Why? Discomfort of Home vs Discomfort of Adventure
The comfort of home versus the discomfort of adventure - adventure please.
Most people assume I’m doing this for the adventure. They hear “South Pole” and think it’s a bucket list thrill or a midlife itch to be scratched. The truth is, I’m doing this because it feels like I’m finally coming back to who I was before life got in the way.
For the first 16 years of my life, adventure wasn’t something I pursued - it was who I was. I spent eleven years as a motorcycle display rider, performing stunts most adults would run from. That team taught me everything I still rely on today: calculated risk, discipline, training for things that feel impossible, and the power of being part of a team that refuses to quit. I loved every second of it. Those years shaped me more than school ever did.
But I grew up poor, and when reality hit at sixteen, I made a decision: I turned my back on adventure to chase success. I set up my first business cleaning windows, my second selling cars, and by twenty-nine, I’d built a bailiff company that went on to become one of the largest in the UK. From there came more businesses, more investment, more pressure, more responsibility. The adventure inside me never disappeared - it just waited.
Along the way, I tried to scratch the itch. I crossed the Atlantic on a 54-foot yacht with three friends. I trekked in the Himalayas, rafted the Nile, drove across deserts, and cycled across parts of Europe. They were great experiences, but they weren’t the thing. They weren’t big enough, or long enough, or meaningful enough. They felt like adventures done in the margins of a busy life - not the external, all-in expedition I’d been craving.
Pole to Pole is different. Pole to Pole feels like the real me finally coming back to the surface.
Twelve challenges. Each one under human power. A line from the most southern point of the planet to the very top of it. It’s big, it’s irrational, and it demands everything from me - physically, mentally, emotionally. That’s exactly why it matters.
And so, the timing of this first challenge, skiing the last degree to the South Pole, has a weight to it I didn’t expect.
Earlier this year, during a training trip in northern Sweden, I found myself balancing two worlds. On one hand, I was learning polar skills - hauling pulks, managing kit, and navigating in the cold. On the other hand, I was caring for the man who introduced me to adventure in the first place. Roy Pratt MBE wasn’t just the founder of the motorcycle team I grew up in - he was a father figure to me for 41 years. He was the one who showed me what discipline, courage and purpose looked like. Losing him this summer has left a gap I’m still figuring out how to live around.
A lot of this trip - and the eleven that follow - is about him. About honouring what he taught me. About reconnecting with the part of myself he helped create. About seeing what life looks like without the steady presence of the man who taught me how to tackle impossible things.
This week I’m packing. Testing equipment. Buying last-minute bits like battery packs and woolly hats. There’s something grounding about the simplicity of kit - no emails, no spreadsheets, no negotiations. Just: will this keep me alive in -30°C? Yes or no.
I leave in a few days.
Tomorrow, I have my final equipment check with my business partner and close friend, Sam Cox - the man I’ll be building Pole to Pole with. I’m the guinea pig. The first customer. The one testing all twelve challenges for customer experience, building the media portfolio, and making sure we know exactly what happens to a person when they push themselves to explore their possible.
I’ve spent the last three decades building and selling companies. Now I’m building something very different — an adventure brand, a body of work, and a journey that stretches from one end of the earth to the other.
And it all starts here, with a pair of skis, a tent, and the version of me I left behind at sixteen.
This is Blog 1. The first step of a very long road - and a return to the person I always was.
