Kind: captions
Language: en
the famous formula which i'm sure you've
heard of e plus r equals a where e is
the event something happens to you r is
your reaction and o is the outcome and
the only thing that matters is your
reaction to whatever comes up because
you know in life in business stuff's
going to come up at some point you just
don't know what it is and it's all about
your reaction how you deal with that
everybody welcome to impact theory our
goal with this show and company is to
introduce you to the people and ideas
that will help you actually execute on
your dreams
alright today's guest is a successful
entrepreneur adventurer and serial
disrupter who grew up in a tiny fishing
village in england that had a total
population of 35 people despite that he
started his first business when he was
just 14 and by the time he was 16 he was
exporting a half ton of crab to spain
per week since then he's founded several
other successful companies including one
that he sold for a seven figure sum
while sailing on a yacht in the pacific
ocean
but he wasn't sipping martinis and
playing shuffleboard he was in the
middle of a beautiful albeit brutal
journey that would test his courage
leadership and resilience after years of
struggling to save a failing business
and working on a marriage that was
lukewarm at best he realized that he
needed to radically change his life so
he let go of his ego set about building
a business that could thrive without him
and then set sail on a seemingly
impossible trip sailing around the world
with his wife and three children ages
nine seven and two they would ultimately
be at sea for two years circumnavigating
the entire globe one and a half times
while being crammed into their small
boat with limited supplies but not only
did they complete the voyage
successfully the experience was entirely
transformative and laid bare for him the
fundamental truths of effective
leadership since returning these
insights have made him one of the most
sought-after speakers on the subject of
teamwork and leadership and he is
regularly featured in the most
prestigious media outlets in the world
including the wall street journal bbc
the new york post and cnn
so please
help me in welcoming the man who
stitched a gash in his daughter's
forehead with a strand of her own hair
while in the middle of a stormy ocean
the author of where the magic happens
casper craven
excellent well welcome what an
introduction thank you dude what uh an
amazing response to not being satisfied
with your life and the feeling that you
could do more i mean that's really
extraordinary and that's the thing that
uh blew me away with the book with the
speaking that you do
is where this all started
so talk to me about intention okay so
the the whole thing that i wrap this up
in these days is all about the
philosophy and how you think about life
and um it was uh 2009
and my wife and i he you alluded to in
the bit at the top there
our marriage wasn't in the greatest
shape and you know we have arguments
about money not spending enough time
together with the children all those
sorts of things
and we were kind of asking ourselves the
question is this all there is to life
and to the outside world it probably
looked okay you know we had sort of
young family lived outside london
and you know running my own business but
the inside story was very very different
it was difficult and it was painful
and
it all changed it was the 13th of june
when it was actually my brother-in-law
suggested or told us about this family
who sailed around the world and then
went on to say what a ridiculous crazy
idea that was
which it was and um then we basically my
wife and i that was the seed that caught
our imagination
and we said why don't we go and do
something radically different with our
lives
and the idea was crazy back then because
we didn't have the money um we
my wife she'd been on a boat twice and
she'd been seasick both times at that
point
and um yeah we didn't have a boat either
so there were lots of good reasons why
we shouldn't have done it but it was all
about sort of saying
let's do something radically different
with our lives
and i guess the the the whole thing
started with the intentionality of
sitting down
with my wife and we spend a lot of time
listening to each other and saying
what's really important to you
and we created these two different lists
so i visualize it like here's all the
things that was important to me and here
all the things are important to my wife
and we just found where there were
things that were that crossed over we
had an intersection which is my thumbs
here the rest of it we dropped and we
just focused on those few things that we
had in common and then we just created a
different narrative of the future which
was all around only those things that we
shared in common and that was kind of
that that was where it sort of really
started to come to life because when you
talk about things that excite both of
you
then that creates energy whereas before
i've been saying i want to do this
nikola was saying so you want to do this
and you just end up clashing
so it all came with creating a different
story of the future basically one thing
that i find so amazing in that is
getting out of the energy of bickering
and fighting and worrying about money
and all that i know the vibe that that
creates and i know the way that it makes
you come at each other how'd you guys
conceptualize maybe in the beginning
just we need to think about this a
fundamentally different way and instead
of talking about all the things that we
disagree on start talking about that
area about that piece there so what we
would do is we'd get to the weekend we
wait until the kids had gone to bed they
were aged two and four then and we just
asked ourselves the question what's
really important to us in life
and when we started to free flow and let
those questions come out
and i would ask nicola i'd say tell me
everything that's really important to
you and i would write down everything
that she said and then i'd say this is
what i heard
that that process in itself we call that
deep listening i think that's a really
really rare thing that people really sit
down and understand what's important to
your partner that for me was the first
part that started to change our
direction
by really listening to what was going on
so i think that's where it started with
the listening piece deep listening that
that's really strong it actually makes
me want to like go do that with my wife
immediately like that's a real and i
feel like i know my wife but we've
actually never done that where it's like
i write write it down and then say back
this is what i think i understand now it
so
was this all stuff that was coming from
what you were learning about team
building and work and you were bringing
those strategies into that nice so this
same at this stage the business was
still struggling
and we thought well let's create an
exciting narrative for us and the and
what we want for our future because the
previous model of the world that i'd had
had been build a business up sell it get
some money and then go off and have
family time but you know in our
mid-thirties that wasn't working and i
haven't figured out the secret to really
grow a successful business at that stage
so we kind of came at it from a
different angle and said okay well we're
i'm about to lose my marriage unless we
sort something out here so let's pay
attention to that and that just happened
to be the key that unlocks it and that
whole philosophy of putting family first
and then creating the um the businesses
which would support that so the whole
business journey is another one where i
almost broke my business but i'm sure
we'll come on to that um but that um
yeah it's that that piece of the deep
listening that that was really the core
of it
and what was what were things that you
were learning and were the things you
were learning getting you excited
because you could see a shared area of
energy where like i know we'll create a
really cool vibe here if we start
getting amped up about that so
the so go back to when we had that there
were literally only three things that we
shared in common we wanted to go and see
the elephants in africa we want to go
diving on the great barrier reef and we
want to go to carnival and brazil that
was it there wasn't a huge amount to go
right it was three holidays
so basically so we created the narrative
around that
and um yeah we just played with you know
what that might look like and it was
nicola who actually said well why don't
we get a boat and go and sort of join
the dots up by sailing around the world
and that was kind of how it started to
come together but we then um we got a um
a piece of paper it was the headed note
paper for my male business and we
literally wrote out a mission statement
which started in on the 1st of august
2014 was setting sail as a happy
consented family having achieved so much
money and this is how we're going to do
it and also this is what we're going to
do afterwards because this can't just be
a one-time only thing this has to be the
narrative for how your life is going to
continue into the future and we set a
date say the first of august 2014 that
date was literally locked in stone and
you know when we told everybody this
what we're going to do then of course
everybody laughed and said we were crazy
and told us all those reasons that we
couldn't do it
that's crazy and so i've read the letter
which is you actually put a photo of in
your book which i thought was really
cool to see it in your handwriting to
see you guys adjusting words yeah
exactly you see the crits crossed out
which is really cool i loved that and
knowing that you guys hung it up and it
was there for so long
but what i love is the
the tense that it was written in it was
like you had already done it yes and so
that like
that was really interesting to me that
you would choose that to do um we have
left and we have you know made the money
and established the connection as a
couple and i thought that was really
pretty powerful especially if you're
looking at it every day well it's
interesting so one of the influences i
had back then was a book psycho
cybernetics by dr maxwell maltz and
there's the whole um
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process he describes in there the
theater of your minds and literally
every day for the five years after we
created that i would come downstairs 5
30 in the morning and i would sit down
and do 5-10 minutes seeing everything in
the theater of my mind and i would see
us buying the boat i would see us
sailing down the english channel sailing
into the canary islands
i'd see the flags fluttering all the
little the detail bits and pieces um so
yeah that was that was an important part
too it's yeah that's really powerful one
thing i found so interesting in your
story is that you guys had a lot of
naysayers but the way you respond to
them was not what i expected how did you
guys handle naysayers so it's
interesting right so someone gives you
criticism right and they come at you
like this the first reaction is to push
back and you know my experience when you
do that you just end up with an argument
and nobody wins and that's not
particularly helpful
so
um it was helpful by the way in the
process i'm about to describe that it
wasn't just me it was me and my wife
together the whole thing we talk about
we rather than me
so when people told us all the reasons
that we couldn't do it
that you know sometimes those reasons
come across so powerfully they sound
like facts
but they're just opinions
and it's really important to remember
that distinction that they are any
opinions
but whenever someone told us things like
that we didn't dismiss it out of hand
we'd write it down
and then we put that piece of paper to
one side and you know that list that got
got bigger and bigger over time of
course
but because we'd spent that first six
months talking about the vision of where
we were going to go and also the purpose
of why we were doing it which was to
create magical life-changing experiences
for us and our children spend a lot of
time talking about that purpose actually
that
we got so clear on that that that became
this unstoppable momentum that when we
then came back to all those reasons why
not then we could start to work our way
through those methodically
and it's interesting because we have a
saying in our family that if it was down
to me nothing would ever get finished it
was down to my wife nothing would ever
get started so we kind of worked quite
well together as a team
and the
yeah we'd literally take each of those
different areas and say for example one
of the areas was that was medical and we
think okay well how are we going to deal
with this if something happens on the
boat which you mentioned before it did
and
we had to figure out a way to get
comfortable with that
so we both trained to become ships
doctors do the most intense medical
training you can do outside of becoming
a nurse or a doctor and then we always
made sure we knew where there were other
doctors and other medical resources that
we again draw on so rather than being
overwhelmed by this whole list of
reasons we we can't do it then we just
literally worked our way through them
one by one or rather my wife took
control of doing that and figured out
all the detail to it so it's a real team
thing talk to me about your concept of
relentless action that was something
that i found really powerful because
they're
the criticisms like you were saying were
coming you like to choose to believe
that they were coming from a place of
care and which i think is really smart
and so hey they're just worried they
want to voice all the things that they
think maybe we aren't thinking about um
but they had a pretty damn good list of
reasons why you shouldn't like you even
listed them yourself but
one that i've never heard you talk about
but was the one that jumped out at me on
your board was pirates and i thought oh
god like there's a lot of legitimate
stuff to be freaked out about
uh and
like how do you go in and put your plan
of attack together to deal with those
things and um
yeah to to use relentless action to find
solutions to all this yeah i mean the
relentless action for me comes from the
fact that you know that whole thing you
know where you're going you know why
you're going and you are locked into
that
and it's that whole thing you try
something if that doesn't work you try
something else if that doesn't work you
try something else but for me you know
when you make a decision and you say
that is going to happen come hell or
high water you're going to find a way
and you want to say you know you if you
if there's something you want you're
going to find a way or you're going to
find an excuse there's the only two
options right so um the relentless
action piece is yeah that going until
until you find it and you know the
filter that i ran in my mind that people
are just caring about us and it just
sometimes comes out in a funny way that
just made it easier to deal with and you
know think about all those different
issues and the one that i think would be
a great excuse for most people is that
you guys didn't have the money and so
it's the story there's so many
interesting pieces in it that you're a
successful entrepreneur that you're a
disrupter and you know that you've been
active as an entrepreneur since you're
14 and like you hear all the success but
once you
realize that the timing was you guys put
a five-year ticking clock correct you
said it said we have done this as of
this date and
it was a lot of money to get the boat so
how do you like when the business isn't
working and all that i'd love to hear
some of the mechanism of what you did to
the business to actually achieve that
because it's pretty extraordinary once
you have that driving force that you
actually pulled it off it was late um in
and i was feeling the pressure now
because before it was you know it was
five years away and now it's three years
away oh that's suddenly getting closer
right and it's like okay so i've got to
do something different so my mind was
now starting to look out for different
things that i could do
and i came across a guy a guy from the
states i'm dan kennedy and i started
going to his seminars and events
and i went to one at the end of 2011.
and i literally had sort of light bulb
moments going off all inside my head and
so i went back into my business at the
beginning of 2012
and i started implementing like crazy i
was i hired new staff we launched new
products
i was doing all these different
marketing campaigns videos paper copy
newsletters
and literally i was charging through the
business like a man possessed because i
had you know three years to get
everything ready
and we got to the end of quarter one and
my business partner his name's ed took
me to one site and i said casper if you
carry on doing what you're doing every
single person in the business including
me is going to leave
because you are driving us crazy and
you're forcing these ideas on us and
it's all utterly ego driven
and uh you know
slap in the face
it's like okay so there's this thing
that i really really want to make happen
now only two and a half years away and i
realized that i've got to have a
different approach
so
i found this lady called margaret she
became my savior and she was a
leadership training expert
and we did all this stuff drawing
pictures
and
figuring out you know what was my
leadership style and how could i engage
the rest of my team in the business
and
i started to have some light bulb
moments going off at that point about
how do you truly build a team to make
something happen
and taking my ego was out of it was one
part of it another part was getting
really clear on the the vision where
we're going to the purpose why do people
care
a values based approach that was a huge
part of what we did both in the business
and then we'd apply that in the family
as well
and then just finding brilliant people
and building on their strengths and
letting them do what they're amazing at
and this is stuff that you know you know
and lots of other people know out there
but
it was sort of i kind of stuff that i
knew but i wasn't doing it
so
we literally started to put that in
place in the business we did a lot of
work on our values and we agreed our
values as a team and we started to find
ways to bring that into the business
day-to-day and literally that was the
turning point for the business starting
to take off and i think in the next one
12 months that followed that we grew at
the fastest rate we'd ever grown before
we made more profit than the previous
six years combined and literally the
business was just starting to to take
off but it was all just from that
mindset shift of rather than saying it's
about me it's about we and how do we
engage everybody in the team to go and
do that dude i
that i love that
that concept has been transformative for
me as well as an entrepreneur um give us
some detail about the being a values
driven organization or family what that
means like what's that process okay we
got creative and we got magazines out
and
we got nice food and drinks in and we
still we started to say you know what
values
are the things that we want to feel
proud of of how we show up in our
business and literally we had a small
team of 10 12 people and we engaged
everybody in that debate around one of
these values
and then we distilled it down to a
shorter list and then it came down to
six values
we created a picture to symbolize all
the values so it's a picture of a lion
so courage was one of the core values
but we also spent a lot of time saying
what is it that we do when we
demonstrate this value at its very best
because if i say the word courage and i
ask 10 different people what that means
i'll get 10 different answers so it's
creating that shared understanding
so that was the first piece
then the next piece
was making sure that lived inside the
business which very simply i get all the
team together we do a weekly scrum on a
monday morning we talk about our
priorities
and then i would just um call out two
people and i'd talk about specific
actions that i'd seen someone do and i
give out bars of chocolate candy bars
and then i got other people in the
business to start to spot and hand out
the values prizes so i'm training people
to look for what's right
because you know that whole thing you
know our brains are hardwired and
trained to look for what's wrong and in
terms of growing people i don't think
that really helps it's that whole thing
about building on people's strengths so
the values framework provided us that
conversation around building on people's
strengths and what's fascinating so that
was a key part in transforming the
business there's a famous formula which
i'm sure you've heard of that e plus r
equals o where e is the event something
happens to you r is your reaction and o
is the outcome and the only thing that
matters is your reaction to whatever
comes up because you know in life in
business stuff's going to come up at
some point you just don't know what it
is and it's all about your reaction how
you deal with that so
yeah that that's a
amazingly powerful math equation and
really makes me think about your
marriage and this i think is
this was so beautiful to me in your
story
because okay the event is sort of like
life isn't as fun as i thought it would
be which is like that insidious it's so
like you described it perfectly you said
it's like 60 degrees it's not overly
warm it's not too cold so you just sort
of settle in there and the insidious
nature of how quietly that can just take
over your life so that's the event right
now most people's reaction to that is
essentially nothing to just
lay helplessly in the frustration but
your guys's reaction wasn't divorce it
wasn't um to scream and yell it was to
go hey we want something better and to
build this shared vision what was it
about coming together on a boat in in
difficult situations like you guys knew
what you were in for you've done this
before by yourself or with the team but
not your family so you know what's
coming you know it's going to be hard
it's a little bit like a fox whole life
and but i see the images you guys took
where your wife looks giddy as you guys
are planning everything and she gets
seasick so like i can feel the two of
you knowing that there's gonna be
something about
the proximity or something that is gonna
help us with these issues so what was it
like why was that such a beautiful
magical time when it sounds just kind of
dangerous and cramped and lonely
what a great question
the essence of that for me was the whole
thing about truly working together as a
team
and appreciating the strengths each
person brings to it and i joked before
about you know it was down to me nothing
would ever get finished that's nicely
nothing we haven't started and then
brought that deep appreciation of each
other but also being on the boat as well
there's that reliance on each other that
deep reliance
and um you know it's that uh whole thing
that you know when you're facing
adversity that does bring you closer
together and i'm glad you mentioned the
bit about the the 60 degrees
because
um you know that's i think yeah where we
were before and we did all the screaming
and shouting and all that sort of stuff
but it doesn't do any good because
nobody's listening and nobody cares
right so you come back to us like well
okay if i want something different for
my life if i want more for my life then
i've got to take control of this
together and i think now one of the the
sentences my wife always says is that
most people end up living one centimeter
away from their own faces
and you're just caught up in the here
and now and you don't take that time to
imagine and dream and create a more
exciting story i mean literally that
story was the thing that just pulled us
out there into the future that was the
essence of this dude that's a pretty rad
r like that is a great way to react to
this scenario and for me was the part
that was
the intoxicant that that pulled me into
your world
and
hearing you talk about one day
one day you said i've had countless
conversations with people where the
answer is one day
what what is that conversation
so the whole thing you know you meet so
many people one day i will go and do
this one day i will go and get that
beach bar in the caribbean one day i
will get fit whatever it is
and
it reminds me of when i was building my
business before i'm building a business
and in five years time i'll sell it
but no matter how close i got to it it
was always still five years away and so
the essence of that is putting that date
in the diary and making that firm
decision
that is going to happen
and there's no two ways about it
so
that's that that was literally the thing
that changed it also talk to me about
clarity
like how important is clarity do you
encounter that i know you do workshops
and stuff do you encounter that a lot
with the people that come to you that
they just don't really know what they
want
yes that's a huge thing and you know
let's talk about when we came up with
that vision we didn't just sit down one
weekend and like there we go we created
a piece of paper it took us six months
to create that and a large part of that
is you ask yourself the question and
your conscious mind will throw out half
a dozen things
but what i'm really interested in is the
stuff that comes out of your
subconscious mind the stuff that's been
buried over time because that whole
thing you know you ask people you know
what what's happiness to you or what do
you really want to do well i don't know
and
so it's investing the time to go deep
into that process and understand
what it is and uncover those things not
just for you but for your partner as
well
so it's just finding a different thing
and
yeah challenging the norm and just sort
of finding your own path
that's really incredible
so you've really become known for your
ability to build strong teams and
leadership and i know you give a whole
talk about um the eight like
cornerstones of leadership what are they
how can people really build that into
their own lives okay so i always think
that the things that will make you
thrive in business
are exactly the same things that will
make you thrive in a family but it's
having a really clear vision of where
you're going to
it's knowing why that's so important to
you and the reason why when you get
knocked down when everything fails when
my business partner everybody threatened
to walk out it's like i've got a really
strong reason to make this work so i'm
going to get back up together and and
make it make it work together
the whole piece is about relentless
action and you go until you sort of you
know find the way
there's a lot in there as well about not
waiting for perfect you mentioned why
people don't often do things i think
that's a big one because i think this
whole concept of perfection for me is
such a dangerous
concept because people wait until
everything is perfect before they can
move forwards so when we left um the uk
our boat was not perfect we only bought
it 10 weeks before we left and um that
that was that was a short that was a
short period of time and
when we when we did slip lines and leave
southampton you know one of the toilets
wasn't working and there were a few
problems with the boats
but we asked ourselves two questions
one have we got a good safe boat and all
the fundamental things work
yes
two do we trust ourselves that we'll be
able to figure out the answer to
whatever it is that comes up
and we could answer yes to both those
questions so it's like right that's it
we're going to get going
i've got friends who've got boats who
are going to go sailing around the world
at the same time as we were they're
still in england they haven't left
because they are waiting for perfect it
doesn't exist
another one is a happy team is a fast
team
you get people in roles that they love
doing where they're thriving where they
feel fulfilled then you'll go fast that
was what we did in the business and that
was what we did on the boat as well so
that's a really important one about
getting people in the right roles
emotional resilience is another one
about you know that living your values
and how you deal with stuff when it
comes up and also massively overlooked
when everyone talks about this but the
whole power of celebration and whenever
we had small victories we would
celebrate those because small victories
lead to big victories so it's just
creating that winning habit
so
yeah those are pretty much the lessons
that i share with people both in
families and business same principles
that's really strong so as you're
building out these teams and you're
getting people moving and you're
realizing that there's a level of
happiness that um is bringing everybody
together going back to the business
world like how do you begin to scale
that like how do you take that culture
and pass it on so that you can leave
yeah
i asked myself the question
how can i create a business that can run
without me
and
that
question
led me to the the path of again taking
my ego out of it but making myself
redundant from the business
and i always think that's relatively
easy to find people who are better than
i am in every single role that i can go
into
so you know very humble about that there
are some very very talented people out
there and um it's just finding people
yeah better than me and my piece i guess
was
helping to set that fabric of the
culture of the direction of the purpose
and getting people to do that because i
mean those are the perfect teams right
you talked about essentially getting out
from under your own ego that your ego
was holding you back that the running
the company was um coming from that
place how did you get out from under it
how did you
still get pride in yourself like what
was it like to navigate that
great question as well
the
um
the first point of how i got out of my
own ego
was the rational thoughts that if i
didn't we weren't going to be getting on
the boats so it's that whole thing you
know have you got enough leverage on on
yourself to be able to uh to make a
difference so talking about leverage i
think that's really interesting and i
really hope people at home are listening
because this to me is is the difference
between people that go on to do the
things that they want and the people
that go on to one more or you know one
day one day one day
how did you create that leverage because
you didn't start with it so how did you
turn that um
i know you're a fan of tony robbins so
i'll use his language
how how did you turn that want into a
need
i mean it all just comes back to that
fundamental thing that this has to
happen and the thing that's standing in
the way is me dan kennedy used to have a
great saying which is you know you've
got to get out of your own way and
that whole thing with um yeah turning
that want into the need
that needs to happen otherwise the whole
thing is just
it's not gonna work otherwise and was
part of it sitting down so i'm imagining
it you've got the thing you guys
actually put it up on your wall the
mission statement is shared you can feel
that like my marriage is actually
getting better we're connected we're
excited we've changed the energy of the
way that we talk
and so
was there anything that was like i just
want to keep doing this like the process
the planning the like and that in
emotionally investing in that did it
begin to escalate in your mind and
importance
so what was interesting i mean through
that whole process of consistently doing
that i mean there were times when it was
tough and you didn't feel like doing it
and i kind of painted the picture it's
like you know five years and it was all
plain sailing but you know we had our
sort of you know moments of ups and
downs and it's funny
we ran a workshop um
a few weeks ago and we brought out for
the people we actually rented our home
and we brought out this map of the world
and someone said why is that map all
sort of crunched up
and it's like i had to confess that i
remember getting to a point of like
extreme frustration and like nothing was
working
but then like three hours later it's
like hey tape it back up together and
put it back up on the wall and uh okay
we're carrying on again um so you know
they were definitely sort of yeah more
challenging points in the journey and
you've got to put i i love that i think
that's really useful for people to
understand like because the relentless
action which is definitely my favorite
phrase that you have relentless action
doesn't mean that it isn't going to get
frustrating and hard and sometimes when
you're like i don't see a way out
do you have a process for when i don't
see a way out
how do you keep moving
the thing that i've learned
whenever i get to a point where i don't
know the answer i feel the frustration
building up in me
coming down off the wall that sort of
stuff
i now know that's a trigger i've got to
go and learn something
that's interesting so i've got to go out
and find the very smartest person that i
can to help me get through whatever it
is that i'm facing because i know
whatever i'm looking at someone will
have faced that before you've talked
about what you call breakthrough
thinking
what is breakthrough thinking how can i
build that into my life
so
for me that it's the
the philosophical
shift when you say
i don't know the answers to this
i've got to go and find a someone who is
doing something that's radically
different to me
and then i've got to change the way that
i look at this so i guess my my favorite
example of this is this whole thing of
family first
that was our first piece of breakthrough
thinking because before it had always
been business first make money then go
and do family stuff and it was literally
turning life on its head and saying
family first so for me that's an example
of breakthrough thinking it just yeah
just approaching stuff in a different
way another one would be that whole
thing of the criticism rather than
responding to it like being like this
it's like okay let's just sit back for
this moment and think about this how do
we how do we take a different approach
to it
no that makes a ton of sense so i'm
going to ask the question that i would
have been curious to know had i met you
as you were about to embark on this and
i think is what made me like this story
so much is i don't have a good answer to
this
how did you face that this is dangerous
and you're gonna take a two-year-old out
into the ocean like that's that's one of
those that like you hear about somebody
else doing it and your stomach drops was
that just a non-issue for you because
you've sailed so much you know that it's
all you know they're hard waters but
they're navigable ultimately um or was
it like some things are just important
enough to take risks so
it's definitely not the last one um
so it's interesting so when um
people hear the story there's the the
first reaction is usually you must be
utterly insane to take a two-year-old on
a boat around the world i get it i get
it
um so when that we did we took nothing
lightly at all and
our approach
was
this huge level of rigorous planning
thinking through every single risk and
how do we mitigate that
so for the last um i don't know 18
months or so before we left whenever you
saw my wife nicola underneath her arm
would be this huge folder and there'd be
detailed spreadsheets literally going
through every single thing we could
think of so the medical training is one
example the homeschooling was another
example and not only that
we went and
found communities
of sailors who had done similar things
before and we went and said how did you
manage these risks what did you do
learning seems to be a big part of the
adventure and i was wondering if so
i was really really hardcore about
learning greek for a while because my
wife and i had planned to have kids at
the time and so i really wanted because
she speaks greek fluently so i wanted to
be able to speak greek fluently so we
could teach to our kids and she just
this weekend was lamenting that we
weren't practicing greek anymore but the
punchline was she wasn't really bothered
to do it anymore because it no longer
had like that driving purpose
and was was that part of and i asked
this question because i think there are
people out there listening right now
they're one one dayers right like that
one day one day and if they understood
how many little things in this that it
would affect their life and for the
better was there something to having
that driving purpose that gave learning
like such intensity that the learning
itself became fun and addictive and you
really leaned into it
totally i mean that's yeah so
again driving force date in the diary
that's the vision that's the purpose
that's why we're going to go and do it
we did get addicted on learning what was
interesting as well is the the whole
side of um home schooling as well on the
boats so um
when we um left we had the boat loaded
up with um all the curriculum books from
from the schools
and i remember about um three months in
as we're sailing down the european coast
and i'm sitting there with my son called
columbus and trying to teach him about
the kings and queens of england
and i come down after an hour and
there's this sort of glaring sheet of
blank paper and the pen has not moved
and he's not even remotely interested in
anything going on with kings and queens
of england
so i said to him it's like what are you
interested in
so he said i'm really interested in
fishing so i said okay
so
we then got all the fishing books out
and he started reading about all the
different fish and the different oceans
and how to catch them and so on so now
his reading is starting to move forward
at a good speed
we then start catching fish so we're
catching these great big yellow fin tuna
and mahi mahis
so now he start we start to dissect them
so we're learning biology he's now
writing in his journal and he's wearing
them he's measuring them and drawing his
beautiful pictures saying well because
it's and then it led him to setting up a
business making and selling fishing
lures and advice sheets so we get to an
anchorage he's going around in the
dinghy going around to all the other
boats and said you want to buy fishing
lures so what was fascinating is we just
took something that he was really
passionate about
and we just went deep into that and that
led him to
literally every single subject to
literacy to numeracy to business to
science so that whole approach to
learning and finding those things they
were saying that set your soul on fire
that excite you that make you curious
and want to learn more find those things
and i think you know there's this
fundamental issues with our current
education system um and i think you know
that the skills that our children of the
future need are very different to the
ones we've had in the past and i think
the secret part of the secret
is finding what each person is
passionate about because they'll learn
his columbus learning rate literally
went through the roof when we did that
so that whole learning thing is really
really cool to us yeah that's super cool
so in the book you you do like call outs
uh skippers learnings lessons
what are some of the like really key
lessons that have have been
transformative for you for your family
um
i think the whole thing about the we
not me
is being a really key one learning to
appreciate the strengths
of the people around you
and getting them to do
what
they are brilliant at doing
i love the whole thing about you know
there's one or two things we're
extraordinary at and oftentimes you
don't realize what they are because you
do them so innately
so it's being more of what you are
really good at
so it's getting in your own zone and
doing the things that ignite you so i
think that's probably a big one and um i
think yeah the other thing is yeah that
shared narrative that shared story
that's literally where it starts
creating an exciting story of the future
that's the big one i love that all right
before i ask my last question where can
these guys find you online okay so my
name's casper craven um there's any one
of me out there so caspercraven.com
facebook twitter linkedin all those
things said so yeah and it's a superhero
name so
[Laughter]
my last question what is the impact that
you want to have on the world okay
so
the impact that i would love i would
love to give both practical advice and
inspiration to millions of people all
over the world
to grab hold of life
and say
what's really important to me
and my family
create that exciting story and then
reverse engineer your life to meet your
family goals nobody ever gets to their
end of the days and says you know i wish
i'd done this it's always all about
family put family first
work together as a team and be brave
step outside your comfort zone and go
make that family story happen so that's
my personal mission and you know
every week i get these amazing messages
from people saying that the impact our
story has had on them and i've become
utterly addicted to that i was when i
came back i started doing other
businesses
and i've kind of parked all of that
because this is the most exciting thing
that i have ever done having an impact
on other people and getting them to grab
hold of life and say what's really
important to you and your family i love
that casper thank you so much for coming
on the show man that was incredible
thank you
really incredible
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