Gareth Holebrook Leadership Coach, Endurance Athlete and Author of "Ishi"

Gareth Holebrook is the author of Ishi: The Discipline of Determined Intent and a long-time practitioner of Intent-Based Leadership, having worked with David Marquet for six years. He served as Agile Practice Lead at Visa (Fraedom), and earlier in his career as a Weapons Engineer in the Royal Navy and a Product Engineer at Sony Digital Media in Europe.

Gareth has completed dozens of ultra distance events including the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii. His work sits at the intersection of endurance, engineering, decision science and governance at both personal and organisational levels.

He writes and speaks about governed persistence, decision authority and the structural conditions that determine whether effort compounds or drifts.

Based in Northland, New Zealand, Gareth continues to support the triathlon community as President of one of the country’s largest clubs. He also runs a small holding farm with his wife Thiri, tending horses, sheep and apple orchards.

After 18 years of pursuit, I reached the Ironman World Championship in Kona and found myself on the ground with the finish line still ahead. That moment exposed the real problem. Effort alone does not hold when pressure rises, judgement narrows and persistence starts running ahead of awareness. Ishi is a discipline of self-governance built for that moment.

Through the disciplines of Decide, Forge, Persist and Reflect, you’ll learn to:

• Set intent with enough clarity to hold under pressure
• Build capability through deliberate practice rather than noise
• Persist without drifting into burnout, ego or blind endurance
• Reflect in a way that sharpens judgement and improves the next decision

Leave with a practical way to govern your own effort, stay aligned when conditions degrade and act with determined intent when it matters most.