Endurance Swimmer Lewis Pugh on the Mindset Behind Conquering the Impossible
By The Champions Speakers Agency
Lewis Pugh is a world-renowned endurance swimmer, maritime lawyer, and ocean advocate—emerging as one of the most compelling peak performance speakers today.
Often dubbed the “Sir Edmund Hillary of swimming,” he pioneered swims in the planet’s most extreme and fragile environments: the North Pole, Mount Everest’s glacial lake, and the full length of the English Channel across 528 km.
Beyond athletic feats, Pugh is a dedicated conservationist. In a defining moment of environmental diplomacy—coined “Speedo Diplomacy”—he swam in Antarctic waters while negotiating the creation of Earth’s largest marine reserve, the Ross Sea Marine Protected Area.
As the UN Patron of the Oceans and a Young Global Leader, his audacious challenges inject urgency and purpose into his messaging.
In this exclusive interview with The Champions Speakers Agency, Lewis Pugh reveals the mindset, preparation and resolve behind his “impossible” feats, and how peak performance in adversity can drive real-world change.
Can you take us back to your very first major swim and how that experience shaped your lifelong passion for swimming?
Lewis Pugh: “My first big swim was when I was 17 years old. I went to school in Cape Town in South Africa and from my classroom in the distance I could see Robben Island.
“A friend of mine had actually swum it, and so I also wanted to have a go at it. Anyway, I got some swimming lessons and shortly afterwards I got a boat out to Robben Island, and I started this swim.
“In those days I was really, really thin and the water is very, very cold. Anyway, I was able to hold it together for about an hour. After the second hour though, I was starting to get really cold.
“After two and a half hours, not only was I really cold, but I was absolutely exhausted. Just to be able to get to the end, I was switching from crawl to breaststroke.
“I found out later that some of the members of the team who were in the boat next to me were actually taking bets to see whether I would get out of the water.
“Anyway, eventually, after three hours, I finally put my feet down on the sand in Cape Town and I remember the joy of that feeling. The realisation at that moment was that I had fallen in love with swimming, and it is a love affair which has now lasted for nearly 40 years.”
You’ve conquered some of the coldest and toughest swims in the world. Which one pushed you the hardest, physically and mentally?
Lewis Pugh: “I’m probably best known for undertaking the first ever swim across the North Pole where the water is unimaginably cold. But if I was to choose one swim which was incredibly tough, it was doing the first ever swim along the length of the English Channel.
“Just to give a bit of background: about 2,000 people have swum across the English Channel — the width of it, which is 33 km. The length though is a lot longer, 528 km, and it was a swim which took me 49 days to complete.”
Swimming 528 km along the English Channel takes extraordinary mental strength. How did you prepare yourself to stay focused for such a long challenge?
Lewis Pugh: “On the first day of my swim along the length of the English Channel, I met my team on the beach, and I decided to make three promises to them.
“I said, ‘The first thing I’m going to promise you is that I’m going to leave all my doubt here on the beach.’ It’s very natural if you’re going to swim for 528 km that you have doubt. I said if we’re going to make this, all of us have to leave our doubt here at the beginning.
“The second promise I made them was: I’m going to swim 10 km every day.
“The third promise was: if we go into a storm and we can’t swim on a specific day, then the following day I’ll swim 20 km.
“I shook all their hands and then I dove into the sea and started swimming. We went through a fair couple of storms on that swim. But 49 days later I finally arrived in Dover.
“When you arrive in Dover, there’s a little statue of Captain Matthew Webb, who was the first person to swim across the English Channel. Underneath the statue is a quote by him which says, “Nothing great is easy.” And there can never be anything truer than that: nothing great is easy.”
Swimming in extreme environments comes with huge risks. Can you share a time when you had to adapt quickly to survive in the water?
Lewis Pugh: “It’s so important that you build a culture of adaptability in your team. Let me give you a practical example.
“A few years ago, I went up onto Mount Everest, the highest mountain on this earth, to do a swim in a glacial lake there to talk about how important these glaciers are. Anyway, I dived into the water, started the swim, and I just couldn’t breathe. I was gasping for air.
“The leader of the expedition ran into the water, grabbed me, pulled me out and said, “Lewis, if I allow you to carry on with this swim, you’re just going to be another person who dies here on Mount Everest. I’m taking you off this mountain as quickly as I can.”
“A few days later he said, “We have to change everything.” He recommended three things:
- Instead of swimming as quickly as you can, which is the way I had been swimming my whole career to generate heat, he said, “I need you to swim as slowly as you can because I need you to preserve oxygen.”
- “Instead of swimming crawl with your head in the water, I want you to swim breaststroke so you can breathe whenever you need to.”
- “Instead of swimming with all this aggression, which is the way you generate heat, I need you to swim with real humility.”
And he pointed up to Mount Everest and said, “You cannot bully Mount Everest. You change, or you drown.”
After a lifetime of endurance swims, what do you most want your audiences to remember when they hear you speak?
Lewis Pugh: “If one’s committed, resilient, and adaptable, then very few things are impossible to achieve. I want my audiences to leave inspired, but also believing that they can achieve their own impossible — whatever that may be.”
This exclusive interview with Lewis Pugh was conducted by Chris Tompkins of The Motivational Speakers Agency.
