09 - Tommy Gentleman - Inspiring Change Through Sport

Today, Mark sits down with Tommy Gentleman, a record-breaking athlete, motivational speaker, and successful entrepreneur. 

Tommy shares his journey from world championship victories in sport jiu-jitsu to breaking a Guinness World Record in rugby conversions. He discusses his passion for sport, charity work through the Jamie G Sporting Trust, and the challenges of balancing business ownership with family life. 

Get ready to be inspired by Tommy's story of perseverance, leadership, and community impact.

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: 0:00

Joining us today is Tommy Gentleman, whether he's breaking records, captivating audiences with his powerful messages, or leading his businesses to new heights. Tommy's journey is a testament both to the power of perseverance, his passion and purpose. Get ready to be inspired as we dive deep into the story of a man who knows no limits. I guess at the end of the day, I'm a 36 year old family, family guy, if that's the right term. Two young children. I've always loved sport. This being the Active Sports podcast, I guess it'd be useful to talk about. That side of it. I've always done different sports. I grew up playing football wanted to push myself and challenge myself in martial arts from a young age. Yeah, no, absolutely. Tommy was, I still remember that now it was, it was great listening to your talk. So, so passionately franchise event, obviously, which we we're heavily into active sports group, but no fantastic instruction. There's just so much to cover. I need to go and set some challenges, see what I can do, raise some money, put myself out there. I hadn't done it for a few years. So I was thinking about what I could do. And originally I thought why not get something that fits in with my current training schedule, fits in my current life. So I picked something around rugby because I was playing rugby. It's going to involve a bit of fitness. There is a bit of a story of what went into it, but let's just say fifth time lucky, as in fifth day of trying, not fifth attempt, probably the 500th attempt, if I'm honest finally got it. So at the point of standing here now. I'm waiting to hear back from Guinness World Records on that official approval of that attempt. If it was up to me, I would try again straight away, but I had to get at least six people along with me to help. So there were certain things for criteria purposes like timekeepers, a qualified referee witnesses, two of them, and then my tea loaders. So it was definitely a team effort. Now in terms of the training, being fit, staying fit and healthy, that was, that was always happening anyway. This is the thing. It's just a one minute challenge, fine margins, but all these things, as we know with, with any kind of sport, they all add up to get that end result. And luckily, which is one of the reasons why I chose this challenge, my body was suited to this because of all the experience I'd had in football and in martial arts, not just in taking conversions in rugby. I'd go as far as saying, if you were, only a rugby kicker, as in you hadn't played football since you were a kid, played, you know, almost county level football and got two black belts like I have in martial arts, then I would argue that just being a rugby kicker alone, it would be harder, much, much harder because you're conditioned to kicking a rugby ball a certain way.

Tommy Gentlemen: 0:08

So that's a great question. It wasn't part of the criteria. But we we soon realized that, I could have, at my absolute maximum speed, I could have afforded to miss one, and still get thirteen.

Mark Whitwood: 0:09

God, to keep bouncing back and keep wanting to, to break the record after, how many attempts did you say? It was four and you didn't quite make it. Went back again a week later. And. I, I got it. So I got, I got the 13th kick. All 13 kicks, which I hadn't done yet. All 13 kicks went through. Great. Feeling great. Massive amount of relief. I hit the floor. You know, you know, I was on the floor and people bundling on top of me, celebrating. But when we dissected the footage, a couple of days later, it actually came in at about 61 and a half seconds. So, thought I had it, 61. The downside is if you submit that and it comes back as a rejection. You've got to do the whole application process again, which can take months. So, not going to do that. Now, bear in mind, mate, right? At this point, I've told everybody that I've done it. Okay? I even stood there and we hosted our annual Jamie G Sporting Trust Gala Ball. After a couple of hours, nailed it. Massive relief. But hang on a minute. Sat there at my desk the next day. My mate texts me, he says you take, you need to take a look at this. Sent me the video with a little stopwatch at the bottom, dissected the film. Okay, 13 kicks were made, but the ball is in the air again, when the 60 second timer runs out on that last kick. You either get it or you don't. So we do it again. And then, after two and a half hours of trying on the Saturday the 29th of June I got 13th kick went through. Bosh! And I managed to Kick it and run, oh yeah I know, and run all the way around the side to go and like, give my cousin a big hug before the whistle blew, so I knew that was it. Well, it's not because it all works out fine in the end, but that first time that I thought I did it, that was really, really special because I'd already, think about it, I'd already invited everybody to come and watch. Tried for four hours, made an arse out of myself, that's how I thought. Anyway, people, of course, they'd say, no you haven't, no you haven't. done, mate. It's absolutely brilliant. Yeah. I can imagine. So pleased. And it's great for, I'm assuming for the local community as well, the rugby club, and it'll be some good publicity for the. for the club itself as well, that you managed to achieve that down there as well. But the idea is to, when we start the challenge, we're, we're above zero, so we'll reap some back through sponsorships and stuff like that. But it is a big community effort that will take a lot of effort and a lot of energy, so that was always part of my plan. I thought I'm going to put myself out there first, I'm going to put myself out there, I'm going to push myself, and then I'm going to bring people with me once we've got this momentum, and we're going to do something really special, and I'm going to invite lots of people to be a part of it. Hey, what resonates with me about everything that you do is, is your, your passion for just supporting and helping people all the time, whether it be as a business owner, like you say, just bringing the community together at the rugby club and attempting a world record. I'd love to know sort of next slide and let our listeners know more about all the charity work that you do because you've, you've achieved and done so much. But one of the things that was really clear was the amount of love and support that was around us in the community at that time. We knew that Jamie absolutely loved sport, so even though he was only young, He was only 13 when he passed away, nearly 14. He was always the person that would get involved and then encourage others to do so. We'll look at the process, look at the application, and we would approve it or not. But over the time, I think when we looked at it, we've helped out in 17 or 18 different sports, which is amazing. We've given out over 110, 000 into the community in the form of grants and, and money given out. And really, we are in a great position that the community behind what we're doing, we never have to like ask like strongly for money and donations. Sport isn't, sport's underestimated. Sport is vastly underestimated for what it can achieve on a social level, what it can achieve on a mental, physical and emotional level throughout life. And the foundations are set as a kid. So the more kids that take part in sport, the more kids that are trying new things, the more kids that are being immersed in a process of challenge, reward and making decisions on various levels, various severity, the amount of kids that are exposed to positive role models like yourself, the amount of kids that are exposed to something that they can push their energy into, that they are then rewarded from. Mate, that's just absolutely incredible. Like what you've, what you've all done. Yeah, you must all be so proud and so your brother would be as well. Like it's just immense. It really is. Have you got any plans for the For the, for the charity moving forward and how can people find out about it as well as their a platform that you can go and visit the Jamie G. Because in reality, mark, the people that are listening to this podcast, the ones that live local to me, that can be directly benefiting from our work. 'cause our constituency is just our postcode that is probably quite small, and you probably already know who I am anyway. So for people to be listening to this for the first time, I would urge you to go and if you care about this sort of thing or. Thanks Tommy. That's such meaningful advice as well. You know, to give to people and to share that. Business ownership next. You've multiple businesses, you became a business owner a young entrepreneur as well, wasn't it? It isn't, if going back, was it, was it the gym? That was the first business that you launched and how did that come about? Now, of course, it's very common now you see, and you hear these boutique personal training studios, but this was in 2009. There was like three personal trainers in my town. Now, I think I can probably point you to 33. It's grown so much in that time. We were right at the front of the industry, right at the start of this whole kind of personal training thing. We had Pure Gym come to town. We had a new leisure center open up. We didn't, or I didn't, make sure that we had that budget there to reinvest in the gym. So we started losing members and it became very difficult. And then of course our favorite c word came along in 2020. Now that was time to condense, shrink down, and me personally I had tried well, I had succeeded at another business, which was in coaching and my own kind of coaching expertise, my own time coaching life coaching and bolting that onto the fitness packages that I was offering. We offer a business consulting arm to what we do as well, which is great. Cause it gets me back out helping individuals. You know, my, my background in the day is coaching and training people. So I now do that in a business setting as well as offering. done for you, marketing services as well. They're fronting that responsibility that they are saying that I am the person that's in charge. The buck stops with me. What I would always encourage a business owner is to remember that if you were going to bet on someone. If you're not comfortable betting on yourself, then you're probably in the wrong game. But if you can, it's about being resourceful and it's about being patient, and it's about chunking things down, breaking things down rather, into single challenges rather than the whole thing, because that's when it gets overwhelming.

Tommy Gentlemen: 0:29

mate. Yeah, I've got a seven year old boy and a five year old girl. You need time for yourself. You get that either in the morning before they wake up, so you've got to get, you've got to beat them to it, right? Because they will take, take, take. And rightly so, because they're kids and you're their parent, of course. They're going to come to you for everything and anything. Things for the garden. I've started doing that in the evening because it's far less stressful on my mind and on my whole schedule to do it in the morning. That's just like, another pressure thing, and I don't want it to be pressure. So I'm now doing it with the summer evenings, it's really quite nice, at about 9 o'clock at night. All they know through their little tiny head and tiny eyes and their little cute face is like Trying to tell you a joke that makes no sense at all, and isn't funny by definition, but to them, your reaction is everything. And that, to them, is their most important thing in the world. And if we really look at it logically, the way our children feel is more important than dinner, it's more important than tidying up, and it's more important than that email that you've just seen come through on your phone. You're a great role model for your children and for other young people as well. How do you promote a healthy lifestyle then with your own children? Are there any particular activities that you like doing as a family? You sound like you're all go all the time, you're an active family, but is there anything in particular that you like doing together? So this is interesting because this is where your world connects to the question. Clubs were the most important way to set those habits and set those expectations of what it means to be a healthy person and what it means to be fit and active. Because I sort of thought, well, if we're always pushing this, like, come on, let's get up. We're playing tunes, we're singing along, we take them to rugby tarts, we join in with them, we've, afterwards, we go and get a coffee and a little chocolate cake, and it's like all of that experience. So I know that every time they've like graduated from one club because they're too old or they lose interest, they've replaced it with something else, so that's great, but they also feel a little bit sad. So we're kind of putting the ownership in the coach's hands. But we're doing that knowing that it's us, the other side, creating this real sort of positive bubble for them to just learn in. Yeah, it's great how you've, you've done that as a family though sort of like coming towards the end of the podcast, are there any inspirational sort of tips that you, you could give? I'd say to parents first, Tommy, like, because everyone's always moans about struggling to find time and they don't have, I don't have enough time to do this, or I can't take the kids to that, or I can't go to that gym class or do that bit of exercise cause I just don't have the time. Cause it might be more beneficial than the hour that you lose, right? So it's about balancing out the here and now what you can swap out, what you can change to get the thing that you want in to fit it in. But what I will say, and this is probably the most useful part of this Mark, is I don't know your life, you know your life better than you do. Who can you have conversations with? How can you work out a way to free yourself for that time? If you can't do it right now, That's okay. But maybe if you put the plan in place, you could achieve it in six months or achieve it in 12 months. It might even require a job change. That's the sort of thing I'm talking about, because at the end of the day, we're talking about things that balance out and all add up to your happiness. Who am I to tell you how to do anything? But what I do know is if you want to change something and you're not happy with the circumstance, you can certainly think about what it could be, how it could be different, and you just might see in a year's time you're in a different place. So one that we've got going on at home and we've had for a while now is it's actually inspired by the book Legacy which was written about the, the New Zealand All Blacks. And I can't remember which team, which ex player it was, but they were sharing this, this mantra of champions do more. And it gives them a decision, do they, do they want to do it or not? And if they don't, it's like, that's fine, look, you might, you might, it might work, but it might not. But if you do more, it will work. You know, so that, that's one thing that That's working at the moment. Yeah, I'm not sure. I, I don't know to be honest. But what I do know is that compass is always going and the, the compass for me is I always have been somebody who wants to fulfill my potential. And then back in 20 so back in 2009 when my brother passed away, that just became more urgent to me. That became more important to me. And there will be something in your life, listening to this, that's happened in your life, or that you've experienced, that you might see as something scary. You might see as something painful. But within that fear and within that pain, you can find the extra incentives. You can find extra meaning to go and do the things that you already do, but with more urgency. I know those things. So I just got to continue doing those things. I don't have anything other than the charity thing, which hopefully will come out soon. That is it. Taking up any more space than what I've already said. So it's not, it's not most exciting answer, but that is literally what is next is more of the same. luck with everything, mate.