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Inside the Mind of a Champion: 79-Year-Old Boxer Frank Gilfeather’s Secrets · Motivation Mindset Podcast

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: My name is Frank Gilfeather. I'm seventy eight. I remember
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: coaching a couple of I don't know to be thirteen
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: or fourteen year old boys and I was saying, come on, guys,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: you need to do this and do that.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: And I remember one of.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Them said to me, did you box? And I said, yeah,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: I boxed when I was young, well right through to
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: senior level. And they said, how many fights do you have?
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: And I said, give or take two hundred anyway, yeah, sure,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: you know, And I said, no, you don't understand. Nowadays,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: an amateur boxer was lucky if you get three fights
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: a year, you know. But we were boxing three fights
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: in a one night. Now, of course that's unthinkable. Guys, God,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: what you know, three fights maybe in three weeks. Yes,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: that's that's okay. There's an easiness in some of the
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: approach by some young boxers now, and they think they
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: come into the gym, I think, you've only got ninety minutes.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: We gave it everything. You'll leave the gym. You'll be
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: feeling on top of the world.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: But I seem tippy tapping him and I said, come on,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: why just give it everything.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: You know you want to go you want to exhaust yourself.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: But these guys, lots of these guys, it's it's an
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: easier time for them.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: They don't know what's gone before. God help them.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Do they ever had to realize that or go to
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: that era, if you like. But now they're gaming, they're
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: you know, it's it's all about the phone, texting, you know,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: filming this, filming that, and you think, can we just
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: get on with it, you know, and do it? You
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: know the good thing and this is what taught me
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: a great thing about boxing through my dad.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Boxing is a family, right. Families fall out.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Sure, there's politics involved in all amateur sports, but at.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: The heart of it all is that we care for
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: each other.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: We have a respect for each other because we've been
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: in the ring. I'm talking generally now, we've been in
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: the ring. We've delivered punches onto somebody's nose and we've
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: fed them back. And you know the great thing about boxing.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: You can go in there with the aim naturally to
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: punch your fellow man, and you want to do damage,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: you want to win the contest, and when the final
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: bell rings, thing, what do you do?
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: You embrace? Right, there's a respect that was a great fight.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Some guy might have been beaten to blooming pulp and
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: he and he thinks his opponent that was a great fight,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: thanks very much.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: And they hug.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: And I think what I always think, that's an amazing
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: thing to do. You know what you would think there'd
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: be You would think they'd be anger, You think that
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: be hatred there, but there's not.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: At the end of it, all your pills, your boxers,
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: And that's a brilliant thing. I think.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: So the thing I think about is if you respect
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: your fellow man, then you're going down the right road, right,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: And I think what you've got to recognize is that
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: in all lots of life, there are people less fortunate
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: than you, right, and you've got to remember that. You
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: and I think the worst thing we can do sometimes
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: it's judge people on their appearance, judge people on what
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: they say or what they wear or what they've done
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: without actually knowing them. That kind of deep down kind
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: of inner belief in other people was helpful to me
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: in learning how you should behaving society and what society
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: should mean to each other. I mean, be true to yourself,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: respect your fellow man, and.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Just be everything you can be.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: And if you're not going to be a star in
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: whatever field you choose, it doesn't matter. You're giving your best,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: give your best every time if you can. And I
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: never let up on your values in life. The values
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: that he taught me remain with me today and I
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: try to pass them down to my kids, you know,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: not by sitting them down and actually saying, right, this
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: is value number one.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: You'll do the just by example, lean by example.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: And if you could do that, then I think you're
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: doing a decent job. I guess one of the big
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: lessons in life for me was watching my father. His
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: name was Dennis Skill Feather. He ran over decades. He
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: ran a series of boxing clubs, amateur boxing clubs, and
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: his ethoughts was to take young boys and it's pretty
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: much the same just now off the streets and now
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: young women and give them something meaningful in their lives
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: that keep them away from trouble, away from petty crime
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: and all the stuff that young kids at fourteen, fifteen,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: sixteen would get up to. And it gave them, it
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: gave them a kind of feeling of belonging. I belonged
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: to For instance, his first club, after the Camper Down Club,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: which was in the juke mill in the canteen. We established,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: or he established, the Lochy Amateur Boxing Club. So what
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: you got was and I was four years old when
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: I started to go along there and kind of take
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: part in the training. But for me it was a
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: learning thing. And it's the smell of the sweat that
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: was listening to the thumps of the bags. I remember
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: those days. The punch bags were sailors kit bags stuffed
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: with sawdust, packed tightly with sawdust, and you could hear
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: the thumping that were hung by a piece of rope
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: from rafters. And these guys were trying to make the
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: grade as boxers.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: But you know that didn't matter for my dad. It
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: didn't matter.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: If you didn't want a box or he didn't want
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: to be a champion, or he didn't have any great ability.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: As long as you were coming along, keeping fit and
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: joining in, that was important. I think all stuff, the YouTubers,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: the UFC guys who've tried to transfer to boxing, in effect,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: the guys who are not boxers, who are now demanding
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: huge phays and television rights and so on because of
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: their appearance in a boxing ring, wearing boxing gloves and
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: trying to be boxers. I think that has distilled the sport.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Oh big style, I think, you know, and I think
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: what's happened is.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: That in the days when.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: You know, managers, promoters, coaches, boxers were real boxing people.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: They lived the sport, you know, they lived for it.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: Now all that's changed because.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: While in the great old days you're boxing every you know,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: every other month, and that's why they racked up huge
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: numbers a fight, Sugar Air Rominson, all the Joe Lewis
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: and all these guys. They were boxing every other month,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: sometimes every other week. I mean I looked at a guy,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Freddie Tennant, who was from my hometown in Dundee, who
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: was a flyweight boxer who gave his all.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: He was a crowd pleaser, right, so he would box sometimes.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: I counted up one nine times in a month, right,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: and it wasn't unusual where he boxed three successive nights.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: He would box nine times in a fortnight. He bought
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: fourteen times in three weeks. You had one hundred and
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: ninety six fight.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: It's incredible. Of course you wouldn't get that now.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: I wonder how long people are going to buy into boxing,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: or are they going to say oh, not another.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: Fight that we know is going to you know it's
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: going to how it's going to turn out.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: And not another kind of press conference where you know,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: somebody's upturning tables or shouting or sticking the head on somebody.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: We don't need that in boxing dog and should be
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: clean of all that. It should be full of integrity
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: and authenticity. And it's not at the moment.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: That the kind of the kind of atmosphere in which
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: I grew up is hugely different to where it is now. However,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: we must never forget that there are underprivileged people still
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: in our society. I mean, if you look at the
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: place we're sitting in today in Aberdeen, at the height
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: of the Aberdeen of the North Sea oil industry, Aberdeen
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: was a wash with money, despite that at that very
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: time there was seven areas of deprivation in aber day,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: if officially, areas of deprivation, and people saying how could
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: it be so?
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: But it's always been like that.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: You know, we always talk about, oh, we must level up,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: bring you know, bring the poor people up into line
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: with the rich. But well, as soon as you do that,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: then the other lot go higher, so that gap is widening.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: Year after year.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: We had to recognize that. And so the guys who
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: come to the boxing clubs. When I went, you wore
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: a white vest and a pair of shorts and if
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: you were lucky, and as I progressed, I have a
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: pair of boxing books. But most of the guys didn't.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: They just came in clim souls and they just got
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: stuck in and enjoyed it. Well, my kind of description
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: of a champion is anyone who give us back to life,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: you know, in any walk of life, who gives something
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: of themselves. Right. So we talk about champions, obviously because
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: we're in the sport of champions, but a champion for
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: me is are people like the guys who open up
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: the boxing clubs to help others. Because if the boxing
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: club didn't exist, thirty forty kids.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: And young adults and all kinds.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Of people would not have a place to come and
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: keep fit and be part of something and be you know,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: you're being.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Doing something meaningful. They wouldn't have that.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Now, can you imagine right across the country, right across
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: the world, if we didn't have those people to do
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: that kind of stuff free of charge, volunteering and not
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: making anything out and not looking for anything out of
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: it other than perhaps to discover, you know, a champion
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: here and there.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: But for me, those guys are the champions. So why
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: would rather have people in all walks of lives?
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: People who give charity workers? You know, these people who
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: go are unsung heroes. These people who do stuff don't
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: want any kind of they don't want any recompense, they
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: don't want any glory, they don't want any recognition, but
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: they give to others, charity workers, boxing club people, these
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: all these men and women are champions. So for me,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: a champion person is more important than a champion boxer
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: or a champion sprinter, or a champion.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: Sportsman or woman.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: These are the champions of my society. I'm not looking
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: for praise or glory or publicity or.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: Anything like that. I mean, I'm just past that stage,
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: you know. But what I'm looking for now is for people.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: And this is what I'm getting people who are buying
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: into what I'm saying right and my teaching, And I've
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: got to tell I always tell young boxers the reason
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: why I'm telling them to do this and not that.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: And I think if you help explain the why why
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: we're doing this is because then I think they will
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: kind of take it on at least that's why I hope.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: And the other thing is the messages I'm trying to
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: get over to people and this is again happening. You know,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: nothing has been planned, nothing has been planned.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: I start getting.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: People think, wow, you're seventy eight, and this has inspired me.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: I'm fifty three. I used to go be a boxer.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Now I'm going back to the gym. One guy got
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: in touch and he said, I used to box when
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: I was young. And he said, when I saw you and.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: Thought I think he said he was sixty two. He said.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: I phoned up my two pals who used to go
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: to the boxing club decades ago, and said, have you
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: seen this guy.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: On Instagram or TikTok? And we'll say, yeah, Well, why
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: don't we go back.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: To the gym? And I tell people go and knock
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: on the door.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Say in the gym I want to join. I'd be
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: very very surprised if a gym. And I'm talking about
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: when I say a gym, I'm not talking about a
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: private gym where you have to pay. I'm talking about
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: a n amateur boxing club where you have to pay
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: three quid or whatever, a fiver, They're not going to
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: turn you away.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: Well, I think I've.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Proved that it's never too late to find something in
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: your life that suits you in which you'll be comfortable
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: right now. It might be a fitness It might be
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: walking around the block three times. It might be going
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: out for half an hour in one direction walking back
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: for half an hour in the other direction towards home,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: and that you know that does for your fitness couple
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: of two or three times a week.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: See what I'm very conscious of now. Everybody speaks about.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Mental health issues, and really interestingly, I've never really bought
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: into a lot of that, but I do recognize with
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: the pressures of life today and the pressure that people
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: put on themselves, our release is required.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: So the release could be the gym. It could be
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: the swimming pool.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: My wife is seventy one and swims every day. It
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: could be it could be walking, it could be hill walking,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: you know, anything that keeps the pulse.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: Racing, the heartbeat going.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: I know, you know, we've read studies that show that
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: if you do, for example, twenty minutes of exercise every day,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: you could reduce or you could reduce.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: The chance of you dying early by.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Between thirty five and forty two percent, So why wouldn't
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: you do it?
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: Now?
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: My dad, my dad was lame. He had he had
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: a limp hed one leg short than the other to
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: a football accident.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: Before they were antibiotics. My dad didn't do any training
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: in the gym.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: But my dad walked everywhere right even till.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: The age of its mid nineties, and he had a dog.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: And we calculated, well, what's your route dad? He said, well,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: I go up here, I'll do this. We calculated he
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: walked four miles every day he was in ninety five
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: ninety six. You don't need a gym, I say that,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: don't need a gym. If you've got a car park,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: you've got a field, if you've got a back garden,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: you could train, you could share a box, you could
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: do exercises twenty minutes. Can you imagine out of your life,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: out of your day. Twenty minutes out of the day
• 16:58
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• 17:01
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• 17:05
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