Forging Resilience
Join us as we explore experiences and stories to help gain fresh insights into the art of resilience and the true meaning of success.
Whether you're seeking to overcome personal challenges, enhance your leadership skills, or simply navigate life's twists and turns, "Forging Resilience" offers a unique and inspiring perspective for you to apply in your own life.
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Forging Resilience
32 Mike Bates: Life and Leadership Through Jiu-Jitsu
What drives a young boy from Doncaster to overcome tremendous adversity and become a renowned leader in covert operations? Join us on "Forging Resilience" as Mike Bates, a former Royal Marine Commando, shares his extraordinary journey of resilience and personal growth.
From the moment his father left, igniting a fire inside him to his triumphant achievements in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and beyond, Mike’s story is one of continuous goal-setting and unyielding determination. Get ready to be inspired by his incredible path from adversity to triumph.
We explore the essence of introspection and the exercise he calls "four spaces" to achieve equilibrium in life’s key areas: home, work, self, and others. Mike’s reflections on fatherhood, emotional openness, and the importance of aligning actions with values will resonate deeply with anyone seeking to live authentically and without regret. His journey of helping others, rooted in his childhood and military experiences, offers a compelling roadmap for personal growth.
Mike's transition from a high-stakes career in counterterrorism to a life of personal fulfillment is a testament to the power of resilience and dedication. Hear about his ambitious mission to raise funds for a neonatal unit through a solo Atlantic row, and how he leveraged the principles of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to reveal true character traits and manage aggression.
Whether you’re interested in leadership, personal development, or goal setting, this episode provides invaluable insights and practical advice. Don't miss out on this inspiring conversation with Mike Bates, where he shares his wisdom on living a life of purpose and resilience.
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Welcome to Forging Resilience, exploring for a different perspective on strength and leadership. Join me as we discuss experiences and stories with guests to help gain fresh insights around challenge, success and leadership. Today, on Forging Resilience, we're joined by Mike Bates, a former Royal Marine Commando, former covert operations leader with the MOD. Former Royal Marine Commando, former covert operations leader with the MOD. Happens to be a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, has paddled across the Atlantic and is an entrepreneur, mike. Welcome to the show mate. It's quite an impressive introduction by anybody's standards, but thanks for being here.
Speaker 2:It's a pleasure mate.
Speaker 1:Thanks for the invite. No worries, mate, we just touched on briefly before we started, both around certain types of work, certain titles, certain positions. It sometimes can bring a sort of disconnect between us and the people that we want to help, and I know that's something that's close to your heart and it's close to mine and I'm sure we'll get into that. But I'm really interested to meet Mike, the man. What makes you. As you know and you have experienced, you've suffered your own setbacks both in life and in business. But yeah, give us a little bit of an introduction to you, mate, and then we'll start unwrapping who you are from there, mate.
Speaker 2:Okay cool. Well, let me start by saying that I'm just a normal bloke. Okay cool. Well, let me start by saying that I'm just a normal bloke, like there's nothing special about me, harry, I'm from doncaster, working class background, pretty normal upbringing, didn't have much, didn't want for much.
Speaker 2:But the key moment in my life I now know, with only the wisdom of 43 year old man, has is that when my dad left at 10 years old and and that I put all my successes in life, all my achievements, down to that moment, because it kind of lit a fire underneath me and because I didn't have that kind of male paternal role model to show me where I was going right and going wrong.
Speaker 2:I was making bad decisions, I was drinking a lot, I was taking drugs a lot, I was getting arrested and all sorts of bad stuff in my teens, and that kind of drove me towards trying to find my place in the world.
Speaker 2:And I think when we're in our teenage years, particularly towards the latter end, we started to think about like who am I going to be and what do I want my life to be, and what mark do I want to leave on the world? And those are the questions running around my mind. I thought, well, I need to find a tribe man, I need to find a community that's gonna be like me, because there was no one like me. I didn't know anyone like me. All my mates were staying, becoming plasterers and plumbers, and I was like there's more to life. So that's why the military appealed and I've never none of my family been in the military, but I just had a sense that, you know, there was going to be people there that I could get along with and they were going to push the boundaries of what was possible for me.
Speaker 1:And that's really what I've done ever since is just keep moving the goalposts a little bit further and further, and I think you can achieve whatever you want in life and also, I guess, being we're around the same sort of age, um the adverts in the cinema and an FHM and a men's health at that year, at that age, were quite good at the time as well. If I remember rightly, it was the.
Speaker 2:It was um a copy of FHM, mate. I think Gillian Anderson was on the front and uh, this full page spread of this guy coming out of a swamp with cam cream and and I thought this guy is living his best life I've got to do that and then this little did we know?
Speaker 2:what said to me. I met a guy who was in the navy, a guy called lee, in one of the pubs that I was running, because I was working behind a bar in a pub when I was in my kind of late teens and he'd been in the navy and he said mike, if you're going to join any part of the military, you've got to join the raw Royal Marines, because all I've ever seen them do is fire guns off the back of ships and chase women around. I thought, right, perfect, 19 years old.
Speaker 2:So that's why I went in that direction.
Speaker 1:Love it, mate, love it. So did you find what you're looking for, then, in terms of your tribe and that belonging with the Marines? Do you think, mike?
Speaker 2:I think so. I think what I discovered was the value of hard work and self-belief. I think that's what the military does really well is it breaks you down right and then it almost proves to you. Over the course of the commando course and my first run, having worked behind a bar for four years, played drums in bands, smoked, drank, my first run was one mile round a block and I couldn't do it in one go. But you start to just build yourself up. So I did half a mile, then I did three quarters of a mile, then a mile, then a bit more, then a bit more, and I think it was that environment of shared adversity in the Royal Marines which I think is so important. It's why the military have a really strong trusting bond between them.
Speaker 2:And it's the same in rugby I work with the Leeds Rhinos Rugby League team. Exactly the same they share adversity. It's the same in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu you come and train on the mats, you're going to suffer a little bit, and when you suffer together with people and you have that shared adversity, I think it creates really strong bonds. And I think once you have those relationships, then you have a platform for yourself to go on and achieve whatever you want in life, you can't do it on your own. We can talk about the ocean road a bit if you want, but people think I can do this on my own. You can't.
Speaker 1:Or only so far, or only at a price, or only to a limited capability. I think it's really interesting what you're saying about that said, that shared suffering and I think what's interesting for for me as well is it from the military is that that sort of regime, that sort of hardship definitely gets results. But I also talk about here and question is it sustainable in terms of constantly pushing, constantly belittling and berating probably ourselves to push ourselves harder? Do you find that in rugby and in Brazilian jiu-jitsu as well, mate, or is the mindset slightly different in those sports? If you were to compare it to your time in the military?
Speaker 2:oh yeah, I mean, if you, if you compare professional sport to the military basic training, it's night and day, isn't it? You know that the professional sport have a team wrapped around them and to help support their ambitions and their goals. Where the military, they don't wrap a team around you. They break you down and then they see what you're capable of. So it is quite different. But I do believe this is my own personal opinion, based somewhat on my experiences, but also on Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, which I think is an amazing book I encourage anyone to read that. Life should be around setting goals and it should be about trying to move that little bit further all the time. My granddad used to say oh Mike, you know, you're a manic depressor, you're never happy, you're never satisfied. I am satisfied, really satisfied, but I'm not done yet. And I think the day you take your foot off the gas completely and you don't move forward is the day you're going to really struggle.
Speaker 1:One of the things that I do is I love speaking to people. I love writing on LinkedIn. I think something that really empowers me is it's it's my opinion, so it doesn't matter if it's right or right or wrong, and often I get challenged and I'm really quite open for that. I think it makes interesting discussion. I don't have to change my opinions or anything, but I wonder, mike, in terms of goals then, what will will you be? Is there an end goal for you with what you're trying to create with your life, with your business and almost I don't want to say legacy, but with what you're creating, especially with the jiu-jitsu community that I've heard you talk about in the past as well yeah, I mean ultimately my the whole mission for my life is helping others.
Speaker 2:It it always has been, from 10 years old looking after a younger brother and sister navigating that messy divorce, to saving my country for 20 years, to starting businesses in lockdown, for communities to come back together, to rowing oceans, to raising money for charity. It's all for other people, mate, and I know that's my kind of North Star. So every decision I make in life the reason I'm on this podcast today is there may be someone listening who likes what I've got to say and it makes a difference. So I'm going to give my time to do that. So I think it's important that we take time to have a period of introspection and self-reflection and just stop for a moment and start to just ask ourselves some important questions Like who am I Like? What do I stand for? What are my values? What are my virtues? Who do I want to be Really important? And then, what path am I going to take?
Speaker 2:And when I think about all those and I talk to people like this businesses, sports teams, whatever, right, I talk about the difference between resume virtues and eulogy virtues, right? So, like we talked about there, about the business, the business is the resume stuff. I'm not interested in that. I want people to say at the end of my life he did what he said he was going to do. He was a loving family man. He helped other people Like that's what I want. So everything I try and do tries to fit into that space, and if it doesn't, I don't do it.
Speaker 1:So can you really trace back your drive to serve and help support other people back to the 10-year-old?
Speaker 2:Mike there. Yeah, yeah, you know I was promoted super early in the Corps. I had only been a Marine for 11 months and I was leading eight Marines a section of Marines to war in Iraq. I promoted super early in the MOD. I was running covert agents and working undercover and running surveillance teams very, very early on. And you know I've got some successful businesses and people say like, well, what have you learned in leadership? I was learning from 10 years old. Then I was leading from 10 years old.
Speaker 2:So I think all the way back there, you can only discover that when you do really think deeply about who you are and where you've come from. And look, it's not all positive either. I mean, I wrote to my dad. I haven't spoke to him for five years. I wrote to him three weeks ago and he didn't want anything to do with me, man, and so I've been rejected again and that rejection from him has really created, certainly in my 20s and 30s, an insecurity which almost cost me some important relationships. So it's not all positive, but I try and take the positives from it and make it something that pushes me forward.
Speaker 1:So how do you manage that, or balance that, those ebbs and flows of needing to prove to the world yet and and serve them yet?
Speaker 2:make sure that you're good for yourself, for your businesses, for your family I think you've got to find a harmonious balance, um, between the four spaces that I believe you inhabit in life. So I believe we inhabit home, work, self and others. Those are the four spaces we tend to be in in our lives. And I do an exercise called four spaces. It's my exercise, came up with it, and it kind of works for a lot of people just to visualize where they're at. So I'll give you an imaginary 20 chips and I'd say, aaron, okay, put those chips into those four spaces to articulate your life right now, and most people certainly I was chatting to my wife this morning this is the way she feels would be putting 15 into work like working way too much.
Speaker 2:Well, guess what? You've only got five left and you want to be a really good parent. So you put four into home. And then all of a sudden, you've got one left. So you're either going to go to the gym once a week or you're going to see your mate. And that sudden you've got one left. So you're either going to go to the gym once a week or you're going to see your mate, and that's not enough. So you've got to find that balance. And that's a movable face. It's always changing. But I think we don't think often enough about like where we're at right now and again it comes back to that, those hard questions like looking yourself in the mirror and saying, am I living the life that I want to live? Because if you're not, you do have a chance to change it. You can write the narrative and the script for the rest of your life, the next 45 years, if you want.
Speaker 1:But you've got to do that work and you've got to think about who you are yeah, I think what comes to me when you're saying that is the the intention, and something that I was challenged on recently is talking about balance, and somebody said they don't believe in it because it in terms of work, life, etc. Because it's it's. It assumes that something has to be perfect for it to be sustainable. And, as you, we know, life isn't like that. It's a flow, and they almost related it to music, with different moments of yet putting 15 chips into work but then other moments of only putting one chip into work and spreading the other. Whatever, the maths is um 19. Thank you, um. Into the other three um. Do you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:You're so right. I love that analogy of music there, so I said the word I use. It's not balance, it's harmonious, it's a harmony and again that's a musical term, right like when everything's working together to create that sound. We've got harmony and that's what we're trying to find and it will change. This week it might be 10 at work, next week it might be two, next week it might be 20. You might be all in at work. You've got to be at work all day. That's fine, but just know that there's a cost to every decision that you make and you can't have it all, you can't be a multi-billionaire business founder and a great dad.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, you can't do it. You know it doesn't work, so just accept that and then choose which one you want to. You know, push forward the most. I'd suggest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was having a conversation with somebody at the weekend and also somebody that came on to my podcast and the understanding around that we can achieve so much, and often there's two cases to those two sides to this. One is from a place of trauma or place of need, which is incredibly. Is that fire underneath you which will get you incredible results? Results but sometimes not that sustainable, healthy for you or the people around you? And I'm curious to know, mike, in your opinion, has has your success? Quote, unquote the things that you've achieved um come at a price and if there's anything you can talk to us about, the, the price that you've paid in terms of pursuing so many things to to such a high level there um, I think probably, if I'm being honest, in my 20s and 30s, there was a huge cost to my decisions to go all in in the military and then go all in the mod.
Speaker 2:I mean, it was in the aftermath of 9-11, as you remember I remember you were there and then the aftermath of 7-7, for me in the ministry defense busiest period of counterterrorism operations in our history, and I was right in the middle of it. And again again, you know, I was probably 18 every week in work, like I was doing overtime, I was 24 hours just working as much as I could because I absolutely loved it. But it had a cost to my relationships and it was only, I suppose, transitioning from that first adult life that we have to the second adult life, that kind of archetypal midlife crisis period 35 to 45, I started to view the world in a different way and I started to understand this and that's four spaces exercise came out of me really thinking hard about who I was and what I was doing in my life. And, crucially, you know, was this the life that I wanted to live? And, age 40, I'd served my country for half my entire life and I had the opportunity to serve for another 20 years. I could have saved my career. Great pension, lovely job. I'd really enjoyed it. Purposeful Lockdown happened. Everyone was worried about the jobs. I resigned, started a contact sport business. Wife had thought I'd gone mad. She was like you can't even go out of the house. What do you mean contact sport? But I wanted to risk it and I wanted to live a life without limits. And that's the kind of tagline that I use in my own personal brand when I speak.
Speaker 2:I don't want any regrets on at the end of life. I think the saddest thing for me would be because time's going to run out. But the saddest thing would be to get to the end of life life, look back over those 80, 90 years and think, man, I wish I'd have. Oh, man, I wish I'd have done more of. Don't have any regrets. You've got the opportunity right now to write the next 45 years of your life. What are you going to achieve? Who are you going to do it with? What's the most important to you? What doesn't matter? You can write that right now and you can go and live it. So you have no regrets. And that's my message to anyone really through next 45 is that you know you've got to start doing that work now. Don't wait because time will run out so is.
Speaker 1:Is there a? Is there something you can trace that back to mike that, that insight that you've had for yourself? Or is there a regret, sort of semi, looming over you or that you anticipate to to correct the course that you're on? Do you think?
Speaker 2:I mean I don't want to keep talking about my dad but, like you know, I always say the only lesson he taught me was how to be a bad dad, right?
Speaker 2:So, like everything I'm doing, I'm thinking I don't want to live the life that he's lived, because I'm pretty sure even though you, you know he says he's fine I'm pretty sure he has some regret that he doesn't have a relationship with his eldest son and his grandchildren and he's prioritized other things in his life and that's absolutely fine. I get it Like that's up to him, but I don't want that life for me. I see, or I feel a bitterness from people like that who are self-centered and have made bad decisions but don't have the courage to lean into it and open up. And I think there's another part of that then that we could talk about, which is all about being honest and being vulnerable. You know far too many of us, you know you read out my kind of resume at the beginning there commando, covert operations, holo, ocean row, whatever. I'm as vulnerable as they come, mate. I cry at adverts and I struggle like everybody else, and I've learned over the last five or so years to really embrace that and share it and don't hold it in.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, yeah, it's an insight I've had as well. We're not even going to talk about toy story then, because that sets me off. But no, I completely get that and the transformation that I have had and I like to provide for the people that I work with is to recognize those faults, not even false. It's to recognize the whole of who they are and embrace that. And often for us men that's a lot of trapped emotion that just comes up and gets expressed because we've been holding onto it for 40 plus years because we don't want anyone to see it. But the power that is in that is deep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean the word authenticity is thrown around quite a lot at the moment as a bit of a buzzword, but I talk about authenticity being the foundation of high performance, of the individual being authentic. And I believe authenticity is the alignment of three things it's what we think, it's what we say and what we do. And quite often we think a certain thing oh I know I should be doing that but we say something else and do something else. Or we say we're going to go do something and we don't go and do it. And I think when we align what we think, what we say and what we do, we live a life which you can be proud of and you live an authentic life.
Speaker 2:And when you've got authenticity, people can trust you because they know where they stand, you're consistent and you say what you, you know you do what you say you're going to do, and that builds trust. And and you say you know you do what you say you're going to do and that builds trust. And when you have trust great American general once said trust is tempo. It's someone I worked with the Leeds Rhinos rugby league team on preseason. They're having a difficult year but culturally they're really good and it was all about trusting the guy left and right of you that they're going to do their job, because if you can trust them, you can do your job even better.
Speaker 1:And the whole thing moves faster, so yeah, I think it's important that we, we just are ourselves.
Speaker 2:Mate. To your point, there aren't about it's not failures, it's shortcomings. We've all got them.
Speaker 1:Let's lean into it and I think definitely, and I think this comes back to around what you're saying earlier about having people hold that space, hold us accountable or draw that out of us, because on our own we don't, we don't see our blind spots, and that is something we would consider a massive blind spot, in my opinion oh, that question.
Speaker 2:I think you know. If it wasn't for my wife and how supportive she is, then I wouldn't be the man that I am today, for sure, and I still you know, get feel guilty.
Speaker 2:when I'm a bit sharp with the kids or I'm a bit tired or I eat too much chocolate on a weekend because that's my kind of weakness, I suppose I feel guilty about it. And then I'm back in the gym. Everyone's going through this stuff. Man, I work with an executive group. I'm an ambassador for Sudulos Be the Standard, a fantastic group of founders and very, very successful business people and we do a surgery every month and we meet. We have great speakers in fact, I'm interviewing graham soon, as of all people tomorrow, which is going to be interesting and we do it like a business surgery. When we go around the room and ask like what everyone's biggest problem is this week, it's usually something personal. And these, these people have got 100 million pound businesses, literally 10 to 100 million pound turnover businesses, and they're all still struggling with the weight, with the confidence, with the way that they feel. Like that's just being human, man, I accept it.
Speaker 1:I wonder sometimes if we put too much importance on that because we've never taken the time to really look at it.
Speaker 2:Maybe maybe on that, because we've never taken the time to really look at it maybe maybe, but I think it's. It's important that we don't trade. Who's saying this the other day? I was listening to someone talking the other day and they said don't trade happiness for the thing that you think is going to bring happiness, which is success. And I think far too many of us are thinking extrinsically like what does it look like to other people? How many Instagram likes can I get? Like, how much money have I got in the bank? We're actually in the process of selling our family home that I'm sat in now in a beautiful part of North Leeds big, semi-detached apartment. We don't need this big house. So we're actually in the process of downsizing with two teenage boys and moving and halving our mortgage, and that's just a decision to make sure we don't care really what people think of our house. No one cares really.
Speaker 1:What we want is more time with each other, yeah, and so we're trying to create that going back to something that you started the conversation with around goals and and and setting those for for the, for the north North Star. As a guy, talk to us a bit more about your philosophy or your structure that you teach and live by, mike, if that's okay.
Speaker 2:Definitely. So I've got a system for goal setting which I'll share with you and your listeners today. You said intention, which is fantastic because that's one of them. So I have a set of principles called my mindset principles M-I-N-D. I think for any goal to be achieved, you need those four things. You need motivation. That's got to be an intrinsic motivation, not extrinsic. This is about you deep down, what you want to achieve for you or for others. It's got to mean a lot. You know you ain't going to row across an ocean because you want Instagram likes on your own. It ain't going to happen. It's got to be an intrinsic motivation. The I is intention. You've got to have the intent to move from where you are right now to where you want to be, and you've got to decide what path that is. The N is nerve.
Speaker 2:92% of goals are never achieved because they never get going. People just talk a good game. They're not authentic. They don't say you know they don't do what they're going to say. They say what they're going to do. So you've got to have the nerve to say I'm doing it. And what I try and encourage people to do there is to tell other people. So it creates personal accountability, because if I say to you, aaron, I'm going to row another ocean in 2026, which I might do you might ask me in 2026, how's it going? How's this ocean rowing going? So telling people, having the nerve to say you're going to do something, is key.
Speaker 2:And then the D is discipline, and that, for me, is it's doing the hard things when no one's watching, of course, but it's also looking ahead at the challenges and the path you're going to walk and saying what are the probable challenges on this road? So, for me, if we buy chocolate in our weekly Asda shop and put it in the cupboard, I will eat it. So if I'm trying to cut weight for summer or for a competition or for a fight or whatever, we can't buy chocolate. So it's having the discipline to look ahead and think how can I get ahead of these challenges, these stumbling blocks? So motivation, intention, nerve and discipline, and I encourage people to write those down and write underneath, and you spoke earlier, aaron, about writing, which is really important.
Speaker 2:So I write a lot as well, and what I find it does is it? It organizes my thoughts and it takes the thoughts which aren't real like thoughts aren't real, they're just out there and it puts them down onto a physical piece of paper which you can pin on the fridge, you can put in the bottom drawer, you can burn it, throw it or whatever, but it's become real. You can see it, you can touch it, you can feel it, and that's a really powerful way to set goals, I think yeah, I definitely.
Speaker 1:I love that, mate, and also I think what you're talking about right in there is the gas talks about this thinking ink. You can also get a bit of distance between you and the noise and sometimes think that is bollocks um and go again. You don't have to hold on to it just because you thought it doesn't doesn't make it true, but that's brilliant, that's fascinating. Cheers for that, mike. You've touched on the rowing stuff, which we'll come on to in a minute because I think there's some really powerful lessons in there and the reasons why you did that as well. But in terms of jiu-jitsu, mate, what's some of the key things that you've learned personally about yourself through that, through that whole journey? Well, through the journey you're on with jiu-jitsu that you imply in in life, um and and business, yeah, so I've been doing jiu-jitsu brazilian jiu-jitsu for since 2002, before I went to afghan.
Speaker 2:Actually, at four or five commander, where we were both based, we used to drag the mats together in the sports hall and have a roll about, before jiu-jitsu was even a thing. It was like fighting. No one knew what. It was Pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Who was running that mate?
Speaker 2:A guy called Dean Robertson who worked in the stores Dino. He was fighting MMA in Scotland, in Glasgow, at a club called Dinking Injures which is still going, and he used to show us some stuff. And we even went to Aberdeen once and people probably won't have heard this guy a guy called Eric Paulson. He fought in the UFC, fought in Japan in the 90s Really really kind of successful catch wrestler fighter. He came to Aberdeen, of all places, in 2002, 2003. And we went to a seminar where he was doing like heel hooks and leg locks which are now all the rage in submission grappling right. So it was happening 20 odd years ago.
Speaker 2:Anyway, I've been training for a long, long time. I got my black belt in 2017. So I've been a black belt for seven years under Professor Victor Estima and I own and run and have founded, co-founded, one of the most successful Gracie Barhar Academies in the UK over 500 students and I've seen a lot of people come onto the mat and I've seen a lot of people come onto the mat and I always say that the mat is a mirror. It's a mirror to your character and you can't hide. And it does not matter how much money you've got, what kind of upbringing you had, how successful you are, how happy you are, we will see exactly the type of person you are on the map, because you are going to lose and you are going to win, and you are going to suffer and you're going to have bad days and good days, and we're going to see it. And for me, I've really had to temper my aggression I think I'm not sure if that's the right word, but you know, there'd be a couple of occasions where I'd see, and it's, it's in the pursuit of helping others. But I'll give you an example.
Speaker 2:When I first opened the Academy culturally, we had to get it right and I wanted it to be a place for the community to come together. That's why it's so successful. We're not a fight gym. We've got amazing competitors, british champions it's great. But we're not there just to serve those. We're serving the masses.
Speaker 2:And there's a guy I remember rolling and out the corner of my eye I saw one of my female students get literally launched to the other side of the mat and this guy was just going far too aggressive. He's bigger, he's stronger, he's faster and he was just beating this girl up. So I said you and me are having to roll next and I gave him a right good hiding to show him that and he's bigger than me, but to show him that there's levels here, mate, and that's how it feels. So I don't do that as often nowadays. That's how it used to be in Jiu-Jitsu. I think that's because I was brought up in that era of it was like Fight Club. But I've had to develop my own ability to self-regulate and when I feel myself going, try and just pull back and try and find some harmony.
Speaker 1:again there, it's difficult. So how do you manage, in life as well, in competition, to self-regulate and bring yourself down a few notches?
Speaker 2:I think you need to make sure you've got time for self right. So I journal every day. There it is. I work out six days a week. I train personal jiu-jitsu, I lift weights, I go for a run, I try and find a little bit of space for myself, but I don't get it right every time.
Speaker 2:Most days I'd say there's something I've done or said which I'm not quite happy about. But the beautiful thing about journaling, I find, is because every day I ask myself three questions what did I do well yesterday? What could I have done better? What am I most grateful for? And the what I could have done better invariably is the way I've interacted with somebody maybe one of my children or my wife or whatever and by writing it down I have the opportunity to go and make it right the next day. So it doesn't just sit there, it gets sorted out. And for me that's been a really powerful way to understand myself more, come back to self, calm down and I suppose, in terms of other mechanisms to find yourself and do that stuff, I really advocate breath work, like connected breath work. If anyone's ever done it's not like Wim Hof, it's a little bit deeper than that, a bit longer, but it is a really fantastic way to unlock hidden traumas which I carried around for many, many years. So, yeah, that's been pivotal really for me.
Speaker 1:And I guess as well, especially with the jiu-jitsu thing, and from what I'm picking up on, your philosophy of of who we are as people and life, is that it's not one fight means something, be it positive or negative, and just because you write one brilliant entry into the journal doesn't mean it's the end and you're a great writer. Or one great workout or one rubbish workout that you write, it's the continual exercising in the present of those practices.
Speaker 2:really, yeah, it's focusing on the process, not the outcome. Right, like, the outcome will take care of itself, good or bad, it's the process, it's the showing up after you've lost. It's going again. It's doing it in a humble way. Uh, when you win and the sooner you can understand from a jiu-jitsu point of view, but also in life I say this to all my students the guy walks through the door yesterday, first class so the sooner you can understand that jiu-jitsu isn't just about you, it's about the person you're training with, because you can't do it on your own. Yeah, then we start to discover the magic of those kind of activities. It's the same with sport. Right, like, you can go for running around, that's great, but doing things together with others is always more fulfilling in my opinion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I agree, that's where it's at. I started jiu-jitsu back in december no october and then had an injury in December which put me out. But it was really interesting because I thought that was my place in the sense of this is something I fear, this is something I'm going to lean into. So I tried it. I absolutely loved it. I was the one getting thrown around the mat by the teenage girls. I could manage that. That wasn't a problem, and I think I've got so much more to learn about myself because it's a. It's a condensed expression or opportunity, and all of those things from from humility to fear um to having being able to be open and learn um being really uncomfortable, um, but so I'm really glad I tried it. I'm really glad I got an injury.
Speaker 1:I think I want to go back um, but I'm not sure if it's where my fight is, if that makes sense. You know, I see it in a different area. Um, it's not. I fear violence and confrontation, regardless of my background, I mean. So it's something I wanted to explore, but I recognize that that's not the fight for me. That's not, but it's still a lot I can learn yeah, I mean other than cold water.
Speaker 2:There's, you know, a fight is probably the best way to spike your central nervous system and give you that amygdala hijack right so that fight, flight or freeze response which we very rarely encounter in life. Um, so I think if you start to expose yourself to that on a regular basis we're talking about resilience you build a wall of evidence that you can overcome difficult challenges, and that then gives you the self confidence to go and push forward and try and achieve things that you're not quite sure you can achieve. They say that a man's reach should always extend his grasp. You should be just in that zone of proximal development, a little bit further than you think you are.
Speaker 1:Um, that is where the growth is man yeah, I 100% agree, and I think for me what my reflection from it was is my growth is in business and serving others, not in trying to prove myself and get my first little bit of white tape on my belt. You know so. But I will go back, mate. I'm going go on to the ocean row. Give us a bit of a background there, because it's quite a moving story as to why you started that row, and it looks like we're interested to hear why the second round might come up again, mate.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So both my boys were born early. My eldest boy was five weeks premature. We had to feed him through a tube for a week but he was okay, pretty healthy, four pounds, so small but healthy. We had him home after a week or two.
Speaker 2:10 months later our second son was born, this time nine weeks early, emergency cesarean and couldn't breathe, basically. So he was three pound, wet through, he was see-through and his lungs wouldn't work. So he was ventilated and put on life support for 72 hours and we stood by his bedside, you know, hoping and praying he'd make it through. We then got him through the special care and the intensive care system about four to six weeks, got him home. At the same time, managing a 10 month old at home, it was still really small. And then my youngest boy was sleeping a lot and I'd read all the parenting books and so I thought I was an expert. I said to my wife this is good, he's catching up, he's sleeping, and you know you never question mother's instinct. And she said I've just got a funny feeling, something's not quite right. So so I said look, take him to hospital. Game checked out. I went off to follow a terrorist around all day, got a call, as you do. Got a call about an hour later, said come back, and I walked into. I forget it. I walked into this little room at Leeds General Infirmary in the A&E department and there was Sarah, my wife, there, both our kids, one 11 months old, one about a month and a half old, and they called some sort of and said if you hadn't brought him in today he'd have been dead tomorrow. He had meningitis. Straight back into intensive care again. Um, some great care, some mistakes. Um, they said he had brain damage. Then he didn't. Then they turned his incubator too hot. Then he couldn't breathe and he went back. And we went through that whole process again and another four to six weeks living in hospital 24 hours a day in shifts, me and my wife, because they were so under-resourced that this nurse's station couldn't hear his sleep apnea machine going off when he stopped breathing in the middle of the night and so we had to stay in the room with him to make sure it was okay.
Speaker 2:Once you've experienced something like that, you realize for the first time that the NHS don't provide all the specialist care and equipment that you need to keep a baby alive. Charities do All of the specialist equipment, all the specialist incubators, all of the play staff, all of the care staff who were taking hand and footprints of babies, because a lot of babies didn't make it and that was. All you could take home was some hand and footprints of your child. That's all paid for by charities. And so for the next 10 years, every year, talk about this trauma.
Speaker 2:Every year on the 20th of February, I'd get uncontrollably upset and like a wave of emotion would come out and I'd just be sobbing snot like just couldn't handle it. And I dealt with that for 10 years. And then I hit 40 and I thought I've got to do something about this. I think I need to repay this debt that I felt that I owed to Leeds General Infirmary, and so I thought I need to raise some money. But lockdown had just happened, so no one had any money. Businesses weren't interested in giving the money away. They were trying to keep, you know, keep the staff or whatever. So I think I've got to find something. That's so mental. People are going to go. We'll give this kid a fiver and give him a go, right. So I thought I can't be leeds half marathon. He's gonna have to be somewhere a bit crazy and I discovered ocean rowing and I remember saying to my wife in the summer of 2019, I think I want to row across the atlantic.
Speaker 2:She said, absolutely no chance. So I I said, all right, no problem. So I went away. It's a true story. This In October 2019, every single shower I had for a month after training first thing in the morning, last thing at night was freezing cold. So I turned fully onto cold and I said to myself, if you can endure a month's worth of cold, you can earn the right to speak to sarah again about this ocean rope. So I froze to death in october. In november I went back to it. Listen, you don't know this, but I've been freezing to death for a month. Can we talk about this? She said, all right, you're serious. You can do it as a pair. I said, okay, because it's safer. Right, like something happens. Is someone there to help you? And then I met someone who'd done it solo and he said if you do as a pair, you can only ever say you rode halfway across, and that's people like you and me. That's not a good thing to say. So I was like oh, you've got to do it solo.
Speaker 2:So I made a decision at that point early 2020, I was going to do it solo. I was going to have a two and a half three year campaign and physical technical preparation and again preparation and again living our life without limits and having no regrets are and I absolutely smashed that prep and that is the reason why I was became the fastest british person in history to do the talisker skitlantic challenge solo. Um, I'm nothing special. I'm five foot eight. I'm not built for rowing, but I prepared like my life depended on it and we raised 137 000 pound for the hospital and the unit that saved my youngest son's life.
Speaker 1:So I'm really, really proud of that awesome well, what were you holding in your focus on those dark days, wet nights, when you're bobbing up and down in the middle there, mate of the well, I learned a valuable lesson that motivation changes and it comes and goes.
Speaker 2:I thought that I would be motivated by helping others right and raising loads of money for charity or whatever. That went after about 24 lesson that motivation changes and it comes and goes. I thought that I would be motivated by helping others right and raising loads of money for charity or whatever. That went. After about 24 hours you become, certainly on your own, debilitated through loneliness, and the longingness to connect to others is visceral. It's like I was talking to anything that moved the stars, the sun, the moon, a bird that flew past a fish I was trying to have that moved the stars, the sun, the moon, a bird that flew past a fish. Like I was trying to have conversations with all these things and I was slowly losing my cognitive ability because we're just not designed to be on our own.
Speaker 2:So the only thing I thought about every single day, particularly on the dark days, was seeing my family again, and you know there's stories I can tell you, like the last 24 hours I rode 22 hours straight to get into Antigua no breaks, no sleep, hardly any food, and seven hours of that was maximum effort row against the northerly wind. Everyone else was on para-anchor and the safety officer said you've got to go on parachute anchor, mike, and just wait. I was like no chance, mate. My family are 30 miles away. I'm going to road on stop till I get there. You know you can do things, and even I didn't think that was possible after 46 days of being battered by the ocean. But you can do anything when you're motivated by something so deep and so intrinsic, and the love and connection for your family, I think, is probably the deepest motivation you'll ever find.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, mate, love it. And you the deepest motivation you'll ever find. Yeah, definitely, mate, love it. And you mentioned earlier that you're potentially thinking about 2026, or was that for the sake of the conversation?
Speaker 2:no, no, no, it's, it's gonna happen. I can't announce it yet because there's a number of individuals that I'm hopefully doing it with um who are pretty well known. So it will be a bit of a big splash when it comes out. But ultimately, again, I think we've got an opportunity to raise multiple millions um for mnd um, and so, working with the leeds rhinos club, I've seen what a few people have done around rob burrow appeal. My name is up in scotland and I want to do something for that and also raise some money for the new children's hospital that's going to be built in leeds. It's going to do something for that and also raise some money for the new children's hospital that's going to be built in Leeds. It's going to be the older hay of the North, but they need 30 million quid to put the bells and whistles on it. So I want to try and raise some money.
Speaker 2:I think if we're going to do that and raise that amount of cash, we've got to do a New York to London route. We've got to finish in London because it needs to be a big fanfare. We need the press down there, the TV, whatever, but that is the world's most dangerous row. So the North Atlantic is not, as you all know, a friendly place, particularly for a rowing boat. But I think sometimes you've got to take calculated risks in the pursuit of helping others, and it's what we're going to do. So the team has agreed, we're all signed up to it, we're ready to go. What we're going to do, so the team has agreed, we're all signed up to it, we're ready to go, but we're just not ready to announce the names of the team yet.
Speaker 1:Fair enough mate.
Speaker 2:We're the first to know we wait with bated breath.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no worries, mate, and yeah, thanks for letting us know that, and as soon as we do know, I'll be happy to do my bit and put that, that information, out there, mate, and hopefully get some support from from the listeners as well. But, mike, we'll start to wrap it up, mate, um, but it's been absolutely brilliant to talk to you, um, to finally get to meet you again, after bumping into each other on camp, or at least seeing each other on camp all those years ago. Um, where can people find out a little bit more about you, um, and what have you got coming up in the in the future, apart from the roommate that we can let people know of?
Speaker 2:so you can find me on instagram at mike bates official. You can find me on linkedin my baits um. You could check out a business that I co-founded last year called next 45. You can see in the description there next45.com, and that is a mission-driven business all around trying to help men navigate midlife.
Speaker 2:So everything we've spoken about today. You know the people who are the worst at this stuff being vulnerable, setting goals, looking at blokes we don't. We don't share how we feel most blokes. So it's trying to create a company, a business that can put on world-class events, create community support for men in midlife who are looking at the next 45 and then just need a little bit of guidance to get there. So you can check that out. You can go to my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Academy, gracie Barra, round a leads and you might see me on the speaker circuit. If you've got a business and you want to hear more from me, I do speak professionally, deliver keynotes around leadership and team and goal setting all around the world. So I'm a busy man, but if anyone I always say this and it sounds like a throwaway comment, but it's not. I genuinely mean it if anyone wants to, if anyone wants or thinks that I could add value to their life. In any way, drop me a dm on instagram and linkedin. I'll get back to you.
Speaker 1:100 awesome mate. Yeah, really appreciate that. Mike, thanks once again for being here, appreciate what you're doing for so many people, both with the charity work for your family, for the, for the businesses that you run, and it's uh, it's a great work, mate. Keep on doing what you're doing. Mate, look after yourself thanks, aaron.
Speaker 2:Live life without limits. Mate, take care.