Mindfulness in the mangroves

From lost teenager to SCUBA instructor to international wellness keynote speaker. Tim Jack Adams part I.

Adventure Collective

and

Paul Griffith

Oct 13, 2023

Name: Tim Jack Adams

Businesses: GreenX7 (employee well-being) and Watersports Guru (adventure activities)

Location: Tweed coast, Australia and international

Key takeaways

You don’t need a cunning plan. You just need to start doing stuff.
Noticing what’s working and the power of asking yourself “why?”
You can recover, and even grow, from suffering and setbacks.

How do you a grow an adventure business (or two) without losing sight of what got you into it in the first place? Without the business side taking over your life? It’s a question we’ve come across often. Tim Jack Adams’ story provides some clues:

Be open to new ideas and surround yourself with people who can give different perspectives
Be aware of and fight against your preconceptions
Keep work and family in balance by reminding yourself what’s important to you

You could even turn to Tim’s organisation GreenX7 to help you keep your mental and physical batteries topped up…

In this post we talk about how Tim’s business evolved through a number of iterations to where it is today. In the next post we’ll look at the day-to-day stuff like how he gets clients, pricing and how he manages his time. We’ll also turn to what the future holds and how Tim’s navigating his way through the options.

Snorkelling with turtles (C) Watersports Guru

Before going back to the start, what is Tim involved in now? He has two principal lines of business.

One is a more traditional adventure activities business in Kingscliff on Australia’s Tweed Coast (about an hour south of Brisbane). Based alongside Cudgen Creek nature reserve, Watersports Guru offers paddleboarding, kayaking, snorkelling, whale watching and more.

The other, which we will come to, is an employee well-being business, GreenX7, working with organisations across the world and which has led to Tim being invited to give keynote speeches at various international locations. (We don’t normally write about the activities that the businesses we profile provide. After all, there are plenty of places you can go to read about those. We’re making an exception for Greenx7 because it is somewhat different. Read on to find out how.)

All this is a long way from the 19-year-old Tim, who he says was a little bit lost and a little bit down in the dumps. For anyone who is going through a similar phase themselves, it’s not like it looks. He didn’t get out of this by coming up with a cunning plan to launch the water sports business and evolve it into the wellness outfit that is helping so many people. What he did do was find the energy to “just do stuff”.

From travelling to building log cabins to working in a city wearing a suit. He emerged a few years later knowing what he loved and what was important to him and free(er) of all the “oughts” he felt he should be doing. From this he knew he was never going to work indoors again and enlisted as a PADI apprentice Dive Master. He worked his way up the ranks and qualifications till he had done thousands of dives. Taking people diving with sharks and into wrecks. Earning a reputation for taking people on dangerous dives and keeping them safe. Then, wanting to branch out and do more he set up Watersports Guru in 2009 adding in snorkelling with turtles, kayaking, paddleboarding and more. Stuff that was fun and adventurous. He’d grown this to employ 15 people by the time covid struck.

A significant part of the story at this stage was meeting Mal, a friend and mentor and eventually his skipper on the “Snorkelling with Turtles” trips.

The power of asking yourself “why?”

So far this is pretty much par for the course for an adventure activities guiding business and one you’ve probably seen in many water sport destinations around the world.

It’s possibly an indication of how Tim’s enquiring and entrepreneurial mind works that while doing these activities he started to ask himself one question. Why is it that when we actively engage in nature we seem to be healthier and happier? This is where his story departs from your usual adventure business outfit. As he delved deeper into this question it led him to work with academics and practitioners all over the world. This led to the creation of a framework based around seven tools of “green exercise”: movement, environment, earthing, time, connection, reflection and breath. What they realised was that if you combined as many of those tools as possible into an activity it was amazing for people’s mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health.

From this, Watersports Guru evolved programmes such as “Mindfulness in the Mangroves”, which combines all seven tools into one activity. From giving people what they want, movement and letting off steam, Tim was also able to help them reconnect to self and others through nature.

As word of mouth spread Tim began running workshops and keynotes around the world with hotel chains like Six Senses and Alila. And expanding into a wide range or organisations from corporates like Deloittes through schools and health boards to the Australian Defence Force.

Hitting a brick wall

At this point in our conversation Tim takes a step back to reflect on the topic of “well-being” in Australia:

“Most people don't understand the depth of what well-being is. I used to think it was where girls got their hands done in spas.”

Tim himself grew up with five brothers. It was all about football and boxing. No emotional intelligence whatsoever.

“If someone had come up to me and said ‘mate, you’ve gotta look after your well-being’ I would have told them to get stuffed.”

Back to 2016 and his mate and mentor Mal. Mal taught Tim how to cox a boat and Tim often hung out with Mal and his family. One day they were having a beer and a chin-wag together at the end of the day, planning their activities for the morrow. Once everything was sorted Tim said goodbye and that he’d see him next day for the charter. That evening Mal took his own life.

Unsurprisingly this hit Tim really hard. Over the course of time as he was processing this he realised he had no idea what well-being really was. Despite offering it as part of his programmes. He’d had suicides around him before and now this. He looked at friends and family who were struggling and wanted a way to find out how people were really doing.

As he said, “In Australia we ask ‘are you ok?’ but everyone says they are fine.”

A tool for starting difficult conversations

So Tim went back to the drawing board and eventually came up with a way of starting conversations and opening up about well-being with people who found the whole subject difficult. In short, he created a deck of eight cards with one element of well-being on each: purpose, sleep, physical health, nutrition, mental health and attitude, fun, relationships, friendship.

“I’d then put these in front of someone in two rows of four and say ‘Pick a card that you’re feeling pretty good with at the moment’ and sit back and listen.”

And for whatever reason, probably because they were talking to a set of cards, the wall wouldn’t go up, they would open up and quickly start creating really deep conversations. From there it was easy to ask people to pick a card they weren’t feeling so great with and soon enough they were coming up with their own solutions and feeling motivated to actually do something about it.

“All of a sudden you’re creating instant change for people because you’ve created the time and space and a tool for them to become aware.”

That was the birth of GreenX7, Tim’s other business. It’s not a traditional “adventure business” as such, but has its roots in the reason many people enjoy activities outdoors.

In the next post we’ll talk a bit more about how that business grew and the lessons we can all take from both his businesses. And whatever stage you are at now – starting, growing or managing an adventure business – remember some of the key lessons from Tim’s story:

You don’t need a cunning plan. You just need to start doing stuff.
Noticing what’s working and the power of asking yourself “why?”
You can recover, and even grow, from suffering and setbacks.

And if you like listening as well as reading, remember to check out the Business of Adventure Podcast

Know anyone who owns or manages an adventure or outdoor activities business?

The Business of Adventure

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