57. Talking in the Dark with Ed Jackson - Adventurer, Charity Founder, Broadcaster, and Author

[Music] hello everybody I'm Eevee Roberts and this is my podcast talking in the dark welcome the aim of this podcast is to raise awareness about blindness visual impairment and disability in general in a happy and light-hearted way for those of you that don't know I am blind I was born with a condition called bilateral anopia try spelling that one it basically means that when I was born my eyes didn't develop properly so I wear Prosthetics instead the goal of this podcast is to remove some of the stigma and stereotypes around disabilities whilst also having fun at the same time each week I will be interviewing people from all walks of life including some with hidden or physical disabilities like mine and getting to know a little bit more about them and the lives they lead this week I am very excited Ed to tell you that I will be talking to Adventurer charity founder broadcaster and author Ed Jackson my name is Eevee Roberts and this is my podcast talking in the dark welcome hi Ed how are you I'm very well thanks Eevee how are you I'm really good thank thank you um first of all thank you so much for coming on the podcast it's such a pleasure to meet you but second of all how's your day going so far my day my day has been um it's been good actually I'm currently in France uh in the Alps I'm training for a for a climbing mission that I'm taking on in July so the weather's been good although storms rolling in so we've had we've had a nice week Outdoors doing the things that I love um and just to reverse a little bit it's absolutely my pleasure to be chatting to you hugely inspirational and uh I'm looking forward to getting into some fun topics over the next few minutes few hours whatever it might be oh well yeah thank you I mean thank you so much again but I mean that climbing Mission you're taking on sounds very exciting but I'm imagining like the training for that I'm imagining that's you know quite like difficult and quite draining yeah it can be um it's quite frightening at the moment actually because I'm I'm trying my challenge is I'm going to try and climb the mat horn at the end of July and um that mountain is very pointy and steep so I'm sure we'll get into it but since my accident I I've got into the Outdoor World and and climbing as a new challenge and um I've been learning a lot but I've been having to learn pretty quickly so I did have a bit of a fear of heights before so I've had to try and learn to conquer that so yes it's tough my body doesn't work the same it used to so I can't probably exert myself in the same way I could before my accident but at the same time I'm learning to manage that and I'm enjoying pushing and challenging myself again I very feel very fortunate to be in a position when I that I can do that yeah I I can definitely imagine so how long like how long does it typically take to sort of plan like a mission like this um for me it's usually like a couple of seconds in like in terms of me deciding I'm going to do it I just throw crazy ideas out there and then uh get into the planning stage later but yeah I mean it's quite a big undertaking something like this because um I sort of set my my sights on it probably about a year and a half ago and at that point there'd be no way that I would have the ability to climb it physically or or technically but that's kind of that's what makes it an adventure makes it a challenge and then that sort of motivates me and inspires me to try and upskill try and improve and get to the point where it is a possibility I think like taking on the challenge where you know you're going to succeed for me isn't really an adventure and I I'm in it for the adventure and and a lot of the challenges I've taken on I haven't completed U but then it makes it all the more rewarding when you do complete one that is potentially uncertain and you know that you've only managed to do that because you put a lot of effort into it gosh yeah yeah I can totally imagine how incredible that must feel um now you've kind of already briefly mentioned but I know know that you suffered a spinal cord injury in 2017 and now you have a condition called Brown SE quad syndrome um so can you begin by telling me a little bit about what your life was like before the accident and then sort of how the accident happened yeah sure so um I was uh one of those kids at school who was lucky enough to carry on doing um effectively PE for for a living so up becoming a professional rugby player um I'm from the West country and from a from uh from bar which is a big rugby area and I supported bar and I left school and went signed for B and it was a dream come true and I was very fortunate to go on and play rugby then for 10 years professionally uh in the top leagues in England and Wales um and until 2017 um when I was recovering from a shoulder operation and I ended ended up picking the wrong end of a swimming pool to dive into which um was you know it was probably um at the time it was actually you know looking back it seems a bit ridiculous that that was the act that caused my most severe injury because of the sport I played for 10 years you know it was pretty dangerous playing rugby and i' had a lot of accents before but it was just a an innocuous dive into the swimming pool on a Sunday afternoon and that that ended up um breaking my neck quite severely uh and rendering me completely paralyzed from the shoulders down so um yeah I suffered a serious spinal cor injury uh fortunately the doctors did an amazing job um and after a 7-hour surgery I woke up in intensive care but I was completely paralyzed from the shoulders down and it was over a week um eight eight days before I had any sort of movement of sensation return and actually after seven days they told me that wasn't going to happen anymore so I had to contemplate life you know without the use of my body which was um which was which was pretty terrifying at the time as you can imagine and I'm sure there's a lot of elements of this that you know you can appreciate having you know endured and gone through things in face you know trials and tribulations yourself but in the time at in the moment it's uh pretty terrifying um but I've been very fortunate that I have made a recovery to a certain degree so now I still live with a spinal cord injury and you mentioned Brown Card syndrome it's not many people will know that it's quite a rare thing it means that my spinal cord has been cut in half vertically so where it was 12 mm wide it's now 6 mm wide and what that means is the left hand side of my body doesn't work functionally very well so I can't move it very well but the right hand side of my body even though it functions physically well doesn't have any sensation so it's quite confusing but um basically a big sort of jumble and Confused mess of wires and my body now works in lots of weird and wonderful ways that it never did before but um I feel very fortunate to to be in the position where I am now and now able to walk um you know say walk you know my my nickname is probably is Mr wobbly so I do wobble around rather than walk around but that is uh that's better than it was supposed to be so um when it's all taken into account I've been pretty fortunate just listening to you sort of describe you know your your accident and the injuries that were caused by it I mean I can imagine how difficult that must have been and then as you know especially from going from being a professional rugby player to then learning to live with you know a you know a real quite severe disability so how was that sort of transition period for you yeah I mean it it was a process and it was um it you know it it wasn't easy I think there's so there's so much unknown and so many uncertainties especially in the early days of I suppose my identity was wrapped up in being able to use my body and be you know physically capable to the to the extreme almost you know being a professional Sportsman and you're kind of looked up to for that and when the injury takes away the thing that your identity is wrapped up in um you're left wondering like you know who am I you know and another thing that was difficult was I was I felt completely useless everyone had to do everything for me um there's also a lot of health conditions you know the impact Health impacts that come from nerve damage that are sort of underlying um sort of bladder bow temperature regulation the things that people don't see that you struggle with um that aren't on the surface that sort of impact you on a dayto day and it's it's a great it's great test of resilience and perseverance but I think for me because my injury was so severe and because I was told very early on that I was not going to make much of a recovery if if if at all any recovery um everything since then has been a bonus so I suppose if people had told me from the beginning I was going to get back to playing rugby and I'd ended up where I am now I would probably be a bit more bitter and you know upset about that that but actually I'm just very grateful that I can limp around that I can drive a car that I can brush my own teeth or feed myself but all of those things that for a long time I had to think you know I had to contemplate never being able to do again um that perspective over the whole injury has really helped with helped me cope um with my own situation yeah absolutely and I mean you know like you say you know everything be because being told that you wouldn't really be able to do much and then being able to do all the things that you now can do you know everything feels like a bonus but also like you said it takes a lot of resilience you know the learning relearning to do these things you know can't be easy for you so what would you say sort of keeps you motivated that's a great question I think um a few things actually uh first of all there's just a sort of drive and determination I suppose of a allenge which may be partly innate in me having you know being a sports person before and you know enjoying the physical tests and that's partly why I do the mountaineering you know it's to keep motivating myself to keep challenging myself to keep pushing forward because if you've got nothing to train for it's a lot harder to stay focused and I think before when I was playing rugby it was like okay I got injured and I'll be out for six months but you know there's you you can literally pick a game in the diary in 6 months time ago that's what I'm aiming for and you work towards it but when your injury is the rest of your life you need to put things in place as benchmarks and break it down into smaller challenges um to keep yourself motivated but wider than that I think that a huge part of my recovery has been the emotional side which is the same with any trauma and and and part of that has been actually being able to help other people through their own traumas and in in the same way I was helped through mine and inspired by other people on my own Journey who had gone before me if you like so my wife and I Seth up a charity that helps you know young adults who have been through trauma and actually giving back and being in a position where you can positively influence other people is you know incredibly humbling and and it's a privileged place to be you know it can be quite daunting place to be sometimes because there's a lot of responsibility with it it's something that I would never take back but it definitely keeps me motivated to keep acting the way that I am you know telling others to act you know or trying to inspire others to act and live a positive life and keep pushing forward and keep challenging themselves and look on the bright side and be resilient you know you've got to practice what you preach so I think I put myself in a position in the best possible way that it allows that gives me motivation in return and seeing other people succeed and move forward and change their own lives is so rewarding that you know why wouldn't you keep going yeah yeah 100% And I mean I've talked to quite a few of my guests actually about having sort of like a support network around you and you've mentioned that you really enjoy helping others and that you had help you know when and when you were sort of learning to live with your disability so how important do you think it is to have a support network around you uh I think it's almost essential just on the proof that I've sort of seen it's um I remember being in the spinal unit and I was there for four months and it shocked me that some people didn't have friends and family coming in to see them at all for for for months on end I just assumed that you people had those support networks and and I felt I started to sort of feel incredibly you know first of all um incredibly lucky that I had such an amazing group of friends and family but second of all I started to feel a bit guilty about it because I realized that actually a big part of me getting better was the fact that I had this support network I had something to get better for I had people around me who could help facilitate you know my physio or my you know um being at home like I moved in with my dad when I left who was a doctor and adapted the house and all of these sorts of things that just wasn't the norm for everyone so the effect that that had on me was one I stopped taking my family and friends for granted which I think a lot of us do you know it's like you ignore the phone when your mom calls because you're like oh God this going to be annoying or it's going to go on forever don't do that anymore because you realize actually when everything else is taken away they're the only people that are left um but also that was part of the the reason why we started the charity it was like well we I I'm so fortunate to have this support in that and other people don't I we want to pay that forward now and the charity acts as the support netw work for other people and I think it's it's integral on a practical sense in a lot of ways well not integral but it's important on a practical sense in a lot of ways but it's almost it's like integral fors in a psychological sense for motivation and to keep people having hope and positivity a lot of that comes from the outside in from the support network yeah yeah absolutely and I mean I I can imagine it must be kind of so sometimes really difficult to keep positive I mean I I definitely know myself from having a disability that there are sometimes where you almost just physically can't look on the bright side because I think we all have bad days and there are some days where you just think oh why of why did this happen to happen um yeah and I do agree with you that and having that outside influence there and also having those people to a check that you're okay B listen to you when you're not but C help sort of get you back on your you know pick you back up again when you're not okay is a big part of helping you to keep positive I don't know how you feel about that but that's definitely what I've experienced I can agree or um Eevee I think like that Sport Network can pick you back up but sometimes you're just having a down day because there's things that are harder than they used to be or you know you realize that you can't do things that other people can do and it's not for me it's not about denying those frustrations it's about how do I how do I accept those frustrations and then question myself is this serving me is is there any use in me feeling this way and then just trying to process them and move them on as quickly as possible but that's a lot easier to do if you're surrounded by other people who are positive and who are helping you know it's a lot harder to do when you're by yourself I think but out of Interest Evee I'd love to know from from your perspective like how do you turn your mood around or what are the things you like to do or little tips and tricks when you are having one of those dat I would say for me I mean I think first of all it's important to accept that it's so okay to have those days you can't be positive 247 it's physically impossible and so yeah just accepting that it's okay to have those days where it almost feels like the world is against you in a way is really important but there are loads of coping mechanisms that I use to kind of get me back on my feet I think that it's always good to talk to someone if you have someone close to you who you can trust enough to just like vent to and who you know who will listen to you um and sometimes it's not even about them talking back to you or trying to help but just them being there to listen to you can be really important um but I also love so I love I love reading I love writing I love listening to music I'm a massive animal lover and I'm very lucky to have a dog and a cat um who are really cute and I spend a lot of time with when I'm not feeling great um but yeah those just s of some of the things I do when I'm just not having a great day yeah I think I share a lot of those as well actually music and animals I I love animals what what uh what's the name of your dog and your cat um so my dog is called Leo he's a labrador cross poodle um he's seven years old now but he still acts like a six month old puppy and then we have Elsie who is a tiny little ginger cat but still completely rules over the house yeah they always do don't the small ones I've got an 11year old grumpy bulldog called Barry he he he likes sitting on the sofa and watching golf these days rather than going for walks but um he gives me a lot of Joy animals always do we've actually in our family we've probably got more dogs than humans when it's Christmas day it's absolutely mad um when the family and their dogs descends on my my dad's house but yeah no those tips and tricks are you know really important and I think whatever works for you you should remember to keep that in your tool kit is one of my favorite sayings is mood follows action and like a lot of the time when you're feeling down you all you want to do is sit in your room or sit in that feeling and wallow in it and sometimes that's fine but you just need to be conscious that um you're not going to you instead of just waiting to feel better you could do something that makes you feel better so if you got things that you like doing you know like your music or your your animals or very good advice speaking to someone do it you know don't you don't have to stay in that feeling for too long it's it's about accepting that feeling completely agree with you on that but doing something about it as well for me that's spending time outside or being with being with animals or speaking to friends and family or listening to music so we share a lot of those and there are some common traits along others but it's thinking a lot of time we try and work out what our triggers are but it's also worth import important thinking about what the opposite is like our glimmers like what makes us feel better and utilizing those as well yeah absolutely completely agree with you there um now you've sort of mentioned briefly already but one of the things and I believe that one of the things you were concerned about after your injury was kind of becoming a burden for the people around you why do you think that you felt like that um I think it's probably quite a human feeling but I think there was probably a bit of like ma to toxic masculine ego in there as well you know like having been a rugby player and like been the type of person that could help others and showing weakness was um was was a big no no like in sport in rugby it was like if you're injured you don't show any weakness like and that that's a dangerous narrative by the way I don't agree with that I think you know that's why there's a lot of mental health issues in young men and in rugby actually um but that's who I was at that time so all of a sudden I was the epitome of weakness I couldn't even feed myself or go to the toilet for myself so I think that was really tough to take for my ego more than anything and as time went on you know you want to be able to provide you want to be able to do all of these things and you just don't know if that's ever going to be possible possible anymore to the most extreme sense you know can you even get yourself out of bed can you even wash yourself you know and and it was just it it was tough to take and actually I think probably where where my life is evolved to now really was triggered by that feeling of of uselessness and being a burden because there was this pivotal moment after a year when um I ended up taking on uh Snowden in Wales um when I just started walking again as like a challenge to try and send a message but I met I opened it up on my blog at the time to anyone who wanted to and join in I didn't actually think anyone would turn up but 70 people came who I didn't know and we ended up with this mate doing this having this amazing weekend and chatting to all of these people and and I realized that there was actually some good coming from the situation I've been in the negative situation I've been in so it was the first time I'd felt useful in any way for the last year and I'd kind of by that point you know my mind had just got used to being useless and a burden on people and all of a sudden I thought wow there's actually people taking something from this and we're outside and we're sharing our stories and we're healing together and that feeling of purpose again and usefulness and not being a burden is something I really grabbed on to and held on too tight and has now evolved over the last you know seven years or you know six and a half years since that day on Snowden to my own charity and the things we're doing now so um I think you you've just made me think of it then but I think that was actually driven as much by a want to help but also um a reluctance or having been so in so much pain psychologically from being useless up until that point yeah I I can I can completely imagine that and I can also imagine how much of an incredible feeling it must have been to get to meet all those people and like you say to feel you know to feel useful and what you just said there about share all of you being outside together sharing your stories and healing together I kind of latched on to that because I think and I've always said it's so great when you can get to talk to people who've um you know been through hardships you know similar situations to you or even completely different but just to know that you're not alone just to know that there were other people who were going through things who are struggling and I think um that that that can really help you to heal as well yeah absolutely absolutely that sort of strength in community and um let me come back to that but Ju Just to rewind a second like just to sort of round that point of I was making about feeling useless of course I wasn't useless like that was the point it up until that point that I could you know actively Inspire other people to get better my life could have gone on and been fine but my perception of myself up to that point was all just about being active physical Sportsman and that's what I'd lost so I thought I was useless I wasn't actually useless but that rediscovery of doing something else was you know quite a pivotal moment in at that point and you're right it came from other people came from Community it wasn't something that I just worked out and not feeling alone is is very important and it's actually something that we try and it's one of the most powerful tools actually of our charity isn't the fact that we take people on Adventures or you get them outside of their comfort zone it's just the fact that we've got different people from different root causes of trauma physical or psychological we give them a safe and open space to interact with each other and support each other and that you you you're bang on in think in saying that the first most powerful step is realizing that you're not alone and it's not it's not abnormal the way you're processing whatever you're going through you know and you can share your experiences with other people and you can positively impact them in the same way they can positively impact you and I think isolation is the biggest danger which unfortunately is probably the it's probably the big or the most immediate subconscious urge especially when you're struggling psychologically is to isolate yourself um it's hard to put yourself out there it's hard to go and talk to people and open up but that is the most important thing you can do yeah absolutely 100% And I mean there's often a a big focus on the physical side of a disability but do you think that you know the mental side can be just as challenging I think the mental side is way more challenging I think the physical side of a disability can cause mental trauma for you know but actually you know a happy person in just to use one example a happy person in a wheelchair is much better than a sad person walking around you know it's not about necessarily the physical impairment that's added the extra layer of difficulty to someone's life to a certain extent what you know whatever the physical impairment might be but actually many people with really severe physical impairments and I'm sure you can speak to this although their life might be tough I I know loads of people who live the most fulfilling they're really happy in their situation some you know they wouldn't change it a lot of the time and because the psychological effects that have happened to them or because of that you know that no regrets not looking back all of those pieces mean that they're actually the net result of who they are as a human being which let's be honest is not about who you are physically it's about who you are psychologically is positive as a result of the challenges they may have had to face so I actually think like I keep bringing back to the charity but this is only because I've work I'm working con constantly with a lot of young people who are going through trauma so I'm just speaking to the experence experiences I've had my own personal experiences but also with other people it's not about fixing the physical it's about just getting people in a positive head space as soon as people get to that point of it's not supposed to be easy but that point of acceptance and realizing there is a Life to Live despite what struggles they're facing you know that they may not have been facing before or maybe that other people don't normally have to face they realize that there is a life to live after it you know that's what the main that's the main piece the fact that there's a physical impairment or whatever it might be or challenge for me like I wear my disability proudly you know it's yes it's harder than you know than it would have used to have been for me on paper but actually it's just like having Brown air or brown hair or blue eyes and you know this is what your podcast has been great as well is normalizing these situations and what other people see is like something to pity someone what they don't see is the amount of strength that that challenge that that person had to live with is given them as well in a lot of cases um and I think normalizing the whole disability space is an important thing that needs to keep moving forward you know because just because people have a disability doesn't mean they're any weaker or they should be felt sorry for than than the next person you know yeah yeah I could not agree more with that um and yeah that is what we're trying to do with the podcast to because it does need to keep moving forward like you said I think that it it is moving forward and it definitely has been in the past few years but I think there is still a lot more work that probably has to be done before disability is just like a just like a normal part of society that no one really questions and that point you made about pitying someone because they have a disability yeah I think it's it's obviously comes from a place of you know I think kindness but like like you said there's so much people who have disabilities are so resilient and they have so much strength people with disabilities don't need to be pied or treated lesser because you know they're that little bit different they need to be treated equally and as humans which is what we are so that's you know I think that although there is it has got better over the past few years there's definitely more that needs to be done there I think yeah for sure and and I I completely agree with you as well like most of the time the pity or the misplaced remarks are just come from they come from a good place it's just a place of naivity and and and probably M or mistakes or you know interactions or or things that I might have said as well before you know because I acquired my disability so before I didn't have an understanding now I know you know I'm fortunate enough to work on the paralympic I've worked on the last par Olympics and working in Paris some of the strongest people I know in fact categorically probably 80% of the top 20 strongest people I know have disabilities you know so what does that say to you because I know a lot more non people who are non-disabled than disabled so I don't pity people with disabilities I respect their challenges in the same in the same way I respect someone who doesn't have a disabilities challenges it's just part of being human um but I it's just an education piece right and I agree with you I don't think people are doing it on purpose I think it often comes from a good place there just needs to be more normalizing more exposure um and I think it's heading in the right direction yeah absolutely you just briefly mentioned there about um working on the last par Olympics in Paris can you tell me a little bit about that because I'm imagining that that must have been that must have been incredible yeah it was amazing so um I started working with Channel on on the rugby they was televising the rugby so I started doing some TV work which was amazing challenge for me in itself and a great way to stay involved with the sport that I loved but then of course Channel 4's biggest sporting event is the Paralympics and um I was uh I went out to Tokyo as a reporter um which was a strange experience Japan's a country I've always wanted to go to but it was in the middle of lockdown so um we kind of had to see it all through a window but I got to go to the cycling event at the Mount Fuji RAC track and like lots of different sporting events and just got to experience the most incredible incredible level of sport and the most amazing humans that um that I ever you know that I had up until that point and coming from a sporting background obviously I love all sport anyway I was like a kid in the sweet shop but also to lay on top of the sports men women the sports people there they all had these amazing Back stories and they all had their life in context you know and they were all really pleased to be there and everyone wanted to talk to you because sometimes as a sports reporter when you're doing professional sport you only get media trained answers and you're just a nuisance while you're trying to interview players but that's very much the opposite of the par Olympics and after that I was lucky enough to go on and um and work on the winter par Olympics which was in Beijing which was another amazing experience although a bit of a bizarre one because again it was still during lockdown and China seem to take their lockdown very seriously but that's another story um and then I'm going out to Paris um in August for for the par Olympics where I'll be presenting on the Athletics so feel very fortunate to to be involved um in such such an incredible event and of course an event that is doing a lot for what we've just been talking about which is normalizing disability yeah absolutely and I mean I mean that sounds you know that sounds brilliant um now I know that you've talked in the past about finding purpose when it comes to your disability can you explain a little more about that yeah I think so purpose is an interesting one right because um I think people's perception of purpose is um that you either find it or you don't and some people have found their purpose and most of us haven't and I'm never going to find my purpose or what I'm doing isn't allow my purpose but I've sort of come to the understanding that or my opinion is that like purpose is built not found it's in your daily actions it's in the way that you act it's in your relationships it's from it's in the things that you do but it's not just the thing you do it's the way you approach the thing you do it's aligning yourself with your values and acting in that way and over time if you carry on doing that if you carry on following your heart or your gut um and not always following your head and you're nice to people and you're positive whatever you know your values you want to adhere to the universe will build a life of purpose for you things will start to fall into place nothing I've do now is planned you know I never imagined that I would have a charity I never imagined work on the par Olympics never imagined have a book and you know all of these things and none of it was planned um all I was doing was once I felt that sense of like on Snowden giving back that sense of I can help people I can be of use here I just pursued that and also you also have this when you have to be resuscitated three times and when you have to contemplate never been able to move again all the things you do start to feel very lucky for the things you can do it does put your life in perspective so you do you are willing to say yes to stuff it's very clear that you only live once and it could all end tomorrow you've had a big dose of that when you've gone through you know such a traumatic accident so it allows you to take more chances it allows you to follow the The Road Less trodden and I think if you just do that in your daily actions and your daily steps then things will start to fall your way like don't expect to dig purpose out of the ground one day and go here I found it you know it's a process yeah absolutely um now you've kind of talked about your charity already but let sort of dive a little bit more into that so you are the founder of the millimeters to mountains foundation so can you tell me a bit about the charity yeah so obviously we've touched touched on it a bit um I'm actually uh we've actually got some of our beneficiaries coming out to join us in the mountains tomorrow which I'm very excited about so some of them will be taking on their first Peak but effectively um we use the outdoors and adventure to help young adults who have been through trauma get get back on their feet um and find a path forward after suffering you know as a result of a trauma that's happened to them so that could be physical or psychological so we help people from you know um broken bones and ligaments and being smashed up in car crashes to PTSD to anxiety and depression to spinal cord injuries you name it we've got you know what a benefici you for it and it's just has created this amazing community of people that are um open to Healing themselves but also getting outside of their comfort zone getting to know other people and we have a inch-wide mild deep approach where we take on fewer beneficiaries but we take them on for a three-year period and really try and turn their lives around so instead of just taking hundreds of people on one trip um and saying goodbye to them afterwards like from my experience or from you know it it kind of mirrors my own recovery um it takes longer than that and there needs to be an action plan in place and other it's very easy to slip back into the rout you might have been in before so we build it around a life coaching model and they all focus on trying to get towards a big Challenge and that can be varying from you know we've got wheelchair users up until people who are fully physically able climbing mountains so there's a full variety there uh and then more recently we we're opening it up to more people so we're starting it together Outdoors program where we're trying to set up a network around the country of local walking groups um so if anyone in their area has been suffering from trauma they can join a together Outdoors walking group and just go for a walk with people and access that Community share their own situations and as we spoke to earlier and as you mentioned you know have a community that normalizes what they're going through but could also give them some practical support as well yeah absolutely and I mean that sounds I mean absolutely amazing and the charity and all the things that you do I mean it sounds genuinely incredible um now you have been on many Adventures yourself um but do you have a favorite of um I don't have children but that's like asking me what my favorite children who who someone's favorite child is they probably do have an answer but they're not going to give it to you um I uh uh I mean I love I love I love the mountains which is quite ironic because it's probably where I struggle the most in terms of my my physical challenges but um maybe that's why I like them but they're just such a majestic place to be and there's kind of a journey to them you know do you make it to the top um there's that moment it's a teamwork element that replaces rugby so I've I've had some amazing Mountain challenges actually do you know what the my probably my favorite or the most formative was a mountain I climbed last year um in in the Himalayas on the Tibet border and we didn't actually make it to the top we we we um and we we actually got in a bit of trouble uh our guide fell down to crass and we ended up spending having to spend the night on the mountain with no tents in temperatures down to minus 30 so as I'm explaining this probably a lot of people are thinking why is this your favorite Challenge and that's a good question but it's probably because of the the the results sort of the takeaways that come come from it um it's realizing how fortunate you are to be alive it's a good reminder of that it's also a proper Adventure it's not something that I would choose to repeat for sure because it could have quite easily gone the other way but it g it gave me a big dose of perspective probably when I needed it because I don't know if you find this but for me you did mention it at the start you know it's not like something happen then all of a sudden you're you know you're you're never going to be disturbed or um distracted or knocked off caused by anything again in your life you don't just become Mr resilient you need reminders you know it's so easy to to go off track and and deviate and I think um maybe someone upstairs decided I need a reminder at that time and I think it it was a timely one so the knock on effects of it were good but you know hopefully I'm you know if we chat again in a few months time I'll be telling you the Mator was my favorite one but not for those reasons hopefully for the reasons that we got to the top and it all went well yeah hopefully um that is the case um you mentioned very briefly earlier um that you've also written a book um so kind of what was what was what made you want to write a book and can you tell me a bit about it yeah so um I kept the diar in hospital um it started off as a private diary until I woke up one day and one of my friends was reading of course as as as they do um but I started making it public because my wife Lois she persuaded me that they could help some some people who have to go through living in hospital for a long time one day and again I was thinking you know if I can be of any use in any way at this time when I'm feeling completely useless Let's Do It um and it quickly got some traction and I kept it up and then about two and a half years later um I was approached by a publisher to turn those diary entries into a book because it was like a blowby blow account someone going through a traumatic situation instead of it being retrospective so thinking back to that time it was the actual daily inputs um and of course I said no I can't do that I'm not an author um full imposter syndrome um but eventually a very clever um a very clever litery agent called Bev James um who's become a very close friend and mentor of mine um knew knew my weakness and said well you could give all the proceeds to your charity so then I couldn't say no and uh I ended up writing the book and was you know was amazing it became a Sunday Times bestseller which is still crazy to think um I think my English teacher will probably be uh is Def my old English teacher will definitely be baffled by that too um and off the back of it that you know the book um called lucky but off the back of that unbelievably now it's being made into a film which is released later this year at the end of August so um I mean I'm saying this out loud I still can't I still don't really understand how anything any of this is happening like I said before it's just follow your passions follow your dreams and be nice to people be kind take chances and then maybe one day there's a film coming out it's very strange oh my gosh yeah I can imagine that that would feel quite strange but that that is absolutely incredible um now I believe that like on top of everything else that you're already doing you also have your own podcast called it's good to walk so can you tell me a bit about that yeah so that podcast is my podcast is actually on hold at the moment but I I really need to I mean I've been problem is I've spent too much time at mountains and on ice caps I need to kick it back off again but the reason I started the podcast is because people were saying to me you know oh Ed you're really inspiring you do these things and I was just thinking you have got no idea like I want to introduce you to the people who inspire me I was like there are some way better people than cooler people than me out there so I was like the way I'm going to do that is interview those people that inspire me and the name of the name of the podcast it's good to walk is just a kind of play on it's good to talk because it was around mental health as well it's like like like we said before communication is such a powerful tool following trauma um but also the perspective around it is just good to walk you don't have to be able to do unbelievable things it's like we don't appreciate things we can do so it's not a walking podcast as such um I know some people probably tuned in and thought it was like CLA Bings ramblings but it's not it's it's about overcoming life changing um I was overcoming life-changing sort of incidences but also the knock on effects of what people have learned as a result of that and effectively it's just an excuse for me to sit down and chat to people who who really inspire me so I do need to kick it back off again for sure it's been on the top of my to-do list for about the last year or so but there's 16 episodes out there if people want to go and listen to them um and they're relatively we're not talking about current affairs you know like like your podcast so it you know it's not timestamped it's not like you're trying to catch up on the weekly news so hopefully people are still taking benefits from them oh yeah I can I can definitely imagine that they are um so what would you say then has been your proudest moment so far proudest moment that's a good question I mean the thing that comes to mind is I know it sounds really cheesy but probably marrying my wife she's um she's yeah she's pretty epic human being she keeps me she's kept me motivated throughout the whole process she's been there to support me from the start I'm not really sure how I could have done it um without her to be honest so I think back obviously I've done a lot of things that um I am proud of probably done some stuff I'm not proud of as well but um the overarching zoomed out version I would say uh would be that and of course starting the charity as well I mean that they go hand in hand though because she was a big reason that happened so yeah I can I can totally see why they would be your proudest moments it it makes total sense um so do you have any sort of goals or aspirations for the future that you would like to achieve um I have a few dreams I'm a bit nervous about goals I I think that goals can be as long as they stay as um hopes and not expectations because the danger of a goal is you hang your hat on and if you don't get there you're annoyed and if you do get there you realize actually there's not it's not the answer to everything and your brain just catches up with it and you're just annoyed about the or you just move on to the next thing um I would love to get to a position where the charity can live on without us um I think the Legacy there of like building it to a point where long after we're gone it's still helping people I think that's a big sort of Life goal of M I think in the mountains obviously my next goal is the matorn I would also like to get to the point where I'm proficient in the mountains to the point where um I'm skilled enough to do things that potentially able-bodied Ed couldn't do so I've got a huge amount of respect for the sort of art form and the technique of of mountaineering and I'm really enjoying being a beginner again but I'm very much a beginner at the moment and a lot of the things that I'm doing in that space I'm having to work with burhouse amazing adapting kit um and helping increase and and as a knock on result of that that adapted kit is helping increase accessibility to be outdoors for other people with disabilities so that's a big passion as well um but to be honest with you Eevee I don't think too far ahead as you might be able to tell like I think with my life I don't live in the past and I don't live too far ahead in the future I stay I try and stay as present as possible I probably if you ask l my wife I should be living in the future a little bit more and starting to plan and diarize stuff and not just going off the cuff but it's working for me so far at the moment so um yeah I have dreams and aspirations but the most thing I the most of all I just want to be happy as happy as possible and I just want to be I just want to help as many other people to be in that same head space as I can so um yeah that's a long-winded roundabout answer to not really giving you one no that is absolutely fine um but yeah I I think what you just said there about you know just wanting to be happy I think that's that's really important and also like you said about not living too far in the past not reflecting too much but also not living too far in the future not constantly sort of planning your next move just sort of living in the present living in the moment and appreciating things as they are I think that's such an important thing to do and something that we probably don't do enough and something that we should probably do a little bit more yeah 100% trying to be present it's is a constant constant challenge constant task but maybe just switching off from technology a little bit getting outside being with people that that you really like but without you know an agenda just spending time by yourself all of those things can help but um I I do I do think it's important to have some dreams you know but I just think it's it's dangerous sometimes when those dreams are you people are too obsessed with them or they think that when they get there that's going to be the answer to everything and that's going to make them happy because at the end of the day the only thing we've got is the present moment you know the future is a is a thought and the past is also a thought so you know obviously you can't just live completely off the cuff otherwise You' don't in a bit of trouble probably financial trouble because you wouldn't be doing any work but um I think staying in that space as much as possible at least creating that space in your day in your week in your year um is important on that eie what are your uh what are your hopes and dreams for the near future and distant future have you got any oh um so so next year is My GCSE year um and so once I get that out the way I think the plan is probably sixth form I'm going to stay at the school I'm currently at for sixth form because that way I can like stay with my friends and um you know I'm I'm in the same environment and then after six form I don't know where I'm going to take it from there but I know that I want to a either take the podcast further see if I can make that into some sort of career because I absolutely adore doing it I love you know having the incredible opportunities that I've gotten to speak to such amazing people like yourself get and have the honor of people sharing their life stories with me so if I were to make that into a career that would be really cool if I can't do that I would love to like uh maybe have a career in radio or something like that that's a great idea and I think you definitely should keep it going it's an amazing amazing podcast and I'm sure it'll carry on being a huge success but also at the same time um you're not old enough to have your life worked out yet I don't think most people do and they shouldn't do either so don't ever get stressed about it um but I think C please don't please don't stopped doing the podcast thank you I I really hope that I I will never stop doing it because honestly I I love it so much and actually on that note thank you so much for coming on the podcast today um genuinely you are such an incredible person everything that you do from the charity to your book to your podcast to all the adventures you go on is absolutely remarkable I know you say that there are loads of people around you who you see as inspirational but I think that you are genuinely inspirational as well um and so thank you so much for giving me your time today it genuinely does mean the world no e is absolutely my pleasure I can say exactly the same thing to you so thank you for having me on I've really enjoyed it oh I'm so glad and I've really enjoyed talking to you too and thank you to my audience for listening and I will see you all next time [Music] [Music] e