11 - Bernie Hollywood - Inspiring Millions, Mission and Legacy

Have you ever wondered what it takes to combine passion, philanthropy, and adventure into a life that inspires millions?

Wonder no more. Our guest today is Bernie Hollywood OBE, a man whose name is synonymous with daring challenges, relentless charity work, and impactful change. 

Bernie has dedicated over 40 years to supporting numerous causes, raising an astounding £42 million for charities globally. In this episode, we dive into Bernie’s fascinating story, uncover the motivations behind his pursuits, and learn about the challenges that have defined his incredible journey.

Whether you're seeking inspiration, motivation, or a story that warms the heart, you won't want to miss this episode. 

Sit back, relax, and get ready to be inspired by the one and only Bernie Hollywood.

If you liked this episode, and want to know more about Mark and his amazing organisation Active Sports Group, then follow him, and make sure to keep listening for more updates, discussions and sports related content!

Edited with finesse by Mike at Making Digital Real

Transcript

Mark Whitwood: 0:01

Have you ever wondered what it takes to combine passion, philanthropy and adventure into a life that inspires millions? Well wonder no more. Our guest today is Bernie Hollywood OBE, a man whose name is synonymous with daring challenges, relentless charity work and impactful change. Bernie has dedicated over 40 years to support and an abundance of causes, raising an astounding 42 million for charities globally, from Epic endurance feeds to innovative fundraising campaigns. Bernie's journey is a testament to the power of the human spirit, and the impact one individual can make. In this episode, we dive into Bernie's fascinating story, uncover the motivations behind his pursuits and learn about the challenges that have defined his incredible journey. Whether you're looking for inspiration, motivation, or simply a story that just warms the heart, you won't want to miss this, sit back, relax and get ready to be inspired by the one and only Bernie Hollywood. So I'm delighted today to welcome Bernie Hollywood to the active Journey podcast. And it's an absolute privilege to be joined by him and not sure how best to introduce Bernie but other than that, he's a serial entrepreneur. endurance athlete doesn't say much for for 1000s of charities, not just within the UK, but across the world. So Bernie, how're you doing?

Bernie Hollywood: 1:28

I'm doing great. Thanks, Mark. Thanks for inviting me on. And it's great to talk to you this morning.

Mark Whitwood: 1:33

But I think like just for our listeners, it'd be great to find out a little bit more about sort of yourself, like what what you what you're doing now. And I guess maybe, how did it all start as well? Yeah,

Bernie Hollywood: 1:45

it's, well, I'm an ordinary man doing extraordinary things. I always say that that really encompasses me in a nutshell, really. So I was born and bred in Liverpool 65 years ago now in a council estate in speak, and had an amazing upbringing with a fantastic family, devoted Christians. And although we didn't have an awful lot of money, we had an awful lot of love in our family, and had an amazing mother and father, they really sort of gave me the direction I wanted to go for in my life. Mom was a huge giver, didn't really have much in our life, but she gave everything away that she had. And that's what she taught all of us are my three brothers effectively, how to live our lives, which is really as to, to give everything that you have way sounded a bit bizarre at that time. Because if you did that, you get so much back in return, so to give it to receive. I saw that on numerous occasions when I was living with mom and dad in speak for 22 years I was there. And when my mom passed 40 odd years ago now, along with my dad six months before, I realized that really sort of she was absolutely right, that when you start giving you to get so much back, and that's really where my journey started of philanthropy and charity. And, you know, adventuring really started from there. And when my mom passed away, we I did my first marathon, which I bought most of it with my brothers basically to say thank you to the people looked up to my mom, but she was passing a great feeling of satisfaction when I when I came across the line. And I felt oh, maybe this is something that can actually do again, and help other people. So from that particular start, then I got into running in a big way, insurance running. And as a consequence of run over 150 marathons around the world now and 200, half marathons, and etc, etc, etc. But it was actual raising of the money and seeing what the money did, it really was important to me. So I got involved in my corporate career in third sector, which is charity. And I became a director of charity for a large banking group, which looks after 100,000 corporate accounts and small accounts for charities. So I really learned how to actually operate and run a charity. And from those learnings, I thought, I think I can do this, I think I can do good by basically looking at charities that I want to actually operate and run. And as a consequence of that. I've been involved in dozens of charities since then at board level, and share level and creative level ever since. So I'm currently involved in three major charities that I have been involved with now for some years, one that builds schools in developing parts of Africa, one that actually sends us computers around the world to developing parts of the world for children to actually educate, self educate themselves on. So we've sent 350,000 laptops now to develop in parts of Africa with educational software on so children can actually don't need internet. They can actually To flip up their their laptops, and basically learn their their actual curriculum online, and don't have to worry about connecting to the internet, which is used expensive in developing parts of Africa. And thirdly, I'm involved in a young man's charity called Future net. And we actually help inspire young men for the future. And through our incredible learning programs that we have. And I'm very, very proud to be the chair of that particular charity as well. Alongside all of that, done a little bit of adventuring around the world. So I've done top, middle and bottom. So geographic, North geographic South, done the middle through the Sahara, cycled from here to Africa, and back down across America, climbed a few mountains, Everest, McKinley, few of those babies and others, have done that a couple of times. failed, failed very, very badly on the first occasion. So we had a fatality, which we sadly had to come back down on that occasion. But then going back back in four years later, we actually submitted then. So yeah, so done a lot bit of a bit of mountaineering, because well, obviously done all the normal stuff in the UK, you can do. So you've just had a huge amount of fun, and engaging with amazing people along the way, having great fun raising millions of pounds along that way as well. invented an incredible financial product. When I was in banking, that benefits charities for millions of pounds, called nurture giving them I basically sort of come up with an idea of that one day and then effectively brought it to fruition six years later, which is one of the most rewarding things I've done in my corporate career. So yeah, so all of that sort of stuff. Yeah,

Mark Whitwood: 6:48

so many amazing things. It's hard to pick one to talk about in more detail. I know that you do so much work for young people are very passionate about helping the next generation. And that's where I was sort of introduced to you back sort of 1214 years ago, when I was there, a bigger part than if the Prince's Trust charity, and then you were helping and at the time, honestly, yeah, I remember being totally inspired by listening to some of the work you were doing that and that particular day up in myself and another young people on there, sort of business journeys, really. And I've always followed sort of your journey since and then kept track of some of the adventures if you've been on to the impact you've been having on people, like say, all over the world. And most recently, one really stood out to me and towards here because of sort of our location being in Liverpool, head of the head office. And the work that we do every day with young people in particularly primary school. So when you when we heard about the reigning champions that you're about to undertake, and what that was hoping to achieve, it really sort of sounded so special that yeah, we would like to find out more about sort of what inspires you to take up the very challenging and Yeah, can't wait.

Bernie Hollywood: 8:10

That's fine. Absolutely, Mark. So it was around about four half years, four and a half, five years ago, I was actually walking or going for a walk with my partner, Sharon down the river de, and in Chester. And they saw this amazing vision of this single boat coming up the river, just so serene, Christmas Eve morning, and they spoke just glide it beautifully down the river. And when I saw that, I just had to shine. I said, You know what, that looks absolutely fantastic. I'd love to do that. And Sharon turned around and said, well, nothing stop you from doing stuff in the past has it really? So why don't you have a crack, didn't really think anything more of it. Behind my back. Sharon then basically rang the rubbing Club, which we actually walked past and she saw a poster called Learn to row. And she brought me to learn to row class in January. And she said, listen, not Christmas present. But why don't you go and give it a go. And as soon as I went to the club, which is Grosvenor Rowing Club in Chester, they just welcomed me with open arms, beautiful people club, and no snobbishness or anything of that nature, it was a real down to earth club. And I went onto the Learn to row course over six weeks and got basically taught how to row properly by an amazing coach for Chris, and six weeks later was out on the water rowing boats. And I've never looked back since. So since I put my my bottom on the seat of a rowboat. So I just fell in love with rowing. And if anybody wants to have a sport whereby it's completely aerobic, and it's great fun. Rowing is the sport for you. To be fair, it's incredible as board to get involved with and you don't need to be competitive. You can just do it for leisure. You can do it if you want to compete, which I've competed in a few races. I've just actually bought my first medal in the Chester regatta a couple of weeks ago, which I was very proud of. At the age of 65 And, and that's really where the rubbing started. So I thought, how can I use row in effectively to facilitate and engage with people. And I spent a year with British rowing, setting up their foundation. And it can actually see how growing can actually impact the lives of people, and young people in particular, from underprivileged backgrounds who actually come and actually do a sport and see the actual impact that that would make. And I was chatting to my son Lewis, about rowing, and so on and so forth. And, and my son, Louis, and he won't mind me talking about it, because you know, as I speak openly about his mental health issues, has had a lot of mental health issues of the last 10 years. And he suffers from Asperger's syndrome and OCD. And that gets extremely anxious. And we're just having a conversation about really sort of young people in mental health at this stage and sport. And I asked him the question, you know, is there anything that I could have done as a dad, and he's over 30? Now, is anything that I could have done as a dad earlier on in your life that caching may have prevented you getting to where you are now? And he said, Well, I think so that is it. If if we'd actually opened up a conversation a lot earlier, we just, I just may have not gotten to the stage that I'm at now. Because I would have said the intervention beforehand, as opposed to in my latter years. So I said, Okay, maybe we can use rowing and the creativity of, of rowing, to actually engage with young people around the world in the UK about getting them to open up and talk about how they feel. And that's how the vote of Hope was founded.

Mark Whitwood: 11:33

conversation with you. So

Bernie Hollywood: 11:36

that was the spark. And we, I sat down with a blank piece of paper. And I wrote out, really sort of a roadmap of how I could use rowing, and creativity to get to as many young people as we can, to get them to start talking about how they feel inside their heads and hearts. And it really was so simple. It wasn't difficult to do. Because when I went out to people and said, This is what I'm thinking of doing. Would you like to come on board with my journey, they jumped at the opportunity, because it quite quickly became apparent to me that there was obviously an issue with your young people's mental health, and really the stigma involved in it. And also, more importantly, really, the silence of not talking about it was seen as a weakness as opposed to a strength. And we thought that by using the creative arts of you know, poetry, animation, filmmaking, words, pictures, we can actually engage in a conversation and adventure, we could engage in a conversation a lot easier by using the combination of those things than just basically saying, How are you feeling? And so it came to pass. So we actually came up with STEM, which is science, technology, engineering and math, but we dropped in an A, and called it steam. So we called it science, technology, arts, engineering and math. So we put that amalgam together. And we've worked with an amazing partner called Parent pay, who've got connected six and a half 1000 schools around the United Kingdom. And they became our our premier partner. And they facilitated a competition with six and a half out high schools, asking children what they felt hope meant to them. And we got inundated with pictures, poetry, word sayings, so much content, it was unbelievable.

Mark Whitwood: 13:25

Is there any examples you could share as well?

Bernie Hollywood: 13:27

Yeah, there was an amazing hobo. Your they do. I mean, some dark, we got an awful lot of dark pictures of what, what, what hope meant to people. There was one young lady in, in Cork, in Northern Ireland, not caught in adultery. I was at Londonderry in Northern Ireland, that painted an amazing picture. And it was very, very dark and deep. And when we spoke about the picture a bit more detail it was caused due to a trauma that she'd actually had mental health trauma that she had. And by basically putting the picture together, release those thoughts for and being a part of the campaign actually helped her heal and find and she found really sort of help from other agencies as a consequence of actually having the bravery to do that start with so we had to sit pick six winners out of all these entries, because they were then going to come down and see the boat unveiled the National Maritime Museum in in Greenwich in London. So we eventually chose six pictures, but we sat around the table and we said, listen, all this content, you just can't let go. So what we did is I got an amazing artist called Justin Eagleton. So check just in our ears, incredible nielsen.com And he's an incredible digital artist, and I approached Justin Anessa. Listen, is there any chance we can put all of this content together in a mural and actually tell the story of a young person going through depression but coming out the other side with hope? And he just knitted it together so beautifully. It was unbelievable. And then that that particular mural 42 foot long, was then wrapped around my ocean going boat story. It's just a piece of art, in essence piece of artwork. And that really sort of sort of then sparked lots of things happening. So I got an award winning children's author, I wrote a book in my head and approached an amazing author called man. Yes, so yeah, this is all before I sit down, this is a four year campaign. And basically, we then put the strands together. So the campaign was split into four main elements. It was purely to do with awareness and getting young people to speak about how they feel inside their head. So that was our main mission statement. And then we raised some money for two charities as well to mental health charities as well. But our main primary main reason was to actually get the young people to start talking about how they felt. And we did it in four strands. First one was the pull the boat, which weighed three quarters of a ton. We pulled it for 30 days, non stop around RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire. And we pulled it for 300 Miles plus, to represent the 300 young lives that were lost to suicide every year in the United Kingdom. And we got some of the parents to come and join us who lost their children's lives to push the boat for miles celebrate the lives of their children. And that's incredibly moving and motivating. At the same time. We raised awareness on local radio, national television, and eventually we pulled it round 370 miles. We visited all the RAF bases because they saw what we did, and they were blown away because they said our families suffer from mental health issues. Because our service people go away and leave their families for months on end. And they suffer from mental health issues as well. Would you go and talk to all of our families ran the bases. So we did a tour of the bases.

Mark Whitwood: 16:52

So effective because my grandfather was a pilot. Yes,

Bernie Hollywood: 16:56

we did. We did. Yeah. We went to the Battle of Britain, World War Two Memorial flights. Yeah. Yeah, we did that. And we had the privilege of actually be pulled the boat into the hangar where the Lancaster bomber is. And it that was just an incredible day. And we also had a couple of days, Collins be talking to all of the staff, and the Naval Air sorry, air offices and the General Staff was was just incredible. And then we engage with the army. And then we went to a number of army bases as well, because they got involved with this as well. Particularly the royal electrical mechanical engineers, they were incredible. So we pull the boat for a month. And then the second part was a national school tool. So we took the boat to 100 high schools and 100 primary schools around the United Kingdom. And we met 1000s of kids around the around the UK, and talked about their mental health and well being. But we talked about the adventure of taking the boat cross the Atlantic, and all of the technology involved in doing that as well. And it you just it just incredible, the reaction was amazing. And the third element was the row itself. And then the fourth element finished with a two week exhibition at Liverpool cathedral, where we put the boat on exhibition and we put all of the artwork that the kids actually produced on exhibition as well and invited all the children could see the artwork. And then we had an award winning book, which became an Amazon number one bestseller called Bernie a bowtie, which was done before the row started. Because we wanted to engage with five to 11 year olds, because mental health issues start at the age of five. So we wanted to get young kids to start talking about how they felt. We did that through our book, which became as I say, an Amazon number one bestseller, but then effectively it morphed into a musical play. So we premiered the play at Liverpool Cathedral is made into a play a musical play called Bernie and bowtie and an amazing production. And Lisa Mitchell was was basically the instigator of putting all of that together. She was an incredible artistic individual. So it made it to a play. It premiered at the at the Cathedral. And then it all came to a close. And then we've continued our quest. Our book continues to sell like crazy. And it's been made into an animation which Melanie C has voiced for us as well spike the the Spice Girl. And we've also had Sacha Dhawan, who's basically an incredible actor. He's been a Doctor Who and all this sort of stuff. They're their voice artistry is on our trailer for our for our book now find our play. So yeah, it's been quite a journey to be fair. So

Mark Whitwood: 19:35

yeah. So while it's achieved, and the impact is huge, isn't it?

Bernie Hollywood: 19:40

Yeah, it's when I say it's made pinprick because the issue is so big around the world. The beauty about the role was that it was seen by over 950 million people around the world. And those conversations have actually sort of impacted people around the world as well as they've seen the boat and asked asked about what is it what all about. So we made a little impact. But there are some incredible agencies in the United Kingdom that are doing fantastic work behind the scenes, three dads walk in three moms walk in my great friend Richard bland with bare force, you have to check him out. And then you've got all the other incredible agency mind Papyrus. It just goes on and on and on. And also Jordan legacy is another great agency that doing great things in in effectively making mental health a talking point that we should all be talking about every day. Yeah,

Mark Whitwood: 20:33

absolutely. It's a beautiful story. So it's about the journey that you are on throughout all of that, and what you where you've been, and it's pretty, pretty low. But if we can take you back to the actual journey itself, and what you did, because the tour and everything that you've done, and after you finished as well, but to actually prepare and start to build up to the challenge itself and machinery when you started rolling in Chester that was on the river. Yes, it was training on or pre previous experience was on rivers and

Bernie Hollywood: 21:08

lakes, I'm guessing. Absolutely. Right. Yes,

Mark Whitwood: 21:10

this is a 3000 mile road, let's

Bernie Hollywood: 21:13

say it was what's going to be a 3000 mile road. See, but it ended up being 3542 miles, which I can tell you a little bit about why later, but so an extra 500 Miles thrown in Yeah, so it was a long way. So yeah, it's Marquis, right? It was, it ended it started on a river. And, and of course, this running a boat across the ocean is very different than sort of rowing a boat on a on a lathe or up or whatever. And so you have to learn those skills. So I was taught how to run an ocean boat, I went back to school. And I learned with an incredible guy called Charlie pitcher. And he taught me how to row an ocean boat. And then he got some incredible learning from another guy called Duncan Roy. And Duncan basically taught me on the North Sea, took me out in the North Sea and taught me how to actually sort of row the boat on the North Sea. And it's a requirement of this particular event that you have to put over 120 hours of rowing in on open water, seawater, and you have to do two overnight rows to actually qualify for the race. And so it's very well disciplined into actually, before you get to the start line, you need to be in great physical shape, understand how to navigate cross an ocean, and understand that she had to actually Row the Boat successfully and safely. And also how to repair the boat at sea as well shows

Mark Whitwood: 22:35

lasers electrical features and things as well to understand there

Bernie Hollywood: 22:39

certainly was there's lots of electrical and there's the GPS navigation system, you've got a Watermaker desalination unit that converts the salt water into fresh, lots of alette. And then you've got auto steering, which can go wrong as well. So you have to actually learn how to actually repair it all.

Mark Whitwood: 22:56

Because because there's a focus on the auto challenge itself.

Bernie Hollywood: 22:59

So it's not just getting absolutely yeah, yeah. And

Mark Whitwood: 23:03

so actually, that gets closer to the start line, like What did that feel like? Sort of week or so? How was the last 24 hours?

Bernie Hollywood: 23:13

It was scary to be fair, yeah. And so, again, of course, my loved ones came out, come over my team, I both hoped team came over to Lagen air in the Canary Islands. Very scary time. And scary from the point of view that it all became very real and obvious amongst other fellow rowers that were doing the same challenge I was in, they were basically rowing in fours, and in twos and threes. And there was about four of us who were doing it solo, and became very sort of real then when you saw the boat on the water on this and start line. And then we were listening to the incredible safety officers that were looking after his telling us about what the conditions were going to be like. And we found out very, very early on a baptism of fire. They indicated at one of our talks just before we started that the solo boats in particular, were going to struggle like crazy, because they were on oncoming winds and storms coming in, that the other boats can actually grow through because they can actually be on the walls all the time. But the solar realm is actually there later boats. And of course, after a while, we have to give up because of course you have to rest. So for the soloists we were actually going to struggle in the first few weeks because of the prevailing winds and the oncoming storms that were coming in from a low depression in the Atlantic. And so it was to be

Mark Whitwood: 24:35

so in terms of a typical day on the boat Bernie but because you just mentioned rest as well. That's one thing I was curious about is I have seen other people do that I've never seen someone do it solo it has been with a partner so they're taking it in turns to have that read and navigate the boat at that stage what actually happens when you are asleep to develop in that direction.

Bernie Hollywood: 24:58

Great question mark. Can

Mark Whitwood: 25:00

100 extra miles comes from well, to a degree, yes.

Bernie Hollywood: 25:05

So you have to stop rolling at some stage because you get exhausted. So you're on the road, you're up on the road, the horse for about 16 to 18 hours a day. And then the rest of the time that you're off the horse you have to eat. So you have to eat food, you have to make food, which is freeze dried food, very high economic value that has to be made, you have to eat, you have to drink on a regular basis, of course, and you have to maintain the boat. So the boat gets battered from all sides. I went through 17 Atlantic storms during this during my experience. And of course, when it is storming, you can't stay on deck because you get washed off a number of occasions and so did was was washed off decades, you are shackled to the deck without a safety harness. And it was washed off deck on a number of occasions off the boat. And it was I thought my life was finished on a number of occasions Mark boat capsized on a couple of occasions as well

Mark Whitwood: 25:59

as eyes as well.

Bernie Hollywood: 26:01

On my own in pitch black down. Well, I was lucky enough. I was in the cabinet at the time. And it was a second capsize and the boat didn't come back up. And water started to ingress in the cabin and the boat started to sink. And I didn't really think I was coming back from it. So I made a telephone call home to say goodbye to everybody and put satellite phone down. And I'm not a God given praying individual. But one of my neighbors gave me a little wooden cross before I left for my little village and said, Listen, this JC will look after you when all else fails. And I said listen, I'll take it with me. Of course no problem at all. And I put it in my cabin. And it just grabbed hold of it in the dark knew exactly where it wasn't. And I'm just said, Listen, go on JC if you're out there, please help me. I don't really want to own my life going down into the ocean. And around about seven minutes later the boat came operated again. It took me about two days to get the boat sorted out because it was completely flooded. One of my batteries was last use of water, which it was the sort of integration, my steering was smashed to bits to the store. So I had to fix all of my steering again. Thankfully, my GPS navigation system was fine. It was in the cabin. So yeah, it was horrendous to be frank

Mark Whitwood: 27:24

in crisis management, and that takes it to the extreme where he talks about the impact that that storm had on the boat and the equipment. But what about you as well, because you were doing this for events? Or how would have been at sea? And when you do an endurance events really is that happening? If you haven't done it and listen to this, there's moments of extreme fatigue, and tiredness, and your own mental health can become a big challenge within itself. There must have been moments where you must have been really, really struggling. Yeah,

Bernie Hollywood: 27:58

there was I mean, I wanted to do it solo to actually feel what it was like for a young person to feel lonely and to feel anxious, and to feel that there was no hope. And I certainly put myself in that position in this challenge. And there are many days whereby I just break down in tears for no reason. I felt extremely anxious panic attacks. And it got easier as I went through the experience because I was at sea for 109 days and 109 Nights. As I gradually got towards my destination, I basically focused on seeing my loved ones again and my family. But when periods whereby I thought, there's nobody out here to help me anymore, I'm on my own. This is the end. That was difficult for me. So my mental health was was shattered. At times I hallucinated on a regular basis. Lots of people were in the boat with me talking to basically fictitious characters that were sitting on the boat next to me. It's just crazy. And then of course, I had to get off the boat on a regular basis to clean the bottom of the hole. So there was sharks, whales, sea turtles, translucent, translucent plankton. See birds flying fish in me on a regular basis. It was just sea life was just incredible. And that that uplifted me to know that because they became my friends. birds came and roosted on my boat as I went along and basically was sitting on my arm as I was rallying and it was just all a bit really surreal to be honest with you had befriended by two whales for two days and two nights that basically stayed with me alongside during one of my toughest days. Let's talk to them and they just stay with me the water spouting out of their water holes. That was just incredible stuff.

Mark Whitwood: 29:47

So moments is the one moment from the entire journey that stands out more than any other.

Bernie Hollywood: 29:53

Yeah, there is actually it was it's funny actually because I brought a little teddy bear with me, called bear force. It's called Wing Commander. He barely was named by Zeus is the RAF mascot for mental health, which was which was gifted to me at all, yeah, this year. So Richard bland from barefoot charity came up to me and said, Would you take our mascot with you? It's been all around the world and lots of aircraft, but he's never been across an ocean. And I said, Richard, I'd be delighted to take him set, but we need to have a safety vest made for him. So my friend made a safety vest for him. And he became my Wilson. So I spoke to AB every day. And he spoke back to me. I'm swore he actually like Ted, you know, the the actual film. So I speak into baby on a regular basis, and he became my buddy. And I think without him, I don't think I would have gotten across to be fair. I remember trying, basically seeing antiga on my map. And thinking was only about I was about 200 miles away from Antigua coming towards the finish. It was long, long time to be away from home and it'd be at sea and I'm speaking to AB saying I'm really looking forward to seeing it grow ABB let me know when you see it. I remember it, man. I'm crazy. But and and sure enough, about two days later, we were on deck and AB was on deck with me. And basically has it been a little pitch where I put him on. And I'm sure he shouted to me, I can see antiga and shown off, I got up and a lot and there was a tiga. And we danced around it back together, basically in tears, saying we've got antiga. So that was what was one of the greatest moments really to be fair, labor, he was great,

Mark Whitwood: 31:27

absolutely amazing. All these times has been so valuable. How would you say it's changed your perspective on life? Since you started this insurance? Is there anything that has helped change you or developed you personally,

Bernie Hollywood: 31:44

I think it puts faith in humanity aids, when you see the kindness that people give to you, whether you're doing a solo insurance event or any charitable event that you do, you're always absolutely taken aback by the kindness of people. And there is goodness and kindness in every single individual on this planet. Sometimes it takes a little bit long to come through. But when you when people see that you're going through adversity or you're struggling, that's when really people come into their own. And that's when you really find how true kindness comes. And the acts of kindness come in all shapes and forms, you know, from donations from people just saying that they're thinking about you, and to donations of stuff, which I've had loads of donations of stuff over the years, which have basically created a lots of great things within the charities that we've got. And but human kind, it really is reinforced to me that, you know, people are just incredible. They really are the force of people coming together. And collaborating is just wonderful. And that's really what it's all about. You can't do anything on your own in this world. You need people to come together to help you and get you to where you need to be.

Mark Whitwood: 32:55

Absolutely. Well, there's been so many challenges and achievements. So far, Ben, and you just mentioned that you want to get your first medal right when it instantly inspires you got things ticking over about another new challenge. You can expect to come from down in the future,

Bernie Hollywood: 33:14

I think so I mean, 65 years young, I still feel I've got a few more years left in me yet. So I've had an offer to do the Pacific Ocean, which is even more challenging the Atlantic, but you can't do that solo, because the seas are so difficult. So I've been offered a seat for the Pacific in a couple of years time, which I'm thinking about at the moment. And I'll be the oldest person ever to have rode the Pacific Ocean, which will be quite an accolade. So exploring that at the moment and helping three young people at the moment get to the start line for the race that I did a couple of years back, which is the world's toughest route with the Atlantic. So a big shout out for for Rowan and Mattie and Anna, who I'm looking to get to the start line in December 2025. They're going to be youngest people ever to throw the Atlantic Ocean on supported. So we're working on that project at the moment. Plus, obviously I'm focusing on my three main charities that we chatted about prior to coming on to your podcast Mark says lots of work to be done. And lots of people to help and constantly in being tapped on the shoulder to actually for advice and direction, which I give for free and don't charge for anything I've ever done in my life and never will. So they

Mark Whitwood: 34:30

just to sort of finish the podcast chat. We always ask our guests, what sort of three values are most important to that? Gosh, this is everything we've talked about and I'm aware of that you've done this, maybe quite a bit,

Bernie Hollywood: 34:46

but they aren't they are difficult but integrity is really the cornerstone of everything that you should be doing in your life. And be true to yourself to be fair, and don't forget that you are everyone is special Everybody is brought on this planet to be something really unique and special. And it's people like you and your organizations around the UK, and actually are the catalysts that make that happen, you're the can opener that opens the tin of beans and pours all of that out. And then magic starts to happen as a consequence of what you've done. So I think sort of your integrity, being true to yourself, and really sort of being resilient. You know, in today, in today's world, there are so many issues and concerns on a day to day basis for everybody. I mean, every time you get up in the morning there's a different challenge. But being resilient is one of the most greatest values that you can have that will get you through to the next stage and there is always hope on the you know, on the horizon.

Mark Whitwood: 35:48

Certainly resilience is certainly your superpower then it's been absolute pleasure. Thank you for your time, extremely busy, blessed to have listened and learned so much over the course of this. Thanks. Yeah, thanks

Bernie Hollywood: 36:07

again for joining us a great pleasure. Thank you. If

Mark Whitwood: 36:09

anybody wants to find out more about yourself where can where can the visit

Bernie Hollywood: 36:14

Yeah, just go to my website, just burning hollywood.com And you can see everything there if you want to get in touch if I can help you on an individual basis. Or whether you're a charitable organization or or any other organization, you want some help and support. Please feel free to reach out to me.

Mark Whitwood: 36:30

That's an offer that you can't refuse. So thanks again.