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Mick Dawson: Showreel 2025
Mick Dawson
The Man who Rowed Across the Pacific Ocean from Japan to San Francisco
- Former Royal Marines Commando serving in the Middle East
- Inspiration for the Discovery Channel documentary “Rowing the Pacific”
- Battled typhoons, hurricanes, sharks and killer whales to complete his journey
- Inspires audiences with a vivid, humorous and touching recollection of his 189 days at sea
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Mick Dawson is a former Royal Marine, author, and filmmaker recognized as one of the most experienced ocean rowers in the world. He has successfully rowed the Atlantic Ocean twice and skippered the first and only rowing boat to cross the North Pacific, completing a monumental voyage from Japan to San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. In 2018, Mick returned to the Pacific, rowing from California to Hawaii with blind veteran Steve Sparkes, marking Sparkes as the first visually impaired person to row the Pacific.
In 2015, Mick founded The Cockleshell Endeavour, a resource dedicated to helping recovering veterans address physical and mental health challenges. Through this initiative, he raises awareness and funding for military charities while supporting the service community. Mick has maintained a strong connection to the sea through various expeditions, including paddling around the Falklands in 2017 with a Royal Marine veteran dealing with PTSD and kayaking from Fort William in Scotland to Portsmouth in 2022 with Steve Sparkes. This 74-day, nearly 700-mile project commemorated the 40th anniversary of the Falklands War, which both men are veterans of.
Professional Speaking
Mick’s powerful presentations draw from his diverse and extraordinary maritime experiences. He shares valuable lessons learned and setbacks overcome while achieving seemingly impossible goals in extreme and challenging conditions. Tailored to each audience, Mick’s talks are delivered with passion, humour, and a wealth of hard-won knowledge.
Key themes in Mick’s presentations include:
- Teamwork: Strategies for creating great teams and maintaining them.
- Resilience: Techniques for developing resilience and dealing with challenges and set backs.
- Responsibility: The importance of embracing responsibility and using it as a tool to achieve your goals and ambitions.
- Leadership: How to embrace the responsibility it will bring and be ready for the challenges which will come.
Mick illustrates these principles in a uniquely engaging way, providing essential insights for individuals and teams striving to achieve their goals, regardless of their background or the environment they’re working in.
In 2017, Mick's first book, which chronicles his North Pacific and Atlantic rowing adventures, was published by Hachette. Titled Battling the Oceans on a Rowboat in the U.S. and Rowing the Pacific in the U.K., it showcases his incredible journey to complete one of the world’s last great firsts.
His second book, Never Leave A Man Behind, published in August 2020 by Little, Brown Books, details his work with recovering veterans and his epic row across the Pacific with blind veteran Steve Sparkes, another world first.
Mick’s journey has also been documented in the Discovery Channel film Rowing The Pacific, which covers that ground-breaking North Pacific row in 2009.
Speaker Video
One of the Last Great Firsts, Featuring Mick Dawson
189 Days Trailer
Coping With Isolation. One of the world’s experts on coping with isolation, Mick Dawson has spent over five hundred and twenty days at sea either alone or with only one other person for company. On one expedition in particular, he spent 109 days alone in a hostile environment 93 of those days with no outside contact whatsoever as his communications failed. As companies deal with the forthcoming periods of isolation due to social distancing and remote work, Mick shares his lessons-learned on how to manage isolation, and the specific coping mechanisms he developed to deal with such an abnormal existence.
189 days: The first successful crossing of the North Pacific. During a presentation covering all of the dramatic setbacks, highs, lows, and challenges of rowing across the fearsome North Pacific Ocean, Mick takes audiences on the amazing 7,000-mile journey from Japan to the iconic Golden Gate Bridge. With stunning visuals and valuable lessons on teamwork and peak performance, his presentation inspires audiences to push past boundaries. All great achievements start with the first step, and Mick challenges listeners to stop viewing their ambitions as “dreams” and instead as “goals,” working towards those goals one day at a time. A captivating speaker who is both hilarious and humble, Mick keeps audiences on the edge of their seats and leaves them motivated to reach new heights.
Mick tailors his presentations to each of his individual clients to meet precisely their specific requirements. However, some of the key points he illustrates against the back drop of his incredible voyages are:
- Setting and achieving goals.
- Teamwork. Creating an unbreakable team.
- Using your fear to achieve your goals.
- Overcoming adversity and maintaining momentum
- Leadership and how to adapt it to achieve your aims.
Mick is an experienced and accomplished speaker who has delivered his unique presentations to a wide variety of audiences across the globe. From the stage of the Queen Mary 2 to Microsoft, Micks dramatic, humorous and honest delivery has gripped audiences everywhere. He also has completed his first TED Talk: ‘Fear, is a misunderstood friend.’
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