October 29, 2021

The Call to Adventure Podcast - Episode 15 - Alex Flynn

One man's fight against disability and his desire to inspire others
Podcast Guest
Alex Flynn

We are releasing this podcast a few days after Alex's passing on Mera Peak in Nepal, where he was training to become to first person with Parkinson's to summit Everest. His family commented that "he went out exactly how he would have wanted to, off the high of having completed another adventure on top of the world about to step into a helicopter ready to take on the next challenge."

We hope this episode does such justice to such a trailblazer of a man, and that it goes on to inspire you to live your fullest life, whatever hurdles are thrown your way.

Show Notes

  • Quickfire questions
  • Alex Flynn meet Bear Grylls
  • Who is Alex FLynn
  • What is Parkinson’s disease
  • Alex's first reaction when he was diagnosed
  • List of things Alex does to inspire us move
  • How Parkinson’s impacts his physical activities
  • Experience with emotional difficulties
  • When did the sense of determination set in?
  • Process of transitioning from lawyer to adventurer
  • Climbing Mount Everest
Alex Flynn

Full Transcript

Alex Flynn  0:00

I had about 20 days notice before having to race and I was really not prepared practically killed me. I came out of that with two broken ribs and bulging disc into my spine which cut off feeling to my right hand and my Tom

George Beesley  0:27

Hey, it's George, and welcome to the call to adventure podcast. We are on a mission to help create happier people and a healthier planet. So let's get after it.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the call to adventure podcast with me George Beesley. I hope you're all good listeners. We've got a goodie today. So I'm here again with my co hosts Ed Bassett, from Camp two and Becca heaps from tencha. And we'll be chatting with Alex Flynn. So co hosts How are we doing? Ed? How are you?

Ed Bassett  1:01

Yeah, I'm doing well. We've worked camp to is very busy. So yeah, but the sun shining? Yeah. All good.

George Beesley  1:10

Good stuff. How about you, Becca?

Becka Heaps  1:11

Oh, good. hear lots of people are uploading their tents onto the tension website now which is brilliant to see. Every little ping I'm hearing is great. And people are starting to rent out the tents. So all good. And in tencha world.

George Beesley  1:25

That's really good to hear good stuff. People go and check out camp too. If you're up for a camper or tent. Sure if you're looking for a tent. And how are you? How are you, George? I'm excellent. Thank you. Adventures being planners. Thanks for asking it. Cool. Okay, next. Well, let's crack on. So Alex, we're going to hear all about your adventures and your tale, but we like to kick off with some quickfire questions that are just a bit silly and pointless, but it's quite fun to do them at the start. So are you ready? Yeah. Okay, what is your favorite cheese?

Alex Flynn  1:58

Cheese is a French cheese called Moby. It's got a line of ash down the middle of it, and it's really stinky, and it's fantastic. And I love it very well. I used to live in France, and come back every two weeks to see my sons and I go down to Tesco. And I reach over the counter and pick up the cheese in the cellophane and smell it and this woman turned round to me one time and said you can't do that I said course you can because you don't know if the cheese is ripe that I've read cheese will be a stinky cheese.

George Beesley  2:31

It sounds wonderful. I do like a good old stinky cheese. I think it actually tells tells you a lot about person depending on the type of cheese they like so surprisingly insightful. That one. Okay, Alex number two, Ray Mears or Bear Grylls

Alex Flynn  2:45

there. And the reason why is because there's only so many times you want to work on a wooden spoon. I met him and he's a great guy. Very cool, and I've got time for bear so no offense to him is in as well because he's very knowledgeable. I think it's boom weeklies very very good.

George Beesley  3:06

It's been whittling is fantastic. A lot harder than Eric's.

Becka Heaps  3:10

Did you say you met bear?

Alex Flynn  3:11

Yeah, my bear.

Becka Heaps  3:12

Oh, wow. Is he nice fella or is he

Alex Flynn  3:14

he's a nice fella. I met him at a golf fair in Germany was equipment and everything was being paraded by lots of different manufacturers, one of which was Gerber, which makes the knives for him. And he had a whole press room press call, you know, with a roomful of media and press. Yeah. So I walked in. I said, Hi, I'm the guy with Parkinson's who roam around the planet. And everybody's turned around and said, Oh, yeah. And I said, he said, How can I help? I said, just wondering if you ever did anything we would you like to do something with me. And we had a long chat. He was really kind. Yeah.

George Beesley  3:51

Very cool. What an intro Do you just drop the mic after you say that high and the guy with Parkinson's that ran around the world? You can't really talk that can you? It's very powerful, quick intro. It's pretty amazing. Yeah, okay. Great, insightful. We still haven't had anybody for Ray Mears. So I think we need to we need to try and find somebody who's really wholesome. I thought last week we're gonna we're going to get someone who was all about Ray, but

Alex Flynn  4:19

aficionados might help.

George Beesley  4:22

Yeah, bushcraft instructors, maybe. Okay, let last one Alex cats or dogs, dogs because I'm allergic to cats as good a reason as any. Okie dokes. Well, there we go. Good. Quick Intro. love cats for context. Yeah, well, there we go. And let's face it, dogs are just way better. So thanks, Alex. Quick Intro done. I'm going to now hand over to Sir Ed Bassett. His official title is something like Chief Officer of wanderlust or something. But yeah, Ed, please take it away.

Ed Bassett  4:57

I don't know what that is. That was our PR firm. Can you hear me all right, because I'm getting a terrible lag on the line. How's that? How's that sound? There is a lag. I will when I stopped speaking, I will give Alex chance to respond because I tend to go quickly when I'm excited. So, yeah, well, sounds a bit odd. So I know Alex, welcome, Alex. We've talked before I've known you for a while. See, though that see the laugh came in. A laugh came in about three minutes after I said the jokes, which is kind of it's like being in a bad stand up. Comedy story. Yeah. Leicester Square 1993. All right. Welcome, Alex. So we got Alex room with us. And Alex is, as I was saying, and hope you heard, I've known Alex for a while now Alex has got a very, very powerful story about resilience, insurance and mindset, and a load of other things. Hopefully, we're going to talk to you about so I think the first question to ask really, Alex is, let's hear a little bit about Alex Flynn, your sort of background, where you're brought up something, something personal, just to get us going to get to know you.

Alex Flynn  6:05

I'm a 49 year old adventurer. I have Parkinson's disease since 2008. And I was a lawyer, I still am a lawyer, but I'm not working as a lawyer. I'm running around the planet, to Germany doing the more interesting and challenging events that you can find, to raise money and awareness for Parkinson's disease, and hopefully make a difference to people's lives and prove that everyone, irrespective of disability can be extraordinary.

Ed Bassett  6:34

Can you just talk about for people that don't know what is Parkinson's, and how you found out?

Alex Flynn  6:40

Parkinson's is about rigidity. It's about slowly losing everything that you take for granted in life, the ability to walk, talk, speak, right? Feed yourself, pick up a penny off the floor, dress yourself, everything, and anything. It's a bit like being slowly encased in concrete over many, many years. And those shaking that you're seeing at the moment isn't my tremor. Now, it's just my arms are moving, because then my medication or medication when I take it off, after many years, how I've been taking it for over 40 years, 14 years now. And when I take my medication, I got a little bit, not as bad as an eight legged octopus is some people do. But I can tell my government receptors in my brain have been hyper sensitized. And therefore, movement becomes a little bit disorientated, and overt. And bit extreme sometimes. So that makes it interesting. So for me, Parkinson's is about battling rigidity, like many others, but also trying to push myself further than most to prove a point that we can all be extraordinary.

Ed Bassett  7:53

Yeah, we absolutely that. That is, I've spoken to you before about this. And that word extraordinary will come up a few times in this conversation on a, I think, really, what would you say that the main misunderstandings are about Parkinson's, do you think that people have

Alex Flynn  8:09

honestly, I think the main misunderstanding about Parkinson's is the fact that people think it's an old person's disease. I like to think of it as a friend who don't want you wants to give you a hug, wants to give everybody a hug. And unfortunately, one in 15, you're going to get to experience it within their lifetime. It's the fastest neurologically growing neurological disease in the world. And it's frightening. The youngest ever diagnosed was two years old. And just think about that, two years old. And what kind of life is that kid going to have? Kids at school can be incredibly unkind, and sometimes quite vicious in what they say and what they do. And if anybody is standing out from the crowd, especially somebody who can't control limbs properly, or walks properly, or talks funny, is going to get the MiG taken out of them royally. And you know, that that can be so damaging. So I will put myself through brick walls to make his life better. And those of anyone else with new electrical disease, simple as that.

Ed Bassett  9:16

Thank you. I mean, we'll talk a little bit about Parkinson's, what you've done. And I think the fundraising awareness raising, and you know what you're trying to do going forward in a minute. I think my next sort of question would be really around taking you back to 2008. I know you've done a huge amount of activity and run some incorrect I want to hear about that in a second. But that 2008 period in your life, it would be very understandable for anyone listening to you and you are you are becoming the guy with Parkinson's and that's not meant disrespectfully. A lot of people hear your story. The question I have is when you first found out what was your initial reaction was it what was it

Alex Flynn  9:53

in all honesty, I was numb. It was more of shock. Just been hit by this diagnosis. I've been hit by a bus. And quite frankly, I was not for six, I didn't know what to do. My wife who was next to me was falling apart, I was saying thank you to the guy who just told me over, I've got a chronic neurologically degenerative disease that has currently no cure, and will manage your your descent into, into into chaos in your life through medication that's really not going to change any course of action that the disease is going to take. I'm thanking the guy, and I'm thinking to myself, this is completely messed up. And I walked out the door of the consulting room with my wife and I phoned my mom and I said, Mom, I've been told I've got Parkinson's disease, as far as my dog making noise in the background. And she said, Oh, God, I'm so sorry. And I feel sick. I said, you know, I said something stupid out of my mouth. Like, it's pick the wrong guy to mess with. Shouldn't pretty, uh, you know, this is going to be different. This is going to be tough, but I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to get through this. And then I went home on wikid, Parkinson's. And that was just the most dumb thing ever to do. Because the list of symptoms are legion, and we have to understand is, you're not going to get every single one of these symptoms. It's all unique to the person, which makes it almost designer disease. Some people will get tremor, some people will get dystonia, she's involved in muscle contractions, some will get Brady Kinzua, etc. And the list goes on. And I was in an absolute dark place for a number of months, I was almost like an automaton I would go to work, wouldn't really concentrate, get the job done, go home, sit in the corner and mull over dark thoughts about what the hell's going to do with my life and newsy over the rest of it. Then it wasn't until my kids turned around to me and said, you okay, dad, we love you, Dad, it's going to be alright dad, you know, not understanding what I was going through, that I worked out that I gotta get myself better. I've got to pick myself up and get exercising, I've got to do something about this. Because if I can't help myself, I can't help them. If I can't help them, I can't help others. And that's where it all stemmed from.

Ed Bassett  12:18

What I find so incredible is that I mean, life is difficult. Your life we all have challenges, we all deal with mortality. And we all do deal with bereavement, we deal with illness, we deal with minor things like losing a job, and things that happen to everyone. And what I think is so incredible, and why this story resonates with me and so many people is that, from what I see, Alex, you had a couple of choices to make. And not only did you choose to respond positively, and we'll find out what you then went on to do. But you after a dark period, you decided to turn this into a positive in a way that there is life is really about purpose and legacy and I whatever happens going forward that the achievements you've done in 12 years, or a lifetime, in fact, 10 lifetimes of what the average normal person should we say even dreams about achieving and I think it is just inspiring for many, many different reasons. And there's plenty more to go right. That's why we're here to talk. We're here to promote this inspiration to people to move your hashtag is keep moving. And we're here to spread the message that there's more to come from, from Alec. So that's incredible. I just want I want the listeners to to absorb what you have done in 12 years. And this list is, is awesome. So let's hear what you have done which will inspire us all to get moving.

Alex Flynn  13:34

Well. I took all the negativity by our frustration, anger, primarily anger, and pushed it through metaphorical serve and pulled out positivity. So I'd already sign up to the the mouth in their sub, which is 150 mile foot race across the Sahara Desert back in 2008 2007. game donors in 2008 I was left with coming out of my my dark my dark phase by thinking I'm going to do this and then actually having doubts and thinking what the hell am I doing? You know, I'm supposed to run 150 miles across the Sahara desert with Parkinson's. Am I nuts? So I did the country to Capitol 45 It took me 10 hours to run the 45 miles in horizontal rain, ice cold ice, cold temperature ice, water, mud, animal poop. It was fantastic. It was just fantastic.

Ed Bassett  14:34

And sounds like a Friday night in Stoke on Trent Alex. I couldn't say I'm gonna get in trouble for that later.

Alex Flynn  14:41

We're coming back to the MDS. I went down in 2009. And there were the biggest, biggest storms in the Sahara desert for 12 years. And they washed away cars, roads, trucks, and they reorganize the course and of course I went and got lost on the third A day, which was the longest day after be after passing out, I came to and they said, What do you want to do? I said, I want to continue racing. And I set off into the desert on my own, and go completely lost in 9.7 5 million square miles of Sahara desert with a liter and a half of water and all the dry food in the world. I won't tell you how I got out of that predicament. But I did. But that's in my book, which needs to be published. So if anyone's listening, I'd like you to if you know publishers, brave enough to handle a book like mine, then that would be fantastic. But no, nonetheless, I ended up getting taken out of the marathon dissembler in 2009, with a heart infection, the pain in my heart, pain in my chest. And the reason why I passed out was because I had viral pericarditis. Your heart sits in a fleshy sac called the pericardium, which can get infected and swells up and squeezes your heart, effectively, like a pair of hands, squishy, squishy squishy your heart. And I was running with 14 kilos in my bag. And when the doctors found out the next day, because they thought it was having a heart attack, and they did an echocardiogram and discovered it got viral pericarditis. They said you should be dead. Just lucky to be alive. So I went back to the UK and it was Sam and covered team and my friend Rich Murray one day. He said when you've raised about 1500 quid for Parkinson's, UK, what are you going to do? I said, Well, I'm going to raise a million pounds. He said, How are you going to do that? I said, Well, I'm going to, I'm going to run a million meters. And a power meter makes me a math genius on a million pounds. He said, that's only 612 miles, maybe run a bit. He said, What do you think? And I said, Well, I'm gonna go 10 million meters 10 times that number. And he said, Yeah, I need the ratios count after you bastard. And the rest is history. I went from there to run 160 miles across the Bavarian Alps 52 hours. Now in our sleep, I did go back and do the MDS, again came 520/9 at over 1100 competitors. I'm run in Traverse 1457 miles from London, thrown by Brussels and Paris, within 30 days, 400 miles that was stressful to write to you and did the first 20 marathons in 10 days, I've crossed 3256 miles of America, in 35 days, using four different disciplines became the first time to do so. And I quote across the Amazon jungle, to dynamite nucleon, the Colorado Rockies within eight weeks, and I've done about two distance of 270 marathons and so much more.

Ed Bassett  17:37

Well, maybe maybe in the book, we can just point people to Amazon when we get the book done. I mean, I think anyone listening knows knows what you've achieved. And it's just, it's mind blowing. Every time I hear the list, actually, I think, Gosh, I've done a couple of marathons, no big deal, you know, no big deal. Just an incredible incredible for someone who's quite active like myself, I look at it and go, you know, I know 20 marathons in 10 days, it takes me 10 days to recover from one. And I used to be an AMA reasonably fit guy. So I think anyone who's done a marathon will will be open my mouth wide open, really that kind of achievement. And and I think, you know, the question I've got as well, you know, the Parkinson's, how does that physically impact is that impacting you more now, in terms of the races as you've gone along? Is it getting harder to do those kinds of races? Yeah. Yeah, talk about that, please.

Alex Flynn  18:30

Well, for example, after I finished my 10 millimeters, there was a period of time where I didn't do very much, I was organizing to try and row across the Pacific. And I think 2016 came along. And I'd already failed to get the finance together in 2014, to where the Pacific 2016 came along. And we were 30,000 pounds short of the 150,000 when we needed to get the boat over there, pick the boat up, get the cameras on board the boat, and we're going to be 24 hours a day on there. And for a number of personal reasons, it didn't happen, which I won't go into on here. But I got to a point where I was struggling to find a suitably tight, daft and difficult thing to do. So I tried to do with 22 Push Up Challenge 22 Push Ups a day for 22 days. Yeah, I remember hearing about a bit of math in the times 20 by 22 and by 22 we get something like 5500 which was the target for doing 5566 Press ups in 22 days. I managed 3873 in 18 days before my shoulder gave out you know, and then I of course I had interesting excitement or by going out to the concern trail In Moon swim in the Arctic Circle and minus 29 degrees centigrade to do an unsupported traverse of the 470 kilometers of Queensland kings trail, and that was a pic. But I managed to rip one of my tendons in my foot in the first five kilometers, putting 135 pound power content in a backpack. So go go the gaffer tape on the tour of the park gaffer tape my leg and carried on across to mountain passes, and a couple of frozen lakes for the 30 miles before skiing hypothermia, which was an experience.

Ed Bassett  20:37

In true David Goggins style, taping yourself back up, you know, as your tibia as your as your things are falling out of your body. Brilliant. Yeah.

George Beesley  20:47

I was thinking Monty Python, to spit me a flesh. Alex, can you describe? I think for most people listening to that kind of stuff, there'll be thinking, wow, I don't think that I do that. Can you describe what it's like for you kind of emotionally and mentally? When you start to face those difficulties? What is your actual experience? Like what is going through your mind? Because you obviously still feel the pain and discomfort. But what what what do you do? That helps you keep going?

Alex Flynn  21:16

Good question. I answered this way. When I discovered though I had a busted leg fractured right to stress fracture, right tibia, oh, crossing Europe, every footfall was like a piece of two by four being smashed into my shin, again, and again, and again and again and again. And you get to a point where you can't see the edge of the pain, you know, and I'll describe that as I'll give an example, when you stub your toe against an edge of a desk or something, you can say, ah, hold on for a second, because your pain will subside. That's the edge of the pain. When you've got a stress fracture, a tibia and you're constantly running on tarmac, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, there is no edge to the pain is just constant pain. And you got to do something with that pain. So you create a white room in your head. It's always light. There are no windows, and there's a door to the room. So you open the door and in the room is just a box, and you take it with the pain, you visualize the pain, you've got this all consuming and all crossing every footfall bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, you take that pain and visualize it, and stuffed it into the box, you shut the lid on the box and lock the box, you walk out the door, you shut the door and you lock the room. And believe it or not, that visualization technique actually helps with pain. Not a lot, but it just takes that edge off, it really makes a difference. The most challenging event that I eventually undertaken, probably was the world's most equally shared between two which was one which was in 2018, which was primal quest. I had about 20 days notice before having to race and I was really not prepared, practically killed me. I came out of that with two broken ribs and bulging disc into my spine, which cut off feeling to my right hand and right arm. I still finished the 240 miles within four days and five hours with my cluster five times with a bench racing champion, Chris Paisley, and Anna Jones. And we did fantastically well, considering the fact that I was not prepared and well winging it as it were. So thanks to them. But I think one of the toughest I've actually come across was plumbing my own stairs to 2.3 times the height of Everest in seven days, just over seven days. First lockdown. And, you know, I was thinking that people are running around their gardens for a marathon. So I thought I'd just do a vertical marathon which equated to 2.3 times out of Everest. But if you think about it, as a marathon going up 2.3 times I have Everest, and there's a marathon going down, which is 2.3 times height of Everest. So effectively, I did 4.6 times the height of Everest, if you think about it,

Becka Heaps  24:07

Alex? Yeah. I've got a couple of questions. The thing you said about it feels like slowly put into concrete. Sounds so terrifying. How are you ever come back from that? I don't know. But I heard you talk in clubhouse. And I think I asked you. Have you always been this determined? Where have you been this determined from there? Or did the determination come from the diagnosis? I

Alex Flynn  24:33

think it was determined from a little boy. My upbringing was interesting to say the least. And one of the things I discovered when I was a kid that I was able to withstand an enormous amount of pain. I'll give you the example. My bed when I was a kid was up against an old wall in the house. I grew up in this old country house with lead paint on the walls and crumbly paint on the walls and you My bed was up against this wall. And every night I'd toss and turn like most kids do. And my sheets and blankets would come on down from the side of the wall and the wall would be cold and I would wake me up. So I'd get repeatedly throws first my hand down the side of the bed, to push through, put blankets and sheets bagged down, so I wouldn't get cold. But one time I did it to broccoli. And I got basically a whole load of paint all the way up to the root of my nail on my index finger underneath my nail, now was five years old at the time. So without waking my parents up because I didn't want to wake my dad up. I went into the bathroom, climbed up on the side, and did the bathroom medicine cabinet took out a needle to get some surgical spirit, clean the needle, and then dug there with a needle all the paint out from underneath my nail right to the root of my nail without making a noise. Then I reclaimed the needle, re surgical spiriting my finger, bound my finger up with toilet paper, and put the needle back shut the commode and cabinet door and went back to bed. I didn't make a sound.

Becka Heaps  26:12

And that's incredible. And you remind me of my brother actually because he is like a tank. He broke his elbow once and just carried on. He's a builder, just carried on. Five years later, he couldn't move his elbow. And then he went to get it x rayed and the bone had grown over. And then he had to go to surgery to get it. You know so he was basically the story is he was walking around with a broken elbow carrying on building and constructing and hard carrying and then had to get the bone chipped off. The surgeon said he didn't he'd never used so many sores to get the project offered his elbow release. And it sounds to me like you're that tank like person, you know, you just seem to drive through everything. You know, that's nothing to do with the Parkinson's it's just the character that you are on

Alex Flynn  27:00

my both my both my ankles twice over, moved around to them till they healed thinking that I'd stupidly sprained my ankles. But no, you know, you what we do is run sprains off. But you you rest a broken ankle. And of course I didn't. I just carried on. So my ankles are interesting.

Becka Heaps  27:20

Yeah. So you just got that determination. And the other thing I just wanted to say was, so you went from quite a privileged position, being a lawyer, probably quite high fight flier, I'm assuming, and then got diagnosed. So that position of privilege changed enormously for you. Did it make you how was that for you,

Alex Flynn  27:42

I come from a career that was paying enough for me to be able to have a certain amount of latitude, but it wouldn't last forever. And it has been hard. I've spent many years putting hand to mouth to achieve what I want to achieve. And the thing I think the underlying concept here is that people need to understand why why, you know, everybody understands the what and the how, but why is the question what I'm doing, when you understand someone's why you understand what motivates them. So my why is this, the when people have Parkinson's or neurological disease that will get intrinsically smaller. And when it gets smaller and smaller and smaller, you lose your self worth, you lose your sense of confidence, your sense of place in society, and you suddenly become invisible. Everything becomes much smaller and smaller on a day by day basis. And I want to prove to people with Parkinson's and or people with disability and public at large, that disability is no barrier to being extraordinary, that people can get back their sense of self worth their sense of self confidence, a sense of being part of society again, even if that's just getting across their living room, if that's their Everis thing, great crack on do it. Because by doing that, that's much more worthwhile than anything I could ever do. I'm, I'm I'm very lucky. And I understand exactly where I am at this moment and where my disease's going my condition, I should say, because we it's not we don't like calling it disease, we call it condition. I'm incredibly lucky to be where I am at the moment, as advanced as I am in years with the disease to be able to do what I do, even though I might be a bit shaky now than I was then. And if I can make change happen for people, so they seize control back of their lives and push themselves down a little bit further. And I raise money for better treatments because I'm raising money for Parkinson's UK, in the UK and Europe and Parkinson's foundation in America. Because the two of them have got together and formed a biotech to make treatments available in years, not decades. That's going to be something because if we can have better treat mints, the ones that make her that are toxic for people with Parkinson's to take and have adverse side effects like dyskinesia, involuntary movement and extenuated, tremor, you know, which are emotionally and socially embarrassing. We're going to have them in years, not decades. That is, that, to me is terrific. Because people with Parkinson's like me, don't have decades, I don't have a long life. Look out on look ahead of me, I live in the moment. Somehow, I think that, that that's spurred me on to take a venture to heart and seize every opportunity with both hands and taking as far as it can go. And if I can do that, make a difference and change people's lives and create positivity, where there's there's none, and create hope, and try and live as good a life as I can. Then if I turn up at the pearly gates, and some people looks at me and says, Man, you lived a life. Well, I've done my job.

Becka Heaps  31:06

Thank you, Alex. That is amazing. Answer. I mean, you are you hear this all the time, I imagine you're an absolute inspiration, and an ambassador for living life, every day, live the life that you want to live. And just grasp each second that you have and enjoy every moment of it. Come What May? And I think, yeah, I've Yeah. So thank you so much. Thank goodness for children. Because the children are the things that keep you going, isn't it? And then there are future. So yeah, thank goodness, you had children. Yeah, thanks, Alex.

George Beesley  31:41

Yes, but it's been really good to hear from you, Alex. And if people want to find out a little bit more about what you're up to,

Alex Flynn  31:48

I'm going to climb and summit Mount Everest next year. That's the plan. And to manifest it by saying that I'm going to do it makes it more real and more achievable. It's not going to be an easy piece of cake, it's going to be probably the hardest thing I'll ever do. And I want to put Parkinson's on top of the world, I want to be able to plant that memory into people's minds and raise awareness on a global scale. And to do that, I have to climb Mount blow more Mira pika mon himlung, before I climb Mount Everest to get the altitude experience this necessary to actually take on a mountain as big as Everest, because there isn't anything as bigger. So hopefully, I'll say, hopefully, I will, I will get I will get the financial support to be able to do this, changing hearts and minds raising the enormous amounts of money from Parkinson's research, and inspiring many people to try and push their envelopes out just a little bit further, every single day. That's me.

George Beesley  32:55

Alex, thank you so much for coming on. It's been amazing to hear your story. And I think whilst I don't want to keep listeners or people too much longer this this is my 10 Second piece on this. I think what I would encourage people to do is if you are listening, use this to empower you. It don't use it to think Alex is doing all this. And he's got Parkinson's and I'm so fucking lazy. I don't even get off the sofa. The point is not to say how amazing is Alex? Obviously, he is amazing. But the point is that use this as fuel for your fire. So wherever you are now, use it as inspiration and start start small. Use it as positivity to build you up, not as something to a bar to compare you against or a benchmark to feel jealous about. That's all I have to say. Thank you so much for coming on. Alex. It's been amazing. If people want to find out more about you. I know if you just Google Alex Flynn, then it comes up. But yeah, any donations would be incredibly appreciated. But also if you just want to find out a little bit more. So Alex, thank you very much for coming on the show.

Alex Flynn  34:02

Thank you for allowing me to speak and present my story. And thanks for the support guys and keep moving.

George Beesley  34:08

Keep moving. So I would like to hear. Thanks both. Thanks, Becca. Thanks, Ed. Thanks, guys. And obviously listeners, thank you for tuning in. Hope you enjoyed this one. And yeah, head over to call to adventure.uk for shownotes. But otherwise, look forward to seeing you next time. Thanks, guys.

Unknown Speaker  34:24

Bye. Bye.

George Beesley  34:25

Bye bye. So that's it for this episode. I hope you enjoyed it, head over to call to adventure that's to call to adventure.uk for show notes and more about this episode, you will also find lots of other free content there. Things like how to guides and gear reviews, everything to get you out on your next adventure. We've also got loads of adventures for you to join us on in the UK and abroad. We've got things like climbing, hiking, mountaineering, surfing, wild swimming, ski touring. And we're adding new ones all the time. So do take a peek. Each booking helps us fund our green mission and all international trips are carbon offset. Please do rate and review the show. If you're enjoying it. It helps get more people engaged with outdoors and onboard with protecting wild places. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

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PodCast Host
George Beesley
Adventurer & Founder of Call To Adventure
George just bloody loves a bit of adventure! Imagine someone who not only hikes up mountains for breakfast but also bikes across continents. Got a case of wanderlust? This guy's been to over 50 countries and comes back with stories that'll make your grandma want to go bungee jumping.

From our journal

Every adventure is packed full of great stories, tips/tricks and awesome gear that you wish you knew about before embarking on your adventure. Here is a collection of our favourites that might just become yours.
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