Business of Endurance

Finding Your Why: Lessons from Legendary Ironman Announcer Paul Kaye

• Charlie Reading • Season 9 • Episode 2

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What if one voice could change the way you see endurance sport - and even yourself? Today, we’re joined by an iconic voice of Ironman, Paul Kaye - the man who’s called thousands of athletes across the finish line and witnessed some of the most powerful moments in the sport. 

But Paul isn’t just an announcer. He’s an Ironman finisher himself, a master of storytelling, and someone who truly understands why endurance sport transforms lives. 

In this episode, Paul shares the most unforgettable finish line moments, the power of music to fuel performance, and why Ironman is more than just a race - it’s a life-changing experience. 

We also dive into his own endurance journey, what makes Ironman South Africa so special, and the deep “why” that drives us all. 

Whether you’re an athlete or just looking for inspiration, this episode will make you rethink what’s possible. Let’s get into it.


Highlights:

  • The Journey From Radio to Ironman Finish Line Icon
  • Turning Grief and Divorce into Personal Fuel
  • Crafting Magic Moments at the Finish Line
  • The Art of Emotional Announcing, Not Ego
  • Using Music to Heighten Race-Day Drama
  • Balancing Emotion During Tragedy and Crisis
  • Reflections on Kona vs. Nice: A World Champs Split
  • Why Silence and Stillness Matter More Than Hype


Links:
Connect with Paul Kaye through his Website, LinkedIn and Instagram.

Please Subscribe to Business of Endurance on Apple Podcasts, leave a comment, and give us a 5-Star review.

This episode was sponsored by The Trusted Team and 4th Discipline

Paul Kaye:

it's not about you. When I'm on the microphone, I can do that because it's not about me. The spotlight's not on me. I'm throwing the spotlight on the spectators and on the athletes and on the sponsor. It's not about how much I know. And by keeping the spectator engaged, by getting the spectator emotionally involved, they do some of your job for you, because they create this wonderful energy down the magic carpet.

Charlie Reading:

What if one voice could change the way you see endurance sport and even yourself? Today, we're joined by arguably the now the current voice of Ironman, mr Paul Kay, the man who's called thousands of athletes across the finish line and witnessed some of the most powerful moments in the sport. Paul isn't just an announcer. He's an Ironman finisher himself, a master of storytelling and someone who truly understands why endurance sport transforms lives. In this episode, paul shares the most unforgettable finish line moments, the power of music to fuel your performance, and why Ironman is more than just a race. It's a life-changing experience, as any of you that have done one will know. We also dive into his incredible own endurance journey what makes Ironman South Africa so special and the deep why that drives us all. So, whether you're an athlete or just looking for inspiration, this episode will make you rethink what's possible. So let's dive in to the episode with the voice that is Paul Kay.

Charlie Reading:

Hey, amazing listeners, do you know what? When we look at the back end of this podcast and we see something really interesting, we see that 57% of the people that regularly listen to it haven't hit the subscribe button. So could I ask you a quick favor before we dive into today's episode. If you're enjoying Claire and I bringing you amazing guests, not asking you for patronage fees and not jamming the podcast full of adverts, then the best way you can help us continue to do that and to make it even better is to hit that subscribe button. And here's my promise to you when you subscribe we'll make it our mission, along with the team that supports us, to continue to improve this podcast every week. So thank you so much for your support and for being a part of the Business of Endurance community.

Charlie Reading:

Let's dive in. So, paul, welcome to the Business of Endurance podcast. I am really looking forward to this conversation because I know there's going to be a lot of listeners that are going to hear this voice and it's going to create so many, bring back so many amazing memories for them. And I know from just chatting to you just before we hit record it's already. I'm already getting the vibe of that voice, but I'd really like to understand the story behind how you became the voice of Iron man.

Paul Kaye:

Oh, you don't say that there's only one voice of Iron man, and that's Mike Reilly.

Charlie Reading:

Oh well, yes, but you're now the voice of Iron man, aren't you?

Paul Kaye:

I believe, no, no, no, Okay, you know the voice of Iron man is like an orchestra, or you could possibly say we are arrows in Iron Man's quiver. It's not just one of us, there are many of us. As a matter of fact, I'm good friends with Mike, but so much respect for Mike. Mike created those four words. You are an Iron man. Mike essentially created the platform of which we all now make a living, and Mike had the innate ability nobody knows how, I don't even think he went to the toilet to announce a full Ironman all day long and then still say everybody's name on the finish line. This might be the business of finish line I do. This might be the business of endurance, but I do not have that kind of endurance and I'm really glad that these days we are a team of people and we are a mosaic of voices.

Charlie Reading:

Well, I think that's a very valid point and absolutely and I've seen at races that you definitely, definitely you guys definitely work as a team. But to me you are because I'm pretty sure you welcome me over my other finish line of iron man, my first iron man, which was iron man italy in 2019. You definitely welcome me over the finish line in south africa where I got my kona slot, and you also welcome me over the finish line at kona. So to me that you're the voice of Iron man, but I'd love you to tell the story of how you became a voice of Iron man, because actually I think it's a really interesting journey of how you got there and I don't think people will really be aware of that story.

Paul Kaye:

It's a fairly long story that I'll try and keep short and just stick to the highlights. But you know, in Ironman we say anything is possible and Ironman as you and Claire and everybody's listening will know it changes your life. And Ironman changed my life hugely in various ways at various times of my life. I got into the world of triathlon when I was a radio DJ and a sportscaster. In the mid-90s I became the voice in South Africa for a multi-race sprint series that raced across Southern Africa. So South Africa, namibia, zimbabwe and Mauritius. And I became the TV voice and that's where I started learning about triathlon really, really quickly. And then I did my first triathlon only in August of the year 2000. And that's also funny enough the same year that Ironman came to South Africa, the real Ironman. We had something we called an Iron man, but the Americans didn't know about us and they left us alone, you know, because we had this little speck at the bottom of this massive continent that most people ignore. But Iron man came to South Africa in the year 2000, at the turn of the century. I wasn't involved on the finish line in those days, I was actually just the voice for the one-hour documentary program made about it, but it really tickled my fancy and I was really becoming a triathlon addict. But that really got my attention. And then in 2001, I was one of the voices on the finish line and we then raced in Gordon's Bay and you, having ridden here, you'll have an inkling of where gordon's bay was or where gordon's bay is. And that was my first time on a microphone at an ironman. And then we didn't even say you are an ironman. That was very much kind of mike riley's domain, that was very much an american thing. And then ironman fell away. It left south africa because the south african exchange rate against the US dollar went mad. Buying the Kona slots and the prize money became prohibitive. But Ironman came back to South Africa in 2004, which was also the year that my dad died and that's part of my journey and part of my story In 2005,.

Paul Kaye:

2004 was the test of it. It was a 70.3 race and I actually did that. It was my first middle distance race and I'd only ever done a sprint before. What a baptism of fire that was. I remember sitting on the beach, that same beach you stood on before you did Ironman, south Africa, ahobi Beach, although you might've been at Kings Beach on before you did Ironman South Africa, hovi Beach, although you might have been at Kings Beach and I remember standing on that beach going please, would a big hole open up in the sand. It would just swallow me up because I was so frightened of what lay ahead. It seemed so daunting, but what a great day Anyway.

Paul Kaye:

And then in 2005, my wife asked me for a divorce. In 2005, my wife asked me for a divorce. We went through quite an unpleasant separation and divorce proceedings In August 2006,. The divorce went through. August 2006 is also when I started being on the finish line of Ironman South Africa, now in Nelson Mandela Bay, and in 2005, I was only the TV voice and we're celebrating our 20th year this year Bay. And in 2005, I was only the TV voice and we're celebrating our 20th year this year. And so then I became a permanent feature of Ironman in South Africa, in Nelson Mandela Bay and then the 70.3 in East London.

Paul Kaye:

In 2007, my then ex-wife left the country and she took the children with and they moved to Denmark and despite the death of my dad, which was the most painful thing I'd ever experienced because he was my best friend death is finite, but the children. Moving to Denmark was brutally painful, because it was a pain that never healed and even to this day and my daughter's turning 32, she's got children on my grandfather my son is 25. Saying goodbye to them is still one of the most painful things that I do on a yearly basis. And what happened was this pain, coupled to being on the finish line of Ironman South Africa In those days, you could finish with your kids and watching parents come down the finish line with their children in their hands just broke me, and I was struggling to handle all of that had been happening in my 30s and was relying on spending way too much time in the pub with friends getting to work, feeling broken, needing two double espressos and a toasted salmi, and I realized this was not sustainable and I realized that I needed a BHAG a big, hairy, audacious goal.

Paul Kaye:

I needed something that scared me, and Ironman scared me because I watched these people come down the finish line and I thought they were made of something that I was not made of. I needed something scary enough to get me into bed early, to get me out of bed early, and so I entered my first Ironman, which was Ironman Austria 2008. And it literally changed my life. I got to come down the finish line with my children.

Charlie Reading:

That's brilliant. And what was interesting when I was doing my research is that you're self-employed, aren't you? You kind of took a big risk from having a broadcasting background to pursue this goal of yours to become what you've become.

Paul Kaye:

Yes and no. I think what kind of happened was everything that has happened in my life has conspired to put me in the place I am, which is working for the Ironman group and announcing Ironman group owned races in South Africa, around the world and the world championship series races. My broadcasting, you know, knowing how to use a voice, understanding the power of music, understanding the power of the voice, the power of what you say, but also the power of silence. My understanding the power of the voice, the power of what you say, but also the power of silence. My publishing experience in sport, in running and cycling, which actually we were the publishers in those days of a mini Ironman magazine for Ironman South Africa, which was also part of my exposure to Ironman in South Africa and ultimately a springboard to Ironman in Europe and then globally. Being an athlete and I say that in inverted commas, t-r-y hyphen, athlete, not triathlete being in the media business, being on the sponsorship side of things, being a participant in so many events, kind of gave me all this experience and informed my ability to announce. And then what happened was in 2009,. I did my second Ironman because I met my now wife, kelly, and we were only together for about six weeks and then she had to go back to continue a contract she had on the superyachts in the Caribbean, and now I had this love of my life taken away from me again, and so I entered another Ironman to distract me whilst I was waiting for her to come back from overseas. So I did Ironman Austria again in 2009. And that's kind of where the Ironman tour and Ironman Europe actually happened for me, because Triangle Sports, helge Lorenz and Stefan Petschnik, who owned Ironman Europe, actually happened for me because Triangle Sports, helge Lorenz and Stefan Petschnik, who owned Ironman Austria, ironman Monaco, ironman France and Ironman South Africa. That's why I raced in Klagenfurt and I got there in July 2009 and I was registering for the race and Helge said to me please, one of our announcers has let us down. Don't you please want to be? Don't you want to announce the race? And I said, helga, forget it. I've trained my butt off for Sunday and I'm going to race it.

Paul Kaye:

But that started the conversation and that also got me thinking, because I wasn't super happy and the job I was in at the time, which was in digital publishing, wasn't really tickling my fancy, and having a new love in my life had, kind of, you know, reignited who I was as a human being and added a lot of confidence. And this is a confidence game. And I thought, gosh, I've just turned 40. I've lived half my adult life already. Hopefully I've gained some wisdom. I've learned so much from my years as a radio DJ, my years as a radio station manager, my years in the publishing industry and digital publishing, a little bit of TV. All through my 30s I've done a huge amount of endurance sport. I thought, well, I'm young enough and I have the energy and a certain amount of wisdom and experience to tackle something brand new and give it my everything and hopefully succeed. But if I fail, I'm young enough to go back into the corporate world.

Paul Kaye:

So I resigned my job and I wrote two proposals One to David Belairs at the Cape Town Cycle Tour, which was then the biggest one day bicycle race in the world, with 40,000 people riding 109Ks around the beautiful peninsula of Cape Town, and the other one was to Keith Boda, the CEO of Ironman South Africa. And I said to Kelly, we weren't married yet, we were still going out. I said, if they accept, I'm resigning. And if they accepted, it was enough to pay my mortgage for three months. And I remember listening to a podcast by Gordon Ramsay not so long ago where he said the secret to success is jeopardy. You've got to put yourself in a position of discomfort that forces you to work hard. And let me tell you, when you've only got three months bond or mortgage, you need to work your butt off. And they accepted.

Paul Kaye:

I resigned my job and I went for it. Look at me now. And so many people came to me and said, like what took you so long? And I'm like I wasn't ready. You know, people thought I was ready but I wasn't and I hadn't quite yet figured out what my offering was. You know, because what I and all the other professional dancers do, what we do, is completely intangible, it's completely subjective. You know, if an Ironman race goes to the company says I need 20 kilometers of fences, they give a quote and you know exactly how many fences you're going to get. If Ironman hires me, they go what are we getting? Are we getting? You are an Ironman. Are we getting Paul? What is Paul?

Paul Kaye:

And I'd finally figured out a way to articulate the value that I bring, that I understand the need of sponsors and that I know how to bring their brands to life. It's not just that static logo on a board down the finish line. I understand being an athlete and I understand how important it is to hear your name when you're out on the course and when you come down the finish line. And I understand broadcasting, I understand how to engage with the audience. So I call it a Holy Trinity sponsor, the athlete and the audience. So I call it a holy trinity sponsor, the athlete and the audience. And I found a way to articulate that such that when I put a number at the bottom of that proposal to these races they would go hmm, what he's offering, kind of matches, what he's charging. And here I am.

Claire Fudge:

I think it's amazing to hear you talk about how actually sometimes there's something that's in front of you but then you're ready and you're ready to take that leap.

Claire Fudge:

And I know, certainly from a business perspective, you know we can see that quite a lot Further. Back in this conversation you were talking about the power of voice and the power of music, and I want to get to music in a second. And the power of music and I want to get to music in a second. But do you think that your I heard it actually termed as the gestation period of a business actually for a little while, as in kind of those thoughts kind of mingling, and then you've got something to really present as your offering but do you think that the power of your voice, where it is now, has taken a while for it to kind of grow? So you, being an athlete in the world of Ironman, do you think that's really helped with the power of your voice where it is now? And, almost you know, has your voice developed? Has that kind of developed over the time working on Ironman?

Paul Kaye:

Those are all very, very good questions and basically it's yes to everything you've said. So when I joined the radio station at the humble age of 20 and dropped out of university to join the radio station, my then program manager said to me it's going to take you about four years to get used to the sound of your own voice. You know like most people hate hearing their own voice on a voice note or, in those days, on an answering machine when it played back, because we don't sound to ourselves in our heads how we sound to others listening to us, and so when I became a broadcaster, I had to get very used to hearing the sound of my own voice in my headphones, so I know what I sound like. I think I'm also very blessed in that I'm told I have a good voice and a fairly unique voice and that it really stands out. I'm also probably very blessed in that.

Paul Kaye:

You know, being South African, it's a multicultural country. We have 11 official languages and English is one of those, but we have English speaking English people and we have Afrikaans language people who speak English and there's two very, very different accents and mine is quite flat and because I work mostly in countries who are not English first language, my lack of an accent, so I'm not scottish or irish or overly english or very american or quite a strong aussie or kiwi twang to it. It's. It's flat and you know italians and spanish and french, they tell me it's easy to understand me. So I've got a fairly unique, good, quite a low timbre, resonant voice which is easy on the ear, plus plus an easy to understand accent. These are all things I'm very, very blessed to have and I work hard on how I sound.

Paul Kaye:

I don't wear an in-ear on the finish line because I want to hear what I sound like, I want to hear what the audience hears.

Paul Kaye:

But over time I've also honed that because in the early days I thought it had to be a lot of energy and you had to shout at everybody, you know, and you had to talk a lot, because you get paid by the word. No, you don't get paid by the word and I've learned that when you shout at somebody, you're doing this to them. You're pushing them away. They lean away. When you talk to them, they lean in, you're embracing them, and so I try and use the quality of my voice and the sound of my voice and the resonance and the warmth and how I modulate my voice and how I lift the energy and bring it down to make people lean in and listen, and also use the power of silence, because when you talk too much, people stop listening and that's also why I believe in the power of multiple voices. You get different textures, different accents, different sounds, which doesn't fatigue the audience. I hope I've answered your questions.

Claire Fudge:

Yeah, absolutely, and it's a long day, isn't it, if you're at a full Ironman event, so I can understand, you know the change in tonality and and then I can maintain that quality of voice for the rest of an Ironman race week.

Paul Kaye:

You've got to treat the voice and us announcers have to treat ourselves and our energy output almost like athletes do. We've got to manage that output or we've got to make sure we recover. But the recovery can't be too long Because often what happens to me and I was a bit worried about today when I'm on holiday my voice sounds terrible because it's completely on holiday, it's not being worked, it's just like an athlete who takes a downtime, that sort of rest period before they start building up and going through those training camps back into racing again. Your body is not performing at its optimum. But so that's where the multiple announcers is really good that we can take breaks.

Paul Kaye:

But what happens sometimes is people go hey, you didn't call me an Ironman, were you on a break again. And I totally get how important those four words are. You know it's the exclamation mark at the end of a long day of swim, bike and run, but I truly hope that most people that their why is greater than Paul Kay or Joanne Murphy or Pete Murray or whomever saying you are an Ironman at the end of 226 kilometers of swim, bike and run.

Claire Fudge:

We'll come on to the why part, actually, because I think Charlie's got a good question lined up for that. Just staying on this part of keeping an audience, the competitors, the athletes, but a whole load of spectators there for this really long day, how do you almost feed or do you feed off the audience and therefore that becomes how you kind of work the day, or you know, how do you gear up for even starting that, because, um, yeah, I'm just really interested to know how you keep it so buoyant all day long. You know from stories that you're telling, from picking out athletes that are coming near the finish line, like I. I've heard you, you know, pick out specific athletes. So tell us a little bit about your. I don't know, I want to say tactics almost but how do you manage that day in terms of keeping everyone full of energy?

Paul Kaye:

You have to be emotionally available and emotionally open completely. So first thing, you have to understand, as an announcer and if there's any, if there are any hash print announcers listening first thing you have to know the number one rule it's not about you. I'm actually an introvert and I was a very, very shy boy at school and at university and in my 20s. And when I'm on the microphone, I can do that because it's not about me, the spotlight's not on me. I'm throwing the spotlight on the spectators and on the athletes'm on the microphone. I can do that because it's not about me. The spotlight's not on me. I'm throwing the spotlight on the spectators and on the athletes and on the sponsors. It's not about how much I know. I'm not going to be Google and regurgitate and show off how much I know about every athlete and every sponsor in this beautiful town we're in, but I will weave some of that knowledge into my repertoire and into my announcing, often to fill gaps. You have to be emotionally available because that's what fuels you. You feed off the emotion of the athletes. You feed off the emotion of the spectators as well, and by keeping the spectator engaged, by getting the spectator emotionally involved, they do some of your job for you, because they create this wonderful energy down the magic carpet and that's why I call it the magic carpet, because the athlete feels that energy. I mean, often an athlete will say to me you didn't say I'm an Ironman, I said I did, but maybe you didn't hear me. Because often the athletes in this tunnel, on this world of pain, and they've got just enough to get them to the finish line and they're collapsing off to the medical tent, you know. But they remember how they were made to feel. And so engaging the spectator is critical. Make the spectator be part of the celebration of the athlete. And so I try and educate the spectator so they're emotionally aware of what's happening and they become involved. And I feel that if you get the spectator emotionally involved, if you educate them a bit, maybe you inspire them to become an athlete. So now think of the business model. Now you're bringing more customers into the pipeline, right, and I try to do the same with sponsors.

Paul Kaye:

I don't regurgitate, I can't stand. Give me Ironman. They give us this long list of sponsor and partner mentions and I hate having to read it verbatim. I'd rather mention how geez. I can see that that person just swallowed a Morton job because look how they're flying down the finish line.

Paul Kaye:

I try to make a part of the patter as opposed to an advertisement. We're sold to all the time. Let's not sell to people at the race briefing on the finish line, but that's a personal little bugbear and we won't go there right now. And when I talk about the emotion of it, that's why it's so draining what we do, because we are emotionally spent at the end of an Ironman race weekend because we give a lot of our emotion, but we're absorbing the emotion of everybody around us. We're part of every athlete's moment as well, and that is an honor and that needs to be respected. And when you realize that, that you are part of that athlete's moment and you're sharing in their emotions, that's when you can give a bit more of yourself. But this is a job that is impossible to fake and I know this from very raw personal experience my second time in Europe and my second full Ironman in Europe as an announcer.

Paul Kaye:

I did Klagenfurt in 2010, but I did an Ironman Nice in 2011, which was a week before Ironman Klagenfurt, and my mother had cancer and she passed away that morning and my wife was under instruction to advise me if something happened to my mom, because I knew she was on her deathbed. And you know, the Promenade des Anglais is long and narrow and you have the transition zone at the very far end. You know the Place de Plongette, and in those days we would start to swim right in front of the finish line, and so people would walk through the transition zone, through the finish line and then down the slipway onto the beach to the swim start. So I was walking back from transition and Kelly called me over and she put her arm on my shoulder and she said your mum's passed. So I had a cry and then the race director, yves Codier, rushed up to me and said are you okay? And Stefan Pechnik came up to me are you okay? What's wrong? I said my mom's passed. I said, oh, you must go straight back to the hotel. I said no ways. My mom believed that the show must go on. This is not about me down.

Paul Kaye:

I did the swim start, I did the whole day. Eventually I took a break so I could go phone my children to tell them that they, granted, died. And I came back and it was the hardest day of my life because I had to be completely closed. I had to fake the entire day. You cannot fake an Ironman. I did. It was brutally difficult, but that's how I survive, being emotionally open and available, and I feed off the spectators, off the team, off the athletes, off everybody around me.

Charlie Reading:

And you must have seen. I mean that magic. I love the fact that you call it the magic carpet because it must have created so much magic over the years. I mean, like, obviously we've had a lot of guests on here. I always remember Bob Babbitt talking about how, when he crossed his first finish line and he knew that he was a different person, he was never going to be that same person again. You must have seen some of the most incredible moments I know. In Kona last year I was back watching as Billy Munger finished, which was absolutely amazing. Can you give me I can see you. That's like goosebumps moment, isn't it? Absolutely, it really is. So what are the moments that stand out for you on that finish line that give you goosebumps? Because there must be lots of them.

Paul Kaye:

Well, essentially there's 3,000 every race. So that's the short answer. And that's not me taking the chicken run on the mountain bike downhill. That's not me taking the easy way out. Everybody has got their why? I see people's lives changed in front of my eyes when they come down that finish line and that's why I've called it the magic carpet for the last 15 years Gosh, more than 15 years. I started calling this back in the day when I only announced it.

Paul Kaye:

Ironman, south Africa. It's changed my life and I see it change other people's lives and the grimace becomes a smile, you know, and the pain becomes this pleasure and this realization that you've achieved something that up until that moment you didn't think you could achieve. That's the power of Ironman. That's why I love what I do. That's why I'm able to ignore the haters out there who like to beat Ironman all the time. You know, ironman can put out the most positive post on social media, there'll be a thousand people who find some way to say something negative about it, and I'm able to ignore those because I know that often they are wrong and they're just justifying why they haven't come and done an Ironman recently. It changes lives, but then you get.

Paul Kaye:

You know you mentioned Billy and Billy geez. You know this is somebody who could quite easily be angry. He could hate the world, he could go me, me, me, why me? And this is all about me. What does he go and do? He goes out there and he races to change other people's lives, raising millions and millions of pounds, inspiring thousands of millions of people to be better than who they are today. Chris Nickich 1% better every day. The Agars they might not have made it to the finish line. They inspire people to at least try. And you don't have to do an Ironman, just get off the couch and be a better person today than you were yesterday. That's the power of the sport, that's the power of Ironman. That's another thing, you know, that fuels me and that keeps me going, and so that's why I say I see 3,000 of these moments every weekend. I see 3,000 of these moments every weekend and I sometimes feel it is unfair to single out certain people. You know, I've seen Luis Alvarez. You know he's done every single Ironman in the world and now he does it with a visually impaired athlete, so he's doing it for somebody else.

Paul Kaye:

One of the most fulfilling times in my career as a triathlete was when I guided David Jones, who's now. It was his first triathlon ever. I never guided anybody, I've never even ridden a tandem and then swimming tethered to somebody and riding a tandem and running tethered to somebody. There's so many people who go out there and do it for more than themselves, who inspire and help others.

Paul Kaye:

I've got a career defining moment the photographs on my Facebook and I actually used it two weeks ago when I did a talk to a local school, a high school. I presented at the assembly about the power of sport to do good and I used a picture of Chantal Rao. The photograph was taken by her then boyfriend and it's me with tears in my eyes, well, telling her that she's not going to give up and she will be an Ironman. And in those days we still had mass starts and Chantal was in remission from cervical cancer and she'd been a bit of a party animal and a workaholic. And when she went into remission she decided she was going to do something more with her life and she was going to do good and she was going to be healthy. And she was going to be healthy and she wanted to be an iron man and she'd done many 70.3s and I don't know what made me do this, but the bike cut was at 5 30 because we had a mass start at 7 am and the race cut off was at midnight and the transition in nelson mandela bay, at hobie beach, is in that car park near that little lighthouse thing, and I walked down the carpet and I walked to the transition zone at two minutes, so 1728. And who comes down with 90 seconds to spare?

Paul Kaye:

The first Ironman, chantal, and I saw from the body language this was over in her mind and I called her across and she came up to me and most people call me PK and, by the way, everybody listening Google what a PK is in South African slang. It's a little bit rude but it's quite funny as well, but it's about getting a proper smack in any case. So she goes PK, I'm done, I can't do this. And in that photograph I'm saying to Chantal you can and you will, and I'll be waiting for you just over there and I will call you an Ironman. And she did and she did finish and I did call her an Ironman and the day she died was, I think, two years later, on the Friday of Ironman South Africa.

Paul Kaye:

It was the Friday of Ironman, south Africa. It was the Friday of the race briefing and the welcome banquet. And that morning a friend of hers phoned me and said Paul, you need to send Chantal a message. And my message to her was once an Ironman, always an Ironman, chantal, you are an Ironman. And she'd been non-communicative for a while then and her friends said her eyes fluttered when she heard the voice note. So, while I haven't really answered your question with any specific examples, it's because there are examples like this which don't make it into the TV documentaries and it's why I remind people about the power of their why. About the power of their why? Because ego and vanity and being able to brag that you're an Iron man that won't get you to the finish line, but something like this, oh yes, the power of your why you will achieve the impossible.

Claire Fudge:

An Iron man, anything is possible. That is a very moving story.

Paul Kaye:

It's nearly made me um I don't often cry actually, but that's that's made me, uh, fill up with them with emotion from that I I never cry, but, uh, when I talk about my why, which is different, and maybe I should stay away from that this evening, that's the one thing I'm talking about. Chantelle is the other thing.

Claire Fudge:

I can. No. This is the emotion that actually I can almost feel myself at an Ironman event now, because that is the emotion that it brings out, doesn't it? And I was going to ask you another question. But whilst we're on the subject of why there are so many people out on an Ironman course or doing an endurance sport, and I guess, unless you're speaking to them, you don't necessarily know what their why is. You know, I guess some people are telling you why it might be, or they're sponsored by, or they're running for a charity, but would you be happy to tell us your why?

Paul Kaye:

I alluded to it in that it was, you know, a very unpleasant divorce. But my 30s were were unpleasant in that I went through a very difficult labor dispute in broadcasting with the South African Broadcasting Corporation, which I won, and then I decided there's no ways I could work there anymore and I resigned, and that's when I moved into the publishing industry. I do believe that that labor dispute and that time I went through with this SABC was one of the nails in my marriage coffin, because I think it attacked my confidence and me. I mean, this is in the age of work. Am I even allowed to say this? But me feeling like a man, whatever I feel, that is, I'm not saying that on behalf of anybody else.

Paul Kaye:

My marriage started going downhill without me realizing it and then my dad got cancer. My dad was my best friend. I mean, you know I was his partner in his business. So when I wasn't on the radio station I was working with my dad. Um uh, when I was at school I was to go on school holidays. I went on all these business trips. He was a jazz musician, which is probably my love of music as well. I used to. After my water polo matches and hockey matches. I used to go with him to his gigs and carry his amplifier and his guitar. We shared an apartment. My mom had a restaurant in the country, and so my dad would work in the city Monday to Thursday and then go to my mom over the weekends, and so I lived in the apartment with him and was his partner. And then, you know, he got sick and he died of cancer. My mom had had cancer twice before already. Then I went through the divorce and then the separation, and then my children moving overseas, which was brutally painful, and then my mom died as well of cancer for the third time. And all of those things are my why, and why I do Ironman is because she went to my doctor and said please help me. My dad died of cancer. My opah died of cancer. My mom died of cancer. My mom is one of 12, of which nine others were sisters. Every single one of them's had cancer. My cousins have had cancer.

Paul Kaye:

What do I do? And he says you know what? The only thing I can recommend is you take negative stress out of your life. And that's when I thought that was playing on my mind. I'm like, hmm, so if I can take negativity out of my life and just embrace positive. I'm going to resign my job because I'm feeling sick every Sunday night, going to work on Monday and that was part of between meeting Kelly and the doctor saying take away negative stress and turning 40, so this is all my midlife crisis and having been infected with the virus of Iron man and the need to see my children who are in Europe, could I announce races overseas? That's my why and that's what made me chase being an Ironman announcer and that's why I say Ironman changed my life, and without your why and without it being real, it has to be real. Without that, you know, it's really hard to do difficult things.

Charlie Reading:

I find it fascinating listening to this, because I talk a bit about people's talent tapestry and that's kind of like the stack of their different expertises over their lifetime, and for me you've kind of you've just summarised the three things. So we've talked a bit about your history as a broadcaster and understanding the power of the voice and the communication. You've then talked about the doctor saying the best way you can avoid dying of cancer is Ironman or something similar, and therefore you've got your why and then, I think, also your dad being a jazz musician and understanding the power of music.

Charlie Reading:

I can't listen to ACDC's Thunderstruck or the White Stripes, um, without being back on the start. I get goosebumps just saying the bloody songs, let alone actually hearing them. Um, there is enough. I mean, I think I don't think there is any Ironman star line that hasn't got me juiced because of that music and because of your voice. Talk to me a little bit about how you obviously understood the power of music from spending so much time with your dad, and particularly with Giles, I think, is such a great like a great type of music to understand the principles. A great like a great um type of music to understand the principles. But talk to me about how you think music makes the event and how do you make the event so special through the power of music?

Paul Kaye:

you choose to play the right song at the right time, the right moment. So what music does and this was one of the things I put in my very original proposal back in 2009 was harnessing the power of music, getting rid of playlists and bringing in real human beings to play the music. Not am I allowed to say this because they were a sponsor of Ironman for a long time and I'm a huge fan of the brand but not club DJs, not Red Bull DJs. Wedding DJs are particularly good and radio DJs are good because they understand they're not playing the music for themselves, they're playing the music for the audience and they need to understand the moment. Like a wedding DJ, there's nobody better and the dance floor is empty. The wedding DJ is failing. Radio DJ if you don't have listeners, you're failing. So think about you want a full start line. You want a full hot corner. You want a full turnaround at the finish line. You want a full finish line. One of the ways of saving the announcer's voice and allowing the announcer to use the power of silence is good music. If the spectators are wiggling their hips, tapping their feet, clapping their hands 126b that's perfect for clapping their hands. Ironman Calma, do it superbly. Barcelona knock it out the ballpark, so does Chervia and in my opinion, one of the best DJs in the world at doing this is DJ Dane Lee, who happens to be a South African from Nelson Mandela Bay, the home of Ironman South Africa, who I have the pleasure of having a lot of the events that I work at. And if you use music cleverly, you can lift the lows and you can raise to greater heights. For highs, can you imagine if you've got a playlist and there's Lucy Charles coming down the finish line to finally win the Ironman World Championship and the wrong song starts playing? Please, but play the right song. The crowds will become even more euphoric, the moment for Lucy is even greater, and that song. When she hears that, she remembers that finish line. So I use music like that.

Paul Kaye:

We also, where I'm able, where I'm able to influence the DJ and the choice of music, we look at the music we play very, very carefully. Firstly, no expletives. Secondly, god forbid what happens if we have an incident. This happened to me the first time in Ironman 70.3 East London. We lost two athletes in the swim and I had to announce to the spectators and the people present that you know we'd had a death and we actually turned the music off for a while and the then DJ. The next song the DJ played was Katy Perry. What Doesn't Killy Makes you Stronger. I nearly died a million deaths. I sprinted to him and I said you can't play that, because I understand the power of lyrics as well.

Paul Kaye:

So we curate the music very, very carefully. If you listen, you'll notice, especially if Dane's playing before a swim start, just before we go into that final little buildup. Most of the songs the lyrics are inspirational. It is Teddy Perry Firework. It'll be some Coldplay Probably.

Paul Kaye:

We like to play Hall of Fame you can be the greatest, you can be the best, you can be King Kong bringing you on your chest what I call the unofficial Ironman anthem, and then we'll choose a song for every race that we use as the theme. So after we play Thunderstrike which we play on the hook, by the way we start Thunderstrike with 29 seconds to the gun. So you've got that intro, the intro, the intro, the intro and the gun goes. As the gun goes, the hook of the music goes. I don't have to do anything. The music's going to do all the work for me. So if you use the music properly. It's an incredibly powerful tool, but also it can fill the gaps very nicely.

Paul Kaye:

So I remember we were at Ironman 70.3 Dubai one year and a family member of the king passed away and we weren't allowed to add any music on race day. So it was Jan Murphy and I announcing with zero music. Then we had a situation as you might know, the very, very well publicized situation in Hamburg where the motor rider with a cameraman on back on the back collided with an athlete and the motor rider passed away. Um, we played instrumental music for an hour after we made the announcement on the finish line, because almost any music with lyrics could be offensive. And then we slowly built up the music with lyrics, taking away I will survive, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and other songs that might be viewed to be inappropriate and that I believe to be inappropriate. Taking them away To slowly build up the atmosphere again, because those 3,000 athletes racing still deserve their moments. But you needed to show your respect.

Paul Kaye:

Ironman Wales the weekend after the Queen died, I raced it. Yes, very carefully. Curate the music. We even adjusted the volume carefully, you know. So fortunately I understand music and fortunately I don't only come from a radio DJ background, but I come from a general radio station management background where programming was a big part of what I had to do and I work with DJs who understand this and finally, more and more Ironman racers are moving away from those days. It was iTunes, now it's Spotify, where you're at the whim of whoever created the playlist to where we have a real, live human being who we can tell. This is the moment I need you to fit, the moment.

Claire Fudge:

I think, well, ironman does that very well. You're doing that very well because I think I saw it in Charlie's face, actually the beginning of you know those swim starts where the music is just playing up and some of your inside information there about the last you know 29 seconds. And I'm those swim starts where the music is just playing up and some of your inside information there about the last you know 29 seconds, and I'm going to be listening out for that next time I race.

Paul Kaye:

So must be careful not to give away too much of my yeah but you know what it's.

Paul Kaye:

It's not rocket science, it's so like, and it boils down to emotion and iq as well as eq and obviously a huge amount of experience. So sometimes dj danely gets upset when we help other djs and I always remind them. I said, dane, you can give them your whole set of music. They won't play it in the order you play it and they won't mix it the way you mix it. They won't match it to the moment the way you match it. That's totally you. So, yeah, you can give away some of the secrets, but not everybody will put the ingredients together the same way.

Claire Fudge:

And reading, like you say, reading that moment, and that comes back to you working with the audience. So, yeah, the music is amazing there. It does such a fantastic job in terms of lifting you. So, staying on the theme of, well, we have been on the theme of Ironman quite a lot, but the Ironman World Championships there's been a lot of controversy in terms of the race changing, with the females and the males now splitting at the world championships. How do you feel the world championships is going to evolve? Number one but number two, what do you feel? Now it's run twice, now that we've had NIS and we've had males and NIS and females and NIS, haven't we? How do you? How do you feel the locations are really different, that they give something very different. You know in those different countries, so what Kona gives and what Nice gives as a world championship location.

Paul Kaye:

You know I mentioned earlier on that I worked in Nice for the first time in 2011. And I worked in Nice many, many years, both the 70.3 and the full, when they were split and then they became one. I was there for the 78.3 World Championship in 2019 as well, and I've been there since it's been the Ironman World Championship. There's a wonderful saying in German wie man's macht es falsch, and this applies squarely to Ironman no matter what you do, squarely Toro man. No matter what you do is wrong. And you know everybody was baying where Andrew Messick's scalp? Because it wasn't 50-50 pro-women, pro-men in Kona and there weren't enough age group women racing in Kona and there are not enough slots for women at the age group races. And then we had those two races. We had the women and then we had the men. One week in Kona it was crazy, post-covid it was. I'm so blessed and honored that I was there. I raced it, probably won and done. But wow, that that was insane how we all survived it. I don't know how the iron man team survived it. I don't know. Um. It was made quite clear by the, the local hawaiians. Many of them did not appreciate it and iron man respected that and iron man said okay, we understand, um, you do not like the two days of racing. So I managed to scratch his head and and think of a solution. And if we all step back, you know what was the solution? Go back to one day. And then now suddenly it's not 50 50 male, female and the pros it's it's. You know, with a thousand pros racing, theoretically we should have more pros, right, but now it's not 50-50 again. And now all the age group women they're going to lose out on so many slots. I mean, you get women who come second and third in the age group and don't get a slot. You get men who can come 15th and who do get a slot. You know, is that fair? I'm not going to debate that, but these are things you have to consider and I truly believe that if there was a location on this planet that was worthy of hosting an Ironman World Championship, that had the history, that had a worthy course, that had a receiving public that would be emotionally engaged and welcoming and make this a special occasion, it was an iconic destination, where else but Nice? Where else but Nice? And so I think it was a good decision and I think Ironman have done it very, very well. I think Nice have done it very, very well. You could definitively feel the difference. I remember driving into Nice and feeling the difference compared to normal Nice, if I may call that, nice light Nice full, so to speak, as a world championship. And I think Nice has delivered and there are very few. I haven't heard any athletes say to me it was not worthy. Those athletes that erased it. The only people that I noticed that still complained seem to be people who haven't done Nice and in a way, I loved Kona when it was woman only that first time there was such a different energy on that island, because women can be fierce and humble at the same time.

Paul Kaye:

Us men, we struggle with that. We're a little bit too arrogant and I'm generalizing and we kind of dominate, like some people say, we steal the air. And it was amazing to have that women's only race in Kona and the energy there was amazing and the locals were like wow, we're loving this. But what a race, what a race. 100% of the women that started finished that swim and 97% finish a race Of the women that started that race, finished that swim. A 97% finisher rate of the women that started that race. Finished the race and people said, oh, so many of those women who qualified didn't deserve it. They got easy slots. There's nothing easy about Kona and all those women who got those soft slots 97% of them finished. So you cannot argue that it's worked.

Paul Kaye:

What does the future hold? I don't know, because it's really nice when women and men race together. That's one of the great things about triathlon, right, we've, we've been, we haven't discriminated against the genders. We were one of the first sports on the planet to have equal prize money for our women and the women and the men race the genders. We were one of the first sports on the planet to have equal prize money for our women and the women and the men race the same course.

Paul Kaye:

And Daniela Ryf wants to race Jan Frodeno, sam Laidlaw, lucy wants to race Patrick Langer they do. And let me tell you something Chrissie Wellington made the boys faster. Daniela Ryf made the boys faster, not just Morton Giles in carbon shoes and lightweight bikes and aerodynamics. So there's a lot to be said for racing together, but I don't believe the experiment of racing apart in the way we had, which, seemingly, was the only option we had to be fair to both genders. I don't think that was a failed experiment. Having been there, I saw with my own eyes how the athletes reveled in being a part of each of those world championships, whether they were nice women only men only, or kona, women only men only it's really difficult, isn't it?

Charlie Reading:

I mean so, uh, you know, claire was racing in the year that kona was male and female and I was there spectating and it was an amazing experience for well for me, because I got to watch it twice. Claire got to watch the guys race after she raced on the on the thursday. It was absolutely brilliant. But equally, I get that Kona didn't think it was brilliant and yet also, it must be really difficult having them completely separate. If you've got a couple of both qualified and go, well, I can't justify going to Nice and Kona, and they're probably the same for the sponsors as well. So it's a really difficult situation.

Paul Kaye:

I don't know the details because, keep in mind, I'm a freelancer, I'm a contractor to Ironman, so I'm not on the inside and I don't. I have probably a better view than most because I get to look from the outside and I get an inside view and I get to read between the lines. But I don't wish to share my assumptions because that would be rude and unfair. But anybody who's in the events business will tell you that doing both events in one venue on one day or one week in one week is way more cost effective than doing it twice. I mean, the software model is replication, not duplication. Use the same infrastructure and just do it over and over and over again. So I would imagine from Ironman's point of view, this is a ridiculously expensive exercise. And then you talk about for the sponsors how expensive it is for them too, because some of them choose one or the other and many do both. I think to be fair and I don't know the stats I doubt that couples qualifying for the world championship is a huge percentage of the field. I presume it's a pretty small percentage of the field. But yeah, that's not nice for them and it makes them impossibly expensive. However, you can't take away from.

Paul Kaye:

I know a lot of people who turn down kona slots because it's too expensive to get there yeah, particularly from south africa. So that from anywhere in europe and from south africa and from the middle east, where his niece people were bringing their whole families with them. You know, you know, and daniela Ablamel and several other German athletes said, my whole family and my extended family and my friends drove to Nice to support me because they could. And is that a bad thing? The more people we bring to an Ironman, the more people that get to experience a world championship. So think of all those women who got to Kona who otherwise would never have been able to go. Think of all those women who came to Nice who otherwise never might have been able to race a world championship. And likewise we can have many, many more male slots, because we're not sharing the jetty at Kona with male and female, it's one gender only. So more people were there. These are more people who experienced a world championship, more people who went home and influenced their communities to maybe try to maybe unleash their why.

Paul Kaye:

So I'm only seeing positives. However, I do not dispute the magnitude, the exponential increase in cost and difficulty to host these two events and, if I'm not mistaken, I heard rumors when I was in BOPOL for the 70.3 World Championship that I'm not an athlete so I don't get that easy emails, but Ironman athletes got emailed a survey asking them which would you prefer? Ironman athletes got emailed a survey asking them which would you prefer? So clearly Ironman is listening to its athletes, even though people seem to think they don't. They've got a business to run. They're going to make a decision. What that is, I don't know. What does the future hold? I don't know. But damn, am I happy I got to be part of everything that it's been until now.

Charlie Reading:

Absolutely, it's not a question and, having now raced Kona, I am really keen to race Nice, and partly because you've sold it to me a couple of times now, but I think it sounds like an amazing race. Now, as we look to wind this amazing episode up and this brilliant interview, we always ask our guests what books have they found that have helped them on their journey or do they find themselves recommending to other people? So what books do you find that you find yourself recommending?

Paul Kaye:

So, firstly, when you use the word book, you're making the assumption that I'm intelligent and if you've ever been to one of my race briefings, if you ever listened to me at a finish line this is a term I use all the time If I was intelligent, if I was good with maths and good at reading, I'd have a real job. But I do read. I read a huge amount online, but I do read. I read a huge amount online, keeping in touch on socials with what's happening with athletes and what's happening in our sport. In my job, you're preparing daily. You're prepping for your races daily, you're consuming and you have to be a sponge and absorb as much information as possible and hopefully something sticks and hopefully it pops into your RAM and is available to come out of your mouth at the right time when something happens in front of you.

Paul Kaye:

I watch a lot of YouTube because I travel a lot and it's easy access to English medium for me and I make a point of trying to learn, not just be entertained. Trying to learn, not just be entertained. So I indulge in my passions of flying and cars and stuff like that, but also my passion of triathlon and sport and one of my big passions at the moment is gravel biking and bikepacking, so I indulge in a lot of that and you'd be surprised how much you learn about people and how much you learn about endurance and what it takes to endure when you consume all of that. But I still like to read and I like to read a book. I like to hold it in my hand and I use flying to read. And a book I'm reading at the moment it's lying just over there because I'm in my bedroom and it's just on the bedside. It's called Stillness is the Key and it's a brilliant book. And it's a book about quieting the noise in your head so that you can find inner peace, because in that peace magic happens. And I'm summarizing it and weirdly that ties in with a wonderful article I read that Mark Allen wrote gosh many, many years ago about how, as an athlete, you must turn off the noise in your head and let your body do what it can do. For a lot of us we have mantras or we have that positive speak. But you know, when you go into that dark space in an Ironman marathon, which we all go into, sometimes that positive voice goes quiet and then the as the voice is the voice telling you that you can't. But if you learn to still the mind, if you learn to let the body do what it can do, it surprises you. And another little tip for people when you're enduring is I remember reading, because I used to work for Runner's World, and there was an article in Runner's World magazine about how you can fake it to make it and the power of the smile. And when you put a smile on your face you're tricking your brain into thinking you're having a good time. And I needed to use that on a very long ride recently and I kept putting a smile on my face and it bloody works, let me tell you. So stillness and that smile is powerful.

Paul Kaye:

I try and only read nonfiction. So I read almost all of Malcolm Gladwell's books and the 10,000 hours and I think also when people said to me you know what took you so long? I think I needed my 10,000 hours of announcing because it was my hobby and that kind of culminated with me turning 40 and having the courage to go and do this full time. A book that stood out for me in my broadcasting years and was a gift from my general manager at the time of commercial broadcasting was Richard Branson Losing my Virginity, and what I learned from that is sometimes you've just got to take a chance. You know, when you've got nothing to lose is often when you're forced to take that chance and go big. I learned that. You know we fear failure, but not starting is the ultimate failure. So at least go ahead and go out there and do something. Atomic Habits.

Paul Kaye:

Another person who I love at the moment is Stephen Fry and just his outlook on the world and Macca's book. I'm here to Win it. Chrissy's book and she signed all her books for me. You know she taught me so much about the psychology of what we she went through to win it. Lance Armstrong's books and the demons he his book and she signed all her books for me. You know she taught me so much about the psychology of what we she went through to win it. Lance armstrong's books and the demons he was running away from.

Paul Kaye:

Also, the power of your why, uh, the iron wall. You know I've read so many of these books and and hella frederickson's book. Um, read those books and read as many sporting biographies as you can, because they don't only teach you how to succeed in sport, they teach you how to succeed in life. Read books by highly successful people in business because they teach you how to succeed and you can take the metaphors and the analogies they give you in business and you can apply them to everything you do in your life. So I highly recommend reading and I can definitely recommend reading. Stillness is the key because you unleash inner powers that you didn't know you had.

Charlie Reading:

Brilliant. There was lots there. Brilliant books, so many brilliant books, most of which I have read or at least heard of, but I haven't heard of. Stillness is the key, so that's going to be going on my reading list, thank you. I think that's brilliant.

Paul Kaye:

I love my first business book I ever read. I was still at school and with lee iacocca who turned around general motors or was it chrysler? He turned it around and the thing that I never forget in that book how is he reduced his salary to $1. So, in other words, I'm going to preach something to you, but I'm going to show you that I'm going to walk my talk. He went to the unions and said you're killing this business. I need you to take a cut, I need you to work with me and share my strategy to rebuild Chrysler, and I will do one dollar a year salary.

Paul Kaye:

And that stood with me as well. So hence I say a lot of those, those biographies and I don't mean like business self-help books per se, I mean like biographies, like real people who did real things. I've been reading a lot of musk lately, but then it's kind of annoyed me a little bit because I'm not sure I completely agree with him shouting to the world about oh, you're all misinformation and free speech, free speech, but then he shuts everybody down because he has so many followers.

Charlie Reading:

But I think there's a lot of us thinking that at the moment isn't there, there's, there's like. I followed Musk for years, think he was an amazing businessman and like a complete visionary, and yet he's also lost a huge amount of his followers through what he's been up to lately. But that's probably a whole different episode that we can stay away from. Today. The last way we finish up each episode is we get the last guest to ask the next guest a question without knowing who that is going to be. So our last guest was Chris Williams from Supertry, and I think Claire has got his question for you.

Claire Fudge:

Okay, so what was the best purchase that you've made for under £100? I'm not sure what that is in rand.

Paul Kaye:

Yeah, it's a reasonable amount of money. Okay, so 100 pounds times are basically by 20.

Paul Kaye:

So it's it's 2000 South African rand, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, best purchase probably noise cancelling earbuds. I travel a huge amount and, as I mentioned, I'm I only learned recently about myself. I thought I was shy, but I'm more than that. I'm an introvert. So an extrovert recharges from the energy of others. An introvert recharges through being away from others. Hence I live in the country.

Paul Kaye:

I go to bed at night to the sound of frogs, I wake up to the sound of birds, I can't hear traffic. It's 35 hectares, which is 80 acres, with only 60 houses, of which people are only here during their holidays or weekends. So I have complete stillness around me and I use the time when I travel to recharge, and so that's when noise-canceling headphones are a dream. It cancels out the crying baby with a person on their phone without their earphones, which drives me batty. And the noise-canceling headphones, I can put myself briefly in a bubble.

Paul Kaye:

I can listen to that wonderful Swedish jazz trio that I just discovered, or I can listen to a podcast, or I can just disappear into a world of fantasy with a great album that takes me back to my childhood or to the 80s or to the 90s. So, sub-100 pounds, without a doubt, a great pair of noise cancelling, not over-ear headphones little earbuds. Because great pair of noise cancelling, not over ear headphones, little earbuds. Because sometimes when I fall on the plane, they don't get in the way. Fall asleep on the plane, they don't get in the way.

Claire Fudge:

That's a great answer. It actually ties in with what you were saying about the power of music. So there's music there if you want it at the right time, and also the power of silence that you talked about as well, or the book that you're reading around silence. That's a great idea, though I thought it would be quite hard to come up with something under £100. That was really great, but that's a good answer.

Paul Kaye:

If you travel a lot, you do need to put yourself in a bubble once in a while, and so if you're always on trains, buses, planes, in the car, I can just Bluetooth my phone and live on my Spotify playlist. But when you're surrounded by thousands of people all the time in airports and train stations and whatever gosh, they are a lifesaver.

Charlie Reading:

I couldn't agree with you more, and I actually have a set of these, but also the overhead ones, and I don't particularly, but on a flight, if you're not trying to be asleep, then they they are. I mean like they are just yeah, they're like a sanctuary. They make flying pleasant as a yeah. So I couldn't agree with you more.

Paul Kaye:

I think it's sometimes I struggle with the over here. Sometimes it pushes pressure against my ear. On a long flight it starts to hurt where I find the in-ear buds. I don't get that pressure, so just top travel hack.

Charlie Reading:

I think just both. Both is good.

Claire Fudge:

That's it for £100 though.

Charlie Reading:

Charlie, the Apple ones are definitely over £100. Paul, it has been absolutely brilliant chatting to you. I I was fascinated to learn more about your story as to how you got into what you, uh, what you do, um, but you changed the lives as part of that journey of the iron man changing people's lives and it really has, you know, it really has made a huge impact on me. It's brilliant to to learn more about some of the science behind it, as well as the the why that puts you there. So a huge thank you for everything you do as part of making those races special and obviously also for being on the podcast today.

Paul Kaye:

Thank you very much. Thank you for your time and thank you for listening.

Charlie Reading:

If you want to find out more about Paul and his amazing journey and all the incredible races that he ends up at. The best place to find him are on Instagram, where he's paulk and that's K-A-Y-E. Same on Facebook and also his website, paulkcoza Claire. What did you make of that incredible interview with Paul?

Claire Fudge:

Actually I loved how he was talking about emotion and actually you know he was talking about emotion and actually you know he really showed that emotion during that interview as well.

Claire Fudge:

There were lots of surprising parts to it, I guess, in terms of not what you'd expect from an answer. You know, when we were talking about some of the people's whys and their stories or what's the best thing that you know, the most inspirational story that he's heard, as you know, someone's crossed the finish line and actually I guess some of those stories that he talked about aren't the stories you'd necessarily expect, and that is that was very emotional actually to hear that. And he must have so many of those stories that don't get told. But he ends up learning over the course of you know, of of an event, somebody's why is always, um, interesting to hear, but I think you know what he was saying is your why has to be real? Um, because I don't know about you, but I think some people try to find their why as opposed to it coming from from here. I don't know what you, what's your thoughts on that?

Charlie Reading:

well, I think, firstly, you're absolutely right. I think he has become very aware of his why and I think that is then very powerful and I think he he has achieved what he wanted to achieve because of knowing that why. I have no doubt that those two are linked. I agree that some people sort of their why is there? I want this to be my why. But actually I think it's when you really get to the heart of what is your why, like if my why is to beat cancer and to be the best I can be for my kids, that I don't see as much as I want to see that you know, you really know that that is going to deliver you, um, to do what's important.

Charlie Reading:

So I thought the power of white piece was fascinating. I absolutely agree with the emotion piece. I mean he, yeah, like you could really see how, how much Chantal getting to the finish line and then being a part of that and him being a special part of of her journey. It is amazing but like he's going to have been a part of so many of those journeys. And I think it's interesting how he said you know, iron man, I'll get the criticism for this, that and the other. But actually what he said and what Bob Babbitt has said and what so many other people have said is it it's so powerful. It helps people in so many ways.

Charlie Reading:

Finishing an Ironman it is something really quite special and you aren't ever the same person that started it. So I think I think it was really brilliant, but I also loved how he understands it's his job to bring out that emotion and get the experience to be so amazing. So, yeah, I thought that was absolutely fascinating and the power of both his voice, his of silence and of music, of really kind of creating that atmosphere. Because I've done lots of triathlons. Only an Ironman start is like an Ironman start. I mean, you've done, you've raced far longer than me and you've raced far more than I have. Have you ever had a start that's like an Ironman?

Claire Fudge:

no, and actually one of the best Ironman starts, I think, actually was in Finland they played. Was it their national? Was it part of their national anthem? It's amazing. If you never heard it, I mean forgive me because I can't remember what it's called, but that was brilliant to start to. So I think you don't realize how much it sounds so simple, doesn't it? Well, you know, get the audience going, do some commentating, be the announcer, and actually it's so simple, that't it? Well, you know, get the audience going, do some commentating, uh, be the announcer, and actually it's so simple that actually it's complicated.

Charlie Reading:

there's a lot, you know, there's a lot of experience, and I think that that brings and actually this comes into business, your experience actually brings simplicity, you know, you can and where you make clear processes around it and say, right, at 29 seconds before we start the race, I want thunderstruck starting, because we know that that means that we get the and that is like that's I mean, but that's because they've built a clear process, so they go. That happens every time. It's scalable, it's repeatable yeah, they can do it across every race.

Charlie Reading:

Um, yeah, I think that's brilliant. I was also um racing the um the ironman wales race after the queen died and um, again, they had that really difficult problem of well, they always sing the welsh nathland anthem on tenby beach before the start and his male welsh male voice choir. But we now have, we're now going to sing god save the King, not God Save the Queen. First time I ever heard God Save the King sung was on that beach and they and they have to that balancing piece but also bring everybody. I thought it was fascinating.

Claire Fudge:

No, absolutely, and you know. Another thing that came across to me as well is about and I guess this comes into business and also into speaking and engaging your team or whether, that's you know, a whole room full of people is that it isn't about you but it's actually about everybody else, and I thought that, really, that you know was a really great kind of you know statement that he made, and I think that's, I think again, you know, in business, that is something to take away. You know, if you're talking to your teams, actually it's about your teams and I know you always talk about, um, you know, certainly in the trusted team, you always talk about, you know, getting your team to actually give your ideas and tell what, tell, tell you what they're thinking first, and that it's not about your voice at you know, at the front.

Charlie Reading:

So, yeah, that kind of resounded with me and as a public speaker, you're always told, know, you've got to be focused on your audience, not on yourself, because that's the way you get rid of your nerves, isn't it? That's where you deliver the most. Is how can? If you've got the mindset of how can I help them the most, you're not worried about you. Know, am I looking right? Do I? You know like it? Just, you just focus on them and that's and that's how you, kind of um, perform the best.

Charlie Reading:

So I thought it was, yeah, really interesting, but also really interesting how he's kind of brought in his 10 000 hours from one route and he's brought in his 10 000 hours from another route and he's brought in another probably not, maybe not 10 000 hours worth of iron man racing, but brought them all together to put himself in a unique possession that makes him one of only one or two people in the world that can deliver what he does, which is really special. So, yeah, really really great interview and I'm looking forward to racing Klagenfurt based on his conversation around that, and Nice, and Nice, hopefully. Yes, I definitely, definitely want to get to Nice. That means I've got to train harder, right, but another brilliant episode, I'm sure you'll agree, and for everyone listening at home. Keep on training.