Pete Goss: Leadership Lessons From the World’s Toughest Sailing Race

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Hi everyone, I'm business coach Steve Sandusky for Barron's Advisor, The Way Forward Podcast. My guest today is Pete Goss. Pete is a sailor and adventurer turned entrepreneur and author of the bestselling book Close to the Wind. Pete's adventures on the open sea are much more than just thrilling tales. They are a masterclass in leadership, risk management, and the importance of core values. His experience in the Vendée Globe, which is one of the most dangerous solo sailing races in the world, offers profound lessons for all of us. Whether you're navigating the volatile markets or steering your firm toward long-term success, values, risk management, team, and trust are essential pillars. Pete shares how meticulous planning, Trust in his team and a commitment to shared values enabled him to face unimaginable challenges deep in the Southern Ocean alone when he got a mayday call and was asked to execute a dramatic rescue. Pete's insights will inspire you to take calculated risks, rely on your team, and always lead with trust and values. With that, here's my conversation with Pete Goss. One of the things that you are most famous for is the Vendée Globe, which is this solo nonstop race around the world on a sailboat. A lot of people say that is the most difficult human adventure that people undertake. So tell me a little bit more about what the Vendée Globe is.

It's this epic human endeavor You can't help but be drawn to the challenge, even as a non-sailor. So the Vendée Globe is a nonstop, single-handed round-the-world yacht race with no outside assistance allowed. So if you're given a newspaper or a glass of water, then you're out of that race. It takes you through all of the weather systems that the world has to offer. It takes you down into the Southern Ocean, close to Antarctica. When I did it, it took 4.5 months. So it's drawn out over a long period. When I did it, statistically, only 50% of the fleet would finish the race, and there would be at least one, if not two lives would be lost. And it is this great endeavor, and it's a fantastic event. When it came out, made a commitment to do it, and it took me 10 years to get the skills and the team and the funding and the boat. One of the things that attracted me was the rules are pretty open, bar the You have a given size and some basic safety regulations, but beyond that, it's out there to encourage innovation and technology. And when we select a project, in the main, it has to stand on four legs, and that would be innovation, technology, challenge, and adventure. So 50% of what we do is about innovation and technology. Always love to challenge the norm. And to do the race, you're very lucky and privileged just to start the race, even more so to finish it. Far more astronauts have orbited the world than single-handed sailors have circumnavigated it. It's an amazing race. It runs every 4 years. I did it, I think it's 27 years ago.

Yeah, and the next one is, depending on when you're listening to this, is coming up in the middle of November here of 2024. So it'll be very exciting to watch that. And it's often been said, I've heard you say, that the Vendée Globe is actually two races. The first race is just getting to the starting line, and the second is the race itself. So tell me a little bit more about the preparation, the teamwork to actually get to that starting line. And I know you basically risked everything to get to the starting line in terms of trying to raise the funds and the sacrifices that you and your wife Tracy made. To get there. So it takes a special kind of person to put everything on the line to pursue something. So I'd also love to hear about why most people don't do that. Most people don't take that risk. But what was it about you? Was it some background? What made you be so single-minded, focused on that particular goal?

It's a funny thing. If you have to ask the question, you'll never understand the answer. In a way. But generally, if you have a bit of an adventurous spirit, you can't fail but be drawn to a flame like the Vendée Globe. And what had happened for me is, by a quirk of circumstance, when I was in the Royal Marines, I was asked to do a two-handed transatlantic race. Absolute epic race. We had to bail the boat out for 15 days. It was all sorts of problems. But that was my first ocean trip, and I'd stumbled across what I wanted to do in life. Ocean sailing or racing for me was where it was at. And I made this commitment to do a single-handed round-the-world yacht race, and it took 10 years to get there. Now, like I say, there's a lot to be learned. And one of the things I had to learn about was the business aspect of it, because like you say, there's two challenges. The first is to get to the start line. The second is to finish. And ironically, the first one is often harder in a sense than the second one. The second one, the start gun goes, and all you have to do is race around the world. It's what you love, it's what you want to do. And yes, it's a course that's full of all sorts of potholes, but you're up for resolving them as you go. When you're doing the first challenge, you are— I had a sketch on the back of a beer mat. That's all there was. This was, and passion and belief and commitment. There's a lot of money involved. And the problem of course is you don't control the valve that feeds that. And I had no idea about business. I used to hitch up to London. I'd sleep on Paddington Station and put my blazer and tie on, get knocking on doors and trying to learn about this thing called business and raised enough money to start building the boat. But halfway through, stumbled across this thing called cash flow, which is dreadful, isn't it? I'd never heard of it. And we just hit the buffers and it was awful, sleepless nights. And, and in fact, it was Tracy's idea. We decided to sell the family home to keep the project going. And we had 3 young children, and that'll perhaps give you a measure of the commitment required to get to a start like this. But I think for us, the most important point to make from inside the project is there's no way we felt we were throwing our home into the winds of a dream. We really believed there was a future for the family in ocean sailing. We'd created this new sponsorship model that we believed would work. And at the end of the day, you have to be committed. And the funny thing that happened was that the moment we'd made that absolute commitment, it was as if someone had bolted wheels on the project and it just took off. And I think it demonstrates that unless you personally are absolutely committed to something, then you can't expect anybody else to be committed with you. I think if you have the privilege of leading a team, with it comes a duty to go for a quiet walk and really ask yourself, do I have the commitment required for this? Because if you don't, I think you should put your hand up, get a quiet job for a while, charge up your batteries before you jump back into the fray. And I think people say, what a remarkable thing, but you talk to any entrepreneur, any small businessman, and even successful billionaires, they'll tell you about that moment when they Or maybe they didn't have to sell their house, but they remortgaged it, or they were doing two jobs. And so I think this is a very common ingredient that anyone who pursues their dreams will relate to. We were very realistic about this. We said, okay, we'll do this once, and if it works, then we'll carry on. If it doesn't work, then I'll give up my sailing ambitions. I'll get a proper job and we'll go down that route. And we were young enough, we could always get another house. I wouldn't have done it later in life. When the kids were older and I had all these other responsibilities that come with life, felt we were comfortable to do that. Well, it wasn't comfortable, but it wasn't naive. We weren't just throwing our home into the winds of a dream. We really believed that there was a future, and that's what we were investing in.

So you get to the starting line, you start the race, and tell me a little bit about what happened during this race, because it certainly has gone down in history, one of the most famous versions of the Vendée Globe.

I think it's probably one of the hardest Vendées they've had. And then wrapped up within that, I had a bit of an epic. The start gun went and I just left with this great sense of relief. And I think one point to make with the Vendée is it's not a single-handed race at all. It's an absolute team effort, and I happen to be the lucky one in the team to do the sailing, and fortunately the only one who wants to do it. But it— to me, if I love Apollo 13, I think That's a wonderful film. And it very quickly becomes apparent as the film unfolds that it's all about the team on the ground. They're the ones who are going to make the difference. And I think that's quite a good analogy when you look at the Vendée Globe. We had a completely new concept. A lot of people didn't think that it would work. All the experts came out of the woodwork, disaster, the keel's going to fall off. But we believed in it and we were prepared to try. So I think a little bit of courage is required in life and, And you put your beliefs on the block and go out on the racetrack and try them. So because of the cash flow problems, I hadn't had as much training as we'd hoped. And so set off with this new concept in with the competition, but not really getting out of the concept that what we thought it had. And again, just went back to the numbers. The numbers never lie. Keep reviewing and polishing. And when we got to the Southern Ocean, it all came together and we got a world record. We're working our way up. It was just so exciting. It was fantastic. Until, of all days, Christmas Day, and woke up Christmas morning deep in the Southern Ocean, now south of Australia. And it was a very sobering experience because there was— the pressure dropped 36 millibars in 24 hours, most of it in the last 12. And at times like that, you know that there's hurricane-force winds on the way. There's nothing that you can do about it. This bowling ball is coming down and you're in its path. And the waiting's the worst bit. Once it came in, it was this devastating storm, very vicious. And it went from a northerly 20-knot breeze, a lovely day, clear sky, a little bit of crisp frost on the deck, and it suddenly— the pressure dropped. It went from a northerly wind round to the southwest, 40, 50, 60 knots of wind and more. Reduced the sails to an absolute minimum, about the size of your domestic door at home, and things are getting hairy now. Boat speeds of 28-30 knots, slowest I could make the boat go. And when you do these ocean races, there's always one bad storm, and you instinctively know it when you're in it, and you appreciate that provided you can nurse your way through without major damage, then you'll finish the race. And this was going to be the storm of my Vendée, and, and it was really bad. Boat was knocked down 3-4 times. If you imagine a great big boat, slamming it on its side twice. It was nearly cartwheeled, and it was pretty frightening. And it's happened to me only twice when a storm reaches this critical point, and the hair goes up on the back of your neck, and with it comes the realization that really what's happened is you've lost control. And then all you can do is just react and hope that the whole thing will hold together. And got knocked down again, crawled on deck, did a quick jury repair, stumbled down below again. It seemed to be the safest place to be. It was complete carnage down below, and a very shrill alarm coming from the BTN Marsat system. If you can imagine an email via satellite on the laptop, I didn't really know what it was. I hadn't heard that alarm before, and worked my way across, wedged myself in under the chart table, called up the message to find it was a Mayday. And again, people always say, what did you feel when you got the mayday. And I just thought, shit, I just— it couldn't have been worse, really. Found a chart, wiped the water off it, put a position down to find it was a fellow competitor, Raffaele Donnelly, who turned out unfortunately to be 160 miles away, but even worse, was dead upwind in what was now blowing hurricane-force conditions. And that was very sobering. People often ask about the decision to turn around, and actually In a sense, it was very easy. I don't think it was my decision. I think it was laid down many years ago by a tradition of the sea. And that, of course, is that if someone's in trouble, then you help them. It's very simple. And I have been involved in rescues in the past, but this one, because of the severity of the storm, was the first time I was forced to consider the consequences of the decision. And it makes you think about what's important. You think about your boat, You think about your family, and you have to think about your life itself. And it just seemed to me that if you keep chipping away at life, you'll eventually come to this very clear and simple crossroads, and that is that you stand by your morals and principles or you don't. And if you get deep in the valley of life, it's a very simple place to be. And I think reflecting on that, it really, for me, underlines how important your values are. As a team, as a company, as an individual. And that's your touchstone when the tough times come along. And in terms of leadership, I think everyone in the team is responsible for the values. But if you're one of the leaders, you're also a custodian, which is quite a different role. You have to articulate the values and make them very clear. A team built on assumptions isn't good enough. And if we were going to race around the world, I might start by asking, shall we cheat or not? So I actually think that's a legitimate question, and quietly go down that pathway until they're very clear, everybody buys into them, everybody understands them. And if the odd individual don't, then I'm terribly sorry, but you don't have a place within this team. Because when you hit the tough times, that's all you've got. And you— sports teams, businesses, governments— you see them collapse because they haven't got these values in place. But yeah, and It's a long story, but after 2 days of fighting back, again, with a lot of help from others and the Royal Australian Air Force, I managed to find Raphael and rescue him. Yeah. So my Christmas present was all wrapped up in a survival suit and it was amazing. And life's a funny thing. He was an illegal entrant. He wasn't, shouldn't have been there. Hadn't met each other. And I do a single-handed round-the-world yacht race. I come back with an absolute best friend. I was best man at his wedding. And you just never know what's around the corner. But I think one element of the story that people don't realize is I don't think people realize how much a part Raphael played in the success of the rescue. And he should not have survived. In fact, he had to make peace with himself, and he just pushed death before him day by day, hour by hour. Minute by minute. And I think it really demonstrates that sometimes in life, just that courage, determination, and persistence will carry you far further than logic might dictate. And indeed, if you talk to any successful team, they'll tell you about that darkest hour when they just had to bind together and drive themselves through seemingly impossible odds. So yeah, it was for me, essentially the race in terms of the competition was over. The rescue took up so much time, But I dropped him off in Hobart and then went back into the Southern Ocean. And that was a very difficult period actually, leaving Tasmania to go back down. I was really quite badly injured by then. Didn't know whether the structural integrity of the boat had been compromised. We'd had a 5-week period where, I think it was 5 weeks, every week a boat was lost and very sadly a life, Gerry Roofs, who was a good friend. There was this oppressive cloud over the event is who's going to be— no, 4 boats, who's going to be the 5th boat? And of course it was our name at the top of the list. The forecast 2 days out was another very severe storm. And that was difficult. It was the first time I felt lonely. Up till then I'd missed people, which is a very different emotion. And I had a cup of tea and I went right back to 10 years ago and in my mind went through all of the hurdles that it had taken to get to Hobart. And then I think sometimes in the really tough times, it's a simple choice. You either sit down and give up, or you roll up your sleeves and you get on with the job. So it was a pretty heavy heart that went back down into the Southern Ocean, but I was determined to do that. That goal had never shifted. All sorts of things had been thrown into the pot, but that overarching goal was, was my true north, and just kept going for it.

And there were a lot of things going on here in terms of Raphael was French, you're British, and so you two didn't speak the same language. So here you are picking this guy up in the middle of nowhere. And how many days did it take once you actually picked him up and he's near death? How long did it take before you got to Hobart?

Yeah, he was in a terrible state. It took me 2 days and 2 nights to fight back. And that first night was absolutely desperate. The boat was being knocked down every 20 minutes, like being in a car crash really. And just to give you a sense of the severity of the storm, the boat was shaken so violently that the engine ripped off its mount. So if you can imagine being able to go to a marina, pick up a yacht, and shake it until the engine tears off, you start to get a sense. And it kept rising and rising. I started to become badly injured, thrown around inside the boat, so crawled into a compartment, tied myself to the boat, and waited to see what would happen. And that's where I fell back on the team, that amazing team who'd done their job with real pride and diligence, was what got that boat through the storm. We had no idea whether Raf was alive. So as I closed the life raft, will there be a body? Will he be badly injured? Will it be empty? And as I closed it, this little head popped up and I realized he was alive. He was in a terrible state. Hypothermia was very well entrenched. It was like rigor mortis had started to set in. He was as stiff as a board. I had to bend him to get him down below. The first layer of his eyes had been pebbledashed off by the spray, so his vision wasn't particularly good. And it took 10 days to then sail back up north to Tasmania to drop him off. And I had to nurse him. I was lifting him out of the bunk to the toilet, feeding him every 4 hours, giving him muscle relaxants, physio. And the funny thing was he was an illegal entrant. He shouldn't have been there. And this was really where we'd met. And then he didn't speak English and I don't speak French. But over that period with charades and pictures and things, we could have a deep conversation. And as a consequence, we're very close because I didn't realize generally relationships built on an experience like this are quite short-lived because they're bogged down with debts of honor and guilt and all these things, but not so with Rafael. He's a remarkable man. How he survived that period is beyond me. And we got on really well. He could have been anyone, couldn't he? He could have been a real cussed character.

Now, listening to this, I'm thinking you're taking huge risks here, but I also heard you say at one point in a previous conversation, maybe it was a podcast or a video, you said, I'm not a risk taker. At all. That's the last thing I am. So how do you think about your definition of risk versus what an outside observer might say? Sailing solo in the Southern Ocean, that's risky.

It's so difficult because people look at you, they put you on this pedestal, and from the outside often think you're an absolute nutter who just throws their life on the line. But genuinely, the last thing I am is a risk taker. And the only way I can describe it is an easy analogy would be if you threw down a challenge to go from the top of a mountain to the bottom on a push bike, then a risk-taker or an Evel Knievel type character would grab the first bike that they could find and launch themselves down that mountain. Whereas what we would do, and again I underline that word, we quietly go away, do a ton of research, find the best bike, possible. And then we quietly do a trial run a quarter of the way, halfway, three-quarters. No one ever sees this. And we find we need to develop better brakes or wheels, whatever it might be. But it wouldn't be until we'd gone through that process that we would choose to leave the top of the mountain on our terms, absolutely confident we would far outstrip the Evel Knievel time. We would know that we should have created a new area of innovation and technology for the benefit of others in the future.. And I guess one would also leave with this quiet sense of inner confidence, because what we'd have done, and it's unseen from outside, but deep in the bottom of the project, we'd have woven this safety net whose duty is to preclude the ultimate sacrifice, which, as you've gathered by now, is loss of life. So what I would say is we don't take risk, but we embrace risk, which is a very different relationship. And we'll articulate quite clearly all the risks that we face, and then ring-fence an area outside which we're not prepared to step, and police it really quite diligently. So for example, there will be, you know, you'll always get the ruffy toughies in the bar, and he'll say, I didn't sleep for the first 4 days. To me, that begs the quiet question, what happened on the 5th day? Because that's the day they broke the boat, or they made a strategic decision went wrong. And one question I sometimes would ask an audience, and it is okay, be absolutely honest, who here wears a seatbelt in a taxi? And very few hands go up. And I would say you're absolute risk takers. You've never met the driver. You know nothing about the vehicle. I always wear a seatbelt in a taxi. Although sailing around the world single-handed is quite a big emotive thing, this ethos of not being a risk taker. As an adventurer, you're drawn like a moth to a lifeboat to risk. But the key thing is managing the risk around that. And the Vendée is a race of attrition. To win, first you have to finish. It's a war, not a battle. And I don't know if that's answered your question. And I apply this approach to business now and everything is to progress in life You have to take risk, and it's a tough cold face, and you will make mistakes. But the thing is, don't cry over the mistakes, celebrate in the lessons. And we don't suffer fools gladly within our teams. You should only ever make a mistake once. And if you have that approach, then trust— trust is essential. And trust takes time. It can only come from the top, it can only come by example. Once you have it, it's this incredible entity within the team because people suddenly stop tucking their mistakes under that convenient carpet and they're prepared to share them and you all learn collectively. So like we say, all the dirty washing stays on board. There's no way anyone would dream of going to the pub and having a few beers and chit-chatting behind other people's backs. We don't do politics, we don't tolerate politics, and we recognize that progress is a tough thing., and we deal with it accordingly, but always with dignity and compassion.

Yeah. And it sounds like you're really separating what you can control from what you can't control in the sense that you're gonna prepare, you're gonna anticipate, you're gonna visualize all those things that might possibly happen here and do everything that you can to be ready for that. And so you're minimizing the risk of something not going according to plan that you can anticipate and prepare for. So you're gonna be 100% prepared for what you can anticipate. And then of course there's things outside of your control that you can't do anything about. Like in the case with the rescue that you did, you knew that was a possibility that maybe you'd have to rescue someone, but you didn't know the complete circumstances, but you were prepared for that. And it turned out to be a very positive outcome. So versus a thrill seeker who might say, oh, I think I'm gonna try and sail solo around the world, but not do any of the preparation. That's a risk.

Big difference there. We always say if you're faced with a very big challenge or goal, it's very easy to be overwhelmed by it. And you or people in your team, you can easily become like a rabbit in the headlights. So we always lay a pathway to the goal with measurable milestones. And we're always saying, look, worry about that. Which you can influence today. Don't get overwhelmed by unknowns in the future. Plan for them, of course, but stay in the real world because that's the world that will give depth, momentum, character, strength, which in turn will sustain you when you come across those tough times. Because there's always going to be tough times. One of the laws of nature is change. Whatever you do, the key is having that mental resilience and the toolbox where you can then adapt to change.

As I was reading in your book about your adventures, whenever something difficult would happen, it seems like you would pause for a moment and have a cup of tea.

It's a symbolic thing. There's always make time to think. Whatever the, whatever's going on, the sun will always come up in the morning. So just quickly stop, reflect, review, think, and then approach the issue. Because it's no good in terms of sailing, it's no good getting up to the top of a mast to do an essential repair and finding that you've got the right spanner, but it's in the wrong pocket and you can't reach it. So I would always sit and have a cup of tea and really visualize what I'm doing in detail. And I think visualization for me is a really important part of everything we've done. And people will say sometimes there isn't time for a cup of tea. Maybe not in the moment with an absolute crisis. You're just about to go and be hit by something. But that cup of tea before it got to you is important. So I'm always saying panic is a killer. So if one is going into an ocean race and things will go wrong, we'll visualize all those things that might go wrong and then have like a menu of procedures in your mind. If you've thought these things through, you have the first step, and the first step gives you control. Suddenly you're in control of it, and then you can start working from there rather than just being a rabbit in the headlights.

Sometimes folks say just visualize success and just visualize crossing the finish line in the record time or whatever it is, but what I hear you saying is you want to visualize what could go wrong as well.

First of all, I'm naturally— the glass is always full with me, so this is a positive process but a realistically positive process. I did a single-handed round-the-world race. Before the start gun went, I'd done it 30 or 40, 50 times. It's in color. I could taste it. I smell it. And from that had really sifted through all the ingredients. I knew what we were doing, why we were doing it, what people required, processes, development, anything that was needed. And that's the other thing I think is it's a collective thing. Everybody in the team is involved in this, and the more the team involved, obviously the deeper and richer the vision will be. But also by allowing them to be a part of it, they're far more likely to take responsibility for it. So it's a positive process. We're sailing around the world in the Southern Ocean. I want to finish it, so that's my positive goal. But as a realist, I know the boat's going to get knocked down. For instance, a big wave will slam it on its side. Visualize what's going to happen. First of all, we don't want the boat to have too much volume inside because I'll get thrown a long way and become injured. So let's put some structures and support and perhaps canvas screens in there which will reduce the risk of injury. And if everything on the boat— we design and build the boats ourselves— but everything on the boat must really play a couple of roles. So I know it's a race of attrition, the boats get very tired and worn out, and so I know where I can rob Peter to pay Paul. It's already visualized, and this crisis, if that breaks, Actually, it's not a crisis because we've already know that part from there. I can rob that to make that good. And it's being a realist to build up this jigsaw, which will enable you to fulfill what your goal is.

You've done a number of different adventures over the decades. So what are some other things that you do in advance to plan for success? And one of the things I heard you say is that 70% of the result is put in place before you even start the race. So what is some of the other 70% that you're doing from a planning standpoint to achieve a successful outcome?

I'd describe myself as an adventurer as much as anything. You know, I don't have a career, I have a series of daft ideas, most of them in sailing, but been to the North Pole, done some historical projects and things. I'd I tend not to repeat anything. If we use the single-handed round the world race as an example, I started with a big blank sheet and broke the project down into all of its constituent parts and found partners to try and take each part one small step further forward, hoping that collectively we would get astride in terms of performance. One example is sleep. If I'm competing single-handed, I'll push my sleep down to 4 hours every 24, which is then broken into 20-minute catnaps. Now, if your sleep is that limited, you must ensure that you take it when it is of the greatest benefit. So being cheeky, I found NASA were about to invest millions on the first-ever sleep deprivation program. This is about 30 years ago, and I got myself on as a guinea pig such that, because we all have a specific sleep pattern, it's very individual, it's like a fingerprint. On that race, we knew that this limited resource that rested across the whole fleet, we would make best use of it on our boat, which makes you safer. It gives you a competitive advantage. We developed clothing with Musto and Gore-Tex. We did a lot of work on food to make sure that I was properly fueled. And so you just go deeper and deeper into these things. And I think for me, that's one of the attractions of these projects, is it takes you all to all these places that you might— you would never go. Chatting to you now, for instance, would not happen if I'd done some of these adventures. But there's a very human side to it. If I talk about the food, you couldn't get the freeze-dried food that we have at the moment. So my mum and dad used the local butcher. They used to go in and through the night they would borrow his vacuum packing machine. We worked with a sports university. We mixed our own food up. And they vacuum-packed all the individual meals. Then they vacuum-packed 24-hour bags within which was everything required, so matches, toilet paper, vitamin tablets. They were numbered from 1 to 120, which is what we felt the race would take, and the calorific content waxed and waned as we knew the boat would go through the different temperature zones, because we'd worked out there was a requirement for about 3,500 calories in the tropics, and that shot up to about 6,000 in the Southern Ocean. So it meant it was very well organized, it was very lean. But then on the human side, we did a 6-day cycle to the menu, so I didn't have the same meal every Sunday. And on the 6th day, Tracy and the kids put a really nice surprise in there because we're not machines. It isn't just fuel. We all have a heart and a soul, and these things need nurturing. If you come into one of our teams, it's a family. We really care. And you need to look after yourself, be kind to yourself as well.

What's one thing from sailing that you've learned that more people would benefit from knowing and being able to apply to their life?

Life's an adventure. And people ask, what did you learn from the Vendée? And thousands of things. But I, I would say, first of all, my parents always used to say that you can do anything if you want to, and I've always believed them. And said it to my 3 kids, but having done the Bondi, I know it now, and I couldn't underline that enough. The second thing would be, if you can get a group of individuals and if they all commit mind, body, and soul to a clear and simple goal, then you'll get there in the end. You might have to change your course a bit, but you will make it. But finally, deep in the Southern Ocean, you really appreciate that life hangs on a very thin and delicate thread, and the cancer of time is complacency. And if you want to do something, do it now, not tomorrow or the next day. Walk out that door, pick up the phone, get your notebook out, and make it happen. And for me, just making it happen is the vast majority of all of this stuff, is just get up and go, and all suddenly all sorts of unimagined circumstances will conspire to help you to get you to where you want to be.

If you had to give 3 pieces of advice on living a life with no regrets, what would that advice be?

I think a fear of failure is one of the greatest tragedies of life. And I know so many really capable people, far more capable than I'll ever be, but they're very frightened to step out. And I think part of living a fulfilled life is stepping outside of your comfort zone and making a few mistakes because the only way you're going to progress and learn, it's a part of progress. Live a happy and fulfilled life, a humble life. Family is probably the most important thing. Find something that you really like and want to do and persist at it. Spend your money on memories, not things. The more you put in back into life, the more you get out. It's a bit of an oxymoron. The more you give away, the more you get back in a funny way.

Pete, you've got a great book called Close to the Wind, which chronicles your adventure in the Vendée Globe and the rescue, and I really enjoyed it. If folks want to connect with you and maybe stay up to date with other things that you may be doing, what would be the best way for folks to do that?

I've got a website, petegoss.com. I'm not brilliant at the multimedia because I'm so busy doing other things, but if you send an email, it will come to me. I love people and will help anyone who needs a hand. It'd be a pleasure.

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