Oliver Dudley

<p>Welcome to Serendipity Soup! The antidote to celebrity success podcasts. </p><br><p>What can we learn from extremes?&nbsp;This month I’m talking to Oliver Dudley who has experienced probably the most extreme career I’ve covered to date in terms of its highs and lows.&nbsp;He’s a property developer who lost 95% of his wealth during the 2008 financial crash but has – if you’ll forgive the pun – rebuilt his company from the ground up.&nbsp;He’s an amateur sportsman who rowed across the Atlantic despite a deep-seated terror of cold water.&nbsp;And he’s a motivational speaker who coached the world’s number one croquet player.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>As will become clear during the interview, I have no desire to emulate Oliver’s amazing physical feats, but I really want to understand what drives someone to constantly push themselves to try something different: to fail over and over and keep going.&nbsp;Because that’s ultimately what Oliver’s story is about.&nbsp;As he says himself, his is a career “riddled with failure”.&nbsp;His honesty is intense, refreshing and inspiring.</p><br><p>There’s plenty more to Oliver’s story and you can find links to some of the things he and I talk about below:</p><ul><li>‘Through Hell and High Water’, the documentary covering James Cracknell and Ben Fogle’s Atlantic row in 2006: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Through_Hell_and_High_Water" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Through_Hell_and_High_Water</a></li><li>Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find a link to the Surrey Advertiser article Oliver refers to or the ‘Ocean’s 14’ documentary, but there’s a little bit about his record-breaking row here: <a href="https://barnwellprint.co.uk/charity-fundraising/la-mondiale-atlantic-ocean-row/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://barnwellprint.co.uk/charity-fundraising/la-mondiale-atlantic-ocean-row/</a> and here: <a href="https://www.worldrecordacademy.com/sports/Fastest_row_across_the_Atlantic_world_record_set_by_La_Mondiale_80124.ht