Miles grew up in Zimbabwe with normal sight, dreaming of one day becoming a fighter pilot like his father.
At 18, Miles applied to join the Royal Rhodesian Air Force, but to his utter disappointment he failed the eyesight medical. Then at 21, both Miles and his brother Geoff were diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa, a genetic eyesight condition that would lead to total blindness for them both.
For the next 30 years, Miles lived with a kind of ‘victim mentality’, believing the established thinking that blindness was a massive barrier preventing him from undertaking any adventurous exploits.
At 50, Miles’ life radically changed through the example of his blind brother Geoff who set an amazing World Record, becoming the first blind person in world history to cross an ocean solo, sailing from Africa to Australia unaided in a yacht that he built himself. Wow! What an amazing achievement!
This was Miles’ big ‘wake up call’ so to speak, for the first time understanding the life principle that the key to success in life is not our external circumstances, but our inner response to them – “attitude is what determines altitude!”
Since then Miles has had the huge privilege of setting numerous world records undertaking extreme events across all seven continents of our world in the fields of mountaineering, desert and polar ultra-marathons, power-boat racing, scuba-diving, motor-racing and long distance, aerobatic and supersonic flying amongst other achievements.
Miles has now spoken at over 1,000 corporate events in 69 countries around the world to date, sharing the transforming life lessons he has learned along the way, typified by his life philosophy that “The only limits in your life are those you accept yourself.”
