing and you know, mixing with other kids at school and stuff like that. And these other kids, for some reason they started becoming a little bit nasty at that point. And I was being teased about the one thing that I couldn't change in my life. I was being teased about the way I looked. You know, I mean back then I had a bit of a dodgy haircut, it was all curly and all over the place and all that sort of thing. But I wore these big thick glasses which made me stand out from everyone else and I had a bit of a funny shaped face. And these people, you know, these people were calling me all the names that usually you get called when you've got glasses on at that age and all that sort of stuff. And it was really horrible and I really didn't know how to cope and I was going home in tears most afternoons after school and I really didn't want to go to school because that was the place where I was going, where all of the horrible things in my life were going on. You know, I, you know, all that teasing was happening and stuff. But here's the most important thing. What was happening by those guys actually teasing me was they were reducing my self esteem and it ended up at that age, me actually just not wanting to be me. And it was horrible. You know, if you can imagine, sort of that feeling of just not wanting to be you. It's just a horrible feeling to have, you know, everything is a struggle, you know. And bear in mind I was 7 years old, so this was many, many years ago. I'm 49 now by the way. Just to give away my age to everybody, everyone else. And I was so this is many, many years ago. And my dad and my mum knew that something had to, you know, they knew that they had to help me in some way but didn't quite know how. Now they knew that in life we need three things to be a successful person and that is self esteem. We need to like ourselves for a start. Okay? That is a bit of confidence so we can try new things. And that is A bit of belief so that when we do try new things, we don't give up at the slightest hint of it getting a little bit difficult. And all your listeners are gonna, you know, they're gonna relate to that, aren't they? You know, when things get slightly difficult, you've got to bash on through, haven't you, really, you know, and get through that little brick wall of pain that you, you know, is caused by either the feeling you're. You're feeling or the, you know, the physical exertion you're actually, you know, you're, you're putting out there. And. And I didn't have that staying power to, you know, stick at things. And they knew, like. And also, you know, a big thing for me and my parents, and both Ken and Angie, my parents are still around and they support me very positively through my life still. And a big thing for them and me at the moment is a measure of someone's success is not about how much money they've got. It's not about how big their car is or how big the house is they've got or stuff like that. It's about how big the smile is on their face. You know, how proud are they of what they've done up till today, how proud are they of what they're doing today and how proud are they of what they're about to do from today onwards. And I wasn't being very proud at the age of seven, consequently, I wasn't smiling very much. And my dad then had this wonderful idea that at the time, didn't realize it, but was actually going to give me a life. And back then, my dad was a wrestler. 1979, this was. He was a bit of a wrestler, but he was a, you know, he was a local wrestler. You know, he'd turn up, you know, he wasn't famous. And he was wrestling at the same sort of time as, you know, you might remember Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy.

You know, watching them on a Saturday afternoon.

Yeah, that's it. That's it. Shirley Crabtree used to jump off the top of the wrestling ring and flatten somebody in the bill in the middle of the ring with his big belly. Called it the Big Daddy splash. Do you remember?

Yeah, I do. I really do remember that.

Ah, well, my dad would have been the guy that Big Daddy was flattening. So my dad wasn't famous. He used to get bunged a tenor and he said, come along and get beaten up in the middle of the ring, basically. So my dad, you know, he didn't do it for the publicity, to win or any. He did it because he knew that firstly, sport helped you in your mental well being and in your life, physical and mental well being, okay? But secondly, it was a community where he felt like he belonged. You know, it was somewhere where he could be himself. And that's the bit he needed to. And my mum and my dad wanted to install into me by introducing me to this sport of judo. So he had this idea. They took me up to this school, this primary school near where we lived and I walked through the front door of this primary school and this guy called Ron, Ron Clear comes running across and he goes, hi, Ian, how you doing? I said, I'm alright. He said, so you've come to have a go at judo? And my first reaction was, no way, because I'd looked at the map and on this mat there were kids doing judo. And firstly, the sport looked like it hurt because they were throwing people around. And secondly, and bearing in mind I was seven years old, okay? Secondly, the judo suits they were wearing, in my opinion, look like pajamas tied up in the middle of the belt. And I didn't want to be laughed at, you know, I didn't, you know, I was getting all that people laughing at me at school. I didn't want that, you know, a place I went to to have some fun and to, you know, do something. So my fear response, you know, my threat response was trigger. And I just wanted to turn and run, basically. And then my dad sent something to me so special that it changed my life. In fact, I would say go as far as it gave me a life. It basically just turned around and said like parents have the ability to do and just said, how do you know if you can or can't do this? And yes, you just give it a go. And I committed to three weeks of this sport and it did, it gave me a life. It made me realise two things at the beginning of my career in judo that was really important to everybody that I talk to, I believe anyway, and that is firstly, always give everybody you meet the respect that you would want back yourself. And number two, find that community, whether that community is a sports club, whether that community is in the local, you know, the local pub that's around near you, when we're allowed to go to those, whether that community is a community centre or something else, you know, find that community where you can laugh with people and where people don't laugh at you. And that was the first time in that club I'd ever Experienced that, my self esteem started rising. I started liking myself because of this fact. My confidence started rising, not just in the judo club, but at school as well. And my beliefs started rising. So when things got started getting a little bit tough, I didn't give up, I did battle through. But here's the point, I was still not very good at judo. You know, I didn't start judo and instantly take over the world. You know, that wasn't, that wasn't the way it worked. That's not the way it works, is it? I, you know, my first medal was won two years after starting the sport and that was a medal for taking part, you know, so it was difficult, but what had happened at that point was I'd uncovered a passion just to want to be my best, not be better than everyone else, you know, not to, not to be better, you know, not to be everyone else or any other. So just to be my best and do my best. And that then transferred into my school career, into my judo career, into everything that I've tried from then up until now, to be honest. And you know, you know, I tried really hard, you know, so on the, you know, I'm still at school up to the age of 16. I struggled at school because having problems with my eyes and being back at that time, people tried to help, but there was no real, what's the word now, there was no real inclusion in schools. They tried, don't get me wrong, and it was really great of them to try and they had a department looking after, trying to look after inclusion and stuff like that. But there wasn't the technology around back then to enable me to, for instance, listen to an audiobook or to read within large technology or if the technology was around, it was very expensive. And here's the point, it made me stand out as being different, which is what I didn't want. So what I didn't want to do was sit in a classroom with a big screen on my desk with a book underneath it with a magnifying glass shining up. So I was basically saying, look at me, I'm visually impaired. You know, I wanted to be the same as me mates, you know, but what I did do is I used a magnifying glass to read books and stuff like that. I also had some fantastic friends that used to sit next to, in, you know, the classes and they used to, you know, when there was something on the board, they used to write it down on the book for me, you know, in front of me. In fact, here's a, you know, A bit of a funny story for you. I was in science once and there's two things actually here. I was in science once and there was a bit of a commotion going on at the back of the room. And it was a guy that used to talk a lot in class. We always had one of them, didn't you? Used to talk all the time in class and the teacher told that person off and she'd told him off loads of times up to that point. And basically his punishment was to come and sit next to me and help me read the board for me. And actually, turns out for him, it was the best thing she ever did because we became friends. Okay. He also then started behaving in class because he had to concentrate to help me.

And.

And we both increased our scores within that subject. And it was just a brilliant thing. The teacher had the future thinking to be able to do really so little things like that made me the person I am now, if you know what I mean.

What a great strategy from the teacher to identify that. And, yeah, that's really good. I was just thinking when you were talking about judo, was judo selected by your parents because it's a good sport for people that are having paired vision or was it just because, you know, I'm just wondering whether it was just, you know, there was a judo club next door and we thought, well, that'll do.

You would think it was because of the eyesight and it's good for tactile people. Turns out that judo is fantastic for visually impaired because it's very tactile and you have to hold somebody to throw them. But it was more simple than that. My auntie knew the coach at the club and that was the way we were introduced. So my auntie said to Ron, Ian's visually effectual coming along and that was the way it went. And it turns out that the sport basically became my life and at that point became my mum and dad's life. And then my brother got into it and became his life as well. So it was a family thing, basically. It was where we all spent time together and we traveled the country together. We made some amazing friends out of it and all that sort of stuff. And it was. It just became our community where we. We fit in, you know what I mean? And my dad became, at one point, he became the chairman of the club. My mum was involved on the parents committee. We, you know, mum and dad did things like, you know, raised money to buy a, you know, a minibus for the club, for instance, and to take a of players around and stuff like that. So it went from just my auntie knowing a coach at the club, being introduced to the club, to basically becoming our life outside of work and school, you know, and I think that's brilliant.

I mean, you essentially found your tribe, to use our terminology. But it is a reminder that, you know, with the majority of people that we tend to speak to are runners, cyclists, swimmers, all of which can quite happily be done and often easily, more easily done on your own. Whereas with a club, you've got that tribe around you, haven't you? And obviously with judo, not so easy to do that one on your own. So you have to be part of a tribe. So that's fantastic. So then how did your judo career progress from that sort of first medal winning basically for trying?

Well, that, that was, that was. Yeah, that was the bit to me that sort of said, come on, Ian, you've got to give this a go. Effectively, I was nine years old. From that point on, I was. And actually at that point and up to the age of 16, the only competitors I was competing against were people that could see perfectly. There was no visually impaired judo around there that I knew of at all. It was around, but we just didn't know about it. Now what we've got to think about is take ourselves back to this time, which was back, you know, leading up to the end of the 80s. So I turned 16 in 1988 and up until that point, we've got to think back to that. There were no mobile phones, really. There was no Internet, really, you know, not easily accessible. There was no emails and all that sort of stuff. You know, what we saw was either on television or what was sent to us in the post, you know, or what people told us about by giving us a call and saying, have you heard about this? You know, so up until that point when I turned 16, I was competing against fully sighted people. We were traveling around the country. I was doing okay, but I wasn't the sort of person that would. I could make the county squad and I could make the area squad. So we do it, you know, obviously there's a Buckingham, Buckinghamshire county squad and then there's. Buckinghamshire is within the Northern Home Counties and that's the area. So I could make. I just about made the now Northern Home Counties squad on one or two occasions. And then I started and I just about became. I was fourth reserve, I think, for the under 21s, GB team in the under 21s when I was, you know, training and all that sort of stuff. But I was nowhere near being selected as a number one or a number two for, you know, even, you know, even the, you know, even the Northern Counties team, for instance, you know, at.

Some points that's still really impressive, isn't it? The fact that you could get that higher level of achievement competing against people that did have, did have full vision. So I think that's amazing.

Well, thank you, thank you. And, but that's testament to. Yes, okay. I did a lot of hard work in training and, you know, I'm a big believer and you get out of something what you put into it. Okay. So if you're not willing to train hard, then you're going to get to a point where you're thinking, can't do this anymore. Yeah. So you've got to be willing to put yourself through that tough training to get to those good results, you know, and that's a mindset, isn't it? It's really, you know, you can't, sometimes you can't teach that. It has to be in somebody to. And they have to learn that skill through many years to get to that point where they reach that little bit where there's a cliff and they say, what do I do? Do I give up and say, this is the best I've got or do I just take that one step further and say, right, I'm going to push myself just that little bit more. And that. And that was okay. That was inbuilt within me. But I also had. And this is the bit about your tribe, if you know what I mean, this is a bit about the tribe. I also had a fantastic support network around me, both in my mum and dad, my brother, my family, and also the coaches that I had at the club and the team members that I had at the club, we were all very supportive of each other and that was where the success came from. It couldn't be done on my own. I needed to talk to people. I needed, like you say, judo's not an individual sport, you know, I needed people to train with that didn't mind me throwing them around, for instance, but I also needed that mentality that, okay, I'm just going to throw them around in training, but I needed to help them as well. So I need to be thrown in around, thrown around. So there was a give and take type thing, you know, and that was what really helped me and sort of made me that, I suppose at that age, maybe that rounded person not just want to be good and succeed in sport, but also just wanting to be just an all round, sort of respectable, successful person in life as well, you know that. But that's what sport teaches us, isn't it?

Yeah, it is. And so how did you then progress into competing against other people that were visually impaired?

So, 1988, 16 years old, doing my GCSEs, trying hard, but, you know, you know, turns out that I came out of school with three C, three GCSEs, grade C, and didn't quite get enough to lead into, you know, sixth form and go on for A levels and stuff. Like I said, I struggled at school, but I tried my best that allowed me to get a job. But at that time, 1988, it was the Seoul Paralympics and I had no idea that these Paralympics existed until there was a chance occurrence where I turned on the television with my mum and dad on a Saturday afternoon. Now, we had this little routine. We went out shopping in the morning, we come back in the afternoon, we'd watch the wrestling or do you remember the A team or the Dukes of Hazzard on Saturday afternoon?

I love that.

Yeah, we'd watch the A team on the Dukes of Hazzard and then it'd be Grandstand and it would be. I think it was Dicky Davis. Yes.

Yeah.

And it would usually be on football. It'd be an update on football. Anyway, this. This Saturday, we'd turn the telly on it and it was. It was an update recording from the week's. The week's action from the soul Paralympic Games. And it just so happened at the time when we were watching it, judo was on there and there were these guys doing judo and they were all visually impaired like me. And there was a couple of guys that had got golds for Great Britain. And there was one man that was, you know, one young man that was 16, same age as me, and he was doing his sort of showing his medal and saying, I've done all this training and, oh, it's just a fantastic experience. And that was when I knew that I wanted to be like them. That was when the Paralympics became a picture for me and I knew it was around. But that was when I realised actually why I'd been doing all this sport, you know, up to that point. I've been doing judo to keep fit and, let's be frank, to please me mum and dad a little bit, you know, because we do sometimes, don't we? You know, and they were the two main reasons.

Yes.

Okay. I enjoyed winning medals and I was doing all that sort of. But there was something missing. And this was the puzzle piece that was missing, that bit, what I'd just seen on Grandstand, that Paralympic Games, the visually impaired Paralympics. Now, the thing about judo in the Paralympics, okay, is all of the competitors are visually impaired first, but then might have a hearing impairment as well, for instance. Yeah. So at that point, they were all visually impaired. And then I made a sort of a. You know, that was where a goal in my life became very clear, and my purpose in judo became exceptionally clear, that I wanted to be world champion. I wanted to do like they'd done and basically win a Paralympic medal, but most importantly, become world champion in my field of visually impaired judo. But there was still. There was no Internet around, remember? Okay. So we didn't know how to get hold of those people to actually get, you know, get a chance to get on the squad. And this is where the next piece of the puzzle fits in. And I'm not sure how it happened, okay? But it's just one of those things that happens to us in life. Coincidence. I was at a sighted competition that year following the Paralympic Games, and it just so happened one of the competitors that was in Seoul was at that competition and invited me, via the team coach, you know, the Paralympic coach, to a training weekend. I don't know how it happened. It was just coincidence. They were there and I was at that competition and I went to that training weekend. I obviously impressed the coach in some way because that year after that, 1989 was my first selection for the European Visually Impaired Championships. And that was my first selection. I was 16 years old, still 16, and I was competing against fully grown adults. And my first reaction when I got that letter saying, ian, you've made the squad, my first reaction was, France, Germany, Italy, Spain. Somewhere sunny. And we ended up in Manchester. And it was an amazing. Don't get me wrong, I love Manchester. We ended up at the George Carnell Sports center, for anyone that knows it, in Urmston, Manchester, right next to the Trafford Centre. And I came back from that first competition in the European champion with a bronze medal. And I was as chuffed as anything because all of that hard work that I'd put in competing against guys that were fully sighted had all paid off. And I'd proved that I potentially had something here and I could do something. I'd found my niche, you know, I'd found where, you know, I'd found what I could do. And that dream, that goal that I'd set, becoming world champion, was one step closer now. I then got selected in 1992 for my first Major competition, I would call it. Okay, so the Europeans was great, but bear in mind, at this point, visually impaired judo wasn't a big thing. There was probably 100 to 200 people in a big sports center watching this, you know, European championships at the George Carnell. And most of those were family members of competitors or people in the sports centre, trained at the sports centre thought, oh, what's going on there? We're going to have a quick look type thing, you know. And then I turned up to Barcelona where there were 3,000 people in the audience for a judo match, let alone 90,000 watching you go around the opening ceremony. So I turns up to Barcelona, I've got this, you know, and yes, this is the same for every Paralympics. So, you know, just to set the scene, I've got this posh suit with a tie, nice hat, gets dressed up, walks around, you know, walks to the, you know, gets to the sports, you know, the stadium at the opening ceremony and we get off the coach and we go to join the Olympic, you know, the Paralympic GB team, where there's three or 400 of us doing different sports. And all you can hear is this. In the faint distance you can hear this din of noise of people. And the opening ceremony starts and it's the point now where the teams are walking into the stadium and you're getting closer and closer to the stadium and all of a sudden this din's getting slightly louder and louder and louder until you get to the point where you get to the stadium, you can hear them inside the stadium. You still can't hear it properly. It's like, you know, it's like listening to them through earphones, but your ears are also blocked up, you know, and you get to the, you know, the tunnel that you go through. You can imagine walking through this tunnel and at the end of this tunnel there's this big door. And coming through this door, there's this big wall of sound. And you get to the front door and you get, and you walk out this door and all of a sudden this wave of noise hits you and the hairs on their back, I can only say the hairs on your back, ear, neck just instantly go, bam. Like that. You know, they stand up and that's the point where you realize this is serious. You've got the tracksuit, you've got the judo suit that all say Great Britain on it. You've got the jacket you're wearing with says Great Britain on it. You've got all that free stuff and all that stuff you get given when you're a competitor at that sort of level, in that sort of a competition. But at that point, you realize I'm here to do a job, I'm here to win. I'm here to prove to everyone about all this, all this trust they've shown in me of, you know, the, you know, the ability that I've got and the. All the hours they've put in, as well as I've had to get me to this level, to be able to compete on this stage. That's the point where you realize this is real. And I did the opening ceremony, like I said, walking around the track in front of those 90,000 people. You sit down, you watch the opening ceremony. And I was competing, I think, three days after that. So I had a bit of a chance to relax and rest the next day, and then the day after that. And I think it was the third day after that. I think I was competing. If I remember rightly, it might be slightly different than that. But many years ago, then, remember this. But that competition, it didn't go my way because I'd forgotten one thing. I got to the competition and I'd forgotten that really important rule that I'd remembered right early on, and that was that respect word. I went out to Barcelona with the deep down thought, that ain't it great, these disabled people are having a go. I'd forgotten that I was a Paralympian as well, and I didn't want them to think that about me, so why did I think that about them? And I came last. I got absolutely battered, you know, and I got back from that competition and that was where the mindset had to change. I had to go through that to really appreciate what these Paralympians were capable of. Yeah. And I changed my mindset, as the public have now done after London and what London did for this country, the 2012 Games. And that is now that, you know, elite sport, you know, sorry, Paralympians are elite sports people first that just so happen to have a disability. And in judo, obviously, it's with your eyes. So I changed my mentality. I trained even harder and smarter. Okay. Because obviously I was getting a little bit older, a few more injuries, all that sort of stuff. And 1995 was the first chance where that became, you know, that that showed its face as really paying off because I got to the World Championships in 1995 in America and I achieved my dream. I won it. I was stood on the top rostrum. And I'm going to admit to you now that I Cried a bit, because all the passion, all of the effort, all of the commitment, all of the hard work that not just I'd put in, that others had put in, I just proved it has paid off, you know, and I'd achieved something I was going for and I could do it, you know. But then I realized that as soon as I stepped off this rostrum, the guys that were behind me in silver, bronze, and the others that, you know, had been a little bit, you know, unsuccessful at the competition to, you know, aiming for their levels, they were going to be chasing after me straight after because they'd want to knock me off the top spot. And that was where the realization was that this sport of judo tied very uniquely into the job that I'd chosen to, you know, to, you know, to, you know, the career that I'd chosen at that point as well. Because at this point, you know, up till 1995 and actually onwards, there was still no sport, no money in judo. No money, definitely Paralympic judo, There was still no money in the sport. So I had to, you know, I had a 9 till 5 job in IT sales as a consultant in IT sales at the same time as I was training and at the same time as I was competing and all the balancing stuff that comes along with that. And this was where I realized that actually judo and sport links very, very uniquely into that sales environment because there's that constant circle of either a monthly or a quarterly or an annual target. We had a target which was to win a medal in the next competition. You win that medal. Hopefully, if you do your thing, then you got the next competition, then you win your medal, you got the next competition. It's the same as sales, really, isn't it? It's going around that circle of reaching that target. So as soon as I won that medal in the World Championships, then we were aiming for 1996 and the Atlanta Games. And then the realization was that the people that, like I say, I'd beaten in that World Championships, they were going to want to knock the me off the top perch. So I went into Atlanta and did all the exact same. There was the opening ceremony, same feelings, all that sort of stuff, but only I could relax a little bit more in Atlanta because I'd already done it once in Barcelona. So the shock and awe factor was taken out of it. You know what I mean? Also, that thing about, you know, underestimating my competition and not respecting them, that was taken out of it as well. And I went into Atlanta with a bit of a different problem. I was favourite to win gold because I was current world and current European champion. And I realized I didn't really cope well with that pressure, you know. You know, when you go into something expected to win, it's a completely different feeling than going into something as an underdog. Yeah. Or as a newbie. And I went in there completely, but I also went in there not realizing that something could happen. I'd done all the homework that I could do on my competitors. I'd done all the, you know, all the, you know, remember what they'd done from previous competitions, having that plan B in place in case they do this and the plan A in place in case I meet that person. But I, you know, but, but what I'd realized then in my first fight in Atlanta was new people might come along that I'd not seen before and I couldn't prepare for that, you know, and we'll get into this when we talk about controlling the controllables, for instance, that was one of the things I learned with this. This Brazilian turned up in Atlanta and first fight and bearing in mind I'm favourite to win gold, both in my own head and also from the, you know, from the build up to the competition. And he beat me in my first fight in 10 seconds.

Wow.

I don't know what hit me, to be honest, Charlie. It was horrible, you know. You know, my dream of getting gold in the Paralympics had just completely been wiped out within, within 10 seconds and I didn't know what hit me. And I think this is where I was truly introduced to the, and I'd shown it up until this point, but this is where I was truly introduced to that word resilience, I think. And you know, going back around to the warm up area, not knowing what to do and being a bit lost and then being reminded by myself and by the people around me that, you know, I've trained for many years to get to this point and you know, if I just give up now, there's still the chance to win a bronze and give myself a good talking to, say, right, get back out there, give it your best shot and see what happens. And luckily enough I did that and I came home with a bronze. So that was a one step closer to that gold medal, you know, but there's things to be learned out of that, isn't it?

There is. So you mentioned controlling the controllables. What, what, what do you think looking back on that? What did, how do you think you applied that principle that we've heard quite a lot of over the last 18 months, I suppose, and certainly it's come up a lot in the podcast. How do you think you use that approach to. To win that bronze?

Well, I mean. I mean, I think. I think I learned from that, actually. The approach I used to win the bronze was really digging in deep and actually using that word, resilience. You know? You know, we have a plan. You know, there's a lot of things we put in place to have a plan. Okay. We devise a plan to say, right, okay, we're going to run this distance in this amount of time. We're going to swim this distance in that amount of time. We're going to cycle this distance in that amount of time. And that's. That plan will work. Providing everything slots into place the way we think it's going to. Yeah. Sometimes life has a tendency to throw curveballs at us. Yeah. And sometimes what happens in our head is we need to then think. Okay, I wasn't expecting that. So do you know what I need to do is I need to dig in deep. And for me, resilience is all about when things don't go your way. Having the ability to pick yourself up, dust yourself down, and try again, and carry on is really important. Okay. Now, what I learned from Atlanta was there are three parts of gaining control, and that is the stuff we have full control over. So we as a person and our team have full control over certain things that happen in our lives, okay. Both in sport, in our careers, in our lives. We have certain things that we can take full control over. We have certain things that we have a partial control over with others. Okay. Or with situations or with, you know, with events that go on. So we have a partial control over. And we have things that we have absolutely no control over at all. Okay. No matter what we do, we have no control over it at all. And what I've done is separated those into three columns. Focus, okay? And I call this my three F's framework now. Okay. And I, from Atlanta, I started doing this, but I didn't realize it. Yeah. Until I thought about it. On how can I help people with this. And I call this my 3F framework. Okay? The first column is focus. And the focus column is everything in the situation or everything in a task that you have complete control over. And that's things like, for instance, your attitude, your preparation, your time. For instance, you have full control over that sort of stuff. The middle column is flag, and the flag column is the stuff where you put the stuff that you have partial control over. So that's other people's time, for instance. So you might want to. You want. You might book an appointment with someone in their diary, but they might have to cancel that through some reason, you know, so you have partial control over that. You have partial control over, you know, booking a hotel for an event, for instance, that sort of stuff. There might be other events that, you know, happen that mean that that doesn't quite work out. You know, you have partial control over the traffic and that the, you know, the, the way you get to an event, you know, so you could try going a different way if there's traffic, you know, one route and then the other column, and that's flag. The other column is forget. Sorry, the last column is forget. And in forget, in the forget column, you put all the stuff that you have absolutely no control over at all. Now, I'm not saying you completely forget about the item you're putting in there, but you put a partial plan in place, for instance, but you give yourself permission to stop worrying about it. And that's the key for me, is you give yourself permission to stop. So a classic in the forget column when it comes to sports and when it comes to, for instance, organizing a community fete or something like that would be weather. The weather we have no control over whether it decides to rain or so, you know, we can plan what the weather man tells us, they think it might happen, and we can have a plan B in place in case it rains, but we have no control over that, so why worry about it? And that for me, then gave me the ability to sort of clear my head a bit and focus on the bits that I had full control over so that when I went back into the training sessions, I could say, right, okay, what works well for me in my judo is doing this technique in this type of situation, doing that technique in that type of situation, and doing that one in others. Yeah, my competitors, I roughly know this is in the flag column. I roughly know that the Brazilian is going to do this, the Azerbaijani is going to do that, and the French guy is going to do that, but they might try something new. So I can't plan for the thing they might try new, but I can be prepared what people are prepared for what they do do, you know. And, you know, there's all sorts of things that your, your tribe can put in there. For instance, in the flag column, which is, I think the weather's going to be sunny, but it might rain. So I'm going to take in my kit bag, I'm going to Take some waterproofs with me just in case. Or I've got these trainers that I think they're going to. I think they're good. They're going to be okay. But you know what, what happens if they get wet? Because a water bottle leaks in my bag, you know, I've got another spare pair of trainers in a separate bag that are in a carrier bag that are the same ones, but they're a backup pair, you know, so there is stuff there that you can prepare just in case something happens.

I think this is great advice. And I think what's slightly different to how I've heard this talked about before is, and I love the 3F framework. So the focus bit is the bit that absolutely we should focus on and we do worry about. And the forget bit is very good advice in terms of you don't forget to make a plan for the weather. For example, I was doing my first triathlon for a while last Sunday. It was forecast that it might rain, it might not.

It was like.

But you're absolutely right, there's no point in worrying about that. But you just build a plan for it. One that's kind of maybe a bit new to explaining this concept is the flag. So how would you. If you can partially control something, how would you approach the flag column?

So, for instance, let's have a think. So partially controlling things are things like environment. Okay, so I'll give you a situation. Okay. So before a Games, we would go out to a training camp, okay. And we'd probably, for instance, before Atlanta, it was in Tallahassee in Florida. Okay. We got to go some really nice places, actually. It's quite good. And the year before, sorry, the year of the Games, we'd spend two weeks there in probably either the January or the February of the Olympic year. The year before, we'd go out there two weeks in sort of November, ish. And two weeks, you know, early that year, and we'd get out there and we knew roughly what we were going to get. So we knew there was going to be a dojo to go and do our judo. We knew there was going to be a hotel to stay in, for instance, and we knew we were going to get fed. Okay. What we didn't know was potentially what the weather was going to be like again. Okay. So what we could do there, for instance, is in the hotel we booked and the team booked, there was a gym. We didn't have to leave the hotel. If the weather was bad, we could go to the gym. Yeah. So there was A partially control. We could partially control the environment and the facilities that we had available to us. Okay. We could also partially control, for instance, booking to go and visit local clubs, to go and train with different types of judoka that challenged us in different ways than the people we, you know, we were out there with for two weeks with, training with all the time. Because you can. You can. For instance, if we did judo together or we ran together, would be. We'd become very good at competing against each other, but when we introduced somebody else, it would be a different story. So we'd have to go and visit other clubs, and we could partially control that. So we'd book a club to go and train at. But again, what happened, for instance, if the weather was bad or what happened, for instance, if the club got shut for some reason and we couldn't do that? You know, then there'd be a plan B. We'd have it in the diary, but then there'd be a plan B which would be, okay, here's the gym or here's the dojo that we usually train in, which was very close to the hotel, so we could walk to it, for instance. Okay, so there's another thing. We could partially control getting to and from the dojo. We could either go by bus or train. Sorry. By bus or car if it rained, but if the sun was nice, which it usually was in Tallahassee, we could walk to it.

I see. So it's essentially almost saying, well, okay, if you build a plan for those things in the flag column, you don't need to worry about them either, because you just got to keep your eye on them and have a plan to adapt. Yeah.

It's like diarizing something. So, for instance, at work, for instance, if you give somebody a task to do that works for you, that reports to you. Okay. Give someone a task to do, and they don't accept help on that task. For instance, say it's a new task to them and they won't accept help because they think they can do it. Yeah. Diarize to go back to them in a week's time to say, how are you doing with that? So you've partially got a little bit of control on that because you're. You're diarizing to go back and say to them, give me some feedback. What's going on? You're not micromanaging them and approaching them every single day to say, what's going on? What's going on? What's going on? I wouldn't do it like that. What's going on, you're diarizing to go back in an agreed amount of time to say what's going on? And at that point they might say, yeah, I need some help.

Okay.

You know, so there's a, there's like a middle ground between focus and forget, you know.

Yeah. And I think it's easy to forget the middle ground, actually. And so did you. So how did the, your future Paralympics then go and did you manage to, you know, improve on your, on your bronze medal?

Well, yeah, well, let's, we'll move through and, you know, it's quite nice how this story's going, if you know what I mean, and introducing the tactics that I've never really exactly thought about when they came from, if you know what I mean. This is good for me as well. So Sydney 2000 was my next games and I got from. What was different with Sydney as well was money started to come into sport through UK Sport and the National Lottery. So a small percentage or I don't exactly know what the percentage is or a percentage of a lottery ticket that somebody buys a National Lottery ticket goes to UK sport and UK sport divvy the funds up to the sports that are being successful and that are Olympic and Paralympic sports. So I then, because of the success I was in, I had in Atlanta with that bronze medal that enabled me to get a monthly grant to fund some of the stuff I was doing in sport now, you know, it wasn't very much, it was a couple of hundred quid, you know, but that enabled me to pay for some of the travel that I needed to do to get to and from clubs that enabled me to pay for some trainers I needed to run because, you know, judo was great. I got on a judo man I started doing, but I needed to do the supplementary training that we all need to do if we're going to get to that level which we want to get to at the high level, for instance. So I needed to go out running, I needed some weightlifting boots to go into the gym with, to safely lift weights in the right way, for instance, I needed, you know, access to a gym. So I needed to pay for gym membership, you know, all that sort of stuff needed to be paid for. My mum and dad needed to pay for petrol in the car, you know, all that sort of stuff. So that 200 quid very quickly got used up in all that sort of stuff. So I still needed to keep my full time job, but also, you know, had that as well. So Sydney was on the card. I qualified for Sydney. Got out to Sydney. Things were going fantastically well until the semi final and. Excuse me. And I met this American in the semi final that we were actually really good friends as well, because, you know, on our travels, all the judoka from different countries, we talk, you know, and this man, you know, this guy, he was, he was a good friend of mine and we met in the semi and you know, obviously winning this fight would take me straight into the final and it'll be a chance for me to have a guaranteed silver or gold or a gold or silver. And this guy from America, he was a wrestler. And right the way up until probably, I think it was about 15 seconds towards the end of the fight, I was in the lead and I was doing really well and I was defending against all his wrestling techniques and wrestling moves and all that sort of stuff. And for one split second in probably less than that, I lost concentration. And he used a wrestling move, just knocked me onto my knee, then knocked me onto me back. Didn't get a score for it, but then got me into a hold down, you know, a pin on the floor, held me down for 25 seconds. That was me out of the final. I'd lost the semifinal fight, which is where I was going to go through and meet that Brazilian that I lost against in Atlanta. To have my second chance to go and try and beat him in the, you know, on the, on the big stage. That put me back down into the bronze medal fight. And it was difficult because I had to pick myself up again. I was fighting a French guy in the bronze medal fight and he, bear in mind he'd come this way, he'd come a different way to get to this point. He'd come through what we call the rapid charge. So he had lost against the Brazilian and went straight back down into the draw. And then he had won every single, single fight after that to get to the point where he would fight me as a semi final loser fight for the bronze.

Is that essentially what you did at the previous Paralympics?

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So. So I thought him, you know, I met him fighting for the bronze as I was the loser from the semi final fight, he was the winner from every other fight. So there was a different mentality going on inside our heads. I just lost a fight. He'd won everything. And I lost because I was still getting to grips with all these emotions going on inside my head. I was still maturing. As an international athlete, you might think, well, it's taken you a long time, Ian. You know what I Mean, but, you know, back then, the Paralympics was the biggest competition in the world. And it, you know, and still is, and it only comes around four years, you know, every four years. The World championships only happens every two years. You know, they're the big stages. But at the World championships in visually impaired sport, not the same now, but back then, there were still only probably 300 people in the audience. Back at these big games again, there were thousands of people in the audience, and I was struggling to cope with that. So I lost fighting for bronze. So I got back from Sydney with a decision to be made, was do I carry on and, you know, give it another shot, or do I give up and say bronze is what I've got? And this is where the family then came in. Debbie, my wife, and Leah, my daughter at the time. And Leah was 2 years old, and me and my wife had been married for a couple of years and going on to another Games and giving another four years of your life to effectively training before work, after work, while at work, going away most weekends and all that sort of going away to training camps. It's a family decision. It's not now. Wasn't now just my own. It was the family. You know, this is the dream. Are you still okay for me to do this? And I'm very lucky to have a very supportive wife who said, absolutely. Come on, this is your dream now, don't even ask the question. Get on with it, you know, and I'll support you as much as I can. So 2003 hits. I've been doing all the training and I've been to all the training camps. And at this point in 2003, the training camps now were in Cyprus on the lead up for Athens, and it had the same climate, same temperature, same everything. You know, the people, food was the same, all the sort of same everything. Compared to Athens, it was going really well. Until the qualifying event, Canada, it was. I had the tickets in my hand to get on the plane and go out to Canada. And then my family, the most important people to me in my life, bar nothing, they needed me at the same time that I was needed in Canada to go to the qualifying event, and there was no competition. I handed my tickets back and said. And I said to Steve, the national coach, I said, thank you, but I'm retiring, You know, if I can't do Athens, I've done everything else. I want that Paralympic gold. If I can't compete in Athens, I'm retiring. And I went. I was there to support my family and we got Our family, you know, issues sorted out that we needed to. And I went back to work properly, you know, focused on 100% focused on work. And again, like I say, I was in IT sales and January 2004, and I was sat at my desk doing, you know, anyone that's in sales and know what I mean, doing those, you know, those. Those things, those cold calls that you have to dig into every so often, often when you find in things tough and all that. And it was in January 2004, and I was halfway through the morning digging into my, you know, my cold calls and having some success, but being, you know, having some, you know, not very good calls and stuff like that. And all of a sudden the phone rings and I picks it up and I says, ian Rose. And, you know, answers that, you know, in the professional manner, says, Ian, how you doing? It's Steve. I said, steve, national. Oh, hello, Steve. How you doing? And it turns out he was offering me a wild card to compete in Athens because they knew my situation. The guys that in Europe that choose the team, because what happens is in these Paralympics, you have a certain allocation of the top 12 in the world are chosen from the, you know, from certain continents. So in Europe, I think we had four or five places. I think it was then you had, obviously from Asia, you had number of places, from America, you had a number of places. And, you know, they got allocated places. And in one of the weight groups, there was only 11 people. They needed 12. And it turns out that, you know, that they wanted me to compete in it as a representative from the continent of Europe. And he said, do you want this wild card? And I said, well, I don't really know, you know, tell me about it. He said, there is only one issue, Ian. He said, how much do you weigh? I said, 88 kilos, because I used to fight in the under 90 kilos category. He said, there is a problem. You need to be weighing over 100 kilos, and you got till September 20th to do it. And this was January, so they wanted me to put on in the end, 16 kilos. So initially I denied and I said no to the wild card because, you know, anyone that's done sport at a certain level will know that we've always got an injury of some sort. There's always something wrong, whether it be a toe or a finger or a pulled muscle in your hamstring or a niggling your calf or whatever it is. There's always something wrong, you know, and I had nothing wrong with me at that point. There was no injuries. So I don't, I, you know, I said no to the wirecard initially until he said to me something so special. And this always got me motivated. And we're all going to have something that cancels out that negative self doubt and that self talk that we have inside our head. And he turned all Steve used to turn around to me and he said, ian, do you want to be the best in the world? I said, well, yeah. He said, would you want to sell? You know, do you want this wild card? I said, yeah. And at that point I'd realized I'd accepted just to go back and compete in Athens. And then the realization hit home that I didn't know how to put on 16 kilos the right way because I'd spent my life up to the point, dieting and losing weight to keep underweight.

Sounds like a perfect scenario, doesn't it? It's like pizza, pizza and whatever you want every night, but that's not going to deliver you what you need.

You would absolutely think so. And Steve knew this as well because he'd done his preparations, and what he'd done is he'd made links with nutritionalists, he'd made links with psychologists, he'd made links with physios, and it also made links with all the heavyweight judo players that he knew as well, because he knew that my life in sport, in fact my life was just about to change because he knew that, like you say, I could have spent my life eating pizzas. I could have spent my, you know, at that point, I could have spent my life in a fast food restaurant, restaurant, eating all that sort of thing. They also knew that if I put all that weight on in the wrong way, I would get to Athens. Very unhealthy, very big and made the weight, but very unhealthy and also probably not very strong and very unfit and.

Not going to win a medal.

And not going to win a medal. And the whole point of this was to come back into this competition having a chance of winning a medal. So the nutritionist helped me out with what happened now with this nutritionist is I had a training plan in the gym, I had a training plan on the judo mat. I now had a training plan at home on the dinner table. I had to eat four meals a day, okay, of all the right food and pasta, potatoes, chicken, you know, skinless. Chicken wasn't allowed any of the skin because there was too much fat in that. You know, all the fat taken off the meat. I was eating tons and tons of vegetables. Loads of fruit and all the other supplementary stuff that I needed as well to healthily put that weight on. I turned up to. And in the gym as well. Sorry, in the gym. My training in the gym changed as well. And I used to be the sort of person that was in the gym, spent loads of time on a treadmill, loads of time on a bike, loads of time on the cross trainer and a little bit of time lifting weights, but not amazing amounts of time because all the weights that I lifted would put weight on, for instance. And I needed to maintain all my strength at that point came from the judo mat and what I was doing on a judo mat. My gym training instantly changed by training with a guy called Matt Robinson who was, he was an ex Welsh international rugby player and we were based at Bisham Abbey National Sports Centre in the gym there. And he instantly introduced to me within the first week of the, you know, joining or joining him in the gym to Olympic weightlifting. So we were doing clean and jerks, snatches, squats, leg press and it was amazing on how that stuff was missing from my training, which helped me so much with my confidence to the point where, you know, I was doing leg presses with, you know, a fully loaded machine, also with two judo players sat on the machine to do just one rep on this machine just to see how strong my legs were getting at that point. And that was the point where I truly knew that I'd hit, you know, the maximum that my body could take. And I felt that maximum because at that point I got off. And anyone that's ever done that sort of training to that sort of level, to the point where you, you know, you, where your body gives up, you get off a machine like that for a couple of minutes, you just can't walk, you know, And I truly felt that, you know, and that was where for me the importance of having a purpose, you know, really hit home because if I didn't have a strong purpose and why I was doing what I was doing in the gym there, it had been very difficult for me to turn around to Matt and say, I'm sorry mate, but I'm done now, you know, I can't do any more. And the pull of winning a medal in Athens and representing my family, my coaches, all the hard work again that they're putting through my career was so important to me that it basically helped me carry on. I got to Athens and it was 6 o' clock on the 20th of September in the weigh in room. So when all these competitions have had to weigh in you know, usually of the day of the competition, sometimes the night before, but it was the morning of the competition, six o' clock in the weigh in room with all the other competitors. This is the first time I'd got to see all of the other competitors in my group. And I noticed a massive guy stood in the corner and it was a guy from France and I'd never competed against this guy from France. And it turns out I weighed in at 102 kilos, so I'd made the weight by 2 kilos and this guy weighed in, he was 150. I turned around to Steve and I basically just said, I want to go home now. This guy was 48 kilos heavier than me. You know, that's a third of my body weight, you know, and it wasn't all, you might think 150. That guy's, you know, big and he might be really fat. He had quite a bit of muscle as well, you know, he wasn't just. He'd been doing his training as well. You know, judo in France is a massive sport. It's like football over here, you know. And he'd been doing his training and all Steve did to me at that point was just turned around to me and said that special phrase, do you want to be the best in the world, Ian? And all he turned around to me and just said. I said, yes. And all he turned around, he just said, we get on with it. Stop whinging and get on with it. And that was a point of. He knew me as an individual on the team, not just as a number, for instance. And for me, this is really important about people that manage people at work. Getting to know somebody as an individual so that you can say the right thing at the right time in the right way. To support them with something they're struggling with is really important. But getting to know that person, not just as a spreadsheet they provide to you or a telephone call that they come in with, or somebody that gives you work or you give work to. But getting to know them as a person enables us at the right time when they need support or we need to support, we need support. We need support to say the right thing to them or to enable them to say the right thing to us, to just give us that kick to get through that tough bit.

I couldn't agree with that more. You know, as somebody that runs a business where we've got 20, about 20 people in our team, it's, you know, it's so vital. Knowing the individuals isn't it, because each one of them will need communicating too in a slightly different way. And yes. So I think that's fantastic advice. So, sorry, carry on, carry on the story of the, of you going through this, this new Paralympics which, Sorry, this is Athens, isn't it?

This is Athens, yeah.

With the. And actually, so just one question that before you carry on. Did you find that your judo improved as a result of your new strength training? Were you a better athlete in Athens than you were in previous Paralympics?

I would say my judo improved a little, but what made the biggest difference was my confidence, Right. My confidence in my ability and my confidence in myself because of the stuff I'd been doing on the gym. In the gym. Sorry, because of this and because of the, the change in attitude as well. And this was on the lead up to Athens, this was the first chance I ever had to go part time at work because money was becoming a little bit more of a, you know, a bigger thing supporting our athletes. So an organization called the English Institute of Sport supported me through writing a letter to the company I was in the sales department for and basically wrote a letter in a way to sort of say, right, Ian's going to the Paralympics, he needs to go part time up until the Games and this is the way it's going to benefit your company. Yeah. So they helped me write that letter so that they would agree for me to go part time so that I could then get in the gym so that I could then do judo with, you know, the people that were full time and they were the bigger judo players that I could then, you know, start really improving my skills against fighting a different shape of person, you know, rather than the people that were in the under 90s. So I would say, yes, my judo improved, but what improved the most was my self confidence in what I, my ability. And that was, yeah, that was the bit that really sort of, you know, triggered me in the Games to sort of have that belief in myself. When Steve just turned around to me and he said, do you want to be the best in the world? Anyway, it turns out that I didn't fight the French guy in the, in Athens. So there's another classic case of controlling the controllables. You know, I was worried about the French guy, but it turns out that he should have gone in the forget column, you know, because I didn't even fight him in Athens, you know, you know, you know, in the final rounds I drew a Malaysian, a Russian and then an Azerbaijani in the, in the, in the final. And the heaviest guy I fought was 120 kilos, which was the Azerbaijani in the final who, you know, beat me by throwing me flat on my back. And I came home with the silver medal and I was chuffed with that. Don't get me wrong, I was there to win gold, but I was an underdog. There was thousands of people in the audience. So we were back on that big stage. I was learning to cope with the pressure and all the new skills I'd learned paid off. And finally I could turn around to everyone and said, thank you very much. Look at what we did. Brilliant.

And you mentioned in that story about the importance of having a purpose. How do you. Firstly, what's your purpose? And secondly, how do you think people can find their purpose?

Now? I coach lots of people in business around this that are struggling with getting things done in tough times, basically with procrastination and stuff like that. And for me, yeah, the biggest thing is having a true purpose in mind. Now, you know, the first thing I usually say to people is, you know, what is your purpose? And they say, well, I need money. Yeah. Okay. Money is not a purpose. Money is a means to do something. You know what I mean? It's a means to pay the bills. It's a means to have that house, It's a means to have that car. It's a means to eat, you know. Money is not the purpose. Ask why do I need money? I need money to pay for my house. Okay. Why do you need a house? I need a place for me and my family to live. Okay. Why is that important? Well, I need to be able to pay the bills as well. Okay. And not worry about paying them. Then we get into true purpose. I need to be able to pay the bills without worrying. Okay. Okay. What can you then do? Okay. If you're not worrying. Well, actually, then do you know what? And this is my purpose. I can then concentrate on creating long lasting positive memories for me and my family. That's my purpose. Okay. Is everything I do relates to me and my family creating memories for the future. So whether that be going on a nice holiday when we're allowed, whether that be basically having the time when we're all together to be able to go out for a walk. Whether that be going and doing, you know, going for a weekend away down on the coast or something like that, and going, you know, going on some roller coasters at Thorpe Park. We love roller coasters, us, you know? You know, you know, we love that sort of stuff. But it's. But paying the bills and cutting the Worry out enables you to have the time to do that and the mindset to be able to just forget and go and do it and enjoy it. That's brilliant.

It actually reminds me of. So something I talked a bit about with Chris Cook on the podcast was Simon Sinek. And Simon Sinek's latest book is all about called the Infinite Game. Essentially, what you're doing is you're almost creating the infinite game or the infinite goal as part of that. That is the same thing, isn't it, really? In that, you know, you can be motivated. You know, you might set a goal to have a million pounds, for example, but actually an infinite goal is to be financially free because that will continually evolve and continued. Click. You know, you could be creating memories on a very low income or on an amazing income, couldn't you? It's that continual ability to keep driving you forward.

Here's the process, okay? Here's the process, Charlie, and the way that I talk my clients through it and the way that I now do it myself. But this now has become habit for me because I've done it so much, okay? And this, this, if you use this enough, it will become habit for you. And every time you set a goal, you'll think about this, okay? And that's the point. If we have to think about it too much, it becomes difficult or it becomes a grind, and then we stop doing things. So creating a habit usually takes about 66 days, okay? So doing this once a day every, you know, for 66 days creates a habit. I'm not saying look at your purpose every, every, every day, but doing something, you know, that amount of times will create a habit, which is why to. To become proficient at something and for me to do a new technique on a judo map, for instance, I have to do it 10,000 times to get it right, so that when I'm competing, it becomes a habit effectively. Now I'm going to introduce my purpose triangle, and this is the way I came to my purpose. Now, at the bottom of the triangle, you have three sections, and in those three sections, firstly, you put the most important three things in your life at the moment. And for me, it's family, work, having some fun and keeping fit. So I've split that last one into two things, because having some fun and keeping fit for me tends to go into the same sort of bubble, okay? I love going to the gym and I love going out for a run and all that sort of stuff. And they're probably the same for a lot of your listeners in your tribe. You know, they go out for a run because it's fun, you know, they enjoy it. You know, it's a bit of a release, isn't it? A relax, they can go off and be there, be on their own for a little while or whatever it is they do it, you know, they're run for, but it's fun. So there are three areas there. Now the next bit in the middle of the triangle with two sections. And these two sections are your goals that you set. But each one of them has to fit into all three of the ones below. So for instance, mine at the moment are. And if I'm going to get this absolutely right, I'm doing this by memory. Mine are in my business. I want to earn enough money, get that, Enough money. I'm not saying I need to earn an amount of money, but it's. I need to earn enough money to pay the bills. Okay. And I want to, and this is twofold in this side, earn enough money to pay the bills. Excuse me. And inspire a quarter of a million people by the time I'm 65 and I'm 49 now and I'm about, I think I'm at about 30,000 at the moment. Okay. And that's on my website if people want to keep a running total on that. And on the other side, the other side is to have some fun, you know, to have some fun with the family. And keep improving myself. Now keep improving myself relates to both my career, learning new things, going to the gym, you know, running, lifting weights, all that sort of stuff. And there's all sorts of things that keep improving yourself relates to. To, isn't it? And having some fun is all about that. Creating memories like going to Thorpe park or just going out for a walk, you know, and in my top bit, the top one part of my top part of my triangle, which is just one section, is the overriding purpose that everything should fit into. And that is to create those long lasting positive memories. That's the way I came to my purpose.

Fantastic. That sounds like brilliant advice. And I'm guessing is that, is that triangle's quite difficult to visualize in how you've laid it out. Is that on your website, for example? Okay, brilliant. So we'll put that in the show notes and people can go and have a look at that as an example, which is brilliant. There's been so much good advice here. But one thing that kind of jumps out at me that I really want to ask you about is I remember, I can't for the life remember which book? It was, but I was reading a book recently and it was talking about how people are. They've kind of proven that people are essentially seeing without sight. Yeah. So firstly, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, particularly for those people that. That find it very difficult to understand what it must be like. But also then maybe touch on, is there a single aspect of life without sight that is the greatest struggle?

Okay, so let's answer the. I suppose the easiest thing first of all for me, which is, is there a single thing that I struggle with without sight? And absolutely there is. And it has been right the way since the age of 16. Okay. When my friends started doing one thing that a lot of people take for granted, driving. They started learning how to drive at the age of 16. They started getting. Anyone that's of my sort of age here. You'll remember things like the Fiesta XR2, the Escort XR3, you know, all those sorts of things, you know, that they dreamt of owning an XR3 or an XR3 as that sort of car back then. You know, they're different cars now. But, you know, I couldn't have those dreams because I couldn't. No way could I drive. You ever see me in a car jump out of the way, you know, and that for me was a struggle. Now at that time, my brother helped me out when he started driving because he's three years younger than me. So it took me three years. But when I was 20, he bought an Escort van and it was a right rust bucket, you know, it was so cheap and all that sort. And him and my dad and myself did that van up. He took the wheels off and he put alloy wheels on it. He painted it, you know, all the filler in the world put on in the holes and the rust and all that sort of stuff. Painted it Ferrari red. And it was like a project we all did together, you know. But for me, that's the bit that's missing in my life is being able to have that. That dream of what car do I want? I've missed the point, for instance, of, you know, you know, you know, picking me mates up in my car and just going out for a drive. I've, you know, obviously I had some good mates that, you know, I used to rely on them and we used to just go out and drive and go to places. But it's not the same as you being able to just jump in a car and drive in.

This is where I hadn't really thought about that particular aspect. But that's where autonomous vehicles could be incredible, couldn't they?

Absolutely. I can't wait for the day. And probably it may not happen, you know, in my lifetime, but if it does, I can't wait for the day for us to have those cars that drive themselves.

I actually think it'll happen in the next five years, let alone your lifetime.

Well, let's. From my point of view, I hope so. There's probably people saying, no way, you know. You know, but, you know, I hope so. But, you know, I've realized this, you know, through. Particularly through this lockdown that we've been in since March last year. You know, there are people that can just jump in the car and just go out for a drive, just to get out of the house for a little while. Yeah, there's only. There's only so many times where I can go and walk around the local area without getting bored or without being looked at thinking, there's that bloke again, you know. You know, there's only so many times I can go out for a walk, but you can just jump in a car and just go driving. I can't do that. My wife and my kids do support me and, you know, have constantly said to me, dad, if you ever want to go out, just let me know. But it's still not the same as just being able to pick up your keys and just saying, I'm going out for five minutes, you know, and just having that. And that for me is the one thing for me that's really difficult in my life. And I still struggle with that. At the age of 49, you know, you may thought, I've got, you know, I've come to terms with it, but I still struggle with it. And that comes to the point of doing all of the training I've ever done. You know, if you want to go training to a club, somebody that can drive if it's raining or if the weather's bad and the club is like, I don't know, 15, 20 minutes walk away. You could just jump in a car and get there in three minutes. Me, I'm still going to have to walk in the rain. I'm still gonna have to walk in that bad weather, you know, and that's where the commitment comes in, isn't it? You know, and, you know, the determination. And for me, that became apparent, you know, later on in life and not being able to drive and all that sort of stuff. Also now as a coach and stuff like that, you know, there are certain things I can't do as a coach with the players in my club, which is drive the minibus to the competition, for instance, you know, that sort of stuff. See the players on the mat. I can't see the players. I can coach them on the mat, but I can't see them competing. And that came, you know, that came, you know, that's become apparent in the final parts of my career, you know, Beijing, I competed in Beijing. We'll get back to, I suppose the finishing the career off 2008 was Beijing and that didn't go my way. So there's another thing that I planned in Beijing to come down a weight so they didn't have to compete, keep putting that weight on. And I fought in the under 100 kilos and looking back at that, that was probably a mistake, you know, and I lost my first fight against a guy from Japan, which meant I was out and on the first plane back home. I was qualified for London 2012 and that was going to be my last games, the sixth and final games that I was going to compete in. And here's the thing, you know, these things sometimes happen to us that we don't plan and they're accidents that just, you just can't foresee happening. And I was training in a club in 2011. I'd qualified for London as number two in the world and I caught my foot in a judo mat in training. Somebody tried to throw me and I snapped my acl which meant I needed keyhole surgery to repair it. I needed 18 months as a 40 year old to get that repaired fully so that I could get back into competition shape, which was obviously just too long to compete in London. So I was taken off the team. I was effectively my international career finished and you know, that was a bad time. But along with that came some really good opportunities and some honours, which was to carry the Paralympic torch in the torch relay along a high street in Tring at 1:30 in the morning. And then they made me, you know, gave me a massive honor which was to be the opening, one of the opening ceremony performers at London 2012, where I was popped into a harness and a red and gold judo suit and I did somersaults at 15 meters up in the air over, you know, in and out of the center of the Paralympic stadium. And that for me was my gold medal moment because of one thing, and that was my family. My family could be in the, in the audience for the first time ever at a major event with me. And that for me was the best end to my career that I could have ever wished for.

Amazing. I was going to ask you what was the highlight of your career, but the fact that the highlight comes right at the end of your career as well is a wonderful thing, isn't it? There's been so much great advice here and loads of really valuable stuff that people can use in every aspect of their life. Is there a particular book that you find yourself recommending, find yourself going back to regularly that you could tell us about?

Yeah, I'm a big believer in the art of dealing with people and I've mentioned through all of the, you know, a couple of times through this is that, you know, respect giving other people the respect that you would want back yourself. And I've initially, when I first read this book, it was a complete excuse, pun, eye opener and it was how to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Some people are going to think, yeah, I've read that, but I think I probably read that about. It must be about 10 times now not read it, but I've listened to it on an audiobook about 10 times now. And just the way that it's explained about, you know, the way we deal with people and talk to people and treat people affects the way that they deal with us, the way that they trust us, the way that they, you know, follow us on strategies, the way that they, you know, help us out when we're in need and the way that they accept help from us when they're in need. It's just an amazing book to read and really taught me quite a lot with just the art of how to deal with people. Really.

That's a great call. Actually. I read it years ago and I'm going to say the same things I said to Chris Cook in that because he recommended a book called Power of Now, which again, I read years ago and thought it was amazing at the time and haven't been back to it. And yet it's one of those. I can see why how to Win Friends and Influence People is one of those books you should go back and read every so often because every time you read it, you'll take something new from it, won't you? It is a very, very good book. So fantastic. That's brilliant. And I suppose the last question to sort of wind this interview up is what are you most excited about looking forward?

Love that question. What am I most excited about moving forward? At the moment, I'm really enjoying learning and it might sound funny at the age of 49, what has he enjoyed learning for? You know, I've Realized that actually that part of my purpose, which was the constant improvement is a big thing to me. And if I'm not challenging myself all of the time, I get bored. I'm a bit of a, I'm a bit of a shiny toy person. Okay. So I like a new shiny toy to learn how it works and stuff like that in front of me. And I'm really, you know, and I've really embraced this technology thing working from home. So I deliver a lot of workshops over team and zooms and Skype for business and stuff. And I've really enjoyed getting my teeth into learning about new technology and how it can positively influence and affect us in our lives. And actually for me, it's opened up a new world because I don't have to drive to places, you know, I don't have to travel. Now I am looking forward to getting back into Face to Face because I do miss the interaction with a real life person in front of me that I'm talking to, shaking hands, having a cup of coffee with, discussing the weather or whatever, you know, the little small talk type stuff that we do. But I'm really looking to see, really looking forward to seeing what the future of the world looks like when we come out of this pandemic and everything's opened up again. How much are we going to be using technology to conduct our day to day business? How much, you know, what sort of stuff is going to be done face to face versus virtual and what's next to learn, you know, because there's going to be something new to learn and I'm really looking forward to just getting my grip, you know, getting my teeth into that, to seeing how we can both use it both in our careers and in our personal lives just to be the best person we can be.

Fantastic. Well, that's brilliant advice in the, you know, constant, never ending improvement. It's one of our six human needs, isn't it?

It's just.

Yeah, I think that's, that's amazing. You just made me. I've got to ask one more question because it's just occurred to me talking about the tech in lockdown and you spen lots more time on teams and zoom or whatever it is being visually impaired. Have you had, you know, the thing I've heard a lot of people say is, you know, you don't get to pick up on as many of the signals when you're dealing with people over zoom, you know, because you can't see, you know, all of their body language. From a visually impaired point of view, has that meant anything different? You know, dealing over zoom and teams, have you had a different perspective of that? Do you find that the interactions are less good because of something else, or what's been your experience of that?

So here's the point. Okay? I've lost my eyes or most of my eyesight, okay? But I haven't lost my hearing. Okay? And what's happened over teams and Zoom is it's enabled me to use my hearing a lot more with less distraction. So one of the arts of one of the skills of dealing with people that I've learned, which is really important, and that is the ability to not just hear what people are saying, but truly be present and listen to what they're saying. So teams and zoom have allowed me to be able to be focused on what somebody is actually saying and listen to the way they're saying it. So the art of a good coach, the art of a good trainer or facilitator is to actually listen to what somebody's saying and to create like you've done through this interview, and this is a really important skill, is to create the next question out of what the person is actually saying now, rather than be thinking about the next question you're asking while they're talking. If you're thinking about the next question you're asking while the person's talking, you're not listening to them, you're hearing them. Okay. The other thing as well, when you're truly listening to someone and not just hearing, is you pick up the attributes of the voice. So whether they are going up an octave or slowing down or quieting down or speeding up, usually if somebody speeds up with what they're talking, and usually when they get a little bit louder, they're excited about something and it motivates them. Usually when they get quieter and start talking slowly, they're either approaching a subject they're quite difficult, they find difficult talking about, or they're bored about it, or they really just not interested. And that, for me, is what teams and zoom has enabled me to do, is actually truly, truly use the skill of listening to somebody, not just hear.

I think that's incredibly valuable advice for us all, isn't it? Because it's something that your listening, no doubt, is more honed than ours because you have to rely on it more than we do. But it is incredibly valuable advice for when you're dealing with people through technology as opposed to face to face. So that's brilliant. Ian, it's been a total pleasure chatting to you. It's a brilliant story. It's an inspirational story. But there's so much great advice that you've been able to weave into that story and that we can apply in all areas of sport and life. So I thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to go through that with me. And also I wish you all the success in the world going forward and continuing that growth and continuing with your, with your speaking career.

Charlie, thank you very much. It's been an amazing pleasure and everyone listens to this. Good luck. Thank you. If you want to find out more.

About Ian, you can track him down@ianrose.co.uk but if you want to find him on social media, the best one is LinkedIn and it's Ianrose Resilient Speaker Coach. But I'll put the link in the show notes. So, Phi, what did you make of that interview with Ian?

Oh, just fantastic. Just, you know, as I say, all the, all the people you have on the podcast are just awesome. But yeah, another outstanding sort of set of advice and just fantastic bits of, you know, information for us all to sort of use for ourselves, use for the athletes that we're working with. So, yeah, brilliant.

And what particular bits stood out for you as being, you know, most valuable or most memorable?

Well, so many. I've just, I have actually made a few notes because it was, it was brilliant. But you know, you and I are both parents of teenagers, so I think we can relate to a couple of the things you said early doors, which was obviously sport helping physical and mental well being. That is really, really true to say, I would think. And again, that sort of reflects back what we're trying to achieve with the, the Cast and Friends charity. But also saying, I think his dad had said to him that if you don't give it a go, you're never gonna know if you like it. And you know, I think it's sometimes difficult, isn't it, to encourage our teenagers to just try something different or give it a go and they, they don't want to necessarily try new things but actually then go off and do it and say, that was quite good fun. I quite enjoyed that. So thought that was really nice. Big, big thing for me was giving people respect. I think that was a huge part of what his message was all about. Value for us all to hold true. And thought it was really interesting the way he perhaps went into his first Olympics in Barcelona, maybe feeling a little bit overconfident and not perhaps giving the other para athletes the respect that perhaps they deserved because he hadn't really trained with them before. He hadn't really understood how amazing they all are. So I thought that was really good. And the fact that he had to bounce back from that experience with a lot of resilience to then perform at his best. Yeah, I thought the fact that there was no money in sport, again, that's a little bit, you know, what we know with the Cass and Friends athletes and finding some sponsorship or finding some extra funding to help you through this. So he said that he had to do his 9 to 5 job in sales at the same time as training in order to be able to do this. And it's interesting, isn't it, because the different sports that we were all, you know, we see around us, some of them have got huge amounts of prize money, some have got none, some have got some funding and sponsorship, some have got nothing. So obviously, you know, what he was doing. Judo was not particularly well funded, so having to work on that was good. Interesting. Really loved the control, the controllable triangle, purpose triangle. Obviously that's something that we cover on our mindset program with the athletes. And I know you spoke with him about that in quite a bit of detail. You know, the stuff that's in our control, the focus part, the flag bits, the stuff that's partially in our control, and then the forget bit, the bits that are out of our control and the bit in the middle, the flag bits. I think you spoke about that in a bit of detail in terms of. So what is partially in our control. And sometimes when I'm working with the athletes, we have this interesting discussion about how they've got partial control over the other athletes in the race or they're, you know, in a team that they're playing with. So perhaps the triathletes I work with, we say, I often say you have actually quite a lot of control over how they perform. Because if you're passing them on the bike, then pass with a, you know, a bit of aggression, make sure that you're looking, you know, so you're smiling, you're looking confident, you're. You're not breathing really heavily because that can have a massive impact on their psychology. So that was. I thought that was quite interesting. I love the way he thought his family was a massive commitment and huge focus for him and had supported him throughout his journey. And I googled to find out how many years he was operating at that elite level. And it's 22 years. And that is a long, long time, isn't it, to be, you know, to be working so hard and have that commitment and that focus. And I think sometimes we can be a little bit sort of self centered in our approach if we're athletes trying to do our very, very best. And so having a supportive family and network around him was huge part of what made him successful, I think. And I like the fact that he actually asked his family if he could carry on and obviously clearly his wife was massively supportive and said yeah, absolutely, go for it. So that was all good. Interesting. I thought was quite funny about his weight that he had to put on about 16 kilos which was probably appeal to most of us. But he didn't really know how to go about doing that. He'd not really had any advice on nutrition. And again, I love working with our athletes on the nutrition side of things just because I think it is a really important part. Another piece of the jigsaw, isn't it?

Yeah, I thought it was. I think one of the things that stood out to me was the importance of him starting to build that tribe around him. He was obviously having struggles at school and, and so judo. Providing him with that tribe I thought was really, really brilliant. And coming back to the control and the controllables which you talked about, I think it's very easy to think about. I always thought about it more in two categories, the controllables and the uncontrollables. But partial controllables, the flag, which I think it sounds like you're talking to your athletes a lot about as well. But you're right, you do control more, you have control over certain elements even if it's not the entire thing, don't you?

Yeah, definitely, definitely. No, it's massively important. And we always, always worry about the weather, don't we? Which is completely and utterly out of our control. But we do, we always look at it, focus on it, study the forecast and obviously we need to then plan around the weather and we need to make sure we've got the right equipment to deal with the weather scenarios or think, oh no nutritional hydration if it's going to be hot or what we're going to wear if it's going to be cold. But ultimately once you start the race, you sort of do forget about all of that and you just race and you know, whatever the conditions, the conditions are as they are. But yeah, and finally the good bit about listening, you know, massively, massively important part of it, you know, in terms of work I do with some of the athletes on coaching them. As parents of teenagers, we need to listen and understand our kids. And I think that that was really interesting, wasn't it, when he was talking about it? So he noticed the way people sped up if they're getting excited about something or maybe if they're very passionate about something. And I think we know if we're truly listening to people. I think that we hear not what they say, but we actually hear what they don't say. And that, for me, is maybe the sort of key part of the listening piece. But no, I mean, just fascinating. Great, great guy. Obviously, lots we can learn from his interview with you. And it was just really nice to hear it.

Brilliant. Well, yeah, I'm glad you got as much out of it as I did. I think there was so much good advice in there that. Yeah, an inspirational guy. So let's wind this podcast up. But Fee, thanks for joining me again. It's been brilliant to catch up with you. And don't forget that if you go to precisionhydration.com and use Tribathlon 15, you can get yourself a nice discount off that. The link will be on the show notes as well. So, yeah, good luck with the training, Fee.

Thanks, Charlie. Keep on training yourself.

Thank you very much. And to everybody else, yep, keep on training. If you've enjoyed this triathlon podcast, please do go to Apple Podcasts and rate it and review it. It massively helps us to deliver a better podcast. It helps people find it as well. So, yeah, go to Apple Podcasts, give us some feedback, give us a rating and a review, and please share it with your friends because ultimately that's what allows us to keep delivering more and more of these podcasts. And don't forget to download the tribathlon app for more amazing podcasts, but also to help you train, compete, and to build your tribe.