On 1st February 2014, James became the first and only person to have rowed across the Atlantic Ocean, successfully summited Mount Everest and cycled 18,000 miles around the world, in what the media dubbed ‘The Ultimate Triathlon’.
In 2019 he flew his open cockpit gyroplane over 24,000 nautical miles circumnavigating in 175 days to set the first Fédération Aéronautique Internationale aviation speed record around the world.
It was an inauspicious start for James; in 2008 he was recovering from a serious motorcycle accident that had left him with broken legs and a severely broken and dislocated ankle.
The prognosis was that he would likely suffer a permanent walking impairment and would certainly not be able to continue the active physical lifestyle he had so enjoyed.
Not all James adventures have been easy! He survived two mid ocean rescues and on one he found himself clinging to a rope ladder on the side of a 100,000-tonne oil tanker as he climbed to safety in storm force winds in the Indian Ocean.
No stranger to overcoming adversity and dealing with obstacles, James’ lectures include the importance of risk management, personal resilience and dealing with setbacks.
James talks with candour and enthusiasm about his approach to taking on challenges and “without doing anything special” the way he has tackled physical adventures that most of us have only imagined experiencing.
He describes how he set incremental and achievable goals, how he secured sponsorship and support, how he physically prepared himself, and what experiences these challenges threw at him.
As James tells his story, the listener will believe that they too could achieve the extraordinary.