Crocodiles, Conflict and Extreme Medicine with Mark Hannaford

Mark Hannaford is today's special guest, and he is arguably the most adventurous person I've ever met. Enjoy the show, Mark. A huge welcome to the Lead on Purpose podcast.

James, it's a real pleasure to be here. So thank you for the opportunity and thank you for inviting me to speak.

I'm very excited to connect with you. You're an incredible human. I mean, people in this neck of the woods would have heard of someone like Bear Grylls. And I look at you and I'm like, whoa. No, you're the real deal for me. I want to go deep on what you've done, but in terms of a name, that's someone that comes to mind in terms of the adventure of what you do, getting in amongst it, traveling the world. But the big difference here, you make a big difference. You're there for a purpose. You're there to help people. So just to get started, I want to ask you a question. When you're in the middle of nowhere and everything's on the line, maybe it's unsafe, you're in a war zone, or pressures on what makes a great leader stand out.

It'S an interesting question, and I think there were diff. I think there were different answers to that. And, you know, each situation requires a different reaction. Depends on who's around you and the skills that are around you. I think.

There'S also the space and time for different types of leadership. Sometimes you need to be that kind of classic leader. This is where we're going. We go from A to B. We're going to be doing that and you guys are coming with me. Other times you need to be much more collaborative. You need to be getting your input from your team. And I guess I play both, depending on what the situation is. In the particular professional world that I work in, which is working with medical teams, delivering high level medical care in extreme environments. Not being a clinician, I very, very much need to get the INP of my medical specialists. So it's a collaborative response.

And at times they'll say, we need to do this. X, Y, Z. And it's my job then to sort of slow them down and say, okay, what are the ramifications of this? When we get to the next location, what are the next five steps that we need to take? You know, when you're transporting a casualty, it's a game of chess. You've got to think five steps ahead because you know you've got to bring resources into place or put yourself in a situation where you can access resources source where you can get satellite communications, where your risk to the rescuers is also mitigated. So you just, you don't expand your casualty rate by putting your own people at risk. So there's, there's different types. I mean, I suppose most, I was going to say most naturally I'm the kind of A to B, let's go into it. But actually I found myself, as I've learned, the leader that I am then I tend to use both collaborative and leadership depending on the situation and you'll probably speak about this, but working in as we do at the moment, and we have for the last three years in eastern Ukraine, there's a time when you just need to say this is what we're doing, we're going to do it now and we're going to do it really quickly. Follow me and then we'll come up with a plan once we get to the other side of where we are.

Hey, James here. I wanted to take a quick moment to let you know about something. Look, I get asked to deliver keynotes and workshops for teams and companies all over the world, from London to Antarctica, from America to Australasia, from armies to small businesses to large corporates to sports teams. But I go in and deliver keynotes around the mindset of high performers, around the habits of high performers, about how we navigate change. If you would like me to come and speak to your team or speak at your conference or deliver a bespoke workshop, please get in touch with my team. Carolinejlochlan.com will be able to help. I'll also make sure that we put that in the show notes. Thank you for sharing that. I think it's important that you know you're bringing up somewhere like Eastern Ukraine. It's important to recognize the work that you're doing is not often in standard environment. It's not easy going, it's not slow paced. Often you're in on the ground where things need to happen quick and fast and you need to be both strategic and tactical. So let's talk a little bit about that for a second. So extreme medicine, so world extreme medicine. What does that mean for someone that's never heard of what that means? What is it? If you were to summarize it, what do you do?

Well, I guess for me it's delivering and working with high level medical teams, delivering the best medical.

Support that we possibly can and low resource, extreme environments. Extreme can be the side of the road. If you don't have any equipment with you and help is far away, that's an extreme medical situation because really you've got to deal with what you've got in front of you to either relieve suffering or hope, you know, or save a life until help gets to you. And that can be quite a long way away. And there's, there's a lot of pressure on the individual or the team that's doing that. So. But for us, my background is running expeditions. And when I ran expeditions I wanted the best medical cover possible for the groups that I was leading. So we started off with expeditionary expedition medicine, but we realized quite quickly that we were attracting medical professionals from all sorts and all walks of life, medical life. So we were attracting tactical special operations medics, humanitarian disaster medics, sports medics, and then increasingly we started to attract space medics, people working as flight surgeons for NASA. And we realized actually we were, we started off with a philosophy of breaking down silos, so building a community where people could move between the different disciplines of mountain medicine, jungle medicine and pre hospital care and actually provide a community of, of exchange where actually we could have a positive social impact by at the other end bringing out better medics who are better equipped and better trained and had better team building skills and bringing all these different fields together. And we really, I've kind of realized about sort of 14 years ago we were siloing ourselves, going against our own sort of mantra, but also we were repeating a formula. And if I realized that actually there was a much bigger thing to be done here and a much more exciting avenue to go down, and one which also provided a more substantial legacy of extreme medicine, where actually we're training medics not only for expeditions but also to respond to humanitarian crisis or sudden onset disasters and bringing different groups of people together to provide better outcomes. So, you know, some of the biggest advances in modern medicine happen in conflict zones because that's where stuff evolves, where there's resource, where.

There isn't the time to necessarily, you have to be inventive sometimes in order to solve the problem in front of you. So we wanted those special operations medics, we want them to go into or speak to humanitarian medics because we want that transfer some skills. And we run an annual conference in Edinburgh called the World Extreme Medicine Conference, which is in mid November. And I think I'm quite proud of. It's one of the few stages in the world where you can have the Director of Special Operations Medicine sitting with the Director of Medicine Sans Frontieres and the Director of NASA Medicine because there's no uniforms. The common goal is better Medicine, regardless of what situation that is, that is and you know, if you're, if you've had a road accident on the side of a remote road in New Zealand, do you want the best equipped and best trained and best problem solving medic to becoming headed your way? And that's the kind of environment, the community that we've been building up over the last quarter of a century now since sort of world extreme medicine has been going, that's incredible.

Thanks for sharing that. And I think it's important to recognize that you are really intentional and you're leading your life on purpose. And of course that's something I talk a lot about, but I find that people, when they write into the show or they're commenting on different episodes, it's about how do I find my purpose, how do I, you know, how do I win, how do I get better? And I often think it comes down to defining what good looks like or what success looks like. And I'd like to ask you because I feel like you're someone who's very intentional. You're like a mission driven messenger. You do things with intention. How did you find that? How do you define success? Because you've done a lot, you've been to seven continents multiple times and you've been in amongst some of the most incredible experiences. But that can often take us away from our loved ones, that can take us away from amassing wealth, whatever success might look like. What have you done to stand here at this stage in your career with a smile on your face and be so passionate about your life and your family and your work? How did you do it?

So in answer to your question, James, and I think this is an important discovery when you're early stage career or even to be quite frank, mid stage career, you know, what is it that floats your boat? What is it that you're really passionate about? What is it that gives you a sense of purpose?

And so I, I, even since a kid I'd always wanted to travel and explore, spend my time looking at atlases and all that type of stuff. And when you go to your school careers officer or even to be quite frank, talk to your parents or you know, it's the prescriptive careers. What would lead you into doing travel and that time? You know, it was stuff like being a geologist or being, well there wasn't an awful lot on the plate to be honest, but it meant going off and doing science degrees or mathematics stuff that I was, to be quite frank, not clever enough to do and no good at So I kind of found it quite hard to find my original pathway, but then discovered a way that I could work as a mountain guide and guide and get paid. And so that was my original step. I didn't have to say I knew where I wanted to get to in terms of living a life of expeditions and being outdoors and being active and working with people. I like working with people. That's an essential part of the mix. But the pathway was in no shape or way defined. So I took a series of steps. We were actually short term steps with the hope that traveling in that direction, taking those first initial small steps would lead me down the road. And I was fortunate. And I use the word fortunate rather than lucky because it was purposeful. So I was fortunate, but there was, there was of course this tiny bit of luck. But actually you create your own luck to my mind, took those steps and I got a job working on an expedition ship. My first sort of professional career pathway job was working as a naturalist boat driver on one of the experts in ships. And my first trip was down the coast of Kamchatka and the Russian Far East. So I started in a good place.

I'd done the normal, I'd done the graduate training scheme with a big company and the training was great and I really liked the people I was working with but I couldn't justify what I was doing. I. There was no sense of, I don't know, contribution to society, fulfillment for myself.

And it was probably the best job I ever did because it taught me that that wasn't for me that the kind of the, the.

The way that you're told to do stuff and I'm not sure whether it's still the same now, but certainly when I was sort of growing up that was the thing you had to kind of get the formulative career you have to go into the job at the 9 to 5 and all the rest of it that, that wasn't for me. And doing that three years in the graduate training scheme was just absolutely perfect. But the stuff I learned in that training scheme I use every day now still. So it was ultimately for me self esteem, really positive and I did a good job for them. So I don't feel like I just took, I also did fulfilled my role, but it was formative knowing that that just wasn't what was going to float my boat. And then I started then to search really quite hard for what it was. How could I.

Fulfill my passion for the stuff I was interested in and also make a living out of it? And.

You can do that by getting paid very little, but then it doesn't really take you on in life and you can, you know, I also saw as I started to work in this world, there are people who'd worked in expeditions and kept on doing expeditions.

That wasn't, that wasn't either the place I wanted to, to be either. Because you start off with doing expeditions and you continue, continue, continue and you kind of, you know, you're learning less and less. There's a marginal return that's decreasing as you go on and on. And I wanted to have a career that was full of expedition, but also then grew further beyond that to maintain that intellectual challenge, to reinforce or build that sense of purpose. And now I suppose because I've been doing it for a few years, is also creating a sense of legacy. So helping other people to move on, to get, you know, to get better than I, but to do more than I and sort of move things along and sort of build a. Build a sort of legacy behind me.

That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. And I wanted to talk about, you know, your definition of success. We chatted kind of before we hit record, just around what's important to you? You know, when Mark looks at his life, here's what's important. What are those things? What are those pillars in your life that you measure your own success by at this stage?

Thanks, James. That's a great question because it is the cornerstone, the key of everything, isn't it? And I think for me, and I've said this in the last section, that you're kind of told to do, live life a certain way. There's a mantra that says you need to earn more, you have to be at the top, you have to consume more, you have to have bigger things. And I think I was shown an extraordinarily useful role model in my early business partner who was absolutely amazing was a school head friend. I've been friends of him for decades. But he was a multimillionaire and liked different stuff to me. And he was very sort of non demonstrative about it. But he liked his cars, he liked it to big houses. And I realized whilst superficially attractive and enjoyable, it wasn't really what floated my boat. I actually still wanted to do more trips and more expeditions and go off and do different places. And I still do now. I still have a passion for doing that. So that was the core that I realized I didn't. That wasn't even if I became a multimillionaire, I'm not sure it would have made me any happier and if anything probably made me less happy. I. Having financial freedom is incredibly important and that's a bit. But I think there's a, again a point after which you go where actually it's not really adding substantially to your happiness. You're probably then just producing because you're inability to produce. And I wanted to have a life that balanced financial security and freedom with the ability to also do expeditions. And I've said that expeditions in this interview probably about 20 times. The other bit, I was a single parent, so I wanted. And my father was quite accomplice. He was, he was a master mariner and the, the rig move coordinator for the Arabian Gulf, but he was also a functional alcoholic. So he was away at time quite, for quite big periods and also.

You know, drank. So my relationship with him wasn't as close as I, I would have liked. And I wanted, when I became a single parent to do the opposite. And it was a useful role model that whatever, you know, had happened in my child and it wasn't abusive or anything like that, it was just wasn't as close as sort of.

As I would have liked. So I wanted to do the opposite with my children. So having realizing that I didn't want to have a big house, I didn't want to have five cars sitting in the driveway. I wanted to have financial freedom and independence, but also.

Spend a lot of time with my kids. So I was able to achieve a balance. So to earn, to build the company, but actually also absolutely focus on the kids. So when the, when the kids came home from school and they were doing their school work, we would still all be working, but once they finished their schoolwork, we would have a rule. All the phones went off and actually nobody worked. And so it's just our time. And we're quite rigid and regimental about that to the point where we're still, I mean my children are now 25 and 21. We still have the same rules. I mean, okay, it's not quite. I have less control than I used to, but now that they're the ones telling me don't answer the phone because it's, you know, it's time not to answer the phone. And I think you do need to. And I see people doing this where they, they're constantly picking up their phone when their kids are around, just got to leave it behind because at the end of the day, generally nothing is that important that you, that it won't wait for a couple of hours when the kids are in bed or later, very occasionally stuff really couldn't wait if we had a casualty in the field, all that type of stuff. And then I would actually ask their permission to have the phone on because I was expecting calls to come in and they, you know, and that was, that was acceptable. Also I gave them the power to veto me going on expeditions so far. I would, if, If I had a longer trip and I.

Wanted to make sure that they were okay with that, I would ask their permission. The risk was that they would say no, and so I'd have to turn something down. But it. By empowering them to say that, it meant that actually on one occasion they did say no, we'd rather you didn't go away on that because it's too, that's too long away. So I didn't. So, you know, it's giving them the power to say no, but accepting it when they do say no. But. But it also gave powerful. Yeah, it is. It also gave them a sense of control that they. I wasn't going out away without their permission. I was going away with their sort of their, their card or their permission. And then when they did, they did say no to a trip, then I didn't go.

Yeah. And I think that's just that integrity piece. And it's interesting there'll be people listening right now that are most likely not in extreme medicine, but they're in the thick of their careers and maybe having to get on planes or do long hours or work weekends. And I think what you've just served up is some food for thought around what's most important. How can we strike some kind of. I don't like the word lifestyle balance, but some kind of, you know, balance where we are getting our work done and passionately following our pursuits, but not at the sacrifice of our families, our loved ones and our kids.

Absolutely right, James. And I think it sounds trite and it's sometimes easier to say than it is to do, but I think once you get it into your mindset and you do sacrifice some salary because you're not putting the hours in that you would otherwise. But we said this when we were talking prior to the session coming online, to my mind, it's. And it sounds a bit transactional, but it's a little bit like having a bank account that you put in, you put in. And as a parent, I didn't expect to get back, but actually you. You get back and then you get interest on that because your relationship with your, with your children just grows and grows. But as a result, you also Grow yourself. Because it open doors. It opens doors inside you that you didn't realize that were there because, you know, you're not a parent before, then all of a sudden you're a parent and then life becomes very different and it's, you know, it's. It's been an interesting voyage of self discovery, being a parent, as I'm sure all parents realize. But, you know, it is the more you put in, the more you get out. And to be honest with your career, whilst that might fill up your bank account, it doesn't fill up your emotional bank account in the same way that a close relationship with your children does.

Yeah, it's priceless. I agree. Now, Mark, I'd love to chat a little bit about your work. So often in our work, whatever industry we're in, sometimes there's something that really moves us or that really we'll never forget. A moment. Maybe it's an emotional moment, maybe it's a fearful moment when that comes to mind for you, a moving moment. Maybe it was a certain expedition or a moment within an expedition. What comes to mind for you? Something that really either shook you or. Yeah, just reminded you of how grateful you are for what you've got.

And I am very grateful. I think that sort of being grateful for what you've got is an important element which I was poor at, but I've learned to get better at that, realizing. And actually I'm in a fortunate position. But a few years ago, in fact, probably about 15 years ago, I was on a recce on the Kunaini river, which sits between Angola and Namibia. I was on the recce with people who. A couple of people who'd been part of the conflict there between SWAPO and the South African Defence Forces. So they'd gone backwards and forwards across this river a number of times. And the river at one end is a great big waterfall because the Canali waterfall at the other end, there's a whole series of big rapids, I mean, quite substantial rapids, and it's amazingly beautiful. And one afternoon we decided that what would we do for the challenge for the afternoon that we were going to cross the river in Tango and swim across the river. Big waterfall downstream, big rapids above. And. And I said to, you know, lots of crocodile risk and said, oh, big rock, big rock. Big rapids upstream, big waterfall downstream. We're fine. So the river was quite wide and it's got to be 2 or 300 meters and it was flowing strongly, you know, but like sort of quite lipid, muddy brown water, sort of sinuously flowing. So fairly flat where we were, and about three quarters of the way across it was a big rock. So we decided that we were going to go in upstream, Use the current rather than trying to swim against it, Use the current, swimming diagonally, land on the rock, rest there, and then do the. The. The. The sort of last quarter, which was the easy bit. And we did it perfectly, the three of us. We got a, you know, swam diagonally, got in line with a rock. We were coming towards the rock. Couldn't have been better when we're about 5 meters away, when this rock stood up on four scaly reptilian feet and sinuously slid into the water. Now, that rock, which we'd seen from the distance, which looked quite substantial, was substantial because great big crocodile on top of it now is a lot smaller. So free grown men balancing on this. On this rock, 3/4 across this brown, lipid, strongly flowing rip river. And when there's one crop, there's always more than one croc. So there's not just one croc. There's always more.

Trying to work out what we're going to do next. And we're, you know, hours from the nearest civilization. And there's certainly no way to cross the river without crossing, Getting into the river and crossing. But to confound that the two people I was with, given their history, really didn't want to get. Go and ask for help in angola Dressed in a pair of boxer shorts because of their. Because of their background. I mean, not that there was nothing, but it was just history. So, you know, what. What do you do? You're kind of like one of those catch 22. Just stuck it. It's like one. You're stuck in the middle of the river. You're. Yeah, I don't know whether you've that. That joke, you know, what do you do with a frog that's dead in the middle of the river? How does it get over to the other side? Now we were that frog, though. You know, clearly I'm standing up and I'm not. My leg isn't clunking against a chair. So we came up with a solution, but we decided to do was we go to angola, because why not? That was a challenge. But that last bit was just a bit easier. And we could add a bit more visibility. We could kind of see the croc hadn't gone into that bit. It'd gone into deeper water, but the bit was on the other side. What would you do now? And it was a case of commitment. We just had there Was no other option but to swim back over. And this is where the bit came as I got to the. As we swam back to where we'd come from. Actually the bank was, you know, was easy coming now, but actually when you got to the. So you see it was quite a steep bank and you could also see where crocs would have rested. You know, it was kind of okay. Looking from that side with a different view, I can see where the risk is. And I started to panic in mid river and then I suddenly realized that it wasn't the croc that was going to get me. The potentially was in the river beneath us. It was my panic that was going to get a grip and drown me. I was going to, you know, that was. My head was going to. To ruin the day for me. And it was, you know, this is a seminal moment where if I don't get control of my own emotions now and my own intellect telling me there's a significant risk, then you know, it's all going to be index. So.

Obviously got control and got onto the bank. And that was quite a seminal moment in terms of one not always listening to supposed experts, you know, going with your own gutting strength. Don't. And this is really easy to say, isn't it? Don't panic. Mr. Manor. Oh, Mr. Manor. I'm not sure whether that expression sort of translates into kiwi.

Yeah, but it's that preparation, isn't it? Having that knowledge to be aware of the stuff that you can't control that goes on around you. But there's stuff that you can control, control the bits. You can be aware of the stuff of the elements that you can't control, but have enough sort of knowledge and training to be able to navigate your way through those, you know, those problems. You know, there's nothing worse than making no decision because you just stand still. You're going to make some decisions. Not all decisions are good decisions, but at least you move forward to the next point and the next juncture where you've got a bifurcation of pathways. So it's making the best decisions you can make at that particular time and not. Not regretting the ones that were poor decisions. But you've got to make decisions, otherwise if you're standing still, you're essentially going backwards because the world is going forward at the same time.

I agree. And what a moment. Like just I could kind of picture you standing on that bank. That's frightening. This idea of pressure, stress. It's real. We've all got it. We all Experience it sometimes daily, sometimes weekly, but some of us will survive it. So Mark, you survived it. You were able to take control of your mindset, your thoughts and your emotions. Some people don't do that very well. Any tips in terms of how you do that? When you are under pressure or the stress, stress is really hitting you. What do you do to control your focus and your breath?

Well, it's an interesting one because as we mentioned at the beginning, we're operating in Ukraine and we're operating.

Close to the front line. So there's lots of stuff that you can't control. There's fire, there's drones everywhere, which have changed the whole thing completely. Whereas before it's kind of it was just missiles and just artillery that we had to worry about. Now it's drones that follow you. So we have to change vehicles because, you know, you know, the, the drones that you might use in New Zealand for photography and stuff where you can mark a vehicle and mark and the drone. Well, if you're in that vehicle and that drone's got a bomb on top, it does the same thing. So you're in a vehicle, when you get marked, you're turning left, going right, the drone follows you. If you potentially be going to an underground car park, the drone follows you. You know this, you can't control that. So you have to sort of live with that unpredictability and the, the.

The risk of that. And you know, that does.

Also in Ukraine, we're not a Ukrainian speaker, so everything's, you're in a different language environment with a different sort of way of working. So how do we deal with that? It's at times tricky, but I realized it's also quite exciting. And that's not for everybody. But I can see why people get, I understand why people get fixate hooked in it because the consequences are real.

You don't have control of all of it, but you can control the bits that you can. So I think it's being.

I constantly, I guess dynamically risk assess in terms of exits, in terms of what, what happens if so in this particular environment. So for instance, when I, when I go to bed, I've got my grab bags, I've got a, you know, in the dark, if something happens, I know I reach my left hand and I've got my kind of passport, wallet, money, first aid kit and the torch. And so it's, it's having those. And each situation of course, will be different. It's having the things that you need to hand close to hand and you Know exactly where they are, where you can. Where you can access those resources to get you through to the other side. The other bit is just accepting the fact you don't have control of everything. And so you know there will be consequences potentially of going there. You have to accept that fact. But as long as what you. As long as you can see the value of what you're doing and the purpose behind it, then that's. That's an even equation. If you're unsure why you're there, if you're unsure of your purpose, and that becomes an unequal equation and an unhealthy one. And I think.

You'Re right. How do you control your emotions when it all goes a bit. PETE on when it goes wrong? Breathing is an incredibly important thing. And then quite often it's getting that moment where you visualize your next five steps. For me, it's next five steps because it's generally that short term getting out of the hole that you're in, whether that's a physical hole or whether it's a risk hole, getting to the next stage, which means sort of moving away from that risk. And then, you know, how far you then move. I generally sort of thinking at least three to five moves further down the road to getting out of that. And then it's being aware obviously of your surroundings and the people around you. So making sure that the. The. Your team that you're there either to help them or they're there to help you. And then in Ukraine, it's making sure there are two wars between you and the outside. So if something comes down in the night during an air raid, you know, ideally you want two, two walls behind you. So knowing where your nearest bathroom and bath is and if you have to sleep in the bath, that's what you have to do. Sometimes you have to moderate your behavior and not force through your typical behavior, but moderate it sort of to mitigate risk. I'm not sure whether that's unbelievable or whether that's just.

That's fascinating. That's very helpful. I mean, as you're sharing that, I'm thinking of that from a family standpoint, relationship standpoint, business, like it's so applicable across the board. And you said something that was interesting. And going into Ukraine being kind of followed by Russian drones, potentially bombs on them, you were able to frame it and go, it's actually quite exciting. It could be seen as exciting. And that's something we all have the power to do, is to attach certain meaning to things. And often when things are scary or unknown, uncertain. Our amygdala will fire up and we'll label those things as horrific, dangerous, run. What's the benefit of being able to attach positive meaning and go, actually, this really unfortunate or risky thing, actually, this could be really exciting. I could grow from this. What's the benefit to doing that?

I think just exactly what you've said, growing from it. I don't think it is for everybody and I don't think this is where you have to discover your passion isn't. And I've, you know, from my career, but more especially, and a long time ago I was in UK Special Forces, but in the reserve units, you know, I realized that that sort of environment I found quite stimulating. There's something called the, the explorers gene. I don't know whether you've come across this. So it's, it's a. I think Dr. 77. I might have got that sort of gene number wrong. But then it's. I first came across it in an article in Scientific America which said that people who live near the sea are 20% more likely to have, or 50% more likely to have this gene. And it's the exploratory. So it's a low dopamine response. So in order to.

Feel more fulfilled, you need more stimulation than 80% of the population, and you want 80% of your population to be stable because you want them to produce and build societies, but you want your 20% who do need to go away, who need to be fishermen. They need to go out to sea and take risk to earn their living and they, they're fulfilled by that. You need 20% of your population to go and explore new lands and find new resources, go into space to discover more than new science. There's a downside to it in so much as, and I think once I started understanding my frustrations a little bit with normal life, it gives you a sense of. It's not a weakness, it's actually kind of how your chemistry was your body. And there'll be undoubtedly listeners who think, who are frustrated and feel that, you know, normal life isn't quite enough. And that's. Some of that is chemistry. Some of that is just the way you're wired. And you need to then do, you know, realize that's part of your biology, part of your anatomy, part of your psychology, then you need to balance that with activities that give you that sort of dopamine, that sort of sense of excitement. And it isn't necessarily all about climbing mountains or skiing and all that type of stuff. There are everybody's different. Those responses will come from different activities and they're not all physical, sort of adventurous, risk taking exercises. And actually the gene's quite closely related to adhd. So there's, you know, there's a negative and a positive side to this. And if you imagine going back to that original Scientific America article about living by the sea, you know, that would have been, you know, traveling in land, in forested areas left you open to being sort of ambushed by highwaymen and robbers and stuff. When you're at sea, they were the highways of the world. So, you know, you'd lead, you'd leave on your sea voice to go and explore and of course you'd leave from a seaport and then you'd settle, you'd procreate and have kids there. That's why that sort of gene is stronger on sea, in sort of sea facing areas than it is in land. So, you know, getting makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Getting an understanding right down how, how actually nature drives you to do some of this stuff. And it's not all, you know, because there are times when I sit and I'm not active enough and I start sort of questioning myself. Well, you should, you know, and it's, there's a time also to rest and recoup and stuff. And I'm not so good at that. But I'm getting better at realizing I need to have downtime as well as uptime. But I suspect there's lots of people in the audience who, who will also have that struggle. And knowing that it's part of your DNA literally, you know, gives, gives, makes it easy to understand them.

Yeah, 100%. And I think when I look at high performers, I'm fortunate to sit with people who like yourself, are literally at the very tip top of their industry. So we look at extreme medicine. You are the world leader. People look to you, they want to be following your advice and be along with you. When I talk to people like that, they have. Some people would describe it as an obsession, some people would describe it as a radical drive. But this passion to be industrious and to learn and explore, that's just natural. And you can't kind of suppress that. But I think you're right. You have to find times for rest. Rest is not a luxury, it's a necessity. Otherwise you become a liability to yourself and those around you.

Absolutely. And I think it also gives you, if you're busy, busy, busy, busy and doing it, and especially when you're bringing up a family, that it's hard to find this time to have down downtime for yourself. And I found it really useful and was able to find the time to do it at the beginning of the year to go away to a village in Cornwall where there was no phone signal and actually spent two or three days there. And that kind of enforced rest time that, that enforced isolation allowed my mind to spin and become a whole lot more creative. And I would, in that environment would come up with a whole series of ideas that I wouldn't otherwise have come up with. And I think, you know, giving yourself one the space and the permission to just sit there and think and walk and let your mind run free because you've got all this stuff going on. And actually by taking away all the other stimulus, I managed to be mind to come out and start coming up with solutions you might not otherwise think of. You know, one of those things was I wonder if I get hold of Tom Cruise and invite him to interview a NASA astronaut going up to the International Space Station, whether he would say yes.

So we got hold of Tom Cruise and Tom, I asked, we were working with him, so it was kind of an easier call than it sounds. But his team said, you've got 20 minutes, 20 minutes is all you've got. Then when he's 20 minutes left, Tom is walking away regardless, he's busy, regardless of whether the interview is. That's it. So we did it. Actually, I mentioned the word Extreme Medicine conference in Edinburgh. We did it in the lunch break because we had an hour and quarter loads of time for the interview, 20 minutes. And then we could go and get lunch and then come back and set up for the. For the afternoon sessions. Tom asked us to write some questions just to give him a framework to do. And this is the first time Tom Cruise has ever been the interviewer. So he's also. He's always interesting. This is the first occasion where he's ever been the interviewer. So he wrote him. So myself and a sports scientist called Nikki McCleary and an astronaut called Dr. Mike Barrett wrote him about four or five questions, gave them to him for 20 minutes. There's more than enough questions to frame the conversation. Anyway, an hour and 10 minutes into the conversation we had to say to. He's loving it, Tom. And bitter because everybody's starting to want. We've missed lunch by about half an hour. Everybody's starting to wander back into the conference room, so we have to. There's a lecturer waiting impatiently to come onto the stage, so we have to close the session down. And Tom, we were managing part of his schedule at that particular. We knew how big, manically busy was because it was filming Mission Impossible, which is due out in a week or so. Yeah. Which I suspect is going to be incredible because some of the filming sessions, filming sequences were. Sounded amazing anyway. Where was it going? So the five questions that we wrote to him, he asked those questions, but woven in into the conversation, see, you know, just seamlessly, but, you know, he filled an hour and 10 minutes. The questions that he then went on to ask himself were better than some of the questions that we'd put together as a team with a sports scientist, an astronaut and myself. You know, the dedication and the professionalism, the energy that he put into that moment was absolutely incredible. If anybody wants to watch it, so it's Tom Cruise, Victor Glover on the NASA website. And if you're into space and exploration and sort of human performance, it's such an amazing. It's like. It's an amazing energy there. It's an amazing conversation.

We will make sure and put that in the show notes. Actually, if anyone wants to listen to it, we'll put a link to it so people could go straight to it.

It's perfect. I mean, and from a purely selfish point of view, NASA called it their favorite video of that year. So we were pretty, pretty happy with the result.

So for anyone that's into extreme medicine, they've got to come and see you this year in Edinburgh. So it's in November. And I'll put a link to it for anyone that wants to go.

And anybody that's particularly interested in space medicine. We're doing a space medicine conference in July, Durham University, which again is on our website, World Extreme Medicine. But I think going back to your question, it's about giving yourself that rest time. It's allowing your mind to spin, to come up with those random ideas like shall I write to. And you know, nine times out of 10 you get no reply. But then the one time when you do, you know, you get some. But unless you give yourself the time to think, you never get to the point of asking those questions. And I found that incredibly useful.

Yeah, I'm with you on that. And if anybody wants. Actually, I've got the book here. I always have it close by if anybody ever wants the research on that. There's an amazing Englishman called Johan Hari who wrote this book. I'm just holding it up for anyone that's on video called Stolen Focus. And it's. I don't know, sold a couple million copies now. But arguably the leading book on how we're distracted and we're busy in our minds a lot and how important it is to switch off the phone, switch off the Internet and just be. And let your mind wander. And that's where the creative thoughts come in. So what you've just explained, Mark, this is. He explains the data behind it and research. So it makes sense to me.

Probably explains it much better than I did. But yeah, it sounds like a great.

It was brilliant.

Thank you.

Brilliant book. Now there must be some dark times.

Some things that unfolded that maybe you didn't expect and you know, the risk became real. What comes to mind for you when you think back in your career as a moment where like, God, that was. Yeah, I'll never forget that. That was a hairy moment for all involved.

There's been a few times, to be honest, it's been a time where I was getting decision fatigue. Fatigue having to make so many consecutive decisions over an extended period with decisions that all had consequences. I started to fatigue and I realized that was a. That was the thing I needed to give myself ex. Simplify stuff so they wasn't cons and evolve some of the decision making to other people. I got, you know, I had a bout of mild depression about 10 years ago when the series of.

Circumstances alive with my father dying. I was, as I mentioned, I was a single parent running two companies. I had a. I worked in the Arctic for 10. This is gonna, this is gonna make sense in the conversation. I worked in the Arctic for 10, 15 winter seasons, short winter season, working as a dogstead guy. And I bought a husky home for my kids as a puppy and she was. But she escaped everywhere and would wander and they've got no sense of coming home, so they just go picking miles and I'd get a phone call from the dog pound or from the pub or somebody saying your dog, you know, all that sort of stuff was going on. And then I came out of a long relationship that. That had ended. And it was all that confluence of all those different pressures and I actually found myself becoming, struggling with, you know, the passing of my father and all that type of stuff. And I had the self awareness to realize that actually that. Well, what it surprised me was that boundary, that margin between good mental health and poor mental health is incredibly fine. And we need to be very protective of the bit that keeps us on the positive side. Not necessarily. I always assumed, you know, that wasn't ever going to be my issue. But I found actually when stuff really, and it was big stuff all started to load up. Then I started to struggle. There's having the self awareness that actually sometimes you need to go and get help and talk to other people. Externalize rather than internalize. I found that you sort of. I also was surprised how it took me a while to get through the other side. That surprised me. But what I took away from that is one, you always get to the other, you always get to the other side. That tomorrow when you wake up in the morning is another day you start again and you start just chipping away. And I found that actually throughout, even though I knew I was.

Depressed, I was also optimistic. So I had that sort of nugget, that sort of core of optimism that doesn't. I don't think I. You know, I don't think that's something that necessarily sits in everybody because we're hardwired and built in different ways. But it's that sense of, you know, you're down there, but you will get there. But you need to work at it proactively. You need to take steps. You need to do stuff that actually at the time feels uncomfortable. You know, I picked up my physical activity, you know, five or six times more than I was doing when I was at the bottom bit in order to lift myself. That's a part of my recovery journey, was chipping away, simplifying and concentrating on the stuff that was really important. Externalizing and actually talking to other people to get their input and physical activity. So I did a lot more physical activity. For me, Where I live, I live on the coast. So going out, sea kayaking. Sea kayaking was great. And I think there are lots of activities like skiing. You know, you're physically active, but you can't think about anything else because you've got to watch the wave set, you've got to do the paddling thing. That's a constant motion. You need to watch where the tide is going. There are so many things you need to be aware of because they're mission critical. Otherwise you're going to capsize, you're going to bad water, all that type of stuff that you can't. You haven't got the capacity to think of all the stuff that is otherwise spinning through your mind. Now, of course, when you're at that low level, when you get back to shore, then it starts spinning again, but it spins it not quite as fast a speed as it did before. So it's a journey. You need to take positive steps. You need to externalize and you need to, you know, appreciate that. Actually, every. Every down has an up. So when you're on the up, then I'm really now really very protective around my, around that sort of making sure that I surround myself by people I enjoy being with, that stuff that I don't enjoy.

That I walk, walk away from, stuff that I don't enjoy that I have to do. Then I make sure I try and think about that in this constructive way as possible, like you said before, turning it into a learning, learning experience and trying to give myself the space to think around it imaginatively. And then for me personally, I've just been. And I said at the beginning of this interview, I don't use the word luck because I. But I'm fortunate to have live in a society that enables me to follow my passion, you know, is following a passion now. And for some people who have that kind of need to find that passion outside of work, then they need to find that passion outside of work and be. And it's really difficult when you've got a young family. But you need to try and carve out some space for yourself to do the stuff that you love, you know, and do the same for your, for your partner as well. So that there's a balance there and you're not being selfish, but there's a balance for both of you and that ultimately leads to a healthier relationship.

Anyway, I'm with you on that 100%. And it's interesting. You talk about the people around you. I think of two types of people. You got lifters and leaners. And when you've got too many leaners on you, they are holding you back. It's all negative. You're probably the smartest person in the room or the most knowledgeable. They go to you for all the answers. You're going to eventually come down to a lower level, lower energy. But then lifters, if you're around them, they're lifting you up and they're elevating you and challenging you and inspiring you to be better. So I'm with you. I'm constantly kind of looking around me to make sure I've got more lifters than leaners.

Well, the great, the great thing about where I work, I'm never, never the cleverest person. There's always somebody far smarter than me. So that's quite a nice environment to work in. You know, and the conference we were talking about, you know, there's astronauts and war surgeons, there's humanitarian midwives, there's special operations doctors and medic. You know, everybody, you know every. You never know who you're going to be talking to. So even the astronauts leave their egos at the door because. And actually they are so accomplished they don't tend to walk around with their egos on show anyway. But you leave your ego at the door because you don't know who you're going to be talking to. So surrounding yourself with people like that. And then I've always followed a policy, you know, I think when I was entering business it was you have to shaft everybody else. You have to, you know, you have to be the top. I have always taken a different policy. The collaboration is key and actually sometimes you give away and you don't get it back, but the vast majority of times you do. So there was one, one time, and I'd tell a short story, we were running the conference at the time we were told that we were going to get George Clooney was going to come, we were going to get sponsorship from XYZ Co. The last minute that all fell to pieces. It just sort of disappeared in a wisp of ether.

And stuff. And. But I spent over, I spent more on the confidence than I would normally. So not by massive it but enough to put me in a difficult position. So you know, I was probably, unless it was oh God like 15 years ago, got quite close to running out of money. And they say that actually the best MBA in the world is to get to run your company to a place where, well, you don't do it purposely, but get to a place where you have to dig yourself out of that type of hole. There were two things. One I thought, oh this okay, this is horrible. And then I realized, and this is a perversion of my own character. I was actually quite enjoying it, you know, enjoying the challenge of digging myself out this significant hole. And part of the joy of that was actually finding the solutions. My point, I was going to say about sort of being open handed, one of the solutions was completely random. Somebody who I'd helped to two years, three years before and didn't know at all the situation I was in, so it's completely random came to me and said I've got this medical contract, I'm working on it, but the incumbent company has been let go. I can't do this by myself. Can you help? And that contract was Survivor, the American reality TV show. So the American Australia. And now we've been the incumbent provider for the last decade. But that the income from that got me through to the next, got me through six months and then the other bits of solution got me to the end. Of the year. And then when I got to the end of the year, then I got another year down the road and that was 15 years ago. It is slightly perverted that I enjoyed the process of digging myself out of that hole. You know, perhaps naive to have got myself into it in the first time, but sometimes you just have to go with a little bit of risk and sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't. But to go back to that open handed, if I hadn't taken that approach with the people who are around me or the people I do business with, that opportunity would have never come my way and I would have got myself six months. But then I had to work. I would have found a solution. But that was a demonstration of how the universe provides when you put it out there. But also not being cutthroat and not being mercenary and not trying to eke every last sort of dollar out, every deal, I think ultimately plays and creates better returns from my perspective.

I'm with you on that. I think there's such a. They call it the law of reciprocity, but I think taking that aside, it's just do the right thing, be a good human. And arguably that just comes back and you don't expect it to come back, you don't beg for it to come back. But naturally a good human tends to get good things coming back to them.

And I think it doesn't happen all the time because not everybody follows the same philosophy. But I think on balance it's definitely in my experience weighed more strongly in on the positive than the negative 100.

And hey, sucks for George Clooney to have missed out in the event, but maybe he'll come back another time. Right?

There's never. No. Yep, you never know. He would have been quite, I mean, he would have been quite a, quite an interesting character to have present stuff. But we've got, you know, we've got Tom Cruise, I mean, and Jane Goodall spoken at the conference, who I have to say was, wow, absolutely extraordinary. So we've, you know, we've, we've not done too badly.

100% no. Top of the Pops and Survivor. So what's it like to support Survivor? If you had any hairy moments come up there.

Yes.

They'Re in the up and I can't, I don't know when it's going to be broadcast. But the, the next US Survivor series is going to have a, some, some significant moments. Yes. I can't talk about them because they happened quite recently, but yeah, really is, I was going to say Great tv. You don't.

Yeah, there was a couple of significant accidents that were, that happened during filming. So yeah, stand by to sort of hear what comes out of that. But yes, really, really, really interesting medicine, which the team.

Your team's right on board, right? Yes, kind of support.

Yeah, no, the team did amazingly well because it could have gone either way and they did an amazing job and the outcome was a good one.

Thank God. Yeah. Touch wood.

Yeah. It must be. Never a dull moment.

There's never a dull moment.

No, not at all. You've arguably trained and equipped military leaders, medics, all different types of professionals supported them. What have you noticed in all of the years working with astronauts, working with surgeons? What separates the good from the world class? Are there any one or two traits that come to mind where you're like, whoa, they are an operator and this is what separates them from someone who's good.

The easy answer would be technical expertise because it's medicine. But I don't think that's necessarily true. When we were running, when I was employing a lot of expedition medics, we would always employ the person over the qualification or the cb. So it's that personality and I think it's a very particular thing to what we do you that you are never doing this by yourself. You're always part of a larger team. So you know, you have to be a team player. Team player sounds a bit trite actually. No, it's not the right way because you don't have to be a team player but you have to be good at working with a team and be able to get on with people, to get the best out of them. So you need that sense of humor, that sense of humility rather than arrogance, that sense of. And as I mentioned before, you know, leaving your ego at the door because you don't know who you're going to be working with. Appreciating. I just, I have a really and I don't know what it's based on but really good ability to put disparate people together to make high performing teams. And they don't often as not don't make an awful lot of sense on paper. But what you want are teams of course that have different skill sets, different personalities and different ways of looking at stuff. But also be able to answer, to lead to a lead or a consensus and happy to follow once a consensus has been reached you. I think quite often.

I quite enjoy robust business conversations as long as they don't turn personal. But having, you know, almost verging on the kind of argument. Because actually challenging stuff passionately means that you, you've got a sense of your convictions. But if you challenge stuff passionately and somebody comes back with a better idea, go with a better idea because that gets you to the pace much quicker. So, and you need. There was some. When I was running expeditions for corporate customers, there was one particular partner we worked with the whole time. He couldn't have been for in a different way to me. And they presented some ideas that I just thought that's just not gonna work. But it did. And it taught me actually that actually listening to those disparate ideas, those ones that from your mind you'd never come into your head and thinking, okay, or sometimes just letting it play out and see how it goes. You know, working with the TV companies, you know, I think I'm quite creative. But then when you work in that environment, you realize actually you're quite a dull creator compared to some of the creativity that, you know, some of, you know, hearing some of the creative ideas that come out, it makes you realize. And actually you need to have input. You need to have a diverse and eclectic team around you. But that team needs to be able to get on. They need to be able to be able to talk to each other. You know, I'm actually probably gathered more creative for me, you know, I'm at B, I need to get to B. So I'm at A. I need to get to B. Let's go and do the journey and see what happens along the way. Not everybody is like that. Lots of people need to know what time they're going to leave, what they need to take, how much they're going to climb. You know, whether there's any, you know, for me, that's almost really. But having those people in your team are essential because they stop people like me going into stuff unprepared, you know, not having thought about all the sort of the logistics and stuff. So, you know, having diverse teams around you is really useful and appreciating that everybody brings something to the party. But what separates normal to extreme is that sort of positivity, that optimism, I think humility. Humility from my perspective. So the ability to get on in teams and look towards the bigger picture rather than looking quite selfishly at your own personal and the ability to create. So giving you time to think outside of the box. However, that for me it's finding quiet space that for other people might be completely different, but giving yourself the ability to be creative and, you know, allowing creation to be creativity to be part of part of your life.

Yeah, that's beautiful. There's actually, as you were sharing that, you mentioned two words, humor and humility. And I've got dear friend Jamie, who's here in New Zealand. He's a former NZ SAS trooper and we're just talking about SAS values and humor and humility. That's it. That's their values. Two values. Live by that and you'll probably live and you'll be trusted and you'll be able to be nimble and work well with a team and compromise. So I'd love for you to meet him actually one day. I'm sure he would love to come on an expedition with you, but just a fabulous human who lives humor, humility. So I think we can all take that into our own lives and our places of work. A sense of humility and a sense of humor.

And James, I love the word and it's one that I mention myself with, is being nimble and agile as well. Not if it worked before. Don't assume it's going to work again. If it's not working, come up with a different solution. Don't get fixated again. It's really easy to say, isn't it? But agility and being nimble works in that sort of SF type environment. Also works in. In. In business. Also works in your personal life as well. Not just doing the same every day. You know, be creative.

100%. Mark, I want to be mindful of your time, but a couple of questions I still want to ask. So you've mentioned the word risk quite a few times in our conversation, and that's something I would like to learn more about, is how to assess risk. What is risk? How to make decisions once you've got an understanding of what the risk is. Now, arguably, for 40 years you've had to assess risk almost on the daily, and I imagine that's came from your professional life and also flowed into your personal life, vice versa. So could we explore that for a moment? What is risk and how do we assess it? And then how does that inform our decisions?

As you said, I've done it for 40 years, so I've kind of come into it intuitively and it's grown up. So it's hard for me to articulate the mechanism for doing that. But I certainly would say one of the things I take a great deal of guidance from is when you feel uneasy. So, you know, you feel uneasy. I think quite often it's very easy to ignore that sense of unease. And I now, every single time I Feel uneasy regardless of whether it's.

Locational, because I'm in a place and something doesn't feel quite right, whether it's emotional, I always, always examine and try and drill down to what it is that's making me uneasy. And.

Nine times out of 10, I can identify what that is. And once I've identified it, then that becomes my risk factor, and then I address that risk factor. And that's kind of the way I do. I mean, there's probably far more constructive ways of putting that. But because I've been doing it for so long and from such an early part of my career, it's hard for me to sort of.

Say I have a more formal process. But it is. If I start feeling uneasy, whether it's emotionally, whether it's physically, whether it's. You know, I take time to. Exactly. I always stop and take time to think about that. And if it's something that is a physical risk, then I'll start planning. Okay, I might be staying where I am, but how do I get out if that risk materializes, you know, what are my next steps? Where's my kit? You know, where's my exit now? What happens if it's the middle of the night and there's been an artillery attack and the building I'm in is destroyed, and I go out into the street, you know, what are my next steps? Where am I headed? So thinking that through my mind, and there was a sort of. There is that military accident. No plan.

No plan. What's the expression? No plan.

Survives contact with the enemy. But it's having that plan because once you've taken that first step, you've started a journey. Then of course, the next. What you did plan changes because the circumstances around you vaulted. But you've got. You've got your first couple of steps, you know, and it's an appreciation. Actually. No plan ever survives contact with the enemy. But having a plan is an essential part. So it's. And I'm not wanting to sort of repeat myself too much, but it's. If the hairs on my back or my gut feels funny, then I really take time to examine and drill down to. And it's generally one thing that's making me feel really uneasy. And my subconscious or my muscle memory is picked up on something's not quite right. Accepting the fact I might need to accept that risk, but also having a plan if it, you know, if I do need to sort of move in a different direction quickly.

That's very helpful. Yeah. Because I think every day there's risk. You know, getting into the car, what food we're putting in our bodies, what we're consuming, and watching and listening. There's risk in everything. And so I think just having an understanding. I like that idea of listening to our gut and going with that a little bit more, as opposed to always trying to find metrics and measure it cognitively. That's important too. But I like the fact that you like now listen to what's inside.

Yeah, I think, you know, being mind and, you know, interesting sort of getting into a vehicle, eat what you eat, all of those stuff's the risk and, you know, making sure that you're educated to those risks. So, you know, listening to shows like your own and other podcasts around.

Fast food and, you know, how we leave our lead, our modern life and the risk. You know, there's a. There's a lot of pressure to say that actually life is unhealthy, but we are, of course, living much longer, much more. We're having much greater extended sort of physical and healthy lives. But of course, there are things that work against that. But we are living a better, longer life than we used to. You know, and there's lots of science around the fact that, you know, people who spend time outdoors in nature, however they do that, where they're sitting on their garden seat reading a book and having a glass of wine or sea kayaking or, you know, have a much healthier physical and mental life. So, you know, getting nature into your life scientifically has proven to be absolutely critical and being, being aware of the risks and, you know, you can't avoid all of them. We are not going to live forever, but sort of just making sure you're making educated choices and, you know, choices with, with. What's the word? With purpose. Not with purpose, but making, intentional knowing what you're doing rather than blindly, you know, walking forward.

Yeah, 100% agree. And it's that there's a lot of great science on healthspan and lifespan. Actually, there's a book, if you haven't read it, I would highly recommend it. It's called out live by Dr. Peter Attia and Bill Gifford. So I recently interviewed one of the authors, all about longevity. And the science is so incredible, what we can do in a very simple way. Simple little things. Like, for example, he says, coffee. The science is so damning that it's great for brain health and liver health. He's like, you've got to drink your coffee. So when I heard that, I was pretty happy.

And I think you Know there's a lot of, I mean I listened to a really interesting lecture a few years ago about in elderly people, the benefit of them taking up, even in later life taking up exercise even, you know, the returns for them. You know, you and I have been physical all our lives so it's slightly different and we, as long as we continue to be so. In fact now I train not for now, I train for 10 years down the road so that you know, I'm putting my physical, physicality into investment in now. So you know, in 10 years time I can still do the things that I want to do but with people who haven't done that, who then take up below level physical activity later on, the impacts are amazing. You know the, the health benefits are sort of extraordinary in the uptake. So there's no. What's the message there? That it's never too late to start.

Today's a good day, you get, you.

Get caught in that kind of thing. Well, I've never done that. Why should I start? Now is a good. Yeah, start. Every journey starts with the smallest step, doesn't it? And starts with the intention to, to be somewhere else. Not just repeat, repeat, repeat.

I'm with you Mark. I just want to say a huge thanks. Got one last question for you. I could chat to you a lot more and I want you to come back on the show and go deep on a few specifics. But I want to say thank you for the work that you've done, the commitment you've made to this planet and to helping develop research and innovation and getting people on the field in the ground and helping in major ways. So it's incredible. I'm going to put links to all of your events coming up your website so if anybody wants to kind of follow your journey, they can kind of follow along. Is there anywhere specific you'd like them to go and connect in?

I suppose the, in terms of. Well more than happy to connect on LinkedIn. I mean if, if they're medics or they're working in extreme environments in the world, Extreme Medicine website would be a great place. And I have to say James, it's been a real pleasure and I'd like to see you at my conference in Edinburgh middle in mid November because I think you'd absolutely love it. There's some incredible characters that and probably about five years worth of interviews. So yeah.

Seriously amazing. I've wrote down the 15th to 17th of November, I've put it down there. So 100% if I can make it, I will be There with bells on. Last question, Mark. So I want you to imagine you're fast forwarding many, many years into the future. You and I together, we're fast forwarding and we get to a certain day and you're highly aware that it's your last day here on Earth and someone very young who you love dearly, comes into the room and says, mark, how do I go about leading my life on purpose? What would you say to them?

Passion.

Follow your passion. Everything comes back to, you know, rocking and rowing your own boat, doesn't it? Passion. Just follow passion. Don't listen to other people's advice. Listen to it, but don't be constrained by it. So do what you love. It doesn't. You know, I love expeditions. It's fairly simple. And, you know, but if poetry is your passion or it's looking after elderly people or whatever it is, looking after animals. No, follow your passion because ultimately if you do, then your journey is going to be far richer than trying to squeeze yourself into somebody else, somebody else's idea of what success and, and, and life should look like. So you have to follow your own passions. Easier said than done, but with intention, of course. Always possible.

Mark, what I love about that piece of advice is that you actually walk the talk. You're doing it. You're an example of it. You've been doing it for decades. You're going to continue to do it. So I appreciate you sharing that from the heart. And it sounds common sense, but I'll tell you what, common sense is not often common practice and often we get, you know, we get distracted by bells, whistles, the Joneses and trying to keep up. So, very timely message for all of us. So, Mark, a huge thank you for connecting today.

James, it's been a real pleasure. And if anybody, if I can help anybody on their journey, then they should feel free to reach out. But, James, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you and to your audience. It's the evening time for you, so I know you've got your family to get to, so I appreciate your time, too.

Thanks a million. We'll talk again soon.