Speaker 1: 0:21

Hey, we're going live in just a couple seconds here with Neil Peterson. He is like a world-renowned unstoppable mindset motivational speaker. He's traveled the world on a boat and he has so many stories and motivational things. I'm so excited to interview him. Just hang out for a few seconds. We'll be you next time. Thank you, welcome to the Never Been Promoted podcast and YouTube channel. I'm on a mission to help you cut the time to all the things that are holding you back, so you can. Your host. Hey, welcome to Never Been Promoted. I'm Thomas Selfrick, your host.

Speaker 1: 2:26

We are live again today with a fantastically fun and awesome guest, neil Peterson. He is. He's overcome giant storms and all over the world on a boat. He has traveled the world speaking on motivations and how to have this unstoppable mindset. He's a big deal and he probably spends more in maintenance on a boat than most of us make in a year, so he knows what the hell he's doing to make some cash speaking and he's going to talk about how to get that mindset to become awesome in the world. He's joining us from an island today and so, as you guys are watching, if there's a small lag, it's not because we've not done this before. It's because he can be on an island, because he chooses to, just so you know, it's the internet on the island. The only thing sketchier than internet on an island is probably some local government, but we're not going to talk about that today, all right, so we're going to bring Neil here in a second.

Speaker 1: 3:12

First shameless plug time. Please, youtubecom at Never Been Promoted. Give it a subscribe, give it a follow and if you listen to this, take two seconds. I can do the five-star review. It really means a lot to the community, to the guests and to what we're trying to do to help entrepreneurs cut that tie, all that shit holding them back, so they can really unleash their entrepreneur. So enough shameless promotion, let's bring in Mr Neal to the stage. Neal, how are you?

Speaker 2: 3:36

Hey, great Thomas, Great to be connecting.

Speaker 1: 3:43

Coming to you, live from the Dominican Republic, up in the mountains. It's not remote, because there's remoter places in the world, but for most people that's pretty remote, but for you, I'm sure you're like no, no, no, middle of the Pacific in the storm, middle of the Southern Ocean yes, coming in via satellite, or being in Haiti in the middle of a mountain where you don't even have a tower, but you know what?

Speaker 2: 4:02

Today, we are so interconnected it's really it's a luxury to disconnect.

Speaker 1: 4:09

Right, you know I will take that business idea offline with you later, but that is I said. I think people will pay for a weekend of disconnection more than they will ever do anything in the future, like a weekend where you're, like required to check your phone into a box and you were. There's no wifi, no TVs, no technology in the place. You were only there to with a book and your own thoughts. Would be a good thing.

Speaker 2: 4:30

You know, this is the beauty of where I've chosen. My wife and I have chosen to live. We built this home. We bought a really an old cow field, a degraded cow field, and it had two trees, it had a pine tree and it had a palm tree. And I created over 13 years. I created not just a home and not just a garden, but also a lifestyle, as a reward for all the travel, all the success we've been able to achieve, where, again, we had that luxury of choosing who do we spend our time with, how do we enjoy the quality of life and how do we disconnect from an extremely busy world. And then I can just jump on a plane and in an hour drive to the airport, 90 minutes, I'm in Miami. I can be in the middle of the hustle and bustle of whatever, but just being able to have those options, to have those choices, that to me has become true wealth.

Speaker 1: 5:25

Just to be able to have those options, to have those choices. That to me has become true wealth. It is and we're going to get into your story for sure. You know you're quite like in the motivational speaking world. I mean you're a big deal Like you have done it. You've spoken about everywhere, for governments or anywhere. Can you talk about, just maybe start with the four intents of like, who you are, what you are today, and just back up, take the floor and talk about your journey, a bit of how you got there, find some reflective moments, but just set us up for you, for who you are.

Speaker 2: 5:55

I've had an incredible opportunity of being on stage for a very, very long time. We fled South Africa when I was nine and went to England. My mother was a political activist and she spoke at all kinds of rallies, and when I came back from that trip to South Africa, my class teacher would say hey, neil, share your story, share your experiences of your travels in Europe with the class. And that's how I got into being a speaker. And I've been so privileged to work with some incredible corporations. Ibm had me on one of their stages some years ago 10,000 people and it was just an amazing energy. And I was just off the stage a few minutes. We were into the book signing. People were lining up 90 minutes in line to get a signed book and after a while the meeting planner came up and said hey, nobody's going to the next session. People are so into what you shared that we don't know what to do. And, by the way, can you be in Barcelona in four days' time to open up the sister conference? We're retooling that conference because my CEO wants you to open.

Speaker 2: 7:02

So I've had this incredible opportunity, from small stages to mega stages and to work with some of the most incredible leaders and to be able to sit at the head table and to argue about policy, to talk about the interaction of adventure and global politics and around a climate impact and what's going to be our legacy. You know this is hard to fathom that a boy from Cape Town who could not walk, who was born disabled, who grew up in apartheid, is on the wrong side of the color line in segregation, grew up in poverty, can now today, work with world leaders, work with presidents and prime ministers of countries, work with the CEOs of big conglomerates and say here's what you got right, here's what you got wrong, here's what the future looks like, here's what you got to do to be able to create a much broader legacy that lifts all people up. And it's a privilege, it's an honor, but also comes with tremendous responsibility and we must not forget who do we serve.

Speaker 1: 8:10

Was that a question to me? Because we serve, I mean that could be a loaded question. We could talk about God, we can talk to ourselves, we could talk to our kids. We serve others.

Speaker 2: 8:18

That's right.

Speaker 1: 8:20

There's some larger concepts there. We may have to go down, but there's all those yes, and so people look go down, but there's all those yes.

Speaker 2: 8:25

And so people look and say, wow, you became an instant success. But it took decades to get here and it took courage to walk onto those stages and to say this is who I am and to be vulnerable and not everybody is going to like what you have to say, and I'm very honest on that stage about the things that I like and I don't like. I have absolutely no patience for disrespect. I've got no patience for people who cannot see there is a big world and they can be a part of a bigger world versus just a small, isolated community. And I really feel that we, as mankind, we can do better. And so when I stand on that stage, I feel I have a responsibility to my planet. I have a responsibility to my fellow human beings. I have a responsibility to life. To take the story of where I've come from to what can we make the world look like and who are we going to really truly pick up and serve in this world? And to use our skills, to use our experiences, our relationships, not just for our own benefit but for the benefit of future generations too. So that's what I'm excited about every day. And then I get to jump off the jet, jump off the plane, come home to this incredible estate where I have a totally different life. And then I get to jump off the jet, jump off the plane, come home to this incredible estate where I have a totally different life, and so we can break life into three parts past, present and future. And so that background of the past growing up in apartheid, south Africa, not being able to walk, laying in a hospital bed in a body cast from my ankle to my chest, and a doctor asking me they're depressed, what are you interested in?

Speaker 2: 10:10

And I said boats, because my father had been at sea as a diver. He loved the sea but he was an alcoholic, and so he gave me the love of the sea but taught me the responsibility of being responsible. My mother's a school teacher and she opened up that world of be curious, be hungry to learn, to improve yourself. And so, with that combination of two parents who basically said you can do anything, you can be anybody, you can achieve anything you want, but you've got to be willing to work hard, you've got to be willing to sacrifice. And so I went to the yacht club and I knocked on the hulls and I asked people to take me sailing and I got rejection after rejection. Did you know, thomas, when you're a kid, you don't see rejection. What you see is the end result. I want to be on that boat and that passion is so powerful that it doesn't matter what anybody else says. You keep focused on that future. You keep Uh-oh, did we lose the connection?

Speaker 1: 11:13

Nope, we're good. I think the connection's solid, unless we've lost it. I'm focused right now on the connection of the internet. We may have lost him temporarily. He may be coming back in. We'll see if he comes back in here.

Speaker 1: 11:37

This is Island Life people. So if you're listening to the podcast or watching right now, the fact that you could live on a mountain, on an estate, it has luxuries, but the downside is the internet's. The internet's not great. So but, uh, when neil gets back on here we'll jump back in the conversation. You know, I think one thing he's he's talking about um that I'll bring up here when he comes up again. I think it's amazing is how, uh he came from such me you know, meek beginnings and he needs in his, in his story. If you and if you go to the Neil uh Peterson, p E T E R S E Ncom, you there's, look at what his he's accomplished in a lifetime and what I think is and we're going to get into here in the conversation a little bit his mindset of how he's done. It has been truly unbelievable. So he's, you know, he's accomplished lots of amazing things without a financial beginning.

Speaker 1: 12:31

I'm talking about your background a little bit and so like just just hearing that you know you came from such meek, you know beginnings and for those listening Neil just got back on from you know the problems of, by the way of, wealth, right, it's not always internet works Just want you to know that that that's a good problem to have and you can choose to be like I don't care if the internet works.

Speaker 1: 12:47

I don't really have to be here if I want to. But I said your meek beginnings and unstoppable mindset, but a lot of kids in your spot just to kind of take that, without a good mindset and it's not like you said, your dad had problems with alcohol and things and positive mindset and it's not like you know. It's like you said your dad had problems with alcohol and things and your mom's not like a very good influence, um, as well, but before you. But if you always have the positive mindset, a lot of kids in your spot give up. A lot of kids like don't make it so. So tell me what the difference is for you and or, if you've, if you've reflected enough to know those pinpointed things that this, this and this were really the things that I know, I think, uh, the first.

Speaker 2: 13:22

I think, firstly, there's something in it when you have not been given everything, you appreciate what you have. And today's world people are given so much and they want it instantly. They don't have to work as hard as other generations or other socioeconomic groups. So getting things easy in a way weakens you. And then, having a mother who was an educator, my mother valued education. She graduated from Syracuse University in Upset, new York. She went by steamship from South Africa to Syracuse, new York to Syracuse, and graduated in 1948. She understood the value of education and that is what she instilled in me as well was it doesn't matter how you learn, doesn't matter where you learn, it doesn't matter who you learn from. Most important part is you must learn, you must be hungry to look for a better world, a better life. So that was instilled at me from the beginning. And I see that in so many other folks who had so little, but they also had that strong person who encouraged them, who said don't give up, doesn't matter how hard it is, keep getting up. And so those relationships of who you choose to be around become so critical. And I've got no time to be around those naysayers, those folks who say, oh, life is hard, oh, it's somebody else's fault, it's not my fault, somebody's taking my job. I've got no patience for that crap. And it's about again.

Speaker 2: 15:01

Those folks who get up in the morning and say, yes, there's going to be challenges and yes, I'm going to get knocked down, but guess what? I'm going to get through the day. And as a sailor, if I think about every risk I'm taking when I cut the ties to that dock line not this tie, but that dock line tie and I'm going to sail into that blue yonder, I'm going to encounter bad weather, I'm going to encounter fatigue, I'm going to encounter equipment failure and I'm going to counter things beyond my imagination. If I think of every problem I could face, I would never leave the dock. But what I have to do is I have to trust my vessel. I have to trust my skills, the skills that I honed as I got that vessel ready, that planning, that preparation in order to achieve that execution. And then that trust that I'm going to be okay, no matter what happens out there. I'm a survivor, I'm a winner. That's the mental side.

Speaker 2: 16:04

And when that storm comes, I can't say, hey, storm all stop. I'm a winner. That's the mental side. And when that storm comes I can't say, hey, storm, all stop, I'm not ready for you. I've got to shorten my sails, I've got to alter my course, batten down my hatches and ride through it until those storm winds blow over. Protect my boat, protect my life, so I can survive another day. And that is how I live every day. That's how I look at business, how I look at politics, how I look at relationships. It's always going to be a storm. How do you adapt to the environment? And then there are those most amazing moments, those sunrises or sunsets, those rainbows at sea, those landfalls, and very quickly we forget about the storms and we think, wow, look, what I've just experienced, look where I've just come from, and come to the journey. And, thomas, that is why I take the risks, I calculate the risks and I say it's absolutely worth it. Every day is worth it.

Speaker 1: 17:08

Man, let me ask something. Just come back to a metaphor of sailing and leave the dock. How many sailing trips have you been on in your life? Just estimate it.

Speaker 2: 17:20

Well, two years ago I did my 20th Atlantic Crossing. So I've got two boats. So I've got the boat I designed and built to go racing and I did three transatlantic races solo, a bunch of full crew races, and then I did two. I entered two solo around the world yacht races. Now, I never planned to do more than one race in this boat that I got. I thought that you know what? I'm going to become a successful sailor, I'm going to raise sponsorship and I'm going to have a big corporation and a big team because what I'm doing is I'm breaking barriers and people are going to jump on board.

Speaker 2: 18:03

Well, that didn't happen. So I was given a choice and this African media, one of the biggest newspapers of the country. They looked at my boat, they looked at my skills when I was a 22-year-old dreaming of these races, and the yachting community nicknamed my boat the Floating Coffin and the front page of the newspaper was Peterson Sails Floating sales, floating coffin. Well, the irony is that one of my best friends today owns the newspaper and we will do a story someday of the floating coffin, along with economic and political inspiration of where that coffin took me, how I buried my critics.

Speaker 1: 18:43

It would be funny if they give you a 30-year uh retraction hey, 30 years ago and they give you a retraction on a 30 for a page.

Speaker 2: 18:52

But but again, sort of so. So a lot of races and I went up against the world's best sailors. I went up against highly sponsored, multi-million dollar campaigns. What I spent in my racing career was a suit of sails. For some of the racing teams just one suit of sails, and they change sails halfway around the world. So two suits of sails in one in one round.

Speaker 2: 19:17

The world race was my entire career and you know what? That 27,000 mile round the world race. That last race I beat some of the top sailors because I finished. Many of them sank, broke equipment and dropped out or just became so disheartened by the conditions they just couldn't plug through. I raced the smallest boat.

Speaker 2: 19:41

I modified my boat into that race because that passion and the power of that dream was so strong and I may be alone on the boat when I'm out there racing. But I also built an incredible support team of volunteers. I had to give people a reason to come and be a part of my crew. My team to help me get to that start line, and thousands of people volunteered. Team to help me get to that start line, and thousands of people volunteered. Thousands of people made sacrifices to help me race around the world and I was able to beat some of the top, highly funded, highly regarded sailors, because what they didn't have was the same size of heart and I had over a thousand beating hearts combined to get me through some of those tough days.

Speaker 1: 20:29

You have a couple of themes that I noticed here. One is I say this a lot, but there's two things. One you're 100% accountable for your success or failure. So you look at it I think, in similar terms to how I look at it, where it's on you to be success, to succeed or fail, and if your mindset is one that I will succeed, then the volunteers and people get behind you on that. If your mindset is of scarcity and negativity, people aren't getting behind that and you will probably fail, and that's going to be yours.

Speaker 1: 21:00

The other is it sounds like you do the little things great, which helps you accomplish the big things really, really well. And so from the, from the metaphor sailing, you know I'm not saying you have a life vest on the whole time, but you know when to put a life vest on, when you're like, hey, that that water looks dark up there, it might be some wind, we don't know Right, or oh, there's a blue whale kind of breaching near me. Maybe I'll pop it on just in case they hit my boat right, whatever it is.

Speaker 2: 21:27

Well, that's not actually the problem, it's it's in the 1996 transatlantic race, in thick fog, I got hit by a russian freighter and I had a huge hold on the boat and I was sinking and I thought, oh gee, sort of like this is over, and, as I like, bounced around the transom of the ship and I called, called them on the radio to say hey, all stop, you've just hit me. And the first words of the watch officer was hold on, let me turn on my radar. They weren't even running with radar in the fog and my radar failed to detect them. And I was given a choice at that moment, a choice to abandon the boat and climb onto the freighter. And that was a very viable choice because I was taking literally thousands of gallons of water an hour. But instead I chose to fit a pump and to go to where that damage was and try to do the best to slow down. I couldn't stop the water coming in, but to slow down the flow of the water and then physically man the pump. And I spent pumping for 15 to 20 minutes Every hour, 24 times a day. I went to that pump. My muscles were screaming at me, I was in pain. I was developing new muscles in places I didn't even know muscles existed. I did that for 15 days because I had no choice. I wasn't going to allow that boat. That was my home, that was everything I owned in the world, that was part of my soul and my spirit. I was not going to allow that boat to sink. And that again is that total mindset that when you go to something you're going to face a challenge. But are you willing to just throw your hands up and walk away or are you willing to fight for what truly matters?

Speaker 2: 23:09

In my first around the world yacht race very severe storm I'm knocked down, capsized, the mast breaks and I've got a choice. Do I continue on to Australia, almost 6,000 miles in front of me, with more storms ahead, or do I turn around and sail back under what's called a jewelry rig, a piece of a mast, like a wreck? Do I sail back 1,800 miles back to South Africa? If I sail back to South Africa, my critics are going to have a field day. They're going to have a field day telling me the floating coffin look, it almost killed. You. Give up the floating coffin. You should never have been out there in the first place, and the prudent seamanship decision was to turn back, not to continue and endanger my life and possibly endanger other people's lives because I made a mistake. So you've got to be able to calculate that ego in that risk factor and say, hey, I'm going to be crucified for doing the right thing, but you know what it's the right thing to do and I'm going to take my licks. And this is also how you build respect. And so I got a new mask back in South Africa.

Speaker 2: 24:19

It was not easy and I had to make a hard decision. Do I now try and regain, rejoin the fleet and basically just go around the world? For the sake of now? I'm going to just cruise around the world because I will never catch up to the fleet, but I'll finish the race maybe. But then I do the calculation, the mathematics, the climatology, geography, from South Africa to Australia, australia, across the Pacific Ocean to Cape Horn. I ran those numbers. I know the average speed of my boat so I can predict when I will get where, so I know the location of the hazards and I laid that data on top of the climatology what kind of weather conditions will I encounter? And I realized that I'm going to get to Cape Horn in the middle of winter and normal conditions are hurricane force.

Speaker 2: 25:15

And now you ask that question Are you suicidal or are you calculating risk taker? And I'm not suicidal, I'm a risk taker and I'm not suicidal. I'm a risk taker. So the right decision retire from the race, live, protect the asset, protect the resources and then come back another day stronger, better prepared and do it again. And that's how I've taken my risks in investing.

Speaker 2: 25:42

I've taken my risks in building my businesses and, yeah, we all make mistakes. I've invested with people who've lost my money and cost me a lot of money. I've lost, in some cases, a lifetime of earnings to what some people make in some parts of the world. But you know what. You get up again. You take those licks and you say, okay, I trust the wrong people, I partnered with the wrong people, I didn't pay attention to the right aspects of the market. Now I'm not going to just stop trying to build a business. I'm going to be more selective on how much I can control versus what is outside of my control. So now, how do I improve my odds to be successful? By the choices that I have to make, the data I have to process, the relationship I have to foster, and then you go back out there and you do it and you get those home runs and you have the successes. But then you have to ask yourself the question also what is success?

Speaker 1: 26:43

Well, how do you define it?

Speaker 2: 26:44

right how do you define that? And some persons just getting up in the morning and surviving the night. If I look at what's happening in Ukraine, I look at what's happening in Gaza, there are people who are not going to wake up tomorrow morning. They're going to lose everything. They're going to lose everything. They're going to lose their loved ones. They may even lose their life.

Speaker 2: 27:07

I look at what's happening in climate mitigation, the storms that are hitting and I've gone through a category five hurricane and I know it's like to be absolutely fearful of the forces of mother nature. We are not guaranteed to get up every morning. We are guaranteed to see every sunset and, you know, one day we are going to leave this planet, one day we're going to perish. We are not guaranteed life forever, but it's what we do from the time we are born to the time we take that last breath. That is is what matters is how we use our time. So to me, the most valuable commodity is my time. I can't lose time because I can't buy time. I can't trade time for somebody else, so I value my time and the people around me, their time, to maximize what is important. The part of their success is that time management and the opportunity management and to be grateful for what you have.

Speaker 2: 28:12

And then that brings you to another question how much is enough? And you come to a point in the yacht racing arena and says you know, every time I go out there I take a big risk. I'm going to come home. I've lost five friends racing yachts, including my mentor. He died at sea. Harry Mitchell, that is the risk we pay with our lives when things go wrong, when we can't recover from circumstances. Recover from circumstances. We just recently saw a mega storm in the Mediterranean sink. A $30 million mega sailboat with a couple of billionaires on board. They have all the money in the world, but Mother Nature said ah, your time is up, it's over. So again, that question is how do we say how much is enough? When do we move on to something else? And that becomes another wonderful part of the journey of life, the journey of economics is to be grateful and to be satisfied and to count those blessings.

Speaker 1: 29:16

So let's. I mean, this is just an amazing story. I've never I think I've been on a sailboat one time and it just looked like a lot of work. To be fair, I enjoyed sitting in the front or the back of it and watching my friend do all the little things in the police and I'm like just tell me when the duck if this thing's going to swing by. I just like that's the only I had. That was my only. Job was not to get hit in the face.

Speaker 2: 29:42

Hit in the face, I was really good at it, and I drank a lot too at that time, so that I did that really well, I was perfect, uh, guest, but all right.

Speaker 1: 29:48

So take what you've learned and you know, you've been in extreme situations. You've, you know, and I don't think people have to have your mindset of risk quite to that level to be successful, but what I think they can learn, specifically anybody can is give me some like one, like a listicle, like a one, two, three on mindset, and specifically maybe to people that tend to favor. You know what's our friend? We have a common friend in common. His name is Bruce Music. He talks about this idea of hey, this bush, this gray, beige, this gray or this beige rock behind this bush.

Speaker 1: 30:22

For years people had to go is that a lion? Is that a lion? Is that a lion? And they can never get it wrong. And so that negative kind of predisposition in the mindset is in many of us. How can you coach, or what is some advice you can give to somebody who tends to see that rock as always the lion, as opposed to it's just a rock and you don't have to worry about so much like focus on more positive things. How do you help somebody who's not normally pre-wired to have a?

Speaker 2: 30:53

great mindset to get them there. I think a lot of us are who you surround yourself with now. What is the environment you are, you are in? Are you surrounded by people who are positive? Are you surrounded by dream killers, or are you surrounded by dream makers? So those relationships are really, really important and not just it's like who's on your crew. And if you have all the right people on your crew, then you know you're going to overcome whatever the challenges that you have to overcome. Your crew, then you know you're going to overcome whatever the challenges that you have to overcome. But also I look at it in terms of marriage. It is. I met an incredible woman.

Speaker 2: 31:27

After my my yacht racing career, I decided to stop racing and there's time to start thinking about that next chapter and we started talking about that future. We started asking hard questions what if this, what if that? Or how do we do these, what are our dreams, what are our goals? And so that partnership and from the time darling and I met, the time we were married I was four and a half months, and so again it is she could look and say, oh, here's a strange guy, here's this guy who might just sail away. She could look for all what could go wrong versus hey, what kind of life can I build with somebody? What can we actually accomplish together when we get onto the same page? And so, having that partnership, having that right communication and then building that trust, then you don't have to worry about the lions, because you know what A lion comes, you put a cage around it and you sell tickets and you call it a zoo.

Speaker 1: 32:29

That's the greatest analogy I've ever heard. If you see lions everywhere, cage it and then make money off of them.

Speaker 2: 32:35

It's an opportunity. It's an opportunity that's so good, that's so well done. I'm going to steal that.

Speaker 1: 32:41

I hope you don't talk about that in your show. I'm going to totally steal that.

Speaker 2: 32:44

I'm leveraging that.

Speaker 1: 32:46

If you have a fear, cage it up and make some cash on it. I mean, at least it's yeah, it's still a fear and you don't want to go put your hand in there, but, dude, make some cash on it.

Speaker 2: 32:56

I love that, yeah, and had gone smoothly in my sailing career. Let's say I announce I'm entering the round, the world race, and everybody lines up and says we want to be your sponsor, we want to be your show support crew, we want you to have the best equipment. Take our stuff. And that happened. And then let's say I win the races, I'm first over the finish line, I break the records. What kind of story. Do I really have to stand on the stage and say, yeah, I got lucky, I got given everything and therefore I'm great?

Speaker 2: 33:27

No, it was those disasters, it was those challenges, it was those uncertainties, it was those failed relationships that ended up saying what's important? Who is important? What am I learning out here? What are the lessons? And am I doing this just for me or am I doing this for the greater team that I'm a part of? I just happen to be the inspiration of that team, and that is the story.

Speaker 2: 33:52

That is what corporations pay me the big dollars to stand on their stages and not to talk about how great I am. But what are the problems we solve to be able to move forward? How do people relate to you? How do you make people feel so that they can find the best in themselves and not be paralyzed by that uncertainty, not be paralyzed by when things go wrong, or not be paralyzed because they don't think they're good enough. And that's one of that imposter syndrome that some people have they don't think they are good enough to be successful, and so it's managing that ego and saying my success is because I stand on the shoulders of giants. So therefore I have to lift as many people up. I have to respect my environment. I have to lift as many people up. I have to respect my environment. I've got to be kind to my fellow mankind. I've got to be aware of my environment and preserve and protect it, not abuse it, because we only have one world.

Speaker 2: 34:55

When I'm on that boat, that boat is my world. I've got to keep the water out. I've got to keep that boat moving forward, racing it around the world. I've got to keep the water out. I've got to keep that boat moving forward, racing it around the world. I've got to keep the systems functioning so that when I leave land, I can get back to the finish line, the next leg. Our planet is no different. This is our vessel. We've got to protect it. We've got to preserve it. We've got to understand it and we've got to acknowledge that we are just one component in this and that it's all integrated. And there also lies the opportunity. The journey is the opportunity, and so everywhere I look, I see amazing possibilities.

Speaker 1: 35:41

You have such a positive outlook, take me through a story where you're like and this is metaphor, it's real for you where you're like I mean, I was in the water, I thought I was dead, and now that, metaphorically, to an entrepreneur specifically right when my company's failing I don't have enough money, I'm not about to shut it Like it's going to feel similar, but not but. Can you take me through a story where you ended up where you're like this is it? I mean, I mean, I I well, the last, last hope was your own hope of I'm going to swim through this. I'm going to do what it is march 11, 1999.

Speaker 2: 36:14

That sunset the barometer was dropping, the bottom was dropping out. I was 300 miles away from Cape Horn, no competitors close by, no rescue services in reasonable distance, and the conditions were just getting worse and worse and worse as the night came on. I'm in the pitch dark and my wind instruments go up to 80 miles an hour and the gusts were dropping down to 40, 70, dropping to 50, 80, dropping to 70. And then it was pinned at 80 and not dropping. And the sound of the wind, the noise of the wind shrieking through the rigging. I'd put all my sails down of the wind shrieking through the rigging. I'd pulled all my sails down. I started dragging lines behind the boat, trying to slow the boat down because I'd been blown towards the rocks of Cape Horn, the rocks of South America, because I was no longer in control. Mother Nature now had control. I was just hanging on for the ride and the waves were getting bigger and bigger I mean talking monster waves and every few minutes my boat is being turned on its side and almost upside down and I'm in the water. And then the boat pops back upright because the keel brings the boat back upright. And I'm still tethered, I'm still harnessed to the boat, and then it shoots like an arrow off the next wave, only to be turned on its side again. And this goes on for hour after hour after hour.

Speaker 2: 37:44

I'm now hypothermic. I am just so cold. I'm now starting to have judgment questions. I'm hungry because I've not been able to eat anything, because I'm hanging on for dear life. I can't go and fix a meal. I can't even go and just grab a handful of nuts just to throw down, because I'm too busy holding on. And I'm wondering am I going to die? Is this boat now going to be my floating coffin? Am I going to be another's statistics lost at sea?

Speaker 2: 38:15

But there's something inside of you that says fight, hang on and fight. You've done all the preparation. You've created a good founded platform. You're doing all the right things to try and keep this together. Now all you're going to do is survive the next 60 seconds and you're going to turn that next 60 seconds into the next five minutes, and that next five minutes into a half an hour, into an hour. And you just got to hold it together. Hold yourself mentally together, emotionally together, physically together and survive the storm. When you get through the storm you're going to be okay, just get through the next few minutes.

Speaker 2: 39:01

And that's how I got through this, moment by moment. All the money in the world couldn't buy me a way out at that moment. It was about my skills. It was about my planning and my preparation and about having that strong inner faith that, yeah, it's tough, yeah, I can die, but you, you know what. I'm living my dream, I'm living my life. I was thomas. I was the most alive at that moment because I was valuing every second of life. I was counting every second of hey, I'm still here, I'm still standing, and that gives you strength and you build on that strength and eventually the storm will pass. You will get through it, and I did.

Speaker 2: 39:54

And I got to love to tell the story. I had a girlfriend of 8 years who did not know if I'd make it or not make it. She was petrified that night, ashore, she was sitting in Ireland watching the weather on her computer. She could not reach me on the boat because, again, I was being inverted so much my satellite antenna or my satellite telephone was spending more time in the water than actually trying to reach a satellite and I wasn't below deck to even hear the phone ring or to even call to say hey, these are my last words, so I'm not sure if she was having a worse experience than I was actually having out there in the danger, and that also became another circumstance to another tragedy in my life.

Speaker 2: 40:43

So I arrive at Uruguay, ending of the third leg of the race, gwen flies in, she out-repaired the boat, she gets everything ready and the day before the start of the race she says well, I'm leaving. And I said you mean tomorrow? And she said no, I can't live like this. I'm leaving us. Eight years I'd loved this woman and built a life and tried to build a future, and there on that dock trying to have a conversation about I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I already had proposed marriage three times in the previous few years and not being able to convince her and watch her walking down that dock, never to see her again, and then having to climb on that boat and go and race the last leg knowing she'll never be on a finish line again. Those were heartbreaking moments. Those were life-threatening moments, but you know what? Surviving that. That's how I met Darlene and 25 years later, here we are celebrating this incredible life together.

Speaker 2: 41:45

We've now created this wonderful island retreat and we are now bringing people to our home to talk about what are you going to do with your life. We create this retreat center, we take people on adventures, but, more important is, we challenge people to start thinking about what's important. How do you overcome these different things? How are you going to help us solve the climate issue? How are you going to look at your future of economics? How are you going to look at the political circumstances on a global level to figure out? How do we bring about peace? At the end of the day, we all want peace. We want that environment where we feel safe, where we feel respected, where we can trust the systems around us, and so we can take our past and we can build this future by what we do in this moment of our present, this gift of our life, our experiences, our wisdom and, most important, our critical relationships.

Speaker 1: 42:46

Yeah, that is quite. I mean in everything after that, right, like you have like, effectively, the highs and lows of almost dying seeing the one you love, you know, and you're just inspired by life at this point, and then they tear you down right there because they can't handle it, only to finish, you know, finish the race somewhat hollow, probably, like, oh, my God, like I'm doing, I'm here, but there's no one here except me. So you finish it. But then you, you, you awaken a new door because there was a bigger plan for you. And if you had the wrong mindset in that moment, you may not meet a darling. You might be like, oh, you know, he's kind of a sad bum, whatever, he doesn't want to talk. Instead, you, you're like no, I survived this, I can survive that. It's probably a good thing. By the way, you're on your third leg.

Speaker 2: 43:36

It gives you a little self-reflection time not to go tear it up in South.

Speaker 2: 43:41

Well, it's never a good time, and this is the other component. We don't control the timing of things, but what we do control is how we respond, and that response I mean, one of the greatest things that happened to me I used to be a commercial diver in my former life and that was part of my passion was to be underwater and I worked on oil rigs. I worked on dive support ships in the middle of nowhere on difficult missions. I mined diamonds on the ocean floor the only deep water mine in the world and I worked with some great people and I worked with some tremendous jerks and we stuck on a ship together and you're stuck with people you don't like, you don't respect. You've got to learn how to get along. You've got to figure it out, because there's nowhere to escape to, and you've got to celebrate and cherish those that you enjoy being around and working with. And then one day there was an accident and I knew my career was going to be over. It was. I got a tight tube end and also so another time was I got downsized. We were working on this mining operation and we weren't making any money and they ended up shutting down the company and I was out of a job. And so here I am at a crossroad in life of, okay, I can go and find another job, but now I've got this risk of I could get the bends again much quicker, or I can take that passion and I can transfer it to go and build my own company, to go and build my own venture. And by losing that job and losing that ability to dive, that opened up a whole new set of opportunities. I was able to focus.

Speaker 2: 45:25

Next, building my boat. And when I started to build my boat I didn't have the mind to finish the boat, but I had the faith that I would find a way to finish the boat. And there were lots of things that I wanted but I couldn't afford it. But I focused on what do I actually need? And knowing what to want and a need is really really critical in business. I need a mast. I need a sound hull. I need a good keel really critical in business. I need a mask. I need a sound howl. I need a good keel, a good rudder. I need some sails. I would want some nice electronics. I would want some wonderful, fancy telecommunications. I'd love to have the next level of systems. That's a want, that's not a need. And so many people are so hooked in what they want that they ignore the needs and they think, oh well, if I can't have this, then I won't have anything. That's part of that.

Speaker 2: 46:16

What I look at is that poverty mindset. Uh, focus on how do you start. Don't worry about what's going to go wrong. Be aware things are going to go wrong. Don't be stupid, don't be blind, don't be uncalculating, but know what the needs are and know who's in the relationships to help fulfill those needs. And how are you fulfilling their needs? Give the people a reason to want to be your customer, give people a reason to want to partner with you, and that is an attitude that is an incredible tool in the business arena. And you'll find those wonderful moments, that where the company will start to move along, where the success starts to come, and then that willingness to keep learning, but always learning to say how do I solve somebody else's problem?

Speaker 2: 47:10

When I stand on that stage, it's not about telling my story, it's about using my story to help solve a problem. That organization, that corporation or that government, and those attendees, those people sitting in the audience, they all are trying to figure out. How do they keep the food on their table, how do they keep their kids safe, how do they have a dignified life? How do they find the people to support them? So this is our job is to help them find those tools and to encourage them and to say, yeah, you don't have to be a racing sailor, you don't have to be a racing sailor, you don't have to be a big-name speaker, just be a good, kind human being. Build the solid relationships, relationships built on integrity, relationships built on trust, relationships built on respect. And when you've got that foundation, then you can start to build the rest of the stuff. That's going to become your legacy, that's going to become what you look back and say wow, look, where we've come from it's amazing.

Speaker 1: 48:15

It's an amazing story. Look into the future. What's next for you? What's your next adventure?

Speaker 2: 48:25

there's a lot of things going on. Right now I'm looking at the implications of climate because, as a sailor, I've seen the climate changing on me. There are certain yacht races that I've done repeatedly and I won those yacht races because I was able to find the currents. The currents were fairly stable. Now those currents have broken down. I'm seeing it firsthand. I just came across. Two years ago. I just came across Atlantic with my best friend on our big catamaran and the Sagaso Sea, which is 600 miles to the east of the Caribbean chain, and once you pass through the Sagaso Sea and you approach the Caribbean chain, the Sagaso should become spotty. And some years before, I'd been all the way across to Colombia because we were going to actually take the boat into the Pacific Ocean and cross the Pacific Ocean. But the Sagaso all the way to Colombia and nearly to Panama, the Sagaso Sea has lost one of the currents that contains the sea and the currents are moving across and so I'm seeing these changes.

Speaker 2: 49:33

Uh, in in 2018, we got hit back in puerto rico by two major hurricanes. The urma came through and damaged my boat. I flew in a few days behind urma and the day I landed and got into my boat, hurricane Maria was born and I ended up going through Hurricane Maria, two back-to-back Category 5 hurricanes, so I've seen many different things. Darla and I have been traveling around the world and we're talking to farmers, we're talking to local folks, we're talking to scientists and they're saying our world is changing. So I'm looking at the data, I'm looking at the data, I'm looking at the storics, and so I'm very concerned about this, this legacy, and I'm very concerned about people who are denying. It's like oh well, it always changes, oh well, there's nothing I can do. Yes, things do change, but not at the rate that they are changing, and so we have to start really looking at how we live our lives, the choices we make, how we consume, how we consume technology, how we consume raw material. So this estate that I've created, I've planted a vast collection of bamboos to say, how can we use bamboo to mitigate some of this climate impact? I have scientists who come to my garden and say okay, we see what you're doing in the garden. Now how can we scale that into other gardens so that people who have a home and feel that they want to do something, what are the choices they can make? So I've created the test bed. We bring various young people through various programs that we run a workaway program where you get volunteers who come and help build things and create things, and we have vacation rental folks who come because we've created a sustainable environment to nurture them.

Speaker 2: 51:24

We're bringing people together not just to have a good time, not just to laugh, but also say how can we make a better world, how can we combine our synergies and take away some knowledge and do small things. Let's be mindful and I'm never going to finish this job because it's always going to be people who want to be a part of this journey. There's always going to be folks who want to come and have this one-on-one, very intimate retreat. Some are individuals, some are couples, but again it is people coming together and having a common vision, having a common understanding to say we can do better, we can create a better world and we want to scale that into the political arena and talk to political leaders. I've had the privilege of working with the National League of Cities, where I've worked with some incredible mayors and city councillors who've just done phenomenal work.

Speaker 2: 52:23

Around the world and in the United States I've met governors. I've met presidents and prime ministers of countries. There are a lot of good people out there who want to do the right thing, but we've got to change some of the systems that prevent them from doing the right thing. We've got to come back to honesty. We've got to come back to those core values of integrity and be our brother's keeper, to lift people up. And so how do we build those, foster those relationships and their cooperation? Those are the things that keep me up at night. We spend so much money on warfare. Again, I'm looking at the data of all the bombs between Russia and Ukraine, all the bombs going off in that theater. I'm looking at all the bombing that's taking place in Gaza. And then I'm looking at what is it a cost to rebuild? The cost of human life and the cost to rebuild. We talk about carbon impact and yet our walls are creating the worst carbon negative impact for future generations. So we've got to really look at how these things go.

Speaker 2: 53:35

Some years ago, I didn't go into the Pacific Ocean because I had an opportunity to go and work with this incredible company in Canada, infotech Research Group, where I got to help train their scientists, their PhDs, to stand on the stage and do what I do on the stage very well, to be comfortable on the stage, but I got to build a relationship with some amazing, super, super smart technology leaders and we've got to talk about these problems. We've got to talk about how is technology helping us, but also how is it hurting us. Look, you and I. I'm sitting in the Dominican Republic, you're in Atlanta, you've got over 1 million subscribers. We are connected through technology. We can share our ideas, we can find ways to be our best selves utilizing technology.

Speaker 2: 54:26

But then on the other side, we've got these folks who are using technology for pure escapism, who sort of are being dumbed down. They're not using it to lift themselves up or they're using technology to tear somebody else down by sowing misinformation, by sowing seeds of doubt. We can't blame the tool. We have to look at the user yeah, no doubt. And how do we do things to do things better?

Speaker 2: 54:53

This comes back down to curiosity. This comes back to how are we brought up and how are we held accountable and responsible, what are our ethics, what are values and when we can use technology in a positive way to address these issues and instead of people sitting there and looking for the thumbs up and the likes because their self-esteem has been trashed. They've been led to believe that the only way to be successful is through consumption, versus what makes a good human being. How do we, how do we address these, these, uh, self-esteem issues? How do we address these political issues and say, look, what is noise and what is really important, what is so for the things that you are doing that's going to help your community? And then, how do we hold leaders accountable? And when they step out of line, we deal with them. We remove them from power, we remove them from the place of economics. I look very carefully at how I consume, how I spend my resources. I'm not going to spend it with somebody who doesn't share my same values.

Speaker 1: 56:02

Yeah, One idea for the politicians. That lie is kind of goes back to a lawyer joke like what do you call 10 000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start. And so what you you can do is just take them sailing and maybe they come back with you, maybe they don't yeah, but I hate to pollute the ocean.

Speaker 2: 56:20

You want to be a. You don't contribute to the storms.

Speaker 1: 56:22

Um, neil, thank you so much for coming on today. Uh, is the best way for someone who wants to maybe hire you storms, neil, thank you so much for coming on today Is the best way for someone who wants to maybe hire you to speak or work with you or do something? You look at these retreats. Just to go to the neilpetersoncom Is that the best way for you? Yep, is there anybody? Our?

Speaker 2: 56:40

email is all over online. Just reach out. You're going to get a response from Darlene. She always responds within 24 hours. If we are not sailing, we are going to be on the boat from time to time, but we do put a notice out that, hey, we're not going to be available for a little bit. But it's all about planning and it is utilizing again these platforms. We can do things virtually as well.

Speaker 2: 57:03

I like in-person. I love those in-person relationships where you really get to to to hold somebody's hand and feel it sweaty, uh, to say, hey, here's a shovel, let's go to the garden, let's go and dig a trench, because we're going to do something here, positive, something physical. But we're also going to talk about your life. And what are you? What are you digging for, what are you building with what you're digging up? And so there are lots of ways we can engage people, but you know what it's about. People have to show up. You can't succeed if you don't take that first step. You can't succeed if you don't show up and say what can I be a part of?

Speaker 1: 57:44

You know it sounds like you are very much so comfortable building. You know the metaphor of a plant planting some trees in life that you have no intention of ever seeing get to produce fruit that somebody else is going to. And I think you know the idea and the metaphor of your garden and the things you're trying to do with climate. You're trying to affect change for a few generations from now and I think when you get to that part of your life where you know you're doing that, that's a it's a pretty, probably amazing feeling. I'm not there yet. I hope to hope to graduate there one day, uh, but I I can see that in you and I think anybody who's um aspiring to be more, feel more, be more. That I think that's your kind of uh, that's your true north right is if you can do some things for the world that you have no intention of benefiting from because you can't.

Speaker 2: 58:29

This is too far out and it's doing work for an unborn generation and being able to say that, yes, this is important, and prioritize and to start looking at our actions and asking a question is this action in the best of interest?

Speaker 2: 58:46

I mean, I've had the privilege of spending quite a bit of time on private jets, but I'm not going to go and fly on a private jet just because I want to soak my ego. If I have a jump on a jet, it's because these are major problem that we have to be a part of solving, and it's time critical. It's going to be done now for some reason and so, whatever that cost is it has, the benefit to our society has to be way, way bigger than the abuses or the privileges that could be had. So it's how do we live a mindful life? How do we look at those little things and really say is this necessary, is this relevant, is this important? And not sweating the immaterial, small stuff and being able to get beyond those issues. I mean, my wife and I always are looking and saying how do we work together, how do we solve these things? How do we support each other? Because by supporting each other, we support a broader community, and that, to us, is what life is about.

Speaker 1: 59:49

Love it. Neil, thank you so much for coming on today. I really appreciate your time and just even our time off camera too. I truly heartfelt mean that, so thank you.

Speaker 2: 59:58

Our pleasure.

Speaker 1: 59:59

I'm going to put you in the periwinkle room.

Speaker 1: 1:00:01

There's no garden or anything back there, it's just digital. So I'll be right back with you, though, but thank you so much, neil, for everyone who made it this far in the show. Listen, neil, his story is amazing, like we. We like, literally. You know, scratched not not even the surface of kind of what he is, what he's done in his life and what he's doing. So thank you, neil, once again for coming on.

Speaker 1: 1:00:20

Let's get out there, find the things that are kind of holding you back to become bigger, better, just even beyond entrepreneurship, you know, cut those ties and become a new self, a new version of yourself, and and do better. And and you know, I know I struggle with it, I know I'm trying to, every time I meet somebody get learn something from them. They become better, do better. Sure, if you make, you make mistakes, you go backwards at times too, but you just got to. You know, pick it up, keep grinding out and, kind of like the story Neil said of, you know, it's just wave by wave, the rise, the fall, the flip, the turn, just hold on, accept the ride and at some point, this, this, the, you know, the, the water's becoming calm when the uh, the winds die down. So once the winds die down, you can maybe take control again and head in a direction, but survive it. Thank you so much for listening. Until we meet again, please get out there and go unleash your entrepreneur. Thanks for listening.