7 Marathons on 7 Continents In 7 Days, Meet Ted Jackson

Wes Schaeffer: Ted Jackson rebel in the arena.com all the way from the UK. Welcome to the sales podcast, man. How the heck are you

Ted Jackson: I'm very good. Thanks. Well, thank you very much for having me.

Wes Schaeffer: So we, we both have

Wes Schaeffer: Very poor were very poor judges of character. We have a mutual online friends and you were crazy enough to accept my invitation request. So this is all your fault.

Ted Jackson: Yeah, that's fine. I don't mind, I'm not prepared to put myself in the firing line.

Ted Jackson: So kind of auto mine. Anyway, so

Wes Schaeffer: I think i think i'm like part British man, I just, you know, like, just throw caution to the wind tell people to go Pound sand and, you know, it's all good. I love the way you speak your mind. But I digress. I digress.

Wes Schaeffer: So I looked you up. And the thing that hit me right off the bat. Was this this whole seven marathons seven continents seven days. But as amazing as that is

Wes Schaeffer: You are not a marathon or is that is that safe to say

Ted Jackson: I think it's safe to say that you may not. And I am a marathon I because I've done many, many

Wes Schaeffer: marathons and marathons. I think a traditional marathon or shall we say

Ted Jackson: Yeah, maybe not what maybe the public might think of as a marathoner and

Ted Jackson: And, you know, I've seen many people over the years, who definitely don't look like marathoners, and they've got some pretty good marathon times

Ted Jackson: I'm one of those guys that doesn't look like a marathon and I don't have particularly good marathon times so yeah I'm more than happy to sit back and I don't look like a marathoner and I think it would surprise, most people that I've done, what I've done.

Wes Schaeffer: You know, you just a glutton for punishment, you don't have your meds dialed in. Right.

I mean, what

Ted Jackson: Am I glutton for punishment. I think the main thing is that that

Ted Jackson: Now I'm just, I'm a bit of a show off.

Ted Jackson: I like to interest people and I like to amaze people. So, you know, I just, you know, I do these things, mainly to be able to say at a dinner party. Oh yeah, yeah, I did seven marathons in seven continents in seven days.

Ted Jackson: I didn't read your

Wes Schaeffer: Article I don't even know there was a continent or a marathon on Antarctica.

Ted Jackson: Yeah, well, it went there.

Ted Jackson: When we ran it that we have one specially organized. There are actually there's a couple of marathons. So the race, the race organizer Richard Donovan.

Ted Jackson: organizes the Antarctic marathon every year and he's even organized 100 K races on Antarctica and we're not just talking, you know, there are some people that think that there's a marathon in Antarctica, because there's a, an island which is quite a long way from Antarctica.

Ted Jackson: Called King George island and they organize a marathon there, but it's actually quite an muddy patch, whereas we went mainland Antarctica right there, middle of nowhere, middle of the ice.

Wes Schaeffer: I'm Elise, you did it in the summer, I hope.

Ted Jackson: Yeah, it was daylight.

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah, I think.

Ted Jackson: The thing about the summer there is there's non stop. I mean, I love it is, it's magical to go somewhere where it's where there is no nighttime.

Ted Jackson: Right. And, you know, basically, we were we were running at

Ted Jackson: Two o'clock in the morning without knowing

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah. That's unbelievable. So what made you decide that. I mean, have you have you always been a runner. I get something something drug you into this

Wes Schaeffer: Something lit that fire, I suppose.

Ted Jackson: So I kind of, I never really worked. I mean, I always wanted to be a rock star, you know, so when I was younger, I just wanted to be a rock star or I wanted to be john belushi and

Wes Schaeffer: And when I was

Ted Jackson: Little I that's what I assumed everyone wanted to be. And I certainly did. I really did. And I live my lifestyle like I was john belushi and

Ted Jackson: And I was just waiting for someone to come through the door and say wow you're fucking amazing. Dude, you

Ted Jackson: You are just incredible. I just want to make you famous AND I KNOW WHAT I WANTED TO BE FAMOUS FOR ANYTHING LIKE THAT AND BASICALLY A call to the stage in my life that just wasn't going to happen. And I was like, down, down, down, down, down.

Ted Jackson: Long story short, sorted myself out of the many trips to police cells and hospitals and all that kind of thing. And a rehab here and a rehab that

Ted Jackson: Sort of myself out and and was kind of getting on with life. My father had a triple bypass operation. My brother had a heart attack age.

Ted Jackson: 30 something young and I was thinking who maybe there's something hereditary here to do with the heart stuck I ought to do some exercise and be less of a fat Boston

Ted Jackson: And I then met up with a friend and we signed and I had dinner with a friend and he said, all I just signed up for the New York Marathon. I was like, What does, how do you do that. What even is that, you know,

Ted Jackson: He goes, Oh, you just go on the website, sign up, you get your flights you hotel and you do the mouth. And I was like, so I signed up that night. And that was the beginning of my marathon journey that was wait backing 2004 I think

Ted Jackson: And how and then

Wes Schaeffer: How far in advance. Did you sign up and did you start training.

Ted Jackson: I didn't. I must have signed up. I don't know, five or six months in advance and

Ted Jackson: The whole point of doing these events. And for me, my heart when you know it was, first of all, hey, for once in my life. I'm going to lose some weight. I'm going to get training. I'm going to get fit and I'm going to do really well. You're going to change my lifestyle and

Ted Jackson: I end up not doing any training and having paid the fee and got the flights and things thinking I better go.

Ted Jackson: So go and then just running and then we'll run will walk shuffle drag, you know, get my ass round finish it do what I said I was going to do right so that that was the start. That's what happened in New York. Then there was a

Ted Jackson: After New York. It was there was definitely a fellow patterns like

Ted Jackson: I've done my marathon. Now I've done a marathon. I don't have to do anything else. I've never even been in a 10 K race before anything like that. It was straight to marathon.

Ted Jackson: And then it was like, Okay, I've done my marathon. And then I just went fallow for a bit and then then my friend said, oh, he rang me up one day, I think it was the it must have been when the tsunami hit in Thailand. Yeah. And I was in an RV in Las Vegas Christmas and

Ted Jackson: I got a phone call in the middle of the night one saying, how's your brother and I was like, What do you mean

Ted Jackson: And they went well how's your brother was like, Well, I don't know. What do you mean I suppose he's fine. Oh.

Ted Jackson: And then of course the next morning, that sort of turn on the TV and I'd seen that been a tsunami and in Thailand and I was like, Okay, I see what you mean is maybe he's okay. Luckily he was he'd got to high ground some friends are saved him and but they'd seen all

Wes Schaeffer: Those missionaries visiting

Ted Jackson: Now he was on holiday with his family and everything. And that was their kind of whoo.

Okay.

Ted Jackson: And another phone call was from a mate who said, Oh, I'm going to do the Tour de France next year. Do you want to come and join me

Wes Schaeffer: He said,

Ted Jackson: Well, no. Do the internet. So he basics, but I didn't. I knew nothing about. But I never, I didn't have a bike.

Wes Schaeffer: Oh, you're gonna ride the course.

Ted Jackson: Right, the course of the Tour de France. Is this the

Wes Schaeffer: Same anyone stages.

Ted Jackson: 21 stages in 21 days, same route going two weeks ahead of the pros what

Wes Schaeffer: Was this the same New York City Marathon for it.

Ted Jackson: Yes, yeah.

Ted Jackson: You need

Wes Schaeffer: Him out of your life.

Ted Jackson: Well, I've kind of shifted him to one side video is a

Ted Jackson: Nice, a very good man, and we were raising money for a good cause, you know, the time is if they have a foundation set up in memory of his brother and and I just, you know, so I went for a marathon to saying, Yeah, I'll do the Tour de France with no idea what the Tour de France meant

Ted Jackson: I had no concept. I've never ridden a road bike in my life. So the next day in LA, the exchange rate was really good. So I went shopping and I bought myself a carbon fiber bike and and had it shipped back to England, because that was a much cheaper way of doing it, then by in England and

Ted Jackson: And then actually we did do some training for the Tour de France, you know, because it's a bit a bit foolish to

Ted Jackson: Turn up and try and do two and a half thousand miles in 21 days with zero training and I didn't know how to ride a bike so I kind of learned how to ride a bike. We went out and did some rides.

Ted Jackson: I built it off by managed to get to a stage where I could do a, you know, over 100 Miles right apply if

Ted Jackson: I didn't like the cycling community, the cycling community is a bit weird. In England, they're all of it up themselves and you know they were, they weren't particularly friendly bunch. So

Ted Jackson: I kind of thought I was a bit cocky myself to get an answer. Okay, I'm going to be doing the Tour de France, and most of you probably haven't so there's that. And I did a couple of, you know, I got to a stage where I could do to 100 mile rides in a row.

Ted Jackson: Day one of the Tour de France had a crash within 15 minutes of starting broke my bike had to use someone else's bike.

Ted Jackson: Just and I got to the end of the day, and I thought, I'm not going to make it past lunchtime tomorrow. And then that's how it was for for a daily basis. I just took it from meal break the meal break and

Ted Jackson: And did that so suddenly I was a guy that had done a New York Marathon and written the entire route of the Tour de France, whilst being a sort of kind of hundred kilos kind of slob.

Wes Schaeffer: What was that

Ted Jackson: I mean, everything just went like this every time.

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah, I mean I every January I run swim of five K to raise money. We do it out in Tampa Bay for the Navy SEAL foundation and I just jumped in.

Wes Schaeffer: I donate

Wes Schaeffer: donate it to a friend.

Wes Schaeffer: Who swam in every year. But he was a Navy SEAL. He swam the English Channel and I just said, Oh, yeah. Also, hands on training pool and you know just jumped in the water. And so now I'm going on my sixth time doing it.

Wes Schaeffer: But it's not it's not a marathon. It's not 21 days of bike riding. I mean, you're yeah I think your bat shit crazy man. Are you something wrong, are you okay

Ted Jackson: I don't know whether I am or not. I mean, my wife said she knows when something's up with me, so you know most like husbands will be like

Ted Jackson: They can sometimes look at their shifty behind their laptop when they come in the room. They might change the screen quickly and stuff. And she knows, she'll come in and I'm like, oh, and she about what are you looking at, and I found some. The next thing.

Wes Schaeffer: You know, so whenever I'm going to climb mountains. There's on my hands naked.

Ted Jackson: Oh, okay. I thought you're gonna do. Sorry.

Ted Jackson: No, I mean, there are these things that people don't realize that

Ted Jackson: People that exists. And the next thing after the Tour de France. It's like, right. I don't want to ride a bike. Again, you know, cuz that hurts your us

Ted Jackson: And it was great but

Ted Jackson: They do.

Ted Jackson: Harrison at the North Pole you fly out to the

Ted Jackson: Hey,

Ted Jackson: Jet are to run away that they

Ted Jackson: Cut

Wes Schaeffer: The week before a go back

Wes Schaeffer: Let's turn on video now. Yeah, you're cutting out. Let's turn your video off.

Wes Schaeffer: Sometimes that will free up some bandwidth

Wes Schaeffer: And go back to the beginning of

Wes Schaeffer: That story. Okay.

Ted Jackson: Okay, let's see how we do that. Stop video

There you go.

Wes Schaeffer: Okay.

Wes Schaeffer: So you said you were doing a search and you found you found the North Pole marathon.

Ted Jackson: Yeah, there's a marathon organized that the North Pole.

Ted Jackson: And I thought, I have to be involved in that.

Ted Jackson: There's not a lot of people that have been to the North Pole, let alone run a marathon there. Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer: For sure.

Ted Jackson: What makes a good story.

Wes Schaeffer: I mean, you're, you're in England. That's, that's basically up like by the Arctic Circle right

Ted Jackson: I mean your way up.

Ted Jackson: Yeah.

Ted Jackson: I suppose some people might think they're surprisingly far away, although sometimes the weather feels a bit like it.

Ted Jackson: Yeah, so we fly to Northern Norway. There's a group of islands courts smile back

Ted Jackson: Which is north of Norway and then that's like a staging post. And then we get on this special Russian plane which is used to minus, you know, ridiculous temperatures and things like that.

Ted Jackson: And a couple of weeks before some Russian paratroopers have flown in jumped out of a plane with a track.

Ted Jackson: To made a runway up on the ice, which is about two meters thick. Want me to stick on the North Pole kind of cut a runway and then we come in on a plane land on that runway and run a marathon.

Ted Jackson: Well, just as you do.

Ted Jackson: I've been there three times now, it's the most magical place on. Well, it's incredible.

Wes Schaeffer: And how many people do that.

Ted Jackson: I'm not a lot of people have done it in the world. I suppose now in an event. It hasn't the event hasn't taken place.

Ted Jackson: Is over the last two years this year covert stopped it happening and the year before.

Ted Jackson: There was a I think there were logistic and political problems because there is a fair amount of politics going on with the not that it's even land, it's it's frozen see sometimes. So, a bit of politics between Russian logistics and Norwegians.

Ted Jackson: Right, but

Ted Jackson: Normally, they'll take an event and maybe they take about 40 people

Well,

Ted Jackson: And it's been, I don't know when it started. I first did it back in 2008

Ted Jackson: And then went back in 2009 and then I went back, we had a sort of 10 year

Ted Jackson: A reunion. I think in 2018 that a few of us who'd been up there early in the early days, came back up and did it again, which is amazing.

Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer: So, I mean, going back to like the Tour de France or it isn't it the. Do we have to say it the right way and hold our pink ease up and with a kind of snobbish add to the talk to the phone.

Ted Jackson: Is a frog France.

Ted Jackson: Well, I suppose you can say you say Tour de France are say Tour de France and, you know, tomatoes, tomatoes.

Ted Jackson: But

Ted Jackson: Yeah.

Ted Jackson: That mean that was, I think, to be honest, doing a marathon. For me, although it was a fantastic achievement and you always get that thing when you I always get it with every event. I've done you know you get. I get quite emotional towards the end just when you know you're going to finish.

Wes Schaeffer: Right.

Ted Jackson: You know, if they're not at the finish the finish is not often an anticlimax for me. But it's that moment that I know everything's come to a head. And it's going to happen.

Ted Jackson: Right, so I'll get this wave of emotion that comes over me, you know, with four miles to go or something. And I think that's it. I got it is, you know, in the back. You know, and then it finishes and anticlimax then you get a bit of a low post event blues and then I find something else.

Right.

Ted Jackson: And Tour de France it

Ted Jackson: But the marathon was a kind of thing. But then I thought, What thousands and thousands of thousands of people have done marathons. Yeah.

Ted Jackson: And I kind of wanted to start looking for things that not so many people have done so the Tour de France was was something that I thought, yeah, not, not many non cycling non professional people have written 21 stages in 21 days.

Ted Jackson: And follow the exact route.

Wes Schaeffer: But I mean, to even do that. I mean, you had to be moderately successful to take 21 days off. And I mean, were you not were you in debt. I

Ted Jackson: Moderate moderately successful well as in economically.

Ted Jackson: Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer: I mean, okay. It takes 21 days off just to sit on their butts. But I mean to fly.

Wes Schaeffer: I mean you had support drive me mad. You gotta pay for people to get some help. Right. So what will you

Ted Jackson: Pay I had to pay with

Ted Jackson: Man this guy, Johnny, good friend of mine, Johnny. We organize the event. So between us. Johnny came up with the idea to run the event for his to raise money for his charity.

Ted Jackson: And his family very kindly sort of underwrote the event because they didn't want the charity to lose money and they couldn't they couldn't see that this would be a money making activity.

Ted Jackson: Okay, they didn't think anyone would make any money. They thought they would lose money so they the family covered the costs. So the charity wouldn't lose money. I personally, you know, you paid a fee to enter

Ted Jackson: I can't remember. I probably had to raise like a couple of thousand pounds, so maybe two or $3,000 to to enter and then make a fundraising commitment.

Ted Jackson: And we, there were just six of us who did the whole thing. And then we opened it up so that people could come out and join us and do a stage or two stages of three stages and they all raised money and we it so

Ted Jackson: Another 50 people came out over the course of the time and joined us on various stages and we had one motorbike guy that used to cite motorbike backwards and forwards. He wore out his tires twice.

Ted Jackson: On the course going and we had a van one van that we had a couple of helpers in it that made sandwiches and stuff and and we're our feeders for the for the entire time. But we stayed in some terrible, terrible places.

Ted Jackson: You know that didn't have any facilities and when I got in after a day cycling, you know, late at night, everything will be closed. It was a night, you know, there was no hot water, it was, it was horrendous but

Ted Jackson: This this event that we weren't sure what's going to make money ended up making a quarter of a million pounds.

Wes Schaeffer: Oh my god.

Ted Jackson: I'm raising raising a quarter of a million pounds for for my friends trust for the William weights Memorial trust and

Ted Jackson: And so it was a success and then two years later they ran it again. And then the next year. Again, and the next year again. And I think it's raised to two, two to 3 million pounds so far.

Ted Jackson: Well, which from a crazy idea on the back of a cigarette packet is pretty cool.

Wes Schaeffer: Mm hmm.

Ted Jackson: And amazing guys you know for the memory of of Johnny's brother is just absolutely insane. So I was just really pleased to be there at the beginning. I like being there at the beginning and saying yes to things, essentially.

Ted Jackson: That's kind of like when you say, No, you're crazy but jumped in with me. Normally, people asked me to do stuff.

Ted Jackson: Without much thought, I tend to jump in and say, yeah, unless it's an invitation for dinner of stuff I hey I you know

Ted Jackson: I normally say no to people straight away if they want to go out and do something, social, but that's more to do with the fact that I haven't had a drink in 23 years 25 years

Ted Jackson: And I now choose I choose what I want to do, socially, but but if it's anything if it's something extreme if it's something

Ted Jackson: Adventurous if it's something a little bit out there or if it's a commitment to hate you want to come and do a talk to these people. You want to come and do that. I generally say yes to stuff to put myself in a bit of a zone.

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah, I love it. I'm kind of the kind of the same way I I hate small talk. A chitchat rather

Ted Jackson: I chi drives me

Mad

Ted Jackson: Oh,

Wes Schaeffer: So did like that. Something click

Wes Schaeffer: In

Wes Schaeffer: These different trials and challenges you did. I mean, did you realize like, there's a little something different about you that maybe could help others. I mean you got you have one on one coaching right through your website.

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah yeah

Wes Schaeffer: You know, or is it to people just need a kick in the pants and you're just you're there to kick them.

Wes Schaeffer: You know, nudge them push them forward.

Ted Jackson: I just did anything. Click. I think it took a long time for anything to click for me. So whilst I was doing all this, to be honest.

Ted Jackson: I, you know, it's like I think when you're in it. And when you do this stuff you don't necessarily stand back and go

Ted Jackson: What I'm doing is particularly different or difficult or hard or different to what anyone else is doing in a strange but although I wanted to do it to say I'm showing off and blah, blah, blah.

Ted Jackson: And I knew that it was kind of impressive. I was also never massively fulfilled myself i don't think i don't think i oppressed myself very much

Ted Jackson: And I think that was probably the maybe at the core of many, many of my addictions and my alcoholism and not finding my why my wherefore

Ted Jackson: So I at the time. So doing marathons during the Tour de France, going to the North Pole. None of this really yeah I certainly didn't think that any of it gave me any

Ted Jackson: Any reason to be to think that I could be of help to anyone else. You know, I certainly wasn't in a place of service at that time and maybe that and that has come a lot more recently, you know, it's taken a long time for me to find my own personal acceptance.

Ted Jackson: Right and and

Ted Jackson: Ignore that.

Ted Jackson: Knowledge.

Ted Jackson: What in acknowledge that actually maybe it's just a lot of what I do in the way I can help people is actually by getting vulnerable and and not being belly big balls and and doing these things to say.

Ted Jackson: may look like. Yeah.

Ted Jackson: Anyway,

Wes Schaeffer: I'm losing you

Ted Jackson: Believe that but I because I'm asked

Wes Schaeffer: Me like

Wes Schaeffer: You're under some maybe try something.

Ted Jackson: Charlie's okay yeah

Ted Jackson: Okay.

Wes Schaeffer: All right.

Wes Schaeffer: Got the internet cleared up. So you're saying that

Wes Schaeffer: You're helping people by being vulnerable and not which got Billy big balls, which I appreciate and then it was getting choppy. So run us back through that what you were getting into

Ted Jackson: Okay, so I was. I mean, I think I was just getting into the fact that you were talking about when I was doing these events early on.

Ted Jackson: I didn't feel that

Ted Jackson: I really had much to offer. I didn't think that, you know, and I've done quite a few amazing things. But I still didn't think

Ted Jackson: That I didn't have the confidence in

Ted Jackson: Myself to think I was doing anything special, and and that I could help. And it wasn't until I kind of really had a good look at myself.

Ted Jackson: Which I did and I reached out to a coach, because I was realizing that I was doing a lot of events and doing all this stuff but chasing something but never getting anywhere.

Ted Jackson: Mm hmm. As you know that feeling. I was explaining

Before

Ted Jackson: About how I can get to the end of an event and then fill the anticlimax yeah because I think I wanted the events to be my purpose. And so I was struggling. I really struggled to find what it was that that may Ted Jackson.

Wes Schaeffer: Right.

Ted Jackson: Because I was, you know, I had a big ego, but maybe possibly a low self esteem right now so I kind of was

Ted Jackson: You know, on the outside, people thought he was totally sorted and totally cool. And on the inside. I was kind of screaming going. I really don't know what my place in life is, you know, this is all very well, but

Ted Jackson: So I reached out for some help. Actually, and and got myself a coach, even though I knew nothing about coaching and I probably if I'm honest, I was pretty

Ted Jackson: I'd probably spent my life being very negative about anyone in the self help space or whatever that might be, you know, coaching counseling, all that kind of thing. I've been brought up in a very kind of

Ted Jackson: You know, pull your socks up kind of family, you know, we just get on with it. You know you, what do you got to complain about

Ted Jackson: You know, I grew up in a pretty privileged household and, you know, so it was kind of self help and asking for help. Really wasn't in my DNA, even though I'd been through the sort of alcoholism and addiction. And so I was clean.

Ted Jackson: But I hadn't really looked at myself. So I reached out. Got a coach who was amazing.

Ted Jackson: And I could not believe

Ted Jackson: How fast. He helped me find my way in life and it's almost impossible to describe how because I do think there's a certain amount of magic involved.

Ted Jackson: Because actually, you know, and yeah yeah just it's magic.

Wes Schaeffer: Do you think

Wes Schaeffer: What had he gone down a similar

Wes Schaeffer: Path as you

Ted Jackson: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, in a different way, but a similar path. You know, so I think everyone has their struggles on the out on the outside.

Ted Jackson: And he'll you know he's very open about it, you know, on the outside. He was extremely solitude. Great job, high paying high flying accountant had been in the military, you know,

Ted Jackson: But suffered enormous depression stuff and all this kind of, you know, just a feeling of being in completely the wrong space and and completely the wrong place, and not doing what he was

Ted Jackson: Not, not finding his calling. In a way, you know, just doing stuff that he thought everyone else wanted to see him doing

Ted Jackson: Right. You know, so he kind of he went through the same process yeah and and kind of gave me that gift.

Ted Jackson: And and when I got the gift. And then I was thinking, well, what am I gifts. And I thought, How can I be I'd never really had any confidence that I had any qualifications to give you know because

Ted Jackson: From I dropped out of university and or to have my first child. So I had kids really young, you know, I'm quite young, myself, my eldest is 26 I've got four kids, and I'm still young man myself.

Ted Jackson: So I never really had a growing up period myself. I don't think

Ted Jackson: Right and just

Ted Jackson: I just true. You know me and Sophie, my wife, we just we kind of had to grow up as we went and maybe maybe we didn't necessary to really grow up at the same time everyone else does.

Ted Jackson: Right. And we kind of so there's, it's been quite a journey.

Ted Jackson: But now I like yeah, I've got a whole eat more confidence. I know that what I've got to offer is a great thing.

Ted Jackson: And, you know, and it didn't take an awful lot to shine a light on that for myself, you know, someone shoreline and said, hey, look, look. Everything you've done every single thing every bloody prison cell. I've been in every

Ted Jackson: Marathon I've run every mistake I've made the children or whatever it might be, goes is my experience and I didn't need a piece of paper to tell me that

Ted Jackson: Right.

Ted Jackson: But I thought I did.

Ted Jackson: You know, I was convinced I did, in fact, you know, I'm the youngest of four kids. I kind of was always a bit of a spoiled baby but in the but it was always told to me that I was being a small baby and always got what I wanted. You know, I always had a way I could manipulate anything

Ted Jackson: You know, I'm very, very clever manipulating and getting my own way, which also made me feel

Ted Jackson: insecure about how I was getting things and whether I actually deserved anything

Ted Jackson: Mm hmm. Because when you've manipulated your way into something you don't know whether it was actually true or not.

Right.

Ted Jackson: Is that I don't know if you get what I mean that

Wes Schaeffer: Right, yeah.

Wes Schaeffer: It's, uh,

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah, it's, it's that kind of the street smarts, that kind of

Wes Schaeffer: You figure out how to pull people's levers push their buttons and

Ted Jackson: Yeah.

Ted Jackson: A little bit. And I think I figured out many, many ways to hack.

Ted Jackson: You know hack life.

Ted Jackson: But in doing so I didn't ever get myself. I always thought I always I always thought I was undermining myself but by, you know, maybe because I did it that way. And I got the result I wanted, maybe I didn't

Ted Jackson: deserve it.

Ted Jackson: Right, whatever it might be. Whatever the outcome in any situation because I always I kind of, I don't know. I don't think I'm special or different or anything, but I do think I see the world in a different way, where, I think, Well, why they doing it that way. You could just do it this way.

Ted Jackson: Right. And you know and and that's not a bad thing. It's just not the way everyone else does it, but I used to think, oh, if I'm doing it that way. And it's that easy. Surely that must be wrong. That's a bit like cheating at school that's

Ted Jackson: That was my mindset.

Ted Jackson: Right, as opposed to know actually you're clever. That was clever to do that.

Ted Jackson: Right, it's just not you didn't get a degree, that's all.

Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah, it's not it's not necessarily taking a shortcut. It's just being efficient right like breaking the mold and not feeling bad about doing things the right way instead of the defined way.

Ted Jackson: Exactly. And that's exactly how it was. And I think, you know, and half the time, I was thinking, well, I'm I'm being efficient, but then someone would turn around and go, Yeah, but you're cutting corners and alone. But actually, it didn't matter that I was cutting corners.

Ted Jackson: You know, because the job got done and it got done well. But I still undermined myself with my thinking there so I'm I think I wouldn't give myself the credit because I listened to what other people were saying and I listened to that kind of everyone else's story.

Ted Jackson: Yeah, you know, and believed it.

Wes Schaeffer: I remember years ago, my good friends in Texas. He, he came over and asked me how I would do something

Wes Schaeffer: And he's super smart guy, very analytical very thinking methodical strategic guy right

Wes Schaeffer: And and I told him I would do. And he's like, Oh yeah, that's a good way and and he said something I wise, we're all best friends. We vacation together, you know, and he's, he's like, he said, Yeah, I asked West because he's lazy.

Wes Schaeffer: And his wife got all offended. I'm like, I'm not offended at all. I am lazy. So I mean that it leads me to find the most efficient way. Like, I still get the job done. But, you know,

Wes Schaeffer: I like to be by the jobs that are by the hour. So I can just get it done.

Ted Jackson: I can resonate with that that really resonates with me.

Ted Jackson: You know, just that. And the problem is I gave this lazy tag a negative connotation.

Ted Jackson: Yeah, you know, and, and, actually, a lot of my work on myself has been about interpretation of words.

Ted Jackson: And what's your definition of lazy and what does that mean, and are actually are you lazy, right, because no I'm not fucking lazy. You know, I just like I just don't like to, like, just like I don't like small talk.

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah.

Ted Jackson: I don't like to expend energy which is totally pointless right you know that there has to be a kind of point, you know, and that that gets around so well, what's the why.

Ted Jackson: Why is the why here.

Ted Jackson: And my wife has changed enormously from the early days, you know, I probably a bit glib earlier on about how the I do these things because I like to show off and I think that was my why in the early days.

Ted Jackson: And then my wife changed.

Ted Jackson: You know we had a bit of a. My wife got diagnosed with MS.

Ted Jackson: And that hit that was a shock. You know that really hit us hit us hard and

Ted Jackson: Then it was like okay now I had a cause, you know, so

Ted Jackson: It went from me just wanting to show off to me, having the

Ted Jackson: I had a cause and a reason to carry on and do some more stuff, but I also was desperate to kind of give back in my way. And there was no other way to give back, other than for me to raise money for the charity that supported her

Ted Jackson: So that's what I did. And somehow, and it wasn't. It's not like I'd ever been a big fundraiser before i mean i'd managed to raise money on those events that I did but small fry compared to what I finally raised doing you know what once Sophia had her diagnosis and i and i had that

Ted Jackson: And actually I focus so much time on fundraising that again that that kind of the thought of an idea of training for anything, just kind of went out the window.

Ted Jackson: But I managed to raise. Yeah. About a quarter of a million dollars myself.

Ted Jackson: Personally doing. Yeah, the marathon desktop, which is a big race through the desert.

Ted Jackson: And the seven marathons on seven continents.

Wes Schaeffer: So, so as you did those, those were all for various MS causes

Ted Jackson: Yeah, there's a there's a charity called overcoming MS, which is a UK based but I think now an international charity and

Ted Jackson: Sophie had stumbled across a little small ad in a newspaper saying come along and have a look. Have a listen to this.

Ted Jackson: This chap talk and it was a doctor called George Jelinek who himself had MS and and he is a research doctor and he done a whole heap of research and

Ted Jackson: Basically it's a promotion, rather than dealing with the MS through drugs and steroids and whatever it might be. He basically it was promoting a massive change in diet and lifestyle.

Ted Jackson: To do completely low fat, no fat diet.

Ted Jackson: And it had been proven to to make huge changes to people and you know my wife Sophie had been

Ted Jackson: She'd been on the running machine, she'd done a 10 K on the running machine and then one day she came in and she got out of that into a hot bath got out the bath and couldn't speak, you know, that was the first experience of, like, Oh, hang on. She lost the power of speech.

Ted Jackson: And then, you know, so after some brain scans. We found a whole heap of lesions on her brain.

Ted Jackson: You know, the MS was confirmed. Now she's gone. You know, she went back to three years after following the diet strictly regime and like all the lesions have gone away.

Wes Schaeffer: Wow.

Ted Jackson: You know, and this isn't some kind of you know i'm i'm pretty. I'm a skeptical kind of guy like to see proof. And I've always been pretty skeptical of anyone. This is on a miracle cure and all this kind of thing. But, you know, the proof is that I've got brain scans.

Ted Jackson: Right. And, you know, for the she follows this lifestyle. And so, hey, I wanted to do what I could support the charity.

Right.

Wes Schaeffer: What's the name of that charity one

Ted Jackson: It's called overcoming Ms.

Wes Schaeffer: Okay, I'll make sure we link to that.

Ted Jackson: Great.

Wes Schaeffer: I just realized my microphone was wrong. So I probably sound better now, but

Ted Jackson: You sound great.

Wes Schaeffer: Oh, well I had downloaded a plugin and then it changes all your settings like

Wes Schaeffer: I do yourself the right, you get into a habit and you don't go check your things. But, oh, so what do you think

Wes Schaeffer: I've had so many entrepreneurs on this show that have the had to hit rock bottom before they turn things around whether it was bankruptcy alcoholism divorce.

Wes Schaeffer: All of the above, you know, getting ripped off by partners.

Wes Schaeffer: And they get that clarity. I mean,

Wes Schaeffer: Talking about shortcuts. Right. Is there a way to get clarity without hitting rock bottom.

Ted Jackson: I don't know because I've not been there.

Ted Jackson: I know my experience, you know, and

Ted Jackson: I mean one. I don't. I mean, yeah, I mean, I don't really count myself as an entrepreneur, I suppose, but

Ted Jackson: I suppose some word, but I really do think that there's a there's a whole I'm so grateful that I reached rock bottom.

Ted Jackson: You know, and I didn't have just one rock bottom.

Ted Jackson: I had a rock bottom with alcohol and drugs. And then I had a second rock bottom.

Ted Jackson: 15 years into sobriety, you know, which was a mental rock bottom which which which which again was like

Ted Jackson: You know sounds evangelical but almost like a rebirth, for me, you know, I really got to a point where everyone on the outside would have just been thinking. She's he's got it all. You know, you had the

Ted Jackson: Had all the trappings. You know, all right. Some people might have not thought that a yellow 911 was particularly tasteful but

Ted Jackson: I it's all I've ever wanted. And then I got that. And I had all these things. And I've done all this amazing stuff. And I had a beautiful wife and four amazing kids in it, and I felt empty and dead inside.

Ted Jackson: You know, just like no purpose what's going on. I got no mojo, you know,

Ted Jackson: And so that was my second rock bottom. And then, so I suppose I've reached out for help twice. Big time. You know, I reached out with alcoholism and the addiction, but I think

Ted Jackson: I never really really dealt with the issues I think I dealt with, you know, I managed to stop doing stuff. But I suppose in many ways I

Ted Jackson: I possibly could have been like a dry drunk, you know, I hadn't really looked at myself in depth. I think I almost white knuckled it. I almost thought hey

Ted Jackson: Right. I've got to stop a, you know, for my family. Yeah, because I've got a deep love for my family and I didn't want to lose them. So stop drinking stop doing what I was doing.

Ted Jackson: But did I really deal with issues of Ted Jackson and what makes me tick and had I ever really looked at anything. No, I you know I use white knuckled it through life.

Ted Jackson: And actually, it didn't. It's not like I had to go through years of therapy to look at myself. I just had never looked at myself.

Ted Jackson: Right. I've never asked myself, any questions.

Ted Jackson: Yeah, I'd never, never once considered that or if I had your immediate, you know, it's like in the shower. You know, maybe you talk to yourself in the shop, but you're immediately shut yourself down.

Ted Jackson: I do you know with any decent plan or, you know, the negative self talk that I had

Ted Jackson: was ridiculous. You know, any plan or any dream or anything so amazing how quick that inner voice inside me was going, Yeah, but you can't do that. You're a fucking idiot.

Ted Jackson: type thing. And now I listened to myself differently and I speak to myself differently if I catch myself calling myself an idiot my head, I stop myself and say no, don't do that. You're fucking awesome.

Ted Jackson: And it can change an awful lot of things.

Wes Schaeffer: Are you a big goal setter.

Ted Jackson: I not, I'm not a big goal setter in the in the strictest sense of the word. As in, hey, I've read enough books now to be looking at, you know, at yeah that just the simple goal setting books.

Ted Jackson: And setting goals and what you need to do and

Ted Jackson: Aim smart and all that kind of things. And no, because I still take on events in the same way that I used to take on events, you know,

Ted Jackson: I'm still looking for something exciting and I still look for those things to do that are a bit adventurous and again to push me beyond my limits.

Ted Jackson: To see what I can do. And also there's still a part of me. There's, I have to accept that there is a part of Ted Jackson quite a big part that does like to show off.

Ted Jackson: I'm just more accepting of that now you know. And yeah, I do want people to think I'm fucking awesome.

Ted Jackson: But I think as more and more genuine now and I'm much more genuine and I'm I've got much more I think you know everything I we you know my purpose with my family and everything is so much more honest than it ever was because I was never honest with myself.

Ted Jackson: And I do think that finding finding some kind of self honesty, I mean hey,

Ted Jackson: In the grand scheme of things, who's going to know me.

Ted Jackson: Right there was that with anything whatever I do if I drive too fast. If I do now, doesn't matter if I'm cool.

Ted Jackson: I know

Ted Jackson: Right. And it's that stuff that damages me

Ted Jackson: So I and and it sounds. Again, it sounds cliche and

Ted Jackson: I don't know if I was always so

Ted Jackson: So negative about any kind of self help in the past but you know when when I see things like be the best version of you and all that kind of thing. I still have a worry about judgment from other people.

Wes Schaeffer: Right.

Ted Jackson: You know, maybe, family members, maybe, that kind of thing, you know, put I have this worry of being judged for that, well, hang on. What are you talking, that's all just self help books. But actually, you know what I do strive to be better than I was yesterday.

Wes Schaeffer: Mm hmm.

Ted Jackson: And I find it makes my life fucking amazing.

Ted Jackson: Right. Oh, fuck you, and your judgment.

Ted Jackson: It's not

Ted Jackson: It's not my business, what you think.

Ted Jackson: You know, that's how I get over it. You know, so

Ted Jackson: Yeah, I, I'm not really into

Ted Jackson: You can get very hung up on what other people think of you.

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah, for sure.

Ted Jackson: Well you I don't know about you, I can

Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer: I think you should take on the challenge of feeding my seven kids and myself three meals a day for 21 days straight. That would prove how tough and crazy, you are

Ted Jackson: Holy shit.

Ted Jackson: I'm not very good at math.

Ted Jackson: But that's a lot of meals.

Wes Schaeffer: It'll be set the temperature. Have you want you know

Okay.

Ted Jackson: Cookie that

Wes Schaeffer: You can order. You can order food. I will eat it token.

Ted Jackson: Oh, OK. I just provide it. Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah, as always we're fed. I mean 21 days. Okay, three meals.

Ted Jackson: Yeah, let

Ted Jackson: Me think about you're taking advantage of the fact that I said I do anything. Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer: Man. Well, that's cool.

Ted Jackson: Seven.

Wes Schaeffer: I could talk forever. We manage

Ted Jackson: To do not know what

Ted Jackson: What was making that happen.

Wes Schaeffer: I'm very good at it.

Okay.

Wes Schaeffer: Very good at creating liabilities for myself.

Yeah.

Ted Jackson: That's for sure. We'll go there.

Wes Schaeffer: Oh my goodness. Too funny.

Wes Schaeffer: Well, man. I've got an appointment coming up. Otherwise, I'd talk for another hour

Wes Schaeffer: You've got a website Instagram. So I'm also linking to your Chariot, not your charity, but the overcoming Ms. Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer: Let me see. Yeah, I'm coming ms.org so yeah I'm linking to that linking to your Instagram. So it's a me click on that, make sure we get that right, Ted.

Wes Schaeffer: Jackson rebel coaching. But all this will be in the in the show notes as well. And just scroll through and click on it and website for for coaching right rebel.

Wes Schaeffer: Rebel in the arena calm and people should visit that just to see the picture.

Wes Schaeffer: At the top

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah, have you is that is that north pole, south pole there.

Ted Jackson: That's North Pole. It was considerably colder at the North Pole in the South. I mean, when I was the South Pole. It was it was basically summer I ran the South Pole marathon and near enough a t shirt.

Ted Jackson: At minus five degrees but the North Pole, that was taken at minus 40

Wes Schaeffer: Oh my goodness.

Wes Schaeffer: Yes, I don't mind. Man, golly, I don't like running in the cold, good grief. I don't know, I guess.

Wes Schaeffer: Well, you're British. I mean, it's like always cold.

Wes Schaeffer: Man.

Ted Jackson: It is at the moment. I'm from the South.

Wes Schaeffer: Of the US where it's always hot just

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah, sweaty.

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah, I don't mind it.

Wes Schaeffer: And very cool, man. Yeah, well, we'll link to all that and I just appreciate you taking the time and landed on the line.

Ted Jackson: Well, thank you very much for having me. It's been emotional

Wes Schaeffer: It's a 20 minute out of people.

Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer: All right, so, Jackson.

Wes Schaeffer: Are you London. London.

Ted Jackson: I'm south coast.

Wes Schaeffer: Very nice.

Ted Jackson: I'm by the sea.

Wes Schaeffer: son, my son, I could spend Thanksgiving there. Two years ago, actually in London.

Ted Jackson: So when we travel

Wes Schaeffer: Nice visit. Yeah, back in the day. Alright man, Ted Jackson next commercial may have a great evening.

Ted Jackson: Thanks, whereas over now.

Wes Schaeffer: All right. Cheers. Bye.