motivates you well know specifically who
do you do what you do for when assessing
the things I’ve achieved over the years
I’m intrigued by the correlation between
what motivates me to do it and the level
of my success and my happiness since
leaving school I’ve had to make two big
decisions about the direction of my life
both of them were fueled by very
different motivations one had me at a
low point of falling asleep on a
bathroom floor and the other had me
standing on top of a mountain
the first decision came when I’d left
University and I had to choose my career
or more simply put the direction of my
life
I let my motivation be dictated by the
pursuit of money perceived security and
what I thought other people thought I
should do most people I knew had gone to
the city and tried we’re trying to forge
a career behind a desk and I blindly
followed thinking that’s what I should
do I got a good job at a great firm and
it’s time passed it looked like I was on
the path to success
I had pay rises got more
responsibilities I got promotions and by
the age of 33 I had moved from graduate
trainee to partner I had a car flat a
girlfriend and from an outside
perspective it may have looked like I
was successful but internally that
couldn’t have been further from the
truth
I was unhappy unfulfilled and deeply
unsatisfied
I started looking I started looking for
ways of escapism and for me the that
meant going to the bar
more and more nights was spent in the
pub my days became hazy and at work my
performance started to slip then there
was one week night I was out with
friends and when three o’clock in the
morning came I thought it’s probably
better go straight to work in a taxi
rather than home to bed the next morning
I peeled myself off the showroom floor
at work leaned against the sink and
literally took a long hard look at
myself in the mirror and didn’t like
what I saw looking back our girls far as
to say it was a little bit ashamed I
realized I had to change the way I was
living my life but I was gonna
attentionally end in disaster I had to
admit to myself that all the decisions I
made up to that point in life were based
on what I thought other people thought I
should do and I hadn’t taken the time to
think what I’d like to do how I’d like
to live my life how I could be the best
version of myself the success I was
aiming for was dictated by possessions
titles and people’s acceptance and
that’s not how I wanted to live my life
I had to start thinking about what was
important to me and to do that I
realized that I had to change the way I
was motivated from the external to the
internal I spent weeks trying to define
what it is I wanted to do with the rest
of my life and to in that process I
thought back to when was the last time I
could remember being truly happy and
fulfilled and I was at the end of a solo
240 kilometres on through Vietnam I
started to ask myself could I make that
I’d endlessly watched adventurers on
television and so it’s all them doing
what I wanted to do but I never let
myself think of it as a credible career
choice for me the old me wouldn’t it but
then I thought to be an adventurer a
successful adventurer you have to be
motivated by personal goals and driven
by passion and that’s how I wanted to
live my life so I thought on that moment
I’m gonna become an adventurer
planning a life based on your passion is
really exciting I wanted my first
adventure to be built round of running a
passion I’d had since as long as I could
remember I then made the decision that
if I was gonna end my career I had to be
on an adventure for at least 365 days so
quick calculation with the 30 days I
thought I could run a day came to 11,000
kilometers I also wanted to include
other passions in what I was doing
so the foreign travel and experiencing
new cultures in mind I turned to a map
of the world and conceived my first epic
adventure I was going to run from Canada
to Argentina a total distance of 17,000
kilometers across two continents and
through 14 different countries to make
it more challenging I was going to do it
alone and with no dedicated support
everything I needed for that adventure
would have to be pushed in a baby
stroller it took me a few months to put
this plan into action because the sheer
scale of what I was trying to achieve
was slightly terrifying but I also still
cared what people might think when I
finally had the courage to tell my boss
I was quitting his reaction was an anger
and disappointment but was understanding
and encouragement when I told my father
he simply said if you have to go you
to go actually most people were pretty
supportive and in that moment I realized
that all the people that I thought cared
about what I was doing actually didn’t
really care that much at all because
they all had their own lifes and their
own worries to to worry about okay the
were the naysayers the people who felt
obliged to tell me that oh what you’re
doing is impossible or you’ll probably
die but my new internal motivation told
me not to listen to them and actually to
use that as a way to prove them wrong
and also I realized that when people
tell you you can’t do something in most
cases is them just projecting their own
fears onto you so in the 15th of August
2014 to exhaust work finished work I was
standing in Vancouver with when going to
run 17,000 kilometers to Argentina first
stage through America was a little bit
of a steep learning curve as I learnt to
run about a marathon a day and then have
to find somewhere to sleep at night and
to get food I was burning about five six
thousand calories a day but as time went
by I got more confident and these little
everyday challenges started to get a
little bit easier and I got some Mexico
it got a little bit more daunting
everything was in a different language
but luckily I’ve been listening to audio
tapes about language about Spanish merit
cross America the distances also got a
lot bigger between civilizations but my
passion drove me forward when I got to
the end of Baja California I had to
learn how to ask people for help and I
managed to hitchhike across the Sea of
Cortez on this boat when I got across
the Sea of Cortez I ran down through El
Salvador Honduras Guatemala and into
Nicaragua
it was here I had my first health scare
I was thirty 40 kilometres into a 70
kilometer day and I stopped to go to the
loo and started peeing blood
I had to one another perfect long turns
especially pram in quite a little pain
but when I going to the town I found the
combination of the dr. Michael
termination not only was i back on the
road but a couple of days later I was
boarding down an active volcano Costa
Rica and Panama quite humid for a wee
boy from Scotland but knowing that the
end of the first part of my trip was in
your visa gave me the courage and the
kind of drive to push on I arrived in
your visa this is where the pan-american
finishes an ill-advised swim and then I
ended up with a parasite called Giardia
which I’m still dealing with today and I
couldn’t push my baby stroller through
the jungle so I had to navigate my way
along the coast across to Colombia South
America brought new challenges mountains
and deserts one of the things I’m most
gutted about is due to a postal issue in
Quito I missed volcan cotopaxi erupting
by one day I’d have literally been
running past it as it erupted ‘add
distraught about that when I got to
northern Peru I very luckily these two
chaps gave me a police escort across the
satura desert after had received an
email from friends saying that they had
been held up at gunpoint by bandits and
shot at
so how was quite reassuring when I
arrived in Chile I had to run 700
kilometers across the Atacama Desert the
world’s driest nonpolar desert then I
arrived at the Andes my last big
obstacle I had won 15,000 kilometers and
then had to climb up to 4,000 830 meters
20 meters higher than anywhere in Europe
and higher than I had ever been as I
stood there I felt like I could see the
whole world in front of me and then that
moment I realized that I was happy I was
fulfilled but most importantly my
motivation to achieve more with bigger
than anything when I reached the
pinnacle of my own career my motivation
is to do just enough to stay where I was
now my internal motivation was to see to
see myself grow and become a stronger
version of myself in that moment I
realized that success is not something
we should aim for but it’s a way we
should live our life every day rather
than aim for something big in the future
we should try and be successful at every
single little thing we do and by doing
that we have a chance to live life the
best way we can the final push from on
that journey was equipment of running
Lands End to John O’Groats in 28 days
averaging 56 kilometers a day I wasn’t
pushing to get to the finish but I was
craving to achieve more push myself
harder because all the limitations I put
on myself in the past had disappeared by
following my dreams and my passions I
had empowered myself to believe in
myself and what I was capable of it was
on this final push that I received an
email from my mother but I quit my
career I kind of thought maybe I let my
parents down but she simply simply said
that they were proud of me and what had
achieved by simply being me and doing
what I wanted I had made them proud on
the 30th of December 2015 I ran into
Buenos Aires I’ve done 17,000 kilometers
it taken me 367 days
averaging 46 point 5 kilometers a day
I’d worn through 17 pairs of shoes
brewing an epic beard and raised 25,000
pounds for charity it was more than I
could ever have thought of achieving
when I started and people asked me if I
ever fall about failing or if I ever
wanted to give up and the simple answer
is no from the moment I started
adventuring in van
Kouga I’ve had a soul drive to push
myself forward if times ever get tough I
simply sit down wherever I am remember
the life I used to lead and that’s all I
need to stand back up again if I could
go my career continues of my
my career as an adventurer continues and
over the last couple years I’ve run
across the Alps I’ve cycled across South
America I’ve starred on TV show and
interesting that cameras in Mongolia and
that is all just to see my unwavering
internal motivation if I could go back
and tell me and do it all again I would
tell myself do what you love no way you
want to go and work harder than anyone
else to get there
success is something you need to define
on your terms and you have to be
motivated by your passion and what
drives you to happiness and success
because if you do that you have the
opportunity to be the best version of
yourself over the last three and a half
years I’ve adventured twenty three and a
half thousand kilometres in 25 different
countries I can only imagine what I
would achieved if I could take back the
12 years I sat behind a desk so next
time you have to make a big life
decision just ask yourself Who am I
doing this for thank you [Applause]