He is a great speaker and takes you through all the emotions and ups and downs of working as a team, and how the actions of one individual can affect the whole team.

The presentation was highly motivational and while (fortunately) we do not all need to go through the physical rigours of crossing an ocean we can all learn important life and business lessons from his story.

If you get the opportunity to hear Ian speak I would highly recommend it.

Kevin Barrett – senior partner

Roy Middleton

If you would like to speak to one of our partner schools to discuss how Gold Fever has worked for them, then please do let us know.

A great video of the Games from the BBC is here.

The sesssions in this instance were led by Martin Cross who also addressed the whole of year 11 to inspire them to achieve their potential in the summer exams and delivered a session to their parents in the evening.

The Staff were also involved in a training session after school and parents had an evening workshop too – eveyone was getting ‘the fever’!

Chrissy Hamilton, Assistant Head Teacher commented, ‘The day was a great success and students were inspired to go the extra mile. One student commented “I’m going to go home and write a revision timetable now.”!’

Martin also met with the under 13’s football team to give them a pep talk before their upcoming national final – all in all it was a very comprehensive visit and we believe it will have a lasting impact – can’t wait to get back next time.

Meanwhile, on the same day, Ian Rowe was at Bedford School working with a small group of students on ‘Belief’ and ‘Being in control’ – part of a series of workshops aimed at unlocking higher performance from the group in all aspects of their school lives – academic and sporting.

It was a great welcome when the first words from one of the boys were, ‘Hi Ian, I’ve had a great week as I’ve made my own bed every day!’ It is the simple things that can make a difference!

Today we opened the session with each student having a minute to explain one positive thing for them that happened the previous week, how they had made it happen and how they felt about it afterwards. This included both their teacher and me as we worked as a team to make positive changes in how we do things.

In the rest of the session we looked at how being in control of our own lives can help build self belief, set great goals and realise a great vision for our us. We used the Gold Fever tools for Goal Setting and Control with the students being responsible for checking out the supporting AV off our website – here.

It is hugely exciting seeing the change in perception for these students happen during the course of a session, building on the previous one and looking forward to the next one. There was clearly a positive impact for the students both on their outlook towards their academic work plus other areas of their lives including sport, extra curricular activities, painting the spare room and making the bed! Looking forward to the next session at the start of the new term – can’t wait!

Ian Rowe 

By that standard, my recent Atlantic expedition was a failure – we didn’t complete the journey and lost almost everything we had.  And yet oddly this feels like one of my greatest successes yet.  I am writing this.  I am alive right now.  I can never take that for granted again.

Calm before the storm

On January 31, over 2000 miles into rowing across the Atlantic, all felt well. The crew were working well as a team.  We focused obsessively on the finish line in Barbados, now less than a week away. It was starting to feel like a reality. The World Record was still just possible. This World Record was everything we focused on as we rowed two hours on, two hours off for 24 hours a day, since leaving Morocco 27 days ago.

Atlantic Odyssey crew setting off – Mark Beaumont, right, with Gold Fever’s Ian Rowe next to him.

At 10:55am I was rowing hard in the final five minutes of my shift.  Ian, as always was in front of me, Yaacov behind and we were going fast, just over 500 miles from our destination in Barbados. The swell and winds were coming from the east and it was an average, fairly predictable sea. My thoughts were on what I was going to eat during my two-hour break and looking forward to a short sleep.  Sleep was a luxury for the crew. We’d not slept more than 90 minutes at a time in the 27 days since we departed from Morocco.

Rowing hard through the night – Gold Fever director Ian Rowe

I didn’t see it coming.  I didn’t hear it coming.  The boat pitched up without warning, the stern  cabin in front of me lifting quickly as a large wave sped under us. Our boat, the Sara G pitched wildly to my left.  I instinctively let go of the port side oar and held onto the metal safety rail like it was a monkey bar.  There was an awful moment in equilibrium as we perched perfectly on our side. In all the huge seas we had seen, she had never been this far over and yet I still thought she would self-right.  I can’t remember anyone calling anything, I can’t remember much at all except I was then upside down, in the water and fighting to get my shoes free from  the rowing straps.  They were stuck.  I eventually managed to pull my feet free, leaving both shoes behind and kicked for the surface. We immediately capsized and were left holding onto the upturned hull as the Sara G slowly sank deeper into the water.

Over the next 14 hours we were fighting for our lives.  For six exhausted minds and bodies, this was an incredible test of resolve and our training.  I can’t imagine a more intense stress test.  You can read the full account of what happened to the crew in my Independent blog.

Insights Discovery

I barely knew my team before the expedition. I’d come straight from another expedition in the Arctic, there had been little time to train together. On paper, their CV’s were hugely impressive and I knew that we should have a physically strong team.  However, it’s almost impossible to really know the characters until you’re under the real stress of an expedition.
Out of all my expeditions this was undoubtedly the toughest. It’s impossible to describe what rowing hard for 12 hours a day and sleeping for no more than 90 minutes is like for mind and body.

Opposites attract

Atlantic Odyssey Insights Team Wheel

The Insights team took each crew member through their Insights Discovery Personal Profile before we even set foot on the boat, the Sara G.  I sit at wheel position 54 which means I lead with dominant Cool Blue energy.  Some of the words to best describe someone with Cool Blue energy would be: precise, deliberate, formal, and questioning. Some of the things that stood out for me in my Insights Discovery Personal Profile included:

• prefers a “Hands-on” approach to problem solving
• sets high personal standards of performance
• has an original mind with fine insight and vision.

There was a real mix of colour energies between the crew and a nice balance between introversion and extraversion and those with a thinking and feeling preference but inevitably we had some strong characters in the mix.  There is no personal space on an ocean rowing boat and so it’s about as intense a team character test as you could devise.  Under this level of fatigue and stress there was always going to be flash points and irritations.

However, it was incredible to see how we lifted each other, helping when one person was struggling, knowing that this role would be reversed at another time.  When there were issues, there wasn’t time, energy or space to hold a grudge.  Harsh words were said and forgotten without need for an apology, as everyone knew that everyone else was on the edge of their senses and ability.  And over-riding everything was a complete shared focus.  We always visualised the World Record boat alongside us and fought day and night to beat it.

Time for reflection

I’ve since had a few weeks at home and time to reflect on how each team member’s characters, as described by Insights, played out in reality.  No one is seen exactly as they see themselves.  No one is exactly as they seem on paper.  The level of trust that you need to put in each other on an expedition brings these facts into very sharp focus.

From hardly knowing my teammates at all a few months ago, we have now shared an experience so intense and stressful that I now know them far better than many of my close friends.  Throughout the expedition it was incredibly useful for us to have some prior knowledge to each other’s character strengths and weaknesses.
During the 27 days of rowing, I was able to take constant strength from the attitudes and morale of Matt, Simon, Yaacov, Ian and Aodhan.  They each had character traits that I admired hugely.  Adding these positive traits together meant that the overall strength in our team actually came from our differences, more than our similarities.

My defining moment

Over the last year I have committed to two major ocean rowing expeditions because my big dream for many years has been to do a full circumnavigation of the world by man-power.  I needed to learn the right skills to cross the oceans.  However, somewhere along the way, even before the accident I realised that this big dream was no longer something I wanted.  After years of working towards it, I expected to be disappointed and live in regret if I never did it.  In fact, I feel incredible relief that I can let that go and look forward to so much else.
And so we didn’t make it across the Atlantic, and I no longer wish to go there again. But for all that, it was a success, a great success in teamwork and survival.  Considering the possible consequences, nothing else matters.  I can certainly look forward with a far clearer view of priorities.  In fact no other achievement has ever given me such lessons for the future.  I now realise that there can be even more value in knock backs than from doing exactly what you set out to do.

Working with Yr 11 and yr 10 students across all of the 4 school “Halls”, Martin and Tony delivered their bespoke programmes to groups of 25-30 students to help improve their A – C GCSE grades. The coaching worked on areas such as lifeline & vision, personal qualities & role models, developing positive beliefs and reinforcing positive feedback & motivation.  

Martin said afterwards, “It was great to be back working with the students here at Stantonbury again. They were a really lively bunch and it was so rewarding listening to how they felt coming out of the sessions. Words like “inspired”, “confident” and “happy” are fantastic things to hear from young people.”

Trudy Haycock, Head of Dansteed Hall added, “It was a great day and our students got a lot out of the session in speaking to them afterwards. For me, just seeing some of our quieter students actively contributing to the discussions and the team exercises made the day worthwhile”

Judging by all the autographed photos Martin was asked for by the students…..and some of the teachers too!….an inspirational day was had by all.

So impressed were they, that they have invited Martin back next week to the schools award day to hand out the prizes at their annual sports award ceremony. Way to go Martin! Keep spreading the Fever.”

With personal accounts of what it takes to perform in the intensity of the Olympic Games, Martin Cross gives a vivid account of his incredible journey from struggling school student to Olympic Champion and beyond. Martin will be commentating at this year’s London Olympics and has direct involvement in the current British rowing team.

Ian Rowe will relay his story of how he took on the enormous challenge of being part of a team racing across 3,000 miles of the Atlantic Ocean. He gives personal insights into the brutal physical and mental effort of rowing 2 hours on 2 hours off for 28 days culminating in the disaster of capsizing and the challenge changing from trying to set a new world record to staying alive.

Both Martin and Ian relate their powerful stories to the challenges we all face in every day life and how it is ordinary people who take on extra-ordinary challenges and can produce extra-ordinary results.

If you would like Martin or Ian to attend your school please get in touch.

The sessions will be run for students and staff plus a new development for us at Gold Fever with a session in the eveing for parents.

Warden Park have, as with many of our partner schools, agreed that we can invite observers along from other schools to see how our seminars work. This was very effective, for example, with Cedars School in Leighton Buzzard who sat in on sessions at Hazeley School, Milton Keynes and have now booked an intial teacher session with us.