Introducing Benjamin Butler....Futurist, writer, speaker and coach. If you don’t know what a Futurist is then listen in! Benjamin divides his time between the west and Asia, living with his wife and daughter in South Korea. He’s lived life as a stockbroker, set up his own futurism consulting business and travelled extensively from Silicon Valley to Japan, meeting visionaries, entrepreneurs, Zen Masters and the Dalai Lama’s Oracle. Our lives collided four years ago, when Benjamin’s sister Becci Dadswell - a good friend of mine at university - died suddenly of a rare womb cancer weeks after giving birth to her first baby. I had heard much about Benjamin through Becci, all about her amazing brother who lived an adventurous life out in Asia, so it was so good to speak to him directly and learn more about his life experiences and mindset. What a fascinating life Benjamin leads, he has so much life experience and wisdom to share from challenging himself everyday in a multitude of ways. Our conversation dives into brave career change, sibling bereavement, fatherhood, addictions and mindfulness.

I talk to pro endurance athlete and coach Paul Giblin about his life in running, the mental health conversation, lifestyle and recent 192-mile back to back adventure on the West Highland Way; the incredible Pyllon Endeavour for the Scottish Association for Mental Health. Paul has mighty mountain achievements under his belt, smashing the record on the West Highland Way back in 2013 before breaking it again in 2014 as well as mastering a trio of top ten finishes at Western States and top 20 at UTMB. But they have not come easy, and he tells us a few stories from the toguhest moments. Paul’s progression in running has been something of a dream and our conversation was an amazing opportunity to dig into his mindset and his why in running long as well as hearing the gritty details of the Endeavour and more.

Introducing the final episode in series two, with Tim Dempsey. Tim is a northern guy, living in Yorkshire. He’s a runner of fells, a beautiful writer, and passionate about nature and the outdoors. Right now Tim is going through his own grief experience, having lost his girlfriend of 16 years, Ali, recently. Ali was only 34 and died earlier this year in April after a four-year battle with breast cancer.

We get into Tim's initial experience with shock, his grief and acceptance process over the past six months (which is ongoing), his philosophy on death and impermanence, therapy in the fells and hills, counselling, advice for others going through it, and the trappings of our closed culture when it comes to bereavement.

Tim has an amazing blog – hill-joy.blogspot.com - where he beautifully articulates his adventures in running, wildlife and nature as well as losing Ali. Check it out and please share the episode widely with your people....

Here’s a challenge for YOU: please listen to this episode this weekend, or before midday on Tuesday 4th December.

A little departure today for Of Mountains and Minds. Coming at you is a Christmas charity special talking to a few fascinating people about a chunky challenge we’re all taking on this Saturday 1st December – Cairngorms to Capital. Just a few runners and cyclists from the charity I work for, Link Community Development, hope to complete a mid-winter self-powered relay from the Cairngorms National Park back to Edinburgh. The first leg will consist of a 34 ish mile run from Aviemore to Blair Atholl, along the Lairig Ghru and Glen Tilt trails, and cyclists will start at Blair Atholl and cycle 85+ miles back to Edinburgh, on the back of Storm Diana.

Why? Quite apart from our love of category two kicks, the challenge is is to raise awareness and funds for our girls’ education project in rural Ethiopia, helping 44,000 girls access a secondary education for the first time and make their own choices in life. It’s part of The Christmas Challenge crowdfunder, through which donations will be doubled for one week only, from midday on 27th November to midday on 4th December. Every £ donated to our project online during the week is doubled by major donor funds we’ve got in place.

So what’s in this random little episode? First, I talk to Fiona Osborne, the sister of our amazing communications maestro at Link, Lyndsey Alexander. Fiona is a medic who has spent time in Africa working with children and is generously taking on quite a bit of the cycling on Saturday. Next, the lovely Duncan McArthur; he is supporting the run section and interviews me for a change! I also chat to Link’s International Programme Director Dr Samantha Ross, fresh off a plane from Ethiopia, about her many years living and working in Africa, contracting malaria and her own cycle plans this weekend. Enjoy and if you share any episode, please make it this one before Tuesday along with the donation link:

https://secure.thebiggive.org.uk/donation/to/64842/30269

Jonny is a writer, adventurer, English teacher and dad to two girls. He's written five incredible books charting his travels around the hills, mountains and islands across the UK, the first being The Heights of Madness, which gives raw insight into his 5,000 mile journey cycling to the highest points of every one of the UK's 92 counties in just 92 days. More recently he wrote The Mountains are Calling, which explores hill running in Scotland and talks to many of the often lower profile legends of the sport, as well as his own experience of running a Ramsay Round in an amazing 22 hours. We talk about all sorts, from Jonny’s early adventures to what it’s been like becoming a dad to two girls and balancing family life with staying active and still pursuing big goals in the outdoors.

This conversation is with the amazing Tim Mosedale. Tim seems to have the energy of ten men, and has serious stories to share. He’s a six-time Everest summiter and Himalayan expedition leader who has faced a lot of challenge in life. Those of you who listened to series one will remember Giles Ruck’s tales of Everest, and Tim was his expedition leader.

We talk about everything from the dynamics of leading an expedition to Tim’s experience in the Himalayas during the earthquake, losing a client suddenly on the mountain this year and the vast benefits of the high mountains and the outdoors in general for Tim’s life. We also dive into balancing seasonal expeditions carrying an unavoidable level of risk with family life, and how Tim communicates with his children about his job. He is a fantastic example of an expedition leader; super experienced, skilled, dependable and extremely modest, with a lot of valuable words of advice about what people should think about when considering taking a step into the world of high-altitude mountaineering. Check out the blog post on ofmountainsandminds.com about Tim with all the links to his own blog posts we mentioned, and his website timmosedale.co.uk.

My conversation with Neil Wightwick is all about contrasts: the discomfort his body and mind endured rowing the Atlantic ocean, yet the lifelong relationships that formed and the incredible marine life he saw every day; the single-minded and light-hearted fun of his endurance run across the Kalahari desert with a great friend before a devastating car crash that paralysed his friend and injured Neil and their partners; and the elation of putting up new routes in climbing and mountaineering yet the unavoidable risks faced on every expedition.

Neil heads up the outdoor education team at Blairvadach Outdoor Centre in Helensburgh on the west coast of Scotland. He’s got quite a background in adventure, rowing across the Atlantic in a four-strong team in 2005, running across the Kalahari desert and achieving first routes on several big mountains. Neil’s rowing team was one of the most prepared of all the teams competing, as in his words, they knew the least starting out – diligence was the key. A transferable message for any chunky challenge. This conversation was a joy to record and so thought-provoking for me, and hopefully you too. It was also the first ever outdoors recording, outside Blairvadach. Listen for an authentic Scottish feel, seabirds and all.

Rachel is an author, researcher and social care expert with decades of experience in supporting children and families and exploring how death and grief affects young people and families into adulthood and how we can better support people at these times.

We talk in depth about Rachel’s experience working directly with children and families in social care, how grief can affect children, improving the way we talk to children about death and dying and the motivation behind writing her amazing novel, Our family and IT.

This one adds a fresh perspective to other episodes, giving spotlight to some fascinating academic research into children’s experiences of losing a parent, as well as direct experiences from social care of the impact of grief and loss on not just young people but adults who lost a parent when they were young too. Rachel is an incredibly knowledgeable mind on this issue and gives us much food for thought about the way children are supported in our western world. There are gems of advice that we can all take on board for reflecting on the way we talk to children, young people and even adults who have lost someone close, no matter what stage in their life.

If you enjoy this episode or know someone who would benefit, please show us your love by sharing widely and leaving a review.

In this episode you'll meet Rob Allen and I have to say this one is something really special. I’ll struggle to put into words just how much Rob’s story moved and influenced me in equal measure. As you’ll find out, he has been through a lot in his life, losing his young son, battling an auto immune disease and finding his way forward despite this with an incredible drive and purpose behind him. He’s also an amazingly strong runner, recently finishing UTMB and a Bob Graham Round. I’m not going to say much more as there's so much good stuff in this conversation but if you enjoy it please show us your love by sharing the episode widely with folks you think will benefit.

I’m so excited to have Jamie Andrew on the show. Jamie is a true mountain man, dad, motivational speaker, author and charity ambassador. In the late 90s he endured an extended and traumatic accident in the Alps, losing his friend and climbing partner in the process, then his hands and feet to frostbite.

Since his amputations Jamie has returned to skiing, snowboarding, paragliding, orienteering, running, hill walking, caving, rock climbing and mountaineering and the list goes on. He has walked up Ben Nevis, run the London Marathon, made many ascents of 4,000m peaks in the Alps, climbed Kilimanjaro and in 2016 ascended the Matterhorn. He’s also grown a beautiful family, with Anna his wife and three children.

We talk about his younger years, his memories from the accident, the process of working through the grief and loss, his very many adventures since and his feelings on being an inspiration and role model. If you haven’t read his book Life and Limb, go pick it up and dig in to his story.