Podcast

Once you realize how far you’re able to go, it’s just a matter of challenging yourself enough to surpass that, but just what are the ways to go about that? 

On today’s show, David’s guest is Thomas Pembroke, a long distance swimmer, the second Australian and the 13th person in history, being the youngest person ever to complete the Oceans Seven challenge while helping to raise money for charity - Kiss Goodbye to MS and the Kids Cancer Project.

Growing up, he always loved sport, and sports would always run in his blood ever since his Rugby League days. Nowadays however, he’s working full time while studying. He’s currently on the last year of his law degree and does part time teaching too. 

Having survived a personal crisis in his life and as he’d always been a good swimmer and good with cold water, he moved to England to teach there for a year, but the main reason for the move was his plan to swim the English Channel. The amazing, but not so lengthy preparations for the swim only consisted of three weeks of every day training in really cold water. 

It would be an understatement to say that he took the challenge all too lightly, as David and Thomas further discuss the pains that accompanied that historic event. He got stung, threw up, got nauseous and even started to fall asleep in the water until he came upon a school of jellyfish that stung him wide awake. “I was so over pain at that point, they just woke me up, it was kind of like a blessing in disguise.”

When discussing limitations and pushing past them, the ability to overcome obstacles and to see how far you can push yourself is what Thomas enjoys the most. “Swimming taught me to utilize the harder side of me, and you see the rewards come in.” 

As for his motivation to keep doing these events - it’s all for charitable causes, for others in need, and helping them is a truly humbling feeling. They’ve been his motivation to push on when it really gets tough in the water, his pain and struggle was temporary, but theirs is often times last an entire life.

The support from his family proved to be invaluable in achieving a lot of his projects. It can be difficult to organize the logistics around endurance swimming, but for Thomas, every single member on his support team played a crucial role, his father - a doctor, and his mother for emotional support with the rest of the family always there to make up for good bonding experience every time. 

Speaking of future challenges, Thomas is eyeing up climbing Mount Everest - something that his family currently is strongly against. Either way, he’s planning extensive three-month preparations around England, learning climbing techniques, and he’s willing to put up a lot of effort and sacrifice in hopes of figuring out a way. 

Thomas’ challenge for YOU over the coming week: “Do something that you know will benefit your life in a week. Doesn’t matter how small it is, but as long as it’s something productive to your life - not drinking, not having a cigarette, staying up an hour extra on work to catch up… I give myself three daily goals - I find that I get serious enjoyment out of the tiny little things, and in the long term, if you’re succeeding with tiny goals, they’ll make you more successful with bigger goals.”