Episode 14 : Nick

What does a life of risk, adventure and reinvention really teach you?

In this episode of Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained, Rebecca and Caroline sit down with entrepreneur and adventurer Nick Bullman — a man whose life sounds almost like fiction. From closing multi-million pound deals and flying solo across the Atlantic to surviving business failure, heart surgery and even being shot in an accident, Nick has lived life at full velocity.

But what’s most striking is where all that experience has led him.

Today Nick talks about the shift from adrenaline and achievement to something deeper — learning to slow down, find calm and focus on what truly matters.

In this conversation, Nick shares the lessons he has learned through success, failure and some extraordinary moments along the way.

They explore:

• Why failure often teaches us more than success
• The mindset needed to keep going when things fall apart
• What flying across the Atlantic taught Nick about control and decision-making
• How a serious heart operation changed his perspective on life
• The role of breathwork, mindfulness and the Wim Hof method in finding calm
• Why neuroplasticity shows we can always learn and change
• The importance of tenacity, courage and self-belief
• Why learning to serve others and let go of ego brings real fulfilment

Along the way there are stories about aviation, entrepreneurship, family life and the unexpected lessons that come from navigating life’s toughest moments.

At its heart, this episode is a reminder that growth rarely happens inside our comfort zones — and that even the hardest experiences can lead to wisdom, humility and a deeper sense of purpose.

We are back with a new series of Nothing Ventured Nothing Gained. Please follow us on Instagram for lots of fun, adventures and behind the scenes antics.

NVNG is hosted by Rebecca Rees and Caroline Bridge. Rebecca is an ICF PCC Executive Coach and Co-Founder of Peak 15 Coaching, passionate about how our brains work and helping people unlock possibility. Caroline won BBC’s Race Across the World 2025 with her son Thomas — a series watched by over six million and shortlisted at the National Television Awards.

🎯 Our Mission: To help people pause, see beyond what holds them back, and discover new possibilities for greater happiness and wellbeing.

📩 Contact Us : We’d love to hear your questions, ideas, or stories of stepping outside your comfort zone: WhatsApp: https://wa.me/447375220027

Instagram @nothingventuredpodcast

👉 Please follow, share, and be part of the NVNG adventure — it all starts with daring to try.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Welcome back to Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained. Our guest today is a charming, if at times ruthless man who's closed million-dollar deals before breakfast, nearly lost it all before midnight. He's crossed the Atlantic alone in a cockpit six times. He's a jet setter. He's chased the horizon on two wheels, on waves, on horseback, on skis. He's pushed himself to the very limits. He's chased adrenaline all his life. He's had money problems, close shades, but he has survived. And he has now found peace in the stillness. The Tuxedo Fantasy Life has translated into real-world resilience. But Caroline, this isn't fiction. It isn't James Bond. It is Nick Bullman.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Hello Nick! How are you?

SPEAKER_02 0:59

Hi, hi. I'm good, thank you. This is Rebecca. Hello, Nick.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Hello, Rebecca.

SPEAKER_02 1:03

So, Nick. Please be honest. If I said your life sounds like a James Bond script. Frightfully suave, successful, wealthy businessman managing millions, flying solo across the Atlantic six times, having ice baths, surviving being shot at. Just how far off the truth am I?

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Well, that's a pretty good summary. I mean, there have been lots of ups and downs in between. But yeah, I've had, you know what, I've been very lucky. I've had some really wonderful experiences, extraordinary experiences. And then on the flip side of that, I've had I've had some pretty tough things to go through as well. So, which I think is a reflection of everyone's life. So lots of highs and lows. It's just been but it's been exciting, and I've enjoyed both.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

And have you enjoyed it because you've learned from it?

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Yeah, I think things like flying across the Atlantic were fascinating because it's just not many people get the opportunity to do that. Sailing's the same thing, but then some of the harder experiences I've had, like getting divorced or having operations and stuff, have have been yeah, good life lessons. I felt like I've been a cork on the ocean. And sometimes the sun's shining and sometimes it's not. And I've been floated along, and it's been brilliant. And it's not over yet, thank God. That's the big thing.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

So you're talking about bobbing along on the ocean, and yet you're talking to me and Caroline about flying across the Atlantic. So tell me about that. What what in what was involved?

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Well, ever since I was a child, I'd wanted to fly. So I actually worked at a little airfield very near in Essex. And then as my business grew and I got more expensive, I went on and did what's called an instrument rating, which allows you to fly in clouds and bad weather. And I did what's called an ATPL, which is the airline transport pilot's license. And I'd bought various aircraft, and then I got a chance to fly the aircraft across the Atlantic via the northern route, which was just fascinating. I mean, it's an extraordinary thing. You see the northern lights, you see, you see the most extraordinary things. And it takes about 14 hours to get from sort of Dublin to Goose Bay in Canada. And I did it both in winter and in summer, and it was just really just a wonderful experience. And when you land in places like Iceland or Greenland, you're landing in tiny, tiny communities. This is a bit of a naughty story, but I I was flying into Nar Saswak and I was at about 28,000 feet, and you have to make a decision before you start the descent whether you can get into the airfield you're going to, because otherwise you don't have enough fuel to get to the next one, to the diversion airfield. So I called ahead and I was running a bit late and I said, Would you mind keeping the airfield open for me? And the traffic controller said, Yes, absolutely no problem. So I managed to land, refuel, and uh and pay the landing fees and go up to the tower because it's a tiny community. I mean, there's like 300-350 people living in Nars Osweg. And so I went up to see the air traffic controller and I said, It look, thank you so much. And I really, really appreciate you keeping the airfield open for me. And is there anything I can bring you on my way back? And he said, All we need here is whiskey and porn.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

Did you say porn? Porn.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Porn! Porn, Rebecca!

SPEAKER_01 4:25

When you go to the far north, you land in somewhere like Goose Bay, there can be six, seven, ten feet, twelve feet of snow on either side of the runway. So you're sort of taxiing through a maze to get to wherever you're going. But yeah, so it was a it was wonderful and it was a very different part of my life. It was part of life that was very controllable because you make decisions based on training. And so it's really, it was really fascinating, actually. It was a a wonderful, it was probably the only place in life where I really felt fully in control. And of course, you're not even fully in control there. Things going wrong, things going right, feeling it was it was good, and and then arriving safely at the destination, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

And did fear enter into it at all?

SPEAKER_01 5:13

No, not really. I think I always used to tell passengers, relax. If I look worried, then you you should look worried. But my main concern is that I live, therefore you'll live. I think most pilots would echo that. Although I did have an experience once, we had a hydraulic problem, and I'd offered my accountant, his golf club wanted a Tom Bodo prize or something. And so I flew them from Dubl from Stanster or Biggin Hill back to Dublin, and we had a problem with the landing gear. We had to hand hump it down. When when the plane finally stopped and I'd opened the doors, the and of course we've been followed everywhere by fire engines and all the rest of it, because they worry your your undercarriage is going to collapse. It was a bit like a people visit. You had people getting out, kissing the ground. Saying, What's the second prize? A flight back.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

And you talked about the controllable part of your life because you've been taught how to fly. Tell us about the uncontrollable part of your life. What what happened after that?

SPEAKER_01 6:19

I think the rest of life is adapting to change, and and the quality of your life is dependent on how quickly and how successfully you can adapt to change. I think.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

Nick, you have been incredibly wealthy, nearly lost it all. But would you say that is it failure that has shaped you more or success?

SPEAKER_01 6:42

I think I I think hard times shape you much more than success. I think success, it's very easy to get kid yourself that it's because of your own efforts. Whereas it can be a multitude of things that bring you success. Failure is it's a hard stop. You have to really reassess why things went wrong. And again, it's a combination of things. It's a sense of a failure, a sense of responsibility, a sense of having made silly decisions or stupid decisions. And those are all quite battering for the ego. And that and that's why it's so good, because it sort of takes the ego out of yourself, I think. So I'd I'd definitely say the harder, the harder things have been more rewarding. It's not to say that you only want to live a life full of of hard things as some people have to, because that's really tough. But I I think I've met so many people that have had really hard lives that have come out the other side better for it. Yeah. So it teaches you the failures of a great mentor. I I would have preferred not to have had them, obviously, but you just deal with life as life is presented.

SPEAKER_02 7:53

And can you tell us about your experience? I believe you were training for a triathlon and you got some terrible news.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

I was typical male in that I was training for a triathlon. I think I was going cross-country skiing two days later, and it was going to be quite an exertion. And the surgeon called up and just said, Look, I've got some bad news for you. Your one of your arteries is 90% blocked, and the other two are 70 or 80% blocked, and you need to come in. I I don't think I was really listening. I said, I'll come back to you when I've been on my skiing trip. And his response was not if you want to be alive. That was it. I was driven straight to the hospital. And uh that was a real experience. It's uh great surgeons, the medical care was extraordinary. It's a big operation because they slice through your sternum and then take a huge vein out of your leg, which they use for the uh for the bypasses of the veins. And uh and yeah, it was it was that was a it was quite a big recovery from that. I actually had an out-of-body experience, which could be anything. I was floating above and I could see them pumping my heart with manually with their hands. I had a thing called brachycardia, which is a very slow heartbeat. And I post-operation, I was literally spinning at a sort of very hard, fast rate, but I could see everything absolutely still. It was the most extraordinary experience. And I spoke to I spoke to Tishi, who's one of my daughters, who's a doctor, afterwards and said, Could you have a chat and say, Did they did they actually have to pump my heart? And so she went and spoke to the anaesthetist, and she said he said yes, he had brachicardia and we had to pump his heart. But I wouldn't, there was no one had told me that. I was I hadn't known it. So I did see it. Now it can be lack of oxygen, it can be a lot of people explain it in lots of different ways, and so I don't know what it was, but it was very real for me, and I definitely saw it. So yeah, just an extraordinary experience.

SPEAKER_02 9:57

You you mentioned your wonderful daughter, Tishi, and you have six amazing children. How do you think they would describe you, Nick?

SPEAKER_01 10:06

I'd spend a long time sort of treating the the children as a group as opposed to individuals. I hope they're proud of the fact that I've always tried to do the right thing and and brought them up to respect other people and stuff. I think they'd say that I'd had a really interesting life, but it was too wild and up and down for them. Probably. Only one of them really has wanted to be an entrepreneur, the rest wanted to go to professional lives that are perhaps a little bit more stable. I think that's probably the honest answer.

SPEAKER_02 10:39

And where do you think your decision to be an entrepreneur came from?

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Through my father, really. I think he was he's he left school at 16 and self-educated man and built a very, very successful business and always had that influence on me. I'll remember, I remember him coming to visit me at I I worked for Goldman Sachs at one point, and he came in, and you know, that that that place, if you really work hard, you can earn a fortune. And he came in and said, Oh, it's like working in a battery of chickens, isn't it? Because we're all in a line doing line. And uh so I'd always had it in the back of my mind that if I could afford to responsibly start a business, then I would. And of course, the moment you start your own business, you become unemployable. I think that's really interesting. The whole entrepreneur thing is is a very it's it's it's very multifaceted. Everyone assumes entrepreneurs go out and make money and are really successful, but the truth is a lot of entrepreneurs go bust. And the truth is a lot of entrepreneurs have to work twice as long hours as you would if you were in in serious employment. And that has impact on family, it has impact on all sorts of things. So, yes, it's lovely to hear about people's success and people doing well, and I applaud it and I think it's fantastic, but being an entrepreneur is is not often what it's cracked up to be, and we want more of them because they they end up paying a lot of taxes.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

And is there a failure that has ended up sort of maybe quietly paying you a dividend now?

SPEAKER_01 12:20

Well, a di a dividend, not not in monetary terms. Business is going bust or as close to bust as possible. And yeah, I think that I think I think they make you more honest about yourself and hopefully to others. And I think you it makes you much more understanding of the human condition. Everyone's trying their best, and they're all we're all we're all pretty similar. So, yes, so I think I think failures have paid tons of dividends in the sense that I'm a happier person, I think I see things in a much more balanced way. I don't believe we really start growing up until we're about 40. I know that sounds extraordinary, but I think until you've lost a friend or you've had some sort of real crisis in your life, god forbid, whatever it may be, I I don't think you can really talk about life in terms of love and regret. I don't until then you've you've basically be lived. It's different for different people, obviously. That was my experience. Some if you come up Okay.

SPEAKER_02 13:25

What what brings you the most joy now, Nick?

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Hmm. I think well, I think it's I think it's giving, actually, funny enough. I I mean the when we were talking before, we talked a little bit about the Wim Hof method and Ramdas and all of those things. And I I I really do believe that if you can love everyone, serve everyone, and and remember God, whatever that means for you, you're gonna live a much, much more pleasant and peaceful and stable and calm life and fun life. Because you just don't take yourself so seriously anymore. So I think that's the thing that's really brings me to greatest pleasure. But then also I think, you know, beyond all of that, it's my children and their children and and the grandchildren that are coming on. And I'm immensely proud of the people they've become. They're all really good citizens. That's that's just hugely, hugely satisfying. And I have mixed levels of contact with all of them, but they but I from a distance, for all of them, I am immensely proud of what they've done. You know, two doctors, one working in investment management. I work with my eldest son. My youngest son is is is in Australia becoming a commercial pilot and wants to work with firefighting and uh agricultural spraying. And then my eldest daughter, Catherine, who you know very well, Caroline, is is married, two children, and and wants to sort of retrain as a nursery school teacher, English nursery school teacher in Germany. So they're all living these incredible lives that are very giving. So all of those things have come together. Yeah. The simple thing, it's not complicated things, I think. The the thing that gives me the most enjoyment is striving for simple things.

SPEAKER_02 15:15

And when you saw your children, any of them struggling or wondering what to do, what kind of things did you do to help them?

SPEAKER_01 15:24

That's a really good question. It was very interesting. My youngest son, Joe, who's in Australia, was doing really well in mining, basically. He was he'd become a supervisor, and they it's a tough job. They do like two or three weeks on and they get a week off, and then anyway, one day he was asked to take someone they'd just fired on the in the mine to the railhead. Well, the railhead in Australia is 450 miles away or something, and it was middle of his shift, and he drove this chap to the railhead and then drove the 450 miles back. So 900-mile journey. And on the way he was back, he was speeding and got back to the camp. Next morning they called him in and said, You're fired. You we had a GPS in the car. He was very anxious to get working again and to prove himself. And I said to him, Look, just take a breath here, just take a couple of weeks off. You've you've got enough savings, just wait and see how you feel and do what you want to do. Stop doing everything for everyone else. And uh, it was at that point that he he called up completely randomly a company in South in Perth in Australia that does firefighting agricultural spraying with planes and said, Look, I'm really want to do get into this. Can I? They had a space. They said, Yes, we'd like you to come down. He's now doing all sorts of jobs, relatively menial in terms of filling up planes and doing all those things. But in the meantime, he's he's done, I think, four of his commercial exams and he's well as well, and they'll sponsor him through it. And so I think that that's the sort of lesson I've I've given them. So I think I think the the message really is if something doesn't excite you, you're never gonna be good at it. You ignore the money.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

Did you stay true to that, Nick, when you were younger?

SPEAKER_01 17:09

I never did anything I didn't like. I worked very hard at what I did do, and sometimes sometimes you've got to stick through things. You can't just be a sort of a butterfly, flippity. But I think I definitely stuck to what I really wanted to do, and I've had tremendous fun doing it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:27

So what advice would you give your younger, maybe it's like 25-year-old self?

SPEAKER_01 17:33

That's yeah, it's so difficult, isn't it? Because at 25 I was really wild. I was you know I'd already I'd already had a child. I was married, really happily married at the time, building a business, I was doing tons of different things. Would it have been wise to say, look, just be more present in the moment and just come? Perhaps, yeah, but I don't know if I would have listened. That's the thing. But if I'd said that to myself at 25, I think I would have I would have I would have fallen over. Something you're talking about, you idiot.

SPEAKER_02 18:07

So what what was the catalyst for that? What what brought that about?

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Just turbulence, just change. My ex-wife, Kate, was a was a yoga teacher, so I was always interested in and I saw that it brought her a lot of pleasure, and I wanted to do things with her. And then I I read a lot. I read I read a lot of Eastern philosophies and and then and then got very interested in mindfulness and meditation, doing retreats. And uh yeah, that that was the catalyst. And then and then, of course, once you've done those things and you feel you a little bit of confidence, to be able to teach other people that, to serve other people with that, is wonderful because it it changes your life. To be calm, it's an absolute gift. I see people racing around all day long from one thing to another, and they're not really present, they're just jumping from one thing to another, not appreciating anything as they go along and just looking forward to the next thing. Of course, if you've had a heart operation and you've been told that one of the one of the side effects is death.

SPEAKER_00 19:13

If that doesn't get your attention, nothing will. So yeah, so I think that's yeah, those were the catalysts.

SPEAKER_02 19:21

Yeah, talking of racing around, you actually rode a couple of races for Willie Mullins, didn't you? And also, could you tell us about the that led to some voluntary work? What was that?

SPEAKER_01 19:30

The well it was we were raising money for a uh kidney foundation at the time, and it was a charity race. So I was I was very lucky to be chairman of Punchstam, which is a voluntary job. It was at a time when when Punchstam was going through a lot of difficulties and there were a lot of financial problems. I was invited to ride in the in the amateur flat rate. So I did it two or three times, and uh so I rode short, and it's extraordinary. If you ride in a group of 30 horses, you the noise is unbelievable, and people are screaming at each other to get out of the way. And because you've got all racehorses are very thin up the front, and if you're a big lad like me, you're just looking down, you're just seeing these hooves just missing each other. And the noise, so it's like a it's like the charge of the light brigade or something. Anyway, as part of that, as part of that, as part of that journey, we had to I had to lose a lot of weight. I had to lose like two and a half stone. And one day I had to go to the dialysis unit because you could hardly say you were raising money for a kidney foundation without going to the dialysis unit. So in I went and I sat down next to this old biddy who was having her dialysis. And then and then I started seeing the blood coming out from the dialysis through the tubes, and I fainted. So I was out for the cloud on the floor with nurses coming rushing around looking after me rather than the lady that was being dialysed, and her looking out of the bed saying, Are you all right?

SPEAKER_02 21:03

Nick, I'd love to go back to what you were saying. You you talked about joy, and then you talked about giving, and then you linked into Wim Hof and serving people, and then that's come out with what you've just talked about. So I'd love to know more about the spiritual side in terms of how you approach that.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Well, I read the background to it with with two real influences. One was Ram Das, who who was had been a professor at Harvard before he he found he found his calling, and then a Buddhist priest called Tainat Han, who you had a a Buddhist monastery in France, and both of them were very, very focused on the present moment. There are several things that will bring you in the present moment. Getting in an ice bath is one of them. You have this single point of focus, you can't think about anything else. So I found that really like a shortcut to meditation. Because meditations come in different forms. Single point of focus is the one that really is where your whole brain clears and you just have this one thing in front of you. And so the Wim Hof method definitely got me there very quickly because all you can concentrate to survive is your breath. And the cold is very, very singular. The philosophy they have, and the one that I've I have taken on, is really that one should love everybody. There's a great analogy that they they taught that Ram Das talks about. He says, if you go into a forest and you're walking through the forest, you'll see trees that are straight, trees that are bent over, trees that have fallen to the ground, gnarly trees, all sorts of different trees, young, old, fallen. And no one ever goes through the forest saying, Oh, that's a horrible fallen tree, or that's a horrible gnarly tree. But the moment you come out of the forest and you go back into society, we suddenly become very judgmental. And we start making judgments on whether someone's pretty or handsome or ugly or fat or thin. And we assign those to character, to character flaws or to care, you know, that we built up through years of assumptions. And of course, the truth is we're much more like the forest than we are, like our own imagining. It's the ego that drives those those judgments. And so I think that the the first thing of the Ramdas Foundation is love everyone. The next is serve everyone. And I think that's you get I think over time, as you get older, you get much more pleasant. And that's it feeds into the money thing too. I get much more pleasure giving than I do receiving. Much, much more pleasure.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

I agree. And for all the people who are racing around and have no focus on the present moment, and what what advice would you give them to try and find more calm?

SPEAKER_01 24:06

I think it's learning breath work. If you can learn to ex there are two or three ways to get into the there are two, there are two nervous systems, there's parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems. To get into your parasympathetic nervous system, you you can just lengthen your breath, your outbreath. So literally. And the moment you start doing, if you do it five or six times, you will be in your parasympathetic nervous system. And you'll suddenly relax and it takes you out of the fight or flight. You can't be in the present moment if you're in fight or flight. Unless you're being chased by a tiger. In which case you'll which is why we have a sympathetic nervous system. But but generally a lot of the I think mental health issues, inflammation, illnesses that we have today are caused by people being constantly in their sympathetic nervous system. And in fright or flight. So yeah, so those things. And then I think the last thing is just to have a kind of spiritual side. Again, it's his his motto was love everyone, serve everyone, remember God. But it could be as it could be believe in the universe or in a universal being or a universal spirit. It can be anything, it's just a question of of remembering that you're not you're not you're part of something much bigger. I mean, we are ants, aren't we? On a on a planet spinning around the sun in a universe that may be part of billions of universes. So I think that can be if you if you focus in on that, you you get a little bit of humility, I think. And that's that's that's a grace. That to have humility is a real grace, I think. And often when you see very rich people, they don't have grace or humility. Because they assign their wealth or their or their or their uh success to themselves as opposed to luck or being in the right place at the right time or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_02 26:11

So does is that how you are with your people? Are you like an officer with them? So you're a leader that they want to emulate, and yet you'd also lay down your life with them. Is that how you would be able to do that?

SPEAKER_01 26:22

That's a really quick good question. I uh no, I think you know what, flying, one of the things flying did for me was now obviously I flew quite a bit solo, but when when I was flying with other crew, it's very much a an iterative process. There's a there's an ask and response, and if there's a problem, you'll turn to the other person you're flying with and say, Are you happy with this? Do you think so? It's it's not a command thing at all. It's more look, this is what I'm thinking, this is what I would do. Is everyone happy with that? And if not, creating an environment where people can speak. And I served on a number of bank boards, and some of them had it, and some of them didn't. Some of them, you get an alpha male or female on the board, and they'd just shout everyone down. It was their decision to, and you had to follow yay or nay. And that's a really difficult board environment to be in because it's uh it's intimidating. So I think the job of anyone leading anything is to create a platform where the smallest voice has weight, who is the person with the smaller voice may be the most intelligent and may and may have something really sensible to say.

SPEAKER_02 27:39

One of the things we love to do is to ask people to think about three things that are almost guiding principles through their life that they can hold on to when going through tough times or good times. What would yours be if you summarise those?

SPEAKER_01 27:57

Well, it would definitely be that the change is normal, and so it's so the change is the constants. So I think that would be the first thing is just remember that your it's your choice how you react. And the reaction could be totally passive. I mean, and this has happened to me time and time again. A problem's arrived, and I thought, I've got to deal with that, and then I thought, no, just give it 72 hours, and nine times out of ten, the problem's different in 72 hours. Sometimes it's worse, you know, but most times it's changed, and the change allows you to deal with it. So that would be I I guess those two things would be the guiding principle. And then I think I've definitely I'm 65 now, I've softened, I'm not as as hard as I used to be. And I think that's really important. As soon as one can do that in life, the better.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

What's making what's funny? I'm sorry. Oh, you no, I haven't seen it now.

SPEAKER_02 29:01

And I was just gonna say, but clearly you haven't heard of Viagra or something. I'm sorry, I just couldn't help it. It was so silly. I know exactly what you meant, but might just get away with me.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

It softened in in the areas that that mattered. I'm really sorry. No problem at all.

SPEAKER_02 29:24

And the third, moving swiftly.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

Moving swiftly, yeah. Yeah, it was very funny. I was putting a in the dark in the back of the car with these two friends I was with the last weekend. I was sitting next to his wife, and I was trying desperately trying to find in the dark, it's so impossible in the back of the car to find.

SPEAKER_02 29:40

Oh, to find a seatbelt. Oh, yeah, so many men say that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

She turns she turns around and says, Is it in yet? Those are the words no man ever wants. Moving swiftly. No, but I think I have to I I used to be quite gung-ho. I think I was always fun and I had a sense of humor, but I think I was going demanding. And I think I'm less demanding now because I I think I have I just have a better understanding of the human condition through through work that I've done. And I've been really lucky to do it. And the reason I would did it was because I was told I was gonna die, I was told I needed hip replacements, I was told I needed catarites. I went through a period where it was really tough, and it was at least 12 to 15 years of really tough times, businesses failing, divorce, medical issues, let that that sense of letting people down, children letting my children down, letting my ex-wife down. Yeah, it was a lot. But the point is you you you you asked what are the what are the life lessons? They they are that you can only work on yourself. You can't change other people. And I see this all the time, people trying to change someone else. Don't work on yourself. Because it may be that just by working on yourself you listen more carefully or you provide better advice. Well, Nick. That's fair.

SPEAKER_02 31:09

I'm so sorry you went through that, but you're still the most charming, retired James Bond character I.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

I think that look, you know what? I it's fine to go through those scenes. It's at the time, obviously, it's uh it takes a bit of grit and stuff.

SPEAKER_02 31:24

What next for you, Nick?

SPEAKER_01 31:26

Well, I'm I'm working with my elder son, Jamie, who and having the best time. We have a business together that we consult. Start not just startup company, companies looking to raise growth money or funding. So we we do that, and we're having the best time doing that. We meet some really eclectic people, some people with wonderful ideas, some great business people that don't have good ideas. We meet all sorts, so absolute fascination. So we're gonna we we are in the process of making that a success. It's going really well, and I'm really enjoying it because we just meet so many different people.

SPEAKER_02 32:01

Look, if like if a younger version of yourself had pitched your life to an investment committee, do you think they'd have funded it?

SPEAKER_01 32:09

Definitely not. Not a chance, but I think when we look at people, it's a it's a really good question, it's a very fair one. I think at one stage in the life, yeah, when I f came out of Goldman Sachs and I had a lot of money behind me and I was starting a new business, and I think then they would have done. But whether they would now or not, I don't know. I mean, I've got a lot of lot more experience, and I know I know where the pitfalls are from past failures, but but right at the start of my life, I don't know. I think I think it's one of the big problems with the UK is that we don't we don't support entrepreneurs enough. There are some brilliant people in the UK, students, young people, or people who've done some work in a business, which is what I'd recommend first, who then have an idea and then can't find the money, can't get the the money to get the business together. And that's a real shame because it's the cutting edge of a wave of knowledge and information, employment. It does so many good things for the economy that if we don't, if we're not, if we're not helpful to those people, I think we've got a real problem.

SPEAKER_02 33:20

Without getting political, what are the things that would make it easier to become a successful entrepreneur in the UK?

SPEAKER_01 33:28

I think just it's just literally tax breaks. It could be VAT, it could be there is a very good system out of the universities called Innovate UK that does help small businesses get going. But it's it's more the act in America, a really good business will get funded with tens of millions of dollars. Whereas here you'd be lucky to get a hundred thousand university and then some kind of professional job or into trades. And if you look at Austria or Germany, as you'll know, they've got the university system, but then they've also got the the apprentice system. So you can become an apprentice in hotel management, you can become a carpenter, and they're viewed identically. And I think that leveling of the playing field is really important because then you take away the the stigma of starting your own business. We need we need more of that. I think we really, really do need more of that in the UK. We also need more women entrepreneurs, and I still think that glass ceiling hasn't been broken. I think it's really tough. I think I think women are still finding it harder to start businesses and to you know be on boards, etc. And really, when you think Pankhurst was over a century ago, we should have woken up a little bit, shouldn't we?

SPEAKER_02 34:46

We we certainly should. We interviewed an amazing entrepreneur, Bethan Higson, yeah, who's the founder of Mother Root, and just listening to her was incredibly inspirational, and we need more Bethans. Yeah, how did you cope with rejection?

SPEAKER_01 35:03

You get used to, I think is Yan. Habitan is nature. I think actually, you know what? I think a lot of it is is it's just not giving up. Our family motto is tenacity in the chase. So I think it's just not giving up. And you know what? If you've been rejected by someone, having a sense of humor is a really cool thing. If you can be funny about it and say, I'll see you next week, or whatever, you'd be amazed the moment you make it a personal thing, walls break sound. No one likes rejection, yeah. But you've got a cold call and you've got to introduce yourself, and that's the way the world goes around. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:48

That's one of the things I learned on race. I used to say to Thomas, it's hard to beat someone who never gives up.

SPEAKER_01 35:55

It's the golfers thing, isn't it? The more I practice, the luckier I get. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's absolutely right. You've just got to be in the game and around and have your wits about you. And opportunities will come your way. And uh so I think having that that sense of courage is is is really important and self-belief. Yes. And again, we don't teach that in schools. Social knees is all about chopping people down at the knees. It's about making feel people feel bad about being overweight or ugly or whatever they are. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:29

So Rebecca, did you want to ask a very clever question about neuroplasticity? No.

SPEAKER_01 36:35

Alright.

SPEAKER_02 36:37

No pressure there then. Only joking. Actually, Caroline's right to ask me, because what you've been describing about breathing and the Wimhoff method, it's a really good example of neuroplasticity in action, isn't it? The idea that by repeatedly practicing something, you're literally training the brain and the body to respond differently.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

I would agree with you 100%, Rebecca. I think that it's muscle memory is an incredibly important thing. And just teaching yourself muscle memory is a really important thing. And then you asked earlier, and it's a really good question. How do you teach people who are not in the moment to be present in the moment? It's just one step at a time, Sweet. It's just you just got to take the first steps. And the first steps are recognizing your behavior as if you had a second person. There's a very good exercise you can do, which is sit quietly, calmly somewhere, and just breathe, breathe normally. And then when it's quiet and you perhaps have your eyes closed, you just ask yourself, what is the next thought that's going to come into my head? And then just listen. And you should have some emptiness.

SPEAKER_02 37:47

I heard that. I read about that, and I tried it when I couldn't sleep at night, and it it really worked. And I think some of it is remembering to do these things, isn't it, until they become a habit. And I was really interested when you were talking about breathing, because there is so much knowledge about the importance of it, and yet I don't really see it expanding into the everyday behavior yet. But I think it is something that that really will, and Wimhoff is one way of doing that, meditation is another, but also breathing practice is so important. And everyone, for years, we've said just take a deep breath if you're stressed. But actually, you can train your breathing. Yeah. And my neuroscience teacher said that she reduced her HRV quite significantly by training herself. So heart rate variability by training herself to breathe differently. And she talked about training herself to breathe six times a minute. And that's fascinating because we don't grow up knowing these things, and yet it makes a massive difference to being calm, being present, and giving our brain a rest.

SPEAKER_01 38:56

Yeah, I think I really because I hear it the whole time with young people that have heard of Wim Off, or have heard of mindfulness and meditation. And yeah, so I I I actually am I have great hope for the few. I think I'm an optimist. I I think mankind will be will be fine. Or humankind, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 39:15

Absolutely. Absolutely. And the link to neuroplasticity was just simply how amazing our brains are. And this is where we started in episode one, talking a little bit about brain science and what we're learning. But I think just in terms of being able to learn something new and become someone different in what you're doing, is just amazing. And you've clearly done that through your life. And it's something where other people, if they have the courage to try new things and accept that between not knowing and knowing, there is some pain and some learning, and it's not comfortable, it's very much what we're trying to communicate in in this podcast.

SPEAKER_01 39:56

I think people can be anything they want to be, and but it's got to be mindful and it's got to be thoughtful. And so I I couldn't agree with more. And the the the idea of neuroplasticity is not just an idea, it exists. I mean, scientifically, you can see it happening. I think we there's so much more that we can learn, and there's so much more information available. When you think about it, that was the domain of a of a brain surgeon 20 years, 30 years ago, and it's it's what made them interesting at a cocktail party. And now internet or a learning about starting to learn about.

SPEAKER_02 40:30

That's they are and you talked about pankhurst, and I was thinking, but you know, in the 60s, the common belief was that our brain is fixed from childhood and it doesn't change.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:42

And it it was in the 60s, 70s, and I was reading about it, and I can't remember one of the first people to say, no, it can be plastic, it can actually regenerate. And that and and so that isn't very long ago, and yet there's so much more to learn, which can have a big impact on how we live our lives.

SPEAKER_01 40:58

So I remember reading somewhere that we only use a very small percentage of our total brain. Yes. Um I have met some people who whose brain didn't change from when they were children.

SPEAKER_00 41:12

Fortunately, fortunately, they're few and far between.

SPEAKER_02 41:17

Yeah, I think well, I think there are some elements of remaining childlike which are fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

Yeah, that's that's so true. It's that is approaching things with a childlike mentality can be absolutely the right approach. And that's why things like ADHD and being on the spectrum is quite interesting because you'll see people approaching problems with completely different solution sets and being much more open and not having this judgmental sort of approach that that we all all seem to have.

SPEAKER_02 41:48

I've always remembered I love Dick France's books. Yes. And one of them opens with something he's a teacher. And he said that the boys didn't really listen to him, they were looking out of the window until the day he bought in a gun to talk about physics and force and explosion. And I thought, exactly. That's true when you bring it, make it relatable and real, everybody's interested. But if it's just on paper and you're repeating it, how can you engage in that? Nick, this doesn't have to make it to the podcast, but I I'm also, although I am slightly fascinated, I know you were shot.

SPEAKER_00 42:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 42:24

This is after I'd lost contact with you. I don't know the details, but I would be quite interested in knowing. Obviously, it physically affected you, but what about mentally? How did you overcome that and how long? And what difference did it make?

SPEAKER_01 42:40

I was on a shoot. I don't like shooting, I know how. I was doing it to put it somewhere. And it was an accident, so and I've I've completely forgiven the person who did it. There's no issue there. Um but it was a nasty experience. I've literally blown off my feet, and he probably was 50 yards away. What's really interesting is when you get a shotgun cartridge, it's full of little balls. But when they leave the barrel, they're red hot and they're traveling very fast. So when they hit you, first of all, you hear a sound wave, and then I was literally hit from head to toe. And anyway, I was knocked off my feet and helicoptered off to French. My blood pressure had gone up through the roof and stuff. I think the real effect, because I just tried to sort of get on with it, the real effect came sometime later when you realised that one of them was very close to my carotid, so that could have been curtains. And then just the way it was handled, it really created some quite big, big emotions, really. Not anger, but more I don't know, frustration, irritation, a sense of it's not a survivor's guilt, but it's more of a Just a shock. I mean, it's quite shocking. It's quite shocking. And what are the good things that have come out of it? I'd I I don't I don't set the alarms off going through airports anymore. Plus, it's a great story. I can tell people I survived. I can tell people I was shot. Not many people.

SPEAKER_02 44:17

Well, I've I've got a similar gun accident that I had when I was 13.

SPEAKER_00 44:21

Really?

SPEAKER_02 44:22

Yeah. Yeah. I was handed an air rifle that was cocked open by a neighbor, and he said, just hold this while he went to get a target. And I must have touched the trigger or something because it shot two and it sliced my thumb off. So I've got half a thumb ever since. Oh my god. And so I was just thinking back to the emotions I felt when something as shocking as that happened. And it was it was life-changing for me emotionally. Because do you know one of the things I worried about most was when I got married, the vicar would see my thumb because I'd have to put my hand out. I mean, isn't it crazy? And then I thought, no, no boys are going to be interested anymore. And it it it was just awful. But I think that experience gave me some kind of grit and determination, or it was so awful. And no one I knew had ever had anything like that. And I was terribly self-conscious about it for a very long time. And the worst thing was I couldn't play my clarinet because you have to cover the hole on the back. And I used to plan the boys' band. Exactly. I didn't do the thumbs up, but it's it's one little bit. I've you see, isn't that funny? I'd never noticed. Well, I hide it, and thank God my parents took me to a plastic surgeon because I was so distressed because there was an operation they could do to remove a toe and stick it on. Thank God I had this sense to think that's not a very good yeah, that's not that's it's an interesting experience.

SPEAKER_01 46:02

It was a it was yeah, it just it changed my philosophy about a lot of things. Yeah, that's that's what I'd interested in this. I think that's one thing. Yeah. And I learned accepting people as they are.

SPEAKER_02 46:18

We've learned that Nick Ballman's life has been like a James Bond script without being set to film, and it's amazing to listen to him and what he's learnt. But really, having lived his life at full velocity, he's now found power in the discipline of Wim Hof, meditation, and peace with his family. And as a result of listening to him, I feel really motivated to explore some of the things he was talking about, particularly the Wim Hof method in terms of breathing and the cold ice practice. That's what I'm gonna do. What are you going to do, Caroline? Well, I'm also going to keep breathing. That's a relief.