Olympic Goals, Space Station Dreams & Business Freedom w Bradley Farquhar #545

Ever wondered what it takes to pursue the kind of dreams that send shivers down your spine and put stars in your eyes? Grab your gear and join me, Lachie Stuart, as I sit down with Bradley Farquhar, the man whose dreams have him reaching for the peaks and plunging into the depths of human endurance. Bradley's narrative isn't just about ski mountaineering training in France or the aspiration to compete in the Olympics; it's a masterclass in stepping beyond comfort zones and embracing the challenges that shape our ambitions.

From the sun-drenched streets of California, where he once sold alarm systems, to the freezing Alaskan wilderness of the Iditarod, Bradley's life is a testament to the power of audacious goals. We chat not just about the muscle and grit these adventures require but also the sharp business acumen and salesmanship that fuel the journey. Bradley shares how embracing sales skills can crack open the doors to dreams as vast as space travel and as grounded as personal growth and financial freedom. It's a conversation that maps out the cosmos of possibility when we harness our entrepreneurial spirit.

But what's a dream without the people who believe in it? We venture into the heart of what it means to surround yourself with the right team, as Bradley recounts his underdog triumph swimming the English Channel. Amid the thrills of these tales, I share my own struggle with maintaining balance while chasing my own professional and personal goals. So, if you're ready for an electrifying mix of inspiration, determination, and the kind of advice that might just propel you to your next big leap, tune in to witness how Bradley Farquhar is a guiding light on the path to living out loud.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:52

to your point like, like you deserve that, you earned it like man I still struggle with that Like I would love to have a Tesla car and I put down a deposit twice now in a Tesla. But I just can't get over how it could make other people feel if the man that can project podcast, a podcast in power.

Speaker 2: 1:16

We're driven men to live more fulfilling lives. We are here to challenge your beliefs, redefine success and talk about the important stuff in a relatable way. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. My name's lucky Stuart, let's get into it.

Speaker 3: 1:35

Everyone, I have a very, very exciting episode today. We're both sipping on copy copies. Oh, bradley Farquhar. Welcome to the show, mate and you're joining me here. You're joining me from France via Nova Scotia or back in Canada. You're actually over there for a couple of months just doing a training training camp.

Speaker 1: 1:57

Yeah, that's right. So I'm over here doing skimo training.

Speaker 3: 2:01

Can you explain for the audience what skimo is?

Speaker 1: 2:04

I figured that question was gonna come because skimo is Is one of those sports that is is is extreme in a lot of ways and a lot of people don't know about it. Basically, what it is is ski mowing is skiing uphill. So I put the skins on the bottom, the skis and I just go up the hill and I'm training over here to compete, to try to Get into the Olympics, because in 2026 this is the first time this sport is gonna be in the Olympics and when I found out about that just a couple years ago I was like, holy crap, like I Gotta, I gotta learn how to do the sport. I want to go to the Olympics. Like let's go. So it's been this mission over the past Couple years, learning and diving into the sport as much as possible to get myself into that position. But in short, yeah, skimo, you're running as fast as you can up a hill with skis and a backpack on to only turn around and ski down as fast as possible.

Speaker 3: 2:54

It's such a wild looking sport. I was showing my mother-in-law last night no, she's like what is it? I'm like it's kind of like cross-country skiing, but not because you're going up hills. And Then I was just thinking like if for anyone back home in Australia, where we don't have much snow, like running in soft sand and then running in snow by doing that uphill Would kick my ass. So the fact that you've chosen to do that as a sport makes you just Insane for one, but also inspiring for another.

Speaker 3: 3:26

I I read your resume and what I would call it is you know, took this from Jesse, it's LeBut your life for a Jammay and it's extremely impressive and it's something that I want to build, something similar, because a lot of people don't have a lot of the experiences that you have. Bradley, you know you've done a 250 mile run across the Sahara desert, which is I can't even fathom, and we'll go into that. You've swam across the English Channel. You've summited Denali. You've, you know, braved. The harsh conditions are wrong. Is it? It a rod? Is that a Ditterad? Yeah, I did a rod with a team of 14 dogs over thousands of miles, and you were the champion of CBC's new reality TV sensation, canada's ultimate challenge. So you've done some things, and when I look at that as a resume and that's not even talking about what you've achieved in business yet, which we'll go into later as well, but that is very impressive. Where did the desire come to do the hard things? Oh, man.

Speaker 1: 4:26

Well, to answer the question, where the desire to come do the hard things it, it really started by just a little bit of satisfaction you get when you do a little hard thing and you there's a lot of people that talk about, like when you get up, make your bed, like that little thing it sucks doing but you're gonna feel great about it afterwards. For myself, I was a pretty average on any accomplishments when I went through university and it wasn't until I was asked to go down to the United States, to California, to knock doors to sell alarm systems that really I started to flourish. Because I don't know if you knock doors, but knocking doors to sell alarm systems is super difficult, it's not easy. And To take on that chance to go down and do it, I was way nervous but I didn't make a ton of money but I found a ton of success and from there is like Wow, like let's build upon that. Like what else can you do? That's challenging, and start pursuing those challenges. Because of that, that satisfaction you get.

Speaker 3: 5:27

What do you mean by you? Didn't make a ton of money but you found a lot of success. Because did that? You know people listening. They're probably a bit confused by that.

Speaker 1: 5:37

Yeah, that's fair. Like well, it just depends on how you evaluate your success. Like I went down there for an experience like coming from Nova Scotia it's a really rural province on the East Coast of Canada and To leave Nova Scotia to go somewhere like California we're like the California dimes live and like the you know all the movie stars are I just thought it was the most incredible thing. So just the opportunity to go down there, to leave my little province was was a success. Like oh, a little Nova Scotian boy working down In the United States in California, wow, like that's amazing. So I wanted to chase that and it was knocking doors that would be my avenue to get there.

Speaker 1: 6:15

So when at the end of the summer and I only had like five or six thousand dollars my bank account you know I wouldn't call that a successful summer in making money, but it was it was very successful in getting out of my comfort zone, knocking doors to convince people they want something that they don't really need and Just doing something that is different, against the grain, that most people wouldn't do. And it was a small thing at the time. It wasn't like this crazy idea to go down there. That like no one would ever have done it before. But like it really just depends on yourself and you know like we can go back to the comfort zone all day long, but everyone has one and just even if you break out of it just just a little bit, you can. You can grow it.

Speaker 3: 7:03

Yeah, I'm a big believer of that. When I went to France is very similar, because a lot of people would move to Sydney or Maybe even Brisbane from where I you know Brisbane's 90 minutes Towards the East Coast and that's like the big move. But I was, I'm out of here, I'm going to France to play rugby, and everyone was like what? And even for me, but that was such, a such a win, even though, once again, it wasn't as successful as I wish it had been or had played it out in my head prior. But what I learned from that?

Speaker 3: 7:30

Even then, making the move to Nashville or other places, I became so independent. I learned to network. I also learned that it was like a big mirror shining back the stuff that I needed to work on to learn to be a bit more independent and take control of my life. And After hearing you say that I'm actually that was a huge success in my life because for the last 10 or 12 years I've looked at that as a failure because I didn't know, didn't get to the levels that I wanted to get to. So it's very interesting when you think about it like that and For people listening, I love how you said to get to the what is perceived. As you know, these big, grueling tasks started with just one small Step outside your comfort zone.

Speaker 1: 8:16

Yeah, yeah. And once you find a little bit of excess acts out of your comfort zone and it's addictive. It's like in all avenues of life. You just want to start chasing it. It's, it's an adrenaline rush. I got on drink. I don't do drugs but that and candy. I like candy a lot, but that and it is my drug.

Speaker 3: 8:36

Yeah, the candy is a good stuff. I'm actually doing one year With no beer, which I've done plenty of times with three to six months. I'm pumped to see what I feel like after 12 months, which would be very exciting. But can we go back just to get a little bit of a background? Brother, you grew up in Nova Scotia. You have a fascination with space. How did all of this come to be? And then, what led to the opportunity Obviously went door knocking, and then you know life after that.

Speaker 1: 9:12

Dude, I think space is the coolest thing. I always wanted to be an astronaut growing up, and Canada, probably 10 years ago, they did Ruckaroo crew crewmen for to be an astronaut, yeah, and I applied and I didn't make it. Obviously I wasn't gonna make it. I don't have a science background, I have a business background. So I realized at that point for me to be an astronaut, I need to make enough money to be able to fly myself up there.

Speaker 1: 9:39

And when are you gonna go when you're up there? The International Space Station? I don't know. There's not a lot of places to go necessarily. So this is where I came to like man, like I would really love to build habitats up there, to have your own house, to be able to go up there and vacation, drink Rine, float around with your wife or husband and just really enjoy looking back at the earth and thinking man. Like Everyone I've known everything that's ever been accomplished, everything that's ever been done has been happening right on this little ball, and how that could change people's perspectives and lives, that the little things don't really matter. Chase the big things.

Speaker 3: 10:16

I love it, it's. You're right. When you actually get to look even just when I go back to my parents place because once again it's out away from all the light pollution, and you just look up and see the stars and how Clear it is and beautiful it is you realize that we're so insignificant. There was one night we'd come back from a function and we're staying out at my parents place my wife and brother and sister-in-law and we got back at like midnight and they'd never really it would been years since they'd seen stars like that. So we literally laid on the driveway for another 90 minutes just looking up, just been like man.

Speaker 3: 10:49

What is going on out there. And we've met a radio producer on our tour the other day, bradley, and he's a like a ghost watcher or like UFO spotter and he's all this stuff on his phone of like stuff, because he lives in Blue Ridge, which is in the middle of Georgia, and like the sky is so clear it's I just literally put my camera and whether you're into that stuff or not, but it makes you start asking questions like what else is out there and how significant are our problems in the grand scheme of things?

Speaker 1: 12:21

Yeah, I saw this like Instagram story the other day. It was a picture of the globe and another picture of the globe and it talked about like the world before your problems and the world after your problems. And it was the same image, like nothing changes, like yeah you have a problem but like you know it's not going to change. Just solve the problem, get past it, move on. Everything will change.

Speaker 3: 12:47

There was something you said a moment ago when you said okay, well, I'm not going to be able to get to space because you don't have the science background. You have the business background. So the other way to get there is you make a ton of money and, you know, get yourself up there. Was that what shifted you to want to get into business?

Speaker 1: 13:05

Really, I think the door knocking experience taught me that you know, in any business or sales and to grow any business that's all you need is sales. You can find other pieces, the hardest pieces always who can do the sales? So in that door knocking experience, we were taught every single morning how to talk to people, how to communicate, how to do sales, how to convince people of an idea that they weren't even thinking about that morning. And when we were taught that every single morning we were then dropped off into a neighborhood and had to go and convince people and use these tools and these weapons that we were just told, which were deployed by our voice to convince these people to do something they didn't necessarily want to do.

Speaker 1: 13:50

And it was through that experience that you are self-employed. At that point you didn't sell, you didn't get any money, so essentially you had your own little business, and that was right out of college. So it was pretty easy from there to make that little bit more of a jump to register a business, to have a business partner, to have a team that can help you facilitate whatever you're selling. It was pretty simple to put those little pieces together as soon as you can actually drive the boat.

Speaker 3: 14:21

People often have, and I know I did. When I saw sales, I just straightaway thought of the car salesman and because of that for such a long time I stayed clear of it. But I definitely agree with you that learning sales has changed my life completely, because if you can't sell something and even every day, we're showing up to sell ourself I sold you on coming up sorry, on coming on this podcast, right? So every day, in so many ways, we're selling ourself. You're selling yourself to your wife or your husband or your friends, and the better you can understand that and break down skills, as you said, bradley, like communication, how you show up, present yourself, persuasion, conflict resolution. They help you in every area.

Speaker 3: 15:04

So when that clicked for me, I was like, oh, I can now because, similar to you, bradley, I was like I don't have much outside of rugby, right. So for me to get anything that I want, I just need to make a lot of money, so then I can afford to do things and afford to have opportunities. And that's where the drive for me was to get into business. Originally I was like I can't need to make a million bucks, that's an easy number, let's go. And then the skills you realize you need to learn and who you need to become shifts, but as a result of those skills, every single other area of my life has improved tenfold.

Speaker 1: 15:42

Totally yeah, and I love how you set the goal. To make a million bucks Like. It's not an easy goal, it's a hard goal, you have to work at it, you have to figure it out. And not only do I like how you set the goal, but I love how open you are about it. I mean, there's a lot of times with money, people are pretty quiet about it and I stretch that a little bit farther A lot of times people are quiet about their goals, what they actually want to accomplish, and if you're scared to talk about your goals and things you want to work towards, chances are you're not going to make them, because there's often multiple steps you need to do to be able to get to it and if you can't talk about it, man, you're probably not taking those steps.

Speaker 3: 16:20

That's a really good point. The communication. That's what I think so important. Even getting to chat to yourself, bradley, like I know how much I'm going to learn from you once we start talking about these huge events that you've done, because they're some of the things that I aspire to do and put on my resume, as I mentioned. So the fact that I can say that, look, that is a goal of mine, you might be able to give me feedback or perspective, or maybe think about doing this first, because there's always a step that comes first that can help me.

Speaker 3: 16:51

It's not necessarily a shortcut, but it's a fast track to get in the outcomes that you want. But when you keep them, the goals, to yourself, because whether you're a fear of judgment, embarrassment or whatever it may be, you're just robbing yourself of the opportunity to move to where you want to get to. So yeah, whether it's money and look, we all want, I truly believe people want money, we want time and we want good relationships and experiences. Right Four, probably key things. And if we don't talk about what they are, because they should be unique and individual to us as individuals, you're never going to get much closer, because if you're embarrassed about stuff, you definitely you know what's it. Where focus goes, energy flows.

Speaker 3: 17:33

It's so important to be constantly talking about what's important to you. I don't have a lot of things that I'm prioritizing at the moment, but all of the things that I am prioritizing are going really well and people know what I'm doing.

Speaker 1: 17:46

Yeah, I listened to your podcast I think it was the one you most recently uploaded about goals and it really resonated with me. I honestly think goals are literally the most important thing in life, like, they define where you're going, they define who you are, they define what you want in this life. Without the goals, how would you know where to go? How would you know where to focus your time? It's, it'd be scary, scary without a goal.

Speaker 3: 18:15

Yeah, and it's a skill set learning how to do that as well, right? So for you, bradley, when you first started setting goals, did you nail all of them, or have you failed along the way? What have you learned about goal setting, apart from just what you mentioned?

Speaker 1: 18:30

I've learned there's a difference between a dream and a goal, and goals are the things that are important to you and have a plan. Everything else that you want to do in this life is just a dream, and until you make the importance level increase or you actually started putting together a plan, it's just that it's a dream. I want a $200 million yacht. That's a dream. Like. I'm not. I don't really want it. You know, like how cool would it be to have it, but I would. You know. I want to sell the business for $100 million. That's a goal. I'm actively trying to do that. I'm working towards it.

Speaker 1: 19:06

But I do also want to mention that you know when setting goals, you're not going to achieve them all. You're going to fail. I've failed on several. I'm still working towards a lot, and you know you can go back to saying that you're never going to fail at a goal as long as you're still working towards it. But sometimes you set outlandish goals that are almost impossible that you chase, and you know who cares at the end if you fail or not. It was the fact that you got out and chased it.

Speaker 1: 19:31

But goals are something that you have to practice, just like reading, writing math. You have to practice setting goals and working towards them and I always recommend, you know, starting off with something smaller. Like if you want to run a marathon, probably don't sign up for just the marathon right away. Maybe do a half, do a 5k, whatever you want. If you want to chew off a marathon right away, okay, let's go giddy up. Like let's let it run, but you're going to be more successful. If you like, take off a little bit of a goal and chase that.

Speaker 1: 19:57

And for myself that's really kind of how it started. And in my adventures you can see they get bigger and bigger and more grand and more complicated and have to move to different countries and put different pieces together. And I could have never started with the Ditter Rod. The Ditter Rod was a two year goal, living up in Alaska for two years working with these wild beasts that don't speak your language, that you're trying to convince to pull you around in the snow. Like if I just went out there before I started doing all these other challenges, I probably would have failed, but it was the experience and the confidence that I brought into it, completing all these other goals along the way.

Speaker 3: 20:42

So for you to be able to live up there for two years as well, you had to put yourself in the right financial position, correct?

Speaker 1: 20:48

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 20:50

And that's one thing. So at the moment, a goal that I've set, one thing that's come up that I'd really like to do is the World Marathon Challenge. So it's seven marathons and seven continents in seven days. I'm sure you've probably got that let's go.

Speaker 3: 21:05

However, the fee is like 45,000 euros. So part of me was okay, should I raise funds for it? And then the second part, because I literally saw this after we first connected and I remember you saying you you know pretty much the same story with what you said before around okay, the only way I'm going to do it is get the money to afford myself to do so, and that then made me go okay, well, rather than relying on other people to make this a reality, let's just get your business back to where it needs to be so you can self fund that experience, so you don't have to rely on other people. For me, that was really empowering, because all of the things that I've learned over the last decade as a result of sales and starting business and really taking responsibility for my life and setting financial goals, they're there because I want to have the opportunity and the freedom and the ability to do things without having to depend and rely upon other people from a financial means. So knowing that you've done that gave me a bit more of a kick up the arse to go look, let's just put another six months of hard work in and you'll be fine to make that a reality.

Speaker 3: 22:14

I wanted to push that home because a lot of people listening to this show potentially aren't taking responsibility or looking, looking at why money is such an important thing. As you said, people don't talk about it, right, but we all have wants and desires. You know, we have dreams around that $200 million boat. Some people have the dream to do the world marathon challenge. But until you make it a plan, it's never going to be a reality. But in order to make a plan, you have to accept responsibility, which at times mean you have to look at yourself and go. I'm not quite there yet and that's hard to fucking do.

Speaker 1: 22:47

Dude? Yeah, it totally is Like things have to be balanced. You might have a couple of kids at the home and you can't sneak away to do seven marathons in the week. It might be you know your parents need support. Your job doesn't let you do it. You really have to craft your life in a way that you really want to live it.

Speaker 3: 23:08

How have you done that with your company now? So you sold a company prior. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:13

Yep.

Speaker 3: 23:15

And then you've started Purple Cow Internet.

Speaker 1: 23:17

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 23:18

Which is a very successful company. Now, how have you structured your life the way that you have as a result, while, I guess, maintaining a successful business?

Speaker 1: 23:33

Yeah. So business comes first. Like without that engine working, then I can't afford to do all the things I want to do. So if I plan to go skiing today and or even if I had a race and there was a crisis like we had a big internet outage with Purple Cow Internet then that's it. You know, the business comes first and I do whatever it takes to make sure that's successful. Some of the things I did differently with this business opposed to my last one is in this one.

Speaker 1: 23:58

Everyone works remote and I encourage people to travel and to go places and people have taken up that offer. So people have Moved down to Mexico, they've moved Around the country, they've moved or they go away for holiday for multiple months, but they're still working. They just kind of change the box that they're working in. So when I come over here to Europe for three months ago skiing, there's like, yeah, brad's in Europe, it's not a big deal, his camera still works, his internet still there, still working. I think that's such an important thing. And then you know I'm super lucky because my wife same deal she works remote as well, so she can travel with me, and we brought the dogs over here to Europe and it's literally like we picked up the most important things in my life and we moved them all over here. And you know, it doesn't matter what box I'm working out of, and man it's, it's. I think that's the best thing about right now is the ability to work remote, not have to come into the office nine to five.

Speaker 3: 24:56

I think it's really incredible that you allow your staff, or you encourage your staff to do the same. I know haven't had thousands of conversations with men that that's a frustration of Of their workplaces is they see their employer gallivanting around. And I'm in Two minds about that, because I believe the individual who takes a risk to start a company deserves the reward that they, you know, achieved by providing employment and and, obviously, value to the marketplace. The fact that there's people like you who are also bringing your Employers along for the right and improving not only their work life but their life outside of it by encouraging them and empowering them to do that, I think is pretty incredible and exciting to think about where businesses are going in the future as well.

Speaker 1: 25:48

To your point, like, like you deserve that, you earned it. Like man, I still struggle with that. Like I would love to have a Tesla car and I put down a deposit twice now on a Tesla. But I just can't get over how it could make other people feel if I'm driving around in a Tesla and it's something that they can't afford and hiring people, working people, motivating them to try to accomplish something that makes me have the Tesla, but they're not getting that Tesla, necessarily not at this moment, and so I try to push that back.

Speaker 1: 26:22

I, like my car is breaking down it's a 2016 Subaru and we took it on a road trip the other day and we were in the mechanic shop five times on the road trip down to tow trucks and like it's time to get a new car. But it's been on this last leg for a long time and I try to be as frugal as possible with with everything I can. So if it's An Airbnb or a hotel or like I, just I think the only thing I don't try to cheap out on is the experiences. That's the biggest thing that makes value in life. Like a fancy hotel or a fancy meal, you forget about that the next morning.

Speaker 3: 26:58

Yeah, I definitely, definitely agree, I Think to that point, though it's it's, I do believe it's important to, and it's something I struggle with as well.

Speaker 3: 27:12

I have in my own business and, having had business partnerships and employees, I don't want to be Enjoying things that I know they potentially can't enjoy just yet.

Speaker 3: 27:21

However, you know, my psychologist has said it to me, and also a number of mentors where it's like, well, you've established that risk, which is huge, because, bradley, I'm sure there's a lot of stuff that you've gone through in business that people will never understand, ever understand, and I'm all it's. It's important to be empathetic and compassionate with people, but it's got to be a two-way street. It's got to be a two-way street in regards to they. If they want to, if people want to complain or, you know, judge fair what you're doing or how you're living your life they better first seek to understand as well, rather than just throwing comments and shade. And I think for me personally, if people Aren't putting in the effort to understand why I do things or what's important to me, then their opinion or their viewpoint of me I'm never gonna have much control over anyway. Therefore, I'm gonna do continue to do what's important to myself as well, and much to your point, bradley, for me it's we don't have the nice cars or the nice houses or anything like that. We do the experiences.

Speaker 3: 28:31

It's like dude I wear the same flipping clothes and training gear every day Do. It's a great looking shirt, I love it. Thanks, man. So what's the vision with your? What's the goal currently, business-wise? And then we'll start getting into some of this juicy challenges.

Speaker 1: 28:51

Yeah, like my goal is to build purple cow internet up big enough that eventually I think at some point it won't be the right business for me anymore. I'll take it as far as I can take it and and I would like to have enough funds at that point to start building space hotels and that. Enough money is kind of a moving target often, but costs of these things are always coming down launch costs coming down, materials coming down, r&d. You don't have spent as much money on for x, y and z. So I think To know what that number is I don't know I'm gonna need a hundred million bucks to like get it off the ground and start chasing it and still probably need to bring investors. So can I make a hundred million bucks with my current business? Yeah, I think there's just totally the possibility that you could grow this business To that point. Is it gonna happen overnight? No, it's gonna take a ton of work and a lot of luck to how do you?

Speaker 3: 29:52

I'm gonna probably need to speak this question out loud for a moment. But how do you? Think's not the right word, because I know how you do that, but how does your mind operate at such a high like where's this vision come from? And I know it's. It's growing up in Nova Scotia, and you had this curiosity. But then to be how do the fact that you're putting a plan in place to do this like to me. Out of anyone I've ever spoken to On the podcast, this is the most, this is the biggest goal I've ever heard, and I love it, love it. I'm potentially speaking to the next Elon Musk, I everyone. This is no joke, though, but I know you put your money where your mouth is, because I've, you know, done some, we've done some research on you, and it's exciting to know that you're literally waking up every day thinking about how the hell you're gonna make this happen. I'm just trying to understand where the confidence comes from, or or the drive to actually pursue something that, to maybe many people, seems crazy totally dude.

Speaker 1: 31:01

I'll go right back to it. The difference between a goal and a dream is a goal has a plan. Whatever you want in this life, grand or small, as soon as you attach the plan to the dream, it's a goal and it's an actual thing. So I know I can't be an astronaut to go to space. Just that's can't. I've got the can, is not gonna let me unless I'm changing would be cool. I have to get there myself. And what better way to get there yourself than build a business around going there Should two birds in one stone and building habitats and floating around and owning property in space. I just, I just love that idea so much that that's easy for me to get excited about and put time into it and give energy to it, to start planning it out, how to make it happen. So it was a few years ago.

Speaker 1: 31:47

I went to international space university actually down Adelaide, australia, um, which was super cool, um, and you meet a bunch of people you meet like real astronauts.

Speaker 1: 31:57

You meet people that work in the field that eventually Will help you get to your goals. And I went down to school there, for I think it was a six-week program and that was one of the steps going towards going to build space hotels. Like I'm trying to lay the foundation right now and earn enough cash with this business so that when I'm an opportunity presents itself and I have free time and no business is holding me back, then I can chase it and it doesn't really sound crazy to me anymore when I tell friends and family that yeah, like my own goal is to build space hotels, they give a little scoff like, really, like space hotels, like that sounds crazy and it took me a while to realize. But that's when I knew I was setting my goal high enough. Because if I was just saying I just want to own a car dealership, that's freaking awesome and you'll get satisfaction out of it, but like, if you don't get that scoff from your friends and family, you probably need to set your goal a little higher.

Speaker 3: 33:03

I would definitely agree, and I'm thinking about what things that I say. Even and maybe some people can relate to this I'm sitting here thinking now, like maybe I don't have big enough goals. Listen to what you're saying and I think, once again thinking out loud. I think it's contextual to what big may be, because I think a lot of people get stuck in life with purpose and all of this because they do see people like yourself or the Elon Musk's of the world changing things on a global scale. Not everyone needs to do that to have purpose in life and for some people, literally as you said, it could be the car dealership, could be that huge thing.

Speaker 3: 33:46

You may not get as many scoffs, but it's still a big deal. For me it's a little bit different and some people scoff, but not really. But it's listening to yours. I'm like, oh man, if you're doing that, mine's a shoe in, surely. So I think for yeah, just for anyone who's feeling how I'm feeling right now. Listening to you, I'm like it's not a thing, but I get inspired by it. So I do choose to once again feel inadequate to Bradley, or are you choosing to be inspired to go? Maybe I can get a little bit more out of it, out of myself, sorry.

Speaker 1: 34:21

Yeah, and I hope it's the latter. I hope some inspiration comes from it that you should set your goal higher. Like you, you should like, chase something bigger, like, why not? Like? We have one life to live and sometimes I find I come off as very unrelatable because of done these adventures or sold a business and working on trying to go to space and build hotels up there, like, like it it. It isolates me in some ways, but I just want to boil it back down to like.

Speaker 1: 34:54

There's nothing necessarily special about it, other than if we, if we just look at it as you want something, you figure out a plan, you chase it, you accomplish it. The next thing you're going to want is going to be bigger and harder every single time. So if you get good at setting your goals, you're going to go through this cycle many times, over and over and over again, and not tomorrow, not next month, probably not even next year, but five, 10 years from now you're going to be chasing the most grand goals that are just audacious as heck because you got really, really good at setting them, planning them and achieving them.

Speaker 3: 35:28

Perfectly said what made you want to chase the Olympic dream.

Speaker 1: 35:33

Man. So, like in my adventures, I've constantly tried to make them more difficult, harder, and most recently, doing the dittorod. If you look at the dittorod, it's a, it's a thousand mile dog sled race across Alaska. We have to work with a team of dogs that don't speak English and convince them to work for you, to pull you across, and it took two years of training to do it and that is a very, very difficult thing. Going through the mountains and the cold it's very rewarding. But the Olympics man, like once you're an Olympian. You are an Olympian Like that's that's the top of your Wikipedia page, that's that's the crème de la crème. Like that's the most difficult physical thing that you can do. I'm 37 years old. I should not go to Olympics. I should not have an Olympian dream.

Speaker 1: 36:33

I started with my wife and I. We moved over to Vancouver, the other side of Canada, and she was going over to take an acting course and I just couldn't sit around for a few months not doing anything or pursuing a goal. So I looked around like what's unique to Vancouver? And there was this Whistler sliding track where people do lose skeleton and bobsled, and I was like, oh man, like that'd be kind of neat. I did always say I wanted to go to Olympics. So I looked up skeleton, joined all the skeleton courses, started doing skeleton and if if you don't know what skeleton is, it's the most ridiculous thing out there. I don't believe it should be a sport because it is so dangerous and scary and terrifying that it's like I don't know how it's a sport. But basically you lay on this board going head first down this ice labyrinth and the person that can go down there the fastest wins.

Speaker 1: 37:30

And I'll tell you, the real winner in my whole experience doing skeleton for a few months was definitely the walls, because I would hit those so hard, thinking that, yeah, I'm going to show this wall, who's the boss? But man, every time that wall would just destroy me. I had two broken ribs on my right hand side, two broken ribs on my left hand side, bruises that would circumnavigate my whole bicep, and I was just destroyed and kept throwing my body down this thing at the goal. And then, when it was all over for the season, I reflected back on that. I knew that wasn't the right path to the Olympics.

Speaker 1: 38:07

So I got on the website, the Olympian website. I looked up, like all the other sports, and like oh, schimo, like this is a brand new sport, like, let's see if I can hack this and I use hack as almost like a demeaning word, but, like I said, I haven't been training since I was a kid for this in particular sport. So I need something that not a lot of people are doing, one that isn't super dangerous and one that I can just really enjoy the whole time. So I want to continue doing it, and that right now is Schimo for me.

Speaker 3: 38:37

One thing I hope people are really taking away is your ability to ask yourself really good questions or important questions, based on that goal that you're setting for yourself and having the awareness, as you said, it's like you're 37, you have no place to be setting an Olympic goal or even being an Olympian, because most professional careers have done it probably 30 or earlier, right Realistically.

Speaker 3: 39:02

But because you've set this goal and you're building a plan, you're now asking yourself other questions that are going to help put you in a better position. I know when we were speaking last time as well, you were saying you're very lucky because you can obviously just head off to France and do a training camp, whereas some people may not be able to do that. So, where they may have the advantage of age, you have the advantage of being able to do that, but also experience and awareness, and that was really motivating for me, because I don't get to talk to what I do now, but there's not many people that I speak to who are around the same age as me, still pursuing athletic feats at an elite level. Like every goal that I set, still, brother, is like to be the best. Like I went to represented Australia at the world champs in obstacle course racing in September.

Speaker 1: 39:52

Oh, I love it.

Speaker 3: 39:55

I only did one race and I did quite well and I was running with my buddies I was like maybe if I did this, all right, I could do well and did that and then represented Australia and I was like that's sick, that's not what I should be doing at my age. But similar to you, bradley, I want to continue pushing what's possible for as long as I can until my body says chill out, man, or maybe let's go to lawn bowls or botchy or something now. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 40:19

Dude botchy. It's going to be nice. I can't wait it's going to be cold.

Speaker 3: 40:26

What have been some of the biggest lessons you've learned from the challenges that you've?

Speaker 1: 40:29

done. They're not as hard as they sound. Yeah, like, for example, swimming English Channel. It's a 40 ish kilometers from England to France. I mean you have to swim it the whole time. There's a boat there navigating you across. You can't touch the boat. It's purely there for navigation, because when you're standing in England looking over at France, you can't see France, and when you're halfway out, you still can't see France and you can't see England anymore. So you need that navigation.

Speaker 3: 41:09

What was it like being in the middle there. Sorry, just not being able to see land.

Speaker 1: 41:16

I didn't think about it, man. Like I was so devoted and dedicated to like what was happening in that moment of just continually swimming, that my loved ones were on the boat right beside me, like I had everything I wanted, like the only difference was that I was swimming in the water all day, you know. But I remember and this is like I got a whole story around this but when I started talking about doing the English Channel I'm not a swimmer, I didn't come from a swimming background the first thing I needed to do was find a coach, and I was living in Princeton, new Jersey, at the time. So I went into chat with the swim coach at Princeton and I told them you know, my goal is the English Channel. I signed up for it, which basically is just paying a boat captain a couple thousand bucks to drive you across, and that was going to happen in eight months.

Speaker 1: 42:12

And my swim coach, yeah, eight months. And I wrote a blog, had a swim English Channel in eight months. And when I told the swim coach, you know this is happening in eight months, he was like, oh, like, tell me about your resume, tell me about your swimming background. And you know I don't have a swim resume. I told him that I grew up with one of those pools in the backyard. There was one circle, one swim around. There was a river down by the home of, down by my house, and like I had nothing and he thought I was joking.

Speaker 1: 42:41

He's like oh, get in the pool, swim around and let's see what you got. And I got in there and you know it's not hard to necessarily swim right off the bat. Like it's pretty tough to swim all the way to the other side of the pool. But the most daunting thing is when you get to the other side of the pool and you be faced with this wall and these other guys that are half your age or whatever. They're doing this cool kick, flip thing off the wall and then swimming back. Like I kind of just tagged it and then like fluttered around and then it started swimming back towards the beginning and I remember getting out of the pool and I'll never forget this.

Speaker 1: 43:10

The coach came up to me and he's like, brad, you said you're swimming in the English Channel in eight months. I'm like, yeah, super stoked, I'm really excited for it. He said, brad, there is no way you're going to be able to swim in the English Channel in eight months. And he's the Princeton swim coach. And you asked me what is something that I learned by doing all these challenges? And my answer was it's not as hard as you think.

Speaker 1: 43:39

This Princeton swim coach thought it was a lot harder than what it was. He has years of experience, training from different people, probably the best swimmers in the world and he was too nervous, too scared, wasn't motivated enough to even attempt it, so let his mind even wander over to try to do it and because of that he would discourage someone from trying to do it. And I tell you, you're going to run into people like that all throughout your life and when they do, and when they come to you and they say you can't do something, man, put it aside because they're not working. In your best interest, chase that goal, man, because I guarantee you, once you've done it and you look back, it probably wasn't as hard as you thought it was going to be.

Speaker 3: 44:21

That's beautiful advice, so surrounding yourself with the right people is obviously extremely important, and being mindful of who you're taking advice from or getting comments from Totally.

Speaker 1: 44:36

Yeah, that's 101. Yeah, if you're hanging out with a bunch of negative people that are not trying to aspire to things and that's something you want to do, you do have to shed that. Remember when I was a kid, I used to smoke pot.

Speaker 1: 44:49

I think grade 11 or something tried it a few different times, a lot of times probably, about eight months I was smoking it like almost every day, and I remember, like I reflected back on the eight months and I'm like man, is this something I really want to be doing? And of course I said no, I don't want to smoke pot the rest of my life and there's nothing wrong with pot or anything like that but just wasn't right for me. But for me to quit it and I had to basically drop some of my friends because that that was our friendship, it was getting together to get high and I think it sucks that you have to drop your friends, but really what's more important? Your friendship or yourself. Like then the day you got to do what's right for you. And once you're over whatever's holding you back, you can always go back to the thing we kind of let friendship, and that's just what I did. But yeah, don't let those people hold you back, man. That's the worst.

Speaker 3: 45:47

I read a great quote yesterday and I'll paraphrase it because I can't remember it perfectly, but it was like the definition of hell is the person you become meeting, the person you could have been when you're on death's door and for me, when I read that, I was like exact same response as I said oh shit, because there are so many challenging decisions we have to make in life and a lot we think about.

Speaker 3: 46:17

Who do we need to spend more time with? Who do we need to spend less time with? What are the things we actually want to do? And I've always felt a little different because I've never looked. Money is a means, but I understand what it is. I've never been one to buy flashy stuff, but I've understand what it's afforded me from being able to take a month, do 30 marathons in 30 days and all of these different experiences that I've had and I'm so committed to.

Speaker 3: 46:49

When I get to that moment and I you know one thing that I'm super grateful for that hasn't aired yet, but before my grandfather passed away, hit my grandparents, moved in from the farm and my mom was looking after them and grand grand dad was obviously a country man, like been on the farm since he was 14, didn't communicate very well, and so our relationship was always me watching him fence or farm, and that was. There was very few words, but as he came into town, we started building this beautiful relationship and it was one of the most impactful relationships I've had in my life. And as he was getting older, I started I asked my mom. I was like, can I start recording the phone calls that I have with him? Because he'd call me every day and so I was fortunate to do that and I then started to get to ask him questions.

Speaker 3: 47:36

You know what life was like. What does he wish he did different, like things that you wish you could ask your idols, really. And I got to record all of these conversations and it's very interesting to see that someone who is 94 lived a very hard life on the farm. What was actually important to him was not what I thought, you know his family spending time, you know having those experiences but he sacrificed that trying to support his family, which back in those times, you know, the world was a little bit different. So now, knowing that, I think about death a lot, which may be weird, but I'm also like, when I'm there, what does my resume, what do I want my resume to look like?

Speaker 3: 48:17

I don't care if it says a million dollars, a day but I do care if it says lucky, was a great dad one day, or great husband, great mate, but also, did you know these experiences that not many people can say they did, but they're also. I'm not just doing them because other people can't say that, it's because that's what I feel, I doing in this moment and I think it's really important to give thought to that, because you will have to remove people from your life, and not because they're bad people, no, it's just like. But in order for you to get to where you want to go, you need to be around those people who challenge you, who empower you and who can help you achieve a specific outcome or become a specific version of yourself.

Speaker 1: 49:00

Yeah, man couldn't agree more. No, that's awesome. The fact you have those recordings of grandpa, that makes me reflect and wish I did something similar like. That's so special and really, really awesome.

Speaker 3: 49:12

Oh man, I'm so, so grateful and I haven't posted those episodes yet and I will at some point. And another another thing I'm grateful I have my nephew, so my nephew's 10 and I've been recording him. So we have conversations and it's really fascinating the questions he will ask me and then, if I flip it back on him, the responses and how simple life really should be. So I think it's, and there's also those thoughts that you should spend a bit of time with people who are older than you. You know, think about the oldest person you're spending time with, because they can give you great perspective people your own age and then also people are fair bit younger than you, because people see the world differently. They ask different questions, but the benefit of being asked a variety of questions can help you shape your life in a way that's going to be more rewarding to you.

Speaker 1: 50:05

Dude, yeah, well rounded perspective, I love it.

Speaker 3: 50:09

That's yeah, yeah, that's for sure. So I want to ask as well work life balance. You're obviously running a really successful company. You're training to be an Olympian, you've got this Olympic dream, you've got your wife. How do you juggle it all?

Speaker 1: 50:29

It's hard, man, there's no easy way about it. I do find that when it's not in balance, then everything starts to fall. If I just solely focused on the Olympics and was over here in France skiing every single day and didn't work or didn't pay attention, didn't give them the energy that's required to my wife, I'll probably excel in the skiing bit, but for only so long. You start becoming unhappy. So yet it's trying to be ruthless with that balance. There's nothing like if you can figure it out and let me know that'd be really awesome, because I struggle with that all the time, trying to figure out how to balance it better. We try to do the date night with the wife and I love that. I think that's a really cool way to make sure you guys can be on the same page. Yeah, man, balance. It's not always in balance. It's always a fluctuating thing, but I do know that you have to put the effort into trying to get it.

Speaker 3: 51:32

Could I ask what balance looks like or feels like to you?

Speaker 1: 51:38

It's definitely something that's always changing. Right now, a balanced day for me is being able to get my workload in, being able to get in eight, nine hours of work and then giving some dedicated time to my partner and the dogs. It's nice having dogs because we can go for a walk with them. You know, whenever cell phones that are in our ears, we're just hanging out talking, and if I can do those three things every single day, that's a pretty balanced day. And then on the weekends I try not to work as much anymore. When we were starting the business, it was just nonstop. For the first year and a half two years it was seven days a week, 18 hours a day, but now it's starting to be the point where I want to value the time a little bit more to give to my wife and the dogs and family.

Speaker 3: 52:28

The time that you're spending so obviously training. You have a coach and we were talking about that a moment ago and I'd love to segue in there to a second but then also work, and I would imagine, probably with your wife and with the dogs, but you're pretty intentional with what you want from the exchanges in time, meaning at work you would have KPIs or things that need to get done. During that eight to nine hours at training, your coach is probably telling you exactly what needs to happen and then do you take that same approach to your relationship, Whereas I know we need connection or we need a date night or we need various things?

Speaker 1: 53:01

I would say not. No, I think probably in the end it's my relationship that gets the least and obviously it does change. But we're in Europe for three months because of sport, not because this is my wife's dream vacation. This is where she wants to be. She's awesome and perfect in every single way that she'll come with me, support me, be at my races and be that motivating thing. But then the day it, it's hard to balance, man, it really, really is.

Speaker 1: 53:36

I don't want to sugarcoat it at all because I don't think there is an easy way to do it. Yeah, I don't know where to take it. My man, I. It is something that I work hard at. I Find the running a business is often times easier because you can just set the goals and the KPIs and it's clear, like there's metrics, there's numbers, when you hit it same with sports Relationship. It's not not that easy. You know we have a great relationship. I don't want to. I don't want to say anything other than that, but you know to say like okay, did we get 4.2 this month on our relationship? No, like what it was a you mean like okay to be spent X amount hours. We could probably measure that. There's probably some, some KPIs that we could put around relationship. That would be interesting to do. Do you have something like that with your partner?

Speaker 3: 54:27

We, we aim to do stuff like that because when I think about, we're similar to you guys. Both work from for ourselves and it's very easy to you know you might have the phone or the laptop so you can spend time focusing on that, or same with my training, I know exactly what I've got to do, what I'm working towards. So I agree with you. One thing that I've recognized is you know, I read the five love languages and we worked out what our love languages were. So it's very it's made it more easy to make tangible.

Speaker 3: 54:57

And I feel really uncomfortable saying you need to Do specific things for a relationship, because it then sounds like it's a task or a chore. But I feel life becomes so busy that if I don't schedule time to do specific things for a specific outcome, it's I could go weeks without doing it. And same with my mates. I actually schedule calls with my buddies because we're, once again, we're on different time zones. But and I often think, am I a bad person because I don't always think about Calling my buddies and whatnot, but because it's in my calendar, I do it. So With with Amy, we do schedule.

Speaker 3: 55:33

every second week we try to do a date night and we alternate who's in control, so that way we get to do things that the other person loves. And sometimes I don't like it, but it's not about me liking it, it's about the time together, and sometimes we just want to be in a good mood, and sometimes we just want to be in each other's proximity and not talk, and other times we, you know, we want to connect and do some stuff. So there's things that we track, because I do think that Giving time to each other is important and it's very easy to go Okay. Well, if we're spending time on our phone, that's not really time.

Speaker 3: 56:10

So it allows us to put some boundaries around things where I can say hey, now, like you know, the last couple of weeks, you know we've been traveling everywhere, we've been together a lot like in the car and stuff, but we haven't actually connected. So I would love like a date night with no technology. So it helps me put something in place to get something that I feel I need. So yeah, it's a tough one to answer, but I like to Think about how I can make things tangible, because it's such a Important part of my life, as it is for you and, I think, for a lot of men, and I think when you start thinking about that, you can then, I guess, give yourself some more actionable steps but also communicate it more effectively.

Speaker 1: 56:53

Man, I think we can all take something from that right there. I applaud you for that. Oftentimes life gets so busy and hectic that the date night gets rescheduled and then it gets missed and then just stops. If you're ruthless with that, I think that's only a good thing.

Speaker 3: 57:10

Yeah, and I feel like I've taken that perspective purely from having conversations with my grandad and you know there's a great book, the Five Regrets of the Dying, by Bronnie, where she was a palliative nurse and she would interview all the people and it's like the things that mattered most that they regretted Was not what you'd expect and you're like, okay, well, if these people who have been on desk door Say these things, maybe I should listen to them.

Speaker 3: 57:38

And because we're balancing with the, the act of wanting to prove ourselves or achieve these career milestones. If I now Accept that that's part of me, that I want those things, and the challenge of that means the compromise of Other things, maybe I should start scheduling time and make it a non-negotiable not saying that I don't ever miss it or skip it I definitely do, but but trying to juggle the two, it's just like well time, because Chances are I spend a lot of time scrolling Instagram that I could be hanging out with Amy you know so it's definitely.

Speaker 3: 58:12

Yeah, it's. It's a juggling act, as, as you were saying, I did have another big oh. I wanted to ask just as well for everyone else like a day in the life at the moment, as you were Saying, you've got time with your wife, you've got time training and you've got time building businesses what are some important things that you do to fuel your energy, to go like, because you're definitely a high achiever, you're, you're a mover and shaker in regards to the, the goals that you've set for yourself, but how do you keep your energy at such a high level to be able to do that?

Speaker 1: 58:50

You mean outside eating copies? Amount of candy.

Speaker 3: 58:53

That's the key everybody candy. What's your favorite?

Speaker 1: 58:56

candies, gummies, gummies dude.

Speaker 3: 59:00

One thing of it's blows my mind here in the states is everything is a gummy. You can get your magnesium in a gummy, your vitamin.

Speaker 1: 59:07

Oh, yeah, just like dude be 12 hold it.

Speaker 3: 59:10

Yeah, oh, it's incredible, it is gummies.

Speaker 1: 59:13

Yeah, you made that choice though. Did you?

Speaker 1: 59:16

like who doesn't love it? Dude, high energy. I, I think it's just just being happy doing the things you want to do, and that just brings the best version of you out. I love, just, absolutely love, living over here in france, and it's probably not for the reasons you think, it's literally because I have the opportunity to prioritize my personal life over work. What does that mean?

Speaker 1: 59:43

When I wake up in the morning, I don't. I have until Almost two or three o'clock in the afternoon before I have to start work. So I have, I can get up, I can go for a ski, I can have a shower, I can go to the grocery store, cook a nice breakfast, take the dogs for a walk, watch an episode of something on tv, if I choose to, and then start work early. You know like it's. It's so how powerful to be able to prioritize the things you want to do in life over work. That that really makes me super pumped and happy and I bring that over into work. Like we have our weekly meeting this week and I'm fired up. Let's go like I'm gonna go in there on fire and just and just. You know, bring the energy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So do you do.

Speaker 1: 1:00:30

I think, the energy probably comes to balance too. Like if you're not doing anything for yourself or anything for the people you serve, then you're gonna. You're giving your energy to probably people that are not giving it back, so you're gonna be drained.

Speaker 3: 1:00:42

Do you? Are you one of those individuals who tracks their sleep and all of that sort of stuff? I do wear a whip or an aura ring now you just. I love that. It's good to hear different Dude.

Speaker 1: 1:00:52

I think that stuff would scare me. Then I'd be all nervous about it. Wonder why didn't good night sleep? And now I'm stressed out and man, it's just, I don't want to know any of those things, just Go to bed, sleep as well as I can.

Speaker 3: 1:01:04

And what was it like being on the Canada's ultimate challenge? Can you give a quick rundown and overview, and then we'll let you get back to training?

Speaker 1: 1:01:12

Well, yeah, so Canada's ultimate challenge is a tv show that cbc put together and cbc is like our largest Broadcasting network here in Canada. It's a reality tv show. It's a competition teams of four compete against five other teams and we're coached by a celebrity coach within Canada. So donovan Bailey was like our run of gold medal in Olympics is the fastest runner. My coach was a guy in Luke Wilson who's won NFL Super Bowl and just really awesome people To coach you and encourage you anyway.

Speaker 1: 1:01:45

So we would do all these different physical challenges and eventually teams started getting eliminated and we got lucky man, our team as sub four, we, we made it right to the end and and we got the trophy and and won that, won the show. Really really cool experience, man. Really cool experience. I loved it. I would love to do it again In a fashion to make it even more difficult, for sure, but you know anyone out there that always wanted to do reality tv that hasn't Applied what one you're never going to make if you don't apply, but who has applied and didn't make it like keep applying, because it is way worth the energy you're putting in just to apply for the experience you get out of it. It's ton of fun.

Speaker 3: 1:02:28

That's awesome, really, really cool. But, bradley, I want to thank you for your time. I know you're extremely busy. As you've said, you're juggling a lot of plates, but For me personally, I you're definitely a role model. I, from the moment that we first connected and.

Speaker 3: 1:02:43

You're spying for the olympic dreams. It's like I do whatever I can to surround myself with people like you who are Not, you know, still chasing Incredible feats and practice what they preach. I think it's. It's such an exciting for me. It's. It's such an exciting person. You're such an exciting person to connect with and I'm sure everyone listening to this is going to be heading over to your instagram, which all of those details will be in the uh, the bio to follow more of what you're doing, because you know, I think you posted a video the other day doing some insane Workout and just like I'm just kicking my ass again here today. Let's get up and go. So seeing that motivates me, but also knowing that you have Huge goals, it's just like let's just keep growing.

Speaker 1: 1:03:27

Yeah, follow along see how I'm trying to hack the olympics. But if anyone hasn't listened to your last podcast about goals, go back, listen to that podcast, because it will resonate with anyone. I thought you did a great job on it.

Speaker 3: 1:03:40

Appreciate it, man. Thank you for your time.

Speaker 1: 1:03:43

Have a good one.