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negative thoughts at bay by generating endless lists of gratitude. Besides raising £40,000 for Macmillan, he had also empowered and motivated Houghton employees to get on with things without him. “Before I left, I had to delegate everything as if I was going to die. That March [2009] when I was gone was our best month ever,” he recalls. It proved to be the catalyst for unprecedented company growth. Once back, Michael found he had the headroom for expanding the company as well as the confidence and the self-belief that come with doing something that fewer than two hundred people had ever done. After the North Pole, Michael was determined to honor his mother’s struggles with multiple sclerosis by trekking to the South Pole. He held this vision in his head for a decade, during which he got married and started a family. The trek had to be postponed four times: twice, the business was in jeopardy; once, he was injured; and his wife became pregnant with their second son. In May 2016, his mother suddenly died. Finally, on Dec. 4, 2019, he set out for the South Pole in the best of health. Halfway through the expedition, though, he
collapsed from a lack of oxygen. Fortunately, he quickly recovered and was able to return to his family for Christmas. He recalls explorer Capt. Robert Falcon Scott’s diary entry of Jan. 17, 1912, “The Pole. Yes, but under very different circumstances from those expected. . . .” Reaching the South Pole was bittersweet, because he got there on a snowmobile, leaving, as he says, unfinished business behind. Michael takes much away from these two expeditions, some of which he uses for his keynote talks on business. In a surprising twist, though, he adds, “Running a business through to the ultimate success – however you choose to define that - is the harder thing to do. . . . A Polar expedition is a relatively short and finite period of time, whereas running a business is not . . . and that makes it really, really hard to stay with it, particularly when the chips are down.” On his 24-year trek with Houghton International, Michael has experienced his fair share of tragedy, knocks, and setbacks. What have always stood him in good stead and set him, perhaps, poles apart from many others are his family’s values rooted in the Durham Coalfield. EA
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Michael Mitten embracing the ceremonial South Pole in December 2019.
— Michael Mitten photo
26 ELECTRICAL APPARATUS | OCTOBER 2024
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