Surviving a Volcanic Eruption: William Pike on Losing His Leg & Finding Purpose After Tragedy

Imagine climbing up Mount Ruapehu and staying up there for the night and a volcano erupting. You wake up and you realize something's crushing you. In the end, you lose your leg. Traumatizing experience, hard to come back from. Well, today's special guest is none other than William Pike, a New Zealand explorer motivational speaker. He's developed an incredible educational program as well. His story is phenomenal. And if you want to really listen to someone who's been through some of the toughest moments mentally and physically, emotionally you can go through and came out the other end with conviction, with resilience, then this is the episode for you. The Lead on Purpose podcast is sponsored by NZ Mortgages.

Learn more at nzmortgages.co nz. William, a huge welcome to the Lead on Purpose podcast.

Thank you. Real pleasure to be here.

So great to have you here. And it's. Your story is phenomenal. The more people that I connect with around this country, they talk about you, what you've endured, your story, how you're inspiring others. And I thought we need William on the show, so we're going to get into your story. It's quite mind blowing. I've got your book actually right in front of us here. For those that are watching, every day is a good day. And for you to be able to say that after what you went through is phenomenal. So there's a certain mindset that goes with that that I'd like to kind of jump into. But first things first is, you know, when you look back to childhood, what did you dream of in terms of becoming as an adult? What did you think of or aspire to be?

Well, you wouldn't believe it, but my big goal through my teenage years was to become a petty dive instructor. Yep, yep, that's what I was all about. So I was pretty lucky. My granddad took me to go island when I was probably, I don't know, before I was 10. And they kind of spurred on a love for, for snorkeling, for the ocean and fish and things like that. And then I barreled into the dive center, which is on Wire Road one day and said, can I have a job? And I think they said, look, not this year, but maybe next year because I was pretty young. And then I landed a job there late in high school, which for me was a dream job to get you working in a place where you love what you love doing as well in terms of diving. And that ended up me becoming a full time straight after school because I've finished school not not wasn't the great, the best academically? I was pretty, pretty average actually and wasn't sure what I was going to do. So I thought yeah, they'll gap you at the dive. Dive shop was perfect. And then that, that dream of becoming a padi dive instructor was kind of quickly squashed by what I saw, you know, and how people were kind of commenting about the life as a dive instructor. It sounded good, you know, maybe if you're overseas for a short amount of time. But you know, the retail aspect that I kind of saw in terms of working weekends, my mates were out off having fun and, and you know what that pathway would look, look like in a career. I just thought, no, it's not really for me. So I bombed out of there and then went into Teachers College.

Wow. And so passion to teach, passion to help others, equip others with new skills and mindsets.

Yeah, yeah.

Where did that come from?

I think there's a few things really. I think there was the, the aspect of having some holidays. I thought you beaut, this is gonna be great. You know what I mean?

It's like 15 or 16 years.

Try truckload holidays. But on the other hand, on a more serious note, it was like, oh, I can probably share my passion for the outdoors with these kids as well. And by that stage I was really getting into my tramping multi day hiking in a big way and was just was loving it. While I was at the dive center and obviously leaving, getting into Texas, colon, et cetera, I got onto more and more and more. So as I got further into teachers College it was less about oh, let's have some holidays. And it was like, oh, this is gonna be pretty fun to be able to, you know, share my passion. But also I saw like good career opportunities in terms of teach anywhere as a, as a male, you know, it was gonna be a good opportunity to pick up a job pretty easily. Things like that, let's not go near the salary. But.

It was exciting and for me it was just a, I think a really solid base. And I remember when I applied for Teachers College they said look, we'd love to have you but your grades are rubbish so you better do bloody well in the first year or we're gonna boot you out.

No pressure.

No, no pressure, no pressure. So I worked bloody hard in that first year, writing assignments, things like that. That wasn't me. I think mum did a lot of them for me at high school. Right. So I kind of had to really pull finger and I kind of surprised myself. Bloody hell. I did really, really well and went through teachers college and went on to get honours. Well, first degree honors and yeah, in education.

Well done.

So I was, I was pretty, pretty wrapped with that.

That's huge.

Yeah.

And of course that sent you on a career of teaching. Was it primary or secondary?

It was primary school, yeah. I was kind of trained up to the year, kind of year eight, so kind of 12 year olds. And when I finished university, I had made good friends with this guy James in my class. So I was like, mate, you know, what are we going to do? And we'd done a number of adventures throughout university. And he said, well, look, I've got this good relationship at a school called Clevedon School, just down the road from where I live. They've kind of said, do you want to come and help out on a school camp? And this was like towards the end of the year, November. And I said, yep, I'll come along. And we were going to get paid. We thought we were making bank, you know, like, because we're going to get paid for this whole week just to do cool stuff in the outdoors. And of course, yeah, we did that. And then they kind of said, oh, would you like to work for us next year? And I said, well, I'm doing my honours. And I said, well, we can make it work. Well, you and James can split a class. We'll do 0.5 and 0.5. And because I lived over on the North Shore and Cleveland's a blooming long way to get there, you once need a helicopter flight and they were good enough to kind of work it so that I didn't have to come in with my release, but still did it all formally and stuff. So. So that worked. That worked really, really well. And I was able to study and get paid and work off my beginning teacher kind of time as well. So that was, that was pretty neat. And I guess from there kind of flows into me saying to James, mate, we've done heaps of tramping, heaps of fishing, heaps of cool stuff that you'd never been mountaineering before. So I was like, hey, this is one of my passions. And I'd done a number of seasons since then and. Or before then. And yeah, September 2007, we decided to go down to Mount Ruapehu for an adventure that would ultimately change the course of not just my life, but his life as well.

And for those that aren't familiar with Mount Rupehu, maybe for people are not from New Zealand, yeah, please just give them a description of what it is, yeah.

So Mount Rupehu, it's a really popular mountain mountain, yeah, you got kind of hikers and skiers and snowboarders and cafes on it. It's not this, you know, remote peak by, by any means. If I did some calculation, I think it's about 10,000ft or 2,790 odd meters high from the year, especially during winter. It just looks like this big girth of a mountain that kind of just is quite isolated with, you know, I suppose plateaus around it. And we decided that we wanted to climb up to the top summit area and at the summit there's, it's a beautiful mountain, quite challenging in terms of. Some of the terrain can be quite steep and the odd avalanche go through and we got quite a lot of hard ice just due to the winds and the conditions there as well. So it's a tricky mountain to climb. But yeah, at the top is this beautiful summit plateau over a kilometer square and just to the side of it is the crater lake. And the crater lake, on a good day or any day, actually looks quite stunning, you know, and then completely covered in or covered around it with snow, especially in wintertime. And I mean, it last erupted obviously from today back in 2007, which I'll tell you about soon. And then I think prior to that was probably in the 90s where there's some really decent eruptions that kind of spread ash all over the central plateau. But largely it's a great place to go. You know, a lot of Orkindas or people in the north island have kind of been there. So yeah, we drove down to the Whakapapa ski field and it was September, school holidays back in 2007, and dumped James's car at the bottom. And I think we hitched up to the, to the top of the, the road and then we walked our way up to just above, above the kind of 2000 meter line which is around where some of the cafes are. And we had in our mind that we were going to dig a snow cave that night. But we were fortunate to come across a snow cave that had already been dug and it was full of high school kids and some instructors and they kind of welcomed us in and said, come on in, and I think fed us with some nachos that night. And I must say the sleep wasn't great because the kids were chatting away all night. But it was, it was a huge snow cave. It was quite phenomenal. And the next morning we're up pretty early and out of there and we headed up to the top of Mount Ruapehu. It was this beautiful, like bluebird day, just stunning, quite warm. I remember kind of sweating away with these great big heavy backpacks on working our way up the mountain with, with a ton of gear. So we're really well, like planned and prepared. We told people what we're doing and where we're going. We left our intentions back then. You did, you know, with the Department of Conservation, so they knew what you're doing and where you were going. And we told our family as well and, you know, we had all the right gear. We're kind of happy campers, you know. And after probably five or six hours we came across the dome shelter. It did actually take us a long time to find it because at that time of year it is completely encrusted and ice and it's invisible. There was only a top section of the, a frame that was visible. We had to kind of approach it from the right side to be able to see it. So it was pretty stunning. And I was just so pumped to be there. It was just. It's a beautiful landscape up there with that, with the lake and the plateau and you just feel like you're literally on top of the world. And we worked bloody hard to get there. So, you know, it was just like, wow. I just, I, I didn't want to be in, in any other place, you know, I was just, I was so happy to be there. So we dug out the, the doorway with our shovels and literally slid down into this hut. It was like a blooming slide, I remember. And I should also say that it's, it's a half star accommodation. You know, it's not much bigger than this room we're in. Plywood floors, walls, no electricity, no toilet, no kitchen, no bedding, no seating, nothing. Right. So it was, it was literally a basic plywood box. So we set up for the night and James is a great guy, but what I don't like about hanging out with him in the outdoors is he snores like a chainsaw, like a big time. So if you can picture us, we're like crammed like sardines in this quite a skinny room, maybe only one and a half or two meters deep. And he's on one side, I'm on the other side and, and we agreed to get up at about 4 o' clock in the morning because we wanted to be fed out the door and up on the true summit of Mount to appear who the next day. And for me, I just couldn't think of anything better. Right. So I was. I was probably a bit wired for that. And whereas James is. That beautiful ability is to put his head on the pillow or not. No pillow.

Hardwood floor, maybe. Maybe a fleece jumper or something. And he was out to the camp. And I heard the small rumble outside of the building is about 20 minutes past 8, I recall. And all of a sudden, the door, which is just beyond our feet, this thing just blew open with this horrific force and a huge noise, and it kind of came off the hinges and went into the far corner. So I hopped up onto my knees and skitted across the floor, wondering what this. All this fuss was about. And in front of me, I could see Mount Rope erupting. Wow. It was horrific. 1.5 million cubic meters of mud and rock and water had just been instantaneously ejected from the crater lake. And what had happened was underneath the. The lake itself, I'm led to believe. I've seen diagrams too, over the years, but these two vents that come up from center of the earth somewhere, and gas slightly comes up through them. But we understand that there was an underwater rockfall which actually blocked those vents off. So over time, I don't know how long time, how much time, the gas built up and it let go that, that evening. And the vent that let go points directly at the dome shelter, too. Wow. So we wore in full force. Mud, rocks, water, snow and ice just came tumbling down, and we were a needle in a haystack. And because I was literally in the firing line of the doorway, it smashed me up against the wall that was just behind me. And, yeah, mud, rocks, water smashing through the floorboards, creating these big holes in the wall around me. And of course, my legs were getting crushed and pummeled My right leg in particular. I could feel the bones being broken off, that flesh being ripped off. Seemed like this bloody jet plane was taken off outside, except it was a volcano roaring. It was just incredibly bizarre. And after 30 seconds of being just smashed and pummeled and I just couldn't fight off that force. I'd never experienced that before. And everything stopped and went silent. And that's often the time where I joke and say, well, it's when James woke up, you know, but he, he, he had woken up and he'd moved himself into the corner, which meant he was not hurt. He was out of the kind of the firing line of the debris coming in. And I'm yelling at him, saying, mate, I think there's been interruption. Come on over. Like, let's, let's Dig me out and we'll get down the mountain. Not knowing that my, my legs are buggered. So he kind of tiptoes over, literally in his underwear in his favorite blue undies on that night. And he tiptoed across the debris with his bare feet, which was not an easy thing to do anyway. And then we frantically began digging and we're using our hands and just clawing away at like ice and, and hard volcanic rock. It was just, it was fruitless. We tried ice axes, we tried shovels, but I, I was stuck. And we, I kind of turned to him and we had this crazy conversation at what, two and a half thousand meters above sea level was minus eight degrees up there. What the hell are we going to do? So he, I was kind of not drifting in and out of consciousness but wanting to head that way. So he was really good. He actually smacked me really hard across the face to bring me around at one point because said I'm going to keel over. But he brought me around and yeah, there was a bit of like, okay, what's the plan? And you know, together we decided, well, get some clothes on, mate. And then, and then.

Smart call, smart call, but.

Well, it was a smart call, but the problem was everything was buried too. After kind of rummaging through the debris, he could only pull out his boots, no socks, and he took one of my, was my new Gore Tex jacket off the hook and put that on and that was all he was dressed with. So he was completely under prepared to, to leave the dome shelter. And yeah, the plan was, well, look, you run down the mountain, save your life and hopefully save my life as well. Good luck, mate. And he said, okay, cool, where do I go? And I thought I'll. Far out. Yeah, but how does any person that's never been on a mountain before just been through a bloody volcanic eruption? You don't have the right gear on. You know, it was, it was, it was a big ask, right? So I explained to him, well, you know, you kind of go right, and go down the upper glacier and, and explain where to go and, and he said, all right, well I'm out of here. And I said, okay, but hold on a second, mate. And I really meant it. I was like, can you, can you please tell my friends and my family that I love them? Yeah, because I just, I didn't think I'd see him or anyone else again. And I was terrified and I was really up to scratch with all of my first aid cert and pre hospital this, pre hospital that, and I Knew that I was in a really shitty situation, that things were going to go downhill pretty quickly for me. So with that in mind. Yeah. James just took off into the darkness. And it was very movie like, you know, it was quite surreal. I might actually hear. Or am I watching this?

You know? Yeah, you're kind of, like, detached from it or dissociated.

Yeah, well, I mean, I. My big thing was, you're in this. Stay focused, and you're going to have to fight to stay alive, otherwise you're going to die up here pretty quickly. So once he'd left. Yeah. On my mind was. Was how do I kind of stay focused and stay awake? And I knew I had to have a game plan of some sort and. And the teacher, me, started doing some mathematics. And Nev has been great at mathematics. Right. Like your previous guest. Right.

Who will remain unnamed. But, you know, I remember kind of counting away my fingers and thinking, far out, it could take the rescuers 10 hours to get here. And then I did some more mass and thought, gee, I've probably only got about five hours to live, so I'm going to die up here. And the hardest thing of all was sitting there thinking, well, what the hell are my friends and family going to think, you know, when they received that news? And I guess the other thing, too was, you know, there were so many things I wanted to do. I was 22 years old. I wanted to go on a truckload more adventures. I wanted to be a principal, perhaps one day, maybe have a family, go on more adventures, you know, it was just. So much was in front of me, and it was just being torn away from me, and nothing I could do except just fight and not give up. But every time I began to pull on my leg to try and free it, the bones would kind of pull apart and then, like, crunch and gurgle and crackle back together. And eventually I. I just drifted off to sleep. I was actually. I was actually looking at the same watch I had on back then, but I was trying to tell the time, but hypothermia had me, and I just drifted off to sleep thinking that I'd never wake up again. So horrific.

How does that feel, that I just share that right now with me. What feelings come up for you now?

Because I tell the story often on stage and with. With people, I. I go into it with a mindset of almost like an actor. You're. You know, you're telling the story almost from a little bit detached, a little bit outside of that, and telling it as it was. And I think if I really got myself into it and just kind of aligned and deeply thought about all the emotions associated with that, like, it would probably eventually begin to break me, perhaps. So I don't have any problem sharing it. And when I do share, I like to share it, especially in front of an audience, you know, exactly as it was with that emotion, with that, what it felt like and all that type of thing. But I think when. When you experience such a traumatic event like that, you just need to be cognizant of the fact that, you know, it may weigh you down. And.

I guess, unfortunate that I'm not speaking on a stage every day, you know, and I'm not telling that every single day. And when I do tell it, I give it. Give it my best. And at the back of the mind, you're like, I experience that. And that's had a significant impact on my life.

Oh, I bet. When did you wake up? What was around you when you woke up?

Well, when I woke up in hospital, I was looking at a room, a roof much like this one, actually. Bright lights, white, and I could hear doctors and nurses scurrying around and machines beeping and pumping and. And the first thing I thought was, you beauty, I'm alive. Because I just didn't expect to wake up, you know, it was. It was such a treat and a surprise. Looking down for the first time, I could see there was no bloody right leg there. And, you know, people often say, well, what. What went through your head? But to be fair, not a lot because I was wasted on ketamine and morphine and all the good stuff, right. For quite some time. But when that's. Those good drugs, of course, did slowly kind of wear off, I thought myself far out. Yeah, you're one lucky lad because, you know, I only had injuries, and I say only, but from below my knees down. I had broken patellas. I had. I had some soft tissue injuries in my left leg and of course, my right leg was. Was missing, gone kind of below the knee. So I. I didn't go through a consultation period of, should we keep the legal. Surely not. It was what woke up and she was gone. So in a way, that was probably an easy decision to have because I would have probably fought tooth and nail to keep the league. But, you know, I've seen a lot of photos of it and you'll see one in my book as well. But, yeah, it was not salvageable after the crush injuries and the impact and loss of circulation, things like that.

And, yeah, I mean, Hospital. It was, it was tough. You know, there was, there was a lot happening. I wasn't out of the woods. You know, my kidneys had packed up because of the crush injuries, sepsis. I had a bit of that. I had some gangrene on my stump. So it was just a full on intense environment for probably six weeks at least in the intensive care room. And you know, the doctors and nurses said to, a lot of, a lot of times to my, to my parents, my, my brother and my close friends, he ain't out of the woods yet and this could go either way. And that was like that for quite some time. So it was a real, a real battle. But, you know, as hard as it was, and I had all sorts of thoughts, you know, going through my head. Can I actually walk again? Or it's always going to hurt or what are these prosthetic leg things going to, going to be, look like? Going to look like how they're going to work? Can I teach? Am I going to get a girlfriend? But, but I guess on the, on the positive side, I had all these, these big, great, big dreams and goals that I wanted to achieve, you know. And you know, you, you talk about like purpose, but for me, you know, more for my purpose was around education, it was the great outdoors, it was people. And those were the things that kind of gave me that courage and the confidence. I needed hospital to, to begin to, to rebuild my life. And I also recall another story. Every day this, this nurse would come in, Cynthia, and she would change my dressings on my, on my, on my wounds, in particular the skin graft one that I had and would chat away. She had good chat, you know, one day she said, oh, you know, you've, you've got a bit of a choice here. I said, what do you mean? She said, well, you can kind of go on a bit of an adventure with, with life now or you can go back to teaching and, and you're outdoors. And I said, well, I intend to do that. She said, well, think about it though, you know, because, you know, who knows what opportunities you could make out of this or good things you could do with us. Don't, don't discount that and perhaps you might want to go on adventure with it. So I took that story into the back of my mind for probably a few days and just mulled that over and one morning woke up and thought, shit, she's absolutely right. I'm not going to waste a second chance, you know, and, and on reflection, it was just that small little conversation that Gave me a truckload of confidence and perhaps was one of, was one of the things that, you know, set me on, on the right direction.

And you've got a lot to thank Cynthia for.

You do, I do, I do. And there are a lot of good nurses and doctors in there, but it was absolutely one of those things. So yeah, I always just think it's the small things and it's the praise, it's the comments, it's a pat on the back, it's those little bits and pieces which can make a huge difference. So she made a huge difference in, in my life and that did give me the courage and the confidence to, to set some, some goals. And that was my way of, I guess, going forward through all the, all the, in hospital. You know, it was, it was learn to walk, it was get back into the classroom as a teacher and somehow some way get back to the dome shelter. But I think as a 22 year old, I was probably quite naive, you know, and I was also sitting there, I remember just being full of fear and doubt, thinking, is this a joke? Am I actually going to be able to achieve these goals? But I was a pretty goal driven person, so I set myself those goals. And although I was full of fear and doubt, I just had to kind of push that aside and just start, take one step and another step and another step and then slowly start working towards them.

It's amazing. I think that is a great lesson for all of us in terms of we all feel fear, we all have things that we're scared of, worried about, and some of us don't do anything and just stall or hide. But the, what I like about the way you approach it is that it's, it's one step at a time. It's not that, you know, in one day you got right to the top of your goal. It was like little steps and maybe there were some backward steps in, in those steps as well.

Oh, heaps. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

How did you navigate the darkness, like in terms of self doubt, fear, loathing, all that stuff?

Yeah. You know, probably the hardest part of my journey, I reckon, was getting home. And you don't have people in your ear saying, you'll be okay, William. You're gonna, you're gonna do really well. You get home and she's pretty quiet and you know, mum and dad were there in the evenings and not during the day. And you know, there I was throwing my toys. I was upset, I was kind of frustrated. I was questioning, you know, am I going to reach those goals and can I rebuild, rebuild that life? And what was it that really helped me? It was two things. It was that sense of purpose, it was education, it was, it was get back into the outdoors. I wanted to stand on top of that mountain again or finish that big bushwalk or go on that adventure. And also just being back in amongst my kind of friends and family just really hugely motivated me to stay focused and work towards those goals. But the other thing too was of course my friends and family and just the unbreakable bonds that I'd formed through the outdoors, through sports. And it's not rocket science, you know, it's just time, respect, good communication, which I was so lucky to form that tight knit team before the accident so that we could kind of go through it together. And I think had I not have developed those relationships beforehand, it would have been a hell of a lot harder. So, you know, one of the things I'm always encouraging is just to build those really tight knit, unbreakable, tight knit teams, unbreakable bonds, you know, before things go P shape 100.

And what role did James play in your recovery? How did your relationship unfold after that?

Yeah, we kind of left James and we should come back to him.

Our snoring friend.

Yeah, look, James is a legend. So after, after he left, I was going to come back to him. Once he left the.

Dome shelter, he ran, slid and was really unsure where he was going. And he eventually came across a snow groomer that had been grooming the slopes. Shane was the guy driving it and, and we should come back to Shane. Let me, don't let me forget that, that little anecdote. But yeah, he, so he jumped into the machine and said there's been an eruption, you know, so they were able to organize a rescue from there. And often I don't joke, but I have a joke about it sometimes that James was then taken to, off to some nice five star accommodation of the Tongadiro chateau. Right, nice, you know, which is good. But of course it was probably the worst night of his life because, you know, here, here he is just being scooped off a mountain, thrown into a, probably a cold, dark, quiet room, staring at the, at the roof, wondering what was going on with me. And he had to pick up the phone and make some phone calls, not to my parents, but at least to his parents and explain what had been going on. So I don't think he got any shut eye that night. And you know, for him going forward there was definitely that sense of survivor's guilt kind of perhaps a Bit of why me? There was a lot of press and media interest as well that he had to kind of be quickly schooled up on, on how to deal with that camera crew showing up at school, morning bits and pieces and radio, you know, all that kind of stuff. And with someone being someone that hasn't dealt with that before, that's not easy stuff to do and it can be quite overwhelming. And I know that he did face some mental health challenges along the way, but he was really fortunate to have great, you know, support, wife and family around him to kind of get him, get him through that. Our relationship today is really great. His school does the William Pike Challenge. So yeah, his, his kids and my kids get together, you know, at least a couple times a year. We do a boating trip this summer. I've kind of promised him, so I look forward to doing that. And you know, he, he was awarded the New Zealand Bravery Medal in Government House for his efforts for, for saving my life and getting the ball rolling. So that's beautiful. It's very beautiful. It's a great relationship to have and I do think there should be a lot more bravery metals dished out to other people that night. But he was one that got one, so that's unreal.

And may I ask, what's the side story with Shane?

So with Shane Buckingham, I've maintained a lot of relationships with people since, since the accident. Dr. John Bonning, who's ed doctor for Cynthia for a number of years. I haven't seen her recently. Jenny who was a trauma nurse and Shane who was on, who was the snowcat driver on the mountain. And I've often always text him up or if I'm on the mountain and I said I'm going for a climb, going to quickly catch up. And he would literally from wherever he was, he'd hop in his snow groom and drive to the top of the mountain or on the mountain somewhere and just have a quick yarn. And I was just really valued that. Right?

Yeah.

And a few years ago I said to my wife said, let's go down the mountain, take the kids down there and experience the snow. And they were probably only two and a half, six or something like that, you know, back then. And I text him up and said, oh, should we, you know, catch up? He said yeah, I could take you guys for a snow groomer ride if you like. And I thought far out, this is going to be brilliant. But he, anyway, he turned up at the cafe and it was too busy, too many people and he's like, I can't do it here. And I was like, oh, gutted. But he said, if you come back a bit later, though, we might better sort something out. So I came back that evening with Bex and the kids and he let us groom Happy Valley. It was a really special moment, you know, I think I had Oliver. It doesn't matter, one of the kids with me, you know, and then my wife had one of the kids with her and going in the snow groomer. So that's. That's a really special thing for me to maintain those connections and although it'll mean nothing to the kids now, means a lot to us and probably means something to them in the future as well. So.

Well, as you tell them the stories and.

Yeah, well, exactly. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, and going right around full circle as well. You've now got a lot of the rescuers whose kids are going through the local schools doing the William Pie Challenge.

Brilliant. That's seriously amazing.

It's quite cool, isn't it?

Yeah, it says a lot, actually. It really does. And you had to learn to walk again, essentially, with a new leg?

I did.

So what was that experience like?

I mean, every amputee is different, right? So you. Different size stumps and scar tissues and grafts and all sorts. For me, I've got a short stump and it's pretty beaten up with scar tissue and it's not. And I'm not, not a big guy, right. So there's not a lot of fat bit of meat on that type of thing. So limb fitting has always been a really challenging task for me. And to add to that, I love to be active, Right. I don't like sitting around playing Xbox, right. So I got to be out doing stuff, walking or keeping fit and healthy. So it was a very long journey and it was one of those challenges that I just couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel with. To begin with, I thought, is this bloody leg ever going to fit? Can I go on these longer walks? What's it going to. Going to be like? And, you know, again, I fall back to my purpose, my why it was willing. You know, I say to myself, just got to get back to those, those mountaintops or, or finish those bushwalks or go on those adventures to get back into the classroom teaching, you know, I want to do that as well and just, I don't know, hang out with my mates too, you know, it just. That all just gave me a lot of courage and confidence just to keep going and, you know, all the people that Listen to this. Will know that, you know, small improvements over a long period of time, equal success. And for me, it was just sheer bloody mindedness and determination. Just going back to that leg chop and saying, guys, it's not right. Let's do this, let's fix that. Different foot, different liner, different sleeve, different socket. Put a bit of bog in, literally, you know, shape it up. Oh, no, take that bit out. And just consistency of doing that. And it was hard. I missed a lot of time teaching, you know, to go and do that, but I put me first and, you know, there's nothing wrong with doing that, especially when it comes to mobility. So that persistence at the leg shop did pay off and I was eventually able to get back into the things that I love. Climbing, hiking, biking, spearfishing. I'm really into right now. But I think with any great success does come great challenge, you know, and if you had. If I'm to pull back the curtain, like, there's a lot of challenges as an amputee that, that I, that I do face and others face as well that you just don't realize are some of those things.

Because, you know, I think it's easy for someone who's not in that situation to like look past it, not see it.

Absolutely. So I've got a disabled card, right. So I. Sometimes I need it, sometimes I don't need it. All right? But I guess, I guess what I've learned through disability and that is that you just don't know, you know, what's actually going on in that person's life. So in my case, for example.

In summertime or any time of the year, really, you can get like ingrown hairs on, on your stumps or the hair trying to grow through and perhaps a precious spot so that if it's not going to manage, will turn into a bit more of a pimple in it and a bit of a sore and a bit of a wound. So I'm always trying to prevent that when they do happen. You get a couple of good ones a few times a year, which you've got to kind of manage. So that's when I love to use my disability card. Fair enough. You know what I mean? But, you know, people will then think that guy's walking pretty well, you know, it's like, well, every step's bloody sore, you know, so there's, there's definitely like rub spots. I can get blisters if you're doing something that's just really different. Or for example, if I'm carrying like a Heavy backpack. And I'm not, not cognizant of my, of the fact that I'm sweating quite a lot. Then you'll kind of push down deeper into your socket and it might create a bit of a rub spot or sore or something like that. But it's over a long period of time. But I'm pretty good at managing that, that type of thing. Now. A few years ago I had a nerve issue. One of the big nerves in the, in the back. It was as long as a pencil and it was just getting inflamed all the time. So I went in for a nip and a tuck and they pulled that out and that. I think that made a bit of a difference. Technology is always changing, so you always, there's always a bit of a. Want to try new liners or sockets or things like that. So, you know, once you go from a comfy pair of shoes to a brand new pair of shoes, there's a bit of a break in kind of period, not quite break in, but that's what happens for me. And I think because, and I'm sure we'll get to it with, with Pro Armor. Now I'm traveling around the world. I'm seeing different prosthetic spaces and how, what the technology that's out there. And I'm thinking, gee, some of that might really help me. So what can I do to work with my process here in New Zealand to give me the best kind of mobility as well? And I, I think this is all driven by, I have this ethos around, you know, better never stops beings. Right. And it's just that little bit all the time at home, at school, at work, with prosthetic legs, with spearfishing, whatever it might be. Right. And I'm constant wanting to be a little bit better, just 1% and, and, and improve that leg, which can be dangerous. But I believe it's for the greater good.

And tell me about this, because I, I think that what comes to mind when you talk about your business is problems present possibilities. And often people will see problems, present roadblocks, but for you, it's possibilities. So what do you do with the business? Where are you taking it? What's the vision?

Yeah, so we start with Pro Armor. Yeah, let's do it.

Yeah.

Yeah, Brilliant. So after my accident, I got back into teaching and one of the things I noticed straight away was maybe because I was in the sand pit at lunchtime or something, I don't know what it was. Sand, dust, dirt, debris getting into my prosthetic feet. So that meant that I'll be going back to the league shop more often, saying, hey guys, can you fix a foot or can you replace it? You guys, thank you very much for paying out of your taxes for me to get new feet, which are probably at minimum for the type of feet that I'd have maybe five, $6,000, up to probably 14, $15,000. And if I wasn't being extremely careful, I could chew through one of those in a year.

And also I'd take time off teaching. And as great as the limb senses are, they're not a place you really want to hang out in, right? So I became aware of this problem that my feet were breaking down and I was getting debris. I had to in my foot, I having to take my feet apart, et cetera. So I thought, you know, I got to do something about this because I was. I was sitting out on the sideline with my mates, playing on the beach, or I'll exclude myself from activities. And it wasn't good, probably psychologically as well. So I took my idea to a manufacturer and said, mate, make me this lead cover. I think it's going to work really well. A few iterations here, there and everywhere. And I eventually landed with this, this lead cover thing. It was called leg cover. That worked really well. And probably for maybe 8 years I just used my lead cover when I went on my adventures. And I'll get the odd comment at the leg shop, hey, your feet are really clean. What do you do to clean? I said, I got this good leg cup of thing. And one day a few things all fell into, into place. I was reading Peter Thiel's book Zero to One, and I can't remember it word from word, but it's what truth do Very, very few people agree on? Or what truth do you know that others don't know? Something like that. There was, that. There was comments from the limb center and there was Covid starting to happen and everything kind of compiled into one. I had a bit more time up my sleeve and Peter Thiel's thing was going through my head. The limbs in the thing was going through my head. And I thought, hold on a second here. This solution that I've made to prevent my problems could most likely work with a whole lot of other people. So I did some mathematics on the back of the envelope and I thought, yeah, that could work out. I love that.

On the back of the envelope.

That's so literally. Literally. And, and I guess at that time I was. I didn't have a lot of Data either, you know, And I was like, I'll give it a go, you know. And slowly as I did more research and bit more kind of market research, I worked out that yeah, this, this could be a business. So went backwards and forwards with kind of I guess manufacturers to perfect, I guess the, the product. And I remember during COVID I, I was working from home, so I'd go upstairs and sit down with, with Bex. We had a, a newborn at the time as well. It was just, it was a hard time of life. And I would take our Prime Armor products on and off my feet and I worked out three to 400 times. Was like an average kind of use case. I'll be going on off three or 400 times. Almost did my back end. But it was also a little bit of product testing and small changes and different materials and paneling and things like that and eventually got it right and then turned up to the limb centers here and kind of presented them with this business case and this, this product. And long story short, they kind of came back and said, we'll take a ton of them. And I thought, wow, this is fantastic, well done. So I thought this is pretty cool. And then of course it was still Covid. And the beauty of COVID was that it had normalized Zoom. So I got on well, actually I got my 16 year old neighbor to make me a spreadsheet of all the Australian clinics and I thought, here we go, you legend.

Yeah.

And got, got her to put all that together. And I just got on the phone and got on Zoom call and said, hi, I'm William from New Zealand, who, you know, I know such and such. Oh yeah. I said look, we've got these products here. I think you guys really like them. You're close to the beach and they get the dust and people are really active and you should get into them too. And that was extremely success, successful. And Australian market grew, you know, to a really good size for us and helped us.

I'm assuming you've got like IP around this.

We've got some IP around it. Yep, yep. So we talked to the IP lawyers and got your trademarking and your page patents and things like that. So that was a very expensive process and a steep learning curve for me as well. But you know, we decided that from the day we'd go into it, we wanted to set it up so that, you know, should, when and if we decide to sell it, that it's, it's ready to go with a bow on top type of thing so that Australian Market. Getting into the UK market gave me the confidence to put my big boy pants on in a way and say, hey, let's try and get to United States of America.

The mighty market.

The mighty market. You got it. But of course, being a kiwi in the bottom of the South Pacific Ocean, you ring up and you talk to someone, they say, who? From where? Where's New Zealand? So I faced some real roadblocks with getting into the market to, to begin with. And I really wanted to appoint a certain distributor, and I won't use names, but I keep getting a lot of pushback. And they just said, no, not interested. And eventually, this is a true story. I did land a call with this guy and a Zoom meeting. And it was early January because it was close to my birthday, might have been 2022. And he never showed up. But I found out a bit later that he died the day before.

Whoa.

Sadly, so not good news for him. But for me, I was back to square one. And eventually spoke to someone else in the company and they said, we're just not interested in it. Just drop it. I was like, oh, come on, man. Anyway, so I said to my wife, I said, we just got to go over there. And so there was a conference in Indianapolis, and I'd only been to California to see my auntie and her family over there, so this was big stuff, you know. And I said to Bex in the car park, I said, before we enter the into the airport, I said, let's just gonna have some fun. I don't know what this is going to be like or what we can get out of it, but we'll give it a nudge. So we set up our booth in Indianapolis, just a giant football fields of exhibitors. And it was just mind blowing, such a cool experience. And people were coming by and saying, this is cool. Where do we get them from? I said, well, you should better get them from those guys over there. So why don't you go and ask them why they're not stocking it? 10, 20, 100, 200. We sent a truckload of people over to the store and I was running around trying to find the guy I wanted to talk to. And at the end of the conference, he came over and said, I've had a few people come to our stall from you guys today. I said, oh, really? Have you?

Brilliant.

And eventually he said, oh, look, we've probably got a bit of bad info and we'd really like to do some business. And I think it was, you know, the old adage of if the front door's locked, how can you kind of climb in the window?

I love that.

Your relentless pursuit, just relentless pursuit, not giving up, push down another door. But also the importance of just getting boots on the ground and having those conversations, looking someone in the eye, it, you know, it's better than zoom, right way. You can't beat it. Like, way better. So for us, that was a big eye opener and a big, big learning. And I've been back to the States a couple times. Well, three or four times a year since then.

So Pro Armor is totally global.

It's absolutely global. We're trying hard to push into the European market. And look, it's. It's an adventure.

Amazing.

It's a big adventure. And I'm the kind of guy that I love adventure. I'd love taking a risk. Not too much. I love making sacrifices and I love just doing things that money just can't buy, you know, and for me, I just want to make a life of that, you know, And Pro Armor is that at the moment. And look, you know, it's easy to sit here and talk about all the good things. There's just a shitload of hard things that we're battling away with as well. And it's really hard. And sometimes you lie awake at night on that type of thing. But, you know, we're all about giving amputees the freedom, confidence to do more. Got a goal of impacting on a hundred thousand amputees, and that's my purpose. That's my wife for doing that.

Very, very clear.

I love that it's very clear. And we've got a very clear problem that we're solving through tangible. And we know, and I know that it's a great, simple product that makes a big difference. It's easy on, easy off. It's not complex. So we're really excited about what the future holds.

I'm excited for you. And it's not the only thing you're doing in terms of business. So hundreds of schools around New Zealand, their kids are partaking in the William Pike Challenge. So tell us a little bit more about that.

Yeah. So I was very fortunate as a youngster to do a lot of things in the outdoors. I went to Westlake Boys High School and there was an outdoor education class. I actually arrived in the 13th stream out of 13. So I wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. I looked forward to the day I turned. Was it 16 to go into the outdoor education class? That was my. Just my life goal at high school to get there. And we did all sorts of outdoor recreation, tramping, hiking was one of them. And I remember we spent a week long in the Kaimangara Ranges. It was pouring with rain. We were sleeping in wet tents, crossing these swollen creeks, climbing up these kind of big old hills. And that was some of the times that I learned far out. If I push myself, I can achieve that stuff. I learned how to be resilient, how to step outside of my comfort zone, how to be a good mate or a part of a team. And it was those experiences that I believe prepared me for life and also shaped me in the person that I am today. So after my accident got back into classroom, I'm a reflective guy and I was reflecting on my experiences, how I got through my accident and looking at these kids coming and thinking, I wonder if these kids are going to have the experiences that they need to be prepared for challenge and change and in life in general. And I wasn't convinced. And I thought I'd love for these kids somehow to be really into the outdoors because that's one of the reasons I went to teachers college. How can I maybe get them to their community? I did a lot of surf life saving and volunteering when I was a youngster and that was good for me. And I had this vision, it was a bit gray, but no idea how to get there. Right. I think over the years I've learned that if you don't know how to get there, doesn't matter, just figure it.

Out one step at a time.

There's one step at a time and just have that vision. There's. So I, I ended up. I'm a big believer of unashamedly sharing your goals, right. So I told everyone, yeah, outdoors, this education, I want to do this and just tried to share that. That was, it was a murky vision back then. And I ended up speaking at a all women's group down in Ta Manui. I don't know how I got invited there. It was a freebie in my early days of speaking, right. And someone was in the audience that heard me, maybe Auntie Jane or something, I don't know what her name was. And she went and told this guy with us who was on a parent rep at a board in Topo. And he got hold of me and said, hey, I heard you want to do this program thing would be interested in working with you or giving it a go to start with. So we collaborated for about a year backwards and forwards. And at the end of the year he said, hey, this is cool. Can we call it the William Pike Challenge? And I thought, oh mate, sounds a bit weird, you know. But he twisted my arm and his name was Paul Dawson and this William Pike Challenger was born. And I thought, cool, just keep teaching, you know what I mean? It's great that things happening over there, but as time went on, other schools were interested. I ended up writing an article in the Education Gazette and my phone just started buzzing and there were schools that was, oh, we'll be out of that too. And it got to a point where I knew I couldn't keep teaching. And the William Pike Challenge was getting busier and busier and I probably prematurely, maybe by a year, jumped out of teaching. But I guess I was quite calculated in the fact that education, the outdoors, the William Pike Challenge, it all just seemed to be, that was the right direction that I, that for me. So I took this big risk outside of my comfort zone. No money, no business plan.

There's a pattern coming up here, you know, there's a rhythm here.

You keep doing these things. Yeah, and I, yeah, and I jumped out and at the time I actually chased my then girlfriend, now wife overseas for I don't know, six months or something. And I didn't want to go overseas, but I thought I'd better go after her. And then kind of came back and spent the last part of the year really sinking my teeth into developing the Woolly Pike Challenge and was incredibly fortunate to get a lot of capacity building and coaching through the likes of the Tyndall foundation to actually school me up on what was a business model and how might you run this thing and what does longevity look like and things like that. And yeah, fast forward 12 years down the track, we've got 124 schools all around Te Ra participating in the program. Something I'm incredibly proud of. We've had nearly over actually 30,000 young people's lives, I believe transformed going through the program.

You should be so proud. That's like seriously incredible. So William, tell me a little bit more about the actual challenge because I've got an eight year old boy and I'd really love him to do it. So if he protects in it, what would it look like?

Yeah, cool. So right now we work with schools and it's a year long program for them. There's three pillars for the Willing Pike Challenge. There's five outdoor activities, there's 20 hours of community service and 20 hours of passion projects. And a passion project is a new sport or skill or hobby. Could be anything from cross stitch through to coding or learning a language or, or rugby, you know what I mean? So any from year six up, 10 year olds and up. Okay. As well as what is what the programs.

I like that. And the reason I like that is because in the UK we did Duke of Edinburgh, but we didn't get to do that until much later.

That's right. That's right. So I mean, you know, throughout my teaching and education experience, you know, kids are growing up quicker these days as well. But you know that 11, 12, 13 is incredibly formative stage, stage of life. And my feeling was the fact that we need to get these kids into that earlier, into these types of activities as opposed to a bit later. And I remember the Duke of it at school, but it was, it was like, oh, what's that? That's just for geeks. It's not for me. I wish I had done it.

Yeah.

And didn't have that kind of Persona on it. And I think it would have been really, really good for me. But it was because I was older and I was into other things that just wasn't, it wasn't a thing for me. So look, in a nutshell, the Willing Pipe challenge is all about getting young people to step outside of their comfort zones and charge into their world with a whole lot more confidence. And as a result, increasing resilience, connections, relationships, sense of kind of well being and just general life skills, soft skills, things like that.

This is gold. Why is it gold? Well, Jonathan Haidt wrote a book recently called the Anxious Generation. And in that he said, in the real world, we. Sorry, we overprotect our kids. In the real world, we under protect them. In the online world, we're letting them kind of run rife online. But in the real world, no, you can't walk 300 meters to the shops. No, you can't go for a walk in the hills to pick daisies. As a kid, I don't know about you, but that's all I was doing was outdoors.

Yeah.

So this challenge has nothing to do with digital technology. This is about getting into the real world and doing activities with other people.

Yeah, look, we do have a fantastic online platform that helps kids track and measure their progress and also, you know, for the teachers to track and measure and access resources as well. But there's so much value we believe in contributing to community. You know, there's that, there's that relationship aspect, there's the confidence, there's that kind of self efficacy, there's a sense of belonging to a sense of ownership, of knowing Local people, local places. There's so many positive wellbeing benefits from contributing to community. So we're just seeing some phenomenal results come out of the community service. And I mean, I guess so many ideas about some of the things the kids doing, it all moves into one and I forget them. But one story I remember as a boy, two years ago, for his community service, he wanted to give back to the I Am Hope foundation because they had helped him with his mental health challenges. And he kind of mucked around all year and didn't know what he was going to do. And he eventually landed on the fact that, well, if I make something and I'll sell it and I'll give them some money. So he ended up making this birdhouse. It was this flash five star thing and ended up putting on Trade Me. No one saw it. Someone eventually from I Am Hope saw it and said, look, it's not selling. We've got a charity auction coming up. Should we sell it? And his old man said, yeah, go for it. And they ended up selling it for 18,000 bucks.

Wow.

And that money went back to, you know, helping people with unreal mental health challenges. So it's that there I was in a school the other day, some girl cut her hair off and donated, I think money to kind of cancer society. And there's just, there's just so much good stuff going on.

How does that feel that you and your experience and how you've, you know, reshaped your life after rupee. Who. How does it make you feel when you hear kids doing these things and making a difference in their communities?

Well, I, I do need to remind myself to stop pinch myself every now and then because it's become the norm, you know, and, and I'm looking forward to my summer holiday to come back and just, and come back fresh and just hit that stuff, smack me in the face again because, yeah, it's, it's very, it's quite humbling. It's, you know, it's, it's, it's fantastic. And I said, I'm unashamedly, I'm really proud of that and I'm pretty stoked. So our goal is to, we're aiming for 140 schools next year, which we hope to be able.

If there's any principals listening or any.

Teachers listening right now, get in touch and we will help you. And look, schools are kind of onboarded really from kind of October through to probably into Feb, so there's quite a lot, a lot of window there where you kind of get get on board and help out. But yeah, this Willing Part Challenge, Willing Part Challenge, Dakota nz, they can learn a bit more, learn a bit more about it.

Amazing.

And what I'm really excited about is, is taking our success of over 10 years through the William Pike Challenge and working with our board and thinking how can we now scale this up and increase our impact on a wider scale? So not to just schools, but corporates are showing interest and of course there's, there's the family down the road that, with a couple of kids that we think could, could really benefit from the program as well.

I'm thinking about it already. So my partner from South Africa loves the outdoors, loves running, hiking, swimming. I like a little bit of that. She's right into that. And we've got an eight year old and it's going okay, we could do this.

Absolutely.

We could bond over this. We could learn. It would get me into new experiences.

So we've already got probably just over a dozen, you know, families that are actually trialing this little, little idea we've got in the background now, which is effectively the Willing Part Challenge, which is doing it by themselves. And that's gone really, really well this year. So, you know, I've got some very smart heads and minds on the board who have just helped guide me through and we're just kind of doing those little experiments, trying those things out and they've worked really well. So that's where we're going to be putting a lot of focus in next year, is to opening the Willing Part Challenge up for more people to do, for more people to benefit on. And I'm really excited in what the next two years is going to look like.

Watch this space. Yeah, it's very exciting.

You bet.

I'm actually very lucky. I get proximity with you today and sit here and talk to you one to one. But most people, they're wowed by you when they get to see you. One to many. And what I mean by that is you're speaking all over the country and Australia and probably a brain abroad. You deliver amazing keynotes. I've heard nothing but great feedback. So if anybody would like to hear you speak in 2025 or beyond, what's the best way for them to get in touch?

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, they can just jump onto my website, which is williampike.co.nz we'll pop that.

In the show notes as well.

Yeah, yeah. Or if they land on William Pike Challenge, which is quite popular with the results because of all the traffic on it, then they'll find me through there as well. So look, for me, I love speaking. It's something that I never thought I would get into. It keeps me on my toes. It keeps me practicing what I preach to step outside of my comfort zone. It's a phenomenal connector as well. And you know, I just, I remind myself that, you know, that, that I can change lives and I've got a good story to tell. And I know that might sound a little bit cocky, but I've kind of moved through the. Of feeling a little bit kind of shy around that to actually feeling. No, I do add value and I do really enjoy what I do and I. And I do love it. So be proud of it. Yeah, be very. Be proud of it. Yeah, exactly. And for me, yeah, I'm really enjoying speaking at the moment and it's just such a variety of audiences. You know, like yesterday I was just talking to North Power and you know, they had like a safety forum. And the week before that I was at High Performance Sport New Zealand and I forgot actually, a funny story, I. I used to get someone to come up and do a little league trick, clean my leg on stage. Right. Who of all people came up? Valerie Adams came up and pulled my leg off and cleaned it. And she was hard case. She had me in stitches and the audience and stitches as well. So look, I mean, I love telling the repay story. There's pro armor stories, there's William Pot challenges. Antarctica.

You got Antarctica 10 years after Rupee and you climb Mount Scott.

Yeah.

I mean, you're a legend. That's mind blowing.

Hard work, mate. It was hard work. So. But yeah, Mount Scott and Antarctica is quite a place.

I bet I haven't had down there in February. Yeah. To deliver a leadership program at Scott Bass.

Oh.

So I'm not sure what I'll get to experience, but I'm there for seven to 10 days. I'm very excited.

I've got a good. Got a good idea. The willing part challenge. Got a good relationship with the Antarctic Heritage Trust and we do a bit of a collab with them and we send some students to Christchurch and they go through Antarctica, New Zealand. I see all the gear that you'll be wearing. I've seen. I know exactly what it is. I talked with all the people that kind of prep guys and girls to go down to as well. So you're in for a treat. We were actually on the Argentinian, the other side, peninsula side. Whereas you're going to Scott Base. So different areas. Very, very different in general, but well yeah, I'd like to go there too.

Yeah, well, hey, you're putting it out into the world. It's probably going to happen.

Exactly.

And a couple other things. One, you've got an amazing book. Every day's a good day. I'm going to put a link in the show notes as well. So people can order that straight from your website.

Yep, they can do that.

Then get a copy for some loved ones as well. Because it's a book that kids can read and get engaged with as well.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I wrote it. It obviously myself, but I wrote it for youth to adult in mind, you know what I mean? So being a teacher as well, when I was teaching, I could read it to my year six, 10 year olds. They were totally fine. Some of them would pick it up as well. So, yep, grab a copy of Christmas Coming, I'll happily sign it as well.

I love it. And one last question. Let's pretend we'll fast forward many, many years into the future. You're highly aware that it's your last day here on earth. A very young person comes into the room that you love dearly and they say, hey, William, how do I go about leading my life on purpose? What would you say to them?

I'd say one thing. I say, you need to learn how to step outside your comfort zone. You need to learn what it takes and what can be achieved by sitting outside of your comfort zone. And I would also say get really clear on what your purpose is and what your kind of why is. And for me, that's been incredibly helpful. And also, yeah, I think there's that personal why and I guess there's also that shared why which comes into bigger family team situations as well. So, yeah, know your why. Step outside your comfort zone.

Beautiful. Thank you so much, William. Such a pleasure to sit down with you.

Pleasure. Thanks, James. Appreciate it.

Thank you. The Lead on Purpose podcast is sponsored by NZ Mortgages.

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